Everyday life after the Irish conflict: The impact of devolution and cross-border cooperation 9781526130952

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Cillian McGrattan and Elizabeth Meehan

EVERYDAY LIFE AFTER THE IRISH CONFLICT The impact of devolution and cross-border cooperation

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Everyday life after the Irish conflict

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Everyday life after the Irish conflict The impact of devolution and cross-border cooperation

Edited by Cillian McGrattan and Elizabeth Meehan

Manchester University Press Manchester

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Copyright © Manchester University Press 2012

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While copyright in the volume as a whole is vested in Manchester University Press, copyright in individual chapters belongs to their respective authors, and no chapter may be reproduced wholly or in part without the express permission in writing of both author and publisher. Published by Manchester University Press Altrincham Street, Manchester M1 7JA, UK www.manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk

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 applied for ISBN 978 07190 8728 8 hardback First published 2012

The publisher has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for any external or third-party internet websites referred to in this book, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.

Typeset in Cambria and Futura by R. J. Footring Ltd, Derby

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Contents

Lists of figures, tables and boxes List of contributors Acknowledgements List of abbreviations Part I. Introduction and context 1 Introduction: the politics of everyday life Cillian McGrattan and Elizabeth Meehan 2 The rocky road from enmity Duncan Morrow

3

20

Part II. Space, place and human relations in Northern Ireland 3 Routine divisions: segregation and daily life in Northern Ireland Neil Jarman and John Bell

4 Promoting good relations: the role of schools in Northern Ireland Joanne Hughes and Caitlin Donnelly

5 Everyday evangelicals: life in a religious subculture after the Agreement Gladys Ganiel and Claire Mitchell

6 ‘Sometimes it would be nice to be a man’: negotiating gender identities after the Good Friday Agreement Theresa O’Keefe 7 Women’s political participation Bronagh Hinds

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vii viii xi xii

39 54 68 83

98

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vi

Contents

Part III. Cross-border dimensions of everyday economic and social life

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 8 The impact of devolution on everyday life, 1999–2010: the case of cross-border commerce Eoin Magennis

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 9 A common floor of rights protection? The Belfast Agreement, ‘equivalence of rights’ and the North–South dimension Colm O’Cinneide 10 Realising the potential for cross-border service provision: lessons from the health sector Brian Ó Caoindealbháin and Patricia Clarke

117 135 150

Part IV. Conclusion: a comparative perspective on inclusion in everyday political life 11 A ‘new politics’ of participation? Elizabeth Meehan and Fiona Mackay References Index

169 184 204

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Figures, tables and boxes

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Figures  8.1  8.2  8.3  8.4  8.5  8.6

North–South institutional arrangements Cross-border trade, 1995–2009 Cross-border tourism statistics, 2000–09 Cross-border daily traffic counts, 2001–08 Cross-border rail and bus passenger statistics, 1999–2009 Cross-border student flows, 2000/01–2008/09

Tables

 4.1 Numbers of schools, partnerships and pupils involved in the Shared Education Programme, 2010/11  7.1 Number and percentage of seats won by women in Assembly and council elections, 1998–2011

Boxes

121 123 126 126 127 128

63

105

10.1 The Cooperation and Working Together (CAWT) programme 159

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Contributors

John Bell has an MA in politics from Queen’s University Belfast and has been a researcher with the Institute for Conflict Research (ICR) since 2005. His main research interests with ICR have been on the dynamics of sectarianism and segregation and political and cultural symbolism. John was part of the ICR research team on the 2008 study ‘Segregated Lives: Social Division, Sectarianism and Everyday Life in Northern Ireland’, which informed the findings reported in chapter 3.

Patricia Clarke is currently Senior Policy Analyst with the Health Research Board Ireland. She maintains an avid interest in North–South relations from her previous role as a Research Manager for the Centre for Cross Border Studies in Armagh, and lives along the Ireland–Northern Ireland border in Monaghan. Patricia is writing in a personal capacity. Caitlin Donnelly is a Lecturer in the School of Education at Queen’s University Belfast. Her research interests include school ethos, faith schools and inter-group relations in schools in divided societies.

Gladys Ganiel is Assistant Professor in Conflict Resolution and Recon­ ciliation at Trinity College Dublin at Belfast (the Irish School of Ecu­ menics). She is co-author (with Claire Mitchell) of Evangelical Journeys: Choice and Change in a Northern Irish Religious Subculture (UCD Press, 2011) and she is author of Evangelicalism and Conflict in Northern Ireland (Palgrave, 2008). She has published on the role of religion in politics, focusing on Northern Ireland, Zimbabwe and South Africa. She blogs at www.gladysganiel.com.

Bronagh Hinds is Senior Associate with DemocraShe. She is an Honorary Senior Research Practitioner in the School of Law at Queen’s

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List of contributors

ix

University Belfast and a member of the Advisory Board of the Institute for British–Irish Studies at University College Dublin. She was chief advisor to the Women’s Coalition in the 1996–98 negotiations, the first Deputy Chief Commissioner of the Equality Commission for Northern Ireland and Northern Ireland Commissioner on the UK Women’s National Commission. She authored The Northern Ireland Economy: Women on the Edge? (Women’s Resource and Development Agency, 2011). Joanne Hughes is Professor of Education and Director of Research in the School of Education at Queen’s University Belfast. Her main research interests are inter-group relations and the role of education in divided societies.

Neil Jarman is the Director of the Institute for Conflict Research, an independent, not-for-profit, policy research centre based in Belfast. He has written extensively on peace-building and issues related to the political transition in Northern Ireland.

Fiona Mackay is Senior Lecturer in Politics at the University of Edin­ burgh. Her recent books include Women, Politics and Constitutional Change (University of Wales Press, 2007, co-authored with Paul Chaney and Laura McAllister) and Gender, Politics and Institutions: Towards a Feminist Institutionalism (Palgrave Macmillan, 2011, co-edited with Mona Lena Krook). Current interests include gender and constitutional change, women’s political representation and institutional design. She co-directs the Feminism and Institutional International Network (FIIN). Eoin Magennis is Policy Research Manager with InterTradeIreland and has a number of publications on cross-border cooperation as well as on the economic and political history of Ireland. Prior to his current role with InterTradeIreland he worked in various research positions with, among others, the Centre for Cross Border Studies, the Linen Hall Library and Queen’s University Belfast.

Cillian McGrattan is Lecturer in Politics at the University of the West of Scotland and Honorary Research Fellow at the Institute for British–Irish Studies, University College Dublin. He is the author of Northern Ireland, 1968–2008: The Politics of Entrenchment (Palgrave Macmillan, 2010) and The Northern Ireland Conflict: A Beginner’s Guide (Oneworld, 2010, co-authored with Aaron Edwards). He has published numerous research articles on various aspects of politics in Northern Ireland. Elizabeth Meehan is Professor Emerita in the Law School at Queen’s University Belfast and Visiting Professor in the School of Politics and International Relations at University College Dublin. Her research

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List of contributors

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includes European Union dimensions to developments in UK territorial politics and to evolving British–Irish relations. Her recent publications include a chapter in Arthur Aughey and Cathy Gormley-Heenan (eds), The Anglo-Irish Agreement (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2011).

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Claire Mitchell is a freelance researcher and writer from Belfast (and was formerly Senior Lecturer in Sociology at Queen’s University Belfast). As well as numerous research articles, evaluations and reports for the community sector, she has written two books about religion in Northern Ireland: Religion, Identity and Politics in Northern Ireland: Boundaries of Belonging and Belief (Ashgate, 2005); and (with Gladys Ganiel) Evangelical Journeys: Choice and Change in a Northern Irish Religious Subculture (UCD Press, 2011). Duncan Morrow is Lecturer in Politics at the University of Ulster, where he lectures in politics, conflict studies and social policy. Until 2011 he was Chief Executive of the Community Relations Council in Northern Ireland, which was responsible for championing the cause of a shared future for all and for delivering some of that change in practice. Prior to that he was co-director of Future Ways, a community learning programme operating out of the University of Ulster. He is a parole commissioner and a member of the Sentence Review Commission, the body responsible for supervising the release of paramilitary prisoners as part of the Good Friday Agreement. 

Brian Ó Caoindealbháin is Research and Evaluation Officer with Co-­operation Ireland. He was formerly a research assistant with the ‘Map­ ping Frontiers, Plotting Pathways’ project at the Institute for British–Irish Studies, University College Dublin. He writes here in a personal capacity.

Colm O’Cinneide is a Reader in Law at the Faculty of Laws, University College London. He is also Vice-President of the European Committee on Social Rights of the Council of Europe and has served as a member of the European Network of Anti-discrimination Law Experts.

Theresa O’Keefe is a Lecturer in the Department of Sociology at the National University of Ireland, Maynooth. She has written on gender, ethno-national identity and armed conflict and is currently finishing a book on women, feminism and armed conflict, to be published by Palgrave.

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Acknowledgements

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The editors would like to acknowledge the work of the Institute for British–Irish Studies, led by Professor Jennifer Todd, whose idea it was that they embark on this book, and to thank its administrator, Dara Gannon, for her assistance in the production of this volume. Research funders are acknowledged in relevant chapters. The editors would also like to thank the contributors for their interesting chapters. Through his helpful advice and assistance Ralph Footring, the production editor, has also made an invaluable contribution.

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Abbreviations

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BBC CAJ

British Broadcasting Corporation Committee on the Administration of Justice (Northern Ireland) CAWT Cooperation and Working Together (cross-border initiative) CPI consumer price index (Ireland) DUP Democratic Unionist Party ECNI Equality Commission for Northern Ireland EEA European Economic Area ENT ear, nose and throat (cross-border health service) ESRC Economic and Social Research Council (UK) ESRI Economic and Social Research Institute (Ireland) EU European Union EU PEACE European Special Support Programme for Peace and Reconciliation (SSPR) FETO Fair Employment and Treatment (Northern Ireland) Order 1998 GFA Good Friday Agreement (also known as the Belfast Agreement and MPA) GVA gross value added HSE Health Service Executive (Ireland) IBEC Irish Business and Employers Confederation IBIS Institute for British–Irish Studies (University College Dublin) ICR Institute for Conflict Research ICTU Irish Congress of Trade Unions Improvement and Development Agency IDeA INTERREG title of an EU initiative to promote cross-border cooperation

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List of abbreviations

IRA MLA MPA

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NCCRI

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NILT NIWC NIWEP NSMC OFMDFM

PEACE PSNI PUP QNHS RTÉ RUC SACHR SDLP SEP SNP SPPPC TD

UDR UNSCR UUP VAT WiLC WRDA

xiii

Irish Republican Army Member of the Legislative Assembly (Northern Ireland) Multi-Party Agreement (also known as the Belfast Agreement and GFA) National Consultative Committee on Racism and Interculturalism Northern Ireland Life and Times (survey) Northern Ireland Women’s Coalition Northern Ireland Women’s European Platform North–South Ministerial Council Office of First Minister and deputy First Minister (Northern Ireland) see EU PEACE Police Service of Northern Ireland Progressive Unionist Party Quarterly National Household Survey Raidío Teilifís Éireann Royal Ulster Constabulary Standing Advisory Committee on Human Rights (Northern Ireland) Social Democratic and Labour Party Shared Education Programme Scottish National Party Scottish Parliament Public Petitions Committee Teachta Dála, member of Ireland’s lower house of the Oireachtas (parliament) Ulster Defence Regiment United Nations Security Council Resolution Ulster Unionist Party value added tax Women in Local Councils Women’s Resource and Development Agency

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Part I. Introduction and context

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Chapter 1

Introduction: the politics of everyday life

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Cillian McGrattan and Elizabeth Meehan

If the so-called peace brings no change in people’s lives, brings no change in the reality of their existence, brings no change in the hope they have for their children, then the peace rings very shallow. And when it rings shallow, the roots of hatred are very strong indeed and hatred flourishes. (Yehuda Paz, quoted in Staunton, 2010: 2)

The 1998 Belfast Agreement – also commonly known as the Good Friday Agreement (GFA) or Multi-Party Agreement (MPA) – was heralded as a ‘new beginning’, an agreement that would end decades of political instability and sectarian violence. A strengthened equality programme, a new public culture, reform of the police and justice systems, decommissioning and de­militarisation changed the context of everyday life. Institutions to promote human rights, equality and political inclusion and to encourage North–South and East–West (Ireland–UK) cooperation – the Human Rights Commission and the Equality Commission as well as the North– South Ministerial Council and the British–Irish Council – have oper­ated continuously since 1999, throughout successive suspensions of the ­devolved power-sharing Assembly.1 After these successive ­suspensions and major electoral realignments within each of the largest ‘blocs’ of voters, the Northern Ireland Executive appointed in 2011, led by the 1 An exception is the Civic Forum – see chapter 11. Devolution operated in ‘shadow mode’ until December 1999. Operating in ‘real mode’ briefly, it was suspended on 11 February 2000. Direct rule then prevailed until 30 May 2000. Devolution was in place from 30 May 2000 until 14 October 2002 (with two one-day suspensions of the ­A ssembly, on 10 August and 22 September 2001). Direct rule returned on 14 October 2002 and lasted until 8 May 2007. In addition, there was a formal dissolution of the Assembly on 28 April 2003 in anticipation of elections, at first expected in May 2003 but actually held in November that year. The Assembly was then suspended and the parties became engaged in a review of the GFA. A non-legislative Assembly existed from May 2006 to make preparations for the renewal of devolution. Both the review

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4

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Cillian McGrattan and Elizabeth Meehan

Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) and Sinn Féin, shows the possi­bilities of one-time enemies working together. A major demonstration of the extraordinary new political architecture can be seen in the agreement reached by that Executive on the repatriation to Northern Ireland of policing and ­criminal justice powers and, though the reality remains to be seen, in the First Minister’s declaration that he intends to rebrand the DUP as a ‘cross-community’ party (Clarke, 2011; Robinson, 2011). Much external interest in what has been achieved in Northern Ireland and in North–South relations has been in the ‘high politics’ of the settlement – Northern Ireland having moved from being a conflict resolution ‘pupil’ to becoming an exemplar for those trying to achieve peace elsewhere (Guelke, 2010; see also Powell, 2008). Little of this interest, however, focuses on what difference, if any, the new constitutional architecture and the operation of ‘high politics’ make to the daily lives of citizens. Moreover, the populations of both parts of the island have become more diverse than they were at the time of the Agreement, particularly in the South, and questions of integration and racism increasingly impinge upon experiences of everyday life. 2 Combining the ‘ideological and the material’ (Fogg, 2009: 4), the study of everyday life looks to explain the relationships between ‘elite’ policy-making and individuals’ experiences of political change. The study of everyday life asks whether and to what extent political developments affect people’s attitudes; it examines the extent to which political transformations influence socio-economic realities; it interrogates the intersection of ideology with people’s lived experiences; it looks at the relationship between institutional innovation and the politics of inclusion and participation (Brubaker, 2006; de Certeau, 1984; Figes, 2007). of the Agreement and the work of the non-legislative Assembly contributed to the St Andrews Agreement of 13 October 2006, which, after fits and starts, resulted in the restoration of devolution in May 2007. 2 Much of the greater diversity is the result of the enlargement of the European Union (EU) but new migrants come also from beyond the European Economic Area (EEA). Enumerating migrants and settlers is fraught with difficulty but estimates, around 2005–07, suggest that migrants in Northern Ireland accounted for between 1 per cent and 3 per cent of the population; for instance, according to Gray and Horgan (2009) the figure was 2 per cent in 2007. In the South, ‘persons born outside of Ireland’ were thought to form 8 per cent of the workforce around this time. Migrants to and settlers in Northern Ireland included Portuguese-speakers (from Brazil as well as Portugal) and people from Eastern Europe, South Asia, the Philippines, the Caribbean and Africa. In the South, migrants (more than settlers) were from Asia, Africa and the USA, as well as other EU states, especially Poland, Lithuania, Latvia and Slovakia, according to the National Consultative Committee on Racism and Interculturalism (now a victim of the Irish government’s cuts) (NCCRI, 2006: ch. 1; see also Potter, 2006: 8). Accounts of experiences at work, in employment and places of residence, as well as of access to public services, are provided by Bell et al. (2004), Diaz (2005), Donnelly (2004), McDonald (2005) and NCCRI (2006).

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Introduction

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In contrast to much of the wider academic and journalistic literature, the Institute for British–Irish Studies (IBIS), in partnership with others, has carried out research and held conferences precisely on the under-researched area of everyday life in Northern Ireland. This book draws together some findings of this work and it deals with crossborder aspects of everyday life. It was not, after all, the intention of the Agreement ‘to transform Northern Ireland while leaving Ireland largely untouched’ (O’Cinneide, 2005: 10). The present study of the politics of everyday life builds on this and other work on day-to-day relationships in Northern Ireland (among others, see Boal and Douglas, 1982; Boal and Royle, 2006; Brewer and Higgins, 1998; Schmid et al., 2010; Shirlow and Murtagh, 2006), but also examines both how the conflict continues to affect ­people’s daily behaviour in reinforcing sectarian or ghettoised notions and norms, and how in their daily lives people are seeking to transcend or are actively transcending the residues of three and a half decades of violence and ninety years of partition. Social science research (at least in its applied or empirical forms) has an inevitable influence on its subjects (Brubaker, 2005) and, as such, this book makes a plea for analytical reflexivity. It is concerned with the functional implications of research and best practice in conflict transformation and aims to provide an overview of how peace agreements and political innovations such as power-­sharing and devolved governance affect people’s daily ex­ periences. In short, Everyday Life After the Irish Conflict seeks not only to describe the ongoing effects of sectarianism, division, exclusion and trauma, but to actively write against these debilitating legacies of the violence (Stanley, 2009: 9). The overall picture in Northern Ireland is less obviously dramatic than the sight of Martin McGuinness and Ian Paisley Snr (and now Peter Robinson) working together to deliver the ‘low politics’ of everyday life. Success occurred in the matching of the employment profiles of ­Catholics and Protestants, even before the GFA, and was reinforced through the Agreement’s equality provisions. Following the Independent Com­ mission on Policing for Northern Ireland (chaired by Lord Patten) (1999), there have been major reforms in policing. But these contrast with other areas of everyday life. Community relations, sectarian demography and atti­t udinal change have not kept pace with change at the level of politics, policing or economic activity (IBIS, 2009). But, with cross-border education initiatives, as indicated by Andy Pollak (2007: 165), it is very difficult, ‘if not impossible’, to assess in the short term ‘the impact of any programme designed to overcome deeply held suspicions’. ‘Typically’, he says, such programmes would need to have been ‘in place for many years before their effects are to be felt’. And as Tony Kennedy (2009) observed on the occasion of one of the IBIS conferences upon which this book draws, ‘the impact of over thirty years of division will take generations to overcome’. All the same, it would be useful for researchers and

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commentators in those ‘many years’ or ‘generations’ hence to have some record of how things were in the first decade of what is inevitably a longterm evolution. And that is what the following chapters aim to provide.

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Everyday life after the Irish conflict Everyday lives are, of course, not neatly parcelled into discrete sections deriving from participation in society, the economy and politics; readers will discern the different ways that the spheres impact upon one another in the individual chapters. Nor are constitutional politics and economic and social policy discrete categories. For example, equality is at the core of the GFA’s constitutional architecture. The latter requires equality for various groups within Northern Ireland and an ‘equivalence’ of ­equality and human rights standards between Northern Ireland and Ireland3 (O’Cinneide, 2005: 7). But, as O’Cinneide shows here in chapter 9, ­people’s experience of the reality of the constitutional principle of equality obviously depends on the quality of the economic and social legislation giving effect to it. This is true not only within Northern Ireland, but it also impacts on those engaged in cross-border business and social co­opera­ tion, as is shown by the contribution by the chair of the International Fund for Ireland, Denis Rooney, to a recent IBIS/British Embassy roundtable discussion of North–South business relations (IBIS, 2010). The economic, social and political spheres of participation have often served as the context for explorations of the Northern Irish peace process, including the North–South dimension – providing a framework for research and analysis of specific ideological, party political, social, legal or historical interests. Yet the practicalities of everyday life are rarely acknowledged. It is the contention of this book that the realities of exclusion and segregation, of commercial restrictions and ­equality of opportunity, of bonding and belonging, and of participation and sharing cannot be easily divorced from the high politics of strategic manoeuvring, ideological rhetoric and institutional reform. Indeed, underpinning the contributions to this book is the idea that studies of Northern Irish politics and of conflict transformation more generally require a change of focus. This is not simply about changing the perspective from the social to the personal or from the political to the individual – rather, the study of the politics of everyday life means 3 The state’s proper name is just ‘Ireland’, not ‘Republic of’. Once, there was con­ troversy between the two states (and within the island) about what they called each other but one, less obvious feature of the GFA was acceptance by the UK government of ‘Ireland’ (see Coakley, 2009). This usage is followed throughout this and subsequent chapters.

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Introduction

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7

a­ cknowledging and explicating the intersections and incongruities of the personal and the political. This includes articulating how political ideas reinforce and are reinforced by personal, family or local perceptions but also how those perceptions often contradict and play off broader ideas about ideology, ethnicity and nationality. Although not writing about ethnicity and nationality per se, Michel de Certeau (1984) describes how these intersections and contradic-tions often occur outside the parameters of traditional social science methodol ogy. He argues that everyday activities and practices, or ‘“ways of operating” or doing things’, are not simply ‘an obscure background’ to social and political life; rather, they constitute the very stuff of the political and the social. Indeed, de Certeau explicitly rejects the idea that everyday life can be analysed at an ‘individualistic’ level. Instead, he explains that the study of everyday life means looking at how individuals negotiate social boundaries and norms – and, in particular, how they appropriate, reappropriate, utilise and transcend the traditions, symbols, language and beliefs that make up what we think of as a ‘culture’ (1984: xi). Thus, while individuals operate within broad social, religious, economic and political frameworks, they constantly interact with, reach compromises and concessions with, authorise and even dispose of the constituent parts of those frameworks. Essentially this is a radical constructivist position. For example, de Certeau argues against the homogeneity of groups and claims that, by utilising similar ‘practices of appropriation’, individuals operate with regard to established group behaviours: ‘The procedures allowing the re-use of [cultural] products are linked together in a kind of obligatory language, and their functioning is related to social situations and power relationships’ (1984: xvii). Power dynamics determine both the way that cultural products are put to use and the ways that groups are formed and relate to other individuals and groups. ‘Negotiation’ of the everyday, in this regard, always involves political considerations – once-salient ideas can become stripped of meaning and depoliticised; or seemingly trivial actions and situations can become politicised and invested with import. Likewise, the two processes are not mutually exclusive; understandings and relationships can become depoliticised while at the same time becoming repoliticised and imbued with new emphasis. Thus, de Certeau speaks of the strategy of these everyday negoti ations: we traverse political, social and historical boundaries in our everyday lives, and recognising the extent to which our experiences and decisions are determined by those boundaries constitutes what he calls an ‘art’ – namely the ‘room for manoeuvre’ that can exist in reusing apparently calcified cultural, political and historical products. Despite lying outside the view of the normal lens of social science research, for de Certeau these processes of negotiation are in fact discernible, by looking at how people approach everyday practices such as ‘talking, reading, moving about, shopping, cooking, etc’. Divesting the

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Cillian McGrattan and Elizabeth Meehan

terms ‘strategy’ and ‘tactic’ of their militaristic undertones, de Certeau argues that everyday life can be analysed by examining the ‘strategies’ (‘the calculus of force-relationships’) that dominant institutions exert and the ‘tactics’ that people use to navigate around or through expected ways of acting or received modes of thinking (1984: xviii–xxii). Extrapolating from de Certeau’s ideas in light of the context of con­ tem­porary British–Irish–Northern Irish relations, it is possible to discern the outlines of research questions. For instance: • How and when does the prevailing ethno-nationalist divide become salient? • How do people negotiate that divide in their everyday lives? • What does the divide mean for what individuals think about each other? • How does the divide affect gender and class relations? • When and where does the divide diminish in importance? • When and where is the divide of no importance? • When and where does it go unremarked? • To what extent does the divide and the legacy of the conflict continue to permeate everyday activities and interactions? • To what extent is the legacy of the conflict being ignored or sup­ pressed?

From 2004 to 2006, a joint research project involving University College Dublin and Queen’s University Belfast broached similar questions regarding the connections between individuals and broader socio-political forces.4 In an article that drew from that research, Jennifer Todd, for example, examined how ethno-national identity is constructed and maintained on an everyday level. She found that: The when of ethnicity presupposes the what: we need to be able to recognise the turns, the silences, the evasions, and what is expressed in them. It also presupposes the how: the triggers that change the path of conversation, the meanings given to those triggers, and the reasons why they are so powerful. (Todd, 2007b: 108; original emphases)

In a contemporary study of ethno-nationalism and everyday life in the Romanian city of Cluj, Brubaker described the ‘everyday’ as ‘construed as an imaginary realm of pure sociability’ (2006: 16). The inhabitants of Cluj espouse several nationalities (Romanian, Hungarian, German) and

4 The project, Intergenerational Transmission and Ethno-National Identity in the Border Area, involved two teams of researchers who collected over 120 interviews from three-generational families in both Northern Ireland and Ireland, conducted an opinion survey with over 1,000 adolescents and held a focus group study of five schools. The research was funded by the Irish Higher Education Authority and the EU Programme for Peace and Reconciliation. The executive summary is available at www.ucd.ie/euiteniba/pdf/ITENIBA_FINAL_REPORT.pdf.

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Introduction

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9

religio-cultural identities (Roma, Jewish, Transylvanian) and interact socially and economically across a wide range of spheres and activities. For Brubaker, the stuff of politics in this culturally, religiously and ethno-nationally divided city arises from how those divisions are constructed, maintained and broken down in the various daily interactions of its citizens. Ethnic ‘groups’ are, he argues, continually constructed on that basis; but further, in their everyday interactions, individuals do not simply work within an almost unconscious ethno-nationalist framework. Rather, they also work against it, undermining and usurping the ‘rhetoric of ethnopolitical entrepreneurs’ (2006: 16). While ethno-nationalist division remains a salient fact of everyday life, Brubaker explains that ‘it is always only one among many such interpretative frames’. In other words, although both the dynamics of ‘high’ politics and those of inter-personal relations often proceed from the fact or the perception of ethno-nationalist division, that division is activated through those every day communications (2006: 15). In this ‘constructivist’ approach, ethno-nationalist division becomes operational and decisive through a range of ‘political, social, cultural, and psychological processes’ (Brubaker, 2005: 474; original emphasis). Where the division becomes entrenched, where communal relationships become polarised, where political discourse becomes radicalised: these are the points at which those processes become invested with symbolic or electoral importance. That is to say, individuals, politicians and communities ‘buy into’ (internalise) and perpetuate ideas about ‘us’ and ‘them’ by voting in particularistic ways (colloquially known in Northern Ireland as the ‘sectarian headcount’) or by maintaining and commemorating certain historical narratives while resisting alter­ na­tives (McGrattan, 2010a). The situation is not always as simple as ‘ethnopolitical entrepreneurs’ manipulating public opinion for their own ends (Ruane and Todd, 2004). Indeed, a prominent feature of ethnic conflict is the fact that leaders often follow their supporters rather than the other way around – they react to and, in turn, feed back into heightened political sentiment (Ruane and Todd, 2004; see also Tilly, 2003). Brubaker points out that this persistence of division becomes perhaps even more problematic when commentators take ideas about ethnonationalism as real, reified categories. Without contesting or denigrating why ethno-nationalist identities are important to people, Brubaker’s point is that, essentially, ethno-nationalist division depends on perception and belief. Thus, he explains, ethnicity, race and nationhood are ways of perceiving, interpreting and representing the world: ‘They are not things in the world, but perceptions on the world’ (2005: 481; original emphasis). The study of how people react at an everyday level to societal conflict and to situations of conflict transformation or conflict settlement can hopefully provide one way of avoiding such reification – and, consequently, may circumvent the tendency to replicate and reproduce

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the ideas and narratives that inspired and perpetuated the division in the first place. In other words, the study of everyday life implies a promise of explanation and a potential for intervention: it involves the possibility of accounting for rather than simply describing the main contours of division; it implies a dedication to saying why points of conflict and compromise have been important, rather than simply conveying their characteristic features; and it provides the opportunity for making a positive change in the lives of people who live through conflict and the transition to peace (Jansen, 2002; Kolind, 2007; McGrattan, 2010b). Certainly, the Northern Irish conflict is a pertinent example of how ethno-nationalist division can become bloody and intractable. For example, the most authoritative and detailed analysis of the conflictrelated deaths puts the figure at 3,703 (McKittrick et al., 2004). When victims and survivors are added, the number of people directly affected by the conflict reaches well into the tens of thousands (Consultative Group on the Past in Northern Ireland, 2009). Historians, political scientists and anthropologists are just beginning to examine these legacies of the conflict (Breen-Smyth, 2007; Simpson, 2009). While this research perhaps inevitably conflicts with party political and governmental attempts to utilise the past to serve more presentist concerns, certainly the broad swathe of immediate reaction to the Saville Inquiry on Bloody Sunday – in both the Catholic and the Protestant communities in ­Northern Ireland – was positive and even cathartic (Clarke, 2010). In this regard, the book examines whether and to what extent every­day life became normalised in the decade after the 1998 GFA. Emphatically, the politics of everyday life does not imply a misplaced and misleading nostalgia for an idyllic pre-conflict North. Here, it is helpful to differentiate ‘normalisation’ from ‘depoliticisation’. Often the two are conflated. The apparent strengthening of Sinn Féin’s and the DUP’s collective hold over Catholic and Protestant politics respectively was, for example, portrayed by the Irish Times as an indication of ‘support for devolution and the normalization of daily life through the Assembly and power-­sharing executive’ (Irish Times, 2010). Writing in the Sunday Business Post, Tom McGurk pointed to the DUP’s victory over the anti-Agreement ­Traditional Unionist Voice party and asked whether it might be the case that ‘a genera­t ion of negative unionism has finally come to an end’ (McGurk, 2010). Again, a lower voter turnout might arguably be seen as a positive indication of Northern Ireland becoming more ‘Westernised’. 5 However, these arguments conflate voting returns with democracy and ignore the Madisonian idea that representation is inextricably linked with popular participation (Madison et al., 1788). For Peter Mair, 5 See, for example, Brian Feeney’s remarks at a recent IBIS conference, available at www.ucd.ie/ibis/newsevents/latestnewsevents/ibis​a nnual​c onference​2 010/#d. en.55531.

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‘constitutional democracy’ – that is, the checks and balances that ensure that government operates for the people – is bound with what he calls the ‘popular component’ – namely, the involvement of ordinary citizens and collectivities in the process of governance. These two elements, he argues, ‘co-exist and complement one another within a “unified” sense of democracy’ (Mair, 2006: 29). For Mair, a depoliticisation of a polity, what he calls the ‘hollowing of democracy’, occurs when people are actively or covertly discouraged from participating in the institutions of governance. In a related critique, Hannah Pitkin has outlined how three main obstacles prevent a coincidence of those institutions and popular participation: an oligarchic appropriation of public power into private hands; the corrupting influence of money in elections; and, finally, a more nebulous problem concerned with ‘ideas and their shaping’ that is often and strongly described as ‘propaganda’ (2004: 341). Why should this matter? If peace is simply taken to mean stability, then, of course, the answer is that it does not. However, if peace is taken to mean something more, if it is taken to involve principles of justice, accountability, responsibility, participation and equality, then the Northern Irish settlement process needs to be seen as involving deeper political, juridical, communal and personal issues. The key point is that everyday life in Northern Ireland takes place within an overarching political framework relating to conflict transformation and to the transition from violence to peace, which rests upon ‘competing truths’ about whether the conflict was justifiable and whether violence was necessary. This is something more than a battle for history (into which new migrants may find themselves incorporated);6 rather, it suggests an internalisation, at the level of the personal and the everyday, of the motifs and values of the conflict – values and motifs redolent with sectarianism, division and crude, violent political power. The process of rebuilding relations, of restoring trust, of reaching some degree of understanding and perhaps even reconciliation necessitates an appreciation of alternative values to those of conflict. As Andrew Rigby points out, the movement from conflict to peace needs to go beyond ‘a change in the old structures and institutional arrangements’. For him, in the consolidation of a stable post-conflict society, it is vital that the pursuit of the values of peace, truth, justice, and forgiveness is not confined to some symbolic realm removed from the everyday lives of the people at the grassroots. It must be embodied and lived out in new relationships between people at all levels of society. (Rigby, 2001: 189)

6 For example, one migrant residing in a Catholic area was called a ‘Fenian bastard’ by children in a neighbouring Protestant area (Bell et al., 2004: 71). It is precisely because localities in Northern Ireland are so often identified by political or ideological allegiances that it was decided by the UK government that the citizenship ceremonies in Northern Ireland for newly naturalised British citizens should not take place, as elsewhere, in local authority buildings but at Hillsborough Castle (Meehan, 2010a).

