“I don’t think there’s anybody in Ireland who thinks that Irish unity is achievable next week. There are huge problems of harmonising and integrating the differences in terms of institutions, laws and economic matters that have grown up since 1920. Even Danny Morrison, of Sinn Féin, said he thinks it will take anything from ten to fifteen years.”

(John Hume, 1985)

“You would have to assume there would be a certain amount of violence from hard-line loyalist elements but I don’t believe it would be maintained on an on-going basis. Loyalism depends absolutely and totally on the British presence – especially the military presence.”

(Martin McGuinness, 1985, when asked if he believes a Civil War would follow the establishment of a 32 county state)

“They have got to change and the changes have got to come before there is any hope of a realistic solution. No political party, or parties, such as those that represent the unionists can exist and properly function while they are dependent on the goodwill of the UDA, UVG and the Ulster clubs, Orange Order and the Masonic order.”

(Seamus Mallon, 1986, when asked if he thinks Ulster Unionists are a “dying species”)

“If the British Government want Loyalists to compromise, why do they keep on arming Loyalist militia like the UDR? The British would like to pretend that they can get the Loyalists to move an inch but they won’t push it.”

(IRA spokesperson, 1986)

“I am a loyal subject of Her Majesty the Queen. I want to remain part of the UK. That is my first choice. However, if the Union cannot be on the basis of justice, if I am going to be forced to live under a regime which is not the union I believe in, then certainly I would go for a negotiated independence. There is not a pup’s chance in the end of the day of us choosing a Union with a country that is bankrupt, has harboured terrorists, and that has proved itself an enemy. I make no apology to anyone for saying that if I am pushed to it, I will fight to remain free.”

(Rev. William McCray, 1986)

“I would be prepared to consider an alternative unarmed way of struggle, to attain Irish independence. If someone would outline such a course I would not only listen, I would be prepared to work in that direction. The difficulty is that no one has outlined a scenario by which unarmed struggle would achieve Irish independence and peace. [But] there’s no military solution. There can only be a political solution.”

(Gerry Adams, from the 1987 interview which led to the first phase of the Hume–Adams Talks)

“The people who continually threaten Civil War are the Loyalists and they do that just to make the Brits stay. But I think a lot of Loyalists and Unionists, if they were forced into an acceptance of the fact that the party is over, would negotiate. And I believe that if the negotiations are handled properly, if the Brits are definitive and if the final resolution rests on an Irish democracy, then the majority of Loyalists will be coaxed over to the point of negotiation and that will remove from the others the will towards Civil War. That’s why Loyalists must be given all sorts of assurances.”

(Danny Morrison, 1988)

“I would be foolish to say that a community could not be defeated but I don’t see a defeat of a million Unionists. And certainly, as far as negotiation is concerned, the answer is No! And as for talking with Morrison, let him forget it. He has not, in terms of what this country needs, anything to offer. Only despair. And if we could take steps to end the violence and had a degree of normality tomorrow, it would be proved that Morrison has nothing to offer to the community. [But] when two governments implement a commitment to end terrorism and to give the people of this country a chance to live in peace, then the people of this part of the United Kingdom, will be obliged to sit around the table and work out how we’re going to live in peace.”

(Ken McGuinness, 1988, responding to Danny Morrison’s comment)

“I often feel sorry for Unionists because they have been embattled and embittered by being neglected corporately on both sides of the Irish sea. You can’t build any solution with the omission of respect for a major element in the jigsaw. So it would be no problem for me to throw out Articles 2 and 3. Sometimes I wish we could start again in the broadest sense. Get rid of all the anthems and shibboleths and symbols and names and divisions. I don’t care what flag flies over the country, I’m not interested in what the anthem is, all I want is a set of conditions in which people can be fulfilled and I don’t care what they call the country.”

