Search Results for 'Bertie Ahern'

The British-Irish agreement of the Good Friday Agreement (GFA) came into force on this day in 1999. After two years of protracted talks, the GFA of 1998 had finally achieved a binding consensus among political rivals in Northern Ireland that had not been achieved, or even attempted on such a scale, before. The GFA was more inclusive than previous political agreements in that its negotiating body, the Northern Ireland Forum, was open to all parties, nationalist, unionist, republican, loyalist and centre. The GFA was formally agreed by the Irish and British governments and participating parties on April 10 1998. Under the agreement, the governments committed to putting the settlement to the people of the Republic and Northern Ireland in referendums to be held on May 22 of that year. 

Hello to all the Athlone Advertiser readers. Well, we didn’t fare too well in the Aviva Stadium against the All Blacks last weekend. Nevertheless, it was a tough fight all round.

Robert Grace

“The best-laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Men / Gang aft agley (go often askew)” - Robert Burns said these words 250 years ago and he was right! Sean O’Casey said about 70 years ago - “The whole world’s in a terrible state of chassis”; both statements were true.

The Great Famine of 1845-51 was, the Galway historian Gearóid Ó Tuathaigh tells us*, ‘a subsistence crisis, and a social calamity without parallel in the 19th century. It resulted in more than 1,000,000 dying of starvation and related diseases; and it ‘precipitated a virtual tidal wave of emigration that would see 4,000,000 flee the country during the following 20 years’. 

I am writing about the above topic this week because recently we have had the obvious race beginning between the successors to Enda Kenny.

For many years Galway East was known as the dullest and most predicable of constituencies, reliably returning the same three TDs. Population growth and boundary changes saw the constituency gain a fourth seat in 1997, however, and this has given rise to some heated battles between the big two parties as well as seeing the emergence of Independent and Labour challenges.

I am writing about the above topic this week because recently we have had the obvious race beginning between the successors to Enda Kenny.