seamus dubhghaill

Promoting Irish Culture and History from Little Rock, Arkansas, USA

Monthly Archives: December 2016


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Birth of Flogging Molly Vocalist Dave King

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Dave King, Irish vocalist and primary writer and lyricist for the band Flogging Molly, is born at Beggars Bush, Dublin, on December 11, 1961. He is previously well known as the lead singer for the 1980s hard rock band Fastway.

King grows up in a small two-room flat in a Beggars Bush, Dublin tenement that has once been a British military barracks. When he is around the age of six or seven his parents buy him a guitar. King remembers being called inside by his mother to watch David Bowie perform “Starman” on television, which he cites as one of many influences along with Luke Kelly, Joe Strummer, Johnny Cash, and Freddie Mercury to name a few. King’s father dies when King is 10 years old. He leaves Dublin in his twenties, briefly residing in London and then on to Los Angeles where he first joins hard rock band Fastway.

King starts out as the vocalist for Fastway, featuring guitarist “Fast” Eddie Clarke of the metal band Motörhead, Pete Way, former bassist of UFO, and Jerry Shirley, former drummer of Humble Pie, although Way leaves the band before the release of the first album, and does not appear on the album cover. They record their first four records with King on vocals, as well as a live record.

When Fastway is ostensibly disbanded and Eddie Clarke carries on the name with all new members, King forms Katmandu with Mandy Meyer, former member of the band Krokus, who release one self-titled album. The band has a couple of minor hits but later disbands.

King retains a record deal with Epic Records, who want him to sing for Jeff Beck, but he declines. He starts work forming the band Flogging Molly, along with Ted Hutt, Jeff Peters, and Bridget Regan. King and Flogging Molly introduce new material that has a distinct Irish sound, but retains the hard driving, loud and fast musical style. He asks to be let out of his Epic contract because “they wouldn’t know what to do with the new music anyways.” Since then, Flogging Molly has reached position No. 4 on the Billboard charts top 200 and a No. 1 on the Billboard Indie Chart.

After emigrating to the United States, King is without a “green card” for eight years. King is not able to visit his home or family in Ireland during this time for fear that immigration laws will prevent his return to the United States. This separation from his homeland and his mother is thought to be a contributing factor in many of Flogging Molly’s early song lyrics, with many of the songs alluding to King’s time in “exile.”

King is married to fellow musician and band mate Bridget Regan. After years together, the two marry in a private ceremony in Tokyo, Japan while on tour in 2008.


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Death of John O’Donovan, Irish Language Scholar

john-odonovanJohn O’Donovan, Irish language scholar, dies at his residence at 36 Upper Buckingham Street in Dublin on December 10, 1861.

O’Donovan is born in County Kilkenny on July 25, 1806 and is the fourth son of Edmond O’Donovan and Eleanor Hoberlin of Rochestown. His early career is likely inspired by his uncle, Parick O’Donovan. He works for antiquarian James Hardiman researching state papers and traditional sources at the Public Records Office. He also teaches Irish to Thomas Larcom for a short period in 1828 and works for Myles John O’Reilly, a collector of Irish manuscripts.

Following the death of Edward O’Reilly in August 1830, O’Donovan is recruited to the Topographical Department of the first Ordnance Survey Ireland under George Petrie in October 1830. Apart from a brief period in 1833, he works steadily for the Survey on place-name researches until 1842, unearthing and preserving many manuscripts. After that date, O’Donovan’s work with the Survey tails off, although he is called upon from time to time to undertake place-name research on a day-to-day basis. He researches maps and manuscripts at many libraries and archives in Ireland and England, with the intent to establish the correct origin of as many of Ireland’s 63,000 townland names as possible. His letters to Larcom are regarded as an important record of the ancient lore of Ireland for those counties he documents during his years of travel throughout much of Ireland.

By 1845, O’Donovan is corresponding with the younger scholar William Reeves, and much of their correspondence to 1860 survives.

