An anniversary of deep significance

TODAY IS the 10th anniversary of the Belfast Agreement, contemporary Ireland's most important political achievement. Signed on April 10th, 1998 by Bertie Ahern and Tony Blair as heads of government, it is simultaneously an international treaty between Ireland and the United Kingdom and a solemn political agreement to share power within Northern Ireland. It provides for new institutions to link both parts of Ireland as well as the two sovereign states in co-operative policies. And it entrenches democratic consent as the fundamental principle governing any change in the borders between these jurisdictions.

The agreement has brought peace and stability to Ireland and transformed its relations with Britain after more than a generation of bloody conflict and violence. The legal text summarises a deeper process of change more lengthy than the three years it took to negotiate. The foundational Downing Street Agreement of 1993 makes this a 15th anniversary and the preparatory Anglo-Irish Agreement of 1985 a 23rd; it took another intense negotiation at St Andrews two years ago to agree terms that enabled last year's powersharing administration to be installed; and it could be at least another 10 years before the agreement's potential is properly worked out.

These three extended stages - ceasefires and preconditions, negotiations and implementations - underline the prolonged effort and commitment involved by all concerned. Garret FitzGerald, Charles Haughey, Albert Reynolds and John Bruton as well as Margaret Thatcher and John Major deserve credit as heads of government before Bertie Ahern and Tony Blair brought the negotiations to a conclusion. In the same way, John Hume and David Trimble were the central political players from Northern Ireland in the talks 10 years ago, well before Gerry Adams, Martin McGuinness, Ian Paisley and Peter Robinson - from the extremes - reaped the harvest of the agreement by displacing these centrists in the 2002 assembly and parliamentary elections. Adams, McGuinness and Robinson, together with Brian Cowen and Gordon Brown, must carry it forward now.

As has been argued by many contributors to these pages in recent days, the Belfast Agreement was a watershed in Ireland's political development. It embeds an ethos of mutual recognition, respect and toleration in inter- community and inter-state relations. It entrenches compulsory powersharing between competing parties and different national and community traditions. And it enables a specified yet dynamic process of North-South and east-west co-operation between the two states.

These elements have been recognised around the world as a major contribution to the resolution of conflicts in deeply divided societies. Ireland has thereby benefited in numerous ways as a potential model for others. But the agreement should not be uncritically celebrated. It has yet to prove its promise in community reconciliation, solidarity and inclusiveness, for example. Unless that is shown to have improved decisively by 2018 it will have failed in one of its most vital respects.

© 2008 The Irish Times

This article appears in the print edition of the Irish Times