Channels, Fall 2018

Page 40 Holm • A Call to Peace counties became independent of Great Britain, whereas the six north-eastern counties remained part of the United Kingdom and became Northern Ireland. From its creation, Northern Ireland contained a Protestant majority and a Catholic minority. Because of this, tension between the two groups was never far off. This tension culminated in the late 1960s, in a period that became known as the Troubles. The Catholic minority began campaigning through demonstrations. Protestants, in turn, responded with counter- demonstrations. The unrest did not stop here. London sent in the army to keep the peace. However, the Catholic minority, who viewed the army as a symbol of oppression, responded with the paramilitary group the Provisional Irish Republican Army (PIRA/IRA) (Mac Ginty, & Darby 2002). However, during the years of violence the seeds for the peace process were being sown. In 1985, the Anglo-Irish agreement made a working relationship between the United Kingdom and Ireland on the issue of Northern Ireland feasible. In the 1990s an important shift occurred, which strengthened the possibility of a peace process. This shift was the inclusion of political parties connected to paramilitary groups in the peace process (Mac Ginty, & Darby 2002). With this inclusion, the talks met the definition of a peace process, as defined in the introduction, by including the key actors in the talks. An important aspect of the Northern Ireland Peace Process was the concept of the three- strand framework. Each strand, in this framework, represented a different relationship within the British Isles. The first strand represented the relationship between the two communities in Northern Ireland, while the second strand represented the relationship between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. The third strand represented the relationship between the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland. Each of these would be essential to the peace process, since every peace deal would have to address each strand (Mac Ginty, & Darby 2002). After lengthy negotiations, the Good Friday Agreement was reached on April 10, 1998, Good Friday. 3 Five constitutional provisions were essential to the agreement as outlined in Guns and Government: First, Northern Ireland’s future constitutional status was to be in the hands of its citizens. Second, if the people of Ireland, north and south, wanted a united Ireland, they could have one by voting for it. Third, Northern Ireland’s current constitutional position would remain within the United Kingdom. Fourth, Northern Ireland’s citizens would have the right to ‘identify themselves and be accepted as Irish or British, or both.’ Fifth, the Irish state would drop its territorial claim on Northern Ireland and instead define the Irish nation in terms of people rather than land (Mac Ginty, & Darby 2002). As can be seen in these constitutional provisions, the Good Friday Agreement addressed each strand in the three-strand framework. Additionally, the agreement was given the democratic seal of approval through a referendum. A copy of it was delivered to every home in Northern Ireland, giving every citizen of Northern Ireland a chance to read it 3 The Good Friday Agreement is also referred to as the Belfast Agreement (Elliott, M . 2007) .