Belfast Agreement Research Articles

THE PROSPECTS OF NORTHERN IRELAND POLITICAL STABILISATION

The article deals with the reasons of two years political crisis in Northern Ireland. According to the author, it became possible due to Belfast Agreement power-sharing system which means joint government on a cross-community basis between representatives of protestant and catholic traditions. If one of the side ceased to hold office by any reason, the other shall cease to function immediately. The main reason for political crises in February 2022 was the demand of the Democratic unionist party to reconsider the Northern Ireland protocol – part of the Brexit Agreement, and their refusal to hold office. The absence of the Executive led to economic destabilisation, have a negative impact on social situation. Lengthy negotiations between DUP, British, Irish governments and EU resulted in step-by-step changes in protocol and resumption of work in Stormont in February 2024. To avoid further crises it’s required to reform the political institutions.

Random access memories or clichéd representations? Exploring historical photographs of the troubles on Instagram

ABSTRACT Social media provide unprecedented opportunities for the distribution of photographs capturing experiences of conflict. Instagram in particular renders conflict photography searchable, whilst also aggregating the memories of traumatised communities. This paper adds to the nascent literature in this area by exploring how the photosharing app is used to share photographs of the Northern Irish ‘Troubles’, a low-intensity conflict that resulted in 3,600 fatalities and left many more bereaved, injured and traumatised. Two decades on from the Belfast Agreement, Northern Ireland remains a deeply divided society in which competing narratives over the conflict remain deeply entrenched. This study explored photographic representation of the Troubles, with a specific focus on who was represented in these images and whether they were evoke personal memories of the conflict. A content and narrative analysis of 100 historical images tagged #thetroubles was conducted in order to explore these issues. Results indicate that images showing the ‘peculiarity’ of everyday life during the conflict, such as armed British soldiers standing in close quarters to children playing in the street, were the most prominent visual representations under this hashtag. The memories evoked by such historical photographs reinforce zero-sum narratives on conflict, rather than promote new interpretations that build support for peace in ‘post-conflict’ societies.

Devolution and local government: 25 years beyond the Belfast (Good Friday) Agreement

ABSTRACT In the 25 years since the Belfast (Good Friday) Agreement, there has been an extensive focus on the devolved institutions in Northern Ireland. However, less attention has been paid to the subsequent overhaul of the wider system of public administration in the province, in particular local government. In 2015, a reformed local government system was introduced in Northern Ireland (NI), supposedly heralding a period of ‘super councils’. Using a framework developed by Kuhlmann and Wollmann (2019 [Introduction to Comparative Public Administration. 2nd ed. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar]) for the comparative study of public administration, specifically local government, the article evaluates the significance of the reforms in Northern Ireland and the possible further enhancement of local authority powers, particular during the continued disruption in, or absence of, devolved institutions. In highlighting what continues to be a fundamental imbalance in regional governance within Northern Ireland, the article concludes that the system remains characterized by marginalized local government, with a consequential impact on the quality of public services and associated outcomes.

Nationality and Citizenship in Ireland, North and South

ABSTRACT: This article examines how British and/or Irish nationality is currently acquired and lost, first under the law in Northern Ireland and then under the law in Ireland. It looks at some of the rights that Irish citizens currently have in the UK and that UK citizens currently have in Ireland, paying particular attention to the impact of the Belfast (Good Friday) Agreement of 1998 on those rights. It then considers what rights British nationals in Northern Ireland who do not wish to be Irish nationals should acquire if Northern Ireland were to become part of a united Ireland. It posits that in such a new constitutional dispensation it would be inappropriate to continue to deny to these 'British-only' citizens the rights to vote in presidential elections and in constitutional referenda and the rights to stand for election to the presidency and to either of the houses of the legislature.

Contemporary Themes in Education Policy

Since the conclusion of the Belfast Agreement in 1998, whilst Northern Ireland is part of the UK, it has had the right to set its education policy independently of its county of origin (O'Connor et al., 2020). As a result, Northern Ireland has a separate Statutory Curriculum for Key Stage 3: Principles and Details. The aim of this paper is to critically analyse the educational ideology embodied in KS3 and the globalisation trends of the period corresponding to the policy context. The policy is systematically analysed using theoretical concepts such as Human capital and Social Efficiency to shed further light on the historical and economic context in which KS3 has emerged.

