News organizations around the world, as exemplified by CBS News, are reporting that the Irish Republican Army (IRA) has formally and officially renounced violence in their almost 50 year campaign to oust the English from Northern Ireland:

“The leadership has formally ordered an end to the armed campaign,” the IRA said in a major advance from its opened-ended truce in place since 1997. “All volunteers have been instructed to assist the development of purely political and democratic programs through exclusively peaceful means. Volunteers must not engage in any other activities whatsoever,” the IRA command said in remarks addressed to the group’s approximately 500 to 1,000 members. . . .

The IRA also appealed to Britain and Northern Ireland’s Protestant majority to accept its new position as sufficient to renew negotiations on power-sharing, the core goal of the 1998 peace accord for this British territory. Protestant leaders, deeply suspicious of IRA motives, warned in advance they would wait several months to test whether the IRA’s words proved true.

The article notes that there are still plenty of suspicion and obstacles on both sides that need to be overcome. Nonetheless, this is a very hopeful and momentous development. These days, with all the increasingly bad news about terrorism, famine, poverty, and genocide all around the world, it’s nice to see that there are emerging signs and steps toward peace, between Israeilis and Palestineans, and here, between Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland.