A Quarter-Century Later, the Good Friday Peace Accords Are Holding in Northern Ireland

David Feherty, the irreverent golf commentator, once observed that to get by in Northern Ireland – as he did at the height of The Troubles – people had to rely on their “sense of the absurd.”

Whether Catholic, Protestant, or agnostic, Ulster residents required a lot more than an appreciation for absurdity to survive the last third of the 20th century. They needed bombproof walls and bulletproof vests – and there weren’t enough to go around.

Four times the number of people were killed (3500 in a country of fewer than two million) during Northern Ireland’s sectarian Troubles than perished during the Nazis’ terror bombing of Belfast in World War II. To put it in perspective, imagine a civil conflict breaking out in the U.S. that slaughters and maims nearly a million of us. 

What caused such hatred? Centuries of oppression, paranoia, and violent confrontation, fueled in no small measure by a devious and callous government in London. Largely Protestant mercenaries were hellbent on keeping Northern Ireland part of the United Kingdom. Largely Catholic mercenaries were hellbent on breaking ties with Britain and uniting the North with the Republic down South. Innocent civilians got caught in the crossfire. Too often, majority Protestant rule in Northern Ireland denied Catholics a decent education, or to hold meaningful jobs, or to live in nicer neighborhoods. 

The grievances on both sides were ancient and deeply rooted. Author Patrick Radden Keefe put it this way in Say Nothing, his searing study of Northern Ireland’s religious animosity: “People had a tendency to talk about bygone calamities as though they had happened just last week.”

Both sides indiscriminately (and routinely) blew up bombs and carried out assassinations. The presence of the British Army, which often colluded with Protestant militia groups, provoked more violence than it prevented.

Why have hostilities eased in Northern Ireland in recent decades? It’s because a quarter-century ago, people of courage and good faith stepped into the void.

In 1994, Northern Ireland statesmen led by David Trimble and John Hume brokered a long-negotiated ceasefire between the armed camps. In due time, they encouraged the Clinton Administration to mediate peace talks. President Clinton appointed former Senate Majority Leader George J. Mitchell (D-ME) to serve as special envoy. The British and Irish governments then invited Senator Mitchell to chair the talks. It took years of painstaking diplomacy, but the Senator earned the respect of all sides; despite threats and counterthreats, everyone ultimately stayed at the negotiating table. 

The compromise unveiled during Easter week 1998 was brilliantly branded and positioned through the prism of church leaders on both sides. Had it been named something generic, such as the “Northern Ireland Peace Pact,” it may not have connected with Ulster citizens emotionally or spiritually. 

But the “Good Friday Agreement” gave everyone pause. It reminded people at both ends of the divide that they shared core values and religious teachings. The Good Friday parable is about resurrection, renewal, and faith. As the great (and now sadly late) U.S. communications strategist Richard Levick was fond of saying, the route to effective behavioral change lies through the heart and soul.

Northern Ireland’s accord made history: for the first time, all parties agreed to a new governance framework and vowed to work together to preserve the peace. 

The wonderful Irish television comedy “Derry Girls” (2019-2022) was set in 1990s Ulster, just as The Troubles were beginning to wane. Fans of the show found themselves stifling tears as they watched their beloved characters embrace hope and humanity in voting to ratify the Good Friday Agreement. 

“The essence of the 1998 deal and of post-1998 progress – that goals should be pursued through a non-violent politics based on respect for rival perspectives,” writes Richard English, the Director of the Senator George J. Mitchell Institute for Global Peace, Security, and Justice at Queen’s University Belfast, “remains the impressive basis for a much less blood-stained political world in Northern Ireland.” 

The mere fact that such an institute exists in Northern Ireland’s capital – and that it’s named after an American – should make us proud. Twenty-five years later, despite occasional flare-ups, the Good Friday Agreement is holding, thank heavens. As President Biden put it in remarks at Ulster University this week, “[George Mitchell’s] time serving as Special Envoy for Northern Ireland is one of the great examples in history of the right person for the right job at the right time.” 

Achieving peace in Northern Ireland, the president declared, “shifted the political gravity in our world.”

For Northern Ireland to keep that gravity shifted, however, will require an honest reckoning with its past. With its ugly tribalism, the Ulster of the late 20th century provides a cautionary tale for the U.S. Both sides told their people big lies, triggered the worst kind of vitriol, armed their guerillas to the teeth, then sat back as the blood flowed even thicker. 

Ulsterman David Feherty, raised Protestant, maintains that, “Hatred, you're not born with. It’s a learned behavior. It’s ingrained to the extent that it’s really only education that can get us past it.”

Amen.