Northern Ireland

Conflict and Change

Jonathan Tonge

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781317875178
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Essential text for a 1 term/semester undergraduate course on Northern Ireland (usually a 2nd year option). Combines coverage of the historical context of the situation in Northern Ireland with a thorough examination of the contemporary political situation and the peace process. The book explores the issues behind the longevity of the conflict and provides a detailed analysis of the attempts to create a lasting peace in Northern Ireland.

Chapter 1

A divided island

DOI: 10.4324/9781315837871-1

The problems of Northern Ireland are rooted in the struggle for an independent Ireland and the division of Ireland emerging from support or hostility to that struggle. This chapter examines the balance of political forces – Irish Nationalist and British Unionist – which led to the partition of Ireland earlier this century.

Until the seventeenth century, Ireland existed as a largely autonomous, but disunited country, under loose British rule. Centuries earlier, the Normans attempted to exert some form of central government, but this effort had a limited geographic and administrative remit. Political control, in so far as it existed, was exercised by Gaelic chiefs, such as the O’Donnells and O’Neills. Each had the ability to mobilise small private armies, or clans, used to preserve local dominance. In areas around Dublin, a more direct English authority was exerted, following Henry VIII’s defeat of an Irish Army in 1534.

1.1 The roots of modern problems

The origins of the current political problems of Northern Ireland lie in historical conflicts between Planter and Gael. Pre-plantation, the hegemony of the clans was strongest in Ulster, the province which traditionally comprised nine counties: Antrim, Armagh, Derry, Down, Fermanagh, Tyrone, Cavan, Donegal and Monaghan. Only much later, with the partition of Ireland, was Ulster redefined to become a political-administrative unit excluding the latter three counties. Attracted by close geographical proximity and exploitative opportunities, large numbers of Scottish Protestants undertook the Plantation of Ulster in 1609.

Resentment towards the newly arrived landowners was created by two factors. Firstly, there was considerable displacement of the resident Irish from their land. By the beginning of the eighteenth century, the native Irish owned only 14 per cent of the land (Darby, 1983: 14). Secondly, there existed cultural and religious hostility to the new Protestant arrivals from the indigenous, Catholic population. This hostility translated into rebellion in 1641, an uprising crushed by Cromwell within a decade.

Catholic aspirations of retaking territory were revived by the accession to the English throne of their co-religionist James II in 1685. Deposed in the ‘Glorious Revolution’ of 1688 by William of Orange, James II raised an army supported by many Irish Catholics and the two protagonists clashed at the Battle of the Boyne in Ireland in 1690. Annual celebration of King William’s victory on 12 July remains important for many Ulster Protestants. Over a century later, the foundation of the Orange Order provided a forum for Protestants determined to resist the threat of ‘Popery’.

Celebration of historical landmarks, such as the Battle of the Boyne, arguably risks overstating the role of religion in conflict within Ireland. Irish history has never been a straightforward tale of conflict between native Catholic Irish versus Protestant Scottish and English settlers. One irony is that William of Orange received the tacit support of the Pope in his struggle with James II. After 1690 there was considerable hostility between Protestants and Presbyterians, a tension later reduced through the establishment of an alliance in the Orange Order, a religious and cultural organisation closed to Catholics. It was a Presbyterian, Wolfe Tone, who in 1798 led the Irish rebellion against British rule. Tone’s United Irishmen comprised Presbyterians and Catholics, engaged in a fruitless series of risings against colonial governance.

At the time of the formal establishment of the Union of Great Britain and Ireland, religious and national affiliations were by no means interchangeable. Many Irish Catholics supported the Union, whilst the Orange Order was in opposition (Connolly, 1990). The development of a Catholic Nationalist movement arose from the oppressive anti-Catholic laws which impinged upon civil rights. The link between religion and national identity grew as Ireland was ‘governed in many respect as a crown colony because it was seen as a security problem’ (Ward, 1993).

