The Downing Street Declaration 1993

Peace Talks• By 1988 Hume (SDLP) agreed to peace talks with Adams (Sinn

Fein). The two got on well and had respect for each other• Hume was trying to convince Adams that the British did not

want a part in the running of NI and that Ireland would never be reunited as one by using violence. Adams didn’t believe this until the new Secretary for State Peter Brooke said the same.

• Brooke also said that the British would take the Nationalists aims as seriously as the Unionist’s if the IRA stopped their violent campaign.

• Brooke began talks with Unionists – the fact that they would go to talks showed that they would accept the fact that the South of Ireland would have a say in the North

• Hume was writing a “joint declaration” which would have to be agreed by Rep of Ireland and Britain

• 1990 - John Major became the new British Prime Minister (in a good position as he was much less hated than Thatcher) and Albert Reynolds became the new Irish Taoiseach. They were very open to peace.

• After more IRA bombings in Belfast the two decided to sign the Downing Street Declaration in Dec 1993

Downing Street Declaration 1993

• 1. said that the people of NI had the right to decide their own future without interference from London or Dublin govts

• 2. NI would become part of a 32 county united Ireland if, and only if, a majority of the NI population wanted to be.

• 3. The island of Ireland, North and South, as a whole had the right to solve issues between themselves without the interference from other countries.

• 4. it allowed parties like Sinn Fein and DUP who were attached to violence to sit down for peace talks IF they stop supporting violence. 10 months after the agreement was made paramilitaries on both sides had agreed to ceasefires.

Results of the DSD 1993• (+)The British outlined that their only job in NI was to

“encourage” peace.• (+)The Irish govt accepted that they could not force the

Protestant majority of NI to be part of a country they didn’t want to be part of.

• (+)The paramilitaries accepted that violence had not worked so far and wouldn’t in the future so they agreed to ceasefire.

• (+)Five years after signing DSD the Good Friday Agreement was signed which created a power-sharing executive in NI – this time SDLP, Sinn Fein, DUP and UUP were all involved.

• (+)NI has been mostly peaceful since.