Catholics In Northern Ireland Research Articles

From soldiers to vigilantes: the Catholic Ex-Servicemen’s Association in Northern Ireland on the brink of civil war

ABSTRACT This article assesses the importance of an often-ignored vigilante group; the Catholic Ex-Servicemen’s Association. 1969 saw the mobilisation of Irish Catholics in Northern Ireland who had served in the British Army as part of ad-hoc vigilante groups defending nationalist areas. These groups protected Catholic neighbourhoods from loyalist assault and from incursion by the security forces who were increasingly seen as a hostile force. In 1971, this ex-service personnel formed an all-Ireland organisation: the Catholic Ex-Servicemen’s Association. At their peak in the early 1970s, they claimed a membership of 17,000 and an ability to mobilise a further 20,000 in a ‘doomsday scenario’. CESA’s prominence waned by the late 1970s. CESA has received very little academic attention. This article aims to ameliorate that, supplementing the scant secondary literature with newspaper and archival material to account for the emergence of the Catholic Ex-Servicemen’s Association, analysing their importance in shaping the trajectory of the Troubles and saying something of the complexities of identity in the nationalist community in the early period of the conflict.

The Irish People and the American Presidency

ABSTRACT Irish People was a New York-based newspaper with the single mission of supporting Catholics in Northern Ireland as they faced discrimination from the British-controlled Ulster government. While Irish American magazines promoted a romantic view of Ireland that encouraged tourism to the Republic of Ireland, Irish People reported on political and social conflict. This article examines Irish People’s role as a propaganda newspaper that targeted the American presidencies of the 1980s and 1990s. While it was mostly a “white propaganda” operation—truthful and overt propaganda—that reported British offenses and applied pressure on the American government to intervene, some of the money the newspaper helped to raise for Northern Irish charities may have gone to the Irish Republican Army.

Highly religious young Catholics in Northern Ireland: Renewing the Catholic landscape?

AbstractThis article explores findings from a 2022 survey of students associated with the Catholic Chaplaincy at Queen's University, Belfast. It is the first study to investigate the beliefs, practices, and experiences of highly religious young Catholics in Northern Ireland. It presents survey findings on beliefs, practices, and influences on faith; dynamics of increased religiosity; and views on Church teachings on same sex relationships, euthanasia, sexual relationships, and abortion. Women are more likely to disagree with Church teachings on these issues than men. The survey confirms the importance of family socialization but finds that a substantial minority experience religious change at university. Respondents prioritize renewal but disagree on how to prompt it: some advocate greater ‘openness’ to women, LGBTQ+, and others perceived as marginalized; and others feel ‘evangelization’ should be emphasized. ‘Post‐secular Catholicism’ is used as a foundation for reflections on religious persistence among Northern Ireland's young Catholics, raising questions about their potential role in renewing Ireland's Catholic landscape in light of the synodal process underway in the Church.

북아일랜드 분쟁 영화와 화해를 향한 욕망: 올리버 히르쉬비겔의 『천국에서의 5분간』

The Troubles usually refers to the conflict between Protestants and Catholics in Northern Ireland for about 30 years from the late 1960s to 1998, when “Good Friday Agreement” was signed. This agreement promises a new community and a new future, breaking away from the past marked by violence and conflict, by devoting itself to “the achievement of reconciliation, tolerance, mutual trust, and to the protection and vindication of the human rights of all.” The cover photo of the agreement, which marks the most significant turning point in Northern Ireland’s history, is a silhouette of a happy nuclear family. It shows the Northern Irish desire to escape from long conflicts and regain reconciliation, peace and dream of a happy life. However, is it possible to live a peaceful and happy life that Northern Irish dream of after a long conflict? This paper examines whether it is possible to actually reconcile through the Troubles film, Five Minutes of Heaven directed by Oliver Hirschbiegel in 2009, which represents the stories of perpetrators vs victims, Protestants vs Catholics who have experienced the trauma of the conflict only in their daily lives after The Troubles was over.

