Northern Ireland: A Triumph of Politics: Interviews and Analysis, 1988-2008

244 Pages·2009·15.016 MB·English

by  Frank Millar

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Interviews and Analysis 1988-2008 —
FRANK MILLAR

Northern Ireland
A Triumph of Politics
Interviews and Analysis 1988-2008
FRANK MILLAR
s
IRISH ACADEMIC PRESS
DUBLIN * PORTLAND, OR
First published in 2009 by Irish Academic Press
44 Northumberland Road, 920 NE 58th Avenue, Suite 300
Ballsbridge, Portland, Oregon,
Dublin 4, Ireland 97213-3786, USA
© 2009 by Frank Millar
www.iap.ie
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
An entry can be found on request
978 0 7165 3001 5 (cloth)
978 0 7165 3002 2 (paper)
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
An entry can be found on request
a
All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved alone, no
part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval
system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical,
photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of
both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
Printed by Biddles Ltd., King’s Lynn, Norfolk
Contents
Acknowledgements and Author’s Note
1 Defining the Problem — John Hume, 1988-1989
2 Catholics and the State: Obligations and
Entitlements — Bishop Cahal Daly, 1989 25
ise) Desperately Seeking an Alternative — John Taylor, 1989 48
> Looking to the Other Side of the Hill — Peter Brooke, 1991 67
Oo In From the Cold —- Gerry Adams, 1994 85
6 New Labour, New Irish Policy — Tony Blair, 1995 90
7 Trench Warfare: The Good Friday Disagreement — Seamus
Mallon, Chris Patten and David Trimble, 1988-1999 99
8 Suspension — Seamus Mallon, Jeffrey Donaldson,
Gerry Adams and David Trimble, 2000 111
9 No More Itsy Bitsy — Tony Blair, 2002 128
10 Heir Apparent — Peter Robinson, 2002 137
11 Guns and Government — David Trimble, 2004 146
12 Back to Stormont — Dermot Ahern, Gerry Adams,
Peter Hain and Ian Paisley, 2006 164
13 American Intervention — Mitchell Reiss, 2006 181
14 ‘Dr No’ Says Yes — Ian Paisley, 2006-2007 186
iv NORTHERN IRELAND: A TRIUMPH OF POLITICS
15 Ireland at Peace — Bertie Ahern, 2008 193
Epilogue: Tony Blair’s Irish Peace 208
228
Index
Acknowledgements
and Author’s Note fa
It was Marigold Johnson, the dynamic organising force behind the
British Irish Association, who first suggested that some of the original
series of Irish Times interviews featured here would make a book. Old
friends such as Paul (Lord) Bew and Ambassador Sean O hUiginn also
encouraged the view that such a publication would make a useful tool
for future students of a truly remarkable period in Northern Ireland
politics. I had some reservations about the journalist recycling previ-
ously published work. However, any doubts were dispelled by the
commitment and enthusiasm of my editor at Irish Academic Press, the
excellent Lisa Hyde. Moreover, the journalism featured here is of the
kind I most enjoy, the set-piece interview allowing the subject to be
heard — while hopefully discovering and learning, and informing the
public debate in the process.
I will always be grateful to the editor of The Irish Times, Geraldine
Kennedy, and to her predecessor Conor Brady, for giving me the
opportunity to do so. It is salutary to recall that Conor’s original idea
back in 1988 was to have the newspaper fill a ‘political vacuum’
already of such duration as to convince many that Northern Ireland
was a problem beyond solution. During Geraldine’s editorship, like-
wise, there were periods of intransigence and gloom when hope and
the suggestion that a breakthrough was still possible struck many as
positively perverse. Both of them were driven by the strong personal
conviction that this unresolved ‘national question’ could not be
ignored; by the desire to reach out, increase understanding and
encourage dialogue where there was none; and by the uncompromis-
ing belief that future generations in Northern Ireland demanded and
deserved release from a violent and divided past. However, while
they may have made The Irish Times ‘the house journal’ of the talks
process, neither Geraldine nor Conor did so under any illusion that
this was a story that sold newspapers. That, I think, only adds to their
great credit.
The road travelled here begins with a drive to Pat and John Hume’s
Donegal retreat a couple of days after Christmas 1988, and an incident
NORTHERN IRELAND: A TRIUMPH OF POLITICS
that spoke volumes in its own way for the challenge facing all the
North’s politicians. Stopping at the police road-check outside Derry I
asked the armed RUC officer for directions once I had crossed the bor-
der. ‘I can’t help you, I’m afraid,’ he replied cheerfully. ‘Tve never
been over there.’ I could hardly have imagined that the interview con-
ducted that day would so inform a book twenty years later which,
courtesy of the Belfast and St Andrews Agreements, would celebrate
a triumph of politics and a dynamic new set of relationships within
Northern Ireland, between Northern Ireland and the Republic and
between the Irish and British peoples of these islands.
My warm thanks then to all the politicians — plus the Churchman
and the diplomat — who went on-the-record, and specifically to those
featured in this necessarily limited selection: Gerry Adams, Bertie
Ahern, Dermot Ahern, Tony Blair, Peter Brooke, Cardinal Cahal Daly,
Jeffrey Donaldson, Peter Hain, John Hume, Seamus Mallon, Ian
Paisley, Chris Patten, Ambassador Mitchell Reiss, Peter Robinson, John
Taylor and David Trimble.
I have been helped and sustained over the years by many political
and official sources and by the camaraderie of journalistic colleagues
too many to mention here. Most in any event would probably wish to
remain anonymous — but they know who they are and they have my
gratitude and respect. In the context of this work, however, I must
thank some of those who have been crucial in making things happen.
I always enjoy dealing with Richard McAuley, Gerry Adams’ key aide,
