New Ireland Forum

Meeting between politicians of the Irish Republic and Northern Ireland in May 1983. It offered three potential solutions to the Northern Irish problem, but all were rejected by the UK the following year.

The Forum was the idea of John Hume (1923- ), leader of the Northern Irish Social Democratic Labour Party, and brought together representatives of the three major political parties of the republic, including Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael. The Forum suggested three possibilities for a solution to the Northern Irish problem: unification under a nonsectarian constitution, a federation of North and South, or joint rule from London and Dublin. It recognized that any solution would have to be agreed by a majority in the North, which seemed unlikely. All three options were rejected by the UK government after talks between the former British and Irish leaders, Margaret Thatcher and Garret FitzGerald, in November 1984 (known as the Anglo-Irish summit), although the talks led to improved communication between the two governments.