Tony Blair's Irish peace

When he entered Downing Street on 2 May 1997, Tony Blair would not have believed the extent to which two conflicts – one ancient, one modern – would shape his premiership and inform his legacy. Nor that it would be a deal with the octogenarian Reverend Ian Paisley – sealed in his last days in No. 10 – that would enable the Prime Minister to set seemingly stable peace in Northern Ireland against the violent uncertainty to which he would have to leave Iraq.

It might not have been quite what the author of the famous email had in mind months before, advising on the orchestration of Blair's farewell tour, urging him to depart the stage leaving the crowds cheering for more. Cheering crowds would have been too much to expect in Belfast, where the antagonisms and scars of bitter division and brutal conflict would not be quickly excised. Indeed some on both sides had watched in disbelief as their tribal chieftains inched toward accommodation, convinced, hoping, praying … that their leaders might still be engaged in an ever more elaborate version of the all-too-familiar ‘blame game’.

Yet it was truly a remarkable moment at Stormont on 8 May 2007 when Blair, accompanied by Irish Taoiseach Bertie Ahern, watched Paisley and Sinn Fein's Martin McGuinness assume their joint office as First and Deputy First Ministers in Northern Ireland's new power-sharing Executive. And it would certainly be one for Blair to savour in the post-Downing Street years.