Twenty-five years ago, the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement ended three decades of armed sectarian conflict.
It urged a "culture of tolerance at every level of society", stressing the importance of mixed education and housing.
But today, Northern Ireland's two largest communities still largely lead separate lives.
Some 90 percent of children are taught in segregated schools. Only 70 schools out of a total of just over 1,100 are officially integrated.
Bangor Integrated Nursery School, on the UK-ruled territory's eastern tip, is one of the two outliers at kindergarten age, for children aged three and four.
"We talk about diversity and equality and respect and inclusion," school principal Pamela Algie told AFP, as the children went noisily about their play-based lessons.
"And we also don't shy away from difficult issues, like talking about race, talking about religion, talking about our cultures," she said.
The school was mainly Protestant and is marking its first academic year with full integration, following approval by the education authorities, after 97 percent of parents voted in 2019 to make the change.
Integrated schools are eligible for extra funding provided by the UK government in London, although education policy is generally set by the devolved administration in Northern Ireland.
- More than just grades -
To earn integrated status, schools must have 40 percent children of Catholic origin, 40 percent Protestant, and 20 percent from other backgrounds.
Trina Zellie, 39, who works in banking IT, enrolled her two small daughters at Bangor Integrated.
"We want them to have the chance to not just develop their English and literature skills, and their mathematical skills, but to develop their own interpersonal skills," she explained.
It was only in 1981, during the worst of "The Troubles", that Northern Ireland acquired its first integrated secondary school for pupils aged 11-18.
And only last year did the devolved parliament at Stormont pass a law to actively encourage more schools to make the shift.
The legislation was supported by pro-Irish and centre-ground parties, but opposed by pro-UK unionists, who argued it was a distraction promoted only by middle-class and secular parents.
The main unionist party has been boycotting the Stormont assembly for more than a year over a separate dispute, concerning post-Brexit trade.
History teacher Lorraine Clayton worked for years in segregated schools before joining Priory Integrated College, a secondary school in Holywood on the northeast edge of Belfast.
"It's all about your academics, getting your grades," she said of the segregated system.
"But there is nothing about preparing the students for the outside world, nothing about teaching them the history of Northern Ireland."
- 'Religion, religion, religion' -
Clayton's students are testament to the integration ethos.
"If we don't start moving on and be more progressive, we're just going to be stuck in a cycle of religion, religion, religion," said Anna McKittrick, 18 and a Protestant.
McKittrick's Catholic classmate Charlie Durham-Crummey, also 18, said: "I hope our generation can do something in politics, take the lessons."
Short of full integrated status, schools in Northern Ireland are also encouraged to pursue "shared education".
If a segregated school lacks teachers for a particular language or sport, it can partner with one from the other side of the religious divide in the same area.
In 2019, according to pre-pandemic figures compiled by the Stormont government, more than 87,000 out of Northern Ireland's 350,000 schoolchildren were enrolled in "shared education" programmes.
The Stormont government wants to raise that to 80 percent of the total in the coming years.
That may be more achievable than full integration across the school system. Why has progress been so slow in the years since the Good Friday Agreement was signed on April 10, 1998?
"Probably because you've got your hardcore, your two separate, segregated communities," explained Emma Hassard, spokeswoman for the Integrated Education Fund.
"Money is another factor," she said, noting that the Stormont government is legally mandated to provide more than other UK administrations, across the religious divide, integrated schools and special education.
"That is a huge financial burden."
30 years of bloodshed: Northern Ireland's 'Troubles'
Belfast (AFP) March 31, 2023 -
Northern Ireland was torn apart by three decades of violence between nationalist and unionist communities that ended with the Good Friday Agreement signed 25 years ago.
The province's majority Protestant unionists favoured continued British rule. Catholic republicans wanted equal rights and reunification with the rest of Ireland.
Here is an overview of the "Troubles" during which more than 3,500 people were killed.
- Trouble starts -
Violence erupts in 1968 when police use force against a peaceful Catholic civil rights demonstration in Londonderry demanding an end to discrimination in voting, jobs and housing.
The situation degenerates as Catholic meetings and demonstrations end in clashes with the police and Protestants.
In August 1969, as sectarian violence grips the province, British troops are deployed.
- IRA steps in -
In 1970 a Catholic guerrilla group, the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA), begins a campaign of bombings and shootings against the troops.
Unionist paramilitary groups respond, mostly by killing Catholics, further driving a wedge between the communities.
Violence explodes after January 1972 when 13 people are killed on "Bloody Sunday" after British soldiers open fire on a peaceful Catholic civil rights march in Londonderry.
- Direct rule -
London suspends the Northern Ireland provincial government two months later, leading to decades of direct rule from the British capital.
In 1974 the IRA extends the bombing campaign to Britain with attacks on pubs in Guildford, Woolwich and Birmingham that kill about 30 people in all.
It also assassinates key British establishment figures, including Queen Elizabeth II's cousin Lord Louis Mountbatten in northwest Ireland in 1979.
On the same day, 18 British soldiers are killed in an IRA ambush at Warrenpoint in Northern Ireland.
