An ongoing failure to advance reconciliation across the island of Ireland is the “great miss” of the peace process, the Tánaiste has said.
Micheál Martin said many communities were as far apart in 2023 as they were in 1998, when the landmark Good Friday Agreement was struck to largely end the violence of the Troubles.
In a keynote address at an Irish Government Shared Island event in Dublin, Mr Martin said, while the agreement had secured an enduring peace, opportunities to fulfil the potential of that peace have been “squandered”.
He said there had been insufficient focus on tackling sectarianism, pointing to continuing instances of people engaging in offensive chants or posting abuse on social media about other traditions as manifestation of the ongoing divisions.
In a wide-ranging speech at what was the latest in series of dialogue events organised under the Government’s Shared Island initiative, Mr Martin spoke about the island’s complex history and stressed the need for a better understanding of differing cultures.
“Irishness is not something based on ethnicity or religion or even on a single nationality. It is both a civic & a personal concept which continues to evolve.”
Tánaiste @MichealMartinTD on the complex, overlapping identities for those of us who call this #SharedIsland home. pic.twitter.com/jUcEFNF8e9— MerrionStreet.ie (@merrionstreet) October 25, 2023
Among those in the diverse audience at Dublin’s Abbey Theatre was Grand Secretary of the Orange Order Rev Mervyn Gibson.
Mr Martin said overcoming the divisions that remain on the island and how to accommodate different national identities remained “one of the great challenges of our time”.
“While there has been immense progress, clearly the vision of the Good Friday Agreement for a reconciliation of all communities and traditions has not yet been achieved,” he said.
“Perhaps most problematically, politics in Northern Ireland is still largely defined by green and orange and a zero-sum framing of community competition on almost every issue – even though that doesn’t reflect the day-to-day reality of life and often doesn’t reflect broader definitions of Britishness or Irishness.
“This complicates the achievement of parity of esteem, and the creation of political space in which the people of Northern Ireland have a right to identify and be accepted as British, or Irish or both.
“And, both north and south, there are persistent, often mindless, instances of abuse of others’ identity, beliefs, culture, or experience.
“Every day on social media, and marring sports grounds, community halls, concerts and events across this island.
“There is little discussion, and even less consensus, on recognising and responding to the hurt and alienation that some songs, chants or traditions, cause others.
“Moving beyond this, will require broad-based and sustained leadership to effect a positive change.
“To rectify the blindspots that conflict, tension and disdain have created over generations in conceptions of others, and obscuring how much actually binds us all together.
“I am not suggesting that the successful navigation of these issues is easy.
“Or, that accommodation and compromise should fall to one group, or another.
“But it is time to find ways to move our respective cultures and identities fully on from dichotomy and rivalry to symbiosis and respect.”
Mr Martin focused a significant section of this speech on what he described as the “missed opportunities” of the Good Friday deal.
“Through the agreement, we have consolidated an enduring peace,” he said.
“That is of utmost importance, and it gives me great hope for what can achieved be in the years ahead.
“But too much time has been squandered over the last 25 years without fulfilling the potential of peace:
“Connected to that, there has never been sufficient, sustained focus on tackling entrenched sectarianism and disadvantage in Northern Ireland.
“And, we have simply not done enough to get to know and understand each other more since 1998.
“To build new connections over the barriers that grew over centuries and during the Troubles.
“Beyond family relationships and individual connections, the fact is that we know too little of each other across the border and our different communities.
“Reconciliation has been the great miss in the 25 years since the Agreement.
“Many communities are as far apart today as they were in 1998.
“It is only by recognising this failure, by calling it out, that we can make the efforts to address it.”
Mr Martin said the Shared Island project, set up when he was Taoiseach, had delivered €1 billion of support into cross-border projects.
Power-sharing at Stormont is currently in cold storage due to a political impasse over post-Brexit trade.
Mr Martin said the Irish Government wanted to see a “step change” in cooperation with Stormont when power-sharing institutions returned.
The Tánaiste said this should focus on tackling ingrained educational underachievement and supporting enterprise development on a cross-border basis.
“We need collectively to make the Good Friday Agreement work as the charter for reconciliation that the people of this island mandated in 1998,” he added.
