A quarter of a century after unpalatable compromises ended decades of bloodshed in Northern Ireland, some of the architects of the Good Friday Agreement hope that deal can help inspire a route out of the region's near-permanent political crisis.

In April 1998, British Prime Minister Tony Blair and his Irish counterpart Bertie Ahern helped Irish nationalists and British unionists craft an intricate power-sharing deal that paved the way for militants on both sides to lay down arms.

The peace has utterly transformed the region, largely ending three decades of bitter violence that killed 3,600.