- Hunger strikes, bombs -
A turning point comes in 1981 when IRA inmate Bobby Sands and nine comrades die on hunger strike at Maze Prison demanding political prisoner status.
Their deaths draw global sympathy for the republican cause.
The following year the IRA's political wing Sinn Fein wins its first seats in parliament. A year after, Gerry Adams is elected party chief.
The IRA continues to strike in England, with Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher narrowly escaping death in a bomb attack on the Grand Hotel in Brighton during the 1984 Conservative party conference in which five people die.
Seven years later they attempt to assassinate her successor, John Major, in a mortar attack on 10 Downing Street.
In 1992 and 1993 two massive bombings kill four people and cause major damage in the City of London financial hub.
- Peace initiatives -
An attempt by Conservative Prime Minister Edward Heath to establish a power-sharing executive founders in 1973 after a unionist general strike.
Thatcher signs an Anglo-Irish accord in 1985, acknowledging Dublin's say in Northern Ireland's affairs.
Behind-the-scenes talks lead to an IRA ceasefire in 1994, which breaks down as negotiations stall.
- Good Friday breakthrough -
In July 1997, after Tony Blair becomes Britain's Labour prime minister, Sinn Fein gets a place at the negotiating table after the IRA declares a new ceasefire.
The Good Friday Agreement is signed on April 10, 1998 between London, Dublin and the main Northern Ireland political parties.
It leads to a new semi-autonomous Northern Ireland with a power-sharing government between Protestants and Catholics.
- Omagh atrocity -
The deadliest single atrocity of the period comes four months after the accord, when 29 people are killed in the town of Omagh in a bomb planted by a dissident group, the Real IRA.
The attack has the effect of bolstering, rather than undermining, the peace accord.
The tortuous path to peace in Northern Ireland
Paris (AFP) March 31, 2023 -
Between 1968 and 1998, the British territory of Northern Ireland was torn apart by a conflict pitting Catholic nationalists seeking civil rights and reunification with the rest of Ireland against majority Protestant supporters of continued union with Britain.
The three-decade Troubles, which were marked by street battles, bombings, summary executions and internment without trial, claimed the lives of over 3,500 people before the signing of a landmark peace deal on April 10, 1998 known as the Good Friday Agreement.
AFP looks back at key milestones in the peace process, beginning in 1994, when the Catholic guerrilla group, the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA), which violently opposed British rule, called an end to its 25-year insurgency.
- 1994: The guns fall silent -
Various peace initiatives by the British and Irish governments in the 1970s and 1980s fail to end the IRA's bombing campaign in northern Ireland and in Britain or the endless cycle of tit-for-tat paramilitary attacks.
After years of secret talks with moderate nationalists, and the intervention of US President Bill Clinton, who woos the leader of the political wing of the IRA, Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams, by granting him a US travel visa, the IRA in August 1994 calls a ceasefire.
The announcement causes rejoicing on the streets of Belfast.
Two months later, loyalist paramilitaries also announce a truce.
- 1995: Talk first or disarm first? -
The euphoria caused by the ceasefires fizzles as the parties squabble over the conditions for allowing Sinn Fein to take part in multi-party talks on northern Ireland's future.
The unionist camp and Britain's Conservative government want the IRA to disarm first. The IRA refuses, seeing such a move as tantamount to surrender.
As the negotiations stall, the IRA ends its ceasefire in February 1996 by planting a huge bomb in London's docklands that kills two people.
- 1997: enter Blair -
The peace process gains new momentum in May 1997 when Tony Blair sweeps to power at the head of a Labour government.
Unlike his Conservative predecessor John Major, Blair is not politically dependent on support from the unionists, giving him more freedom to make concessions to the nationalist camp.
Very quickly he scraps decommissioning as a precondition for negotiating with Sinn Fein.
In July 1997, the IRA calls a new ceasefire and Sinn Fein takes its seat at the negotiating table.
The Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) of firebrand preacher Ian Paisley, which sees union with Britain as non-negotiable, promptly storms out.
- 1998: historic deal -
On April 10, 1998, Britain, Ireland and the main political parties in northern Ireland except the DUP sign the Good Friday Agreement, also known as the Belfast Agreement.
The accord, signed on the Christian holiday of Good Friday, leads to a semi-autonomous northern Ireland with a power-sharing assembly, led by a first minister and deputy first minister from either side of the unionist/nationalist divide.
The deal recognises the right of the people in Northern Ireland to determine their future. Crucially for unionists, the Irish Republic renounces its historic claim to rule all of Ireland.
The deal also calls for phased disarmament of all paramilitary groups, the gradual withdrawal of British troops from northern Ireland and a reform of the territory's police force, accused of collusion in violence against Catholics.
A month later, voters resoundingly endorse the agreement in referendums held both in northern Ireland and the Irish republic.
Four months later the peace is shattered by IRA dissidents, who plant a car bomb that kills 29 people in the town of Omagh -- the single worst atrocity of the Troubles.
But the attack has the effect of invigorating rather than endangering the peace process.
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