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The Arms Crisis was a political scandal in the Republic of Ireland in 1970 in which Charles Haughey and Neil Blaney were dismissed as cabinet ministers for alleged involvement in a conspiracy to smuggle arms to the Irish Republican Army in Northern Ireland. At the ensuing Arms Trial, charges against Blaney were dropped, and Haughey and the other alleged conspirators were found not guilty. Blaney claimed that the then government knew about the plan, while Haughey denied any involvement. ==Background== The events occurred during the Fianna Fáil government of Jack Lynch. Amid the 1969 Northern Ireland riots, which would lead to the Troubles, nationalist families were being forced from their homes, with over 1,000 seeking refuge in the Republic. The Dublin government established a cabinet subcommittee to organise emergency assistance and relief. Haughey, then Minister for Finance and the hardline Blaney, Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries who was from the Donegal North–East constituency bordering Northern Ireland were members of the subcommittee, along with Pádraig Faulkner and Joseph Brennan. Jack Lynch took little interest in the work of the subcommittee, and after an initial meeting, Faulkner and Brennan seem to have left their senior colleagues Haughey and Blaney to their own devices. A government fund of £100,000 was set up to provide relief to civilians forced out of their homes by the Troubles, and Haughey was given sole authority over this money.〔(Arms and the man ) — Charles Haughey obituary, from ''The Irish Times'' newspaper.〕 Ministers Haughey and Blaney disapproved of the cautious policies of Taoiseach Lynch on Northern Ireland and favoured a more robust approach. In August 1969 Lynch had asked Irish Army Intelligence to draft proposals for limited military intervention in Northern Ireland to protect nationalist areas from Ulster loyalist mobs, known as Exercise Armageddon, but it was seen to be unworkable and was not adopted by the cabinet. The nationalist areas were given a form of protection later in August by British forces in Operation Banner, and Lynch saw this as an effective short-term measure. On 30 October 1968, Lynch had met with British Prime Minister Harold Wilson in London and had called on Britain to take steps to end the partition of Ireland. Blaney was an outspoken critic of government policy on Northern Ireland, but Haughey had not publicly opposed Lynch's policy. In October 1969, a meeting of the Northern Citizen Defence Committees, which had been set up to defend nationalist areas form unionist attack and which included IRA officers, was held in Bailieboro, County Cavan, with Irish Army intelligence officer Captain James Kelly in attendance. The meeting was told that £50,000 would be made available to buy weapons for defence of nationalist areas against loyalist attack. Haughey even met with the IRA Chief of Staff Cathal Goulding. Garda Special Branch informed the Minister for Justice Micheál Ó Móráin of this meeting and he reported it to the Cabinet, but Haughey dismissed it as a chance encounter.〔 Neil Blaney allegedly made plans with Captain James Kelly to import weapons from continental Europe. Haughey provided the money for the purchase from his civilian relief fund, and also tried to arrange customs clearance for the shipment.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア(Wikipedia)』 ■ウィキペディアで「Arms Crisis」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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