tag:theconversation.com,2011:/africa/topics/troubles-17438/articlesTroubles – The Conversation2023-04-05T12:22:41Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2015482023-04-05T12:22:41Z2023-04-05T12:22:41ZEach generation in Northern Ireland has reflected on the ‘troubles’ in its own way – right up to ‘Derry Girls’<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/517925/original/file-20230328-2526-vb272r.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C12%2C4031%2C3005&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A mural in Derry commemorating the TV show 'Derry Girls,' which follows the lives of teenagers growing up amid Northern Ireland's troubles.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Dominic Bryan</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>A 9-year-old boy lies on the floor of a working-class rowhouse in Belfast, Northern Ireland, wondrously watching American Westerns on TV. Outside, though, the world’s gone mad. Broken glass and shattered masonry. Barricades go up. Rifle-toting soldiers patrol the streets. </p>
<p>It’s August 1969, the summer that Northern Ireland’s ‘troubles’ flared into violence.</p>
<p>The scene is from “Belfast,” director Kenneth Branagh’s ode to growing up in <a href="https://cain.ulster.ac.uk/victims/docs/group/htr/day_of_reflection/htr_0607c.pdf">the grinding conflict</a> that would go on to kill several thousand people. Branagh’s <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ja3PPOnJQ2k">Academy Award-winning film</a> premiered in 2021, more than two decades after <a href="https://theconversation.com/from-certain-war-to-uncertain-peace-northern-irelands-good-friday-agreement-turns-20-94624">the Good Friday Agreement</a> brought the troubles to a close on April 10, 1998 – 25 years ago this month.</p>
<p>This was the second period of so-called troubles in Ireland. The first involved a bloody <a href="https://www.nam.ac.uk/explore/irish-war-independence">guerrilla war</a> that ended in 1921, with the island partitioned into an independent, mostly Catholic south and a mostly Protestant north that remained part of the United Kingdom.</p>
<p>But that division did little to settle the age-old war of cultural identity. Since then, each generation of artists has used theater, song and film to reflect on their states’ still-uneasy peace – made <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/explainers-53724381">all the more complicated</a> by Brexit.</p>
<h2>‘Four green fields’</h2>
<p>For hundreds of years, <a href="https://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2008/10/06/negative-stereotypes-of-the-irish/">British culture stereotyped the “native” Irish</a> as savage, bestial, childlike, lazy, belligerent and, above all else, unruly: a tribe that needed British civilization – and, therefore, its colonization. Irish nationalists like poet W.B. Yeats, who wanted to free the whole of Ireland from British rule, felt they had to <a href="https://ernie.uva.nl/upload/media/eb201b85e5cb00114d568245a59cc05f.pdf">flip this script</a> by purging the island of “Anglo” influences, reviving the Irish language and promoting Celtic arts.</p>
<p>In 1902, Yeats wrote the masterpiece of this Celtic revival, “<a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/49611/49611-h/49611-h.htm">Cathleen ni Houlihan</a>.” The one-act play dramatizes traditional songs and legends about a poor old woman driven from her farm by strangers. Cathleen recruits a groom – on the eve of his wedding day, no less – to help fight to retrieve her “four beautiful green fields.” </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/518837/original/file-20230401-16-mima2r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A black and white picture of a woman holding up a lantern in a doorway to a room with three people in it." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/518837/original/file-20230401-16-mima2r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/518837/original/file-20230401-16-mima2r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=405&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518837/original/file-20230401-16-mima2r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=405&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518837/original/file-20230401-16-mima2r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=405&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518837/original/file-20230401-16-mima2r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=509&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518837/original/file-20230401-16-mima2r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=509&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518837/original/file-20230401-16-mima2r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=509&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A scene from ‘Cathleen ni Houlihan.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Scene_From_Cathleen_Ni_Houlihan_-_Project_Gutenberg_eText_19028.jpg#/media/File:Scene_From_Cathleen_Ni_Houlihan_-_Project_Gutenberg_eText_19028.jpg">Project Gutenberg/Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
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<p>It’s an obvious allegory: She is Ireland, the fields are Ireland’s four provinces, and the strangers are the British. The blood of Irish martyrs nourishes the old woman, and at the play’s end, Cathleen transforms into a young girl “with the walk of a queen.”</p>
<p>Cultural pride helped fuel support for Irish independence, and the Irish Republican Army drove the British out of three of the island’s four provinces by 1922. But a majority of people in much of the final province, Ulster, identified as British, so <a href="https://www.rochester.edu/newscenter/partition-of-ireland-explained-477342/">a new national border was drawn</a> to separate the two communities. </p>
<p>That gerrymandered border sparked a civil war in the new Irish Free State between the “die-hard” nationalists, who wanted to keep fighting the British till they abandoned the north, and the “Free Staters,” who compromised to make peace. Martin McDonagh’s 2022 film “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11813216/awards/?ref_=tt_awd">The Banshees of Inisherin</a>,” nominated for nine Academy Awards, can be viewed as an allegory of the Irish Civil War – the tragedy when brothers in arms turn their guns on one another.</p>
<h2>Spiraling crisis</h2>
<p>Many Protestants loyal to the U.K. viewed the culture of Northern Ireland’s minority Catholic population <a href="https://www.executiveoffice-ni.gov.uk/sites/default/files/publications/execoffice/commission-on-fict-final-report.pdf">as a threat</a> and treated them as second-class citizens. In the late 1960s, in part <a href="https://www.irishcentral.com/opinion/niallodowd/how-martin-luther-king-inspired-north-uprising#:%7E:text=By%20marching%20through%20%22Protestant%20territory,defend%20the%20right%20to%20protest.%22&text=Northern%20Ireland's%20sectarian%20nature%20was%20revealed%20to%20the%20world.">inspired by Martin Luther King Jr.’s</a> civil rights activism in the U.S., Catholics began campaigning against discrimination. Their demands were met with violence, like the 1972 <a href="https://cain.ulster.ac.uk/events/bsunday/chron.htm">Bloody Sunday</a> massacre, in which British soldiers shot and killed 14 unarmed protesters in Derry, also known as Londonderry – rival names that themselves reflect the sharp divide between communities.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/518836/original/file-20230401-18-bsc9vv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A soldier stands on a street as two young children, one holding a fake shield, stand in front." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/518836/original/file-20230401-18-bsc9vv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/518836/original/file-20230401-18-bsc9vv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=763&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518836/original/file-20230401-18-bsc9vv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=763&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518836/original/file-20230401-18-bsc9vv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=763&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518836/original/file-20230401-18-bsc9vv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=959&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518836/original/file-20230401-18-bsc9vv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=959&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518836/original/file-20230401-18-bsc9vv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=959&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">A soldier on patrol in Belfast in 1969.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/two-children-the-boy-with-rude-toy-weapons-stands-by-a-news-photo/514704064?adppopup=true">Bettmann/Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>Tribal feelings spiraled higher, pitting mostly Protestant “unionists” loyal to the U.K. against Catholic “nationalists” who sought reunion with the Republic of Ireland. Neighborhoods were segregated and <a href="https://theworld.org/stories/2020-01-14/northern-ireland-still-divided-peace-walls-20-years-after-conflict">giant walls went up</a> to keep Catholic and Protestant apart, but wave after wave of reprisals came anyway, including bombings and sniper attacks.</p>
