“The Origins and the Negotiation of the International Fund for Ireland”
Address by Seán Donlon Secretary, Department of Foreign Affairs(1981-87), at ‘40 Years on – Reflections on How an International Fund Can Support Peace and Prosperity’, Riddel Hall, Queen’s University Belfast, 24th September 2026.
The origins of the International Fund for Ireland go back to August 1977 when President Carter became the first US President to indicate an active involvement in Irish or Anglo-Irish affairs. Influenced by Speaker O’Neill, Senator Ted Kennedy, John Hume and the lobbying of the Irish Embassy in Washington he issued a statement calling for the establishment in Northern Ireland of a government which would command widespread acceptance and for a just solution which would involve the support of the Irish Government. In addition – and this was added specifically at John Hume’s request – Carter pledged that in the event of a settlement; the US would join with others to encourage job-creating investment. That was the seed that grew to become the International Fund for Ireland nine years later in 1986.
In 1981 President Carter’s term ended and he was succeeded by Ronald Reagan. Irish diplomacy was then faced with a double challenge. Firstly, the UK Government, headed by Margaret Thatcher since 1979, had to be persuaded to join with the Irish Government in seeking a new Northern Ireland arrangement. Secondly, we had to ensure that as far as possible Carter’s 1977 commitment would be honoured.
The omens were not very promising in the early 80s. The special relationship between Reagan and Thatcher was in full bloom and Northern Ireland was low on official Washington’s agenda.
But that was to reckon without the continuing influence of Speaker O’Neill. He had quickly established an excellent working relationship with the President. And the President, to the surprise of many, showed an interest in his Irish roots. Before he became President, he had visited Ireland twice and on his first St. Patrick’s Day in office he came to the Irish Embassy publicly to acknowledge his Irishness. Throughout his presidency he took an active interest in Anglo-Irish matters and made a state visit to Ireland in 1984.
Negotiations for a new Northern Ireland arrangement were initiated by Garret FitzGerald and Margaret Thatcher in the Spring of 1984. They were conducted by a small team of officials led on the Irish side by the Secretary to the Government, Dermot Nally and on the UK side by the Cabinet Secretary Sir Robert Armstrong. There were 29 formal negotiating sessions and numerous informal sessions. There were also frequent contacts at political level involving FitzGerald and Thatcher as well as their senior ministers.
By the Spring of 1985 the Dublin-London negotiations had reached the point where the Irish side felt it appropriate to raise the possibility of international financial support for any agreement reached, bearing in mind Carter’s 1977 statement.
Throughout 1984/85, as a member of the Irish negotiation team (and a former Ambassador to the US), I travelled regularly to Washington to keep key players in the US Administration and Congress informed of progress in the negotiations. On the Administration side, Bill Clark was in effect Reagan’s adviser on Irish matters. He was successively deputy Secretary of State, head of the National Security Council, Secretary of the Interior and “adviser at large” to the President. Clark’s relationship with Reagan stretched back to 1967 when he was Executive Secretary to Reagan as governor of California. His interest in Ireland had started in the early 50s when he spent his honeymoon in county Monaghan. Subsequently he bought a house in Dublin and after his retirement from politics joined the well-known Irish law firm McCann FitzGerald.
On the Congressional side we kept Speaker O’Neill and Senator Kennedy fully informed. Given the role of the Congress relating to all federal funding the position of the Speaker as the leader of the House of Representatives was central.
In June 1985 the Taoiseach in a memorandum to Government reported that he had spoken about possible international financial support for an Anglo-Irish Agreement to the heads of Government of France, Germany, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and Canada and had received a positive reaction in principle. The Tánaiste Dick Spring had spoken to the President of the EU Commission, and the Minister for Foreign Affairs had spoken to the Australian Foreign Minister. All had reacted positively. Reporting on the British position, the Taoiseach noted that “Mrs Thatcher had evinced considerable enthusiasm about an international fund, seeing in it perhaps, not alone financial advantage, but a concrete expression of an end to international criticism of British policy on Northern Ireland, notably in the US.”
In July 1985 crucial political meetings took place on the margins of a CSCE meeting in Helsinki. The Minister for Foreign Affairs Peter Barry initially met separately with the US Secretary of State George Schultz and the UK Foreign Secretary Geoffrey Howe. Subsequently a tripartite meeting involving all three took place. Progress to date in the Anglo-Irish negotiations and specifically on the creation of international financial support for an Anglo-Irish agreement was discussed and both Schultz and Howe indicated approval of the general direction and agreed to encourage officials to move as quickly as possible towards agreements.
In October Taoiseach Garret FitzGerald met Speaker O’Neill in New York. The Speaker suggested that the formal approach for US financial support should come jointly and formally from both Ireland and the UK. As soon as that was done, he would indicate to the President his support for the request and give an assurance that he would ensure that Congress would facilitate it in every possible way.
Early in November 1985 Robert Armstrong and I travelled to Washington and accompanied by our respective ambassadors met with senior Administration officials and with Speaker O’Neill and Senator Kennedy. We briefed on the likely terms of the Anglo-Irish Agreement and formally asked for every possible support, political as well as financial.
Simultaneously with the signing of the Agreement in Hillsborough on November 15, President Reagan and Speaker O’Neill gave a joint press conference in the White House supporting the Agreement. In his remarks the President recalled Carter’s 1977 historic statement “in the event of a settlement, the US Government would be prepared to join with others to see how additional job-creating investment could be encouraged, to the benefit of all the people of Northern Ireland”.
In article 10 of the Agreement the Governments of Ireland and the UK agreed “to cooperate to promote the economic and social development of those areas of both parts of Ireland which have suffered most severely from the consequences of the instability of recent years and shall consider the possibility of securing international support for this work.”
In the following months officials from Dublin, London and Belfast negotiated the details and agreed the terms of what became known as the International Fund for Ireland and on September 18, 1986, Ireland and the UK signed an international treaty creating the Fund. It came into effect on December 1, 1986.
Seán Donlon Secretary, Department of Foreign Affairs(1981-87)
