Martin McGuinness, before leaving for the US: “Hard choices hard decisions have to be made and I believe the Republican movement is up for it”. Intriguingly, he went on to speak about bringing the peace process to an end. Right political noise, but will they follow through with actions to match? Channel 4 News political correspondent Gary Gibbon in Belfast tonight noted: “I suspect that tomorrow evening we will have something in our hands that we can take away and study. It will have to be in clear English, not the tortuous prose of previous IRA statements. And the word is the governments think they’ve got it!” If so, it will simply be step one on a long tortuous road expected by optimists to last between a year and 18 months.
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