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Just as ‘cultures of violence and vengeance’ are rooted in everyday life, Rigby argues that the ‘seeds of a durable reconciliation process’ must also be sown in ‘the home, the school, the workplace’ (2001: 190). This idea brings us back to the opening quotation to this chapter, which is taken from the director of a non-governmental organisation that is working to promote integrated education in Israel–Palestine, the Negev Institute for Strategies of Peace and Development. It points to the central concern of this book and the central imperative in the study of the poli-tics of everyday life – namely, the reluctance to settle for recycling the ideas, proposals and ideals of the violent, conflictual past. The alterna-tive, a ‘normalisation’ of society, has been articulated by Torsten Kolind in a study of post-conflict Bosnia:7 Remaking or rebuilding an everyday life both practically and meaningfully is … about being able to recontextualise the narratives of devastation and thereby generate new contexts through which everyday life may become possible. (2007: 125)

In other words, the normalisation of Northern Ireland depends not on an acquiescence in received ‘truths’ about conflict resolution, including the need for reconciling with ex-prisoners or the idea that ‘it’s good to talk’ to the perpetrators of killing and the architects of division. Neither does it mean consent to silence and euphemism in the hope that one day community relations will prosper. The goal of the seemingly mothballed ‘shared future’ policy (Office of the First Minister and deputy First M ­ inister, 2005a) is ill-served by the depoliticisation of Northern Irish society (for more detailed analysis, see Morrow, chapter 2). The studies within this book explore how that depoliticisation is occurring at the level of everyday life in Northern Ireland. They also examine how it is being resisted and how, in spite of the apparent enshrinement of an unquestioning acceptance of the benevolence of the current political leaders (both in the North and in London and Dublin), a politics of normality is emerging from the years of conflict.

Outline of the book It would be impossible in a single book to address all forms of inter- and intra-group hostility and suspicion related to decades of territorial and religious conflict or to assess all constitutional, policy and voluntary initiatives designed to ameliorate them. Likewise, it would be virtually impossible to address every area in which people in Northern Ireland negotiate, accommodate, make compromises with and transcend the

7 The violent conflict in Bosnia carried a significant resonance for some women community activists in Northern Ireland (Women and Citizenship, 1995: 19).

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Introduction

13

ethno-nationalist divide. We have endeavoured, however, to select areas in which these intersections and interactions are arguably most pertinent. Where possible, the chapters also consider the interaction of the historical conflict and new tensions between indigenous and migrant communities. An anecdotal example of this is provided in footnote 6 but it is not easy to deal systematically with the topic, as the numbers of migrants and immigrants outside England are so small – even though absolute numbers have risen substantially (see footnote 2) – that they do not feature regularly as specific categories in surveys of social and political attitudes.8 More importantly, the coexistence of racism and sectarianism raises a number of questions that, according to McCall and Wilson (2010: 33), are as yet unanswered. They identify these as follows: Are migrants attacked violently on both racist and sectarian grounds? Do racist incidents arise ‘from endogenous Irish racism’ towards the Traveller community? Does ‘racism tend to be Protestant’ and, if so, ‘is it because migrants are seen as an additional threat … to the rights and privileges [traditionally] associated with being Ulster British?’ Or do ‘all downwardly mobile indigenous groups’ across the island ‘share negative perceptions of migrants?’ While this book cannot answer these questions, they are touched upon in a number of the chapters. Thus, the themes that the contributors analyse include the relationship of gender to ethno-national identity at the everyday level; how cross-border trade, shopping and economic development more generally, as well as employment and access to health services, affect how people navigate ethno-national differences; and how people cope with and seek to move beyond working-class isolation and social segregation. Two other issues that are central to everyday life are policing and dealing (or not) with the past. As was the case during the conflict, much of what constitutes ‘routine’ police work intersects with people’s everyday lives. Policing remains a salient issue affecting the lived experiences of many in Northern Ireland – particularly within urban working-class areas (Mulcahy, 2006). But, while policing has become a ‘service’ rather than a ‘force’, routine police work remains embedded in the ‘high politics’ of strategic manoeuvring – as shown in chapter 2. With respect to dealing with the past, Rigby (2001: 1) points out that since the very nature of trauma involves a reliving of painful experiences, victimhood often forms the ‘core’ of people’s personalities in post-conflict situations. In Northern Ireland, this remains problematic – again, as suggested in chapter 2. While judicial inquiries and storytelling initiatives may 8 The Northern Ireland Life and Times (NILT) Survey carries questions about migra­t ion and race but in 2008, for example, out of a sample of 1,217 (1,196 of whom described themselves as ‘white’), nine people described themselves as Asian and only two as black, two as Irish Traveller, two as mixed and one as Chinese (see www.ark. ac.uk/nilt/2008/Minority_Ethnic_People/RACE2.html).

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Cillian McGrattan and Elizabeth Meehan

provide some degrees of ‘closure’, the experience of other ‘transitional’ societies suggests that the incorporation of ideas about the past into everyday life may take generations to accomplish (among others, see Aguilar, 2002; Herf, 1997; Ignatieff, 1998; Judt, 2005; McGrattan, 2011). One last point before introducing the succeeding chapters: the rock music and poetry scenes provided ways of escaping the often claustro­ phobic and stifling environment of city life during the conflict; and they also served as a means of allowing people to transcend the context of segregation and division. However, their absence from this volume should be taken as indicative of time and space constraints rather than a downgrading of their importance in the post-conflict situation (on which see, for example, the novelist Stuart Neville’s reminiscences in Heaney, 2010; see also Mackay et al., forthcoming). In the next chapter Duncan Morrow provides an overview of ­Northern Ireland within which the more specifically focused chapters can be understood. Morrow explores the argument that conflict management should mean more than simply security-based or violence-related initiatives; rather, a ‘sustainable peace is dependent on the political, economic and social choices which the relative absence of violence allows’. This theme is taken up and developed in successive chapters, which not only deal with the social, political and economic and life choices that Morrow speaks of, but draw out the implications of his argument to look at how it applies to a range of economic, gender, cross-border and comparative cases. Neil Jarman and John Bell, for example, examine sectarianism and segregation. Their chapter outlines how sectarianism and segregation are sustained and extended through the routine and mundane decisions that people make in their everyday lives. Jarman and Bell stress the importance of various aspects of everyday life – including locale, class, education and shopping and leisure patterns. Their findings stress the important, though troubling, point that segregation impacts more on young people than on mature adults and that it affects young men in particular. Drawing on Gordon Allport’s seminal work in ‘contact theory’ – that is, the ways in which inter-group hostilities might be reduced – Joanne Hughes and Caitlin Donnelly’s chapter explores the role of integrated education in breaking down residual sectarianism in Northern Ireland. In particular, Hughes and Donnelly examine the potential of the nonstatutory Shared Education Programme (SEP) for fostering greater and more meaningful contact between pupils across the ethno-religious divide. By rationalising resources in the delivery of the curriculum while recognising the differences between schools, one positive result of the SEP is that ‘friendships made through participation [in SEP] … often extended to outside the classroom, with pupils meeting up regularly in the home/community environment’. As pointed out above, such develop­ ments are surely crucial to the relaxation of communal tensions and the promotion of a shared society in Northern Ireland. Indeed, as Rigby

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suggests, any kind of ‘positive’ conception of peace – namely, one that does not simply depend on the imposition of stability through defeat or indifference – must be based on the evolution of positive relationships. Thus, as he argues, for a positive peace to embed itself in any postconflict society what is needed is ‘the development of a new and resilient culture of respect for human rights and for human difference, a culture that is embodied in the everyday routines of life within the family, the school, the neighbourhood and the wider community’ (2001: 180). What happens, however, when, despite initiatives that recognise both the fixity and the fluidity of identity, large groups of people still feel alienated from political developments? In their chapter on evangelical communities in Northern Ireland, Gladys Ganiel and Claire Mitchell examine how everyday life can become depoliticised or privatised. Setting their study in the context of more mainstream denomina­tions, Ganiel and Mitchell examine an as yet under-researched topic – namely, the influence of the 1998 GFA on people’s articu­la­t ion of their identities and their aspirations. As they point out, evangelicals are to be found among all Protestant denominations in Northern Ireland, while also exhibiting elements of a distinct subculture. Evangelicals’ perceptions of change demonstrate specific points about identity change in the years after the signing of the Agreement, and Ganiel and Mitchell raise important points about what changes have occurred and what they mean in wider political terms. For instance, they point out that the ‘high level’ changes have inspired a ‘privatisation’ of evangelical identity – a withdrawal into more reliable religious networks and at times a turning from politics towards a ‘supernaturalism’ that sees ‘God’s providence or agency in the world’. Ganiel and Mitchell link that privatisation to perceptions of Protestant ‘losses’ in the GFA – an empirical point that, again, raises disquieting implications regarding the inclusivity of the peace process. Both Theresa O’Keefe and Bronagh Hinds take up the problem of inclusivity in their chapters, concentrating on women’s involvement or – more precisely – women’s marginalisation in society and politics. Together, these chapters illustrate important aspects of the politics of everyday life identified earlier in this chapter. Before the Agreement, it was primarily women who had to negotiate the relationship with ‘elite’ ­policy-makers: sometimes because partners were in prison, sometimes as heads of single-parent families and sometimes because, even if married with resident partners, most of the interface between them and the state involved policies relating to the private sphere – a space to which women were traditionally assigned, especially in socially conservative societies such as Northern Ireland. Thus, it was women who predominantly dealt with statutory agencies providing social benefits, public services and utilities (Women and Citizenship, 1995: 15, 18). But though needed by policy-makers for the maintenance of some semblance of stability (‘as the glue that holds it all together’), women – especially ethnic minority

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women – were also marginalised by them (ibid.: 21, 24, 34), on the ground that ‘politics [was] not seen as being about everyday life’ (ibid.: 30). It was precisely because of this experience that women moved from community activism (or politics with a small ‘p’) to political activism (politics with a large ‘P’). In so doing, they illustrate the relevance of points made above about negotiating social boundaries and norms (de Certeau) and navigating around and through expected ways of doing things (Brubaker). Their method, developed in the 1990s, was a form of Brubaker’s usurping the ‘rhetoric of ethnopolitical entrepreneurs’. The cross-community dialogic process they engaged in – ‘transversal politics’ – is not exclusively feminist and, indeed, developed out of other conflicts between ‘us’ and ‘the other’ (Roulston, 1999: 14; Yuval Davis, 1997). But its practice in Northern Ireland has received international attention (Lister, 2003: 84, 153, 163). It is important, therefore, to consider the fate of transversal politics in the wake of the Agreement. The chapters by O’Keefe and Hinds are somewhat pessimistic on that score. Both chapters outline the social and economic problems faced by women in Northern Ireland, which, along with residual and overt mis­ ogyny from male politicians, combine to hinder female participation and inclusion in the political process. The two chapters take differing approaches to these problems. On the one hand, in situating her study of identity construction in the context of intersectional inequalities, O’Keefe examines the impact the Agreement has had on raising gender as a salient identity category since 1998 – or lack of impact, despite its seeming potential to grapple with multiple or cross-cutting inequalities. She also deals with how it has affected the articulation of gendered identity through the more traditional or prevalent discourses of eth­ nicity and, to a lesser extent, class. Hinds, echoes these sentiments and describes how organisations and political parties such as the Women’s Coalition and DemocraShe have made substantial contributions in bringing a gendered perspective into the general political discourse in Northern Ireland. Like O’Keefe, Hinds also points out that much more has to be achieved before the body politic can be accurately described as fair and representative. In many ways, these conclusions echo the prescient comments of Sir George Quigley (2009) in his opening address to the conference that inspired this collection. Sir George, for example, noted that ‘there is still an Everest to climb’ in respect of ‘the deeply divided ghettoised condition which reflects the mutually reinforcing fear, distrust and antipathy which are a legacy of our history’. On the same occasion, Tony Kennedy was perhaps even more pessimistic about the continuing depths of division and segregation. He referred to the reluctance of people to address (sometimes for good reasons) the issues of division and separation over the past thirty years, but observed that this is now counterproductive. To ‘build a healthy society’, he argued, it is now necessary ‘to discuss

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differences freely both to increase understanding and to dispel mis­ understandings’. But, he added, the habit of the lengthy silence is hard to unlearn (Kennedy, 2009).9 Sir George also noted that, despite ‘the Everest’, there are some ‘good stories’ that indicate progress. His double-edged judgement is to be found also in the chapters that follow. As the book moves on to economic life, it provides a chapter by Eoin Magennis on the case of cross-border commerce. As the author points out, developments in cross-border business activity and flows of people now take place in the wake of the banking crises and severe economic downturn. Despite the ‘quiet success story’ of the work of the cross-border body charged with encouraging change, North–South trade is less than expected, a gap of real relevance to the everyday lives of small producers and family firms. A mixed picture is also seen in the related topic of North–South flows of people – tourists, workers and students. Magennis also tackles one of de Certeau’s activities through which processes of negotiation over boundaries and norms may take place: that is, shopping. Shopping has both indicated a new ‘interpretative frame’ (Brubaker, 2005) in respect of perceptions of the border among people on either side of it and reinforced the idea of its importance, as the banking, fiscal and economic crises have taken their toll in Ireland and the UK. The architects of the GFA sought simultaneously to end the longstanding territorial dispute by ratifying the border’s status as one between two separate states and to make its existence of less relevance to the conduct of everyday life. Yet, as Magennis notes, Irish ministers began to suggest that it was the ‘­patriotic duty’ of Irish ­nationals, south of the border, to ‘shop at home’. As a recent major research project shows (McCrudden, 2010; ­McCrudden et al., 2010), employment discrimination between Protestants and Catholics within Northern Ireland has largely disappeared. The rigorous requirements for affirmative action imposed on all major employers in both the public and the private sectors under the 1989 Fair Employment Act have brought about fair participation in the labour market (ibid.). However, it is not easy for people who live on either side of the border and work on the other. Notwithstanding the GFA’s requirement for equivalent standards of equality in the North and South, there are many ‘everyday’ obstacles to the freedom to work all over the island. Participants in a 2001 study (Pricewaterhouse­Coopers, 2001, for the North–South ­Ministerial Council) identified these as including matters relating to banking, mobile phone tariffs, car insurance and vehicle 9 Sir George Quigley chairs the IBIS Advisory Board; Tony Kennedy is a member of it, as is one of our contributors, Bronagh Hinds, whose biographical details appear in our list of contributors. All three have played significant parts in the coming of change to Northern Ireland and to relations between Northern Ireland and Ireland.

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import duties, commuting facilities, recognition of qualifications, social security and childcare benefits, access to hospitals, schools and public housing, and ‘chill’ or psychological factors. Progress has been made in implementing the study’s recommendations on, for example, mutual recog­nition of qualifications, single-tariff options by several mobile phone operators and greater availability of public service information, through a dedicated website, for cross-border workers and students, as well as for people choosing to live across the border (North–South ­Ministerial Council, 2006). Nonetheless, some obstacles remain, as indicated in ­Magennis’s reference to cross-border labour mobility and by Rooney at the 2010 IBIS/British Embassy roundtable discussion noted above. At least one form of obstacle – embedded inequalities experienced by a range of people, including new minorities on both sides of the border – would have been ameliorated had the Irish government done more to meet the Agreement’s stipulation that it should take steps to bring about an equivalence in the South of equality and human rights standards in the North. This is the subject of Colm O’Cinneide’s chapter, which, like the others, shows some ‘good stories’ in terms of legislation, especially in Northern Ireland, but also neglect of the North–South equiva­lence requirement that could have, but has not, led to critical reflection on how to tackle patterns of inequality, discrimination and social exclusion that distort everyday lives all over the island. As indicated above in connection with gender, access to public services is an important part of everyday life. For a number of years – even before the Agreement – there has been consideration of the possibility of using cross-border initiatives to improve people’s experience of education, training and health (Governments of Ireland and the UK, 1997; Pollak, 2007). Ambition in such fields intensified after the Agreement but, as in the case of employment, obstacles remain to the achievement of a meaningful difference to people’s lives. The chapter by Brian Ó ­Caoindealbháin and Patricia Clarke uses health services as a case study of both the potential of and obstacles to achieving such an improvement. Against a background in which cross-border service delivery is often stressed by governments as making a difference to people’s lives but is little more than rhetoric, the health sector is something of an exception, making potential differences in matters relating to life and death. But even here, cross-border initiatives in delivering health services are tentative and limited. The conclusions they draw contribute to our understanding of the extent to which the border remains salient to de Certeau’s ‘ways of operating’ or whether it remains an exclusive ‘interpretative frame’ or becomes but one of many (Brubaker, 2005). Earlier, this chapter referred to the importance, over and above voting, of Madisonian concepts of representation and Mair’s stress on the ‘popular component’ if there is to be confidence that ‘government operates for the people’. And, indeed, devolution was intended, at least

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elsewhere in the UK, to tackle Pitkin’s obstacles (see above) to popular participation. That is, devolution was to change everyday life through a fundamental rebalancing of the relationship between government and citizens, by making politics more inclusive and participatory. Thus, the final chapter deals with the roles of those outside formal politics who engage in peace-making and everyday politics. In it, Elizabeth Meehan and Fiona Mackay examine the fate of the Northern Irish Civic Forum and the role of section 75 of the 1998 Northern Ireland Act in creating more inclusive policy-making. Bearing in mind that the internal and North–South dimensions of the GFA were accompanied by an East–West strand, Meehan and Mackay place these Northern Irish initiatives within the broader context of devolution in the UK. Their Northern Ireland–­Scotland comparison suggests that while the ‘new politics’ of participation have proven somewhat disappointing in Scotland, in the case of Northern Ireland the situation is in fact even less promising.

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Chapter 2

The rocky road from enmity

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Duncan Morrow

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Stating the obvious sometimes has the important effect of reminding us of home truths: the North of Ireland suffers from an underlying crisis of legitimacy and political instability which make its problems enormously difficult to resolve. Though the current situation may be less bleak than the picture drawn in the quote that opens chapter 1, the modern history of the growth of states and nations left a pattern of deep antagonism in Ireland which, by the twentieth century, had descended into a mutually exclusive struggle for territorial sovereignty between unionism and nationalism. This was a clash so violent that it came to define public life. Although it took its own unique form, conflict in the North of Ireland drew on dynamics of political and social formation which afflicted many other places. Few of them were in Western Europe, however, leaving the North of Ireland defined by what made it unusual – the close association between political identity and religious tradition – as an aberration from the normal (Gellner, 1983) . Since the 1980s, huge efforts have been made by many people and institutions to find a way beyond the violent stalemate which this crisis produced. At its core has been the search for social and political stability and the ending of hatred sufficient to enable all the people of the North to live together within a single constitutional framework. This chapter explores both the complex and challenging context of historic national antagonism and the degree to which political change in recent years has promoted reconciliation. While there is no doubt that there have been major achievements in reducing violence and creating shared institutions, the challenges of reconciliation remain. The chapter concludes that Northern Ireland has the characteristics of a society caught between truce and transformation, which is evident in the weakness of policymaking, the fragility of peace in some places and an ongoing anxiety about the need to control more violent elements.

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The rocky road from enmity

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The limits of liberal democracy: national self-determination in multinational territories

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Tragically, the North of Ireland makes visible some of the internal contradictions of the great post-Enlightenment project for freedom in politics which insisted that government requires the consent of the governed. While there were examples of peaceful transition to shared democracy, some of them identified in the previous chapter, the power of the impulse was used to justify violence, which, in some places, became endemic and embedded as ethnic antagonism, a clash between irreconcilable groups who defined themselves in opposition to one another and who could not recognise the legitimacy of any state or system of government which was rooted in domination by one another. The regions most prone to this kind of splintering were often farthest from the cores of the old empires, where imperial expansion left a disjointed pattern of uneven development as well as cultural and political rivalries, often rooted in unequal relationships to the imperial centre, and bitter battles for power (Wright, 1996). Here, the demand for universal political freedom stumbled against the question of who or what constituted ‘the people’. While Marx theorised the solidarity of the global proletariat, others successfully organised around solidarities, real or imagined, between people sharing specific characteristics, whether of language, religion or cultural formation. States became identified with ‘peoples’ or ‘nations’, the territorial face of organised cultural ‘difference’, and anyone who was anyone clamoured to get their own (Safran, 2008). By definition, the existence of two or more claims to liberty over the same territory made the actual achievement of secure liberty both more difficult and more necessary. Potentially, each sought liberation not only ‘to’ a bright new future but ‘from’ a tyrannising rival. The logical consequence of this kind of predicament is that my ‘bright new future’ depends on your destruction or defeat. Liberty is not a universal norm but a divisible, finite good available to you or me, not you and me. If battles for self-determination take hold in territories where two or more claims are made, democracy rooted in individual citizenship is likely to fail, because the mechanism of majority decision-making, central to democracy elsewhere, is likely to collapse on the basis that those who do not prevail cannot accept the legitimacy of the mechanism without abandoning their claim to self-determination. Where sovereignty is at stake there is an unavoidable risk that the enormity of the cause will justify escalating violence. Violence in these settings was not only against a foreign power or an old order, but also against neighbours and antagonistic competitors. Inevitably, the inter­ pretation of violence as heroism or provocation depends on which side of the act of violence we find ourselves. Furthermore, violence by ‘them’ demanded an urgent response from ‘us’, creating the possibility that,

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where no group was finally dominant, it could escalate into a bitter and longstanding antagonism. Even episodes of peace had the quality of a truce, a guarded form of living in which the possibility of antagonism never fully disappeared (Pakier and Strath, 2010). This came home to roost after the First World War, when the victorious Western powers resolved to dismantle the empires of their rivals and create new democratic states based on national self-determination in East-Central Europe. The apparently noble principle dissolved into disappointment and disillusion after the Treaty of Versailles, when it became clear that democracy was not a simple matter of transferring powers from imperial tyrants to oppressed peoples, but also of choosing which people should prevail in mixed territories. The politics of majorities and borders became the dominant politics of the day and, instead of a new stability, the peace treaties sowed the seeds of the next war in national antagonism and economic fragility (Dockrill, 2001).

Violence, partition and division in Ireland Ireland featured in this wider crisis in a unique way. In 1918, Ireland, and by extension the UK, faced its own crisis of national self-determination. While supporters of independence for Ireland, to be achieved violently if necessary, could claim the support of a majority on the island, they failed to make significant inroads among Protestant voters concentrated largely in the industrialised north-east. But in Ireland there was no international peace treaty to determine new frontiers, only direct confrontation with a British government. Unionists had been organising against Home Rule for decades and made clear that they would resist any attempt to impose it on them. In the face of mounting insurrection by republicans in the South, the British government attempted to resolve the crisis through the Government of Ireland Act 1920, which devolved power separately to Dublin, with juris­diction over twenty-six counties, and created a six-county Northern Ireland. By this stage, devolution was inadequate to meet the demands of republicanism, which was in open revolt. Only in Northern Ireland did devolution take root, as Ulster Unionists grabbed the prospect of unionist-dominated Home Rule with both hands (Hennessey, 1998). But although the North had a Protestant majority, there were significant areas of Catholic domination. Two of the counties (Fermanagh and Tyrone) and important parts of other counties such as the city of Londonderry and large towns like Newry had Catholic majorities. Belfast had areas which were uniformly Catholic and there were even pockets of Catholic majority in Antrim and East Down. Paradoxically, this was not the case for the South and the Free State came into existence in 1922 as a relatively homogeneous Irish Catholic state. The unionist minority

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was sufficiently powerless to be set aside. Thus, although the new Free State was truncated by partition, it was also internally stabilised. Selfdetermination was delivered as a simple matter of transfer from tyranny to democracy, from external rule by a foreign power to freedom. With no history of loyalty to anything resembling ‘Northern Ireland’ and every expectation that it would not be ruled to their advantage, most Catholics in Northern Ireland maintained an unbroken sense of identity within the island of Ireland. Partition did not appear as a triumph of electoral mathematics but as a blatant gerrymander of the Irish national question by a British government and its unionist cronies. Self-­determination for Protestants in the North had been won by a further turn of the imperial screw at the expense of Northern Catholics (Laffan, 1983). Paradoxically, as more and more people in each group justified a further escalation in violence to further the cause, the consequences became an ever more ‘unethical’ political climate in which violence was increasingly normalised. Acts of violence deemed necessary, defensive and heroic to one group appeared as their opposite to those on the receiving end. Each act of violence begat or justified a response, with the potential for an exchange of violence which had every appearance of a retributive duel to the death. Community in this context is not ‘imagined’ (Anderson, 1991) or ‘constructed’ in the sense of leisurely contemplation, but an embedded way of seeing the world (see chapter 1). In this case, it was and remains profoundly realistic. Indeed, once violence reaches a point where whole groups feel under genuine threat from an identified source, it is hard to see how any ideological lens which does not explain the fundamental difference between ‘them’ and ‘us’ could successfully prevail. What disappears is any hope that government of all the people will be ‘by consent’. The dreams of liberalism – of freedom equated with self-­ determination – hit the rocks of mutually exclusive aspiration. What remains is the risk that majorities, under genuine or perceived threat from their own minority, resort to the kind of democratically legitimised tyranny foreseen by de Tocqueville (1835) and Madison (see chapter 1). The first casualty is the rule of law. As Wright (1987) pointed out, not only is there violence outside the law which is widely considered heroic rather than criminal, but the law struggles to impose itself without resorting to ever more nakedly violent means. For those supporting the law, in this case unionists, the ritual of law acts to radically distinguish ‘our’ (legitimate) force from ‘their’ (criminal) violence. That distinction disappears entirely for those on the receiving end. Indeed, the fact that the law has been used to create what is seen by the latter as a spurious legitimacy for direct attacks on their community is, to them, the ultimate evidence that the state is corrupt and resistance is necessary. The result is a politics in which ever more violent acts are defended as necessary.

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Above all, the clear distinction between force and violence, which is ­essential to the functioning of the law, disintegrates. Northern Ireland is almost a paradigm of this dynamic. While politics is superficially a debate between extremely simple solutions – Britain or Ireland – it is precisely these simple solutions which are not available. Resort to violence to achieve them appears all too reasonable but merely deepens the trauma and antagonism. Once unionism established itself in power in the early 1920s, following a brutal civil conflict, this dynamic was largely hidden to the world beneath the political fact of unionist monopoly of government. But Northern Ireland remained structurally unstable in liberal-democratic terms, in a way which is not true of any other part of Britain and Ireland. Even 65 per cent electoral ­majorities could not create a framework for consent or stability, although to outsiders there was an appearance of stability in Northern Ireland. This appearance proved to be almost entirely illusory in 1969. What took just about everyone by surprise was the speed with which the peaceful civil rights debate of 1968 descended into open civil conflict: it had done so by 1971. Rising confrontation between the British Army and the Catholic population after 1971 forced both the UK and the Ireland to re-engage with the structural in­stability of Northern Ireland in a way that had been avoided since partition. Containment, the implicit ideology of partition, had failed.

Towards an inter-national peace By 1972, both Britain and Ireland were becoming aligned on the primary need to contain the dramatic escalation and contagion of the Northern Irish problem and by 1973 both were sponsoring talks on internal power-sharing. Unusually in international affairs, the Northern Ireland crisis drew the surrounding states into closer direct cooperation rather than escalating confrontation over sovereignty. The first ex­periment in unionist–nationalist power-sharing collapsed under pressure from unionism in 1974 and was followed by a renewal of direct rule, polaris­ ation and the ever present reality of violence. The hopelessness of sectarian confrontation in Northern Ireland and a lack of appetite in both Britain or Ireland, now partners in the European Community, for a final confrontation over Northern Ireland ultimately reinforced the logic of deeper British–Irish cooperation. International and intergovernmental cooperation increased dramatic­ ally in 1985, when the British and Irish governments signed the AngloIrish Agreement at Hillsborough. While the immediate effect of the 1985 Agreement was to alienate unionism and militant republicanism, there was now a functioning framework for reducing wider British–Irish tensions which was relatively autonomous from local ethnic ­pressures. Talks within nationalism began as early as the late 1980s and in 1992

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unionists re-engaged in formal talks with the governments and with all parties except Sinn Féin (McKittrick and McVea, 2001). While intergovernmental cooperation was increasingly robust, it did not of itself resolve the underpinning antagonism of sectarian relation­ ships in Northern Ireland. The depth of visceral bitterness in some parts of the community was illustrated in 1988, when a series of violent incidents seemed to spiral out of control following the shooting dead of an IRA unit in Gibraltar by the SAS, and again in 1993, with a series of violent atrocities on the Shankill Road and in the village of Greysteel. This had the short-term effect of accelerating intergovernmental attempts to kick-start negotiations, culminating in the Downing Street Declaration of December 1993, which both confirmed the degree of consensus and cooperation between Dublin and London and explicitly sought to include Sinn Féin in future negotiations on the basis of an IRA ceasefire. The ceasefires of 1994 (the IRA ceasefire being followed six weeks later by a loyalist response in kind) are generally considered to be the start of the formal ‘peace process’. The vital prerequisite, however, was the increasingly obvious recognition – in deed if not, until 1998, in word by both the British and Irish governments – that the dilemmas posed by self-determination in the North of Ireland would not be resolved on a simple British or Irish basis but involved a practical commitment to compromise, accommodation and innovation on the national question. The British–Irish governmental coalition on Northern Ireland was strengthened by the active participation of the United States and the less obvious but important support of the European Union. By 1994 an international coalition was in place that was committed to an inter-community and inter-national accommodation on Northern Ireland. In retrospect, the years after 1985 were an impressively successful exercise in containment, sufficient to convince the partisans of both republicanism and loyalism that there was little prospect of any military victory. But, of itself, another purely tactical decision to prosecute unchanged national goals by less violent political means is not especially new in Ireland. Unsurprisingly, the critical Northern Ireland participants – unionists and republicans – did not arrive at negotiations in a spirit of reconciliation but to advance or defend traditional interests. The defining moment of the peace process would always be when overarching responsibility for further progress devolved from the intergovernmental coalition into local hands.

Reconciliation or bust? For the governments, the first purpose of negotiations was necessarily containment: bringing to an end the catastrophic cycle of murderous revenge which had engulfed Northern Ireland since the early 1970s and

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which had forced the re-engagement of both Britain and Ireland with historic responsibilities, at considerable cost. Secondly, the governments wanted stable political frameworks which would allow a reduction in security presence and the establishment of power-sharing arrangements for local self-government. Reconciliation, a move away from the endless antagonism and enmity of the past that had clearly begun at an interstate level, provided the crucial visionary rhetoric but was more elusive in practice. The alignment of international interests and a genuine desire across much of the political spectrum to end the increasingly pointless carnage in Northern Ireland found expression as a commitment to ‘peace and recon­ciliation’. Commitments to reconciliation, basic civil and human rights, equality and democracy became the crucial patriotic priorities, a new transcendence allowing the governments to create distance between themselves and the claims to unlimited support for the national projects made by the most extreme nationals in Northern Ireland. By redefining Irishness and Britishness, reconciliation became patriotic and no longer a synonym for selling out. The implication, however, was that peace would require a transformation of the previous national antagonism into a process of mutual recognition, accommodation, engagement and integration. Yet while reconciliation was the logical imperative of a peace process, it was still unthinkably idealistic for local politicians in the context of the violence and murder that had characterised Northern Ireland for decades. It was therefore unsurprising that the immediate response of both unionists and republicans was to declare the Anglo-Irish Agreement a betrayal and to set their face against it. But to do so after 1985 was to define oneself as British against the British government and Irish against the Irish government. If reconciliation remained a distant ideal, the political legitimacy or utility of violence was diminishing (McKittrick and McVea, 2001). However, although the Anglo-Irish Agreement changed the strategic context, it potentially also left the British and Irish governments with a level of responsibility which was open-ended. The political bottom line, therefore, was for a sustainable truce, sufficient to allow the British govern­ment to retreat from direct rule. Beyond containment, the AngloIrish Agreement also exposed the fundamental challenge at the heart of peace-building in Northern Ireland – a stated commitment to reconciliation from the governments has to be squared with a serious interest that the people of Northern Ireland should be responsible for making it happen. By 1992 both governments had come to the conclusion that the IRA could be brought into negotiations and that unionists would have no choice but to engage. Any advance insistence that national projects should be set aside in favour of a commitment to reconciliation was clearly not achievable. Instead of seeking to reconcile aspirations, the governments therefore set the bar for participation as a ceasefire and

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a longer-term commitment to ‘purely political means’. From the outset, it was obvious that the peace process might eventually involve difficult choices between accommodating antagonists and ending antagonism, between truce and transformation. Without the inclusion of hostile elements, there was no guarantee of an end to violence; yet a peace which did not imply reconciliation would be subject to permanent vigilance and suspicion, not trust and cooperation. In practice, the governments could only hope that many of these dilemmas would be resolved in the course of negotiations. Peace was a process, not an event. In effect, the emergent ‘peace process’ developed into one of the longest and most labour-intensive ‘standing conferences’ on peace-building seen anywhere in the world. What transpired was a series of detailed and complex political negotiations open to all willing parties within a broadly united intergovernmental and international effort emphasising the importance of reconciliation. Central to this effort was the provision of considerable financial support for social and economic activities designed to address the most obvious grievances and measures to bring the values of peace and reconciliation from the realm of the symbolic into people’s everyday lives (see discussion of Rigby in chapter 1). The political frameworks which emerged from the peace process reflect these contradictory pressures. Partnership is written into the structure of the political framework. But while the preamble to the 1998 Belfast Agreement emphasised the overarching ethical framework of reconciliation, the institutional structure which emerged was rooted in mutual mistrust and veto. Mandatory coalition requires images of partner­ship but it also risks driving all policy-making to the lowest common denominator of consensus rather than creative choice. Partner­ ship may be the framework for reconciliation but under conditions of antagonism it is also a loveless consociational marriage without the oppor­t unity for divorce. Those elements of the Belfast Agreement which had been agreed in outline but pushed to future dates, such as the decommissioning of paramilitary weapons and radical reform of policing, went ahead, but only as a result of the determination of the governments and their international allies to see them through. Although unionists eventually conceded to Patten’s policing reform (see chapter 1), they did not hide their opposition to the changes (BBC News, 1999). Similarly, it took republican­ism almost nine years and the full force of the US government to come to terms with the disbanding and decommissioning of the IRA and the need to join the new Police Service. Critically, change continued to be weighed as defeat and concession rather than as advance towards reconciliation. Reconciliation, too often sold by its supporters as a ‘win– win’ outcome, remained veiled in the suspicious garb of defeat and the zero-sum game of old.

