The miracle of Belfast

It is the closest thing to a miracle that Belfast has seen: the sight of the two veterans, Protestant patriarch and iconic republican, standing shoulder-to-shoulder to vow that they will leave the past behind.

It flew in the face of all history, all experience and all intuition to think of Ian Paisley and Martin McGuinness promising to run Northern Ireland together for the benefit of all its people.

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Reporting in Belfast for many years, I had watched the pair at close quarters, but until recently never dreamt they could get together: they seemed to occupy different political planets. Yet it happened. Two warriors of the Troubles, whose natural habitat seemed to be conflict, stood side-by-side in Stormont and affirmed to the world that the war is over and that a new era of co-operation is at hand.

Another minor miracle was that they did so with every appearance of enthusiasm and mutual respect. Far from any hint of reluctance, they projected that they are looking forward to a new era with great relish. For a Belfast journalist this is all very confusing and disorientating. They were so far apart that they only rarely bothered to attack each other: they simply were hardly on each other's radar screens.

Over the years I heard them, repeatedly and routinely, send out the message that there would be no compromise, no sell-out, no surrender. But now there is a new rhetoric and all of the old certainties are disappearing.

Ian Paisley, now Northern Ireland's First Minister, spoke of "a time when hate will no longer rule". Martin McGuinness, ex-IRA and now his new deputy, spoke of peace and reconciliation. They both clearly meant it.

Few doubt these guys could have fought on forever, fortified by all the centuries of antagonism, yet the peace process came along to rescue them, and Northern Ireland. Among those who regard it all as a bit of a miracle was Mr Paisley himself, the one-time opponent of the peace process who was sworn in to head it yesterday.

In Stormont, the scene of so many failed initiatives which has finally become the scene of a spectacularly successful one, Mr Paisley began his speech by saying: "If you had told me some time ago that I would be standing here to take this office, I would have been totally unbelieving." Witnessing this were two prime ministers, Tony Blair and Bertie Ahern, basking yesterday in their status as those who stuck with the peace process against such odds and steered it through so many crises.

Yet the recent history of the process, after years of taking two steps forward followed by one step back, has been studded not with setbacks but with minor miracles. The IRA has gone away, and the big loyalist groups are fading. Anglo-Irish relations are in a golden era, Unionists are developing friendly relations with the Irish Republic. Soldiers have disappeared from the streets, republicans support the police, and there are few funerals.

Northern Ireland suffered through 3,700 deaths: for a journalist, the reporting of breakthroughs must always be tempered by the knowledge that, brighter future or not, the new era will not restore those lost lives. Yet there are now many minor miracles, along with the new acceptance that the two sides should share power. This settlement received overwhelming endorsement in a recent election. The world, and almost everyone in Northern Ireland, now simply wants the Paisley-McGuinness alliance to get on with it.

And if Mr McGuinness can casually stroll into Mr Paisley's Stormont office, as he did yesterday, then it is difficult for any doubters to argue that he is unfit for government office.

Already the two are working closely together and presenting a common front against the first thing they have identified as a common target: Gordon Brown. They want a peace dividend, and the fact that their campaign is a joint one means Mr Brown will find it hard to send them away empty-handed.

In the Assembly the day was a mixture of the humdrum and the near-miraculous. In a relaxed atmosphere, the former Speaker was thanked and a new one sworn in, together with several deputies. Ministers took the pledge of office, with Mr Paisley and Mr McGuinness installed in the two top jobs and 10 others appointed to head departments. This meant that devolution had "gone live".

The two prime ministers watched approvinglyfrom the public gallery, then went along to the new First Minister's comfortable corner office to take tea with the new McGuinness-Paisley partnership. Then the four walked together down the marble steps of Stormont's Great Hall to hear a song - "You lift me up" - before delivering brief speeches. Tony Blair, paying tribute to Bertie Ahern, said Northern Ireland now had the chance to "shake off those heavy chains of history" which had been scarred by hardship and conflict.

The Taoiseach declared: "Tony Blair has been a true friend of peace, and a true friend of Ireland. For 10 tough years, he has spent more time dealing with the issues of the island of Ireland than any person ever could have asked any other person to do."

Years ago an astute observer of Northern Ireland forecast that progress would eventually come in a rush. He quoted Ogden Nash: "Shake and shake the ketchup bottle; first none will come and then a lot'll." It is not, I know, great poetry, but it does capture the sense that when a breakthrough does come, after years of frustrating apparent stagnation, it can come on a scale verging on the miraculous.

Mr Paisley in particular is - aged 81 or not - clearly raring to go as in effect Northern Ireland's prime minister, and is utterly unabashed by having a former IRA leader by his side. I know he can be a highly comic character, and yesterday he deployed his occasionally self-deprecating sense of humour, chatting away to the prime ministers and Mr McGuinness as they sat on a sofa and armchairs and sipped tea for the television cameras.

"I wonder why people hate me," he said with a chuckle, "when I'm such a nice man." Mr Blair, polite and pleasant, maintained that he would miss their meetings together: no one expressed incredulity. As they all smiled, it occurred to me that the troubles were ending not with a bang, but a cuppa.

But Mr Paisley has already warned that the new Northern Ireland is not going to be a paradise. No longer will local politicians be able to leave thorny issues in education or agriculture to London to sort out: from now on, the buck will stop with them.