O’Donovan becomes professor of Celtic Languages at Queen’s University Belfast, and is called to the Bar in 1847. His work on linguistics is recognised in 1848 by the Royal Irish Academy, who award him their prestigious Cunningham Medal. On the recommendation of German philologist Jacob Grimm, he is elected a corresponding member of the Royal Academy of Prussia in 1856.

Never in great health, he dies shortly after midnight on December 10, 1861 at his residence in Dublin. He is buried on December 13, 1861 in Glasnevin Cemetery, where his tombstone inscription has slightly incorrect dates of both birth and death.


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The Sunningdale Agreement

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The Sunningdale Agreement, an attempt to establish a power-sharing Northern Ireland Executive and a cross-border Council of Ireland, is signed at Sunningdale Park in Sunningdale, Berkshire, England on December 9, 1973. Unionist opposition, violence, and a loyalist general strike causes the collapse of the Agreement in May 1974.

On March 20, 1973, the British government publishes a white paper which proposes a 78-member Northern Ireland Assembly, to be elected by proportional representation. The British government would retain control over law, order and finance, while a Council of Ireland composed of members of the executive of the Republic of Ireland, the Dáil Éireann, the Northern Ireland Executive and the Northern Ireland Assembly would act in a consultative role.

The Northern Ireland Assembly Bill resulting from the White paper becomes law on May 3, 1973, and elections for the new assembly are held on June 28. Republicans boycott the elections and the Irish Republican Army (IRA) continued its campaign of opposition throughout the outcome.

After the Assembly elections, negotiations between the pro-White Paper parties on the formation of a “power-sharing Executive” begin. The main concerns are internment, policing, and the question of a Council of Ireland. On November 21, an agreement is reached on a voluntary coalition of pro-agreement parties. This new power-sharing Executive take up office and have its very first meeting on January 1, 1974. The Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) is deeply divided – its Standing Committee votes to participate in the executive by a margin of only 132 to 105.

Provisions for a Council of Ireland exist in the Government of Ireland Act 1920, but these have never been enacted. Unionists resent the idea of any “interference” by the Republic of Ireland in their newly established region. In 1973, after agreement has been reached on the formation of an executive, agreement is sought to re-establish a Council of Ireland to stimulate co-operation with the Republic of Ireland. Talks are held between December 6-9 in the Berkshire town of Sunningdale between the British Prime Minister Edward Heath, the Irish Taoiseach Liam Cosgrave and the three pro-agreement parties. On December 9, a communiqué announcing the agreement is issued, which later becomes known as the “Sunningdale Agreement.”

On December 10, the day after the agreement is announced, loyalist paramilitaries form the Ulster Army Council, a coalition of loyalist paramilitary groups, including the Ulster Defence Association and the Ulster Volunteer Force, which oppose the agreement.

In January 1974, the Ulster Unionist Party narrowly votes against continued participation in the Assembly and Brian Faulkner resigns as leader. He is succeeded by the anti-Sunningdale Harry West. In March 1974, pro-agreement unionists withdraw their support for the agreement, calling for the Republic of Ireland to remove the Articles 2 and 3 of its constitution first. These Articles are not revised until the Good Friday Agreement of 1998.

Following the defeat of a motion condemning power-sharing in the Northern Ireland Assembly, the Ulster Workers’ Council, a loyalist organisation, calls a general strike for May 15. After two weeks of barricades, shortages, rioting, and intimidation, Faulkner resigns as chief executive and the Sunningdale Agreement collapses on May 28, 1974.

(Pictured: Unionist Party leader and designated leader of Ulster’s new executive, Brian Faulkner, sits with SDLP leader Gerry Fitt and John Hume, during talks at Sunningdale, Berkshire, to establish a Council of Ireland.)


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Execution of IRA Officer Joe McKelvey

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Joe McKelvey, Irish Republican Army (IRA) officer, is executed by firing squad along with three other Anti-Treaty militants, on December 8, 1922, during the Irish Civil War.

