Reflections on the Anglo‐Irish Agreement

Extract

THE CONFLICT IN NORTHERN IRELAND HAS LASTED FOR OVER sixteen years, defying all attempts by British and Irish governments to reach a solution. On 15 November 1985 the leaders of both governments, Mrs Margaret Thatcher and Dr Garret FitzGerald, signed, at Hillsborough in Northern Ireland, an Anglo-Irish Agreement which they hoped would establish machinery leading to an eventual diminution of political violence and to an accommodation between the two communities. This Agreement is the result of several years of negotiations between the two governments in the Anglo-Irish Intergovernmental Council and is perhaps the most radical attempt at solving the Northern Irish problem since 1921–22. The purposes of this article are to explore what is significantly new in the Agreement as compared with previous attempts at solutions, to examine briefly the different influences which worked to bring it about and, finally, to assess the chances of a successful implementation of the Agreement.