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Conflict in Northern Ireland, 1921-74
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Politics in Northern Ireland, 1921-Present
In this course, Dr Catherine McGlynn (University of Huddersfield) explores the politics of Northern Ireland, from the opening of the first Northern Irish Parliament in 1921 to the present day. We begin in the first module by tracing the history of conflict in Northern Ireland up to the collapse of the Sunningdale Agreement in 1974. After that, we think about the Troubles, focusing on the key questions of why they broke out and why they came to an end. In the third module, we think about the development of devolution in Ireland, culminating in the 2006 St Andrews Agreement, before turning in the fourth and final module to think about the state of Northern Irish politics today, focusing in particular on the major political parties in Northern Ireland and prospects for the future.
Conflict in Northern Ireland, 1921-74
In this module, we think about the background to conflict in Northern Ireland, focusing in particular on the meaning of key terms (e.g. unionist, loyalist, nationalist, etc.) and looking more closely at the history of Northern Ireland between the opening of the first Northern Irish Parliament in 1921 up to the collapse of the Sunningdale Agreement in 1974.
Hi there.
00:00:06I'm Dr Kathryn Allen from the University of Huddersfield,
00:00:06where I'm a senior lecturer in politics
00:00:08in this first talk,
00:00:10going to look at the outbreak of conflict that's popularly known as the troubles,
00:00:12an event lasting in Northern Ireland from 1968 to 1998.
00:00:16Now, before we get into that,
00:00:21there's a few labels that I have to explain words that keep coming up If you study
00:00:23the history of politics of Northern Ireland and
00:00:27you want to know what these labels are,
00:00:29Northern Ireland comes into being in 1921 as
00:00:32a result of the Government of Ireland Act,
00:00:34which partitions the island of Ireland
00:00:36and six counties in the north remain as part of
00:00:39the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
00:00:41Now, this split and the war of independence leading up to it,
00:00:44reflect to political identities and preferences
00:00:48about Ireland's government and future.
00:00:52You have
00:00:54unionists who believe that the union between Great Britain
00:00:55and Ireland and later Northern Ireland was legitimate,
00:00:58reflecting a British identity and the right of
00:01:01the British government to be on the territory
00:01:04because of religious identity developing in tandem with national identity
00:01:06across the British Isles that was associated with Protestantism.
00:01:11So you'll often hear unionists referred to as Protestants interchangeably.
00:01:15You'll also hear the word loyal is, um,
00:01:18loyal. ISM has different meanings, depending on the context.
00:01:21But for our purposes, we all understand.
00:01:25Loyal is, um,
00:01:27to be associated with the ideology that defending
00:01:28the union between Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
00:01:33It's perfectly acceptable to do that using violence,
00:01:35including violence against the British state.
00:01:38On the other side, you have nationalism,
00:01:41the Irish nationalist movement
00:01:44stating that the island of Ireland is one nation,
00:01:46one people and therefore should have its own state.
00:01:49And that means that British territory should not apply to the island of Ireland,
00:01:52and British have no jurisdiction there
00:01:56again. Because of that interlinking between religion and identity,
00:01:59you will often hear nationalists referred to as Catholics.
00:02:03Now, even if this secular age,
00:02:06if you look at data from a helpful resource
00:02:09like the Northern Ireland Life and Times Survey,
00:02:12you will see
00:02:14that people who state their religion as Catholic and Protestant,
00:02:15they are still allied to those positions of nationalist and unionist
00:02:19and again associated with nationalism. You'll hear the term Republicanism
00:02:23the ideology
00:02:28that not only is Island entitled to have self determination,
00:02:29it is perfectly legitimate to use violence against the British state
00:02:33to create an all Ireland republic.
00:02:36So those are the labels. Those are the terms.
00:02:39Sometimes you'll hear the words to communities or two traditions as well.
00:02:41But those are the people that we are speaking about.
00:02:45So when Northern Ireland came into being,
00:02:48it got its own parliament in storm aunt and had a lot of responsibility.
00:02:50On the day to day running of Northern Ireland's affairs,
00:02:54the unionist majority had more votes and therefore more seats in store Mont
00:02:57and the practise of gerrymandering, particularly in the west of Ireland.
00:03:03Cities such as London Stroke Londonderry uh,
00:03:06they meant that the drawing of boundaries
00:03:09minimise the impact of nationalist votes.
00:03:12Nationalists.
00:03:15We're less likely to be voters at local government level when one
00:03:15had to be a homeowner or ratepayer because of discrimination in housing.
00:03:19And nationalists were also angry about discrimination in employment and
00:03:23discrimination because of the security setup of Northern Ireland.
00:03:27Under something called the Special Powers Act,
00:03:31Northern Ireland effectively was in a state of emergency,
00:03:33and an overwhelmingly unionist police force was in charge of operating UH,
00:03:36security practises.
00:03:41In the 19 sixties,
00:03:44nationalists inspired by Martin Luther King's civil rights movement
00:03:45formed civil rights protests of their own,
00:03:49and in 1967
00:03:52the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association came into being.
00:03:54They wanted to copy Martin Luther King's nonviolent programme of action
00:03:57to draw attention to discrimination and receive a quality within the state.
