MARGARET Thatcher granted a royal pardon to a convicted IRA man just months after she survived an IRA assassination attempt at the Grand Hotel in Brighton, it has emerged.
The former Prime Minister had a reputation for her unyielding stance against the IRA during the Troubles but newly released papers reveal secret concessions.
The documents revealed that in May 1985 a Royal Prerogative of Mercy was approved for Donal Donnelly, who had fled prison 25 years earlier.
Donnelly was the only man to escape from Belfast's Crumlin Road jail during the IRA’s border campaign between 1956 and 1962.
He had been serving a 10-year sentence for IRA membership and fled to the Republic where he lived openly and later went in to private industry.
Files from the Public Records Office of Northern Ireland show that in 1985 the then Northern Ireland secretary Lord Hurd approved the pardon, which Donnelly had petitioned for.
At the time the British government were negotiating with the Republic on what would become the Anglo-Irish Agreement.
However, it was also only seven months after the IRA targeted the Conservative Party conference in Brighton in a bombing aimed at wiping out the cabinet.
It was also 18 months after the biggest prison breakout in UK history by 38 republicans from the Maze jail.
Current Northern Ireland Secretary Theresa Villiers has revealed that the royal prerogative was exercised in Northern Ireland on at least 365 occasions between 1979 and 2002.
Donal Donnelly, born in Omagh, County Tyrone, came from a republican family. After his escape he lived in Cork, settled in Dublin, and was active in campaigns for social justice. He became a buyer and planner for a multi-national company and a Fellow of the Irish Institute of Purchasing & Materials Management.
See More: IRA, Margaret Thatcher, North Of Ireland, Troubles
