An Ulsterman stuck the dagger through England’s heart.

In the 76th minute at the Aviva Stadium in Lansdowne Road, substitute Rob Herring broke from the back of the scrum. Team mates Conor Murray and Mack Hanson were free to his right but he could see the try line and there was no stopping him. He burst through the despairing tackles of Ben Curry and Alex Mitchell and planted the ball beyond the white line.

Ireland 29, England 16. The Grand Slam well and truly secured.

Among those celebrating at the final whistle was another Ulster player, tighthead prop, 24-year-old Tom O’Toole. He came on as a substitute for Leinster’s Tadhg Furlong in the 59th minute. 

He was born in Drogheda and lived in Ratoath, Co Meath until he was six. The family then moved to Australia for a decade. When they came back to Ireland O’Toole enrolled in one of Northern Ireland’s famous rugby schools, Campbell College, half a mile from Stormont.

O’Toole and South-Africa-born Herring are two of the Ulster contingent that fits comfortably into what is an all-island team, currently the No 1 side in the world. They are based in Ravenhill, the Belfast headquarters of Ulster rugby, around the corner from the Martyrs Memorial Church, built by the founder of the Free Presbyterian Church, Ian Paisley. 

Ulster’s main sponsor is Kingspan, a building materials company, founded over the border in Kingscourt, Co. Cavan, now with a workforce of more than 13,000. 

A decade ago, Ulster rugby’s Kingspan stadium got a major facelift thanks to £15 million funding provided by the power-sharing administration. The cheque was handed over by the then Stormont minister with responsibility for sport, Sinn Féin’s Caral Ní Chuilin.

Ulster rugby is living in the present and planning for the future.

Ulster unionism?  It’s a different story.

*****

At teatime last Friday, March 17, Sir Jeffrey Donaldson, featured live on BBC Northern Ireland’s Newsline programme. He was being interviewed by the able BBC NI political editor, Enda McClafferty.  The pair were standing on Capitol Hill in Washington. They were in the United States for the Saint Patrick’s Day events when politicians from Ireland, south and north, get the kind of access and face time that is the envy of more powerful administrations, Westminster included.

The DUP leader had a circular badge with a shamrock in his lapel.  He was wearing a crisp white shirt and a deliberately chosen, elegant patterned orange tie. I’ve known him for more for than twenty years. I sent Sir Jeffrey a text, complimenting his colour scheme – green, white and orange – and speculating that he would be supporting Ireland’s push for the Grand Slam. The supposition was quickly confirmed.

During three hectic days, Sir Jeffrey managed to have conversations with significant figures in the Biden administration, the President included. The Taoiseach, Leo Varadkar, and the team with him were delighted by the level of access afforded to the DUP leader. 

Even Donaldson’s rivals would acknowledge that he behaves in a measured, mannerly way in high-powered company. The message he consistently received during his engagements in Washington is that the United States would like to see Northern Ireland move out of the crisis mode that has seen its power-sharing Assembly closed for a year. The Biden administration wants to see unionists and nationalists working together and an economy, finding positives in Northern Ireland’s unique circumstances brought about by Brexit.

After his interactions among the heavy hitters, Jeffrey had lots to mull over on as he returned home. On the transatlantic flight his fellow travellers included the Sinn Féin leader, Mary Lou McDonald.

*****

The DUP’s decision in 2016 to campaign for the UK to leave the European Union was driven by its Westminster representatives. Seven years on, its eight MPs and the less influential six members of the House of Lords, not its 25 Assembly members, continue to dominate party strategy. The extent to which the political climate has changed was brutally brought home to them in the House of Commons last Wednesday afternoon.

For decades the DUP’s natural allies within the Conservatives were members of what was once a minority within the party, the Eurosceptic wing. The bond remained intact as the anti-EU faction grew in strength, helped by a charismatic centre-stage performer, Boris Johnson.

Boris was the pied piper who fronted the successful Brexit Referendum campaign. He was also the British Prime Minister who agreed the contentious Northern Ireland protocol to seal the formal divorce deal with Brussels.

On Wednesday afternoon, Boris was effectively dangling on a rope as seven members of the House of Commons Committee of Privileges took pot shots at him over his behaviour in Downing Street during the Covid lockdown.  Four of his interrogators were members of his own party.

Boris was allowed a temporary break from his embarrassment in order to vote in the House of Commons. MPs were considering the deal, known as the Windsor Framework, brokered by the current British prime minister, Rishi Sunak, with the European Commission to replace the controversial Northern Ireland protocol. 

Boris is opposed to the Sunak solution. The contest became an annihilation – 515 votes to 29. The 28 who sided with Boris included former prime minister, Liz Truss, former cabinet minister, Priti Patel, former Conservative party leader, Ian Duncan Smith and the DUP MPs. 