Status Symmetry Effect: The Association of Exposure and PTS in Israel-Palestine and Northern Ireland

ABSTRACT A multi-national sample was used to investigate mechanisms that were hypothesized to moderate the relationship between exposure to political violence and symptoms of posttraumatic stress (PTS). We hypothesized that a) the phase of the conflict and b) the status asymmetry of the conflicting parties would moderate the relationship between exposure and PTS symptoms. We used original data from four groups: Israelis and Palestinians (n = 2,572), and Protestants and Catholics in Northern Ireland (n = 343). Looking at these two conflicts, we found that the positive relationship between exposure to violence and posttraumatic stress symptoms ceases to exist in a post-conflict setting (F(1, 2053) = 4.95, p < .05, η2 = 0.002). Interestingly, we found that PTS symptoms were highest among minority group members in an ongoing conflict irrespective of exposure to political violence (F(1, 2053) = 120.74, p < .001,η2 = 0.06). We provide explanations for these findings and discuss their psychological implications for victimized groups and the wider geopolitics of intergroup conflict.

Religious Identification, Switching, and Apostasy Among Protestants and Catholics in Northern Ireland: Individual and Cohort Dynamics Between Two Censuses 2001–2011

AbstractReligious identification has historically been salient in Northern Ireland as an ethnic‐national identity marker. Thirteen years after the Good Friday Agreement that marked the start of the peace process in the country, the question arises whether religious affiliation in Northern Ireland has become less of an ethnonational identity marker and more of a personal choice. This article analyzes religious switching and apostasy between 2001 and 2011, using data from the Northern Ireland Longitudinal Study, a representative sample of approximately 28 percent of the population, linked to the 2001 and 2011 censuses. We found that the vast majority retained their self‐reported religious affiliation, a tiny minority switched between Protestantism and Catholicism, and a significant minority, particularly among the young, switched to “none/not stated” or between Protestant denominations. Religious switching is associated with young age, higher education, and also socioeconomic deprivation. Experiences of social frustration appear to drive many to leave their faith.

The Integral Nature of Ethnicity and Religion during Northern Ireland’s Troubles

Northern Ireland’s Troubles conflict, like many complex conflicts through the world, has often been conceived as considerably motivated by religious differences. This paper demonstrates that religion was often integrated into an ethno-religious identity that fueled sectarian conflict between Protestants and Catholics in Northern Ireland during the Troubles period. Instead of being a religious-based conflict, the conflict derived from historical divides of power, land ownership, and civil and political rights in Ireland over several centuries. It relies on 12 interviews, six Protestants and six Catholics, to measure their use of religious references when referring to their religious other. The paper concludes that in the overwhelming majority of cases, both groups did not use religious references, supporting the hypothesis on the integrated nature of ethnicity and religion during the Troubles. It offers grounding for looking into the complex nature of sectarian and seemingly religious conflicts throughout the world, including cases in which religion acts as more of a veneer to deeply rooted identities and historical narratives.

Psychological Barriers to a Peaceful Resolution: Longitudinal Evidence from the Middle East and Northern Ireland

ABSTRACTDoes individual-level exposure to political violence prompt conciliatory attitudes? Does the answer vary by phase of conflict? The study uses longitudinal primary datasets to test the hypothesis that conflict-related experiences impact conciliation. Data were collected from Israeli Jews, Palestinians, and Protestants and Catholics in Northern Ireland. Across both contexts, and among both parties to each conflict, psychological distress and threat perceptions had a polarizing effect on conciliatory preferences. The study highlights that experiences of political violence are potentially a crucial source of psychological distress, and consequently, a continuing barrier to peace. This has implications in peacemaking, implying that alongside removing the real threat of violence, peacemakers must also work toward the social and political inclusion of those most affected by previous violence.

Communication accommodation in a divided society: Interaction patterns between Protestants and Catholics in Northern Ireland

This paper investigates the impact of religious affiliation on dyadic interactions between university students in Northern Ireland. Despite over 30 years of concerted internecine strife and acute civil violence, few attempts have been made to study the patterns of face-to-face communication between those from the Catholic and Protestant communities when politico-religious identity is made salient. Significant differences were found in strategies of accommodation employed by students during communication with those from the in-group as compared to interactions with out-group members. Dyadic interaction with the in-group was marked by cues identifying group identity, more instances of verbal agreement, protracted topic discussion and convergence. Communication with members of the out-group tended to be characterized by accommodation through discourse management, especially in relation to topic selection appropriate to the religious background of the interactive partner. However, measures of interpersonal attraction failed to demonstrate any significant differences across religion. The implications of these findings are discussed in terms of the utility of Communication Accommodation Theory as an explanatory framework for interaction patterns between Protestants and Catholics in Northern Ireland.

