Blair tells Sinn Féin he needs assurance that its members are committed to “exclusively peaceful means” for the peace process to succeed, and stresses that all parties must recognise their obligations under the 1998 Good Friday Agreement.
Durkan warns that while the power sharing government might be suspended, the agreement itself should not be “crippled” but only “injured.” He says the SDLP will not support a motion to exclude Sinn Féin from the Executive, but acknowledges that the Ulster Unionists cannot be expected to continue sitting alongside Sinn Féin under the current circumstances.
Durkan also stresses that the best way to reassure communities is to end IRA-related concerns, calling for an end to IRA activity. He urges both governments to avoid an “orgy of mutual recrimination” and to keep the political agenda focused on protecting the peace process.
This moment is a critical test for the Good Friday Agreement, as the suspension of the Executive risks undermining the democratic path it has established, but Durkan’s stance reflects the SDLP’s commitment to preserving the framework of the peace deal even amid political turmoil.
Progressing the Peace Process – the parties are consolidating steps needed to establish Northern Ireland’s new devolved Assembly, following the Good Friday Agreement signed in April 1998.
Confirming Executive Arrangements and Cross-Community Cooperation – discussion focuses on how the new Northern Ireland Assembly and Executive can function on a cross-community basis, ensuring Unionist and Nationalist representation in governance and decision-making.
Addressing the Controversial Role of the Queen – newly declassified documents show that Tony Blair and Secretary of State for Northern IrelandMo Mowlam explored whether Queen Elizabeth II should officially open the new Assembly, a sensitive question due to nationalist perception. They propose consulting privately with Seamus Mallon before final decisions are made with David Trimble.
Ensuring the Implementation of Key Good Friday Agreement Provisions – including Irish Republican Army (IRA) decommissioning of weapons, parity in representation for Unionists and Nationalists in the Assembly, and planning for the full transfer of powers from the UK Government to the Assembly, which is scheduled for December 1999.
Key outcomes and discussions coming out of the meeting include:
Commitment to Institutions: Blair, Trimble, and Mallon agree on the importance of setting up a shadow Assembly that can transition to full devolved powers once cross-party agreements are stable.
Cross-Community Provisions: Blair emphasizes that sensitive issues require cross-community approval in the Assembly, warning that majority-rule-only systems could lead to collapse if abused.
International Support: George Mitchell, as U.S. envoy, reaffirms American support for the peace process and encourages local leaders to uphold commitments.
Political Sensitivities of the Queen’s Role: Blair and Mowlam note the potential nationalist backlash if the Queen’s presence is prominent, suggesting alternative ceremonial openings.
Security and Prisoner Issues: Discussions also cover paramilitary decommissioning, with particular concern over Sinn Féin and IRA compliance to allow the formation of the shadow Executive safely.
The meeting is part of a broader diplomatic effort. It occurs after the signing of the Good Friday Agreement (April 10, 1998) but before formal referendums in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland approving the Agreement (May 22 and 23, 1998). It highlights the delicate balancing act between Unionists and Nationalists, the role of the UK and Irish governments, and international mediation, notably from the U.S. via George Mitchell.
Declassified documents at the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland (PRONI) in Belfast detail concerns over cross-community decision-making and the Queen’s status in ceremonial openings. The CAIN: Irish Peace Process Chronology confirms Blair, Trimble, and Mallon are engaging in preparatory discussions to implement the Agreement’s provisions and ensure the Assembly’s initial functionality. U.S. involvement through George Mitchell underscores the international commitment to maintaining peace and political stability during the transitional period.
In summary, the September 27, 1998 meeting is a crucial step in operationalizing the Good Friday Agreement, demonstrating cooperative leadership among British, Unionist, and Nationalist figures, with strategic oversight from the United States. It sets the stage for the new Northern Ireland Assembly, addressing ceremonial, legislative, and security challenges central to the successful devolution of powers.
Key participants demonstrate cautious diplomacy, foresight in cross-community governance, and recognition of the international dimension crucial to Northern Ireland’s peace process.
