MANY TRIBUTES were paid to Dr Garret FitzGerald from Northern Ireland politicians with unionists and nationalists referring to the Anglo-Irish agreement which he helped engineer, but from different perspectives.
First Minister Peter Robinson said he had met Dr FitzGerald in “turbulent times” though those encounters were always friendly and courteous. “Dr FitzGerald and I disagreed profoundly on many things, especially the Anglo-Irish agreement, but he never allowed political difference to become a bar to personal relations,” he added.
Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness said Dr FitzGerald played a major role in Irish political life over many decades. He said he never doubted his honesty, integrity and desire to improve relations across the island. “He took great delight in the progress that had been made in the North in recent years and expressed optimism for the future,” he said.
Nobel Laureate and SDLP president John Hume said Dr FitzGerald was a “moderniser and reformer” who “displayed great intellectual foresight and inner fortitude to develop initiatives such as the New Ireland Forum and the Anglo-Irish agreement which allowed us to open new chapters in our history and ultimately paved the way to peace and the democratic institutions we enjoy today”.
Ulster Unionist Party leader Tom Elliott said unionist reaction to the Anglo-Irish agreement was almost universally hostile, but Dr FitzGerald made great efforts to meet and understand unionists’ fears and concerns.
“He was also one of the first leading figures from the Republic’s political class to realise that any lasting peace would have to be built on foundations of understanding, tolerance and respect and that unionists had rights too,” he said.
Alliance leader David Ford said Dr FitzGerald led the process to improve relations between Britain and Ireland. “He will be remembered as one of Ireland’s great statesmen. He was very courageous when he led the Republic of Ireland in a difficult time,” he added.
Former SDLP leader Mark Durkan said Dr FitzGerald was a “great man with a great mind and a huge heart . . . It was the Anglo-Irish agreement opposed by unionism, Sinn Féin and at that time Fianna Fáil which created the context for the peace process,” he added.
Former SDLP and Fine Gael minister Austin Currie said his newsagent got it right yesterday morning when, in referring to the death of Dr FitzGerald and the visit of Queen Elizabeth, she said: “He chose the right time to die. It was as if he said, ‘My work is done. It is time to go’.”
Seán Donlon, who was secretary general of the Department of Foreign Affairs at the time of the Anglo-Irish agreement negotiations, said Dr FitzGerald had shown “remarkable leadership and political courage” when it came to Northern Ireland.
“He brought people around to a view that this was about the recognition of two traditions and that change could only be achieved by political means and with the consent of all concerned. That is my abiding memory of him, along with the way he persuaded people in Ireland to change their view of themselves . . . to realise we had moved on. “We were still, in a sense, in an emotional time-lock. It was a period of great Anglophobia but he brought us out of that, to see that there was another way.”
Mr Donlon said the former taoiseach would go down in history as “one of the great leaders who had contributed hugely to change” in Ireland. If you go back to the 19th century you have Parnell and O’Connell. In the first half of the 20th century you have the leaders of 1916 and the first administration led by WT Cosgrave, but I think post-Seán Lemass, he is the person who did the most to change Ireland and to bring us to where we are today.”