Martina Devlin : Paisley and Ahern - the rest is now history

First Minister and the Taoiseach symbolically usher in a new era at the Boyne site this week and saw hope for us all

Friday, May 09, 2008

The trolley stopped rattling because the person pushing it had paused in mid-step. Cups of tea and coffee cooled there, untasted. Nobody complained — nobody asked for their elevenses or criticised the delay. Conversations tailed off, and someone reached for the remote control to turn up the volume. Silence was absolute as all eyes were trained on the television set in the corner.

It was, perhaps, a unique forum in which to watch a unique event. I was in a nursing home on Tuesday when live coverage of the Battle of the Boyne site's official opening was broadcast.

Around me in the day room was a mixed group of residents and staff, Catholic and Protestant, men and women, all old enough to remember many of the landmark atrocities of the Troubles — to have been affected personally by some of them.

No one was immune to the event unfolding before them — to its inclusive nature after decades of polarisation, to the sense of a shared future at last. The feeling of optimism was palpable. People smiled to see that fleeting touch on the hand from Bertie Ahern to Ian Paisley as he accepted his gift of a King James's Bible. On a day bursting with symbolism, such intimate gestures were more encouraging than any government assurances or acts of law.

There was also a pang that both leaders were stepping aside. It wasn't regret, exactly; it seemed right they should bow out. Nevertheless, two tribal chieftains were leaving and the atmosphere was tinged with an end-of-an-era mood.

Then there was the warmth of Eileen Paisley's impromptu address, when she stepped out from her husband's long shadow and blessed us all: North, South, East and West. It registered a symbolic note — and symbolism can never be underestimated.

But the image from Tuesday's set-piece to generate most impact in that nursing home, with its cross-community population of staff and residents, was of two rows of rigidly upright Orangemen. Those collarettes they wore were further south of the border than they can ever have travelled before. I expect they felt slightly ill-at-ease and out of their comfort zone. Yet hands were outstretched beneath collarettes to grasp Bertie's when he offered it. First one or two hands were extended, followed by a wave of them.

And all around me, people were moved. We've grown accustomed to hallowed shibboleths being set aside and to the incredible becoming unremarkable in the space of a year or two.

Those handshakes struck a chord, however. Maybe we found that vignette by the Boyne touching because those of us observing it have lived through Enniskillen, Canary Wharf, Greysteel, Omagh ... a litany in which geography is shorthand for details too appalling to be uttered casually. But there's something potent and even honourable in a handshake — a promise of an attempt, at least, to let bygones be bygones.

In many ways, what unfolded on Tuesday was an extraordinary event. All that was missing was a cupla focail from Ian Paisley as he designated Bertie an honorary Orangeman and presented him with a sash. Other than that, our neighbourliness is now certified. The Boyne ceremony stamped the seal, demonstrating to the world that North and South are officially best buddies. We can do it. We can get along. Swords have been turned into ploughshares and there's an entente cordial between our two tribes. We can't rule out the odd spat in future, especially with a management change in both camps, but as they say in Belfast it's nice to be nice.

We have finally realised something we used to discover when we met up in Spain or France on holiday, and promptly forgot when we returned home at the end of the fortnight. We have remembered how we all have rather a lot in common: Ulster Protestants and Catholics, southern Protestants and Catholics, and all the shades of belief in between who reject those two-dimensional labels.

Religious affiliation was often just a convenient cultural tag anyhow. Multiple forms of Irish identity inhabit this island, and no one version is the template. The Boyne event was about basking, showcasing and sending out a signal. Share the island? We can cope with that. Tolerance? We can manage that, too.

Co-operation? No bother.

Sunshine beat down on the participants, and onlookers beside me cited the Bible passage about the sun shining on the righteous. (They forgot the end of the quote where it shines on the unrighteous as well, but selective amnesia is the most prudent way forward for our communities.) Still, it seemed appropriate, on an iconic site of the centuries-old clash between Orange and Green, we should seek to present a new definition of ourselves.

Our leaders are now regarded as world authorities on conflict resolution, while 'the peace dividend' is a phrase drummed into our consciousness. There's a temptation to ask why we couldn't all have felt this much mutual forbearance 20 years sooner, but that would be to rain on the parade. Better late than never.

When I was a child, we used to joke about how it must infuriate Ulster Protestants to have their sacred battlefield located south of the border. We didn't particularly want it, but we sure as heck didn't want them to have it. In a way, though, that's what happened this week. We decided to share the Battle of the Boyne site. And in so doing, we acknowledge our shared history and our common right to the island.

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