Ray Bassett, former Irish diplomat and Joint Secretary to the British–Irish Intergovernmental Conference in Belfast, opens The Traveller’s Tale with a very personal explanation of his decision to write an account of the long peace process that led to, but did not end with, the 1998 Good Friday Agreement (GFA):
I had spent more time working on the North during the crucial periods of the Peace Process than almost anybody else in the Irish Government system and in a variety of roles and locations. As none of us are getting any younger, I felt it was time to write an account for my grandchildren as to what their grandfather did during those crucial years.
The book that follows is a lively insider narrative of a significant historical moment, assembled from diary entries, recollections, observations, conversations, arguments and stories shared between colleagues, friends and strangers. One of its great strengths lies in the richness of detail Bassett gives about those who lived and worked through these extraordinary times. More than a memoir, The Traveller’s Tale recovers a set of neglected histories, correcting the absence of detailed accounts of the Irish Government’s contribution to the GFA. While Bassett is generous in crediting all those, great and small, who played a role in securing the deal, it is his colleagues in the Department of Foreign Affairs and on the Irish Talks Team who take centre stage. Above all, this is the story of a dedicated team of men and women with a radical ambition to challenge fixed thinking at the top of government and build political trust from the bottom up.
The Travellers were a group of diplomats and civil servants who criss-crossed Northern Ireland throughout the peace process, meeting a vast array of individuals and groups and acting as the Irish Government’s eyes and ears. The Travellers were driven by a determination to break away from the old prejudices and resentments that had kept previous Irish governments from fully engaging with the many and various political communities ofthe North. This was not simply about changing perceptions of the Government on the ground; it was equally about challenging the Government’s own assumptions. The method was simple but revolutionary: talk to everybody, especially your enemies. Using the Irish Secretariat under the Anglo–Irish Agreement as their springboard, the Travellers struck up conversations in community centres, mission halls and republican and loyalist bars and clubs in Belfast, Derry and across the North. A keen observer, affable and open to having his own views tested, Ray Bassett was a natural fit for this line of work.
Born and raised in Dublin’s Northlands, Bassett does not conform to the conventional image of an Irish diplomat. Like many working-class people of his generation in Ireland—and a little earlier, in post-war Britain—he was among the first in his family to benefit from expanding access to higher education. Mindful of the debt owed to family for their sacrifices and to the state for the opportunities it had provided, this generation produced several outstanding figures able to bring their grassroots experience and outlook to national political life. Driven by a powerful sense of civic responsibility, a deep interest in international affairs and the politics of the North, and with encouragement from his mother, Bassett applied for a civil service post in the Department of Foreign Affairs. After the signing of the 1985 Anglo–Irish Agreement, he joined the Anglo–Irish Division in Dublin. Following a posting to the Irish Embassy in Canberra (1989–1993), he returned to Ireland to take up a role at the beleaguered and much-maligned Irish Government office at Maryfield, affectionately known to its staff as “the Bunker”.
Situated on a bleak patch of ground on the outskirts of Belfast, next door to the Royal Ulster Constabulary vehicle repair yard, the Maryfield offices were surrounded by a sea of hostile Loyalist communities. A protest caravan stood sentry at the gates. The property of George Seawright, a notorious politician and loyalist paramilitary who had earned the remarkable distinction of being expelled from the Democratic Unionist Party for making sectarianremarks, the caravan served as a handy landmark for staff and visitors alike. To most Unionists, Maryfield was the physical embodiment of the despised Anglo–Irish Agreement. Yet the Bunker also offered invaluable insights into loyalist sentiment and official British and Northern Ireland Office thinking as well as providing space for building comradeship among the team. While Bassett does not downplay the overarching sense of threat and hostility in those times, he also records little acts of cross-community kindness, like the cricket ground in Holywood shared with the local St Paul’s GAA club, and the quiet decency of the mainly loyalist drivers, cleaners, cooks and security staff who worked on site. But if winning over East Belfast Loyalists seemed daunting, it was nothing compared to the challenge of building bridges between the Irish Government and Northern Republicans.
