Political Discourse and Conflict Resolution : Debating Peace in Northern Ireland [1 ed.] 9780203842492, 9780415566285

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Political Discourse and Conflict Resolution

This book offers new insights into the close relationship between political discourse and conflict resolution through critical analysis of the role of discursive change in a peace process. Just as a peace process has many dimensions and stakeholders, so the discourses considered here come from a wide range of sources and actors. The book contains in-­depth analyses of official discourses used to present the peace process, the discourses of political party leaders engaging (or otherwise) with it, the discourses of community-­level activists responding to it, and the discourses of the media and the academy commenting on it. These discourses reflect varying levels of support for the peace process – from obstruction to promotion – and the role of language in moving across this spectrum according to issue and occasion. Common to all our analyses is the conviction that the language used by political protagonists and cultural stakeholders has a profound effect on progression towards peace. Bringing together leading experts on Northern Ireland’s peace process from a range of academic disciplines, including political science, sociology, linguistics, history, geography, law, and peace studies, this book offers new insights into the discursive dynamics of violent political conflict and its resolution. Katy Hayward is Lecturer in Sociology at Queen’s University Belfast. Catherine O’Donnell is an independent scholar. She was an IRCHSS post-­ doctoral fellow at the Humanities Institute of Ireland, University College Dublin, 2005–2007.

Routledge Studies in Peace and Conflict Resolution Series Editors: Tom Woodhouse and Oliver Ramsbotham University of Bradford

Peace and Security in the Postmodern World The OSCE and conflict resolution Dennis J.D. Sandole Truth Recovery and Justice after Conflict Managing violent pasts Marie Breen Smyth Peace in International Relations Oliver Richmond Social Capital and Peace-­Building Creating and resolving conflict with trust and social networks Edited by Michaelene Cox Business, Conflict Resolution and Peacebuilding Derek Sweetman Creativity and Conflict Resolution Alternative pathways to peace Tatsushi Arai Climate Change and Armed Conflict Hot and cold wars James R. Lee Transforming Violent Conflict Radical disagreement, dialogue and survival Oliver Ramsbotham Governing Ethnic Conflict Consociation, identity and the price of peace Andrew Finlay Political Discourse and Conflict Resolution Debating peace in Northern Ireland Edited by Katy Hayward and Catherine O’Donnell

Political Discourse and Conflict Resolution

Debating peace in Northern Ireland

Edited by Katy Hayward and Catherine O’Donnell

First published 2011 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 270 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2010. To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk. © 2011 Selection and editorial matter, Katy Hayward and Catherine O’Donnell; individual contributors, their contributions. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data A catalog record has been requested for this book ISBN 0-203-84249-9 Master e-book ISBN ISBN 978-0-415-56628-5 (hbk) ISBN 978-0-203-84249-2 (ebk)

Contents



Notes on contributors Preface List of abbreviations

  1 Introduction: political discourse and conflict resolution

vii x xii 1

K aty H ayward

  2 Constructing legitimacy in political discourse in the early phase of the Troubles

16

S issel R osland

  3 Finding consensus: political discourse in the Republic of Ireland on the Troubles and peace process

32

C atherine O ’ D onnell

  4 Interpreting New Labour’s political discourse on the peace process

46

A aron E dwards

  5 Discourse worlds in Northern Ireland: the legitimisation of the 1998 Agreement

62

L aura F ilardo - ­L lamas

  6 ‘Humespeak’: the SDLP, political discourse and the peace process

77

P . J . M c L oughlin

  7 DUP discourses on violence and their impact on the peace process A mber R ankin and G ladys G aniel

93

vi   Contents   8 The old order changeth – or not? Modern discourses within the Orange Order

109

J a m e s W . M c A uley and J onathan T onge

  9 Continuity and change in the discourse of republican former prisoners

126

P eter S hirlow , J onathan T onge and J a m e s W . M c A uley

10 Imagining ‘a shared future’: post-­conflict discourses on peace-­building

143

M ilena K omaro v a

11 Sectarian demography: dubious discourses of ethno-­national conflict

160

O w e n M c E ldowney , J ames A nderson and I an S huttleworth

12 ‘From Belfast to Baghdad. . .’?: Discourses of Northern Ireland’s ‘model’ of conflict resolution

177

E amonn O ’ K ane

13 ‘The IRA are not Al-­Qaeda’: ‘new terrorism’ discourse and Irish republicanism

192

M ark M c G o v ern

14 Debating peace and conflict in Northern Ireland: towards a narrative approach

209

A drian L ittle



Select bibliography Index

224 228

Contributors

James Anderson is Emeritus Professor of Political Geography in Queen’s University Belfast. He has published widely on nationalism and national conflicts, borders and cross-­border co-­operation, and European integration. He has worked on various large projects on Irish and European topics, and is currently employed as a Co-­Investigator on a five-­year ESRC-­funded project on Belfast, Jerusalem and other divided cities (www.conflictincities.org). Aaron Edwards is Senior Lecturer in Defence and International Affairs at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst. He has published several articles on peace and conflict studies, and his recent books include Transforming the Peace Process in Northern Ireland (Irish Academic Press, 2008, co-­edited with Stephen Bloomer), A History of the Northern Ireland Labour Party (Manchester University Press, 2009) and The Northern Ireland Conflict: A Beginner’s Guide (Oneworld Publications, 2010, co-­authored with Cillian McGrattan). Laura Filardo-­Llamas is Lecturer of English at the University of Valladolid, Spain. Her main area of research is political discourse analysis, in particular from a linguistic perspective. She applied both topics in her PhD thesis on political discourse in Northern Ireland after the Agreement. She has published in the journal Ethnopolitics and contributed to Discourse and Politics (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2009). Gladys Ganiel is Lecturer in Conflict Resolution and Reconciliation at the Belfast campus of the Irish School of Ecumenics, Trinity College Dublin. She is the author of Evangelicalism and Conflict in Northern Ireland (Palgrave, 2008) and has published on the role of religion in politics, focusing on Northern Ireland, South Africa and Zimbabwe. Katy Hayward is Lecturer in the School of Sociology, Social Policy and Social Work at Queen’s University Belfast. She has published and taught in the fields of Irish studies, European integration, nationalism, border studies and conflict transformation. She co-­edited (with Muiris MacCárthaigh) Recycling the State: The Politics of Adaptation in Ireland (Irish Academic Press, 2007) and is the author of Irish Nationalism and European Integration (Manchester University Press, 2009).

viii   Contributors Milena Komarova is currently a Research Associate for the ‘Conflict in Cities and the Contested State’ ESRC research project (2007–2012), based at the School of Sociology, Social Policy and Social Work, Queen’s University Belfast. Her research work and interests focus on ethno-­national conflict in Northern Ireland and Belfast in particular, the built environment and conflict management, civil society, collective identities and discourse analysis. Adrian Little is Associate Professor and Reader in Political Theory at the University of Melbourne and currently the Head of the School of Social and Political Sciences. His books include The Politics of Radical Democracy (Edinburgh University Press, 2009, co-­edited with Moya Lloyd), Democratic Piety: Complexity, Conflict and Violence (Edinburgh University Press, 2008), Democracy and Northern Ireland: Beyond the Liberal Paradigm? (Palgrave Macmillan, 2004) and The Politics of Community: Theory and Practice (Edinburgh University Press, 2002). James W. McAuley is Associate Dean for Research and Enterprise, and Professor of Political Sociology and Irish Studies in the School of Human and Health Sciences at the University of Huddersfield. An acknowledged expert on unionism and loyalism in Northern Ireland, having published widely in this field, his latest book, Ulster’s Last Stand? (Re)Constructing Unionism after the Peace Process is published by Irish Academic Press (2010). Owen McEldowney specialises in the politics of population in relation to ethnicity, nationalism- and state-­building. He completed his PhD thesis at Queen’s University Belfast in 2009 on a political history of the discipline of demography in Ireland and Britain. He is the author of Creating Ethnic Populations: Sectarian Headcounting in Ireland, 1650–1920 (Irish Academic Press, forthcoming). Mark McGovern is Professor of Sociology in the Department of Social and Psychological Sciences at Edge Hill University, Lancashire. He has written widely on Irish republicanism and politics in Northern Ireland in journals including Capital and Class, Political Geography and Terrorism and Political Violence. He has also researched and published on post-­conflict transition, including the co-­authored book (with Patricia Lundy) Ardoyne: The Untold Truth (Ardoyne Commemoration Project, 2002), and in international journals such as Law and Society, International Journal of Transitional ­Justice and Sociology. P.J. McLoughlin is a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow at the School of Politics, International Studies and Philosophy, Queen’s University Belfast. He has written various articles on the Northern Ireland problem and is the author of John Hume and the Revision of Irish Nationalism (Manchester University Press, 2010). Catherine O’Donnell is an independent scholar. She was previously an IRCHSS post-­doctoral fellow at the Humanities Institute of Ireland, UCD, and a

Contributors   ix Research Fellow at the School of Politics, International Studies and Philosophy at QUB. Her book, Fianna Fáil, Irish Republicanism and the Northern Ireland Troubles, 1968–2005 was published by Irish Academic Press in 2007 and she has published articles in Irish Political Studies and Contemporary British History. Eamonn O’Kane is Senior Lecturer in Politics at the University of Wolverhampton. He has published articles related to the Northern Ireland peace process, British–Irish relations, conflict resolution theory and comparative peace processes in a variety of journals. He is author of Britain, Ireland and Northern Ireland since 1980: The Totality of Relationships (Routledge, 2007, paperback 2010) and co-­author (with Paul Dixon) of Northern Ireland Since 1969 (Longman, 2010). Amber Rankin is a human terrain analyst for BAE Systems. She holds a Masters degree from the University of St Andrews in International Security Studies and a Bachelors degree in Political Science from Providence College. Sissel Rosland is a Norwegian Research Council post-­doctoral fellow in History at the Department of Archaeology, History, Cultural Studies and Religion, University of Bergen, Norway. She is currently working on a research project called ‘Law and Democracy between Security and Liberty’ comparing debates on counter-­terrorism in the UK after the Guildford and Birmingham bombings in 1974 and the London bombings in 2005. Peter Shirlow is Senior Lecturer in the School of Law, Queen’s University Belfast and is a leading expert on segregated communities throughout Northern Ireland. He has edited two books (Who are the People? and Development Ireland) and co-­authored (with Brendan Murtagh) Belfast: Segregation, Violence and the City (Pluto Press, 2006) as well as publishing in a range of international journals. Ian Shuttleworth is Senior Lecturer in Geography in Queen’s University Belfast. His research interests are mainly in social geography and he has published widely on issues of population and employment. Jonathan Tonge is Professor of Politics at the University of Liverpool and President of the UK Political Studies Association. He was Principal Investigator for the ESRC’s 2010 Northern Ireland General Election study. Recent books include Abandoning the Past? Former Political Prisoners and Reconciliation (Manchester University Press, 2010, co-­authored), Northern Ireland (Polity, 2006), The New Northern Irish Politics (Palgrave, 2005) and Sinn Féin and the SDLP (Hurst/O’Brien, 2005, with Gerard Murray).

Preface

The origins of this book lie in a deceptively simple question: what role does political discourse play in conflict resolution? As a product of collaboration and intellectual engagement between scholars from a variety of disciplines, institutions, countries and generations, this book sets out to present some answers to this question based on detailed analysis of various discourses that have arisen from violence, agreement and change in contemporary Northern Ireland. Our premise has been that the careful crafting of language required in the course of negotiations does not end with the signing of a political accord. Learning from experience in our chosen case study, we seek here to conceive conflict resolution in terms that allow for multiple rather than shared discourses, dissonance as well as harmony. Thus, the title of this book embodies our belief that, in a process of transition from conflict, it is necessary to frame ‘peace’ not only as a goal to be achieved but as a concept to be debated. Snatches of such debates – and reflections on the wider public discussion – were begun at a conference entitled ‘Peace Lines’ that we co-­organised in June 2007 and was held in the Humanities Institute of Ireland, University College Dublin (UCD). At that conference, participants began to consider and compare the language used by politicians engaged in Northern Ireland’s peace process. Further pursuit of this research question has led to an expansion in the scope and number of contributions to this volume substantially beyond a focus on party political discourse. Revised versions of some of the papers presented at that conference were published in October 2008 in a special issue of Peace and Conflict Studies, the journal of the Network of Peace and Conflict Studies. We are particularly appreciative of the support of the editor of this journal, Honggang Yang, and his encouragement in our development of this research project. We gladly acknowledge the support of UCD Seed Funding which made the original conference possible. Both of us were recipients of Government of Ireland post-­doctoral fellowships (2005–2007) from the Irish Research Council for the Humanities and Social Sciences which enabled us to develop this research whilst being based in the Institute for British–Irish Studies and Humanities Institute of Ireland at UCD. We wish to express our deepest thanks to the staff at Routledge with whom we have had the pleasure of working. Finally, we take this opportunity to

Preface   xi reiterate our sincere gratitude to each and every one of the contributors to this volume for their commitment to this venture, their engagement with the difficult issues this topic encompasses, and their patience throughout the editing process. On their behalf, we would like to dedicate this book to the many whose voices are not recorded and whose words are not reported, but whose decisions to speak out – and decisions to listen – contribute to the building of peace in places of daily engagement, out of the spotlight and away from the microphones.

Abbreviations

CAJ Committee on the Administration of Justice CFNI Community Foundation for Northern Ireland CRC Community Relations Council DUP Democratic Unionist Party ESRC Economic and Social Research Council IMC Independent Monitoring Commission INLA Irish National Liberation Army IRA Irish Republican Army IRCHSS Irish Research Council for the Humanities and Social Sciences MLA Member of the Legislative Assembly NICRA Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association NILP Northern Ireland Labour Party NIO Northern Ireland Office OFMDFM Office of the First and Deputy First Minister QUB Queen’s University Belfast RUC Royal Ulster Constabulary SDLP Social Democratic and Labour Party TUV Traditional Unionist Voice UCD University College Dublin UDA Ulster Defence Association UUP Ulster Unionist Party UVF Ulster Volunteer Force

1 Introduction Political discourse and conflict resolution Katy Hayward

This book examines discourses from a wide range of actors in Northern Ireland’s peace process – from heads of government to community workers, from former paramilitary prisoners to journalists. In doing so, we attempt to give a fair representation of the ways in which ‘conflict’ and ‘peace’ in Northern Ireland have been framed at various levels and stages – and the impact that overlap and divergence in such discourses has had. Notwithstanding this objective, I believe it necessary to introduce our work with a confession of omission; there is no chapter in this book dedicated to elaborating the perspectives of victims and narratives of victimhood. What we have scrutinised is the presentation of victims’ experiences as packaged and presented in mainstream political discourses in post-­Agreement Northern Ireland.1 In doing so, we point up our claim that it is political discourses that prevail in a process of conflict resolution. Yet, although we have found this predominance of political discourses in a peace process to be true, and (to a degree) necessary and even effective, this does not preclude us from acknowledging that it is neither adequate nor ideal. In Northern Ireland, public wariness at airing the un-­tempered views of people for whom the repercussions of conflict are a daily trauma has increased over the course of the peace process, despite the tireless work of organisations dedicated to redressing the marginalisation of victims. One such group was the Consultative Group on the Past, chaired by Robin Eames and Denis Bradley, which was established ‘to find a way forward out of the shadows of the past’ (2009: 14). Eames and Bradley describe being ‘overwhelmed with the level of engagement’ in this mission from across Northern Ireland – a fact that, they note, serves to highlight ‘the depth of hurt and suspicion that still lingers in every part of our society’. Before turning to the task of outlining recommendations, Eames and Bradley (2009: 10) prefaced their Report with the maxim: ‘Debate and discussion are healthy for any society emerging from years of violence and conflict.’ In a scenario heavy-­laden with irony, the public launch of this Report was a volatile affair. Although not as exclusive as many pivotal events in the peace process, ordinary people directly affected by the recommendations of the Group felt only able to made their points by standing outside the venue of the launch with placards, by heckling others at the event, or by standing in front of the stage

2   K. Hayward set for the venerable speakers. The face-­to-face confrontation of two individuals became the focus of the media mêlée: a woman and a man, a Protestant and a Catholic, an orphaned daughter and a bereaved brother. As their two worlds clashed under the glare of the press, it became clear that no one around them, in an apt microcosm of Northern Ireland society, knew how to respond to the articulation of such raw anger. It is easier, more predictable, less raucous to put responsibility for voicing victimhood into the hands of lawyers, courageous community workers or carefully picked representatives than to let victims speak for themselves. The insight and candour forged by grief and tragedy cuts through the niceties and norms of political conflict management. What is more, the rippling implications of the vocal expression of anger and pain have no clear boundaries or endpoints. This sits uneasily with the need for order and progress in a peace process; more devastatingly, it implies that the goal of reaching a ‘resolution’ to conflict becomes less attainable the more we listen.

The place for political discourse in conflict resolution In setting out this book on the relationship between discourse, conflict and peace, we are seeking to uncover a realm of conflict resolution that is rarely critiqued yet familiar to all (media coverage of political statements, for example, constitute a staple in the rote of a peace process). We want to examine the choice of language used by various actors and its possible effects on transition from violent conflict. By identifying the vital dynamic of ‘debating peace’ in transition from conflict, we hope to counter the impression (as provocatively suggested above) that peace can only be preserved at a cost to open and challenging public discussion.2 The grounds for this analysis are set out here. First, conflict resolution is not a goal nor, indeed, a tightrope; establishing lasting patterns of peaceful interaction and ‘normalised’ channels of trust and legitimacy must ultimately be an inclusive and continually evolving process. We acknowledge that the concept itself is, somewhat ironically, a contested notion. In choosing to use this term, we do not seek to make any particular claims with regards to superior insights into processes of transition as compared with, say, those of ‘conflict transformation’. Rather, we subscribe to the assessment of renowned experts that the field of conflict resolution is necessarily broad and usefully inclusive (Ramsbotham et al. 2005: 8–9). This is not to say that we do not use this term with great caution. We share a profound critical unease with the implied conviction that conflict can be definitively resolved.3 Agree it; solve it; end it; peace. As is expounded with great clarity in the concluding chapter of this book by Little (Chapter 14), a rejection of this particular interpretation of conflict resolution arises not merely from scholarly semantics but from lived experience in countries labelled as ‘post-­Agreement’ or ‘post-­conflict’. To borrow a cliché, what we wish to show is that it is not the destination but the journey that is important in the process of conflict resolution.

Introduction   3 One of the few unimpeachable principles of conflict resolution is that it must incorporate all society, not just those with political influence or acumen. Indeed, the concept of conflict resolution is often conscientiously applied to processes outside the realm of political activity (see, for example, Arai 2009). However, it is our intention to highlight the relevance of the insights provided by theorists of conflict resolution to this ‘politicised’ sphere. We do not believe that this principle is incompatible with a focus on political discourse. On the contrary, we seek to show that, just as it can exacerbate conflict, so political discourse can play a crucial role in facilitating peace. We define political discourse broadly – not by its context or speaker but in terms of its use, i.e. language that performs the social function of defining collective identities, legitimate hegemony and motivating values which find expression in political associations and goals (see also Chilton 2004; Chilton and Schäffner 2002; Wodak 2009). Our premise is that, in a context of conflict and transition from conflict, such political utilisation of language is particularly prevalent and crucial. If politics is about bargaining, persuasion, communication and co-­operation, it is one of the most important uses of discourse in the social world. These discursive features of political activity are especially fraught in a context of societal division. This is not least because a conflict situation confers even greater political weight on ideology and identity (both discursively constructed). For such reasons, political language plays a crucial role in the transition out of conflict (Schäffner and Wenden 1999). We should pause to acknowledge here that silence is as necessary for peace as speech, and the importance of having opportunities to choose both must not be overlooked. A healthy process of conflict resolution, however, needs to ensure that silence is not imposed on some and, moreover, that the views of those most weakened or marginalised in the conflict are not expressed solely through those who dominate the public sphere. The shock of images from the launch of the Eames–Bradley Report was not a response to the views expressed so much as astonishment that it was victims themselves who were voicing them under the media glare. Such deep-­rooted grievance has been commodified for political ends in the peace process; although the context and means of communication have changed, it is notable that the act of assimilating victimhood into political goals is not dissimilar to experience during the Troubles.

Political discourse: power and principle The significance of discourse in socio-­political terms relates to the fact that it may be used to legitimise, accompany, disguise or substitute for change in political values and activity. These various possibilities point directly to what is simultaneously the greatest strength and the greatest difficulty of discourse as a topic of study: its enigmatic relationship with practice and context. Indeed, according to Fairclough (2001), the term ‘discourse’ refers to each of three levels of the social world – language/text, practice/interaction and context – and, importantly, the connections between them.4 It is precisely because of this acknowledged complexity that analysing discourses can provide some insight

4   K. Hayward into the processes involved in exacerbating conflict and facilitating peace. It is possible to identify two crucial dimensions to the role of discourse in relation to ‘small “p” politics’ that have been of particular relevance to the peace process in Northern Ireland. The use of language in relation to power and in shaping principles is essential to any process of conflict resolution. Power: politics as discursive action Put simply, ‘the language of politics is the language of power’ (de Landtsheer 1998: 3). Politics affects the way people think about, communicate regarding, and act in relation to social conditions and facts. For this reason, Laclau and Mouffe (1985) designate all social systems to be inherently political constructions. More particularly, as Howarth (1998: 275) claims, ‘political practices serve to constitute (and undermine) discourses and the identities they form’. The relationship between the changing political world and the language used to describe and appraise it, or between conception and action, is close and crucial (Skinner 1989: 6). The changing relationships of power that characterise the transition from conflict to peace (or vice versa) are, to a degree, the manifestation of the discourses of political actors. I note in particular that the subject (speaker of the text, in this case usually a politician) seeks to manipulate the potential of the discursive text to affect the other two realms of practice and context as much as to reflect them. It is accepted that political constitutions, laws and norms reflect dominant discourses, namely the language/ideology of those in society who hold the reins of structural power (see Foucault 1972; Bourdieu 1991). The greater the actor’s power, or capacity to change the socio-­political and structural environment, the more the actor’s discourse is likely to affect the wider context for public interaction. Put differently, the power of an actor is related to the strength of the effect of a text of his/ her words on individual or group behaviour and experience. This is most obvious when considering official discourses (i.e. the language used by actors as representatives of the government or state), as has been done by O’Donnell (Chapter 3) and Edwards (Chapter 4) in relation to the Irish and British governments during the Troubles and peace process, and O’Kane (Chapter 12) and McGovern (Chapter 13) when considering the retrospective presentation of the self-­same Troubles and peace process abroad. By having the capacity to shape the rules governing the production and reception of discourse in the public sphere, such actors are able to manage the interpretation (and, in effect, the meaning) of political discourses (for analysis of this effect, see Haidar and Rodriguez 1999). Analyses of the discourses of political parties, community representatives and former paramilitaries in Northern Ireland contained in this book reveal the importance of the concept of power in discourses from a range of groups directly involved in conflict and its resolution. Principle: discourse as political action Discourse is ‘socially constitutive’ (Wodak et al. 1999: 8). It generates and produces social conditions, maintains, legitimates and reproduces them. On

Introduction   5 account of this, Ball et al. (1989: 2) have designated conceptual change to be ‘a species of political innovation’. Because conceptual change attends any reconstitution of the political world, political change and conceptual change must be understood as one complex and interrelated process (Farr 1989: 30–32). Moreover, a key element of discourse theory is the notion that actors/agents and systems/structures in the social and political realm ‘undergo constant historical and social change’ (Howarth and Stavrakakis 2000: 6). Discourse is central to this process of change and, importantly, to creating the impression of stability through its role in bringing together concepts, interaction and context. There needs to be movement in all three realms for real change to take place. However, again, this depends on the power and influence of the speaker of the text and, crucially, its reporting in the public realm. The role of the media, particularly local printed media, in Northern Ireland is acknowledged throughout this book. The closer a text appears to relate to/address individual citizens’ experience of social conditions and their interpretation of them, the more influence it will have. This is because of the congruity (as noted above) between dynamics of interpretation and production. More broadly, there needs to be a certain consistency and logic in the relationship between text, practice and context as put forward by the speaker. This can be ‘explained’ through the ideology maintained by political parties (among other communal/elite actors) on behalf of particular groups. Schäffner and Wenden (1999: xx) claim that ‘ideologies shape group and individual attitudes which, communicated in discourse and determining other social practices, can either facilitate or hinder the achievement of peace’. In their influential work on Language and Peace, Schäffner and Wenden (1999, after Galtung) work with a definition of ‘peace’ as the absence of structural violence. This is necessary because, they note, other forms of violence can continue through discriminatory practices, institutions and ideologies (Schäffner and Wenden 1999: xxii). We similarly acknowledge that discourse (in its three forms of text, practice and context) can perpetuate structural violence as well as direct violence. Furthermore, we are as interested in what might be termed the ‘positive’ as well as the ‘negative’ effects of political discourse in the transition from conflict. This is particularly evident regarding the role of discourse as a medium for upholding the ideology or principles of a particular group (see Leudar et al. 2004). Such principles help to affirm the historical integrity of their group, to rationalise the stance taken by group leaders in response to the present situation, and to imagine the ideal position of the group in the future.

Political discourse in Northern Ireland In a situation of conflict or ineffectual democracy, a lack of political engagement means that the ability of political discourse to effect change – or even representation – in political interaction and the political landscape is stymied.5 In Northern Ireland, the deficit of real political power held by local politicians together with lack of representation (and potential for holding power) in the UK parliament embedded inequality at the macro level for all in Northern Ireland for much

6   K. Hayward of the duration of the Troubles. Even aside from this context, the powerful potential of political discourse to affect prospects for violence has long been recognised in Northern Ireland. It was evident during the conflict, as seen in the decision by the Irish government in 1971 and the British government in 1988 to impose broadcasting bans on Sinn Féin prior to the IRA ceasefire in 1994. And from the early 1990s onwards, in a period of political sensitivity surrounding cautious negotiations, top-­level recognition of the power of political discourse was exemplified in the care taken by the two governments to issue joint statements on Northern Ireland.6 An official assumption in Northern Ireland, as in most peace processes, has been that political dialogue needs to replace violence as the expression of dissent and difference. This view is articulated by the former Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Peter Hain (2008), in his assessment of Northern Ireland as ‘a model for conflict resolution worldwide’. He claims that key actors need ‘to prevent violence filling the vacuum left by the absence of political engagement’. Such political engagement, he argues, centres on ‘inclusive dialogue at every level, wherever there is a negotiable objective’. Conflict resolution, he concludes, therefore requires ‘the taking of risks to sustain that dialogue and to underpin political progress’. Although Hain is referring here to secret negotiations as much as to public statements, the principle that the communication of political views as an alternative to conflict is integral, he suggests, to the approach taken to the Northern Ireland peace process by the British and Irish governments and top-­level third parties. The thrust of our analysis differs somewhat to Hain’s assumptions; we posit that communication is as much a part of conflict as a peace process – that political discourses which shaped prospects for agreement did not begin with secret negotiations or multi-­party talks. Hain’s speech, as an example of political discourse (more closely analysed by O’Kane in Chapter 12), also serves to remind us that the very act of officially identifying ‘a peace process’ centres on a change in perception as to the legitimacy (no matter how tenuous) of speakers, means and channels of communication around conflict issues. Research presented in this book shows that a change in perception among key powerful players accompanied a change in discourses of legitimisation of other actors or events (most clearly illustrated in McGovern’s (Chapter 13) critique of the discourses of ‘new terrorism’). In relation to this, we want to go a long way beyond the traditional interpretation of the role of dialogue in Northern Ireland’s peace process, which focuses in particular on the incorporation of Sinn Féin into mainstream politics. We deliberately place this book outside scholarly (some might say, circular) debate around the effects of the consociational nature of the 1998 Agreement in Northern Ireland (see Taylor 2006; O’Flynn 2003). The matter of whether the structures of the devolved political system have served to reinforce such bi-­communal discourses and, indeed, make a ‘transcendent’ discourse less likely or possible is a question the editors do not presume to answer on behalf of the individual authors. Instead, we all share the objective of reaching a better understanding of the nature of these discourses by detailed analysis. In order to gain a

Introduction   7 fairly broad picture of the nature of this environment as a peace process has developed, the studies contained in this book concentrate less on the linguistic (de)construction of particular texts than on the core concepts that have been important to particular political and cultural groupings in this process. Within Northern Ireland, the 1998 and 2006 Agreements have been carefully presented so as not to imply radical change to the ideologies and goals of the parties concerned.7 The key to their success has been an ability to present moves made as tactical or as pragmatic: always in line with the interests of one’s own group. This has been achieved in no small part through changes in the use and interpretation of political and cultural discourses, as examined herein.

Synopsis Analysis of political discourse in this book is intended to offer an insight into ways in which political actors and core community leaders from across Northern Ireland society managed and legitimated the transition from conflict to peaceful agreement. The necessary point for starting this analysis is with the matter of how an aggressive state policy (of internment) was legitimated by some and used to justify anti-­state violence by others. Rosland’s (Chapter 2) analysis of unionist and nationalist discourses around the issue of internment in the early 1970s exemplifies fundamental differences in communities’ conceptions of issues of legitimacy and power over the ensuing 25 years. Indeed, some of these discursive themes and concepts are evident in the ‘discourse worlds’ of the main parties at the time of the 1998 Agreement. Filardo-­Llamas (Chapter 5) analyses the press releases from these parties in response to the signing of the Agreement and notes similarities, differences and ambiguities among them which are not confined to either side of a unionist/nationalist divide. She thus concludes that nuance and ambiguity were essential to enabling the embedding of the ‘new dispensation’. Nuance and ambiguity have also been crucial features of official discourses attached to Northern Ireland’s peace process. O’Donnell (Chapter 3) traces the process by which the parties of government in the Republic of Ireland came to articulate a common discourse which balanced the ideal of Irish reunification with the pragmatic acceptance of Northern Ireland’s inclusion within the United Kingdom. At the same time, Edwards (Chapter 4) shows that critical changes in the discourse of the New Labour Party were necessary preconditions for the British government’s role in the peace process. He highlights at the micro level the importance of Tony Blair’s persuasive discourse within the party as well as to the British public and, indeed, Northern Ireland politicians. The continuation of trends for subtle changes to official discourses even after an agreement has been signed is examined in two other chapters. O’Kane (Chapter 12) dissects Northern Ireland’s ‘model’ for conflict resolution as put forward by members of the British government around the time (not coincidentally) that devolved power-­sharing was restored under the Executive leadership of the DUP and Sinn Féin (in May 2007). His critique is based on a point-­by-point comparison of this

8   K. Hayward ‘model’ to the historical record of events in Northern Ireland. O’Kane’s conclusion that Northern Ireland’s ‘model’ had more to do with the requirements of present British government policy than accurate recollections of its past fits well with McGovern’s analysis of official discourses on ‘new terrorism’. McGovern (Chapter 13) reveals that the presentation of the ‘unprecedented’ level of threat from terrorism in the post-­9/11 era in British government discourses not only bears close resemblance to their presentation of the threat posed by the IRA during the Troubles but also has the effect of painting an almost nostalgic image of IRA terrorism of the past. He argues that it is not the nature of terrorism itself that is in question here but rather the contingent, changeable nature of official discourses around it. The significance of change and continuity in political discourse is particularly evident in relation to that of the political parties and cultural representatives in Northern Ireland. McLoughlin (Chapter 6) makes a strong case for considering the discourse of SDLP leader John Hume something akin to a ‘Q gospel’ when it came to the development of the language of agreement in Northern Ireland, from influencing the conceptualisation of the ‘Northern Ireland problem’ by Irish and British governments to prompting substantive change in hardline republican ­discourse. That notwithstanding, Shirlow, Tonge and McAuley’s (Chapter 9) analysis of the discourses of former republican paramilitary prisoners concludes that their subscription to the peace process was premised on the confident belief that it in no way compromised the meaning of fundamental republican ideals or their commitment to the same. In the case of loyalist discourses, Rankin and Ganiel (Chapter 7) trace significant alterations in (or at least cautious use of ) language by the DUP in relation to the peace process and paramilitary violence that accompanied the party’s move from anti-­Agreement protestor to heading the devolved Northern Ireland Executive. Political discourses in unionism have always been tempered by an awareness that power and pragmatism are not ­sufficient grounds for altering core principles according to many loyal supporters. McAuley and Tonge’s (Chapter 8) analysis of discourses of members of the Orange Order at a time when the DUP took the UUP’s place as the dominant voice of unionism in Northern Ireland reveals that consistency, tradition and ­heritage remain as important as ever in defining the outlook of this cultural institution. What about discourses that are not associated with one ‘side’ or the other? Komarova (Chapter 10) raises two incisive points with regards to discourses of peace-­building in Northern Ireland. First, she shows that the language of a ‘shared future’ or of ‘cohesion’, ‘integration’ or ‘good relations’ has become an important area of common ground in Northern Ireland, but that discourses on these topics are still essentially shaped by competing claims and divergent identities. Second, Komarova’s study makes a very strong case for the importance of the local and spatial dimensions of practices, which shape interaction, communication and identity; she argues that the impact of discourses on either side or across the communal divide is heavily conditioned by the local environment of the speaker and audience. In relation to the issue of spatial environment,

Introduction   9 McEldowney, Anderson and Shuttleworth (Chapter 11) critique what they term the ‘dubious discourses’ around censuses in Northern Ireland and show the flawed (or even missing) evidence for the claims of ‘growing apartheid’ or shifting majority that dominate media coverage around the publication of census results in Northern Ireland. As with the subjects scrutinised in all the other chapters in this book, McEldowney et al. argue that the significance of such discourses is not in their connection to ‘reality’ (which is often tenuous) but in the effects they (are intended to) have on the audience. In the vast majority of cases for political discourses within Northern Ireland, the audience is evidently expected to come from within a clearly demarcated community, with a clear set of values, identity and political goals that are still quite distinct from the ‘other’. It is in recognition of this fact that Little (Chapter 14) makes his case for a narrative approach to understanding processes by which conflict and peace are debated. He concludes that a useful model of conflict resolution must recognise the need for a polity to be complex, unsettled, even conflictual. We claim that political discourse can perform a unique and crucial role as an instrument of conflict resolution in relation to three processes: (i) the construction of a framework within which negotiations can take place, (ii) the facilitation of agreement between moderate and extreme positions, and (iii) the forging of common ground. Each of these will be considered in turn, looking at the particular role of political discourse with regard to the process, examples from Northern Ireland and lessons that can be taken for wider analysis of political discourse and conflict resolution.

I  Framing negotiations Political discourse can affect the construction of a (conceptual) framework within which negotiations can take place in three main ways. First, political discourse on power can be used to justify a new course of action by the party concerned that is considered necessary preparation for the negotiations to follow. In this sense, justification by political actors for the use of the power and responsibility that their supporters have given them is tested frequently and over a long period of time to ascertain the trustworthiness of the leaders at the negotiating table. For similar reasons, when political actors step into the realm of preparing for negotiations with the ‘other’, discourses of principle are needed to reassure their supporters of their integrity. This integrity would mean that they uphold principles founded on the essential nature and shared ideology of the group in question. Related to this, political discourse on what the actors see as opportunities for progress must make consistency with both past achievements and future ideals apparent. Experience in Northern Ireland In Northern Ireland, given the role of the grand questions of national identity and state legitimacy in exacerbating the conflict, the conceptual framework for

10   K. Hayward negotiations involved the discourses on power that centred on the reconfiguration of arrangements for constitutional and territorial representation in the United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland. As O’Donnell (Chapter 3) describes, by the early 1990s consensus existed among Irish political parties regarding discourses of principle, namely that the goal of Irish reunification was unimpeachable as a political ideal but almost inconceivable as a political goal. This contrasted with the rather fluid interpretations in British politics regarding principles for addressing the ‘Northern Ireland question’. As Edwards (Chapter 4) depicts in relation to the New Labour Party alone, there was little intra-­party let alone inter-­party consensus on the principles for negotiating the future of Northern Ireland. One thing that both British and Irish mainstream parties do have in common (as noted by McLoughlin, Chapter 6) is that they were heavily influenced by the principles for negotiation espoused by John Hume as SDLP leader. Whilst the chapters here by O’Donnell and Edwards illustrate the role of official discourse in influencing the ideological – and strategic – positioning of parties prior to negotiations, McLoughlin’s chapter serves as a reminder that this process of discursive influence in framing negotiations is not merely a top-­down one. SDLP principles facilitated a shared concern to uphold ‘unity by consent’, a ‘three stranded approach’, and ‘agreed Ireland’, amongst other things (McLoughlin, Chapter 6). The key to the success of these principles in the peace process in Northern Ireland is that they were ambiguous enough to allow those who subscribed to them to appear to be maintaining the integrity of their long-­held principles and to be drawing a line of continuity between past and future. In the case of nationalist/republican parties (south as well as north of the border), these terms were used in effect as synonyms for well-­established ideals of a united Ireland, etc. In the case of unionist and British parties, these terms represented a flexibility of ideology within Irish nationalism and an acceptance of an integral ‘British’ dimension to the future of Northern Ireland. The SDLP’s engagement with external actors and the imprint of its ideology on the Good Friday Agreement of 1998 gave it an authority and influence in relation to framing the peace process. Nonetheless, as McLoughlin (Chapter 6) and Filardo-­Llamas (Chapter 5) reiterate, this did not automatically translate into electoral success or political power. The focus on bi-­communal or ethno-­national identity in political activity and institutions established after the 1998 Agreement meant that the SDLP in effect drew itself out of the circle within which political bargaining would take place. The SDLP’s discourses for post-­Agreement Northern Ireland did not correspond with the resulting political construct. This indicates that progress after the framework for negotiations has been set does not necessarily correspond with a group’s contribution to that framework.

II  Facilitating agreement Once the groundwork for negotiations has been laid, political discourse can play a vital role in enabling agreement to be reached between moderate parties, moderates and hardliners, or between extreme ideological positions. Political

Introduction   11 discourse on power at such a time is of particular interest, because real power is at stake according to the discursive line followed by participants in the negotiations. The priority of political actors as negotiators is to balance the requirements of power with the possibility of holding it. Discourses of principle are also under particular pressure when it comes to facilitating agreement; ‘agreement’ by definition means agreed terms but it need not always require consensus on the meaning of those terms. Experience in Northern Ireland Engagement in negotiations in Northern Ireland has required the acceptance of the norms of participation. Political discourses on power within parties that have held a seat at the negotiating table have centred on the assumption of their essential equality with the other players. This has been more difficult for some parties to accept than others. The findings presented here by Rankin and Ganiel (Chapter 7), Filardo-­Llamas (Chapter 5) and McAuley and Tonge (Chapter 8) indicate that unionist parties have struggled to articulate discourses during the process of making peace agreements that allow them to accept the equal bargaining position of Sinn Féin in particular. Regarding the actual substance of these negotiations, as noted above, it is difficult to find accommodation – or democratic peace – between parties distinguished primarily by ethno-­national principles. Shirlow et al. (Chapter 9) recount the effects of a tactical change in republican party discourse among hardline supporters of republican principles; their support of Sinn Féin has been conditional on being able to identify an ideological continuity between party tactics and political principles. Discourses of all parties in relation to an agreement intended to formalise a peace process must be seen to enable (internal and contextual) change to occur. Yet, in the case of Northern Ireland, the most successful parties in electoral terms have been the slowest to change but have ultimately come the furthest in both discourse and practice.

III  Forging common ground The stability of any common ground revealed through a peace agreement may be determined to a large degree by the discourses of those sharing power. The very fact that new actors are holding power has huge significance. If political discourse has ‘consequence’, is a co-­operative or a competitive discourse more likely? Aside from the particularities of the context, the nature of political discourse chosen by parties at this stage depends in part on their assessment of whether progress towards their goals is best achieved through co-­operation or competition with one’s political opponents. This is not least because, judging by what has been outlined above, the common ground that has been forged is less likely to have been constructed from shared principles than through the acceptance of (the existence of ) different principles. The construction of some shared political space as a result of an agreement can mean that political competition is more direct and, according to the particular terms of the political agreement, this

12   K. Hayward competition could either be directed most severely at opponents within each community or at those representing the ‘other’ community. Either way, parties from a ‘hardline’ tradition may be the ones most comfortable with using the type of political language and (media-­aware) tactics necessary in a forum of direct political competition. Experience in Northern Ireland The outstanding question in Northern Ireland is whether those now sharing power (the DUP and Sinn Féin) should be forced to confront the legacy of their historical polarising discourses, or are they the ones best placed to redress it? As several chapters in this book show (Rosland [2], Rankin and Ganiel [7], Shirlow et al. [9], McAuley and Tonge [8], Komarova [10]), the moral discourses of parties (including those used in the past) makes forging of common ground not only difficult but controversial. Taken together, they provide evidence from Northern Ireland that some (particularly hardline) actors have the ability to blend conciliatory public discourses with oppositional private discourses in order to make political progress. Sinn Féin, for example, had already become adept at the use of emotionally driven cultural factors in political activity prior to the 1998 Agreement (Shirlow and McGovern 1998). Such skills have proven useful in the party’s competitiveness for support from within nationalism and against unionism in new forums for political engagement in Northern Ireland. Moderate parties, such as the UUP, are not as practised or as comfortable with discourses of otherness and defence that the new forum of direct political competition (including within one’s own communal group) appears to have required (Hogan 2007). Two of the parties that have benefited the least in electoral terms since the successive suspension (between 2000 and 2007) of the institutions established by the 1998 Agreement are the SDLP and the centre-­ground Alliance Party; it is perhaps no coincidence that these have been the main parties to engage directly and meaningfully with discourses of a ‘shared identity’ in Northern Ireland. Northern Ireland’s peace process, it might be concluded, has so far not entailed the creation of a shared discourse, but rather the emergence of elements of commonality. Nevertheless, it is clear that, as themes of common interest and opinion become incorporated into public political discourses in Northern Ireland (albeit often painted in clashing party colours), they are taken further away from the realm of discourse that sought to legitimise the use of violence for political ends.

Conclusions Although experience in Northern Ireland would counsel the wise to refrain from making any stark claim regarding the ‘success’ of the peace process, evidence from there would suggest that there are certain lessons to be learnt regarding the role of political discourse in the complex dynamics of conflict resolution. First, in relation to power: analysis of the connection between discourse and political activity/change indicates the necessity of providing a forum in which

Introduction   13 political  discourse has the possibility of effecting real change. The negative effects of suspension of the devolved assembly in Northern Ireland for most of the first decade after the 1998 Agreement reiterates the negative effects of having to channel most top-­level political communication through high-­level, third-­party, civil service or media actors. Ideally, the conditions of local democratic representation will provide a forum for the peaceful articulation of ideological principles and, crucially, the practical application of political responsibility. What we have seen in Northern Ireland is that active (and conceptual) input into the architecture of a peace agreement is ultimately not as important as being seen to be ready to lead in the post-­agreement context. Both qualities depend on the use of political discourse and the marriage of ‘power’ and ‘principle’ therein. On the issue of principle, Northern Ireland witnessed rapid polarisation among parties when the touchpaper of identity was lit by key political actors in order to prove (to their own community) the seriousness of their demands. Such demands centred on policy issues that brought together the most sensitive points of principle with the need for pragmatic accommodation (such as policing or decommissioning). These issues were only agreed upon at the negotiating table through what might be termed a ‘fudging’ of specifics and grew in significance in the post-­agreement context. It is with such controversies – and ambiguities – in mind that Aughey (2002) has termed the 1998 Agreement a ‘paradoxical reality’. Nonetheless, it is important to bear in mind that, as Little (Chapter 14) argues, it is possible, even desirable, to have conflictual discourses in a post-­ agreement political arena. We conclude that transition from conflict requires the space and opportunity for actors from across society to ‘debate peace’. Grievances are real, prejudices are deep and co-­operation is fraught with difficulties; whereas before these were reasons for defeatism, acknowledgement of these facts now serves to increase the popular will for peace in Northern Ireland. It is startlingly clear that political discourses from all quarters have a vital part to play in transforming issues from causes of conflict into reasons for peace.

Notes 1 The ‘Agreement’ referred to throughout this book is actually two documents, eight years apart: that between the political parties in April 1998 in the Belfast, or Good Friday, Agreement (which was opposed by the Democratic Unionist Party [DUP]) and the most significant amendment to it since, in October 2006, the St Andrews Agreement (which centred on agreement between Sinn Féin and the DUP). 2 Gilligan’s (2003) powerful critique of the limited mores of political debate in post-­ Agreement Northern Ireland is another example of the restrictions imposed on ‘acceptable’ discourses in an attempt to ‘preserve the peace’. 3 See, for example, the definition of conflict resolution outlined by Wallensteen (2002: 8): ‘a situation where the conflicting parties enter into an agreement that solves their central incompatibilities, accept each other’s continued existence as parties and cease all violent action against each other. This means, of course, that conflict resolution necessarily comes after conflict.’

14   K. Hayward 4 First, the text of political discourse (be it presented in a speech, interview or newspaper report) embodies processes of production and interpretation of ideas as well as influencing the interaction that shapes these processes. Second, what is termed here ‘interaction’ reflects as well as affects wider conditions for the production and interpretation of ideas. 5 O’Neill’s (2003, after Habermas) argument for a forum for the free use of communicative reason in order to confer legitimacy on a post-­conflict political arrangement relates to this point. 6 Such as the Downing Street Declaration made by Prime Minister John Major and Taoiseach Albert Reynolds on 15 December 1993. Available at http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/events/ peace/docs/dsd151293.htm (accessed March 2010). 7 It should be noted that the electoral fortunes of political parties changed quite dramatically in the ten years after the 1998 Agreement. This may be summarised by the growing dominance of the ‘hardline’ parties of the DUP and Sinn Féin (from winning 20 and 18 seats respectively in the 1998 election to the Northern Ireland Assembly, to 36 and 28 seats in 2007) and the weakening position of the ‘moderate’ parties of the UUP and SDLP (from 28 and 24 Assembly seats respectively in 1998, to 18 and 16 in 2007).

Bibliography Arai, T. (2009) Creativity and Conflict Resolution: Alternative Pathways to Peace, London: Routledge. Aughey, A. (2002) ‘The Art and Effect of Political Lying in Northern Ireland’, Irish Political Studies 17(2): 1–16. Ball, T., Farr, J. and Hanson, R.L. (eds) (1989) Political Innovation and Conceptual Change, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bourdieu, P. (1991) Language and Symbolic Power, in J. Thompson (ed.), G. Raymond and M. Adamson (trans.), Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Chilton, P.A. (2004) Analysing Political Discourse: Theory and Practice, London: Routledge. Chilton, P.A. and Schäffner, C. (eds) (2002) Politics as Text and Talk: Analytic Approaches to Political Discourse, Amsterdam: John Benjamins. de Landtsheer, C. (1998) ‘Introduction to the Study of Political Discourse’, in O. Feldman and C. de Landtsheer (eds) Politically Speaking: A Worldwide Examination of Language Used in the Public Sphere, Westport, CT: Praeger Press, pp. 1–18. Eames, R. and Bradley, D. (2009) Report of the Consultative Group on the Past, Belfast. Available at www.cgpni.org (accessed March 2010). Fairclough, N. (2001 [1989]) Language and Power, Harlow: Pearson Education. Farr, J. (1989) ‘Understanding Conceptual Change Politically’, in T. Ball, J. Farr and R.L. Hanson (eds) Political Innovation and Conceptual Change, pp. 24–49. Foucault, M. (1972) The Archaeology of Knowledge, in A.M. Sheridan Smith (trans.), London: Tavistock. Gilligan, C. (2003) ‘Constant Crisis/Permanent Process: Diminished Agency and Weak Structures in the Northern Ireland Peace Process’, The Global Review of Ethnopolitics 3(1): 22–38. Haidar, J. and Rodriguez, L. (1999) ‘Power and Ideology in Different Discursive Practices’, in C. Schäffner and A.L. Wenden (eds) Language and Peace, Amsterdam: Harwood Academic Publishers, pp. 119–136. Hain, P. (2008) ‘From Horror to Hope: Can Peacemaking in Northern Ireland be a Model for Conflict Resolution Worldwide?’, lecture given by the Secretary of State for

Introduction   15 Northern Ireland, Glucksman Ireland House, New York, 5 June 2008. Available at www.peterhain.org/default.asp?pageid=90&mpageid=89&groupid=2 (accessed March 2010). Hogan, S. (2007) ‘Bordering on the Impossible? A Post-­structuralist Discourse Analysis of the Electoral Demise of the Ulster Unionist Party’, paper presented to the Peace Lines: Political Discourse on Northern Ireland since the Troubles Conference, UCD, Ireland, 1 June 2007. Howarth, D. (1998) ‘Discourse Theory and Political Analysis’, in E. Scarborough and E. Tanenbaum (eds) Research Strategies in the Social Sciences: A Guide to New Approaches, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 268–293. Howarth, D. and Stavrakakis, Y. (2000) ‘Discourse Theory and Political Analysis’, in D. Howarth, A. Norval and Y. Stavrakakis (eds) Discourse Theory and Political Analysis: Identities, Hegemonies and Social Change, Manchester: Manchester University Press, pp. 1–23. Laclau, E. and Mouffe, C. (1985) Hegemony and Socialist Strategy: Towards a Radical Democratic Politics, London: Verso. Leudar, I., Marsland, V. and Nekvapil, J. (2004) ‘On Membership Categorization: “Us”, “Them” and “Doing Violence” in Political Discourse’, Discourse and Society 15(2–3): 243–266. O’Flynn, I. (2003) ‘The Problem of Recognising Individual and National Identities: A Liberal Critique of the Belfast Agreement’, Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy 6(3): 129–153. O’Neill, S. (2003) ‘Are National Conflicts Reconcilable? Discourse Theory and Political Accommodation in Northern Ireland’, Constellations 10(1): 75–94. Ramsbotham, O., Woodhouse, T. and Miall, H. (2005) Contemporary Conflict Resolution, 2nd edn, Cambridge: Polity Press. Schäffner, C. and Wenden, A.L. (eds) (1999) Language and Peace, Amsterdam: Harwood Academic Publishers. Shirlow, P. and McGovern, M. (1998) ‘Language, Discourse and Dialogue: Sinn Féin and the Irish Peace Process’, Political Geography 17(2): 171–186. Skinner, Q. (1989) ‘Language and Political Change’, in T. Ball, J. Farr and R.L. Hanson (eds) Political Innovation and Conceptual Change, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 6–23. Taylor, R. (2006) ‘The Belfast Agreement and the Politics of Consociationalism: A Critique’, The Political Quarterly 77(2): 217–226. Wallensteen, P. (2002) Understanding Conflict Resolution: War, Peace and the Global System, London: Sage. Wodak, R. (2009) The Discourse of Politics in Action: Politics as Usual, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Wodak, R., de Cillia, R., Reisigl, M. and Liebhart, K. (1999) The Discursive Construction of National Identity, in A. Hirsch and R. Mitten (trans), Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.

2 Constructing legitimacy in political discourse in the early phase of the Troubles Sissel Rosland

This chapter examines the discursive construction of legitimacy in the early phase of the Troubles in Northern Ireland.1 The empirical material analysed centres on the debate on internment without trial from August 1971 until December 1975 – a debate which had at its heart conflicting claims of legitimacy. Some strongly defended internment as a legitimate step in the fight against the IRA, whilst others regarded it as an illegitimate measure employed by a corrupt political regime. These conflicting claims of legitimacy entailed a ‘conceptual battle’ (Burton 1978: 104) concerned with the construction and authorisation of political order. The chapter explores this battle along three dimensions: law, violence and democracy. The introduction of internment was meant to curb the escalating conflict in Northern Ireland. However, when internment was ended four years later, this aim had not been achieved: ceasefires had come and gone, peace proposals had emerged and failed, and more than 1,300 people had died.2 The general conclusion of most analysts since has been that internment widened the conflict and, in particular, that it further alienated the Catholic population in Northern Ireland from its political institutions (see Arthur 2001: 114; Murray 1998: 18; McAllister 1977: 97–103; Ruane and Todd 1997: 130; Staunton 2001: 276).

The concept of legitimacy The concept of legitimacy is used in a variety of disciplines due to its usefulness in the conceptualisation of the process whereby authority is produced not by force but by voluntary obedience (Barker 1990: 11). Studies of legitimacy have dealt with a growing number of institutions, linking their stability and the consensus they enjoy to the existence of legitimacy (Zelditch 2001: 40), but the concept is not only applicable to a situation of stability. By also paying attention to disobedience, light may be cast on the conditions of and reasons for obedience (Barker 1990: 6). The sociologist Frank Burton (1978: 104) argues that the quest for legitimacy is waged in a conceptual battlefield where ‘claims and counter-­claims represent ideological struggles within a discourse of legitimacy’. In this chapter we will take a closer look at how such a struggle took place in the public debate on

Constructing legitimacy in political discourse   17 internment. As emphasised by Hayward in the introduction to this book (Chapter  1), both the agents and structures of political discourse undergo constant change. Public utterances are embedded within a historical context, and the participants negotiate meanings which are never fixed but continually contested and redefined (Chadwick 2000: 292). Even though the meanings will always be in flux, it is possible to identify some main patterns in the discourse, establishing what we here will call ‘representations of legitimacy’. For the present purpose, discourse will be defined as practices that constitute the objects of which they speak (Foucault 1972: 49). This notion highlights the constitutive aspect of language and implies that power is constituted by ‘regimes of truth’ concerned with the creation of an ontological, political and moral order (Malkki 1995: 194; Foucault 1980: 13). As the creation of meaning through writing and reading is intertextual, any text analysed cannot be viewed as a hermetically sealed unit. The meaning of the text is dependent upon the success with which it operates within a given ‘framework of validation’ (Chadwick 2000: 292). In the case of the debate on internment, law, violence and democracy stand out as three particularly significant dimensions in the establishment of such frameworks.3 In the following, we will explore how different representations of legitimacy were constructed around these dimensions. But first, we will take a brief view at the political situation at the time of the internment debate.

Political context The political landscape within which the debate on internment took place was rapidly changing. In contrast to the previous 50 years – in which the Unionist Party had stayed continuously in power and nationalist opposition had become something of an empty exercise – the state in Northern Ireland was gradually re-­ politicised in the late 1960s. Inspired by the civil rights movement in the United States, the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association (NICRA) was established, attracting support particularly from young Catholics, but also initially from some Protestants. By the early 1970s, however, the composition of Northern Ireland’s political spectrum had changed considerably. On the unionist side, the Unionist Party (later the Ulster Unionist Party [UUP]) was by far the largest party. It was, however, experiencing growing internal division as well as increasing opposition from other unionist parties, in particular from Rev. Ian Paisley and his Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) founded in September 1971. The DUP soon became an important force in Northern Ireland politics and a persistent threat to the traditional dominance of the Unionist Party. The Unionist Party was also challenged by a new right-­wing pressure group, Ulster Vanguard, and several loyalist paramilitary groups such as the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF ) and Ulster Defence Association (UDA). The Unionist Party also lost some of its more liberal supporters to a new moderate party founded in April 1970, the Alliance Party, which hoped to draw support from Protestants and Catholics.

18   S. Rosland The Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP), founded in August 1970, quickly became the most important political force in northern nationalism, rapidly surpassing the old Nationalist Party. It presented itself as a radical, left-­ of-centre party and was backed by former supporters of the Nationalist Party as well as members of the civil rights movement. The other strand within nationalist politics, the republican movement, was in 1970 split on the issue of recognition of – and abstention from – the Belfast and Dublin Parliaments. The movement then split into support for two parties: Official Sinn Féin, a left-­wing party (also going under the name ‘Republican Clubs’) which called for an end to abstentionism, and Provisional Sinn Féin (the party generally known as ‘Sinn Féin’), which remained abstentionist into the next decade.

Dimensions of legitimacy: law The power to use internment without trial was laid down in the Special Powers Act from 1922. Whereas the unionist government legitimised internment as the lesser of two evils, the anti-­internment movement rejected the alternative altogether. In general, unionists presented the internment powers in terms of function and order, whereas the nationalist opposition portrayed them in terms of principles and human rights. Unionist discourse on law When introducing internment in 1971, the unionist government characterised the situation as an emergency and presented statistics which showed escalating violence. The government argued that the figures revealed ‘not only a sustained, but a mounting pattern of violence, which could not be borne in any community determined to stay alive’ (Government Statement, 21 August 1971). The use of emergency powers in the Special Powers Act was not regarded as an ideal solution, but as the only viable option in the struggle for the restoration of order (Brian Faulkner, Guardian 16 September 1971). Captain Lawrence Orr, the leader of the Ulster Unionists at Westminster, was confident that, although internment would not reconcile the opposing factions in Northern Ireland, it was a step on the way to bringing order back to the streets (Guardian 16 September 1971). Northern Ireland’s Prime Minister, Brian Faulkner, claimed to know the identity of the perpetrators and said that internment thus would only affect people who had ‘murdered in cold blood’ (Belfast Telegraph 9 August 1971). The fundamental trust in the internment procedures was an essential element in the unionist government’s discourse. The Prime Minister stressed that the government had established a three-­man advisory committee to review pleas made by individual internees (Guardian 16 September 1971). But the final decision was in the hands of the Prime Minister. Faulkner argued that this should provide further reassurance, putting his own integrity and authority on the line as a guarantee for fair treatment (Belfast Telegraph 9 August 1971).

Constructing legitimacy in political discourse   19 In a letter to The Times, the Unionist MP, James Molyneaux, explicitly admitted that he regarded internment to be a denial of ‘fundamental liberties’. But, he argued, internment was not only about individual liberties; there were also other important liberties such as ‘the fundamental liberty of every British citizen to live at peace under the law’. Liberties had to be considered in context, he claimed, and liberty to live at peace under the law ought to take priority (The Times 16 August 1971). As shown above, the unionist government viewed the internment powers as legitimate because they were settled in law and because the system operating it was fair. Within such a framework the only valid political question regarding internment was whether it served the purpose of restoring order or not. Some voices within the unionist opposition, however, presented another answer to this question. Ian Paisley argued against internment and claimed that Faulkner had tried to mislead the country by announcing he was introducing internment as a last resort. According to Paisley this was a deliberate falsehood, as not all processes of the law had been used against the IRA (News Letter 10 August 1971). Nevertheless, the unionist opposition continued to present the internment powers in functional terms (for further discussion, see Rosland 2003). Nationalist and civil rights movement discourse on law Although the unionist government presented the emergency powers as a means of restoring order, this claim was immediately challenged by the nationalist opposition. A cross-­party statement, including politicians, priests and representatives of professional and business life in Northern Ireland, summed up this view, pointing out that preserving human rights rather than order was the most fundamental purpose of law: A society without order is a distressed society, but a society without freedom is not a society at all. If a choice must be made between the legal preservation of order and the legal preservation of freedom, freedom must take priority. (Statement, Irish News 4 September 1971) The opposition believed internment to be an indefensible evil itself, irrespective of circumstances (Statement, Irish News 4 September 1971) and built its discourse on the powers of internment around two aspects: first, that the power to intern implied a denial of individual fundamental rights; second, that the unionist government used internment deliberately as a political weapon to silence the opposition. Labelling internment ‘a perversion of law’, the signatories of the cross-­party statement particularly stressed that the emergency powers eliminated the restraints on power. By lowering the standards for evidence of guilt, persons could be imprisoned on the basis of evidence that was unknown to them and which in ordinary law would be seen as inadmissible.4

20   S. Rosland The internees themselves protested against not being given the opportunity to defend themselves against decisive yet secret evidence (Statement by internees in Crumlin Road Prison, Irish News 23 August 1971). In an open letter to the British Home Secretary, the Derry branch of the SDLP argued that the emergency powers in Northern Ireland did not adhere to the standards of English justice: To you, internment in Northern Ireland may be only an abstract word in a faraway place. You well know that English law in England holds the liberty of the subject in high regard and that a man is innocent until proven guilty. Only in the gravest circumstances such as the major wars does your English Government set aside these laws and even then, they try to ensure the minimum affront to the dignity of the person and the maximum safeguard for rights and welfare. Contrast this with what you have allowed in Northern Ireland. (Irish News 18 December 1971) Explaining the direct effects of this point, a leading article in the Irish News observed that by using the Special Powers Act, members of the Police Special Branch were able to re-­arrest men who had earlier been found innocent by ordinary juries. According to the newspaper, this practice undermined individual liberty, which was no longer protected by law but was now at the arbitrary disposition of Prime Minister Brian Faulkner (Irish News 25 November 1971). Competing discourses on law To sum up, the crucial point of division on the issue of emergency powers concerned the balance between order and rights: whereas Faulkner and the government assigned priority to the restoration of order, their critics asserted that the most fundamental task of the law was to preserve the rights of the individual and to restrain the power of the state. On these grounds, the opposition ruled out Faulkner’s ‘lesser of two evils’ argument, countering that internment simply never could be the lesser of two evils.

Dimensions of legitimacy: violence To talk of legitimate violence in the debate on internment would seem to be a contradiction in terms. The word ‘violence’ was rarely used to describe what the speaker viewed as a ‘legitimate’ use of force, whether this be by British soldiers or paramilitary ‘defenders’ and ‘freedom fighters’; ‘violence’ was the force perpetrated by one’s opponent. Competing discourses on the security forces In their proposed role as peacekeepers in the increasingly troubled society, the security forces had already entered the front stage of Northern Ireland politics

Constructing legitimacy in political discourse   21 before the introduction of internment. Yet, their critical function in the operation of internment regarding arrests and interrogation made the security forces even more contentious.5 Almost immediately after the first arrests on the morning of 9 August 1971, there appeared allegations of brutal treatment of the internees (see for example Irish News 10 August 1971; Irish News 13 August 1971). In a joint statement the SDLP, the Nationalist Party, the Republican Labour Party and NICRA proclaimed: ‘We demand that the military resume the role for which they were sent here, the protection of people and areas against sectarian attacks on their homes pending a political solution’ (Joint Statement, Irish News 10 August 1971). The stories of mistreatment grew in number during the first months of internment as several internees got to tell their stories to the newspapers.6 Under pressure from nationalists in Northern Ireland, the government of the Republic of Ireland lodged a series of complaints at the European Commission of Human Rights at Strasbourg in December 1971. The Irish government alleged that British policy in Northern Ireland had degenerated to a military assault on the minority in violation of the European Convention of Human Rights (Boyle 1974).7 Nationalists, thus, in general described the treatment of internees as brutal and inhumane. The ill-­treatment was not, in the main, regarded as evidence of the evilness of the interrogators but rather as the product of an aggressive state (see Rosland 2003: 135). Consequently, government inquiries into the matter could never be trusted. Nationalists therefore looked to the Republic of Ireland and the international Human Rights Commission for confirmation of the illegitimacy of state violence in Northern Ireland. In unionist discourse, on the other hand, the security forces were portrayed primarily as responsible protectors characterised by virtues such as heroism and victimhood. Shortly after its introduction, the Prime Minister hailed internment as a great success which had allowed the security forces to work efficiently in their ‘relentless’ struggle against the IRA (Daily Mail 16 September 1971). In October, Faulkner concluded: ‘I think in the last three months that the security forces have got very positively and demonstrably on top of the situation’ (News Letter 27 October 1971). When rumours of mistreatment started to circulate, the government were keen to respond and assured the public that any claim of ill-­treatment would be impartially investigated (News Letter 16 August 1971). Yet, questioning the mistreatment allegations, James Kilfedder of the Unionist Party suspected that the internees, in order to safeguard themselves against charges of being informers, were fabricating allegations of Army brutality (Belfast Telegraph 20 October 1971). At the same time, he contended that the security forces should be allowed to use some kind of force if this could shorten the conflict. One had to choose between the terrorists and the soldiers, Kilfedder argued, concluding that the soldiers’ lives ought to be regarded as more important than ‘the injured feelings of the terrorists’ (Belfast Telegraph 20 October 1971). Although the general unionist view was that the security forces were to be trusted, there were some exceptions to this pattern. In some cases involving

22   S. Rosland loyalist paramilitaries, loyalist and unionist politicians criticised the Army for mistreatment. After an incident in the Maze Prison in late 1973 that left several loyalist internees injured, both Ian Paisley and the UDA condemned the troops for mistreating the internees (see Daily Mail 20 December 1973; News Letter 20 December 1973; Irish Times 20 December 1973). Competing discourses on paramilitaries The debate on internment exposes several conflicting representations of the justification and responsibility for paramilitary violence. According to the government, the IRA was organising ‘a campaign of murder’ with the ‘responsibility for death and suffering of innocent people’ (News Letter 16 August 1971) and Prime Minister Brian Faulkner branded the IRA campaign ‘an armed conspiracy whose immediate purpose is to destroy the peace, stability and security in this part of the UK’ (Daily Mail 16 September 1971). The Prime Minister also stressed that the IRA was isolated from the Catholic population. The main distinction went not along religious lines, he argued, but between those who pursued their ends democratically and those who wished to impose their views by violence (News Letter 13 September 1971; Irish Times 15 April 1974). The Alliance Party, to a certain extent, also supported the image of the isolated terrorist (see, for example, Oliver Napier in Belfast Telegraph 12 August 1971). Yet, the Alliance Party believed that introducing internment would increase rather than curb the escalating violence (see, for example, Bob Cooper in Irish News 21 August 1971 and Oliver Napier in Irish News 26 July 1974). Alliance discourse on terrorism thus, instead of drawing a definite line between the agent of violence and the victim, indicated that ‘the terrorist’ could be both an agent of violence and a product of particular circumstances. This logic was taken even further in the discourse of the SDLP which firmly established the republican paramilitary as a product of Northern Ireland society. The SDLP viewed republican paramilitaries as ‘victims of the past’, thus placing parts of the responsibility on the Northern Ireland state (see, for example, John Hume in Irish Times 3 December 1973). However, the SDLP strongly condemned IRA violence which was depicted as both immoral and futile: We believe in political means and political means alone. Anyone who looks at our community to-­day must be convinced that other than political means only leads us deeper and deeper into the mire and increases the suffering of all our people. (Hume, Irish News 1 July 1974) Hume also argued that the responsibility for ending internment rested partly with the IRA: if violence stopped, there would be no justification for the continuation of internment (Irish News 1 December 1973). Few statements in the debate on internment, even from the republican movement, explicitly defended the IRA as a violent agent.8 The purpose of the IRA

Constructing legitimacy in political discourse   23 violence, however, was made very clear: it was to break the political, economic and cultural connection with Britain. Republican statements insisted that they had a mandate for their struggle from both the people and the internees and the desire was that ‘the Irish people should enjoy justice, peace and prosperity, in a free united Ireland’ (Long Kesh Comhairle Ceanntair, Sinn Féin, Irish News 28 March 1972). In contrast to ‘the isolated terrorists’ in the unionist statements, the ‘republican struggle for freedom’ was presented as the manifestation of a birthright, a battle symbolised by the loyalty to the graves of the past. The loyalty of the loyalist paramilitaries, although to a different object, took on some similar features. The sacrifice of the loyalist paramilitaries in defending Protestants and the Union was a significant part of the representation of the ‘betrayed defender’. According to loyalist groups, the loyalist paramilitaries were defence forces helping the security forces. The loyalist groups thus felt betrayed when the British government introduced internment of loyalists in February 1973. The moderate unionist representation of the loyalist paramilitaries is quite interesting, for even though most acts of loyalist violence were condemned, unionists were keen not to be considered opponents of the loyalist internees. Indeed, on some occasions unionist parties appeared to virtually compete to be the strongest supporter of the loyalist internees (see, for example, Roy Bradford in News Letter 29 September 1973 and Edward Burns in Irish Times 4 October 1973). Several unionist representatives also initiated motions demanding the release of loyalist internees only and several district councils adopted such motions (see Irish Independent 28 November 1973 and 21 December 1973; Belfast Telegraph 13 December 1973 and 20 December 1973). Nationalists challenged this reasoning and initially branded the loyalist paramilitaries as extremists who attacked innocent Catholics. However, this image began to change after the first internment of loyalists in early 1973. Loyalists were now, particularly in republican statements, also portrayed as class brothers and victims of internment, suffering in the same way as republican internees (see, for example, the statement by the Republican Clubs, Irish News 31 January 1974; also joint statements printed in the Irish Times and Irish News in August 1974). Competing discourses on violence In a study of the discursive (de-)legitimisation of violence it is important to consider how the agents of violence are portrayed in the political statements: by presenting the agents of violence within a particular context, the acts of violence might be explained and rationalised. With some exceptions, discourses on violence in the debate on internment echoed the various parties’ views on the use of emergency powers. On the one hand, the unionist movement in general legitimised state violence through an official legal mandate and the function of restoring order. In the case of the loyalist paramilitaries there was an ambivalent approach, however, and the question of purpose and context of the violent acts

24   S. Rosland seem at least partly to come in to play when distinguishing between loyalist and republican violence. On the other hand, nationalist discourses stressed alternative sources of legitimacy. In the case of the republican groups, they referred to discrimination as well as human and national rights when justifying republican violence. Within the SDLP, however, violence seemed in general to have been delegitimised through references to moral values and inalienable human rights. But it is important to note that the SDLP, in contrast to unionists, did represent IRA violence in the context of Northern Ireland society and history.

