Queen Elizabeth II Says Northern Ireland Reconciliation Cannot Be Taken For Granted

LONDON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 03rd May, 2021) Queen Elizabeth II credited the people of Northern Ireland for the "continued peace" but warned that reconciliation and mutual understanding cannot be taken for granted, in a message issued on Monday to mark the 100th anniversary of the creation of the UK province.

"The political progress in Northern Ireland and the peace process is rightly credited to a generation of leaders who had the vision and courage to put reconciliation before division. But above all, the continued peace is a credit to its people, upon whose shoulders the future rests," the queen said in a statement.

The monarch also said that "the reconciliation, equality and mutual understanding" achieved with the 1998 Good Friday peace agreement "cannot be taken for granted, and will require sustained fortitude and commitment."

"Across generations, the people of Northern Ireland are choosing to build an inclusive, prosperous, and hopeful society, strengthened by the gains of the peace process. May this be our guiding thread in the coming years," she added.

On May 3, 1921, the Government of Ireland Act passed by the UK Parliament a year earlier came into effect and the island was separated into two entities, as 26 predominantly Catholic counties broke free from the UK's rule to become the Republic of Ireland and the remaining six counties opted to remain loyal to the British crown.

The partition led to a climate of sectarian violence in Northern Ireland between Irish republicans who wanted to unite with the south and loyalist to the UK, with confrontations reaching its peak in 1969, when the UK army was deployed.

The bloody conflict ended in 1998 with the signing of the Good Friday peace accord that saw Catholics and Protestants sharing the government in Northern Ireland.

The 100th anniversary is marked, however, by tensions, following last month's violent protests by loyalists unhappy with the so-called Northern Ireland protocol agreed by the UK government and the European Union as part of the Brexit agreement.

Current COVID-19 restrictions have also prevented unionist parties from organizing large-scale celebrations, while republicans have said that there is nothing to celebrate.