Political violence must be unambiguously repudiated
OPINION:In 1974, the Achilles Heel of the power-sharing executive in the North was the North-South arrangements, against which an unconstitutional Protestant strike was to bring the executive down. While the institutions arising from the Belfast Agreement eventually collapsed in 2002, they were restored under new conditions after the St Andrews agreement of 2006, entrenching mutual sectarian vetoes. And, since 2007, they have appeared stable and secure.
But they, too, have a point of vulnerability. North-South collaboration today shows how ideological were the stances taken in 1974 against the removal of the Republic’s territorial claim over the North and in support of a baroque Council of Ireland as a putative half-way house to a unitary state. The trouble today, however, is the past.