On 10 April 1998, Good Friday, after marathon all-party talks in Belfast, a historic peace accord for Northern Ireland was finally reached. The Good Friday Agreement (GFA), also known as the Belfast Agreement, established a new political framework designed to end 30 years of violent conflict and create a lasting and inclusive settlement.

The deal, which had been brokered by the British and Irish governments and chaired by the US special envoy, senator George Mitchell, was the culmination of years of complex and often fraught negotiations.

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The agreement’s central pillar was the creation of a new, devolved Northern Ireland Assembly and a compulsory power-sharing executive – inviting unionists and nationalists to govern together.

The GFA reads: “This agreement provides for a democratically elected assembly in Northern Ireland which is inclusive in its membership, capable of exercising executive and legislative authority, and subject to safeguards to protect the rights and interests of all sides of the community.”

The assembly, elected under the single transferable vote (STV) system, was originally made up of 108 members. (This was reduced to 90 in 2017). Under the terms of the agreement, MLAs (members of the legislative assembly) needed to “designate” themselves as either “nationalist, unionist or other” to ensure cross-community support for key decisions.

The Good Friday Agreement states: “At their first meeting, members of the assembly will register a designation of identity – nationalist, unionist or other – for the purposes of measuring cross-community support in assembly votes under the relevant provisions above.”

The assembly executive, the agreement added, would be led by a first minister and deputy first minister – leaders of the largest nationalist and unionist parties. Under the GFA, other ministerial positions heading the various government departments are allocated to political parties based on their strength in the assembly, using the d’Hondt mathematical formula.

The GFA was underpinned by the crucial “principle of consent”, affirming that Northern Ireland would remain part of the UK for as long as a majority of its people wished, while also acknowledging the legitimacy of the aspiration for a united Ireland. The wide-ranging agreement also included commitments on paramilitary decommissioning, policing reform and the release of prisoners.

Beyond the provisions relevant to Northern Ireland alone, the accord established a new North-South ministerial council to “bring together those with executive responsibilities in Northern Ireland and the Irish Government” in order to “exchange information, discuss and consult with a view to co-operation on matters of mutual interest”.

Moreover, the GFA provided for East-West co-operation in the form of the British-Irish Council (BIC). The purpose of the BIC, outlined in the accord, is to “exchange information, discuss, consult and use best endeavours to reach agreement on co-operation on matters of mutual interest”.

The Northern Ireland measures, together with the North-South and East-West dimensions, made up the three “strands” of the agreement.

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The outcome was a triumph for Tony Blair, the UK prime minister, and Bertie Ahern, the Irish Taoiseach.

Speaking at a news conference after the deal was announced, Blair declared: “In the past few days the irresistible force of the political leaders has been focused on that same immovable object. I believe we have now moved it.”

“The burden of history can at long last start to be lifted from our shoulders. It will take more of the courage we have shown, but it need not mean more of the pain.”

“Today is only the beginning. It is not the end.”

Ahern stated: “Politically we must seize this initiative. We have given a structure and basis.”

Mitchell, in his capacity as US special envoy, said: “You will never solve the problems of Northern Ireland by violence, you will only make them worse. This is the future.”

In Northern Ireland, the agreement was spearheaded by the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) leader, David Trimble, and the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) leader, John Hume. The two leaders jointly won the 1998 Nobel Peace Prize.

Of the GFA, Trimble commented: “I see a great opportunity for us to start a healing process… We know that the fundamental act of union is there, intact.”

John Hume remarked: “The agreement that we are celebrating today goes right to the heart of our problem in that it creates the institutions with the North and between North and South which are shared by both sections of our people.”

The deal was subsequently endorsed in referendums in both Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. It was endorsed by 71% of the vote in Northern Ireland and 94% in the Republic.

The first elections to the Northern Ireland assembly took place on 25 June 1998. The results were as follows:

• Ulster Unionist Party: 28
• Social Democratic and Labour Party: 24
• Democratic Unionist Party: 20
• Sinn Féin: 18
• Alliance Party: 6
• United Kingdom Unionists: 5
• Progressive Unionist Party: 2
• Northern Ireland Women’s Coalition: 2
• Others: 3

As in previous decades, the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) remained the primary political vehicle for unionists opposed to power-sharing.

The assembly met for the first time on 1 July 1998; Trimble and SDLP deputy leader Seamus Mallon were elected as first minister and deputy first minister respectively. A devolution order was approved at Westminster on 30 November 1999, which transferred the bulk of the Northern Ireland Office’s functions to the assembly on 2 December 1999. Devolution gave the assembly and executive full legislative and executive authority in Northern Ireland over agriculture, economic development, education, the environment, health and social services.

