The IRA declared a ceasefire over Christmas 1974, expecting the ‘Brits’ to reciprocate at once with dialogue. But there was no movement, and the IRA leadership became increasingly frustrated. Brendan was made abundantly aware of their anger, and their suspicion that the perfidious ‘Brits’ were at it again. He became worried that the credibility and the trust he had so carefully built up over the previous two years was about to evaporate. On Christmas Eve he rang Oatley in the middle of the night, as Oatley says was his wont, and warned him that things seemed about to fall apart. He wanted to know what the IRA wanted to know: what were the British prepared to discuss, and crucially, was a British withdrawal on the agenda? The phrase Oatley used on behalf of the British was ‘structures of disengagement from Ireland’. To him, this meant the disengagement of the security forces and their withdrawal from Catholic areas in response to a cessation of violence. So when Brendan asked the $64,000 question of whether ‘withdrawal’ was on the agenda, the answer wasn’t yes and it wasn’t no. Oatley’s basic message to Brendan, and therefore to the IRA, was that once violence stopped, anything could be discussed. He admitted to me that he was being intentionally ambiguous. ‘I think that was the nature of our dialogue, and I think that the ambiguity was recognised by both sides, so that each could make of it what it wanted. Ambiguous phrases were very much the currency we were involved in.’11 As Oatley knew, there was a world of difference between discussing withdrawal and actually carrying it out. But his message was enough to lead the IRA to believe that the phrase ‘structures of disengagement’ meant the beginning of the road to their goal, the ending of British rule in Northern Ireland. By this time Brendan knew that Oatley was working for MI6, although the IRA was still under the impression that he was just a political adviser seconded from the Foreign Office. Oatley had had to tell Brendan of his real affiliation, as Brendan had to know about what Oatley described as ‘certain procedures’.
The following day, Brendan climbed into his battered Datsun and began the long journey south through the snow to see Rory O’Brady at his home in Roscommon in the seemingly endless flatlands of central Ireland. But first he had to get petrol. It was Christmas Day, and the petrol stations were shut. He was forced to call on a local garage owner whom he knew, and who obliged by filling up his car. ‘He said, “I’m taking no money,” and he didn’t know what I was doing. People sensed that something that might alter their lives was happening.’
Brendan arrived at O’Brady’s house just as the family were sitting down to Christmas dinner, and tapped on the window. Brendan Duddy was the last person Rory O’Brady expected to see staring through his window on Christmas Day, but he invited him in, put an extra plate on the table and told him to tuck in. The dinner seemed to last forever as O’Brady went on about the weather, with Brendan bursting to give him Oatley’s message. The plates put away, the two adjourned to a room where they could sit alone and talk. Brendan told O’Brady he had had a message from Michael Oatley, and produced a piece of paper with notes of the telephone conversation he had had the previous evening. The note was not detailed, in case it was intercepted by the police on either side of the border. Brendan said that everything the IRA wanted to talk about was on the table. That included withdrawal – although there was no indication that the British ever intended to carry it out. O’Brady explained that he couldn’t make a decision himself on a face-to-face meeting with the ‘Brits’, but would have to consult and get permission. ‘Consulting’ meant talking to the IRA’s Army Council. ‘I thought the best thing was to confront them with the primary source, the intermediary himself,’ O’Brady told me. The Army Council wanted to see the whites of Brendan’s eyes.
On New Year’s Eve 1974 Brendan made the journey with O’Brady to the IRA’s inner sanctum. Brendan says he didn’t look out of the car window, and kept his eyes on the floor, as he didn’t want to know where it was or the route they were taking to get there. These were his rules for staying alive. ‘I didn’t want to know the road signs, and I didn’t want to ask.’ They finally arrived at a big country house outside Dublin belonging to a businessman who had presumably allowed it to be used in the name of the cause. ‘It was the most enormous house I’d ever seen,’ Brendan said, ‘almost a castle.’ He was shown into a huge drawing room where the IRA leadership was waiting. It seemed an unlikely setting for a meeting with the most wanted men in Ireland. ‘They were sitting round this big table, just like a board of directors. Everyone was very polite.’ O’Brady waited in the wings, as it wasn’t normal for the President of Sinn Féin to be there as a member of the Army Council, although he could be present ex officio, in his political capacity. Seamus Twomey was in the chair, alongside his fellow Belfast Republican Billy McKee. McKee told me of his surprise when Brendan walked in. ‘We were just finishing up an Army Council meeting. He looked bloody scared when he came into that room. I’d never seen Brendan Duddy before, and I was amazed, because it isn’t on the books to bring anybody to an Army Council meeting. There was nobody at these meetings except Army Council men.’ Nevertheless, they soon got down to business, as O’Brady remembers. ‘They didn’t give him an easy time. They questioned him very closely. It was a very serious matter.’ I asked him if they suspected that Brendan might be a British spy. ‘The question didn’t arise. They were aware that he was the person who had been conveying these messages for a number of years, and that this channel was totally reliable.’
Brendan explained that he had been talking to Michael Oatley, whom he described as ‘a servant of the British government’ (technically, Oatley was referred to by the government as ‘the British government representative’). The IRA was more interested in the message than the man, and Brendan duly conveyed the ambiguous communication, although I suspect the ambiguities were not dwelt on. At this stage both parties wanted to get on with the business of dialogue. Brendan insisted that he make all the security arrangements for the meeting, which he said would take place at his house in Derry. This was the point at which he enlisted the services of his friend Bernadette Mount, to drive some of the IRA leaders across the border. Bernadette is a most unlikely IRA courier, which is why Brendan chose her. Attractive, quick-witted, feisty and brave, she’s the last person to arouse suspicion at army checkpoints on either side of the border. ‘She was very cheerful and in no way anxious or fearful,’ says O’Brady. ‘She just rose to the occasion, and that was appreciated highly by all of us and still is.’
There were some hairy moments as they approached army checkpoints: ‘It was nerve-racking,’ says Bernadette. ‘I’d write my car registration on the front of the dashboard, as I’m hopeless at numbers.’ She hid O’Brady’s notes and papers by stuffing them under her jumper. Bernadette not only ferried the IRA leaders to Derry, she put them up in her house as well. She remembers the sheer ordinariness of it all, and showed me some photographs she’d taken at the time. Seamus Twomey was singing Irish songs – ‘He was a nice singer.’ Billy McKee helped clear out the grate, insisting it was man’s work – ‘Billy lit the fire every day.’ And Rory O’Brady was wandering around in his paisley pyjamas, which Bernadette found very amusing – ‘I told him I’d send the photo to Ian Paisley, and he thought it was funny.’ She was clearly a great fan of Michael Oatley: ‘He was tall, thin and perfectly dressed. Everything about him was just like James Bond.