Politics and poor weather: how Ireland sued the UK under the European Convention on Human Rights

This paper, which has been prepared as part of a larger research project, examines the deliberations of the Irish Government from the time internment in Northern Ireland was introduced, on 9 August 1971, to the submission of the application by the Irish government on 16 December of that year. It considers how the decision to submit an application to the European Commission of Human Rights became an increasing inevitability; and appears to have been recognised as such by British Prime Minister Edward Heath. With the decision of the British Government to establish the Compton Committee, in September 1971, the arena turned to bilateral consultations between Taoiseach (Prime Minister) Jack Lynch and British Prime Minister Edward Heath. When these broke down, the Irish Government let Heath know it was ‘seriously considering’ submitting an inter-State application. A final decision was taken by the Irish Cabinet on 30 November 1971 and the filed two weeks later