Summit at Hillsborough Castle

By Frederick Painton

In another part of the world, it would be called tribal warfare. In Northern Ireland, the shootings and the bombings that have taken more than 2,500 lives over the past 17 years are more primly referred to as "the troubles." The spasms of killing have followed the ebb and flow of ancient hates and fears that divide the British province's Protestant majority and its Roman Catholic minority. Because so many attempts to break the deadly cycle of attack and revenge have ended in failure, it is a wonder that political leaders still have the courage to try again, when even the merest hint of change in the status quo brings threats of more bloodshed from extremists on both sides.

Late last week British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and Irish Prime Minister Garret FitzGerald dared to gamble again, this time on a cautious scheme devised to provide the basis for an armistice, if not a settlement, in one of the world's most tenacious conflicts. After a year of discussions between British and Irish negotiators, the two leaders flew to an Anglo-Irish summit at the 188-year-old Hillsborough Castle, twelve miles to the south of Belfast. There they signed an agreement giving the Irish government an official voice in the running of Northern Ireland for the first time. In return, the FitzGerald government strongly recognized the desire of Ulster's Protestants to remain under Britain's wing.

Specifically, the agreement will lead to the establishment of a British-Irish body to be called the Intergovernmental Conference. It is also intended to lead to "devolution," the transfer of powers from the British government in London to the elected Northern Ireland Assembly, which today is dominated by Protestants and boycotted by Catholics. The newly created conference will reinforce British-Irish efforts to combat terrorism and will attempt to improve relations between the predominantly Protestant security forces and the Catholic community. It will delve into legal matters, perhaps proposing that courts handling security cases be made up of judges from Ireland as well as Britain. It will even deal with such relatively minor but deeply emotional matters as the longstanding ban on the flying of the Irish flag in the province. Such concessions to the Catholic minority are certain to prove unsettling to the Protestants, who are skeptical about British assurances that there will be no future change in the status of Northern Ireland unless a majority of the heavily Protestant population agrees.

Though British officials had gone to considerable lengths to downplay the significance of the event, the summit agreement reverberated across Britain and Ireland like a distant explosion. The straightforward language of the accord raised as many fears as it did hopes. Said Professor John A. Murphy, a history teacher at University College, Cork: "There is no grand solution. You can only make incremental moves. This seems to be a courageous one. It's the first time a role for the south has been formally recognized [in Northern Ireland] since 1925. This has to be a dramatic development."

FitzGerald and Thatcher faced a formidable array of opposition, ranging from the Irish Republican Army and its political wing, Sinn Fein, to many Protestant political leaders and militants in paramilitary organizations like the Ulster Defense Association. Neither government had any illusion that the agreement would have much impact right away. Explained an Irish official: "The real purpose of this exercise is to detach the northern [Catholic] community from the clutches of the I.R.A. We know that won't happen in six weeks. If it happens in a year, it will be a bloody miracle."

The most immediate backlash was expected to come from Ulster's 1 million Protestants, whose political leaders bitterly oppose Anglo-Irish talks. They insist that any role by the Irish Republic in the affairs of the province is an infringement of British sovereignty. As such, they fear that the agreement marks the beginning of a process that will lead inevitably to a united Ireland under Dublin's control. Said Peter Robinson, deputy leader of the Democratic Unionist Party: "We're being cast aside, and there's a deep sense of betrayal."

Provincial leaders were kept guessing about the summit and its controversial compromise until the last minute. The secrecy surrounding the negotiations only heightened the resentment felt by James Molyneaux, the leader of the Ulster Unionist Party, and the Rev. Ian Paisley, the fiery head of the more militant Democratic Unionists. Normally fierce rivals, the two men joined forces to oppose the Anglo-Irish rapprochement. Jointly they protested, first by letter and then by visiting 10 Downing Street to make their case in person. They demanded that Thatcher submit any proposed agreement on Ulster to a referendum in the province, where loyalist Protestants outnumber the Catholic population by about 2 to 1.

They also warned her of a strong reaction if a compromise was imposed without their agreement. Said Paisley: "We left her in no doubt that if we don't have a democratic system, the politicians will be swept aside and other people not interested in politics will take over. Let the ballot speak before the bomb and bullet speak." For the moment, Unionist politicians ruled out disruptive street demonstrations and strikes because they were fearful of causing further damage to the province's already ailing economy, with its 21.8% unemployment rate. But they did schedule a mass rally in Belfast for this weekend, and one extremist faction, the Ulster Freedom Fighters, threatened violence.

The Protestants, of course, are only part of the problem. For the Thatcher-FitzGerald compromise to survive at all, it will need to win the support of Northern Ireland's mainstream Catholic nationalists. If Thatcher must satisfy Protestants that no sellout is under way, she must also convince Catholics that their allegiance to an Irish identity and to Dublin has somehow been recognized and accepted. --By Frederick Painton. Reported by Edmund Curran/Belfast and Christopher Ogden/Hillsborough

With reporting by Reported by Edmund Curran/Belfast, Christopher Ogden/Hillsborough