Reuters AlertNet Lite - CHRONOLOGY-Bumpy road to restoring self-rule in N. Ireland

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CHRONOLOGY-Bumpy road to restoring self-rule in N. Ireland

08 May 2007 15:14:53 GMT
Source: Reuters

May 8 (Reuters) - Northern Ireland's Protestant and Catholic leaders launched a new power-sharing government on Tuesday, aiming to put a final end to violence.

Following are events since the 1998 Good Friday agreement largely ended 30 years of sectarian conflict.

1998:

June - Elections to a new Protestant-Catholic power-sharing assembly. Protestant Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) leader David Trimble is elected First Minister-designate.

August - Car bomb in the market town of Omagh, west of Belfast, kills 29 people in the worst single attack of the conflict. The Real IRA splinter group claims responsibility.

1999:

December - Northern Ireland gets its own government in which Protestants and Catholics share power after 27 years of direct rule from London.

2000:

February - Britain suspends assembly amid anger by Protestants, who support ties to Britain, over the failure of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) guerrillas to disarm.

May - IRA says it will put its weapons into storage and allow inspections. Britain restores power to Belfast assembly.

2001:

June - IRA political ally Sinn Fein overtakes its more moderate rival, the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP), as Northern Ireland's biggest nationalist party in British parliamentary elections.

July - Trimble resigns over IRA's failure to disarm.

October - IRA says it has put some weapons "beyond use".

2002:

October - Sinn Fein offices at the Stormont parliament are raided by police investigating an alleged IRA spy ring. Britain suspends the assembly and resumes direct rule from London.

2003:

November - Election takes place with Ian Paisley's hardline Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) -- which opposed the Good Friday Agreement due to Sinn Fein involvement -- overtaking the UUP as the province's biggest pro-British party.

2004:

June - British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern set September deadline to end an impasse between long-time foes Sinn Fein and the DUP, but talks grind to a halt before the end of the year.

2005:

April - Sinn Fein calls on the IRA to end its armed campaign after a series of high-profile crimes linked to the group, including the killing of Belfast man Robert McCartney, which sparked international outrage.

July - The IRA says it has ordered its guerrillas to dump all arms and pursue their goals through purely peaceful means.

2006:

October - Northern Ireland's ceasefire watchdog, the Independent Monitoring Commission, says it believes the IRA is no longer engaged in terrorism.

-- Blair and Ahern launch talks with Northern Ireland's parties in Scotland and put forward a plan for reviving self rule by a March 26 deadline.

2007:

January - Sinn Fein's mostly Catholic membership votes overwhelmingly to back the Protestant-dominated Police Service of Northern Ireland after decades of opposition and mistrust, fulfilling a key condition for the revival of the assembly.

March - Both the DUP and Sinn Fein increase their shares of the vote in new assembly elections.

-- DUP leader Ian Paisley and Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams hold their first face-to-face meeting and agree to start sharing power on May 8.

May - A new power-sharing assembly government is launched on May 8, with Paisley as first minister and Sinn Fein's Martin McGuinness as his deputy.

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Last updated:Tue May 8 15:15:59 2007