Derry Journal Editorial: 'For peace comes dropping slow....' Good Friday Agreement 25 years on

It is a deeply personal poem that has struck a chord with people across the world and yet his words are those that come readily to mind ahead of the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement and our own peace process here.

In the north, peace is often talked about in the abstract as a seismic entity. And yet peace is personal. It is within our gift, each of us, to achieve it, grasp it and maintain it.

It was for generations a hazy and dim dawn glimpsed infrequently and briefly but ultimately it was too far away, beyond the horizon.

The Good Friday Agreement was in many ways a milestone, but in the two and half decades since that historic moment, the peace it brought has been, as one politician put it recently, ‘imperfect’. Though rarer since 1998, peace here has been shrapnel scarred by acts of extreme violence.

The Conflict may have ended but killings and maimings have continued here, resulting in lives lost and others left forever changed.

So yes, peace has been imperfect but the GFA was not a failure. Rather it showed us the possible: a new way of living and being, the importance of acceptance, sharing and compromise, compassion and respect, of taking risks and reaching across for a better world and a better future.

It is unfinished business. Too few people have seen a marked difference in their personal life. We have huge societal challenges, health challenges, inequalities and hope is in short supply. We need to deal with the legacy of the Troubles and people directly affected need to be properly supported and listened to on that. So while much has been achieved, there remains much to do. And we can only do that together, unionist, nationalist and neither; Irish, British and people of other nationalities who have made their home here.

Peace is precious and fragile, and 25 years on each of us through our deeds and our words can today help protect it for the generations to come.

We all know this deep down. It’s up to us now, each of us, you and me. As Yeats in his poem says of the lapping waters of Inishfree: ‘I hear it in the deep heart’s core’.

The Lake Isle of Innisfree (1888)

I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,

And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made

Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee,

And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,

Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;

There midnight’s all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,

And evening full of the linnet’s wings.

I will arise and go now, for always night and day

I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;

While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,

I hear it in the deep heart’s core.

William Butler Yeats