United Ireland

Ireland was partitioned on 3 May 1921 under the Government of Ireland Act 1920.

The Government of Ireland Act 1920, or Fourth Home Rule Bill, recognised what would become Northern Ireland (six north-eastern counties in Ulster) and the south of Ireland (the 32 counties that would later constitute the Irish free state). However, the act envisioned that both polities would exercise self-government in the United Kingdom as “Northern Ireland” and “Southern Ireland”.

The Irish War of Independence (1919-1921), waged between the Irish Republican Army (IRA) and the British Army, resulted in the Anglo-Irish Treaty 1921 and the Irish Free State Constitution Act 1922.

Instead of a sovereign republic, the treaty provided for dominion status, which meant Ireland would remain in the British Empire. Members of the Dáil would be required to swear allegiance to “King George V, his heirs and successors”.

Northern Ireland had the option to opt in or out of the Irish Free State. The unionist government, led by James Craig as prime minister, chose the latter option.

On 7 December 1922, the parliament of Northern Ireland agreed on the wording of the following message: “We, your Majesty’s most dutiful and loyal subjects, the Senators and Commons of Northern Ireland in Parliament assembled, having learnt of the passing of the Irish Free State Constitution Act, 1922… do, by this humble Address, pray your Majesty that the powers of the Parliament and Government of the Irish Free State shall no longer extend to Northern Ireland.”

For generations since these events, it has been the goal of Irish nationalists to reunify the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland under a united Irish nation-state. Unionists, meanwhile, wish to maintain the Union between Northern Ireland and the rest of the United Kingdom.

United Ireland: what do the opinion polls say?

A number of pollsters regularly undertake polling around support for a United Ireland in Northern Ireland.

2025

December 2025 – The University of Liverpool and Social Market Research found 40.6% of respondents supported Irish unity, while 59.4% preferred to stay in the UK. This represented a 5.6% rise in support for voting for a united Ireland. However, it also found that between 2024 and 2025 there was a small decline in support for Irish unity by 1.2%.
February 2025 – LucidTalk and the Belfast Telegraph reported 41% in favour of a United Ireland and 48% wanting to stay in the UK, with 10% undecided.

2024

November 2024 – The Northern Ireland Life and Times (NILT) survey recorded support for a United Ireland at 36%, compared to 42% who wished to remain in the UK.
August 2024 – The ARINS Project and the Irish Times reported support for unity at 34%, while 48% supported staying in the UK.
February 2024 – LucidTalk and the Belfast Telegraph found 39% would vote for Irish unification compared with 49% who would vote to remain in the UK.

2023

November 2023 – The ARINS Project and the Irish Times recorded 30% support for Irish unity and 51% for staying in the UK.
October 2023 – The University of Liverpool found 31% would vote for a United Ireland tomorrow, while 49% said they would vote to remain in the UK.
January-September 2023 – The Northern Ireland Life and Times survey recorded 35% support for unity and 47% for remaining in the UK.

2022

December 2022 – ARINS Project and the Irish Times reported that 27% of respondents supported Irish unity while 50% said they wanted to stay in the UK.
August 2022 – LucidTalk reported that 41% of respondents said they were in favour of a United Ireland, compared with 48% who preferred to stay in the UK.

May 2022 – Northern Ireland Life and Times survey recorded support for a United Ireland at 34% compared to 48% who wished to remain in the UK.
April 2022 – The University of Liverpool found 31.9% of respondents said they would vote for Irish unification compared with 48.2% who said they would vote to remain in the UK.

Prospects of a border poll

The Good Friday Agreement (1998) recognised the right of the people of the island of Ireland to bring about reunification subject to a unification referendum.

The agreement 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.

Accordingly, the Northern Ireland Act 1998 states that “if at any time it appears likely that a majority of those voting would express a wish that Northern Ireland should cease to be part of the United Kingdom and form part of a united Ireland, the secretary of state shall make an Order in Council enabling a border poll.”

The 2022 Northern Ireland Assembly election 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 Democratic Unionist Party’s vote share fell by almost 7%.

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

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 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.

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.”

The core arguments around a United Ireland

The issue of a United Ireland is an extremely contentious one. It manifested in violence from the late 1960s to the late 1990s in a period known as the Troubles.

Thousands died and tens of thousands were wounded in the conflict which eventually came to an end with the Good Friday Agreement of 1998.

Arguments for a United Ireland

The split along the island of Ireland has long been justified because of cultural, and mainly religious, differences. The Protestant majority in Northern Ireland are traditionally loyal to the United Kingdom, whereas the Catholic majority in the Republic, have traditionally fought against British authority. But changing demographics are distorting this picture.

Besides the political and cultural arguments that are made, proponents of a United Ireland point to the economic rationale behind reunification.

In the 1990s, business leader Sir George Quigley argued that regardless of how Ireland was governed, it made sense for such a small island to operate as a single economic unit. Sinn Fein has described the current economic settlement as “a democratic deficit that stunts economic development”.

Arguments against a United Ireland

Supporters of the Union argue that if Irish reunification were to ever happen, it would place serious financial pressures on the Republic of Ireland. An estimated 30% of Northern Ireland’s workforce are directly employed by the United Kingdom’s public sector, and some 20% of the workforce earn less than a basic living wage.

Given that Northern Ireland is the slowest growing economy in the British Isles, it is suggested that the only way the Republic could afford the costs of a United Ireland would be through large tax increases and spending cuts.

Unionists also argue that reunification would risk further political violence. Some extreme unionists or “loyalists” could resort to violence to maintain the existing relationship.

In the 70s, the IRA showed that even a small minority can fight a guerrilla war for decades and kill thousands of people. The unhappiness of certain sections of the Unionist population, sensing a growth in republicanism and dissatisfaction with Northern Ireland’s new trading arrangements post Brexit, was evident in a number of consecutive nights of street violence in April 2021.

A United Ireland – the historical context

Pre-1801

Since the 12th century, the British maintained a presence in Ireland mostly along the east coast around Dublin in an area known as the Pale.

Henry VIII’s break with the Catholic Church in 1534 added a religious dimension to the already fraught relationship between England and Ireland. Ulster was once the most Gaelic Irish province in Ireland but, in 1607, the dominant Catholic families, the O’Neills and O’Donnells fled to the European continent following their defeat in the Nine Years War between the Catholic lords and the Protestant English crown. Following this, the Ulster province took on a different character to the rest of Ireland, being predominantly Protestant and loyal to the crown.

