The road to the Belfast (Good Friday) Agreement (KS3)

• Tasks
• Teachers' notes

Please note, the transcripts of the resources retain any typographical errors included in the original documents.

The six documents selected within this package reveal the difficulties of making peace at two selected snapshots of time in the peace process in Northern Ireland: June 1996 and June 1997, as well as how and when progress was made at these points.

Although this is ‘packaged’ as a single lesson, it is likely to take at least two lesson periods of learning time to complete if all students use all the sources. Alternatively the sources could be shared within small groups with each student working on a single source and feeding back.

Students are encouraged to analyse each document, looking for:

• any evidence that the talks are going well or that progress is being made;
• any evidence that there are still challenges or barriers to peace; and
• the reasons why making peace was difficult

Learning objectives

By the end of the session, students will:

• know two of the key moments on the road towards the Belfast (Good Friday) Agreement;
• understand why it was so difficult to make peace; and

be able to use contemporary documents to deepen their understanding of the peace process.

Download the resource pack below:

Download the PDF (13.5MB)

Download the Powerpoint (3.84MB)

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Tasks

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Teachers' notes

Teacher’s notes on documents

Teachers may find the following background notes on the sources helpful for guiding students:

Source A

The explosion to which the letter refers was the London Docklands bombing of 9 February 1996. The Provisional IRA detonated a truck bomb which killed two people, injured over a hundred, and devastated a wide area.

The bomb signalled an end to the IRA ceasefire which hitherto had lasted since 31 August 1994. (This had followed the Downing Street Declaration, 1993 which allowed Sinn Féin to participate in peace talks on the condition that the IRA called a ceasefire).

In January 1996, the former US Senator George Mitchell (who was heading an international commission) had set out the ‘Mitchell Principles’. These required a commitment to non-violence to enter the talks process, and set out a plan for achieving decommissioning of weapons. Sinn Féin said it agreed to the Principles, but the IRA leadership did not, and refused to hand over any weapons. However, the UK government demanded a full IRA disarmament as a precondition for Sinn Féin involvement in the peace talks. Following this, the IRA conducted the London Docklands bombing. This was followed by another truck bomb in Manchester in June 1996.

Source B

Following the bombing, the UK and Irish governments announced that all-party peace talks would resume in June 1996, following elections to a new body, the Northern Ireland Forum. The UK government dropped its demand for the IRA to disarm completely before Sinn Féin were allowed to take part in negotiations. However, the party was told that they would not be allowed to participate without a permanent IRA ceasefire. Sinn Féin, who had won 15.5% of the vote in Northern Ireland and 17 of the Forum’s 110 seats, claimed this electoral support gave them a mandate for involvement in the peace talks.

Sources C and D

The talks began on 10 June 1996 at Stormont in Belfast. As expected, Sinn Féin were not allowed to enter the talks because the IRA had not resumed its ceasefire before the talks began.

The multi-party talks continued slowly and intermittently amongst further violence and heightening tension. In March 1997, the talks were suspended until June, to allow the parties to contest the forth-coming general election.

Sources E and F

On 1 May 1997, the Labour Party won the UK General Election in a landslide victory. Tony Blair became the Prime Minister and Mo Mowlam became the new Secretary of State for Northern Ireland.  Tony Blair said that the Northern Ireland peace process was one of the government’s top priorities.

In July 1997, the IRA announced a new ceasefire, and following this, Sinn Féin were allowed to enter the peace talks in September. In protest at this, both the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) and the UK Unionist Party (UKUP) pulled out, meaning the talks still lacked representation from all parties. However, David Trimble and the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP), alongside the Progressive Unionist Party (PUP), remained, despite criticism from other Unionists.

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