Assess the main reasons for the conflict in Northern Ireland and to what extent have these been resolved by the agreement brokered by the government of the UK and Ireland in 1998?

"No person knows better than you do that the domination of England is the sole and blighting curse of this country. It is the incubus that sits on our energies, stops the pulsation of the nation’s heart and leaves to Ireland not gay vitality but horrid the convulsions of a troubled dream."Daniel O'Connell in an 1831 letter to Bishop Doyle

The conflict in Northern Ireland started in the late 1960’s, and officially ended with the “Good Friday” Agreement, signed in Belfast in 1998. If this duration is not questioned, what remains at the root of the conflict generally is. Spreading over almost thirty years, “The Troubles” have been divided down many lines: ethnically, geographically, and religiously. Therefore, in order to understand the complexity of Irish nationalism, as well as the role played by the various actors (political parties, paramilitaries, security forces of the UK and Ireland etc…), it is necessary to go back in time, in search of the very core of “the Irish Question”.

Ireland was England’s first colony in the late 12th century, and after it had been brought under the ascendancy of the English Crown in 1534, the Irish Parliament appointed Henri VIII “King of Ireland” in 1541[1]. At this stage of history, the first religious disagreement came to light. Whereas Ireland pledged allegiance to Rome, England changed religion and became Anglican. In the 17th century, the “Britons in Ireland”- English protestants landlords and Scott settlers- colonized the Irish lands. While the colonists obtained fields in the plantations of Ulster, the protestant immigration settled in the unused lands of Antrim and Down. By the end of the 17th century, two conflicts had emerged and seen the defeat of the Catholics (Oliver Cromwell, and Battle of the Boyne). Preventing the Catholics to sit in the Irish parliament in 1692[2], and seizing the gentry’s goods and the Irish soil, the English State only made the gap between the Protestants and the Catholics involved bigger and bigger. At the end of 18th century the tensions reached a peak with the Dublin’s riots of 1789, and eventually, the English domination culminated with the Union of 1800, instauring the “United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland”.

The Northern Ireland conflict can not be apprehended without this detailed history, and it is against the backdrop of these tumultuous relations that I will tend to explain how the various issues at stake (land claims, nationalism, ethnicity, religion etc…) all participated to the beginning of “The Troubles”. Indeed,the battle engaged in 1968/69 over the constitutional status of Northern Ireland must be analyzed with regards to the partition of Ireland in two in 1920/21. The same is true for the confrontational relations between the Catholic nationalist and Protestant unionists communities, whose animosity towards each other has been nourished by centuries of Catholics’ oppression. Have the main causes of the old quarrel been resolved by the Belfast agreement, or have some of them remained tenacious ? After a brief examination of the historical background of the conflict from the end of the 19th century forward, I will then explain what started the conflict of Northern Ireland, and what was at stake. With these elements in hand, I will show that this multifaceted conflict comes down to three main motivations (the battle over the land, the ethnic difference, and the linking role of religion). Finally, I will explain to what extent the 1998 Belfast Agreement partly resolved the conflict, while putting the emphasis on the issues still unresolved, and showing that the achievement of peace is still an ongoing process.

***

In the 19th century, Protestants were the first to develop a sense of Irish nationalism. The Home Rule they ask for consists in separating Ireland from the British influence. However, even though liberal Protestants such as Charles Steward Parnell[3] were the first to put the Home Rule concept on the front burner, the idea eventually slipped of their hands and was appropriated by the Catholics. Deprived from the movement they created, the Protestants turned towards Unionism. The British parliament promised to grant Ireland Home Rule, however the talks being delayed, new radical forms of nationalism emerge. O’Mahoney created the ancestor of the Irish Republican Army (IRA): the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB). Arthur Griffiths created in 1905 a political party named Sinn Fein, whose objective was “to establish in Ireland's capital a national legislature endowed with the moral authority of the Irish nation"[4]. Both these organisations were willing to use violence as a mean of obtaining the Home Rule they wished for, while the Protestants opted for the opposite strategy. In Ulster, a further divide between Catholics and Protestants pushed the unionists to the creation of a provisional Government of Ulster[5]. The counterpart of the IRB was created in 1912: the Solemn League and Covenant, an army whose objective was the fight against Home Rule.

