Losty said he believes that education is the key to stabilizing the political process in Northern Ireland, pointing to successes such as Northern Ireland’s radically transformed education system, which now has some of the highest state exam grades in Britain, and the huge increase in knowledge-based technology investment in Northern Ireland since the 1998 agreement. He would like the world to see the educated new workforce in Northern Ireland for whom the rivalries of the past are becoming a distant memory. Certainly, the numbers of Belfast Catholics and Protestants enjoying some sunbathing during the July 12 holiday vastly outnumbered the troublemakers in Ardoyne, a small area of Belfast where ongoing tensions between working-class Catholics and Protestants have spilled over into the internat ional media many times in the last five years. The Northern Ireland Bureau, charged with presenting a positive image of Northern Ireland and encouraging inward investment, has had to adapt its strategy to people’s perceptions of Northern Ireland. “We [are] a lot better at targeting people now,” said Losty. “We know that we’re not going to get a message out to the entire U.S. business community. We try to target people who can influence the business community and people who are aware of what’s really going on in Northern Ireland.” Although the bureau is having considerable success encouraging technology jobs, Northern Ireland has not reaped the massive U.S. investment enjoyed by its southern neighbor, the Republic of Ireland. Part of the problem lies in perceived political stability, though that may finally be changing. Both the Catholic and Protestant power-sharing government and the Northern Ireland Parliament were suspended in October 2002 after allegations that the extremist Catholic paramilitary group, the Irish Republican Army (IRA), was collecting personal information about Protestant government officials through the IRA’s political wing, Sinn Fein. However, with the July 28 announcement from the IRA that the group formally ordered an end to its armed campaign and pledged to pursue its political aims through “exclusively peaceful means,” the political stalemate may finally be coming to an end. However, despite the positive reaction to the IRA statement, many unionist Protestant leaders remain skeptical and all parties are still waiting to see if the words translate into action. This leaves the Northern Ireland Bureau in somewhat of a limbo, successfully encouraging new business, but representing a government that has been suspended for more than two and a half years. However, as Losty explained, the peace process in Northern Ireland is running at a much faster rate than the political process, a distinction not always understood by the outside world. “People are working fine together on a community level. The political process is taking a lot longer to put together, but people are not waiting for political developments to get on with what they are doing,” Losty said. “We’re getting more jobs, more profitability, more disposable income, more restaurants, more bars. We had more than 2 million tourists last year. You could look at the political process and think that progress isn’t going fast enough, but anyone who has visited Northern Ireland will know that’s not the case.” To understand Northern Ireland’s political development in the last 10 years, you have to take it in historical context, Losty added. “I say to people in the U.S., ‘Try to take our experiences and compare them to the U.S. experiences.’ Since the War of Independence to the formation of a U.S. government, it was something like 12 years because you had all sorts of various special interest groups. You had large states and small states and checks and balances between the executives and federal government and state government. So to do the job right, it sometimes takes a lot of time, and there have already been massive improvements in politics back home.” Losty is buoyed by news that London will host the Olympics in 2012 and that Northern Ireland is being strongly considered to host some of the football and boxing events. “We have plans to build a new national stadium. We’ve had people from our sports council and strategic investment board over here in the States talking about this. It’s very exciting. Boxing has always been a cross-community sport in Northern Ireland, so it’s something we very much like to promote.” Olympic events in Northern Ireland—it’s not the image you see on CNN, but it’s just the kind of image that Tim Losty is hoping will emerge when yesterday’s news has disappeared from our minds. “We’ve already moved on. We’re hoping the world can move on with us.” Sean O’Driscoll is a contributing writer for The Washington Diplomat.