Dimensions of legitimacy: democracy It is generally held that it is the commitment to popular rule which sets democracies apart from other political systems (Dalton 1988: 206). In the debate on internment, all political parties presented ‘democracy’ as the legitimate form of government but the debate exposed conflicting representations of democracy. Some connected democracy to the procedures of the existing institutions of government; others linked it to ethnic/national rights. They also had different views on how the people were to conduct their ‘legitimate right to power’. Were the preferences of the people to be secured through institutionalised channels of representation, or should the people themselves defend their interests directly? Unionist discourse on democracy Unionist Party discourse on democracy primarily highlighted the procedures for the election of representatives who carried out ‘the rule of the people’. The decision to introduce internment was taken to protect this democracy. James Molyneaux pointed out that in every election in the previous 50 years people had shown their determination to remain part of the United Kingdom and that the electoral system was the same as in other parts of the United Kingdom – universal franchise of one man one vote. This system was now under attack: ‘Is democracy to remain in Ulster or is the gun to take its place?’ he asked (The Times 16 August 1971). Comments by Prime Minister Faulkner followed similar lines, claiming that ‘the essential conflict is between democracy on the one hand, [and] on the other those who wish to bypass democracy by terrorist means’ (Irish Times 27 November 1971). In general, the unionist government disapproved of non-­parliamentary methods and it berated both individuals and the elected representatives of the nationalist opposition for withdrawing from public bodies and declaring support for a rent and rates strike (Government Statement, 21 September 1971). Although confirming the right to free speech (News Letter 13 September 1971), the government promulgated a six-­month ban on parades and demonstrations when introducing internment (Belfast Telegraph 9 August 1971).9 Unionist discourse on democracy changed somewhat, however, with the suspension of the Stormont parliament in March 1972 and the subsequent

Constructing legitimacy in political discourse   25 negotiations on power-­sharing with nationalists. After the fall of Stormont and the agreement on power-­sharing, the Unionist Party found itself in a grave internal conflict: could a power-­sharing Assembly and Executive be established? Brian Faulkner, the leader of the power-­sharing fraction, viewed the power-­ sharing process as the route to a restoration of a Northern Ireland parliament, and thus also to peace, order and good government (News Letter 12 December 1973). Faulkner utterly rejected ideas of an independent Ulster: Independence from Great Britain, of any style, under any name, and in any circumstances, is repugnant to our ideals, in complete opposition to our basic policy, and would be ruinous to our secure future and disastrous for our economic well-­being. (Irish Times 6 March 1973). The opponents of power-­sharing in the Unionist Party had a different interpretation and argued that the Council of Ireland proposed in the Sunningdale Communiqué was the first step to a united Ireland. They consequently went into the United Ulster Unionist Council coalition with the DUP and Vanguard, with Austin Ardill of the anti-­power-sharing wing of the Unionist Party claiming that the aim was ‘to bring about the restoration of full parliamentary democracy in Northern Ireland’ (News Letter 26 February 1974). This was despite the fact that the anti-­power-sharing wing of the Unionst Party also supported some non-­ constitutional actions such as the Ulster Workers’ Council strike (which eventually brought down the power-­sharing institutions). John Taylor, of the Unionist Party, stressed that the power-­sharing institutions did not have the consent of the majority of Northern Ireland (News Letter 2 March 1974) and, in contrast to Faulkner, did not rule out an independent Northern Ireland. In a joint statement with the Vanguard leader, William Craig, he stated: we don’t agree with those who would accept membership of the U.K. at any price. If the British Government is not prepared to offer Ulster sufficient powers, then we are of the opinion that a negotiated independence for Ulster could be the best course of action for loyalists. (Irish Times 17 January 1973) The Democratic Unionist Party framed its comments on the suspension of Stormont primarily in terms of British citizenship rights (News Letter 27 March 1972). The calls for independence were strongly disputed by the DUP which, at this time, instead advocated closer integration of Northern Ireland in the Union. This did not mean that the DUP was not also concerned with the ‘loyal Ulster people’. Even though the DUP primarily defended constitutional means of politics (see News Letter 16 February 1972, 27 March 1972) and Ian Paisley did not support the loyalist strike in the wake of the internment of loyalists (Irish Times 8 February 1973), the party regularly defended the actions of loyalist paramilitary groups (see Rankin and Ganiel, Chapter 7).

26   S. Rosland Nationalist discourse on democracy Whereas the majority of the unionist parties associated ‘democracy’ with ‘majority rule’, this view was strongly contested by nationalists. The SDLP generally stressed the importance of political representation, but did not consider the majoritarian power of the Unionist Party in Northern Ireland to constitute true democracy. During the debate on internment, the key element in the SDLP discourse on democracy was above all that of inclusion: new political institutions had to be built in order to include all sections of the community. Although established as late as 1970, the SDLP had, by the introduction of internment in August 1971, already acquired the experience of working both inside and outside the existing political institutions. The party’s seven Stormont MPs decided to pull out of Stormont in the summer of 1971 in protest against the unionist government. When internment was introduced in August, the party supported a rent and rates strike and extended its boycott of public institutions (Irish News 10 August 1971). Despite such support for civil disobedience, however, the position of the SDLP did differ from that of the civil rights and internees’ groups (see below), since it continuously stressed the importance of political representation and responsible leadership. In John Hume’s words, this was a time for brains, not for brawn (Irish News 11 September 1971). But even though the SDLP representatives wanted to lead the people, they also recognised the importance of being in touch with popular sentiments. Representatives should not be too far ahead of the people, Gerry Fitt explained, when he refused to participate in talks with the unionist government after internment (The Times 30 September 1971). Still, after the suspension of Stormont and its involvement in talks on power-­sharing, the SDLP resumed its co-­operation with the British government and reversed its previous commitment not to participate in any institutions as long as internment remained in force. Now, it was claimed, representation and influence made it possible for the SDLP to lobby for the release of internees; indeed, the SDLP leader, Ivan Cooper, warned against the dangers of taking politics back into the streets: ‘Demonstrations at this time will not bring internment to an end and will not secure the type of change needed in this community’ (Belfast Telegraph 9 August 1973). It was also important for the SDLP to have an Irish dimension included in the Sunningdale Agreement. The majority within the party believed that the nationalist community in Northern Ireland could not give its full allegiance to a state that existed purely in a British context (Murray 1998: 22). Even though the Executive broke down, the party still held on to the constitutional approach to politics and the vision of partnership ‘not merely in Northern Ireland and within Ireland, but in a very real sense between the two islands themselves’ (John Duffy, Irish News 20 July 1974). Civil rights movement and republican discourse on democracy When internment was introduced, NICRA immediately called for public demonstrations throughout Northern Ireland and for workers to prepare for a general

Constructing legitimacy in political discourse   27 strike (News Letter 10 August 1971). The association claimed that the people themselves ought to be safeguarding their rights against incursions from the government: ‘We believe the greatest weapons of the people in the campaign are civil resistance and disobedience’ (Ian Barr, Irish News 15 September 1971). The internees in the Long Kesh internment camp similarly supported popular control stressing that: ‘Republicanism is concerned with the right of the people to control the political, economic and cultural life of our country’ (Irish Times 28 July 1972). In other words, people should not wait for the politicians to act in their defence; the people should act themselves. The strong belief in the wisdom of the people and the fundamental distrust in politicians were common to both NICRA and the various internee groups established in the internment camps. The internees in Long Kesh claimed, for example, that: the ordinary man having borne the brunt of the suffering over the past few years against the might of the British Army, must assert his will on the wily politicians who even now are snarling at each other in their attempt to claim political capital from a false victory. (Irish News 25 April 1972) The internees at Long Kesh rejected the SDLP’s claims that its strategy would eventually secure the end of internment, claiming that while the people suffered, the SDLP connived with the enemies of Ireland and reneged on all its promises: ‘You speak for no other than yourselves’ (Irish News 6 December 1975). Although sharing a common view on popular participation, there were nonetheless differences between the republican groups. Whereas the Republican Clubs supported some kind of political action inside the existing structures,10 the Provisional republicans, both inside and outside the internment camps, ruled out such action.11 In the Provisional view, democracy could never be achieved through ‘partitionist institutions’ (Irish News 6 December 1975). The Irish people could only achieve justice in a free united Ireland, and it was important that the people rejected the ‘palace-­seekers’ who wanted to divert people from the true national aim (Irish News 28 March 1972). Competing discourses on democracy As we have seen above, the representations of democracy differed considerably among the political parties. In the first year of the debate, the Unionist Party and, later, the Faulkner unionists defended ‘responsible representation’ in elected institutions as the main characteristic of popular rule. The SDLP and the anti-­ power-sharing fraction of the UUP also stressed the importance of representatives but departed from ‘the responsible model’ in that they did not rule out civil disobedience. The Civil Rights Association and the republican (at times also loyalist) groups played down the role of the representative in politics altogether and connected popular rule to direct popular action.

28   S. Rosland Another significant difference concerns the issue of majority rule versus ‘inclusive’ government. Here the initial pattern was that the unionist parties viewed democracy as majority rule, whereas the SDLP, the Alliance Party, the NICRA, and the republican groups considered the practice of majority rule exclusionary and undemocratic. When the Stormont parliament was suspended, however, this pattern changed. The Unionist Party split on the issue of a power-­ sharing Executive and the SDLP came under criticism from NICRA and, in particular, internees and Provisional republicans for taking part in the Executive. Now the unionist parties did not agree as to which measures would secure democracy. The DUP claimed that democracy could only be safeguarded if the Union was retained. Faulkner and his supporters chose power-­sharing, whereas his critics in the Unionist Party and Vanguard indicated support for an independent Northern Ireland. In this matter, the logic of the latter resembled that of the Provisional republicans. Both perspectives linked democracy to some sort of ethno-­ national right to autonomy rather than to participation in the existing institutions.

Conclusion This chapter has explored how legitimacy was constructed in the public debate on internment through discursive practices which increased and intensified political conflict and division. At the discursive level, this process was driven forward by the political utterances of all actors in the debate. Discursive practices should not be viewed as mere reflections of reality, but as intrinsic parts of the production of political reality and the establishment of political truths. Concepts such as ‘rights’, ‘terrorists’ and ‘democracy’, as with that of ‘legitimacy’ itself, are established through particular political and discursive practices. In order to understand the role of discourse in the shaping and changing of conflict it is vital to study how these essences are made, challenged and changed, and what their effects are. The analysis has revealed that the dominant unionist representation of legitimacy was linked to the state in an almost tautological relationship: the internment powers were legitimate because they were settled in law; force used by the police and the army was legitimate because they had a mandate from the state; and democracy was viewed as the implementation of majority rule as set down in the governing procedures of the state. Consequently the principal points of reference for legitimacy were the law, the procedures of the state and the ‘will of the majority’. Within such a framework, opposition to the state became illegitimate by definition, and the only valid political question regarding internment was whether it served the purpose of restoring order or not. Internment was aimed at restoring order by removing the ‘terrorists’ from the streets. The ‘terrorists’, portrayed as isolated characters without context and history and with the creation of fear as their only rationale, played a decisive role in the unionist construction of legitimacy, proving that the conflict was a matter of order, rather than of state legitimacy.

Constructing legitimacy in political discourse   29 The debate on internment significantly shaped the nationalist re-­politicisation of the issue of state legitimacy. The nationalist counter-­representation of legitimacy was built on a fundamental alteration of the hegemonic interpretation of the relationship between the state and legitimacy, and was above all explicated in the way human rights were made the defining source of legitimacy. Consequently, rights were not linked to being a citizen in a state, but instead made a product of being human: if the state violated these rights, it could not be regarded as legitimate. Nationalists also increasingly turned to international sources for validation of their approach thus ‘removing’ legitimacy from the political and territorial confinements of the state and relocating it at an international level. There is no doubt that the division between a dominant representation of legitimacy on the one hand, and a counter-­representation on the other, was deep in the debate on internment. Still, the debate on internment also exposed another line of division, supplementing this dualism: between a political centre on the one hand and a politically marginalised periphery on the other. As pointed out in the introduction to this book (Hayward, Chapter 1), political practices both serve to constitute and undermine discourses. And developments during the debate on internment highlight the relation between institutional change and discourse. Although not entirely transformed, the discourse on legitimacy did change following the fall of Stormont in 1972 and the ensuing power-­ sharing experiment. In this situation, the balance of power in Northern Ireland changed: the Unionist Party lost governing powers, while the SDLP increased its influence as the ‘voice’ of the minority in political talks and in the power-­sharing Executive. In this period the SDLP developed a more functional discourse on law and democracy while parts of the Unionist Party, the DUP, and the loyalist paramilitaries went in the opposite direction: with the Stormont government replaced by a British government that defended power-­sharing and internment of loyalists, they increasingly turned away from a functional discourse towards a more rights-­based discourse. The construction of the different representations of legitimacy must, therefore, be viewed in relation to trust and influence; political pragmatism and functionalism, which legitimised the call for the restoration of order, required a sense of trust in the system and a confidence of political influence. In contrast, the lack of trust and influence seems to have fostered a discourse based on rights and prin­ ciples external to the established institutions of government – an approach which could justify resistance and change among both unionist and nationalist circles.

Acknowledgements I am grateful to those who have offered comments on this study at different stages, in particular the late Professor Øyvind Bjørnson, Professor William Hubbard, Svein Atle Skålevåg, Merethe Winsents and Maja Zahl. I am also most grateful to Catherine O’Donnell and Katy Hayward for their very constructive and motivating comments and to the participants at the ‘Peace Lines’ conference in Dublin in June 2007 for inspiring and fruitful discussions.

30   S. Rosland

Notes   1 In that period, a total of 1981 persons were held without trial: 107 loyalists and 1,874 republicans.   2 In the two years prior to internment, 66 people were killed; in the first 17 months of internment, the number had risen almost tenfold to 610 (Dixon 2001: 118). Following the suspension of the Northern Ireland government in March 1972 internment was continued by the British government.   3 In addition, the construction of legitimising collectivity and victimhood were also important dimensions in the debate on internment (Rosland 2003 and 2009).   4 See also McGuffin (1973: 133).   5 The Compton Committee was set up to investigate allegations of brutal treatment during the arrests on 9 August 1971 (Elliott and Flackes 1999: 211). The report acknowledged that there had been ill-­treatment of internees but it rejected claims of systematic torture. Another committee (the Parker Committee) later held that the interrogation methods were justified in exceptional circumstances (Elliott and Flackes 1999: 391).   6 For example, one of the internees, Patrick Shivers was awarded £15,000 in February 1974 by the Ulster High Court in damages for wrongful arrest and torture (News Letter 14 February 1974).   7 The Commission determined that some techniques employed in 1971 did constitute torture and that other procedures were inhumane and degrading (Donohue 2001: 121). Yet, the Commission was overruled in the European Court of Human Rights in 1978, which rejected the word torture but accepted that the internees had suffered ‘inhuman and degrading treatment’ (Coogan 1995: 129).   8 There could be various explanations for this. This type of statement might have been censored by the newspapers which declined to publicise what may be viewed as violent propaganda. It might also relate to the fact that republican statements tended to deal more with the effects of state violence.   9 The Alliance Party also generally argued that civil disobedience was not a legitimate democratic method; as an alternative, the party called for talks and a campaign that could foster understanding (see for example Robert G. Cooper in Irish News 21 August 1971 and Basil Glass in Irish News 13 June 1974). 10 The Republican Clubs (Official Sinn Féin) viewed elections as one of many ways to voice public opinion rather than as the main channel of popular influence. When they decided to contest elections, their Long Kesh branch supported the move, arguing that by participation in the elections they were putting forward progressive and revolutionary politics to the electorate (Irish News 21 June 1973). 11 Some branches of NICRA also argued against the participation in the existing structures. One branch remarked that the SDLP and the Republican Clubs ‘nearly broke their necks to get involved in another British institution which clearly has not a hope in hell of achieving any scrap of democracy’ (Bannside and District Civil Rights Association, Irish News 8 July 1975).

Bibliography Arthur, P. (2001) Special Relationships. Britain, Ireland and the Northern Ireland Problem, Belfast: Blackstaff Press. Barker, R. (1990) Political Legitimacy and the State, Oxford: Clarendon Press. Boyle, K. (1974) ‘Internment: A Moral, Legal and Political Disaster’, in supplement to Hibernia, 9 August 1974. Burton, F. (1978) The Politics of Legitimacy, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Chadwick, A. (2000) ‘Studying Political Ideas: A Public Political Discourse Approach’, Political Studies 48(2): 283–301.

Constructing legitimacy in political discourse   31 Coogan, T.P. (1995) The Troubles. Ireland’s Ordeal 1966–1995 and the Search for Peace, London: Hutchinson. Dalton, R.J. (1988) Citizen Politics in Western Democracies, New Jersey: Chatham House Publishers. Dixon, P. (2001) Northern Ireland. The Politics of War and Peace, Basingstoke: Palgrave. Donohue, L. (2001) Counter-­terrorist Law and Emergency Powers in the United Kingdom, Dublin: Irish Academic Press. Elliot, S. and Flackes, W.D. (1999) Northern Ireland: A Political Directory, Belfast: Blackstaff Press. Foucault, M. (1972) The Archaeology of Knowledge, London: Tavistock. Foucault, M. (1980) ‘Power Knowledge’, in C. Gordon (ed.) Power Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings, 1972–1977, Brighton: Harvester Press. McAllister, I. (1977) The Northern Ireland Social Democratic and Labour Party. Political Opposition in Divided Society, London: Macmillan. McGuffin, J. (1973) Internment, Tralee: Anvil Books. Malkki, L. (1995) Purity and Exile. Violence, Memory, and National Cosmology among Hutu Refugees in Tanzania, Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Murray, G. (1998) John Hume and the SDLP, Dublin: Irish Academic Press. Rosland, S. (2003) ‘In Search of Legitimacy. The Construction of Legitimacy in the Public Debate on Internment in Northern Ireland 1971–1975’, unpublished PhD thesis, Department of History, University of Bergen. Rosland, S. (2009) ‘Victimhood, Identity, and Agency in the Early Phase of the Troubles in Northern Ireland’, Identities: Global Studies in Culture and Power 16(3): 294–320. Ruane, J. and Todd, J. (1997) The Dynamics of Conflict in Northern Ireland. Power, Conflict and Emancipation, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Staunton, E. (2001) The Nationalists of Northern Ireland 1918–1973, Dublin: Columba Press. Zelditch, M. (2001) ‘Theories of Legitimacy’, in J.T. Jost and B. Major (eds) The Psychology of Legitimacy, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

3 Finding consensus Political discourse in the Republic of Ireland on the Troubles and peace process Catherine O’Donnell Thinking about what caused the conflict in Northern Ireland, why it went on for so long and how and why it came to the end it did, we often dwell on the mobilisation of nationalism and unionist divisions in the 1960s, politicisation of the republican movement in later years, the changing policies of the British and Irish government and the development of thought within unionism and loyalism. Thus we quite often prioritise political developments, political processes and relations, ideology and strategy. This edited collection is a welcome opportunity to examine how discourses (as the communication in speech or written form of strategic positions and ideological points), whether political, cultural, religious or otherwise, fit into this complex web. Doing so helps to provide a more complete explanation as to the causes and consequences of the Northern Ireland ­conflict and peace process.

Irish political discourse on Northern Ireland In the case of political parties, movements or politicians, discourses offer a lot in terms of understanding the motives and decisions of key players, their interpretation of developments, and their intended audiences. Political discourses do not develop accidentally and are generally employed with intent and purpose. In the Irish case, as will be demonstrated here, the political discourses used by the main parties in the Republic of Ireland on the subject of Northern Ireland since the outbreak of the Troubles help to explain why the peace process took the shape it did and why it was that the Irish government and, in particular, Fianna Fáil played a key role in this. Nationalism and the unresolved ‘national question’ on Northern Ireland were always accepted as central to Irish politics and accounted to a large extent for party political divisions (see Mair 1987). This was the case since the Civil War, which followed the Anglo-­Irish Treaty of 1921, led to the split in Sinn Féin and the subsequent formation of Cumann na nGaedheal (later Fine Gael) and Fianna Fáil. Given its opposition to the Treaty and emergence from Sinn Féin in 1926, Fianna Fáil presented itself as the true heir of the republican tradition in Ireland and as the party likely to realise the dream of a united Ireland. At the outbreak of the Troubles in the late 1960s and early 1970s this division on the ‘national

Finding consensus in the Republic of Ireland   33 question’ was brought into focus again. The Arms Crisis of 1970, when members of the Fianna Fáil government were accused of assisting in the importation of arms to the IRA in Northern Ireland (see O’Brien 2000), together with the use of traditional anti-­partitionist language by Fianna Fáil meant that the party was once again confirmed in the public mind as the more devout republican party. This was particularly so when contrasted with Fine Gael’s decision to champion the principle of consent – that is that the constitutional position of Northern Ireland could not be altered without the consent of a majority of people there (Noonan 2006; Harte 2005; Fine Gael 1979: 4). The development of their respective party discourses on Northern Ireland is central to understanding how the parties differed on the subject. It is in this context that this chapter examines the official discourses used by the main political parties in the Republic of Ireland when they refer to Northern Ireland. It seeks to illustrate the different functions which political discourse in the Republic has played during the conflict as well as during the peace process. In the first section the chapter will look at the political discourses employed by Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael over the course of the Troubles. Section Two will show that political discourse in the Republic has also played a key role in the peace process. An agreed political discourse reflecting the consensus that has emerged on Northern Ireland plays an important role in the operation of the peace process and the implementation of the Belfast/Good Friday (1998) and St Andrews (2006) Agreements.

Political discourse during the Troubles During the conflict both parties shared a common aim to de-­legitimise the IRA and Sinn Féin but they approached this in different ways. Fine Gael advanced an alternative discourse as a challenge to Sinn Féin and found itself a friend to the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) in Northern Ireland. Rejecting Sinn Féin, Fine Gael endorsed the SDLP as the legitimate representative of nationalism in Northern Ireland. Seeking to fortify the SDLP position and interpretation of politics and the conflict in Northern Ireland, Fine Gael’s policy and discourse was often similar to that articulated by the SDLP. Fine Gael also often concurred with SDLP proposals for the resolution of the conflict in Northern Ireland and this is seen most clearly through Fine Gael’s involvement in the New Ireland Forum of 1983–4 and the 1985 Anglo-­Irish Agreement. Fianna Fáil in contrast sought to discredit Sinn Féin and the IRA’s violent campaign by adopting an alternative but equally strong republican and anti-­ partitionist rhetorical position. Fianna Fáil sought to disown Sinn Féin and the IRA as descendants of the 1916 Rising republican tradition and instead claimed that mantle for the Fianna Fáil party. At the 1985 Fianna Fáil Ard Fheis party leader, Charles J. Haughey, said: Fianna Fáil, as the Republican party, is proud to be the political embodiment of the separatist, national tradition that is central to the freedom and

34   C. O’Donnell independence of the Irish nation. Republicanism for us means adherence to the principles of the 1916 Proclamation, which asserted the right of the Irish people to national freedom and sovereignty, and which guaranteed religious and civil liberty, equal rights and equal opportunity to all citizens. (Haughey 1985) It was not just in its use of republican anti-­partitionist language that Fianna Fáil sought to undermine the IRA and Sinn Féin. In the era of the Jack Lynch leadership (1966–73), as we will see, Fianna Fáil matched this discourse with a reunification policy at Anglo-­Irish level aimed at removing the reasons for IRA violence. Fianna Fáil discourse on Northern Ireland Jack Lynch was leader of Fianna Fáil and Taoiseach at the outbreak of the Troubles. While calling for reform and expressing concerns for the nationalist population in Northern Ireland, Lynch was publicly critical of IRA violence and stressed that the Irish government ‘have no intention of using force to realise this desire [re-­unification]’ (Lynch 1971c: 10). He also maintained that ‘there is no solution to be found to our disagreements by shooting each other. There is no real invader here’ (Lynch 1971c: 22). Throughout the Lynch years and into Fianna Fáil’s time under subsequent leader, Charles J. Haughey, the party rejected violence as a legitimate way to redress problems in Northern Ireland or as a way to pursue Irish unity. Like Lynch, Haughey rejected an IRA mandate: All but a tiny minority understand that violence can never bring a solution and that it serves only to perpetuate division and hatred. Let us make it absolutely clear that no Irish Government will tolerate any attempt by any group to put themselves above the law or to arrogate to themselves any of the functions of the Government. There is only one army in this State, one police force and one judiciary, appointed under the Constitution, to uphold the laws. The Government, acting for the people, will ensure that these laws are effective and are enforced. Democracy will be defended and the rule of law upheld. That is an essential element of national policy. (Haughey 1980) Yet despite consistently stating that the IRA campaign did not have a mandate (Lynch 1971b), Fianna Fáil argued, from the outset of the Troubles, that Irish unity was the only viable long-­term solution for Northern Ireland. Like Éamon de Valera before him, Lynch claimed that Ireland’s right to national self-­ determination underlined the party’s belief in unity as the ultimate solution (Lynch 1968c). At the 1969 party Ard Fheis, Lynch made clear that his government’s concentration on human rights, discrimination and reform in Northern Ireland did not ‘in any way indicate the abandonment by us (Fianna Fáil) of our just claim that the historic unity of this island be restored’ (Lynch 1969). Lynch

Finding consensus in the Republic of Ireland   35 believed that the emerging Troubles in Northern Ireland were a direct consequence of partition and that their resolution lay in the undoing of partition. He also placed the blame for partition squarely with the British government. In October 1968, Lynch claimed that ‘partition is the first and foremost root cause. And partition arose out of British policy’ (Lynch 1968a). In an address to the Anglo-­Irish Parliamentary Group some weeks later he repeated the view that ‘the clashes in the streets of Derry are an expression of the evils which partition has brought in its train’ (Lynch 1968b). It is not merely in Lynch’s rhetoric that the claim to unity was expressed. Lynch also attempted to pursue this claim at a political level and for the first time in the history of the party, Fianna Fáil actively pursued a policy of reunification at Anglo-­Irish level. While it is not the intention here to substantially quote from the archives, a look at the records from meetings at Anglo-­Irish level reveals the rationale for Lynch’s reunification-­based discourse and policy. At a meeting with the British Prime Minister, Edward Heath, in September 1971 Lynch reiterated that ‘partition was imposed and its existence always constituted a threat of violence because of the efforts to maintain Unionists in power’ (Lynch 1971a). Significantly, Lynch went on to say that ‘The IRA is a by-­product of that situation (where the majority continued in power in Northern Ireland)’ and if the British Prime Minister ‘could find it possible to state that the unification of Ireland would have to be the ultimate solution and gave an assurance of interest in working towards this end, this would be enormously helpful at the present time’ (Lynch 1971a). The Irish government and Lynch were of the view that if the British government were to move towards a policy of Irish unification then the reasons for the IRA would cease to exist. According to Lynch, support for the IRA could be diminished if a political initiative was put in place to move towards unity and to improve conditions for nationalists in Northern Ireland. Lynch clearly believed in the legitimacy of the call for a united Ireland and interpreted the conflict in Northern Ireland in these terms. More importantly Fianna Fáil believed that addressing the reasons for IRA violence was the key to bringing the conflict to an end in the short to medium term. Thus Fianna Fáil attempted to gain progress towards Irish unity at a political level believing that if the Irish government could prove that constitutional avenues could offer progress towards unity this would both remove the reasons for IRA violence and undermine support for the IRA. So while Fianna Fáil criticised IRA violence, its approach from the outset of the Troubles was to articulate a strong republican discourse and anti-­partitionist policy at governmental level in the pursuit of a united Ireland as an alternative to the IRA violent campaign. The problem was that Lynch had no success in his attempts to put in place an initiative for Northern Ireland that might result in a united Ireland. This was mainly due to the fact that the British government did not accept that the Irish government had any right to be involved in discussions relating to Northern Ireland (see Bew et al. 1997: 43–4) but also due to the reality of unionist opposition to such an outcome. As such Lynch endorsed the

36   C. O’Donnell IRA pursuit of Irish reunification in his choice of language but could not deliver any progress on this through constitutional mechanisms. In fact Lynch’s inability to match anti-­partitionist language with delivery at the Anglo-­Irish level further underlined for IRA supporters the argument that constitutional politics could not deliver. The failure of this approach also reinforced the republican discourse (in both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland) which stressed British responsibility in relation to Northern Ireland. Despite failure at this point, Fianna Fáil remained consistent in its attempts to make political progress towards a settlement involve unity as a mechanism to remove the reasons for IRA violence. In the 1980s Haughey believed this settlement would develop at an Anglo-­Irish level. He argued that Northern Ireland was a failed political entity and stressed the need for the Irish and British governments to ‘work together to find a formula and lift the situation onto a new plane that will bring permanent peace and stability to the people of these islands’. In Haughey’s view this new Anglo-­Irish approach would begin with a declaration by the British Government of their interest in encouraging the unity of Ireland, by agreement and in peace [and this] would open the way towards an entirely new situation in which peace, real lasting peace, would become an attainable reality. (Haughey 1980) While this is not exactly how it panned out, the Anglo-­Irish Agreement of 1985 and the potential benefits of a peace process persuaded the republican movement of the progress that could be made politically if violence was absent. While still seeking the mechanism to illustrate to republicans that constitutionalism could deliver progress towards unity, Fianna Fáil continued its use of anti-­partitionist language and a strong republican position as an alternative to Sinn Féin and the IRA campaign. For Haughey this involved a rejection of the principle of consent and an insistence that talks with unionists would only involve discussion as to the form of a united Ireland and not about whether reunification might happen – ‘when we speak of the need to secure the agreement of the unionist population that agreement applies to the new arrangements for, but not to the concept of, a united Ireland’ (Dáil Éireann Debates 19 November 1985: Vol. 361, Cols 2579–600). Haughey’s rationale for this was similar to that of Lynch’s as seen above in his meetings at Anglo-­Irish level and this is illustrated in the response by Haughey to The Unionist Case (a submission to the Taoiseach and leader of the Opposition by unionist Robert McCartney). In this response, Haughey argued that the Irish government’s position on Northern Ireland must not offer Sinn Féin and the IRA grounds to justify their position regarding the use of violence. Haughey believed that if the Irish government abandoned the claim to Irish unity then republican violence would increase as nationalists in Northern Ireland would feel abandoned and the IRA’s argument that no option other than violence was open to them would appear to be strengthened. Haughey wrote:

Finding consensus in the Republic of Ireland   37 It is a great illusion to suppose that if the Irish government were to recognise the validity of partition and to abandon the concept of a united Ireland that this would necessarily bring a diminution of violence. On the contrary, the only likely consequence would be a threat to the stability of the twenty-­ six counties as well as the six counties. An Irish government, which would abandon the fundamental democratic aspiration of the Irish people on both sides of the border, would invite repudiation possible in a form, which would only aggravate the existing conflict in Northern Ireland. (Mansergh 1986: 574) Thus the use of traditional republican rhetoric by Fianna Fáil in the 1970s and the 1980s and indeed more recently was and is aimed at undermining the ideological arguments put forward to justify the IRA campaign. Success towards a united Ireland at a political constitutional level was pursued in order to highlight the futility of violence and limit the level of support for IRA violence and Sinn Féin in Northern Ireland and in the Republic, in particular. It was and is also intended to limit the electoral threat from Sinn Féin. It must be said also that the articulation of a united Ireland reflected and continues to reflect the long-­term position of Fianna Fáil. Fianna Fáil does not necessarily dispute the IRA or Sinn Féin’s interpretation of the conflict in Northern Ireland and agrees that unity is the ultimate solution. Sinn Féin and Fianna Fáil shared a use of anti-­partitionistcentred discourse but what differentiated the two parties was Fianna Fáil’s belief in constitutional mechanisms as the correct and most successful approach. It was the shared interpretations that ultimately convinced Sinn Féin that it could adopt a political approach which involved building a working relationship and an agreed position with the Irish government. It is for this reason also that in working with the Irish government, Sinn Féin prefers to work with an Irish government led by Fianna Fáil (see Adams 2003: 197 for views on this). Discourse on Northern Ireland: Fine Gael and the Irish Labour Party The common objectives by Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and Labour in seeking to undermine Sinn Féin and the IRA have already been outlined. What then was it that distinguished the Fine Gael approach in terms of discourse to that of Fianna Fáil and how did these discourses function together? Did they act to complement or oppose each other? These are some of the questions addressed in this section. Given its history as a strong defender of the constitutional tradition in Ireland, its declaration of the Republic in 1949 coupled with a celebration of the State’s connections with the British State and Commonwealth (see O’Donnell 2008) it is not surprising that it was Fine Gael and not Fianna Fáil that reacted to the outbreak of the Troubles with attempts at reassessment and debate on the ‘national question’ and Northern Ireland. This was very much influenced and led by the party’s leader from 1977–87, Garret FitzGerald, who had a significant interest in Northern Ireland. Fine Gael members saw the party as having a role in reshaping

38   C. O’Donnell attitudes and interpretations and in leading debate and discourse in the Republic as to Northern Ireland, republicanism and the achievement of a united Ireland. This was outlined by the party’s spokesperson on Northern Ireland and prominent border TD, Paddy Harte, in a speech to the Fine Gael Ard Fheis on 20 May 1978. He said: The challenge facing [the] Fine Gael leadership is to continue to guide southern opinion in the correct direction towards Irish nationhood and to involve the Party at all levels throughout the Republic in promoting better understanding of the complexities of Northern Irish life. (Harte 1978a) Like Fianna Fáil and Sinn Féin, Fine Gael and Labour reaffirmed the ideal of a united Ireland (see Hayward 2004: 23–4), but they did not seek to present a strong republican position but rather an alternative argument and alternative policy positions. Instead while Fianna Fáil talked about the ultimate solution of unity, national self-­determination and Britain’s responsibility in relation to Northern Ireland, Fine Gael, in agreement with the Labour Party, only talked about unity coming about through consent. On this point, Fine Gael has been consistent. In 1969, Fine Gael was proactive in its unilateral endorsement of the principle of consent and this has remained party policy (see Fine Gael 1969, in Harte 2005; see also Fine Gael 1979: 4; Noonan 2006; Deenihan 2006). We have seen above Fianna Fáil’s alternative interpretation as to what the principle of consent entailed and indeed this represented much of the disagreement between the two parties through the 1970s and 1980s. Another point rejected by Fianna Fáil, but on which Fine Gael and Labour did not shift, was the need, in their view, for the Republic to become more pluralist. They argued that Ireland’s legislation would have to be made more attractive to unionists. FitzGerald, Harte and others in Fine Gael acknowledged that constitutional reform in the Republic was necessary before Unionists would contemplate unity. As early as February 1972, Paddy Harte talked about the need for ‘the foundations of a new and just society’ to be assured before unity could take place. He argued that: Reunification is not yet on the agenda and we in the Republic have many changes to achieve before it will even be acceptable for debate by the most moderate of Unionists. Nothing short of a completely new Constitution leading in the direction of a Pluralist Society will be sufficient as an initial step on our part. (Harte 1972b) Harte consistently argued that: Ireland united must mean the total acceptance of the policies, the cultures, the traditions and the religious beliefs of all Irish people and the freedom to

Finding consensus in the Republic of Ireland   39 express and practice these things in a natural way. Unless this is accepted Irish unity is a myth and an illusion and Irish nationhood can never be gained. (Harte 1978b) Harte’s views reflected those of his leader, Garret FitzGerald, who also stressed the need for a more pluralist republic as a prerequisite to unity (FitzGerald 1972: 142–57) and, as Taoiseach, set about the completion of a ‘constitutional crusade’ (Mair 1987: 97). He outlined his party’s policies for government as including ‘the creation of a pluralist society as a basis upon which to build a new relationship between North and South’ (Dáil Éireann Debates 1 July 1982: Vol. 337, Col. 577). Thus Fine Gael’s discourse centred around what former Fine Gael leader, Michael Noonan, has described as the twin pillars of Fine Gael thought on Northern Ireland, that is, an acceptance of the principle of consent and a recognition that ‘there’s an obligation to try to accommodate difference by having a more pluralist society down here’ (Noonan 2006). As already mentioned Fine Gael’s policy and discourse on Northern Ireland (in particular the emphasis on the principle of consent and unity) was very much influenced by the SDLP. While in government in the 1980s, Fine Gael sought to bolster the position of constitutional nationalism in the North and this was the rationale for FitzGerald’s pursuit of an Anglo-­Irish process which led to the Anglo-­Irish Agreement in 1985 (see FitzGerald 1993: 191–2). Fine Gael had up to this point stressed consent and pluralism and seeking agreement with Protestants in Northern Ireland. However, now that the SDLP was perceived to be facing an electoral threat from Sinn Féin in Northern Ireland, Fine Gael prioritised a deal with the British government in order to strengthen the position of the SDLP. Through the Anglo-­Irish Agreement, the Irish government sought to bolster the SDLP by securing nationalist representation in Northern Ireland and an Irish dimension – both of which were key demands made by the SDLP. The functions of party discourses Fine Gael’s motivation in signing the Anglo-­Irish Agreement of 1985 is well known in terms of undermining the electoral threat which Sinn Féin posed to the SDLP in Northern Ireland in the aftermath of the Hunger Strikes there in 1981. In addition to this, the Anglo-­Irish Agreement also affected a reassessment within the republican movement and forced a debate among its members as to the gains that could be made at political level (on republicanism and the peace process, see English 2003). This was an important, if unplanned, outcome of Fine Gael efforts. Fianna Fáil’s use of republican anti-­partitionist discourse is important here too. Given Fianna Fáil’s republican position up to that point it was the obvious party in the Republic from which Sinn Féin sought assistance in the late 1980s when it looked for a way out of its isolating armed struggle (see O’Donnell 2003; Mallie and McKittrick 2001).

40   C. O’Donnell These are important points in understanding the emergence of the peace process in the late 1980s but what functions did the two alternative sets of discourses utilised by Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael play in this? The answer to this lies in understanding the parties’ objectives and assessing their success in these. As outlined, both parties were concerned to undermine Sinn Féin and the IRA’s argument in favour of violence in Northern Ireland as well as to limit support for the republican movement. Fine Gael was particularly concerned with the effect of growing support for Sinn Féin in the 1980s on the SDLP in Northern Ireland. Fianna Fáil was also fearful of the effect on their support base in the Republic. How successful were they in their efforts? Fine Gael’s main achievement was in its traditional concentration on the principle of consent and pluralism as a way of reaching out to unionists and in gaining recognition for these ideas. In contrast, Fianna Fáil’s historical articulation of the Irish right to national self-­determination and vocalisation of its belief in unity as the only acceptable outcome successfully maintained the republican constituency in the Republic mainly in the Fianna Fáil fold and acted as a deterrent to those in the Republic who might otherwise have supported Sinn Féin and the IRA if a republican vacuum had been allowed to exist. It also meant that Fianna Fáil and Sinn Féin had many ideological points in common and enabled it to bring Sinn Féin into mainstream constitutional politics in the 1990s. Thus both Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael played important roles, through their choice of discourse, in creating the conditions for the peace process. Fine Gael incorporated the principle of consent into official political discourse in the Republic. Fianna Fáil, through its anti-­partitionist discourse and concentration on self-­determination, provided the avenue for which to bring Sinn Féin into discussion from the late 1980s onwards. Both sets of discourses had important goals and eventually played complementary roles in the development of the peace process and in framing the Good Friday Agreement. Ultimately they shared the same agenda: to undermine support for the IRA. Both parties would now claim the peace process as an endorsement of their individual positions and discourses on Northern Ireland since the beginning of the Troubles.

Political discourse and the peace process A central part of the peace process experience in the Republic has been the development of a cross-­party political and ideological consensus on long-­term and short-­term policies and goals for Northern Ireland. This new political consensus plays a key role in maintaining the peace process and in implementing the Good Friday and St Andrews Agreements. The political parties have been articulating a discourse on Northern Ireland that illustrates the emergence of agreement on a number of levels. The consensus reached by Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael on Northern Ireland is based on their support for the Good Friday Agreement in 1998 and subsequently the St Andrews Agreement in 2006 (see Bertie Ahern, Dáil Éireann Debates 21 April 1998: Vol. 489, Col. 1029 and John Bruton, Dáil Éireann Debates 21 April 1998: Vol. 489, Col. 1038). By

Finding consensus in the Republic of Ireland   41 endorsing the Good Friday Agreement in 1998, Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael agreed on the reformulation of the relevant Articles in the 1937 Constitution of Ireland and an ideological formula involving the concepts of self-­determination and the principle of consent. Both parties declared their immediate goal for Northern Ireland to be the implementation of the Good Friday Agreement with unity as a long-­term objective. The Fianna Fáil manifesto in 2002 asserted the party’s priority to ‘secure lasting peace in Ireland through the full implementation of the Good Friday Agreement’ without ‘prejudice to the ultimate goal of achieving a united Ireland’ (Irish Times 26 April 2002). Under successive leaders, Fine Gael has supported the peace process and has also articulated the long-­term objective of unity (Deenihan 2006; Hayes 2006; see also Coveney 2004). As part of their shared support for the Good Friday Agreement and the peace process, the language of the peace process as espoused by the main parties in the Republic has been framed within the terms of reconciliation and a peaceful settlement. There has also emerged a common understanding between Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil (and Sinn Féin) on the meaning of republicanism as democratic, pluralist and as accepting of the principle of consent. This development is reflected in many of the party leaders’ speeches. The Fine Gael leader, Enda Kenny, describes the Republic as one that ‘upholds and practises true republican traditions – freedom, pluralism, justice, equality, brotherhood’ (Kenny 2004). Former Fianna Fáil leader, Bertie Ahern, agreed: ‘We value religious liberty and practice religious tolerance. Our success in Ireland is based on democratic republicanism and is inspired by the principles of equality and fraternity’ (Ahern 2004). Also key to the parties’ agreed discourse is the central role for Sinn Féin within the peace process and politics in Northern Ireland. Both parties have talked about the peace process as existing only through the inclusion of Sinn Féin. For example, former leader of Fine Gael, Michael Noonan, has stated that ‘certainly there is no peace process without Sinn Féin’ (Noonan 2006) and former Deputy Leader of Fianna Fáil, Mary O’Rourke, has also argued that ‘there was going to be no process without them [Sinn Féin]’ (O’Rourke 2005). This belief in Sinn Féin inclusion is a major component of what the discourse of the peace process involves. Both parties are also in agreement though that the peace process does not mean that Sinn Féin should be considered suitable for government in the Republic. Fianna Fáil have taken this position on the grounds that ‘Northern Ireland is a different environment’ and therefore ‘different considerations apply’ (Treacy 2005). Fine Gael’s Brian Hayes has also argued that putting Sinn Féin in government in the Republic would be wrong on the basis that the Republic is not the North. We don’t have divided allegiance in this part of the island. The Northern Ireland Assembly is a regional parliament, established with the purpose of bringing together the divided and sectarian society that is Northern Ireland. (Sunday Independent 17 October 2004)

42   C. O’Donnell

What does this mean for Northern Ireland? The first section of this chapter outlines the function which the chosen discourses by the parties in the Republic played in the course of the Troubles in Northern Ireland and the emergence of the peace process in the late 1980s. Similarly, the language used by the parties in the Republic plays a significant part in ensuring the longevity of the peace process as the accepted political initiative for Northern Ireland and has contained any support for an alternative approach. This shared discourse among the parties in the Republic and in Britain has had a highly significant impact in ensuring the maintenance and legitimacy of the peace process in the public mind. If we remember the situation in the aftermath of the 1985 Anglo-­Irish Agreement we can understand the importance of political consensus for political peace initiatives. While Fianna Fáil continued to implement the Anglo-­Irish Agreement when it came to power in 1987, Haughey consistently endorsed the idea of a process that would ‘transcend the existing framework for Northern Ireland’ (Haughey, Irish Times 23 April 1988). This opened up the opportunity to renegotiate the Agreement and to find a process that would replace it. No such prospect exists now to negotiate a deviation away from the peace process. The existence of cross-­party support for the peace process in Britain means that this new cross-­party agreement in the Republic on Northern Ireland is even more significant. Both governments have been firm in their support for the implementation of the Good Friday and St Andrews Agreements, the peace process and more importantly the inclusion of Sinn Féin. This has been particularly important in encouraging the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) and later, the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) to engage with the peace process as a political reality. Both governments became converted to the peace process despite unionist opposition and unionists have been forced to respond to this (on the unionist experience of the peace process see Farrington 2006). In short, the emergence of a cross-­party discourse, which reflects the consensus that exists in the Republic, as well as in Britain, on short-­term and long-­term policies for Northern Ireland, has removed the political space for an alternative initiative for Northern Ireland. In addition, the cross-­party endorsement of the constitutional change that was involved in the Good Friday Agreement was crucial to gaining overwhelming public support for change and ensured the relatively uncontroversial referendum campaign in the Republic in 1998. If the parties in the Republic had disagreed on the Good Friday Agreement (as was the case with the Anglo-­Irish Agreement) the entire project would have been weakened.

Conclusion The role and purpose of political discourse is an important component of attempts to understand the conflict and peace process in Northern Ireland. As has been illustrated by the other contributions to this collection, the articulation of

Finding consensus in the Republic of Ireland   43 key ideas, political and ideological positions by the parties in Northern Ireland are central to this. Equally important has been the official political discourse on Northern Ireland in the Republic of Ireland. This has played important but differing roles in the Troubles and the peace process. Throughout the Troubles Fianna Fáil discourse centred around the right to national self-­determination, unity as the ultimate solution and British responsibility in relation to Northern Ireland. Fianna Fáil pursued a reunification policy and discourse with the aim of removing the reasons for IRA violence through constitutional progress towards unity. It also sought to limit the level of support for Sinn Féin and the IRA in the Republic by providing a strong republican alternative and avoiding a republican vacuum from which Sinn Féin could benefit. While Fianna Fáil could not demonstrate in the 1970s and 1980s that constitutional mechanisms could provide progress towards unity it successfully limited the appeal of militant republicanism in the main to Northern Ireland. By the late 1980s, when Sinn Féin sought to bring republicans into mainstream politics, the ideology and language that it shared with Fianna Fáil opened up an avenue through which to establish the pan-­nationalist alliance which became so central to the peace process (see O’Donnell 2007). Fine Gael and Labour also sought to undermine the credibility of the arguments articulated by the republican movement in justifying IRA violence. Fine Gael articulated a challenging and new discourse on Northern Ireland based around the principle of consent and a pluralist society in the Republic prior to unity. It was very much influenced by the SDLP and its policy in the 1980s had the objective of bolstering the SDLP in the North against an electoral threat from Sinn Féin in the years after the IRA Hunger Strikes. Much of Fine Gael’s language on the principle of consent and republicanism as a pluralist and democratic concept provided the framework for the Good Friday Agreement and the language of the peace process (see O’Donnell 2008). The short-­term policy and discourse differences between Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael had important complementary impacts on politics in Northern Ireland. As a result of its commitment to removing the reasons for IRA violence, Fianna Fáil provided much of the basis and rationale for the peace process by making a process involving Sinn Féin likely. By emphasising the principle of consent, Fine Gael provided much of the framework for the constitutional reform undertaken by the Republic of Ireland through the Good Friday Agreement. The language of the parties in the Republic continues to have an important function for Northern Ireland as the peace process develops. While the aim throughout the conflict was to undermine Sinn Féin and the IRA, the aim now is to endorse the peace process as the only political initiative for Northern Ireland. Key to achieving this has been the cross-­party consensus that has emerged in the Republic of Ireland (and in Britain) during the peace process on ideological, short and long-­term policy points in relation to Northern Ireland. This consensus and shared discourse is key to explaining the durability of the peace process despite the problems it has faced.

44   C. O’Donnell

Bibliography Adams, G. (2003) Hope and History: Making Peace in Ireland, Kerry: Brandon. Ahern, B. (2004) Speech by the Taoiseach at the Wolfe Tone Commemoration, Bodenstown, County Kildare, 17 October 2004. Available at http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/issues/­ politics/docs/dott/ba171004.htm (accessed 16 May 2007). Bew, P., Patterson, H. and Teague, P. (1997) Between War and Peace: The Political Future of Northern Ireland, London: Wishart and Lawrence. Coveney, S. (2004) Fine Gael TD, MEP, Speech at the Béal na mBláth Commemoration, 22 August 2004. Available at www.FineGael.ie (accessed 8 November 2006). Deenihan, J. (2006) Interview by author with Jimmy Deenihan, TD Fine Gael, Dublin, 25 October 2006. English, R. (2003) Armed Struggle: A History of the IRA, Oxford: Macmillan. Farrington, C. (2006) Ulster Unionism and the Peace Process in Northern Ireland, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Fine Gael (1969) Document on Northern Ireland, reproduced in Harte, 2005. Fine Gael (1979) Document by Dr Garret FitzGerald and Paddy Harte, Ireland: Our Future Together, Dublin: Fine Gael. FitzGerald, G. (1972) Towards a New Ireland, Dublin: Gill and Macmillan. FitzGerald, G. (1993) ‘The origins and rationale of the Anglo-­Irish Agreement of 1985’, in D. Keogh and M.H. Haltzel (eds) Northern Ireland and the Politics of Reconciliation, Cambridge: Woodrow Wilson Center Press and Cambridge University Press. Harte, P. (1972a) Speech in Dundalk, 3 February 1972, copy in author’s possession. Harte, P. (1972b) Speech at University College, Dublin, 21 November 1972, copy in author’s possession. Harte, P. (1978a) Speech to the Fine Gael Ard Fheis, 20 May 1978, copy in author’s possession. Harte, P. (1978b) Speech in Limerick, 4 October 1978, copy in author’s possession. Harte, P. (2005) Young Tigers and Mongrel Foxes: A Life in Politics, Dublin: O’Brien Press. Haughey, C.J. (1980) Address at the Fianna Fáil Ard Fheis, 16 February 1980, Fianna Fáil Archives P176/785. Haughey, C.J. (1985) Address at the Fianna Fáil Ard Fheis, 30 March 1985, Fianna Fáil Archives, P176/789. Hayes, B. (2006) Interview with Senator Brian Hayes, Fine Gael, 21 September 2006. Hayward, K. (2004) ‘The politics of nuance: Irish official discourse on Northern Ireland’, Irish Political Studies 19(1): 18–38. Kenny, E. (2004) Speech to the Young Fine Gael 20th National Conference, 13 November 2004. Avail able at www.finegael.ie/news/index.cfm/type/details/nkey/24896 (accessed 10 April 2007). Lynch, J. (1968a) Speech at Clonmel and Tipperary town, 8 October 1968, National Archives, Department of the Taoiseach, File No. 2000/6/657. Lynch, J. (1968b) Address to the Anglo-­Irish Parliamentary Group, 30 October 1968, National Archives, Department of Taoiseach, File No. 2000/6/657. Lynch, J. (1968c) Statement at a press conference given at the Irish Embassy, London, 30 October 1968 in Irish Press, 1 November 1968. Lynch, J. (1969) Address at Fianna Fáil Ard Fheis 28 January 1969, Fianna Fáil Archives, University College, Dublin, P176/775.

Finding consensus in the Republic of Ireland   45 Lynch, J. (1971a) ‘Report of discussions on 6 and 7 September 1971 at Chequers between the Taoiseach and the British Prime Minister’, National Archives, Department of Foreign Affairs, File No. 2003/13/6. Lynch, J. (1971b) Extract from ‘7 Days’ interview, 30 November 1971, National Archives, Department of the Taoiseach, File No. 2002/8/251. Lynch, J. (1971c) Speeches and Statements on Irish Unity, Northern Ireland, Anglo-­Irish Relations, August 1969–October 1971, Dublin: Government Information Bureau. Mair, P. (1987) ‘Breaking the nationalist mould: the Irish Republic and the Anglo-­Irish Agreement’, in P. Teague (ed.) Beyond the Rhetoric: Politics, Economics and Social Policy in Northern Ireland, London: Lawrence and Wishart. Mallie, E. and McKittrick, D. (2001) Endgame in Ireland, London: Hodder and Stoughton. Mansergh, M. (ed.) (1986) The Spirit of the Nation: Speeches by Charles J. Haughey 1957–1986, Cork and Dublin: Mercier Press. Noonan, M. (2006) Interview by author with Michael Noonan, TD Fine Gael, Dublin, 5 October 2006. O’Brien, J. (2000) The Arms Trial, Dublin: Gill and Macmillan. O’Donnell, C. (2003) ‘Fianna Fáil and Sinn Féin: the 1988 Talks reappraised’, Irish Political Studies 18(2): 60–81. O’Donnell, C. (2007) Fianna Fáil, Irish Republicanism and the Northern Ireland Troubles, 1968–2005, Dublin: Irish Academic Press. O’Donnell, C. (2008) ‘Fine Gael: A Republican party?’, in I. Honohan (ed.) Republicanism in Ireland: Confronting Theories and Traditions, Manchester: Manchester University Press. O’Rourke, M. (2005) Interview by author with Senator Mary O’Rourke, Fianna Fáil, Dublin, 15 November 2005. Treacy, N. (2005) Interview by author with Noel Treacy, Fianna Fáil TD, Dublin, 1 December 2005.

4 Interpreting New Labour’s political discourse on the peace process Aaron Edwards

One problem with Tony [Blair]’s fundamental view of Northern Ireland is that the process is the policy, that as long as the process is being sustained and you are giving plenty of evidence that you believe in the process, even if you can do nothing else, that is sufficient policy. (Peter Mandelson, former Secretary of State for Northern Ireland [1999–2001], quoted in the Guardian 14 March 2007) I would tell Tony that, no matter what, we had to try to keep things moving forward, like a bicycle. If we let the bicycle fall over, we would create a vacuum and that vacuum would be filled by violence. . . . By the end, we had realised peace was not an event but a process. (Jonathan Powell, former Chief of Staff to Prime Minister Tony Blair [1997–2007], Powell 2008: 5) I know that Blair felt ‘the hand of history on his shoulder’ but he shouldn’t have tried to re-­write it. (Kevin McNamara, former Shadow Secretary of State for Northern Ireland [1987–94], interview with the author, 14 July 2009)

New Labour’s handling of the Northern Ireland peace process has re-­opened debate about the party’s stance on the ‘Irish question’. Rather than being ideologically wedded to the nationalist goal of Irish unity, it could be argued that the party’s Northern Ireland policy has actually been characterised by an ambivalent non-­interventionist approach (Edwards 2007b, 2009). This chapter examines the ‘peace strategy’ pursued by Tony Blair’s three administrations between 1997 and 2007 in light of the political discourse articulated by key actors within New Labour itself.1 The interpretive approach in British political science is utilised here to illuminate key variables, such as ideology and values, driving the party’s view on sovereignty in the United Kingdom more broadly. This chapter explains how New Labour’s policy towards Northern Ireland underwent important adaptation under Blair’s leadership and why it finally achieved its overarching objective of consigning the violent conflict to atrophy. In exploring the underlying ideological dynamics of New Labour’s ‘peace strategy’ in Northern Ireland, therefore, the chapter concentrates on three key

Interpreting New Labour’s political discourse   47 components in its political discourse: devolution, bi-­partisanship and consent. It is argued here that these concepts underwent significant shifts in meaning after 1994, which permitted Tony Blair to move his party from a position of ‘persuaders for Irish unity’ in the early 1990s to a position of ‘neutral arbitration’ when returned to power in 1997. Moreover, in order to understand its ‘peace strategy’ more fully, these endogenous changes must be considered in light of the exogenous constitutional reconfiguration of the United Kingdom polity. Indeed, it is argued here that New Labour’s policy towards Northern Ireland should be understood – can only be understood – in relation to the party’s successful synergy of both key drivers in its political discourse.

The ‘New’ in New Labour’s Northern Ireland policy Drawing on the interpretive work of Bevir and Rhodes (2003, 2006) this chapter critically analyses New Labour’s political discourse on the Northern Ireland peace process. In methodological terms, the interpretive approach is concerned with traditions, contexts and dilemmas in politics. ‘Tradition’, in the sense that Bevir and Rhodes deploy the concept, acts as a backdrop but does not fix everything; it is ‘an initial influence’ on actors that colours their later actions but is always contingent (Finlayson 2004: 150). In many ways traditions are enabling ideological backdrops, against which actors are permitted to make informed choices within a specific socio-­political context. Moreover, when an actor becomes conscious of the rigid restrictions that may be placed upon his/her future actions by adhering to such traditions, it is possible for him/her to lighten the ideological baggage by embracing a new idea. The point at which this self-­ realisation occurs is known as a ‘dilemma’. As Bevir and Rhodes (2003: 36) explain: ‘A dilemma arises for an individual or institution when a new idea stands in opposition to existing beliefs and associated traditions.’ Explaining ideological change within the Labour Party New Labour’s political discourse on Northern Ireland could be said to have encountered such a dilemma. Borrowing from the work of Bevir and Rhodes (2003: 37) it is possible to demonstrate how, in order to ‘accommodate a new idea, people must develop their existing beliefs to make room for it, and its content will open some ways of doing so and close down others’. This chapter examines how and why an ideological dilemma arose within the Labour Party vis-­à-vis its political discourse on Northern Ireland. In redefining their policy, the architects of ‘New’ Labour were keen to distance it from that of ‘Old’ Labour. New Labour rejects the command bureaucracy model of old Labour with its emphasis on hierarchy, authority and rules . . . New Labour does not seek to provide centralised ‘statist’ solutions. . . . Instead New Labour promotes the idea of networks of institutions and individuals acting in partnerships held

48   A. Edwards together by relations of trust . . . Patterns of governance arise as the contingent products of diverse actions and political struggles informed by beliefs of the agents as they in turn arise against a backcloth of traditions and dilemmas. (Bevir and Rhodes 2003: 197–198) In the Northern Ireland context, as in other policy areas, ‘the triumph of Blair’s vision of New Labour over other strands of social democracy represents the outcome of a contingent political struggle’ (Bevir and Rhodes 2003: 140). The ‘contingent political struggle’ – in the sense that it is employed in this chapter – is shown to be as hard-­fought-out between New Labour’s own left and right as it is with its electoral opponents in the Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties. In her political memoirs, Blair’s first Secretary of State for Northern Ireland Mo Mowlam reveals how the formulation of Northern Ireland policy – in the wake of her party’s victory in the 1997 British general election – was born out of the necessity to balance internal tensions between several Labour interest groups: As members of a party with a long tradition of fighting for justice and a fairer society, a lot of people in the Labour Party had been close supporters of the civil-­rights movement in Northern Ireland in the 1960s and 1970s, which translated for many into support for Irish nationalism. But [after 1997] we were no longer a campaigning opposition. We now had a clear position, standing, in my shorthand, for ‘neutrality, with fairness, justice and equality’. That meant we could do things as a government to further those crucial values, while at the same time maintaining our neutrality in the talks. (Mowlam 2002: 162) However, the reality was somewhat more complex than Mowlam suggests, in that Labour’s policy towards Northern Ireland ebbed and flowed according to a number of factors, such as the personal interests of individual leaders, their dexterity in managing backbench critics in parliament and the aims of certain Labour interest groups. Furthermore, it was a policy tempered to a large degree by other domestic and foreign concerns of the day. This is evident in the history of the party’s policy on Northern Ireland. During his post-­war government Clement Attlee (Labour leader, 1935–55) took a pro-­unionist stance on Northern Ireland and invested heavily in passing legislation that secured the province’s political survival. Such favourable rapprochement emerged directly from Northern Ireland’s role in aiding the British war effort. Conversely, during its long spell in Opposition under Hugh Gaitskell (Labour leader, 1955–63) Labour maintained a close association with the cross-­community Northern Ireland Labour Party (NILP), thus maintaining a partitionist outlook (see Edwards 2007a; 2009). Only under Harold Wilson (Labour leader, 1963–76) did the party pursue a more green-­tinged policy – something subsequently resisted by his successor James Callaghan (1976–79).

Interpreting New Labour’s political discourse   49 This ambiguous stance has led some critics, like Brendan O’Leary (2004: 196), to conclude that: ‘Statements they [Harold Wilson and James Callaghan] made before or after their premierships showed they had formulated preferences substantively different from the status quo, but in office did nothing that significantly advanced these goals’. The move in Labour Party circles towards open support for Irish unity was hastened under the leadership of Michael Foot (1979–83) and Neil Kinnock (1983–92), although events such as the Hunger Strikes of 1981 and the signing of the Anglo-­Irish Agreement by the British and Irish governments at Hillsborough Castle in November 1985 served to condition Labour’s discourse more purposefully than the personal convictions of individual leaders (author’s interview with Dr Kevin McNamara, House of Commons, 14 July 2009). Significantly, by the time John Smith (1992–94) had taken over from Kinnock, the Irish question had been subordinated to the wider electoral ambitions of the party, where it was to remain until Tony Blair assumed the leadership in the wake of Smith’s untimely death. It was under Blair that New Labour’s policy on Northern Ireland underwent considerable adaptation between 1994 and 2007 and saw a devolved settlement based on the ‘principle of consent’, not ‘unity by consent’, emerge as the central plank in the governing party’s peace strategy.2 Although it seemed to represent something of a clean break from the rigid ‘green’ (i.e. sympathetic to the Irish nationalist aspiration for Irish unity) orthodoxy of the 1980s, it was nonetheless the by-­product of a broader trade-­off between old-­fashioned dogmatism and the need to make the Labour Party more electorally relevant in wake of the Tory victory in the 1992 general election. Thus, the party policy of ‘unity by consent’ was dropped in favour of non-­interventionism in Irish affairs. While this new departure was qualitatively different from the policy pursued under Wilson’s Labour governments of 1964–70 and 1974–76, it does share common ground with that pursued under Gaitskell in the 1950s and early 1960s (see Edwards 2007a, 2009) and may well have had its immediate roots in the enshrining of the ‘unity of consent’ in the Anglo-­Irish Agreement (interview with McNamara, 14 July 2009). In any case, an acceptance of majority consent, regionalism, and a locally devolved administration had long since formed the backbone of the party’s immediate post-­war policy towards Northern Ireland (Dixon 1993).

Devolution In his resignation speech on 10 May 2007, Tony Blair made just one minor reference to Northern Ireland in which he said, ‘I think Northern Ireland would not have been changed unless Britain had changed.’ Change in Britain and in government policy towards the province under Blair centred round major constitutional and territorial adjustment, which saw an effective return to devolved government in the three peripheral regions of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Labour’s commitment to devolution remained strong during Blair’s decade as Prime Minister and in some ways demonstrates how New Labour

50   A. Edwards sought to redress the issue of sovereignty in the absence of a more radical ‘Old’ Labourist agenda. Arguably, Blair, rather than seeing devolution as an effective conflict management tool, viewed its utility through the much broader prism of constitutional reform. Before coming to power he remarked, ‘I find it odd to say the least that the government proposes devolution for Northern Ireland as part of a package designed to keep the Union together but says that devolution anywhere else is irresponsible and reckless’ (Blair 1996: 82). The empowerment of the ordinary citizen became a recurring theme in New Labour discourse throughout its first three terms of office. It is evident in a speech made by the former Secretary of State for Northern Ireland Peter Hain (2006) at the time of the St Andrews Agreement,3 when he pointed out that: ‘Devolution gives local politicians the power to take local decisions about local issues. I hope they will grasp this opportunity and fulfill the obligations for which they have long been elected.’ According to New Labour discourse, this decentralisation of governance sprang from both a deep-­seated belief in empowering ordinary people and in a firm commitment to achieving a peaceful settlement to this most enduring of conflicts. A commitment to reconfigure the constitutional landscape of the UK was the key point of differentiation between New Labour’s policy towards Northern Ireland and that of successive governments.4 As indicated above constitutional reform remained a crucial element of New Labour’s vision for a ‘New Britain’, wherein power was devolved to the constituent (or peripheral) parts of the UK in a way that reflected the party’s own radical democratic socialist tradition. Tony Blair’s vision for a ‘New Britain’ is evident in his maiden speech to the people of Northern Ireland, delivered at the Royal Ulster Agricultural Society in Belfast in 1997: I want to see a Union which reflects and accommodates diversity. I am against a rigid, centralised approach. That is the surest way to weaken the Union. The proposals this government are making for Scotland and Wales, and for the English regions, are designed to bring Government closer to the people. That will renew and strengthen the Union. (Blair 1997) However, it must be borne in mind that devolution was conceived for an altogether different purpose in Northern Ireland than elsewhere in the UK. As Bradbury and Mitchell point out: In Scotland and Wales the purpose of devolution had been to accommodate national feeling within a decentralised UK. In contrast, in Northern Ireland devolution had been a mechanism to reconcile implacably opposed nationalist/republican and unionist/loyalist perspectives on the nature of government and to assist a wider ‘peace process’ for scaling down sectarian violence between and within the two communities. (Bradbury and Mitchell 2005: 295)

Interpreting New Labour’s political discourse   51 A devolved, power-­sharing arrangement between Protestant unionists and Catholic nationalists had been the British government’s preferred option for the settlement of the local conflict since the failed Sunningdale experiment in 1973–74. At a broader level, devolved power-­sharing has been regarded as a useful conflict management device for application in conflicts where ethno-­ nationalist feeling has spilled over into violence. While there is disagreement in the academic literature about the effects of consociationalist approaches to managing ethno-­nationalist tensions (McGarry and O’Leary 2004; Hechter 2004: 296) – with some commentators arguing that it exacerbates it (Dixon 2006) and others that it accommodates it (McGarry and O’Leary 2004) – few would argue that it plays no role at all (Edwards 2007a). In Zartman’s view: Despite the fears of many governments, autonomy is not a down payment on secession: cancellation of autonomy is. When minorities are granted self-­ government in autonomy, it gives them something to do that takes their minds off of secession and conflict and puts the emphasis on skills at governing rather than on contesting government. (Zartman 2004: 154) By emphasising devolution in New Labour’s political discourse, Blair was afforded the opportunity to push the case for greater autonomy for the UK regions, while at the same time taking the sting out of what M.L.R. Smith (1999: 80) has called the ‘single most destabilizing force in British politics for a generation’. Despite the Conservative Party’s hostility towards devolution New Labour was able to successfully maintain ‘at least the façade of bipartisanship’ (Powell 2008: 88) on Northern Ireland affairs.

