Ideas - What it took to end a 30-year conflict in Northern Ireland

Episode Date: July 20, 2026

The process of making peace is often imperfect, and can shape the future in both positive and destructive ways. In a five-part series called Inventing Peace, Nahlah Ayed asks panelists to reflect on one pivotal 20th century effort to make peace, and its relevance for our own time. This first episode focuses on the “constructive ambiguity” of Northern Ireland’s Good Friday Agreement, signed in 1998.

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When history, emotion, and politics feed into violent conflict, the road to peace can seem impossible. Yet the impossible has at times been achieved. Some of the most unyielding and bloody disputes in recent world history have reached a negotiated end. How do peace agreements come about? Do they simply end bloodshed? Or actually establish the conditions for a lasting peace?

These were the questions on the table during a week of events that ideas recorded at Ontario's annual Stratford Festival. Welcome to Ideas and to our series Inventing Peace. I'm Nala Ayyed. In upcoming episodes, we'll consider several famous peace agreements of the 1990s, the Bosnian peace agreement known as the Dayton Accord, the Israeli-Palestinian Oslo Accord, and South Africa's National Peace Accord. In each case, long and complex histories are involved.

A wide array of views and interpretations exist. So our aim isn't to be comprehensive. It's simply to learn something about what it took to invent peace then and what might help us now in our own time. Right now, the first episode in the series, The Good Friday Agreement, starting with a little about the political history of the island, which was once entirely part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Here's a short explainer from RTE News, Ireland's public broadcaster.

In 1921, Ireland was partitioned. A new state called Northern Ireland remained in the UK, while the rest of Ireland became an independent state. This created a split among the population. Nationalists wanted the whole island of Ireland to be unified, while unionists wanted things to stay the same, to keep the union with the rest of the UK. By the late 60s, the tension had exploded into violence. More than three and a half thousand people lost their lives. They were mostly killed by armed grips on both sides, like the IRA and the UVF,

but also the British Army and security forces. Tens of thousands of people still bear the physical and mental scars to this day. In the 1990s, peace talks took off. The agreement focuses on cooperation between both communities. It created a new government for Northern Ireland, with nationalists and unionists sharing power. It says that Northern Ireland will remain part of the UK, until a majority of people in Northern Ireland decide to join the rest of Ireland.

If you're born in Northern Ireland, you can decide to be British or Irish or both. Armed grips agreed to give up their weapons. Controversially, people involved in violence were released from prison. The UK government agreed to aim for peacetime security arrangements. Reporter Una Kelly of RTE News in 2023. To learn more about what it took to get to the Good Friday Agreement, three panelists join me at a public discussion at the Stratford Festival. David A. Wilson is a professor of history and of Celtic Studies at the University of Toronto.

He's also a prize-winning author. Branca Marion is a senior researcher at Project Plowshares and a lecturer at the University of Toronto's Monk School. Toronto lawyer Alan McConnell spent his childhood in Northern Ireland. He led Canadian contingents to Ireland during the 1990s, in a bit to build support for the peace process. He is now president of Friends of Sinn Féin Canada. From the Stratford Festival in July 2025, here's our conversation about inventing peace in Northern Ireland.

So perhaps we can begin the way we love to begin these conversations, and that is to just get a small snapshot from each of you. And, Alan, I'd like to start with you. Can you tell us about a moment in your life that informs how you think, about what peace means? Well, I've thought about this a little, and I've settled on an event in 1997, and I was in the north of Ireland with the late Warren Olman,

former Solicitor General of Canada, the late Chris Axworthy, NDP, MP, and a Liberal MP, Roger Galloway at the time, and we were there to monitor and observe controversial orange marches through a small Catholic neighborhood in Portadown. And in 1997, the potential for great violence was there if the police and the army forced those orangemen through that little Catholic concave. And we had these Canadian politicians there

to observe and monitor and courage dialogue and peace. And we didn't know what was going to happen. We were billeted out. It was 3 o'clock in the morning, and we didn't know whether the march would go through the next day or not. And the host ran upstairs, and she woke us up and says, the armies came in, the army has come in, and we rushed out onto the street. And our three Canadian MPs were in the other end of the town, and I was desperate to get to them.

There were soldiers everywhere. There was the sound of riots on the nearby street, the sound of plastic bullets being fired, and a particularly horrid night. And I tried to get through the police lines to find our Canadian MPs. What have I brought them to? What's going to happen to them? And I finally got to the house and they couldn't find them. And I turned around and I turned around, heard the rioting and I heard the noise and the kerfuffle. And I said to myself, what hope do we have for this peace process? The IRA ceasefire had broken down. The Orangemen were going to be forced through a Catholic neighborhood.

