First modification:
The consensus reached in Northern Ireland on April 10, 1998 made it possible to lay the foundations for a lasting peace in this region, which for almost three decades suffered from an interreligious dispute that had a political, nationalist, and ethnic background. Irish Republican Catholics and Protestant Unionists clashed in a fight that left more than 3,500 fatalities and although this agreement did not bring immediate peace, it was essential to achieve it in the coming years.
To understand where the Northern Irish conflict came from, you have to go back in history. The island of Ireland —with a Catholic majority— belonged to the United Kingdom until 1922, when a large part of the territory achieved its independence after a war against London. However, Ulster, a region in the north of the island with a Protestant majority and a British population, after centuries of colonization, remained within the United Kingdom. Something that in the long run would generate an internal conflict.
In Northern Ireland, that Protestant majority dominated for decades all the institutions of the territory and marginalized and repressed the Catholic and ethnically Irish minority, trying to eliminate any sign of their cultural identity. This caused that, in 1968, thousands of Irish Catholics took to the streets to protest for their rights, something that was answered by the authorities with violence.
During years, Irish republicanism yearned to join the rest of Irelandbut this objective was opposed by the so-called unionists, Protestants who were defenders of remaining under the umbrella of the United Kingdom and the monarchy.
The birth of the Provisional IRA as a response to the marginalization of Catholics
It is in this convulsive context that the Provisional IRA was born, a split of the Irish Republican Army —or Official IRA—, which decided to embrace the armed route to expel the United Kingdom from the island. His action multiplied the attacks and made London decide in 1969 to send the British Army to Northern Ireland to quell a growing insurrection.
However, the IRA would not be the only one responsible for the increase in violencesince the unionists created several paramilitary groups such as the UDA or the Loyalist Volunteer Force that, given what they considered to be the passivity of London, attacked, assassinated and persecuted Catholics and Republicans.
general chaos which led to what The United Kingdom abolished the autonomy of Northern Ireland in 1972, the bloodiest year of the conflictwith 480 victims. Some of them died in well-known massacres such as that of ‘Bloody Sunday’, when the British Army murdered 14 protesters. An action that months later had a response in what is known as ‘Bloody Friday’, when the IRA detonated 22 bombs simultaneously in Northern Ireland and killed nine people.
And, although the murders fell significantly in the following years —there were less than 100 deaths per year— the attacks multiplied in the rest of the United Kingdom, including attempted assassinations, such as the detonation of a bomb in the hotel where the It was hosted by former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher on one of her visits to Brighton in 1984.
A long road to peace full of doubts
The reduction in violence occurred in parallel with a process of wear and tear in the ranks of the Provisional IRA and the unionist paramilitary groups, who began to report numerous casualties and were losing support among civil society, anxious to live in peace in a definitive. This context led to the beginning of the 1990s, when people began to talk about a possible agreement that would put an end to the conflict. An objective in which a party considered the political branch of the Provisional IRA gained prominence: Sinn Fein.
As former British Prime Minister John Major put it in late 1993:
“25 years of violence have produced no progress for anyone and much misery for all. What is in this document is as clear an indication as possible that, as long as the IRA is willing to renounce violence for good, then the Sinn Fein will be able to join the exploratory talks.”
Following these words from Major, the IRA declared a ceasefire in 1994, which was followed by a cessation of hostilities in conjunction with unionist paramilitary groups. In this climate of tense calm, negotiations began between the Northern Irish republicans, unionist groups, the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland. And except for a period of return to violence in 1996, the process culminated in some historic agreements on April 10, 1998, during Good Friday of that year.
A historic moment for Ireland and the UK when George Mitchell, U.S. mediator and former senator, uttered the following words:
“I am pleased to announce that the two governments, and Northern Ireland’s political parties, have reached an agreement. The agreement proposes changes to the Irish Constitution and British constitutional law to enshrine the principle that it is the people of Northern Ireland. North the one that will decide, democratically, its own future”.
The text guaranteed some of the historical demands of republicanism, such as the option of dual nationality, free border crossing, the formation of a self-government with a distribution of power between the two sides and the reform of the police.
The agreement was endorsed by 71.1% of Northern Irelandwho opted to achieve peace, Ireland ceased its territorial claims and the United Kingdom withdrew its Army from the area. And although the treaty did not bring an immediate end to violence, since the Omagh attack took place a few months later, which left 29 dead, it did contribute to the fact that, over the years, sectors of the IRA reluctant to peace were losing strength, getting them to lay down their arms in 2005.
Since then Northern Ireland experienced a period of peace unprecedented in recent decades that was only threatened after Brexit by uncertainty around the border, although the United Kingdom and the European Union finally agreed to maintain free movement between Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic to avoid a return to the tensions of years ago.