00:04:01However, for unionists, this was absolutely panic inducing.
00:04:05Nationalists had never recognised the legitimacy of Northern Ireland.
00:04:09There had been sporadic attempts to engage in paramilitary violence,
00:04:13and unionists were angry about the fact that nationalists have been
00:04:17abstention ist they'd never participated in Northern Ireland's political life.
00:04:20So to see people marching, ostensibly demanding equality within the state.
00:04:24Too many unionists. This was 1/5 column or a way of driving
00:04:28the union towards its end.
00:04:33So the marchers began to meet violence, violence by unionist, uh,
00:04:35passes by and those watching the marches,
00:04:40sometimes with the tacit turning a blind eye by the security forces,
00:04:43sometimes with off duty security force members involved.
00:04:47And this was taking place in the full glare of the world's media.
00:04:50So the British government,
00:04:54which had tried to kind of ignore Northern Ireland by the convention, for example,
00:04:55questions can never be asked about it In Parliament at Westminster,
00:04:59the government had to act
00:05:04and when violence began to spill out into rioting and then particularly in Belfast,
00:05:05into the displacing of people, particularly nationalists, from their homes
00:05:10the British government decided that the way to act
00:05:14was to send the army in.
00:05:16So the army was sent in to protect the nationalist community,
00:05:18however, that spontaneous violence on both sides
00:05:21shortly coalesced into the formation of paramilitary organisations,
00:05:26groups who are prepared to pursue their political preference
00:05:30through violence.
00:05:34Republic
00:05:35paramilitaries on the nationalist side where the Irish Republican Army or IRA,
00:05:36or the Irish National Liberation Army i N L.
00:05:41On the loyalist side,
00:05:44you have paramilitaries from the UVF for Ulster Volunteer Force
00:05:46and the larger U. D A or Ulster Defence Association.
00:05:50The army's protection of the nationalist community,
00:05:54as far as nationalist was concerned, turned swiftly towards oppression of it.
00:05:57Matters such as curfews began to antagonise them.
00:06:02There was still at this point, a parliament at Stormont.
00:06:06They were pushing
00:06:10the government at Westminster for more security solutions,
00:06:11while the government of Westminster were pushing them
00:06:14to reform and meet the civil rights movement's demands.
00:06:16However, the British government listened to the parliament of stone
00:06:20and its demand for internment.
00:06:24This means locking people up without trial
00:06:26in this case because they were suspected
00:06:28of being part of paramilitary organisations.
00:06:30Interment was carried out on the basis of very poor intelligence
00:06:33and it was focused overwhelmingly on the nationalist community,
00:06:37stoking resentment and frustration
00:06:41even more
00:06:43and fuelling recruitment to the paramilitaries.
00:06:44However, the final straw for the parliament,
00:06:48Stormont wasn't actually something that they had control over because the British
00:06:51government was in charge of the army
00:06:55in 1972 Civil rights march in Derry was fired upon by British paratroopers
00:06:58and 14 unarmed civilian were killed.
00:07:04In the resulting outcry over this event, referred to as bloody Sunday,
00:07:07the government decided it could no longer try to balance security solutions.
00:07:11While having storm won't push for political solutions.
00:07:15It took the decision to prorogued Stormont,
00:07:19essentially to press the pause button.
00:07:22In reality, abolishing it never came back in that form.
00:07:24Direct rule
00:07:29is then
00:07:30the government's responsibility,
00:07:30but immediately they wanted to return devolution to
00:07:32Northern Ireland just in a new form of
00:07:34power sharing where both unionist
00:07:37and nationalist political representatives would have
00:07:39genuine
00:07:42dialogue with each other and make decisions together.
00:07:43As a result of the Sunningdale Agreement in 1973 the first
00:07:46attempt at this new form of devolution was brought to Northern Ireland
00:07:50and in the executive was elected of unionists and nationalists.
00:07:54However, it was brought down in a mere matter of months.
00:07:58A combined general strike undertaken by
00:08:01loyalist paramilitaries and trade unionists caused Sunningdale
00:08:04institutions to collapse.
00:08:09The early years of the troubles
00:08:11against which the Sunningdale experiment were failing
00:08:13were some of the most violent of the entire period
00:08:15and at this point it looked as if nobody would be able
00:08:18to engage in negotiation and compromise or find a way through.
00:08:21But in 20 years time,
00:08:25most of the same players would be sitting at a negotiating table
00:08:27ready to think about peace and the way forward
00:08:31
Cite this Lecture
APA style
McGlynn, C. (2019, September 29). Politics in Northern Ireland, 1921-Present - Conflict in Northern Ireland, 1921-74 [Video]. MASSOLIT. https://massolit.io/courses/politics-in-northern-ireland-1921-present/the-good-friday-agreement-to-the-st-andrews-agreement-1998-2006
MLA style
McGlynn, C. "Politics in Northern Ireland, 1921-Present – Conflict in Northern Ireland, 1921-74." MASSOLIT, uploaded by MASSOLIT, 29 Sep 2019, https://massolit.io/courses/politics-in-northern-ireland-1921-present/the-good-friday-agreement-to-the-st-andrews-agreement-1998-2006