Life in Belfast; A short story The aftermath of the Troubles Kasha van der Poel Noordelijke Hogeschool Leeuwarden Master project Yvonne ter Brugge April 19, 2013 Table of content INTRODUCTION 3 BACKGROUND INFORMATION 4 A little bit of history; the troubles and before that 4 What is the history of Northern Ireland concerning the division of Catholics and Protestants and violence? 4 Conclusion 6 Violence in Belfast today 7 How do the citizens of Belfast regard the violence in their city? 7 How do the citizens of Belfast cope with the violence in their city? 7 Conclusion 9 Segregation and division in Belfast 9 What really divides the two groups; Catholics and Protestants? 9 How do both sides (Catholic and Protestant) view themselves and the other? 9 Conclusion 10 The Northern Irish people’s opinions 11 How do both sides (Catholic and Protestant) view themselves and the other? 11 How do the citizens of Belfast regard living segregated? 11 Conclusion 13 Current events in Belfast 13 Which political issues are currently dealt with in Northern Ireland? 13 How do the people react to these political issues? 13 Conclusion 16 My own experience 16 Conclusion 18 Final conclusion 18 References 19 SHORT STORY 21 The story 21 References 34 EPILOGUE 35 Introduction For my master project I wanted to research what life in today’s Belfast is like, regarding the division of Catholics and Protestants and the violence. That there is a lot of violence in Belfast is not news to anyone. I saw it myself when I lived there and it is all over the news. The focus of my master project lies on how the people in Belfast cope with it and how it affects their lives. In this project, I will depict life Belfast as it is today. To research what the life in Belfast is like, I will find the answers to the following questions: History 1. What is the history of Northern Ireland concerning the division of Catholics and Protestants and violence? Violence and segregation 2. What really divides the two groups; Catholics and Protestants? 3. How do both sides (Catholic and Protestant) view themselves and the other? 4. How do the citizens of Belfast regard living segregated? 5. How do the citizens of Belfast regard the violence in their city? 6. How do the citizens of Belfast cope with the violence in their city? Current affairs 7. Which political issues are currently dealt with in Northern Ireland? 8. How do the people react to these political issues? To find the answers to these questions I read books, articles, papers and researches. My findings can be found under the sub-heading ‘background information’. With these findings I have written my short story in which I depict life in Belfast today. Background information Before writing my short story on life in Belfast in the 21st century, I researched the situation there in the 21st century, and the situation before that to see what gave rise to the situation nowadays. With this research I will try to find the answers to the questions listed in the introduction. I will give a short summary of my findings and will draw conclusion from that in order to answer the research questions. A little bit of history; the troubles and before that What is the history of Northern Ireland concerning the division of Catholics and Protestants and violence? The conflict over Ireland has seethes for about eight hundred years. It started in the 12th century when King Henry II concurred Ireland with the consent of Rome. They were to bring the Irish church under papal control. In 16th century King Henry VIII and his government stationed troops in Ireland. In that time England was Protestant whereas Ireland remained Catholic. In order to acquire support for the forces of occupation, the English Crown settled Protestants from Scotland and England in Ireland’s most fertile regions. All resistance to the occupation troops was put down by brute force. The Irish nobility were either murdered or forced into exile. The Protestant victors made up the new upper class. In 1690 the rule of Ireland was definitely decided when King William of Orange (William III) defeated the troops of James II (who was friendly to Rome) at the battle of Boyne. From this time on Ireland was colonized by England. Most of the Scottish Protestants who helped England with the occupation settled in the north of Ireland. From then the terms ‘Catholic’ and ‘Protestant’ acquired a new meaning. Catholic became a synonym for Irish nationalism and Protestant a synonym for the new rulers and later for British unionism. (Stuckrad, Auffarth, Bernard & Mohr, 2006) In 1920 the British government changed its policy in relation to Ireland. In 1921 The Home Rule Act divided Ireland into two areas; Northern Ireland and Southern Ireland. This gave both areas a home rule administration, though they were to continue as a part of the United Kingdom. The border between north and south was very