Beneficial effects of Catholic emancipation in 1829 were offset in Ireland by the impact of the famine a decade later, which helped foster an embryonic national liberation movement. Caused by a combination of the failure of the potato crop and the indifference of Ireland’s authorities, the famine halved Ireland’s population. Death or emigration were more common results than constitutional agitation. Nonetheless, the forerunner of the IRA, the Irish Republican Brotherhood, initially known as the Irish Revolutionary Brotherhood, was formed in 1858, with the ambition of ending British rule in Ireland.

Agrarian conflict was common during the nineteenth century. The most important organisation during this period was the Tenant League, which attempted to secure better rights for struggling tenant farmers. In its advocacy of change, the League was confronted by differing demands from farmers. Whilst all wanted increased rights, farmers in the west wanted more land to farm, to increase their returns. Elsewhere the primary concern was to lower rents. If the initial response of the British Prime Minister Gladstone, the Land Act of 1870, satisfied few, his 1881 Act was more successful in establishing fairer rents and greater freedom for farmers.

Within Ulster, the impact of the famine was much less marked. Here, the impact of the industrial revolution was evident, reinforcing perceptions of the ‘separateness’ of Ulster, a distinctiveness of identity that has also been portrayed in geographic terms Bardon, 1992). It might be added that this latter notion of uniqueness has been derided elsewhere as somehow suggesting that ‘the origins of the Loyalist parade are to be found in geology’ (Ryan, 1994: 104). What cannot be disputed is that a prosperous skilled working-class, overwhelmingly comprising Protestants, had emerged in Ulster by the close of the nineteenth century, based upon the shipbuilding and engineering industries. Compared to rural Ireland, Belfast, the heartland of this labour aristocracy, appeared to have much more in common with large mainland British ports.

1.2 Home Rule for Ireland

Persistent internal conflicts over land and rights emphasise that the ‘ancient Irish nation is only a cherished myth’ (Wilson, 1989: 20). Nonetheless, during the latter part of the nineteenth century, it appeared to the British government that there existed sufficient Irish national consciousness to demand a political response. This was based upon the granting of Home Rule to the entire island of Ireland. The rise of nationalism was not confined to Ireland. Instead its development was a feature of most European states.

According to the plans of the British government, a parliament in Dublin would be created to give the Irish limited autonomy over domestic matters, whilst the Westminster parliament would continue to legislate on defence and foreign policy, along with most economic affairs.

In introducing the first Home Rule Bill in Parliament in 1886, Gladstone could be accused of political expediency. Through such action, the Liberal Party garnered the support of the Irish Parliamentary Party, founded by Isaac Butt in 1874 and led by Charles Stewart Parnell after 1880. The capture of 85 seats by Parnelľs party in the 1885 election left it holding the balance of power, a factor not unimportant in Gladstone’s new advocacy of Home Rule.

Nonetheless, Liberal Party support for devolution was not merely a product of political calculation. Firstly, Gladstone possessed a genuine belief in selfgovernment, which exonerates him from charges of self-interest_ĝ Secondary absolution is provided when one examines the consequences for the Liberal Party of Gladstone’s beliefs. Divided between Gladstone Home Rule supporters and Liberal Unionists, many of whom later joined the Conservative Unionists, the party was dealt a blow which contributed significantly to its later rapid demise and exclusion from office.

A further reason for support for Home Rule was the desire to placate constitutional Irish Nationalists. With tension already evident between a fundamentalist wing of Irish nationalism and its constitutional proponents, the onus was on the British government to make concessions to parliamentary supporters of partial Irish autonomy. Friction between ‘respectable’ and ‘radical’ routes to Irish independence was to become a recurring theme in Irish political history. Parnellites favoured constitutional approaches, but did not inevitably eschew more radical approaches and retained links with some Fenians who preferred a two-tier strategy (Hachey, 1984). Indeed, Parnell was briefly jailed in 1880 following opposition to land measures which appeared to offer little prospect of ownership to tenant farmers.

