November 30, 2025
Senator George J. Mitchell
Today’s event marks the Thirtieth Anniversary of President Bill Clinton’s first visit to Northern Ireland, the first time an American president visited there while in office.
It was an historic visit, an important link in the chain of events that led to the end of political violence in Northern Ireland.
Before Clinton, no American president, not even those of Irish heritage would get involved in that conflict.
It was seen as intractable and it involved two of our nation’s closest allies: the United Kingdom, our mother country, with which we have long had a special relationship; and Ireland, with which we share a deep bond of blood, with more than thirty million Americans of Irish heritage. In his campaign for the presidency Clinton pledges that he would make a real effort to end the violence in Northern Ireland, and he was true to his word.
On November 1, 1994, he issued a policy statement on Northern Ireland. It became a continuing process through which the problems there were given a high priority by an American Administration for the first time. In the statement he announced his sponsorship of a White House conference on trade and investment in Northern Ireland, as part of his strategy to encourage economic growth and job creation to assist in ending the political violence.
He later asked me to organize and chair that conference. He told me that it would be easy, part time, for six months.
I had a personal motive for accepting.
My father was raised in a Catholic orphanage in Boston, the child of Irish immigrant parents who he never knew. He was adopted by an elderly, childless couple from Maine who were immigrants from Lebanon. My father knew nothing about his birth heritage until later in his life.
Nearly a century later I welcomed the chance to learn about his heritage, and mine.
The trade conference went well, and President Clinton asked me to stay on for another six months.
There are unexpected twists and turns in most lives. But it is an understatement to say that I never expected the six months to become nearly six years, during which I chaired three separate but related negotiations that led to the Good Friday Agreement. In that effort I was greatly assisted by John de Chastelain, the former head of Canada’s Defense Forces, who was appointed by the UK government, and by Harry Holkeri, the former Prime Minister of Finland, who was appointed by the Irish government.
As we all now know, an important turning point was President Clinton’s visit to Northern Ireland and Ireland in late November of 1995. It was a highly successful trip. The President and Mrs. Clinton were warmly received in London, cheered in Northern Ireland, and embraced in Dublin. Huge crowds greeted them with rousing enthusiasm, especially at an evening event in Belfast.
The president rose to the occasion. His speeches were concise and to the point, reassuring to both sides; his informal remarks were eloquent. His interest in and knowledge of the subject came through, and the people voiced their appreciation.
Among the meetings I attended with him were with Ian Paisley, Gerry Adams, and David Trimble. Different as they were in background, religion, politics and temperament, all had the skills necessary for survival in the dangerous swirl of politics in Northen Ireland: intelligence, political savvy, a well honed sense of their communities, the ability to rouse a crowd through powerful oratory, and an unerring mastery of the TV sound bite.
The meetings with Paisley and Adams took place back-to-back, late at night, after the President had had a long and grueling day in London and Belfast. First Paisley and then Adams came in, each with a couple of aides. Twenty minutes had been set aside for each meeting. Each lasted thirty minutes.
President Clinton was very tired, his face drawn, his voice hoarse. Fortunately for him, he didn’t have to say anything other than “Hello” and “Goodbye.” Paisley immediately launched into a thirty-minute recitation of the history of Northern Ireland from the unionist point of view. It was a fascinating story, well told, totally one-sided and persuasive if the listener knew nothing about Northern Ireland. There was no discussion. It was all very polite.
Paisley left and a few minutes later Adams came in with his entourage. Almost exactly the same thing happened. Adams delivered the history of Northern Ireland from the nationalist point of view. It too was a fascinating story, well told, also persuasive. Adams was not as emotional and expressive as Paisley had been, but he was every bit as articulate. Again, it was polite, but there was no discussion.
We were then driven to the hotel at which we were all staying, and the meeting with Trimble was held there. We were behind schedule and were quite late. Trimble was also very tired. So, the meeting with him was much shorter and less dramatic.
But in a sense, it was a better meeting because there was a substantive back and forth discussion, however brief.
Nearly three years later the people of Northern Ireland and their political leaders changed the course of their history. In April of 1998, the governments of Ireland and the United Kingdom, and eight of the Northern Ireland political parties, reached what has come to be known as the Good Friday Agreement.
The next month, in free and open democratic elections in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, the people overwhelmingly approved the Agreement.
They rejected political violence as a way to resolve their differences. They established a democratic and peaceful process as their preferred form of governance.
To fully appreciate what they accomplished it is necessary to understand a little of what they had been through.
Over several centuries what we know as the United Kingdom developed by the combining of England, Wales and Scotland into one political entity.
