Documents On GFA Negotiations Made Available Online

The Department for Communities has announced the release of a range of documents from the period leading up the signing of the Good Friday Agreement have been made available online.

Almost 500 documents relating to 1997 and 1998 have been added to the CAIN (Conflict Archive on the Internet) website – a partnership between the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland (PRONI) and Ulster University.

The new material, which until now has not been accessible to the public online, provides insight into some of the key events and development during a critical period.

It includes:

• Coverage of the political negotiations leading up to the signing of the Good Friday Agreement / Belfast Agreement in April 1998.

• Reference to the efforts that followed to establish the new political bodies and institutions envisaged under the Agreement.

• Other political and security matters including the parading issue, which often dominated the news agenda during 1997 and 1998.

Explaining the importance of the collaborative project between government and academia, David Huddleston, PRONI Acting Director, said: "It is important that public records are made easily available to help increase understanding of our recent past by showing the details and thinking behind political developments.

"The work with CAIN has enhanced access to key historical documents by making them viewable online from anywhere in the world. The PRONI on CAIN resource now amounts to a significant volume of archive material dating from the 1960s to 1998 and I welcome the ongoing collaboration with Ulster University to make this possible."

Dr Brendan Lynn, CAIN Deputy Director and Politics Lecturer at Ulster University, added: "CAIN is delighted to continue its co-operation with PRONI, which now dates back to 2010. The addition of this new material brings the total number of PRONI documents on CAIN to just over 4,000. I would like to take the opportunity to thank the Department for Communities for the funding provided to CAIN, back in November 2021, that enabled this latest piece of work to be completed.

"The information itself is easily available and free of charge and will be undoubtedly of great interest to students, researchers, teachers and lecturers or to anyone looking for information on the recent political and social history of Northern Ireland."