Robbing Northern Ireland’s Flames of Their Bitter Fuel : London and Dublin work to move Ulster away from the abyss

Imagine a meeting between British Prime Minister John Major and Gerry Adams, head of Sinn Fein, the Northern Irish political partner of the Irish Republican Army. In place of the expected hard bargaining, Major capitulates immediately and totally: Britain will unilaterally cede Northern Ireland to the Republic of Ireland. How does Ireland react?

Albert Reynolds, the president of Ireland, said last month, “The Irish taxpayer contributes (already) three or four times more to the cost of security related to the Northern situation than his or her British counterpart.” Imagine how much worse it will now be as the full cost of Northern Irish security is shifted from Britain, a relatively rich nation of 55 million, to Ireland, a relatively poor nation of just 3.5 million. Major’s decision has not reconciled 900,000 Ulster unionists to Irish rule. Reynolds is in panic: Ireland cannot police so large and hostile a population.

Thus far the fantasy. Although only 18% of the British public insists that Northern Ireland remain a part of the United Kingdom, according to a recent poll, Major is not going to give Ireland back to the Irish. But his official resolve aside, the mostly Protestant unionists of Northern Ireland, now deeply troubled at the prospect of a deal involving the British, the Irish and the mostly Catholic Irish nationalists of Northern Ireland, are in a far more secure position than they realize. Only if and when peace has come to Northern Ireland by some other path can Ireland even contemplate assuming political sovereignty there.

What might that path be? Though many hurdles remain to be overcome, a historic compromise may be achieved as soon as Christmas, the fruit of an upcoming series of at least three meetings between Reynolds and Major. Ireland, which by the Anglo-Irish Agreement of 1985, has already admitted that the majority must rule in Northern Ireland, may go further and reinterpret as a mere aspiration for unity Articles 2 and 3 of its constitution, which speak of Northern Ireland as, by rights, a part of Ireland even now. Britain may match Ireland’s 1985 concession by admitting that if and when a majority in Northern Ireland wishes union with Ireland, Britain will not stand in the way.

And yet, farsighted and statesmanlike as all that may sound, it might change little on the ground in Northern Ireland. The Catholic/nationalist population, though growing, is still only 42% of the population and will not become a voting majority before 2050 at the earliest, not soon enough for hard-liners in the IRA but too soon for their violent Protestant/unionist counterparts in the Ulster Defense Assn. and kindred smaller groups. The fighting could easily go on for decades.

Past the official peace breakthrough, therefore, a second process must be begun by which Britain and Ireland will sell the deal they have made. Britain must talk not just to the unionists but also to Sinn Fein and the IRA. Ireland must talk not just to the nationalists but also to the Ulster Unionist Party and even the murderous UDA. The goal of these talks must be a “bill of rights” for Northern Ireland guaranteeing both legal equality to Protestants and Catholics and, to use a phrase increasingly heard in these negotiations, “parity of esteem” to the two traditions. Only as the perception spreads that life for either side will remain the same whether political sovereignty belongs to Britain or to Ireland will the flames of violence finally be robbed of their fuel.

The precondition for such a reconciliation must be a truly unprecedented unanimity between Dublin and London. But that unanimity now seems near, and it can scarcely be unthinkable for Protestants and Catholics to live together in Northern Ireland as peacefully as Protestants and Catholics live together in both Britain and Ireland.

If all goes as, just possibly, it could go, the practical result could be 70 or more years of peaceful British rule in Northern Ireland followed by an equally peaceful transfer of sovereignty to Ireland and perhaps a laying of wreaths on the graves of those who, back in dimly remembered 1993, found a way to let time heal even these wounds.