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Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- List of Contributors
- List of Illustrations
- Introduction to Revised Edition
- Introduction
- Achieving Transformational Change
- The Resolution of Armed Conflict: Internationalization and its Lessons, Particularly in Northern Ireland
- Some Reflections on Successful Negotiation in South Africa
- The Secrets of the Oslo Channels: Lessons from Norwegian Peace Facilitation in the Middle East, Central America and the Balkans
- The Awakening: Irish-America's Key Role in the Irish Peace Process
- ‘Give Us Another MacBride Campaign’: An Irish-American Contribution to Peaceful Change in Northern Ireland
- Towards Peace in Northern Ireland
- Neither Orange March nor Irish Jig: Finding Compromise in Northern Ireland
- Mountain-climbing Irish-style: The Hidden Challenges of the Peace Process
- The Good Friday Agreement: A Vision for a New Order in Northern Ireland
- Hillsborough to Belfast: Is It the Final Lap?
- Defining Republicanism: Shifting Discourses of New Nationalism and Post-republicanism
- Conflict, Memory and Reconciliation
- Keeping Going: Beyond Good Friday
- Religion and Identity in Northern Ireland
- Getting to Know the ‘Other’: Inter-church Groups and Peace-building in Northern Ireland
- Enduring Problems: The Belfast Agreement and a Disagreed Belfast
- Appendices: Key Recommendations of:
- Index
- Plate section
Mountain-climbing Irish-style: The Hidden Challenges of the Peace Process
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- List of Contributors
- List of Illustrations
- Introduction to Revised Edition
- Introduction
- Achieving Transformational Change
- The Resolution of Armed Conflict: Internationalization and its Lessons, Particularly in Northern Ireland
- Some Reflections on Successful Negotiation in South Africa
- The Secrets of the Oslo Channels: Lessons from Norwegian Peace Facilitation in the Middle East, Central America and the Balkans
- The Awakening: Irish-America's Key Role in the Irish Peace Process
- ‘Give Us Another MacBride Campaign’: An Irish-American Contribution to Peaceful Change in Northern Ireland
- Towards Peace in Northern Ireland
- Neither Orange March nor Irish Jig: Finding Compromise in Northern Ireland
- Mountain-climbing Irish-style: The Hidden Challenges of the Peace Process
- The Good Friday Agreement: A Vision for a New Order in Northern Ireland
- Hillsborough to Belfast: Is It the Final Lap?
- Defining Republicanism: Shifting Discourses of New Nationalism and Post-republicanism
- Conflict, Memory and Reconciliation
- Keeping Going: Beyond Good Friday
- Religion and Identity in Northern Ireland
- Getting to Know the ‘Other’: Inter-church Groups and Peace-building in Northern Ireland
- Enduring Problems: The Belfast Agreement and a Disagreed Belfast
- Appendices: Key Recommendations of:
- Index
- Plate section
Summary
It is a feature of most forms of mountain-climbing that reaching the peak always takes far longer than might be anticipated by line of sight. Behind one steep and arduous slope there is usually another. The Irish peace process has been of that character, and has required the constant and highly motivated engagement not only of government leaders, but also of teams of officials, to whom no short cuts are available, and whose effectiveness depends heavily on the respect and trust that they can establish. (As I shall go on to explain, the term ‘mountain-climber’ has a somewhat different and more specific connotation in the British context.)
Ireland does not have a political intelligence service. The Gardaí and the Defence Forces engage in intelligence-gathering related to their security tasks. Such work was vital to national survival during the Second World War, and one must presume, even though the history will not be written for many years, that it has saved many lives and thwarted many paramilitary attacks during the thirty-year Troubles that began in 1969. All governments need the best available information on situations, and on the intentions of other parties involved, whether domestic or foreign, to guide their policy- and decision-making. Ireland has had to rely on conventional political and diplomatic methods, and to develop its information-gathering and more proactive powers of persuasion to a high level, not having available to it the short cuts or covert methods or the direct power routinely deployed by many of its larger partners.
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- Information
- The Long Road to Peace in Northern IrelandPeace Lectures from the Institute of Irish Studies at Liverpool University, pp. 109 - 118Publisher: Liverpool University PressPrint publication year: 2007