Essay
Comment
Politics
War & peace
7 min read

What it takes to travel from ceasefire to peace

With Bertie Ahern, Kevin Hargaden explores an unlikely journey.

Kevin is a social theologian studying ethics and economics.

A TV graphic labelled 'ceasefire' lists bullet points
How the news was reported in 1994.
RTE.

August 31st marks the thirtieth anniversary of the historic IRA ceasefire. After decades of effective civil war in Northern Ireland, on this day in 1994, the nationalist paramilitary force announced “the complete cessation of military operations” and declared that they looked forward to a just and lasting settlement with “a spirit of determination and confidence”. While not without interruptions, that ceasefire has led to more than just a cessation of conflict. While still fragile, Northern Ireland has a functioning parliament, closer ties than ever with the Republic of Ireland, and the dissident threat – still present – is marginalised. 

One of the remarkable elements of that day at the end of summer 1994 was how unlikely it seemed just a year before. The intensity of “The Troubles”, as the conflict is called, varied over the years but a series of atrocities in 1993 left an already traumatised population in a state of desperation. In March of that year, the IRA exploded bombs in the market town of Warrington. This callous attack clearly sought to strike terror into the hearts of English civilians – people who had no real connection to whatever injustices had been inflicted on the nationalist communities of Northern Ireland. Two children, Jonathan Ball and Tim Parry, were killed and almost sixty people were injured.  

Another IRA bombing, in October of that year, caused outrage and disgust across Britain and Ireland. Again, hitting a civilian population, the Shankill Road bombing had been intended to target Loyalist leaders but ended up devastating a fishmongers. Ten people were killed.  

Brutal responses followed from the Loyalist side. Five days after the Warrington bomb, the Ulster Defence Association murdered four construction workers and a week after the Shankill Road bombing the same organisation descended upon a Halloween party held in a bar in rural Derry, killing 8 people and leaving 12 with dire injuries.  

Along with many other atrocities, the year ended with most people on the island dreading another generation of pointless violence. But below the surface, intense grassroots efforts and official negotiations were beginning to bear fruit.  

The viewer is bound to see the peace process that emerged as a kind of miracle. How could forgiveness reign in the face of such savagery? How can a society build a future out of the wreckage of such a past? 

This story is told vividly in the BBC documentary Once Upon a Time in Northern Ireland. Spread across five episodes, the show does not intend to offer an encyclopaedic analysis of how the Troubles emerged. Instead, it focusses on the experiences of the ordinary people embroiled – whether intentionally or not – in the conflict. The effect is deeply moving, even overwhelming at times.  

So often, our culture engages with war and conflict as abstract concepts to be debated. Even in the context of active, live battle, we are typically presented with “talking heads” offering expert opinion. But in Once Upon a Time in Northern Ireland you get to hear from the people who planned the attack, or who conducted the arrests, or who were just trying to buy some fish for dinner when a bomb exploded in the shop. This direct testimony from those were caught up in the Troubles allows the viewer a visceral understanding of what is at stake, without having to understand the centuries of colonialism, conflict, and oppression that generated the civil war. That human trauma, that is glimpsed in great poetry or felt as an echo in a folk song is captured in this series directed by the award-winning James Bluemel. 

There is a stubborn misunderstanding that the Northern Irish conflict was “Catholics against Protestants”. Once Upon a Time in Northern Ireland disposes of this myth, if in part by showing how those two groups were never distinct. It was a complex conflict fuelled by land and ideology, traumatic history and conflicting cultures. Religion was a component of course, but expressed through the lens of sectarianism, the almost racial animosity that grew up between the opposing tribes, the marker that differentiated them. When one man, named Michael, is shown tending gently to the racing pigeons he keeps, the effect is incongruous in the extreme because his story is one of unimaginable despair.  

He was raised Catholic; his mother was Protestant. She had ten children. And one day, two women showed up at their home and took his mother away and she never returned. The IRA killed her. It wasn’t because of her views on Papal primacy or biblical authority. Something even more absurd and terrifying was at work here, a hatred that at some point did not even need justification.  

The consequences of each callous and brutal attack rippled outwards, affecting not just the victims but their loved ones and then their community. By the end of the five episodes the viewer is bound to see the peace process that emerged as a kind of miracle. How could forgiveness reign in the face of such savagery? How can a society build a future out of the wreckage of such a past? 

That was their baseline assumption throughout – no one at the table was “happy with the fact that thousands of people had been killed and maimed.” 

This exposes one of the limitations of the format of the series. By placing the perspectives of ordinary people at the centre of the narrative, profound truths are exposed. But the mundane details of how the peace process developed – why it was the IRA agreed to a ceasefire and how things developed from there to the Good Friday Agreement and the years since – are unaddressed. Perhaps a sequel is required where the politicians and diplomats who made that possible are given the chance to tell that story? 

