Sam McBride & Professor Marie Coleman reveal the secrets behind the news headlines from the most recently released government files of 2001.
Sam McBride is the Northern Ireland editor of the Belfast Telegraph and Sunday Independent. He is author of Burned: The Inside Story of the Cash-for-Ash Scandal. Sam has been covering the annual releases for more than a decade.
Marie Coleman is Professor of Twentieth Century Irish History at the School of History, Anthropology, Philosophy and Politics at Queens’ University, Belfast. She is the author of a number of books (County Longford and the Irish Revolution, 1910-1923, The Irish sweep: a history of the Irish hospitals sweepstake, 19130-1987 and The Irish revolution) in addition to a number of refereed articles and essays on the Irish revolution.
For more information regarding PRONI please visit our website at www.nidirect.gov.uk/proni
You can also get the latest news and updates about PRONI by joining our emailing list at proni@communities-ni.gov.uk
Uh hello everybody uh welcome I just make a start here on the event uh welcome to pry uh to today’s event uh which we regard as which we call pry secrets in the files um I hope you’ll enjoy the uh our time together and this event um um if especially it’s your
First time calling to PR me uh and hopefully it’ll be the first of many visits if this is your first time uh the weather’s been awful this morning I’m just so Rel that so many people have turned out to come to come down to tianic water so um I’m Wesley GIS I’m
The head of cat loging and access to information here at PR uh before I begin the our talk today uh just expain a few items of housekeeping unfortunately so don’t p long um is the official archive for Northern Ireland and responsible for the selection and the preservation of
Records created by government uh in Northern Ireland and also Northern irand assembly um and those records are then transferred to pry and then then made available uh upstairs in our reading room and we can search for them through our online catalog uh just to note the this event
Being recorded today and can we read again about’s YouTube um Channel there is no expected we hope fire alarm test um today being carried out however in the event of a firearm going off we’ll have to be a dash across the road to the r view point opposite
The our compartment so do bring your coach with you if they have to make a dashboard um then uh this year the release for 2001 fil uh contains 551 files most of which dat from that particular year but there are some from earlier years that missed the review and have been brought forward
This year of those 550 files 420 were fully open so that means there no nothing to me with held from them other 127 files have had elements removed or redacted because they contain person information about a living individual or uh there’s another sensitivity there that requires us to react it temporarily
While that’s in place and then a further 30 files that were brought forward were deemed to be fully remain fully closed and that’s the decision made by the department who transfers the information and prly and there’s reasons for that for that to closure but there are re uh
Periodically to see that nothing can be relased so at the end of today’s event uh there’ll be opportunity to VI a small sample of the files that are being talked about today iny’s reading room upstairs now once you don’t need to register as a reader today to view the
Files you will have to place your coats and bags Etc in the lockers that are provided because uh for security reasons and also to ensure that wet bags and cops aren’t being touched in documents you understand the reasons for that um I should also dra your attention to our K
Archive or Al University’s K archive which is a collection of information and Source material primarily on the troubles but also on politics in Northern Ireland relating from 1968 to the present day and uh colleagues from uu who work on the can archive will be going through these records shortly to
Identify what will be added to that K archive so those are selected records key documents from the papers relas and PR does that in partnership with the with uu to do that work and then finally before we begin just to want to introduce our speakers for today um who
Need no instruction really you know very well uh through our TV screens um samic bride and Professor Marine colan uh Professor Coleman is a lecturer um in the school of history and anthropology at Queens in Bast she’s an author and on Northern events um Sam is an investigative
Journalist and currently editor and I editor of media H is that right uh UK SP is okay uh which includes the B Telegraph and the Sunday life and S you know is a as an author researcher and um uh well-known political commentator so uh want to welcome our speaker today so
Hopefully uh the talk show will last around about 40 minutes there’ll be time for a Q&A at the end and those of you then who want to um make your way upstairs you can meet at the bottom of the steps and fora for that so uh just
Want to uh just invite our speakers forward like to to talk just so thank you thank you Wesley um and thank you to to all of the staff here here at prony um I’m I’m very surprised frankly to see all of you here today um you’re surprisingly committed to hearing
Whatever it is we’re going to say to you um I’m I’m not sure that I would have come if I was in your position but thank you for coming um and you’re very very welcome um Wes Wesley has outlined the the way in which the files are released
This year this is for 2001 and those are files that uh closed in 2001 there are files that um have been running for maybe many years before that sometimes decades before that some issues don’t detract very much documentation and so they sit there and every time an issue
