On the 50th anniversary of Terence O’Neill’s meeting with Jack Lynch, Ryle Dwyer examines the two leaders’ efforts to improve relations between North and South

Fifty years ago today, Prime Minister Terence O’Neill of Northern Ireland called on the Taoiseach Jack Lynch at Iveagh House, Dublin.

There had been no advance publicity, largely to ensure that Ian Paisley would not be able to upstage the meeting with his antics.

O’Neill arrived in Dublin, unannounced on January 8, 1968. Lynch came out to the car to greet him. The dozen reporters present were impressed at the friendly informality.

“How are you Jack?” O’Neill said as he alighted from the car, extending his hand to the Taoiseach.

O’Neill was accompanied by his wife, Jean, and a number of officials. They had lunch in Iveagh House with the Taoiseach and his wife, Maureen, together with a number of official staff, and five of Lynch’s cabinet colleagues and their wives.

The ministers were Tánaiste Frank Aiken, Charles Haughey of Finance, George Colley of Industry and

Commerce, Neil Blaney of Agriculture and Fisheries, and Transport Minister Erskine Childers.

The official statement at the end of the four-hour meeting stated that progress had been made in “areas of consultation and co-operation.”

The Taoiseach said they discussed industry, tourism, electricity supply, and trade, as well as tariff concessions, and “measures taken by both governments to prevent the spread of foot-and-mouth disease from Britain.”

Afterwards, O’Neill returned to the North, by a different route in order to avoid any possible demonstration. Ian Paisley had been developing a high profile for himself with his attacks on O’Neill in recent months. But he missed the opportunity to protest on this occasion.

Next day he issued a statement regretting O’Neill’s return home. “I would advise Mr Lynch to keep him,” Paisley announced.

Five years earlier, in 1963, O’Neill had become Prime Minister of Northern Ireland. From very early on, he tried to break down sectarian barriers between the two Northern communities.

He also sought to improve relations with the Republic by eradicating the impasse in relations that had existed since the 1920s. He invited Taoiseach Seán Lemass to meet him at Stormont on January 14, 1965.

Lemass courageously accepted the invitation. At their initial meeting, when they were briefly alone, Lemass said to O’Neill, “I shall get into terrible trouble for this!”

“No, Mr Lemass,” the Northern premier replied, “it is I who will get into terrible trouble.”

O’Neill made his return visit to Dublin on February 9, 1965, and the two leaders agreed to co-operate on tourism and electricity. It was Lemass who made the most significant concessions, because the Irish Constitution did not recognise the existence of the North.

Article 2 of the Constitution actually claimed sovereignty over the whole island. Thus, by formally meeting the Prime Minister of Northern Ireland, O’Neill claimed that Lemass accorded him “a de facto recognition.”

The Taoiseach then bolstered this at their follow-up meeting in Iveagh House, Dublin, three weeks later.

“The place card in front of me at Iveagh House bore the inscription, Prime Minister of Northern Ireland,” O’Neill proudly explained. Surely this was tantamount to formal recognition. But many Unionists still had grave reservations about dealing with the Republic of Ireland.

In 1966 Ian Paisley established the Protestant Unionist Party to oppose O’Neill. He roused sectarian tension by holding mass demonstrations at which he branded O’Neill as the “Ally of Popery.”

Nevertheless, public opinion polls indicated support for O’Neill’s leadership from both communities in the North.

After Jack Lynch replaced Lemass as Taoiseach in late 1966, O’Neill continued with his efforts to improve relations with the Dublin government by inviting Lynch to Stormont Castle. The Taoiseach travelled to Belfast by car on December 11, 1967.

There was no formal announcement of his visit, but word was leaked to Paisley after the Taoiseach’s car crossed the border.

Paisley arrived at Stormont with his wife and a handful of supporters, just minutes before the Taoiseach. With snow on the ground, two of Paisley’s church ministers — Rev. Ivan Foster and Rev. William McCrea — began throwing snowballs at Lynch’s car.

The Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) promptly grabbed the two ministers. While they were being bundled into a police car, Paisley was bellowing, “No Pope here!” “

Which one of us does he think is the Pope?” Lynch asked his travelling companion, T.K. Whitaker.

Paisley demanded to be arrested by the RUC, and actually tried to get into the police car with his two colleagues, but he was pulled away. The two clergymen were taken to an RUC station and quickly released.

Lynch ridiculed the protest. “It was a seasonal touch,” he said. “It reminds me of what happens when I go through a village at home and the boys come and throw snowballs.”

Paisley said he had come to protest against “the smuggling” of Lynch into Stormont. If he had known about the visit earlier, he said that he would have brought along 10,000 people to protest. Denouncing O’Neill, as a “snake in the grass,” he went on to accuse Lynch of being “a murderer of our kith and kin.”

“There is no doubt that Capt. O’Neill has the full support of his colleagues and of the country,” the Unionist Newsletter proclaimed in an editorial.

O’Neill’s four formal meetings with Lynch and his predecessor had contributed to a thaw in relations at the summit between Belfast and Dublin, but the whole process was exploited by others to fan the flames of Northern sectarianism.

People did not realise it in early 1968, but Northern Ireland was about to explode. On October 5, 1968, people gathered in Derry for a civil rights march that had been banned by Stormont.

When the march began, it was viciously attacked by the RUC. This ignited a series of further protests, which ultimately led to Bloody Sunday, and the eruption of the Troubles for the next quarter of a century.