Northern Irish Politics Research Articles

The Accuracy of the ‘Ethnic Conflict’ Paradigm: A Reply to Aaron Edwards

Aaron Edwards questions the ‘ethnic conflict’ model of Northern Irish politics using the Northern Ireland Labour party (NILP) and Progressive Unionist party (PUP) to demonstrate both the existence of cross-community politics in Northern Ireland, and class politics within the unionist community. However, understood in context, this history is actually in accord with what the ‘ethnic conflict’ model would predict. The key lies in the contemporary relative strength and weakness of political unionism and nationalism. The weakness of political nationalism allowed second-order politics safely to emerge within the unionist community and presented nationalists in many constituencies with the choice of voting NILP as the only alternative to the Unionist party.

How has Peace Changed the Northern Irish Political Economy?

The northern Irish peace process spawned a discourse that promises high quality employment led by foreign investments. Such a peace dividend has been absent, however, and employment in state-aided foreign projects has actually fallen since 1994. Results are especially bad for the most marginalized areas that were at the centre of conflict. A more satisfactory conception of a peace dividend would be based on the regeneration of marginalized communities. Yet the revival of devolved power-sharing government promises little change, mainly because Northern Irish policy is restricted by British Treasury rules that impose neoliberal principles of reduced government spending and privatization.

A Comparative Study of the Discursive Legitimation of the Agreement by the Four Main Northern Irish Political Parties throughout Time

We take as our starting point Chilton's (2004) hypothesis that political discourse has a legitimizing function, which is achieved through the creation of discourse worlds. Those discourse worlds serve to justify a specific portrayal of society that is related to three main aspects: an ideologically-determined perception of reality; the (dis)approval of an action; and the need to legitimize the uttering of speech. Following the Critical Discourse Analysis paradigm (Fairclough, 1989; Van Dijk, 1993), in this article we present an overview of the different ways in which the four main Northern Irish political parties depict and (de)legitimize the 1998 Agreement and the resumption of devolved government to Northern Ireland in 2007. The results obtained will prove how even if one single reality exists, the different perceptions about it serve to construct an apparent discursive paradox which has been slightly diluted throughout time.

A Transient Transition: The Cultural and Institutional Obstacles Impeding the Northern Ireland Women’s Coalition in its Progression from Informal to Formal Politics

Women have traditionally occupied a perilous position in Northern Irish politics, ultimately constrained from participating on their own terms by its dominant discourses of nationalism, conflict and realism. Alienated from the formal political structures which enshrine these discourses, many women have alternatively embraced the informal political sphere in the form of extra‐institutional grassroots and community networks which constitute the women’s movement. Though this movement has largely conformed to the segmented structure of society, space has continually been harnessed for women of both national communities to converge on various issues and work across differences while remaining rooted within their own distinct national identities and communities. To the extent that it has episodically emerged, this style of transversal politics has been confined to collectives of the informal arena of politics. However, with the dawn of devolution and a new constitution for Northern Ireland women recognised the momentous opportunity to embark upon the formal sphere and partake in the shaping of a new society and political system. In the form of a transversal political party, the Northern Ireland Women’s Coalition affected this transition to the ‘parallel universe’ of constitutional politics. However just as political opportunity structure underlies the seizure of this political space, political obstacles can account for its loss. The combined factors of inimical discourses, their institutionalisation within the consociational system and the adverse political climate of polarisation effectively denied the NIWC the space it required to progress and endure within formal politics, rendering its transition a transient phenomenon.

Putting Women in the Picture : the Impact of the Northern Ireland Women's Coalition on Northern Irish Politics

In the male-dominated world of Northern Irish politics, the creation of a cross-community women's party to fight the Forum elections in 1996 did not go unnoticed. Created to give Northern Irish women a voice in the peace talks, the Northern Ireland Women's Coalition has not only played a significant role in the drafting of the Good Friday Agreement, it has also managed to give women more visibility in Northern Irish politics and contributed to the promotion of a women's agenda. Although it initially succeeded in securing seats both at local and national level, the party did not withstand the polarisation of Northern Irish politics that marked the 2003 elections and decided to wind up in May 2006.