And this is from a new labor government of Tony Blair. And I said to myself, what hope is there? It was very down. I was also a wee bit angry. And that was July of 1997. Eight months later, we had the Good Friday Agreement. And what that taught me was this is a process, never give up, keep at it, and when they tell you it can't be done, it can be.

You just have to stick with it. And we're still at it many years later. But that's sort of the microcosm for me. And there ends lesson one in peacemaking is never to lose hope. Thank you. We'll come back to that theme. Branca, please. I came to Northern Ireland as an outsider. I was writing my dissertation. And on September 2011, I was on my way to Belfast. I met a lovely woman from Belfast who, upon finding out where I was going to live in North Belfast, you know, quickly decided to be my escort and my protector. Because she was like, you don't have family in Northern Ireland. You don't understand this. And she decided to drive me from the airport into the area of North Belfast where I was.

staying. And one thing that struck me very quickly was that she, we were searching for this house. I was given the wrong number, house number on Airbnb. There was a mix-up. I quickly realized that she was not leaving the car. And, you know, she explained that she was Protestant and this, this was a staunchly Republican area that I had chosen. And that struck me because I approached Northern Ireland as a model peace process. That was the sort of the narrative that had been, very much front and center in discussions and peace building. And I very quickly realized that there was this disconnect between what the official narrative was,

what the official peace discussion was, and what it meant so many years later since the signing of the Good Friday Agreement that someone who was Protestant still was unwilling to leave their car in a deeply Republican area. And that was the moment for me where I knew I had to do something a little bit different, friend than I had proposed to my thesis supervisor.

And that's a teaser. We're going to come back to what it is that you decided to do on the ground. David, is there one moment that you would point to that's absolutely crucial to understanding the troubles? It's been said that anyone who understands Irish history has been misinformed. There are many such moments, but there's one in particular, I would point. point two, and that was October the 5th, 1968. The context is the civil rights movement in the United States. The context is student revolution in the streets of Paris, and the civil rights movement in Ireland had got underway the previous year. They had a lot to protest against systemic discrimination against Catholics in Northern Ireland, in local government, with gerrymandering,

in the allocation of housing. and a peaceful civil rights demonstration went through the streets of Derry or London Derry, depending on your perspective, and was attacked. Unarmed civil rights demonstrators were attacked by the police, and all of this was caught on camera. We had seen this in Chicago during the Democratic Convention earlier that year. We had seen this with Martin Luther King and the civil rights marches in the United States. I was living in England at the time, like many of my friends at school, and my friend's parents, we were shocked by this. We were stunned by this. That was the trigger that began the process of polarization and the very strong loyalist backlash against the civil rights movement, the tensions that arose from that, the emergence of the IRA and the development of a guerrilla war from 1970, 71 onwards.

But I think if there's one flashpoint, that would be it. That's incredibly helpful. If we go back or fast forward a bit, Alan, I mean, you were born and raised in Northern Ireland, and you left in 73? 73. Could you talk about how those early days of the troubles shaped your family's life? My parents came from both sides of the community. My father was Protestant.

My mother was Catholic. fell for each other in the 1950s in the north of Ireland. That was a difficult time to be entering into a mixed marriage. And we lived in a predominantly Protestant town, what would come to be known as a loyalist town, very much so. And the politics of the place certainly had a massive impact on my mother and father. My memories of my childhood are wonderful. What a wonderful time we had.

It was a glorious time with my cousins and aunts and uncles, all living close by. But looking back on it, it was also a time I recall bombings. I recall school being shut down because a loyalist paramilitary funeral was coming by and there was fears for what could happen to us. I recall British Army in our streets. I recall armed police officers. My father actually joined the police. He was a RUC reservist from 70 to 70.

too, the toughest years in the troubles, the hardest years in those troubles. So I have a lot of memories around my father's experience. I recall loyalist paramilitaries. It was a mixed street, but mostly Protestant, and the loyalist paramilitaries were exerting more among control in the neighborhood. I recall my mother confronting loyalist paramilitaries with a group of women on the street, trying to get them out, stop harassing us.

They had posted people outside the Catholic homes. And I remember the morning we had a red X painted on our window and the fear in my mom's face. And we emigrated not too long after that to Vancouver where I had a wonderful childhood or teenage years in Vancouver. But if I understand correctly, much of this to you as a child seemed like this is just the way things were. I don't remember being scared, terrified or thinking this was bizarre.

