With a handshake, British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Bertie Ahern, the Prime Minister of the Republic of Ireland, sealed on April 10, 1998 the Agreements of Good Friday. An image that was given after many years of negotiations ahead and that meant a before and after for North Ireland.

Now, 25 years after that signature, its protagonists look back to see how this peace agreement changed the course of history. Almost every day, says Tony Blair, there were terrorist actss, people dying and murders. Along the same lines, his counterpart, Bertie Ahern, states that if these agreements had not been reached, the alternative was return to chaos.

In fact, such was the announcement of this treaty that people in the streets supported it with overwhelming approval of the referendum. More than 71% of the population voted ‘yes’ to put an end to 30 years of ‘Troubles’, problems, as they called the IRA violence and unionist armed groups. Since the late 1960s, a multitude of terrorist and bloody acts have been committed they ended their lives of more than 3,700 people and close to 30,000 were wounds.

A terrorism fruit of the political division that the country suffered, between pro-British unionists and pro-Irish nationalists.

The way they found to solve these divisions was to establish in these agreements that Northern Ireland was part of the UKa new government was installed that included everyone, including the sinn fein, the political arm of the IRA, headed by Gerry Adams. In return, the terrorist groups agreed to lay down their arms and, although the violence It did not end immediately, it did mark a new beginning for Northern Ireland which has now been threatened after Brexit.