CHRONOLOGY-Bumpy road to restoring self-rule in N. Ireland

(Reuters) - Northern Ireland's leading politicians agreed on Monday to start Protestant-Catholic sharing power in the province on May 8.

Following are events since the 1998 Good Friday agreement largely ended 30 years of sectarian conflict.

1998:

June - Elections to a new Protestant-Catholic power-sharing assembly. Protestant Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) leader David Trimble is elected First Minister-designate.

August - Car bomb in the market town of Omagh, west of Belfast, kills 29 people in the worst single attack of the conflict. The Real IRA splinter group claims responsibility.

1999:

December - Northern Ireland gets its own government in which Protestants and Catholics share power after 27 years of direct rule from London.

2000:

February - Britain suspends assembly amid anger by Protestants, who support ties to Britain, over the failure of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) guerrillas to disarm.

May - IRA says it will put its weapons into storage and allow inspections. Britain restores power to Belfast assembly.

2001:

June - IRA political ally Sinn Fein overtakes its more moderate rival, the Social Democratic and Labor Party (SDLP), as Northern Ireland's biggest nationalist party in British parliamentary elections.

July - Trimble resigns over IRA's failure to disarm.

October - IRA says it has put some weapons "beyond use".

2002:

October - Sinn Fein offices at the Stormont parliament are raided by police investigating an alleged IRA spy ring. Britain suspends the assembly and resumes direct rule from London.