Maintaining the self-confidence of the Unionist community turned out to be even more necessary than Trimble had imagined when he determined to set up the Ulster Society. For on 15 November 1985, the British and Irish Governments signed the Anglo-Irish Agreement, which for the first time gave the Republic a formal say in the affairs of Ulster – on everything from security, public appointments, to the official use of flags and symbols.9 As Trimble later noted, the 1985 Agreement did not even contain any declaration – as in the 1973 Act – stating that Northern Ireland was part of the United Kingdom, nor that it was the policy of the British Government to support the wishes of the people of Northern Ireland.10 Worse still from a Unionist viewpoint, the Republic had achieved this role in the internal affairs of the Province without rescinding its claim over Northern Ireland contained in Articles 2 and 3 of the 1937 Constitution, which was illegal under international law. In the words of the Northern Ireland Assembly’s report on the AIA – largely drafted by Trimble – ‘the agreement clearly diminishes British sovereignty in Northern Ireland by admitting a foreign government into the structure and processes of government of Northern Ireland’. The Intergovernmental conference – with its secretariat at Maryfield, on the outskirts of Belfast – was ‘a joint authority in embryo, which if allowed to develop will become the effective government of Northern Ireland’.11 Trimble now believes that the British state was disappointed with the results of the AIA and pulled back from the logical drift towards joint authority. But even though today he prefers the description of ‘direct rule with the Greenest of tinges’, he still shudders at the thought of the AIA effectively placing the Irish Government inside British ministers’ private offices.
It was an even greater blow than the suspension of Stormont in 1972. As such, it fulfilled the Ulster-British people’s worst nightmares, both in the contents of the treaty and in the manner of its negotiation. For the UUP leadership had been ruthlessly excluded from consultation about the document. But should Molyneaux have seen it coming? As is shown by his Calvin Macnee article in Fortnight of 2 February 1985, even a relatively peripheral figure such as Trimble spotted that something was in the works as early as November 1984, when Thatcher and Fitzgerald held their press conference at Chequers (as has been noted, the occasion of her famous ‘out, out, out’ pronouncement – on the findings of the New Ireland Forum of the south’s constitutional parties and the SDLP). Her words had delighted Unionists, and horrified nationalists. But Trimble was not so sure. He watched the whole press conference on television with fellow delegates to the UUP’s annual conference at the Slieve Donard Hotel in Newcastle, Co. Down. What she actually said was: ‘A United Ireland was one solution. That is out. A second solution was confederation of the two states, that is out. A third solution was joint authority. That is out. That is a derogation from sovereignty.’12 Trimble noted, though, that she had hesitated when the third option was mentioned and had to be prompted by a civil servant – an odd slip for someone as well-briefed as she was. He concluded from this lapse that if the two Prime Ministers really had been discussing the New Ireland Forum, she would not have needed to be prompted. It followed in Trimble’s mind, therefore, that they must have been discussing something else.
But what was that something else? Thatcher, who feared that the Cabinet might leak, left the negotiations largely in the hands of her Cabinet Secretary, Sir Robert Armstrong, and one of his officials, Sir David Good-all. Increasingly desperate efforts to find out what was going on were met with ever more evasiveness as proposals emerged in the Dublin press. At one meeting at No. 10 between Molyneaux, Paisley, Thatcher and Douglas Hurd (the Northern Ireland Secretary) on 30 August 1985, the Prime Minister and Ulster Secretary simply listened and took notes but offered no guidance whatsoever on the contents of the negotiations. Many Unionists, including Trimble, could not grasp why Molyneaux – who had been aware of the seriousness of what was being negotiated for some time – waited till August 1985 to start agitating against the emerging deal; only then was a joint working group between the UUP and DUP set up. Trimble shares the conventional view of many Unionists that Molyneaux had relied excessively upon Enoch Powell, who believed that such an agreement would not be reached (and whose utility was diminished by his own highly ambivalent relationship with Thatcher). Trimble also thinks that Molyneaux might have relied too much on Ian Gow, who had left his original post as Thatcher’s PPS for a ministerial slot and who inevitably no longer enjoyed the same access as in the first term.13 Frank Millar – who was then general-secretary of the party – remembers that although Molyneaux went along with his contingency planning in anticipation of an Anglo-Irish deal, the UUP leader nonetheless believed to the last that there would be no agreement.14
Why had Thatcher done it? Many were astonished, especially after Anglo-Irish relations suffered during the pro-Argentinian tilt of the Haughey Government during the Falklands War of 1982.15 First, she felt that ‘something must be done’ over the rising tide of violence and the growth in Sinn Fein’s electoral support after the Hunger Strikes of 1981: the SDLP needed to show that constitutional politics could deliver something and the AIA would comprehensively demonstrate that capacity (though Fitzgerald admits that he continued to emphasise the degree of the republican threat during the negotiations, even after the Sinn Fein challenge had begun to wane during the May 1985 local government elections).16 Second, she was told that it would yield all sorts of new security cooperation: a top-ranking Gardai agent in the IRA, Sean O’Callaghan, had recently supplied the information which aborted the attempted assassination of the Prince and Princess of Wales at a Duran Duran concert. She may, therefore, have believed that signing the deal would open the door to more such successes.17 Third, her old friend, Ronald Reagan exerted some pressure: according to an authoritative biography of Tip O’Neill, the Irish-American Speaker of the US House of Representatives, the White House mollified O’Neill’s anger over Administration policy in Central America by ‘delivering’ something to the Massachusetts Democrat on Ulster.18 Moreover, by associating the Irish with decision-making on Ulster, the Government hoped to minimise the international costs of this engagement. And fourth, as Trimble believes, she may well have been fed up with the UUP leadership for turning down every government initiative after she did not automatically proceed with their favoured proposals in the 1979 election manifesto.19
Trimble actually heard about the signing of the Anglo-Irish Agreement during his sabbatical year whilst on holiday in the Costa del Sol. Daphne Trimble recalls them turning to one another and saying, ‘This will mean civil war.’20 Like so many Unionists, Trimble erroneously thought the British state was on the verge of a complete scuttle from Northern Ireland. ‘After the AIA, it was perfectly obvious that normal constituency activity was useless and the MPs had completely failed,’ he recalls.21 The effects of all of this were swift and dramatic: between 100,000 and 200,000 Unionists assembled to protest at Belfast City Hall on 23 November.22 But how would the initial surge of protest be sustained? As in the early 1970s, Unionists felt themselves to be in a bind. If they played by the rules, no one would take any notice. Yet if they resorted to large-scale violence, they feared that the rest of the United Kingdom would be disgusted and would accordingly resolve –