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PALGRAVE STUDIES IN EUROPEAN UNION POLITICS
SERIES EDITORS:
MICHELLE EGAN · NEILL NUGENT · WILLIAM E. PATERSON

The European Union and

the Northern Ireland
Peace Process

Giada Lagana
Palgrave Studies in European Union Politics

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Michelle Egan
American University
Washington, USA

Neill Nugent
Manchester Metropolitan University
Manchester, UK

William E. Paterson
Aston University
Birmingham, UK
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 Giada Lagana

The European Union

and the Northern
Ireland Peace Process
Giada Lagana
Cardiff University
Cardiff, UK

ISSN 2662-5873 ISSN 2662-5881 (electronic)

Palgrave Studies in European Union Politics
ISBN 978-3-030-59116-8 ISBN 978-3-030-59117-5 (eBook)
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To my parents Ornella and Lino
 Foreword

The existing literature, research, and media coverage have tended to

neglect the European dimension and the important role of the EU institu-
tions in restoring peace and reconciliation in Northern Ireland. Dr. Giada
Lagana’s book gives us a detailed insight into the EU involvement, more
particularly of the European Parliament and the European Commission.
Through in-depth research, she is the first one to determine exactly the
structural and political impact of the various actors and institutions in
contributing to the Northern Ireland peace process.
The role of the European Parliament in putting the Northern Ireland
conflict on its agenda is well documented. The early engagement of
the European Commission to contribute to conflict resolution through
economic development, social inclusion, cross-community contacts, and
cross-border cooperation is well defined. On the Parliament side, John
Hume (SDLP) was instrumental in pursuing an integral plan to provide
economic support to Northern Ireland. On the Commission side, its
president Jacques Delors as early as 1989—almost ten years before the
Belfast/Good Friday Agreement—committed himself to contribute to
peace and reconciliation in Northern Ireland. The European Community
could not sit on the side-lines while deep divisions in one of its regions
undermined social and economic advance, while costing its people their
livelihoods and even their lives. That, at least, was his firm belief. As a
first step, the Commission decided to become a major contributor to

vii
viii FOREWORD

the International Fund for Ireland, set up in 1986 following the Anglo-
Irish Agreement. During his visit to Northern Ireland in 1992, Jacques
Delors reiterated his commitment to seize every opportunity for peace
and reconciliation in Northern Ireland.
It is to the merit of John Hume who got eventually his MEP colleagues
from Northern Ireland, Ian Paisley (DUP), and Jim Nicholson (UUP) on
board, notwithstanding their profound disagreements, to pursue an inte-
gral social and economic development plan for Northern Ireland. It is to
the merit of Jacques Delors who seized the window of opportunity, which
arose in the aftermath of the Downing Street Declaration with the August
1994 ceasefires. It opened the way for a joint effort for a comprehensive
PEACE programme.
Giada Lagana’s analysis of the gradual Europeanisation of the Northern
Ireland conflict in the run-up to the ceasefires is well informed. It is a
clear testimony of how the EU was able to positively impact on policy
processes through cross-border cooperation and economic development.
No doubt the PEACE programme constituted a very tangible peace divi-
dend and testimony of European solidarity. As the UK government would
later acknowledge: ‘EU support, and especially the PEACE programme,
made a vital contribution to securing the Good Friday Agreement’.
I had the privilege of chairing the Task Force set up for the prepa-
ration of the programme. The preparation was done in close coopera-
tion with the three Northern Ireland MEPs, Ian Paisley, John Hume, and
Jim Nicholson who paid a joint visit to this effect to Jacques Delors. In
itself, an exceptional demarche! Within the Task Force, I worked closely
with their personal representatives who did much of the preparatory work
on the ground. We consulted widely with grassroots organisations from
both communities and from both sides of the border. The report of the
Task Force was the result of widespread consultations including voluntary
organisations and a wide range of public and private actors as well as a
large number of written submissions.
As pointed out by Dr. Lagana, both the subsequent PEACE
programme and its implementation were very much a bottom-up process.
Indeed, a 1997 report drawn up on behalf of the three Northern Irish
MEP’s assessing the programme identified the dialogue among and with
local ‘partnerships’ as one of the most positive outcomes of the whole
process. Moreover, the principle of additionality was firmly upheld. The
PEACE I programme was both substantial and innovative in nature.
Together with the three subsequent PEACE programmes 1.5 billion euros
 FOREWORD ix

in funding has been provided. Thus, the EU has provided concrete help
in achieving political stability by economic means.
Dr. Giada Lagana’s book on The European Union and the Northern
Ireland Peace Process offers a unique historical perspective for all those
who are interested in present days developments on the Island of Ireland.

The Hague, The Netherlands Carlo Trojan

 Acknowledgments

The journey of completing a book necessarily involves many other people.

I wish to acknowledge the enormous help and support of Prof. Niall Ó
Dochartaigh and Prof. Daniel Wincott, who afforded me the time and
space to develop my ideas and produce this body of work. Their patience,
their unending assistance, knowledge, trust, and the time they afforded
me proved invaluable, and for that I am extremely and eternally grateful.
The Galway Doctoral Research Scholarship Scheme first, and then the
‘Between two unions. The Constitutional Future of the Islands after
Brexit’ project provided me with the material instruments to accom-
plish this journey. My warmest thanks go also to the editorial support of
Palgrave Macmillan and to the anonymous reviewer: your comments were
always aimed to really push me and my writing to the best possible. I hope
the effort I made to respond reflexively and positively to the feedback I
received are visible in the pages of this book.
The Wales Governance Centre at Cardiff University has been my
second home in this past year. It is populated by amazing people, who
are my ultimate inspiration for everything. Their friendship has been my
strength during my lonely days of Covid-19. A special mention to my
fellow colleagues Prof. Richard Wyn Jones, Dr. Robert Jones, Dr. Rachel
Minto, and Hedydd Phylip who believed and helped me when I needed
it most: their coffee breaks and general advice will always be remembered
and deeply appreciated.

xi
xii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Thank you also to my dear friend and colleague at Cardiff University,

Dr. Thomas Leahy. I will never forget his always insightful contributions
and how instrumental he and his adorable wife, Sarah Williams, were
in giving me back the hope and the confidence to pursue my academic
dream.
Everyone needs, on occasions, an external point of view. Thanks as well
to the dearest friend a woman could ever wish for: Anna Tulin-Brett. She
always takes the time to read the material I send her, providing valuable
additional input and feedback. The feedback of Prof. Timothy J. White
was also incredibly helpful to me.
To Laurence I say another ‘grazie’ for his optimism, his calm words,
and friendship. He probably now knows this material better than I do,
having been next to me from the years of my doctoral studies. Everything
he did has always been deeply heartening and appreciated.
I would like to thank those who have never stopped telling me to
publish this book. Gerard Hogan changed my life forever and I hope he
is looking at me, saying ‘well done’. To Mark Mullaly I want to say thank
you and the much promised: I did it!
Finally, Rinaldo La Mattina, love of my life: thank you for supporting
me unconditionally. You have reminded me that a dream does not become
reality through magic: it takes sweat, determination, and hard work. You
gave me the courage to pursue it, when I was afraid. You always reminded
me how hard I have worked. You have taught me that it is not about
how many times you get rejected or you fall down or you’re beaten up.
It’s about how many times you stand up and are brave and you keep on
going.
 Contents

1 Introduction 1
1 The European Union and the Peace Process in Northern
Ireland 1
2 The Debate on the EU’s Role in the Northern Ireland
Peace Process 4
3 The European Union and Peacebuilding 8
4 Triangulation of Never-Before-Seen Archives and Oral
Sources 12
5 Towards a More Systematic Historical and Theoretical
Analysis 16
6 Chapters Outline 17
References 20

2 Metagoverning Peacebuilding in Northern Ireland 25

1 Introduction 25
2 Strategic Peacebuilding: An Overview 27
3 Strategic Peacebuilding in Northern Ireland:
Interdependent and Integrated 29
4 Peacebuilding Policy Networks 31
5 Metagovernance in the Field of Peacebuilding 34
6 Metagovernance as a Tool to Exercise Soft Power
in a Pluricentric Context in Search for Peace 37
7 Putting It All Together: A Strategic-Relational Approach 39

xiii
xiv CONTENTS

8 Conclusion 41
References 44

3 The Genesis of the First European Union/Northern

Ireland Peacebuilding Network 49
1 Introduction 49
2 The Interdependency Approach: The Formation
of the First EU/Northern Ireland Policy Network 51
3 The European Union and the European Parliament
Institutional Framework 53
4 The MEPs 54
5 Lobbying the European Parliament 57
6 John Hume MEP 59
7 The 1981 Martin Report 63
8 Debate Around the Martin Report 67
9 Conclusion 70
References 73

4 The 1984 Haagerup Report on the Situation

in Northern Ireland 75
1 Introduction 75
2 The Haagerup Report: Attitudes and Public Resistance 77
3 The Haagerup Report: A Brief Historical Outline
of the Northern Ireland Conflict 82
4 Northern Ireland: A Constitutional Oddity 86
5 Economic and Social Aspects of Northern Ireland 90
6 Exploring British Responses to the Haagerup Report 93
7 The Anglo-Irish Agreement and the International Fund
for Ireland 96
8 Conclusion 98
References 102

5 EU Structural Funds Programmes on the Island

of Ireland: Interreg and the Cross-Border Dimension 105
1 Introduction 105
2 The Institutional and Historical Background
to Cooperation 107
 CONTENTS xv

3 The Single European Act and the European Single

Market 111
4 The Implementation of Interreg I & II 115
5 Cross-Border Networks 117
6 Difficulties of Interreg I & II 120
7 The Cross-Border Dimension of the EU Special Support
Programme for Peace and Reconciliation: Lessons
from Interreg 124
8 Conclusion 126
References 129

6 The European Union Programme for Peace

and Reconciliation in Northern Ireland 133
1 Introduction 133
2 Peace: A Challenging New Era 135
3 The Efforts of the 1994 Northern Ireland
Task Force 137
4 The PEACE Package 141
5 The EP Debate on the Special Support Programme
for Peace and Reconciliation in Northern Ireland 144
6 PEACE I and the Partnership Principle 147
7 Difficulties of PEACE I 151
8 Conclusion 153
References 156

7 The Belfast/Good Friday Agreement: Cross-Border

Cooperation and Peacebuilding in the Context
of the New Institutions 159
1 Introduction 159
2 The New Institutional Setting for Cross-Border
and Cross-Community Cooperation 161
3 Cross-Border Networks and Interreg III in the Context
of the New Institutions 167
4 Peacebuilding Networks and PEACE II in the Context
of the New Institutions 170
5 Difficulties of PEACE II and Interreg III 173
6 The Experience of the Northern Ireland Task Force
in 2007 176
xvi CONTENTS

7 Conclusion 179
References 182

8 Conclusion 185
1 Introduction 185
2 Overview of the Issues 187
3 Metagoverning Peacebuilding in Northern Ireland:
A Strategic-Relational Heuristic 190
4 Implications for the Evolution of EU Peacebuilding 195
5 Conclusion 197
References 199

Appendices 203

Index 209
 About the Author

Dr. Giada Lagana is a Research Associate at the Wales Governance

Centre, Cardiff University. She is currently working on the ESRC
‘Between Two Unions’ project with Professor Daniel Wincott, examining
the impact of the UK’s withdrawal from the European Union (EU) on
the UK’s internal constitutional and intergovernmental arrangements.
Giada was awarded her Ph.D. in political science and sociology, in
February 2018. Her thesis was submitted under the supervision of
Professor Niall O’Dochartaigh and looked at the role of the EU in
the Northern Ireland peace process. Giada started out as an histo-
rian, completing her undergraduate studies in modern and contemporary
history at the University of Pavia (Italy). She then obtained an M.A. in
international relations and history, under the joint supervision of Didier
Poton (Université de La Rochelle) and Michel Catala (Université de
Nantes).

xvii
 CHAPTER 1

Introduction

1 The European Union and the Peace

Process in Northern Ireland
On 31 August 1994, the Provisional Irish Republican Army (PIRA)
announced a ceasefire. On 13 October of the same year, the Combined
Loyalist Military Command, representing the Ulster Volunteer Force
(UVF), Ulster Defence Association (UDA), and Red Hand Commandos
announced a loyalist paramilitary ceasefire. Twenty-five years of violence,
endless killings, destruction, and intimidation had ended, at least
temporarily. This long cycle of violence had robbed an entire gener-
ation of its right to live in peace on the island of Ireland. In 1998,
the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement (GFA), and subsequent accords,1
provided governing arrangements acceptable to almost all of the major
parties ending the violent conflict in Northern Ireland. The Agreement
involved a careful and standardised political accommodation between
the main political groups on one side, and the United Kingdom (UK)
and Irish governments on the other. The main objective was to provide
constitutional mechanisms that allowed nationalists a potential means of
fulfilling their aspiration for Irish reunification. This was to be balanced
against the recognition that change could only come about with the
consent of a majority in Northern Ireland to satisfy the unionist majority
who sought to maintain Northern Ireland’s status within the UK. More-
over, the Agreement provided a cross-border dimension that was meant

