Ireland's Independence....?

[sburke@exis.net (Erlich von Rauschenberg)]

>From my Web contact at the London Daily Telegraph:
The Electronic Telegraph....


Dublin will renounce claim to N Ireland

By George Jones and Richard Savill

THE IRISH Government will promise to formally recognise the existence of
Ulster in its constitution for the first time since partition in 1920, in a
document to be published by Mr John Major and Mr John Bruton, the Irish
Prime Minister, this week.

They are expected to hold a joint summit - possibly in Belfast on Wednesday
- to launch the framework document on the future of Northern Ireland and the
British proposals for a devolved assembly at Stormont.

Sources in Dublin and London indicated that the document would contain a
commitment by the Irish Government to remove what Unionists see as the
"territorial threat" to Northern Ireland. Article 2 of the 1937 Irish
constitution declares that the "national territory consists of the whole
island of Ireland, its islands and the territorial seas".

The framework document will not contain specific proposals for amending the
Irish
constitution. However, the Irish government is ready to give a commitment in
its constitution to the principle thatthe status of Northern Ireland will
not be changed without the consent of its majority.

In a constitutional trade-off, Britain will give a commitment to introduce
legislation to amend the 1920 Government of Ireland Act, which reaffirmed
Westminster's sovereignty over Northern Ireland.

**********
This is an unofficial quote from March 1995.  There was no more current info
reference the search strings: " ireland, independence, secret, meetings,
negotiations"

If I hear more, I'll pass it along.  Also checked the Voice of America
archive, nothing mentioned this week re any changes.


Erlich