Operation Chiffon: The Secret Story of MI5 and MI6 and the Road to Peace in Ireland

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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.

The hard-scrabble existence of Maltese fishermen is portrayed with dignity and pathos in Alex Camilleri’s neo-realist drama. Non-actor Jesmark Scicluna plays a part close to his real life – the introverted owner of a small fishing boat, a luzzu, who is finding it difficult to make ends meet and support his wife and baby boy. Easy money is to be had from working for a fishery involved in illegal catches, or from EU incentives to give up his boat and his livelihood, but abandoning the traditional ways handed down from father to son breaks his heart. Touching and tragic. SW Live sportTaylor is the doyen of authorities on Northern Ireland, having spent fifty years reporting on the Province. Trusted by all sides in the conflict as an objective journalist, Taylor succeeded in gaining an entrée into each sectarian camp, acquiring unique access to leading political and paramilitary figures. With such impeccable sources, Taylor’s oeuvre has been rich and unique. In addition to five works on Irish and international terrorism, Taylor is author of the critically acclaimed Ulster trilogy Brits , Provos and Loyalists . Notably, Operation Chiffon closes the circle on this series of monographs, concomitantly filling a lacuna in the history of Northern Irish affairs. The role of secret intelligence, as Sir Alexander Cadogan (one-time Permanent Under-Secretary at the Foreign Office) complained, was the “missing dimension of most diplomatic history ”. Tellingly, it was the absence of official documentation, interviews or public disclosure surrounding Operation Chiffon that compelled “Robert ”, despite the restraints of the Official Secrets Act, to tell his story. As he confessed to the author, “I’d like what I did to be remembered. ” 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.

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Premiership Rugby Union: Saracens v Harlequins, 2.30pm, ITV1/BT Sport 1 At Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. London Irish v Northampton Saints is at 5.15pm on BT Sport 1. 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 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. 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. The Irish have an old saying that “When the big man falls in battle, the fight rarely continue s.” As the IRA was never defeated militarily, it is perhaps unsurprising that the peace and stability of Northern Ireland are still threatened by dissident republicans determined to achieve a united Ireland through force of arms. Pivotal to the story of Operation Chiffon was the promise “Robert” made to the IRA’s high command: “The final solution [to your ‘armed struggle’] is union. It is going to happen anyway. The historical train — Europe — determines that. We are committed to Europe. Unionists will have to change. This island will be as one. ” Ireland is still divided , and Brexit derailed the “historical train” of European integration with the UK, ensuring that the Belfast Agreement can be viewed, twenty-five years on, not as a denouement to “the Trouble s” , but rather as a crucial punctuation mark in the history of contemporary Ireland.