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Northern Ireland: Society and Culture Northern Ireland: Society and Culture Hayward, K., & McManus, C. (Accepted/In press). Northern Ireland: Society and Culture. In The Routledge Handbook of British Politics and Society Routledge. Published in: The Routledge Handbook of British Politics and Society Document Version: Peer reviewed version Queen's University Belfast - Research Portal: Link to publication record in Queen's University Belfast Research Portal Publisher rights Copyright 2019 Routledge. This work is made available online in accordance with the publisher’s policies. Please refer to any applicable terms of use of the publisher. General rights Copyright for the publications made accessible via the Queen's University Belfast Research Portal is retained by the author(s) and / or other copyright owners and it is a condition of accessing these publications that users recognise and abide by the legal requirements associated with these rights. Take down policy The Research Portal is Queen's institutional repository that provides access to Queen's research output. Every effort has been made to ensure that content in the Research Portal does not infringe any person's rights, or applicable UK laws. If you discover content in the Research Portal that you believe breaches copyright or violates any law, please contact [email protected]. Download date:25. Sep. 2021 Routledge Handbook of British Politics and Society Northern Ireland: society and culture Katy Hayward and Cathal McManus Northern Ireland is a fascinating part of the UK in which to research society and culture. It is a small region (a population of 1.8 million) that contains, one might say, a great deal of ‘culture’. For a start, the existence and parity of two national cultures and citizenships are officially recognised: British and Irish. There is a deep-knit closeness that is reflected in the society and culture of Northern Ireland, in which popular, cultural, sporting and kinship ties from Britain and Ireland are very present. But this familiarity sits alongside the legacy of a complex and often violent history. Northern Ireland was created in 1921 in an effort to manage conflict between nationalisms on the island of Ireland through creating two different territorial jurisdictions. But whilst the 26 counties of Ireland underwent a classic process of intense nation-building and state-building, the 6 counties of Northern Ireland formed the basis for a disquiet ‘statelet’ and a society at some unease. The recent history of society and culture in Northern Ireland reflects persistent issues of discomfort. Whether it be in relation to commemoration, religion, immigration or education – the wizened roots of Northern Ireland are still producing unhealthy and prickly branches that extend awkwardly into the present. These circumstances have given rise to interesting challenges for social science and humanities research on society and culture in Northern Ireland. The tendency has been to research what are already recognised as traditions and identities and it has been much more difficult to analyse those aspects of social change which are at the sidelines or counter to the norm. If Northern Ireland is often described as ‘over-researched’ there is clearly a predominant focus in that research on conflict and, to a lesser extent, peace. And the conflict research has concentrated on what has come to be accepted as the causal influences: paramilitarism, ethno- nationalisms, religion, economic inequalities, rights abuses, masculinities. Northern Ireland has given rise to some excellent methods and practices in research in these areas. This chapter will outline some of the most outstanding studies in that regard. Less well-researched are the more low-key aspects of peaceful transformation. This is partly because it is more difficult to identify measures and processes of change. It is a pity that this is so because what comes to be accepted as ‘normal’ and unremarkable is often where the greatest achievements of peace lie. Such complexities are key to understanding contemporary Northern Ireland. Therefore, albeit in a handbook on British politics and society, this chapter is necessarily going to be expressly looking at phenomena that are determinedly non-British, that are quite unique in the United Kingdom, and that are still quite fragile and exposed to great pressure. Institutionalised insecurity When Northern Ireland was created, it was to assuage the concerns of unionists about the risks of Great Britain granting Ireland ‘home rule’. The delineation of Northern Ireland on a map was therefore carefully drawn to ensure that unionists were the dominant majority in the region. Their narratives of Northern Ireland’s history and purpose were sometimes bold and brash but never completely divested of a sense of insecurity. They were aware of the fact that a significant portion of the population in Northern Ireland believed the region – and the Irish border – should not exist in the first place. And this sense of internal threat was exacerbated by a perceived menace from Dublin – something brought home when the 1937 Constitution of Ireland laid