Comes up somebody files it away when it gets to a certain point the file is closed and that’s when we get to see it however even though there are more than 400 files that have been um fully opened this year um 551 files um have been
Released in all in in part or in full uh that’s that’s actually a big drop in what we used to see here uh it’s a it’s a it’s a very noticeable drop in 2011 if we go back a few years there were 850 files that were released in 2016 there
Were 991 files that were released um in 2019 there were 809 files released uh so there there is a significant drop off here now I think some some of this is explained by the change in how people communicate so you see a lot of email in this batch of files people are printing
Off the emails obviously um in some instances I imagine people just never bothered to print off the emails they were deleted we all know what emails are like they’re um something which comes and goes and within days we can forget what we sent somebody or got from somebody uh but there are other
Possibilities as to why things might not necessarily be put into these files uh and I think the most concerning element of this is that some of these files are not even being transferred to prony by government departments they’re simply sitting in storage somewhere and that’s
Not just absurd in terms of what the law says it’s also absurd practically it’s a waste of money and waste of public money um because there are really fantastic facilities here bombproof and fireproof faults here cre at public expense for this purpose but departments are not always sending their files here however
They have sent some quite interesting files this time and so let’s get stuck into those the the first is one which is a very recent file or um recent in the context of what we’re about to see and going to start with the most recent
Stuff work my way back to some of the really old stuff which goes back to the second world war and actually I think that’s the most interesting stuff but let’s let’s start closer to the present day so the the queen we see from one of these five has personally requested that
People coming to summer garden parties at Buckingham Palace from Northern Ireland should include Irish passport holders now this is the first time that I’ve ever seen in any of these files any reference to a personal wish of the queen I’m not sure why that’s the case
It may be because the queen is obviously now dead um but she was somebody who obviously guarded her own views very jealously didn’t give any sense of anything that might be remotely controversial here we see just a little snippet but it’s very clear this comes directly from her majesty and is not
Something which one of her um one of one of the people in The Palace had been communicating on her behalf this was sent by the Lord Chamberlain to the head of the civil service sir Jerry lran H in in February 2001 and it was then passed on to David Trimble and Sheamus melan
The first and Deputy first ministers and it says that um uh the the wording which was used was that the guest should be drawn from as wide a range as possible uh and and that there was advice that it is the Queen’s wish that the nominations may include residents in Northern
Ireland who hold Irish passports that’s all we know no more um but it is in this period where the queen and um the Irish president are getting closer and where the peace process is obviously very well established by this point and um there is a little snippet there of what the
Sovereign thought of that particular issue um around a similar time there’s another very interesting issue about politics and this is the Revelation that the the dup um and their wishes H were more um were were were better known to the senior figures in the Northern Ireland office than they were to the
General public and so therefore this party which ostensively was completely opposed to the agreement which was trying to wreck it which was trying to bring down David Trimble etc etc as we all know was at some level either itself communicating to the Northern Ireland office that it was willing to do things
That were not quite in line with that Wrecking idea or the Northern Ireland office had other means of working out what was going on inside the dup um the person who tells us this is sir Jonathan Stevens who went on to become the most senior official in the Northern Ireland
Office but he’s see he’s still a pretty hefty figure in um in the in the in the period that we’re talking about here and this this is the point where um where David Trimble and Sheamus Malon are in post but there aren’t yet executive ministers and what is being made clear
Um by the Northern Ireland office internally and they’re debating what they do with this information how they use it is that there there has been a decision in the dup that they will take up their seats um in the executive they’ll not go to Executive meetings as
We knew they didn’t but they will take up their seats regardless of whether the irad commissions now if that had been known at the time that would have been very interesting it was ultimately known 11 months later uh when they did that H but it would have been particularly
Awkward at this point where they were really vocal against David Trimble and so you see a little snippet here um of what’s going on inside the machine and what sir Jonathan is saying is what do we do with this so we’re trying to get the dup and shinen into par sharing um
Even if they’re not going to sit down with each other uh we’re trying to get them into the system and but at the same time they don’t want to alienate Trimble and Malon they’re still the big beasts and it’s easy for somebody of my generation as a journalist to forget
