Dear Posterity,
I had struck a nerve…or maybe just that classic, sardonic Irish humor. While excitedly peppering my companion with questions about his childhood in Northern Ireland during the age-old conflict between the Irish and the English—particularly during the period known as “The Troubles”—I had referred to the clash as “skirmishes”. He snipped, “Funny you call them skirmishes when it was only a civil war.”
His blunt remark didn’t sting too badly in light of the fact that our conversation represented a true microcosm of the different perspectives held by the world at large. Because “The Troubles”—the period of violent conflict between N. Ireland and Great Britain from the late 1960s to the late 1990s—were never legally declared a war, a penumbra of indefinite, subjective discussion enshrouds the topic to this day, wreaking havoc for any kind of protocol for the prosecution of participants (from both sides of the conflict), let alone closure. While those supporting the British crown would call the Irish Republican Army (IRA) terrorists, those supporting Irish independence would call them “Freedom Fighters.” The IRA established themselves as the defenders of the Catholic community once the British military evolved from providing support to the local police…to becoming the enemy of the local people. Was it justified? Many are still trying to find an answer.
When one of my work cases happened to be located in the heart of it all—that is, Belfast, Northern Ireland—I leapt at the opportunity to see the city’s story with my own eyes. That experience led me to dig deeper with this month’s selection for the Book of the Month:
If you can look past the obscure word choice and poor syntax, Say Nothing, written by Patrick Radden Keefe, offers a fascinating dive into the historical struggle for Irish independence in Northern Ireland. While Keefe focuses on The Troubles, he first lays the foundation for our understanding of the conflict with some history:
While Keefe begins this chapter of history with the Easter Rising of 1916, he acknowledges that the quarrel between Ireland and Britain has spanned even as far back as the 12th century with the Norman raiders, to Henry VIII and the Tudor rulers of the 16th century, and to the Protestant emigrants from England into Ireland throughout the 17th century.
This ancient struggle methodically and firmly developed what is known as Irish Republicanism, the belief that “for hundreds of years the British had been an occupying force on the island of Ireland—and that the Irish had a duty to expel them by any means necessary,” writes Keefe. In every generation, the Irish have asserted their right to national freedom from the British…truly captivating from an American perspective since the United States gained its own independence from the British crown via the American Revolutionary War (1775-1783). In this light, it can be argued that those who signed the Irish Proclamation of Independence were on par with the signers of the American Declaration of Independence…but where American succeeded, Ireland failed.
During the Easter Rising of 1916, Irish revolutionaries seized strategically important buildings in Dublin and declared themselves independent. They issued the following proclamation:
After six days, the British Army suppressed the rebellion and executed all seven signatories of the proclamation…signers who would have been venerated in Ireland as George Washingtons and Patrick Henrys had history unfolded differently, but history is written by the winners. The British Army failed to quench the increase of popular support for Irish independence, however, leading to the Irish War of Independence. This led to the partitioning of Ireland into two countries: six northeastern counties in the north (composed primarily of Protestant, British loyalists who did not desire independence), thereafter known as “Northern Ireland,” and 26 larger counties to the south, called the “Republic of Ireland” (composed of Catholic republicans who demanded independence). Today we simply know them as Ireland (Irish) and N. Ireland (British).
The agreement never brought lasting peace, however; the Irish insisted on one united Ireland without British rule. This insistence ultimately resurged in the 1960s, initiating the period known as The Troubles. Following in American footsteps for a second time, the Irish modeled their early protests on the Civil Rights Movement after studying Dr. Martin Luther King’s march in 1965; they organized peaceful walks throughout N. Ireland in protest of discriminatory policies against Catholics.
During one notable banned peace walk in Derry (known as “Londonderry” to British supporters but “Derry” to republican supporters…similar to the Battle of Bull Run vs. Manassas in America), British police surrounded the protesters and beat them without provocation, igniting outrage and riots in the days thereafter. The Troubles had begun.
While The Troubles seemed political on the surface level, heavy religious underpinnings could not be ignored, and it wasn’t long before the fight for Irish independence between the Irish and British became a bloody brawl waged between Catholics and Protestants. Protestants formed the majority population in N. Ireland but were a minority on the island as a whole, and they feared being subsumed by Catholic Ireland (because the Catholic Church forbid contraception, the Catholic birthrate was double the Protestant birthrate). Catholics, who represented a majority on the island but a minority in N. Ireland, believed they were being treated with discrimination in the smaller six northern counties.
