In essence the Agreement represented a negotiation between the British and Irish governments. In return for Dublin's formal appreciation of the legitimacy of Northern Ireland, London agreed to confer with the Republic's government on all matters relating to the rights of Northern Ireland's nationalist minority. The new relationships were outlined in the Agreement's 13 Articles. These referred to:
- The Status of Northern Ireland, Article 1;
- The Intergovernmental Conference, Articles 2-4;
- Political Matters, Articles 5-6; Security and Related Matters, Article 7;
- Legal Matters including the administration of justice, Article 8;
- Cross Border Co-operation on Security, Economic, Social and Cultural Matters, Articles 9-10;
- Arrangements for Review, Article 11;
- Interparliamentary Relations, Article 12 and Final Clauses, Article 13.
The most important aspect of the Agreement was the setting up of an Intergovernmental Conference led by both the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland and the Irish Foreign Minister. The Conference had a permanent staff made up of civil servants from both sides of the border. It was based at Maryfield near an estate called Stormat and was to blame for looking after political, security, legal and other issues of worry to the nationalist minority.
The British and Irish governments had differing views on the importance of the Agreement. Garret FitzGerald considered the Republic's role in the Intergovernmental Conference "as near to Joint Authority as one can get". Margaret Thatcher maintained that the Irish role was simply consultative and the lawful position of Northern Ireland remained unaltered by the Agreement. Political observers noticed at the time that nationalists were being told it represented a step towards a united Ireland, while unionists were being told it copper-fastened the union.
The break through that have been made
The most important breakthrough out of all the agreements was the Anglo-Irish Agreement of 1985, which guaranteed the equal authority of the conflicting loyalties by giving the Irish government an important role in Northern Ireland for the first time in history. A leading commentator on Northern Ireland, David McKittrick of the London Independent, says: "In retrospect, that agreement was a turning point in the peace process and provided the foundation for its ultimate success." The story of how that agreement was reached is a combination of wise calculation and courage, which lured people from the edges, promising respect, protection, peace, and a hope of success.
The agreement failed to bring a complete end to political violence in Northern Ireland, nor did it reconcile the two communities. The devolved power-sharing government envisaged by the agreement never became a reality. However, it did improve cooperation between the British and Irish governments, which was key to the creation of the Belfast Agreement a decade later.
At a strategic level the agreement demonstrated that the British recognised as legitimate the wishes of the Republic to have a direct interest in the affairs of Northern Ireland. It also demonstrated to unionists that they could not veto political progress as, in the end, the British state was stronger than them. Unlike the Sunningdale Agreement the Anglo-Irish Agreement withstood a much more concerted campaign of violence and intimidation, as well as political hostility, from the unionists.
Republicans were left in the position of rejecting the only piece of constitutional progress (in the eyes of Catholics) since the downfall of Stormont a decade earlier. Combined with war weariness, military failures (as British intelligence penetrated the ) and the sense (under growing leftist influence within the republican movement) that a military conflict was sustainable but not sufficient, the agreement moved republicans towards what eventually became the politics of military cessation.
The outcome was the Anglo-Irish Agreement of November 1985 that totally confused the Unionists and was only imposed on a reluctant Thatcher with great difficulty. The Agreement recognized the interest of the Irish government in Northern Ireland's affairs and effectively initiated what has since become known as the "Peace Process." On the military front, even with their new weaponry, the IRA failed to raise the British rate of wear and tear. Indeed during the whole of the 1980s, they killed fewer British soldiers than they had in 1972. Furthermore, the British were becoming more successful in operations against the IRA. Thatcher still preferred a military victory, and, while she never got her way as far as the general picture was concerned, she was able to make sure that her favourite soldiers, the Special Air Service, were given a complete freedom. SAS shoot-to-kill methods continually raised worry in the area when official policy was to bring it down. The most dramatic instance of this was the shooting of three unarmed IRA volunteers in broad daylight in Gibraltar in March 1988.
Problems that still exist
Despite the agreement, the preliminaries still sustained their campaign of violence, striking at a variety of targets. In 1987 an IRA bomb killed eleven people and there were many injuries. It was the highest death toll in a terrorist attack in Northern Ireland for five years. At least 63 people were injured in the blast, nine of them seriously. The device went off without warning at 1045 GMT at the town's cenotaph where people had gathered to pay their respects to the war dead. Not long after this in 1988 the IRA landmine killed eight soldiers. A few years after this tragic event, in 1991 Members of the loyalist population killed 31 people in the course of a year. Most of the people that were killed were innocent Catholics and they were usually killed as revenge for IRA attacks.
In 1992 the UFF killed 5 people in a attack on a betting shop. The people that were killed were known to be 5 catholic civilians. Then later on, on July 20 two IRA bombs in Hyde Park and Regent's Park in London killed 11 British soldiers and wound more than 40, mostly civilian onlookers. The bomb caused up to £1 billion worth of damage. In 1993 The IRA killed two young boys in Warringrtojn with a bomb that was placed in a rubbish bin. Also in the same year an IRA bomb went off prematurely in a shankill fish shop. In this incident the bomber and 9 innocent civilians were killed. Even still in the same year Loyalists gunmen killed thirteen in revenge for the attacks for the Shankill bomb.
At the end of March 1991 a breakthrough came when, after an ultimatum from the Secretary of State, the four main political parties gave the go-ahead for talks. The two Governments gave an undertaking that the Anglo-Irish Conference would not meet between April 27 and mid-July.
Problems still, quickly emerged. Unionists disagreed to the North-South talks taking place in Dublin. After an ultimatum from the Secretary of State this matter was resolved. Then there was disagreement about who should chair the North-South talks. This too was resolved and talks finally began on June 17. However, it quickly became clear that the discussions were getting nowhere and the Secretary of State brought them to an end on July 7, 1991. The Secretary of State wanted to try and find a way of getting the talks going again and this was achieved in April 1992. However, these talks ended without agreement that November.
Conclusion
Peace, stability and understanding in Northern Ireland were the main objectives of the Agreement, although admittedly in the longer run, as both Governments expected an original increase in the level of paramilitary movement. In terms of merging the communities of Northern Ireland, the Anglo-Irish Agreement can only be judged as a failure. Catholics generally believe it has made little difference to their lives, while Protestants are very angry of its existence. Twelve years after the signing of the Anglo-Irish Agreement, the two main traditions in Northern Ireland are as affected as they have ever been.
1990 saw the then Secretary of State, Peter Brooke, quietly launch his plan to bring Northern Ireland's constitutional political parties to the negotiating table. Brooke's successor, Sir Patrick Mayhew, continued along similar lines. However, IRA ceasefire of August 1994 provided the movement for the general peace strategy that has dominated the political agenda of the mid-1990s. The Anglo-Irish Agreement as the structure to create a lasting political settlement has been put to one side.In 1993 O'Leary and McGarry argued that the Hillsborough Agreement merely created a new deadlock. Yet it remains together and provides the Irish Government with a contribution into the management of Northern Ireland, and provides a crucial channel of communication between both Governments.