© The Author(s) 2021 1

G. Lagana, The European Union and the Northern Ireland Peace Process,
Palgrave Studies in European Union Politics,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-59117-5_1
2 G. LAGANA

to satisfy nationalists’ goal of policy coordination in Ireland if there was

to be no immediate reunification.
Scholars (Tannam 1999; Laffan 2005; Hayward 2006; Todd 2011;
McCall 2014; Murphy 2014) have argued that the British–Irish improved
relations helped to deliver a North/South institutional architecture that
reflected the cross-border cooperation thrust of European Integration and
prefigured an era of peace and cross-border cooperation focused on the
island of Ireland. The impetus for the creation of linkages across the Irish
border came from the promise to open the territorial cage of the state
to enable the development of intercultural dialogue and inter-communal
relations (McCall 2014, pp. 40–42). European Union (EU)2 funds and
initiatives played both an economic and a political role in providing the
first backdrop and context for challenging the ‘zero-sum’ logic of the
Northern Ireland conflict. With this, cross-border cooperation, economic
regeneration, and reconciliation were essential components of an EU
peacebuilding effort on the island.
The existing literature has shed light on controversial and somewhat
marginally known issues related to the EU’s influence on the peace
process. However, monographic studies of the historical evolution of the
EU’s role in Northern Ireland are still sparse (Tannam 1999; McCall
1999; Murphy 2014; Murphy 2018). Authors have provided analyses
of the EU’s policies implemented with a conflict transformation objec-
tive3 and discussed numerous problems in terms of policy coherence,
institutional coordination, implementation, and normative acceptability.
This book raises many similar questions but approaches them from
a more detailed historical and theoretical analysis than hitherto avail-
able. It investigates how the EU contributed to the transformation of
Northern Ireland from a site of conflict to a site of peacebuilding and
conflict amelioration during the formative period between 1981 and
2007. The year 1981 marked the first period in which the then Euro-
pean Community (EC) held substantial debates regarding the Northern
Ireland conflict. The year 2007 constitutes the culmination of the EU
attempt to consolidate peace by facilitating regional-level empowerment.
In 2007, the European Commission established the Northern Ireland
Task Force with the objective of providing a solid basis for the conduct of
EU-Northern Ireland and the border region relations. An in-depth inves-
tigation of this period provides us with important insights into patterns
and legacies of EU peacebuilding strategies which continue up until
the present day. Furthermore, an examination of these years reveals the
 1 INTRODUCTION 3

shaping of future relationships between not only Northern Ireland and

the EU but also between the UK and Northern Ireland, the Republic of
Ireland and the UK, and the island of Ireland and the EU.
This investigation matters because the 23 June 2016 referendum on
the UK’s continuing membership of the EU was a watershed moment in
the history of Northern Ireland. It marked a turning point in the history
of relations between the region and the EU. Most importantly, Brexit
brought the topic to the centre of current political and scholarly debates
with academics questioning the profound implications that the UK’s deci-
sion to leave the EU could have for Northern Ireland and the island
of Ireland as a whole. Scholars (Hayward 2018; Tannam 2018; Murphy
2018) argues that while the ultimate impact will depend on the shape
and detail of any new relationship negotiated between the UK and the
EU, Brexit can affect nearly all aspects of North-South and British-Irish
relations. If some changes appear relatively minor, others raise serious
political difficulties for Northern Ireland. Brexit also highlighted a series
of unanswered questions: How will the UK withdrawal from the EU
disrupt Northern Ireland’s political and economic situation? If the EU
has been essential to building peace in Northern Ireland, how will Brexit
affect the peace process? This book covers the breadth of the EU’s role in
the Northern Ireland peace process, ranging from cross-border coopera-
tion, economic and industrial regeneration, and peace and reconciliation,
whereas existing contributions predominantly cover only one of those
dimensions.
From a more abstract perspective, the EU’s influence on the peace
process in Northern Ireland serves as an instructive case with regard
to general patterns of international and EU peacebuilding. In recent
years, the EU has expanded its role in preventing conflicts and building
peace, but its institutional practices remain insufficiently conceptualised.
An analysis of EU peacebuilding work has placed EU practices almost
entirely within traditional instruments of security governance, such as
conflict prevention and mediation, crisis management, post-conflict stabil-
isation, human rights, human security, and civilian protection (Gëzim
and Doyle 2018; Bergmann and Niemann 2018). This is largely because
scholars (Tocci 2007; Richmond 2016) have argued that the EU’s peace-
building framework does not yet represent a coherent intellectual project,
relying instead on existing liberal peacebuilding approaches affiliated with
restoring security, strengthening the rule of law, supporting democratic
processes, delivering humanitarian assistance, and supporting economic
4 G. LAGANA

recovery. This book, however, offers an illustrative example of how the

EU’s peace support operations should not only be studied through the
lens of liberal peacebuilding but instead should be seen as self-mirroring
the internal institutional dynamics of the community, in parallel with the
hierarchical governance integration and consolidation of politics within
the member states.
The effectiveness of the wide range of instruments and resources
the EU deploys in preventing conflict and promoting sustainable peace
beyond is notoriously difficult to measure. How societies evolve and how
and whether EU initiatives develop from knowledge and relationship-
building to produce tangible results depends not only on EU policies
but on the expectations and desires of local populations. The case of
Northern Ireland becomes instructive for other regions of conflict around
the world because it shows how positive policy and financial outcomes,
deriving from the interactions between the European Commission and
local actors and administrations, are highly dependent upon the willing-
ness at a local level to engage with the EU. Second, it shows that the
challenge of consolidating peace is, quoting President Barroso himself,
a marathon, not a sprint. Peacebuilding is a task most suitable for the
nature of the EU’s ‘soft’ power as it seeks to enable, fund, empower, and
reform in the long term (Hayward and Murphy 2012). The most impor-
tant element for sustaining all of these trends, and crucial to their success,
remains the EU’s enduring commitment to the task.
With these research interests in mind, this introductory chapter illus-
trates why the existing literature on the EU’s role in the Northern Ireland
peace process remains theoretically and empirically underdeveloped. Many
analyses are hampered by contentious assumptions about the nature of the
EU’s influence or the EU’s legitimate political role in conflict ameliora-
tion and peacebuilding. Moreover, there is a lack of a framework through
which to analyse systematically new policy processes, the state authority,
and the multitude of actors involved. A corresponding theoretical frame-
work that sets out government, governance, and policy networks acting
in the shadow of a hierarchy, will be subsequently developed.

2 The Debate on the EU’s Role

in the Northern Ireland Peace Process
Overall, one cannot identify a well-developed theoretical and histor-
ical debate on the EU’s role in the Northern Ireland peace process.
Numerous valuable attempts (Teague 1996; Laffan and Payne 2001;
 1 INTRODUCTION 5

Murphy 2014) have been made, which have used a number of different
theories and explanatory factors to assert the influence of EU poli-
cies on conflict transformation and peacebuilding in Northern Ireland.
Hypotheses have been advanced to explain certain moments or character-
istics of the EU’s involvement in the conflict, but theoretically consistent
historical analyses of this complex policy process remain missing.
The debate may be summed up in three stylised positions. The first
highlights the lack of interest within Northern Ireland regarding member-
ship of the EU. The region was experiencing profound political instability
during the early years of the UK and Irish accession to the European
Economic Community (EEC) in 1973. Membership coincided with the
introduction of direct rule from Westminster in Northern Ireland and the
intensification of violence. As a consequence, the prospects of member-
ship were only minimally discussed and the early years of being part of
the then EEC were marked by low levels of interest and engagement.
In the Stormont debating chambers there was some discussion of Euro-
pean matters prior to the UK accession but these were invariably coloured
by domestic political considerations or channelled into more traditional
arguments.
The Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) was the only
Northern Ireland political party to engage positively with the prospects
of EEC membership from an early stage (McLoughlin 2009). This was
partly because European membership offered the chance to place the
conflict on an international platform. In contrast, the then-dominant
Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) largely ignored the new European context,
making only scant reference to the EEC in their 1973 election manifesto
(Murphy 2009, p. 594). This indifference was also apparent beyond party
politics. Guelke (1988, p. 155) has concluded that ‘there was a relatively
muted reaction in the province to actual entry to the Community’. These
outlooks did not engender an open-minded disposition towards Europe,
or its potential, because no settlement existed at the institutional level to
allow any progress in this sense.
The second position mirrors critical interpretations of EU integration
and focuses on the impacts of cross-border cooperation for conflict trans-
formation and peacebuilding. The outbreak of communal conflict from
1968 onwards drew attention again to the contested nature of the Irish
border as the state authorities on both sides moved to enhance security
in an effort to counteract the spread of paramilitary violence (Patterson
2013, p. 495). Overall, this reduced the permeability of the border since
6 G. LAGANA

many roads were closed and military fortifications multiplied. The liter-
ature related to the Irish border demonstrates how its establishment is
still contested. It was never normalised or fully accepted (Hayward 2011;
Hayward et al. 2017; Hayward and Komarova 2016), and it defines the
reach and limits of formal Irish and British sovereignty on the island and
runs in some places through farms, villages, and towns (O’Dowd et al.
1995, p. 237). Finally, it was drawn in an arbitrary manner depending on
pre-established county boundaries (Aughey and Gormley-Heenan 2011,
p. 64).
The Irish border created not just an international boundary between
two states but what political geographers call ‘a frontier zone’ or a
‘border region’ (McCall 2014, p. 43). The Irish border region was—
and remains—culturally and ethnically mixed, although it does in some
places coincide with lines of cultural and political division (O’Dowd and
McCall 2008, p. 82). The border region suffered from economic periph-
erality, low incomes, little industrial employment, high unemployment,
and significant outward migration (O’Dowd et al. 1995, p. 337; Laffan
and Payne 2001, p. 46). It depended mainly on agriculture and many
factors impeded improvements in this sector such as: poor soil, established
patterns of inheritance, marriage, and farm size. The EU peacebuilding
role in Northern Ireland, which also facilitated cross-border cooperation
on an all-island scale, must be seen against this backdrop (Tannam 1999;
Lagana 2017).
In 1985, the signing of the Anglo-Irish Agreement (AIA) institu-
tionalised cross-border cooperation between the Republic of Ireland
and Northern Ireland. It was the product of transformed British–Irish
relations that accorded a role to the Irish government in Northern
Ireland public affairs through the Anglo-Irish Intergovernmental Confer-
ence (IGC), with meetings to be held regularly to improve cross-border
relationships. Thereafter, the agenda for negotiation on the future of
Northern Ireland always included the cross-border dimension, which was
aided by interpersonal relations between British and Irish premiers at key
stages (McCall 2014, p. 43), but also by the transnational organisation of
the European Parliament (EP), in which Irish, Northern Irish, and British
representatives could sit together in a neutral arena that fostered dialogue
and positive cooperation.
The EU tried to give an impetus to cross-border cooperation on the
island because such measures held out the prospect of positive-sum poli-
tics in the North, which were outward-looking and capable of revealing
 1 INTRODUCTION 7

existing and new areas of common interest between the two parts of
the island (Coakley and O’Dowd 2007, p. 878). The EU’s wide range
of powers (particularly those arising from EU regulations and monetary
policy) had an impact on the political economy of the border region and
the concept of a ‘Europe of the regions’ provided a rallying cry for those
political actors who wished to foster European regionalism.
In this framework, financial programmes such as Interreg and the EU
Special Support Programmes for Peace and Reconciliation (PEACE)4
were introduced to provide financial incentives and a model of cooper-
ation designed with the specific purpose to transform the borders from
barriers into bridges. The Commission concretised this intention with the
establishment of the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) in
1975, which strengthened the development of a stronger EU Regional
policy (Tannam 1999, p. 200). The empowerment of the regional level
of governance stemmed from bottom-up mobilisation (Laffan and Payne
2001, p. 27) through the promotion of subsidiarity, the creation of
consultative fora such as the Committee of the Regions, and the provision
of funds directed not at the state as a whole but to specific units within
it.
Nonetheless, the legacy of the conflict, fractious community relations,
and the predominance of nationalist and unionist ideological opinions in
discourses on cross-border cooperation mean that the historical nuances,
detail, and successes of EU initiatives implemented on the island have
tended to be overlooked and even downplayed (Teague 1996; Tannam
1999; Coakley 2017). Too little has been said to interconnect cross-
border cooperation and peacebuilding (Lagana 2017). Indeed, issues
interconnected with cross-border cooperation initiatives established a
niche for bottom-up participation in peacebuilding and underlined at the
institutional level the needs the EU had to address in order to foster the
peace process. This book will investigate these connections, as they have
yet to be fully explored.
The third storyline focuses on social and economic development as a
tool for conflict transformation and amelioration. The Northern Ireland
conflict has often been contextualised in the past by looking at its socio-
economic factors and the statistical data coming from both sides of the
border. Accordingly, scholars (Buchanan 2014; Hayward 2016) have been
concerned with providing greater conceptual and theoretical clarification
of conflict transformation and conflict resolution, specifically investigating
Northern Ireland from a social and economic perspective. However,
8 G. LAGANA

while economic development and cross-border cooperation have been a

common practice since the signing of the GFA, their role in conflict trans-
formation and resolution and their promotion by the EU are generally
under-theorised. The existing literature (Buchanan 2014; McCall 2014;
Khan and Byrne 2016) has focused empirically on initiatives such as
the International Fund for Ireland (IFI); the PEACE Programmes; and
the Interreg programmes. The analysis of these ‘conflict transformation
tools’ has been essential in grasping the substantial structure and impact
prompted by the EU on peace and reconciliation in the region. More-
over, the economic investigations of these programmes have allowed the
literature to highlight the relationship between poverty and structural
violence. Information on what was going on behind the scenes of the
EU’s decision to design its peacebuilding initiatives in the way it did is
still very limited. This book will uncover this side of the story, first, by
using a perspective that combines government and governance to cross-
border and peacebuilding networks. Second, this book will bring into
light masses of unpublished documentary sources and archives, which will
be crossed with semi-structured, elite interviews.
The following section elaborates on why existing political science
theories are a problematic basis for developing adequate explanations
and assessments of the EU’s approach to transforming the conflict and
building peace in Northern Ireland.

