British diplomats lobbied Pope John Paul II repeatedly to secure his assistance in ending the IRA's 1980 hunger strike, exchanges between Margaret Thatcher and the Vatican reveal.
Documents available at the National Archives
from today also demonstrate how, as part of the propaganda war against
the republican protest, UK embassies were instructed to discover whether
prisoners around the world had to wear uniforms.
Even the releaxed
dress code of Liechtenstein's inmates was recorded.
The
Provisional IRA and Irish National Liberation Army (INLA) members had
launched a hunger strike in the Maze prison with five demands for their
political status to be recognised, including the right not to wear a
uniform or do prison work.
In the run-up to the confrontation, the
Foreign Office asked diplomats to report on the use of uniforms in
other countries.
"The practice of wearing prison uniforms in Spanish
goals was discontinued," a diplomat in Madrid wrote.
In Italy,
prisoners dressed in "khaki-coloured suits".
In Austria, convicts had
uniforms "of quite good quality and by no means blatantly distinctive".
In Portugal, the suits, it was said, "would not attract attention since
[they were] the sort worn by the average labourer".
Swiss
criminals, the embassy in Berne noted, were not required to wear
uniforms and "the foregoing also applies to Liechtenstein".
Convicted
prisoners in Turkey were not obliged to wear prison uniforms, a diplomat
in Ankara added, "if only because the government does not provide any".
Humphrey Atkins, the Northern Ireland
secretary, cannot have been reassured.
Secret cabinet minutes on 23
October record him proposing to issue a statement making clear "that the
government [was] in no circumstances prepared to grant special status
to the PIRA prisoners but that as part of the continuing process of
penal reform they were prepared to allow all prisoners to wear approved
civilian clothing.
"[Atkins] considered that a statement on those
lines would deprive the protesters of a great deal of public sympathy …
and would be better made now than at a later stage when it could be
presented as a surrender to the prisoners' action."
The prime
minister agreed but insisted that "once the government's position had
been made clear, no further concessions should be offered." Similar
comments – such as "We cannot make any concessions" – appear in the
margins of other cabinet documents on the hunger strike in Thatcher's
charcteristic blue felt pen.
The government's slight shift in
position did not deter the hunger strikers. Seven republican volunteers
in the H-Blocks refused food on 27 October 1980. A report sent to the
cabinet in early November warned that republican families "are very
willing for their kin to die for the cause".
There was also
disappointment in the cabinet that while "individual priests (such as Fr
Faul) are undoubtedly doing their best, the church is not being
particularly helpful. Cardinal O'Fiaich and Bishop Daly have not as yet
taken a very constructive line."
But there were plans to stiffen
the resolve of the Catholic church. Sir Mark Heath, the British
ambassador to the Vatican, had been summoned to convey a personal
message from the pope to the prime minister.
"I would ask you to
consider personally possible solution in order to avoid irreversible
consequences that could perhaps prove irreparable," the pope's letter to
Thatcher pleaded.
The ambassador added a covering note: "When I
asked what further practical steps he thought we could take in addition
to the concession on clothing, he was silent. [The pope] said that the
clergy would continue to urge the prisoners to give up their strike and
[that] the message was a personal one from the pope himself."
On
24 November the prime minister flew to Rome and met John Paul II. On her
return she penned a grateful letter.
"I derive encouragement,
instructions and inspiration from our discussion," she told him.
"Your
wisdom and experience are of inestimable value to us all. I will
continue to reflect for a long time on what you said."
She
continued: "I and my colleagues in the government are firmly resolved
that it would be utterly wrong … to take any steps which could be
regarded as conceding that political motives can excuse murder or
serious crimes.
"In view of the sensitivy of the issue involved, I
have asked HM minister to the Holy See to seek an early opportuinity to
explain matters more fully to the cardinal secretary of state; and for
that purpose I am arranging for a senior official … in the Northern
ireland Office to go to Rome to assist Sir Mark Heath."
The prime
minister also told the pope: "You may be sure we very much welcome the
efforts of the clergy in Northern Ireland to persuade the prisoners both
to give up the strike and to end their protest; and I hope you will be
able to give full support to this objective."
In mid-December,
after a plea from Cardinal O'Fiaich as one of the hunger strikers
approached death, the protest was called off.
The recriminations soon
began; a second – and more deadly – hunger strike was launched the
following year.
SIC: TG/UK