The Age Of Miracles

After much prodding from Dublin and London, an agreement has at last been reached between the warring parties in Northern Ireland.

Home Rule has finally come to pass. Take that, Sir Edward Carson. Stand in front of Stormont while you can, with your clenched fist in the air.

Granted, the man is very, very dead, but he may be spinning in his grave at this moment.

He dedicated his political career to preventing Irish Catholic participation in government, taking a side against Home Rule. After the Easter Rising in 1916 and the subsequent Civil War, he sided with partition of the island, keeping a gerrymandered collection of counties under British rule.

Catholics and Protestants sit side by side in Stormont these days, governing those same six counties. They've now reached an agreement that will see justice and policing powers fall into their hands, given up by the government in London.

Sinn Fein will have a hand in running the courts that were used against Irish nationalists. Sinn Fein will be involved in the Police Service of Northern Ireland. Catholics will be telling Protestants what to do.

Yet the Irish aren't fully satisfied with the changes, nor have they given up on their dream of a united Ireland, free of British rule. They may be one step closer to realizing their ambitions. They may be one step closer to putting chains around the statue in front of Stormont and pulling it down.