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Bertie Ahern urges leaders to remember ‘how bad things were’ during Troubles Trimble and Hume’s sons say fathers would have broken Stormont deadlock
(about 3 hours later)
On 25th anniversary of Good Friday agreement, former taoiseach calls for messages of reconciliation and peace in Northern Ireland Nobel laureates would have lamented lack of NI government, say sons, as events mark 25 years since Good Friday agreement
A “bit of education about how bad things were” during the Troubles may help politicians restore stability to Northern Ireland, Bertie Ahern, the co-architect of the Good Friday agreement has said. The sons of the Nobel peace prize winners David Trimble and John Hume have said their fathers would have found a way of solving the political deadlock that has seen power sharing in Northern Ireland suspended, 25 years after the peace deal their parents sealed.
The former taoiseach urged present-day politicians to deliver messages of “reconciliation, peace and confidence” if they are to secure lasting peace in Northern Ireland. As ceremonies took place in Belfast and London to mark the anniversary of the 1998 Belfast agreement, Nicholas Trimble and John Hume Jr both said their fathers would have lamented the absence of government for more than a year.
But on the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday agreement, Ahern warned they must also keep their eyes firmly focused on delicate legacy issues to prevent them spilling over into violence. “I think he would try and think of a better way,” Trimble said. “There is always a way through difficulties and the solution that dad would come up with would never be the obvious brute-force tactic, he would try and think his way out of a problem first, and I think that’s maybe a trick that’s being missed here.”
“It’s no good thinking that we’ve actually got over these things. So today’s politicians, and those of the future have to be talking messages of reconciliation and peace and confidence. I think a bit of education about how bad things were is also a help when you’re trying to go forward.” Hume said he thought his father would be frustrated to see the current political deadlock at Stormont.
Addressing the former Democratic Unionist party leader Arlene Foster on GB News, Ahern spoke about the importance of reminding a new generation of the dangers of drifting into old ways. “He’d be very frustrated, just like he was over the years with the deadlock that we had for decades in the north, and I think he would be doing his damnedest to bring the two sides together, to concentrate on everything that is in our common interest and using that common ground to build out to find a way forward,” he said.
He told of a recent meeting he had with a woman whose police officer father and mother were blown up by the IRA. In a second bomb she became a victim too. Hume and Trimble were jointly awarded the Nobel peace prize for their efforts in the creation of the deal 25 years ago, and died in 2020 and 2022 respectively.
The names of the nearly 3,600 people who died as a result of conflict in Northern Ireland between 1966 and 2019 were read out loud as part of a ceremony in Dublin, while at a Stormont event the former US senator George Mitchell wished the country enduring “peace and prosperity”.
The first speaker of the Stormont assembly, John Alderdice, hailed the “extraordinary” feat of 1998 where the people of Northern Ireland tried to make sure the “disturbed historic relations between our communities” were the focus of politics, not the institutions.
The current Stormont speaker, Sinn Féin’s Alex Maskey, described the Good Friday agreement as a “new beginning”.
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“And 10 years later she was involved in the bomb where the IRA killed six British soldiers and she lost her legs. It was a horror story in her life,” he said. The former Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams said that “despite current challenges the future is bright”.
He added: “I know these stories go through all the communities. That legacy issue is still there.” “If you doubt that, think of the countless lives that have been saved or reflect on events in other parts of the world at this time.”
While the 25 years have been marred by some atrocities, including the horrific bombing in the town of Omagh four months after the peace accord was signed, peace has held in Northern Ireland. Adams said there was a lot to be thankful for and still a lot to be done. He said the agreement was for everyone and it was “here to stay”.
But there are still concerns about paramilitary activity as part of everyday life, something recognised by the Police Service of Northern Ireland and Ahern, who recently told a British-Irish parliamentary assembly that it was the last strand of the peace deal to fix. “The last 25 years have been up and down, and there have been many twists and turns, but one thing is for certain, we are all in a better place.”
Police in Northern Ireland are warning of potential dissident republican attacks over the Easter weekend.
Police said they had received “strong” intelligence that dissidents planned to launch terror attacks against officers on the bank holiday. They also warned there could be street violence in Derry.