Northern Ireland is no longer at war, but it is not yet at peace with itself. The Queen’s visit to the Republic of Ireland on 17th May (and President Barack Obama’s on 23rd May) were supposed to signal a new era: that the Troubles were irrevocably in the past. But a bomb, discovered on a bus in Kildare and made safe just hours before the Queen’s arrival in the country, was a reminder that the old antipathies remain. The Queen was the first monarch to visit since Irish independence in 1922. Gerry Adams, Sinn Fein president, acknowledged her visit was a sign of changed times, although he also called it “premature.” The Good Friday agreement that Tony Blair brokered in 1998 has been called the greatest achievement of his premiership, and is cited as a model for peace negotiations around the world. But it is not “mission accomplished.” True, the IRA has been dissolved and the once highly-dangerous Protestant paramilitary groups are largely inactive. Yet dissident republican groups killed a Catholic police recruit on 2nd April, and disrupted the run-up to the 5th May elections to the Northern Ireland Assembly with bombs and bomb scares. Their attempted attacks on government and police targets are more frequent. Jonathan Evans, head of MI5, says: “We have seen a persistent rise in terrorist activity and ambition over the last three years.” Most serious for Northern Ireland’s future, the Protestant and Catholic communities remain segregated, in the schools above all. Meanwhile, Westminster is cutting the stream of subsidies on which the economy has been built. The Troubles may be over, but an untroubled future is hardly in sight. Today, most of Belfast has the appearance of a modern city. Half an hour spent roaming its backstreets, however, shows that dozens of “peace lines”—walls dividing Catholic and Protestant communities that were erected from the late 1960s onwards to prevent fighting—are still there (see above). In the west and north of the city, the most violent areas during the Troubles, these walls still delineate the toughest neighbourhoods, as in north Belfast where a peace line separates republican Ardoyne from loyalist Shankill. Some soar up to 30 feet high, elaborate constructions of reinforced concrete, steel, heavy-duty mesh and razor-wire. Most of them are ugly, although a few, for example around Ardoyne, have been prettified and artfully camouflaged with shrubs and climbing plants. Sometimes these are sardonically referred to as “designer peace lines.” *** The gunmen who once roamed the streets have gone, but at traditional flashpoints such as Crumlin Road and the Short Strand, young trouble-seekers still show up on Friday nights, often after swigging strong Buckfast tonic wine (known as “wreck the hoose-juice” and “liquid commotion.” As one enthusiast put it: “It’s cheap and gets you legless very quickly.”). Their activities have been dismissed as recreational rioting; the problem is that drunken stone-throwing can lead to more serious clashes. This happens less nowadays partly because groups of ex-prisoners, republicans and loyalists, help keep the peace by alerting each other by mobile phone to possible escalations, which can be dealt with. Yet the 40-odd peace lines, large and small, share one characteristic: once built, they never come down. The walls are popular with residents, imparting a sense of security. Beginning to dismantle them would require a leap of faith, and for now those on both sides of the walls want them to stay. “We’re safe now with this peace line—in fact we’d like to see it higher,” a Catholic housewife living in the shadow of the wall separating the Shankill from the Catholic Falls told me. “Once they take that wall down I wouldn’t be here, definitely not.” The same sentiments were voiced by a Protestant housewife who lives in invisible proximity, literally a stone’s throw away on the other side of the wall: “We feel very much at ease here, it’s not a bad atmosphere at all, but if that wall came down I’d be away.” All that said, Northern Ireland today is as close to peace as it has got for decades: just under 40 years ago, 500 people died in a single year; a decade ago 20 were killed; this year the toll so far is a single fatality. Although deep societal divisions persist, the peace process has already transformed many aspects of life. The entire psychology of Belfast has altered. The dissidents pose a security threat, but not a political one. Even in the toughest areas such as Ardoyne, the attachment to peace is tangible. The many killings over the years in and around that area have inevitably left a residue of bitterness, along with high levels of deprivation and unemployment. Most of the area’s housing is adequate although overcrowding is a real problem: in the afternoon its streets teem with young people, either pupils on their way home from school or drifting jobless youths. The peace lines keep a lot of trouble out but they also have a confining, claustrophobic effect: some residents, it is said by locals, have not left the district in years. However, the virtual absence of violence has proved immensely welcome. The army is long gone from the streets and no longer do large numbers of young men join paramilitary groups and end up in jail. Above all, funerals have become a rarity.
