the real crux in the peace process

7/30/2019 The Real Crux in the Peace Process

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The Real Crux in the Peace Process

Brian Rowan, The Armed Peace ? Life and Death after the Ceasefires ( Mainstream

publishing, 14.20 euro)

Reviewed by John Bruton TD

One of the presumed secrets of peace-making is to concentrate on points on which

agreement is possible, and leave aside those on which it is not. Another is toallow one's antagonist to hold on to the ideological assumptions which give

purpose to his struggle, while finding ways to end the struggle itself.

There are limits to this approach, and the Northern Ireland peace process has

now reached them.

On the Unionist side, the impossible ideological assumption is

that Northern Nationalists, if treated decently, will eventually either come to

feel British or come to accept their lot, as have the Irish who have gone to

live in Britain. A corresponding assumption is made by nationalists about

Unionists in a United Ireland.

On the Republican side, the ideological assumption is that the IRA is an army,

like the British Army. It owes its allegiance to a 32 county Irish Republic - an

entity that has not had any political manifestation since the end of the First

Dail back in the early 1920s. But its army continues, exercising its full

sovereignty, without the constraint of a state.

Sinn Fein does not constrain, or even speak for the IRA. So when, in the Good Friday

Agreement, Sinn Fein agreed, it would "use any influence it may have to achieve


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decommissioning of paramilitary weapons", that in no way bound the IRA. The IRA

owes its allegiance to the original Irish Republic, not to Sinn Fein.

Another ideological assumption of the IRA is that its war is with the British

state, which it wants withdrawn from Ireland. Thus it can kill Catholics like

Brendan Campbell, Bobby Dougan, Charlie Bennett, and Joseph O'Connor but say

that that does not break its ceasefire, because its ceasefire only encompasses

action against British forces (like off-duty policemen).

This same ideological assumption made it difficult for the IRA to accept

paragraph 9 of the Downing Street Declaration of 1993 which offered talks to

parties which agreed to a "permanent end to use of, or support for, paramilitary

violence". The IRA ideology did not allow it to give that commitment because the

32 Irish Republic had not yet been achieved. Its unwillingness to use the "p"

word permanent led the IRA to face a substitute, the equally difficult "d"

word decommissioning!

Again, Republicanism could not accept the Good Friday institutions as a

permanent settlement. They were only part of a process. The Republic was still

the goal. Naturally enough, Unionists found this unsettling. Most Unionists come

from a religious tradition which looks for biblical certainty, so it was not

surprising that they were looking for more certainty than Republicans could

offer.

There have, of course, been major changes in the political position of the

Republican movement. The acceptance of places in a Storming administration, with

partition still in place and Articles 2 and 3 of the Irish Constitution gone

has a huge change. But the ideological outworking of that change has not taken

place. The underlying ideology still waits for the re-establishment of the 32

county Republic.


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A re-evaluation of its ideology by the Republican movement is necessary if the

disbandment of the IRA is ever to happen. For the last ten years, the peace

process has ignored this necessity.

As a result neither Sinn Fein, the IRA nor anyone else has had their ideological

assumptions dissected in a respectful, yet rigorous, way. This lack of rigor

goes all the way back to 1916.

Ireland needs a lasting settlement, not an endless peace process. Perhaps the

Good Friday Agreement contains all the ingredients. Those who reject it, or who

see it as a mere tactical arrangement, should say exactly what it is they expect

to add or take from it, to make it permanent. Then we will have peace, not just

a peace process.

Brian Rowans book gives a detailed outline of the tactics of Republican and

Loyalist paramilitaries in the period between the first IRA ceasefire and last

year. He sees the IRA raid on Castlereagh barracks in October 2002, when it

captured British secret service files, as a seminal event. It showed that the

IRA still had a serious military intent.

The book is the work of a security correspondent. A broader political analysis

is missing. There were many interviews for the book, but none with the Irish or

British governments. And Brian Rowan should treat his excellent paramilitary

sources with less reverence and more analytical rigour.

John Bruton T.D. is a former Taoiseach.

the real crux in the peace process

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