It was a wonderful childhood. But looking back on it, would I want the same for my kids? Absolutely not. It was a madhouse. Maybe just picking up on that, Branca, if you could talk about your understanding of that history and how those lines were very rigid of division, and yet they were very fluid, I mean, as evidenced by Alan's parents' story. Absolutely. And I think just to draw on what David was saying, there's another saying in Northern Ireland, which is if you are not confused, you don't understand. And I think that's sort of the complexity with these conflicts in what we're termed deeply divided

societies, such as Northern Ireland, Bosnia, and other places. There's this perception that these identities are so rigid, right? And it's very simple. You can divide communities up. But of course, you know, as Alan was saying, it was much more fluid. And there was much, you know, there's an inner marriage, even though it was a difficult time, there was still sort of an ability to kind of function across these divides. And there was, of course, an incredible amount of discrimination. And that's why I think when you talk to communities in Northern Ireland, it's certainly for the nationalist and Republican communities,

the civil rights movement in the United States, is this awakening of this is deeply unfair. The system we live in is deeply unfair. But those identities really become entrenched. And then, of course, there are policies of the British state throughout the 70s, of course, responding to the provisional, you know, Irish Republican Army movement and responding to some of the security issues that really, you know, further

entrenched this sense of identity, certainly for the Republican community and the sense of discrimination for the Republican community. And then the loyalist paramilitaries fill that space, of course, on the other side. So these identities become much more entrenched and much more difficult to address. And what these communities really do have is the sense of existential fear that their community, that they're a religious or almost ethnic identity in Northern Ireland. You know, you will be attacked for who you are. So you kind of retreat to that identity becomes almost like a safety net. But of course, not a very solid one.

David, you wanted to say something. People on both sides felt very much under threat. Catholics in Northern Ireland, since they were an unwilling minority in a state, most of them did not wish to exist to varying degrees. and for various reasons. And Protestants because of their status as a minority on the island of Ireland and their fears

that they as a community would cease to exist in what was regarded among elements on both sides as a zero-sum game. What was the state of the violence that you saw in that period that you were there talking to people? How did that translate into action on the ground? As Alan said

the worst period was 1970 to 72. I lived in Belfast. I lived in Belfand. from 1985 to 88. And by that time, the situation had changed significantly to what was cynically referred to in British governmental circles as, quote, an acceptable level of violence, which meant containing the troubles so that the number of security personnel killed would be around 50 a year. Bombs were going off still.

It was a sense of the way in which the troubles thought. fed on themselves. They developed their own momentum. And the history from 1970 onwards, you could actually take it back further, but really from 1970 onwards, the history was one of increasing polarization. And something else, I think, needs to be pointed out here. In the early 1960s, there was a sense in Northern Ireland that the troubles were behind us. These belonged to the 1920s that rebel songs were just songs. This was the world of the Beatles and Carnaby Street and we'd moved on from that. And one of the things that was very striking is that once that cycle of polarization gets underway, traditional atavistic attitudes that people may not even have

known they had kick into play and become very powerful. Branco, is that your experience in Bosnia. Yeah, absolutely. I think this is what was sort of interesting comparing Bosnia and Northern Ireland really was this sort of same sense of how quickly you retreat to those ethnic identities once you're attacked for being something. So you have this maybe awakening of sense of you are, you know, you are all of a sudden just this, you know, Catholic and you were, you had multiple aspects to your identity, but that particular marker becomes the main marker. And that's sort of what becomes really challenging for communities and individuals because all of a sudden you're, you know, sometimes family members. And of course in Bosnia were quite, you know, integrated. There was a lot of, you know, mixed marriages, in quotes. And that sort of, that other person all of a sudden is no longer just this neighbor, but they're this. And that, you know, us versus them kind of mindset really set in because of that existential fear. you know, become so prominent.

Go ahead, Ellen. Yeah. I was going to pick up on something that David was talking about, the civil rights movement, inspired by the American Civil Rights Movement. It comes to the north of Ireland. And you have people, Protestants and Catholics. There were Protestants involved in the Civil Rights Movement to support greater rights for the Catholic minority. Take to the streets.

So how do we get from there to people being driven back to their sides, their tribes? Well, I'll tell you what happened. The police beat them off the streets. The British Army came into our neighborhoods. We had bloody Sunday. The state shot people dead. And that's what radicalized and militarized the situation. We had an attempt to try and build a better future.

And the state failed us. The police and the army failed us. And of course you then had a full-scale guerrilla war going on for considerable period of time. So I wouldn't focus on the ordinary folk, Protestant or Catholic. I would look at the people in power were presented with a demand for civil rights, housing, end of discrimination and employment. One man in the language of the day. One man, one vote. That's what they were marching for in 1968. Yes, although I think it also needs to be pointed out that major reforms did occur. There was package reforms in 1969, so gerrymandering was ended, the royal ostabary was disarmed, the B specials were disbanded, the housing executive was set up to ensure the fair allocation of housing.

I think one of the tragedies of the Northern Irish situation is that the issue of reform became inextricably interwoven with the question of a United Ireland. So the Civil Rights Association, CRA, was regarded by many Protestants as, quote, crafty Romanist agitators. That was a graffiti. So there was a fear that reform was actually a stalking horse for national unity, unification. So this, I think, was part of it as well that we need to bring into focus. I want to go back to this idea of how despite everything, There are hints of talks and people connecting.

