Permanent solution needed for NI marching season issue Dr Brady

The Catholic Primate, Dr Sean Brady, has said the marching season in the North is "in need of a permanent solution".

Writing in the current issue of the Month, a religious magazine published in England, he says: "Northern Ireland cannot continue enduring one disastrous summer after another . . . bigotry, sectarianism and intransigence must be decommissioned."

Dialogue, accommodation and compromise "must be our new weapons", he says, while "building new relationships of trust and mutual respect are absolutely necessary".

Reflecting on the events at Drumcree this year, he writes that "a march forced down the Garvaghy Road for the third consecutive year without consultation with the residents would have been disastrous. It would have run the risk of unravelling the whole (Belfast) Agreement and of handing a moral victory to those extremists who oppose the agreement on the nationalist side. Thankfully, this did not happen."

The last 30 years in the North had been remarkable for the divisions they had caused between the two communities, rather than for the occasions and issues to bring the two communities together, he says. He believes the Omagh bombing may have been a watershed.

"A republican bomb in a mainly nationalist town killing and maiming both Catholics and Protestants, men, women and children, from both Northern Ireland and the Republic and from as far abroad as Spain, changed everything. This was a tragedy in which all could identify and all share . . . the appalling face of terrorism and the absolute futility and insanity of violence had been unmasked in their absolute nakedness and impoverishment as never before."

In general, at the end of "a particularly awful summer" he believes "the hope that the Good Friday Agreement is going to work is still thankfully very much alive and well".

The events of recent months had been, "in a perverse way, a catalyst for good". There still remained real fears, however. Unionists felt they were "in danger of being pushed by what they see as a vindictive and unforgiving nationalist population. Some see their whole way of life under threat and receiving less protection than it deserves from a British government that is basically, in their opinion, uncomprehending and unsympathetic. It is up to nationalists to recognise that these fears exist and to take decisive and generous action to deal with them."

Of the nationalist side he says: "There are the sceptics who have yet to be convinced that any real change is to be expected. Fine words must be matched with deeds. People must prove that they are prepared to change and work in partnership for a better future."

Overall, he feels this is "a very hopeful, challenging moment in our history". He hopes "the majority which approved the agreement will act consistently and continue to make of it what the prophet Isaiah calls `an enterprise of justice' ".