That that at this point the D and shin are very significant but they’re ultimately second um second tier players here and so what they decide is that they’re going to invite them and make this quite public into some sort of talks process talks process is probably
Too formalized for it in terms of my description of it but they’re going to have meetings with the Northern Ireland office and they say look we could do this very informally very quietly there’s no need to anoun this we talk to these people all the time uh but it
Actually suits our purpose to give a little hint of where they’re going here so let’s let’s make a bit of a song and a dance about this and so they they do this and the other interesting element of this is that what sir Jonathan says is that by dangling in front of these
Parties the carrot of par he hopes to lure them further and further into the system um and he essentially sees this as something which makes makes it harder for them to back out at a future point now we know that Devolution didn’t in any way function in a in a in a
Straightforward way um in this period or to this day but there is element there of the ni’s thinking at a senior level that we see um in that in that series of memos a third element around this period um is the head of the civil services abhorrence at the fees being demanded by
John Snow the channel 4 news presenter for training Northern Ireland ministers in the art of being a minister H there hadn’t been Devolution in Belfast for many many years since 1974 and even that had been pretty fleeting so these people were pretty um pretty uh out out of the
Way of governing um if any of them had ever been in the way of governing and so there was a concern in government that these people are going to come in and they’re going to be pretty hopeless so they need to be schooled in the sort of
Things that we understand that is the nio ministers understand uh in how to deal with the media um in how to not break the ministerial code in how not to be corrupt all manner of things and so therefore they say let’s have a seminar which from maybe two or three days and
We want somebody to chair this and they settle somehow or other on the name of Jon Snow it’s not clear how his name comes up but somebody mentions his name and it becomes stuck and so he he’s the person that they’re working towards but there is a difficulty here he’s a very
Expensive person to get and so they ultimately realized that to book him for this engagement will cost um something like £40,000 but actually in today’s money that would be that that that equ equates to about £73,000 so it’s even worse than it than it than it might signed at first um
Glance and it’s also clear that he’s not he’s not actually going to be doing very much so he’s going to be chairing this seminar but the people who are doing it are academics um civil servants government ministers a special advisor so the the real need of this is not
Being delivered by him there’s I think one seminar or about one and a half seminars which he’s going to try to lead and But ultimately out of 15 seminars and as part of this over program he’s really just going to be guiding people through this and this goes through the
System um and there is a storm official called Alan bar who was the acting director of the of the transition program between direct Rule and Devolution and he sends this um this piece of information through the system to the head of the Civil Service Sir John simple and he says the cost of
These seminars would be in the region of 30 to 50,000 so that’s the total cost of running this uh but depending on what Jon Snow charges as chairperson it should be noted that at least 20 to 40,000 of that would be fees paid to Jon Snow he’s a very expensive celebrity and
Maybe a decision would be taken to reconsider his use in the program I’m not aware who came up with the name a few days later Mr bar records that he got a phone call from John SLE who said with regards to the chair in Jon Snow he
Was totally against the cost brackets an outrageous sum and would offer to chair the event if one took place himself and that seems to being the end of that um slightly further back in time to 1997 there is a frankly bizarre story of an American man who was attempting to
Get a government minister in Belfast H roped into a scheme to get himself an honorary degree from auster University now I don’t know a great deal about how Academia works but I suspect this is pretty unorthodox I hope it’s pretty unorthodox uh he the gentleman was
Called yakob h m here and I’m pretty confident that’s the only person of that name in the world because when I Googled his name when I looked up Google Books all sorts of um sources I couldn’t find anybody other than one individual who seems to still be alive but didn’t
Respond to my requests for comment uh in March 1997 he got in touch with directoral Minister Malcolm Moss who was the health minister at that point among other things and he wrote he wrote a letter to him he said I am an American with oler ancestry now we’ve all heard
That one and it turns out that it’s it’s a fairly tenous link it seems to me but uh he says I’m writing to ask for your support on a particular matter recently I received a letter from Sir Trevor Smith Vice Chancellor of the University of oler stating that my name may be
Considered for the award of an honorary doctorate however the final decision rests with the University’s honorary degrees committee basically as the honorary degree would mean a great deal I was writing to ask if you could write a letter in support of my nomination he would only to outline how he’d worked in
The field of Mental Health and he said that as this was the minister for the Department of Health and social sciences he actually got the name wrong which probably didn’t help him in his persuasive attempts here H you your support here could make a difference I think that probably exaggerates the
