arms crisis

arms crisis (1970). This became public on 6 May 1970, when two Fianna Fáil ministers, Neil Blaney (agriculture and fisheries) and Charles Haughey (finance), were dismissed by the taoiseach, Jack Lynch, for allegedly using government money to import arms for the Irish Republican Army. This involvement in arms trafficking was an expression of the concern in the more republican wing of Fianna Fáil over the development of a new Northern Ireland conflict. Lynch may have been genuinely unaware of what was going on, but it was noted that he acted only after Liam Cosgrave, leader of the opposition party Fine Gael, had informed him of the affair. Blaney and Haughey were subsequently charged, along with three others, with conspiring to import arms. However, the charges against Blaney were dropped in July and Haughey and the others were acquitted in October.

The issue was influenced by tensions within the government. Both Haughey and Blaney had leadership ambitions and they attempted to bring Lynch down by showing he was weak on one of the founding principles of Fianna Fáil. However, Lynch easily survived their challenge by calling upon party unity and loyalty to the leader. Blaney was expelled from the party in 1972. Haughey remained on the back benches and was eventually rehabilitated, becoming party leader in 1979. Kevin Boland, who had resigned as minister for local government in sympathy with Blaney and Haughey, left Fianna Fáil and set up a new party, Aontacht Éireann, with negligible electoral impact.

Joost Augusteijn