3 The European Union and Peacebuilding

The EU’s peacebuilding approach is different from that of other interna-
tional actors. First, this is due to the contextual factors regarding how it
has transformed internally. Secondly, it is due to how its complex insti-
tutional and multi-layered governance works and what capacities, norms,
and practices the EU invokes when dealing with external situations.
New alternative accounts, such as liberal intergovernmentalism, usually
dominate the literature that explains how the EU’s peacebuilding
approach and its ensuing security policies have overshadowed neo-
functionalist spaces. In peacebuilding studies there is a tendency to avoid
neo-functionalism because it can be associated with technocracy—the rule
of experts and bureaucratic procedures—based on universal blueprints,
privileging of external knowledge, and the imposition of frameworks for
governing societies. Liberal intergovernmentalism grants more agency to
 1 INTRODUCTION 9

the national preferences of member states than the EU institutions in

shaping internal and external policies of peace.
The dominant objectives of a ‘liberal peace’ (Philpott 2010, p. 4) are
to end armed violence and establish human rights, democracy, and market
economies. Its intellectual provenance resides in the liberal tradition that
arose from the French Enlightenment. ‘Liberal peace’ envisions outside
intervening states, state governments and oppositional factions under-
taking mediation, military intervention, war settlement, disarmament,
election monitoring and the creation of free government institutions, free
markets, and a free media. A cardinal virtue of ‘liberal peace’ seems thus to
be its finitude: when will the operation end? (Philpott 2010, p. 5) Are all
of these efforts truly ones of peacebuilding? Which have been successful?
Under what conditions are they successful?
Such an approach is far too narrow to frame the EU role in the
Northern Ireland peace process. The building of peace in Northern
Ireland was wider, deeper, and more encompassing. It involved a greater
array of actors, activities, levels of society, links between communities,
and time horizons than the dominant thinking recognises. It involved the
EU subtly promoting good governance and economic development. It
involved coordinating a political process with the need to settle an ethno-
national conflict and the efforts of local cultures and leaders to bring
peace. It involved educating the children of the next generation so as
to transform their hatred into tolerance. It involved non-governmental
organisations (NGOs) and civil society. It involved combating inequali-
ties that were embedded in the global structures of power and wealth in
the six counties of Northern Ireland. The broad range of these players,
practices, and periods was crucial for achieving peace, as each one of them
was linked to others through cause and effect, for better or for worse. EU
peacebuilding in Northern Ireland, consequently, aimed to strengthen
these connexions of interdependence, accenting, deepening, and synchro-
nising them and linking them further with the efforts of the two national
governments involved with the broad project of building peace in and
between the two Northern Irish communities. This particular effort can
be labelled as a strategy of peace and it is not yet concluded.
To grasp some specific aspects of this strategy, previous scholarship has
employed notions of intergovernmentalism and, in particular, Multi-Level
Governance (MLG) (Marks 1996, p. 30) to analyse the role of different
actors in the development and implementation of cross-border cooper-
ation on the island of Ireland (Laffan and Payne 2001; Murphy 2014;
10 G. LAGANA

Tannam 1999). This followed a more generalised tendency, started in

the 1980s, when scholars advanced hypotheses on how traditional forms
of hierarchical governments were being complemented, if not displaced
by, network modes of governance (Rhodes 1997; Jessop 1998, p. 32).
This came also as a consequence of what might well be called the ‘age of
peacebuilding’ (Philpott 2010, p. 4): an intense, diverse, and global wave
of efforts to end the violence and colossal injustices of civil war, genocide,
dictatorship, and large-scale poverty that required the participation of a
far greater array of public and private actors.
MLG is defined as ‘a system of continuous negotiation among nested
governments at several territorial tiers in which supranational, national,
regional, and local governments are enmeshed in territorially overar-
ching policy networks’ (Marks 1993, pp. 402–403). This definition raises
some problems of applicability to the peacebuilding effort developed in
Northern Ireland by the EU. It neglects Northern Ireland’s socio-spatial
structuring principles (Jessop 2016, p. 20), the autonomous role of the
Republic of Ireland and the UK governments, and it ignores tangled
scalar state and network hierarchies (Piattoni 2009). In addition, MLG
downplays the importance of the contrasting logics of territorialisation
and the complexities of governing the Northern Ireland geographical
space after the signing of the GFA. It also underplays hierarchies and
processes of inclusion and exclusions related to policy networks made by
public and private actors, eager to take an active role in the peace process.
These emerged in Northern Ireland particularly as a consequence of EU
involvement in the conflict.
To represent a valid alternative able to grasp the comprehensive
strategy of the EU in building peace in Northern Ireland, this book
investigates theoretically how governments and networks governance have
both remained central within the EU strategy of peacebuilding. The anal-
ysis focuses on the fact that the community has always been studiously
respectful of the independence of the two member states involved in the
promotion and support of the peace process on the island. In Northern
Ireland, initiatives have first privileged the position of the Irish and UK
governments and only subsequently had interactions with state and non-
state actors. From here lies the need to ‘bring government back in’ (Bell
and Park 2006, p. 64) when analysing governance, especially in relation
to the concept of metagovernance (Sørensen 2006; Sørensen and Torfing
2009; Jessop 2010; Torfing 2012; Torfing and Triantafillou 2016), which
 1 INTRODUCTION 11

includes not only government and governance, but policy networks as

well (Rhodes 1997).
Metagovernance emerged in the field of governance as a new approach
which claims that its use, and its performativity, enables modern states
and the EU to overcome problems associated with network governance
(Jessop 2016). By rethinking the different premises of metagovernance
and applying them to the context of peacebuilding, important theoretical
insights will emerge from this book. By comprehending metagovernance
as a specific type of neo-liberal governmentality in the field of peace-
building, metagovernance and metagovernance stances can be seen as a
way to respond to a networked society in its search for peace. Peace-
building and cross-border cooperation initiatives implemented by the
EU became metagovernance tools to empower public and private actors
to participate actively in the peace process from the ‘bottom-up’. The
‘bottom-up’ approach, which inspired the design and implementation
of the PEACE programmes, bears all the features of what John Paul
Lederach (1997) called ‘peacebuilding from below’. Lederach (2005)
argues that peace requires a peace process to be firmly embedded in the
‘grassroots leadership’ of the local community (Lederach 1997, p. 26).
One of the key challenges for policy networks in Northern Ireland
has been finding adequate and non-violent means for organising decen-
tralised conflict amelioration responses to manage the conflict. This book
argues that, to this aim, the EU provided actors and networks with a
platform and resources in support of collaborative efforts towards peace-
building in the region. It was not possible, however, to manage these
new challenges simply through dialogue, partnership, or the use of EU
funds. A range of knowledge, expertise, and constructive practices were
also called upon when dealing with networks involved in cross-border
and peace and reconciliation initiatives. Analysing these efforts through
the lens of metagovernance reveals which instruments could be provided
by the EU to ameliorate conflicts and how important this support can
be for decentralised collaborative efforts in building peace in regions of
conflict.
Contrary to popular opinion, this book argues that the main achieve-
ment of the EU in building peace on the island of Ireland was one
of empowering marginalised voices towards peace and reconciliation.
The EU subsided policy networks and interest groups with tools to
circumvent the centrality of the two nation-states involved. Through
EU channels and economic initiatives, cross-border and peacebuilding
12 G. LAGANA

networks established social and cultural interactions across the Irish

border aimed at inclusion and horizontal connections vis-à-vis national
and EU institutions.

4 Triangulation of Never-Before-Seen
Archives and Oral Sources
The use of archival evidence is widely understood to be an important
research tool. However, the use of archival material is still rare in political
science. Archival research has long been associated with the discipline of
history but in recent decades it has been growing as a vibrant qualitative
research method in the social sciences, with contributions from a range
of different disciplinary fields, epistemological standpoints, theoretical
insights, and methodological approaches.
One of the generic challenges for political science is to explain the
behaviour of institutions and actors who have strong incentives to
hide their real resources and motivations from outsiders (Lustick 1996,
p. 610). Scholars are, in this context, forced to choose between intensively
scrutinising the published material that does emerge, questioning those
elites who consent to be interviewed (who may or may not be entirely
frank), and inferring intentions from behaviour. Against this background,
archival information can help to overcome the obstacles created by this
pattern of secrecy and obfuscation.
Works such as Thompson’s (1978) research on the voices of the past
have been insightful not only in showing the wide range of social issues
that researchers can explore through archival research but also in shaping
new methodological approaches to the study of documents and polit-
ical discourses (Plummer 2001). In this regard, scholars have at times
questioned issues of material and discursive entanglements within archives
(Tamboukou 2014), while others have discussed the techniques employed
in archival research and fieldwork practice (Grant 1987, p. 27). Examples
of the successful combination of these approaches are the works of Evans
(1976), Thompson (1973, 1975), and O’Dochartaigh (2005, 2011). The
same strategies feature in studies of memory and the legacy of the conflict
in Northern Ireland (McBride 2011; McKittrick et al. 2007) and all these
works show how first-hand accounts are crucial in circumstances where
the written record is sparse.
The various attempts to investigate the role of the EU in the Northern
Ireland peace process must confront the flawed and partial nature of
 1 INTRODUCTION 13

the published sources available. Nonetheless, never-before-seen archival

documents exist that allow this book to offer an original and unique
narrative on the story. The use of triangulation (Burnham et al. 2008,
pp. 125–127) between archives and practices of oral history to comple-
ment archival sources, and to fill the gaps and address the weaknesses
often featuring in archival research, produced sharp theoretical conclu-
sions relating to EU peacebuilding. Multiple viewpoints allowed for
greater accuracy and the analysis behind this book considered different
kinds of data bearing on the same phenomenon in a way that was never
done before.
The majority of the original archival sources analysed as part of this
book are held at the ‘Historical Archives of the European Parliament’.
This is the official record-keeper of the institution which manages and
preserves the parliament’s official public documents and other archival
records dating back to 1952. All documents relating to the history of
the parliament, on European integration, and on the Northern Ireland
conflict are held in Luxembourg. The archival fonds5 consulted were
composed of 205 documents, including motions for resolution, EP
plenary debates, parliamentary questions, and fifteen reports. In addi-
tion, full access was granted to President Simone Veil’s private archives,
which are organised into three series: Public Personality, Presidency of
the Parliament, and Relations with the General Secretariat. The largest
series is that relating to sponsorships and events, media image, assistance
to private individuals, and the defence of human rights. More than forty
of President Veil’s private documents and correspondence were consulted.
Another fruitful source of EU/Northern Ireland-related archival
evidence was the UK National Archives. In this instance, it was neces-
sary to understand, first, the structure of the relevant departments of the
British state and, second, its internal flow of paper, to identify and locate
the relevant fonds. This meant stepping back from viewing the archive as
a mass of sources and instead seeing them as their creators saw them—
as individual cases flowing from desk to desk, or a pile of letters to be
responded to (Lagana 2019, p. 7). Understanding this flow was impor-
tant in choosing which departments to focus on to find the sources: the
Foreign Office and the Cabinet papers. The research eventually created
a collection of 342 documents. Those employed in this book are mostly
related to the 1984 EP Haagerup Report.
The case of the Personal Archives of the former EU Commission Pres-
ident, Jacques Delors, is singular. In February 2017, the Jacques Delors
14 G. LAGANA

