Title: Making Peace in Northern Ireland
Subtitle: The Miracle of the Good Friday Agreement and the Creation of a Fair and Just Democracy
Subject Classification:  Politics and Government, War and Conflict, History  
BIC Classification: JP, HB, GTJ
BISAC Classification: HIS018000, POL034000, PSY017000
Binding: Hardback, Paperback, eBook
Publication date: 24 Feb 2025
ISBN (Hardback): 978-1-83711-118-3
ISBN (eBook): 978-1-83711-119-0
ISBN (Paperback): 978-1-83711-120-6

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Description

This book examines the remarkable process that led to peace in Northern Ireland after decades of violence. That story lies in its granular history but equally in an appreciation of its psychological dynamics, especially the emergence in the social and political realm of what the author calls radical empathy.

The leaders who made peace happen were all larger than life, figures out of some 19th Century opera strutting across the stage of history. But there was another hero in the mix, one often noted for his presence but not fully appreciated by scholarly observers for his contributions to the peace process: John Alderdice. The son of a moderate Presbyterian minister, a medical doctor, and a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, Alderdice brought to the peace process his grasp of others, his generosity, and clarity of vision.

The Northern Irish story is immensely complicated but in the end uplifting. They deserve the peace they have made for themselves. The story of the Troubles is horrifying, but the story of peacemaking is not just dramatic - it inspires hope. If the Irish can make peace, anyone can. That may be the most important lesson of this book. And that lesson is transferable.

Biography

Author(s):  Charles B. Strozier, PhD, is Emeritus Professor of History, John Jay College and the Graduate Center, The City University of New York, and a practicing psychoanalyst.

Reviews

"Charles Strozier is right to assert, in this important book about the Irish Peace Process, that the key transferable lesson from the 1998 Belfast/Good Friday Agreement is not the form of power-sharing government agreed, but rather the way the negotiators clarified and then addressed the three sets of disturbed historic relations that had, over centuries, resulted in intractable political violence in Ireland. In his appreciation of the centrality of relationships Strozier gives a uniquely informed exploration of the psychology of each of the key Northern Irish political leaders in the Talks Process as well as a description of their relationships as the Talks proceeded to the fraught and emotional final days before Good Friday 1998. The stories are told in a warm and accessible style with many personal insights. His account is also unusual in the appreciation he shows that it was not just the sealing of the Agreement but the long-term attention to implementation by the British, Irish, and American governments which ensured that well over a quarter of a century later no-one expects a return to violence in spite of the predictable political disagreements between the parties. In this, it is very different from many of the peace deals in other places, most of which do not survive for more than seven years and a third of which never get as far as implementation. Strozier answers important questions about how and why the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement has survived in an account that is not just for those who are interested in recent Irish history but is a lively description of ‘lessons learnt’ with direct relevance for peacemakers across the world."
- John, Lord Alderdice FRCPsych, Senior Research Fellow, Harris Manchester College, University of Oxford, Alliance Party Leader (1987–1998) and First Speaker of the Northern Ireland Assembly (1998–2004)

"It is rare to find a book as multidimensional and exceptional as Charles Strozier’s Making Peace in Northern Ireland. Strozier masterfully weaves together history, politics, psychology, and philosophy into a volume of hope for today’s fractured world. He not only vividly narrates the story of how a peaceful settlement to the Troubles that had torn Northern Ireland apart for decades was achieved, but keenly elucidates the philosophical and psychological principles that allowed the peace process to succeed, principles that can be used in other places in the world devastated by factions. In particular, he shows how empathy, especially empathy for those with whom one is in conflict, can be transformative in generating a social world in which people with radically different perspectives and belief-systems can live in peace and even mutual appreciation. In telling this extraordinary story Strozier uses his psychoanalytic understanding of the human psyche to give us poignant insights into the personalities who played pivotal roles both in the conflict and its resolution. This book is not simply a fine historical narrative and an astute probing into the human mind, but a vision for how a world of peace might be achieved. It is a treasure."
- John Hanwell Riker, Professor of Philosophy (Colorado College), Co-Editor-in-Chief of Psychoanalysis, Self, and Context.

