On April 10, 2023, Northern Ireland will mark the 25th anniversary of the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement. In that period, Northern Ireland’s journey towards conflict transformation has been peppered with moments of both progress and setback. Few issues, however, have been more challenging and problematic than the UK vote to leave the EU. For Northern Ireland, the Brexit vote contributed to some deepening of political and communal divisions; the deterioration of relations between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland; and bilaterally between the UK and Ireland. It has also been a contributing factor in the refusal of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) (Northern Ireland’s largest unionist political party) to boycott the institutions created by the Good Friday Agreement.

This presentation details the impact of Brexit on Northern Ireland against the backdrop of continued disagreement around how to manage its fallout and determines what this means for the future of the Good Friday Agreement at this quarter century juncture.

Speaker

Mary C. Murphy holds a Jean Monnet Chair in European Integration and is a senior lecturer and Head of the Department of Government and Politics, University College Cork. She specializes in the study of the European Union relationship with Ireland, north and south, and has published extensively on the subject of Brexit.

Mary has authored two monographs Northern Ireland and the European Union: The Dynamics of a Changing Relationship (Manchester University Press 2014) and Europe and Northern Ireland’s Future: Negotiating Brexit’s Unique Case (Agenda Publishing 2018) which was one of the first published studies of Northern Ireland and Brexit. In 2022, Mary co-authored (with Jonathan Evershed) A Troubled Constitutional Future: Northern Ireland after Brexit (Agenda Publishing 2022) and was editor of the report Cork and the Brexit Effect. Mary’s work has also been published in leading political science journals. She is a regular media commentator on Ireland/Northern Ireland and the EU, and has written op-eds for Irish and international media, including The Irish Times, Foreign Policy, and The Conversation.