The secretary of state for Northern Ireland retained responsibility for policing, security, prisons, criminal justice, international relations, taxation, national insurance, regulation of financial services, telecommunications and broadcasting, in addition to representing the interests of the province in the cabinet at Westminster.

Subsequently, powers relating to responsibility for policing and justice were transferred to the assembly in April 2010 under the Hillsborough Agreement.

The Northern Ireland Assembly was suspended on 14 October 2002, following allegations about an IRA spy-ring within Stormont. The assembly had been suspended on previous occasions because the unionist parties refused to participate without additional reassurances about the republicans’ renunciation of violence.

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Power-sharing was put on a firmer footing by the 2007 St Andrew’s agreement and negotiations between DUP leader Ian Paisley and Sinn Féin’s Martin McGuinness.

The DUP and Sinn Féin had emerged as the largest parties after the November 2003 election, the assembly’s second. They respectively replaced the UUP and SDLP as the main unionist and nationalist parties.

The Northern Ireland Assembly was suspended again from January 2017 to January 2020.

This suspension occurred in the aftermath of the Renewable Heat Incentive scandal, and the resignation of McGuinness as deputy first minister. Sinn Féin subsequently withdrew from the assembly and without the formation of a new executive, decisions over Northern Ireland affairs reverted to Westminster.

Following talks between the parties, the assembly resumed in January 2020.

In February 2022, the Democratic Unionist Party withdrew its first minister from the executive, collapsing the power-sharing institutions. This action was taken in protest against the post-Brexit trading arrangements known as the Northern Ireland Protocol, which the DUP argued undermined Northern Ireland’s place within the United Kingdom.

On 3 February 2024, devolved government in Northern Ireland was restored following a two-year political stalemate. The restoration of the power-sharing arrangements resulted in Michelle O’Neill’s appointment as first minister. O’Neill of Sinn Féin became the first nationalist to hold the post since the creation of Northern Ireland in 1921.

Emma Little-Pengelly of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) was appointed as deputy first minister.

The power-sharing institutions at Stormont had been dormant since February 2022, when the DUP withdrew in protest against post-Brexit trading arrangements – known as the Northern Ireland protocol.

The impasse finally broke in late January 2024 after the DUP’s party executive voted to accept a deal with the UK government. The agreement, detailed in a command paper titled “Safeguarding the Union”, included measures to reduce checks and paperwork on goods moving from Great Britain to Northern Ireland.

Some hardline unionists, including Jim Allister of the Traditional Unionist Voice (TUV) party, remained implacably opposed to restoring power-sharing arrangements.

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O’Neill’s appointment followed the 2022 Northern Ireland Assembly election, which returned Sinn Féin as the largest party. It marked the first time that an Irish nationalist party won the most seats in an assembly election. The DUP’s vote share fell by almost 7%.

Sinn Féin’s victory meant the party had the right to nominate O’Neill as first minister under the power-sharing arrangements agreed in 1998.

In her first speech as first minister, O’Neill said her appointment would open “the door to a future – a shared future.”

She added: “We mark a moment of equality and a moment of progress, a new opportunity to work and to grow together, confident in the idea that, wherever we come from and whatever our aspirations, we can and must build our future together…

“As an Irish republican, I pledge cooperation and genuine honest effort with all those colleagues of the British and unionist tradition who cherish the Union. This is an assembly for all: Catholic, Protestant and dissenter.

“Despite our different outlooks and different views on the future constitutional position, the public rightly demand that we work and deliver together, and also that we build trust and confidence in our ability to collectively do that.

“That will require courage and ambition, not just from those of us who are elected but from the public. We should all invest in this. The more of us who do that, the better chance it has to succeed.”

She referred to the Good Friday Agreement as the culmination of a process of “political accommodation that provided a peaceful and democratic alternative to 30 years of conflict.”

O’Neill, who was 20 years old at the time of the agreement, recalled “the sense of hope and that real feeling of optimism.”

She said that there was no doubt that “our society has been fundamentally transformed because of our peace process.”

She continued: “I stand here, an elected first minister, proud as someone who represents that Good Friday Agreement generation and someone who will lead us into the next 25 years. I am also an Ulster woman, a Tyrone woman and a deeply proud Irish and European citizen…

“This is an historic day, and it represents a new dawn. For the very first time, a nationalist takes up the position of First Minister. That such a day would come was unimaginable to my parents and grandparents’ generation, but, because of the Good Friday Agreement, that old state that they were born into is gone and a more democratic and equal society exists.

“This is now a better place for all of us. This place that we call “home” and which we all love – the North of Ireland, Northern Ireland – where you can be British, Irish, both or none, is all a changing portrait.

“Yesterday is gone. Today is a new day, and my appointment today reflects the change that is happening.”