In contrast, despite a brief flirtation with a North–South body possessing executive powers in the guise of the British–Irish Frameworks Documents (1995) which once more sparked Unionist opposition,4 the B/GFA resulted in a completely different form of cross-border institution. The oral declaration would recognise the ‘different elements’ who lived on the island; that political unity should be pursued through reconciliation alone; and, so long as a majority of the people of Northern Ireland wished to maintain its ‘present status’, the Irish government would work in friendship and co-operation with the ‘legitimate’ institutions established in Northern Ireland (NAI, D/T 2004/21/627). The diplomatic background to the B/GFA was also very different from that of Sunningdale. 10). Draft Paper for Discussion. Comparing the Sunningdale Agreement and the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement. This meant, from a Unionist perspective, that the people of Northern Ireland – by which they meant the majority Unionist community – had no control over the degree and pace of North–South co-operation.5 The Council was to take decisions on action at an all-island and cross-border level across its long list of competence through implementation bodies.6 Where ‘it is agreed that new implementation bodies are to be established’ the two governments were to ‘make all necessary legislative and other preparations to ensure the establishment of these bodies at the inception of the British/Irish Agreement or as soon as feasible thereafter, such that these bodies function effectively as rapidly as possible’.7 Only further bodies, in addition to the long list already specified, would be by agreement in the Council and with the specific endorsement of the NIA and the Oireachtas.8 The transfer of functions, by 5 British government policy post 1974: learning slowly between Sunningdales? Linen Hall Library Northern Ireland Political Collection (LHL, NIPC) Messages Between the IRA and the Government: British Message sent 26 February 1993; Message from the Leadership of the Provisional Movement 5 March 1993; British Message sent 11 March 1993; British 9-Paragraph Note sent 19 March 1993; Message from the Leadership of the Republican Movement 22 March 1993. Other articles where Sunningdale Agreement is discussed: Anglo-Irish Agreement: The road to the Anglo-Irish Agreement: …Heath that resulted in the Sunningdale Agreement. Before analysing the breakdown of the Sunningdale Agreement and the success, to date, of the Belfast Agreement, it is necessary to give a brief overview of the content of each of the agreements. All Rights Reserved. 15). The Provisional IRA and Sunningdale, 11 Cultural responses to and the legacies of Sunningdale, 12 ‘Slow learners’? Seamus Mallon famously referred to the Good Friday Agreement of 1998 as ‘Sunningdale for slow learners’. One thing both Agreements had in common was the apparent intractability of issues revolving around security, policing and criminal justice. It has allowed the quasi-state to… Although Republicans remained aloof from Sunningdale there was an active engagement with the leadership of the Provisional IRA (PIRA). The Provisional IRA and Sunningdale, 11 Cultural responses to and the legacies of Sunningdale, 12 ‘Slow learners’? The latter would decide economic priorities (NUIG, POL28; Ruairí Ó Brádaigh Papers: Instructions 5.6.75). (p.182) They also demanded a permanent end to PIRA violence.1 The subsequent Downing Street Declaration represented a common set of principles agreed by the British and Irish governments which formed the bedrock of the peace process. This was the compromise: Nationalists were guaranteed that the NSMC would not be merely an ‘empty house’ and that there would be at least six areas of co-operation; Unionists were secure that any implementation bodies would be agreed and established by the Assembly. 5 Howick Place | London | SW1P 1WG. Consent has been part of British policy since partition: it was formalised, in statute, in the Ireland Act 1949, and then again in the Northern Ireland Constitution Act 1973. Comparing the Sunningdale Agreement and the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement, The Sunningdale Agreement (December 1973). Your current browser may not support copying via this button. We Reject the Governments’ ‘Frameworks’ Proposals as the Basis for Negotiations (Ulster Unionist Party 1995). The Provisional IRA‘s August 1994 ceasefire, followed soon after by a ceasefire among Loyalist groups, was also an important factor. They were necessary to get the co-operation of the SDLP and the Irish The position of the Irish government at Sunningdale, however, was to avoid defining the constitutional position of Northern Ireland as part of the UK: an internal government paper stated that ‘in determining our position on the status of Northern Ireland, we should seek to meet the minimal requirements of responsible Northern Protestant opinion; that we should have regard to opinion in the Republic which attaches importance to the claim inherent in Articles 2 and 3 of the Constitution; and that we should not commit ourselves In terms of the consent principle the contrast between Sunningdale and the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement (B/GFA) could not have been starker. agreement • The Good Friday Agreement improved voting policies within the NI Assembly and moved to make decision making by Britain and Ireland on Northern Ireland more inclusive • The Good Friday Agreement was a more inclusive process than Sunningdale with … Keywords: Agreement reached at Sunningdale to establish a power sharing executive in Northern Ireland and a cross border Council of Ireland. thereby preserving the principle of Northern Irish self-determination – the consent principle.2. 