10 Quirkiest Conditions Of The Good Friday Agreement

IT’S 25 years since the Good Friday Agreement was signed by leaders from both sides of Northern Ireland’s political divide, bringing to an end decades of civil unrest and paramilitary activity.

Conditions such as a power-sharing government, the release of political prisoners and the decommissioning of arms were caveats of the agreement, but there were quite a number of other conditions that both sides insisted on before they would sign anything. We’ve scanned through the 18,000 page document, and found these 10 quirky conditions:

1) Murals are allowed, but they must not be shown to have either moustaches or beards. Murals of the hunger strikers in particular must be from their earlier days.

2) The sale of counterfeit videos, CDs and tapes by the IRA must be allowed to continue, as it had become an integral part of the Northern Ireland entertainment scene.

3) Only 68 bonfires per city, per month.

4) All political prisoners must not only be released at once, they must get a letter from the Queen on every birthday.

5) Cats In The Cradle must be acknowledged as the true national anthem of Northern Ireland.

6) All Republican families must name at least one of their daughters Saoirse.

7) Loyalists must refer to Bloody Sunday as “Yup, That Was Our Bad” Sunday.

8) Northern Ireland must be allowed to share a portion of any Eurovision success enjoyed by either Great Britain or the Republic Of Ireland.

9) Northern Ireland will stand on one side of the room and the Republic will stand on the other, they’ll both call Liam Neeson at the same time and whoever he goes to, he can stay with.

10) Paramilitary activity must cease totally, except when paramilitary activists really don’t want to.

11) All numbered lists about the Good Friday agreement must contain one extra fact than originally stated.