AN ACCIDENTAL DIPLOMAT My Years in the Irish Foreign Service 1987-1995 Eamon Delaney lives in Dublin where he is an author and freelance journalist, contributing to a variety of newspapers, magazines and radio programmes. In 1995, he published a novel, The Casting of Mr O’Shaughnessy. He is presently working on another but may yet come to regret the forfeit of a Civil Service pension. Acknowledgements My thanks to those who read the book in its early stages, including David Murphy, Mary Rose Doorly, John Ryan — who suggested the title — and Joe Joyce. Thanks also to my sister, Catherine, and to the many people who backed up facts and stories, especially Dermot McEvoy and Patrick Farrelly in New York, and Ray O’Hanlon of the Irish Echo. Special thanks must go to all at New Island Books, especially Ciara Considine and Edwin Higel for their help and perseverance and Joseph Hoban for publicity. And to Roddy Flynn, the editor, whose forensic eye and surgical suggestions did much to improve the clarity of the story. I also am grateful to Barry Lyons, solicitor, for legal advice and to Micheal O’Higgins, S.C. and Ronan Munro, who read the text at different stages. AN ACCIDENTAL DIPLOMAT My Years in the Irish Foreign Service 1987-1995 Eamon Delaney Contents Prologue Section I: Ireland 1 Joining Up 2 EU Co-ordination 3 ‘Our good friends, the Iraqis’ 4 The Soviet Desk 5 ‘Peaceful Co-existence’ 6 EU Presidency 1990 7 Tehran or Toronto: The Postings Lottery Section II: United Nations 8 The World in One Room 9 Horse-trading on Human Rights 10 A Walk in the Garden 11 Gulf War Section III: America 12 Irish America 13 Dancing for Ireland 14 Greens Under the Bed 15 Back to Ellis Island 16 Protestors at the Gate 17 High Season Section IV: Northern Ireland 18 Bugs and Shredders 19 Border Travels 20 ‘Our Friends in the North’ 21 The Script Factory 22 The Peace Process 23 The Fall of Albert 24 Buenos Aires or Bust Glossary For my mother, Nancy A diplomat is someone who thinks twice before saying nothing. Old French saying Section I Ireland 1 Joining Up In the centre of Dublin, on the south side of St Stephen’s Green is Iveagh House, headquarters of the Department of Foreign Affairs, the Irish foreign service. It overlooks the Green and is a fine building, with a white portico frontage and lavender-glassed lanterns which give it an unusually camp quality. At night, beneath the portico, a Garda is on duty, with another inside the house and another outside the Department of Justice next door. On the roof, a large spiky aerial keeps All Missions Abroad (Embassies and Consulates) in constant contact with ‘HQ’, as they call it. Sometimes, at night, when all the chandelier lights are blazing, the place looks like a Viennese Opera House, which is appropriate given its history and that of its former inhabitants. Originally, the house belonged to Dr Robert Clayton, the Protestant Bishop of Cork, who fell into public disgrace in the 1740s when he disputed aspects of the Holy Trinity. It then passed to John Philpot Curran, Master of the Rolls in the doomed Irish Parliament of the 18th century, and father of Sarah Curran, fiancée of Robert Emmet, the young rebel and beheaded patriot. In 1856, the Guinness family acquired it and, after an extravagant makeover, the house served as a major venue for Vice-Regal society with its many balls and parties. But Irish independence saw the end of that privileged world. ‘Deeply distressed’ by 1916 and other ‘upheavals’, the Earl of Iveagh adjourned to London and, in 1939, his son offered the house to the State. There was a story that when the Taoiseach, Eamon de Valera personally came around to see it, a man, still employed as a butler, and rubbing the sleep from his eyes, came out to open the door. ‘Come for the Last Waltz, my lord?’ Inside the house, are some of the most impressive rooms in the city. The stone-flagged entrance hall is adorned with Italian statues of The Sleeping Faun and The Reading Girl. A sweeping, double return staircase, wide enough to accommodate the ball-goers dresses, and surrounded by rococo and neo-classical motifs, leads up to a ballroom at the back of the house, lined with gilt and mirrors and apparently (and, appropriately, given the diplomatic connotations) inspired by the palace at Versailles. Around the room are balconies and alcoves