Institute in Paris opened the personal archives of its founding presi-

dent to the consultation of researchers and observers interested in the
history of the European Project. The archive holds a never-before-seen
collection. Delors left a portion of his personal records to the Jacques
Delors Institute, corresponding to his years as president of the European
Commission. Among the files, it is possible to find the text of speeches
and interventions made by Delors through the years, documents relating
to the press and media, and preparatory notes and reports relating to
high-level meetings. The material is mostly written in French. Because
of past linkages with French academia, the author of this book was able
to access all documents relating to president Delors’s work in Northern
Ireland one month before the official opening of the archive. This coop-
eration between the researcher and the archivists of the Delors Institute
produced a collection of 75 previously unseen documents and a detailed
report of Delors’s visit to Northern Ireland in 1992.
Finally, in the course of the research, the author had access to a set of
very particular sources; the private archives of Hugh Logue and Roberto
Speciale. Although politicians and policymakers are used to sharing details
of their work and information about the organisation they work for with
researchers, they are sometimes unwilling or unable to provide evidence
to support their claims. The research is strengthened when interviewees
are willing to support what they are saying by using private sources
which are directly related (Lee 2015, p. 8). These private sources can
be especially valuable in highlighting a lack of unanimity and the extent
of disagreements at higher political levels or can concern private discus-
sions between politicians and other representatives in the form of letters
or forgotten newspaper articles. The fact that a senior official or politi-
cian considers a newspaper article important enough to keep it, is often
an indicator of the importance of the topic the article deals with and
can alert us to aspects of an issue whose importance we might not have
fully appreciated. However, such precious material does not always exist.
Politicians and policymakers do not often keep documents for themselves,
preferring to devolve what is in their possession to public institutions and
archives after their retirement. Nevertheless, some of them do create an
archive of their own that they can decide whether or not to share with
researchers (Lagana 2019, p. 9).
Both interviewees decided spontaneously to share their evidence with
the author of this book. Hugh Logue, who was accustomed to taking part
in research projects on Northern Ireland due to his active past within
 1 INTRODUCTION 15

the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) and within the Euro-
pean Commission, allowed the author to photograph a set of private
letters between himself and the Deputy Secretary-General of the Delors’
Commission I and II, Carlo Trojan, concerning the design of the Special
Support Programme for Peace and Reconciliation in Northern Ireland. In
addition, he provided the author with copies of reports belonging to the
Confederation of British Industry on the economic situation of Northern
Ireland after the 1994 ceasefires and special notes made to the report
of the 1994 Northern Ireland Task Force in preparation for what would
become the EU programme, PEACE I.
By contrast, Dr Roberto Speciale had never before been questioned
regarding his role as the Head of the EU Committee on Regional Policy,
on his involvement as such in Northern Ireland affairs, or on his key role
in the presentation of the EU Special Support Programme for Peace and
Reconciliation. The author and interviewee shared the same nationality,
the same native language, and the same willingness to shed light on this
undervalued facet concerning the history of the region. Dr. Speciale spent
many days preparing for the interview and gathering material. The value
of these sources is inestimable. Among notes related to events and the
media image of the EU in Northern Ireland, the author also got access
to draft speeches including instructions given by Commission members
to Dr. Speciale on how to express himself when publicly addressing
Northern Ireland issues (e.g. the importance of using non-contentious
phrases such as ‘aggravated social and cultural disaffection’; ‘package to
be accountable, democratic and inclusive’, and to avoid by any means the
use of the sentence ‘ex-offenders’), and even on how to structure the
seating arrangements at formal events or dinners with Northern Ireland
representatives.
The main accomplishment in gathering the archives and oral history
was the creation of a specific narrative, chronologically organised, where
material conditions and discourses intertwined. The research apparatus
and the structure of this book are consequently inevitably entangled with
the succession of experiences in the history of the EU peacebuilding
practices in Northern Ireland. This book considers the entanglements
between spaces, documents, and subjects, both material and textual.
Archival research is fragmented through and through; there is always
something missing because not everything found a place in an archive.
This often happens because of serendipity, because of intentional selec-
tion, as well as because of specific rules and classification that allow
16 G. LAGANA

certain documents of life to be preserved and others to become obscure

or marginalised. For this reason, interviews are fundamental to fill the
gaps and to illuminate the documentary evidence (or to produce more
evidence). Through this triangular experience, this book created an
archive of its own which can gradually become part of the wider fields
and bodies of knowledge on EU peacebuilding.

5 Towards a More Systematic

Historical and Theoretical Analysis
This book aims to provide an account of the genesis of the EU’s role
in the Northern Ireland peace process. It will discuss how the EU
contributed to transforming the region from a site of violent ethno-
national conflict to a site of peacebuilding and conflict amelioration. It will
describe how the EU attempted to enhance the re-emergence, restruc-
turing, and strategic reorientation of politics from conflict to peace, from
a perspective that combines metagovernance with a specific peacebuilding
viewpoint. This approach can also be related to a wider academic litera-
ture that highlights the complex and often unpredictable political change
produced by the implementation of EU peacebuilding efforts in areas of
conflict.
The research focuses on the significance of the EU’s initiatives and
policies implemented in Northern Ireland over the years. It offers insights
into the potential for facilitating political change through civil society
and local authority. It will historically underline how the EU facilitated
this passage from governmental to grassroots levels. The experience of
Northern Ireland is representative of an innovative approach on the part
of the EU to support a European region in transition, not only from
conflict to peace but also from centralised to decentralised status. It
will demonstrate that the role of the EU in the Northern Ireland peace
process was much more significant than previous studies have suggested.
Through economic aid and by providing actors and policymakers from
Northern Ireland, the Republic of Ireland, and the UK with a neutral
arena in which to foster dialogue and positive cooperation, the EU was
able to contribute to peace. This helped to improve Anglo-Irish rela-
tions, policy processes, cross-border cooperation, economic and industrial
regeneration, and empowered marginalised voices to move towards peace
 1 INTRODUCTION 17

and reconciliation. However, the most critical element of the EU’s contri-
bution to peace in Northern Ireland was that of enduring political—and
not simply economic—commitment.

6 Chapters Outline
The following theoretical chapter charts the most recent and impor-
tant theoretical development regarding networks: the emergence of the
metagovernance approach. This framework is subsequently adapted to
the genesis of the EU’s role in the Northern Ireland peace process.
The discussion involves the influence that different actors have within
a policy network and the context in which they act. The concept of
metagovernance will show how the EU empowered public and private
actors and networks to join the system of public policymaking; their
number increasing with the signing of the Belfast/GFA and the estab-
lishment of the executive in Northern Ireland. These processes had,
firstly, an impact upon the structure of networks as the influence that
different actors have within a policy network is also dependent on their
role in different phases of the policy process and on the context in
which they act. Secondly, they had an impact on interactions within the
network. Finally, they influenced the relations between the network and
the EU. However, these three dimensions are rarely brought together.
The chapter will then introduce the strategic-relational approach, with
the objective of examining the mutual influence and constant interaction
between the three above-described dimensions. By identifying official and
‘behind the scenes’ practices employed by the EU over the years to foster
grassroots participation in peacebuilding activities in Northern Ireland,
this chapter will describe, theoretically, how the EU helped facilitate
substantial improvements in public rule in the region.
Subsequent empirical chapters trace the genesis of the EU’s role in the
Northern Ireland peace process from 1981 to 2007. Chapter three inves-
tigates the genesis of the first EU/Northern Ireland network of public
actors lobbying the EC during the Northern Ireland conflict. Initially, this
chapter will investigate how the newly formed public network attempted
to establish the first vertical relationship between the region and the
EC. Subsequently, it will investigate how this network formed its first
horizontal relationship between Members of the European Parliament
(MEPs) to collectively steer the development and implementation of
18 G. LAGANA

specific policies, which would potentially have a positive impact upon the
conflict.
Chapter 4 will examine a specific attempt by the EU/Northern Ireland
public network to overcome the UK government’s centralism. The expe-
rience of the Haagerup Report constituted a fundamental step that
contributed to shaping, in theory, all the subsequent peacebuilding and
cross-border practices and programmes of the EU in Northern Ireland.
Chapter 5 charts an in-depth description of the genesis of EU cross-
border cooperation on the island of Ireland. Firstly, this chapter focuses
on the analysis of the Interreg programme and deals with the economic
issues and challenges that confronted public and private policymakers on
the island. Secondly, it interconnects the creation of new political institu-
tions within Northern Ireland, and between the North and South, with
experiences of regionalism and peacebuilding. These steps are essential to
analysing how processes of EU integration and association were related
to peacebuilding on the island of Ireland.
Chapter 6 charts an in-depth description of how the EU PEACE
programmes were structured and implemented as a model for peace-
building and regional development especially aimed at circumventing
the centralism of the UK and Irish governments. Furthermore, this
chapter will reflect on how the bottom-up approach, which inspired the
whole administrative setting up of PEACE, was put into practice by EU
Commission officials, civil servants, and by the EU/Northern Ireland
network.
Chapter 7 describes how the signing of the Belfast/GFA and the
process of power-sharing and devolution in Northern Ireland altered the
dynamics of the internal political and policy processes of the region. The
re-establishment of an executive in Northern Ireland, the functioning of
the North-South Ministerial Council (NSMC), and the creation of the
Special European Union Programmes Body (SEUPB)—with its exclu-
sive European remit—all impacted positively on EU cross-border and
peacebuilding initiatives in the region.
The concluding chapter reviews the main empirical and theoretical
insights that can be derived from this extended historical analysis. After a
brief review of the strategic approach of EU peacebuilding initiatives in
Northern Ireland over the years, the conclusion will embed the empirical
analysis into a strategic-relation heuristic. The interest in doing so resides
in both, bridging an academic gap and providing an additional theoretical
overview of the issues and the results of metagovernance in the field of
 1 INTRODUCTION 19

EU peacebuilding. Finally, the conclusion will reiterate the significance of

the EU in the Northern Ireland peace process and the significance of the
Northern Ireland example for high-level institutional learning in peace-
building. It will subsequently describe, in-depth, why metagovernance
arrangements have been important in shaping EU bottom-up and top-
down approaches to peacebuilding in Northern Ireland. Metagovernance
included actions such as identifying key stakeholders, setting agendas, and
structuring outcomes. The main achievement of the EU in overcoming
issues was the subsidising of instruments to the networks to circum-
vent the centrality of the two nation-states involved. The EU/Northern
Ireland public network (initiated by John Hume) and private cross-border
and peacebuilding networks remained (and remain) dependent upon EU
support. Institutions and ‘high-politics’ also owe in part their long-lasting
existence to the economic and political support of the EU, which ensured
their comprehensive functioning on the long-term perspective.

Notes
1. Revisions to the operation of the Northern Ireland institutions were agreed
between the main Northern Ireland political parties and the British and
Irish governments at St Andrews in 2006 and at Stormont House in 2014.
2. The terms EU, EEC, and EC will be consistently used in this book
to indicate, respectively the ‘European Union’, the ‘European Economic
Community’, and the ‘European Community’. The European Economic
Community was created by the Treaty of Rome in 1957 and was a
regional organisation aimed to bring about economic integration between
its member states. Upon the formation of the European Union (EU) in
1993, the EEC was incorporated and renamed as the European Commu-
nity. Today, the name EC is commonly used to indicate the community as
it existed before the 1993 Maastricht Treaty.
3. Concepts of ‘conflict transformation’ and ‘conflict amelioration’ will be
used interchangeably in this book. They attempt to capture a peacebuilding
effort wherein political violence has reduced, competing ethno-nationalist
political elites have entered into policymaking processes, and, crucially,
where local private networks have engaged in on-going peacebuilding
efforts.
4. Also commonly known as the PEACE founding, the PEACE package or
the PEACE programmes.
5. In archival science, a fonds is a group of documents that share the same
origin and that have occurred naturally as an outgrowth of the daily
workings of an agency, individual, or organisation.
20 G. LAGANA

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 CHAPTER 2

Metagoverning Peacebuilding in Northern

Ireland

1 Introduction
2018 marked the twentieth anniversary of the signing of the
Belfast/Good Friday Agreement (GFA). Northern Ireland had achieved
significant improvements in the economic life and well-being of its
people.1 Unemployment was at record lows, employment at an all-time
high and the economy was undergoing the process of rebalancing to
become led more by the private sector. Political violence had finally
dissipated, and tensions generally lowered between the nationalist and
unionist communities. The region had successfully overcome the global
economic crisis started in 2008 and had managed to maintain peace and
stability, despite sporadic political tensions.
On the other hand, the political context of Northern Ireland was
still volatile. The Irish language, legacy issues, and flags and symbols
continued to be a thorn in the side of a never-fully implemented peace
process. The Northern Ireland power-sharing Executive had been absent
for years under the looming shadow of Brexit. Economic growth had
slowed, and this had been attributed, at least in part, to the uncer-
tainty generated by the Brexit referendum. However, it remained unclear
whether the slowdown was a Brexit induced effect or the result of
Northern Ireland’s legacy of structural economic weaknesses (Grey et al.
2018, pp. 18–19).2

© The Author(s) 2021 25

G. Lagana, The European Union and the Northern Ireland Peace Process,
Palgrave Studies in European Union Politics,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-59117-5_2
26 G. LAGANA

