Trump and Irish leader celebrate their countries’ close ties, but differences over Brexit are evident

President Trump, perhaps not wanting to spoil the chummy mood of the annual St. Patrick’s Day-themed visit, announced at the start of his meetings with the Irish prime minister Thursday that he was not going to comment on Brexit, on which he and his guest vigorously disagree.
And then, of course, he commented at length.
“I can tell you it’s a very complex thing that’s going on right now,” Trump said of Britain’s drawn-out and drama-filled divorce from the European Union. “It’s tearing a country apart,” said Trump, who has cheered from the sidelines for Brexit and the populist and nationalist British politicians who have championed it.
“We have a different opinion, president,” Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar said mildly. “I regret that Brexit’s happening.”
The annual ritual of the American president hosting the leader of Ireland in celebration of the intertwined history of the two countries dates to 1959, and evokes a political era of patronage and old-school Irish American pols, such as former House speaker Thomas P. “Tip” O’Neill (D-Mass.).
For Irish leaders — even a modern figure such as the young, gay, mixed-race Varadkar — the event reinforces historical bonds that translate to tourism, business partnerships and other boons of shared history and language. More than 30 million Americans, or about 1 in 10, have Irish ancestry.
“It’s an enormous pleasure for Ireland, a small country, to have this annual meeting on account of St. Patrick’s Day, and to have a chance to make even closer and tighter the bonds between the United States and Ireland,” Varadkar told Trump.
But the tensions over Brexit served this year to highlight a divide between the two countries, with Ireland embracing the European Union as Trump questions why European nations continue to marry their economies together instead of going it alone on issues such as trade.
For most U.S. presidents, the kitschy tribute to Ireland is good politics. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) wore a green jacket to greet Varadkar for lunch at the Capitol, and a green-tie-wearing Vice President Pence hosted Varadkar and his partner for breakfast.
Trump was game to keep the ritual going despite his outsider status and disdain for stuffy political convention. He saw Varadkar for three events and told him he plans to soon visit Ireland — a country where he owns a golf course.
“Many of the traditions this president violates pertain to political etiquette and expectations,” said Kathleen Costello-Sullivan, a historian at Le Moyne College. “In contrast, he seems to enjoy the kinds of cultural trappings and traditions that come with the office.”
Thursday’s events carried on despite awkward timing. As the meetings in Washington began, British lawmakers were debating whether to delay Brexit. Parliament voted later in the day to request a delay of the planned March 29 exit.
While Varadkar prepared to have breakfast with Pence and a who’s who of Irish Americans, including the president of Notre Dame, Trump tweeted an open invitation to Britain to free itself of the European Union and its trade rules.
“My Administration looks forward to negotiating a large scale Trade Deal with the United Kingdom. The potential is unlimited!” Trump wrote.
Ireland is at the center of the practical discussion of how Britain would separate itself from the European Union and its open movement of goods and people because the only affected land border runs between Ireland and Northern Ireland. Irish leaders say a new formal border would put profitable commerce at risk and invoke the ghosts of the bloody conflicts in Northern Ireland known as the Irish Troubles.
“I look forward to talking to you later about Brexit, giving you our perspective on it and the real importance of protecting the Good Friday Agreement and the really hard-won peace in Northern Ireland,” Varadkar told Trump, referring to the 1998 British-Irish peace accord.
During that Oval Office meeting and later at a Capitol Hill lunch, Varadkar smiled politely as Trump talked about the “sad” saga of Britain’s exit and criticized both the European Union and British Prime Minister Theresa May, who he said could have gotten better terms by following his advice.
“I will tell you, I’m surprised at how badly it’s all gone from the standpoint of a negotiation,” Trump said, sounding like he wasn’t that surprised at all.
Trump also got in a plug for his Irish golf course and repeated an embroidered story about having predicted the surprise outcome of the 2016 British Brexit referendum.
“I predicted it was going to happen, and I was right. And people laughed when I predicted it, and they won by about two points,” Trump said. “And I was standing out on Turnberry, and we had a press conference, and people were screaming. That was the day before, if you remember,” Trump said describing his visit during the presidential campaign to his golf resort in Scotland.
The visit and the news conference were the day after the June 23 Brexit vote, not the day before.
“I think it could’ve been negotiated in a different manner, frankly. I hate to see it being — everything being ripped apart right now,” Trump said, adding that holding a second referendum “would be very unfair to the people that won.”
British lawmakers voted Thursday not to seek a do-over vote, at least for now.
Nile Gardiner, a former aide to British prime minister Margaret Thatcher and director of the Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom at the Heritage Foundation, said Trump “has been very clear in his view that Brexit is great for America and for Britain.”
Gardiner rejects Irish concerns about the border and said the issue has been used as a “battering ram” by E.U. leadership keen to make Britain a cautionary example to other member states flirting with an exit.
“The Irish government has played a very adversarial role,” Gardiner said. “There is very deep-seated animosity within the Irish government to Brexit.”
Pence glossed over the Brexit disagreement as he welcomed Varadkar for the breakfast, and grew nostalgic as he recounted his grandfather’s emigration from Ireland and his own affection for the country. Pence attempted the Irish leader’s formal title, calling him “Taoiseach Varadkar.” Pence got the pronunciation right — “TEE-shuck” — and said he, too, plans a trip to Ireland shortly. Trump gave it a try, too, and got pretty close, during the final theatrical rite of the Irish visit — the presentation of a crystal bowl of shamrocks.
Brexit won’t spoil the relationship, even given Trump’s history of turning on leaders who cross him, said Marquette University historian Timothy G. McMahon, president of the American Conference for Irish Studies.
“The United States and the Republic of Ireland have such close ties that it’s unlikely that anything permanently damaging would happen,” McMahon said. “Friendly disagreements happen in diplomacy all the time.”
Trump may agree. At the luncheon, he sounded cheerful as he described his discussion with Varadkar.
“We talked about Brexit, something that is turning out to be a little more complex than they thought it would be. But it will all work out. Everything does,” he said. “One way or the other, it’s going to work out.”
anne.gearan@washpost.com


How Brexit will impact Ireland facts and fiction

I am planning to travel to Ireland and want to understand the impact of Brexit on Ireland, including the impact on currency exchange and imports and exports.  I am also interested in Irish perceptions of Brexit and supposed impacts, whether they are real or not.  What is transpiring in Ireland due to Brexit?  I'm not interested in the politics of Britain in the sense of how they got to Brexit. To be relevant, it must directly discuss Ireland.

Research the question's impact on a country, excluding its politics.

Northern Ireland is in crisis because of a dispute over language

When Northern Ireland’s nationalists and unionists made peace in 1998, a key part of the deal was a power-sharing arrangement to run Northern Ireland’s government. That collapsed 13 months ago, and five rounds of talks have not been enough to bring it back to life. The latest talks ended Feb. 14, when Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) leader Arlene Foster announced her party’s withdrawal. Here’s how Northern Ireland got into this mess, and here is what could happen next.
Northern Ireland’s government collapsed over scandal and cultural conflict
A decade of power-sharing between the unionist DUP and nationalist Sinn Fein fell apart last January when Sinn Fein pulled out, primarily because of a scandal involving a botched renewable heating scheme. However, relations between nationalists and unionists had already been deteriorating because of other issues, including same-sex marriage (unionists are opposed), dealing with the past (Sinn Fein was intimately linked to the Irish Republican Army, but the nature and extent of that relationship remains contested), Brexit and a proposed Irish Language Act. The return of the Irish language question led to the latest breakdown.
It may seem strange that the Irish language could provoke a crisis, when Northern Irish politicians could reach agreement on such contentious issues as the decommissioning of paramilitary weapons and devolution of policing. However, as the military conflict died down, conflicts over culture and identity, which were not resolved in the original peace deal, have increased. These cultural hot points include issues such as marches by the unionist Orange Order, flags and emblems.
Although the agreement pledges “parity of esteem” between nationalists and unionists, this was supposed to be just one part of a broader commitment to human rights and equality. However, the peace process has increasingly come to focus on cultural issues where the two sides disagree, so that other minority rights are lost in the shuffle, and questions such as same-sex marriage and welfare reform are being interpreted as markers in the fight between unionism and nationalism.  Cultural issues can be indivisible in a way that standard security and power sharing is not so that there are winners and losers but no space for compromise.
The Irish language has become a proxy for these broader identity disputes.  Language is a deeply symbolic, often zero-sum issue.  The Irish language has been bound up with nationalist identity since the Gaelic cultural revival of the late 19th century and was used by Republican paramilitary prisoners during the Troubles to communicate without prison guards understanding.
Sinn Fein has long made a point of promoting the Irish language, of which 11 percent of people in Northern Ireland have some knowledge. Yet the issue became more rancorous in recent months, with Foster commenting in March 2017 that, “if you feed a crocodile, it will keep coming back and looking for more.” The crocodile became a useful rallying symbol for Sinn Fein, which performed strongly in the subsequent elections.
Although nationalists believe that equality requires an Irish Language Act, which would bring language protections into line with other parts of the United Kingdom and Ireland, unionists see it differently.  Even though other parties support an act, unionists believe that Sinn Fein has been politicizing — even “weaponizing” — language rights as part of a broader agenda to turn Northern Ireland ever-greener on the way to a united Ireland. Even moderate unionist voices depict it as an attempt to remove “Britishness” from Northern Ireland.
External politics don’t help
Outside politics have also helped destabilize Northern Ireland. The shadow of Brexit and the threat of a hard border  have brought the constitutional status of Northern Ireland back into play. The extraordinary circumstances even prompted Ireland’s prime minister, Leo Varadkar, to urge the abstentionist Sinn Fein to take its six seats in the British Parliament to thwart a “hard Brexit” that would see Britain leave the E.U. customs union. Meanwhile the U.K. government only survives because of a Conservative-DUP pact in Westminster. The main unionist and nationalist parties have shifted their sights beyond Northern Ireland’s domestic politics, toward the bigger game of Northern Ireland’s long-term future. Will it remain part of the United Kingdom, as unionists want, or shift toward the Republic of Ireland as Sinn Fein is seeking?
These outside circumstances make the language issue more volatile. Sinn Fein had prepared their voters to accept nothing less than a stand-alone language act, which the DUP would see as capitulation to nationalism. As the recent talks took place in relative secrecy, rumors of mandatory language training in schools and affirmative action in the civil service quickly spread. By the time British Prime Minister Theresa May and Varadkar arrived in Belfast on Feb. 12, signaling their support for a compromise deal including Irish language legislation, the DUP had gotten spooked. One assembly representative told us that his office had received calls in the following two days not only from hard-liners but also from “moderate, middle class” unionists. It is likely that DUP representatives’ offices got similar phone calls and fed the information back to their negotiating team. The deal was more than the DUP was willing to sell to its base.
There is no obvious way out
Most of the options for a deal are unpalatable to one or more of the parties. Direct rule by the U.K. government, which would bypass Northern Ireland’s Stormont government, is the most likely short-term outcome. Yet, the DUP-Conservative pact and the looming specter of a Brexit deal — on which Sinn Fein and the DUP are deeply divided — mean that direct rule would be politically tricky.
Joint authority exercised by the U.K. and Irish governments is another option. Already some are calling for a British-Irish Intergovernmental Conference. Yet, the unionist community would be sure to oppose a stronger role for Dublin.
New elections could be called, in the hope that the power balance would shift in favor of the moderate middle. Yet this would almost certainly be wishful thinking. The voting bases of DUP and Sinn Fein have only been strengthened by this crisis, and another election would likely deliver even more of the same.
So what’s left? More talks. If Northern Ireland’s government is to be restored, it will necessarily involve power sharing — which itself means more negotiation and compromise. Any one of the above options could be used to focus minds and get the DUP and Sinn Fein back to the table. Yet if a new round of talks is to be more successful, it may have to be more inclusive.
The original peace deal rested on talks that included all parties, including very small ones. It is possible that this could create a different negotiation dynamic, where the parties that have been crowded out by the success of the DUP and Sinn Fein could widen the set of issues under negotiation and treat issues such as marriage equality as important in their own right. A large body of political science suggests that broadening the agenda may make it easier to link issues and reach agreement. Including more parties to the talks might paradoxically help this happen.
Allison McCulloch is an associate professor at Brandon University, Canada, and Cera Murtagh is a research fellow at Queen’s University Belfast. They are co-researchers on the project