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Yet in 2005, and following detailed research with activists and politicians from across the spectrum supported by the European Union’s PEACE programme and the Community Relations Council, Brandon Hamber and Grainne Kelly were able to make explicit the implicit political and social parameters of the emergent reconciliation project (Hamber and Kelly, 2005). While acknowledging that no single definition was agreed, they concluded that five issues lay at the core of implicit assump­t ions behind the peace project: • • • • •

a shared vision of an interdependent society; acknowledging and dealing with the past; building positive relationships; significant cultural and attitudinal change; equity – social, economic and political change.

All of these elements were essentially transformational in nature, emphasising the requirement for an interdependent partnership. But, while there was considerable agreement among the participants in the research that these were the domains within which transformation would be achieved, there was little evidence of a new dynamic of generosity or accommodation in the political sphere. After the 1998 Agreement, there was a seemingly endless series of crises, including the suspension of devolution (see footnote 1, chapter 1, p. 3) and the collapse of the coalition between the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) and the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) which had been the pivot of the Belfast Agreement. In its place, the governments sought to tie in the more radical elements of electoral politics through a complex mixture of deals and incentives. In 2007 Sinn Féin agreed to sign up to policing and decommissioning and the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) agreed to work with revised institutions, in which these two parties were now the dominant forces (BBC News, 2007). For the governments, this appeared to represent a triumph of politics, ensuring a belated success for Tony Blair in his last days as Prime Minister. But the willing withdrawal of the British and Irish governments from direct decision-making in relation to Northern Ireland carried with it an important change in the dynamics of peace-making. Until 2007, they and their international allies had played the part of brokers as well as participants. Significant concessions and shifts of position by local political interests were made to international pressure. When the DUP signed up for power-sharing with Sinn Féin or Sinn Féin agreed to decommissioning or supporting the Police Service, they did so in the face of a wider international consensus that such change was essential. Under devolution, however, all future concessions would have to be made to one another, in the full glare of publicity and subject to the accusation of betrayal. This was not a habit which parties in Northern Ireland had ever developed. But without it, how would the DUP agree to build more social

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housing for Catholics or Sinn Féin agree to support educational initiatives with greater benefits for loyalist areas? The critical nature of this became clear in 2010, when the Assembly came close to collapse over the issue of devolving policing powers to Northern Ireland. The unresolved conundrum at the heart of peace in Ireland remained that it could be achieved only by transforming ‘national’ antagonism in Ireland on the basis of a new non-violent partnership yet, at the same time, it could be achieved only by accommodating those most opposed to this outcome. This was possible only if those holding pure national views could believe that the projects to which they were dedicated were still being served by a tactical peace.1 Reconciliation was simultaneously both the core and the unachievable obstacle at the heart of political progress.

An ambivalent peace? Ultimately the Agreement did not represent the end of division over sover­eignty in Ireland. But it did abolish any significant prospect of using violence to constitutional ends with support from outside Northern Ireland. The British and Irish states successfully ensured that the historic antagonisms around nationality in the north of Ireland had been contained within Northern Ireland and distanced themselves from direct responsibility. In the meantime, all remaining barriers to ‘normal’ neighbourly relationships between Dublin and London were swiftly dismantled, culminating in the startlingly warm visit of the Queen to Ireland in 2011 (RTÉ News, 2011a). But the centre of antagonistic politics is the frontline of conflict. Over the years, one of the most distinctive aspects of British policy towards Northern Ireland was a strategy of military containment which gradually constrained the direct impact of violence to a number of core areas: sectarian violence in inner-city Belfast and some rural locations such as East Tyrone and North Armagh; violence around security patrolling in republican heartlands like West Belfast and South Armagh; and the confrontation between locally raised security forces, in particular the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) and the Ulster Defence Regiment (UDR), and the IRA. While there were ongoing attacks on economic targets, these did not generally threaten lives (Smyth and Kelly, 1999). The consequence was the division of Northern Ireland into areas where conflict was a daily reality and other areas where conflict was experienced at arm’s length (see chapters 3, 4 and 5). These latter areas were often attractive 1 The rebranding of the DUP referred to in chapter 1 is an example of this. Party leader Peter Robinson’s declared intention rests on his reading of the findings of the Northern Ireland Life and Times (NILT) Survey on the number of Catholic voters who favour the continuation of the United Kingdom.

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to those with greater social mobility, many of whom were beneficiaries of public investment. The trump card of the peace process has been its ability to render political violence strategically hopeless and to reduce the level of immedi­ate fear. For as long as violence does not threaten the stability of the core coalition, the British and Irish governments – and most of the population – appear willing to accept that the current settlement represents the best available option, preferable by far to descent into violence on the scale of 1972. The capacity to deliver strategic stability has continued to bear political dividends. Assembly elections in 2011 confirmed the fundamental division and the widespread belief that ­stability in government was best guaranteed by the partnership of Sinn Féin and the DUP. Yet without a change in the underlying antagonism, security in the present always carries with it the fear that violence may be resumed. The present has the characteristics of a truce rather than a transformation. Peace has not delivered any change in the underpinning paradigm of conflict politics. Managed antagonism appears to represent the common sense of what can be achieved in Northern Ireland. There is as yet little evidence of re-engagement by the cushioned middle classes in active party politics, nor of the emergence of new agendas. Indeed, there is some evidence that there is lower participation in elections in those areas further away from violence. The economic upturn of the late 1990s and early years of the twenty-first century led to significant inward migra­t ion for the first time (Bell et al., 2004). But, despite interest in the potential of greater diversity, there is little evidence of the pattern of inter-­community relations being fundamentally altered by new arrivals. Instead, new arrivals have to negotiate the territorial geography of Belfast and other towns, and they find themselves subject to targeting by organised paramilitary violence alongside the standard xenophobia of other cities. The paradox of the peace process is that a structure explicitly committed to sharing is being operated by those most suspicious of it. Both unionists and nationalists were left with trying to square the circle of arguing that a shared and inter-community settlement did not represent a fundamental paradigm shift but instead represented – simultaneously to each part of the community – a further step towards their unchanged, and incompatible, goals of unchallenged national self-determination. It is this dynamic which has forced the emphasis of peace-building away from building a shared future towards shoring up those DUP and Sinn Féin constituencies that are the most vulnerable to the threat of antiAgreement sentiment. To put it in a nutshell, politics has moved from ‘sharing’ and towards ‘sharing out’. Unsurprisingly, the consequence in Northern Ireland is a deeply ambivalent mix of partnership and rivalry, unable to reconcile the structure

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of shared, inter-community and equal government with aspirations for national triumph. No issue encapsulates this dilemma as profoundly as attitudes to violence in the past. The Belfast Agreement made no reference to the legitimacy or otherwise of using violence for political ends in the past. In terms of realpolitik, this was the consequence of a widely held judgement that any attempt to do so would merely prolong negotiations indefinitely while each protagonist sought to defend the legitimacy of violence in the pursuit or defence of national self-determination. But a commitment to reconciliation implies an acknowledgement of damage and injury in the past, and an implicit willingness to embrace change in the future. While it proved possible to make general commitments to care of the bereaved and injured, it has proved extraordinarily difficult for the rival partners in government to design and implement any policy on facing, and dealing with, past actions. There are clear and obvious divisions on the definition of a victim and vocal campaigns by individual groups for ‘justice’ on specific issues without any willingness to face the unjust consequences of inconsistency for others. Predictably, republicans continue to call for acknowledgement by the British state of past misdemeanours while also erecting unofficial monuments to republican activists. Unionists call for the exclusion of those injured or bereaved as a result of committing acts of terrorism from the definition of victim and a halt to ‘one-sided’ inquiries into state violence/the state’s use of force (BBC News, 2009). Meanwhile, the loyalist paramilitaries resist any investigation into informal ‘collusion’ between themselves and the security services and erect monuments to their own members killed in ‘active service’. When the Consultative Group on the Past in Northern Ireland (2009) suggested that a line be drawn in the sand by making an ‘acknowledgement payment’ of £12,000 to all those who had suffered, in a recognition of the cost of violence from the whole community, the entire report disappeared without trace. Resentment about the past continues to fuel political life. The understandable pragmatic desire to avoid the explosive political consequences of acknowledging atrocities that passed for heroism in the past has left a profound legacy of resentment and injustice which continues to prevent sustained trust in the present. Furthermore, it leaves an uncomfortable impression that the use of violence in politics is not a question of morality but only of tactics in a context of unchanged goals – an interpretation that has been seized on by dissident elements in republicanism. On the unionist side, the Traditional Unionist Voice party emerged to articulate unionist concerns about mandatory government with ‘Sinn Féin–IRA’, forcing the DUP to argue that its coalition with Sinn Féin, the central plank of the political institutional framework, was distasteful and fundamentally undesirable. For both coalition parties, the Agreement takes on the shape of a foul tactical compromise forced on unwilling partners rather than a historic breakthrough beyond antagonism.

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Ambivalence between antagonism and reconciliation infects the en­t ire political framework. While partnership is embedded, the particular model of mandatory coalition presupposes an ongoing antagonism between unionists and nationalists. Elite political cooperation is mandated, but neither of the dominant partners in government has a strong political interest in tackling social structures which legitimise their own leadership. Likewise, equality, enshrined at the heart of the Northern Ireland Act which followed the Belfast Agreement of 1998, risks being reduced to a politically sustainable sharing out of resources on a fifty–fifty basis, rather than the civic framework within which differentiated actions could be taken to embed values into everyday lives by reducing inequalities and sustaining equal citizenship at the personal level (see also chapter 9). Clearly, a mandatory coalition cannot function easily in policy-making if it is a coalition of antagonists rather than a government of partners. The truth of this is visible in key institutions such as policing, where the principle of equality of citizenship is paramount. Devolution was possible only if the police service was devolved as a shared institution – it simply could not be ‘shared out’. Following the Hillsborough Agreement in February 2010, it was clear that a precondition of successful devolution was that neither the DUP nor Sinn Féin could control policing, as this would arouse suspicion that it had fallen into partisan hands. In consequence, and in blatant disregard for the distributive d’Hondt system which governs the allocation of ministries in Northern Ireland, the portfolio was gifted to the only viable alternative, the relatively small inter-community Alliance Party. But the same is ultimately true for all social and economic policy in this small region, where decisions at policy level inevitably result in unintended and unequal consequences for different groups and where antagonism is built on historic inequalities. Decisions about health care, schools, housing, local government reform and even agriculture have inevitable implications for local power relations between ‘communities’. Without an operational commitment to equal citizenship and a clear framework of principle, including equality and human rights, critical social and economic decisions become a matter for sectarian division. For as long as antagonism and suspicion remain embedded within a governing coalition, the potential for gridlock or crisis cannot be discounted. Alternatively, ministers in the coalition can assert their own independence, undermining any inter-party coherence or joined up policy-making. Over time, there is a risk that the policy-making process comes to a halt. Although the first programme for government promised a shared and better future, there was little evidence of systematic policy. In­ stead, there was a reliance on wealth creation and economic growth to stimulate a ‘peace dividend’. Problematically, the restoration of de­ volved government in May 2007 was shortly followed by the onset of

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the worst economic crisis in the Western world since the 1930s and it quickly became clear that latent antagonism continued to operate as a constraining factor in opening up the economy to the wider world. Dissi­ dent attacks on police officers gave the lie to the notion that Northern Ireland was ‘sorted’, as the international agenda would have it. Ongoing annual riots around parades at the height of the tourist season continue to undermine Northern Ireland’s attractiveness. The difficulty was most visible in the failure of the Executive to agree a policy to ensure that the legacy of antagonism was directly confronted and diminished over time. Successive British governments had sought to control community tensions and manage inter-community relations rather than tackle them. This included a willingness to send troops into republican areas, to erect permanent interface barriers and to support enormous growth in ‘community development’ along territorial and implicitly separated lines. Although some schools and youth workers made tentative efforts to encourage inter-community engagement and the Community Relations Council was established in 1990 to promote similar endeavours among adults, it was not until the peace process, and in particular the advent of the European Union’s PEACE programme in 1995, that significant resources were committed to peace-building in many areas of public policy. It is a notable characteristic of funding to support peace-building that the greater part had its origins abroad. The apex of this process was the publication in 2005 of A Shared Future (during a protracted period of suspension of devolution – see foot­note 1, chapter 1), which declared that ‘Separate but equal is not an option’ (Office of the First Minister and deputy First Minister, 2005a: 15) and committed the Executive to change in significant areas such as education and housing. Although the document took its mandate from strong support for this direction in a public consultation, it was clear that many political parties had significant reservations. Almost immediately after restored devolution, the Executive made clear that it was not content to rely on existing policy. Significantly, this was only after it had agreed at one of its first meetings to accept further European Union support for a PEACE III programme, which was almost entirely orientated to the implementation of a ‘shared future’ agenda. In spite of repeated attempts to force the publication of a strategy, progress was achieved only after the Hillsborough Agreement in 2010, when it was made a condition for the Alliance Party to take the justice portfolio. When it did emerge, the ‘Cohesion, Sharing and Integration’ strategy was markedly weaker than its predecessor, relying largely on peace-building platitudes and conflict management at community level and avoiding any commitments to change in critical policy areas such as regeneration, housing and education (Northern Ireland Assembly, 2009). As discussed in chapter 4, the huge potential for change, especially within schools, was being taken forward through the Shared Education Programme, funded by

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external donors, and not through mainstream policy. But these are living examples of the point made in chapter 1 about the linkages between the practicalities of everyday life with politics of strategic manoeuvring, ideological rhetoric and institutional reform.

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Final remarks

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There is no doubt that the peace process has changed the face of the North of Ireland. Conflict in Northern Ireland over self-determination has not been resolved but it has been radically contained and managed. The political settlement has removed any prospect that a conflict about sovereignty in Northern Ireland will result in inter-state hostility and it has contained the legacy of post-imperial antagonism within the six counties. At a diplomatic level, the British and Irish governments enjoy an unprecedented level of cooperation and compromise. Negotiation has generated a consociational system of political participation which seeks to square the requirements of liberal electoral mathematics with the violent antagonism between groups. It ties in all of the most important political actors to purely political means and removes most of the threat of everyday violence that defined Northern Ireland for decades. The symbolism of Ian Paisley Snr and Gerry Adams sitting across two corners of a table followed by the successful election of Paisley and Martin McGuinness as First Minister and deputy First Minister cannot be gainsaid by anyone with a historical consciousness. Those elements who seek to rekindle the cycle of revenge have so far been contained to a marginal electoral fringe. None of this is to be scoffed at in a society where overwhelming violence has left such deep trauma. Essentially, the current structures both represent the most secure truce yet achieved in Irish politics and yet also illustrate the depth of antagonism still remaining. In a truce, the requirement for vigilance and suspicion remains and the threat of a return to violence, however sotto voce, remains as an ever-present risk. Moreover, the politics of ‘them’ and ‘us’ continues to dominate. The process to date has already indicated the degree to which antagonism structures public and private life and the scale of any change required to move from antagonism to reconciliation. At the heart of the devolved institutions is an as yet unresolved tension between the logical imperative of partnership and the mutually exclusive insistence on national sovereignty. The structures of the Agreement have, in theory at least, the potential to be a platform towards more radical reconciliation or a mechanism for smouldering antagonism. When a young Catholic recruit to the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI), Ronan Kerr, was murdered by dissidents in 2011, the Protestant First Minister, Peter Robinson, took the historically unprecedented step of attending his funeral. Furthermore, he came under almost no public

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criticism for doing so. At the same poignant event, members of the Tyrone County Gaelic Football Association, historically organised to resist British crown forces in Ireland, carried the coffin and handed it to police officers (Channel 4 News, 2011). Symbolic human gestures of this sort go far beyond anything that was previously possible in Northern Ireland. At the same time, it is hard to discern any serious effort towards broader reconciliation, as identified by Hamber and Kelly (2005), as being part of the assumptions of the original peace negotiators, within public policy. No clear vision of an interdependent society emerged from the new Office of the First Minister and deputy First Minister and there was no evidence that either party was willing to engage in any process of acknowledging and dealing with the past. The failure to agree on any policy for inter-community relations gives the lie to wider commitments to build positive relationships outside Stormont. There is no, or little, evidence of any reduction of interface barriers or of changes to long-­ running engines of separate living such as education or social housing, nor of any policy framework within which to tackle these sores. Yet, as time passes, there is increasing concern that sectarianism is being passed on to a younger generation and it seems probable that this is related to both the absence of real change in the practicalities of everyday policy areas and the lack of serious attention to reconciliation. The establishment in 2007 of a strategic review under Paddy Ashdown to examine alternative ways to regulate parades, protests and public assemblies suggested an initial willingness to tackle significant cultural issues (Northern Ireland Office, 2007). However, failure to make progress on an Irish Language Act poisoned the atmosphere and attempts to introduce a new framework for parading collapsed when the proposals were rejected by the Orange Order in 2010. Finally, even the broad commitment to economic and social change was shown to be shallow when the proposed Single Equality Bill was withdrawn and the proposals of the Human Rights Commission for a Northern Ireland Bill of Rights were rejected by almost all unionists (UTV, 2009). There is little doubt that the dynamic to reach beyond managed antagon­ism reduced after 2007, that is, under restored devolution. Some, such as Robin Wilson, argue forcefully that the consociational arrangements are terminally flawed, embedding sectarianism and deviating from international norms of democracy (Wilson, 2010). At the same time, others argue that the economic and social pressures on the Executive will eventually force a more radical confrontation with the impossibility of ongoing antagonism (McGarry and O’Leary, 2006). Certainly, the need to reduce antagonism further was and is increasingly expressed in economic terms. Plans to reduce the chronic dependency of Northern Ireland on the block grant from the UK depend on attracting investment, retaining and attracting creative talent and attracting visitors. In the face of ongoing rioting and evidence of paramilitary organisation, it is

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Duncan Morrow

clear that none of these can be achieved unless the level of antagonism is reduced and the potential for violence eliminated. Whatever the paradigm, there is no doubt that sustainable peace is dependent on the political, economic and social choices which the relative absence of violence allows. Resolving the tension between truce and transformation remains the critical unresolved issue at the heart of government. All of this creates immediate political problems for parties which have drawn their historic strength as defenders of the com­ munity against enemies and from projects of national selfdetermination. Antagonism requires a determination to prevail and to defeat identified opponents. Reconciliation requires the emergence of a culture of negotiation and mutual concession to mutual benefit. A peace process which required unionists to bend to the will of the British people and Irish republicans to concede to the expressed will of the rest of Ireland and the Irish diaspora has given way to a structure of direct engagement between the two traditions. The degree to which this represents a historic turn-around should not be underestimated. But failure to actually engage can only result in the decay of reconciliation into a sullen and deep-rooted resignation and resentment, a politics of ‘sharing out’ and a risk of ongoing resort to violence which prevents significant economic growth. Ultimately, it could undermine the legitimacy of the partnership institutions themselves.

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Part II. Space, place and human relations in Northern Ireland

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Chapter 3

Routine divisions: segregation and daily life in Northern Ireland Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

Neil Jarman and John Bell

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Segregation and division according to community background has been a feature of life in the North of Ireland since the plantations of the seventeenth century introduced English and Scottish settlers there. From the outset, the Protestant settlers from Britain occupied different spaces from the Catholic Irish, who were often displaced from the best farmlands by the new arrivals. Industrialisation through the nineteenth century saw similar patterns of residential segregation mapped across the growing urban centres of Belfast, Derry/Londonderry and elsewhere. Segregation was never absolute, however; there was always some degree of sharing and integration. But conflict and tensions over political status and local patterns of domination and control, reinforced by acts of ‘representational violence’, worked as a centrifugal force on the two communities (Boal, 1982; Harris, 1972; Wright, 1996). The generation of armed violence that was the ‘Troubles’ drew upon these established divisions but also reinforced and extended the patterns of segregation, hardening the divisions between neighbouring communities, often through the construction of physical barriers which were designed to protect against sectarian incursions but which also served to emphasise difference and territorialism and thus to keep people apart. The paramilitary ceasefires of 1994 marked a formal end to the military conflict and the beginnings of a peace process which aimed to normalise the situation in Northern Ireland. One of the aspirations of any process of conflict transformation is to address the structural factors that underpin the conflict and thus help to reproduce the enmity, fear and mistrust that sustain social division. The peace agreement sought to provide a framework for integrating rival political aspirations, while the subsequent peace-building programme (heavily funded by the European Union and others) aimed to challenge the social divide through a programme of support for activities designed to encourage reconciliation and create a

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shared future. With the armed conflict effectively consigned to the past and new democratic institutions in place, it was hoped that it would be possible to bridge the divisions between the two main communities. In 2007, staff at the Institute for Conflict Research (ICR) began a project to look at the extent to which segregation and division remained an active feature of life in Northern Ireland and the extent to which the long decade of peace had had an impact on such fundamental divisions (Hamilton et al., 2008; see also Byrne et al., 2006). The research drew theoretically on the work of the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu, who noted that we live as social beings in a world of ‘structured structures predisposed to function as structuring structures’ (1972: 72). By this we understand that the social elements of our world direct, constrain and enable us in what we do and how we act but also that what we do and how we act in turn affect our world and the world of other people around us. Our choices are bounded but not so much that we lose our capacity to have an impact on our social environment, as indicated in chapter 1’s discussion of de Certeau and Brubaker. We always remain active agents in helping to reproduce, sustain and develop our culture and society. Segregation and division are therefore to be seen not as some static and unchanging backdrop to daily life; rather, it is quotidian routines that serve to reproduce segregation. The research aimed to explore how far people were aware of such divisions and the extent to which their daily activities colluded with, confronted or circumvented them. Research on the practice of segregation and sectarianism in Northern Ireland has taken two main forms: anthropological and geographical. The anthropological school (which includes the work of sociologists and political scientists) has placed an emphasis on gathering qualitative data through forms of participant observation to explore the practices of both segregation and engagement of the two communities (Burton, 1978; Darby, 1986; Donnan and McFarlane, 1986; Harris, 1972; Wilson and Donnan, 2006). The geographical school had traditionally focused on mapping and quantifying residential segregation. The approaches began to converge with the work of Boal (1969), who brought anthropological methods into the geographical school through the use of everyday life activity patterns as an indicator of segregation on the Shankill–Falls divide. This work was subsequently developed by exploring people’s routine experiences to deepen our understanding of practice across a wider range of society that helps to sustain the divisions (Boal, 1982; Murtagh, 1999; Shirlow, 2003; Shirlow and Murtagh, 2006). The ICR research explored the impact of routine behaviour on sec­ tarian divisions in a variety of locations across Northern Ireland. The seven case study areas were: • three rural villages – Castlederg and Newtownstewart in West Tyrone and Kilrea in County Londonderry;

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• two urban estates – Dunclug in Ballymena and Shandon Park in Newry; • one area of north Belfast – comprising two neighbouring interface communities (New Lodge and Tigers Bay) • a middle-class area of south Belfast – Stranmillis.

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These areas were identified to include geographical diversity and varying levels of sectarian demographic balance. Stranmillis was selected to explore the impact of sectarianism on a middle-class environ­ment, an issue that has been subjected to limited investigation. The research focused on exploring the breadth and depth of different approaches ­developed and adopted by individuals in response to segregation and how people have changed or adapted their behaviour over the course of the peace process.

Talking about division The field research was carried out between May 2007 and March 2008 and included 168 in-depth, semi-structured interviews and conversations with a broad range of individuals. The research team was able to draw on an established network of contacts in many of the areas but it often proved challenging to get people to open up about the issue of segregation and the ways in which the sectarian divide affected their lives. The practice of ‘avoidance’, of not discussing political or potentially sensitive issues in ‘mixed company’ or with people whom one did not know well, is the counterpoint of ‘telling’, the practice of monitoring the minutiae of symbolism, clothing, speech and behaviour to ascribe community background or affiliation to a new acquaintance (Burton, 1978; Harris, 1972). Telling and avoidance are practices that underpin and sustain the sectarian divide. They are predicated on the notion of otherness and a sense of risk in engaging with the unknown and, as such, they also replicate the social divisions between Protestants and Catholics. For example, conversations in mixed company remain superficial, differing perspectives are not discussed, stereotypes are not challenged and the other remains only vaguely understood. Avoidance was a factor found in the research but class and location also affected willingness to discuss the sectarian divide. So too did the impact of the Troubles on different areas; people’s experiences of living with the direct manifestations of sectarianism and segregation had a significant impact upon their willingness to discuss sensitive and emotive issues. In middle-class Stranmillis, some residents were reluctant to discuss such issues because they felt they were irrelevant to their area. Some people stated that they had moved into the area ‘to get away from all that nonsense’. A common perception among many was that Northern

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Ireland had moved on from the ‘dark days’ and they were unwilling to talk about issues from the past that were seen to be of limited relevance to their area. However, as conversations developed, issues associated with sectarianism and segregation were often raised and explored. It became apparent that, although many respondents claimed that their routines were not affected by sectarianism and segregation, they were all too aware of the sectarian geography of the city and would at times accordingly alter their daily routine, route to work or place to shop. The presence of segregation and sectarianism may have been less immediate and evident in a middle-class environment but, never­t heless, it still had a significant impact on people’s lives. In contrast, residents in north Belfast were generally more willing to discuss the divisions between the two communities, differences which were anyway much more visible and physically evident in an interface area. The Tigers Bay and New Lodge interface is marked by various flags, kerb paintings, memorials, closed-circuit television cameras and a variety of physical barriers that act as daily reminders of both the history of the area and the continuing tensions. But, while most people were ultimately willing to discuss the impact of the divide, they also cited a general sense of ‘research fatigue’, which had arisen as a result of a number of studies analysing the dynamics of interface communities in recent years. In particular, people noted that research too often involved taking information from a community but gave little back. This led to a reluctance to respond positively to subsequent requests. In contrast, in Castlederg and Newtownstewart there was a considerable interest among interviewees, who felt that too much research simply focused on Belfast and Derry/Londonderry, and they welcomed the opportunity for their opinions to be heard. However, some people living in rural areas, such as Kilrea and Newtown­stewart, were reticent about discussing what they perceived to be contentious issues. In both places it was felt that ‘everyone knew everyone’ and, despite reassurances, there were concerns that they would be identifiable by their age, gender or even their profession. In the past, anthropological research has striven to anonymise individuals and the research area by giving towns and villages fictitious names and identities (Buckley, 1982; Darby, 1986; Harris, 1972). The research team did not conceal the identity of locations but did reassure interviewees that they would not be personally identifiable by any comments that might be quoted in any publication. The research team asked some interviewees to highlight on a map areas of their town that they perceived to be predominantly Protestant, Catholic or mixed. This proved to be a successful approach and offered insights into a number of the themes that had emerged in the interviews, such as the impact that individuals’ age, gender and personal experiences had upon their ‘mental map’ of the local area. The mapping exercise

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revealed some considerably differing perceptions of the identity of public spaces, where and when people felt safe, and the types of areas that they would avoid due to factors relating to sectarianism and segregation. The research highlighted some of the difficulties that can be faced when trying to engage with people around contentious issues such as sectarianism and segregation, particularly within the context of the current political dispensation in Northern Ireland. For some interviewees this ‘was all in the past’ and any discussion or reopening of old wounds would be more trouble than it was worth. Perhaps somewhat ironically, it was the residents of those areas which had been affected the most by the Troubles, such as north Belfast and Castlederg, who were the most forthright in engaging directly with the topics of sectarianism and segregation, while the residents of the relatively sheltered Stranmillis displayed a reluctance to talk about issues which they felt had no rele­ vance to their own area and which they had ‘left behind’ in other parts of Belfast when they moved into the area. Ultimately the research was able to explore how factors such as age, gender, community background, socio-economic grouping and personal experience of the impact of the Troubles interact to generate a more nuanced interpretation of how segregation and division still impact on people in Northern Ireland.

Living in a divided society The aim of the research was to explore the extent to which people’s daily routines were affected by the social divisions within Northern Ireland, by the often extensive segregation of Catholic and Protestant com­ munities, by sectarianism and by the legacy of the conflict; conversely, it also sought to examine how far people’s routines help to reinforce and thus sustain the patterns of segregation and division. A further aim was to identify any positive changes in the levels of segregation and division. The case studies identified some differences across the seven areas in people’s experiences and understandings of these issues and highlighted something of the diverse impacts that segregation and sectarianism have on people, which, as noted, often depend on factors such as the age, gender, social background, place of residence and the personal ex­periences of the individual. A variety of both personal and communal factors and individual experiences are used to construct the ‘mental maps’ that are used to guide and structure personal routines and practices. The mental maps are, in turn, reinforced, but also at times challenged, by routine ex­ periences. The routines of separation and division are thus sustained through practice but the research found that routines can and do change as people’s experiences, and subsequently their perceptions, of their social environment change. The experience of segregation therefore always has a degree of fluidity, rather than

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being rigid and fixed – and outside of the control of individuals. Thus it is important to bear in mind that segregation remains in part a subjective interpretation of the possibilities and limitations of public space, an inter­pretation which is influenced by factors such as age, gender and class as well as community background. The following sections outline a number of generalised findings from the research. These do not all apply to each area and there are some apparently contradictory findings. But this serves to highlight the need to look beyond the stark contrasts of division, and demands that a more nuanced view is taken of how segregation and sectarianism affect everyone, while acknowledging that for some the impact is more immediate and intense than for others. Furthermore, the research suggests that, although some people believe that in some contexts the situation may be improving, for others the level and intensity of segregation are increasing.

Segregation affects all, but at differing levels and intensities

People offered diverse interpretations of the levels of segregation and the quality of relationships between members of the two communities in different areas. In Castlederg and north Belfast, people described high levels of segregation and separation; those in Kilrea and Newtownstewart described some degree of mixing but little genuinely warm interaction between the two communities; in Dunclug and Shandon Park people spoke of higher levels of mixing and more positive relationships between members of the two main communities; finally, residents of Stranmillis considered their area to be largely mixed and fairly well inte­ grated but with little public recognition of communal identities. There are thus a variety of experiences, on a continuum between highly segregated and divided areas with little positive interaction among members of the two main communities, and areas where there were much higher levels of integration and interaction. Furthermore, people in more mixed areas identified two distinct ways of integrating. This could take place through a recognition and acknowledgement of each person’s communal background and ethno-national identity, or by avoidance of and dis­ interest in the same. In smaller or more rural communities, where most people were long-established neighbours, communal identity was always a factor in both personal identity and status in the community, but in urban areas the larger scale and relative transience of the population made a level of communal anonymity a real possibility.

Segregation remains a legacy of the conflict

The impact of the Troubles on the research areas in Belfast was very different and had a significant impact on the degree to which segregation and sectarianism were felt to impose themselves on daily routines.

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Many people in Stranmillis felt that they had scarcely been affected by the Troubles and struggled to name any specific conflict-related incidents in the area. This was in stark contrast to New Lodge and Tigers Bay, which remain divided by a physical interface; residents of these two areas had experienced extensive violence and trauma throughout the Troubles and, to a large extent, continued to do so through the period of political transition. It is difficult to state categorically the nature and scale of the legacy of the Troubles on segregation and sectarianism in any area. Two of the rural areas, Kilrea and Castlederg, were both badly affected by the conflict and some people displayed sectarian attitudes. This helped sustain high levels of segregation, while inter-communal tensions and antagonism were recurrently renewed during the summer marching season, when local parades and visual displays further polarised relations. However, through the rest of the year, the two communities appeared to coexist on a day-to-day basis, although with limited socialising or interacting. Thus, while the experiences of the Troubles had created a background of mutual suspicion and hostility, it was the ongoing annual cycle of commemorations that ensured that tensions remained raw and unresolved.

