Full Description
More than twenty years after the peace agreement signed in Belfast on 10 April 1998, an assessment is overdue, particularly given the current political context in Northern Ireland. A serious political crisis led to the suspension of the regional institutions from January 2017 to January 2020, and the Brexit negotiations did not facilitate the search for a solution, especially as the confidence-and-supply agreement between the British Conservative Party and the DUP prevented London from acting as an honest broker between Sinn Féin and the DUP. At the same time, the issue of the Irish border created tensions between Dublin and London. This situation was compounded by the resurgence of rioting, mostly in Loyalist areas of Belfast and Derry/Londonderry, in April 2021, against the backdrop of Brexit's Northern Ireland Protocol and communal resentment.
Emanating from a conference jointly organised at the University of Caen Normandy and La Rochelle University, this collection of essays - bringing together academic and independent scholars from various disciplines and nationalities - takes a critical look at the implementation of the Good Friday Agreement, from the collaboration between Dublin and London to the new political configurations in Northern Ireland, as well as interfaith, cultural, social and economic developments. Divided into three main parts, it furnishes an opportunity to better understand the reasons for the apparent deterioration in inter-community understanding since 1998, but also to study the numerous initiatives that have sought to promote reconciliation, be it in the economy, the working environment, in the literary and artistic spheres, in schools or in the urban landscape.
Contents
Contents: Olivier Coquelin, Brigitte Bastiat, Frank Healy: Introduction: Twenty Years of Peace and Reconciliation? - Political and Economic Developments - David Mitchell: Facets of the Unionist Experience since 1998: From the Agreement to Brexit and Beyond - Agnès Maillot: War by Other Means? Sinn Féin and Reconciliation since the GFA - Christophe Gillissen: Brexit and the Irish Border: An Historical Overview - Anne Groutel: Twenty Years after the Good Friday Agreement: Achievements, Prospects and Limits of Economic Cooperation between the Two Irelands - Religion, Urbanism and Education - Brian Mac Cuarta SJ: Reconciliation in Northern Ireland: One Jesuit's Personal Experience - Gladys Ganiel: Protestants and Peacebuilding in Northern Ireland: Overcoming Opposition, Apathy and a Loss of Legitimacy? - Charlotte Barcat: The Peace Bridge and the Re- branding of the River Foyle in Derry- Londonderry: From a «Divided City» to a «Shared Space»? - Nadège Dumaux: Integrated Education and the Shared Education Programme: A Dichotomy in the Northern Irish Education System - Literature and the Arts - Bertrand Cardin: Troubles Never Come Singly: Paul McVeigh's The Good Son and Northern Irish Pioneering Fiction about Gender Trouble - Brigitte Bastiat: Connecting with the «Nation» in Northern Ireland: Violence and Reconciliation in Four Plays by Owen McCafferty - Billy Gray: «You Can't Grab Anything with a Closed Fist»: Reflections on Ulster Protestant Identity in Derek Lundy's Men That God Made Mad: A Journey through Truth, Myth and Terror in Northern Ireland - Fabrice Mourlon: Beyond Trauma? The Expression of Survivors in Post- Conflict Northern Ireland - Hélène Alfaro- Hamayon: Art and Conflict Transformation: Models of Participation and Collaboration in the Shankill.
