"A Peace of Sorts": A Cultural History of the Belfast Agreement, 1998 to 2007

Abstract

The 1998 Belfast or Good Friday Agreement (GFA), a political agreement in Northern Ireland which offered the chance to end the thirty years of conflict known as ‘the Troubles,’ has attracted substantial interest from many scholars interested in political processes. Few, however, have focused on what the Agreement meant to non-political actors, especially ‘victims’ of the Troubles. The GFA not only attempted to confine violence to the past. It shaped the ways in which victims, journalists and the ‘public’ could reflect on the fresh start the Agreement promised. This thesis examines the extent to which the GFA facilitated a shift in Northern Ireland’s public discourse away from established loyalties and paramilitary divisions to focus instead on the experience and rights of victims and the navigation of concepts of peace, justice and reconciliation. Three case studies of responses to post-GFA violence serve to chart the ways in which the frameworks of public debate shaped new identities which both marked a clear point of departure from past trauma, while also revealing the ambivalent and unequal ways in which still divided communities found a voice. The consequences of this shift were multifaceted, rearranging silences surrounding paramilitary violence rather than displacing them entirely. I argue that attention to this public discourse is a vital complement to any assessment of the political and social outcomes of the GFA. Show more