One of the undoubted architects of peace in Northern Ireland is Bertie Ahern, who was the Taoiseach (Prime Minister) of the Republic of Ireland from 1997-2008. I sat down with him to do just that – to hear his recollections of the process that brought about peace. Since his youth, he had always taken a keen interest in Northern Ireland – “I took a particular interest in the Civil Rights movement when we were in school; that was before it got into the violence.” Raised in a Republican family just north of Dublin city centre, once the Troubles began, it was hard “not to be subsumed into everything that was happening on the island.” As he became a political leader, he was keenly aware of how the violent conflict exacerbated underlying problems – even his vision for economic regeneration in the Republic was blocked because “part of the reason that it was difficult to get investment and to get people to come here was the Troubles.” 

As he remembers the process, it would be misleading to think it popped out of nowhere in the 1990s. There had been attempts through the years, notably with the Sunningdale Agreement in 1973 and the Anglo-Irish Agreement of 1985, but also through less publicised conversations between the peacemakers and paramilitaries, like the conversations led by Fr Gerry Reynolds at Clonard Monastery – which began to generate movement. He attributes the ceasefire to the Downing Street Declaration that was orchestrated by the British Prime-minister John Major and Ahern’s then boss, Taoiseach Albert Reynolds, on December 15, 1993. That showed a serious willingness from London to engage, and the 1994 ceasefire was the result.  

But when the ceasefire broke down in 1996, all that work dissipated. “That was a disaster, really.” With the election of Tony Blair, Ahern suggested they “take it up again”. With a concerted focus – “I was nearly doing the Northern stuff full-time” – progress was restored. He remembers that the negotiations involved ten different parties, including the British and Irish governments and the active and influential participation from the American government and “went on practically non-stop from September 1997 to Good Friday 1998.” The strategy sought to be as inclusive as possible – “we would try and get everyone in” – and “to be as comprehensive on the issues” as possible, so that no issue was off the table. Patience and resilience were central. Although there was “a huge amount of conversation and talks up to Christmas, it didn’t really gather momentum until February.” 

With the “totality of all the issues out on the table”, the dialogues began to bear fruit. How draconian legislation might be rolled back, how paramilitary prisoners could be released, how demilitarization would proceed and how the police could be reformed. He remembers that negotiations on that question – the reform of the corrupt Royal Ulster Constabulary police force – went on deep into the Good Friday night, April 10th. When an obstacle appeared, the London and Dublin governments reminded people of the goal of stopping the violence. That was their baseline assumption throughout – no one at the table was “happy with the fact that thousands of people had been killed and maimed.” The second guiding principle was that “you have to try to treat everyone with dignity, regardless of what views they have.” And slowly, rapport was built up between people who had been combatants.  

When the agreement was finalised, a kind of euphoria followed. “That week we were just at it night and day; we had been at it night and day since March.” But the celebrations, as intense as they were, did not linger. The agreement had to be passed by popular referendum in both the North and the Republic of Ireland. And the work continued even after that. Ahern notes that it took years to achieve an agreement “and then another ten years to implement it”.  

But the effort was undeniably worth it. “I think the big success of the Good Friday Agreement was that the Troubles have by and large ended.” And the story of how that happens traces back to a cassette tape released in August 1994 announcing the IRA ceasefire. 

Article
America
Church and state
Creed
Politics
6 min read

Trump is the new Constantine - but he's no Saviour

Trump’s second coming invites imperial comparisons. Are they accurate?

Graham is the Director of the Centre for Cultural Witness and a former Bishop of Kensington.

A montage shows Donald Trump as a Roman emperor leaning on a sword
Pax Americana.
Reddit.

After years of polarised politics, nepotism from previous rulers and disputed claims to power, an unpredictable and egotistical leader believes that God had saved him to make the nation great again. He is acclaimed as the most powerful leader in the world and instantly surprises everyone by issuing a raft of disruptive new measures to radically change the way society functions and announces that he is going to target anti-Christian bias in society. 

Sounds familiar?  

No, it’s not Donald Trump. It is the fourth century ruler of the Roman empire – Constantine the Great. And the parallels are striking.  

Constantine, the son of a Roman general and a Balkan barmaid, was the first Christian Roman emperor. Before then, all emperors were pagans, worshipping the Greek and Roman gods. In the early 300s AD, the emperor Diocletian launched a period of intense persecution of Christians, aimed at suppressing their subversive influence. After it died down, and after years of political infighting within the empire, Constantine marched on the capital and defeated his enemy Maxentius at the battle of the Milvian Bridge outside Rome. Just before the battle, Constantine had a dream in which he saw a sign of something that looked like a cross in the sky, with the tagline “in this sign, conquer”. From that time onwards, he believed that God had chosen him for this direct purpose – to bring peace to the empire by conquering its enemies, internal and external, under the banner of Christianity.  