At some stage they will have to confront the question of segregation in the cities, where almost 60 "Peace Lines," some of them 30ft high, divide hardline loyalist and republican areas. They are the starkest illustration of the fact that hardly any of the Protestant and Catholic working classes of Belfast live side by side, instead living in segregated districts and attending separate schools: the kids don't know each other.

Some hope the new administration will tackle this most sensitive and deep-rooted of problems. But all recognise that it will not be solved quickly, for such divisions have been a feature of life in Belfast for well over a century. The most optimistic just hope that an amicable Paisley-McGuinness relationship will help by setting a new tone.

In the meantime, it does the heart good to chart the progress of Mr Paisley from the one-time firebrand who seemed to revel in discord to the figure who, after his late-life odyssey, declared: "That was yesterday. Today is today." And when he spoke of looking forward to "wonderful healing", his language irresistibly recalled the lines of the poet Seamus Heaney, which were written years ago but which could have been inspired by the events of yesterday:

"So hope for a great sea-change on the far side of revenge/ Believe that a further shore is reachable from here/Believe in miracles and cures and healing wells."

'The day of tribal politics here is gone'

In Stormont, the atmosphere was one of back-slapping bonhomie. But a few miles away on the streets of Belfast, those who lived on the front line of the Troubles knew better than to celebrate too eagerly.

The "Peace Lines", a series of barriers that have separated Catholic and Protestant communities in Belfast for 35 years, remain the most enduring symbols of the division in Northern Ireland. Yesterday, those who live either side of them had a suitably blunt message for their newly anointed rulers - "Get on with it."

Tommy Williamson's home stands in the shadow of one of the 25ft walls that divides him from his Catholic neighbours. He said: "I hope to God it works this time. It has to because people like me want it too work. Politicians here need to get on with the job they were elected to do.

"The day of tribal politics here is gone, thank God."

Across the barrier, Michael Connery, a Catholic student, expressed a similar concern that progress in Stormont has yet to be reflected in the reality of life among ordinary people.

He said: "Just because Sinn Fein and the DUP have agreed to a return of the Assembly doesn't mean our communities are not still divided. Segregation is a problem that has to be addressed. Until the barriers come down and people really learn to live alongside each other then I think political progress will be limited."

But while any optimism was bound to be cautious, there was a firm belief that the co-habitation of Ian Paisley and Martin McGuinness made the demolition of the Peace Lines a distinct possibility as well as a long-held aspiration. Mr Williamson said: "It symbolises segregation and segregation institutionalises sectarianism.

"I remember my Dad saying to me 'good fences make good neighbours Tommy'. But he was wrong. Segregation has ruined this community."

From bloodshed to partnership

1998

June: Elections for power-sharing assembly. UUP leader David Trimble is First Minister-designate

August: Real IRA car bomb in Omagh kills 29 people in the worst single attack of the conflict.

1999

December: Devolved government returns to Northern Ireland after 27 years of rule from London.

2000

February: London suspends power-sharing assembly after IRA's failure to disarm.

May: IRA says it will store weapons. Britain restores power to Belfast.

2001

July: Trimble resigns over IRA's failure to disarm.

2002

October: Sinn Fein Stormont offices raided by police investigating an alleged IRA spy ring. Power-sharing suspended after arrest of Sinn Fein's head of administration.

2003

October: Trimble claims lack of transparency in IRA's disarmament meant he could not deliver his end of the deal.

November: The DUP emerges as largest party in Assembly elections. Ian Paisley warns he will not sit in government with republicans until IRA disarms and disbands.

2004

June: Tony Blair and Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern set September deadline to end an impasse, but talks grind to a halt before the end of the year.

2005

April: Sinn Fein calls on the IRA to end its armed campaign after a series of high-profile crimes.

July: The IRA says it has ordered its members to dump all arms.

September: Independent witnesses confirm the IRA has disarmed.

December: Denis Donaldson confesses to being a British spy.

2006

April: Denis Donaldson is shot dead. The IRA denies involvement.

April 6: Blair and Ahern launch talks for reviving self-rule.

2007

January: Sinn Fein declares it supports the Protestant-dominated Police Service, a key condition.

March: Paisley and Gerry Adams hold first face-to-face meeting at Stormont between their parties and announce a deal to revive power-sharing on 8 May.

The new power structure

Ian Paisley, the leader of the Democratic Unionist Party, was sworn in yesterday as Northern Ireland's First Minister, leading the first power-sharing government in the province for five years.

The former IRA member Martin McGuinness, a senior Sinn Fein negotiator, was sworn in as Deputy First Minister. Both men were elected unopposed.

William Hay of the DUP was elected as Speaker.

Mr McGuinness and Mr Paisley will head a power-sharing executive whose 12 members have been drawn from the four main parties in the Northern Ireland Assembly in Stormont.

The 108-seat assembly was set-up under the 1998 Good Friday peace agreement, but was dogged by arguments over IRA disarmament, and power was not transferred from London to Belfast until December 1999.

Since then, direct rule from London was reintroduced four times, most recently in 2002 following allegations of Republican intelligence-gathering at Stormont.

The Northern Ireland executive will have power over local affairs including education and health, but London will retain sovereignty over the province.

In the new executive, the DUP has four ministers handling finance, the economy, environment and culture. Sinn Fein took control of regional development, agriculture and education. Ulster Unionist ministers will handle employment and health, while the SDLP has social development.