The conflict in Northern Ireland has centuries-old causes of a religious nature. In the late 1960s the conflict between the two communities, Catholic and Protestant, from which the two terrorist armies originated, forced the government in London to intervene and suspend the local Parliament. Only at the beginning of the 1990s, with the negotiations between the British and Irish governments involved by the conflict, did the province begin to glimpse any faint hope for peace. This was strengthened by the “Good Friday” agreement, signed in 1998, which gave rise to a power-sharing government and parliament in Northern Ireland in which the various parties would be represented. With a referendum the populations of Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland gave their support to the agreement and for the first time the Republic eliminated from its own Constitution the article in which it claimed to have the right to govern Ulster. A key moment in the transformation of the situation in the province was in September 2005, when the commission appointed to supervise the handing over of weapons by the terrorists of the IRA confirmed that the Irish Republican Army had dismantled its own arsenal. Last October negotiations began to end direct rule from London and revive the devolved power-sharing government of the province; a provisional assembly was installed in November. Another key turning point took place in January this year when Sinn Fein decided to give its support to the Northern Ireland police force. On 7 March the electorate of Northern Ireland elected the members of the new Parliament: the Protestant party of the Rev. Ian Paisley obtained 36 members and Sinn Fein 28. The leaders of the two parties that represent the two sides of the conflict, Ian Paisley and Gerry Adams, then met and pledged to govern the province together.
