Editorial: The MI5 official who told the IRA it would get a united Ireland was unable to deliver his massive pledge

This appears to confirm a long-standing rumour that such an assurance was given to the biggest terror group of the Troubles, precipitating their 1994 ceasefire.

The MI5 officer, identified only as Robert, is said to have made this pledge in March 1993, after the Warrington bombing. The official admits he was by then operating on his own authority point because London ended such contacts after the attack, in which two boys were murdered. Later that year the IRA would massacre nine civilians in the Shankill.

On either side of the official’s assurance, republicans launched massive attacks on commercial targets, 1992 Manchester, 1992 Baltic Exchange, London, 1993 Bishopsgate, London, later 1996 in both Manchester and Canary Wharf. In 1991 and 1992 the IRA bombed the prosperous, largely Protestant towns of Banbridge, Coleraine, Bangor.

Successive UK governments showed resolution against the IRA after direct rule was introduced in 1972, and made Provisionals realise that terror would not secure their key objectives.

In the final years in the run-up to the 1994 and 1997 ceasefires, however, that focus on mainly economic targets seemed to help cause a wobble in London. But the idea of a single official, however reputable or well-connected, giving an assurance on something as massive as the UK jettisoning part of its territory is a shocking one. That it happened shows how much methods of governance have changed. Even if powerful people wanted to hand NI to the Republic in the morning, and some such people do, they could not do so in this age of greater transparency. The MI5 official’s assurance might have delighted the IRA but in the end it did not bring them closer to their all Ireland.