Don't rest on your laurels - Thoughts on the Stormont Assembly
A piece of news on RTE's Morning Edition caught my attention today. Theresa May, the British secretary of state for Northern Ireland, blocked a motion for a full judicial enquiry into the 1998 Real IRA bombing in Omagh, Co. Tyrone, in 1998. This latest misstep by British authorities in dealing with the still volatile situation in Northern Ireland has caused me to think about how things have developed since the Good Friday Agreement. Looking back, the Good Friday Agreement of 1998 was a momentous achievement both for the United Kingdom and for the Republic of Ireland. It established for the first time a political system that was accepted by most political groups in that wartorn area of Ireland. It seemingly brought an end to the Troubles, that on-and-off campaign of guerilla warfare that had rocked both Ireland and the United Kingdom for decades, and that had drenched the soil of the emerald isle in red. Out of that sordid history, the "Stormont system", the Northern Ir...