The drive for peace was started on a rocky road

Ryle Dwyer looks at cross-channel relations after the Anglo-Irish Agreement was signed as neither government backed down despite continued terrorist attacks

Ryle Dwyer looks at cross-channel relations after the Anglo-Irish Agreement was signed as neither government backed down despite continued terrorist attacks

In the wake of the Anglo-Irish Agreement of 1985, the loyalist and unionist opposition — led largely by Ian Paisley — was every bit as strong as the opposition that brought down the Sunningdale Agreement of 1973. But British prime minister Margaret Thatcher took a much more defiant stand than her predecessor.