There are women who are talking to each other from both sides. There are things happening in the community level that maybe aren't making headlines. And then things become quite formalized at one stage. And Branc I want to come to you with this. In 97, fast-forwarding quite a bit, the parties involved agreed to something called the Mitchell principles, a set of principles on which any future peace negotiations are supposed to be based. that meant committing to the, quote, democratic and exclusively peaceful means of resolving political issues and, quote, the total disarmament of all paramilitary organizations.

Can you talk about just briefly, on the road to a substantive peace deal, how crucial a step like that, even though it sounds very symbolic, is kind of as an interim step towards something more lasting? Absolutely. So throughout the 80s, really, there's a recognition, right? by the Republicans, this will be a stalemate that maybe they won't be defeated, but they won't win either. So the political process starts taking shape in the early days of discussions between Adams and Hume and others, you know, the start, really start thinking through what are sort of the points that we can agree on, like where are the red lines or where can we meet and how do we shepherd this process forward?

And throughout the 80s and 90s, those steps are important. You know, you can be really, I think, disappointed. even months before a formal process takes shape, if you're just looking at it from that perspective. But what's critical there is this sort of sense of trying to provide a sense of choice to the population, right? That you could be Irish and you could be British, that you could, you know, you could be both, you could choose, and that we can sort of leave the option of United Ireland at table.

And there's really smart steps that start taking shape also around the decommissioning because that was a sticking point for the provisional Irish Republican Army of saying, okay, we will think through this, how we're going to do this, this will take some time. She's commissioning, meaning disarming. Disarming, yeah, the decommissioned weapons. So these become really sort of critical points throughout that time. And I think what I know there's so much to say about this, but I'm just going to tell you

that what I think was really critical was the leadership that was, you know, exerted by various sort of sides and the recognition. that you have to set aside sometimes the emotional sort of everyday aspects and think about the broader political process. So putting aside the emotional issues and looking at what's achievable in sort of these first few steps. Alan, I wonder if you can pick up from there and talk about what you think, I'm sure it was many things, and I know it's not always this simple, but what you think is the single most important factor that finally forced the different parties

to start sitting down together and talking. I'm going to approach it slightly differently. And I'm going to look back to 1981 and the Irish hunger strikes. Ten young men went on hunger strike for political status in the cells of the H-Blocks and died. And republicanism in the Northern Irish context up to that point

had been focused on the arms struggle. We're going to drive the British out through force of arms. The hunger strike campaign garnered mass support in Ireland, certainly within the nationalist and Republican communities in the north, but also internationally. People stepped forward, saw what was happening, and spoke out in favor of the hunger strike campaign for rights. Bobby Sands ran for election while on hunger strike and got elected.

Two hunger strikers ran for election in the southern state and got elected. And I think this opened up the idea that, hang on, there's something going on here. Maybe there is a political way we can move forward. And coming out of the hunger strike period, you start to see the rise of Sinn Féin as a political force in the north of Ireland. And that's the early and mid-80s. And I recall in 1987 in Toronto getting a policy document from the party, which I support, Sinn Féin, a policy document in 1987, a scenario for peace. That was the first half of a panel about ending the violence in Northern Ireland in the 1990s.

It was recorded in July at the 2025 Stratford Festival in Ontario. This is the first discussion in a five-part series called Inventing Peace. And this is Ideas. Looking for a different kind of summer experience? Uncover history. Discover Canadian Connections. The Toronto Holocaust Museum is a space for everyone. Use code summer 26 to get 30% off your visit. Admission is free for those under 25.

Learn more and book at Toronto Holocaust Museum. This message comes from Viking, committed to exploring the world in comfort. Journey through the heart of Europe on a Viking long ship, with thoughtful service, destination-focused dining, and cultural enrichment, on board, and on shore. With a variety of voyages and sailing dates to choose from, now is the time to explore Europe's waterways. Learn more at Viking.com. Good evening. A historic day at Stormont, after two years of talks and after a generation of bloodshed and decades of division and acrimony,

George Mitchell ushers in what the whole island hopes will be a new era of peace, an agreement that unites loyalist and republican, unionist and nationalist leaders in a wide-ranging historical accord. The signing of the Good Friday Agreement in April 1998 was a pivotal moment in history. It is still discussed nearly three decades on. I asked each of the panelists at our inventing peace event for their view on what first led the radically different factions to finally meet at the table. Lawyer Alan McConnell has traced it back to 1981

and the hunger strikes by Irish Republican prisoners such as Bobby Sands. He says that led to the political rise of Sinn Féin, then led by the likes of Jerry Adams and Martin M. McGinnis. Now historian David A. Wilson and researcher Brankhamarian weigh in on this discussion of the Good Friday Agreement. Yeah, I do think it was the Hungershugs did play a role, but I do think it was in the 80s that there's, you know, real recognition that this could continue forever. Because at that point, McGinnis and Adams are no longer young men, you know, starting to be young men. And so they have this, I think, political awakening that is sort of the path forward.

is a political path. And that becomes really clear to them. And I think that's what helps propel the movement forward. And then the discussions with various sides and the engagements between the different communities. One of the key factors, I think, was that the armed struggle had no prospects of success. In fact, no group had prospects of success.

