Good Friday Agreement Research Articles

Renewing hope for Cyprus peace: a novel approach to reconcile the negotiation positions of the Turkish Cypriot side and the Greek Cypriot side

Abstract Focusing on the achievements and failures of the 2017 Crans-Montana negotiations, this study examines the research question of how and why the last talks failed to resolve the Cyprus issue. It argues that progress in the negotiations was hindered by the enduring mistrust between the community leaders and the inadequacy of their resolve to reach common ground by reconciling their respective differences about the security and guarantees issue. The study suggests the process that helped bring about the Northern Ireland Good Friday Agreement offers a practical and effective approach to compare with the case of a seemingly intractable situation such as the Cyprus problem. The Irish–British negotiations were open to and involved a wide range of parties including the government, civil society, and international stakeholders. Moreover, they benefited from the decision to set a firm deadline for the conclusion of the negotiations. The findings of this study stress that because the previous Cyprus talks lacked an inclusive and transparent negotiation process – one with stated deadlines complete with alternative scenarios in the event of a referendum – they failed to address the broad gap of trust between the two Cypriot communities.

Veterans in Northern Ireland: Evaluation of chronic pain experience, service type, and physical and mental health functioning

Background Chronic pain is common and associated with disruptions in quality of life (QoL) and psychosocial functioning. These issues are particularly pronounced in veterans, although data in this regard primarily come from the United States Veterans Affairs System, meaning less is known regarding veterans of other countries and regions. The present study evaluated veterans living in Northern Ireland (NI), a region with historic high rates of both chronic pain and psychosocial difficulties associated with the decades-long period of civil and military conflict preceding the 1999 armistice (the Good Friday Agreement). Unique to the Northern Ireland military operation was the initiation of Home Service battalions comprised of local recruits, a role with increased risk due to the conflict’s nature and the fact that they were serving as a military and security presence in their home region. Methods A cross-sectional assessment of veterans living in Northern Ireland ( N = 722) provided details of service type (Home Service vs other service), current health conditions (including chronic pain), and current psychosocial functioning (including physical and mental health QoL, anxiety, depression, and post-traumatic stress disorder [PTSD] symptoms). Results Findings indicated that those with chronic pain had worse QoL, anxiety, depression, and PTSD. Those with chronic pain were also more likely to have served in the Home Services, be unemployed, and be receiving disability payment. Contrary to hypotheses, there was no interaction between chronic pain and service type. Conclusions These results extend previous work with veterans to the unique circumstances of a post-conflict military that engaged in operations within its own country and underscore the need for coordinated, efficacious interventions for co-morbid chronic pain and anxiety, depression, and PTSD.

The origins of ‘civil rights and religious liberties’ in the Belfast–Good Friday Agreement

The origins of ‘civil rights and religious liberties’ in the Belfast–Good Friday Agreement

Transmission and Agreement: Reading and the Contemporary Northern Irish Novel

Transmission and Agreement: Reading and the Contemporary Northern Irish Novel. This paper evaluates the capacity of the contemporary Northern Irish novel to act as an agent of transmission for a ‘post-Troubles’ readership, one distanced by a generation from the 1998 Good Friday Agreement that symbolised the partial end of sectarian violence. The critic Liam Harte suggests that “no part of modern Europe (if not the world) has greater claim than Northern Ireland to the mantle of most-narrativized region”, but the transmissive function of fictional works in this context remain under-critiqued. Here, I assess the aspirations of novelistic narrative to cater for what Premesh Lalu has described, in the context of post-apartheid South African art forms, as ‘psychic repair’ (Undoing Apartheid, 2023). The essay engages the 2018 novel Milkman, by Northern Irish author Anna Burns, to ask how fictional narrative transmits the detail of the past across a generation first, in parallel to other literary and artistic genres, and second, in relation to an expanding archive of ongoing legal tribunals and government incentives directed towards the production of an ‘official history’ for Northern Ireland. Through attention to the self-conscious foregrounding of forensic reading practice by Burns and fellow writers, I show the necessary place of fictional recovery in the field of political and cultural memory. Keywords: Troubles, Northern Irish fiction, transmission, memory, generation

Engaging in Postconflict Violence: Militant Trajectories of Young Republican Paramilitaries in Northern Ireland

This article is based on an ethnographic study of young activists in Irish republican paramilitary organizations opposed to the Good Friday Agreement. It focuses on analyzing these youth’s trajectories as militants in order to understand the process of generational renewal within armed organizations as conflicts come to an end. The specificity of their trajectories is captured through a comparison with nonviolent young republican activists. This approach shows that, despite their different party affiliations, young postwar republican activists share the same sociological profiles, motivations for engagement and daily militant practices. In other words, the article highlights that although republican paramilitary networks claim to be violent actors, they have adopted nonviolent practices as a mode of ordinary and routine action. As a result, these networks are subject to a relative pacification that is explained more by their recruitment methods and the participation of new young militants than by any gradual support for the peace agreement.

