The book, available at last in paperback, explores the politics of the most important Irish nationalist leader of his generation, and one of the most influential figures of twentieth-century Ireland: the Nobel Peace Prize winner, John Hume. Given his central role in the reformulation of Irish nationalist ideology, and the vital part which he played in drawing violent republicanism into democratic politics, the book shows Hume to be one of the chief architects of the Northern Ireland peace process, and a key figure in the making of the 1998 Good Friday Agreement. At the same time, it considers Hume’s failure in what he stated to be his foremost political objective: the conciliation of the two communities in Northern Ireland. The book is essential reading for specialists on Irish history and politics, but will also be of interest to academics and practitioners working in other regions of political and ethnic conflict. In addition, it will appeal to readers seeking to understand the crucial role played by Hume in modernising Irish nationalist thinking, and bringing peace to Northern Ireland.

The question of how to move beyond contentious pasts exercises societies across the globe. Focusing on Northern Ireland, this book examines how historical injustices continue to haunt contemporary lives, and how institutional and juridical approaches to 'dealing' with the past often give way to a silencing consensus or re-marginalising victims.

Politician, peacemaker, persuader: John Hume was a titan of Irish history – a tireless architect of the Good Friday Agreement who received the Nobel Peace Prize for his part in ending decades of conflict in Northern Ireland. But who was the real John Hume? What motivated the former history teacher to reach beyond political lines? What sustained him during the bloodiest years of violence? How did he impel the IRA to end its long-running campaign? How did he convince presidents and prime ministers to take risks and back his vision for Northern Ireland? How should he be remembered? In John Hume: The Persuader, Stephen Walker draws on over 100 interviews with family members, colleagues and critics across the political spectrum, as well as never-before-published interviews with Hume himself, to present a probing, balanced and immensely readable portrait of one of the most significant political figures in Northern Ireland and the world. 'The definitive biography of John Hume.' Freya McClements, Northern Editor, Irish Times 'This superb biography does full justice to a towering figure.' David McCullagh, RTÉ Broadcaster and Author 'A riveting portrait of a man who changed Ireland.' Gary Murphy, Professor of Politics (DCU) and Author 'Scrupulously fair, deeply researched and insightful.' Sam McBride, Northern Ireland Editor, Belfast Telegraph

Getting to Good Friday intertwines literary analysis and narrative history in an accessible account of the shifts in thinking and talking about Northern Ireland's divided society that brought thirty years of political violence to a close with the 1998 Belfast/Good Friday Agreement. Drawing on decades of reading, researching, and teaching Northern Irish literature and talking and corresponding with Northern Irish writers, Marilynn Richtarik describes literary reactions and contributions to the peace process during the fifteen years preceding the Agreement and in the immediate post-conflict era. Progress in this period hinged on negotiators' ability to revise the terms used to discuss the conflict. As poet Michael Longley commented in 1998, 'In its language the Good Friday Agreement depended on an almost poetic precision and suggestiveness to get its complicated message across.' Interpreting selected literary works by Brian Friel, Seamus Heaney, Michael Longley, Deirdre Madden, Seamus Deane, Bernard MacLaverty, Colum McCann, and David Park within a detailed historical frame, Richtarik demonstrates the extent to which authors were motivated by a desire both to comment on and to intervene in unfolding political situations. Getting to Good Friday suggests that literature as literature-that is, in its formal properties in addition to anything it might have to 'say' about a given subject-can enrich readers' historical understanding. Through Richtarik's engaging narrative, creative writing emerges as both the medium of and a metaphor for the peace process itself.

The Routledge Handbook of the Northern Ireland Conflict and Peace is the first multi-authored volume to specifically address the many facets of the 30-year Northern Ireland conflict, colloquially known as the Troubles, and its subsequent peace process. This volume is rooted in opening space to address controversial subjects, answer key questions, and move beyond reductive analysis that reproduces a simplistic two community theses. The temporal span of individual chapters can reach back to the formation of the state of Northern Ireland, with many starting in the late 1960s, to include a range of individuals, collectives, organisations, understandings, and events, at least up to the Good Friday/Belfast Agreement in 1998. This volume has forefronted creative approaches in understanding conflict and allows for analysis and reflection on conflict and peace to continue through to the present day. With an extensive introduction, preface, and 45 individual chapters, this volume represents an ambitious, expansive, interdisciplinary engagement with the North of Ireland through society, conflict, and peace from a wide range of disciplinary perspectives, theoretical frameworks, and methodological approaches. While allowing for rich historical explorations of high-level politics rooted in state documents and archives, this volume also allows for the intermingling of different sources that highlight the role of personal papers, memory, space, materials, and experience in understanding the complexities of both Northern Ireland as a people, place, and political entity.