Conscious Irish Fiction and the Repetitiveness of War: Transcultural Memories to Negotiate Peace in “Redemption Falls” and “TransAtlantic”

Drawing on recent scholarship on transcultural memory and its role in peacebuilding, this paper explores the implications of entangling memories that belong to different pasts, places, and cultural groups in Joseph O’Connor’s Redemption Falls (2007) and Colum McCann’s TransAtlantic (2013). Both novels, written by authors interested in the notions of oppression and suppression of stories, are polyphonic texts that disrupt any single linear narrative by interweaving multiple storylines through constant movements across time and space. McCann’s focus shifts from the aftermath of WWI to the 1998 Belfast Agreement, while O’Connor’s novel deals with the American Civil War and Irish nationalism; both recount episodes of the Great Famine, the ensuing emigration, and the history of Abolitionism. Hence, painful memories of the Irish mingle with the mnemonic repertoires of those who suffered the abominations of slavery or internecine conflict in an attempt to give voice to the marginalised and highlight bonds between (apparently unrelated) groups of people. Moreover, this convergence of inherited memories binds the past with the present and the future, as the recollections have echoes of contemporary conflicts and global phenomena involving Ireland, whose role in them is implicitly interrogated. By fusing significant cultural memories across generations and spaces, these novels assert the ‘historical duty’ to remember to promote negotiation and mutual understanding between different cultural groups today. This paper, therefore, will first offer an overview of contemporary Irish fiction, characterised by an original world-facing, rather than nation-focused, outlook. Second, it will undertake the analysis of the selected novels to contribute to the ongoing discussion about the potential of literature to build sound knowledge of diverse human experiences and, as a consequence, promote peace.

Legacy of the Troubles: crisis of power in Northern Ireland

The political crisis in Northern Ireland, which has been continuing since 2022, threatens its stable development. It undermines the Belfast Agreement, which ended the bloody conflict between Catholics and Protestants and allowed devolution in the region. The catalyst for inter-party disagreements was the Northern Ireland Protocol – it introduced a special customs regulation regime that did not suit the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP). The actions of London (the approval of the Windsor Framework and The Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Act), as well as the Sinn Féin’s winning Northern Ireland Assembly and local elections, only intensified the contradictions that had previously arisen. DUP has promised to restore devolved government in Northern Ireland if key provisions of the Windsor Framework are changed. London has no plans to renegotiate the new deal with the EU, but it will be impossible to overcome the political crisis without the cooperation of the unionists. In this article, the author examined the reasons for the ineffectiveness of the consociational democracy in Northern Ireland, the features of different mechanisms of customs regulation in the region, and the key differences between the DUP and Sinn Féin on issues of its further development. According to the author, the new crisis of power-sharing executive in Northern Ireland is associated with the prevalence of narrow interests of unionists over the collective task of the political establishment to achieve inter-party consensus and compliance with the Belfast Agreement, which remains the legal basis for maintaining civil peace in the region.

New Agreement on Northern Ireland Simplifies Relations Between EU and UK

On 27 February, the European Commission and the United Kingdom reached a political agreement in principle on the so-called ‘Windsor Framework’, necessary to resolve several issues that had arisen between the parties, in particular with regard to the Northern Ireland issue, following the British withdrawal from the European Union. The joint solutions, found within the framework of the Withdrawal Agreement, are based on the following starting points: a comprehensive, cross-cutting and definitive solution, addressing practical difficulties in the operation of the Protocol; a balance between flexibilities for the movement of goods for end use in Northern Ireland and effective safeguards guaranteeing the protection of the EU’s Single Market; a clear distinction between goods at risk and goods not at risk of entering the EU’s Single Market. The European Commission and the Government of the United Kingdom will proceed, within the remit of their respective powers, with the necessary steps to translate the joint solutions into legally binding instruments. Windsor Framework, Northern Ireland, Brexit, withdrawal, Belfast Agreement, customs, market

