Northern Irish Sides Agree On Talks’ Format

Northern Ireland’s biggest Protestant and Roman Catholic parties struck a deal Monday on the who, what and when of peace talks - the first real agreement since negotiations began four months ago.

The consensus was reached between the talks’ critical players: the Ulster Unionists, the main pro-British Protestant party, and the Social Democratic and Labor Party, which represents two-thirds of the north’s Catholic minority.

Harder-line Protestants led by the Rev. Ian Paisley later tried to snuff out any scent of progress. They refused to sign onto the deal and tried to block it with a filibuster.

But the confidential accord between John Hume’s SDLP and David Trimble’s Ulster Unionists was enough for the British and Irish governments, cosponsors of the talks, to proclaim “sufficient consensus” to proceed.

The fact that it took so long to agree on the calendar - effectively, the schedule for what should be talked about, in what sequence, and by whom - shows how rare consensus has been.

But any progress is likely to be welcomed, given the dangers lurking outside the conference door.

The Irish Republican Army on Oct. 7 detonated two car bombs inside the British army’s headquarters in Northern Ireland.

It was the IRA’s first bombing in the Protestant-majority province since May 1994, and it threatened to provoke a bloody response from pro-British militants.