<Table> <Tr> <Td> </Td> <Td> This article needs additional citations for verification . Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources . Unsourced material may be challenged and removed . (July 2014) (Learn how and when to remove this template message) </Td> </Tr> </Table> <Tr> <Td> </Td> <Td> This article needs additional citations for verification . Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources . Unsourced material may be challenged and removed . (July 2014) (Learn how and when to remove this template message) </Td> </Tr> <P> The Northern Ireland peace process is often considered to cover the events leading up to the 1994 Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) ceasefire, the end of most of the violence of the Troubles, the Good Friday (or Belfast) Agreement of 1998, and subsequent political developments . </P> <P> In 1994, talks between the leaders of the two main Irish nationalist parties in Northern Ireland, John Hume of the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP), and Gerry Adams of Sinn Féin (SF), continued . These talks led to a series of joint statements on how the violence might be brought to an end . The talks had been going on since the late 1980s and had secured the backing of the Irish Government through an intermediary, Father Alec Reid . </P>

When did the northern ireland peace process begin