“Leading Sinn Féin members had been arguing that its justice programme was a “viable alternative” to conventional policing and justice systems.”

I’ll be reviewing political scientist Mary-Alice Clancy‘s new book, Peace Without Consensus – Power Sharing Politics in Northern Ireland, in due course.  But, for now, The Guardian‘s Henry McDonald has highlighted some of the content White House staff and Irish officials were exasperated that Blair and his Downing Street chief-of-staff, Jonathan Powell, were prepared to allow Sinn Féin to run community restorative justice programmes and effectively establish a parallel justice system, according to a new book on Bush and the …

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“This was the biggest irritant between us and the Northern Ireland Office..”

Just a quick point about The Observer’s extracts from Henry McDonald’s recently published book Gunsmoke and Mirrors – How Sinn Féin dressed up defeat as victory. Mary Alice Clancy’s study of the Bush administration’s Northern Ireland policy between 2001 and 2006 may have been under-reported, but it wasn’t un-reported – as John Ware would confirm [And Paul Bew – Ed]. But it has never been just about those “dreary steeples”. From The Observer article Clancy said that those she spoke …

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“But one hopes for the sake of the people of Northern Ireland..”

Out-going Taoiseach Bertie Ahern’s declaration to the US Congress yesterday, live-blogged by Shane, that “Ireland is at peace” [in our time? – Ed] could be viewed as a declaration of the end of US political involvement here.. Maybe.. Mary Alice Clancy emailed a link to a March 2008 article by her Phd thesis examiner, Brendan Simms, of the Centre of International Studies at the University of Cambridge and co-President of the Henry Jackson Society, which sketches out the international dimension, …

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