The Irish Republican Army eventually agreed to put its arsenal “beyond use” by way of a secret process supervised by an international commission. Disarmament ran in parallel to efforts to resolve political disputes at the heart of the conflict, something that more than three decades of U.S.-led peace efforts in the Middle East have failed to accomplish.

It was slow going: The first batch of IRA weapons was decommissioned in 2001 and the last in 2005, seven years after the Good Friday Agreement. Several other British loyalist and Irish republican militant groups also disarmed as part of the process.

“The British might be able to counsel patience and pragmatism,” said Niall O Dochartaigh, a professor of political science at the University of Galway. “The IRA leadership had to be helped in various ways to make that argument (for disarmament) within the organization.

“Ultimately, decommissioning only happened in the Irish case once the IRA was satisfied that there was a political settlement bedded down,” he added.