Good Friday Agreement

Tom Griffin (London, The Green Ribbon): Tonight is known as Eleventh Night in Northern Ireland, the evening before the Orange Order's traditional celebration of King William's victory at the Battle of the Boyne.

The occasion moved Patrick Corrigan to some reflections on a visit to his childhood hometown at Amnesty's Belfast and Beyond blog:

I left Ballycraigy estate in 1978 when I was nine years-old. I have never much wanted to go back. Reflecting this evening on my brief visit today made me think of how far Northern Ireland has come in the intervening years. We have travelled through vales of tears, but, eventually we have achieved relative peace and shared political structures.

But, more than anything, Ballycraigy today made me think of how far we still have to travel. Politicians can sign peace agreements, but, as WB Yeats noted, real "peace comes dropping slow".

Article: The tenth anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement offers an opportunity of examining how far Northern Ireland has come – and how far it has yet to go (part of an OK trilogy)

Conn Corrigan (New York, Columbia School of Journalism): Last month, I visited Northern Ireland for a few days. A friend, who has been there many times during the Troubles, remembered a time when our hotel, the Europa (apparently the most bombed hotel in Europe), had metal detectors inside and sandbags outside. During the Troubles, this hotel was a favourite location for the many journalists sent to cover the conflict - but when we were there, the only people who caught the eye were a group of teenagers in the bar, getting their picture taken with Basshunter, a Swedish DJ who was in town for a concert.

Tom Griffin reviews Great Hatred, Little Room: Making Peace in Northern Ireland by Jonathan Powell.

Powell's book sheds light on the political manoeuvrings of the peace process and draws out important lessons we have yet to learn.

Robin Wilson (Belfast, Policy Analyst): Tony Blair deferred his resignation announcement until one last photo-opportunity-the renewal of devolution to Northern Ireland on May 8^th 2007- even though that ensured nationalists would give Labour a bloody nose in Scotland and Wales. It was a measure of the egocentricity of the man, which he paraded on a global scale with George W Bush, though polling evidence showed that the vast majority of UK citizens believed the Blair legacy was the humanitarian disaster of Iraq rather than the 'solution' of the Irish question.

Tom Griffin (London, The Green Ribbon): As the tenth anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement approaches, there is growing evidence that the inclusive vision of 1998 is being undermined by the Government's more recent obsession with a narrower and more prescriptive identity politics.

Robin Wilson (Belfast): The world’s media descended on Northern Ireland today in even greater numbers than for the Belfast agreement of 1998 – better known as the ‘Good Friday Agreement’, the last before this one, setting up a power-sharing administration. Despite numerous such attempts since the old Protestant-monopoly regime was despatched in 1972, none has lasted more than 14 months. Today we heard the new leaders at Stormont set out visions of the future which conjured up an embattled past. The first minister, the old Protestant-fundamentalist warhorse, Rev Ian Paisley, began: ‘How true are the words of holy scripture …’; the deputy first minister, Martin McGuinness, for decades a leading IRA figure, opened with ‘I am proud to stand here today as an Irish Republican who believes absolutely in a united Ireland.’ Already there are problems. Mr Paisley calls Mr McGuinness ‘Deputy’, insisting the latter is ‘not co-equal’ and refuses to shake his hand. Folk memory of oppression has engendered huge Catholic sensitivity to such slights. Last week’s planned launch by the parties of Community Relations Week had to be cancelled—because they could not agree on it. Working together could make even bitter enmities ease, but the power-sharing arrangements are really about sharing out power: i.e. they organise division rather than unity. This is the legacy of last year’s St Andrews agreement. On the ground it is spelt out in the 46 ‘peace walls’ and ‘interfaces’. And now a new fence is to be built in north Belfast. This will corral an integrated primary school—symbol of a genuinely shared future—into a ‘loyalist’ area. The world media will leave acclaiming a perpetual peace and a great achievement for Prime Minister Blair. Those of us who stay here are less optimistic.