McKelvey is born into a nationalist family in Stewartstown, County Tyrone. He has a keen interest in the Gaelic Athletic Association and the Irish language. He studies as an accountant and gains some of the qualifications necessary for this profession, but never fully qualifies. He works for a time at the Income Tax Office on Queen’s Square in Belfast and later finds work in Belfast’s engineering industry with Mackies on Springfield Road. He joins the Irish Republican Brotherhood and the Irish Volunteers, which after 1919, become known as the Irish Republican Army (IRA). He is a founding member of the O’Donovan Rossa Club, Belfast, founded in 1916 on the Falls Road. Each year the club honours him with a juvenile hurling blitz, an invitational competition which is participated in by clubs throughout Ireland.

McKelvey participates in the Irish War of Independence (1919–1921) against the British, in which he commands the IRA’s Belfast Brigade. On August 22, 1920, he helps to organise the killing of Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) Detective Oswald Swanzy in Lisburn. The killing itself is carried out by IRA men from Cork, but McKelvey arranges a taxi to carry the assassins to and from the scene and disposes of their weapons. In reprisal for this shooting, 300 Catholic homes in Lisburn are burned out. McKelvey is forced to lie low in Dublin for some time after these events.

In March 1921, the IRA is re-organised by its leadership in Dublin into Divisions and McKelvey is appointed commander of the Third Northern Division, responsible for Belfast and the surrounding area. In May 1921, McKelvey’s command suffers a severe setback, when fifty of his best men are sent to County Cavan to train and link up with the IRA units there, only to be surrounded and captured by the British Army on Lappanduff hill on May 9. In most of Ireland, hostilities are ended with a truce declared on July 11, 1921.

McKelvey is alone among the leadership of the Belfast IRA in going against the acceptance of the Anglo-Irish Treaty. Most of his comrades support Michael Collins‘ assurances that, although the Treaty accepts the partition of Northern Ireland from the rest of the country, this is only a temporary concession which will be dealt with later. McKelvey does not accept this. As a result, he leaves his command as head of the IRA Third Northern Division and joins the Anti-Treaty IRA in Dublin.

In March 1922, McKelvey participates in the anti-Treaty IRA‘s repudiation of the authority of the Dáil, the civil government of the Irish Republic declared in 1919, and is elected to the IRA Army Executive. In April 1922 he helps command the occupation of the Four Courts in defiance of the new Irish Free State. This action helps to spark the civil war between pro- and anti-Treaty factions. McKelvey is among the most hardline of the anti-Treaty republicans and briefly, in June 1922, becomes IRA Chief of Staff, replacing Liam Lynch.

On June 28, 1922, the new Irish Free State government shells the Four Courts to assert its authority over the militants defending it. The Republicans in the Four Courts surrender after two days of fighting and McKelvey is captured. He is held for the following five months in Mountjoy Prison in Dublin.

On December 8, 1922, Joe McKelvey is executed by firing squad along with three other Anti-Treaty militants, Rory O’Connor, Liam Mellows, and Richard Barrett. The executions are ordered in reprisal for the Anti-Treaty IRA’s murder of Sean Hales, a Pro-Treaty member of the Third Dáil.


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Fifth Amendment of the Constitution of Ireland

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The Fifth Amendment of the Constitution of Ireland, which is effected by the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution Act, 1972, is approved by referendum on December 7, 1972, and signed into law on January 5, 1973.

The amendment deletes the entirety of Article 44.1.2 which allowed the State to recognise the special position of the Holy Catholic Apostolic and Roman Church as the guardian of the Faith professed by the great majority of the citizens.

Also deleted by the amendment is Article 44.1.3 which allowed the State to also recognise the Church of Ireland, the Presbyterian Church in Ireland, the Methodist Church in Ireland, the Religious Society of Friends in Ireland, as well as the Jewish Congregations and the other religious denominations existing in Ireland at the date of the coming into operation of this Constitution.

