"Eureka Street": Post Cease Fire Belfast.
Robert Wilson writes a fictional story of Belfast in a post IRA and Unionist cease-fire. Eureka Street offers a look into what the social and political scene is like after the cease-fire in Northern Ireland. The Story gives a glimpse into continuing struggles between Catholics and Protestants and how some people try to look beyond religious differences. The main characters in the story come from different religious backgrounds but they find themselves being close friends despite the political cloud tearing Northern Ireland apart. Thought a fictional story, Eureka Street offers up a real life feel that anyone could believe might happen in a post war environment like Northern Ireland and Belfast specifically. .
Set in the 1990's this book touches on some of the realities of a post war environment and the issues that still plague the country after peace agreements have been reached. The peace process was first put into action through an IRA cease-fire in 1994 but the original talks of the process had started possibly in 1988 when Adams met with Hume. The leaders would meet many other times between 1988 and 1993 showing signs of progress in the peace agreements. The talks would break own for some time in 1993 but would resume that same year. Hume and Adams came up with an agreement that eventually found some of its content into the Downing Street Declaration. The Downing Street Declaration was an agreement made by the British and Irish governments to negotiate a peace process. The cease-fire was interrupted by an IRA bombing of Canary Wharf in 1996 but the peace talks continued. The peace talks were never full sanctioned by all parties in Northern Ireland and some people still reject the Good Friday Agreement that was reached in 1998. The agreement had some opposition by the Unionist party because they felt that the IRA still had a militaristic threat and wanted the IRA to decommission their paramilitary weapons in Northern Ireland.