15.5.2007
Reports obtained from:
(1) Irish News, (2) Irish Republican News, (3) Sunday Journal
Sunday, 13 May, 2007
Friday, 11 May, 2007
Tuesday, 8 May, 2007
Monday, 7 May, 2007
Blair and others take credit for peace driven from below
By Eamonn McCann, Sunday Journal
Ask not what Tony Blair has done for Northern Ireland, but what Northern Ireland has done for Tony Blair.
As he sets out on the longest lap of honour in political history, Blair can comfort himself with the thought that there is one place at least on the face of the planet where his crimes against humanity are not held against him.
He arrived at Stormont last Tuesday, steeped in the blood of Iraq, Palestine, Afghanistan, to be greeted on (almost) all sides with bouquets of praise, as a Man of Peace.
Even if it were true that Blair had played a key role in bringing peace to the North, the accolades now being heaped upon him would be, at best, inappropriate. Like applauding a man who'd raped a child up a back alley for tossing her sister a sweet as he makes his getaway.
This observation will itself be deemed inappropriate by those who don't see the people of Iraq, Palestine, Afghanistan etc. as flesh of our flesh and blood of our blood but as other sort of beings entirely, with none of the entitlements which we have to dignity and rights.
The role in the peace process ascribed to Blair has, anyway, been exaggerated beyond any resemblance to accuracy – particularly by constitutional Nationalists. On Tuesday, only Ian Paisley had the hard neck to tell the truth. Or to come within touching distance of the truth.
"Tony Blair leaves a priceless legacy of peace and agreement in Ireland. I am privileged to have worked side by side with him," gushed Bertie Ahern.
"The restoration of the political institutions would not have been possible without him," simpered Gerry Adams. "I want to extend best wishes to him, his wife Cherie and their family for the future."
"He deserves immense credit for his perseverance in our process…The amount of time and personal capital he invested should never be underestimated," suggested Mark Durkan, leader of a party which was consistently belittled and sidelined by Blair throughout the process.
Paisley, however, before going on to join in the trite chorus, argued briefly that, over the past 10 years, Blair "may have delayed the progress that has been achieved recently." What the DUP boss had in mind was Blair's alleged tendency to concede too readily to Nationalist demands – a typically unbalanced verdict. But Paisley's basic point, that Blair's involvement had delayed the deal, deserves consideration.
The mendacity and messing of the entire New Labour crew, the fact that they didn't have a single fixed principle between them, and the realisation on all sides within months of their arrival that their word wasn't worth its weight in dirt, was a significant factor in setting the scene for a decade of bad-tempered bluff and procrastination.
Blair, throughout, refused to contemplate any perspective other than that which allocated every citizen of the North automatically to either the Catholic-Nationalist or Protestant-Unionist camps. Of all the regimes which have ruled the six counties since partition, Blair's has been the most determinedly sectarian. True, it's been a balanced sort of sectarianism when compared with the dreadnought years of Ulster Unionism. But sectarianism nonetheless.
The arrangements for governance now in place thus suffer from a congenital sectarian infection. This may be Blair's most enduring legacy in the North – that a widespread and deep-seated yearning for an end to sectarian conflict has been channelled along communal lines, any potential for expression which transcended communalism systematically stamped on and snuffed out.
The Northern peace process has, from the outset, been driven from below, not imposed from above, to an extent which conventional commentary balks at acknowledging. In opting eventually to search for a settlement, local leaders were adapting to the wishes of the communities they wanted to lead, not dragging a people habituated to violence along a reluctant path towards peace.
All of the accolades, and more, which have been heaped on Blair in the past week belong properly to the plain people of the North.
In a decent society Blair would be in a dank cell with the key thrown away and the voices of unnumbered dead keening endlessly in his ears.
Instead, he swanks into town in bright sunshine, manic grin affixed to his face, to the sound of politicians and commentators in the grip of abject enthusiasm, shouting hosannas.