Modern Irish nationalism began with the democratic aspirations in the 1790s and the founding of the Society of the United Irishmen who wished to forge an Ireland totally free from British control.

A prominent part of its platform was ending discrimination against Catholics. Finding their inspiration in the ideals of the French Revolution, the United Irishmen launched their own rebellion in 1798.

Conflict and Union: 1801-1850s

On 1 January 1801, the acts of union came into effect, formally merging the Kingdom of Great Britain and the Kingdom of Ireland into a single political entity “by the name of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland”.

The measure was driven by the British government of William Pitt the Younger, largely as a security response to the 1798 Irish Rebellion and fears of French revolutionary influence. A central, though unwritten, component of the deal was the promise of Catholic emancipation – the abolition of various political restrictions under which Irish Catholics suffered. At the time, Catholics formed a 75% majority of the population in Ireland.

Popular anti-Catholic sentiment continued to flourish in the centuries that followed the Glorious Revolution 1688, initially amid fears of a restoration under a Stuart ‘pretender’.

Catholic emancipation was blocked by King George III – a decision that helped ensure the Union would be an intractable source of political conflict and nationalist resistance for the next 120 years. The king protested that acquiescing to Catholic emancipation would violate his coronation oath, in which he vowed to maintain “the Protestant reformed religion established by law”.

The move provoked William Pitt the Younger’s resignation as prime minister on 16 February 1801.

While Catholics received the right to vote in Ireland under the Roman Catholic Relief Act 1793, they could not serve in parliament created after the 1800 Acts of Union. The Oath of Supremacy required that MPs acknowledge the king as “Supreme Governor” of the Church.

This language effectively forced any prospective Catholic legislators to renounce their faith.

Daniel O’Connell, the vigorous and skilled Irish nationalist leader, established the Catholic Association in 1823. The association inspired a mass movement in Ireland for greater political rights.

The Roman Catholic Relief Act 1829 provided for Catholic emancipation. It came after O’Connell won the 1828 County Clare by-election, sparking a constitutional crisis. O’Connell, 27 years after the Acts of Union came into effect, became the first Catholic to be returned in a parliamentary election since 1688.

In 1830, upon re-entering into parliament, O’Connell began a campaign to repeal the Act of Union and restore the Kingdom of Ireland under the old Constitution of 1782. 42 MPs were elected on the Irish Repeal platform at the 1832 election.

In April 1834, O’Connell brought the issue of repeal before the commons via a petition. The Irish ‘Liberator’ moved for a parliamentary select committee to investigate the 1800 Act of Union as a “first step to national independence”.

He denounced the Union as an illegitimate act, secured through bribery and constitutional impropriety. He argued the Union “was floated into the temple of the British constitution on the blood of Irishmen.”

O’Connell referred to the financial terms of the Union as “a gross and shameless corruption”.

The MP also argued the Union had not brought the protection of the British constitution.

He declared: “In the name, then, of Ireland, I call upon you to do my country justice. I call upon you to restore her national independence.”

The proposal for a inquiry into the union was overwhelmingly defeated by 523 votes to 38

O’Connell officially launched the Repeal Association in 1840. But the movement and O’Connell’s methods declined over the following years.

Opposition to the union was overtaken by “physical force” nationalists, including those of the Young Ireland movement and Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB).

The Great Famine (1845-1852), which resulted in the deaths of over a million people and the emigration of over two million, was another factor that furthered the radicalisation of Irish nationalism.

Home rule and Gladstone’s conversion: 1870s-1886

The Ballot Act 1872, a landmark piece of legislation passed by William Gladstone’s Liberal government, introduced the secret ballot for parliamentary and municipal elections. It sought to curtail the intimidation, bribery and general malpractice that characterised the existing system of open, public voting. Prior to 1872, voters declared their choice aloud at the hustings or had their vote publicly recorded in poll books. This system meant it was standard practice for tenants and labourers to be coerced into voting for their landlord or employer’s chosen candidate.

The measure had a considerable and outsized impact in Ireland, which suffered from an especially suppressive landlord class. The 1874 general election, the first national contest since the passage of the Ballot Act, returned a Conservative majority under Benjamin Disraeli – as well as 60 new pro-home rule Irish MPs.

The demand of this new parliamentary bloc centred on the deliverance of a devolved legislature in Dublin (home rule).

The Ballot Act remained in operation for the 1880 general election, which restored the Liberals to power and Gladstone as prime minister. The contest marked the beginning of the dominance of the Irish Parliamentary Party (IPP) in Ireland and precipitated Charles Stewart Parnell’s election as its leader.

Third Reform Act 1884, passed during Gladstone’s second ministry, greatly strengthened the rural Irish nationalist vote. It extended the household and lodger franchises in boroughs (urban constituencies) to the counties (historically rural constituencies), adding approximately two million voters to the electoral roll, increasing the total electorate from three million to over five million.

At the 1885 general election, the IPP under Parnell increased its representation from 63 seats to 85 seats. The Irish nationalist bloc therefore held the balance of power in the hung parliament that followed; the Liberals held 319 seats, with the Conservatives on 247.

Upon leaving office as prime minister shortly before the 1885 election, Gladstone had become convinced that granting home rule would be necessary to pacify Ireland and strengthen the union. News of the Grand Old Man’s conversion, circulated courtesy of the famous Hawarden Kite, precipitated his return as prime minister. The IPP swung behind Gladstone.

Gladstone drafted the First Home Rule Bill in secret, excluding his own ministry, the Liberal Party and Irish MPs.

The bill split the Liberal Party.

A powerful faction, led by Joseph Chamberlain and the Marquess of Hartington, broke away to form the Liberal Unionists. This new grouping feared home rule would destabilise the British Empire by injecting the possibility of self-determination; Chamberlain had resigned from Gladstone’s cabinet on these terms.

The Liberal Unionists thereafter began to act as a unified bloc with the Conservative Party.

Introducing the Government of Ireland Bill on 8 April 1886, Gladstone argued that Britain had reached a decisive moment in its long struggle with Irish governance. The questions of land and government, he explained, were “closely and inseparably connected”, because both ultimately related to the deeper challenge of establishing “social order in Ireland”.

He called on parliament to no longer “fence and skirmish with this question”, but to “get if we can at the root”.

The essence of the Anglo-Irish union, Gladstone insisted, would remain intact under his proposals. The Act of Union had created a “supreme statutory authority of the Imperial Parliament”, which would be preserved by the proposed legislation.

Nevertheless, the prime minister argued that Ireland required a new constitutional settlement. The government therefore proposed “a legislative body sitting in Dublin, for the conduct of both legislation and administration under the conditions which may be prescribed by the Act defining Irish, as distinct from Imperial, affairs.”

