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Time, Territory, Tradition and the Anglo‐Irish ‘Peace’ Process

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 March 2014

Paul Arthur
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Extract

The Story is Told That Following The 1916 Rising a journalist contacted a nationalist politician for some background information. He was told that hostilities had begun when Cromwell invaded Ireland. When would it end?: ‘When hell freezes over.’ No doubt it is apocryphal but it conveys the sense of fatalism and of time-scales necessary to understand the present tense of the peace process. As a result of the IRA bombing of Canary Wharf on 9 February 1996 sobriety and long memories have replaced the euphoria of mid-1994. No one had pretended that it was going to be easy; indeed some of the major actors had been thinking in generational terms. The SDLP leader, John Hume, spoke of ‘the real healing process [which] will take place and in a generation or two a new Ireland will evolve’ (italics added) at his party's annual conference in November 1995. Even the influential Sinn Fein insider, Jim Gibney, inserted a note of realism as early as June 1992 when he said that a British ‘departure must be preceded by asustuined period of peace and will arise out of negotiation’ (emphasis added).

Type
Articles
Information
Government and Opposition , Volume 31 , Issue 4 , October 1996 , pp. 426 - 440
Copyright
Copyright © Government and Opposition Ltd 1996

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References

1 Kundera, Milan, Slowness, London, Faber & Faber, 1996, p. 4.Google Scholar

2 Coogan, Tim Pat, The Troubles: Ireland’s Ordeal 1966–1995 and the Search for Peace, London, Hutchinson, 1995, p. 339.Google Scholar

3 3 August 1995.

4 The British and Irish governments reiterate that the achievement of peace must involve a permanent end to the use of, or support for, paramilitary violence. They confirm that, in these circumstances, democratically mandated parties which establish a commitment to exclusively peaceful methods and which have shown that they abide by the democratic process, are free to participate fully in democratic politics and to join in dialogue in due course between the governments and the political parties on the way ahead.

5 This appeared in what was known as the ‘Building Blocks’ document published in the Irish Times, 4 November 1995.

6 The six points in para. 20 are about commitments: a) to democratic and exclusively peaceful means of resolving political issues; b) to the total disarmament of all paramilitary organizations; c) to agree that such disarmament must be verifiable to the satisfaction of an independent commission; d) to renounce for themselves, and to oppose any effort by others, to use force, or threaten to use force, to influence the course or the outcome of all‐party negotiations; e) to agree to abide by the terms of any agreement reached in all‐party negotiations and to resort to democratic and exclusively peaceful methods in trying to alter any aspect of that outcome with which they may disagree; and, t) to urge that ‘punishment’ killings and beatings stop and to take effective steps to prevent such actions.

7 McGrady, E. (SDLP), Parl. Debs. (Commons), 23 04 1996 Google Scholar col. 336.

8 On the vagaries of the electoral system see Gallagher, Michael, Fortnight, 07/08 1996 p. 6.Google Scholar On the complexity of the ‘elective process’ see the debates in the Commons on 18, 22 and 23 April 1996.

9 Miller, David W., Queen’s Rebels. Ulster Loyalism in Historical Perspective, Gill & Macmillan, 1978, p. 25 Google Scholar

10 ibid., p. 68.

11 Wright, Frank, Northern Ireland. A Comparative Analysis, Gill & Macmillan, 1987, p. xiii.Google Scholar

12 ibid. pp. 153–4.

13 Irish Times, 9 August 1996.

14 Irish Times, 10 July 1996.

15 Sunday Tribune, 28 July 1996.

16 Parry, Geraint, ‘Tradition, Community and Self‐Determination, British Journal of Political Science, Vol. 12, 1982, pp. 413–4.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

17 ibid. pp. 401–2.

18 Part. Debs. (Commons), 18 April 1996, col. 867.

19 Irish Times, 17 July 1996.

20 Report of the International Body (The Mitchell Commission), 22 January 1996, para. 16.