The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
Speaking of peace
Discussion examines state of affairs ahead of landmark Good Friday Agreement
NORTH HAVEN — A whole generation of people in Ireland have grown up knowing peace, but a time existed 20 years ago when it was hard for people to imagine that peace was even possible.
Coming up on the 20th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement, which marked a political peace settlement in Northern Ireland, U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy, DConn., held a discussion at Quinnipiac University on the peace process and the state of peace decades later.
Ireland Ambassador to the U.S. Daniel Mulhall and former U.S. Special Envoy for Northern Ireland George Mitchell joined Murphy for the discussion. Both men were involved with the agreement and Mitchell was heavily involved in the peace process that led to the agreement and was chairman of the negotiations to reach it.
The Good Friday Agreement, also know as the Belfast Agreement, was signed April 10, 1998. It aimed to form lasting peace and a power-sharing government following decades of paramilitary violence in Northern Ireland knows as the “Troubles.”
“It’s one of the great diplomatic achievements of our time,” Murphy said.
Speaking of the state of peace today, Mulhall said, “The problem is Northern Ireland has peace but is not at peace. The people of Northern Ireland and communities themselves are not at peace with each other yet, and that’s the fundamental problem.”
The agreement acknowledged that the majority of the people of Northern Ireland wished to remain a part of the United Kingdom, while a portion of the people of Northern Ireland and the majority of the people of the Republic of Ireland wanted a united Ireland, according to the BBC History. A united Ireland would mean the six counties of Northern Ireland would be rejoined under Ireland home rule.
The island still faces many political and religious differences between its northern and southern parts and respective dominant political parties. The issues from an outside perspective appear to be trivial, Mulhall said, but a central issue for both territories is the status of the Irish language in Northern Ireland. For Irish Nationalists the language is a vital part of their identity, he said, and the attitude of Northern Ireland Unionists seems to them that the Good Friday Agreement isn’t being adhered to.
Furthermore, Mitchell said the U.K.’s withdrawal from the European Union, known as Brexit, will be a “catastrophic error for the people (of the) United Kingdom, but mostly to the people of Ireland. The Irish economy is deeply integrated in the United Kingdom . ... The people of Ireland will be tremendously adversely affected.”
The realization of Brexit would adversely affect the Irish economy, but maybe more importantly relations between the northern and southern parts of Ireland, Mitchell said, since the move could lead to forming a “hard border” between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. It’s a situation that’s “deeply uncomfortable for Ireland,” Mitchell said.
The communities of Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland have a better relationship now than they’ve ever had in their history, Mulhall said, and Brexit cuts across this new era in British/ Irish relations, threatening “in various ways to undermine it and we have to find ways to prevent that undermining from taking place.”
The Good Friday Agreement is seen as the conclusion to the Northern Ireland peace process after three decades of modern conflict between Irish nationalists and Northern Ireland unionists, according to BBC History. The conflict saw mass civilian casualties in paramilitary attacks, such as the 1987 Remembrance Day Bombing in Enniskillen and the 1972 Bloody Sunday shootings in Londonderry, Northern Ireland.
Unionists, or loyalists who were mostly Protestants, wanted Northern Ireland to remain within the U.K. while Irish nationalists, who were mostly Catholics, wanted Northern Ireland to leave the U.K. and join a united Ireland, BBC History reported.
Thousands of people, mostly civilians, died during the years of conflict, a pain still felt by people in Northern Ireland, Mitchell said. It isn’t just the families of those killed that have been scarred, he said, but also people who live with daily physical reminders from being shot or beaten through the conflict. But reconciliation today for those lives lost will have to be decided by the people of Northern Ireland, he said.
“The legacy of the past is going to take a long time to manage,” Mulhall said. However, a main reason the Good Friday Agreement has been upheld is because of widespread recognition that “whatever the differences, it’s not worth going back to killing,” he said.
In 1998, for the first time in a binding agreement, the Republic of Ireland accepted that Northern Ireland was part of the U.K. and the Republic of Ireland removed its constitutional claim to the territories that formed Northern Ireland, according to a copy of the agreement.
“The Northern Ireland peace process is one of the great achievements of the last half-century,” Mulhall said, adding it probably saved thousands of lives over the years. “I think this anniversary gives opportunity to remember what was achieved and we’ll do everything in our power to make sure it doesn’t get sidelined by neglect or intervention of Brexit.”
“The aim and mission of this generation of politicians is to ensure that the hope of the Good Friday Agreement does not get undermined by political intransigence and that we continue to point forward rather than backward in Northern Ireland,” Mulhall said, “because that’s the only place that makes any sense for the people of Northern Ireland, for the people of Ireland as a whole and, indeed, for the people of Britain and Ireland.”