A lecture given in the church of St. Mary-le-Tower, Ipswich,
by Bishop Richard Clarke

May I begin in China? The story is told that Chou-en-Lai, the cultured and subtle-minded Prime Minister of that country from the 1950's into the 1970's, on being asked what he believed the results of the French Revolution had been, replied (after an immensely long pause for thought) that it was really too soon to be certain. Would that people would show the same reticence about far more recent events... for example, the Good Friday Agreement of three years ago. It is indeed too soon to be certain what its significance will prove to be.

• History may see the Agreement as a quantum leap in mutual understanding between Britain and Ireland, and between unionist and nationalist traditions within Ireland.
• History, equally may see the Agreement, more modestly, as a much-needed breathing space for the real negotiations, which may or may not bear fruit.
• History may, again, see it all as smoke and mirrors, a giant if necessary conjuring trick in political ambiguity and verbal imprecision.

History will make what history will make of the Good Friday Agreement, and it will probably be a combination of all three.

Having said that, however, we should nevertheless accept that this Agreement is already of great importance as a point behind which people will not be able to move, without an enormous loss in credibility. It is, if you like, a backstop, and one which cannot now readily be eliminated, and this is of crucial importance when we speak of a future relationship between our two countries. At one level, the Good Friday Agreement requires people within Northern Ireland who hold political ideologies which are mutually exclusive to work together for the common good - to rule Northern Ireland together. And we are speaking here of ideologies which are absolutely central to what the people of Northern Ireland are, in their hearts. And, as you know, we are speaking of ideologies which have been the dynamic behind thirty years of violence, mistrust, and down right hatred - the mutually exclusive aspirations of uniting Ireland, or of maintaining the union with Britain. What is a huge strength in the Good Friday Agreement and the subsequent referenda is that the people of Ireland as a whole have signed up to acknowledging the political validity of the unionist position. Equally, the people of Northern Ireland as a whole have accepted the political validity of an Irish nationalist position. Acceptance of political validity is not, I hasten to add, quite the same as enthusiastic approval, but it is a great advance on outright denial.

Britain's political role, and this too has been acknowledged, is to facilitate a working out of a process where political stability can be maintained, and, so far as is possible, political violence removed from the scene. It will be no easy task to provide the setting where those within Northern Ireland who hold (as I have said) deeply held and mutually exclusive ideologies can work together with integrity for the common good. It will be a slow process, a matter of two steps forward and one and a half steps back, again and again and again. There will be trade-offs, the balancing of confessions, with claims and counter-claims that 'our' side is giving everything and the 'other side' is conceding nothing. But no one but a fool believes that this is not part of the process. Posturing must be part of the progression. Leaders who cannot keep their own forces on side soon cease to be leaders. But if the belief grows and continues to grow that the common good is of more importance than the labels we claim for our particular culture, then Good Friday 1998 will have done its work.

I should add at this stage that I do not believe that all violence will be eradicated. The usual terminology for the more extreme positions within nationalism and unionism is, as you know, respectively republicanism and loyalism. There has already been fragmentation within both, and there will be more. That is not a risk. That is a certainty. Those within both republicanism and loyalism who have sought to move political action away from violence may carry many of their followers. It is inconceivable that they will bring everybody, and they know that. The question is the size of the fragments and the containability of the violence that they may wreak. The more the democratic political process is working well and seen to be working well, the less will be the fragmentation, although it should be added that there will be desperate attempts to de-rail any progress that may be made and, on both sides of the Irish Sea, we should be ready and waiting for that.

