An Irish Saul

...Haughey...

...Second, he deliberately set out to get on good personal terms with Mrs...

...He has gone further than his predecessor could do (with the Haughey faction at his back) to recognize the veto power Northern Protestants have on Irish reunification...

...The man who had been expected to preach the gospel of rabid Republicanism had become more moderate than the moderates...

...Jack Lynch...

...In other words, the Northern Ireland logjam is one which requires joint action by Dublin and London to unstick...

...He has secured a method—meetings twice a year at Prime Minister level—for closer Anglo-Irish cooperation, an arrangement which is tantamount to British recognition of the Republic's interest in Northern Ireland affairs...

...William Whitelaw, Home Secretary and former Secretary of State for Northern Ireland...

...In a sentence drowned out by the premature roars of a following who thought they were hearing a much tougher Republican line, he reiterated the moderate approach of Jack Lynch...

...Lynch it won 84 seats out of the 148 seats in Dail Eireann...

...At the party's annual meeting, he totally repudiated violence as a means of uniting Ireland and condemned the IRA out of hand...

...The article alongside the cartoon quoted one of her backbenchers as saying that "her ignorance is appalling" on Northern Ireland affairs...

...It's a bit like Saul on the road to Damascus in reverse," one of his most bitter former critics said of Mr...

...He wanted to persuade Mrs...

...To secure his position at home, he adopted the policies which appeal to the mass of voters...

...Haughey's case, however, it has brought a maturity and responsibility which have surprised those who supported and those who opposed him alike...

...It was, therefore, a very different Charles Haughey who opened a new...

...Haughey's conversion...

...Haughey picked it up and and is adjusting his Northern Ireland policies to make it fit...

...The Republican hard-liners have been by-passed in a way that could be achieved only by Mr...

...The role he played in the 197C "arms crisis," when 100,000 pounds in public money disappeared, reputedly into the IRA's coffers, has never beer cleared up...

...It was an offering which simultaneously recognized Irish craftmanship, recalled the days of the political union of Britain and Ireland and genuflected to Mrs...

...Lynch's mantle was lying around...

...Commonweal: 390...

...Thatcher...

...Those voters had given Fianna Fail its greatest majority ever in 1977 when under Mr...

...It has been a journalistic cliche in the last twelve years of the Northern Ireland "troubles" to speak of each new twist in the story as "perhaps the last chance of a solution...

...Haughey's "nationalism...

...In the six months since his election, however, Haughey has built a new image...

...He had agreed to "regular meetings" with the British Prime Minister and both of them had "recorded agreement on the importance they attach to the unique relationship" between the peoples of both countries and on "the need to further this relationship in the interest of peace and reconciliation...

...In Mr...

...And at his meeting with Mrs...

...Thatcher congratulated him on hfc success...

...It was evident from the behavior of the two leaders when the cameramen and journalists were let in that something of a rapport had been established between them...

...Elected as party leader and Taoiseach in what amounted to a palace revolution, he saw clearly that he was regarded in the country at large with deep suspicion...

...A few days earlier the two leaders had met in a secret summit for forty-five minutes to discuss the Northern Ireland problem...

...Haughey is, above all else, a realist and a pragmatist...

...The charges were later dismissed in court and Mr...

...Ten years before, he had been sacked with a colleague from a Cabinet ministry on suspicion of being involved in a conspiracy to import arms illegally for the IRA...

...Haughey is their hero...

...Thatcher will go ahead with another effort to restore some form of selfgovernment to Northern Ireland on a majority-rule basis and that it will fail...

...Irish politics—on both sides of the border—are, therefore, entering a new and perhaps more dangerous stage...

...He has made it clear, without specifying the details, that his government will be "surprisingly generous" in accommodating Northern Ireland Protestants' demands for special arrangements and guarantees in any form of closer North-South relationship...

...He has to face the Irish electorate before June 1982 and he would like to achieve substantial progress on the Northern Ireland issue before he does...

...chapter in Anglo-Irish history in May...

...Haughey was as successful in the rest of his strategy as he was on the personal aspect...

...Whitelaw—which would restore majority rule in Northern Ireland, thus giving Dr...