In the fullness of time, some at least of those who have participated in these events will feel, we may hope, a saving embarrassment.
This has been Northern Ireland's Princess Di moment.
The People's Process, anyone?
Copyright © Sunday Journal 2007
Analysis: Face of Ireland changed in just 16 minutes
By Jim Gibney for the Irish News
The historical record will show that at 11.32am on Tuesday May 8 2007 in Stormont's assembly chamber a line was drawn under the 1920 political arrangements partitioning Ireland.
It took all of three minutes, beginning at 11.29am, for the failed partitionist institutions to be binned and replaced by a new set of political institutions fitting for the new era.
The long, dark, divisive shadow of partition, cast across Ireland's people for 87 years, receded as Martin McGuinness and Ian Paisley affirmed their pledge of office to be joint and co-equal first ministers.
At 11.45am, 16 minutes after proceedings began, all the ministers of the new administration were affirmed. Sixteen minutes of time changed the face of Ireland's political landscape and set the scene for the next phase of the republican struggle - the countdown to the reunification of Ireland.
From this point forward through the operation of the institutions of the Good Friday Agreement - the all-Ireland ministerial council, the executive and assembly - all the people of this island for the first time since partition will be part of a single, island-wide political entity.
Tuesday's events were never on the radar screen for those who planned partition and its unionist and British practitioners.
In 1932 the newly-opened Stormont building reflected the unionist ethos of the times. To its fore the statue of Sir Edward Carson, to its side the grave of Sir James Craig, all around it unionist east Belfast.
Unionist luminaries protecting a parliament - the preserve of unionists.
On Tuesday the building housed those with a story of a different kind - nationalists. A displaced people, a maligned people, a marginalised people at last found their rightful place at the centre of political power.
As citizens of this nation they were entitled to be there but their ticket of entry was their determination to fight for their rights, to fight for the freedom of this country, to oppose the injustice of partition.
Other republican leaders watched the proceedings in the chamber. Through their efforts they made the burden carried by Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness lighter.
Declan Kearney, alongside them, navigated Sinn Fein activists through some of the most difficult decisions in recent times.
Annie Cahill and Bernadette O'Hagan, partners of the late Joe and JB, republicans who spanned almost eight decades of unbroken resistance to partition.
Mark Thompson, whose brother Peter was shot dead by British soldiers, Clara Reilly and Jim Clinton, whose wife Teresa loyalists shot dead, accompanied Paul Doherty and John McKinney whose father Paddy and brother Willie were shot dead on Bloody Sunday.
They are the voices for their loved ones and others shot dead by the crown forces.
The families of hunger strikers Frank Stagg, Thomas McElwee, Joe McDonnell and Kieran Doherty were there as was Barra McGrory whose father PJ represented the families of IRA volunteers Mairead Farrell, Dan McCann and Sean Savage, shot dead in Gibraltar.
Louise Ferguson, whose late partner Michael was an assembly member in the previous assembly, mingled with others like Jean Fagan and Seamie Drumm, whose daughter Sheena Campbell and mother Maire Drumm were shot dead by loyalists.
Leo Green, Sinn Fein's political adviser at the assembly, also lost his brother John to loyalists.
Fergus O'Hare and Gearoid O Caireallain represented the Irish language community with Jayne Fisher leading a large delegation from England.
An equally large delegation from the US turned out and was personally thanked by Martin McGuinness for their valuable contribution.
Michael Culbert and Rosenna Brown, ex-political prisoners, were there for that huge constituency.
Bobby Ballagh, Ireland's leading artist, recalled fallow times when revisionists held sway in the south.
Basques and Palestinians still in conflict sought advice from South African government minster Ronnie Kasrils and drew inspiration from the day.
It was an amazing day, packed with incredible scenes.
It coincided with the 20th anniversary of the killing of eight IRA volunteers and a civilian at Loughgall by the SAS.
Wherever republicans go we bring our martyr dead with us not with vengeance in our hearts but with pride.
