IInsBtitute Ifor SBritish-NIrish SEtudieWs SL ETTE R Winter 2008 Issue 11 Contents IBIS 2008 Conference From Conflict to Consensus: The Legacy of the Good Friday Agreement...............1 IBIS Events IBIS Book Launch................2 Breaking the Patterns of Pictured (l-r): John Coakley, IBIS; An Taoiseach, Mr Bertie Ahern, TD; UCD Conflict..................................2 President, Dr Hugh Brady; Rt Hon Mr Shaun Woodward, Secretary of State for Northern Ireland IBIS News Latest Working Papers......3 The 2008 IBIS Annual Conference , then introduced the guest of honour Recent Activities.................3 From Conflict to Consensus: The and keynote speaker, An Taoiseach , IBIS Update..........................3 Legacy of the Good Friday Agreement , Mr Bertie Ahern, TD . The Taoiseach was held on 3 April at the Clinton began his address by paying tribute to British-Irish Developments Auditorium, UCD. The conference, those who were central to the peace which marked the 10th anniversary of and settlement process. Looking Chronology..........................4 the Belfast Agreement, took place ahead, he noted new British-Irish New IBIS Publications.........4 amid a whirl of media activity as it initiatives in Northern Ireland such as coincided with the resignation of the ‘massive programme of joint keynote speaker Mr Bertie Ahern, TD , investment in infrastructure ’. He as Taoiseach. noted too that the task of developing the economy, ‘including on an all- The conference began with an island dimension ’ is crucial to the overview of the factors that brought future. The Taoiseach ended his the Agreement into existence. Lord speech to a warm standing ovation Bew addressed the role of the parties with a quote from Thomas Paine: ‘If in formulating the Agreement, there must be trouble let it be in my focusing on government policy as day, that my child may have peace ’. well as social and demographic factors. Dr Martin Mansergh, TD, The conference turned to the vital followed by addressing the role of the topic of the interaction between the Institute for British-Irish Studies governments at the present phase of Agreement and the groups which the settlement. The first session have been parties to the conflict. University College Dublin ended with Elizabeth Meehan placing Henry Patterson examined the effects Belfield, Dublin 4, Ireland the Agreement in a British-Irish and of the peace process and Good Friday T: +353-1-716 8670 European context, touching on how Agreement on unionist politics, F: +353-1-716 1171 the EU both facilitated and hindered arguing that David Trimble’s emphasis [email protected] the settlement process . on the consent principle as the core of pro-Agreement unionism was not an www.ucd.ie/ibis Dr Hugh Brady, President of UCD, adequate response to the widespread feeling in the unionist community changing patterns of North-South the major agreements which, over that the process and the Agreement relations in three broad domains: time, helped break the patterns of were producing a substantial shift in politics and public administration, the conflict in Northern Ireland. This favour of nationalism and economy, and civil society. The followed from the earlier series of republicanism. Paul Arthur focused on authors demonstrate how the search interviews with the makers of the the shifting nature of relationships for a settlement in Northern Ireland 1998 Good Friday Agreement , as part inside the nationalist/ republican has created a new dynamic in cross- of the John Whyte Archive project . community, noting that electoral and border relationships, underlining the The first day-long seminar on the intra-ethnic competition stretches critical importance of these Sunningdale negotiations and back four decades from the relationships in sustaining the peace communiqué was held in autumn remoulding of constitutional process. 2005 and was attended by eight nationalism to the evolution of a civic senior Irish and Northern Irish republicanism. Jennifer Todd of UCD officials and politicians: Garret rounded up the session with a FitzGerald, Noel Dorr, Sean Donlon, presentation that examined changing Muiris MacConghail, John Swift, patterns of identity in Northern Mahon Hayes, Dermot Nally, Austin Ireland in the last decade. People’s Currie, and a number of IBIS ways of being British, Irish, Protestant academics who posed questions and and Catholic are changing, she chaired discussion. A public argued, and the official discourse conference on the Agreement was needs to be adapted to recognise and held in June 2006 with academic, encourage these popular changes Pictured with An Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, political and media participation. It away from opposition. TD, are (l-r): Hugh Brady, UCD; John Coakley, IBIS, and Liam