David Hill OBE (History 1973) helped facilitate the broad and ambitious talks process that paved the way to peace in Northern Ireland. He responded to CAM Magazine following features which reflected on the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday agreement and has written an analytical piece entitled The Constitutional Issue in Irish Politics in the book The British and Peace in Northern Ireland (ed Graham Spencer) published by Cambridge University Press in 2015.

David says: “Without a talks process, you wouldn’t have got a ceasefire and we achieved a deal that resolved the fundamental political and constitutional issues that underlay more than 30 years of intercommunal conflict and terrorism.” 

David joined the Northern Ireland Office after graduating from Gonville & Caius College in 1976, undertaking a number of challenging roles. He became Head of Security Policy in Belfast from 1984–87. A period in the private sector followed before David returned to take on the main “political” job in the Northern Ireland Office – responsible for advising Ministers on how best to achieve long term political and constitutional stability in Northern Ireland.

“I had 13 years of experience in the NIO before I took on the role of Head of the Constitutional Political Division,” he says. “That meant I understood the issues, especially on the security side. That gave me a real insight into how people were affected, the terrible things that had happened which left a legacy of hurt, suffering and distrust. It needed to be overcome, but it couldn’t just be ignored.”

An important turning point came when Secretary of State Peter Brooke delivered a speech that David wrote in January 1990 paving the way for political dialogue. 

David explains: “At that point, politics in Northern Ireland was in a total deep freeze. Nobody was talking to anybody so for the Secretary of State to say there was scope for a conversation between the constitutional political parties about future institutional arrangements was an interesting proposition. The degree of public support and press interest that received was very encouraging and put pressure on the politicians on all sides to engage with the process.”

“Talks about talks” and how to deal with various parties’ preconditions followed in what was a lengthy negotiation, which David, pictured, was part of throughout, and led to an initial six-week round of interparty talks in 1991 – the first such talks since the mid-1970s.

David says: “After the 1992 UK General Election, with Sir Patrick Mayhew as Secretary of State, the talks resumed and made good progress over a seven month period.  During these talks the Irish Government joined the talks process - the first time representatives from the Unionist parties and the Irish Government had met to discuss political issues since the 1920s. These were big steps forward. 

“I am one of four or five people who attended every single session of the 1991, 1992 and 1996-98 multi-party negotiations.  

“My job was keeping all the balls in the air and keeping the whole thing moving forward, with day-to-day tactical advice to the Secretary of State or the Minister of State.  This was a lengthy and complex process: when the talks were in progress they typically took place three days a week, with three sessions a day and multiple strands of discussion on different aspects of the agenda.

“As I thought from the outset, there was a deal to be done and although the 1992 talks ended without an agreement it was very clear that a settlement was on the cards. That added to the pressure on the Republican Movement (the Provisional IRA and its political wing, Sinn Féin)  – already weakened by significant security and intelligence successes against them – to find a way in to the process.  In early 1993, Sinn Féin Deputy Leader Martin McGuinness sent a message to the effect that ‘The war is over but we need help bringing it to a conclusion’.” 

There followed a two and a half year hiatus in the talks process during which the IRA and Loyalist ceasefires were announced, the commitment of the related political parties to ‘exclusively peaceful means’ was tested and discussions were held about the terms on which such parties could be allowed to join the talks process.

During that period David’s career shifted to the Department of Social Security - “sorting out occupational pensions after Robert Maxwell fell off his yacht” - before he returned to the Northern Ireland Office in 1995, just before the IRA ceasefire broke down with the bombing of Canary Wharf.

Despite this setback, agreement was reached on a new basis for multi-party negotiations that commenced in June 1996, with Senator George Mitchell in the chair and involving the British and Irish Governments and nine of the ten political parties that had achieved a minimum level of support in an electoral process: Sinn Féin were excluded because of the absence of an IRA ceasefire. The negotiations made some limited progress but after the 1997 election Prime Minister Tony Blair and Mo Mowlam as Secretary of State were able to force the pace. 

“Tony Blair’s first speech outside London as Prime Minister was in Belfast. He challenged the Republican movement to reinstate the ceasefire, come back on board and join the talks process or we would carry on without them,” David says. 

This led to a second ceasefire and Sinn Féin’s full participation in the talks meant that they proceeded with the full spectrum of political opinion and on a broad agenda, covering institutional and constitutional issues as well as equality issues, decommissioning, policing, prisoner releases and demilitarisation.  These negotiations ran right through to the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement of April 1998 and David then led on the legislation that implemented the agreement. This led to the dual referendums in both parts of Ireland and the drawing up of processes and standing orders for the Assembly. 

People in Northern Ireland have now experienced nearly 30 years without sustained terrorism and David believes younger people are not as entrenched in their tribal groups as their predecessors were. 

David, who continued his engagement with constitutional matters after he left the Northern Ireland Office at the end of 1998 to become Secretary to the Royal Commission on the Reform of the House of Lords, says: “There are now much higher levels of tolerance, understanding and intercommunal engagement among younger people in Northern Ireland, but the shadows of the past still mean that there is some way to go to achieve lasting political stability there.”