When Boris was at his most powerful, after he ousted Theresa May as prime minister and Conservative party leader, the hard-line Brexiteer group known as the ERG (European Research Group) were his praetorian guard. Nowadays, three of them are Sunak lieutenants, supporters of the Windsor Framework and suitably rewarded for their loyalty:

James Cleverly is the Foreign Secretary, Chris Heaton-Harris is the Northern Ireland Secretary and Steve Baker is a junior minister in the Northern Ireland office.

Shortly before the House of Commons vote, Steve Baker, said Boris was shaping up to be “a pound shop Nigel Farage.”    

*****

Standing firm when faced with challenge is one of the first principles of unionism. But it is hard to escape from the conclusion that the hole the DUP keeps digging is getting deeper.

Rishi Sunak listened to unionist concerns about how Brexit is affecting Northern Ireland and then negotiated a deal with Brussels that suits the UK. This side of a general election, he won’t be doing somersaults to accommodate the DUP. The situation will not improve if the next Westminster government is formed by Labour under Keir Starmer.

On Thursday, the Northern Ireland Secretary, Chris Heaton-Harris, once of the ERG, flew to Hillsborough and told a news conference “there will be no renegotiating the Brexit deal.”

Then yesterday, the British government’s Foreign Secretary, James Cleverly, once of the ERG, welcomed the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator, Marcos Sefcovic, and formally ratified the Windsor Framework Agreement. Mr Cleverly spoke of the “spirit of positivity” in relations between the UK and EU.

Over a 48-hour period, the British government stuck a dagger through the pride of Boris Johnson, what’s left of the ERG and the DUP.

*****

Jeffrey Donaldson’s challenge now, his only viable response, is to process how the landscape has changed and convert challenge into success. He has the smarts to do it. The new Brexit arrangements, including the green and red lanes arrangements for the movement of goods between Great Britain and Northern Ireland, can be sold as a genuine improvement on what the Northern Ireland protocol offered.  As the measures set out in the Windsor Framework are being implemented, Brussels is unlikely to object to tweaks when difficulties occur. Donaldson could also put the squeeze on the British government to replenish the Stormont coffers in return for the DUP resuming power-sharing at Stormont.  Joe Biden, the US President, won’t come empty-handed if he sees Northern Ireland’s politicians, the DUP included, committing themselves to a fresh start.

Jeffrey Donaldson -Photo: Sam Boal / RollingNews.ie

But there are some within the DUP who are unlikely to acknowledge and respond to the obvious. If Sir Jeffrey continues to have the party’s policy set by them, the DUP will remain marginalised. Three well-known DUP members, for different reasons, illustrate why the party finds itself politically neutered.

Sammy Wilson was the most vocal DUP critic of Prime Minister Sunak’s new Brexit proposals in the House of Commons on Wednesday. During one of our many friendly conversations with Sammy, he said to me that he hates the EU. Sammy is unlikely to change that stance.

He will be 70 on April 4. He has a big career decision to make before the next British general election, expected in 2025.

Nigel Dodds is younger – he is 64. He has paid a heavy political price for his Brexit stance. He lost his North Belfast seat in the November 2109 Westminster elections. The SDLP ran no candidate in the constituency, leaving Sinn Féin John Finucane the space to target and oust Dodds over his pro-Brexit stance. Nigel’s wife, Diane, was an able member of the European Parliament – Brexit ended that role. He has found a landing space in the House of Lords. Diane’s consolation prize is as a member of the Assembly – currently suspended because of the DUP boycott. It’s hard to see Nigel Dodds’ pride allowing him to acknowledge and address the consequences of his actions.     

At 56 Ian Paisley junior, the North Antrim MP, is the prominent advocate of the DUP’s hard-line stance. Barring mishaps, he should be able to retain a North Antrim Westminster seat for as long as he wishes. He always seems most comfortable as a maverick and his influence may never go beyond such a role.   

At Leo Varadkar and Micheál Martin level, there is a recognition that the DUP’s challenge, under Donaldson, is to fix itself.  The row between hardliners and pragmatists undermined past leaders, Ian Paisley, Peter Robinson, Arlene Foster and (briefly), Edwin Poots.  Now it’s Sir Jeffrey’s time. Provocative comments from the neighbouring jurisdiction would provide a distraction from the difficult decisions to be made. That’s why the Taoiseach and the Minister for Foreign Affairs are staying relatively quiet, not offering a running commentary.

The chilling message for the DUP this week was the British government has looked at the big picture, done its calculations and cut them adrift.

*****

Last Tuesday night BBC screened a television documentary that showed what happens when authority decides to move against an ideology that threatens it. Jennifer O’Leary presented the Spotlight programme, I Spy, about the informer, David Rupert, who infiltrated the Continuity IRA and the Real IRA.  His evidence was used to convict Michael McKevitt of directing terrorism and membership of a proscribed organisation. At the Special Criminal Court where Rupert gave evidence for 15 days, McKevitt received a 20-year prison sentence.