After his accession Constantine, like Trump, introduced new economic policies to reverse rampant inflation, restructured government, and strengthened military capacity to deter the empire’s enemies. He also started to give privileges to the until-now persecuted Christians. Paganism, the ‘official’ religion of the empire was increasingly relegated to second place. Churches were granted land on which to build new edifices, and gatherings of Christian leaders became commonplace, some of which he presided over, such as the Council of Nicaea which took place in 325 AD, 1,700 years ago this year. Christian priests were excused from public duties to give themselves to their prayers. Crucifixion was abolished as a form of execution. Sunday became a weekly holiday, pagan practices were outlawed in public.  

Historians have debated Constantine’s motivation for years. Was he a genuine Christian, wanting to advance the faith by giving the church a good run at converting the empire? Was he a boon for the church in releasing it from the burden of persecution? Certainly, at the time, many Christians were delighted, enjoying their new privileges and access to the imperial court like wide-eyed pastors invited to the White House. Eusebius, the great historian of the early church wrote: “in every city the victorious emperor published decrees full of humanity and laws that gave proof of munificence and true piety. All tyranny had been purged away.” It could be the voice of a Southern Baptist.  

Yet on the other hand, Constantine was irascible, unpredictable and vindictive. He had his second wife, three brothers-in-law, his eldest son and his father-in-law executed.  

His vanity extended to renaming the old city of Byzantium, newly made the capital of the empire after himself – Constantinople. Was he cynically using the growing cultural force of Christianity to bring unity to a divided and fragmenting empire? Some historians suggest that in doing so, he fatally changed the nature of Christianity. Constantine was exactly the kind of military messiah that first century Jews had expected, yet one totally different from the crucified rabbi from Nazareth.  

Which was it? It's hard to tell. He certainly promoted the Christian faith and gave it new freedoms. Yet, although he presided over the Council of Nicaea, with its famous decree that Christ shared the same nature (‘consubstantial’ was the technical term) as God the Father, there is little mention of Jesus in Constantine’s religion. He sometimes seems to have thought of himself as the Saviour of the Church rather than Christ, with the watershed of history not in the first century with the victory over sin and death in the Resurrection of Jesus, but in the fourth century with his own victory over Maxentius. 

For some historians, the Christian church was originally a counter-cultural movement, offering a radical new vision of life, favouring the poor over the rich, the weak over the powerful, centred on the crucified Jesus. After Constantine, Christianity became centred on a majestic ruler of the heavens and the earth. Christ the Pantokrator, the image of Christ in glory found in Orthodox churches around the world replaced images of Christ on the cross. This was, they suggest, not Constantine being formed into the image of Christ, but Christ being conformed to the image of Constantine.  

Christians might be glad of the opportunities that a Trumpian world might offer. But they need to be careful in what they wish for 

The similarities with Donald Trump will be obvious, even if different readers will vary on how they see the extent of the likeness. They both favoured Christianity even though their own personal faith is hard to pin down. They can both be ruthless and vindictive towards those that cross them. They are not afraid to tear up the rule book and adopt new policies that shake up the established order.  

So, what might the story of Constantine have to tell us as we consider the second coming of Donald Trump?  

Many Christians rejoiced at Trump’s re-election. At his inauguration, Franklin Graham, like Eusebius many centuries before, pronounced that God had ‘raised up’ the new President. Trump himself claimed that God had saved him through the assassination attempt last year to Make America Great Again. Others see it as a disaster, offering a ruler of dubious character who looks nothing like Jesus. 

Constantine was, on balance, a mixed blessing for the church. His rule did enable the church to thrive. It gave it a position within society that made possible a network of churches, parishes, dioceses that helped its message spread far and wide. It was no doubt easier to be, and to become a Christian under Constantine than under his anti-Christian predecessors. Yet at the same time, he subtly changed the shape of Christianity and made the Church the faith of the powerful, even though Christianity has always flourished more among the poor and struggling who know they need help.  

The Church under Trump might be glad of laws and cultural moves that make it easier to practice and promote their faith. Yet the danger of allowing Trump rather than Jesus to determine the Church's vision of leadership and lordship, remains. In subsequent years, while making the most of the opportunities that a newly Christianised empire gave, the church also needed figures like Ambrose, the fourth century Bishop of Milan who was willing to ban the emperor Theodosius from church when he committed crimes in the name of the empire. It also needed the radical Christianity of the desert fathers and mothers who withdrew to remote places to pray and live a radically alternative lifestyle from the increasingly soft and easy Christianity of city life. As Paul Kingsnorth recently reminded us, “the monks built the West, just as surely as the soldiers did, and they built the more enduring part.” 

Christians might be glad of the opportunities that a Trumpian world might offer. But they need to be careful in what they wish for. Followers of the crucified rabbi from Nazareth need to be wary of hitching their wagon to any one political ruler. There is only one messiah after all. 

Join with us - Behind the Seen

Seen & Unseen is free for everyone and is made possible through the generosity of our amazing community of supporters.

If you’re enjoying Seen & Unseen, would you consider making a gift towards our work?

Alongside other benefits (book discounts etc.), you’ll receive an extra fortnightly email from me sharing what I’m reading and my reflections on the ideas that are shaping our times.

Graham Tomlin

Editor-in-Chief