Negotiating a settlement in Northern Ireland, 1969-2019. From Sunningdale to St Andrews

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 out-workings 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 the evolution of elite understanding of sovereignty, in the 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. Cover Negotiating a Settlement in Northern Ireland, 1969–2019 Copyright Preface Contents List of Figures List of Tables List of Appendices and Documents Abbreviations Note on Documents 1: Introduction: Defining Moments in the British-Irish Relationship 1.1. Introduction 1.2. The Conflict and its Context 1.2.1. The British–Irish Relationship after Partition 1.2.2. The Pursuit of a Constitutional Settlement 1.2.3. The Political Context 1.2.4. The Demographic and Socioeconomic Contexts 1.2.5. The Parameters of Debate 1.3. Analysing the Changing British–Irish Relationship 1.3.1. The Challenge 1.3.2. The Material 1.3.3. The Selection 1.4. The Institutional Context 1.4.1. Institutional Evolution 1.4.2. Personnel 1.5. Conclusion Appendices Appendix 1.1. Bibliographical Note on Additional Source Material The Sunningdale Agreement The Anglo-Irish Agreement The Downing Street Declaration and Framework Documents The Good Friday Agreement: Negotiation The Good Friday Agreement: Implementation Appendix 1.2. Biographical Notes on Participants Appendix 1.3. The Anglo-Irish Division in the Department of Foreign Affairs THE CREATION OF THE ANGLO-IRISH DIVISION IN THE DEPARTMENT OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS, 1970: A NOTE BY SEÁN DONLON, NOVEMBER 2011 Appendix 1.4. The Northern Ireland Division in the Department of the Taoiseach THE CREATION OF THE NORTHERN IRELAND DIVISION IN THE DEPARTMENT OF THE TAOISEACH: A NOTE BY WALTER KIRWAN, DECEMBER 2018 Appendix 1.5. Tables of Office-Holders 2: The Sunningdale Agreement, 1973 2.1. Introduction 2.1.1. The Northern Ireland Context 2.1.2. The British–Irish Dimension 2.1.3. The Power-Sharing Executive and the UWC Strike 2.1.4. The Witness Seminar 2.2. Background to the Negotiations 2.2.1. Participant Roles 2.2.2. Expectations 2.2.3. Development of Irish Government Policy 2.3. The Sunningdale Negotiations 2.3.1. Experience of Negotiation at Sunningdale 2.3.2. Council of Ireland 2.3.3. Constitutional Status 2.3.4. Extradition and Common-Law Enforcement Policy 2.4. The Failure of Sunningdale 2.4.1. The Causes of Failure 2.4.2. The Consequences of Failure Documents Document 2.1. Draft Communiqué (British Version), 4 December 1973 Document 2.2. Sunningdale Communiqué, 9 December 1973 3: The Anglo-Irish Agreement, 1985 3.1. Introduction 3.1.1. Political Context 3.1.2. Security Context 3.1.3. British–Irish Context 3.1.4. The Witness Seminar 3.2. Background to the Negotiations 3.2.1. Introductions 3.2.2. Context 3.3. The Negotiations 3.3.1. The First Informal Moves 3.3.2. The Negotiation Process 3.3.3. Security Cooperation 3.3.4. The New Ireland Forum Report 3.3.5. The Intergovernmental Conference 3.3.6. The Judiciary and the Courts 3.3.7. The US Dimension 3.4. The Agreement 3.4.1. Article 2(b) 3.4.2. Constitutional Status 3.4.3. Devolution 3.5. Implementation 3.5.1. The Impact on Unionism and Nationalism 3.5.2. Security 3.5.3. Politics after the Agreement 3.6. The Significance of the Agreement 3.6.1. The Role of Civil Servants 3.6.2. The Legacy of the Agreement Documents Document 3.1. ‘Armstrong Proposals’, 1 March 1984 Document 3.2. ‘Nally Proposals’, 11 May 1984 Document 3.3. Draft Agreement (British Version), 17 January 1985 Document 3.4. Draft Agreement (British Version), 15 March 1985 Document 3.5. Anglo-Irish ‘Catechism’, 12 November 1985 Document 3.6. Anglo-Irish Agreement, 15 November 1985 4: The Downing Street Declaration and Framework Documents, 1993–1995 4.1. Introduction 4.1.1. Political Background 4.1.2. The Pursuit of Agreement 4.1.3. The Witness Seminar and Interviews 4.2. Towards a New Initiative 4.2.1. Participant Roles 4.2.2. Motivation for a New Initiative 4.3. Context of Negotiations 4.3.1. Articles 2 and 3 4.3.2. The