O’Dowd, QUB was followed by a witness seminar on After a positive response to the the Anglo-Irish Agreement in Taoiseach’s address by Secretary of Published by Irish Academic Press, the December 2006 and a conference in State for Northern Ireland, Mr Shaun book is available in all good May 2007. Woodward, MP, on behalf of the bookshops. With new IRCHSS funding in 2007 for British government, the conference the research project Breaking the was brought to a conclusion by IBIS Patterns of Conflict: The Irish State, chair Sir George Quigley, whose Northern Ireland and the British remarks focused on the future of the Breaking the Patterns of Dimension since 197 2, research British-Irish relationship. Conflict activity increased, with the In 2005-06 IBIS initiated a series of appointment of Dr Christopher witness seminars with the Irish and Farrington as postdoctoral fellow and IBIS Book Launch British officials who had negotiated Ms Susan McDermott as doctoral A new book edited by John Coakley and Liam O’Dowd entitled Crossing the border: new relationships between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland was launched by Taoiseach Bertie Ahern , TD , on 23 February 2008 at Newman House, Dublin. The book marks the culmination of a joint research project led by Queen’s University Belfast and University College Dublin entitled Mapping frontiers, plotting pathways: routes to North-South co-operation in a divided island. Crossing the Border provides the first sustained examination of cross- border relationships since the momentous sequence of events that Anglo-Irish Agreement Witness Seminar, December 2006 began with the Good Friday Agreement of 1998. It looks at Participants (l-r): Dermot Nally; Noel Dorr; Sir David Goodall; Lord Armstrong; Ronan Fanning; John Coakley; Dr Garret FitzGerald; Michael Lillis; Ted Hallett, and Sean Donlon scholar. The project focuses on the Since our last issue, the following the coming year with a new on-line role of the states and their response additional working papers have series of working and discussion to changing circumstances in appeared: papers, a major conference in Spring Northern Ireland, documenting key 75 Michael Kennedy 2009 (theme to follow), a regular turning points in British and Irish The Realms of Practical Politics: newsletter, further witness seminars relations and strategy towards North-South Cooperation on the and occasional evening lectures. Northern Ireland since the 1960s, Erne Hydro-Electric Scheme, through a series of witness seminars, 1942-57 long interviews, and analysis of Dáil 76 Hastings Donnan IBIS Update debates. Fuzzy Frontiers: The Rural Interface in South Armagh The first witness seminar directly- Jennifer Todd has taken over as IBIS funded by the IRCHSS project was 77 Brendan O’Leary Director. Outgoing Director, John held in June 2008, and focused on the Analysing Partition: Definition, Coakley , has taken up the post of negotiation of the Downing Street Classification and Explanation Head of the School of Politics and Declaration of 1993. In the meantime 78 Brendan O’Leary International Relations at UCD. a series of interviews have been Debating Partition: Justifications Katy Hayward successfully conducted with Irish politicians and and Critiques officials, and these are continuing completed her postdoctoral 79 KJ Rankin through this academic year, with fellowship on Borders in dispute: The Provenance and Dissolution of further witness seminars planned on making multilevel cooperation an the Irish Boundary Commission the process of implementation of the effective means of conflict Agreement. All of the tapes and 80 Sean Farren transformation in the European Union transcripts are deposited in UCD Sunningdale: An Agreement Too in October 2007. The project, funded Archives, to add to the existing John Soon? by the Irish Research Council for the Whyte Archive of interviews with the 81 Catherine O’Donnell Humanities and Social Sciences, negotiators of the 1998 Good Friday The Sunningdale Communiqué, examined the thesis that as the Agreement. They are under embargo 1973, and Bipartisanship in the European Union expands, its influence pending final corrections and Republic of Ireland as a force for peace increasingly becomes a matter for internal approval by the participants. 82 PJ McLoughlin integration rather then external “Dublin is just a Sunningdale intervention. away”? The SDLP, the Irish Government and the Sunningdale Peter McLoughlin , Government of Agreement Ireland Postdoctoral Fellow, has drawn his research project John Hume and the revision of Irish nationalism to Recent Activities a close. The project critically assessed the efforts of the former SDLP leader, John Hume, to revise certain tenets of Global Ireland Conference traditional Irish nationalist