The Virgin Mary Connection: Reflecting on Feminism and Northern Irish Politics

Academic feminists have turned to feminist theory to develop ways of managing or solving ethnic antagonisms, especially among feminists/women in Northern Ireland. This essay troubles the application of feminist theory to conflict resolution/management in Northern Ireland. It examines the impact of this type of deployment of theory on key feminist categories such as identity and difference. It also considers what becomes marginalised from the analysis of gender politics in Northern Ireland when feminist theory is harnessed to solving/managing the Northern Ireland problem. The essay concludes by arguing for the development of alternative feminist frameworks that are not contained within the boundaries of a search for solutions.

Ulster Says Maybe: The Restructuring of Evangelical Politics in Northern Ireland

The recent electoral triumphs of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) have stimulated debate about the role of fundamentalist or ‘traditional evangelical’ Protestantism within the party and in Northern Irish politics. This paper argues that a significant restructuring of evangelical politics is taking place, one that is interest group‐centred rather than DUP‐centred. This process has been facilitated by changes in the structure of civil society. Traditional evangelical interest groups are ‘reframing’ their political projects in surprising new ways: abandoning Calvinist conceptions of church and state, using discourses of marginalisation and discrimination, and focusing on ‘moral’ issues. These subtle shifts in rhetoric constitute an acceptance of the post‐Belfast Agreement order. Rather than the tired, ‘Ulster Says No’ politics of the past, evangelicals are speaking out with a pragmatic ‘maybe’. This move parallels and reinforces the DUP’s ideological shifts, and provides an extra‐party platform for evangelicals to impact politics.

The Legacy of Master McGrath: Coursing and Sporting Heroes in Ireland

The introduction of the Hunting with Dogs Bill will see the end for traditional sports like coursing and will bring the curtain down on one of the most historic events on the British sporting calendar, the Waterloo Cup. This paper will show however that the Waterloo Cup, first held in 1836, possesses a lasting presence across the Irish Sea through the continued existence of the legacy of Master McGrath. Owned by Lord Lurgan II, Charles Brownlow, Master McGrathwas the first Irish winner of the Waterloo Cup in 1868 and scored further triumphs in 1869 and 1871 before dying suddenly on Christmas Eve, 1871. Whelped in Dungarvan, County Waterford and kenneled in Lurgan, County Armagh, Master McGrath is one of the greatest dogs ever to have coursed, suffering only one defeat in his thirty seven courses. As well as tracing the coursing life of Master McGrath this paper details how, and in what formats, Master McGrath's legacy still survives but also discusses how the contested nature of Northern Irish politics has transformed this legacy into a politicised symbol recognised by only one community in Lurgan.

Culture and Identity Politics in Northern Ireland (review)