Bi-­partisanship Bi-­partisanship has been defined by Dixon (2001: 345) as ‘a general agreement between the two main British political parties on the principles of the constitutional approach towards the conflict in Northern Ireland’. The acceptance of the so-­called ‘principle of consent’ in constitutional matters has been central to the creation of a common approach to the conflict by British political parties. However, bi-­ partisanship has not always been the motivating factor behind Labour Party policy on Northern Ireland, as indicated above. In 1981, owing to pressure from its left wing who were aggrieved by Margaret Thatcher’s handling of the republican Hunger Strikes, Labour officially declared itself in favour of a united Ireland, albeit by the reaching of democratic consent within Northern Ireland (Dixon 2006: 119; see also Edwards 2009: Chapter 7). The rationale for this change in policy was later explained by the former Labour Shadow Secretary of State for Northern Ireland in the following terms: ‘Because I believe that unity by consent is the only viable strategy for ending partition, I am convinced that the party should be actively pursuing such a policy’ (Kevin McNamara, Tribune 1 December 1989).

52   A. Edwards The tacit acceptance of bi-­partisanship by McNamara and other nationalist sympathisers – combined with the increasing divergence between Labour and Conservative policies on Northern Ireland – led some observers to believe that a changeover in future government would herald a return of a British administration sympathetic to the concerns of Irish nationalists. Indeed, the NILP (Labour’s ‘sister’ party in the province) had formally broken off its fraternal relationship with Labour on this very issue, when, following a meeting with Michael Foot, the local party accused him of pursuing ‘the idiotic and undemocratic policy of “rolling republicanism” which was adopted at the last party conference’ (Belfast News Letter 4 February 1982). However, the integrity of the Labour Party’s nationalist bias and its willingness to act on such instincts has been seriously questioned by some scholars. As John Whyte (1993: 107) pointed out, although ‘[t]here has always been a minority in the Labour Party with united-­Ireland sympathies’ (including former Prime Minister, Harold Wilson), ‘the limits of the feasible have reasserted themselves, and in practice Labour governments, faced with the adamant opposition of unionists to any kind of united Ireland, have proved as committed to the union as Conservative ones’. Despite the fluctuations in the peace process, bi-­partisanship remained the most consistent guiding principle of successive British governments throughout the Direct Rule period, far outlasting the fringe tendencies of some interest groups within the Conservative and Labour Parties. In the House of Commons, as Cunningham (2001: 159) has observed, ‘the bilateral management of Northern Ireland . . . [soon became] the orthodoxy’. Another dimension of New Labour’s management of the peace process has been its ability to sustain its bilateral relationship with the Irish government, a process cultivated by John Major in the early 1990s. In its 1997 election manifesto, New Labour indicated its willingness to work with the Irish government to secure peace in the province, and from his first meeting with Bertie Ahern it later transpired that Tony Blair and the new leader of Fianna Fáil had ‘hit it off immediately’ (Powell 2008: 88). The personal chemistry between the two men, when added to Blair’s appreciation of the nuances of Irish history, meant that when Ahern later became Taoiseach a more concerted effort to solving the conflict could be adopted (the Irish government’s position on the peace process is explored by O’Donnell in Chapter 3). As a result of this transformation in Anglo-­Irish relations, Blair became the first British Prime Minister to address the Oireachtas (Irish Parliament). His speech had a dual aim: to appeal to the two communities to reconcile their differences, and to reassure unionists that – unlike his predecessors – he was not harbouring an anti-­partitionist agenda. Thus, Blair argued that: a framework in which consent is guaranteed is also one in which basic rights of equality and justice are guaranteed . . . those who wish a united Ireland are free to make that claim, provided it is democratically expressed, just as those who believe in the Union can make their claim. . . . My point is very

Interpreting New Labour’s political discourse   53 simple. Those urges to belong, divergent as they are, can live together more easily if we, Britain and the Irish Republic, can live closer together too. (Blair 1998) It is in this context that Mowlam (2002) made the candid admission that Blair had dropped the term ‘persuader’ because it was politically loaded and insensitive to the unionist community. Now, the emphasis was on bringing both communities together to negotiate a fair and equitable settlement. The logic behind this recalibration in Labour discourse was simple (and proved to be flawed in the longer term): shore up the moderates at the expense of the extremists. Another point to highlight under the theme of bi-­partisanship is that the policies of the Conservative and New Labour governments towards Northern Ireland were not that radically different. While tactics certainly varied – depending on the tempo of progress made on the political front – the strategy underpinning the British government’s approach did not change according to the party in power. In fact, rather than stressing ‘consistent inconsistencies’ acute to British policy, as Brendan O’Leary (1997) has suggested, it may be more profitable to agree with Michael Cunningham’s (2001: 153) characterisation of it in terms of its ‘strategic continuity’. By far the starkest illustration of this can be seen in relation to the continuities of the Major and Blair governments (see Patterson 2001, for an expert analysis of these), when ‘London returned to its traditional role as an honest broker and facilitator for agreement’ (Neumann 2003: 186). With the benefit of hindsight one could argue that Blair sacrificed old Tory shibboleths about talking to terrorists for the gain of safeguarding momentum in the peace process; certainly this is true with regard to his negotiations with republicans (see Edwards 2008; Powell 2008: 313; Bew et al. 2009: 138– 139). The revelations by Peter Mandelson (who replaced Mowlam as Secretary of State) confirm as much. Some years after leaving Northern Ireland, Mandelson claimed that: In order to keep the process in motion [Blair] would be sort of dangling carrots and possibilities in front of the republicans which I thought could never be delivered, that it was unreasonable and irresponsible to intimate that you could when you knew that you couldn’t. (Guardian 13 March 2007) Mandelson’s criticisms serve to reinforce the view that New Labour had discontinued its dogmatic nationalist approach to Northern Irish affairs. By shoring up the unionists – while appearing to grant concessions to republicans – Blair was actually creating the conditions for the two groups to come together. That he chose to do so by applying a mixture of ‘carrot and stick’ tactics points to Blair’s sense of conviction politics noticeable elsewhere, particularly in relation to foreign policy (see Chandler 2003). Nevertheless, Blair’s relationship with unionist MPs, for example, was not bound by the same rules that prevailed during his predecessor’s time in office.

54   A. Edwards Ulster Unionist MPs had proved crucial in maintaining the Conservative balance of power in the House of Commons for the duration of John Major’s government; this was particularly noticeable during the Maastricht debates in the autumn/winter of 1992. With his 165 seat majority Blair was under no such obligation, yet he sought to mollify unionist concerns about his government’s agenda and to stress New Labour’s support for the ‘principle of consent’ vis-­à-vis the constitutional status of Northern Ireland, albeit while continuing his endeavours to reach out to republicans.

Consent Although New Labour did undergo a certain amount of ‘greening’ during much of its long spell in Opposition in the 1980s, close reading of the party’s discourse on Northern Ireland would challenge the assertion that its policy was ostensibly anti-­partitionist in its strategic outlook. Even during the most radical phase of its Northern Ireland policy, Labour (including Kevin McNamara) did not endorse the left-­republican views held by some of his backbench colleagues (such as Ken Livingstone), which argued that, once in power, the party should coerce unionists into a united Ireland. In a report McNamara co-­authored with Mo Mowlam and Jim Marshall (McNamara et al. 1988: 10), they declared, ‘openly to all the people of Northern Ireland that we seek to persuade them of the merits of Irish unity and to win their support for it’. As already indicated, this principle of ‘unity by consent’ constituted the cornerstone of Labour’s policy until 1994, when ‘New’ Labour gravitated towards support for a political arrangement based on the ‘principle of consent’ (see Neumann 2003: 148; Powell 2008: 11–12). The shift is evident in Blair’s maiden speech on Northern Ireland, in which he was at pains to set out his newly elected government’s agenda on consent: My message is simple. I am committed to Northern Ireland. I am committed to the principle of consent. And I am committed to peace. A settlement is to be negotiated between the parties based on consent. My agenda is not a United Ireland – and I wonder just how many see it as a realistic possibility in the foreseeable future. Northern Ireland will remain part of the United Kingdom as long as the majority here wish. (Blair 1997) Two important themes are discernable in the above extract: first, that Blair was keen to reassure the unionist community that his recent electoral triumph posed no direct threat to the constitutional status of Northern Ireland; and second, that New Labour’s intentions for the future peace and prosperity of Northern Ireland were genuine, and that any impending British government initiative would be grounded firmly in the principle of consent. Blair’s speech was important because it signalled a radical departure from the ‘green’ dogmatism, which was widely perceived to buttress Labour policy on Ireland (Dixon 2006: 133; Powell 2008: 12–13). A discursive shift in New Labour’s policy implied

Interpreting New Labour’s political discourse   55 that constitutional change (whatever form it may take) must be negotiated by all of the parties to the conflict and then be ratified by both unionist and nationalist communities. Yet there are still those, such as McNamara, who have taken issue with the ‘newness’ of this policy: The suggestion that the green dogmatism was holding out help for extremists [was inaccurate as this] . . . was already the position. That was straight Hume-­speak. I mean Hume was saying to Adams ‘your problem is not the Brits, it’s the Unionists’ and getting the British government of Maggie and Brooke that there are no selfish or strategic economic reasons is what Hume wanted. (interview with McNamara 14 July 2009) However, what had changed was the emphasis that Blair was putting on the language used to describe discourse adaptation already in train. As Blair’s Chief of Staff, Jonathan Powell, recalled: This policy [of Irish unification by consent] had been an uncomfortable compromise cobbled together in the early 1980s to split the difference between two irreconcilable wings of the party: a small but highly motivated band of pro-­unionists and the ‘Troops Out’ movement. The result was a green-­tinged ambition to achieve a united Ireland by persuading the unionists to participate in it, even though it was perfectly obvious the unionists were not going to be persuaded. Tony replaced this mishmash with a policy of neutrality, where the job of the British government would be to help reconcile the two communities in Northern Ireland and find a solution that both could accept. (Powell 2008: 79–80) Thus, New Labour had moved away from the old ideal of ‘unity by consent’ no matter what, towards a new umpire-­like stance on the peace process. McNamara found himself at odds with Blair on the question of neutrality because in his opinion ‘neutrality meant the status quo’ (interview with the author, 14 July 2009). In many ways, Blair had already prepared the ground for this shift in Labour discourse prior to coming to office. Following the announcement of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) ceasefire in August 1994, Blair’s advisers gave explicit instructions to McNamara that the party leader, not the party spokesman on Northern Ireland, would handle the media on the issue (interview with McNamara, 14 July 2009). Shortly afterwards McNamara was sacked, thus becoming an early casualty in Blair’s wholesale clearout of its more Irish nationalist-­ leaning old guard. He was replaced by the more convivial and down-­to-earth Mo Mowlam – a candid politician with a sharp mind and a deep interest in Northern Ireland affairs. Michael Cunningham (2001: 92) argues that ‘one has to be careful not to exaggerate the significance of these changes’. However, it soon

56   A. Edwards became clear that New Labour had initiated a shift in its approach to the conflict and Mowlam ‘fitted in happily with the change in policy’ (Powell 2008: 80). This is despite the fact that Mowlam, along with Peter Hain and Clare Short (later to become Cabinet ministers in Blair’s government), had been involved in pushing the ‘unity by consent’ policy. By 1997, Hain and Short had embraced the new policy departure, although their personal views on the matter remained opaque (see Dixon 2006). In an interview just prior to the 1997 election, Mowlam spelt out ‘New’ Labour’s radical departure from ‘Old’ Labour’s pro-­Irish nationalist agenda: There is now a general acceptance that the future of Northern Ireland must be determined by the consent of the people as set out in the Downing Street Declaration [1993]. Labour recognises that the option of a united Ireland does not command the consent of the unionist tradition nor does the existing status of Northern Ireland command the consent of the nationalist tradition. We are therefore committed to reconciliation between the two traditions and to a new political settlement which can command the support of both. (Mowlam in Irish News 4 April 1997) Mowlam had demonstrated her ability to think more holistically about what a potential settlement in Northern Ireland might look like. It also permitted Labour to distance itself from the Conservative policy of sympathetic support for the unionist community, by maintaining a focus on both communities. At times, however, Mowlam lost credibility with both unionists and with nationalists, especially when a document was leaked which urged pushing through the Drumcree Orange Order march despite an ongoing arbitration process (Irish News 8 July 1997; Irish Times 8 July 1997). Many of Blair’s speeches during his decade in office reiterated the need for parties in the conflict to end terrorism as a means by which to achieve political ends. As he pointed out in 2001: Look, underneath all the language and the detail of the [1998] agreement is this very simple concept that there has to be the notion of consent, that democracy rules, not violence, and alongside that there has to be justice and equality for all communities . . . And in the end, what has really been accepted by everybody is that there is no solution to this issue of a military kind. Violence offers no way forward. We are never going to change Northern Ireland by violence. (Blair 2001) The changing meaning of consent became increasingly tethered to the need to put clear blue water between the hard-­headed realist view that war is simply a continuation of politics by other means and the idealist notion that democracy and co-­operation offered a panacea for redressing the exclusivist nature of ethno­nationalism.

Interpreting New Labour’s political discourse   57

Conclusion The overarching argument of this chapter has been that New Labour’s ‘peace strategy’ in Northern Ireland must be seen in light of endogenous ideological change within the Labour Party, as well as the exogenous reconfiguration of territorial sovereignty arrangements in the UK more broadly. By concentrating on articulating the benefits attached to these rapidly changing constitutional arrangements, New Labour could situate its internal policy adaptation amidst the new realities of governance in Britain. As Powell (2008: 20) later reasoned: ‘No longer was devolution a mark of the exceptional status of Northern Ireland, but rather a process going on across the whole of the United Kingdom’, and as such made it easier for New Labour to sell a deal of power-­ sharing to local politicians. Initially, government policy towards the parties in conflict was aimed at bolstering the moderates at the expense of the extremists, a favoured tactic of government sponsors of peace processes more generally (see Zartman 2005; Edwards 2008; Bew et al. 2009). This strategy, put in place soon after New Labour gained power, was summarised by Mo Mowlam: [W]hatever had happened in the past, now the British government had to be, in my mind, a referee, especially when it was important to the process to keep shoring up the moderate leadership on both sides against the hardliners on the fringes. We had to make progress and try to reward either side for moving as we went along, so that they could say to their followers they weren’t moving first or they weren’t moving for nothing. It was essential to keep David Trimble and Gerry Adams in place, because without them it would have been much harder to sustain the peace process. (Mowlam 2002: 164) One of Blair’s most significant early achievements was brought about by carefully tempering his discourse within a tightly controlled framework of reference for unionists. Thus, Blair encouraged David Trimble and the Ulster Unionist Party to move towards a deal (see Trimble’s comments in an interview with the Guardian, 14 March 2007) for the benefit of the wider community in Northern Ireland. However, as Trimble (2008) has recently admitted this was not altogether successful and had the adverse effect of completely transforming party political dynamics in the province. Thus Powell later confessed: At first we tried to build from the centre, working with the UUP and the SDLP. But in the end perhaps it was inevitable that peace could only be made by the DUP and Sinn Féin on the principle of ‘Nixon goes to China’ – it is only the extremes who can build a durable peace because there is no one left to outflank them. (Powell: 312)

58   A. Edwards In all of this Blair played a formidable role in the process by heavily investing his own time in developing ‘peace strategy’, aided by ‘his ability to finesse issues of deep principle’ (Rentoul 2001: 418). Encouraged by Powell (2008: 316) Blair sought to facilitate talks between the parties in conflict by coercing them with enforced deadlines and by enticing the United States to apply its soft power as a useful third party mediator. Blair’s close relationship with Bill Clinton developed significantly during the former’s first term in office (see Meyer 2006). Perhaps most importantly of all was Blair’s  personal drive to solving the Northern Ireland conflict, which was perhaps the one key component in helping to shape New Labour’s political discourse on the peace process. As one critic wryly suggested ‘The [1998 Belfast] agreement was testimony to his talent for creative ambiguity, his gift for persuasion, his negotiating skills and his willingness to expend huge amounts of effort and ingenuity in a cause that he believed in’ (Rawnsley 2007). It has been said of Blair that he failed in the foreign policy arena (particularly in relation to Iraq), but that he succeeded on the domestic front in Northern Ireland. This is perhaps a little too simplistic and does not take into consideration the remarkable dialectical relationship between the two armed conflicts in New Labour policy-­making. Indeed, the tremendous synergy accomplished between the endogenous and exogenous variables driving Labour’s peace strategy in Northern Ireland was underpinned by the need to reaffirm human rights, equality and democracy in societies where violence had become endemic. Perhaps Blair’s ‘failure’ in Iraq was not so much in the message he communicated but in the way it was interpreted.

Acknowledgements I would like to thank Dr Kevin McNamara for helping to clarify my thinking on some of the points made in an earlier version of this paper. Dr Cillian McGrattan also made some invaluable suggestions for updating the piece and I wish to thank him for his input. I remain solely responsible for any remaining errors. The views expressed in this chapter are the author’s and not those of the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, the Ministry of Defence or any other UK government agency.

Notes 1 ‘New’ Labour is the prefix given to explain the modernisation of the core ideological parameters of the British Labour Party since Tony Blair became leader in 1994. The term itself was used by those inside the party who drew conceptual distinctions between ‘Old’ Labour and ‘New’ Labour in a bid to make the Labour Party more electorally relevant. It implied a break with the past dogmatism of the trade union dominated left wing by the party’s modernising right wing. 2 The ‘principle of consent’ refers to the internationally recognised legislation passed in Britain and Ireland after 1998 which states that the constitutional future of Northern Ireland will remain unchanged until such times as the majority of the people consent to a united Ireland.

Interpreting New Labour’s political discourse   59 3 Rt Hon. Peter Hain MP, the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland between 2005 and 2007, made a similar claim in a guest speech to British Labour Party members at Queen’s University Belfast on the eve of the talks leading up to the St Andrews Agreement in October 2006. While his comments were largely welcomed, his musings over the benefits of an all-­island economy caused something of a stir (author’s fieldnotes, 10 October 2006). 4 It should be noted that this strategy of constitutional rearrangement has had some adverse effects, not least in fuelling the widely held perception that devolution has weakened the union. Ten years after devolution in the UK, 63 per cent of respondents in an ICM poll for the Sunday Telegraph said that the union (between the constituent parts of the UK) had weakened under New Labour, while only 18 per cent thought that it had been strengthened (ICM 2008: 7). The issue of devolution divides the UK’s two main parties, with the Labour Party in favour of further decentralisation and the Conservative Party against. During his premiership John Major often made the point that devolution threatened the territorial integrity and sovereignty of the UK. As he wrote in his memoirs, We advanced the argument, which I strongly endorse, that the Union still had enormous moral and political relevance in shaping our society. Moreover, it was, and is, vital in enabling the United Kingdom to exert its full influence in the world affairs. If the UK were to split into its component parts it would not wield the same influence. Its voice would be fragmented and marginalised. (Major 1999: 421) However, the Tories did not oppose devolution for Northern Ireland, which was often seen as the only viable option for a settlement of the conflict.

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Interpreting New Labour’s political discourse   61 O’Leary, B. (2004) ‘The Labour Government and Northern Ireland, 1974–9’, in J. McGarry and B. O’Leary (eds) The Northern Ireland Conflict: Consociational Engagements, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Patterson, H. (2001) ‘From Insulation to Appeasement: the Major and Blair Governments Reconsidered’, in R. Wilford (ed.) Aspects of the Belfast Agreement, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Powell, J. (2008) Great Hatred, Little Room: Making Peace in Northern Ireland, London: The Bodley Head. Rawnsley, A. (2007) ‘Peace and War (Part Two)’, Observer, 8 April. Available at www. guardian.co.uk/politics/2007/apr/08/tonyblair.labour15 (accessed June 2008). Rentoul, J. (2001) Tony Blair: Prime Minister, London: Little, Brown and Company. Smith, M.L.R. (1999) ‘The Intellectual Internment of a Conflict: the Forgotten War in Northern Ireland’, International Affairs 75(1): 77–97. Trimble, D. (2008) ‘An Ulster Betrayal’, Prospect, June. Whyte, J.H. (1993) ‘Dynamics of Social and Political Change in Northern Ireland’, in D. Keogh and M.H. Haltzel (eds) Northern Ireland and the Politics of Reconciliation, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Zartman, I.W. (2004) ‘Sources and Settlements of Ethnic Conflicts’, in A. Wimmer et al. (eds) Facing Ethnic Conflicts: Toward a New Realism, Oxford: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers. Zartman, I.W. (2005) ‘Managing Terrorism and Insurgency through Peace Processes: Options for the Future’, in L.S. Germani and D.R. Kaarthikeyan (eds) Pathways out of Terrorism and Insurgency: The Dynamics of Terrorist Violence and Peace Processes, Berkshire: New Dawn Press.

5 Discourse worlds in Northern Ireland The legitimisation of the 1998 Agreement Laura Filardo-­Llamas

As John Whyte (1990: viii) notes, Northern Ireland is one of the most researched places in the world. Most studies on Northern Ireland are aimed at explaining the conflict by relying on sociological, political or economical theories. This research differs in its attempt to understand this conflict situation with reference to the different political perceptions or interpretations that may be voiced about the same reality. In doing so, this chapter looks at political discourse through a discourse analysis framework characterised by a deep linguistic foundation. Political discourse is a useful way of spreading political beliefs, which are mostly related to the identity shared by those involved in the communication process – something which becomes even more significant in conflict situations. This identity is evoked by means of the ideological beliefs which imbue a text and which can, in turn, be defined as mental representations that social groups have both about their own social practices and the practices of other groups in society (Van Dijk 1996: 12, 19). Therefore, the ideologies that underlie a text are frequently related to the construction of social and political groups; in most cases, they are determined by the position of the group in society and are framed ‘in relation to one or other group that are seen to threaten the basic interests of the own group’ (Van Dijk 1996: 19). These shared mental representations, which include ideological knowledge as well as more general and cultural knowledge, are known as ‘common ground’ (Van Dijk 2001). Mental representations perform an important function in the process of communication of political discourse as they involve the construction of a mental frame that is shared by the speaker (e.g. the politician) and the addressee. It is this shared identity between communicators which motivates the legitimising task of political discourse (Chilton 2004: 23). The objective of this chapter is to demonstrate how political discourse in Northern Ireland functions to legitimise specific actions or world views about reality, and to show how this function can be unveiled through careful linguistic analysis. It is important to note that such world views are frequently opposed on ideological, political and discursive grounds. Hence, it can be argued that the

The legitimisation of the 1998 Agreement   63 aforementioned linguistic structures serve to establish a relationship between legitimisation and the creation of a ‘paradoxical reality’ that may be discursively transmitted (Aughey 2002: 2). Therefore, this chapter will compare how the representatives of the two main Northern Irish ideologies – nationalism and unionism – make use of those strategies to justify or oppose the 1998 Agreement. As noted by Hayward (Chapter 1), this can be explained by looking at the different meanings that are understood in relation to the ‘agreed terms’ encompassed in this accord.

Analysing political discourse Language and legitimacy The approach elaborated in this chapter arises from established research that relates language to conflict – or language to peace (see Wright 1998; Schäffner and Wenden 1995; Dédaic and Nelson 2003). A core assumption underlying discourse analysis in this field is Billig’s (2003: xviii) belief that human conflict begins and ends via talk – hence establishing an inextricable link between ‘war’ and communication. What is more, a core assumption behind peace processes is that political debate and dialogue may replace violence as an expression of dissent (Hayward, Chapter 1). It can be argued that words frame, mobilise and motivate political thought and action. According to Van Dijk (1997: 28), one of the main reasons for the appearance of human conflict is the promotion of the ‘ideological square’. This is the strategic and underlying principle of political discourse, and it can be defined as a semantic polarisation in which propositions have an evaluative nature which promotes the emphasis/de-­emphasis of our/their good/bad actions. As a consequence, a polarisation between ‘us’ and ‘them’ is created, and this results in the discursive construction of an ‘ingroup’ and an ‘outgroup’. This idea serves to support the previously mentioned link between language and conflict: a connection which can be expressed in two ways. On the one hand, ‘language works through discourse to communicate and reproduce ideologies that support the use of war as a legitimate option for resolving national conflicts as well as inegalitarian and discriminatory social institutions and practices’ (Wenden 1995: 211). On the other hand, discourse serves to reproduce and spread the socio-­political oppositions that may characterise a given society. Certain linguistic structures may have a prominent role in this process in which the socio-­political square and the polarisation between the ingroup and outgroup can be discursively constructed. Both aspects are closely connected and from them comes the idea that ­language plays an indirect role in promoting values, beliefs and social practices that ‘justify’ (Schäffner and Wenden 1995: xxi) political policies or particular world views as presented by politicians. Justification and legitimisation are ­synonymous – mainly because ‘within the perspective of political philosophy the notion of justification might be related to legitimacy’ (Chilton 2003: 95).

64   L. Filardo-Llamas Language and representation As mentioned above, one of the main functions of political discourse is legitimisation, which can be defined as ‘the promotion of representations’ which are imbued with ‘evidence, authority and truth’ (Chilton 2004: 23). Both legitimisation and representation are achieved through ‘discourse worlds’, defined as: the ‘reality’ that is entertained by the speaker, or meta-­represented by speaker as being someone else’s believed reality. There are various meaning ingredients that go into these discourse realities, but the essential one is the projection of ‘who does what, to whom and where’. (Chilton 2004: 154) Legitimisation and its fulfilment through the creation of discourse worlds helps us understand how and why different parties react in different ways to specific events or situations, such as the variety of responses by political parties in Northern Ireland to the Good Friday (Belfast) Agreement of 1998. The concept of discourse worlds explains the subjective and ideological representation that the political parties make of that reality; it also illuminates the ways in which they do so, including their presentation of a subjective view as a universal truth. The hypothesis underlying this chapter is that this may be achieved through the strategic, ideologically motivated – and sometimes also unconscious – manipulation (Chilton 2002) of language with the aim of promoting certain values.

Critical discourse analysis In order to analyse the legitimising function of political discourse, the starting point here is the critical discourse analysis paradigm (Fairclough 1989; Van Dijk 1993) because it highlights the inextricable link that exists between language and society (Fairclough and Wodak 1997: 271–280). The objective of critical discourse analysis is to ‘interpret and understand how and why reality is structured in a certain way’ (Wodak 1989: 14), and to do so by relying on linguistic analysis. Within this paradigm, both Fairclough (1989) and Van Dijk (1993, 2001) propose a theory which is based on three components, mainly aimed at explaining the connection between language and society (see Hayward, Chapter 1). The importance of this connection is also related to the legitimising function of political discourse. Given that legitimisation is achieved through specific discursive representations (Chilton 2004: 23), it can be argued that those representations are determined by the ideological beliefs held by the persons involved in the communicative process, and that those ideological beliefs determine a social representation – or discourse world – that is, at least partly, connected to the identity of the communicator. Those discourse worlds are frequently related to at least one of the main types of discursive legitimisation that can be identified, namely semantic, pragmatic

The legitimisation of the 1998 Agreement   65 and socio-­political legitimisation (Martín Rojo and Van Dijk 1998: 71). Semantic legitimisation involves the justification of a specific and subjective view of society which generally reflects the utterer’s view of society. This subjective representation tends to promote the creation and consolidation of ethnic – or national – identities. It could be argued that in Northern Ireland it might be related to the perpetuation and justification (see Van Leeuwen and Wodak 1999: 93) of the two communities, and the defence of Northern Ireland’s constitutional status as upheld by their respective political ideologies. Pragmatic legitimisation aims at justifying an action usually considered controversial. A case in point is the 1998 Agreement, the existence and approval/disapproval of which is justified in different terms by each of the four main political parties. Finally, socio-­ political legitimisation involves the justification of the social and political role that any instance of discourse plays in the situation in which it takes place; that is to say, it involves an authorisation of the uttering of that discourse. Methodology A link may be established between the different components of discourse, the type of legitimisation and the three stages in the analysis (see Filardo 2008, 2009 for a more complete account). The first stage in the analysis involves the description of the linguistic structures that form part of the text. This analysis consists of looking at three linguistic categories – which have elsewhere been called ‘microlegitimisers’ (Filardo 2009). This involves the identification of temporal, spatial and personal pronouns and indicators, the use of proper names and referential expressions, and the appearance of given metaphorical expressions. The use of these linguistic cues by politicians in Northern Ireland has been marked in the discussion below through the use of ‘inverted commas’. The importance of those linguistic structures is highlighted by the fact that they are the indicators of a given discursive representation, and a subsequent (de)legitimisation of a given reality. That is the second stage of the analysis, which involves interpreting the ‘textual’ cues we have previously identified. There are two main aspects included within the interpretation stage: the uncovering of the discourse world that pervades the speech and the portrayal of the (de) legitimised controversial political action that motivates it. Any textual feature has an (ideological) value which is related to the portrayal of three aspects: the subjects (participants) who are presented in the discourse; the relations that are established between those subjects; and the contents that are transmitted (Fairclough 1989). Identification of subjects involves uncovering that (imagined) community which is portrayed as being at the centre – or main space – in the discourse world; that is, the subject whose beliefs are considered central by the speaker (Anderson 1991). Certain discursive ties and oppositions may be established with other communities, and that type of relationship is an indicator of the ideological similarities or differences between them. Those discourse participants – or communities – are characterised in relation to other cultural, historical, geographical and political entities and actions, which are

66   L. Filardo-Llamas frequently recalled by means of verb tenses and pronouns, and metaphorical and referential expressions. All these elements together make up the speaker’s discourse world, which is, in turn, the semantic legitimisation that is spread through the analysed instance of discourse. This will give us insight into two of the core principles proposed in the framework for analysis underlying this book, namely that political discourse may help us understand how ideology and practice blend, and that discursive difference is as important for peace as shared discourse (Hayward, Chapter 1). This discourse world is the ideological point of departure for the pragmatic (de)legitimisation of a given political action – the Agreement, in this case. This is the second aspect in the interpretation stage, and it involves looking at the relationship that is established between the controversial political action and the elements of the discourse world that have been previously identified. Therefore, we will mainly focus on the contents (Fairclough 1989) that are transmitted and how those relate to the discourse participants and the relationships that are established between them. Being able to understand the connection between ideology and political action may help us see the value of change in political discourse as a tool for conflict transformation because it may enable – and cause – change in a political practice, as stated in the framework for analysis of this book (Hayward, Chapter 1). Finally, any (political) text is linked to and performs a (political) role in the social practice within which it is embedded. Thus, the objective of this last stage is to see how that political function is discursively authorised. Thus, we need to uncover how the text legitimises the socio-­political context of practices that it gives expression to. This methodological proposal has a double objective. On the one hand, it serves to show the link that can be established between language and society. On the other hand, it connects the creation of (discursive) conflict with the legitimising function of political discourse. These two objectives may be connected to a broader aim: to highlight the validity of discourse analysis in the socio-­political sciences as a means of raising our awareness of social and political processes (including conflict). All this emphasises the importance of considering political discourse if we want to understand the transition from overt conflict to relative peace. The selection of instances of discourse for the analysis has been based on three criteria. First of all, the reality which is discursively portrayed is the 1998 Agreement, which becomes the thematic dimension upon which text selection is based, mainly because of the ambiguity of the language employed in it (Alonso 2001: 434–436; Bew and Gillespie 1999: 359). This is connected to a temporal dimension, that is, the date – 10 April 1998 – when the Agreement was signed. Consequently, the first reaction of political parties to the Agreement allows us to see the initial response that is made to this document. Finally, it is necessary to consider a speaker dimension, which involves looking at the portrayal of the Agreement by representatives of opposed ideologies, namely unionism and nationalism, and of different representatives within

The legitimisation of the 1998 Agreement   67 those ideologies. Thus, the analysis focuses on the reaction of the four main Northern Ireland political parties: the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) and Sinn Féin for the nationalist perspective, and the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) and the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) representing unionists. The next two sections of the chapter compare how party leaders from both political traditions in Northern Ireland discursively (de)legitimised the 1998 Agreement. Four texts (the first formal public statements by each leader of the four main political parties in response to the announcement of the multi-­party agreement on 10 April 1998) have been selected as the basis for analysis.

Nationalist discourse on the 1998 Agreement Both the SDLP and Sinn Féin gave their support to the Agreement, although there were several differences in the ideological arguments – and strategies – used by each to do so. The main difference can be seen in the socio-­political entity that occupies the central space in the speaker’s discourse world. On the one hand, the discourse world of Sinn Féin’s Gerry Adams relies upon the centrality of the ‘community’ to republicanism, with which he establishes an affective frame (Johnson 1994: 210) through his use of an inclusive ‘we’ (Wodak et al. 1999: 46) or by focusing on their shared beliefs. Their cultural characterisation is based on a ‘united Ireland’ (Adams 1998), which becomes their imagined homeland (Billig 1995: 174) and the central geographical space upon which Adams’ discourse world is based. On the other hand, the SDLP leader, John Hume, constructs a discourse world which is based on the centrality of the 1998 Agreement and the structures proposed in it. Those structures are perceived as an attempt to build a political space that is common to all the participants in Northern Irish political life. Given the centrality of that political space, it is perceived as the imagined homeland within which his world is located. Thus, in SDLP discourse, we do not find references to a ‘united Ireland’ (Adams 1998) as the imagined homeland, but rather to ‘an agreed Ireland’ (Hume 1998), a phrase which acknowledges the necessary consent of all its members in order to be able to work. Discourse of Sinn Féin It is this difference in the characterisation of the central entity in the discourse space that lies at the core of all the other portrayals. Thus, in Adams’ (1998) speech, references to the constitutional status – which do not appear at all in Hume’s statement – are mainly aimed at delegitimising the Northern Ireland ‘statelet’, the existence of which the republican ideology does not recognise. Furthermore, the British government is only attributed a political role, which is, in turn, negatively evaluated because of its submission to unionists’ will; the latter being metaphorically presented as children whose wishes need to be fulfilled. Moreover, the role of the British nation is negatively portrayed because of the alleged wrongs they have committed in Ireland – as can be seen in their

68   L. Filardo-Llamas carrying out negatively evaluated actions such as ‘interference’, ‘occupation’ or ‘involvement’ (Adams 1998) – and because of their perceived historical responsibility for the origin of the Northern Ireland conflict. This highlights one of the ideological oppositions that underlie Adams’ speech: that between republicanism and the British government. That external opposition is connected to an internal one which can also be uncovered in this speech. The opposition between republicans and the British government becomes tied to the opposition between republicans and unionists through indexical references to ‘they’ and ‘the British government and the unionists’ (Adams 1998). In relation to the portrayal of these groups, it should be noted that the existence of the republican community is legitimised through references to its historical roots (‘those risen people throughout this island’ (Adams 1998)). This strategy involves a perpetuation of that ideology throughout time by anchoring discourse in past events in order to justify the present (Chilton 2004: 59), thus highlighting the success of traditional republican principles in relation to the Agreement. The historical legitimisation is also connected to a victimisation strategy (Alonso 2001: 241) in which nationalists and republicans are said to suffer from the negative outcome of past events such as ‘British military and RUC harassment’, ‘the days of nationalist rule’, or ‘the nationalist nightmare’ (Adams 1998). That victimisation can be contrasted to the positive role they attribute to themselves in preventing the other community – the unionists – from suffering from the negative actions they have experienced in the past, and it also contributes to legitimising the republican ‘struggle’ more generally (Adams 1998). The republican struggle is justified not only because of their reaction to those negative past actions – ‘partition’, or ‘British militarism’ (Adams 1998) – but also by relying on the previous historical existence, in their view, of a united Ireland. The positive representation of republicans is highlighted through their commitment to peace – which is often contrasted to the negative ‘blocking of progress’ and ‘preparation for war’ which are metaphorically attributed to the unionist community – and through their representation as contributors to the peace process (Adams 1998). Discourse of the SDLP The lack of an imagined geographical homeland in Hume’s (1998) speech, and the importance of the common political structures proposed in the Agreement both serve to justify Hume’s construction of discourse participants, as they all form part of one single imagined community bound together by the ‘new’ shared identity that can be created through the Agreement. That new identity is indexed by means of an inclusive ‘we’ which is frequently accompanied by the determiner ‘all’ (Hume 1998). Moreover, it does not involve ‘diminishing’ one’s previous identity, as different ‘shades of opinion’ can be encompassed within it. Relations between the members of that new community should, in Hume’s (1998) view, be based on ‘partnership’ and ‘participation’. These two concepts

The legitimisation of the 1998 Agreement   69 index the future and are contrasted to previous (and still existing) relations that are based on mistrust and division; two concepts that, as we have already seen, still underlie Adams’ discourse world. Likewise, Hume also constructs a discourse world in which the central political space is occupied by the SDLP, mainly because he and the SDLP see the Agreement as incorporating the party’s beliefs. This also contributes to a positive representation of the self, which is endowed with an authority trait, and is presented as the source of epistemic truth (Chilton 2004: 60). Thus, we can see how all the aspects that form part of Hume’s discourse world are, unlike the ones in Adams’ speech, aimed at transmitting an image which is based on the lack of opposition – either between the two traditional Northern Ireland communities, or between the political parties that represent them. Because of the centrality of the Agreement and its future implementation, that temporal reference is the one which underlies Hume’s discourse world. In particular, the future is indexed both through the auxiliary verb ‘will’ – which emphasises the certainty of whatever is being signalled (Chilton 2004: 60) – and through references to ‘a positive future’ (Hume 1998). This future time is given a central role in the new Northern Ireland political life, and it is contrasted with the past, which is negatively characterised, and which should be forgotten. For this reason, Hume argues that the only possible structures that will work in Northern Ireland must be based on changing the future and creating new relations and new structures that do not involve or ‘recycle’ any of the elements of the past (Hume 1998). Besides, it is the ‘responsibility’ of Northern Ireland inhabitants to contribute to and control those future changes; ideas which serve to issue a deontic command for political parties to ‘work together’ for ‘creating new agreed political structures’ (Hume 1998). Pragmatic legitimisation of the Agreement by nationalists In the case of both politicians we find a pragmatic legitimisation of the Agreement albeit discursively portrayed in different ways that are intrinsically connected to the socio-­political elements that underlie each politician’s discourse world. First of all, Adams (1998) highlights the unquestionable role at the multi-­ party talks of those who are allied to this community, namely ‘republican negotiators’ and ‘the Irish government’. He also emphasises the positive outcome that the republican community may obtain from this document by presenting it as a transitional ‘stage’ in the path towards the final destination of a united Ireland (Adams 1998). This is an idea which is portrayed by means of a journey metaphorical conceptualisation (purposeful activity is travelling along a path toward a destination), which is at times nested within a conflict metaphor (struggle is a journey) (Charteris-­Black 2005: 45, 53, 73). This ‘stage’ is part of an overall ‘struggle’ within which other historical ‘phases’ in republicanism are included, such as the 1916 Proclamation of the Republic, the civil rights movement or the Hunger Strikes. Historicism reappears as a legitimising method when Adams (1998) places the historical origin of the Agreement at the point of

70   L. Filardo-Llamas the IRA ceasefire of 1994 – an association which denotes the IRA’s active and voluntary role in the promotion of peace. Furthermore, Adams (1998) argues, the legitimacy of the Agreement is based on the weakening of the Union because negative aspects of British legislation – referred to as the ‘British territorial claim’ – have been revoked, and all-­Ireland co-­operation has been increased by the creation of all-­Ireland bodies. Republican fears about the Agreement are also counteracted by locating them on an unreal world, indexed through modality indicators (Chilton 2004: 60). In Hume’s (1998) speech the Agreement is also legitimised through reliance on the importance of the future and the unique ‘opportunity’ this accord offers for solving the conflict, for overcoming and healing past and still inherent divisions in Northern Ireland, and for creating one single identity within which all the Northern Ireland traditions can be included. This is based on the Agreement’s opposition to conflict and sectarian victories and on its representation as a ‘common success’ for both of the communities (Hume 1998). Thus, the need to endorse this document is highlighted because it represents a new beginning. Consequently, any possible rejection of the Agreement based on existing fears is discarded by focusing on its positive achievements. These ideas are endowed with a high degree of certainty, spread through the use of the present simple tense, and the categorical commitment of the speaker to truth and validity that this tense implies (Fairclough 1989: 120). Finally, in the case of both politicians we can see a socio-­political legitimisation of their speeches, which is mostly based on either the speaker’s role as leader of the party and on the centrality of Sinn Féin for the implementation process (in the case of Adams) or on the centrality of the SDLP and its actions and principles (in the case of Hume). Nevertheless, we can see slight differences in how those strategies are employed. Whereas Hume relies on the authority-­role attributed to the SDLP to justify the deontic command – issued mostly through modal verbs (Chilton 2004: 60) – for a ‘yes’ vote at the referendum, Adams stresses the prominent role of Sinn Féin and republicans, as they are the ones that have to work with the unionist community. Thus, Adams’ (1998) speech has a double socio-­political legitimising function aimed, on the one hand, at persuading his own community to endorse the Agreement, and, on the other, at stressing the importance of Sinn Féin to perpetuate the existing ‘peace’. This double behaviour shows the way in which this hardline political party blends an oppositional ideologically based private discourse with a conciliatory politically based public discourse.

Unionist discourse and the 1998 Agreement Discourse of the UUP Unlike the approach of nationalists, there is division within the unionist political spectrum in relation to the Agreement, which is supported by the UUP and opposed by the DUP. Both parties portray a discourse world with recurring

The legitimisation of the 1998 Agreement   71 elements but each presents it from a different perspective. Key aspects in speeches of the UUP leader, David Trimble, show that the 1998 talks lie at the heart of his conception of the political reality. They are described as a ‘battlefield’ (Trimble 1998); a word based on a war metaphorical conceptualisation (politics is war) (Charteris-­Black 2004: 51). This shows Trimble’s perception of the existing division between the two Northern Ireland communities. Given the prominence of the talks, the central political space is occupied by the UUP, who had an active role at the negotiations. It was the only unionist party ‘fighting’ for (Charteris-­Black 2004: 69) the interests and goals of the unionist people, or in other words, the maintenance of ‘the Union’ (Trimble 1998). On the contrary, the behaviour of the other unionist parties is delegitimised in Trimble’s discourse (1998) by focusing on their negative role at the negotiations, on their ‘running away from the talks’ and abandoning the unionist community, and on their lack of policies for the future. Thus, we observe how Trimble conceives Northern Ireland political life in terms of a division within the unionist community, which has been curiously the recurrent pattern in the last 30 years of conflict (McKittrick and McVea 2001: 232), and which, as we will see below, also prevails in Paisley’s speech. The intrinsic opposition within unionism is not the only one in Trimble’s discourse world; it also features an antagonism with republicanism. Republican ideology, together with the political party standing for it (Sinn Féin), is characterised in UUP discourse by a commitment to ‘violence’ (Trimble 1998). For Trimble, that violence implicitly delegitimises Sinn Féin (referentially linked here to the IRA through phrases such as ‘Sinn Féin/IRA’), its current political role and its historical struggle for a united Ireland. Discourse of the DUP We can see that the same double opposition underlies Paisley’s (1998) speech. This discourse is centred on Northern Ireland, presented as the imagined homeland of the unionist community, and whose existence is historically legitimised herein. It is the importance of this central space that lies at the heart of Paisley’s (1998) conception of Northern Ireland society and the unionist fear of living as a minority in a united Ireland. Thus, the portrayal here of discourse participants is based on their commitment to the maintenance of the constitutional status of Northern Ireland as part of the UK, and this involves the broad opposition between nationalism and unionism (Paisley 1998). For this reason, there is a double portrayal of unionists. Paisley (1998) favourably describes those whose behaviour can be legitimised because it is ‘customary’ and committed to the maintenance of the Union – mainly expressed, at that point, by opposing the Agreement. He simultaneously criticises the political actions of those ‘exceptional’ unionists who support the Agreement; their viewpoints are delegitimised because they do not seem to defend the Union (Paisley 1998). This evaluation is connected to the type of ideological relationship established with both groups by means of deictics. This is because Paisley distances himself from the latter group while he places the

72   L. Filardo-Llamas former at the deictic centre, and creates an ideological connection between them and the self, which is presented as the source of epistemic truth, authority, and knowledge about the future. Nationalists and republicans are presented as the enemy by means of war metaphors (politics is conflict and politics is war) (Charteris-­Black 2004: 51). As in Trimble’s discourse world, republican political representatives – Sinn Féin – are characterised by Paisley (1998) as being inextricably linked to violence, not only explicitly but also through referential expressions such as ‘IRA/Sinn Féin’. Thus, Sinn Féin’s tie with the IRA ‘terrorist’ organisation is stressed, and the latter is deprived of any political justification for its violent actions. Because of this, the relationship between the two communities seems to be dominated by the underlying opposition between them and by a feeling of mistrust, which results in a conflict pattern underlying Paisley’s statement. The DUP’s role is justified because they have to fight against those who are opposed to the preservation of the Union, regardless of their ideological unionist or nationalist background. Comparing unionist discourses The ‘Union’ is presented as the geographical centre in Trimble’s (1998) discourse world, and Northern Ireland’s existence as a separate entity from the rest of the island is legitimised by means of reference to it through its legal name – ‘Northern Ireland’. Thus, Northern Ireland as an imagined homeland does not stand alone but is one whose Britishness needs to be acknowledged. History plays an important role in justifying this trait, because it is linked to past events (such as the Act of Union) aimed at maintaining the Union. Trimble also places himself within that historical tradition, which is likewise used to legitimise his party’s support of the Agreement. The different portrayals by the two unionist leaders of the same reality serves to explain the differences in their response to the Agreement. Trimble (1998) legitimises the Agreement (and UUP support for it) not only through reference to historical facts and his party’s achievements on the maintenance of the Union, but also through the UUP’s centrality to the peace process. He presents the Agreement as a ‘new’ beginning which shall be contrasted to previous negatively evaluated attempts to restore peace in Northern Ireland, such as the Anglo­Irish or Sunningdale Agreements. Somewhat ironically, utilising the same metaphorical conceptualisation employed by Adams, i.e. that of a ‘journey’, Trimble (1998) presents the Agreement as a ‘settlement’ – an idea which is highlighted through the employment of the passive voice and the past perfect tense (Kress and Hodge 1979: 129). The completion of that process implicitly neglects the slightest possibility of future negotiations about the constitutional status of Northern Ireland. Therefore, the Agreement is legitimised by highlighting its role as a guarantor of the Union, and by stressing unionist achievements in the document, amongst these the ‘restoration of democracy’ via the creation of a new Northern Ireland Assembly and the devolution of powers from Westminster are underlined (Trimble 1998).

The legitimisation of the 1998 Agreement   73 This image of the Agreement differs from the one presented by Paisley (1998), for whom this document presents a threat to one of the pillars of unionism – the existence of the Union – because it ‘would place the Province on the road to’ a united Ireland. It shall be noted that the same metaphorical expression employed by Adams – and Trimble – reappears with a change in the ideological value. The ‘threat’ strategy is also important as we can see that this speech is permeated by the ‘negative stance’ (Aughey 1996: 76) that characterises the DUP, and which is based on their saying ‘No’ to a united Ireland. Socio-­political elements connected to the Agreement – such as prisoner releases, decommissioning and policing – are also employed by both politicians in different ways. Trimble (1998) tries to downplay unionist fears about the Agreement, and worries about the disbandment of ‘the RUC’ are rejected by presenting it as an impossible event in an unreal and impossible world (indexed by means of negative modality indicators such as ‘cannot’ or ‘will not’ (Chilton 2004: 60) and also by showing the necessary defensive role of the RUC against the threat from ‘Republican terrorists’. Likewise, other controversial aspects such as the ‘early release of prisoners’ (Trimble 1998) or the possible involvement of paramilitary-­related parties in government are presented as necessary steps for the return of peace to Northern Ireland, but ones whose implementation will be partly determined by unionist behaviour. In contrast, Paisley (1998) relies on these elements, together with conflict and war metaphors to delegitimise the Agreement, which has been ‘enthusiastically endorsed’ and ‘warmly welcomed’, regardless of it causing a subsequent ‘dilution and diminution of the Union’. First of all, Paisley (1998) presents the Agreement as having a nationalist historical origin, namely the Hume/Adams talks, as can be embodied in the name given to it by Paisley: ‘the Hume/Adams Agreement’. Furthermore, those aspects of the Agreement which are negative for the unionist community are portrayed as part of the real world, and are presented as completed actions, two traits which are recalled through the uses of the verbs ‘will’ and ‘can’ (Chilton 2004: 60). We can see this, for example, in Paisley’s (1998) references to the legal historical origin of Northern Ireland as ‘our 1920 Act’, his insistence on referring to the republican political party as ‘IRA/Sinn Féin’, his description of ‘terrorist prisoners’, and his condemnation of the ‘sacrifice’ of the Royal Ulster Constabulary. All those aspects contribute to promoting an image of the Agreement as an immoral anti-­peace accord, which Paisley (1998) conceives as republicans’ purely strategic (and therefore uncertain) commitment to peace, dishonesty in the negotiations, and the Northern Ireland Office’s ‘black propaganda’ campaign aimed at its endorsement. Finally, we can see that both speeches legitimise different socio-­political aspects. Trimble (1998) tries to justify his role as leader of the UUP and within the negotiation of the Agreement – a role criticised by some within his party and which was ultimately to contribute to his downfall. This is achieved mainly by the constant employment of a ‘presidential I’ (Blas Arroyo 2000: 7) and by placing himself as part of a historical unionist tradition, in such a way that his political actions are linked to those of his predecessor, Lord Molyneaux.

74   L. Filardo-Llamas Paisley (1998), on the other hand, does not focus on his role as leader. Instead, the role of the DUP is justified because it is presented as the only source of morality and, consequently, as the party to be trusted. The positive function of the party in the ‘No’ campaign is contrasted to the negative depiction of the Northern Ireland Office, which is presented as ‘bribing and browbeating’ the Northern Ireland people. Thus, the DUP’s political performance at this time is justified as a necessary challenge to the ‘deception and duplicity’ of the others (Paisley 1998).

Conclusion We have seen in this chapter that political discourse has a legitimising function which is aimed at justifying specific discourse worlds in which social elements and political actions are included and linked to a given ideology. This has been demonstrated in the Northern Ireland context, where the 1998 Agreement – and the reality surrounding it – is discursively portrayed in different ways by each of the political representatives, in such a way that it results in the creation of a paradoxical reality. We have also seen how a linguistic analysis of political speeches becomes a useful tool for uncovering legitimising strategies, as they allow us to see how language is used with certain political and discursive objectives. The inextricable connection that exists between language and peace (or conflict) is evident (Wright 1998; Schäffner and Wenden 1995). In fact, in Northern Ireland that relationship becomes clear if we take into account that pre-­Agreement overt physical conflict is transferred to political discourse after this document is signed, when the political arena – and discourse, which is its explicit manifestation – becomes the site for political struggle (see Little, Chapter 14). This suggests that political communication may become – indeed, has become– an alternative to conflict. In this way, discursive difference can be a useful and important factor in facilitating physical peace (see Hayward, Chapter 1). The analysis of the linguistic strategies employed to fulfil that legitimising function shows that the four Northern Ireland political parties tend to resort to the same strategies. All of them employ deictics, referential expressions and metaphors, and frequently they do so in the same way. In fact, a comparison of the obtained results shows that they may even draw on the same linguistic forms, as in the case of the ‘journey’ metaphor used by Adams, Trimble and Paisley with reference to the Agreement. It can also be seen in the use of the first person plural pronoun ‘we’ by the four political leaders, with different social referents according to the needs of the speaker. How those linguistic structures are interpreted depends on the common knowledge shared between communicators – a knowledge which is similar if the audience belongs to the same ideological community, but which differs when they belong to an opposed one. It is because of this ideological opposition, and the impact it has in the interpretation of language, that discourse analysis becomes even more interesting because it helps to explain socio-­political events and processes by relying on the analysis of language at different historical times.

The legitimisation of the 1998 Agreement   75 Thus, the analysis of leading political discourse among parties in Northern Ireland immediately following the Agreement shows that the conflict pattern has been transposed to the political arena. Here we can find discursively created oppositions that reproduce the ones that had previously caused physical conflict (such as republicans opposed to the British government and the unionist community, or unionists opposed to republicans) – although sometimes they also replicate political oppositions (as we have seen in the case of the division within unionism). Hence, it is possible for discourse to reflect socio-­political oppositions, which are, in turn, related to the legitimising function of political discourse. It can further be argued that discursive change may also result in socio-­political change (Filardo 2008; Hayward, Chapter 1); for example, if socio-­political opposition is no longer reproduced in political discourse, it may also have a diluted impact in socio-­political relations and activity. Consequently, it can be claimed that the language of the Agreement itself has allowed the creation of a discursively paradoxical reality manifested through different nuances of discourse and which continues to lie at the heart of the peace process as we know it today.

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76   L. Filardo-Llamas Chilton, P.A. (2004) Analysing Political Discourse: Theory and Practice, London: Routledge. Dédaic, M.N. and Nelson, D.N. (eds) (2003) At War with Words, Berlin and New York: Mouton de Gruyter. Fairclough, N. (1989) Language and Power, London: Longman. Fairclough, N. and Wodak, R. (1997) ‘Critical Discourse Analysis’, in T.A. Van Dijk (ed.) Discourse as Social Interaction. Discourse Studies: A Multidisciplinary Introduction. Vol. 2, London: Sage. Filardo Llamas, L. (2008) ‘A Comparative Study of the Discursive Legitimisation of the Agreement by the Four Main Northern Irish Parties throughout Time’, Ethnopolitics 7(1): 21–42. Filardo Llamas, L. (2009) ‘Proposal for the Analysis of the Legitimatory Function of Political Discourse in the Northern Irish Context’, in G. Alvarez-­Benito, G. FernándezDíaz and I. Iñigo-Mora (eds) Discourse and Politics, Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. Hume, J. (1998) Statement at the Launch of the SDLP ‘Yes’ Campaign, Belfast: SDLP. Johnson, D.M. (1994) ‘Who is We? Constructing Communities in US–Mexico Border Discourse’, Discourse and Society 5(2): 207–231. Kress, G. and Hodge, R. (1979) Language as Ideology, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Lakoff, G. and Johnson, M. (1980) Metaphors We Live By, Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press. McKittrick, D. and McVea, D. (2001) Making Sense of the Troubles, London: Penguin. Martín Rojo, L. and Van Dijk, T.A. (1998) ‘ “Había un problema y se ha solucionado”: La legitimación de la expulsión de inmigrantes “ilegales” en el discurso parlamentario español’, in L. Martín Rojo and R. Whittaker (eds) Poder-­decir o el poder de los discursos, Madrid: Arrecife-­UAM. Paisley, I. (1998) Statement at the Launch of the DUP ‘No’ Campaign, Belfast: DUP. Schäffner, C. and Wenden, A.L. (eds) (1995) Language and Peace, London: Routledge. Trimble, D. (1998) Speech to the Northern Ireland Forum, Belfast: UUP. Available at http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/events/peace/docs/dt17498.htm (accessed 24 September 2009). Van Dijk, T.A. (1993) ‘Principles of Critical Discourse Analysis’, Discourse and Society 4(2): 249–283. Van Dijk, T.A. (1996) Discourse, Racism and Ideology, La Laguna: RCEI Ediciones. Van Dijk, T.A. (1997) ‘What is Political Discourse Analysis?’, in J. Blommaert and C. Bulcaen (eds) Political Linguistics, Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Van Dijk, T.A. (2001) ‘Critical Discourse Analysis’, in D. Schiffrin, D. Tannen and H.E. Hamilton (eds) Handbook of Discourse Analysis, Oxford: Blackwell. Van Leeuwen, T. and Wodak, R. (1999) ‘Legitimizing Immigration Control: A Discourse­Historical Approach’, Discourse Studies 1(1): 83–118. Wenden, A.L. (1995) ‘Critical Language Education’, in C. Schäffner and A.L. Wenden (eds) Language and Peace, London: Routledge. Whyte, J. (1990) Interpreting Northern Ireland, Oxford: Clarendon Press. Wodak, R. (ed.) (1989) Language, Power and Ideology: Studies in Political Discourse, Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Wodak, R., De Cillia, R., Reisigl, M. and Liebhart, K. (1999) The Discursive Construction of National Identity, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Wright, S. (ed.) (1998) Language and Conflict: A Neglected Relationship, Clevendon: Multilingual Matters.

6 ‘Humespeak’ The SDLP, political discourse and the peace process P.J. McLoughlin

This chapter examines the distinctive political language of Northern Ireland’s Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP). In doing so, it considers two of the three processes which Hayward (Chapter 1: 9) suggests involve discourse acting as an instrument of conflict transformation: ‘(i) the construction of a (conceptual) framework within which negotiations can take place’; and ‘(ii) the facilitation of agreement between moderate and extreme positions’. With respect to the first process, the chapter demonstrates how particular discursive concepts used by the SDLP served to structure the political talks between Northern Ireland’s constitutional parties that began in the early 1990s. In this, it shows how the SDLP’s thinking helped to shape the ideological parameters of both the Northern Ireland peace process, and the basic political settlement arising from this, the Good Friday/Belfast Agreement of 1998. With reference to the second process identified by Hayward, the chapter explains how an ongoing dialogue between the SDLP and Sinn Féin from the late 1980s played a crucial role in drawing extreme political factions into the democratic mainstream in Northern Ireland. For this dialogue paved the way towards the Irish Republican Army (IRA) ceasefire of August 1994, which prompted a similar response by the main loyalist paramilitaries the following October. This, in turn, created a situation where political representatives of militant groups on either side of the conflict were eventually able to join the talks process which had already begun between constitutional parties in the early 1990s. As such, by opening up a dialogue with Sinn Féin in the late 1980s, the SDLP can be seen to have instigated an approach which ultimately ended with a political agreement incorporating both moderate and the more extreme sections of the two communities in Northern Ireland. In explaining these two processes, the chapter focuses largely on the period leading up to the 1998 Agreement, arguably the highpoint in the SDLP’s political influence. As such, it does not engage with the third role which Hayward suggests discourse can play in a situation of conflict transformation. This relates to the possible convergence of language between former political enemies when they are obliged to co-­operate in the exercise of power in a post-­conflict situation (see above: 9). In the case of Northern Ireland, this role has more obvious relevance to relations been Sinn Féin and the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) –

78   P.J. McLoughlin formerly staunch opponents, but now the leading partners in the new government of Northern Ireland – and thus may be more appropriate for consideration in the chapters of this volume which deal specifically with these parties and their support bases. However, here the focus is on the SDLP, and the role which the party played in achieving an initial peace agreement in Northern Ireland in 1998. Although this was supposedly superseded by the St Andrews Agreement of 2006, the latter was essentially a deal on the means towards the full implementation of the 1998 Agreement. Thus, although the St Andrews Agreement made minor procedural changes to the operation of the 1998 Agreement, the essential political architecture of the earlier accord remained intact. Accordingly, this chapter looks primarily at the achievement of what should be seen as the more important of the two agreements, the 1998 Agreement, and the vital role which the ideas and language of the SDLP played in this. The scope of the chapter is limited in other ways. Clearly, a great number of actors have contributed to the discourse and ideology of the Northern Ireland peace process, and there is not room here to explain fully the way in which the SDLP’s ideas have interacted with those of other parties to the conflict. In particular, changes to nationalist thinking in Northern Ireland – many of which have involved the SDLP – have both fed upon and fed into similar shifts in southern Irish nationalist ideology. As such, whilst the primary subject of analysis here is the SDLP, the party should be considered as a member of a larger Irish nationalist ‘family’. Consequently, this chapter is intended as a contribution to the wider literature on the evolution of Irish nationalist discourse. For the SDLP’s discursive and ideological innovations must be seen as related to and interactive with changes in the language of other members of the broad nationalist family (see Hayward 2004, 2009; Ivory 1999; O’Donnell 2003; and Shirlow and McGovern 1998). The chapter is also focused in terms of the emphasis which it places on John Hume, former leader of the SDLP, and a joint winner of the 1998 Nobel Peace Prize for his part in negotiating the 1998 Agreement. During the course of his career, Hume developed a mode of political discourse so distinctive that it earned its own epithet: ‘Humespeak’. However, Hume was not the sole originator of Humespeak. Indeed, as other commentators have suggested (Currie 2004: 206; White 1984: 213–14), and as this chapter clearly demonstrates, Hume adopted verbal concepts from various sources, both within the SDLP and beyond. Nonetheless, he brought these concepts together in a coherent and highly influential mode of political expression. Thus, whilst the term ‘Humespeak’ is often used disparagingly – referring to the particular repetitiveness of his language – even critics have recognised the extent to which Hume’s phraseology came to dominate the discourse of the Northern Ireland peace process (Cunningham 1997; McGovern 1997).

The three strands As Gerard Murray’s (1998: 15–16) meticulous study of the SDLP has shown, a three-­level approach towards the resolution of the Northern Ireland conflict was conceived by the party as early as 1971 – over a quarter of a century before the

SDLP, political discourse and the peace process   79 1998 Agreement created a political settlement by the same means. This approach was initiated by John Duffy, one of the SDLP’s earliest policy-­makers, in a set of internal party papers which he completed in September 1971. Duffy’s papers described three sets of relationships which he felt had to be addressed in order to resolve the Northern Ireland problem: relations between the two communities in Northern Ireland; relations between the North and South of Ireland; and relations between Britain and Ireland (Murray 1998: 15). However, it was only in the 1980s that this ‘three relations’ thinking became evident in the SDLP’s public discourse. Arguably, this reflected the political developments of this period, which created a context more favourable to the articulation of a three relationships approach. In particular, the much improved relations between the British and Irish governments, culminating in the Anglo-­ Irish Agreement of 1985, appeared to broaden the framework within which the Northern Ireland problem was being considered. This met with a positive response from the SDLP, with Hume telling the Westminster Parliament that the Anglo-­Irish Agreement provided ‘a real framework within which to address the problem. The problem is not just about relationships within Northern Ireland . . . it is about relationships in Ireland and between Britain and Ireland’ (Hansard, sixth series, vol. 87, col. 780). Through the remainder of the 1980s, Hume continued to articulate this three relationships approach as the most appropriate way to resolve the Northern Ireland problem. And his persistence, it seems, eventually paid off. Indeed, for when the Northern Ireland Secretary, Peter Brooke, announced his intention to convene political talks between the local parties in March 1991, he told the House of Commons that ‘discussions must focus on the three main relationships: those in Northern Ireland . . . among the people of the island of Ireland; and between the [British and Irish] governments’ (Hansard, sixth series, vol. 188, col. 765). By the time the Brooke talks began, the three relationships had been rebranded as ‘the three strands’ by British officials. However, the origins of this approach in the thinking of the SDLP were plain to see. Moreover, when Brooke was replaced by Patrick Mayhew in April 1992, the new Northern Ireland Secretary continued to organise inter-­party talks in accordance with the three strand model. Although these discussions ended with little progress, when negotiations recommenced in 1996, again they were based upon the three strands. Eventually, the talks concluded in April 1998 with the announcement of the Good Friday/ Belfast Agreement. This accord established new political institutions to accommodate the two communities in Northern Ireland; new arrangements to facilitate co-­operation between the North and South of Ireland; and new structures to co-­ ordinate relations throughout the UK and Ireland (see O’Leary 2001). The particular design of the political institutions created under each strand of the 1998 Agreement was, of course, the result of bargain and compromise between the Northern Ireland parties and the British and Irish governments (see Hennessy 2000). However, that the 1998 Agreement was drawn from the three strands schema shows how the SDLP shaped the basic terms of the settlement.

80   P.J. McLoughlin For, as demonstrated, the three strands approach finds its origins in documents written by the party in the early 1970s. The three-­level thinking of these documents, promoted more vigorously by the SDLP under Hume’s leadership in the 1980s, shows the significant influence which the party had in creating the essential parameters of the peace agreement that emerged in 1998.

The Irish dimension ‘The Irish dimension’ is a term which the SDLP used to refer to the need for a political settlement which extended beyond Northern Ireland, involving the Irish as well as the British state. In this respect, the concept ties in with the party’s three relationship thinking, and particularly the emphasis on relations between both parts of Ireland. For the SDLP, political linkages between the two jurisdictions were required to give institutional expression to the identity of Northern Ireland’s nationalist community. Just as the British identity of the Ulster unionist community was reflected in the Union with Great Britain, so, the SDLP argued, the Irish identity of the northern nationalist community had to be recognised through political structures connecting it with the Republic of Ireland. As Hume reasoned: Any solution which does not take account of the Irish dimension is doomed to failure. SDLP policies clearly commit the Party to a solution that takes account of both basic loyalties in the community and both must be taken into account if any solution is to be found. (Irish News 22 May 1975) The party’s emphasis on the need for an Irish dimension to any settlement of the Northern Ireland problem led the term to become very much associated with the SDLP. However, the phrase was actually first used in a British government document, The Future of Northern Ireland (HMSO 1972). Here the term was used to suggest that any regional settlement ‘must also recognise Northern Ireland’s position within Ireland as a whole . . . Whatever arrangements are made for the future administration of Northern Ireland must take account of the region’s relationship with the Republic of Ireland’ (HMSO 1972: paras 76, 78). The SDLP read this as an acceptance by the London government of the arguments advanced in Towards a New Ireland – a document which the party had issued a month before the British discussion paper. In Towards a New Ireland, the SDLP had firmly set its face against an internal solution to the Northern Ireland problem: ‘Any re-­examination [of constitutional arrangements] must therefore take place, not in a purely Six County context, but in an Irish context’ (SDLP 1972: 1). In this, the SDLP made clear that it would not be party to a settlement that did not involve the Irish government in some way. As such, when London seemed to accept this position by recognising an ‘Irish dimension’ to the problem in The Future of Northern Ireland, the SDLP seized upon what was actually a Whitehall term (Irish News 8 November 1972), adopting the phrase as part of its own political nomenclature, and using it henceforth.

