Secret meeting at Baldonnel airbase, where Queen landed today, led to normalisation of Anglo-Irish relations
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Sir John Major was the first prime minister to normalise Anglo-Irish relations, paving the way for the Queen's historic visit to Dublin. Photograph: Stefan Rousseau/PA
Fintan O'Toole, the Irish writer, made one of the sharpest observations about the Queen's visit to Ireland which started at 12.05pm today when she stepped out of her plane onto the tarmac of the Baldonnel airbase.
This is what O'Toole told the Today programme this morning:
This visit really represents not so much a change in the relationship between Britain and Ireland as a recognition of a change that has already happened. It is easy to forget really that the British and Irish governments have been working together with incredible closeness and almost with one mind on the very difficult question of Northern Ireland since the mid 1990s and certainly since the Belfast Agreement in 1998.
Mary McAleese, the Irish president, has waited 13 years to welcome the Queen because London and Dublin felt that the visit could only take place once a full political settlement had been agreed in Northern Ireland. That only happened last year when policing and criminal justice powers were devolved to Stormont.
O'Toole was arguing that London and Dublin were way ahead of the political parties and have been working together for well over a decade. But it was not ever thus. It is often forgotten the Northern Ireland peace process could never have happened unless London and Dublin resolved their own differences.
Tony Blair and Bertie Ahern, the former British and Irish prime ministers, are rightly lauded for their historic roles in leading the Good Friday Agreement negotiations. But their warm and constructive relationship was only made possible after their predecessors had embarked on the hard graft of normalising Anglo-Irish relations.
The key relationship was between John Major, prime minister from 1990-97, and Albert Reynolds, Taoiseach between 1992-94. The two men, who had formed a strong bond as finance ministers at EU meetings in Brussels, had a straightforward and open relationship.
Major and Reynolds had a tough job. Their predecessors, Margaret Thatcher and Charles Haughey, had a tetchy relationship. Their relationship started well at the famous famous "teapot" summit in 1981 when Haughey presented Thatcher with a silver Georgian teapot and they agreed to examine the "totality of relationships" between the two islands. But Thatcher became alarmed by Haughey's determination to press ahead what she regarded as overly nationalist plans.
The breakthrough in Anglo-Irish relations took place under John Major and Albert Reynolds in 1993 at, of all places, the Baldonnel military airbase where the Queen was welcomed today. Lord Butler of Brockwell, the former cabinet secretary, flew to the airbase for a secret meeting with Reynolds who had an early draft of a proposed new Anglo-Irish declaration. This eventually became the Downing Street Declaration of December 1993 which was one of the first steps on the lengthy road that led to the Good Friday Agreement four and a half years later.
The secret Baldonnel meeting proved a wake up call for London and Dublin:
• London realised that its secret talks with the IRA were beginning to pay off because Reynolds said that the new declaration could lead to a ceasefire. But London also realised that it would have to do more to reach out to republicans.
• Dublin learnt that Britain was open to negotiation, though at that stage Reynolds did not know about the secret IRA talks. But Reynolds also learnt from Butler that his proposed declaration was overly nationalist.
The Baldonnel meeting paved the way for the most intense round of negotiations between London and Dublin since the Anglo-Irish Agreement of 1985. This resulted in the signing of the Downing Street Declaration in No 10 on 15 December 1993. This contained the "principle of consent" – rock upon which the peace process was built – which declared that the constitutional future of Northern Ireland would be decided by its people.
This had been included in the Anglo-Irish Agreement of 1985. But that was signed by a Fine Gael Taoiseach, Garret Fitzgerald, and was condemned by Haughey for copper-fastening partition. Reynolds was Haughey's successor as leader of Fianna Fail.