John Crowley in this week’s edition of the Irish Post has reviewed (subs needed) Richard Bourke’s Peace in Ireland. On the face of it, Bourke takes a long term and ultimately pragmatic view of the road towards the peace process.
Of the change in mainstream Republican strategy he is blunt:
In the end the Republicans were defeated by the South. What people may have thought as bellicose, anti-Unionist was replaced with rapprochement with Britain. That �abandonment� came about through the Anglo-Irish Agreement of 1985 and later in the Good Friday Agreement when the South�s claim on the North was removed from the constitution. The fundamental position of the IRA has been undermined by the Irish government and endorsed by the Irish electorate.
On how long he thinks the Belfast Agreement will take to effect lasting peace:
The demographic shift is something for 50 years from now. Take any civil war in the history of human kind � its after-effects will serve for three generations.
Mick is founding editor of Slugger. He has written papers on the impacts of the Internet on politics and the wider media and is a regular guest and speaking events across Ireland, the UK and Europe. Twitter: @MickFealty
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