Understanding aspiration, anxiety, assumption and ambiguity: the anatomy of Sunningdale

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arthur Aughey
Keyword(s):  
Northern Ireland ◽  
Political Stability ◽  
Power Sharing ◽  
Good Friday ◽  
Good Friday Agreement

Lord Bew has argued in his Ireland: The Politics of Enmity 1789-2006 that the failure of the power-sharing experiment in 1973-74, and especially on the proposal for a Council of Ireland, was largely the product of inflated nationalist aspirations encountering raised unionist anxieties amidst exaggerated official assumptions about what was politically achievable. These three As can be said to have fostered a fourth A - ambiguity - which was destructive of the project for political stability. If these four As together constitute a template for instability, there appears at first sight to be an irony. Has not ‘constructive ambiguity’ contributed to the enduring peace since the 1998 Belfast/Good Friday Agreement? This chapter suggests that the experience of 1973-74 still applies in Northern Ireland and that it is the absence of ambiguity which makes aspiration, anxiety and assumption institutionally manageable.

An Experiment in Coercive Consociation

2019 ◽  
pp. 87-134
Author(s):  
Brendan O’Leary
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
Northern Ireland ◽  
Power Sharing ◽  
Good Friday ◽  
Administration Of Justice ◽  
Good Friday Agreement ◽  
The Impact

The making of the Anglo-Irish Agreement (AIA) of 1985 is examined in detail, and interpretations of its significance are assessed. Was the AIA simply a form of inter-governmentalism, or was it tacitly or unintentionally a project to incentivize unionists to favor power-sharing? That is, is it best interpreted as a coercive way of promoting consociation? The impact of the 1985 AIA is assessed across parties, movements, and paramilitaries, and in particular its impact on the administration of justice, and on social justice within Northern Ireland, is discussed. Its foundational role in making the Good Friday Agreement possible is also highlighted.

Banalising Evil?

2021 ◽  
pp. 164-175
Author(s):  
Veronica Membrive
Keyword(s):  
Northern Ireland ◽  
Power Sharing ◽  
Growing Up ◽  
Television Show ◽  
The Troubles ◽  
Good Friday ◽  
Good Friday Agreement ◽  
20Th Anniversary

2018 was the celebration year of the 20th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement of 1998, bringing power-sharing and much peace to Northern Ireland. Twenty years seem a fair distance to address the issue from a comical viewpoint. Lisa McGee's television show Derry Girls (2018) released in Channel 4, and recently in Netflix, seems to convey a nostalgic and caustic outlook at the 1990s during the last years of The Troubles and focuses on the lives of a gang of four Irish teenagers growing up in the setting of Catholic Derry. This chapter will interrogate the banalization of evil conveyed by McGee by tackling the representation of evil and violence in Northern Ireland during The Troubles.

‘Slow learners’? Comparing the Sunningdale Agreement and the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Hennessey
Keyword(s):  
Northern Ireland ◽  
Power Sharing ◽  
Slow Learners ◽  
Good Friday ◽  
Good Friday Agreement ◽  
Ministerial Council ◽  
The Face ◽  
The Republic ◽  
The Government ◽  
The Uk

This chapter compares and contrasts the 1973 and 1998 Agreements that, on the face of it, are remarkably similar: both involve power-sharing and an institutional link between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. The phrase ‘Sunningdale for slow learners’, attributed to Seamus Mallon, masks a misunderstanding of the fundamental differences between the two Agreements. The former Agreement looked to establish a Council of Ireland with executive powers that had the potential to evolve into an embryonic all-Ireland government; the latter Agreement established a consultative North-South Ministerial Council with no executive powers that could not evolve into a united Ireland by incremental moves. This was the key to Unionist acceptance of the Good Friday Agreement (GFA) in comparison to Unionist rejection of the Sunningdale Agreement. In constitutional terms the GFA was a Unionist settlement that secured Northern Ireland’s position within the United Kingdom, recognised British sovereignty in Northern Ireland and established that a united Ireland could only be achieved on the basis of the principle of consent. In contrast the Sunningdale Agreement was, in constitutional terms, a Nationalist settlement that did not recognise Northern Ireland was part of the UK and attempted to bypass the principle of consent by establishing powerful North-South bodies. The chapter argues that the only thing the two Agreements has in common was a power-sharing element for the government of Northern Ireland.

