Good Friday Agreement Timeline

A series of rounds of decommissioning by the IRA took place in October 2001, April 2002 and October 2003, fulfilling a key commitment of the Agreement. A date of May 2000 had originally been set for total disarming of all paramilitary groups.

An outline structure for the North/South Consultative Forum was agreed in 2002, and in 2006 the Northern Ireland Executive agreed it would support its establishment. As of 2020, however, the Forum had still not been created.

Following a series of decommissioning rounds, in July 2005 the IRA announced the formal end of its armed campaign, a landmark moment in the peace process.

Image source: Provisional Irish Republican Army

On 26 September 2005, it was announced that the Provisional Irish Republican Army had completely decommissioned its arsenal of weapons and put them beyond use.

In June 2009, the UVF announced it had completed decommissioning and the UDA said it had started to decommission its arsenal, extending the disarmament process begun under the Agreement.

Image source: Ulster Volunteer Force

On 6 January 2010, the UDA announced that it had put its weapons 'verifiably beyond use', completing the process of loyalist decommissioning envisaged by the Agreement.

Image source: Ulster Defence Association

In October 2012, this forum was created as the North/South Inter-Parliamentary Association. The British–Irish Parliamentary Assembly had already been expanded in 2001, as suggested by the Agreement, to incorporate parliamentarians from all members of the British–Irish Council.

Image source: British–Irish Parliamentary Assembly

The Ulster Unionist Party resigned from the power-sharing Executive in 2002 following the Stormontgate scandal, which saw three Sinn Féin members charged with intelligence-gathering. These charges were eventually dropped in 2005 on the controversial grounds that pursuit would not be 'in the public interest'.

Image source: Tuck shop

The DUP, the sole anti-Agreement party, overtook the pro-Agreement UUP in the 2003 Assembly election, reshaping unionist politics and complicating efforts to restore the devolved institutions.

Image source: 2003 Northern Ireland Assembly election

In 2004, negotiations were held between the two governments, the DUP, and Sinn Féin on an agreement to re-establish the devolved institutions following their suspension.

Further negotiations took place in October 2006, leading to the St Andrews Agreement, which paved the way for the restoration of devolved government and power-sharing in Northern Ireland.

Image source: St Andrews Agreement

In May 2007, a power-sharing executive was again established to govern Northern Ireland in devolved matters, with Ian Paisley as First Minister and Martin McGuinness as Deputy First Minister.

Image source: Northern Ireland Executive

Ian Paisley retired from the office of First Minister and from the leadership of the DUP on 5 June 2008 and was succeeded in both functions by Peter Robinson.

After Peter Robinson resigned as First Minister on 11 January 2016, he was replaced by Arlene Foster, who became the first female First Minister of Northern Ireland.

Image source: Arlene Foster

Upon Martin McGuinness's resignation on 9 January 2017, the devolved government in Stormont collapsed, as the Agreement demands when no new leader is appointed. The institutions remained dormant until January 2020, when the Executive was re-established.

Image source: Martin McGuinness

During the negotiations on Britain's planned 2019 withdrawal from the European Union, the EU produced a position paper setting out its concerns regarding the Good Friday Agreement, particularly around the Irish border.

Image source: Brexit withdrawal agreement

In order to protect North–South co-operation and avoid controls on the Irish border, the UK, led by Prime Minister Theresa May, agreed to protect the Agreement in all its parts and maintain full alignment with relevant Internal Market and Customs Union rules in the absence of agreed solutions, with the caveat that nothing is agreed until everything is agreed.

Image source: Irish backstop

The new Northern Ireland Protocol replaced the Irish backstop as part of the deal which Prime Minister Boris Johnson brokered on 17 October 2019, reshaping post-Brexit arrangements for Northern Ireland.

Image source: Northern Ireland Protocol

In September 2020, the Internal Market Bill was introduced, and Northern Ireland secretary Brandon Lewis told the House of Commons that the government planned to break international law in a 'specific and limited way' regarding EU treaty obligations. The bill was enacted in December 2020 without the controversial Northern Ireland provisions.

In March 2021, the Loyalist Communities Council, representing loyalist paramilitary groups, said they were temporarily withdrawing their support for the Agreement, but emphasised that unionist opposition to the protocol should remain 'peaceful and democratic'.