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Garret FitzGerald
Born
As Taoiseach, FitzGerald negotiated the Anglo-Irish Agreement with Margaret Thatcher in 1985, giving the Irish government a formal consultative role in Northern Ireland through a standing intergovernmental conference and secretariat at Maryfield. Unionists protested furiously, but the agreement established that London and Dublin would manage the conflict together, the framework within which every later deal was made. His 1981 'constitutional crusade' to make the Republic more pluralist was part of the same project.
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John Hume
Born
The SDLP leader's 'three-stranded' analysis, relationships within Northern Ireland, between north and south, and between Britain and Ireland, became the architecture of the 1998 agreement. Hume's secret talks with Gerry Adams from 1988, which drew heavy criticism at the time, helped bring Sinn Féin towards politics, and his contacts in Washington drew in American influence. He shared the 1998 Nobel Peace Prize with David Trimble. His party paid electorally as Sinn Féin overtook it.
More about John Hume3
Alec Reid
A Redemptorist priest at Clonard Monastery in west Belfast, Father Reid carried messages between Gerry Adams, John Hume and the Irish government from the late 1980s, the secret channel that made the Hume-Adams dialogue possible. He was photographed in 1988 giving the last rites to two soldiers killed by a crowd at an IRA funeral, an image that became one of the Troubles' most famous. He later witnessed the IRA's final act of decommissioning in 2005, alongside a Methodist minister.
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Peter Brooke, Baron Brooke of Sutton Mandeville
Born
As Northern Ireland Secretary, Brooke said in a November 1990 speech that Britain had 'no selfish strategic or economic interest' in Northern Ireland, a sentence aimed at republicans that undercut the IRA's claim to be fighting a colonial power. He also reopened a secret back channel to the republican leadership and launched the inter-party talks of 1991 on the three-strand basis. His quiet approach laid ground that his successors built on.
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Albert Reynolds
Born
Reynolds, Taoiseach from 1992 to 1994, took risks with republicans that his predecessors had avoided and built a working relationship with John Major. Together they issued the Downing Street Declaration of December 1993, in which Britain accepted that the people of Ireland, north and south, could decide on unity by consent, and Ireland accepted that unity required majority consent in the north. The IRA ceasefire followed in August 1994. His government fell in a domestic crisis that November.
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John Major
Born
Major's government kept a secret line of communication open with the IRA leadership even after the 1991 mortar attack on Downing Street, and he co-signed the 1993 Downing Street Declaration with Albert Reynolds. His later insistence on decommissioning before Sinn Féin entered talks, while relying on Ulster Unionist votes at Westminster, slowed progress and the IRA ended its first ceasefire with the Canary Wharf bomb in 1996. Much of the 1998 framework was in place before he left office.
More about John Major7
Gerry Adams
Born
As Sinn Féin president, Adams led the republican movement from armed struggle into politics, through the Hume-Adams talks, the 1994 and 1997 IRA ceasefires, the 1998 agreement and the IRA's decommissioning in 2005. His leadership kept most of the movement together through those compromises, which is the core of his contribution. He has always denied being a member of the IRA, a denial widely disbelieved, and many victims' families regard his role in the conflict as unaccounted for.
More about Gerry Adams8
Martin McGuinness
Born
A former IRA commander in Derry, McGuinness became Sinn Féin's chief negotiator in the 1990s and then Northern Ireland's deputy First Minister from 2007 to 2017. His unlikely working relationship with Ian Paisley earned them the nickname 'the Chuckle Brothers' and showed the institutions could function. In 2012 he shook hands with Queen Elizabeth II in Belfast. His resignation in January 2017, over a renewable heating scandal, collapsed power-sharing for three years, shortly before his death.
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David Trimble
Born
Trimble, elected Ulster Unionist leader in 1995 as a hardliner, became the unionist who signed. He took his party into the 1998 agreement despite half his MPs opposing it, won its referendum campaign and became First Minister, sharing the Nobel Peace Prize with John Hume. Repeated crises over IRA decommissioning eroded his support, and the Democratic Unionists overtook his party in 2003. His courage cost him his party's dominance, a pattern common among peacemakers.
More about David Trimble10
Seamus Mallon
Born
The SDLP's deputy leader and chief negotiator on the strand one talks over the internal institutions, Mallon became the first deputy First Minister alongside Trimble in 1998. His description of the agreement as 'Sunningdale for slow learners', a reference to the failed 1973 power-sharing deal, is one of the sharpest lines of the period. He was a forceful critic of the IRA and, later, of the idea that a 50 per cent plus one vote would be enough for Irish unity.
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Mo Mowlam
Born
Northern Ireland Secretary from 1997 to 1999, Mowlam broke convention in January 1998 by going into the Maze prison to talk to loyalist paramilitary prisoners, who had threatened to withdraw support for the talks, and persuaded them to stay in. Her informal, direct style made her hugely popular with the public. Unionist leaders found her partisan and Blair's team increasingly sidelined her, but her intervention at the Maze is widely credited with keeping the talks alive.