Mairead Nic Craith, Culture and Identity Politics in Northern Ireland. New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2003, 256 pp. Mairead Nic Craith's Culture and Identity Politics in Northern Ireland offers a fine portrayal of a phase in Irish politics and history distinguished by a degree of political collaboration but also infused with symbolic and identity conflict. The largely non-violent but symbolic discord of this period is the root paradox described in Nic Craith's account: a Northern Ireland principally unified in an endeavor for peace but robustly divided the precise nature of officially recognized political identities. Mairead Nic Craith's work is part survey of contemporary developments in Northern Irish identity politics and part social critique of these recent manifestations. The official efforts the part of the British-supported Northern Irish government encourage the development of political identity along the two historically constituted poles of Northern Irish political activity: Nationalist and Unionist. Further, Nic Craith contends that the officially legitimated identity categories differ greatly from identity on the ground in Northern Irish society. Public political identity is not a multifaceted assemblage, but rather a largely stagnant and immutable construction around which individuals organize. These manifestations of Nationalist and Unionist identity are alternately, for Nic Craith, the objects of study and subjects of criticism. For Nic Craith, the dialectic between political factions and the government serves as the construction site of Irish political identity. The locus of this identity negotiation is the where identity crystallizes in political discourse, educational programs, and museums. The cultural and political characteristics, exported into the public sphere, provide the ingredients for the shaping of Irish political institutions and identity. Nic Craith's vision of the public sphere can be likened to a pair of individuals piecing together a jig-saw puzzle. Equate the Nationalist and Unionist traditions to the builders. The aspiration for the actors is not the construction of the picture into a stable and unifying whole. Rather, the goal is the construction of a maximum portion of the puzzle for one's self. Just as the Unionist and Nationalist construct identity through a pool of common resources (political life, notions of nationhood, ethnicity, and language), advancement is only achieved through the stripping of pieces from the other builder. But this dualistic notion of Irish identity is in principle a myth. In between the traditional identities of Nationalist and Unionist lie various adaptations of each. Further, actors with multi-ethnic identities creep into the margins of the public sphere, but Nic Craith first focuses the two principal actors in Northern Irish Politics. The English government, a long-time ally of the Unionist factions in Northern Ireland, has in the last two decades attempted to realign itself as a neutral negotiator. The Irish government has, as well, adopted a more conciliatory stance. The two political divisions are, as Dr. Nic Craith notes, not well-defined and united political fronts. Rather, the political identity of Northern Ireland is perhaps best viewed as a complex web of competing identities and goals in political life. Emphatically, however, all of the actors attempt to construct a picture that reveals two clear and essentialized political identities. British policies attempt the reconciliation of the two while the more vociferous groups endeavor to assemble an officially supported political and/or cultural identity at the expense of the other. Essential to Nic Craith's argument is this public competition for this governmental recognition by the political parties in Northern Ireland. Consider her discussion of the creation of Ulster-British culture in the 1980s. In response to what was viewed as a political and educational saturation of Gaelic history and culture, Protestant groups (such as the Ulster Young Unionist Council) sought to dispel the labeling of Ulster-Scots mythology as nationally Irish. …

Continuity and Change in Contemporary Ulster Protestantism*

This paper explores current trends in religious practice, observance and belief in Ulster Protestantism for elements of continuity and change. Using historical and survey data it is clear that there are strong elements of both. However, Protestant religiosity is not changing to the point that it constitutes secularisation, as sociologists of religion understand it. Nor are new trends in religiosity weakening ethno-national identities in Northern Ireland. This is because political identities are socially reproduced in ways that are independent of their religious roots and are thus unaffected by patterns of religiosity. Likely changes in Protestant religiosity in the future therefore offer no immediate panacea for altering the dynamics of Northern Irish politics.

Northern Ireland and the Democratic Left Party, 1989-1999

When looking at areas of conflict like Northern Ireland commentators may tend to view political allegiances in oversimplified terms, seeing only protago nists in an otherwise complex and diverse community. The emergence and demise of a small left or labor party in Northern Ireland is a case in point Much of the commentary on the last thirty years in Northern Ireland has tended to focus on the two tribes, while leaving out those who regard themselves as belonging to neither tradition. Some may argue that they are an insignificant minority, yet there are a substantial number of people who seek or would seek representation outside the mainstream nationalist-Unionist political camps in Northern Irish politics, if afforded a credible alternative. It was in an effort to provide representation for such a group that the Democratic Left party came into being. It aimed to provide accountable, class-based politics and to weaken the sectarian monoliths.

Feminism and the politics of difference in Northern Ireland

This article analyses the development of feminist politics in Northern Ireland in the light of broader debates about the politics of difference. It argues that there have been numerous constraints on feminism in Northern Ireland, not the least of which has been the dominance of the 'two traditions' approach to understanding the Northern Irish problem. To counter these constraints, groups such as the Northern Ireland Women's Coalition have had to employ a 'strategic essentialism' whereby the objective of increasing the representation of women (and by women) has taken priority over the feminist concern for difference. Whilst this strategy is understandable, the article contends that it runs the risk of lapsing into a female essentialism whereby difference is only understood within the 'two traditions' paradigm. Thus it argues that any attempt to move beyond the political closure that has blighted Northern Irish politics will require feminists to confront their differences more openly and this offers the potential of a new dynamic in our understanding of 'the political' in Northern Ireland.

Northern Irish Voters and the British–Irish Agreement: Foundations of a Stable Consociational Settlement?

