Northern Ireland

O’Brien Attacks BBC Interview with Ó Conaill – On This Day in 1974

Director General Sir Charles Curran defends decision to interview IRA man

Irish politician, writer and historian Conor Cruise O'Brien, pictured in 1968
Irish politician, writer and historian Conor Cruise O'Brien, pictured in 1968. Picture: Evening Standard/Hulton Archive/Getty Images (Evening Standard/Getty Images)
By Cormac Moore
June 15 1974

A BBC interview with Dáithí Ó Conaill was attacked by Dr Conor Cruise O’Brien, Minister for Posts and Telegraphs, in Dublin last night.

The interview, by reporter Tom Mangold for the mid-week programme, was defended by Sir Charles Curran, Director-General of the BBC.

He said it was not dissimilar to those on other dissidents like [Aleksandr] Solzhenitsyn.

But Dr O’Brien rejected the comparison.

He said Ó Conaill was known to be a member “of an armed conspiracy which has caused the deaths of many innocent people in Northern Ireland, the Irish Republic and Britain.

“People who want to listen to the Irish would do better to listen to the elected representatives of the Irish, rather than people whose claim to speak for anyone rests on nothing more that their proved capacity to kill.

“It is this capacity, widely ascribed to Mr Ó Conaill, that made him of interest to the BBC. It does not make him in any way a spokesman for the Irish people, most of whom detest his movement and all it stands for.”

Last night the BBC replied to Dr O’Brien’s remarks by quoting the Director-General in Thursday’s Any Questions programme.

Huw Wheldon, managing director of BBC Television, with director general Charles Curran
Huw Wheldon, managing director of BBC Television, with director general Charles Curran (Central Press/Getty Images)

Sir Charles Curran said: “The decision to interview any IRA man has been reserved for the Director-General since 1971. Only two permissions have been given in all that time and the rarity of the permissions indicate the way I have judged this question.

“On this occasion, the whole future of Northern Ireland had been put once more into question as a result of the collapse of the power-sharing executive.

“We had presented the views of all the leading political figures able to influence the outcome in Northern Ireland.”

He added: “The only major voice from which we had no word, and whose influence on the Northern Ireland situation cannot be denied, was the Provisional IRA. I therefore authorised the interview with Mr O’Connell.”

We have to remember what have been the results in the past of not listening to the Irish, whatever their party

—  Sir Charles Curran

Sir Charles said however obscene, irrational and unpardonable the political activities of the terrorists might seem, people had got to understand what moved their minds.

“I add that we have to remember what have been the results in the past of not listening to the Irish, whatever their party.”

In 1976, Conor Cruise O’Brien, as Minister for Posts and Telegraphs, issued a directive relating to Section 31 of the 1960 Broadcasting Act, prohibiting spokespersons from bodies such as the Provisional IRA and Provisional Sinn Féin from the airwaves. It was eventually lifted in 1994 by the current Irish president Michael D Higgins.