İmren Borsuk, "Violence and Security Concerns in Post-Conflict Northern Ireland," All Azimuth 5, No.2 (2016): 47-61. (original) (raw)
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Peace Review: A Journal of Social Justice, 2022
The United Kingdom’s (UK) decision to exit the European Union (EU) in June 2016 has led to political destabilization within the British state. Its Withdrawal Agreement (WA) with the EU has led to an internal border being placed down the Irish Sea between Great Britain and Northern Ireland. With a subsequent upsurge in violence in Northern Ireland following the signing of the WA, the internationally acclaimed peace process appears to be undergoing a test of fire. Ulster loyalists, unhappy with the Brexit Irish Sea border, have turned to civil unrest to vent their opposition to the WA. The trigger for heightened tensions has come from several sources, including loyalist anger at the failure of the Director of Public Prosecutions to sanction senior Sinn F ein politicians who breached pandemic restrictions by attending the funeral of former IRA chief Bobby Storey in June 2020. The UK government’s decision to renege on promises to the Unionist community that no new border would be imposed on them has increased tensions that are likely to jeopardize the local power-sharing Executive only recently returned from three years in cold storage. However, to get a deeper understanding of what is going on, it is essential to understand the wider impact of the peace process on the community in Northern Ireland. An understanding of the context of these conflict dynamics—and how they have changed as a consequence of Brexit—is a vital first step to finding a more workable solution to them.
Alleviating the Causes of Direct and Structural Violence in Northern Ireland 4
Peace Review A Journal of Social Justice, 2022
The United Kingdom’s (UK) decision to exit the European Union (EU) in June 2016 has led to political destabilization within the British state. Its Withdrawal Agreement (WA) with the EU has led to an internal border being placed down the Irish Sea between Great Britain and Northern Ireland. With a subsequent upsurge in violence in Northern Ireland following the signing of the WA, the internationally acclaimed peace process appears to be undergoing a test of fire. However, to get a deeper understanding of what is going on, it is essential to understand the wider impact of the peace process on the community in Northern Ireland. An understanding of the context of these conflict dynamics—and how they have changed as a consequence of Brexit—is a vital first step to finding a more workable solution to them.
Alleviating the Causes of Direct and Structural Violence in Northern Ireland
Peace Review: A Journal of Social Justice, 2022
The United Kingdom’s (UK) decision to exit the European Union (EU) in June 2016 has led to political destabilization within the British state. Its Withdrawal Agreement (WA) with the EU has led to an internal border being placed down the Irish Sea between Great Britain and Northern Ireland. With a subsequent upsurge in violence in Northern Ireland following the signing of the WA, the internationally acclaimed peace process appears to be undergoing a test of fire. Ulster loyalists, unhappy with the Brexit Irish Sea border, have turned to civil unrest to vent their opposition to the WA. The trigger for heightened tensions has come from several sources, including loyalist anger at the failure of the Director of Public Prosecutions to sanction senior Sinn Fein politicians who breached pandemic restrictions by attending the funeral of former IRA chief Bobby Storey in June 2020. The UK government’s decision to renege on promises to the Unionist community that no new border would be imposed on them has increased tensions that are likely to jeop- ardize the local power-sharing Executive only recently returned from three years in cold storage. However, to get a deeper understanding of what is going on, it is essential to understand the wider impact of the peace process on the community in Northern Ireland. An understanding of the context of these conflict dynamics—and how they have changed as a consequence of Brexit—is a vital first step to finding a more work- able solution to them.
See No Evil, Hear No Evil'. Insidious Paramilitary Violence in Northern Ireland
British Journal of Criminology, 2002
Northern Ireland has been variously described as having an 'imperfect peace' in which 'acceptable levels of violence' persist. Despite the endorsement of the main political parties to the principles of 'democracy and non-violence' enshrined in the Belfast Agreement, an insidious and brutalizing form of paramilitary violence continues within communities. The government has opted to 'see no evil, hear no evil' given what is at stake in the wider political process. According to this approach, one must accept certain violent excesses in the interest of moving forward politically. This, however, creates both conceptual and practical problems around the issue of violence in Northern Ireland. By conceding that paramilitaries 'police' the informal criminal justice system in their areas with political and, in most cases, legal impunity, the government, de facto, defines what is 'an acceptable level of violence'. This paper considers the nature and extent of ongoing paramilitary violence, how it has become enmeshed in the negotiated settlement and the consequences of this politicization of violence. Northern Ireland is synonymous with the word violence, having the unenviable record of some 3,600 deaths as a direct result of the political conflict since 1969. 1 Its worst terrorist atrocity, the Omagh bomb (15 August 1998), in which 29 people died and 220 were injured came only months after referenda in which the people of Ireland (north and south) endorsed the outcome of the multi-party talks on a political settlement. The republican and loyalist ceasefires , the Belfast Agreement and devolved government in Stormont have created circumstances where sectarian killings and bombings are declining. In 1999, for example, seven civilians were murdered, the lowest figure since the 'troubles' began, and the first year ever that no security force personnel were killed (RUC statistics: Northern Ireland Office 2000). Northern Ireland is, tentatively, in a period of transition to a post-conflict era. Such confidence in the new political and constitutional dispensation was buoyed up by statements from Gerry Adams who said 'Sinn Féin believes the violence we have seen must be for all of us now a thing of the past, over with and gone' (Sinn Féin statement, 1 September 1998). Whilst this did not amount to Unionist demands for a declaration that 'the war is over' or show any remorse 164