Given the tenuous nature of the local settlement, future peace, pros-
perity, and stability could be derailed at any moment by unexpected and
unanticipated forces. The peace process results are still imperfect and not
yet fully achieved, confirming that what Galtung (1990) labelled as a
‘negative peace’3 still prevails in Northern Ireland. The environment is
unfortunately still characterised by lingering disagreements, contributing
to the ongoing polarisation of the two communities (Murphy 2018, p. 3).
Against this background, the most visible aspect of the EU involvement
in the peace process has always been the financial support. While all
actors and communities recognised and welcomed the EU’s economic
commitment, the political dimension of engagement with the EU has
been defined as ‘subtle’ because it did not visibly extend to a superfi-
cial level of public engagement (Hayward 2011; McCall 2014; Buchanan
2014; Murphy 2018).
Instead, contrary to popular opinion, this book argues that such
subtlety was one of the most important hallmarks of the EU strategy
of peacebuilding to resolve the Northern Ireland conflict. Subtlety was
essential for the EU role to be tolerated by the UK and the Irish govern-
ments and by the unionist community. The EU approach was aimed at
co-existing with differing political perspectives, permitting a functional
and pragmatic engagement with EU programmes and resources from
the bottom-up, and was eventually filtered through the devolved power-
sharing institutions and North-South bodies after 1998. The overall
objective of this strategy was to achieve a strategic and just peace4 in the
region. Accordingly, this chapter aims to theoretically situate the analysis
leading this book into a specific EU strategic peacebuilding framework.
The examination starts by providing an overview of the meanings and
practices of peacebuilding. Changes in goals, relational space, and partici-
pating actors (Jessop 2009) involved in EU peacebuilding activities imply
a shift in focus from processes to networked connections. Scholars have
long recognised the importance of international organisations like the EU
in promoting networks of cooperation (Jacobson 1984). One of the most
important features of the EU role in the Northern Ireland peace process
is that of having encouraged the coming together of people and processes
who would not normally come together or head in the same direction.
These networks came together in the European arena and collaborated to
realise a horizon of possible measures to reduce violence and advance
cross-community reconciliation in the region. This feature marks the
role of the EU in building peace in Northern Ireland as ‘strategic’.
 2 METAGOVERNING PEACEBUILDING IN NORTHERN IRELAND 27

Secondly, this chapter will investigate how the EU initiated, developed,

and sustained this desired transformation from conflict to peace arguing
for the necessity to embed these dimensions in a strategic-relational
heuristic to fully grasp their potential. The concept of metagovernance
(Jessop 2009) will be then introduced into the analysis.

2 Strategic Peacebuilding: An Overview

The aftermath of the Cold War presented international peacebuilding
organisations and practitioners with a set of new circumstances. Regional
conflicts, civil wars, ethnic cleansings, and the so-called ‘war on terror’
unfolded within the context of the technology-driven expansion of world
markets, mass communication, and the rapid transfer of social and intel-
lectual capital that marks the current phase of globalisation (Alimi et al.
2015, pp. 35–37). This new world brought with it a new horizon of
possibilities and challenges peacebuilders consequently had to respond
to with an ever-greater capacity for strategic thinking and action. More-
over, the proliferation of transnational social movements for global-local
justice influenced peace studies scholars and practitioners to think beyond
borders and to locate the causes of conflict and potential change agents
both within and beyond nation-states (Lederach and Appleby 2010,
p. 10).
Peacebuilding initiatives consequently had to be re-oriented to adapt
fully to the complex and shifting material, geopolitical, economic, and
cultural reality of the increasingly globalised and interdependent world
in which they were enacted (Hart 2008). Hence, a new type of peace-
building, which was strategic, emerged. It had to draw intentionally on
the overlapping and imperfectly coordinated presences, activities, and
resources of various supranational, transnational, national, regional and
local institutions, agencies, movements and networks that influenced the
causes, expressions, and outcomes of conflict (Alimi et al. 2015, p. 40).
Strategic peacebuilders had to, accordingly, take advantage of emerging
and established patterns of collaboration and interdependence to reduce
violence and alleviate the root causes of deadly conflicts (Schirch 2005,
p. 15). They encouraged the deeper and more frequent convergence of
mission, resources, expertise, insight, and benevolent self-interest that
characterises the most fruitful multilateral collaborations in their cause
(Schirch 2005, p. 16).
28 G. LAGANA

The phrase ‘strategic peacebuilding’ requires clarity and precision.

The practice of ‘strategic peacebuilding’ develops around critical ques-
tions of ‘who’ and ‘what type of processes’ will be needed to initiate,
develop and sustain the desired transformation in a particular conflict
context (Lederach and Appleby 2010, p. 19). In settings of deep-rooted
tensions, pursuing transformation requires an alliance of key people and
processes that converge in a more precise and coordinated way on the
overall desired change (Lederach 1997, pp. 56–59). It requires recog-
nising that a comprehensive effort to build sustainable peace must draw
on the experiences and writings of reflective scholars and practitioners
working in diverse fields of study, from Security to International Rela-
tions, History, and Sociology (Lederach and Appleby 2010, pp. 20–21).
Finally, it requires a confluence of actors, competences, and resources.
For the purpose of this book, peacebuilding is consequently defined
as a set of complementary theories and practices aimed at transforming
societies divided by violent political conflict, inequality, and other systemic
forms of injustice, into a reconciled humanity, oriented towards forging
a strategic peace. A strategic peace is at the same time comprehensive,
interdependent, and sustainable and is defined as a process whereby peace
and justice are reached together at the institutional and civil society level.
European peacebuilding was built on these premises in the after-
math of the Second World War; the EU itself being one of the most
successful peace processes on earth (Laffan 2016, p. 162). The EU’s
potential to contribute to conflict prevention and peacebuilding is said
to be particularly promising, given the unique mix of instruments that
the Community can bring to these situations (Blockmans et al. 2010).
One of its main features is to be particularly concerned with nurturing
constructive human relationships among conflicted people (Deutsch and
Coleman 2000, pp. 64–65). To be relevant, EU-sponsored peacebuilding
initiatives have had to be strategically selective (Hay 2014), encompass
every level of society, and be implemented across all potentially polar-
ising lines of ethnicity, class, religion, and race (Schirch 2005, p. 12).
Strategic EU peacebuilders have had to embrace complexity and be aware
of (within any given situation or issue that they practically approached)
all the strategically selective (Hay 2014) elements to address in order to
reduce violence, change destructive patterns of inclusion and exclusion,
and build new healthy relationships and structures to enact them.
 2 METAGOVERNING PEACEBUILDING IN NORTHERN IRELAND 29

The above-described features translate into practice in at least three

distinctive hallmarks, which constitute the tangible marks of EU-
sponsored peacebuilding practices in conflict and post-conflict contexts.
These include, first, the cultivation of interdependence as a social and
political background for the effective pursuit of good governance and
economic prosperity. Second, the increasing coordination and integra-
tion of EU resources, programmes, practices, and processes with national
governments, local authorities, and private policy networks. Finally, the
promotion of communication across sectors and levels of society in the
service, comprising as many voices and actors as possible in the reform
of institutions and the repair or creation of partnerships conducive to the
common good. These three hallmarks need to be precisely situated into
the genesis of the Northern Ireland relationship with the EU in order to
fully grasp the entirety of the strategic peacebuilding approach adopted
to foster peace and positive cross-community relations.

3 Strategic Peacebuilding in Northern

Ireland: Interdependent and Integrated
The EU peacebuilding strategy for Northern Ireland needed to envi-
sion a form of transformation which would include, respect, and promote
the human and cultural resources from within the Northern Irish setting
(O’Dowd and McCall 2008, pp. 83–84). At the same time, it had to
take into account the fact that the people and the environment could
not be seen as the problem and the ‘outsider’ as the answer. Rather, the
long-term goal of transformation demanded that EU initiatives, as agents
of change, took as the primary task of accompaniment the validation of
the people’s identities and the expansion of resources within the setting
(McCall and Itçaina 2017, p. 264).
The Northern Irish setting was neither stable nor fixed and that
situation put the two national governments of the Republic of Ireland
and the UK under increasing pressure over the years. From ‘below’,
local communities and grassroots movements asked for a change. From
‘across’, demands came from cross-border networks and regional author-
ities for additional forms of regional autonomy, or for a more certain
guarantee that the status of the region, as part of the UK, would not be
changed. In addition, the nationalist community was vocal in its demands
30 G. LAGANA