From Secessionist Mobilization to Sub-state Nationalism? Assessing the Impact of Consociationalism and Devolution on Irish Nationalism in Northern Ireland

Survey evidence has demonstrated that support for a united Ireland from Catholics in Northern Ireland is markedly declining. Simultaneously, electoral support for the secessionist Sinn Féin party has substantially risen in the region since 1998. Critics have attributed Sinn Féin's electoral growth to consociational power sharing, which they argue rewards ethnic hardline parties. At the same time, many of these critics predicted that consociationalism would exacerbate secessionist sentiment within nationalism, a prognostication now contradicted by survey data. In analysing this paradox, we argue that there is not a switching of identities—from Irish nationalism to UK unionism—but the repositioning of Irish nationalism from a secessionist movement to a sub-state nationalism mobilizing for more resources within devolution. In explaining this, we illuminate how consociationalism allied to devolution can, if the right endogenous and exogenous supporting factors are mobilized, lead to the repositioning of identities within a regional rather than zero-sum national context.

Material Religion and Popular Culture

In Material Religion and Popular Culture, King examines the interrelationship of material religion and collective identity. Using interviews with Catholics in Northern Ireland as well as historical narrative, King provides an interesting perspective on the role of material religion in the contemporary world, suggesting that we need to continue to pay attention to the ways in which material objects hold meaning for people, even as, particularly in the post-Vatican II context for Catholics, we might think the importance of such objects has diminished. King argues that collective identity solidifies through engagement with material objects, even as they serve to mark identity boundaries between groups. The most helpful contribution the book makes concerns the use of material religion in the formation and perpetuation of social boundaries between groups. In the context of tensions between Protestants and Catholics in Northern Ireland, King suggests that the identity of these groups, although her focus is on Catholics primarily, is both constituted by and constitutes their use of material objects. While the discussion could have been further developed by a more systematically comparative approach, the overall point that material practices and objects are implicated in the construction of identity and, more importantly for King, in boundaries established against other groups, is an important one.

The Influence of Black Racial Identity on the Forgiveness of Whites

Forgiving a group of individuals for past transgressions instead of a single individual has only recently garnered research attention. The present study was designed to determine the association between Black racial identity attitudes and the forgiveness of Whites. An intergroup forgiveness instrument developed to assess forgiveness between Protestants and Catholics in Northern Ireland was adapted to assess racial forgiveness. Results were generally consistent with our predictions. The Internalization Multiculturalist Inclusive identity scale predicted both Future and Never Forgiving. However, the Immersion-Emersion Anti-White and Internalization Afrocentric scale predicted Never Forgiving but not Future Forgiving. Dispositional forgiveness and personality features were found to be associated with intergroup forgiveness. Research in racial intergroup forgiveness may have implications for areas such as race relations and public policy.

Precursors and mediators of intergroup reconciliation in Northern Ireland: A new model

We examined social psychological factors contributing to the restoration of the intergroup relationship between Protestants and Catholics in Northern Ireland. A theoretical model of reconciliation orientation (ROM) was developed, with intergroup forgiveness and subjective evaluation of past violence as the main precursors of that orientation. Data from a Northern Irish sample (N=318) validated and extended the model. Forgiveness and evaluation of past violence were predicted by 'competitive victimhood' (a belief in having suffered more than the out-group), negatively and positively, respectively. These associations were fully accounted for by the strength of identification with the in-group and trust in the out-group. Empathy functioned mainly as a direct predictor of forgiveness. The theoretical and practical implications of these results are discussed.

