Ireland after the 'yes'

...It's difficult to say whether Northern Ireland has wrenched itself away from the recalcitrant clutch of its bitter history...

...Still, a divided Protestant vote only 51 percent voted in favor of the referendum--revealed deep fissures that could make the new political body in the North unworkable...

...Kelly Candaele is a free-lance writer from Los Angeles who has written extensively on Irish politics and history...

...And in early July, the Unionist "marching season" begins, characterized by the Orange Order parades through many Catholic areas...

...In the Republic, the vote was only to change the Constitution to eliminate the claim of a legal right to a united Ireland, and that only if the peace agreement were accepted in the North would the Republic be bound by it...

...It was not a scene that engendered a sense of serenity in the minds of Unionist voters...

...That will not end soon...

...In staff appointments, it seems, what matters little is any identifiable political or moral philosophy (Glass began his Washington career at the journal of the conservative Heritage Foundation and switched to the liberal New Republic without any apparent adjustment in his views, which are libertarian, if anything), or the seasoning that softens youthful cocksureness with the shading of ambiguity and empathy...

...The Ireland of today is not the Ireland of'the jaunting cart, but the Ireland of a Catholic mayor in Belfast...

...flair and color will also do...

...A skillful writer can execute a hatchet job or build the simulacrum of a case with unrepresentative or out-of-context quotes and anecdotes almost as easily as with made-up ones, and experienced readers, before deciding that a writer is trustworthy, instinctively look for certain clues...

...being in a club, school, or union...

...The agreement commits both Northern Ireland and the Republic to establish four institutions: a North/South Multi-Level Council, a British-Irish Council, a British-Irish Intergovernmental Conference, and implementation bodies through which cooperation will take place on a cross-border, all-island level...

...of young people, nose rings and tattoos...

...The improved economy throughout Ireland certainly helped, and maybe the referendum's Commonweal | 0 June 19,1998 membership base that has deep skepticism regarding the liberating potential of Northern Ireland political institutions...

...This agreement does not face up to the core issue...

...Unionists, supporters of continued political union with Great Britain, have a wealth of experience saying "no" to change in Northern Ireland...

...And finally, a simple medal for courage...

...But it was the first time they had appeared together in any forum--a testament to both the caution of the "yes" campaign and the delicate balancing act that is essential for political survival in Northern Ireland...

...Unemployment is down, and the economies are up...

...There is no declaration of British intent to withdraw...

...The United States and the World Bank have pledged $325 million in aid to the North...

...Getting too close to the "other side" can be lethal there...

...They were referring to Gerry Adams, leader of Sinn Fein, the political wing of the Irish Republican Army, and Martin McGuinness, Sinn Fein's chief negotiator and reputed ex-IRA commander...

...Britain has recently promised to pump $160 million into Northern Ireland...

...Commonweal | | June 19,1998...

...There also will be a new power-sharing assembly, sitting in the North, elected by proportional representation...

...This training ground approach has highlighted the cynicism-over-substance culture of TNR...

...success could not have been achieved in the poverty and unemployment of the past...

...Kelly Candaele IRELAND AFTER THE 'YES' A precarious peace II t's great to be in Belfast during a week when history is being made," Bono, lead singer of the Irish rock band U2, told a rock concert and media event two days before the May 22 vote on the Irish peace agreement...

...It requires balance, perspective, receptivity, an understanding of the complexity of others' motives, and maybe some suspicion of one's own...

...or serving together on a hospital board...

...Commonweal 9 June 19,1998 Part of that past is embodied in the person of the Reverend Ian Paisley, a seventy-two-year-old, Bob Jones University-educated evangelist who has generated broad populist appeal in times of political crisis...

...of a merger of the Boy Scouts from the North and from the Republic...

...Any future union must come by a vote of both the North and the Republic...

...NORRIS L. O'NEILL Norris L. O'Neill lives in West Hartford, Connecticut...

...Some, looking at the very large vote favoring the agreement, have said, simplistically, "It was the economy, stupid...

...The party was officially "neutral" in deference to the large number of Sinn Fein supporters who questioned both entry into Northern Ireland government and the acceptance of a deal that fell far short of a united Ireland...

...Trust can only come from contact:, working together...

...The positive vote guaranteed that elections to establish a new political assembly will take place on June 25...

...But in Northern Ireland, the past clings to the present and won't let go...

...At a polling station in East Belfast, a self-described Unionist voter stated that "Ian Paisley doesn't speak for all Protestants here, and when it comes right down to it, he doesn't offer a real alternative...

