Arms Crisis

Amid the 1969 Northern Ireland riots, which would lead to the Troubles, nationalist families were being forced from their homes, and refugees "streamed over the border" into the Republic.

Jack Lynch took little interest in the work of the subcommittee, and after an initial meeting, Faulkner and Brennan seem to have left their senior colleagues Haughey and Blaney to their own devices.

The nationalist areas were given a form of protection later in August by British forces in Operation Banner, and Lynch saw this as an effective short-term measure.

On 30 October 1968, Lynch had met with Harold Wilson, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, in London and had called on Britain to take steps to end the partition of Ireland.

Captain Kelly promised the Northern Citizen Defence Committees £50,000, that would be made available to buy weapons for defense of nationalist areas against loyalist attack.

Kelly suggested that the government should support the IRA, acknowledging "this would mean accepting the possibility of armed action of some sort as the ultimate solution".

Haughey provided the money for the purchase from his civilian relief fund, and also made a failed attempt to arrange customs clearance for the shipment.

Garda Special Branch informed the Minister for Justice Mícheál Ó Móráin of this meeting and he reported it to the Cabinet, but Haughey dismissed it as a chance encounter.

All charges against Blaney were dropped in the District Court on 2 July 1970 and as a result he was not tried, before the main trial got underway under Justice Aindrias Ó Caoimh.

As a result, there was a major cabinet reshuffle and some senior politicians of the future, such as Desmond O'Malley and Gerry Collins, got their first step on the ministerial ladder.

The diaries of Peter Berry, Secretary of the Department of Justice, published in Magill magazine, claimed that Lynch had not been forthright publicly.