(Pictured: (L to R) David Trimble, George Mitchell and Seamus Mallon)
The march is orchestrated by networks of Ulster Unionist victims’ groups, Protestant clergy, parties, and cultural organizations. The mobilization draws from what scholars term the Unionist Victims Movement, which seeks to highlight perceived mistreatment of Protestant Unionists in the post-agreement political settlement. Groups involved include the Northern Irish Victims of Terrorism Association (NIVTA) and affiliated organizations. They frame the protest in terms of civil rights for Protestants, drawing analogies with global civil rights movements to legitimize their cause.
The September 25 march aims to lay a wreath at the cenotaph in Belfast to commemorate victims of the Troubles. This act is symbolic, emphasizing that Protestant victims of the conflict feel ignored or marginalized in the ongoing peace process. The march is also referred to as “The Long March,” which is structured to traverse central areas of Belfast, culminating in a rally at the grounds of Stormont Parliament. Organizers promote messages such as “pride, not prejudice” and “heritage, not hatred” to frame the march as a civic, rights-based demonstration rather than sectarian agitation.
Belfast City Council issues a ban on the march, restricting access to certain areas. Nevertheless, the Protestant marchers blatantly defy this prohibition. This act of defiance is deliberate, signaling a protest against perceived institutional bias and asserting the visibility of the Protestant community’s grievances.
The march reflects ongoing tensions within Northern Irish society during a period of post-conflict transition, where newly established power sharing mechanisms are perceived by some Unionist factions as disadvantaging Protestant communities. The event is emblematic of a strategy used by the Unionist Victims Movement to mobilize public attention and articulate a collective identity rooted in historical victimhood, despite being part of a locally dominant ethno-national group.
Contemporary news accounts note the boldness of defying official restrictions and the wider sociopolitical implications for the peace process. The Long March serves as both a commemorative act and a political statement, uniting a range of Protestant organizations in a conflictual social movement for civil rights recognition.
In summary, the September 25, 1999 Protestant civil rights march in Belfast is a strategically organized demonstration by Protestant and Unionist groups that deliberately defies a municipal ban to assert the civil rights of their community. The event combines symbolic commemoration of the Troubles’ victims with a broader protest against perceived post-Good Friday Agreement injustices, highlighting the complex dynamics of post-conflict mobilization and identity politics in Northern Ireland.
The inaugural 12-person national executive sits at the “top table” under a banner of the 1916 Proclamation’s signatories. Notable members included Nuala Perry, vice-chairperson and former Provisional IRA prisoner, Kevin Murphy, former Real IRA prisoner, Risteard Ó Murchú, former republican prisoner, Sharon Rafferty, Dee Fennell, David Jordan and Mandy Duffy, sister-in-law of Colin Duffy. Other attendees include veteran republican leader Billy McKee, Thomas Ashe Mellon and Issam Hijjawi, Chair of the Association of Palestinian Communities in Scotland.
Saoradh positions itself as a far-left, dissident republican movement advocating a 32-county socialist republic free from British rule and European Union (EU) interference, anti-imperialism, anti-capitalism, and worker ownership of production, rejection of the Good Friday Agreement as a capitulation to British control and grassroots activism, street politics, and campaigns for republican prisoners.
The founding press release emphasizes that Ireland should be governed by the Irish people, with wealth and wealth-producing mechanisms in the people’s ownership, rejecting both British imperialism and capitalist exploitation. The event is marked by a mix of political rhetoric, historical symbolism, and support from prominent dissident figures.
In short, September 24, 2016, marks the official launch of Saoradh as a political front for dissident republicans committed to revolutionary means to achieve Irish unification and national sovereignty.
Ellis is from an Irish republican family, and both of his grandfathers fought in the Easter Rising in 1916. He later owns a television repair business.
