Belfast: “We need a solution the dead can live with,” is how one Belfast resident, in a uniquely Irish way, described the prospects for long-term peace after the recent events in Northern Ireland that shook the world.
His words were not such a paradox as they may seem. The graves of the over 3,000 dead stand as mute testament to the suffering on all sides that the Long War of a quarter century has inflicted.
Did they all die in vain, or will this new breakthrough make their ultimate sacrifice in some way worthwhile for their families if it builds a permanent peace out of the flotsam of so many broken lives and shattered dreams?
The answer, of course, lies in future developments, but rose tinted glasses, an almost unheard of accessory on the gray streets of Northern Ireland, are suddenly being donned all over. But it is not just in Belfast, but throughout Ireland that the new mood of optimism is taking hold.
“The greatest difference is that we wake up in the morning and the news is no longer of somebody shot dead or injured, it’s about the peace process and the steps towards a settlement,” said a relative of mine in Dublin, who has watched all the twists and turns of the Northern situation since 1969.
Essentially the Irish are being allowed to dream again, to contemplate an Ireland where no one has to fight for their beliefs, where they are not defined by a tragedy that had turned into Europe’s longest running war and Ireland’s deadliest conflict in centuries.
James Joyce wrote that Irish history was “a nightmare from which we are trying to awaken.” There are signs at the end of the 20th century that the country is finally stirring.
At the heart of the matter is a political setlement acceptable to all sides. That seemed an eon away just a few short months ago. But the time and the tide that has swept forward movements toward peace in South Africa, the Middle East and now Ireland is still Africa, the Middle East and now Ireland is still at full flood, as the latest Loyalist ceasefire of October 13 has clearly demonstrated.
Ahead lie difficult times and tough choices. It is increasingly clear that no party to the conflict will end up with all the marbles, and that compromise and conciliation will need to be practiced at the highest and lowest levels, from the magisterial halls of governments to the check by jowl working class neighborhoods of Protestant and Catholic West Belfast.
That was never possible as long as the violence continued. Successive efforts to solve the Irish situation foundered because the violence continued while talks were being carried out. Without the violence, however, political consensus is far more realizable.
A key factor will be the dawn of a new economic era unleashed by the continuing peace process. Then potential for the hard-hit tourism sector, manufacturing jobs and multinational investment is now far greater than it was.
“Given five years of peaceful conditions it is possible that the tourism industry in Northern Ireland could create at least 20,000 jobs, particularly if opportunities are seized by the private sector,” says Hugh O’Neill, chairman of the Northern Irish Tourist Board, who overnight must think he and his staff have just won first prize from the Make a Wish Foundation.
On the industrial employment front, a recent report by the Confederation of British Industry noted that by 1999 an estimated 29,000 extra jobs could be created as a result of a complete cessation of all violence and a lasting political settlement.
If both those eventualities were to happen the unemployment rate in Northern Ireland would be slashed. “People would wake up not wondering whether they were British or Irish today, but whether they were on time for work,” says David Ervine, a spokesman for the working class Loyalist community who helped bring about the Loyalist ceasefire.
The solutions will be nothing magical – jobs, opportunity, a square deal for both communities which allows them to live together, their sense of identity and cultural aspiration recognized. John Hume, the Nationalist political leader and a prime architect of the peace process, has written that Irishmen need to “spill sweat not blood” in order to bring peace to Ireland.
Corporate Irish America can help too. Already, businessman such as Bill Flynn of Mutual of America and Charles Feeney of General Atlantic played a major role (see Page 16) in helping facilitate the IRA ceasefire. Now it is time to construct the peace, and a key building block will be providing jobs and opportunity to a generation of young Irish, Catholic and Protestant, who have never known either.
Editor’s Note: This article was originally published in the November/December 1994 issue of Irish America. ♦
Leave a Reply