New documents show Margaret Thatcher was “depressed” over the situation in Northern Ireland in the 80s.

The state papers released under the 30-year rule show the former British Prime Minister’s concern about violence in the North.

Meeting in December 1986, she told Mr Fitzgerald: “I do feel very depressed at times about the whole situation. The violence has not been defeated. The SDLP have not done what we are expecting them to do.

“However, it is Christmas – and I had better stop feeling depressed.”

She also confided in then Taoiseach Garrett Fitzgerald that the UK “got it wrong” in 1921 with the North’s border.