Old Newscast: The Good Friday Agreement, 1998 (Part 2)

Newscast

BBC

Politics, News

4.4 • 6.4K Ratings

🗓️ 19 April 2025

⏱️ 38 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Today, we’re going to look back at the impact after the signing of the Good Friday Agreement.

It was the deal that brought an end to 30 years of conflict in Northern Ireland, known as the Troubles - and cost the lives of more than 3,500.

Adam is joined by Nick Watt, Newsnight’s political editor and Annita McVeigh, BBC News chief presenter, who closely followed events at the time.

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Newscast brings you daily analysis of the latest political news stories from the BBC. It was presented by Adam Fleming. It was made by Jack MacLaren with Miranda Slade. The technical producer was Dafydd Evans. The assistant editor is Chris Gray. The editor is Sam Bonham.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello, in the last episode of old newscast. We were talking about the 10th of April
0:09.6	1998, when lots of people descended on Belfast to seal the Good Friday Agreement, which brought
0:16.7	an end to the troubles, the political violence in Northern Ireland that had claimed thousands
0:21.7	and thousands of lives over decades. Now we're going to talk about the consequences of the Good
0:27.7	Friday Agreement, some of the threats to the Good Friday Agreement, some of the things
0:31.7	that have happened that almost looked like they were going to knock it off course. That's all coming
0:36.6	up in this second
0:37.6	episode of Old Newscast about the Good Friday Agreement.
0:42.3	Newscast. Newscast from the BBC. I feel the hand of history upon our shoulder. Today is about
0:47.2	the promise of a bright future. This is a remarkable place with remarkable people. The union
0:52.5	is stronger than it was when we sat dark.
0:56.0	This is a phase in our struggle.
0:58.0	In peace, everybody can win.
1:02.0	And here is Nick Watt from Newsnight, but who spent many years in Northern Ireland.
1:06.0	Hello, Nick.
1:07.0	Hi, Adam.
1:08.0	And taking a break from reporting on things like Katie Perry going into space on the BBC News channel.
1:11.6	It's Anita McVeigh. Hello, Anita.
1:13.4	Adam, thank you very much.
1:15.1	Can I start with a really quite embarrassing question, which I probably should know the answer to, but I never quite found out.
1:21.1	Why do some people call it the Belfast Agreement rather than the Good Friday Agreement?
1:25.5	Belfast Agreement is how unionists tend to refer to it.
	...

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