...I have heard Mitchell mentioned for the Nobel Peace Prize, but I think he should get special prizes: a prize for a display of great "lawyering" by keeping out of the media spotlight and giving that to his "clients...

...The following day, this gesture of reconciliation was plastered across the front page of every newspaper in Ireland and Great Britain...

...Over beers at the Telstar Pub in working-class Derry, Gary Donnelly, a young construction worker and veteran of the notorious Maze Prison, said he was voting no...

...A nonsectarian college for 4,000 students open to both "sides" is planned for the North...

...Not always venom...

...A few sentences of Blow's critique are especially relevant to the current embarrassment: "The magazine has become something of a journalistic farm team, at which young writers can practice their swings before moving up to the big leagues," he pointed out...

...But the alternative to a broad-based political solution is continued war...

...The war will not be over until the British are gone," he said...

...A few nights after the historic vote, I attended a large panel discussion in Dublin about the probable effects of the referendum...

...This should bolster the economic position of the Republic, furthering Ireland's modern image as the "Celtic Tiger...

...Four days before the election, he met in Omagh with the local Orange Order, a Protestant fraternal organization best known for sponsoring provocative parades through Catholic neighborhoods during the summer "marching season...

...But he must also help keep Adams and McGuinness close to power as they adapt to the world of high politics...

...That agreement broadens the number of countries in the European Union and ties Ireland more securely to it...

...If I pause before that, it is usually to be amused at some twist of stiletto prose but with no great conviction that the writer's conclusions are fair or to be taken seriously...

...an Ireland of new bars, restaurants, and boutiques...

...The extremists will not magically disappear.Terrorists on both sides have historically dipped into crime: drugs, prostitution, and theft...

...It is likely that at least Adams will become a minister in a Northern Irish Executive Committee after the June 25 assembly elections...

...Young staffers quickly learn that the best way to advance up the masthead is to find some apparently easy target-some perceived practitioner of hypocrisy or sleaze---and meticulously wrap a web of venomous words around it...

...You would not have lost money betting that previous attempts at reconciliation would somehow break down...

...Catholics in Northern Ireland are twice as likely to be unemployed as their Protestant counterparts...

...His focus on Protestant historical grievance and political insecurity has generated a voter base that had surprised both Protestant and Catholic opponents...

...Trimble's Ulster Unionist Party was on board, and the major Protestant paramilitary groups endorsed the peace agreement...

...a prize for his discipline in not revealing his own feelings about the participants...

...Our commitment to you, our readers," the magazine's editors have pledged, "is to do whatever is necessary to restore any of your trust in us that may have been lost as a result of this extraordinary situation...

...British Prime Minister Tony Blair traveled to Northern Ireland three times in the two weeks before the election to reassure Unionists that the link with Great Britain was safe as long as the majority of people in Northern Ireland desired it...

...In addition, on May 22, to help all of Ireland, the people of the Republic clearly endorsed the Amsterdam Treaty by 61.7 percent of the vote...

...Opinion polls three weeks before election day indicated that only 15 percent of Protestant voters in the North were adamantly opposed, a very small percentage considering their historical fear of change...

...Sinn Fein's "voice" must be heard for dramatic "changes on the ground" to take place, legitimizing Sinn Fein's drift into parliamentary politics...

...As a "safer" nationalist than Adams, Hume will be the primary intermediary with the Unionists...

...There are other bright lights on the horizon...

...Hume and Trimble had been campaigning for weeks in favor of a yes vote to ratify the "Good Friday" peace agreement signed in April...

...Nor need he have...

...In 1974, a power-sharing assembly, set up after the so-called "Sunningdale Agreement," was brought down when the Protestant Ulster Workers Council initiated a general strike that paralyzed the country...

...But even looking at the immediate past we see signs that bitterness was not universal...

...He had to shout to reporters as a British Army helicopter hovered overhead, virtually drowning out his voice...

...We'll see...

...Consequently, longtime readers--and even many former contributors like me skip quickly to the book reviews and other pages of criticism...

...The agreement puts in place a jerry-built system of fragmented but shared responsibility...

...Peter Steinfels writes the "Beliefs" column for the New York Times and is visiting professor of history at Georgetown University...

...During the 1970s and '80s, previous attempts to create political structures that offered a modicum of accommodation to Catholic nationalist aspirations succumbed to often-violent Unionist intransigence...

...The critical issues that were left ambiguous in the peace document will now have to be dealt with...

...But limbo is greatly preferable to the war of attrition that has claimed more than 3,000 lives over the past thirty years...

...The June 25 assembly elections will be the most important and hard-fought elections in the history of Northern Ireland...

