Féin during the War for Independence. Paradoxically, the concept of arranging a programme of civil disobedience had also been considered by the leaders of the IRA in the run up to the renewed activity of the mid-1950s, but the army council decided under Seán Cronin’s influence to opt for a guerrilla campaign.75
Third, the Ó Cléirigh memorandum explained that Northern nationalists or ‘local forces’ should be organised and supplied with arms and ammunition. It was envisaged that these ‘local forces’ would:
Work in conjunction with the Army in making simulated and diversionary attacks on British military installations if required, plans for the destruction of official British and Stormont records in regard to rates and taxes in the selected areas, etc. It would of course be essential to organise nationalist opinion in the Six-Counties in general and in the selected areas or areas in particular. We believe that given a positive policy with full support from the South, both materially and spiritually, the necessary co-operation will be obtained from the Northern Nationalists.76
The similarities between the IRA campaign at the time and the proposals put forward by the Ó Cléirigh memorandum were interesting. Both advocated a method of guerrilla warfare against their ‘oppressors’. This entailed a policy of the destruction of vital communications and a concentration of superior numbers of men at a decisive time and location. To foreshadow events in the near future, the Ó Cléirigh memorandum’s reference to the importance of British military installations was to become a key aspect of the IRA’s ‘Operation Harvest’ campaign. The campaign commenced in 1956, focusing on the destruction of British transmitter posts, road and rail and any ‘enemy’ vehicles that were found.77
Finally, the Ó Cléirigh memorandum also envisaged the establishment of a committee to examine social welfare, education, industry, taxation and ‘current laws that would be necessary upon the anticipated assimilation of one or two of the border counties of Northern Ireland and in the eventual reunification of Ireland’.78 It noted that:
A committee of experts on International Law should also be asked to advise on the legal effect of open support by the Irish Government of persons engaged in the campaign of civil disobedience; the question of the use of our regular armed forces in Six-Counties; and aiding and possibly arming of irregular forces on active service in Six-Counties, etc. and the pointing out of loopholes whereby difficulties involved can be overcome. In this connection, your attention is drawn to the action of the Egyptian Government, which unofficially organised a liberation army, consisting of irregular volunteers, but which is believed by many to have consisted mainly of regular army units.79
The contents of the Ó Cléirigh memorandum and Haughey’s leading role in its formation, provides compelling, if not conclusive, evidence that he believed that the use of physical force to secure Irish unity, in the right circumstances, represented legitimate Fianna Fáil policy. Furthermore, it reveals that since at least the mid-1950s, he harboured a deeply conceived ideological commitment to securing a united Ireland.
This memorandum is all the more significant when one seeks to understand the rationale behind Haughey’s decision-making process during the Arms Crisis of 1969/1970; a subject examined in detail in the following chapter. His calls around the Irish cabinet table in August 1969 for the Irish army to cross into Northern Ireland and his involvement in supplying Northern Catholics with guns and ammunition were extremely similar to those policies articulated in the Ó Cléirigh memorandum some fifteen years previously.
The well-trodden argument that when the conflict erupted in Northern Ireland in the summer of 1969, Haughey’s actions were dictated solely by political opportunism, that prior to this period he ‘had shown no signs of republican sympathy’ (except for his VE Day protests in 1945), is false.80 Of course, Haughey saw the developments in Northern Ireland in 1969 as a perfect opportunity to further his objective of securing the leadership of Fianna Fáil. Yet, as is argued in the next chapter, this is only part of the story of Haughey’s lifelong association with the Northern Ireland question.
The Ó Cléirigh memorandum offers a unique insight into the mind of Haughey as he entered his early thirties. Like so many of his generation, by the mid-1950s he had become disillusioned and impatient by the empty promises routinely offered by Irish politicians such as de Valera. Haughey believed that the older generation within Fianna Fáil had become complacent on the subject of partition, that the party had abandoned its number one aim to secure a united Ireland. In a fashion that would become synonymous with his leadership qualities in later life, Haughey was no longer content to fudge the issue, to keep the subject of partition away from public scrutiny. On the contrary, he wanted to get the job done. He wanted action. Acknowledging this conviction helps to explain his role in formulating the Ó Cléirigh memorandum. If Fianna Fáil’s peaceful endeavours to end partition, in the words of de Valera, had thus far ‘come to nought’, then Haughey believed that the alternative option, the use of physical force, was a legitimate solution.
A lost opportunity: Haughey and Fianna Fáil’s standing-committee on partition matters, 1955
The response from the Fianna Fáil hierarchy to the Ó Cléirigh memorandum on partition is unknown. Lemass, however, decided that the Fianna Fáil leadership had a responsibility to clear up any confusion regarding the party’s official stance on Northern Ireland. As noted above, during this period, a small, but vocal, minority within Fianna Fáil had publicly criticised the party’s perceived inability to make any inroads on partition and were particularly aghast by de Valera’s public admission at the 1954 party Ard Fheis that it was not ‘possible to point out steps’ that would ‘inevitably lead to the end of partition’.81 Consequently in November 1954 at a meeting of Fianna Fáil’s national executive, on Lemass’s suggestion, an agreement was reached that de Valera would nominate a committee to ‘deal with all aspects of the matter [partition]’.82 The committee was to become known as the ‘standing-committee on partition matters’.83
Early the following year, in January 1955, Cork-man Thomas Mullins, the so-called ‘third-grandfather’84 of Fianna Fáil and general secretary of the organisation, sent letters to Lemass, Frank Aiken, Seán Moylan, Seán MacEntee, Kevin Boland, Liam Cunningham, Lieutenant Colonel Matthew Feehan and, significantly, Haughey. The letters notified the eight men that on de Valera’s instructions each had been appointed to a new standing-committee on partition matters.85 The members were a mixture between the old brigade of Fianna Fáil and a new breed of the party’s members, commonly referred to in political circles as ‘Mohair-suited Young Turks’.
Lemass was appointed chairman of the standing-committee. The presence of Aiken, MacEntee and Moylan on the committee was predictable. These three Fianna Fáil TDs (except for de Valera and Lemass) had held the most influential portfolios in previous Fianna Fáil governments. Liam Cunningham’s appointment had more to do with geography than anything else. He was a border-county Fianna Fáil deputy for Inishowen, Donegal North-East – an essential factor if the committee was to have credibility among party deputies. Subsequently described by the British Embassy in Dublin as holding extremely strong views on partition,86 in December 1954, Cunningham wrote to Fianna Fáil headquarters to request that the organisation make a greater effort to end partition.87
The presence of Boland and Feehan on the standing-committee was further example of Lemass’s determination to bring some ‘new blood’ and ideas into Fianna Fáil. During the early months of 1954 they had been appointed to the party’s organisation committee with the task of helping Lemass with his plan of revamping the party. Kevin Boland, son of Fianna Fáil stalwart and party TD for Roscommon Gerald Boland,88 was a well-respected figure within the party for his hard-working ethos and was elected to the organisation’s committee of fifteen at the 1954 Ard Fheis. Feehan, a founding member of the Sunday Press, was known to be close to Lemass. In late January 1954, on the instruction of Mullins, Feehan produced a memorandum outlining his views on partition.89 Five pages in length, the majority of his points were consistent with Fianna Fáil’s strategy towards Northern Ireland at the time, namely, that the use of force to secure Irish unity was ‘out of the question’ and that concessions would therefore need to be offered to Ulster unionists.90
The decision by the Fianna Fáil leadership to appoint Haughey on the standing-committee is interesting. Like Boland and