As It Turns 25, N Ireland’s Good Friday Agreement Explained
It has been 25 years since the striking of the Good Friday Agreement, the landmark peace accord that ended three decades of violence in Northern Ireland, a period known as “the Troubles.”
BELFAST, Northern Ireland (AP) — It has been 25 years since the striking of the Good Friday Agreement, the landmark peace accord that ended three decades of violence in Northern Ireland, a period known as “the Troubles.”
The anniversary is being marked with celebration that peace has endured, but concern about entrenched divisions and political instability. And the specter of violence has not wholly disappeared – last month U.K. intelligence services raised the terrorism threat level for Northern Ireland from “substantial” to “severe.”
Here’s a look at the accord and how it came about:
WHAT WERE THE TROUBLES?
When Ireland, long dominated by its bigger neighbor Britain, became a self-governing Roman Catholic-majority country a century ago, a six-county region in the north with a Protestant majority remained part of the United Kingdom.
Northern Ireland was split between two main communities: nationalists — most of them Catholic — who desired union with the rest of Ireland, and largely Protestant unionists, who wanted to stay British.
The Catholic minority experienced discrimination in jobs, housing and other areas in the Protestant-dominated state. In the 1960s, a Catholic civil rights movement demanded change, but faced a harsh response from the government and police.
The situation deteriorated into a conflict involving Irish republican militants, loyalist paramilitaries and U.K. troops. Bombings and shootings killed some 3,600 people, mostly in Northern Ireland, though republicans also set off bombs in mainland Britain.
WHAT LED TO THE PEACE DEAL?
By the early 1990s, the armed conflict had reached “a hurting stalemate,” said Katy Hayward, professor of political sociology at Queens University Belfast. “There was a recognition on the part of the British government and army, and on the Irish republican side as well, that there was never going to be an outright victory.”
The Irish Republican Army called a cease-fire in 1994, allowing its allied party, Sinn Fein, to join other nationalist and unionist parties in peace talks co-sponsored by the British and Irish governments. The United States played a key role — former Sen. George Mitchell chaired the talks, spending 22 months in Belfast overseeing the delicate multi-party negotiations.
The talks came close to collapse several times. But after a marathon weeklong negotiating session that stretched long past deadline, agreement was reached on April 10, 1998 — Good Friday. British Prime Minister Tony Blair hailed the agreement, saying: “Today I hope that the burden of history can at long last start to be lifted from our shoulders.”
The following month, the agreement was ratified by voters in both Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.