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The Good Friday or Belfast Agreement (GFA) of 1998, that effectively ended the near three-decade long conflict in Northern Ireland, is approaching its twenty-fifth anniversary. The conflict in Northern Ireland, known to many as ‘The Troubles’, lasted roughly from 1966 to 1998. This protracted conflict, between Irish Nationalists or ‘republican’ paramilitary organisations, mainly the Irish Republican Army (IRA), and the security forces of the British state (whose counter-insurgency operations were supported in-part by loyalist paramilitary organisations), claimed approximately 3,500 lives. The Agreement was the result of more than a decade of negotiations between the numerous different parties involved in the conflict and was composed of numerous elements that together addressed the grievances and needs of these different parties and laid the foundation for a new system of governance for the province. The elements included: negotiating an end to the IRA’s armed campaign, the decommissioning of weapons used by both republican and loyalist paramilitaries, the demilitarisation of the province, policing reform, political reform, and an amnesty for members of paramilitary groups. The agreement was made possible with support from the US, the EU, and a high level of cooperation and engagement between successive British and Irish governments throughout the 1990s.

The Anglo-Irish agreement of 1985 was the first step toward the governments of Britain and Ireland moving toward some form of resolution to the conflict. The agreement involved the removal of an article from the Irish constitution which made an irredentist claim to the six counties that comprise Northern Ireland. The agreement was followed in the late-1980s by correspondence between Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) leader John Hume and Sinn Féin (SF) leader Gerry Adams.

The 1990s saw numerous changes in the greater international environment which created a ripe moment for the resolution of the conflict. In an interview with the author, former-Taoiseach (Prime minister of Ireland) John Bruton argued that ‘the fall of communism was a key event paving the way for the signing of the GFA. The US was no longer dependent on the UK (in terms of security) leaving the Clinton administration with a freedom that previous US administrations did not have’. Additionally, by the early-1990s, the leadership of the IRA were ageing, had matured ideologically, and had become aware that they were not going to succeed by force.

1993 saw the ‘Downing Street declaration’: an agreement between Taoiseach Albert Reynolds and Prime Minister John Major which stated that the two governments would be working together closely in order to achieve some form of resolution to the conflict. A closer degree of cooperation at government level in addition to back-channel talks between Hume and Adams led to the IRA ceasefire of 1994, which although interrupted by the IRA bombing of London’s Canary Wharf in 1996, effectively lasted until the 1998 agreement, with some exceptions. Elections in both the UK and Ireland in 1997 saw the election of Tony Blair and Bertie Ahern respectively, two leaders who were deeply committed to making peace in Northern Ireland. The role of the Clinton Administration's envoy George Mitchell, has been seen by many as being of vital importance in the latter stages of the negotiations.

The signing of the agreement in April 1998 was met with celebration internationally, yet the months and years that followed were mired with spoiler-related violence and other frustrations. The Omagh bombing of August 1998 by a splinter group calling themselves the ‘Real’ IRA (RIRA), which claimed 29 lives, was the first major test for the agreement. A RIRA attack on MI6 headquarters in London in 2000, the Northern Bank robbery of 2004, and the killing of IRA member turned informant Dennis Donaldson in 2006 were all incidents that indicated that the ways of the past had not been fully put to rest for some in the republican movement. There were also attempts by loyalist paramilitaries, including the newly-formed ‘Red Hand Defenders’, to derail the peace process between 1998 and 2001; with their most notable act being the killing of journalist, Martin O’Hagan in 2001.

As outlined in the GFA, security sector reform, the release of prisoners and the decommissioning of weapons would all take place in the years that followed the signing of the agreement. The Independent Commission for Policing in Northern Ireland, chaired by former governor of Hong Kong Chris Patten, published its report in 1999, which led to the abolition of the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC), which was replaced by the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI). The release or hundreds of prisoners, members of both republican and loyalist paramilitary organisations, began in the summer of 1998. By the summer of 2000, most political prisoners had been released. Fraught negotiations and disagreements concerning the decommissioning of arms by the IRA continued for over three years before the process began in 2001. The announcement that all IRA arms had been decommissioned came in 2005. In 2009, Loyalist paramilitaries issued a similar statement. Overall, much was achieved in the first decade following the agreement.

However, failure to form a functional power-sharing government was a reoccuring problem from 1998 until 2007. In the summer of 2007, following weeks of negotiations between SF and the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), Martin McGuinness (SF) and Ian Paisley (DUP) agreed to form a........

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