Levels of segregation are changing

Residents in Dunclug suggested that, in general, Ballymena had been rela­t ively untouched by the Troubles and relations within the estate were generally positive. However, the levels of segregation and sectarianism in the wider town were felt to be higher than in previous years; people highlighted the murder of a young Catholic man, Michael McIlveen, in May 2006, as a defining event that had had a serious impact on relations, particularly among younger age groups. This deterioration in relationships in Ballymena contrasts with the experiences of residents of Newry, an area badly affected by the Troubles but which appears to have ‘moved on’. Interviewees in the Shandon Park estate felt that the city of Newry was ‘on a high’ and had progressed enormously since the end of the conflict. In contrast to residents of Dunclug, residents of Shandon Park increasingly felt safe and welcomed in the city centre, although, as with many areas, concerns remained about the negative impact of the nighttime economy (discussed below).

Shared space coexists with heavily segregated space

There was an acknowledgement that there had been an increase in the number and variety of mixed or neutral areas and spaces in many locations. In Castlederg, for example, people noted the growing number of mixed social spaces and shared resources, including bars and leisure facilities. In north Belfast people also noted that a growing number of

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spaces were not defined by the orange and green divide, even though some of these were in spaces further removed from the city centre or were newly developed spaces like the Odyssey leisure complex.1 Similarly, residents of Shandon Park perceived that the centre of Newry was increasingly accessible to Protestants, particularly during the day, and residents of Newtownstewart accessed shops and other facilities in an ever-wider range of locations. Residents in Dunclug stated that the local estate was reasonably well integrated but access to resources in the centre of Ballymena was considered to be increasingly problematic, with a growing ‘them and us’ division between the residents of Dunclug and the larger population of the town. Similarly, the residents of Stranmillis felt that they lived in a mixed and shared environment but they were only too aware of, and adapted their movements to, the territorialism and sectarian divisions beyond the boundaries of Stranmillis. The mixture of shared space with segregated spaces was noted in Castlederg and Kilrea. In the former, the mixed bars coexisted with the established segregated patterns of socialising and drinking; in the latter, shops that were shared by both communities were interspersed with bars that would be used predominately by only one section of the community. Thus the bold stark divisions of orange and green spaces were being broken down into a more fractured mosaic of resources, facilities and spaces, some of which could be accessed by all, while others were avoided by sections of the community. Individuals are thus required to operate on the basis of an ever more complex series of mental maps that guide and inform them where to go and where to avoid. While this knowledge is learned in part from experience, people also base their local knowledge on interaction and discussion with members of their peer and identity groups.

The direct impact of segregation relates to social class

While some people believe that their daily routines are not greatly affected by segregation, others understand that segregation has become such a way of life that it is now viewed as ‘normal’; routines and practices that are established as a norm are generally perceived as less necessary to challenge; they are also more difficult to challenge. The two areas in Belfast typify this contrast in experiences and perspectives. The residents of the interface communities in the north of the city were only too aware of the highly segregated and divided nature of space and resources and the extent to which they adapted their movements and avoided certain areas. This can be considered an example of the direct impact of sectarian division. In contrast, residents of Stranmillis, who lived in a generally mixed area without any symbolic displays, believed that

1 The Odyssey complex, in the former docks area of east Belfast, contains a diverse mix of bars, restaurants, children’s spaces, cinemas, and sporting and concert facilities.

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the sectarian divisions did not affect their lives to any extent. However, the conversations and discussions often revealed how far people were actually acutely aware of segregated areas and adapted their behaviour through acts of avoidance or through forms of caution. This is evidence of the indirect impact that segregation and division can have on people’s lives. In a somewhat different way, the residents of Dunclug also lived in a mixed and shared environment, as long as they remained on the estate, but Ballymena town centre had become a problematic and divided setting. Thus people in Stranmillis and Dunclug had, in very different ways, begun to move beyond the stark simplicity of orange and green divisions but only in relatively small areas. Once they moved beyond the confines of their communities, they were forced to interact with the realities of a highly divided and sectarian society. Yet, despite these similarities, residents of Dunclug were more open to the realities of living in a divided society than those in Stranmillis, who mostly preferred to try to ignore the impact that sectarian divisions had on their lives.

Living in a small community highlights identity and ­difference; anonymity on the other hand helps dissipate community identity

The ability to ignore, avoid or escape from a personal collective identity impacts on social division. In an essentially dormitory community such as Stranmillis, there appears to be a limited degree of contact between neighbours and a strong potential for remaining ‘anonymous’. This in turn facilitates the reduction of any negative impact that identity politics might have at a communal and individual level. This was in stark contrast to the situation in smaller and more geographically contained com­ munities in rural areas (Castlederg and Kilrea) or on an interface (north Belfast), where the majority of interviewees believed that ‘everyone knew everyone’ and it was relatively easy to ‘tell’ someone’s community background, from their family name, which part of the area they came from or the school they attended. This sense of being ‘known’ resulted in interviewees restricting their movements in and around the area where they lived. However, once again, the impact was uneven; spaces that were considered safe and neutral during the daytime could be perceived as unsafe and territorial at night, while spaces that were safe most of the year might be unsafe at times of political tension. This had an impact on how and where people moved about and socialised, when they might use a leisure facility, access a doctor, or obtain money from a cash machine. Mental mapping also reveals that division can have a gendered perspective. In Castlederg, for example, the research highlighted that males were more likely than females to perceive the town to be heavily segregated, and they were therefore more inclined to alter their routes or limit their movements accordingly (see also chapter 6).

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Economic regeneration can have both positive and negative impacts

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Economic regeneration across Northern Ireland has been a positive factor in the transition from armed conflict and an important foundation of the wider process of peace-building. Little consideration has been given to exactly how economic regeneration may contribute to breaking down divisions and segregation but there is some indication from this research that economic regeneration can have an impact on a personal level. Participants perceived that the economic regeneration of the city of Newry and the opening up of the border has had a positive impact on the ways that members of the Protestant community in Shandon Park engage with, and relate to, the commercial centre. Similarly, the redevelopment of the docklands area of east Belfast, which has created a new environment with spaces such as the Odyssey leisure complex, has provided a shared social space, both for people from the segregated interface areas across the city and for those from middle-class areas. In such spaces people can in some sense become ‘anonymous’ – providing of course they have the means to access and afford the facilities. However, in contrast to participants in Newry, the opening up of the border area is perceived by some people in Castlederg to have had a negative impact on the local commercial sector, and many interviewees perceived that trade and the prosperity of the town had suffered now that people had a wider choice of facilities and services elsewhere in the vicinity. The absence of violence has encouraged more people to cross the border for goods (see also chapter 8) or to travel greater distances to larger centres a few miles away, in preference to shopping within the safer confines of their home environment.

Workplaces are neutral, but dominated by avoidance

In general, interviewees felt that the work environment was now a largely neutral space. Some people recounted how, during the Troubles, few would give their opinion on an incident and, even today, people were hesitant to raise political or religious matters due to a reluctance to identify their community background. Thus, while mixing within the workplace was largely accepted, it was also based on a presumption of avoidance of contentious issues, rather than any strong sense of integration and sharing. The recognition of the workplace as ‘neutral’ also highlights the emphasis on avoidance and the exclusion of symbols of identity and activities that raise tensions or mark out communal difference. Nevertheless, some interviewees remained wary of working in an area that was dominated by people from the other community (see also Hargie et al., 2006) and a number said they would base their decision on where to apply for a job on their community background because they felt that some businesses would simply refuse to employ them and that

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the process would be a ‘waste of time’. This was another aspect of segregation which was regarded as self-evident and ‘normal’. Furthermore, some interviewees in north Belfast and Kilrea cited a ‘fear’ of travelling outside the area because of the districts they would have to pass through, although most people felt this was becoming less of an issue than during the Troubles. However, even in middle-class Stranmillis people were only too aware of potential trouble spots in neighbouring areas; they either avoided these areas entirely or consciously monitored micro-changes that might indicate increasing tensions on their way to work.

Education remains largely segregated

Many interviewees chose to send their children to a local school, which, given the patterns of segregation and the divided nature of the education system, meant that children generally attend a school associated with their religious affiliation and/or community background. Education thus remains highly segregated and some people cited this as a factor in further widening of social divisions (see also chapter 4). However, in some areas people noted that informal integration had begun to develop through schools. In Stranmillis, many Catholics chose to send their children to a school that was perceived to be Protestant, particularly if it had a good reputation; in Newry, both Protestants and Catholics attend Newry High; and even in Kilrea some Catholics attend Protestant grammar schools outside the village. It is worth noting, however, that each of these examples is of Catholic children attending ‘Protestant’ schools. For some people this reinforced a sense of being pushed out or excluded from their traditional social spaces. In areas where there was less integration through schooling, school uniforms were cited as a problem. In Castlederg and Dunclug these were viewed as a marker of a young person’s community background and a number of young people avoided certain areas when they knew pupils of the other school in town would be around. Some young interviewees also felt that wearing their school uniform during the day meant that they could not venture into certain shops or specific shopping centres within their towns. However, while there were cases in Belfast and Castlederg where young people referred to segregated school transport or attacks on school buses based on community background, the overall impression is one of a general improvement in safety and security in travelling to and from schools.

Shopping environments are increasingly neutral

Increasingly people consider the main shopping areas as a ‘neutral space’ and for many people the choice of where to shop was based on value for money, convenience and quality, rather than on allegiance to community. Research conducted by the Rural Community Network (2004) also found

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that choice of where to shop was based more on variety, options and price than on religion or at least the perceived religion of the owner of the shop. However, while the central areas of Belfast and Newry were generally considered accessible to both communities, in Ballymena some young people felt unsafe in accessing one or other of the main shopping centres because of their community background. There were differences across the study areas, however. In north Belfast, for example, some people avoided certain shops that were perceived to be used more by the other community, and ‘corner shops’ in particular were regarded as for servicing people within the community, rather than for meeting a more general need. In smaller centres like Castlederg and Newtownstewart, smaller shops were readily identified as being either predominantly Protestant or Catholic and, although most interviewees said this would not affect where they shopped, some still preferred to avoid shopping in stores owned by the ‘other’ community.

People will socialise together if the space is safe or ­anonymous, but the night-time economy can be more problematic

Socialising was still heavily segregated in many areas and some people chose to travel some distance to avoid local divided bars or clubs. In Belfast city centre many pubs were now seen as mixed and interviewees in north Belfast felt safer socialising in the city centre than they did during the Troubles. Some young people from Ballymena preferred to travel to Belfast rather than go out in Ballymena, in part for safety and in part because it gave them a degree of anonymity away from their own environment. In Kilrea and Newry young Protestants reported some fear of using the town at night because of safety concerns and in Castlederg the large number of segregated pubs was believed to fuel alcohol-related violence. This contrasted with neighbouring Newtownstewart, although this may in part be due to the fact that young people from Newtownstewart often socialised elsewhere because the town was perceived as too quiet. Although the central areas of towns may be theoretically presented as or considered to be neutral, this may be partly related to the size of a town and the degree of anonymity people can experience. In smaller centres and more intimate environments, any sense of shared space or neutrality of space appears to disappear after dark, as the erstwhile shared or common ‘civic’ space is claimed or dominated by one community while being largely avoided by the other.

Segregation impacts most heavily on young males

We have already noted how sectarianism and segregation impact par­ticularly on young people, in such matters as school uniforms or

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a­ ccessing some forms of public space. In many of the areas it was noted that sectarian attitudes appeared to be more deeply entrenched among young males (a finding also noted by Shirlow, 2003). Some interviewees in north Belfast highlighted that young males were perceived to be more of a threat to other people than any other group. Young males were also generally perceived in Dunclug to be the ones most involved in violence and sectarian attacks and thus as more threatening. But the counterpart to this was that young men were also more likely to be the victims of sectarian attack and, similarly to the findings of Lysaght and Basten (2003), this research found that spatial perceptions and a sense of safety were often gendered, with men more reluctant to travel between areas, as they perceived themselves to be more at risk. This came out quite clearly in the case of Castlederg, where the mapping exercise indicated that young males were less inclined to identify areas in the town as mixed or shared but rather saw them as predominantly belonging exclusively to one community or the other.

Asserting community identity can undermine social cohesion, but denying opportunities to display identity can erode a sense of belonging

Visible displays of belonging, such as flags, were an issue in all of the areas apart from Stranmillis. Flags, parades and bonfires, which were used to mark territory or display communal strength, were all considered as potential or actual sources of tension, as they could impact negatively on community relations. In Castlederg and Shandon Park such tensions were viewed as problematic mainly during the marching season and there were ongoing attempts to ‘manage’ these situations, while in Kilrea the flying of a Tricolour by nationalist residents in the centre of the village sustained a persistent undercurrent of tension throughout the year. One factor to be considered in relation to communal displays and cultural events is the relative population balance. Both Castlederg and north Belfast contain a relatively even balance of population in terms of religious affiliation and there appears to be an element of vying for ‘control’ or territorial dominance within these areas (Bell et al., 2010). In contrast, in Newry the Protestant community make up less than 10 per cent of the population and are perceived to lack the ‘critical mass’ to threaten the majority Catholic community, although the need to assert identity can still serve to disrupt relations in the short term. In rural areas where demographic change had left one community in a minority there were strong feelings that wider elements of their culture were being eroded. This was noted to varying degrees in Castlederg and Kilrea but also Shandon Park, where Protestants felt that their culture and rights were being taken away and they were being ‘pushed out’. While some residents viewed Shandon Park as a positive example of

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the two communities sharing and mixing, others regarded the cultural displays by the Protestants there as something of ‘a last stand’ rather than as an example of tolerance and sharing, which thus highlighted the importance of asserting one’s cultural identity, even if this was ­initi­ated by people from outside the estate. In the case of both Castlederg and Shandon Park the location near the border appeared to contribute to a ‘frontier’ mentality among some interviewees and the presence of visual displays of cultural and community background such as flags, parades and murals were seen as indicators that, despite the Troubles, the minority community ‘are still here’ and intend to remain.

Conclusion The research highlights how segregation and sectarian attitudes impact on different aspects of everyday life, in differing ways and in different areas. In some areas there are positive signs of greater mixing, sharing and integrating, while in others the legacy of the past, plus recurrent tensions and even violence associated with community commemorations and celebrations, help to ensure that hostility, fear and mistrust dominate the wider social environment. In most shared social environments the practice of avoidance still appears to dominate interactions between members of the two main communities and concerns for safety appear to be constantly at the back of many people’s minds. But, while segregation and division remain dominant aspects of daily life in areas across Northern Ireland, it is not a completely stark binary division; rather, the research illustrates something of the diversity of experiences that are affected by factors of age, gender, class and location. At certain times of the day, of the week or of the year, many of the locations may appear to be relatively integrated and shared, as people mix in workplaces, shops and public spaces. But at other times of the day, week or year the same space may feel very different; the night-time economy may have a negative impact on perceptions of safety, depending on community background and the local demographic status of one’s community. And while the summer marching season is, for some, a time of celebration, for others it is a time to keep your head down and mind where you go. The legacy of the Troubles and recent experiences of violence remain factors in how people act as social beings but people are not solely constrained by their past and there is some evidence of positive change and more mixing in some aspects of social life in many areas across Northern Ireland. The peace process has thus had an impact on daily practices and perceptions of safety, sharing and opportunities for mixing and for crossing hitherto fixed, if largely invisible, boundaries but such changes remain uneven and tentative.

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Acknowledgements

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This chapter is based on the research project ‘Segregated Lives: Social Division, Sectarianism and Everyday Life in Northern Ireland’, which was funded by the Community Relations Council through the European Special Support Programme for Peace and Reconciliation. The full project report is available at www.conflictresearch.org.uk.

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Chapter 4

Promoting good relations: the role of schools in Northern Ireland Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

Joanne Hughes and Caitlin Donnelly

The relationship between the separate education system for Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland and the perpetuation of conflict and division has been the subject of some considerable debate, both before and after the Good Friday Agreement. Although there is no consensus among educationalists as to the veracity of arguments for or against, there is broad agreement that schools have a role to play in helping to heal division. Reflecting this, a central plank in education policy has been the creation of opportunities for inter-group encounter among pupils attending Northern Ireland’s mainly co-religionist schools. This chapter tracks community relations initiatives in education over the last three decades and considers the potential for school-based encounters to deliver peace-building objectives. It is argued that, while governmentsponsored attempts to promote contact have had limited impact because they are generally short term and demand minimal commitment from schools, a recently established non-statutory initiative, the Sharing Education Programme (SEP), offers a potentially more effective contact model. The analysis suggests that the unique value of SEP relates to the opportunities presented by the programme for more sustained contact between participants, the foregrounding of common educational objectives and the potential reach of the programme.

Background Since the foundation of Northern Ireland, its education system has been characterised by separation along ethno-religious lines, tempered only by the emergence in the early 1980s of a distinctly integrated sector and, more recently, by a smaller Irish-medium sector. Currently, around 94 per cent of pupils attend either ‘maintained’ (predominantly Catholic)

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or ‘controlled’ (predominantly Protestant) schools (Department of Education (Northern Ireland), 2007). Only around 5 per cent of pupils in maintained schools are non-Catholic, while less than 10 per cent of pupils in controlled schools are Catholic. Integrated schools, which account for around 5 per cent of all schools, have more mixed enrolments, though even here the proportion of Catholic children in grant-maintained (or ‘green field’) integrated schools is more than twice that of controlled (transformed Protestant) integrated schools (Gallagher et al., 2010; further explanation of these types is provide later in the chapter). In the context of a protracted conflict that began in the late 1960s, the separate education system has come under considerable scrutiny (Gallagher, 2004). In 2010, the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Owen Paterson, argued that Northern Ireland’s segregated schools system involves a ‘criminal waste of money’ (Belfast Telegraph, 2010a). In a speech some days later, Northern Ireland’s First Minister, Peter Robinson, described the education system as a ‘benign form of apartheid’ (Belfast Telegraph, 2010b). Responding to the First Minister’s remarks, a Catholic bishop argued that parents should have the right to choose a faith-based education for their children, and that faith schools are a ‘hallmark of a stable and pluralist society’ (BBC News, 2010). The positions adopted in this exchange of views are resonant with global debates over the right to a separate education (based on ethnoreligious criteria) in a pluralist society, against the role that separate schools are perceived to play in perpetuating division and sectarianism (Berkeley, 2008; Gallagher, 2004; Grace, 2003; Short, 2003). Protagonists for separate schools argue that faith schools are well placed to contribute to the common good because they can provide children with a moral and religious framework that engenders confidence in their own identity, and helps them to be respectful of the beliefs and values of others (Halstead and McLaughlin, 2005). Detractors argue that separate schools, de facto, pose a threat to social cohesion because they lead to a fragmentation of society (Hand, 2003; Judge, 2001; Short, 2003). In Northern Ireland, representative bodies for faith-based education have publicly challenged the view that their schools feed inherited prejudice and promote sectarian tension, arguing that faith schools have an important role to play in building the peace (Catholic Council for Maintained Schools, 2007). Research evidence on the relationship between education and division in Northern Ireland is sparse; however, some studies have suggested that separate schools do contribute to community division, by spawning and reinforcing stereotypes (Brocklehurst, 2006; Hughes, 2011; Murray, 1985). Murray’s seminal ethnographic study, undertaken in a controlled (Protestant) and a maintained (Catholic) school, led him to conclude that: segregating children of school age may actually institutionalise perceived differences between them and encourage them to formulate ­antipathetical stereotypes…. If behaviour may be structured, or at least influenced,

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by such stereotypes, then the argument that segregated schooling may positively contribute to subsequent community division and conflict is strengthened. (Murray, 1985: 104)

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However, in support of the separate schools, some research points to higher than average attainment rates in Catholic schools, which can be taken as a basis for arguing that faith schools can contribute to the common good (Donaldson, 2007). An alternative perspective presents the relationship between separate education and division as a contingent truth rather than a necessary truth, arguing that separate schools are not a cause of division, but a reflection of societal division. In this sense, separate schools cannot be blamed for the failure to achieve reconciliation and social healing (Gallagher, 2004). In the absence of a clear consensus on the role schools play in perpetuating division, and in the context of sectoral interests (such as the Catholic and Protestant churches), government has sought to foster better community relations through education by promoting contact between Catholic and Protestant pupils. Theory emanating primarily from the discipline of social psychology provides a strong rationale for contact-based interventions and there is now a considerable body of internationally generated evidence that endorses inter-group en­counter as a mechanism for ameliorating prejudice and promoting mutual understanding. Before examining policy initiatives, and their impact, the following section provides an overview of the contact theory.

Contact theory Gordon Allport (1954) is generally credited with being the first to expound the value of inter-group contact in reducing hostility and improving inter-group relations. He coined the term ‘contact hypothesis’ and proposed four interrelated conditions that are deemed important to the efficacy of contact. Firstly, groups involved in contact should have equal status. Secondly, groups should work on a problem/task and share this as a common goal, sometimes called a superordinate goal. Thirdly, the task must be structured so that individual members of both groups are dependent on each other to achieve this common goal. Finally, contact should be legitimised through institutional support. Recently, contact research has seen a shift in focus from prerequisites for the success of contact initiatives towards understanding the processes through which inter-group contact achieves positive outcomes in terms of attitudinal change (see Dovidio et al., 2003; Pettigrew, 1998; Pettigrew and Tropp, 2000; Voci and Hewstone, 2003). Drawing on findings from a range of contact studies, Dovidio et al. (2003) categorise mediating processes as those concerning functional

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relations, behavioural factors, affective factors and cognitive factors. Functional relations refer to the nature of the relationship between members of diverse groups in the contact situation. Working together towards a shared goal is viewed as having positive, reinforcing outcomes, as the sense of achievement associated with successfully completing the task can become associated with members of the other group, thereby increasing attraction and reducing prejudice. Behavioural factors relate to the potential for inter-group contact to promote positive behavioural interactions, which may in turn induce greater inter-group acceptance by challenging hostile behavioural norms. Affective factors relate to the role of emotion in inter-group contact. Stephan and Stephan (1985) found that interactions between members of different ethnic groups are often associated with anxiety. This anxiety can then prime responses towards other groups, confirming or strengthening stereotypes and promoting distrust. Reducing anxiety through contact under optimal conditions has been shown to have an ameliorating effect on inter-group bias (Islam and Hewstone, 1993). Contact has also been shown to enhance intergroup empathy by facilitating perspective-taking. This relates to the potential the contact experience offers for understanding how it might feel to be a member of the other group (Stephan et al., 2005). Regarding cognitive factors, some research has shown that learning about others through contact can have important positive consequences for intergroup relations (Pettigrew, 1998). Increased information acquisition is seen to be effective in at least three ways: challenging and undermining stereotypes; reducing the likelihood of contact avoidance and a sense of discomfort in contact encounters; and reducing bias by increasing recognition of injustice and discrimination (Dovidio et al., 2003). Recent research highlights that the mechanisms through which new knowledge is gained may be an important determinant of its impact. For example, exchanges between members of opposing groups that involve some degree of self-disclosure seem to be particularly effective in the development of improved inter-personal relations (Kenworthy et al., 2005). This finding suggests an important dynamic between cognitive and affective processes. Hence, in the case of self-disclosure, prejudice reduction might be explained by increased familiarity and concomitant anxiety reduction. It might also be the case that self-disclosure accounts for improved attitudes because the nature of imparting personal information implies that a level of trust, typically reserved for friends, has been established (Petty and Mirels, 1981). Hence, personalised inter­ action and the development of cross-group friendships are deemed to play a critical role in the way that contact reduces bias (Pettigrew, 1997). In addition to research that explores the processes by which contact might contribute to a more positive disposition towards members of other groups, some studies have explored variables that might be important in the generalisation of the positive effects of contact from a

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particular encounter to the ‘out’ group as a whole. These studies show that, in order for more positive responses towards out-group members to extend beyond the contact situation, the salience of group membership must be maintained during a contact situation (Hewstone and Brown, 1986; Hewstone et al., 2008).

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Contact initiatives in schools

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The policy imperative for school-based contact dates back to the early 1980s, when the Northern Ireland Department of Education made the first public statement of commitment to the development of a community relations policy. In its circular The Improvement of Community Relations: The Contribution of Schools, the Department stated that every teacher, every school manager, board member and trustee, and every educational administrator within the system, has a responsibility for helping children to learn to understand and respect each other and their differing customs and traditions, and for preparing them to live together in harmony in adult life (Department of Education, 1982). The Department of Education also indicated that it would be promoting discussions on the role of education and would be asking the Schools Inspectorate to concentrate on promoting and encouraging ways of improving community relations. In 1987 a cross-community contact scheme was established with the aim of encouraging schools and youth groups to bring together young people from across the community through ongoing, constructive and collaborative activities. A range of cross-community activity was supported, much of which involved inter-school outings and short-term residentials. The initial budget was only £0.5 million, and less than 15 per cent of schools were involved. By 1995 this had increased to £1.2 million and 45 per cent of schools. During the period 1996–2001, considerable resources were devoted to the expansion of the scheme and it was relaunched as the Schools Community Relations Programme. Responsibility for it was devolved to the regional education and library boards. In 1989, as part of the Education Reform Order, the promotion of cross-community understanding was reinforced through the formal school curriculum by the introduction of the cross-curricular (later educational) themes of Education for Mutual Understanding and Cultural Heritage. The requirement for schools to promote the development of young people as active citizens was then mainstreamed by the Education Order 2007. The key curriculum objectives are to develop the young person as an individual, as a contributor to society and as a contributor to the economy and the environment (Education and Training Inspectorate, 2009). The framework for these interventions is a Department of Education mission that aims, inter alia, to ensure that:

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every child in Northern Ireland … should grow into adulthood … confident in their ability to relate to others from different cultures; … knowledgeable about their own cultural background and that of others in Northern Ireland; recognising the rights of all as equal citizens; prepared for a changing and diverse society in which confident adults engage, learn from and trust one another as members together of a shared society. (Department of Education, 2009a)

The promotion of contact between Protestant and Catholic pupils remains an integral aspect of the delivery of the Department of Education’s mission and 60 per cent of schools participate in cross-community activity annually (O’Connor et al., 2002). The focus of the Department’s community relations programme was not just on the development of in-school curricular initiatives. The 1989 Education Reform Order also placed a statutory duty on the Department of Education to ‘encourage and facilitate’ integrated schools, where the emphasis was explicitly on enrolling Catholic and Protestant pupils. These new schools explicitly sought to promote ‘Education together in a school of children and young people drawn mainly from the Protestant and Catholic traditions, with the aim of providing for them an excellent education that gives recognition to and promotes the expression of these two main traditions’ (Northern Ireland Council for Integrated Education, 2011a). After 1989, integrated schools were designated either as grant-maintained integrated or as controlled integrated. The former were newly planned schools which were established by parents; the latter were existing segregated schools which invoked legislation that allowed them to ‘transform’ to integrated status. Regardless of their status, though, both school types are explicitly concerned with promoting tolerance and respect among the Catholic and Protestant communities. As of 2011, there were sixty-one integrated schools, comprising twenty integrated second-level colleges and forty-one integrated primary schools. In addition, there were nineteen integrated nursery schools, most of which were linked to primary schools (Northern Ireland Council for Integrated Education, 2011b).

Policy impact Research on integrated schools has been relatively positive in respect of the contact experienced by pupils. Stringer et al. (2009), in a large study of pupils attending integrated schools, Catholic schools and Protestant schools, found that those attending separate schools were likely to hold more prejudiced attitudes towards the ‘out’ group than their peers attending integrated schools. Other quantitative studies have shown that pupils attending separate schools tend to be more biased in favour of the ‘in’ group (Hewstone et al., 2005) than those attending integrated schools

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and that they are likely to have fewer friends from the other community (Hayes and McAllister, 2009). Attendance at integrated schools is correlated with more positive social attitudes. Some research on integrated schools has suggested that their teachers often encounter difficulty in dealing with issues of division and have a tendency to avoid reference to controversial issues (Hughes and Donnelly, 2007). However, it has been claimed that the mere fact that pupils are given an opportunity to engage with each other on a sustained basis is a key variable in the generation of more positive inter-group attitudes. Stringer et al. (2009) make the point that simply allowing children to mix and become friends in a supportive school environ­ment is enough to produce change. In contrast to positive evaluations of contact experienced in integrated schools, evaluations of short-term inter-school interventions have generally been critical, highlighting the light-touch approach to cross-community contact and the failure of many schools to engage in any meaningful way with issues of division and conflict through the curriculum (see, for example, O’Connor et al., 2002; Smith and Robinson, 1996). A report published by the Education and Training Inspectorate (2009) suggests that, while there is evidence of some good community relations practice in schools, this is often dependent on the commitment of particular teachers and is not representative of overall provision. Examples of less effective activity cited in the report include projects with groups of young people where participants are chosen at random and projects in which the make-up of groups changes frequently, offering limited oppor­t unities for sustained contact or engagement outside the programme activities. More generally, the report highlights the failure of community relations work in schools to engage with issues of division at local level. It points out the absence of a clear and shared vision and focus for the direction of community relations work in education. And it draws attention to inadequate in-service and continuing professional development training for teachers in this area (Education and Training Inspectorate, 2009). In the light of what is known about contact, one explanation for the limited effectiveness of short-term community relations efforts in schools may be that such encounters are unlikely to facilitate the formation of close ties between participants. The contact literature makes a clear distinction between superficial and intimate contact in respect of positive outcomes. The latter refers to encounters where individuals have a more positive emotional disposition towards others and trust them enough to ‘self-disclose’, thereby creating an opportunity for perspective-taking and out-group empathy (see above). At this point, it is perhaps important to reflect on why many schools have had only limited engagement with the Department of Education’s community relations agenda. The 2009 Education and Training Inspector­ate report highlights a number of weaknesses in provision that

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could account for this. These include: the absence of a ‘coherent policy framework’ that outlines what is required of schools; the lack of agreed quality indicators against which the Department and the schools that it funds can evaluate their work and progress; limited mechanisms for the dissemination of good practice; insufficient in-service training for teachers; and too much reliance on the good will and commitment of individual teachers. Together, these produce an inbuilt inequality where not all children have the same access to community relations education. The report concludes that community relations work ‘is perceived as an “add-on” rather than integral to the curriculum’ (p. 4) and that ‘There is little evidence that the promotion and development of good community relations have been priorities’ (p. 5). Even though devolved government is responsible for developing a ‘shared future’ programme (see chapter 2) and despite the cohesion programme discussed below, the de-prioritisation of community relations work in schools is perhaps not surprising. This is because Northern Ireland’s education system is market driven. School performance is measured in terms of achievement against national examination stan­ dards and the ability of schools to attract the best students is highly dependent on where schools are placed in national league tables. In this context, voluntary activity, such as community relations, that does not contribute directly to educational outcomes, and may even be seen as a resource-intensive hindrance to the achievement of school targets, is likely to be given significantly less priority. Other inhibiting factors may lie in the pervasive and well documented avoidance culture that exists in Northern Ireland, wherein social norms of politeness, observed by both communities, inhibit engagement with controversial issues in ‘mixed’ (Catholic and Protestant) encounters (Gallagher, 2004). As noted, teachers currently receive very limited, if any, training or education in dealing with issues of difference. They may struggle with the expectations inherent in the community relations agenda that, as professionals, they should be competent in this field. In such circumstances, they are likely to be reluctant participants (Hughes and Donnelly, 2007).

The Sharing Education Programme In 2007, against the backdrop of a statutory community relations pro­ g ramme with limited impact, two international philanthropic organis­ations (International Fund for Ireland and Atlantic Philanthropies) offered funding for the large-scale Sharing Education Programme (SEP) in Northern Ireland. Guided by reconciliation principles, a key aim of SEP is to facilitate sustained, curriculum-based contact. In this regard it seeks to bridge the gap between integrated schools, which are accessed by only a small minority of children, and short–term opportunities for

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inter-school contact currently offered through the statutory provision. Unlike previous initiatives, where the focus has been exclusively on reconciliation objectives, collaborating schools are encouraged to devise projects that reflect other shared educational priorities. Initially, SEP was established in twelve partnerships based in specialist schools (majoring in information and communication technology, languages, arts, etc.), which collaborated on a cross-community basis to share classes and activities in order to improve education outcomes for pupils. SEP has a curriculum focus but, because it is offered on a crosscommunity basis, has intended reconciliation benefits for participants, teachers, parents and, in the long term, the wider community. The first three-year phase of the programme was delivered in collaboration with the School of Education in Queen’s University Belfast. Because the programme has been successful, it has been extended for a further three years and implemented throughout Northern Ireland by two other providers: the Fermanagh Trust (FT) and the North Eastern Education and Library Board (NEELB or PIEE),1 which started related projects in September 2009. Overall, SEP represents an investment by its external funders of over £10.5 million. The scale of this investment becomes clear when it is considered that the Department of Education’s community relations budget for 2009–10 was just £3.6 million. Three broad strands of activities comprise SEP:

• Delivering shared education – increasing the number of pupils experiencing shared learning with partner schools from different community backgrounds. The criteria for funding give priority to increasing the number of shared classes that sustain pupil-to-pupil relationships and which assist curriculum delivery. Typical activities undertaken by schools include year-14 students completing ‘A’-level subjects in cross-community classes, year-12 students completing GCSE subjects in cross-community classes, and jointly provided and accredited vocational training courses. • Supporting teacher development to deliver shared education. Educational experts and experts in good community relations support the teachers and planners involved in delivering shared education. • Ensuring organisational learning and inter-community collaboration among partner schools – supporting school staff to manage change through mentoring and joint events to allow for networking, the sharing of practice and facilitated discussions on problem-solving and the development of new practice. As of 2011, 140 schools (60 per cent primary and 40 per cent post-primary schools) across forty-three separate partnerships were participating in

1 The North Eastern Education and Library Board project is also known as PIEE – Primary Integrating/Enriching Education project.