On Tuesday everyone in Stormont was entitled to feel proud.
Copyright © Irish News 2007
Giving a hand to history
By William Graham, Irish News
Political correspondent William Graham assesses Tony Blair's contribution to the Northern Ireland peace process
The high watermark of Tony Blair's legacy was crossing the rubicon in Northern Ireland to help bring an end to the conflict – however, the low point was Iraq.
Things have worked out in the north for Mr Blair although in terms of the big international picture Iraq still stands bleeding and its troubles look likely to continue long after he has left office.
He was a prime minister of the spin-age and was sometimes described as a cross between an actor and a barrister – but he was and is very much in the tradition of real politician.
Even the cynics would acknowledge that perhaps Tony Blair did really feel "the hand of history" on his shoulder during the signing of the Good Friday Agreement in 1998.
And nine years on, this week's image of Ian Paisley and Martin McGuinness at last in partnership government at Stormont was not just a pivotal event but something of a political miracle.
Tuesday at Parliament Buildings in Belfast may turn out to become Mr Blair's finest moment as he witnessed from the public gallery what many hope will indeed prove to be the completion of the transition from conflict to peace.
The fact that Mr Blair travelled together to Stormont with his close partner in the peace process, Taoiseach Bertie Ahern, underscored the great transformation in Anglo-Irish relations which have taken place over the last number of years.
It was former South Down MP the late Enoch Powell who once observed that all political careers end in failure.
The peace process has had its imperfections but it has evolved in the right direction step by step and Blair's handiwork has been significant.
Perhaps more than any British politician before him Tony Blair has expended a greater deal of time and energy on the tangled Northern Ireland political process.
It should also be remembered that he worked closely with the then US president Bill Clinton in persuading the parties to sign up to the Good Friday Agreement.
Mr Blair and Mr Clinton went to Omagh after the 1998 bombing and met survivors and relatives of those who died.
The prime minister noted then that he "would never forget that meeting" and talked about never forgetting those who died as "we owe it to them above all to build a lasting peace".
Relationships between politicians from the north – unionist, nationalist and republican – and Mr Blair have at times veered between constructive and rocky.
No-one will forget that during the middle years of the process Mr Blair had his first handshake with Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams and they had their first meetings in Downing Street.
However, equally memorable was a tour by the Mr Blair of Connswater shopping centre in east Belfast where he ran the gauntlet of angry unionists.
Nationalist politicians have often commented that Mr Blair has shown a sense of mission in Ireland while some unionists have sensed that he has sometimes rushed headlong in trying to create timetables and deadlines.
It turned out that deadlines were a necessity, even if they were sometimes missed.
The stop-start nature of devolution, the decline of Trimble unionism and the rise of Paisley unionism meant that the DUP had to be brought more into the mainstream of the politicial negotiations if powersharing was to be achieved.
Mr Blair and Mr Paisley always had a difficult relationship and it is only in relatively recent years that this started to change and they moved to a closer political wavelength as well as having private chats about theology and literature.
The decision by Mr Blair and Mr Ahern to host talks with the northern political parties at St Andrews in Scotland last year proved to be a turning point.
It was the beginning of the last big throw of the political dice for Mr Blair in the peace process and luckily for him it worked out with deadlines coming and going but with the endgame always in sight.
At the end of the day Mr Paisley did present Mr Blair with a going away present in the form of agreement on powersharing devolution.
Back in November 1998 Mr Blair made history by becoming the first British prime minister to address the Dail and next Tuesday in London Bertie Ahern will become the first taoiseach to address a joint meeting of the Commons and the House of Lords.
Mr Blair (whose mother was born in Ballyshannon, Co Donegal) has sometimes spoken of the British and the Irish being "irredeemably linked".
He has referred to "so much shared history, so much shared pain... and now [in the peace process] the shared hope of a new beginning".