More about Mo Mowlam12
George J. Mitchell
Born
A former US Senate majority leader, Mitchell first produced the 1996 'Mitchell Principles' committing parties to democracy and non-violence, then chaired the multi-party talks for nearly two years. He set the final Easter deadline of 9 April 1998 that forced decisions, and the agreement was reached on 10 April after talks ran through the night. His patience and impartiality were valued even by parties suspicious of American involvement. He returned to review implementation in 1999.
More about George J. Mitchell13
Tony Blair
Born
Blair made Northern Ireland a personal priority from his first weeks in 1997, admitting Sinn Féin to talks after the renewed IRA ceasefire and spending the final days before Good Friday 1998 at Stormont, where he said he felt 'the hand of history' on his shoulder. He then led nine more years of crisis management, from the Weston Park and St Andrews talks to the 2007 restoration of power-sharing. Critics argue his concessions on prisoner releases and 'on-the-runs' letters went too far.
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Bertie Ahern
Born
Ahern negotiated the final days of the 1998 agreement while his mother's funeral took place, flying between Dublin and Belfast. He secured the Irish side of the deal: the referendum in the Republic that amended Articles 2 and 3 of the constitution, replacing the territorial claim to Northern Ireland with an aspiration to unity by consent, approved by 94 per cent. He stayed closely involved through to the 2007 settlement with Blair. Later tribunal findings about his personal finances damaged his domestic reputation.
More about Bertie Ahern15
Bill Clinton
Born
Clinton overruled the State Department and the British government in 1994 to grant Gerry Adams a visa to visit the United States, a gamble that strengthened Adams's hand within republicanism and helped secure the first IRA ceasefire. He appointed George Mitchell, visited Northern Ireland three times and made late-night phone calls to party leaders on the final night of the talks. American economic and political attention remained part of the process long after his presidency.
More about Bill Clinton16
Monica McWilliams
Born
An academic who co-founded the Northern Ireland Women's Coalition in 1996 to win a place at the talks, McWilliams was one of only a handful of women negotiators. The coalition pushed for clauses on victims, integrated education, a Civic Forum and equality of opportunity, and was often the only party talking to everyone. She later chaired the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission. Her presence is a reminder that civic participants, not just party leaders, shaped the agreement's text.
More about Monica McWilliams17
David Ervine
Born
A former Ulster Volunteer Force member who had been jailed for possessing explosives, Ervine became leader of the Progressive Unionist Party and one of the most articulate loyalist voices for peace. He helped broker the 1994 loyalist ceasefire and argued at the talks that working-class Protestants had been used by unionist politicians. He was elected to the Assembly in 1998. His death in 2007 removed one of the few figures able to keep loyalist paramilitaries engaged with politics.
More about David Ervine18
Jonathan Powell (civil servant)
Born
Blair's chief of staff, Powell was Britain's day-to-day negotiator with the republican leadership from 1997 to 2007, often meeting Adams and McGuinness in secret. His account, Great Hatred, Little Room, is the most detailed inside record of how the 1998 agreement and the 2007 settlement were reached. He later applied the lessons to talks elsewhere, including in Colombia, and became the UK's National Security Adviser in 2024. His career shows how much of a peace process is run by officials.
More about Jonathan Powell (civil servant)19
John de Chastelain
Born
A former Canadian chief of the defence staff, de Chastelain chaired the Independent International Commission on Decommissioning from 1997. His team's verification of IRA weapons destruction, culminating in the September 2005 report that the IRA had put all its arms beyond use, was the step unionists had demanded for years and paved the way for the DUP to share power. Loyalist decommissioning followed in 2009 and 2010. The independent, technical nature of his work was what made it credible to both sides.
More about John de Chastelain20
Ian Paisley
Born
For decades the loudest opponent of compromise, Paisley campaigned against the 1998 agreement and saw his Democratic Unionists overtake Trimble's party. Then, after the St Andrews Agreement of 2006 and Sinn Féin's acceptance of policing, he became First Minister in May 2007 alongside Martin McGuinness, a reversal few had predicted. His late conversion brought most of hardline unionism inside the institutions. Many in his own party and church never forgave him, and he was eased out within a year.
More about Ian Paisley21
Michelle O'Neill
Born
When power-sharing was restored in February 2024 after two years of DUP boycott, Michelle O'Neill became the first nationalist First Minister of Northern Ireland, with the DUP's Emma Little-Pengelly as deputy. She pledged to be a 'First Minister for all' and attended events, such as the coronation, that earlier republicans would have avoided. Her office is the clearest sign of how much the 1998 framework, with joint and equal offices, has absorbed demographic and political change.
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