Building communities in a post-conflict society: churches and peace-building initiatives in northern ireland since 1994

In 1994 the IRA and Loyalist paramilitary groups declared ceasefires, leading to a more relaxed attitude and cross-community contacts in Northern Ireland. The result was the establishment of a new type of church-based reconciliation group, the Church Fora, intended to improve community relations and promote peace and reconciliation within local areas. This article focuses on the ways in which Church Fora have expanded the methods of such work since 1994. It will assess their effectiveness in promoting peace and reconciliation and developing community relations in Northern Ireland by placing them within the broader framework of church-based reconciliation work. Finally, by assessing how successful Church Fora have been in achieving their aims and objectives, I examine the lessons that could be learned for church-based reconciliation work being carried out within Northern Ireland.     

Reconstituting Community in Divided Society: Faith-inspired Civil Organizations and the Case of Corrymeela

Abstract

Faith-inspired civil organizations (FICOs) are growing in recognition for their relational and sustainable approaches and contributions to peacebuilding, especially in areas where religious or cultural identities have complicated contexts of violent conflict. The capacity of FICOs to penetrate the deeper and long-term obstacles to peacebuilding is largely a consequence of their underlying faith-based motivations and methods for intervention. This article explores one particular FICO: the Corrymeela Community, which has played a notable public role in the work of peacebuilding and reconciliation in Northern Ireland. In examing the theological roots and operational character of Corrymeela, this article explores possible answers to three important questions. First, as a Christian-inspired organization emphasizing an ecumenical, interfaith approach to sustainable peace, where does Corrymeela locate its theological understanding of violent conflict and purposeful intervention? Second, how does this theological understanding inform and shape its operational strategies for strategic peacebuilding in Northern Ireland? Finally, in a “post-Troubles” Northern Ireland, what is the way forward for such an organization? How might its work and lessons-learned as a FICO continue to impact Northern Ireland, while at the same time contribute to the convoluted work of reconciliation in other regions confronting religiously-fueled violence?     

“A log-rolling,Irish-American politician,out to raise votes in the United States”: Tip O’Neill and the Irish dimension of Anglo-American relations, 1977–1986

The Irish dimension of Anglo-American relations is a relatively marginalized aspect of the historiography of transatlantic studies. Historians have focused on the role of the Clinton administration in the Northern Ireland “peace process” but previous American contributions also warrant attention. As the Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, Thomas P. “Tip” O’Neill was one of the most prominent Irish-American politicians. This article demonstrates O’Neill's attempts to ensure that the American contribution to the Anglo-Irish process steadily increased, despite the transition from arguably his natural political ally in the President Jimmy Carter administration to President Ronald Reagan in 1981. O’Neill's interest in Northern Ireland and position as speaker helped ensure that Carter's promise of financial aid to Northern Ireland in 1977 following progress in the political process was fulfilled in March 1986.     

Cross-border and local co-operation on the island of Ireland: An economic perspective

Cross-border and local co-operation can foster local learning and contribute positively to business performance and social cohesion. This paper considers firms' economic motivation for both types of co-operation around the Ireland–Northern Ireland border. This area, while inevitably impacted by civil unrest in Northern Ireland, shares many of the economic and developmental characteristics of border areas throughout Europe. Simultaneous probit models are used to examine the determinants of co-operation. Overall, around a third of firms in Ireland and Northern Ireland engage in local co-operation of some form; around one in six in Northern Ireland and one in twelve in Ireland also engage in cross-border co-operation. Proximity to the border, perceived barriers to cross-border co-operation and country uncertainty reduce the incidence of cross-border co-operation rates below that of local co-operation. Cross-border co-operation in Northern Ireland is more common because of small region size and fewer perceived barriers to cross-border co-operation.     

From the Past to the Future: Integrating Archaeology and Conflict Resolution in Northern Ireland

Abstract

Contested understandings about the past continue to reify the divided character of post-Troubles Northern Ireland. In particular, the unresolved legacies of the extension of English control over Ireland in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries through warfare and plantation continue to structure daily lives in the province. Yet the archaeological record of this period complicates the accepted dichotomous narratives through highlighting complexity. These nuances, however, have been lost in recent decades as an overly simplistic model of colonizer versus colonized has emerged as the dominant political paradigm. The management and presentation of sites associated with the process of plantation can arguably create the space necessary to bridge the divide, and to challenge accepted understandings. Cross-community engagement in the process of archaeological discovery and interpretation on plantation-period sites in Northern Ireland highlights the critical role archaeology can play in peace and reconciliation in post-conflict societies.     