Yesterday (Thursday) as he announced that he was resigning after a decade as prime minister, Mr Blair said: "I don't think Northern Ireland would have changed unless Britain had changed."
Copyright © Irish News 2007
History, Hype and Hope
By Irish Republican News
The Six Counties have a new power-sharing Executive in another historic day at Stormont.
DUP leader Ian Paisley and Sinn Fein's Martin McGuinness have taken their pledges of office as devolution returned to the North of Ireland.
Five years of direct rule by London appointed ministers officially ended at midnight, paving the way for today's ceremonies and photo-opportunities intended to draw a line under the past conflict.
"Today we will witness not hype but history," Mr McGuinness said as he arrived for the day's events.
Watched by dignitaries from Britain, Ireland, the United States, Palestine, the Basque country and elsewhere, the ministers in the new Executive affirmed their pledges as they took up their posts. The pledge includes a commitment to support the PSNI police and the courts.
The British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, and the Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, were also at Stormont for the launch. In a revealing but highly staged media event, they chatted over tea and biscuits with Mr Paisley, Mr McGuinness and former British Direct Ruler Peter Hain.
Speaking after being confirmed as First Minister, Mr Paisley said it is a time to move on from conflict and put the past behind us.
"In politics as in life, it is a truism that no one can ever have 100 per cent of what they desire," he said.
"They must make a verdict when they believe they have achieved enough to move things forward."
He said Sinn Fein's acceptance of the rule of law met that test.
"Support for all the institutions of policing has been a critical test that today has been met and pledged, word and deed.
"Recognising the significance of that change from a community that for decades demonstrated hostility for policing has been critical in turning the corner."
Mr Paisley added: "I can say to you today that I believe Northern Ireland had come to a time of peace, a time when hate will no longer rule.
"How good it will be to be part of the wonderful healing in this province today."
Bertie Ahern and Tony Blair paid warm tributes to each other during their speeches in the Great Hall at Stormont, which followed a moving performance of choral singing.
Mr Blair said relations between Britain and Ireland during the past decade have been transformed.
"Today we are partners and we are friends," he said. "Bertie has always been there, ready to surmount yet another obstacle. By his actions he showed the willingness to engage, to understand and to reconcile. Bertie, thank you," Mr Blair said.
Returning the praise, Mr Ahern said peace and democracy in the North of Ireland would not be possible without the commitment and dedication of Mr Blair.
He said:"I thank him for the true determination that he had, for just sticking with it for 10 tough years.
"He has spent more time dealing with the issues of the island, far more time than anybody could have asked any other person to do."
Speaking at the Stormont Assembly, Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams said today was "another significant landmark in the process of transforming life on this island".
"Today is a good day for Ireland," he said. "I want to thank and commend everyone who worked to achieve this."
"I want also to remember everyone who was hurt or killed in the conflict. Over the weekend I spent time in County Tyrone with families of IRA volunteers killed 20 years ago today at Loughgall.
"Days like today must be about ensuring that events like Loughgall are never visited on another generation.
"I genuinely believe that we are all shaping a real process of national reconciliation and building a new relationship between the people on this island and between Ireland and Britain.
"There are clearly many challenges ahead but have no doubt that all these challenges can be overcome."
* There was a bomb alert today at Loughgall. British Army bomb disposal experts carried out a controlled explosion following the alert, which was described as an elaborate hoax.
Copyright © Irish Republican News 2007
Feature: The Wedding Cake
A look back at the history of Stormont -- the site of many failed Six-County political initiatives in the past -- but today the focus of renewed political hope.
By Nuala McCann
It is a great white wedding cake of a building, perched on the hills overlooking Belfast.
If the walls of Parliament Buildings could talk, they would whisper tales of intrigue and deception, of battles royal, of brawls in the hall and snowballs flung in defiance across Stormont's lawns.
The history of the North of Ireland is dominated by this building and Prince of Wales Avenue sweeping down to the statue of old-time unionist leader, Edward Carson: black, imperious, shaking a regal finger at the world.
