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SCANNAL

Anglo Irish Summit, Scannal, 'Out, Out, Out' Image Name: Anglo Irish Summit, Scannal, 'Out, Out, Out' Description: Margaret Thatcher, prime minister of Great Britain, and Garret FitzGerald, prime minister of the Republic of Ireland, centre, with, from left to right, ministers Peter Barry, Douglas Hurd, Dick Spring and Geoffrey Howe, prior to the Anglo Irish summit meeting at Chequers. (Photo by Keystone/Getty Images)
Margaret Thatcher, Scannal 'Out Out Out' Image Name: Margaret Thatcher, Scannal 'Out Out Out' Description: Margaret Thatcher, Scannal 'Out Out Out'

SCANNAL – Out Out Out

TX: 5th October 2015 RTÉ One 19.30hrs

 

On the 19th of November 1984 at a press conference in 10 Downing Street held at the conclusion of the Anglo-Irish Summit, British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher dismissed the three potential solutions to the conflict in Northern Ireland that were outlined in the New Ireland Forum Report.

 

In a typically blunt and forthright manner, she said: “A unified Ireland was one solution. That is out. A second solution was confederation of two states. That is out. A third solution was joint authority. That is out.”  This went down in the annals of infamy as the Out Out Out Summit. Worse still, Taoiseach Garrett FirzGerald didn’t seem to know what she had said and seemed confused at his own press conference an hour later.

 

Reaction was swift and uncompromising. FitzGerald was attacked by his own Fine Gael party and excoriated by the opposition, including Fianna Fáil leader Charles Haughey who said: “The Taoiseach’s own press conference was an example of incoherent incompetence the like of which we have rarely seen in modern politics.”

 

FitzGerald’s defence was limp: “I had to give my press conference not knowing what she had said. I turned on the BBC but I couldn’t get the headlines because Radio Caroline blotted out the BBC in the middle of London, and I did the seven worst interviews of my life because I didn’t know what the question was about!”

 

Relations between Margaret Thatcher and Ireland had never been easy. The INLA car bomb that killed her friend Airey Neave left scars that would never heal. Thatcher also felt betrayed by Taoiseach Charles Haughey during the Falklands War of 1982. Then, only weeks before the Anglo-Irish Summit of November 1984, Margaret Thatcher narrowly survived the IRA bombing of the Grand Hotel in Brighton during the Conservative Party Conference.

 

Despite this, the Summit went ahead and Thatcher made her infamous Out Out Out statement. It seemed that Anglo-Irish relations had been set back decades.

 

And yet, only a year later, Mrs Thatcher signed the Anglo-Irish Agreement which gave the Irish Government a role in the administration of Northern Ireland for the first time ever. How did this happen?

 

This episode of SCANNAL looks back at the events leading to the 1984 Anglo-Irish Summit and its aftermath and talks to the key players on either side of this tense international drama, including: Wally Kirwan, Department of the Taoiseach; Michael Lillis, Department of Foreign Affairs; Noel Dorr, Ambassador to Great Britain; Alan Dukes, Irish Government Minister; and Sir David Goodall, British Cabinet Office.

 

Presenter/Reporter    Garry Mac Donncha

Producer/Director      Seán Ó Méalóid