I mean, none of the paramilitary organizations were defeated by 1998. no one had defeated the British government. A cul-de-sac had been reached. And I think that was a critical factor. And then at the same time, we have the International Commission. Jean de Chastelan, the former Canadian Chief of the Defence Staff, was a very important figure here as well. When he was in Belfast, he had a conversation with Roof Meyer,

who was one of the principal architects of the South Africa, African peace agreement. And Ruth Meyer gave him some advice about ways to proceed. Even if the violence continues, you've got to keep the negotiations going. And one reason for that is that the violence is often intended to stop the negotiations for continuing. And this fits with what Brownca is saying. It took great courage for the political leaders to come together under these circumstances. It took great courage for David Trimble, the unionist leader, great courage for John Hume, the Social Democratic Labor Party leader, great courage from Jerry Adams, the Sinn Féin leader, because the risks were enormous. Alan mentioned the move towards a political component.

What you also need to remember here is that in 1986 when Sinn Féin, it's a political wing of the Irish Republican movement, when Sinn Féin decided to break with tradition and run candidates for office in the Republic of Ireland, there was a split and a new group called the continuity IRA emerged in protest. In 1997, when Jerry Adams decided to join the peace talks and was another ceasefire, there was yet another split. This time, the real IRA moved. These dissident groups are still with us. It was the real IRA who in 1998 detonated the bomb in OMA, which killed 29 people and was the worst single day in the troubles altogether. So the Republican leadership also had to take into account during these peace process talks

how they would go down, particularly the issue of decommissioning arms, how that would go down with the followers. I do want to talk about the disarming process in a moment, but you've raised General de Chastellan, and it's important for us to talk about the role of outsiders in this process, and it was not a small role. And so, Alan, you were involved in bringing Canadian politicians, as we mentioned earlier, trade union leaders and human rights activists to Belfast. Can you

explain why it was important to get buy-in from Canadians and other international players in this process that was sort of going along? We wanted to bring pressure to bear, to be quite honest, on the British government to do the right thing.

And to really pull this off, we needed the support from the international community. Because if you're trying to build an alternative to the armed struggle, to bring pressure on the British, you couldn't just rely on the good nationals population of West Belfast and Derry and South Armagh. You needed support from the Irish in the South. You needed support from the Irish in England. You needed the support of the Irish in Canada and the United States to bring pressure to the British to engage in a full, proper peace process.

So we thought, well, you know, let's get... Canadians over there, and we worked very, very hard, and we took Canadian politicians to the north of Ireland. Warren Allman was a prince, the late Warren. He was fantastic. He was very interested in the Irish peace process, and he helped us pull together these wonderful delegations. And when we got there, we met with everyone. We didn't just meet with Sinn Féin. We met with the Unionists. We met with Paisley. We met with the head of the police. We met with Mo Molyum, Peter Mandelson, all the British secretaries of state. The message was, the Irish community outside of Ireland, the Irish diaspora, are fully behind us. We want this to work and we want you to deliver a peace process.

So we thought it was very valuable. And it also gave great confidence to those Catholics in the North who had felt abandoned and left behind. And that there were people that were going to take risks, whether it would be Bill Clinton, whether it would be Bertie Ahern in the south of Ireland, that we could convince them to play positive role in bringing peace and negotiations to the North. But of course, we always relied upon the good ordinary people in the North and the South, but also the Irish diaspora. It could make a difference. The Good Friday Agreement is held up as an example of, quote, constructive ambiguity, which Henry Kissinger defined as, quote, the deliberate use of ambiguous language on a sensitive issue

in order to advance some political purpose. How was that deployed in this conversation that finally led to the Good Friday Agreement, David? Yeah, I think over and over again in Irish history, successful political leaders have been masters of the art of ambiguity. And this is no exception. But ambiguity helped get the Good Friday Agreement completed in April the 10th of 1998.

