Michael Heney - The arms crisis of 1970 : the plot that never was

THE
ARMS
CRISIS
OF
1970

THE
ARMS
CRISIS
OF
1970

MICHAEL HENEY

AN APOLLO BOOK

www.headofzeus.com

First published in the UK in 2020 by Apollo, an imprint of Head of Zeus Ltd

Copyright Michael Heney, 2020

The moral right of Michael Heney to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN (FTP): 9781789545593

ISBN (E): 9781789545616

Cover design: Dan Mogford | Front cover images: Charles Haughey Independent News And Media/Getty Images Jack Lynch Daily Mirror/Mirrorpix/Mirrorpix via Getty Images Glass Shutterstock | Author photograph: Stephanie Joy Photography Back cover image: Minister for Defence James Gibbons taking part in an Irish Army training exercise at Gormanstown Camp, August 1969 The Irish Press

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This book is dedicated to the late Jim and Sheila Kelly

Although the 1970 Arms Crisis was a key event in the history of twentieth-century Ireland, half a century later conflicting views of it abound. In the generally dominant view, the crisis arose when Taoiseach Jack Lynch uncovered a dangerous conspiracy within his own government, one that has been seen as threatening democratic rule in the Irish Republic. The perceived plot was aimed at rearming the IRA, and as such risked generating an all-Ireland, thirty-two-county sectarian conflagration; Lynch, after vacillating for a time; was seen as having foiled the plot by sacking the supposed culprits, his two most powerful ministers, Charles Haughey and Neil Blaney, for their involvement in a failed gun-running attempt. This display of a new-found steel by Lynch reasserted his control over the government south of the border, and has been seen as narrowly averting tragedy on the island of Ireland.

This is a view of the Arms Crisis that, although not unchallenged, has retained sway both in the popular mind and in academia. This is despite the emergence into the public realm since 2001 of substantial documentation that, on closer analysis, should point to a very different narrative. This book relies heavily on the Irish and British State papers for 196970, but also on a range of new and hitherto unprocessed material presented here for the first time; it offers a rebalancing of the 1970 Arms Crisis, with a very different take on Lynch and on most of the other principals in the affair.

At the time, Lynchs sudden sacking of Haughey and Blaney caused a political convulsion. It generated widespread fears that the Irish Republic, after almost fifty years of partition, would be drawn into civil conflict inside Northern Ireland. The spark for the upheaval was the discovery of a failed attempt to import arms for republicans in Northern Ireland, involving not just some of Lynchs cabinet but also an Irish army intelligence officer, Captain James Kelly. When the Leader of the Dil Opposition, Fine Gaels Liam Cosgrave, confronted Lynch with this information on 5 May 1970, Lynchs response, the immediate dismissal from cabinet of his two most senior ministers, created shock waves in the country. It became clear shortly afterwards that Lynch had known of allegations against Haughey and Blaney for several weeks, but had failed to act against them.