Belfast is not a city that readily shows its feelings. A sullen suspicion permeates its backstreets. However, the appreciation of peace after the long war was illustrated by the reaction to the murder, earlier this year, of Ronan Kerr, a policeman who died in a dissident bombing in County Tyrone. Police seeking the bombers arrested one man in Dunbartonshire, Scotland, as well as another man and a woman in Northern Ireland. The police have never been popular in Ardoyne but the district, like everywhere else, was appalled by the attack, and the normally tough neighbourhood reacted with tenderness. One typical response came from a local woman who said of the police officer: “God rest his wee soul, God rest him. God love him and his family.” Crucially, few expressed fear that the Troubles were on their way back. As one unemployed man put it: “People don’t want any more of this. The war’s over.” Two aspects of the life and death of the constable, a 25-year-old Catholic, showed how much has changed. The first concerns policing. Northern Ireland used to have a great many inequalities, including an overwhelmingly Protestant police force. But far-reaching reforms meant Kerr felt able to join the new police service. He was not alone in this: more than 2,000 Catholics have joined in recent years. His family and his community supported his choice—which was strikingly obvious at his funeral, when the guard of honour was provided not just by police colleagues but also the local Gaelic Athletic Association, standing shoulder to shoulder. The GAA is both a sporting organisation and one of the fountainheads of Irish nationalist sentiment. The joint honour guard, a sight unthinkable until now, sent a strong message that, after centuries of mutual antagonism and suspicion, nationalism is no longer incompatible with policing. The second concerns politics. Shortly after his death, the grieving Kerr family issued a poignant appeal for people to come out and vote in the 5th May elections to the devolved Assembly, which has just completed its first full four-year term. A statement from the family read: “It doesn’t matter which party we choose to vote for as long as they support the peace process. We are all working for a common goal.” The results of that election provided an endorsement of a remarkable new relationship forged between once deadly foes: Peter Robinson of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) and Martin McGuinness of Sinn Fein. As leaders of Northern Ireland’s two most important parties, they have—against all expectations—not only formed a coalition government, but also have developed a close working partnership. Both parties did well on 5th May, voters clearly voicing their approval of this new era in which co-operation has begun to replace confrontation. In the days when Sinn Fein supported IRA violence, the DUP used to refer contemptuously to “Sinn Fein-IRA.” But the IRA ceasefire of 1994, followed by the Good Friday agreement, paved the way for change, and it soon became obvious that only these two parties were arithmetically capable of forming an administration that would bring local power back to Belfast. It was either that or endless war. Yet when it actually happened, in 2007, the world stood amazed that such sworn enemies were prepared to put years of bitterness behind them and go into government together. Furthermore, McGuinness and the DUP’s Iain Paisley did so with such cheerful good humour that they became known as “the Chuckle Brothers.” Some in the Protestant grassroots resented the substance and chummy style of this new politics, and in 2008 Paisley stepped down as first minister. His replacement, Robinson, a more cautious and buttoned-up figure, continued to work with McGuinness but initially kept his distance so that chuckling was replaced by chill. This changed, though, when Robinson hit a crisis that threatened to end his career. When it emerged that his wife Iris, a member of both the Assembly and the Commons, had had an affair with a teenager, she quit public life. To add to his woes, Robinson was caught up in the Westminster expenses imbroglio. Last year disgruntled voters punished him, and he lost his Westminster seat. But he remained in the Assembly and clung on to the post of first minister. In the most recent Assembly election, he staged a triumphant recovery, winning more than 28 per cent of the vote in his East Belfast constituency: nearly 5,000 more than his closest competitor. *** A key reason for his survival was the restraint shown by McGuinness and Sinn Fein who discreetly supported him. Until recently, the sight of republicans helping an embattled unionist would have been unimaginable. Since then, Robinson and McGuinness have developed a personal and political bond. There are five parties in the governing coalition but it is increasingly said that only two of them really count. Smaller parties maintain that “Sinn Fein-IRA” has evolved into “Sinn Fein-DUP,” complaining they are excluded from key decisions made behind closed doors by the big two. Robinson acknowledges there are “massive differences” in the two parties’ long-term aims, but the friction between them is almost always kept under wraps. This unlikely partnership is running far more smoothly than the Tory-Lib Dem coalition: during the election campaign the two made sure any criticisms of each other did not become heated. They invented, in fact, a political version of the early warning system operated by the ex-prisoners on the peacelines. And neither party is embarrassed by accusations that they have established a cosy consensus. “I believe the people want us to work together,” Robinson has said.
