From Backdoors and Back Lanes to Backchannels: Reappraising British Talks with the Provisional IRA, 1970-1974

Following the outbreak of the Troubles in Northern Ireland, the British government established an office dedicated to gathering the views of political groups there, below the level of the state. By looking at the numerous contacts, conduits and intermediaries that existed (however temporarily) between the British government and the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) before the 1975 ceasefire, this article illustrates that an almost continuous conversation was taking place. It also demonstrates that these contacts were centred on Dáithí Ó Conaill, the then Sinn Féin Vice President, and that these ‘talks’, when taken as a whole, can better explain the events that culminated in the 1975 ceasefire.