tag:theconversation.com,2011:/ca/topics/the-troubles-26976/articlesThe Troubles – The Conversation2023-12-12T13:24:00Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2178622023-12-12T13:24:00Z2023-12-12T13:24:00ZIsraelis and Palestinians warring over a homeland is far from unique<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/563731/original/file-20231205-25-889iop.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The golden Dome of the Rock Islamic shrine, a holy site for Muslims, stands close to the Western Wall, Judaism's holiest site, in an aerial view of Jerusalem's Old City. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/the-golden-dome-of-the-rock-islamic-shrine-dominates-the-news-photo/55972333?adppopup=true">David Silverman/Getty Images </a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The ongoing horrors unfolding in Israel and Gaza have deep-rooted origins that stem from a complex and contested question: Who has rights to the same territory? </p>
<p>I am a <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=HPHREV0AAAAJ&hl=en">scholar of international affairs</a>, as well as territory and nationalism. <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/24480555">Territory has been a central cause of conflict throughout history</a>. </p>
<p>Today, Israelis and Palestinians both claim the <a href="https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2023-10-20/israel-gaza-how-big-maps-california">same swath of land</a> as their own. Each group has its own historical narratives, its own names for the territory – Israel or Palestine, depending on whom you ask – and many people from each group <a href="https://www.vox.com/2018/11/20/18080002/israel-palestine-conflict-history-overview-map">believe strongly</a> that sharing the land is impossible. </p>
<p>Palestinians and Israelis also look to this same land as a way to define their identities and protect their futures. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/563733/original/file-20231205-23-6idb0f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A fence divides rural, arid land, with trees and grass all around, and small mountains in the distance." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/563733/original/file-20231205-23-6idb0f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/563733/original/file-20231205-23-6idb0f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=380&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/563733/original/file-20231205-23-6idb0f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=380&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/563733/original/file-20231205-23-6idb0f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=380&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/563733/original/file-20231205-23-6idb0f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=477&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/563733/original/file-20231205-23-6idb0f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=477&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/563733/original/file-20231205-23-6idb0f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=477&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 fence on Israel’s border with Gaza is seen on Nov. 24, 2023, during a temporary humanitarian truce between Hamas and Israel.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/this-photo-shows-a-fence-seen-from-israels-border-with-gaza-news-photo/1801721901?adppopup=true">Chen Junqing/Xinhua via Getty Images</a></span>
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<h2>The benefits of controlling territory</h2>
<p><a href="https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691123837/the-geography-of-ethnic-violence">Virtually every country serves as a designated homeland</a> to many of its citizens – a place that is tied to people’s ancestries, cultural histories and legends. </p>
<p>The idea of a homeland is kept alive as each generation tries to teach children about the significance of the land they inhabit or come from.</p>
<p>Controlling territory and claiming it as a homeland is vital for people for a number of reasons. First, it helps ensure a stable supply of essential items like food, water and shelter. It can help provide security against external threats, like hostile neighbors. It also fosters a sense of identity and belonging within a community. </p>
<p>When people control their own territory, it helps them form and maintain a government and preserve their culture, shaping their values and ways of life.</p>
<p>Controlling territory can also affect people’s social status, help create new economic opportunities and improve their psychological well-being. </p>
<p>In many cultures, peoples’ identities are literally attached to territory in their names. In Europe, many aristocrats are named for the lands they controlled, as in “von Bismarck,” in Germany, or “York,” a region in England. </p>
<p>This differs from middle- or working-class people, who are traditionally named for their professions – like Hunter, Smith and Taylor. </p>
<p>At its most basic level, <a href="https://direct.mit.edu/isec/article/38/3/7/12099/Grounds-for-War-The-Evolution-of-Territorial">territorial control is about survival and reproduction</a>, and it has influenced human behavior in other ways. Disputes over who controls or has the legal right to a territory has consistently fueled wars. </p>
<h2>Fighting over territory isn’t rare</h2>
<p>Seen from the perspective of territorial conflict, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is far from unique. Consider the ongoing war over which government should control parts of Ukraine, for example. </p>
<p>One of the most contentious territorial disputes in history involved Alsace-Lorraine, a region that was once part of the German empire in the late 1870s. Both France and Germany had cultural and historical ties to the region, leading to frequent conflicts and changes in sovereignty until World War II, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/summary/Alsace-Lorraine">after which it legally became part of France</a>. </p>
<p>After World War II ended in 1945, Germany and France’s joint commitment to rebuilding Europe bound their destinies economically and politically. Leaders in Europe, joined by a vision for unity, peace and the imperative to prevent another world war, played a crucial role in transforming Europe. Historical foes became close allies, marking the start of a unified European identity.</p>
<p>Had you asked people in the 1920s and 1930s whether Franco-German coexistence and peace would have been possible, they would have likely said no.</p>
<h2>The divide over Northern Ireland</h2>
<p>Northern Ireland’s dueling Protestants and Roman Catholics would have given an even more emphatic “no” if asked during much of the 20th century whether they could live together peacefully. This conflict, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/The-Troubles-Northern-Ireland-history">known as the Troubles</a>, began with <a href="https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/education/resources/irish-partition/">Great Britain’s partition of Ireland</a> from itself in 1921. Northern Ireland, however, remained part of Great Britain. </p>
<p>Fighting over what should happen with Northern Ireland fully erupted in the late 1960s and continued until the 1990s. </p>
<p>At its core, the conflict involved competing national identities and allegiances between the predominantly Protestant unionists, who wanted Northern Ireland to remain part of the United Kingdom, and the mainly Catholic nationalists, who wanted a united Ireland. <a href="https://www.history.com/news/the-troubles-northern-ireland">Protests and marches, car bombings,</a> riots, sectarian attacks and revenge killings marked this explosive period, resulting in the <a href="https://www.lancaster.ac.uk/troubledgeogs/chap10.htm#:%7E:text=The%20violence%20led%20to%20over,of%20the%20conflict%20are%20controversial">deaths of more than 3,500 people</a>.</p>
<p>Yet in 1998, the Troubles came to an end when both sides signed the <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-61968177">Good Friday Agreement,</a> keeping Northern Ireland part of the United Kingdom but giving residents there the chance to have either British or Irish citizenship, or both. No one prior to 1998 would have imagined this agreement would create the opportunity for reconciliation and peace. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/563756/original/file-20231205-19-y7hu0o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Three men wear dark suits and smile, together holding a white document and looking at the camera." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/563756/original/file-20231205-19-y7hu0o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/563756/original/file-20231205-19-y7hu0o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=446&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/563756/original/file-20231205-19-y7hu0o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=446&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/563756/original/file-20231205-19-y7hu0o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=446&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/563756/original/file-20231205-19-y7hu0o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=561&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/563756/original/file-20231205-19-y7hu0o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=561&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/563756/original/file-20231205-19-y7hu0o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=561&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">British Prime Minister Tony Blair, right, U.S. Sen. George Mitchell, center, and Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern smile on April 10, 1998, after they signed the Good Friday Agreement, ending the conflict over Northern Ireland.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/file-picture-of-british-prime-minister-tony-blair-us-news-photo/80561700?adppopup=true">Dan Chung/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
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<h2>Similarities across the conflicts</h2>
<p>Just as happened in Europe after World War II and in Northern Ireland in the 1990s, Israelis and Palestinians would also need to find a renewed commitment to dialogue, diplomacy and international cooperation in order to make lasting peace. </p>
<p>But the region has a history of conflict dating back centuries, with both sides experiencing immense suffering and loss. This history creates a deeply rooted mistrust that hampers efforts to find a common understanding that each group of people has long ties to the land. </p>
<p>Contestation over the <a href="https://apnews.com/article/jerusalem-middle-east-lifestyle-government-and-politics-43d4cab031c28da0abf98d694dd169ac">city of Jerusalem</a> is not simply a city-planning problem, as it encompasses major holy sites from the three Abrahamic traditions. It is home to the Al-Aqsa Mosque, the third holiest place for Muslims worldwide, and the Western Wall, part of the holiest site for Jews globally. </p>
<p>The Church of the Holy Sepulchre, or Church of the Resurrection, is also in Jerusalem. It’s the holiest site for Christians who believe this is where Jesus was crucified, entombed and later resurrected. This helps explain why Jews, Muslims and Christians all feel as if they have a vital stake in who controls Jerusalem. </p>
<h2>Unraveling pain and loss</h2>
<p>There was a time, including <a href="https://history.state.gov/milestones/1993-2000/oslo">in the 1990s</a>, when <a href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwjRnfybh_mCAxXfGFkFHRVGD08QFnoECBYQAQ&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.britannica.com%2Ftopic%2Ftwo-state-solution&usg=AOvVaw0Wru6PyBCkPBbb1v4liw1i&opi=89978449">Israeli and Palestinian political leaders</a> discussed a two-state solution, with a shared capital in Jerusalem, as a way out of the conflict and into a common future. <a href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwiDwuuLh_mCAxWuElkFHf76AUY4ChAWegQIAxAB&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.pewresearch.org%2Fshort-reads%2F2023%2F09%2F26%2Fisraelis-have-grown-more-skeptical-of-a-two-state-solution%2F&usg=AOvVaw16rmnbo9updobQX0IwGbzy&opi=89978449">No longer</a>.</p>
<p>The current violence in Gaza and Israel – and escalating <a href="https://www.vox.com/politics/2023/12/2/23984104/west-bank-israel-palestine-settler-violence">conflict over the West Bank</a> – only deepens the entrenched homeland narratives on both sides, with each side fearing the survival of their homeland is at stake in any potential compromise.</p>
<p>It will take years – or even generations – to unravel the pain and loss that each side is experiencing in the current war.</p>
<p>Unless Palestinians and Israelis can find a way to detach the disputed land from their identities, there are no straightforward solutions. This is what happened in Alsace-Lorraine and Northern Ireland – but it’s not clear that such a transformation in thinking will take place anytime soon in the Middle East.</p>
<p>Ultimately, the tragedy of deep attachment to a homeland territory lies in the fact that while it can create a sense of belonging for one group, it too often comes at the expense of another.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/217862/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Monica Duffy Toft does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Conflicts over the Alsace-Lorraine region and Northern Ireland offer examples of how territory is often at the center of a conflict − and what is necessary to pave the path to peace.Monica Duffy Toft, Professor of International Politics and Director of the Center for Strategic Studies, The Fletcher School, Tufts UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2142192023-11-09T21:22:03Z2023-11-09T21:22:03ZNew law sidesteps British culpability in Northern Ireland’s Troubles<iframe style="width: 100%; height: 100px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" allow="clipboard-read; clipboard-write" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/new-law-sidesteps-british-culpability-in-northern-irelands-troubles" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>The <a href="https://bills.parliament.uk/bills/3160">Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Act</a> became law in the United Kingdom on Sept. 18. It is an attempt to resolve the many open investigations into murders committed during the 30-year armed conflict in Northern Ireland known as <a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/the-troubles-of-northern-ireland-history">the Troubles</a>.</p>
<p>The new law calls for setting up an independent commission to deal with the hundreds of killings that remain unsolved to this day. It would offer <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/9/4/uks-controversial-ngorthern-ireland-legacy-bill-all-you-need-to-know">conditional amnesty</a> to those who co-operate with the commission’s investigations.</p>
<p>The act was passed despite <a href="https://www.irishtimes.com/politics/2023/09/06/northern-ireland-troubles-legacy-bill-what-it-means-for-victims-families/">widespread condemnation</a> from the communities of Northern Ireland and broader international parties. The British government says the act will “<a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-57829037">draw a line under the Troubles</a>” and achieve reconciliation. But this claim is questionable and the act raises concerns regarding colonial legacies and the government’s culpability.</p>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/amnesty-for-troubles-related-crimes-to-become-law-why-many-people-in-northern-ireland-oppose-the-bill-213029">Opponents of the act</a> argue that it violates the Good Friday Agreement by putting “<a href="https://www.coe.int/en/web/commissioner/-/united-kingdom-adopting-northern-ireland-legacy-bill-will-undermine-justice-for-victims-truth-seeking-and-reconciliation">victims’ rights at risk”</a> in ceasing all open criminal investigations. Sinn Fein, the largest party in the Northern Ireland Assembly, said the act is a “<a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-66634919">denial of human rights of victims and their families</a>.” Critics also say it will not achieve its purported goals of reconciliation and may actually “<a href="https://www.irishtimes.com/ireland/2022/11/22/primates-of-all-ireland-say-legacy-bill-will-deepen-divisions-in-northern-ireland/">deepen divisions</a>” between the communities of Northern Ireland. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/amnesty-for-troubles-related-crimes-to-become-law-why-many-people-in-northern-ireland-oppose-the-bill-213029">Amnesty for Troubles-related crimes to become law – why many people in Northern Ireland oppose the bill</a>
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<h2>A “Legacy and Reconciliation” Act</h2>
<p>The act seeks to promote reconciliation through a loosely defined “Independent Commission for Reconciliation and Information Recovery.” This language of reconciliation and independent commissions appears on the surface to be <a href="https://www.unpo.org/downloads/ProfKnoops.pdf">based on notions of transitional justice and reconciliation</a>. Supporters note that the 1998 <a href="https://education.niassembly.gov.uk/post-16/snapshots-devolution/belfast-agreementgood-friday-agreement-1998">Good Friday Agreement</a>, which brought an end to the Troubles, also declared a goal of reconciliation.</p>
<p>Truth and reconciliation commissions are a <a href="https://www.ictj.org/truth-and-memory">key component of peace processes</a>, helping societies transition out of conflict and into peaceful relations. <a href="https://theconversation.com/do-truth-and-reconciliation-commissions-heal-divided-nations-109925">Despite their varying effectiveness</a>, they are generally seen as a positive step forward. </p>
<p>However, three factors reveal how the U.K. government’s agenda is disingenuous: the definition of justice, the dilemmas of colonial legacies and the government’s own culpability.</p>
<h2>The people should define justice</h2>
<p>Opposition to the act’s amnesty provision reflects a wider debate in peace processes between <a href="https://commons.lib.jmu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1011&context=ijps">retributive and restorative justice</a> and the role of amnesty. Retributive justice reflects the idea that perpetrators of crimes should be punished accordingly under the law. In Ireland, criminal justice for perpetrators — or retributive justice — is frequently described as inherent to victims’ rights. </p>
<p>Restorative justice emphasizes shared dialogue between the perpetrator and victim. However, offering perpetrators amnesty — or what some critics label impunity — to garner their participation is often criticized for <a href="https://www.beyondintractability.org/library/reconciliation-through-restorative-justice-analyzing-south-africas-truth-and-reconciliation">not always delivering justice</a> to victims.</p>
<p>South Africa, for example, selected a restorative justice process of <a href="https://www.france24.com/en/africa/20211226-desmond-tutu-s-truth-commission-rejected-retributive-justice-in-favour-of-healing">truth-telling, with amnesty</a>, to encourage perpetrator participation. But while dialogue occurred, action to implement the recommendations that followed was never taken, leaving many feeling justice had not been served.</p>
<p>The U.K.’s legislation suggests it is using amnesty to encourage perpetrators to come forward with the truth. However, one of the act’s other controversial moves includes <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2023/9/11/shut-it-all-down-uk-legacy-bill-threatens-troubles-era-atrocity-inquests">shutting down existing investigations</a> to shift all cases over to the new framework.</p>
<p>British military personnel are subject to a <a href="https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-8352/">number of open investigations</a> for their role in over 3,500 deaths of the Troubles. In simultaneously applying amnesty and closing investigations, the act clearly serves the interests of the British government. The legislation’s claims to restorative justice become a way to prevent the truth of government’s culpability coming out.</p>
<h2>Reconciliation and colonial legacies</h2>
<p>Northern Ireland faces another issue similar to <a href="https://www.facinghistory.org/en-ca/resource-library/truth-reconciliation-0">Canada’s truth and reconciliation process</a>. There has been no transition of the imperial or colonial institutions. Simply put, the colonial state’s that perpetrated violence are still in power. The problems of <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0924051921992747">non-transition</a>, colonialism and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/ijtj/iju004">structural violence</a> are widely critiqued by scholars of transitional justice in an Indigenous context. These criticisms carry important lessons for Northern Ireland.</p>
<p>The U.K. government that has passed this legislation — without the consent of the Northern Irish people — still claims sovereign authority over the territory. While a transition of sorts occurred with the creation of the Northern Ireland Assembly in 1998, there has been no transition of the Westminster government. Nor any transition of the Crown, whose imperial presence has been felt in Ireland for hundreds of years.</p>
<p>In Canada, despite being forced <a href="https://nctr.ca/about/history-of-the-trc/truth-and-reconciliation-commission-of-canada/">by legal settlement</a> to co-operate with Indigenous groups, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s <a href="https://ehprnh2mwo3.exactdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Volume_6_Reconciliation_English_Web.pdf">final report</a> noted the government still retained a colonial lens of reconciliation in maintaining its “Crown Sovereignty.” The U.K. government is also defining reconciliation in a way that does not respond to the interests or appeals of the people of Northern Ireland. </p>
<h2>Historicizing crimes</h2>
<p>In seeking to draw a line under the conflict and relegating the issues to history, the act appears even more self-serving. The U.K. government is highly culpable in the Troubles — particularly in the <a href="https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/bloody-sunday-in-northern-ireland">1972 Bloody Sunday massacre</a> — lending to greater outcry at the notion they may be allowed to absolve themselves of responsibility through legislation.</p>
<p>When former British prime minister David Cameron <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2010/jun/15/bloody-sunday-report-saville-inquiry">apologized for Bloody Sunday</a> in 2010, it was made clear that there was a distinction between the two regimes: his, and that of 1972. Records show that ministers as early as 1997 were aware of the impact of such an apology underpinning the <a href="https://www.irishnews.com/news/northernirelandnews/2022/12/28/news/sir_patrick_mayhew_said_british_government_would_not_apologise_over_bloody_sunday-2960402/">liability of the British government</a> and calls for justice.</p>
<p>Proponents of restorative justice processes could argue that an amnesty approach is a possible step toward healing and reconciliation. But such processes must align with the demands of the communities, victims and survivors.</p>
<p>Outcry about the act in Northern Ireland represents the challenge of doing reconciliation without real institutional transition. And of ignoring the legacies of history without addressing the demands for justice in the present day.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/214219/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Samantha Twietmeyer 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>Opponents of the U.K. government’s Northern Ireland Troubles Act argue it violates the Good Friday Agreement by denying victims their right to justice.Samantha Twietmeyer, Research fellow, Queen's University, OntarioLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2130292023-09-11T16:56:05Z2023-09-11T16:56:05ZAmnesty for Troubles-related crimes to become law – why many people in Northern Ireland oppose the bill<p>The UK government’s <a href="https://bills.parliament.uk/bills/3160">Northern Ireland Troubles (legacy and reconciliation) bill</a> – which has faced near universal opposition in Northern Ireland – has passed the House of Commons. The Commons rejected the latest Lords’ amendments, paving the way for the controversial bill to receive royal assent and become law in the coming weeks. </p>
<p>More than 1,000 killings relating to the 30-year armed conflict in Northern Ireland, known as the Troubles, are <a href="https://www.thedetail.tv/articles/new-figures-reveal-scale-of-unsolved-killings-from-the-troubles">still being investigated</a>. This bill will close down all methods of investigating Troubles-related offences, including criminal investigations, coroners’ inquests, police ombudsman investigations and civil remedies. </p>
<p>In their place, an <a href="https://icrir.independent-inquiry.uk/">independent commission</a> will review (rather than fully investigate) Troubles-related deaths and very serious injuries and provide reports to families. </p>
<p>Former soldiers and paramilitaries will be granted amnesty on the condition that they disclose their involvement in serious offences “to the best of their knowledge and belief”. In other words, perpetrators of historic violence will be protected from prosecution if they cooperate with the commission. </p>
<p>Families of victims have repeatedly expressed their opposition to these measures, which they see as <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-66226953">protecting perpetrators</a> at the expense of the victims. The Troubles, which ended with the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, saw more than 3,500 people killed, mostly by paramilitary groups and armed forces, including the British Army.</p>
<p>The UK government <a href="https://www.rightsandsecurity.org/assets/downloads/211216_Vexatious_Claims_Briefing_Website.pdf">has claimed</a> that there have been “vexatious claims” and a “cycle of reinvestigations” against former British soldiers, and that the legacy bill is needed to <a href="https://www.newsletter.co.uk/news/politics/troubles-legacy-government-pledge-to-end-cycle-of-reinvestigations-2482275">protect veterans</a>. </p>
<p>The bill has faced strong condemnation from the <a href="https://www.dfa.ie/news-and-media/press-releases/press-release-archive/2022/june/ireland-welcomes-decision-by-council-of-europe-on-northern-ireland-legacy-issues.php">Irish government</a>, the <a href="https://news.un.org/en/story/2022/12/1131742">UN</a>, the <a href="https://www.coe.int/en/web/commissioner/-/united-kingdom-adopting-northern-ireland-legacy-bill-will-undermine-justice-for-victims-truth-seeking-and-reconciliation">Council of Europe</a> and the <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/legacy-bill-northern-ireland-peace-us-b2400571.html">US Congress</a>. These groups have argued that the bill will violate the UK’s obligations under the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, as well as international human rights law.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/good-friday-agreement-25-years-on-the-british-government-is-seeking-to-undo-key-terms-of-the-peace-deal-203208">Good Friday Agreement: 25 years on, the British government is seeking to undo key terms of the peace deal</a>
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<p>The bill also calls on the UK government to appoint people to lead a number of efforts to commemorate the Troubles. These include collecting oral histories from members of the public, conducting academic research and other projects to <a href="http://www.niassembly.gov.uk/globalassets/documents/raise/gfaseminars/gfa--25-years-policy-briefing-reconciliation---anna-bryson.pdf">“promote memorialisation”</a>.</p>
<p>In <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Oral-History-Education-and-Justice-Possibilities-and-Limitations-for/Llewellyn-Ng-A-Fook/p/book/9781032069340">other post-conflict societies</a>, such measures have been valuable steps towards reconciliation, as they can contribute to more inclusive narratives of the conflict and provide a forum to acknowledge victims’ experiences.</p>
<p>However, the strength of opposition to the legacy bill will inevitably undermine these efforts in Northern Ireland, because families of victims feel their intergenerational trauma <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-66758261">will remain unresolved</a>.</p>
<h2>A controversial bill</h2>
<p>In Northern Ireland, victims and survivor groups have consistently opposed the bill, which they view as a denial of victims’ rights to truth. They have been supported by civil society groups, churches and the <a href="https://nihrc.org/publication/detail/advice-on-northern-ireland-troubles-legacy-and-reconciliation-bill-to-the-coe-committee-of-ministers">Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission</a>. </p>
<p>Notably, all five of Northern Ireland’s main political parties have called on the UK government to scrap the legislation – an unusual display of consensus. The Democratic Unionist Party <a href="https://mydup.com/news/lords-must-take-opportunity-to-tackle-toxic-legacy-bill">called the bill</a> an “insult” to the memory of victims.</p>
<p>The cross-community opposition to the bill is also striking given <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/21647259.2021.1977016">academic research</a> and <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/a1fcf8b0-7986-4da8-a3c8-57dc7ad70004">public debate</a> on the enduring challenges Northern Ireland has faced in its journey to reconciliation.</p>
<p>In the rest of the UK, the Labour party and SNP have repeatedly voted against the legislation. The <a href="https://www.irishtimes.com/politics/2023/06/30/scotland-to-opt-out-of-uks-controversial-troubles-legislation-unless-concerns-addressed/">Scottish Parliament</a> has voted to withhold legislative consent. In one of his first comments as shadow Northern Ireland secretary, Hilary Benn said a future Labour government would <a href="https://www.irishnews.com/news/northernirelandnews/2023/09/06/news/benn_labour_government_would_repeal_troubles_legacy_immunity_law-3589767/">repeal the law</a>. <a href="https://www.irishnews.com/news/northernirelandnews/2023/06/25/news/majority_of_public_oppose_government_s_legacy_bill_amnesty-3380710/">Public opinion data</a> also shows that most British people oppose the legislation.</p>
<h2>Northern Ireland politics</h2>
<p>This bill comes at a challenging time in Northern Irish politics. The power-sharing institutions, established by the Good Friday Agreement, have been suspended since 2022. This current impasse follows a three-year collapse in 2017-20. </p>
