of Ireland and Northern Ireland”’. Irish politicians, he wrote, ‘needed to take a less rigid line in the matter of nomenclature’.122
Haughey’s general endorsement of Lemass’s Northern Ireland policy can be ascertained by his support for the taoiseach’s personal crusade to build a bond of mutual trust with the political force of Ulster Unionism, specifically the taoiseach’s attempt to officially accord de facto recognition to Northern Ireland. As part of Lemass’s ambition to commence direct talks with Northern Ireland prime minister, Terence O’Neill, Haughey was involved, to quote Mary Colley, with a ‘gradation of initiatives’ with Ulster Unionists throughout the mid-1960s in the hope that it would ‘open up a new way’ via-à-vis Fianna Fáil’s official stance on Northern Ireland.123
To understand Lemass’s approach to Northern Ireland, it is important to lay emphasis on his indirect and private initiatives to bring about a revision of Fianna Fáil’s traditional Northern Ireland policy. Central to this approach was Lemass’s use of senior Fianna Fáil elected representatives. On two separate occasions during 1962, Lemass sent two of his leading government frontbenchers, minister for commerce and industry, Jack Lynch and Haughey to Northern Ireland on separate kite-flying exercises. The aim of their respective visits to Belfast was to reopen a debate on the commencement of cross-border trade between North and South, in the light of the end to the IRA border campaign.
In February, within days of the IRA announcing an end to their campaign, Lynch spoke at a debate on North–South relations at Queen’s University Belfast. He expressed the Irish government’s desire to establish an all-Ireland free trade area for goods of Irish and Northern Ireland origins.124 It was a policy publicly advocated by Lemass since becoming leader of Fianna Fáil in 1959.125 Later that year in November, Haughey spoke at a debate organised under the auspices of the New Ireland Society, again at Queen’s University Belfast. Proposing the motion that ‘minorities have nothing to fear in a united Ireland’, Haughey said that Protestants had nothing to fear if Ireland was united as the ‘Constitution of the Irish Republic guaranteed freedom of religion to every citizen’.126 Haughey was following Lemass’s policy that the religious division between the two communities would need to be tackled before Protestants would agree to enter a united Ireland based on a federal model. Significantly, both speeches failed to mention the delicate issue of the recognition of Northern Ireland. Instead, Fianna Fáil ministers fostered the idea that economic co-operation should be independent of recognition.127
By early 1963 it was apparent that the sending of Fianna Fáil ministers to Northern Ireland had proved ineffective. Lemass realised that Belfast would not agree to cross-border co-operation until Dublin offered concessions on the thorny and sensitive issue of recognition of Northern Ireland. Lemass therefore decided to act. On the night of 16 April 1963, Fianna Fáil TD for Dublin North-East, George Colley spoke at a major symposium on North–South co-operation. Significantly, Colley’s speech was the first occasion that a Fianna Fáil elected representative officially granted de facto recognition to Northern Ireland.128 Although never publicly acknowledging that he was the instigator of Colley’s speech, the circumstantial evidence does confirm that Lemass did instruct his backbench colleague to speak on the subject of recognition. By doing so Lemass believed he could bypass Ulster Unionists’ demand for the formal de jure recognition. With the recognition debate resolved, Lemass hoped to focus instead on cross-border co-operation.129
To Lemass’s disappointment, O’Neill quickly poured cold water on the prospect of North–South co-operations. Speaking at Stormont he categorically ruled out ‘general discussions so long as the Dublin government refused to recognise the constitutional position of the Six-Counties’.130 Confronted by another rejection from Belfast for cross-border co-operation prior to Dublin granting de jure recognition to the Northern Ireland state, Lemass decided to personally intervene. Addressing a gathering of Fianna Fáil supporters in Tralee, Co. Kerry in July 1963, Lemass said:‘We recognise that the government and parliament there exist with the support of the majority in the six county area – artificial though that area is.’131 While not recognising Northern Ireland as part of the United Kingdom de jure, Lemass did accord de facto recognition to the state. Lemass now waited for a response from O’Neill.