"This brilliant and revelatory book by Charles B. Strozier, a leading psychologist of such violence, is a message of hope showing how peacemaking is possible between the most intractable enmities, religious and ethnic enmities rooted in histories of unjust humiliation and seemingly endless retributive violence between the Protestants and Catholics of Northern Ireland. Strozier takes us not only into the background history of the conflict, but into the histories of each of the leading figures on both sides of the conflict. Strozier has woven a complex tapestry, a rich and unforgettable psychologically astute history of how people for whom violence has become their only mode of communication can be brought finally to participate in common democratic institutions finding a democratic voice and road to a democratic peace, and how such institutions are, in fact, in the interest of everyone. It is an astonishing and spectacular achievement, a much needed reminder that even apparently intractable violence is neither inevitable nor without remedy, and will be broadly of interest to people everywhere seeking a democratic and just peace."
- David A.J. Richards, Edwin D. Webb Professor of Law, New York University.

"This book is a gift in giving readers a feel for the interweaving of empathy and hatreds in real life conflicts. Strozier show how empathy makes everything look and feel different, and makes the impossible possible. Making Peace in Northern Ireland is a great book, and a great gift. It offers whoever reads it a sense of what may be possible because making peace by violent people has actually happened; a feel for the empathy that can come to life and what that can give birth to; and the many other factors, including dumb luck, to look for and to maximise in the long after-birth process of nursing a beginning into being an enduring reality."
- Michael Britton, EdD, psychotherapist and Adjunct Faculty, Rutgers University Graduate School of Education

"Why, you might ask, would a self psychologist want to read a book about how peace was achieved in Northern Island? First, its author, Charles Strozier, brilliantly combines his skills as a biographer (especially of Kohut, but also of Lincoln), as an historian (especially of terrorist events, groups, and movements), and as a deeply knowledgeable self psychologist to tell the extraordinary tale of how a country which had been decimated with violence, intolerance of diversity, hatred, and prejudice for a quarter of a century (and much longer) could achieve a lasting peace. I know of no other person who combines these disciplines with such mastery as Strozier, and no other person who could give an account of this incredible history with as much psychological depth as Strozier. The second reason for why self psychologists would like to read this book is that the lead character is John Alderdice, a psychiatrist/psychotherapist/Presbyterian/politician, who used his clinical skills, especially his empathy, to not only help bring about the peace but to implement it; thereby revealing how self psychology’s discovery of the power of empathy to be psychologically transforming can expand out of the clinic and into world history. In showing how empathy was essential in bringing about peace in Northern Island, Strozier located a key philosophical tenet that can be transported to other regions of the world troubled by factionalism, including the United States. In this way the book has direct relevance to peace makers around the world. The third reason to read the book is that it’s just a damn good story, told by a master storyteller. Many periods and events in history do not lend themselves to high drama the way that this history does, and the way Strozier beautifully weaves together historical events, political tensions, character studies, and psychological insights to tell a tale whose outcome is more improbable than an Irish fairy tale is simply engrossing. This book is a treasure for all who hope that humans might one day be able to live in peace with each other rather than needless and dehumanizing violence."
- Professor John Hanwell Riker, Colorado College; Co-editor-in-chief of Psychoanalysis, Self, and Context

"Everyone who grew up in Northern Ireland during the Troubles will have their own view on what happened during that time. Each of these individual views will necessarily be highly emotionally charged. As Charles Strozier explains, between the late 1960s and 1998, around 3,700 people were killed and close to 50,000 were injured in three decades of brutal violence. Strozier’s book tells the story of the conflict from its beginnings to the negotiation of the Good Friday Agreement, which brought the violence to an end. Several issues present them-selves. Some of these issues include the clarity with which Strozier structures the narrative, the dispassionate language he uses, with one or two exceptions, to describe highly emotive events, and the weight he gives to both the international context and the structural changes, which made the end to the violence possible. In terms of the international context, Northern Ireland was just one of a constellation of state actors whose influence and interests converged in the Good Friday Agreement. These included the British and Irish governments, successive U.S. administrations, and the European Un-ion, of which both the UK and Ireland were then part. In terms of structural change, during the 30 years of the Troubles, the problems that had caused the violence in the first place gradually disappeared. The embrace of education by the Catholic community played a major role in this change, narrowing the disparities between Catholics and Protestants so that discrimination in jobs and housing receded enormously. Another issue that emerges in my reading concerns Strozier’s framing of the Northern Ireland Peace Process as a story of hope and inspiration. This is, of course, the dominant narrative, as captured in Van Morrison’s wonderful anthem “Days Like This” (1995). But it could be framed differently. The end of the violence came about largely because those engaged in it agreed to stop. They agreed to stop in part because the context had changed, and in part because further violence was achieving nothing."
- Dr Ian Hughes, Clio ́s Psyche, Volume 32, Number 3, Summer 2025