The First Home Rule Bill was defeated by 341 votes to 311 – a majority of 30. In total, 93 Liberal MPs voted with 248 Conservatives against the proposed legislation and their government.

Gladstone’s response to the defeat of his 1886 Home Rule Bill was to dissolve parliament.

The subsequent general election produced a transformed political landscape. A new Conservative–Liberal Unionist alliance returned 393 MPs (316 Conservatives and 78 Liberal Unionists), an increase of 146 seats. Gladstone’s Liberals were reduced from 319 seats to 192.

The Liberal Party, which had held power for 18 of the 27 years since 1859, was consigned to opposition for most of the next two decades. It would only be in power for three of the next 19 years.

The fall of Parnell and Home Rule Crisis: 1890-1920

The IPP also split in this period.

On 17 November 1890, a decree nisi was granted in the case of O’Shea v. O’Shea and Parnell, officially confirming that Parnell, the leader of the IPP, had committed adultery with Katharine O’Shea.

The weight of clerical opinion moved against Parnell. Following a meeting on 3 December 1890, Irish bishops, with some dissenting exceptions, produced a statement that condemned Parnell as unfit to be leader on moral grounds.

The crisis culminated in a series of meetings held in committee room 15 at Westminster in early December. As a result, after five days of debate, the IPP formally split on 6 December 1890 after five days of debate. A majority of 44 MPs, led by Justin McCarthy, walked out to form the anti-Parnellite Irish National Federation (INF). A minority of 28 loyal Parnellites continued as the Irish National League (INL).

The Parnellite and anti-Parnellite blocs collided in at least five by-elections from 1890 to 1891.

On 6 October 1891, Parnell died from heart failure, aged 45.

The Liberals returned to government in 1892.

Gladstone, prime minister for a fourth time, again attempted to legislate for Irish home rule. The Second Irish Home Rule Bill (1893) provided for continued Irish representation in the UK parliament – a measure that set it apart from the vision of home rule offered in 1886. The bill passed by commons by 34 votes. But the proposals met their end in the unionist-dominated Lords. Peers rejected the bill overwhelmingly by 419 votes to 41.

Gladstone had his last audience with Queen Victoria on 28 February 1894. The palace sent for the Earl of Rosebery, the foreign secretary, who assumed office on 5 March.

Liberalism struggled to recover from Gladstone’s retirement in 1894. The party lost the 1895 general election, and the Conservatives returned to power for the following decade. The Conservative and Unionist governments under the Marquess of Salisbury and Arthur Balfour pursued a policy of “killing home rule with kindness”.

The anti-Parnellite and Parnellite factions of Irish nationalism did not reunite until 1900 under the leadership of John Redmond. The parties were effectively forced together as a consequence of the challenge posed by William O’Brien, a former member of the IPP. The popularity of O’Brien’s new United Irish League (UIL), which mostly transcended the Parnellite-anti-Parnellite divide, grew quickly.

The restored IPP, a coalescence of the INF, INL and UIL blocs, returned 82 MPs in the 1900 general election of that year under Redmond’s leadership.

Six years later, the 1906 general election returned the Liberals to government after an extended period in the wilderness.

The subsequent January 1910 and December 1910 general elections, which resulted in hung parliaments, placed home rule firmly on the political agenda. The IPP, led by Redmond, once again held the balance of power.

The Parliament Act 1911, the controversial subject of the 1910 general elections, meant that Irish self-government was now a realisable prospect. The legislation replaced the House of Lords ‘veto’ with a power to delay bills for a maximum of two years spread over three parliamentary sessions. The Lords, dominated by Conservative and Unionist peers, had thwarted Gladstone’s Second Home Rule Bill by 419 votes to 41.

The Third Home Rule Bill, introduced by Liberal prime minister H.H. Asquith in April 1912, provided for limited Irish self-government by way of a Dublin-based bicameral parliament, consisting of a 164-member House of Commons and a 40-member senate. The proposed legislature would be invested with powers to deal with most national affairs, but the UK parliament would also retain authority “over all persons, matters, and things in Ireland”.

The 1912 to 1914 period had a transformative effect on the character of Irish unionism. The opponents of home rule had largely retreated to the nine counties of Ulster, where the island’s protestant minority was most heavily concentrated.

On 28 September 1912, ‘Ulster Day’, over 500,000 unionist (218,206 men and 234,046 women) signed the Ulster Covenant, vowing to use “all means which may be found necessary to defeat the present conspiracy to set up a Home Rule Parliament in Ireland”.

The covenant solidified Unionist opposition to home rule and directly precipitated the formation of the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) in January 1913. The Ulster volunteers, a 100,000-strong force, provided the covenant with paramilitary support.

In March 1914, the government’s authority and ability to manage the crisis was curtailed by the “Curragh incident”, when British army officers stationed in Ireland threatened to resign rather than move against the UVF.

In April, the Larne gun-running armed the UVF with a further 25,000 rifles and 3-5 million rounds of ammunition – all smuggled from the German Empire.

Eventually, the Liberal government was convinced that any home rule scheme should provide for some form of exclusion or partition.

From 21-24 July 1914, representatives of nationalism and unionism were invited to Buckingham Palace to consider the crisis. The Buckingham Palace Conference, convened by George V, was attended by Asquith (Liberal), David Lloyd George (Liberal), John Redmond (nationalist), John Dillon (nationalist), Edward Carson (Unionist), James Craig (Unionist), Bonar Law (Conservative) and Lord Lansdowne (Conservative).

But the Buckingham Palace Conference, and indeed the home rule crisis as a whole, was overtaken by developments on the continent. The Third Home Rule Bill, which became the Government of Ireland Act 1914, was successively suspended in a series of six month periods until 1920, when it was repealed by new home rule legislation.

The rise of Sinn Féin: 1905-1919

On 28 November 1905, Arthur Griffith presented his “Sinn Féin policy” at the first annual convention of the National Council. Griffith, a writer and journalist, articulated a political platform centred on establishing “a national legislature endowed with the moral authority of the Irish nation”.

Griffith had created the National Council in 1903 to campaign against King Edward VII’s visit to Ireland. The Sinn Féin (“We Ourselves”) policy, meanwhile, was heavily influenced by Griffith’s 1904 work, The Resurrection of Hungary: A Parallel for Ireland.