The Northern Ireland prime minister, however, was slow to respond to the taoiseach’s overtures. Ironically, O’Neill’s decision to eventually succumb to Lemass’s advances was not as a result of Dublin’s latest initiative, but because of ongoing infighting within the Ulster Unionist party; with minister for commerce, Brian Faulkner, being O’Neill’s main antagonist.132 In December 1964, in a preconceived attempt to out-manoeuvre O’Neill, Faulkner expressed his willingness to meet the minister for industry and commerce, Jack Lynch, to discuss North–South trade.133 An invitation that Lynch suggested he would be willing to accept in the early months of 1965.134 O’Neill read the signals. He feared that Faulkner would steal the political headlines by becoming the first Unionist politician to meet a minister from the Republic since the mid-1950s.135
Here lay the seeds for the famous Lemass–O’Neill meeting of January 1965. To Lemass’s surprise in early January of that year, O’Neill instructed his private secretary, Jim Malley, to invite Lemass to Belfast. On the morning of 14 January 1965, Lemass and Thomas Kenneth (T.K.) Whitaker left Dublin for Belfast. At 1pm, the Irish party arrived in Belfast and was greeted by O’Neill at his official residence at Stormont. The agenda for the meeting provided a comprehensive list on cross-border issues; importantly, it avoided discussions on political and constitutional matters, careful to respect the jurisdiction of the Northern Ireland government. The meeting with O’Neill was a milestone in Lemass’s Northern Ireland policy.
Ten years after first compiling a comprehensive list of possible areas of cross-border co-operation between Belfast and Dublin (as contained within the memorandum produced on behalf of the Fianna Fáil standing-committee on partition matters in 1955), Lemass now sat face-to-face discussing those very same items with the prime minister of Northern Ireland. During his one-hour meeting with O’Neill, the men discussed tourism, education, health, industrial promotion, agricultural research, trade, electricity and justice matters.136 Lemass must have found the entire episode a rewarding experience, after so long in de Valera’s shadow, he was in a position to fully implement his economically motivated Northern Ireland strategy.
The available evidence supports the argument that Haughey, who was appointed minister for agriculture in October 1964, endorsed Lemass’s trip to Belfast. On originally receiving the invitation from O’Neill, Lemass had telephoned his minister for external affairs, Frank Aiken. Although somewhat surprised, like Haughey, he too fully supported Lemass’s plan to meet O’Neill.137 Besides Aiken, Lemass informed two other unknown cabinet ministers of his impending visit to Belfast.138 It is not clear whether Haughey was one of the unnamed ministers. Jack Lynch was certainly not aware of Lemass’s visit to Northern Ireland; he later recalled that Lemass had kept the planned trip to Belfast strictly confidential.139
Unfortunately, given the nature of the Irish cabinet minutes there is no official record of ministers’ reaction to Lemass’s announcement of his intent to travel to Belfast.140 Members of Lemass’s cabinet differ in their recollection of whether or not he informed the government before he met O’Neill. Haughey recalled that Lemass did raise his planned meeting with O’Neill, but he did not permit a debate on the subject.141 Minister for local government, Neil Blaney subsequently noted that Lemass, in fact, did not raise his scheduled meeting with O’Neill with his cabinet colleagues.142 Blaney’s observations seem inadmissible, considering he did not attend the last cabinet meeting, on 12 January, prior to Lemass’s trip to Belfast.143
During the remainder of January and February 1965, Lemass sought to put his discussions with O’Neill on cross-border co-operation into action. On 4 February, Lynch and Erskine Childers (minister for transport and power) held separate meetings with Northern Ireland minister for commerce, Brian Faulkner, in Dublin, on issues relating to cross-border trade and tourism. On 9 February, cross-border relations reached a further highpoint when O’Neill travelled to Dublin to meet Lemass for a second summit meeting. This was the first occasion that the prime minister of Northern Ireland had visited Dublin in an official capacity since Sir James Craig had met Michael Collins in 1922. O’Neill was warmly received by Dublin. Accompanied by his wife, he