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It was by then well known that in 1972 the British government had flown a group of IRA leaders, including Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness, to London for talks with the then Northern Ireland secretary William Whitelaw. Now the Observer was reporting that the latest talks had been in progress “for many months”. David Hoey: It would be an act of incredible foolishness for DUP to accept any ‘promise’ of legislation on the Union from this Conservative government Brian Eno has just won the Golden Lion for music at the Venice Biennale, which obliged him to perform with an orchestra. Anyone expecting classical conformity from this boffin of sound, however, hasn’t been paying attention for the past... ★★★★☆ A gripping exploration of how MI5 and MI6 worked for a ceasefire with the IRA – and how one meeting changed everything' Telegraph
Nicola Sturgeon has insisted she has “nothing to hide” but repeatedly refused to say whether she deleted messages sought by the UK Covid inquiry. The former first minister was challenged over reports that she destroyed communications that have been requested by the investigation. The Scottish... Nicola Sturgeon has insisted she has “nothing to hide” but repeatedly refused to say whether she deleted messages sought by the UK Covid inquiry. The former first minister was challenged over reports that she destroyed communications that have been requested by the investigation. The Scottish... Nicola Sturgeon has insisted she has “nothing to hide” but repeatedly refused to say whether she deleted messages sought by the... New music can be a tough sell, as Birmingham Contemporary Music Group found when only a handful of... ★★★★☆Peter Matthew Hillsman Taylor was a U.S. author and writer. Considered to be one of the finest American short story writers, Taylor's fictional milieu is the urban South. His characters, usually middle or upper class people, often are living in a time of change and struggle to discover and define their roles in society. Logan Roy himself – Brian Cox – joins Ross this weekend. Also in the studio: Murder Mystery 2 stars Adam Sandler and Jennifer Aniston, Taskmaster’s Greg Davies, Ruth Wilson (set to star in the Young Vic’s 24-hour show The Second Woman) and Mercury prize winner Arlo Parks. HR Film choice Neil Parish is the Tory who was caught watching porn in the Commons. Now he stars in Channel 4’s Banged Up
Women’s Super League Football: Tottenham v Arsenal, 2pm,Sky Sports Main Event At Brisbane Road. Followed by Man United v West Ham at 5pm. Big Night of Musicals 2023 By the National Lottery Big Night of Musicals 2023 by the National Lottery 7.50pm, BBC One By that time, however, McGuinness had passed a historic message to Robert, via Duddy, in which he said: “The conflict is over, but we need your advice on how to bring it to a close.” On the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement, Peter Taylor tells for the first time the gripping story of Operation Chiffon, the top-secret intelligence operation that helped bring peace to Ireland. Chiffon’s mission was to get the IRA to end its violent campaign and embrace the political process that eventually led to the historic Good Friday Agreement 25 years ago.
Taylor recounts how Oatley readily admitted his rule-breaking to his political masters: it was, Oatley said, “very naughty of me”, but he was less than a week from retirement. When the second infraction was discovered, Robert felt obliged to resign from MI5. Absorbing … timely … The secretive, delicate, and complex machinations of [Operation Chiffon] are skilfully woven through a comprehensive retelling of the Troubles by Taylor … The author expertly captures that story here, of a collective effort by many resolute individuals, so that they will never be forgotten in what they did There would always be those on both sides of the Irish Sea who believed that no spoon was long enough to sup with the IRA. But the reception that Mayhew received suggests that political and public opinion was by then at least in line with the government – and quite possibly ahead of it – in believing it was time to talk about peace.
These talks were often at an impasse. The British wanted the IRA to end its violence before they would commence direct negotiations; the IRA knew that without its bullets and bombs, it had very little with which to bargain. In light of how high the human and political stakes were , it is unsurprising to discover that Operation Chiffon is a compelling, exhilarating historical account. A significant journalistic “scoop” for the author, it is also an authoritative, scholarly, insightful and balanced treatment of one of the most extraordinary intelligence cases of modern times. Setting the operation and its antecedents in their proper historical context, Taylor supplies his readership with a kaleidoscope of detail, vignettes and personal recollections pertaining to the epoch in question. Award-winning BBC journalist Peter Taylor reveals the extraordinary story of how a former undercover MI5 officer put his life and career on the line to encourage the IRA to end its violent campaign and embrace politics. Ambiguous phrases were very much the currency we were involved with,” one of the MI6 officers, Michael Oatley, tells Taylor. The point, he adds, was to encourage the IRA to believe that its aspiration of a united Ireland might be possible through peaceful means and that the British government could help. Gerry Kelly also takes part in the documentary, saying that the MI5 spy “did the right thing” by defying his bosses and meeting the IRA in the wake of the Warrington atrocity.Operation Chiffon, as the communications came to be known on the British side, also chronicles the extraordinary risks that the go-betweens sometimes took, and the ways in which they frequently redoubled their efforts to achieve peace through dialogue at those times when the carnage was at its most unspeakable and their chances of success seemed most remote.
As the government’s national archive for England, Wales and the United Kingdom, The National Archives hold over 1,000 years of the nation’s records for everyone to discover and use. For their part, the British, while stressing that there could be no withdrawal without the consent of the majority of people in Northern Ireland, would use deliberately vague language. They told the IRA that they were prepared to discuss “structures of disengagement”, for example, while withholding their reservations about the century in which they believed that might happen. Nobody could foresee that 23 years later the train would hit the buffers of Brexit The same year Sinn Fein published minutes of the meeting, compiled by Mr Kelly, which revealed the spy said: “The final solution is union… this island will be as one.” In one of the longest interviews he ever gave, the Friends actor confided that he was ‘a dark soul’ who dreamed of meeting the right woman and starting a familyFor much of 1983 and 1984, Frankie Goes to Hollywood dominated the pop landscape so totally that... ★★★★✩ Journalist Peter Taylor reveals the extraordinary story of how a former undercover MI5 officer put his life and career on the line to encourage the IRA to end its violent campaign and embrace politics More Royal Mail industrial action taking place in 2023 may have an impact on delivery times to all destinations both within the UK and internationally. These delays are out of our control. Martin McGuinness, Sinn Féin’s chief negotiator in the Northern Ireland peace process, in 1998. Photograph: Gerry Penny/AFP/Getty Images
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