for an all-Ireland dimension to be implemented as it seemed more suit-

able to represent comprehensively the interests of the community and the
specificities of the border region.
The EU had to come from ‘above’ to find new channels to connect
the multiplicity of actors involved and to initiate original strategies that
allowed it to become more involved in Northern Irish affairs. The ques-
tion that EU peacebuilders asked themselves at this point was; ‘how
do we build a movement for reconciliation, while at the same time
empowering the voice and capacity of the Northern Ireland nation-
alist and unionist communities?’ (interview with Carlo Trojan, Former
Secretary-General of the Delors’ Commission I and II and Head of the
1994 Northern Ireland Task Force, The Hague, 29/01/2016). It was,
accordingly, clear to EU officials and policymakers that any involvement
in attempting to resolve or transform the conflict required more than
conflict management, reduction of violence, and agreement on political
issues. Addressing simultaneously, social justice issues, ending the violent
conflict, and building healthy cooperative cross-community relationships
in Northern Ireland and between North and South was a complex and
massive task. Nonetheless, all these processes were interrelated most
fundamentally at the local level. ‘Even when violence originated and
occurred at the national, international, and regional levels, its impact was
felt most keenly and directly in Belfast and Derry’s neighbourhoods, small
towns, and, sometimes, in border villages’ (interview with Carlo Trojan,
29/01/2016).
The EU, as agent of peacebuilding, could not move too quickly
beyond the most immediate concern of community or regional actors.
This would have meant violating the principle of subsidiarity and under-
mining selective scalar hierarchies. ‘It would have undermined any hope
of a genuine resolution and transformation of the conflict’ (interview
with Carlo Trojan, 29/01/2016). In addition, EU peacebuilders and
regional and private actors could not replace political and public agents
who, operating at the local level, would interpret agreements and prepare
society for their implementation and the transition called for by the agree-
ments. Hence, the EU peacebuilding strategy needed to call for the active
participation of a multiplicity of actors originating from, and working at,
all levels of Northern Ireland society (and with different capacities and
areas of expertise). None of the actors involved, considered in isolation
from the others, was able to provide the conditions for a sustainable
and comprehensive peace. Their collective efficacy could, nevertheless,
Another random document with
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avait invité, chemin faisant, toute la troupe à déjeuner; l’invitation fut
acceptée.
La réception eut lieu chez le colonel; sa femme, d’abord effrayée d’une
telle invasion de gens, se montre aussi accueillante et aussi hospitalière que
le colonel.
Les enfants, comme les grandes personnes, attendaient avec beaucoup
d’impatience la grande exhibition du lendemain. Le maître d’école ne
paraissait pas décidé à octroyer à ses élèves un jour de congé; ceci les
rendait très anxieux, car les jours de congé étaient bien rares.
Le maître d’école, cédant au désir général, se laissa heureusement
persuader.
Le grand jour était enfin venu! Ceux qui savaient que le cirque arrivait
sous l’escorte du colonel Grice se portèrent à sa rencontre, les uns à pied,
les autres à cheval. Certains partirent en tilbury, puis ils dételèrent leurs
chevaux, les attachèrent aux arbres d’un bosquet et continuèrent à pied un
peu plus loin.
Dans le défilé, les plus belles voitures ouvraient la marche, mais
personne ne put dire exactement ce que les individus au costume bariolé qui
ouvraient la marche portaient dans leurs mains: un habitant de
Dukesborough, qui passait pour avoir du jugement, affirma qu’ils portaient
une espèce de tambour de dimension énorme; mais on n’adopta pas son
idée.
Il est impossible de décrire l’effet que produisit l’orchestre dans la
longue voiture couverte qui, tirée par six chevaux gris, s’avançait en tête du
cortège. Tous, jeunes comme vieux, frissonnèrent d’émotion.
Le vieux monsieur Leadbetter était en train de lire un chapitre de la
bible, lorsqu’aux premiers sons de l’orchestre ses lunettes sautèrent par-
dessus son nez. Il avoua plus tard confidentiellement qu’il ne les avait
jamais retrouvées.
Le Cirque Universel comportait aussi une petite ménagerie d’animaux
qui devait être exhibée au public dès l’ouverture des portes. Il y avait un
chameau, un zèbre, un lion, une hyène, deux léopards, un porc-épic, six
singes, un vautour et quelques perroquets.
Pendant le défilé de la cavalcade, il fallait voir avec quelle rapidité les
curieux arrivés en retard dans leurs voitures firent faire demi-tour à leurs
chevaux par crainte de la musique et de l’odeur des bêtes fauves. Pour la
première et unique fois dans l’histoire de Dukesborough, on vit, dans
l’unique rue de cette localité, un encombrement momentané de voitures, et
un véritable danger d’accrochage de roues.
—Avance un peu, dit le vieux Tony au nègre qui conduisait la voiture
devant lui, avance un peu, la tête du chameau entre dans ma voiture!
Pour une raison inconnue, peut-être à cause de sa haute taille, et de la
longue ouverture de sa mâchoire, le chameau semblait être regardé comme
le fauve le plus carnivore et le plus friand de chair humaine.
La place choisie pour dresser la tente du cirque fut le rond-point au pied
de la colline sur laquelle s’élève l’hôtel Basil. Dès l’ouverture des portes, la
foule se pressa à l’intérieur. Le colonel Grice se tenait à l’entrée pour
s’assurer que tout le monde pourrait jouir du spectacle, même ceux qui
n’auraient pas les moyens de payer leur place; le brave colonel, en effet,
voulait que tous ses voisins pussent profiter de cette fête organisée par lui,
et que la réjouissance fût complète. Pénétrant à l’intérieur du cirque, avec
l’allure décidée d’un propriétaire, il jeta un coup d’œil circulaire de
bienveillante satisfaction. Les dames et les messieurs qui se trouvèrent
autour de lui, lorsqu’il passa l’inspection des stalles contenant les animaux,
purent entendre ses paternels avertissements:
—Faites attention, mes amis, faites attention, dit-il gentiment à quelques
jeunes garçons qui s’appuyaient contre la balustrade de la stalle du porc-
épic; faites attention, voici le fameux porc-épic; vous voyez ses piquants;
lorsqu’il est en colère, il fait le gros dos et transperce ceux qui l’approchent.
Les enfants reculèrent effrayés, bien que le pauvre petit animal parût
extrêmement pacifique.
—Voici la hyène, continua le colonel en avançant de quelques pas; sa
nourriture favorite est la chair humaine; aussitôt que cet animal apprend la
mort de quelqu’un, il vient quelques jours après rôder autour du cimetière,
et se met à gratter la terre; dans les régions fréquentées par les hyènes, les
habitants sont obligés d’enterrer leurs parents dans des cercueils de pierre.
—Oh! grands dieux, colonel! éloignons-nous!
Cette exclamation fut poussée par Miss Angeline Spouter, la plus mince
de la bande des spectateurs, qui marchait bras-dessus bras-dessous avec
Miss Georgiana Pea.
—Il n’y a pas de danger, Miss Angeline, pas le moindre danger, répondit
le colonel en regardant l’animal dans les yeux, comme s’il voulait lui
intimer l’ordre de rester couché dans son coin. Rassurez-vous, pour sortir il
lui faudrait passer par-dessus mon corps; je vous assure que vous ne courez
pas le plus petit danger; d’ailleurs cet animal est surtout friand de cadavres.
—Pourtant, objecta Miss Pea (j’oubliais de dire que cette jeune fille était
douée d’un bel embonpoint), s’il prenait à la hyène l’envie de goûter de la
chair vivante, je serais certainement pour elle un morceau de premier choix!
La hyène réputée si féroce ne daignait même pas regarder ses
spectateurs; mais elle continuait à arpenter son étroite cage et à frotter son
nez contre le plafond comme si elle voulait faire monter vers le ciel ses
intimes pensées. Je n’oublierai jamais combien cette pauvre bête paraissait
malheureuse. Les autres animaux semblaient adoucir leur captivité en
entretenant avec l’homme des rapports de domesticité plus ou moins
cordiaux. Le lion évidemment aimait son gardien; les léopards donnaient la
même impression; mais la hyène, plus étroitement encagée que tous les
autres, conquise, non soumise, complètement sauvage, roulait sans cesse ses
féroces yeux gris, et semblait emmagasiner dans sa tête d’amers projets de
vengeance. Je suis persuadé que si la hyène un jour venait à s’échapper,
avant de songer à manger les morts du cimetière, elle s’offrirait comme
premier régal le directeur du Grand Cirque Universel.
Au moment même où les spectateurs passaient devant elle, la hyène
s’arrêta, colla son nez contre le plafond de la voiture et poussa plusieurs
hurlements brefs, rauques et terrifiants. Miss Spouter cria d’effroi, Miss Pea
éclata d’un rire hystérique; quant au colonel Grice, d’un mouvement
instinctif, il recula de plusieurs pas. Reprenant courage (il n’avait à ses
côtés ni son épée ni ses pistolets), il revint d’un bond au milieu des
spectateurs, puis, regardant d’un air courroucé et presque dédaigneux la
hyène qui avait repris sa promenade, il s’écria:
—Infect animal, tu penses sans doute aux tombes que tu as violées, et tu
soupires après d’autres cadavres! Ne t’y trompe pas, nous sommes tous
vivants ici, personne d’entre nous, du moins je l’espère, avant longtemps ne
servira à assouvir ton ignoble voracité.
Puis il se dirigea du côté des singes:
—Hallo, hallo, Bill, je savais bien que je vous trouverais ici! Je vois que
vous avez avec vous vos enfants.
La personne à laquelle s’adressait le colonel Grice était un jeune fermier,
grand et fort, qui portait par-dessus ses vêtements une veste ronde d’étoffe
grossière garnie de poches spacieuses. Dans chacune de ces poches étaient
enfouis un pied et une moitié de jambe appartenant à un enfant d’environ
deux ans. Le père tenait dans chacune de ses mains un pied de l’autre enfant
qui se cramponnait à son cou en l’enlaçant de ses bras.
Les deux enfants se ressemblaient trait pour trait, à part une légère
différence dans la couleur de leurs yeux. Ce monsieur, Bill Williams, père
des deux enfants, avait épousé trois ans auparavant Miss Caroline Thigpea.
La naissance de ces deux jumeaux avait rempli M. Williams d’une joie
exultante; il avait choisi pour eux, très peu de temps après leur venue en ce
monde, les noms des descendants de Mars et de Rhée Sylvia; mais pour des
raisons personnelles à lui, il modifia légèrement ces noms et les appela
Romerlus et Rémerlus.
—C’est Rémus, monsieur Bill, protesta l’ami qui lui avait suggéré le
choix des noms; Rémus et non Rémerlus; les vrais noms sont Romulus et
Rémus.
—Non, Philippe, avait répondu M. Bill, je choisis Romerlus et
Rémerlus. Mes deux fils sont nés en même temps; aussi forts l’un que
l’autre, aussi bien venus, ils ont les mêmes traits harmonieux et je ne vois
pas pourquoi l’un d’eux aurait un nom plus long que l’autre.
Dès qu’ils avaient été capables de se tenir debout, leur père les avait
accoutumés à ce mode de voyage, et il se sentait radieux quand il s’exhibait
en public avec ses deux jumeaux à cheval en croupe sur son dos.
—Je savais bien que je vous trouverais ici, Bill, avec vos deux garçons.
—En effet, colonel, je suis venu ici pour voir ces animaux et pour
inculquer à mes fils les premiers éléments de géographie. Voyons Rom et
Rem, ne me serrez donc pas tant, vous m’étranglez; vous voyez bien qu’il
n’y a pas de danger!
Ces enfants, très dégourdis pour leur âge, s’accommodaient parfaitement
de cette façon de voyager; mais quand ils se trouvèrent en présence des
animaux féroces, ils furent pris de terreur et se cramponnèrent à leur père.
Le colonel Grice, revenu de la frayeur que lui avait causée la hyène,
trouva drôle la peur des jumeaux.
—C’est très naturel, Bill, parfaitement naturel: certains, vous le savez,
prétendent que les singes sont nos parents; vos fils sans doute n’aiment pas
soutenir les regards de leurs semblables.
 —Les singes ne sont ni mes parents, ni ceux de mes enfants, colonel,
répondit M. Bill; si vous croyez qu’ils appartiennent à l’espèce humaine,
pourquoi, vous qui n’avez pas d’enfants, ne les adopteriez-vous pas comme
vôtres?
M. Bill supposait que le colonel faisait allusion à la légende de la louve;
mais le colonel ne se doutait pas de l’étrange origine de Rome; sa remarque
était un pur jeu d’esprit, un trait naturel de bonne humeur.
Après l’inspection des bêtes fauves, chacun regagna sa place. Le colonel
Grice s’assit sur un gradin dominant l’entrée principale par laquelle
devaient arriver les artistes du Cirque. M. Williams était assis au premier
rang près de l’entrée opposée. Il avait sorti ses deux jumeaux de ses poches
et les tenait sur ses genoux. Le colonel ne perdait pas une occasion d’attirer
de son côté l’attention de l’écuyer-chef, qui lui répondait par un petit
sourire bienveillant.
A ce moment, le rideau de la porte principale s’écarta, l’orchestre
préluda par une marche et les chevaux-pie firent leur entrée avec leurs
cavaliers silencieux qui avaient tous l’air de sortir du bain dans leur
accoutrement des plus primitifs. La vieille miss Sally Casch, cousine et
voisine du colonel Grice, s’écria:
—Grands dieux, Moses! Ce ne sont pas des êtres animés! Ils ressemblent
à des figures de cire.
—Je vous assure, cousine Sally, que ce sont des hommes, répondit le
colonel avec une candeur accentuée.
Au même instant, un clown moucheté et tout bariolé se précipita sur la
piste en criant: «Nous voici, messieurs!»
—Dieu tout puissant! s’écrièrent Miss Cash et toutes les dames qui
l’entouraient.
Seul, le colonel Grice, qui avait assisté à la représentation de la veille,
put garder son sang froid; tous les autres restèrent émerveillés.
—J’ai soixante-neuf ans, dit le vieux M. Pate, et je n’ai jamais vu pareil
spectacle.
Tandis que les clowns évoluaient dans tous les sens et faisaient les
pirouettes les plus variées, le vieux bonhomme les suivait des yeux, sans
perdre un seul de leurs mouvements.
—Trouvez-vous tout cela décent, Moses? demanda Miss Cash.
 Les clowns exécutaient à ce moment leurs sauts périlleux, tombant pêle-
mêle l’un sur l’autre, sur le dos, à plat ventre, et ils ne s’arrêtèrent que
lorsque l’essoufflement de leurs poumons les y obligea.
—Voyez-vous, dit le colonel, en jetant un petit regard de côté sur sa
femme et sur les amis des deux sexes qui l’entouraient, personne n’est
obligé de rester et d’assister à ce spectacle. Ceux qui en ont assez peuvent
s’en aller, rien ne les en empêche.
—Certes non, répondit Miss Cash d’un air pincé; j’ai payé un dollar à
l’entrée et je veux en avoir pour mon argent.
L’exercice qui suivit fut celui auquel le colonel Grice attachait le plus
d’importance. Un cheval aussi farouche en apparence que les coursiers de
Mazeppa bondit sur la piste; le chef-écuyer demanda à un clown où était le
cavalier de l’animal; le clown lui répondit avec un air navré que le cavalier
était malade et que personne de la troupe ne serait capable de le remplacer.
Alors commença la plaisanterie d’usage: le chef-écuyer ordonna au clown
de monter le cheval; le clown après maintes tergiversations essaya
d’attraper l’animal, qui se sauva et se fit donner la chasse.
L’écuyer-chef, furieux, administra une volée de coups de fouet au cheval
récalcitrant, et demanda un cavalier de bonne volonté pour essayer de le
dompter. Sur ces entrefaites, un jeune homme plutôt mal vêtu, dans un
complet état d’ébriété, pénétra sur la piste par l’entrée principale, et, après
une violente altercation avec le gardien, vint se planter droit devant M. Bill
Williams, et le dévisagea.
—Tiens, deux enfants! L’un d’eux vous appartient, je suppose?
—Oui, répondit M. Bill.
—Et l’autre?
—A ma femme, continua M. Bill; d’ailleurs cela ne regarde personne;
passez votre chemin, s’il vous plaît!
L’étranger se retourna, et fixant son attention sur ce qui se passait sur la
piste, s’écria:
—Je peux monter ce cheval.
A peine l’individu avait-il prononcé ces mots qu’il trébucha et s’aplatit
dans la sciure de bois, deux pas derrière les talons du cheval. Toute
l’assistance, à l’exception du Colonel Grice, se leva et se mit à crier
d’horreur:
 —Relevez-le, Bill, emportez-le! cria le colonel Grice.
M. Bill ne se le fit pas dire deux fois: déposant ses deux bébés dans le
giron de sa femme, il s’efforça d’entraîner le pochard hors de la piste. Ce
dernier se débattait et cherchait à revenir en arrière.
—Voyons, mon ami, dit M. Bill, j’ignore qui vous êtes, et personne ici
n’a l’air de vous connaître; voyez-vous, si je n’avais pas tenu Rom et Rem...
L’individu se débattit de plus belle; M. Bill le prit à bras-le-corps, mais
recevant un croc-en-jambe, il tomba à plat ventre; l’étranger en profita pour
s’élancer de nouveau sur la piste, derrière le cheval. Le chef-écuyer
semblait fort embarrassé.
—Oh! laissez-le monter un instant, capitaine, cria le colonel Grice; il est
tellement ivre que s’il tombe il ne se fera pas le moindre mal.
—C’est une honte, Moses, protesta Miss Cash, je ne suis pas venue ici et
je n’ai pas payé un dollar à la porte pour voir tuer les gens. Un individu pris
de boisson a le droit de vivre comme les autres.
Pendant ce temps, le cheval s’était laissé monter et venait de repartir au