Northern Irish politics is characterised by two distinct and polarised Nationalist and Unionist ethno-national blocs, and marked clearly by religious origin or aliation. There is also a third, signi®cantly smaller, `other' quasi-bloc, that is more heterogeneous in nature, and lacks the ethno-national solidity of the two primary blocs. As is well known, the two primary blocs, their political representatives, and those who term themselves their military or paramilitary representatives, have remained at war, or at least at loggerheads, for many years. The British±Irish (or Good Friday) Agreement of April 1998 has been widely, and correctly, hailed as a major political breakthrough with reasonable prospects of transcending previous failed attempts to resolve an apparently intractable constitutional, party political and military stalemate. The Assembly established by the Agreement is based upon a consociational model of political regulation. A central plank of consociation is the belief that a legitimate government and governability cannot be obtained in divided territories without the endorsement of (most of) each of the main communities within the relevant region. Simple overall majority support is not sucient for stable and legitimate government in such regions; indeed consociational arrangements, in principle, are designed to work against the logic of simple majoritarianism in the electorate, the legislature, the executive, the judiciary and the bureaucracy. Consociational institutions therefore need to adopt procedures that rely on, create and sometimes formalise cross-community consensus. In short, to be workable, consociational institutions appear to require concurrent majorities. The British±Irish (or Good Friday) Agreement was put to a referendum in both parts of Ireland. There were concurrent majorities across the two territories, with a 95 per cent endorsement in the Republic of Ireland, and a 71 per cent endorsement in Northern Ireland. But were there concurrent majorities within Northern Ireland? Most local voters, most parties, and a majority of Catholic and Protestants endorsed the Agreement, but a substantial number of Unionists rejected itÐa bare majority of Unionists if we exclude supporters of the Alliance Party from the Unionist bloc. This antiAgreement segment of the Unionist bloc presents a continued threat to the viability of the Assembly, and indeed to the overall Agreement: it can constantly challenge whether the Agreement, and its implementation, has the support of a majority of Unionists, as indicated most recently in the June 1999 European Parliamentary elections. The Agreement institutionalises two types of `key' decision-making within the new Assembly. One is an explicit operationalisation of the logic of concurrent majoritarianism. All Assembly members must register as Nationalist, Unionist or `other'. Under the `parallel consent' procedure a key decision must

The Northern Ireland Peace Process Reconsidered

THE NORTHERN IRELAND PEACE PROCESS RECONSIDERED RICHARD ENGLISH several years ago I wrote an essay ostensibly about the Northern Ireland Cultural Traditions Group, but really addressing what seemed to me to be the problems inherent in British-government policy towards Northern Ireland during the preceding decade. In that essay (which was published in the Irish Review in 1994)1 I discussed what I called the “equal legitimacy” thesis, which has underpinned British-government thinking on Northern Ireland, and argued that this thesis was seriously misconceived. The equal-legitimacy thesis demands that the two broad political and cultural traditions in Northern Ireland—unionist and nationalist—be publicly accorded equal legitimacy. As Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Sir Patrick Mayhew was repeated in his declarations to this effect. In April 1993, he declared that “each of the main components of the community will need to be given recognition by the other, and in any settlement each must be accorded parity of esteem, the validity of its tradition receiving unqualified recognition.” In December 1992, Mayhew assured people that the nationalist aspiration to a united Ireland was “no less legitimate” than the unionist desire to maintain Northern Ireland’s place within the United Kingdom.2 My argument was that such an approach is intellectually incoherent (How can two traditions be equally valid when each rests for its validity on the fundamental invalidity of the other’s logic?), and that it has been politically dangerous (encouraging unionist fears that the government considers nationalist ambitions as valid as those of the unionists, and encouraging nationalist hopes of major political change, which are simply infeasible and therefore bound to be disappointed). THE NORTHERN IRELAND PEACE PROCESS RECONSIDERED 270 1 Richard English, “‘Cultural Traditions’ and Political Ambiguity,” Irish Review 15 (Spring 1994): 97–106. 2 Ibid., 98. Thus, we have the daft, in the form of parity of esteem—a concept that has become extremely pervasive despite the fact that nobody really believes in it; and we have, in the form of heightened unionist fear and disappointed nationalist expectation, a dangerous mixture (as we saw in 1996 at Drumcree ) in a region such as Northern Ireland, in which insecurity and uncertainty continue to have damaging consequences. Such interventions by academics into contemporary political debate carry with them certain risks. One such risk is that people will simultaneously misunderstand and vilify you. Thus, for example, in an article in the Sunday Tribune, Luke Gibbons accused me of supremacism, wrongly attributing to me the view that “the ‘minority’ culture . . . must always be subordinate to the unionist tradition in Northern Ireland.” Authors more intimate with the details of Northern Irish politics, such as Norman Porter and Richard Kirkland, have had no problem in understanding my central argument. And it should be stressed that I was not advocating any form of supremacism, but rather was asking what a state should do in the face of a serious public-order problem. Neither Gibbons nor Declan Kiberd, who made a similar attack on me in the Sunday Press,3 appear to have understood this point. As Charles Townshend has argued, “[o]rder maintenance is probably seen as the elemental task of government.”4 My argument was that the policy of the British government in the period since the 1985 Anglo-Irish Agreement has been characterized by the dangerous and incoherent attempt to reassure unionists while raising nationalist expectations . Disaffection has been deepened in both communities, and the consequences of this trend have been (and will again prove) dangerous. The notion of the equal legitimacy of unionism and nationalism underpinned the Anglo-Irish Agreement; it was influential in molding Britishgovernment thinking during the late 1980s and early 1990s; and it pervaded the Peace Process period of 1993–1996. As the December 1993 Downing Street Declaration envisaged it, there would be “a process of dialogue and cooperation based on full respect for the rights and identities of both traditions in Ireland.” This current article aims to pick up where the previous THE NORTHERN IRELAND PEACE PROCESS RECONSIDERED 271 3 Norman Porter, Rethinking Unionism: An Alternative Vision for Northern Ireland (Belfast: Blackstaff, 1996), 136; Richard Kirkland, Literature and Culture in Northern Ireland Since 1965: Moments of...