THE IMPACT OF BREXIT ON THE PEACE PROCESS IN NORTHERN IRELAND

The article analyzes Brexit as a factor influencing the Good Friday Agreement and the transformation of the peace process in Northern Ireland, as well as the relationship between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. It is argued that Brexit poses a threat to the security of Ireland and the EU, since it undermines the foundations of the peace process in Northern Ireland and creates the likelihood that the border will be closed on the island of Ireland again. The Good Friday Agreement of 1998 was based on the fact that both signatory states are members of the EU, and many of its provisions will not be implemented after Brexit. It has been proven that after Brexit, the most controversial issue was the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, which became the external border of the EU. The border, which was heavily militarized during the conflict, became virtually invisible after its settlement, and people and goods freely cross it. This became possible largely because both Ireland and the UK were part of the EU single market, a common set of rules that ensures the free movement of goods, services, people and finances within the bloc.It is argued that the new relationship between the EU and the UK, which was agreed during 2020 and implemented from January 2021, resulted in an attempt to resolve the complex border issue, which was carried out in the Northern Ireland Protocol. The arrangements of the Northern Ireland Protocol, according to which Northern Ireland, but not the rest of the UK, remains within the framework of the EU single market for goods, make it possible to maintain an open border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. The establishment of an open border was a key aspect of the Northern Ireland peace process and the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, which ended the conflict in Northern Ireland. It is shown that the Northern Ireland Protocol creates a de facto customs border in the Irish Sea between Northern Ireland and the United Kingdom. Mainly to address the concerns of the DUP unionists about the Northern Ireland Protocol, in 2022-2023, the EU and the UK agreed on revised mechanisms for its operation – the Windsor Framework, which entered into force on March 24, 2023. The DUP refused to accept the Framework Program as meeting their interests until early 2024. Further adjustments to its work have not been agreed upon and the formation of a new Northern Ireland executive has not begun. It is proved that Brexit is becoming a new and significant factor in the unification of Northern Ireland with the Republic of Ireland. Brexit has put the issue of the unification of Ireland at the top of the political agenda of both parts of Ireland. The majority of Northern Irish residents voted to remain in the EU in the 2016 UK referendum. Unification would give Northern Ireland, where both British and Irish citizens live, full EU citizenship.

The Violence of Peace: Post Good Friday Agreement Paramilitary Vigilantism in Northern Ireland

ABSTRACT This paper focuses on post Belfast/Good Friday Agreement paramilitary violence in Northern Ireland, specifically the vigilantism of paramilitary style attacks (PSAs) carried out by the loyalist and republican paramilitaries. This localised form of violence, formerly referred to as punishment attacks, has been the most persistent form of paramilitary violence in a post-conflict Northern Ireland. This paper critically analyses the broad criminological literature on the emergence of vigilantism, including consideration of factors impacting police confidence. The findings are applied to Northern Irish PSAs from 1998 to 2023. The author analyses data relating to Freedom of Information (FOI) requests to the Police Service of Northern Ireland. The results of these FOIs indicate that loyalist and republican paramilitaries combined have been responsible for 3,260 PSAs from 1998 to February 2023. Paramilitary republicans have been responsible for 1,196 attacks and loyalists responsible for 2,064. The article considers the post-Agreement evolution of this violence in terms of victims, injuries, geographical location, and police response. The most recent data indicate a downturn in PSAs. However, there are still significant challenges faced in the development of broader trust for the criminal justice system, within certain areas of Northern Ireland.