grand galop. Si Miss Cash avait tout à l’heure réclamé l’exécution complète
du programme, ce qu’elle voyait maintenant était bien de nature à lui faire
fermer les yeux en se voilant la face: l’animal, fou furieux, galopait à perdre
haleine, tandis que le malheureux pochard restait couché sur la crinière.
Tous les spectateurs étaient anxieux; les gens au cœur tendre regrettaient
d’être venus. Dans cette lutte entre la vie et la mort, l’étranger semblait
pourtant commencer à se dégriser. Au grand étonnement de tous, il se
releva sur l’encolure, rassembla les rênes, sortit de ses pieds les souliers
grossiers qu’il portait, fit voler en l’air son vieux chapeau, remit en ordre sa
chevelure ébouriffée et avant que Miss Cash ait pu prononcer une parole, il
se trouva debout sur la selle.
Alors se produisit l’étrange et successive métamorphose qui stupéfia
tous les assistants, et dont le vieux M. Pate ne cessa de parler plus tard.
L’étranger enleva veste sur veste, gilet sur gilet, pantalon sur pantalon,
chemise sur chemise, et finit par se trouver aussi peu habillé qu’un épi de
blé. Lorsque les spectateurs s’aperçurent que ce prétendu ivrogne
appartenait à la troupe du cirque, ils se livrèrent à une bruyante hilarité qui
se prolongea pendant plusieurs minutes. Quant au colonel Grice, son
mouchoir était littéralement trempé des larmes qu’il venait de verser. Au
milieu de ce fou-rire général, M. Bill lui-même oublia sa propre
déconfiture:
—C’est infâme, Moses, cria Miss Cash, de faire jouer un tel tour à Bill
Williams sous les yeux de sa femme. Vous mériteriez qu’il vous rendît la
pareille.
Personne ne perdra le souvenir de la charmante jeune fille (annoncée sur
l’affiche du cirque sous le nom de Mˡˡᵉ Louise, la plus célèbre écuyère du
monde), qui se présenta devant le public avec une jupe délicieuse, des bas
roses, un corsage garni de volants dorés, une ceinture d’un bleu azur, des
joues d’un rose couleur de pêche, de jolis cheveux blonds frisés et qui
envoya à pleines mains des baisers à l’assistance. Les jeunes gens en
perdirent la tête lorsqu’ils virent la charmante écuyère danser sur son cheval
lancé à plein galop, sauter par-dessus son fouet et à travers des cerceaux,
enfin, s’asseoir sur la selle et caresser gracieusement sa jupe de tulle avec
des gestes arrondis et un abandon exquis.
Le jeune Jack Wats, à peine âgé de dix ans (à l’exemple de son frère aîné
Tommy, qui à treize ans se déclarait amoureux de Miss Wilkins, la
maîtresse d’école), s’enfuit le lendemain matin de la maison paternelle, et
accompagna le cirque à plus de trois milles; il alla même jusqu’à supplier le
directeur de l’enrôler dans sa troupe, ne demandant pour tout salaire que le
logement et la nourriture.
Repris, ramené chez ses parents et fortement tancé par sa mère, le
bambin confessa que son seul but avait été de s’emparer de la personne de
Mˡˡᵉ Louise et des immenses trésors que son imagination lui prêtait; après
cela, le jeune ravisseur aurait emporté son butin vers quelque rivage
lointain, que, dans son affolement, il n’avait pas pris le temps de choisir
d’avance.
Avant la pantomime finale, un petit incident se produisit qui ne figurait
pas au programme—sorte d’intermède improvisé par l’esprit exubérant des
spectateurs et des forains. Le colonel Grice, très satisfait du succès de cette
représentation qu’il considérait en quelque sorte comme une fête organisée
par lui, se sentait parfaitement d’humeur à accepter des compliments, voire
même des remerciements de toute l’assistance. Quand le soi-disant pochard
eut sauté à bas de Mazeppa, le clown sortit une bouteille de sa poche, la
porta à ses lèvres en se dissimulant derrière le dos du chef-écuyer. Un autre
clown l’aperçut et lui reprocha de ne pas inviter ses amis à partager cette
bouteille. Tous deux se trouvaient à ce moment-là sur la piste, contre
l’entrée principale.
—Pourquoi n’invitez-vous pas le colonel Grice à boire avec vous?
suggéra M. Bill Williams à voix basse; il en serait enchanté.
Le clown ne se le fit pas dire deux fois; sans la moindre hésitation il
éleva sa bouteille et dit:
—Si le colonel Grice veut bien...
—Silence, murmura le chef-écuyer, taisez-vous.
Mais c’était trop tard: le colonel venait de se lever et descendait pour
rejoindre le clown.
—Vous n’allez pas faire cela, Moses, s’écria Miss Cash! Vraiment ce
pauvre Moses a la tête perdue par ce cirque et par toute cette bande
d’énergumènes!
Après avoir enjambé les têtes et les épaules de plusieurs rangées de
spectateurs, le colonel se trouvait maintenant dans l’arène; il paraissait très
digne, quoique évidemment gêné par cette timidité à laquelle n’échappent
pas même les plus grands hommes de guerre, lorsque, dépouillés de leurs
armes, ils sentent que l’attention d’un grand nombre de civils des deux
sexes est braquée sur leur propre personne.
Le colonel marcha droit sur le clown et tendit la main vers lui pour saisir
la bouteille. Le clown, dans un accès de folle gaieté, retira brusquement la
bouteille, leva une jambe en l’air, puis, s’accroupissant par terre, appuya sur
son nez le pouce de la main qui lui restait libre et fit au colonel un
gigantesque pied-de-nez; il espérait que le colonel ferait durer plus
longtemps la plaisanterie en essayant de rattraper la bouteille.
En cela il se trompait.
Les personnes qui croyaient avoir vu précédemment le colonel Grice se
mettre en colère reconnurent que cette fois il venait d’atteindre le
paroxysme de la fureur, lorsque toute l’assistance, à commencer par Miss
Cash, se tordit littéralement de rire au moment où le clown retira la
bouteille. Fort heureusement, le colonel n’avait à portée de sa main ni épée,
ni pistolet, ni canne de promenade; la seule arme qui lui restait était sa
langue. Se reculant d’un pas ou deux, et lançant sur le clown accroupi des
regards furieux, il s’écria:
 —Infâme pitre au dos moucheté, aux jambes bariolées, à la face
barbouillée, vilain bouffon au chapeau pointu!
A chacune de ces apostrophes violentes, le pauvre clown tendit le cou et
se leva progressivement; lorsque le colonel eut apaisé son répertoire
d’injures, le clown se trouvait debout et d’un air piteux bégaya:
—Mon cher colonel Grice.....
—Fermez votre ignoble bouche rouge, tonna le colonel, je me moque
pas mal de votre whisky! j’en ai du meilleur chez moi; vous, pauvre hère,
vous n’avez jamais bu son pareil. Lorsque vous m’avez demandé de boire
avec vous, pour ne pas vous humilier j’étais prêt à accepter votre invitation.
Voilà plusieurs jours que je vous régale, vous et tous vos piètres
compagnons; je vous ai amené plus de cinquante spectateurs et pour me
récompenser vous...
—Mon cher colonel Grice, recommença le clown...
Le colonel reprit la série de ses épithètes injurieuses; à ce moment, le
chef-écuyer, qui n’avait pu encore placer un seul mot, s’écria sur un ton
calme:
—Ne voyez-vous donc pas, colonel Grice, que tout cela n’est qu’une
plaisanterie suggérée par un de vos voisins? La bouteille ne contenait que
de l’eau; je vous demande bien pardon si cette farce vous a déplu, mais il
me semble que les épithètes dont vous vous êtes servi valent déjà une
expiation.
—Venez, Moses, venez, cria miss Cash, qui venait seulement de
maîtriser son fou rire; nous appellerons cela un prêté-rendu, Moses; vous
avez joué un tour à Bill Williams qui n’a pas protesté; maintenant il vous
rend la monnaie de votre pièce et vous vous indignez. Ah! Ah! qu’en dites-
vous?
A ces mots, tous les assistants partirent d’un violent éclat de rire.
Le colonel hésita un instant; puis, comprenant que sa place n’était pas au
milieu d’une arène de cirque, il fit demi-tour et se dirigea vers la sortie.
—Comment, lui demanda miss Cash, vous partez avant la fin, sans
même vous faire rembourser une partie de votre argent?
Le colonel fit volte-face. Comme il lui coûtait de manquer la pantomime
finale et en particulier la scène de l’arrachage de dents, il s’arrêta et resta
jusqu’à la fin de la représentation.
 Le directeur du cirque crut comprendre que la colère du colonel s’était
un peu calmée; s’approchant de lui avec précaution il lui présenta des
excuses au nom du clown et de toute sa troupe, et le pria de vouloir bien
accepter un verre de Porto à la «Spouter Taverne». Le colonel ne se sentit
pas le courage de refuser; il ne le pouvait d’ailleurs pas et il accepta.
—Voulez-vous vous joindre à nous, Messieurs? dit le directeur en
s’adressant à M. Williams. Nous nous sommes un peu amusés à vos dépens;
mais j’espère que vous n’y verrez aucune malice; d’ailleurs nous n’avons
jamais eu l’intention de vous froisser.
—Je ne bois jamais d’alcool, répondit M. Bill; mais par exception je
veux bien prendre en votre compagnie la valeur d’un petit dé à coudre.
La réunion à la taverne fut des plus cordiales. M. Bill assit Rom et Rem
sur le comptoir et le clown leur donna un gros morceau de sucre.
—Ils ont l’air de braves petits bonshommes bien pacifiques, remarqua le
clown; ils ne doivent jamais se disputer.
—Oh! non, pas trop, répondit M. Bill; quelquefois Rom (c’est celui qui a
les yeux les plus bleus) veut être servi avant Rem: il tire à lui la cuiller en
faisant passer la nourriture sous le nez de Rem. Mais quand je vois cela, je
le fais descendre de sa chaise et je l’oblige à attendre que Rem ait fini. Je
cherche le plus possible à obtenir que mes deux garçons vivent en bonne
intelligence, «comme deux bons frères», ce qui n’est pas toujours le cas en
famille.
M. Bill savait que le colonel Grice et son plus jeune frère Adam ne se
parlaient plus depuis de nombreuses années.
—Vous avez raison, Bill, reprit le colonel, parfaitement raison; élevez-
les bien, et prenez grand soin de vos fils; deux enfants à élever à la fois
représentent plutôt une lourde tâche, n’est-ce pas, Bill? Voire même une
grosse charge!
Et ce disant le colonel cligna de l’œil malicieusement en regardant
autour de lui.
—Merci, colonel, je fais certes de mon mieux pour les élever, je les aime
autant l’un que l’autre; non, voyez-vous, colonel, deux enfants ne sont pas
une si grosse charge; maintenant que j’en ai deux au lieu d’un, comme ils
sont de la même taille je me sens tout déséquilibré lorsque je ne les prends
pas avec moi. Voyez-vous, colonel, mes jumeaux se font «contre-poids dans
mes poches», j’aime beaucoup mieux en avoir deux que pas un seul. Viens,
Rom, viens, Rem, il faut que nous partions.
M. Bill s’approcha du comptoir, les deux bambins rengainèrent leurs
morceaux de sucre, et le trio s’en alla.
A partir de ce jour, la petite ville de Dukesborough se demanda pourquoi
elle ne figurerait pas parmi les villes principales de Géorgie.
SUR LES BÉBÉS
 DISCOURS PRONONCÉ A CHICAGO AU BANQUET DONNÉ PAR
L’ARMÉE DU TENNESSEE A SON PREMIER COMMANDANT LE
GÉNÉRAL S. GRANT (NOVEMBRE 1879).
Nous n’avons pas tous eu la bonne fortune de naître femmes; chacun ne
peut devenir général, poète ou homme d’Etat; mais lorsque nous venons à
parler des bébés, nous nous trouvons sur un terrain commun à tous. N’est-
ce point honteux que, depuis plus de mille ans, nul n’ait prononcé le nom
des bébés aux toasts des banquets qui se donnent dans le monde? On dirait
vraiment que le bébé est une quantité négligeable!
Si vous voulez bien réfléchir un instant, vous reporter cinquante ou
soixante ans en arrière aux premiers jours de votre vie conjugale et vous
souvenir de votre premier bébé, vous reconnaîtrez qu’il représentait un être
de très grande importance. Vous, militaires, vous savez tous que lorsque ce
petit personnage fit son apparition au foyer familial, il vous a fallu vous
résigner à lui voir prendre le commandement sur tous et sur tout.
Vous êtes devenus ses serviteurs, mieux, ses gardes du corps et il ne vous
a plus été permis de le quitter. Chef autoritaire, votre bébé ne s’inquiétait ni
du temps, ni de la distance, ni de la température. Vous dûtes exécuter ses
ordres sans contrôler si cela était possible ou non, et son manuel de tactique
n’admettait qu’une seule allure: le pas gymnastique. Il vous traitait avec
insolence et manque de respect, et personne de vous n’osait protester. Ceux
d’entre vous qui avaient assisté à la terrible canonnade de Donelson et de
Wicksburg, et qui, dans la mêlée, rendirent coups pour coups, se trouvèrent
complètement désarmés lorsque ce petit personnage audacieux osa griffer
leurs favoris, tirer leurs cheveux et égratigner leur nez.
On vous avait toujours vus faire face aux batteries ennemies qui
vomissaient la mort avec le fracas du tonnerre, et marcher devant vous la
tête haute: mais lorsque vous avez entendu son terrible cri de guerre, faisant
demi-tour, vous vous êtes lancés dans une autre direction, trop heureux
d’échapper à ce danger. Lorsqu’il vous demandait son sirop calmant, vous
êtes-vous jamais avisés de grommeler en déclarant que certaines fonctions
n’étaient pas compatibles avec la dignité d’un officier et d’un gentleman?
Non, certes, vous vous leviez et vous lui apportiez son sirop. Lorsqu’il vous
demandait son biberon et qu’il n’était pas chaud, avez-vous jamais
maugréé? Non, vous vous leviez pour le faire chauffer.
 Vous remplissiez si bien vos fonctions de domestique que plusieurs fois
il vous arriva de sucer vous-même ce bout de caoutchouc au goût insipide
pour vous assurer que tout allait bien: vous mélangiez trois parties d’eau
dans une de lait, vous ajoutiez une pincée de sucre pour combattre la
colique et une goutte de pippermint pour arrêter un hoquet trop tenace. Vous
avez appris bien des choses au cours de cet apprentissage!
Certaines personnes naïves croient que, d’après certain vieux dicton, les
bébés sourient dans leur sommeil lorsque les anges chuchotent à leur
oreille. Très jolie, cette allégorie, mais bien puérile, mes chers amis!
Si votre bébé avait envie de faire sa promenade matinale à son heure
habituelle (généralement deux heures du matin), vous vous leviez
immédiatement, persuadé que cette partie de plaisir était projetée par vous
depuis longtemps. Ah! comme vous étiez bien discipliné, lorsque vous
arpentiez la chambre en costume primitif et que, pour faire cesser le
caquetage de votre bébé, vous chantiez en adoucissant votre voix martiale
«do-do l’enfant dormira bientôt».
Quel édifiant spectacle pour une armée du Tennessee! Mais aussi quelle
gêne pour les voisins! Car je me demande qui peut bien aimer la musique
militaire à trois heures du matin!
Après avoir gardé ce petit personnage pendant deux ou trois heures la
nuit, et vous être convaincus qu’il lui fallait à tout prix du bruit et du
mouvement, que faisiez-vous alors? Vous continuiez cette récréante
distraction, buvant votre calice jusqu’à la lie. Qui donc osera soutenir qu’un
bébé est un être sans importance? J’affirme qu’un bébé peut remplir à lui
tout seul une maison et une vaste cour; il peut fournir assez d’occupation
pour vous déborder, vous, et tout votre ministère de l’intérieur. Il se lance
dans toutes les entreprises avec une activité aussi dévorante
qu’irrépressible. Faites de votre mieux, vous ne pourrez jamais le satisfaire.
Passe encore lorsque vous n’avez qu’un seul bébé; mais, le plus souvent,
du fond de votre cœur vous demandez deux jumeaux. Deux jumeaux sont le
synonyme d’un perpétuel vacarme; trois enfants valent à eux seuls une
insurrection.
Vous le voyez, il était grand temps que le directeur des toasts reconnût
l’importance des bébés.
Songez à ce que l’avenir nous réserve! Dans cinquante ans d’ici, je
suppose, nous serons tous morts, et ce drapeau flottera, je l’espère, sur une
république de plus de 200 millions d’âmes (ce chiffre est basé sur
l’accroissement progressif de notre population). Notre Etat, représenté
actuellement par une frêle goëlette, se sera transformé alors en une
immense baleine. Les bébés, au berceau aujourd’hui, seront alors sur le
pont. Il faut bien les entraîner à la manœuvre, car nous allons leur confier
une lourde tâche. Parmi les trois ou quatre millions de berceaux qu’on
balance en ce moment dans l’univers, il en est que notre nation conserverait
à jamais comme des objets sacrés si nous savions ce qu’ils contiennent.
Dans un de ces berceaux, Farragut, insouciant de l’avenir, perce en ce
moment ses dents et se prépare à émerveiller le monde de l’éclat de ses
hauts faits.
Dans un autre berceau, le futur astronome, célèbre aux yeux de tous,
cligne des yeux en contemplant la voie lactée; mais le pauvre petit diable se
demande ce qu’est devenue celle qu’il appelait sa nourrice. Dans un autre
berceau est couché le futur grand historien; il restera sans doute là jusqu’à
ce que sa mission terrestre soit accomplie.
Dans un autre berceau, le futur Président essaye de résoudre le problème
profond de la calvitie précoce qui l’atteint, et, dans une nuée d’autres
berceaux, se trouvent soixante mille futurs chercheurs d’emploi, tout prêts à
lui fournir l’occasion d’affronter une seconde fois ce même grand
problème.
Enfin, dans un autre berceau, situé quelque part sous un drapeau, le futur
et célèbre commandant en chef des armées américaines se sent si écrasé
sous le poids des grandeurs et des responsabilités prochaines qu’il emploie
toute sa stratégie à trouver le moyen de mettre son orteil dans sa bouche (je
crois, sauf votre respect, que votre illustre hôte de ce soir est parvenu, il y a
quelque cinquante-six ans, à accomplir ce haut fait d’armes)!
Si l’on admet que l’enfant se retrouve plus tard dans l’homme, peu de
gens mettront en doute le succès du futur commandant en chef.
 CONSIDÉRATIONS SUR LE TEMPS