Status of Northern Ireland 4.3.3. The Hume–Adams Draft 4.3.4. The Major–Reynolds Talks 4.3.5. The Brooke–Mayhew Talks 4.3.6. Involvement of Sinn Féin 4.3.7. British View of Conflict 4.4. The Negotiation Process 4.4.1. Sequence of Events 4.4.2. Text: British Commitments 4.4.3. Text: Irish Commitments 4.4.4. Text: Constitutional Change 4.4.5. Towards Finalizing the Draft 4.5. Impact and Response 4.5.1. Responses to Declaration 4.5.2. American Role and Perspective 4.5.3. Significance of the Declaration 4.5.4. Irish Unity 4.5.5. Impact on Unionists 4.5.6. General Reflections 4.6. The Framework Documents 4.6.1. An Irish View of the Negotiations 4.6.2. A British View of the Negotiations 4.6.3. The Significance of the British–Irish Framework Document A British Perspective An Irish Perspective Documents Document 4.1. Brooke ‘Whitbread’ Speech, 9 November 1990 Document 4.2. Letter from Gerry Adams to John Major, 20 August 1991 Document 4.3. Joint Declaration: First Hume Draft, 6 October 1991 Document 4.4. Joint Declaration: First Irish Government Draft, c. December 1991 Document 4.5. Joint Declaration: Sinn Féin Draft, c. February 1992 Document 4.6. Joint Declaration: Irish Government Draft, 19 June 1993 Document 4.7. Draft Framework Agreement: Irish Press Leak, 19 November 1993 Document 4.8. Downing Street Declaration, 15 December 1993 Document 4.9. Sinn Féin Questions to British Government on Downing Street Declaration, 15 April 1994 Document 4.10. Northern Ireland Framework Document, 22 February 1995 Document 4.11. British-Irish Framework Document, 22 February 1995 5: The Good Friday Agreement, 1998: Negotiation 5.1. Introduction 5.1.1. Political Context 5.1.2. Negotiations 5.1.3. Provisions of the Good Friday Agreement 5.1.4. The Interviews 5.2. Government Perspectives 5.2.1. Sir John Major Early Role Background to the Agreement The Unionist Position The IRA Position 5.2.2. Bertie Ahern Early Role Negotiating the Agreement 5.3. Ulster Unionist Perspectives 5.3.1. Antony Alcock Background to the Talks The Form of the Talks Process Principles and Objectives The Negotiation Process 5.3.2. Jeffrey Donaldson The Talks Process Perspectives on the Agreement The Decommissioning Issue Concluding the Agreement 5.4. SDLP Perspectives 5.4.1. Seán Farren The Talks Process Strand Two Strand One 5.4.2. Mark Durkan The Talks Process Strand One Strand Two Documents Document 5.1. Mitchell Report, 22 January 1996 Document 5.2. Heads of Agreement, 12 January 1998 Document 5.3. Mitchell Draft Agreement, 6 April 1998 Document 5.4. Good Friday Agreement, 10 April 1998 6: The Good Friday Agreement, 1998: Implementation 6.1. Introduction 6.1.1. Nationalist–Unionist Cohabitation 6.1.2. The Rise of the DUP and Sinn Féin 6.1.3. Witness Seminar and Interviews 6.2. Implementing the Good Friday Agreement 6.2.1. Participant Roles 6.2.2. The Post-Agreement Context 6.3. The Context of Implementation 6.3.1. The North–South Bodies 6.3.2. The Executive 6.3.3. Interdependence of Institutions 6.3.4. Decommissioning 6.3.5. Agreeing the New Institutions 6.4. The Process of Implementation 6.4.1. Relations between Negotiators 6.4.2. Executive Formation 6.4.3. Policing: The Patten Report 6.4.4. Executive Nomination Process 6.5. The Institutions at Work 6.5.1. Preparing for Government 6.5.2. The Executive at Work 6.5.3. Policymaking and Civil Servants 6.6. Overall Assessments 6.6.1. Performance of Parties 6.6.2. Later Changes 6.7. The St Andrews Agreement 6.7.1. A British perspective 6.7.2. An Irish perspective Documents Document 6.1. Texts of Agreements, Treaties, and Legislation 7: Conclusion: Benchmarks from the British–Irish Process 7.1. Introduction 7.2. Processes and Patterns of British and Irish Engagement 7.2.1. Changing Policy Paradigms 7.2.2. British–Irish Convergence 7.2.3. Building an Agreed Northern Ireland 7.2.4. Stability and Stress 7.3. Principles and Mechanisms of Peace-Building 7.3.1. Debates about Sovereignty 7.3.2. Debates about Democracy 7.3.3. Debates about Equality 7.3.4. Understanding Institutional Change 7.4. The Wider Lessons 