SDLP, political discourse and the peace process   81 The Irish dimension found its first institutional expression in the Council of Ireland which formed part of the failed Sunningdale Agreement of 1973. Like the North−South structures created by the Good Friday/Belfast Agreement 25 years later, the Council of Ireland was intended to promote co-­operation between the two parts of the island. However, whereas the all-­Ireland institutions of the 1998 Agreement were sharply defined, the powers and political remit of those agreed in 1973 were more open to interpretation. For this reason, many unionists opposed the Council of Ireland, believing that it would work to erode the Irish border, and undermine Northern Ireland’s position within the UK. This concern ultimately led to the collapse of the Sunningdale Agreement, and the inter-­ communal power-­sharing government which it had created for Northern Ireland. Because unionist opposition to Sunningdale had been directed mainly towards the Council of Ireland, following the Agreement’s demise, the London government moved away from the idea of an institutionalised Irish dimension. The feeling amongst British officials was that the Council of Ireland had been a step too far for unionists: had the Sunningdale settlement involved only a power-­ sharing arrangement within Northern Ireland, it may have survived. The SDLP, on the other hand, remained firmly opposed to any internal settlement of the Northern Ireland problem, arguing that this would deny the political identity of the nationalist community. Even in the immediate aftermath of Sunningdale’s collapse, the party responded vigorously to media speculation that the failure of the Agreement might lead to a weakening of the SDLP’s commitment to North−South institutions. ‘The Irish dimension is fundamental to SDLP policy’, argued Austin Currie, a co-­founder and leading member of the party (Irish Times 19 June 1974). Through the political inertia of the late 1970s and early 1980s, the SDLP continued to hold to this line, insisting that the Irish government’s involvement in Northern Ireland was a sine qua non of any settlement to which it would be a party. In defending this position, the SDLP used the term ‘the Irish dimension’ so frequently that, as suggested, the phrase came to be considered as one of the party’s own. Even the British government – at this time looking to distance itself from the whole notion of an Irish dimension – appeared happy to forget that the phrase had first appeared in one of its own discussion papers. But whilst the term was invented in Whitehall, the idea of an Irish dimension was integral to the SDLP’s thinking – as was evident in the party’s earliest political documents (Murray 1998: 12). Moreover, by continually using a phrase coined by British officials, the SDLP made it impossible for the Irish dimension to slip from the political agenda. By refusing to contemplate any settlement which did not involve the Irish government, the SDLP effectively vetoed any movement by London towards an internal solution of the Northern Ireland problem – an option obviously favoured by the unionist community. Of course, the Irish government was also crucial in pushing the Irish dimension. In particular, in the early 1980s, the administrations of Garret FitzGerald carefully avoided unhelpful anti-­partitionist rhetoric, but insisted that Dublin should play some role in the administration of Northern Ireland. In effect, it was

82   P.J. McLoughlin argued that an Irish presence in the structures of governance in the region would serve to address the sense of political alienation that had become apparent amongst the nationalist minority in this period (FitzGerald 1991: 473ff.). As such, it was not only the SDLP’s obstinacy over the Irish dimension, but also the Dublin government’s insistence that it should be involved in Northern Ireland – and indeed the sympathy for this position among the international community, particular in the US – that together pushed the British government towards the logic of the 1985 Anglo-­Irish Agreement. Under the terms of this accord, the Irish government was given a limited but nonetheless significant role in the governance of Northern Ireland. More than a decade after Sunningdale’s demise, the Irish dimension was restored. Although the 1998 Agreement ostensibly ‘transcended’ the Anglo-­Irish Agreement, some structures of the 1985 accord remained in place. Thus, despite unionists’ opposition to Dublin’s role in Northern Ireland, the inter-­governmental institutions of the Anglo-­Irish Agreement were reformed rather than replaced in the 1998 Agreement (O’Leary 2001: 68). The SDLP had some influence in this decision, with the party still opposed to any settlement lacking an Irish input. However, more important was opinion in London and Dublin. In essence, the two governments were unwilling to abandon the political machinery which had, since the mid-­1980s, allowed for far more effective management of the Northern Ireland problem. As such, under the terms of the 1998 Agreement, Dublin retained the role it had held since 1985, as guardian of the nationalist minority’s essential interests. This, in addition to the new North−South structures created by the 1998 Agreement, showed that the Irish dimension was still in effect. The role in Northern Ireland which the Irish government acquired through the Anglo-­Irish Agreement, and the position which it has continued to hold since the 1998 Agreement, is less than the SDLP would have liked. In 1985, the party had been hoping for something closer to joint British−Irish sovereignty over Northern Ireland. In 1998, the SDLP had sought North−South structures with greater political potential – institutions which could have evolved with more dynamism, leading ultimately to the reunification of Ireland. However, the Irish dimension to both the Anglo-­Irish Agreement and the 1998 Agreement owed much to the SDLP’s refusal to accept anything less than the British government had originally offered in its 1972 discussion paper.

The two traditions The idea of ‘the two traditions’ – or the same concept articulated in different terms – appeared in nationalist commentaries some years before the onset of the Northern Ireland conflict. Indeed, John Whyte highlights the 1950s in particular as a period in which mainly southern writers such as Michael Sheehy and Donal Barrington began to consider the problem of partition in terms of ‘two distinct peoples in Ireland’ (Whyte 1990: 119–20). Contradicting the orthodox nationalist interpretation, Barrington in particular suggested that partition was not imposed upon Ireland by the British government, but rather an inevitable

SDLP, political discourse and the peace process   83 response by London to the seemingly irreconcilable differences of these two ‘peoples’: Irish nationalists and Ulster unionists. Implicit in this ‘revisionist’ nationalist thesis was the idea that it was for the ‘peoples’ of Ireland to work to overcome these differences. This, it was argued, was the only way to end partition and unite Ireland. The SDLP, formed after the recrudescence of communal violence in Northern Ireland in the late 1960s, clearly drew upon this thesis, articulating a gradualist approach towards Irish reunification as the ultimate solution to the conflict (McLoughlin 2006). However, the party also used this discourse of divided peoples – or ‘the two traditions’ as it became in the SDLP’s phraseology – in explaining its immediate proposals for the pacification and stabilisation of Northern Ireland. For this end, the SDLP argued, could only be achieved by establishing political structures which recognised the identity of both political ‘traditions’ in Northern Ireland: Irish nationalist and Ulster unionist (SDLP 1972: 4, 1974b: 1.3). In essence, this meant creating an Irish dimension – that is all-­Ireland political structures – as a counterbalance to the pre-­existing British dimension – namely the political Union between Great Britain and Northern Ireland. As the party plainly stated in its 1975 manifesto: ‘There is an Irish Dimension to the problem. There is a British Dimension to the problem. Any solution must take account of both’ (SDLP 1975: 3). In effect, then, the SDLP used this two traditions thesis to support its arguments in favour of an Irish dimension. This tendency was most notable in the period after Sunningdale’s collapse. At this time, many commentators proposed that the SDLP abandon its pursuit of an Irish dimension, and content itself with an internal settlement of the Northern Ireland problem – this, it was claimed, being the only basis on which unionists might be persuaded to share power with nationalists. The SDLP rejected such suggestions, arguing that without institutional recognition of its Irish identity, the nationalist minority could not be accommodated within the Northern Ireland state (SDLP 1974b: 1.1–1.3). The two traditions thesis thus provided the ideological rationale for the party’s continued commitment to the Sunningdale formula of power-­sharing and an Irish dimension. As Hume reasoned: ‘Partnership between our two traditions – both within the North through power-­sharing, and between North and South through the Irish dimension – accepting and respecting our differences will in time build trust and confidence to replace distrust and prejudice’ (Sunday Press 16 March 1975). In the late 1970s, such arguments made little headway with either the British government or the unionist community. Indeed, buoyed by their defeat of Sunningdale, from 1974 onwards, unionists became increasingly inflexible. Not only did they remain opposed to the idea of linkages between the North and South of Ireland, but unionist leaders now refused to share power with the SDLP even within a wholly internal political arrangement. The British government, meanwhile, was unwilling to enforce a settlement upon an intransigent majority, and so appeared to abandon all hope of establishing a local settlement in Northern Ireland. Instead, it settled into the role of ruling the region directly from Westminster. This approach seemed to appease the unionist community (Coulter

84   P.J. McLoughlin 1996). After all, direct rule from London secured the majority’s essential political objective: maintenance of the Union with Britain. The nationalist community, on the other hand, grew increasingly disaffected. Recognising this, the SDLP continued to press for a change in British policy towards an arrangement that would acknowledge the identity of both communities. As Hume argued: ‘The problem here cannot be solved on the basis of one identity alone and whether wittingly or unwittingly, British politicians run the risk of promoting violence in the North by not accommodating the two different identities in it’ (Irish News 9 May 1978). The extent of nationalist alienation became apparent in the early 1980s, when republican prisoners began a series of hunger strikes in an effort to gain political recognition from the British government. This mobilised even moderate sections of the minority, with the hunger strikers winning support from nationalists who had shown no previous sympathy for the republican movement. In turn, this led to fears in both London and Dublin that the moderate nationalism of the SDLP would now be eclipsed by the radical republicanism of Sinn Féin (Bew et al. 2002: 202). It was partly to restore the political standing of the SDLP that the Taoiseach, Garret FitzGerald, established the New Ireland Forum of 1983–4. This initiative, originally proposed by the SDLP (Murray 1998: 124), brought the northern nationalist party into conference with its southern counterparts: Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and the Labour Party. Although contemporary commentators derided the exercise as an attempt by the Irish establishment to ‘save’ the SDLP, the party had ambitions beyond its electoral struggle with Sinn Féin. It hoped to use the Forum to forge an ideological consensus among constitutional nationalists in both parts of Ireland, creating a unity of purpose that would, along with the goodwill of the international community, press the British government into action on Northern Ireland (Hume 1984: 24). The SDLP’s success in achieving such a consensus was evident in the conclusion of the New Ireland Forum report, which committed all of the participating parties to the two traditions thesis as the basis for a solution: ‘The validity of both the nationalist and unionist identities in Ireland . . . must be accepted; both of these identities must have equally satisfactory, secure and durable, political, administrative and symbolic expression and protection’ (Dublin Stationery Office 1984: article 5.2.4). The 1985 Anglo-­Irish Agreement did not adopt any of the specific political structures that were proposed by the New Ireland Forum, but it certainly drew upon the thinking behind the initiative (Todd 1995: 822). And the same political logic and discourse informed the terms of the Northern Ireland peace process from its earliest days. This was clear to see in the Joint Declaration for Peace – or the Downing Street Declaration as it is more commonly known – which formally launched the process in December 1993. Here, the British government promised to work with its Irish counterpart to ‘encourage, facilitate and enable the achievement of . . . an agreement over a period through a process of dialogue and co-­operation based on full respect for the rights and identities of both traditions in Ireland’ (HMSO 1993: para. 4).

SDLP, political discourse and the peace process   85 In the 1995 Framework Documents – wherein the two governments provided the blueprint for a political settlement in Northern Ireland – the influence of the two traditions discourse was even more evident in the stipulation that ‘any new political arrangements must be based on full respect for, and protection and expression of, the rights and identities of both traditions in Ireland’ (HMSO 1995: para. 10 [iv]). Finally, the 1998 Agreement was also suffused with a language which recognised the equal legitimacy of the two political traditions in Ireland (see the Agreement, Constitutional Issues: para. 1[v−vi]). All these references show the extent to which the two traditions discourse became ingrained within the philosophy of the peace process. However, again this mode of thought can be related to ideas first expressed by the SDLP in the 1970s. Although the party was itself drawing on southern nationalist commentaries from the 1950s, the SDLP modified this thinking to reflect the contemporary situation in Northern Ireland. Specifically, the party developed practical proposals which, though based upon the rethinking of the 1950s, were not geared solely towards Irish unification, and in fact provided a conceptual framework within which Irish nationalists and Ulster unionists could both be accommodated in a still partitioned Ireland. In addition, it was the SDLP’s frequent and repeated use of a specific term, ‘the two traditions’, that led to its subsequent adoption by the British and Irish governments, and thus its establishment as a central discourse of the peace process.

An agreed Ireland Of all the terms considered in this chapter, the idea of an ‘agreed Ireland’ is the one most intimately associated with Hume. However, it also relates to the concepts already discussed, particularly the two traditions thesis. Indeed, the idea built directly upon this thesis, suggesting that the two political communities in Ireland had to find mutually acceptable constitutional structures that would allow them to co-­exist on the island which they shared – hence an agreed Ireland. Like the two traditions thesis, the concept of an agreed Ireland also became more prominent within the SDLP’s discourse in the aftermath of the failed Sunningdale Agreement, when the party tried to argue the validity of the power-­ sharing and Irish dimension formula which unionists had rejected (see SDLP 1974a). However, it also appeared that Hume employed the idea of an agreed Ireland as a way to sate or at least to address the traditional nationalist desire for a united Ireland. For he used the term to suggest that any settlement which gave the two communities in Northern Ireland an equal say in the governance of the region, and any agreement which allowed nationalists to express a political affiliation with the southern Irish state, would in itself constitute ‘Irish unity’. For example, speaking shortly after the collapse of Sunningdale, Hume argued that: ‘If we get an agreed Ireland that is unity. What constitutional or institutional forms such an agreed Ireland takes is irrelevant because it would represent agreement by the people of this country as to how they should be governed’ (Irish Times 17 June 1974).

86   P.J. McLoughlin This was an idea which Hume continued to articulate, ad infinitum, from the 1970s onwards. But whilst unionists vehemently opposed the all-­Ireland implications of his thinking, Hume’s arguments did eventually find favour with the two governments. This was most apparent in the Downing Street Declaration of 1993, where the British government stated that its primary interest was ‘to see peace, stability and reconciliation established by agreement among all the people who inhabit the island’, and committed itself to ‘work with the Irish Government to achieve such an agreement . . . based on full respect for the rights and identities of both traditions’ (HMSO 1993: para. 4). With this, Hume’s notion of an agreed Ireland became the ideological template for a solution to the Northern Ireland problem (Bew et al. 2002: 221–2). Though broadly flexible as to the particular political structures that would be created, this model provided two guiding principles to the subsequent inter-­party talks: any solution arising from these discussions would have to include all-­Ireland institutions, and win the consent of both political traditions on the island. The Agreement that eventually emerged in 1998 is consistent with this model. Indeed, with the North−South structures created by the 1998 Agreement, northern Catholics no longer reside in a polity entirely separate from that of their co-­ nationals in the Republic of Ireland. The minority community’s Irish identity is explicitly recognised by the Agreement (Agreement, Constitutional Issues: para. 1[vi]). By the same token, the Union between Great Britain and Northern Ireland remains intact; unionists’ political identity has in no way been diminished. In this, the 1998 Agreement has created a political framework capable of accommodating both traditions on the island of Ireland. Hume’s contribution to the conception of this framework, and in particular his idea of an agreed Ireland, was highly significant.

No selfish strategic or economic interest It is now worth considering the particular political exchanges which led to the cessation of hostilities in the mid-­1990s. For here again, the influence of the SDLP is clearly evident, especially in the verbal formulations that were used. This section, therefore, looks at the second role identified by Hayward (Chapter 1: 9): how discourse can facilitate agreement between moderate and extreme positions in a situation of political conflict. Of crucial importance here is the dialogue between the SDLP and Sinn Féin which began in 1988. This debate was, in the first instance, inspired by the two parties’ rival interpretations of the 1985 Anglo-­Irish Agreement. Sinn Féin saw the Agreement as an imperialist stratagem: by allowing Dublin a limited role in the administration of the region, republicans felt that London was trying to stabilise British rule in Northern Ireland (Sinn Féin 1986). The SDLP, however, saw the Anglo-­Irish Agreement in quite a different light. In particular, Hume focused on Article 1(c) of the Agreement, wherein the British government had promised to support and indeed to legislate for a united Ireland if this was shown to be the wish of a majority within Northern Ireland. Hume presented this commitment as

SDLP, political discourse and the peace process   87 an effective declaration of British neutrality on the future of Northern Ireland. With this, he sought to overturn republicans’ colonial interpretation of the conflict: This is a clear statement by the British government that it has no interest of its own, either strategic or otherwise, in remaining in Ireland. It is a declaration that Irish unity is a matter for Irish people, for those who want it to persuade those who don’t. (Hume 1986: 382) Publicly, Sinn Féin rejected Hume’s reading of the Anglo-­Irish Agreement. But behind closed doors, the Agreement was encouraging a debate within the republican movement (Mallie and McKittrick 1996: 33–6; Murray and Tonge 2005: 148–52). After its astonishing electoral gains in the early 1980s, Sinn Féin had reached a ceiling in its political support. This was partly attributable to the Anglo-­Irish Agreement, which has restored the confidence of constitutional nationalism, but more important was Sinn Féin’s relationship with the IRA. Whilst it continued to defend the actions of the IRA, Sinn Féin found that it could not win significant support beyond the republican heartlands, where Catholic voters remained loyal to the SDLP. If Sinn Féin was to have any influence beyond its core constituency, it would have to engage with its moderate rival. Recognising this, the Sinn Féin leader, Gerry Adams, began to put out political feelers towards the SDLP (Adams 2003: 35). In spite of the risks involved, Hume finally agreed to formal talks with Sinn Féin, beginning in early 1988. In essence, the SDLP used these discussions to restate and refine its reading of the Anglo-­Irish Agreement, and in particular its view that the accord was an effective statement of British neutrality on the prospect of Irish reunification. As Hume argued in a letter given to Adams at the outset of the talks: ‘Britain is now saying that she has no interest of her own in being here and that her only interest is to see agreement among the people who share the island of Ireland’ (Hume 1988: 4). For the SDLP, therefore, the British government was not the primary obstacle to Irish reunification. Rather, it was the unionist community, and their deep-­rooted resistance to that end. Thus, the key to achieving a united Ireland was to persuade unionists to consent to it. Despite such arguments, throughout the 1988 talks, Sinn Féin stubbornly rejected the idea of British neutrality on Northern Ireland, and restated its belief that ‘Britain’s continuing involvement in Ireland is based on strategic, economic and political interests’ (1988: 12). Although the SDLP−Sinn Féin talks appeared to end in stalemate, Hume took what republicans had said here as a challenge (Hume 1996: 115). He now turned to London, seeking confirmation – straight from the horse’s mouth as it were – of his conception of the Anglo-­Irish Agreement and of British neutrality vis-­à-vis Irish unity. Peter Brooke, the Northern Ireland Secretary from 1989, proved receptive to Hume’s approaches, and took seriously his suggestion that the republican leadership might be becoming more open-­minded in its interpretation of the problem (Mallie and McKittrick 1996:

88   P.J. McLoughlin 104, 108; Routledge 1997: 233). Brooke responded in a speech to his Westminster constituency on 9 November 1990, in which he famously declared that: ‘The British government has no selfish strategic or economic interests in Northern Ireland’ (Irish Times 10 November 1990). The striking similarities between this formula and the terms in which Sinn Féin had rejected the SDLP’s neutrality thesis seem more than coincidental. It appears that someone was telling Brooke exactly what republicans needed to hear a British minister say. Following Brooke’s speech, Hume was able to return to Adams claiming vindication of his interpretation of the Anglo-­Irish Agreement. This led to further talks between the two leaders which evolved into the so-­called ‘Hume−Adams initiative’. The essential purpose of this was to find agreement on a form of words – acceptable to the British and Irish governments, but also to the republican movement – which would be included in a joint London−Dublin declaration regarding the terms on which Sinn Féin – and indeed any loyalist grouping willing to commit to exclusively peaceful methods – could join all-­party talks towards a settlement in Northern Ireland. In this respect, the Hume−Adams dialogue clearly demonstrated the second role of discourse suggested by Hayward’s (Chapter 1) scheme of conflict resolution, seeking to bridge the gap between the moderates of the democratic mainstream and the militant extremes in each community. Though understandably unnerving Ulster unionists, the Hume−Adams initiative achieved huge support throughout nationalist Ireland, and eventually forced London and Dublin to respond with the Downing Street Declaration of December 1993 (Mallie and McKittrick 1996: 117). For political reasons – namely to maintain unionist support for the process – this was presented as if it was the work of the two governments alone, but the phraseology of the document clearly drew on the terms of the Hume−Adams dialogue. Most obviously, and most importantly, it repeated the Brooke statement of 1990, providing formal confirmation – from the highest level of the British government – that London had ‘no selfish strategic or economic interest in Northern Ireland’, and thus had no opposition to a united Ireland achieved by democratic means (HMSO 1993: para. 4). In this, the 1993 Declaration addressed the key issue in the long-­ standing debate between the SDLP and Sinn Féin, affirming the former’s assertion that there was a peaceful path towards Irish reunification. After considerable deliberation with the republican movement, the IRA eventually responded to the Downing Street Declaration by calling a ceasefire in August 1994. The Declaration, of course, was not the sole reason for this shift in strategy. Indeed, the republican movement had for some years been moving towards a more political approach (English 2003: 187). Moreover, if any one reason can be given for the cessation, it was the realisation by republicans that, though they could not be defeated, neither did they have the military capacity to force the British state from Northern Ireland. By the late 1980s, many senior republicans had accepted this reality. However, persuading the movement as a whole to abandon the armed struggle and adopt a purely political strategy was no easy task. Crucial in the process were the various statements regarding British interests in Northern Ireland that were made in the early 1990s. These allowed

SDLP, political discourse and the peace process   89 the Sinn Féin leadership to suggest that there had been a radical shift in British policy towards Northern Ireland, and that this should be tested by republicans also changing tack. On this level, the early peace process appeared to be a game played only between the British state and the republican movement. However, as demonstrated, Hume and the SDLP helped to write the script for the crucial first exchanges between the two sides. Prior to the SDLP−Sinn Féin talks of 1988, republicans appeared unwilling to even entertain the idea of British neutrality regarding Northern Ireland. But as well as creating such thoughts amongst the Sinn Féin leadership, Hume prompted the British government to make public announcements that would encourage the acceptance of such ideas amongst the wider republican movement. These statements proved vital to the development of the Northern Ireland peace process. In particular, without the ‘no selfish strategic or economic interests’ mantra repeated by British politicians throughout the early 1990s, there would have been no IRA ceasefire in August 1994, thus no loyalist cessation in October 1994, and so no peace agreement in April 1998.

Conclusion The great historical legacy of the SDLP, and of John Hume in particular, lies in redefining Irish nationalism . . . the SDLP has radically changed the thinking of the mainstream political parties in the South, as well as the broad mass of constitutional nationalist thinking . . . I also further claim that the SDLP has radically changed the thinking of physical force nationalism or republicanism as well. (Maginness 2002: 33) Notwithstanding the ostentatious nature of this assertion – and despite the fact that it is made by a member of the SDLP – it has credibility. With its formation in August 1970, the party became the primary political expression of the changed thinking which had emerged within northern Irish nationalism in the 1960s (McAllister 1977: chs 1–3). However, by the 1980s, the SDLP’s influence on the southern Irish nationalist thinking was also apparent. Particularly after the New Ireland Forum of 1983–4, wherein the party had the opportunity to fully imbue the southern state with its political philosophy (Murray 1998: 123, 141), successive Irish governments adopted a distinctively SDLP phraseology. In turn, the London government also took on something of the party’s discourse. This was evident in the Anglo-­Irish Agreement of 1985, and even more so the Downing Street Declaration of 1993, after which the two governments were united in their use of a lexicon at least partly conditioned by the terminology of Hume and the SDLP. However, as Maginness points out, the party also helped to change the thinking of physical force republicanism. Clearly, it was aided in this effort by the willingness of the British government to confirm the arguments which the party had been making to Sinn Féin from 1988. But looking at the particular formulations which figures such as Peter Brooke chose to use, it seems that by the

90   P.J. McLoughlin early 1990s Hume was actually advising the Northern Ireland Office of the kind of words which republicans wanted to hear. Similarly, Hume’s influence was evident in Brooke’s ‘three strand’ approach to political talks, which clearly endorsed the SDLP’s long-­standing argument that three sets of relationships had to be addressed in resolving the Northern Ireland problem. As a result, even unionist politicians found themselves negotiating within a political framework that was largely shaped by Hume and his party. Thus, whilst the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) also made major contributions to the settlement arising from these talks, the basic terms of the 1998 Agreement were decided by the SDLP. Despite this, as Hayward (Chapter 1) notes, a party’s contribution to political progress does not, necessarily, ensure its electoral success. This has certainly been the case for the SDLP, which has not received the electoral rewards which it might have expected in post-­Agreement Northern Ireland. Indeed, since 1998, the party’s share of the vote has been in a state of steady decline, allowing Sinn Féin to take its place as the largest nationalist party. The difficult implementation of the 1998 Agreement caused a hardening of attitudes which aided both Sinn Féin and the DUP, each presenting itself as the more robust representative of their community’s vital interests. However, behind this posturing, a subtle moderation has taken place, and Sinn Féin and the DUP have only achieved hegemony by moving onto the political ground occupied by their respective electoral rivals (Mitchell et al. 2001, 2002). This process culminated in the St Andrews Agreement of 2006 in which Sinn Féin and the DUP accepted a political deal whose essential architecture was negotiated by the SDLP and the UUP eight years earlier. To push the argument further, it could be said that Sinn Féin and the DUP were accepting a political deal whose essential architecture was first imagined by the SDLP two decades before that. Indeed, as demonstrated above, the basic terms of the agreement – from its ‘three strands’ framework to its ‘agreed Ireland’ model – find their origins in the distinctive political discourse used by Hume and the SDLP since the 1970s. In this regard, it can be argued that Hume and the SDLP were the primary progenitors of both the peace process and the new political relations which it has created in Northern Ireland, on the island of Ireland, and between Britain and Ireland.

Acknowledgements I would like to acknowledge the support of the IRCHSS in carrying out the research for this chapter, and the Irish Studies International Research Initiative, QUB, whilst writing it. I am also grateful to Jennifer Todd and the book’s editors for their constructive comments.

Bibliography Adams, G. (2003) Hope and History: Making Peace in Ireland, Dingle: Brandon. Bew, P., Gibbon, P. and Patterson, H. (2002) Northern Ireland, 1921–2001: Political Forces and Social Classes, London: Serif.

SDLP, political discourse and the peace process   91 Coulter, C. (1996) ‘Direct rule and the unionist middle classes’, in R. English and G. Walker (eds) Unionism in Modern Ireland, Dublin: Gill and MacMillan. Cunningham, M. (1997) ‘The political language of John Hume’, Irish Political Studies 12(1): 13–22. Currie, A. (2004) All Hell Will Break Loose, Dublin: O’Brien. Dublin Stationery Office (1984) New Ireland Forum Report, Dublin: Dublin Stationery Office. English, R. (2003) Armed Struggle: A History of the IRA, London: Macmillan. FitzGerald, G. (1991) All in a Life: An Autobiography, London: Gill and Macmillan. Hayward, K. (2004) ‘The politics of nuance: Irish official discourse on Northern Ireland’, Irish Political Studies 19(1): 18–38. Hayward, K. (2009) Irish Nationalism and European Integration: The Official Redefinition of the Island of Ireland, Manchester: Manchester University Press. Hennessy, T. (2000) The Northern Ireland Peace Process: Ending the Troubles?, Dublin: Gill and Macmillan. HMSO (1972) The Future of Northern Ireland: A Paper for Discussion, London: HMSO. HMSO (1993) Text of the Joint Declaration by the Prime Minister, Rt. Hon. John Major, MP and the Taoiseach, Mr. Albert Reynolds, TD on the 15th December, 1993 [the Downing Street Declaration], Belfast: HMSO. HMSO (1995) Framework Documents: Including Part 1 – A Framework for Accountable Government in Northern Ireland produced by Government of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and Part 2 – A New Framework for Agreement produced by Government of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and Government of Republic of Ireland, Belfast: HMSO. HMSO (1998) Agreement Reached at the Multi-­Party Talks on Northern Ireland [the Good Friday Agreement], London: HMSO. Hume, J. (1984) Opening speech to the New Ireland Forum, 30 May 1983, in New Ireland Forum Public Sessions: Report of Proceedings, no. 1, Dublin: Dublin Stationery Office. Hume, J. (1986) ‘A new Ireland – the acceptance of diversity’, Studies 75(300): 378–83. Hume, J. (1988) Letter to Gerry Adams, 17 March 1988, Linen Hall Library, Northern Ireland Political Collection, P3395. Hume, J. (1996) A New Ireland: Peace, Politics and Reconciliation, Boulder, CO: Roberts Rinehart. Ivory, G. (1999) ‘Revisions in nationalist discourse among Irish political parties’, Irish Political Studies 14(1): 84–103. McAllister, I. (1977) The Social Democratic and Labour Party: Political Opposition in a Divided Society, London: Macmillan. McGovern, M. (1997) ‘Unity in Diversity? The SDLP and the peace process’, in C. Gilligan and J. Tonge (eds) Peace or War? Understanding the Peace Process in Northern Ireland, Aldershot: Ashgate. McLoughlin, P.J. (2006) ‘ “A united Ireland or nothing”?: John Hume and the idea of Irish unity, 1964–72’, Irish Political Studies 21(2): 157–80. Maginness, A. (2002) ‘Redefining northern nationalism’, in J. Coakley (ed.) Changing Shades of Orange and Green: Redefining the Union and the Nation in Contemporary Ireland, Dublin: UCD Press. Mallie, É. and McKittrick, D. (1996) The Fight for Peace: The Secret Story behind the Irish Peace Process, London: Heinemann. Mitchell, P., O’Leary, B. and Evans, G. (2001) ‘Flanking extremists bite the moderates and emerge in their clothes’, Parliamentary Affairs 54(4): 725–42.

92   P.J. McLoughlin Mitchell, P., O’Leary, B. and Evans, G. (2002) ‘The 2001 elections in Northern Ireland: moderating “extremists” and the squeezing of the moderates’, Representation 39(1): 23–36. Murray, G. (1998) John Hume and the SDLP: Impact and Survival in Northern Ireland, Dublin: Irish Academic Press. Murray, G. and Tonge, J. (2005) Sinn Féin and the SDLP: From Alienation to Participation, London: O’Brien. O’Donnell, C. (2003) ‘Fianna Fáil and Sinn Féin: the 1988 talks reappraised’, Irish Political Studies 18(2): 60–81. O’Leary, B. (2001) ‘The character of the 1998 Agreement: results and prospects’, in R. Wilford (ed.) Aspects of the Belfast Agreement, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Routledge, P. (1997) John Hume: A Biography, London: Harper Collins. SDLP (1972) Towards a New Ireland, Belfast: SDLP. SDLP (1974a) ‘SDLP offers agreed Ireland’, 18 June 1974, Public Records Office of Northern Ireland, D/3072/4/1/1. SDLP (1974b) Joint statement by the SDLP Executive Committee and Assembly Party, 3 September 1974, Public Records Office of Northern Ireland, D/3072/4/1/1. SDLP (1975) Speak with Strength, Belfast: SDLP. Shirlow, P. and McGovern, M. (1998) ‘Language, discourse and dialogue: Sinn Féin and the Irish peace process’, Political Geography 17(2): 171–86. Sinn Féin (1986) The Hillsborough Agreement: The Text of the Bobby Sands Commemorative Lecture Given by Danny Morrison in Twinbrook, Belfast, on Sunday 4th May 1986, Belfast: Sinn Féin. Sinn Féin (1988) ‘Towards a strategy for peace’, 14 March 1988, Linen Hall Library, Northern Ireland Political Collection, P3394. Todd, J. (1995) ‘Equality, plurality and democracy: justifications of proposed constitutional settlements of the Northern Ireland conflict’, Ethnic and Racial Studies 18(4): 818–36. White, B. (1984) John Hume: Statesman of the Troubles, Belfast: Blackstaff Press. Whyte, J. (1990) Interpreting Northern Ireland, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

7 DUP discourses on violence and their impact on the peace process Amber Rankin and Gladys Ganiel

The Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) and its founder, the Rev. Ian Paisley, have been controversial throughout Northern Ireland’s Troubles and its current post-­conflict transition.1 In 1971 Paisley, then a young firebrand evangelical preacher, founded the party with substantial support from members of the Free Presbyterian Church, which he also had founded. Paisley, his party, and his church were often regarded as prophets of war, not of peace. Around the time of the DUP’s founding, Paisley and other members of the party were accused of shadowy dealings with loyalist paramilitaries. Although Paisley and the party publicly disassociated themselves from loyalist paramilitaries, suspicions about their involvement remained. Further, Paisley’s fiery rhetoric was regarded as inciting paramilitaries to violence. The story of an imprisoned loyalist paramilitary bemoaning the day that he ever listened to ‘that man Paisley’ has become apocryphal. Paisley was once regarded as the politician who would always say ‘no’ to compromise with Irish republicanism, particularly in the guise of Sinn Féin. That has made the DUP’s decision to share power with Sinn Féin in the Northern Ireland Executive all the more stunning. Images of First Minister Paisley laughing and joking with Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness of Sinn Féin (who has admitted that he belonged to the Irish Republican Army (IRA)) are amongst the most surprising and iconic of the recent transitional period.

The historical function of DUP discourses Throughout the Troubles the DUP was the ‘second’ party of unionism, trailing the long-­established Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) at the ballot box and in terms of respectability. It was the UUP that claimed to speak for ‘mainstream’ unionism, whilst the DUP was said to appeal to the fringes. The DUP’s constituencies were the unlikely bedfellows of rural-­dwelling evangelical Protestants and urban, working class loyalists – including, it was assumed, those who were involved in paramilitarism. It was the UUP that negotiated the 1998 Belfast Agreement, while the DUP walked out of the talks. The then leader of the UUP, David Trimble, was honoured with a Nobel Prize for his work at the negotiations, but at home in Northern Ireland Trimble and the UUP struggled to implement the

94   A. Rankin and G. Ganiel Agreement. This was due in large part to the DUP, which tapped into unionist disaffection with the terms of the Agreement and the UUP’s inability to convince Sinn Féin to deliver on IRA decommissioning. During most of this time the Northern Ireland Assembly was suspended and the region was ruled directly from Westminster. DUP discourses about violence were prominent throughout this transitional period, when it overtook the UUP as the leading unionist party in terms of electoral success and respectability. Indeed, the DUP began to describe itself as the mainstream unionist party. This means that the way the DUP has talked and continues to talk about violence is significant, and that it resonates with the wider unionist community. On the one hand, the DUP denounces republican paramilitaries for initiating and perpetuating the armed struggle, which the DUP regards as illegitimate. This includes a consistent linking of Sinn Féin with the IRA. Prior to the restoration of the Northern Ireland Assembly in May 2007, it included the claim that unionists should not share power with Sinn Féin until the IRA had decommissioned. Without IRA decommissioning, Sinn Féin would remain unreconstructed terrorists. On the other hand, the DUP denounced loyalist paramilitaries for taking up arms, whilst at the same time denying that their party or their party’s rhetoric had any impact upon loyalist paramilitaries. What meaning do these discourses have in a Northern Ireland where Paisley shared tea and a power-­sharing executive with McGuinness? This chapter draws on narrative analysis of DUP discourses recorded in Northern Ireland’s largest unionist newspaper, the News Letter (1998–2006), and the framework developed by Hayward (Chapter 1), to argue that the party’s hardline discourses about violence allowed it to frame negotiations in St Andrews in a way that was palatable to unionists. This consolidated its electoral success and created space for the party to compromise with its long-­scorned enemy, Sinn Féin. These parties joined forces in the Executive for the first time in May 2007. At the same time, the DUP’s extreme discourses provided and continue to provide cover under which the party moderates its political positions, thus allowing it to find a common ground (at the least, agreeing to disagree) with Sinn Féin in the Executive. But the latter part of the chapter considers how the DUP’s tough talking may continue to impact the peace process and progress on the bread and butter issues like health and education – with which the Executive is now concerned. The DUP’s historic condemnation of Sinn Féin and the illegitimacy of the IRA’s armed struggle may affect their relationships in the Executive – and thus their ability to govern Northern Ireland effectively. Paisley and McGuinness developed what appeared to be a warm and effective working relationship, surprising almost everyone. But this cosy companionship came to an abrupt end in May 2008, when Paisley resigned as leader of the DUP. Paisley’s resignation has been variously explained by grassroots displeasure at how much he seemed to be enjoying power, whiffs of corruption associated with his son Ian Paisley Junior’s relationship with the north coast property developer Seymour Sweeney, and Paisley’s age and declining skills and abilities (Gordon 2009).

DUP discourses on violence and their impact   95 This thrust Peter Robinson into the role of First Minister, and commentators were quick to note his much frostier relationship with McGuinness. This added urgency to questions about whether or not the DUP has developed effective, new discourses to explain its participation in the Executive to its erstwhile followers. With the DUP sniping at its heels, the UUP failed in this regard. The DUP now has a hardline (if smaller) rival, Traditional Unionist Voice (TUV), sniping at its heels. The potential drawing power of the TUV seems even more significant after developments in January 2010, when it was revealed that Robinson’s politician wife, Iris Robinson, was involved in a sexual affair with a young man for whom she secured a business loan. Mrs Robinson’s behaviour cast doubt on the moral integrity of the DUP (something on which the TUV could capitalise) and threatened important negotiations about the devolution of policing and justice powers (Coll 2010). Finally, it is possible that discourses that disassociate the DUP from loyalist paramilitarism may absolve their party – and the wider unionist community – from recognising and addressing their own ambiguous attitudes about violence. In such a situation, the challenges of integrating former loyalist paramilitaries in society may not be adequately addressed. The political context in which the discourses analysed in this chapter are drawn is much different from the current context. These discourses, in a way, acted as precursors to change that has occurred subsequently. Even so, the DUP’s discourses about violence may continue to haunt the party as it attempts to participate in a transition to peace.

Analysing DUP discourses The aim of this research was to analyse the DUP’s public discourses and the presentation of the party in Northern Ireland’s public sphere. There are a number of sources that could be used for this, including party statements, press releases, policy documents, the party’s email and text messaging services, and so on. However, we were interested in not merely how the DUP wishes to present itself (which would presumably be reflected in its own materials), but in how the party is presented in the media. An analysis of all media outlets would have been beyond the scope of our project, so we chose to focus on the presentation of the party in Northern Ireland’s largest unionist newspaper, the News Letter. This can be justified on the following grounds. First, newspaper reports generally reproduce longer and more substantial quotations from politicians and more in-­depth analysis than would be expected on television news programmes. We wished to analyse substantial discourses, not sound bites. Second, the News Letter is widely recognised as the region’s leading unionist newspaper and would be likely to contain substantial information about the DUP. The News Letter is used by unionist politicians as a platform for their electoral bids and spreading their political positions. Indeed, DUP members frequently write letters to the editor and op-­ed pieces. It also is interesting that the editorial tone of the News Letter changed between 1998 and 2006, synchronising its sympathies with whichever unionist party was in power. Finally, the letters to the editor allowed us insight

96   A. Rankin and G. Ganiel into what the unionist community was thinking and feeling towards the DUP and political events. Although letters to the editor may be unrepresentative or impressionistic (as would be the comments of callers on phone-­in radio programmes, or political chat websites such as Slugger O’Toole) they provide interesting contextual information about some of the emotions and events that surrounded the articulation of the DUP’s discourses. We have identified dominant DUP discourses about violence.2 These will come as no surprise to followers of Northern Ireland politics. When it came to republican violence, the party denounced violence by focusing on the immorality of ‘terrorists’ (Sinn Féin) in government and the lack of decommissioning. When it came to loyalist violence, the DUP cast paramilitaries in the role of deviants who do not represent the unionist community, or as criminals. However, there was a notable lack of discourses about loyalist paramilitaries. Whilst the IRA was denounced nearly every day, discourses about loyalist paramilitaries were infrequent and usually prompted by specific events, such as feuding amongst rival loyalist groups. Recording examples of these discourses allows us to grasp their strength and vigour. The emotive nature of these words provides some insight into why, historically, Paisley and the DUP have been accused of inciting others to violence. As Northern Ireland continues its political transition, it is important to record, highlight and consider its harsh public discourses and to ask wider questions – like those raised in this volume – about how this kind of tough talking affects violence and conflict transformation. The following sections of this chapter are largely descriptive, yet set within Hayward’s (Chapter 1) framework for analysis. First, we consider how the DUP’s prolonged denouncing of republican paramilitary violence eventually allowed it to frame the negotiations in St Andrews in a way that was palatable to unionists and beneficial to its own electoral success. Second, we analyse how DUP discourses that appeal to key aspects of unionist identity also allowed it to provide a smokescreen under which the party has moderated its extreme positions. Finally, we argue that the DUP’s participation in the Executive with Sinn Féin signals the forging of at least some common ground. A space where political parties can disagree – discursively – about key issues is crucial for any democracy, not just one transitioning from violent conflict. But the DUP’s past and present tough position may hamper its ability to make the political compromises that are necessary to further conflict transformation and to achieve political progress on bread and butter issues.

How denouncing paramilitary violence provided a framework for later negotiations When the DUP walked out of negotiations for the Belfast Agreement, it of course would have been impossible to know that eight years later the party would be participating in the negotiations at St Andrews. In the years between Belfast and St Andrews, the DUP railed about republican and loyalist paramilitary violence, contrasting itself to the ‘softer’ UUP and its willingness to

DUP discourses on violence and their impact   97 compromise with ‘terrorists’. It is impossible to state definitely that the DUP spoke in these terms as a matter of principle, or because it was a strategy to overtake the UUP, or both. But one effect of these discourses was that the DUP was able to present itself as a party that cared about and was principled about violence, unlike the UUP. Ultimately, this allowed the DUP to frame the negotiations at St Andrews as fitting entirely within their principles. Having overtaken the UUP as the largest unionist party and with the prospect of exercising political power before them, the DUP claimed that Sinn Féin’s willingness to sign up to the Policing Board was proof of IRA decommissioning (this could be interpreted as a form of repentance that justified negotiation), and that at St Andrews they were re-­negotiating the Belfast Agreement (and thus not going back on their principle to reject it). This is of course a much different framing for negotiations than that provided by the SDLP, which McLoughlin (Chapter 6) argues provided space for the British and Irish governments and the other parties to negotiate the Belfast Agreement. However, it could be argued that the DUP’s ability to frame the St Andrews negotiations in this way was critical for engaging a unionist community which had been growing ever more dissatisfied with the Belfast Agreement (Mitchell 2006: 32–3). So we move now to examples of the discourses, which illustrate the depth of emotion the DUP drew on when it spoke this way. The immorality of the inclusion of Sinn Féin The party’s discourses about ‘terrorists in government’ echo what it said for decades during the Troubles. This is an example from an article from 1998, shortly after the Belfast Agreement was approved in a referendum. The DUP, despite having opposed the agreement, decided to participate in the Assembly: [Paisley said]: ‘I’m thinking of those that were maimed by his [Gerry Adams] cohorts. The families that were torn apart, the people that were smashed and turned into vegetables by IRA violence.’ Sinn Féin’s Martin McGuinness stared straight at Mr Paisley and accused him of running away. ‘You refused to come into negotiations but you come trundling into this room now because you are afraid you are going to be left behind. But I’m afraid you’ve already been left behind.’ Peter Robinson shouted back at Mr McGuinness, making loud reference to ‘your Semtex and Armalites.’ (News Letter 2 July 1998) Paisley’s comments about ‘vegetables’ and Robinson’s about ‘Semtex and Armalites’ identify Sinn Féin with the IRA. The fact that Robinson is described as shouting adds to the emotion of the words. In the following narrative, from before the Agreement negotiations were completed, Robinson focuses on the immorality of even talking with Sinn Féin because of their association with the IRA:

98   A. Rankin and G. Ganiel The [DUP] said the public was appalled at the ‘political corruption’ and have no confidence in unionists who are attending the talks. . . . Deputy leader Peter Robinson said, ‘the responsibility for the corruption lies with the government and those parties that support the obscenity of trading with terrorists. . . . The Official Unionist [UUP] leadership complain that Sinn Féin/IRA are active and involved in terrorist incidents yet it was the Official Unionist leadership that agreed to let them in without handing over their weapons and it is they who sit around the negotiating table with Adams, McGuinness and company in a few weeks if the Provos [Provisional IRA] decide to return.’ (News Letter 24 February 1998) Such discourses allowed the DUP to present the inclusion of Sinn Féin in talks and later in the Assembly as undemocratic and morally wrong. Some of the religiously devout among Paisley’s followers even interpreted such discourses to mean that sharing power with Sinn Féin would be against God’s will (see Ganiel 2008). The lack of decommissioning When the IRA failed to decommission within two years of the Belfast Agreement (as had been suggested, though not required, in the Agreement), the DUP accused the UUP of being soft of terrorism. The DUP framed its discourses about decommissioning as a matter of trust: Sinn Féin and the IRA could not be trusted because the IRA had not verifiably decommissioned and the UUP could not be trusted because they had not negotiated a deal that required decommissioning. The UUP was presented as giving concession after concession to the IRA, with the IRA using its hidden caches of guns as leverage in negotiations. Even when the Independent Monitoring Commission (IMC) confirmed that the IRA had completed acts of decommissioning on several occasions, the DUP questioned the trustworthiness of those statements. For example, the IRA announced an act of decommissioning in October 2003 and this was verified by retired Canadian general John de Chastelain. However, when de Chastelain’s press conference did not provide substantial or, in particular, photographic detail of what he witnessed, the DUP cast doubt on what had happened. The comments made by Paisley in reaction to this press conference epitomise this discourse: The IRA has made the UUP look ridiculous with this pathetic effort. . . . What on earth was David Trimble talking to Gerry Adams about? This is a demonstration of the most inept form of negotiation by the UUP imaginable. They are utterly unfit to represent unionism. Today indicated that nothing has changed in the IRA. Once again they are willing to milk the process for all they can get and make only weasel words and a hidden gesture. There is no evidence whatsoever of any reduction in the IRA capacity. This is yet another con. (News Letter 22 October 2003)

DUP discourses on violence and their impact   99 In this same report, Paisley criticises the ‘language used by Gerry Adams and the IRA’ (note again the direct connection made between Sinn Féin and terrorism) for failing to explicitly state that ‘the war is over’. This is a neat reflection of the fact that opposing parties have been acutely aware of each other’s discourse throughout the conflict and peace process. As mentioned above, the question of decommissioning became a crucial issue of debate and competition within unionism. The DUP’s refusal to accept the IMC’s word on IRA decommissioning was not just a source of objection to the power-­sharing Executive and Sinn Féin’s position in it; it was also a strong point of contention with (and a good means of attracting votes away from) the UUP. Paisley questioned the trustworthiness and the competence of the UUP in this speech to launch the 2003 Assembly election campaign. Once again he played on unionist concerns about all-­Ireland structures and the possibility that Sinn Féin’s Gerry Kelly (a former IRA prisoner) could be Minister for Policing and Justice: This election is an opportunity to deliver a verdict on what Trimble and the ‘Official Unionists’ have done over the past five years. They signed up to a deal, which has delivered concessions to the IRA, not just on one day in 1998, but for every day since. The pain and betrayal felt by unionists at the Belfast Agreement has not passed with time but has intensified as the terrorists have made a mockery of the democratic system. The unionist community stands at a crossroads. One path leads to implementing the current Trimble/Adams deal, which will deliver permanent terrorist representation in government, galvanising the embryonic all-­Ireland structures with Sinn Féin consent required for major political decisions and Gerry Kelly as minister for Policing and Justice. The other road is a new deal, a democratic deal. (Paisley, quoted in News Letter 23 October 2003) The DUP’s discourses about the IRA’s lack of decommissioning changed over time. When the IRA began with acts of decommissioning, witnessed first by de Chastelain and later by the IMC, the DUP questioned the integrity of the witnesses and the lack of detail in their reports. During negotiations to restore the Assembly in December 2004, the DUP demanded photographic evidence of decommissioning, which was rejected by Sinn Féin as an attempt to humiliate the IRA. Any hopes that a deal could be salvaged were put on hold days later after the Northern Bank robbery in Belfast, which is believed to have been carried out by the IRA. The DUP also talked about Sinn Féin needing a decontamination period after decommissioning, to allow them to become fit for democratic government. When Methodist minister Harold Good and Catholic priest Alec Reid were invited to witness decommissioning, the DUP doubted their testimonies, considering them naïve. But by the time of the negotiations in October 2006 in St Andrews, the DUP seemed to equate Sinn Féin’s willingness to sign up to the Policing Board as proof of the IRA’s decommissioning. This is how Paisley explained his decision to go into government with Sinn Féin in May 2007:

100   A. Rankin and G. Ganiel ‘In politics as in life, it is a truism that no one can ever have 100% of what they desire. They must make a verdict when they believe they have achieved enough to move things forward.’ The DUP leader said Sinn Féin’s acceptance of the rule of law at its Ard Fheis [annual convention] three months ago had met that test. ‘Support for all the institutions of policing has been a critical test that today has been met and pledged, word and deed. . . . Recognising the significance of that change from a community that for decades demonstrated hostility for policing has been critical in turning the corner.’ (News Letter 9 May 2007) After years of denouncing claims of IRA decommissioning as inadequate, this is, undoubtedly, a significant change – and perhaps one that was only possible (and credible to unionists) because the DUP had been denouncing ‘Sinn Féin/ IRA’ for so long. But questions remain about whether unionists accept the DUP’s explanations for its decisions. In the quotation above, Paisley equated Sinn Féin’s recognition of the police with IRA decommissioning, allowing the party to claim that it had succeeded where the UUP failed. As we will discuss later, although the DUP remains the most successful unionist party electorally, it is not clear whether this is enough to satisfy all of its followers. Years of denouncing republican violence allowed the DUP to frame its negotiations in St Andrews in a way that was palatable to unionists, but since then the DUP has made little attempt to articulate sustained practical, moral or theological discourses to justify sharing power with Sinn Féin.

How tough talking facilitates agreement between extremes DUP discourses that appeal to key aspects of unionist identity also have allowed it to have a cover under which the party has moderated its extreme positions. This has made it possible for the party to present itself as the most trustworthy custodian of unionism (in contrast to the UUP). These core aspects of identity include the DUP’s historic emphases on evangelicalism and loyalism, as well as an abhorrence of violence that is part and parcel of ‘respectable’ strains of unionism. These hardline discourses have provided a smokescreen as the DUP has pragmatically worked the institutions of devolved government with Sinn Féin. Bruce (2007, 1986) explained the appeal of the DUP in its earlier days as due to its evangelicalism, which he saw as the core of Protestants’ ethnic identity. Free Presbyterians and other evangelicals remain over-­represented in the ranks of party representatives (Mitchell 2008a; Bruce 2007; Ganiel 2006; Southern 2005). The evangelical strand allows the party to present itself as righteous and morally trustworthy (Mitchel 2003: 171–212; Smyth 1986). The appeal to the party’s evangelical identity can be seen below in the way Paisley draws on Biblical themes to denounce the immorality of Sinn Féin and unionists who did business with them. The colourful language about weapons and genocide, and the venue at which it was spoken, an Independent Orange

DUP discourses on violence and their impact   101 Order demonstration in Portglenone in 2001, appeals to the party’s loyalist identity:3 To vote for taking into the Executive of Northern Ireland the Roman Catholic IRA/Sinn Féin with all their weaponry carefully preserved for the genocide of the next Protestant generation, is an act of darkest treason. Yet, Orangemen in the Assembly cheered after they had defeated their brother-­ Orangemen and fellow Protestants by joining ranks with the political representatives of the IRA murderers, thus succeeding in that Iscariot treachery. Today, those same Orangemen, besashed, will sport themselves as defenders of the Faith and maintainers of the Union. A return to the basic principles of Orangeism is imperative. (News Letter 13 July 2001) .

As in Paisley’s address above, discourses about the immorality of terrorists in government often included religious overtones, including the idea that the IRA should not only decommission their weapons, but that they should repent before Sinn Féin should be allowed to participate in government. Perhaps the most famous of these was Paisley’s 2004 ‘sackcloth and ashes’ speech to party supporters in Ballymena. Here is an example from an article about the speech: The DUP leader decided to ditch the diplomatic approach and expressed his inner feelings, when he told reporters in Downing Street that he stuck by comments he had made last weekend to party members – that the IRA should be humiliated and made ‘to wear sackcloth and ashes’ for their crimes. . . . ‘There is no excuse for what they [the IRA] did,’ the DUP leader said. (News Letter 1 December 2004) Discourses such as these have allowed the DUP to present itself as remaining true to both the evangelical and loyalist strands of its identity. At the same time, the way in which the DUP denies loyalist paramilitaries and their violence a place in the unionist community reflects the mores of respectable unionism. It also reinforces the self-­image of unionists as law-­abiding citizens, the innocent victims of IRA violence. So for example, the DUP discourses that addressed loyalist paramilitarism were usually in response to direct accusations about DUP links to violence, or particular events such as loyalist feuds. The lack of discourses about loyalist violence as compared to the almost constant discourses denouncing the IRA is worth considering. The DUP developed discourses about the rising crime rate, blaming it on the implementation of the Belfast Agreement – particularly the scaling down of the police and army. But noticeably absent from those discourses was any recognition that an increasing proportion of crime and violence was now carried out by loyalist – not republican – paramilitary groups. For example, the following response by Minister of the Legislative Assembly (MLA) Jeffrey Donaldson, a former UUP MP who defected to the DUP in

102   A. Rankin and G. Ganiel opposition to the 1998 Agreement, appeared on the Letters page. He was reacting to comments made by the UUP’s Dermot Nesbitt, who tried to equate the DUP with the IRA: It is becoming absolutely clear that, having lost the support and trust of the unionist community, people like Dermot seem determined to prevent the DUP from delivering a fair deal for unionism as it would only expose his past failings. After all, it was Dermot who promised South Down unionists that he would not sit in government with any party with ‘guns under the table, on the table or outside the door’. He broke his word and became a government minister alongside Martin McGuinness and Bairbre de Brun without a single IRA bullet being decommissioned. (News Letter 6 August 2004) Donaldson denies and dismisses Nesbitt’s accusations about DUP links with violence by equating them (quoting from the famous put-­down by a British Labour Party MP of his Conservative counterpart in Westminster) to ‘being savaged by a dead sheep’. He then goes on to draw his argument back to an accusation against the UUP, once again blaming the UUP for the IRA’s lack of decommissioning. The DUP condemns loyalist paramilitaries in this example from August 2005, during a feud between the Loyalist Volunteer Force and the Ulster Volunteer Force. MLA Edwin Poots describes loyalist paramilitaries as oppressing their own people: Loyalist paramilitaries claim to exist because of the republican threat against their community, but the reality is that people in the loyalist community are living in fear not from their traditional enemy but from people within their own community. The ongoing feud within elements of loyalism is causing huge damage and demoralising the unionist community. For decades republicans have attacked and killed thousands of Protestants, but today there is a clear reality that Protestants could be attacked by so-­called loyalists as well as republicans. (News Letter 24 August 2005) Poots goes on to say that loyalist paramilitaries were now doing the work of the IRA by unleashing misery on their communities: Why does the IRA need to continue their campaign of terrorism when so-­ called loyalists will do the job for them? . . . The current campaign is not about defending Ulster. It has more to do with protection money, extortion and drug dealing. While the IRA are using their guns to squeeze concession after concession out of the British government, loyalists have turned their guns on themselves and have turned to criminality, extortion and drug dealing. As a public representative I appeal to these so-­called loyalists who

DUP discourses on violence and their impact   103 are oppressing the Protestant community to get off the backs of your own people. Instead, get involved in restoring normality to deprived Protestant areas and divert your energy to setting up programmes that will provide a better future for your children. (News Letter 24 August 2005) Paisley responded in a similar way to loyalist attacks on Catholic property in his constituency: On both sides there is this cancer and the only way it can be fought is by the people who know who is responsible. There are people in Ballymena who know who those people are. They don’t come in the middle of the night and go away in the middle of the night. They are people living in the area. . . . They should desist at once. They have no place in the community whatsoever. (News Letter 31 August 2005) Paisley uses characteristically strong words: ‘They have no place in the community whatsoever.’ The earlier comments from Poots dismiss loyalist paramilitaries as criminals. Over the years, the DUP have consistently denied the legitimacy of loyalist paramilitary violence – as well as the possible involvement of party members in it. This has allowed the DUP to present itself as a party with ‘clean hands’, democratic and morally fit to exercise power. However, there are those who contend that the DUP has not satisfactorily explained its former links with paramilitaries (Brewer and Higgins 1998; Mitchel 2003; Moloney 2008). Further, reducing loyalist paramilitaries to criminals and thugs may absolve the party and the unionist community from facing up to the role loyalist paramilitaries have played over the years. Presenting itself as true to its identity allows the DUP to present itself as vigilant and trustworthy, at the same time providing security as it makes changes that – on the surface – do not reflect its traditional loyalist and evangelical identities (Ganiel and Dixon 2008; Ganiel 2007). Such discourses have allowed the DUP to retain its appeal to traditional loyalists and evangelicals and to tap into widespread Protestant dissatisfaction with the Belfast Agreement. At the same time, the gradual shift of their policies in a more UUP-­like direction has attracted moderate unionist voters. Tough public discourses have provided a smokescreen for the private moderation of extremes – both for the DUP and Sinn Féin (see McGovern, Chapter 13). Of course, words alone do not explain the DUP’s electoral success. The DUP has a much stronger grassroots presence than the UUP, and individual ministers are often regarded as hard-­working on bread and butter issues. The UUP has had its own internal problems, including bitter divisions that often left the party paralysed. And the IRA itself might even be considered a key player in the DUP’s electoral success, as its ambiguity about decommissioning played into the party’s hands (Moloney 2008; Bruce 2007; Farrington 2006).

104   A. Rankin and G. Ganiel

After St Andrews: forging common ground? As Hayward highlights in the introduction to this book, the outstanding question in Northern Ireland is whether those now sharing power (the DUP and Sinn Féin) will be forced to confront the legacy of their polarising discourses, or even if they are the ones best placed to address it. Some may be tempted to say that the past is the past, words are only words, and now it is time to move on. But to do so would be to fail to raise wider questions about issues that it may be necessary to address in a wider context of conflict transformation, such as relationship­building, truth recovery and reconciliation, and re-­integrating ex-­combatants into society. Beyond progressing conflict transformation, it also may be the case that the legacy of polarising discourses prevents the parties from reaching agreement on basic bread and butter issues such as health and education – not to mention contentious ones like policing and justice – meaning that in Northern Ireland political progress remains stalled. There is now a shared political space in Northern Ireland, one in which political competition is directed most severely at opponents within each community – as can be seen in the DUP’s tough talking about the UUP, and the TUV’s tough talking about the DUP. But the Paisley and McGuinness tea parties aside, there does not seem to be much shared space or trust between unionists and nationalists. Many of the DUP’s discourses about IRA violence have conveyed a lack of trust. Could the IRA be trusted to stop killing people? Could people associated with the IRA be trusted to govern democratically? Does Sinn Féin need a decontamination period? These discourses not only reflect a lack of trust by members of the DUP, but also reflect attitudes that are present at the unionist grassroots. Further research on political parties in Northern Ireland might concentrate on how trust was built between these parties to the extent that they agreed to enter into government. It also is worth considering further steps that might be taken to build trust and confidence – between the parties and at the grassroots. Crucially, it also is not clear that the DUP has convincing discourses to explain to its constituencies its moderation or change in direction. Some people see through the ‘smokescreen’ of its tough public discourses and, like the TUV, denounce the DUP for hypocrisy. Thus far, the party has justified its decision to share power in the Executive by appealing to ‘democratic’ principles and claiming that Sinn Féin’s recognition of the police can be equated to making the IRA ‘go away’. Another approach that Paisley and his wife have used to justify the DUP’s decision is to appeal to Paisley’s authority as a man of God. This discourse has not been dominant in the secular public sphere of newspapers and other media, but has surfaced in the Free Presbyterian magazine the Revivalist. Moloney cites an editorial in the May 2007 issue of the magazine which claims that Paisley ‘was God’s “specially anointed” leader’, and drew on that authority in his political decisions (Moloney 2008: 502–3). But it is not certain that either of these discourses have won the hearts and minds of dissatisfied unionists. There have been rumblings from the unionist grassroots that people were disap-

DUP discourses on violence and their impact   105 pointed that Paisley and McGuinness seemed to be enjoying each other’s company (Moloney 2008). The existence of TUV and Concerned Free Presbyterians indicate that the DUP’s discourses have not been entirely effective (Spencer 2009; Gordon 2009).4 For instance, the 2009 elections for the European Parliament saw the DUP candidate, Diane Dodds, win a seat – but it was the worst ever performance by a DUP candidate at this level. Many credited this to the TUV campaign, which sought to exploit unionist disaffection with DUP compromises. After the campaign party leader Peter Robinson admitted that the DUP needed to do a better job communicating the benefits of devolution to its constituency. And, indeed, a substantial portion of the DUP’s 2009 pre-­election manifesto was devoted to explaining the benefits of devolution (Ganiel 2009). Further research on TUV and those who were involved with Concerned Free Presbyterians could attempt to gauge the depth and breadth of unionist opposition to DUP/Sinn Féin power-­sharing. Further, what the DUP has said about violence in the past may have a direct impact on how it engages with issues within a wider process of conflict transformation. For instance, the DUP’s denial about its relationship with loyalist paramilitaries could have implications for truth recovery and reconciliation. Most of the biographies of Paisley or analyses of the DUP from the 1980s and 1990s consider the question of the party’s relationship with loyalist violence (Bruce 1986, 2007; Moloney and Pollak 1986; Smyth 1987; Cooke 1996; Moloney 2008). All acknowledge at least some links, although Bruce (1986, 2001) downplays them. Bruce’s (2007) later work on Paisley is even more strident in its defence of Paisley’s non-­violent credentials. But Moloney (2008), Brewer and Higgins (1998) and Mitchel (2003) claim that, at the very least, Paisley’s anti-­Catholic rhetoric stirred some paramilitaries to violence. More recently, O’Callaghan and O’Donnell’s (2006) analysis of materials from the Public Records Office, Northern Ireland, demonstrates that in the mid-­60s, the Royal Ulster Constabulary’s Inspector General believed that the ‘Paisleyite Movement’ consisted of the following groups: the Ulster Constitution Defence Committee, the Ulster Protestant Volunteer Division, the Ulster Volunteer Force, the Ulster Defence Corps and the Ulster Protestant Action Defence Committee. O’Callaghan and O’Donnell argue that the information in these documents contributed to the decision to ban the UVF in 1966. Although this predates the formation of the DUP, Paisley’s personal involvement with these groups bears consideration. It is likely that many nationalists do not believe the denials of Paisley and the DUP about their involvement with or responsibility for loyalist violence. Therefore, it is worth asking to what extent should public knowledge about Paisley and the DUP’s relationship with violent groups be part of a ‘truth recovery’ process in Northern Ireland? Of course, this should be set in the context of the violence of republican and loyalist paramilitary groups and the security forces. At this stage, it is not clear what shape Northern Ireland’s truth recovery process will take, so it is also worth considering how a lack of truth recovery may impact on the potential reconciliation of people from groups with violent histories – including Sinn Féin and the DUP.

106   A. Rankin and G. Ganiel In a related matter, the DUP’s denial of involvement with paramilitaries, coupled with their harsh condemnation of their current activities, raises questions about the integration of ex-­combatants into society (see also Mitchell 2008b). DUP discourses about loyalist paramilitaries have tended to cast them as people who are outside of the pale, not worthy of inclusion in the community. (Occasionally, loyalist paramilitaries are deemed worthy to re-­enter the unionist fold if they become Christians by being ‘born again’ or ‘saved’.) These discourses may reflect a wider unionist attitude about violence, which focuses blame on a select few. This absolves the rest of the community from responsibility for violence, brushing over ambiguities about turning a blind eye to tacit support for violence, including not only terrorist atrocities and punishment beatings, but the violence associated with some Orange parades. In such a situation, the challenges of integrating former loyalist paramilitaries in society may not be adequately addressed.

Conclusion It may be desirable to have conflictual discourses in a post-­conflict political space – such discourses, after all, are an alternative to violence and are crucial to democratic politics. But such discourses may contribute to stalemate not only on issues related directly to the conflict transformation process, but also issues such as health and education – over which there has been much squabbling among the parties. As Robinson said in a September 2009 speech at the Ulster Hall: Let’s be honest. Sinn Féin and the DUP in government was never going to be easy. Two Ministers in a department with certain decisions requiring joint approval is not easy either. Quite apart from all of the issues that are a legacy from the Troubles the political outlook of each is markedly different. (Robinson 2009) Robinson used these comments to preface the DUP proposal that ‘community designation’ in the Assembly (where MLAs designate themselves as nationalist or unionist in order for their votes to be counted on key decisions) be abolished and replaced with weighted majority voting (65 per cent) on key decisions. The DUP is presenting this and other institutional changes as mechanisms to overcome deadlock and allow progress to be made on a range of issues. The DUP’s suggestions for institutional change are sure to be challenged by those who interpret them as diluting the Belfast Agreement. Even so, the DUP proposals illustrate Hayward’s point (Chapter 1) that it is desirable to have a political forum in which political discourse has the possibility of effecting real change. At the same time, DUP discourses continue to include regular denunciations of Sinn Féin – this was a prominent theme in the 2009 European election campaign as it sought to defend itself against TUV attacks (Ganiel 2009). Northern Ireland now has a space where ideas can be proposed and debated, but it remains to be seen whether the DUP’s continual reliance on hardline discourses will haunt the process of conflict transformation and the emergence of ‘normal’ politics.

DUP discourses on violence and their impact   107

Notes 1 It is worth initially clarifying the terms ‘unionism’ and ‘loyalism’. Unionism is an umbrella term for the population of people in Northern Ireland who favour retaining the union with Great Britain. The overwhelming majority identify with the Protestant religious tradition. ‘Loyalism’ generally refers to a population of unionists who are considered more ‘extreme’ or ‘hard line’ about their loyalty to Great Britain. See Todd (1987) for a fuller explanation. 2 The data from the News Letter was gathered using the Lexis-­Nexis search engine and the newspaper’s website. The keyword used for the search engine was ‘DUP’. Rankin carried out this aspect of the research, June−December 2006. These articles, with dates ranging from January 1998−December 2006, amounted to nearly 8,000. Ganiel read each article chronologically, identifying ‘codes’ for themes which were relevant to the research project. For the purpose of this chapter, the codes which were relevant were ‘paramilitarism’, and ‘security and policing’. The coded data is stored at the Belfast campus of the Irish School of Ecumenics, Trinity College Dublin. 3 The Independent Orange Order is a fraternal organisation for Protestants. It is smaller than the main Orange Order, from which it separated near the beginning of the last century. 4 The Concerned Free Presbyterians group had an interactive website which disseminated their criticisms of Paisley and the DUP. But after Paisley’s decision to step down in September 2007, the content of the site was taken down. We downloaded and saved electronically a substantial portion of the postings on the website before they were removed.

Bibliography Brewer, J. and Higgins, G. (1998) The Mote and the Beam: Anti-­Catholicism in Northern Ireland, 1600–1998, Basingstoke: Macmillan Press. Bruce, S. (1986) God Save Ulster! The Religion and Politics of Paisleyism, Oxford: Clarendon Press. Bruce, S. (2001) ‘Fundamentalism and Political Violence: The Case of Paisley and Ulster Evangelicals’, Religion 31: 387–405. Bruce, S. (2007) Paisley: Religion and Politics in Northern Ireland, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Coll, B. (2010) ‘Mrs. Robinson: Northern Ireland’s own Sex Scandal’, Time Magazine, 8 January 2010. Available at www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1952511,00.html (accessed 29 January 2010). Cooke, D. (1996) Persecuting Zeal: A Portrait of Ian Paisley, Dingle: Brandon. Farrington, C. (2006) Ulster Unionism and the Peace Process in Northern Ireland, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Ganiel, G. (2006) ‘Ulster Says Maybe: The Restructuring of Evangelical Politics in Northern Ireland’, Irish Political Studies 21(2): 137–55. Ganiel, G. (2007) ‘Preaching to the Choir? An Analysis of DUP Discourses About the Northern Ireland Peace Process’, Irish Political Studies 22(3): 303–20. Ganiel, G. (2008) Evangelicalism and Conflict in Northern Ireland, New York: Palgrave. Ganiel, G. (2009) ‘ “Battling in Brussels”: the DUP and the European Union’, Irish Political Studies 24(4): 575–88. Ganiel, G. and Dixon, P. (2008) ‘Religion, Pragmatic Fundamentalism and the Transformation of the Northern Ireland Conflict’, Journal of Peace Studies 45(3): 419–36. Gordon, G. (2009) The Fall of the House of Paisley, Dublin: Gill and Macmillan.