Level of support that a minister and or the the impact which a ministerial letter would have in this process but he said all of my great grandparents were from ster subsequently I would be honored to receive such an award from the University of olar and he went on to
Say that he that the that the University had already received letters of recommendation from some professors at John Hopkins University he didn’t say whether he had been involved in in in any way encouraging them to send those letters um and he said that he hoped to hear from the minister and ended his
Letter with a big cheerful exclamation mark he didn’t hear from the minister but he did hear from a junior civil servant who was dispatched to give a pretty Curt response uh he said the minister had read your letter with interest but as a government Minister it would not be appropriate for him to
Support your nomination and that seems to to have been the end of that um going much further back in time the most interesting files here are ones which stem from uh from during and just after the second world war in Northern Ireland a completely different landscape to the world in which we live
Um some of you I guess imagine or sorry some some of you I guess did have a recollection of that I’m just being careful here to not look at anybody in particular I certainly don’t and I I I find this world absolutely fascinating because it’s within living memory of
People who are not alive but to somebody like me it’s just completely foreign um and so there there there’s there’s a really interesting element to some of what has been released here um and one one of these files stems from the second world war and it’s it’s about 80 years
Old now it relates to um a a young teacher a young Catholic teacher in rural Cy Lon der who was um somebody who was doing something which today would be regarded as completely completely unremarkable completely innocent nobody would bad an eyelid at this but he was interested in amateur Dramatics and as a
Result of this he came to the attention of the stormant government now this this is during the second World War I suppose we have to make some alliances fact that was a very unusual time people were worried about spies they were worried about the IRA they were worried about
All sorts of things albeit this is getting towards the teal end of the war it’s 1945 early 1945 um and there is a letter which is sent and to the storman government to the unionist government at this point where there are concerns expressed about this individual this letter is anonymous
So it’s not clear who it comes from uh but it’s taken very seriously very seriously indeed and that is one of the elements of this which is so interesting this note said we the RIT pairs of mahel rural District hereby complain and declare dissatisfaction Arisen by a school teacher from the
Mountain in rocktown school acting as a producer of of a rebel drama in Aid of Green Cross funds and purposes unknown contrary to all previous teachers as predecessors that’s that’s a bit cumbersome in terms of How It’s worded but you get the drift they didn’t really
Like this guy very much and they didn’t think he was up to much good uh the Green Cross fund had been established during the war to support the the people who were the um who were who were otherwise supported by people who had been intered as either actual Ira
Members or suspected Ira members people who the unionist government were suspicious of and um this fund was raising money to support their children their families and things of that nature storman was very suspicious of this fund they thought it was a bit of a front for
The IRA they never really seemed to have got any evidence that that supported that suspicion but they were wary of what was going on here and so this attracted lots of comment inside storm and it’s it’s also clear from this file that sensors who were intersecting the
Meal in Liverpool H and we’re opening letters we’re rewriting them and forwarding that to stormant and we picking up on references to the Green Cross fund and feeding this back even in the case of one letter that was sent from a lawyer in in the in the US to a
Catholic bishop in Northern Ireland um really fairly unremarkable in terms of what’s in it it’s updating on the on the on the finances of this fund it’s it’s it’s giving him an update in terms of somebody who’s died and it’s being replaced in the board and stuff that
Frankly now looks fairly unimportant but it was clearly taken very seriously at the time H by the people who were involved and there’s a there’s a there’s a gentleman called HJ Campbell in the ministry of Home Affairs who saw this note which had come in and he sent a
Secret memo to the ru’s most senior officer who was then known as the Inspector General asking him to investigate this individual in a response 21 days later the inspector General’s office replied to communicate what the police had find he gave the name of the individual and
That’s been censored um in in the file which has been released at the public record office and but he said he was from near dri R town and he said that the man had been teaching at the school for 3 years he said he was residing with
An individual whose name has also been blacked out during the week he was cycling home at the weekend there’s lots of detail about this guy they’ve clearly either been watching him or talking to lots of people who knew him and in that area and the officer went on to say
Neither he nor any other member of his family has come unfavorably under police notice nor being suspected of being a member of the IRA his brother who turns out is a priest um whose name has been blacked out at crana in County teron denounced the IRA publicly from the altar during Divine