Ellis is a former Provisional Irish Republican Army prisoner. He is arrested in 1981, when explosives and bomb making equipment are found under his bed. He is charged with possession of explosives. He jumps bail, but is arrested in Buffalo, New York in February 1982 and extradited to the Republic of Ireland, where in April 1983, he is sentenced to ten years’ imprisonment in Portlaoise Prison. He is convicted of possessing multiple power-timer units for IRA bombs, including those suspected of being used in the Hyde Park and Regent’s Park bombings. In 1983, his fingerprints are found on a huge cache of IRA explosives found in a forest outside the Berkshire town of Pangbourne. The cache is linked to the Harrods and Hyde Park bombings. On November 14, 1990, after thirty-five days on hunger strike, he becomes the first person extradited from the Republic of Ireland to the United Kingdom under the 1987 Extradition Act. He goes on hunger strike to protest efforts to send him to Britain, but is extradited in the sixth week of his fast. His hunger strike draws considerable domestic and international attention, and at one point TaoiseachCharles Haughey intervenes, asking Ellis’ parents to ask him to give it up, but they refuse. He is acquitted at his trial in London in October 1991.
Ellis is first elected to Dublin City Council in 1999, for the Finglas local electoral area. He unsuccessfully contests the 2002 Irish general election in the Dublin North-West constituency, and receives 4,781 first-preference votes (18.3%). He is again unsuccessful at the 2007 Irish general election in the same constituency, receiving 4,873 votes (15.7%). At the 2011 Irish general election, he is elected to the 31st Dáil with 7,115 (21.7%) of the first-preference votes.
In October 2014, following claims made by Máiría Cahill that she had been raped as a 17-year-old by a member of the Provisional IRA, Ellis states that “If an allegation was made against a volunteer it would have to be investigated [internally]…To be honest they were not qualified to deal with something like sexual abuse”. Based on this, Philip Ryan of the Irish Independent accuses Ellis of admitting that the IRA ran “kangaroo courts.”
In September 2016, a bill is put forward, which if passed would criminalise hare coursing. Sinn Féin supports the legalisation of hare coursing and decides to apply the party whip. As Ellis opposes it he declines to vote. He defies party instructions by not informing party whip Aengus Ó Snodaigh that he will not be taking part in the vote so he could be excused. He is subsequently given a written warning.
In December 2016, during a session of the Dáil, Ellis and his fellow Sinn Féin TD Martin Ferris are accused by Fine Gael TD Alan Farrell of having information in relation to the shooting of Brian Stack, the chief prison officer at PortlaoisePrison, in 1983. Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams had just delivered an address to the Dáil in relation to Stack when Farrell rises and uses Dáil privilege to state Gerry Adams had listed Ellis and Ferris as amongst people who may have information about the Stack death in an e-mail to the Garda Commission in February 2014, and ask that the two should also address the Dáil on the matter. Ellis immediately responds by stating, “I refute [sic] any allegations. For the information, the man in question claims to be a solicitor, I was actually in jail for the period. In Portlaoise, and before that in America, so you should check your facts. You’re a disgrace.” Ferris follows Ellis, and states, “On the record of this house; In 2013, I met with gardaí at their request regarding the death of Brian Stack, I co-operated fully with them and I have nothing to answer for, and it’s a disgrace what you have come in here naming. You should be ashamed of yourself.” In December 2016, Ellis states he had received death threats following the exchange in the Dáil.
In February 2018, Ellis is censured by Sinn Féin after he states publicly that fellow party member and councillor for Ballymun Noeleen Reilly is “not fit to represent Sinn Féin” and that she had waged a social media campaign against him. For her part, Reilly is suspended by the party for six months.
At the 2020 Irish general election Ellis is again elected with 14,375 first-preference votes (44.4%). He is a poll topper in the 2020 general election along with many Sinn Féin TDs in the 2020 election. He is criticised for joining his supporters singing “Come Out, Ye Black and Tans” at the count, but he dismisses the suggestion it is inappropriate.
In 2012, the Irish Independent, citing released internal documents held by the British government that were previously sealed for 30 years, alleges that by 1982 British authorities believe Ellis to be linked to “50 murders” as part of his time in the Provisional IRA. The allegation specifically cites a telegraph from the British embassy in Washington, D.C., to American counterparts in which they claim that Ellis is linked by “forensic evidence to some 50 murders” across Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. The Irish Independent claims another document states that Ellis is a “leading member” of the Provisional IRA.