The original plans were for three buildings - law courts on one side and a civil service building on the other - but in the end, the money ran out.
The big white edifice on the hill stands alone, built in 1932 to serve what unionist James Craig, later Lord Craigavon, once boasted was "a Protestant parliament and a Protestant state".
A Liverpool architect dreamed up the Greek classical design. He was a precise man and the building was 365 ft long - one foot for every day of the year.
Italian craftsmen made the journey to Belfast to fashion the ornate marble hall which became known as the Great Hall.
King George V opened the NI parliament in 1921, but sent the Prince of Wales to declare the actual new building open in 1932.
Artist William Conor painted the original members of the parliament. According to historical sources he was only paid oe131 6s for his effort, far short of the original oe200 that had been agreed.
During World War II, there were fears that the big white house on the hill was a sure target for German bombers.
The white stone was painted black with a mix of bitumen and cow manure. The roads in the grounds were camouflaged with ash and clinker.
The government also considered removing Lord Carson from his pedestal half way down Prince of Wales Avenue and putting him away for safe keeping. But the sculptor reassured them that he had fashioned a spare head - just in case.
During the 51 years of the 'Northern Ireland Parliament', only one Bill sponsored by a non-unionist member was ever passed. Poet and academic Tom Paulin wrote a poem about this, called Of Difference Does it Make or The Wild Birds Act of 1931.
In 1965, DUP leader Ian Paisley pelted snowballs at the then Irish Prime Minister Sean Lemass when he visited Stormont.
We had Sunningdale, the Ulster Workers' Strike - any amount of controversy captured in grainy 1970s pictures of tractors crawling up the tree-lined avenue in protest mode; politicians shouting, gesticulating, shaking their heads or storming out the doors and storming in.
But the winds of change blew through the tree-lined avenues and kicked up heaps of leaves and great hulking bundles of entrenched thinking.
All has changed utterly.
Journalists remember the day when Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams stood at a window and shouted out to the press corps gathered below: "Get me a united Ireland or I'll jump!" He was only joking.
But how might Lord Craigavon shiver at the sight of his life-size statue in Stormont's Great Hall, appearing over the shoulder of Mr Adams in televised Sinn Fein press conferences?
True, the building has seen dark moments. A fire, caused by an electrical fault, destroyed the Assembly Chamber on 2 January 1995 but it was carefully restored.
The last years are a-flicker with sombre images of police Land Rovers lining up the avenue as police went into raid Sinn Fein's offices in what became known as Stormontgate
Even more recently, the photograph of loyalist Michael Stone wrestled into submission in the doorway of Parliament Buildings, tells a story that has not fully played out.
But there were moments of lightness too. Not least, those brought by former NI Secretary, the late Mo Mowlam, who cast aside ceremony, not to mention her wig, called her associates "babe", indulged in widespread hugging and helped open up Stormont to everyone.
Those were the days of concerts. Remember the lark in the park? Remember Elton John and the Eagles? How many of the old school politicians spun in their graves as Rod Stewart rasped: "If ya want my body and ya think I'm sexy" on Stormont's lawns.
Recent figures show that up to 40,000 tourists from 108 countries around the world visit Parliament buildings every year.
Belfast artist Noel Murphy immortalised the modern assembly on canvas. His work was unveiled in February 2003.
John Hume, the former SDLP leader, proved to be his favourite sitter.
"I wish more were like him," Murphy said at the time. "Most of these politicians talked and talked, which meant it was harder to paint them. If I could have had 107 other John Humes, it would have made this painting much easier."
In December 2005, the old lady on the hill who seemed so far removed from the ordinary people, opened her big iron gates to thousands who travelled to Stormont to pay tribute to one of Northern Ireland's greatest exports, footballing legend George Best.
His funeral took place in the Great Hall. He was a boy from the Cregagh estate who could never have dreamed his life.
