Attempts at Peace in Ireland

There have been many attempts at realizing peace in Ireland between the countries of Northern Ireland and the republic of Ireland of which some have succeeded and others have failed miserably. The Irish are comprised mainly of protestant peoples and catholic peoples during much of the history of Ireland and this fact coupled with the opposing viewpoints of the religion led to much northern Ireland conflict as well as conflict in the republic of Ireland. In the year of 1985 a serious attempt at peace was tried by the prime ministers of Britain including Margaret Thatcher. The prime ministers at the time signed what was to be known as the Anglo-Irish agreement in 1985 which signified that the republic of Ireland has the right to have a consultative role in Northern Ireland’s affairs. This was one of the attempts at peace that failed miserably as the Protestant politicians in Ireland that opposed this agreement were able to stop it from being implemented in Ireland. In the 1990’s another attempt at peace was established by both Catholic and Protestant politicians of the Irish and British governments. This attempt included the implementation of a cease fire that was initiated by the pro-Catholic IRA. The cease fire made it possible for peace talks to be established in order to unite Ireland by the activist Sinn Fein.

The peace talks that were initiated by Sinn Fein took place for the first time in December of 1994 and negotiators during these talks pushed for the British soldiers that inhabited northern Ireland and that aggravated the northern Ireland conflict to withdraw from northern Ireland. This sparked talks of the disarmament of the IRA as the IRA used military tactics in order to gain control in Ireland at this time. The disarmament of the IRA would continue to be a very important aspect of whether Britain decided to withdraw from Ireland or not throughout these negotiations until in 1998 the Belfast agreement (or the good Friday agreement) was finally implemented.