Special Relationships. By Paul Arthur. Blackstaff. 334 pp, £16.99 in UK
After the Anglo-Irish Agreement in 1985, Belfast was bedecked with banners, official and otherwise, proclaiming "Belfast says NO". One witty and perceptive graffiti artist responded with the memorable line "Dyslexic Belfast says ON". So far, luckily enough, the dyslexics seem to have the better of the argument.
Paul Arthur's highly impressive book is a study of process rather than history, thematic rather than chronological. It is mainly a study of the AIA as a transformative factor, as the essential lever which changed the nature of the conflict, and which opened the way to developments which had been unimaginable until then. Arthur lifts the conflict out of the narrow local framework and examines it through a new set of lenses. He places it firmly in the context of changing notions of sovereignty, of loss of Empire, or debates about the nature of Britishness, of economic and social changes in Ireland, of new relationships between the islands within Europe, and the globalisation not only of trade but cultural and political influence.
This attempt to get away from the dreary steeples of Fermanagh and Tyrone enables him to find a conceptual basis for the treaty and the Belfast Agreement, and to put both in an analytic framework. He explores the themes of isolation and ignorance, political paranoia, political violence, inclusion and exclusion, geopolitics, time and space and transcendence in a rich tapestry of insight, reference, allusion, perceptive analysis and sharp judgment.
The review, mercifully, begins with the 1920 Ireland Act, the first phase lasting until 1969, the second to 1985, and the third still open-ended. The first is characterised by what he calls the three solitudes (sadly, not silences) of London, Dublin and Belfast, with no communication, each ignorant of the other, and growing further apart and more embattled. Next comes O'Neill and Lemass, the Civil Rights Campaign and the descent into violence, the Sunningdale experiment and the subsequent redefinition of the problem by the British in terms of law and order and security, and the gradual emergence of a wider perspective leading to the AIA.
For this to happen, the governments had to get together, having first cleared their own minds. There is a good analysis of the New Ireland Forum, and the subsequent rescue by Garret FitzGerald of the damage done by Haughey in his irredentist phase and Thatcher's triple "No".
The influence of individuals on events is caught, quite brilliantly at times - the brooding presence of Hume, conceptually ahead of the game, building networks and influence, thinking strategically and in decades when the rest were seeking metaphorically the next stone to throw. The combination at official level of a group of Irish and British civil servants who forged the agreement, the subtlety of Peter Brooke, the chemistry between Major and Reynolds and the patience and wisdom of George Mitchell are all well caught. Arthur is very good on the US dimension, particularly the Clinton years, although Reagan's interest was important too, and the importance of the NSC in issues like the Adams visa.
More widely, what he is describing is a redefinition, if not a dilution, of sovereignty on a world scale, the end of the wholly self-sufficient nation-state, the unhitching of the nation from the state and the blurring of boundaries. Without this, the GFA would not have been possible.
This book is all about process. It is a well-informed overview of the state of play: how the parties got to where they are, what they are doing about it, and where it all may be heading. It is a magisterial review of the literature, which does for studies of the NI conflict what Roy Foster did for Irish historiography.
Every now and then, when you think there is nothing more to be said about an issue, a new study such as this appears, which places it in a new light and puts what was confused and irrational into a framework in which it can be understood. This is not a book for the beginner, it assumes a broad knowledge of events and actions, yet it is beautifully written, and should be accessible to the general reader. It bears reading and re-reading, and should remain a classic for some time.
Arthur argues, perceptively, that an agreement is only part of a peace process. He typifies everything since 1985 as an interim stage in the process, and opines that it is too early to say when it will come to an end. Which is remarkably like Mao's judgment on the effects of the French Revolution.
Maurice Hayes is a member of Seanad Eireann and a former Northern Ireland Ombudsman and author of Minority Verdict, a memoir of life in the old Civil Service