Long peace is working

David McKittrick is back in an upbeat groove, as he casts he view back over the last the ten years rather than the last ten months:

A lot of people in Belfast persist in saying the bottle is half empty rather than half full, yet all but the most ingrained pessimists grudgingly concede that things are getting steadily better. The best bit is that hardly anyone is getting killed any more.

He finishes with:

Since no one can know whether it is destined to remain within the UK, or someday join a united Ireland, its politics will always be much more combative than politics in Britain. Yet the sense is gradually growing that, if this peace process can keep on delivering, its politics can remain combative but cease to be lethal. That would indeed confirm it as a peace process worth prizing.


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