February 15, 2011
By Staff Reporter
By Jack Holland
Belfast, Wednesday night, May 20
I arrived this evening from Dublin and almost immediately went to the North of the city to meet with my cousin Gerard, a former H-block prisoner in his 40s who lives with his wife and two children near the Ardoyne. He is convinced that the agreement is a step forward and that the decision of Sinn Fein to take its seats in the new assembly will produce a major crisis within Unionism. Gerard sees the whole peace process, from the first Provisional IRA cease-fire of August 1994, as a republican strategy aimed at putting Unionism in a permanent state of crisis as it tries to grapple with the new situation.
On a drive around the Ardoyne and the Bone, absolutely no sign of any pro-agreement activity from Sinn Fein. Just a few