Service so not necessarily A Hint that the family are and keen on the IRA the police said that the man had organized the Podrick Pierce amateur dramatic Club whose plays that year included the crappie boy and the spinsters with proceeds going either to perial funds or
The Green Cross and the r officer added at the ly performance seats for the hall were Bor borrowed from the orange Hall in mahara and at the end of the day the teacher from the stage returned thanks to the members of mahara orange Lodge for the loan of the seats so this
Gentleman is essentially of a cross community disposition um but that’s not what the what the what the person writing the note necessarily thinks the officer said that the crappie boy was chosen because it was based on the 1798 rebellion and Co is expected to appeal to the South dery audience brackets RC
And thus make money was a commercial Enterprise essentially he then listed the eight players who were in the play he gave their ages where they were from and said none of them had come on favorably under police notice um there was then a handwritten note which was added to this
Memo that had come in from the r um where a civil servant in storman said the school teacher May well be a perfectly harmless individual with a keen interest in amateur Dramatics it is however somewhat surprising that he should organize a dramatic Club the title of which serves to perpetuate the
Memory of Patrick Pierce one of the leaders of the 1916 Rebellion the Ministry of Education might be interested now there’s there’s there’s there’s a couple of fascinating footnotes to this um the first is that I think this gives an insight into not just the stormant suspicion at this
Point the stormant insecurity at this point which sometimes when people look back at the old unionist regime um this one party system this system where um where one party was basically guaranteed to be in part regardless of what happened and they don’t see beyond that to the contradictions to the weaknesses
To the uncertainties to the internal divisions to the and fears that that regime had as to its future um and as to its present at that point and here you see how one anonymous note all bit in the middle of the second world war um causes this you know frankly panicked
Reaction where the most senior officer in the r is being asked to ultimately as it turns out waste his time looking at this office looking at this young Catholic school teacher and Rural oler um who really is doing nothing of any great significance the second element of
This which I think is interesting is the way in which the ru respond to this so I think there’s a there there’s there’s an element of challenge here to some of the more simplistic views of the r um as a bigoted orange Protestant outfit um which really didn’t give a fair crack of
The whip to Catholics in every situation here you see that they do their jobs they investigate this person they’ve been asked to investigate and they come back and say complete clean bill of health there’s nothing to see here there there is actually lots of data here on
Him that we’ve gathered which shows that you’re completely barking up the wrong tree here and one final really interesting element of this which isn’t in the files but came after I reported this in the Belfast Telegraph is that I was contacted by a lady um who said I
Read your article with interest and she was asking if the relevant papers were available to read in the public record office and her reason for asking is because she thinks her father was the r officer in that District who was asked to go and investigate this young man um
She says her father was the r District inspector in mahara felt in 1945 um she wanted to see if she could see his handwriting now I had to say to there’s no evidence of his handwriting that would be if it still exists in the r files which we don’t see here um this
Was communicated on a on a on a piece of typewritten paper from the head of the r um but she said um the the tone of the evaluation seems very very moderate she said then I I I I got into some correspondence with her and she said she
Was happy for me to say this she said that her dad was born in sigu in balot in 1892 he joined the r i just after sorry just being accepted and no more because he was half an inch short of the required height but they let him in he
Joined the ru after partition um he became a training sergeant in new Nords um and she says he was he was a devot Catholic he was he was a dedicated public service servant um and this article sort of confirms our opinions of him um she says mahara felt had many
Catholic police officers from constables the sergeants indeed the district inspector my dad they were Honorable Men now that is imperfect in that she doesn’t know that this was the person who felled into this it may well have been it may have been that actually if
We saw all the files around this that we would discover he was sick that day or that he wasn’t able to do this for some reason or he passed it to somebody else it could even be that if we saw all these files that it runs completely
Contrary to what we think that actually there was some orange order member in the ru for instance who said you know what we don’t trust a Catholic to investigate this guy during the second world war who knows what happened there history is very complicated we sort of
Chip away at it we get little Snippets here and they help us to understand things a little bit better but there’s something fascinating about being able to hold in your hand a file that hasn’t been seen in 80 years that that comes from a Time completely foreign to
Somebody like me um and to get a better understanding limited as it is a better understanding of what Northern Ireland was like um and how that increases our understanding of where we’ve come from and where we are today and I’ll I hand over to Marie who has got some very
