‘Peace babies’ and the birth of the Good Friday agreement
Today in Focus
The Guardian
4.6 • 5.9K Ratings
🗓️ 7 April 2023
⏱️ 41 minutes
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| 0:00.0 | This is the Guardian. |
| 0:10.8 | 25 years ago, a peace agreement was signed in Northern Ireland, |
| 0:14.8 | and a baby girl was born. Today, we revisit both. |
| 0:30.8 | Good Friday, 1998 started on a snowy morning in Lisbon, |
| 0:36.8 | and we looked at the window and thought, |
| 0:38.8 | okay, a little bit of snow, we can cope with that, we can drive that. |
| 0:42.0 | A quarter century ago, people across the UK and Ireland were tense and hopeful. |
| 0:47.0 | Talks to finalised a peace deal in Northern Ireland are still going on, |
| 0:51.0 | but a final agreement is expected within hours, with strong hints |
| 0:55.0 | that the main points of an accord have been agreed. |
| 0:57.4 | At Stormont, outside Belfast, Republican and Unionist leaders |
| 1:01.4 | who had been bitter enemies for decades had gathered together |
| 1:04.8 | to hash out the final points of an agreement that they believed could bring |
| 1:08.8 | all that fighting to an end. |
| 1:10.4 | Despite speculation that Sinn Fein were poised to leave the talks down the road |
| 1:14.6 | that same morning, and Patterson, a lifelong resident of Northern Ireland, |
| 1:19.2 | was also having a pretty busy day. |
| 1:21.4 | She was on her way to the hospital. |
| 1:23.4 | About 7am, I went into labour, and we knew that the agreement talks were going on, |
| 1:30.0 | but at that stage, definitely quite far from my mind. |
| 1:34.6 | Now on BBC One, the news with Nicholas Wichil. |
| 1:37.2 | We had a TV on the wall in the ring. |
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