I'm doing a paper on the Northern Ireland Peace process in my IR class.  Did you know that there was another peace treaty prior to the Belfast (Good Friday) Agreement?  In 1973, it was agreed that the N. Ireland British Executive government devolved and the treaty made it so that Unionists and Loyalists would share power under supervision of the British government (a coalition government of sorts). It was called the Sunningdale experiment.  This failed because Britain decided to hold a general election in NI within a month of the newly formed government, and the results of this election was the overwhelming victory of the treaty opponents.  It also failed because the status of NI was never resolved and also because the treaty was interpreted differently by the opposing political groups.  Ironically, this misinterpretation was also an issue in the Belfast Agreement.