The traditional unionist interpretation says that Ireland is not one nation, that it is made up of two distinct groups (nationalists and unionists), and that the main reason behind the continued problems in Northern Ireland is the inability of nationalists (particularly militant nationalists) to accept the distinctiveness of unionists as a group with rights of self-determination. The traditional unionist attitude to Britain is also different from the traditional nationalist interpretation, but not the polar opposite. Although the traditional unionist school tends to see nationalists (in the north and south of Ireland) as the main cause of the Troubles, they do not see the British government as their tried and true allies. Traditional unionists are suspicious of the level of commitment that the British government has to retaining and supporting Northern Ireland. Like the traditional nationalist interpretation, the traditional unionist view started in the period around and after partition. A number of books came out from the late 1920s to the late 1950s, praising the unionist stand during the Home Rule and Anglo-Irish Treaty period (roughly 1880–1922). Their titles are symbolic of their biases: Ronald McNeill’s Ulster’s Stand for the Union (1922) and Hugh Sherman’s Not an Inch (1942). A Dutch scholar, M.W. Heslinga, put forward the fullest and strongest scholarly statement of this interpretation. His book, The Irish Border as a Cultural Divide (1962), argues that, far from being two distinct countries, the British Isles operate more or less as one. But within that larger community, there were several distinct groups of people. In short, Heslinga argued, there are more cultural fault lines between Britain, the Republic and Northern Ireland than nationalists have been willing to see. The strongest of these divisions is the one between Northern Ireland and the Republic, and the political border between them is a relatively accurate reflection of those differences. The people in Ulster, Heslinga concluded, are a distinct nation, and there is no real reason why Ireland should be a unified country.
Like the traditional nationalist view, however, the unionist view can be seen to have supporting evidence from a certain reading of history. One of the central ideas of this school of thought is that Northern Ireland and Northern Irish identity were constantly under threat from the south. Not only did the partition arising from the Anglo-Irish Treaty result in a civil war in the south, it occasioned much anti-partition rhetoric and violence in the decades following it. The IRA attacked Northern Ireland from the south in two major campaigns (1921–2 and 1956–66). The Éire constitution of 1937 laid claim to Northern Ireland, and there was much anti-partition propaganda in the Republic up until the late 1950s. But the traditional unionist view also reassessed some of its main ideas in the last few decades of the twentieth century. In the late 1960s, some unionists began to think that the Troubles were not so much the fault of the southern nationalists as they were of northern nationalists.
A.T.Q. Stewart, for instance, argued in his 1977 Narrow Ground: Aspects of Ulster, 1609–1969 that the cause of the Troubles lay within Northern Ireland, and had been there since the beginnings of plantation and the initial clash of cultures (which, he argues, never really stopped).
Unlike the traditional nationalist interpretation (which has been successfully revised, with that revision being accepted by most nationalists), the traditional unionist interpretation remains strong in that community. This strength is mostly found amongst politicians and unionist activists, such as Ian Paisley, rather than amongst academics, within Northern Ireland. Many commentators argue that these unionists see themselves as a community under siege, and therefore, they hold on to this traditional interpretation (as well as other traditions, such as marches and parades) in order to retain their identity. Traditional unionists also argue that the unionist cause is supported by purely Northern Irish rather than British interests. In other words, unionists have their own reasons to wish to remain in the United Kingdom, whether or not those are shared by the people in Great Britain. These are based on three main grounds: economics, nationality and religion. Most traditional unionists think that the British economy is, in the long term, more stable and prosperous than the economy in the Republic (despite their prosperity in the 1990s and the prospect of a more unified European economy in the twenty-first century). Northern Ireland, therefore, would be better off in the British economy. Nationality, however, is more important to unionists than economics. Although they have been in perpetual fear of being sold out by a British government seeking a final solution to the problem of Northern Ireland, they have generally thought of themselves as British (in addition to being Northern Irish). Further, they find great psychological links with Britain which seem to transcend politics and economics. Finally, and most importantly, traditional unionists cling strongly to the belief that the only way that their Protestantism can be successfully defended in Ireland is for Northern Ireland to remain separate from the Republic. This goes beyond fearing discrimination on specific issues in a united Ireland with an overall Catholic majority. It is a perception that the Republic is a Catholic country with a Catholic atmosphere, and that Protestants would be perpetual second-class citizens there.