claim over the territory of Northern Ireland. Furthermore, Northern Ireland’s unionists could never be entirely confident they commanded much interest, let alone full- hearted support, at Westminster. Internal cohesion within unionism was therefore particularly important and it was Protestantism that became the unifying factor for establishing a majority on which to build the Northern Ireland state (Brewer, 2004). This was not only because it provided a vivid contrast with the overt Catholicism of the Irish state at the time; it was also because ‘Protestant’ was a handy label under which to unite the diverse non-Catholic traditions in the north. Reform of any type or scale was, thus, often viewed warily and many unionist leaders shared (or felt compelled to reflect) the deep conservativism of supporters of the union. For their part, Catholics in Northern Ireland also had feeling of existential insecurity (O’Connor, 1993). Unexpectedly, they found themselves partitioned into a statelet that was expressly created to separate the Protestant majority in the north-east of Ireland from the emerging nation-state of Ireland. The representation of Catholics in the Northern Ireland Parliament was always poor – not only because of the reluctance of some to participate in such institutions, but also because of the practices of the dominant power-holders to ensure that they remained in control. Many measures to protect the large Catholic minority – such as the use of proportional representation in the regional electoral system – were abolished or undermined, and powers in the hands of unionist politicians only grew. The Special Powers Act 1922 and the Offences against the State Act 1924 (renewed annually until it was made permanent in 1931) were early signs of a society being created on a foundation of discrimination and insecurity. In the 1960s, a civil rights movement in Northern Ireland built on progressive trends emerging across the UK (e.g. free access to higher education) and found inspiration in international examples. The violent, heavy-handed response to this movement by political and security forces in Northern Ireland was typical of an uneasy, paranoid state. The violence of the Troubles made such divisions manifest and saw innocent civilians targeted and harmed by armies, both state and guerrilla. At the root of it all was the too-simplistic, directly contradictory assumptions held by both sides: that stability would come through enforcing the will of the majority, be it for the UK union or (on an all-island basis) for Irish unity. The 1998 Good Friday (Belfast) Agreement was remarkable in that it not only acknowledged the existence of differing identities, traditions and political aspirations within Northern Ireland, it actively recognised and institutionalised them. The principle of ‘parity of esteem’ for the so- called ‘two communities’ in Northern Ireland showed society here to be intrinsically heterogeneous. There was more than one national culture and there was no strong overarching Northern Ireland culture or identity. The environment created by the 1998 Agreement was one in which – instead of trying to repress or ignore half of the population – the two communities would be valued and protected from discrimination. Whilst the political scene included power-sharing and consociationalism, the social landscape was intended to be one of recognition and accommodation. This has been very positive, in so far as it has gone – sustained by an experienced and active community and voluntary sector. There have been a few key problems with it, however. The first problem is that the political set-up means that there remains an obsession with unionist or nationalist as the only two properly valid communities, leaving no room for diversity or for the middle ground to have equal strength and validity. The second is that the provision for a border poll (in which Northern Ireland can vote on Irish unity) means that there remains a focus on the protection or creation of a majority when it comes to the constitutional status of Northern Ireland. This in turn sustains the unionist/nationalist divide in politics. The third problem is that the definition of the two communities is rather too crude and doesn’t allow for diversity within and across these communities (for example, not all Catholics are nationalist, and not all Protestants’ primary identity is British, see Figure 1). And finally it doesn’t include the fact that there is a growing group of people who avowedly resist or object to those two communal identifiers (Hayward and McManus, 2019). Northern Ireland is not only more diverse in its population than it was 20 or 100 years ago, those who were born here also have a spread of different identities and aspirations. Northern Ireland society, in this regard, is far more progressive and changeable than the institutions that represent it. Which best describes your identity? No religion Protestant Catholic 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100% Irish not British More Irish than British Equally Irish and British More British than irish British not Irish Other description Figure 1.
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