In drafting the Irish constitution in 1936 and 1937, Éamon de Valera and his advisers choose to reflect what has been a contemporary willingness by constitution drafters and lawmakers in Europe to mention and in some ways recognise religion in explicit detail. This contrasts with many 1920s constitutions, notably the Constitution of the Irish Free State of 1922, which, following the secularism of the initial period following World War I, simply prohibits any discrimination based on religion or avoids religious issues entirely.

De Valera, his advisers, and the men who put words to de Valera’s concepts for the constitution face conflicting demands in his drafting of the article on religion. In contemporary terms, the Amendment marks a defeat for conservative Catholics and Pope Pius XI explicitly withholds his approval from it.

Though perceived in retrospect as a sectarian article, Article 44 is praised in 1937 by leaders of Irish Protestant churches, notably the Church of Ireland Archbishop of Dublin, and by Jewish groups. Conservative Catholics condemn it as “liberal.”

When the contents of Article 44 are put to Pope Pius XI by Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli, then Cardinal Secretary of State, later Pope Pius XII, the pope states in diplomatic language, “We do not approve, nor do we not disapprove – we will remain silent.” It is said that the Vatican is privately more appreciative of the constitution, and Pius XII later praises it.

The Fifth Amendment is introduced by the Fianna Fáil government of Jack Lynch and supported by every other major political party. The Catholic Church does not voice any objection to the amendment, but it is opposed by some conservative Catholics. Some leading members of the Church of Ireland and the Jewish Community say during the campaign that while they appreciate the Article’s recognition of their existence in 1937, it is no longer needed in the 1970s and has lost its usefulness.

The referendum on the amendment occurs on the same day as the referendum on the Fourth Amendment which lowers the voting age to eighteen. The Fifth Amendment is approved by 721,003 (84.4%) in favour and 133,430 (15.6%) against.

Having completed its passage through the Oireachtas and been adopted by the people, it is enacted by being signed into constitutional law by the President of Ireland, the man who had drafted the original article, Éamon de Valera.


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Establishment of the Irish Free State

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The Irish Free State (Irish: Saorstát Éireann), an independent state established under the Anglo-Irish Treaty of December 1921, comes into being on December 6, 1922. The treaty ends the three-year Irish War of Independence between the forces of the self-proclaimed Irish Republic, the Irish Republican Army (IRA), and British Crown forces.

The Free State is established as a Dominion of the British Commonwealth of Nations. For one day, it encompasses all thirty-two counties of Ireland. Northern Ireland, which is comprised of the six northernmost counties, exercises its right under the Treaty to opt out of the new state on December 7.

The Free State government consists of the Governor-General, the representative of the king, and the Executive Council, which replaces both the revolutionary Dáil Government and the Provisional Government set up under the Treaty. W. T. Cosgrave, who had led both of these governments since August 1922, becomes the first President of the Executive Council. The legislature consists of Dáil Éireann, the lower house, and Seanad Éireann, also known as the Senate. Members of the Dáil are required to take an Oath of Allegiance, swearing fidelity to the king. The oath is a key issue for opponents of the Treaty, who refuse to take the oath and therefore do not take their seats. Pro-Treaty members, who form Cumann na nGaedheal in 1923, hold an effective majority in the Dáil from 1922 to 1927, and thereafter rule as a minority government until 1932.

In the first months of the Free State, the Irish Civil War is waged between the newly established National Army and the anti-Treaty IRA, who refuse to recognise the state. The Civil War ends in victory for the government forces, with the anti-Treaty forces dumping its arms in May 1923. The anti-Treaty political party, Sinn Féin, refuses to take its seats in the Dáil, leaving the relatively small Labour Party as the only opposition party. In 1926, when Sinn Féin president Éamon de Valera fails to have this policy reversed, he resigns from Sinn Féin and founds Fianna Fáil. Fianna Fáil enters the Dáil following the 1927 general election, and enters government after the Irish general election of 1932, when it becomes the largest party.

De Valera abolishes the Oath of Allegiance and embarks on an economic war with Britain. In 1937 he drafts a new constitution, which is passed by a referendum in July of that year. The Free State comes to an end with the coming into force of the new constitution on December 29, 1937. Under the new constitution the Irish state is named Ireland.

