The 2002 World Cup had been a gruelling rollercoaster for the Republic of Ireland. Nine days before the team’s first match in the tournament, hosted by Japan and South Korea, its captain and talisman Roy Keane was on his way home before a ball had been kicked, after publicly berating his manager, Mick McCarthy.
Two draws and a victory against Saudi Arabia had taken Ireland through the group stages, but after a dramatic penalty shootout against Spain, they were knocked out of the competition.
And the day after the exit, according to newly unsealed documents, the then UK prime minister, Tony Blair, suggested in a meeting that nationalists in Northern Ireland could now support England. It did not go down well.
Freshly unsealed documents from the Irish National Archives in Dublin and reported by PA Media, state that Blair attended a meeting with the nationalist Social Democratic and Labour party (SDLP) leader, Mark Durkan, alongside the Northern Ireland secretary of state, John Reid, to discuss policing and a recent criminal justice bill.
On entering the room, Blair is said to have commiserated with Durkan over Ireland’s defeat and “offered, apparently genuinely, that the SDLP were now supporting England”.
The revelation, revealed in a footnote, continues: “Blair was a bit crestfallen to hear Durkan express himself in a very non-committal manner on the matter of England’s likely fortunes.”
Any unlikely support would have been short-lived. Just five days after the meeting England were knocked out in their quarter-final against the eventual champions, Brazil, on 21 June.
If the meeting started badly, it only went downhill, the document suggests. The former prime minister and architect of the Good Friday agreement appeared disengaged and tired, SDLP representatives at the meeting told Irish officials, according to the briefing document.
It states that he was undoubtedly somewhat distracted by the Black Rod affair then gripping Westminster, an episode that saw the New Labour government in open warfare with the rightwing press about claims that No 10 tried to push for a more prominent role for the prime minister in Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother’s lying in state and funeral.
Blair did not seem to have an appetite for discussing Northern Ireland, and while listening would refer answers to Reid – who was “convivial and charming in a slightly desperate kind of way” – the briefing note says.
The newly released documents also contain details on another difficult moment for Blair.
Earlier in 2002, he admitted to the Irish taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, that he was “stunned” by the negative reaction to Sinn Féin MPs – who do not take their seats in Westminster as part of a long-held rejection of its legitimacy in Northern Ireland – being offered offices in Westminster.
The abstentionist MPs do not swear an oath of allegiance to the British monarch, which had previously ruled them out of attending the Commons chamber or using offices in Westminster. But a December vote in the parliament removed the long-held ban on the party being offered offices. Nine Labour backbenchers also voted against the government’s motion. It provoked uproar from Conservatives and Unionists, who said it carried security issues.
The Irish record of the meeting reveals that the prime minister admitted to being naive. The minutes of the meeting also state: “Sinn Féin in return must acknowledge that they had some sense of responsibility. There is a feeling that after their electoral successes, they need to play by ‘our rules’.”
