Brokering the Good Friday Agreement

Brokering the Good Friday Agreement
Author: Mary E. Daly
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2019
Genre: Northern Ireland
ISBN: 9781911479093

Irish civil servants and political advisers reveal their role in the Northern Ireland peace process. Their testimonies evoke a strong sense of the highly sensitive political environment in which they worked. They reflect on the impact of an ever-changing political landscape on prospects for advancing the peace process, and on the evolution of policy and thinking about Northern Ireland from the outbreak of violence in 1968 to the conclusion of the 1998 Good Friday Agreement. These personal accounts offer insight into how the Irish tried to shape the course of the negotiation of a hard-won agreement.

Brokers of Deceit

Brokers of Deceit
Author: Rashid Khalidi
Publisher: Beacon Press
Total Pages: 239
Release: 2013-03-12
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0807044768

Winner of the 2014 Lionel Trilling Book Award An examination of the failure of the United States as a broker in the Palestinian-Israeli peace process, through three key historical moments For more than seven decades the conflict between Israel and the Palestinian people has raged on with no end in sight, and for much of that time, the United States has been involved as a mediator in the conflict. In this book, acclaimed historian Rashid Khalidi zeroes in on the United States’s role as the purported impartial broker in this failed peace process. Khalidi closely analyzes three historical moments that illuminate how the United States’ involvement has, in fact, thwarted progress toward peace between Israel and Palestine. The first moment he investigates is the “Reagan Plan” of 1982, when Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin refused to accept the Reagan administration’s proposal to reframe the Camp David Accords more impartially. The second moment covers the period after the Madrid Peace Conference, from 1991 to 1993, during which negotiations between Israel and Palestine were brokered by the United States until the signing of the secretly negotiated Oslo accords. Finally, Khalidi takes on President Barack Obama’s retreat from plans to insist on halting the settlements in the West Bank. Through in-depth research into and keen analysis of these three moments, as well as his own firsthand experience as an advisor to the Palestinian delegation at the 1991 pre–Oslo negotiations in Washington, DC, Khalidi reveals how the United States and Israel have actively colluded to prevent a Palestinian state and resolve the situation in Israel’s favor. Brokers of Deceit bares the truth about why peace in the Middle East has been impossible to achieve: for decades, US policymakers have masqueraded as unbiased agents working to bring the two sides together, when, in fact, they have been the agents of continuing injustice, effectively preventing the difficult but essential steps needed to achieve peace in the region.

The Good Friday Agreement

The Good Friday Agreement
Author: Siobhan Fenton
Publisher: Biteback Publishing
Total Pages: 213
Release: 2018-05-24
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1785903829

In April 1998, the Good Friday Agreement brought an end to the bloodshed that had engulfed Northern Ireland for thirty years. It was lauded worldwide as an example of an iconic peace process to which other divided societies should aspire. Today, the region has avoided returning to the bloodshed of the Troubles, but the peace that exists is deeply troubled and far from stable. The botched Parliament at Stormont lumbers from crisis to crisis and society remains deeply divided. At the time of writing, Sinn Féin and the DUP are refusing to share power and Northern Ireland faces direct rule from London. Meanwhile, Brexit poses a serious threat to the country's hard-won stability. Twenty years on from the historic accord, journalist Siobhán Fenton revisits the Good Friday Agreement, exploring its successes and failures, assessing the extent to which Northern Ireland has been able to move on from the Troubles, and analysing the recent collapse of power-sharing at Stormont. This remarkable book re-evaluates the legacy of the Good Friday Agreement and asks what needs to change to create a healthy and functional politics in Northern Ireland.

