By Linda Stamato
“Give us the future, we’ve had enough of your past.” –Michael Collins to the British occupiers following the Easter Uprising in 1916.
The British are history’s most remarkable colonizers, ruling much of the globe from the 18th century into part of the 20th. But they were also at times the most inept, as witness their loss of the American colonies.
Ireland, a nation that escaped the U.K.’s grip as well, is tied to what those colonies became. And, as it sent many of its sons and daughters to U.S. shores over the years, the two nations have drawn closer together.
We celebrate, on Monday, April 10, 2023, one of the manifestations of that connection, the Good Friday Agreement, and the role the U.S. played a quarter-century ago.
Over a period of two years, George Mitchell, the mediator appointed by President Bill Clinton, demonstrated America’s commitment to achieving a lasting peace in the emerald island from which many Americans descend.
April is a significant month in Irish history. It’s the month of the Easter Rising, of course, following which Collins and Winston Churchill, then British Home Secretary, agreed to a 26-county Irish Free State in the South while keeping six counties as a refuge for Ulster’s Protestants, Christianity’s “lost tribe,” in the North.
And, as noted, April is the month when the Good Friday Agreement was signed, ending the era of bloodshed, the sectarian violence often referred to as The Troubles.
The accord’s terms included carefully balancing power between the warring forces, the unionists and the nationalists, and providing that a union of Northern Ireland with Ireland only could occur if majorities on both sides favored it.
Implementing the peace hasn’t been all success. It’s impossible to anticipate all the challenges agreements will encounter; sustaining peace is never easy. Today, with the fallout from the British decision to withdraw from the European Union in 2016, and disputes over trade rules, government in Northern Ireland has been paralyzed, and there is a pervasive sense that trouble could return.
To try to build a united nation after people have been killing one another is a challenge of significant moral dimension, and it’s political as well. The latter may explain why so many diplomatic visits are made to Ireland: To make the point, to cement the peace.
President Obama visited Ireland in 2011, for example, and it wasn’t long after that the Queen of England herself made a sojourn there, a remarkable one, as it was the first visit of a British monarch in over a century. The historic occasion was worth noting given the lingering effects of battle memories on efforts to reconcile following the end of strife.
What does it take, Queen Elizabeth asked, “to bow to the past but not be bound by it?”
One thing is to do what she did and what members of the IRA did, in 2002, to acknowledge the past–the harms done, the damage inflicted, the lives lost–and apologize.
For her part, the queen acknowledged that Britain had made Ireland suffer; she offered regret for the wrongs done by the British, and she did what she could, from all reports, to show sincerity, warmth and genuine affection for the Irish people.
Her words seemed to make it possible for both sides, after 800 years of bloodshed, hatred and tortured negotiations between them, to accept their separate but entwined identities.
The queen’s visit–and the reception she received on Irish soil—would have been unthinkable decades earlier but a step taken by the IRA may well have laid the groundwork.
When the Irish Republican Army offered its “sincere apologies,” in July 2002, for civilian deaths during its 30-year campaign against the British, it acknowledged responsibility for unintentional deaths and injuries, for the grief and pain of relatives, and offered condolences to family members, at the same time that it committed itself:
“…unequivocally to the search for freedom, justice and peace in Ireland… to the peace process and to dealing with the challenges and difficulties which this presents. This includes the acceptance of past mistakes and the hurt and pain we have caused to others.”
This unanticipated and unmitigated apology was received as an act to signal normalization, to herald a new attitude, to set the stage for peace. Between 2002 and 2011, significant change indeed took place. The peace accords of 1998 held, and implementation of the terms continued despite setbacks of one kind or another along the way.
The queen’s statement that England and Ireland can “bow to the past but not be bound by it” seems to have taken the place of this one: “The Irish never forget and the English never remember.”
President Obama paid tribute to the Anglo-Irish Peace Process during his visit to England following his visit–and the queen’s–to Ireland, noting that:
“We are proud of the part that America played in helping to get both sides to talk and to provide a space for that conversation to take place.”
Perhaps President Biden will make the same point when he visits Belfast this week,
reminding citizens of Ireland and America, once again, of the ties that bind us, and the peace we need to work together with Britain to sustain.
Linda Stamato is the Co-Director of the Center for Negotiation and Conflict Resolution at the Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers University in New Brunswick. She is a Faculty Fellow there as well. Active in the Morristown community, she serves on the trustee board of the Morristown and Morris Township Library Foundation and is a commissioner on the Morristown Parking Authority.
Opinions expressed in commentaries are the authors’, and do not necessarily reflect those of this publication.
I apologize, J. Quilligan, for my insensitive reference to “the Protestant side” of the Troubles as I did. Clearly both the unionists and the nationalists, the political faces of the Catholics and the Protestants, had compelling positions, positions that lead to many years of bloody conflict and, still, staunch resistance to unification.
I have written a lot about this history which, in fact, I do know well. Still, you could easily conclude that I didn’t by the one description which I do regret.
You might help advance understanding by providing your perspective on the history. I know I would welcome it. Linda Stamato
Pity that when you writing an article like this you might want to understand the country, issues and war that occurred there. You obviously don’t know the political and military history of this war, especially when you write ” keeping six counties as a refuge for Ulster’s Protestants, Christianity’s “lost tribe,” in the North”.
Really shows your ignorance. Maybe you should stick. to writing about things you know about, or research properly before writing.