Where hope and history rhyme - prospects for peace in Northern Ireland?

• Author: Ni Aolain, Fionnuala

On 31 August 1994, the Irish Republican Army (IRA) declared a complete cessation of military operations, foreshadowing the hope that an end had come to the use of violence to achieve political ends in Northern Ireland. The IRA, a secret and revolutionary organization which finds its historical roots in the violent birth of the Irish Republic,(1) had been engaged in a systematic campaign of violence and terror since the early 1970s. The campaign of violence had the singular political aim of removing British jurisdiction over Northern Ireland by force, and creating a unitary state on the island of Ireland. On 24 October 1994 the Combined Loyalist Military Command, the Protestant paramilitary counterpart to the IRA, followed suit by declaring its own military ceasefire in the jurisdiction. The political declaration of an end to violence by opposing paramilitary organizations was a novel departure, creating the perception that democratic dialogue could facilitate a negotiated end to the conflict in the jurisdiction. In the autumn of 1994, an new optimism pervaded the island of Ireland and the United Kingdom. The pendulum had swung from violence to constitutional politics: Political parties of all shades and hues seemed poised on the threshold of negotiations to facilitate political and cultural accommodation.

That fragile confidence was shattered on 9 February 1996, when an IRA bomb exploded in the Docklands area of London, injuring 43 people and killing 2 others.(2) The IRA issued a statement declaring that a resumption of the "armed struggle" was taking place, citing its frustration with the lack of movement on political talks as a motivating factor in that decision. Since its inception, the pace of the "peace process" has ebbed and flowed. Movement has been halting and, notwithstanding an end to the physical manifestations of violence, Northern Ireland remains a society deeply scarred by its long history of conflict, and highly cynical of the possibility of breaking the cycle of sectarian strife. As the poet John Montague phrased, we see "a dark permanence of ancient forms," alluding to the difficulty in overcoming this entrenched conflict, where individual and communal responses are cyclical and predictable.

The momentum toward negotiations in which all parties would participate, has been hampered by the insistence of the U.K. government that the paramilitary organizations, primarily the IRA, relinquish its weaponry prior to its political wing, Sinn Fein, entering negotiations.(3) Such a prerequisite has proven to be political anathema to the Republican paramilitaries. The deadlock on this and other political issues, in addition to the limited majority of the ruling Conservative Party in the United Kingdom's House of Commons,(4) leaves little room for political maneuver in the circumstances. The limited space for compromise has been significantly narrowed by the resumption of violence by the IRA. The interim solution has been to set a date of 10 June 1996 for the commencement of all-party negotiations, preceded by democratic elections.(5) However, Sinn Fein remain excluded from the pre-planning for the election by both Irish and British governments until the IRA reinstates the shattered military cease-fires. This article will analyze the current state of the peace process in the jurisdiction and the prospects for its success. Its focus is upon linking the causes of conflict in Northern Ireland to the potential for its resolution. Implicit in this is an understanding of the history of the conflict and the impact of religious divisions on its creation and perpetuation. The role of religious institutions and individuals will be critically examined. Finally, the article seeks to clarify what constitutional and legal protections will need to be put in place to ensure protection for minority, group and religious rights in any potential political entity emerging from a negotiated settlement.

A Brief Historical Overview

The Northern Ireland sub-state came into existence before the independence of the 26-county Irish Free State in 1921.(6) The division of Ireland resulted from an initial attempt to give some form of limited autonomy to Ireland as a whole. This political move was ideologically and militarily opposed by the Protestant majority in the north of Ireland. This majority, a by-product of colonial settlements in Ulster(7) by Britain in the late seventeenth century viewed itself as British, culturally and politically. The political independence of the Irish and Catholic state was perceived as undermining the identity by which this Protestant group defined itself.(8) There was also a substantial Catholic minority within Northern Ireland, whose identity was linked to the emerging Irish state. This minority defined itself politically and culturally as Irish. Thus, the polarization of the two communities was built from the inception of the state along religious and political lines. Religious affiliation thus came to define political identity. Ultimately, it was also the means by which the state characterized citizenship and loyalty.

