scholarly journals Navigating complexity and uncertainty after the Belfast–Good Friday Agreement : the role of societal trauma?

2021 ◽  
Vol 71 (4) ◽  
pp. 619-634
Author(s):  
Peter Doran
Keyword(s):  
Northern Ireland ◽  
Legal Order ◽  
Affective Dimension ◽  
Good Friday ◽  
Good Friday Agreement ◽  
Societal Trauma

A central challenge of the Belfast–Good Friday Agreement is the radical contingency or uncertainty that underpins the current democratic legal order in Northern Ireland. It is a dimension of the Agreement that will come to the fore with growing demands for preparations and planning ahead of any referendum on the constitutional future of the region. Using a combination of perspectives from the literature on societal trauma and agonism, this article asks if we need to pay more attention to this affective dimension of the Belfast–Good Friday Agreement and the journey from outright antagonism to an agonism that envisages a society capable of addressing conflict while respecting the ‘other’s’ entitlement to hold a radically different position.

scholarly journals Navigating complexity and uncertainty after the Belfast–Good Friday Agreement: the role of societal trauma?

2020 ◽  
Vol 71 (4) ◽  
pp. OA83-OA98
Author(s):  
Peter Doran
Keyword(s):  
Northern Ireland ◽  
Legal Order ◽  
Affective Dimension ◽  
Good Friday ◽  
Good Friday Agreement ◽  
Societal Trauma

A central challenge of the Belfast–Good Friday Agreement is the radical contingency or uncertainty that underpins the current democratic legal order in Northern Ireland. It is a dimension of the Agreement that will come to the fore with growing demands for preparations and planning ahead of any referendum on the constitutional future of the region. Using a combination of perspectives from the literature on societal trauma and agonism, this article asks if we need to pay more attention to this affective dimension of the Belfast–Good Friday Agreement and the journey from outright antagonism to an agonism that envisages a society capable of addressing conflict while respecting the ‘other’s’ entitlement to hold a radically different position.

Confederal and Consociational Futures

2019 ◽  
pp. 290-364
Author(s):  
Brendan O’Leary
Keyword(s):  
Great Britain ◽  
Northern Ireland ◽  
European Integration ◽  
Good Friday ◽  
Eu Membership ◽  
Good Friday Agreement ◽  
The Future

The concluding chapter critically reviews the role of European integration in improving British-Irish relations, and in the making of the Good Friday Agreement. Four major votes across Northern Ireland between 2016 and 2017 are surveyed, paying particular attention to the 2016 referendum on EU membership. Predictions are made about the future of Northern Ireland and its union with Great Britain or its reunification with Ireland based on unfolding developments. Transformations South and North, political, social, and economic, are emphasized. The closure of the prospects of a second partition of Ulster is highlighted. Discussion about the possible breakdown, decay, or amendment of existing consociational provisions, and possible modes and modalities of Irish reunification are considered against three twilights that are highlighted, and sketched.

scholarly journals Richard Bean’s The Big Fellah (2010) and Jez Butterworth’s The Ferryman (2017): two plays about the Northern Troubles from outside of Northern Ireland

2020 ◽  
Vol 73 (2) ◽  
pp. 115-126 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hiroko Mikami
Keyword(s):  
Northern Ireland ◽  
Northern Irish ◽  
The Troubles ◽  
Good Friday ◽  
Good Friday Agreement

During the three decades of the Troubles of Northern Ireland (1969-1998), a remarkable amount of plays about the Troubles was written and almost of them, it seems, had been ‘monopolised’ by (Northern) Irish playwrights. Recently, however, certain changes about this monopoly have been witnessed and those who do not claim themselves as Irish descendants have begun to choose the Northern Troubles as their themes. Also, there have been growing concerns about violence worldwide since 9.11. This article deals with two plays, Richard Bean’s The Big Fellah and Jez Butterworth’s The Ferryman, neither of which was written by an Irish playwright and examines whether and to what extent it is possible to say that they can transcend regional boundaries and become part of global memories in the context of the post-Good Friday Agreement and the post 9.11.

The mental health impact of the Troubles, 1969–1999

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Bolton
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Northern Ireland ◽  
Health Impact ◽  
Peace Accord ◽  
The Troubles ◽  
Good Friday ◽  
Belfast Agreement ◽  
Good Friday Agreement ◽  
The Impact

This Chapter is the first of two that describe efforts to understand the mental health and related impacts of the conflict in Northern Ireland, often referred to as The Troubles. The Chapter covers the period from the outbreak of violence in the late 1960’s up until the period around the peace accord, the Belfast Agreement (or Good Friday Agreement) of April 1998. The early studies reveal little, if any, major effects on the wellbeing and mental health of the population, but as the years go by, evidence starts to build of the impact of the violence, particularly as the ceasefires of the early and mid 1990’s take hold. The developing understanding of the impact was due in part to the evolution of methods and approaches being used by researchers - which is discussed in more detail at the end of Chapter 5.

The Good Friday Agreement, 1998: Implementation

2020 ◽  
pp. 453-522
Author(s):  
John Coakley ◽  
Jennifer Todd
Keyword(s):  
Political Context ◽  
Power Sharing ◽  
Stable Phase ◽  
Good Friday ◽  
The Core ◽  
Highly Sensitive ◽  
The Everyday ◽  
Good Friday Agreement ◽  
Run Up

Although the Good Friday Agreement dates from April 1998, its implementation was beset by crises over the formation of an executive, decommissioning of paramilitary arms, and policing reform. It was not until December 1999 that the institutions for which it made provision came into being. Even after that, the Assembly and executive continued to be subject to destabilizing pressures, and ultimately collapsed in 2002. It was only following the St Andrews Agreement of 2006 (which made some minor changes to the provisions agreed in 1998) that the Democratic Unionist Party agreed to restoration of the power-sharing executive and a new and more stable phase of power-sharing government ensued. The witness seminar that is at the core of this chapter discusses the role of civil servants in this process, focussing on the reorganization of government departments, the creation of North–South bodies, and the everyday mechanisms of government in the highly sensitive political context which followed the Good Friday Agreement, where delays in decommissioning and demilitarization and reform of policing were threatening political progress. Two additional interviews describe governmental thinking and strategies to resolve the outstanding issues move to a restoration of the institutions in the run-up to the St Andrews Agreement.

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