Paisley visit shows nothing is impossible

By Kevin Connolly
BBC Ireland correspondent

Ian Paisley and Bertie Ahern sent a message of reconciliation

I took good care to listen to the local weather forecast this morning as I drove through the woods and meadows that cling on to the River Boyne as it winds through County Meath.

There was talk of sunshine and showers - a forecast that does us perfectly well on nine days out of 10 in Ireland - but no mention, as there surely should have been, of hell freezing over.

For this was the day when Ian Paisley - custodian for 50 years or more of the loudhailer of Northern Irish Unionism - came to the site of the Battle of the Boyne as a guest of the Irish government.

If you do not live in Northern Ireland, or you are under 300 years of age, you may not be familiar with the details of the fighting - so allow me to fill you in.

Noisy parades

This was the battle in 1690 at which the Protestant Prince William of Orange defeated the Catholic James II and effectively secured the British throne.

Unionists in Northern Ireland still celebrate the victory every year with noisy and colourful parades on the 12 July.

They are brought up to see the Boyne as the battle which delivered them from Popery and guaranteed the liberties which they associate with Protestantism.

Ian Paisley has always been particularly vocal in giving thanks for this late 17th century act of deliverance.

Actors in costume marched across the battle site during the visit

Many nationalists (especially those past whose houses such Orange parades sometimes pass) have tended to view these noisy expressions of gratitude - complete with marching bands as obnoxious displays of triumphalism.

And thus were the wounds of a 17th century battle - still unhealed - carried on into the Ireland of the 21st century.

Until now, that is. This was Ian Paisley's first trip outside Northern Ireland as First Minister and the Irish government invitation was carefully designed to send a message of reconciliation - after all if unionist and nationalist can meet to reflect here, then nothing seems impossible.

And of course there was a touch of modern political stage management at play here, alongside the battles of antiquity.

As we work to build a shared future we are all coming to acknowledge that we have a shared and complex past Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern Paisley visits 1690 site

The Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern is fighting an election campaign at the moment, and the statesmanlike images of him greeting Ian Paisley - and the general talk of new beginnings - will do his prospects of winning another term no harm at all.

He told the DUP leader: "As we work to build a shared future we are all coming to acknowledge that we have a shared and complex past... We owe it to the generations that preceded us, but most of all, we owe it to those who will follow."

And this was of course, a further opportunity for Irish nationalists who were brought up to regard Ian Paisley as a trouble-making bogeyman and figure of fear to contemplate his sudden and startling transformation into a statesmanlike advocate of power-sharing.

He was in reflective mood himself - poetically evoking the manner in which the gentle countryside of Meath has reclaimed the battleground.

Ian Paisley spoke poetically about the Meath countryside

As he put it: "Instead of reverberating to the roar of cannon fire and the charge of men the shot of musket or the clash of sword steel, today we have the tranquillity of still water where we can contemplate the past and look forward to the future."

There is still a touch of devilment about Ian Paisley though - even as an 80-year-old head of government.

He chose to present Mr Ahern with a musket as a gift - a rather handsome 350-year-old relic of the fighting - taking care to remind him that it had been recovered from the losing side.

And he even managed a jocular reference to the issue of disarmament which held up Ireland's peace process for so long saying: "If you ever want to use it, remember you'll have to see the decommissioning organisation."

Complex history

It is not, of course, good history to remember the Boyne as a straightforward victory of Protestantism over Catholicism.

It is true that James II, as a Catholic, was hoping to use the Irish campaign as a springboard to hold on to the British throne, and that victory gave the crown to William III, a Dutch Protestant.

But the battle was really part of a much broader European conflict in which an alliance called the League of Augsburg was fighting to clip the wings of Louis XIV of France.

William was part of the League, and James had French support.

Ian Paisley presented Bertie Ahern with a musket used at the battle

There were Catholics and Protestants fighting on both sides at the Boyne - and apart from anything else, James was father-in-law to William who was married to his daughter Mary - so there was a distinctly personal edge to the dynastic manoeuvrings.

It was encouraging to note that both Ian Paisley and Bertie Ahern made reference to history's complexities in their speeches - Irish politicians have not always been celebrated for their ability to note the ambiguities and shades of grey which make up the past.

King Billy's old victory at the Battle of the Boyne may not have been militarily decisive, but it set Ireland on a course of division and sectarianism from which it is only now beginning to recover.

The remembrance of that ancient conflict has done much to poison relations between Catholic and Protestant in Ireland in recent times - after today, perhaps it is just possible that in future it might come to symbolise something more positive.