Rev Harold Good spills the beans on the DUPs secret meetings with Sinn Féin

DUP’s Secret Talks Exposed: New Memoir Reveals Years of Deception

A bombshell memoir reveals decades of secret talks between DUP leaders and Sinn Féin, contradicting years of party claims. Rev Harold Good, a prominent peace negotiator, details covert discussions that took place even when the DUP publicly refused to engage with Sinn Féin.

Good’s book, In Good Time: A Memoir, co-authored with former journalist Martin O’Brien, sheds new light on the complex history of Northern Ireland’s peace process. It details how DUP figures, including Jeffrey Donaldson, Timothy Johnston, and Sammy Wilson, secretly met with Sinn Féin’s Martin McGuinness in Good’s home.

These meetings, kept under wraps for years, took place even as Donaldson vehemently denounced any engagement with Sinn Féin. Notably, Donaldson participated in a 2004 debate at Oxford Union arguing against speaking with Sinn Féin. Now, Good’s revelations expose a stark hypocrisy at the heart of the DUP’s stance.

A cleric who facilitated top secret discussions between the DUP and Sinn Féin has revealed the truth of what went on, exposing years of DUP lies.

The DUP has always denied it ever sat down with republicans for direct talks prior to the day before Ian Paisley and Martin McGuinness met in March 2007 as they agreed to enter power-sharing.

Now, the person who knows the real story has spoken out.

Rev Harold Good, a former president of the Methodist Church, is best known as the man who, along with Fr Alec Reid, oversaw IRA decommissioning. But that was only one of his roles in the peace process. For years he had been meeting with senior republicans and loyalists for discreet, off-the-record conversations.

That changed in the early 2000s when Jeffrey Donaldson agreed to covertly meet McGuinness in the churchman’s home.

In a memoir published today, the veteran cleric, who has a reputation of unimpeachable integrity, sets out how those talks expanded to include Timothy Johnston, the DUP’s chief spin doctor and now the party’s most powerful backroom figure, and Sammy Wilson, with Paisley being kept informed by phone.

Refusing to talk to Sinn Fein was one of the DUP’s central policies, and had the discussions been revealed it could have crippled it. In January 2004 Donaldson took part in a debate at the Oxford Union, arguing in favour of the motion ‘This House would not talk to Sinn Fein’.

Good’s revelations raise serious questions about the DUP’s transparency and honesty throughout Northern Ireland’s peace negotiations. His memoir provides invaluable insight into the complex power dynamics and behind-closed-doors maneuvering that shaped the region’s political landscape.

Lies and hypocrisy from the DUP? My pearls have never been clutched so tightly.