But it also meant that new problems arose in the future. George Mitchell, who was a key figure in negotiations and the International Commission, George Mitchell said after the Good Friday Agreement had been signed, this was hard, but still harder is going to be the implementation. And the particular area of ambiguity that caused the most concern was the deep, the decommissioning of arms. This was supposed to have happened by 2000, and it actually took five years beyond the agreement for this to take place. As far as the unionist leader, David Trimble, was concerned, this was a huge political handicap from his perspective, and indeed that is the

British government, to have one party which has a private army in a democracy just does not work. Now, there were very good reasons why the Republican movement was so slow to disarm. The question of splits was one, but also a question of trust. The other really difficult thing in every peace process that we've all kind of watched unfold is this tension between establishing peace but also achieving some kind of justice. And Branca, I was wondering what you think the Good Friday Agreement and the negotiations around it reveal about that very delicate balance between those two things. when, you know, the negotiations around the Good Friday Agreement were happening, the sense of, you know, we need to deal with the prisoners was not maybe a front and center, but it became something front and center for the Republicans and for, you know, Jerry Adams in particular to say that we, you know, we do want the prisoners to be released, even those that had been convinced of quite horrendous crimes and had been put away for life. And those individuals now, under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement, would be released within two years.

And that was, of course, very difficult for families of victims of the animals, of the Neskilling bombers, of all these, you know, they're very, very challenging times for the victims and survivors, as they call themselves. And throughout the process of engaging in some of the discussions with these individuals, it became very clear that some of them felt like the memories of their family members were being simply disregarded. And that became really clear. that there needed to be some sort of discussion or process about how to deal with the justice issues,

how to address the harm and the hurt that was caused to the communities by these various groups. At the same time, that became a central aspect to ensuring that the Good Friday Agreement indeed would be signed. And that would happen. It became a sticking point along with decommissioning and a few others. But those were sort of really prominent aspects for the everyday, for the popular. there was this sense of a grave injustice. And yet on the 10th of April in 98, it was signed. And Alan, I know you were shuttling back and forth during the period leading up to that between Canada and the region.

And I wonder if you could kind of paint a picture of what you imagined could be the future for the people of the region, given that the signing had happened. Well, I was overjoyed the day the announcement was made. I was glad to speak on CBC TV that afternoon in Toronto about how positive this was, how wonderful it was that we had this agreement. It was a major breakthrough. However, even then, I knew this was an agreement, not a settlement. It's a process, and we're still at it. What the Good Friday Agreement did for us and allowed for us

is to manage change and manage conflict in society. and in a way resolve differences through nonviolent democratic means. And from a Republican and a nationalist perspective, I saw on the Good Friday Agreement the potential to win what we wanted, which was the unraveling of the border and the reunification of Ireland, that that could be achieved peacefully and in a nonviolent manner. Political activists were being given the opportunity, you can go ahead and win your goals democratically and peacefully.

there it's set out in the agreement and the British and Irish governments made it a treaty and the British government committed to Irish self-determination. The future of the island of Ireland, the future of Northern Ireland, as it is called, would be determined by the people in Ireland, north and south in referenda. And that was a tremendous breakthrough. I felt wonderful. Branca, just picking up on that, why was power sharing the model that was kind of ultimately decided on as a way to manage this conflict? I think there was a, recognition that the only way to ensure sort of parity and to ensure that there is this sort of movement forward was to ensure representation of different communities because there obviously

wasn't and there still isn't, you know, clarity on sort of what that referendum outcome would be. And there was a great deal of opposition, of course, for a United Ireland, as much as there was support for United Ireland. So the idea of constructive ambiguity, and we can criticize European, the European Union loves the constructive ambiguity, right? Because you just kind of push the problem to the future. But it was helpful because it ensured that in the meantime, you could perhaps have some of these entrenched identities and some of these issues with their way,

and maybe there would be an agreement among the population that, indeed, a United Ireland, would be the way forward. So, consensationalism becomes this sort of tool that allows for some, sort of peace to hold and for parties with very different views to be able to negotiate with each other and have these discussions in a political fora. The challenge, of course, is, and what makes Northern Ireland unique is that at that time is the European Union context, because it does allow for this multi-layered citizenship. You could be Irish, or you could just be, you know, you're a member of the

European Union, you don't have to choose whether you're Irish or you're British or your unionist, you know. that framework is really, really helpful. And the other aspect that's really helpful that's not present in a lot of other places is because the Northern Ireland, you know, Assembly hasn't been quite functional over the, you know, the peace time. There is, you know, an institutional framework to fall back on Westminster. A lot of other places don't have that. So Northern Ireland in some ways is quite a privileged place compared to other places we're looking at this week. Just going back to the OMA bombing, David, it's extraordinary, I think, and it bears underlining just how incredible it was that this peace process gets tested so early and so brutally. And yet, you know, as many peace processes are, and we'll talk about that throughout the week.

