Conclusion: “I Hope It Wasn’t All a Waste”

As we have seen throughout history, the road to a sustainable peace is a long and winding one, rife with potholes and perils. So, in a comparative sense, Northern Ireland deserves credit that the Good Friday Agreement, despite rewarding separateness over integration, has held for more than 20 years. Yet it seems there is a dangerous trajectory in contemporary Northern Ireland that has regional, global, and, most importantly, human implications for how we understand the transitions a society goes through in moving from conflict to a stable, enduring, and sustainable peace. More than two decades after the Good Friday Agreement, Northern Ireland finds itself in a shallow, troubled sleep, and its future, moving more quickly each day, is trending in a darker and more dangerous direction. How it awakes from that troubled sleep will determine whether it is on the edge of a new beginning or a painfully familiar old precipice.