The IRA ceasefire came too late for far too many

There is no doubt that the IRA's provisional ceasefire of 31 August 1994, followed a few weeks later by a similar declaration by loyalist paramilitaries, was a turning point for a generation that had lived with the tragic consequences of conflict and violence for a quarter of a century.

While the path to lasting peace remained uncertain, not least because of the resumption of IRA violence in 1996 before their guns fell silent again a year later, the realisation that their aims could be pursued by purely democratic means paved the way for the Good Friday Agreement and the ‘normal’ conditions that are now happily taken for granted.

It was the culmination of years of painstaking work involving John Hume, Gerry Adams, Martin McGuinness, Father Alec Reid, prominent figures in the British, Irish and US governments and a host of others who made a positive impact both publicly and behind the scenes. It is right to pause today and acknowledge again all of those efforts.

As has been stated many times in this newspaper, every murder throughout our troubled history, no matter where it came from, was evil and wrong and could only cause grief, pain and bitterness.

There is no excuse for violence of any kind and the ceasefires of the 1990s have fortunately proved to be durable. The sporadic attempts by renegade republicans to reignite the conflict only serve as a reminder of how far things have come since those terrible days.

Unfortunately, the imagination and determination of the peacemakers have not been reflected in the resulting political structures.

Although bombs and munitions have now been phased out, the mentality remains difficult to change. And the form of government based on the St Andrews Agreement in particular has in some ways increased divisions rather than building trust and partnership.

Difficult conversations have too often been avoided, be it about flags and identity or the painful legacy of three decades of conflict.

Indeed, it is notable that the ceasefire anniversary occurs in the same week that the first excavations began for the remains of Captain Robert Nairac, a British soldier who was shot and secretly buried by the IRA in May 1977.

Apart from the cases of the 'disappeared', the IRA, its loyalists and state actors have failed to bring truth, let alone justice, to the hundreds of families who lost loved ones during the conflict in Northern Ireland, many of whom died without receiving the closure they so desperately deserved.

The lack of agreed structures for this – the most recent example being the Conservative government's shameful attempt to shut down judicial investigations and protect former soldiers from prosecution through the Legacy Act – does not relieve either party of this grave responsibility.