...Sinn Fein did not even campaign for the referendum...

...These qualities have long been missing from the magazine's editorials and featured articles, except for the columns titled "The Hard Questions" and written by a rotating group of scholars...

...The thought of Adams running part of the government makes a substantial body of Protestants in the North apoplectic...

...Adams welcomed the strong "vote for peace" but added that the political status of the North was still "in limbo," a delicate way of saying that a great deal of pressure must be applied both inside and outside the new political institutions to achieve real progress...

...At an election-day press conference, Adams said that it was "time to push forward an equality agenda that is essential for pushing the peace process forward...

...There is soon to be a cross-border fishing agreement...

...He also stated he would initiate legislation in Parliament to strengthen provisions in the agreement to keep anyone associated with paramilitary activity out of the new assembly...

...People of good will on both sides of this bloody conflict are going to have to begin to trust one another...

...Occasionally a solid article will leap out at me...

...As the Irish would say, "Lovely...

...Truth requires more than getting past the fact-checker...

...For Hume, the referendum is the culmination of years of tireless nonviolent political work [see, Mary Pat Kelly, "A Different Kind of Politics," Commonweal, December 14,1984...

...Fittingly, from opposite ends of the stage came John Hume, leader of the largest Catholic nationalist party in Northern Ireland, the Social Democratic and Labour Party, and David Trimble, head of the dominant Unionist group, the Ulster Unionist Party...

...Hume and Trimble, with Bono between them, shook hands and left without saying a word...

...For example, two sisters of the murdered Protestant terrorist Billy Wright are married to Catholics...

...His speech was vintage Paisley--a bellowing Talmudic dissection of the peace document that was "stamped with the words of murderers and liars...

...It was an appropriate metaphor for the challenge Adams faces in the new Northern Ireland Assembly...

...The New Republic's only consistent messages are, first, that Israel is always unfairly criticized except when criticized by the New Republic and, second, that the New Republic's writers are a whole lot smarter than anyone they write about...

...Both the "no" voters and the "yes" voters were optimistic...

...While Trimble tried to explain arcane constitutional changes in the agreement at campaign stops, the "no" campaign had the advantage of a simple and visceral message: "Keep terrorists out of government...

...As leaders of the largest Catholic party, a point often missed by the American media's focus on Adams, he will likely be elected first deputy minister, the second highest office in the new assembly...

...In the 3.5 million Republic, 6 million tourists are expected this year...

...Trimble, the likely first minister in the new government, has stated that decommissioning of arms must take place prior to the establishing of the Executive Committee of Ministers, a position that the IRA will never accept...

...the Order of Saint Lazarus for resurrecting the talks time and time again...

...It did not take Glass's blatant fabrications to undermine the credibility of the New Republic's articles...

...Additionally, in Catholic communities the 95-percent Protestant Royal Ulster Constabulary is considered an oppressive police force that must be disbanded...

...Sinn Fein has to deliver economic and political gains to a How they see i t i n the South _9 was lucky enough to spend two weeks in Ireland last month just before and after the May 22 vote on the Northern Ireland peace agreement...

...Before launching into a particularly heartfelt rendition of John Lennon's "Don't Let Me Down," he brought two men on stage who, he said, "had taken a leap out of the past and into the future...

...It was striking that all the speakers were positive about the vote...

...and of technological revolution...

...But it is clear that most of the people of Northern Ireland are willing to give this peace a chance...

...It will be the first crucial test of whether new political arrangements can ameliorate this yearly ritualized street conflict between deeply divided communities...

...Moreover, there is to be a thorough review of the criminal justice system in the North...

...of cellular phones...

...And prisoner releases, scheduled to take place within two years, is another highly contentious issue that Trimble is attempting to link to arms surrender...

...Blow says nothing, of course, about outright falsification...

...the Job Award for his patience, humility, and perseverance in a terrible situation...

...The "yes" vote of just over 71 percent in Northern Ireland has now been welcomed by most political leaders north and south as a historic step...

...of participation in the European economic community...

...Undoubtedly a lot of other valuable ones get slighted because I lack any real trust in the editors' determination to sort out the solid from the merely clever...

...This time it would be different...

...The "yes" campaign's task was made more difficult a week-and-a-half before the election when IRA prisoners, released on a one-day leave, were enthusiastically welcomed at the Sinn Fein conference that endorsed the party's entry into the Northern Ireland Assembly...

...When the euphoria dissipates a bit, the people of Ireland will retain warm memories of America's George Mitchell, whose wisdom and patience kept the negotiations going through the intransigence and the prima donna displays--and despite the ghastly memories of the recent past...