108   A. Rankin and G. Ganiel Jackson, A. (1999) Ireland, 1798–1998: Politics and War, Oxford: Blackwell. Mitchel, P. (2003) Evangelicalism and National Identity in Ulster, 1921–1998, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Mitchell, C. (2006) Religion, Identity and Politics in Northern Ireland: Boundaries of Belonging and Belief, Aldershot: Ashgate. Mitchell, C. (2008a) ‘Commentary’, in C. McGrath and E. O’Malley (eds) Irish Political Studies Reader: Key Contributions, Oxon: Routledge. Mitchell, C. (2008b) ‘The Limits of Legitimacy: Former Loyalist Combatants and Peace-­ Building in Northern Ireland’, Irish Political Studies 23(1): 1–19. Moloney, E. (2008) Paisley: From Demagogue to Democrat?, Dublin: Poolbeg. Moloney, E. and Pollak, A. (1986) Paisley, Swords: Poolbeg. O’Callaghan, M. and O’Donnell, C. (2006) ‘The Northern Ireland Government, the “Paisleyite Movement” and Ulster Unionism in 1966’, Irish Political Studies 21(2): 203–22. Robinson, P. (2009) ‘Making Devolution Work: Leader’s Speech’, 8 September 2009. Available at www.dup.org.uk/default.htm (accessed 23 September 2009). Smyth, C. (1986) ‘The DUP as a Politico-­religious Organisation’, Irish Political Studies 1: 33–43. Smyth, C. (1987) Ian Paisley: Voice of Protestant Ulster, Edinburgh: Scottish Academic Press. Southern, N. (2005) ‘Ian Paisley and Evangelical Democratic Unionists: An Analysis of the Role of Evangelical Protestantism within the Democratic Unionist Party’, Irish Political Studies 20(2): 127–45. Spencer, G. (2009) ‘Free Presbyterianism and Political Change in Northern Ireland’, Irish Political Studies 24(3): 365–84. Todd, J. (1987) ‘Two Traditions in Unionist Political Culture’, Irish Political Studies 2: 1–26.

8 The old order changeth – or not? Modern discourses within the Orange Order James W. McAuley and Jonathan Tonge

If being British and wanting to live under the Union Jack still means as much to the people of Northern Ireland as it did for their forefathers, then they will have to make the same determined stand. (Orange Standard May 2007)

The peace process offered new challenges for existing political ideologies and discourses within the Orange Order, requiring reappraisal and repositioning of its political and cultural roles. Even prior to the process, the Order (correctly entitled the Loyal Orange Institution) had undergone transformation. While it once claimed a membership of up to 120,000 (one in three of all Protestant males in Northern Ireland) the strength of the Grand Orange Lodge of Ireland had been revised downwards to 40,000 members by 2007 (Stevenson et al. 2007: 110) and, as part of a more open approach, was acknowledged by the Order itself as having fallen below 36,000 by 2009 (Nelson 2009). Nonetheless, this diminished membership remains greater than the combined memberships of all the political parties in Northern Ireland. Moreover, for many Protestants the Orange Order continues to offer a focus for social life. Its Twelfth of July Boyne celebrations still attract over 100,000 marchers, bands and supporters onto the streets across 20 venues (Belfast alone attracts over 200 bands and lodges) and, although the Order’s political importance declined drastically after the collapse of the old devolved unionist government in 1972, it retains an important cultural and religious influence in many parts of Northern Ireland. Despite this continued influence, the Order struggles to put across its case to a sceptical audience. Hayward (Chapter 1) notes how political norms reflect dominant discourses and that the ability to shape norms depends upon the prevailing strength of an organisation. For the Orange Order, relatively weak after decades of decline, the prevailing discourse (if sometimes not evident ‘on the ground’) within Northern Ireland in recent years has been one of frowning upon overt displays of ‘sectarianism’ or symbolism, in favour of pluralism and neutrality. This new political context is seemingly at odds with the Order’s explicit linkages of religion, culture and political standpoint and country, and the Order has been obliged to adopt new strategies for modernising its image and main cultural activities.

110   J.W. McAuley and J. Tonge

Discourses within the Orange Order In analysing how the Order has responded to the challenges of political isolation and growing marginalisation amid secularism, this chapter explores how far the Institution has responded to the new Northern Irish politics by offering discourses of modernisation, tolerance and cultural rebranding, whilst continuing to uphold traditional perspectives on religion and reservations over political changes. The chapter draws directly upon public declarations and texts produced by the Orange Order (taken mainly from the monthly publication, Orange Standard ) and on material drawn from interviews with members. Within this, two important bands of discourse need to be recognised. First, those that contain ‘internal’ messages; in many ways Orangeism represents a classic discourse community, representing a group of people, ‘who share common ideologies, and common ways of speaking about things’ (Little et al. 2003: 73). Second, the Orange Order also projects ‘external’ messages that seek to frame and position the Order within distinct moral, social, and political arenas of life. Beyond this, we identify several, sometimes overlapping, discourses within contemporary Orangeism that give it political expression. We identify those discourses that unite Orangeism and give its membership a sense of identity and continuity. We then highlight political and cultural discourses that give the Orange Order much of its contemporary dynamic. Finally, we suggest how these discourses are drawn upon to construct visions of the future within Orangeism. To begin, however, we outline the collective and organisational bases of the Orange Order within which such discourses are formed. Collective identity and the Orange Order The origins of Orangeism rest in the agrarian conflict of late eighteenth century Ulster and in sectarian conflict that emerged in and around County Armagh (Haddick-­Flynn 1999). By far the most detailed (and best) account of the period remains Gibbon (1972), who clearly outlines how both Protestant and Catholic peasants organised in opposition, through agrarian secret societies, which became manifest in a series of violent confrontations. As a result, Protestants formed the Orange Order in 1795 after a period of prolonged confrontation (Roberts 1971), the grouping taking its name from William of Orange who defeated the Catholic King James II (Senior 1966). The Order developed structures and organisation that mirrored the Freemasons (Dewar et al. 1967) and as a symbol of its collective solidarity began to hold public meetings (the first Boyne commemoration parade taking place in July 1796). It remained largely rural-­ based, often organised in direct opposition to the rise of the nationalist United Irishmen; indeed Orangemen were armed and used by the government to militarily confront them. The Order also found growing support from the Protestant gentry, who noted the progress of Orangeism, ‘then gave support, finally took over and reorganized the movement, and used it as an instrument to preserve Protestant ascendancy’ (McCaffrey 1968: 144).

Modern discourses within the Orange Order   111 Throughout the 1860s and 1870s Orangeism, ‘expanded rapidly in the face of resurgent nationalism’ (Mitchel 2003: 135) and by the late 1880s the Orange Institution had become well established in Ulster’s growing urban centres, with Belfast’s expanding bourgeoisie displaying an ever-­increasing involvement in its organisation. This was given further momentum through political resistance to the Home Rule movement. Intensified political agitation meant that Britain was forced to consider the granting of limited self-­government to Ireland. Protestants became increasingly fearful of political dominance by a Catholic majority under ‘Home Rule’ and the Order was prominent in fermenting opposition, uniting the religious, cultural and political aspects of unionism. As Jackson (2001: 119) suggests, the ‘significance of the Orange Order in terms of the ideological and institutional groundwork for Unionism can hardly be overstated’. Orange Order membership expanded rapidly, playing a central role as Protestant Ulster sought to formulate coherent political opposition to reflect their perceived social, cultural and religious distance from the rest of the island, as ‘resistance to Home Rule injected the Order with new life and enabled it to recruit all classes to its ranks’ (Crawford 1987: 29). The organisational structures of Orangeism that developed at that time largely remain in place today. Membership of the Grand Orange Lodge of Ireland is based upon a hierarchical pyramid structure. At the base are about 1,400 Private Lodges (Grand Orange Lodge of Ireland 2008). The style of these varies considerably, ‘some being fervently evangelical, others little more than social drinking clubs’ (Mitchel 2003: 137). Within the broad structure of the Order, Private Lodges elect representatives to District Lodges, which in turn send representatives to the County Lodge level. There are 12 County Grand Lodges representing counties and cities from north and south of the border, which then elect representatives to the governing body of the organisation, with 300 representatives (Bryan 2000: 97–102; Grand Orange Lodge of Ireland 2008). The Order has an organised membership in Scotland (by far the largest outside of Ireland), England (mainly in Liverpool), the Republic of Ireland, Australia, New Zealand and Canada and the USA, as well as smaller groupings in countries such as Togo and Ghana (Harland-­Jacobs 2008; Patterson 2008; Sweetman 2006). These are all places where Orangeism found root on the back of emigration and Empire military service and active church representatives (Jess 2007: 160). Orange religious and cultural discourses How can we begin to understand the discourses that unite Orangeism and give its adherents a sense of identity that is relevant to contemporary society? Here, the work of Foucault is particularly relevant, especially through his argument that the subject is constructed through discourses of power and knowledge and his contention that discourses are ‘practices that systematically form the objects of which they speak’ (Foucault 1972: 49). The concept of discourse has developed across a multitude of disciplines (see Abu-­Lughod and Lutz

112   J.W. McAuley and J. Tonge 1990; Howarth 2000; Parker 2002; Vighi and Feldner 2007) and has become increasingly contested and challenged (Hall 1996, 2006; Sutherland 2005; Žižek 2005). The approach advocated by Laclau and Mouffe (1985) which conceives ‘all objects of inquiry or knowledge as discursive’ (Purvis and Hunt 1993: 492) has further structured debates concerning the nature of political discourses. We place ourselves in the camp that seeks to continue to link discourse with ideology. Here we recognise that discourses ‘enable, they constrain, and they constitute’ (Storey 2002: 101). With regard to shared identification, such as is found within the Orange Order, we subscribe to Doane’s (2006: 256) view that ‘on the one hand, discourses shape the mental models, or “common sense” beliefs, through which individuals interpret social reality; on the other hand they collectively reinforce or transform ideologies’. Faith, loyalty and state The official discourses framed by the Orange Order are most readily identified by the resolutions adopted annually at the Twelfth of July parades. These resolutions are categorised under three headings: faith, loyalty and state. As Stevenson et al. (2007) explain, resolutions are ‘addressed’ or ‘spoken to’ at all demonstrations across Northern Ireland by invited Orangemen who hold positions relevant to the resolution (i.e. politicians for speeches on ‘state’ and ‘loyalty’, clerics on ‘faith’) or by members of the County level of the organisation (Stevenson et al. 2007: 110). The resolutions around ‘faith’ emphasise the claim to be a religious organisation, and that its members should have ‘a sincere love for their heavenly Father’ and that they should ‘make the Holy scriptures the rule of their faith and practice’ (Smyth 1995: 3). Orange membership also involves an ‘unambiguous rejection of the themes of the Roman Catholic Church’ (Smyth 2001: 128). The Order is ‘directly opposed to the ecumenical movement’ (Orange Standard July 1988), and those Protestant churches involved in that movement, as ‘the naivety of ecumenical-­minded Protestants never ceases to amaze’ (Orange Standard June 2003). It continues to oppose the secularisation of Sunday, promotes the ‘traditional Ulster Sabbath’ and calls for ‘Sunday observance’ (Orange Standard June 1999). This emphasis on the religious role of the Order needs to be set in context. Palpably, religious affiliation remains a key ethnic marker in Northern Ireland. For the Order the maintenance of the Union is central to the defence of Protestantism, and the defence of Protestantism is core to the defence of the Union. Hence, Orange Order membership is also an expression of political identity and support for unionism (McAuley and Tonge 2007). The particular framing of this by the Orange Order can be seen directly in the other resolutions presented. The loyalty resolution in 2007, for example, highlighted the twenty-­fifth anniversary of the liberation of the Falkland Islands. This was linked directly to the ‘sacrifice’ of those 311 members of the Order who were killed during the Northern

Modern discourses within the Orange Order   113 Ireland conflict. The final resolution around the state provided the most overtly political output stating that, ‘like many others within the unionist community, [Orangemen] share grave reservations about the presence of those in government whom we would not see as democrats in the accepted sense of the term’ (cited in News Letter 12 July 2007). Continuity, tradition, unity Much of the strength of the Orange Order rests on an emphasis on cultural reproduction. This involves emphasis on continuity, both physically in terms of membership and in the reproduction of cultural memory. Joining is often a product of generational support for the Order and a communal sense of solidarity expressed through membership. Of those surveyed a large majority of members joining in the past 20 years did so for ‘family reasons’ or because of ‘family traditions’. The following quotations from members discussing their reasons for joining, illustrate the point well: It was traditional, it was like sort of . . . very much family orientated . . . you know, sort of family blood. It was kind of the done thing, that when you came that age, you followed your fathers and your uncles and so forth. (East Belfast member) Family tradition, father, grandfather, grandmother, great grandfather, brothers, so [membership was] very much something that was within the family . . . I knew that my grandfather was an Orangeman, and my grandmother was an Orangewoman. My great grandfather was an Orangeman. So, it was, it was part of my family heritage and also part of my culture of course. (South Belfast member) It is important to recognise how, through these senses of tradition and longevity, Orange discourses relate to broader senses of unionist identity and are bound into a ‘grand cultural unionist narrative’ (Porter 1996: 87). Crucial within this process of self-­identification are the ways in which collective memories are used to construct political identities and understandings. The reproduction of Orange discourses explains how members of the Order can best relate to the wider social and political world. Those memories, once brought to the fore, work to strengthen senses of identity (Novick 1999). Several writers have, for example, firmly established the centrality of the Battle of the Somme in the formation of senses of loyalist identity (see Brown 2007; Graham and Shirlow 2002; Officer and Walker 2000). Such constructed memories help determine the ways in which individuals formulate and secure their understandings of everyday life and how they connect to broader political collectives. Take the following extract from the Orange Standard (October 2006), which links the sacrifice in two World Wars directly to contemporary senses of loyalism and identity:

114   J.W. McAuley and J. Tonge The people of Northern Ireland displayed their loyalty in Britain in two World Wars, with great loss of life, through the sacrifice of its soldiers, sailors and airmen, and the 1,000-plus citizens of Belfast who died in the German air raids of 1941 . . . Northern Ireland Protestants have nothing to feel embarrassed about as far as their membership of the United Kingdom is concerned. They are as British as the people of England, Scotland and Wales, and that is the way it will remain for the foreseeable future. Likewise, one of the resolutions at the ‘Twelfth’ demonstrations in 2008 highlighted the ninetieth anniversary of the Battle of Passchendaele at the Somme campaign during the First World War, when the 36th Ulster Division sustained significant loss. As the Order expressed it, their ‘memory remains with us today and we pledge ourselves to remember those who gave their lives and hold their memory for future generations so that their loyalty, courage and sacrifice will never be forgotten’ (cited in News Letter 12 July 2007). Thus, Orange identities are framed and maintained by the strength of discourses that emphasise links to much broader communal political−cultural memories, which in turn legitimise an identifiable set of social and power relations within Northern Irish society.

Political discourses: re-­ordering, caution and fear Whilst the Orange Order continues to project itself as ‘unashamedly Protestant and Unionist’ (Orange Standard October 1999) it is clear that from its inception the Order has been part of a broader formulation of political values, and a political dimension has ‘been part of its essence’ (Storey 2002: 64). As Roberts put it: The Order has never claimed that its political purposes and activities are unimportant, and the function of Orangeism as a creator and preserver of a complex political and social identity need not be regarded as a purely latent one. The motivation for many a member and leader has been political, not religious, and the political endeavours and successes of Orangeism may well be more apparent to non-­members and enemies than any religious aspect. (Roberts 1971: 269) Broadly, the political discourses of Orangeism are framed by the following world-­view: The Orangeman is at one a religious man and one concerned for the quality of life for people in the place where he lives. This is why there has always been in Orangeism the emphasis on religion and politics. In life there is no separation of the one from the other. It is inclusive of both, the spiritual and the practical, for the practical is the outworking of the spiritual in everyday living. As a man believeth so is he. We use ‘politics’ in that wider sense for

Modern discourses within the Orange Order   115 everything that matters in their lives from birth to death. It includes all that concerns people and politicians about how their country is governed, what they want to do with it and get from it. (Orange Standard September 2003) One member expressed this directly when he said: ‘the political background here is entirely different than anywhere else, because the politics here are not just about who’s best within the country; the politics here is, ‘do you want to be part of this country, do you want to be part of that country?’ (Lisburn member). For many members, the question is one of balance between religious and political expression. Indeed, as Kennaway (2006) suggests, the present generation of Ulster Protestants look at their religion through political eyes, although they are critical of the fact that it is the former which has the greatest influence on the latter. The traditional outlet for party political expression by Order members was through the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP). Indeed, the UUP developed directly from the Orange Order, attempting to give the expression of Orange–Protestant– unionist identity a more political direction by politicising the perceived difference of Ulster (Jackson 1989; Walker 1996). Following the formation of the Northern Ireland state, the Orange Order was instrumental in the UUP forging and maintaining its position of hegemony (Boulton 1973; Kennaway 2006) and Orange membership became obligatory for anyone aspiring to a position of leadership within the UUP. A reciprocal relationship developed, the Order benefiting from members holding high political rank. Between 1921 and 1972, all six Prime Ministers were members of the Order (Kaufmann 2007; Millar 2004: 19). Unionist politicians, especially at election time, presented themselves as key defenders of Protestantism and the Union, and drew directly on Orange-­mobilised support. Throughout much of the history of the Northern Ireland state, the UUP looked for support from the Orange Order to shore up its vote (with much success). Protestant unionism became the dominant discourse of the political ideology of that state as other social and political perspectives became marginalised. This ideology was reproduced through the Order, exemplified by the assertion in the mid-­1960s of one leading Orangeman, the Reverend Ross, that: [w]e believe as Orangemen that our Order is the fabric of Northern Ireland. Without our great Order the social and political structure of the Six Counties would become flabby and anaemic. Orangeism is entwined with the very history of our Province. (Ross 1964: 5) Despite its decline in membership, the Orange Order continues to project itself, ‘as a nerve that runs right through the heart of the Protestant community’ (Orange Standard, August 2004). The formal link with the UUP was shattered, however, by the latter’s support (albeit with severe internal division) for the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, culminating in the announcement by the Order,

116   J.W. McAuley and J. Tonge in March 2005, that it was breaking the alliance, cutting directly political, religious and cultural bonds with Northern Ireland’s ‘establishment’ party; ties that had lasted for a century. While there were mixed views within the membership, the following is typical of those who supported the split: Clearly you know, for decades it was aligned directly with the Ulster Unionist Party, until quite recently, I mean that’s something I think has benefited the Institution . . . Personally, I think it was long overdue, to break the link. I suppose the Orange Order was originally set up to protect the Protestant people . . . So, I suppose . . . it probably aligned itself to one particular strong political party at the time when the State was formed . . . But now the UUP doesn’t really speak for many in the Institution . . . I’d be more of a DUP man myself. (Belfast member) The politics of Orangeism were brought into sharp relief by the peace process. Throughout the contemporary period, the leadership of the Orange Order, and much of its membership, have opposed the terms of the settlement brought about through the Good Friday Agreement. The Order regarded the Agreement as part of an ongoing series of concessions designed to weaken unionist resistance to a united Ireland and argued it created ‘a disaster course our Province is now embarked upon’ (Grand Orange Lodge of Ireland 1998). Indeed, Martin Smyth, the former unionist MP and ex-­Grand Master recently claimed that the power-­ sharing Assembly marked the: ‘erosion of democracy and . . . a sad decline in our national and international standards (McAdam 2007). By the time of the 2001 Westminster election, support for the pro-­Agreement UUP was in noticeable decline, with a small majority of Orange members choosing the DUP over the UUP (Tonge and Evans 2001). By 2004 this trend had become pronounced, with almost two-­thirds (65 per cent) of Orange Order members surveyed declaring a voting intention for the DUP, compared to less than a third (29 per cent) for the UUP. The overall decline in unionist support for the UUP’s promotion of the Agreement was accompanied by political realignment within the membership of the Order (McAuley and Tonge 2007). Political realignment towards DUP support We have offered explanations for the move of political support within Orangeism and the undermining of the UUP as the traditional party of Orangeism (McAuley and Tonge 2007). Broadly, however, primary in any explanation of the shift in Orange support towards the DUP was the dovetailing of Orange Order (at leadership and grassroot levels) and DUP perceptions that unionism was in political, religious and cultural retreat because of the consequences of the Agreement. Orange Order members voted almost two to one (61 to 33 per cent) against supporting the 1998 Agreement (McAuley and Tonge 2007; Tonge and Evans

Modern discourses within the Orange Order   117 2001; Evans and Tonge 2005, 2007), making opposition within Orangeism more extensive than that in the broader unionist population, where some 57 per cent offered support for the Agreement (Hayes and McAllister 2001). The DUP’s updating of the Good Friday Agreement via the 2006 St Andrews Agreement, allied to Provisional IRA disbandment and Sinn Féin support for policing, produced more substantial support for inclusive power-­sharing with the traditional republican ‘enemy’ from 2007 onwards, but many within the Orange Order remained sceptical, some expressing sympathy for the anti-­power-sharing Traditional Unionist Voice (TUV), created out of hostility to the DUP’s 2007 switch. Part of the strength of the DUP hostility to the Good Friday Agreement rested in its success to frame unionism in a particular way, drawing directly on ‘common sense’ and collective understandings of defeat, victory, values and identity that are found across unionism. The DUP promoted itself as the only legitimate guardian against incursions by Irish nationalism and republicanism, with the UUP viewed as ineffectual and/or complicit in the downfall of Northern Ireland. A key self-­defined task for the DUP was to undo the perceived concessions made by the UUP and to continue to put political pressure on republicans. Collective memories directly inform the contemporary political debate. In particular, the public discourse of the DUP projected the peace process as another in a long line of events attempting to dilute unionism, beginning with the end of the Stormont parliament and continuing via the arrangements made for a power-­ sharing executive under Sunningdale, the Anglo-­Irish Agreement and finally the Good Friday Agreement. The DUP’s claim to return unionism to its doctrinal fundamentals was appreciated by many Orange members. Overt opposition to the 1998 Agreement and the positioning of the party as the key defenders of Protestant unionism proved to be a centrifugal force causing the reordering of unionism (McAuley 2002). The broad stance of the DUP in expressing both moral and political opposition to the Agreement was deeply meaningful to many within the Orange Order, particularly regarding the hostility to the release of paramilitary prisoners and in respect of policing changes. The Order viewed the peace process as placatory towards republicans, who had killed nearly 300 members of the Order during the conflict. The growth in DUP support within the Order was assisted by a dramatically changed social economic profile in the membership of the Order. In particular what Kaufmann (2007) refers to as the increased proletarianisation of the membership has meant changes in political affiliation towards the DUP. Those self-­ identifying as working class now form the bulk of Orange Order members, with fewer than 20 per cent defining themselves as middle class (McAuley and Tonge 2007) with most middle-­class Protestants now clearly expressing social and political distance from the Orange Order (O’Leary 1998; Pollak 1996). The perspective offered by the DUP has continued to resonate with the membership; our sample indicates that since the Agreement was signed in 1998, more DUP than UUP supporters have joined the Order, and that support for the DUP ­continues to be dominant within the Order, although this has in turn been

118   J.W. McAuley and J. Tonge c­ hallenged following the entry of the DUP into a power-­sharing government with Sinn Féin.

Discourses of unity within Orangeism The Orange Order continues to desire the construction of unionist and Protestant unity in what are still perceived as uncertain political times. The Order argues that Protestants will increasingly turn to them to safeguard their interests (Orange Standard June 2000). Indeed the leadership has increasingly projected the organisation as capable of unifying unionism. They appeal for the reconstruction of the ‘unionist family’, as it ‘is not too late for Unionists to get their act together and to defeat this evil conspiracy which seeks to destroy their position and this Province and put it under the heel of Dublin’ (Orange Standard April 2003). Such calls for unity have become central to much of the public discourse of Orangeism, and can be seen in claims that for Orangemen: ‘the great desire is still for a single Unionist party’ (Orange Standard June 2005) and that the Order ‘will lobby for Unionist unity on all key issues’ (Orange Standard April 2005) or through demands that ‘Unionist parties must agree’, (Orange Standard July 2005), that ‘Unionist unity must be achieved’ (Orange Standard September 2001) or that ‘Unionist unity is a priority’ (Orange Standard September 2002). Notwithstanding their conversion to DUP support, this desire for the unionist parties to unite is shared by 74 per cent of Orange Order members in our survey. The Order desists from instructing its members which party they should support, but for years after the Agreement was unsubtle in its backing of Orange and anti­Agreement candidates. Its primary explicit electoral message is, however, merely to vote, to strengthen unionism overall, relative to nationalism. The Orange leadership insisted that ‘all Protestants who care for the welfare of this Province, and who cherish its place within the United Kingdom must go to the polls’ (Orange Standard May 2003) and that it is the duty of all members to vote, ‘if they treasure their British citizenship and identity’ (Orange Standard November 2003). Sometimes the demands are made even more directly, such as, ‘Unionist must vote – or else!’ (Orange Standard May 2007); or that, ‘all Orange brethren must unite and vote’ (Orange Standard May 2005). A historian of the Order outlined the need for coherence within unionism, insisting that: ‘whatever the future may hold for Unionism its aspirations can only be realised through all shades of Unionist opinion uniting and working under one banner. Uniting Unionism is as relevant to-­day as it was 100 years ago’ (Alexander 2005: 43). The demands upon Orange Order members to vote draw upon longer-­standing discourses within Orangeism concerning the lack of political awareness and mobilisation of its members. In 1995, for example, the Order produced a booklet to celebrate the organisation’s bicentenary. In the editorial, the then Grand Master, Martin Smyth, offered a frank and pessimistic assessment of the Institution:

Modern discourses within the Orange Order   119 [M]any of its members are deeply complacent, not only regarding their own spiritual standing, but about the future of Ulster. This Province has suffered defeat and humiliation at the hands of dedicated, articulate and cunning pan-­ nationalists, aided and abetted by some of the most powerful forces within the British establishment and the White House. (Grand Orange Lodge of Ireland 1995: 3) Smyth’s comments highlighted another consistent discourse within Orangeism, that they must be eternally vigilant against those who would seek to undermine the core tenets of Protestant unionism. The long-­standing fears of ‘Lundyism’ – betrayal within unionism, or maltreatment and disregard by Westminster – remain central within Orange discourse. Discourses of cultural resistance For many Orange Order members the very existence of Northern Ireland remains under threat, as ‘enemies within and without threaten Unionism’ (Orange Standard September 1998). According to this discourse, these enemies are focused on one key objective, ‘the ultimate incorporation of the Province in an all-­Ireland in which British, Protestant, Orange and Unionist culture and identity would be swamped and eventually eradicated’. The category consisting of those who seek to bring about the downfall of Ulster Protestantism is widely constructed, as the following passage indicates: It is the traditional enemies of Protestantism and Unionism – Irish nationalism and republicanism – which is spearheading this attack on Northern Ireland’s loyal ethos. But it is being aided and abetted by Government policies which can only have one outcome – a weakening of Northern Ireland’s position within the United Kingdom. (Orange Standard April 1999) All of these discourses are woven together to place the Order at the heart of Protestant–unionist responses to contemporary events. Wright (1996) suggests that a continual sense of siege is a ‘central reality of Northern Protestant society’. In the contemporary period they have pointed to what they believe as plans for the ‘de-­Protestantisation’ of Northern Ireland, as part of an ‘onslaught being waged against the British identity of the province’ (Orange Standard February 2004). At its utmost, some sections of Orangeism have talked of ‘ethnic cleansing pursued by Irish republicanism for over 30 years’ (Orange Standard December 2002), claims reiterated by the Grand Master, Robert Saulters, over a decade after the Good Friday Agreement was concluded, with his assertion that ‘we are in a peace process, I would say we are more into a situation of ethnic cleansing’ (Irish Times 13 July 2009). Recent discourses suggest that the physical war has been replaced by ‘a cultural war being waged against unionism and Orangeism’ (David Hume, Grand

120   J.W. McAuley and J. Tonge Lodge Director of Services, cited in the News Letter 13 July 2007). Thus ‘Orange culture’ remains ‘under attack’ (Orange Standard August 2000) and Orange members are involved in a ‘culture war we must win’ (Orange Standard March 2008). The theatre of conflict had merely been transferred by the IRA’s decision to end violence: The shooting and bombing ‘war’ in Northern Ireland is hopefully over, but the battle for the hearts and minds of the people will be fought with greater intensity than ever. Let no-­one be under any illusions. The campaign by republicans and nationalists to erode the British identity of Northern Ireland will be stepped up in many ways, and the Orange Order will need to be in the vanguard of resistance to this latest phase in the strategy of the republican–nationalist alliance to try and achieve their objective. (Orange Standard July 2007) The importance of parading ‘[Orangemen’s] incessant marching is to demonstrate that all Protestants, but particularly those who live in Northern Ireland, must maintain a constant vigil against Rome’ (Boyd 1995: 60). Fears surrounding attacks on Protestant unionism, both real and symbolic, continue, taking several forms. Over 300 arson attacks on Orange Halls have taken place over the last three decades, increasing in rapidity since the Good Friday Agreement. Orange Order members also fear less visible undermining of their culture, notably around the issue of parading, which is deemed to be ‘top of the republican hit list’ (Orange Standard August 2000). There are over 3,000 Orange parades in Northern Ireland every year, of which a small number (fewer than 20) are formally disputed. In recent years, restrictions have been placed on several parades, particularly those that are routed through interface districts (between Catholic and Protestant areas) or areas where Catholics are in a majority. The most prominent of the contentious parades during the mid- and late-­1990s – from the Protestant church at Drumcree near Portadown – remains unresolved. The reason why a reasonably obscure march to and from a Protestant church should have become international news and towards the top of the agenda of the Orange Order can only be fully understood if we consider the following words of Gordon Lucy, Chair of the Ulster Society in the early days of the saga. As he put it, there is a perception ‘that if Orangeism lost this particular battle in the heartland of Orangeism, routes all over Northern Ireland would come under attack’ (Irish Times 13 July 1996). Although the intensity of the conflict around Drumcree has greatly ebbed since the 1990s it has remained important within the Orange psyche, symbolising wider concerns about the perceived retreat of Protestant unionism. Importantly, such ‘anti-­Orange’ activity is seen as another challenge to Protestant cultural identity, and as part of a wider schema, which is ‘a product of a carefully prepared and thought out plan of action by Sinn Féin/ IRA’ (Orange Standard August 2000). For the Order:

Modern discourses within the Orange Order   121 [m]arching has become an even greater focus of attention in recent years because republicans have decided that, having spent 35 years slaughtering members of the Protestant community with the gun and the bomb, they have now moved into the next phase of the plan to break Protestant resistance so as they can achieve their end goal – the destruction of Northern Ireland as part of the United Kingdom. (Orange Standard August 2004) This view of an ongoing republican campaign is sometimes presented as part of a wider denigration of Britishness and the Orange Order, involving other actors. Thus the Order has lambasted the ‘hate campaign launched in the media against the Protestant people [which] has been unrestrained and sustained. Newspapers have shamefully vied with each other to come up with some new angle to blacken the Ulster Protestants.’ (Orange Standard September 1998). In similar vein, the Order insisted that ‘no Orangeman is in any doubt that the media treats him, and the Orange Institution, with little understanding and less sympathy’. (Orange Standard October 1998).

Uncertain futures Despite the widespread changes in the political landscape of Northern Ireland, not least of which is the introduction of a working power-­sharing devolved government, many within the Orange Order fear for their future. Many Orange members continue to be suspicious of the ‘other’ community, even in the new political era. Take, for example, this statement from a leading member of the Orange Order made in early 2008: I see Sinn Féin as the other side of the IRA coin, and in spite of what may have been said with regards to the IRA, their err, renunciation of violence and all the rest, I still see the organisation as having the potential if it ever needed to, to pick up its arms again, and err, there’s always been the big question mark, as to what extent all the arms were decommissioned and destroyed. (Armagh member) The fears of this section of the leadership have not been eased by the emergence of a devolved government and power-­sharing between the DUP and Sinn Féin. As this member expressed it, his reactions were ‘surprise, shock and stunned’. He expanded as follows: For the leadership of the DUP to have preached what they did preach for the years they preached, and . . . there was people probably done time for what that man preached, and then to backtrack, you know, either he was, he was right for 40 years and wrong for one year, or he’s been wrong for 40 years and right for one year, you know. So, history will tell us. (Belfast member)

122   J.W. McAuley and J. Tonge At best some thought power-­sharing ‘a price worth paying to get local government’ or ‘a price that had to be paid’, but another member, in a not untypical claim, declared that he had ‘become more suspicious of them [Sinn Féin], more mistrusting’. As the Orange Standard (June 2000) argued: The decision of the Democratic Unionist Party to share power with Sinn Féin will not affect the long-­term goal of the latter. To do their utmost to bring about a united Ireland. . . . No-­one in Protestant Ulster should be under any illusions. Beyond this, there are concerns about how the Order can make itself relevant in an increasingly secularised society and engage with public discourses within civil society. In response, the Order has attempted to improve its often extremely negative public image, especially at times of disputed parades. Under the guidance of a new, mainly young and often highly educated leadership grouping, for example, the Order has attempted to rebrand its Twelfth of July parades as community festivals. The most prominent of these is ‘Orangefest’, which the Northern Ireland Tourist Board (2008) now describes as ‘one of Europe’s largest cultural festivals with music, marching and street pageantry’ undertaken in a ‘carnival atmosphere’. Such images are no doubt central to winning the culture war for the Orange Order, but the public relations campaign is far from won. Sinn Féin Assembly member John O’Dowd, for example, claimed that the ‘proposed “Orangefest” will be seen as little more than “bigotfest” in the eyes of the vast majority of people not connected to the Orange Order’ (Sinn Féin 2008) whilst republican rioting in North Belfast around the passing through of a ‘contentious’ parade emphasised that the promotion of ‘Orangefest’ would be difficult in certain localities.

Conclusion In Northern Ireland, the boundaries between society and the state, between civil activity and the political realm remain blurred. This is readily identified in the roles undertaken by Orangeism and the structures and discourses of the Orange Order. Overtly, Orange discourse remains centred upon several core elements: the Protestant faith and Christian principles, loyalty to the Crown and to a state that guarantees civil and religious liberty. These discourses run alongside each other; sometimes they are overlapping, and often, members place different emphases on different strands. Whilst contemporary discourses may reproduce some of the traditional roles of the Order, the contemporary dynamic is different. Traditional alliances have become marginal to the political direction the Order seeks to take and the majority of its members. While there are different elements and discourses emphasised by members, for many politics and religion remain about the existence of the state. Some who have recently joined the Order have been attracted by the

Modern discourses within the Orange Order   123 discourse of consistent opposition to what are seen as the negative consequences of the Good Friday Agreement for unionists. Once they have become members, they have worked to strengthen this discourse. Others seek to modernise the organisation and make it relevant in an increasingly secular and globalised society. What is clear, however, is that the overarching discourse is that all of the above elements can only be guaranteed by the continuance of the Union between Northern Ireland and Great Britain, and the core belief that the Order must act as a bulwark to ensure the maintenance of the constitutional link that remains primary. Within this overarching political aim, there remains an ongoing struggle for the assertion of a distinctively Protestant British identity, as cultural wars have replaced armed conflict.

Acknowledgements The authors acknowledge with thanks the support of the Economic and Social Research Council [RES-­000-23-1614] for a project on contemporary attitudes of Orange Order members, from which this material is drawn.

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9 Continuity and change in the discourse of republican former prisoners Peter Shirlow, Jonathan Tonge and James W. McAuley Former Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) prisoners have played important roles in easing the transition from violence to peace. Fulfilment of such roles does not necessarily involve ideological change. Instead republican ideology may remain centred upon the reproduction of established discursive conflicts, promoted via non-­militaristic means. For IRA former prisoners, the peace process has been articulated around the promotion of republican values and a discourse guided by the eventual achievement of republican goals. This purported fidelity to traditional republican ambition has assisted the Sinn Féin leadership in refuting accusations of ‘sell-­out’, a feature that has historically dogged Irish republican movements. This chapter draws upon extensive interviews with former IRA prisoners to ascertain the extent to which ideological and political continuity has been more evident than fundamental changes in beliefs.

Interpretations of change Critics of the Provisional republican movement have argued that the IRA was terrorist-­inspired and lacked ideological coherence (Alonso 2001) or that republican coherence and discursive value has been abandoned in favour of the acquisition of political power (McInytre 1995, 2008). There is acknowledgement of a ‘management’ of change and the shaping of contemporary republicanism by the policies of the British state and the ‘complexities of this relationship between movement and community’ (Bean 2007: 13). The acceptance that there have been tactical shifts is couched in the presentation of a wider understanding of republican mobilisation (McEvoy and Shirlow 2009). This acknowledges tactical flexibility, whether that has involved the use of violence, promoting the Irish language or serving in government within a partitioned Ireland (Smith 1997). Moreover, there is no denial among IRA former prisoners of the complexities of abandoning armed conflict, but this is paralleled by a sense of having maintained ideological congruity and transitions that are primarily strategic. Indeed, former IRA prisoners argue that it is not the structure of republican discourse that has changed, but the presentation of ideology and the pinpointing of successful strategies that will achieve key goals (Adams 1989, 1995; Maillot 2005).

The discourse of republican former prisoners   127 The critique offered by ‘dissident’ republican prisoners, mainly associated with the Continuity and Real IRAs (and also those of the Irish National Liberation Army (INLA)) contends that the peace process has been framed via a ditching of core republican principles. This position suggests that the peace process is based upon the elitist managerialism of former combatants, has removed internal dissenters and censored debates concerning the disjuncture of republican discourse (O’Brádaigh 1996; Moloney 2003; Patterson 1997). We do not automatically deny the merits of these criticisms, but instead argue that there is a requirement to understand the large number of former IRA prisoners who reject such a perspective. Evidently, there is an insufficient knowledge, beyond leadership level, concerning the attitudes and opinions of the bulk of former republican prisoners (Shirlow et al. 2010). Few former IRA prisoners claim to have abandoned the ideological compass which ‘legitimised’ violence. The present nature of their community and political activism is often structured around a sense of republican authenticity. The construction, interpretation and meaning of discourse among republican activists needs to address four key dimensions: (i) the interpretation and construction of legitimacy, (ii) the reasons for deciding to join a paramilitary organisation, (iii) imprisonment and the development of ideological beliefs, and (iv) the delivery of republican ideology in the post-­conflict environment. For many republicans, the manner through which resistance is articulated and, more importantly, practised, has shifted out of violence due to an internal re-­consideration of normative rules needed to promote republican discourse (Graham and Shirlow 2003; Tonge 2005). Despite shifts in their approach to politics and community activism, former IRA prisoners understand activism and ultimately the peace process as a route to Irish unification. Moreover, their attitude towards the ‘other’, mainly unionist and loyalist, remains based upon negative stereotyping and a mode of engagement centred on utilising inter-­community contact partly as a means to persuade those who are pro-­union of their ideological ‘folly’ and the ‘incoherence’ of unionism.

Discourse and republican legitimacy Discourse constructs social relations, through language, written and spoken texts, thus constituting the objects and subjects of the social world. Republican ideals are understood as the outcome of discursively fabricated classifications of belonging (Burton and Carlen 1979) and republican involvement in the peace process remains guided by the idea of a united Ireland. Such a process of discursive representation reminds us that all forms of loyalty-­driven discourse are based upon different imaginings of community, practice and ideological delivery. Furthermore, the allegories and mythic representation of discourse in a divided society are unproblematic to those who hold particular and exclusive renditions of identity and power. On this reading, the peace process is not understood as the outcome of ideological rejection but of manoeuvre, resource competition and conflict via non-­violent means. Republicans and their opponents

128   P. Shirlow et al. remain tied to alternative notions of power relations and the maintenance of resistance towards an objectified other (English 2003, 2006; Munck 1992). Republican discourse, as understood by our respondents, has evolved through identity-­securing strategies and the raising of republican consciousness. The use of violence is understood by way of the stages of revolt, political development and commemoration. The promotion of the Irish language and culture and the development of links with a sympathetic diaspora are viewed as additional stages in the development of identity politics. Thus the shift in tactics has been linked to the move from ‘powerlessness’ due to asymmetrical relations, to the governance and delivery of power through political ‘achievement’ within an equality-­ driven political landscape. Linked to this overall shift from ‘powerlessness’ is an interpretation advanced by Stedman-­Jones that identity and political expression is tied to discursive aspects of linguistic expression that do not easily map themselves onto homogenous interpretations of political movements, but instead there is a need to appreciate how: [l]anguage disrupts any simple notion of the determination of consciousness by social being because it is itself part of social being. We cannot therefore decode political language to reach a primal and material expression of interest since it is the discursive structure of political language which conceives and defines interest itself. (Stedman-­Jones 1983: 21–22) Discourse within this analysis is studied via the medium of interests that are produced and reproduced via realities such as violent conflict, perceptions of conflict, perceived ‘successes’ of that conflict and the capacity to express ideas and deliver actions that are influenced by fluid social, cultural and economic relationships that emerge during or parallel to conflict. The perception that a discourse will remain static and unwavering undermines the impact of such fluidity and also reduces conflict to an interpretation of violence and harm as opposed to understanding how other forces condition and explain transformation out of armed conflict. Armed action and the discourses attached to it are temporal and conditioned by the reproduction of society at various scales, especially in conflictual arenas such as Northern Ireland. This results in a displacement of interest with the roots and dimensions of conflict, and in so doing permits a concern with how conflict itself fashions the cognition and understanding of interests centred upon knowledge, experience and experimentation with tactics and discursive strategies (Foucault 1972, 1973, 1979). The use of violence by former IRA prisoners is understood as having required a language during and after the cessation of armed conflict that is defined via a chain of equivalence which encloses a particular perception of established and reproduced justification. This generally remains as a self-­referential and self-­ sustained notion of legitimacy. Thus the discourse attached to studying the past may lead to an adoption of a language of peace but the discourse of that language remains avowedly republican and thus ‘legitimate’. Crucially, discourse is

The discourse of republican former prisoners   129 concerned with the variable ‘discursive formations’ which permit specific assertions and remarks to be made while others are excluded. A discursive formation is ‘a set of rules’; that is to say the code by which objects, subject positions and strategies are moulded, forged and created. As Foucault argued, discourse is not simply concerned with written or spoken words but with the articulatory social practice of language, meaning and interpretation. These rules define not the dumb existence of a reality, nor the canonical use of vocabulary, but the ordering of objects. Words and things is the entirely serious title of a problem; it is the ironic title of a work that modifies its own form, displaces its own data, and reveals, at the end of the day, a quite different task. A task that consists of not – no longer-­treating discourse as groups of signs . . . but as practices that systematically form the objects of which they speak. (Foucault 1972: 49) The material obtained from former IRA prisoners provides an understanding of involvement in conflict and the delivery of a peace process and their influence over that process as understood by them. It grounds experience, legitimacy and the mobilisation of long-­serving interpretations of history and conflict and the merging of these around ideas of developing and sustaining conflict transformation (Shirlow and McEvoy 2008). Former republican prisoners legitimise the conflict as a reaction to state ‘oppression’. Attitudes towards the peace process do not relate directly to academic determinations of conflict and peace-­building as they remain grounded in much closer experiences of conflict. The interpretation of moving out of violence is not understood as a process of ideological ‘ditching’, or the emergence of ‘mutual stalemate’ (Zartman 2003), but of the development of tactics and the impact of conflict upon opening up means to promote republican discourse (Hazelkorn and Patterson 1995). Commonly within Irish republicanism the most significant condition for mobilisation is to be found in the agency of activists (Bean 2007). The base has been attached to creative cultural mediums and organisational structures that sought to define collective identity (Shirlow and McGovern 1998). The IRA deployed the language of community to not only instil nationalist ‘unity’, but to also establish hegemony within the nationalist community. The building of such hegemony has been partly achieved through recent electoral politics, with Sinn Féin emerging as the dominant voice of Northern nationalism (McAllister 2004; Shirlow and Murtagh 2006). The use of violence evidently undermined Sinn Féin’s capacity to become politically transcendent. Tonge shows that: [b]y 1988 . . . the political arm of the republican movement in Belfast was beginning to publicly question the utility of an armed struggle which undermined their political appeal to a local electorate anxious to see improvements in job opportunities and local services. (Tonge 2006: 141)

130   P. Shirlow et al. Ultimately, the re-­mobilisation of Irish republicanism in the late 1960s, and its restructuring in the 1970s, saw a series of actions and long-­term strategy developments that fermented the nature of constitutionalism as now articulated and practised. The discursive shifts that have taken place within this particular version of republicanism have been set against the background of building the republican movement. Controlling, and then shifting, ideological capacity and meaning within the republican movement is understood as being centred upon a constant fusion of styles and strategic and tactical experimentation (Bean 2007). Smyth (2005) has also argued that the capacity to move from a military to political position was generally unproblematic as the ‘empty signifiers’ of ‘justice’ and ‘democracy’ were essentially ‘multiple interpretations and capable of being integrated into disparate discourses. The absence of justice or democracy can be used to justify a reformist strategy, but equally both can be integrated into a justification for armed struggle’ (Smyth 2005: 144). Smyth’s (2005) argument is crucial in that it highlights the fluidity within republicanism as a political discourse within itself. Thus the gaze and interpretation of republicanism has been overwhelmingly linked to the interpretation of violence and the mobilisation of armed conflict, as distinct from understanding the various strands and opinions that produced republican discourse. The positioning of republicanism as merely violent generally obscured the extent and nature of internal ideological awareness and tactical shift. It also reminds us that the conflict was also shaped by state policy, the opening up of dialogue with Sinn Féin (primarily by John Hume of the Social Democratic and Labour Party), the desire to build wider cognition of republican ideas, and the failure to build republicanism as a movement due to collective armed activism.

Reaction and republican development: reasons for joining and the impact of imprisonment Joining the IRA was in many instances centred upon ‘events more than anything else’ and the violence that emanated from an identifiable ‘other’. Thus a female respondent justified her membership decision because ‘a million things happened’ and the sense of societal and political deterioration in the early stage of the conflict was a paramount cause of mobilisation. Many of those imprisoned in the early 1970s saw themselves as reacting to loyalist and state violence, unionist hegemony and state indifference towards aggrieved Catholic communities. The sense of ‘hitting back’ as a mode of becoming involved and then adopting a more defined republican discourse was commonplace. For some respondents the sense of being part of a violated community was important, as, according to one former life sentence prisoner, ‘like most people at the time it wasn’t an ideological thing it was more a gut reaction to something that was happening at the time’. This sense of community violation was also advanced through an appreciation of personal experience and the need for collective engagement. As claimed by a West Belfast former prisoner:

The discourse of republican former prisoners   131 It was because of what was happening all around us at the time. We were kids. Bombay Street was getting burnt down. Before that it was student riots, student protests. There was always trouble down around the Falls anyway. There were parades even then. I remember the Divis Street riots, not really understanding them but I knew it was sort of us and them. 1969 was the central year when everything changed. I watched the streets being burnt down around us. . . . Back to school after the holidays, I heard all the personal stories of kids who had been run out of their homes with the house on fire. Everybody was joining the Fianna [the youth wing of the IRA] that seemed to be some sort of way of reacting against it, or doing something against something that you felt you were powerless against. It gave you some sort of strength. Whereas some respondents were drawn to, or cultivated into organisations, others came from families steeped in republican traditions. Even among those who did not come from such backgrounds, or in which such backgrounds were hidden, the sense of there being a notional republicanism was evident: My older brother was in the Fianna and he had been from when he was fairly young. But I didn’t really notice until around 1969 that he seemed to be doing sort of secrecy stuff. New republicans in the area, old republicans in the area – I knew that there was a, had an idea that there was an IRA. Every now and again their name would come up. But I had no real republican family ties. But I had republican records in the house, I heard songs at parties. (Former IRA prisoner, County Derry) This capacity to locate republican family histories was important in that it established a sense of ideological lineage that was brought to the fore by the collapse of social relationships in the 1960s and 1970s. The primacy of 1966 (virtually invisible in academic analysis until recently) as the fiftieth anniversary of the 1916 Rising was also attached to senses of consciousness-­raising and a need for republican re-­mobilisation. In essence several factors influenced the discursive journey of republicanism: ideological mobilisation through the use of commemoration, socialisation and the goal of Irish unity; situational violence and the response to state and loyalist activity; structural factors conditioned by ‘second-­ class’ citizenship and the demands for equality of recognition and anti-­ discrimination legislation. The fusion of these was constantly understood by the respondents as being the basis on which to utilise violence. Although accepting that the motivation of early republican activists was reactive to the conditions and experiences of societal breakdown in the early 1970s, it was constantly stated that those who engaged in violence at that time had a developed sense of economic, cultural and social injustice and an appreciation of a need to adopt a more wide-­ranging republican ideology. Furthermore, it was postulated that any lack of ideological cohesion and discursive knowledge

132   P. Shirlow et al. amongst IRA activists, during this time, was slowly and deliberately replaced by developed explanations and strategies that did more than merely react to violent events. However, it should be stressed that early violent reaction was neither merely inflexible nor obdurate, but fashioned by senses of injustice and both vague and established notions of a republican heritage and discourse. Virtually all respondents spoke of being inspired by prison debates within and between paramilitary groups. These debates provided an ideological vocabulary of what ‘people already felt and knew was wrong’ according to one former prisoner. Furthermore such debates did not challenge the efficacy of violence, or promote a sense that armed conflict was to be dispensed with due to a stalemate with loyalists or the British State. Within the prison arena republicans challenged dominant representations of them and also nurtured identities of resistance against prison authority (Corcoran 2006; McKeown 2001). Ironically, the republican challenge to British state authority and the associated process of their criminalisation opened up spaces of dialogue with the prison authorities that encouraged negotiating skills that would eventually be used in peace-­building strategies. For republicans ideological manoeuvring and future political approaches were influenced by the prisoners as well as by significant debates that were led by a wider republican community and influenced and supported from a much broader Irish nationalist alliance (Clarke 1987). However, irrespective of the impact of former prisoners upon future discursively designed tactics and re-­orientation, the organic nature of debate and dialogue within and even at times between republicans and loyalists was significant in bolstering alternative and future practices. It is noteworthy that former prisoners viewed themselves, in the words of one, as the ‘IRA beyond bars, and not as a group that were removed from wider activities’. Imprisonment also influenced a process that one respondent identified as a time to ‘learn a lot of things’. This sense of learning and a commitment to acquiring and developing a republican discourse was understood as a process of learning in developing a republican logic. As a former prisoner from Andersonstown put it: Long Kesh imprisonment in those days: we did read Irish history and we did get to political lectures, we did learn more about everything. It was your first chance to read books on communism, books on revolution, Che Guevara, Connolly. All the things that you wouldn’t have read when you were a teenager and probably wouldn’t have read. But in Long Kesh, all these books were being passed around. Everybody’s talking about them, everybody’s debating them. So you naturally want to be informed about it. You want to understand it. We did a lot of things in Long Kesh. It wasn’t just political education, it was military education. But there was also lots of sports and lots of ordinary reading and just messing about. So they were all forming some form of political understanding of what was happening.

The discourse of republican former prisoners   133 Debates among republicans within prison aided the shifting of IRA tactics as they morphed more fully into politics, community activism and cultural expressionism. Central to these debates was how the IRA could create the ideas and actions that would lead to the abandonment of violence, but only when such a tactical disjuncture could uphold an activist-­driven and congruous republican discourse. Challenging an established modus operandi attached to violence was accompanied by maintaining a narrative of oppression and resistance along with a new repertoire of inclusion, and a future preference for the memorialisation of armed conflict as opposed to violent engagement (Shirlow and McGovern 1998; McGovern 2000). The nature of such debates was attached not only to moving out of armed conflict, but also discussing how to produce an alternative nationalist political culture within which the IRA would no longer be required as a claimed armed bulwark against the British Army or loyalists, but would instead become agents of change through influencing alternative platforms and arenas. With regard to imprisonment there are several process and attitudinal shifts that are of significance. The impact of imprisonment provided ideological coherence and a recognition that purist ideological explanations needed to be internally reviewed. As noted by a County Derry respondent imprisoned during the 1970s and 1980s: I don’t know how well I would have articulated my views before I went to jail. I think jail was brilliant in terms of giving me the time to sit down and read and clarify my thoughts. I think all my thoughts were there, I had all the reasons and all that type of stuff. But I may not have had the clearer articulation of why and the times, dates, figures and trends and all that type of stuff – I might not have been clear on that. Jail gave me the time and the opportunity to clarify my own head. To have it in me. There have been times when – like the hunger strikes and things – you’ll be living in the moment, you’ll be just living – I mean events would have been right and wrong for you, or things happening would have been right and wrong. You would have been just almost dealing with them in the here and now, where going to jail and going through that type of thing – you can read history properly . . . It definitely gave me – I mean, one thing the jail did for me, it gave me this idea of being analytical and being critical. Not just to take something at face value on the moment, where I may have when I was a teenager or when I was in the middle of it.

Ideological and political capacity-­building The promotion of a non-­violent republicanism was influenced by evident identity tapping and/or formation that defined a counter-­hegemonic project that was located in the capacity to weld together disparate forms of Irish nationalism. What emerged was predominantly class-­based in terms of the republican electorate, but the glue that held together an emergent consciousness was linked to republican versions of land, folklore, oppression and ultimate delivery from

134   P. Shirlow et al. British authority. It is arguable that the push towards ideological coherence within the prisons was required given that detainees needed a cultural and political vocabulary that was unifying and shared. What is important to note is that the operationalisation of republican history and ideological coherence was achieved and mechanisms were found, such as awareness-­raising, that created a culture of debate and dialogue that transformed the capacity for the emergence of collective action. The terrain of consciousness was crucial with regard to defining what was required in order to facilitate armed action and then organise its displacement. Inadvertently, this layering of consciousness eventually established and upheld the rationale for non-­violent political developments. Within the prison context republicans built a micro-­society of ideological identification and dialogue. A resistance discourse was dedicated to a series of platforms, which began with violence, was increasingly paralleled by political protest and consciousness­raising and eventually upheld the practice of constitutional politics. Republicanism shifted from a desire to seize control to a strategy of advancing and mobilising along an eclectic populist front. As stated by a Belfast republican former prisoner: There was no master plan. We didn’t start out with a plan. We did things in tandem as we went along. We (prisoners) raised our ideas and then that of the community. We discussed the need for peace and then took it to our people. We moved from an old arrogant position that we were the leaders and the people would be led. We started to provide ideas and ways forwards and realised that if we removed that elitist crap about ourselves being right and others duped that people would listen to us. Eventually we realised that people wanted the violence stopped and we were now so close to them in so many ways, like through Sinn Féin and pressure groups, that we had to listen and then respond. The building of politics by Sinn Féin and the shifts that political activism encouraged, also points to a need to understand the issue of scale. The shaping of community and the raising of consciousness within that process could never establish majoritarian fervour for armed struggle. The rhetoric of the 1970s and early 1980s, which presented the republican people as willing to become armed ambassadors of republican philosophy and a more significant guerrilla movement was unachievable and misplaced. In developing the idea of the republican ‘people’ the republican movement came, by the mid 1980s, closer to developing a form of hegemony within highly segregated Catholic low-­income communities (Shirlow and Murtagh 2006; Tonge 2006). Republicans had completed the foundations of loyalty to them, but had no apparent conventional political structure to erect. Therefore, the capacity to reform social welfare conditions, influence regeneration and housing strategies, and ultimately represent the electorate remained missing due to republicanism having insignificant influence over state agencies and institutions. The welfare strategies undertaken by the British state

The discourse of republican former prisoners   135 and the use of public funding to support non-­republican groups in Catholic communities furthered the nature of republican dislocation. The capacity and recognition that republicans had established an electoral mandate and were engaged in community activity was to be enlarged by prisoners upon their release, not merely in the historical sense of having suffered but as those who had part-­framed and supported the creation of a form of republicanism that was increasingly relevant. The emergence of community cohesion between the IRA and the nationalist community came during the Hunger Strikes 1980–81 when the death of prisoners was to verify the extent of prisoners’ devotion to the cause. This devotion was translated into political support for IRA prisoners, who stood in elections north and south of the border, from those opposed to the physical force tradition. This forging of such a (previously unachievable) alliance indicated that the mobilisation of shared nationalist suffering created political dividends that violence could not fashion. In the longer term republican prisoners enjoyed a status linked not only to their incarceration, but also as part of a broader movement that gained major concessions from the British state. The emotional power and resonance of these sub-­groups (prisoners, advice workers, elected representatives, community workers) within republicanism was based upon their contribution both in the past and in the present regarding wider political mobilisation. The military−political containment of paramilitaries from the late 1970s also increased the pressure on the movement to ‘thicken and re-­direct the battlefield’. Election successes toughened these demands and pointed towards new possibilities in community activism and wider understandings of politics. Such a proposition was more compelling to prisoners, given that Sinn Féin was composed mainly of former prisoners. A sense of mutual reinforcement was created between the imprisoned and the ‘politicos’. A key component in the role of devotion to the republican leadership was the nature and level of trust invested in them. Trust was not an imagined concept for the prisoner community, but was based upon a personal and shared experience. Moreover, the unfolding political developments of the 1990s and the Good Friday Agreement, in particular, created international kudos for the republican movement. The release of prisoners also provided state recognition that the imprisoned were effectively political in their orientation. The issue of trust was thus fulfilled and republican former prisoners could locate political positives in the contribution that they had made.

Republicanism’s ‘coming of age’ For republican respondents, developing ideas became a conscientious by-­product of years of study and analysis. The main emphasis was placed upon how ‘struggle’ encompassed various actions against inequality, beyond that which had emerged from British colonialism and the enactment of unionist hegemony. Resistance in a post-­conflict situation was understood as being undertaken through multi-­faceted and non-­violent mediums. In particular, inequality and oppression in whatever form were to be challenged through the agenda of

136   P. Shirlow et al. equality building, which ultimately was somewhat of a distance from the use of armed conflict to end the ‘colonial’ domination that caused social inequity (McGovern 2000). Republicans appeared heavily devoted to the idea that they were emerging unbroken and that the experience of prison is one of ensuring that ‘attempts by our captors to criminalise us and our struggle’ had failed (Mac Giolla Ghunna 1997: 2). Republican prisoners espoused a mixture of pride in their resistance, arguing that their struggle had raised consciousness within the republican movement and facilitated a more sophisticated capacity to critique societal shifts. Imprisonment is presented as part of an unbroken lineage of struggle, former prisoners linking their experiences to comparative international frames that included the historical tenets of Gramsci and the art of meaningful intellectual analysis and action articulated by the Palestinian academic Edward Said and the executed Nigerian environmentalist, Ken Saro Wiwa. The role of these international thinkers was linked to the identification of an internal republican intellectualism that had included ‘among their ranks a high proportion of writers, poets, musicians and artists, many of whom endured imprisonment and used those years to further their cultural activities’ (Mac Giolla Ghunna 1997: 3–4). The self-­presentation was one of political repositioning and the coming of age of contemporary republicanism. Republican ideological faith remained centred upon the achievement of a united Ireland. Nonetheless, the use of new vocabularies of inclusion, a less hostile and atavistic attitude towards the British state, identified as a potential persuader for a united Ireland (however unrealistic this position) and the notion that there were a range of mediums through which to achieve political power, meant that the goal of unification was being articulated via new tactics. Those who had engaged in armed conflict have been in the vanguard of this change, but the special status afforded them within the movement gradually ebbed. In January 2007, Gerry Adams, President of Sinn Féin, was able to claim, at the special Ard Fheis on policing, that the role played by those who purchased An Phoblacht (the republican weekly newspaper) had been as important as those who had ‘picked up the gun’. During the same speech, Adams (2007) insisted that ‘republicanism should never be about elitism or dogma or militarism. Republicanism always has to be about citizenship and people’s rights and equality. We are about making republicanism relevant to people in their daily lives.’

Working with the ‘other’ The shared journey upon which so many republican prisoners and Sinn Féin representatives embarked also meant that there was no compunction to analyse the reality that they were conducting their various affairs as partly dictated by the British state and global forces beyond their control. In essence the republican movement and the IRA in particular maintained a disciplined leadership that could rationalise a repositioning of activism. Discipline and the capacity of former prisoners to locate a community that recognised their ‘sacrifices’ helped to pave the way for a smooth transition of republican practice. This transition

The discourse of republican former prisoners   137 was furthered by many republican former prisoners undertaking community-­ based employment within which the struggle, through civic as distinct from militaristic strategies, could be undertaken and in so doing maintain community status and republican congruity. Republican involvement in community work since the Good Friday Agreement maintained prominent roles for former prisoners, but also eased the transition into civic society and enlarged support for peace-­building initiatives. The more general trend amongst loyalists to return to ‘normal’ sites of employment did much to undermine the capacity of loyalism to cope with the tensions caused by the emergence of a post-­ceasefire environment. Republicans emerged into a Northern Ireland within which, due to electoral strength and community presence, their influence over republican territory was ever present and within which a narrative of sacrifice placed them within their communities with both status and influence. Republican former prisoners were now tied into a wider international arena within which their political influence was welcomed and partly accommodated. There are a series of differences and also some similarities with regard to understanding how the micro-­history of incarceration affected republicans and loyalists. Both sets of prisoners were influenced by internal debates, although the numbers involved were greater amongst republicans. Each set of prisoners largely conformed to their respective leaderships inside and outside jail. Many more republicans understood prison as a site of resistance against British and Irish state hegemony, whereas for pro-­state volunteers such activism was undermined by the dimension of being essentially pro-­British. One of the more significant differences was that many republican prisoners understood that ‘struggle’ would continue in a post-­imprisonment environment and that the vocabulary and skills needed to perpetuate republicanism required knowledge of how to pursue a non-­violent conflict. In contrast, most loyalists thought of the conflict (which they saw as having been won) as having ended once they had been released or after the IRA had called a ceasefire, and as a result of this their struggle was to be represented by unionist political parties. For those who were to uptake a role in conflict transformation the emergence from prison had been framed by the experience of debate and dialogue within prison and the capacity to locate that knowledge within a landscape of post-­ conflict change. Many republicans retain an overtly hostile attitude towards loyalism, juxtaposed with cordial personal relationships on a host of inter-­community engagements. IRA respondents, as they did in the 1970s, still dismissed loyalism as sectarian, non-­progressive, non-­socialist, non-­autonomous and criminal. As argued by one former prisoner, in a typical claim, ‘loyalism is misguided, poorly led, self-­seeking’. Loyalists are still regarded as the dupes of British state practice, a West Belfast former IRA prisoner arguing that ‘the developments in loyalism now have more to do with British strategy rather than internal development’. Furthermore, loyalism is seen as community centric and ultimately reactionary and sectarian:

138   P. Shirlow et al. Because they are interested in their community, they are interested in basic rights for their people. Their problem is that they don’t really want it for other people and they resent the others in society having it. So they’ll be reactionary whether it be to immigrants, blacks . . . nationalists, republicans. (Former IRA prisoner, Belfast) Despite continuing ideological and political hostility, most former IRA prisoners have combined with loyalist counterparts to forge a shared role in preventing the return of violence. This role is tied to their sense of status and legitimacy and a collective belief that the peace process is insufficient regarding the capacity to quell sectarian violence, deliver social justice and challenging their shared experience of criminalisation. For IRA respondents, inter-­community activity is understood as a tactic structured around local defusing of local sectarian tensions, but beyond this, has a purpose in reaching out to unionists and persuading those contacted of the rationale of a united Ireland, whereas loyalists and INLA respondents view such engagement as developing shared working class experiences and values. Former prisoners have also been involved in creating alternative community narratives which link themselves into a post-­ceasefire process. This has also involved challenging the mythic status of violence and in so doing diverting youth attention away from paramilitaries and sectarian violence. From this perspective, former IRA prisoners involved in community work and restorative justice programmes seek to reduce tensions and/or promote reconciliation and tolerance, if not the equal legitimacy of the rival tradition. These former prisoners attempt to create an intersection between agency and structure, via the shift from a military to negotiator role. Quasi-­states also exist with regard to the political influence over territory. Parts of Northern Ireland that return Sinn Féin representatives, places such as West Belfast and East Tyrone, are effectively micro-­states that are centred upon renditions of group loyalty and distinctive cultural interpretations of republicanism (Rolston 1989; Ryan 1995). Within such places the plethora of festivals and drama events held, numerous wall murals, a growing community capital, various Irish language sites, republican advice centres and former prisoner group offices testifies to an overall strategy that has engendered a highly politicised form of spatial expansion and cultural cohesion during the conflict. The capacity to create and maintain republican solidarity both in terms of influencing place and gaining significant political and cultural power lies in this particular movement’s highly centralised leadership structures. The structures that have fashioned and framed republican transition were heavily influenced by resistance strategies developed within the prison environment. The imprisonment of republicans between the early 1970s and 1998 and the impact of that imprisonment were historically unique in that militant republicanism could not be defeated. This contrasts to the internment of IRA prisoners during earlier periods when the forerunners of the present republican movement emerged into near political vacuums.