The brake out of the World War I put this issue on hold for a time, before a small group of nationalists from the IRB took hold of Dublin, an event known as the Dublin Easter Rising of 1916[6]. In six days, the British authorities fought the rebels’ forces, and even though the majority of the population had condemned the nationalists’ action, the violence of the British army turned the nationalists into martyrs (such as Padraig Pearse and James Conolly), and engendered more animosity and determination in the minds of many Irish nationalists. So as to appease both factions, Great Britain passed the Government of Ireland Act[7] in 1920. Cut in two, both Irelands would have control over their own domestic affairs, but foreign affairs and income tax collection would remain in the British hands. This proposition was accepted by the Ulster Protestants, but the southern Catholics rejected it and pursued the war in the name of total independence. At the head of the Irish Republican Army, Michael Collins fought until 1921, when the Anglo-Irish Free State was created. "I tell you this - early this morning I signed my death warrant"[8] he stated after he signed the treaty in December. Up north, the Northern Ireland had a very different status, as it remained under British rule. In 1949 the Irish Free State finally became an independent republic through the Ireland Act, which also stated that Northern Ireland would cease to be part of the UK only by the express consent of its parliamentary representatives at Sormont. The decades that followed were very violent, as the IRA, the Ulster Defense Association and British paramilitaries kept fighting against each other. However, it is only in the late 1960’s that the hostilities escalated. A movement favourable of equity of rights between Catholics and Protestants, led by Bernadette Devlin[9], frequently organized peaceful manifestations. In spite of this, riots burst in 1968 at Londonderry, and Catholics were severely repressed by the Royal Ulster Constabulary, as well as by the Orange Order (OO) and the Ulster Volonteer Force (UVF). Now that we have understood the links between The Troubles and the long and chaotic history of Ireland, what would be the main cause, if any, of this conflict? I would argue that many causes are knitted, and all responsible of this conflict.

***

Before going into further details into the sequence of events of “The Troubles”, it is so far possible to distinguish the many sides of the Northern Ireland conflict. The battle over the land has been one of the principal factor of tensions in the long history of Ireland. The Protestant Scot settlers took over the Catholics plantations, and this dispossession came along with institutional laws establishing the Protestants domination over the Catholics. The Great Potato famine[10] of 1845-1848 exacerbated the tensions between the two islands. Indeed, the Penal laws of 1649 not only discriminated the Catholics, but a very specific Act among these laws changed the repartition of the land: the Property Act[11]. Whereas the Catholic lands used to be inherited by the elder son, the Property Act imposed the division of the lands between a same family’s sons. This policy led to the drastic fall of the farm’s size, as well as the growing vulnerability of the farmers. At the time, England possessed one of the largest reserves of food in Europe, but despite of this did not provide help to the Irish victimed of the Blight, fueling the idea that Great-Britain had voluntarily let the Catholics die of hunger, and provoking a rise of Irish nationalism. The Young Ireland[12] movement created at that time by Charles Gaban Duffy (a catholic journalist) and Thomas Davis (a protestant student), had one goal in mind: the abrogation of the Union. Even though their attempt to ?? revolution miserably failed (“Battle of widow McCormack's cabbage patch”[13]), the movement had nonetheless a great influence over the nationalist movements which followed. Violence was invoked as a way to fight over the British presence, and the Fenian Brotherhood and Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB) [14]inspired themselves from the ideology of the Young Ireland. This partition of land greatly influenced the Northern Ireland conflict. Indeed, the Catholics of Northern Ireland (mostly part of the working class) did not beneficiate from the same rights as the Republic of Ireland’s Catholics, or the Northern Ireland’s Protestants, consequences of the domination of protestants landlords over the Catholics in the previous decades. The immigration of Catholics from Derry to Belfast in the second half of the XXth century worsened furthermore the relations between the middle-class and the working class. Another main cause of the conflict could be analysed through the notion of ethnicity. In the case of Ireland, it is a complex argument to put forward, as Irish are by definition from the same island and share a common patrimony. It is not quite so in reality, as two distinct “labels” have emerged in time. The Catholics consider themselves as Irish, and their nationalism grew on this Irish-ness. One of the most significant forms of nationalism was the attempt to maintain the Irish language of Gaelic in schools. The Protestants, on their side, felt they were part of the British Crown, and were commonly qualified as Unionistis, Loyalist, or again Orangeman. This cleavage between the perception of the core identity of each group grew over the centuries, and in the 1960’s it was almost impossible to dissociate the conflict from a powerfull nationalism intertwined with ethnicity. Anchored in a British tradition, during “The Troubles”, Protestants will fight in order to maintain the ties between the two islands, while Catholics will pursue the harmony they look for through the unity of Ireland. Finally, religion seems to tie the conflict all together. Two aspects of religion must be analysed in this conflict. The dogmatic differences between the two religions must not be disregarded. Indeed, Catholicism is structured around rituals (prayers, sacraments), and hierarchy is at the core of the institutions. Consequently, this very organised religion have come to develop a certain desire to realize social order under the domination of leaders. On the other side, Protestantism is not built on the same rules’ rigidity. The universal prieshood of believiers designs priests as the direct mediators between the people and god, disregarding the hierarchical system of the Roman faith. Therefore, the opposition between Prtotestantism and Catholicism can not come down to the only ethnic interpretation, as it is based on a divergent interpretation of Christicianism. However, another view is that “the troubles in the North are religious in name only: there is no theological quarrel involved, no real fear of religious persecution, and many of the militant extremists on both sides have little or no religious commitment”[15]. Accordin to Richard Rose, Professor of Politics, “even an atheist, must be a Protestant atheist or Catholic atheist in order to have status in the society”[16]. Now that we have established the main reasons of the Northern Ireland conflict, I will go into further details and analyse to what extent the Stortmont Agreement has resolved this ancient and deeply rooted quarrel. ** By the end of the 1960’s, Catholics of Northern Ireland started manifesting to ask for more civil rights. After the Londonderry bloody riots in 68, a vicious circle of terrorist violence started. The first acts of terrorism were attributed to the UVF in 1969, and the tragedy of the Bloody Sunday[17] in January 1972, which made 14 deaths in a confrontation between Catholics and the British forces, ultimately revived the IRA. The 21 July of this same year, the IRA responded by a Bloody Friday[18], provoking 16 deaths in Belfast. Other acts of terrorism (murder of Lord Louis Mountbatted, the Warrington bomb attack) confirmed that the tension, far from diminishing, had turned out into what had often been referred as a civil war.