Griffith advocated a dual monarchy solution, modelled on the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867, in which Ireland would be a separate kingdom alongside Great Britain. Griffith argued that Acts of Union of Great Britain and Ireland (1800) were, in fact, illegal. He believed that the Anglo-Irish dual monarchy and the Constitution of 1782, which provided Ireland with legislative independence, were still in effect.

Griffith, influenced by the tactics adopted by dissidents in Hungary, proposed a strategy of abstentionism and passive resistance. He argued that Irish nationalist MPs should withdraw from Westminster to form a national assembly in Dublin.

In The Resurrection of Hungary, Griffiths argued: “The Hungarians resorted to a manly policy of passive resistance and non-recognition of Austria’s right to rule – the Irish resorted to parliamentarianism, implying recognition of an English right to rule this country.

“And one nation today is rich, powerful and able to defy her conqueror, while the other is poor, weak and more tightly held in the conqueror’s grasp.”

The party’s foundation represented a political challenge to the hegemonic IPP, which pursued home rule as a constitutional nationalist force.

Sinn Féin was initially unsuccessful in electoral terms, however. In the 1908 North Leitrim by-election, the Sinn Féin candidate, Charles Dolan, secured 27% of the vote; the IPP’s Francis Meehan won 72.8% of the vote and a majority of 1,946.

The landscape on Irish politics was ruptured by the Easter Rising – an armed insurrection against British rule, centred in Dublin, that began on Easter Monday, 24 April 1916.

The Easter Rising, marked by the proclamation of an Irish republic, was initially met with bemusement and even hostility from many Dubliners. However, the week of fierce fighting, the destruction of much of central Dublin by artillery fire, and the British government’s hardline response – including large-scale arrests, the killing of civilians and the execution of rebel leaders – radicalised public opinion.

A total of 485 people were killed over the six days of conflict, including 260 civilians, 126 members of the British armed forces, 82 rebels and 17 police. More than 2,600 were wounded, including at least 2,200 civilians and rebels.

Arthur Griffith did not take part in the rising. But the British press and political class labelled it the “Sinn Féin Rebellion”. (Nationalists seen as more radical than the IPP were generally referred to as “Sinn Féiners”.)

The IPP’s mode of constitutional nationalism did not survive the Easter Rising. Public opinion shifted decisively towards the mode of nationalism associated with Sinn Féin. In February 1917, Count George Noble Plunkett – father of the executed leader Joseph Plunkett – won the North Roscommon by-election as an independent “Sinn Féiner” nationalist.

In May, Sinn Féin’s Joseph McGuinness, won the South Longford by-election with a majority of 37 of the IPP candidate. At the time, McGuinness was serving a prison sentence for his role in the Easter Rising; Sinn Féin’s campaign slogan was “Put him in to get him out”.

In July, Éamon de Valera, recently released from imprisonment for his role in the Easter Rising, won the Clare East by-election with 71.1% of the vote. Finally, in August 1917, Sinn Féin’s W. T. Cosgrave won the Kilkenny City by-election with 66.3% of the vote.

At the October 1917 Ard Fheis, a motion was agreed defining Sinn Féin’s goal as “securing the international recognition of Ireland as an independent Irish republic.”

Griffith also stepped aside to allow de Valera to become president of the party. Sinn Féin was shifting steadily to unambiguous republicanism.

The Easter Rising created the conditions for Sinn Féin’s replacement of the IPP as the spokesperson for nationalism. At the 1918 general election, the party – founded just 13 years previously – won 73 out of 105 Irish seats. The IPP secured six seats, down 74.

Among the successful Sinn Féin candidates were Griffith, in East Cavan, and Constance Markievicz, who became the first woman elected to the House of Commons.

In line with the Sinn Féin policy, neither Griffith, Markievicz nor any successful Sinn Féin candidate took up their seats. Instead, the Sinn Féin representatives assembled at the Mansion House in Dublin on 21 January 1919 to form Dáil Éireann.

The first act of Dáil Éireann was to declare Irish independence.

The Sinn Féin representatives resolved: “Now, therefore, we, the elected representatives of the ancient Irish people in national parliament assembled, do, in the name of the Irish nation, ratify the establishment of the Irish Republic and pledge ourselves and our people to make this declaration effective by every means at our command.”

The revolutionary parliament also resolved that a state of war existed “between Ireland and England”. The Irish Volunteers, formed in 1913 to reinforce nationalist demands for home rule, were restyled as the Irish Republican Army (IRA).

Sinn Féin, and Ireland, splits: 1921-1960s

The IRA waged a guerrilla campaign against the British Army in the Irish War of Independence (1919-1921).

This resulted in the Anglo-Irish Treaty 1921 and the Irish Free State Constitution Act 1922.

On 7 January 1922, following nine days of debate, Dáil Éireann ratified the Anglo-Irish Treaty by 64 votes to 57. The treaty, signed in London the previous month, brought an end to the Irish War of Independence (1919-1921) and established the Irish Free State.

However, instead of a sovereign republic, the treaty provided for dominion status, which meant Ireland would remain in the British Empire. Members of the Dáil would be required to swear allegiance to “King George V, his heirs and successors”.

The treaty debate held from 19 December 1921 to 7 January 1922 exposed a profound schism within the republican movement. The pro-treaty faction, led by Michael Collins and Arthur Griffith, argued that the agreement was a “stepping stone” to full independence and the best deal achievable at that moment. Collins and Griffith were both signatories of the treaty.

De Valera declared his opposition to the treaty on the grounds it did “not reconcile Irish national aspirations with association with the British government”.

De Valera responded to the treaty’s ratification, approved by 64 votes to 57, by resigning as president of the Dáil. He immediately stood for re-election but was rejected by 60 votes to 58. Griffith was proposed to take his place.

De Valera then led his supporters out of the chamber. Collins responded: “Deserters all! We will now call on the Irish people to rally to us. Deserters all!… Deserters all to the Irish nation in her hour of trial. We will stand by her.”

This schism paved the way for the Irish Civil War, which was fought from June 1922 to May 1923.

The civil war cost more than 1,000 lives, including that of Collins, who was killed in an ambush on 22 August 1922. In the end, the pro-treaty provisional government ultimately defeated the anti-treaty forces.

The Irish Free State was established on 6 December 1922. Northern Ireland opted out, effectively entrenching partition.

The unionist government, led by James Craig as prime minister, chose the latter option.

Following partition, in the north, discrimination at the expense of the Catholic minority community – notably in housing, policing, employment and electoral practices (gerrymandering) – was steadily embedded in Northern Ireland’s governance and public life. These practices helped sustain unionism’s near-hegemonic status, and the Ulster Unionist Party’s position as the sole and effectively unchallenged party of government in Northern Ireland.

