Tag: Good Friday Agreement

Link

The Irish government has released some previously classified documents at the turn of the year. There are some that cast light on events in Northern Ireland and Ireland more generally.

The Guardian reports on stories aof acrimonious meetings between David Trimble, leader of the UUP, and Tony Blair, in the period after the signing of the Belfast Agreement in 1997: David Trimble was ‘extraordinarily rude’ to Tony Blair at Good Friday talks
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/dec/27/david-trimble-was-extraordinarily-rude-to-tony-blair-at-good-friday-talks

Another headline, “Diana apparently believed Northern Ireland part of the Republic, archive shows” seems to put the worst spin on what may have been a slip of the tongue or a poorly expressed pleasantry. Make up your own mind here.

Loyalist paramilitaries:
An overview

UFF mural on a gable end in Sandy Row, Belfast

In the Troubles loyalists killed 990 people; 708 simply because they were Catholics.1 The question is “Why?” Main Groupings The two most important and longest-established loyalist terrorist groups are: Ulster Volunteer Force founded in 1966, the fiftieth anniversary of the…

Significant Commas in Irish History

As well as teaching about Irish history, I teach English language and grammar, especially the written variety, which a lot of the time seems to mean teaching commas: where to put one, where not to put one, and why it…

My top books on Irish history

There are a lot of books on Irish history, and the current Decade of Commemoration has prompted a flood of new ones. Here’s my choice of a few of those that have been around for a while but are still…

The Good Friday Agreement

To mark Good Friday, here’s a piece on the build-up to the Belfast Agreement, better known as the Good Friday Agreement after the day it was concluded. Background Events that took place over a long period before 1994 had prepared…