<p>The reasons for these failures are complex and many. However, they reflect how the peace process has stalled – political shocks such as Brexit have heightened political divides and caused instability.</p>
<p>The bill is unlikely to meet its stated goal of “reconciliation”. By contravening the terms and spirit of the Good Friday Agreement, this bill risks further unravelling the delicate balancing act that supported Northern Irish political life. It will also strain the relationship between the British and Irish governments, already damaged by Brexit.</p>
<h2>What happens next?</h2>
<p>When the bill becomes law, it will be swiftly met by legal challenges in the Northern Irish courts. These challenges will test whether the bill complies with the government’s human rights obligations. If it is found not to, the government will be under pressure to reform the proposals before any independent reviews can begin.</p>
<p>The Irish government is planning to seek <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/32acbfb9-75a8-4969-8315-a3e57e10221b">legal advice</a> about bringing an interstate challenge against the UK at the European court of human rights. The only other time this has happened was 52 years ago, during the Troubles. Ireland <a href="https://hudoc.echr.coe.int/fre#%7B%22itemid%22:%5B%22001-181585%22%5D%7D">challenged the UK</a> over its use of interrogation methods known as “the five techniques” on 14 men who were detained without trial by British security forces during the early years of the conflict.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/five-controversial-interrogation-techniques-still-not-judged-as-torture-in-missed-opportunity-for-human-rights-93708">Five controversial interrogation techniques still not judged as torture in missed opportunity for human rights</a>
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<p>An adverse ruling by the Strasbourg court would be a highly public repudiation of the UK’s failure to meet its human rights obligations.</p>
<p>With the next UK general election due by January 2025, it is possible the legacy bill could be repealed before the commission can begin work. This would allow police and judicial investigations to be reopened. But while this would be a welcome prospect for many, it would mean even more uncertainty and delays in the long-overdue efforts to reconcile with the past.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/213029/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Professor Louise Mallinder has received research funding from the British Academy; the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office; the Nuffield Foundation; the Economic and Social Research Council; and the Arts and Humanities Research Council. She is Vice-Chair of the Committee on the Administration of Justice, a human rights organisation based in Belfast.</span></em></p>The Troubles ‘legacy and reconciliation’ bill will do little to promote reconciliation in Northern Ireland.Louise Mallinder, Professor of Law, Queen's University BelfastLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2113072023-08-10T15:41:29Z2023-08-10T15:41:29ZThe personal details of Northern Ireland’s main police force have been leaked – three reasons why that’s incredibly dangerous<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/542149/original/file-20230810-25-hntwlu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=101%2C135%2C3653%2C2898&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock/Damien Storan</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Data breaches are not a good look for any institution or organisation. But depending on the nature of the data leaked and the organisation, some breaches can be more serious and have greater consequences than others.</p>
<p>This is certainly true of the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI), which has <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-66447388">accidentally published information</a> about all its police officers and civilian personnel in response to a <a href="https://www.psni.police.uk/latest-news/update-data-breach-investigation">freedom of information (FoI) request</a>. This included a spreadsheet containing their names, their roles and where they were based. </p>
<p>The document was available online for several hours on the FoI website What Do They Know before being taken down. The PSNI is conducting an investigation into how this happened.</p>
<p>It has been reported that the spreadsheet contained approximately 345,000 pieces of data relating to every police officer. In confirming the breach, the PSNI attributed it to “human error” and stated that they were taking the matter “extremely seriously”. </p>
<p><a href="https://news.sky.com/story/dissident-republicans-claiming-to-be-in-possession-of-leaked-psni-information-chief-constable-says-12937320">PSNI chief constable Simon Byrne</a> said in a press conference that dissident republicans claim to have some of the information and that the force is considering whether officers need to be moved from their places of work for their safety.</p>
<p>The data breach is said to encompass all serving staff including specialist firearms units, the <a href="https://www.psni.police.uk/about-us/our-departments/operational-support/tactical-support-group">tactical support group</a> (which is responsible for public order and riot control) and those assigned to the <a href="https://www.psni.police.uk/about-us/our-departments/crime">specialist operations branch</a> who command and assist in complex investigations. </p>
<p>A remarkable wealth of information about PSNI personnel has been leaked, by any stretch of the imagination. Of the many reasons why this is so serious, three stick out in particular. </p>
<h2>1. Risking violence</h2>
<p>A data breach of this nature is likely to leave any police force red-faced, yet for the PSNI the consequences extend far beyond public embarrassment. The long and contested history of problems with policing in Northern Ireland means that there are both practical dangers and specific sensitivities that even the most well-crafted apology won’t be able to assuage.</p>
<p>The most immediate problem is that the personal information of serving police officers is now potentially in the public domain. This raises the question of who might have accessed this information and what they might do with it.</p>
<p>Today’s levels of violence in the north of Ireland are incomparable to the past but the threat of violence against serving police officers remains. This threat comes mainly from armed Irish republican groups who have rejected the peace process and Good Friday agreement.</p>
<p>To them, PSNI officers represent “legitimate targets” because they uphold the constitutional status quo of post-Good Friday agreement Northern Ireland. Unlike other nationalists and more moderate republicans who have come to accept reformed policing, for these armed groups the PSNI remains a “British” police force tasked with enforcing partition on the island of Ireland.</p>
<p>The live nature of the threat to PSNI officers was brutally reiterated this year when <a href="https://news.sky.com/story/john-caldwell-northern-ireland-police-detective-released-from-hospital-after-being-shot-several-times-in-front-of-son-12862006">PSNI detective chief inspector John Caldwell</a> was <a href="https://theconversation.com/omagh-police-shooting-why-attack-comes-at-a-difficult-time-in-northern-ireland-200592">shot in County Tyrone in February</a>. Several of the people due to be tried for his attempted murder are <a href="https://www.belfastlive.co.uk/news/northern-ireland/dci-john-caldwell-attempted-murder-27013359">also accused of being involved with the IRA</a>. </p>
<p>Crucially, Caldwell was targeted while he was off duty and packing up after leading a youth football training session. The people who attacked him appear to have known where to find him outside of work, clearly illustrating how personal information about PSNI officers could be used to devastating effect. </p>
<p>To make matters worse, it has been reported that the details of <a href="https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/northern-ireland/psni-apologises-to-officers-and-civilian-staff-after-major-security-breach/a1823676448.html">40 PSNI staff based at MI5</a> are included in the breach. Personnel of this nature would surely represent prize targets to Irish republicans. </p>
<p>Any attack on these people that resulted in injury or death would be seen as a huge propaganda coup at a time when the armed campaigns of these groups are sporadic and stuttering.</p>
<h2>2. Stoking community tensions</h2>
<p>At the same time, the data breach speaks to a more difficult question around just how accepted the PSNI are in certain working-class communities. The struggle to recruit officers from working-class Catholic, nationalist, republican backgrounds is well documented. </p>
<p>Anyone from this background within the PSNI is unlikely to tell anyone beyond their closest family and friends what their job is. This is partly because of the security threat but also because of the problematic relationship their community had with the PSNI’s predecessor force, the <a href="https://pureadmin.qub.ac.uk/ws/portalfiles/portal/137233744/IPSRedraftMainText.pdf">Royal Ulster Constabulary</a>.</p>
<p>Yet the PSNI is also experiencing difficulty recruiting from working-class Protestant, unionist, loyalist areas too. Ongoing political tensions, including <a href="https://factcheckni.org/articles/did-unionism-always-oppose-the-northern-ireland-protocol/">Brexit</a>, disputes about which <a href="https://cain.ulster.ac.uk/issues/identity/flag-2012.htm">flags should fly over public buildings</a> in Northern Ireland and the policing of <a href="https://www.belfastlive.co.uk/news/psni-confirm-eight-arrests-during-27316038">Orange Order parades</a>, have put these communities at a remove from the PSNI. It is unlikely, then, that officers from within these communities would make their jobs publicly known either.</p>
<h2>3. Reviving unresolved grievances</h2>
<p>Some will also have been reminded of the past by this data breach, which has echoes of the deliberate intelligence leaks that used to come out of the <a href="https://www.policeombudsman.org/PONI/files/5c/5ce315c0-ca34-45c3-9dcc-7f4c2d2c4658.pdf">Royal Ulster Constabulary</a> during the years of conflict. The force passed the personal details <a href="https://twitter.com/RelsForJustice/status/1689183802407460864">of nationalists to state agents</a> within loyalist groups, who are accused of then murdering them. </p>
<p>This remains at the core of grievances over state collusion during the Troubles. While this latest data breach is different in nature, it nonetheless rubs at a sore spot for victims still waiting for truth and justice.</p>
<p>The leaking of personal details about every serving PSNI officer is without doubt an unmitigated disaster for the PSNI, politically and organisationally. While the force has apparently set up a “gold group” – the highest internal emergency response – significant damage has already been done.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/211307/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>The attempted murder of an off-duty officer just a few months ago is clear evidence of what can happen when the personal information of PSNI staff becomes public.Kevin Hearty, Lecturer, Queen's University BelfastLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2039752023-04-26T14:23:50Z2023-04-26T14:23:50ZBelfast has more peace walls now than 25 years ago – removing them will be a complex challenge<p>Quite how the Troubles shaped the city of Belfast is yet be fully contended with. In 1969, the British army <a href="https://theconversation.com/belfasts-walls-are-physical-reminders-of-an-imperfect-peace-20621">erected makeshift barriers</a> to limit conflict between the city’s nationalist communities (mainly comprising Catholic residents) and the neighbouring loyalist communities (mainly comprising Protestant residents). </p>
<p>As the hostilities unfolded, the number of what are paradoxically known as <a href="https://theconversation.com/peace-walls-and-other-social-frontiers-can-breed-crime-and-conflict-in-cities-97283">“peace walls”</a> increased. Many became permanent fixtures. Even after the Good Friday Agreement formalised the end of the Troubles in 1998, peace walls continued to be built.</p>
<p>Today, Belfast counts <a href="https://revistascientificas.us.es/index.php/astragalo/article/download/20407/18157/79299">30.5km of walls</a> in a total of <a href="https://www.belfastinterfaceproject.org/sites/default/files/publications/Interfaces%20PDF.pdf">97 different barriers</a> and forms of defensive architecture, including walls, fences, gates and closed roads. These are primarily in the working-class communities of the north, west and east of the city. In fact, it now has more walls than at the time of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/good-friday-agreement-25-years-on-the-british-government-is-seeking-to-undo-key-terms-of-the-peace-deal-203208">Good Friday Agreement</a> in 1998.</p>
<p>These serve not only as physical barriers separating recognised groups with varying political, cultural or religious beliefs. They are also psychological reminders of the entrenched sectarian divisions that have long existed in the city. </p>
<h2>Significant obstacles</h2>
<p>In 2013, the Northern Ireland Executive set an ambitious target to remove all peace walls by 2023. This was part of a <a href="https://www.executiveoffice-ni.gov.uk/landing-pages/together-building-united-community-tbuc">strategy</a> devised to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement and to demonstrate that the country has moved beyond the Troubles. </p>
<p>Very little has actually been achieved, however. In November 2022, Flax Street, in north Belfast, was reopened along Crumlin Road. Before that, in 2020 a corrugated metal barrier at Duncairn Gardens, that borders the New Lodge area, was replaced with a composite structure of brick topped with light metal fencing, through which residents on either side can now see. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A brick-based fence barrier on a street." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/521877/original/file-20230419-14-sza07m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/521877/original/file-20230419-14-sza07m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=452&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521877/original/file-20230419-14-sza07m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=452&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521877/original/file-20230419-14-sza07m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=452&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521877/original/file-20230419-14-sza07m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=567&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521877/original/file-20230419-14-sza07m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=567&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521877/original/file-20230419-14-sza07m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=567&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">One of the replaced walls in Duncairn Gardens, alongside the New Lodge area.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Teresa Garcia Alcaraz</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span>
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</figure>
<p>But the government is yet to establish a clear strategy for what comes next. There are a number of reasons for this. </p>
<p>For a start, people have become used to the walls existing, some of them have been there many years and have become normalised. And in some areas there’s still a marked lack of trust between communities, so the walls stand for a sense of protection. Then there are the cost and logistical challenges that include potentially re-routing roads, adapting infrastructure and further modifying the urban landscape.</p>
<p>Finally, the political situation in Northern Ireland remains complex. Progress towards peace and reconciliation is always a slow process, and in the Northern Irish context in particular. The collapse of the devolved power-sharing executive and assembly in 2017 has made the deadline of 2023 for removing the walls appear <a href="https://research.manchester.ac.uk/en/publications/when-the-walls-come-tumbling-down-the-role-of-intergroup-proximit">increasingly unrealistic</a>. Being seen to support the removal of the walls is, potentially, politically risky.</p>
<p><strong>The security barriers and other forms of defensive architecture in residential areas of Belfast:</strong></p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A map showing walls and barriers in Belfast." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/521876/original/file-20230419-26-5s2pdd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/521876/original/file-20230419-26-5s2pdd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=793&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521876/original/file-20230419-26-5s2pdd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=793&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521876/original/file-20230419-26-5s2pdd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=793&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521876/original/file-20230419-26-5s2pdd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=996&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521876/original/file-20230419-26-5s2pdd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=996&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521876/original/file-20230419-26-5s2pdd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=996&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Teresa Garcia Alcaraz</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Divided public opinion</h2>
<p>Belfast is what urban geographers term a “contested environment”. How residents in such environments cope with conflict is revealed, in part, in their everyday activities. In periods of relative calm, people in Belfast move about freely. They participate in political, social and cultural events. During <a href="https://theconversation.com/political-frustration-in-northern-ireland-has-heightened-tension-around-marching-season-163397">marching season</a>, however, as during summer months, the areas next to the walls become perilous. </p>
<p>In Belfast, gates and walls are often considered as means of solving problems but their presence divides opinion. If there is support for removing them, particularly among <a href="https://pure.qub.ac.uk/en/publications/bringing-down-the-walls-young-peoples-perspectives-on-peace-walls">younger generations</a>, a <a href="https://www.justice-ni.gov.uk/sites/default/files/publications/justice/public-attitudes-to-peace-walls-2019-findings.PDF">survey</a> prepared for the UK Department of Justice in 2020 showed that 42% of people want the walls to remain in place for reasons of security and safety. <a href="https://www.ulster.ac.uk/incore/impact/peace-walls-research">Research</a> has indeed shown that for communities living with this history of violence, the barriers provide a sense of security, so people are worried about the consequences of removing them. </p>
<p>The idea of implementing other changes was put to respondents, including installing CCTV cameras, improving youth programmes and promoting opportunities for the two communities to come together. While this made some people reconsider their position, 17% stated that they would not want peace walls to come, down no matter what preparations are made. </p>
<p>The same study found that 37% of respondents had never interacted with anyone living on the other side of the nearest peace wall. This chimes with <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/312016220_Ordinary_everyday_walls_Normalising_exception_in_segregated_belfast">research</a> that has shown that the walls perpetuate division and sectarianism. They create physical barriers that restrict social interaction and reinforce negative stereotypes. </p>
<p>What is clear, from all <a href="https://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.550561">studies on the subject</a>, is that any plans to demolish the walls must be carried out in a careful and sensitive manner. They must take into account the apprehensions and concerns of the local population.</p>
<p>Getting rid of physical barriers is not enough. We need alternative solutions for promoting integration and getting communities to trust one another. People need to feel empowered, too, to engage with regeneration projects tackling poverty, violence and social disenfranchisement. These issues serve to divide and exclude, just as tangibly as walls do. </p>
<p><em>The introduction of this article has been changed to remove stylistic similarities with that of a source.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/203975/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Teresa García Alcaraz receives funding from Spanish Ministry of Education (Margarita Salas Fellowship)</span></em></p>Belfast’s peacewalls are psychological reminders of the sectarian divisions that have long existed in the city.Teresa García Alcaraz, Postdoctoral researcher in the School of Natural and Built Environment (QUB), Queen's University BelfastLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2028922023-04-21T14:53:26Z2023-04-21T14:53:26ZHow the Troubles affected healthcare in Northern Ireland<p>Celebrating a quarter century of “peace” since the signing of the <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/topical-events/the-25th-anniversary-of-the-belfast-good-friday-agreement#:%7E:text=The%20Belfast%20Agreement%2C%20also%20known,signed%20on%2010%20April%201998.">Good Friday Agreement</a> will undoubtedly lead many to question how much things have really changed for the better in Northern Ireland. Especially since <a href="https://reparations.qub.ac.uk/assets/uploads/Land-Report-Dec20-SP.pdf">segregation remains the norm</a> in many areas of life, including housing and education. Attention will once again turn to <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/topics/cg1l0z5lgp4t">the Troubles</a> and its legacy.</p>
<p>Between 1968 and 1998 more than 3,700 people were killed and up to 100,000 injured. It was the job of the Northern Ireland health service to treat the wounded while continuing to provide healthcare for all the other medical needs of the population.</p>
<p>In <a href="https://healthcareandthetroubles.wordpress.com">my research</a> for an upcoming book, I interviewed former healthcare workers who lived and worked during the Troubles.</p>
<p>As a medical historian I wanted to explore how the conflict had an impact on the health service, both on its operation and its workers. Their experiences are often overlooked, but provide us with vital insight into the conflict itself and its enduring legacies.</p>
<p>In times of war, healthcare is put under tremendous strain. People are not always able to reach hospitals, and money normally used to pay for services is often diverted for other purposes.</p>
<p>In Northern Ireland, the Troubles affected hospitals and other community services. Because money was being used to treat victims, there were concerns that other patients were losing out. A nurse from the Royal Victoria Hospital in Belfast explained that patients attending for routine operations would often be sent home when the injured came in needing emergency surgery.</p>
<p>Hospitals were also damaged in the violence. In 1991 a <a href="https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1991/nov/04/musgrave-park-hospital-bombing">bomb exploded at Musgrave Park Hospital</a> in Belfast, killing two people and injuring 10 others. The damage put hospital beds out of use and cost around a quarter of a million pounds to rebuild the damaged orthodpaedic wing.</p>
<h2>Medical progress through trauma</h2>
<p>The Troubles resulted in many injuries which medical staff had little or no experience of dealing with. Major incidents had a huge emotional impact and brought new medical challenges. But many spoke of learning from these traumatic experiences. They all condemned the horrors and destruction, but were thankful for the knowledge they gained to help others. </p>
<p>These experiences led to lifesaving new medical innovations. One was the development of titanium plates to repair skulls damaged by gunshot wounds or bomb injuries. The use of high velocity weapons during the early 1970s and the significant number of gunshot head wounds created a need that had to be urgently addressed.</p>
<p>At the Royal Victoria Hospital, neurosurgeon Derek Gordon and dentist George Blair combined their different expertise to devise a new kind of <a href="https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/neurosurgeon-who-was-globally-renowned-for-work-during-troubles/36462555.html">skull plate</a>. Their new design made from titanium was light, strong, flexible and relatively inexpensive to make. The new approach proved successful and was used worldwide.</p>
<h2>Mental health</h2>
<p>One of the most significant legacies from the Troubles was the impact on mental health. Northern Ireland has the highest level of <a href="https://www.mentalhealth.org.uk/explore-mental-health/publications/mental-health-foundation-northern-ireland-manifesto-2022">poor mental health in the UK</a>. These levels have been linked <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/S2215-0366(18)30392-4">directly to the conflict</a>.</p>
<p>The country also has the <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-63806309">highest suicide rate in the UK</a> and a significantly higher percentage of prescriptions for drugs to treat anxiety and depression than the rest of the UK. Then there is the challenge of younger generations “inheriting” <a href="https://www.irishtimes.com/news/health/mental-health-problems-the-hidden-legacy-of-the-troubles-1.4005470">poor mental health</a>, through the effects on parenting and the environment they grow up in.</p>
<p>Research has shown that substance abuse is a <a href="https://www.publichealth.hscni.net/sites/default/files/48.%20Appendix%202%20Trauma%20Alcohol%20and%20Drugs%20Comorbidity%20-%20Report.pdf">deeply entrenched</a> social problem in Northern Ireland. Similar to prescription drugs, alcohol has been used as a coping mechanism by many, again presenting a challenge and <a href="https://www.niauditoffice.gov.uk/files/niauditoffice/media-files/235243%20NIAO%20Addictions%20Services%20Report__NEW%204.pdf">additional cost</a> to the health service. </p>
<p>Medical staff had to cope with emotional effects of working in a bloody conflict, witnessing firsthand the horrifying injuries and deaths caused by the violence. One doctor described his experience:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Some things were too horrible to be forgettable and even today, talking about or even thinking about them brings on the tears. I still waken during the night with terrible dreams about those days.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Yet staff were expected to have a “get on with the job” attitude. There was a commonly held belief that healthcare staff were immune to the effects, and many did not seek help. Some felt it would frowned on while others thought it would be insulting to the victims of the violence, believing those directly affected had it much worse.</p>
<p>There was also a lack of services available to staff. This only changed after the <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12558918/">Omagh bomb in 1998</a>. Instead, medical staff created their own coping methods. Interviewees spoke of how they counselled one another over cups of tea and organised social events, or used <a href="https://belfastcomedyfestival.com/laughing-away-our-troubles-the-relationship-between-comedy-and-conflict-in-northern-ireland/">black humour</a> to keep them going. One interviewee explained: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>[The period] wasn’t overly pleasant, but it was life and we lived that life … and managed to have some laughs too, usually at the antics of ourselves.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In May 2008, The <a href="https://www.cvsni.org">Northern Ireland Commission for Victims and Survivors</a> was established to advocate for the needs of Northern Ireland people. However, there continue to be concerns about the funding and availability of mental health services. In response a number of charitable organisations now provide <a href="https://www.communityni.org/beneficiaries/victim-support">care and support</a>.</p>
<p>Overall, my research revealed that the health service in Northern Ireland was hugely affected by the conflict, chiefly the damaging effect of the bloody violence on the mental health of medical workers as well as the general population. Positive aspects, such as the creation of innovative medical techniques, came at a high cost.</p>
<p>Still, many healthcare workers I spoke to look back fondly on their careers during this period. They despised the violence, but appreciated the opportunity to help victims and survivors, while cherishing the strong bonds they forged with colleagues.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/202892/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ruth Duffy received PhD funding from the Department for the Economy. Her book, Healthcare and the Troubles: The Conflict Experience of the Northern Ireland Health Service 1968-1998, will be published by Liverpool University Press in 2024.</span></em></p>The long-term legacy can be linked to poor mental health, high levels of suicide and alcohol and drug problems – but also innovation.Ruth Duffy, Research Fellow, School of Arts, English and Languages, Queen's University BelfastLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2025842023-04-06T09:59:10Z2023-04-06T09:59:10ZGood Friday Agreement: how the US came to be a key broker in Northern Ireland’s peace deal<p>Between 1820 and 1920, four million people emigrated from Ireland to the US. Many were fleeing hunger and destitution and so brought with them an <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/emigrants-and-exiles-9780195051872?cc=gb&lang=en&">“exile” nationalism</a> – a conviction that they were forced to leave by British misgovernment and exploitation of Ireland. Little wonder, then, that the Irish diaspora in the US played a crucial role in supporting, and particularly financing, the struggle for Irish independence. </p>
<p>When the Northern Ireland conflict broke out in the late 1960s, Irish America again mobilised in support of the region’s nationalist minority community. The diaspora saw the conflict in simplistic terms, as a renewal of the fight for Irish freedom from British imperial domination. </p>
<p>Events like <a href="https://cain.ulster.ac.uk/events/bsunday/chron.htm">Bloody Sunday</a> in January 1972 – when British troops shot dead 13 civil rights protesters in Derry – understandably reinforced such views. As a result, money and even arms (more easily acquired in the US) began to flow across the Atlantic and into the IRA’s hands. In this period, therefore, Irish American actions only contributed to further bloodshed in Northern Ireland.</p>
