Good Friday agreement: new beginning or false dawn? Sectarian violence and religious war are all too well known in the Emerald Isle ...
Behind the Headlines › Vol. 56 Nbr. 1, September 1998
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Good Friday agreement: new beginning or false dawn? Sectarian violence and religious war are all too well known in the Emerald Isle ...
The Good Friday agreement of April 1998 concluded at Castle Building, Belfast, offered a new hope for bridging the sectarian divide in Northern Ireland. The endorsement of the agreement by 71 per cent of the electorate in the 22 May referendum was the most promising harbinger of peace and reconciliation in that troubled province since the partition of the island of Ireland in 1920. Few had any illusions, however, that all would now be smooth sailing. This durable quarrel, the product of conflicting allegiances, has defied many attempts at resolution.
In 1922, in the aftermath of the First World War, barely two years after partition and a mere six months after the Anglo-Irish Treaty created the Irish Free State, Winston Churchill spoke of `the dreary steeples of Fermanagh and Tyrone emerging once again.' As the `deluge' of the World War subsided, he observed that `the integrity of their quarrel is one of the ...See the full content of this document
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