Good Friday Agreement (1998): Peace in Northern Ireland

The Good Friday Agreement, signed in Belfast on 10 April 1998, was the political settlement that brought the Northern Ireland conflict known as the Troubles to a close. It was reached after almost two years of talks chaired by the American former senator George Mitchell, and it was approved by voters in both parts of Ireland the following month. Its arrangements for power-sharing, cross-border cooperation and the principle of consent still govern Northern Ireland today.

Background: the Troubles

From the late 1960s Northern Ireland was torn by violence between republican paramilitaries, who sought a united Ireland, loyalist paramilitaries, who wanted to keep the link with Britain, and the British security forces. About 3,500 people were killed during the Troubles, and tens of thousands were injured. Events such as Bloody Sunday in 1972 deepened mistrust between the communities.

Earlier attempts at a settlement had failed. The Sunningdale Agreement of 1973 created a short-lived power-sharing executive that collapsed in 1974 under a loyalist general strike. The Anglo-Irish Agreement of 1985 gave Dublin a consultative role but was fiercely opposed by unionists.

In the early 1990s secret contacts, including talks between the SDLP leader John Hume and the Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams, prepared the way for a peace process. The Downing Street Declaration of December 1993 set out shared British and Irish principles. The IRA announced a ceasefire in August 1994, followed by the main loyalist groups in October.

The talks

Multi-party negotiations began in June 1996 under the chairmanship of George Mitchell, with the Canadian general John de Chastelain and the former Finnish prime minister Harri Holkeri. Mitchell had already chaired an international body that proposed the “Mitchell Principles” of democracy and non-violence, which every party had to accept.

The process was fragile. The IRA had broken its ceasefire in February 1996 with a bomb at Canary Wharf in London, so Sinn Féin was excluded until the ceasefire was restored in July 1997. Sinn Féin entered the talks in September 1997. Ian Paisley’s Democratic Unionist Party and the UK Unionist Party walked out in protest.

New governments gave the talks fresh energy. Tony Blair became British prime minister in May 1997 and Bertie Ahern became Irish Taoiseach in June 1997. Both invested considerable personal time in the negotiations. Blair arrived in Belfast during the final week and told reporters that he felt “the hand of history” on his shoulder.

Mitchell set a deadline of midnight on 9 April 1998. The talks ran through the night, with intense pressure on the Ulster Unionist leader David Trimble, whose party was divided over prisoner releases and the absence of firm guarantees on the decommissioning of weapons. US President Bill Clinton telephoned party leaders during the night. In the late afternoon of 10 April, Mitchell announced that agreement had been reached.

What the agreement provided

The agreement has two parts: a multi-party agreement among the Northern Ireland parties, and a British-Irish Agreement between the two governments. It was organised around three “strands” of relationships.

• Strand One: Northern Ireland. A 108-member Assembly elected by proportional representation, and an Executive in which ministerial posts are shared among the parties according to their strength using the d’Hondt formula. Key decisions require cross-community support, so that neither unionists nor nationalists can rule alone.
• Strand Two: North and South. A North/South Ministerial Council bringing together ministers from Belfast and Dublin, with cross-border bodies for areas such as waterways and food safety.
• Strand Three: Britain and Ireland. A British-Irish Council including the devolved governments of Scotland and Wales and the Crown dependencies, and a British-Irish Intergovernmental Conference.

The agreement also dealt with constitutional status. Both governments accepted the principle of consent: Northern Ireland stays in the United Kingdom unless a majority there votes otherwise. Ireland agreed to change Articles 2 and 3 of its constitution, which had laid claim to the whole island, and Britain repealed the Government of Ireland Act 1920. People born in Northern Ireland may identify as Irish, British or both, and hold either or both citizenships.

Other sections dealt with the most painful issues. Prisoners belonging to paramilitary groups on ceasefire would be released within two years. Parties committed to work for the full decommissioning of paramilitary weapons within two years. An independent commission, later chaired by Chris Patten, would review policing, and there were commitments on human rights and equality.

The referendums

Voters on both sides of the border were asked to approve the deal on 22 May 1998, the first time since 1918 that the whole island had voted on the same day on a shared question. In Northern Ireland, 71.1 per cent voted yes on a turnout of about 81 per cent. Most nationalists voted in favour, while unionists were more evenly split. In the Republic, 94.4 per cent approved the constitutional amendments.

Elections to the new Assembly followed on 25 June 1998. In October 1998 Trimble and Hume were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for their part in the agreement.

A difficult implementation

Violence did not end at once. On 15 August 1998 a car bomb planted by the Real IRA, a dissident group that rejected the agreement, killed 29 people in Omagh, the deadliest single attack of the Troubles. Instead of derailing the process, the bombing produced widespread condemnation.

Power was devolved to the Assembly and Executive on 2 December 1999, when the agreement formally entered into force. But disputes over IRA decommissioning led to repeated suspensions, and the institutions were suspended from October 2002 to May 2007. The IRA formally ended its armed campaign in 2005, and international monitors confirmed in September 2005 that its weapons had been put beyond use.

The St Andrews Agreement of 2006 adjusted the arrangements, and in May 2007 Ian Paisley of the DUP and Martin McGuinness of Sinn Féin became First Minister and deputy First Minister, an outcome few had thought possible. The Royal Ulster Constabulary was replaced by the Police Service of Northern Ireland in 2001, following the Patten report.

Legacy

The agreement is widely regarded as one of the most successful peace settlements of the late twentieth century. Political violence fell sharply, and the open border between Northern Ireland and the Republic became a symbol of the new relationship.

Its institutions have nonetheless been fragile. Power-sharing has repeatedly broken down, and the Executive did not function between 2017 and 2020 or for most of the period from 2022 to early 2024. After the Brexit referendum of 2016, the need to avoid a hard border on the island of Ireland became one of the hardest questions in the negotiations on Britain’s withdrawal from the European Union. Critics also argue that the agreement’s design entrenches communal identities, while supporters reply that it was the price of ending violence.

Timeline

• 1993, 15 December: Downing Street Declaration issued by the British and Irish governments.
• 1994, 31 August: The IRA announces a ceasefire.
• 1996, 10 June: Multi-party talks begin under George Mitchell.
• 1997, 20 July: The IRA ceasefire is restored.
• 1998, 10 April: Agreement reached at Castle Buildings, Stormont.
• 1998, 22 May: Referendums held in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.
• 1998, 15 August: The Omagh bombing kills 29 people.
• 1999, 2 December: Power is devolved and the agreement enters into force.
• 2007, 8 May: Ian Paisley and Martin McGuinness take office at the head of a restored Executive.

Why it matters

The Good Friday Agreement turned a conflict that had lasted three decades into a political process. It showed that bitter opponents could share power under agreed rules, and its principles of consent, parity of esteem and cross-border cooperation remain the foundation of politics in Northern Ireland.