I would add also that there is a less obvious risk attached to the business of moving on, and of jettisoning the tragic past. At the end of the Second World War there was a famous spat between Winston Churchill and the Irish Taoiseach, Eamon De Valera over Ireland's neutrality during the War. The Irish Times in an editorial sought to give helpful advice and suggested in its conclusion that 'the future demands an act of oblivion concerning the past'. I am sorry, but it is never that easy. There are wounds to be healed or at least acknowledged. And, with regard to Northern Ireland, it is important that it is not only one set of wounds that are acknowledged. I believe that it is right and proper that events of what throughout the world as 'Bloody Sunday' should be investigated to the full. It would be morally appalling, however, if, as one example, another event, a couple of years later and known with some symmetry as 'Bloody Friday', when a greater number of people were killed randomly in Belfast but this time as the result of IRA bombs, were now regarded as a past that must be forgotten at all costs in the interests of political progress. Many innocent people within the different communities and cultures have suffered and continue to suffer. There are wounds in many different quarters, and within many families, and on both sides of the Irish Sea. They must all be acknowledged and I believe that the people of both Britain and Ireland have the moral duty to ensure that they do not, in the interest of political expedience, conveniently ignore what we might term as the unfashionable victims. As we look to the more general aspects of the shared future of our countries, perhaps it is worth saying that we all need to understand that Ireland, like England, is not a single culture or even two cultures but a nexus of many different - very different - cultures. It is enticing, but utterly simplistic, to think of Ireland as having two predominant cultures - the protestant unionist culture and the catholic nationalist culture. That, today, is a parody of the reality. Even within Northern Ireland, there is also a growing secularised middle-class that cannot be categorized into either of the traditional groupings. Similarly there is the Republic a media-fashionable self-proclaimed 'liberal' culture that is not only secularised, but is antagonistic to the inherited traditions of any Church. Within the Republic of Ireland there is also a strong and growing Europeanised technocrat culture, also highly secularised. And throughout Ireland there is the remnant of a conservative traditionalist catholic culture, but it is precisely that, a remnant. Having begun with Chou-en-Lai, may I return to China for a moment and to that traditional Chinese curse, 'May you live in interesting times'... Ireland, north and south, is undoubtedly living in interesting and changing times, culturally, socially, and economically. But when we speak of our relationship with one another, Britain and Ireland, another ingredient needs to be named. There is no doubt that Britain and Northern Ireland are unquestionably far less European in outlook than is the Republic of Ireland. For you, Europe is still very much an open question. For us, in the Republic of Ireland, we have no doubt whatsoever but that Europe is with us to stay, even if there are still problems to confront and questions to answer. This will certainly affect the way Britain and Ireland think politically, both separately and together. That is surely one of the greatest challenges we face.

As nations and as churches we must also tackle a single temptation - the temptation to place public approval above the right. It is not over-cynical to say that the principal ideology of politicians today - and perhaps of every age - seems to be to get into power (if one is not already in power) or to remain in power (if one is already happy in that position). That is the preoccupation of politicians on both sides of the Irish Sea and, indeed, so far as I can judge, through the known universe. But the situation in Ireland is far too much on a knife-edge for it to become the arena of focus groups, opinion polls or the black arts of spin. Just as Ireland has a responsibility for Ireland, so also Britain has a responsibility for Ireland. Our histories have been far too inter-linked over many centuries for either of us to imagine that reality begins today and that we can set agendas without regard to what has actually placed us where we are. Britain must grasp and honour the complexities of Ireland, culturally and politically. Just as the denizens of Cornwall or of Yorkshire have a perfect right to regard themselves as British, so those in Northern Ireland who regard themselves as British have precisely that same right. In addition, we should surely realise that we are all mongrels. The idea of pure Britishness or pure Gael-ness is fatuous racism. I worked for much of my priestly ministry in an area of Ireland where many of the traditional surnames of my parishioners were English, but yet their families, who came from planter stock, had lived in County Cork for three hundred years and more. People are what history has made them and they do not have to apologise for it. Britain politically must acknowledge the right to Britishness that many in Northern Ireland feel. Equally, Britain must grasp that most people on the island of Ireland as a whole do not feel British. Doing justice to both perspectives requires patience, nous, and huge moral courage. There are precious few votes in it. It also requires an ability to deal with nuance and complexity that is well beyond the grasp of a tabloid mind-set. The Republic of Ireland must equally accept that there is a mixture of culture in all of us, British and Irish, and live with that reality rather than seek to extirpate that of 'the other' which most threatens us.

As churches we have to follow an equivalent path and it may be a path to Calvary. We too have to face the temptation of acting, in a phrase being used more and more in Ireland, only as chaplains to our own tribe, both in Northern Ireland and in the Republic of Ireland. Only when we can look beyond the approval of 'our own' are we following the crucified Galilean. Doing justice, in any Christian understanding of the term, means beginning with seeking justice for 'the other' rather than demanding justice for 'our own', and we have never been any good at that, either in Britain or in Ireland. And so, in Ireland perhaps we would do better if we in the reformed traditions were at the forefront of dialogue with those who believe that they have been victimised or humiliated by the instruments of state in Northern Ireland, and if those of the Roman Catholic tradition showed an equal concern for communicating with those of the Royal Ulster Constabulary who feel that they have been casually categorised in the public consensus as bullies and thugs, to a man and a woman. In all of this we need your help, your prayers and your moral support. I suppose that in Ireland we most fear the easy fix, the glib solution, or the armchair answers from across the sea, whether it is the Irish Sea or the Atlantic Ocean.

• Please accept that there are many cultures in Ireland, just as there are in Britain, and do not oversimplify the situation.
• Please accept also that you have responsibilities for Ireland which, even though they have been bequeathed are still morally binding
• Please accept that there is undoubtedly a way forward, but one which will require enormous patience, a degree of sacrifice by us all, and the sturdy holding of nerve.

Above all, please pray for Ireland and please pray intelligently.