Peter Robinson and Martin McGuinness, Antrim, September 2010 He has made an impressive recovery, but the star of the Assembly show has been McGuinness. Once the flinty guarantor that Sinn Fein and the IRA would never abandon its “armed struggle,” for years he, along with Gerry Adams, president of Sinn Fein, openly co-ordinated politics and violence. As one of their supporters once spelled it out: “Who here really believes we can win the war through the ballot box? But will anyone here object if, with a ballot paper in this hand and an Armalite in the other, we take power in Ireland?” But that was in 1981, at a heady time. Since then, McGuinness and Adams have convinced their militaristic movement that progress towards Irish unity can be made through politics alone. Sinn Fein has meanwhile grown into a formidable political force, taking 30 per cent of the vote in the May elections, and making advances across the border in the Irish Republic. McGuinness’s critics say he and his associates could have ended the gunfire earlier than they did, but today the DUP and just about everyone else accept that the one-time man of war has peaceful credentials. He is now regarded as a particularly skilled political operator. Nationalist commentator Maurice Hayes, writing in the Irish Independent on 18th April, noted that he has “grown in office and has scarcely put a foot wrong.” Only a few weeks earlier unionist columnist Ed Curran, in the Belfast Telegraph, credited him with playing “a blinder, playing the political game with increasingly consummate diplomacy.” Indeed, things have moved on to such an extent that, between Robinson and McGuinness at least, something unprecedented is developing. George Mitchell, the senior American figure who chaired endless peace negotiation sessions in Belfast, once noted: “At the heart of all the problems is mistrust. Each disbelieves the other. Each assumes the worst about the other.” Now, however, traces of trust can be discerned in the Robinson-McGuinness duopoly. The two say privately they have tested each other out and neither has been disappointed. Can it last? Well, neither party has anywhere else to go: to stay in government they need a partner from the other side, and none of the other parties has the numbers to fulfil that role, so their interests dictate that they will continue to work together. *** That said, many people—including those who regard these developments as positive and promising—complain that the Assembly has not delivered as it should. It is viewed as a flabby institution, with too many members (108) and departments, and has been criticised for not coping well with crises such as last Christmas’s big freeze, when water pipes burst by the thousand. Critics want it streamlined and made more efficient, with smaller salaries for its many politicians. Most of the parties have promised reform. But as well as improving itself, the administration must tackle a daunting array of problems—some of which are hangovers from the Troubles, while others go back centuries. Northern Ireland’s economy is in a poor state, unsurprising as decades of violence damaged the private sector and scared off many potential investors. The British government in Westminster recently cut Northern Ireland’s budget, which over four years will come down by 8 per cent—a moderate reduction when compared to other cuts. But until recently Westminster had poured in billions annually to prop up the economy. Now the situation, with almost 30 per cent of jobs in the public sector, is viewed as unsustainable. The Assembly has promised to save a cumulative £4bn by the end of 2014-15, and moves are underway to generate jobs by lowering corporation tax. But any major turnaround is expected to take more than a decade. Meanwhile, a number of major issues have so far stumped the political classes. One is how best to deal with the past, and how to help the families of those killed in the Troubles. The outcome of the Bloody Sunday inquiry last year brought much comfort to the families concerned, especially when David Cameron made himself an instant nationalist hero by apologising for the actions of troops who shot civilians back in 1972. But the inquiry took more than a decade and cost almost £200m, and there will never be another exercise of that magnitude. Ministers in Belfast and London have for many years grappled with the question of how to bring closure. Various proposals have failed to win support, and some have generated uproar—as when a commission advocated giving £12,000 to the relatives of each person killed, whether they were civilians, members of the security forces or terrorists. The idea was hastily dropped. There is also much debate, but again no consensus, on how to approach the question of religious segregation, which goes far beyond peace lines. In a pattern that has been in place for generations, almost all of Northern Ireland’s 120,000 Protestant children go to schools attended by the state, while almost all 163,000 Catholics go to those run by the church. There has been no recent rerun of the ugly scenes that played out a decade ago, when loyalist thugs tried to block Catholic schoolgirls on their route to the Holy Cross school in Ardoyne. The two separate systems do not actively incite hostility. Yet they have the effect of making many children strangers to each other.
A mural in north Belfast, 2007 There has been a movement for integrated education for more than 30 years, yet more than 90 per cent of children still attend single-religion schools. As might be expected, most of the children at mixed schools are those with liberal, progressive parents, rather than those from the toughest, most divided areas, who would benefit the most from integration. Working-class children, in particular, can leave secondary education without having ever met children of another religion. There are quite a few mixed marriages (estimates put the figure at around one in ten) but such couples stay well below the radar, not advertising themselves and carefully choosing where to live. The desire for change is certainly there. Peter Robinson announced some months ago that he favoured setting up a commission to look at school integration, arguing that it could help transform society. But this received a cool reaction from the Catholic church which in Ireland, as elsewhere, has been strongly protective of its schools. While opinion polls show large number of parents would, in an ideal world, favour shared education, the practical difficulties are enormous. There is absolutely no appetite for enforced integration, which conjures up nightmare visions of bussing and confrontations. *** Yet the government is right to continue pressing the issue of integrated schooling. As Robinson admitted: “It may take ten years or longer to address a problem which dates back many decades, but the real crime would be to accept the status quo for the sake of a quiet life.”