The British and Irish Governments’ Role in Restoring the Assembly in Northern Ireland: October 2002 to May 2007 and January 2017 to January 2020

In 1998 the Good Friday Agreement (GFA), aimed at resolving the conflict in Northern Ireland, was met with celebrations. However, there were initial delays in establishing the institutions provided for by the GFA and they have subsequently been suspended on seven occasions. As kin-states, the role of the British and Irish governments in facilitating continued negotiations between the local parties has been central to overcoming these difficulties. This article focuses on the role that the British and Irish governments played during efforts to restore the Stormont Assembly during two prolonged periods of suspension. In order to do so it draws on the theory of external ethnonational guarantors (EEGs) and examines whether the British and Irish governments’ actions were in line with identified best practices: (1) EEGs must cooperate to ameliorate the conflict; (2) EEGs must not intervene on behalf of their co-nationals; (3) EEGs must pay careful attention to the internal dynamics of the conflict, including the dynamics within their co-national community.

A Pentecostal and charismatic contribution to peace and reconciliation: Case study of Northern Ireland

ABSTRACT Despite the marking of the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement (1998), there remains a significant fragility of peace in Northern Irish society today. Recent periods of collapse at Stormont government and high rates of segregation between Catholic and Protestant communities, evidence a need for alternative contributions to peace and reconciliation efforts. A specific focus on the role of religious actors in reconciliation pursuits has often been met with scepticism due to historic religious-political institutional ties. However, challenging the increasing trend of secularism in Northern Ireland has been the growth of Pentecostal and charismatic communities across the region. Thus, a major question is: How can the Pentecostal and charismatic movement contribute positively to peace and reconciliation? This article explores the possibility of adopting a Pentecostal and charismatic approach to peace, forgiveness and reconciliation, utilising the case study of Northern Ireland. Such an analysis is integral to discerning the movement's positive potential for peace and reconciliation work in the pursuit of post-conflict societal transformation.

Young people with LGB identity and their sense of belonging: Evidence from Northern Ireland – A society emerging from violent social conflict

In 2023 Northern Ireland celebrated the 25th anniversary of the Belfast Good Friday Agreement (GFA) which is regarded as a milestone of the Northern Ireland peace process. Via the 1998 Northern Ireland Act, the peace process saw equality and anti-discrimination legislation being implemented in Northern Ireland that legislates that public authorities must carry out their duties with due regard to equality of opportunity, including between persons of different sexual orientations and gender identities. Using time series data from 2013 to 2023 taken from the annual Young Life and Times (YLT) survey conducted among a randomized sample of 16-year olds in Northern Ireland (N = 15,162), this article explores the extent to which same-sex attracted young women and men express a sense of belonging to, and influence in, their local neighborhoods and Northern Ireland. We argue that the sense of belonging and influence can be used as suitable policy indicators to assess how same-sex attracted young people fare in Northern Ireland, a society emerging from significant violent conflict. The YLT dataset allows us to track, if any change in attitudes can be detected over the last decade. Our analysis shows that there was an increase in the proportion of young people, especially among young women, expressing same-sex attraction. However, our study also indicates that, regardless of gender, LGB 16-year olds consistently felt a lesser sense of belonging and influence than their non-LGB individuals. We found no LGB-specific differences among respondents with different religious affiliations. LGB respondents disproportionately rejected both Protestant and Catholic faiths and community affiliations, unlike their non-LGB counterparts. Our findings are a strong indicator that religion still plays a major part in the relationship between ethno-national communities in Northern Ireland and that there still is a long way to go until LGB young people feel valued and feel that they belong.

“Taking Comedy Seriously”: Humour in Lisa McGee’s Girls and Dolls

Laughter in the midst of tragedy can be one of life’s most disturbing, cathartic and enlightening experiences, a maxim experienced in Northern Ireland during the Troubles, one of the most painful periods of Irish history. Northern Irish playwrights were acutely aware of this when dealing with violence in their plays and so, however grim the events they depicted, the comic element was very much present. After the Good Friday Agreement, along with the change in the political situation in Northern Ireland, there was a generational change in the theatre. What seems to characterise this new wave is the ironic distance taken towards the sectarian divide and the consequences of the conflict on Northern Irish society, which is revealed above all in their use of humour. Lisa McGee, one of the most important representatives of the new generation thanks to the popularity of her television series Derry Girls, had already shown her maturity in her 2006 play Girls and Dolls, performed by Tinderbox the same year. McGee mixes the tragic and the comic to present the terrible consequences of childhood trauma alongside the violence of the late Troubles, while raising questions about guilt, the meaning of friendship and the subtle ways in which violence affects us. This article aims to analyse the different uses of humour employed by McGee to deal with tragic episodes and their theatrical effect, drawing on the existing research on humour in literature and McGee’s own observations given in an interview with the author on 3 March 2023.

