Sir, – The recent article in The Irish Times by Diarmaid Ferriter (“Much of discord in Northern Ireland rooted in failure to integrate schools”, Opinion & Analysis, November 5th), giving the background to the story of integrated education in Northern Ireland, prompted me to respond to explain how the lines in the Belfast Agreement referred to at the end of his piece came about. It was Monday, April 6th, 1998, five days before the historic conclusion of the Belfast Agreement after many years of tough negotiation. Three of us joined the NI Women’s Coalition negotiation team, led by Monica McWilliams and Pearl Sagar, to review the final draft. The late Barbara McCabe, an academic and intrepid analyst of detail; Anne Carr, community activist and founder of one of the first integrated education schools; and myself, former voluntary director of the Integrated Education Fund, were tasked with reviewing the part of the Belfast Agreement which related to education. To our shock and surprise, we discovered not one single reference to the possibility of Catholic and Protestant children being taught in schools together. At that moment, we became conscious of the fact that the main parties to the negotiation had been working along parallel lines. Each was looking out for and protecting their own nationalist or unionist interests. Few, with the exception of the Women’s Coalition and the Alliance Party, were negotiating for reconciliation between the two communities and the common good.
We hurriedly scribbled down some words on a piece of paper to deliver to the civil servants working to finalise the Belfast Agreement text just down the corridor of Stormont Castle buildings. Recognising the “orange” and “green” culture displayed on pages throughout the Belfast Agreement, we debated a form of words and decided a “culture of tolerance” was desperately required to change attitudes and deeply embedded preconceptions in Northern Ireland. We were convinced “integrated education and mixed housing” would “promote reconciliation at every level of society”.
Those were the words we put together in the hope they would find their way into the final text. Barbara McCabe rushed to deliver the hand-written note to the teams of British and Irish civil servants poring over the final details. After a long day, we left the Women’s Coalition negotiating team to continue their great work to ensure issues, such as gender equality, support for victims and the creation of a civic forum would also make their way into the Belfast Agreement.
On Friday, April 10th, 1998, we watched the closing session of the negotiations. Many of the Women’s Coalition team and supporters were there to witness the final remarks of Northern Ireland’s peace-builders, chaired by the great US Senator George Mitchell. It was a rare time of accord for Northern Ireland and an historic moment of peace-building in the world.
Shooting the breeze with trailblazer chemists
Kamala Harris is a descendant of an Irish slave owner in Jamaica
Tactical analysis: Clare got their numbers right, but it’s hard to measure sheer magic
Artist and shepherd Orla Barry: ‘Breeding animals is like making an artwork. You’re putting certain animals together’
The Belfast Agreement was “hot off the press” and there, squeezed onto the very bottom of page 18, were the exact words we had written five days before: “An essential aspect of the reconciliation process is the promotion of a culture of tolerance at every level of society, including initiatives to facilitate and encourage Integrated Education and mixed housing”.
The rest, as they say, is history! – Yours, etc,
JANE MORRICE,
Bangor,
Co Down.