Gubu.ie

Love it when these come out, and we get to look behind the scenes.

These cover the briefings for Blair's new government.

Not many will be surprised to hear the assessment of John Bruton:

“Bruton is as good a taoiseach as we are ever likely to get from a British point of view,”

We're highlighted as being very pro Europe:

“Not surprising given the amount of money they get from the EU,”

When Bertie took over, Bruton had some advice in a phone call:

“But he [Bruton] did worry that the Irish government might get too close to Sinn Féin. They were dangerous people and he doubted their sincerity. They would need very careful watching even after a ceasefire,” said a memo for the call.

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/politic ... -1.4625010

Amusing stuff about the inner workings of the Maryfield Secretariat, a pre GFA UK/IRL cooperative body:

Officials feared, however, that increasing transparency would only fuel conspiracy theories

There was a proposal for a fly on the wall documentary to show how the office worked in practice. It never got off the ground thanks to feedback such as this from Andy Wood, the Northern Irish Office director of information, and a Brit.

“Of course, it

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