Sinn Féin Conference (Ard Fheis)

From the collection of

Launched in 2000, Northern Ireland Screen’s Digital Film Archive spans from 1897 to the present day and currently contains an ever-expanding catalogue of 13,000 items. It comprises material from a variety of depositors including feature films, sport, documentaries, animation, amateur footage, light entertainment, and a significant proportion of broadcast material from the UTV Archive.

Sinn Féin Conference (Ard Fheis) (UTV News)

Northern Ireland Screen's Digital Film Archive
1994-07-25
Sound

The party responds to the Downing Street Declaration.

A UTV Live report on the Sinn Fein special conference (Ard Fheis), held in Letterkenny, where the leadership of the party is directly addressing the Downing Street Declaration initiative. While Gerry Adams welcomes the new approach, he stated that there are still some difficulties with core issues. Peter Robinson of the DUP gives his response to the conference, arguing that there should be no role for either Sinn Fein or the Irish government in talks.

Meanwhile, Seamus Mallon of the SDLP challenges Sinn Fein over the IRA's continuing campaign of violence and also disagrees with Adams on some of his sticking points, reading out lines about self-determination from both the Downing Street Declaration and a statement released from the Hume/Adams talks, stating that he can see no material difference between the two.

Starting in 1993, UTV Live took over as Ulster Television's local news series, running a flagship programme each evening, with other bulletins throughout the day. In the 1990s it captured the unfolding story of the push towards a peace settlement in Northern Ireland, through all its twist and turns, which ended with the historic Good Friday Agreement in 1998.

Northern Ireland: The Road to Peace

The historic events which led to a political agreement to end almost 30 years of violence in Northern Ireland during the time known as 'The Troubles'.

In 1993, exploratory talks about peace gave hope that decades of civil strife and violence in Northern Ireland could be brought to an end. At Christmas that year, the Downing Street Declaration by John Major and the Irish Taoiseach Albert Reynolds paved the way for a peace process that would build in momentum over the next five years. The path forwards was often rocky and turbulent, and punctuated by further violence and unrest. However, the major players from all sides of the divide eventually struck an historic deal in what was known as the Good Friday Agreement. This collection of news reports and interviews between 1993 and 1998 records the slow but steady path towards a better future after a generation of conflict.

26 videos in this collection

How We Got Here

Belfast
1998-04-09

Downing Street Declaration

Westminster
1993-12-15

US Visa Given to Gerry Adams

1994-02-02