<p>By the 1990s, the diaspora was playing quite a different role, one which was crucial to the region’s peace process and the 1998 Good Friday Agreement. There were various reasons for this. Firstly, more sensible voices had emerged in Irish America. Instead of supporting the IRA, or advocating a British withdrawal and the reunification of Ireland, they pressed for radical reform that would achieve <a href="https://academic.oup.com/dh/article/43/4/671/5518859">real equality for the nationalist minority.</a></p>
<p>Secondly, with the fall of the Berlin Wall, the global picture had drastically changed. Previously, the White House had largely avoided commenting on Northern Ireland. The US relied on the British government to contain the communist threat in Europe and would not risk offending it for fear of losing that support. But with the collapse of the Soviet Union, president Bill Clinton did not need to worry in the way that his predecessors did about damaging the Anglo-American “special relationship”. He thus listened to those in Irish America who argued that the White House should <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/30001915?casa_token=Flk9hFl3FxQAAAAA%3ACyM6j0H_YqkWijWWgmc8WpdXOfx7zKDeAhSUh3DyAFBKrejG89sdgNzW7f2Ymi4OWLt5XvKdPeZaM2wVgI7tPjkGtObtjzG0YMfnGx0TfQ9aYpYHgQ">play a role in the peace process</a> then emerging in Northern Ireland. </p>
<p>Most controversial was Clinton’s decision in January 1994 to give Gerry Adams a US visa. This came at a time when the IRA was still bombing Britain, and the Sinn Féin leader was seen by most people as an apologist for republican violence. The British government was <a href="https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/how-britain-tried-to-stop-gerry-adams-getting-us-visa-1.3739551">outraged by Clinton’s decision</a>, and John Major refused to take his calls for some time afterwards – a undeniable rarity in US-UK relations. However, when the IRA called a ceasefire six months later, Clinton appeared to be vindicated. Giving Adams a US visa had allowed the Sinn Féin leader to demonstrate to the IRA the gains that could be made by adopting a purely political strategy.</p>
<h2>Chairing tense talks</h2>
<p>Clinton then sent a trusted confidante, the recently retired US senator, <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/29736367?casa_token=YvI9bryj3TAAAAAA%3AV3IhITNorIKSEsg6zKvIxCw0VpuBrnhVKuHNIDBLDD02FXStzIO94BFC5ePyCbrIu0kdSv4l_XPLMATb1S49XJD5_GwNsc4Z970q_pT3-ENq45jzKg">George Mitchell</a>, to chair peace talks in Northern Ireland. Mitchell managed to steer discussions in which some parties still refused to directly address one another, and instead communicated only through him as chair of the talks. His patience was phenomenal, and Mitchell played a major role in bringing about the Good Friday peace settlement.</p>
<p>After Clinton left office in 2001, the George W. Bush administration helped in the difficult process of implementing this accord. The IRA still refused to decommission its weapons, but pressure from the US – which, after 9/11, showed no tolerance for anything that might be seen as terrorist activity – helped force it to do so. Similarly, the Bush administration pushed Sinn Féin towards accepting reformed policing arrangements in Northern Ireland. </p>
<p>In Irish America, figures like <a href="https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/fresh-light-shed-on-edward-kennedy-role-in-northern-irish-peace-process-1.2372644">Ted Kennedy</a>, who had been crucial in bringing Sinn Féin into the peace process, now insisted that it accept all the rules of the new political order. Even the hardline unionist party, the DUP, was impressed, and was eventually obliged to share power with Sinn Féin.</p>
<p>Thereafter, the US played a limited role in Northern Ireland – until Brexit. The UK’s departure from the EU created significant challenges in managing the Irish border, and thus posed a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/sep/16/us-uk-trade-deal-in-danger-if-good-friday-agreement-jeopardised-democrats-warn">threat to the Good Friday Agreement</a> as it is generally considered a hard border on the island of Ireland would go against the spirit of the deal. Irish America responded by reorganising and lobbying to protect the accord. Even when running for the presidency in 2020, Joe Biden – fiercely proud of his own Irish heritage – famously tweeted a warning to the UK: “We can’t allow the Good Friday Agreement that brought peace to Northern Ireland to become a casualty of Brexit.”</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1306334039557586944"}"></div></p>
<p>After Biden’s election, pressure from the White House undoubtedly helped steer Boris Johnson towards a Brexit deal which prioritised peace in the region. </p>
<p>This also explains why Biden will be <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-65110382">visiting Northern Ireland</a> to mark the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement. The US government, and Irish America, both feel that they helped create peace the region, and want to preserve and celebrate this achievement.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/202584/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Peter John McLoughlin has received funding in the past from the AHRC, Leverhulme Trust, the Irish Research Council, and the Fulbright Commission. He is a member of Greenpeace.</span></em></p>Bill Clinton and senator George Mitchell were central in keeping the players at the table so that the historical deal could be signed in 1998.Peter John McLoughlin, Lecturer in Politics, Queen's University BelfastLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2032082023-04-06T09:53:05Z2023-04-06T09:53:05ZGood Friday Agreement: 25 years on, the British government is seeking to undo key terms of the peace deal<p>The Good Friday Agreement ended a conflict that claimed more than 3,500 lives between 1968 and 1998. It is estimated that one-third of the adult population in Northern Ireland has been directly affected by bereavement, physical injury or trauma.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.peaceagreements.org/">Peace agreements</a> often now include provisions (such as truth commissions) to deal with the legacy of past conflict. Addressing the rights and needs of victims, these mechanisms seek to balance competing demands for truth, justice, accountability and reconciliation. The Good Friday Agreement controversially provided for the release of all paramilitary prisoners who had served two years and agreed to the peace process. But broader legacy issues were deemed a bridge too far.</p>
<p>The “moment” of political agreement presents a unique opportunity to confront the horrors of past conflict and violence. As a lawyer interviewed in the course of <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/jp/academic/subjects/law/human-rights/lawyers-conflict-and-transition">recent research</a> I carried out with colleagues on the South African transition noted:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The first five or ten years is a great window of opportunity in every way … [you have to] use that space because it all really closes down.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The rights and needs of victims were not central to the Good Friday Agreement negotiations. A 1998 <a href="https://cain.ulster.ac.uk/issues/violence/victims.htm">report</a> by Northern Ireland victims commissioner Sir Kenneth Bloomfield proposed practical measures to deal with their pain and suffering – but, in many respects, the window of opportunity was lost. In the decades following the agreement there was <a href="https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/jt201415/jtselect/jtrights/130/13005.htm">pressure from the European Court of Human Rights</a> to deal effectively with Troubles-related offences and deaths. In response, successive UK governments commissioned a series of initiatives to explore how everyone involved might holistically deal with legacy issues.</p>
<p>But it wasn’t until 2014, after multiple false starts, that the British and Irish governments and four of the five main political parties in Northern Ireland finally signed up to the <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-stormont-house-agreement">Stormont House Agreement</a>. This proposed an independent historical investigations unit to look at outstanding cases relating to deaths during the Troubles and an information recovery body that would enable people to seek and privately receive (via interlocutors) information about the Troubles-related deaths of their relatives. The information provided to this body would not be admissible in legal proceedings. There was also provision for a major oral history archive and an implementation group to lead on broader reconciliation efforts.</p>
<h2>Backtracking on the GFA</h2>
<p>Following years of delay, the UK government finally committed to legislating for the Stormont House Agreement legacy mechanisms <a href="https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/856998/2020-01-08_a_new_decade__a_new_approach.pdf">in 2020</a>. But in a dramatic about-turn just weeks later, then prime minister Boris Johnson <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-51487695">sacked</a> his secretary of state for Northern Ireland and scrapped the Stormont House Agreement, instead pushing for a sweeping amnesty for Troubles-related crimes. This was fuelled by a misleading narrative that there has been a “witch-hunt” against British army veterans who served in Northern Ireland (only one veteran has been successfully prosecuted since 1998).</p>
<p>For the past year, the UK government has been moving forward with the <a href="https://bills.parliament.uk/bills/3160">Northern Ireland Troubles (legacy and reconciliation) bill</a>. This fundamentally undermines the Good Friday Agreement. The incorporation of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) into domestic Northern Irish law was a cornerstone of the GFA. This bill significantly limits the ability of people in Northern Ireland to challenge alleged breaches of the ECHR by closing access to the criminal, civil and coronial courts for Troubles-related cases.</p>
<p>The GFA also committed the UK government to “devolve policing and justice issues” to Northern Ireland, as indeed occurred in 2010. This bill now seeks to unravel key elements of the devolution of policing and justice. It proposes to grant people accused of serious Troubles-related crimes conditional immunity from prosecution, setting the conditional bar so low as to make that immunity practically guaranteed. Many regard this as a thinly veiled attempt to ensure that state actors are not held to account for their actions in Northern Ireland.</p>
<p>The bill is opposed by Northern Ireland’s victims, the Council of Europe, UN special rapporteurs, the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission, the Irish government and all political parties in Northern Ireland. The government has suggested that the existing legal system is not delivering for victims. The legislation thus proposes setting up a commission to help victims recover information, but the proposed body lacks the legal powers to access the kind of information necessary to enable people to find out what happened during the Troubles.</p>
<p>All accept that successful prosecutions in Troubles-related cases will now be few and far between (and nobody can serve more than two years for Troubles-related offences). The key point is that legal investigations have been increasingly successful in recent years in <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-56986784">delivering information to families</a> and exposing embarrassing details concerning <a href="https://www.policeombudsman.org/getmedia/2952cfb0-4403-4e31-a349-e0a2b632e089/Loughinisland-Report.pdf">state involvement</a> in past human rights violations.</p>
<h2>An anniversary and a time for action</h2>
<p>The implementation of the Good Friday Agreement has, in recent years, been significantly undermined by the government’s focus on matters English. There has been a notable determination that British army veterans should not be prosecuted, or indeed even properly investigated for conflict-era offences, and indifference about the implications of such a policy in Northern Ireland and its compatibility with international human rights law.</p>
<p>Ireland’s taoiseach, Leo Varadkar, has indicated that the Irish government <a href="https://www.rte.ie/news/politics/2023/0309/1361255-legacy-bill/">could not rule out taking an interstate case</a> to Strasbourg if the UK government makes its bill law as they believe it contravenes the European Convention on Human Rights.</p>
<p>In the meantime, victims are being retraumatised by the ongoing denial of their right to find out the truth about what happened to their loved ones and to see those responsible held to account.</p>
<p>The EU and the US administration played a crucial role in securing the peace agreement in 1998. The best efforts of Dublin, Brussels and the Biden administration are now required to prevent it unravelling.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/203208/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Anna Bryson 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>A law making its way through parliament that would grant widespread immunity from prosecution for people accused of crimes during the Troubles.Anna Bryson, Senior Lecturer in the School of Law and a Fellow at the Senator George J. Mitchell Institute for Global Peace, Security and Justice, Queen's University BelfastLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1953362023-04-06T09:50:45Z2023-04-06T09:50:45ZNew school resources on the Good Friday Agreement will give pupils valuable understanding – if they are used<p>The <a href="https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/">UK National Archives</a> has produced <a href="https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/about/news/new-education-resources-highlight-good-friday-agreement/">educational resources</a> for secondary schools to mark the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement. </p>
<p>Signed on April 10 1998, the agreement marked the end of the Troubles in Northern Ireland and the establishment of a new shared institution, the Northern Ireland assembly. It also established new formal political relationships between Ireland and the UK, and on the island of Ireland.</p>
<p>The school resources are detailed and provide important context. But some political nuance is overlooked – and the history of teaching on Irish history in British schools suggests there is a risk they may not be widely used. In Northern Ireland, meanwhile, their generally optimistic tone may limit their effectiveness. </p>
<p>The resources include a video, two sets of slides and associated guides and a student workbook. They provide teachers in secondary schools and colleges throughout the UK with materials for a school assembly and follow-up classroom work. </p>
<p>The assembly materials provide a brief history of Northern Ireland, before outlining the nature of the political violence that occurred during the Troubles, the journey towards peace, and the positive impact of the agreement over the past 25 years.</p>
<h2>Core principles</h2>
<p>The follow-up resources are designed to support discussion about the agreement and how it brought an end to the conflict. They cover the deal’s three core principles: respect, consent and identity – including the right of anyone in Northern Ireland to identify as British, Irish or both, and to hold citizenship and a passport for either or both countries.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/VQXBpt5RArY?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Video resource on the Good Friday Agreement from the UK National Archives.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The resources cover the three strands of political institutions established by the agreement and the actions that followed its implementation. Paramilitary organisations decommissioned their weapons and accepted the principle of consent – that the constitutional position of Northern Ireland will only change if a majority of people vote to support it. Members of these groups who had been imprisoned for crimes before the signing of the agreement were released from jail on a licence, which could be revoked if they rejoined a paramilitary group or supported paramilitary activities.</p>
<p>The security presence on the streets was rolled back and the number of British troops deployed in Northern Ireland was steadily reduced. A major reform of policing produced a new – and more representative – police service.</p>
<p>The materials explain how these measures aimed to move Northern Ireland in the direction of peace and stability. They were intended to reduce levels of violence, promote reconciliation and forgiveness, and move from relationships based on fear to ones based on trust. Students are encouraged to explore this further by designing a campaign to promote the lessons of the agreement for other areas of conflict around the world.</p>
<p>The resources from the National Archives are wide-ranging and helpfully set the Good Friday Agreement in context. Violent political conflicts rarely end in a moment, but after a long process.</p>
<p>Some political nuances are avoided. The conflict is cast as between communities, with the security forces implicitly presented as a neutral arbiter in the middle. However, <a href="https://www.amnesty.org.uk/ni-troubles">responses to</a> the Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) bill <a href="https://bills.parliament.uk/bills/3160">currently working</a> its way through parliament suggest a more complex reality. </p>
<p>The bill will limit investigations or inquests into Troubles-related deaths and is supported by those trying to protect <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/05/10/legal-immunity-troubles-veterans-co-operate-new-commission-deaths/">military veterans</a> from prosecution. It <a href="https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/2022/05/26/everyone-opposes-the-troubles-legacy-bill-but-the-conservatives-may-get-away-with-it/">is opposed</a> by all political parties in Northern Ireland as it will provide effective amnesty for many of those accused of killing people during the Troubles. </p>
<h2>Reckoning with challenges</h2>
<p>The resources also underplay some of the challenges the agreement has faced. The Northern Ireland assembly has been suspended due to political disputes for <a href="https://factcheckni.org/articles/has-the-executive-been-in-a-state-of-collapse-for-40-of-its-existence/">about 40%</a> of its tenure. It is currently suspended, as the assembly has failed to elect a speaker or executive since the May 2022 election. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Landscape photo of a white building with neoclassical columns" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/519541/original/file-20230405-1644-htswrt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/519541/original/file-20230405-1644-htswrt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=385&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/519541/original/file-20230405-1644-htswrt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=385&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/519541/original/file-20230405-1644-htswrt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=385&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/519541/original/file-20230405-1644-htswrt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=484&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/519541/original/file-20230405-1644-htswrt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=484&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/519541/original/file-20230405-1644-htswrt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=484&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Northern Ireland assembly sits in the parliament building, Stormont.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/beautiful-parliament-building-stormont-northern-ireland-245930107">Josemaria Toscano/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In part this comes from the mechanisms built into the assembly to promote consensus-building. Contentious issues not only require majority support in the assembly, but also a <a href="https://www.electoral-reform.org.uk/why-does-the-northern-ireland-assembly-keep-collapsing/">set level of support</a> among the blocs of Members of the Legislative Assembly who designate either as unionist or nationalist. The aim was to promote cooperation, but it has more often led to decisions being blocked or vetoed. The architecture of the agreement was predicated on a more inclusive approach by elected politicians than has actually been achieved.</p>
<p>Studying the agreement could pose some interesting questions in schools in Britain. But the likelihood is that few schools in Britain will make use of these educational resources. <a href="https://www.history.org.uk/publications/categories/300/resource/7288/teaching-history-44">Irish history</a> has <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/oct/03/british-schools-irish-history-brexit">not previously</a> been taught to <a href="https://newrepublic.com/article/88797/british-empire-queen-elizabeth-india-ireland-africa-imperial">any significant extent</a> in <a href="https://www.irishtimes.com/life-and-style/abroad/my-london-history-students-knowledge-of-ireland-is-at-times-shocking-1.3882014">British schools</a>. </p>
<p>A similar gap in provision <a href="https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/young-irish-people-idolise-gerry-adams-ireland-the-troubles-3xcmjjw7g">in Irish schools</a> may also have produced a poor level of knowledge of the peace process in Northern Ireland. </p>
<p>In Northern Ireland especially, the generally optimistic and uncritical approach of the resources may make them less effective. </p>
<p>The achievement of 25 years ago should be celebrated. In Northern Ireland, we also need to engage frankly with the limitations of the agreement if the drive for a more peaceful and settled society is to be achieved. Northern Ireland has come very far in a relatively short time, but we’re not there yet.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/195336/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tony Gallagher has received funding from a range of organisations including the ESRC, the Department of Education in Northern Ireland, Atlantic Philanthropies, the International Fund for Ireland and Sixteen Consultancy (Belfast). He is a member of the Board of the Maze Long Kesh Development Corporation and the WAVE Trauma Centre.</span></em></p>The resources do a good job in explaining that political conflicts rarely end in a moment, but after a long process.Tony Gallagher, Professor of Education, Queen's University BelfastLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag: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>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<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>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<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>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<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>
<figcaption>
<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>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<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>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<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>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<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>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/518835/original/file-20230401-22-l6uydl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A black and white photo shows a band performing on stage in front of a large illustration of a boy's face." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/518835/original/file-20230401-22-l6uydl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/518835/original/file-20230401-22-l6uydl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=438&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518835/original/file-20230401-22-l6uydl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=438&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518835/original/file-20230401-22-l6uydl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=438&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518835/original/file-20230401-22-l6uydl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=551&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518835/original/file-20230401-22-l6uydl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=551&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518835/original/file-20230401-22-l6uydl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=551&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<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>
</figure>
<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/2021962023-04-04T12:15:00Z2023-04-04T12:15:00ZNew EU-UK trade deal has promise for Northern Ireland and US as well<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/518029/original/file-20230328-518-tnu3a0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=23%2C0%2C7919%2C5306&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, left, and European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen announce their new trade agreement. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/britains-prime-minister-rishi-sunak-and-european-commission-news-photo/1247535827">Dan Kitwood/Pool/AFP via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>A new trade agreement between the European Union and the United Kingdom, which left the EU in 2020, could have finally found a way to safeguard peace in Northern Ireland after Brexit reignited old tensions.</p>
<p>The deal between the EU and the U.K., called the <a href="https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-9736/">Windsor Framework</a>, lays out new rules about how trade will move between Northern Ireland and Great Britain, the island that consists of Scotland, Wales and England, the other three provinces of the United Kingdom.</p>
<p>Among other changes, the Windsor Framework creates two categories of items being shipped from Great Britain to Northern Ireland. Items intended to stay in Northern Ireland would have free passage, but those destined to cross the border into the Republic of Ireland – which is in the EU – would face stringent screening. </p>
<p>The agreement has been <a href="https://www.irishcentral.com/news/politics/windsor-framework-ratified">ratified by the U.K. Parliament and the European Union</a>. But it remains to be seen whether Northern Ireland’s unionist political parties will accept it and lift their boycott of the provincial government.</p>
<p>Since unionists’ refusal to join the power-sharing assembly began in 2022, elected representatives in Northern Ireland have not been able to tackle a growing backlog of critical issues, including the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/nov/19/northern-irish-healthcare-in-crisis-amid-political-deadlock">declining quality and availability of health care</a>, the shortage of housing, the <a href="https://viewdigital.org/crushed-by-the-cost-of-living-crisis/">rising cost of energy</a> and <a href="https://www.newsletter.co.uk/business/consumer/cost-of-living/northern-ireland-being-hit-harder-by-cost-of-living-crisis-than-other-parts-of-the-uk-as-more-forced-to-cut-back-on-essentials-which-research-shows-4020648">inflation</a>.</p>
<p>As <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=V4yncf0AAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">scholars</a> <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=6nkxNe8AAAAJ">of</a> Northern Irish politics, we see a newly approved trade deal as an opportunity to return Northern Ireland’s political attention to those crucial issues.</p>
<h2>A history of trouble</h2>
<p>In the late 1960s, a period of violence known as “The Troubles” began, pitting nationalists, who want Northern Ireland to become part of the Republic of Ireland and are mostly Catholic, against unionists, who want it to remain part of the United Kingdom and are mostly Protestant. Over the following three decades, <a href="https://cain.ulster.ac.uk/sutton/tables/Status_Summary.html">about 3,500 people were killed</a> and <a href="https://cain.ulster.ac.uk/ni/security.htm#05">another 47,000 were injured</a> in riots, assassinations and other violence. These events were largely in the six counties of Northern Ireland, which are part of the U.K., but also happened in the neighboring nation of Ireland and the remainder of the U.K., on the island of Great Britain. </p>
<p>A 1998 agreement between the U.K. and Irish governments and various political groups in Northern Ireland ended the violence. That deal, called the <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-61968177">Good Friday Agreement by nationalists and the Belfast Agreement by unionists</a>, set up a power-sharing provincial government in Northern Ireland, close links between this new government and the Irish government, and various systems for cooperation and coordination between the U.K. and Irish governments. </p>
<p>The agreement also allowed people who lived in Northern Ireland to identify as Irish, British or both and carry passports from both places. These measures made it easier for people with different identities in Northern Ireland to coexist, and in some cases to express complex identities. Today, for example, <a href="https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/over-one-third-of-north-s-population-hold-irish-passport-1.4814375">more than one-third of Northern Ireland’s population</a> carry an Irish passport.</p>
<p>And the 1998 agreement says that the decision about whether Northern Ireland should remain part of the U.K. or unite with Ireland should be decided only by a majority vote of Northern Ireland’s people.</p>
<p>When the agreement was signed, both the U.K. and Ireland were part of the EU. The EU’s common market allows goods, people and business activities to flow freely between member nations, without customs or passport controls. </p>
