Editorial: 25 years on - how deal-making saved the future for Northern Ireland

A mural of United States President Joe Biden adorns the side of a shop in Ballina, Ireland. Biden is scheduled to visit the town this week, part of a four-day trip to Ireland and Northern Ireland. Photo / AP

Editorial

This Easter has been different from most because it marks the 25th anniversary of an event that still provides hope to people living through entrenched conflicts.

On April 10, 1998, the Good Friday Agreement was signed, officially shutting The Troubles into the past and setting Northern Ireland on a different path that has allowed a generation of people to grow up there largely free of political violence.

In total about 3600 people were killed and tens of thousands injured in The Troubles over three decades. People’s lives were undoubtedly saved in the years since because of the agreement.

The hope was that if the opposing Catholic nationalist and Protestant unionist sides could maintain the peace, a lowered temperature would allow routine politics of cautious cooperation to be normalised.

It took Northern Ireland local leaders, a referendum backing the agreement, the work of the British, Irish and United States governments, and the setting up of a power-sharing governing arrangement to ensure the roots of change took hold.

Then- British Prime Minister Tony Blair, United States Senator George Mitchell, and Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern after they signed the Good Friday Agreement for peace in Northern Ireland, on April 10, 1998. The landmark peace accord ended three decades of violence in Northern Ireland. Photo / AP

Any peaceful solution that relies on an open-ended process for progress is by nature fragile. There’s no neat conclusion. It has allowed for a different future to be dreamed up, but 25 years on, also probably means old realities seem less real for new generations.

The peace process has had to depend on politicians continuing to support institutions and work together, extremist republican and loyalist groups laying down their weapons, people’s attitudes evolving, and the passage of time.

The legacy of decades of conflict remains. Dissident militant groups still occasionally launch attacks, mainly aimed at security forces.

Brexit and the contortions over how to avoid a hard border with the Irish Republic, and Northern Ireland’s identity as part of the United Kingdom with customs checks have been a major stress test.

There has been a political stalemate for almost a year, after the main unionist party withdrew from the Northern Ireland Assembly government.

Police at the weekend warned that armed dissident groups might plan attacks as United States President Joe Biden prepared to visit Ireland and Belfast this week.

These days Belfast is known as much for having been the production base for Game of Thrones and its Titanic quarter as its painful sectarian past.

In 1998, a number of people were able to grasp the moment and get the agreement over the line, some of whom are no longer alive.

They included Social Democratic and Labour Party leader John Hume and David Trimble of the Ulster Unionist Party who were later awarded the Nobel Prize, and the Northern Ireland Secretary Mo Mowlam who was dealing with cancer while negotiating.

Ultimately, politics won out over political violence. The opposing sides made concessions. Problem-solving worked.

Hume famously said that his party’s hope was that “we should have institutions that respected the differences of the people and that gave no victory to either side”.

The idea that giving way so that everyone could buy in was the best approach, probably seemed as unlikely then as it does to many people viewing today’s political and social climate.

The challenge for societies as they grow in range of experiences and ideas is to still find common connections.

A loyalist mural is seen on a wall in west Belfast, Northern Ireland. It has been 25 years since the Good Friday Agreement largely ended a conflict in Northern Ireland that left 3,600 people dead. Photo / AP