Discours prononcé au 71ᵉ dîner annuel de la Société de New-England.

Je me permets de croire que le maître tout puissant, auteur de nos jours,
a créé toutes choses dans l’Etat de New-England à l’exception de la
température.
J’ignore qui a fait le temps, mais je suppose que ce doit être des
apprentis novices d’une fabrique de planches ou de draps de New-England;
ces apprentis sont sans doute chargés de fabriquer la température pour les
pays qui demandent un bon article, et ils cherchent leurs pratiques ailleurs
s’ils ne les trouvent pas dans le New-England.
La température du New-England offre tellement de variété qu’elle excite
l’admiration des étrangers en même temps qu’elle provoque leurs regrets.
Dans le New-England, le temps joue toujours un rôle important; il
préside continuellement aux affaires; il forme sans cesse de nouveaux
projets, et les essaye sur les gens pour voir comment ils s’en tirent. Mais
c’est surtout au printemps que le temps paraît le plus actif. Au printemps
j’ai compté dans l’espace de vingt-quatre heures cent trente-six différentes
espèces de temps. C’est d’ailleurs moi qui ai fait la renommée et la fortune
de l’individu qui, à la dernière exposition du centenaire, exhibait sa
merveilleuse collection de temps si stupéfiante pour les étrangers. Cet
individu se disposait à parcourir le monde pour récolter des spécimens du
temps sous les divers climats. Je lui dis: «Ne faites pas cela; venez plutôt
dans le New-England par une journée de printemps bien choisie.» Je lui
promis qu’il trouverait là la quintessence du genre, tant pour la variété que
pour la quantité. Il vint donc et compléta sa collection en quatre jours.
Quant à la variété, il avoua qu’il avait trouvé plusieurs centaines d’espèces
de temps complètement inconnues de lui jusqu’à ce jour.
Après avoir récolté, trié et séparé toutes les espèces de temps qui lui
paraissaient imparfaites, il lui resta une telle profusion de temps qu’il put en
louer, en vendre, en mettre en réserve, et même en donner une partie aux
pauvres. Les gens de New-England sont généralement patients et endurants
de nature, mais cependant il y a des choses qu’ils ne peuvent supporter.
Chaque année, ils tuent une quantité de poètes en leur faisant chanter les
charmes du merveilleux printemps.
Ces poètes, presque tous visiteurs accidentels, arrivent avec un bagage
de connaissances du printemps qu’ils apportent de loin; il leur est donc
impossible de connaître les sentiments des natifs sur le printemps.
Les vieilles probabilités ont la réputation bien méritée d’être des
prophètes très justes et très clairvoyants. Prenez le journal et observez avec
quelle assurance il indique aujourd’hui quel temps il fera sur le Pacifique,
sur la mer du Sud, dans les Etats du centre et dans la région du Visconsin.
Suivez ses prédictions jusqu’au moment où elles approchent de New-
England; vous verrez subitement la courbe s’arrêter et la prévision rester
muette. Nul ne peut annoncer quel temps il fera dans le New-England.
Le journal, tant bien que mal, rédige une prévision comme celle-ci: vents
probables du nord-est au sud-ouest, variations vers le sud, l’ouest et l’est,
sur certains points fortes dépressions barométriques; averses probables,
neige, grêle, puis sécheresses suivies ou précédées de tremblements de terre
avec tonnerre et éclair. Puis il termine par ce post-scriptum pour en quelque
sorte parer à toute surprise: «Mais il peut se faire que dans l’intervalle cette
prévision soit complètement bouleversée.»
Oui, certes, un des plus brillants fleurons de la température du New-
England est son incertitude étonnante. Une seule chose paraît certaine: la
diversité, la variété et le défilé interminable des variations de cette
température; seulement, vous ne pouvez jamais savoir par quel bout ce
défilé va commencer. Vous opiniez pour la sécheresse, et, laissant votre
parapluie à la maison, vous partez gaiement en excursion; une fois sur deux
vous êtes trempé. Vous redoutez l’approche d’un tremblement de terre et
pour mieux supporter les secousses, vous vous mettez en quête d’un appui
où vous vous cramponnerez; à ce même moment vous êtes frappé par la
foudre. Ce sont là de gros mécomptes malheureusement inévitables.
La foudre dans le New-England produit des effets si particuliers que
lorsqu’elle frappe un être ou un objet elle n’en laisse plus bribe
reconnaissable; je vous défierais de dire si la chose ou la personne frappée
était un objet de valeur ou un congressiste.
 Quant au tonnerre! lorsqu’il commence à racler et à accorder ses
instruments avant le concert général, les étrangers s’écrient: «Oh! quel
effroyable tonnerre vous avez ici!» Mais lorsque le chef d’orchestre a levé
son bâton et que le concert commence vraiment, vous voyez alors tous les
étrangers disparaître, s’enfuir dans les caves et se cacher la tête dans un
baril de cendres.
Il me reste encore à envisager la dimension du temps dans le New-
England (je veux parler de sa dimension en longueur). Elle n’est nullement
proportionnée à la grandeur de ce petit Etat. Pressez-le, empaquetez-le aussi
serré que possible et vous verrez que le temps déborde toujours à New-
England et qu’il se répand à plusieurs centaines de milles à la ronde sur les
Etats environnants.
Le New-England ne peut maintenir la dixième partie de son temps; en
essayant de le contenir cet État se fend et craquelle de toutes parts.
Je pourrais écrire des volumes sur la barbare perversité du temps dans le
New-England, mais je me bornerai à en citer un simple spécimen.
J’aime à entendre tomber la pluie sur un toit de zinc; aussi, pour m’offrir
ce plaisir, ai-je couvert en zinc une partie de mon toit. Vous vous figurez
peut-être, monsieur, qu’il pleut sur ce zinc? Et bien non, la pluie passe par-
dessus toutes les fois.
Notez bien que dans mon discours je me suis tout bonnement proposé de
faire honneur au temps de New-England sans prétendre lui rendre justice;
mais, somme toute, ce temps présente une ou deux particularités (ou si vous
aimez mieux produit certains effets), auxquelles nous autres résidents nous
renoncerions difficilement.
Si nous n’avions pas notre feuillage enchanteur d’automne nous devrions
quand même être reconnaissants au temps de la forme qu’il revêt pour nous
dédommager de tous ses caprices malfaisants (je veux parler de la
tourmente de glace). A ce moment-là, l’arbre dépouillé de ses feuilles est
habillé de glace du sommet au pied, d’une glace aussi brillante et aussi
claire que le cristal; chaque branche est parsemée de perles glacées de
gouttes de rosée cristallisées, et l’arbre tout entier étincelle froid et blanc
comme l’aigrette de diamants du Shah de Perse. Alors le vent agite les
branches, le soleil apparaît et transforme ces myriades de perles et de
gouttes en prismes qui étincellent, brûlent et scintillent comme autant de
feux de couleur; ces prismes passent avec une inconcevable rapidité du bleu
au rouge, du rouge au vert, du vert au jaune d’or; l’arbre devient une
véritable fontaine lumineuse, un feu d’artifice de joyaux éblouissants.
L’art de la nature atteint alors l’apogée suprême d’une magnificence
enivrante, éblouissante et presque intolérable. Les mots que j’emploie ne
sont certes pas trop forts pour rendre ma pensée.