The Belfast Agreement and Southern Irish Politics

Abstract

Both the main political parties in the Republic have declared their interest in the eventual reunification of Ireland. Fine Gael continues to point to the fact that it was a Fine Gael-led government that declared the Irish state a Republic in 1948 and that the Fine Gael party is officially called the ‘United Ireland Party’. Fianna Fail refer to the 1937 Constitution, for which it was largely responsible and which set out in Articles 2 and 3, the essence of the official constitutional position on Northern Ireland: the Irish nation extended across the entire island and the aspiration was for political unity. The issue of Northern Ireland has been subject to intense debate at different times since the outbreak of the Troubles in 1968 and has periodically been a feature in elections in the Republic. Moreover, it has been generally accepted that the main issue that divided Fianna Fail and Fine Gael has been their differing positions on Northern Ireland. So the peace process of the 1990s, which, as will be demonstrated, has at its core the development in the Republic of a political and public consensus on Northern Ireland and which has a key role for the Irish government, has had a significant impact on the language, ideology and policy of the political parties in the Republic. In addition, with the relative successes of Sinn Fein at recent elections in the Republic, the peace process has brought a new dynamic to electoral politics in the Republic.