Northern Ireland has become an unexpected hurdle for Brexit

Returning from a morning jog william.booth@washpost.com

LONDON
— In the days of the Troubles, as the 30-year sectarian conflict in Northern Ireland was known, the borderlands between the North and the Republic of Ireland were called “bandit country” — a frontier of milk smugglers, gun runners and frequent clashes between British soldiers and Irish Republican Army cells.
Today, because the sides made peace and because both the Irish Republic and Northern Ireland are members of the same European Union, the border between them is wide open to the point of invisibility. Manufactured goods, alongside tens of thousands of people, and a lot of sheep and Guinness stout, pass freely on a daily basis, without customs checks or passport control, over new highways, farm roads and country lanes.
But that border is now a major point of contention in the Brexit debate, as Britain and the E.U. sort out how to disengage next year.
European negotiators on Wednesday released draft language for a treaty that would have Northern Ireland essentially remain in the E.U. customs union, which would allow for an open border for trade and travel between Northern Ireland, still a part of the United Kingdom, and the Republic of Ireland in the south, a member of the European bloc.
In Parliament, British Prime Minister Theresa May immediately called the proposal unacceptable, signaling a rocky road ahead.
May said the Brussels draft would “undermine the U.K. common market and threaten the constitutional integrity of the U.K. by creating a customs and regulatory border down the Irish Sea, and no U.K. prime minister could ever agree to it.”
Presenting the proposed treaty, Brussels’s chief negotiator Michel Barnier said that Europe was open to other suggestions but that it must preserve the open border. He signaled that Europe needed to hear clear answers from May and that time was running out.
This vexing issue of the Irish border was hardly mentioned before Britain’s historic June 2016 vote to leave the European Union.
But the balance between Republicans and Unionists, and between north and south on the Irish island, remains fragile and unsettled 20 years after the sectarian violence ended with the Good Friday Agreement.
May is squeezed by the border issue in part because she failed to achieve a majority in the last British elections and so had to enter into a soft coalition with the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) of Northern Ireland, made up of Protestants loyal to Britain and the monarch, who oppose any move that would sever ties with the United Kingdom.
The DUP leader in Parliament, Nigel Dodds, on Wednesday described the latest E.U. proposals as “ludicrous” and said that if enacted, the treaty would be “catastrophic” for Northern Ireland.
“We did not leave the European Union to oversee the breakup of the United Kingdom,” he told the BBC.
The conservative Times of London wrote, “The European Union has demanded that Britain effectively hand over sovereignty of Northern Ireland to Brussels if it cannot find a solution to the Irish border question.”
Meanwhile, the Republic of Ireland’s foreign minister, Simon Coveney, praised the draft language.
May has suggested the Irish border issue can be finessed with a combination of clever compromise and 21st-century technology, but she has not said how.
The question of what to do about the border was dismissed this week as a nonissue by hard-line Brexiteers in May’s cabinet, foremost by Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, who on Tuesday suggested the solution was no more complex than arranging cameras along the frontier to take pictures of license plate numbers passing by, to collect tolls and information.
He compared the Irish border to moving between two boroughs in London, between zones where traffic tolls are taken to reduce congestion and pollution in the city’s center. Johnson’s comments, criticized as glib and ahistorical, angered both sides of the Irish border.
Returning from a morning jog
Earlier this week, Jeremy Corbyn, leader of the Labour Party and the opposition in Parliament, said he supported a softer Brexit that could include a customs union with Europe on trade and tariffs — an arrangement that could preserve an open Irish border but would block Britain from making its own bilateral deals abroad. May dismissed the idea.
The prime minister is scheduled to present the government’s vision for Brexit in a major speech on Friday.
william.booth@washpost.com


After 3 years, Northern Ireland’s legislators have finally gone back to work. What happened?

On Jan. 10, three years after Northern Ireland’s main political parties suspended its power-sharing assembly and government, the parties agreed to return to governing. What prompted this dramatic shift?
The assembly and government were fundamental elements of the 1998 Good Friday/Belfast Agreement that brought peace to Northern Ireland. However, they collapsed in 2017 amid arguments between the province’s two largest parties: the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), whose members are predominantly Protestant and want Northern Ireland to remain part of the United Kingdom; and Sinn Fein, whose members are predominantly Catholic and want Northern Ireland to unite with the Republic of Ireland. What kicked off the dispute was the Democratic Unionist first minister’s involvement in a scandal related to mismanagement of public funds. But uncertainty about the 2016 Brexit referendum complicated matters, as each party sought potential advantage over the other.
So why have they agreed to resume the government after having refused to cooperate for three years? And what comes next for Northern Ireland?
Unhappy voters and the changing politics of Brexit changed politicians’ incentives
Without anyone to make the necessary decisions since 2017, bread and butter issue areas such as health and education have fallen into crisis. In December, for example, almost 20,000 health service workers went on strike over low pay, inadequate staffing levels, dangerous conditions and a declining quality of care. Citizens have put intense pressure on politicians to do the jobs for which they continued to be paid despite the suspension.
Furthermore, the politics of Brexit changed the political parties’ calculations. From 2017 until the U.K. Parliament’s December elections, the DUP enjoyed power as junior partner to the Conservative Party. However, the DUP was less influential than it had hoped; it was unable to prevent the British Parliament from extending same-sex marriage and abortion rights to people in Northern Ireland, despite its strong opposition. Perhaps more important, the DUP also failed to prevent Boris Johnson’s government from approving a Brexit withdrawal deal that will leave Northern Ireland tied to the Republic of Ireland’s economy and that of the European market — while creating trade barriers between Northern Ireland and the rest of the United Kingdom.
The new U.K. government no longer depends on the DUP, as the Conservative Party won an outright majority. It declared that it would call new elections in Northern Ireland if the parties did not find common ground by Jan. 13. In the December U.K. elections, both Sinn Fein and the DUP lost votes to more centrist parties, so they had no appetite to face the voters again without making progress on issues that matter to them.
The British House of Commons also passed Johnson’s withdrawal deal Jan. 9 — suggesting that the U.K. is now very likely to exit the European Union on Jan. 31. Northern Ireland now needs locally accountable politicians to represent its interests throughout the transition, making the significant decisions about implementation that remain.
Now the governing parties will have to deal with ordinary politics
For the past three years, government ministries have been running on autopilot. But now the DUP, Sinn Fein and the three other, smaller parties in the executive will have to deal with the backlog of neglected issues. They face pressure to reform the health care, education and welfare systems; invest in infrastructure and public services; address policing issues leftover from the Troubles; and devise new funding schemes to pay for all of this, possibly by taxing water. These mundane politics of governing are all complicated by the fact that the parties have multiple, competing agendas and little experience of trust or cooperation.
The parties will also have to deal with the politically vexed question of language politics — specifically, the status of Irish (a Gaelic language) and Ulster Scots (a Scots dialect that is related to English) as official languages. Although Lithuanian and Polish are, after English, the most common first languages spoken in primary schools, the Irish and Ulster Scots languages are important symbols of culture and identity for nationalist/Catholic and unionist/Protestant identities respectively. Indeed, the DUP’s refusal to back the Irish Language Act, which would have recognized the Irish language as an official language in Northern Ireland, was almost as central as the public works scandal was to the 2017 collapse of government.
As part of the agreement to go back into government, both parties agreed to support legislation that would create an Office of Identity and Cultural Expression and appoint commissioners to enhance the development of both languages, although in slightly different contexts: the use of Irish by public authorities and the use of Ulster Scots in arts and literature. Given that the two sides have been wrestling over the language issue since 1998, if not before, working through the details and implementing the legislation will be challenging.
Further, the multi-party government will have to decide what Boris Johnson’s Brexit deal will mean for trade within and from Northern Ireland. For now, Northern Ireland will remain in the E.U.’s regulatory framework — while goods coming from Northern Ireland into the rest of Great Britain will have to go through customs checks. That sign of separation from the U.K. troubles the DUP. The Northern Ireland parties will have to agree whether to make that permanent or find some other solution to prevent a hard border between Northern Ireland and Ireland, which would antagonize Sinn Fein and threaten to reignite the Troubles. They will also have to work with the British and Irish governments on the details of hundreds of separate and related matters.
All of this comes amid fundamental changes to Northern Ireland itself. Changing demographics are making Irish unification more plausible in the near term, as nationalists, who wish to have Northern Ireland leave the U.K. and unite with the Republic of Ireland, become more dominant. Nationalists make up a majority of legislators in Northern Ireland for the first time. If the government were to hold a referendum on unification, as the Good Friday Agreement provides for, polls suggest that unification would pass with a slight majority. There is no guarantee that such a referendum will take place, or would pass, but even the possibility could reignite tensions or even lead to violent conflict between the communities.
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Kimberly Cowell-Meyers is assistant professor in the School of Public Affairs at American University.
Carolyn Gallaher is senior associate dean in the School of International Service at American University.


