A Letter From Ireland
a Chara,
This week I was kidnapped. I was in Belfast at the James Connolly Visitors Centre on the Falls Road.
Gerry Adams was there to meet with a group from Baldwin Wallace University in Cleveland. He asked that I bring up a box of books to their meeting room. The room was packed and I made my way to the front. I left the box down and was talking with Richard McAuley. As we were chatting Gerry asked the group to form a circle which turned into a series of semi-circles. I was trapped with no way out to the door on the far side of the group!!
There was only one thing to do, I made myself comfortable. For an hour, Gerry spoke and took questions from the students.
Gerry detailed his political life as a series of events. Becoming politically aware in 1964 when the RUC twice raided the Falls Road offices of an election candidate for flying an Irish Tricolour. All on the demand of Ian Paisley. He outlined key events, the years of conflict, the hunger strikes, the rise of Sinn Féin, and the Good Friday Agreement.
By 2007 Ian Paisley was working alongside Martin McGuinness of Sinn Féin to lead a power-sharing government in Stormont. An unimaginable event in 1964 when Sinn Féin was banned and the North effectively a single-party sectarian state. We have traveled far and have further to go to realize the potential of the Good Friday Agreement to peacefully build a new and united Ireland.
Gerry remarked that the biggest mistake that the British Government made was to hand control to the military instead of seeking a political way forward. Generals do not make peace they seek a military victory. It took almost 30 years of conflict for the primacy of politics to be asserted and a peace agreement reached.
The US was central to the Good Friday Agreement. In 1994 Bill Clinton granted a visa for Gerry Adams to travel to the US and appointed George Mitchell as Envoy to the North. The British government objected and the then British Prime Minister refused to take a call from the President. For the first time, the US developed a policy on peace in Ireland that was independent of British policy. This created a space for peace to grow.
This was not a nostalgic lap of honor discussion. The students wanted to know what the future held and what lessons could be applied to other areas in conflict. The obvious connection was with Gaza. The Israeli government is seeking a military victory. The generals are in charge. There is no independent American Foreign policy approach, the arms keep flowing and the scope of the conflict is widening. The death toll in Gaza builds and Israel stands accused of genocide by the international courts.
All of this can and should be ended and a peaceful political way forward agreed. Ireland demonstrates what is possible with political will.
Have a great weekend.
Is mise,
Ciarán
Ciarán Quinn is the Sinn Féin Representative to North America.
