Civil servants advised to assume UK ministers’ relative ignorance on North, new files show

Civil servants preparing briefs for a UK government reshuffle in Northern Ireland in late 1999 were advised not to “assume that any new Minister(s) will know much about Northern Ireland”, newly declassified papers show.

Files released by the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland, covering the year 2000, shed light on the implementation of devolved government under the Belfast Agreement.

It includes an extensive set of “first day briefs” produced by the Northern Ireland civil service for incoming secretary of state Peter Mandelson and other Northern Ireland Office (NIO) ministers, giving a useful overview of the tasks and challenges facing the new executive.

Civil servants were told also to avoid trying to cover “everything you could ever want to know about Northern Ireland” in the briefs.

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In addition, the ministers were provided with a glossary of terminology indicating phrases to be avoided lest offence be caused. This was based on advice traditionally given to newly-appointed Northern Ireland secretaries of state and included colloquialisms such as “Six Counties”, “British Isles”, “North of Ireland”, “Free State”, “Taigs”, “republican”, “Fenians”, “Prods” and “Orangemen” (except when referring specifically to members of the Orange Order).

More nuanced nomenclature included the description of “plastic bullets” (”emotive and to be avoided”) as the more acceptable “plastic baton rounds” and the Irish naval presence in Carlingford Lough as “visits”.

This is the first midyear release of files since 2019 and is part of the phasing in of a 20-year rule for the release of state papers in the UK. A total of 420 files have been released in full. An additional 180 have been released with redactions, while 19 remain closed to public access.

Post-primary schools

The anxiety within the unionist community arising from the inclusion of Sinn Féin ministers in the executive emerged within the unlikely arena of post-primary schools. The announcement that Martin McGuinness would be the new minister for education set off a series of protests by students in predominantly Protestant post-primary schools, beginning with a walkout of 70-80 students at Kilkeel High School in Co Down (the alma mater of the present DUP leader, Sir Jeffrey Donaldson) on December 1st. An initial protest by 30-40 students was joined after lunch by “pupils who would be more likely to ‘cause trouble’ joining in ‘the fun’”.

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Disruption, in the form of absence from classes, walkouts from school premises, short-term (two days at most) attendance boycotts, playground protests and petitions spread to a total of 48 schools located in Antrim, Down, Tyrone and north Belfast. Following one protest at Comber High School, the local DUP MLA, Iris Robinson, claimed the school principal had inflamed the situation by locking students out of their classrooms, an allegation the school denied strenuously.

Jonathan Shaw, the chief inspector at the department of Education, felt the Kilkeel protest was being “orchestrated” with misinformation being spread within the student body that “all pupils will be forced to learn Irish, play Gaelic games, attend integrated schools”.

Mr McGuinness received one letter from a student – whose name and school have been redacted from the file – distancing themselves from the protests at their school, which they felt were motivated by “indoctrination from the pessimistic surrounding world”. The protests petered out and Mr McGuinness made assurances that he had no access to teachers’ personnel files and made school visits only at the invitation of boards of governors.

Sinn Féin’s role in government created complications for some ongoing British government initiatives, in particular efforts to extradite Rita O’Hare, who had absconded to the Republic in the mid-1970s while on bail for alleged terrorist offences, from where the Irish government refused to extradite her.

Following the Belfast Agreement, O’Hare had been appointed as Sinn Féin representative in Washington, opening the possibility that the director of public prosecutions in the North could seek her extradition from the United States. But in light of Sinn Féin’s role in government in Northern Ireland, it was conceded that “such a move would be highly controversial”. Ms O’Hare died last March.

In issues unrelated to devolution per se, officials in the department of health and social services (DHSS) explored the potential disruption that could be caused to medical equipment from the ‘millennium bug’ as 1999 transitioned into 2000. There were fears that computers would automatically read the final two digits of the year ‘00′ incorrectly as ‘1900′, rather than ‘2000′, and “if not rectified could compromise the safety of patients and staff and the continuity of service”. Luckily the DHSS was prepared, having “been addressing the problem since 1996″ and was confident all systems would be compliant by September 1999.

Efforts to resolve the Year 2000 problem had “been given the highest non-clinical priority” by the department at a total cost (including staffing) of more than £16.5 million, for which no additional government funding had been made available to public bodies in the UK.

Secretary of state

The secretary of state for Northern Ireland is a much less prominent figure in these files in the wake of devolution. One file pre-dating devolution that was released relates to a problematic appearance by Mr Mandelson’s predecessor, Dr Mo Mowlam, before the Westminster parliament’s Northern Irish Affairs Committee on May 19th, 1999.

Dr Mowlam appears to have been underprepared for her session, leaving her civil servants to clarify (where she did not have the information to hand) or correct (where her answers contained inaccurate information) the record of her evidence in 12 instances. A civil servant from the North’s department of economic development wished his colleagues “good luck” in tackling this “daunting list”.

Some responses show that Dr Mowlam was unsure of the functions of her own office, mistakenly claiming that “it is the civil service commission which appoints the human rights commission and the equality commission whereas, of course, it is herself”. This error led her to apologise in person to Mr Donaldson, who had asked the question, and to have her private office clarify the position in writing to the committee’s chairman.

In response to a question regarding religious affiliation of civil servants, officials noted what they referred to diplomatically as “some ambiguity” in the transcript of her response, which stated that “the percentage of Protestant and Catholic is roughly 5 or 6 percentage points difference”. Officials could not “ascertain where Dr Mowlam obtained this information” as it was not in any of the briefing materials provided to her by the civil service for the hearing. A clarification was issued to the effect that about 55 per cent of the civil service was Protestant, 39 per cent Catholic and 6 per cent unidentified. Nor did she have the correct figure for Catholic applications to join the RUC.

Two months after the meeting, Dr Mowlam issued an extensive five-page letter of correction and clarification to the chairman of the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee – Conservative MP Peter Brooke, who had been one of her predecessors as secretary of state. It was clearly an embarrassing performance by Dr Mowlam and likely contributed in part to her replacement as secretary of state by Mr Mandelson in October of that year.

Prof Marie Coleman is professor of 20th-century Irish history at Queen’s University Belfast