§ 6. Northern Ireland in the 1980-90s

1. What happened in the Maze prison?

At the beginning of the eighties, IRA gunmen were still killing Ulster Protestants  and British soldiers, serving with the NATO army in Germany. In 1979 they murdered Admiral Lord Louis Mountbatten and members of his family at their holiday home in Eire. Lord Mountbatten was an 

For years there had been bitter discontent in the Maze prison outside Belfast, where suspected terrorists were held. The IRA prisoners demanded to be treated as political prisoners, and when their demand was refused, they threw off their prison clothes and went about wrapped in blankets. They also ‘painted’ the walls of their cells with their own filth. When that failed, some of them went on hunger strike.

 By the middle of 1981, ten Maze hunger-strikers had died. These deaths had a profound effect on people all over the world. Irish Americans demon­strated in the USA. The British were called murderers. In Northern Ireland, the sympathy of Catholics towards the IRA grew stronger, and when a hunger-striker put himself forward as a candidate in a by-election he won. He died very soon afterwards.

In the 1980s the political wing of the IRA, Sinn Fein (pronounced ‘shin fayan’), began to participate in elections, receiving one third of the National­ist vote. Although Gerry Adams, Sinn Fein's leader, was elected to the West­minster Parliament, he refused to take his seat. But it was clear that the lack of any apparent political progress by Westminster made Sinn Fein more popular with the Catholic community. 

2. What prompted the Anglo-Irish Agreement of 1985? 

Fear of growing support for Sinn Fein and frustration with the refusal of the Unionists  to allow power sharing or any compromise with the Catholic community persuaded the British government to negotiate an Anglo-Irish Agreement with Dublin in 1985. By this stage Dublin's sympathy for the Nationalists was mixed with a dislike of the IRA and a fear of any attempt to bring Protestant Ulster into the Republic unwillingly. Dublin reluctantly accepted the need for Brit­ish troops to keep order in Ulster.

The Anglo-Irish Agreement allowed Dublin a consultative role in the government of Ulster, and also recognised that to some extent Dublin repre­sented the Catholics of Ulster. The crucial clause read: ‘If in the future a majority of the people of Northern Ireland clearly wish for and formally consent to the establishment of a united Ireland, they [the London and Dub­lin governments] will introduce and support in the respective parliaments legislation to give effect to that wish.’ This weakened the IRA/Sinn Fein position which argued for immediate withdrawal of British troops and unifi­cation with the south. But it was also intended to weaken the position of the Protestant Unionists, warning them that Dublin and London would work together in spite of Unionist fears.

In practice relations between London and Dublin have proved less happy. Dublin has repeatedly criticised British security forces' practices, in particular for a ‘shoot-to-kill’ policy, for the wrongful imprisonment of inno­cent people, and for the physical and psychological abuse of arrested Na­tionalist suspects. London has been angry at the unwillingness of Dublin to hand over terrorist suspects to British security forces. 

3. Were there any signs of moderating positions of the sides?

By the late 1980s the level of violence had been brought down to a level where fewer  people died in terrorist killings than in traffic accidents. By 1990 there were modest signs that the Unionists might moderate their position slightly, and they seemed more ready to consider power sharing with the Catholics. At the same time Sinn Fein seemed to be in crisis. In Northern Ireland its electoral appeal was in decline from 1 per cent, while in the Republic it attracted less than 3 per cent of support. Its military wing, the IRA, was faring even worse. Its bombing campaigns had borne no fruit, and fewer members of the Catholic popula­tion seemed willing to support it. The IRA leadership was bitterly divided between ‘hawks’ and ‘doves’, while there was an overall collapse of morale in the organisation generally. The bombing and shooting incidents in Britain and on the Continent, in which innocent civilians were killed, suggest not only the destructive abilities of the IRA, but also its desperation. In the mean­time, the ‘troubles’ cost both governments an annual total, estimated in 1990, of ₤410 million.

 There is no foreseeable solution to the problem of Ulster. In 1920 the Catholic population was one third of the population. Today it has increased to two fifths. In theory there could be a voting Catholic majority by the year 2040, if the higher Catholic birthrate does not continue to fall. But this is forty years away, and in the meantime Catholic growth is slowed down because more Catholics than Protestants emigrate in search of work.

4. Do people in Ulster support the idea of a United Ireland?

In any case it has been a popular misconception that the majority of Ulster's Catholics wanted to live in a united Ireland. Most apparently they do not. Opinion polls since 1970 have suggested that a varying proportion of Ulster's Catholics, between one quar­ter and just under one half, would like to live in a united Ireland.

