As the chairman of the Commission, Alistair Graham, said: “Our view is that the best way forward in terms of relieving inter-community tensions arising from disputes at this location is that the ground should be prepared for one or more parades to take place in a peaceful atmosphere” He is right. A Unionist spokesman recently said: “The Orangemen didn’t walk their traditional routes last year in the interests of the greater good but there has been no good faith shown to the Unionist community by the Government.” Whether or not the British government has treated them badly the greater good has not gone away. It did this by ruthlessly exploiting real and imagined grievances. As we approach the Ulster marching season, it must not now be granted new tensions to capitalise on.The decision of the independent Commission on Parades to prevent the Apprentice Boys from marching in the Lower Ormeau Road in Belfast should be respected. The IRA long ago arrogated to itself the right to be the sole “protector” of the nationalist community. How? Consider the assessment of the ex-IRA man Sean O’Callaghan, who told the BBC Today programme that the IRA’s future strategy would revolve around “the politics of tension”. As he put it: “You will get enough violence to make you aware of their presence and their capability and enough to keep Northern Ireland in a constant state of unease.”
What will not change is their opportunism.
The new arrangements will, after all, be unlikely to deliver a 32-county united Ireland even on a distant horizon. Hardline republicans, then, might not give up, but, as in the past, respond by changing their tactics. It is at this point, when the peace process becomes a peace settlement, that it will move into its most dangerous phase
We worry about the response of the Provisional IRA. It may well be that they ultimately find the deal unacceptable.
Of course, there are big questions that still need to be resolved as we enter the endgame. The powers of the new North-South body are especially troublesome. But we suspect that the momentum and will for peace are now too great to be defeated. TO ECHO Tony Blair’s words about the Northern Ireland peace process we remain “cautiously, stubbornly optimistic”. Suddenly, in the space of a week, it looks like wing or nowhere for England’s Mr Versatile.If only Ireland had access to such a luxury as Catt, who would sleepwalk into their side at outside-half, centre, wing or full-back.
