Northern Ireland Peace Process: Discussion
Thursday, 13 October 2011 Joint Committee on the Implementation of the Good Friday Agreement Debate ..Dail Eireann. Comhchoiste um Fhorfheidhmiu Aoine an Cheasta…Chairman/Cathaoirleach Dominic Hannigan,TD/FD
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Chairman: Apologies have been received from Ms Margaret Ritchie, MP; Lady Sylvia Hermon, MP; Mr. Mark Durkan, MP; and Dr. Alasdair McDonnell, MP. I welcome our colleague from Westminster, Mr. Conor Murphy, MP.

I remind members and those in the Visitors Gallery that mobile phones must be switched off and not left in silent mode because they interfere with the communications equipment.

Are the minutes of the meeting of 14 July agreed? Agreed.

On behalf of members, I express our sympathy to the clerk to the committee, Mr. Paul Kelly, and his extended family on the death of his grandmother, Mrs. Winnie Kelly, earlier in the week.

It is a great pleasure to welcome our guests, Dr. Ian Adamson, High Sheriff of Belfast; Mr. Jackie McDonald, Mr. Sean Murray, Mr. George Newell and Professor Wesley Hutchinson. In the next ten years we will see a significant number of centenaries of seminal events in the history of Ireland, North and South. They include the centenary of the Ulster Covenant, the First World War, the 1916 Rising, the War of Independence, the Civil War, the partition of Ireland, among others. I am pleased to have the opportunity to meet representatives from different communities in Northern Ireland who have come together to take a lead in looking at the sensitive issues the next decade of commemorations might raise at the grassroots in their communities.

It is also an opportunity for us to reflect on the effects of the peace process on communities, if the peace dividend has filtered down to local communities across the North and the key issues they face following the signing of the Good Friday Agreement. I warmly welcome the opportunity this discussion gives us to raise awareness of these issues, in particular from a Northern Ireland perspective. Members of the committee have identified the way we commemorate our past as one of the priority areas for the committee. It will, therefore, be most useful for us to have this discussion and to listen to the views of our guests on the matter. I understand Dr. Adamson will introduce his colleagues.

Dr. Ian Adamson: I am the High Sheriff of Belfast, but I have not come to arrest anyone because it is outside my jurisdiction. We came together as an informal group under the auspices of Senator Martin McAleese who initiated the process. We represent people from across the divide, communities which were most hurt by the problems in Northern Ireland. My interest lies in the history and culture of the area, in particular that of Belfast. I am personal physician to Dr. Ian Paisley, now Lord Bannside, and his senior adviser on history and cultural matters. I am also honorary historian of the Ulster Unionist Party, but please do not let that put members off me.

I have been interested for some time in the issue of commemoration and the decade of centenaries we are entering. I have been a personal friend of President Mary McAleese and was partly responsible for her coming together with Dr. Paisley at the Somme Heritage Centre in north County Down. It was a wonderful meeting of two minds and had great reverberations throughout Ireland.

I am interested in the history and development of the two indigenous languages, the Gaelic or Irish language and the Ulster Scots language which I call Ullans. We brought together a formal group, the Ullans Group, to look at the promotion of both languages in tandem without conflict or rancour between either of the two groups which support them. That is part of the development of the cultural process following the Good Friday Agreement. As members may know, the Ulster-Scots Agency is part of the language body looking after these issues. We would like to see a more complete fulfilment, particularly as it affects the Irish language, throughout the entire community.

Senator Martin McAleese brought us all together in the High Sheriff’s office. In a way, we are a sort of Posse. Perhaps we will not get into that matter. The group represents a wide range of interests within the city of Belfast and Northern Ireland. All of us, including Senator McAleese, are Belfast people, with the exception of Professor Wesley Hutchinson who is from Ballymena. The Bible may ask, “Can any good come out of Ballymena?,” but we can state in the case of Professor Hutchinson that good has come out it. He is the senior professor of Irish studies at the Sorbonne. We also have Dr. Éamon Phoenix who is from Belfast. As well as Mr. Jackie McDonald and Mr. Seán Murray, I am joined by Mr. George Newell, one of the greatest advocates of cultural development within the loyalist community in Belfast. I will ask Mr. Murray to start the proceedings by speaking about his experience in Belfast, as it has involved his own community.

To be continued