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Table 4.1. Numbers of schools, partnerships and pupils involved in the Shared Education Programme, 2010/11

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Project strand

Primary

PostTotal number Partner­primary of schools ships

Number of pupils

Timescale

FT

42

 9

 51

20

2,256 (29%)

Commenced September 2009 for 3 years

QUB

14

47

 61

12

4,127 (53%)

Commenced September 2010 for 3 years

NEELB/PIEE

28

 0

 28

11

1,431 (18%)

Commenced September 2009 for 3 years

Total

84

56

140

43

7,814 (100%)

FT, Fermanagh Trust; QUB, Queen’s University Belfast; NEELB or PIEE, North Eastern Education and Library Board/Primary Integrating/Enriching Education project. Source: Shared Education Learning Forum (2011).

the programme, involving 7,814 pupils throughout Northern Ireland (see table 4.1). As noted, the external funders have expanded the initiative for a further three years throughout Northern Ireland, to involve around 150 schools and 13,000 pupils.

Evidence of effectiveness Although SEP is still in relatively early stages of delivery, a body of evidence is beginning to accumulate that is consistent in finding that the model offers an effective means of promoting good relations. A large-scale research project undertaken by the authors that compared the SEP initiative with other forms of cross-sectoral contact in schools across Northern Ireland found that the curriculum-based focus of SEP ensured that contact was regular and sustained throughout the school year (Hughes et al., 2010). Employing a quasi-experimental design which matched samples of pupils involved in SEP with non-participants from the same schools to examine contact outcomes, the research found that participation in SEP was associated with: a reduction in in-group bias; greater out-group trust; reduced anxiety regarding the out-group; more positive feelings when in the company of out-group members; and more

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‘positive action’ tendencies towards the other group (for example, desires to seek contact, help out, support and find out more) (Hughes et al., 2010). Analysis also found that the context within which a particular school is located was a key variable in determining the extent of positive engagement between Catholic and Protestant pupils (see also chapter 3). Hence, pupils in ‘SEP schools’ which are located in areas that are recognised as more divided were less likely to indicate that they had friends among, or were comfortable with, the other community than those pupils who attended ‘SEP schools’ in less divided areas. Importantly, though, even where the context was recognised as ‘divided’, if pupils attended an SEP school they were still more likely than those in non-SEP schools in nondivided contexts to view the ‘out group’ positively (Hughes et al., 2010). Qualitative data from the same study showed that friendships made through participation in curriculum-based SEP often extended to outside the classroom, with pupils meeting up regularly in the home/community environment. This was more often the case in those communities where mixing is accepted than in very divided communities, where inter-group engagement is sometimes proscribed by local community norms and is associated with risk of harm. There was also evidence of extended contact, with pupils not directly involved in SEP developing friendships with friends of friends who were directly involved. Other studies also offer positive findings. An independent evaluation of the first three-year phase of SEP found that those engaging in the programme felt more comfortable in having contact with people from a different community. They were also more willing to make more friends, both in and out of school, with pupils who belong to a different community background. Participation in the programme was also found to promote new skills and increasing levels of confidence (FGS McClure Watters, 2009). Those involved in the delivery of SEP have also been positive about its impact. A qualitative study of teachers found that, while they had hurdles to overcome in establishing and running shared classes, they believed the value of SEP is significant: Teachers, through their experience of delivering SEP, are convinced that it is having a significant impact on children. The curricular based approach which focused on educational outcomes renders denominational school boundaries porous and achieves positive reconciliation effects. The model of change which underpins Sharing Education is therefore seen as an ­effective intervention. (Knox, 2010: 3)

In order to understand the more positive contact outcomes associated with SEP, it is important to consider the current policy context. First, a review of education in Northern Ireland stressed the need for greater rationalis­ation and cost-effective practice, and pointed to the inefficiencies of current segregated school structures in the context of falling rolls and an oversupply of school places (Department of ­ Education,

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2007). Furthermore, the 2006 Education Order paved the way for the Entitlement Framework, which requires that by September 2013 all schools must ‘provide all pupils with access to a minimum number of courses at Key Stage 4 (target 24) and a minimum number of courses at post-16 (target 27)’ (Department of Education, 2009b). Guidance from the Department of Education suggests that schools should consider a number of approaches to providing these courses (those aimed at targets 24 and 27), including ‘co-operation and collaboration with neighbouring schools, FE Colleges or other providers’. Second, in the wake of the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement, the government in Northern Ireland has identified a strategy for cohesion, sharing and integration which highlights the role that schools can play in building the peace. Consistent with this and in the context of fiscal constraint, all local political parties have endorsed shared education as a mechanism for both building the peace and addressing the need for rationalisation (Knox, 2010). Clearly, from a school perspective SEP is an attractive option. The programme contributes funding for curriculum-based activity that allows both rationalisation of provision and the extension of subject choices available to students, while at the same time offering community relations outcomes. The fact that SEP objectives are consistent with the educational outcomes prioritised by schools may help explain why so many have embraced the programme and are committed to its delivery. Unlike other contact initiatives, many of which are resource intensive and perceived as achieving little in respect of educational targets, there are tangible benefits to be accrued from participation in SEP. Although there is no policy imperative from the Department of Education for schools to cooperate on an inter-sectoral basis in the delivery of the Entitle­ment Framework, there can be little doubt that the funding associated with SEP also provides a strong rationale for some schools to do so. Other factors that may contribute to the effectiveness of the initiative are likely to relate to the role of teachers and to the optimal contact conditions that derive from the programme. In respect of teachers, as noted above, there is often a degree of resistance to dealing with controversial issues that has been associated with the absence of appropriate training and issues relating to professional identity. A core strand of SEP is the provision of support for those delivering the initiative – potentially assuaging the fears of those who might be committed to community relations work but who are anxious about undertaking it, and better preparing them for it. In addition, SEP, in foregrounding educational objectives, allows those teachers who might not normally volunteer to undertake community relations work to participate. Inherent in the SEP initiative are the conditions for contact that are widely agreed to be germane to effective outcomes. Hence, extending curricular choice can be seen as a superordinate goal that schools can

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achieve only by working collaboratively; the nature of the intervention facili­t ates sustained contact, which allows participants to develop the type of friendships that are associated with reduced anxiety, prejudice reduction, trust-building and perspective-taking. SEP, because it is curriculum based, requires considerably more commitment from schools than short-term, one-off projects. Hence, for the initiative to work, a high degree of institutional support is required. Finally, schools participate in contact on an equal basis and, by dint of the fact that schools are ­separated on ethno-religious grounds, identity is salient throughout, not least in the form of the uniforms worn by children who move between schools. The importance of respecting difference, as opposed to suppressing it – as has been the case in many other contact initiatives – is underlined by the charge often directed at contact work that it seeks to assimilate the minority group into the culture of the majority. Ironically, in terms of SEP’s focus on reconciliation, a potential ‘fly in the ointment’ is that there is sometimes a tension between drivers for collaboration (reconciliation, educational and economic goals) and potential vested interests. For example, in some areas, where schools are competing for limited student numbers and where their viability depends on meeting target intakes, engaging in collaboration may involve certain risks. The normalisation of collaborative activity and the associated benefits could lead to some parents opting to send younger siblings to the more financially secure schools in their area, irrespective of religious denomination. While at one level this could be viewed as a positive outcome, the zero-sum game nature of politics in Northern Ireland means that a perception that the initiative had contributed to the loss of a local school for one community could lead to a negative reaction to the programme as a whole.

Conclusion This chapter has examined school-based contact initiatives with a view to exploring their effectiveness in promoting good relations. Accepting the reality that any major structural change to the existing parallel education system is unlikely and that integrated education will remain a niche sector, the SEP initiative appears to offer an effective contactbased model for reducing division and normalising interaction between Protestant, Catholic and indeed other ethno-religious groups. In a society that continues to experience high levels of residential separation, and where many children will have limited opportunity to meet and get to know their peers from other ethno-religious traditions, the value of SEP is well evidenced. As noted above, SEP is a non-statutory initiative that is funded by charitable organisations. The success of the programme is, however,

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clearly related to its potential to help schools meet statutory obligations, such as those outlined in the Entitlement Framework. In the longer term, and in anticipation of external funding being finite, there is perhaps a need for the Department of Education to consider how the learning from SEP might be incorporated into a statutory programme that reflects the Department’s policy contribution towards improving relations between the communities.

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Chapter 5

Everyday evangelicals: life in a religious subculture after the Agreement Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

Gladys Ganiel and Claire Mitchell

While most commentators agree that the conflict in and about Northern Ireland was not primarily a religious one, it has been argued that the violence kept religiosity inflated. Because it helped to structure com­munity life and informed people’s ethnic identities, religion was considered an ‘ethnic marker’, a resource people used to mark out and maintain boundaries (Hayes and McAllister, 1999; McGarry and O’Leary, 1995). In addition, it was thought that fear and insecurity made people more likely to retreat to the comfort of religion (Bruce, 1994). So is this why, when compared with other parts of Western Europe, Northern Ireland was thought to record higher levels of church attendance and traditional Christian beliefs (Mitchell, 2004)? If that is the case, we might expect that as the peace process gradually beds down (amid sporadic flare-ups of rioting and a residual ‘dissident’ republican bombing campaign), the rate of secularisation in Northern Ireland would gather pace. Indeed, Northern Ireland is a more secular­ised place today than it was in 1998. For example, there has been an increase in the number of people claiming to be of ‘no religion’ and decreases in the numbers of people identifying with a religious denomination and attending church on a weekly basis (Hayes and Dowds, 2010). But Northern Ireland remains comparatively religious and the indicators of secularisation are not as robust as they may initially seem. In 2010, the most recent year for which data are available from the Northern Ireland Life and Times Survey, 84 per cent of people continued to identify with a religious denomination (the figure was 96 per cent in 1968).1 And while weekly church attendance has dropped (from two-thirds of the adult population in the late 1960s, to two-fifths in the late 1990s, to one-third in 2008), 1 Data from the Northern Ireland Life and Times Survey are available at www.ark. ac.uk/nilt.

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people are more likely to attend church less frequently than not to attend at all (Hayes and Dowds, 2010: 2). The greatest percentage decline in attendance has been among Catholics. This may be in part a reaction to the clerical child sexual abuse scandals that have deeply damaged the Catholic Church in Ireland, as the rate of decline in attendance among Catholics in the South has been even steeper (Ganiel, 2011; Inglis, 2007). But levels of Christian belief remain high in Northern Ireland’s general population. Among Protestants (including regular ­attenders and nonattenders) 80 per cent believe in God, 72 per cent believe in life after death, 80 per cent believe in heaven and 69 per cent believe in hell. Among Catholics, 83 per cent believe in God, 76 per cent believe in life after death, 85 per cent believe in heaven and 65 per cent believe in hell (Hayes and Dowds, 2010: 3). So religion in Northern Ireland is not dead. And among certain groups, such as evangelical Protestants, it continues to thrive. Evangelicals comprise between 25 and 33 per cent of the Protestant population (Mitchell and Tilley, 2004).2 Evangelicals are usually defined by beliefs about the Christian faith. According to Bebbington’s classic description, evangelicals believe that: people must be converted or ‘born again’, the Bible is the inspired word of God, Christ’s death on the cross was an actual historical event necessary for the salvation of the world, and Christians must exercise their faith through social action and evangelism (Bebbington, 1989). In Northern Ireland, evangelicals have maintained much higher rates of church attendance, with up to four-fifths attending services at least once a week (Mitchell, 2005; Mitchell and Tilley, 2008). In Ganiel’s survey, 69 per cent of self-identified evangelicals in Northern Ireland said they attended their main worship service four times per month, with a further 10 per cent saying they attended three times per month (Ganiel, 2009a). Evangelicals are present in all of Northern Ireland’s largest Protestant denominations – Presbyterian, Church of Ireland and Methodist – and make up the vast majority of smaller denominations such as the Baptists, Free Presbyterians, Evangelical Presbyterians, Brethren, independent charismatic and Pentecostal congregations, and so on. There also is some evidence that evangelicals are disproportionately prominent among Northern Ireland’s Protestant clergy. For example, Ganiel’s survey of clergy found that 91 per cent of Presbyterian and Methodist ministers in Northern Ireland self-identified as evangelical, and 58 per cent of Church of Ireland and ‘other’ Christian clergy self-identified as evangelical. It is unlikely to be the case that only evangelicals responded to the surveys. Emails or postal letters were sent to all clergy in Northern Ireland. Response rates among Protestant clergy were 32 per cent for ­Methodists, 2 Although some Catholics identify with evangelicalism, it is used in this chapter to refer to an identifiable subset within Protestantism.

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22 per cent for Church of Ireland, 18 per cent for Presbyterians and 13 per cent for ‘other’ Christians (Ganiel, 2009b: 9). Historically, a Reformed or Calvinist-informed brand of evangelicalism has been the basis of what Ganiel and Jones (2012) call ‘Protestant civil religion’, informing the ‘political assumptions and social mores of most unionists’. Numerous studies have underlined evangelicalism’s political and social importance before and during the Troubles (Bruce, 2007; Ganiel, 2008; Mitchel, 2003). While the Reverend Ian Paisley, founder of the Democratic Unionist Party and the Free Presbyterian Church, has dominated public perceptions of evangelicalism, it is in fact a much more diverse and politically varied group than is usually supposed (Mitchell and Ganiel, 2011). In this chapter, we develop our concept of an evangelical subculture in order to explore how both the politics of the post-Agreement period, as well as more mundane, everyday concerns about God, faith and life, have helped shape changes in evangelicals’ personal religious practices and identities. Drawing on a body of ninety-five semi-structured interviews with evangelicals, conducted between 2002 and 2007, we explore links between macro-level political changes, micro-level subcultural changes and individual religious change. Our purpose is to explain how evangelicals have experienced changes that have pushed their religious journeys in six different directions: deepening in a conservative direction, moderat­ing, transforming, converting, maintaining a steady faith and exiting evangelicalism. We develop our term ‘journeys’ more fully in our book Evangelical Journeys: Choice and Change in a Northern Irish Religious Subculture (Mitchell and Ganiel, 2011), on which this chapter is based. Suffice it to say here that we do not conceive journeys to be like the empirical or ideal types often used by sociologists. We are not constructing typologies into which we then slot people who have particular religious beliefs or practices. Rather, the term ‘journeys’ is designed to further understanding about how individuals experience their religion over time in their everyday lives, in dynamic relationship with the religious, social and political structures around them. We also argue that, in analyses of evangelicalism, its micro-level, subcultural aspects have consistently been underestimated. A focus on everyday religious life is necessary if we are to understand what makes this group tick in a context where faith continues to thrive but plays a less politicised role than it did during the period of violent conflict.

Northern Ireland’s evangelical subculture Evangelicalism is a globalised religious tradition, especially prominent in the United States, and a close cousin of the dynamic Pentecostal and charismatic movements in Africa, Asia and Latin America (Jenkins, 2002;

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Noll, 2009). Most scholarship on evangelicalism, even in these varied contexts, has defined it in terms of beliefs. But it is necessary to move beyond the conception of evangelicalism in terms of beliefs, as demonstrated by Christian Smith’s (1998) work on American evangelicalism. Smith shows that evangelicalism also relies on relationships and social networks, which, together with beliefs, form a subculture that furnishes people with a package of distinctive interests, behaviours, values and lifestyles. People inside the subculture find it morally satisfying. But the subculture is not so different from the culture around it that it prevents evangelicals and their churches from engaging with that wider culture. So what does Northern Ireland’s evangelical subculture look like? It would of course share many characteristics with other versions, for example American evangelicalism, particularly when it comes to its defining religious beliefs, such as the imperative to be ‘born again’. It also includes political ideas, such as traditional Northern Irish evangelical interpretations of Calvinist concepts like the ‘covenant’, the idea that God made a deal with Protestants to bless them if they promoted Protestant prin­ciples in their government. But even though it has featured ideologies and patterns of behaviour that created boundaries with Catholics, and even justified violence, this subculture is not defined by politics. Rather, it includes six further significant features, which we identified through our interviews and ethnographic observations (Mitchell and Ganiel, 2011).

Conversion experiences

By conversion we mean a process where people self-consciously perceive themselves as becoming followers of Christ. They repent for their sins, accept forgiveness and become ‘born again’. Accompanying religious conversion is the tradition of telling your story about how you came to be saved. Evangelicals repeatedly tell their testimonies to one other, formally and informally, so telling conversion stories is central to the evangelical subculture. Conversion has at least two important social and political effects. First, if evangelicals believe that someone must be converted to be a Christian, this can be a very strong mechanism for excluding those who have not been ‘born again’. This can create a tendency towards division and polarisation, although this is not inevitable. Second, because many evangelicals believe that conversion is essential for living a better life on this earth and for ensuring their place in heaven, they may go to great lengths to convert others. This means that evangelicals can be keen activists, trying to convince others of their point of view.

Advocacy

The desire to tell other people about faith is seen in the aspect of the subculture that we call advocacy. It is often the presence of an advocate – an

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individual, or sometimes an organisation – that encourages someone to convert to evangelicalism or, if already converted, to change their mind about particular religious or political issues. The inclusion of advocacy in our description of the subculture emphasises the importance of personal relationships and networks. It also highlights the public and activist dimen­sion of evangelicalism.

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Supernaturalism

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Most evangelicals see the hand of God in nearly all aspects of their lives. We call this supernaturalism, or a belief in God’s providence or agency in the world. Supernaturalism can have significant social and political effects. For those who take a dismal, apocalyptic view of recent events it can be politically disempowering. If history is all in God’s hands, as foretold in the Bible, it follows that there is little one can do to change things. But for others, the belief in God’s ability to influence high-level political events as well as the small details of their lives is inspiring. They believe that if they work for what they see as justice in the world, God will help to influence the outcome of events.

Existential questioning

The belief in an interventionist God means that many evangelicals are engaged in a process of nearly constant questioning. The questions range from trying to figure out God’s will for their individual lives to attempting to ascertain how God’s plan is unfolding throughout all of human history. The willingness of evangelicals to ask tough, existential questions may seem surprising to those who assume that evangelicalism is essentially rigid and inflexible. A by-product of the willingness to ask questions may be that evangelicalism is more open to change than is usually supposed.

Social life

Most evangelical churches offer a staggering variety of social activities. People have the opportunity to participate in something nearly every day of the week. Almost every Protestant church – especially congregations that are part of smaller evangelical denominations – will have at least two Sunday services, prayer meetings, Bible studies and ‘cell’ groups, in which people meet in each other’s homes to pray or study the Bible. There are also Northern Ireland-wide events like Mandate, Focus Fest and New Horizon, which bring evangelicals from different churches together. For children and teenagers there are more options again – youth groups, Sunday schools, children’s Bible classes, summer schemes, Christian music gigs and festivals such as Summer Madness. All of this social activity is reinforced by private everyday practices, including

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daily personal prayers and Bible readings. A congregation or extended religious network can come to feel like a family for some people, often replacing or structuring actual family life.

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Material culture

The subculture also features what Ingersoll (2003) has called ‘material culture’ – objects and artefacts. This includes books, CDs and ephemera available in Northern Ireland’s evangelical bookshops, and the magazines published by various evangelical organisations. Other material ex­pressions include handmade signs posted on roadsides throughout Northern Ireland, with biblical messages such as ‘The wages of sin are death’, ‘Ye must be born again’ or ‘Repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand’. For some, material culture includes adherence to dress codes, varying from suits, ties, dresses and hats in denominations such as the Brethren, Free Presbyterians and some Baptists, to modern clothing such as jeans and t-shirts in some charismatic churches. This material culture can serve as ready markers or identifiers for people to determine who is in or out of the evangelical subculture.

Religious journeys and change Here, we explore how evangelicals utilise their analyses of recent political events as well as the resources from their subculture to make sense of change in their religious lives. Those who were deepening in a conservative direction, moderating and transforming usually explained their religious journeys by talking about the impact of politics. Those who were converting, maintaining a steady faith or exiting more often explained their religious journeys by talking about elements of the evangelical subculture. Of course, most people talked about both politics and elements of the evangelical subculture. No one factor explains religious change; it is ultimately patterns of experiences and combinations of factors that prompt religious journeys in particular directions. But what our work demonstrates is the complexity of change, and the importance of understanding both micro- and macro-level factors. This is especially important in studies of Northern Irish religion, where the everyday, personal aspects of religion have usually been overshadowed by politics.

Post-Agreement politics and religious change

This section outlines the ways in which post-Agreement politics have affected evangelicals’ religious journeys. We found that people on the following three types of journey were more likely to emphasise links between political events and personal change.

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Deepening in a conservative direction

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Some evangelicals describe their faith as deepening, in what we call a conservative direction. What is distinctive about them is their pessi­ mistic unionist analysis of Northern Ireland politics. There were some indications from our interviews that this was provoked by the 1998 Agreement. For example, Helen said she became born again just after the approval of the Agreement. We talked with three working-class men who had been on the fringes of loyalist paramilitarism but who had become born again in the late 1990s, and who described the summer of 1998 as one full of loyalist conversions. They spoke about how seven out of eleven members of their loyalist flute band were ‘saved’ that summer. Paralleling their story was the assertion of a revivalist preacher in a different county who talked about the conversions of 1998. The minister of a Free Presbyterian church in Belfast claimed his church had an influx of converts after the Agreement, so much so that they had to build an extension. In the early days of interviewing, this led us to surmise that there was some connection between the political changes of 1998, so negatively received by many Protestants, and the apparent flurry of religious conversions. We hypothesised that experiencing such a dramatic change in political circumstances, seen by many as a devastating loss, had led to a religious reawakening. We thought some Protestants were perhaps despairing of the political climate and were seeking religious answers. But as we continued with our fieldwork it became clear that there was an important relationship between political and personal religious change since 1998, but it was not in the direction we thought. When we asked other people, including religious ministers and pastors, if they had observed a rise in religious conversions around this time, most said they had not. Instead of stimulating new religious conversions, we found much more evidence of a deepening of faith among those who were already saved. Billy’s story is typical of religious deepening after 1998. Billy’s politics were staunchly unionist throughout the Troubles. He liked the Democratic Unionist Party’s ‘hard line’ and at times played an active role in ‘hitting back’ at republicanism. In fact he joined the ‘Third Force’, a pseudo-paramilitary grouping in the 1970s, and ‘would have marched around the street in balaclavas’. He said, ‘I even considered doing time to kill; Gerry Adams was the man I wanted.’ However, after his religious conversion, Billy’s ideas changed considerably. Now he feels sorry for Gerry Adams, because he is ‘lost’, and says that for him ‘living for the Lord is more important than a silly political end’. For others, global developments also pointed to the immediacy of the ‘end times’. Global warming was cited as a fulfilment of biblical prophecy. Helen told us the Bible says that in the last days ‘vials [would be] poured out and men’s flesh would be scorched and the world will become warmer’. Helen listed earthquakes, famines and floods as

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pointing to Armageddon while Billy listed developments in Afghanistan, India and Pakistan. For Billy, the foot and mouth disease that devastated cattle in the British Isles in the 2000s was a modern-day plague, like the plague that affected cattle in Egypt in the time of Pharaoh and Moses. He said, ‘These things come as a warning; it is like warning signs from the Lord – it’s like saying just give me a shake up, wake up and see what is happening here.’ These evangelicals read unfavourable political circumstances, ­especially those associated with Protestant ‘loss’ after the Agreement, as signs that the ‘end times’ are drawing near and that saving souls is now more important than trying to change earthly society (Mitchell and Todd, 2007). This can also be seen as a ‘privatising’ of faith, as the impact of political events pushes people’s religion into private and personal spheres (Mitchell, 2003).

Moderating

The evangelicals on what we call moderating journeys described themselves as ‘liberal evangelicals’, ‘progressive evangelicals’ or ‘followers of Jesus’, while some preferred simply the term ‘Christian’. Others said that they are uncomfortable with the term ‘evangelical’, especially in Northern Ireland, as the word is so heavily associated with Paisley. People on a moderating journey commonly thought that the evangelical churches in Northern Ireland had engaged in destructive forms of sectarian politics, and they wanted to change that – to prompt evangelical churches and organisations to become involved in the politics of peace-making. This had led many of them away not only from their conservative evangelical upbringings, but also from strong forms of unionism, loyalism and Orange Order politics. People on moderating journeys explained the changes that they had experienced through stories of developing real friendships with Catholics, engaging in an intense internal evangelical dialogue about what it means to be a Christian in Northern Ireland, and finding meaning in social and political activism. Some talked about how their faith had changed through interacting with popular culture (books and music), living abroad and communing with God in their everyday lives. These factors overlapped and reinforced each other, interacting in different ways in the stories of different people. For example, when the time came for Kara, now in her forties, to go to university, she said she wanted to get as far away from Northern Ireland as possible, to escape the Troubles and what she saw as the stodgy and limiting trappings of rural unionist culture, including the Orange Order and its parades. But while at university, she began to take an interest in Northern Ireland politics. She began to link this interest with her questions about her own faith, and soon became convinced that it was the duty of Christians in Northern Ireland to work for peace. Kara retained the faith of her youth through involvement in Christian organisations and

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a local congregation while at university. When she returned to Northern Ireland, she became heavily involved in religiously based peace activism. Since the 1998 Agreement, evangelicals on moderating journeys have maintained that Christians should strive to be involved in politics. Their causes are changing – many are now at the forefront of advocating for a large-scale public project on ‘dealing with the past’ or promoting policies that they think will contribute towards a ‘shared future’ (see also chapter 2). They are also active in discussions about how Northern Ireland could adopt an inclusive approach to the upcoming ‘decade of commemorations’, when the centenaries of events such as the Ulster Covenant, the Battle of the Somme and the Easter Rising will be marked. This is a very different kind of evangelical response to change from that of those who are deepening their faith (above).

Transforming

People on transforming journeys at one time considered themselves evangelicals but now think about and practise their faith in a radically different way. Although most continue to see their lives as part of a Christian story, they now interrogate and critique their former evangelical subculture. Some have created for themselves a new religious network or community centred around Belfast-based ‘post-evangelical’ or ‘emerging church’ groups, such as Ikon. Some of the people we talked to called themselves post-evangelicals. Others felt that this term was too bound up with their evangelical past and preferred to identify themselves as part of the emerging church movement (Ganiel, 2006a). A few said simply that they were Christians on a journey. A significant number resisted attempts to categorise their new identity. We think our term ‘transforming’ captures the radical change people have experienced, while alluding to the fact that faith itself has not been abandoned. They gave many reasons for leaving evangelicalism, and all were deeply disappointed with the way evangelical churches have responded to politics in Northern Ireland. They also critiqued what they perceived as shortcomings in the more distinctly religious aspects of the evangelical subculture, notably evangelical attitudes towards money and sexual morality. A few talked about a rather high-level intellectual process that included reading post-modern philosophers and becoming convinced that evangelicalism does not have the resources to address postmodernity. Others reflected these concerns on a more everyday level, describing how they had come to embrace grey areas and doubt in their faith. Relationships with parents and partners, as well as like-minded friends trying to build a sense of community, were also significant. It is perhaps unsurprising that politics was such an important concern, given that many of those we interviewed were involved in social and political activism. Indeed, there is a chicken-and-egg relationship between religious change and political activism for these people: it is difficult to

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say whether frustration with Northern Irish politics is the cause or the product of their religious rethinking. For example, Ross grew up within the evangelical subculture but increasingly found it unable to respond to the political problems in Northern Ireland. Ross felt that, at best, traditional evangelical churches were silent on the topic of the conflict and, at worst, they were vitriolic. Jake, an American in his forties, had Irish Catholic forebears but was raised in a Protestant evangelical environment, including being sent to Christian school as a child and attending a Christian university. He now works for a Christian organisation based in Belfast. He first became interested in the churches in Northern Ireland as a child listening to U2’s album War and watching a television programme in school about the ­ Reformation that included pictures of the Troubles in Northern Ireland. This made a deep impression on him, ultimately culminating in his moving to Northern Ireland in his twenties to do reconciliation work. Jake was horrified to find just how strongly churches in Northern Ireland threw their weight behind particular political traditions. As a response to this political disillusionment, people who are transforming their faith have set up radical initiatives. A now defunct organisation, Zero28, organised activities such as meeting with Sinn Féin politicians in pubs and a film club in a monastery. Ikon’s ‘Evangelism Project’ involved inviting other religious groups to ‘evangelise’ them, which meant visits to Muslim, Quaker, atheist, Jewish, Hindu, Russian Orthodox, Free Presbyterian and Scientologist groups in Belfast. All of these activities represent a very self-conscious crossing of political and religious boundaries, driven by the conviction that they can really learn something worthwhile from the ‘other’.

Everyday life and religious change

We now turn our attention to religious journeys in which people emphasised mundane, everyday, indeed apolitical experiences and aspects of Northern Ireland’s evangelical subculture. This was the case in the following three varieties of religious journey.

Converting

Conversion is a defining feature of the Northern Irish evangelical subculture. It is where someone adopts a new religious identity, or changes from one religious identity to another. Often conversion is a process begun in early childhood, where people become familiar with religious ideas through family life and contact with a church. It almost always involves relationships with advocates: other believers, whether these are family members, colleagues or friends, who introduce people to evangelical ideas and meetings. It also involves a deeply personal, ­religious dimension, where individuals describe emotional and ­sometimes ­supernatural

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experiences that mark a religious turning point. Despite having these emotional elements, individuals often engage in very rational processes of deliberation when considering conversion, weighing up the pros and cons of making a life change. A few people we spoke with had what might be called political conversions, such as attending a rally or a Free Presbyterian Church to hear Paisley talk about politics, only to find themselves undergoing a religious conversion. But, for the most part, stories of conversion were about everyday experiences and God’s supernatural interventions. Despite some of the early indications that the Agreement might spark a spate of religious conversions, very few of our interviewees linked their personal conversion to recent political events. For us, this underlines our argument that Northern Irish evangelicalism is about so much more than politics. This also allows us to explore more deeply another feature of the Northern Irish evangelical subculture: advocacy. All of our interviewees who experienced religious conversion as adults talked about the importance of the advocate. Of course, coming into contact with an advocate is not enough in and of itself to provoke religious conversion. It usually combines with a myriad of other factors. For example, Jackie’s conversion highlights the key role of the advo­ cate. Jackie was sent to Sunday school as a child, but was not at all religious until her mid-thirties, when she found herself working with two colleagues who talked to her continually about becoming born again, which led to her conversion. She said of her colleagues, ‘They like to talk about their faith. And every conversation that we had in the office always came around to faith and religion.… They used to tell me that I really would need to make myself right, and that this would affect the rest of my life.’ Over a period of some months, her colleagues would bring the subject up nearly every time they saw her. Initially, their message would simply wash over Jackie, but soon she could not get thoughts about the after­life out of her head. Eventually, she promised one of the colleagues that she would go to church to hear her sing. And later that week she got converted. For Jackie, it was work colleagues who catalysed her conversion. Other interviewees talked about family members as advo­cates. Interestingly, a number of parents said that it was actually their bornagain children who brought them to church and eventually to faith. Other apolitical experiences were cited by interviewees who had converted to evangelicalism. Most often mentioned were the death of a loved one, or people’s experiences of illness. For example, Arthur said that his father’s death gave him a ‘realisation of [his] own death’ and a fear of God which resulted in his conversion. Rachel, a mother of three children, said that fear about their souls is what led her to become born again. In such ways, existential questions about the meaning of life and death, much more than politics, were at the heart of many of our interviewees’ religious journeys.

