The Good Friday Agreement @ 25

Anniversaries can be important. They provide an opportunity to re-evaluate a situation and take stock of progress. Twenty-five years after the signing of the Good Friday Agreement (sometimes referred to as the Belfast Agreement), is a good time to review the most significant political event in recent Irish history.

The politics of Northern Ireland have always been volatile. The current political stalemate has yet to be resolved with the elected Assembly not having functioned now for almost a year. The 'feel good' factor which people had been getting used to following the Agreement, has had a rude awakening with the onset of Brexit and corresponding difficulties over the Northern Ireland Protocol.
The Protocol, in particular, has become the trigger for an outpouring of the resentment and disenchantment felt by a section of the community which sees it as a further erosion of their British political heritage and benefiting the nationalist community at their expense.

There have been two significant changes since the Good Friday Agreement: firstly, the demographic change - with the nationalist population now the majority and secondly, the rise of Sinn Fein, which is now the largest political party in Northern Ireland with the serious ambition of exercising government in the Republic in the near future.
Whatever political progress has been made since the signing of the Agreement, the reality is that it has not been matched by progress at grassroots community level. Attitudinal surveys carried out since have consistently revealed that the gulf between the two communities is as wide as ever.

One indication of this is the fact that more 'peace walls', segregating the two communities at interface areas in Belfast, have been built (rather than removed) since the Agreement. Political progress at ministerial level needs to be underpinned by political initiatives at grass-root community level if there is to be real trust, respect and true reconciliation.
Northern Ireland still has a disaffected and alienated community, a divided Christianity, much distrust and prejudice, all posing the greatest challenge to everything we understand by terms like peace, justice and reconciliation.
A major source of grievance is the economic and social deprivation felt by both communities. Northern Ireland has one of the highest unemployment rates and some of the poorest housing conditions in the UK. Thanks to the inactivity of the Assembly, combined with a lack of funding from central government, the NHS and the education system are on their knees.

There can be little hope of building on the terms of the Agreement without radical measures to address this situation. The Agreement was never intended to be a resolution of the conflict but rather a road map towards transforming conflict through commitment to the implementation of certain arrangements. In this, it represents an important template for dealing with other conflicts. But political templates are one thing; healing hearts and minds another. And this applies to every conflict situation. In some ways Northern Ireland has come a long way since the Good Friday Agreement: the bombings and shootings have gone and a generation has grown up without much experience of past turmoil. However, there is still much work to be done.

If we have learned anything during the past twenty-five years, it is surely that the work of peace is never truly finished and has to be constantly worked at. As the Primate of All Ireland, Eamon Martin, put it recently:
'Sadly, twenty-five years on, the trauma and hurt of those horrific years remain substantially unhealed. Wounds within, and between, our communities remain open - wounds of body, mind, spirit and heart - and the legacy of suffering continues to fuel mistrust.' It is greatly to be hoped that in reviewing the Agreement, politicians, church people and all those involved, will commit to redoubling their efforts so that by the time the next generation comes to review the Agreement, both the political landscape and the everyday life of the people of Northern Ireland will have changed for the better.