The Catholic Church and the Nationalist Community in Northern Ireland since 1960

The Catholic Church and the Nationalist Community in Northern Ireland since 1960 Oliver P. Rafferty, SJ (bio) No one can doubt the importance of religion as an ingredient in the history of conflict in Ireland. One explanation for this fact is that religion is a "surrogate for ethno-political identity."1 Furthermore, the politics of a divided society, within the Northern Ireland context, serves to keep religion alive. In their respective ways, Catholicism and Protestantism (in their various manifestations) have become symbols of ethnic conflict, and that conflict, even in the absence of direct sectarian violence, ensures that the symbols will continue to have meaning even when people no longer practice the faith they ostensibly profess. From the Catholic perspective, identity is inextricably bound up with the relationship between the institutional church and the nationalist community.2 Although at a theoretical level we can deny the identification of Catholicism with nationalism,3 for many Catholics in Northern Ireland, until at least fairly recently, it was perhaps true to say that their religion was also their political identity. The reasons for this were many and complex. One factor, however, was the tendency of institutional Catholicism to dominate the lives of its adherents in every [End Page 99] aspect. Given the peculiar circumstances of the Northern Ireland state and its official and implicit hostility to Catholicism, the community could rarely differentiate its life in separate religious and political terms,4 despite at times sustained criticism in the community of the institutional church. Hence the spectacle of priestly involvement in political activity, even to the role individual priests played in selecting parliamentary candidates, long after such activity was deemed suitable in any other modern democracy.5 With the advent of the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s, however, and more especially with the emergence of Provisional IRA violence in the 1970s, both the hierarchical church and the nationalist community began to reassess the nature of the relationship between institution and people, as lay Catholics became more assertive about their leadership roles,6 and the church became more hesitant about its historical identification with a by now violent and murderous nationalist ideology. In general terms the Catholic hierarchy is inclined to dismiss the notion that the institutional church poses any political threat to those who are not of its fold.7 The church maintains that it is not a political institution nor does it have specific political objectives in how it relates to Northern Ireland society as a whole. Indeed, by 1926 the robust nationalist and leader of Irish Catholicism Cardinal Patrick O'Donnell, archbishop of Armagh, could declare that the "area of the six counties is now fixed as the area of Northern Ireland . . . and we must work for the general good of the community."8 This would seem to indicate an acceptance by the hierarchy of the reality of the political facts of life in Northern Ireland, and it could be argued that this is how the church did in fact interact with the northern state. There was simply no alternative, and, for the most [End Page 100] part, the bishops taught Catholics to be obedient to the civil powers no matter how fearsome those powers in practice were from the perspective of the Catholic community. Viewed from the perspective of the majority community in the North, however, right from the era of the slogan "Home Rule is Rome Rule," the church has come to occupy the position of the great bogeyman in Protestant-Unionist imagination. Although Catholics do not take seriously the notion that their church is regarded as the enemy of civil and religious liberty,9 nevertheless this has been historically a deeply held conviction by many Irish Protestants. Protestants' fears in this regard were well summarized by the Presbyterian minister and former moderator of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church,Dr. Robert Dickinson, at the Opsahl hearings in 1993. Dickson remarked that Protestants see every aspect of the political, cultural, educational, medical, and industrial life of the Republic of Ireland as dominated and often controlled by the power and influence of the Catholic Church.10 Regardless of whether or not this caricature bears much relationship with the reality...

Contact as a Mechanism for Promoting Better Relations in Integrated Schools in Northern Ireland and Bi-Lingual/Bi-National Schools in Israel

Contact interventions have played an important role in efforts to manage conflict and promote better relations between Protestants and Catholics in Northern Ireland and Arabs and Jews in Israel. The target for many such initiatives has been children and young people. Reflecting this and in parallel developments, both countries have seen the creation of new and innovative approaches to educating, together, children of diverse religious, political and national backgrounds. In Northern Ireland, integrated schools emerged in the 1980s as an alternative to existent segregated schools. At around the same time, bi-lingual, bi-national schools were first established in Israel as an experiment in Arab/Jewish coeducation. In both contexts, the schools reflect an ideological commitment to a more peaceful society and are based on the theoretical premises of the contact hypothesis, according to which constructive or guided contact can improve inter-group relations. Based on qualitative research in four schools, this paper examines the nature of the contact experience in two integrated in Northern Ireland and two bi-lingual/bi-national schools in Israel. Through comparative analysis, it illuminates some of the contextual and process variables that seemingly mediate the quality and moderate the effectiveness of contact in each school setting.

Questions of 'h' in Northern Ireland : Breathing New Life on the Aspiration Theory

This paper considers existing ideas concerning pronunciation of the letter name for "h" (LNH) in Northern Irish English (NIE). Traditionally, the status of LNH realisation as an ethnic marker has gone unquestioned : Catholics are thought to say [hetf] while the Protestant norm is assumed to be [et f]. The phonetic difference between these realisations is consistendy described as word-initial aspiration versus non-aspiration, with aspiration attributed exclusively to Irish language influence. Here, we show that an explanation based on aspiration alone is phonologically unsatisfying and question whether aspiration is, in fact, an Irish language or ethnically dictated phenomenon. It is further suggested here that the overwhelming stigmatisation of LNH realisation may be responsible for blocking a potential sound change in NIE. While this paper is not intended as a detailed account of ethnolinguistic differences in NI phonology, it engages critically with the over-simplistic and widespread notion that LNH realisation is a result of transfer from the Irish language to the English used by Catholics in Northern Ireland.

Social mobility and constitutional and political preferences in Northern Ireland.

