• DOI:10.1353/EIR.2007.0009
• Corpus ID: 159767979

Irish Nationalism and Orange Unionism in Canada: A Reappraisal

@article{McLaughlin2006IrishNA,
  title={Irish Nationalism and Orange Unionism in Canada: A Reappraisal},
  author={Rob McLaughlin},
  journal={{\'E}ire-Ireland},
  year={2006},
  volume={41},
  pages={109 - 80}
}

• R. McLaughlin
• Published 4 January 2007
• Political Science, History
• Éire-Ireland

O  ,  April , just four days before the  April deadline of the ongoing Northern Ireland peace process, the independent chairman of the peace talks (and former US senator from Maine) George Mitchell and his colleagues faced yet another dilemma regarding the draft of the proposed agreement. British and Irish government officials had just delivered the first draft of the crucially important but highly controversial Strand Two portion of the negotiations, which dealt with North/South joint governing councils. Mitchell and his colleagues—the former Finnish Prime Minister Harri Holkeri and Canadian General Jean de Chastelain— quickly examined the document and immediately realized that the extensive number of proposed North/South governing bodies would be utterly unacceptable to the Ulster Unionist party, the largest Protestant political party in Northern Ireland.1 Exacerbating this immediate problem was the insistence of the British and Irish governments that this Strand Two draft be included without change in the overall agreement as if it were that of Mitchell and his colleagues, and not the product of British and Irish negotiations. According to George Mitchell, General de Chastelain quickly assessed “the circumstances and suggested we had essentially three