<p>Within a few years of the 1998 agreement, trade and people were flowing seamlessly, rendering the border all but invisible – especially after the U.K. removed <a href="https://cain.ulster.ac.uk/issues/politics/border/border-violence.htm">military installations and the fortified barriers</a> at the land border between Ireland and Northern Ireland.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/518030/original/file-20230328-5054-txd7na.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A large commercial truck stops at a gate with a booth and a person holding a piece of paper." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/518030/original/file-20230328-5054-txd7na.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/518030/original/file-20230328-5054-txd7na.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518030/original/file-20230328-5054-txd7na.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518030/original/file-20230328-5054-txd7na.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518030/original/file-20230328-5054-txd7na.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518030/original/file-20230328-5054-txd7na.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518030/original/file-20230328-5054-txd7na.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=499&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">The port of Belfast is a crucial point in trade between Northern Ireland and Great Britain.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/freight-lorries-are-checked-after-disembarking-from-the-p-o-news-photo/1247533288">Paul Faith/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
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<h2>Brexit risks peace</h2>
<p>With the help of a strengthening EU, the peace was stable until 2016. That year, the people of the U.K. voted to leave the EU, though the majority of <a href="https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/brexit-northern-ireland-votes-to-remain-in-the-eu-1.2697132">voters in Northern Ireland wanted to remain</a> in the union. </p>
<p>The departure of the U.K. from the EU meant the border between Ireland and Northern Ireland mattered again. It would no longer be a technical, administrative boundary between EU member nations, but rather a point where goods and people would flow into and out of the EU and a non-EU country. </p>
<p>Tensions flared over where to put these checks and the possible new divisions they would create between either Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland or Northern Ireland and the rest of the U.K.</p>
<p>In 2019 the U.K. and the EU agreed to a deal, called the Northern Ireland Protocol, that established a kind of border between Northern Ireland and the rest of the U.K. It involved burdensome and slow customs checks on all goods arriving at Northern Irish ports and prohibitions on some goods including sausages, medicines, plants and potatoes. </p>
<p>Those problems sparked stiff resistance from unionists, who said it had done what they feared: <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-46988529">separated them from their nation</a>.</p>
<p>In 2022, in protest against the Protocol, the Democratic Unionist Party, a key party in Northern Irish politics, <a href="https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/northern-ireland/no-stormont-return-until-ni-protocol-is-replaced-dup-leader-says/42170991.html">withdrew from the provincial government</a>, effectively shutting it down. </p>
<p>Now, the Windsor Framework keeps key border protections around the EU but eases a lot of the restrictions created in the 2019 agreement.</p>
<h2>A key US role</h2>
<p>There is an element of U.S. foreign policy at work here, too. The U.S. was <a href="https://joewilson.house.gov/media-center/press-releases/wilson-resolution-calls-for-full-implementation-of-belfastgood-friday">key to negotiating the 1998 agreement</a>, and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jun/10/why-joe-biden-is-so-invested-in-defending-good-friday-agreement">successive administrations</a> have championed it as the only way to a sustainable peace. </p>
<p>When the U.K. voted to withdraw from the EU, the departure meant the U.K. needed to negotiate a new trade agreement with the U.S. But the U.S. decided to force the U.K. to work out its departure from the EU – in ways consistent with the 1998 agreement – before U.S.-U.K. trade talks could truly begin.</p>
<p>With the Windsor Framework agreed upon, the U.S. will <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/13/politics/biden-northern-ireland-visit/index.html">likely send President Joe Biden</a> to visit both Ireland and Northern Ireland, potentially as soon as April, to mark the 25th anniversary of the 1998 agreement. The new U.S. special envoy to Northern Ireland for economic affairs, Joe Kennedy III, a former Democratic congressman from Massachusetts, is also <a href="https://www.irishnews.com/news/northernirelandnews/2023/01/19/news/us_envoy_promises_to_champion_northern_ireland_s_compelling_potential_-3005755/">expected to travel to Northern Ireland soon</a>, with U.S. investors eager to take advantage of <a href="https://www.newsletter.co.uk/business/us-president-joe-bidens-special-envoy-to-northern-ireland-joe-kennedy-hears-call-from-ni-business-for-new-economic-good-friday-agreement-4064604">Northern Ireland’s unique connections</a> with both the EU and the U.K. markets.</p>
<p>All eyes are now on the Democratic Unionist Party. Its members voted against the Windsor Framework in the U.K. Parliament in late March, but the people of Northern Ireland, including many unionists and the business community, want a functioning government.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/202196/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kimberly Cowell-Meyers is affiliated with the Ad-hoc Committee to Protect the Good Friday Agreement but does not represent the group and the views expressed here are her own. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Carolyn Gallaher is affiliated with the Ad-hoc Committee for the Protection of the Good Friday Agreement. This is an ad-hoc, bi-partisna voluntary group. It is not a lobby and there are no membership fees or responsibilities for members. It also does not have 501c3 status. However, we are not representing this group. The views expressed here are our own. </span></em></p>A newly approved trade deal could be an opportunity to return Northern Ireland’s political attention to pressing issues of health care, housing, energy costs and inflation.Kimberly Cowell-Meyers, Assistant Professor, Department of Government, American University School of Public AffairsCarolyn Gallaher, Associate Dean for Faculty Affairs, American University School of International ServiceLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1919242023-01-04T06:09:53Z2023-01-04T06:09:53ZNorthern Ireland reconciliation bill highlights complicated role of Catholic Church during the Troubles<p>It has now been more than two decades since the signing of the <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-belfast-agreement">Good Friday agreement</a> in 1998, formally ending the Troubles in Northern Ireland. But the most recent attempt by the British government to “deal with the past” – <a href="https://bills.parliament.uk/bills/3160">the legacy and reconciliation bill</a> – is itself provoking conflict. </p>
<p>The bill, currently going through the House of Lords, seeks to “promote reconciliation” by establishing an Independent Commission for Reconciliation and Information Recovery. It plans to limit criminal investigations, legal proceedings, inquests and police complaints, extend the prisoner release scheme, and provide for experiences to be recorded and preserved and for events to be studied and memorialised.</p>
<p>Victims’ groups, Northern Irish political parties, the Irish government, and Americans and Europeans involved in the peace process are all against the bill in its current form, especially the effective amnesty for unresolved Troubles killings. Nonetheless, the bill is still widely expected to become law early next year. What will the Catholic Church do if it does?</p>
<h2>Conflict, religion and politics</h2>
<p>Northern Ireland endured almost three decades of the deadly <a href="https://emu.edu/now/peacebuilder/2009/02/a-brief-history-of-the-troubles/">Troubles</a>, which many outside of the country believed was caused by religion. Throughout the conflict, the British government regularly met with religious leaders to ask their opinions on policy initiatives and to gauge the mood of the people.</p>
<p>British Catholics and Protestants alike wrote to Catholic bishops demanding action to end the violence. But when their efforts failed, it was thought a lack of application on the bishops’ part rather than a lack of influence was to blame. However, even a rare public intervention from the Pope was not enough.</p>
<p>John Paul II’s much-celebrated <a href="https://www.irishpost.com/life-style/on-this-day-in-1979-more-than-a-million-irish-people-greeted-pope-john-paul-ii-in-dublin-193994">three-day visit</a> to the Republic of Ireland in September 1979 included addressing a 250,000-strong crowd 30 miles from the border at Drogheda. But his appeal for “all men and women engaged in violence” to “return to the ways of peace” fell on deaf ears.</p>
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<p>Attempts to stop the <a href="https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/maggie-scull-republicans-and-historians-remain-divided-over-hunger-strikes-1.2470176">1981 Maze Prison hunger strike</a> through meetings with the queen and the then prime minister, Margaret Thatcher, were unsuccessful. The sending of a <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/07907184.2015.1084292?tab=permissions&scroll=top">papal envoy</a> to speak with lead hunger striker <a href="https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/ira-militant-bobby-sands-dies">Bobby Sands</a> and British government officials, also ended in failure.</p>
<p>Catholic bishops faced regular questions from the British press asking why IRA members had not been excommunicated. Officially excluding someone from participation in the sacraments and services of the Christian church is not common practice in the modern era.</p>
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<img alt="The cover of a book showing a cartoon of a bishop and some Northern Ireland paramilitaries holding their guns in the shape of a cross." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/501516/original/file-20221216-13-uen3rp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/501516/original/file-20221216-13-uen3rp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=808&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501516/original/file-20221216-13-uen3rp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=808&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501516/original/file-20221216-13-uen3rp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=808&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501516/original/file-20221216-13-uen3rp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1016&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501516/original/file-20221216-13-uen3rp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1016&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501516/original/file-20221216-13-uen3rp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1016&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-catholic-church-and-the-northern-ireland-troubles-1968-1998-9780198843214?cc=gb&lang=en&">OUP</a>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
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<p>As the blatantly sectarian cartoon on the cover image of my <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-catholic-church-and-the-northern-ireland-troubles-1968-1998-9780192871398?lang=en&cc=gb&fbclid=IwAR2Gcamdf5b7UlF-TIaFnmzdcPGRgp_KjMMfsZ1AU2N4YZQ4K_Jo3tqVLao">book</a>, The Catholic Church and the Northern Ireland Troubles 1968-98, demonstrates, there were those in the British press who perpetuated the idea that republicanism and Catholicism were willing bedfellows. But the church knew that excommunicating IRA members could isolate sections of the Catholic community who felt the republican paramilitaries provided protection from perceived corrupt police and British Army forces.</p>
<p>Those who conflated the conflict with religion viewed the lack of excommunication of republican paramilitaries as the church’s compliance and support for violence. This reluctance to tackle the excommunication issue led to missed opportunities for unity.</p>
<p>Hopes for interfaith cooperation were dashed by other issues, too: chiefly the Church’s insistence on <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-60241606">segregated education</a> for Catholics, and the 1970 Vatican apostolic letter <a href="https://www.vatican.va/content/paul-vi/en/motu_proprio/documents/hf_p-vi_motu-proprio_19700331_matrimonia-mixta.html"><em>Matrimonia Mixta</em></a> which emphasises that children born of “mixed” Catholic and Protestant marriages should be raised Catholic.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.rte.ie/brainstorm/2020/0708/1151996-northern-ireland-paramilitary-funerals-troubles-bobby-storey-provisional-ira/">IRA paramilitary funerals</a> were another dilemma for the Catholic Church. Irish priests who ministered and conducted these ceremonies were regularly accused of condoning, if not actively supporting, violence. Differing Catholic and Protestant church practices and theologies around death, funerals, and the afterlife exacerbated inter-community tensions. </p>
<p>For Catholics, the dead would be judged when they met their maker and not by those on earth. Therefore it was difficult for the Irish Catholic Church to deny IRA members a funeral and requiem mass. In the late 1980s, Bishop Edward Daly of Derry attempted to ban the bodies of republican paramilitaries being present at their requiem mass but quickly had to reverse his decision when republican mourners brought the coffins to the cathedral and were granted entry. </p>
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<p>A carrot and stick approach emerged among the Catholic clergy. Some priests acted as mediators between the Provisional IRA and the British government, resulting in the <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/261972045_'Everyone_Trying'_the_IRA_Ceasefire_1975_A_Missed_Opportunity_for_Peace">1974-75 ceasefire</a>. Priests were supposed to embody neutrality and had historically adjudicated between different Irish groups.</p>
<p>During the late 1980s and early 1990s, priests like Father Alec Reid and Father Gerry Reynolds provided rooms in the Clonard Monastery for Sinn Féin’s <a href="https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerry_Adams">Gerry Adams</a> and the SDLP’s <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/peace/1998/hume/facts/">John Hume</a> to meet privately. At the same time, priests like Father Denis Faul publicly denounced the IRA’s violence. However, <a href="https://www.irishtimes.com/news/clerical-child-abuse-an-irish-timeline-1.880042">revelations of clerical child abuse</a> in the 1990s shattered the moral authority of the Catholic Church and drastically reduced institutional church involvement in the peace process.</p>
<h2>Reconciling or deepening divisions?</h2>
<p>Depending on the final shape of the Reconciliation and Information Recovery bill, will the Catholic Church back the oral history projects? Will it support researchers writing thematic reports? Will it be inspired to open its own archives? Or will it boycott the bill in solidarity with victims’ groups?</p>
<p>Archbishop Eamon Martin, the Roman Catholic primate of all Ireland, along with the queen, took part in a <a href="https://www.thejournal.ie/ni-event-amagh-5580013-Oct2021/">service of reflection and hope</a> in Armagh in 2021 alongside Protestant church leaders to mark the centenary of partition and the creation of Northern Ireland. But the <a href="https://president.ie/en/the-president/michael-d-higgins">president of Ireland</a>, Michael D. Higgins, <a href="https://www.irishnews.com/news/northernirelandnews/2021/09/16/news/service-of-hope-to-be-held-to-reflect-on-events-of-1921-in-ireland-2449424/">declined the invitation</a>, saying he was “not in a position to attend”.</p>
<p>While this may indicate a willingness for the Catholic Church to be a part of the legacy process, Archbishop Martin and another Church of Ireland archbishop, John McDowell, jointly warned the bill would “<a href="https://www.irishtimes.com/ireland/2022/11/22/primates-of-all-ireland-say-legacy-bill-will-deepen-divisions-in-northern-ireland/">deepen divisions</a>” in the north.</p>
<p>Should the bill go forward in its current form, Church leadership will either have to back the British government or push against it, a doubtless tricky position for an institution declining in influence.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/191924/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Margaret Scull received funding from the Irish Research Council as a postdoctoral fellow between 2018-2020.</span></em></p>In a fraught and complex situation the Catholic Church sought to mediate the conflict where it could, but drew much ire and criticism for not doing enough.Margaret Scull, Adjunct Professor of History, Syracuse UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1878812022-08-16T16:13:52Z2022-08-16T16:13:52ZIntegrated education in Northern Ireland: why progress is slow despite support<p>Support in Northern Ireland for integrated education – schools attended by both Protestant and Catholic children – <a href="https://www.belfastlive.co.uk/news/belfast-news/integrated-education-poll-finds-71-21207568">is high</a>. There are many factors behind this, including the view that separate schools <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/dec/02/integrated-education-northern-ireland-school">perpetuate divisions</a> and are an anachronism in an increasingly secularised society.</p>
<p>There also appears to be a political will to make integrated education a reality. In April 2022 the Northern Ireland Assembly passed the <a href="https://www.legislation.gov.uk/nia/2022/15/contents/enacted">Integrated Education Act</a> which placed a statutory duty on the Northern Ireland Department of Education to “encourage, facilitate and support” integrated education. In an unrelated announcement in July, the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland announced <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/news/secretary-of-state-for-northern-ireland-boosts-integrated-education-in-ni-with-19m-funding-package">additional funding</a> of £1.9 million to support schools wishing to become integrated.</p>
<p>There are a number of factors holding back progress towards integrated education in Northern Ireland. Existing organisations involved in education, including the Protestant and Catholic churches, have been defensive about their own schools. In a divided society where political decisions depend on consensus, there is a level of political inertia to overcome.</p>
<h2>A historic idea</h2>
<p>When Northern Ireland was established a century ago the Protestant and Catholic Churches ran schools that largely served their own communities. The new Northern Ireland government tried to introduce a new approach in which schools would be open to all pupils and the role of the churches would be limited, but <a href="https://www.qub.ac.uk/sites/irishhistorylive/IrishHistoryResources/Shortarticlesandencyclopaediaentries/Encyclopaedia/LengthyEntries/Education/">this idea failed</a>.</p>
<p>During the Troubles, many <a href="https://cain.ulster.ac.uk/ccru/research/csc/majmin1s.htm#conclude">commentators suggested</a> that educating all young people together could promote reconciliation and reduce prejudice. <a href="https://cain.ulster.ac.uk/othelem/research/nisas/rep4c1.htm#contact">Opinion polls</a> suggested many people in Northern Ireland supported this idea. However, there was no planned integrated education school until <a href="https://www.lagancollege.com/about/">Lagan College</a> opened in Belfast in 1981. </p>
<p>The Catholic church has been less than enthusiastic about integrated schools in the past. It <a href="https://cain.ulster.ac.uk/issues/education/docs/conway/conway70.htm">challenged the idea</a> that separate Catholic schools contributed to sectarianism. The Protestant churches have also been <a href="https://cain.ulster.ac.uk/issues/education/docs/macaulay270109.pdf">lukewarm towards integrated education</a>, partly from fears that the establishment of integrated schools would lead to less funding for existing schools.</p>
<p>In 2015 the Department of Education published proposals for the establishment of <a href="https://www.education-ni.gov.uk/publications/circular-201515-jointly-managed-schools">“joint faith” schools</a>, a new type of integrated school run by the Churches together, but to date no such school has been established.</p>
<p>Change driven by politicians has also been slow. The Good Friday Agreement of 1998 included a commitment <a href="https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1034123/The_Belfast_Agreement_An_Agreement_Reached_at_the_Multi-Party_Talks_on_Northern_Ireland.pdf">to facilitate and encourage integrated education</a>. By 2021-22 there were 67 integrated <a href="https://www.education-ni.gov.uk/sites/default/files/publications/education/Revised%2011th%20March%202022%20-%20Annual%20enrolments%20at%20schools%20and%20in%20funded%20pre-school%20education%20in%20Northern%20Ireland%2C%202021-22.pdf">primary and secondary schools</a> in Northern Ireland, out of a total of 976. They enrol under 8% of all pupils. </p>
<h2>Current challenges</h2>
<p>The 2022 Integrated Education Act places additional responsibility on the Department of Education, but the terms in which it is drafted are imprecise and it remains to be seen how they will be implemented. It might make a difference if a member of the legislative assembly from the <a href="https://www.allianceparty.org/">Alliance Party</a> becomes minister of education, as they sponsored the bill and have the greatest investment in its success. But since the May election the NI Assembly has not functioned due to political disputes over Brexit.</p>
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<p>Non-profit organisation the Integrated Education Fund (IEF) has set a target of 100 integrated education schools <a href="https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/education/education-fund-sets-target-for-100-integrated-schools-by-2025-41786947.html">within three years</a>. The new funding from the UK government, most of which will go to the IEF, will almost certainly help, but the challenge is ambitious. It requires 30 new integrated education schools when only three primary schools have been added in the previous three years. An additional secondary school will officially become an integrated school in the 2022-23 school year.</p>
<p>A new development since the Good Friday Agreement has been the growth of Shared Education involving collaborative school partnerships from all sectors providing <a href="https://pureadmin.qub.ac.uk/ws/portalfiles/portal/43472382/shared_education.pdf">shared lessons for their pupils</a>. It seeks to create social networks of friendship in local communities that cut across the religious divide.</p>
<p>Before the pandemic, about 60% of primary and secondary schools were <a href="https://www.education-ni.gov.uk/publications/advancing-shared-education-report-northern-ireland-assembly-june-2020">involved in these partnerships</a> in programmes supported by the <a href="https://www.eani.org.uk/parents/shared-education">Education Authority</a>.</p>
<p>Shared education is popular with schools as it recognises all of them can provide opportunities for engagement and dialogue, even if some in fully integrated schools may feel this represents, at best, a watered-down version of what they provide.</p>
<p>Past experience would suggest that change of any kind in education in Northern Ireland proceeds <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13632434.2021.1887116">slowly, if at all</a>. However, society has changed over the past 20 years. Many more people now <a href="https://news.sky.com/story/northern-ireland-number-of-people-identifying-as-non-religious-doubles-in-a-decade-12495575">identify as non-religious</a>. It remains to be seen if this is enough to shift some of the tectonic plates on education policy.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/187881/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tony Gallagher is a Professor of Education at Queen’s University Belfast where he works on the role of education in divided societies. Since the early 2000s he has worked on a series of funded research projects related to Shared Education and school collaboration from a variety of organisations incuding the Atlantic Philanthropies, the International Fund for Ireland, the Economic and Social Research Council, and the Offiice of the First Minister and deputy First Minister, Northern Ireland.</span></em></p>The public is in favour of educating Protestant and Catholic children together but making it happen is easier said than done.Tony Gallagher, Professor of Education, Queen's University BelfastLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1877272022-07-28T11:50:20Z2022-07-28T11:50:20ZDavid Trimble, architect of Good Friday agreement, dies at 77: his gamble is still paying off for Northern Ireland<p>Consensus can be elusive in a place as deeply divided as Northern Ireland, but the death of its inaugural first minister, David Trimble, has prompted warm tributes from across the political spectrum. The region’s three main newspapers each ran the very <a href="https://twitter.com/SJAMcBride/status/1551849317115248640?s=20&t=LIM0-eh0dP1RZgolhW8u5w">same headline on their front pages</a>: “A man of courage and vision.”</p>
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<p>As the former leader of the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Ulster-Unionist-Party">Ulster Unionist Party</a> (UUP), Trimble will be best remembered as one of the key architects of the <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-belfast-agreement">Belfast/Good Friday agreement</a> of 1998, effectively bringing an end to <a href="https://theconversation.com/belfast-archiving-all-the-voices-of-the-troubles-175259">the Troubles</a> that beleaguered Northern Ireland for decades. </p>
<p>Trimble’s political career began in the 1970s when he was involved in <a href="https://cain.ulster.ac.uk/othelem/organ/uorgan.htm#uv">Vanguard</a> – a party formed in opposition to Northern Ireland’s first (failed) experiment with power sharing between unionist and nationalist parties. Even when elected as an MP for the more mainstream UUP in the 1990s, he earned a reputation as more of a hardliner than a moderate.</p>
<p>In 1995 he <a href="https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/life/drumcree-dance-that-spawned-a-monster-28499553.html">marched hand-in-hand</a> with the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Ian-Paisley">Democratic Unionist Party’s Ian Paisley</a>, wearing <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-18769781">the sash</a> at an Orange Order parade in the flashpoint town of Drumcree. The gesture appeared triumphalist to the mainly Catholic local residents, who wanted the parade to take a different route. If Trimble was so resistant to compromise on the route of a parade, <a href="https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/drumcree-explodes-myth-that-ni-peace-is-at-hand-1.65858">some wondered</a>, how could he ever compromise on broader issues of contention.</p>
<p>This perceived hardliner stance didn’t harm Trimble when he stood for the leadership of the UUP in 1995. His win was <a href="https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/opinion/comment/david-trimble-was-that-rare-thing-in-unionism-a-risk-taker-who-played-the-long-game-41866923.html">something of a surprise</a>, defeating more established figures in the party. It also came at a critical time: in the wake of IRA and loyalist ceasefires, the British and Irish governments were preparing the way for formal peace talks. The stakes were very high.</p>
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<h2>A man of clear conviction</h2>
<p>While Trimble brought an expectedly staunch unionist perspective to these negotiations, he did so with an all-too-rare ability to see the bigger picture – making possible an agreement that many regarded as simply impossible. He considered the eventual deal flawed and imperfect but, for him, it was a compromise that compared favourably to all the alternatives. It protected Northern Ireland’s place in the United Kingdom, and provided, to put it bluntly, an opportunity to save many, many lives.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/good-friday-agreement-ten-key-people-who-helped-bring-about-peace-in-northern-ireland-20-years-ago-94613">Good Friday Agreement: ten key people who helped bring about peace in Northern Ireland 20 years ago</a>
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<p>That was the basic vision, one that he simply described as his desire for a “<a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/peace/1998/trimble/lecture/">normal society</a>”. He contrasted it with more idealistic aspirations for Northern Ireland’s future. In his <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/peace/1998/trimble/lecture/">Nobel Lecture</a>, delivered alongside leader of the Social Democratic and Labour Party <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-44753271">John Hume</a>, he said:</p>
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<p>Some critics complain that I lack “the vision thing”. But vision in its pure meaning is clear sight. That does not mean I have no dreams. I do. But I try to have them at night.</p>
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<p>When Trimble campaigned for a “Yes” vote in the referendum on the 1998 agreement, <a href="https://www.irishnews.com/news/northernirelandnews/2022/07/27/news/hume_and_trimble_overcame_a_reserved_relationship_-2782280/">joining U2’s Bono on stage</a> at a rally was a rare moment of colour that contrasted with his otherwise dry political style. But what he lacked in charisma and easy charm, he made up for in courage and clarity of conviction.</p>
<h2>Lasting legacy</h2>
<p>As the then UUP leader emerged from the negotiations on April 10 1998 to speak to the waiting media, <a href="https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300205527/northern-ireland/">blue skies gave way to heavy snow</a>. Similarly, the political weather only got worse for Trimble’s leadership. While the Belfast agreement was endorsed by a decisive majority of voters in Northern Ireland overall, it only <a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9780203935675-23/voted-peace-public-support-1998-northern-ireland-agreement-bernadette-hayes-ian-mcallister">barely received the support of a majority of Protestants</a>. Relentless opposition, including from within his own party, was accompanied by <a href="https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/opinion/columnists/suzanne-breen/david-trimble-was-a-hard-man-to-like-but-you-had-to-admire-his-courage-and-convictions-41866849.html">threats to his personal security</a>.</p>
<p>Eventually, Trimble’s opponents got the upper hand. The initial failure of the IRA to decommission its weapons made it harder for him to justify sharing power with <a href="https://theconversation.com/northern-ireland-election-despite-sinn-feins-historic-win-over-unionists-things-may-not-be-as-they-seem-182652">Sinn Féin</a>. The DUP replaced the UUP as the largest unionist party in 2003. Trimble himself lost his Westminster seat to an anti-agreement challenger in 2005, and resigned as party leader the following day.</p>
