The national revolutionaries and Marxist Irish Citizen Army defeated in the Civil War of 1923 were identified by the Comintern as potential allies of the Communist Party of Ireland that had been founded on the 14th October 1921. New studies at the former Central Party Archive of the CPSU indicate that the promotion of the syndicalist Jim Larkin by Harry Pollit of the CPGB to leadership of the nascent communist movement in Ireland was a serious mistake. Larkin's break with the Comintern in 1929 and this coupled with the rise of reactionary Catholic power in the 1930's following the publication of Quadragesimo anno in 1931 seriously undermined the foundations of the Communist Party in Ireland. The Irish Civil Rights movement which took its inspiration from the African-American movement of the 1960's, failed to reform the sectarian northern state, collapsed, and its more militant members turned to armed struggle in the revived Irish Republican Army. The 'Belfast Agreement', end product of the recent process has been promoted by those 'nationalists' who accept it, as having features that will allow for a transition from British rule to a united Ireland.
Supporters point to the North-South ministerial council as such a transitional mechanism.
And whose remit was railways, animal diseases and fisheries. It never got off the ground because the comprador bourgeoisie of the new Free State did not participate - a commission on the boundary was pending which they naively thought would reduce the size of Northern Ireland to a very small area. Key areas were to be agriculture, environment, trade, industry, transport, tourism, public health, sport, culture and the arts. Both the 1920 and 1973 accommodations with Unionism were rejected by the Republican movement as they did not recognise the right of the Irish people to self-determination and independence and instead upheld British claims and perpetuated the division of the country. The current process has its origins in the mid-eighties and the shift within republicanism towards constitutional politics.