(CNN) -- Commentators who have watched the conflict in Northern Ireland play out for decades call the peace process a miracle.



Various leaders negotiated for years to bring an end to Northern Ireland's "troubles."



Culminating in a power sharing deal between Ulster's unionists, led by Ian Paisley, and Sinn Fein, the political arm of the IRA (nationalists), led by Gerry Adams, the road to peace has been a torturous one characterized by violence, set-backs and numerous false starts.



Only recently the Ulster Defence Association, Northern Ireland's largest loyalist group, said it will cease to be an armed paramilitary group, starting at midnight on November 11, saying the "war is over."



"All weaponry will be put beyond use," Colin Halliday of the Ulster Political Research Group, which is linked to the group, said in a speech in Belfast aired by RTE, Ireland's state-owned broadcaster. "The struggle to maintain the union is on a new and more complex battlefield."



The Irish Republican Army (IRA) disarmed two years ago, helping to restore the province's government in Belfast.



Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern said the most recent moves of groups to disarm was "significant and hopefully signals a further step toward the ending of all paramilitarism in Northern Ireland."



For those that have lived through the turmoil in Northern Ireland, peace achieved though diplomacy must have seemed like an unrealistic goal. After all, each attack by loyalists usually resulted in retaliation by nationalists -- making the dispute bitter and intractable.



But diplomacy has worked in bringing peace to Northern Ireland.



Credit for developing a framework for the peace process stretches back to former British Prime Minster John Major's rule in the 1990s and efforts by Ireland's Ahern. But it was Major's successor, Tony Blair, who was unrelenting in his quest for peace by making it a major priority of his government.



Blair came to Northern Ireland 37 times as Prime Minister, traveling there more often than any of his predecessors as well as hosting many meetings at 10 Downing Street and discussing the peace process while at many international summits.



According to the Belfast Telegraph: "When he (Blair) said on that first day he had come to seek 'a lasting and fair political settlement' it turned out he wasn't spouting platitudes on a stump."



Journalist James Button, who covered the peace process talks, says: "Blair played a clever hand. He saw the hardliners had to be involved.



"Critically he judged that the process had to tilt ever so slightly towards the republicans to prevent a split in their ranks and the resumption of violence by radicals -- which had happened whenever the republican leadership had inclined to moderation before."



Button says Downing Street had a bicycle theory around peace talks: "They had to keep going forward otherwise they would fall over."



It was Blair's diplomacy that wooed the previously immovable Paisley. Irish political scientist Lord Bew told the Guardian the alliance with Paisley was Blair's "last great romance... Once again when we thought the old maestro was fading, his capacity to seduce, politically speaking, is phenomenal."



But as Gerry Adams of Sinn Fein told CNN, the conflict was primarily a local one that needed to be solved by local people: "The people who have to be the brokers are the people who live in the areas of conflict.



"They're the people who ought to be the brokers but everybody else from the outside has to enhance the conditions so that those leaders or factions can actually broker not just an agreement, but implement an agreement.



"The Good Friday Agreement -- and [former U.S.] Senator [George] Mitchell said this at the time, when we got the agreement -- "That's the easy bit. Implementing it is going to be the difficult bit."



Mitchell worked with the various participants to reach an agreement.



The long road to peace



The "troubles" have been a centuries-old dispute between England and Ireland over who controls Northern Ireland.



In 1609
Who will share power? What has been termed miraculous? Where is the peace process happening? What did the commentators call the peace process? The power sharing deal is between who and who? What region does the peace process involve? What have some commentators called the peace process?
Ulster's unionists, led by Ian Paisley, and Sinn Fein, peace process Northern Ireland. a miracle. Ian Paisley, and Sinn Fein, Northern Ireland a miracle.
question: Who will share power?, answer: Ulster's unionists, led by Ian Paisley, and Sinn Fein, | question: What has been termed miraculous?, answer: peace process | question: Where is the peace process happening?, answer: Northern Ireland. | question: What did the commentators call the peace process?, answer: a miracle. | question: The power sharing deal is between who and who?, answer: Ian Paisley, and Sinn Fein, | question: What region does the peace process involve?, answer: Northern Ireland | question: What have some commentators called the peace process?, answer: a miracle.