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An imperfect peace: How the Good Friday agreement brought bitter enemies together

Testimony from the GFA’s key players to the cross-party Oireachtas committee has produced a treasure trove of personal reflections on how the peace was won

A night of violence on both sides of an interface in the loyalist Shankill and nationalist Springfield Road in Belfast two years ago. Picture: Pacemaker

Bertie Ahern normally did not have a drink on Good Fridays because it was a day of abstinence for Catholics. But after the signing of the Good Friday Agreement on that very day in 1998, he had two glasses of champagne on the government jet.

It had been an astonishing breakthrough after decades of violence. It eventually led to the decommissioning of most IRA and loyalist weapons, the withdrawal of the British army and the ...