Trade, Businesses, and Economy of U.K. Post-Brexit— A Quantitative Analysis

Many studies have been carried out on Brexit’s economic impact on the UK, EU27, the US, and the rest of the world. Depending on the assumption of whether Brexit will be a hard Brexit or a soft Brexit, almost all studies predicted Blows to the economies of the UK and the EU, with a more severe blow to the UK economy. With the Trade Co-operation Agreement signed by the end of the year 2020 and the actual divorce of the UK from the EU with effect from 01-01-2021, the actual effects of Brexit came to reflect in various economic data reported by various national and international agencies. This paper makes an effort to analyse these hard data and examine the Brexit impacts on various sectors. It has also taken clues from the various surveys on the problems faced by businesses on the border, shortage of labour, etc. In February 2023, a protocol on Northern Ireland was finalized which became a part of the EU-UK withdrawal agreement that now ensures that a hard border is avoided for the UK export items on the island. This protocol was agreed upon between the United Kingdom, Northern Ireland (UK), and the European Union (EU) as the final settlement designed to protect Ireland’s economy and Belfast Agreement. The study concludes that the UK has done a relatively good job of managing the inevitable Brexit disruptions, including transitional measures for border softening. In order to achieve the laudable goal of having the best border in the world by the year 2025, the UK will require streamlining the Regulatory Control Systems. The UK has also entered into a Comprehensive Agreement with Trans-Pacific Partnership. But much is still to be done on the Domestic Regulatory Reforms front. Unless the UK uses the coming years to engage in putting in place proper, meaningful, and comprehensive regulatory reforms, the opportunities for Brexit may be wasted.

The new political crisis in Northern Ireland

In Northern Ireland, after the 2022 local parliamentary elections, the two leading regional parties - the Unionists (DUP) and the Irish Nationalists (Sinn Féin) - failed to form an autonomous government. The article examines the causes of the political crisis in the region and presents an analysis of the model of consocial democracy according to the Belfast Agreement 1998. The political system of dual power, which requires the mandatory representation of religious communities (Catholics and Protestants) in local authorities, has repeatedly created the preconditions for long-term conflicts. The Unionists use the Northern Ireland Protocol after Brexit as its main pretext to put pressure on the central government and lower Sinn Féin's political influence. Divisions between two parties could disrupt the peaceful life in Ulster established in accordance with the Belfast Agreement, and lead to an increase in local separatism. A forecast is given that in the event of a long shutdown of the work of the regional parliament and the autonomous government, Northern Ireland may face severe economic consequences against the backdrop of the global energy crisis and the growing recession in the United Kingdom.

‘The Age-Old Struggle’: Irish republicanism from the Battle of the Bogside to the Belfast Agreement, 1969–1998. By Jack Hepworth

What exactly was Irish ‘republicanism’ during the era of the ‘Troubles’? Jack Hepworth’s forensically researched monograph is one of the most satisfying works to date that attempts to answer that question in all its complexity. Across five research chapters (1968 and its legacies, shifting republican strategies, the revolutionary Left, feminism and women’s activism, and Catholicism), Hepworth uses an impressive range of sources to challenge the homogenous portrayal of republicanism that still pervades the media, political rhetoric, and scholarly portrayals of the ‘Troubles’ and politics in Northern Ireland. The result is a rich history of the evolving ideas, actions and divergences that shaped a movement whose complexity has been—and continues to be—downplayed. Hepworth does not explicitly set out to write a history of ideas, yet this is the fundamental impulse behind the work. For instance, we learn how thinkers and activists in 1968–72 looked to local, regional, national and international contexts to justify ‘protest’ in the early years of mass civil disorder. The Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association (NICRA), the moderate civil rights group that sought constitutional reform within the UK, was a broad church comprising socialists, nationalists, leftists, internationalists and radicals. Internal differences over what NICRA could achieve were just as important as tactics in the split of 1969–70, and Hepworth highlights how the radical, student-led People’s Democracy (PD) distanced themselves from NICRA by lobbying for socialist and international causes, forging a blend of socialist republicanism that endured beyond these years. Hepworth demonstrates overlaps between PD and the French New Left, and for some members, crossovers with militant republicanism via the short-lived Northern Resistance Movement during 1971–72. The close attention paid to chronology and shifting allegiances within and between groups demonstrates that no easy characterizations can be made about the civil rights movement as it evolved in the early years.