<p>As the troubles intensified, folk musician Tommy Makem’s <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UkTmsNM4fLM">popular song “Four Green Fields</a>” drew again on the legend of Ireland as a poor old woman:</p>
<blockquote>
<p><em>“I have four green fields, one of them’s in bondage</em></p>
<p><em>In strangers’ hands, that tried to take it from me</em></p>
<p><em>But my sons have sons as brave as were their fathers</em></p>
<p><em>My fourth green field will bloom once again,” said she.</em></p>
</blockquote>
<p>It became <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hHhPeNv90co">a nationalist battle call</a>, and a sign of the times, as plenty of young men joined the IRA’s campaign against British control of Northern Ireland.</p>
<p>Nowhere was the “them and us” attitude more evident than on the gable ends of rowhouses, where nationalists and unionists each painted murals celebrating their heroes and remembering the atrocities perpetrated by the other side. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/518827/original/file-20230331-26-7zn9nu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="People in dark coats hold white crosses in front of a purple and red mural with people's faces painted in it." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/518827/original/file-20230331-26-7zn9nu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/518827/original/file-20230331-26-7zn9nu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=437&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518827/original/file-20230331-26-7zn9nu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=437&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518827/original/file-20230331-26-7zn9nu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=437&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518827/original/file-20230331-26-7zn9nu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=549&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518827/original/file-20230331-26-7zn9nu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=549&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518827/original/file-20230331-26-7zn9nu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=549&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Families of the victims and supporters walk past a mural featuring the 14 victims of Bloody Sunday as they commemorate the 50th anniversary of the massacre, in 2022.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/families-of-the-victims-and-supporters-walk-past-a-mural-news-photo/1238082451?adppopup=true">Charles McQuillan/Getty Images</a></span>
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<h2>‘Sing a new song’</h2>
<p>In the mid-1970s, a group of writers and actors, including <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/seamus-heaney">the Nobel laureate poet Seamus Heaney</a>, tried to blaze a way out of this cultural death spiral. Calling themselves “Ireland’s Field Day,” they tried to create art that could be <a href="https://scholarblogs.emory.edu/postcolonialstudies/2014/06/20/field-day-theatre-company/">a “fifth province</a>” of Ireland, a place that would transcend sectarian politics.</p>
<p>U2 wrote its hit song “<a href="https://youtu.be/bCP9rkTsbKQ">Sunday, Bloody Sunday</a>,” the first song on its 1983 album “War,” in the same spirit. It begins with images reminiscent of the massacre in Derry 11 years before:</p>
<blockquote>
<p><em>Broken bottles under children’s feet</em></p>
<p><em>Bodies strewn across the dead-end street</em></p>
</blockquote>
<p>In U2’s telling, the villain is not the other side. The enemy is the violence itself, generated by the feedback loop of Nationalism and unionism. The only way out is to refuse “to heed the battle call.” </p>
<p>The album ends with <a href="https://youtu.be/pt9Xc4jO-Yc">the song “40</a>,” a soulful echo of the Bible’s 40th Psalm: “I will sing … sing a new song.” </p>
<p>This kind of thinking helped lead the war-weary people of Northern Ireland to <a href="https://www.dfa.ie/media/dfa/alldfawebsitemedia/ourrolesandpolicies/northernireland/good-friday-agreement.pdf">the Good Friday Agreement</a>, also called the Belfast Agreement, in 1998. Its deals shaped the power-sharing system Northern Ireland has today, which <a href="https://www.citizensinformation.ie/en/government_in_ireland/ireland_and_the_uk/good_friday_agreement.html">legitimizes both identities</a>. People in Northern Ireland can choose to be citizens of the U.K., citizens of the Republic of Ireland, or both. </p>
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<figcaption>
<span class="caption">U2 performs on a television show in 1983, with an illustration from the cover of its ‘War’ album behind it.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/the-edge-bono-larry-mullen-jnr-adam-clayton-performing-live-news-photo/85238270?adppopup=true">Erica Echenberg/Redferns via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
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<p>It has, by and large, worked. Over the years, this commitment to religious, political and racial equality tamped down the tribalism and violence. The border between Ireland and Northern Ireland became less and less relevant. By 2018, half of the people in Northern Ireland <a href="https://www.ark.ac.uk/ARK/sites/default/files/2022-05/update147_0.pdf">described themselves</a> as “neither nationalist nor unionist.”</p>
<h2>A new generation</h2>
<p>Brexit, however, has turned the line between Ireland and Northern Ireland into the only land border between the U.K. and the EU. Both nationalist and unionist identities are on the uptick, and the proportion of people in Northern Ireland claiming neither identity <a href="https://www.ark.ac.uk/ARK/sites/default/files/2022-05/update147_0.pdf">has plummeted to 37%</a>.</p>
<p>Even so, anthropologist <a href="https://pure.qub.ac.uk/en/persons/dominic-bryan">Dominic Bryan</a>, co-chair of Northern Ireland’s Commission on Flags, Identity, Culture, and Tradition, is optimistic that culture has built up a resistance to “us versus them” tribalism – reflected, in part, by how people remember the troubles.</p>
<p>He sent me a picture of a mural in Derry, painted one year after Brexit, which celebrates Lisa McGee’s hit TV show “Derry Girls.” Launched in 2018, the comedy follows the fictional lives of five teenagers <a href="https://www.npr.org/2019/09/10/757529881/in-northern-ireland-derry-girls-balance-teen-comedy-and-sectarian-conflict">growing up in the troubles</a>. Though the show focuses on a Catholic community, it defuses the “us and them” way of thinking about identity. An episode called “Across the Barricades” satirizes facile attempts to get Catholic and Protestant kids to bond; it ends when they recognize their common enemy: parents.</p>
<p>In the last episode of the first season, while the kids deal with the anxieties of a high school talent show, the tone shifts dramatically. The adults are watching a TV news report of “one of the worst atrocities of the Northern Irish conflict.” A bomb has killed 12 people and injured many more, and “anyone with medical training” is urged to “come to the scene immediately.”</p>
<p>The audience doesn’t know if the bomb was detonated by Catholic terrorists or Protestant terrorists. It doesn’t matter. The violence is like a tornado or an earthquake: a disaster suffered by all of Derry’s citizens, who pick up the pieces together.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/201548/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Joseph Patrick Kelly is affiliated with the Charleston County (SC) Democratic Party. </span></em></p>Twenty-five years after the Good Friday/Belfast Agreement, Northern Ireland is still resisting the culture of violence.Joseph Patrick Kelly, Professor of Literature and Director of Irish and Irish American Studies, College of CharlestonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1131552019-03-14T14:49:29Z2019-03-14T14:49:29ZBloody Sunday: as former British soldier faces murder charges, Northern Ireland still divided by legacy of violence<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/263686/original/file-20190313-123554-nkvy20.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A mural in Bogside in Derry/Londonderry near the site of the events of Bloody Sunday. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/8647344@N04/14396308996/sizes/l">murielle29/flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>A <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-47540271">former British soldier</a> is to face trial for the murder of two unarmed civilians, and the attempted murder of two others in Derry/Londonderry on “Bloody Sunday” in January 1972. While the soldier, known as “soldier F”, will be prosecuted, the Public Prosecution Service deemed there was “insufficient evidence” to charge another 16 former soldiers for the deaths of 13 people, and two men from the official Irish Republican Army (IRA). </p>
<p>The landmark decision emphasises once more the primacy of the past in Northern Ireland and the difficulties in coming to terms with the legacy of conflict.</p>
