Numerous academics, politicians and diplomats are gathering this week to mark the 40th anniversary of the signing of the Anglo-Irish Agreement, one of the most significant constitutional and diplomatic developments in Anglo-Irish relations since the establishment of partition. In 1985, the agreement was seen by many as a key attempt to undermine the IRA’s campaign of violence.
In presenting the agreement, the British and Irish governments averred that any change in the status of Northern Ireland “would only come about with the consent of a majority of the people of Northern Ireland.” But it was also asserted that the UK government “accept that the Irish government will put forward views and proposals on matters relating to Northern Ireland,” through the mechanism of an inter-governmental conference.
This was a psychological win, suggested taoiseach Garret FitzGerald: “Nationalists can now raise their heads knowing their position is, and is seen to be, on an equal footing with that of members of the unionist community.” British prime minister Margaret Thatcher said: “I went into this agreement because I was not prepared to tolerate a situation of continuing violence”, and she subsequently declared in the House of Commons that the Agreement “enforces the Union … and that should bring reassurance and confidence to the unionist majority”.
It brought no such reassurance, and such was the politics of the 1980s that Fianna Fáil leader Charles Haughey also opposed it. The concept of unity had been “dealt a very major blow”, he insisted, as the Irish government had recognised “the legitimacy of the unionist position”. The president of Sinn Féin, Gerry Adams, berated FitzGerald for insulting nationalists by suggesting an Irish government had delivered them recognition: “It is because we have raised our heads and have struggled and made sacrifices for our civil and national rights that the running sore of British involvement in Ireland has been addressed at all”. As deputy leader of the DUP, Peter Robinson declared “we are on the window ledge of the Union.”
‘Heavy rainfall event’: Met Éireann issues orange warning for three counties in Leinster
Ken Early: Ireland’s best home win in years. Not even in our dreams did we see this coming
‘Disgraceful’ Ronaldo and Ireland’s ‘racehorses’: Portuguese media react to Aviva upset
How a blockbuster weight-loss drug made Ireland the fastest-growing economy in the world
Did it really change anything? The British government had certainly shifted its stance on the legitimacy of the Republic’s input to Northern Ireland. The Anglo-Irish Agreement was not about joint authority, yet was, according to historian Paul Bew, about an Irish role that was “more than purely consultative”. That it was negotiated over their heads, “sent a shudder of horror through the unionist community”.
[ Forty years on, the Anglo-Irish Agreement has proved its worthOpens in new window ]
The hope in Dublin was that it would stymie the appeal of Sinn Féin, while in London, improvements were hoped for in the security situation. Neither scenario transpired as desired and Thatcher came to lament signing the agreement. Yet, suggested historian Joe Lee, it offered hope in the longer term, “as a foundation if not as a completed structure … the first attempt by the two sovereign governments to escape from the paralysis of zero-sum thinking”.
Lee also predicted that even with demographic change and future loss of a unionist majority, “the Ulster question would not disappear … for a Catholic supremacy to simply supersede a Protestant supremacy in the North” would undermine “the founding principles of Irish republicanism.” There was, for both the British and Irish governments, he argued in 1985, a “moral obligation to look to the longer-term implications” for North and South when it came to their northern policies. Charles Townshend, one of the foremost historians of partition, suggested the same year “the essential minimum conditions of the Protestant sense of identity (or way of life) be guaranteed and cherished” in any evolution of the triangular relationship between London, Dublin and Belfast.
As with other agreements, there was ambiguity in the wording of the Anglo-Irish Agreement. If, in the future, “a majority of the people of Northern Ireland clearly wish for and formally consent to the establishment of a united Ireland” that could be legislated for. But there was no definition of “clearly” or “formally consent.”
There were echoes here of the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921 in relation to article 12 concerning the establishment of a boundary commission to “determine in accordance with the wishes of the inhabitants, so far as may be compatible with economic and geographic conditions, the boundaries between Northern Ireland and the rest of Ireland”, but with no specifics as to how those wishes would be ascertained. A century ago, the outcome of that commission proved disastrous to northern nationalists and humiliated the Irish government.
Likewise, the Belfast Agreement of 1998 stipulates a Border poll might be held “if at any time it appears likely” to a Secretary of State for Northern Ireland “that a majority of those voting would express a wish that Northern Ireland should cease to be part of the United Kingdom and form part of a united Ireland”. How is that decided and measured?
Anglo-Irish breakthroughs have always generated trenchant responses, but equally, parts of these agreements have been deliberately vague to facilitate avoidance.