(Pictured: The Executive Council of the Irish Free State, October 1928)


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Birth of Marcus Daly, “Copper King” of Butte, MT

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Marcus Daly, Irish-born American businessman known as one of the three “Copper Kings” of Butte, Montana, is born in Ballyjamesduff, County Cavan, on December 5, 1841.

Daly emigrates from Ireland to the United States as a young boy, arriving in New York City. He sells newspapers and works his way to California in time to join the gold rush in what is to become Virginia City, Nevada, and the fabulously rich silver diggings now known as the Comstock Lode, in 1860.

Daly gains experience in the mines of the Comstock under the direction of John William Mackay and James Graham Fair. While working in the mines of Virginia City, Daly meets and befriends George Hearst, father of William Randolph Hearst, and Lloyd Tevis, co-owners of the Ophir Mining Company. In 1872, Daly recommends purchase by the Hearst group of the Ontario silver mine, near Park City, Utah. In ten years, the Ontario produces $17 million and pays $6,250,000 in dividends.

Their business friendship extends for many years and helps establish the Anaconda Copper Mine in Butte, Montana. Daly originally comes to Butte in August 1876 to look at a mine, the Alice, as an agent for the Walker Bros. of Salt Lake City. The Walkers purchase the mine, install Daly as superintendent, and award him a fractional share of the mine.

Daly notices, while working underground in the Alice, that there are significant deposits of copper ore. He gains access into several other mines in the area and concludes that the hill is full of copper ore. He envisions an ore body several thousand feet deep, some veins of almost pure copper, and hundreds of millions of dollars. He urges his employers, the Walker Bros., to purchase the Anaconda and when they refrain, Daly purchases it himself. Daly finds his fortune on the Anaconda Copper Mine in Butte, after selling his small share of the Alice Mine for $30,000.

The Anaconda began as a silver mine, but Daly’s purchase is for the copper, found to be one of the largest deposits known at the time. However, he lacks the money to develop it, so he turned to Hearst, Haggin and Tevis. The first couple hundred feet within the mine are rich in silver, and took a few years to exhaust. By that time, Butte’s other silver mines are also playing out, so Daly closes the Anaconda, St. Lawrence, and Neversweat. Prices on surrounding properties drop and Daly purchases them. Then he re-opens the Anaconda. Due to Thomas Edison‘s development of the light bulb the world would need copper which is a very excellent conductor of electricity. Butte has copper, hundreds of thousands of tons of it, waiting to be taken from the ground.

He builds a smelter to handle the ore, and by the late 1880s, has become a millionaire several times over, and owner of the Anaconda Mining and Reduction Company. Daly owns a railroad, the Butte, Anaconda and Pacific Railroad, to haul ore from his mines to his smelter in Anaconda, a city he founds. He owns lumber interests in the Bitterroot Valley and a mansion and prized stables in the same valley, south of Missoula.

In 1894, Daly spearheads an energetic but unsuccessful campaign to have Anaconda designated as Montana’s state capital, but loses out to Helena. Daly is active in Montana politics throughout the 1890s, because of his opposition and intense rivalry with fellow copper king, and future U.S. Senator, William A. Clark. He attempts to keep Clark out of office by lavishly supporting his opponents.

Daly invests some of his money in horse breeding at his Bitterroot Stock Farm located near Hamilton, and is the owner/breeder of Scottish Chieftain, the only horse bred in Montana to ever win the Belmont Stakes.

In 1891, Daly becomes the owner of Tammany, said to be one of the world’s fastest racehorses in 1893. He also arranges the breeding of the great Sysonby, ranked number 30 in the top 100 U.S. thoroughbred champions of the 20th Century by The Blood-Horse magazine. However, Daly dies in New York City on November 12, 1900, before the horse is born.

Following his death, New York’s Madison Square Garden hosts a dispersal sale for the Bitterroot thoroughbred studs on January 31, 1901. One hundred eighty-five horses are sold for $405,525.


