How Good Friday Agreement was saved from collapse at Weston Park
The world's eyes were on Hillsborough Castle when Tony Blair and Bertie Ahern stepped out into the Easter sunshine to announce their deal to end the Troubles in Northern Ireland 25 years ago this week.
But what is often forgotten is the key role the West Midlands played in ensuring the agreement did not end in failure, the same way as countless other attempts to bring peace before.
It was the palatial setting of Weston Park, on the boundary between Staffordshire and Shropshire, which provided the soothing backdrop for the warring factions to hammer out their disagreements and get the peace process back on track. And they did so with the words of a Shropshire schoolgirl ringing in their ears.
The Good Friday agreement was supposed to signal a new era of peace in Northern Ireland. But it almost collapsed before it had even been implemented when, in July 2001, First Minister David Trimble resigned in protest at the IRA's failure to decommission its weapons.