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Maintaining a steady faith

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About a fifth of the people we interviewed said their faith was steady and had not changed very much over time. Their religious beliefs and practices as adults in middle or later life closely resembled their beliefs and practices as teenagers and as young adults. Rather than exclude this group because they did not experience significant change, we felt it was important to explore how people maintain their faith in a fairly consistent way. Once we unpick people’s stories, we find a range of ingenious ­strategies that they use to maintain their faith. All mentioned going through a period of finding out about faith for themselves, rather than simply accepting what they had been taught without question. For one person, this meant subjecting his faith to extreme scrutiny by studying religion from the perspective of social science. Most others preferred to protect their faith from intellectual challenge, for example by not studying certain subjects at university or reading only those books that would confirm their faith. Others simply chose not to dwell upon any difficult questions that arose. We also find cases where people have maintained a steady faith through amazingly difficult personal circumstances, some of which relate to the conflict in Northern Ireland. Most people who described a steady religious journey were not politicised. So, talk about the conflict arose insofar as it had impacted on people’s personal lives, which is very different from the all-encompassing political analysis of some of those on a deepening religious journey. For example, Henry relates nearly every event in his life through a ­religious lens and accompanies each story with a reading from the Bible. It seems Henry has developed an almost encyclopaedic knowledge of Scripture and conservative evangelical literature. But all this literature is of a similar nature. No books on the shelves provided a counter­argument and Henry gave no indication that he had ever explored alternative views. Study, then, can play an important role in maintaining faith, just as it can in provoking religious change (as with some evangelicals on other journeys), depending on the type of reading one decides to pursue. The strategy of buffering one’s faith by shutting out influences that one knows will be challenging appears to be effective in helping these individuals maintain their faith. Many of our participants adopted these strategies, fully conscious of their likely effects. It is as if they decided that they were happy with their current religious position and did not wish to expose themselves to any unsettling influences. Even where the choice is to retain the status quo, this can be an intentional choice. It seems there are many reasons why people would want to have a steady religious identity. Evangelicalism brings many of our interviewees comfort and happiness. People who steadily maintained the faith of their childhood or early adulthood focused on God’s love, feeling secure, the warmth of religious community and the inspiration of the life of Jesus. Their stories show how faith provides a well of strength in times

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of trouble and offers reassurance that people are not on their own – their problems are in God’s hands. This type of faith is easily privatised and remains largely apolitical.

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Exiting

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We talked with ten people who once considered themselves evangelicals but no longer do. Unlike those on a transforming journey, they do not retain links or sympathies with evangelicalism. Leaving their faith was not an event but a gradual process, with a variety of experiences acting as turning points along the way. Even when people described a ‘eureka’ moment, where something happened and they realised their faith had gone, this was always the culmination of an ongoing process. Moreover, far from passively ‘losing’ their faith, leaving evangelicalism was always a well-thought-out, agonised-over, decision. People allowed themselves to engage with questions and doubts that they knew might ultimately harm their faith. The kinds of factors that have prompted people to exit evangelicalism include intellectual processes, such as granting oneself permission to engage with doubts about faith, and relationships with other people, especially away from Northern Ireland. Most people exiting evangelicalism also said that their experiences of church had been largely negative. For example, Eddie, a filmmaker in his late thirties, found his belief in God challenged in his early thirties. Eddie was raised Presbyterian, was then part of the charismatic movement for twelve years and now considers himself agnostic/atheist. He highlights a key turning point, which he calls his ‘anti-Damascus Road’ moment. This was watching Derren Brown, the hypnotist and illusionist, on television. Brown, himself a former born-again Christian, now uses hypnotism, illusion and the power of suggestion in a non-religious context to perform impress­ ive experiments and tricks. Watching Brown’s ‘Mind Control’ television series, Eddie described his ideas as being ‘suddenly’ challenged. It now seemed possible that the things he could not explain in his own life were not necessarily down to God, but could have resulted from more human phenomena. But Eddie did not immediately cast off his faith in response to this new idea. Rather, he described allowing himself to ask the ‘what if ’ question. He said, ‘it was from that point on that I really started to engage with the fact that “what if it is all bullshit?” And as soon as I started to do that I really started to run with it.’ Once he passed the ‘what if’ threshold, Eddie said there was no going back. For some, the decision to leave evangelicalism had serious personal consequences, particularly insofar as it made relationships with parents and other family members difficult. But the individuals we talked to eventually learned to devise strategies to sustain these relationships at some level. Despite these personal costs, our respondents retained a great deal of control over their religious choices. This shows us that,

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Everyday evangelicals

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even in divided societies where religious belonging is a central part of social life, some individuals are able to make creative and brave choices to opt out ­religiously. But when this happened, people also tended to opt out politically, saying that neither unionist nor nationalist political parties represented them or their interests. For our purposes, what also is interest­ing is that people still framed their narratives in ways that resonated with the evangelical subculture they had left behind: they critiqued that subculture, engaged with existential questions and even had anti-conversion experiences.

Conclusion In this chapter we have argued that high politics, everyday social relation­ships and features of Northern Ireland’s evangelical subculture have all contributed to complex religious changes among evangelicals. We have described how these and other factors have pushed evangelicals in six different directions, or religious journeys. Our explorations of these journeys have also allowed us to see how political changes have affected evangelicals’ attitudes and identities. We have shown that some evangelicals interpret political events through a religious lens. They are disillusioned with developments and their faith has become privatised and depoliticised. They have withdrawn from Northern Ireland’s increasingly plural public sphere and their daily relations with Catholics are limited. They express pessimistic views about the future. Their aspirations are focused on the second coming of Christ as a kind of ‘get out of jail free’ card. Other evangelicals express dismay that their churches have, as they see it, withdrawn from the public sphere. They either accept or welcome pluralism, and advocate a deeper engagement with political issues, including peace-building and dealing with the past. They either have pursued or are pursuing more regular and meaningful relationships with Catholics, seeing this as an intentional and important aspect of peace-building. Their aspirations are for a ‘shared future’ in which religious groups can participate freely in a plural civil society. This could be interpreted as a normalisation of political behaviour. But changes in evangelicals’ perceptions of their religious lives were not prompted simply by the political changes brought about by devolution. Rather, there is a complex interweaving of macro-level political and micro-level subcultural factors that interact with each other, prompting change in a variety of directions. Most previous research on Northern Irish evangelicalism has ignored or underplayed the importance of these subcultural influences, assuming that evangelicalism is a fixed and rigid religious identity without the internal resources that can spark change. Given the depth and breadth of evangelical variety and change, we would first draw attention to the very simple observation that although

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they share an overarching subculture, evangelicals have vastly divergent political aspirations. Some evangelicals are politicised, while others have become depoliticised. Some of the most politicised evangelicals actually appear to be the ones who share British and Irish policy-makers’ assump­ tions about the desirability of pluralism and peace-building. Those who do not share these assumptions have either withdrawn from the public sphere or begun to focus on ‘moral’ issues such as homosexuality and abortion (Ganiel, 2006b, 2008). There is also a small but significant group of former evangelicals who no longer identify with evangelicalism or any religious faith, but feel left out of Northern Ireland’s ‘two communities’ public sphere. Depoliticisation and feelings of political impotence are never signs of a healthy, functioning democracy (see also chapter 1). It is worth thinking about how the evangelicals who await Christ’s second coming, as well as the former evangelicals who do not believe Christ is coming back, could become more deeply engaged. Their alienation raises questions about the inclusivity of the peace process. Second, Northern Ireland’s evangelical subculture has a number of internal features that themselves can contribute to change, in a variety of directions. This means that evangelicals are not necessarily unchanging and sectarian, as has often been supposed. Rather, some evangelicals have been adept at using the resources of their subculture to argue for what might have once been thought unlikely evangelical political projects, such as cross-community peace-building and dealing with the past. These internal religious, subcultural resources should not be dismissed. In Western democracies, it has been quite common for policymakers to expect religious groups to participate in the public sphere on secular terms, suppressing their religious aims and religious language in order to gain access to public funding. While such policies may avoid offending those who are not religious or who are from other religious faiths, they also may have the effect of sapping the dynamism of the ­religious groups that are already active in the public sphere. Many of the evangelical activists we spoke with – especially those on ‘moderating’ or ‘transforming’ journeys – said that their faith nourished their political activism, providing them with a moral vocabulary to justify their actions and strong relationships to sustain them in difficult times. If evangelicals are able to participate in the public sphere on their own (religious) terms, it just might be possible for their religious tradition to contribute constructively to making Northern Ireland a more robust democracy.

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Chapter 6

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‘Sometimes it would be nice to be a man’: negotiating gender identities after the Good Friday Agreement

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The politics of identity in Northern Ireland has received considerable academic attention and yet, despite the saturation of such studies, the focus is overwhelmingly (and understandably) on the ethno-national divide. The significance of Protestant and Catholic, British, Irish and Northern Irish identities preoccupies the academic imagination, at the expense, one might argue, of different or intersectional identities. In­ equality in relation to gender, ‘race’ and ‘other’ ethnicities, sexuality and, to a lesser extent, class receives far less attention, not only from academic study but in media coverage as well. Feminist research tends to focus solely on women’s position vis-à-vis the conflict, with gender often acting as the subtext for ethno-nationalism (Ashe, 2008; Zalewski, 2005). Gender, as opposed to ‘gender and conflict’, is rarely explored, thereby affording a partial view of the way in which women situate themselves as women in Northern Ireland – not just women in conflict. Our understanding of identity1 construction and change in the six counties is partial and, more specifically, little is known of the ways in which women negotiate

1 I feel it important to clarify that I regard identities as fluid, ever-changing and, most importantly, intersectional. When using ‘gender’ as an analytical category and trying to determine its significance in the everyday lives of women, the concept of intersectionality becomes of utmost importance. Crenshaw (1989) in particular has drawn our attention to the need to account for the ways in which gender intersects with race and ethnicity as a means of creating awareness of identity and how such can be a source of oppression. This also extends to categories such as class, sexuality, age and so forth. The evidence collected in the Contemporary Irish Identities Project (see footnote 2, overleaf) supports this argument, in that many women articu­lated their gender identity as significant in relation to other identity categories, or in the context of discussing other elements of their identity. Methodologically speaking, this offers important insight into the ways in which scholars might under­t ake the study of gender identity, yet a rigorous statement on such is beyond the confines of this chapter.

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their subject positions vis-à-vis gender. This, in turn, has ramifications for recognising and challenging gender-based inequalities. Champions of equality were excited by the signing of the Good Friday Agreement on 10 April 1998 due to the specific inclusions with regard to human rights and equal opportunities. Despite the jubilation by some – most notably members of the Northern Ireland Women’s Coalition – at the inclusion of measures of equality (Fearon and Rebouche, 2006), with the passing of well over a decade since the signing of this historic accord, it has done little to change the position of women in Northern Ireland. Women continue to be marginalised from formal politics, as they are grossly under-represented in the Northern Ireland Assembly, in 2011 totalling just twenty out of the 108 members, despite the enactment of positive discrimination legislation designed to counteract such imbalances (Side, 2007; see also chapter 7). Women remain concentrated in low-paid, casual employment, do the majority of unpaid care work and continue to be the most likely to be in poverty (Breitenbach and Galligan, 2004; Farrell et al., 2008; Moore et al., 2002). Women’s right to abortion is still very much curtailed in the North, as it is offered only in the case of serious medical and physical complications for the woman and/or foetus, forcing many women to travel to the UK seeking abortions. Violence against women continues to be an issue, as police statistics show a yearly increase in inci­ dents of domestic violence, with 24,482 incidents reported for 2009/10, an increase of 891 on the previous year, the overwhelming majority of victims being female (Police Service of Northern Ireland, 2010). The lack of substantial progress in the area of women’s equality raises the following questions: To what extent are women in Northern Ireland aware of their gender identity? How does gender get articulated in their everyday lives? What do Northern Irish women have to say about being female? To what degree is gender a salient category of identity? Do clearly articu­ lated gender identities translate into an awareness of gender-based inequalities? How does gender get articulated in ways that are different to ethno-national and class-based identities? While these are rudimentary questions in the general field of identity politics and, in many ways, a crude way to conceptualise identity, it is a necessary starting point from which to begin exploring gender identity in Northern Ireland. The research upon which this chapter is based is significant in this regard, as it sheds light on gender as an analytical identity category in the context of a changing, yet still deeply unequal, Northern Ireland. Through an analysis of in-depth qualitative interviews conducted as part of the Contemporary Irish Identities Project it is possible to establish the ways in which gender identities are meaningful. 2 The interviews 2 The Contemporary Irish Identities Project was part of the Identity, Diversity and Citizenship programme at University College Dublin and funded by the Programme for Research in Third Level Institutions, III; the principal investigators were Jennifer

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analysed in this chapter were conducted with women of varying ages and social backgrounds, although working-class women are predominantly represented. There is a balance, however, in terms of those who identify as either Protestant or Catholic. The findings indicate that while meaning in relation to gender identity is not as easily articulated as that in relation to ethno-national or class identity, it does nevertheless hold some salience. Interestingly, discussions of gender identity were often less comfortable than those which concerned class and ethno-national identity. In this chapter, I suggest that this is connected to the content of and relative weights given to the three dominant categories in discourse. The narratives of the women interviewed clearly show that, on some level, gender differentiation and dominant gender practices are natural­ ised, which is in sharp contrast to perceptions of ethno-national and class-based identities. While some women acknowledged the existence of gender-based inequalities there is also evidence of a willingness to relinquish agency over hierarchical gender relations by others. This creates an observable paradox between the articulation of gender differences and denial of transformative potential. More specifically, to see unequal gender practices as fixed has significant implications for any attempt at resisting them. Even when women identified a potential for change, this was accompanied by a hesitancy and sense that any transformation would be piecemeal. The data suggest that challenging gender-based inequalities will continue to be difficult as long as there is a predominant emphasis on ethno-national identity and that such emphasis remains institutionalised in the structures of governance.

Discerning gender difference from childhood The initial conversations on gender tried to ascertain how women in Northern Ireland understand their gender identity – in particular in relation to men and what they perceive to be the main differences between men and women. For many women in the study, when asked of their first recollection of gender difference or awareness of being female, any articulation of such difference was a difficult task. Many could not recall when they became aware of gender difference and not a single respondent could pinpoint a single event, action or circumstance which brought to light an awareness of being female. This sits in stark contrast Todd, John Coakley, Tom Inglis and Alice Feldman. I was a postdoctoral researcher on the project between 2003 and 2005 and conducted over 150 interviews during this time as part of the post. These in-depth, face-to-face interviews were completed in three different locations on the island of Ireland, one of which was a town on the east coast of Northern Ireland. This chapter is based on the interviews with women in Northern Ireland only – a total of eighteen interviews.

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to ethno-national identity, where many women could recall with ease particular moments of initial awareness of being British or Irish, Protestant or Catholic, for example. Unlike ethno-national identity, and to a lesser extent class, many women expressed a sense of their gender difference as something that was always there, omnipresent from their earliest childhood memories, that the sense of difference was innate. Several women explained this through the presence of older brothers in the family, which effectively demarcated gender from the very beginning of their lives, but the point at which they recall awareness of this is unknown. So while these particular women know gender difference is there, pinpointing when it became known is not possible. Just two women referenced gender to biological difference, while the majority saw their sense of gender difference as being attributable to social roles and expectations. Denise, a single, self-defined middle-class teacher in her late twenties, recalled how social pressure operated to police her interests and activities: I played with boys’ toys as well you know.… I like football, I like Formula One; those are very non-girl-orientated sports. Friends of mine would argue that … you know, female friends I should say would be sort of ‘Why do you like that?’, ‘Why do you watch football?’ ‘You don’t really like it, you’re just doing it to fit in’, because when I was younger I had a lot of male friends, and when I began to get to know them they find it sort of strange that I like football and Formula One as well. So it’s as if people like to categorise you into nice, neat little boxes.

Similarly, Sally, a retired upper-middle-class artist, expressed how natural­ised expectations around gender were for her when she was young: Well you’re always aware of it because you’re aware of it from PE, even different changing [rooms], even at school, primary school, you were doing PE and the girls would and the boys, you know, you would be segregated so you are very much aware of your gender.… There would be jobs the boys did and jobs the girls did and my mother would have been very old fashioned. I had to do a lot of work around the house and the one I hated, and that was from a very early age, was polishing my brother’s shoes and that was a gender thing and I was very adamant that I shouldn’t be picked on to do that. The boys should, but it never worked. I had to do it. So I was aware of it very early on but my mother had this set role that a woman was a homemaker and should be doing all these things in the house, taught to iron and do all these things. Of course the boys could be outside with hens and with different things so my role was supposedly in the house. I always objected [laughs]. So I do remember.

Sally’s awareness of the gendered division of labour within the home is a tangible example of the ways in which many women become acutely aware of gender. Embedded in this are notions of femininity and masculinity which further entrench and naturalise gender as a state of being. For some women, when expectations around the ‘appropriate’ per­ form­ance of gender conflicts with personal expression, gender awareness

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becomes more acute. Janine, a working-class woman in her early thirties who was a single parent until recently, reported that she was very much aware of expectations for her to dress a certain way and act in a fashion appropriate for her gender:

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I used to say I wanted to be a boy when I was younger! Sure, I was always in tracksuit bottoms and I was always bogging and out on the skateboards. So I was never a girlie girl.

Janine’s relationship with gender norms is very conflictual – on the one hand, she claims to have had the freedom not to be a ‘girlie girl’, yet she is also very much aware of the constraints placed on her by society. Her resent­ment of these gender norms is highlighted in her desire for freedom to express herself in masculine ways – and to be a boy. Despite her claims of rejecting the ‘feminine’, she nevertheless continued to feel constricted as she received criticisms for her choices and behaviour.

The situated meaning of gender In light of the above discussion, it is perhaps no surprise that when talking about differences between women and men, respondents identi­ fied social roles as those that ascribe meaning to their gender. The negotiation of gender identities in everyday life revolves, for many of the women I spoke to, around what traditionally constitutes ‘feminine’. For some this means connecting femininity with motherhood. With the exception of one woman, those who spoke about motherhood and gender did so in relation to the role of the mother within the home and her ability to be a good carer. As Deirdre, a fifty-year-old working-class librarian and self-described feminist explained, I always think that the family revolves around the mother, you know, no matter what happens. It’s just always the way.

She continued by stating that the mother is the mainstay of the home and that women will always be better at this than men. Some women made direct links between their current sense of their gendered self and the expectations and contradictions they face in their own life with regard to femininity and career choice or sense of selfexpression. Denise, the single teacher in her late twenties, located her sense of self in the realm of the social and what is expected and required of her as a woman: In terms of gender identity it’s … I’ve been socialised to be … I’ve been taught that I am female. Psychologically, I am female, although possibly more tomboy at times [laughs]. I wouldn’t be, to be female, again it comes down to really the differences between males and females. There’s things I can do as female that males can’t do and vice versa. Why I identify myself

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as being female is mainly biological to begin with and psychological in terms of the sorts of professions that I would be offered or sort of guided towards, sort of going to occupational therapy or physiotherapy or ‘Do you not want to be a nurse?’

Much like Denise, Janine’s sense of her own gender identity is very much wrapped up in her awareness of the discord between what femininity should entail and how she chooses to express it: I was never a girlie girl or – I am definitely not a – I was going to say I am not a woman – I am not a girlie woman. If I was going out for a night out I would dress up but I am not big into wearing skirts and the makeup I have got on me now is what you would see me in at the weekends, you know, I am not big into women’s things.… I have got a pair of heels upstairs and I wear them, for all we ever go out I would wear them once in a blue moon – I would usually wear my wee flat trainers going out or a pair of flip flops! … People want to wear high heels to make them look taller and make them look slimmer and they wear the wee pointy shoes because it is more ladylike.

Janine went on to talk about the pressures on both men and women to fit into a gender ideal. She believes women are becoming even more feminine through their consumption of products to feminise and ‘improve’ the female body. She also believes that masculinity is experiencing a similar process, in that a space has opened up for masculine men to consume cosmetics and products such as hair gel, fake tan and moisturisers. What is perhaps quite striking in this narrative is the lack of class analysis by Janine. Given her class position, one would expect that an articulation of class identity would arise in tandem with gender – that the intersection of class and gender would be evident. This woman was, for a period of time, a single mother with two young boys living in a very working-class area, yet issues around the gendered nature of work (both paid and unpaid) did not surface; nor was there mention of the unequal nature of childcare responsibilities. It would appear that gender difference is, in some ways, difficult for many of these women to articulate because, as they point out, it is natural­ised to such a degree from the early stages of life that it becomes seen as something ordinary, unremarkable, accepted even. This, to be sure, has implications for the ways in which women perceive gender in­equality as an issue in their lives, and in Northern Irish society in general, as the next section explains.

Awareness of gender inequality The significance of the above narrative for understanding gender identities and, most importantly, for building a politics around the same is made clearer when looking at how these women connect gender

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­ ifference to gender inequality. The women interviewed, for the most d part, are aware of the social norms which police their behaviour, clothing choices, career paths and general self-expression. Many women also made connections between their individual experiences of pressure in relation to gender performance and a more structural, systematic gender inequality. Awareness of a pervasive sense of gender inequality surfaced in three distinct ways: as a tangible yet fixed phenomenon; as tangible but changeable; and as more significant for Northern Irish men than women.

Gender inequality as natural and fixed

Several women talked at length about gender inequality in Northern Ireland as an observable social reality. On a number of occasions a connection was made with other elements of their identity, particularly social class. While acknowledging that gender inequalities are significant, for a number of the women they were nonetheless perceived as naturalised and, as a result, unchangeable. Renee, a lone parent in her mid-thirties who works as a childminder, was particularly aware of the intersection of class and gender and how, as a single mother, it serves to further her inequality. When asked if it is harder to be a woman than a man in Northern Ireland at present she responded: I think it’s a man’s world when it comes to single parents because the men can walk away … Gemma’s dad sees her once a year – his choice not mine – you know, she could go over as many times as he wanted her [to].… Men walk away and leave all the responsible things to the women; in my eyes that’s what happens. You know some men, don’t get me wrong, some men like Richard [current partner] whose ex-partner will not let him near the son and he would do so much for the child you know and the child wants to see him. That’s bad but I think in general I think it’s harder for the woman definitely.

The care responsibilities expected of Renee in comparison with those of the father of her child have made her acutely aware of how her freedoms and choices are greatly affected by her gender. She believed things have changed slightly in comparison with previous generations and recalled how difficult it was for women in ‘her mother’s day’ in terms of women’s ability to work outside the home. Ultimately, however, she believed that inequality will never fully disappear. I think some men are taking on more responsibilities but I don’t think they’ll ever change. I think it will always be a man’s world; they’ll always get the better-paid jobs, you know they’ll always get ’em. Men go out whenever they please, you know; the women sit in the house worried about making dinner, doing the washing, cleaning the house, feeding the kids. Maybe not changing then, just staying the same, just like to think it’s changing.

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Similar sentiments were echoed in Maria’s narrative. Maria is a single mother in her thirties, a part-time hairdresser and from a similar social class as Renee. She said she is very conscious of gender inequality through her position as a lone parent as well as in her workplace:

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From my work point of view our men all have company cars and pensions where we don’t … men get higher-paid jobs and … sometimes … they’re [women are] doing the same job as the men.

In her position as a single mother she feels particularly strongly about the presence of gender inequality in Northern Irish society: Yeah, I mean, it’s me that pays for childminders; the father gets off scotfree. Maintenance money is a joke and getting it off him is another joke, you know, when he can swan about in his fancy car and his fancy house and you know wouldn’t pay a penny for Stuart and doesn’t. As I say he’s changing school this year and I didn’t get a penny towards the school uniform but yet he can go out and buy a shirt for maybe a hundred odd pound you know so that way there’s [inequality] … I don’t like that either you know but.

Maria is quite fatalistic about this – as signified by the ‘but’ at the end of the sentence she does not finish. Her ‘but’ intimates a sense that nothing can be done to change the situation. She feels that she has no choice but to accept the gender order, much like Renee. Deirdre is an interesting inclusion in this group. As mentioned above, she is a fifty-year-old working-class librarian and the sole self-described feminist in the study. While it is not surprising that Deirdre could easily identify ways in which gender inequality takes shape in her life and in broader Northern Irish society, it is surprising that, as a feminist, she too sees such inequality as fixed. She discussed at length the striking gender inequality in her male-dominated workplace. Yet within the home, she views gender inequality to be naturalised. While she insisted there was an equal division of labour within her home she concluded by saying: I am not sure, well you would still.… The mother of the house I always think would be the mainstay. You know? Even if you didn’t work, and your husband worked, I always think that the family revolves around the mother, you know, no matter what happens. It’s just always the way.… I do I think it all revolves around the mother no matter how good the father is.… We have a great set-up here, we have both, we both do equal amounts in here. It’s great, but then again, you’ll still do it no matter what, no matter whether it’s equal, or the amount of work that you are doing in the house. A woman will always do something extra, you know.… It’s always gonna be like that no matter what. You know? That you will always do that wee bit extra.

So while Deirdre acknowledged that inequalities do exist, she appears willing to accept them despite her feminist tendencies.

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Gender inequality as changeable A more promising analysis of gender inequality was offered by a much smaller number of women who recognised not only the extent to which such inequality impinges on their lives but also the potential to challenge and change it. Sarah is a single mother in her late thirties who works as a care assistant while studying for a PhD. She was cognisant of the changes that have taken place in Northern Ireland with respect to the position of women and cautiously optimistic that things will continue to improve, despite the fact that inequalities still remain. It’s becoming easier, so it is. I think again your sort of more traditional roles, sort of the woman stays at home and looks after the children. Certainly, we’re still a fair bit behind sort of like England, you know, in that sense you know, more opportunities for women to work their way up job-wise but it’s become easier I think in a way. I think maybe twenty/ twenty-five years ago maybe it wouldn’t have been as easy for me to go to university and whatnot. But there’s still, I think there’s still, you know, the barriers for women to a certain degree. In jobs there’s obviously a preference for men in certain jobs, so there is.

While Sarah identified scope for change, she also demonstrated awareness of concrete barriers. Coupled with the fact that only one other woman expressed a similar observation, the cautious optimism is certainly not indicative that there is any hope among the women in the study for tangible change in the near future. It is perhaps worthy of note that Sarah had personally experienced greater opportunity over the years. As she was now doing a PhD it is perhaps not surprising that she saw that change had taken place.

Hegemonic masculinity, men and inequality

A number of women raised the issue of gender inequality in relation to the difficulties men face in Northern Ireland. These women felt it was harder to be a man in the North than a woman, due to the aggressive relation­ ships between men, something which is more acutely pronounced due to the conflict. Two women cited pressures placed on men by hegemonic masculinity and its policing of male behaviour, predominantly in the form of male-on-male violence. As one, Heather, a married working-class woman in her early forties, explained: I think it’s easier to be a woman.… My husband will agree ten times over. I can go out down the town on a night out with my friends and I’m ten times safer than what he would be going out on a night with his friends. I’m safer going out with my friends than I am going out with him … because the amount of times … I’ve walked up town at night by myself on my own, no problem. But if I walked up with him there’s always some loser wanting to start a fight or … bored or … ‘What are you looking at?’ and we wouldn’t be looking at anybody and it’s … definitely safer on my own.

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Renee, while clearly aware of the inequalities she faces as a single mother as outlined above, similarly noted that men in Northern Ireland face threats to their physical safety, not only through male-on-male violence but also in attempts to recruit men into paramilitary organisations: I think it’s harder to be a man … I definitely think so because a woman can relatively walk up the town at night time and not feel too scared. A man can walk up the town and get hammered for the sake of his religion; they don’t really do it to women. It’s a rare occasion if they do it to women but men, men just can’t live in peace, I just think. I would rather walk home from the town on my own any night than have Richard with me; now Richard is a big fella, six foot two, and he is a big, big fella but I would still rather have me walk up than him walk up.

She continued:

[T]hey are trying to get you to join these groups you know, they torture you into joining them and then call you names or pick on you for not joining them. They don’t torture women to join them so I think it’s definitely easier to be a woman.

Later, when speaking of her ethno-national identity, Renee reflected how such pressures also affected her personal relationships: I’m against them all regardless of what religion they are. I don’t like the way you’re maybe sitting in the house with your partner and the phone rings and he’s made to go and do something that he doesn’t want to do, you know. I have experienced that with a partner in the past. I wouldn’t have it again, I just wouldn’t have it again. It just controls your life, and you’re scared of what’s going to come to your door.

To be sure, male violence is increased as a consequence of conflict, but it does not solely take the form of male-on-male violence. Conflict significantly increases the rates of male-on-female violence as well, Northern Ireland being no exception (McWilliams, 2010). Because I had situated myself in the field and lived among many of these women, I was aware that domestic violence was something that some of these women would be familiar with, either personally or through their family, and yet it was not mentioned by a single woman interviewed in the North, not even in general terms. 3 Of those women in the study who spoke about gender identity and its significance to their everyday lives, only one felt there was no gender inequality in Northern Irish society. Janine, the former single mother who defined gender difference in terms of femininity and masculinity and the restrictions she felt in expressing her ‘tomboy’ side through her desire to wear masculine clothes, was the sole person who believed that there is no inequality between men and women. Although she felt that, as

3 This is in stark contrast to the interviews conducted in Ireland, where a number of women recounted their own experiences of domestic violence.

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a child, she was restricted on the basis of gender in terms of her interests and choices, Janine’s belief might be partially explained in her claim that she had space to defy these norms. Furthermore, she was quite aware of inequalities in other areas of her life. For Janine, her sense of class and the accompanying inequality she faced was quite pronounced. She was quite adept at articulating an awareness of structural inequality and was quite comfortable doing so in relation to her class position, which would indicate that, for this woman, her negative experiences based on class identity are more pronounced than those based on gender. This does not mean, however, that gender identities and experiences of difference become insignificant. Surprisingly, it was Janine who made the most profound statement when speaking about her gender identity: Well, I suppose I am happy to be a woman and I suppose I am proud to have children and do things that men can’t do. But sometimes it would be nice to be a man. Men have an easier life.

This disclosure is noteworthy because it represents the trivial ways in which gender inequality can be conceptualised. It accentuates the degree to which gender inequality is normalised. Ultimately, there is some recog­nition of gender inequality (even if there is a refusal to name it) but the narrative suggests an acceptance of these norms, to the degree that the only way to escape from them is to switch genders. The significance of such a statement lies in the acceptance of gender tropes, a recognition that men do indeed benefit from gender inequalities, but that the only way to transform this is to change one’s gender.

Class and ethno-national identities In order to appreciate the complexities of gender identity in Northern Ireland it is necessary to compare how women articulate their gendered subject positions with other elements of their identity. The lack of clarity, evidenced above, regarding gendered subject positions and subsequent awareness of inequality becomes more pronounced when compared with the ease with which these women discussed their class identities and related experiences of oppression. Women, on the whole, recounted with effortlessness and lucidity their sense of class. Such dialogue often invoked passion and emotion in a manner absent from conversations on gender, conversations which were often awkward and lacked easy, or even any, progression. On some occasions there was clearly little interest in reflecting on the subject of gender and even resistance to doing so. This pattern is yet more pronounced in light of the discussion of ethno-national identity. Many women could pinpoint exact moments at which their sense of difference with regard to ethno-national identity became apparent to them. The same is true, albeit to a lesser extent,

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for the ‘­crystallising moments’ of class identification. Furthermore, unlike gender, ethno-national and class-based identities were far from essential­ised or naturalised and were seen as something to be challenged. Heather, the working-class woman who expressed gender inequality in terms of fear around personal safety for her husband when walking alone, offered a typical example of the role of early experiences in the fashioning of ethno-national identity. When asked to recall the first time she realised she was Protestant, she said: I was about six and I was out playing rounders and a wee boy from up the street who was a Catholic and I beat him at rounders and he says one day Maggie Thatcher wouldn’t be here and that I’d be on my knees praying for him to take me on or something, that I was an Orange B [bastard]. And I ran home and told my Mum and she told me what it meant, and she was gonna kill him [laughs].… I still remember it. That was the first time I ever knew there was a difference.

Heather’s experience is not dissimilar to that of the other women inter­ viewed. Maria, the Catholic single mother who identifies as British, explained how she first became aware of and adopted her ethno-national identity when she was fourteen years of age: I was in school ’cause I said I was Irish and we were doing out … CVs, you know, on the computer, and I would put it as Irish but I was born in London. [Teacher] says you can’t be Irish if you were born in London you know, you’re British … the North of Ireland is part of Britain; oh alright so, I’m British. So I was at school.

The conversations on class identity reveal a similar pattern. Discussions on class identity share commonalities with those relating to ethno-national identity in that an early awareness of difference was easy to pinpoint and in both instances the identities were imposed due to external forces. In the case of ethno-national identities, structural divisions force individuals to ‘pick a category’ or instruct them which appropriate category to pick; in the case of class, it is externally enforced by the structural and hierarchical nature of capitalism. Women were clearly able to articulate an early awareness of class difference. Janine, the working-class former single parent in her early thirties, explained how her sense of being working class became manifest. The awareness of difference is very much defined by class associ­ations, in this case housing estates: Well, at school and stuff I went to a grammar school and nearly all my friends would have lived in private areas or their families had good jobs; they always had good clothes and yet there was even a few times where I got friendly with a girl and her daddy didn’t like her coming to my house because I lived in Stoneview [an impoverished housing estate] and there was a stigma over it.

