THE 'PEACE PROCESS'
Clonard Monastery, Belfast, where the peace process began
Following Walsh's account the 'peace process' began with discussions between Gerry Adams on behalf of the Republican movement, and the Redemptorist priest Father Alec Reid. Beginning in 1985, Fr Reid began discussions with Haughey. Walsh quotes Kevin Rafter's biography of Martin Mansergh, Haughey's go-between for discussions with Adams, describing a meeting with Reid:
'The Fianna Fail leader listened to Reid outline a scenario detailing how the IRA could be persuaded to call a ceasefire ... Reid argued that the Adams-led Republican leadership could be convinced to lay down their arms, but that this could only come about through face-to-face discussion. Talk had to be aimed, in the first instance, at ending the isolation of the Republican movement. Adams and his supporters had to be shown that a broad constitutional and nationalist family existed which they could join to pursue the objective of a united Ireland. But this would only come about when the IRA no longer felt that it was out on its own." (7)
(7) Walsh pp.339-40, quoting Kevin Rafter: Martin Mansergh [not Nicholas Mansergh as in Walsh's text - PB], a biography, New Island Books, 2002, p.182.
Hume joined the process when he met Adams 'in January 1988, when hostility toward Republicanism in the aftermath of Enniskillen was at a very high level. (8) When this was revealed, Haughey made a point of publicly backing the "integrity and judgement" of Hume in engaging in talks with Sinn Fein, against the SDLP leader's critics, without saying anything about his own earlier initiative. Hume then informed and instructed the SDLP to hold a series of talks with Sinn Fein at Clonard monastery in March 1988.'
(8) A bomb set off by the IRA at a Remembrance Day event in Enniskillen in 1987 killed eleven people.
In 1989, my namesake, Peter Brooke, arrived in Northern Ireland as Secretary of State. I myself had left for France in 1987. Without wishing to follow the course of the 'peace process' in detail, Hume's principle intellectual contribution was his argument that any settlement had to take account of the 'totality of the relationships' - again a matter of good things coming in threes. There were the relations between Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland, between Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic, and between the Irish Republic and Britain as a whole. This provided the basis for the 'three strands' of the final Good Friday Agreement - Strand one: Democratic institutions in Northern Ireland (relations between Catholics and Protestants); Strand Two: North/South ministerial council (relations between Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic); Strand Three: British-Irish Council/British-Irish intergovernmental conference (relations between the Irish Republic and Britain as a whole).
There was, however, a relationship that was missing from this analysis - the relationship between Northern Ireland and Great Britain, meaning the relationship between the people of Northern Ireland and what, despite everything, is still their sovereign government in Westminster. It was not much to the credit of the Unionists that they somehow failed to notice this. But whether they noticed it or not, it remains much more crucial to any understanding of the present condition of Northern Ireland than the arrangements for either North/South or British/Irish Republic cooperation.
Although on paper the Good Friday Agreement was a triumph for John Hume, looked at from his original perspective of 'joint sovereignty' it could indeed be seen as a failure. Hume saw the Irish government as the legitimate sovereign government of Catholics in Northern Ireland, and the British government as the perhaps somewhat less legitimate sovereign government of the Protestants in Northern Ireland. In fact it is doubtful if either side felt any particular confidence in their respective sovereign governments. The normal process by which legitimacy is established in a democratic society is through elections. Owing to the refusal of the British and Irish political parties to organise and contest elections in Northern Ireland neither Protestant nor Catholic could actually vote for a party capable of forming their sovereign government. (9) It is extremely doubtful if many Catholics ever felt any great sense of national solidarity with the government in Dublin. It is only recently that Sinn Fein, the principle beneficiary of the Good Friday Agreement, have recognised the Dail even as the legitimate government of the Republic, never mind the North. The principle achievement of the Good Friday Agreement has probably been to reconcile Sinn Fein to the continued existence of Northern Ireland, which was most certainly not John Hume's original project.
(9) This statement requires to be modified since the Conservative Party does now take members and contest elections though without putting into it the effort one would expect of a party that believed it had something radically important to contribute to a resolution of our problems. Sinn Fein of course is organised on an all-Ireland basis, though with the interesting twist that it is capable of forming a government in Northern Ireland but not yet in the Republic.
I earlier outlined two sides to the Catholic 'resurgence' in Northern Ireland since the end of Unionist majority rule in 1972 - a side I called, with no derogatory intention, 'careerist', and a military side, an assertion of the dignity of a people who had suffered fifty years of systematic humiliation on account of the system of government imposed on Northern Ireland since 1920. I have seen devolution, not partition as such, as the root of the problem. It may be that had James Molyneaux succeeded in his project of establishing an upper tier of local government, closing the Macrory gap, Northern Ireland would have acquired a perfectly adequate system of government that would not have had the effect any devolved legislature would have (including the present one) of exacerbating Catholic/Protestant tensions. This may well have suited the careerist side of the equation but it would have left the military side unsatisfied. To that extent perhaps the skill that John Hume showed in preventing such a settlement served a useful purpose in enabling the Catholic community as a whole to rejoice in the achievement of its military wing and enabling Sinn Fein, with all the political energy it had mobilised, to assume the role of guardian and promoter of the advance of the Catholic community within the Northern Ireland framework. But Northern Ireland still lacks a stable, democratic system of government. Given the difficulties of maintaining a devolved legislature in which the roles are divided between Sinn Fein and the DUP, Stormont is continually going into suspension. If this does not produce chaos it is because the functions of government continue to be exercised - by Westminster. Sinn Fein in Northern Ireland, while continually winning seats and refusing to take them up in Westminster, do not seem to be unduly upset by this. But it leaves one feeling that the problem - the basic problem of finding a stable system of governance - is still very far from having been solved.