<p>It’s been a hectic period for investigations and prosecutions related to what’s known as Northern Ireland’s “Troubles”. In early March, the Republic of Ireland decided <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-47415011">to allow the extradition</a> to Northern Ireland of John Downey, accused of involvement in the 1982 Hyde Park bombing which killed four soldiers. In February, an inquest was also opened into <a href="https://www.lrb.co.uk/v41/n04/chris-mullin/diary">the Birmingham pub bombings</a> of November 1974, and the Supreme Court declared that a previous investigation into the killing of Belfast solicitor Pat Finucane <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/feb/27/pat-finucane-inquiry-fell-below-human-rights-standards-judges-rule?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Tweet">failed to meet the necessary standards</a> under human rights law.</p>
<p>The decision to prosecute the soldier also comes amid an increasingly vexed Brexit process, ongoing <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-47075933">paramilitary activity</a>, and an incident in early March when letter bombs were posted to London sites, including Waterloo train station and Heathrow airport, from a Dublin address. A group previously known to the authorities as the “New IRA” <a href="https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/uk/new-ira-admit-responsibility-for-letter-bombs-sent-to-london-and-glasgow-37904557.html">claimed responsibility</a> for sending the explosive devices. </p>
<p>Every day, local newspapers in Northern Ireland carry reports devoted to the Troubles: from atrocities being or not being investigated, to controversial <a href="https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/northern-ireland/dup-attack-michelle-oneills-speech-at-memorial-for-ira-men-killed-by-sas-at-loughgall-an-insult-to-victims-35668364.html">commemorations</a> of Republican and Loyalist actions. The Unionist News Letter went as far as to publish a “legacy” series in 2018, with the purpose of challenging what Unionists regard as <a href="https://www.newsletter.co.uk/news/crime/legacy-unit-imbalance-is-clear-for-all-to-see-1-8831665">“imbalance”</a> against British state forces in how the past is officially addressed.</p>
<h2>Politics of the past</h2>
<p>The problem in Northern Ireland is that each side regards the past competitively and as part of an ongoing political dispute. It is the lifeblood for the two largest parties, the Democratic Unionist party (DUP) and Sinn Féin. </p>
<p>Sinn Féin wants justice for victims of “collusion” – between British security forces and Loyalist paramilitaries – and those who died at the hands of British security forces during incidents such as Bloody Sunday, but not for the <a href="https://cain.ulster.ac.uk/sutton/tables/Organisation_Responsible.html">1,700 people</a> who died from IRA violence. The DUP, on the other hand, wants more Republicans (or “terrorists”, as they term them) to be investigated for past atrocities and <a href="https://www.irishnews.com/news/politicalnews/2017/02/07/news/sdlp-and-sinn-fe-in-reject-time-limit-on-prosecutions-against-soldiers-922528/">members of the security forces to be spared</a>.</p>
<p>In early March, secretary of state for Northern Ireland, Karen Bradley – commonly regarded in a packed field as the worst secretary of state ever to serve the people of Northern Ireland – stated in the House of Commons that killings by British troops were <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-47471469">“not crimes”</a>, and that the British Army’s general conduct was “dignified and appropriate”. Understandably, this led to immediate calls for her resignation. Unionists then <a href="https://www.newsletter.co.uk/news/opinion/ben-lowry-far-from-being-too-soft-on-the-security-forces-karen-bradley-has-failed-to-defend-them-1-8841510">turned on her</a> when she apologised for her comments.</p>
<p>Many in Northern Ireland’s little political echo chamber are unaware of groups of former servicemen in England who are becoming increasingly active in response to suggested trials and prosecutions of British troops. This hardens into public comments such as those from a former paratrooper that Bloody Sunday was a <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-46514940">“job well done”</a>. It is a lobby, surfacing through some veterans campaign groups, that is sure to grow in volume, numbers and anger.</p>
<p>There are a number of ways in which the past might be addressed beyond the current <a href="https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/northern-ireland/i-wish-we-could-point-fingers-at-commanders-says-uup-war-veteran-doug-beattie-over-troubles-soldiers-prosecutions-37876205.html">“piecemeal”</a> approach of prosecuting certain one-off cases.</p>
<p>In 2018, the UK’s Northern Ireland Office issued an open consultation to hear views on the issue, garnering a staggering <a href="https://www.newsletter.co.uk/news/nio-sifting-17-000-responses-to-legacy-plan-with-no-end-in-sight-1-8811211">17,000 responses</a>. Its published recommendations range from an increased role for the current <a href="https://www.newsletter.co.uk/news/opinion/legacy-scandal-plans-for-the-past-perpetuate-a-mess-which-favours-dividers-and-terrorists-says-trevor-ringland-1-8627323">criminal justice system</a>, to an “oral history archive” (first properly outlined in a <a href="https://www.northernireland.gov.uk/publications/haass-report-proposed-agreement">2014 report</a> by US diplomat Richard Haass), to a South African-style truth and reconciliation commission.</p>
<h2>Barriers to an amnesty</h2>
<p>Echoing what happened in South Africa, one of the more controversial solutions highlighted as a recommendation from the consultation is a conditional Troubles “amnesty”. Some <a href="https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/a-conditional-troubles-amnesty-is-worthy-of-consideration-1.3624008">have suggested</a> that former protagonists of the conflict would be able to come forward to discuss their role “outside their own tribe or circle of intimate acquaintances”, potentially leading “to a fuller disclosure of the facts” than any law court.</p>
<p>It’s worth remembering that there is currently a form of de facto amnesty. Those convicted of Troubles killings – including British soldiers – will only serve two years of any jail term under the terms of the 1998 Good Friday Agreement. Initially this only covered offences committed between 1973 and 1998, but the British government <a href="https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/northern-ireland/troops-convicted-over-bloody-sunday-would-qualify-for-early-release-scheme-37909537.html">recently confirmed</a> it would extend the early release scheme to cover offences committed since January 1968, and so would ensure the swift release of soldier “F” should he be convicted.</p>
<p>Still, talk of a broad amnesty is normally rejected by Unionists, Irish nationalists and <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-47518887">victims groups</a>, as it would mean those responsible for killing would avoid prosecution. However, if applied across the board – to Republicans and Loyalists, as well as to former British troops – it might take the heat and partiality out of the subject. </p>
<p>Former Republican and Loyalist players in the conflict are routinely condemned, but many have gone on to play an important role in community work, education, the media and the arts. Even more importantly, peace only arrives when the protagonists engage and decide to stop the violence. </p>
<p>Leaving aside the case of the ex-paratrooper due to be tried for Bloody Sunday, a wider amnesty is most unlikely in the present moment. As the current Conservative government is <a href="https://theconversation.com/conservatives-strike-deal-with-the-dup-experts-react-80101">reliant on the DUP</a> for critical votes in the House of Commons, the British and Irish governments would need to be in a stronger position before imposing this necessary framework from above.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/113155/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Connal Parr does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Why a broad amnesty for Northern Ireland’s Troubles remains unlikely.Connal Parr, Lecturer, Northumbria University, NewcastleLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/945352018-04-06T14:31:40Z2018-04-06T14:31:40ZThe Good Friday Agreement belongs to the people, not the politicians<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/213557/original/file-20180406-125181-zktoyo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption"></span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">PA Archive</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>It would be downright bizarre to claim that the <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/good-friday-agreement-37019">Good Friday Agreement</a> (GFA) solved all of Northern Ireland’s problems – although it did shift the gun out of Irish politics. The very existence of Northern Ireland remains the defining fault line between unionists, who wish to remain in the UK, and republicans, who want to unite Ireland.</p>
<p>For republicans, the GFA was a holding operation. And given demographic changes, they feel that Irish unification is now within sight. With the republican community of Northern Ireland growing faster than the unionist, they believe the majority of the population will soon share their perspective. For unionists there is the inherent fear of being outnumbered – although many more Catholics (around one in five) favour remaining in the UK than do Protestants wishing for Irish unification (around one in ten).</p>
