Dr Martin ManserghThe pursuit of peace is a Gospel value that Albert Reynolds cherished says Dr Martin Mansergh
Sadly, neither Albert Reynolds nor Fr Alex Reid will have the satisfaction of being present to mark the 20th anniversary of the IRA ceasefire this August 31. Both were pivotal in helping to create the conditions for peace.
If this was part of Fr Reid’s religious mission, it also reflected Albert Reynolds’ well-embedded Christian values. From the beginning of his leadership, he shared the widespread revulsion at the ongoing cycle of death and destruction, as the Northern Ireland conflict dragged on, and had a strong desire to bring it to an end. The political position that he represented was to be deployed in the service of peace.
The Downing Street Declaration of December 15, 1993 was a statement of principles by the Taoiseach and the British Prime Minister designed to facilitate a decisive shift from paramilitarism to peaceful democratic politics. While showing republicans the conditions under which Irish unity could be achieved based on (concurrent) self-determination, it was also important that the Declaration would avoid alienating unionists and loyalists, without which John Major, British Prime Minister, could not have proceeded.
Joint declaration
The joint declaration conceived by Fr Alex Reid and fleshed out by John Hume and Gerry Adams needed other inputs, supplied to Reynolds by two churchmen who had a facility with the pen, Archbishop Robin Eames of the Church of Ireland, and Presbyterian Minister Rev. Roy Magee. Their collaboration carried a faint echo of the old mantra of uniting Protestant, Catholic and Dissenter.
Neither Albert Reynolds nor his collaborators had any difficulty in seeking the help of churchmen close to their communities and with a good political understanding, and for whom achieving peace mattered more than sermonising. The Redemptorist monasteries in Dundalk, Clonard and Orwell Road in Dublin were put at the service of the private contacts that were necessary to discuss and explore a new peace strategy. Making peace is one of the most strongly commended virtues in the Gospels, and the monastic setting for encounters designed to bring violent conflict to an end were a quiet reminder of their ethical purpose.
After the ceasefires, the peace process opened up to negotiations between governments and political parties, but churchmen, such as Fr Reid and Rev. Harold Good, came to the fore again, as witnesses of the act of putting weapons away for good. For comparison, one can look to the Church role in the struggle against apartheid and the creation of the new South Africa, to the strongly Catholic roots of Solidarity in Poland, and to the role of a Lutheran pastor and a pastor’s daughter from the former German Democratic Republic, now respectively the President and Chancellor of Germany.
Albert Reynolds had a healthy relationship with religion. He had become a pioneer when he was young, and his only excessive drink was cups of tea. His family was an immense support and comfort to him all his life, and was something of which he could be really proud.
Pleasant occasion
There was a memorable and pleasant occasion last December, when family members gathered round to greet Sir John Major and his wife Norma, when they came at teatime to the apartment in the Four Seasons Hotel in Ballsbridge, to pay their respects to Albert on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the Downing Street Declaration.
Everyone will have been struck by the warm and generous tribute that Major paid to Reynolds on his passing, both being decent men without pretentions, whose joint initiative led on to a great breakthrough. Indeed, US Vice-President Joe Biden describes Reynolds’ role in the Declaration as having “paved the way for every major peace agreement for the last 20 years”.
During his two Administrations, Albert Reynolds had to deal with a number of socio-moral issues, and was immediately confronted with the ‘X’ case. His personal starting position on all these issues was orthodox in the context of the time. He was neither a liberal nor an ultra-conservative, but a political pragmatist.
He was not in advance of public opinion, but had to take into account that it was shifting, and also that he was in Coalition with parties that had more pronounced liberal attitudes than his own. His chief advisor in his first Administration was former priest and communications professional Tom Savage.
Reynolds did become impatient later with objections to the ratification of the Maastricht Treaty that claimed it undermined the ban on abortion. He immersed himself deeply in that subject, which was an issue constantly raised at weekly briefings with journalists.
Discussions with doctors, while his wife was being treated for cancer, impressed upon him the complexities of handling life-threatening illnesses in pregnancy.
Three referendums were put forward in the autumn of 1992, two that passed on freedom of travel and information, but the last one removing suicide as a ground for abortion as decided by the Supreme Court in the ‘X’ case was not approved by the people. The resulting compromise was probably not morally very consistent, and eased pressure only for a time.
The decriminalisation of homosexuality in 1993 by Justice Minister Máire Geoghegan-Quinn would not have been a natural priority for him, but it was for his new Labour partners in government, and there was no clear middle road. Tentative steps were taken towards holding a divorce referendum, which was passed very narrowly by the people in 1996 under his successors.
One cannot overlook the fact that the immediate cause of the collapse of his second Coalition in 1994 related, from Labour’s perspective, to the liberal/conservative divide as it concerned a key judicial appointment, compounded by State delays in handling a notorious case of clerical child sexual abuse, which was far from being a little thing.
One reversal of policy that Reynolds signalled before government with Labour related to overseas development aid. The programme had been cut back hard in the late 1980s, but, with budgetary improvement, there was a case for a stronger effort to meet Ireland’s obligations, as urged by Church-based charities.
In important ways, Albert Reynolds made a big difference.
Dr Martin Mansergh is an historian, a former Minister of State and a former senior adviser to successive Taoisigh including Albert Reynolds.