The British–Irish Relationship in the Twenty-first Century

Abstract

The twentieth anniversary of the Good Friday agreement offers a useful vantage point from which to review the agreement’s progress, particularly because the anniversary coincides with Brexit, a process likely to place it under particular strain. Using both evidence offered elsewhere in this collection and new material, this article reviews the two decades since the agreement in 1998 using as a framework the three relationships that the agreement sought to address. First, it argues that a combination of structural reform, social change, demographic transformation and political reconfiguration has substantially removed the incentives for inter-communal conflict in Northern Ireland, though without completely eliminating overt political violence, as worrying indicators of dissent survive. Second, it contends that the provisions of the agreement for the promotion of institutionalised cooperation between Northern Ireland and the Republic have had limited impact, but that they have been supplemented by new forms of all-Ireland integration driven by change at EU level. Third, the article suggests that the once-hostile relationship between the Republic of Ireland and the United Kingdom has mellowed, a change that both facilitated the settlement of 1998 and was itself reinforced by this. The article concludes that the institutions established by the Good Friday agreement have had a mixed impact, and that they face a particular challenge in the context of the UK’s withdrawal from the EU.