Good Friday 1998

I didn’t wake up on Good Friday 1998. I didn’t need to. Nobody had slept in the SDLP negotiating team since Wednesday night. The Mitchell deadline of a deal by Thursday had come and gone but change was in the air and nobody was going home until the job was done.

I had been the SDLP’s Director of Communications since November 1996 and by now was well established with the party’s negotiating team and the press. During 1998 many of us got to know the doyennes of world journalism as they dropped in to be part of history and the agreement. We also built strong and deep relationships with the local press on these islands. Relationships I still treasure today. 

This is a story of two days, a divided and difficult one for unionism during which the UUP haemorrhaged good people but carried on with courage to allow, as Seamus Mallon put it, the beginning of the new beginning to begin. On the other hand it was a day of absolute achievement for the SDLP. The fulfilment of step one of John Hume’s historic mission to change three sets of relationship – between the people of Northern Ireland, the relationship between north and south and finally the historic conflict between the British and Irish states.

The internal divisions within the UUP were affecting the dynamics of the talks and created a stop start atmosphere at times. Sen George Mitchell as always was masterful as were the Taoiseach and Prime Minister, maintaining focus and honing in, bit by bit on the critical issues. The SDLP had been carrying the weight of the talks for nationalism from day one. Right up to Good Friday Sinn Fein would only really engage in Strand 2, North – South issues, which left Mallon, Hume, Durkan, Rodgers, Farren and the rest of the team to negotiate everything else by themselves. If you are ever wondering who to thank for the new beginning in policing, the power sharing executive, the equality protections and guarantees or the North – South Ministerial Council I suggest you shake an SDLP negotiators hand. By the middle of the night it was apparent that agreement was possible. Brid Rodgers hugged a colleague though the blinds and was captured on TV. This was the first sign the media had that we were on the way. Mo popped in (minus wig) for a cuppa. The time had come to say thanks and share a story or two. 

Breakfast came and the staff in the canteen put on their best show. Their were table cloths and salmon and scrambled eggs on the menu. Hume’s favourite and what a perfect way to say thanks. During breakfast I got called from the White House, ‘could Mr Hume take a call from the President?’ . We found a quiet space and he did. ‘Thank you said Bill Clinton, thank you for everything you have done and for never giving up’. When Hume returned with the news it put more than a couple of smiles on the tired faces.

After breakfast the radio and TV news shows. Mallon, Hume and I walked into the perfect spring morning to tour the portable studios and outside broadcast points. They did 25 live broadcasts between them. Aine Lawlor’s RTE interview with John sticks in my mind. He opened it with the words ‘this will be a very good, Good Friday’.

The SDLP delegation room began to fill up during the morning. Partners and spouses joined us. It was their achievement too. They had kept our real lives going during months of talks and endless trips. Pat Hume was adamant we have red roses – the symbol of social democracy – to wear. My wife, Joanne and several others were dispatched to scour East Belfast for as many red roses converted to lapelle flowers as possible. They returned with a box full and wondering if the shops would have been happy to sell them if they knew who would be wearing them and why. The hour or two before the final ceremony were a little weird. The loos were full of grown men taking builders showers and changing suits. The final wording of the agreement was being printed off and passed around. Everyone wanted their’s signed. Our corridor which housed the SDLP, SF and Irish Government delegations was buzzing with congratulations.

Formalities over, we lined up to speak to the press. The PMs went first then us, I think. Ahern said ‘this is a day we should treasure, a day when agreement and accommodation have taken the place of difference and division’. Hume called for the work to continue ‘ once in a generation does an opportunity like this come along, an opportunity to resolve our deep and tragic conflict’. The press conference on the steps of Castle Buildings went on for twenty minutes. The SDLP spoke in English, Irish, French and Spanish and at the end instead of the usual walk away their was applause, sustained applause from the several hundred journalists who decided they wanted to honour and thank the peacemakers. The walk to the OB units was surreal. It is not often that the press hug politicians and even more rare that they cry tears of joy in their company. That day, Good Friday 1998, the dye was cast. These islands had changed and in the words of Seamus Heaney; hope and history rhymed.

The SDLP negotiating team was chaired by Brid Rodgers and lead by Seamus Mallon and of course John Hume was always there for the heavy lifting and the inspirational guidance. It included Mark Durkan, Sean Farren, Denis Haughey, Alex Attwood and Eddie McGrady. Also playing a role were Tommy Gallagher, Patsy McGlone, Alban McGuinness, Frank Feely, Dorita Field (most pictured above in the SDLP rooms during the morning) as well as all the delgates elected to the furum in 1995. Eilis Haughey, Tim Attwood, Gerry Cosgrove, Catherine Matthews and myself, Conall McDevitt, provided the support. That day changed all our lives and remains one of the proudest of my life.