Good News on Good Friday
After a touch-and-go period, Prime Minister Blair brought all the major parties together in 1998. Extremists on both sides threatened to scuttle the talks, but last-minute heroics by Blair, U.S. Senator George Mitchell, and President Bill Clinton kept the negotiators at the table. The Good Friday Agreement of April 10, 1998, laid the groundwork for what many hope will be a lasting peace.
Moderate Catholic leader John Hume shared the 1998 Nobel Peace Prize with Unionist leader David Trimble for their part in the Good Friday Agreement. This was the second peace prize granted for work on the Troubles; Betty Williams and Mairead Corrigan-Maguire won the 1976 Nobel Peace Prize for organizing Peace People, a grassroots organization in Northern Ireland dedicated to ending the violence.
The Good Friday Agreement
The Good Friday Agreement adopted many of the provisions of previous peace attempts, such as the Sunningdale Agreement. One of the unfortunate ironies of the situation is that it took so long to reach essentially the same solution as was rejected in 1974. But maybe it took years of violence to make people accept the necessary compromises:
Home rule returned to Northern Ireland, with a representative assembly sharing power between Catholics and Protestants.
The RUC was reorganized and renamed the Police Service of Northern Ireland.
The IRA and UDA agreed to maintain the cease-fire.
Assuming the cease-fire held, the IRA and UDA agreed to a gradual process of decommissioning their weapons.
Political prisoners were released.
The Republic of Ireland amended its constitution to remove its territorial claim to Northern Ireland until the people of Northern Ireland agreed to rejoin.
To go into effect, the agreement required the approval of a majority of the people in Northern Ireland and the Republic. In a May 1998 referendum, it drew the support of 94.4 percent of voters in the Republic and 71.1 percent of people in Northern Ireland. While this result gave a great boost for the peace process, one element of the vote still gave people pause — while 96 percent of Catholic voters in Northern Ireland supported the Good Friday Agreement, only 52 percent of Protestants voted in favor.