And yet the peace held. And I wonder if you could speak to why. Why did that bombing fail to derail this very delicate balance that had been struck? I think precisely because it was so horrific, it was a graphic reminder of the consequences of not having a peace process in Northern Ireland. I think that was a single most important factor. Yes, tensions remained and tensions remain. Every year I go to Ireland to the Thomas Darcy McGee Summer School, which has people from all aspects of northern and southern Irish. politics. They've even

had representatives of dissident Republican groups along with loyalist paramilitaries. One of the things that really strikes me from these discussions and meetings is how little attitudes have changed, in fact. The people were still

having the same disagreements with the same level of intensity but the critical factor was that for the most part, dissident Republicans aside, they have been contained. For the most part, people were not killing each other.

And at the beginning of the event, you mentioned negative peace and positive peace. Perhaps in that sense, negative peace is enough. Is it enough, Alan? This is a process. We're not done yet from an Irish Republican or an Irish national perspective. Ultimately, we would say, look, Northern Ireland,

was created in 1921, and it was a line drawn on a map to guarantee a Protestant majority over an artificial state. And that's the roots, that's the state. The Constitution of the Irish government says it's the will of the Irish people to reunify the country peacefully and democratically. That remains our goal is to take away that border.

And we believe that the unifying, of the country, the unifying of Ireland, is going to be necessary to really build a long-term peace on the island of Ireland. And so that's the project we're still engaged in. Are we in a better situation in the north of Ireland today than we were at any time in the past 40, 50 years? Of course, it's fantastic. We've done so much, but so much more needs to be done in terms of reaching out and breaking down barriers between communities about building cooperative models. But while we're doing all of that in the north, the demography is changing, the economics of changing, the south of Ireland has changed dramatically. We've got a lot of change

happening and then a Good Friday Agreement provides us with the rules as to the rulebook, as to how to manage that change. The job for us is to win as many people as possible, north and south, to the idea of building a new and better Ireland. Because that drawing of that border, that artificial statelet, that's at the root of this conflict. And we have to address it. And the Irish people are not going to let it go. Branca, I want to go back to your very first answer, the reason you showed up in Northern Ireland. You had gone to look at sort of these power sharing agreement, this particular one, and compare it to your experience, the Dayton Accords. And you ended up instead studying something

called everyday peace and how people negotiate peace day by day at the community level. Could you paint a picture of the kinds of everyday peace that you experienced and you witnessed when you were in Northern Ireland? Yeah. You know, what everyday peace feels like, what the quality of peace feels like, right? This needs to go beyond the sort of our negative peace understanding. I think what David is saying, we need negative peace as a starting point. But what it feels like just to give you.

sense is walking down the street and zigzagging because you're going between different communities. Do you pay attention to the flags around you? Do you ask people what their name is, what school they went to? You know, is your everyday sort of experience shaped by the ethnic background of your parents, right? Or decisions that you were not present for, essentially. And that's what every day it is like in Northern Ireland still. I have met people who have not crossed the road because that's a different community. And, you know, I came at it from also from a Canadian perspective and it felt so limiting, right, to have to negotiate your everyday life just based on this one aspect of your identity. We are more than our religion. We're more than our

ethnicity, right? You have other aspects to your identity. And in these spaces, everything seems to be reduced to that identity. And that's, I think, what's challenging. That's what I started to look at, really, Northern Ireland, was the symbolic politics of how peace is lived and how it's enacted and what the quality of that piece is. And that's why I think I entitled my thesis, you know, neither war nor peace, because there isn't the killing, thankfully, there isn't the violence. A lot has been achieved in Northern Ireland. but there's still a long ways to go when you have almost 90% of children in segregated schools. When you know, when you have all of these issues, you know, these are incredible, incredible and challenges. There's so much great work being done in Northern Ireland. I think the one thing

I could really identify with the Northern Irish public and communities and they're so warm and welcoming and, you know, and joyful and full of humor, you know. This is, I think, it's come through with our discussion today. There's still a lot of, you know, sometimes gallows, humor, but humor in Northern Ireland that's shared. There's a lot in common that these different communities have. And when you come from as an outsider, you know, you see how some of these divides are very artificial. But it's really important to understand what we talked about earlier, which is that existential fear. And to try and get at that, how do we break down those barriers so that people feel safe. How do we provide the institutional structures? There's still so much that can be done and should be done.

