1998
April 10- Belfast Agreement
June 25- Elections to the new Northern Ireland assembly.
June 29- Ulster Unionist Party leader Mr David Trimble is elected First Minister designate.
1999
Dec 1- The North gets its own powersharing government, ending 27 years of direct rule from London.
2000
Feb 11- Northern Secretary Peter Mandelson suspends assembly over IRA decommissioning
May 6- IRA announces it is ready to put its weapons into storage dumps and allow them to be inspected.
May 27- Unionists vote to return to executive.
May 30- London restores home-rule powers.
2001
July 1- Trimble resigns over the IRA's failure to disarm, triggering a six-week deadline to resolve the impasse.
Aug 10- New Northern Ireland secretary John Reid announces 24-hour suspension of the assembly, a device which resets the clock on the six-week deadline.
Oct 23- IRA says it has put some of its weapons beyond use.
2002
Sept 21- Trimble says he will quit the executive on January18 if republicans do not prove they have abandoned violence.
Oct 8- Trimble tells Blair his party will walk out of the executive if Sinn Fein is not thrown out within a week following a raid on Sinn Fein offices at Stormont in a police investigation into alleged IRA spying.
Oct 14- British government suspends Northern Ireland Assembly and other powersharing institutions.
2003
Feb 22- The Ulster Defence Association announces a 12-month ceasefire.
May 1- The British government postpones Northern Ireland's scheduled May 29 assembly election until the autumn, due to alleged lack of clarity from the IRA.
May 6- The IRA insists it is committed to the Northern Ireland peace process, as it publishes a statement on its future already rebuffed as too vague by London and Dublin.
Oct 21- London announces elections to the Assembly will be held on November 26.
Oct 21- Sinn Fein president Mr Gerry Adams says republicans are committed to peaceful means