Percentage variations reflect the level of Catholic frustration (or rela­tive satisfaction) with political progress. An opinion poll in 1988 indicated that more than half Ulster's Catholics had never felt any sympathy for Sinn Fein. Even in the Republic, opinion polls indicated that the idea of Irish unit in 1987 attracted only 67 per cent support, and this would probably fall sub­stantially if the incorporation of Ulster involved significant cost. Altogether, the people of all Ireland are probably almost evenly divided between those who want a united Ireland and those who do not.

More Ulster Catholics would wish to live in a united Ireland if the Republic was not significantly poorer than Northern Ireland. British govern­ment public expenditure in Northern Ireland is 50 per cent higher than it is in England, in an attempt to improve the weak economy of the province. Put another way, the rest of Britain provides one third of public expenditure in Ulster. In a united Ireland, the people of Ulster would lose this subsidy and face worse economic prospects, higher taxes and a share of Ireland's large national debt. 

5. What is The Downing Street Declaration about? 

The Downing Street Declaration, signed on 15 December 1993 by the British Prime   Minister, John Major, and his Irish counter­part, Albert Reynolds, is a statement of fundamental principles which com­plements other political talks in the search for a settlement in Northern Ire­land. It does not envisage, nor advocate, any particular outcome. It does, however, make clear that the consent of a majority of the people in North­ern Ireland is required before any constitutional change can come about. On this basis the British Government reiterates that it has no selfish strategic or economic interest in Northern Ireland. For its part the Irish Government accepts that it would be wrong to attempt to impose a united Ireland without the freely given consent of a majority of the people of Northern Ireland.

The Irish Government also confirms that, in the event of an overall set­tlement, it will put forward and support proposals for change in the Irish Con­stitution which would reflect fully the principle of consent in Northern Ireland.

In their Declaration both governments agree that only democratically mandated parties with an established commitment to exclusively peaceful methods would be free to participate in future dialogue. In the event of a permanent cessation of violence by the IRA, Sinn Fein could join that proc­ess. Subsequently, both governments made it clear that, once violence was renounced permanently, they would, within a three-month period, begin to discuss with Sinn Fein how to bring it into the constitutional talks. 

6. What were the reasons for Paramilitary Ceasefires? 

In August 1994 the IRA announced that on midnight 31 August there would be a ‘complete cessation of military operation’. Welcoming this move, the British Government stressed that the cessation of violence had to be per­manent before any discussions with Sinn Fein could take place.

The IRA's decision to cease military operations was reciprocated by the loyalist paramilitary organisations. Because of these commitments to end violence, the British Government began explorative discussions in De­cember 1994 with representatives of Sinn Fein and with the Progressive Unionist and Ulster Democratic parties which represent the loyalist para­militaries. The Government emphasised that the opening and continuation of the dialogue depended upon a permanent end to the use of, or support for, paramilitary violence by republicans and loyalists. 

Questions:

1.  What is Sinn Fein and what are its policies?
2.  How did Anglo-Irish relations of this period develop?
3.  Did the IRA change its methods?
4.  Why is it so difficult to find solution to the problem of Ulster in the nearest future?
5.  What are the results of work aiming to improve the situation in Nor­thern Ireland? 

Additional Reading                                  Identity in Northern Ireland 

In this part of the UK, ethnicity, family, politics and religion are all inter-related, and social class has a comparatively minor role in establishing identity. Northern Ireland is a polarized society where most people are born into, and stay in, one or other of the two communities for the whole of their lives.

Although the two communities live side-by-side, their lives are almost entirely segregated. They live in different housing estates, listen to different radio and television programmes, register with different doctors, have pre­scriptions made by chemists of their own denominations, march to com­memorate different anniversaries and read different newspapers. Their chil­dren go to different schools, so that those, who go on to university often find themselves mixing with people from the ‘other’ community for the first time in their lives. For the majority who do not go to university, merely talking to somebody from the other community is a rare event.

In this atmosphere, marrying a member of the other community is traditionally regarded with horror, and has sometimes even resulted in the deaths of the Romeos and Juliets concerned (as punishment for the ‘betray­al’ of their people). The extremes of these hardline attitudes are gradually softening. It should also be noted that they apply to a much lesser extent among the middle-classes. It is illustrative of this that while in football, a mainly working-class sport, Northern Ireland and the Republic have sepa­rate teams, in rugby, a more middle-class sport, there is the only team for the whole of Ireland, in which Protestants from the north play alongside Catho­lics from the south with no sign of disharmony whatsoever.