The Good Friday Agreement

Twenty-seven years ago this week Ireland, and indeed the world, looked on anxiously to see whether the latest phase of talks in Northern Ireland would see a positive conclusion. The news on Good Friday 1998 that an agreement had been reached was received with widespread approval and the beginning of sustained peace in Ireland. The final days of the negotiations had been fraught and the intervention of US President, Bill Clinton was necessary.

The Sunday Independent carried news of the momentous occasion two days previously:

A late-night telephone call from US President Clinton to Gerry Adams and a firm stand by John Hume were the two deciding factors in the success of the Good Friday Agreement.

As David Trimble won the two-to-one backing of his executive for the Deal in Belfast yesterday, it emerged that President Clinton, in his crucial intervention via a series of phone calls, told the Sinn Fein leader that if he and bis negotiators walked out of the talks, there would be no going back.

The drama began at 2.30am when the President received calls from talks chairman George Mitchell. British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Taoiseach Bertie Ahem, following the refusal by Sinn Fein earlier in the evening to accept a deal agreed between the SDLP and the Ulster Unionist Party.

The terms of that first agreement included a proposed three-year time frame for paramilitary prisoner releases.

Just hours before the official deadline of midnight on Thursday, the talks stalled as observers waited to see if John Hume and the SDLP would renegotiate. When it became clear that the SDLP would not support Sinn Fein, that party's chairman. Mitchell McLaughlin, said the talks were "close to breakdown".

However, following the crucial phone calls from the White House. Mr Adams and the Sinn Fein team began to re-negotiate. By Friday morning Sinn Fein had negotiated the shorter timeframe of two years for the release of paramilitary prisoners.

However, this new deal presented a problem for the UUP leader, focussing the negotiations once more on the vexed question of decommissioning.

David Trimble said he felt that the decision was in the best interest of the party and stood by his actions. He said there were difficulties facing the Unionist party over the deal including matters relating to the decommissioning of weapons.

"There are very serious reservations about the agreement. I share those reservations, but we have to take the judgement as a whole and consider whether there is in this a platform for us to build a future".

For more information search the pages of the Irish Newspaper Archive (www.irishnewsarchive.com )