A new dawn for Northern Ireland

This morning, the people of Ireland are awakening to a new dawn in Irish politics (Northern Ireland's arch-enemies declare peace, March 27). Democratic and non-violent politics has finally triumphed over the advocates of physical force and intransigence.

As the New York Daily News said of John Hume on May 24 1998, after the signing of the Good Friday agreement: "More than 20 years ago, he first packaged the ideas at the core of the Good Friday agreement: a new assembly and shared powers between North and South. In the end Hume never budged. Everyone else had to change their minds about killing and discrimination."

We can now add that everyone else has to change their minds about power-sharing and support for the police too. This morning, it is essential that we remember one group of people, the families of the 3,637 victims of the troubles. For them, today will be a day of raw emotion, their sense of relief will be tinged by sadness, frustration and anger. These families will want to ask some simple but very powerful questions. What were the Troubles for? Why did so many innocent people have to die? Why did Ian Paisley and Gerry Adams not seize the opportunity for power-sharing at the time of the Sunningdale agreement in 1973, and avoid the terrible pain and loss in the succeeding 34 years?

What message has Gerry Adams today for the family of the young, innocent Catholic man murdered on March 26 1974 by an IRA bomb that exploded as his car drove past the Upper Springfield area of West Belfast? What message does Dr Paisley have for the family of the young student who was murdered by the UDA during the Ulster Workers' Council strike in 1974 led by Dr Paisley.

How do Peter Hain and the British government explain the award of £1m to a UDA project last week, when the family of this young man were given less than £100 towards his funeral costs, as recorded in a book about by the Troubles, Lost Lives by David McKittrick?

These are tough and difficult questions that need to be asked, as we begin the task again of building a new Ireland based on truth and justice for all.
Cllr Tim Attwood
SDLP, Upper Falls, Belfast

Does the photograph of Ian Paisley and Gerry Adams sitting together really "inspire other divided but war-weary communities to embrace the compromise of politics"? Or does it encourage extremists to endorse violence, use the language of bigotry, build community hatred - and then sit triumphantly grinning on the smouldering wreck they have created, lording it over the more decent moderates their decades-long, hate-filled attitudes have consigned to the political graveyard?
Matthew Huntbach

After the deal between the DUP and Sinn Fein, those who know and love Northern Ireland can look forward to a boom of a different kind from the ones that have gone off in the past. On normal political issues, there is little that divides the communities: the scope for economic development must now, surely, be enormous. Northern Ireland is fortunate in having a population that lacks any significant class division in either community. The people are of one mind on such core questions as investment in jobs, education and rural development.

Until the power-sharing deal, attitudes to murderous violence were the defining political issue in Northern Ireland. If the politicians now seek to create divisions where none existed before, both the Orange and the Green will, to use a word from the old lexicon of Northern Irish politics, be traitors.
Tony Robinson

So after 40 years, arch enemies declare peace in Northern Ireland to declare war on water rates. Maybe normal politics may yet flourish in the province.
Malachy Pakenham
St Albans, Herts

He may have fouled up Iraq, but credit where credit is due, Ian Paisley and Gerry Adams sitting next to each other and both smiling. Well done Tony, I never thought I would live to see the day.
Brian Keegan
Peterborough, Cambs