The Marxist interpretation of the problems in Northern Ireland is based on economics, and argues, essentially, that there would be no real national or religious conflict between the two main groups in Northern Ireland if there had not been an even more basic conflict between capitalist employers and workers. The intellectual founders of modern communism and socialism, Karl Marx (1818–83) and Frederick Engels (1820–95), wrote directly about Ireland in the nineteenth century. But it was when their ideas were taken up by James Connolly in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Ireland that they were applied more specifically to the question of the two communities in the north. Connolly argued in his Labour in Irish History (1910) that the only way that class considerations would not overcome the national question in north-east Ulster was if Ireland were to be partitioned. Partition, he argued, would artificially keep the question of nation alive, and would prevent working-class Catholics and working-class Protestants from realizing that their true struggle was against their industrial overlords. Connolly, of course, was executed in the wake of the 1916 Easter Rising, and did not see his fear become reality. Subsequent Marxist historians in the twentieth century argued that partition had accomplished exactly what Connolly had warned against. Northern Ireland was preoccupied with the national question, while biting economic problems were being left to fester. As the Troubles consumed Northern Ireland in the late 1960s and early 1970s, Marxist interpretations enjoyed a good deal of attention (partly owing to the fact that they were being heavily used in other fields of history as well). Connolly’s interpretations and predictions about Northern Ireland were refreshed and extended with greater historical research. Of particular note is Michael Farrell’s Northern Ireland: the Orange State (1980), which argued that Northern Irish capitalists kept the population divided and conquered. This was accomplished in two ways. First, sectarianism was kept alive by raising Protestant fears about Catholics whenever it appeared that workers from each group might be uniting in industrial action. Second, this sectarianism was further sustained by making sure that Protestant workers were less discriminated against than Catholic workers. Although both groups were exploited, a hierarchical system was employed so that Protestant workers would feel at least marginally superior to Catholic workers, and would unite with Protestant employers to keep Catholics down.
But like the other interpretations, the Marxist one has undergone revision. One of the reasons for this was that the ferocity of reaction against the civil rights movement in Northern Ireland amongst many Protestants and unionists seemed to go far beyond economic and class-based explanations. Michael Farrell modified his earlier interpretations in his 1983 Arming the Protestants, in which he recognized that non-economic factors such as national feeling and religion played an important role in the beliefs and actions of working-class Protestants and unionists. A group of revisionist Marxists also began to analyse the situation somewhat differe
ntly. Much of this newer work has focused on class differences within the Protestant community in Northern Ireland. And, according to this interpretation, nationalist attempts to overthrow or dismantle Northern Ireland (with or without violence) have forced working-class Protestants to be more vigorous in their defence of what they see as their nationality than they otherwise would be. The best example of this argument may be found in Paul Bew, Peter Gibbon and Henry Patterson, The State in Northern Ireland (1979). Marxist analyses of Northern Ireland continued to be somewhat fragmented through the 1980s, and lost much favour in the 1990s. This, however, may not have been owing to insufficiencies in the Marxist interpretation (although there are many), but mainly to do with the rise in popularity of the final interpretative school that John Whyte defined – the internal conflict interpretation.
The three preceding interpretations of the Northern Ireland conflict share one important argument – that the problems in the north are largely the fault of external factors. For the traditional nationalists, the British are to blame; for the traditional unionists, it is nationalists in the north and the south; for Marxists, it is the capitalists and the capitalist system. The internal conflict interpretation departs from the basic idea of external blame. As its name suggests, it argues that, although external factors have certainly played a part, the major causes of the Troubles may be found within Northern Ireland. This is now by far the most accepted explanation, but it has a much shorter pedigree than the other three schools of thought. It arose after the publication of Denis Barritt and Charles Carter’s The Northern Ireland Problem in 1962. In this book, Barritt and Carter examined the sociological workings of Northern Ireland society, and particularly concentrated on areas of friction such as social relations, education and employment. They found deeper-held divisions in Northern Ireland than could possibly be explained by external factors alone. Attitudes and perceptions in both major communities seemed to be of longer standing than Marxist analyses would allow, and seemed to be more directly related to local problems than either the nationalist or unionist interpretations could explain.
By the time violence erupted in Northern Ireland in the late 1960s and early 1970s, this interpretation was gaining much attention and popularity, partly, it has been argued, because it seemed as if an internal conflict might be more easily solved than one involving other governments or economic structures. The Northern Ireland government’s 1969 Cameron Commission, appointed to look into the cause of the violence, came to a similar conclusion. It argued that the Troubles largely arose because of Catholic grievances over discrimination and Protestant fears about a rise in Catholic population and potential political power. Conor Cruise O’Brien’s highly influential States of Ireland (1972) was largely an internal-conflict interpretation, and one which argued that outsiders not only could not understand Northern Ireland, but their proposed solutions were bound to be flawed. Further support for the acceptance of the ‘internal conflict’ interpretation may be found in the recent work of social scientists. Both Ireland North and South (edited by Anthony Heath, Richard Breen, and Christopher Whelan, 1999) and Peace at Last? The Impact of the Good Friday Agreement on Northern Ireland (edited by Jörg Neuheiser and Stefan Wolff, 2002) provide much political and sociological analysis that solidify the importance of trying to find solutions within the Northern Irish communities.