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The McGurk’s Bar Bombing

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The Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) explodes a bomb at McGurk’s Bar, an Irish Catholic-owned pub in Belfast, on December 4, 1971, killing fifteen Catholic civilians including two children and wounding seventeen others. This is the highest death toll from a single incident in Belfast during the Troubles. The bombing sparks a series of tit-for-tat bombings and shootings by loyalists and republicans, which help make 1972 the bloodiest year of the conflict.

On the evening of Saturday, December 4, 1971, a four-man UVF team meets in the Shankill area of Belfast and are ordered to bomb a pub on North Queen Street. According to the only convicted bomber, Robert Campbell, they are told not to return until the job is done. Campbell says that their target had not been McGurk’s, but another pub nearby. It is believed this is a pub called The Gem, which is allegedly linked to the Official Irish Republican Army (IRA). The 50-pound bomb is disguised as a brown parcel, which they place in a car and drive to their target. Campbell says they stop near The Gem at about 7:30 p.m. but are unable to gain access to it because there are security guards outside. After waiting for almost an hour, they drive a short distance to McGurk’s. At about 8:45 PM, one of them places the bomb in the porch entrance on Great George’s Street and rushes back to the car. It explodes just moments after they drive off. Campbell implies that McGurk’s had been chosen only because it was “the nearest Catholic pub.”

The blast causes the building to collapse. Bystanders immediately rush to free the dead and wounded from the rubble. Firefighters, paramedics, police, and soldiers are quickly on the scene. Fifteen Catholic civilians are killed, including two children, and an additional seventeen are wounded. The rescue effort lasts many hours.

Within two hours of the blast, a sectarian clash erupts nearby at the New Lodge–Tiger’s Bay interface. The British Army and Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) move in, and a gun battle develops. A British Army officer, Major Jeremy Snow, is shot by the IRA on New Lodge Road and dies of his wounds on December 8. Two RUC officers and five civilians are also wounded by gunfire. Eventually, five companies of troops are sent into the district, and they search almost 50 houses.

Meanwhile, the UVF team has driven to a nearby pickup point where they dump their car. They walk to the area of St. Anne’s Cathedral and are picked up by another car. They are driven back to the Shankill area and meet the man who had ordered the attack in an Orange Hall, telling him that “the job has been done.”

Among those killed are Philomena and Maria McGurk, wife and 12-year-old daughter of pub owner Patrick McGurk. Patrick and his three sons are seriously injured. Shortly after the attack, McGurk appears on television calling for no retaliation, “It doesn’t matter who planted the bomb. What’s done can’t be undone. I’ve been trying to keep bitterness out of it.”

In March 1976, the RUC receives intelligence that links UVF member Robert Campbell and four others to the McGurk’s bombing. Campbell is arrested on July 27, 1977, and held at Castlereagh RUC base. He admits his part in the bombing but refuses to name the others.

On July 29, 1977, Campbell is charged with 15 counts of murder and 17 counts of attempted murder. On September 6, 1978, he pleads guilty to all charges and receives life imprisonment with “a recommendation to serve no less than 20 years,” in part for a separate conviction for the murder of a Protestant delivery driver in 1976. He is the only person to have been charged for the bombing. He eventually serves fifteen years in prison and is released on September 9, 1993.


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Birth of Kate O’Brien, Novelist and Playwright

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Kathleen Mary Louise “Kate” O’Brien, novelist and playwright, is born in Limerick, County Limerick, on December 3, 1897. She becomes best known for her 1934 novel The Ante-Room, her 1941 novel The Land of Spices, and the 1946 novel That Lady.

Following the death of her mother when she is five, O’Brien becomes a boarder at Laurel Hill Convent. She graduates in English and French from the newly established University College Dublin, and then moves to London, where she works as a teacher for a year.