In the south, pro-Treaty deputies of Dáil Éireann and other supporters of the settlement formed a new political party, Cumann na nGaedheal, on 27 April 1923 at a meeting in Dublin. A merger with two other organisations in 1933 led to the formation of Fine Gael.

De Valera later grew frustrated with the Sinn Féin’s continued policy of abstentionism from Dáil Éireann. In March 1926, de Valera proposed that Sinn Féin abandon the policy of abstentionism and enter the Dáil if the oath of allegiance was removed. When his motion was defeated at the Sinn Féin Ard Fheis, de Valera resigned and founded a new party, Fianna Fáil, in 1926.

The party’s history of schisms left Sinn Féin as little more than a rump for much of the 1930s and 40s.

Sinn Féin found renewed purpose in the 1950s after its ties with the IRA, cut since the civil war, were restored. The party reemerged from the relative wilderness as the paramilitary’s political wing.

In December 1956, at the outset of the IRA Border Campaign, the Northern Ireland government passed the Special Powers Act to ban Sinn Féin. The party remained banned until 1974.

O’Neill and the Northern Ireland civil rights movement: 1963-1969

Terence O’Neill took office as prime minister of Northern Ireland in 1963, succeeding Basil Brooke, 1st Viscount Brookeborough. He aimed to transform Northern Ireland’s economy and social structure with a programme of modernisation. In 1965, O’Neill established the Minister of Development to this end. He sought new sources of investment and to encourage industrialisation.

O’Neill initiated cross-border talks with the Republic of Ireland, culminating in his historic meetings with Irish Taoiseach Seán Lemass in January 1965. Two years later, O’Neill travelled to Dublin to meet Lemass’ successor, Jack Lynch. These marked the first official meetings between leaders from both parts of Ireland since the 1920s.

O’Neill signalled his new approach to community relations with a series of symbolic gestures. He met cardinal William Conway, the archbishop of Armagh and leading figure in the Catholic hierarchy; he conveyed the government’s official condolences upon the death of Pope John XXIII in June 1963; and he began visiting Catholic schools and hospitals.

O’Neill’s programme of reform and gestures provoked a backlash within unionism from figures like Ian Paisley, the leader of the Free Presbyterian Church. In 1967, O’Neillite unionist MP George Forrest was pulled from a Twelfth of July platform in Coagh and kicked unconscious by members of the Orange Order.

O’Neill’s reforms coincided with, and responded to, an increasingly assertive civil rights movement, which demanded the dismantling of longstanding discrimination.

On 5 October 1968, a civil rights demonstration organised by the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association (NICRA) and the Derry Housing Action Committee (DHAC) marched through Derry. The march, which had been banned by William Craig, the minister of home affairs, was violently suppressed by the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC). Footage of the baton charges were broadcast worldwide.

The British prime minister, Harold Wilson, subsequently summoned O’Neill to Downing Street. He applied pressure on O’Neill to go further in his reforms, threatening to introduce direct rule from Westminster if order could not be restored.

O’Neill responded with his five-point reform programme on 22 November 1968. This included concessions such as an independent ombudsman to investigate complaints against government departments, a new ‘development corporation’ to replace the Londonderry corporation (which was known for gerrymandering), and new guidelines for housing allocations based on need. However, it notably failed to include “one man, one vote” for local government elections – a key demand of the civil rights movement.

O’Neill addressed the nation in a famous broadcast on 9 December.

In aristocratic tones, the prime minister began: “Ulster stands at the crossroads. I believe you know me well enough by now to appreciate that I am not a man given to extravagant language. But I must say to you this evening that our conduct over the coming days and weeks will decide our future.”

O’Neill said the issues at hand were far “too serious to be determined behind closed doors, or left to noisy minorities”. He pointed to his attempts to “heal some of the deep divisions in our community”.

This appeal to moderate opinion failed to resolve the political deadlock or arrest Northern Ireland’s descent into social unrest.

On 1 January 1969, a group named People’s Democracy, associated with the activism of Bernadette Devlin, began a four-day march from Belfast to Derry. People’s Democracy, a student-led movement which grew out of Queen’s University Belfast, was founded on 9 October 1968, in response to the RUC attack on the Derry civil rights march.

On the fourth day of its January 1969 march, the group was attacked by a loyalist mob at Burntollet Bridge. The RUC officers failed to intervene.

O’Neill responded that People’s Democracy was “from the outset, a foolhardy and irresponsible undertaking.”

He added: “Clearly Ulster has now had enough, We are all sick of marchers and counter-marchers… Enough is enough. We have heard sufficient for now about civil rights, let us hear a little about civic responsibility.”

On 15 January, O’Neill announced the creation of an inquiry (the Cameron commission) to investigate the causes of “the violence and civil disturbance in Northern Ireland on and since 5 October 1968”.

Brian Faulkner resigned as Northern Ireland minister of commerce on 24 January 1969 in protest.

O’Neill, faced with collapsing support in his own party, made a final gamble, calling a surprise general election in February 1969. 27 pro-O’Neill unionists were elected, versus 12 who were either undecided or considered anti-O’Neill unionists.

The result meant O’Neill had failed to secure a clear majority to pass his reforms.

On 23 April, the proposal to introduce universal adult suffrage in local government elections in Northern Ireland was passed by 28 votes to 22, accepting the demand for “one man, one vote”. James Chichester-Clark, the minister of agriculture, resigned in protest.

On 28 April 1969, O’Neill resigned as prime minister. It came after a series of bomb explosions carried out by the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF). He was succeeded by Chichester-Clark, who defeated Faulkner in the 1969 UUP leadership election.

The Troubles begin: 1969-1971

In August 1969, intense street fighting in Derry/Londonderry broke out between nationalist residents of the Bogside area and the RUC. “The Battle of the Bogside” was triggered by the annual Apprentice Boys loyalist parade on 12 August, which passed close to the area. The parade, a centrepiece of marching season, celebrates the young Protestant supporters of William of Orange who defended Londonderry against the forces of the Catholic King James II in 1688/1689.

The RUC, seen as a sectarian force by nationalists, entered the Bogside with armoured cars and water cannons in an attempt to control the violence. The force employed tear gas for the first time in its history, but failed to regain control of the Bogside. Alongside loyalist supporters, they were ultimately repelled.

The Bogside became a “no-go” area defended by residents; barricades were erected and the guarded area was referred to as ‘Free Derry’.

