Seamus Mallon knows the cost of war and the importance of peace, we’d be foolish to dismiss his words.

Seamus Mallon’s new book, which is part-memoir, part-manifesto, is flawed in many ways – but it stands out for being one of the few texts which offers a coherent vision for the future of politics in Ireland. 

There has been a lot of backslapping in Irish politics over the last 10 years. We’re nearly at the end of our ‘Decade of Centenaries’ – commemorating  just about every societal shift on this island 100 years ago – and even now it feels as if our ability to gaze at the past and feel good about what we’ve achieved is inexhaustible.

Last year, one commemorative event,  hosted by Queen’s University, brought together some of the key negotiators of the Good Friday Agreement on its 20th Anniversary – among them was Tony Blair, Bertie Ahern, Bill Clinton, David Trimble, Gerry Adams.

The elephant in the room was, of course, that Northern Ireland was without government and had been for over a year (to this day, it still doesn’t have one).  The very idea of a commemorative event raised awkward contradictions.

The Good Friday Agreement was a masterful success. And yet, for all its good, it had led us to a non-functioning Executive.

Seamus Mallon, as the Deputy Leader of the SDLP, was one of the chief negotiators of the Good Friday Agreement. Later, as  Northern Ireland’s first Deputy First Minister, he was an integral part of making sure that many of the aspects in the Agreement were delivered.

He’s remembered by others as a forthright man. A straight talker. Even those who don’t know anything about him probably remember his comically blunt assessment of  the Good Friday Agreement: that it was ‘Sunningdale for slow learners’.

Seamus Mallon retired from politics in 2001 when his wife was diagnosed with dementia. He’s stayed largely removed from politics for the past 18 years and is now well into his 80s. It’s perhaps surprising, then, that his  new book, A Shared Home Place, doesn’t see him joining in with the backslapping lionizing of the peace process prevalent among his peers .

Almost half of the book is dedicated to Mallon putting forth his own vision for the future. He argues that peace-minded nationalists in the North should be open to the idea of ‘Parallel Consent’ when it comes to an Irish unity referendum.

Parallel consent, as he explains, means that both people from nationalist and unionist backgrounds would need to agree to unity for it to be implemented, rather than it simply being a case of 50% plus 1. He goes into detail about the legality of this. He invokes the ‘Validation, Implementation and Review’ section of Agreement to explain why this option is legally sound within the context of the agreement itself.

He also includes quotes from the likes of Leo Varadkar and Mike Nesbitt, who support the idea that both communities need to agree on this. (In particular, he appears to have consulted Mike Nesbitt about his ideas). He also includes quotes from those opposed to his views, such as that of the Irish High Court judge Richard Humphreys, and he acknowledges the many flaws in his vision.

I leave it to people with more expertise  than me to debate those flaws – already a significant portion of Northern Irish commentators have outright dismissed Mallon’s words. The real question I’m interested in is, why now? Why is Seamus Mallon raising these issues now?

In the last chapter of the book, cites the fact that his old age has given him a reason for wanting to speak his mind on a range of things.But it’s more than that. Seamus Mallon is aware – as many nationalists are in today’s Northern Ireland – that the idea of a border poll is closer than it’s ever been.

The mismanagement of Brexit by the UK government, the emboldened middle ground in Northern Irish politics, and the general demographics of the six counties, have meant that a United Ireland is being talked about in more realistic terms.

But Mallon makes the point that, even as parties like Sinn Fein make the case for a united Ireland after almost every election (the successful ones anyway), no one really talks about what that might look like.

In his introduction , Mallon asks a list of questions about how a united Ireland might be implemented. He writes: “How and over what period of time will the British element in the governance of Northern Ireland be replaced by an Irish one?

Is some kind of joint authority or joint sovereignty feasible during a transitional period? What parliamentary, consultative, public administration and public financial structures will be put in place both during and after that transitional phase?

How would justice, law and order be guaranteed during the probable breakdown of law and order that too precipitate a transition could cause, with the danger that revived loyalist paramilitaries would violently resist it and revived republican paramilitaries seek to enforce it?” The list goes on and on.

These are all fair questions. Behind them is another implicit question: Why aren’t the people, and the parties, who are pushing most strongly for unity asking these questions and providing answers for them?

For most democratic nationalists and republicans, 50% +1 has always been the barrier to cross. But what about everything that comes after that? What about the very realistic prospect of a return to violence?

Mallon makes a deeply personal appeal to those are pursuing a border poll:  don’t do it under the assumption that a yes vote will ‘unite’ Ireland in any true or lasting way. And beyond that, beyond anything else, don’t sacrifice the hard-earned peace by using it as a stepping stone to a greater goal.

There are devastating passages in this book which show just how important real and lasting peace is for Mallon. He documents the many killings which took place in Armagh throughout the troubles. He does so in clear, unvarnished prose which makes these murders all the more real and chilling. The Reavey brothers. The Kingsmill Massacre. The many crimes of the Glenanne Gang.

He reminds us that the violence in rural places, like Armagh, was more transitory and more unpredictable than the violence elsewhere. Murders came at fake checkpoints. The perpetrators disappeared into the night. The victims weren’t found for hours after the incident took place.

Violence in Armagh didn’t come from riots. It didn’t have the attendant sounds of sirens with it. You couldn’t retreat from it into no-go areas or ghettos. It came right up to your countryside home or through the window of your car and killed you when you didn’t expect it.

One particularly striking thing about Seamus Mallon (which I didn’t know until I read this book) was that he went to as many funerals as he possibly could in Armagh during the troubles. He didn’t delineate between the security forces and the paramilitaries.

The innocent and the culpable. He went to wakes where he was turned away. He attended services for people he vehemently disagreed with. He stood with their families as they buried their dead. In many cases, he kept in contact with the bereaved for years afterwards.

Seamus Mallon knows the cost of war and the importance of peace. Even if you don’t agree with his ideas about the future of Ireland, we’d be foolish to dismiss his words.

Seamus Mallon’s book, A Shared Home Place, is out now, written with Andy Pollack and published by Lilliput Press.

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