The peace process can be analysed trhough diverse lenses. First, the political party Sinn Fein changed strategy, as it abandoned the military one to focus on the political one. The election of Bobby Sands [19]in 1981 was a turning point, as the entry of the party into the Irish Parliament was an implicit way to recognise the institutions of Northern Ireland. Second, Great-Britain had proved to be open to Dialogue. Indeed, the peace process really started with the Anglo-Irish agreement[20] in 1985 between Margareth Thatcher and Garett Fitzferald (Irish prime minister), which recognised the right of the Republic of Ireland to have a consultative role in the affairs of Nortern Ireland. Finally, in 1994 the IRA declared a cease-fire, allowing Sinn Fein to participate in Official talks. Another factor of reconciliation is the involvement of the United-States. Under the presidency of Bill Clinton, the senator George Mitchell was sent to be the mediator for the 1996 multiparty peace talks in Belfast. Eight political parties were present, and among them Sinn Fein and the largest protestant party in Northern Ireland, the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP). Ultimately, the Good Friday agreement was signed the 10th of April 1998, and had three major objectives: the call for an elected assembly, the institution of a cross-party cabinet, and finally, the deployment of cross-border bodies at the frontier between the two Irelands. This agreement was largely approved by both populations, at 71.2% in Northern-Ireland, and 94.39% in the Irish Republic[21]. As a sign of real historic decision, the leaders of the largest Chatolic and Protestant parties, John Hume and David Trimble received the Nobel Peace Prize in october 1998. The president of the United-States, Bill Clinton saluted the “brave decision” of both parties, and recognised that they had “written a new chapter in the rich history of their island”[22].

Despite the signature of this historical agreement, it took more than ten years for the conflict to be resolved. Indeed, the main issue was the disarmament if the IRA. As quickly as 2000 the new Northern Ireland parliament is suspended, and the direct rule imposed once again. For five years, the talks were compromised by the lack of transparency given by the IRA onto its disarmament, with a tension peak culminating with the murder of Robert McCathney by a member of the IRA. Notwithstanding, the military force demonstrated its willingness to cooperate: in 2002 it apologized to the families of the ones killed since the 1960’s. Most importantly, the statement of IRA in 2005 definitely marked a new era: the republican organisation declared it would follow “the democratic path”, witch was received by Tony Blair as “ a step of unparalleled magnitude”[23]. Gerry Adams (Sinn Fein) and Ian Paisly (DUP) eventually met in 2007, and discuss the future of a power-sharing government in Northern Ireland.

