In April 1998, the Good Friday Agreement brought an end to the bloodshed that had engulfed Northern Ireland for thirty years. It was lauded worldwide as an example of an iconic peace process to which other divided societies should aspire. Today, the region has avoided returning to the bloodshed of the Troubles, but the peace that exists is deeply troubled and far from stable. The botched Parliament at Stormont lumbers from crisis to crisis and society remains deeply divided. At the time of writing, Sinn Féin and the DUP are refusing to share power and Northern Ireland faces direct rule from London. Meanwhile, Brexit poses a serious threat to the country's hard-won stability. Twenty years on from the historic accord, journalist Siobhán Fenton revisits the Good Friday Agreement, exploring its successes and failures, assessing the extent to which Northern Ireland has been able to move on from the Troubles, and analysing the recent collapse of power-sharing at Stormont. This remarkable book re-evaluates the legacy of the Good Friday Agreement and asks what needs to change to create a healthy and functional politics in Northern Ireland.

Essay from the year 2004 in the subject Politics - Region: Western Europe, grade: 2+ (B), University of Kent (Brussels School of International Studies), language: English, abstract: Six years after the Good Friday Agreement was signed and after a promising, although troubled start of the institutional framework it has put in place, Northern Ireland is, following the suspension of devolution on 14 October 2002, yet again under direct rule from Westminster. Centuries of conflict, decades of violent troubles and diametrically opposed demands of the groups involved make the Northern Ireland question to one of the most difficult conflicts of our time. Nevertheless, there was genuine optimism both among the parties involved and the international community that the Agreement would succeed and resolve the conflict. However, in the political reality of Northern Ireland, the Agreement soon reached its limits, and people realised that it takes more than an assembly and a power-sharing executive to overcome Ulster’s deep-rooted sectarian divisions. Internal disagreement in the unionist and nationalist camps over the direction the Agreement is likely to take them and the still unresolved question of IRA weapons decommissioning leave the future of the Agreement in serious doubt. The Agreement has been widely acknowledged as being consociational and consistent with the four principles of power-sharing identified by Lijphart. This paper will thus also discuss the theoretical foundation of the Agreement. Here, it will particularly focus on the role of the voting system (Single Transferable Vote) employed for the Assembly elections, which is unusual for consociational models. This paper will conclude that the Agreement is undeniably a major breakthrough. Even if the Agreement itself does not solve the conflict, by creating a prolonged period of peace in which political dialogue can take place, it could be a vital step towards a future settlement. But is the current situation in Northern Ireland really a transitional period likely to lead to a solution of the conflict in the future or is it what Trimble calls the ‘continuation of war by other means’? The Agreement was certainly not an overall failure as it has managed to bring parties together in political institutions which have refused to sit together in the same room for decades. But its limitations must also be clear: the war might be over but the conflict is far from ended. Since the Agreement has failed to address the underlying issues of the conflict and merely regulates violence, it cannot be regarded as a permanent and sustainable solution.

Foreword / Jonathan Tonge -- Politics and the people : shaping and sharing the future in Northern Ireland / Lesley Lelourec and Gráinne O'Keeffe-Vigneron -- Dealing with the past and envisioning the future : some problems with Northern Ireland's peace process / John Brewer -- Power-sharing and political stability : creating and sustaining a shared future in Northern Ireland / Timothy White -- The memoir-writing of former paramilitary prisoners in Northern Ireland : a politics of reconciliation? / Stephen Hopkins -- Loyalist collective memory, perspectives of the some and divided history / Jim McAuley -- The Ulster Volunteer Force and dealing with the past in Northern Ireland / Aaron Edwards -- Postnationalism, moderate nationalism and a shared Northern Ireland : the case of the SDLP / Philippe Cauvet -- Shared futures or a rerun of the 1930s? Community, trauma and reification in the people of Gallagher Street and Planet Belfast / Eva Urban -- 'A bright shiny police force acceptable to all' : representing the PSNI in Irish crime fiction / David Clarke -- Toy guns and miniatures : the kitschification of conflict in the Paramilitary Museum / Katie Markham -- Aftermath: The role of the arts in dealing with the legacy of conflict / Laurence McKeown,

A collection of essays from a Professor of Irish Politics at Queens University Belfast, discusses the many crises which have paralyzed the power-sharing institutions in Northern Ireland since 2002.

The Brexit vote for UK withdrawal from the EU has put the constitutional future of Northern Ireland centre-stage once again. Beyond the Border is an authoritative, timely and up-to-date guide to the provisions of the Good Friday Agreement. A compelling and accessible exploration of how the Agreement can be upheld despite Brexit uncertainties, and implemented despite political deadlock, it powerfully argues for the permanence of the Agreement and its cross-community approach, even in the event of the achievement of Irish unity. It comprehensively explains the radical implications of the principle of parity of esteem between the traditions and how the conflicting aspirations of nationalists and unionists can be accommodated. At a time of seismic constitutional transition it outlines the milestones on the pathway to a united Ireland by consent as envisaged by the Agreement. The Good Friday Agreement was endorsed by 71 per cent of voters in Northern Ireland and by 94 per cent in the rest of Ireland. Despite huge difficulties in implementation, this book contends that the Agreement remains a cornerstone of Ireland’s constitutional settlement. Beyond the Border is a vital and objective exploration of how the Agreement provides a peaceful path towards resolving Ireland’s ultimate constitutional dilemma.

Irish civil servants and political advisers reveal their role in the Northern Ireland peace process. Their testimonies evoke a strong sense of the highly sensitive political environment in which they worked. They reflect on the impact of an ever-changing political landscape on prospects for advancing the peace process, and on the evolution of policy and thinking about Northern Ireland from the outbreak of violence in 1968 to the conclusion of the 1998 Good Friday Agreement. These personal accounts offer insight into how the Irish tried to shape the course of the negotiation of a hard-won agreement.

Spanning more than thirty years, and costing over 3000 lives, the conflict in Northern Ireland has been one of the most protracted ethnic conflicts in Western Europe. After several failed attempts to resolve the fundamental differences over national belonging between the two communities in Northern Ireland, the Good Friday Agreement of 1998 seemed to offer the long awaited chance of sustainable peace and reconciliation. By looking at the various dimensions and dynamics of post conflict peace-building in the political system, the economy, and society of this deeply divided society, the contributors to this volume offer a comprehensive analysis of Northern Irish politics and society in the wake of the Good Friday Agreement and conclude that this is probably the best chance for a stable and long-term peace that Northern Ireland has had but that the difficulties that still lie ahead must not be underestimated.