Schism within the Liberal Party contributed to the defeat of the 1886 Home Rule Bill. Its 1893 successor, a weaker variant proposing the transfer of fewer powers, was defeated in the House of Lords, during a period in which the Irish Parliamentary Party had temporarily split following the citation of Parnell in a divorce case. Liberal Party stances on Home Rule varied according to leader, oscillating between the hostility of Rosebery to the enthusiasm of Campbell Bannerman. Despite the latter’s belief in the idea and the achievement of a large Liberal majority at the 1906 election, there had been a post-Gladstone ‘policy of disengagement’ from Irish self-government (Kee, 1976: 165).

The third attempt at Home Rule in 1912 was partly a product of political arithmetic. The Liberals, now led by Asquith, had enjoyed Irish parliamentary support for the passing of the ‘People’s Budget’ of 1909 and the ending of the permanent veto of legislation held by the House of Lords in 1911. Operating with a slender majority after the two elections of 1910, Asquith, a reluctant supporter of Home Rule, reintroduced legislation. Although offering only constrained autonomy for Ireland, the Bill appeared to satisfy the Nationalist ambitions of Irish MPs.

Liberal support for Home Rule polarised the parties in the House of Commons. The Conservative Party indicated its willingness to defend the Union in its current form, fearing that the granting of autonomy to Ireland would weaken Britain’s colonial governance elsewhere. Indeed, as Patrick O’Farrell declares of the Home Rule era, the ‘essence of Conservative Party policy was Unionism as the nexus of imperial power and of the imperial ethos’ (O’Farrell, 1975: 97). Liberal Party calculations were also centred upon the most appropriate means of preserving the British Empire, but hinged upon a more concessionary approach.

In opposing any weakening of the Union, the Conservative leader from 1902 until 1911, Arthur Balfour, preferred a policy of ‘killing home rule with kindness’ by addressing Irish grievances rather than revising constitutional arrangements (quoted in Wilson, 1989: 35). For more strident Conservatives, opposition to Home Rule meant advocacy of the extra-parliamentary activity undertaken by the people of Ulster. As early as the introduction of the first Home Rule Bill, Lord Randolph Churchill, in endorsing the playing of the ‘Orange Card’, suggested that ‘Ulster will Fight and Ulster will be Right’. Churchill’s polemic was partly attributable to his party-leadership aspirations. He identified that a significant body of Conservative opinion was prepared to back any measures used by Ulster Unionists to oppose Home Rule.

By the time of the Third Home Rule Bill, opposition in the House of Commons was advanced with particular vehemence by Bonar Law, a Conservative leader of Ulster Presbyterian stock. Bonar Law declared that he could ‘imagine no length of resistance’ to which Ulster could go which would break his support for its cause. Further endorsement of military resistance to Home Rule was again suggested by his assertion that ‘there are things stronger than parliamentary majorities’ (quoted in Phoenix, 1994: 112).

Not until 1912 was the partition of Ireland discussed in public, ‘even as a distasteful possibility’ (Laffan, 1983: 33). By the outbreak of World War I, however, it was evident that Home Rule was unlikely to embrace all of Ireland, given the strength of hostility to the measure within Ulster. The British Prime Minister Asquith favoured an option by which individual counties in the North would be able to opt out from Home Rule for six years. Rejected by Unionists as a stay of execution, the plan was modified to allow for permanent opt-outs for the four counties with Protestant majorities. Unionists, prepared to abandon their colleagues in most Southern counties, wanted a six-county opt-out.

Although the Home Rule Bill was passed in 1914, war intervened, preventing its enactment. Special legislation was promised in respect of Ulster’s constitutional position. As differing arrangements for sectors of the island were now to be devised, the eventual formal division of Ireland was inevitable.

1.3 The growth of Ulster unionism

Although Conservative support for their cause was useful, it was not the decisive factor in encouraging Ulster’s Protestants to resist Home Rule. Defiance would have been the norm whatever the stances of mainland parliamentary parties. Indeed, amongst some Unionists there was suspicion over the solidity of the alliance, at least until the establishment of Bonar Law as Conservative Party leader.