(Michael Keating, 1989)

“You’ve hit on what troubles the very soul of Fianna Fáil these days, that great dichotomy, our being totally torn in two directions. We are the Nationalist, Republican party and yet we’ve had to do in Government things that tore at the heart of the organisation. Deep down and going way back, as with many Fianna Fáil supporters, I’m the one who believed that having anything to do with the Brits was a tearing at the heart of the party. Yet as a National party in Government we have to do what is right for the Irish people but in my own psyche there is a battle going on between what I call the ‘breeding’ side of my brain that says ‘Jesus Christ, we’re always against the Brits and have to get a United Ireland’ and the side that is logical and says ‘we must have talks, must negotiate, must have developed government in Northern Ireland’. And you don’t have to scratch many Irish people, I believe, to find this latent Nationalism.”

(Charlie McCreevy, 1989)

“Let’s find our own solution. If that means four Provincial Governments, I don’t mind. Provided it is we, the people of this island, who make that determination, including Unionists and Loyalists. For Unionists and Loyalists to make the assertion that we have no concern for them is like saying we’re bloody fools who think that a million and a half people don’t matter to us. It’s so bloody stupid that all I can do is laugh at the assertion. Of course we’re concerned. We have to be.”

(Neil Blaney, 1990)

“There is an element within the Protestant community who will lie down easily, but within the UDA, the UVF, the Ulster Resistance and so on, there will be a hard-core of Loyalists who will not lie down until they are either defeated militarily or are rounded up and imprisoned. [Yet] I think it’s inevitable that the British pull out. I hope that, when they do, they leave us with the opportunity to defend ourselves and to create our own independent state.”

(UDA Volunteer, 1991)

“When we who are in the nationalist tradition – whether we are living in West Belfast or Dublin – take the view that we have the right to rule all 32 counties of Ireland regardless of what the majority of people in the six North-Eastern counties think, we are in a cul-de-sac. And we will get nowhere with that ideology.”

(John Bruton, 1991)

“We have to ensure that Unionists are part of whatever society we develop. You cannot have the exclusion of Unionists in whatever is going to replace the current situation. Strenuous efforts must be made to bend towards the Unionists, to show them that their civil rights and their religious rights will be respected – even if that means making internal arrangements that will suit Unionists better than they will serve the rest of us.”

(Gerry Adams, 1993)

“Politically, it would not mean anything if the IRA violence ended. But where I differ from Loyalist paramilitaries is that I believe that if people wish to legitimately work for taking Northern Ireland out of the United Kingdom through the political process, there isn’t anything I can do about it. [And] I’ve always believed that the majority of loyalist violence has been reactive and I would hope that if there was a cessation of violence by the IRA, that the loyalists would not try to upset the stability of Northern Ireland by continuing their activities. In fact, if there was any chance of the IRA stopping their campaign of violence I would be at the forefront of saying to loyalists: now, this must come to an end, this must stop.”

(Sammy Wilson, 1993)

“The DUP and Paisley and some of the hard-liners in the Official Unionist Party are definitely major obstacles to progress. But they won’t be there forever. And I believe that when the younger Unionists come more into positions of authority within their parties, they will want to advance these talks at that level. It is something that is achievable within a ten–fifteen year span, but not within six months.”

(Bobby Molloy, 1994)

“I’m not going into a talks process where the outcome is already settled by the nature of the agenda, where the principles enshrined in the Downing Street Declaration – which I don’t accept – will be governing the talks process. During the period 1985–86 . . . we said we weren’t prepared to go into talks on the basis of the Anglo-Irish Agreement but that if they set it aside we would enter talks. And we made exactly the same offer to John Major the last time we met him, saying ‘set aside the Downing Street Declaration, let us go in with a clean sheet, without these betrayals in front of us, as being the parameters of any agreement and then we’ll sit down and talk’. He wasn’t prepared to do that.

I can see all the ingredients that make up Civil War being played out by the setting aside of the democratic process in Northern Ireland, the elevation of men of terror, the refusal to accept that the majority have rights. All of these elements are ingredients which necessarily force people to set aside democracy as a way of making change, and if you look at the period from 1985, which involves the Anglo-Irish Agreement and the Downing Street Declaration, you will see the increasing marginalisation of the unionist community, the alienation, the estrangement and the fact that we have a community without hope for any future in democratic terms. And a community without hope is a dangerous community.”

(Peter Robinson, 1994)