This book uses the case of Northern Ireland to evaluate theoretical approaches in international relations. It investigates the process of negotiation that led to the signing of the Good Friday or Belfast Agreement and the continuing challenges to peace reconciliation in Northern Ireland. Incorporating the work of leading scholars, it explores a wide range of topics, including the function of deception in promoting peace, the question of partition and how it was reimagined by nationalists such as John Hume, and how the decommissioning process led to a role in internal policing for paramilitaries. The influence of outside actors - notably the United States and the European Union - is also considered, along with the involvement of the Catholic Church and the marginalization of women. This book will be important for academics interested in theories of international relations and to a wider public interested in understanding the Northern Ireland peace process.

Ireland’s relationship with the European Union has been determined by the behaviour, actions and discourse of political parties. This book examines this impact through an in-depth analysis of the Europeanization of party politics in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. First, it presents original research on cross-cutting issues that have featured in political debates about European integration, including referendum campaigns on EU treaties, Irish neutrality and party policy positions on the EU. Secondly, it is the first book of its kind to examine in detail how each of the main parties on the island of Ireland has adapted to EU membership. In doing so it both tests the thesis of ‘Europeanization’ and deepens understanding of the impact that EU membership can have on national and sub-national party politics. What this study reveals is that, while Europeanization is clearly evident in all parties in Ireland, including those most critical of European integration, its influence has been strictly curtailed. We argue that the effects of Europeanization in Irish party politics have been limited by enduring resistance to – and conditions placed upon – EU influence in particular policy areas, the importance of pragmatism and (sub-)national priorities in shaping parties’ approaches to European integration and the fact that engagement with the EU continues to be a predominantly elite-led process. This book was published as a special issue of Irish Political Studies.

Gerry Fitt was a key political figure in Northern Ireland for over twenty years, yet there is no major historical evaluation of his contribution, nor of his legacy or place in the memory of the minority community there. Fitt played a central role in creating the identity of the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) as a socialist party. Yet, he noted that he was often in an ‘unhappy minority of one’ over many issues and at times the relationship between himself and his party colleagues was ‘very uneasy’. Drawing on unpublished party and private papers, recently released Irish and British government papers, and interviews, this book is the first academic study of the role of Gerry Fitt in the politics of the SDLP and will examine the first decade of the party through the lens of his leadership.

Until surprisingly recently the history of the Irish Catholic Church during the Northern Irish Troubles was written by Irish priests and bishops and was commemorative, rather than analytical. This study uses the Troubles as a case study to evaluate the role of the Catholic Church in mediating conflict. During the Troubles, these priests and bishops often worked behind the scenes, acting as go-betweens for the British government and republican paramilitaries, to bring about a peaceful solution. However, this study also looks more broadly at the actions of the American, Irish and English Catholic Churches, as well as that of the Vatican, to uncover the full impact of the Church on the conflict. This critical analysis of previously neglected state, Irish, and English Catholic Church archival material changes our perspective on the role of a religious institution in a modern conflict.

External powers commonly play a major role in efforts to break patterns of conflict and to instal stable and durable peace settlements. They do this not just by underwriting security arrangements, but also by being available to intervene at critical moments. This book considers the special (but by no means unique) case where the conflict is located in a region of one state over which a neighbouring state has had a territorial claim, itself part of the legacy of a quasi-colonial relationship: Northern Ireland. This book focuses on the changes in the British state, whose writ of course extends over Northern Ireland, but also the Irish state, which surrendered a strong formal but ineffective claim to jurisdiction over Northern Ireland for the reality of a significant voice in its political future. These were ultimately to facilitate the process of settlement leading to the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, and the later transformation of institutions and political relations in Northern Ireland and in these islands more generally. It innovates by using a new oral archive built up over the past decade. The book explores the interrelations of different levels of state and institutional change. These interrelations range from the broadest concepts of sovereignty and ideology to the actual impact of large changes on particular institutions and laws. They also extend over elite political assumptions and strategies, and inter-state coordination practices. This book was published as a special issue of Irish Political Studies.