<p>But it was only a matter of time before the DUP itself went on to share power with Sinn Féin in government, albeit against an altered backdrop. Today, despite coming under great strain, the basic parameters created by the Belfast/Good Friday agreement continue to shape the politics of Northern Ireland.</p>
<p>Appetite for reform of this framework has grown, but that should not be confused with any real demand for its replacement. There are <a href="https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/northern-ireland/dup-defending-good-friday-agreement-they-sought-to-destroy-says-former-uup-leader-empey-38514239.html">now near-universal calls</a> for the the basic principles of the agreement to be protected. </p>
<p>In recent years, Trimble expressed concern that the post-Brexit Northern Ireland protocol undermines the agreement he signed, and amount to “<a href="https://www.newsletter.co.uk/news/people/david-trimble-the-ni-protocol-rips-out-the-heart-of-the-1998-belfast-agreement-3473812">constitutional changes</a>” that lack democratic consent. Critics, however, will wonder why the pro-Leave former UUP leader did not apply the same basic logic to <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-2U04b08eA">Brexit itself</a>, pointing to majority support in Northern Ireland for <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-36614443">remaining in the EU</a>.</p>
<p>After his electoral defeat, Trimble continued to take an active interest in the politics of Northern Ireland and further afield from <a href="https://members.parliament.uk/member/658/contributions">the red benches at Westminster</a>. He was elevated to the House of Lords as a Conservative peer in 2006, taking the title Baron Trimble of Lisnagarvey, reflecting the original name of his adopted hometown.</p>
<p>It translates from the Irish <em>Lios na gCearrbhachas</em> to “<a href="https://www.lisburnmuseum.com/collections/origins-name-lisburn-lios-na-gcearrbhach-lisnagarvey-mean/">fort of the gamblers</a>” – a fitting choice for a leader whose central legacy will be defined for the gamble he took. It wasn’t a gamble that paid off for David Trimble personally, but the people of Northern Ireland continue to reap the rewards.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/187727/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>James Pow receives research funding from the UK's Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC). He has previously received research funding from the Irish government's Reconciliation Fund.</span></em></p>The former first minister of Northern Ireland will be best remembered as one of the key architects of the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement of 1998.James Pow, Lecturer, School of History, Anthropology, Philosophy and Politics, Queen's University BelfastLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1847882022-06-10T15:21:47Z2022-06-10T15:21:47ZWhy a play about Ireland’s native language finds new resonance in Anglo-Irish relations today<p>Caitríona McLaughlin’s version of Brian Friel’s seminal play <a href="https://www.abbeytheatre.ie/whats-on/translations/">Translations</a> is coming to Ireland’s national theatre, the Abbey, this summer. Her striking adaption shows how Friel’s masterpiece is as relevant today as it was when it was first performed in 1980.</p>
<p>Translations takes place in a <a href="https://www.historyireland.com/inciting-lawless-profligate-adventure-hedge-schools-ireland/">hedge school</a> in Baile Beag (Irish for small town), a fictionalised village in County Donegal, in 1833. Hedge schools – named after their ad-hoc, informal locations – sprung up in the early 18th century in response to the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Penal-Laws">penal laws</a> which banned Catholic schools. Here, Hugh and his son Manus teach a variety of subjects, including <a href="https://www.tcd.ie/classics/livinglatin/hedge-school.php">Latin and Greek classics</a>, to their Irish-speaking students. </p>
<p>The British Royal Engineers have arrived to complete the first <a href="https://www.historyireland.com/an-eye-on-the-survey/">Ordnance Survey of Ireland</a> and are accompanied by Hugh’s other son, Owen, who acts as their translator. They are somewhat misleadingly referred to as “English soldiers” throughout the play, but the majority of those working on the survey were not soldiers but civilians. </p>
<p>The Ordnance Survey of Ireland involved making a map of local place names and, in the process, often replacing these Irish names with English language ones. This anglicisation usually involved a flattening of <a href="https://twitter.com/robgmacfarlane/status/895887558575398912?lang=en-GB"><em>dinnseanchas</em></a> – the lore or stories behind these Irish <a href="https://experience.arcgis.com/experience/9b31e0501b744154b4584b1dce1f859b">place names</a>.</p>
<p>In the play, for example, <em>Bun na hAbhann</em>, or mouth of the river, from the Irish for bottom (<em>bun</em>) and river (<em>Abha</em>) is simply translated to “Burnfoot”. It was an erasure of history and an attack on indigenous Irish culture.</p>
<p>Crucially, and in a genius act of theatrical imagination, Friel’s play is written and performed in English. There’s an astonishing power to this theatrical device. Listening in English, the audience becomes actively complicit in this act of linguistic violence.</p>
<p>Debates about the Irish language are as topical now as they were in the 1830s. In Northern Ireland, nationalists have long campaigned for official recognition of the Irish language in a legal act – <em>Acht Gaeilge</em>. Despite the flourishing <a href="https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/politics/thousands-march-through-belfast-to-demand-irish-language-legislation-41674146.html">popularity</a> of the language with <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/aug/10/irish-language-belfast-preschool-unionist">Protestants and Catholics</a> alike, this Act has faced strong opposition from some unionists. Finally, in 2022, a bill is <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-61572710">working its way through parliament</a> to become enshrined in law. </p>
<h2>Brian Friel and the Field Day Theatre Co</h2>
<p>Translations <a href="https://fieldday.ie/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/Translations-Program.pdf">premiered</a> in 1980 at the Guildhall in Derry during the height of the Northern Ireland conflict known as “<a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-northern-ireland-49299800">the Troubles</a>”. The decision to stage a play about English soldiers and Ireland was undoubtedly political even if the drama was set 150 years previously.</p>
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<p>Friel’s widow, Anne Morrison, <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0bccsmk">recalls</a> helicopters circling over the Guildhall and audience members being searched. The play premiered to a packed audience of politicians, writers and activists.</p>
<p>The play was the first production of the Derry-based <a href="https://fieldday.ie/about/">Field Day Theatre Company</a>, founded by Friel and the actor <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2018/sep/30/stephen-rea-british-identity-is-dwindling-brexit-samuel-beckett-cyprus-avenue">Stephen Rea</a>, who played Owen in this first production. <a href="https://fieldday.ie/about/">Field Day’s</a> founding mission was to be a “cultural and intellectual response to the political crisis in Northern Ireland”, seeking to create art that would transcend division.</p>
<p>Friel and Rea would later be joined by the Irish writers and academics <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/seamus-heaney#:%7E:text=Seamus%20Heaney%20is%20widely%20recognized,edited%20several%20widely%20used%20anthologies.">Seamus Heaney</a>, <a href="https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/seamus-deane-leading-irish-writer-and-critic-has-died-aged-81-1.4564018">Seamus Deane</a>, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/aug/28/ireland.folk">David Hammond</a> and <a href="https://poetryarchive.org/poet/tom-paulin/">Tom Paulin</a>. Field Day would go on to publish pamphlets and anthologies, not always without <a href="https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v14/n01/edna-longley/belfast-diary">controversy</a>.</p>
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<h2>Forbidden love</h2>
<p>Friel’s play also contains one of the best love scenes in modern theatre. Irish-speaking Máire and English-speaking George find themselves impossibly drawn to one another, even though Máire is already involved with another man and George is an English soldier. </p>
<p>Unable to comprehend the other’s language, the lovers converse in place names and gestures, unknowingly repeating what the other is saying. </p>
<p>It’s a funny, tender, romantic scene, undercut by the danger that both will face if they are caught. One of the characters in the play will later ask:</p>
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<p>Do you know the Greek word endogamein? It means to marry within the tribe. And the word exogamein means to marry outside the tribe. And you don’t cross those borders casually – both sides get very angry.</p>
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<p>Audiences of the original production would have been acutely aware of the risks involved in exogamous relationships in Northern Ireland at the time. My own <a href="https://aeon.co/essays/when-england-met-ireland-a-tale-of-colonialism-not-romance">research</a> looks at such relationships and “<a href="https://www.qub.ac.uk/sites/acts-of-union/">mixed marriages</a>” between Catholics and Protestants in Ireland. People who entered into such romances could face extremely hostile and, on occasion, violent reactions. Some women were <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1971/11/11/archives/ulster-women-tar-2-girls-for-dating-british-soldiers-two-girls.html">tarred and feathered</a> for having relationships with soldiers, according to reports from the 1970s.</p>
<h2>The evolving Anglo-Irish relationship</h2>
<p>Translations recently enjoyed a major production at another national theatre. In 2018 and 2019, Ian Rickson directed an all-star cast at the <a href="https://www.nationaltheatre.org.uk/shows/translations">National Theatre</a> in London. This version ended with a stage set involving a rifle-wielding soldier in a contemporary uniform, surrounded by barbed wire. In echoing any number of famous images of the Northern Ireland conflict, it was a heavy-handed reminder of the violent legacy of the British in Ireland. </p>
<p>The promise of an Irish Language Act has been a long time coming. In 2006, the British and Irish governments, and the major political parties in Northern Ireland negotiated the <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-st-andrews-agreement-october-2006">St Andrews Agreement</a> which promised to introduce an Irish Language Act, <em>Acht Gaeilge</em>. This would protect the status of the language and ensure continued investment in its future. </p>
<p>When Translations opened at the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2022/may/02/translations-review-brian-friel-lyric-belfast-abbey-dublin">Lyric Theatre</a> in Belfast in April 2022 – 16 years after this agreement – the promised act had still not been delivered. Though finally introduced the following month in May 2022, the bill still has a long way to go before it is put into practice.</p>
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<p>Friel was famously sceptical of directors but, having seen the play in Belfast, I can attest that McLaughlin’s version – physical, playful and very funny – is a wonderful theatrical treat.</p>
<p>I love Hugh’s explanation of how important it is that we connect with culture and history through words and stories. Hugh reminds us “it is not the literal past, the facts of history, that shape us, but images of the past embodied in language”. </p>
<p>Friel’s elegy for a lost world is a truly resonant “image of the past” but it is his peerless use of language that makes Translations sing. And this language – spoken English ghosted by silenced Irish – will haunt you long after you leave the theatre.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/184788/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alison Garden receives funding from UK Research and Innovation. </span></em></p>Translations by Brian Friel is an eternally relevant examination of the significance of the Irish language, the power of storytelling and the importance of history.Alison Garden, UKRI Future Leaders Fellow, School of Arts, English and Languages, Queen's University BelfastLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1840742022-06-06T09:29:39Z2022-06-06T09:29:39ZInside a reintegration camp for Colombia’s ex-guerrilla fighters: ‘Words of reconciliation are our only weapons now’<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/466299/original/file-20220531-12-1tn9em.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Olmedo Vega spent 35 years as a FARC guerrilla commander before moving to the Agua Bonita demobilisation camp. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Photograph: Juan Pablo Valderrama</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><blockquote>
<p>The election of Iván Duque four years ago was a threat for us. But we will continue to follow the peace agreement regardless of who is the next president of Colombia. We are more determined than ever to comply with the peace accords, and this is the reason they want to kill us.</p>
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<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tJTwgO0dnq0">Olmedo Vega</a> spent 35 years as a guerrilla commander during Colombia’s armed conflict – one of the longest the world has ever seen. “The FARC is my family – I grew up with the guerrillas. But now I really want to commit to this new life here in Agua Bonita, along with my old comrades.”</p>
<p>Over the past four years, we have carried out 42 in-depth interviews with former guerrilla soldiers in Agua Bonita and some of the other 25 Territorial Spaces for Training, Reintegration and Reincorporation (ETCR in Spanish), developed by the Colombian government and the UN to resettle thousands of former FARC fighters after <a href="https://theconversation.com/santos-got-the-nobel-prize-for-not-giving-up-on-peace-heres-why-all-colombians-won-66689">the historic</a> 2016 peace agreement.</p>
<p>We sought to understand <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/21647259.2022.2065792">the barriers faced by ex-combatants</a> as they try to reintegrate into civil society. With President Duque’s reign almost over and his successsor due to be <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-61628589">elected on June 19</a>, the result has major implications for the future of Colombia, the survival of the peace agreement, and the prospects of all those former combatants who have committed to a life without conflict.</p>
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<p><strong><em>This story is part of Conversation Insights</em></strong>
<br><em>The Insights team generates <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/insights-series-71218">long-form journalism</a> and is working with academics from different backgrounds who have been engaged in projects to tackle societal and scientific challenges.</em></p>
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<p>After six decades of fighting, it is estimated that almost 20% of the population is a <a href="http://www.centrodememoriahistorica.gov.co/micrositios/balances-jep/descargas/balance-sujetos-victimizados.pdf">direct victim of Colombia’s civil war</a> – <a href="http://centrodememoriahistorica.gov.co/descargas/informes2016/basta-ya-ingles/BASTA-YA-ingles.pdf">including</a> almost 9 million internally displaced people, 200,000 enforced disappearances, up to 40,000 kidnappings, more than 17,000 child soldiers, nearly 9,321 landmine incidents, and 16,324 acts of sexual violence. </p>
<p>For the almost 13,000 former FARC guerrillas, the end of the conflict initiated a process of “disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration” into Colombian society. But while positive steps were taken on both sides, <a href="https://indepaz.org.co/observatorio-de-derechos-humanos-y-conflictividades/">more than 300 massacres</a> have been recorded since the peace deal was signed on September 26 2016. Some <a href="https://colombia.unmissions.org/sites/default/files/04.04.22_eng_infographic_reportmar2022.pdf">316 FARC ex-combatants</a> and <a href="https://indepaz.org.co/">1,287 human rights defenders</a> have been murdered during this period of “peace”, putting the agreement under <a href="https://news.un.org/en/story/2020/07/1068371">increasing threat</a>.</p>
<h2>‘A place to have a dignified life’</h2>
<p>The <a href="https://www.reincorporacion.gov.co/es/reincorporacion/Paginas/ETCRs/AETCR_agua_bonita.aspx">Agua Bonita</a> (“Beautiful water”) guerrilla demobilisation camp is located on a small plateau on the edge of the Amazon basin, about an hour’s bumpy drive from Florencia, capital city of the Caquetá department in Colombia’s Amazonía region.</p>
<p>Since 1970, Caquetá had been the headquarters for both FARC and the guerrillas of <a href="https://cisac.fsi.stanford.edu/mappingmilitants/profiles/popular-liberation-army">the Popular Liberation Army</a> (EPL). It is a geographically strategic corridor for illicit drug trafficking (particularly related to the production of cocaine), the transport of illegal weapons and the smuggling of kidnapped people. It is also one of the first places where guerrilla groups <a href="https://unmas.org/en/programmes/colombia">used landmines</a> to wrest territorial control from the Colombian army.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/466085/original/file-20220530-20-af9in0.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/466085/original/file-20220530-20-af9in0.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/466085/original/file-20220530-20-af9in0.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/466085/original/file-20220530-20-af9in0.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/466085/original/file-20220530-20-af9in0.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/466085/original/file-20220530-20-af9in0.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/466085/original/file-20220530-20-af9in0.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/466085/original/file-20220530-20-af9in0.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">Agua Bonita’s high year-round temperatures and humidity mean it is a ‘heaven’ for fruit growing. Photo: Juan Pablo Valderrama.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In 2017, when ex-FARC combatants first arrived in the empty area where Agua Bonita now stands, they worked with local builders for seven months to construct 63 houses using glass-reinforced plastic and average-quality plywood. Local workers from Florencia and the nearby towns of Morelia, Belen de los Andaquíes and El Paujil helped them build the camp.</p>
<p>“At the beginning, it was difficult to work side-by-side with the local builders because of our stigma as <em>guerrilleros</em>,” recalled <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=enPwRjHr4cg">Federico Montes</a>, one of the community leaders. “But after six months of working with us every day, a couple of them moved with their families to live here!”</p>
<p>Agua Bonita is situated amid one of the most biologically diverse terrestrial ecosystems in the world; home to around 40,000 plant species, nearly 1,300 bird species and 2.5 million different insects. Red-bellied piranhas and pink river dolphins swim in the waters here – yet in both 2019 and 2020, Colombia was named the world’s <a href="https://english.elpais.com/usa/2021-09-15/colombia-the-worlds-deadliest-country-for-environmentalists-in-2020.html">deadliest country for environmentalists</a> by human rights and environmental observers Global Witness.</p>
<p>According to Montes, Agua Bonita’s high year-round temperatures and humidity mean “the weather is perfect to grow yucca, plantain, cilantro and pineapple. And if you are feeling more adventurous, you can have trees of <a href="https://thefoodhog.com/araza-fruit-eugenia-stipitata/">araza</a>, <a href="https://www.fondazioneslowfood.com/en/ark-of-taste-slow-food/copoazu/">copoazu</a>, <a href="https://tipbuzz.com/yellow-dragon-fruit/">yellow pitaya</a> and other Amazonic crops. We are in the middle of a fruit heaven here.”</p>
<p>The community started with a population of more than 300 ex-FARC combatants. These days, it boasts a library with 19 computers and four printers, a bakery, convenience store and restaurant, a football pitch, health centre and community centre with a daycare facility for toddlers. Former combatants farm eight hectares of pineapple cash crop and have their own basic processing plant for fruit pulp. They also have six 13-metre-long fish tanks, a big hen house and dozens of large communal gardens.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/466077/original/file-20220530-18-9pr3mr.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Brightly painted hut in Colombia" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/466077/original/file-20220530-18-9pr3mr.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/466077/original/file-20220530-18-9pr3mr.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/466077/original/file-20220530-18-9pr3mr.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/466077/original/file-20220530-18-9pr3mr.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/466077/original/file-20220530-18-9pr3mr.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/466077/original/file-20220530-18-9pr3mr.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/466077/original/file-20220530-18-9pr3mr.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">One of the many thought-inspiring murals painted on the houses of Agua Bonita. Photo: Juan Pablo Valderrama.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>One of the main attractions for visitors is the <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/misiononucol/albums/72157702429996671/">vibrant murals</a> painted on the 65 modest houses, <a href="https://www.facebook.com/AguaBonitaFestival/">portraying</a> everything from local flora and fauna to guerrilla leaders and FARC paraphernalia. The most recurring features are the words “peace”, “reconciliation” and “hope”.</p>
<p>“Our main aim,” said Montes, “is to create a place to have a dignified life, where all together can be free, safe and secure, living in proper houses with access to health, employment, and education.”</p>
<p>Yet since the establishment of Agua Bonita in 2017, <a href="https://indepaz.org.co/observatorio-de-derechos-humanos-y-conflictividades/">29 ex-combatants</a> have been killed in the area. According to <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tJTwgO0dnq0">Olmedo</a>: “During the government of Duque, there has been a shortage of food, goodwill and economic support in Agua Bonita – a total lack of governmental support. But the presidential elections are giving us hope for a better future.”</p>
<h2>‘A lot of stigmas and negative attitudes against us’</h2>
<p>In the run up to his election in June 2018, Duque, as leader of the right-wing Centro Democrático party, fiercely opposed the peace agreement with the FARC, vowing to renegotiate what he described as a <a href="https://theconversation.com/colombia-elects-a-conservative-who-promises-to-correct-its-peace-accord-98273">“lenient” deal</a> while pledging not to “tear the agreement to shreds”.</p>
<p>After four years in charge, Duque – Colombia’s <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/5/26/duque-most-unpopular-colombian-president-poll">least popular president</a> in polling history – has <a href="https://www.wola.org/analysis/colombia-peace-accord-is-not-weak-its-duque-who-insists-on-weakening-it/">undermined</a> the implementation of the peace agreement, and further <a href="https://carnegieendowment.org/2021/02/17/from-old-battles-to-new-challenges-in-colombia-pub-83785">polarised</a> the country and its politics. Levels of respect for human rights, security, quality of life and poverty <a href="https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2022/country-chapters/colombia">have all worsened</a> under his militaristic tenure.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/466309/original/file-20220531-12-gidpl3.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/466309/original/file-20220531-12-gidpl3.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/466309/original/file-20220531-12-gidpl3.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/466309/original/file-20220531-12-gidpl3.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/466309/original/file-20220531-12-gidpl3.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/466309/original/file-20220531-12-gidpl3.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/466309/original/file-20220531-12-gidpl3.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/466309/original/file-20220531-12-gidpl3.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">Olmedo Vega: ‘I believe in the peace process because now we have the opportunity to study.’ Photo: Juan Pablo Valderrama.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Olmedo Vega, 49, has lived in Agua Bonita from its earliest foundations. When we met him, Vega was taking part in a <a href="https://kidnappingworkshop.net/caqueta/">video letter exchange project</a> with young people from Medellin, Colombia’s second-largest city. “Some of the questions from these students were really difficult to answer,” he told us. “There are a lot of stigmas and negative attitudes against us as ex-FARC members. ‘Terrorist’, ‘murderer’, ‘killer’, ‘scumbag’ … these are the words some people used to introduce me.”</p>
<p>But these days, Vega is proud to call himself a student too. One evening, during dinner, he asked us: “What did the arrival of an American astronaut on the Moon mean politically?”</p>
<p>As we fumbled for an answer, he interrupted to say: “I am studying four hours every day to get my qualifications: two hours in the morning, two in the afternoon. We are 30 comrades working so hard to sit the ICFES (Colombian A-level exams) next September. This is why I believe in the peace process, because now we have the opportunity to study. I want to be a doctor in the future, this is my dream. I want to help people, and to build a more equal society in Colombia.”</p>
<p>That evening, Vega offered us <a href="https://youtu.be/0XCMwqJ-lO0"><em>cancharina</em></a> for pudding and the sugar cane drink <a href="https://www.mycolombianrecipes.com/aguapanela-sugar-cane-drink/"><em>agua de panela</em></a>, a FARC <a href="https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/what-farc-ate-colombia">culinary tradition</a>. And he talked about one topic repeatedly: the murder of his best friend, Jorge Eliecer Garzón, <a href="https://www.telesurtv.net/news/asesinan-firmante-paz-colombia-20211017-0007.html">by paramilitary groups</a> in 2021.</p>
<p>“Jorge was my pal. He taught me how to be a good <em>guerrillero</em>, a good comrade. He strongly believed in the power of peace and reconciliation. I cannot understand why he was assassinated in front of his family in that bakery.”</p>
<p>Expressed as a cold statistic, Garzón was <a href="https://twitter.com/Indepaz/status/1449719441911164938/photo/1">ex-combatant no.290</a> to have been murdered since the signing of the peace agreement. The <a href="https://www.urosario.edu.co/Documentos/Facultad-de-Ciencia-Politica-Gobierno-y-Relacione/Observatorios/Crimen-organizado/DOCUMENTOS_OCCO_2_A_Criminal_Peace-18-nov-min.pdf">reasons for these killings</a> vary, from preventing the political participation of ex-FARC members to asserting control of areas for the production and international distribution of cocaine. In general, security and justice for demobilised FARC fighters has never been a priority for the Duque administration, and paramilitary groups have taken advantage of this.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/colombias-fragile-peace-deal-threatened-by-the-return-of-mass-killings-154315">Colombia's fragile peace deal threatened by the return of mass killings</a>
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<p>At one point in the evening, Vega recalled: “Jorge used to say to me: ‘You must believe in how peace can change the world. But to heal and be in peace, I do not need to forgive what these paramilitary groups have done to us. Jorge didn’t deserve to be murdered. After his killing, I was broken.”</p>
<p>Mostly, however, Vega remained conciliatory, and positive. “We are more determined than ever to comply with the peace accords – this is the reason they want to kill us. We need to defend the peace agreement. Words of reconciliation and hard work are our only weapons now. I am feeling positive. This is the best way to honour the memory of Jorge.”</p>
<h2>The spectre of political assassination</h2>
<p>Colombia’s current presidential campaign has been haunted by the spectre of <a href="https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20220514-colombia-elections-the-spectre-of-political-assassination">political assassination</a>. <a href="https://colombiafocus.com/candidate-profile-gustavo-petro">Gustavo Petro</a>, the leftist former guerrilla and ex-mayor of Colombia’s capital Bogotá, had to call off public appearances after his campaign received first-hand information regarding assassination plots by paramilitary groups. His running partner, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2022/may/25/francia-marquez-colombia-vice-president-black-candidate?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other">Francia Márquez</a>, a black environmentalist, also received death threats.</p>
<p>Petro led the presidential election first round on May 29 with 40% of the votes. His rival in the run-off on June 19 will be <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/colombias-king-tiktok-hernandez-ready-run-off-after-shock-result-2022-05-30/">Rodolfo Hernández</a>, a businessman-politician who is viewed as a right-wing conservative and populist outsider.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/466087/original/file-20220530-22-nh4943.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Two political candidates on stage" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/466087/original/file-20220530-22-nh4943.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/466087/original/file-20220530-22-nh4943.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=376&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/466087/original/file-20220530-22-nh4943.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=376&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/466087/original/file-20220530-22-nh4943.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=376&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/466087/original/file-20220530-22-nh4943.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=472&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/466087/original/file-20220530-22-nh4943.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=472&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/466087/original/file-20220530-22-nh4943.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=472&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">Gustavo Petro and his running partner, Francia Márquez, have both received death threats during this election campaign.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/bogota-colombia-november-22-2021-gustavo-2161317985">Shutterstock</a></span>
