Divisions healed or swept under the rug

Peter Olphert was 14 when an Irish Republican Army gunman killed his father. Forty years later, he says it's time to put the past behind him.

Mark Thomson lost his brother to British Army bullets, another victim of the "Troubles" (a conflict in Northern Ireland between Protestant Unionists and predominantly Roman Catholic nationalists) that ravaged Northern Ireland for three decades. He believes that society cannot move forward until it faces unfinished business and individuals bear responsibility.

This month marks 25 years since the Good Friday Agreement largely ended the bloodshed in which 3 people died, 600 were wounded, and thousands lost their loved ones. Northern Ireland marks the anniversary with a reunion of key players in the peace process and a visit by US President Joe Biden.

The peace deal may have stopped the fighting, but deep divisions remain over the conflict's legacy - making it difficult for some of Northern Ireland's 1,9 million residents to overcome it, the Associated Press agency points out. Britain's exit from the European Union only complicated matters, creating political tensions that shook the foundations of the peace agreement.

"I think it's time to draw the line and move forward," said Olphert, who recently retired after 30 years in the police force — the same job his father, John Olphert, who was killed by a masked gunman in 1983 in the family store. .

In a way, Olphert made the decision years ago to move on. He said that as a grieving teenager it would have been "very easy" for him to join one of the pro-British loyalist militias that waged war against Irish republican militants in a conflict in which the British army also participated.

"Let's say I had a call to take a certain path and seek revenge. But it was never for me," he said. "The more you cling to what was in the past, the more generations will be bitter."

However, Thomson argues that many affected families do not find it easy to put the past behind them - and moving on without fully coming to grips with the past can inevitably lead to new conflict.

After his brother was killed by plainclothes British soldiers in Belfast in 1990, he founded the group "Relatives for Justice", which campaigns to uncover the truth about killings involving British security forces, which are rarely prosecuted.

"To say that we are drawing a line means that we have not learned a lesson from this," Thomson told AP.

"The lesson for any society coming out of conflict is that you can't sweep things under the carpet because... that really only increases the sense of injustice and leads to further conflict."

Many affected families do not find it easy to put the past behind them, and moving on without fully coming to grips with the past can inevitably lead to new conflict.

The end of the "Troubles" meant a balancing act between competing identities in Northern Ireland, which remained in the United Kingdom while the rest of Ireland won independence a century ago.

Irish nationalists in the north - most of them Catholic - seek an alliance with the Republic of Ireland - while the majority Protestant Unionists want to remain part of the United Kingdom.

The Good Friday Agreement, reached on April 10, 1998, after nearly two years of US-brokered negotiations, committed armed groups to a cessation of hostilities, ended direct British rule and established a Northern Ireland legislature and government in which both unionist and nationalist parties participate.

"Today we only have a sense of the prize that lies ahead," said the then British Prime Minister Tony Blair on the day the agreement was reached. "The work to win the award continues. We cannot and must not let it slip away from us".

Making peace meant balancing competing identities in Northern Ireland

The peace deal has been more successful than many expected, despite occasional attacks by dissident armed groups that last month saw UK authorities raise the terror threat level in Northern Ireland to "severe", meaning an attack is highly likely.

During the "Troubles", the center of Belfast was haunted at night, surrounded by a steel security ring, reminds AP. Now the Victorian streets are full of busy pubs, hipster cafes and microbreweries. Ulster University's new student complex has helped revive a wounded city centre.

Stevie Malone, a tour guide for tours focusing on Belfast's bloody past, says that "people really only know two things when you mention Belfast - they think of the Troubles or the Titanic", an ocean liner that was built in the city's shipyards to navigation sank.

"It is a very different place now," he said. "Even in the physical infrastructure. We now have a transportation system that connects the western, mostly Catholic side of the city with the eastern, mostly Protestant side. That was not the case during the conflict".

However, the threat of violence has never completely disappeared, and Cathy Hayward, professor of political sociology at King's University Belfast, says one goal of the peace deal has been neglected: reconciliation.

She says the agreement emphasized the release of prisoners imprisoned for participating in the conflict and their reintegration into society. As a result, ex-militants "remain powerful and influential" in their communities, often to the detriment and exclusion of conciliators.

"We have never adequately dealt with the causes of the situation in which violence is still glorified in certain communities," Hayvorodova told AP.

The British government's plan to end the prosecution of both militants and British soldiers for alleged crimes committed during the Troubles would only further bury hopes that the perpetrators will be held accountable. This was met with great resistance.

The possibility of violence is why eight-metre high "peace walls" continue to separate some nationalist and unionist neighborhoods in Belfast. Murals of masked IRA fighters and armed loyalist militants are painted along the streets on both sides.

Britain's exit from the European Union, which has left Northern Ireland in an uneasy position between Britain and EU member Ireland, has also upset the delicate political balance, including the power-sharing system established by the peace deal.

Northern Ireland's parliament has not been in session for more than a year, after the main unionist party quit the government in protest at new trade rules for Northern Ireland introduced after Brexit.

Some argue that the power-sharing structure no longer works in Northern Ireland, which is changing and where more than 40 percent of people are rejecting the old labels and do not identify as either nationalist or unionist.

Britain's exit from the EU has also upset the delicate political balance, including the power-sharing system established by the peace agreement

Catholics now outnumber Protestants for the first time, and the long-term question of whether Northern Ireland will remain part of the United Kingdom or join the South - the question that started the Troubles - remains unresolved. The Good Friday Agreement allows for a referendum on Irish unification if opinion polls ever show it is likely to pass.

"This is an imperfect peace in many ways," Thomson said. "However, there are thousands of people today who have been spared injury, regret or jail time thanks to the agreement."

Olphert says his children, now in their twenties, are growing up in a society that is different from the divided and dangerous place he once knew.

"They don't have a sense of how it used to be, and I don't even want them to know how it was, because it's in the past," he told AP. "The conflict is history for the generation of children now growing up. It's good".