The American author James Baldwin once said: “Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.” Twenty seven years ago the people of Ireland, North and South, ratified an agreement that has become the foundation stone of a lasting peace. This peace has been a lesson to the world in the art of the possible.
At the time, who could have believed in the possibility of peace when so many bombs went off, when so many barricades were put up, when so many promises were broken, when so many checkpoints blocked the roads? Peace was fostered and preserved and encouraged. Now, quite frankly, it seems normal. The cities are bright. Towns are bustling. The villages along the old Border are at ease.
Ideas once considered outrageous or extreme soon become the bread of our days.
But those of us who have seen war must counsel against complacency. The reality is that there have been – and there still are – many problems to solve. To this day we have the euphemistic “peace walls”. We still have so many segregated schools. We have a set of encoded fears among unionists and nationalists both. We have some politicians still choosing a rhetoric of division. There remain those who favour a culture of inaction and torpor. We still have ongoing disputes about flags, about language, about faith, about passports, about citizenship, about belonging. And, alarmingly, we have a “brain drain” of young people leaving Northern Ireland.
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There are two absolute truths. We simply cannot – ever – allow a return to the violence that other generations have witnessed. And the future of Northern Ireland must be determined by the people of Northern Ireland themselves. These braided truths – a democratic future, without the threat of violence – should seem like the most natural thing. Yet we should not take these things for granted.
The peace we have created and enjoyed since 1998 must evolve. The work is constantly unfinished.
This is not a call for a tally, or a vote, or a referendum. It is certainly not my place to suggest these things. But this is a call for us to continue thinking carefully in the direction of where change can bring us. A shared space. A place of pluralities, where we can recognise the power of interdependence.
The difficulty that Brexit presented over the past decade is a good example of what could happen if we do not take the time and allow the space to think through the ramifications of peace, unity and togetherness. We seem to have negotiated some of the more tempestuous waters of Brexit, but we all know that the transition created serious problems – issues of markets, of trade deals, of Protocol, of borders, of immigration.
The will to change is something that must be fostered. Going forward means disappearing a little from the safety of what we all know. To risk ourselves somewhat
There is still a shakiness in our post-Brexit lives. The key is to be able to settle the turbulence. And the further key to that is proper consideration and use of what lies in our hands: the mighty weapons of peace and prosperity. They are the hope of the world, the dreams of many who have neither.
Sadly, we live in times when so many places are broken. Civil wars. Opposing factions. Ruptured agreements. Wilful destruction. Disinformation. An unwillingness to embrace progress. All over the world, this is happening. But these countries can look to this island as a lighthouse of peaceful engagement.
It is our responsibility to make sure the beacon of that lighthouse continues to rotate swiftly in the dark.
Our peace must evolve. And if it is here to stay it must be shared – most especially with those who might be fearful in any way. With our minorities. With our disadvantaged. With those who have been here for generations and those who have come more recently. With those who might be reluctant to change. With those who are entrenched in a rainstorm of doubt.
Any change should happen gradually, naturally, almost imperceptibly, within a stable constitutional framework where the rights of all must be protected.
Within courage lies difficulty. Choices mean compromise. The will to change is something that must be fostered. Going forward means disappearing a little from the safety of what we all know. To risk ourselves somewhat.
I am not talking here in riddles. I am talking of unionists and nationalists, North and South, learning to give each other’s traditions space and time in order that we can flourish side by side. No domination. No dynamite.
This sort of optimism – the sort that John Hume envisioned when he said that “the basis for peace and stability in any society has to be the fullest respect for the human rights of all its people” – is what drives us forward. It is the same vision that David Trimble saw when he reminded us that: “The challenge of peace is to take the risks of peace.”
It is important that nobody is abandoned or isolated, and that nobody is left behind.
We must take one step after another. And another. And then another. Until, one day, we will be able to stop, and we will look around us, and we will be amazed by the newness of it all. And, even then, we will have to take another step forward.
So that the peacemaking legacy can be one that will astound a world that sometimes seems broken.
[ Support for Irish unification growing in Northern Ireland, poll findsOpens in new window ]
I make this call to our young people: you are the leaders and the lightning rods of tomorrow. I am well aware that there are other concerns that your generation, and the following generations, will encounter – not least the problems of climate change, global migration and issues of identity. But these issues will be easier to confront when there is peace on the ground. We pass the torch to you.
A handful of hopefuls can create that change.
These are abridged remarks made by Senator George J Mitchell at Queen’s University Belfast on April 16th 2025. As United States Special Envoy for Northern Ireland from 1995–2001, Senator Mitchell was one of the architects of the peace process