7.4.1. Learning from the Past 7.4.2. Looking to the Future 7.5. Conclusion References Index Negotiating a Settlement in Northern Ireland: From Sunningdale to St Andrews uses original material from witness seminars, elite interviews, and archive documents to explore the shape taken by the Irish peace process, and in particular to analyse the manner in which successful stages of this were negotiated. Northern Ireland's Good Friday Agreement of 1998 marked the end a 30-year conflict that had witnessed more than 3,000 deaths, thousands of injuries, catastrophic societal damage, and large-scale economic dislocation. This book traces the roots of the Agreement over the decades, stretching back to the Sunningdale conference of 1973 and extending up to at least the St Andrews Agreement of 2006. It describes the changing relationship between parties to the conflict (nationalist and unionist groups within Northern Ireland, and the Irish and British governments) and identifies three dimensions of significant change: new ways of implementing the concept of sovereignty, growing acceptance of power sharing, and the steady emergence of substantial equality in the socio-economic, cultural, and political domains. As well as placing this in the context of an extensive social science literature, the book innovates by looking at the manner in which those most closely involved understood the process in which they were engaged. The authors reproduce testimonies from witness seminars and interviews involving central actors, including former prime ministers, ministers, senior officials, and political advisors. They conclude that the outcome was shaped by a distinctive interaction between the conscious planning of these elites and changing demographic and political realities that themselves were, in a symbiotic way, consequences of decisions made in earlier years. They also note the extent to which this settlement has come under pressure from new notions of sovereignty implicit in the Brexit process. Negotiating a Settlement in Northern Ireland: From Sunningdale to St Andrews uses original material from witness seminars, elite interviews, and archive documents to explore the shape taken by the Irish peace process, and in particular to analyse the manner in which successful stages of this were negotiated. Northern Ireland's Good Friday Agreement of 1998 marked the end a 30-year conflict that had witnessed more than 3,000 deaths, thousands of injuries, catastrophic societal damage, and large-scale economic dislocation.0This book traces the roots of the Agreement over the decades, stretching back to the Sunningdale conference of 1973 and extending up to at least the St Andrews Agreement of 2006. It describes the changing relationship between parties to the conflict (nationalist and unionist groups within Northern Ireland, and the Irish and British governments) and identifies three dimensions of significant change: new ways of implementing the concept of sovereignty, growing acceptance of power sharing, and the steady emergence of substantial equality in the socio-economic, cultural, and political domains.0As well as placing this in the context of an extensive social science literature, the book innovates by looking at the manner in which those most closely involved understood the process in which they were engaged. The authors reproduce testimonies from witness seminars and interviews involving central actors, including former prime ministers, ministers, senior officials, and political advisors.0They conclude that the outcome was shaped by a distinctive interaction between the conscious planning of these elites and changing demographic and political realities that themselves were, in a symbiotic way, consequences of decisions made in earlier years. They also note the extent to which this settlement has come under pressure from new notions of sovereignty implicit in the Brexit process "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, focusing 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"-- Publisher's description