Politics & Power Quote by Dick Spring

It sounds like a bland call for cooperation, but in Dick Spring's mouth it’s a carefully engineered piece of Irish political masonry: build a bridge sturdy enough to walk on, vague enough that nobody has to admit they’re moving. “A great deal of work” is doing the heavy lifting here. It frames reconciliation not as a moral epiphany or a dramatic breakthrough, but as admin: meetings, drafts, compromises, the slow grind that can feel safer than lofty promises in a place where words have gotten people killed.

The naming is equally strategic. Spring doesn’t invoke “the IRA” or “loyalist paramilitaries,” doesn’t moralize, doesn’t litigate blame. He narrows the arena to legitimate political actors: the SDLP as the constitutional voice of nationalism, “Unionist Parties” as counterparts rather than enemies. That’s not neutrality; it’s intent. He’s signaling that progress depends on elevating party politics over sectarian identity and violence, and on treating representation as the currency of peace.

Then there’s the oddly homely phrase “set down to do that” (often heard as “sit down”). It’s domestic, almost parental: stop posturing, take a seat, get on with it. Subtext: the adults need to run the room. In the context of late-20th-century Northern Ireland, that’s more than etiquette. It’s a wager that legitimacy can outcompete grievance if leaders create enough shared process - and if they can sell “work” to constituencies addicted to symbols.