After Brexit, will Northern Ireland return to violence?

Northern Unionists don’t like the deal that Boris struck Some feel threatened by what is happening in Northern Ireland This explains why loyalists are so unhappy The anger articulated at recent loyalist meetings Loyalists might turn to violence Research by political scientists Jessie Blackbourn and Kacper Rekawek Don’t miss anything! Sign up to get TMC’s smart analysis in your inbox, three days a week. Dieter Reinisch is a historian at

Brexit has revived fears that Northern Ireland will return to violence. After three decades of “The Troubles,” deadly warfare in which almost 3,500 people died, violence mostly ended after the 1998 Good Friday Agreement was signed. That peace deal relied in part on European Union membership, which enabled free trade and free movement between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. That satisfied both British unionists, who wanted Northern Ireland to remain part of the U.K., and Irish republicans, who wanted to join the Republic of Ireland.
Many feared that Brexit threatened that truce. When the U.K. decided to leave the European Union, observers feared that introducing a “hard” border between Northern Ireland, still part of the U.K., and the Republic of Ireland, still part of the E.U., might undermine the peace and encourage militant Irish republicans to attack the border.
The compromise that Boris Johnson negotiated involved what’s called “the Irish backstop,” a complex deal that keeps Northern Ireland within the U.K. customs union while it operates under E.U. rules. The goal was to enable goods and people to continue to pass freely between the two parts of Ireland.
But even presuming that the next U.K. parliament enacts Johnson’s Brexit deal, as expected, post-Brexit violence in Northern Ireland still looms. In October, a spokesperson for the so-called New IRA republican paramilitary group told Channel 4 that any border infrastructure would be a “legitimate target for [an] attack.” Shortly afterwards, the political party Saoradh, thought to have links to the New IRA, slammed the deal: “The British border remained as an obstacle to the Irish people having real democracy and national self-determination.”
Radical republicans aren’t the only threat, however. Northern Ireland’s unionists (who want to keep Northern Ireland in the U.K.) and loyalists (politically extreme unionists) have been angered by British concessions to the Republic of Ireland and Europe. Loyalists are hinting that they too might take up arms again. Here’s what’s happening.
Northern Unionists don’t like the deal that Boris struck
Boris Johnson’s Brexit proposal was designed to make it less likely that militant republicans would mobilize around the border. However, the compromise imposed trade barriers between the island of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, angering Northern Irish loyalists. Influential loyalist commentator Jamie Bryson, the editor of the “Unionist Voice,” summed loyalist sentiments up: “Republicans have been rewarded yet again for threatening peace with the constant stream of Brexit concessions.”
In an earlier comment, Bryson, who is believed to have significant insight into loyalist paramilitary organisation, said that loyalists were closely watching the outcome of Brexit. In the past month, loyalists have held several meetings throughout Northern Ireland, complaining of “serious discontent around the proposed Betrayal Act designed to create an economic United Ireland.”
Some feel threatened by what is happening in Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland unionism and loyalism are both politically linked to Protestantism, which used to control Northern Irish politics. Since the peace process in the 1990s, a new Catholic middle class emerged in Northern Ireland. After the Good Friday agreement, Catholics became more prominent in politics, threatening Protestants and unionists’ once-dominant position. This led, as political scientist James McAuley outlines, to a “distrust of unionist leadership, a strong belief that loyalists had throughout the conflict been used, both ideologically and logistically, by established unionist politicians.”
The 2013 Peace Monitoring Report gives some examples of these changing social and economic realities. For instance, in that year, 13 out of the 15 areas with the worst academic and school results were unionist. Someone coming from a poor nationalist background had a roughly one in five chance of going to university, while the chances for a poor unionist were only one in ten. Protestants were badly hit by the economic recession and the disappearance of industries that they used to dominate. In 2013, Protestant youth unemployment stood at 24 percent, while Catholic unemployment was 17 percent.
In the same year, loyalist protests over the perceived removal of British identity emerged in the form of so-called “flag protests,” sparked by Belfast’s city council decision to fly the Union Jack over city hall only on designated days. This led to weeks of sometimes violent street demonstrations.
This explains why loyalists are so unhappy
The combination of external challenge and internal threat explains the resurgence of loyalists’ worries. Union between Great Britain and Northern Ireland is a core element of unionist and loyalist identity. When the loyalist paramilitary Ulster Volunteer Force declared its war to be over in 2007, it stated that “the constitutional question has now been firmly settled” and “the Union remains safe.”
Now, that is not so clear. Some think that Johnson’s deal establishes a border through the Irish sea between the U.K. and Northern Ireland, calling the constitutional status of the union into question. Loyalists furthermore feel threatened by public discussions over Irish unity following Sinn Féin requests for a referendum on a United Ireland within five years, even though the Good Friday Agreement says that only Britain can hold one.
The anger articulated at recent loyalist meetings
Loyalists might turn to violence
Despite these increasing tensions and divisions, neither loyalists nor republicans seem likely to turn to violence in the near future. But longer term, loyalists rather than republicans may be the ones who start the fighting. That may have been what happened in the past. In his seminal treatise on Northern Ireland, scholar Brendan O’Leary insists that the violence that launched the Troubles was started by loyalists who worried that they were losing status and advantage in Northern Ireland.
Research by political scientists Jessie Blackbourn and Kacper Rekawek
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Dieter Reinisch is a historian at


