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Keenan

Dan Keenan

dkeenan11@qub.ac.uk

BSc (UUJ) MA (QUB)

The architecture of the Belfast Agreement: Is the accord an SDLP achievement?

I propose to research the contribution of the SDLP to the peace process, the ending of the IRA’s campaign in 1994-7 and its quitting the stage in 2005, and the creation of new political structures in Northern Ireland.

Among the main questions which I propose to address are:
 
Is the Belfast Agreement SDLP policy writ large, as it claims? Did John Hume successfully change the policy towards Northern Ireland of three governments – the British, the Irish and the US?

Did Hume, thorough his espousal of pan-nationalism and his initiative with Gerry Adams, mark out new political territory for republicanism thus enabling and the ending of the IRA campaign and the standing down of its organisation?

Did he also transform his party from one which sought “minority rights” and internal reform of Northern Ireland in 1970 to one which effectively transcended traditional Irish nationalism. Or was he effectively constrained by path-dependent and policy entrenched nationalist positions?


Was the SDLP the author of new thinking in relation to Northern Ireland or was it more accurately a vehicle for outside agencies, principally the Department of Foreign Affairs in Dublin and the Department of the Taoiseach, which sought to influence the Northern political situation?

Supervisors

Prof Richard English
Dr Margaret O’Callaghan