Perhaps the most compelling aspect of Bassett’s account is his description of how the Irish Government transformed its relationship with Sinn Féin, helping to smooth the way for the Provisional movement to enter the Talks process. For decades, Dublin had enjoyed a positive relationship with moderate Nationalism, while keeping Sinn Féin at arm’s length. Its hostility to militant Republicanism was shaped by the legacy of the Irish Civil War and by the very real threat the Provisional movement posed to the authority and stability of the Southern state, which they viewed as illegitimate. Unlike the British, the Irish Government had never developed a tradition of discreet backchannels to the Provisionals. London could afford to behave as a pragmatic manager of conflict; Dublin, seeing itself as the rightful custodian of the Irish Constitution, could not. By the 1990s, this dynamic changed dramatically. The rise of political leaders such as Albert Reynolds and Bertie Ahern, combined with Sinn Féin’s growing electoral ambitions and Britain’s desire to disentangle itself from Direct Rule had created new incentives for dialogue. Bassett conveys how quickly long-entrenched suspicions began to dissolve once the possibility of a political settlement appeared on the horizon. For the first time, senior Irish officials were prepared to engage directly with northern Republicans not as implacable enemies but as potential partners and even perhaps as fellow countrymen working together to achieve a historic transformation.
The Good Friday Agreement did not resolve the conflict but rather opened the door to a new phase in which political mediation replaced military stalemate. For both the British and Irish Governments, the central task was to design a framework for managing Northern Ireland’s contested status that could foster reconciliation between the “two traditions”. Ireland withdrew its constitutional claim to sovereignty, while Britain accepted an internal settlement based on recognising the full and equal legitimacy of the identities, allegiances and aspirations of both the Unionist and Nationalist communities. For constitutional Nationalists, the Agreement realised their long-held vision of a Northern Ireland founded on equal civil and political rights, cultural protections and freedom from discrimination. For Unionists, it represented a difficult but necessary accommodation to power-sharing that demanded sufficient compromise to stabilise and ultimately preserve the Union. For Irish Republicans, however, resolution ultimately lay in the reunification of the whole people of Ireland. While Sinn Féin possessed a strong negotiating hand – there could be no peace talks without their participation – accepting a deal that retained the Unionist veto on reunification carried profound risks, not least the possibility of a serious split within the movement. From a Republican perspective, the Good Friday Agreement could never be a final settlement but only a further step on the long road towards national reconciliation and Irish unity.
Speaking in June 1998 on the 200th anniversary of the United Irishmen Rebellion, Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams identified the all-Ireland element of the Good Friday Agreement as the mechanism for delivering both political reform and the long-term goal of unity. Speaking over the grave of Wolfe Tone, Adams sought to weave the contradictions and compromises of the Agreement into the history of Ireland’s long and painful struggle for national independence. The speech invoked two ideals that had come together to form the Irish national consciousness in 1798: an aspiration for democracy that could only be realised through the attainment of national sovereignty, and the need for former enemies to cast off sectarianism and abolish the memory of past dissensions. Almost three decades after Adams gave that speech those aspirations remain unfulfilled, as opposing conceptions of cultural identity, national belonging and narratives of history still compete for recognition. In recent years, some of the most contentious areas of inter-communal conflict have become fixed around the legacy of the conflict, often focused on unresolved and seemingly intractable disputes around the validity of communal memory and culpability for past wrongs. The hoperemains elusive that past dissensions can ever be forgotten, and that the common name of Irishman and Irishwoman might one day replace the denominations of Protestant, Catholic and Dissenter.