How Brexit could kill Northern Ireland’s peace accords

Twenty years ago, the Good Friday Agreement put an end to Northern Ireland’s Troubles, a 30-year conflict that pit nationalists/republicans (mostly Catholic) fighting for a united Ireland against unionists/loyalists (mostly Protestant) fighting to stay in the United Kingdom. The agreement included numerous signatories: paramilitaries, all but one of the province’s major political parties, and the governments of the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland.
Many parts of the agreement rested on the fact that both the U.K. and the Republic of Ireland belonged to the European Union and, thus, shared a common political and economic framework. The U.K.’s decision to leave the E.U. — called Brexit — could undermine important parts of the agreement.
Agreeing to leave Northern Ireland bi-national and co-sovereign
The agreement’s main contribution was the creation of the Northern Ireland Assembly, a parliamentary body that guarantees a voice for both of Northern Ireland’s main communities.
The agreement also created intergovernmental councils in which government officials work closely with other regional governments in the U.K. and with the Republic of Ireland. These councils allow nationalists and unionists to ensure connections to Ireland and the U.K., respectively. And the agreement allowed residents of Northern Ireland to identify as British, Irish or both, and to claim citizenship in one or both countries.
Although the agreement didn’t set out to foster economic integration, the absence of war and common membership in the E.U. made it possible. Today, people, goods and services move freely across the border between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. The only indication that you’ve crossed the border is a change in the background color of signs — green in Ireland and blue in Northern Ireland.
According to political scientist Brendan O’Leary, the agreement “made Ireland bi-national,” providing “imaginative elements of co-sovereignty.” As such, even though the constitutional question at the heart of the conflict — should Northern Ireland be part of Ireland or the U. K.? — has not been definitively answered, the agreement meant the incompatible identities of unionist and nationalist could be, if not reconciled, at least balanced.
Brexit could upend these delicate compromises
Brexit calls all these relationships into question. The most pressing issue is the border. When Britain leaves the E.U., the E.U.’s legal boundaries will change. How the border changes is ultimately up to British and E.U. negotiators, but the two largest parties inside Northern Ireland — Sinn Fein and the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) — don’t agree on what the border should look like.
The DUP prefers a “hard border.” This would mean that the border between the Republic and Northern Ireland would look more like international borders outside the E.U., with border security, passport controls and customs.
Sinn Fein favors a soft border. To preserve the current freedom of movement between the two countries, Sinn Fein would like to see the formal border defined as existing in the Irish Sea. That way, travelers and goods from the E.U. would pass through customs and border control when entering London but not when moving from Dublin to Belfast.
Nationalists oppose a hard border because it would undermine (in practice) their right to claim Irish citizenship and travel across unimpeded. Unionists oppose a soft border because they believe it would not only separate them from the U.K. but also impose a de facto unification with Ireland.
Rights, goods, and institutions
Brexit may also nullify Britain’s membership in the European Convention on Human Rights. The ECHR is important because it guarantees a common set of rights for Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland’s new legal structures. This is no mean feat. For much of Northern Ireland’s history, Catholics were systematically discriminated against by Unionist leaders. For instance, Catholics complained that Protestants were given better access to publicly subsidized housing. During the Troubles, allegations of discrimination increased. In 1972, for example, the U.K. government created Diplock courts for those accused of terrorist offenses, usually Catholics. Defendants lost their rights to a jury trial; their cases were heard by a single judge with lower standards of evidence.
Having ECHR’s human rights framework was critical to Catholic support of the agreement. Without it, nationalists may withdraw their support for the agreement.
Brexit may also upend the economic integration between Ireland and Northern Ireland. For example, many popular brands of whiskey, butter, cheese and milk cross the border several times before the final product is ready for market. A hard border could make cross-border production more difficult and lead to higher prices.
Unionists’ and nationalists’ differing attitudes toward Brexit are already straining relations. Although a majority of Northern Ireland voted to remain in the E.U., 85 percent of nationalists voted to stay — 40 percent of unionists did. In fact, the DUP was the only party in Northern Ireland to campaign in favor of Brexit. Like Scotland, which also voted against Brexit, Northern Ireland will be dragged out of the E.U. against its will, further antagonizing nationalists, who dispute the legitimacy of Northern Ireland’s inclusion in the U.K.
Perhaps most important, Brexit has the potential to wreck Northern Ireland’s power-sharing institutions. After Prime Minister Theresa May called snap elections last June, the Conservatives lost their majority in the British Parliament and, as a result, formed a “confidence and supply agreement” with the DUP to stay in power. Although the DUP never signed the Good Friday Agreement and holds only a narrow majority in Northern Ireland, it now holds the balance of power in the British Parliament. That makes it impossible for the British government to be a neutral arbiter in disputes between the DUP and other parties in Northern Ireland.
The Northern Ireland Assembly was suspended in January, and the two parties have been unable to form a government since. Without a functional government, Northern Ireland can’t articulate its interests in Brexit negotiations. It also cannot accomplish the basic tasks of governing and, thus, may soon find itself under direct rule from the British government — a potentially perilous situation, given that sharing power in the assembly was critical to winning nationalist support for the agreement.
Brexit will profoundly change the agreement and could weaken the willingness of some parties to support it. The agreement may survive, but its parties will have to reimagine it for a post-Brexit world.
Kimberly Cowell-Meyers
Carolyn Gallaher


Northern Ireland’s politicians don’t agree on much. Except that Boris Johnson’s no-deal Brexit would be a disaster.

BELFAST —
Prime Minister Boris Johnson completed his awkward, somewhat hostile tour of the four nations in the United Kingdom on Wednesday with a visit to Northern Ireland.
He wasn’t booed, as he was by Welsh farmers and Scottish nationalists — because he was far away from demonstrators.
But his greeting was far from sunny. Johnson faces a real challenge keeping a restive four-nation kingdom allied as it hurtles toward a cliff-edge departure from Europe. He may rise or fall over how he handles questions about borders, the union and sovereignty.
As Johnson begins his premiership, vowing to leave the European Union, “do or die,” by the end of October, he is being greeted with blunt talk about what leaving without a withdrawal deal would entail.
He is also learning that his gung-ho Brexit-at-any-cost — which appealed to the elderly, white, male, well-to-do Conservative Party members who picked him as their leader — doesn’t translate as well outside England’s borders.
Johnson met Wednesday with the five fractious parties of Northern Ireland — a place so split that its gridlocked assembly has not convened since January 2017.
The party leaders were largely united on one thing: They warned Johnson that his threat to take Britain out of the E.U. without a deal, without a trade pact or a transition period, was folly, or worse.
“We are in a crisis, and Brexit is adding to the chaos,” said Naomi Long, the leader of the Alliance Party.
Mary Lou McDonald, the Sinn Fein president, said Johnson’s plan for a no-deal Brexit has increased the likelihood that the United Kingdom will splinter — by boosting the case for Irish reunification.
Speaking to the BBC on Wednesday morning, McDonald said: “Traditionally, the argument and the discourse has been between green and orange, between Irishness and Britishness. But Brexit changed that and added a new dimension, a critical dimension, which is: European or not? Inside the European Union or not?”
Northern Ireland is slated to leave the E.U. along with the rest of the United Kingdom. The Republic of Ireland to the south will remain a member of the E.U. One of the most vexing challenges of Brexit is what to do about the border between the two. Under what terms will milk, machine parts, beer, financial services, bacon and people move across?
Johnson has said he will not meet with European leaders until they agree to strike the Irish border “backstop,” or guarantee, from the withdrawal agreement they negotiated with his predecessor, Theresa May.
The backstop seeks to ensure an open border by essentially tying Britain to E.U. rules and regulations in the case the two sides cannot agree to a trade deal that makes such a guarantee unnecessary.
After her meeting with Johnson, Sinn Fein’s McDonald said that if there was a hard Brexit, she would push for a vote for Northern Ireland to leave the United Kingdom.
Nichola Mallon, a leader of the Social Democratic and Labour Party, said she had a “very blunt meeting” with Johnson and observed that he did not have a full grasp of the “complexities” of Northern Ireland.
She said she told Johnson that he “must avoid a hard Brexit at all costs.”
Mallon said she reminded the prime minister that he had responsibilities under the Good Friday Agreement, which ended 30 years of sectarian violence, and that he “must live up to them.”
Mallon said, “We pressed him time and time again and just got stock responses.”
On the other hand, Arlene Foster, the leader of Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party, said she and Johnson had a good talk.
Foster’s DUP has propped up the minority Conservative government in Westminster with a coalition partnership for the past three years. In exchange, the government under May and now Johnson is showering $1.5 billion on Northern Ireland.
Foster said Johnson promised to be “neutral on the administration of Northern Ireland but will never be neutral on the union.” She said an Irish referendum on unification would not receive Johnson’s endorsement.
Johnson did not make any public appearances during his four-hour visit to Belfast.
In a short statement to reporters on his arrival at Stormont House, the site of Britain’s Northern Ireland Office, he vowed to help the parties of Northern Ireland restart their stalled parliament.
The stalemate sits squarely on the shoulders of Irish politicians, but Johnson’s predecessor did little to alleviate it.
“It’s great to be here in Northern Ireland, and clearly the people of Northern Ireland have been without a government, without [the Northern Ireland Assembly], for two years and six months, so my prime focus this morning is to do everything I can to help that get up and running again,” Johnson told reporters, adding that he expected Brexit also to come up in talks.
Downing Street confirmed that he had planned no individual media interviews and would take no reporter questions during his visit, though a Sky correspondent cut in with a question about his dinner with the DUP.
As Johnson traveled north, Ireland’s central bank released new estimates, forecasting that a “disorderly Brexit” would cost the republic 34,000 jobs and reduce annual economic growth from 4.1 percent to 0.7 percent in 2020.
Damien McGenity, a leader of Northern Ireland’s Border Communities Against Brexit, stood outside the stalled parliament in Belfast to warn that a no-deal Brexit would be a job killer.
“This no-deal nonsense that the new prime minister is coming out with is just crazy,” he said.
“I cross the border seven or eight times a day. My wife works in the south. Her family lives on the other side of the border. It’s just us going about our daily life. And no matter what anyone says, there will have to be checks on the border if there is no deal. This is E.U. rules.”
He said, “It's going to have a massive effect on our lives.”
william.booth@washpost.com


