Creeping socialism, civil war fears and condom chasing

Fears of civil war, an apology for 800 years of British callousness, a proposal to conscript all single Irish men and a crackdown on condom possession were among the revelations in the State papers for 1974. But why is so much still withheld, ask Diarmaid Ferriter and Paul Rouse

This year's State papers release makes available to the public the archives of government departments for 1974 (along with some material from earlier years that was previously restricted). A Fine Gael-Labour coalition was in power, with Liam Cosgrave as Taoiseach. The papers strongly reflect the concerns of the Irish government about continuing violence in Northern Ireland, the implications for the Republic if the British army decided to withdraw, and the ongoing internment of republicans.

The Irish government's inter-departmental unit on Northern Ireland teased out various potential scenarios and was clearly worried about the possibility of an escalation of violence; the words "civil war" were repeatedly used, particularly in relation to a "united Ireland" type solution being imposed. A memorandum composed by the unit noted: "Even the mere prospect of an early British withdrawal would lead to an immediate and ruthless 'consolidation of positions' on each side which would probably degenerate quickly into civil war".

The fate of the power-sharing Sunningdale agreement was also of concern, particularly after the Ulster Workers' Council strike and the collapse of the power-sharing executive in May ("It would be difficult, however, to negotiate a new Sunningdale agreement with any credibility"), as was the need to ensure the Republic was involved in any future deal, as its "acquiescence is now seen (since Bloody Sunday) to be necessary".

In light of the Peace Process of the past decade, it is interesting that the unit speculated on the possibility "that the British government may try to do a deal with violent extremists on both sides. The most cogent argument against this is that it is simply not possible in a situation such as Northern Ireland to do a deal which will end violence by simultaneously satisfying two opposing factions. Nevertheless, wholeheartedly as we condemn violence, we must see that in their own view of the situation, the Provo theorists (if there are any) calculate that they cannot finally lose. Success in 'guerrilla' situations is not measured by conventional military standards but by the extent to which the constant attrition saps the domestic political will of the metropolitan power to continue its involvement."

The unit was uncertain as to the plans of the British army. In June 1974 it was noted that "the role of the British army appears to be changing", and that "a British withdrawal or at least a withdrawal of troops was a real possibility. It was probable that withdrawal of British troops would result in de facto repartition of the country". In this scenario, the unit was concerned about refugees coming over the border, and the extent to which the Irish army could get involved in military action in the North:

"Plans are made to deal with refugees and our resources are sufficient to cope with an initial influx of 5,000-9,000 persons on six hours notice. However, the final total could be as high as 50,000, and extra staff and accommodation would be needed to handle this number. This might require legislation to enable the government to acquire premises and requisition resources compulsorily... the scope for military intervention would be narrowly restricted due to lack of resources.

"The present effective front-line strength of the army is about 5,500 men. They are presently engaged in border security and protection of vital installations, with a small reserve. To build up the army to the point where effective intervention would be possible would require 1-2 years... to control the North with the majority population in revolt against Southern (or British) authority would require an army of the order of 100,000 (including about 60/70,000 front line troops)". In the event of British withdrawal, it was not envisaged that either the UN or the EEC would get involved, "as the NI situation did not hold the danger of a Great Power conflict".

The Irish government was determined to bring a case against the British government to the Commission of Human Rights in Strasbourg regarding the ill-treatment of internees, and the State papers include first-hand accounts of horrific beatings and torture of republicans. British politicians informally put pressure on the Irish government to drop the case and make a settlement. British MP Carol Mather was part of a delegation of MPs who visited Liam Cosgrave in July, and the visit was followed up by Mather with a letter to Cosgrave asking him to give "serious reconsideration to withdrawing the case now before the European Court of Human Rights, as I think this would do a lot to improve co-operation between North and South". Cosgrave refused.

The view of the Attorney General, Declan Costello, was that Britain's portrayal of itself as open to a "friendly settlement" was a smokescreen; he wrote in June that "he was convinced that the British had no intention of putting forward proposals, while making it appear that the Irish were being obstructive about a settlement".

