Peace in Northern Ireland: Navigating the Uncertainty of Brexit

Abstract

With the ‘Troubles’, Northern Ireland has long reflected the problems of divided societies due to the presence of competing nationalisms. The deep divisions caused by the civil war and political stalemate could only be surmounted by the introduction of a European solution negating the binary and diametric opposition between Protestants and Catholics, unionists/ loyalists and nationalists/ republicans. Though many issues continued to affect Northern Ireland and its society, the 1998 Good Friday Agreement and its consociational power-sharing institutions managed to bring peace to the country within the EU framework. Recently, however, Brexit and the reestablishment of borders between the UK/ Northern Ireland and the EU (and thereby Ireland) are posing new challenges, reintroducing jingoistic and narrow- minded nationalist thinking. This article presents the development of the Northern Ireland issue, focusing on the impact of Brexit on the peace process in recent years and, in particular, exploring its effects from the perspective of identity and security.