The European Union and Northern Irish politics

Abstract In this article I examine the responses of political parties in Northern Ireland to the European Union [EU] from 1987 to 1994. The EU has provoked responses from each of the main Northern Irish parties that are compatible with their political ideologies. This fact has impeded the EU's potential to act as an agent of reconciliation. I argue that the Ulster Unionist Party's and Sinn Fein's approaches to the EU have altered since 1987. The response of the Social Democratic and Labour Party [SDLP] has remained constant ‐ it continues to welcome and encourage the EU as a reconciling force in Northern Ireland. However, the Democratic Unionist Party [DUP] remains opposed to the EU and is not part of the consensus shared by the Ulster Unionist Party [UUP], the SDLP and Sinn Fein [SF] in support of regionaliz‐ation. I conclude that the EU's significance in Northern Ireland will increase because of recent political developments in Northern Ireland, but that the EU has not caused political change and is not...

Changing Elite Perceptions of the Northern Irish Conflict, 1973-1983

Studies of ethnopolitical activity in so-called plural societies rarely include in-depth interviews with the elites of the communal groups involved or attempts to chart changes in their perceptions over time. This study is based on the author's conversations with 76 Northern Irish political activists during the summer of 1983. It has three major components. First, the most salient changes in Northern Irish politics over the past 20 years are examined, not only the developments themselves but also their impact on the perceptions of interviewees. Second, while the discussion focuses on Northern Ireland, some important theoretical implications emerge. Third, an assessment is made of the prospects for breaking Northern Ireland's political deadlock, including discussion of the November 1985 Anglo-Irish Intergovernmental Agreement.

Bicommunalism in Northern Ireland

Northern Ireland is a bicommunal society in which Protestants are numerically dominant; Roman Catholics constitute virtually all of the remaining population. On the island as a whole, Protestants are heavily outnumbered; the Republic of Ireland (the South ) has a population that is about 96 percent Catholic. Social segregation of the two northern communities is relatively distinct, and there is little crosscutting between groups that might lessen bicommunal conflict. A reciprocal relationship exists between the social system andpolitical structures. Northern Irish political institutions followed the Westminster model, which facilitated the political exclusion of Catholics and impeded social as well as political integration. The bicommunal social structure has impeded the development of more accommodating political structures. Geographic issues and external linkages compound the political problem. Northern Irish politics can be viewed as a dual dyad in which the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland are critical components. Psychological dimensions of Northern Irish bicommunalism further exacerbate the conflict.