IT WAS a good start from Mo Mowlam, taking questions from women journalists first. He-hacks in Belfast can get a bit ME ME ME-ish and it doesn't do them a bit of harm to be put in their place. But Mo, listen: this is the last time you'll be in the company of such compliant males. Yep, journalists in Belfast can be obnoxious enough; but Mo, dearest, they're as sweet as peach melba beside the characters you re going to deal with.
You probably have already noticed, haven't you, that there are no women leaders in Northern Ireland? In fact, there are virtually no women-anything in Northern Ireland. Sure, there are those feminist workshop thingummies on the Shankill and Falls Roads, run by Sue and Pru from Islington, which arrange encounter-sessions between Sadie and Brid; and these of course have their place in the scheme of things.
Hardly a woman
A small place, Mo; for when the nutty sack hits the embers and the sparks start to fly, you'll probably find that Sadie and Brid will side with their men - and such men, Mo, such men. Northern Ireland is Tir na Testosterone, Mo, apart from the odd foot-soldier, and hardly a woman to be seen where it counts.
Mo, you'll meet a lot of delegations in the next few months (even more with a couple of ceasefires) and you'll be able to gaze on men who have tortured men and women to death with knives and cheesewire and hammers. You might talk to the one survivor from Gibraltar the SAS did not murder, a woman who herself went there to engage in wicked massacre. You can meet the man who planned Bloody Friday, and laid waste to Belfast and in his terrorist career has been responsible for scores of killings. You can meet men responsible for the "interrogation" and deaths of scores of "informers". Maybe you'll meet the fine fellow - God knows he's famous enough - who invented the involuntary suicide car-bomber, who was told unless he obeyed orders, his family would be killed.
The price the human-bombs paid was of course their lives.
Negligible things in Northern Ireland, lives.
The odd thing is, you'll probably find you like most of the characters you meet. Killers in Northern Ireland tend to be family men of charm. Wear suits on Sunday and whenever they go to the pub. They're good with their kids and don't bash their wives and probably help around the home with the children.
In my darker moments, Mo, (and they can be dark indeed) I wonder, what do they teach these children of theirs? Do they tell them at bath-time, listen kids, when you've got a tout, the sure way to get him to squeal - or her: the last one we done was a her - is put them in a bath like this here - pass the soap there, will you son, we'll wash behind these ears of yourn: always wash behind the ears, y'hear? - and hold their heads under water till they think they're going to drown. Then you haul their heads out, and then, the moment they've recovered, you do it again. You'll find they'll talk soon enough, son, so they do.
So baths are not just for washing yourself in daddy?
Of course not son. Now where's that flipping rubber duck gone?
Ask your security chiefs about Caroline Mooreland, Mo, the young mother from West Belfast who was tortured and murdered by the IRA days before the last ceasefire began, and about whom we hear so little these days. Was the organisation responsible for her murder really planning to end war for all time?
We do of course hear a great deal about a certain young mother-to-be. A word on that one, Mo. Deal with it now. I know it's not your bailiwick, but with that fellow Howard - hard to believe he's Welsh - out of the Home Office, get that nice Straw chap to send her to an open prison or to Germany. Though I suspect the Germans actually don't want her. Not the people they once were.
Well who is these days?
I'll tell you who is, Mo. Those men with the level eyes and the neat suits you'll probably be meeting over the coming months.
Victory sought
Their hearts are unrepentant, though sure, you'll hear their blather, "My heart bleeds for everyone who has lost a loved one in these troubles."
Mo. Listen. These fellows with the suits, the eyes, and who've been so careless with the bathwater - Mo, none of them wants less than victory. They now want victory painlessly, that's all. Sinn Fein want you to wave a wand and get a negotiated united Ireland; wave the same wand, Mo, and uptown Kinshasa will resemble down-town Copenhagen.
The trouble is, so many believe in the magic wand. The people of West Belfast, the people of Mid Ulster, believe in it - they voted Sinn Fein/IRA though they were told (belatedly) such a vote was a vote for murder. Electoral delinquency in Northern Ireland costs nothing. The extremes get heard, the centre ground doesn't.
Propitiation of murder enabled Sinn Fein to outvote the SDLP in no less than four constituencies and virtually tie in two more.
Mo, that's very bloody serious.
The orangies you meet, well, they've got a sort of grin on their faces, because as things stand, they've won. Yet again. They know this, but they're too shrewd to boast. They look dead solemn and shake their heads, pools of blood gathering on the carpet beneath their hands, and publicly fret about the future of their own ceasefires. For we all know, if the IRA revs up the war in your lovely Six Counties, they'll be out defending their victory with the cheesewire and the AKs once again.
Mo, God help you. The most reasonable people you're going to meet in Northern Ireland were those nice she-hacks you met on your first day. Up until now, you probably thought despair was something you kept in the car-boot. You'll soon learn otherwise, Mo, believe me.