Bassett acknowledges the limitations of the GFA but remains cheerful about the prospect of positive change. He rightly argues that political movement did not stop at the signing of the GFA. Time moves on, rebalancing the equation of unification through Unionist consent. All future discussions will clearly need to involve northern Nationalists and those who define themselves as neither Unionist nor Nationalist. The Brexit referendum has shaken up relations between all the peoples on these islands and placed the question of national sovereignty back on the table, as winds of change blow across the wider world. As Bassett writes, ‘instead of carping about the difficulties, I believe we should embrace the prospect of Irish Unity and a second Irish Republic’. For those in the North, Irish unity offers the prospect of breaking away from narrow communal divisions grounded in the old Unionist state and finding more opportunities to input into national policy than presently enjoyed at the margins of the British state. I admire Bassett’s optimism and, as a British citizen, believe that we too have a powerful self-interest in ending partition and removing a relic of an old imperial past that continues to frustrate greater friendship between the people of Britain and Ireland and the possibility of revitalising our own democracy.
The Traveller’s Tale is a must-read for anyone wanting to understand Dublin’s role in the peace process and the inner workings of Ireland’s Department of Foreign Affairs. It is entertaining and informative, and the section on the final countdown to the Agreement will keep you on the edge of your seat. But above all, Ray Bassett’s book is an inspiring read that makes a powerful case for talking and listening to everybody’s point of view and not being afraid to challenge prejudice and groupthink – including your own.
Pauline Hadaway completed her doctoral research at the University of Manchester, examining the cultural economy and the politics of peace building in Northern Ireland after the Good Friday Agreement. Pauline works as a researcher and writer, most recently, ‘Callaghan in Northern Ireland’ in James Callaghan: an underrated Prime Minister (eds. Kevin Hickson and Jaspar Miles), co-authored with Kevin Bean (2020); ‘Walking the Swaying Tightrope’ in Neil Kinnock: Saving the Labour Party (ed. Kevin Hickson), co-authored with Kevin Bean (2022) and ‘The Slow Strange Death of Labour Britain’ in The Idea of the Good Society: Essays in Honour of Raymond Plant (ed. Matt Beech and Kevin Hickson 2025)
Ray Bassett, former Irish diplomat and Joint Secretary to the British–Irish Intergovernmental Conference in Belfast, opens The Traveller’s Tale with a very personal explanation of his decision to write an account of the long peace process that led to, but did not end with, the 1998 Good Friday Agreement (GFA):
I had spent more time working on the North during the crucial periods of the Peace Process than almost anybody else in the Irish Government system and in a variety of roles and locations. As none of us are getting any younger, I felt it was time to write an account for my grandchildren as to what their grandfather did during those crucial years.
The book that follows is a lively insider narrative of a significant historical moment, assembled from diary entries, recollections, observations, conversations, arguments and stories shared between colleagues, friends and strangers. One of its great strengths lies in the richness of detail Bassett gives about those who lived and worked through these extraordinary times. More than a memoir, The Traveller’s Tale recovers a set of neglected histories, correcting the absence of detailed accounts of the Irish Government’s contribution to the GFA. While Bassett is generous in crediting all those, great and small, who played a role in securing the deal, it is his colleagues in the Department of Foreign Affairs and on the Irish Talks Team who take centre stage. Above all, this is the story of a dedicated team of men and women with a radical ambition to challenge fixed thinking at the top of government and build political trust from the bottom up.
The Travellers were a group of diplomats and civil servants who criss-crossed Northern Ireland throughout the peace process, meeting a vast array of individuals and groups and acting as the Irish Government’s eyes and ears. The Travellers were driven by a determination to break away from the old prejudices and resentments that had kept previous Irish governments from fully engaging with the many and various political communities ofthe North. This was not simply about changing perceptions of the Government on the ground; it was equally about challenging the Government’s own assumptions. The method was simple but revolutionary: talk to everybody, especially your enemies. Using the Irish Secretariat under the Anglo–Irish Agreement as their springboard, the Travellers struck up conversations in community centres, mission halls and republican and loyalist bars and clubs in Belfast, Derry and across the North. A keen observer, affable and open to having his own views tested, Ray Bassett was a natural fit for this line of work.