<p>But the GFA did create new social spaces. Today, a younger generation in Northern Ireland is slowly escaping the confines of ideological, social and cultural enclosure. Around one in five long-term relationships in Northern Ireland are now across the sectarian divide. Such relationships were once near heresy.</p>
<p>The vast majority of those who grew up over the past two decades have friendships across the divide that were unimaginable to their parents. Northern Ireland <a href="http://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=ES%2FR005060%2F1">election surveys</a> conducted at the University of Liverpool show that nearly half of those aged 18-24 do not choose the labels unionist or republican when asked about their identity.</p>
<h2>A people’s movement</h2>
<p>Unfortunately, the perpetual fascination with the Northern Ireland Assembly’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-a-tory-dup-deal-could-bring-even-stormier-waters-to-northern-ireland-79235">various machinations</a> drowns out this progress. And the anniversary of the agreement is a similar story.</p>
<p>Marking 20 years of the GFA will mean being reminded of senator <a href="https://www.qub.ac.uk/Research/GRI/mitchell-institute/timeline/">George Mitchell’s</a> ability to drag politicians over the line and of prime minister Tony Blair’s summation that reaching an agreement meant that “the hand of history is upon us”. Although it’s right to celebrate such leadership and to discuss the failures of the GFA to sustain devolution, a more precise account should point to how people sustained the GFA and the desire for peaceful coexistence.</p>
<p>The GFA does not and never did belong to the politicians. Its owners are the <a href="https://www.liverpool.ac.uk/irish-studies/research/research-projects/peoples-process/">people</a> who voted for it across the constitutional divide and sent out a resounding message that they were wearied by a conflict that did not correspond with their desire for a society based on parity of esteem. On May 22 1998, they voted overwhelmingly in support of the deal in referendums held both north and south of the border. For every person who voted against, 18 voted for. The people sent a clear message that they were repulsed by violence and supported democratic means alone. They were merely waiting for the politicians to catch up with them. The GFA, and the overwhelming endorsement of it, was a silent revolution.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/79o7DJRmK-o?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">20 years of the GFA.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>A critical aspect of the GFA was the significant de-escalation in violence. Between 1968 and 1998, some 3,600 were killed and 30,000 injured or imprisoned. In that period, there was an average of 110 killings per year. Last year, there were just two.</p>
<p>This agreement led to the Irish Republican Army (IRA) accepting the unthinkable in terms of its ideology. It recognised and approved the <a href="https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/consent-principle-underpins-way-to-finally-bring-end-to-north-violence-1.110319">principle of consent</a>. That principle enshrines the right for constitutional change based upon majority support. The people believed in consent and thus rejected the use of armed violence to achieve political goals. Their endorsement was the death knell of violence.</p>
<p>The increasing agnosticism about identity in Northern Ireland is evocative of the GFA’s desire to create a new sense of identity. The people now support inter-community marriage and wish for equal treatment for sexual minorities and women. It’s they who step across the sectarian divide while politicians fail to do so.</p>
<p>It is the people who have known loss, suffering and harm, who are most sensitive to compassion and a way forward. Former conflict-related prisoners worked to re-image murals to remove the allure of violence. Victims worked with those who caused harm to share ideas on how to sustain peace. Police and community members once hostile to each other constantly reduce sectarian tensions to embed peace. Civic, religious and community leaders challenged sectarian prejudice while the Assembly constantly teetered on the edge, crashed and rose and crashed again.</p>
<p>The silent revolution of the people channelled the GFA – it was not the GFA that guided them.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/94535/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Peter Shirlow receives funding from the ESRC. The video in this article was funded by the Department of Foreign Affairs (Ireland). The Institute of Irish Studies, University of Liverpool, is presently hosting Agreement: The People’s Process.
</span></em></p>The citizens of Northern Ireland were ready for peace long before national leaders signed on the dotted line.Peter Shirlow, Director, Institute of Irish Studies, University of LiverpoolLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/748202017-03-21T10:45:29Z2017-03-21T10:45:29ZMartin McGuinness: the IRA commander who walked down a political path<p>During the Troubles in Northern Ireland, some Ulster unionists blamed the Catholic education system for promoting an Irish nationalist identity among the minority population. This, they argued, helped fuel a republican insurgency from the early 1970s. As a leading figure in the insurgency, Martin McGuinness was <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/theobserver/2000/feb/06/life1.lifemagazine3">unequivocal</a> when asked about his own experience of being taught in the Catholic system: “They didn’t make me a republican; the Brits made me a republican.”</p>
<p>It was not Irish history that politicised McGuinness and led him to join the Irish Republican Army (IRA). Rather events in Northern Ireland from the late 1960s drove him – specifically the state’s violent response to a civil rights movement calling for an end to Catholic discrimination, and in particular seeing the <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/july/8/newsid_2496000/2496479.stm">killing of a neighbour by the British army</a> in July 1971.</p>
<p>Henceforth, McGuinness became a committed IRA member. He gained a particular reputation as a deadly sniper. Young Catholic women in his home town of Derry would even <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/theobserver/2000/feb/06/life1.lifemagazine3">goad the British soldiers</a> who supervised their every movement on the streets: “McGuinness will be out tonight. McGuinness will be out tonight …” McGuinness was also feared within republicanism as a strict disciplinarian, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/jan/19/martin-mcguinness-the-man-who-helped-steer-ira-away-from-terrorism">foreswearing alcohol and other vices</a>, and appearing cold and unemotional towards the movement’s <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/theobserver/2000/feb/06/life1.lifemagazine3">brutal response to “touts”</a> – those suspected of collaborating with the security forces.</p>
<p>However, McGuinness’ abilities early marked him out as more than just a military man. Aged just 22, he was airlifted to London as part of an IRA delegation to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/theobserver/2000/feb/06/life1.lifemagazine3">engage in talks with the British government</a>. Though these talks failed, when the British reopened a channel of communication with republicans in the late 1980s, McGuinness was now lead negotiator for Sinn Féin, the political wing of the IRA.</p>
<p>It was a role he maintained through the crucial talks leading to the IRA ceasefire of 1994, and then <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-belfast-agreement">the Good Friday Agreement of 1998</a>. Jonathan Powell, Tony Blair’s chief of staff, vividly recalls the time during these negotiations when the <a href="http://www.theweek.co.uk/people/37395/day-mcguinness-came-no-10">Sinn Féin leader first visited Downing Street</a>. Entering the Cabinet Room, McGuinness paused to comment: “So this is where all the damage was done.” Powell was taken aback by such a frank apparent reference to the IRA’s audacious near assassination of John Major via a mortar attack on Number 10 in 1991. “Yes”, Powell responded: “The windows came in but no one was injured.” “No”, replied McGuinness, “I meant this is where Michael Collins signed the treaty in 1921.”</p>
<p>Powell’s anecdote illustrates the very different positions from which the British government and Sinn Féin approached the Northern Ireland problem. For the former the focus was republican violence, and how to end it. For the latter the focus was on the historical injustices that motivated republican violence, and how to redress them. McGuinness had of course been referring to the treaty which partitioned Ireland and so created Northern Ireland.</p>
<h2>A key partnership</h2>
