‘Northern Ireland has moved on’ - Fintan O’Toole on the Good Friday Agreement at 25

A new Northern Ireland has emerged since 1998

Listen | 47:10
Then British PM Tony Blair talks to the press after a meeting with UUP leader David Trimble and SDLP leader John Hume on May 21st, 1998. Photograph: Gerry Penny/AFP via Getty Images
Then British PM Tony Blair talks to the press after a meeting with UUP leader David Trimble and SDLP leader John Hume on May 21st, 1998. Photograph: Gerry Penny/AFP via Getty Images

‘Increasingly the idea of the Two Tribes just doesn’t work to describe what Northern Irish society is like. But the idea is fossilised within the constitutional structure of the Good Friday Agreement’.

Irish Times columnist Fintan O’Toole joins Hugh Linehan to talk about the pivotal peace deal which was signed 25 years ago next month:

  • The events that led up to the deal and the role of John Hume.
  • The impact of the Agreement on the evolution of Sinn Féin.
  • The future of the power-sharing institutions and how Northern Ireland has moved on.