even when he has officially (or even unofficially) nothing to say.
Richard is invariably cheerful and welcoming, and I am always grate-
ful to him for stretching already hectic schedules and timetables to
help me keep mine. Likewise Ian Paisley Jnr, though a politician in his
own right, was always available and enthusiastic and true to his word
in all his dealings with me on his father’s behalf. Even after he gradu-
ated from the Northern Ireland Office to become Tony Blair’s official
spokesman, Tom Kelly was always generous with his time and deliv-
ered for me big time, and on more than one occasion. The same must
be said of Dermot Gallagher, the Secretary General of the Department
of Foreign Affairs in Dublin, who has done me many favours and
kindnesses over long years of friendship. While many can now justifi-
ably claim their share of the credit for the new dispensation, our mutu-
al friend the late Harold McCusker would gladly have testified that
Dermot was one of the earliest modernisers.
Thanks are due to Aonghus Meaney, copy editor, for making the
process so painless, to the staff of The Irish Times library, and to my
daughter Catherine who is a whizz on the keyboard and whose inter-
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS AND AUTHOR’S NOTE
ventions prevented meltdown at several critical moments. However, it
is no exaggeration to say that this work might never have materialised
— and certainly that its production would have been infinitely more
difficult, time consuming and challenging — without the assistance of
the brilliant Mick Crowley from The Irish Times editorial systems
department in Dublin. Mick initially volunteered to retrieve some of
the older articles and promptly found himself landed with the role of
unpaid researcher, working particular magic to transform some of the
early archive material into digital form. I am hugely in his debt.
My thanks, too, to Dr Steven King, Jonathan Caine, Bernard Purcell
and Peter Smith QC for reading the manuscript, for their wise advice,
and most especially for their friendship. And finally, and above all, to
my family — to Liz and the girls, Sarah, Sophie and Catherine — for all
their love and support.
This book does not purport to provide a definitive account of the
end of the troubles. For how could any? Myriad friends, colleagues
and others have already published or are planning their own analyses
of this complex, multi-dimensional story, with its national and inter-
national dimensions, plots, sub-plots and intrigues set alongside con-
flicting hopes, interpretations and perceptions.
What I have set out to do is chart, hopefully in an accessible way, the
progress from a state of no consensus to one where ‘consent’ provides
the basis for constitutional stability in Northern Ireland and dictates
the exclusively peaceful and democratic rules of engagement for those
committed to future constitutional change. In cutting through the fog
I have also ignored a tremendous amount of detailed argument and
political engagement along the way. Yet here in essence is the triumph
of John Hume’s constant assertion that ‘majoritarianism’ could not
work in a divided society; unionism’s slow and often painful accept-
ance of equality, ‘parity of esteem’ and ‘the three sets of relationships’
indispensable to a stable settlement; and, equally, nationalist and
republican Ireland’s reluctant recognition of the price — in terms of the
principle of consent, the withdrawal of the Republic’s territorial claim,
support for policing and acceptance of the legitimacy of the British
state in Northern Ireland — necessary to secure unionist acceptance of
power-sharing and ‘the Irish dimension’.
The book also comes with the warning that we can, and should,
take nothing for granted — this reflected in the decision to change the
title from ‘the triumph ...’ to ‘a triumph of politics’. It seemed entirely
appropriate to conclude with interview and analysis of the Taoiseach
and Prime Minister on whose watch the historic breakthrough finally
occurred. From Bertie Ahern there is the reminder, spelt out in his his-
Vill NORTHERN IRELAND: A TRIUMPH OF POLITICS
toric address to both houses of the British parliament in May 2006, that
this tender plant will require the continuing highest priority in Dublin
and London. The acknowledgement that Tony Blair really did make
history in Ireland is also attended by the observation that “even he ...
could not have thought to end it’.
It is neither insulting nor impertinent to observe that questions
remain about the character and temperament of Northern Ireland’s
new political elite: ‘Having seized power, will the DUP and Sinn Féin
prove capable of genuinely “sharing” it for the common good? Can
commitments to justice and equality have meaning without a shared
commitment to reconciliation between communities still living a seg-
regated “apartheid” existence behind so-called “peace walls”?’
In that context I am delighted to report that Jigsaw and the
Northern Ireland Community Relations Council have made funds
available to Irish Academic Press to enable the release of copies of this
book to various schools, inter-faith and cross-community groups and
through the Northern Ireland Council for Integrated Education. This
book, finally, is dedicated to those communities on both sides still
awaiting their ‘peace dividend’, and to the next generations who have
the opportunity now to make Northern Ireland the still-better place it
can and deserves to be.
Frank Millar,
London, September 2008
The publishers make grateful acknowledgement to The Irish Times for
permission to reproduce Frank Millar’s interviews in this book.
The publishers also gratefully acknowledge permission to reproduce an
extract from Blair's Britain, 1997-2007, ed. Anthony Seldon (Cambridge
University Press, 2007), pp.509-529, © Cambridge University Press, and
acknowledge the reproduction of an extract from David Trimble: The Price
of Peace by Frank Millar (Liffey Press, 2004, 2008).