A VERY GOOD FRIDAY AGREEMENT, 1998
Topic Summary
After a bitter conflict that had claimed the lives of over 3,000 people in 30 years, in 1998 Northern Ireland's leader and the UK and Irish Governments came together to agree the Good Friday/Belfast Agreement. Brokered by the US, the Agreement came following a conflict between Irish nationalist and British unionist people in Northern Ireland with deep running cultural and political divisions. The ‘GFA ’was more than an average peace treaty - on the negotiating table - and now your negotiating table - was amending the constitutions of two separate countries, the ending of a territorial dispute, the release of thousands of prisoners before their sentences had been fully served. Join us as we redefine the Anglo-Irish relationship, attempt to bring peace to an island plagued by conflict for a millennium and hopefully reach a settlement at the end. What that settlement will look like - or whether it will come to pass - will be up to you.
Director’s Letter
Dear Delegates
I am so excited for you guys to experience A Very Good Friday Agreement at this year’s Harvard Model United Nations!
My name is Will Smith, and I will be your director for this crisis committee. This committee will place you at the forefront of a pivotal moment in the recent history of British-Irish relations and force you to evaluate exactly what direction you want them to go. At the end of the eponymously named Troubles, you will have to balance the intensely emotional populace with your own realpolitik ambitions.
To tell you something about myself, I am a sophomore at Harvard looking to study History and Statistics. I am from Arlington, Massachusetts, a small town that used to be a part of Cambridge, so I am a local to the area. My interests lie in reading, specifically epic fantasy and wuxia novels, and playing video games like Elden Ring and Hades. I have been interested in Model UN ever since my first year of high school when friends in debate introduced me to the subject. Crisis has always been my favorite topic, and it was the topic that I competed for the most during high school.
Beyond HNMUN, I am also a senior staff member of Harvard Model United Nations, our high school MUN conference. At Harvard, I am also a proud member of the Harvard-Radcliffe Science Fiction Association (HRSFA) and the Harvard Undergraduate Gaming Group (HUGG).
I look forward to seeing how you all deal with the problems presented to you, and hope that you indeed have a very good Friday.
Will Smith
Director, A Very Good Friday Agreement
Harvard Model United Nations 2024
Crisis Director’s Letter
Hello Delegates!
I’m super excited to be welcoming you all to Harvard National Model United Nations, and I can’t wait to see you all take on the roles of the key actors in one of the greatest civil peacebuilding efforts of the 20th century - or perhaps history .
My name is Cormac Savage, a junior at Harvard College studying a joint concentration in Romance Languages and Literatures and Government. I’m originally from Northern Ireland - just outside Belfast so that’s what for me has really inspired this committee. I hadn’t done anything MUN related until my sophomore year of college and am now on Harvard’s competitive
MUN team.
I’m very excited to meet you all and watch you take on the challenge of a peace deal which has certainly defined my life. Last year in Ireland, we marked 25 years of peace in Northern Ireland as a consequence of the Agreement. It, however, is much more than simply a peace agreement. It is a complex international accord that redefined the relationship between the UK and Ireland on the world stage, saw the UK introduce devolved administrations and Ireland amend its constitution. Those are just some of the issues you’ll reckon with in this committee with the backdrop of a 30 year conflict’s rocky ceasefire,
Looking forward to meeting all of you and witnessing the moves you make in the name of the maintenance of global peace and international security.!
See you soon!
Cormac Savage
Director, A Very Good Friday Agreement, 1998
Harvard National Model United Nations 2024