Former Senator George Mitchell's book Making Peace is due out on April 1st, just in time for the anniversary of the Belfast Agreement. While much remains to be resolved and the agreement has not exactly been enacted in that there is still no Northern executive, there is expected to be considerable interest, not least among the participants, in his account of how the peace was made.
He was the linchpin (indeed some say please, please come back and help us now), so his behind-the-scenes memoir of the tortuous process will no doubt tell a lot of tales. The publishers, Heinemann say that nothing in his experience as a lawyer, judge and US senator prepared Mitchell for "the intensity of emotion, the raw hatred, the ready resort to assassination and bombing" he encountered in the North.
The book recounts his experiences and relationships during the two years and one wonders if those who appeared the big players to the outside world were actually so during the long nights of smoke-filled rooms. Heinemann is so tight-lipped about the project it refuses to name the Sunday paper which starts serialising Making Peace next weekend. Enacted or not, the agreement itself still fascinates. Several copies signed by the main participants have appeared at charity auctions. Tanaiste, Mary Harney gave her copy away when she was guest of honour at a ball last Saturday in aid of the Shanty Education Project in Tallaght. Some 250 people gathered at the Malahide home of committee member Mary McEvaddy and her husband Ulick McEvaddy to raise money for the £1 million enterprise, education and childcare centre to which the Government has already given £600,000. About £75,000 was raised on the night. Most of it comprised the £38,000 paid for the signed copy of the agreement. It was knocked down by auctioneer Mark FitzGerald to property developer Gerry Gannon.