Both the embryonic Irish Nationalist movement and the British government underestimated the amount of hostility proposals for Home Rule would engender in the north of Ireland. A common dismissal of the threat of selfgovernment for Ulster if Home Rule was imposed was that of ‘Orangeade’. Whilst it was true that as late as 1885, over half of Ulster’s 33 parliamentary seats were won by the Home Rule Party, rioting in Belfast over the Home Rule Bill of 1886 offered an early portent of the ramification of any all-Ireland measure. Furthermore, the 1886 polling reverse served merely to end the earlier complacency of Unionists.

Opposition to Home Rule revived the Orange Order in the late 1800s. By 1905, cohesive Unionist politics developed through the creation of the Ulster Unionist Council (UUC). For the first time, the political, religious and cultural forces of unionism were fused in a single organisation, the political homogeneity of which was enhanced by the unity of defensive resistance to Home Rule. At its foundation, the UUC comprised 200 representatives, consisting of 100 from Ulster Unionist constituency associations, 50 from the Orange Order and 50 co-opted members. Doubling in size by 1918, the UUC ‘fostered a partitionist mentality’ as it emphasised that Ulster could not form part of any imposed all-Ireland settlement (Jackson, 1994: 42). Indeed, more militant sections of Protestant opinion, such as the Apprentice Boys of Derry, continued to swell the numbers on the Council.

Opposition to Home Rule amongst Unionists was based upon three factors. Firstly, Ulster had prospered under British rule. Sections of the Province’s skilled workforce represented an advanced section of the working-class on any international comparison. This marginal superiority permitted the development of an alliance between workers and employers, the latter emphasising common cause. Economic conflicts were by no means unknown, but they did not fracture political and religious alliances. If this proved the despair of the small non-sectarian organisations of the left, it was nonetheless hardly surprising. Protestantism was not only a useful faith for securing a passage to heaven, but opened shipbuilding gates in addition to the pearly type. By 1911, 93 per cent of Belfast’s shipbuilders were Protestants, compared to 76 per cent of the population (Farrell, 1980).

Secondly, there was the strong religious component to the formation of attitudes. Partial separation from Britain would lead to eventual incorporation within a ‘Papist’ Ireland which would offer little tolerance towards Protestant dissidents. Again, hostility towards Catholicism as a religious creed transcended social classes. The Presbyterian and Methodist Churches, along with the Church of Ireland, were active in the campaign against Home Rule. Indeed, the Presbyterian Church described resistance to Home Rule as a ‘sacred duty’ (Phoenix, 1994: 113).

Finally, the assertion of Ulster Protestants of their British identity was reinforced by a Gaelic revival in the south of Ireland. This merely emphasised Ulster’s cultural distinctiveness, although it should be noted that Protestants have always played a part in the development of Gaelic culture. Set alongside political developments, the revival fostered the perception that Ulster was the ‘antithesis of Irishness’ (Jackson, 1994: 44). These three mutually reinforcing elements of an Ulster identity were hardened by the defensiveness of a siege mentality, as the Union with Britain was threatened.

Popular opposition to Home Rule was pervasive in Ulster, led by the Dublin lawyer Edward Carson and organised by the Northern businessman James Craig. Assuming leadership of the Ulster Unionists in 1910, Carson realised that opposition to Home Rule for Ireland as an entirety was not viable. Accordingly, he concentrated his efforts to ensure a veto of what he described as the ‘most nefarious conspiracy that has ever been hatched against a free people’ within the ‘Protestant province of Ulster’ (quoted in Hachey, 1984: 74–6). Rebellion against Home Rule had mass support to the extent that a Solemn League and Covenant rejecting the measure was signed by 471,0 individuals on Ulster Day in September 1912. Signatories pledged to ‘use all means that may be found necessary’ to defeat Home Rule.

Indications of what ‘all means’ actually meant became evident the following year, with the creation of the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF). Drilled mainly in Orange Halls, the UVF attracted cross-class support throughout Ulster, with commanders often landowners (Stewart, 1967)...