In 1922–23, she works as a governess in the Basque Country, in the north of Spain, where she begins to write fiction. Upon her return to England, O’Brien works at the Manchester Guardian. After the success of her play Distinguished Villa in 1926, she takes to full-time writing and is awarded both the 1931 James Tait Black Memorial Prize and the Hawthornden Prize for her debut novel Without My Cloak.

Many of her books deal with issues of female agency and sexuality in ways that are new and radical at the time. Her 1936 novel, Mary Lavelle, is banned in Ireland and Spain, while The Land of Spices is banned in Ireland upon publication. In addition to novels, she writes plays, film scripts, short stories, essays, copious journalism, two biographical studies, and two very personal travelogues.

Throughout her life, O’Brien feels a particular affinity with Spain. While her experiences in the Basque Country inspire Mary Lavelle, she also writes a life of the Spanish mystic Teresa of Ávila, and she uses the relationship between the Spanish king Philip II and Maria de Mendoza to write the anti-fascist novel That Lady.

O’Brien writes a political travelogue, Farewell Spain, to gather support for the leftist cause in the Spanish Civil War, and it is believed that she is close to anarchism in the 1930s. A feminist, her novels promote gender equality and are mostly protagonised by young women yearning for independence. With several of her books including positive gay/lesbian characters, O’Brien’s determination to encourage a greater understanding of sexual diversity makes her a pioneer in gay literary representation. She is very critical of conservatism in Ireland, and by spearheading a challenge to the Irish Censorship Act, she helps bring to an end the cultural restrictions of the 1930s and 1940s in the country. She lives much of her life in England and died in Faversham, near Canterbury, on August 13, 1974.

The Glucksman Library at the University of Limerick holds an important collection of O’Brien’s writings. The Limerick Literary Festival in honour of Kate O’Brien, formerly the Kate O’Brien Weekend, takes place in Limerick every year, attracting academic and non-academic audiences.


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The Good Friday Agreement Comes Into Operation

good-friday-agreement-signing

The Good Friday Agreement, a major political development in the Northern Ireland peace process, comes into operation on December 2, 1999, as the British and Irish governments formally notify each other that all the necessary arrangements are in place.

The notification ceremony takes place at Iveagh House, St. Stephen’s Green, headquarters of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, at a joint signing by Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade David Andrews and Secretary of State for Northern Ireland Peter Mandelson.

Northern Ireland‘s present devolved system of government is based on the agreement. The agreement also creates a number of institutions between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, and between the Republic of Ireland and the United Kingdom.

The agreement is made up of two inter-related documents, both agreed upon in Belfast on Good Friday, April 10, 1998. The first is a multi-party agreement by most of Northern Ireland’s political parties. The second is an international agreement between the British and Irish governments, known as the British-Irish Agreement.

The agreement sets out a complex series of provisions, or strands, relating to a number of areas:

Strand 1 addresses the status and system of government of Northern Ireland within the United Kingdom and establishes two major institutions – the Northern Ireland Assembly and the Northern Ireland Executive.

Strand 2 addresses the relationship between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland and the institutions to be created between them – the North/South Ministerial Council, the North/South Inter-Parliamentary Association, and the North/South Consultative Forum.

Strand 3 addresses the relationship between the Republic of Ireland and the United Kingdom and institutions to be created between Ireland and Great Britain – the British/Irish Intergovernmental Conference, the British-Irish Council, and an expanded British-Irish Parliamentary Assembly.

Issues relating to sovereignty, civil and cultural rights, decommissioning of weapons, justice, and policing are central to the agreement.

The agreement is approved by voters across the island of Ireland in two referendums held on May 22, 1998. In Northern Ireland, voters are asked whether they support the multi-party agreement. In the Republic of Ireland, voters are asked whether they will allow the state to sign the agreement and allow necessary constitutional changes to facilitate it. The people of both jurisdictions need to approve the agreement in order to give effect to it.

The Good Friday Agreement comes into force on December 2, 1999. The Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) is the only major political group in Northern Ireland to oppose the Good Friday Agreement.

(Pictured: British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Irish Taoiseach Bertie Ahern sign the Good Friday Agreement)