Born and raised in Dublin’s Northlands, Bassett does not conform to the conventional image of an Irish diplomat. Like many working-class people of his generation in Ireland—and a little earlier, in post-war Britain—he was among the first in his family to benefit from expanding access to higher education. Mindful of the debt owed to family for their sacrifices and to the state for the opportunities it had provided, this generation produced several outstanding figures able to bring their grassroots experience and outlook to national political life. Driven by a powerful sense of civic responsibility, a deep interest in international affairs and the politics of the North, and with encouragement from his mother, Bassett applied for a civil service post in the Department of Foreign Affairs. After the signing of the 1985 Anglo–Irish Agreement, he joined the Anglo–Irish Division in Dublin. Following a posting to the Irish Embassy in Canberra (1989–1993), he returned to Ireland to take up a role at the beleaguered and much-maligned Irish Government office at Maryfield, affectionately known to its staff as “the Bunker”.
Situated on a bleak patch of ground on the outskirts of Belfast, next door to the Royal Ulster Constabulary vehicle repair yard, the Maryfield offices were surrounded by a sea of hostile Loyalist communities. A protest caravan stood sentry at the gates. The property of George Seawright, a notorious politician and loyalist paramilitary who had earned the remarkable distinction of being expelled from the Democratic Unionist Party for making sectarianremarks, the caravan served as a handy landmark for staff and visitors alike. To most Unionists, Maryfield was the physical embodiment of the despised Anglo–Irish Agreement. Yet the Bunker also offered invaluable insights into loyalist sentiment and official British and Northern Ireland Office thinking as well as providing space for building comradeship among the team. While Bassett does not downplay the overarching sense of threat and hostility in those times, he also records little acts of cross-community kindness, like the cricket ground in Holywood shared with the local St Paul’s GAA club, and the quiet decency of the mainly loyalist drivers, cleaners, cooks and security staff who worked on site. But if winning over East Belfast Loyalists seemed daunting, it was nothing compared to the challenge of building bridges between the Irish Government and Northern Republicans.
Perhaps the most compelling aspect of Bassett’s account is his description of how the Irish Government transformed its relationship with Sinn Féin, helping to smooth the way for the Provisional movement to enter the Talks process. For decades, Dublin had enjoyed a positive relationship with moderate Nationalism, while keeping Sinn Féin at arm’s length. Its hostility to militant Republicanism was shaped by the legacy of the Irish Civil War and by the very real threat the Provisional movement posed to the authority and stability of the Southern state, which they viewed as illegitimate. Unlike the British, the Irish Government had never developed a tradition of discreet backchannels to the Provisionals. London could afford to behave as a pragmatic manager of conflict; Dublin, seeing itself as the rightful custodian of the Irish Constitution, could not. By the 1990s, this dynamic changed dramatically. The rise of political leaders such as Albert Reynolds and Bertie Ahern, combined with Sinn Féin’s growing electoral ambitions and Britain’s desire to disentangle itself from Direct Rule had created new incentives for dialogue. Bassett conveys how quickly long-entrenched suspicions began to dissolve once the possibility of a political settlement appeared on the horizon. For the first time, senior Irish officials were prepared to engage directly with northern Republicans not as implacable enemies but as potential partners and even perhaps as fellow countrymen working together to achieve a historic transformation.
