Conclusion

Anglo-Irish relations have undoubtedly improved since 1980. Yet as has been argued this improvement was not a steady linear one, it was far more cyclical. Keatinge's warning against the fever chart interpretation is an important point, but fever charts are difficult to ignore. This work has largely followed a chronological approach rather than a thematic one. In adopting such an approach there is a danger that the fevers may distract from the themes and that there may be a temptation to plot a median line between the high and the low points of the relationship and conclude that progress has been steady and what has happened over the period was inevitable. As each achievement of the intergovernmental progress appears to be built on the one before it is tempting to underplay the constraints on intergovernmental co-operation. As the chronological development of intergovernmentalism is examined it becomes evident that co-operation was better in the late 1990s/early 2000s than it was in the early 1980s. A corollary of this assessment can be the assumption that the relationship was bound to improve and the two governments were, of course, going to oversee the peace process and a Good Friday-type agreement, eventually. Yet this is far from the case. The purpose of this chapter is to briefly examine the structural constraints and pressures that the two governments faced in seeking to increase co-operation. It will be argued that although the fevers changed over the period they were caused, shaped and alleviated, if not cured by, constraints and pressures that were largely permanent features. Although the path that the intergovernmental relationship followed over the period was not inevitable, these constraints and pressures fixed the parameters of what was possible. These parameters narrowed the options for both the British and the Irish governments when dealing with Northern Ireland.