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Explained: 25 years of Good Friday Agreement and the end of ‘Troubles’

The historic treaty ended three decades of protests and violence in Northern Ireland.

April 10, 2023, marked the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement, which ended the violent conflict in Northern Ireland known as the Troubles.

So what exactly were the Troubles that lasted almost three decades and killed more than 3500 people?

Catholic-Protestant divide

The roots of the Troubles date back to 1921, when the Republic of Ireland became independent from the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland was founded. Protestant loyalists wanted the territory to remain under British rule, while Catholic nationalists wanted to unite with the newly-established Republic of Ireland.

Life in Northern Ireland was strictly divided between Catholics and Protestants. Catholics in Northern Ireland began to feel increasingly discriminated against because of a lack of political representation, poverty, unemployment and house evictions.

There were also attacks by the militant Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) on Catholic properties. This resulted in civil rights marches and demonstrations, which began in 1968 and continued in the coming decades.

Marches, clashes and riots

The first civil rights march on August 24, 1968, in Dungannon – a small town in Tyrone County – was triggered by a housing discrimination incident when a Protestant woman was given a house instead of two large Catholic families.

It was followed by the People’s Democracy March on January 1-4, 1969. A group, primarily students, walked about 120 km from the capital Belfast to Derry – Northern Ireland’s second-largest city. The protesters were attacked by militant Protestants several times during the march.

The marches turned into riots when the police were seen as taking sides with Protestant loyalists– those engaged in enforcing the law did not protect the nationalists during demonstrations, attacked some Catholic homes and even beat some Catholics to death.

The more militant among the North Ireland nationalists responded with violence on August 12 1969 – attacking a loyalist march with stones and petrol bombs. Police action on the nationalists, with tear gas and water cannons, sparked a three-day conflict between the rivals which has come to be known as the Battle of Bogside.

Soon, fighting spread all over Northern Ireland and the federal government of the United Kingdom was forced to deploy British troops as a peacekeeping force in the riot-hit areas.

To reduce violence, the internment policy -imprisonment without trial- was introduced. However, it only boosted the nationalist movement and led to a jump in the number of people joining the militant Irish Republican Army (IRA) and the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF).

Militant violence over the subsequent years left a trail of death and destruction, including the worst year of the Troubles when nearly 500 people were killed in 1972.

Increasing violence

When London tried to assert its authority through direct British rule to restore peace and order, the North Ireland militant groups responded with a spate of bombings.

On July 21, known as Bloody Friday, the IRA set off 19 bombs in Belfast, killing nine and injuring over 130 people.

In 1973, the UK and the Republic of Ireland signed the Sunningdale Agreement, which envisioned power-sharing between London and Dublin. The signatories also retained the right to make decisions regarding Northern Ireland.

However, the treaty was opposed by both loyalists and the IRA. Loyalists started a strike all over the country, while the UVF and IRA carried out bomb attacks in Dublin and Monaghan on May 17, 1974, which killed 33 people.

From 1972 to 1981, there were also a series of protests in prisons by arrested IRA members who demanded ‘prisoner of war’ status. They went on hunger strikes several times. They wore blankets instead of prison clothes, followed by a no-wash protest. In May 1981, MP Bobby Sands died on a hunger strike, followed by other prisoners – Francis Hughes, Raymond McCreesh and Patsy O'Hara. The hunger strike was called off in October 1981.

In the 1980s, the IRA started attacking outside Northern Ireland. They bombed the Conservative Party building in Brighton in 1984, which killed five people. In 1988, they attacked a bus carrying British soldiers in Ballgawley, killing eight servicemen. They also carried out a mortar attack at 10 Downing Street in 1991. In the 1996 Manchester bombing, 200 people were injured.

After a series of ceasefires, protracted peace talks and mediation by US leaders throughout the 1990s, the Good Friday or Belfast Agreement was signed on April 10, 1998, between the then-prime ministers of Britain and Ireland, Tony Blair and Bertie Ahern.