The Department of the Taoiseach received many letters from the families of interned men, urging them to take action, and resolutions flowed in from local authorities, including Leitrim County Council, a member of which, Joseph McGirl, was interned. Garret FitzGerald, Minister for Foreign Affairs, was told by the Department of Justice that "Mr McGirl is an active member of the Provisional IRA and very highly thought of in Provisional circles. In all these circumstances it is suggested that it would be inappropriate for us to make representations on his behalf".

It was also agreed that "Ministers would not sign a letter circulated by Hibernia magazine expressing anti-internment views". Feelings ran high about internment, and members of the public criticised perceived government inaction on the subject. Lawrence Dolan, a young businessman from Howth, excoriated Cosgrave for not doing enough and presented his five-point plan for action:

"1. Address the nation on TV and issue a public ultimatum to Britain on internment;

2. Conscript all single men over 17 years;

3. Walk out of the UN;

4. Slap a trade embargo on British goods;

5. Patrol our northern seas within a mile off the coast."

The government was also keeping an eye on the vigour of Ian Paisley's demand for the dissolution of the Northern Ireland executive. In 1974 he opened his 35th Free Presbyterian Church, and it was suggested in the Sunday World newspaper that he was "making preparations to pull out of Belfast and move his activities to Canada. He has already bought a Prairie farm in Canada and is said to be planning to bow out of politics here to follow an exclusively religious career in North America".

"My God, what are you people afraid of down there? Why can't you speak up? Do you think the bullies up here will think anything more of you for it? NO. The more mealy-mouthed you are, the more they will walk all over you."

So wrote a Belfast Catholic to the Taoiseach, Liam Cosgrave, in February 1974. The author of the letter was unwilling to sign his name but added that he was "anti-IRA and all other extremist groups. I am a law and order man. Where I live I run a fifty-fifty chance of being murdered every day. God help us."

What distressed the writer most was the perceived failure of southern politicians to respond to actions of loyalist paramilitaries and unionist politicians. He recalled hearing an interview with Garret FitzGerald about the situation in the North and "to put it bluntly, he was pathetic to listen to. He was talking like some poor wretch, with cap in hand, who had crept up to the landlord's rear door to pay his rent".

By contrast, he pointed to the performances on television of unionist politicians: "Every time Paisley is allowed to speak on RTÉ it is a signal for the deaths of six to 12 Catholics in the north."

In his plea for assistance, he concluded: "You want to get it into your head that you are not dealing with human beings but with animals who have been used to domination for the last 50 years and are afraid to lose their grip".

The devastating Dublin and Monaghan bombs of May 1974 inaugurated a bleak summer; there was further uncertainty for commuters with the start of a bus strike that lasted for nine weeks. The Department of the Taoiseach was on the receiving end of a large volume of correspondence from the inconvenienced public, but also the business community who were still trying to deal with the fallout from the bombings.

Cosgrave was asked to mediate personally, but instead, along with Minister for Labour, Michael O'Leary, and Minister for Industry and Commerce, Justin Keating, met representatives of Dublin city traders. They informed him that:

"Fashion goods industries such as clothing and footwear were very worried as they were producing seasonal items which were not being sold. These stocks would have to be let go at a loss. There had been a 30-50 per cent drop in the sale of fashion goods for the first six weeks of the strike." Cosgrave acknowledged the gravity of the situation that was exacerbated by the understandable fear people had about travelling into the city centre. He commented that "there could be no diminution of the security precautions at present in force and indeed they were hardly vigorous enough".

Significantly, the business representatives insisted "the bombings had little or no effect on the situation. If the buses were back, confidence in the city would be restored. The Dublin bombings of 1972 caused a fall-off in trade for about eight days but after that everything was back to normal".

They also pointed out that a survey of Dublin shoppers had shown that "80 per cent of them travelled to the city centre by bus". Liam Cassidy of the O'Connell Street Business Association suggested that "the time had come for a hard look at the system of public transport in Dublin. The city had a recurring transport problem and the government should set up an inquiry into the whole question".

The Dublin Chamber of Commerce was more direct, bemoaning the fact that "there is no opportunity for competition to aid customers", but Cosgrave regarded the idea of licensing private contractors as counter-productive, as it would only extend the strike. O'Leary wrote to Cosgrave that "in the present state of 'leap frogging' in industrial relations, it is possible to foresee even graver implications for the economy arising from shorter hours in CIÉ than arise even from the present dispute."