Interesting things to share from that period and um more [Applause] recently I was interested s there when you just talking about the Patrick Pierce um the name of the uh animat Dramatics club and realizing it’s only 30 the 1940 is only 30 years since the rising so it
Kind of I suppose it explains why it’s so um prominent at the time well um first of all I’m I’m going to um I just want to start first of all on I think but behalf of everybody Sam myself all the other um media and commentators who
Were in here in that week in December and the mad rush up to Christmas just to thank all the public record office staff um David um Jane Lindsay everybody but I think she’s not here today with CLA Allen in particular I don’t think crony staff will mind if I single CLA out
Because she is the um State paper release supro and you might wonder when we go in you heard Sam talk about all those hundreds of files you might wonder you’ve got a week how do you actually know what to do well the reason I suppose I’m letting you in the secret
Here is that the prony staff provide us with an excellent guide they always when they’re going through the the files over the year that they pick out uh some highlights for us but we we have very good guidance uh and that uh makes our task much more manageable also thank you
To everyone for coming out today I was just saying to to Jane from prony earlier when we were here in September for to talk about the August release it was it was one of those storm alphabetical storms that we’re getting so there’s a conspiracy I think against
Us um a weather conspiracy when I came in here in that um uh week in December I actually thought wonderful know as the py staff are I thought they made a mistake of given us the wrong files because all the files I was looking at I
Said no these are the 2023 files these are not the 2001 files because their files were looked at things like the pollution of L which of course was a big question a big issue during uh the summer and of course what do I find questions about L and the whole uh
Potential for the pollution of L dating from 1950 from the late 1950s that’s just an excerpt from a letter which was uh it was part of a file relating to the um legislation to deal with the governance of nuclear power stations throughout the United Kingdom and what the Northern Ireland aspect of that
Would be um that’s just an excerpt from letter there which shows that the the UK’s um atomic energy agency is looking at the idea of locating a nuclear power station in Northern Ireland in and they talk about there in 1956 um and the letter uh of an extract
Here from the letter written by John cockro and addressed to the prime minister of Northern Ireland baser Brook now few things before I even look at what cockro said um in spite of having the wonderful guide from the pry staff you still have a material to work
Through and one of my filters is I always look for interesting names of authors and I always look at dates and try and find out something is written in a particular date what’s important about that so the name John cockroft jumped out of me straight away and I thought
Right well well this guy’s uh if he’s saying something about uh nuclear power stations then he’s worth uh listening to John cockroft along with Ernest Walton the Irish physicist and the Man in the Middle with the hat there Ernest Rutherford who could have done you know
Klian Murphy might have done a a RF as well as an Oppenheimer there were three of the most important nuclear physicists in the United Kingdom in the uh around the the pre-war post-war period uh wal and cockroft jointly got the Nobel Prize in 1951 so if a Nobel Prize physicist is
Writing to the prime minister of Northern Ireland talking about nuclear power stations this is someone who whose opinion is important so he there’s a few extracts there from what he he said he didn’t think that there was any inherent uh danger of sighting a nuclear reactor
At L um it’s in its normal uh functioning it should be fine but then he then there the bus we have to think about the possibility of an accident and if there was an accident which led to a substantial release of radioactivity um then that could pollute
The drinking water and also in the letter he points out that L had increasingly become the main source of drinking water for Belfast and basically if there was a a an accident which led to Radioactive pollution of L that that source of drinking water would be suspended so belf house would have no
Drinking water for a number of months and as a result his conclusion was that he did not take consider l a suable choice for um for the location of this reactor now the fact he’s brought him to Brooker as well as important this is going to the top he’s not just writing
To a civil servant somewhere so he wants to make sure the prime minister of Northern Ireland knows this the date was interesting the date of the letter was the 12th of August 1958 and that’s where my my little um filter of why is that date important that date is important
Because it is 10 months after the windscale fire fire what we would now know as cellfield and it is quite clear that that it’s so obvious that after wind scale they they really raught things and if you see the the picture of wind scale there you see those nobly
Bits on top of the chimneys apparently cockroft was responsible for putting those filters there and the windscale fire could have been an awful lot worse if he hadn’t insisted on it um so I think we had a lucky Escape but I did the question the what if which
Historians should kind of try to avoid HS but in 1956 they’re talking about putting a nuclear reactor at L 1958 they decide they decide not to because of winds scale in 1957 if wind scale hadn’t happened could things have been different so that was the first story