International Journal of Politics, Culture, and Society
Chapter Five-Dealing with (Denial of) the Past Chapter Six: Conclusion References Liam Clarke (2012) indicates that at least "60% of entrants to higher education are Catholic and 60 percent are female," leading to the "rebalancing [of] the communal shares of professional and managerial occupations" (Nolan 2014:13). According to the same source, middle-class Catholics have also experienced increases in residential mobility, moving in to historically Protestant neighborhoods, and filling vacancies resulting in part from middle-class Protestant emigration and an aging Protestant demographic (see also Shirlow and Murtagh 2006). Not coincidentally, though middleclass Catholics continue to vote mostly for their traditional nationalist parties-Sinn Fein and the Social Democratic Labor Party (SDLP)-their ascendancy in status contributes to their increasingly favorable attitudes about Northern Ireland's membership in the UK (Clarke 2012). On the contrary, the goal of a united Ireland retains ideological importance within relatively deprived republican communities which were impacted disproportionately by the conflict, and in which anti-accord "dissident republicans" maintain some degree of influence. Yet for underserved, working-class communities, signs of progress are more ambiguous. Globalization and a post-industrial economy offer few opportunities for undereducated young people entering the job market. Not coincidentally, those without strong qualifications in the "knowledge economy" tend to be working-class and lowerincome people from communities historically most affected by sectarian violence. According to Nolan (2014:78), "Absolute poverty before housing costs" in the province was 24 percent in 2011-a slight increase from previous years. Moreover, unemployment among those aged 18 to 24 was 20 percent in July 2015, according to Northern Ireland's Department of Enterprise, Trade and Investment (2015). For Protestant males ages 16 to 24 in particular, it is even higher (Nolan 2014:13). The global economic crisis of 2008 exacerbated long-standing economic problems, in turn aggravating intercommunal divisions most apparent in working-class locations (Creary and Byrne 2014b). Many young people in segregated, working-class communities in particular "consider themselves imprisoned within their neighborhoods" (McAlister et al. 2014:300), fearing the prospect of sectarian harassment and violence, and without the means to relocate (see also Shirlow and Murtagh 2006). Moreover, one-third of all young people who left the school system in the 2011/2012 year were 16 years old, and disproportionately working-class males from both Protestant and Catholic communities (Nolan 2014:98). As middle-class Catholic young people have seen impressive gains in educational achievement, it is a different story for their working-class Catholic and Protestant counterparts. "[T]he highest achievers of education are Catholic girls who do not qualify for free school meals… [with] more than 74% of them obtain[ing] two A-levels [on the General Certificate of Secondary Education exams]. By contrast, just 11% of poorer Protestant boys who qualify for free school meals achieve two A-levels" (Clarke 2012)-the lowest overall rating in the UK, with the exception of Roma youth. Educational and employment prospects for working-precedes understanding." Following Boyatzis (1998:1), Teddie and Tashakkori (2009:252) explain how "Recognizing an important moment (seeing) precedes encoding it (seeing it as something), which in turn precedes interpretation. Thematic analysis moves you through these three phases of inquiry." Like any analysis, theories discussed in chapter one helped guide the author in identifying important phenomena emerging from the data.
No War, No Peace: Northern Ireland after the Agreement
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In 1998 a historic agreement, commonly known as the Belfast or Good Friday Agreement, formed the basis of a negotiated settlement for the future of Northern Ireland. Since that time the level of violence in Northern Ireland has reduced but many problematic issues related to governance, sectarianism, and community relations remain on the political agenda and have destabilized the post-peace accord environment. Many of these issues can be viewed as either causes or consequences of the protracted conflict in Northern Ireland. This special issue examines some of these issues from a political psychology perspective. Economic, political, social, and psychological factors that have supported and hindered progress towards peace and stability are considered. While the paramilitary ceasefires have remained intact and certain aspects of life in Northern Ireland have been transformed, the road to peace has been hindered by both political and psychological intransigence. This paper offers an opportunity to reevaluate conceptualisations of conflict and its management in chronic situations, where divisions are deeply embedded within societal structures and relationships, and consider factors that may act as barriers to the development of a lasting peace.
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While Northern Ireland is still recovering from the violent legacy of the 30-year Troubles during a global COVID-19 pandemic, people still experience violence daily. Economic and political inequalities heighten intergroup tensions and insecurity contributing to the promotion of destructive stories. Brexit has escalated the culture wars between the Protestant Unionist Loyalist and Catholic Nationalist Republican communities as Loyalist youth and paramilitary groups protest on Belfast's streets. Through 120 semistructured interviews, we explore the experiences and understandings of Civil Society Organization (CSO) peacebuilding and reconciliation workers that liaison with ex-combatants and youth in Derry and the Border area of Northern Ireland. Findings indicate that working-class youth and former combatants continue to suffer from poverty and the legacy of the conflict with few employment opportunities. CSO led projects that empower youth may end when the funding ends as youth and ex-combatants continue to feel disenfranchised.