The Good Friday Agreement did not resolve the conflict but rather opened the door to a new phase in which political mediation replaced military stalemate. For both the British and Irish Governments, the central task was to design a framework for managing Northern Ireland’s contested status that could foster reconciliation between the “two traditions”. Ireland withdrew its constitutional claim to sovereignty, while Britain accepted an internal settlement based on recognising the full and equal legitimacy of the identities, allegiances and aspirations of both the Unionist and Nationalist communities. For constitutional Nationalists, the Agreement realised their long-held vision of a Northern Ireland founded on equal civil and political rights, cultural protections and freedom from discrimination. For Unionists, it represented a difficult but necessary accommodation to power-sharing that demanded sufficient compromise to stabilise and ultimately preserve the Union. For Irish Republicans, however, resolution ultimately lay in the reunification of the whole people of Ireland. While Sinn Féin possessed a strong negotiating hand – there could be no peace talks without their participation – accepting a deal that retained the Unionist veto on reunification carried profound risks, not least the possibility of a serious split within the movement. From a Republican perspective, the Good Friday Agreement could never be a final settlement but only a further step on the long road towards national reconciliation and Irish unity.
Speaking in June 1998 on the 200th anniversary of the United Irishmen Rebellion, Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams identified the all-Ireland element of the Good Friday Agreement as the mechanism for delivering both political reform and the long-term goal of unity. Speaking over the grave of Wolfe Tone, Adams sought to weave the contradictions and compromises of the Agreement into the history of Ireland’s long and painful struggle for national independence. The speech invoked two ideals that had come together to form the Irish national consciousness in 1798: an aspiration for democracy that could only be realised through the attainment of national sovereignty, and the need for former enemies to cast off sectarianism and abolish the memory of past dissensions. Almost three decades after Adams gave that speech those aspirations remain unfulfilled, as opposing conceptions of cultural identity, national belonging and narratives of history still compete for recognition. In recent years, some of the most contentious areas of inter-communal conflict have become fixed around the legacy of the conflict, often focused on unresolved and seemingly intractable disputes around the validity of communal memory and culpability for past wrongs. The hoperemains elusive that past dissensions can ever be forgotten, and that the common name of Irishman and Irishwoman might one day replace the denominations of Protestant, Catholic and Dissenter.
Bassett acknowledges the limitations of the GFA but remains cheerful about the prospect of positive change. He rightly argues that political movement did not stop at the signing of the GFA. Time moves on, rebalancing the equation of unification through Unionist consent. All future discussions will clearly need to involve northern Nationalists and those who define themselves as neither Unionist nor Nationalist. The Brexit referendum has shaken up relations between all the peoples on these islands and placed the question of national sovereignty back on the table, as winds of change blow across the wider world. As Bassett writes, ‘instead of carping about the difficulties, I believe we should embrace the prospect of Irish Unity and a second Irish Republic’. For those in the North, Irish unity offers the prospect of breaking away from narrow communal divisions grounded in the old Unionist state and finding more opportunities to input into national policy than presently enjoyed at the margins of the British state. I admire Bassett’s optimism and, as a British citizen, believe that we too have a powerful self-interest in ending partition and removing a relic of an old imperial past that continues to frustrate greater friendship between the people of Britain and Ireland and the possibility of revitalising our own democracy.
The Traveller’s Tale is a must-read for anyone wanting to understand Dublin’s role in the peace process and the inner workings of Ireland’s Department of Foreign Affairs. It is entertaining and informative, and the section on the final countdown to the Agreement will keep you on the edge of your seat. But above all, Ray Bassett’s book is an inspiring read that makes a powerful case for talking and listening to everybody’s point of view and not being afraid to challenge prejudice and groupthink – including your own.
Pauline Hadaway completed her doctoral research at the University of Manchester, examining the cultural economy and the politics of peace building in Northern Ireland after the Good Friday Agreement. Pauline works as a researcher and writer, most recently, ‘Callaghan in Northern Ireland’ in James Callaghan: an underrated Prime Minister (eds. Kevin Hickson and Jaspar Miles), co-authored with Kevin Bean (2020); ‘Walking the Swaying Tightrope’ in Neil Kinnock: Saving the Labour Party (ed. Kevin Hickson), co-authored with Kevin Bean (2022) and ‘The Slow Strange Death of Labour Britain’ in The Idea of the Good Society: Essays in Honour of Raymond Plant (ed. Matt Beech and Kevin Hickson 2025)