Blair brought army to heel - FitzGerald

IT WAS only when Tony Blair came to power that the British army in Northern Ireland was finally brought fully under the control of the British government, former taoiseach Garret FitzGerald said last night.

He had been told this by a senior British official, he said. He also recalled how as minister for foreign affairs in the 1973-77 coalition government, he had to make frequent representations to London about the indiscipline of British forces in Northern Ireland.

Dr FitzGerald was speaking in Dublin last night at the launch of The News From Ireland: Foreign Correspondents and the Irish Revolution by Maurice Walsh.

He recalled how indiscipline by the British army was central to the success of the Irish in the Anglo-Irish propaganda war of 1919-1921.

"The Volunteers could not defeat the British forces; what they were able to do was harass them in a way that provoked a British military response which was so incompetent and undisciplined that, when exposed to the public gaze by journalists from Britain, the US, and continental Europe, it undermined support in Britain for the British government's military policy in Ireland, to the point of forcing it to negotiate a settlement," he said.

He noted how "historians have consistently paid tribute to the success of the underground Dáil government's propaganda, led by my father Desmond FitzGerald from mid-1919 until his arrest in February 1921." He commended Maurice Walsh on examining "thoroughly and with considerable insight" relevant factors involved, and said his book was "a valuable contribution to our understanding" of those factors.

Following Dr FitzGerald's address, the author read excerpts from the book. Then he and Dr FitzGerald took part in a brief question-and-answer session, which was chaired by playwright and broadcaster Vincent Woods.