Peace laureates laud dawn of ‘new Ireland’ at EU ceremony

FOUR Northern Ireland Nobel prize winners celebrated the success of the peace process when they joined nine other recipients in Brussels to celebrate Europe Day.

David Trimble, John Hume, Mairead Corrigan and Betty Williams were all confident that the assembly in Stormont and power sharing will transform Northern Ireland, but warned it will take time.

Mr Trimble, who staked his political life on the process as leader of the UUP, but lost out to Ian Paisley’s DUP, said Stormont can now focus on everyday issues such as administration and education.

“Society will move on. Politics will become more and more normal and might even succeed in becoming boring,” he said.

Now living in London, he said there would not have been a peace agreement in the North without Bertie Ahern and Tony Blair.

Mr Blair’s impetus from the moment he became prime minister was vital in achieving peace, he said.

His co-winner of the peace prize in 1998, John Hume, called on the DUP and Sinn Féin to acknowledge that the agreements they are now implementing were negotiated by the party he founded, the SDLP.

Asked whether the Border would disappear, Mr Hume said “the relationship between our divided people will improve enormously and a new Ireland will evolve in a generation or two”, as a result of the actions of those working across the political and religious divide.

Mairead Corrigan, awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1978 with Betty Williams, said she always believed there would be peace, and she did not think it would take over 30 years.

Uniting the people would take a long time given that they are so deeply divided, she added, noting that only 8% in Belfast live in integrated communities

Now very involved with Israelis and Palestinians working for peace, Ms Corrigan co-founded the Community for Peace People after her sister, Anne Maguire, lost her three young children as a result of the Troubles, in Belfast, in August 1976.

An IRA getaway car went out of control when the army shot the driver and it killed the three children — aged two weeks, eight and 12 years — as they cycled with their mother. Anne Maguire died tragically in 1980, and Mairead married her widower in 1981.

Betty Williams witnessed the tragedy, and, after gathering 6,000 petitions for peace, organised weekly rallies with Ms Corrigan.

Tens of thousands of “Peace People” were soon marching across the North.

Ms Williams said her heart soared when she saw Ian Paisley and Martin McGuinness sworn in at Stormont, but, she added, “I thought of all the lives that were lost to achieve that and I cried.”

Ms Williams was disappointed that Dr Paisley did not shake the hand of Mr McGuinness.

“It’s childish when you consider they are sitting down and working together,” she said.

She now campaigns for children affected by violence and war, and is behind a current project to build a City of Peace in Italy.

Other Nobel Prize winners at the European Parliament included Leach Walesa, founder of the Polish Solidarity movement, Amnesty International and other Nobel laureates.