Tensions heightened with the deployment of the Ulster Special Constabulary (the so-called ‘B Specials’), a quasi-military auxiliary force that was loathed by Northern Ireland’s nationalist minority.

The violence and rioting led to several deaths and displacing hundreds of families, mostly Catholics.

The Stormont government of Northern Ireland, led by James Chichester-Clark, formally requested military assistance from Westminster. The RUC, it acknowledged, could no longer contain the disorder.

On 13 August, the Irish Taoiseach, Jack Lynch, delivered a broadcast speech stating the Irish government could “no longer stand by and see innocent people injured and perhaps worse.”

He said: “It is evident that the Stormont government is no longer in control of the situation. Indeed the present situation is the inevitable outcome of the policies pursued for decades by successive Stormont governments. It is clear, also, that the Irish government can no longer stand by and see innocent people injured and perhaps worse.”

Lynch requested that a United Nations peacekeeping force to be sent to the six counties of Northern Ireland. He also announced that field hospitals would be set up in border areas. (In 2009, it was revealed the Irish government prepared a plan for military intervention.)

After two days of clashes, Harold Wilson, with James Callaghan as home secretary, authorised the deployment of British troops. On the afternoon of 14 August, shortly after 17:00, 300 troops from the Prince of Wales’s Own Regiment of Yorkshire occupied the centre of Derry.

On the same day, John Gallagher, a Catholic civilian, was shot in the back by B-Specials members, who had opened fire on a crowd amidst street disturbances. He is sometimes referred to as the first official fatality of what became known as the Troubles.

The deployment of troops onto the streets of Northern Ireland marked the beginning of the British Army’s longest continuous operation, Operation Banner.

Initially, the nationalist/Catholic community welcomed the army’s deployment. The arriving forces were viewed as an impartial peacekeeping force, and even as protectors against the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) and loyalist rioters.

But this warm welcome was short-lived. Nationalist hostility to the British army was fuelled by the Falls Curfew (1970) and Operation Demetrius (the introduction of internment in 1971).

The main opposition to the British military’s deployment came from the Provisional Irish Republican Army (PIRA), which answered calls for a “defenderist” group. The Official IRA leadership came under criticism from its traditional supporters for failing to defend Catholic areas.

This sentiment was captured by the famous slogan: “IRA – I Ran Away”.

Operation Banner was initially intended as a “limited operation” to restore order. But it signalled the beginning of a larger role for the UK government in Northern Ireland.

Bloody Sunday and direct rule: 1972

On 30 January 1972, soldiers from the 1st Battalion of the Parachute Regiment opened fire on a civil rights march – organised by NICRA to protest the policy of internment without trial – in the Bogside area of Derry/Londonderry, killing 13 people and injuring many more.

The massacre, which became known as “Bloody Sunday”, was the deadliest single shooting incident during the Troubles. The killings caused widespread fury across the minority nationalist-Catholic community and sparked a surge in recruitment for the Provisional IRA.

Brian Faulkner, Chichester-Clark’s successor as Northern Ireland prime minister, was summoned to London on 24 March 1972. Edward Heath, Wilson’s successor as British prime minister, informed him of his decision that security policy would be transferred to Westminster.

Faulkner and his cabinet resisted, refusing to maintain government without security powers.

The UK parliament moved swiftly to fill the political vacuum, sitting overnight to pass emergency legislation that transferred executive authority from both the government and governor of Northern Ireland to a newly created secretary of state for Northern Ireland.

Stormont met for the final time on 28 March. Faulkner marked the occasion with an address to a crowd of around 100,000 people from the first-floor balcony of parliament buildings. “We feel that we, in our endeavour to provide just government in Ulster, have been betrayed from London”, he declared.

On 30 March, Heath’s government formally suspended the parliament of Northern Ireland and imposed direct rule from Westminster under the terms of the Northern Ireland (Temporary Provisions) Act. This move ended 51 years of devolved unionist-led government from Stormont.

In legislating for direct rule, Heath proposed “a system of regular plebiscites [referenda] in Northern Ireland about the border, the first to be held as soon as practicable in the near future and others at intervals of a substantial period of years thereafter.”

The new secretary of state for Northern Ireland, William Whitelaw, said the goal of this strategy “was to take the border out of the day-to-day political scene”.

On 8 March 1973, Northern Ireland held its first referendum on its constitutional status – a “border poll” that resulted in an overwhelming, but in effect meaningless, vote to remain part of the United Kingdom. The poll, which represented the first time that a major referendum had been held in any region of the United Kingdom, was marked by a mass boycott from the nationalist community. It duly produced an almost unanimous majority vote in favour of maintaining the Union with Britain.

Sunningdale and attempts to restore self-government: 1973-1974

The border poll was followed by a white paper, Northern Ireland Constitutional Proposals, published on 20 March 1973. It proposed a devolved power-sharing assembly in Northern Ireland and a ‘Council of Ireland’ to consider cross-border matters with the Republic of Ireland.

The new Northern Ireland assembly, created by the ‘Sunningdale Agreement’, met for the first time on 31 July 1973.

The power-sharing Sunningdale executive, which brought together moderate unionists, the nationalist Social Democratic Labour Party (SDLP), and the cross-community Alliance (APNI), took office on 1 January 1974.

Faulkner led the Sunningdale negotiations on behalf of the UUP, and was appointed as chief executive of Northern Ireland under the scheme.

However, the agreement’s cross-border element was fiercely opposed by loyalists and hardline unionist politicians, led by Harry West, Ian Paisley and William Craig, who viewed it as a step towards a united Ireland. The so-called ‘Dublin-dimension’, it was feared, would see the unionist community “trundled into a United Ireland”.

In January 1974, Faulkner was deposed as leader of the UUP, and replaced by the anti-Sunningdale Harry West.

At the February 1974 general election, eleven United Ulster Unionist Council (UUUC) MPs were returned. The UUUC, which comprised unionist opponents of the Sunningdale Agreement, secured the vast majority of Northern Ireland’s available seats (11 out of 12). The campaign slogan of the UUUC, “Dublin is just a Sunningdale away”, captured the concerns of the region’s unionist community.

On 14 May, a motion condemning the cross-border Council of Ireland was defeated in the Sunningdale assembly by 44 votes to 28. A coalition of loyalist paramilitaries and workers, known as the Ulster Workers’ Council (UWC), responded by calling a general strike to begin the following day. The strike brought Northern Ireland to a standstill. UWC barricades blocked roads, and intimidation was used to stop people from going to work. Most critically, electricity supplies were also disrupted with rotating four-hourly power cuts.