25-th Anniversary of the Belfast Agreement: Prospects for Northern Ireland

On April 11-15, 2023, US President Joe Biden visited Northern Ireland and the neighboring Republic of Ireland, timing the visit to the 25th anniversary of singing the Belfast Agreement in 1998, which ended the bloody confrontation between Catholics and Protestants in Ulster and contributed to the creation of autonomous authorities in the region. The purpose of the trip was complex – to overcome the protracted political crisis in Northern Ireland and promise to increase US investment in the regional economy should the regional government resume its work; the personal goal of the US president is to increase support from the Irish-American lobby, which is influential in the Democratic Party. London's hopes for a free trade agreement with the United States did not materialize. Keeping peace in Ulster remains an important issue – in 2023, the Catholic Republican paramilitary group (New IRA) said it would fight British power in the region. The political crisis in Ulster has not been overcome.

Suspended Lives

Lucy Caldwell’s 2016 adaptation of Chekhov’s Three Sisters relocates the play into Belfast in the 1990s. This paper examines Caldwell’s adaptation in the context of Irish and Northern Irish rewritings of Chekhov’s dramatic works, paying attention to the motives behind appropriating the Russian works for Irish audiences. Inspired by the perceived affinity between the two seemingly distant cultures, Irish authors have tended to adapt Chekhov (and other Russian classics) to reflect on their own social, cultural, and political environment, often with the aim of shaping the cultural-political landscape of their present. Similarly to earlier Chekhov adaptations, Caldwell’s play engages not only with the original Russian work, but, most importantly, with the cultural-political context of its setting—the five hopeful years preceding the Belfast Agreement (1998), as well as the post-Agreement context of its writing. The play allows its audience in 2016 a complex, retrospective, re-evaluative view of the achievements of the peace process from the vantage point of the early twenty-first century. (ZSCS)

When Is a Park More Than a Park? Rethinking the Role of Parks as “Shared Space” in Post-Conflict Belfast

With the signing of the Belfast Agreement, Belfast (Northern Ireland, UK) entered a new phase of urban development. Moving away from notions of division, Belfast City Council envisaged an inclusive and accessible city. Over a 20-year period, there have been significant changes in Belfast’s physical, socio-cultural, and political structure, reframing the city as a post-conflict space. However, there has been limited analysis of the role of parks in this process. This paper examines perceptions of parks, asking whether the promotion of a “shared spaces” policy aligns with local use. Through a mixed-methods approach, park users were surveyed to reflect on the meanings of parks in the city. We argue that although residual interpretations associated with historical socio-cultural divisions remain, parks are predominately multi-community amenities. The analysis illustrates that although destination parks attract greater patronage, there is visible clustering around ‘anchor’ sites at the local scale, especially in neighbourhoods with significant Catholic or Protestant identities.

Agonistic peace agreements? Analytical tools and dilemmas

AbstractLater years have seen the growth of a vibrant theoretical discussion on agonistic peace and the importance of creating space for contestation, plurality, and dissensus post-accord. However, there has been very few attempts at embedding agonistic theory in empirical analyses of peace agreements. This study attends to that lacuna by investigating how agonistic principles can be integrated and investigated in peace agreements. We suggest a threefold set of indicators for assessing the degree to which peace agreements are invested with agonistic dynamics: (1) what types of spaces for interaction are offered post-accord; (2) what forms of inclusion are stipulated; and (3) how is the peace agreement framed in terms of conflict termination and consensus/dissensus? We illustrate how the various indicators could be put into motion in concrete analyses applying them to examples from the Oslo Accords, the Belfast Agreement, and the Colombian Peace Agreement. Finally, we discuss four dilemmas and problematiques of integrating agonistic ideas in peace agreements; the issue of power, the mixing of agonistic and liberal ideals in peace agreements, the principle of ‘nothing is agreed until everything is agreed’ and the related double-edged potential of constructive ambiguity and finally the challenges of implementing peace agreements.

