TANYA NOLAN: The Irish Republican Army's decision to renounce violence has been welcomed by leaders around the world.

Few have been more involved than former US President Bill Clinton who today said the IRA's announcement was "potentially the biggest thing to happen in the peace process since the Good Friday agreement" ?the power-sharing accord Mr Clinton helped broker in 1998.

BILL CLINTON: I think now what we have to do is just see this renunciation of violence and criminality implemented and verified. As it is, I think the unionist community will have to make a response, and I think they will want to make a response, and then we can see the devolution go forward, the institutions the self-government put back up in Northern Ireland, and the Good Friday Accord fully implemented. It's a good day.

TANYA NOLAN: Former US President Bill Clinton.

The Irish "troubles" as they're known, have claimed more than three and a half thousand lives.

Australian academic Dr Simon Adams has a unique perspective; the IRA accidentally killed his aunt back in 1972, and he also has several uncles who are Republican prisoners.

A specialist in Irish history, Dr Adams, from Notre Dame University in Western Australia, wrote the critically acclaimed "Exit Wounds" about the IRA's armed struggle.

Currently touring the US giving talks on Irish history, Dr Adams has been telling Michael Vincent that the IRA's renouncement of violence may well bring about a lasting peace.

SIMON ADAMS: Irish history can teach us to live without hope, but I think the Irish people teach us otherwise, and I think there is enormous capacity for forgiveness amongst Irish people in Northern Ireland and amongst Irish people throughout the Diaspora who have suffered over the last 30 years, and my aunt was a casualty of that war, and I think on all sides it's time for people to move past the kind of entrenched divisions of the past. And certainly I don't harbour any blame towards the IRA for what happened. She was just an innocent victim of a conflict of which they were only one participant.

MICHAEL VINCENT: What happened to your aunt?

SIMON ADAMS: She was ambushed. They thought she was in a car which was carrying British military intelligence, which it wasn't. And she actually was an Irish Republican herself, and the car was ambushed and she was killed, she was shot.

MICHAEL VINCENT: Has anyone ever been brought to justice for that?

SIMON ADAMS: No, the ah?I mean, my book Exit Wounds was partly about that whole kind of process and was written in the midst of the very difficult decisions to reach the Good Friday agreement in 1998.

I think what I found in my investigations was that the people who probably killed her and the exact, you know, the specific individuals also died violent deaths, and there's no one in Northern Ireland who hasn't been touched by the conflict one way or another over the last 30 years, and I don't see my aunt't death or the suffering that my family has suffered over the last 30 years has been indifferent from the suffering which all people in Northern Ireland have endured. And my family also inflicted its share of suffering as well. Several of my uncles have been Republican prisoners, and again I just think it'shopefully the IRA is very brave gesture will be reciprocated by equally brave gestures on behalf of the British Government and the unionists, and we can finally move this thing out of conflict phase and into some real peace.

MICHAEL VINCENT: Do you think it will lead to a more acceptance of power sharing in Northern Ireland?

SIMON ADAMS: Well, I mean, the obvious practical response that the British and unions could make is to set up once again the power-sharing government and to resuscitate the peace process, which has really been ?to mix my metaphors a bit ?been stalled, and very, very badly, over the last few years.

Ian Paisley's Democratic Unionist Party in power, it's going to require some very brave efforts on their behalf to take this gesture as a symbolic moment and move beyond their own entrenched positions as well.

It takes two sides, and in this case it takes three or four sides to make peace work. And the IRA is not going to be able to do it by itself. It is certainly going to require those kinds of important practical measures on behalf of the British and Irish governments and the unionists, and that will include the setting up of the power sharing government again.

TANYA NOLAN: Author on the Irish "troubles" Dr Simon Adams. He was speaking there to Michael Vincent.

(Source: The World Today)