As stated in the introduction to this ‘Interpretations’ section, not only have the Northern Ireland troubles been interpreted in various ways, but they have also influenced how historians have viewed other aspects and periods of Irish history. Perhaps the clearest example of how such disturbing contemporary events can influence writing about previous centuries is shown in T.W. Moody’s The Ulster Question 1603–1973, published in 1974, but written during the height of the violence in Northern Ireland (1968–72). In it, Moody argued that the current problems and divisions in the north could be traced all the way back to the original Stuart plantations in the seventeenth century (see chapter two). The plantations, he argued, were intended to build a British supremacy in Ulster, which could then be the base for dominance of the rest of the island. Further, the success of the Ulster plantations, and the consequent economic and political suppression of the native population, ensured that long-lasting bitterness would characterize attitudes that grew up between the two major groups in the north. Moody was criticized for tracing the origins of the problem too far back, however. The Ulster plantations were clearly planned and relatively successful and prosperous, but critics contended that this did not mean that entrenched bitterness between Protestants and Catholics would inevitably result. There were too many different influences and problems in Ulster between 1603 and 1968 for the Troubles of the late twentieth century to be blamed on plantation. One of the strongest critiques of Moody’s argument has been that the major problem in Ulster in the 1700s was between rival Protestant groups, particularly radical Presbyterians.
A less risky analysis was offered by Brian Walker, in his Ulster Politics: the Formative Years, 1868–86 (1989). He argued that the Northern Ireland troubles were indeed of historic origin, but were one hundred years old, rather than three hundred and fifty. The Home Rule period (especially Gladstone’s first Home Rule bill efforts in 1885–6), he argues, was the start of the sectarian split in Ulster (see chapter 5). It was Home Rule which added a political dimension to a religious difference that had existed for centuries. Without this added element (without, in other words, the attempted application of a political solution), attitudes may not have hardened in Ulster. Another example is Conor Cruise O’Brien, who had also written on the Home Rule period as central to the evolution of the difficulties in Ulster. When his Parnell and His Party was first published in 1957, O’Brien argued that Parnell and his Home Rule proposals provided perhaps the best possible chance of accommodating a Protestant Ulster within an Ireland ruled from Dublin. In the book’s second edition, published in 1978 (after a decade of violence in Northern Ireland), he changed his argument to the effect that Parnell could not see that his Home Rule proposals were perceived by Ulster Protestants as solely addressed to Catholics. Parnell, in short, had failed to understand the need to recognize a diversity of Irish identities, and Home Rule could never have proved acceptable to the majority in the north.
Similar ideas about identity preoccupied F.S.L. Lyons, who was also strongly influenced by the violence of the late 1960s and early 1970s. Lyons, one of Ireland’s most prestigious historians, is also generally thought to have changed his interpretation of Irish history based on what has happened in the north during the Troubles. In his 1968 biography of John Dillon, he blamed the failure of Home Rule on the inability of some important unionists to see how reasonable and moderate the proposals of Parnell, Dillon and Redmond had been. Their steely rejection of Home Rule was, to Lyons, a strange mystery. A decade later, in his 1977 biography of Parnell, Lyons had changed his mind a great deal. The failure of Home Rule was not so much the result of obstinate unionists, as the inability of Parnell to understand the complexities of Irish identity. Unionist identity had been ignored by most major Home Rulers, and if they had paid more attention to it, a more acceptable proposal may have been found. These ideas were further elaborated in Lyons’ Culture and Anarchy in Ireland, 1890–1939 (1979), in which he found that identity in the north was split into three groups – Gaelic, Anglican and Presbyterian. This meant that the divisions and conflicts in Northern Ireland went beyond politics into culture, and that those cultural differences were too great to be bridged by political solutions, either during the Home Rule period or during the late twentieth century. It was, he said, the recognition of these differences that would ultimately lead to ‘peaceful co-existence’.
Finally, in an impressive catalogue of the deaths caused by the Troubles, David McKittrick, Seamus Kelters, Brian Feeney, and Chris Thornton have brought home the true human cost of the difficulties in Northern Ireland. Their Lost Lives: the Stories of the Men, Women, and Children who Died as a Resu
lt of the Northern Ireland Troubles (2000) is not so much a new interpretation of why the Troubles happened or what might be done to end them, as it is a stark and disturbing compendium of the details and circumstances surrounding each death in Northern Ireland that can be attributed to political and sectarian violence. In its way, it serves as a memorial or monument much like the Vietnam Veterans Wall in Washington DC (where a similar listing of US dead from that war provides an overwhelming impression of despair). Reading the stories behind the statistics not only prompts deep human emotions (and therefore should be read by all the parties responsible for the last thirty-five years), but may give pause to professional historians and other academics to suspend their analysis and reflect upon the individual and collective human impact of the 3,636 deaths recounted in this important book.
TEN
From the Good Friday Agreement to the 21st Century
The last two decades of Irish history have provided troubles and triumphs similar in type, if not in severity, to the closing decades of the twentieth century. Perhaps most surprising is that the greatest political and social difficulty in Ireland, the lack of peace in the North, which has seemed insoluble for so long, has been overcome, and seems to be permanent. Equally unexpected was the rapidity with which the Celtic Tiger economy collapsed, and the loss of trust in government and the Church in the Republic as shocking scandals were revealed, and were shown to have been ignored for decades. This chapter starts on a high note, the implementation of the Good Friday Agreement, which was a struggle but successful. And it ends with some degree of unease, as the economic, social, and political life of the Republic seems to be a trough that will be difficult to escape.
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