Niall Ó Dochartaigh, “Making Peace in the Shadows”

Join us for “Making Peace in the Shadows: Back-Channel Negotiation in the Irish Peace Process,” a lecture by Niall Ó Dochartaigh.

Secret back-channels that linked the British and Irish governments to both the IRA and loyalist paramilitaries were crucial to the eventual success of the peace process in Northern Ireland. Secrecy provided a way for longstanding enemies to establish the authority of opposing leaders, to discuss proposals without making any public commitments, and to develop the limited trust on which a settlement could be built, all the while shielding these tentative efforts from those who did not want the process to succeed.

Drawing on a rich store of new evidence that has emerged in recent years, this lecture examines how and why these channels were first established and how they operated. It explores the effects of back-channel contact on intra-party struggles on all sides and discusses the importance of back-channels in drawing the positions of opposing parties closer at crucial moments. It considers, too, the prominence of former colonial officials in Britain’s ‘covert diplomacy’ in Northern Ireland.

The maneuvering that took place during these secret contacts indicates that antagonists were more open to compromise than the often intransigent public rhetoric suggested and calls into question the view that the conflict persisted for so long because of irreconcilable political ideologies.

This lecture draws on this new evidence to challenge some conventional notions about the conflict and offer a fresh analysis of the factors that sustained conflict for so long and that eventually made a peace settlement possible.











When: Thu., Feb. 13, 2025 at 7:00 pm - 8:30 pm
Where: Glucksman Ireland House NYU
1 Washington Mews
212-998-3950
Price: Free
Buy tickets/get more info now
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Join us for “Making Peace in the Shadows: Back-Channel Negotiation in the Irish Peace Process,” a lecture by Niall Ó Dochartaigh.

Secret back-channels that linked the British and Irish governments to both the IRA and loyalist paramilitaries were crucial to the eventual success of the peace process in Northern Ireland. Secrecy provided a way for longstanding enemies to establish the authority of opposing leaders, to discuss proposals without making any public commitments, and to develop the limited trust on which a settlement could be built, all the while shielding these tentative efforts from those who did not want the process to succeed.

Drawing on a rich store of new evidence that has emerged in recent years, this lecture examines how and why these channels were first established and how they operated. It explores the effects of back-channel contact on intra-party struggles on all sides and discusses the importance of back-channels in drawing the positions of opposing parties closer at crucial moments. It considers, too, the prominence of former colonial officials in Britain’s ‘covert diplomacy’ in Northern Ireland.

The maneuvering that took place during these secret contacts indicates that antagonists were more open to compromise than the often intransigent public rhetoric suggested and calls into question the view that the conflict persisted for so long because of irreconcilable political ideologies.

This lecture draws on this new evidence to challenge some conventional notions about the conflict and offer a fresh analysis of the factors that sustained conflict for so long and that eventually made a peace settlement possible.

Buy tickets/get more info now