The Challenge of the Anglo-Irish Agreement and the Unionist Response

Abstract

If new political ideas were important in providing an impetus for political change within Unionism in the 1990s, how did these changes interact with political developments at an inter-governmental level? The AIA provided arguably the greatest challenge to Unionists since the Third Home Rule crisis. Their analysis and response is key to understanding the evolution of Unionism to the Belfast Agreement of Good Friday 1998. It has been seen as an important dynamic on the Northern Ireland peace process. At an inter-governmental level, at which it was undertaken, it has formalised British-Irish relations and promoted friendly co-operation between the two states. Paul Arthur has argued that the signing of the Agreement represented the two governments entering ‘the debate as a prestigious third party with the support of much of the international community’ (Arthur, 1999a, 252). However, while much work has been done on the importance of the AIA at this intergovernmental level, an assessment of its political consequences on the actors in Northern Ireland is lacking. More important, perhaps, has been the trend to use the chronology of the peace process in Northern Ireland for analyses of changes within the ideological blocs of Northern Ireland’s political parties. The changes in the political context in the 1990s are arguably the most important factor on the peace process and a convincing case can be made for the paramilitary ceasefires acting as a catalyst for the whole process. The intention here is not to confirm or dispel these competing, or even complementary, theories on the origins of the peace process, as it will be argued that Unionists had little involvement in this process, but to show how the genesis of the process affected Unionism and how this has had long-term implications on the peace process.