08-08-2025
- Politics
- Belfast Telegraph
Sam McBride on the DUP's route to power sharing: Deceit, flattery and secret Sinn Féin talks
Publicly the DUP refused to speak with Sinn Féin - but declassified files show a different side to the storyTwo factions of the party disagreed on power-sharingTalks of the early 2000s ultimately floundered
Flattery, deceit, a bung, MI5, and the secret back-channel to Sinn Féin - uncovered files have revealed the DUP's route to power-sharing.
Publicly the DUP refused to talk to Sinn Féin, Ian Paisley wanted 'Sackcloth and Ashes'.
But the truth was that the party was in direct talks with Republicans.
In public, Ian Paisley's party insisted it was united – but the reality was very different.
Peter Robinson was briefing the government on how to deal with an increasingly frail Paisley – and the two big factions of the party disagreed on power-sharing.
Whilst the DUP did end up going into government with Sinn Féin, the talks of the early 2000s ultimately floundered just before the IRA's audacious Northern Bank robbery.
To tell this tale of political intrigue, money, and what some might call betrayal, Ciarán Dunbar is joined by Belfast Telegraph's Northern Ireland editor Sam McBride, who has been looking through the formerly classified Kew Files in London.
