The politics of Northern Ireland: historical background

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The politics of Northern Ireland historical
background
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Ireland before Partition

• Government structures over a century of Union
  

Party Politics the religious divide
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Home Rule loyal nationalism
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Irish Republicanism the people are sovereign

• We declare the right of the people of Ireland to
  the ownership of Ireland, and to the unfettered
  control of Irish destinies, to be sovereign and
  indefeasible Standing on that fundamental right
  and again asserting it in arms in the face of the
  world, we hereby proclaim the Irish Republic as
  a Sovereign Independent State.
• From the 1916 proclamation

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Irish Unionism

• a united Ireland, in the United Kingdom

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Ulster Unionism
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Being convinced in our consciences that Home
Rule would be disastrous to the material
well-being of Ulster as well as of the
whole of Ireland we, , do hereby pledge
ourselves in solemn Covenant throughout this
our time of threatened calamity to stand by
one another in defending our cherished position
of equal citizenship in the United Kingdom
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A Protestant state ?

• All I boast is that we have a Protestant
  Parliament and a Protestant state
• Lord Craigavon, Prime Minister of Northern
  Ireland, 1934.
• The Partition Settlement
• The role of the Orange Order
• Discrimination and Loyalty
• A British Democracy ?

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• "If we had a nine-county parliament, with 64
  members, the unionist majority would be about
  three or four but in a six-county parliament,
  with 52 members, the unionist majority would be
  about ten"
• C.C. Craig, Unionist and brother of James Craig,
  first Prime Minister of Northern Ireland

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• The appointments made by the government are
  made, as far as we can possibly manage it, of
  loyal men and women
• Lord Craigavon, Prime Minister of Northern
  Ireland, 1934.

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• I recommend those people who are Loyalists not
  to employ Roman Catholics, 99 per cent of whom
  are disloyal... If you dont act properly now,
  before we know where we are we shall find
  ourselves in the minority instead of the
  majority
• Sir Basil Brooke, Northern Ireland Minister of
  Agriculture (and future Prime Minister), 1934

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Paramilitary violence

• A State Born in Violence
• An outlaw state to the south and west
• Republican paramilitaries in the North
• Loyalist paramilitaries

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Policing and security

• The RUC a heavily-armed force
• An increasingly Protestant force
• Catholic proportion of the RUC
• 1923 21
• 1927 17
• 1966 10
• The B-Specials
• Special Powers
• The issue of parades

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Collapse

• Exclusion
• Polarisation
• Mobilisation

Photo from CAIN
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• Repression
• A paramilitary tradition
• A brittle state

Photo from CAIN