*

Has the old quarrel come to an end? On the 5th of February 2010, the Hillsborough Castle Agreement was signed between Gordon Brows and Brian Cowen, and dealt with the transfer of the police and justice system from Brtiain’s control to the six counties part of Northern Ireland. This ultimate transfer can be regarded as a real step towards durable peace after decades of violence and terror. If only time will tell, we can assume that political leaders have come to a point where demographic change, economic growth, and European integration are the main points Northern Ireland has to focus on. We can nothing but hope that Peter Robinson was right when he said last february’s that “Today's Agreement- Hillsborough Castle - is the surest sign that there will be no going back to the past.”[24].

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

Books :

-Bradshaw.B , Irish Historical Studies, (1989)

-Foster Robert Fitzroy The Oxford illustrated history of Ireland 1989

-Griffith Arthur, The Resurrection of Hungary: A Parallel for Ireland (2009)

-Philpin Charles Philpin Nationalism and Popular Protest in Ireland (2002)

Papers :

-Clutterbuck Lindsay « Countering Irish Republican Terrorism in Britain: Its Origin as a Police Function ». Terrorism and Political Violence, Volume 18, Issue 1 March 2006 , pages 95 - 118

-Dees Diane, « Bernadette Devlin's maiden speech: A rhetoric of sacrifice ». Published in Southern Communication Journal, Volume 38, Issue 4 Summer 1973 , pages 326 – 339

Internet :

BBC.com :

-« A short history of Ireland », BBC.com. Available at : http://www.bbc.co.uk/northernireland/ashorthistory/archive/intro228.shtml

-In Search for Peace, « Good Friday Agreement »,BBC.com. available at : http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/static/northern_ireland/understanding/events/good_friday.stm

- « 2005: IRA declares end to armed struggle », BBC.com .Available at : http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/july/28/newsid_4948000/4948188.stm

Others :

-« President Bill Clinton Discusses Northern Ireland Peace Pact »,April 10, 1998 ; CNNallpolitics. Availaible at : http://edition.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/1998/04/10/nclinton.ireland.api/transcript.html

-Time.com, « Northern Ireland: A Land of Warring Christians » ; 8/05/08, availaible at : http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,1738554,00.html

-« The Hillsborough Castle Agreement -Securing a better future for all. » 02/2010. Nidirect government service. Available at : http://www.nidirect.gov.uk/index/hillsborough-agreement.html
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[1] Robert Fitzroy Foster, The Oxford illustrated history of Ireland (1989)
[2] Ibid
[3] Charles H. E. Philpin, Nationalism and Popular Protest in Ireland (2002)
[4] Arthur Griffith, The Resurrection of Hungary: A Parallel for Ireland (2009)
[5] Robert Fitzroy Foster The Oxford illustrated history of Ireland (1989)
[6] Ibid
[7] Ibid
[8]« A short history of Ireland », BBC.com. Available at : http://www.bbc.co.uk/northernireland/ashorthistory/archive/intro228.shtml
[9] Diane Dees ,Bernadette Devlin's maiden speech: A rhetoric of sacrifice. Published in Southern Communication Journal, Volume 38, Issue 4 Summer 1973 , pages 326 - 339
[10] Robert Fitzroy Foster, The Oxford illustrated history of Ireland (1989)
[11] Ibid.
[12] B. Bradshaw, Irish Historical Studies, (1989)
[13] Ibid
[14] Lindsay Clutterbuck « Countering Irish Republican Terrorism in Britain: Its Origin as a Police Function ». Terrorism and Political Violence, Volume 18, Issue 1 March 2006 , pages 95 - 118
[15] Time.com, « Northern Ireland: A Land of Warring Christians » ; 8/05/08, availaible at : http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,1738554,00.html
[16] Ibid
[17] Robert Fitzroy Foster, The Oxford illustrated history of Ireland (1989)
[18] Robert Fitzroy Foster, The Oxford illustrated history of Ireland (1989)
[19] Ibid
[20] Ibid
[21] In Search for Peace, « Good Friday Agreement »,BBC.com. available at : http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/static/northern_ireland/understanding/events/good_friday.stm
[22] « President Bill Clinton Discusses Northern Ireland Peace Pact »,April 10, 1998 ; CNNallpolitics. Availaible at : http://edition.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/1998/04/10/nclinton.ireland.api/transcript.html
[23]http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/july/28/newsid_4948000/4948188.stm
[24] « The Hillsborough Castle Agreement -Securing a better future for all. » 02/2010. Nidirect government service.Available at : http://www.nidirect.gov.uk/index/hillsborough-agreement.htm