<p>When Sinn Féin and Ian Paisley’s DUP became the largest parties in their respective communities in the aftermath of the Good Friday Agreement in 1998, the terms of that deal meant that they had to agree on how to share power in Northern Ireland. Thus, a former IRA commander and a former firebrand preacher now jointly led the Northern Ireland government. The media had a field day, dubbing the pairing the <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/jennymccartney/3643620/Paisley-and-McGuinness-chuckling-in-power.html">Chuckle Brothers</a>, as a distinct camaraderie was displayed by Paisley and McGuinness.</p>
<p>Arguably, this showed the leadership skills of the two men. A deal between two sulking adversaries would have been harder to sell to their respective constituencies, and it was far better to have the media mock them than to pull at the loose threads of the political accord they had made. Meanwhile, the personal accord between Paisley and McGuinness seemed to grow into something genuine. Their past actions had, understandably, seen them portrayed as wholly serious individuals, but this masked the streak of humour which McGuinness and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/theobserver/2000/feb/06/life1.lifemagazine3">the man he called “Big Ian”</a> clearly shared. Their bond was most evident when Paisley retired. To mark the occasion, McGuinness presented him with a self-penned poem inspired by the author’s passion for <a href="http://www.theweek.co.uk/people/38327/mcguinness%25E2%2580%2599s-farewell-ode-rev-paisley">fly-fishing</a>. To describe McGuinness as a multi-layered man would seem a gross understatement.</p>
<h2>Taking a risk</h2>
<p>McGuinness’ <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-18607911">handshake with the Queen</a> in 2012 was seen as another crucial milestone in the peace process – the Queen’s cousin, Lord Mountbatten, was killed by the IRA in 1979. Again, leadership was evident on both sides.</p>
<p>But perhaps more powerful than McGuinness’ meeting with the Queen was the moment in 2009 when he branded republican dissidents as “traitors to Ireland” after they <a href="http://www.irishnews.com/news/2017/01/21/news/widow-of-murdered-officer-stephen-carroll-hails-mcguinness-for-denouncing-traitors--895619/">killed a police officer</a>. Shaking hands with the Queen was a potent symbol of peace-making; McGuinness’s condemnation of dissident violence had much greater practical effect. His unambiguous, impassioned statement helped protect the lives of all police officers, but particularly Catholics, whom dissidents cynically targeted as a way of undermining the transformation of policing achieved as part of the Good Friday Agreement. If dissidents could discourage young Catholics from joining the reformed service, they could hope for a return to the status quo ante – a partisan, Protestant police force, from which many Catholics had turned to the IRA for protection.</p>
<p>McGuinness spoke for the overwhelming majority of nationalists by making clear that the police were now a service for all the people of Northern Ireland. Dissident attacks on the police were thus an attack on the people they served. Everyone must therefore stand in defence of the police. It was arguably his greatest contribution to the peace process. He faced numerous <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2009/apr/24/martin-mcguinness-death-threats">death threats</a> afterwards, so it may also have been his bravest.</p>
<h2>The settlement</h2>
<p>It is because of such developments that the British media recently tried to draw a line between McGuinness and the other leading republican of the modern era, Gerry Adams. Republicans, of course, are well-used to British tactics of divide and rule, and for Adams and McGuinness, the secret of their political success was actually their unity of purpose. That, in turn, maximised the unity of the republican movement through its various compromises over recent decades. Together they achieved what no single leader in the long history of Irish republicanism ever did – embracing politics without a major split in the movement. Dissident factions splintering away are manageable, but history shows that a more significant divide will mean a continuation of conflict.</p>
<p>The media might also recall that it previously depicted McGuinness as the real hardliner. He was <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-38690431">“the soldier”</a> keeping faith with the republican rank and file, and keeping a lid on the ambitions of Adams, “the politician”. Certainly, the two men brought different qualities to the table at different times, but together they combined to provide an exceptional mode of leadership which jointly steered an essentially unified republican movement away from armed struggle towards peaceful politics.</p>
<p>Others, however, choose to focus only on the earlier part of McGuinness’s career. Like his other political partner, Ian Paisley, who many nationalists feel instigated the Troubles by orchestrating opposition to the civil rights movement, McGuinness will never be forgiven by some people.</p>
<p>For victims of violence on either side of the conflict, the focus on the past is wholly understandable. There were, after all, voices on both sides of the divide who, from the very outset, consistently argued for a more peaceful way towards change in Northern Ireland. However, ultimately, figures such as Paisley and McGuinness both helped lead more intransigent minds down that political path.</p>
<p>As long as future generations are prepared to continue with the same endeavour, the most enduring legacy of the former firebrand preacher and the former IRA commander will be a peaceful, just, and democratic settlement in Ireland.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/74820/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Peter John McLoughlin does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The former deputy first minister was once a feared IRA sniper but became a central figure in the move towards peace.Peter John McLoughlin, Lecturer in Politics, Queen's University BelfastLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/541972016-02-05T14:33:47Z2016-02-05T14:33:47ZHow much did British intelligence know about the IRA during the troubles?<p>The <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/bomb-that-spells-more-bloodshed-republican-attacks-on-shankill-roads-loyalist-heartland-are-sure-to-1512763.html">October 1993 Shankill Road IRA bomb</a> was one of the most notorious atrocities of the Northern Ireland conflict. Its intended target was the leadership of the loyalist paramilitary group the Ulster Defence Association as they met above Frizzel’s fish shop on Belfast’s Protestant Shankill Road on a busy Saturday lunchtime. Yet, the UDA had rescheduled its meeting at short notice – and the bomb exploded prematurely, killing nine Protestant civilians and one of the bombers, Thomas Begley.</p>
<p>The story is far from over. The <a href="http://www.irishnews.com/news/2016/01/25/news/the-ira-commander-at-time-of-shankill-bombing-was-a-police-informer-393891/">Irish News</a> recently headlined with the allegation that the IRA commander who planned the Shankill bomb was “working as an informant and passed information to his handlers that could have potentially prevented the atrocity”. Details on the double life of the agent, who was codenamed “AA”, were revealed in decrypted police files stolen during the <a href="http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/northern-ireland/castlereagh-breakin-allowed-to-happen-to-protect-ira-informer-claims-exspecial-branch-officer-34175895.html">IRA break-in</a> at Castlereagh RUC station in 2002.</p>
<p>These revelations raise three immediate questions. Did British intelligence forces have information on the attack but fail to prevent it? Was the RUC investigation into the bombing compromised to protect the identity of an informer? Have victims’ families really received justice for the loss of their loved ones? </p>
<p>When probed on these questions at a recent event at Queen’s University Belfast, the current chief constable of the PSNI, <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-35413553">George Hamilton</a>, dismissed claims of an advanced warning and emphasised that he is “100% convinced that the police service at the time had no knowledge of the Shankill bombing that could have prevented it”. A complaint has nevertheless been lodged with the Police Ombudsman asking for AA and his relationship with either RUC Special Branch or MI5 to be investigated.</p>
<h2>Agents of misfortune</h2>
<p>That security forces use informers and agents to infiltrate armed groups is not a new phenomena and it is <a href="http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/northern-ireland/half-of-all-top-ira-men-worked-for-security-services-28694353.html">well known</a> that British intelligence forces had informers inside republican and loyalist paramilitary organisations. In addition to gathering intelligence, informers can, for example, hamper the activity of paramilitary groups, weaken and undermine the armed group by spreading mistrust and paranoia and play a role in encouraging the movement towards demobilisation and engagement with peace processes. </p>