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<p>Colombia is the only major country in Latin America that has <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-05-12/colombia-election-front-runner-beefs-up-security-over-violence-threat">never had a leftist leader</a>. The country’s right-wing parties and liberal establishment appear determined to maintain this record, amid campaigns that have been regularly accused of <a href="https://www.ips-journal.eu/topics/democracy-and-society/the-race-for-colombias-next-president-5865/">racism, sexism and classism</a> against Márquez in particular.</p>
<p>Yet according to a recent <a href="https://noticias.caracoltv.com/politica/elecciones-colombia/encuesta-invamer-resultados-y-analisis-5-de-diciembre-2021">survey</a>, 79% of Colombians believe the country is on the wrong track. Political parties have a collective disapproval rate of 76%, with the Colombian Congress only marginally less unpopular.</p>
<p>The successful reintegration of thousands of ex-FARC guerrillas into civil society remains one of many daunting challenges for the next Colombian government. Reintegration problems encountered by ex-combatants worldwide have <a href="https://www.igi-global.com/book/handbook-research-transitional-justice-peace/137136">included</a> a lack of educational opportunities, the absence of suitable career options and insufficient psychological support.</p>
<p>In Colombia, we have identified <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/21647259.2022.2065792">three crucial aspects</a> that are challenging successful reintegration for FARC ex-combatants: a lack of participation in the civilian economy, a lack of access to educational opportunities, and a failure by the authorities to exercise “equal citizenship” that guarantees social and civic reintegration.</p>
<p>At stake is the entire future of the peace agreement, and with it, prospects for reducing poverty, inequality and other dynamics of economic exclusion. Three generations of Colombians do not know what it means to live in a peaceful society. The reintegration of ex-combatants is crucial to building a general understanding that reconciliation is key to creating a new Colombia, where violence is not the answer to overcoming your problems.</p>
<h2>‘The stigma makes it impossible to get a job’</h2>
<p>The access road to Agua Bonita is not easy. There is no public transport, and the roads are extremely precarious. The poor transport infrastructure of Caquetá in general severely hampers the <a href="http://diposit.ub.edu/dspace/bitstream/2445/125507/1/TFM-ECO_Gonz%C3%A1lez_2018.pdf">productivity of this region</a>.</p>
<p>While the camp – which operates entirely as a cooperative – has not suffered from trade boycotts, unlike some other reintegration camps, raw materials can take months to arrive here. And the twin spectres of discrimination and unemployment loom large over residents here.</p>
<p>“I have plenty of stories of people saying to me: ‘You cannot get a job because you don’t deserve it, just get out of here,’” Vega told us. “I have to fight against this stigma every day, and it is worst when I have to apply for a job because sometimes people have the wrong idea about us. I am a proud ex-combatant that just wants the peace of Colombia and a decent job!”</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/466078/original/file-20220530-20-7ku22s.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/466078/original/file-20220530-20-7ku22s.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/466078/original/file-20220530-20-7ku22s.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/466078/original/file-20220530-20-7ku22s.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/466078/original/file-20220530-20-7ku22s.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/466078/original/file-20220530-20-7ku22s.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/466078/original/file-20220530-20-7ku22s.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/466078/original/file-20220530-20-7ku22s.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">Residents of Agua Bonita struggle with poor transport links and a lack of jobs. Photo: Juan Pablo Valderrama.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3XxbY31Yd1g">Daniel Aldana</a> is one of the youngest ex-combatants living in Agua Bonita. He has been trying to get a job since 2019 but, due to the extent of criminalisation and stigmatisation of ex-FARC guerrillas in the region, he said it is almost impossible for him even to secure an interview.</p>
<p>“When the employers saw my identity card had been issued in La Montañita [the nearest town to Agua Bonita], they said I needed to have a ‘special selection process’. That means they will double or triple-check with the authorities if I have a police record or if my name is on a terrorist database list. If you say you are from Agua Bonita, the people say you are a terrorist. This stigma is making it impossible to get a job here.”</p>
<p>Aldana is not alone. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=havQkGEhXeM">Jorge Suarez</a>, a builder who spent more than 13 years as a FARC commander, recalled going for a job interview in Florencia. “It was so humiliating. ‘Assassin’, ‘murderer’ and ‘scumbag’ were just a few of the words the people at the recruitment agency used to refer to me. Never again.”</p>
<p>Suarez added: “The problem is that people don’t trust us. We have done everything to show that our intentions for a peaceful future are real, yet so far we are getting only two things back: no proper jobs, and tons of bullets.”</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/colombias-cash-for-kills-victims-could-number-10-000-civilians-96316">Colombia's 'cash-for-kills' victims could number 10,000 civilians</a>
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</em>
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<p>Such experiences are not unique to ex-combatants living in Agua Bonita. Esteban Torres, a former guerrilla doing his reintegration in the <a href="https://www.reincorporacion.gov.co/es/reincorporacion/Paginas/ETCRs/AETCR_pondores.aspx">Pondores</a> camp (<a href="https://www.facebook.com/FARCGuajira/">ETCR Amaury Rodríguez</a>) in La Guajira, told us he had experienced the same negative reaction.</p>
<p>“In Riohacha City, when I was looking for a job, the people said to me: ‘Well, you look like a nice bloke, but you have blood on your hands. You will never have a job here because you have the blood of innocent people on your hands, and you are a terrorist – a disgrace.’”</p>
<p>Torres continued: “That is when you realise that this is a long-term process. We need a process to remove the stigma against us from Colombian people’s hearts.”</p>
<h2>Lessons from Northern Ireland</h2>
<p>As well as our interviews with former guerrilla soldiers in Colombia, we also conducted 12 in-depth conversations with ex-combatants in the conflict known as <a href="http://qpol.qub.ac.uk/can-there-be-an-official-history-of-the-troubles/">The Troubles</a>. Despite Northern Ireland’s <a href="https://education.niassembly.gov.uk/post_16/snapshots_of_devolution/gfa#:%7E:text=The%20Belfast%20Agreement%20is%20also,Northern%20Ireland%20should%20be%20governed.">peace agreement</a> having been in place for nearly a quarter of a century – and the country’s very different societal context – we found many of the raw grievances raised by ex-FARC combatants mirrored by these former political prisoners in Northern Ireland, all of whom asked to remain anonymous.</p>
<p>While we heard common themes expressed by loyalist and republican interviewees alike, we highlight some republican voices here as these ex-combatants were dedicated to a form of counter-state insurgency that resembled the aims of the FARC’s armed struggle against the Colombian state. </p>
<p>One former member of the Provisional Irish Republican Army, (P)IRA, spoke about his difficulties finding meaningful employment, despite the fact that he had gained educational qualifications during his time in prison. “I could only get low-level jobs. In prison I had studied so I had qualifications, but I was still only working as a kitchen porter or doorman. </p>
<p>"No one would employ an IRA guy,” he continued. “In one job, I was asked to leave because people found out about my past. They weren’t comfortable working with me any more.”</p>
<p>Another ex-(P)IRA combatant explained the complexity of simply filling out a job application form. “A job application asks: ‘Do you have a criminal record?’ If we say ‘no’ because we claim we don’t have a criminal record – we are not criminals – then we have lied and can be dis-employed, which has happened to many people. But if we say ‘yes’, then we will not get through the vetting procedure.”</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-good-friday-agreement-belongs-to-the-people-not-the-politicians-94535">The Good Friday Agreement belongs to the people, not the politicians</a>
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</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p><a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/21647259.2022.2065792">Our interviews</a> also highlighted a common resentment about the forms of legally structured discrimination that former combatants in Northern Ireland have experienced.</p>
<p>“We can be stopped from travelling to certain places, and certain jobs are completely off limits to us,” explained another ex-(P)IRA member. “Even our ability to spend money is restricted; we can’t purchase home insurance and car insurance. It’s an inhibitor. We can’t get business loans … It all adds up to making things more difficult for us than for everyone else.”</p>
<p>Many of our interviewees had either worked or volunteered for community-based organisations that sought to diffuse inter-community tensions in Northern Ireland, and to steer young people away from participation in violence. In general, an incredibly small number of ex-political prisoners on both sides have returned to political violence, and very few have been convicted for other forms of violent criminality. Yet despite this, the loyalist and republican ex-combatants we spoke to complained of being largely denied equality of citizenship, and still face blockages to participation in the civilian economy.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/466089/original/file-20220530-22-8arffe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/466089/original/file-20220530-22-8arffe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/466089/original/file-20220530-22-8arffe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=362&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/466089/original/file-20220530-22-8arffe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=362&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/466089/original/file-20220530-22-8arffe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=362&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/466089/original/file-20220530-22-8arffe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=455&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/466089/original/file-20220530-22-8arffe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=455&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/466089/original/file-20220530-22-8arffe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=455&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Esperanza: ‘Those of us who go to war break stereotypes set for women, so society resents us.’ Photo: Juan Pablo Valderrama.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>‘Society resents us’</h2>
<p>More than a decade ago, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zt4wNiypacE">Esperanza</a>* served as a commander and learned about equal rights as she fought side-by-side with the FARC men. But as soon as she stepped into civilian life, she told us she lost her autonomy again.</p>
<p>“Historically, this is a patriarchal culture. Those of us who go to war break traditional roles and stereotypes set for women, so society resents us. I used to give orders and command 100 armed men, and now they are expecting me to do a cooking course! What the hell?”</p>
<p>Problems highlighted by Esperanza and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xcq7IKbxOsI">Tania Gomez</a>, another female ex-combatant living in Agua Bonita, include an absence of suitable career options for women, and a lack of psychological support and understanding of their needs and interests following the war. Such concerns are leading female ex-combatants to drop out of the reintegration programmes.</p>
<p>When the Colombian Reintegration Agency offered Gomez the chance to do a sewing and childcare course, she recalled saying to the official: “Are you kidding me! After 10 years of fighting against the Colombian Army every day, you want me to open a kindergarten? I didn’t join FARC to become a substitute mother, I am a revolutionary!”</p>
<p>For female ex-combatants, after long years as a fighter, the idea of “mainstream” family life can be very unappealing. “What would my life be like in the future if I follow this path?” Esperanza asked us. “Just at home with a husband, kids and playing ‘happy house’ forever? No way! I wouldn’t last a day doing that!”</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/466082/original/file-20220530-12-yzyr6z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/466082/original/file-20220530-12-yzyr6z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/466082/original/file-20220530-12-yzyr6z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/466082/original/file-20220530-12-yzyr6z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/466082/original/file-20220530-12-yzyr6z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/466082/original/file-20220530-12-yzyr6z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/466082/original/file-20220530-12-yzyr6z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/466082/original/file-20220530-12-yzyr6z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Tania Gomez: ‘I didn’t join FARC to become a substitute mother.’ Photo: Juan Pablo Valderrama.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The reintegration process has clearly failed to achieve genuine gender inclusiveness. When we asked <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KeUS-uMXflc">Nelcy Balquiro</a> why she joined the FARC 11 years ago, she said without hesitation: “I wanted to change the world and become somebody. I wanted to be part of something important. My dream now as a civilian is to empower everyday women about their rights and fight this patriarchal system. As a female ex-FARC commander, this is now my more important <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2017/mar/27/feminists-farc-colombia-female-inequality">political mission</a>.”</p>
<p>Discussing the wave of violence that is killing ex-combatants, Balquiro countered immediately: “Nobody says anything about the murdered females – once again the spotlight is on men! Nobody is saying a word about Maria, Patricia, Luz and the other <a href="https://news.un.org/es/story/2022/01/1502572">10 women</a> who have been murdered [since the peace agreement] – it is shameful.”</p>
<p>Balquiro wants to fight for equal pay and the right to work outside the home. She argued that “feminism is a main part of being a female ex-combatant. We are fighting now for Colombian women to have freedom from abuse and male exploitation.”</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/466090/original/file-20220530-24-t8etu5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/466090/original/file-20220530-24-t8etu5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/466090/original/file-20220530-24-t8etu5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/466090/original/file-20220530-24-t8etu5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/466090/original/file-20220530-24-t8etu5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/466090/original/file-20220530-24-t8etu5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/466090/original/file-20220530-24-t8etu5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/466090/original/file-20220530-24-t8etu5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Nelcy Balquiro: ‘My dream now as a civilian is to empower everyday women about their rights.’ Photo: Juan Pablo Valderrama.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>‘We are dreaming of peace’</h2>
<p>Colombia’s outgoing leader Iván Duque will be widely remembered as a <a href="https://www.elespectador.com/mundo/america/wola-acuerdo-de-paz-no-es-debil-es-duque-quien-insiste-en-debilitarlo/">president that did nothing</a> to implement the peace agreement. Colombia’s election now offers a critical opportunity to address the problems amplified by four years of governmental neglect and lack of political will.</p>
<p>Simón* is a FARC ex-combatant living in the <a href="https://www.reincorporacion.gov.co/es/reincorporacion/Paginas/ETCRs/AETCR_la_fila.aspx">Icononzo</a> camp (ETCR <a href="https://en-gb.facebook.com/ETCR-Antonio-Nari%C3%B1o-Icononzo-Tolima-105455094848401/?ref=page_internal">Antonio Nariño</a>) in the Andean region of Tolima. “I don’t want to live in fear for another four years,” he said. </p>
<p>“The feeling that paramilitary soldiers can kill you at any moment, working in <a href="https://www.elespectador.com/colombia-20/conflicto/militares-disfrazados-de-guerrilleros-y-otras-denuncias-en-el-operativo-militar-en-putumayo/">alliance</a> with the actual government, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2022/apr/13/colombia-army-raid-putumayo-investigation">like what happened in Putumayo recently</a> … it’s becoming unbearable. This presidential election is the opportunity to build new roads, new ways, and leave the torturous one that we are having now.”</p>
<p>According to Esteban Torres from the <a href="https://www.reincorporacion.gov.co/es/reincorporacion/Paginas/ETCRs/AETCR_pondores.aspx">Pondores</a> camp: “The implementation of the peace process is similar to [Colombia’s traditional festival], <a href="https://www.colombia.co/en/colombia-travel/tourism-by-regions/guide-barranquilla-carnival/#:%7E:text=Barranquilla's%20carnival%20is%20the%20biggest,colorful%20celebration%20of%20Colombian%20culture.">Barranquilla’s carnival</a>. Those who live it, enjoy it – and we want to continue the party. [Our goal] is not just to stop killing each other any more in Colombia; it is about creating a new culture of peace, a new rhythm.</p>
<p>"Duque almost killed the party. He didn’t know how to dance along with people that don’t like guns and his extreme-right perspectives. He just likes the rhythms of war. But now we have the opportunity to start tuning good vibes once again and change our future as new citizens of Colombia. My hope is to restart the party!”</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/466084/original/file-20220530-24-xtvg6v.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/466084/original/file-20220530-24-xtvg6v.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/466084/original/file-20220530-24-xtvg6v.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/466084/original/file-20220530-24-xtvg6v.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/466084/original/file-20220530-24-xtvg6v.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/466084/original/file-20220530-24-xtvg6v.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/466084/original/file-20220530-24-xtvg6v.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/466084/original/file-20220530-24-xtvg6v.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">Despite their struggles, the residents of Agua Bonita are still dreaming of peace. Photo: Juan Pablo Valderrama.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Over the six-decade conflict, the Colombian state helped to create and sustain an image of FARC combatants as bloodthirsty barbarians. The new government will need to take brave and imaginative steps to break down these deep-rooted conceptions. There have already been some important initiatives, such as the <a href="https://kidnappingworkshop.net/caqueta/">letter exchanges</a> between former FARC combatants and Colombian civilians. However, much more must be done if the Colombian state is to avoid the long-standing forms of discrimination still being expressed by ex-political prisoners in Northern Ireland.</p>
<p>It’s also important, in time, to remove legal barriers to equality of citizenship. Understandable measures taken in the immediate aftermath of the conflict, such as the need to carry forms of personal identification that highlight an ex-combatant’s background, need to be subject to sunset clauses – to be lifted, for example, if an individual has met certain requirements that demonstrate their dedication to peace. Similarly, criminal records directly related to participation in the conflict might also be erased once ex-combatants have demonstrated their commitment to the agreement.</p>
<p>In addition, former combatants need to feel some control over their own reintegration. Many participated in combat from a very young age, and possess few skills beyond those learned in situations of violence. Peace can be very difficult for them to navigate. This needs to be recognised and incorporated into the thinking of the Colombian peace process as it develops under the new government.</p>
<p>On the last day of our visit to Agua Bonita, we asked Olmedo Vega what his biggest wish for the future is. “From the bottom of our hearts,” he said, “it is not to leave us alone. We have suffered war, and [since then] we have grown in hope and love. We carry on our backs the historical responsibility of generating reconciliation. We are dreaming of peace.”</p>
<p><em>*Some interviewees asked only to be identified by their first names</em></p>
<hr>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=112&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=112&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=112&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=140&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=140&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=140&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p><em>To hear about new Insights articles, join the hundreds of thousands of people who value The Conversation’s evidence-based news. <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/newsletters/the-daily-newsletter-2?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=TCUKengagement&utm_content=InsightsUK"><strong>Subscribe to our newsletter</strong></a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/184074/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Camilo Tamayo Gomez is a senior adviser in transitional justice for the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Gavin Hart 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 outcome of Colombia’s presidential election has major implications for the survival of its historic peace deal, and the prospects of former combatants who have committed to a life without conflictCamilo Tamayo Gomez, Senior Lecturer in Criminology, University of HuddersfieldGavin Hart, Lecturer in Criminology, Liverpool Hope UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1837792022-05-25T15:49:31Z2022-05-25T15:49:31ZDerry Girls: the riotous show that shifted the experiences of teenage girls in Northern Ireland to centre stage<p>It’s a summer evening in Derry in 1997, the night before four teenage girls and a wee English fella get their GCSE results. In between newsflashes and 90s dance hits, 16-year old Clare nervously explains just what is at stake and why these results are so vitally important: “We’re girls, we’re poor, we’re from Northern Ireland and we’re Catholic!”</p>
<p>Lisa McGee’s riotous <a href="https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/arts-and-books/in-derry-girls-and-milkman-teenage-girls-dance-through-the-troubles">Derry Girls</a>, back for its final season, distilled the power of this hilarious drama in just 10 seconds of dialogue. The fears of the four girls – mouthy Michelle, stressed-out Erin, eccentric Orla and anxiety-ridden Clare – were played for humour, but the challenges facing them were real and serious. </p>
<p>Narratives about Northern Ireland, and especially the conflict euphemistically known as “<a href="https://cain.ulster.ac.uk/">the Troubles</a>”, focus overwhelmingly on men. Derry Girls showed us what life was like for one of society’s most marginalised groups in a time and place some academics have described as an “<a href="https://pure.qub.ac.uk/en/publications/women-in-northern-irelands-politics-feminising-an-armed-patriarch">an armed patriarchy</a>”.</p>
<p>We don’t often hear about daily life for girls and women during this period. The writer Eli Davies makes it clear how such stories are “<a href="https://www.rte.ie/brainstorm/2019/1118/1092627-how-the-long-note-tells-the-histories-of-the-women-of-derry/">often flattened out</a> by mainstream conflict narratives”. These tend to centre narratives about paramilitaries, politicians and the British military – all predominantly men. </p>
<p>Derry Girls gloriously upended these conventions by putting Northern Irish girls firmly centre stage. </p>
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<h2>Real life in Northern Ireland</h2>
<p>Horny Michelle gets some of the best lines in the show: “We’re doing it for peace. A piece of that fine, Protestant ass.” Her irreverence is refreshing in a culture that still finds the sexuality of teenage girls <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2014/sep/28/-sp-let-teenage-girls-enjoy-sexuality-caitlin-moran-lena-dunham">subversive</a>. </p>
<p>But audiences might not find it so amusing to learn that if Michelle had got pregnant, she wouldn’t have been able to access vital <a href="https://theconversation.com/northern-ireland-has-been-forced-to-change-its-abortion-law-heres-how-it-happened-125256">reproductive</a> care in 1997. She would still struggle now, <a href="https://theconversation.com/three-families-abortion-is-now-legal-in-northern-ireland-but-more-needs-to-be-done-so-every-woman-has-adequate-access-161046">in 2022</a>. </p>
<p>Although Clare is accepted by her friends when she reveals she is gay in the first season, there are still pockets of Northern Irish society that are deeply <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-britain-lgbt-politics-idUSKCN1R80UO">homophobic</a>. Clare wouldn’t have been able to marry a girlfriend until 2019, when same-sex marriage was finally legalised. This was a <a href="https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2020/01/13/northern-ireland-same-sex-marriage-equality-legal-weddings-uk/">fraught</a> process, as was the decriminalisation of abortion. </p>
<p>Teenage girls are often the centre of <a href="https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-moral-panic-over-instagram-and-girls">moral panics</a>. Historically, society has been unsure what to do with girls and women who aren’t (yet) wives and mothers. This is especially true in an extremely conservative society like Northern Ireland. </p>
<p>How joyful to get to see teenage girls challenging taboos just by being themselves and living their lives. Derry Girls showed us a vision of teenage life that we just hadn’t seen before. I was born outside Belfast and didn’t, in fact, grow up in the North – but others can testify to the enormous pleasure of seeing themselves represented on screen for the first time. Academic <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/may/18/derry-girls-troubles-northern-ireland-literature%255D">Caroline Magennis</a> and blogger-activist <a href="https://www.huckmag.com/art-and-culture/derry-girls-taught-me-the-joy-of-feeling-seen/">Seaneen Molloy</a> have written powerfully about this.</p>
<p>Yet audiences who didn’t live through the conflict, or even <a href="https://www.economist.com/culture/2022/05/18/farewell-to-derry-girls-a-masterful-comedy-about-the-troubles">know</a> much about it, have responded with overwhelming enthusiasm to McGee’s much-loved comedy. Seeing a show about four teenage girls (and token boy James) is still groundbreaking TV.</p>
<h2>Girls don’t want to be sidelined</h2>
<p>If there is a cultural problem with sidelining women, then attitudes towards girls are even worse. Girls still make society anxious and it fails to take them seriously.</p>
<p>The treatment of Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg is a case in point. The then US president, Donald Trump, famously <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/nov/05/greta-thunberg-donald-trump-twitter-chill">tweeted</a> that Thunberg being named Time magazine’s person of the year 2019 was “so ridiculous”, labelling her resolute commitment to her cause “an anger management programme”. <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/world-europe-49922779">Other</a> national leaders were equally <a href="https://news.sky.com/story/greta-thunberg-called-a-brat-by-brazils-president-jair-bolsonaro-11883240">disrespectful</a>. </p>
<p>We find some men clamouring to devalue the culture associated with girls, assuming that girls have poor taste or what they think is unimportant. In an interview with <a href="https://www.gq-magazine.co.uk/article/one-direction-gq-covers-interview">One Direction in GQ</a>, journalist Jonathan Heaf confidently declares girls don’t understand music and “don’t care about history”. This is clearly not true: female history students outnumber male at <a href="https://ffteducationdatalab.org.uk/2021/09/which-a-level-subjects-have-the-best-and-worst-gender-balance/">A-Level</a> and <a href="https://www.hesa.ac.uk/news/16-01-2020/sb255-higher-education-student-statistics/qualifications">degree</a> level. I’d like to see Clare, the straight A student, challenge Heaf to a history test. Or watch Heaf try to take tickets for a gig out of Orla’s hands. </p>
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<h2>Changing the script</h2>
<p>The cultural script still largely views the sexuality of teenage girls as horrifying. Even romance stories privilege female virginity. If we think about recent and phenomenally successful programmes such as <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2021/4/20/bridgerton-and-normal-people-expose-romances-colonial-hangover">Normal People</a> or <a href="https://theconversation.com/a-whole-new-set-of-horny-lords-and-ladies-how-bridgerton-brought-romance-book-serialisation-to-television-180303">Bridgerton</a> – also starring Nicola Coughlan, who plays Clare in Derry Girls – the male romantic lead is permitted a sexual past whereas the teenage female lead is not. This is one of the key conventions of the romance genre: a chaste heroine saves a bad boy from himself. </p>
