Northern Ireland

Lord Eames Excerpts

Tuesday 27th February 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Eames (CB)]

My Lords, one of my mistakes—and I have made many as Primate of All Ireland—was the occasion when I invited the late Patrick Cormack to visit St Patrick’s cathedral in Armagh. I prided myself that, having shown many visitors round that sacred building, I had very little to learn. Within 10 minutes of the start of our tour, I had lost myself completely. He knew dates, facts, figures, measurements; he knew quotations, he knew the names of my predecessors, right back to St Patrick. I felt ashamed of my stance on that occasion.

That was only one part of a very long friendship I had with Patrick. It started when he was chairman of the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee; it endured the variations leading to the Downing Street Declaration; it endured disagreements; it endured the situation when the new Bishop of Lincoln was introduced to this House and said of himself “I am the other Bishop of Lincoln”. For Patrick was wrapped in his faith, his church, his beliefs and love of this building. I am so glad tonight to have heard the frequent references to him. I believe, had he been spared, he would have been sitting at the end of that Bench, because Northern Ireland was very much engraved on his heart, rightly or wrongly. I will miss him, and I think, in its own way, Northern Ireland will as well.

Tonight, I believe, is, in its own way, a turning point. We have heard numerous references to disappointment and to failures of the document we are discussing, worries about its long-term effects and that much is needed to be done, even now, to make it acceptable and worth while. But tonight’s debate would not be taking place had it not been for one simple fact: Stormont is back—Stormont, with its shortcomings, its failures, yes, and its history. I speak as the grandson of a member of the former Lord Brookeborough’s Government all those years ago. With all its failures, with all its shortcomings, Northern Ireland has got its Stormont back.

Despite all we have listened to and the sincerity with which it has been expressed by those who have had to pay a great price politically for taking the stance that they have—let us acknowledge that—my belief tonight is that this place of so much history, back in operation, can represent a turning point in so much of the other problems that we know exist.

We can talk about Brexit, Europe, former Prime Ministers and Secretaries of State—we can go on all night, and at one stage tonight I felt that we might. We can go on listing the various shortcomings and giving thanks to those who have brought us to the point at which this local Administration or Government—call them what you will—will tackle local issues, but the fetters on allowing them to do so must be removed. That is up to the British Government.

We heard tonight about some of those difficulties, but I will concentrate in only a few words on one aspect of how I see the current situation. I think of our young people. I think of those at university and school, for whom much that we endured and came through is only a page in a history book. Not for them the endless funerals, the endless explosions and the endless suffering, but they are a part of us who are here and have come to this point in the history of Northern Ireland. Whether for the politicians or for those of us who, like me, knelt beside many bedsides and stood beside many graves, today could be a turning point.

The phrase I want to put on record is this: look forward. Learn from the mistakes and hurt of the past but, in God’s name, look ahead for the sake of the generation of Roman Catholic, Protestant and non-believing young people. Look ahead and give them the opportunities that history has bequeathed to them.

I have often said in debates on Northern Ireland in this House that I respect the efforts made by the noble Lord, Lord Caine, in having to deal, time and again, with the vicissitudes of Northern Ireland life. I am glad that tribute has been paid to him on several occasions tonight. I do so again, because we have been blessed, despite the shortcomings of policies that have annoyed us, by the personality and sincerity of Jonathan Caine. I want to voice that personally and on behalf of many others who are not here.

My experience of Northern Ireland has been to share the frustration of so many ordinary, decent people of all religious faiths or none that we seem to be blundering from one so-called failure or let-down to another. Now we believe in our hearts that there is the chance to move forward as part of the United Kingdom and, with our Scottish, Welsh and English colleagues, to build new understandings, sympathy and strength from our united front to face, in a very troubled world, the issues facing the next generation.