And I'm really a believer that this level of segregation is unnecessary and can be dismantled. I think it's a lot of hard work that's been done and that will still need to be done. And what was incredible was the level of commitment to the peace process, even from the British government for a decade. A lot of places don't have that. You will be talking about peace accords the night over the the next few days, not only where, you know, the agreement is signed, the hands go off. But this is, I think, what's really important to understand that peace is, you know, something that needs to be practiced every day, that it needs to be enacted. It's not just a matter of having a formal process. We also need to bring the population with you. And that requires vision and leadership and commitment

from, you know, internal parties, but also externally. And that's where I think, you know, countries like Canada have a role to play in sort of supporting and fostering these peace processes. You do need external voices sometimes. And John Chaseline, who also met his wonderful, calm, you know, voice of reason was well respected by the Republicans and the Republican Army. So you need those kinds of moderate voices as well and moderators to step in. But moderators that are respected by all sides, because we've also seen this not go well in other places. You know, we've heard so many sort of best practices where peacemaking is concerned tonight, today. I wonder how extendable you think those lessons are to other conflicts. I mean,

is this, is it that simple to learn these small things that we've heard today, the importance of, you know, organizations outside the country, the role of economic development, generational change, all these things. Can we take those lessons and use them today? I mean, is it simple? Within reason. I mean, what Roger McGinty has this, you know, who's also from Northern Ireland, has this saying of peace building from IKEA. You know, this was the idea of this liberal peace. You take the, you know, you put in institutions, you have elections and all of a sudden, you know, you have peace. And that's not the reality. It has to be context specific. But when we say something is context specific, that doesn't necessarily mean that lessons can't be brought in from outside. So there is so, you know, the example I think you provided, David, of South. Africa of bringing in the diaspora communities by Allen and others, what you also need is sort of the recognition of does this work well in this context? And that's where I think we need some sensitivity to there are going to be limits to the lessons that can be applied practically. In theory, they may sound good. But in practice, this is why it's really critical to have individuals

who deeply understand the context at the negotiating tables and after. I agree very strongly. with everything Branca has said. When Cyril Ramaphosa, now president of South Africa, but then another principal architect of the South African peace agreement, when he came to Belfast in 1996 and he gave a talk at the Europa Hotel, the person introducing him said, now Cyril Ramaphosa is not going to tell us exactly how we should bring about peace. And Cyril Ramaphosa got up with a smile on his face and said, I'm going to tell you exactly that. And by the time I finish, you will all know what to do. And then he got serious. And he said, every situation is unique. Every situation needs to be examined on its own terms and it needs to be deep historical knowledge as well.

That said, there are also some general principles. So one I mentioned before, and that is you keep talking even when violence continues. Another is how you build trust, that you don't aim for agreement on everything all at once. You have shamed. You have sheds. shifting grounds on what consensus means for different aspects that you're dealing with. You reach consensus on one issue. You move to the next. That the protagonists must not only be in a position to sell difficult ideas to their own community, but they must also try and help the people on the other side to sell their ideas to their community as well.

So all of these things, from the large to the small. So, for example, something that John de Chastelin said, which is very interesting, the first meetings in the peace talks were over, had 30 people around very large tables. And John de Chastelan was in a subsidiary group that had a small number around a small table. They were yelling at each other in the larger rooms. It was a very ugly atmosphere. But when you got the same people together in a small room, the vibe, the atmosphere changed completely. Small things like this, I think, can be really important. So they shifted the discussions, fewer people, smaller rooms, and that helped.

So there are certain things that you can do to build trust, but there's no magic key. Last word for you, Ellen. Could you take one lesson from what got us to the Good Friday Agreement that we can maybe apply in this era of disinformation, nuclear proliferation, all these complications that are changing world order. What lesson can we take from Good Friday that we might be able to apply to peacemaking today? You need everyone at the table, all parties.

Parties that have been demonized for decades as being terrorists, evildoers. Remember, Jerry Adams, who sat down and negotiated that deal and Martin McGuinness, they were banned from, their voices could not be heard on British radio or television. Same, actually, in the south of Ireland. We're banned voices. So you had to unravel all of that, and you had to get all parties to the table.

You can't build peace by excluding your opponents. You make peace with your enemies. You don't make peace with your friends. So that was one of the big lessons. You also need the international involvement. I know you asked for only one, Nala, but you need the international involvement. We need all the advice you can give us. Well, you know, the ANC came to Ireland and met with the Republican leaders

and gave a lot of good advice. And then Sinn Féin and Republican leaders have traveled to the world's hotspots since giving advice on what, we're not telling you what to do in your countries, but this is what seemed to make a difference here with us. Include everyone in the talks process, international support,

and courageous leadership, not only from your side, but from all sides to the conflict, and leaders who have spent the time, which may be months, if not years, to help bring their communities with them. If you've got that, you've got a standing chance at winning a deal. This has been a discussion of the Good Friday Agreement,

the first episode in our five-part series, Inventing Peace. Thank you to guests Alan McConnell, David Wilson, and Branca Marion, and to the staff at the Stratford Festival. Pauline Holdsworth is the producer of ideas at Stratford. Technical production, Will Yard, Danielle Duval, and Emily Kiervei, You. Editing by Lisa Godfrey. Lisa Ayuso is the web producer for ideas.

Senior producer is Nicola Luxchich. Greg Kelly is the executive producer of ideas. And I'm Nala Ayyad. For more CBC podcasts, go to cbc.ca.ca.