Today marks the 20th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement, a hugely historical agreement in Ireland’s history.

The Good Friday Agreement and the signatures involved in signing it hangs on our wall here at Lensmen. Susan received this as a gift in January 2002. April 10th 2018, marks 20 years of the agreement. The letter reads:

“Dear Susan,

I hope you are keeping well. As the New Year dawns, I have the pleasure of sending you a little present with a difference. It’s a copy of the signatures of all the parties involved in the Good Friday Agreement signed in Belfast 10th of April 1998. You will agree it is a unique memento of an important date in our island’s history. All credit must go to Justine McCarthy, a journalist with the Irish Independent, who painstakingly hounded each participant over many months to acquire all their signatures on one single copy of the document. Her final achievement was sending the document to George Mitchell in Washington, who readily agreed to sign and returned it post haste.

The signed document was then presented at auction at the inaugural Media Ball in the RDS on the 4th of July, 1998. We were delighted to attend as sponsors of the evening. We took our support one step further by bidding for and purchasing this valuable document for a not-too-inconsiderable sum, the proceeds of which went to various charities.

I hope you will like and appreciate this little piece of history we send you with every good wish for 2002 and beyond.

With Kind regards.

Yours Sincerely,

Phillip Lynch”

We can’t believe it’s been 20 years already! A lot has changed in Ireland since then. Lensmen are proud to have a little Irish history on our wall.