well thought through; Northern Ireland was the heartland of Protestant unionist opposition to Irish nationalism and therefore the likelihood of disapproval or rejection was nearly non-existent. However, it also contained a substantial number of Catholics – in 1926 33.41% of the population were Catholic. Yet, they were not represented in the (local) government. This was mostly due to the face that most Catholics didn’t have the right to vote; the right to vote depended on home-ownership, but home-ownership was enjoyed almost exclusively by the Protestant population. The Irish War of Independence (a war mounted the Irish Republican Army (IRA) against the British government) led to the Anglo-Irish Treaty in 1921 in which both sides agreed to ceasefire. This treaty ended the British rule in Southern Ireland and established the Irish Free State in 1922. However, the Nationalists in Northern Ireland, believing in a transience of partition, generally boycotted the new state. This and the unfriendly attitudes of the unionist elite meant that the Northern minority (the Catholics) were effectively denied a say at a crucial stage in the evolution of the North and Northern nationalists had to accept that partition would survive and that they would have to coexist with the unionist regime. Not only were nationalists never in government, they were also underrepresented in most areas of the workplace, including the police force, and were dramatically underrepresented in the elite cadres of the public sector. Because of their underrepresentation in the police force, the relationship between the nationalists and the police force was often antagonistic. In 1949, the Ireland Act gave the Northern Irish government a measure that affirmed that Northern Ireland would cease to be a part of the United Kingdom only if the Stormont parliament so decided. However, as long as the government is ruled by Protestants, this would not happen. In 1968 the Catholic Civil Rights Movement emerged and demanded a vote for each citizen. But structural discrimination, and the British government’s contempt for peaceful protest and resistance, won the militant IRA (Irish Republican Army) more and more sympathy on the part of the Catholic minority of the population and August 1969 marked the start of violent confrontation and instantaneously the beginning of The Troubles. The violence used but the IRA (bombings and assassinations) only provoked counter-terror and in 1971 the Ulster Defensive Association (UDA; later Ulster Freedom Fighters, UFF) was founded. For it, de facto, all Catholics are potential targets of assault. With the introduction of British troops in 1972 (Bloody Sunday; British paratroopers shot and killed thirteen participants of a peaceful civil-rights demonstration), the situation escalated further. Subsequently Prime Minister Edward Heath dissolved the Northern Irish government and administrated the Province of Northern Ireland directly which resulted in an even more murderous spiral of force and counterforce. The Troubles continued in the absence of a political settlement. On April the 10th 1998 a peace plan for Northern Ireland was drawn up in Belfast. This was called the Good Friday Agreement or Belfast Agreement. In a referendum held on May 22nd, 1998, 71% of the voters in Northern Ireland approved of the peace agreement. Northern regained its government which now is represented by both Catholics and Protestants. The Democratic Unionist Party as extreme Protestant and its counterpart Sinn Féin. Sinn Féin first regarded as the political arm of the IRA, but was later prepared for dialogue and compromise in the eye of the peace negotiations. (Donnelly, 2004) Conclusion The division of the Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland is very old. It started in the 16th century when Henry VIII brought the Scottish Protestant (Northern) Ireland. Ever since then there have been two parties; the Irish Catholics and the British Protestants. There had been violence between the two groups on and off, but it really started in 1969 when the Catholics demanded the right to vote, but where denied it and ignored by the Protestant government. They started using violence which provoked the other group to use violence as well. Since then, the violence never really stopped even though there is officially peace between the two since 1998. Violence in Belfast today How do the citizens of Belfast regard the violence in their city? How do the citizens of Belfast cope with the violence in their city? In 2012 in the space of twelve weeks Belfast witnessed a series of violent confrontations involving Republicans and Loyalists communities and the police. Each of these events was triggered by decisions take in relation to celebration, commemoration and expression of identity. These riots resulted in widespread destruction, fear and threat to human life.