<p>The more thorny question relates to the <a href="http://www.caj.org.uk/files/2012/12/05/The_Policing_you_dont_see,_November_2012.pdf">permitted conduct of informers</a> and whether they operate within the law. Most fundamentally, informers cannot act as agent provocateurs – they cannot engage in crime nor induce others to do so. Moreover, informers cannot take lives and where unlawful deaths occur, the state must investigate in a way that is compliant with their obligations under domestic and international law.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/110359/original/image-20160204-3006-farear.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/110359/original/image-20160204-3006-farear.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/110359/original/image-20160204-3006-farear.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/110359/original/image-20160204-3006-farear.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/110359/original/image-20160204-3006-farear.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/110359/original/image-20160204-3006-farear.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/110359/original/image-20160204-3006-farear.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/110359/original/image-20160204-3006-farear.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Atrocity: victims of the 1974 Dublin and Monaghan bombings.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Keresaspa via Wikimedia Commons</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The Shankill bombing now joins a list of atrocities where the involvement of informers and agents is alleged. Also on that list are the <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/may/17/newsid_4311000/4311459.stm">1974 Dublin and Monaghan bombings</a>; the <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/january/5/newsid_2500000/2500393.stm">1976 Kingsmill massacre</a>; the activities of <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2003/may/12/northernireland.northernireland1">Freddie Scappaticci</a> – alleged to be the army’s most high-ranking agent in the IRA and accused of involvement in up to 50 murders – and <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/2944007.stm">Brian Nelson</a>, an army agent within the UDA responsible for passing on the names of IRA members who were subsequently murdered. Beyond these most high-profile cases are potentially hundreds of individuals who died as a result of state collusion with loyalist and republican paramilitary groups.</p>
<p>While the depth and extent of such collusion is unknown, the available evidence makes for uncomfortable reading. In 2003 <a href="http://www.cain.ulst.ac.uk/issues/collusion/stevens3/stevens3summary.pdf">Sir John Stevens</a> reported that “informants and agents were allowed to operate without effective control and to participate in terrorist crimes”. Former Police Ombudsman, <a href="https://www.policeombudsman.org/PONI/files/9a/9a366c60-1d8d-41b9-8684-12d33560e8f9.pdf">Nuala O’Loan</a>, found that collusion between state security forces and informers was “systemic” and that due process was undermined to protect informers suspected of murder. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/246867/0802.pdf">Sir Desmond de Silva’s</a> documentary review into the death of Pat Finucane contains details of a high-level RUC-Northern Ireland Office meeting in 1987 where it was acknowledged that placing informants in the middle ranks of terrorist groups “meant they would have to become involved in terrorist activity and operate with a degree of immunity from prosecution”. </p>
<p>Taken cumulatively, they point to state complicity in murder and impunity at the highest level.</p>
<h2>Legacy of mistrust</h2>
<p>Yet, the allegations keep on coming and the accountability gap is widening, not closing, with the passage of time. For the British state, there is the question of to what extent did it allow its own citizens to die – while for the IRA, to what extent were volunteers and supporters sacrificed by agents in the ranks? More broadly, where does responsibility lie and who is the victim and <a href="https://theconversation.com/in-northern-ireland-not-every-murder-is-treated-the-same-42569">who is the perpetrator</a> – the bomber and gunman or their security force handler who did nothing to prevent murder?</p>
<p>Such questions fall under the heading of “legacy issues” – a neat phrase for the unanswered questions that are a result of Northern Ireland’s eclectic and disjointed approach to dealing with the past. Nearly 18 years on from the signing of the Belfast Agreement, there is, as yet, little consensus on how best to deal with the past. The proposals contained in the <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/390672/Stormont_House_Agreement.pdf">Stormont House Agreement</a> – the latest iteration of this debate – have stumbled on the British government’s insistence that a “national security” caveat will control information entering and leaving one of the proposed legacy bodies, the <a href="http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/northern-ireland/historical-investigations-unit-will-be-set-up-as-planned-31428624.html">Historical Investigations Unit</a>.</p>
<p>In this vacuum, the past continues to infiltrate the present. On a daily basis it appears that protection, denial and obfuscation are often privileged over truth and justice. For victims and survivors – and a still fragile society – revelations such as those concerning the Shankill bomb reinforce hurt and trauma and undermine the gains of the peace process. If impunity is to be countered and truth and justice delivered, full political commitment to an open, transparent mechanism that is capable of shining a light into all areas of the past is a must.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/54197/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Cheryl Lawther receives funding from the AHRC.
</span></em></p>Fresh allegations have highlighted the uneasy relationship between paramilitary groups and the security services during the Troubles.Cheryl Lawther, Lecturer in Criminology, Queen's University BelfastLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/495282015-10-22T13:36:01Z2015-10-22T13:36:01ZThe war is over in Northern Ireland – but its troubled legacy remains<p>Northern Ireland’s devolved political institutions have been mired in crisis since the end of the summer: the Ulster Unionist Party <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/aug/26/northern-ireland-uup-significant-powersharing-announcement">announced its decision to leave the Northern Ireland executive</a> at the end of August and this was followed by a failed attempt by the Democratic Unionist Party to have <a href="http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/northern-ireland/dup-prepared-to-bring-down-assembly-unless-sinn-fein-is-excluded-dodds-warns-villiers-31484238.html">Sinn Fein excluded</a> from the ruling executive. </p>
<p>This led to the first minister, <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/sep/10/northern-ireland-government-on-brink-of-collapse">Peter Robinson</a>, along with other DUP ministers stepping down from their posts, (which left Arlene Foster as acting first minister). Since then the DUP ministers have <a href="http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/politics/stormont-crisis-dup-ministers-will-renominate-and-resign-to-keep-roles-from-sinn-fein-31520331.html">repeatedly resigned and been reinstated</a> for a few hours each week, while emergency talks have been taking place to resolve the political crisis. </p>
<p>The immediate trigger for this renewed wave of instability was the announcement by the police in August that the <a href="http://www.psni.police.uk/chief_constable_s_statement___psni_s_assessment_of_the_current_status_of_the_provisional_ira.">Provisional IRA was still in existence</a> and that some of its members were suspected to have been involved in the murder of senior republican Kevin McGuigan – even though the organisation was not considered to be active militarily.</p>
<p>All of this has once again called into question the durability of Northern Ireland’s political institutions and more broadly, the viability of the peace process itself – and some international headlines have suggested that the crisis signals a return to political violence in the province.</p>
<p>Though well intentioned, recent critiques of the peace process in Northern Ireland are misconceived and in some cases imprecise in their representation of power-sharing arrangements in the province. For instance, Eammon McCann’s <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/05/opinion/the-troubles-are-back.html">article in the New York Times</a> is incorrect in arguing that the Good Friday Agreement assigns “every person in Northern Ireland to either the unionist or nationalist camp”. </p>
<p>Though it does reflect the unionist and nationalist political identities, the power-sharing agreement includes no fixed posts assigned to specific ethnic or religious groups – as is the case in Lebanon – nor are there provisions for equal numbers of ministers from each main community – as in Belgium – nor separate electoral rolls – as currently in South Tyrol or under the the <a href="http://www.upenn.edu/pennpress/book/15427.html">1960 Cypriot constitution</a>.</p>
<p>To the contrary, in Northern Ireland membership in the executive is automatically determined by party strength, as has been the case for decades in <a href="https://www.eda.admin.ch/content/dam/eda/en/documents/publications/Politorbis/politorbis-45_EN.pdf">Switzerland</a>. </p>
