I like to write my blogs by hand before I type them up. As I write this, I’m travelling on a bus from Dublin to Belfast. We are in the town of Drogheda in the Irish Republic. By the time I finish writing, we’ll be in Northern Ireland. It is three days until Easter. For Catholics today is Holy Thursday, for Protestants, Maunday Thursday. Either way, tomorrow will be Good Friday.
Given the date and the location, I feel it’s an appropriate time to reflect on the Good Friday Agreement (GFA), reached between the British and Irish governments and most of Northern Ireland’s political parties six Easters ago. Briefly, the GFA established a shared system of government in the North and co-operation between North and South. The agreement also provided for reform of the police service and legal system, the release of paramilitary prisoners and the decommissioning of paramilitary arms.
The GFA was historic in the breadth of support which it enjoyed, including unionists, nationalists, loyalists and republicans. Never before had there been such consensus on the governance of Northern Ireland. In a referendum held a month after the agreement was signed, it won the support of 94% in the South and 71% in the North.
It’s always difficult to recall feelings which you had in the past. There is a temptation to adjust your past thoughts to fit present attitudes. Nevertheless, I’ll try my best.
Six Maunday/Holy Thursdays ago, my uncle was over visiting from Scotland. The family went to a restaurant in East Belfast that evening. Earlier that day there had been excited talk on the news that a deal was imminent. The talks were taking place about a mile from where we were eating so, after the wine was drunk and the bill paid, we headed up the road to Stormont to have a look.
Of course we couldn’t get near the negotiations themselves but we did get to the front gate where Ian Paisley’s DUP were beginning a protest. Paisley had walked from the talks in 1997 once Sinn Fein were allowed in. He couldn’t stop the parties inside from reaching an agreement but, in the battle for hearts and minds about to begin, he could put down a marker.
His plan was to stage a symbolic protest at the foot of the statue of Edward Carson, the founder of Irish unionism, before holding a press conference in an adjacent port-a-cabin.
We arrived, a little inebriated, just as the protestors were walking up the long drive to the statue. They were a truly pathetic site. There were only fifteen of them at most. Some were senior DUP figures, looking ashen-faced in their smart suits and trench coats. The rest were local loyalist youths, dressed in track suits and carrying Union flags. All of them had the look of defeated men.
As we drove home we listened to Paisley’s press conference. It was memorable, but not in the way that his press conferences are usually memorable. As Paisley began to read a prepared statement, several members of the Progressive Unionist Party pushed their way in. These former paramilitaries relentlessly mocked the man they once idolised, the man, they claim, who inspired them to kill.
“Where are you leading us, Ian?” demanded one. “You’re the Grand Old Duke of York!” cried another. A well known rumour about a senior DUP figure was given a very public airing. It was hard-edged politics, Belfast-style. Usually Paisley, with his booming voice and quick wit, revelled in these occasions. On that day though he seemed lost. He looked old, tired and even a little scared. The bully had become the bullied.
What I saw and heard that night convinced me that the DUP was on the way down, under-cut by a new, moderate unionism. This conviction hardened a month later when Paisley failed to convince a majority of unionists to vote against the GFA. As he left the count that day he was heckled again: “Yesterday’s man!”
Six years on, I admit that I was 100% wrong about the future of the DUP. Rather than wither in the new political climate, the party has excelled. It is now the largest party in the North, riding a wave of unionist anger about the way the GFA has been implemented. Young voters and activists are flocking to the DUP. Paisley himself, 78 years old and in poor health, may be yesterday’s man but he’s the leader of tomorrow’s party.
The next day, Good Friday 1998, negotiations continued into the afternoon. Finally the last few points of disagreement were resolved around 4 p.m. The final session, chaired by George Mitchell was televised live. The former US senator tried to find the right words to sum up this historic moment. He chose to juxtapose the murderous past of some of the men sat around the table that day with the agreement they had just reached:
“It doesn’t take courage to shoot a taxi driver in the head but it does take courage to make peace.”
These words were still in my mind that evening while I was stacking shelves at work. The man stacking shelves next to me, Terry, had two young children. I wanted to talk to him about what had happened that day but I felt I couldn’t. It was never a good idea to talk to someone about politics unless you knew them well. Terry was a lovely fella, wouldn’t hurt a fly, but still, I didn’t know his politics and I didn’t want to make the rest of the shift awkward.
So I said nothing. But I thought to myself that Terry’s kids would grow up in a better society, without bombings and shootings. They’d grow up in a city where it was no big deal for Protestants and Catholics to mix together. Thinking of this, I smiled and picked up another tin of baked beans.
I was largely right on one count but dead wrong on the other. Children in Northern Ireland today live in a peaceful society. There are still bombings and shootings but nothing like previous levels. Growing up in certain parts of Belfast, where paramilitaries enforce street justice, is no picnic. However in the main things are much better.
We may have stopped killing each other but we haven’t started mixing. In some parts of Belfast the “peace walls” are actually higher now than they were in 1998. Most of us still live and go to school in segregated environments. The GFA has done nothing, absolutely nothing, to address this voluntary apartheid. Indeed, some of its critics argue that the Assembly, a product of the agreement, actually enforces sectarian division through its voting system.
I was naïve to hope that the GFA would lead to a thaw in relations between the religions. That was never its purpose. The agreement was an attempt at conflict management not conflict resolution. It is a way to live apart in peace, not a way to live together. Judged by this standard, the GFA can be considered a success.