And then I thought yes the the prony staff have definitely got things wrong because now they’re giving us Files about national stadiums and this is this is this is more of of current stuff um and I think this this probably was my favorite file and it was the file that
Got the most um uh I think pickup in the media particularly um across the water and when something that when the media across the water is picking up something that isn’t a bad news story from Northern Ireland it must be a story um well this file on the on the National
Stadium which has a lot to do with investigating leaks to the Belfast Telegraph um I know s didn’t mention this file um also relates to the idea of moving Wimbledon football club and there those of us who are old enough to remember Vinnie Jones and the uh and
Wimbledon in the 1980s when there were a Premiership Club this was the idea of moving Wimbledon football club to Belfast because Sam Haman the owner of wimbl wanted to redevelop but it wasn’t suitable for redevelopment so he sold it and first of all he was going to move to Dublin Joe caner was
The manager of the Irish former Irish International was the manager of Wimbledon at the time so there were links there um Dublin didn’t work out so they were looking at Belfast and the idea was that Wimbledon would move to Belfast and be re renamed Belfast United
I just put a bit local color at the time because the Northern Ireland International Michel view was playing for Northern Ireland and um the Republic of Ireland International Kenny cuningham was play they were thing from wimon at the time um but honeyway the permanent Secretary of the Department of
Environment at the time Ronnie Spence was terribly excited by this um particularly the cross community benefit so it would be significant breakthrough if Belfast had a football team playing in the English Premier League now um Ronnie Spence later Act was later chair of the community relations Council and
Was very keen on the uh I think the cross community benefit of this but I have to say I think he was a bit on the naive side um his view uh his optimistic view was not shared by his opposite number Jerry lock as mentioned already
By Sam so Ronnie Spence was very keen the city’s image would be enhanced um by having this having a football team performing at the top level in English and European competitions now that suggests Ronnie didn’t know too much about the Premiership of the time because as Jerry Lan points out wimon
Were not playing at the top level of the English league and they w’t in Europe at all so I just went back to the time and I noticed that um the day the weekend before this um uh correspondence that Wimbledon um had been beaten 52 by man
United um man united beating anyone 52 these years would be great thing for United fans mugh did score so there’s a good bit of Northern Ireland story there and also at the end of that season at wiland finished 15th so I think one nil
To Jerry lran on that one um but it went on um Ronnie was also quite Keen that the Belfast team would build up a strong cost Community sport this would be this would break down barriers in football I mean not alone are there I mean anyone who knows Irish League football will
Know that the lens and lynfield Donan let alone kville and lens and lynfield so I think again maybe his his his knowledge of of football left a little bit to be desired and again Jerry lran was doubtful about this um first of all not very many people went to ourish
League games but how you weren’t going to stop local people who for many years had been supporters of United and Liverpool and c and Rangers but those were bonds uh for life and the passion never do and he suggested the Ronnie Spencer read Nick horn Nick horn be
Fever pitch I think had just been turned into a movie that year as well so I have to say I think in the end two nil to Jerry loer I thought that was a particularly interesting exchange whenever you see exchanges between two permanent secretaries it’s always interesting
Uh but I’m moving for this was 1997 26 years later we were still talking about a National Stadium and still didn’t have it um other reasons why I get got a terrible sense of deja vu when I come in here last December was um in the news there had been there had
Towards the end of last year there had been some stories about hate crimes and there was a file on how we dealt or should deal with hate crimes in 2000 likewise the question of victims was very uh topical at the end of last year and still is and you’re starting to see
Those Legacy issues emerge in these releases so there was a file there as well about victims and in that there’s quite a detailed account of how how should we describe victims I mean that’s still very topical with the even in the news in the last week or two to do with
Payments to victim’s families and who should qualify and should people be disqualified depending on what their relatives did that that that arises quite a bit in that file as well but this is a period this is around 2000 2001 when we’re moving into um Devolution and post good
Flyy agreement and you’re just beginning to see the Legacy issues which were kicked to touch by The Good Friday agreement and as part of the reason we’re having still having these problems but they’re finally starting to Grapple with how do we deal with the Legacy how
Do we deal with the um with what we’re left with now caused troubles the other thing I’m always interested in looking for in these files I’m interested in personalities and I think last one I I’ve done two of these sessions before and in both of those I referen a lot the
Secretary of State at the time mem uh now some of the files I looked at while the the 2001 release the sound say a lot of them still cover things like and that went on 97 1998 um and one uh Mo mm chimed in on Wimbledon FC um she didn’t think very