4 Sunningdale and the Irish dimension: a step too far? In fact, she claims it was:. As in the 1990s, John Hume, of the SDLP, played a key part in pushing the PIRA towards a ceasefire in 1972 (TNA, CJ4/1456). to legal action which would be invalidated by an appeal to these Articles unless we intend to repeal them’. Although we think they would endeavour to preserve the confidentiality of such an assurance it would be impossible for them to do so. ‘political’. This assertion has been criticised by political scientists like Richard Wilford and Stefan Wolff. Unlike Faulkner, who was undermined by the Irish failure to recognise Northern Ireland’s constitutional status within the UK, An individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in MSO for personal use. Source for information on Northern Ireland: Constitutional Settlement from Sunningdale to Good Friday: Encyclopedia of Irish History and Culture dictionary. As far as Trimble was concerned he had secured a consultative body that was the antithesis of the proposed Framework Document which had executive powers. the island interpreted ‘consent’ as a Unionist ‘veto’ on Irish unity following the artificial partition of the Irish nation. (3) But the problem was that the SDLP and the Alliance Party had set their faces against a Unionist majority in the Executive (TNA, FCO 87/225 GEN 79(73)). [5] The Good Friday Agreement has famously been described by Séamus Mallon as 'Sunningdale for slow learners'. The role of the Chief Executive and his co-ordinating role would be the nearest thing to an executive.9 The impasse was broken with the Unionists accepting the SDLP’s model for a power-sharing executive following the former’s success in securing their constitutional and North–South objectives. The principle was a source of tension between the Irish state and successive UK governments until Sunningdale: indeed Nationalists across After he conceded the principle of power sharing – despite heavy opposition within his party – the main obstacle to overcome was the distribution of ministerial positions among the pro-White Paper participants in the talks chaired by Whitelaw. Woodfield, in a document containing a phrase that HMG supported the present wishes of the majority to ‘stay British’. Following the meeting the British noted that the timing (though not the principle) relating to the role of the British Army in Northern Ireland was negotiable, and ‘no doubt’ amnesties were also. After Parliamentary approval was sought for another four positions that were not to be Heads of Departments the final tally gave the following distribution amongst the parties: seven Ulster Unionists, six SDLP members and two Alliance Party members. (p.177) Prior to Sunningdale it was the Irish government’s policy to urge that the guarantee should be reformulated. In December 1974 a group of senior Protestant clergy had met with IRA leaders in Feakle, Co. Clare. The subsequent talks between Republican representatives and British officials worried the Irish government, which feared a total British withdrawal from Northern Ireland and the prospect of civil war. The Irish government would reciprocate by creating a police authority in the Republic the membership of which would also be appointed by the Council. unlike Sunningdale, extended beyond the island of Ireland: Strand Three (covering relations between the United Kingdom and the Republic) saw a British–Irish Council (BIC) established. (1) In constitutional terms the GFA was a Unionist settlement that secured Northern Ireland’s position within the United Kingdom, recognised British sovereignty in Northern Ireland and established that a united Ireland could only be achieved on the basis of the principle of consent. All unionists (with a small u) fear that in a Council of Ireland there may be hidden a half-way house to a united Ireland’ (TNA, CJ4/474). Effectively, the proposed Northern Ireland Assembly (NIA) – where Unionists would have an input and veto – was completely by-passed. The PAC also wanted the establishment of a Constituent Assembly elected by the people of Ireland through universal adult suffrage and proportional representation. According to the Irish Constitution, Northern Ireland was a part of both the Irish nation and the independent Irish state – it was not part of the United Kingdom. Cited by lists all citing articles based on Crossref citations.Articles