The real Brexit breakdown

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It’s been more than two years since British voters demanded that the country leave the European Union
Ahead of a major summit in Brussels on Wednesday between British Prime Minister Theresa May and the leaders of the other 27 E.U. nations, talks between British and European negotiators appear to have broken down yet again. With about six months until Britain leaves the bloc, the negotiations are theoretically in the home stretch. But how they will end is as unclear as ever.
“This isn’t an ordinary endgame,” wrote Bloomberg’s Therese Raphael this week. “All the major pieces are still on the board and pretty much the full range of potential outcomes — from no deal to no Brexit, and everything in between — remain live possibilities.”
May still needs to come up with a plan that satisfies the rest of Europe and her party at home, which is increasingly torn between those who support May and those who think she is driving too soft a bargain — and are potentially angling to replace her.
The expectation had been that May would present an outline of a deal on Wednesday, but that, too, has fallen through. European Council President Donald Tusk said on Tuesday that there are “no grounds for optimism” that progress will be made at the summit.
The biggest issue, the fate of the Irish border, “looks like a new version of the Gordian knot,” Tusk said, according to the Guardian. “Unfortunately, I cannot see a new version of Alexander the Great.”
When Britain leaves Europe, its only land border with an E.U. member state will be the currently open one between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland, which is part of the United Kingdom. Given the still-recent history of violence there — not to mention the considerable cross-border trade — there is little desire to reinstate a hard border with physical checks and customs controls. But no one has yet figured out how to avoid doing so.
May has played with the idea of keeping Britain in the E.U. customs regime on a temporary basis, allowing both sides more time to reach a permanent agreement on the border issue. E.U. leaders, meanwhile, have suggested that only Northern Ireland stay in the customs union for the time being, while the rest of Britain leaves.
But May’s government depends on the support of the Democratic Unionist Party, a Northern Irish party that balks at the idea of trade barriers that would separate the region from the rest of Britain. Members have suggested they could withdraw their support if such barriers were erected, hobbling May’s already weak rule. The Irish government, meanwhile, has reiterated that a decision on the issue cannot be delayed or deferred.
The Irish border is far from the only unresolved issue in Brexit negotiations. But it’s a revealing one, demonstrating how hard it is to find compromises on major issues involving parties with dramatically different interests
The Post’s William Booth and Karla Adams have explained how bad a “no deal” Brexit could be: grounded airplanes, massive traffic jams at ports, empty grocery shelves and even shortages of medicine. This may be a worst-case scenario, but there’s no reason to not take it seriously. Indeed, some Brits have already started stocking up on key supplies, much like the “doomsday preppers” we see in the United States.
One study recently released by Britain’s Institute for Government suggested there were five scenarios for how things could unfold over the next few months. Only one would result in an “orderly exit” for Britain from the E.U. — all the rest were “no deals.”
Who is to blame for that? To be honest, there is enough to go around. But it seems likely that May, who barely survived a disastrous election in June, will get most of it. If she falls, former allies like Boris Johnson, who is far more of a Brexit hard-liner, are sure to pounce.
The truth is that no other leader may have done better in the same circumstances. In a lengthy profile of May for the New Yorker, Sam Knight suggested that the British prime minister faces an impossible situation, with populist demands on one side, practical realities on the other and no way to truly reconcile both. “May’s best hope has been to contain the damage on all sides,” Knight wrote.
In the meantime, there is a country to run — at least in theory. The British government remains almost exclusively focused on leaving the E.U. “The country — as an administrative entity — has virtually stopped working,” Businessweek put it recently. “Brexit, Brexit, Brexit,” Guy Verhofstadt, the European Parliament’s Brexit coordinator told the New Yorker. “Can you imagine a country that, for years, the clock stops?”
It’s not clear when the clock will start again. Even if Brexit can be pulled off, more complications lie ahead. May has spoken with President Trump of their hope for a “big and ambitious” U.S.-U.K. trade deal, but a senior British official told Bloomberg that the idea is a pipe dream; Trump, leading a far bigger economy, will accept only a tough deal on his own terms.
John Major, perhaps the only living former British prime minister who enjoys some semblance of a good reputation, summed up the problem with a speech in London this week. After Brexit, Britain will be a “middle-sized, middle-ranking nation that is no longer supercharged by its alliances,” he told the audience. “Suddenly, the world will be a little chillier.”
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What might Britain’s E.U. withdrawal mean for the Irish border? A photo essay.

In September, I took a road trip with photojournalist Louie Palu along the border between Northern Ireland, which is part of the United Kingdom, and the Republic of Ireland, which is not. It meanders some 310 miles through idyllic countryside and picturesque towns. As we drove southeast from one end, in the city of Londonderry (also called Derry), to the other, in Newry, it was hard to comprehend the sectarian conflict that this partition once incited.
Border checkpoints first appeared shortly after the establishment of the Irish Free State in 1922, cutting through towns and choking some local economies. This “hard” border remained through the three decades of conflict between Protestant unionists and Catholic nationalists that began in the late ’60s known as the Troubles. British military checkpoints were also established along it in an attempt to contain the violence. More than 3,600 people died during the Troubles, and thousands more were injured.
An old customs post in Northern Ireland faces a farm in County Armagh heading toward the Republic of Ireland.
The Good Friday Agreement in 1998 ended the conflict and led to the removal of this infrastructure, creating the “soft” border that is traveled so freely today. Approximately 270 public roads crisscross it, and on some, you can’t always tell exactly where.
The subtleties can be as simple as a contrast in the pavement, as seen in the first photo on the road from Londonderry to the village of Muff in the Republic of Ireland. In Belleek, there is a gas station situated in such a way that when you walk through the front door, you’re in the Republic of Ireland, but when you exit out the back, you’re in Northern Ireland.
All this makes it difficult to imagine restoring checkpoints and customs controls, which the United Kingdom’s exit from the European Union could require. What to do about that winding line between the two Irelands has become a sticking point in Brexit negotiations.
There could be other consequences, too. This past year, attacks on police, the killing of a young journalist and a bombing in a border village were attributed to Brexit stoking relatively dormant sectarian tensions. It is unclear if political leaders will figure out a solution by the time the United Kingdom leaves the European Union. What is clear, though, is that they run the risk of endangering a hard-won peace that the creation of the European Union helped secure.
A dog and horse on the Northern Ireland side of the River Fane. The trees in the background on the other side of the river are in the Republic of Ireland.
Standing in Northern Ireland just outside the Republic of Ireland, on a road heading into the town of Clones. If you drive on this road for seven miles, you will reach Clones in just over 10 minutes — and cross the border four times.
A former official flag of Northern Ireland — known as the Ulster banner — flies in the Protestant enclave of the Fountain, which is surrounded by mostly Catholic communities in the border city of Londonderry (also called Derry) in Northern Ireland.
A sign in Londonderry opposing internment by remand, a practice used during the Troubles, in which the British held Irish republicans for years without charging them.
A small shop in Clones, which is in the border region and has been designated for economic development by the Irish government. The majority of roads into Clones lead to Northern Ireland.
Beer kegs behind a pub in Clones, a small town in western County Monaghan, in the Republic of Ireland.
The rear door of a gas station in Belleek, Northern Ireland, that is split by the border. You enter the front door in the Republic of Ireland and exit the rear door in Northern Ireland.
Coal, gas canisters and produce are sold out of a trailer along the side of a road west of Londonderry, adjacent to the border with the Republic of Ireland.
A railway bridge on the River Belcoo that was blown up by the British Army in the 1970s, as seen from the Republic of Ireland.
A long ditch just over 300 yards crosses a field with farm animals, cutting through a snaking section of the border five times. This ditch extends from a rural road and a highway that runs between Dublin and Belfast.
Low tide on the Northern Ireland side of the River Newry, which functions as a border with the Republic of Ireland. It is adjacent to Narrow Water Castle, where the Irish Republican Army launched one of the most catastrophic attacks, known as the Warrenpoint ambush, on the British Army in the late 1970s during the Troubles.
A border fence disappears into Lough Vearty, a lake in an agricultural area southeast of Donegal.


British ‘opt-out’ from EU could complicate law enforcement in Irish ‘bandit country’

COUNTY LOUTH, Ireland — The narrow, winding road along the border between counties Armagh and Louth looks like any other in rural Ireland. But there are video cameras on the trees leading to the farm of Thomas “Slab” Murphy, raided by hundreds of police in helicopters two months ago during a crackdown on suspected cross-border fuel laundering.
The area is dotted with monuments to the “disappeared” – killed nearby by the IRA during the “Troubles” in Northern Ireland – another visible sign of how this area requires some of the closest cross-border police co-operation in the EU.
“There have been numerous police raids on [Mr Murphy’s] farm,” says a security source, who spoke on condition of anonymity. “The most recent was about two months ago when 300 police and army from both sides of the border swooped at dawn.”
Tackling criminality in this border area, nicknamed “bandit country” during the Troubles, is at the heart of Irish concerns over British moves to renegotiate its relationship with the EU.
There are fears in Dublin and Belfast that London’s proposal to “opt out” of 130 EU measures dealing with police and judicial co-operation and hold a referendum on EU membership could put lives at risk.
“There are a large number of areas of police and judicial co-operation which could be negatively impacted by such a move,” Alan Shatter, Ireland’s justice minister told the Irish parliament last week.
In his speech, he mentioned the European arrest warrant as critical to fighting terrorism, warning there would be no legal basis for extradition between Britain and Ireland without it. Mutual legal assistance would also be adversely affected, he said.
“It is clear that only the terrorists and criminals will profit from the legal gap,” he said.
Police suspect that Murphy’s farm, which straddles the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic, is involved a fuel smuggling operation costing Dublin and London millions of euro in lost tax. No charges have been made following the raid.
Murphy, 63, has previously faced allegations of being a former IRA leader. He has strenuously denied the allegations.
The threat from dissident Republican terrorists, who operate on both sides of the border, also requires police and customs to use a range of EU justice measures as the legal basis for swapping intelligence information and surrendering suspects.
Security analysts say this co-operation could be jeopardized if British home secretary Theresa May follows through with proposals made public last October to exercise a mass “opt out” and subsequently seek to negotiate with EU partners to opt back into some of these measures.
Britain negotiated the right to withdraw from EU justice and police co-operation measures under the Lisbon treaty, which gives the European Court of Justice the right to make rulings on these matters from December 2014. A final decision by the Conservative and Liberal Democrat coalition on the issue is expected shortly, in order to provide time for London to negotiate with its EU partners.
David Forde, Northern Ireland’s justice minister, wrote this month to the House of Lords warning that Northern Ireland was “particularly vulnerable” to the proposed opt out, given that it was the only part of Britain that shared a land border with another country. His letter, seen by the FT, noted particular concern regarding any British opt out from the European arrest warrant.
Between 2004 and the start of 2013, some 192 suspected criminals or terrorists were surrendered to the British authorities by Ireland under the European arrest warrant, according to Irish figures. Last year, Britain issued 51 warrants to the Irish authorities, of which 14 related to murder, attempted murder, or manslaughter charges. The latest arrest in a terror investigation was made on Friday.
“Police on both sides of the Irish Sea – as well as either side of the border – fear a return to the days when Ireland’s supreme court would refuse extradition of terrorist suspects,” says Hugo Brady, senior research fellow at the Centre for European Reform think tank.
Before the introduction of the European Arrest Warrant, Ireland and Britain relied on the 1957 Council of Europe Convention on Extradition to surrender suspects to its neighbor. But legal experts say this measure is no longer covered by Irish legislation and, in any case, is inadequate for dealing with terrorism.
Lucinda Creighton, Ireland’s Europe minister, said the border situation and the peace process could be complicated by British opt-outs or full withdrawal from the bloc.
“Most worrying is the impact this could have on the delicate peace on the island. We have been able to build the peace process in the context of the EU, which has helped us establish the Good Friday institutions,” she told the FT.
“If we suddenly have a new frontier with UK – and it becomes a new frontier with the EU – this could create issues in terms of border controls.”
— Financial Times