Borderland Anxieties: Brexit, Upper Silesia and Irish Partitions in Recent Novels by Glenn Patterson and Szczepan Twardoch

Northern Ireland owes its existence to a partition of Ireland that took place a century ago. The knottiest problems involved in the UK’s recent divorce with the European Union can be traced back not only to the Belfast Agreement of 1998 but also to the establishment of a new border, and a new borderland, in the island of Ireland in 1922. The same year (1922) saw the coming into effect of a partition of Upper Silesia, which was triggered by the events and political decisions taken in 1921. The primary focus of this essay is on literary representations of crises and anxieties connected with the transformations of the geopolitical statuses of the two provinces (i.e. Northern Ireland and Upper Silesia) and selected historical, political and cultural parallels between them. Those anxieties are exemplified and illustrated by the leading characters of Glenn Patterson’s Where Are We Now? (2020) and Szczepan Twardoch’s Pokora (2020). Both novels yield to provincial readings that explore basic aporias of uprootedness, displacement, deterritorialization and identity crises, collectively identified here as borderland anxieties. In consequence, transnational and postnational perspectives that emerge from Patterson’s and Twardoch’s works count as proactive responses, encoded in literary texts, to current geopolitical crises in Europe.

Overcoming Identity Crisis: Limits of Consociationalism and Stagnation in Northern Ireland Conflict Regulation

For many decades, Northern Ireland has been characterized by a tense conflict of identities with frequent outbreaks of political and religious violence. At the end of the 20th century, a consensus was reached between the opposing sides on the need for a peaceful settlement of the contradictions, which was reflected in the 1998 Belfast Agreement. The most important part of the agreement was a transition to the consociational model of governance. Consociationalism was assumed to “cure” the Northern Irish region, save it from violence and antagonism, and help to establish a dialogue between the representatives of the region’s key collective identities — unionists and nationalists. However, although 22 years have passed since the introduction of the consociational system, the settlement of the conflict has not seen any obvious progress. The article attempts to trace the reasons for this state of affairs and, in particular, to find out whether consociational model could, in principle, live up to the expectations. Based on the analysis of the fundamental characteristics of this model, as well as the institutional patterns in the Northern Irish politics, P.Maksimova comes to the conclusion that consociational practices not only failed to contribute to the elimination of the antagonistic moods in the society, but also helped to preserve them. According to the author, consociational system is merely an instrument of crisis management, which, if misinterpreted, can only intensify confrontation and block the final settlement of the conflict. This is exactly what happened in Northern Ireland, where the specific features of the consociational system made it almost impossible to abandon group identities.

Submission to the Ad Hoc Committee on a Bill of Rights for Northern Ireland by GCRF Socioeconomic Rights and Transition Research Team

Submission to the Ad Hoc Committee on a Bill of Rights for Northern Ireland. Summary: The Good Friday or Belfast Agreement 1998 envisaged reforms that would contribute to wider social and economic transformation, among these a Bill of Rights. Many of these reforms have not been delivered and without them society experiences continued economic, social and political problems. The Bill of Rights is an opportunity for transformative change and we highlight especially the need for provisions on economic, social and cultural rights; participation; equality; women’s participation in public life; effective implementation.

Mourning the Troubles: Anna Burns’s Milkman as a Gendered Response to the Belfast Agreement

The past two decades have produced extensive criticism of the Good Friday/Belfast Agreement’s (1999) progressivist logic in its proposal of a “fresh start” as the best way to honour the victims of the armed conflict that took place during the Troubles (1968-1998). In this paper, we argue that, by refusing to forget and to move on without exposing its grief, Anna Burns’s novel Milkman (2018) mourns the Troubles in the public arena, undoing the Agreement. With special interest in Burns’s narrator and protagonist who evades the reality of violence by “reading-while-walking”, we read Milkman as a gendered response to this enforced forgetfulness. If walking the city frames this young woman’s trauma within the collective trauma of the Troubles, it also offers the nomadic possibility of refusing the sectarian identities available to her.

A Peace Treaty and Human Rights Protection on the Island of Ireland

The Belfast (Good Friday) Agreement of 1998 is a Peace Treaty. The Agreement included a mandate and mechanism for national human rights institutions in Northern Ireland and Ireland—a Joint Committee—to ensure strong cooperation between them. However, the Agreement assumed the UK's and Ireland's continuing membership of the European Union and when this changed following the referendum in 2016, the work of the Joint Committee was put into sharp focus. This article chronicles the collaboration of two institutions working in distinct legal and political jurisdictions in the context of the negotiations of the EU Exit and what was achieved and learned as a result.