The discourse of republican former prisoners   139

Conclusion From the evidence presented above there has been no abandoning of a historical past and in many ways the beliefs regarding the ‘other’ are sustained despite the development of inter-­group activity. Legitimacy and interpretations of the past have not shifted in order to sustain the peace process, but instead conflict transformation has been assembled around locating shared concerns and promoting the efficacy of ideologies of community activism as opposed to violence. Political resistance is now articulated around non-­violent means and the capacity to shift out of violence is based upon discourses of republican loyalty. Activism, whether it is militaristic or political/community-­based, is not interpreted within a temporal frame of past and present, but is understood as being influenced by a seamless political philosophy that mobilises strategies best suited to the advancement of republican discourse. Disengagement from armed struggle has, it is argued, neither altered values nor rejected or abandoned key principles, but instead the contemporary variant of republicanism is part of a discursive journey that has partly developed out of republican historicisation of armed conflict and imprisonment. Moreover, armed conflict, it is postulated, delivered the peace process, in that, as far as IRA former prisoners are concerned, it undermined British authority, provided negotiating strength and the capacity to deliver republican discourse via mediums such as community activism and political mobilisation. Thus, amid ideological continuity, discourse has altered. As Hayward’s introduction to this book makes clear, a key element of discourse theory is the constant flux in which actors and systems find themselves. Republicanism’s relationship with the political system has thus altered, amid diminished structural inequality, demilitarisation and inclusivity. Added to experiential factors related to the learning processes undertaken in prison, what has emerged is a new republican discourse in which the past remains legitimised, but interwoven with newer discourses of community activism, electoralism, inclusivity and outreach. Having been imprisoned provides legitimacy in itself, and this is now invoked to provide community-­led strategies of transformation. Transformation is not about ideological decline or a separation from past motivations but instead the promotion of republican ideas within an environment they believe was altered by successful military interventions. Respondents view violence as the logical response to the denial of their respective rights, a situation that places them at odds within unionism in particular. Ironically, the use of violence has removed the need for violence and the Good Friday Agreement, which former prisoners view in selective ways according to what ‘their side’ had achieved, has created recourse to a modus operandi that seeks the same ideological commitments and goals through non-­violent activity. Former IRA prisoners continually expressed the idea that violence was an option among other developing tactics and techniques and they invariably understand violence as being conditioned by the fluidity of circumstances. The central logic through which republicanism is now practised is centred upon a redefinition of the notion that republicans were the embodiment of the

140   P. Shirlow et al. Irish state. This long-­established rendition was evidently insular, as indicated in the past by political abstention from Dáil Éireann and Stormont and via the simplistic notion that the removal of the ‘British’ through armed resistance was achievable. Republicanism is now far removed from the irredentism of an ideology framed in an Irish society that was yet to be influenced by the welfare state, partition, the rise of conspicuous consumption, the emergence of the Celtic Tiger and the realities of years of conflict in Ireland. By holding ministerial posts in the Northern Ireland Assembly and through political advances (albeit modest and seemingly stalled) in the Republic of Ireland, Sinn Féin can now present itself as either a state partner or significant political player. For ‘dissident’ republicans, participation in structures of government of Northern Ireland represent a betrayal with the inevitable consequence that even committed former IRA prisoners will be absorbed within a political system they set out to destroy. Sympathy for ‘dissidents’ was limited among former prisoners, although criticism was located in the perceived diminished utility of ‘armed struggle’ and the lack of ‘military’ clout of the dissident groupings, rather than a particular ideological hostility. The outworking of the peace process has not meant that working with loyalists and unionists is infused with eagerness, but instead republicans co-­operate as part of the process of local and national outreach, both essential in the building of Irish unity. Recognition of harm caused to undeserving victims is evident but such an interpretation is either paralleled or secondary to the harm endured by one’s own community. There is some sense of a need to stretch beyond exclusivist constructions of harm and to locate voices beyond political legitimacy. However, such a perspective is linked to a sense that violence was justifiable. In sum, the use of violence was not rejected via moral concerns but instead conditioned by a sense that it had bolstered negotiating positions, as evidenced by the huge Canary Wharf and Manchester bombings, during the temporary fracture of the IRA ceasefire in 1996. The discursive frame which has emerged among former IRA prisoners suggests that their legitimacy had been proven as opposed to defeated.

Acknowledgements This articles draws on research in which 87 former IRA prisoners were interviewed in 2006–08 as part of a Leverhulme Trust (F/01 582/C) project, ‘Abandoning Historical Conflict? Former Paramilitaries in Northern Ireland’. The authors express their grateful thanks to the Trust.

Bibliography Adams, G. (1989) A Scenario for Peace, Dingle: Brandon. Adams, G. (1995) Free Ireland: Towards a Lasting Peace, Dingle: Brandon. Adams, G. (2007) Opening Speech to the Sinn Féin Extraordinary Ard Fheis on Policing, RDS, Dublin, January. Available at http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/issues/politics/docs/sf/ ga280107a.htm.

The discourse of republican former prisoners   141 Alonso, R. (2001) ‘The Modernization in Irish Republican Thinking Toward the Utility of Violence’, Studies in Conflict and Terrorism 24: 131–144. Bean, K. (2007) The New Politics of Sinn Féin, Liverpool: Liverpool University Press. Burton, F. and Carlen, P. (1979) Official Discourses: On Discourse Analysis, Government Publications, Ideology and the State, London: Routledge and Paul Keegan. Clarke, L. (1987) ‘Broadening the Battlefield: The H Blocks and the Rise of Sinn Féin’, An Glor Gafa 8(1): 32–42. Corcoran, M. (2006) Out of Order: The Political Imprisonment of Women in Northern Ireland, 1972 – 1998, Uffculme: Willan Publishing. English, R. (2003) Armed Struggle: The History of the IRA, London: Pan Macmillan. English, R. (2006) Irish Freedom: The History of Nationalism in Ireland, London: Pan Macmillan. Foucault, M. (1972) The Archaeology of Knowledge, London: Tavistock. Foucault, M. (1973) The Birth of the Clinic, London: Tavistock. Foucault, M. (1979) Discipline and Punish, London: Tavistock. Graham, B. and Shirlow, P. (2003) ‘The Battle of the Somme in Ulster Memory and Identity’, Political Geography 21(2): 881–904. Hazelkorn, E. and Patterson, H. (1995) ‘The New Politics of the Irish Republic’, New Left Review 211: 49–71. McAllister, I. (2004) ‘ “The Armalite and the Ballot Box”: Sinn Féin’s electoral strategy in Northern Ireland’, Electoral Studies 23(1): 121–134. McEvoy, K. and Shirlow, P. (2009) ‘Re-­imagining DDR’, Theoretical Criminology 13(1): 31–59. McGovern, M. (2000) ‘Irish Republicanism and the Potential Pitfalls of Pluralism’, Capital and Class 71: 133–162. McIntyre, A. (1995) ‘Modern Irish Republicanism: The Product of British State Strategies’, Irish Political Studies 10(1): 97–122. McIntyre, A. (2008) Good Friday; the Death of Irish Republicanism, New York: Ausubo. McKeown, L. (2001) Out of Time: Irish Republican Prisoners, Long Kesh, 1972–2000, Belfast: Beyond the Pale. Mac Giolla Ghunna, M. (1997) ‘Cultural Struggle and a Drama Project’, Journal of Prisoners on Prisons 7: 7–13. Maillot, A. (2005) New Sinn Féin: Irish Republicanism in the Twenty-­First Century, London: Routledge. Moloney, E. (2003) A Secret History of the IRA, London, Penguin. Munck, R. (1992) ‘Irish Republicanism: Containment or New Departure?’, in A. O’Day (ed.) Terrorism’s Laboratory: The Case of Northern Ireland, Aldershot, Dartmouth. O’Brádaigh, R. (1996) ‘The Evil Fruit has Ripened Once More’, Irish Reporter 21: 19–29. Patterson, H. (1997) The Politics of Illusion: A Political History of the IRA, London: Serif. Rolston, B. (1989) ‘Alienation of Political Awareness: The Battle for the Hearts and Minds of Northern Nationalists’, in P. Teague (ed.) Beyond the Rhetoric: Politics, the Economy and Social Policy in Northern Ireland, London: Lawrence and Wishart. Ryan, M. (1995) War and Peace in Ireland, London: Pluto Press. Shirlow, P. and McEvoy, K. (2008) Beyond the Wire: Former Political Prisoners and Conflict Transformation in Northern Ireland, London: Pluto. Shirlow, P. and McGovern, M. (1998) ‘Language, Discourse and Dialogue: Sinn Féin and the Irish Peace Process’, Political Geography 17(2): 171–186.

142   P. Shirlow et al. Shirlow, P. and Murtagh, B. (2006) Belfast: Segregation, Violence and the City, London: Pluto. Shirlow, P., Tonge, J., McAuley, J. and McGlynn, C. (2010) Abandoning the Past? Former Political Prisoners and Political Reconciliation in Northern Ireland, Manchester: Manchester University Press. Smith, M. (1997) Fighting for Ireland? The Military Strategy of the Irish Republican Movement, London: Routledge. Smyth, J. (2005) ‘The Road to God Knows Where: Understanding Irish Republicanism’, Capital and Class 86: 135–156. Stedman-­Jones, G. (1983) Languages of Class: Studies in English Working Class History, 1832–1982, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Tonge, J. (2005) The New Northern Irish Politics?, New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Tonge, J. (2006) Northern Ireland, Cambridge: Polity. Zartman, I. (2003) ‘The Timing of Peace Initiatives: Hurting Stalemates and Ripe Moments’, in J. Darby and R. MacGinty (eds) Contemporary Peacemaking. Conflict, Violence and Peace Processes, Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan.

10 Imagining ‘a shared future’ Post-­conflict discourses on peace-­building Milena Komarova

The Belfast/Good Friday Agreement (1998) recognised the political rights of the two main communities in Northern Ireland and enabled their expression in political institutions. Early analyses expressed concerns that the Agreement might be better described as ‘a means of regulating conflict, not transforming it’ (Taylor 2001: 37) but there were still hopes that it would lay the grounds for a new form of politics based on pragmatism, ‘post-­nationalism’ and ‘new citizenship’ (Cochrane 2001). Yet, if the latter were now being expressed through words such as ‘shared’ and ‘integrated society’, what these have meant has remained rather vague and, judging by developments since, in many ways aspirational. The practical implementation of the Agreement has given many reasons to doubt the confidence of earlier prognoses: the recurrent crises of devolution were apparently overcome through the St Andrews Agreement (2006) but the relationship between the parties in Stormont remains best described as ‘fractious’ (BBC Newsnight 24 September 2009). The cracks in political relationships are not least evident in the deadlock over the future Cohesion, Sharing and Integration policy intended to lay down the Executive’s strategy for dealing with sectarianism and racism.1 In addition, there has appeared to have been greater polarisation in voting behaviour (Tonge 2006), persistent levels of residential segregation (e.g. Niens et al. 2003; Shirlow and Murtagh 2006), continued incidents of interface violence and an increasing number of ‘peace walls’ (Jarman 2002; McVeigh and Rolston 2007; although also note McEldowney et al.: Chapter 11). In light of these developments, the words of a community worker from North Belfast ring loudly: ‘We don’t have peace. We have an absence of violence.’2 Perhaps, then, it is not unfounded to ask, beyond the formal functioning of the current political dispensation, what does ‘peace’ actually mean for Northern Ireland ? Does it mean transcending unionism and nationalism in substance (Cochrane 2001)? And, if so, does that entail transforming communal identities or, indeed, altering the way communities and individuals relate to each other in the public sphere? In an attempt to address the above questions, this chapter explores discourses on peace-­building among communities, politicians and public/voluntary bodies in Northern Ireland in the context of the government’s Strategic Policy on Good

144   M. Komarova Relations (OFMDFM 2005) and associated attempts at conceptualising and creating ‘shared space’ in Belfast. Using interview and document analysis, the chapter stresses the existence of different and often conflicting interpretations of the notion of ‘good relations’. It highlights the fact that different interpretations of ‘good relations’ are discursively connected to different types of communal identities. Such interpretations and identities, it argues, profoundly affect the kind of sharing that is understood to be an aim for peace-­building in Northern Ireland. Finally, the chapter queries the influence of these discourses on the dynamic of relationships between different communities in localised everyday contexts. In order to engage in an analysis of discourses on peace-­building I draw on two types of interview and documentary material. First, interviews with participants in the European Union Peace II Programme (community and voluntary organisations, civil servants and elected politicians) and their written responses to the public consultation on A Shared Future (further elaborated in Komarova 2007). In addition, I refer to interviews with members of the Advisory Panel of a major regeneration scheme in North Belfast which were conducted in 2008–9 as a part of an ongoing ESRC research project (2007–12) entitled ‘Conflict in Cities and the Contested State’ (see O’Dowd and Komarova 2009).

The Limits of A Shared Future ‘Community relations’ has been used by government in Northern Ireland almost from the outset of ‘the Troubles’ as an approach to addressing conflict ‘on the ground’, in terms of improving relationships between communities. Fitzduff (1993: 34) describes the overall aim of ‘community relations’ as increasing ‘understanding, respect and co-­operation between communities in working together to develop a solution to conflict that is both just and sustainable’. The meaning and practice of ‘community relations’ in Northern Ireland have shifted over the years: from an openly government-­led venture headed by a Ministry of Community Relations and a Community Relations Commission (1969–74), to being spearheaded by the Community Relations Council (after 1987) in a move to increase the involvement of non-­government and community sectors. As an approach to conflict resolution, ‘community relations’ has been the target of trenchant criticisms. McVeigh (2002) and McVeigh and Rolston (2007) have seen it as an almost completely state-­led project that leaves aside questions of power and the role of the state as a protagonist in the conflict and imposes an artificial symmetry in the relationship between nationalists and unionists. Advocates, however, have seen the later phase in the development of ‘community relations’ as shifting from being ‘symptom driven’ to addressing root causes of conflict by promoting cultural, religious and political pluralism and engaging with the equality agenda (Hughes et al. 2003). The government’s Good Relations Strategy, A Shared Future, published in 2005, embodied this shift. It arose from a commitment in the Programme for [the devolved] Government (2001) to put together a strategy for the promotion

Post-conflict discourses on peace-building   145 of community relations. But why was the term ‘good relations’ used here? The notion of ‘good relations’ had originally been introduced in the local political context through Section 75(2) of the Northern Ireland Act (1998), which tied it to the achievement of equality of opportunity. A subsequent formal review of existing community relations policies acknowledged the compromised nature of the term ‘community relations’ and recommended changing it to ‘good relations’ (Harbison 2002). After a prolonged period of repeated dissolutions of the local Assembly, the Strategy was realised by the Office of the First Minister and Deputy First Minister under direct rule from Westminster. It was preceded by a public consultation exercise. Yet, in many ways, the broad policy aim of developing ‘good relations’ and a ‘shared future’ remains merely aspirational; an idea that in the context of Northern Ireland has been caught up in confusion. Conceptually, the question of the aim of a process of ‘micro’ peace-­building in Northern Ireland is difficult to grapple with as it involves re-­definitions of citizenship and identity. Discursively, different actors in society have differing views as to what ‘shared’/‘integrated’ means as a task for society/communities, who is to work for it, and how. Graham and Nash have argued that the A Shared Future document has addressed with ‘constructive ambiguity’ (2006: 261) the question of: ‘[h]ow effective citizen participation can be achieved in a society that is both socially differentiated and structured through political discourses that are openly antagonistic to pluralistic ideas of hybridity and diversity’ (Graham and Nash 2006: 255). Many responses received through the public consultation exercise further criticised the Good Relations Strategy for lacking working definitions of key terms such as sectarianism, racism, reconciliation, integration and sharing; for being vague on the definition of ‘good relations’, and for inadequately specifying their role in an overall process of peace-­building (see www.asharedfutureni.gov.uk/ index/responses-­atoz.htm). The document does commit to a good relations framework in Northern Ireland that establishes ‘over time . . .a normal, civic society’ where there is ‘equity, respect for diversity and recognition of our interdependence’ (OFMDFM 2005: 10), but it is reasonable to suggest that interpretations of what constitutes a normal civic society may vary. The Strategy’s general commitment to resolving differences through dialogue in the public sphere on the basis of equality does not necessarily tell us much about how differences (and the related notion of identity) are understood and treated in terms of their contribution to the development of positive relationships between communities. Perhaps, in this sense the Good Relations Strategy is not dissimilar to the 1998 Agreement itself which, as Filardo-­Llamas (Chapter 5) argues, has created a paradoxical reality through the very vagueness of its language. This policy weakness of A Shared Future arguably leaves room for utilisation of discourse for disparate political ends. Analysis of the responses of the main political parties to the A Shared Future consultation document, and especially the discourses of Sinn Féin and the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), shows that the notion of ‘good relations’ itself is

146   M. Komarova not necessarily understood as including attempts at cultural and attitudinal change (involving re-­examination of issues of identity and difference), but is rather confined to settling the question (crucial though it is) of equality and human rights in legal and constitutional terms. In fact, the DUP in particular have not made their response to the A Shared Future consultation document publically available. Graham and Nash (2006) maintain that the DUP have not issued such a response and consider this telling of the party’s whole attitude towards the ‘shared future’ agenda. In their response to the A Shared Future consultation document Sinn Féin keep away from any understanding of ‘good relations’ going beyond compliance to Section 75(1) of the Northern Ireland Act (1998) – the commitment to equality: The fact that good relations cannot be allowed to take precedence over equality of opportunity lies at the heart of Section 75 of the NI Act 1998 . . . [G]ood community relations will flow from the achievement of equality and not the other way round. (Sinn Féin 2003: 5) This emphasis on the primacy of the statutory duty to promote equality of opportunity over the ‘good relations’ duty is firmly embedded within Sinn Féin’s political priority of addressing historical unionist-­maintained structural inequality between nationalist and unionist communities in Northern Ireland. It is also carried over to the party’s own version of a would-­be Executive Programme for Cohesion, Sharing and Integration, entitled Rights and Respect, where the party distinctively stresses the pre-­eminence of equality over good relations (Sinn Féin 2009: 7). In a recent interview, a Sinn Féin member of the Assembly elaborates on this position: The Shared Future agenda is one of the residues from direct rule. The Shared Future agenda doesn’t look at equality. The Shared Future agenda looks at building good relations as a way of delivering harmony. It looks at the symptoms of conflict rather than the causes of conflict.3 One cannot disagree that ‘bringing about a more equal society can help tackle community division and bring about good relations’ (Sinn Féin 2003: 4). However, the de facto implications in the above statements that all dimensions of ‘good relations’ can be collapsed into the task of achieving equality of opportunity, and that ‘good relations’ can simply be understood as a way of delivering harmony (i.e. as irrelevant to addressing the causes of conflict), is problematic. As Amin (2002) suggests, substantive equality is a question internal, not external, to cultural identities and therefore, there needs to be a dimension to ‘good relations’ that incorporates cultural and attitudinal change to difference and asks critical questions about aspects of collective identities in a way that contributes to the development of dialogical relationships between communities and individuals.

Post-conflict discourses on peace-building   147 That the defence and preservation of communal identities is important from the point of view of the two main political parties is suggested in their discourses. For instance, both working versions of a Cohesion, Sharing and Integration Policy (OFMDFM 2008, publicly released by Sinn Féin and by the DUP in September 2009) specifically stress the themes of promotion of and respect for different cultural identities. The rather generic treatment of ‘identity’ as a subset of ‘culture’ in both documents follows the lead of the A Shared Future document, which stated that ‘addressing diversity through culture is crucial in promoting good relations’ (OFMDFM 2005: 31). However, as Catherine Nash (2005: 293) points out, the use of the idiom of ‘culture’ in the context of continued division, albeit as an attempt to constructively shift the meanings of ‘identity’, ‘tradition’ and ‘heritage’, has ambiguous effects: ‘arguments for tolerance of diversity can be used to legitimate separatist versions of cultural difference and sometimes antagonistic expressions of tradition’. I want to highlight the fact that various identity discourses bear in divergent ways upon an understanding both of the conflict in Northern Ireland, and of ‘good relations’ as an aspect of building a shared society. By extension, I argue further on, such discourses also bear on the practical task of developing and participating in shared space.

Good relations, collective identities and shared space In remarking upon the relationship between discourse and social identities, Fraser (1997) suggests that public spheres are not only arenas for the formation of discursive opinion, but also for the formation and enactment of social identities. Therefore, she says, ‘participation means being able to speak in one’s own voice, and thereby simultaneously to construct and express one’s cultural identity through idiom and style’ (Fraser 1997: 126). An issue of analytical importance, found in the work of public sphere theorists, which is closely related to the above point, is that there should be a critical dialogue and reflection in the public sphere about the very identities of groups that promise to challenge the hidden logic of the categories of power and hierarchy associated with them (Benhabib 2002; McBride 2005). Analysis of interviews and documents from my research suggests that in Northern Ireland there is divergence of public discourses on this issue. I find some of these discourses are problematic to the extent to which they refuse to see communal identities as potentially open to public scrutiny and examination, and refute the necessity of negotiation of relationships between the public themselves, instead seeing peace­building as only a matter for legislation and state intervention. The DUP representatives interviewed, for instance, did not believe that the democratisation of relationships between communities requires an examination of the traditions implicated in them. Some such interviewees tended to prioritise the importance of respecting ‘difference’ over the question of how to build on difference while helping inter-­communal relationships evolve in a democratic way. In the extract below, the interviewee from the DUP comments on the two

148   M. Komarova alternatives presented in the A Shared Future consultation document, namely between concentrating on managing the worst consequences of division and promoting a more ‘integrated’ and ‘shared’ society: ‘managing difference’ makes it imply as though difference is wrong. Difference isn’t wrong. . . . If we moved to a point at which people can accept others for where they are and what they are – [we] don’t have to agree with them but if we move to the point where difference is accepted and respected then I think that that is the sort of society that we want. But I don’t believe that we can achieve a peaceful society by simply expecting everyone to abandon all that they’ve known and all that they believe and sort of become sandal-­wearing-hug-­everybody sort of people, you know.4 While the speaker interprets the expression ‘managing difference’ as implying ‘that difference is wrong’, one could point out that the expression is used in the A Shared Future consultation document to create a contrast between two possible approaches to building a common future – management of conflict and integration. The notional stress in the document is on the ways to live with difference rather than seeing ‘difference’ itself as a problem. However, by interpreting it as negating difference, the interviewee creates his own contrast between the positively termed ‘acceptance and respect for difference’, and the rather undesirable option of uncritically abandoning all one’s beliefs. The effect is to misplace the argument in the A Shared Future and thus emphasise the importance of difference over the problem of how to build on it in order to retain or create positive relationships. Different notions of ‘shared space’ The discourses of the two main political parties on dealing with ‘difference’, ‘identity’ and ‘sharing’ can be contextualised if we looked at how the parties apply their understanding of these notions to the question of ‘shared space’. The creation of shared space as an aspect of promoting sharing in society in Northern Ireland has been a part of the A Shared Future strategy (2005: 21) where it is described as: ‘developing and protecting town and city centres as safe and welcoming places’; ‘creating safe and shared space for meeting, sharing, playing, working and living’; and ‘freeing the public realm from threat, aggression and intimidation while allowing for legitimate expression of cultural celebration’. Yet, research on public space in Belfast has highlighted the intrinsic problems in defining and shaping public space as shared in a city that has experienced prolonged ethno-­national conflict (Gaffikin et al. 2008). Because the notion of ‘shared space’ is but one aspect of the policy approaches needed to achieve some degree of sharing among communities in Northern Ireland it bears all the difficulties associated with defining what ‘shared’ means and with coming to a common understanding of it. Although Sinn Féin does not put a notional stress on ‘difference’ and ‘tradition’ in the same manner as some representatives of DUP did in interviews, in its

Post-conflict discourses on peace-building   149 response to the A Shared Future consultation the party highlights an understanding of ‘neutrality’ or ‘parity of esteem’ as guiding the relationships between communities in Northern Ireland. Interestingly, it applies this understanding directly to the notion of ‘civic space’: The use of civic space which is shared by people from different community backgrounds should be guided by the principle of cultural equality or neutrality. Parity of esteem as enshrined in the Good Friday Agreement has yet to be given effect in practical terms. (Sinn Féin 2003: 2) Further on in its response, Sinn Féin describes the A Shared Future consultation document as having ignored the findings of the Harbison Review that ‘homogenisation’ (i.e. the attempt to create a single Northern Ireland identity) should be rejected. In this way Sinn Féin creates its own contrast – between ‘neutrality’ and ‘homogenisation’ – out of which, unavoidably, neutrality comes out as a fairer and preferred option. The demand for acknowledging cultures as equal in this discourse is an argument for the legal affirmation of cultural differences that appears to perceive cultures as homogenous wholes. In its Rights and Respect document, however, Sinn Féin de-­emphasised the notion of ‘neutrality’ by stating: It is also important that shared spaces and facilities are welcoming to everyone in the community. This does not mean ‘neutralising’ the area or facilities but creating a welcoming and harmonious environment which reflects and [sic] identities and minority ethnic groups in a culture of mutual respect. (Sinn Féin 2009: 18) Yet ‘harmonious’ can only mean something different to ‘neutral’ if there is an acceptance of an honest dialogue about such aspects of public celebrations and expressions of identity which, albeit peaceful, can still be an expression of unequal relationships. Despite not having issued a formal response to the A Shared Future strategy, DUP representatives made a point of openly embracing the spirit of this policy document and even to adamantly defending the need to embed it in every policy context. DUP blamed Sinn Féin for the long delay in publishing a new Good Relations/Cohesion, Sharing and Integration Strategy and expressed outrage at Sinn Féin’s withdrawal from negotiations on this strategy in the Executive (BBC Newsnight 24 September 2009). However, as an extract from an interview with a DUP local assembly member suggests, this idea of sharing does not necessarily extend beyond that of homogenous cultures/communities recognising each other in public space: The DUP are very much committed to a shared and better future. . . . For me [it] is a future where you respect equality, you respect diversity and you

150   M. Komarova respect interdependence. . . . It’s something that needs to be applied to education, it needs to be applied to housing and it needs to be applied to open space. And I think that’s the most difficult area for Sinn Féin because no longer would you be able to say that the Springfield Road is a Nationalist road. If it’s a main road – it’s a shared road and it should be accessible for people to use. And come a particular day in June, if members of the Orange Order want to use that road they have every right to use it. . . .5 Overall, one is left with the impression that, in predominant party discourses, ‘good relations’ and sharing in Northern Ireland are defined as ‘a question of a struggle over rights and claims rather than as questions of civic identity or shared social values’ (Amin 2002: 967). Furthermore, an understanding of cultures/ identities as homogenous directly translates onto a spatial understanding of ‘sharing’ as embodying the principle of neutrality or the right to use public space. By contrast, one might want to argue that shared space needs to be about leaving openings for identities to change and evolve, rather than serving as a stage for a simple appreciation and celebration of cultural identities and diversity (Young 1990). The written responses to the A Shared Future consultation by some of the high profile non-­government organisations in Northern Ireland suggest precisely the latter view as they attempt to articulate in a more clear-­cut manner the relationship between communal identities and ‘good relations’. The Community Foundation for Northern Ireland (CFNI), for instance, elaborates on the link between the right to assert one’s identity and creating a democratic context in society that recognises the limits of cultural and political expression: There is . . . a need for a collective discussion about what aspects of the assertion of identity are an acceptable manifestation of cultural diversity and expression as opposed to being viewed as intimidating and unacceptable. This might relate to parades, festivals, marches or to the display of flags and emblems. (Community Foundation for Northern Ireland 2003: 3) From this point in their response to the A Shared Future consultation the CFNI ponders how the link between asserting collective identities and democratic relationships in society might begin to be addressed. It asks: ‘whether all aspects of culture and traditions automatically demand respect, encouragement and celebration. Possibly we need to engage in a collective and inclusive listing of potentially controversial traditions and then subject them to scrutiny’ (Community Foundation for Northern Ireland 2003: 5).

Discourses of division and sharing (em)placed Extracts from interviews with community workers and community group members from various parts of Northern Ireland reveal a varied picture with

Post-conflict discourses on peace-building   151 respect to the meaning and importance given to communal identities, division and sharing. In an attempt to interpret these, it is essential to highlight that narratives of social identities are necessarily contextually constructed and have to be seen as such. The spaces and places within which identity is constructed, (re) negotiated and in relation to which it is narrated, constitute an inseparable part of those identities. The above point finds many resonances in Belfast – a city with high rates of ethno-­national spatial divisions. As Neill (2004) points out, one of the key characteristics of the social geography of Belfast is the contentious spatialisation of identity.6 Murtagh (2008: 3) emphasises that, while processes of economic liberalisation and globalisation have helped produce gentrified and mixed-­ religion ‘new spaces’ in the city in the past ten years, ‘old spaces’ where ethno-­ religious segregation is concomitant with multiple deprivation have remained ‘largely untouched by the peace dividend and economic modernity’. The implication of this, as Murtagh (2008) suggests, is that the material relevance of ‘traditional binary identities’ varies according to class and is differently expressed in different spaces in the city. By extension, as interviews demonstrate, inter-­ communal divisions and how these can be addressed (specifically through the development and use of shared space) are differently understood and articulated. The above point is exemplified in the very contrast between the role and importance ascribed to communal identities in interviews and documents by large public bodies and voluntary organisations, and that ascribed to them by community members and workers from interface areas in Belfast. The former emphasise the need to be less concerned with traditional communal identities in a process of peace-­building: ‘we are trying to move the discussion towards not who-­you-are or what-­you-are but are you making significant contribution towards building positive relationships’.7 Yet, contested concepts of place and territory were embedded in the narration of communal identities by interviewees from interface areas. As community workers from both sides of the divide in North Belfast succinctly put it: You know, it’s all very fine talking about shared space whenever you’ve got a decent job but whenever you are actually struggling to make ends meet it’s much more difficult and also if you’re actually being wound up by certain politicians who are in favour of a certain agenda.8 The bit that annoys me is when people, you know, that have never lived in this world – middle class people talking – they don’t have a clue. It’s another world!9 That contestation of place and territory is not only a context for, but is an inextricable part of, communal identities is evident in the following extract. In it the possibility of building a residential development as a part of a large regeneration scheme in North Belfast, which is planned for as a ‘shared space’, is discussed by a unionist community representative. While the interviewee does not object to the idea of ‘shared space’ as such she recognises that the higher

152   M. Komarova housing demand among nationalist communities in the area will likely result in more Catholics being allocated a home within a would-­be residential development and sees this as preventing Protestants from living in, or even using, the same space: For us the housing thing is contentious because it’s all about territory and you know there’s still walls up in North Belfast. . . . It’s about fear; from both communities point of view it’s about fear. . . . I am not denying that there is a need, but I want a wall built around it! Have your houses! But then don’t say to me, you know, that will be closed off from what’s gonna be called ‘shared space’.10 The above extract brings out fear of ‘the other’ as definitive for community in territorially contentious spaces. A different type of fear – of the erosion of communal identity – was expressed by a community worker in a Protestant area: I think, well, this is what I feel – people are saying to me . . . that they feel withering down of their culture and whatever identity they did have. . . . Like, the RUC and bits and pieces like that, you know, the RIR [Royal Irish Regiment], you know – everything is gone for them, they are not allowed to have the Queen now in police stations and all that – those wee things that they would identify with: the flag at Stormont, you know, simple things. That’s what I hear. . . . [I]f you’re feeling low yourself in having confidence, stripping all that stuff off isn’t gonna help, you know.11 One of the consequences of this type of understanding of communal identity for a view of peace-­building is that changes in particular identities are interpreted as losing one’s identity altogether. This sometimes translates into a particular understanding of ‘single-­identity work’12 as an approach to community/ good relations based around the necessity to build up confidence in one’s own identity and culture. The danger here, though, is that looking at one’s own identity is not understood as a process that could potentially problematise exclusivist versions of community, but is seen as a way to counteract ‘others’. Extracts from interviews with nationalist community representatives from interface areas in Belfast also indicate that community is seen in territorial terms, i.e. that it depends on establishing, maintaining and controlling an overlap between cultural identity and place: Well, actually, there’s probably a feeling that . . . because it was the nationalist community that suffered the occupation of that site by the British Army throughout the conflict . . . it was effectively seen as nationalist land that was occupied so I mean I suppose if you are going into the territory thing then people are sorta saying, ‘Oh, if [the site] becomes available then [this nationalist community] will move in and [that nationalist community] will move in’ and that’s what will happen.13

Post-conflict discourses on peace-building   153 This latter extract clearly demonstrates not only that contested concepts of place and territory are embedded in an understanding of communal identity but that the claim to belong to a particular place is linked to a broader dynamic of power or unequal social relations; it is to some extent even defined by the very understanding of the place occupied by the communities the participant speaks of within a broader set of social and political relations.

What do discourses matter? One of the implications of the discussion so far is that the political Agreement itself has been little able to effect any real transformation of ethno-­national divisions in society and politics in Northern Ireland. If anything, the exploration of narratives on good relations and sharing emphasised that these are still to a large extent structured through essentialist discourses of communal identities, shared among the main political parties now in office and by some communities themselves. This point was demonstrated in part by drawing on narratives about shared space – its meaning and (im)possibilities. Including ‘space’ into this discussion has had a double-­fold utility: it has contextualised discourses on ‘good relations’ and ‘sharing’ and in this way has helped to narrow their meaning; to demonstrate that behind a generic agreement for ‘sharing’ stand very different political positions. More broadly speaking, it has allowed to skew the discussion toward what Hayward (Chapter 1) calls ‘the enigmatic relationship’ of discourses as a topic of study with practice and context. I want to use this point in asserting (by drawing on a broadly post-­ structuralist conception of discourse, after Laclau and Mouffe [1990]) that a wider understanding of discourse as language and social practice is more attuned to the processes of enactment of identities in micro-­contexts than the simple attention to language. Indeed, others have suggested that post-­ structuralist discourse theory offers a way for a more nuanced understanding of the discursive processes through which identities develop (Ho and Tsang 2000; Thrift 2003; Müller 2008). I would propose that such an understanding of discourse is potentially more helpful in developing a realistic perspective on how peace-­building/improving relationships between communities can and does work on the ground, in localised everyday life contexts. Beyond that the question remains: what is the significance of such localised discourses and how do they relate to wider political and societal discourses? Müller (2008: 324) points out that the analysis of discourses through texts often misses ‘important sites of geopolitical production’ and argues in favour of increased attention to practices in the everyday making of geography. This, he says, allows for an understanding of subjectivity (and identity) as contextually constructed and, we might add, situationally mobilised, e.g. it allows for the contingency of subject positions, for an appreciation of them as always partial, incomplete and in a process of change. Even whenever people see their own identities in essentialised terms, identity is always in a process of (re)negotiation. Therefore, as Müller (2008: 335) says, it is ‘especially within the enactment of

154   M. Komarova identities by ordinary people and in micro-­contexts that the concept of discourse as language and social practice can draw our attention to the little things that have too often been overlooked’. The above position partly draws on Judith Butler’s (1993) focus on performing or enacting identities (as referred to in Müller 2008) seen as a way to both repeat and articulate established discourses and at the same time to subvert and challenge them. The emplaced performance of identity is then not only a way of re-­enacting underlying norms and beliefs but also of challenging them. The following example from an interview with a community worker from a local community organisation in Belfast shows that engaging in community development activities locally offers a way towards a more flexible understanding and practice of collective identities, such that contributes to learning how to live with difference even within the confines of communal or ‘ethnic’ space: [L]ast year we had [this person] from the Grand Lodge to come in to maybe dispel some of them myths associated with that. And I found it to be a brilliant exercise because people had this picture painted in their head about what the Orange Lodge was. I’m not telling you that the Orange Lodge is a good thing now but at least it broke down some of the stuff that was there. . . . So, with the workshops we were sorta saying, ‘Say, if we allowed all that, say if we took away the Blue Band parade and put away para­ military flags, what is it you oppose?’ And people are sorta going, ‘No, I just don’t like them anyway’. And you’re going, ‘But why?’14 Another example of local spatial practices is the work of community workers in managing controversial events (parades, riots). This can be seen as creating a working regulatory practice for the use of space that perhaps gradually influences the content of the events themselves. These processes of interaction remain largely hidden from the public eye and though they are often commented on in research, their very dynamic has not been overly researched. It remains to be explored whether examples like the above can and do lead to a different kind of identification with space. The above notwithstanding, the question remains, what is the significance of such localised discourses on relationships and identity and do these relate in a meaningful way to broader social and political discourses and policy frameworks? I would suggest that in looking for a conceptual framework to help us account for this link we might find Bourdieu’s notion of habitus useful. As Hillier and Rooksby (2005) point out the notion introduces a relational dimension between culture, social structure and action, showing how actors reproduce the social order but also rework and contest it. Bourdieu (1990: 53) defines habitus as ‘a system of durable, transposable dispositions . . . predisposed to functions as . . . principles which generate and organise practices and representations’. Hillier and Rooksby (2005: 21) observe, that ‘[h]abitus is thus a sense of one’s (and others’) place and role in the world of one’s lived environment’; it is ‘an embodied, as well as a cognitive, sense of place’. Habitus then helps

Post-conflict discourses on peace-building   155 demonstrate that there is a dialectical relationship between the politics and culture of a democratic public sphere, the practices of governance, of everyday life, and the constitution of identities in localised socio-­spatial contexts. Thus, in the same way as there is a distinctive habitus of communities that affords them their own sense of place (in a democratic public sphere and in physical space/neighbourhoods) there is also a certain habitus of politicians, of government departments and of local government that influences the way they relate to each other and (mis)recognise each others’ place, say in the politics of ‘good relations’. The link or, as the case might be, ‘the gap’ (following Hillier 2005) between political discourses, policy approaches to developing good relations and shared space, the activities of community groups, and communal practices – contains ‘hidden transcripts of private and public deals, favours, cultural traditions, demagogic posturing’ (Hillier 2005: 183), an all-­powerful fear of ‘the other’, mistrust among working class communities towards the middle class, government departments (civil servants) and even large voluntary organisations, seen as powerful and unfair ‘others’.

Conclusion This chapter started by asking what ‘peace’ actually means as a task for society and communities in Northern Ireland. Its attempt to address this question was based on the premise that exploration of how people talk and write about ‘good relations’, sharing and communal identities reveals something of what is understood to be an aim for peace-­building here. The discussion revealed that discourses on ‘good relations’ are still to a large extent structured through essentialist narratives of communal identities. Exploring the way in which such narratives are applied to the task of developing ‘shared space’ in Belfast was instrumental in drawing attention to the fact that discourses are always and invariably situated productions and need to be analysed as such. As Leach (2005) points out, identity is never abstractly narrated but always contextualised and inscribed around certain objects. It also occurs the other way around: the built environment is embedded and given meaning in various discourses through which people make sense of themselves. For that reason, inter-­ communal divisions and how these can be addressed are issues understood, experienced and articulated differently in the same measure in which communal identities are differently inscribed into the spatial and physical fabric of the city. Beyond an appreciation of the importance of discourse as language in both signifying and shaping various collective imaginaries, it was asserted that localised practices of group identity can perpetuate, change (and sometimes manufacture) cultural and historical traditions. An understanding of collective identity, and of how relationships between communities need to be constituted, is embedded in the meaning and use of space at the level of everyday life. It influences the degree and effectiveness with which everyday spaces can function as sites of ‘cultural transgressions’.15

156   M. Komarova Last but not least, discourses which are contextualised and given meaning through localised everyday practices cannot be abstracted from the politics and culture of a democratic public sphere. As Mouffe (2005: 114) points out, a conception of the subject cannot be ‘abstracted from social and power relations, language, culture and the whole set of practices that make agency possible’. These are all parts of a democratic habitus.

Notes   1 It was announced in February 2010 that the First and Deputy First Ministers had agreed a Programme for Cohesion, Sharing and Integration (BBC News, 23 February 2010) as a part of the implementation of the Hillsborough Agreement (2010) on policing and justice powers. However, at the time of writing, an actual document is yet to be published and be distributed for public consultation.   2 Contribution to roundtable discussion, ‘Conflict in Cities’ project workshop, Belfast, September 2008.   3 Interview with Sinn Féin representative for the ‘Conflict in Cities’ research project, February 2009.   4 Interview with DUP representative for doctoral research, October 2005.   5 Interview with DUP MLA for the ‘Conflict in Cities’ research project, February 2009.   6 Figures from the Belfast City Council indicate that ‘more than half of the city’s population now lives in wards that are either 90 per cent Protestant or 90 per cent Catholic community background’ (Belfast City Council 2007: 6).   7 Civil servant, interview for doctoral research, December 2005.   8 Contribution to roundtable discussion, ‘Conflict in Cities’ project workshop, Belfast, September 2008.   9 Interview with community worker, North Belfast, for ‘Conflict in Cities’ research project, July 2008. 10 Interview with community worker, North Belfast, for ‘Conflict in Cities’ research project, July 2008. 11 Interview with community worker, North Belfast, for doctoral research, September 2005. 12 This is one type of ‘community relations’ work that has been widely used within the European Peace Programmes in Northern Ireland). Church et al. (2002: 11) describe it as encompassing a variety of initiatives, ranging from confidence building to ‘respect for diversity’work. 13 Interview with community worker, North Belfast, for ‘Conflict in Cities’ research project, June 2008. 14 Interview with community worker, North Belfast, for doctoral research, June 2005. 15 The term is used by Amin (2002) to denote a process of learning to be different through new kinds of cross-­cultural interactions.

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11 Sectarian demography Dubious discourses of ethno-­national conflict Owen McEldowney, James Anderson and Ian Shuttleworth Demography is often highly – and misleadingly – politicised in ethno-­national conflicts. The relative numbers or ‘balance’ of rival population groups, their differential birth and death rates, migration patterns, spatial distributions, segregation or mixing, can all become vested with crucial political importance on the supposition they could affect the outcome of the conflict. Thus the ways in which such data are represented or misrepresented, and how demographic trends are perceived by the contending groups, can ameliorate or exacerbate the conflict itself. Against this background, the chapter analyses recent discourses surrounding Censuses of Population in Northern Ireland, much of them involving speculation about expected results rather than reporting the actual data collected. The discourses are epitomised by the headlines ‘Catholics Outbreeding Protestants’ and ‘Growing Apartheid’. Ethno-­national conflicts – in Northern Ireland and in Palestine/Israel, Belgium, Quebec and Lebanon, for example – are shaped by demography because they are partly about demography. The numbers physically occupying particular territories become ‘the facts on the ground’ materially and symbolically asserting ethno-­ national ownership – the policy of Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian West Bank a case in point. And in modern democratic contexts, when populations are voters as well as occupiers of land, territories become constituencies to be won, and ethno-­national conflicts reflect rival quests for ‘democratic majorities’. They are ‘democracy’s dark side’ – a term used by Michael Mann (2005) for ‘ethnic cleansing’ but appropriate for ethno-­national conflicts in general. Population numbers, mediated by political factors, create political expectations; and how groups are spatially separated or mixed shapes their social relations. Censuses and population data therefore become weapons to be used or abused by protagonists and ‘conflict managers’. The questions asked – and not asked – have ‘created identities’ and are still ‘inextricably embroiled in politics’ (Kertzer and Arel 2002: 2, 7, 18). Censuses established the practice of using questions about religion or language as ‘indirect markers’ of ethno-­national identity, but they are only approximations and can be misleading1 (e.g. not all of Ireland’s Catholics are or were Irish nationalist, nor all its Protestants British unionist). In other situations, the problem may be that there simply are no data to either confirm or counter ‘common-­sense’ assessments; censuses may be postponed or cancelled, for instance, because of conflict or their own de-­stabilising potential to create conflict.2

Dubious discourses of ethno-national conflict   161 In Northern Ireland, however, the main problem is not so much the unavailability of data but rather misinterpretations of the data available. The ‘religion question’ and data unavailability did contribute to errors and exaggerations in public discourses about the 1991 Census, but the errors were repeated and compounded in 2001. These errors have to be challenged by re-­analysing the data, but the problem is more than a question of facts. Some of the exaggerations seemed intentional in their unrelieved ‘negativity’, perhaps even disinformation. Official figures may be presented as an indisputable record of ‘the facts on the ground’ but in reality statistics may simply give a ‘scientific’ veneer to dubious political conclusions. In ethno-­ national conflicts these are typically ‘over-­ethnicised’, as in Northern Ireland where much is ‘explained’ in terms of ‘Catholics and Protestants’, sectarian causes and sectarian effects. Endlessly repeated in popular culture and the public media, such discourses are mutually reinforcing and difficult to dislodge. They need to be carefully deconstructed to see how and why they persist, though simply criticising them as ideas can only go so far. The over-­emphasis on ethnic categories in isolation needs to be countered and contextualised in material practice by trans-­ethnic and trans-­national categories (see Allen and Seaton 1999), and most notably by social class which has been the main conceptual victim of ‘ethnicisation’. Census analysis is as much a political battlefield as a statistical exercise. Whilst acknowledging that the roots of demographic exaggeration and error existed long before the ‘Troubles’ erupted again in 1969, this chapter concentrates mainly on discourses in the media around the two Censuses of 1991 and 2001. This covers a pivotal period in the ‘peace process’, straddling the paramilitary ceasefires of the mid-­1990s, the 1998 Belfast/Good Friday Agreement (hereinafter the ‘1998 Agreement’), and its ongoing implementation. We analyse the structure of the discourses, how they have evolved (or otherwise), and the basis of their continuing appeal, despite their sometimes outrageously flawed arguments. But why might census data be so poorly analysed and misleadingly publicised, as if a ‘divided society’ is not divided enough? We consider some of the possible reasons for painting a bad situation as much worse than it already is.

Demography and sectarianism Demographic concerns in Northern Ireland have been intensifying as the numbers of Protestants and Catholics have converged over recent decades (to respectively about 53 per cent and 44 per cent of the total population in 2001), while at the same time the ‘two communities’ have allegedly been ‘growing apart’. Contrary to Kertzer’s and Arel’s (2002) ‘postmodern constructivism’, the Census in Ireland did not ‘create’ the religious categories of ethno-­nationalism; these stem from the sectarian policies of the Tudor English state during the Protestant Reformation and long pre-­date regular censuses. But the 1911 Census was central to the creation of the Northern Ireland statelet and the abuse of census data has developed into an art form. Demography as sectarian head-­counting has been a built-­in feature of popular politics in Northern Ireland since Ireland’s partition in 1920. Protestants in the

162   O. McEldowney et al. nine-­county province of Ulster had provided the main ‘unionist’ opposition to Irish nationalist ‘Home Rule’ (to them ‘Rome rule’ due to Ireland’s Roman Catholic majority); but when they could no longer block ‘Home Rule’ their ‘least-­worst’ option became the partition opt-­out. However, the most recent (1911) Census showed that in Ulster the Protestants (assumed to be unionist) had only a small majority over Catholics (assumed nationalists), 56 per cent to 44 per cent. And so the British government as the imperial nationalist power imposed a ‘settlement’ (Anderson and O’Dowd 2007): it delimited Northern Ireland not as all nine Ulster counties but as six, the largest area it was thought could be securely held in full union with Britain (though two of the six had small but clear Catholic majorities: Fermanagh 56 per cent Catholic, Tyrone 55 per cent). Some 300,000 Protestants in the three excluded Ulster counties and the rest of Ireland were ‘sacrificed’ (or ‘thrown out of the lifeboat’ as they saw it) to secure for the roughly 900,000 Protestants within a six-­county Northern Ireland a ‘safe’ two-­to-one majority. But this majority is ‘safe’ no longer. Interestingly, the 2001 figure for Catholics within the ‘six counties’, 44 per cent, is now virtually the same as the figure for Catholics in the ‘nine counties’ in 1911; and Northern Ireland’s six-­county Protestant percentage has now dropped from roughly 66 per cent to 53 per cent (below the figure of 56 per cent for Ulster as a whole that was considered an ‘unsafe’ majority in 1911). This simple fact has been misleadingly perceived as an imminent threat/promise of ending the political union with Britain; but not surprisingly it has had profound and reverse (albeit difficult to quantify) effects on the ‘political confidence’ of unionists and nationalists and politics within Northern Ireland. It is a major reason for the intensified preoccupation with demography. From the 1920s to 1960s, the two-­to-one Protestant majority was maintained because the generally higher birth rate among Catholics was offset by their relatively higher emigration rate – itself a function of various individual and institutional forms of socio-­economic, employment and political discrimination practised mainly by Protestants/unionists. But in the 1970s, with Catholic emigration rates decreasing (helped by Direct Rule from London), and the higher Catholic birth rate continuing, there was a substantial convergence in the relative numbers in Northern Ireland. Indeed many commentators predicted a Catholic majority with numerical parity or near parity expected from the 1991 Census and an outright majority by 2001. In the event, Catholics increased to (only?) about 42 per cent in 1991, and the 44 per cent figure a decade later suggested a marked decline in the rate of relative growth. Spatial segregation There have been alleged causal links in Northern Ireland between spatial segregation and political polarisation and violence. The communal conflict is indeed often virulent, but this is at least partly due to the fact that the two groups are geographically intermingled and socially similar. In consequence, it may be

Dubious discourses of ethno-national conflict   163 argued that the sectarian or ethnic boundaries do not occur ‘naturally’ but have to be ‘worked at’, and spatial segregation is an important means of maintaining them. No one should dispute the fact that Northern Ireland has long been highly segregated, that segregation further increased after 1969, and that violence has continued since the 1998 Agreement, albeit at reduced and less lethal levels. Nor is there any dispute that there can be significant connections between segregation and polarisation. But alarm bells should ring when it is argued or implied that polarisation has worsened since the ceasefires and the 1998 Agreement, and that a supposed increase in segregation since then is either a direct measure or a cause of this.

Media coverage of the Censuses Media coverage around the 1991 Census In asserting growing sectarian ‘apartheid’ and an imminent Catholic majority, the discourses before and after the 1991 Census were unusually misleading. This was at least in part due to straightforward errors of analysis, yet in some respects the later discourses have been even more sensationalist. Mistakes made in the early 1990s were repeated in the discourses before and after the 2001 Census when abuses and neglect of the statistics appeared to be more politically motivated. In previous work, we focused on the 1991 discourses as ‘sectarian readings of sectarianism’ which replicated and encouraged the very sectarian phenomena they purported to analyse or criticise (Anderson and Shuttleworth 1994, 1998). We found they involved three basic errors. First, there was generally a failure to take account of incomplete and varying responses to the question on ‘religious affiliation’. A small minority, which included atheists and others who objected on principle to ‘sectarian categorisation’ by the state, refused to answer the question. So did some nationalists and unionists for various political reasons, and this data problem was exacerbated by mostly Catholics refusing in 1971 while more Protestants refused in 1991. This had the effect of inflating the relative Catholic increase 1971–91. In part to redress this problem, the 2001 Census added a question on ‘community background’ (as nearly everyone from Ireland has either a ‘Catholic’ or a ‘Protestant’ one), and the published figures on ‘Catholic’ and ‘Protestant’ numbers were pre-­adjusted to take non-­responses into account. There was also an ‘Other’ category (about 3 per cent in 2001) which includes the recently increased immigrant population whose ‘community background’ does not imply (the still open question of ) their political or electoral preferences in Northern Ireland. However these new categories cannot be used to directly analyse inter-­census change unless and until they are repeated in 2011. The second problem in 1991 stemmed from a boycott of the 1981 Census by nationalists supporting IRA prisoners on hunger strike, which meant the analysis of change had to span two decades, 1971–91. The birth rate differential between Catholics and Protestants was actually greater in the 1970s and was already substantially reduced by 1991. But people erroneously extrapolated the 1970s

164   O. McEldowney et al. trend into the 1980s, and then the 1971–91 trend into the 1990s and beyond – as if it was fixed or constant. The effects of the 1970s differential were reported in the present tense in the early 1990s, when it was already becoming a thing of the past. Third, the rate of increase in segregation, 1971–91, was similarly exaggerated and misleadingly extrapolated as, again, much of the real segregation increase happened early in the period (the most dramatic forced housing moves happened between 1969 and 1972 (see Boal et al. 1976; Poole and Doherty 1996). And here there was an additional miscalculation. A clear source was David McKittrick, respected Ireland correspondent for the London Independent, in an article entitled ‘Apartheid deepens on streets of Ulster: Alarming new statistics show the extent of Northern Ireland segregation’ (Independent on Sunday 21 March 1993). This article, much quoted and repeated in the Northern Ireland media, reported an (unidentified) ‘unpublished analysis’ of 1991 Census data which showed that half of Northern Ireland’s population lived in electoral wards which were more than 90 per cent Protestant or 90 per cent Catholic, and that since 1971 the number of these segregated areas had more than doubled: wards over 90 per cent Protestant had doubled, while wards over 90 per cent Catholic had almost trebled – ‘large sections of the population are literally strangers to one another’. However, aside from questionable implications that the separation process was inexorable, and that people lived their lives wholly within their wards of residence, the ‘unpublished analysis’ ignored the substantial increase in the total number of wards since 1971, and the fact that the 1991 ones were, on average, smaller, and more homogeneous. We estimated that this accounted for half the apparent growth in segregation, and that segregation increase was exaggerated at least two-­fold (Anderson and Shuttleworth 1998). A later, more accurate analysis using standard one-­kilometre grid squares for 1971, 1991 and 2001 (Shuttleworth and Lloyd 2009) revealed that the exaggeration was in fact substantially greater than we had estimated. Media coverage around the 2001 Census It was against this background that we decided to extend the survey of media coverage of demography to the pivotal period of the ‘peace process’. We analysed the discourses before and after publication of the 2001 Census, how they compared with those of the early 1990s, and with our own analysis of the available statistics.3 This confirmed that the discourses are best seen as various themes coalescing into two related and overlapping ‘master-­narratives’: first, ‘The Numbers Game’ of Catholic growth/Protestant decline, apparently with implications for the very existence of Northern Ireland; and, second, ‘Growing Apartheid ’ – a continuing increase in Protestant/Catholic segregation and polarisation, with implications for the quality of life within Northern Ireland and ultimately its functional ‘ungovernability’. While ‘Catholic growth’ was substantially inflated, ‘Growing Apartheid’ turned out to be a gross exaggeration – indeed there was probably a slight decrease in overall segregation by 2001. But by then the twin discourses had taken on a life of their own more or less regardless of evidence. For example, there was heightened rhetoric about alleged ‘ethnic cleansing’; and the perceptions of ‘increasing

Dubious discourses of ethno-national conflict   165 segregation’ had intensified among protagonists on all sides of the conflict. There were some changes since 1991, but it seemed that in new circumstances the two basic ‘master-­narratives’ had changed ‘only to stay the same’ (Anderson et al. 2005). We discuss them and question their appeal. Ultimately they are politically counter-­productive, socially damaging and irresponsible.

‘The Numbers Game’ The 1991 Census had shown that the Catholic proportion of the population increased from about 35 per cent in 1971 to about 42 per cent in 1991, a reportedly ‘staggering’ increase of seven percentage points over two decades, with a corresponding decline in the Protestant proportion (Anderson and Shuttleworth 1994). This is a simple, easily understood story which (like the competition for finite territory) fits directly into the ‘zero-­sum’ thinking of national conflict. With characteristic ‘subtlety’, an ITV documentary, ‘The Numbers Game’ (ITV 4 August 1994) asked is ‘the writing on the wall for Protestants. . .are their numbers down and consequently is their number up? . . . Catholics who aspire to a United Ireland may soon outbreed them.’ From before the 1991 Census until the results of the 2001 Census were published in December 2002, the dominant story was that dramatic Catholic growth/Protestant decline would soon result in ‘Protestants losing majority in Northern Ireland’ (headline of article by McKittrick, Independent 11 February 2002). Amazingly, virtually all the headlines reflected this consensus across Irish and British media (e.g. Irish News 19 October 2000; Belfast Telegraph 3 December 2002; Guardian 12 April 2001; News of the World 24 November 2002; Mirror 14 January 2002). The Mirror and other papers in January 2002 relied (apparently) on ‘preliminary findings from the Census’, although even the Census authorities themselves did not have analysable data, never mind any ‘preliminary findings’ at that early date. Papers turned to guesswork from ‘demographic experts’ (or were perhaps victims of disinformation?), and other data were used such as the size of the Catholic school population (Irish News 21 October 2002). But, despite all the talk of statistics, this was a story that ran more on feelings than facts: as Ed Moloney had already noted, ‘no matter what the figures say, the perception has taken root that Catholics are outbreeding Protestants’ (Sunday Tribune 12 April 1998). Some unionists (including Ulster Unionist party leader James Molyneaux) had seen the discourse as damaging to unionism and attempted to refute it (e.g. Belfast News Letter 20 November 1997, 13 April 2001; Belfast Telegraph 29 June 1999). But even if factually correct these attempts seemed defensive of a weakening position and had little impact. Just before the 2001 results were published, even the unionist Belfast News Letter (18 December 2002) admitted the possibility of a shock result. Quoting the (then) Ulster Unionist politician Jeffrey Donaldson, it reported that: the prospect of a Catholic majority voting for an all-­Ireland threatens to become a reality. The anti-­Agreement Assembly member was reacting to a

166   O. McEldowney et al. census which will this week reveal that the Protestant population has fallen below 50 per cent for the first time in the history of the state. In this new context, Donaldson argued, unionists could no longer accept a simple majority vote as sufficient for a United Ireland; instead, a ‘double majority’ of unionists and of nationalists would now be necessary (News Letter 16 December 2002). At the same time, at the other end of the ethno-­national spectrum, Sinn Féin’s Mitchell McLaughlin claimed that Ireland was entering ‘a countdown scenario’ for unification: I believe the census will confirm the pro-­union population is shrinking to the extent that for the first time it will represent less than 50 per cent. It is understandable that unionists are nervous and unsure about the future given the demographic trend, but refusal to face change will not prevent it. (Belfast Telegraph 16 December 2002) A simple majority within Northern Ireland (apparently ‘guaranteed’ at its founding) had always been the entity’s ‘legitimising principle’ for unionists. But now they feared their own principle was about to deliver a United Ireland. Nationalists noted their attempt to change the criterion and saw them as caught by their own sectarian logic (Irish News 14 April 2001, 12 December 2002). However, both sides of this discourse were united in making highly questionable (indeed improbable) assumptions, translating demography all too directly into political outcomes: all Catholics were nationalists, all would actually come out and vote, and all in a nationalist majority would vote Northern Ireland out of existence (when in actuality a sizeable nationalist minority, perhaps up to 20 per cent, might not opt for the unknown ‘united Ireland’). But in the event, the exaggerated fears/hopes of a ‘Catholic majority’ could be postponed to another day. The result was reported in large capitals on the front page of the Belfast Telegraph (19 December 2002) in the style of a football score or election victory (as several readers complained) – confirming Donald Horowitz’s (1985: 194–196) dictum that in divided societies the ‘census is an election’: ‘PROTESTANTS 53 per cent, CATHOLICS 44 per cent’. Orange and green pie-­charts showed how much of the population pie belonged to each ‘community’ in 2001 compared to a 1991 split of 58 per cent/42 per cent (‘Others’ excluded). Why had so many got it so wrong? The real ‘shock’ was that the result turned out so much less dramatic than most people on all sides expected – much to the relief and new-­found defiance of unionist politicians (as quoted in Irish News 20 December 2002; Irish Times 20 December 2002).4 Drawing sectarian conclusions Although wrong about Northern Ireland ‘majorities’, ‘The Numbers Game’ had much wider ramifications. While a ‘united Ireland’ would remain a pipedream for some (unknowable) time to come, there had clearly been a basic shift in the

Dubious discourses of ethno-national conflict   167 balance of ethno-­national forces within Northern Ireland – a story endlessly repeated for other spatial scales of electoral representation, the District Councils, Parliamentary and Assembly constituencies, even down to ward level.5 The discourse crystallised simple, easily understood conclusions from more complex arguments about the alleged sectarian causes and effects of demographic change; it ‘supported’ allegations of political intentionality to shape population trends, including ‘ethnic cleansing’; and it provided seemingly ‘hard facts’ about the social spaces underpinning the political conflict. It overlapped and supported the ‘Growing Apartheid’ discourse. There were literally hundreds of media stories detailing growth in the relative numbers or prominence of Catholics,6 but it was almost impossible to find any about ‘Protestant growth’. Changes in residential patterns were presented not merely as a matter of suburbanisation, moving house or having children. Instead they were seen as a shift in the demographic ‘balance of power’ (e.g. Irish News 21 October 2002), and the reports were typically exaggerated by foreshortening the time frame of change, i.e. implying it was very recent when it may have taken a generation or more. Increases and decreases in relative population numbers were often described militaristically as ‘advance’ and ‘expansion’ or ‘contraction’ and ‘retreat’, even sometimes in ‘lebensraum’ terms. Mr Dodds accused nationalists of stirring up sectarian tensions and exacerbating the very serious situation on the ground. ‘The reality is that ordinary Protestants. . . . have seen the area being run down and neglected over the years having been forced out by the IRA and Sinn Féin Hitlerite Nazi tactics’, he said. ‘What we are now seeing is demands led by nationalist politicians to take away the peace lines – it’s a recipe for civil war.’ (Irish News 28 June 2000) There was a widespread tendency to impute all movement in the numbers of the different groups to literal movements across space, to people moving house as ‘invaders’ or being ‘forced out’. No doubt that sometimes happened, but this ‘sectarian demography’ generally forgot about changes in situ due to differences in age profiles and birth and death rates. Indeed in the rush to find sectarian reasons, or ‘blame the other side’, many of the factors which influence demo­ graphy, including in ethno-­national conflicts, were played down or completely ignored (News Letter 16 September 1998; Guardian 11 June 2002): de-­ industrialisation, agriculture restructuring, and residential suburbanisation, for example. All of them seem to have impacted disproportionally on Protestants but all were ignored.7 Instead, there were increasingly allegations of ‘ethnic cleansing’, particularly by unionist politicians, whether to gain inter- or intra-­group political advantage, raise group consciousness, or ‘justify’ attacks on Catholics. But then these attacks were also called ‘ethnic cleansing’ by nationalist representatives, a mirroring imaging of extreme rhetoric in a spiral of claim and counter-­claim, stoking up mutual feelings of injustice without providing any solution (e.g.

168   O. McEldowney et al. Sunday Tribune 22 September 2002; Irish News 2 November 2002; Andersonstown News 24 November 2003). ‘Ethnic cleansing’ had had a limited reality in some areas, most notably in attacks on vulnerable members of the security forces and their families in remoter border areas, but even this bore little comparison with the term’s Balkan origins. It is noteworthy that its sensationalist usage increased after the worst period of violence was over; and so much so that the term became drained of meaning as it now encompassed attacks on Orange Halls, or even name-­calling, when associated with alleged population change (e.g. Observer 11 October 1998; News Letter 14 October 1998, 2 January 2004). Conflict at local ‘interfaces’ particularly in Belfast, such as the loyalist blockade of Catholic Holy Cross primary schoolchildren, were sometimes explained in ‘Numbers Game’ terms: Protestant decline meant a housing and/or land surplus while Catholic growth meant a shortage of both, and hence there was the threat or promise of a transfer of territory, with symbolic as well as material implications. These potentially complementary differences are indeed an important factor (at least at some interfaces), but as Neil Jarman (2004) shows there are also other factors such as paramilitary activities, intra-­group rivalries and socio-­ economic deprivation which may be more important than demographic change. In these circumstances, a demographic ‘explanation’ can all too easily sound like ‘justification’. Justifying violence This was exemplified in the Holy Cross dispute which many journalists explicitly linked to ‘territorial’ competition because of demographic change (e.g. Irish News 4 April 2001; Belfast Telegraph 14 August 2001; Sunday Times 9 September 2001). It was suggested that the spectre of loyalists attacking young schoolchildren was more understandable in the context of their forced demographic ‘retreat’: The demonstrations take place against a background of the relentless retreat of the working class Unionists of north Belfast in the face of a swaggering, self-­confident nationalist community. The latter thinks itself to be winning the political, territorial and demographic game. (Daily Telegraph 12 January 2002) Similarly, loyalist attacks across the Catholic Short Strand ‘peace walls’ in east Belfast were ‘justified’ by unionist representatives as merely a reaction to Catholic aggression and ‘demographic expansionism’ (News Letter 5 September 2002; Orange Standard 2 July 2002). Here unionist demographic ‘retreat’ is assumed to reflect or cause an economic, political and psychological decline (or loss of morale); and to have been caused by nationalist ‘advance’. But this so-­ called ‘demographic retreat’ completely leaves out of account the large-­scale suburbanisation since the 1960s, especially of working class Protestants to new and better green-­field housing – hardly a ‘political’ retreat, nor due to ‘nationalist

Dubious discourses of ethno-national conflict   169 advance’. It largely echoes the loyalist protagonists’ own ‘justifications’, and shows the dangers of substituting the views of political entrepreneurs for actual analysis of ethnic phenomena (Brubaker 2004: 32).

‘Growing Apartheid’ If ‘The Numbers Game’ was fuelled by the ‘shock’ of a ‘Catholic majority’, ‘Growing Apartheid’ held the threat or frisson of Northern Ireland becoming ‘two separate societies’ and ‘ungovernable’. Again, the discourses of segregation and polarisation are told and re-­told at different spatial scales: there were fears/ hopes of cantonisation and separate Catholic and Protestant areas for local administration; or separate Catholic and Protestant communities respectively west and east of the River Bann; and in the most extreme case (which relates to ‘ethnic cleansing’), the unionist ‘doomsday scenario’ of re-­partition and carving out a new ‘safe Protestant majority’ area in east Ulster. Apparently Northern Ireland’s electoral map of party political majorities was: a re-­partitionist’s dream and a nightmare for those who could conceive of Northern Ireland collapsing into Balkan-­style ethnic conflict. At the moment nobody, wisely, is talking up the darker picture but let’s just say the map has concentrated minds on the dangers. (Irish Times 11 June 2001) Those less sensationalist wondered about the practical viability of what was said to be increasingly ‘separate development’. The implications are of two groups living completely separate lives in separate localities, no longer communicating, or wanting or being able to understand one another, or so the story goes. It gained plausibility from an assumed association with ‘ethnic voting’ among what was said to be, in effect, ‘two separate electorates’ (e.g. Irish News 13 June 2001), and by linking it with high-­profile contemporary disputes such as ‘Holy Cross’ and ‘Drumcree’, though just how such events produced spatial segregation or over what time period was left to the reader’s imagination (ironically some opposition to Orange marches was previously reported as being due to ‘Protestant areas’ becoming more ‘mixed’). The story gained power from blithely extrapolating residential segregation (people living in different areas) to all spheres of social life, and directly equating spatial segregation with social polarisation (in people’s attitudes) and with political polarisation (generally associated with increased voting for Sinn Féin and for Ian Paisley’s Democratic Unionist Party). The spatial segregation of population has been variously a ‘cause’, an ‘effect’ and a metaphor for spatial polarisation. The error-­based discourse following the 1991 Census was transposed intact to the period before the 2001 Census was published, only now it was based not on data (not even wrongly analysed data) but on the word of ‘experts’ and ‘expectations’. Again, speculation took root long before the actual results were known:

170   O. McEldowney et al. In half of the council wards in Northern Ireland, 90 per cent are Catholic or Protestant. The other half are rapidly going the same way and we expect to see evidence of this in the 2001 Census figures when they are released . . . [they] are expected to show Catholics and Protestants are more deeply entrenched in their own communities than ever before. (Irish News 30 August 2001) Segregation in Belfast has increased since the Northern Ireland peace process began, with Protestant and Catholic enclaves more entrenched and violence on the rise, according to new research. (Irish Times 4 January 2001) So there was some recourse to data, but actually this particular ‘new research’ was not about segregation at all but about changes in people’s attitudes, and then only young people in the worst trouble-­spots (here, ironically, the preferred ‘hard evidence’ of objective segregation was concocted from the ‘soft evidence’ of subjective attitudes). In fact nothing about segregation could validly be inferred from these data, and because inconsistent over time, they did not even measure increased intolerance. But the story was now so ‘common sense’ it hardly required data: As if all of these figures and findings didn’t make for depressing enough reading (and by the by, why does it take academics so much time and money to report the bleeding obvious?) we face the ongoing growth in the number of community groups and the prospect of Northern Ireland permanently divided into a ‘them’ and ‘us’ patchwork of republican/loyalist and unionist/ nationalist areas. (News Letter 19 January 2002) Then, when the Census results were released it was quickly decided they confirmed the tale already told. Indeed the ‘news’ in next day’s News Letter might well have been written ten years earlier: A negative aspect of the census returns is the sharp east/west divide that has opened up in the Province on political and religious ground. . . . The large movement of population, particularly of Protestants from areas like Londonderry, Tyrone and Fermanagh during the height of the Troubles, has been a main factor in the creation of two ethnically separate communities on opposite sides of the Bann. (News Letter 20 December 2002) However, this crude picture was partly based on electoral data (not in the Census), and it was not clear that the new Census data had been used. When 2001 data were later used by the media it was generally to repeat, rather than to refute or even modify, the ‘Growing Apartheid’ story: ‘[A]lmost a decade after the ceasefires, there are signs that polarisation between the communities along

Dubious discourses of ethno-national conflict   171 the border is increasing . . . Lisnaskea and Newtownbutler, for example, both have six per cent fewer Protestants than just 10 years ago’ (Irish News 15 August 2003). Hardly conclusive proof of a downward spiral of ‘apartheid’, but quite typical of the absence of serious analysis. And so David McKittrick who first reported ‘Apartheid deepening’ could now return 11 years later with a similarly stark conclusion. While sounding new and ‘now’, it was basically the same story – the only new element was that ‘inexorable polarisation’ was happening despite the peace process (or perhaps because of it?). English readers again heard the tale of ‘A province where Catholics and Protestants are strangers to each other’, and were told of a peace process that had failed on the ground: Post-­Troubles Northern Ireland is now facing the unwelcome fact that what has been called apartheid is now virtually complete for the working class. Few safe refuges exist for mixed marriages and those who dislike segregation. . . . While many assumed the ceasefires would result in a drawing together of the communities, they have in fact been followed by near-­total segregation. The authorities therefore face a daunting task in aiming to reverse the so far inexorable tide of polarisation and working towards a more tolerant and inclusive society. (Independent 6 April 2004) However, the basis for this ‘apartheid’ story, residence and residential segregation, is only one dimension of everyday life, one measure of segregation. As David McNair (2006) suggests, its general importance in determining social segregation or mixing is actually declining, partly because of increased mobility, and because of changes in other spheres of activity such as employment. In Belfast he found that Catholic–Protestant social ‘mixing’ has recently increased – in the workplace, on ‘nights out’, and in other social activities. The statistics for workplace segregation clearly show both that its level is lower than that of residential segregation and that it declined through the 1990s and since (Russell 2004). So much for ‘Growing Apartheid’.