‘Don't mention the war!’ Debating Notion of a ‘Stalemate’ in Northern Ireland (and a Response to Dr Paul Dixon)

The Northern Ireland peace process is often celebrated as a model for conflict resolution, yet our understanding of exactly what occurred is still only at a formative stage. Many details, particularly concerning the counter-terrorist operations of the British government, remain buried within official archives, available only up until 1981. Some aspects of that campaign—variously called an ‘intelligence’, ‘secret’ or ‘dirty’ war—may never be uncovered because of a lack of official documentation. Nonetheless, attempts can be made to analyse the use of ‘harder’ forms of state power. Scholars should not be shy to offer reasoned historical judgements on the basis of available evidence. In seeking to understand why the conflict followed the path it did and ultimately came to an end, ‘hard power’ cannot be written out of the story. However, some seem more inclined to a position best characterised by Basil Fawlty's famous mantra: ‘Don't mention the war!’ An exaggerated example of this was provided by Dr Paul Dixon of Kingston University in an article in a previous issue of this journal, which made a number of criticisms of our book, Talking to Terrorists; Making Peace in Northern Ireland and the Basque Country. In this article, we respond to Dixon's criticisms and offer broader reflections on what transpired in Northern Ireland. In some instances, the deployment of ‘hard power’ by the British state exacerbated the conflict and proved counter-productive. Ultimately, however, we conclude that intelligence-led counter-terrorism operations did make a significant contribution to ending the situation. This is not to advocate the use of such methods or to play down the ‘soft power’ successes which are undoubtedly part of the Northern Ireland story; it is simply to acknowledge that such tactics were deployed in the past and form part of a complex historical picture.     

Mediating anti-political peace in Abidjan: Radio,place and power

After a decade of conflict (1999–2011), peace-building in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire, focused on the local as a primary site of reconciliation. In addition to being local, peace was anti-political, seeking to separate place from politics as autonomous realms of public life. Through the example of local radio peace programmes, this article offers a critical, ethnographic account of anti-political peace as a spatial process. It links local peace and its justifications to the operations of governmental power, emphasising continuities of anti-political mediation and political domination. Such a historicised perspective challenges the framing of anti-political peace as the opposite of politics-as-conflict: they have long been two sides of the same coin in Abidjan and, as a binary “choice,” prevent the search for more democratic alternatives. Simultaneously, I argue that anti-political peace it is best approached as a field of contest. An ethnographic approach acknowledges the widespread rejection of politics in the Ivoirian metropolis, while resisting the collapse of institutional and everyday perspectives into a self-reinforcing consensus. I show that radio producers and Abidjanais residents could not quite pin down the meaning of politics, as that which ought to be shunned. Rather than bypass these hesitations through normative or ontological reasoning, I suggest (following others) that we might treat politics' irreducible polysemy as a source of continued struggle.     

The transformative potential of migration: Polish migrants’ everyday life experiences in Belfast,Northern Ireland

In this article, we analyse the processes of migration from the perspective of agency-structure debate. In particular, we focus on the reflexive and emotional aspects of geographical movement and the complex relations between the settlement context, Belfast, Northern Ireland, and migrating people, with their biographies, gender positioning, resources and agency. The movement across space is biographically significant, as it is often meant to resolve economic, family or personal difficulties. However, the geographical movement in itself is not necessarily empowering. We bring the notion of migration as potentially transformative but only when it is accompanied by structural enablements and agential powers of reflexivity. The reflection on one’s life course and the relations between self and the changing context of action shapes the migration experiences profoundly, which may further lead to shifts in gender positioning. The dynamics of shaping and being shaped is constantly present between migrants and the new context: the place influences everyday practices and, at the same time, the place is influenced by everyday actions and their reflexive elaboration. This article sheds light on these reflexive processes through the lens of gender.     

