‘Strand One-and-a-Half’: June

Abstract

British and Irish officials met in Dublin on Monday 15 June to discuss the Strand 2 preliminary meeting, and the agenda for the intergovernmental Strand 3 meeting. Behind the scenes they had, over the previous fortnight, hammered out some of the procedural details of Strand 2 with Thompson and Stephen. Their formal announcement after the meeting indicated that the ‘pre-Strand 2 meeting’ would be held in London, on Wednesday or Friday, and that Strand 3 was likely to happen the following week, probably in London. The vagueness over the dates reflected a tension between the two governments. London was keen to press on with the process. But Dublin, for all its insistence on opening Strand 2, was dealing with a heavy schedule of European and other matters, and was having trouble finding time.