Restricted Access to Remembrance: Problematic Usages of Industrial Memories in Belfast's Titanic Quarter

AbstractThe paper addresses the contemporary usages of collective memory in the Titanic Quarter's project in Belfast, Northern Ireland. In the wake of the Good Friday Agreement, elected officials proposed urban revitalisation policies that aimed to mitigate the effects of deindustrialisation and the ethnonational conflict. On the old shipyard wastelands, public authorities were relying on the redevelopment of the built environment to suggest a shared urbanity but also a shared past, a connection with a common space, mobilising the myths and memories of the Titanic to achieve this. Yet, in a globalised world where memory increasingly surpasses national borders, it bears into question who is the targeted audience of this revitalised urban memory? Through careful observations in the neighbourhood and its flagship museum, the paper aims to criticise the use and manipulation of a conflictual working‐class memory to sidestep Northern Ireland's sectarian divide.

Symbolic, Social and Territorial Boundaries: Paradoxes of Groupness and Potentials for Change in Northern Ireland

This article focusses on social, symbolic and territorial boundaries in Northern Ireland, and the group relationships that they define. It asks how the social and symbolic boundaries have been renewed despite so much political and popular effort to move beyond them since the Good Friday Agreement of 1998. Theoretically, the question is a foundational one: how group boundaries go beyond individual intent. Frank Wright addressed this question nearly forty years ago, showing the role of violence as a mechanism that worked behind the backs of those who wanted change. Northern Ireland, he argued, is the sort of ‘ethnic frontier’ where there is no way out, short of revolutionary force which overthrows one group and thereby creates new borders and new scapegoats. I will argue that this conclusion pays too little attention to the socio-cultural mechanisms that reproduce group division as a quasi-institutional inertial phenomenon that is also open to everyday change. I argue that quite radical transformation of group division is possible and also difficult, and that liberal consociational institutions are much less important in promoting or hindering such change than is often supposed. This revises Wright’s argument and it suggests a way forward – radical interventionism – that is neither violent upheaval, impossible reconciliation, or stabilised constraint. In conclusion, I ask if and how change in the territorial boundaries would help or hinder this.

Beyond reconciliation, towards regeneration: social circus in Northern Ireland

ABSTRACT This article acknowledges for the first time in an academic context the significant role played by social circus in conflict transformation across Northern Ireland and, more specifically, urban regeneration in Belfast after the signing of the Good Friday Agreement. The focus is on the Belfast Community Circus School (BCCS) and the annual Festival of Fools, which emerged from the social mission and practical delivery of BCCS activities. BCCS was founded in the mid-1980s to offer children and young people in Belfast an alternative, creative outlet for their feelings and to establish “common ground” between communities amid conflict. This essay takes its lead initially from BCCS founders, reconsidering their motivations and the fundamental tenets of the School – as expressed by teachers and former pupils – alongside other studies of social circus in action around the world throughout a similar period. It also theorises the political intent and impact of BCCS through reference to the performance philosophy of Alan Read. Evidence in support of the argument is drawn from a range of available sources including policy and strategy documents, annual reports, performance evaluations, and interviews with key figures within the organisation. From this body of evidence, it becomes clear that, in the move towards what we might term (after Read) a Republic of Play, a change in BCCS, its own sense of identity and purpose within society was inevitable, as Northern Ireland continues the process of reconciliation and post-conflict transformation. Finally, then, the article attends to the recent transformation within BCCS itself, which in 2021 became Circusful: an organization with its own set of social and economic goals.

Health diplomacy in action: The cancer legacy of the Good Friday Agreement

2023 marks the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement, which led peace in Northern Ireland. As well as its impact on peace and reconciliation, the Good Friday Agreement has also had a lasting positive impact on cancer research and cancer care across the island of Ireland. Pursuant to the Good Friday Agreement, a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) was signed between the respective Departments of Health in Ireland, Northern Ireland and the US National Cancer Institute (NCI), giving rise to the Ireland – Northern Ireland – National Cancer Institute Cancer Consortium, an unparalleled tripartite agreement designed to nurture and develop linkages between cancer researchers, physicians and allied healthcare professionals across Ireland, Northern Ireland and the US, delivering world class research and better care for cancer patients on the island of Ireland and driving research and innovation in the US.