Sinn Féin denounces the allegations as an “Indo Smear” and releases a statement declaring, “This is not the first time such unsubstantiated allegations have been made and Dessie Ellis rejects them as he has repeatedly done. Following a prolonged hunger strike in the 1990s to protest his extradition to Britain, Dessie successfully beat these trumped-up charges in court. Dessie Ellis has made no secret of his involvement in the republican struggle over many decades, including within the ranks of the IRA. Dessie has also been an important persuader for the Peace Process for many years.” Ellis does not make any personal statement on the allegations and refers journalists to Sinn Féin’s official statement.
Ellis is proficient in karate, holding a black belt, and teaches martial arts to young people. He is married to Anne Ellis (née Dunne) with grown up children.
Cook is born on January 25, 1944, to Francis John Granville Cook and Jocelyn McKay (née Stewart) in Leicester, England. As a child, he moves to Northern Ireland with his parents and sisters after his father is appointed headmaster of Campbell College in 1954.
Cook works as a solicitor, eventually becoming a senior partner at Sheldon and Stewart Solicitors.
In 1970, Cook is a founder member of the Alliance Party of Northern Ireland (APNI), a nonsectarian party, while he is elected to the party’s Central Executive in 1971.
Cook is elected to Belfast City Council in 1973, a position he holds until 1985. In 1978, he becomes the first non-Unionist Lord Mayor of Belfast since William James Pirrie, a Home Rule Liberal, in 1896–1898.
In 1994, Cook becomes the Chairman of the Police Authority of Northern Ireland, but he is sacked from this role in 1996 after losing a vote of confidence. After a critical account of his role in an internal row in that authority appears in newspapers in 1998, he undertakes a lengthy libel case which is ultimately settled out of court. He subsequently sits on the Craigavon Health and Social Services Trust.
On September 20, 2020, it is announced that Cook has died after being diagnosed with COVID-19 during the pandemic. According to his family, he dies on September 19, 2020, at Craigavon Area Hospital. He had had a stroke two years before. He is survived by his wife Fionnuala, his sisters Alison and Nora, his daughter Barbary, his sons John, Patrick, Julius, and Dominic, and his granddaughters Romy and Imogen.
Special Category Status, introduced in 1972 after a 35‑day hunger strike by Irish Republican Army (IRA) prisoners, grants convicted paramilitary offenders the rights and treatment of prisoners of war — no prison uniforms, no forced labour, and separate accommodation. In March 1976, the British government announces that those convicted after March 1, 1976, will lose this status and be treated as ordinary criminals. They are to be moved from the “Cages” to the newly built H‑Blocks, designed to enforce the policy of criminalisation and to portray republicans as common criminals.
On September 14, 1976, Nugent refuses to wear the prison uniform, instead wrapping himself in a blanket. This act of defiance quickly spreads: other IRA and Irish National Liberation Army (INLA) prisoners join, refusing to wear uniforms and sometimes going naked. The protest is a peaceful civil disobedience campaign aimed at restoring political prisoner status and rejecting the criminalisation of republicans.
The British authorities enforce uniform compliance through cell confinement and deny association rights. In response, the protest evolves into the “dirty protest” (also called the “no‑wash protest”) in 1978, where prisoners refuse to shower or use lavatories, smear walls with excrement, and defecate in cells to protest perceived brutality and denial of political recognition.
The Blanket Protest becomes a key phase in the prison struggle during the Troubles, symbolising the refusal to accept the criminalisation of political prisoners. It sets the stage for the 1980–1981 hunger strikes, which draw international attention and result in ten deaths, including Bobby Sands, who is elected to Parliament during his fast.
In summary, the September 14, 1976, start of the Blanket Protest marks the beginning of a sustained campaign of non‑violent resistance by republican prisoners to defend their political prisoner status against the British government’s criminalisation policy.