Say Nothing

Say Nothing
Author: Patrick Radden Keefe
Publisher: Vintage
Total Pages: 561
Release: 2020-02-25
Genre: True Crime
ISBN: 0307279286

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • SOON TO BE AN FX LIMITED SERIES STREAMING ON HULU • NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD WINNER • From the author of Empire of Pain—a stunning, intricate narrative about a notorious killing in Northern Ireland and its devastating repercussions. One of The New York Times’s 20 Best Books of the 21st Century "Masked intruders dragged Jean McConville, a 38-year-old widow and mother of 10, from her Belfast home in 1972. In this meticulously reported book—as finely paced as a novel—Keefe uses McConville's murder as a prism to tell the history of the Troubles in Northern Ireland. Interviewing people on both sides of the conflict, he transforms the tragic damage and waste of the era into a searing, utterly gripping saga." —New York Times Book Review "Reads like a novel ... Keefe is ... a master of narrative nonfiction. . .An incredible story."—Rolling Stone A Best Book of the Year: The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, TIME, NPR, and more! Jean McConville's abduction was one of the most notorious episodes of the vicious conflict known as The Troubles. Everyone in the neighborhood knew the I.R.A. was responsible. But in a climate of fear and paranoia, no one would speak of it. In 2003, five years after an accord brought an uneasy peace to Northern Ireland, a set of human bones was discovered on a beach. McConville's children knew it was their mother when they were told a blue safety pin was attached to the dress--with so many kids, she had always kept it handy for diapers or ripped clothes. Patrick Radden Keefe's mesmerizing book on the bitter conflict in Northern Ireland and its aftermath uses the McConville case as a starting point for the tale of a society wracked by a violent guerrilla war, a war whose consequences have never been reckoned with. The brutal violence seared not only people like the McConville children, but also I.R.A. members embittered by a peace that fell far short of the goal of a united Ireland, and left them wondering whether the killings they committed were not justified acts of war, but simple murders. From radical and impetuous I.R.A. terrorists such as Dolours Price, who, when she was barely out of her teens, was already planting bombs in London and targeting informers for execution, to the ferocious I.R.A. mastermind known as The Dark, to the spy games and dirty schemes of the British Army, to Gerry Adams, who negotiated the peace but betrayed his hardcore comrades by denying his I.R.A. past--Say Nothing conjures a world of passion, betrayal, vengeance, and anguish.

My Life in Loyalism

My Life in Loyalism
Author: Billy Hutchinson
Publisher: Merrion Press
Total Pages: 282
Release: 2020-11-19
Genre: History
ISBN: 1785373471

Growing up in the Shankill area of Belfast and living through the sectarian turmoil of the late 1960s, Billy Hutchinson joined the UVF in the early 1970s. In 1974, at the age of just 19, he was sentenced to life in prison, and it was in the cages of Long Kesh that he first came under the influence of loyalist icon Gusty Spence. Hutchinson spent much of the 1980s as overall Commanding Officer of UVF/Red Hand Commando prisoners, and upon his release, became involved with the recently established Progressive Unionist Party. As an authentic link between the UVF and the PUP, he was at the forefront of negotiations that led to the Belfast Agreement and was the UVF’s point of contact during the weapons decommissioning programme. Written with candour and honesty, this is a lively first-hand account of an extraordinary life and reveals previously hidden episodes of both the Northern Ireland Troubles and the high-profile negotiations that led to the Belfast Agreement of 1998. rom Tartan gang member to leading loyalist paramilitary, and from progressive unionist politician to respected Belfast City Councillor, My Life in Loyalism is Billy Hutchinson’s remarkable story.

Talking to Terrorists

Talking to Terrorists
Author: John Bew
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2009-06
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780199326273

The peace agreement in Northern Ireland has been held up as a beacon for conflict resolution around the world. The lessons of Ulster have been applied by prime ministers, presidents, diplomats and intelligence agents to many areas of violent conflict, from Spain to Sri Lanka, from Afghanistan to Iraq and, frequently, the Israel-Palestine crisis. From Belfast to Basra, the notion that it is necessary to engage in dialogue with one's enemies has been fetishised across the political spectrum. Talking to terrorists is a necessary pre-requisite to peace, it is argued, and governments should avoid rigid pre-conditions in their attempt to bring in the extremes. But does this understanding really reflect what happened in Northern Ireland? Moreover, does it apply to other areas where democratic governments face threats from terrorist organisations, such as in the Basque region of northern Spain? In challenging this notion, the authors offer an analytical history of the transition from war to peace in Northern Ireland, and compare the violent conflict in the Basque country over the same period, demonstrating how events there have developed very differently than the advocates of 'the Northern Ireland model' might presume. The authors recognise that governments have often talked to terrorists and will continue to do so in the future. But they argue that what really matters is not the act of talking to terrorists itself but a range of other variables including the role of state actors, intelligence agencies, hard power and the wider democratic process. Above all, there is a crucial difference between talking to terrorists who believe that their strategy is succeeding and those who have been made to realise that their aims are unattainable by violence.