Reasons for dubious discourses So why, despite the evidence, have the exaggerated and generally negative discourses continued, and with little or no qualification in the case of ‘Growing Apartheid’? Even its chosen measure of residential segregation shows a relatively stable pattern of little change and if anything a slight decrease in segregation between 1991 and 2001 (Shuttleworth and Lloyd 2009). Many people seem generally comfortable ‘explaining’ their world in ethno-­national terms, which is hardly surprising given the historical context of a sectarian conflict extending over several centuries. Both the main political forces in Northern Ireland, unionism and nationalism, prefer ethno-­national discourses to ones of class or gender, for instance. Their opposing interpretations – with the ‘tit-­for-tat’ and ‘copy-­cat’

172   O. McEldowney et al. attitudes typical of such conflicts – constitute a ‘unity of opposites’ which mutually reinforces the centrality of the ‘master-­narratives’. Whatever their differences, the two sides seem to agree about what issues are important. The massive majority of census-­related stories in the Belfast-­based media were about Protestant and Catholic numbers and distributions, rather than overall population growth, changing age profiles, or socio-­economic issues, quite unlike the census coverage in Britain. Being endlessly repeated in different forms gives the discourses a basic strength and consistency over time (even if consistently flawed). And in the absence of new population figures between censuses, the discourses are kept alive by subsidiary themes, such as Protestant school-­leavers emigrating to universities in Britain and not returning (e.g. Belfast Telegraph 6 October 2009); and an alleged trebling of so-­called ‘peace walls’ separating unionist from nationalist communities, a theme even more bizarrely error-­strewn than ‘increased segregation’.8 While the inertia of repetition lends coherence, sectarianism is also capable of absorbing and putting its own interpretations on alleged or actual new developments, including the recent upsurge of migrant workers coming to Northern Ireland. Even criticisms of the attacks on migrants get subsumed into the discourses when portrayed as simply a function of Northern Ireland’s exceptional segregation and inherent bigotry, rather than being contextualised as part of more general problems of European chauvinism, racism and deprivation (Daily Mail 26 June 2006; Belfast Telegraph 20 June 2009). In short, sectarian ‘world views’, like all strong ideologies, tend to produce a total package of ‘common sense’, where all manner of phenomena are debated and ‘explained’ in terms of sectarian causes and outcomes, often in isolation from other considerations. The census and statistical analysis give a ‘scientific’ gloss to traditional anecdotal sectarianism. Population data appear to be ‘hard and objective’, ‘evidence on the ground’, even when concealing ‘soft’ or questionable facts. Instead of the careful and qualified interpretations usually required to make sense of the data, we see incompetence in handling fairly basis statistics, lazy journalism or opportunistic ‘research’, jumping to over-­simplified, over-­extended, exaggerated or just plain wrong conclusions. Often there were little or no data: the discourses of expectation before census publication generally lasted longer and got more media coverage than the actual results (Anderson et al. 2005), by which time the damage was done and there was little self-­correction. Various factors have already been suggested for the exaggerated expectations of ‘Catholic growth’, and three further motives (which relate also to ‘Growing Apartheid’) can be mentioned. First, journalists (and also some academics) may think that ‘bad news’ is more likely to get attention or get published, perhaps ‘the badder the better’. Second, people opposed to the 1998 Agreement and sharing power with ‘the enemy’ were predisposed to find evidence that it was not working. And third, others with a principled objection to consociational power-­sharing government as further polarising politics and widening ethno-­ national division, found ‘proof ’ in seemingly increased spatial segregation and the exaggerated ‘growth’ of ‘peace walls’ (see Taylor 2009). Each motive is

Dubious discourses of ethno-national conflict   173 d­ istinct (their adherents not necessarily in agreement), but the overall effect was to create an ‘unholy alliance’ behind the counter-­intuitive notion that, despite/ because of the ceasefires and the 1998 Agreement, ‘things are getting worse’. For example, ‘Apartheid – how peace is dividing Northern Ireland’ by John O’Farrell made the cover story of the London New Statesman (28 November 2005) and Henry McDonald, previewing the 2005 general election in the Observer (10 April 2005), wrote a piece titled ‘Why the centre, and the Agreement, will not hold’ in which he linked the 1998 Agreement and political polarisation to ‘Protestant and Catholic communities driven further apart’.9 There was a drastic foreshortening of historical processes as patterns of segregation that had developed over decades and centuries were now blamed on the 1998 Agreement and a juvenile ‘peace process’. Although we have some sympathy for the ‘integrationist’ argument that consociational government can reinforce sectarian divisions, we have no sympathy with the attempts to ‘prove’ it in a shortened time frame using the highly questionable ‘facts’ of ‘Growing Apartheid’. It is particularly misleading when alleged increases in spatial segregation and ‘peace walls’ are used as ‘evidence’ that the 1998 Agreement and consociationalism have ‘failed’. Robin Wilson (2009: 222), a leading ‘integrationist’ critic, saw consociationalism as having ‘real effects on the ground’ in the alleged growth of ‘peace walls’ since the mid-­1990s. But (apart from the gross errors in measuring this ‘growth’) such a direct causal connection is difficult if not impossible to establish; and circumstantial evidence suggests otherwise. It is one thing plausibly to claim that the ceasefires and the 1998 Agreement deserve some credit for the overall reduction in subsequent political killing. It is quite another to blame them for increased violence at some ‘peace walls’ and the need for additional ‘walls’, and then take this as evidence of increasing polarisation (Wilson 2009: 229). As the leading consociationalists, John McGarry and Brendan O’Leary (2009: 369) countered, much of the post-­ 1998 violence was perpetrated by people opposed to the 1998 Agreement and was intra-­group, against people of their own ethno-­national community. As for the non-­lethal inter-­community violence at some ‘peace walls’, it was by definition confined to some relatively small areas, symbolically important but not typical even of Belfast (see Murtagh 2008). Far from being an adequate measure of increasing polarisation in the whole society, in some cases it seems to have been orchestrated by small paramilitary groups, mostly loyalist but also ‘dissident republican’, and furthermore reflected their intra-­community rivalries to recruit members from among loyalist or republican youths respectively. And the reported post-­Agreement increase in violence at ‘peace walls’ (now in fact significantly reduced since the ‘Holy Cross’ and ‘Drumcree’ period) must also be assessed in the context of the qualitative change in the nature of sectarian violence. With the ceasefires it became largely non-­lethal and hence more of a mass activity with generally much less danger of getting killed, and indeed it was sometimes referred to as ‘recreational rioting’. Here it takes a quite heroic leap to causally connect stone-­throwing teenagers to consociational arrangements at Stormont, about which it might be imagined many know little and care less.

174   O. McEldowney et al.

Conclusion If truth is the first casualty of war it is also an early victim in ethno-­national conflict. Catholics are not about to constitute a majority, nor is there ‘Growing Apartheid’. Ultimately the only people to gain from these distortions are the ‘dissidents’ on both sides who want to re-­escalate the conflict. Yet despite all this, will the two media discourses again come into full bloom as the Census of 2011 approaches and will they have the field quite so exclusively to themselves this time? Now that the pivotal phase of the ceasefires and 1998 Agreement is beginning to pass, and larger problems such as global capitalist crisis and environmental destruction are pressing in, can we expect more discourse on the socio-­economic information in the Census? Can social class, the main conceptual victim of ‘ethnicised’ conflict, along with other cross-­community categories such as gender, become more the basis for political mobilisation? This ultimately is the only way of countering the worst excesses of ethno-­national discourse.

Acknowledgements We thank Chris O’Halloran of the Belfast Interface Project for helpful comments on an earlier draft.

Notes 1 Religion is associated with politically independent institutions, while language usage can be more fluid than nationality itself. ‘Ethnicisation’ tends to essentialise processes, and can be cynically used to ‘distance’ the observer as being ‘above’ the conflict (Allen and Seaton 1999: 2). 2 Religious communities in Lebanon and language groups in Belgium have not been subject to censuses since 1932 and 1963 respectively, due to the belief that recording subsequent demographic change would de-­stabilise political settlements. Pakistan’s census was postponed five times in the 1990s because it might cause violence from groups considering themselves ‘undercounted’; when eventually published it implaus­ ibly showed ‘no change’ since 1981. In 2009 the Iraq census was cancelled because it might spark violence involving Kurds in oil-­rich Kirkuk (Guardian 17 August 2009; Kerr 2009; Kertzer and Arel 2002). 3 ESRC grant RES-­000–22–0271 supported this work, and present usage is part of ongoing research on Belfast, Jerusalem and other divided cities supported by ESRC Large Grant RES-­060–25–0015, 2007–2012, see www.conflictincities.org (accessed March 2010). 4 In reality the two percentage point rise in the Catholic proportion over a decade was a substantial increase (comparing with an average of 3.5 points per decade in the 1971–91 period). But it was made to look quite small by frankly ludicrous expectations (a shift of majority to minority and vice versa would have required percentage point changes of 1971–91 dimensions being achieved in a single decade). 5 Our review of media coverage of the 2004 Assembly election campaigns found that expected electoral changes were often (over)estimated from demographic changes. 6 For example, the unionist village of Crumlin, on the outskirts of Belfast was reportedly transformed into a suburban extension of Catholic West Belfast (Belfast Telegraph 19 December 2002).

Dubious discourses of ethno-national conflict   175 7 Protestants generally had more of the industrial jobs to lose than Catholics; in some rural areas they were more involved in agriculture; and in Belfast they benefited more from suburbanisation. 8 There were claims these ‘walls’ had ‘doubled’, then ‘trebled’, since (variously) the mid-­1990s ceasefires or the 1998 Agreement (e.g. John O’Farrell, New Statesman 28 November 2005; Henry McDonald, Guardian 29 July 2009; Robin Wilson, Belfast Telegraph 7 October 2009). Extended barriers were counted as ‘new’ walls, a range of other undated features not previously counted were added in 2008, the data were unsuited and never intended for measuring change over time, and the reality that most wall creation pre-­dated the 1990s was turned on its head. 9 Both, like other journalists, vaguely mentioned research by Peter Shirlow. But they only implied or asserted rather than demonstrated a link between the 1998 Agreement and supposedly ‘increased spatial segregation’, and no causal connections were actually established. O’Farrell claimed the British state had ‘colluded in bigotry’ with ‘officially blessed apartheid’. His doom-­laden cover story was tastefully matched by a front page bordered in funereal black.

Bibliography Allen, T. and Seaton, J. (eds) (1999) The Media of Conflict: War Reporting and Representations of Ethnic Violence, London and New York: Zed. Anderson, J. (2008) ‘Partition, consociation, border-­crossing: some lessons from the national conflict in Ireland/Northern Ireland’, Nations and Nationalism 14(1): 85–104. Anderson, J. and O’Dowd, L. (2007) ‘Imperialism and nationalism: the Home Rule struggle and border creation in Ireland, 1885–1925’, Political Geography 26(8): 934–950. Anderson, J. and Shuttleworth, I. (1994) ‘Sectarian readings of sectarianism: interpreting the Northern Ireland Census’, The Irish Review 16: 74–93. Anderson, J. and Shuttleworth, I. (1998) ‘Sectarian demography, territoriality and political development in Northern Ireland’, Political Geography 17(2): 187–208. Anderson, J., Shuttleworth, I., Lloyd, C. and McEldowney, O. (2005) Political Demography: the Northern Ireland Census, Discourse and Territoriality, Report to Economic and Social Research Council, London. Boal, F., Murray, R. and Poole, M. (1976) ‘Belfast: the urban encapsulation of a national conflict’, in S. Clarke and J. Obler (eds) Urban Ethnic Conflict: A Comparative Perspective, Institute for Research in Social Science, Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina. Brubaker, R. (2004) Ethnicity without Groups, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Horowitz, D. (1985) Ethnic Groups in Conflict, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Jarman, N. (2004) Demography, Development and Disorder: Changing Patterns of Interface Areas, Belfast: Community Relations Council. Kerr, M. (2009) ‘Power-­sharing and research in divided societies: a rough guide to collecting evidence in Belfast and Beirut’, Conflict in Cities and the Contested State, Working Paper No. 9. Available at www.conflictincities.org/workingpapers.html (accessed 1 December 2009). Kertzer, D.I. and Arel, D. (2002) Census and Identity: The Politics of Race, Ethnicity and Language in National Censuses, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. McGarry, J. and O’Leary, B. (2009) ‘Under friendly and less-­friendly fire’, in R. Taylor (ed.) Consociational Theory: McGarry and O’Leary and the Northern Ireland Conflict, London: Routledge, pp. 333–388.

176   O. McEldowney et al. McNair, D. (2006) ‘Social and spatial segregation: ethno-­national separation and mixing in Belfast’, unpublished PhD thesis, School of Geography, Queens University Belfast. Mann, M. (2005) The Dark Side of Democracy: Explaining Ethnic Cleansing, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Murtagh, B. (2008) ‘New spaces and old in “post-­conflict” Belfast’, Conflict in Cities and the Contested State, Working Paper No. 5. Available at www.conflictincities.org/workingpapers.html (accessed 1 December 2009). Poole, M. and Doherty, P. (1996) Ethnic Residential Segregation in Northern Ireland, Coleraine: University of Ulster. Russell, R. (2004) ‘Employment profiles of Protestants and Catholics: a decade of monitoring’, in B. Osborne and I. Shuttleworth (eds) Fair Employment in Northern Ireland: A Generation On, Belfast: Blackstaff Press, pp. 24–48. Shuttleworth, I. and Lloyd, C. (2009) ‘Are Northern Ireland’s communities dividing? evidence from geographically consistent Census of Population data, 1971–2001’, Environment and Planning A 41: 213–229. Taylor, R. (ed.) (2009) Consociational Theory: McGarry and O’Leary and the Northern Ireland Conflict, London: Routledge. Wilson, R. (2009) ‘From consociationalism to interculturalism’, in R. Taylor (ed.) Consociational Theory: McGarry and O’Leary and the Northern Ireland Conflict, London: Routledge, pp. 221–236.

12 ‘From Belfast to Baghdad . . .’? Discourses of Northern Ireland’s ‘model’ of conflict resolution Eamonn O’Kane

Discourses presenting Northern Ireland as a ‘model’ of conflict resolution have become increasingly prevalent since the 1998 Agreement, and particularly since the restoration of devolution under an Executive headed by the DUP and Sinn Féin. The idea of examining Northern Ireland comparatively is not, of course, a new departure. Earlier comparative work was largely undertaken by academics and entailed looking at Northern Ireland in comparison to other conflicts, notably the Middle East, Cyprus and South Africa. Politicians in Northern Ireland during the Troubles generally sought to invoke international comparisons either to increase sympathy for the plight of their community or the legitimacy of their struggle (as in the case of republicans), or to legitimise the existence of Northern Ireland itself (as attempted by unionists). This pattern changed significantly, however, post-­Agreement. A number of politicians associated with the peace process have actively encouraged international comparisons, even making claims as to ‘lessons’ to be learnt from Northern Ireland’s ‘model’ of conflict resolution. The implication (and often the assertion) is that Northern Ireland’s experience may be replicable in other conflict zones and its experience used as a basis for resolving other conflicts. Politicians from Britain, Ireland and the United States in particular have been keen to invoke this case and extol its virtues. This chapter seeks to examine several issues associated with the apparent emergence of the ‘model’ and note some of the problems with its delineation and application.

Why Northern Ireland? The reasons why Northern Ireland is a popular case for politicians to invoke are fairly straightforward. Resolving conflict is a notoriously difficult task and examples of negotiated settlements that lead to a sustained period of (relative) peace, underpinned by durable and functioning new political institutions, are the exception rather than the norm. This fact also explains why politicians are not only keen to invoke the model but also to claim some ownership of it. In line with the old adage that success has many fathers but failure is an orphan, it is the politicians that were associated with the peace process that are keenest to promote the case as a possible model for other conflicts. The experience of Northern Ireland is remarkable: what had long been seen (with considerable justification) as

178   E. O’Kane Europe’s most intractable problem was transformed in the 1990s to the poster-­ child of conflict resolution success. Indeed the peace process was seen by many as the greatest accomplishment of the New Labour government in Britain. As the former Northern Ireland Secretary of State, John Reid, subsequently argued: If Tony Blair’s Labour government never did anything else but bring to an end the longest-­running political dispute in European history and the longest running war probably in world history, on and off, it would be worth having the Labour government just for that. (Guardian 13 July 2007) Tony Blair himself, in his role as Middle East envoy on behalf of the United Nations, European Union, United States and Russia (an appointment undoubtedly aided by his kudos as a skilled negotiator in the Northern Ireland talks), asserted: ‘call me a wide-­eyed optimist, but I do think there are lessons from Northern Ireland for the Middle East’ (Cohen 2007). Jonathan Powell, Blair’s former Chief of Staff, has been at the forefront of championing the case. According to Powell, ‘there are lessons to be learned from the mistakes we made – from the cul-­de-sacs we went down and the techniques we used to make peace – for resolving conflicts elsewhere’ (Powell 2009). It was not just the British government that was keen to capitalise on international recognition of the achievement of the Agreement. The Irish government established a Conflict Resolution Unit within the Department of Foreign Affairs in 2007. The rationale for this was outlined by the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Dermot Ahern: If we endured 30 years of conflict, we also experienced 30 years of efforts to resolve that conflict. . . . After reflecting on this experience, I came to the belief that Ireland may well have learned some important lessons and that, if we did, we ought to share them. And share not just the lessons of the Northern Ireland peace process but of what it takes to resolve conflict generally. No one has all the answers. But collectively we can do things better to resolve conflict and build lasting peace. (Ahern 2007) Under the auspices of the unit, the Irish government appointed the former Police Ombudsman in Northern Ireland, Nuala O’Loan, as Ireland’s Special Envoy to East Timor. The apparent lessons from Northern Ireland also entered the discourse on conflict resolution of international actors. Hillary Clinton has frequently advocated the case as a model. Whilst a US Senator, she argued that Northern Ireland ‘will serve as a model to the world in resolving differences and restoring lasting peace through powersharing and promotion of common interests among diverse groups’ (Staunton 2007). This was a message Clinton reiterated as Secretary of State when she told the Northern Ireland Assembly in 2009:

Discourses of Northern Ireland’s ‘model’   179 I have seen firsthand how you have become a model for conflict resolution and reconciliation around the world. I hear that in my travels; people who are determined to choose peace and progress over violence and division look toward you. (Clinton 2009) Others – from the Pope to the Iraqi Foreign Minister – seem to share such sentiments (Agnew 2007; de Breadún 2005). Northern Ireland’s politicians have been involved in secret talks in Finland helping to outline for Iraqis the ‘principles of inclusivity, powersharing and a commitment to removing the use of violence as a means of resolving political differences’ (Moriarty 2007). And, perhaps less successfully, politicians from Northern Ireland travelled to Sri Lanka in 2006 to seek to assist the peace process that was underway at the time. Although it is relatively understandable that the case of Northern Ireland is appealing as an exemplar, there are profound problems with its invocation as a possible model for other conflicts. Although politicians are keen to invoke the ‘model’, they are less forthcoming in defining what the model actually is. When the discourse around the model is examined, and the arguments of those that invoke it are compared, two problems emerge. First, there is not a shared agreement between its advocates in relation to what they are championing. Second, it is in many aspects debatable whether what the champions seem to advocate is based upon what actually occurred in Northern Ireland. To highlight these problems it is necessary to first identify what appear to be the suggested components of the model. These will then be examined to assess their integrity and legitimacy as an accurate – let alone useful – representation of what happened in Northern Ireland.

What is Northern Ireland’s ‘model’? The fact that few politicians (and, indeed, academics) clearly and unambiguously outline what they mean by Northern Ireland’s ‘model’ of conflict resolution makes it somewhat difficult to critique, not to mention to seek to apply elsewhere. However, by examining the speeches and writings of those most closely associated with the notion of a transferable ‘model’ from Northern Ireland, (particularly of its three main champions, Jonathan Powell, Peter Hain and Michael Ancram) it is possible to identify what appear to be the key factors that might underpin it. It is clear from examining political discourse on the issue that what concerns the champions is the process that led to the peace, i.e. that which enabled the securing of the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement of 1998 and its subsequent application. It is not the institutional design that appears to be the fundamental characteristic of the model; few are to be found advocating that other divided societies introduce a regional Assembly elected by the Single Transferable Vote proportional representation system, operating on the principle of sufficient consensus, with ministerial positions distributed via the d’Hondt mechanism etc. It is how Northern Ireland got the Agreement, not the institutional outcomes that underpinned it, which is the focus of the accounts in question.

180   E. O’Kane The five factors most commonly identified by politicians as having enabled the peace process appear to be: (1) an inclusive approach with no or few preconditions; (2) the importance of identifying and supporting ‘moderate’ partners for peace amongst the conflicting parties; (3) the support of and possible intervention by third parties; (4) the importance of bipartisanship; and (5) the necessity of prolonged and intense engagement with the conflict (Ahern 2007; Ancram 2007; Hain 2007; Powell 2008a, 2008b; Cohen 2007). An inclusive approach without preconditions An inclusive approach without preconditions is the most commonly cited (and most contentious) of all the factors invoked by the champions of the model. Much of the basis of the appeal of the Northern Ireland case rests upon the achievement of creating the situation whereby the republican movement was willing to end its campaign of violence, commit itself to pursuing its objectives by non-­violent means, sign up to what could be seen as a partionist agreement and, ultimately, decommission its weapons and enter into the government of Northern Ireland, which was to remain as part of the United Kingdom. By any reckoning, this was an incredible outcome given the history of Northern Ireland during the Troubles and of the republican movement itself. If the means of bringing this about could be deduced, then key lessons from Northern Ireland could be offered for use in other conflicts to try and bring about a similar transformation of other violent marginal groups. The key aspect that several of the most prominent advocates of the model within British policy-­making circles have focused upon is their success in persuading the republican movement to undertake this transformation. This, it is argued, was a result of a willingness to engage with republicans. Whilst the British had sporadically been in contact with representatives of the IRA at various stages during the Troubles it was suggested that the British shifted their policy in the early 1990s and accepted that a deal was not possible without including republicans. As the former Northern Ireland Office Minister, Michael Ancram (who describes himself as coming from ‘the Northern Irish school of conflict resolution’) has claimed, by 1993 the British government had decided, ‘there could be no long-­term solution to the problem that we were confronting without the eventual involvement of those we were fighting . . . [and that] . . . this could only be done by opening dialogue’ (Ancram 2007). In retrospective political accounts of the peace process, this is seen as a critical moment – the key decision to open dialogue with republicans before the IRA abandoned violence. Ancram extrapolated from this belief the assessment that, in conflict resolution, ‘it is better to use your time to talk to your enemies than your friends’ (Ancram 2007). Peter Hain, who was Northern Ireland’s Secretary of State under Tony Blair (2005–2007) echoes this analysis, claiming that, ‘it is worth erring on the side of being exposed for trying to talk – even to those seen as “the enemy” and [who] maybe still engaged in paramilitary or illegal activity and therefore “dissidents”

Discourses of Northern Ireland’s ‘model’   181 from a process’ (Hain 2007). Not only do these politicians stress the need to talk to such groups; they highlight the importance of doing so without preconditions (or with as few as possible). From a perspective from the opposite side of this process, the Derry businessman who had long acted as a conduit between the British and republicans, Brendan Duddy, advises those seeking peace that the ‘lesson coming out of Ireland’ is: ‘ignore the doomsayers about dialogue, and ignore the people who take the highest moral ground to remain with clean hands and prolong conflicts that could be more speedily ended’ (quoted in Rowan 2008). The accounts prioritise such dialogue over restraining factors. According to Ancram (2007), ‘undeliverable preconditions are an end, rather than a beginning, to dialogue’. In Northern Ireland, ‘[e]xploratory dialogue, talks without conditions or commitment, became the way forward’ (Ancram 2007). The lessons, for Hain (2007), were that there was a need to ‘avoid or resolve pre-­conditions to dialogue’. Powell (2008a: 313) is even more explicit on this point stating: ‘talking should not be seen as a reward to be held out or withdrawn. Without contact there is no way of making the first steps towards peace.’ Identifying and supporting partners for peace Despite the tendency of governments to encourage a discourse that suggests parties and paramilitary groups are unified entities, in reality there is a realisation that all groups contain a spectrum of opinion and are rarely as cohesive as the image they try to project. Several accounts have stressed the importance of identifying those within groups that were most potentially receptive to overtures towards peace and then seeking to promote and protect such individuals. In his work on the IRA, Ed Moloney (2002) has made the case that this thinking was evident in British government circles by the 1990s. Moloney’s account stresses the efforts made by the British to encourage Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness in particular. This is in line with the comments of the then Northern Ireland Secretary of State, Sir Patrick Mayhew, in 1995, during what he thought was a private talk to sixth-­formers: To some extent we have got to help Mr Adams carry with him the people who are reluctant to see a ceasefire, who believe they might be betrayed by the British Government. If the hard men say, ‘What did Gerry Adams do? We have called a ceasefire but got nothing sufficient in return’, then Mr Adams will take a long walk on a short plank and be replaced by someone much harder. (quoted in Irish Times 9 January 1995). Later in the peace process, the British government was forced to consider what could and should be done to shore up the position of the leadership on the other side of the equation, the Ulster Unionist Party’s (UUP) David Trimble (in the so-­called ‘save Dave’ campaign). Based on such experiences, politicians

182   E. O’Kane argue that top-­level support for leading political advocates of a peace process is essential. When ‘deciding who is worth engaging in exploratory dialogue’, Ancram (2007) advises the identification of a political actor ‘who explicitly or implicitly is either crucial or essential to any putative settlement’. Hain (2008) counsels: ‘It is obviously important to identify individual figures with the courage and strength to give leadership, sometimes to reluctant followers’ and stresses the need to help leaders manage their constituencies and give them the space to do so: ‘[l]eaders can only move so far in advance of their community and managing the public sense of winners and losers is critical to their ability to deliver.’ On reflection, Hain (2007) perceived republicanism and nationalism to have the benefit of stable leadership, but identified a worrying weakness in unionism, which ‘had not produced leadership that appeared capable of proposing or even grudgingly accepting a new vision for Northern Ireland post conflict’. The role of third parties The issue of what the role of third parties, or the ‘international dimension’, was in Northern Ireland has been a subject of an engaging academic debate in recent years. Most of the key actors in the peace process freely acknowledge the important part played by third parties, particularly in overcoming the difficult hurdles towards the end of the multi-­party talks. Hain (2007) even goes so far as to describe this dimension as constituting ‘the internationalisation of parts of the process’ which, he claims, ‘made an important contribution’. Such international input has been most usually credited to the United States (particularly Bill Clinton’s administration) and, to a less high profile and more indirect extent, the European Union. The role of certain individuals has also been widely acknowledged as important, most notably that of Senator George Mitchell, who chaired the all-­party talks that led to the 1998 Agreement and who returned to conduct a review once the process stalled in 1999. The impact of such external third parties is still being assessed. There is general consensus in academic literature that the role of the international dimension was helpful, but the extent of its contribution and the matter of whether it was decisive or merely supportive in this process is still a matter for debate (O’Kane 2002, 2007; Dixon 2006; Meehan 2006; Hayward 2006; Hazelton 2000; Clancy 2007). Bipartisanship There have been two types of bipartisanship in relation to Northern Ireland. The first is the commitment that has been shared by all the main British parties at Westminster to the principle of consent: the commitment that the constitutional status of Northern Ireland will not be altered without the consent of a majority of the people in Northern Ireland. During the peace process the two main British opposition parties were reluctant to criticise the government of the day in case this may have had a detrimental impact upon the peace process itself. As Mo

Discourses of Northern Ireland’s ‘model’   183 Mowlam (1996) said whilst she was shadow Secretary of State for Northern Ireland: ‘we do not want to give any of the Northern Ireland parties cause to procrastinate or prevaricate in the hope that it can get a better deal if it waits for a Labour government.’ In addition to the bipartisanship at Westminster, there was the bipartisanship between the British and Irish governments. Despite the competing historical claims over Northern Ireland, the two states developed an intergovernmental approach to the issue which was institutionalised by the Anglo-­Irish Agreement in 1985. Although, at times, relations between the two states were incredibly fraught and disputes evident, there were attempts to co-­ordinate their approach to the issue and the peace process was marked by an effective co-­sponsorship by London and Dublin (O’Kane 2007). These two related forms of bipartisanship have been heralded as important contributory factors by the champions of the model. Hain claims: the British and Irish Governments were drawn or pushed together, at first through mutual self-­interest, and, then, increasingly from a sense – aided by their positions as partners within a new European Union dispensation – that they could achieve together in Northern Ireland something which neither could achieve alone. (Hain 2007) A prolonged and intense focus A striking characteristic of the peace process was that the British and Irish governments were willing to invest a huge amount of time and effort in it. One account has claimed that at one stage in the late 1990s, Tony Blair was spending 40 per cent of his time on the issue (Godson 2004). Blair has cited this intensity of focus as ‘the only reason we got the breakthrough in Northern Ireland’ (Cohen 2007). Powell (2008a) has claimed it was the change in attitude of the British government that was the most important change of all. The government ‘became prepared after many years trying to ignore the problem of Northern Ireland, to devote considerable care and attention to it’ (Powell 2008a: 312). Powell has also commented that, after a meeting with Tony Blair in Northern Ireland in 2005, President Bush ‘said he would devote as much time and as much effort to solving the Middle East as Blair had to Northern Ireland’. In Powell’s (2009: 24) assessment, ‘that is what it would take from an American president really determined to get peace there’.

Problems with the model There are several problems with what those who champion the Northern Ireland ‘model’ seek to extrapolate from the case. One potential difficulty is that there have undoubtedly been other factors that were important in creating and advancing the peace process. For example, Ed Moloney (2002) stresses the importance

184   E. O’Kane of the impact that British intelligence’s infiltration of the IRA had in compromising the organisation’s effectiveness. Bew et al. (2009: 246) have argued that there has been ‘a growing tendency to see the 1990s peace process in Northern Ireland as something entirely removed from the war that preceded it’. What is interesting about the identified model is that the aspects that are highlighted by the politicians and advisors that champion it are factors which they can be seen as responsible for. Leaving aside inherent limitations arising from the absence of, or silence surrounding certain points in the political discourse considered above (see also Hayward, Chapter 1), there are significant enough problems in what they do discuss and how they portray it. Dialogue without preconditions? Accounts that suggest the peace process was based upon inclusive dialogue without preconditions oversimplify what was a far more complicated and nuanced process. Questions such as why the extremes were excluded in the earlier period and on what basis they were admitted during the peace process are not sufficiently considered. Clear preconditions existed to the entry of republicans into the peace process. There was an absolute demand made of all those that wanted to participate in formal talks with the government that they end their use of violence and subsequently that they sign up to the ‘Mitchell principles’. These principles included the commitment to use exclusively peaceful means and renounce the use or threat of force. The British government consistently refused republican demands for direct talks, even if held in secret, unless the IRA ended their use of violence The British sent a message to Sinn Féin on 19 March 1993 stipulating that: [t]he position of the British Government is that any dialogue could only follow a halt to violent activity . . . once a halt to [paramilitary] activity became public, the British Government would have to acknowledge and defend its entry into dialogue. It would do so by pointing out that its agreement to exploratory dialogue about the possibility of an inclusive process had been given because and only because it had received a private assurance that organised violence had been brought to an end. (Sinn Féin 1993, emphasis added) Once a ceasefire was in place, Sinn Féin’s continued participation in the peace process was contingent upon the IRA not returning to violence. Jonathan Powell’s own account records that in his first meeting with Sinn Féin, Tony Blair ‘warned them that the whole thing would be off if there was any return to violence’ (Powell 2008a: 16). So despite what he claims to have learnt in Belfast, Powell suggests that for the Labour government talks were used as a ‘reward to be held out or withdrawn’. The other precondition the British made clear was that they would not drop their commitment to the principle of consent. Republicans had argued Britain

Discourses of Northern Ireland’s ‘model’   185 must agree to be ‘persuaders for unity’. The British told republicans, via the back channel: The British government does not have, and will not adopt, any prior objective of ‘ending partition’. . . . It has accepted that the eventual outcome of . . . [a talks] process could be a united Ireland, but this can only be on the basis of consent of the people of Northern Ireland. (Sinn Féin 1993: 27) So accounts that suggest that the peace in Northern Ireland was achieved by the decision to move to fully inclusive talks with republicans before the violence ended are misleading. The issue of why the British and Irish governments sought to entice the extremes into the political process in the early 1990s, but apparently had refused to do so earlier is linked to the vital issue of context. The reason the two governments sought to entice the republicans into a peace process in the early 1990s was their increasing belief that this was more of a possibility in this period than it had been in the past. Several accounts have suggested that in the late 1980s and early 1990s there was an increasing concern within the republican movement that they may be marginalised. The context in the early 1990s was very different to that of the earlier period. In the early-­to-mid 1970s, for example, the IRA felt it was in a strong position and believed (erroneously as it turned out) that the British were moving towards withdrawal. In the early 1980s republicans had been buoyed by the apparent rise in support following the hunger strikes and were embarking on the ‘armalite and ballot box’ strategy. By the late 1980s, however, republicans had little tangible gains to show for the continuing violence. In this context, seeking an alternative process to advance their aims appeared more appealing than it may have done before, and by the early 1990s indications were beginning to emerge from republicans that at least some in the movement were willing to consider a different approach. Partners for peace The changed context is also essential in explaining the other four aspects of the model. In respect of identifying leaders who could be partners for a process in Northern Ireland the key ‘players’ were generally not new leaders but had been important actors for a considerable period. The exception was the UUP leader, David Trimble, who took over leadership of the party in 1995. Hain’s (2007) aforementioned statement that Trimble was the first Unionist leader ‘capable of proposing or even grudgingly accepting a new vision for Northern Ireland post conflict’ is only something that was evident in hindsight. When he took over the UUP, one British minister argued the description of Trimble as a ‘moderate’ in a Times editorial caused him to nearly ‘puke up’ his Frosties (McKittrick 1995). An alternative explanation to Trimble being the first unionist leader who would accept a new vision is that Trimble was the first unionist leader to find himself

186   E. O’Kane faced with a republican movement on ceasefire, apparently willing to pursue an unarmed strategy and ultimately willing to sign up to what can be seen as a partitionist agreement. This is not to belittle Trimble’s contribution, nor to argue that any UUP leader would have necessarily acted as he did. It is to illustrate the unacceptability of allowing a discourse to emerge that stresses the actions of elite actors without explaining/examining these actions in the appropriate context. Third parties As noted above, the debate on the role of third parties has been illuminating but not conclusive. Even if one sets aside the question of how important third party intervention actually was, the issue of context raises some interesting questions when considering why third parties were willing to get involved in the peace process. There is something of a ‘chicken and the egg’ aspect to the issue. Did the peace process succeed because third parties got involved, or did third parties get involved because it appeared that the peace process might succeed? Why does the issue attract the level of engagement in the early 1990s that was in excess of anything seen before? Various reasons have been suggested in relation to this matter, from the end of the cold war and resulting changes to the British–US ‘special relationship’ to the personal interest of Bill Clinton in Northern Ireland, a legacy of his days as a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford. Whilst these may have been factors, it may also be the case that Northern Ireland’s improving situation in the early 1990s and emerging peace process also created conditions that were more amenable to political engagement and more attractive to third parties. So, although the support of third parties may have been very helpful in bringing about the successes seen in Northern Ireland, if one is talking about ‘lessons’ that might be of use in other conflicts it remains necessary to consider why they were willing to intervene – a question that is possibly best answered on a case-­by-case basis. Intense focus The argument that it was the changing situation in Northern Ireland in the 1990s that helps account for changes in the attention that it received also serves to explain why the Blair government focused so intensely on the problem. Powell’s suggestion that British governments had previously ‘sought to ignore’ the problem is too simplistic and suggests that it was a decision taken by New Labour to ‘deal’ with Northern Ireland that was responsible for the breakthrough. New Labour deserve great credit for the attention they gave to Northern Ireland, but so does the preceding government of John Major; again it is the context that is important in explaining the attention. To divorce the attention given to the peace process from the context which gave rise to it risks suggesting that a breakthrough agreement in Northern Ireland was always possible, if only governments had taken the time and effort to resolve the conflict, which is highly debatable.

Discourses of Northern Ireland’s ‘model’   187 Bipartisanship The peace process undoubtedly benefited from the bipartisanship that existed at Westminster. The lack of electoral saliency of the issue in wider British politics is remarkable. The problems for those who advocate bipartisanship as an important component of any Northern Ireland model is that this lack of electoral saliency is not a characteristic that is usually found in similar conflict situations elsewhere. The British have tried, with little success, to extol the virtues of a bipartisan approach elsewhere, notably in Sri Lanka in 1997 when the then Foreign Office Minister, Liam Fox, brokered a short-­lived agreement between the two main Sri Lankan parties. The lack of electoral saliency means that there has been no use of the Northern Ireland issue for ethnic-­outbidding purposes in recent history at Westminster, a practice that is commonplace elsewhere. The situation between London and Dublin, and their willingness to pursue an intergovernmental approach, is also exceptional. As Frank Wright (1989) noted what marked Northern Ireland out from other conflicts, such as Cyprus and the Lebanon, was ‘that the external parties to the Northern Ireland conflict – Britain and the Irish Republic – will not go to war over it’. As a result of this fortunate idiosyncrasy, this aspect of bipartisanship may be difficult to replicate in other conflicts where two sovereign states are in dispute over a territory and stake a constitutional claim to it.

Explaining the differences between rhetoric and reality Conflicting ‘memories’ of participants Why does there appear to be quite substantial inconsistencies between the tenets of ‘official’ political discourse on the ‘model’ of Northern Ireland’s peace process and the actual course of events? The ‘model’ in question is not so much inaccurate as selective in its representation of the case. It is also clear that there are competing discourses between the champions of the lessons and the conclusions they draw. Peter Hain and Jonathan Powell’s accounts stress the role that New Labour played in the peace process and seek to differentiate it from the approach under John Major. Hain’s account suggests that the Major government misunderstood republicans and created barriers (such as decommissioning) to their entry into talks, whereas the Blair government is portrayed as dynamic and more attuned to the needs of republicans. Yet if one examines the demands that New Labour made of Sinn Féin and the IRA after coming to power in May 1997, they are remarkably similar to what Major’s government was indicating republicans had to do to enter multi-­party talks just a few months earlier (in November 1996), namely: a restoration of the ceasefire, a period of time to indicate compliance before they could enter talks, and to sign up to the Mitchell principles. The real difference was Labour’s lack of ideological baggage on the issue after being out of power since 1979 (see Edwards, Chapter 4), their huge Westminster majority, and a sense of urgency and zeal. These were critical factors, but it was

188   E. O’Kane not a radical departure from the previous government in policy terms. Powell has stressed the dynamism that Labour brought to the issue and claimed that ‘the most important change of all was in the attitude of the British government’ and its intense focus on the problem. Whilst Powell does acknowledge that the ‘process began with John Major, who was the first Prime Minister since Lloyd George to make a serious effort to find a solution’ he notes that Major was unable to get an agreement. Northern Ireland, he surmises – with no apparent irony – simply ‘had to wait for Tony Blair’ (Powell 2008a: 312). Leaving aside what Harold Wilson and Ted Heath may have had to say about Powell’s comments, the narrative offered by Michael Ancram of his experience in the Major government offers an alternative view of the Conservative contribution to the peace process: When I arrived, violence was at a new peak: mass bombings, assassinations, sectarian violence, gun-­running and outside interference. No one was talking to anyone, not governments, not parties, not insurgents. I was frequently advised that the problem was intractable, that I was wasting my time, and that the ‘war’ would have to go on until it was won. (Ancram 2007: 22) According to Ancram, the British government decided this situation was not acceptable, the war could not be won and they could not get a solution without dealing with those they were fighting. This necessitated dialogue with those associated with the paramilitaries. But ‘the first challenge was how to get in touch?’ This all sounds very exciting and engaging but, given that Ancram was appointed to the Northern Ireland Office in May 1993 and the back-­channel contacts have been dated by Peter Brooke (Secretary of State for Northern Ireland 1989–1992) to 1990, and by Ed Moloney to the mid-­1980s, the account begs questions. On reflection Ancram’s dilemma of how to get in touch seems less than perplexing; perhaps send another message via the back channel that has been in use for several years? Also his conclusion that ‘(e)xploratory dialogue can avert the need for preconditions’ does not really seem to be a lesson from his time in office. Despite the indirect exploratory dialogue with republicans his government was not willing to offer direct talks to the IRA before the violence ended; this precondition remained. It is not just the inter-­party accounts that differ; there is also disagreement between British and American participants in the peace process. Mitchell Reiss, who was George Bush’s Special Envoy to Northern Ireland, has criticised Powell’s account for failing to acknowledge the American role in the peace process. According to Reiss (2008), ‘It would be inaccurate to claim too large a role for the United States in the peace process, but it seems a bit churlish for Powell to write out America from the process almost entirely.’ Reiss then lists what he sees as the significant American contribution to the process, noting in particular George Mitchell’s role and how the ‘Clinton Administration energised the peace process by inviting Adams to the White House and then by devoting time and attention at the highest levels in order to sustain political momentum’ (Reiss 2008).

Discourses of Northern Ireland’s ‘model’   189 Egoism or altruism? Examining the champions’ motives It is perhaps understandable that individuals seek to create a discourse that emphasises their role and that of their parties/governments, stresses how their contribution marked a change from what went before and was the key to bringing about the peace. Given the complexity of the peace process and its convoluted and stuttering development, there is a great deal of scope for such competing narratives. But the discourse on the ‘model’ from Northern Ireland is also in part shaped by the desire to use the case to propose a course of action that its champions believe should be used in other conflicts; the justification for these proposals is entirely based on the impression that such steps were used in Northern Ireland. In discourse on the Northern Ireland ‘model’, the ‘lessons’ drawn are closely related to the champions’ prescriptions for different conflicts, as in the case of Michael Ancram’s account of ‘dancing with wolves’. Ancram (2007) reflects his comments through the prism of Northern Ireland in order to illustrate what he argues should happen in the Middle East. When discussing the problems of preconditions he states, ‘there was never a requirement made of Sinn Féin/IRA for de jure recognition of Northern Ireland as part of the United Kingdom’ (Ancram 2007). This is an undeniable statement of fact but it is a little bizarre. Not only was it never a requirement; it was never even seriously raised as an issue by any party to the conflict. So why does Ancram raise the issue? The answer is that although he is talking about dancing with the ‘wolves’ of the IRA it is in order to advocate the necessity of talking to Hamas and Hezbollah. Ancram may well be correct in advocating the necessity of such a step, but it has little or nothing to do with what happened in Northern Ireland. In focusing on the fact that the British entered into a dialogue with republicans without outlining the context of the move or examining the underlying preconditions, Ancram risks drawing unsustainable ‘lessons’ from Northern Ireland and creating a false impression of what its ‘model’ may be. Powell makes the exact same point regarding Hamas in his 2009 article, but does at least link the issue more directly to the Northern Ireland experience. In doing so, Powell (2009: 24) appears to contradict his earlier argument that preconditions were not necessary; he notes that Sinn Féin had to sign up to the principle of non-­violence, and ‘[i]t seems reasonable to expect Hamas to sign up to similar principles of non-­violence before entering negotiations’.

Conclusion This chapter has critiqued the ‘model’ that senior former politicians and advisors have constructed from the Northern Ireland peace process and their attempts to extrapolate lessons from the case that may be of use elsewhere. Almost all the lessons are drawn from efforts to deal with the IRA and move to a peace process that included the republican movement. Given this focus, there are a great many issues that are under-­examined in the discourses around this model. Some

190   E. O’Kane accounts of what happened focus on how well the British managed to orchestrate the peace process and, as Bew et al. (2009: 251) claim, the peace process ‘largely operated within the terms set by successive British governments’. These accounts are also problematic. The peace process was a complex and messy affair, the outcome of which was largely shaped by the competing agendas and constant battles between the numerous parties involved. The British, like all the other participants, made concessions that should be acknowledged and considered. As we have seen, accounts that extol the ‘lessons’ from Northern Ireland and seek to use these to offer advice that may be useful in other conflicts need to be handled very carefully. By failing to examine what happened in Northern Ireland in its proper context and to acknowledge the preconditions and wider constraints that were in play a discourse on the peace process may emerge that is both historically inaccurate and potentially misleading. It is hard to see how such a discourse can provide useful lessons for other conflicts. If it is being argued that Northern Ireland can offer inspiration to other conflicts that has already been shown to be true, but if it is claimed that the case can be directional, then a far more complex and accurate set of lessons have to be identified before we talk of any specific, transferable ‘model’ from Northern Ireland’s peace process.

Bibliography Agnew, P. (2007) ‘Pope praises the success of Northern peace process’, Irish Times 17 September. Ahern, D. (2007) ‘Address by Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr. Dermot Ahern, T.D., to a Special Session of the Parliament of the Democratic Republic of Timor Leste’. Avail­ able at www.dfa.ie/home/index.aspx?id=42902 (accessed 30 March 2008). Ancram, M. (2007) ‘Dancing with wolves: the importance of talking to your enemies’, Middle East Policy 24: 2. Bew, J., Frampton, M. and Gurruchaga, I. (2009) Talking to Terrorists, London: Hurst & Co. Clancy, M.A. (2007) ‘The United States and post-­Agreement Northern Ireland, 2001–6’, Irish Studies in International Affairs 18: 155–173. Clinton, H. (2009) ‘Joint Press Statements with First Minister Robinson and Deputy First Minister McGuinness’, 12 October. Available at www.state.gov/secretary/ rm/2009a/10/130489.htm. Cohen, R. (2007) ‘In his prime’, Men’s Vogue, September: 210–217. Cox, M. (1997) ‘Bringing in the ‘international’: the IRA ceasefire and the end of the Cold War’, International Affairs 73(4): 671–693. Cox, M. (2006) ‘Rethinking the international and Northern Ireland: a defence’, in M. Cox, A. Guelke and F. Stephen (eds) A Farewell to Arms? Beyond the Good Friday Agreement, 2nd edn, Manchester: Manchester University Press. de Breadún, D. (2005) ‘Iraqi politician studying North peace “very closely” ’, Irish Times 14 November. Dixon, P. (2006) ‘Rethinking the international: a critique’, in M. Cox, A. Guelke and F. Stephen (eds) A Farewell to Arms? Beyond the Good Friday Agreement, 2nd edn, Manchester: Manchester University Press, pp. 409–426.

Discourses of Northern Ireland’s ‘model’   191 Godson, D. (2004) Himself Alone, London: HarperCollins. Hain, P. (2007) ‘Peacemaking in Northern Ireland: a model for conflict resolution?’, speech delivered at Chatham House 12 June 2007. Available at www.nio.gov.uk/nio_ conflict_speech-­2.pdf (accessed 1 December 2009). Hain, P. (2008) ‘From horror to hope: can peacemaking in Northern Ireland be a model for conflict resolution worldwide?’, speech delivered at Glucksman Ireland House NYU, New York, 5 June 2008. Available at http://irelandhouse.fas.nyu.edu/object/ peterhain.html (accessed 1 December 2009). Hayward, K. (2006) ‘Reiterating national identities: the European Union conception of conflict resolution in Northern Ireland’, Cooperation and Conflict 41(3): 261–284. Hazelton, W. (2000) ‘Encouragement from the sideline: Clinton’s role in the Good Friday Agreement’, Irish Studies in International Affairs 11: 103–119. McKittrick, D. (1995) ‘Trimble wins: will peace lose?’, Independent 11 September. Meehan, E. (2006) ‘Europe and the Europeanisation of the Irish question’, in M. Cox, A. Guelke and F. Stephen (eds) A Farewell to Arms? Beyond the Good Friday Agreement, 2nd edn, Manchester: Manchester University Press. Moloney, E. (2002) A Secret History of the IRA, London: Penguin. Moriarty, G. (2007) ‘NI politicians coach Iraqis on building peace process’, Irish Times 4 September. Mowlam, M. (1996) ‘Ireland the path to peace’, Independent 17 March. O’Clery, C. (1997) The Greening of the White House, Dublin: Gill and Macmillan. O’Kane, E. (2002) ‘The Republic of Ireland’s policy towards Northern Ireland: the international dimension as a policy tool’, Irish Studies in International Affairs 13: 121–133. O’Kane, E. (2007) Britain, Ireland and Northern Ireland Since 1980. The Totality of Relationships, London: Routledge. Powell, J. (2008a) Great Hatred Little Room: Making Peace in Northern Ireland, London: The Bodley Head. Powell, J. (2008b) ‘What I learned in Belfast’, Prospect, May. Powell, J. (2009) ‘No peace without process’, New Statesman 13 April. Reiss, M. (2008) ‘The Troubles we’ve seen’, The American Interest Online July–August. Available at www.the-­american-interest.com/article-­bd.cfm?piece=454 (accessed 1 December 2009). Rowan, B. (2008) ‘Adams interrogated me on “war is over” message’, Belfast Telegraph 19 March. Sinn Féin (1993) Setting the Record Straight, Belfast: Sinn Féin. Staunton, D. (2007) ‘Peace process will serve as a “model” to world’, Irish Times 27 March. Wright, F. (1989) ‘Northern Ireland and the British–Irish relationship’, Studies 78(310): 151–62.

13 ‘The IRA are not Al-­Qaeda’1 ‘New terrorism’ discourse and Irish republicanism Mark McGovern

Since the attacks on 11 September 2001 on the World Trade Centre in New York and the Pentagon Building in Washington, DC the term ‘new terrorism’ has gained wide currency to describe what is seen as a massive shift in the scale, scope, nature, purpose and cause of non-­state political violence in various parts of the world. The term itself pre-­dates 9/11, coined by leading mainstream writers on terrorism in the preceding decade. For example, Walter Lacquer (1999: 4) argued that the 1990s had witnessed a ‘radical transformation, if not a revolution, in the character of terrorism’ while Bruce Hoffman (1995: 280–281) suggested that ‘terrorism is changing. New adversaries, new motivations and new rationales have surfaced in recent years.’ However, it was in the wake of 9/11 that the concept of ‘new terrorism’ emerged more prominently in political and public discourse. ‘New terrorism’ was part of the lexicon of the ‘Global War on Terror’ launched from late 2001 onward by the Bush and Blair administrations against what was defined as the ‘real and existential threat’ from Islamic groups (Blair 2004). The invasion and occupation of Iraq, the ongoing war in Afghanistan and the emergence of various anti-­terrorist and counter-­insurgency policies and measures introduced in the United States, the UK and elsewhere were the result.

‘New terrorism’ discourse in Britain The discourse of ‘new terrorism’ rests upon the distinction made with what had gone before. As Anthony Field (2009: 197) has suggested, ‘the dichotomy between “traditional” and “new” terrorism is the central analytical device of the “new terrorism” concept and is frequently deployed to highlight the revolutionary extent of the change in the nature of the terrorist threat’. In Britain that dichotomy has tended to contrast, either implicitly or explicitly, the nature of contemporary ‘Islamist terrorism’ with the Irish Republican Army (IRA) and their role in the 30 years of conflict in and about Northern Ireland. In so doing, the discursive construction of Irish republicanism and the IRA has undergone something of a partial revision (at least in sections of ) British political and media representations.2 In the aftermath of the bombings in London on 7 July 2005, for example, the then Prime Minister Tony Blair argued that, while it was ‘invidious’ to make

‘New terrorism’ discourse and Irish republicanism   193 such comparisons, the threat from al-­Qaeda was far greater in terms of its scale and because there was no comparison between ‘the political demands of republicanism [and those] . . . of this terrorist ideology that we face now’.3 After this speech, most criticism of Blair emanating from Northern Ireland came from unionists and focused on his argument that the 7/7 bombings evidenced an unprecedented desire to maximise mass civilian casualties.4 Yet Blair’s other key point – that a contrast could be drawn between the logic and motivation that lay behind al-­Qaeda and the IRA – was highly significant. A central feature of ‘new terrorism’ discourse (as will be explored in greater depth below) is that the motivations of contemporary ‘terrorists’ are essentially irrational and non-­political and that their aims are absolutist. Implicit in Blair’s contrast is the suggestion that the IRA, in conducting their armed campaign, was none of these things.

The discursive revision of Irish republicanism Irish republicanism (like the political ideologies and world views of most other state and non-­state actors in the Northern Ireland conflict) might indeed best be examined as a politically motivated phenomenon with an internally coherent rationale, framed by context and experience, for the use of political violence. However, what this chapter aims to consider is the manner in which this is quite different to the representation of Irish republicanism by the state and mainstream media throughout the three decades of the conflict. Instead, the actions of the IRA and the views of Irish republicans were typically presented as being variously irrational in origin, non-­political in intent and absolutist in nature. More akin, in other words, to the way that Islamists may be represented today than in contrast to the same. This began to change with the development of the peace process and the search for political dialogue and a political solution that entailed. There was clearly an inter-­relationship between the shifting discursive construction of republicanism and that changing political paradigm. However, this discursive revision of republicanism has also been important in the development of the language of ‘new terrorism’ and its use in providing legitimisation for current counter-­insurgency measures and policies that have impacted detrimentally (and with potentially counter-­productive consequences) on many within Muslim communities in Britain today. In illuminating continuities rather than contrasts in the representation of a supposedly non-­political, ‘fanatical’ terrorist ‘Other’, the aim of this chapter is to critique and challenge the logic of ‘new terrorism’ discourse through the prism of the changing representation of Irish republicanism. To do so the chapter will be divided into three parts. Part one will briefly outline the conceptualisation of terrorism not as an essentialist, defined social phenomenon (as understood within mainstream terrorist studies) but rather as a product of the discourse of terrorism, with reference to the emerging literature of critical terrorism studies (Burnett and Whyte 2005; Gunning 2007; Jackson 2007a; Jarvis 2009). Within this context part two will examine the concept,

194   M. McGovern language and narratives of the discourse of ‘new terrorism’ and consider the role of Irish republicanism in it. Part three will then critique the ‘newness’ of ‘new terrorism’ by looking at various critical analyses of earlier representations of Irish republicans as an irrational and fanatical ‘Other’. The paper will conclude by considering why this has been so and what this may tell us about the politics of the discursive construction of ‘new terrorism’.

Discourse and ‘terrorism’ Critical terrorism studies have recently emerged as an agenda within a number of academic disciplines (international studies, security studies, sociology, criminology and anthropology) (Jackson et al. 2009). Critical terrorism studies are essentially a response to the massive rise in the volume of literature devoted to the study of terrorism in the post-­9/11 era and are designed to offer a coherent counterpoint to the dominant ‘problem-­solving’ approach of mainstream ‘terrorism studies’ analyses. Building on the work of an earlier generation of critics of terrorism ‘experts’, scholars and policy-­makers (Chomsky 2002; George 1991; Herman and O’Sullivan 1990), advocates of contemporary critical perspectives tend to share a number of broad positions. These include: a scepticism of the dominance of social realist approaches to the study of terrorism, a critical attitude towards the impact of terrorist studies (as a means of knowledge production) on the normative construction of the discourse of terrorism, and the overtly political role this has in turn played in contemporary counter-­insurgency strategies. Generally speaking, critical approaches to the study of ‘terrorism’ do not challenge the idea that there is a very real potential threat from (and problem posed by) non-­state political violence, but rather ‘draw attention to the contestable and politicised nature of the dominant narratives’ of terrorism and the ways it is therefore ‘interpreted and socially constructed’ as a threat of a particular kind (Jackson 2007b: 425). In the first instance this critique calls into question both the possibility and the desirability, commonly insisted upon in mainstream terrorism studies and amongst policy-­makers, of arriving at an objective and verifiable definition of terrorism. Given that ‘terrorism’ is understood as one of the most significant meta-­narratives of the contemporary age, critics argue that it is impossible to separate the conceptualisation, articulation and representation of ‘terrorism’ in the political and public sphere from a series of normative, political (and indeed ideological) connotations. Terrorism is always a pejorative, ideologically loaded term and might, as a result, be best understood as an ‘essentially contested concept’ (Gallie 1956). The inevitably contestable nature of the discourse of terrorism may be most clearly revealed in cases where forms and acts of political violence that (given various common definitions of terrorism) could be described as ‘terrorist’ tend not to be in political and popular discourse. As a number of commentators have noted this is most prevalent in instances of mass organised violence undertaken by Western states that might (but seldom are) subject to being described as ‘state terrorism’ (Chomsky 2002; George 1991; Jackson 2008; Stohl 2006; Stohl and Lopez 1984).

‘New terrorism’ discourse and Irish republicanism   195 As Lee Jarvis (2009) has recently argued, the analysis of state violence as ‘state terrorism’ is one of two major strands of critique offered by critical terrorism studies. The other is an interpretivist challenge to any ‘residual essentialism’ in the study of terrorism that focuses on the frames and discursive sites and unpacks ‘the assumptions and implications of specific narratives of terror’ (Jarvis 2009: 19). The subject for study is therefore the discourse of terrorism, the ‘terms, assumptions, labels, categories and narratives used to describe and explain terrorism’ (Jackson 2007b: 395). The analysis of the discourse of terrorism is designed to reveal the interactive links between texts and social processes where the language and practice of counter-­terrorism simultaneously constitute and are constituted by social and political reality. The result is to highlight its rhetorical and ideological role. ‘Terrorism’, as (in today’s world) an immensely powerful and influential discursive formation, is therefore understood to represent a key aspect of the contemporary politics of representation. As a moment of ideological articulation, an utterance impacted upon and inscribed by power relations (Eagleton 1991: 223), ‘terrorism’ limits and excludes other possible narratives to describe the world. In so doing it de-­legitimises those subject to its signification and simultaneously provides legitimisation to the acts, measures, policies and practices waged against them.

‘New terrorism’ Academic discourses on ‘new terrorism’ Burnett and Whyte (2005) suggest that the first appearance of the term ‘new terrorism’ in terrorism studies literature emerges as early as 1986, in a keynote address delivered by Paul Wilkinson, Director of the Centre for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence at St Andrews University and a leading commentator long associated with counter-­insurgency studies of Northern Ireland. In his address, Wilkinson (1986a) saw the emergence of a ‘new wave’ of political violence in the Middle East and South Asia as adding ‘dangerous dimensions’ to terrorism because ‘religious sectarianism is a potent factor’. The focus on the non-­secular, overtly religious motivation behind ‘new terrorism’ has since emerged as one of the key supposed factors distinguishing the movements that have emerged in the 1990s and 2000s (such as al-­Qaeda) from those of earlier periods (such as the IRA). Anthony Field (2009: 197) has identified six such ‘alleged differences’ in the ‘new terrorism’ literature defining their subject. These include, for example, changes in their organisational character, strategic purpose and scale of demands (Field 2009: 198). However, chief amongst these, and the shift from which much else follows, is that: ‘ “traditional” terrorists were motivated by secular concerns stemming from political ideology, national-­separatist aspirations and ethnic conflict. As opposed to this, the “new” terrorists are said to be motivated by religious prophecy or divine inspiration.’ Thus, for example, Walter Lacquer (1999: 226) argued that new terrorism was

196   M. McGovern assuming a ‘more pathological complexion [in which] . . . political and ideological motivations in the traditional sense, however far-­fetched, will recede, as fanaticism, whether sectarian, ethnic, or just personal, moves to the foreground’. In similar vein, Burnett and Whyte (2005: 5) note the importance given by ‘new terrorism’ theorists to ‘religious imperatives’ as a motivation that underpins other key supposed characteristics of ‘new terrorism’; its alleged ‘indiscriminate’ and ‘incorrigible’ nature. Within this ‘new terrorism’ paradigm ‘new terrorists’ are understood to be little constrained by ethical or other considerations because of their profoundly ideological, religious and therefore anti-­ rational motivating drive. As a result they are understood to be far more willing not only to countenance the use of violence directed to achieve mass and indiscriminate civilian casualties but to see in such actions a form of symbolic and vengeful destruction that is an end in itself. This is similarly linked to the imagined ultimate threat of a ‘new terrorism’ directed to obtaining and deploying weapons of mass destruction. ‘New terrorists’ are in turn ‘incorrigible’ because the same motivating characteristics of religiosity and fanaticism have inflated the scale and scope of their demands and made them far more absolutist in their pursuit of the same. ‘New terrorists’, it is suggested, are distinguished by the shift from limited objectives (for example in geographic terms, or the pursuit of incremental gains) to global, irreconcilable, indeed transcendental goals (Field 2009: 197–198). In the logic of the ‘new terrorism’ paradigm, this more lethal, existential and global threat is posed less to certain states than to the very idea of ‘democracy’ itself; it is, therefore, ultimately driven by this pathological, anti-­rational and sacral motivating force. British political discourses on ‘new terrorism’ The growing importance of the discourse of ‘new terrorism’ has been evident in the political as well as the academic arena. The post-­9/11 rhetoric of Tony Blair is the most obvious example in the British political sphere where ‘new terrorism’ is understood as an existential threat to a distinct Western way of life, a moral distinction drawn between an orderly interior and a chaotic and utterly destructive externality (Johnson 2002). But Blair has been far from the only British government exponent of ‘new terrorism’ discourse. It is a theme that has been taken up with gusto by others and most notably a succession of Home Secretaries who, like Blair, have also sought to mark a distinction with ‘traditional terrorism’ with reference, directly or indirectly, to the IRA. For example, in February 2005, the then Home Secretary Charles Clarke introduced the second reading of the new Prevention of Terrorism bill by arguing that there existed ‘substantial and real threats . . . that are qualitatively different since 11 September 2001’ (Clarke 2005a: col. 330). In a classic exposition of ‘new terrorism’, Clarke listed five ways in which this ‘qualitative difference’ was evident: the threat was global in reach, had a greater capacity for ‘mass murder’ (in part due to the use of suicide as a strategy), it was driven by an

‘New terrorism’ discourse and Irish republicanism   197 ideology that was ‘entirely destructive’ and involved a ‘cataclysmic and catastrophic lack of restraint’ (Clarke 2005a: cols 333–334). The contrast with ‘traditional terrorism’ was also starkly drawn: Despite this country’s long experience over decades of terrorism of different kinds in relation to Ireland and anti-­colonial struggles of various descriptions, the nature of the threat that we now face is of a qualitatively different order and, in my opinion, requires qualitatively different measures. (Clarke 2005a: col. 331) Indeed throughout the debate on the bill that the ‘threat’ from Islamist groups was ‘distinct from that of the IRA’ was repeated on a number of occasions. There was a clear instrumentality to such a position. The bill being defended was demanding an extension of powers that included the introduction of control orders – a form of internment (although the language of internment was conspicuous by its absence, largely because of the stigma still attached to the term given its failure in Northern Ireland in the early 1970s). In similar vein, a call for the use of non-­jury courts akin to the Diplock system in the North was seen as inadequate by Clarke (2005a: 337) because ‘there is evidence of activity that cannot be put before a court of whatever type’. Because they were said to be driven by a sacral and nihilistic ideological force, Clarke (2005b) proposed later the same year, such new terrorists represented a ‘threat to our civilisation’ and bore more of a ‘comparison with self-­destructive cults than political movements’. The result was that they possessed ideas with which there could be no negotiation, again in contrast to what existed before: And, unlike the liberation movements of the post-­World War II era, these are not political ideas like national independence from colonial rule, or equality for all citizens without regard for race or creed, or freedom of expression without totalitarian repression. Such ambitions are, at least in principle, negotiable and in many cases have actually been negotiated. (Clarke 2005b) One of Clarke’s successors as Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith, was charged with introducing the new ‘Contest II’ strategy (2009), the updated British government policy framework for ‘countering international terrorism’. In familiar form, the policy was argued for on the basis that ‘the terrorist threat is very different from any that we have faced in the past’ (Smith 2008b). The threat of international terrorism, argued Smith (2008a), was existential in nature because it ‘represents an attack on our values and our way of life of a completely different order to the terrorist threats we have faced in the past’. Like Clarke, Smith sought to draw a clear distinction between the character of the threat that the IRA had previously posed, though she took care to avoid the sort of criticism that had previously been levelled at Tony Blair following his ‘the IRA are not Al-­Qaeda’ comments:

198   M. McGovern Of course, we have been attacked by terrorists before. For thirty years, Northern Ireland suffered from sectarian killings and terrorism that took an enormous toll of human life. But without in any way diminishing the suffering that those attacks caused, we have now seen a new form of terrorism emerge as the primary threat to the UK. (Smith 2008a) This perspective on the ‘qualitatively different’ threat and the discourse of ‘new terrorism’ was exemplified in the Contest II strategy document itself where the ‘religious justification’ of contemporary ‘terrorism’ was the key dimension producing a new set of challenges: The current international terrorist threat is quite different from the terrorist threats we faced in the past. Contemporary terrorist groups claim a religious justification for their actions and have a wide-­ranging religious and political agenda; they are no longer concerned with a single issue. Many seek mass civilian casualties and are prepared to use unconventional techniques (including chemical or radiological weapons); they conduct attacks without warning; they actively seek to recruit new members in the UK and elsewhere around the world. (Home Office 2009: 36) Discontinuity in the ‘threat of terrorism’ Again, there is a clear instrumental logic to such arguments for a discontinuity in the ‘threat of terrorism’. Both Clarke and Smith were introducing some of the raft of new ‘counter-­terrorism’ measures (such as Contest II) that have been brought into law since the signing of the 1998 Agreement. The expansion of extensive counter-­insurgency powers was (significantly) signalled even before the 9/11 attacks when the Terrorism Act 2000 made permanent the provisions of the Prevention of Terrorism Act (originally introduced in 1974 as a temporary ‘emergency’ measure). It has since been followed by numerous other pieces of ‘anti-­terrorist’ legislation including the Anti-­Terrorism, Crime and Security Act (2001), the Prevention of Terrorism Act (2005), the Terrorism Act (2006) and the Counter Terrorism Act (2008). The retrospective diminution of a previous ‘threat’ may be seen as a crucial discursive step toward constructing a clear contrast between the ‘old’ and the ‘new’ and thus support narratives of a need for new policy measures. It should be said, too, that such an evident contrast drawn between previous ‘threats’ in ‘new terrorism’ discourse does not necessarily represent a wholesale revision of previous perspectives about Irish republicanism, although changing political circumstances have tended to foster such a process. That Irish republicans have themselves revised their goals and strategies during the years of the peace process – both through their own internal reassessment and within the context of prevailing British policies – clearly has a bearing on its representation by others (Bean 2007; McGovern 2000, 2004; McGovern and Shirlow 1998; McIntyre 1995).

