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Inside File Peace in peril indeed

February 16, 2011

By Staff Reporter

By Ray O’Hanlon

Sinn Féin and the Ulster Unionists drew pens on each other last week. On Wednesday, Friends of Sinn Féin plunked down a goodly sum for advertising space on the New York Times op-ed page. The piece was headed "Irish Peace In Peril." The third paragraph of the op-ed ad stated: "A false impression has been created that the only outstanding part of the Good Friday Agreement is decommissioning of IRA weapons. This is untrue." By the very next day, however, the unionists were pressing home their contrary view by way of an op-ed in the Washington Post. Written by UUP deputy leader John Taylor, the op-ed invoked the words of both Bertie Ahern and Bill Clinton in a well-coordinated attack on the Sinn Féin salient in the Times. The Taylor piece was in fact a direct response to a Feb. 22 op-ed in the Post by Sinn Féin’s Martin McGuinness. But to the world in general it appeared as if unionists were responding to the Times ad and getting in the last word in the run up to St. Patrick’s Day. The pressure was on S.F. and it only increased as a result of Times story and "60 Minutes" story on punishment shootings. The close proximity of both reports time wise would tend to indicate a guiding British government hand somewhere.

By the weekend, the BBC was reporting that President Clinton was preparing to press Gerry Adams hard on decommissioning, this despite the fact that the White House has recently tended to agree with Sinn Féin’s interpretation of the Good Friday accord in the matter of disarmament. As one leading S.F. figure put it to "IF," decommissioning was now the "sexy" issue. Unionists seemed aware of this. Taylor hit hard with lines like "The desire on the part of Sinn Fein to bring a fully armed private army into government with them as a bargaining chip to offset their electoral weakness is simply intolerable to all democratic norms." Forgetting for a moment that unionists of Taylor’s vintage have little or no experience of normal democracy, this was effective stuff. But as is so often the case with Northern Ireland, all had changed by Monday, changed utterly.

The killing of Rosemary Nelson turned attention away, at least for a short time, from the issue of decommissioning to the potentially far more serious issue of an apparent rearming within segments of loyalism and, more especially, the increasing sophistication of loyalist weaponry combined with the will to use it regardless of the political damage to unionism’s more legitimate political causes. Only a few days after the peace in peril headline, the essential truth of that statement was seen to be tragically coming true.

Rice returns

Gerard Rice of the Lower Ormeau residents was in the U.S. over the weekend attending Alan Hevesi’s equality conference at Seton Hall and Columbia. Last Friday, he told "IF" that his residents group and the residents of Garvaghy Road in Portadown regularly console and advise each other. He said that what both groups now feared was a top-level political/security deal in which the Garvaghy residents would be told that Orange marchers must be allowed through this year on the simple basis that they were allowed to march two years ago, were barred last year and should therefore have their turn again this coming July.

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"You could write the press release now if you wanted to," Rice told "IF." But that was late last week. By the beginning of this one, Rice had left the cloistered peace of two American universities in his wake. He was on the Garvaghy, offering comfort as best he could. But this time the immediate fear had less to do with marching, more to do with the fact that the legal voice of the Garvaghy residents had been brutally silenced. It was cold comfort to suggest that any deal to allow Orangemen parade down the Garvaghy in a few months would be tantamount to allowing them to dance on Rosemary Nelson’s grave. Dancing on graves is something of a habit for some in the North, even during a peace process.

A place of their own

The Northern Ireland Bureau, which is based at the British Embassy in Washington, struck a blow for independence this week. Sort of. The NIB hosted its own lunch Tuesday for those in town who were not invited to the speaker’s lunch. The British Embassy hosts its own lunch St. Patrick’s Day while the Irish Embassy stages its evening party St. Patrick’s night for those who still have energy after the White House bash. Word has it that with self-government of sorts returning to the wee North, the NIB brigade might be thinking of setting up their own shop in the next year or two. All this of course is only part of the growing movement toward separation of identities in the islands comprising Ireland and Britain.

The leader of the Scottish Nationalist Party, Alex Salmond, has described Britishness as a "dying identity" and though the superbrits of the wee North will have none of that, there is a feeling in the air that the competition for U.S. investment might get hotter, especially if the Scots decide to open an "embassy" of their own in the near future. Scottish nationalism, of course, is very confusing to unionists who repeatedly point to Scotland as their political birthland and source of inspiration. If will become more than that if an independent, or even just self-governing Scotland, starts stealing the bread from the mouths of their self-described Ulster kith and kin.

Victor in the White House

Victor Mooney, founder of the Irish African-American Society of North America will not be marching in the New York St. Patrick’s Day Parade today. Victor stepped out with the Cork Association the last couple of years but this time around his presence is demanded elsewhere — in the White House, to be precise. "Corned beef, Cabbage and Black-eye Peas," was the headline in Victor’s press release informing the world of his March 17 plans.

Packing in both events would be a little much, Victor told "IF." But he’s hoping to have enough members in his society to form a separate marching group in next year’s parade. The 2000 parade would be an appropriate starting point for the IAAS, he reckons. Besides that, Victor is hoping he can lure Irish soccer ace Paul McGrath over for a stroll up Fifth Avenue. Now there’s a goal.

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