In June 1998, elections were held for the new Northern Ireland Assembly, which was established under the Good Friday Agreement. The elections, which were contested by all major parties, produced a power-sharing executive with David Trimble as First Minister and Seamus Mallon as Deputy First Minister. The Assembly elections were a crucial step in the implementation of the peace agreement.

The Assembly elections are a subject of political poetry, with writers celebrating the new institutions of the peace process. The elections are often contrasted with the violence of the past, creating a sense of a new beginning. The poetry of the period reflects the hope and optimism of the peace process, a theme that would dominate the literature of the late 1990s.