Abstract
This paper seeks to fill a gap in the literature on the Sunningdale agreement as regards the role played by the two nationalist negotiators—the Social Democratic and Labour Party and the Dublin, Fine Gael–Labour coalition government. Utilising recently released archival material and internal party sources, the paper argues that, despite declining chances of success, these actors became locked-in to an increasingly narrow policy trajectory, based on maximising gains for the minority community in Northern Ireland. This interpretation challenges existing academic accounts of the period, by demonstrating that the accumulation of concessions rather than simply the reactions of unionists radicalised Catholic politics in the early 1970s. It offers a fresh approach to studying the Northern Ireland conflict and points out that path-dependent processes can play a significant role in policy development and direction.
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