Sir Jeffrey Donaldson of the DUP, who was part of the Ulster Unionist negotiating team before the deal, said the party`s chairman, David Trimble, had been harassed for signing an erroneous deal. George Mitchell led the discussions that led to the 1998 peace agreement. If you`d like to get an overview of the current perspectives of the important agreement, take a look at Vimeo from the well-produced 17-minute documentary “Building Peace: 20 Years on from the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement,” produced especially for the commemorative ceremony. Queens University has commissioned a local group of online journalists to detail.ie conduct interviews with insiders from six political parties. In recognition of his role in the Northern Ireland peace process, Mr. Mitchell received the President of Liberty and the Liberty Medal and was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1998. In 1999, Mitchell was named a Knight of Honour of the Order of the British Empire (GBE). That has not always been the case. When Mitchell was first introduced as the likely chairman of the peace negotiations in Stormont, there was a lot of hostile reaction in the ranks of trade unionists. Not only was he American, but he also seemed to be part of the North American lobby, friendly with the Kennedys and close to a president far too gentle on Irish nationalists. In the medieval way of thinking that captures certain elements in Northern Ireland, Mitchell`s religion was another blow to him. Wasn`t he some kind of Catholic? The honourable senator must have wondered what he was getting into.

“It`s a new experience for me,” he told a New York Times reporter. “In 30 years of American politics, no one has asked what my religion was or where my parents came from.” He also said he hoped power-sharing could be restored in Northern Ireland, but he knew at the time of the agreement that there would be problems to be solved in the future. “Well, first of all, the main victim of a hard border will be the Irish people, the Republic of Ireland. The British who made this decision – and a democratic vote that must be respected – will suffer because democracy does not guarantee a good result, it guarantees a fair trial, and I think history will show that the United Kingdom made a fundamental mistake in adopting Brexit. They will be hurt, but the people who will be really hurt will be the Republic of Ireland because their economy is fully integrated with that of the United Kingdom.