<p>The logic of this flexible and <a href="https://kar.kent.ac.uk/50985/">predominantly liberal power-sharing</a> is to allow moderates to challenge radicals while providing incentives for wider engagement in the peace process. At the same time, if the former are elected, an inclusive mechanism is in place to <a href="http://www.polisci.upenn.edu/ppec/PPEC%20People/Brendan%20O'Leary/publications/Journal%20Articles/Consociational_Theory_NIreland_conflict_part_1.pdf">reflect people’s democratic choices</a>. The Good Friday agreement has been fairly neutral and flexible as to its inclusivity, inviting both moderates and hardliners to work together. So far, political parties have been entitled to cabinet seats sequentially on the basis of their electoral performance regardless of their political stance. </p>
<h2>No return to Troubles</h2>
<p>Northern Ireland’s political system has encouraged extreme parties to moderate to an <a href="http://yalepress.yale.edu/book.asp?isbn=9780300178708">astonishing degree</a> and has acted as a catalyst for paramilitaries to disarm. Sinn Fein now supports the police and rule of law, while unionists now accept power-sharing with Irish nationalists. While sectarian violence remains, it is a fraction of previous levels. </p>
<p>The Clinton administration and US senator, George Mitchell, did not “preside” over a doomed political process as wrongly argued in the New York Times. Their involvement, along with <a href="http://irishacademicpress.ie/product/the-end-of-irish-america-globalisation-and-the-irish-diaspora/">Irish-Americans</a> more broadly, provided a political dynamic that a peaceful alternative to violence was possible.</p>
<p>Likewise, the fact that devolved institutions are experiencing a period of instability does not mean that the Troubles are back. Such hyperbole misunderstands that the structural causes of the conflict no longer apply. The exclusion of the Republican tradition from Northern Ireland’s political institutions that fuelled the conflict for decades is over. </p>
<p>Some observers of Northern Ireland’s political institutions might warn of the risk of tinkering with a complex and organic system which is not broken. In our work, we have adopted the middle road between admirers and critics of the Good Friday agreement, arguing for the adoption of <a href="https://kar.kent.ac.uk/50987/">additional, less formalised components</a> within the existing structures, highlighting comparable arrangements from the <a href="https://kar.kent.ac.uk/50986/">Brussels Capital Region</a>.</p>
<h2>Needed: long-term thinking</h2>
<p>Due to the <a href="http://www.upenn.edu/pennpress/book/15260.html">automatic all-party inclusion mechanism</a> in Northern Ireland, parties do not form long-term coalition strategies. This has been a critical weakness of the agreement. To overcome these challenges, the Brussels Capital Region uses <a href="https://kar.kent.ac.uk/50986/">a two-tier system</a> allowing an executive to be appointed by political parties as in Northern Ireland, only after failing to form a cross-community coalition. </p>
<p>This will allow alternative options for political parties in Northern Ireland – either to negotiate coalitions with a shared program for the future (as in Belgium) or maintain their all-inclusive but less homogeneous cabinet (as in Switzerland). </p>
<p>Cross-community coalitions, when they emerge, are also more likely to <a href="http://www.niassembly.gov.uk/assembly-business/committees/assembly-and-executive-review">enhance collective decision-making</a> and to deliver on a shared platform. Parties in Northern Ireland will gradually develop long-term coalition strategies to avoid exclusion – while the “all-party inclusive executive” could be preserved but only as a <a href="http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=9318839&fileId=S0017257X14000281">default mechanism</a>. </p>
<p>Admittedly, the absence of Northern Ireland-type arrangements for resolving deadlocks has left countries in similar situations without elected governments for prolonged periods, as <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2013/10/01/589-days-with-no-elected-government-what-happened-in-belgium/">in Belgium in 2010-11</a>. Moreover, any changes in the coalition politics in Northern Ireland should be carefully timed and negotiated with the support of all major political parties. </p>
<p>Exclusive mediations and unrepresentative coalitions as advocated in the New York Times could increase rivalry and lethal violence. Lebanon, Iraq and the former Yugoslavia are just few among the many examples where significant minority groups have responded violently to attempts by others to ostracise them.</p>
<p>Recent events make it self-evident that Northern Ireland’s political institutions are in need of urgent reform in a manner that retains (and augments) confidence in them across Unionist, Nationalist and non-aligned communities. Our work is committed to assisting in that process and we would suggest that this is to be expected in a society coming out of violent conflict. </p>
<p>Political instability is an undeniable reality in Northern Ireland today, but this is a symptom of a society in transition – not of one going back to violence. The war is over but its legacy remains.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/49528/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The Good Friday settlement has kept the peace, but the system is plagued by built-in instability.Neophytos Loizides, Reader in International Conflict Analysis, University of KentFeargal Cochrane, Professor of International Conflict Analysis, Director of Research, School of Politics and International Relations, University of KentLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/446812015-07-14T13:32:22Z2015-07-14T13:32:22ZRegular as clockwork, violence erupts in Belfast over July marches<p>Looking at the <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-33516423">violence</a> that broke out in North Belfast on July 13, you could be forgiven for thinking you’d taken a quantum leap back in time by about 20 years. But the sad reality is that violence over parades is as much a part of the “new” Northern Ireland as <a href="http://www.discovernorthernireland.com/gameofthrones/">Game of Thrones</a>.</p>
<p>A 16-year old girl was injured in the fighting that broke out in Belfast, along with nine police officers, who were hit with bottles and bricks as they sought to prevent an Orange Order march from straying into a banned area.</p>
<p>This particular stretch of the Crumlin Road in North Belfast has been synonymous with parade-related violence in recent years. The Orange Order has persistently sought to march along the route to and from the annual <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-33499467">Twelfth celebrations</a>, much to the chagrin of the Nationalist residents of Ardoyne.</p>
<p>Successive <a href="https://www.paradescommission.org/">Parades Commission</a> determinations to either allow or ban the parade from proceeding along this stretch of the road provoke strong political criticism from various quarters and, as has been seen, violent discontent from a destructive minority. This year violence erupted because the parade was prohibited but in previous years it has erupted because it was not prohibited. </p>
<h2>A month of strife</h2>
<p>More than 20 years after the initial ceasefires, the issue of parading still looms large every July and at various other intervals in between. You can set your calendar by it. Some years it may be more prevalent and charged than others but every July there is violence or ill-will. Sometimes it will come in sporadic, isolated incidents, and sometimes it will be co-ordinated and sustained as was the case with the carnage that characterised the infamous <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/3041270.stm">Drumcree</a> dispute on the Garvaghy Road in Portadown. In the worst cases like Drumcree it can last for weeks.</p>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/a-tale-of-two-cities-marching-season-in-northern-ireland-16912">Parading</a> is intertwined with culture, identity, rights, tradition and, of course, the causes of generations of conflict. So while the vast majority of parades pass off without incident, a small number are highly contentious and have the capacity to wreak havoc.</p>
<p>For Unionists, parading is seen as a legitimate and traditional expression of culture. For Nationalists, they are a triumphalist coat trailing exercise grounded in innate sectarianism and intolerance.</p>
<p>Disputes over parading at certain flash points, like the kind seen in North Belfast this time, took root around the same time as the ceasefires began to appear on the political horizon. As overt violence was being phased out for the most part, the extension of “war by other means” became discernible. And parading became the perfect battleground.</p>
<p>The importance of parading is amplified in Northern Ireland because it is a society rooted in the principles of mandatory power sharing and consociationalism – a complex political system adopted in divided societies to ensure adequate representation for diverse ethno-nationalist groups. It brings out the limits to compromise and getting a green light from the Parades Commission can be seen as a “win” for “us” at the expense of “them”.</p>
