Address to the Hibernian Benevolent Society of Atlanta on the 11^th of March 2005.

Mr. President Jordan, Distinguished Members.

As an SDLP member of the Northern Ireland Assembly, I am deeply honoured to address the Hibernian Benevolent Society of Atlanta. Let say from the start that we in the SDLP, salute your valuable work in this City and State and you passionate concern for Ireland and its people. Your patriotic commitment to both America and Ireland is an example to all.

When John Hume, Nobel Prize Winner and the Statesman of The Troubles, said on his recent visit to Atlanta, that coming to Atlanta is like going to the Mecca of Human and Civil Rights. And he was right, because Atlanta is the home of the Champion of Civil Rights, the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Junior, the inspiration of the Civil Rights movement in Northern Ireland. That movement initiated radical political change in Northern Ireland, a change which fundamentally undermined the Unionist regime in Northern Ireland. The cause of Human and Civil Rights was carried on by John Hume and the SDLP, even to the present day. But also Atlanta is the political home of President Carter, another great American and Champion of Human Rights throughout the World. What pride the People of this great City should have in such distinguished citizens.

When President Clinton visited Belfast in December 1995 in his inspirational address to the people of Belfast he said, “Blessed are the Peacemakers for they shall be called the children of God.” In that period of fragile peace, shortly after the Ceasefires of 1994, those words were a tower of strength to a people searching warily for hope in the aftermath of 25 years of bloody civil war, much of it enacted in the very streets of Belfast.

We in the SDLP, as a Party born out of the Civil Rights Movement, that I have referred to before, have been committed since 1970 to peaceful parliamentary politics / change in Ireland, under the visionary leadership of JOHN HUME, Nobel Prize Winner, took courage from that powerful scriptural message taken from the Sermon on the Mount, presented in a practical but challenging manner by the US President. He was saying that building peace is a very special role blessed by God and that it is one’s Christian duty to build peace particularly in one’s own society.

Nearly ten years later we do have Peace of a sort, an imperfect peace, but not the Peace that Christ would have blessed. True the paramilitary groups both Republican and Loyalist have in the main ceased their full scale campaigns, but the political situation is fraught, deadlocked and barren and insidious low grade social terrorism remains a widespread problem in both Catholic and Protestant areas. Whereas before we had civil war, we now have cold war between Unionists and the Provisional Republican Movement. The armed paramilitary groups on both sides are still intact, still active and still pose a huge threat or drag to political progress. Until this outstanding issue is addressed on both sides, there will be no real peace, or real political settlement.

Nonetheless real political progress has been made. The Good Friday Agreement is universally recognised as a just and fair settlement for all. The war in the streets and rural areas of the North is over forever. We have political structures in the Good Friday Agreement, if fully implemented, provide the means of bringing about a lasting structured peace and the hope bringing the Irish people together North and South. Leaving aside the detail of the Agreement of which you already know, the key to the implementation of the Agreement is the creation of Partnership between Irish Catholics and Irish Protestants, Nationalists and Unionists. Without that, the Agreement cannot work. It is through Partnership that Catholic and Protestant come together to work politically the common ground for the mutual good of both communities and it is through that, that we can establish the conditions in which long term Reconciliation can take place. To do that we need to create a Healing Process.

This harkens back to the truly Republican Principles of Revolutionary France and the infant USA. The values of Liberty, Equality and Fraternity. Those same values were espoused by our Irish ancestors in the United Irishmen in the 18^th Century, many of them brothers and cousins of the Scotch Irish, who settled in this part of the American South.

As Wolfe Tone proclaimed: The Independence of Ireland was his objective, but To unite the whole people of Ireland and to substitute the common name of Irishman in place of Protestant Catholic and Dissenter – these were my means.

In other words the greatest of these Civic Republican virtues was Fraternity between Catholic and Protestant. Today that Fraternity means Partnership the life blood needed for the Good Friday Agreement, approved by the overwhelming majority of the People of Ireland North and South in concurrent majorities.

Partnership cannot flourish in a climate of cold war with the threat of violence or sectarian conflict seemingly round every corner. Nor can genuine democracy prosper where there are armed groups like the Provisional IRA or the UDA, or where people pay only lip service to democratic forms. Where so called Republican organisations can carry out million pound robberies in defiance of the principles of the Good Friday Agreement.

Democracy and Law and Order, cannot prosper where some without good cause, refuse to support a new and substantially reformed police service, as proposed by Chris Patten. The new Police Service of Northern Ireland has been described by Kathy O’Toole (Mass) as the most accountable police service in the Western World. The Independent Police Oversight Commissioner, who is a Canadian, has described the progress of change in the Police Service as being extraordinary. Young Catholic men and woman have flocked to join the new service with great enthusiasm. Others are prevented from joining due to the threat of force or social exclusion by the Provisional Republican Movement. In three years Catholic representation in the PSNI has risen to 17%, that is twice what it was. 30% Catholic membership is likely in the next five years. The opportunity is now available for the first time in 80 years to build a critical mass of Catholics within the Police in order to complete the Patten reforms of the Police Service. The USA’s Administration and the Congress’s support for the PSNI are greatly appreciated. There should be no poor men’s justice for any one. No back alley justice system carried out by self-appointed gunmen allegedly acting on behalf of the community. No one should obstruct or opt out of this great project. There is no room for the continuance of IRA gunmen, especially those guilty of the murder of Robert McCartney in a Belfast bar on the 30^TH of January last. Irishmen in this country have made a great contribution to law and order in the great Cities of America, especially New York, Boston and Chicago now is an opportunity to do that at home. Let us as Irishmen use the force of argument to achieve our just ends, not the argument of force.

Despite our present political difficulties, I bring you all a message of real Hope for the Future. Things have radically changed and are still changing. As a special guest I recently attended last June the formal installation of the new Moderator of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland, the Rev Dr. Ken Newell, a truly great Ecumenist. He spoke of the need for Presbyterians and Catholics to engage with one and other in a deeper more active way. And he is right. Politics can only do so much! The Churches and Civic society must also engage in a more vigorous fashion across the sectarian divide. Your distinguished organisation can continue to make its contribution by assisting in this process of building Peace and Human Rights, so well emphasised as I said before, by President Jimmy Carter.

We have got to use the God given opportunities that now present themselves, so as to move on from the Peace Process into a Healing Process.

As Seamus Heaney put it in the Cure at Troy

History says, ”Don’t hope
On this side of the grave”,
But then, once in a life time
The longed for tidal wave
Of justice can rise up,
And hope and history rhyme.

So hope for a great sea change
On the far side of revenge
Believe that a further shore
Is reachable from here.
Believe in miracles
And cures and healing wells.
The miracle is the Good Friday Agreement.

And the cures and water from the healing wells are your and my endeavour for peace.

ALBAN MAGINNESS, SDLP MEMBER OF THE NORTHERN IRELAND ASSEMBLY