25 years ago this month the basis for peace in Northern Ireland – the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement – was signed after years of painstaking negotiations. Although nothing would have been achieved without the hard work of politicians and activists of all parties from Northern Ireland, mainland Britain and the Republic of Ireland, one of the crucial figures was Mo Mowlam, Secretary of State for Northern Ireland 1997-99. In this blog Dr Emma Peplow, Head of Oral History, reflects on her career…
Mo Mowlam became Secretary of State for Northern Ireland at a crucial time for the peace process. Taking up the role under Tony Blair, the New Labour government was able to build on and add impetus to a peace process already well underway. It was still one full of difficulties, distrust, and deeply-felt divisions. Mowlam, however, was a politician of a different mould. Sadly she passed away before our oral history project was established, but that hasn’t prevented her name ringing through our archive. Her fellow MPs were full of praise for her: ‘really an incredible woman’ (Sylvia Heal, Labour), or ‘like a breath of fresh air’ (Alice Mahon, Labour). All who spoke of her remembered her as a politician of great talent and a true and trusted friend.
Mowlam was born in 1949 in Watford, moving to Coventry as a teenager. Despite a sometimes difficult family life – her father was an alcoholic – she thrived at school, becoming head girl and going on to Durham University. She was active in student politics and joined the Labour party, and later gained a PhD from the University of Iowa. After some time in the US she returned to the UK, working as an academic and in adult education.
One of the first memories of Mowlam in our archive is from the 1980s, from her good friend and later Labour’s Chief Whip Hilary Armstrong. Both were active in Labour in the North East and looking for a parliamentary seat. This was not an easy proposition. Armstrong described how the regional Labour party at the time had decided that women ‘weren’t interested’ in becoming MPs: ‘Joyce Quinn, Mo Mowlam and I said we’re not going to let them get away with that.’ As the 1987 election was announced Armstrong had been selected to fight her seat in North West Durham, but Mowlam still had not found anywhere:
Armstrong and Mowlam shared a flat when in London, and also an office in parliament (the whip ‘thought he had to give us one together because we were women’). Mowlam soon got a reputation for sound political advice and generous friendship. Fellow Labour MP Bridget Prentice remembered Mowlam taking time to visit her in hospital after she had a hysterectomy. Syliva Heal remembered discussing her nomination as Deputy Speaker with Mowlam in the 1990s. Unsure of whether to give up her role as a PPS to accept the nomination, ‘Mo said ,‘Yes but Sylvia, just imagine, as a Deputy Speaker, if you ask to see a minister, do you think they’ll say no? And I thought ‘bless you, Mo.’’ Her mind was made up.
At the same time Mowlam was building her career in the Labour party. A supporter of Blair’s leadership campaign, he made Mowlam Shadow Secretary of State for Northern Ireland. At the time John Major’s government had been making slow but significant progress in the peace process. The 1993 Joint Declaration by the Irish and UK governments had led to an Irish Republican Army (IRA) ceasefire in 1994 and cross-party talks. Yet progress stalled, and the IRA bombing of Canary Wharf in 1996 put an end to negotiations, as well as damaging trust.
Mowlam and took her brief incredibly seriously, as Tony Worthington, one of her team, remembered:
This groundwork was part of Mowlam’s hands-on approach. The moment she was appointed Secretary of State in 1997 she famously jumped on a plane to Belfast to spend time in a marketplace. Her plain speaking and approachability was the feature of her tenure. She was determined to understand the province and tried to reach out to as many communities as possible, including, for example, the women’s movement. Her friend Sylvia Heal was asked to visit community groups and report back, and her PPS, Helen Jackson, was given the specific role of liaising with these community groups:
Enlisting her friends and staff in meetings like this allowed Mowlam to reach out to even more sections of the community in Northern Ireland, including groups it might be controversial for her to meet in person. Her approach led her to make some controversial, but crucial, interventions – such as her visit to the Maze Long Kesh prison in January 1998 to convince Ulster Defence Association (UDA) prisoners to continue their support for the process. This unorthodoxy did not please everyone, however. The Ulster Unionist leader David Trimble reportedly did not know how to take her.
In all this hard work, however, there was still some time for some fun – both Alice Mahon and Chris Smith told us about invitations to stay at Hillsborough Castle for long weekends with Mo and her husband Jonathan Norton. Smith remembered ‘we’d play games, we’d have fabulous meals, we’d sometimes go out and see parts of Northern Ireland. It was huge fun’. Throughout all this Mowlam was battling serious ill-heath: diagnosed with a brain tumour before the election in 1997, she tried to keep her condition private before press reports on her appearance forced her to share it. Helen Jackson remembered Betty Boothroyd letting Mowlam rest in the Speaker’s Apartments when crucial legislation was being passed in Westminster.
On 10 April 1998 members of all sides signed the Good Friday Agreement. A ‘complex and subtle’ document, it settled Northern Ireland’s constitutional position and created the framework for power-sharing in Northern Ireland that still exists today. Creating the Assembly in Stormont with devolved powers, leadership would be effectively shared between nationalists and unionists as First Minister and Deputy First Minister. The Republic of Ireland agreed to rewrite two articles in their constitution regarding Irish unity, and any moves in the future towards a united Ireland would need approval by referenda on both sides of the border. Reviews were commissioned into the police, the Royal Ulster Constabulary, and safeguards included for cross-community equality and human rights. Perhaps most controversially political prisoners would be released early, and paramilitary organisations on all sides agreed to decommission their weapons, if doubts remained about how this would happen.
The Good Friday Agreement was approved by 71% of the people of Northern Ireland in a referendum, although this hid the fact that the unionist community were deeply divided about whether or not to accept it. It took years to implement, with many false starts, and serious violence continued – including the 1998 Omagh bombing, one of the worst atrocities of the Troubles. Yet all those involved in creating the Agreement will be remembered for their courage in compromise. Mowlam herself will be remembered as a crucial, if unorthodox, leader. As Alice Mahon remembered: ‘I think history will be kind to Mo because she wanted peace and she got it.’
In 1999 Mowlam was removed from her position. There have been various suggestions why: her health, objections from Unionists who had come to see her as too sympathetic to Republicans, or even the extent of her popularity on both sides of the Irish Sea. Mowlam was not happy about it, and she retired from cabinet and parliament in 2001. Sadly her illness continued, and she died in 2005. What is clear from our archive is that she is greatly missed: as a towering figure, a key architect of the peace process, and a good friend.
E.P.
Find more voices of our archive on the British Library.
Find more blogs from our oral history project here.
One thought on “Mo Mowlam and the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement”