DAVE MANS8LL had been established, 40% of them British. The technocrats in the two Irish civil services made increasing contact which resulted in Lemass going to visit O'Neill at Stormont in January 1965 after which they issued a communiqué stating that they had discussed matters in which there might prove to be a degree of common interest and had agreed to explore further what specific measures might be possible or desitable by way of practica! consultation and co-operation. They stressed that they had not discussed partition. The next month O'Neill visited Lemass and a whole series of meeting began between Stormont and Dublin ministries to discuss co-operation between their departments. lnterestingly the discussion on agriculture was between Harry West who is now the leader of the official Unionist party in Ulster and was at one time associated with a scheme for an independent Ulster based on the small farming interest, and Neil B}aney who was later dismissed from the Fianna for his involvement in a gun-ru:nning scheme connected with the setting up of the Provisional I.R.A. in 1969. CATHOLIC INTEGRATION IN ULSTER? After the February O'Neill-Lemass talks the Nationalist party in Ulster fi.nally took up the position of official opposition at Stormont for the first time in the state's history. At the same time a much larger and better educated Catholic middle class had come into existence thanks to the working of the post-war welfare state. It was anxious to participate in politics at high levels, much higher than the Orange system allowed. Free education and welfare benefits had also made them less anxious for immediate unity with the South with its inadequate social services, and more willing to work within the Northern system to reform it from inside. Their basic political/religious orientation was still however the eventual unity of the island, i.e. nationalism. The British Labour governement were more than happy with these devolpments since there was still a sizeable antiUnionist pressure group inside the party which shade the Northern Catholics' ultimate nationalist aspiration. The Labour party's economic strategists could envisage a nationalist solution to Irish economic problems which might result in a "rationalisation" involving withdrawal of British subsidies, the elimination of small capitalist interests in favour of "eco66
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