Jim Dee, the Daily Ireland’s man in the US, talks to a number of, for the most part, cautiously optimistic prominent Irish American politicians. The most cautious being also the most prominent, Bruce Morrison, who questions the degree to which the only party not yet to signed up to the Belfast Agreement (ie the DUP) is motivated to deal:
“the DUP never agreed to the Good Friday agreement, and they may not now. People keep thinking that they will. But they may not fully understand the motivations of the (DUP) leadership”.
Moreover, he casts the whole problem in the terms of a perceived short fall in north south co-operation:
“It sort of depends on how British they fell, I suppose – as to whether they’ll let the whole of Great Britain make the decisions about how Ireland will come to terms with its partition. Somehow that isn’t how they’ve seen this yet. So, until something actually happens on the ground as a result of cross-border co-operation, that message probably won’t reach home.”
And his verdict on Republican runs something like, “a lot done, more to do”:
“It was right for the IRA to stand down, and it is right for them to negotiate themselves into the policing structures.”
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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