O'Leary was reluctant for the government to intervene, suggesting "there is no substitute in our situation for good open communication between employer and employee representatives". The nine-week strike was estimated to have cost businesses £9 million in lost trade by the time it ended in August.

By September, busmen were threatening more strikes over new rotas. The Dublin Chamber of Commerce voiced the opinion that there were simply too many trade unions in Ireland.

Many of Liam Cosgrave's well-heeled constituents were horrified at the government's plans to introduce a wealth or capital gains tax in 1974. According to files from the Department of the Taoiseach, the previous Fianna Fáil government had considered this issue in 1970, when the Minister for Finance accepted that "a case exists in principle for the taxation of wealth" in order to "secure a more acceptable relationship between different categories of income", but it was subsequently withdrawn from the cabinet agenda.

In 1974, the Minister for Finance, Richie Ryan, returned to the issue in the context of the publication of a white paper on capital taxation. There was considerable unease on the part of Fine Gael supporters about this question. In February 1974, Edward More, Bishop of Kilmore, Elphin and Ardagh, wrote to Cosgrave and warned him to tread carefully and not adopt the "doctrinaire" approach of the Labour Party to such issues (which was ironic given that the originator of the idea was Garret FitzGerald, who had been trying to get it accepted by Fine Gael as far back as the mid-1960s).

Senator Alexis Fitzgerald, the prominent solicitor, was more blunt in appealing to Cosgrave to "not to sell out to Labour", and warned that accountants and bankers would advise clients to look abroad for investment opportunities in the event of a capital gains tax.

Cosgrave's constituents in Stillorgan and Blackrock felt likewise, as did Redmond Gallagher of the Ballygoran Stud, who pleaded with Cosgrave not to allow it "as you are personally so interested in the blood-stock industry".

John Bruton, who was parliamentary secretary to the Minister for Education, was on the receiving end of protests from wealthy farmers, and alerted Cosgrave to the feeling that the tax idea had "fundamentally shaken the confidence of our supporters", and that it would damage his electoral prospects due to his strong family connections with the Irish Farmers Association, who "played no small part in my election to the Dáil".

Another letter, representative of the views of many, was sent to Cosgrave by John and Ned McGuire:

"Since we sold Brown Thomas, both he and I have been living on capital, because as the law stood up to now as regards death duties, under the best legal advisers we both had created trusts for our families in a perfectly legal and accepted manner. Not only the McGuire family but many people like us and people who trusted in Fine Gael as a solid and reliable party for people who had created property by hard work and service to the community are shocked...

"We have been responsible for the employment of thousands and thousands of Irish people... There is alarm and consternation among decent people who expected better from a Fine Gael government that so many of us looked forward to and worked for so long to put in power.

"I am well aware that nowadays one must accept the fact that people of property, even moderate property, are living with ever creeping socialism which aims at the destruction and confiscation, by taxation and other means, of their effects and privacy, but the present white paper proposals, at least as far as I am concerned, are instant social infringement and confiscation of property."

The government's standard response to such correspondence was that a system of capital taxation to replace estate duties (as outlined in the white paper) was in response to demands for a system which would enable people to pay capital tax by instalments over a lifetime, instead of obliging their next-of-kin "to surrender a substantial slice of the family estate once or twice in a generation".

In his correspondence with Cosgrave in April, Richie Ryan was unapologetic, arguing that there was considerable avoidance and evasion of death duties, and that the state needed to recoup the loss of £13 million annually as a result of this. He also derided the "highly emotional reaction" to one proposal for a wealth tax on property valued in excess of £50,000 at rates of 1.5 to 2.5 per cent:

"For instance, some commentators have estimated that [the proposed tax] would yield £100 million annually. If this estimate is a correct one it means that there must be £4,000 million of wealth in private hands in this country conferring no benefit on the community and unknown to the Revenue Commissioners... of course there is nothing radical or 'out left' in our proposals. As the white paper indicates, all other progressive democracies have patterns of taxation of wealth on lines similar to those proposed by us".

The tax was introduced in 1975, levied at 1% of the value of assets in excess of £100,000. The family home was exempt, as were bloodstock, livestock and pension rights. Fianna Fáil abolished the tax in 1977.