5. The twenty-first century

2020 ◽  
pp. 104-120
Author(s):  
Marc Mulholland
Keyword(s):  
Northern Ireland ◽  
Political Parties ◽  
Identity Politics ◽  
Power Sharing ◽  
First Century ◽  
Sinn Fein ◽  
Good Friday ◽  
Good Friday Agreement ◽  
Twenty First Century ◽  
The Impact

‘The twenty-first century’ explains how the Good Friday Agreement saw considerable institutional restructuring in Northern Ireland. An Assembly was elected in 1998, with a power-sharing government, with David Trimble of the UUP as First Minister and Seamus Mallon of the SDLP as Deputy First Minister operating between 1998 and 2001. Between 2001 and 2007, the power-sharing government collapsed and the DUP and Sinn Féin succeeded in becoming the main political parties for their respective communities. The 2006 St Andrews Agreement brought the extremes together. The power-sharing government collapsed once more in 2017 when Sinn Féin withdrew. Identity politics in Northern Ireland and the impact of Brexit on the Northern Ireland question are also discussed.

Negotiating a Settlement in Northern Ireland, 1969-2019

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Coakley ◽  
Jennifer Todd
Keyword(s):  
Northern Ireland ◽  
Power Sharing ◽  
Violent Conflict ◽  
Three Dimensions ◽  
Peace Building ◽  
Good Friday ◽  
Complex Modes ◽  
Good Friday Agreement ◽  
Northern Ireland Conflict ◽  
Substantial Equality

The Good Friday Agreement of 1998 ended a protracted violent conflict in Northern Ireland and became an international reference point for peace-building. Negotiating a Settlement In Northern Ireland, 1969–2019 traces the roots and outworkings of the Agreement, focussing on the British and Irish governments, their changing policy paradigms and their extended negotiations from the Sunningdale conference of 1973 to the St Andrews Agreement of 2006. It identifies three dimensions of change that paved the way for agreement: in elite understandings of sovereignty, in development of wide-ranging and complex modes of power-sharing, and in the interrelated emergence of substantial equality in the socio-economic, cultural, and political domains. The book combines wide-ranging analysis with unparalleled use of witness seminars and interviews where the most senior British and Irish politicians, civil servants and advisors discuss the process of coming to agreement. In tracing the processes by which British and Irish perspectives converged to address the Northern Ireland conflict, the book provides a benchmark against which the ongoing impact of Brexit on the Good Friday Agreement can be assessed.

Northern Ireland and the Divided World: The Northern Ireland Conflict and the Good Friday Agreement in Comparative Perspective. Edited by John McGarry. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001. 374p. $65.00 cloth, $24.95 paper.

2002 ◽  
Vol 96 (4) ◽  
pp. 857-858
Author(s):  
David E. Schmitt
Keyword(s):  
Northern Ireland ◽  
Power Sharing ◽  
Comparative Perspective ◽  
Good Friday ◽  
Oxford University ◽  
Good Friday Agreement ◽  
Northern Ireland Conflict ◽  
Internal Coherence ◽  
Distinguished Group ◽  
Considerable Pressure

John McGarry and a distinguished group of comparativists have produced a volume important not only for scholars interested in the study of Northern Ireland but also for those concerned with ethnic conflict and nationalism generally. Although its success is certainly not assured, the Good Friday Agreement of 1998, a consociational (power-sharing) settlement of the Northern Ireland conflict with international confederal dimensions, has sparked much interest by scholars and practitioners concerned with other ethnonational conflicts. The agreement was achieved with considerable pressure and support from international actors. The international community has played an increasingly important part in the resolution, management, and containment of ethnonational conflict, and the success or failure of the Good Friday Agreement may hold important lessons for international efforts elsewhere. From both a theoretical and practical perspective, this is a fine edited volume with internal coherence and useful contributions.

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.

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