...This will be a blow to Mr...

...Francis's prayer "Where there is discord, let there be harmony...

...In his press 4 July 1980: 389 conference after the Downing Street talks, he made it clear that any proposal which lacked these dimensions would fail and he could not therefore support it...

...The book was titled The Beginner's Guide to Irish Nationalism...

...Thatcher he took a softer line than any previous Fianna Fail leader by publicly accepting that' 'any change in the Constitutional status of Northern Ireland would only come about with the consent of a majority of the people of Northern Ireland.'' Lord Acton may have been right in saying that power corrupts...

...In the Irish context, one must read "nationalism" as "Republicanism" and "Republicanism" as Commonweal: 388 "pro-IRA sympathy...

...Unilateral action by Britain is not enough...

...Thatcher...

...The cartoon hit one nail on the head...

...Haughey came to power last December after a bitter split in the ruling Fianna Fail party (founded by Eamon de Valera in 1926) following the resignation of Mr...

...Another British failure to solve the problem would harm him at the polls and revive the divisions within the Fianna Fail party...

...Haughey's line was that any initiative would fail which did not take three dimensions into account: a guaranteed share in government for representatives of the minority Catholic community, cooperation between Northern Ireland and the Republic, and cooperation between the Dublin and London governments...

...Lynch had been pushed out by the machinations and disloyalty of a group of party right-wingers who, if they did not support the IRA (and few in Ireland positively do that), wanted a far tougher attitude on the reunification of Ireland than Mr...

...The gift he brought to her in London was carefully chosen—a 1794 Irish silver teapot inscribed with part of St...

...It's always risky to be so didactic, especially about situations like that in Northern Ireland, but this time there may be some element of truth in the cliche...

...A politician who had been seen as likely to exacerbate Anglo-Irish relations to breaking point was now putting his name to a statement that he wished to develop "new and closer political cooperation" with the British...

...The officials on both sides were delighted with the success of the visit on this plane, even though no one but the two Prime Ministers was present for the crucial tete-a-tete, the outcome of which they kept very much to themselves...

...The likelihood is, however, that Mrs...

...Haughey's strategy is now becoming clear...

...The suspected pro-IRA sympathizer had stepped up security against the IRA to the point where Mrs...

...Thatcher's well-known penchant for domesticity...

...So he paid his debts to his supporters through the traditional channels of patronage and then, as his meeting with Mrs...

...HAUGHEY IS STRUCK BY MATURITY A cartoon in a late-May issue of the Irish Times had the Irish Taoiseach (Prime Minister) handing a book to his British counterpart, Mrs...

...What has actually happened is less miraculous...

...Without any fanfare, with no sign of repentance for past errors, he has abandoned "Republicanism" (by which is meant a policy of uniting Ireland by any means possible) and adopted the Lynch line of seeking Irish reunification by agreement and in peace...

...It is still uncertain, therefore, whether Mr...

...Thatcher showed, turned the political tables on them...

...desmond fisher (Desmond Fisher is Commonweal's regular correspondent in Ireland...

...First he decided, as he announced at the party's annual meeting in February this year, that "the time has surely come for the two sovereign governments to work together to find a formula and lift the situation onto a new plane...

...Haughey, their erstwhile leader...

...Ian Paisley the premiership for which he is so desirous...

...Thatcher is extremely ill-informed on Irish—as on many other—affairs, and is saved from making a mess of things only by her steely determination, good luck and the good sense of aides like Lord Carrington, the Foreign Secretary, and Mr...

...Haughey, by carefully cultivating the party grassroots, worked himself back into favor until he had to be brought back in to a Cabinet pos,t which he used as a platform to secure his way to the leadership of the party and the Premiership...

...His defeat of the rival Lynch-camp nominee, George Colley, was masterminded by the support of those who believed him still to be an unredeemed "Republican," with all that implies...

...The cartoon was less apposite in its reference to Mr...

...Thatcher against a British initiative—one is now being prepared by a special Cabinet subcommittee, under Mr...

...Lynch was displaying...

...Maybe now he'll start persecuting the IRA...

...If his approach fails, the moderate line will have been discredited and the hard-liners justified...