How Brexit could unravel one of Bill Clinton’s most historic achievements

British Prime Minister Theresa May and Democratic Unionist Party leader Arlene Foster. May’s partnership with the DUP could upset the peace in Northern Ireland that Bill Clinton helped broker. (Daniel Leal-Olivas/Agence France-Presse via Getty Images)
Experts have warned about the dangers of the isolationist impulses coursing through global politics. But the consequences are only beginning to emerge. Thanks to President Trump’s disinterest in the world beyond the United States, and a shortsighted power play by British Prime Minister Theresa May, we may soon see a vivid illustration of isolationism’s consequences in Northern Ireland — one that unravels one of Bill Clinton’s most historic achievements.
In February 1994, President Bill Clinton ignored the adamant wishes of America’s closest ally, the United Kingdom, and issued Gerry Adams, leader of the Irish Republican Army’s political party Sinn Fein, a U.S. visa. Clinton gave Adams legitimacy, and increased his ability to bring the “hard gunmen” of the IRA to the peace table.
About 21 months later, in November 1995, Clinton visited Northern Ireland. He toured the country and met with Protestants and Roman Catholics, who were struggling to emerge from decades of violence. It was the first such visit by a sitting U.S. president, indicative of the political capital Clinton was willing to spend on the country’s fledgling peace process.
Noting his own “Ulster Scot” heritage, Clinton mused that throughout U.S. history, Irish Catholics and Protestants “have built our nation.” In return, Clinton pledged that as long as both communities worked to build a lasting peace, “the United States of America will proudly stand with you.”
Clinton followed this promise by dispatching Sen. George Mitchell (D-Maine) to negotiate the Good Friday Agreement in April 1998 — a document that still guides the political institutions in Northern Ireland and has led to a lasting, if tenuous, peace.
Clinton’s historic accomplishment demonstrates the benefits of global engagement. But today it is in serious jeopardy, because the domestic politics driving Trump and May dictate a reckless course with serious ramifications in Northern Ireland.
After her party’s disastrous showing in June’s snap election, May promised a government of “certainty.” She insisted “that only the Conservative and Unionist Party has the legitimacy and ability to provide that certainty by commanding a majority in the House of Commons.”
The what party?
May’s baffling reference to the “Conservative and Unionist Party” was, in part, a savvy attempt to normalize the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), the small Northern Irish party allowing her to keep her job. But it also demonstrates her willingness to abandon Britain’s role as one of the honest brokers in Northern Ireland’s peace process to keep her job.
The party’s official title, the Conservative and Unionist Party, harks back to the “Home Rule Crisis” before World War I. Ireland was still part of the United Kingdom, but the results of the 1910 election had left the Liberal Party with a hung Parliament and in need of a coalition partner — just like Britain today.
In that case, Liberals latched onto the Irish Parliamentary Party. To coax their 77 members of Parliament to the bargaining table, Prime Minister Herbert Asquith promised Irish Home Rule — a watered-down version of independent governance.
Ulster Protestants, the unionists in northern Ireland who wished to remain part of the United Kingdom and opposed home rule, panicked. They anointed Edward Carson, a dour Dublin-born lawyer who had risen to prominence as a quick-witted, emotional speaker, as their party leader. Carson campaigned against home rule, culminating with Ulster Day, an elaborate ceremony in which 500,000 Ulster men and women signed the “Solemn League and Covenant” pledging to resist home rule “using all means which may be found necessary to defeat the present conspiracy.”
Ulster Protestants’ paranoia offered English Conservatives an electoral opportunity. If the Liberals had the Irish Parliamentary Party as a partner, shouldn’t the Conservatives have their own Irish plaything?
Andrew Bonar Law, the Conservative Party leader, thought so. In June 1912, he discovered that rhetoric — such as there is “no length of resistance to which Ulster will go in which I shall not be ready to support them” — could exhilarate crowds. This pledge helped transform the Conservative Party into the Conservative & Unionist Party of Great Britain.
Carson and Bonar Law campaigned together, promising to resist home rule by any means necessary. Ulster Unionists implemented this pledge, ignoring the constitution with impunity, culminating with the 1914 smuggling of 25,000 rifles into Ulster from Germany — a deliberately provocative act considering Germany was Britain’s largest rival, and only months from being its enemy.
Although the outbreak of World War I averted an all-out civil war, it did not prevent sectarian violence from descending on Ulster during the Irish struggle for independence from Britain or the partition of the island into North and South.
Northern Ireland emerged from the insanity of political violence that terrorized the country between 1969 and 1998. In 1998, Unionists and Nationalists acknowledged the other’s right to hold political views anathema to their own, thanks to honest brokers such as Britain and the United States.
Subsequently, Britain operated as an outside referee, decidedly neutral, to ensure that both sides abided by their agreements and protected the rights of all citizens.
That neutrality, however, is now in serious jeopardy. A power-sharing government in Northern Ireland broke down last year. The fight was ostensibly over a funding scheme controversy, but the identity politics of Brexit, brimming with conflict over immigration, trade and national meaning, loomed large.
And that brings us back to May and the DUP. Brexit divides Northern Ireland. The DUP championed “leave” while Sinn Fein, along with 56 percent of Northern Irish voters, voted “remain.” The day after the referendum, Sinn Fein opportunistically began raising the specter of Irish reunification.
Both sides blew past a June 29 deadline to reach an agreement, and neither side appears willing to compromise its demands. Absent that, Northern Ireland would confront the prospect of direct rule from Westminster by a DUP-backed Tory government. It’s no wonder many are skeptical of the British government’s ability to remain an honest broker.
What does the future hold for Northern Ireland, the border between North and South, or May’s Conservative government?  No one knows.
Considering President Trump’s vocal support for Brexit, his decidedly isolationist approach to foreign policy and his deep unpopularity abroad, it seems highly unlikely the United States has the power or will to ensure Northern Ireland’s continued stability. But, one thing is certain: May’s reference to the “Conservative and Unionist Party” is an echo of the disastrous Conservative policy that enabled political violence in Ulster, and a constitutional crisis nearly a century ago.
Sadly, the legacy of that constitutional crisis and the narrow, nationalistic politics that drove it continue to haunt the political realities of the present. Northern Ireland provides a cautionary note against embracing nationalism at the expense of globalism — it threatens to upend peace.


A British vote to leave the E.U. could shatter the United Kingdom

warned that such division could hinder the economy, prompt renewed border controls and revive dangerous levels of sectarianism. Surveys suggest that Protestant voters would block any such move and keep Northern Ireland inside the United Kingdom. The polls in Scotland are far less clear, but the determination of nationalists to hold another referendum is not. “The nationalists will use any justification to call another vote,” said Ross Thomson, a Conservative member of the Scottish Parliament who is among the few elected officials in Scotland campaigning for Brexit. “It doesn’t have to be the E.U. They’ll just do it when the polls look good.” “It’s very soft support,” said Robert Malyn, a pro-Brexit campaigner who was handing out fliers one recent afternoon at the central train station in Glasgow, Scotland’s largest city. “The E.U. is not loved enough to be a red line.” The lack of enthusiasm is reflected in the difference between this campaign and the one in 2014. During the run-up to the independence vote, all of Scotland — from the Gothic back alleys of Edinburgh to the remote valleys of the Highlands — seemed bathed in the dueling paraphernalia of the “no” and “yes” camps. Signs hung from storefronts, buttons peeked out from jacket lapels, and fierce debates erupted nightly in pubs and across dinner tables. This time, there is virtually no visible evidence that in less than a month, Scotland — and the United Kingdom — will be making such a consequential choice. “The E.U. is such a big institution, and it seems far away from everybody. It’s a hard thing to get your head around,” said Jonny Ross-Tatam, president of the students association at the University of Edinburgh. Still, Ross-Tatam has been making the case among his fellow students for why it matters to stay in the E.U. If Britain leaves, he said, research funding would be jeopardized and students could lose their ability to live, work and study across the continent. “We can go to Sweden, Germany or France and not pay anything in tuition,” he said. “This vote is one of the biggest decisions that our generation is going to have to make.” Indeed, Salmond said that a second independence referendum will be held sooner or later, regardless of which way Britain votes this month. “Independence is inevitable,” he said. “We’re just debating time scale now.” Karla Adam in London contributed to this report.

