A senior Tory adviser wrote about the incident by way of contrasting the then prime minister’s “quite natural” way with Taoiseach Charles Haughey.

Anthony Teasdale, political adviser to foreign secretary Sir Geoffrey Howe in 1989, told Irish diplomat Richard Ryan that he was “very struck” by the rapport between the two leaders, according to files just released into the National Archives in Dublin.

Mr Ryan and Mr Teasdale met for lunch in January that year, just weeks after Mrs Thatcher and Mr Haughey held a meeting on the fringe of a European Council summit in Greece.

In his report to Dublin about the lunch, marked confidential and stamped “Seen by Taoiseach”, Mr Ryan said Mr Teasdale told him: “They were clearly both talking seriously, frankly and constructively about the same thing.” Their affinity contrasted sharply with a meeting Mrs Thatcher had with Belgian leader Wilfried Martens during which they “hardly shared a common subject”.

Mr Teasdale had said: “Martens was totally ineffectual in his replies and just tried weakly to repeat arguments which she had already chewed up.”

Mrs Thatcher “terminated” the meeting by saying: “We have nothing further to talk about, you and I.” She then “grabbed her handbag and stormed out”.

At the time, relations were strained between Ireland, Britain and Belgium over the delayed extradition of Father Patrick Ryan – an Irish priest wanted in London for alleged connections to the IRA.

Belgian police had arrested him in June 1988 and found quantities of cash and bomb-making equipment in his home.

Mrs Thatcher had pulled back from her criticism of Ireland over the affair and “felt she regretted as having gone over the top”, Mr Teasdale told Mr Ryan. He added: “She was going as far toward an apology as she could ever do.”

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