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Janine is quite aware of the implications of her location imparting a class identity on her. At the time of the interview she was in the process of moving from an infamous working-class estate and into a more ‘respectable’ area of the town, as a means of attaining some upward mobility. The external processes of identification with regard to class are evident. By no means are the class recollections as precise as those on ethno-national identity but they contain much more clarity than those on gender.

Conclusion How might differences in articulations of gender, ethno-national and class identities be accounted for? On a superficial level it would appear that gender is less salient than class or ethno-national identity. However, upon closer inspection these women’s narratives reveal that gender identity is both more complex and more naturalised – that is, gender inequalities are seen as incontestable (as are class inequalities). The lack of overall clarity in discussions of gender identity should not be taken as an indication of its lesser significance in comparison with class or ethnonationality. The saturation of discourse on ethno-nationality and, to a lesser extent, class have not only helped in the awareness of difference but also offered a means for articulating it. The binary construction of ethno-national identity that discursively permeates Northern Ireland’s social landscape has no doubt affected the ways in which people articu­ late their sense of self. Research has highlighted the extent to which ethno-national identity is a subject most in the North are fluent in from an early age (Muldoon et al., 2007). The media, as well as political, educational, religious and state institutions, bombard those living in Northern Ireland with messages regarding ethno-national identity which are reproduced in everyday interactions (McAuley and Tonge, 2010; Todd, 2007a; Trew et al., 2009). Ethno-national identity is very much formalised and public. The Good Friday Agreement has played a large role in this, as Coulter and Murray argue, in that it ‘reproduces and legitimates many of those forms of ethno-political feeling and compensation that sparked the Northern Irish conflict in the first place … [the Agreement] presumes and prescribes those very ethnopolitical interests and inclinations that it ostensibly seeks to overcome’ (Coulter and Murray, 2008: 15). The Agreement publicly enshrines ethno-national identity, so much so that it is arguably difficult to determine where the rote discourse which delineates the relative identity categories ends and the articulation of an actual subject position begins. Therefore, while it would appear that the sharper recollections of ethno-national identity might suggest its salience relative to other categories, further interrogation reveals the ways in which ethno-national

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identity is formalised, public and scripted for those living in Northern Ireland. As Heather stated when asked about what it means to be Protestant, ‘Well, I was always told I was a Protestant’. She had a similar answer in relation to the British component of her identity: ‘I remember filling in a form and saying to my Mummy, “What do I fill in?”’ For many of the women interviewed, the parameters of Northern Irish society and its structural and institutional elements create a situation whereby residents are forced to choose a label from categories that are constructed as binary opposites. As Sarah, the single mother studying for her PhD, succinctly explained: [T]hat’s more to do with the shit and the Troubles and people feeling that they had to be … either that you say British or that Irish. I think you had to be seen to be taking a side. It couldn’t be that you just wanted to live in the country and, you know, to get on with things, kind of thing.

The narratives offered up by these women clearly indicate knowledge of how their ethno-national identities are shaped and a sense that there is a structural element to the process. The relative ease with which many women recounted early memories of class differentiation can be explained in a similar manner. While in Northern Ireland the messages regarding class are less overt than those pertaining to ethno-nationalism, there is a definitive public element to class identity. There is a significant class dimension to Northern Irish politics and class is very much integral to the way in which Northern Irish society is structured (Coulter, 1999; Shirlow and Shuttleworth, 1999). Most significantly, the public nature of class identity comes from the fact that it is closely entwined with ethno-national identity, in that ‘extreme’ forms of unionism and nationalism (loyalism and republicanism respectively) are considered very much working-class politics, while moderate positions are occupied by the middle and upper classes (Tonge, 2002). Class, while less formalised than ethno-national identity, is therefore made more public in Northern Ireland because of the ways in which the two intersect. This, therefore, creates a less awkward space for the articulation of class-based identities relative to gender. Gender, as the narratives demonstrate, is conceived as private. Discussions around gender identity and difference are most often centred within the home – considered (erroneously) a private domain. Furthermore, the historical essentialising of gender difference through biology has, to be sure, contributed to this. More disheartening are the perspectives on agency with regard to tackling gender- and class-based inequalities. It is impossible to gauge from the data the extent to which the public/private dichotomy has furthered a lack of agency. However, it is fair to say that the public, formal reproduction of and emphasis on ethno-national identities has made them easier to articulate but, worryingly, at the expense of other

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identity categories. It is clear that the contextual landscape in Northern Ireland has produced, unsurprisingly, an easily articulated sense of ethno-national identity and, to a lesser extent, class identity. In comparing these categories, however, we are forced to consider the extent to which this comes at the expense of other subject positions. The ethnonational discourse has been so overwhelming that it has overshadowed other structural differences. Therefore, when people are asked about other elements of their identity, gender especially, they are startled and unsure of how to respond. The Good Friday Agreement and the resultant institutional framework do not challenge this and, as a result, raise serious questions, most notably in relation to mobilising for change in terms of gender- and class-based inequalities.

Acknowledgements I thank Jonathan Greene and Pauline Cullen for their comments on an earlier draft of this chapter.

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Chapter 7

Women’s political participation

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Bronagh Hinds

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This chapter examines the challenges facing women who want to participate in politics in Northern Ireland and touches upon the relationship between women inside and outside politics. Women constantly run up against socially conservative attitudes and face residual and overt misogyny and resistance to specific measures for change, including at times from women who have internalised as the norm practices that protect the dominant male group. The chapter draws upon survey research to show changes in public attitudes and discusses outreach programmes that support women who wish to become involved. It traces the post-Good Friday Agreement (GFA) journey for women through the political institutions and demonstrates that while some progress has been made, more is required.

Participation The politics of participation has been a recurring theme among women in Northern Ireland before and since the GFA. The debate is conducted on twin tracks: on the one hand, women’s civic engagement in the develop­ment of public policy and services; on the other, how to reach a critical mass of women in political institutions. Arguably, championing participation – recognition, inclusion, right of access, being listened to, having influence – is of greater importance to women than to men, given women’s substantial under-representation as political representatives, on public bodies and in high-level decision-making roles in economic, social and cultural arenas generally. There has been some improvement in female political participation in Northern Ireland since the GFA, with the number of women representatives increasing from election to election; but the pace of change

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is slow and much more remains to be achieved before the body politic can be ­described as fair and representative. Of course, there are many countries in which women – especially in their multiple representations of class, race, disability, sexuality and caring responsibilities – are poorly reflected within political institutions and policy-making structures. Yet political life is more complex in a society transitioning from conflict, and as Cillian McGrattan and Elizabeth Meehan note in chapter 1 (drawing upon Pollak and Kennedy) it is likely to take generations for the decades of conflict and suspicion to be transcended and for life, as well as politics, to become truly normalised. It may be some time before female poli­t icians reach a critical mass and are comfortable collaborating across party lines, which will delay their gaining influence over business conducted by the Northern Ireland Executive, Assembly and local government, when they will be able to ensure that it benefits women equally with men. In considering women’s political participation post-devolution, mention should be made of activities in the women’s sector which created momentum for women’s participation prior to the GFA. Many consider that when women’s groups represented everyday concerns this was politics with a small ‘p’. Several initiatives were undertaken by the Northern Ireland Women’s European Platform (NIWEP) in the 1990s: joint work with the Dublin-based Council for the Status of Women1 to highlight women in the peace process and to seek their inclusion in decision-making; raising gender matters with political parties and ­ pressing them to select women candidates; and securing women’s voices in the multi-party negotiations that led to the Agreement. The Northern Ireland Women’s Coalition (NIWC) embodied a decade of work on women’s participation (Fearon, 1999; Hinds, 1998) between 1996 and 2006 and was represented in the negotiations on the GFA and in the first Northern Ireland Assembly. It offered the public a new model of how politicians should behave, challenging the militaristic and demonising language, bullying and sexism often used with deliberate intent to obfuscate efforts to reach a peace agreement. The Coalition eschewed the zero-sum stance of other parties in favour of a solutionfocused approach to dialogue, to set a positive example for the content and conduct of political negotiation. Women in the Coalition realised that fundamental cultural change, offering a working model of respect and competence, was needed to encourage more women into politics. In turn, women’s participation was seen as being critical to good governance and policies that could transform lives and deliver a stable political settlement and a permanent end to conflict. The 2002 Northern Ireland Life and Times Survey found that women matched the ‘honest, compromising, hard working and approachable’ 1 Now the National Women’s Council of Ireland.

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attributes that people desired in their politicians (Galligan and Dowds, 2004), while male politicians were regarded as ‘aggressive, ruthless, ambitious and crafty’. According to the Survey:

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• 57 per cent of people believed things would improve with more women in politics; • 57 per cent of men and 66 per cent of women wanted to see more women elected; • 74 per cent of people said political parties should be required or encouraged to put forward a proportion of women candidates.

The Women’s Coalition was motivated by the virtual absence of women leaders in peace negotiations. To drive forward participation and challenge political parties on their inclusion of women, it secured commitments to ‘the right of women to full and equal political participation’ and ‘the advancement of women in public life’ in the GFA (Northern Ireland Office, 1998). Launched in 2000 in response to these promises, an independent initiative, DemocraShe, provided non-partisan programmes to increase women’s selection and election chances. Several hundred women from all political parties were trained over three Assembly and local government election cycles, with some success; 50 per cent of female Members of the Legislative Assembly (MLAs) in 2003 and 41 per cent of female councillors in 2005 were DemocraShe alumni. Programmes were also run to enhance the lobbying capacity of more than seventy emerging female civil society leaders.

Local government From 2006 DemocraShe collaborated with a new initiative from the Northern Ireland Local Government Staff Commission: Women in Local Councils (WiLC) provided a focal point through which local government and equality partners combined expertise to increase women’s participation in local government decision-making. Capacity-building and personal development to enhance women’s leadership as councillors and council officers, culture change in working practices and practical support such as work/life balance arrangements were key themes. Most councils, local government bodies and political parties appointed gender champions. Women benefited from regular workshops, sessions with inspirational leaders, one-to-one coaching, mentoring, peer support and networking. Every council adopted a Declaration of Principles. Political parties, councils and local government organisations were assisted to develop gender action plans; more than half of the twenty-six councils produced such plans. Four councils developed a work/life balance model for local government. Some councils reviewed women’s representation on internal council committees and external partnerships. ‘Visible Women’

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conferences, women’s forums and young women’s events were organised by different councils to reach women in the community. International Women’s Day featured in council calendars and an inaugural ‘Women in Local Councils Week’ was launched in 2010. Councils competed for recognition in gender equality work. Newtownabbey Borough Council won a Northern Ireland award for multi-level work with women councillors, officers and community representatives, while Omagh District Council won a UK award for its women-only training programme. Belfast City Council’s programme of joint training for women councillors and officers was adopted as a model of good practice by the UK’s Improvement and Development Agency2 (IDeA). Derry, Ards and Coleraine councils introduced local ‘Women of Achievement’ awards. The Northern Ireland Local Government Association, supported by Arlene Foster MLA (then Environment Minister), introduced an annual networking dinner in Parliament Buildings for women politicians. Women’s share of local government positions has increased slowly but steadily since 2000. The proportion of councillors who are female rose to 24 per cent in 2011 from 14 per cent in 2000. More women officers moved into senior management positions: in 2005, women constituted just 16 per cent of senior management and fourteen councils had no women in their top two tiers; by 2009, 23 per cent of senior managers were women and the number of councils with none had dropped to seven. By 2011 the male–female ratio of 26–0 among chief executives had improved to 21–5. The WiLC model was picked up by the IDeA and the Women’s Local Government Society in Britain and internationally. In some councils WiLC failed to take hold, due to either a lack of interest on the part of senior officers or resistance by women councillors, generally Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) councillors reluctant to work with their Sinn Féin counterparts. Yet there was good practice in joint working: in Dungannon and South Tyrone, the only two women councillors among twenty-two – one Sinn Féin, the other DUP – worked together with the council’s gender champion. Women in Local Councils set out to improve participation and strengthen democracy. However, its work was not mainstreamed into Northern Ireland’s local government reform agenda. Although comprising 21 per cent of councillors, women found themselves just 15 per cent of the Transition Committees charged with preparing for reorganisation; one of the eleven committees had no women members. Concerned women’s organisations responded to the Department of the Environment’s consultation on the ‘Proposed Arrangements for Establishment of Transition Committees in Statute’ (DemocraShe et al., 2009). The 2 Now Local Government Improvement and Development.

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Department noted that seven out of forty-eight respondents called for positive actions to be taken to increase the representation of women on Transition Committees and sub-committees, with some also commenting on the need to ensure gender balance in the appointments of senior staff (designate) (Department of the Environment Northern Ireland, 2009).

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Women’s sector pressure for political inclusion

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Following devolution, momentum increased to educate politicians on women’s perspectives. The first Women’s Agenda for the Assembly was promoted early in the 1998 Assembly by the Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU) and the Equality Commission for Northern Ireland (ECNI); it outlined priorities on women’s economic independence, family-friendly policies, health and violence. Meetings were held with MLAs, political parties and the cross-party Assembly Women’s Group, which was not comprehensively cross-party in practice as unionists were not inclined to take part – neither the DUP nor the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) turned up for the meeting on the Women’s Agenda. Ongoing political contention led to the Assembly being erratically on–off for many years (see footnote 1, chapter 1, p. 3) and the fractious environment was not conducive to develop­ing cross-party liaison and unity among women MLAs. The polarised political arena, with tensions around the constitutional question, power-sharing in government and ‘wicked’ issues like decommissioning, policing and criminal justice, made promoting gender mainstreaming virtually impossible. During the first Assembly just one issue that predominately affected women was discussed. In June 2000 the Assembly backed a motion opposing the extension of the 1967 Abortion Act to Northern Ireland. A NIWC amendment calling for reference of the matter to the Assembly’s Health, Social Services and Public Safety Committee was defeated by forty-three votes to fifteen; seven women voted for the amendment and no woman voted against it (Hillyard et al., 2006: 17). Women’s manifestos were prepared for the three succeeding Assembly elections. The 2003 manifesto, endorsed by the ICTU’s women’s committee, ECNI and women’s groups, covered the women’s com­munity sector, economic independence, decision-making, sexual and reproductive health and domestic violence. However, the 2003 Assembly was either in suspension or in transitional form without legislative powers focusing on the principles and arrangements for restoring devolution. Without a functioning Assembly it was difficult to test the commitment of MLAs who had signed up to the manifesto. The women’s manifesto for the 2007 Assembly elections repeated the same areas. By the 2011 election momentum was growing with fourteen organisa­ tions adding their logos to that manifesto; many of the signatories to

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the 2011 manifesto, including the Women’s Ad-Hoc Policy Group which operates as a policy arena for the women’s sector, have significant member­ ship networks. The 2011 women’s manifesto encompassed the economy, education, childcare, violence, reproductive health, the women’s sector, participation in decision-making and equality stan­dards. Its launch drew a large audience to hear speakers from the women’s sector and candidates representing each political party. The manifesto’s participation agenda included the following demands (Women’s Ad-Hoc Policy Group, 2011): • action by political parties to select women candidates, starting with a 40 per cent target; • the Northern Ireland Executive to appoint women equally with men as chairs and members of public bodies; • parties to work with Women in Local Councils to deliver gender action plans, with targets and timetables; • politicians to engage with the women’s sector and appoint women to community planning and other social and economic committees estab­lished by government or local councils.

The women’s sector also pressed the international frameworks into service. NIWEP highlighted the state’s responsibility for advancing women’s participation in decision-making, at events in 2004 and 2007 involving politicians and policy-makers that considered United Nations Security Council Resolution (UNSCR) 1325 on women, peace and security and in submissions to the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women. DemocraShe worked with the Irish Depart­ment of Foreign Affairs’ Conflict Resolution Unit on an international cross-learning project which kicked off in Belfast in 2009 in which MLAs, councillors and women activists, and their counter­ parts from Timor-Leste and Liberia, shared experiences and lessons on women’s leadership in transition from conflict and in rebuilding a post-conflict society. The feminist organisation Hanna’s House examined UNSCR 1325 in Cork the same year. In 2010 WiLC held a meeting for Northern Ireland participants in the 2009 cross-learning event to discuss strategies for increasing women’s participation in local government and the Assembly. This was followed by a joint meeting of several councils in Dungannon in early 2011, at which DemocraShe and NIWEP introduced the European Union and United Nations frameworks for gender equality and explored how these should be applied to the local government reform process with regard to decision-making structures, key positions in councils, council constitutions and codes of conduct, representation on partnership bodies and community planning. Between the women’s manifestos of 2007 and 2011, the women’s sector developed a more sustained relationship with MLAs in the Assembly through a lobbyist employed by the Women’s Resource and

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Development Agency (WRDA). The lobby activities included monitoring Assembly business, producing an e-bulletin to brief MLAs and ministers on matters affecting the women’s sector, circulating updates on Assembly developments to the women’s sector and holding a twice-yearly Gender Agenda forum connecting MLAs with women’s organisations to discuss topical policy issues. By the end of 2010, an All-Party Group on UNSCR 1325 had been established with NIWEP acting as the secretariat. Alongside these initiatives were several years of participation by the sector in the Gender Advisory Panel of the Office of the First Minister and deputy First Minister and presentations to Assembly committees.

The Assembly The election to the first Northern Ireland Assembly followed within months of the GFA. Fourteen women were elected among the 108 members, just 13 per cent of the total (table 7.1). Of the larger parties, two had only one woman each; nationalist parties ‘led’ the field, with more than half of the female MLAs between them. The next election, in November 2003, brought a change in the balance of power. 3 The Women’s Coalition lost both its seats but, unexpectedly, eighteen women were elected. Again, the nationalist parties provided the majority, twelve women to the unionists’ four (the other two were Alliance), the primary reason for the increase being Sinn Féin’s refusal to sanction all-male candidate lists from its constituency branches.4 The 2007 election returned eighteen women once more, with the UUP sending no women to the Assembly for the first time. Women’s oppor­ tunities worsened considerably during that Assembly, with their share of MLA positions cut from 16.7 per cent to 13.9 per cent. Between 2007 and 2010 there were fourteen co-options to replace MLAs who had resigned or died, including to three seats previously held by women. None involved a by-election. In some cases, replacement MLAs did not even go through a constituency party selection, but where there were selection contests several involved strong female candidates. The parties alone decided in every one of the fourteen instances that a man should fill the vacancy. These new men, twelve appointed in 2010, had the additional benefit of the opportunity to develop a profile for the 2011 election. The result of the Assembly election of 2011 was a surprise. Fewer women had been expected to be returned than in 2007, as there were fewer female candidates. Women comprised just 17.9 per cent of the 3 The 2003 Assembly election was postponed from May until November. The DUP became the largest party on the unionist side and Sinn Féin on the nationalist. Previously it had been the UUP and the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP). 4 In the end, Sinn Féin had an all-male candidate list only in East Tyrone.

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Table 7.1. Number and percentage of seats won by women in Assembly and council elections, 1998–2011 Assembly 1998a Assembly 2003b Assembly 2007c Assembly 2011

Council 2011

Seats %

Seats %

Seats %

Seats %

Seats %

Sinn Féin SDLP DUP UUP Alliance NIWC PUP/ Independent d TUV Greens Indendent/others

 5  3  1  2  1  2  0

 28  12.5   5   7  16.7 100   0

 7  5  2  2  2  –  0

29 28  6.7  7 33  –  0

 8  4  3  0  2  –  1

 29  25   8   0  29  – 100

 8  3  5  2  2  –  –

28 21 13 12 25 – –

38 23 37 17 19  –  0

27 26 21 17 43  –  0

 –  –  0

 –  –  0

 –  –  0

 –  –  0

 –  0  0

 –   0   0

 –  0  0

 0  0  0

 1  0  2

17  0  7

Total

14

13

18

16.7

18

 16.7

20

18.5

137

23.5

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a

The SDLP’s Annie Courtney replaced John Hume in December 2000; in April 2003 she resigned from the SDLP and sat as an Independent. The UUP suspended Pauline Armitage, who sat as an Independent Unionist from November 2001.

b The UUP’s Arlene Foster and Norah Beare defected to the DUP in January 2004. Sinn Féin’s Raymond McCartney replaced Mary Nelis in July 2004. In January 2007 Sinn Féin’s Geraldine Dougan became an Independent, the SDLP’s Patricia Lewsley was replaced by Marietta Farrell and Dawn Purvis, PUP, replaced David Irvine. c

The number of women was reduced to 15 (13.9%) during the 2007 Assembly. Men replaced Carmel Hanna (SDLP), Naomi Long (Alliance) and Iris Robinson (DUP) in 2010. No women were co-opted into any of the fourteen vacancies during the 2007 Assembly. Dawn Purvis resigned from the PUP in 2010 and sat as an Independent.

d

Dawn Purvis, elected a PUP MLA, became an Independent.

Source: Information compiled by the author from: www.niassembly.gov.uk; www.cain.ulst.ac.uk/issues/politics/assembly; www.bbc. co.uk/news/special/election2011/constituency/html/northern_ireland.stm; www.u.tv/election2011/default.aspx; and the Irish Times, ‘Assembly election 2011’, 9 May 2011 (websites last accessed January 2012).

c­ andidates, but topped the poll in almost a quarter of the constituencies and took 18.5 per cent of the Assembly seats. Twenty women were returned, the highest number to date. However, it was not a significant advance; women’s share of Assembly seats (and of council seats in a local government election held on the same day) increased by just 2 per cent over the previous election. Sinn Féin returned the most women, in both numerical and percentage terms, but made no advance on its 2007 position, when it similarly had eight women elected. The DUP gained two women, while the UUP reversed its nil result in 2007 with two female MLAs. Eight of the twenty were new. The Northern Ireland results were worse for women than elsewhere in the UK. The 2010 general election saw 143 women returned as Westminster MPs to make up 22 per cent of the House of Commons; of the eighteen Northern Ireland MPs, four are women (22 per cent). The 2011

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Scottish election resulted in a slight increase in women Members of the Scottish Parliament over the 2007 election: 35 per cent compared with 33 per cent, although the increase of two, from forty-three to forty-five, did not make up the ground lost since the first two Scottish Parliaments, of 1999 and 2003, with 37 per cent and 39 per cent women respectively (Burgess, 2011). Wales set the standard for gender-balanced representation in Britain and Ireland with female Members elected to 40 per cent of the places in the Welsh Assembly from the outset. A perfect fifty–fifty balance was reached in Wales after the 2003 election, but even here women’s representation slipped to 47 per cent in 2007 and to 42 per cent in 2011 (Burgess, 2011). Catriona Burgess noted that the UK is ranked forty-eighth out of 187 in the Inter-Parliamentary Union world ranking of women and parliaments. The Union does not analyse devolved adminis­ trations but, if it did, Wales and Scotland would be ranked eighth and seventeenth respectively, while Northern Ireland would be sixty-second. Ireland’s record on women in political office is worse than that of Northern Ireland. Reaching its highest percentage in 2011, women comprise just 15 per cent of Teachtaí Dála (TDs) in the Dáil (Centre for the Advancement of Women in Politics, 2011). In local government they hover around a maximum of 16–17 per cent of councillors (Bacik, 2011a). However, the number of women in elected office may leapfrog the number in Northern Ireland in coming years. The government published draft legislation in 2011 that will require political parties to meet a 30 per cent target for women candidates in the next general election, and 40 per cent in seven years, or face losing half their state funding (Irish Govern­ment News Service, 2011; see also chapter 9). The provision will not apply to local elections, although Minister Hogan intended there to be a knock-on effect at local elections (RTÉ News, 2011b; see also Oireachtas, 2011). Positive action measures by political parties have been successful in the UK where the Sex Discrimination (Election Candidates) Act 2002 permits parties to take action, including regulating the selection of candidates, for the purpose of reducing inequality in the numbers of men and women elected to the Westminster and European Parliaments, the Northern Ireland Assembly and local councils. However, there is strong resistance to its use within Northern Ireland, despite the compelling argument that, as religious/political/community balance in governance is protected by law, there is no reason why legislation for gender equality in governance should not be embraced as well.

Taking political responsibility for making change In research conducted in 2000 almost half of female MLAs believed their parties were committed to equal opportunities, but just four had been assisted by adoption of positive action, although seven (50 per cent)

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supported such measures (Ward, 2000). The Assembly first debated women’s participation in May 2007, when it passed a resolution expressing concern about the under-representation of women in the Assembly and calling on all parties to commit themselves to addressing the situation. Challenges were identified: the need to demonstrate that politics works, gender stereotyping, caring responsibilities, few female role models, ‘the aggressive nature of politics, the misogynistic attitudes of some male politicians, the long hours involved and women’s lack of selfbelief’ (Official Report of the Northern Ireland Assembly, 2007). DUP MLA Arlene Foster commented that many women take a backseat because they feel they do not have all of the necessary skills but ‘[t]hat does not seem to prevent our male colleagues’. Devolution was seen as an opportunity for new blood in political activism by some in the debate. Parties were called on to address lingering prejudices, provide encouragement, training and support, nominate sufficient women candidates in winnable seats and look for women in succession planning. Some proposed tackling double- and treble-jobbing and targeting the 2011 local govern­ ment election to launch new female political careers. There was contention over positive action measures, with DUP MLA Michelle McIlveen, a keen supporter of the WiLC initiative, opposing quotas as ‘an insult to my gender’ and wishing ‘to be judged on my abilities and not on my gender’ (ibid.). The quotas versus merit argument continued, with the UUP arguing for merit on the grounds of equality of opportunity and Alliance opposing ‘so-called positive discrimination’ in favour of ‘many things that stop well short of engineering equality of outcome [that] can, and should, be done to create equality of oppor­ tunity’ (ibid.). Some were even concerned that a focus on family-friendly hours in councils might exclude those with careers (ibid.). The resolution was stripped of its potency when its action points – an all-party working group and comprehensive Executive strategy – were opposed by fortyfour votes to forty-three on a unionist/nationalist split; the unionist exception was Dawn Purvis, who was in favour of decisive action and agreed that quotas were important in tackling structural difficulties. A bland noting of an existing commitment to gender equality and a statement that ‘individuals should obtain positions on merit’ replaced the more decisive steps as the outcome (ibid.). The parties had a four-year window to tackle under-representation in a strategic and sustained manner before the 2011 elections, and much could have been done under the Sex Discrimination (Election Candidates) Act 2002. As noted earlier, there was little change in the Assembly or local government in 2011, with the proportion of women increasing by just 2 percentage points in both. At the current rate of progress it would take sixteen election cycles, about sixty-five years, for women to become 50 per cent of MLAs, and thirteen elections, spanning fifty-two years, to reach gender balance in councils.

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Some parties resisted further attempts during the 2007 Assembly to free up electoral positions for new participants, extend political power beyond a limited number of people and avoid conflicts of interest arising from being both an MLA and a councillor. Dawn Purvis championed a private member’s Local Government (Disqualification) (Amendment) Bill to outlaw dual council/Assembly mandates, with cross-community support from Sinn Féin, the UUP and the SDLP, which passed its second stage in the Assembly on International Women’s Day 2010. Purvis noted that Northern Ireland had the worst dual mandate record in the UK, with sixty-seven MLAs (62 per cent) holding council and Assembly mandates. Of these, fifty-five (88 per cent) were men. Ending dual mandates would, she noted, create an opportunity for all parties to bring women into decision-making positions (Official Report, 2010). That parties could take steps to achieve gender balance if they wished was borne out by Alliance MLA Stephen Farry, who identified his preferred successor when he stepped down from the Assembly. His ‘personal choice’ of a particular man was ‘based on [his] own assessment of what is in the best interests of [his] party and [his] electorate’ (Official Report, 2011). The DUP’s Peter Weir admitted to parties, including his own, being guilty of filling every co-option vacancy with men (ibid.). The DUP and Alliance opposed the dual mandate legislation from the outset. Unable to secure support to amend it, the DUP killed the Bill by triggering a special voting mechanism designed to safeguard the terms of the GFA and prevent the representatives of either community riding roughshod over those of the other. Other parties regarded the DUP action as a misuse of the safeguard and an abuse of power by the largest party to defend its own narrow party interests when it did not have the votes to defeat it ‘properly or honourably’ (ibid., quoting Dawn Purvis). Dual, triple and even quadruple mandates are common in Northern Ireland, especially in the DUP as Dawn Purvis noted during the debate (ibid.). This meant that considerable attention was given to the question of conflict of interest during the debate on the final stage of the Bill (which was, in the end, defeated) because many of those who opposed the Bill held dual mandates. Slow voluntary progress towards ending dual mandates has been made – the DUP recently ended twenty-five dual mandates and said it would phase out dual mandates completely by 2014 (ibid., quoting Alastair Ross, DUP) – but the Local Government (Disqualification) (Amendment) Bill was proposed ‘to create a firm deadline for parties to work to, make the change irreversible as well as set an important, permanent standard and principle for democracy’ (Official Report, 2010, quoting Dawn Purvis). The UK Committee on Standards in Public Life had reported in 2009 that double-jobbing was ‘unusually ingrained in the political culture of Northern Ireland’ (Official Report, 2011, quoting Dawn Purvis) when that Committee recommended that the government ban multiple mandates in Westminster

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and the devolved Assemblies as of 2011. More than 140 organisations and individuals who responded to the Northern Ireland consultation on dual mandates favoured an end to the practice. The women’s sector, through the magazine Gender Focus, urged MLAs to ‘support the passage of this Bill and use the ensuing opportunity within their political parties to redress the chronic gender imbalance in political decision-making in Northern Ireland’ (WRDA, 2010).

Making progress After the 2011 Assembly election, women comprised almost one-third of new MLAs – eight women compared with seventeen men. The DUP did best for new women MLAs, with 50 per cent of its six new members being women; the UUP achieved one-third, the SDLP one-quarter and Sinn Féin one-fifth. Sinn Féin, of course, has the highest number of women in the Assembly of any party, while the percentage for the Alliance Party declined from almost 30 per cent before the 2011 election to 25 per cent on its gaining an additional seat. Alliance did well in local government, with 43 per cent of its councillors being women. Progress can be detected in the appointment of women to senior ­positions once elected. In the ministerial carve-up in the first Assembly,5 neither of the unionist parties appointed a female minister while the SDLP and Sinn Féin each allocated a portfolio to a woman in 1999: Agri­culture and Rural Development to Bríd Rodgers, and Health, Social Services and Public Safety to Bairbre de Brún. The two women ministers served alongside ten other ministers in the Northern Ireland Executive; there were also two junior ministers, neither of them women. A second SDLP woman, Carmel Hanna, was appointed Minister for Employment and Learning at the end of 2001. The SDLP Minister for Agriculture and Rural Development, Bríd Rodgers, told the organisation Women into Politics, ‘When they were giving out the ministerial portfolios at the Assembly, the two women were given the two that nobody else wanted’ (cited in Ward, 2000). No woman was given the position of chair of an Assembly committee – three held deputy-chair positions – and women later blamed the combination of gender stereotypes and their lack of influence over allocation of posts for their being clustered within several committees, especially Health, Social Services and Public Safety (Cowell-Myers, 2003: 9). Four women were appointed ministers among an Executive team of twelve ministers and two junior ministers following the 2007 election. Sinn Féin appointed Michelle Gildernew and Catriona Ruane to the posts 5 This was on the d’Hondt system, where parties select a ministry in turn according to party strength.

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of Agriculture and Rural Development and Education respectively. The DUP’s Arlene Foster served as Minister for the Environment for a year before becoming Minister for Industry, Trade and Investment. Margaret Ritchie of the SDLP was Minister for Social Development for most of the period, later handing over to a male colleague on securing the leadership of her party. Arlene Foster had the distinction of serving as acting First Minister for several weeks following private and financial allegations surrounding First Minister Peter Robinson’s wife Iris, who was an MP, MLA and councillor. Women retained their share of ministerial posts in 2011, although, of the four they filled this time, Martina Anderson held that of junior minister in the Office of the First Minister and deputy First Minister. The other three women appointed were Arlene Foster once again to Industry, Trade and Investment, Michelle O’Neill to Agriculture and Rural Development and Carál Ní Chuilín to Culture, Arts and Leisure. Sinn Féin appointed three, a record for any party. This time, women were appointed to more leadership positions in Assembly committees than previously: four committee chairs and one deputy-chair, with Sinn Féin nominating two and the DUP, SDLP and Alliance one each. The UUP’s two new female MLAs were not expected to hold key positions.