 A Brexit campaigner handing out leaflets in Glasgow. Photo by Griff Witte/The Washington Post (GW/Griff Witte/TWP)
EDINBURGH, Scotland —
But less than two years after Scots opted to remain in the United Kingdom, the specter of secession again looms over the lush green expanse of the British isles. The trigger this time is another referendum with existential impact: this month’s vote on whether to leave the European Union.
If Britain chooses to ditch the E.U. despite a vote to stay from the Euro-friendly Scots, nationalist leaders here say they will revive the push for an independent nation in order to keep Scotland inside Europe. And they think that the second time around, they would win.
“Pulling Scotland out of the European Union against our will would be a change in material circumstances,” said Alex Salmond, who led the campaign for independence in 2014 and now represents Scotland in the British Parliament.
In Peterborough, 45-minutes north of London, anti-E.U. sentiment runs strong. A large part of the discontent is the mass influx of Eastern European immigrants that residents say has transformed the ancient market town.
In that scenario, he said, there will be “a referendum on Scottish independence within the next two years. And this time, the result would be ‘yes.’ ”
The potential for a British breakup as fallout from the June 23 referendum underscores just how much is at stake when the country decides whether to become the first nation to withdraw from the 28-member E.U.
A shock to the global economy, a rupture in the Western alliance and a change in occupancy at 10 Downing Street are all possible consequences of a British vote to leave — popularly known as “Brexit.”
The very existence of Great Britain could also be on the line.
British Prime Minister David Cameron reluctantly offered the public a direct say over the country’s E.U. membership for much the same reason he acceded to the Scottish call for an independence vote in 2014: He thought it was the only way to settle the fundamental questions at the heart of British identity. Is the United Kingdom part of Europe or not? Is it one nation or more?
But the potential for a British exit from the E.U. to reawaken the push for Scottish independence reflects just how much Cameron’s strategy may have backfired. Instead of laying the issues to rest, critics say, he may have unleashed the age of the “neverendum” — a prolonged period of turbulence that does not stop until the public votes to take Britain out of Europe and split Scotland from the United Kingdom.
“In order to put these questions to bed for a generation, you need a vote of 60-40,” said Menzies Campbell, a veteran Scottish member of Parliament who supports keeping Scotland in Britain and Britain in the E.U. “If the losing side gets 45 [percent], they’re not going to give up.”
That was what pro-independence Scots won in the 2014 vote. Since then, their side has delivered a pair of electoral thumpings: The Scottish National Party won by huge margins in both the 2015 British parliamentary elections and in the Scottish parliamentary contests last month, suggesting that the appetite for independence has hardly ebbed. Opinion polls show that Scotland would be about evenly divided if the independence vote were re-run today.
If Britain chooses to leave the E.U. — despite Scottish objections — that could tilt the balance in the nationalists’ favor, reinforcing divisions between north and south.
The visceral anti-E.U. sentiment that runs through English politics can hardly be found north of Hadrian’s Wall, the ancient stone fortification that bisected Britain during Roman times. Polls show a decisive advantage for the “in” campaign in Scotland, while England flirts with “out.”
The reasons for the difference are both historical and contemporary. Scotland has long had a close affiliation with continental Europe, going so far as to side with the French in wars against the English. As citizens of a small nation, Scots see membership in a broader European community as a comfort; the English are more likely to see rival power centers on the continent as a threat.
“There’s an emotional connection between Scotland and Europe,” Campbell said. “We’ve never had the residual antagonism toward Europe that has been maintained in England.”
But perhaps the most important reason for the split in opinion is immigration.
In crowded England — which makes up nearly 85 percent of the U.K. population but only about half the land — many people regard arrivals from elsewhere in Europe under the E.U.’s free-movement rules as an unwelcome burden. In sparsely populated Scotland — the entire population of 5 million is roughly equal to the inner boroughs of London — there is plenty of room for newcomers.
“Scotland is not full up,” Salmond said. “We’re much more like America of 100 years ago than the England of today.”
Scotland is not the only place in the United Kingdom where this month’s referendum threatens to bring politically destabilizing consequences. Welsh leaders, who tend to be pro-E.U., have said a British vote to abandon the union could spark a constitutional crisis. In Northern Ireland, where a tenuous peace has held for nearly two decades, a vote to leave would add a new line of partition to the Emerald Isle, with the Republic of Ireland inside the E.U. and the counties of Northern Ireland outside it.
Analysts have warned that such division could hinder the economy, prompt renewed border controls and revive dangerous levels of sectarianism.
In an echo of the nationalist push in Scotland, Catholic leaders in the generally pro-European north say that if Britain opts to leave the E.U., there should be a referendum on the reunification of Ireland.
Surveys suggest that Protestant voters would block any such move and keep Northern Ireland inside the United Kingdom. The polls in Scotland are far less clear, but the determination of nationalists to hold another referendum is not.
“The nationalists will use any justification to call another vote,” said Ross Thomson, a Conservative member of the Scottish Parliament who is among the few elected officials in Scotland campaigning for Brexit. “It doesn’t have to be the E.U. They’ll just do it when the polls look good.”
Other Brexit advocates who favor keeping Scotland inside the U.K. say they do not think the E.U. matters enough to Scottish voters to make a difference in an independence vote.
“It’s very soft support,” said Robert Malyn, a pro-Brexit campaigner who was handing out fliers one recent afternoon at the central train station in Glasgow, Scotland’s largest city. “The E.U. is not loved enough to be a red line.”
The lack of enthusiasm is reflected in the difference between this campaign and the one in 2014. During the run-up to the independence vote, all of Scotland — from the Gothic back alleys of Edinburgh to the remote valleys of the Highlands — seemed bathed in the dueling paraphernalia of the “no” and “yes” camps. Signs hung from storefronts, buttons peeked out from jacket lapels, and fierce debates erupted nightly in pubs and across dinner tables.
This time, there is virtually no visible evidence that in less than a month, Scotland — and the United Kingdom — will be making such a consequential choice.
“The E.U. is such a big institution, and it seems far away from everybody. It’s a hard thing to get your head around,” said Jonny Ross-Tatam, president of the students association at the University of Edinburgh.
Still, Ross-Tatam has been making the case among his fellow students for why it matters to stay in the E.U. If Britain leaves, he said, research funding would be jeopardized and students could lose their ability to live, work and study across the continent.
“We can go to Sweden, Germany or France and not pay anything in tuition,” he said. “This vote is one of the biggest decisions that our generation is going to have to make.”
That is what campaigners on both sides told Scots in the lead-up to the 2014 referendum. But these days, such monumental decisions are coming often — and there could be another one looming.
Indeed, Salmond said that a second independence referendum will be held sooner or later, regardless of which way Britain votes this month.
“Independence is inevitable,” he said. “We’re just debating time scale now.”
Karla Adam in London contributed to this report.


The Brexit wild card? Ireland.

