The Belfast (Good Friday) Agreement

This resource takes a twin track approach to the subject matter.

Track 1: The significance of the Belfast (Good Friday) Agreement of 1998

The Agreement was clearly an event of huge historical significance. However, it can sometimes be difficult to articulate why this was the case. This collection of documents aims to help students to meet this challenge. In the first instance, they are presented with two documents in which prominent political figures clearly think the Agreement was significant and successful. They are then asked to examine six more documents which all illuminate some aspect of the attempts to implement the Agreement and make it work. In the process the documents also provide evidence of the difficulties faced and the determination of the participants to overcome these difficulties.

Track 2: How historians use sources

This resource is NOT an examination practice paper. It is designed to take one step back from the exam question-based approach and to explore how historians think about documents and make use of them. The aim is that by understanding this set of fundamentals, students will be better equipped for the inevitably more limited approaches which examination conditions place on them. In this instance, students are introduced to the concept of a line of argument. This is a challenging idea, and it is difficult to master. With this in mind, we have provided some examples of lines of argument relating to the key issue of the significance of the Agreement for relations between Great Britain, Northern Ireland and Ireland.

The five possible lines of argument are:

1. The Agreement ended all of the tensions over Northern Ireland between the UK and Ireland.
2. The Agreement failed to ease tensions over Northern Ireland between the UK and Ireland.
3. Some groups actively opposed the Agreement even after it was signed.
4. All sides gave up on the Agreement after it was signed.
5. Despite the problems, all sides worked hard to make the Agreement work and this helped to ease tensions over Northern Ireland between the UK and Ireland.

In each source we ask students to consider which argument the document could be used to support. For each document, there are additional questions to aid students in their analysis.

Students should complete the table before discussing which of the lines of argument are supported by the sources. It is possible that several are supported so they will then need to make a judgement about which has the most evidence and is the most convincing.

Once students have decided on a line of argument, they should develop an extended paragraph in response to the question “What was the significance of the Belfast (Good Friday) Agreement?” Their answer should explain why they have chosen the line of argument and what evidence from the sources supports it.

Please note, the transcripts of the resources retain any typographical errors included in the original documents.