<p>To complicate matters further, huge demographic changes in Belfast mean that traditional parading routes are now home to significant numbers of people from the “other side”. These routes are no longer spaces that one group can call its own.</p>
<h2>Meta-conflict</h2>
<p>The issue of parading acts as a valve through which dissatisfaction and disillusionment with the bigger political picture in Northern Ireland can be violently vented.</p>
<p>Unionists who are cynical of the new political order riot because they think their right to cultural expression has been taken away to appease the other side. And when parades are pushed through areas against the wishes of local residents, Nationalists react violently too. They argue that allowing the marches to take place reminds them of the times of the Orange state, when the police were used to enforce the dominance of their enemies.</p>
<p>That’s not to deny that some even just embrace rioting as a recreational pastime and won’t miss an opportunity to get their kick. Flash points like the Orange march in North Belfast provide just such a venue for this kind of behaviour.</p>
<p>Parading is very similar to the <a href="https://theconversation.com/where-politicians-fail-storytellers-address-the-troubles-in-northern-ireland-33335">“dealing with the past”</a> spectre hanging over Northern Ireland – everyone knows it exists, everyone knows it needs addressing as a matter of urgency but political agreement on the matter remains elusive. </p>
<p>The issue mirrors disagreement that is grounded in the meta-conflict that continues in Northern Ireland over who is to blame for the death and destruction that results from the actual conflict.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, the dispute over parading looks set to repeat itself until an overarching and inclusive approach to solving the issue at its most base level is adopted. This is not easy given that any approach must balance competing rights and interests. However to be inclusive and have weight on the ground, it must not be used as a political bargaining chip.</p>
<p>There must be genuine dialogue between those at grassroots level on both sides of the argument, where a willingness to be heard must be matched by a willingness to listen. Essentially, the only people who can resolve the dispute are those at the centre of it and whose everyday lives are affected by it.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/44681/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kevin Hearty does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>It’s marching season in Northern Ireland and tension is inevitable.Kevin Hearty, Research Fellow, Centre for Operational Police Research, University of WarwickLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/425692015-05-29T14:35:54Z2015-05-29T14:35:54ZIn Northern Ireland, not every murder is treated the same<p>A BBC Panorama programme about state killings in Northern Ireland did not reveal much more than most local people already knew, but it told a lot more people in Great Britain what they did not know at all.</p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b05x8gzs">programme</a> alleged that the British Army and the Royal Ulster Constabulary Special Branch knew that their informers, within both the Provisional IRA and Loyalist paramilitary organisations, were involved in murders but did nothing to stop them. Protecting informers to glean more information was the higher gain. Some of these murders were of other security force personnel but they were mostly innocent civilians – and the bulk of them were Catholics.</p>
<p>The disgusting but rather popular idea that there is a victim hierarchy is shattered by these revelations. The distinction made between victim and victim-maker that has stymied the award of pensions to those injured in the Troubles because Unionist politicians <a href="http://www.mydup.com/news/article/dup-victims-pension-bill-will-propose-exclusion-of-perpetrators">could not stomach giving money to perpetrators of violence</a>, now collapses. </p>
<p>Who now is the victim-maker? The bomber and gunman or their security-force handler who did nothing to prevent murder?</p>
<p>The Panorama allegations of collusion pose are another challenge to the dismissive and flippant response of many Unionists, who have denied <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/parliament-northern-ireland-unionist-anger-at-finucane-inquiry-1091744.html">similar allegations made in the past</a>. We can anticipate they will be dismissed again.</p>
<p>I am confident in this prediction because one of the features of the peace process is a moral recalibration that results in only selective condemnation. This has stooped so low as to distort the meaning of justice in Northern Ireland. </p>
<h2>Justice past and present</h2>
<p>Justice is one of the key principles on which to build a better future. Not the only one – there is also the need for fairness, equality of opportunity, hope, social betterment and the alleviation of human need and want – but justice is amongst the keystones. But justice looks backwards as much as forwards; it is about dealing with past injustices as well as making improvements for the future. </p>
<p>This means justice is much broader than merely its criminal applications. It is is not just about prosecuting past criminal wrongs; it is about ensuring that past wrongs are not repeated. And the wrongs that need to be avoided are not only criminal acts; they are all previous social, political, cultural and economic practices which ended up in people being treated as second-class citizens, without regard to their common dignity as human beings. </p>
<p>With this approach, justice is truly blind. All people are of equal worth. All people have equal dignity. All people should be treated fairly. No one is above the law and no one deserves less justice than anyone else. </p>
<p>Justice, sadly, can also be one-eyed, when only some people’s rights to justice are accorded privilege, or when some people’s injustices get attention and other’s injustices are forgotten. When we pursue only some people’s past wrongs, or only some kinds of past wrongs and not other kinds of past wrongs. When this happens, justice is no basis on which to build a better future; it is merely a way to use the past selectively. </p>
<h2>Same crime, different outcome</h2>
<p>Let me cite just one example of the different treatment accorded to the murder of two innocent mothers. Everyone in the UK has heard of <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-27234413">Jean McConville</a>. She was a mother of ten, abducted and murdered by the Provisional IRA in 1972. It is a case used to highlight the inhumanity of the IRA. <a href="http://news.sky.com/story/1252647/gerry-adams-arrested-by-police-over-murder">Gerry Adams was arrested</a> and released without charge over his alleged involvement. </p>
<p>But who is <a href="http://ballymurphymassacre.com/jconnolly.htm">Joan Connolly</a>? She was a mother of eight shot by the Parachute Regiment in the unprovoked killing of 11 civilians in Ballymurphy in West Belfast in 1971. The secretary of state for Northern Ireland has <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-18520216">refused an enquiry into these murders</a>. Justice for these two mothers is not equal.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/83393/original/image-20150529-15244-13w1uhs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/83393/original/image-20150529-15244-13w1uhs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/83393/original/image-20150529-15244-13w1uhs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/83393/original/image-20150529-15244-13w1uhs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/83393/original/image-20150529-15244-13w1uhs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/83393/original/image-20150529-15244-13w1uhs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/83393/original/image-20150529-15244-13w1uhs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/83393/original/image-20150529-15244-13w1uhs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">We still wait for answers on Ballymurphy.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/sinnfeinireland/12285563465/in/photolist-zLufz-ajMbNL-zF9Ex-7K69eL-7MRZNn-jHDJoP-q8RT3E-5wAMnH-bnK4fu-bADV2X-5wAN3H-5s2kNh-byPqRZ-bkUz1G-byPr6Z-byPqGM-byPqya-7MW3af-5wF8rN-5wF3fC-jHCfFX-jHD8QF-jHCWK4-jHEXMG-5wF36q-5wq1NQ-atEquZ-atEqx4-atEqw4-c5CJMS-qyxtBF-jHCHZK-qyz5xR-amaxyg-rwjCX2-r9aw3y-jHGnT5-jHDkKH-5CJrWY-5wq2gY-5wpZT9-5wq2aN-5wq12s-5wkFMk-5wkFJV-5wq1Fj-qmmVpz-5wkG7n-5CE9Fi/">Sinn Fein</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This is the true significance of the Panorama allegations. State or state-sponsored killings are looked at differently. But when those who make the law break the law, there is no law – and when there is no law, there is no morality. When justice is unjust, morality itself is undermined. Justice that is one-eyed is no justice at all.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/42569/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>John Brewer receives funding from The ESRC and the Leverhulme Trust</span></em></p>Revelations on the BBC’s Panorama confirm what many Northern Irish already knew: justice is not for everyone.John Brewer, Professor of Post Conflict Studies, Queen's University BelfastLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.