Sara Canning: We deserve better and better is possible. The Belfast agreement is treated with kid gloves

When the Belfast Agreement was signed in April 1998, I was 14. I was too young to vote and, with my GCSE exams looming, I had bigger fish to fry. The possibility of a peace that had been threatened since I was wee was an interesting concept, but people here weren’t sure if we’d ever have more than an uneasy truce. A few short months or years of ceasefire before things devolved again, in a cycle that had rinsed and repeated half a dozen times already. It was hard to have faith in a system that failed so often, but so many of us had hope for better.

I was raised in a Catholic household in Derry. My early life was spent in a mixed area of the city called Belmont. It had been built to house police officers, but as the city grew and the Troubles raged, it was safer for officers to live away from the areas they policed. Some families stayed though. The area saw a lot of mixed marriages and friendship groups and stayed reasonably free of strife. I had very little awareness that I lived in a country wracked by violence or of any differences between me and my neighbours. Then, when I was six, we moved to an area overlooking the Bogside, and I got my eyes opened pretty damn quickly.

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The kids in this street knew all about the unrest because it took place on their doorsteps. Looking back, it’s clear that they had been exposed to republican beliefs – some by family, some by osmosis – and I was no different. As a family, the most overtly political thing we did was attend the Bloody Sunday march and commemoration every year. At home politics and religion weren’t really discussed, so most of my learning came from these kids. We lived separately from our Protestant neighbours – a “Peace Wall” dividing us. Integration was rare, and it’s easy to fear or hate the unknown.

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In the street I was a wee republican, because that was what was expected. We frequently threw bricks and other missiles at landrovers as they drove up the Folly [an area in Derry] after skirmishes in the Bogside or Brandywell, and kids played “Brits and IRA men” with the Brits as the villains and the IRA men as the heroes. The interactions we had with British soldiers also had an impact – their actions often cemented their position as the villains of the story. Looking back, I realise that many of these soldiers were scared kids, barely out of their teens and plonked down in a war zone that looked like home.

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My parents were pretty typical for the area we lived in, although they were at least 20 years older than everyone else’s parents. They had struggled to find work. My dad was a construction worker whose industry was hit hard by Thatcher, while my mum had been a single parent struggling to put food on the table for three kids on poverty wages. Both had witnessed the events of Bloody Sunday in 1972. My mammy said what she’d seen in the courtyard of the Rossville Flats had been soul-destroying, and if it weren’t for my siblings, she would have joined the IRA.

It’s astounding to see other fractured countries using Northern Ireland as an example of what can be done when people work together

Mammy was a nationalist, the peacemaker of our family, and a firm supporter of the SDLP. She saw the agreement as an opportunity – John Hume could do no wrong in her eyes. My dad, on the other hand, held pretty staunchly republican beliefs. When the terms of the agreement were announced, he was disgusted.

Dad had always been a Sinn Féin voter. He and Martin McGuinness lived on the same street in the Brandywell and they’d been friends before the signing, but my father couldn’t look at him afterwards. The fact that Sinn Féin were agreeing to the Republic relinquishing their claim to the six counties and acknowledging the legitimacy of the British government was, in his eyes, a total betrayal. As you might imagine, this led to some interesting discussions round the dinner table. When the referendum came, they had very different views of what the outcome should be.

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The agreement passed with overwhelming support, North and South of the Border. I’m sure my dad wasn’t pleased, but my main memory of the time involves the cavalcade of vehicles beeping their horns and waving Tricolours. Despite my dad’s view that the agreement was selling republicans down the river, there were so many others who saw it as a step closer to a united Ireland. We now had a mechanism to trigger a unity referendum.

It felt like a guarantee, although one that could only be achieved by becoming the largest demographic, which I’m sure as Irish Catholics seemed like “wee buns” [easy] if stereotypes are to be believed! Plus, we believed it would bring peace, prosperity and the promise that our next generations wouldn’t grow up under the heavy burden of hate and unrest. Their lives would be better.

Unfortunately this wasn’t entirely true, and we would see within months that our peace would never be guaranteed. The Omagh bombing happened on August 15th, 1998, the deadliest single incident of the Troubles and a reminder that, to some, democracy means nothing. The violence may have decreased in frequency but it never went away.