Through the Eyes of Women: Photovoice and participatory research as tools for reimagining place

In this article, the author explores how one particular group of working-class women living in Belfast, the North of Ireland, experience the place(s) in which they live. The perspective of place that this exploration is embedded in represents the accumulation of multiple person-place relationships that are mediated by the sociopolitical history of the North of Ireland, as well as by the gendered, classed, and religious-mediated contexts in which the women live. The author explores the relationship between place and identity by describing a feminist participatory action research (PAR) project that she engaged in with a group of women living in Belfast (which included the use of photovoice as a tool for investigating people's lives) that provided them with a culturally relevant lens through which to view the relationship between place and the everyday lives of Irish women. Out of that investigation, the author and the women designed a photo-text exhibit that provides knowledge to local and international communities about the ways in which women engage in the formulation and reformulation of place and identity within contexts of everyday life.     

If you are not one of them you feel out of place: understanding divisions in a Northern Irish town

This paper examines and reflects on the use of Global Positioning System (GPS) tracking devices as a method to understand and analyse young people’s everyday movement in Northern Ireland, a divided society emerging from conflict. The paper also seeks to contribute to the extensive body of literature which already exists on young people’s geographies and movements within the Northern Ireland context. We highlight how the use of GPS together with more traditional methods gives us considerable insights of movements of young people in Northern Ireland and sheds light on the communal divisions in one town in Northern Ireland, Coleraine. We argue that the use of a GPS methodology significantly adds to the understanding of young people’s movements and geographies, particularly in a post-conflict context where notions of place and territory have particular significance.     

Irish language education and the national ideal: the dynamics of nationalism in Northern Ireland

Since the beginning of the Northern Ireland conflict in the late 1960s, Irish nationalism has been identified as a prominent force in the political culture of the state. Recent studies have suggested, however, that the ‘Nationalist’ population has become increasingly content within the new political framework created by the peace process and the aspiration for Irish unity diminished. In placing the Northern Ireland situation within the theoretical framework of nationalism, this paper will analyse how these changing priorities have been possible. Through an analysis of Irish language study in Northern Ireland's schools, the paper will examine how the political ideals espoused by the nationalist Sinn Féin Party reflected the priorities of the ‘nationalist community’. It will be contended that the relationship between the ideology and ‘the people’ is much more complex than is often allowed for and that educational inequalities are a significant contributing factor to this.     

Teens and territory in contested spaces: Negotiating sectarian interfaces in Northern Ireland

The purpose of this article is to examine children's experiences of territory in one location in Northern Ireland. The research draws on stories, maps and focus group interviews with 80 children aged between 14–15 years of age, living in one of the most contested interface areas in Northern Ireland. Interface areas are locations where Catholics and Protestants live side by side in segregated communities divided by peace walls and other symbolic boundaries. Within these spaces, children made distinctions between place and territory. Place was referred to in relation to physical features of the surrounding landscape but more importantly as spaces where family and friendship ties were paramount. Territory on the other hand was referred to in terms of Protestant and Catholic identity.     

The role of ex-paramilitaries and former prisoners in political tourism

Northern Ireland has a turbulent history, enduring 30 years of violence known as ‘The Troubles’. Streets in Belfast that were once ‘no-go’ areas are now popular tourist attractions. They are the sites of assassinations, attempted murders and memorials to the dead - both those killed and those who killed. This article reports back on interviews and focus groups with ex-prisoners and ethnographic walks, participating in guided tours of streets, memorial sites and cemeteries, led by former paramilitaries turned tour guides. These local, sometimes controversial, figures play a key role in Belfast's tourist industry, letting those at the very centre of the conflict present and represent the city's dark and contentious history. In this article, we argue that ‘Troubles tourism’ is not about glorifying or commodifying violence, as its critics have suggested (Northern Ireland Assembly, 2008; O'Doherty, 2016; Tinney, 2017), but rather, it enables the contested nature of the conflict to be understood by allowing competing discourses to co-exist and divergent positions to be tolerated, which is politically important for peace. As such, post-conflict tourism requires a different analytical approach than that currently offered in the ‘dark tourism’ literature, which often focuses on visitors' motivations and expectations, and the commodification of history. Instead, we suggest that increased attention be dedicated to the voices of those with previous experience of violence, and the potential of this to understand current ongoing struggle, as well as consider how tourism might contribute to community transition in a post-conflict context.     