During the past thirty years Catholics in Northern Ireland have experienced unprecedented upward social mobility. Some commentators have suggested that this has led Catholics not merely to adopt the lifestyles of the middle class but also to modify their constitutional preferences, leading to a decline in nationalism. In this paper I examine the relationship between social mobility, on the one hand, and, on the other, both constitutional preferences and political (left or right wing) preferences among Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland, using survey data collected in 1996. There is no evidence that Catholics' constitutional preferences are related to their mobility experiences.

CONSTITUTIONAL REFORM IN NORTHERN IRELAND: IMPLICATIONS FOR COMMUNITY RELATIONS POLICY AND PRACTICE

The role of macro‐level processes in determining the effectiveness or otherwise of micro‐level initiatives is a theme that is developed in this paper. Based on efforts to tackle division between Protestants and Catholics in Northern Ireland through cross‐community contact, the paper will argue that the structural context within which contact occurs has important implications for the extent to which achievements of particular encounters are extrapolated to the wider community.

National Policy and Ethnic Enclaves: One Way to Prevent Intergroup Conflict

am pessimistic enough to suppose that members of human groups will persist in hurting and killing members of other human groups who they define as different from themselves. But there are policies which constrain such collective mischief. They work only under clearly specified conditions and only from time to time and from place to place. have managed to identify a few such policies. One of them is considered in this essay. There is no need to study history in order to discover the mistreatment an ethnic group can impose on its neighbours. In the last decade of the millennium we witnessed, among others, Rwanda, Bosnia, Croatia, Kosovo, the less publicized massacres perpetrated by Mexican soldiers on Mayan villagers and the vicious attacks on Chinese and their property in Indonesia. There is no end to it. Of is there? Given enough time even the most persistent and hopeless of conflicts such as those between Protestants and Catholics in Northern Ireland and between Muslims and Jews in the Middle East show faint glimmers of hope. But from time to time we find more than faint glimmers. There are sometimes peoples who manage not to hurt one another and this is the positive if less dramatic story have to tell. In all of the gloom there are bits of light.(2) Although do not consider this to be an essay on conflict resolution, do share some of the objectives of that movement. Louis Kriesberg, a pioneer in the study of conflict resolution insists that Noting successes, not just failures, may embolden a variety of actors to attempt early preventive actions. Mirroring with precision my own concerns, Kriesberg (1997: 232, 233) reminds us that: Relatively little attention is given to relationships that are peaceful or nonviolently contentious. Attention, however, should be given to such cases so that we might learn what prevented them from becoming bloody and protracted struggles, and so that they might serve as models for what human beings can and do achieve. Social scientists labour furiously to define the thing they call ethnicity. Even the most sophisticated and experienced of them stumble in the effort(3) while those less astute produce little that is useful (Riggs, 1991). prefer to follow the lead of one authority who reminds the reader that ethnicity is no more than a social construct -- a shifting set of definitions of a group by itself or by others. Nagel (1995:147, n1) goes on to confess that, I also use the terms `race' and `ethnicity' somewhat interchangeably. The model of described here, may in fact have become a by the time this essay appears. As learned while evaluating social programs, success is as dynamic and transient a phenomenon as its counterpart, failure (Deutscher, 1999: Ch. 10). This in no way diminishes the value of such models which can be demonstrated to have succeeded under certain conditions in certain places at certain times. That such successes may not endure forever is irrelevant to their usefulness. The Swiss have survived a territorial and linguistic based pluralism for centuries without internal violence. They have not necessarily liked one another, but as long as the linguistic cantons could remain isolated in their mountain valleys, from one another and from the rest of the world, they found it expedient to tolerate one another. The romantic image of a peaceful Switzerland is widespread. It is seen as a model of reasonable accommodation in a nation composed of people who speak different languages and differ in other cultural characteristics. The model works among these people who are located in homogeneous communities and are physically removed from one another. The German, French, Italian, and Romansch valleys of mountainous Switzerland provide an ideal setting for such a federation. Outside of Switzerland the myth persists that this is a nation of tolerant multilingual peoples. Nothing could be further from the truth. …

The Rise of “Cultural Religion” in European Christianity: Learning from Poland, Northern Ireland, and Sweden

This article draws on a global, 15-nation comparative study of religion, politics, and the state. The three countries at issue here may seem more peripheral than central to Europe, but all represent important aspects of the late 20th-century European experience—whether the tension between religion and secularity in Poland, the conflict between Protestants and Catholics in Northern Ireland, or the final sigh of religious disestablishment in Sweden. While unpacking these different scenarios, the author uncovers a shared phenomenon of “cultural religion”.