BBC News
By Sanchia Berg
image copyrightAlain BUU
Tony Blair s admission of the British government s culpability over the Irish Famine was neither written nor approved by the former PM before it was sent, National Archive papers show.
Mr Blair s private secretary Sir John Holmes wrote it but could not reach him for final approval, according to files.
The 1997 statement was welcomed as an overdue recognition of British failure.
More than a million people died between 1845-52 in the famine, when the entire island of Ireland was part of the UK.
And about two million more people emigrated over a decade.
Tony Blair s Irish Famine message not signed off by him, archive papers show
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Tony Blair s apology for Irish famine written by aides, papers reveal | Ireland
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Civil servants opposed Mowlam wish to write Famine article, files show Northern Ireland secretary could detract from Blair statement of regret, officials feared
Thu, Dec 31, 2020, 00:03 Mark Devenport
Northern Ireland secretary Mo Mowlam wanted to write an article criticising the wrongs of all parties during the Famine. Photograph: Reuters/Corbis
Northern Ireland Office (NIO) civil servants believed a magazine article by their new secretary Mo Mowlam on the 150th anniversary of the Famine could detract from the widespread praise garnered by Tony Blair’s statement of regret in June 1997.
One senior civil servant feared Mowlam would produce something “likely to be shredded by the professional historians”, according to files released in Belfast today.