The Government of Ireland Act of 1920 created two devolved Irish parliaments; one holding jurisdiction in the six counties of the north of Ireland, the other in the remaining twenty-six counties in the south. The act was the defining element of Northern Ireland's autonomy from British governmental interference, entrenched by a Unionist majority in Northern Ireland's parliament, colloquially known as Stormont.(9) In the south of Ireland it was the means to elect a parliament of unopposed candidates, committed to intransigent republicanism, who sought independence, not merely nominal legislative freedom from Westminster.(10) Elections in May 1921 were followed by a truce and a negotiated treaty which gave dominion status to the Irish Free State.(11) The limited autonomy granted by the treaty was quickly outgrown by the fledgling Irish state. It forged its way to full independence by creating its own constitution, withdrawing from the British Commonwealth and pursuing a strong foreign policy that actively disassociated Ireland from British policy priorities.(12)

Both parts of the island of Ireland are characterized by a history of political violence, historically derived from the coexistence of four conflicting cultures -- Gaelic, English, Anglo-Irish and Ulster Protestant. This violence predates the revolutionary decade of 1912 to 1922, finding its roots in the native responses to the war of conquest waged in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.(13) The cultural antagonisms have a variety of components; including colonial conquest (English and Protestant) where elimination of the native (Catholic and Gaelic) culture was a political imperative; and more recently, as communal definitions of cultural identity that have become rooted in the negation of other identities.

The Northern Ireland sub-state came into existence as the result of the threat of a violent reaction from the Protestant majority against its being subsumed into an all-Ireland entity. Its history from 1922 was punctuated by brief bursts of civil disorder compounded by underlying fear for the long-term security of the state.(14) Built on this foundation of insecurity the state created structures to protect itself politically and militarily. The form of devolved government from the Westminster parliament in London which emerged in Northern Ireland had a direct bearing on the events which have unfolded in the jurisdiction in the past 25 years. From the state's inception the Protestant majority perceived its status to be threatened on two fronts. On the one hand, by the Catholic state on its doorstep which had an explicit constitutional mandate to reunite the whole territory of the island.(15) On the other, by an internal Catholic minority which did not identify with the ideology of the majority and was viewed as politically subversive by the state. The practical difficulty for the Protestant majority controlling power was that the internal minority was not small enough to eliminate completely as a direct threat to the legitimacy of the state. Conversely the minority felt that they lacked sufficient political and economic power to contribute towards the composition and structure of the state they inhabited.

The insecurity of the Unionist community had a direct bearing on the nature of the state they created. The state was ostensibly democratic in structure; elections and the "one man/woman, one vote" principle were largely observed. Behind the facade of democratic structures however, electoral boundaries were artificially manipulated and voting rights in local elections were made dependent upon property ownership. In practice, both communities voted along religious and cultural lines. This ensured Unionist domination of power, until Northern Ireland's devolved governmental powers were revoked by the British government in 1972. Until 1972, the primary focus of Unionist government was the safeguarding of the state, which was primarily advanced through legislative mechanisms. Foremost of these was the Civil Authorities (Special Powers) Act (Northern Ireland) 1922.(16) The "Special Powers" Act was renewed annually until 1928 and made permanent in 1933. The act allowed for internment without trial, retrospective criminal legislation, entry for search without warrant solely for the purpose of interrogation and a battery of other powers. The act was consistently used against the Nationalist community, rarely against their Unionist counterparts.(17) From the creation of the state, emergency legislation was entrenched and normalized as a daily part of state procedure. It became one of the primary foci of discontent in the emergence of the civil rights movement of the 1960s in the jurisdiction.

By the 1960s the expression of discontent had changed in Northern Ireland. The minority community mobilized around a broadly...