Twenty-five years of an agreement that put an end to 30 years of civil war. Monday, April 10, the Northern Irish celebrate the anniversary of the Good Friday agreement, signed in Belfast in 1998. On paper, the success of the text is undeniable. In the three decades preceding its signing, more than 3,500 people died in clashes. Fighting, almost daily, opposed Irish nationalists (federated around the Irish Republican Army, IRA), mainly Catholics, to unionists, Protestants and loyal to the British crown.
“Today, there is no more armed conflict. It’s quite spectacular. So much so that the agreement had been promoted abroad as a model for other regions of the world”, explains Christophe Gillissen, professor of British and Irish civilization at the University of Caen. At the time, the peace accord was sponsored by the United States. Tuesday April 11, the day after the anniversary, Joe Biden, will also travel to Belfast to commemorate him.
Reinforced anti-terrorism vigilance
Although now sporadic, tensions still exist. They reappeared especially after Brexit, when it was a question of reestablishing a physical border between the two Irelands. Last February, all eyes turned to the “new IRA”, created in 2019, while a policeman was seriously injured by bullets in Omagh. Dissident Republicans, the minority who refused to sign the Good Friday Agreement, are still under intense police surveillance.
As the anniversary date approaches, anti-terrorist vigilance has also been reinforced, to move to the alert level. ” severe “, the second in order of importance expected in the United Kingdom. If it served to turn the page on the armed conflict, the Good Friday agreement did not make it possible to overcome the divide between nationalists and unionists, which still divides Northern Ireland.
On the contrary, the text itself is part of the paralysis that has affected the country for a year, illustrated by the blocking of institutions. The agreement provides that the first nationalist party and the first unionist party govern together. “It is two-headed, so the population is obliged to fit politically into this cleavage. And if one of the two parties refuses to participate, everything stops”, explains Christophe Gillissen. This is exactly the situation in which the country has found itself since February 2022, when the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP, representing communities loyal to belonging to the United Kingdom) boycotts the Northern Irish Assembly. In twenty-five years, the institutions have been paralyzed, cumulatively, for nine years.
The question of discarded memory
But if the Good Friday Agreement partly results in an institutional stalemate, it could soon be overtaken: “A good part of the Northern Irish have taken a long lead over the political parties, especially among young people, who no longer really recognize themselves in these nationalist and unionist labels”, notes Christophe Gillissen. A turning point which is also reflected at the ballot box. Since the 2019 elections, the Alliance Party of Northern Ireland has been the third political force in the country. Founded in 1970, it seeks to unite Catholics and Protestants, Unionists and Loyalists, to take action in the general interest. “Its spectacular growth in recent years is quite significant of the state of mind of part of the population”emphasizes Christophe Gillissen.
The other limit of the agreement lies in the question of memory, and possibly of justice, concerning the « troubles » who traumatized the country for thirty years. According to the British government, 1,200 deaths are still being investigated by police in the province. Hundreds of these unresolved cases are entangled in lengthy legal proceedings. Last year, the British government introduced a bill to grant those who cooperate amnesty and the abandonment of legal proceedings relating to the Northern Irish conflict.