Hate and the State: Northern Ireland, Sectarian Violence and ‘Perpetrator-less Crime’

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As Northern Ireland lurched from one political crisis to another through 2015, there was a foreboding anticipation of the institutions of the Good Friday Agreement (GFA) – painstakingly consolidated from the 1990s onwards – moving relentlessly towards collapse. The ‘Fresh Start’ Agreement of December 2015 managed to stabilise the government and institutions but their long-term survival appears uncertain. The idea that not all was well with ‘post-conflict’ Northern Ireland had been in circulation for some time. The profusion of discourse around hate and hate crime was a key portent of this discontent. Hyperbole around ‘hate’ reached its nadir in February 2007 when the Irish Times reported that Northern Ireland had been identified as the ‘hate capital of western world’.