THE BELFAST AGREEMENT 10 YEARS ON:The Troubles have ended but what does the future hold for Northern Ireland? asks Deaglán de Bréadún,Political Correspondent.
NO ONE should underestimate for a minute the strength of unionist opposition to a 32-county state, but if the two communities are co-operating politically within Northern Ireland, surely the context could grow wider with the passage of time?
Unionist consent to Irish unity may still be a long way off but the basis for their objections has been seriously eroded since the time they rebelled en masse against Home Rule in 1912.
Autonomy rather than independence was the objective of Home Rule, with a native parliament taking responsibility for domestic affairs and everything else remaining with Westminster. But the overwhelming majority of the Protestant population vowed they would never accept it.
The Ulster Covenant, a solemn and binding oath of resistance taken by almost half a million unionists, declared that "Home Rule would be disastrous to the material wellbeing of Ulster as well as of the whole of Ireland, subversive of our civil and religious freedom, destructive of our citizenship and perilous to the unity of the empire".
Almost 100 years later and in defiance of the covenant prophecy, the independent part of Ireland is thriving and prosperous, with a high measure of civil and religious freedoms enjoyed by those who live there.
As for the citizenship issue, in the British-Irish Agreement which replaced the Anglo-Irish Agreement and was negotiated as part of the Belfast Agreement, the two governments "recognise the birthright of all the people of Northern Ireland to identify themselves and be accepted as Irish or British, or both, as they may so choose, and accordingly confirm that their right to hold both British and Irish citizenship is accepted by both governments and would not be affected by any future change in the status of Northern Ireland".
A well-placed source involved in the talks told me that the citizenship issue arose in the fortnight leading up to the Belfast Agreement of April 10th, 1998.
During a break in the negotiations, officials on the British side made contact with the home office in London. It is understood these negotiators were from the cabinet office and the Northern Ireland Office.
The home office response was cautious but prime minister Tony Blair approved the proposal to guarantee dual citizenship in perpetuity and so it went through.
My source pointed out that, although the pledge is "not justiciable" (ie cannot be vindicated in the courts) it is nevertheless a "very, very big promise", which was unprecedented and was not extended to the residents of Hong Kong, for example, when the British left.
As for the British empire, which was felt to be under such threat from Home Rule, that once-powerful entity on which the sun never set, has to all intents and purposes been consigned to the history books.
Meanwhile, the South has shaken off the trappings of a theocratic state to become a typical secular democracy in the European mould. It has also developed a thriving modern economy, and Dublin-based companies are looking towards opportunities north of the Border.
Some republicans and nationalists look with misty eyes to the centenary of the 1916 Rising as the year when it could all come right.
That would be a very short period in which to overcome the hatreds and suspicions of centuries. But even if one allows for a longer timeframe, could the 26 ever really become 32?
The ties that bind the constituent elements of the United Kingdom are gradually getting looser. An ICM poll conducted in England for the Sunday Telegraphfound that only 18 per cent of respondents believed the union would survive indefinitely.
Scottish independence is a hot topic again and a "velvet divorce" à lathe Czech Republic and Slovakia cannot be ruled out.
The legal and parliamentary procedure for bringing about a united Ireland is clear-cut. Former head of the Northern Ireland civil service Sir Kenneth Bloomfield put it succinctly in a lecture at the 2007 Merriman Summer School in Lisdoonvarna: "If and when a majority of the people living in Northern Ireland vote in favour of such a step, legislation will be introduced into the parliaments of the two sovereign states to transfer the six counties from the one jurisdiction to the other."
This would come in the wake of a "Border poll", although relatively little attention has been paid to this issue. There is provision for it in the Belfast Agreement. The Northern Ireland Secretary may order a poll if it appears likely to him or her that a majority wish to join a united Ireland, but there must be a seven-year gap between polls.
There was what one source calls a "slight disagreement" on the timeframe among the Irish delegation to the Good Friday talks: more senior members wanted a 10-year gap, the junior ones said five. At that point a British negotiator chipped in and suggested seven. A poll had previously been held on March 8th, 1973, but nationalists and republicans boycotted the vote en masse and the result had no real standing politically.
Theoretically, if a relatively small percentage of unionists broke away from the consensus within their community and made common cause with the vast majority of their nationalist neighbours, a united Ireland would follow.
In practice, the majority for unity would have to be considerably greater than that (ideally, there would be a strong majority in both communities) and it would have to be clear that the dissident unionist minority would accept the referendum result in a democratic spirit and refrain from violence, or at least be incapable of perpetrating more than a token level of violence.
Incidentally, at the time of writing, the two main unionist parties occupy only 54 or precisely half of the 108 seats in the Assembly. The remainder is made up of Sinn Féin, the SDLP and Alliance as well as two Independents from the nationalist or republican "gene pool", one Green and one Progressive Unionist. Given the continuance of the powersharing administration in the North, who knows how the unionist mindset might gradually start to shift and reassess the constitutional position? The functioning and performance of the North-South bodies could have a major influence in this regard.
Éamon de Valera regarded Irish membership of the Commonwealth as a form of reassurance for Britain and the unionists that could potentially ease the path to unity. Perhaps in a future final settlement there could be a quid pro quo: Ireland becomes a 32-county independent republic but forges a fresh link with the Commonwealth as a symbolic gesture of reconciliation and on the clear understanding that there are no implications for Irish sovereignty in such a move.
Unionists and probably even nationalists in the North would have to be reassured that Belfast would not be downgraded to the status of a provincial town. It would seem logical to offer the North some form of regional autonomy, at least on a transitional basis. Alternatively, or in addition, Belfast could be deemed the political and/or administrative capital of a united Ireland, given that Dublin is widely considered to have exceeded all reasonable levels of growth.
The North receives a massive subsidy each year from the British exchequer. Would this continue for a period, as a type of "dowry" from Westminster, or would the South have to assume the burden straight away? In the latter event, there could well be implications for tax levels in the South, which could, in turn, cause problems for the economy.
Bloomfield suggested a way forward in his Merriman lecture: "Let Catholic and Protestant, unionist and republican, learn in the first instance to work harmoniously together in the North for the public good rather than for ulterior motives. Let North and South co-operate over a widening range of issues, proceeding always on a basis of mutual consent.
"Let us acknowledge that, however dominant and oppressive that other island may have been in the past, today we should be the greatest and most natural of friends. Let us build on the foundations of our North-South and east-west institutions a commonwealth of common heritage and mutual understanding."
Hearing such comments from a former top civil servant and close adviser to Northern Ireland prime ministers, whose home was subjected to a terrifying bomb attack by the IRA in August 1988, underlines how far we have come in the last 10 to 15 years.
Although Bloomfield was a sharp critic of the 1985 Anglo-Irish Agreement, in a sense he is picking up where he left off in early 1965, when he was involved in the mould-breaking cross-Border meetings between prime ministers Seán Lemass and Capt Terence O'Neill.
When Lemass came North to see O'Neill on that cold January day, Paisley and his followers threw snowballs at the taoiseach's car. In time, of course, his own hardliners would be throwing political snowballs at Paisley.
Continuing and vigorous dissent is the one undeniable certainty in Northern Ireland's political future.
Deaglán de Bréadún is a former Northern Editor of The Irish Times. This article is extracted from the second, updated edition of his book on the peace process, The Far Side of Revenge: Making Peace in Northern Ireland, published by Collins Press, Cork