A shared future: territoriality,pluralism and public policy in Northern Ireland

This paper addresses the making of post-conflict public policy in Northern Ireland. In particular it considers an extended consultation process, A Shared Future: Improving Relations in Northern Ireland, initiated in January 2003 by the Community Relations Unit of the Office of the First Minister and Deputy First Minister, as a response to the statutory requirement to further ‘good relations’ as specified in the 1998 Belfast Agreement and the subsequent Northern Ireland Act (1998). This public consultation process invited responses to a set of core principles for a plural but socially cohesive society and a series of policy options for fostering ‘good relations’. In this paper we discuss the Shared Future process within the context of the consociational underpinnings of the 1998 Agreement and the ways in which it foregrounds ideas of cultural diversity and pluralism but fails to engage adequately with the temporal and spatial dimensions of identities in Northern Ireland. Secondly, we explore both the difficulties of making policy that will encourage a pluralist but cohesive polity in a context in which territoriality dominates identity at state, local and even individual scales, and the problems of the ways the Shared Future policy seeks to replace ethnocratic or ethno-nationalist markers with those of ‘normal’ identities in ‘normal’ capitalist material space. We conclude with reflections on the limitations of consociational democratic practices in a society that has democratically mandated political parties promoting territorially-based ethno-nationalist ideologies.     

Delivering Integrated Rural Development: Insights from Northern Ireland

This article explores progress being made in the sphere of integrated rural development in Northern Ireland, based on the experiences of 15 LEADER II local action groups. Research suggests that the local action groups experienced difficulties in developing integrative and multi-dimensional approaches to rural development during the initial stages of strategy formulation. In addition there appears to have been an emphasis on delivering the products of rural development with little importance attached to supporting processes such as capacity building and animation. However, as the programme progressed, this article examines the potential added value of LEADER II in Northern Ireland as demonstrated by the enhanced scope for cross-sector dialogue and local collaboration rooted in partnership based activity.     

Indicators of social change in rural Sweden in the late nineteenth century

Parish registers offer the student of history a wealth of information about the everyday lives of ordinary people in the past. Historical demographers in particular have made extensive use of these materials, and our understanding of the dynamics of local populations in pre-industrial Europe has increased greatly during the last twenty-five years. In addition to the basic demographic data on marriages, baptisms and burials, however, parish registers commonly contain other information which can shed light on social behaviour. Using the exceptionally rich Swedish records, this paper explores some ways in which material of this kind may be used to assess the extent and rate of social change in particular localities at particular times.     

‘Democracy’ in Northern Ireland: experiments in self–rule from the Protestant Ascendancy to the Good Friday Agreement

Pierre van den Berghe has argued that democracy in divided societies can take five different forms: Herrenvolk democracy, ethnic democracy, liberal democracy, multicultural democracy and consociational democracy. My article argues that each of van den Berghe’s five versions of democracy, or relatives of them, has been experimented with in pre–partition Ireland and Northern Ireland. While all have clear limits, the one that is most suited to Northern Ireland’s conditions is consociational democracy. The article discusses some limits of the consociational approach in Northern Ireland but also defends it against common criticisms.     

‘This we will Maintain’: Gender,Ethno‐Nationalism and the Politics of Unionism in Northern Ireland

This paper examines the gendering of unionist national identity in Northern Ireland through an analysis of organizations that are central to unionist politics today. While the commonplace observation that unionist women are ‘tea‐makers‘ conveys a critical dimension of the gender order within unionism, it does not fully capture the significance of women's contributions to the establishment or maintenance of unionism. The article analyzes how Stormont constituted an ethno‐gender regime, examines unionist women's political engagement during the Stormont era and under direct rule, investigates how the peace process and Good Friday (Belfast) Agreement have affected the unionist ethno‐gender order and the gender politics of unionism, and explores the possibilities for political transformation.     

Migration in childhood and its impact on national identity construction among migrants from Northern Ireland

While there is currently only a tiny literature available on Northern Ireland migration, nothing at all has as yet been published relating to the subject of the province's child migrants. This paper focuses on the migration experiences of individuals who migrated as children to and from Northern Ireland, based on interview narratives collected during the course of two studies on contemporary migration from Ireland, North and South, conducted from 2004 to 2008. In all cases, these experiences triggered identity issues for the individuals which have played out subsequently in their lives in different ways. In particular, the author seeks to understand how the memory of these events continues to construct present realities for these individuals. What awareness did these children have of sectarianism, of the Northern Ireland conflict? What was their reception in the host country and upon return to Northern Ireland? How have these experiences contributed to their identities in the present and their sense of belonging to Ireland, North and South?