By 1947, de Valera’s government has begun drafting legislation to repeal the Act. Initially, the bill does not mention a republic, but by January 1948 it includes a reference to the state as a republic. Costello, as Taoiseach, introduces the bill in November 1948, citing irritation over the British invitation to King George VI to open the Canadian Parliament — seen as a slight to Irish sovereignty.
On September 7, 1948, Costello tells reporters in Ottawa that Ireland will repeal the External Relations Act, thereby ending the Crown’s role in Irish external affairs. The British government is not informed until a month later, and relations remain cordial until Ireland formally leaves the Commonwealth in April 1949.
The Republic of Ireland Act 1948 is passed by the Oireachtas in December 1948 and signed by PresidentSeán T. O’Kelly on December 21, 1948. It repeals the External Relations Act 1936, declares the state’s description as the Republic of Ireland and vests executive power in the President for external relations on the advice of the Government. The Act takes effect on April 18, 1949 (Easter Monday), marking the symbolic completion of Ireland’s transition from dominion to republic.
The Parliament of the United Kingdom passes the Ireland Act 1949, acknowledging Ireland’s new status, preserving Northern Ireland’s constitutional position, and maintaining rights of Irish citizens in Britain. This ensures continuity in trade, travel, and citizenship without major disruption.
The significance of the 1948–1949 process is a definitive assertion of Irish sovereignty, aligning Ireland’s legal framework with its de facto republican governance. It ends the last constitutional vestige of the British monarchy in Ireland and marks Ireland’s formal departure from the Commonwealth.
The Hot Press Irish Music Hall of Fame is created to celebrate and preserve the best of Irish musical talent over decades, from traditional acts like Christy Moore and The Dubliners to modern icons such as U2, Boyzone, and Ash. It is based around a new multimedia exhibition in Dublin city centre, highlighting the history and development of Irish rock and pop.
Morrison, born in Belfast, Northern Ireland, is widely regarded as Ireland’s greatest living legend. Hall of Fame director Niall Stokes, the editor of Hot Press, praises him as a “multi-talented creative force” with an “astonishing body of work of great depth and beauty.” Geldof calls him “the only genius in Irish music.”
This induction marks Morrison’s first major honour in Ireland, though he has already been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1993. The Hot Press Irish Music Hall of Fame is distinct from the U.S. Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, which has been operating since 1983.
The 1999 induction cements Morrison’s status not only as a global rock icon but also as a defining figure in Irish music history. It is a milestone moment for the Hall of Fame, setting the stage for future inductees chosen by a panel of industry experts.
On August 30, 1921, Éamon de Valera sends a sharp reply to British Prime MinisterDavid Lloyd George as the two sides move closer to formal peace negotiations. The letter comes during a tense period when the British have presented their “Proposals of the British Government for the Irish Settlement” — offering Ireland “within the Empire…in allegiance to His Majesty’s throne” with Northern Ireland’s Unionist government remaining in place, full British naval access, and other imperial arrangements.
De Valera’s response is a stinging rebuke to Lloyd George’s approach. He reiterates Ireland’s determination to be “free from Imperialistic entanglements,” while still offering “reasonable guarantees not inconsistent with Irish sovereignty.” He makes clear that Ireland could enter a treaty of free association with the British Commonwealth but could not accept the British government’s right to “mutilate our country.” This is a direct challenge to the British insistence on loyalty to the Crown and continued imperial ties.
The exchange reflects the core conflict in the talks. The British position requires that Ireland must remain part of the Empire, with some form of association and recognition of the King’s sovereignty. The Irish position maintains that Ireland must be fully independent, with no coercion of Northern Ireland, and with sovereignty intact.
By August 30, both sides have softened their initial positions enough for Lloyd George to send a revised invitation to negotiate in person. De Valera’s letter is part of the diplomatic back-and-forth that culminates in his acceptance of the conference on September 30, 1921, marking the start of the most consequential peace talks in Irish history.
In essence, the August 30 letter is both a political statement and a diplomatic signal — asserting Irish sovereignty while leaving room for a negotiated settlement, and setting the tone for the negotiations that would soon begin.