On 28 May, with Northern Ireland crippled by the UWC strike, Faulkner and his unionist colleagues resigned from the Sunningdale executive. The power-sharing body, having failed to win cross-community support, collapsed. The assembly itself was prorogued on 30 May, but not officially abolished until 29 March 1975. Responsibility for the government of Northern Ireland thus reverted to the British parliament under the arrangements for direct rule.

The unity of anti-Sunningdale action effectively killed the prospect of power-sharing for the best part of three decades. The Northern Ireland Constitutional Convention (1975) and a second Northern Ireland Assembly (1982-86) proved unsustainable solutions to the region’s political and security situation.

The evolution of Sinn Féin: c.1980s

Provisional Sinn Féin (or simply Sinn Féin) began to more fully embrace electoral politics during the 1980s. The phrase “armalite and ballot box” came to symbolise Sinn Féin’s dual strategy of combining political participation with the ongoing armed struggle. It was coined by Sinn Féin organiser Danny Morrison at the party’s October 1981 annual conference.

“Who here really believes we can win the war through the ballot box?”, Morrison asked. “But will anyone here object if, with a ballot paper in this hand and an Armalite [rifle] in the other, we take power in Ireland?”

The death of independent republican MP Frank Maguire in 1981 presented an opportunity for Sinn Féin to step up its electoral strategy. The subsequent by-election became a focal point for the hunger strike in the Maze Prison, where republican prisoners were protesting for the restoration of political status.

Bobby Sands, the leader of the IRA prisoners in the Maze prison, was nominated as an ‘Anti H-Block/Armagh Political Prisoner’ candidate. The H-Block was the section of the Maze prison in Belfast reserved for republican and loyalist paramilitary prisoners. At the time of the by-election, Sands had served four years of a 14-year sentence for possessing firearms.

Sands, upon his selection as the ‘Anti H-Block’ candidate, was already more than a month into his fast. Other nationalist parties stood aside, producing a highly polarised contest between Sands and the former Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) leader, Harry West.

The by-election turned into a de facto referendum on the hunger strike itself. Sands won with 30,492 votes (51.2%) to West’s 29,046 (48.8%). Over 3,000 ballot papers were spoiled — an unusually high number. Voter turnout was 86.9%.

A contemporary New York Times report read: “[The result] cast into doubt the view often expressed by politicians in London that the IRA is supported only by a fringe of the Catholic voters.”

The result marked the first major electoral breakthrough for the republican movement since the beginning of the Troubles.

Owen Carron, who served as Sands’ election agent, responded: “The nationalist people have voted against Unionism and against the H-blocks. It is time Britain got out of Ireland and put an end to the torture of this country.”

Sands’ death triggered another by-election in Fermanagh and South Tyrone. Carron was selected as the republican candidate on an ‘Anti-H-Block Proxy Political Prisoner’ ticket. Had the Representation of the People Act 1981 not barred prisoners serving sentences of more than a year from standing for parliament, another hunger-striker could well have been nominated.

Sands was the first of 10 republican prisoners to die after hunger strikes. The campaign came to an end on 3 October 1981, with only minor concessions granted the Conservative government.

However, the episode had a profound and lasting impact on the political character of Sinn Féin, accelerating its shift towards a more strategic engagement with electoral politics.

Sinn Féin’s Gerry Adams, who had spearheaded the party’s reforms, stood as a candidate in the 1983 general election. He won the seat of Belfast West, defeating the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) candidate with 16,379 votes (36.9%).

This electoral success sparked a strategic revaluation of Sinn Féin’s longstanding abstentionist policy. In November 1986, Sinn Féin voted to overturn the longstanding policy of abstaining from the Irish parliament.

Adams argued: “The only feasible way to break out from our isolation, to make political gains and win support for our policies is by approaching people at the level they understood.”

This decision triggered a more minor split than previous Sinn Féin schisms, precipitating the formation of Republican Sinn Féin.

The Anglo-Irish Agreement and unionist backlash: 1985-1986

The Anglo-Irish Agreement, signed in 1985 by Margaret Thatcher, the British prime minister, and Garret FitzGerald, the Irish Taoiseach, affirmed that the two governments would support any future wish by the people of Northern Ireland to enter into a united Ireland.

It recognised the “present wish of a majority of the people of Northern Ireland” to remain in the union, but declared that “if in the future a majority of the people of Northern Ireland clearly wish for and formally consent to the establishment of a united Ireland, they will introduce and support in the respective parliaments legislation to give effect to that wish.”

Critically, the agreement granted the Republic of Ireland a formal consultative role in the governance of Northern Ireland through a new Anglo-Irish Intergovernmental Conference. The conference would deal with political matters; security and related matters; legal matters, including the administration of justice; and the promotion of cross-border co-operation. It marked the first time since partition that Dublin had been formally invited into the governance of Northern Ireland.

The conference was denounced by unionists as a concession to nationalist opinion and a step that would undermine the integrity of the United Kingdom.

Following the signing of the agreement at Hillsborough Castle on 15 November 1985, unionist leaders withdrew from advisory boards and threatened to paralyse local government by refusing to set rates. On 16 November, the Northern Ireland Assembly – established in 1982 according to a scheme of ‘rolling devolution’ – voted by 44 votes to 10 for a motion calling for a referendum to be held on the agreement.

Tom King, the Northern Ireland secretary, was attacked by loyalists in Belfast on 20 November.

On 23 November, a massive unionist demonstration took place at Belfast City Hall to protest against the agreement.

The ‘Ulster Says No’ rally formed part of a broader strategy of non-cooperation and civil disobedience orchestrated by the two main unionist parties: the UUP led by James Molyneaux, and the Democratic Unionist Party led by Ian Paisley.

Standing before Belfast City Hall, Paisley invoked the memory of Unionist leader Edward Carson and the 1912 Ulster covenant. In his speech’s most famous passage, the unionist firebrand declared: “I want to ask a question today, and the question is simple.

“Where do the terrorists operate from? From the Irish Republic! That’s where they come from.

“Where do the terrorists return to for sanctuary? To the Irish Republic!

“And yet Mrs Thatcher tells us that that republic must have some say in our province. We say Never! Never! Never! Never!”

But the Thatcher government refused to back down.

After a two-day debate, the agreement was approved by the House of Commons on 27 November by 473 votes to 47.

On 17 December, less than a month after the rally, all 15 unionist MPs resigned their seats in the House of Commons simultaneously. This unprecedented move forced a series of by-elections, which the unionists framed as a de facto referendum on the agreement. It came after the UK government rejected unionist calls for a plebiscite on the agreement. A total of 14 out of 15 Unionist MPs secured re-election.