‘New terrorism’ discourse and Irish republicanism   199 The changing context of the post-­9/11 world has also had a significant influence. The IRA decision to begin to decommission their weapons, coming as it did on 23 October 2001, evidences the changing political environment that the 9/11 attacks brought in their wake.5 Given Irish republicans’ reliance on Irish– American support (both in material terms throughout the conflict and in political terms as part of the peace process strategy), the new atmosphere in the United States toward any perceived link to ‘international terrorism’ would bring with it a high political cost. The inter-­relationship of the imperatives of the peace process and the ‘war on terror’ were exemplified by the Bush–Blair summit held at Hillsborough Castle just outside Belfast on 8 April 2003, less than a month after the invasion of Iraq. As President Bush and Blair met to formulate what would prove to be the disastrous and costly post-­war strategy for Iraq, the Irish peace process was held up as a model for the Middle East to follow (see O’Kane, Chapter 12). Here in microcosm are the limitations of the re-­articulation of Irish republicanism in ‘new terrorism’ discourse. George Bush could welcome the involvement of republicans in peace talks as ‘men who have signed on to a process that would yield peace’.6 Yet even in the moment of lauding the peace process, Bush continued to confirm the dominance of an interpretive frame for understanding the roots of the Northern Ireland conflict (and more importantly for the logic of ‘new terrorism’, that of the Middle East) that privileged the non-­rational, the emotional and habitual ethnic enmity and that absented responsibility of the state: Peace in the Middle East will require overcoming deep divisions of history and religion, yet we know this is possible, it is happening in Northern Ireland. You are proving that old patterns of bitterness and violence, the habits of hatred and retribution, can be broken when one generation makes the choice to break those habits.7 In this discursive and rhetorical emphasis upon the emotional and the irrational we find the echo of an important continuity in the construction of the ‘terrorist Other’ that needs to be explored further. It is also important to remember that the logic of the ‘new terrorism’ discourse is not based upon a comparison between who and what Irish republicans are now, but rather as they were during the conflict. The representation of the threat of ‘new terrorism’ as qualitatively different to that which has prevailed in the past is not based upon a comparison with Sinn Féin as a political movement involved in a peace process and a power-­ sharing executive, but with the scale, nature, scope and motivation of the supposed ‘threat’ posed by Irish republicanism when the IRA was actively engaged in armed struggle with the British state.

Discourses on Irish republicanism during the conflict If the presentation of Irish republicans within the discourse of ‘new terrorism’ is designed to draw a contrast with contemporary ‘terrorists’ and the ‘catastrophic’,

200   M. McGovern ‘fanatical’ nature of ‘new terrorism’, it seems reasonable to ask whether this was the portrait of republicans which prevailed throughout the conflict. Were republicans presented, as the discourse of ‘new terrorism’ often requires that they now can be, as essentially politically motivated, driven by rational non-­absolutist ends that tended to delimit their propensity for mass violence? And, if that was not the case (and, it will be argued, there is considerable evidence to the contrary), what can this tell us about the discourse of terrorism in the politics of representation? In order to explore these issues it is useful to examine some of the findings of the key academic texts on media coverage of the Northern Ireland conflict that sought to explore how ‘the representation of “terrorism” is closely bound up with the exercise of definitional power’ (Schlesinger et al. 1983: 158). Discourses of the IRA as criminal As David Miller (1994: 3) has argued, through much of the conflict British policy was directed at marginalising the profile and impact of political violence in the North, yet paradoxically at the same time the state’s ‘public relations s­trategy . . . consistently emphasised the criminality and “evil” of the Irish Republican Army (IRA)’ and so increased the news value of the conflict. The representation of the IRA as essentially ‘criminal’ was a primary frame for the depiction of the conflict and was closely associated with state counter-­insurgency policies. Criminalisation was a central element of the British state’s ‘containment’ counter-­insurgency strategy developed from the mid-­1970s onwards (Rolston 1991) and was designed to de-­politicise the public representation of armed opposition to the state. At the policy level, criminalisation was exemplified (from March 1976 onwards) by the withdrawal of special category status from those convicted of ‘scheduled offences’ in the no-­jury Diplock Courts. The result was the republican blanket and no-­wash prisoner protest campaigns and ultimately the hunger strike of 1981. At the rhetorical level, Margaret Thatcher’s declaration during the hunger strike that ‘a crime is a crime, is a crime’ symbolised a wider state and media depiction of republican political violence as essentially criminal in form and nature (Miller 1994; Schlesinger et al. 1983). In Televising Terrorism, possibly the most authoritative text on media coverage of the Northern Ireland conflict, Schlesinger et al. (1983: 4–5) argued that this criminalising discourse needed to be understood as part of a ‘conscious strategy’ of psychological warfare operating in tandem with the representation of political violence as the result of ‘irrationality and psychopathic tendencies’. This was combined with the regular representation of the IRA as being involved in organised crime and criminal activities and the deployment of the language and metaphors of ‘Godfathers’ and gangster-­ism (Curtis 1984: 132). Brian Hamilton-­Tweedale (1990: 71) also noted that, in the aftermath of the Enniskillen bombing of November 1987, the pathological, the criminal and the sectarian narratives dominated representation within the British press; the IRA bombing was seen as the work of ‘evil men’ (Daily Mirror), ‘Maniacs’ (Star), ‘terrorist Godfathers’ (Today), ‘cowardly

‘New terrorism’ discourse and Irish republicanism   201 bigots’ (Sun), and ‘men whose infatuation with blood transcends their dopey belief in a federal, socialist united Ireland’ (Daily Express). Schlesinger et al. (1983: 4) also noted that from the construction of the ‘terrorist as criminal’ certain other ideas flowed, including the perception that such violence is ‘necessarily indiscriminate’. The representation of the actions of the IRA as non-­ discriminating and directed at the inflicting of mass civilian casualties could then provide justification for the state’s use of extreme measures including, for example, the use of lethal force in disputed circumstances. Thus, the killing of three unarmed members of the IRA by the SAS in Gibraltar in 1988 could be reported in the popular press as the ‘just desserts’ for ‘three evil monsters’ who ‘planned to massacre hundreds of people’ (Hamilton-­Tweedale 1990: 70). Ironically this emphasis upon the ‘criminal’ and the representation of the Northern Ireland conflict as a ‘law and order’ problem stands as one of the clearest differences with the rhetoric of the ‘war on terror’ and the battle against ‘new terrorism’. The framing of ‘new terrorism’ as part of a ‘war’ on terror stands in sharp contrast to the official discourse of criminalisation in the case of Northern Ireland and has in turn been subject to much criticism (Jackson 2005). Discourses of the IRA as ‘outsiders’ That said, at times (contradictorily) the IRA featured as part of the pre-­9/11 mirage of an ‘international network of terror’ during the 1980s (Curtis 1984; Herman 1982; Rolston 1991). Long before ‘international terrorism’ was viewed as a peculiar characteristic of Islamist groups, the IRA were seen as in league with a network of evil empires (the Soviet Union), ‘terrorist’ states (Libya) and like-­minded ‘terrorist’ movements (Palestine Liberation Organisation [PLO], Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia [FARC]). Despite this narrative, the dominant logic of containment sought to represent Northern Ireland as an ‘internal’ UK problem. On the other hand, the post-­9/11 conceptualisation of an international and never-­ending war against terrorism forms the rhetorical corollary to the mobilisation of organised violence on a massive and international scale orientated toward the establishment of a new era of ‘liberal’ governance. The ‘Godfather’ metaphor also relied upon the dominant representation of the IRA’s relationship with the community from which it came as essentially coercive, exploitative and ‘terroristic’. Presenting Irish republicans as external ‘agitators’ and an ‘alien element’ in the community was a key aspect of counter-­insurgency psych ops and media representations from the earliest days of the conflict (Curtis 1984; McCann 1971). While this was at times represented through images of external international threats, constructing Irish republicans as an alien and unwanted presence revolved far more around the idea that they were separate to and an imposition upon the Catholic community. Clearly the IRA employed force as an element of their informal control of people and communities during the conflict. Yet, as both Frank Burton (1978) and Jeffrey Sluka (1989) illustrated in their detailed and classic ethnographic studies of working class republican areas in the 1970s and 1980s, counter-­insurgency depictions of

202   M. McGovern communities governed by fear did little to illuminate the unquestionably difficult and fraught, but complex and inter-­dependent, relationship between republicans and their community base at the height of the conflict. Indeed, Sluka (1989: 169) noted that it was the ‘poor social science and political theory of counter-­ insurgency specialists’ and their failure both to carry out first-­hand research or to engage with the perspective of people within such communities, that was a major reason for conducting his work. In similar vein, the ethnographer Allen Feldman (1991: 47) argued that the British government and media regularly evoked and re-­interpreted the imagery of the traditional community ‘hardman’ as ‘fanatic advocates of radicalised violence’. This conflation of ‘hardmen’ and ‘gunmen’, Feldman contended, had the effect of reifying ‘unrelenting violence as a “fixed” cultural characteristic of certain Belfast communities’. Discourses of the IRA as irrational Along with popular media portrayals of the Northern Ireland conflict, terrorism ‘experts’ could similarly depict the motivation of Irish republicans as essentially criminal, emotional and/or fanatical in nature, often relying too on a de-­ humanising representational language. For example, in his widely influential work Terrorism and the Liberal State, first published in 1977, Paul Wilkinson (1986b: 94) did allow that there might be political motivation amongst terrorists, though little or no link to social or economic exclusion. However, whatever their ideological outlook, ‘terrorists’ (like those of the IRA) could be characterised as ‘desperate people bitterly opposed’ to liberal democracy and ‘alienated’ from its values (Wilkinson 1986b: 94). Indeed, an imagined marginalisation from mainstream society only intensified as they were subject to ‘public hostility’ so becoming ‘hunted’ and ‘desperate creatures’ open to the ‘coercive exploitation’ of their leaders, either ‘bought’ or ‘trapped into collaboration by weakness or fear’ (Wilkinson 1986b: 95). Such ‘pathetic creatures’ were thus exploited by the ‘genuine fanatics’ who directed and led such movements, and whose motivation could be found in their ‘ideological obsession and fanaticism which is the sustaining passion that drives them’ (Wilkinson 1986b: 95). There have been some who have continued to depict Irish republicanism in this vein. For example, Michael Ignatieff (2004: 122) recently argued that the IRA bore as much resemblance to the mafia as they did to a radical political party and its ‘criminal allure and cynicism’ was why it was a ‘mistake to conciliate or appease a group like the IRA with political concessions’. Significantly, Ignatieff ’s understanding of the roots of the Northern Ireland conflict (and indeed of much contemporary political violence) fuses this notion of a ‘criminal conspiracy’ with the supposedly overriding malign influence of the ideology of la politique du pire amongst Irish republicans, where ‘terrorism’ is the violence of ‘first resort’ and specifically designed to ‘silence reasonable voices in the two communities’ (Ignatieff 2004: 102). While Ignatieff may be a little out of step in presenting a case for a continuity in the nature of ‘terrorist threats’ he does so by arguing that now as then it is the irrational, the nihilistic and the fanatical beliefs

‘New terrorism’ discourse and Irish republicanism   203 of a cabal that make ‘terrorism’ happen in opposition to the rationalism of liberal democracy. This discursive differentiation between a violence driven by religious fanaticism in opposition to liberal democratic rationalism has been a crucial and central motif not only of ‘new terrorism’ discourse but of how the conflict in Northern Ireland and the use of force by Irish republicans was represented. A number of critics have drawn attention to the manner in which representing the Northern Ireland conflict as essentially sectarian in nature was the most obvious way in which religion was invoked both to evidence the influence of the non-­political, pre-­modern or irrational and to cast the British state in the role of benign liberal democratic peacemaker (Curtis 1984; Miller 1994). More specifically, the imagined role of the religious or the sacred in the motivations of Irish republicans was also a dominant theme in the writing of many leading academics, revisionist historians and intellectuals as well as popular media representations. This is most obvious in the representation of Irish republicanism less as a rational political ideology than a quasi-­religious movement or indeed a death cult driven by a culture of martyrdom. A key advocate of such a perspective was the former government minister in the Irish Republic and leading figure of revisionism, Conor Cruise O’Brien. For example, in a lecture series delivered at Harvard University in 1986, Conor Cruise O’Brien argued that the secularism of Irish republicanism was a mere veneer, a ‘pseudo-­secular cover [for] Irish Catholic holy nationalism’ (O’Brien 1988: 39). Republicanism owed far less to ‘sceptical Wolfe Tone’ than to ‘the mystical martyr Patrick Pearse’. The result was that amongst the adherents of Irish republicanism could be found ‘a will to martyrdom that rivals that of the members of Hezbollah’. This republican martyr cult was, according to O’Brien, exemplified in the 1981 hunger strike and the figure of Bobby Sands ‘re-­enacting in his hunger strike the passion and death of Jesus Christ, for the sacred cause of Ireland’ (O’Brien 1988: 40). However, O’Brien was far from alone in viewing republicanism and the 1981 hunger strike as a form of nihilistic ‘politics of despair’ (O’Malley 1990). For example, a more sophisticated reading offered by the philosopher Richard Kearney ultimately sees ideology and enculturation as a more convincing explanation than social experience, structure and the rational for understanding the hunger strike, which therefore becomes the result of a ‘deep-­seated sacrificial myth of martyrdom’ in the republican tradition (Kearney 1988). Another, more recent, analysis has sought to draw a direct analogy between the 1981 hunger strikers and the phenomenon of suicide bombers and (despite evidence within the work itself to the contrary) tried to argue that a religious cast of mind motivated the hunger strikers to turn the ‘human body into a terrorist weapon’ (Dingley and Mollica 2007).

Terrorism discourses old and new As Phillip Schlesinger (1991: 18) pointed out, commentators on the IRA and ‘Irish terrorism’, such as Conor Cruise O’Brien, performed a ‘definitional sleight

204   M. McGovern of hand in which rationality and democratic institutions mutually imply one another’. The juxtaposition of rationality as identifiable with the liberal democratic state and irrationality with those construed as pitted against it was, in other words, as much the central trope of the way that ‘traditional terrorism’ was represented as is the case with ‘new terrorism’ today. But, as Schlesinger (1991: 18) pointed out, there may be many advantages to liberal democratic institutions but they are not purely ‘embodiments of rationality’, nor are those who may use political violence against them ‘inherently irrational’. Rather, this Manichean construction of the ‘rational’ and the ‘irrational’ is a key ideological function of the discourse of terrorism in rendering the state’s actions legitimate and those of its opponents illegitimate. Far from being understood as rational political agents, the dominant discourse and representation of Irish republicans evident in the popular media, much ‘counter-­terrorist’ and revisionist academic analysis, and British government statements throughout the 30 years of conflict sought to portray them as criminal, alien, anti-­rational, fanatical and/or driven by a religious/sacral motivation. As a result, they were generally also portrayed as indiscriminate in their use of violence and absolutist in their demands. In terms of the politics of the representation of terrorism, what is striking, therefore, is the degree of continuity between the dominant discursive construction of Irish republican political violence during the conflict and that of contemporary Islamist groups. The re-­presentation of Irish republicanism in recent years is, at one level, clearly a direct consequence of the peace process. The inclusion of Sinn Féin in the sphere of the liberal democratic order and its institutions, via the peace process and the post-­Agreement settlement, in a sense required this process of discursive reconstruction. That shift in political discourse paralleled political change itself through the period from the late 1980s and early 1990s onwards. However, this revising of Irish republicanism from ‘fanatical terrorist Other’ to negotiable political movement also serves to reveal the contingency of ‘terrorism discourse’ – even while that discourse itself presents the world in terms of moral absolutes, of immutable and mutually exclusive categories of good and evil, civility and barbarism, rationality and fanaticism. This can itself help create and perpetuate the political violence which the conceptualisation of ‘terrorism’ is ostensibly intended to combat and diminish. As the Committee on the Administration of Justice (2008) recently argued, one of the key lessons that should be learnt from the Northern Ireland conflict is the counter-­productive consequence of counter-­insurgency measures that undermine civil liberties in the name of the battle against ‘terrorism’.

Conclusion In the wake of the 1981 republican hunger strike, Seamus Deane (1985: 35) wrote of the destructive continuity that could be traced in the Anglo-­Irish relationship where civilisation (defined as a social order framed by law) was time and again identified with British governance while Irish opposition was

‘New terrorism’ discourse and Irish republicanism   205 constructed as a form of barbarism, understood as a Hobbesian disorder of ‘local kinship loyalties and sentiments’. The discourse of terrorism, whether old or new, echoes that destructive continuity of representation. If there is a discontinuity between ‘new’ and ‘old terrorism’ it may not be so much in the supposed ‘qualitative difference’ of their scope, scale and nature as in the disjuncture between the way that ‘old terrorism’ is portrayed now compared to how it once was. Similarly, it is in the way that new threats are discursively constructed as driven by the irrational and the alien that a comparison (and a continuity) with what has gone before may be found. What the emergence of the Irish peace process (and the search for political as opposed to military and counter-­ insurgency solutions) might also point to is the need to look beyond the discourses of ‘new terrorism’ today.

Notes 1 ‘IRA are not al-­Qaeda says Blair’, BBC News, 26 July 2005. Available at http://news. bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/4718223.stm (accessed 1 December 2009). 2 Throughout this article the term Irish republicanism is used to refer to the Provisional IRA and Sinn Féin rather than to other Irish republican groups and organisations. 3 Comments by Prime Minister Blair reported in ‘IRA are not al-­Qaeda says Blair’, BBC News, 26 July 2005. 4 A total of 56 people (including the four bombers) died in the ‘7/7’ London attacks in 2005. This did represent a greater number than died in any single incident in Northern Ireland (29 people killed in the Real IRA bombing in Omagh in 1998), on any single day during the conflict (33 people killed in the Loyalist Dublin/Monaghan bombings in May 1974) or from single attack carried out in Britain (21 people killed by the IRA pub bombings in Birmingham in November 1974). However, the greatest single loss of life from an analogous incident in Britain in the preceding 30 years was the 270 people killed when Pan Am Flight 103 was blown up over Lockerbie in 1988. Similarly the 7 July 2005 bombings were the only ones undertaken in Britain by Islamists that have resulted in civilian deaths. According to the Global Terrorism Database (www.start.umd.edu/gtd/ accessed 18 February 2010) between 2001 and 2007 there were only nine attacks involving Islamist groups in Britain (including the four bombings on 7 July 2005) and only one other that resulted in a fatality: the Glasgow Airport attack in June 2007, in which one of the erstwhile bombers was the only fatal victim. 5 BBC (2001) IRA Begins to Decommission Weapons, 23 October 2001. Available at http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/october/23/newsid_2489000/2489099. stm (accessed 1 December 2009). 6 ‘President Bush meets with Prime Minister Blair in Northern Ireland’, Hillsborough Castle Belfast, 8 April 2003. Available at http://georgewbush-­whitehouse.archives.gov/ news/releases/2003/04/20030408.html (accessed 1 December 2009). 7 ‘President Bush meets with Prime Minister’, Belfast, 8 April 2003.

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14 Debating peace and conflict in Northern Ireland Towards a narrative approach Adrian Little

The normative idea of conflict resolution invokes particular pejorative understandings of conflict as a political ‘problem’ which needs to be dealt with (Finlayson 2006). This chapter examines the ways in which the problematisation of conflict affects political narratives; it also critiques the relationship between the ensuing discourses and the political realities of complex societies. The argument takes Northern Ireland as an example of this social and political complexity and contends that discourses of resolution are particularly difficult to apply in this case. Instead there may be greater utility in conceiving conflict as a phenomenon to be managed and transformed rather than resolved. While this correlates with agonistic conceptions of conflict management, the chapter contends that even these agonistic models still involve normative assumptions about the ‘problem’ of conflict that structure political discourse accordingly. This structuring of political discourse encourages closure and decontestation around conflictual narratives, putting them at risk of marginalisation even where their expression remains pivotal to the social and political dynamics of complex conflictual societies.

Conflict and complexity Much of the literature on conflict resolution abounds with pejorative understandings of the nature of conflict (Lederach 1997; Bar-­Siman-Tov 2004). According to such thinking, conflict is pathological insofar as ‘normal’ societies are not compromised by overt conflict or else have functional mechanisms in place which may contain conflict. These mechanisms may include vibrant civil societies which channel conflict along Habermasian lines into arguments that form the basis for acceptable political dialogues (Little 2003, 2009b). Or they may take the form of consociational political institutions that enable power-­sharing and investment in common forms of government. Or it may just be that, for a range of contingent reasons (Shapiro and Bedi 2009), the composition of a society is not particularly conflictual, thereby requiring less creative forms of institutional architecture to uphold peace and stability. In each of these political understandings, however, the undesirability of conflict in a given society is assumed. In other words, much of the literature on conflict resolution takes as its

210   A. Little normative starting point the view that conflict is socially harmful and therefore needs to be overcome to enable normal political and social life to continue. This chapter takes issue with this interpretation of conflict and argues that conflict is an inevitable feature of all complex societies; indeed, conflict is constitutive of political engagement within them. Instead of viewing conflict as something that must be resolved, conflict scenarios can – at best – be managed and potentially transformed; moreover, I argue, complex societies generate new conflicts which may unsettle and disrupt any established order. Complexity At this point it is perhaps useful to provide a more detailed commentary on the understanding of complexity which informs this analysis. Complexity theory in the contemporary social sciences emerged out of a combination of the insights from the natural sciences on disorderly and chaotic elements of scientific phenomena and systems theory in the social sciences associated with the work of Niklas Luhmann (1995). Borrowing from these traditions, this chapter argues that contemporary complex societies are characterised by certain features that undermine the possibility of linear, results-­driven accounts of political action (Cilliers 1998; Urry 2003). Instead of actions leading to definitive outcomes, complexity suggests that actions lead to non-­linear outcomes. In other words, actors cannot be sure of the outcomes of their actions due to the influence of a complex range of external and unpredictable variables that are also intervening and acting upon any particular issue. As a result complex societies can be regarded as generative of – as well as constituted by – conflict, as an unpredictable set of actions are constantly generating new problems and issues that need to be addressed. At the same time, however, political actors and institutions are often bound by path dependence based upon how things were done in the past. This path dependence makes both actors and institutions less than optimally flexible in addressing new problems. In Northern Ireland relatively little has been written on these understandings of social and political action (Little 2009a; Ruane and Todd 2007) but they have profound ramifications for how we understand politics and, in particular, the ways in which we try to act in relation to issues of conflict. In the light of this general overview of complexity, it is worth focusing more directly on the specific issue of the generative nature of complex systems and societies. This idea entails that our actions, in interaction with those of others and the machinations of social and political institutions, are constantly generating new problems or new forms of older issues. This results in an understanding of complex societies as extremely fluid and dynamic. By this account, conflict is an inevitable feature of social and political life – it helps to constitute the nature of politics in any given society. At the same time, the attempt to grapple with conflict generates new problems and issues which need to be addressed. This is why theories of complexity see conflict as both constitutive and generative. These are inevitable and unavoidable features of complex societies.

Debating peace and conflict in Northern Ireland   211 Viewed from this perspective, there is an inherent problem with the idea that conflict is pathological. This runs contrary to the very model of society that is imagined by complexity theorists who, even if they could accept that a lack of conflict was normatively desirable, could not accept that it was ontologically possible. Complexity theory therefore questions the very possibility of conflict resolution as if we could ever be at a definitive end point of a process whereby a conclusive statement could be made that there was no more conflict over a particular issue. As Foucault (2003: 16) reminds us, we ‘are always writing the history of the same war, even when we are writing the history of peace and its institutions’. It is clear that the fact that conflict resolution may not be possible marks a fundamental schism between theorists informed by complexity theory and those who are not. However, it is worth going a step further and asking whether there are actually attendant perils that arise through the pursuit of conflict resolution. The risk of pathologising conflict lies in the danger of construing normal and reasonable forms of conflict as somehow inappropriate forms of political engagement. Thus, the normative pursuit of conflict resolution tends to draw in those with a disposition towards resolution and marginalise discourses which are less conciliatory. For resolution to be achievable, boundaries have to be established as to what is and is not acceptable in the expression of conflicting opinions. The paradigm within those boundaries is one that presupposes that a process of conflict resolution is the right and reasonable path. Moreover, the rationality underpinning this paradigm implies that those who want to continue to express conflictual discourses that are at odds with the ordained process must be kept on the outer. The danger here is that the pursuit of normative finality neglects the constantly shifting foundation upon which complex politics take place and the need to engage with those expressing conflicting views about the particular process that is under way. The transformation of conflict is not assisted by pulling up the drawbridge around institutional processes or particular discursive modes of expressing conflict that have become established. This is why conflict transformation is a more useful terminology than resolution for thinking about the way in which we grapple with the issues which divide us. Transformation does not imply the same degree of finality and conclusiveness as that embodied in the idea of resolution and is more open to the way in which complex societies can generate new conflicts through addressing the old. In many ways, old conflicts get rewritten and are reinscribed in the ways in which we address the new problems that inevitably arise in complex circumstances.

Agonistic, rhetorical and narrative approaches to conflict and reconciliation To explain the reasons why discursive constructions are so important to the political expression of conflict in complex societies, I now turn my attention to three alternative ways in which dealing with conflict has been imagined in the

212   A. Little critical literature on reconciliation that has emerged in recent years. Broadly speaking, these approaches can be categorised as the agonistic, rhetorical and narrative theories of conflict and reconciliation. Like the approach developed here, these theories accept the centrality of conflict to politics and therefore eschew the normative pursuit of reconciliation as a conclusive objective. Nonetheless, as the following analysis will demonstrate, the extent to which they remain open to conflictual discourses varies considerably. What will be clear, however, is that while reconciliation may be a normative objective for some of these theories, the absence or resolution of conflict per se is not. In other words, in critical theories reconciliation and political conflict can, and indeed should, co-­exist. In the broad literature on reconciliation, there is considerable emphasis on reconciliation as a normative project: one inspired by the pursuit of truth, contrition and forgiveness to reach the objective of peaceful co-­existence and the renewal of a society (Crocker 1999; Doxtader 2001; Hamber and Kelly 2004; Muldoon 2003; Schaap 2005). This is imagined as a transformative process whereby conflictual societies move forwards on the basis of recognition of the wrongdoing of the past. Among the critical theories of reconciliation, however, there appears to be a more nuanced account which recognises that conflictual issues are part of the fabric of contested societies – such that the issues which arise from them continue to characterise the social and cultural landscape long after formal political agreements have been made or institutions established. For the purposes of this chapter, it is useful to separate these critical approaches into three groups each with a different import for our understanding of the centrality of discourse in dealing with conflict: agonistic theories, theories of reconciliation as rhetoric, and narrative understandings of reconciliation. Agnostic theories: reconciliation as political process The agonistic approach seeks to establish a means through which political institutions can be established that enable legitimate adversaries to disagree with each other in mutually acceptable terms, rather than disagreement stymieing political engagement because the parties regard each other as fundamental enemies (Little 2004). In this respect, agonism entails a domestication of political conflict whereby disagreement is conducted within established parameters that do not have resolution or rational consensus as their overarching objective (Mouffe 2000, 2005; Schaap 2009). An agonistic polity is, therefore, one in which there is greater fluidity and dynamism than many of the models emanating from liberal political theory which rely upon extracting people and their discourses from difficult contextual circumstances. Nonetheless, it is also the case that agonistic orders are not ‘free for alls’ where anything goes. Instead, agonism involves a redrawing of the boundaries of the political in a more inclusive and encompassing fashion, thereby allowing for a greater diversity of views than might be the case if the pursuit of agreement and consensus was a prerequisite.

Debating peace and conflict in Northern Ireland   213 However, borders are still drawn around the political in agonistic theory – certain views are still excluded from the agonistic polity. While agonism might potentially be more inclusive, it is not all-­ encompassing. For this reason we need to recognise that an agonistic variant of reconciliation is still a loaded discursive construction because it would legitimise some actors as interlocutors and simultaneously exclude others. Agonism should not be construed as an empty vessel in which we contain political conflict, but rather a means of bringing more conflictual narratives into the political fold. This is understood by some agonistic theorists such as Andrew Schaap, who recognises that there is a ‘legitimate concern that reconciliation might be ideological insofar as it invokes the common good to legitimate a particular order in which the interests of some are privileged over those of others’ (Schaap 2008: 249). Nonetheless, he also suggests that there might be good strategic reasons for investing in reconciliation as a political process (rather than as an ideological argument) and that we need to find a meaningful concept of reconciliation before we grapple with the differing interpretations of ideological actors. The problem here, of course, is whether it is possible to reach such a definition without inflecting it with ideological thinking through the means by which it is discursively articulated. Other agonistic theorists such as Paul Muldoon (2003) contend that, as long as reconciliation processes are about the establishment of a legitimate political order, then it is quite possible to argue through difference to reach a modicum of agreement on forms of governance and, indeed, the institutional architecture of a reconciled society. But this reflects the difficulty that agonistic theorists need to address when faced with the complex nature of conflict. In arguing for the establishment of a shared ‘political community’ grounded in dialogue as the basis of legitimacy, Muldoon sails perilously close to the liberal waters that agonistic theorists criticise. In complex societies with deep-­rooted conflicts such legitimacy is difficult to acquire and even harder to sustain. The problem with agonistic accounts, then, is the difficulty of establishing a founding order of reconciliation which can act as an agreed basis on which to conduct a certain form of political engagement. For example, Schaap attempts a ‘non-­controversial’ definition of reconciliation as ‘a public reckoning with a history of political violence and oppression and their legacy in order to enable people divided by that past to coexist within one political community and to recognize [sic] the legitimacy of its law’ (Schaap 2008: 250). However, this seems a rather controversial definition insofar as, in societies (as diverse as Northern Ireland and Australia) where reconciliation has been articulated, we can see quite substantial degrees of opposition to such public reckoning of violence, the notion of a divided rather than singular political community, and suspicion (if not downright opposition) to the system of law inflicted as part of a particular jurisdiction. While Schaap is on strong ground in suggesting that it is dangerous to over-­determine reconciliation in the construction of an agonistic modus vivendi, the weakness lies in the failure to recognise that concepts such as reconciliation are frequently over-­ determined even if we try to develop ‘non-­controversial’ definitions.

214   A. Little Reconciliation as rhetoric An alternative formulation in the critical reconciliation literature is provided by Erik Doxtader in his rhetorical approach. Doxtader sees the rhetorical discourse of reconciliation as one that creates a space for dialogue, even where the process and the events it seeks to make sense of are highly contested. So ‘reconciliation is a mode of rhetorical history-­making’ (Doxtader 2001: 225) which both generates further drives for reconciliation as well as constituting a mindset in which these contested events of the past could be addressed directly. This suggests that prior agreement on reconciliation was not vital and that, on the contrary, ‘reconciliation rhetorically constituted a referent for interaction, a bridge between incommensurable views of South Africa’s past and future’ (Doxtader 2001: 244). This account emphasises the utility of reconciliation as a ‘dialogic event’ rather than as an institutional political process which would reach particular outcomes. This is a subtle move beyond agonistic accounts which rely more heavily on preconceived ways of performing politics or ultimately the need for legitimisation of a particular political community. Although there is no clear distinction between agonistic and rhetorical approaches to reconciliation, it is fair to say that agonistic approaches still aspire to the formation of a way of conducting politics that moves beyond current conflicts so that they are played out in less antagonistic fashion. Rhetorical arguments, on the other hand, provide an ‘oppositional view of reconciliation [that] unsettles its dialectical aspirations towards the transcendent’ (Doxtader 2003: 268). The implication of this argument is that reconciliation in South Africa (which is the focus of Doxtader’s analysis) should be viewed as a framing device which established the paradigm within which the competing sides could work through their differences. Reconciliation was, then, a rhetorical device which had a particular bearing on the specific nature of the South African conflict. Thus, this rhetoric would not be easily transferable to other conflicts and the utility of discursive tools and framing devices can only be understood by analysing the particular circumstances of each conflict: Reconciliation helped to define and perform the South African transition. It allowed citizens and politicians to debate the question of how a transition should be initiated, implemented, and concluded. It revealed that transitions do involve beginnings, concrete choices about how we can forge relations with others in a manner that opens the potential for history making. (Doxtader 2001: 252) Doxtader provides a certain rhetorical flourish in his depiction of the way in which reconciliation opened up rhetorical space in the South African example: Reconciliation is a working faith in the works of words. Speech about speech gone missing. Words to beckon words. Discourse given to the problem of its

Debating peace and conflict in Northern Ireland   215 own power. For and within history, reconciliation is a rhetorical memory made, an active re-­membering of rhetoric’s making, and a remembrance of what rhetoricity might yet make. (Doxtader 2003: 284). And yet it is not clear just what it is about reconciliation that gives it this quality, in this context. Moreover, it is equally unclear why this idea has not had the same cachet in other contexts. Thus, in other conflicts, an entirely different conceptual tool may be required to fulfil an intermediary role in political engagement across difference making clear that the process that is decided upon ‘may make visible the contextual and negotiated nature of the truth of the past’ (Norval 1998: 252). This suggests that critical reconciliation theories need to be more cognisant of the fact that reconciliation has played a central role in some conflict transformation processes for reasons specific to those conflicts. It is neither a transcendent nor a universally applicable concept – as becomes clear when we examine narrative understandings of reconciliation which are more attuned to the contextual specificity of narrative constructions. Reconciliation as narrative Narrative is viewed as a: basic cultural means of making sense of experience through synthesizing perceptions, emotions and meanings. Narrative comes out of experience as well as shapes experience and what is generated as a narrative is as much a product of forgetting as remembering. (Humphrey 2000: 10) This view of narrative is much less normative than agonistic or rhetorical approaches insofar as it recognises that reconciliation narratives can be just as divisive and misleading as they are transformative, unifying and illuminating. Furthermore, the focus on narratives of reconciliation allows wide scope for the continuation of contestatory discourses (Moon 2006; Humphrey 2000). The generative function of reconciliation narratives is not just about generating accord. Narratives of reconciliation will also generate critiques of reconciliatory processes and greater or lesser degrees of non-­reconciliation. If reconciliation is part of a process of storytelling about contentious events, the issues which engender the call for reconciliation may be the very same ones that produce new forms of conflict; new forms of disagreement may emerge, for example, as traumatic events are narrated (Humphrey 2000: 11). Thus, as Moon (2006: 246) contends, talking about reconciliation needs to involve discourses which are not reconciled, which are not forgiving, which do not apologise, which call for punishment. Thus, we cannot assume that narratives of reconciliation will perform the transformative role imagined in agonistic accounts or even open up rhetorical spaces to enable thinking about the future.

216   A. Little The broadly post-­structuralist account provided by Moon (2006) identifies a framework through which the language of reconciliation can be deconstructed and the various meanings that underpin different discursive constructions can be identified. It is an approach which accepts the view that there is no consensus on the meaning of reconciliation and sees the conflict around the meaning of such concepts as symptomatic of the ambiguity of political language (Derrida 1993). Given this undecidable foundation for political ideas including reconciliation, discursive analysis suggests that: subjects do not independently produce, but are constituted by, discourse, and they in turn reproduce the particular assumptions of the discourse within which they are constituted, thus ensuring its hegemony and continuity and also, crucially, the invisibility of its reproduction. (Moon 2006: 261) The next section of this chapter locates these claims in the context of Northern Ireland.

The implications for Northern Ireland What are the implications of these critical approaches to reconciliation for the process of making sense of discourses of conflict transformation in Northern Ireland? Each of these theories has distinctive repercussions for understanding the ways in which conflict is articulated and the discursive structures of the political institutions within which engagements across difference take place. There are already ways in which Northern Ireland politics in the last 20 years can be cast in an agonistic light (Little 2009c). While the conflicts that have characterised Northern Ireland since its inception continue to punctuate everyday life, the peace process of the 1990s established a mode of conducting formal politics that domesticated some of the key issues and drew key activists away from violence and into a more traditionally acceptable form of political action. What is important to remember in these developments is that what Northern Ireland witnessed was not necessarily a change in political beliefs or a fundamental revision of established ideologies, but rather a shift in political strategy which, in the case of the republican movement at least, had been taking place over the course of at least 15 years. While some authors have argued that the strategy of military engagement was fundamental to the ideological character of republicanism (MacIntyre 2001), developments over the last 20 years have shown that the objectives of republicanism can be pursued without recourse to violent means (although of course some republicans would not concur). Similarly, the goals of unionist ideology may have been transformed through the changes in the political environment in the last 20 years but the fundamental aims have remained within the same paradigm.

Debating peace and conflict in Northern Ireland   217 A recursive process What becomes clear is that discursive shifts have taken place in recent years in Northern Ireland but it is erroneous to regard these shifts as fundamental breaks with previous logics and ideological positions. Instead, ideologies progress and survive in an iterative fashion with new discursive positions emerging in reaction to the shifting terrain of complex societies. In other words political actors do not merely read off an ideological songsheet in response to the changing circumstances and new problems that complexity engenders (although we could be forgiven for thinking that that is sometimes the case). Instead, what we see is a recursive process whereby new issues and problems are filtered back through established (though fluid) ideological positions in such a way as to develop these perspectives to accommodate that changing context (Crozier 2007). This is why path dependence is such an important feature of complexity arguments – the ways in which we grapple with the issues of today are imbued with the ideas, strategies, lessons and mistakes of the past. We do not merely change tack when we engage with new issues. Instead, we bring all of our past to bear on the way we think about the problems at hand. In doing so, we partially rewrite that inheritance as well as forge new discursive forms. Thus, political discourse reflects iterative engagement with existing epistemes as well as a recursive redefinition of the logics and rationalities that characterise existing systems of thought and action. In terms of conflict resolution discourses in Northern Ireland then, it is problematic to consider that conflict can be resolved. Certainly discourses are altered by the kinds of processes outlined above, but the resulting discursive constructs are never settled and completed. Particular bones of contention may appear to be addressed but that does not mean that conflict has been resolved. The general issues which animate a conflict can be easily resurrected so there is never a determinate end point whereby resolution of a conflict can be definitively stated. Again this implies that the language of conflict transformation and/or conflict management is more appropriate for describing the way in which discursive engagement between different actors can lead to more or less violent ways of conducting politics. In theoretical terms, the notion of resolution is ‘undecidable’ and the assertion of resolution is bound to a notion of conclusiveness which is difficult to sustain in societies where the social and cultural inheritance is structured around and through conflict (Freeden 2009). As in many complex societies, politics in Northern Ireland has been constituted by conflict, and political activity continues to generate new conflictual issues through which we evolve our discourse and reconstitute and partially restate the discourses of the past. Towards an agonistic polity? Changes in Northern Ireland in the last 20 years have moved it closer to being an agonistic polity than is probably the case with many societies that are not comprised of such overt conflict (Little 2004, 2009c). Insofar as it has been

218   A. Little transformed into a political system in which conflicting elements engage with each other, despite their differences and without seeking to eliminate the conflicts between them, Northern Ireland appears to be an example of a society where former enemies have moved towards being legitimate adversaries. Thus, despite the very clear differences and disputes in the mainstream of Northern Irish politics – indeed the fundamentally opposed world views of major participants – there is an acceptance of the legitimacy of opponents holding alternative views. This was not the case for much of Northern Ireland’s history where opposition to the Northern state was regarded as a case for exclusion. Now, through the peace process, there has been emerging recognition that it is not inconsistent to want to participate in the governance of Northern Ireland while at the same time maintaining an overarching objective of Irish reunification. Importantly, the polity that has emerged is one in which the differences and conflicts between the major groupings is very clear to see. At the same time though, lines have been drawn that continue to locate some groups, their beliefs and strategies outside of the legitimate political sphere. In this way we can see that agonistic polities still exclude; what advocates of agonism should recognise and make clear is that it is a political decision as to where the line is drawn between the acceptable and the unacceptable. As the admission of Sinn Féin into the political domain over the last 30 years has shown, the boundary between what and who is acceptable and unacceptable is not set in stone – a point reiterated throughout this volume in relation to a spectrum of actors related to conflict and peace in Northern Ireland. As complex politics evolve so too do the lines of legitimacy and inclusion. The danger of conflict resolution discourses is that they risk reifying the existing order rather than understanding that state of affairs as transient and fluid. What is unacceptable today may become acceptable as the broader environment develops in a complex society. Actors that are deemed legitimate in the current state of affairs may revert to older forms of enmity or regenerate older strategies to attain their objectives. In so doing then, political actors may choose to re-­enter the ranks of the unacceptable or they may be deemed unacceptable through a shift in tactics or the redrawing of the boundaries of the dominant paradigm. This is not necessarily as a result of a decision by a single powerful actor but rather reflects a shift in the political and social landscape due to a range of actors responding to and regenerating the constitutive terrain of political action. This does not take place in isolation, as if in a chemical experiment, but instead reflects a number of predictable and unpredictable variables interacting in a contingent fashion (Schedler 2009). In this scenario even the degree of conflict resolution that might be articulated in an agonistic polity is contingent and subject to change and development. Relations that may appear relatively harmonious at any given point in time can revert towards greater antagonism depending on a range of external variables. Northern Ireland is a much more inclusive polity now than it was before the 1990s – arguably it is even more conflictual as the polity has become more inclusive (Little 2009c). This is something to be encouraged, but it means relinquishing some of the key assumptions in conflict resolution discourses.

Debating peace and conflict in Northern Ireland   219 The rhetorical process If the agonistic approach is one that seeks to reconstitute conflict such that a more inclusive polity is established based on the inevitability of a level of dispute, what of the two other approaches identified earlier? The rhetorical approach, at least in the terms Doxtader articulates in relation to South Africa, has a direct bearing on the debate on conflict in Northern Ireland. In the South African example, the idea of reconciliation was established in a privileged place in the process that led to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, thereby providing a rhetorical backdrop that facilitated a degree of engagement that had hitherto been absent. This is less the case in Northern Ireland. Here reconciliation is widely viewed as a deeply loaded concept and this precludes it from being a rhetorically neutral backdrop against which conflict transformation can take place. One implication of rhetorical theories such as that advanced by Doxtader is that, if an appropriate rhetorical device can be established, then it can help to create a space for argument around a set of ideas that can lead to substantive political change. Thus, this rhetorical device may not be ‘reconciliation’ in the case of Northern Ireland, but perhaps an alternative construct can serve the role that it played in South Africa. Although this could conceivably be the case, there are two cautionary points that are worth noting. First, we have since seen some of the fallout over the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa with many people now criticising its operation (Moon 2008). This implies that faith in the rhetorical backdrop advocated by Doxtader may have been at least partially misplaced and that much of that faith dissipated over the course of time. Second, my criticism is not just that there is something inherent to reconciliation that does not work in Northern Ireland, but rather that any rhetorical device would fall foul of the nature of social and political complexity. Indeed, in the Northern Ireland peace process in the 1990s, it was the idea of ‘parity of esteem’ that drove much of the debate and that concept came in for considerable criticism as the events of the peace process unfolded (Thompson 2002; Porter 2003). The point here is that conflict is not just something that can be overturned by a form of political rhetoric; instead there needs to be conducive social and cultural conditions to allow a particular rhetoric to flourish. In Northern Ireland, despite the advances of the last 20 years, it is not clear that the conditions for conflict resolution exist (if they exist anywhere). Thus, the peace process has been about conflict management and a degree of conflict transformation rather than conflict resolution. One risk of establishing a certain discourse as the appropriate rhetorical space for dealing with a particular conflict is that potentially valuable but still contestatory arguments get marginalised. Although political rhetoric is an important part of the opening up of opportunities for conflict transformation, it is important to remember that the prevailing rhetorical space in any given example is not settled but transient. In the case of Northern Ireland, the shift that enabled the peace process in the 1990s was the entrance into talks of groups that had hitherto been excluded from formal

220   A. Little political engagement and a new willingness to negotiate among those who previously excluded them. Undoubtedly there was a strong rhetorical process that enabled this change, but the fact that it involved a paradigm shift needs to be recognised. The rhetorical approach is valuable insofar as it alerts us to the importance of the use of language and discourse for the context in which political debates in a conflict scenario take place. Nonetheless, it is also the case that the particular rhetoric that drives a political process at a given time will eventually be superseded by something else, although it is important to remember the role of path dependence in impeding shifts (Little 2009a). The value of a narrative model Political processes find it hard to keep pace with the discursive shifts taking place in broader social and cultural interactions. This is why narrative approaches are concerned with the shifting nature of political discourse and the manner in which arguments may move from being ‘beyond the pale’ to become central mainstream political debate. For this reason, narrative approaches to Northern Ireland encourage us to think about discourses which may be beyond the boundaries of acceptability and the views of people who, for highly understandable reasons, may reject the dominant push towards conflict resolution. It is not difficult to understand why many victims of the Northern Irish conflict find it hard to reconcile with those that they oppose or blame for their loss. It seems inappropriate to marginalise these views just because those that hold them do not concur with a dominant paradigm that regards such conflicting views as in need of ‘resolution’. It is for this reason that the establishment of an agonistic polity or a rhetorical backdrop needs to be understood in terms of continuing exclusions and the fact that what is the acceptable discursive environment at a given point of time is a snapshot, rather a definitive articulation, of what is or is not acceptable for a society like Northern Ireland. It is in the light of the limitations of these approaches that a narrative model appears to be a more fitting way of understanding the discursive expression of conflict in Northern Ireland and the ways in which it might be managed and transformed. It understands the potentially fleeting ways in which the discursive environment shifts and thus the importance of voices from the margins in shifting the established paradigm. Too much of the conflict resolution literature relies on a much more determinate understanding of the discursive paradigm and, therefore, can only see the margins as boundaries that need to be reinforced rather than challenged. The narrative approach does not merely seek to establish a new agonistic paradigm or find a rhetorical device through which political progress can be made. On the contrary, it attempts to understand the multiplicity of narratives that can be constructed and the manifold ways in which they can be interpreted in social and political debates. It is an approach that helps us to understand that boundaries are always drawn around political acceptability, but it also implies that where those boundaries are drawn is contingent on numerous predictable and unpredictable variables. In this sense, narrative approaches to

Debating peace and conflict in Northern Ireland   221 conflict are more synergistic with the contingencies of the political than theories – be they liberal, agonistic or rhetorical – which seek a more fixed and determinate basis on which to conduct political debate.

Conclusion: recontesting conflict Discourses of conflict resolution abound in contemporary divided societies. The argument constructed in this chapter suggests that most attempts to resolve social and political conflicts will fail because of the void between the linguistic constructions through which conflict resolution is expressed and the complex political terrain to which these discourses apply. Moreover, notions of political and social complexity invoke a range of epistemological claims about the indeterminacy and inconclusiveness of the assumptions underpinning political language, such that the concepts we employ in conflict resolution discourses appear too static and over-­determined (Freeden 2009). It seems inevitable that conflict resolution discourses end up simplifying the irreducible complexity of the very conflicts that they seek to address. However, this is not to say that we should just give up on attempts to grapple with conflict regardless of the many failures that we are likely to encounter in the process. Indeed, one could argue that it is only in our failures that we learn to do things differently for better or for worse (Little 2009d). The implication of this argument is that conflict is something that needs to be permanently managed rather than resolved precisely because conflict is an ontological feature of social and political complexity. In our attempts to act on conflict, we are constantly transforming and rewriting discourses such that new narratives emerge in each iteration. However, this implies that it is impossible to resolve conflicts because, as we act on what we think we know, we mutate the conflict itself. There is, then, never a conclusion to conflict transformation, as disagreements evolve and develop in sometimes predictable and sometimes unforeseen ways. A narrative approach to Northern Ireland recognises that there are multiple discourses at work and that they interact with the past and present in complex ways. Within the ethno-­national traditions, different narratives exist such that each of these traditions is a dynamic blend of ideas and practices which is constantly acting upon itself by reiterating and rewriting the stories that establish it. These narratives also vary insofar as some of them are attuned to conflict resolution while others still articulate unfolding elements of conflict. A narrative approach understands each discourse as unsettled and fluid; at one and the same time, they are building upon and rearticulating older discourses to provide the foundation upon which future discourses will engage iteratively. However, this is never a smooth process as these narratives contradict one another, such that a discursive paradigm is never wholly coherent and consistent. Instead there is considerable fraying at the margins as competing narratives and broader discursive formations rub up against one another, thereby influencing each other in frequently unpredictable fashions.

222   A. Little The contention in this chapter then, is that an understanding of Northern Ireland as complex, and politics as both constituted by and generative of conflict, leads towards a narrative model of analysis and interpretation. Unlike liberal, agonistic or rhetorical models of interpretation, a narrative model is one that envisages the space of politics as inevitably unsettled and comprised of conflicting arguments and discourses. While the centre of paradigms of understanding may appear relatively settled in any snapshot of the state of affairs, there is always friction at the margins which ultimately permeates the centre and unsettles the consensual basis upon which liberals (to a large extent) and agonists (to a lesser extent) rely as the cornerstone of political engagement. The narrative approach sees conflict as inevitable in a divided society and seeks ways to manage and transform conflict without relying upon a normative model where the eradication of conflict is paramount. As such, it calls forth a messy, unsettled polity; but this is arguably a model more conducive to the realities of complex and divided societies than other approaches to conflict that tend to dominate contemporary political analysis.

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Index

9/11 192, 194, 196, 198–9, 201 1998 Agreement see Belfast/Good Friday Agreement A Shared Future 144–50; see also Good Relations Strategy Adams, Gerry: on the 1998 Agreement 69–70; British government’s encouragement of 181; Clinton’s White House invitation 188; Hume–Adams initiative 73, 87–8; Mowlam on 57; Paisley’s criticisms 97, 99; on republican ideology 136; on Sinn Féin’s role 70 ‘agreed Ireland’ 85–6 Ahern, Bertie 41, 52 Alliance Party 17, 22, 28 Ancram, Michael 179, 181, 182, 188–9 Anglo-Irish Agreement (1985): enshrining of the ‘unity of consent’ 49; Fine Gael and 33, 39; Haughey’s view 42; Hume on 86–8; influence on republican movement 36; intergovernmental approach and 183; remaining structures 82; SDLP response 79; signing 49; Sinn Féin’s interpretation vs SDLP’s 86–7 anti-terrorist legislation 198 Belfast: creating ‘shared space’ in 144; conflict at local ‘interfaces’ in 168; increase in Catholic-Protestant social ‘mixing’ 171; segregation in 170; social geography 151 Belfast/Good Friday Agreement (1998): ‘agreed Ireland’ model 86; announcement of 79; consociational nature 6; on decommissioning 98; Dublin’s role 82; DUP and 71–2, 117; Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil discourse

on 40; international recognition of 178; nationalist discourse 67–70; Orange perspective 116–17; Paisley’s view 73–4; political consensus 40–2; recognition of political rights 143; SDLP and 68–9, 80; Senator Mitchell’s role 182; Sinn Féin discourse 67–8; ‘three strands’ approach 79–80; unionist discourse 70–4, 93–4 bi-partisanship: continuity in British policy 52–3; importance of 180; types of in relation to Northern Ireland 182–3 Blair, Tony 46–58, 178, 180, 183–4, 186, 192–3, 196–7, 199 broadcasting bans 6 Brooke, Peter 79, 87–8, 188 Bush, George W. 188, 199 Callaghan, James 48–9 Catholics: emigration rates 162; percentage of the population 161–2, 165 ceasefires, republican see IRA ceasefire censuses 161, 163–6, 169–70 Chastelain, John de 98–9 civil disobedience 26, 27 Civil Rights Association see NICRA Clarke, Charles 196–8 Clinton, Bill 58, 182, 186, 188 Clinton, Hillary 178–9 Cohesion, Sharing and Integration policy 143, 146–7 communal identities: defence and preservation of 147; role and importance ascribed to 151 community relations 144–5 complexity theory 209–11 conflict resolution: bipartisanship 182–3, 187; champions of 178–9, 189; characteristics 179; discourse 2–3, 6,

Index   229 178, 209; enabling factors 180; inconsistencies 187–8; intense focus 183, 186; international dimension 182; meaning 179; partners for peace 185; problems with 183; prolonged and intense focus 183; role of third parties 182, 186; Unit 178 consent see principle of consent counter-insurgency measures 202, 204 critical discourse analysis 63–5 critical terrorism studies 194 de Chastelain, John 98–9 de-industrialisation 167 decommissioning: 1998 Agreement on 98; DUP on the lack of 96, 98–9; UUP on 94 deictics, use of in political discourse 71, 74 democracy: civil rights movement and republican discourse 26–7; nationalist discourse on 26; unionist discourse on 24–5 demography: politicisation of in ethnonational conflicts 160; and sectarianism 161–3 devolution: Blair on 50; Conservative Party’s response 51; DUP discourse 105; in New Labour discourse 49–51; purpose of in Northern Ireland 50; Trimble on 72 d’Hondt mechanism 179 Diplock system 197 direct rule 83–4, 145–6, 162 discursive shifts 54, 130, 217, 220 Donaldson, Jeffrey 101–2, 165–6 Downing Street Declaration (Joint Declaration for Peace) (1993): and Hume–Adams initiative 88; Hume’s perspective 86; IRA response 88; model 86; and the principle of consent 56; SDLP influence 89; thinking behind 84 Drumcree Orange Order march 56, 120, 169 DUP (Democratic Unionist Party): constituencies 93; moral integrity 95; electoral success 94; grassroots presence 103; perspective on violence 94–6; preelection manifesto 105; shift in Orange support towards the 116; Sinn Féin’s relationship with 94 DUP discourse: analysis 95–6; conveyance of lack of trust 104; on devolution 105; effectiveness 105; evangelical identity 100–1, 103; historical function 93–5; on

IRA decommissioning 94, 98–100; on loyalist paramilitaries 96, 102–3, 105–6; on power-sharing 104–5; reasons for denouncement of paramilitary violence 96–7; ‘terrorists in government’ 97–8 ethnic cleansing 119, 160, 164, 167–9 European Union Peace II Programme 144 evangelicalism 100 Faulkner, Brian 18, 20, 21, 22, 25, 28 Fianna Fáil: formation 32; Irish unity argument 34–5; political discourse 34–7; republican anti-partitionist discourse 39–40; reunification-based discourse 35–7, 40; rhetorical position 33–4 Fine Gael: principle of consent 33, 40; concurrence with SDLP proposals 33; endorsement of SDLP 33; formation 32; motivation in signing the Anglo-Irish Agreement 39; political discourse 37–9 FitzGerald, Garret 37–9, 81–2, 84 Foot, Michael 49, 52 former IRA prisoners’ discourse: ideological and political capacitybuilding 133–5; influencing factors 131–2; interpretations of change 126–7; on loyalism 137–8; reasons for joining and the impact of imprisonment 130–3; and republican legitimacy 127–30; and republicanism’s ‘coming of age’ 135–6; and the use of violence 128–9; on violence prevention 138; working with the ‘other’ 136–8 Gaitskell, Hugh 48–9 Good Relations Strategy: CFNI response 150; criticisms 145; DUP’s attitude 146, 148; limits 144–7; NGO responses 150; policy weakness 145; public consultation exercise 145; Sinn Féin responses 146, 149 ‘growing apartheid’ discourse: allegations of ‘ethnic cleansing’ 167–8; ‘doomsday scenario’ 169; media on 167, 169–71; questionable assumptions 169–70; reasons for continuation 171–3 habitus 154–6 Hain, Peter 6, 50, 56, 179–81, 182, 183, 185, 187 Harte, Paddy 38–9 Haughey, Charles J. 33, 36, 42

230   Index Heath, Edward 35, 188 Hillsborough 49, 199 Hume, John 26, 78, 80, 83–4, 89 Hume–Adams initiative 73, 88; Hume, discourse of: ‘agreed Ireland’ 85–6; the Anglo-Irish Agreement 86–8; British neutrality 89; ‘Irish dimension’ 80–2, 83; reunification discourse 83; Sinn Féin talks 86–8; ‘three strands’ 78–80; ‘two traditions’ 82–5 hunger strikes 39, 49, 69, 135, 163, 200, 203–4 Independent Monitoring Commission (IMC) 98–9 internment: cross-party statement 19; Hume’s argument 22; internees’ statements 20, 27; Long Kesh camp 23, 27, 132; loyalist perspective 23; loyalist strike 25; Maze Prison incident 22; mistreatment allegations 21; nationalist/ republican responses 19–20, 26–7; NICRA response 26–7; and paramilitaries discourse 22–3; political context 17–18; SDLP response 26; security forces discourse 20–2; unionist responses 18–19; violence discourses 23–4 IRA (Irish Republican Army): criminality discourse 200–2; criticisms 126; decommissioning see decommissioning; discourse of former prisoners see former IRA prisoners’ discourse; justifications for membership 130; ‘outsiders’ discourse 201–2; Paisley and Robinson’s identification of Sinn Féin with 97–8; purpose of violence 22–3 IRA ceasefire: Blair’s response 55; declaration 88; drivers 88–9; as the end of conflict 137; Hume’s role 89; impact on polarisation 163, 170–1, 173; loyalist response 77; and SDLP dialogue 77; and Sinn Féin’s continued participation in the peace process 184; temporary fracture 140 IRA violence: Fianna Fáil’s criticism 34–5; Trimble on Sinn Féin and 71; undermining effect on Sinn Féin’s political capacity 129 Iraq 192, 199; Irish involvement in peace process 179 ‘the Irish dimension’: British government use 80; Dublin government’s position 81–2; SDLP terminology 80–2, 83; and two traditions thesis 83

Irish National Liberation Army (INLA) 127, 138 Irish unity: Fianna Fáil on 34–7; Fine Gael on 38–9; see also united Ireland Joint Declaration for Peace see Downing Street Declaration Labour Party 84; bilateral relationship with the Irish government 52; discursive shift in policy 54–6; ideological change within the 47–9; support for Irish nationalism 48, 54 legitimacy, conceptual analysis 16–17 Long Kesh internment camp 23, 27, 132 loyalist paramilitaries: challenge to moderate unionism 17; DUP discourses on 96, 102–3, 105–6; moderate unionist representation 23 Lynch, Jack 34–6 Major, John 52, 54, 186–8 Mayhew, Patrick 79, 181 McNamara, Kevin 51–2, 54–5 Middle East: Bush on requirements for peace in 199; in conflict resolution model discourse 189 Mitchell, George 182, 188 model of conflict resolution see conflict resolution Molyneaux, James 19, 24 Mowlam, Mo 48, 53–7, 182–3 New Ireland Forum 84 New Labour see Labour Party ‘new terrorism’: characteristics 195–6; Contest II strategy 197–8; nonnegotiability 197 ‘new terrorism’ discourse: academic perspective 195–6; British political perspective 196–7; central features 193; discontinuity in the ‘threat of terrorism’ 198–9; presentation of Irish republicans within 199–200 NICRA (Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association) 17, 26–8 Nobel Peace Prize 78, 93 Noonan, Michael 39, 41 ‘numbers game’ discourse 164; Holy Cross primary school dispute 168; Irish and British media headlines 165; ITV documentary 165; justification of violence 168–9; questionable assumptions 166; ramifications 166–7

Index   231 Orange Order: class identification 117; collective identity and the 110–11; cultural and religious influence and discourses 109; decline in political importance 109; electoral message 118; formation 110; membership 111 Orange Order discourses: continuity, tradition, unity 113–14; core elements 122; cultural resistance 119–20; desire for unity 118–21; faith, loyalty and state 112–13; fears of ‘Lundyism’ within 119; Foucault’s relevance 111; importance of parading 120–1; political dimension 114–17; uncertain futures 121; wartime sacrifice 113–14 Orangeism: and UUP 115–16; origins 110; world-view 114 Paisley, Ian 17, 19, 22, 25, 71–4, 93–4, 96–101, 103–5, 169 parades: government ban on demonstrations and 24; Twelfth of July 109, 112, 120 paramilitaries, competing discourses on 22–3 partition: Ireland’s 161; discourse on 34–5, 37, 68, 82–3 path dependence 210, 217, 220 peace-building discourses: communal identities, division and sharing 150–3; good relations, collective identities and shared space 147–50; limits of A Shared Future 144–7; significance 153–5 peace process: and Blair-Ahern relationship 52; co-sponsorship by London and Dublin 183; dissident republican prisoners’ critique 127; enabling factors 180; entrenchment of two traditions thesis in philosophy of 85; Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael roles 40; New Labour’s handling 46; political discourse and the 40–1; role of political consensus 40–1; Sinn Féin’s role 41; and ‘talking to terrorists’ 53; United States’ role 182, 188; UUP’s centrality 72; see also Belfast/Good Friday Agreement (1998) ‘peace walls’ 143, 168, 172–3 polarisation, violence, segregation and 162–3 political discourse: ability to effect change 5; ambiguity of 216; legitimising function of 64, 66, 74–5; main functions 63–4; and the peace process 40–1; the power and principle of 3–5

Powell, Jonathan 55, 58, 178–9, 181, 183, 186, 188–9 power relations 114, 128, 156, 195 power-sharing: British government’s preference for 51; DUP perspective 104–5; Faulkner’s choice 28; negotiations on 25; and New Labour devolution policy 57; opponents’ arguments 25; Orange Order perspective 121–2; in SDLP discourse 83, 85; and ‘two traditions’ thesis 83 pragmatic legitimisation 65; of the Good Friday/Belfast Agreement 69–70 principle of consent 47, 52, 54–5, 67, 87, 185; Labour party policy 49, 54–6; Blair on 52–4, 56; British precondition to talks 184–5; centrality in British political approaches 51; Downing Street Declaration and the 56; Fine Gael’s discourse 33, 39–40; meaning 33; political consensus and the meaning of republicanism 41 Protestants, percentage of the population 161–2, 165 reconciliation: agonistic approaches 212–13, 219; as basis for peace process language 41; central role in some conflict transformation processes 215; Clinton on 179; Doxtader’s depiction 214–15; emphasis on as a normative project 212; implications of critical approaches to 216; and the importance of discursive constructions 211; narrative approaches 215–16, 220–1; rhetorical approaches 214–15, 219–20; Schaap’s definition 213; South African experience 214, 219 religious imperatives, in ‘new terrorism’ 195–6, 198 republican movement: ‘coming of age’ 135–6; development 130–1; discursive shifts 127–30; electoral mandate 135; interpretations of change 126–7; involvement in community work 137–8; mobilisation 126, 129; split 18 republicanism: ideological oppositions between the British government and 68; capacity for social reform 134; ‘coming of age’ 135–6; discursive revision 193–4; limitations of the re-articulation of in ‘new terrorism’ discourse 199; promotion of a non-violent 133–4; principle of consent, political consensus and the meaning of 41

232   Index residential segregation 143, 169, 171 restorative justice 138 reunification, in SDLP discourse 67, 83, 87 rhetorical approaches to reconciliation 214–15 Robinson, Peter 95, 97–8, 105–6 SDLP (Social Democratic and Labour Party): dialogue with Sinn Féin 77, 86–8; Fine Gael’s endorsement 33; formation 83; historical legacy 89; hopes for the New Ireland Forum 84; interpretation of Anglo-Irish Agreement 86–7; response to internment 26; Towards a New Ireland 80; two traditions thesis and commitment to Sunningdale 83; see also Hume SDLP discourse: on 1998 Agreement 68–9; ‘The Irish dimension’ 80–2, 83; on power-sharing 83, 85; unification in 67, 83, 87 sectarianism, demography and 161–3 security forces: internment discourse 20–2; unionist portrayals 21 segregation 143, 162–4, 169, 171 shared space 104, 144, 147, 153, 155; in Belfast regeneration scheme 151–2; different notions of 148–50; good relations, collective identities and 147–50 Sinn Féin: British message to 184; broadcasting bans on 6; and peace process 41; dialogue between the SDLP and 77, 86–8; electoral threat 39; incorporation into mainstream politics 6, 40, 204; interpretation of Anglo-Irish Agreement 86–7; Orangeist perspective 120–2; political preferences 37; relationship with DUP 94; role in Good Friday/Belfast Agreement 70; split in 32–3 social class and conditions 134, 151, 161 Special Powers Act (1922) 18, 20 Sri Lanka: bipartisan approach 187; Irish involvement in peace process 179 St Andrews Agreement (2006) 33, 40, 50, 78, 90, 94, 96–7, 99–100, 104, 117, 143 Stormont: relationship between the parties in 143; suspension of 24–6, 28 Sunningdale Agreement (1973) 25–6, 51, 72, 81–3, 85, 117

terrorism 56, 194, 198, 202; see also ‘new terrorism’ Thatcher, Margaret 51, 200 Trimble, David 57, 71–4, 93, 98, 181, 185–6 TUV (Traditional Unionist Voice) 95, 104–5, 117–18 two traditions thesis: appearance in nationalist commentaries 82–3; entrenchment in peace process philosophy 85; Framework Documents (1995) stipulations 85; Hume on 83–4; New Ireland Forum report 84; and SDLP commitment to Sunningdale 83 UDA (Ulster Defence Association) 17 Ulster Vanguard 17, 25, 28 Ulster Workers’ Council strike 25 Unionist Party see UUP united Ireland: Fianna Fáil’s discourse 35, 37; in Labour Party policy 51–2; Mowlam on 56; SDLP view of the key to achieving a 87; see also Irish unity unity by consent see principle of consent UUP (Ulster Unionist Party): 1998 Agreement discourse 70–1; 1998 Agreement role 90, 93; centrality to peace process 72; civil disobedience perspective 27; claims of ‘mainstream’ unionism 93; decline 116; dominance 17; DUP strategy to overtake 97; image 103; leader 185–6; relationship with the Orange Order 115–16; Paisley on 98–9 UVF (Ulster Volunteer Force) 17 violence: competing discourses on 23–4; DUP perspective 94–6; Fianna Fáil’s rejection 34; interpretations of moving out of 129; intra-community 173; peace as the absence of structural 5; postAgreement increase 173; republican understanding 128; segregation, political polarisation and 162–3; see also IRA violence ‘war on terror’ 192, 199, 201 Wilson, Harold 48–9, 52, 188