Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 March 2014
THE CONFLICT IN NORTHERN IRELAND HAS LASTED FOR OVER sixteen years, defying all attempts by British and Irish governments to reach a solution. On 15 November 1985 the leaders of both governments, Mrs Margaret Thatcher and Dr Garret FitzGerald, signed, at Hillsborough in Northern Ireland, an Anglo-Irish Agreement which they hoped would establish machinery leading to an eventual diminution of political violence and to an accommodation between the two communities. This Agreement is the result of several years of negotiations between the two governments in the Anglo-Irish Intergovernmental Council and is perhaps the most radical attempt at solving the Northern Irish problem since 1921–22. The purposes of this article are to explore what is significantly new in the Agreement as compared with previous attempts at solutions, to examine briefly the different influences which worked to bring it about and, finally, to assess the chances of a successful implementation of the Agreement.
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2 The Forum Report, 2 May 1984, Dublin Stationery Office. For further comments on the Forum Report see p.151. For a useful appraisal see Boyle, K. and Hadden, T., ‘How to Read the New Ireland Forum Report’, Political Quarterly , Vol. 55, pp. 402–17, 1984 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
3 Northern Ireland: Report of an Independent Inquiry (Chairman Lord Kilbrandon), London, November 1984.
4 European Report on Northern Ireland, rapporteur Neils J. Haagerup.
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