Theology and Ecology in Dialogue

Theology and Ecology in Dialogue
Author: Dermot A. Lane
Publisher: Messenger Publications
Total Pages: 177
Release: 2020-05-21
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1788121910

This book opens with an examination of the meaning of the innocent sounding category of “Integral Ecology” in contemporary thought and its significance for theology today. According to well known Irish theologian Dermot Lane, Integral Ecology changes everything. In this book he focuses on the neglected implications of Integral Ecology for systematic theology. Ecology challenges theology to reimagine who we are, who the Spirit of God is, who Christ is, where creation is going, and what is the role of liturgy in society-- all in the glare of the ecological crisis. This book also mines the theology within and behind the ground-breaking encyclical Laudato Si’: On Care for our Common Home. Until fairly recently, climate change was left to the scientists, politicians, and activists. More is needed. Now is the time to hear voice of religion in that debate in the public forum with a view to initiating new, transformative practices in society, in politics, and in religions. This new book will be of interest to activists, politicians, priests, christian educators, and theologians. The book is born out of the conviction that climate change is not just one more problem to be addressed by politicians; rather it is the challenge facing humanity in the 21st century and as such is the challenge underlying all other challenges at this moment in history.

Himself Alone

Himself Alone
Author: Dean Godson
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Total Pages: 1066
Release: 2004
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN:

How did David Trimble, the bete noire of Irish nationalism and bien pensant opinion transform himself into a peacemaker? How did this unfashionable, petit bourgeois Orangeman come to win a standing ovation at the Labour Party conference? How, indeed, did this taciturn academic with few real intimates succeed in becoming the leader of the Ulster Unionists? And how did he carry them with him, against the odds, to make an historic compromise with Irish nationalism?

The Northern Ireland Conflict

The Northern Ireland Conflict
Author: John McGarry
Publisher: OUP Oxford
Total Pages: 448
Release: 2004-03-18
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0191532878

This book collects some of the major essays, past and new, of two of the leading authorities on the Northern Ireland conflict. It is unified by the theory of consociation, one of the most influential theories in the regulation of conflicts. The authors are critical exponents of the approach, and several chapters explain its attractions over alternative forms of conflict regulation. The book explains why Northern Ireland's national divisions have made the achievement of a consociational agreement particularly difficult. The issues raised in the book are crucial to a proper understanding of Northern Ireland's past and future, which, the authors argue, is likely to involve some type of consociational democracy, whether or not the one agreed to on Good Friday ..... The issues addressed are not particular to Northern Ireland. They are relevant to a host of other divided territories, including Cyprus, Kosovo, Macedonia, Sri Lanka, Nigeria, and Afghanistan. The book is therefore vital reading not just for Northern Ireland specialists, but also for anyone interested in consociation and in the just and durable regulation of national and ethnic conflict.

The European Union and the Northern Ireland Peace Process

The European Union and the Northern Ireland Peace Process
Author: Giada Lagana
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Total Pages: 211
Release: 2021-11-10
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 9783030591199

This book examines the economic and political contributions of the EU to the Northern Ireland peace process, tracing the genesis of EU involvement since 1979 and analysing how it acted as an arena in which to foster dialogue and positive cooperation. Based on extensive archival research and exclusive elite interviews this volume provides the first comprehensive study of how the EU contributed to the reconfiguration of Northern Ireland from a site of conflict to a site of conflict amelioration and peace-building. The book demonstrates that the relationship between Northern Ireland and the EU has been much more significant in the peace process than previously suggested.