Although Ireland had come under English control centuries earlier, resistance continued there into the twentieth century.
In 1922, after a brief but bloody uprising, the people of Ireland gained their independence.
In most of Ireland there was a Catholic majority.
But in the six counties of its northeast there was a Protestant majority. After a contentious dispute, those six counties became Northern Ireland, a part of the United Kingdom, along with England, Scotland and Wales.
Over the following decades Northern Ireland was wracked by disagreement and violent clashes between unionists, predominantly Protestant, who wanted to remain part of the United Kingdom, and nationalists, predominantly Catholic, who wanted to be part of a united Ireland.
In the last great spasm of violence, in the quarter century prior to the peace agreement of 1998, a period that has come to be known as the Troubles, about 3,500 people were killed in sectarian violence, and about 50,000 were injured, many of them brutally and permanently maimed.
This was not a war between armies, or defined battlefields. It was a war of sudden and random bombings, of murder and maiming. Although it began as a paramilitary conflict, it soon descended into attacks on civilians.
Sudden death could and did strike anyone, anywhere, anytime. Fear hung over the whole society, like a heavy and unyielding fog. The political leaders of Northern Ireland had spent their entire lives in conflict.
Some had been directly involved in the killing and maiming.
The all-party negotiations that began in June 1996 were for a year and a half dominated by angry accusations, bitter insults, dramatic walkouts, and suspensions over prior acts of violence.
In late 1997 and early 1998 we hit rock bottom.
The murder of a prominent paramilitary leader touched off an escalating series of retaliatory killings.
The Saturday funerals, attended by thousands who demanded revenge, intensified.
The governments moved the talks from Northern Ireland to London in January and then to Dublin in February.
But there was no progress.
On the contrary, two parties were suspended from the talks and tensions rose, as did the violence.
Reluctantly, I concluded that the talks were doomed to failure, unless there was a dramatic change to force a decision.
So, I drafted a detailed plan for a final two weeks of negotiations that would begin in late March and end on Easter weekend, a final and unbreakable deadline. The process would then be over, one way or the other.
The governments and the eight political parties in the talks agreed, even though they still faced very difficult issues on which they held strongly conflicting views.
But the only alternative to an agreement was a return to devastating violence, almost certainly more widespread and destructive than ever before.
On the final week the prime ministers of the United Kingdom and of Ireland participated personally and effectively in the negotiations.
On the last night President Clinton stayed up all night at the White House on an open telephone line, participating long distance.
By the morning of April 10, Good Friday, we had assembled the product of all these efforts into a single document that had the support of both governments.
The final, favorable decision was made by the political leaders of Northern Ireland.
It was a political compromise, the best that could be achieved at the time. It did not resolve all of the outstanding issues.
But it brough to and end, hopefully permanently, the political violence that had for so long devasted Norther Ireland.
In the end credit should go to the people of Northern Ireland, who supported and worked for an agreement, and to their political leaders, who acted with courage, strength and vision.
Afterward, all were at some point criticized and rebuked. Some lost their political offices. Some of their political parties went into steep decline.
On both sides there were those who scorned the Agreement as a sellout. But the leaders did what was right and history will judge them favorably.
It will take time and perspective to assess the full impact and meaning of the Northern Ireland experience, both there and elsewhere.
If history teaches us anything it is that history itself is never finished. Life is constantly changing, for every human being, for every family, for every human institution and society.
And in human affairs the solution to every problem contains within it the seeds of a new problem.
There are eight and a half billion people in the world. Each is unique and all are fallible. Being keenly aware of my own limitations, I will limit my conclusions on the meaning and effect of the Northern Ireland peace process to this: whatever similarities or differences exist between and among human conflicts, courageous political leadership is indispensable to ending conflicts in any way other that total victory and defeat.
As we saw in Northern Ireland, great leaders can emerge to meet the moment.
Another factor there was, thanks to President Clinton, the direct peaceful involvement of the United States. He and Mrs. Clinton became deeply and personally involved, and they remain engaged to this day. As a result, without providing a single weapon or dropping a single bomb, the United States played a significant role in a positive and peaceful outcome.
It’s important to acknowledge that there are continuing divisions and disputes in Northern Ireland. A so-called peace wall still separates Protestants and Catholics in Belfast, the capital and largest city.
The major political parties remain largely based on religious preference, as does education and housing.
It will take a very long time for that to change.
The important lesson is that while all human societies have differences and disputes, they can and should be resolved through peaceful and democratic processes.
In that respect Northern Ireland stands as a powerful example of what is possible, even in a world deeply troubled by conflicts, old and new. In their journey the people of Northern Ireland deserve our continued friendship and support.