How has Northern Ireland changed since the Good Friday Agreement, and what previous attempts at peace have there been?

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QUESTION THREE

Despite the historic and on going problems in Ireland, there have been attempts at long-standing issues involved in the “Troubles”, which began in 1969. Prior to the Good Friday Agreement there were others, which looked promising yet couldn’t make a lasting impact.

The Power-Sharing Executive and the Sunningdale Agreement, of 1973, won over moderate unionists and nationalists, but not the more intransigent loyalists and republicans, as they couldn’t accept the terms given, and eventually a strike on the loyalist behalf took place, where the UVF forced people to join, showing that paramilitary groups influenced decisions and were unwilling to compromise. Another attempt was the Anglo-Irish Agreement of 1985, this also involved co-operation between Northern and Southern Ireland, and the United Kingdom. Northern Ireland would decide the future, which was unacceptable to Republicans, this shows that they weren’t willing to compromise, and still couldn’t accept Northern Ireland. The Downing Street Declaration didn’t involve a new government, yet tried to respect all traditions and rejected any parties that used violence; therefore the UVF and IRA called a cease-fire. This attempt at peace was the most successful, however it proved unsustainable, as steadfast loyalists and republicans outside of paramilitary groups took it upon themselves to use violence, showing that violence will be near impossible to remove and even when paramilitaries make compromises, others don’t.

The most significant terms of the Good Friday Agreement were the new Northern Ireland Assembly, where all key decisions would require the consent of both communities in the province, and the early release of paramilitary prisoners, in return for the decommissioning of weapons. The Agreement aimed to achieve peace by stopping violence, permanently.

The Good Friday Agreement has been the most successful attempt at peace in Ireland to date because of its involvement of paramilitary groups, which had never been done before. However, some will never be able to make compromises, therefore peace will never be possible as long as these people are present, also, the release of paramilitary prisoners is a paradox, as they are doing so for peace, however this is only going to cause violence once again as families of victims of victims will feel upset and insulted.

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Therefore, the Good Friday Agreement has had some positive effects, but many issues are still unresolved.

Possibly the greatest term of the Good Friday Agreement was the reformation of the Northern Ireland Assembly, which meant that Northern Ireland could rule themselves, making it a much fairer; the unionists were very happy about this. However, this assembly failed to work in 2002, due to accusations of Sinn Fein passing information onto the IRA, and has returned in 2007, this shows that it is possibly fragile, yet with growing co-operation from paramilitary groups the strength of the Assembly seems at ...

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