Power, barrel of gun, Ulster, Nobel Prize
Upfront, yesterday was a welcome day for the weary people of Northern Ireland, as well as for all the weary people the world over who have waited impatiently for the moment when Belfast Loyalists and Derry Nationalists would finally agree to share power in a devolved Northern Ireland administration. At long last, the leaders of the parties representing the two extremes of sectarian politics have consented to do the bidding of a fatigued electorate and 26 March 2007 will go down in history as the penultimate milestone on the road to peace. The only pity, and it is a great pity, is the extremists won and the moderates lost. Ian Paisley and Gerry Adams, who will co-rule Northern Ireland as of 8 May, represent the very forces that destroyed the prospect of Northern Irish peace a generation ago and it is galling to see the two of them garlanded with laurels.
At this point, let us pause to read Desmond Egan's brief but brilliant poem about the previous achievements of Messrs Adams and Paisley and their followers:
The Northern Ireland Questiontwo wee girls
were playing tig near a carhow many counties would you say
are worth their scattered fingers?
There was no need for the murder and the mayhem. The wasted lives, the ethnic cleansing, the pogroms, the massacres, were all for naught. Paisley has had to accept that Northern Ireland is not as British as Finchley, and Adams knows that a united Ireland is as remote as it was when he first got involved in the "armed struggle".
Northern Ireland has had too much history but, given yesterday's news, it's worth pausing for a moment to look for the tipping point. Yes, it was the 1960s, but when exactly? One could argue that Harold Macmillan's famous 1960 "Wind of Change" speech to the South African parliament was the signal. OK, it took five years for the message to reach Belfast, but when Terence O'Neill succeeded Lord Brookeborough as Prime Minister of Northern Ireland in 1963, something shifted. Two years later, he invited Sean Lemass, the Taoiseach (Prime Minister) of the Republic of Ireland to talks in Belfast and Ian Paisley made headlines because he threw snowballs at Lemass' car during the visit. O'Neill went south the following year, and when the winters of discontent were replaced by the seething summer of 1967, George Forrest, the Unionist MP for Mid Ulster who supported O'Neill's reforms, was pulled off the platform at the Twelfth of July celebrations in Coagh, County Tyrone, and kicked unconscious by fellow members of the Orange Order.
It was a spiral downwards from then on. The moderates were subjected to terror on all sides, and the emergence of a green Taliban heralded the very worst of republican atavism. Did Gerry Adams plan the Bloody Friday bombings in Belfast in 1972? Maybe we'll never know.
The moderates on both sides could have brought us to peace long before now and without the thousands of dead and maimed. But the Nobel Peace Prize will probably go to Paisley and Adams, regardless of all those scattered fingers. It's happened before.
Comments
While all this sitting down together is a great thing you mentioned that Paisley and Adams may well receive the Nobel Prize. In 1976 that prize was awarded to Maraid Corrigan and Betty Williams when it should have gone to the original founder of the Peace movement in Northern Ireland, Margaret Doherty affectionately known in Derry as the Peace Woman. How ironic, you would think, that the perpatrators should be honored.
Posted by: Vincent Doherty | March 27, 2007 9:08 PM
From 1972 to her death in 1981, Margaret Doherty,(Peace Woman) from Derry founded and led the, "Peace People." Unfortunately Margaret did not get any earthly rewards for her work. Instead others were awarded for the work she done. A Nobel Prize for Peace went to Betty Williams and Mariad Corrigan, latecomers to the peace movement.
Now I see that Gerry Adams and Ian Paisley might receive a nobel nod. Two men more than any others who seperated the Irish people. Tell me why this is so. Both men do not deserve this
Posted by: Vincent Doherty | March 27, 2007 10:22 PM
I can understand the misgivings people have about this resolution of conflict in this Northern part of Ireland. Have you ever lived there, Mr. Rainy Day?? I realise that the more moderate, the SDLP and UUP have had their backs broken, but perhaps this is the way it has to be in such a peace process-one that may yet be showed cased around the world as how you can talk to your direct enemies. I also belive that an United Ireland is a lot closer than ever before. It's time for the ROI to deliver both politically and finacially. We can't have a Dublin Dail wanting the DUP to enter government with SF over the border whilst abstaining from the same task in the 29 counties (officially Dun Laoghire, Fingal and NTipp Riding are counties). Otherwise Fianna Fail will still smack of the ambiguity and hand-washing that protested against the execution of Tom Williams in Belfast in 1942 while it carried out that of Charlie Kerins in Dublin in 1944. Both men were convicted for similar offences but the former by a court in London, the latter by one in Dublin. Sinn Fein over the border is the same as across it AND that Mr. Rainy Day is a good day for a 32 county Ireland.
Posted by: shoulderghost | March 28, 2007 5:03 PM
shoulderghost, how interesting that you should mention Charlie Kerins in this context. Check out this Rainy Day post: "When Charlie Kerins was born on 23 January 1918 in Caherina, Tralee, County Kerry, his parents never imagined their son would meet such a famous personage as Albert Pierrepoint, but he did, in December 1944 in Dublin."
http://www.eamonn.com/2006/05/dev_and_the_hangman.htm
Posted by: Eamonn | March 28, 2007 7:38 PM
All very nice, but has Gerry Adams or Martin McGuiness renounced Communism yet? Their goal for the 32 counties used to be the communist state, back in the old days when Bernadette and Bobby were news.
Sinn Fein is still allied to every former Stalinist political party in the European parliament. But cynic that I be, I suspect the lure of fifty billion quid overcomes the most doctrinaire neo-Republican.
Posted by: HenryB | March 29, 2007 4:42 AM
I am grateful to see Margaret Dohery's name acknowledged here. I knew her and her family very well. Her son Vincent was a wonderful friend of mine, while I was stationed at the US Navy base as a young man. Regardless of who gets credit for the Nobel Prize, I do think that Margaret would be happy in knowing that she provided a shining light of love and hope, to many that despaired during those difficult times. Honoring the spirit of her memory, even today, could be a wonderful present to give to those who never knew her.
I loved Northern Ireland and hope to visit in the near future after almost 30 years. God bless Ireland.
Posted by: kevin | November 10, 2007 1:43 AM