Out of Time: BBC Northern Ireland and the Paradoxes of Partition

This article considers the contradictions of British broadcasting in northern Ireland. Established in 1924, following war and partition, the BBC in the sectarian state of Northern Ireland was permitted to develop at an arm’s length and out of sync with the national model of British broadcasting. Structured on the colonial presumption of neutrality on the part of British interests in Ireland, British television, during the Troubles, took for granted the legitimacy of partition and, as a result, misconstrued the causes of conflict. Throughout the period up to negotiation of the 1998 settlement – the Good Friday Agreement – and down to the present era, British perspectives on the crisis neglected the precedence of parallels in the Irish experience of partition, notably, since 2010, when confronted with the resurgent forces of ethnic nationalism (aka Brexit). In its post-public-service dotage, the BBC has responded poorly to a constitutional crisis from which the Union of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (that is, the UK) may not recover. So much so that, by now, amid a series of politically awkward centenaries, it is argued, the BBC and the partitionist project of NI, are each in their own way manifesting signs of morbidity, and both are running out of time.

Encounters, Institutions & Lessons: 25 Years after the Good Friday Agreement

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Additional informationNotes on contributorsJames HeadleyJames Headley is an Associate Professor in the Politics Programme at the University of Otago. His research interests are in Russian foreign policy, the European Union, nationalism, and International Relations theory. He is the author of Russia and the Balkans: Foreign Policy from Yeltsin to Putin (Hurst and Co./Columbia University Press). He completed his PhD at the School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University College London.Lena TanLena Tan is senior lecturer in International Relations at the University of Otago (Dunedin, New Zealand). Her research interests lie in provincializing IR through postcolonial, decolonial and other critical approaches, and the construction and constitution of the Global South in international relations. She has published on IR theory, 20th century decolonization, the role of metropolitan identity in Indonesian foreign and security policies and the end of British rule in India. E-mail: Lena.tan@otago.ac.nz

Negotiating the Good Friday Agreement and Ending the Ukraine War

This article argues that an understanding of the successful process which led to the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement (GFA) provides a useful context for understanding the constraints and opportunities for peace making in Ukraine. In Northern Ireland political actors took a pragmatic Realist approach to negotiations using a range of political skills, including manipulation and deception, to bring various contrasting and often antagonistic audiences to support or acquiesce in the Good Friday Agreement. Accommodation was achieved against the determined efforts of British Conservative and Republican ‘Dissident’ Militarists, who preferred the ‘moral certainties’ of war to conciliation and the messy morality and politics of peace making. The successful Realist approach applied in Northern Ireland provides some hope for a negotiated end to the Ukraine war.

Civil Society Organizations, the Good Friday Agreement, and the Northern Ireland Peace Process

Abstract A qualitative methodology was used to interview 120 participants from 2010 and 29 participants from 2020 who shared their experiences and perceptions about the Good Friday Agreement (GFA) and their peacebuilding work. Longitudinal findings reveal that the participants were critical of the Agreement and the disconnect between politicians and the grassroots as well as recognizing that the Agreement has brought about relative peace in Northern Ireland. While the participants attest to the relative success of the GFA, they also note several criticisms including sectarian politics, new paramilitaries, Brexit, legacy of the past, continuing divisions in Northern Ireland, and the disconnect between politicians and local community peacebuilders. The participants’ criticisms are significant as they attest that while the social peace at the grassroots level is moving forward the political peace is not as evidenced by the recent Unionist backlash against Brexit.

Stories of Gender Inclusion, Power-Sharing and the Good Friday Agreement

Abstract Marking the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement, we review the gendered legacy of power-sharing and peacebuilding in Northern Ireland. The participation of an all-women’s political party in the 1996–1998 peace talks and world-class commitments to human rights and equality enshrined in the Good Friday Agreement suggested that Northern Ireland would stand as a conflict resolution and institutional design model par excellence. While the intervening years have been largely peaceful, and women’s political representation has improved, years of political stalemate and poor equality and human rights protections for women suggest a mixed legacy of gender inclusion and power-sharing. In this paper, we chart the ups and downs of Northern Ireland’s power-sharing institutions in the context of feminist peace activism over two and a half decades and offer a set of feminist reflections on the promise and peril of power-sharing in Northern Ireland.