Northern Ireland marks 25 years of peace

Have you had a Good Friday?

Photo by K. Mitch Hodge on Unsplash

This East Monday, 10th April 2023, marks the 25th Anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement, the signing of the deal that brought the end of 30 years of violence, known as ‘The Troubles’

Northern Ireland was created over 100 years ago, with 6 of Ireland’s 26 counties remaining in the UK and, therefore, separate to the Republic of Ireland

While the isle of Ireland was predominantly Catholic, this was not the case north of the new border. In 1921, c. 1 million citizens of Northern Ireland (2 in 3 of the population) were Protestant with Catholics making up most of the remaining third

Protestants, aligning themselves with the British Union and, therefore, considering themselves British, clashed with Catholics who instead considered themselves Irish

This conflict between pro-union and pro-republican groups grew over time and spilled over into violence in the late 1960s

How deadly were ‘The Troubles’?

Over the course of just over 30 years, over 3,500 people died directly from the violence between Unionists and Republicans, plus an additional 30,000 injuries:

• a similar number of Catholics (1,500) and Protestants (1,300) died in the fighting
• most were killed in Northern Ireland. However, 116 victims of sectarian attacks died in the Republic of Ireland, as well as 125 people in Britain and 18 in Europe
• young people were more likely to be caught up in the fighting than older groups: 385 people killed were 17–19 years old (11% of all deaths), with a further 1,275 people killed in their 20s (36% of total)
• the Irish Republic Army (IRA) were responsible for more deaths (1,823) than any other group, with a range of loyalist paramilitary groups such as the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) or the Ulster Defense Association (UDA) responsible for a further 1,027 killings
• a further 363 people were killed by the British Armed Forces

The most deadly year during the Troubles was 1972 (480 deaths). Violence then rose and fell over the course of the next 30 years. Even as late as the 1990s, almost 400 people died due to Sectarian violence across the decade

Has there been violence since?

The 1998 Belfast Agreement (the deal’s official name) was put to a referendum on both sides of the border. 71% supported the Agreement in Northern Ireland, along with 94% in the Republic of Ireland

The 1998 deal led to a power-sharing agreement in the Northern Irish parliament at Stormont, meaning that Unionists and Republicans were guaranteed to share power in any future government

If assessing the Good Friday Agreement purely on the reduction in violence that followed, then the deal was largely successful

Admittedly, the most deadly single attack, The Omagh Bombing, was carried out 4 months later in September 1998. A breakaway group of the IRA (dubbed the Real IRA) killed 29 people with a car bomb, plus injured hundreds more. The bombing was condemned by the core IRA group

Since then deaths fell from 100–300 per year to 19 in 2000 and 16 in 2001

However, violence also didn’t completely disappear. For example, in the past 12 months (up to March 2023) there have been 6 bombings and 36 shootings, resulting in 1 death. On top of this, MI5 (Britain’s Security Service) still spends 20% of its budget on Northern Ireland

How has Northern Ireland changed politically in this time?

The first election resulted in a close to 50–50 split in votes Unionist and Republican parties, including:

• Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) that won the most seats with 28 out of the 108 seats on offer, or 21% of the vote. This meant that the UUP’s David Trimble became the first First Minister of Northern Ireland
• Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) was the next most popular unionist party with 20 seats and 18% of the vote
• Social Democratic and Labour Party’s (SDLP) became the largest Republican party (24 seats and 22% of the vote) and had Seamus Mallon elected as deputy-First Minister
• Sinn Féin (the former political wing of the IRA), won 18 seats from 18% of votes to become the second largest republican party

While the agreement achieved its main goal, some non-violent challenges continued after its signing and still prevail today

Not everyone in Northern Ireland supported the agreement. The Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) was the only political party to oppose the Good Friday Agreement in 1998, and their popularity has grown in the following 25 years. They’re now the largest unionist party and one recent poll of unionist supporters suggested that 54% of this group now didn’t support the original deal

While the DUP has been held the most seats in a number of recent elections, this was not the case in the most recent election in May 2022. Sinn Féin became the largest political party for the first time with 27 seats (out of 90) and 29% of the vote, beating the DUP who dropped down to 25 seats with a substantially lower 21% of votes

The political power sharing agreement means that both of these sides have to cooperate with each other, which has not always been straightforward

In the 25 years that have followed the Good Friday Agreement, the power-sharing agreement in Stormont has broken down on 6 occasions, resulting in deadlock in parliament

The most recent breakdown, in February 2022 was a result of the DUP leaving the government in Protest at the Northern Ireland protocol being negotiated by the British government

This means that, in total, Northern Ireland has had no working government for almost 10 years out of 25

Partly because of this stalemate, there has been a growing interest in parties that don’t associate as either unionist or republican. The Alliance Party more than doubled its seats in the May 2022 election, winning 17 with 13.5% of the vote. This is compared to the 1998 election when only 7% of votes went to parties not aligned to unionist or republican sides

This put the Alliance Party in 3rd place in the election and raised questions about whether a First Minister could be elected from the party if their popularity continued to rise. If this came about, it would fundamentally change the power sharing guarantee that unionists and republicans have enjoyed for the last 25 years

Check out more GoodStats on British History:

• 800 Lords a Leaping! Ohh Lordy Lord
• Queuing for the Queen; In Memory of her Majesty
• Going Platinum; Her Majesty and her 70 year reign

Source: BBC; Economist; Britannica; Wikipedia; Wikipedia; CAIN Project; Economist; Belfast Childs Is; IMW;