ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the agreed form of governance, entailing the political reconfiguration of the Irish border, provided by the 1998 Good Friday Agreement. The conceptualization of the Irish border as a political bridge rests on a significant degree of cross-border contact, communication, and cooperation across public, private, and Third voluntary and community sectors. After the republican and loyalist ceasefires of 1994, the European Union (EU) initiated its Peace Programmes for Ireland. The cross-border measures of these programs were innovative policy instruments, some of which were directed at developing an Irish cultural borderscape wherein cross-border, cross-community contact and communication on issues relating to conflict and culture has taken many forms. The EU Peace Programmes have been pivotal to the production of a 'post-conflict' cultural borderscape that is conducive to contact and communication between unionist and nationalist ethno-national communities.