The coalition also had to confront the issue of family planning and contraception in 1974, particularly as a result of the McGee Supreme Court decision of 1973 (that marital privacy was protected under the Constitution, and that the law prohibiting the importation of contraceptives even for private use by married persons thus infringed that privacy).

The result was the doomed Control of Importation, Sale and Manufacture of Contraceptive Bill 1974, (during the vote on which Liam Cosgrave voted against his own government) – was the result. The most interesting correspondence was between the Attorney General (AG) and the Department of Justice. According to a memorandum prepared for the government on the issue, the AG suggested "the inclusion of a provision making it unlawful for any unmarried person, other than certain exempted persons, to be in possession of a contraceptive".

The response from the Department of Justice, headed by Patrick Cooney, was that "such a provision would involve an excessive intrusion into privacy. It will not be an offence for an unmarried person to accept (otherwise than by purchase) a contraceptive. Under the existing law possession of a contraceptive is not an offence".

Cooney presented another memorandum on the subject, suggesting that the proposed legislation to "allow certain categories of persons, namely pharmacists" to import contraceptives under licence would enable married people to have "reasonable availability of contraceptives". But there would be no personal right to importation – his interpretation of the McGee case was that it did not cover individual importation. He also noted "there will be no legal right of personal importation for tourists, travellers, etc, from abroad. Assuming reasonable attempts will be made to enforce the proposed prohibition of general importation, embarrassment may arise in relation to visitors bringing in contraceptives in their personal luggage". He also argued the proposed bill would please Northern Protestants, and would "liberalise our laws sufficiently... in relation to the laws to apply in a future united Ireland", but that "it would clearly be impossible to secure any political support for a move to legalise abortion".

The severity of Attorney General Declan Costello's proposals for inclusion in the Bill is striking. He wanted, for example, the following to be inserted:

"A member of the Garda Siochána who has reasonable grounds for suspecting that a person who is in possession of a contraceptive has committed or is committing an offence under this Act, may require the person to state if he is married, and in case that he states that he is married, the place where and the date on which the marriage took place. A person... who refuses to comply... or who, in purported compliance with the requirements, gives any information which he knows to be false in a material particular shall be guilty of an offence and shall be liable on summary conviction to a fine."

The Minister for Justice was unimpressed:

"The Minister is against the inclusion of such a provision. It is, of itself, insufficient to enable a charge to be proved as there would still be the need to prove purchase of the contraceptive and gardaí could very rarely do that.

"Moreover, the provision, as far as it goes, could perhaps be criticised as (a) an unjustified invasion of privacy and (b) an attempt to transfer the onus of proof, which appears to be prohibited by the European Convention on Human Rights, and also an attempt to make a person who has contraceptives incriminate himself, contrary to the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights... even if possession were to be made an offence, this would not significantly reduce the problem of proof, since a power of search would normally be necessary to enable gardaí to prove possession".

"As English people, we would express our sorrow and repentance for all the evil our country has brought upon your beloved and beautiful country over the last 800 years by its greed, selfishness and callousness."

So wrote Joel and Joyella Heaton of the Agape Christian Charismatic Community in Warrington, England, to Liam Cosgrave, in April 1974. The letter continued: "The fact that we in England have tried to rob you, exploit you, starve you and to colonise you with an alien culture down the ages, can only be assuaged by repentance".

In the course of the letter, the Agape community also took the opportunity to celebrate what it regarded as the Irish theocracy. It commended the Irish state for refusing to compromise on abortion, sterilisation and contraception:

"The laws of the state, which Paul says is ordained of God, must mirror His laws or the society will collapse – as in all civilisations throughout history it has done. Only in Ireland, for all its human failures, has it attempted to do this".

This was in contrast to "our English sex-ridden sinful society", where only the Roman Catholic Church had stood against the increasing hedonism in the country.

In the mid-1960s, the Irish Jewish community funded the planting of an "Eamon de Valera Forest" of 10,000 trees in Israel, in honour of the then Irish President. The forest was part of a series of forests grown in honour of statesmen, including Winston Churchill and President John F Kennedy.