Much of it she didn’t think he’d be particularly safe um Tony be on the other hand I’ll be great excellent if wimon moved to H Belfast I have a sense there there’s a bit of the Jerry lran and the Ronnie Spence there and M maybe knew a little bit more about the local
Football scene but Blair and M also clashed on abortion we’re starting to see a few files on things that aren’t to do with the political settlement um in 19 98 she wanted to set up a a review panel which will be chaired by the Lord chief justice that would inquire into
The legal medical and social issues surrounding abortion law and practice in Northern Ireland and would also have a wider remit and look at related issues including sex education access to counseling and support services for pregnant women now in last year’s release as well there were some uh significantly large files about abortion
But in all of those it’s secretaries of State running for cover and trying find any excuse possible not to touch this third rail at all whereas more you find for the first time you’re seeing a Secretary of State who does want to take on this topic but uh Tony Blair in the
Summer of 1998 decided it we put it on ice for now and on ice it St for a long time uh so we we’re seeing personalities we’re seeing what we are seeing is much less of the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland now as these files move
Into the post 1999 period and that’s to be expected I think um I put Peter mandon up there because of course he was uh mm’s successor as uh secetary St I haven’t put anything under it because quite frankly I didn’t find very much about him in the fires I did I did the
The Whistle Stop tour of the three archives uh Dublin here and what the London released online as well and I see much more about mandl’s role as Secretary of State in those two repositories here which is to be expected because the files we’re starting to see uh come into py now from
The 21st century definitely deal with the domestic affairs and The Wider issues are still uh London Centric and I think nowhere was that more obvious than the file on 911 when I came in here in December I think 2001 what was happening in 2001 sure it’s it’s so recent
Obviously 911 was the big International Event of 20 one and there is one file and I think I’ve spoken about this before at these um talks I love a file that tells you what does on the 10 September 11th so we knew what that file was about that’s quite an interesting
File and you can see the Northern Ireland civil servants uh they um they move into action straight away that there’s uh the head I think Jerry Lo was head of the civil service at the time sending a memo around to all the permanent secretaries saying right can
You give me a sense of what impact this will have on your departments and a lot of what’s in that is the impact locally the impact economically as we all remembered the international aviation industry was very badly hit Northern Ireland’s industry was very dependent on Aviation with shorts and Bombardier and
Things like that um there’s a lot of a knock on effect of that and the reduction in Flight in international flight was going to affect Northern Ireland’s economy uh with tourists the projected figures for the decline in tourists in in 2002 was was quite Stark as well there wasn’t very much about the
Security implications of 911 there was a a memo suggesting well we might want to be very clear about allocating peace funds that come from the EU because we know the sort of organizations they go to and they are going to come under closer scrutiny but other than that
There wasn’t much about the security implications there was a little bit more in the London files I’m not here to talk about the London files but that if you want to find the security implications of 9/11 you have to go to the London files but you won’t get the full picture
There because they have not released the files which cover 911 are the the file which covers irad commissioning in October um 2001 so the picture is missing there the other thing I expected so at 911 happens you expect some some local stuff um Holy Cross was the big uh
Local issue in Northern Ireland in uh 2001 I think didn’t see anything did you see anything in it didn’t find and this was a few of the few of those of us who were in reviewing the papers commented on this we were expecting to find more
On Holy Cross I did find Holy Cross but I found it in the National Archives of Ireland with the Irish Department of Foreign Affairs Anglo Irish division giving almost daily updates on what’s Happening Now I suppose it’s a security issue it’s a policing issue and policing and security were not devolved at the
Time but again it was a a curious absence the another big um change in Northern Irish Society politically everywhere in 2001 was the the uh transition from the Royal Oster constabulary to the Police Service of Northern Ireland didn’t see much on that either again Dublin is full of it uh
There’s a fair be it in in the um UK files as well but it is notably absent from the pry files now part of that is we’re not seeing much coming from the Northern Ireland office we’re seeing um files released here from the the new Northern Ireland Department set up under
Devolution particularly ofm dfm not much from the Northern Ireland I’m not sure if there’s much at all from the Northern Ireland office the files released by the national archives in the UK all the Northern Ireland material goes through the prime minister’s office so the question I think Sam you might have
Raised this last year is where is the northern where are the Northern Ireland office papers for this period so I think I with with the um apologies to uh 2001 St Odyssey um that’s my uh I think I leave it on that question possibly future releases will tell us more so
That means you have to keep coming to the events so do we want to S here funny [Applause] you