My late partner, Lyra McKee, wrote that the peace was something that didn’t really arrive for all – we had “a peace that doesn’t disrupt the lives of the middle classes”. Instead of an all-out civil war, the violence became internal and was primarily in working-class areas. Paramilitaries terrorised their own communities; a change that seemed easy to ignore for those outside of those areas. Yet, despite the fact that the threats came from within, the “us” and “them” mentality lived on. Our communities remain separate, we have two schooling systems in one tiny region, and two versions of history being taught.

The peace brought interest, it brought investment and we had been told that it would bring dividends. That never materialised. Education had long been seen as a pathway to betterment, and post-agreement that was even truer: we have a phenomenally skilled workforce, university was almost the only option after school, but the jobs that came were largely call centre-based, “unskilled” roles that didn’t pay well. We’ve lost so many of our brightest and best because the promise of a better life here is unattainable on the wages paid. Emigration is the pathway to a better standard of living now, just as it was in the past.

So, the Agreement is 25 years old. An entire generation has grown up under its mostly benevolent gaze, but is it a thing to celebrate? It was. So much blood, sweat and tears were poured into getting it across the line. It was a major feat, and it’s astounding to see other fractured countries using Northern Ireland as an example of what can be done when people work together.

In 25 years the world has changed, Northern Ireland has changed, but the Agreement has stayed somewhat stagnant. It’s a document of its time, and that time has passed. Many of the commitments were never implemented, and much of what made the document so exciting has been left to languish or been scrapped entirely. As for working together? That also has its limitations.

Our politicians have always moved uneasily around the mechanisms of the Agreement, desperate to ensure that their perceived upper hand couldn’t be lost. Despite the roles of first minister and deputy first minister being a diarchy of equal status, they were named in a manner which appears only to be a salve to ego. This has largely been to the benefit of the DUP, which is the largest unionist party and which has held the first minister role since 2007.

Now, 25 years on, Sinn Féin has the most seats in the Assembly and, therefore, Northern Ireland should have its first nationalist first minister. This hasn’t come to pass as the DUP are refusing to nominate a deputy. Their excuse for this hinges on their demand for changes to the Northern Ireland protocol, but the cynic in me feels that the notion of Michelle O’Neill as first minister has more than a little to do with it.

Celebration is definitely uncalled for. It was right for the time when the terms were new and laid in front of us – when the future looked bright

We’re on our sixth collapse of Stormont since 1999, and have really only had a functioning government for 15 of those years. The Executive has been collapsed for 40 per cent of its existence. In a bizarre twist, what began as involvement of paramilitary groups in negotiations to decommission weapons has now become paramilitary groups meeting government about issues relating to economic legislation.

Our society is moving slowly away from sectarian divisions, but the Agreement, unfortunately, amplifies them. The “other” designation – those who do not identify as unionist or nationalist – is growing; the Alliance Party gained nine seats in the most recent election, bringing them to a total of 17.

The requirement for cross-community support for significant decisions in the Assembly means the votes of those who designate themselves as unionist or nationalist effectively count for more than those designated “other”, such as the Alliance. This, combined with veto rights, the abuse of the Petition of Concern and the fact that one party can collapse the Executive, shows that some degree of reform is needed.

We deserve better and better is possible. The Agreement is treated with kid gloves. Governments are terrified to make any change lest it totally upsets the apple cart. Like overprotective parents, they’ve wrapped it in cotton wool and, as a result, it has never realised its full potential.

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Celebration is definitely uncalled for. It was right for the time when the terms were new and laid in front of us – when the future looked bright. Since then, we have lost 160 lives to paramilitary violence, countless more have been injured or intimidated and millions of pounds are spent every year to police violence in this place.

The great and the good are gathering here and, in a series of gala dinners and events, they’ll pat themselves on the back for a job well done. I hope that there is room during these events to reflect on what has come to pass and to push forward for more. This region has so much untapped potential, and we need to be led with confidence. Less celebration of past victories and more effort put in to securing a real future is something we can all celebrate.