The most complete guide to the Northern Ireland peace process, this edition marks the tenth anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement. By an authority on the process who covered the talks daily, it is an exciting, blow-by-blow account of the lead up to the end of the conflict. Providing insights into the behind-the-scenes activities resulting in the power-sharing government of Sinn Fein and Ian Paisley's DUP the author assesses the outcome of the peace process and whether or not there may be moves towards a united Ireland. This new, updated edition reveals: * Different sides in the negotiations became so closely involved senior British and Irish civil servants drafted statements which were subsequently issued in the name of the IRA; * Tony Blair turned the air blue with expletives as he discovered his government was giving Ian Paisley a photo album for his 50th wedding anniversary while the Irish Government's present was a sculpture carved from a tree on the site of the Battle of the Boyne; * Secret sessions took place between British, Irish and republican representatives in Belfast's Clonard Monastery to resolve the issue of IRA decommissioning; * The Irish Government thought the British had unilaterally sidelined the Good Friday Agreement at the closing stages of the St Andrews talks in Scotland in October 2006; * The Irish played Gaelic football in the Hillsborough grounds between negotiating sessions; * Crucial negotiations between Sinn Fein and DUP ended with diagrams of the seating for their joint announcement in March 2007 that they were going into government together.

Table of Contents

Preface to second edition viii Acknowledgements ix Glossary xiii Chapter 1 'Who's Afraid of Peace?' 1 Chapter 2 Restoring the Ceasefire 24 Chapter 3 The Elephant and the Mouse 62 Chapter 4 A Road Map to Agreement 92 Chapter 5 The Long Good Friday 111 Chapter 6 Lifting the Siege 142 Chapter 7 Two Minds, One Country 162 Chapter 8 The Sword of Damocles 187 Chapter 9 The Famous Declaration 219 Chapter 10 'Seismic Shifts' 238 Chapter 11 'We'll Burn that Bridge When we Come to it' 275 Chapter 12 No Hat, No Rabbits 302 Chapter 13 Trimble's Risk for Peace 332 Chapter 14 Groundhog Day 363 Chapter 15 The Healing has Begun 387 Epilogue 407 Endnotes 409 Select Bibliography 426 Index 427

Author Biography

Deaglan de Breadun is Political Correspondent of The Irish Times and a former Northern Editor and Foreign Affairs Correspondent. As head of the paper's Belfast Bureau, he covered the multi-party talks leading to the historic Good Friday Agreement. His reportage of the peace process won the Northern Ireland Press and Broadcast Award for daily news journalism.