Digital Archive
The Narrative
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Collection Activities February - May 1993
Collection Activities February - May 1993
Title The Narrative
Description In 1993 there was a political storm when it was revealed that John Major?s government had been secretly communicating with the Provisional Republican leadership through Brendan Duddy. Both Sinn Féin and the British government released their own accounts of these contacts, including messages exchanged between the two sides. The Duddy archive includes these messages, all of which were received by him as faxes, typescripts or written notes, but it also includes a ?narrative? record of these contacts that Duddy dictated every few days during the most intense contacts in spring 1993. Sinn Féin?s account of the contacts in 1993 provided some short paraphrased extracts from this narrative but this is the first time the full text has been seen. In this extract, dictated on the evening of 14 May after a meeting in London with British officials, Duddy outlines these officials? account of the British position. The officials paint a picture of struggle, of a ?hell of a battle? in which civil servants urged a resistant Secretary of State, Sir Patrick Mayhew, to respond positively to a secret IRA offer of a ceasefire. It also indicates the struggles at this intersection as Duddy, codenamed June as he was in the 1981 contacts, pressures the British to respond to the offer by the following Tuesday. Duddy also declines the offer of a meeting the following Monday with the head of MI5 in Northern Ireland [?James?] and John Chilcott, the Permanent Under-Secretary at the NIO, because he suspects it is a delaying tactic. Having pressured the British at this meeting to make an early response to the IRA ceasefire offer, that same evening Duddy advises ?Walter? [Martin McGuinness] that the Provisionals should consider suspending the IRA campaign without waiting for a British response in order to facilitate a positive British response. It provides evidence of his efforts to create movement at both ends by urging both sides to stretch themselves closer to the position of the other party. (Niall Ó Dochartaigh). The remainder of the document can be consulted in the archives and special collections reading room.
Date Issued 01/01/1993
Resource Type Still image
Publisher University of Galway
Topic Sinn Féin,Major,John,Armistices,IRA,Irish Republican Army,Mayhew,Patrick,Sir,McGuinness,Martin,1950-2017,Republican Movement (Ireland),Peace Process,Northern Ireland
Geographic Northern Ireland,History,1968-1998
Temporal Twentieth century
Creator / Author Name Brendan Duddy