As an account of how an informer is recruited and then operates, it was a riveting watch.

Rupert was from Chicago and worked as a trucker.  His mother once told him to go out and make millions in life. He and his wife made almost six million dollars, working for the FBI and MI5 to spy on dissident republicans. His wife Maureen described him as “coin-operated”. His philosophy was “if you pay me, I’ll do it.”     

His career as a spy began when he came to Ireland on holidays in the early 1990s. In Bundoran Co Donegal he was introduced to Joe O’Neill, owner of a well-known republican pub in Bundoran, a member of the local Urban Council and a supporter of the Continuity IRA. The Gardai sent photos of the pair of them to the FBI and when Rupert returned to Chicago, he was visited by the FBI and asked to work for them. He became interested in the proposal when the FBI offered to pay for his trips to Ireland and his expenses. They gave him the money to lease a pub and a caravan site in the village of Tullaghan, close to Bundoran.

Rupert and his wife now had the perfect cover.

One reason why the US authorities were keen to have a spy among dissident republicans was President Clinton was becoming a player in the peace process. The FBI wanted a steer on where problems might arise. Rupert, through contacts assisted by Joe O’Neill, began supplying useful information. MI5 became aware of his presence and also recruited him. He had encrypted technology that allowed him supply reports simultaneously to his handlers in London and Chicago.

In the BBC Spotlight programme Rupert described how in 1998, he drove what was a scout car from Bundoran to Letterkenny. Following close behind was a vehicle with a device on board. After he alerted his handlers, the Gardai were scrambled and additional checkpoints near the border meant a bombing was thwarted.

His activities, bringing funds from America to Ireland, came to the attention of Michael McKevitt, the leader of the dissident republican group, the Real IRA. Rupert was recruited to join its Army Council.

In the middle of the programme, up popped Martin Mansergh, a TD and Advisor on Northern Ireland to Taoisigh Albert Reynolds and Bertie Ahern during the 1990s. Mansergh told how in November 1998, three months after the Omagh bombing, with Bertie Ahern’s permission, he went to see Michael McKevitt. The purpose of the meeting was to demand that the dissident republican group halt its campaign. 

Mansergh told the programme “The reply, sugar-coated as it might have been, was in the negative.” He also said that McKevitt was “in my opinion, an intelligent and sophisticated person. He wasn’t in the vernacular, sort of stupid; he might have been in the strategic sense, but I think with a few months they had begun to resume and I mean, in personal terms, that was a big mistake.”

Rupert told the BBC journalist Jennifer O’Leary how he got close to McKevitt and even visited him in his home. He attended Real IRA discussions in various places, including Dublin, Monaghan and the Cooley peninsula. His view was that MI5 was content to keep him embedded in the Real IRA, supplying it with information but that FBI, in contrast, was keen to move against McKevitt. He explained how, as the Clinton regime was ending and George W Bush, a republican, was replacing him in the White House, as a policing organisation, the FBI wanted to turn its evidence (and investment) into a prosecution.      

Rupert, by arrangement, gave a detailed statement to the Gardai. On March 29 2001, Gardai called to McKevitt’s home and arrested him. One of the detectives involved, Tony Hearty, recalled McKevitt’s calm state and one of his comments after he sat into the Garda car.  He said “this is a done deal…..the Irish government are going to lock me up.”

Rupert and his wife were now back in the United States and had decided to not turn up and give evidence in the courtroom during the trial. But they cried and changed their minds when watching a documentary about the Omagh bombing.

Rupert described how his US handlers deployed a government Gulf Stream jet to fly him from Chicago to a US air force base in England. He was taken across to Dublin for the trial in a jet used by the Queen and he sat in the Queen’s seat.

After starting across the courtroom at McKevitt and providing the evidence the convicted him, Rupert never saw him again. Asked about the man who brought him onto the Real IRA Army Council, Rupert said “I’m sure he thought of me and would have liked to have me tied to a chair and cutting off piece of me, one at time.”

On Easter Sunday 2016, McKevitt was released from prison after serving his sentence. He was a brother-in-law of Bobby Sands, the IRA member whose death from hunger strike and victory in the 1981 Fermanagh-South Tyrone by-election introduced the option of a political path for the republican movement. McKevitt disagreed with the strategy of his long-standing acquaintances, Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness, in 1997 and resolved to continue his involvement in what he considered ‘a legitimate war.’  He died from cancer in January 2021.

*****

As Jeffrey Donaldson and the DUP consider their future, the past might prove instructive.

There is the truth that is always worth restating. Donaldson has never strayed from the political route. During what were much worse times in Northern Ireland, others too had choices. Some took a difficult path and are still on that journey.  Others headed down a cul-de-sac and refused to turn back.