<p>Contemporary Irish fiction is crackling with the voices of <a href="https://theconversation.com/fiction-by-northern-irish-women-is-booming-leading-the-way-against-misogyny-72443">girls and women</a> but men are still more likely to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/jul/09/why-do-so-few-men-read-books-by-women">read books by men</a>. </p>
<p>In film, male actors get <a href="https://www.vox.com/2016/4/9/11393674/gender-in-film-dialogue-survey">more than twice as much dialogue</a> as their female counterparts. Researchers are still working through what these stats look like for trans, gender fluid and non-binary folk, but it’s clear there would be no comparison.</p>
<p>Lisa McGee’s girls might have graced our screens for the final time but they are joined by an ever-expanding group of brilliant Northern Irish girls filling the pages of new books by the likes of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/jan/08/the-raptures-by-jan-carson-review-visions-in-a-northern-irish-village">Jan Carson</a>, <a href="https://www.waterstones.com/book/truth-be-told/sue-divin/2928377080594">Sue Divin</a>, <a href="https://inews.co.uk/culture/books/dance-move-wendy-erskine-review-penetrating-pitch-perfect-collection-1549838">Wendy Erskine</a> and <a href="https://www.waterstones.com/book/9781529386264">Michelle Gallen</a>.</p>
<p>If Derry Girls has been your entry point to Northern Ireland, you’ll find a whole world of new stories that will challenge all you thought you knew about life here. And though the uproarious series has ended, it has shifted the everyday lives and experiences of teenage girls centre stage, resonating with young female audiences well beyond the Irish Sea.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/183779/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alison Garden receives funding from UK Research and Innovation. </span></em></p>Society still tends to sideline girls, so a comedy concentrating on the lives of four young women during the Troubles remains groundbreaking TV.Alison Garden, UKRI Future Leaders Fellow, School of Arts, English and Languages, Queen's University BelfastLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1757062022-03-29T14:23:25Z2022-03-29T14:23:25ZNorthern Ireland terror threat downgraded but Brexit tensions and threats of renewed violence remain<p>The signing of the <a href="https://education.niassembly.gov.uk/post_16/snapshots_of_devolution/gfa#:%7E:text=The%20Belfast%20Agreement%20is%20also,Northern%20Ireland%20should%20be%20governed.">Belfast Agreement</a> in 1998 brought an end to decades of extreme political violence in Northern Ireland. But more than 20 years later, the peace process still faces threats and both loyalist and republican paramilitary groups <a href="https://www.ircommission.org/sites/irc/files/media-files/IRC%20Fourth%20Report%20web%20accessible_1.pdf">continue to operate</a>. </p>
<p>Since 2016, annual security statistics in Northern Ireland have shown a <a href="https://www.psni.police.uk/inside-psni/Statistics/security-situation-statistics">general decline</a> in terrorist activity against the state and its institutions. And the UK government also recently <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/mar/22/northern-ireland-terrorism-threat-level-lowered-for-first-time-in-12-years">reduced the threat level</a> from Northern Ireland-related terrorism from “severe” to “substantial” – meaning an attack is considered to be “likely” but not “highly likely”. This is the first time in 12 years that the threat level has been lowered.</p>
<p>But difficulties surrounding the <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/explainers-53724381">Northern Ireland protocol</a> – the post-Brexit arrangements for cross-border trade between the UK and EU – have unsettled significant sections of the unionist and loyalist community. Just days after the threat level was lowered, a loyalist paramilitary group was blamed for a <a href="https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/northern-ireland/uvf-blamed-for-north-belfast-bomb-hoax-aimed-at-simon-coveney-41488066.html">bomb hoax</a> that led to Irish foreign minister Simon Coveney being evacuated from an event in Belfast. </p>
<p>Loyalists opposed to the protocol view border checks on trade flowing between Great Britain and Northern Ireland as an assault on the fabric of the union that comprises the UK. They view the protocol as a mechanism that could encourage a united Ireland.</p>
<p>Irish government statistics show that trade between north and south has <a href="https://www.irishtimes.com/business/economy/brexit-fuels-major-pick-up-in-north-south-trade-1.4648388">increased since Brexit</a>, bolstering the argument that the protocol is strengthening economic ties between the north and south. Loyalists and unionists view this as a <a href="https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/northern-ireland/kill-protocol-or-the-union-is-finished-tuv-chief-tells-rally-41335367.html">stepping stone</a> towards closer political union.</p>
<h2>Potential for violence</h2>
<p>During the Troubles, customs posts became targets for IRA attacks. The mere threat of a <a href="https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/northern-ireland/varadkar-warns-eu-a-hard-border-risks-return-to-violence-of-the-past-in-ireland-37436007.html">return to such violence</a> was enough to end discussion about reinstating a border on the island of Ireland after Brexit. Some loyalist groups appear to have taken inspiration from this turn of events and believe that <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brexit-irish-sea-border-loyalists-violence-b1796322.html">threatening violence</a> against border infrastructure in the Irish sea will help them challenge that border too.</p>
<p>Mainstream loyalists have <a href="https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/loyalists-believe-dissident-faction-is-behind-newtownards-bus-attack-wjklw7g3c">suggested</a> there is potential for dissident loyalist paramilitary groups to formally organise in violent <a href="https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/dissident-loyalists-blamed-for-threats-against-port-staff-in-northern-ireland-amid-anger-at-brexit-protocol-btbcmrr9p">opposition</a> to the protocol. </p>
<p>Since early 2021, waves of protest and <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-56664378">sporadic street violence</a> have occurred across Northern Ireland, some of which the police have <a href="https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/northern-ireland/sinister-and-disturbing-protests-against-ni-protocol-hijacked-by-loyalist-paramilitaries-40529097.html">claimed</a> were orchestrated by pro-British loyalist paramilitaries. In April 2021, violent clashes between rival communal factions in Belfast were seen as some of the <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-56664868">worst rioting</a> since the 1969-1998 conflict. These clashes stemmed from anti-protocol demonstrations in Belfast.</p>
<p>A lack of progress at the political level has further exacerbated protests. In February, thousands of people <a href="https://www.newsletter.co.uk/news/politics/loyalist-protest-rally-hears-of-grave-treat-posed-by-ni-protocol-3575906">gathered</a> in the small County Armagh village of Markethill to hear anti-protocol speeches. </p>
<p>Polarisation and rivalry among unionists was evident at the rally. DUP MP Sammy Wilson was <a href="https://www.belfastlive.co.uk/news/northern-ireland/markethill-protocol-protest-sees-sammy-23153268">heckled</a> by some parts of the crowd over the DUP’s apparent softening on the border question, allowing the Westminster government to impose economic checks at the sea border. </p>
<p>Northern Ireland Assembly elections are approaching in May and whichever government emerges from that contest needs to come up with a solution to the border question. Division among unionist parties makes that difficult, if not impossible to achieve.</p>
<h2>Dealing with instability</h2>
<p>Recent policing operations have succeeded in combating terrorism from a security perspective. Still, ingrained politics firmly embedded in Northern Ireland’s post-Troubles society continue to stir up debate. The threat of violence from dissident republican organisations remains, and antagonism from sections of the unionist community has also <a href="https://politicalviolenceataglance.org/2021/12/13/will-violence-return-to-northern-ireland/">markedly increased</a> following the implementation of the protocol.</p>
<p>As the protocol issue has festered for so long, some unionist and loyalist factions will accept nothing short of its complete removal. The DUP has also recently called for the protocol to be <a href="https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/northern-ireland/dup-leader-donaldson-facing-questions-over-best-of-both-worlds-stance-on-ni-protocol-41360997.html">scrapped</a> in its entirety. </p>
<p>The difficulty for the UK and EU governments is finding an alternative that deviates from the use of border infrastructure, either at the ports of Belfast and Larne or at the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic. Without this, the threat of violence in Northern Ireland will remain.</p>
<p>Defusing tension within Northern Ireland is crucial to ensuring the continued success of the peace process. While the Northern Ireland protocol forms a small but crucial piece of a very large Brexit agreement between two major economic trading blocs (the UK and the EU), the fallout could reignite one of the world’s most intractable sectarian conflicts.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/175706/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dale Pankhurst receives funding from ESRC NINE DTP. He is also a member of a political party in Northern Ireland.</span></em></p>Why the Northern Ireland protocol poses real challenges to peace in the region.Dale Pankhurst, PhD Candidate, School of History, Anthropology, Philosophy and Politics, Queen's University BelfastLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1745592022-01-28T15:13:54Z2022-01-28T15:13:54ZBloody Sunday 50 years later: what it means when we commemorate trauma<p>At its heart, Bloody Sunday was a devastating personal tragedy involving the deaths of <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-47472435">13 men and boys</a>, six of whom were only 17 years old. The victims were taking part in a civil rights protest march against <a href="https://cain.ulster.ac.uk/events/intern/chron.htm">internment</a>. In 30 minutes, 21 soldiers from the British Army’s parachute regiment fired 108 live rounds into the crowd. What followed in 1972 was a serious escalation of violence and the bloodiest year of the Troubles.</p>
<p>On January 30, a family member of each man killed on <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-foyle-west-47433319">Bloody Sunday</a> will retrace the route followed 50 years earlier. Each person will be a physical reminder, not only of the lives ended that day, but also of the lives imprinted with grief as a result. </p>
<p>Commemorations are forms of communication, conveying values and ideas through events from history. They allow us to gather the shattered parts of a past event and order them into a ritual of remembering. The annual repetition and choreography of iconic events provides a sense of continuity, but with each iteration the <a href="https://www.tees.ac.uk/sections/research/impact_study_detail.cfm?is_id=17">meaning changes and adapts</a>. </p>
<p>Building on previous demonstrations and anniversaries, commemorative events are an ongoing, multilayered negotiation with the present, using the past. They are also a way of asserting a particular historical narrative. When commemorations are “official” or state-run, they can underline the state’s legitimacy and authority. They also provide an opportunity for those who oppose the state or its politicians to demonstrate their resistance. </p>
<p>At the heart of major commemorations of traumatic events is the tension between resurgence and sadness. This is especially acute during 50th and other milestone anniversaries, which often mark the point where an event changes from something in living memory to something less personal and more universal.</p>
<p>The most notable 50th anniversary in Ireland was that of the 1916 <a href="https://www.corkuniversitypress.com/Transforming-1916-p/9781782050575.htm">Easter Rising</a>, marked by elaborate pageantry and an <a href="https://www.rte.ie/archives/exhibitions/1993-easter-1916/2769-events-of-easter-week-1966-in-colour/">extensive programme</a> of cultural, religious and sporting events. </p>
<p>But the relatives of the Easter leaders, who were always the primary invitees at commemorative events previously, could not be relied upon to align their views with those of the state. As a result, they were not included in drawing up the anniversary programme in 1966. However, the blood or marriage line held a potentially powerful challenge to politicians who claimed to act in the name of those who had died.</p>
<h2>Commemorating Bloody Sunday</h2>
<p>The 50th anniversary of Bloody Sunday will be a very different event to that of the Easter Rising. It is not organised by the state and will not have the same pageantry and scale. It is also deeply personal – it has been organised by and with the inclusion of the relatives of those who died. Their refusal to accept the “official” version of events, and efforts to reclaim the historical narrative, are central to the anniversary. </p>
<p>Bloody Sunday was a turning point not only because of the loss of innocent lives, but because of the blatant creation of an “establishment” truth that conflicted with what witnesses saw and experienced.</p>
<p>The official British army position was that soldiers responded to gunfire and nail bomb attacks coming from the crowd. Those on the march <a href="https://www.rte.ie/archives/2017/0124/847367-bloody-sunday-witness-account/">disputed this</a>, saying soldiers opened fire on unarmed civilians. The <a href="https://cain.ulster.ac.uk/events/bsunday/irgovt.htm">first official report</a> into the events on Bloody Sunday, overseen by Lord Chief Justice Lord Widgery and published 11 weeks after the killings, endorsed the military’s version, largely clearing British soldiers and authorities of blame. </p>
<p><a href="https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/bfm%3A978-0-230-24867-0%2F1.pdf">Commemorations of Bloody Sunday</a> are in part an expression of the personal and collective trauma of seeing forces of the state open fire on ordinary citizens. Memories of a traumatic event are fragmented – it is difficult for individuals to reassemble something so overwhelming. The events on Bloody Sunday were witnessed by hundreds of people, who have collectively pieced together the fragments of their memories over the years. The relatives of the victims embody the toll it takes to challenge authority and the almost unbearable burden of holding on to the truth. </p>
<p>The theme of the 50th anniversary programme, <a href="https://bloodysunday50.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/programme_layout_final.pdf">One World One Struggle</a>, suggests that Bloody Sunday is now seen as a global event, with an emphasis on equality and human rights. In 2020, the Museum of Free Derry (established by the <a href="https://museumoffreederry.org/bloody-sunday-trust/">Bloody Sunday Trust</a>) hosted <a href="https://lgbtplushistorymonth.co.uk/2020/01/queering-the-north-museum-of-free-derry-exhibition/">the first exhibition</a> in Northern Ireland about the campaign for LGBTQ+ rights in Northern Ireland. These are both indications of how the memory of Bloody Sunday will be used to support broader conversations around discrimination and the fight for civil rights. </p>
<p>As the years go on, Bloody Sunday is evolving from an event still in living memory to one that is more abstract and emblematic. When the presence of eyewitnesses and immediate family members is no longer possible, the symbolic meaning of Bloody Sunday will become increasingly important, as will the reorientation of focus from the past to the future.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/174559/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Roisín Higgins currently receives funding from the Leverhulme Trust. She is a member of the British Labour Party.</span></em></p>Milestone anniversaries mark the point when events move from living memory to more symbolic.Roisín Higgins, Associate professor of modern history, Teesside UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1750952022-01-27T11:40:15Z2022-01-27T11:40:15ZPhotographing Bloody Sunday: the complex legacy of the Troubles’ most iconic images<p>On January 30 1972, dozens of photographers arrived in Derry, Northern Ireland, to cover a protest march against internment without trial. The day’s events turned violent when British paratroopers opened fire. The photographers ended up capturing on film one of the most significant events of the Troubles – Bloody Sunday.</p>
<p>In the early 1970s, war photography was burgeoning as a genre and a form of international activism. An international group of photographers made a living by travelling between the conflict hot spots of the world, including Vietnam, Biafra and Guatemala. From the late 1960s, Northern Ireland was one of the stop-offs, recorded in thousands upon thousands of images of running skirmishes between shaggy-haired men and the dark, hard shapes of British armour under a hail of bricks. </p>
<p>As the leaders of the January 30 demonstration reached the top of Westland Street and turned into the Bogside they were captured by Derry-born photographer <a href="https://museumoffreederry.org/bloody-sunday/">Robert White</a>. When armoured cars rolled into Rossville Street, French photographer Gilles Peress recorded the mounting tensions through <a href="https://www.icp.org/browse/archive/objects/bloody-sunday-derry">thrown bricks and stones</a>. Italian photographer Fulvio Grimaldi <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/37790/pdf">recorded confrontation</a> across barbed wire, pointing guns matched by accusing fingers. As the British army started to fire, Colman Doyle recorded men and women <a href="https://museumoffreederry.org/bloody-sunday/in-glenfada-park/">scrambling for cover</a>.</p>
<p>The first person shot that day was Jackie Duddy, a 17-year-old boxer, fatally wounded as he ran from a hail of British bullets. The image of Father Daly waving a handkerchief and leading a group of people carrying Duddy’s body through gunfire is one of the most reproduced of the Troubles, on murals, in history books and countless times in newspapers and on television. This scene was captured in dozens of images by the <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0791603517741072">photographers</a> named above and a BBC camera team. </p>
<p>These <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-british-studies/article/photographs-and-truth-during-the-northern-ireland-troubles-196972/5E52FDCBF0F230E1AAC3B18FB008D8DD">photographers testified</a> that they intended to document state violence, and for their photographs to bear witness to human suffering. But this is not how the images were used. The photographs, rather than documents of solidarity, became a key part of the way the state “proved” the supposed guilt of the victims. </p>
<p>The photos played a central role in the ensuing enquiry chaired by Lord John Widgery, which sat for 17 days. Widgery pursued a line of questioning inspired by photographs of the wounded and dying, asking about what was in the hands and pockets of the dead, rather than the actions of those who had fired the shots. </p>
<p>When examining <a href="https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/documenting-bloody-sunday-i-saw-people-alive-no-gun-and-then-dead-1.4778639">photographs</a> of Duddy lying fatally wounded, Widgery asked about the object in the hand of a man standing nearby. In a series of photographs of Patrick Doherty shot as he scrambled for cover, Widgery asked why he had moved between images, speculating that someone could have removed a weapon from his body between frames. In a photograph of young men at the barricades, moments before Michael McDaid was shot in the back, Widgery focused attention on a man at the right side of the frame, asking if the object in his hands might have looked like a hand grenade to a solider under pressure. </p>
<p>When it was published, the Widgery report exonerated the soldiers who fired that day and put the blame instead on the march organisers. The photographs became one of a range of documents that enabled the final Widgery report to explore how 13 people died under the <a href="https://cain.ulster.ac.uk/hmso/widgery.htm#part3">heading</a>: “Were the deceased carrying firearms or bombs?” </p>
<p>The uses of these images reveal the paradoxes of the documentary tradition. These photographs were intended to generate a counter-archive, to record the violence of the British Army. Instead, they were used -— very literally -— to frame its victims. They recall Derry-born poet Seamus Heaney’s famous dictum: there is “no such thing as innocent bystanding”.</p>
<h2>A new chapter</h2>
<p>In the 50 years since Bloody Sunday, photography has taken on a new role in empowering survivors and making sense of their memories. The image of Father Daly leading Duddy’s wounded body through gunfire now stands, larger than life, on the end of a terrace in the Bogside. It was painted by a local artistic collective, the <a href="https://cain.ulster.ac.uk/bogsideartists/artists.htm">Bogside Artists</a>, who aim to produce work which is “commemorative and in being so … is also curative”. </p>
<p>The feminist photographer Joanne O’Brien <a href="https://www.joanneobrien.co.uk/albums/5tcNs/a-matter-of-minutes">photographed family members</a> of the deceased on the spot where their relatives had died. These portraits reframed Bloody Sunday not as the events of one afternoon but rather gruelling <a href="https://academic.oup.com/hwj/article-abstract/59/1/151/576462?redirectedFrom=PDF">decades of campaigning</a>, which fundamentally changed the lives of many in the community.</p>
<p>Again this year, on the 50th anniversary of Bloody Sunday, marchers will walk through Derry holding banners aloft painted with the faces of the dead. These close-cropped images of those who died have now taken on a <a href="https://www.corkuniversitypress.com/Bloody-Sunday-p/9781859184257.htm">talismanic importance</a> for all those who have lived through and lived with the events of January 1972. Fluttering in the cold January wind against grey Derry skies, they are a reminder of the youth of those killed, and that their lives cannot be reduced to the events of the day they died.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/175095/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>This article is based on research funded by the Leverhulme Trust. </span></em></p>The photos taken on Bloody Sunday have played different roles in commemorating the events of the day over the last 50 years.Erika Hanna, Senior Lecturer in Modern History, University of BristolLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1752592022-01-20T11:20:37Z2022-01-20T11:20:37ZBelfast – archiving all the voices of the Troubles<p>Kenneth Branagh’s latest semi-autobiographical film, Belfast, is set in Northern Ireland in 1969 and explores the “social and political tumult” in the buildup to the Troubles. The “affectionate portrait” of nine-year-old Buddy lies at the centre of this film, <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-59168391">critic Robbie Meredith noted</a>. Yet as violence begins to escalate between communities in Belfast, Buddy’s small world begins to rupture and his family is forced to make some hard decisions.</p>
<p>The film’s release provides a timely prompt to examine the experience of those that lived through such a turbulent time in Northern Ireland. A period brought into sharp relief by <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-59952817">renewed debates over borders on the island</a>.</p>
<p>The Troubles (1969-98) were primarily fought between three parties: Republican paramilitaries who sought the unity of Northern Ireland with the Republic of Ireland; Loyalist paramilitaries who strove to defend the union of Northern Ireland with the United Kingdom; and forces of the British state. Despite the signing of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-good-friday-agreement-in-northern-ireland-at-20-the-anthill-podcast-94610">Good Friday agreement</a> (which outlined the terms of peace in 1998), many aspects of Northern Ireland’s past remain contested, including the historical roots and causes of division that led to the escalation of violence in 1969.</p>
<p>Approaches to peacebuilding in Northern Ireland have been underpinned by widespread attempts to deal with the conflict’s legacy and its ongoing effect on people’s lives. One approach undertaken by grassroots communities and NGOs in the peace process has been to reflect on the past through <a href="http://healingthroughremembering.org/what-we-do/themes-of-work/storytelling">storytelling</a>. Community oral history emerged as an empowering medium to <a href="https://pure.qub.ac.uk/en/publications/justice-truth-and-oral-history-legislating-the-past-from-below-in">acknowledge and preserve</a> people’s experiences. One such initiative is the <a href="http://www.duchasarchive.com/">Dúchas Oral History Archive</a> located in Falls Community Council, West Belfast – one of the worse affected areas.</p>
<h2>Complex relationships</h2>
<p>Documenting a diverse social and cultural history of Belfast from around the 1910s to the present day, Dúchas has helped people from various backgrounds tell their stories about the conflict since 2000. The stories are from, among others, Nationalist/Catholic, Unionist/Protestant and British soldier perspectives. The collection holds over 300 life history interviews, with some excerpts <a href="https://accounts.ulster.ac.uk/repo24/items/show/2433">published</a>. </p>
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<p>Sometimes, as the interviews were often conducted between people who knew each other, the process of looking back evoked antagonistic memories of the conflict that reflected ongoing tensions in the peace process. But Dúchas also preserved the memories of those whose experiences conjured memories of connectedness with neighbours across religious and political divisions, as one interviewee described:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>…the first time that I ever knew that there was a difference [was] because I overheard my mammy saying that Mrs Shannon had decided to move down to Cushendall, with everything that was going on, and my mammy was saying, “I’m losing a really good neighbour, and it’s ridiculous, just because she’s Catholic. You know, she’s better to me than these ones are that are coming down telling me, ‘Oh, I’ll look after you if you put a flag out’, you know, sort of, what they’re saying is that we’ll identify that you’re Protestant”. But my mammy was, you know, “I don’t care what you are. Take yourself off.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Many interviews also reveal how larger structural forms of violence overshadowed daily routine activities, such as this example:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>When I was working in Boots there were five of us … three Catholics and two Protestants … So we were all out on our lunch hour going round the town, gagging the way we did … and the next thing these soldiers just pulled us into the side. “Where are you’se going?” And I said, “we’re out on our lunch hour, we’re in our uniforms, can you not see? We work in Boots.” </p>
<p>We were that embarrassed, everybody was going along and looking at us out in the street, and he searched our handbags and all the rest of it, and then he went, “Name? Where are you from?” [interviewee recites names] … he just looked at us all. And he said, “Well how come you’se are all together from Catholic places and Protestant places?” And I said, “Well, we work together, and we’ve been working together for years, and we’re good friends, and we’re out on our lunch hour”. And he couldn’t get over that, and then he let us go.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>As these examples show, amid the sectarian division of Northern Ireland during the Troubles, a range of complex relationships existed, and the Dúchas archive has played a role in documenting these.</p>
<h2>Histories of emotion</h2>
<p>Yet Dúchas also preserves difficult histories of emotion before, during and after the conflict. </p>
<p>Speaking about the past evoked a range of complex responses including memories of pain and grief inflicted by different groups in the conflict, including British armed forces. Equally, some interviews draw attention to the burdens of internal division within and between communities, and the fears and anxieties this conflict conjured. Other interviews highlight emotions of anger, resentment and injustice felt towards those who caused hurt to them or their families.</p>
<p>A range of conditions helped shape Dúchas. <a href="https://pure.au.dk/portal/da/persons/sara-dybris-mcquaid(61c6bb44-2d2f-4b79-ae0b-341d8fe584ed)/publications/passive-archives-or-storages-for-action(e555a3f2-2ed2-4916-a091-2465275401ee).html">Post-conflict archives </a> in Northern Ireland are partly shaped by the external funding bodies and policies that enable them. Such factors should be brought centre stage when thinking about the critical role of archives in community peacebuilding.</p>
<p>But, as a lens for “looking back”, the potential of grassroots projects like Dúchas should not be underestimated. The complexity of experiences and motivations that have shaped Dúchas are timely reminders of the importance of hearing the nuanced perspectives of the conflict that otherwise might not have been voiced.</p>
<p><em>Correction: An earlier version of this article said: “The Troubles (1969-98) were primarily fought between three parties: Republican paramilitaries who sought the unity of Northern Ireland with the Irish Free State.” It should have said: “The Troubles (1969-98) were primarily fought between three parties: Republican paramilitaries who sought the unity of Northern Ireland with the Republic of Ireland.”</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/175259/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Martha is a PhD student and receives funding from the Techne collaborative doctoral fund (AHRC funded). Martha`s collaborative project was co-designed between Professor Graham Dawson, from the University of Brighton and Claire Hackett, Director of the Archive, Falls Community Council (in West Belfast).
Martha`s collaborative research with Falls Community Council is ongoing.
