For almost a decade Mr Molyneaux maintained a close relationship with the Rev Ian Paisley but this broke
For almost a decade, Mr Molyneaux maintained a close relationship with the Rev Ian Paisley, but this broke up amid considerable bitterness earlier this year. Mr Paisley, who once admired Mr Molyneaux, has since compared him to Neville Chamberlain and even Judas Iscariot.Mr Paisley himself, at 68, shows no signs of shedding the negative approach of a lifetime. Behind him stand the Rev William McCrea, who is if anything even more in the ‘not an inch’ mould than his leader, and Peter Robinson, who has occasionally gone through moderate phases but is now judged to have shot his bolt.The balance of forces on the nationalist side is intriguing. Mr Adams has, in a dramatic gamble, brought about an IRA cessation of violence without achieving his movement’s historic aims.
It remains to be seen whether Sinn Fein’s traditional voters stay with the party in its new pacific role or drift away. The probability is that Mr Adams’s exceptionally high standing within the republican community will hold it together.The standing of John Hume among constitutional nationalists is even higher. In the European elections in the spring he recorded his biggest-ever vote, almost surpassing that of Mr Paisley. That was when he was trying to bring about an IRA cessation; now that it has happened he has assumed a place in the nationalist pantheon comparable to that of O’Connell and Parnell at their zenith.All of this means that nationalists will go into negotiations with high hopes and high expectations, while Unionists will be nervous and fearful. Unionism has failed to get the genie back into the bottle and have the issue treated as an internal UK one. Nationalists have succeeded in establishing both Anglo-Irish and American dimensions. The absence of a Unionist Big Idea will now be painfully obvious, and could cost that community dear.(Photograph omitted).
THE UNITED States will have a large and, one hopes, constructive role to play in any successful conclusion to Northern Ireland’s ‘troubles’. The financial and moral support of Irish- Americans for the IRA has been a key factor in keeping the Ulster pot stirred. Perhaps now that support can be used to encourage more peaceful means. Houston Chronicle, US
THERE must be some kind of secret agreement – a sort of British Oslo accord. It must be an agreement in principle between Major’s Conservative government and southern Ireland’s government, and you can make comparisons (with the Middle East).
