Posted: 22 February 2008
Taoiseach celebrates North-South relationships
The first comprehensive overview of cross-border relationships in Ireland has found that people’s acceptance of cross-border co-operation is likely to depend on the benefits it offers to people, both north and south, rather than the historical baggage of emotions associated with the border.
Crossing the Border: New Relationships between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, a new book which assesses the development of cross-border relationships, the opportunities they present, and the obstacles that continue to limit north-south collaboration was officially launched by An Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern TD on 21 February 2008 at Newman House, Dublin.
Pictured far right: An Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern TD with authors Prof John Coakley and Prof Liam O'Dowd
“Tracing the development of co-operation, from the earlier part of the twentieth century when North and South developed along very different paths; through the troubles and the establishment of a lasting peace under the Good Friday Agreement, this book is an invaluable tool for anyone interested in this area,” says An Taoiseach, Mr Bertie Ahern.
The book is based on a major collaborative project between Queen’s University, Belfast and University College Dublin (UCD) which involved up to 40 researchers from Ireland and abroad, including economists, geographers, historians, political scientists, social anthropologists and sociologists.
Pictured (l-r):
Prof John Coakley, UCD;
Sir George Quigley;
An Taoiseach, Mr Bertie Ahern TD;
Prof Liam O'Dowd, Queens Univeristy, Belfast and Mr Michael Kelly, Chairman, HEA;
“Cross-border relationships have played a central, but often understated, role in the peace process, and they are now demonstrating the potential to benefit all the communities on the island of Ireland.,” says Professor O’Dowd, Queens University Belfast, one of the co-editors of the book.
“A number of challenges remain, however, and these must be overcome if cross-border co-operation is to reach its full potential,” he continues. “The heavy reliance of cross-border co-operation on external funding and the problems of institutional inertia and apathy on both sides of the border could make it difficult to sustain the progress that has already been made.”
“Popular acceptance of cross-border co-operation in the future is more likely to depend on the mutual benefits it delivers to people on either side than on the historical baggage of emotions and feelings long associated with ‘the border’.”
Professor John Coakley, UCD Institute for British-Irish Studies, the other co-editor, pointed out that although cross-border cooperation is now taken for granted, it was not always so. “In fact”, he suggested, “for much of the twentieth century, relations across the border were so frosty that the term ‘cold war’ might not have been an exaggeration”.
The Good Friday agreement, he added, had been able to build on a range of cross-border projects that had been proceeding on a modest scale, though in an uncoordinated way: “In retrospect, what is surprising is not the level of cooperation that now exists, but rather the resistance to such cooperation in the past. And we should not take it for granted that this resistance came entirely from the northern side of the border.”
Crossing the Border marks the culmination of a joint research project by Queen’s and University College Dublin entitled Mapping Frontiers, Plotting Pathways: Routes to Co-operation on a Divided Island. The project was funded by the Peace 2 programme through the Special EU Programmes Body and administered by the Higher Education Authority, and involved partnerships with the Economic and Social Research Institute, the Centre for Cross-Border Studies and Democratic Dialogue.
More information on the Mapping Frontiers project can be found on the Queen’s Centre for International Borders Research at www.qub.ac.uk/cibr. Information on the Institute for British-Irish Studies, co-sponsor of the project, is available at www.ucd.ie/ibis.
>> 'Crossing the Border: New Relationships between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland' is published by Irish Academic Press