And could anyone have ever dreamed a day when the Democratic Unionists and Sinn Fein would be sharing power in a new Northern Ireland Assembly?
Mr Paisley - Dr No - the man who spent decades saying "Never, never, never" is now poised to lead his party into a power- sharing coalition with his old enemy, Sinn Fein.
The honeymoon is over. What hopes for the new assembly and these folks in their house on the hill?
It is a big white wedding cake of a building. But when it comes to politics, can Stormont ever be the scene of a happy marriage?
Copyright © Irish Republican News 2007
'Difficult journey' to move forward
By William Graham, Irish News
Sinn Féin's Martin McGuinness, sitting in his new office at Stormont, said he had had "many meetings" with Ian Paisley and they had all been conducted in "a very courteous and civilised fashion".
As they say in this part of the political world, you could hardly believe your ears.
Yet that is what is happening at least initially in a constructive relationship be-tween these two men, who were once enemies.
Mr Paisley and Mr McGuinness become first minister and deputy first minister tomorrow (Tuesday).
It is a joint office but of course they don't share the exact same office space in Parliament Buildings.
The office walls are somewhat bare at the moment but Mr McGuinness intends to add his own touch to the place.
He is considering some pictures of Sam Maguire Cup winners.
In getting down to the business of this interview Mr McGuinness said he believed that when Ian Paisley finally decided to take part in the restoration of the institutions he would go in not for the purpose of walking out but to make things work.
Mr McGuinness admitted there would be difficult days ahead and difficult decisions to be taken.
But he said that so far all of his experience in working with Ian Paisley was that both men were approaching the process in a proper frame of mind.
The restoration tomorrow of the political institutions – both power-sharing and all-Ireland – has the overwhelming support of people in the north and throughout the island, Mr McGuinness said.
For him one of the most significant events of recent months was the March assembly election.
"There is tremendous satisfaction out in the community that at long last we are going to see the institutions that the people want put back in place," Mr McGuinness said.
He accepted that as well as being a momentous day, Tuesday would also be a sobering occasion with relatives of people who died in the conflict still grieving.
"I think all of us participating in the events of tomorrow will be very conscious of all of that," he said.
"And very conscious of the need to ensure that we continue to move forward, that we continue to successfully move away from all of the inequalities, injustices, discrimination, violence and death of the past to a new future.
"It is hard to quantify how people within the victims group feel about all of this except we do know that many many people who have been victims of the conflict are also very supportive of the political change that has happened over the course of the recent while.
"Others will undoubtedly find it difficult to come to terms with all of this but I think this is a journey for everybody and it is a difficult journey but it is a journey we all have to take to move forward.
"We have to move forward not forgetting the past – certainly not forgetting all of those people who have been victims.
"I certainly know, coming from the community I come from, there are many people out there who have had absolutely no comfort from anybody within the British government in terms of the activities of British state forces and the many killings they engaged in without anybody facing one day in prison as a result of these activities."
Later during the interview Mr McGuinness said people had to recognise that our past over the course of many centuries had been littered with conflict, injustice and inequality.
At the same time he said: "We are now at a place in our lives with every prospect of a political process being put in place which has the potential within it to prevent ever again the type of instability and injustice and conflict that we have seen in the past ever occurring again."
Asked if he had ever thought, as an IRA commander in Derry in the early years of the latest phase of the conflict, if he would end up sharing an office with Ian Paisley, he said: "The truthful answer to that question is 'no'.
"But I think also the time that I was an IRA commander was over 30 years ago.
"That is a long period of time – three decades – and a lot has happened over the course of those three decades.
"I have for the greater part of the last 15 years been involved at the highest level of leadership within Sinn Féin and Irish republicanism in an attempt to bring the conflict to an end in a way which would see all of the inequalities and injustices, instability, conflict and death a thing of the past.
"Here we are. The Irish peace process is one of the most successful peace processes in the world today and I would like to think that
I along with others have played my part in making this happen."
Copyright © Irish News 2007