Martha is also a Cumberland Lodge Fellow, in the second year of a two-year scholarship. </span></em></p>Archives are working had to document stories from Protestants, Catholics, Nationalists, Unionists and even the British Forces.Martha Beard, PhD Candidate, History, University of BrightonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1690682021-10-19T12:22:00Z2021-10-19T12:22:00ZA century after partition, Ireland’s churches are cooperating more closely than ever<p>Leaders from Ireland’s main Christian traditions will host a “<a href="https://www.ireland.anglican.org/news/10907/church-leaders-promote-service-of">Service of Reflection and Hope</a>” in Armagh, Northern Ireland on Oct. 21, 2021, marking 100 years since “the partition of Ireland and the formation of Northern Ireland.”</p>
<p>But the churches’ service has become controversial, underscoring tensions that linger on both sides of the border. In September, the president of Ireland, Michael D. Higgins, said he would <a href="https://www.rte.ie/news/ireland/2021/0917/1247297-michael-d-higgins/">decline his invitation</a> because the event’s title was not politically “neutral.”</p>
<p>As an Irish-born academic <a href="https://schar.gmu.edu/node/9161">working at the intersection of religion and international affairs</a>, I believe the commotion over Higgins’ invitation has overshadowed an important story. Despite a history of sectarian strife, cooperation between the leaders of the Roman Catholic and Protestant churches in Ireland has deepened in recent years, with the churches increasingly speaking with one voice on important social and political issues.</p>
<p>The Church Leaders Group brings together the top leaders of the Catholic, Anglican, Presbyterian and Methodist churches in Ireland – whose jurisdictions extend across the whole island – as well as the president of the <a href="https://www.irishchurches.org/">Irish Council of Churches</a>. The five men have been coordinating more closely than ever on issues of peace-building, responses to the COVID-19 pandemic and recent political developments such as Brexit.</p>
<h2>More than ‘huddling’</h2>
<p>Churches have traditionally wielded significant influence in Irish politics and society. All have experienced sizable declines over the past couple of decades, however, as more people say they <a href="https://gladysganiel.com/irish-catholic-church/nones-in-ireland-north-and-south-has-the-end-of-ethno-religious-violence-and-institutional-abuse-contributed-to-the-rise-of-no-religion/#_ftn1">do not identify</a> with any particular religion. The <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-catholic-church-sex-abuse-crisis-4-essential-reads-169442">abuse scandals</a> in the Catholic Church have <a href="https://www.npr.org/2015/08/26/434821443/after-scandals-ireland-is-no-longer-the-most-catholic-country-in-the-world">contributed to the trend</a>. (However, declining attendance does not necessarily mean faith is declining at the same rate, reflecting a phenomenon that British sociologist Grace Davie calls <a href="http://www.brin.ac.uk/grace-davie-on-religion-and-other-news/">“believing without belonging.”</a>)</p>
<p>Archbishop John McDowell, head of the Anglican Church of Ireland, told me in a recent interview that the churches’ increasing cooperation isn’t due to their diminishing size or influence – that they are not “huddling together to keep warm because it is getting cooler outside.” Indeed, despite Ireland’s long history of conflict along political and religious divides, official relations between the churches <a href="https://irishacademicpress.ie/product/from-ecumenism-to-community-relations-inter-church-relationships-in-northern-ireland-1980-1999/">have always been collegial</a>. </p>
<p>Rather, the recent increase in ecumenical activities is driven by a new generation of church leaders who grew up during the “Troubles,” a three-decade era of political violence in Northern Ireland, and share concerns over current issues. A <a href="https://www.irishchurches.org/cmsfiles/Final-Something-other-than-a-Building.pdf">recent analysis</a> by Queen’s University finds that interchurch cooperation at the national level has been “more frequent and united during the pandemic than at perhaps any other time in Irish church history.”</p>
<h2>An uneasy peace</h2>
<p>Britain established the border <a href="https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/CBP-9105/CBP-9105.pdf">separating Northern Ireland</a> from the rest of the island in May 1921, and it has loomed over Irish politics ever since.</p>
<p>The north was largely Protestant, while the south was largely Catholic. The south won independence from the U.K. that same year.</p>
<p>From the late 1960s through the 1990s, “<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-troubles-tens-of-thousands-of-people-were-violently-displaced-in-northern-ireland-111764">the Troubles</a>” pitted nationalists who wanted a united Ireland against unionists who wanted Northern Ireland to remain in the U.K. Most nationalists were Catholic, while most unionists belonged to the territory’s Protestant majority.</p>
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<img alt="A handful of men with their backs to the camera walk down a country road, with a cemetery to their left and fields to their right." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/426967/original/file-20211018-13-8pvue7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/426967/original/file-20211018-13-8pvue7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/426967/original/file-20211018-13-8pvue7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/426967/original/file-20211018-13-8pvue7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/426967/original/file-20211018-13-8pvue7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/426967/original/file-20211018-13-8pvue7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/426967/original/file-20211018-13-8pvue7.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">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Members of the Orange Order, a Protestant group, march in Portadown, Northern Ireland, in a weekly protest held for more than 20 years. Brexit negotiations have made the Irish border a central political issue again.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/APTOPIXNorthernIrelandBorder/14416ff61c454495bd1b29f2a56af52a/photo?Query=ireland%20church&mediaType=photo&sortBy=&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=454&currentItemNo=40">AP Photo/David Goldman</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The 1998 <a href="https://theconversation.com/from-certain-war-to-uncertain-peace-northern-irelands-good-friday-agreement-turns-20-94624">Good Friday Agreement</a> ended most of the violence, which had killed several thousand people. To try to prevent further conflict, the agreement also introduced <a href="https://education.niassembly.gov.uk/sites/userfiles/files/transcript_consociational_explained.pdf">a form of power-sharing</a> based on a model called “consociationalism.” While <a href="https://doi.org/10.2307/2009820">consociational democracy</a> is designed to maintain social peace in societies with deep ethnic or religious divides, it may also <a href="https://ejpr.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1475-6765.1975.tb01253.x">entrench division and make it harder to overcome</a>.</p>
<p>Indeed, aspects of Northern Ireland’s society, such as the educational system, continue to be divided along sectarian lines. <a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/northern-ireland-integration-schools-lagan/">More than 9 in 10</a> children attend schools that are segregated by religion, but this is slowly changing, with a significant majority of the public <a href="https://view.publitas.com/integrated-education-fund/sky-news-poll-summary-report/page/4-5">supporting integration</a>.</p>
<h2>Brexit and the border</h2>
<p>One aim of the Good Friday Agreement was to make the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland less of a lightning rod. It boosted cross-border cooperation, took down military installations and allowed citizens to travel freely between the north and south. </p>
<p>But the U.K.’s withdrawal from the European Union has returned the border to the center of politics. Under the “Northern Ireland protocol” negotiated between the U.K. and the EU, Northern Ireland remains aligned with the EU’s single market in order to avoid a “hard border” on the island of Ireland. However, this means that some goods coming from other parts of the U.K. will have to be inspected upon entry in Northern Ireland. In effect, the Johnson government devised an “Irish Sea border” in order to keep the land border open, but that idea has <a href="https://theconversation.com/political-frustration-in-northern-ireland-has-heightened-tension-around-marching-season-163397">angered unionists</a> who see it as dividing Northern Ireland from the rest of the U.K.</p>
<p>The Church Leaders Group was quick to recognize that Brexit could threaten the fragile peace. As Archbishop McDowell noted in an <a href="https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/an-open-letter-from-border-bishop-to-boris-johnson-1.4064953">open letter to Prime Minister Boris Johnson in July 2019</a>, the “border” is not just the actual line demarcating north from south. It is a division that “goes through every village and town in Northern Ireland, and in some places in Belfast it is so hard that it takes the form of very high brick walls topped by razor wire.”</p>
<p>Church leaders also shared a recognition that the post-Brexit period would involve a difficult economic adjustment. They collaborated on a <a href="https://www.irishchurches.org/cmsfiles/Brexit-Report-copy.pdf">consultation document</a> to brief local congregations and interchurch groups on the likely local, regional and international impacts of Brexit.</p>
<p>Representatives of the Church Leaders Group tell me that the combination of increasing social and political pressures with the ease of virtual meetings – a byproduct of COVID-19 restrictions – meant that the group has been meeting much more frequently. </p>
<h2>‘Captive churches’</h2>
<p>Meanwhile, discussions began in late 2020 over how to mark the centenary of the partition of Ireland and the formation of Northern Ireland. The anniversary provokes very different feelings across the political divides, which is why the church leaders framed the event as a space for “<a href="https://www.catholicbishops.ie/2021/09/24/church-leaders-invite-prayerful-support-for-service-of-reflection-and-hope/">reflection and hope</a>,” not as a celebration or lament.</p>
<p>On Saint Patrick’s Day, the Church Leaders Group <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BpoWBysGdWM&t=3s">issued a joint message</a> reflecting on the anniversary. Eamon Martin, the Catholic Archbishop of Armagh, acknowledged how churches had sometimes misused their power in the past, lamenting that “Too often we have been captive churches, not captive to the word of God but to the idols of state and nation.” </p>
<p>As Archbishop McDowell told me recently, “what happened in the past was that the churches tended to take our coloring from the communities that we were in, rather than trying to bring any kind of united message to a divided society.” </p>
<p>The continuing controversy over Higgins’ attendance has exposed a degree of polarization reminiscent of times past. Public support in the south quickly galvanized around the president and has remained high, with <a href="https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/poll-reveals-higgins-right-to-decline-invite-to-partition-event-1.4694298">68% approving</a> of his decision to refuse the invitation. Irish commentators and academics in the south made forceful arguments that <a href="https://dcubrexitinstitute.eu/2021/10/ni-partition-protocol-reconciliation/">a commemoration of partition could never be politically neutral</a>. </p>
<p>Amid the debate, the Church Leaders Group issued <a href="https://www.catholicbishops.ie/2021/09/24/church-leaders-invite-prayerful-support-for-service-of-reflection-and-hope/">a statement</a> to clarify the intent of the service and ask for prayerful support.</p>
<p>“We wish primarily to gather in prayer for healing of relationships,” they wrote, “and in doing so, to demonstrate a renewed commitment to working together for peace, reconciliation and the common good.”</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/169068/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ger FitzGerald does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A church service marking Northern Ireland’s centenary has stirred up debate. But amid the past few years’ tensions, the island’s Christian leaders have coordinated closely.Ger FitzGerald, Adjunct Professor of Political Science, George Mason UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1646582021-07-20T12:50:59Z2021-07-20T12:50:59ZTroubles amnesty: UK government plan would subvert peace and reconciliation in Northern Ireland<p>The Northern Ireland assembly, in a rare show of unity, has <a href="https://www.politico.eu/article/unity-northern-ireland-condemnation-uk-plans-troubles/">condemned the UK government’s plans</a> to grant an unconditional amnesty for Troubles-related crimes committed by security forces and paramilitaries in Northern Ireland.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/addressing-the-legacy-of-northern-irelands-past">sweeping proposals</a>, announced earlier this month, would see those responsible for killings, torture and serious injury being shielded from criminal investigation, civil liability, and other formal investigative processes. This would make prosecutions impossible even for the most serious crimes.</p>
<p>The plan has provoked strong – and remarkably unified – opposition both in Northern Ireland and the Republic. Even some military veterans and their campaigners, who would be protected by the proposals, <a href="https://twitter.com/JohnnyMercerUK/status/1415290154282065921?s=20">have rejected them</a>. </p>
<p>Victims and their representatives have <a href="https://wavetraumacentre.org.uk/news/the-government-may-say-their-process-is-victims-centred-but-it-is-nothing-of-the-sort/">expressed</a> hurt and anger. Many of these families have waited decades to have their cases properly investigated. They are vowing to resist the amnesty and <a href="https://www.relativesforjustice.com/fury-impunity-legislation/">strongly reject</a> the government’s claims that its plans would be in their interests.</p>
<p>The government’s plan marks a dramatic, unilateral departure from its previous commitments to implement the <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-stormont-house-agreement">Stormont House Agreement of 2014</a>. That agreement, reached by the main Northern Ireland political parties and the UK and Irish governments, called for a comprehensive and human rights-compliant approach to deal with legacy offences. </p>
<p>This approach would include police-led criminal investigations of conflict-related deaths, an information recovery process that could confidentially receive and share with families information about their relatives’ deaths, an oral history archive and measures to promote reconciliation.</p>
<p>The shift towards a broad amnesty is a response to independent decisions in recent years to open criminal proceedings against <a href="https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-8352/">six soldiers</a> in five cases related to killings during the Troubles. These are the first cases against security force personnel since the end of the conflict in 1998. Three of them have already been <a href="https://www.ppsni.gov.uk/news-centre/prosecutions-soldier-b-and-soldier-f-be-discontinued-after-pps-review">discontinued</a>, but two remain and futher prosecutorial decisions are <a href="https://www.ppsni.gov.uk/news-centre/pps-issues-four-decisions-connection-operation-kenova-files">pending</a>. The government’s decision also reflects its marked <a href="https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk/2021/07/politics-lies-boris-johnson-and-erosion-rule-law">antipathy</a> to human rights and the rule of law.</p>
<p>Although the new proposals retain the commitment to information recovery, they are unlikely to provide an effective alternative to robust independent investigations. International human rights law <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/jul/15/uk-plan-to-end-troubles-prosecutions-breaks-international-obligations-irish-minister">obligates the UK</a> to conduct such investigations for torture and violations of the right to life.</p>
<h2>Victims’ wishes</h2>
<p>A 2018 <a href="https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/836991/Addressing_the_Legacy_of_the_Past_-_Analysis_of_the_consultation_responses__2_.pdf">consultation by the Northern Ireland Office</a> found broad consensus among 17,000 respondents that the UK has “an obligation to seek to address the legacy of the past in a way that builds for the future”. </p>
<p>A clear majority of respondents rejected the idea of an amnesty or statute of limitations and “many were clear that victims, survivors and families are entitled to pursue criminal justice outcomes and such a move could risk progress towards reconciliation”, according to the report.</p>
<p>The decision to pursue impunity for security forces and paramilitaries is therefore most definitely not a response to the wishes of victims and people within Northern Ireland, including some of those representing former security forces. Why then are they seeking to impose this illegitimate – and most likely illegal under international law – measure?</p>
<p>The government plans use the term a “statute of limitations” rather than amnesty. This is misleading, as the amnesty would immediately and automatically end the possibility of prosecutions in cases that have not yet had a meaningful investigation.</p>
<p>The report argues that a statute of limitations is necessary as allowing legal proceedings to continue would lead to lengthy and expensive investigations with little chance of resulting in trials, which will inhibit truth recovery and reconciliation. These justifications for enacting amnesty are dubious, to say the least.</p>
<p>Legal proceedings relating to serious violations committed decades ago are of course a complex undertaking. But the government has <a href="https://caj.org.uk/2015/01/19/apparatus-impunity-human-rights-violations-northern-ireland-conflict">consistently delayed and limited</a> these processes by withholding information from investigators, litigants and their lawyers, and denying sufficient resources to prosecutors and coroners.</p>
<p>This government has also <a href="https://twitter.com/governmentalite/status/1415334139541311490?s=20">locked</a> for a further 45 years – on “national security” grounds – public record files into the deaths of two children as a result of plastic bullets fired by security forces. Against this historical reality, it is very difficult to trust the government’s stated commitment to the facilitation of information recovery.</p>
<p>While victims and civil society groups widely accept that few criminal investigations are likely to result in sentencing, they have called for the possibility of criminal justice to remain open. They believe that investigations with full police powers are the best means of obtaining information. In addition, previous information recovery processes in Northern Ireland, such as the <a href="http://www.iclvr.ie/en/iclvr/pages/thedisappeared">Disappeared Commission</a>, have shown that concurrent criminal investigations do not prevent information being disclosed.</p>
<h2>Learning from abroad</h2>
<p>The government compares its proposals favourably to the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which was empowered to grant amnesty in exchange for truth-telling. </p>
<p>But the plan’s portrayal of the <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1375046">South African model</a> fails to mention that keeping the possibility of criminal prosecutions open was vitally important in pressuring perpetrators to cooperate, and imposing penalties on those who did not. </p>
<p>In <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3341311">comparing amnesties around the world</a>, I have found that democratic governments only grant broad, unconditional amnesty for perpetrators of serious crimes where there is a very real and immediate risk of democratic collapse. For example, in post-Franco Spain where there was a looming threat that prosecutions could provoke a military coup, amnesties were used to protect peace and democracy.</p>
<p>In the UK, investigations and prosecutions for Troubles-related offences would not imperil democracy but could have the opposite effect. These routes to justice and accountability are an essential feature of the rule of law in the UK. The government’s proposed impunity plans would potentially subvert, rather than protect, peace and reconciliation in Northern Ireland. </p>
<p>Given the widespread opposition to the proposals from affected groups, the sweeping amnesty proposed by the UK government would have more in common with the widely condemned <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/international-and-comparative-law-quarterly/article/abs/end-of-amnesty-or-regional-overreach-interpreting-the-erosion-of-south-americas-amnesty-laws/C4DE9DFF291D60961F99F1521F71FAB8">amnesties used by dictators</a> such as Augusto Pinochet in Chile and Reynaldo Bignone in Argentina. Rather than closing the door on the past, it could open the door to further litigation, uncertainty and suffering for victims.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/164658/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Louise Mallinder has previously received funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council for research on dealing with the past in Northern Ireland. She is the Vice-Chair of the Committee on the Administration of Justice, a human rights organisation in Northern Ireland and she works with colleagues from CAJ and Queen's University Belfast on the Model Bill Team, which has researched and advocated for human rights compliant approaches to legacy issues. She is also a member of the Institute for Integrated Transitions Law and Peace Practice Group.</span></em></p>The British government’s plans to grant amnesty for Troubles-related crimes has drawn widespread opposition in Ireland.Louise Mallinder, Professor of Law, Queen's University BelfastLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1633972021-07-08T12:38:45Z2021-07-08T12:38:45ZPolitical frustration in Northern Ireland has heightened tension around ‘marching season’<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/410182/original/file-20210707-13-1ng0ebi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C4%2C3000%2C2007&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A diminished voice in the union?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/defaced-mural-showing-a-member-of-the-orange-order-is-seen-news-photo/55391631?adppopup=true">Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In Northern Ireland every year, a monthslong “<a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9781003135050-7/marching-season-northern-ireland-expression-politico-religious-identity-rosanne-cecil">marching season</a>” sees members of a Protestant organization called the <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-18769781">Orange Order</a> don suits and bowler hats and take to the streets armed with banners and drums. </p>
<p>The parades commemorate the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1163/157407807X257368">military victory of Dutch Protestant King William of Orange</a> over King James II, the last British Catholic monarch, in 1690. The festivities culminate with parades on July 12 – an occasion usually met with <a href="https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/northern-ireland/psni-preparingfor-potential-street-violenceover-twelfth-of-july-40600983.html">trepidation by authorities fearful of sectarian violence</a>.</p>
<p>These triumphant celebrations of Protestant identity are <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/inside-europe-the-marching-season-tradition-or-provocation/av-39774505">seen as provocative</a> by Northern Ireland’s Catholic community. The marching season highlights a political divide in the territory, which sees Protestants largely identify as unionists – loyal to the United Kingdom – and most Catholics identify as nationalists, seeking to be part of a united Ireland.</p>
<p>There has been much speculation of renewed violence around this year’s commemorations. Commentators note that <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/07/world/europe/northern-ireland-brexit-border.html">Brexit has intensified tensions in Northern Ireland</a>, as a result of the creation of a de facto maritime trade border in the Irish Sea. While this avoids the return of a “hard border” on the island of Ireland itself, Unionists see the arrangement as representing a dividing line between them and the rest of the U.K. </p>
<p>As a <a href="https://gmu.academia.edu/GeraldFitzGerald/CurriculumVitae">scholar who works at the intersection of religion and politics</a>, I share the concerns of those who see the potential for impending violence. The fear is occasions like the July 12 marches provide an opportunity for these frustrations to boil over into unrest, especially given recent political developments.</p>
<h2>Opportunity for violence</h2>
<p>The circumstances of this year’s marching season align with what scholars call the “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/9781119057574.whbva040">frustration-aggression hypothesis</a>.” Originally articulated by social psychologists at Yale University in the late 1930s, it holds that the likelihood of frustration producing political violence increases with the availability of an obvious outlet – in this case, the marches on July 12 – and the perceived lack of nonviolent ways to make frustrations felt.</p>
<p>Throughout the <a href="https://doi.org/10.3318/irisstudinteaffa.2018.0001">civil conflict in Northern Ireland</a>, the marching season became a catalyst for sectarian street violence. This was especially the case where Orange Order parade routes passed through predominantly Catholic areas.</p>
<p>The parades have been relatively peaceful since the 1998 <a href="https://education.niassembly.gov.uk/post_16/snapshots_of_devolution/gfa#:%7E:text=The%20Belfast%20Agreement%20is%20also,Northern%20Ireland%20should%20be%20governed.">Good Friday Agreement</a> – the deal struck by political leaders in Northern Ireland, Ireland and the U.K. that established a power-sharing arrangement and substantially ended political violence across the territory. Nevertheless, the history of the parades makes them a prime opportunity for expressions of simmering unionist frustrations.</p>
<p>This year’s marching season also comes in the context of a series of recent developments that have undermined unionists’ confidence in their political representation. Indeed, this past April saw <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2021/04/13/from-brexit-to-covid-rules-why-violent-riots-have-broken-out-in-northern-ireland.html">outbreaks of rioting</a> across Northern Ireland.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Loyalists throw a rock at police vehicles during unrest in Northern Ireland in April, 2021" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/410183/original/file-20210707-25-1b0w3hv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/410183/original/file-20210707-25-1b0w3hv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/410183/original/file-20210707-25-1b0w3hv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/410183/original/file-20210707-25-1b0w3hv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/410183/original/file-20210707-25-1b0w3hv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/410183/original/file-20210707-25-1b0w3hv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/410183/original/file-20210707-25-1b0w3hv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Unionist frustration spilled over into violence in April 2021.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/group-loyalists-trow-projectiles-at-police-vehicles-on-news-photo/1232405661?adppopup=true">Artur Widak/NurPhoto via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The largest unionist party in Northern Ireland is the Democratic Unionist Party, or DUP, founded in 1971 by <a href="https://theconversation.com/ian-paisley-from-sectarian-provocateur-to-peacemaker-31655">evangelical preacher Rev. Ian Paisley</a>. While Orangism has historically been more closely linked with the more moderate Ulster Unionist Party – the UUP – Orange Order leaders have <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/northern_ireland/8486354.stm">attempted, unsuccessfully, to unify the unionist parties</a> into a single political bloc.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, the DUP has lost considerable political influence in recent years. In 2017, it found itself <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/pa/gsx067">holding the balance of power</a> in the House of Commons and propping up Prime Minister Theresa May’s minority government. But when May’s successor, Boris Johnson, won an 80-seat majority in the election of 2019, the DUP suddenly lost bargaining power. In short, the U.K. government no longer required DUP votes to push through policy. </p>
<p>To <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/04/13/brexit-loyalist-unionist-violence-uvf-northern-ireland/">unionist dismay</a>, Johnson’s government agreed in January 2020 to a “Northern Ireland only” solution to its Brexit customs issue, ushering in a trade border in the Irish Sea between mainland Britain and Northern Ireland. This outcome played into <a href="https://doi.org/10.1057/s41293-019-00126-3">long-standing unionist insecurities about being “sold out” by Westminster</a>. </p>
<p>The DUP has also been diminished by the party’s own missteps. In May 2021, DUP leader <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-56910045">Arlene Foster resigned</a> after party colleagues mobilized to oust her. Her successor, Edwin Poots, inherited a politically vulnerable party. To make matters worse, Poots’ deal to restore power sharing to Northern Ireland was deeply unpopular among his party colleagues. He was forced to step down after only 21 days on the job.</p>
<p>This ongoing instability in unionist politics <a href="https://www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/support-for-dup-falls-to-16-after-poots-election-poll-shows-1.4572608">is reflected in plummeting support for the DUP</a> as frustrated unionists desert the party. Many have turned to the <a href="https://www.liverpool.ac.uk/media/livacuk/research/heroimages/The-University-of-Liverpool-NI-General-Election-Survey-2019-March-20.pdf">liberal and nonsectarian Alliance Party</a>.</p>
<p>But there is concern that <a href="https://www.theweek.co.uk/news/uk-news/953262/riding-high-in-may-shot-down-in-june-the-dup-implosion-explained">some disillusioned Protestants</a> may be pushed toward parties that oppose power sharing, such as the Traditional Unionist Voice, which was formed in 2007 by ex-DUP members who felt that the party has been too willing to compromise. </p>
<h2>Demographic change</h2>
<p>Social scientists contend that support for right-wing groups is driven by a sense of lost social and political supremacy, or “<a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0010414017720705?journalCode=cpsa">nostalgic deprivation</a>.”</p>
<p>This appears to play into what is happening on the ground in Northern Ireland. Demographic changes are contributing to this feeling of nostalgic deprivation. After decades in which Protestants have been the majority group, the 2021 census of Northern Ireland is <a href="https://www.birmingham.ac.uk/news/latest/2020/12/northern-ireland-census.aspx">widely expected to show virtual parity between Protestant and Roman Catholic populations</a>. </p>
<p>While the increasing Catholic population, relative to Protestant, <a href="https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/northern-ireland/new-border-poll-survey-reveals-53-of-people-in-ni-want-to-stay-in-the-uk-40531085.html">does not translate into majority support for a United Ireland</a>, the shift exacerbates unionists’ <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-britain-eu-nireland-idUKKBN29513O">sense of lost supremacy</a>. With the DUP failing to deliver political results, there is a danger that “nostalgic deprivation” will find expression through other means, such as in outbursts of street violence during the marching season. Police in the region are preparing for such an eventuality by canceling leave for officers over the July 12 weekend and putting in place a “contingency plan” in case street unrest occurs, the <a href="https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/northern-ireland/psni-preparingfor-potential-street-violenceover-twelfth-of-july-40600983.html">Belfast Telegraph reported</a>.</p>
<h2>Channeling aggression</h2>
<p>The danger in Northern Ireland is that the gap between expected and actual political outcomes can generate frustration and raise the likelihood of political violence. In the heady days of the 2016 referendum, <a href="https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/brexit/2018/02/21/in-northern-ireland-there-is-a-strong-division-in-how-different-ethno-national-groups-voted-in-the-referendum/">unionist support for Brexit</a> was based on the expectation that it would solidify the union between Great Britain and Northern Ireland.</p>
<p>However, its <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/feb/01/unionists-northern-ireland-brexit-backfired-uk-government-nationalists">effect has been the opposite</a>. It has established a customs and trade border between the two islands, weakening the link with mainland Britain and undermining the central goal of unionist politics.</p>
<p>Indeed, surveys indicate that <a href="https://ukandeu.ac.uk/northern-ireland-five-years-on/">a plurality of unionists now believe a united Ireland to be more likely as a consequence of Brexit</a>. This only exacerbates unionist frustration, increasing the chances of street violence during the “marching season.” As one young unionist put it in an <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/e9c7e236-3936-48b1-93b8-3e470c7321fb">interview for the Financial Times</a>, “you have to be violent to be heard.”</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/163397/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ger FitzGerald does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Northern Ireland’s Orange Order will take to the streets on July 12 to commemorate a Protestant military victory. A scholar explains why this year the risk of unrest is heightened.Ger FitzGerald, Adjunct Professor of Political Science, George Mason UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1603062021-05-06T12:27:19Z2021-05-06T12:27:19ZDirty protests: why Irish republican prisoners smeared their cells with faeces to make a political statement during the Troubles<p>For almost thirty years (1969-1998) Northern Ireland was gripped by <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/the-troubles-26976">violent conflict</a>. Republicans wanted an end to British rule and Unionists and Loyalists wished to preserve their citizenship and place in the United Kingdom. Bitterness and animosities intensified on both sides and reciprocal atrocities spiralled. Almost 4,000 lost their lives, thousands more were injured, and the economy and social fabric were torn apart. </p>
<p>Those convicted of paramilitary offences came into the prisons in their <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Irish-Political-Prisoners-1960-2000-Braiding-Rage-and-Sorrow/McConville/p/book/9780415693103">hundreds and then thousands</a>. Insisting they were soldiers, they behaved differently from ordinary prisoners. They were at first mainly members of the IRA, but significant numbers of Loyalists soon followed. Both factions rejected the legally established prison rules which they said criminalised them and their cause. They particularly objected to the requirement that all should wear a uniform and perform prison labour. The resultant standoff launched a series of bitter struggles.</p>
<p>In the search for peace, significant concessions had been made on prison rules in the summer of 1972. These conferred <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p07y99w1">“special category”</a> status on people who had committed crimes of a paramilitary nature. The various privileges associated with this status met most of the paramilitaries’ demands. Amid continuing violence, the UK government decided to <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00lx4dj">withdraw the 1972 privileges</a> from all whose offences were committed after March 1976. After due process and sentencing, the people convicted after this date began to arrive in the prisons a few months later. Their rejection of the ordinary prison regime initiated almost five years of intense protests. </p>
<p>Most of the newly arrived Republicans refused to wear the uniform (Loyalists accepted it). No other clothing was permitted and so protesters went semi-naked, covering themselves in a blanket: this was the strip strike.</p>
<h2>Extreme measures</h2>
<p>It eventually became clear that this approach put no pressure on the authorities. With this realisation, the dirty protests commenced. This new form of action was so extreme, entailing such an astonishing degree of self-inflicted hardship for the participants, that even the hard-line secretary of state for Northern Ireland, Roy Mason, gave it grudging acknowledgement as “a brilliant stroke”. </p>
<p>The authorities and the protesters settled in for the long game. Months and years of close and semi-naked confinement followed. Cells were less than 100 square feet, and the protesters smeared every hard surface with excrement, into which they worked particles of rotting food. Urine was used to dilute the mixture before it was spread. </p>
<p>Beyond most people’s imagining, this world of faeces-handling, unremitting stench, and contamination was frequently shared with a cellmate. There was no cell sanitation, so each performed bodily functions in front of another. They slept on mattresses on the floor because their organisation decreed that they should destroy all cell furniture. Even the mattress covers were torn apart to spread the foul mixtures. </p>
<p>There were short, out-of-cell periods. The law stipulated a minimum amount of exercise. In addition to this, there were trips to the visiting room and periodic extractions for medically mandated washing and haircutting. These were resisted with varying degrees of force, and there were regular tussles and sometimes violent battles with staff. Both sides alleged brutality.</p>
<p>This was the nightmare of the <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Irish-Political-Prisoners-1960-2000-Braiding-Rage-and-Sorrow/McConville/p/book/9780415693103">dirty protest</a> in the Maze prison, outside Belfast. It lasted for 40 months and was the most remarkable campaign in any prison anywhere, certainly in the 20th century, and possibly at any time. It was the springboard for the better-known 1980-81 hunger strikes and created an indirect but certain path to the protracted peace process that began in the mid-1980s, after the collapse of the hunger strikes. </p>
<h2>A peace deal</h2>
<p>What was it all about? There were of course explicit and covert agendas. Physical force republicans, going back to the 1860s, always insisted that they were not criminals. They had no kinship with murderers, robbers, rapists, thieves, blackmailers, and the rest of that unholy tribe. Charged, tried, convicted, and sentenced, criminals was exactly what British and Irish governments insisted they were. Democratically enacted laws and rules determined their treatment, not fanciful and self-serving proclamations. </p>
<p>From the ordeal of the dirty protests, a core group emerged who had, beyond question, demonstrated remarkable qualities of will and endurance. They had also undergone intense – apparently lifelong – bonding and arrived at a commonality of beliefs. Many had joined the dirty protest and left; others had never taken part: exact numbers are elusive. But those who had seen it through acquired among the followers of their cause, and broader ranks of sympathisers, a reputation for fidelity and self-sacrifice. This was the prerequisite for the hunger strikes.</p>
<p>When the final strategic compromise had to be delivered in the <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/good-friday-agreement-37019">1998 Good Friday Agreement</a>, the approval of this core was essential. They gave it, thus helping to deliver the peace that for a generation they had resisted. The qualities that had been manifest in the dirty protests found another purpose.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/160306/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Seán McConville has received partial funding from the UK and Irish governments. All other funding for the twenty-five year research and writing work (for the three volumes) came from non-government funding agencies - Leverhulme, Guggenheim, Atlantic Philanthropies, etc.. These grants helped to produce three volumes: Irish Political Prisoners 1960-2000: Braiding Rage and Sorrow Routledge, 2021 being the final part of the trilogy. </span></em></p>Why would a group of people decide to spend months and years living semi-naked in squalid conditions?Seán McConville, Professor of Law and Public Policy, Queen Mary University of LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.