McAleese Predicts Visit for Queen

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McAleese Predicts Visit for Queen

June 21, 2007

By Barry McCaffrey

COMMUNITY relations in the North appeared to be moving on apace this week, at both presidential and street level.

In recent weeks there has been significant movement in the North’s political landscape, which few could have foreseen just a few months ago.

Those developments have seen Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams and Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) leader Ian Paisley sitting side-by-side to announce the establishment of a power-sharing Executive.

Weeks later Paisley became the Stormont Assembly’s First Minister with Sinn Fein’s Martin McGuinness as deputy first minister.

The transformation in relationships continued this week with Irish President Mary McAleese being welcomed to a Unionist bastion, which until recently had staunchly opposed any “interference” from southern Ireland.

In recent years the Unionist-controlled council in Lisburn, a Belfast suburb, has been criticized by the Irish government for its refusal to share power with Nationalist politicians.

The Irish government was so concerned over Unionist conduct in Lisburn that it threatened to send its civil servants to observe council meetings.

In turn Unionists publicly rebuked the southern government and warned it not to interfere in Lisburn’s “internal affairs.”

However on Monday President McAleese was warmly welcomed by both the DUP and Ulster Unionist councilors into the very bastion of unionism.

McAleese said she could not have dared believe that she would have witnessed such political breakthroughs since the signing of the Good Friday Agreement in 1998.

“We are a very blessed generation to live through times of unprecedented political goodwill on this island,” she said.

Pointing out that recent political developments in the North had led to significant improvements in relationships between Ireland and Britain at every level, she said, “Perseverance, courage and leadership have helped this generation to straighten out the skewed relationships that history bequeathed us.”

McAleese said that recent historic meetings, including the public handshake between Taoiseach (Prime Minister) Bertie Ahern and Paisley, had led to the realization that a “shared and respectful future was not only possible, but was already emerging.”

“There can be little doubt that we have entered uncharted territory, an unprecedented era, one characterized by the confluence of peace, prosperity, parity of esteem and partnership.”

However McAleese also took the opportunity of her Lisburn visit to predict that another historic event could soon be on the horizon with British Queen Elizabeth possibly making her first visit to the Republic.

Throughout the Troubles the Irish president and the British monarch had never met. Their first meeting finally came at Hillsborough Castle, just a few miles from Lisburn, in December 2005.

However, McAleese said the ending of violence in the North and the political dispensation that followed meant that a royal visit to the Republic was now a realistic goal.

“One of the things we would all have in mind would be to ensure the circumstances are absolutely right,” she said.

“They are probably now getting to the point where they are as close to right as they have ever been.’’

At the same time as McAleese was predicting a royal visit to the Republic there were also other important political changes taking place at grassroots level.

During the last 30 years working-class communities across the North have often been marked out with political murals indicating that they were controlled either by republican or loyalist paramilitaries.

In recent years Republicans have attempted to replace murals of masked IRA gunmen with Irish historical and cultural images. Loyalist murals have largely retained their paramilitary symbolism with images of Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) and Ulster Defense Association (UDA) gunmen.

However on Monday senior Loyalist Billy Hutchinson confirmed the start of efforts to “demilitarize” some working-class Protestant estates.

The first sign of change came on the staunchly loyalist Mount Vernon estate in Belfast. Last weekend a huge UVF “arch” which had spanned the entrance to Mount Vernon was removed.

The arch, which included images of masked UVF gunmen, left visitors in no doubt as to who controlled Mount Vernon.

In recent years Mount Vernon was better known as the heartland of notorious UVF leader Mark Haddock. Earlier this year Haddock was revealed to have been protected from prosecution, despite involvement in up to 16 murders, because he was a Special Branch informer.

Over the last two years police have also carried out numerous searches on the estate in the hunt for the killers of 15-year-old Catholic schoolboy Thomas Devlin, who was stabbed to death close to Mount Vernon in August 2005.

During a visit to Mount Vernon last year one government minister was shown an alleyway that had been used to carry out more than 40 punishment shootings.

But efforts are now being made to improve the estate’s image following last month’s UVF announcement that it was standing down as a paramilitary organization.

A significant move was the indication that an infamous UVF mural on the Mount Vernon estate could also now be “decommissioned.”

The notorious “Prepared For Peace, Ready for War” mural, depicting two masked UVF gunmen, has marked the entrance to the Loyalist estate since the announcement of the paramilitary ceasefires in 1994.

Hutchinson, who was a Loyalist politician until recently but now works as a community worker in Mount Vernon, said that “serious efforts” were being made to improve the estate’s image.

“This is just part of a wider process to improve life on the estate,” he said. “We are working hard with Queen’s University to move things on.

“This is all about trying to improve the lives of the local community. The replacement of these symbols is part of the arts and culture element of the project, but we are also working on issues such as education, health, young people and community empowerment.”

Hutchinson said that discussions were “ongoing” with the local community to replace a range of murals, including the “Prepared For Peace, Ready for War” mural.

“Nothing will be done without the agreement of the local community,” he said, “but it is fair to say that everything is up for discussion as part of our efforts to try to move things on.”

Ironically, Hutchinson also confirmed that he had received funding from the Irish government for the painting of a mural to commemorate the joint sacrifice of Catholics and Protestants from Ireland who had died fighting for the British Army during World War I.

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