Early progress made in the peace process by Reynolds and Major often overlooked

Occasionally Government whips can engineer standing ovations from their own side in the Dáil for major ministerial announcements. However, spontaneous upstanding of deputies on all sides are very rare events. One such standing ovation was extended to Albert Reynolds, Dick Spring and Máire Geoghegan-Quinn at about teatime on Thursday, December 15th, 1993, and with good reason. They had just returned from the signing of the Downing Street Declaration.

Twenty years later, with the situation in Northern Ireland transformed, it is easy to forget the impact the Downing Street Declaration had and the genuine cross-party and public welcome with which it was greeted as a historic achievement. It was a short series of momentous intergovernmental pronouncements which not only transformed British-Irish relations but set the course for the IRA ceasefire nine months later.

This week at a special event organised in Dublin by the Department of Foreign Affairs to mark the 20th anniversary of the Downing Street Declaration, Dick Spring reminded the audience of the appalling atrocities which formed the background to the work in which he and others were involved. These included the IRA bombing of a crowded shopping centre in Warrington in March as a result of which three-year old Jonathan Ball and 12-year-old Tim Parry were killed.

The Downing Street Declaration was the result of months of delicate and largely secret negotiations between Irish and British politicians and officials, of secret talks between Gerry Adams and John Hume and very secret work by clergymen such as Alex Reid, Robin Eames, Roy Magee and advisers such as Martin Mansergh and Fergus Finlay.

The Downing Street Declaration was, above all else, built on the relationship of trust between the prime minister John Major and the taoiseach Albert Reynolds. It was fitting therefore that Major was the guest of honour at Wednesday’s anniversary event in Iveagh House.

Major spoke warmly of Reynolds who, although not well-enough to attend, was represented by his wife, Kathleen, and four of their children. Major described Reynolds's illness as "a cruel trick of fate for a man who gave so much to break the Gordian knot of Anglo-Irish distrust". Addressing the absent Reynolds directly, Major added: "Albert I see you these days too rarely, but I think of you often and I am proud to call you my friend."

Insufficient recognition
Senator George Mitchell, speaking from the floor at the event, said that, as someone who came to the peace process later, he felt the contribution which both Major and Reynolds had made had not been sufficiently recognised in Ireland, Britain or abroad.

He had a point. The fact that both Reynolds and Major lost office shortly after the IRA ceasefire and that the Belfast Agreement was instead negotiated by their successors, Bertie Ahern and Tony Blair, has meant that Reynolds's and Major's efforts in securing the Downing Street Declaration and the 1994 ceasefires have since often been underplayed.

Indeed, it could be said that Reynolds's achievements as taoiseach generally have been neglected in historic research and media examination. It is noteworthy, for example, that whereas RTÉ has made extensive television documentaries on almost all other taoisigh – and a whole series of programmes each on Garret FitzGerald, Charles Haughey and Bertie Ahern – it has not at anytime since 1994 broadcast a single substantial television programme on Reynolds's two terms in office.

Albert Reynolds has in many ways become a forgotten taoiseach, even it seems within his own party which had planned no events this week to mark the Downing Street Declaration anniversary.

Among Reynolds's key achievement was moving Fianna Fáil on from "unity first" rhetoric to a recognition that peace in Northern Ireland was the priority.

The current Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs Eamon Gilmore made the introductory remarks before Major's lecture, and generously acknowledged those present and some who could not attend for their contributions to the peace process, including another former taoiseach, John Bruton.

One particularly noticeable absence from those gathered in Iveagh House and from the Tánaiste’s acknowledgments was Máire Geoghegan-Quinn. She was the third member of the Irish delegation in Downing Street on that momentous day in 1993. When I inquired of her office yesterday, they confirmed that in fact she had not been invited to the anniversary event. This seems a very curious oversight by our usually very diplomatic Department of Foreign Affairs.

Máire Geoghegan-Quinn
Geoghegan-Quinn's absence meant that, as it happens, all of the voices to be heard from both the podium and the floor in the special radio broadcast of Wednesday's event were male. However, Geoghegan-Quinn was no token among the delegation to Downing Street on December 15th, 1993. She was minister for justice at the time and her department was centrally involved in some of the negotiations of the declaration.

Máire Geoghegan-Quinn, her successor Nora Owen and their department were even more centrally involved over the subsequent months and years in the efforts to put in place, solidify, reboot and ultimately sustain the IRA ceasefire.

Albert Reynolds in his memoirs characterised the Downing Street Declaration not as an end in itself but as a means to securing peace. It was, he said, “a set of principles, not a deal done with the paramilitaries, though it opened the way for that”. John Major on Wednesday described it as “a staging post in making the United Kingdom and Ireland more contented neighbours than at any time in their long and tortuous history”.

The Downing Street Declaration was both a staging post and stepping stone. It is very appropriate its importance and its authors be recognised two decades on.