By Kathryn Palmer '00
Addressing a crowd of about
150 people in Gamble Auditorium, Neal initially approached peace in
Northern Ireland with an historical analysis. He argued that the
conflict, while wrought by religious allegiances in the Reformation,
is no longer solely religious. Further, while the conflict was once
regarded, especially by England, as arising from a disparity between
Northern Ireland's relatively sophisticated economy and the Third
World economy of the Republic of Ireland, this is no longer the case,
said Neal. The congressman also referred
to efforts for change in the late 1800s and the debate between Lloyd
George and Winston Churchill on partition. Of this debate, Neal
commented that had policymakers listened to a young Churchill, we
would not be in the midst of conflict today. Regarding what he refers
to as "the longest standing political dispute," Neal then outlined
the key players in the Northern Ireland conflict, offering the
audience a cogent understanding of the unionist, nationalist, and
republican positions. Neal used the second half of
his address to examine the potential for peace. Arguing that
disarmament is virtually impossible, Neal emphasized the importance
of assuaging impediments to peace through political alliances. He
praised the efforts of President Clinton and former national security
adviser Anthony Lake, who championed the merit of United States
involvement in the conflict. Neal also trumpeted the Good Friday
Agreement of 1998, which he said was "a very artful agreement in the
sense that anybody can read into it as much as they want." Congressman Neal's most
passionate argument regarded the amelioration of political disunity
in Northern Ireland between the Ulster Unionist Party and the IRA.
Stating that in 2012 there would be a nationalist majority in the six
northern counties, Neal argued that both nationalists and
policymakers must do their best not to marginalize or intimidate the
unionists. In this vein, one can see why Neal is so closely wedded to
Hume in his search for common ground in Northern Ireland. Congressman Neal is a
Springfield native, former mayor of Springfield, and has served in
the House of Representatives since 1988. Most recently, he has been
the chairman of the House Ad Hoc Committee on Irish Affairs. It's no wonder
Congressman Richard Neal (D-MA) mentioned John Hume so often in his
February 28 talk titled "Prospects for Peace in Northern Ireland."
Congressman Neal clearly admires and identifies with Hume's efforts,
as the leader of the Social Democratic Liberation Party, to find the
middle ground between the Irish Republican Army and the Ulster
Unionist Party and other interests seeking to maintain Northern
Ireland's close ties to Great Britain.
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