For thirty years, violence erupted throughout N. Ireland, with horrifying acts committed on both sides. At the time, Ireland was in good company with its struggle against British colonialism: India, Pakistan, and even Israel in the 40s had already established historical precedent in their liberation from the British Empire. Unlike its contemporaries however, Ireland never achieved its political goals. Ultimately a ceasefire was declared in 1998 via the Good Friday Agreement, but while the physical fighting stopped, the political battle had only begun. To make matters worse, the ceasefire agreement did not usher in the glorious independence for which many had so ruthlessly fought—failing to justify their former actions…including cold-blooded murder. One former IRA member stated it well when he wept while recounting his past in a BBC documentary on The Troubles:
― IRA member
IRA volunteers had robbed banks, set bombs, and witnessed friends die in front of their eyes “in the expectation that these violent exertions would finally achieve the national liberation for which generations had fought,” writes Keefe. When that liberation never came, grievance supplanted it.
The ceasefire did nothing to assuage old wounds, and the deep pain of loss and suffering continues to plague Belfast today. Bitterness prevails and intolerance remains. One particular attempt at peace only exacerbated the situation: the construction of a “peace wall” in the heart of Belfast. The wall permanently circumscribed Catholics and Protestants to isolated worlds: “they resided in different neighborhoods, attended different schools, worked different jobs, frequented different pubs,” writes Keefe. The concept of “they” had only been strengthened by the misguided ambition to minimize inter-communal violence.
Eerily similar to the Berlin Wall, the peace wall in Belfast physically and ideologically divided Catholics from Protestants. Unlike the Berlin Wall, however, Belfast’s peace wall still serves that purpose today. During my trip to Belfast, I studied the wall in disbelief one evening during a historical tour offered by one of the local taxi drivers. Over the course of two hours, our driver drove around the city, pointing out historical events from The Troubles, shuffling us in and out of the taxi to get up close and personal with the city’s tragic tale, and offering his perspective as a result to being raised amidst it all. At one point, he even offered us a sharpie to sign the wall, symbolizing the desire among many for peace between sides.
Despite the desire for peace, tensions are still high, and homes built along the peace wall are regularly assaulted by makeshift explosives, glass bottles, and rocks from the “other” side. As a result, steel-caged conservatories have been constructed to guard against such routine barrages, quite an ironic play on words.
We meandered our way through the city, stopping at the Falls Road (a stronghold for Catholics…so much so that anyone with a British accent is still warned to this day from speaking in that area, lest they identify themselves as English) and the Shankill Road (a stronghold for Protestants), stopping to view the many murals painted on buildings to commemorate events such as the hunger strikes and blanket protests—events that occurred in response to the British government’s decision to no longer treat IRA members as political prisoners of war but rather as criminals. Keef writes, “To call IRA volunteers criminals was to delegitimize the very basis upon which they had taken up arms.”
At first glance, a hunger strike might not seem very effective…after all, who cares if terrorists starve themselves to death in prison? But remember, only one side of history views them as terrorists, while the other views them as Irish republican martyrs. “When somebody dies on a hunger strike,” writes Keefe, “the moral calculus of causation can be tricky. It may have been [the prisoner] who, in the strictest sense, chose to take his own life, but by announcing that he would eat again only if the British acceded to his demands, he seemed to transfer the responsibility for whether he lived or died into the hands of his captors.”
Once known as the city responsible for the construction of the RMS Titanic, Belfast is now known for attractions like hosting the “most bombed hotel in the world,” notably, the Europa Hotel pictured below.
In contrast to the deafening explosions caused by the IRA’s lethal bombs, a different type of destruction devastated the local community as well. One byproduct of The Troubles was a culture of silence, appropriately highlighted in Seamus Heaney’s poem titled, “Whatever You Say, Say Nothing.” Additionally, there were no provisions in the Good Friday Agreement for how to address the crimes of the past. “There was no mechanism through which amnesty might be granted in exchange for testimony,” states Keefe. Nor would the kinds of murders in which IRA members engaged be prosecuted as war crimes. Why? Because The Troubles were simply never declared a war. In short, this meant that the many unsolved murders from that period would remain as open criminal investigations to this day. And no one would utter a word. Instead, they would remain prisoners of their own past, attempting to make sense of the political violence through which they survived.
Today, the struggle for a united Ireland has received an unexpected push from England’s decision to leave the European Union. As a result, the free flow of goods across the border between N. Ireland and the Republic of Ireland has now been complicated: the Republic of Ireland remains in the European Union, while the United Kingdom does not. This could ultimately force N. Ireland to make a choice between the two, which they are free to do at any time according to the Good Friday Agreement. Additionally, the Protestant population in N. Ireland continues to shrink seemingly at the same rate the Catholic population continues to flourish.
In light of these developments, a new referendum on whether Northern Ireland should remain part of the United Kingdom is imminent, and a united Ireland will most likely occur in our lifetime. The real question is whether the thirty years of horrifying bloodshed witnessed during The Troubles was worth it. If the island would have united anyway, could we all have done without the violent interventions of the IRA?
With every esteem and respect,