The tribute to de Valera was first mooted by a Dublin businessman, Harry Elliott. He helped establish the Eamon de Valera Forest Committee, chaired by Prof Mervyn Abrahamson, a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons. Robert Briscoe TD was a leading member of the project, which was driven by the Jewish National Fund (Dublin Commission).

Originally, de Valera had baulked at the idea on the grounds that he did not want his name associated with any public appeal for funds. Only when it was clear that the fundraising would receive no publicity did de Valera consent to the project.

He wrote to the Forest Committee in February 1965: "I am very pleased, indeed, at the honour which the Jewish community here propose for me, although I feel I did nothing for the Jewish community except to express the general goodwill of our people towards them and what our Constitution demands."

In a letter to Robert Briscoe, he also referred to the area where the forest would be planted as Palestine, rather than Israel. In his official correspondence with the fundraising committee, he avoided referring to the area by either name.

Prof Abrahamson planted the first sapling in the forest on government-owned land in August 1966. The ceremony took place on a hillside in central Galilee near Kafr Kana, an Arab-inherited village where, it was reported, Jesus performed his water and wine miracle.

Almost six years later, in February 1972, The Irish Times carried a photograph of the Chief Rabbi, Dr Cohen, presenting an album of photographs to Eamon de Valera, depicting the rapidly maturing forest.

The presentation drew immediate criticism in the letters pages. Michael Fitzgerald wrote from Skerries to ask whether de Valera understood that "the forest so generously named in his honour is planted on land stolen from Arab honours?" Fitzgerald further condemned the fact that the Irish State was being used to condone the seizure of the land of Palestine from its Arab owners and its occupation by "hordes of foreigners from all over the world".

The criticism was ignored. In April 1973, six two-foot-high pine trees were brought from the Eamon de Valera forest, quarantined in the Botanic Gardens for several weeks, and then replanted at a special ceremony in Áras an Úachtarán.

A dispute over the filling out of a passport application form laid bare the long-running dispute over whether the county town of Meath should be known as Navan or An Uaimh, as revealed by the papers of the Department of Justice.

A local woman, Jane McGirl, wrote a letter of complaint in September 1970 claiming that a local garda, Myles Fitzgerald, had refused to fill out her form with "An Uaimh", insisting instead on using "Navan".

The Garda were asked by the Department of Justice to investigate the matter and to submit a report. In the course of that investigation, a statement made by Sgt SB Keys claimed: "the McGirl family are known sympathisers of the Republican movement. They would not be the most loyal supporters of the gardaí, in fact the opposite could be said of the writer".

Sgt Keyes noted that there was currently a ballot being taken from the ratepayers in the town as to whether the town should be called An Uaimh or Navan. He added that the republican movement "and their sympathisers are carrying out an intensive campaign to have the name 'An Uaimh' retained. Some of these people are most abusive towards any person who uses the name 'Navan'".

Sgt Keyes observed that Garda Fitzgerald had only been in the town two weeks and was unaware of any controversy over the name. Further, he was an extremely co-operative man who had been most courteous to the public in his dealings.

In his statement, Garda Fitzgerald said that he had used the term "Navan" in all his time in the town, but that he would have used the term "An Uaimh" had he been asked to. He stated emphatically that he was never asked to use "An Uaimh".

The investigating officer in the case was Supt GJ Dennison. Supt Dennison wrote that he had interviewed Jane McGirl and her husband, Gabriel, separately. Jane McGirl had repeated the story as told in her letter. Her husband had confirmed his wife's story and had said "he felt that the Garda did not take Mrs McGirl seriously when she objected to the name 'Navan' being used".

However, the superintendent noted that he "got the impression that Mr McGirl did not approve of what his wife had done in making a complaint".

Ultimately, the superintendent concluded that Garda Fitzgerald was a well-behaved, efficient garda who was invariably courteous towards the public. He believed that any objection Jane McGirl made was a very weak one. "Consequently, the garda is unable to remember the incident, and if it happened at all (as I think it did), it was only afterwards that Mrs McGirl had strong feelings about it (possibly engendered by some of her Republican friends)".

The Garda Commissioner then wrote to the Department of Justice saying that the matter was closed as "there is no evidence available that would warrant the institution of disciplinary proceedings against him."

Attacks on a number of prominent Protestants in the early part of 1974 led to the suggestion that Protestants in Dublin might set up their own vigilante group to protect themselves.

