Men in suits seize control of Northern Ireland

Portglenone Forest, originally uploaded by ZMB.

From the BBC: "Northern Ireland has a new power-sharing government in an historic day at Stormont.

DUP leader Ian Paisley and Sinn Fein's Martin McGuinness took office as first and deputy first ministers as five years of direct rule ended.

Tony Blair and Bertie Ahern witnessed the creation of the new executive.

Mr Blair said that the day's events offered the chance for Northern Ireland to 'escape the heavy chains of history' and 'make history anew'."

Just as Tony Blair is about to resign, he makes one more visit to Northern Ireland. No other British Prime Minister has visited Northern Ireland as often as he. In some ways, he may be glad that at least this one area of governance appears set to slide towards some sort of success, or at least, disappear into well-deserved obscurity.

Poor dear old Northern Ireland: finally, a political solution fit for a political problem, neither perfect nor proud. Somewhere on the Dungannon Road between Benburb and Dungannon, where I grew up, there must be crops of toadstools growing once again in the grass verge near the bridge over the River Blackwater, growing as I remember them the summer I picked mushrooms part-time in Benburb, growing as they do every early Irish summer, no matter what happens in the realm of the humans.

One of my fellow mushroom pickers mused: "See, if ye ate them toadstools, you'd be dead as quick as anything. But you can ate mushrooms."