Ulster: back to square one

The marchers have gone home, but they've left a bleak political landscape. By David McKittrick After a turbulent summer, the dust is settling on a bleak political landscape. By David McKittrick

In the 16th century an English civil servant wrote: "It is a proverb of old date, that the pride of France, the treason of England, and the war of Ireland, shall never have end. Which proverb, touching the war of Ireland, is like alway to continue, without God set it in men's breasts to find some new remedy that never was found before."

The quill which he presumably used has today been replaced by a word processor, yet the sentiment he expressed is very much alive in Belfast today. The events of the past six months, principally the breakdown of the IRA ceasefire and July's Orange march confrontation at Drumcree, have sent almost everyone back to the drawing-board in search of "some new remedy that never was found before".

They conduct their reassessments not in a spirit of enthusiasm but under a deep pall of depression and apprehension which has enveloped not just the political classes but also most of the population. Just about everyone expects that it will get worse before it gets better; many say, sadly and bitterly, that it never will get better.

A flavour of the legacy of the summer was conveyed by Norman Jenkinson, one of Belfast's least excitable newspaper columnists, who wrote: "From towns and villages all over this province come sad reports of sectarian damage to property, of intimidation, of the boycott of businesses, of accusations, of recriminations. Human stories of villages and townspeople who once lived in peace with one another, if not quite on close terms, now keeping their sullen distance. Heartbreaking accounts of communities torn apart by their Christian differences, living in fear for their futures, for their local economies.

"Communities ripped asunder by one week in July, some of their peoples seething with fury at what they see as their humiliation, some heady with the narcotic effect of perceived victory. Drumcree was a catastrophe for religious tolerance and it is doubtful if anything can be salvaged from it. Good people will try, but then good people are not the problem."

John Alderdice of the determinedly optimistic Alliance party has spoken of "a depth of sectarian division more widespread and corrosive than for some time". A nationalist leader said privately: "In all my years I have never seen so much bitterness and hatred, on both sides." Another political figure added: "It's bad, bad, bad and worse. My non-political friends are saying, 'What hope is there?' They're just deflated. A lot of them are talking about emigrating."

It is against this sombre background that multi-party talks will reconvene at Stormont next month following a summer break. Even before Drumcree few believed they would succeed; now, with such a dearth of political and communal goodwill, hardly any participants or spectators believe tough issues such as de-commissioning and policing can be cracked, let alone the wider questions involved in mapping out a new future.

Yet paradoxically the poisonous atmosphere and lack of political momentum have not produced a reversion to full-scale terrorism. There has certainly been violence including isolated murders, punishment beatings and general summer intimidation, as well as a number of major IRA bomb attacks in England. But in Northern Ireland the paramilitary campaigns which used to claim up to a hundred lives a year have not returned. No one knows quite why this is so, or how long it can last.

On the extreme Protestant side the loyalist ceasefire, declared in October 1994, has proved more durable than almost anyone expected. Punishment beatings have continued, but the Ulster Volunteer Force summarily expelled the mid-Ulster unit which killed a Catholic man during the Drumcree stand- off. Not only did the loyalist ceasefire survive the collapse of the IRA cessation last February, but the political spokesmen of the paramilitaries have taken a consistently more conciliatory line than the mainstream Unionist parties.

It would be wrong, however, to count on this restraint lasting. At this moment there are reports that it is under serious strain and it could well break down if, for example, the minor loyalist parties were to be expelled from the Stormont talks, or if the IRA escalates its violence.

No one can be sure what the IRA will do. There is no IRA ceasefire, yet no IRA bombs are going off in Belfast: the last policeman and soldier to die were killed in the spring of 1994. The renewed IRA campaign has so far been directed exclusively against England.

The republican terrorists have the capacity to begin again in Northern Ireland, and it is anyone's guess why they have not. Perhaps they are waiting for the right moment; perhaps they intend to make Britain their principal battlefield. They will certainly be aware thatthere is still little or no appetite in the wider republican community for another quarter- century of war.

The difficulty for the republicans is that they are in distinct need of a new master-plan. The peace process collapsed, they argue, because of the British government's failure to call all-inclusive talks: entry into talks was in fact elevated to Sinn Fein's central demand.

This would presumably also be the centrepiece of any revived peace process, yet Drumcree has convinced most republicans that talking to Unionists, as led by David Trimble and Ian Paisley, would be a waste of time. In any event, most republicans always believed Unionists would only ever negotiate under pressure from London; and Drumcree seemed to establish that London has not the capacity to exert such pressure.

A republican movement which doubts that either terrorism or a new peace process can achieve its aims is clearly a movement in trouble. With no clear avenue of progress visible, the IRA may opt to wait for the next British election to see what business can be done with a new government. But in republican terms the IRA cannot simply do nothing, since that would give the impression of weakness. The logic, tragically, is that it will use bombs in Britain in an attempt to keep Northern Ireland high on the British political agenda.

It is not just republican theorists who are going back to square one, for it was a summer which had no winners. Drumcree challenged and undermined many other long-held assumptions. Constitutional nationalism, for example, is now questioning whether Northern Ireland can ever be turned into an equitable modern state. Many now complain that Unionism has proved itself irredeemably sectarian.

In the Republic, public opinion was appalled during the Drumcree crisis by the actions of the Unionists, the RUC and the British government: the seething anger generated by television pictures is difficult to exaggerate. Those in the south who hoped it was over are facing up to the painful notion that it may never end, and people are saying "a plague on both your houses".

That mirrors a sizeable section of opinion in Britain, where the dashing of the hopes generated by the peace process has unsurprisingly produced disillusionment. For the Government, next month's talks represent pretty much the only show in town. With no new IRA ceasefire in prospect, its ambition may be limited to crisis management, and to ensuring the talks do not break down in acrimony.

Unionists, too, are reviewing their position. The fact that the marching organisations prevailed in many instances is a source of satisfaction for many. There is a widespread sense that at Drumcree Protestants finally showed their determination not to be pushed around.

But others in the unionist community worry about the cost and the damage, in terms of community and political relations, the blow to the standing of the RUC, and economic prospects. "As a political tactic it was disastrous," said a senior churchman. "Sinn Fein was on its knees, but Trimble succeeded in giving the republicans new legitimacy."

At Drumcree and elsewhere the Orange Order, in close association with the Ulster Unionist Party,demonstrated a new strength. Any government will in future have to think twice before embarking on a course which might incur Orange wrath, and get the roads blocked and barricaded again.

But Drumcree won no new friends either for Unionism or for Northern Ireland, and has increased the tendency in London, Dublin, Washington and elsewhere to think of it as an impossible place, as a problem which, no matter how much energy and goodwill is devoted to it, might have no solution.

Hope is in such short supply that almost the best that can be said is that Northern Ireland has survived other dark moments in the past, and that progress has unexpectedly been made. This is a dangerous, unpredictable time and if things are to improve it will require "some new remedy that never was found before".