A Tract of Time between War and Peace

Abstract

This chapter describes and explains the emergence and development of the Irish peace process. It discusses how the previously suspended inter-party and intergovernmental talks begun under the auspices of the Anglo-Irish Agreement were melded with that process. The Framework Documents that anticipated the 1998 Agreement are analysed, as well as the bargaining about bargaining that preceded the 1997–8 negotiations. The republican and loyalist ceasefires are examined, and the responses to which they gave rise are analysed.