For now, political compromise has yet to be matched by comparable progress elsewhere, most importantly in schools and in tough areas like the Ardoyne and the Falls. Yet despite the efforts of a small group of violent dissidents—the “usual fistful of utopian psychopaths,” as Julian Gough (left) describes them—there is hope. The Assembly, for all its defects, has provided a level playing field, in which politics can be conducted in a civilised manner. The May elections signalled strong public approval for this new way of doing politics. Peace is bedding in. There is an openness to new ideas. Many “impossible” hurdles have already been surmounted. Northern Ireland must stop dwelling on the depth of its difficulties, and should instead start building on recent achievements. If history teaches us anything, it is that the walls must eventually come down.
Northern Ireland then and now… Owen McCafferty, 50 Playwright There are many Belfasts. The one I grew up in—the 1970s one—was a place echoing with gunshots and rippling with whispers. A place both loud and secretive. Full of immediate and tangible grief rooted in the ground. Solid. In your face. People always marching or watching others march. And then there was fire. You either set fire to people’s stuff and watched it burn or collected the stuff people didn’t want and gave it to boys who thought they were men so they could set fire to it. When I was ten all I ever did was play football at the bottom of the street. When there was no football to be played, I stood on my own and looked out onto the River Lagan. The river never seemed to move. All that time standing there and it never moved. There used to be swans on the River Lagan: angry swans. Maybe angry because they were stuck in Belfast. I’m not totally sure but I think stoning the swans eventually chased them off. Or maybe they left of their own accord. I drank my first bottle of cider when I was 12, up an entry covered in dog shit (sometimes we used the dog shit as goalposts). There was a march on that day. Or some stuff was burned. Or the soldiers raided a house. Or a place was blown up. Or some poor soul was shot dead. I can’t remember; I just know it was one of those things. I kissed a girl after drinking the cider. It was all go in those days. But nothing lasts forever and the girl on Sky News (you know, the blonde one) has just told me that time has moved on, so it must be true. It’s less gunshots and more rumour than whisper, now. The past is a dust that settles on the new landscape of Belfast. A dust that can’t be brushed away because it always comes back with the next wind. Belfast has changed in 40 years—but then why wouldn’t it? We have a new city of sorts. A city in development. A city with a massive carrot made of money and handshakes dangling in front of it. When I was a child I never ate carrots, only in stew. I eat them now but I still don’t like them. A city of hope. My children play football in a park, not at the bottom of the street. I think they mourn the lack of swans, though. Hopefully they don’t drink cider. Or ever have to grow up in the place I did. I still drink cider, now aged 50, in the Belfast of today.
The Republic of Ireland then and now… Julian Gough, 44 Novelist My family are totally Tipperary, all the way back, on both sides. But that’s a more complex identity than it sounds. During the first world war, my mum’s grand-aunt Kate was a British army theatre nurse in France, at the front. Back home, British forces kicked in her front door. Her steely “And where do you think you’re going?” stopped the raid dead. Hard times, tough women. And pragmatic. My father’s grandmother married a member of the Royal Irish Constabulary, which kept the family pub safe under British rule. After the war of independence—and his death—she married a senior IRA man, which kept the pub even more safe. My father grew up in that pub. Years later, visiting in the holidays, my brother and I (London-born Irish kids) would squeeze into the locked dancehall, through the loose boards. We would play in a big black Volvo estate parked at a rakish angle on the dancefloor. “Vroom! Vroom!” We’d stick our fingers in the holes that pocked it. Then, one year, it wasn’t there any more. My father’s uncle Henry robbed Tipperary gunshops for the IRA. Did time. Ended up working quietly for British Rail. My father himself, as soon as he was 16, went to Belfast, joined the RAF, and asked to be sent as far away from Ireland as possible. He ended up in Singapore for three years. His active service medal from the Malaya campaign sits in our medal cabinet, next to my great granduncle Johnny’s old IRA medal. (Johnny was jailed by the British during the war of independence for smuggling messages in his boot.) As a child, I would play with both medals. As an adult, and with the peace process entrenched, I finally asked my father about that Volvo. It was an IRA getaway car, colandered with bullets in an operation, driven down from Northern Ireland. A knock at the door of the pub one night: hide this, we’ll be back. My grand-aunt drove it into the dancehall, turned off the lights and chained the doors. A decade later, men turned up with a truck, hauled the car in the back. Vanished. Well, that long war is over (for all but the usual fistful of utopian psychopaths). What we have left, in the end, are stories. The true ones are complicated.