with the Crossref icon will open in a new tab. Registered in England & Wales No. Consent, constitutional recognition and sovereignty were all bound up. 5 British government policy post 1974: learning slowly between Sunningdales? [5] Irish politician Séamus Mallon, who participated in the negotiations, called the agreement “Sunningdale for slow learners.” Until HMG clearly states it has no claim to sovereignty to any part of Ireland’ the clergy’s proposals were ‘meaningless’. Faulkner’s early acquiescence to a Council with executive powers proved a fatal mistake in terms of his position within the wider Unionist community. The Good Friday Agreement succeeded, in the longer term, despite the psychological turmoil Unionism experienced in terms of prisoner releases, the absence of immediate decommissioning and the reform of policing, because the fundamental constitutional foundations of the accord were Unionist – as demonstrated by the fact that the St Andrews Agreement, championed by the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) as a ‘renegotiation’ of the 1998 accord, did not remove any of the institutions established by it. Surprisingly, Strand Two issues were agreed along the UUP model relatively quickly, with a plan developed by one of the UUP’s negotiators, Reg Empey, dropping the implementation bodies, although the NIA would be bound to agree at least six matters for future co-operation and implementation. Some of the developments that preceded and influenced it include the Sunningdale Agreement (1973), the Anglo-Irish Agreement (1985) and the Downing Street Declaration(1993). The successful conclusion of Strand Two to the satisfaction of Unionists opened the door for movement on their part in Strand One where the impasse was the SDLP’s proposed maximum executive, legislative and administrative power for the NIA, with a cabinet open to all parties to participate in it, subject to an electoral threshold which would be a matter for clarification and negotiation, in contrast to the Unionist Party’s proportional committee model which envisaged no collective responsibility – no cabinet. There should be a common procedure for examining complaints against the two police forces, and this should be the responsibility of the Council. As the negotiations reached their climax they were turned into crisis as the ‘Mitchell Document’ (named after the American chair of the talks) envisaged a North–South Ministerial Council (NSMC) with a long list of areas in which the body would decide common policies, specific areas where decisions would be taken on action for implementation and a series of implementation bodies. Unlike Faulkner, Trimble resisted any executive powers being given to any North–South body that might emerge from the 1998 talks. Like its successor, the Sunningdale Agreement addressed the issues central to a The Irish declaration, in contrast, did not define the ‘present status’ of Northern Ireland: the Six Counties, Dublin could argue, remained a part of the Republic of Ireland but not a part of the United Kingdom. (9) Instead a Chief Executive would have a co-ordinating and representational role between the committees and a negotiating role with bodies outside Northern Ireland. Some commentators have referred to the Agreement as "Sunningdale for slow learners", which suggests that it was nothing more than what was on offer in the Sunningdale Agreement of 1973. The willingness of para… It was not Belfast, but London and Dublin which determined the remit of the Council. It was brought down not only by loyalists, but also by republican fundamentalists. (4) Bunreacht na hÉireann (the Irish Constitution of 1937) declared, in Article 2, that: ‘The national territory consists of the whole island of Ireland, its islands and the territorial seas’. He claimed that the appendages of the Council – a North–South Consultative Assembly, a Permanent Secretariat, the executive functions of the Council of Ministers – ‘fell in my mind into the “necessary nonsense” category’. The chapter argues that the only thing the two Agreements has in common was a power-sharing element for the government of Northern Ireland. The Declaration recognised the right of the Irish people to self-determination – a nationalist concept – but only on the basis of concurrent agreement between North and South. John Hume further argued that HMG had been mistaken in refusing to alter the name of the RUC but the only way left of making the police force acceptable to the minority was in some way to associate it with the Council of Ireland. 