Unionist resistance to the agreement continued over the following months and years. It featured MPs breaking off contact with ministers, industrial action and unrest, as well as paramilitary violence. The Maryfield Secretariat, the administrative home of the Intergovernmental Conference, became a target for unionist opposition.

On 11 December, unionist workers staged walkouts and marched to Maryfield, where violent clashes between the demonstrators and the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) followed. 38 officers were injured.

On 7 August 1986, Peter Robinson, deputy leader of the DUP, and a loyalist mob invaded the republic, occupying Clontibret in County Monaghan before being dispersed by the Garda Síochána.

A petition against the agreement in Northern Ireland received 400,000 signatures.

The Anglo-Irish Agreement is today seen as representing a landmark moment in the Northern Ireland peace process.

It established the principle that the constitutional status of Northern Ireland would not change without representation for the nationalist minority, while acknowledging an Irish or ‘North-South’ dimension should be crucial to a political solution. Crucially, it also signalled to unionists that the British government was willing to face down and repudiate their protests with regard to nationalist representation. It established the principle of consent, as to the governance of Northern Ireland, and ended the prospect of any return to simple majority rule.

John Hume, the leader of the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP), later wrote: “Though no one among us felt it was the final solution, the agreement was a major achievement of democratic politics, and was a significant step forward on the road to lasting peace and stability…

“Everything that has happened in the past few years stems from the agreement.”

In 1992, seven years after the agreement was signed, Paisley privately admitted that the unionist reaction to the accord had been counterproductive. Documents released under the 20 Year Rule in 2017 included Paisley’s insistence that “there was no question of them walking away” from talks.

He added: “They had run away from participation in Westminster and local councils in the past, and that had been a mistake.”

Thatcher, however, later expressed regret over the agreement.

Reviewing a political biography written about Enoch Powell, Thatcher wrote: “I now believe that his assessment [of the agreement] was right, though I wish that on this as on other occasions he had been less inclined to impugn the motives of those who disagreed with him.”

The Good Friday Agreement (1998)

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. It followed a full 700 days of negotiations.

Its central pillar was the creation of a new, devolved Northern Ireland Assembly and a 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”. This is to ensure cross-community support for key decisions. The assembly executive, meanwhile, is led by the first minister and deputy first minister, leaders of the largest nationalist and unionist.

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”.

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. The wide-ranging agreement also included commitments on paramilitary decommissioning, policing reform, and the release of prisoners.

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

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.

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 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.

The DUP emerged as the largest unionist party in the 2003 Northern Ireland Assembly election. Sinn Féin simultaneously supplanted the SDLP as the predominant representative of nationalism in Northern Ireland.

The St Andrews Agreement (2006-2007)

On 26 March 2007, in a moment of immense historical significance, the leaders of the DUP and Sinn Féin, Ian Paisley and Gerry Adams respectively, sat alongside each other for the first time and publicly announced their agreement to form a power-sharing government in Northern Ireland.

The private negotiating session that preceded the announcement was the first time the two parties had ever held direct talks. A target date of May 8 was set for the restoration of devolved government – which had been suspended for five years.

The Northern Ireland (St Andrews Agreement) Act 2006 stated that, in the wake of an assembly election on 7 March 2007, ministerial offices to be held by Northern Ireland Ministers should be apportioned by 26 March. The meeting of Paisley and Adams, therefore, came just hours ahead of the deadline set out by the British and Irish governments. In the event that Paisley and Adams could not come to an agreement, the act outlined the result: the indefinite suspension of the devolved institutions.

Announcing the deal at a news conference, Paisley declared: “Our goal has been to see devolution returned in a context where it can make a real, meaningful improvement in the lives of all the people of this part of the United Kingdom.

“On Saturday, the DUP executive overwhelmingly endorsed a motion committing our party to support and participate fully in government in May of this year — this is a binding resolution.”

On 8 May 2007, Paisley was sworn in as first minister and Sinn Féin’s Martin McGuinness as deputy first minister, ushering in a new era of devolved government.

On 8 December, during a meeting with US president George W Bush in the White House, McGuinness told the press: “Up until the 26 March this year, Ian Paisley and I never had a conversation about anything – not even about the weather – and now we have worked very closely together over the last seven months and there’s been no angry words between us.

“This shows we are set for a new course.”

This move cemented the DUP’s transition from a party of protest to a party of government.

The DUP’s influence peaked at Westminster a decade later, when its 10 MPs entered a confidence and supply agreement with Theresa May’s Conservative government after the 2017 general election.

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 McGuiness 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.

A new era for power-sharing

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.

In May 2022, Sinn Fein became the largest party in the Northern Ireland Assembly for the first time following elections.

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.

Quotes

‘From my earliest youth I have regarded the connection between Ireland and Great Britain as the curse of the Irish nation, and felt convinced, that while it lasted this country would never be free or happy’ - Wolfe Tone, leader of 1798 United Irishmen rebellion, 1798.

‘We serve neither King nor Kaiser, but Ireland’ – The banner on Liberty Hall during the first World War, 1914

‘The civil rights people don’t believe in civil rights at all, they’re just a bunch of republican rebels, that’s what they are. Let’s be very clear about this, they have no time for law and order, they have no time for this country and they mean to destroy this country, and we mean to see that this country will not be destroyed’ – Ian Paisley, former Leader of the DUP, 1969

‘Armed struggle is a necessary and morally correct form of resistance in the Six Counties against a government whose presence is rejected by the vast majority of the Irish people There are those who tell us that the British government will not be moved by armed struggle. As has been said before, the history of Ireland and of British colonial involvement throughout the world tells us that they will not be moved by anything else’ – Gerry Adams, former leader of Sinn Fein, 1983

‘We can’t allow the Good Friday Agreement that brought peace to Northern Ireland to become a casualty of Brexit. Any trade deal between the U.S. and U.K. must be contingent upon respect for the Agreement and preventing the return of a hard border’ – Joe Biden, President of the United States, 2020

‘We all know how divisive a border poll would be, and for us in Northern Ireland what we have to do is come together to fight against Covid, and not be distracted by what would be absolutely reckless at this time’ – Arlene Foster, then leader of the DUP, 2021

“There is no evidence of growing support for Northern Ireland leaving the United Kingdom. Indeed, every major poll points in the opposite direction”, Sir Jeffrey Donaldson MP, DUP Leader, March 2014, speaking to the National Press Club in Washington, US.