A flag for the Republic of Ireland has to mark the mostly invisible border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. (William Booth/The Washington Post)
CULLAVILLE, Northern Ireland —
A generation ago? So fearful were British troops of IRA snipers that they deployed their soldiers in helicopters instead of risking the roads in County Armagh.
Today, this is a fine place to be a cow.
Now there is peace — and plenty of golf being played — along the 300 miles of the sinuous border that separates Northern Ireland from Ireland.
Yet change may be coming to the frontier, following the vote in June by Britain to leave the European Union.
There are no signs, no custom posts or immigration control along the 300-mile invisible border between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. (William Booth/The Washington Post)
What will happen to the Irish isle, north and south, is one of the biggest wild cards of the Brexit vote.
Northern Ireland is a part of Britain, and so it must now bid goodbye to the European bloc, no matter that a clear majority in Northern Ireland wanted to stay in the union — 56 percent voted to remain, while 44 percent voted leave.
Their neighbors to the south in Ireland will remain part of the E.U.
What will happen to trade and travel is unknown — and there are even bigger questions being asked about unification of the island.
Will a Romanian — or a Libyan — traveling from Dublin soon have to show a passport on the way to Belfast? Will a truckload of E.U. or British goods be inspected crossing the border, and how? Will a bottle of milk cost the same on both sides — and who will enforce the regulations for its proper pasteurization, and what will happen to the millions in farm subsidies, tax breaks and development funds that help farmers produce the milk?
Britain’s new post-Brexit prime minister, Theresa May, vowed that “no one wants a return to the borders of the past.” But many question what’s ahead.
Politicians in the U.K. insist that they will move forward with the process to exit the E.U., but not everyone is happy about it. Here's what will make it a long and difficult ordeal.
“Nobody knows what’s going to happen to our border, and people who know the least are the politicians,” said Eugene McSkeane, 39, a hog farmer in Crossmaglen in Northern Ireland, who pointed to the overblown promises made before the historic Brexit ballot that were quickly withdrawn after the votes were counted.
The farmer said the decision about the border won’t be made by just Britain or Ireland. The remaining members of the E.U. will also have a say.
McSkeane lives in the north but crosses back and forth across the border without a thought.
“We pay our electric bill in the south and our water bills in the north,” he said. “It’s second nature.”
Kids go to schools on either side. Farmers till land that straddles the line. A local veterinarian said it’s a morning’s work to treat a cow in the north and a sheep in the south.
“Technically, I imagine you’re supposed to check in with someone when you transport a body across the border, but I don’t see why you would bother with that now,” said Bernard O’Hanlon, 56, a funeral director and owner of a pub in Mullaghbawn in Northern Ireland. His two businesses, alongside a car wash, are combined.
“We’ve forgotten all about borders,” he said. “Now are they going to mean something again? That’s daft.”
At the crossroads near O’Hanlon’s is a monument to fallen fighters who died during the 1916 Easter Rising against British rule that led to independence for Ireland. Beneath the flowers and portraits are the words, “If you really want an Irish Republic vote Sinn Fein.”
‘A can of worms’
“Drive down the hill over the river you won’t see a sign telling you you just crossed a border,” said Brendan McAleavy, 55, a publican in Cullaville, whose bar has two different drawers at the cash register, one for British pounds, the other for euros. (Britain maintained the pound as its currency despite being an E.U. member, while Ireland adopted the euro).
More than 180 formal roads cross the border — many more if you count tractor trails and foot paths.
Along the River Fane, anglers fish for trout from both sides of the border. A local has hung the green, white and orange flag of Ireland along a hedgerow.
This will now become the E.U.’s back door to Britain and vice versa.
Alasdair McDonnell, a member of Parliament from Belfast, said he’s been deluged with queries from constituents worried about what will happen to the border in the wake of the Brexit vote.
“We’ve opened up a can of worms,” he warned during a debate in Parliament.
“There’s been massive progress and benefits of the last 20 years,” he said. “Free movement has transformed the island of Ireland.”
“There are people with a living memory of the hard border, and it’s not a good memory at all,” said McDonnell, a member of the Social Democratic and Labour Party.
“Nobody wants a return to the dark days,” he said.
It was only 15 years ago that the last bomb exploded in the long conflict between British security forces and Ulster loyalist paramilitary groups and the Irish Republican Army. More than 3,500 people were killed during the Troubles, half of them civilians.
The peace brought by the 1998 Good Friday Agreement is now well-worn, widely accepted and an economic success for both north and south.
For some, change is worrisome.
“Brexit got everyone talking, that’s for sure. It reminds everyone who is who, where is where, north and south, the Troubles, all of that,” said Anne Devlin, a shop clerk who was filling her car with gas in Castleblayney in Ireland but who lives in Northern Ireland.
During the Troubles, one side’s freedom fighter was the other’s terrorist, she said.
“The past is best in the past,” Devlin said.
“It doesn’t take much to stir tensions on the border,” said Eunan O’Halpin, a professor of contemporary Irish history at Trinity College in Dublin.
“Is there still bitterness? Of course there is,” he said.
A vote for a united Ireland?
After the Brexit ballot, Irish politicians quickly began to jostle for advantage as they assessed what future negotiations over the coming split would mean — for the border, for the relations between north and south, between London, Belfast, Dublin and Brussels.
“That Ireland can be both one unit and two separate units may be a bizarre political fiction, but it is a fiction that has enabled former enemies to live with one another in relative peace,” Ian McBride, professor of Irish and British history at King’s College in London, wrote in the Guardian.
In an interview, McBride said, “I assume there’ll be a common sense solution to this.” He said too many people have too much to lose.
The leader of the main opposition party in Ireland, Micheal Martin, said the rejection of Brexit by voters in Northern Ireland could be a “defining moment” in Irish politics and “may show people the need to rethink current arrangements.”
Martin McGuinness, deputy first minister of Northern Ireland and a leader of Sinn Fein, called Brexit “a disaster for Ireland.”
“Anything that resembled a return to border checkpoints would represent a grievous undermining of the Good Friday Agreement,” McGuinness said. “I view such a prospect with great alarm.”
Sinn Fein’s leader, Gerry Adams, said that the vote by Northern Ireland against Brexit should boost support for a future referendum on Irish unity.
Talk of such a “border poll” to consider the reunification of north and south raises hackles among British loyalists in the north.
Arlene Foster, first minister of Northern Ireland, vowed that little would change along the border and said talk of a referendum on the unification of Ireland was folly.
“This is the silly season, and often we have people coming forward with policy ideas that have no relevance to reality, and certainly a border poll, if it were to happen, would give a resounding result that we wanted to remain within the United Kingdom,” Foster told the BBC’s “Today” program.
Sammy Wilson, a leader of the Democratic Unionist Party, which supported a leave vote in the Brexit campaign, told The Washington Post in an interview at his offices in Larne that there are already immigration controls shared by Ireland and Britain in the form of the Common Travel Area protocol.
Wilson said the threat of “rising tensions” between Catholics and Protestants, republicans and unionists, is “a despicable argument.”
“We don’t have a disaffected population. We won’t have a return to terrorism,” he said.
There’s too much trade, too much togetherness now.
“It’s all going to blow over soon enough,” he said.


Are there any 3-star Michelin restaurants in the DC region?

The first ever Michelin guide for the Washington, DC area came out in 2016. Name the restaurants in the DC region that have won 3 stars since then. Identify their chefs/owners and their cuisines. Only Michelin ratings are pertinent; Bib Gourmand ratings are not. Exclude any references of minibar.

Find the answer to this question using a specific guide's ratings.

Organic pioneer Nora Pouillon plans to retire, sell her eponymous restaurant

Nora Pouillon (Linda Davidson/The Washington Post)
Years before farm-to-table, sustainable, organic kale was on the menu at seemingly every restaurant in the District, you would find it at one restaurant — and that restaurant was Nora’s. The rustic but elegant dining room bordering Kalorama was the first restaurant in the country to be certified organic, inspiring a generation of chefs to shop locally for high-quality ingredients.
Self-taught, Austrian-born chef Nora Pouillon has spread the gospel of farm-fresh locavorism far and wide, and, her mission now accomplished, she has decided to put her namesake restaurant out to pasture. She intends to sell the 37-year-old restaurant and its building, and retire as soon as she can find the proper buyer.
“I have to accept the fact that I am just getting too old,” said Nora, who will turn 73 this month. “At the beginning it was, for me, sort of a shock to think that the restaurant, after all these years, does not continue. You always hope that somebody continues with your name.”
Her four children did not want the restaurant. “They have seen their mother slave away,” she said. She’s not so sure she would have wanted them to take it, either. She knows the toll that the business takes on family life.
“I have, soon, five grandchildren. My daughter is expecting any day,” she said. “I really never had time to be a grandmother.”
Nora Pouillon at a roast in her honor in September 2014. (Scott Henrichsen Photography)
But don’t expect Pouillon to leave her restaurant without having a say in what will take its place. She’s looking for a buyer who will continue her legacy.
“That would be ideal — somebody that would continue under his name, but with the same philosophy,” she said. Or, barring that, “somebody that continues at least with local, and perhaps keeps the healthy aspect.”
She expects, though, that the restaurant’s organic certification will end when her ownership of it does. There are only a handful of such restaurants in the country because the requirements are extremely onerous: All of the food that comes into Nora’s kitchen must be certified organic, which is reflected in her menu prices. Even her table linens are laundered in chlorine-free biodegradable soap.
“I realized that it’s so difficult to be certified organic. I don’t think I would find anybody who would do it,” she said. “You have to be a little crazy.”
Pouillon’s career and topsy-turvy personal life have been documented in her memoir, released last summer, called “My Organic Life.” A young woman married to a French journalist, she moved to Washington in the 1960s and found “a culinary nightmare.” Horrified by how unhealthy American food could be, she taught herself to cook and then began to teach others. After a stint in the kitchen at the Tabard Inn, she bought a former grocery store and opened Restaurant Nora in 1979. Female chef-owners are still, regrettably, rare, but in those days, they were almost nonexistent.
“I believe that Nora forever will be a heroine of the food scene of D.C.,” said chef José Andrés. “To me, she deserves everything. She’s shown us the way.”
Nora Pouillon in her herb garden on the side of her restaurant in May 1983. (Harry Naltchayan/The Washington Post)
The restaurant was one of the approximately 100 to get a mention in D.C.’s first Michelin Guide, released last Thursday, though it did not receive any stars. In their write-up, inspectors praised the vegetarian tasting menu and called Pouillon “the Alice Waters of D.C.”
It took her two years to develop the standards for an organic restaurant with the certification agency Oregon Tilth. The restaurant became certified in 1999.
The fact that there aren’t more certified organic restaurants is “sort of depressing,” she said. “I was hoping there would be more, but often restaurants perhaps strive toward doing it, but after awhile they lost interest, because they figured their clientele didn’t really care.”
That may be because talking a good game about farm-to-table food is, for many customers, no different from proving those bona fides through certification, as Nora does.
“They don’t understand that you cannot just say ‘I’m organic.’ You basically have to prove it,” she said.
It also disappoints her that her proteges have not taken the same path.
“In 37 years I went through, I think, 40 different chefs,” she said, “And none of them — none of them — has an organic restaurant. They all do their own thing.”
One of them is Haidar Karoum, former chef of Proof, Estadio and Doi Moi.
Pouillon was “very influential in terms of how I think about food,” he said. But when he opened Proof, he never considered organic certification, even though he bought from the same farms he did while a chef at Asia Nora, Pouillon’s fusion offshoot.
Nora Pouillon is hoping to sell her eponymous restaurant to someone who shares her philosophy. (Scott Suchman/Courtesy of Restaurant Nora)
“I think my staff were able to explain that to guests without making it a thing,” he said. Working for Nora, “I saw what was great about [certification], and what was not so great about it. It really demands . . . a full-time position of somebody who is just doing buying. It’s extremely difficult to get the certification, even more to maintain it.”
Pouillon offered him the first chance to buy her business — he recently struck out on his own — but he turned her down.
“I feel like every spot wants to be something. I feel like that’s a place that should always have linens and a certain style,” he said. Although he was honored to be considered, “What I’m going to be doing is going to be a little less formal. I didn’t think it was the right fit.”
So the hunt begins. She doesn’t expect the eventual buyer to be from the District — maybe the West Coast, she thinks. She declined to discuss the price. It will take a while, maybe as long as a year. That’s good news for her regulars, who will have more time to partake. Still, she expects “they will be furious.”
But Pouillon has made peace with her decision.
“I think it’s easier for me to think that somebody will take it over, and not keep the name and do something that I wouldn’t approve of,” she said. “I think that I am past that. I think that whoever buys it, I just wish him the best.”
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