Edmond O'Connor, from Raheny in Dublin, rang the Department of the Taoiseach in June 1974 to say that he and several of his co-religionists were deeply concerned about recent attacks on Protestants in the Republic, most notably on Senator Fox and the Earl and Countess of Donoughmore.

Edmond O'Connor, who was one of five Protestant families living side-by-side in The Crescent in Raheny, said that he felt additional security should be provided for the minority Protestant community in the south. He also said that he had called the Department of Justice, but they had been unhelpful and, in consequence, a vigilante group might be set up.

Officials in the Department of the Taoiseach contacted the Raheny Garda, who reported that O'Connor was "a bit of a crank, but not an extreme one". They also commented that O'Connor had previously been a Catholic but had "changed", even though he had recently married a Catholic widow. In sum, the Garda viewed him as "a nice enough fellow to talk to."

The Department of the Taoiseach brought the matter to the attention of the Taoiseach, Liam Cosgrave, who agreed that a substantive review should be sent to O'Connor. That letter, signed by Cosgrave's Private Secretary, MF Murray, noted "interference with Protestants in the State has been a very rare occurrence and has, apparently, in many instances been motivated by reasons other than religious affiliation".

It concluded by stating that the Garda were "fully trained and equipped to carry out these duties and can call on the Army for assistance if necessary. In these circumstances, the development of privately organised security groups would be a highly undesirable development."

There is no record of any further calls from Edmond O'Connor.

A member of the Labour Party in Ring, Co Waterford was condemned by a superintendent as being poorly disposed towards the Garda after a dispute over the use of Irish, according to files released by the Department of Justice. Supt M English wrote that it appeared that Tomás Ó Céilleachair "resents Garda supervision. He is a member of the Labour Party and contested the local elections without success. He has a tendency to domineer arising from his political outlook".

Supt English further alleged in an internal memo that Ó Céilleachair had a number of road traffic convictions for traffic offences, including speeding, dangerous driving, drunken driving and "hit and run". Tomás Ó Céilleachair had written to the Department of Justice in May 1965 to say that he was dissatisfied that none of the three gardaí working in Ring had any Irish:

"As you know, Ring is a Gaeltacht and, although it is weak, there are a lot of people working to ensure that it remains a Gaeltacht and gains in strength. It amazes me, therefore, that the Department of Justice is working against us and seeking to kill Irish in the area."

He asked that gardaí with fluent Irish be sent to Ring without delay. He also noted in passing that he had no fault with any garda in the area, either as a person or in the way they conducted their affairs.

In the final lines of his letter, Ó Céilleachair stated: "I will also write to the Taoiseach and the Minister for the Gaeltacht, to the Waterford TDs to raise the issue in Dáil, and to the newspapers".

Supt English later complained that those final lines of the letter best described the character of the writer, as they were "bordering on intimidation."

Supt English was also dismissive of the notion that gardaí in Ring needed to use Irish with any frequency: "There is no point in saying that Irish is in general use in the Ring area when in fact the opposite is the true position. It is rare that the gardaí at Ring have necessity to transact any business in the medium of Irish."

After consultation with the Garda Commissioner, the Minister for Justice wrote to Ó Céilleachair saying that he was satisfied that the gardaí in Ring were "qualified to perform their duties through Irish with anyone who asks them to do so. It is understood, however, that it is seldom that they are asked to do any work through Irish".

Once again, the list of Army Intelligncefiles released by the Department of Defencce was intriguing – it included Conor Cruise O'Brien, Desmond Fennell, Eamonn McCann, The Irish Basque Association, the Irish Civil Rights Association, the Irish Sovereignty Movement, Michael Farrell, Seán MacBride, Declan Bree, Ian Paisley, Eoghan Harris, Betty Sinclair, Joe Sherlock, Matt Merrigan, Captain James Kelly – and, once again, the files were disappointingly thin and had obviously been censored.

These names were listed under the file title, "Defence Forces: files deposited by the Military Archives", and hold out the prospect of a detailed insight into Army intelligence, but fail to deliver. Most of the files consist of scribbled notes about the people's whereabouts and newspaper articles about their speaking engagements. What information has been withheld from these files and why are we not allowed to view them in full? p