3099067 Anglo-Irish Agreement; Downing Street Declaration; Belfast Agreement The significant omission in their text was the phrase ‘the present status of Northern Ireland is that it is part of the United Kingdom’. But, despite Republican pressure for a private British declaration of intent to withdraw (Ó Dochartaigh, 2011: 82), the British patted this away with the fallback position that they wished to avoid the ‘danger of a Congo-type situation resulting’ (NUIG, POL28 Ó Brádaigh Papers). TNA, FCO Continuation Minutes of Inter-Party Talks held at Stormont Castle on 21 November 1973. We should then face massive confrontation with the Protestant population in Northern Ireland and conflict with the Government of the Republic. See also. He argued that the NSMC, unlike the 1973 proposed Council of Ireland, had ‘no supra-national characteristics’ (Trimble, 1998: 1155 –6). Given the overwhelmingly Unionist composition of that body and the unanimity rule in the Council of Ministers we were satisfied that the constitutional integrity of Northern Ireland was secure’ declared Faulkner (1978: 236–7). political parties, and intergovernmental agreements inclusive of all active parties to the conflict. The talks, and the accompanying truce, unsurprisingly collapsed, and subsequent British-PIRA contacts in the 1990s faltered once more on the Republican refusal to accept the consent principle: while the latter’s demand for a Declaration of Intent to withdraw was dropped, consent was to be circumvented by the British recognising all-Ireland national self-determination and becoming ‘persuaders’ (to the Unionist community) for a united Ireland. He felt that it was not possible to share power between, on the one hand, a majority party in favour of a continuance of Northern Ireland and, on the other, representatives of parties who would want to destroy that state. After three days of negotiations at the civil service college at Sunningdale, Berkshire, all of the parties signed an uneasy agreement establishing a Council of Ireland and a linked advisory assembly. Two of the most controversial aspects of the B/GFA were those of decommissioning and prisoners. 4 Sunningdale and the Irish dimension: a step too far? Unfortunately, the Sunningdale Agreement of 1973-4, with the central elements of power-sharing and an Irish dimension, was 25 years ahead of its time; hence Seamus Mallon’s quip that the Good Friday Agreement was Sunningdale for slow learners. (CAIN, Sunningdale Agreement). Only the latter approach produced a peaceful settlement. While both Agreements contained an assembly and a power-sharing executive at their heart, a significant difference between Sunningdale and the B/GA was where the latter saw the NIA governed by ‘sufficient consensus’ or a double veto. be an end of Emergency Powers legislation, combined with a reform of policing and the criminal justice system, these would be based upon the proposals of new commissions (Belfast Agreement: Security: Paras 1–5; Policing and Justice: Paras 1–5) separate from the final Agreement. LHL, NIPC Strand One, Twelfth Meeting, 4 March 1998. People also read lists articles that other readers of this article have read. (p.185) The 1998 Good Friday Agreement (GFA), on which the current system of decentralisation in Northern Ireland is based, is similar to that of Sunningdale. Thus the Irish state formally challenged the right of British sovereignty over Northern Ireland. The UK Attorney General, Sir Peter Rawlinson, had considered the simple solution to this problem to be an amendment of the extradition law in the Republic so that offences involving firearms and explosives were excluded from the definition of a political offence. In terms of policing, both the Irish government and the SDLP argued at Sunningdale that the North’s minority community had difficulty in identifying with the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) and that this difficulty could be solved if a police authority there was appointed by the Council of Ireland. The starting point in both negotiations was Unionist opposition to consociation government. While it was envisaged that there would It recognised, however, that this could be ‘brought about only by peaceful means with the consent of a majority of the people, democratically expressed, in both jurisdictions’ – thereby recognising two legal state entities on the island of Ireland (Ibid.). 5 (ii). Both Agreements saw power-sharing arrangements which represented a considerable gain for Nationalists; in one respect, though, even the prospect of a power-sharing executive represented some gain for Unionists in 1998 given that it involved the creation of an NIA and a degree of control over decision-making in Northern Ireland that had been, effectively, absent since 1972 and heightened by the signing of the AIA. This was a territorial claim by successive Irish governments to sovereignty over the entire island of Ireland. The meeting laid down the political barriers that were to prohibit an accommodation between the British and the IRA for the following quarter of a century: the IRA demanded that the British government should recognise publicly that it was the right of the whole of the ‘People of Ireland acting as a unit’ to decide the future of Ireland (all-Ireland self-determination); and that HMG should immediately declare its intention to withdraw all British forces from Irish soil, such withdrawal to be completed on or before the first day of January 1975; and called for a general amnesty for all ‘political prisoners’ in Irish and British jails (TNA, CJ4/1456).
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