Political culture and working practice In assessing the gender deficit, female MLAs in the 1998 Assembly cited male culture and attitudes as obstacles to their participation. Specifically, unionist men were said to comment on women’s clothes or hair while they were speaking and women found it hard to speak over their abuse. Margaret Ward (2000) suggested that the public was not aware of the hostility because the content of the interruptions was not fully recorded in the Official Report of the Assembly. She quoted a female MLA’s wish for ‘male unionists to be sent on a course of good manners, respect and basic decency’ (2000). Ward (2000) picked up on the ambience that surrounds the Assembly and adds to its maleness: ‘the gauntlet of male security guards’ with few women in that role; and the Parliament Building’s remoteness (one mile from the nearest road with regular public transport). The Assembly has no crèche or after-school facilities but a small weekly childcare allowance of £15 was introduced early in the first Assembly for MLAs and Secretariat staff and the upper age limit was extended to fourteen years in April 2002. The Assembly’s family-friendly hours of finishing by 6.00 or 7.00 p.m. are encroached upon frequently. Jane Morrice of the Women’s Coalition challenged the suspension of standing orders, which were suspended so that members could debate later into the evening on several occasions, as ‘setting a precedent that is totally improper’

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(cited in Ward, 2000). She suggested starting earlier in the day instead; however, some did not think family-friendly hours should be a consideration for the Assembly. A conference in Hillsborough Castle in 2006 hosted by the Secretary of State demonstrated agreement among female MLAs and councillors from all parties that the political culture was a significant obstacle (­Secretary of State, 2006). DUP MLA Arlene Foster put women’s reluctance in coming forward down to Northern Ireland’s small ‘c’ conservatism and violent history, combined with the aggressive and adversarial behaviour of male politicians. Former UUP MLA Joan Carson talked about being ignored and insulted in her early days as a councillor while long-standing SDLP councillor Kate Lagan recalled her loneliness as the sole woman in a council chamber where bullying and ridicule were commonplace and women needed to be able to cope with very personal attacks. A Sinn Féin councillor raised the hostility and verbal attacks which ‘knocked [her] back at first’. Many women associated with Joan Carson’s statement, ‘If I ever proposed a motion in the council, nobody listened and I could not get it seconded. However, a minute later a man would pop up with exactly the same issue, and it would be seconded and away it would go.’ Kate Lagan raised the need for a drive to set higher standards of behaviour and tackle the long-meetings culture, otherwise it was ‘just not possible to make good decisions’ (ibid.). The outrageous sexism the Women’s Coalition faced during its time was still evident in 2007, a year after the party’s dissolution, when it was reported in the Assembly that a member of the Business Committee had remarked that a woman’s place was in the kitchen. The following year the DUP’s Sammy Wilson aimed the jibe ‘Sometimes it’s hard to be a woman…’ at the Minister for Social Development in an Assembly debate on the budget, as Margaret Ritchie was required to support the budget under the Ministerial Code while her party voted against (Official Report, 2008b). Political culture is one of the reasons why women are under-­ represented in political life. It is one of a number of obstacles that women face on entry to politics, known as the five ‘C’s – culture, childcare, cash, confidence and candidate selection. Senator Ivana Bacik commented about Ireland’s Dáil in July 2011 that ‘the sexist culture that persists is the hardest obstacle to address’ (Bacik, 2011b). A seasoned observer in a body that regularly monitors the Northern Ireland Assembly suggested in early 2008 that things had improved, with a few more women in senior positions and some parties allocating frontrow seats to women in the Assembly.6 However, he witnessed ­unwelcome 6 Personal communication to author.

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asides by male MLAs about female MLAs and observed women adopting the male model of barracking and finger-pointing at opponents. One MLA’s experience on committees and other bodies was that ‘softer’ topics, like children’s issues and disability, were ‘women-heavy’ while Finance and Personnel, Public Accounts and the Business Trust were like an ‘old boys’ get-together’. She understood that women found it intimidating walking into a room full of men and being the only woman but did not doubt that ‘just by being in the room [she was] challenging some of the culture and behaviour that exists in politics’.7 She also ­described how she was very conscious of her gender in the Assembly and disappointed that the Executive’s Programme for Govern­ment evidenced ‘real women blindness’. Female MLAs have suggested more support and involvement for women in decision-making, job-sharing for male and female elected representatives, greater effort on gender balancing and a think-tank on women’s affairs (Ward, 2000). Despite agreement on challenges and solutions, it has been difficult to turn common ground into effective collaboration in the Assembly due to the legacy of the conflict. DUP women refused to work with Sinn Féin women and efforts to develop a cross-party women’s group in the first Assembly never led to the fourteen female MLAs working together. Patricia Lewsley of the SDLP and Eileen Bell of Alliance tried to involve women from all parties in less formal ways whenever opportunities presented, but this did not yield results either.8 At the same time, evidence from Stratagem and ComRes suggests that women across all parties continue to identify different priorities to their male colleagues. In ranking policy areas for their importance, men placed the economy first while women gave their number one to a shared future, the purpose of which is to contribute to building a stable, peaceful and integrated society with good inter-community relations (Stratagem and ComRes, 2008: 13).

Moving forward Political attitudes and behaviour grounded in the conflict make policy dialogue between those inside and outside the Assembly and local govern­ment extremely difficult. Progress can be frustrated by having to act ultra-cautiously in case of accusations of being sectarian or partisan. In the past, it has meant holding back on a campaign, avoiding support from an individual MLA or turning down support from parties on one side of the community until the other side engages. 7 Dawn Purvis, in correspondence with the author, February 2008. 8 Conversation with the author.

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Relationships between politicians and the women’s sector have progressed since October 2007, when several activists were the focus of ‘very personal and entirely improper’ comments by the DUP in a debate on the Bill of Rights Forum, which caused the international chair of the Forum to write to the Speaker of the Assembly requesting a procedure to permit persons attacked under parliamentary privilege to make official responses to the criticism as a matter of basic human rights (Sidoti, 2007). Work across party lines and collaboration with women’s organisations has increased. When the Assembly’s All-Party Group on UNSCR 1325 was reconstituted after the 2011 election, it became genuinely all-party for the first time and appointed a DUP chair. In mid-2011 the WRDA’s launch of a substantive report on women (Hinds, 2011) was addressed by both the DUP and Sinn Féin junior ministers in the Office of the First Minister and deputy First Minister. Nevertheless, the establishment of a true women’s cross-party caucus is likely to be a challenge; however, its development would offer greater visibility, priority and concerted action on issues important to women. While interests, concerns or styles of representation do not differ significantly between female and male MLAs, it appears there are some key differences: female MLAs believe representing women is a more important part of their job than male MLAs do and are more willing to assert women’s rights and abilities (Cowell-Myers, 2003: 6). In areas where there was little difference, Kimberley Cowell-Myers suggested this was likely to be because of the ‘lack of a critical mass of women in the Assembly’, possibly leading women to feel constrained or reluctant to take on a unique role (Cowell-Myers, 2003:9 quoting also Kanter, 1977, and Thomas, 1991). Reaching that critical mass will be tougher in Northern Ireland than elsewhere in the UK and Ireland. In some parties there is strong resistance to positive action, rooted in how discrimination, equality and rights were played out in the conflict. Other parties have trumpeted their support for equality but none has used the protection given by the Sex Discrimination (Election Candidates) Act 2002 to drive change through its ranks. Better understanding of positive action and the range of tools that can be deployed is needed. For example, by removing dual mandates from all their elected representatives and filling the vacancies with women candidates, parties would make a leap towards achieving gender balance. A sign that things are changing is the progress of a female MLA from Northern Ireland’s small minority ethnic population. The Alliance Party won a seat in South Belfast for the first time in 2007 with Anna Lo, the first Hong Kong-born representative in a parliament in the UK or Ireland. She settled in Northern Ireland in the mid-1970s, offered English-language classes, became a social worker and later led the ­

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Chinese Welfare Association. The respect she garnered in her four years as an MLA saw her top the poll in the constituency in the Assembly election of 2011. Another first, though not one that resulted in electoral success, was the support team working for Dawn Purvis in the 2011 election. She confounded pundits to retain the PUP’s East Belfast seat in 2007 after the death of David Ervine, but resigned from the party less than a year before the 2011 election following a murder by loyalist paramilitaries associated with her party. People from all community backgrounds offered support, with women who had assisted the Women’s Coalition standing behind a unionist woman, without a thought for nationalist counter-balancing on the ticket, in recognition of her record of crosscommunity leadership and work for marginalised communities and the women’s sector.

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Part III. Cross-border dimensions of everyday economic and social life

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Chapter 8

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The impact of devolution on everyday life, 1999–2010: the case of cross-border commerce

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Eoin Magennis

Cross-border commerce has been the stuff of everyday life ever since the partition of Ireland back in 1921. Anecdotes about illegal commercial activity, or smuggling, have been common-place since that time, reflecting how the Irish border has been a negotiable barrier (Logue, 2000; Toibín, 1994). The everyday business of cross-border commerce – the connections, networks, trust-building and trust-­breaking – has been much less commented upon but is of critical importance to those involved in it. It has not always been easy for those engaged in cross-border business. Conor Brady (2005: 7) described much of the past century as a period when ‘a cold, denying silence descended upon the island of Ireland resulting in a process of fracture and fission across all spheres of public life’. The results of this back-to-back development are very graphically presented in the closure of eleven rail border crossings between 1923 and 1965 and the ‘border effect’ on access to hospitals (Jamison and Butler, 2007; Kennedy, 2000: ch. 5). There was a similar ‘border effect’ for cross-border trade and business. Partition took a concrete form when the Irish Free State erected customs posts on 1 April 1923. Tariffs were introduced on trade between the two jurisdictions on the island and continued until the Anglo-Irish Trade Agreement of 1965 (Kennedy, 1997). In the aftermath of this deal, trade between Ireland and Northern Ireland increased significantly. However, the legacy of a back-to-back development in industrial policy, combined with the outbreak of violence in Northern Ireland, meant that cross-border business appeared to be sub-optimal. Redoubled efforts since the 1990s, at first by individuals and then as a result of the Good Friday Agreement, in the area of cross-border trade and business cooperation have begun to address the ‘border effect’ and lift the ‘silence’ noted by Brady. The political developments which

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have culminated in the restoration of devolved government in Northern Ireland have helped to provide a positive backdrop that is contributing to the stability required to enable Northern Ireland and Ireland to make best use the island’s economic resources to mutual benefit and to respond more effectively to commonly faced global challenges (British– Irish Intergovernmental Conference, 2006). These challenges facing both parts of the island then intensified from 2007 as the sub-prime and banking crises spread to the wider economy. Despite this sharp downturn in the economy, the medium-term challenges are largely unchanged. Policy in both Ireland and Northern Ireland is driven by the desire to shift to what is known as an innovationoriented or ‘smart’ economy. Both economies on the island of Ireland also face increasing challenges from the global economic environment, in which rising costs, uncertainty in international financial and credit markets, falling house prices and environmental concerns are contributing to increased volatility. The strong performance of emerging economies, especially China and India, will intensify the competition for both new and existing markets. The challenges can be summed up as including the need to do the following: • • • • • • • • • • •

respond to globalisation; continue to grow employment; increase productivity; innovate and improve research and development capability; enable people to acquire and maintain skills; promote a culture of enterprise; provide a positive environment for business; remove barriers to mobility; build world-class infrastructure; achieve equality; promote the highest standards of environmental protection.

Not only are the challenges similar for businesses on both sides of the border but so too are the policy responses. These include improving educational attainments and skills, managing the shift to a knowledge-intensive services sector, increasing investment in research and development, and making the island of Ireland more attractive (in terms of infrastructure, environmental protection and general lifestyle choices) to inward investors, researchers and mobile workers. The common challenges and general policy responses offer both parts of the island the opportunity for cooperation in order to maximise the resources available to the two governments. This seems particularly important to the smaller of the two economies (Northern Ireland), given the extent to which policy levers are available to the devolved adminis­ tration. In focusing on markets and commerce in this chapter, I discuss

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the complex cross-border institutions designed to encourage cross-­ border economic activity, and the cross-border flows of economic actors in their roles as tourists, commuters and students. The final main section examines shoppers, whose activity has attracted a degree of controversy.

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Commerce and devolution

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The title of this chapter is concerned with the impact of devolution on everyday life through the prism of cross-border commerce. However, it might be useful to reverse the title somewhat and look at the impact commerce has had on devolution. Sir George Quigley (see chapter 1) summed up this impact well in May 2007: ‘Unless you achieve economic transformation, you can’t have a stable society’ (Portland Trust, 2007: v). Recent statistics covering Northern Ireland give a sense of the economic change that has accompanied the period of devolution. The story they tell is that Northern Ireland was the fastest-growing regional economy, in terms of gross value added (GVA), in the UK from 2002 and that GVA per head doubled between 1990 and 2005. Between 1998 and 2008 employment in Northern Ireland grew by 8.2 per cent, compared with 1.4 per cent in the UK as a whole. Until the downturn from 2007, unemployment rates were among the lowest in the UK, but this was then reversed, with the rate climbing to 8 per cent in 2011, in line with the UK average, although below the 14 per cent rate in Ireland. Even with the collapse in demand in recent years, manufacturing exports rose 25 per cent in the decade up to 2010, to over £5.05 billion. In the other direction, tourist visitors to Northern Ireland increased by 15 per cent after 1994 but then fell in 2010, to 1.7 million, with a spend of £340 million. However, the statistics do not tell the whole story about the Northern Ireland economy under devolution. A falling unemployment rate has been accompanied by a rising rate of economic inactivity – in 2008 it was the highest of any UK region, at 28.4 per cent. And good academic results need to be seen alongside the stubbornly high figure of sixteen-year-olds who leave school without any qualifications at all. Another element of the stability of Northern Ireland – the size of the public sector – has been a product of civil unrest and may act, in the short term, as a cushion against recession. However, the proportion of the workforce employed there (34 per cent, compared with the UK average of 20 per cent and 21 per cent for Ireland) is unsustainable in the longer run. Part of the normalisation of Northern Ireland has involved increased subventions from both the UK Treasury and the European Union (EU). The latter, through the PEACE programmes, INTERREG and more general Structural Fund assistance, will, by 2013, have provided slightly less than £4 billion to Northern Ireland since 1989, the vast majority of this since 1994. A much slower change in the growth of an enterprise

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culture or the transformation needed in the skills base means that the rebalancing of the Northern Ireland economy is still awaited.

Cross-border institutions: managing complexity

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The establishment of cross-border institutions

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The story of cross-border economic cooperation is linked to the creation of North–South implementation bodies in 1999 under Strand Two of the Good Friday Agreement. Their establishment has been discussed in the academic literature (Coakley et al., 2007) and by policy actors at various Institute for British–Irish Studies events, including former joint secretaries of the North–South Ministerial Council (NSMC). At one conference, Tim O’Connor, from the Irish side, and Peter Smyth, from the Northern Irish side, gave entertaining accounts of the complexities surrounding the establishment of the bodies and their operation between 2000 and 2005 (O’Connor, 2005; Smyth, 2005). The joint secretaries spelt out how lengthy negotiations were needed in 1997–98 to agree upon twelve areas for cross-border cooperation. Six of the twelve areas were to be dealt with under existing arrangements (such as environment or agriculture) and the other six by new implementation bodies (later agreed as: trade and business development; language, both Irish and Ulster-Scots; inland waterways, loughs and lights; EU programmes; and food safety promotion). The six bodies were later joined by a seventh for overseas tourism promotion, Tourism Ireland. It is important to remember that some of the areas for cooperation (particularly tourism, agriculture and waterways) had been discussed as long ago as the 1960s and 1970s (Kennedy and Magennis, 2007). In addition, the development of other areas, particularly trade and business, owes much to the work since 1991 of the Joint Business Council of the Irish Business and Employers Confederation (IBEC) and the Confederation of British Industry (CBI). At that time, two key figures in these two organisations, the aforementioned Sir George Quigley and Liam Connellan, began to speak publicly of an ‘island economy’. The first told the annual conference of the Confederation of Irish Industry (the predecessor of IBEC) in February 1992 that an island economy was something that everyone could share without threat to anyone, while the second pointed out to the same audience that a Dublin–Belfast economic corridor could be a key driver of a new island economy (Poole, 2003). Since its creation as one of the implementation bodies, Inter­ Trade­Ireland has sought to add some substance to the ‘island economy’ idea through its programmes and policy work. The new North–South implementation bodies, along with the devo­ lution of power to the Northern Ireland Assembly, were fastened by

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North–South Ministerial Council

Irish government

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InterTradeIreland

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Department of Enterprise, Trade and Investment

Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation

Figure 8.1. North–South institutional arrangements.

legislation – the British–Irish Agreement Act – which was passed on 2 December 1999 by Dáil Éireann and Westminster. The legislation spelt out the remit of the various bodies, their staff numbers and types of boards. InterTradeIreland’s remit was summarised as follows: it was to be a ‘Body to exchange information and co-ordinate work on trade, business development and related matters, in areas where the two administrations specifically agree it would be in their mutual interest’. In May 2005, Peter Smyth summed up the responsibility of those with executive functions devolved to them to work in the North–South area as one of ‘managing complexity’. Figure 8.1 shows some of what he meant. InterTradeIreland works to the NSMC and through it to the two governments and representative assemblies. As figure 8.1 also shows, the organisation has two sponsor departments, one in each jurisdiction, and its funding comes through their departmental votes, two-thirds from Dublin and one-third from Belfast. Other complexity comes in the form of audits for both audit systems, North/South pension schemes and other governance arrangements (for example, the need to meet two sets of rules on freedom of information). A further source of complexity comes from the relationships with various economic development agencies, North and South. On the whole, these relationships are positive but it remains necessary to avoid duplication of effort and to ensure the best use of scarce resources. One sign of InterTradeIreland’s success is that its area of work has now proved attractive to other bodies, such as InvestNI and Enterprise Ireland. The virtually non-existent bilateralism of the past has been replaced by joint innovation voucher schemes and joint trade missions, among other initia­t ives. Indeed, the threat of duplication is perhaps now more likely to come from the centre than from the cross-border bodies.

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InterTradeIreland: a quiet success story?

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Change in the cross-border business and economic relationship has been reflected in the way that InterTradeIreland does its business now. The body has moved from its political origins to being one that has an economic credibility in the eyes of business. The organisation has also sought to shift the focus of policy-making from an orientation that is either a single-jurisdiction one or limited to mere regional cross-border activity to one that has an all-island perspective. Finally, the work of the body has meant that there has been a shift in focus from cross-border trade, narrowly defined, to the wider issues of competitiveness and collaboration in areas such as innovation. That said, cross-border trade remains central to the work of Inter­ Trade­ Ireland, through its sales and marketing supports, through research into barriers and opportunities, and as the ‘first-stop shop’ for cross-border business (InterTradeIreland, 2009). However, much of the organisation’s activity and budget goes into the key policy areas for development agencies: science, technology and innovation, and business capability improvement. One key method of encouraging collaboration on an all-island basis has been the support of business networks. InterTradeIreland has been to the fore in the development of such networks since 2004. The organisation commissioned research into business networks (InterTradeIreland, 2005) and then organised a conference in January 2007 to develop a cross-border approach to knowledge exchange. The impact of this emphasis on collaboration can be seen in how networks have since become a tool to encourage business cooperation for all of the main economic development agencies on the island of Ireland (InterTradeIreland, 2011). In terms of its performance, InterTradeIreland can also be judged a success. The organisation has always aimed to offer real business value to companies that are involved either in accessing its research or in participating in its programmes. The following indicators cover the 2003–10 period and represent an eight-to-one return on investment: • 2,040 companies have participated on various InterTradeIreland pro­ grammes; • participation has created £932 million of actual and potential added value for companies involved in the programmes; • 308 companies have become first-time innovators; • 409 companies have become first-time exporters; • 357 companies have developed new products or processes; • 932 jobs have been created or protected for companies involved in the programmes.

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But away from a North–South institution such as InterTradeIreland, what about everyday life? This section, through various charts and accompany­ ing commentary, will show how cross-border linkages and flows – with a consequent impact on everyday experience – have increased since 1999. It also shows that there have been unanticipated consequences (such as in the mode of transport used to cross the border) and that there is more to be done to bring cross-border economic co­ opera­t ion home to individuals.

Business and economic cooperation

One of the most obvious indicators of cross-border business and economic cooperation is how much trade takes place between Ireland and Northern Ireland. The trends since 1995 can be seen in figure 8.2. The level of total cross-border trade in manufactured goods was 42 per cent higher in 2007 (€3.7 billion) than in 1999 (€2.6 billion) and more than double what it had been in 1995 (€1.6 billion). However, in the following two years, falling demand in the two markets on either side of the border produced a severe decline in levels of cross-border trade. In 2009,

Total North–South South–North

4,000 3,500 Value (€millions)

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Cross-border commerce and flows: more to do with respect to everyday life?

3,000 2,500 2,000 1,500 1,000 500

09 20

07 20

05 20

03 20

01 20

99 19

97 19

19

95

0

Year

Figure 8.2. Cross-border trade, 1995–2009. Source: www.intertradeireland.com/trade-statistics.

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cross-border trade stood at 1999 levels, with the most dramatic falls in goods related to the construction industry. That said, Ireland is now Northern Ireland’s most important export market (and the second most important external market after Great Britain). Ireland accounts for 9.5 per cent of Northern Ireland’s total sales and for over a quarter of Northern Ireland’s exports. The importance of Ireland for Northern Irish companies is even more marked for small firms, as it accounts for nearly three-quarters of their exports. Given the dominance of the North’s economy by small, family-owned firms, then one gets a picture of the potential for cross-border trade to affect everyday life for owner-managers and their staff. Food and drink remains the dominant sector and now accounts for almost half of all exports to Ireland. The same is not true of Ireland, where different industrial structures and export patterns mean that Northern Ireland accounts for less than 2 per cent of all exports. Figures for trade from South to North in 2010 show the first increase (of 4.81 per cent, to €1.045 billion) seen since 2006–07. As in trade from North to South, food and drink is the most important sector, accounting for 38 per cent of sales to Northern Ireland. Given the relative importance of the two markets to the different jurisdictions, it is probably not a surprise that Northern Ireland continued to run a balance-of-trade surplus with Ireland, something that began in the late 1990s, and North–South flows now account for almost two-thirds of cross-border trade. Yet there is more to do here. Research from InterTradeIreland, using a gravity model approach, reveals that, once important economic and geographic factors are taken into account, the level of trade between the two parts of the island is below that expected (InterTradeIreland, 2009). This finding applies to both total manufacturing trade and the trade for almost every sector in both the North–South and South–North directions. Perhaps more surprisingly, the research shows that the gap between the actual and the expected level of cross-border trade has been increasing since the 1990s. Subsequent to the first report, further research was undertaken to explore what the factors might be behind the gap between actual and expected levels of trade (InterTradeIreland, 2011). Two factors that did affect the overall findings from the gravity model proved to be the different sectoral structures of industry in Ireland and Northern Ireland and the impact of multinational companies on trade patterns. The fact that Ireland is dominated by four manufacturing sectors (chemicals, electrical equipment, paper and publishing, and food and drink) while Northern Ireland has no one dominant sector would be expected to reduce trade flows between North and South. Cross-border trade is also likely to be affected by the fact that the Ireland’s export-intensive industries are selling beyond the UK market to the wider EU and the rest

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of the world. Whatever the factors behind the lower than expected crossborder trade, the InterTradeIreland Business Monitor1 has regularly shown that around 70 per cent of firms across the island are still not engaged in any cross-border business or trade linkages. As one would expect, the numbers involved in cross-border business cooperation are higher in Northern Ireland than in Ireland and lack of awareness of the market opportunities continues to be a key factor in not engaging in this everyday activity. So, still more work to be done there.

Cross-border flows of people As tourism is one way of opening up the island to everyday movements across the border, it is useful to examine trends in this area. In 2007, visitors to the island of Ireland topped 9 million for the first time (7.8 million going South and 1.3 million North). By 2010, after several years of falling international travel and difficult times for the airline industry, this total was estimated to have fallen back to just below 7 million. This is near to the levels of 1999 (6.85 million), before Tourism Ireland was established. Despite the overall drop, however, Northern Ireland’s share of visitors to the island increased from around 15 per cent in 2001 to almost 19 per cent in 2009. The statistics for cross-border tourism (specifically, those resident on the island who crossed the border for a holiday) can be seen in figure 8.3. In 2007, over 900,000 residents of the island made a tourist trip across the border, reaching a level not seen since 2000. Despite the wider economic downturn, in 2009 this had risen to 1.09 million, possibly reflecting the increasing numbers of people no longer choosing to holiday overseas. One other factor has been the growing numbers going to Northern Ireland, a sign of a strong euro/sterling exchange rate (or weak pound) and the aggressive marketing in Ireland of places such as Belfast and Derry. Figures 8.4 and 8.5 show how people have chosen to travel across the border in recent years. One thing to note is that the car has increasingly become the dominant mode of transport. In spite of the free travel passes for senior citizens, eligible on buses and trains in both jurisdictions, public transport has probably been left behind in the improvement of the road networks crossing the border between Newry and Dundalk, Letterkenny and Derry and other less major routes in the central border region. The challenge now for the two companies running the Enterprise train service between Belfast and Dublin is to improve both the regularity of the service and the time in which it completes the journey. 1 An all-island quarterly survey of business sentiment that ascertains the views of 1,000 owners and managers (www.intertradeireland.com/researchandpublications).

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Going South Going North

Number of tourists

600,000 500,000 400,000 300,000 200,000 100,000 0 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 Year

Figure 8.3. Cross-border tourism statistics, 2000–09. Source: www.intertradeireland.com/trade-statistics.

25,000

Numbers of vehicles

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700,000

M1–N1 at Ravensdale

20,000

15,000

10,000

5000

0

N2 at Aughnacloy 2001

2002

2003

2004

2005

2006

2007

2008

Year

Figure 8.4. Cross-border daily traffic counts, 2001–08. Source: www.intertradeireland.com/trade-statistics.

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Millions of passengers

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2.5

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2.0 1.5 1.0 0.5 0.0 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 Year

Figure 8.5. Cross-border rail and bus passenger statistics, 1999–2009. Source: www.intertradeireland.com/trade-statistics.

In terms of those who regularly cross the border for work, the level of commuting is one of those Donald Rumsfeld ‘unknown unknowns’. In the year 2000 it was calculated at 13,000 people but this was almost certainly an underestimate as it did not include sub-contractors, particularly those in the construction trades. A decade later the lower levels of activity in the latter sector are certain to have reduced the numbers commuting. Nevertheless, some cross-border commuting does still exist. Some of it is local cross-border movement in the border region for work and it includes the smaller, but very important, numbers who drive or use public transport for a longer daily commute, often to Dublin, but also in the other direction, to centres like Derry, Newry and Belfast. The quality of transport is among the factors affecting labour mobility and a range of continuing barriers has been identified by Shuttleworth (2007). He draws particular attention to the capacity of exchange rate volatility – noted above as a factor in tourism – also to bedevil cross-border commuter flows. Other people whose cross-border movement is a part of everyday life include students. Figure 8.6 shows that the numbers who cross the border for higher education have remained low. Just over 1,000 students from Northern Ireland head south to study each year and around 4,000 go in the opposite direction. Clearly, financial assistance and choice of subjects are important for decisions about where to study but there may be other factors and further exploration of the trends is needed. One interesting point is that, while the numbers of undergraduates from Ireland going to Northern Ireland to study have fallen in recent years,

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5,000

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Number of students

South–North

4,000 3,500 3,000 2,500 2,000 1,500 1,000

North–South

500 0

20 00 /0 1 20 01 /0 2 20 02 /0 3 20 03 /0 4 20 04 / 20 05 05 /0 6 20 06 /0 7 20 07 /0 8 20 08 /0 9

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4,500

Year

Figure 8.6. Cross-border student flows, 2000/01–2008/09. Source: www.intertradeireland.com/trade-statistics.

the numbers of postgraduates have continued to go up (Pollak, 2011). The pressure on places in higher education in Ireland in a recession may be encouraging an upward trend; the numbers from the South applying to Queen’s University Belfast to begin undergraduate degrees in the academic year 2009–10 was 13 per cent higher than in the previous year (Keenan, 2009).

Cross-border shopping: a case of everyday life? One area where there is a strong impression of a cross-border market or commercial life working to its optimal level is that of shopping. Crossborder shopping is an issue that periodically (and temporarily) becomes a favourite topic for media interest and political oratory. In 2008–09 this happened again, with newspaper stories emerging that Enniskillen’s Asda store was the sixth top performing store in the global Wal-Mart chain and the then Irish Minister of Finance, Brian Lenihan, making the comment that ‘people should do their patriotic duty’ and shop locally rather than across the border. At the time, the response from the retail industry lobby groups, North and South, fed the story with one un­verified claim that every 150 cross-border trips cost one retail job in Ireland. However, in 2009 the Irish government began to try seriously to assess the impact on already shrinking tax returns and what it might be

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if the then current fashion among Irish consumers to shop in Northern Ireland were to continue. The first attempt to move beyond im­precise extrapolations from small sample-based surveys and anecdotal evidence from retailers came in February 2009, when the Office of the Revenue Com­missioners and the Central Statistics Office published a report entitled The Implications of Cross Border Shopping for the Irish ­Exchequer. The report highlighted the ‘significant difficulties associated with quanti­f y­ing the extent of cross border shopping and esti­mat­ing the impli­ cations for the Irish exchequer’ (Office of the Revenue Commissioners and Central ­Statistics Office, 2009: 2). The answer was to be a survey of cross-border shoppers which provides an insight into cross-border commercial flows and everyday life at its most mundane: shopping patterns.

What the statistics tell us

In December 2009, the Central Statistics Office published the results of its first survey on cross-border shopping, undertaken as the ­Quarterly National Household Survey (QNHS) for April–June 2009 (Central ­Statistics Office, 2009). This was then repeated for the same quarter in 2010 (Central Statistics Office, 2010). One member of almost 15,000 households answered, on behalf of the whole household, questions about travel to Northern Ireland in the previous twelve months and specific­ ally about shopping in Northern Ireland. The questions on shopping in Northern Ireland focused on how much households spent, the frequency of shopping trips and whether this had changed in the previous year. The survey also asked about intentions for shopping in Northern Ireland in the following year. As a result, a more informed view could be reached regarding cross-border shoppers travelling from Ireland into Northern Ireland. According to the QNHS, 16 per cent of Ireland’s households made at least one shopping trip to Northern Ireland in the twelve months before the second quarter of 2009, a figure which fell slightly, to 14 per cent, for the same quarter in 2010. In 2009 the highest proportion of households that shopped in Northern Ireland was, as might be expected, recorded in the Border region (41 per cent). There was then a gap to the next nearest regions: the Mid-East (22 per cent), Dublin (21 per cent), the Midlands (18 per cent) and the West (14 per cent). In 2010 there were two significant changes: the numbers of households in the Border region that shopped in the North rose (to 43 per cent), while those from Dublin fell sharply (to 15 per cent). Below a line from Wicklow to Galway the costs of travelling or lack of market knowledge became inhibitors, a pattern repeated in results from the Central Statistics Office’s Household Travel Survey on tourism traffic into Northern Ireland. In terms of whether or not there has been a sudden upsurge in cross-border shopping activity from Ireland to Northern Ireland, the

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QNHS tells us that in 2008–09 only one in ten households did more cross-border shopping than in previous years. Although there may not have been a sudden change over previous activity, there may now be a different pattern emerging, in which cross-border shopping is increasingly becoming part of everyday life. For the households that shopped in Northern Ireland in 2009, the average number of trips was over 6.7. In 2010 this rose significantly, to 8.6 trips (a figure equivalent to more than one for every household in Ireland). Much of this increase was driven by those living closest to the border. In 2009, of those households that shopped in Northern Ireland, those in the Border region travelled more than once a month (14.4 trips in the twelve months). In 2010 the number of trips rose to 20.2 – that is, approaching a fortnightly shop. When we look at the type of households increasingly crossing the border to shop, it is those with small children which stand out. The QNHS estimates that the total Irish household expenditure on shopping in Northern Ireland in the year between April 2009 and April 2010 was €418 million. This marks a slight fall, of €17 million, from the 2008–09 figure, although the statisticians note that it may lack significance. Estimated expenditure on shopping in 2009–10 was based on all trips to Northern Ireland; €311 million was spent during trips specifically for shopping and €107 million on those where shopping was not the main purpose but shopping expenditure was incurred. The highest total expenditure on shopping was recorded in the Border region (€240 million, well up on the 2008–09 figure of €181 million). In all other regions total expenditure had been falling, notably in the Dublin region, where it was down to €57 million, from €119 million in 2008–09. The QNHS goes on to provide some details on the everyday things which Irish households buy in Northern Ireland. These figures remained very stable over 2008–10. On their most recent trip in 2010, 77 per cent of households bought groceries (79 per cent in 2009), 44 per cent bought alcohol (same as 2009), 40 per cent bought clothing and durables (42 per cent in 2009), 25 per cent cosmetics (26 per cent in 2009) and 19 per cent ‘other’ (unchanged from 2009). There has been an idea that cheaper alcohol is the key reason for cross-border shopping but this is not supported by the figures for what people spend on different categories. Those questioned in 2010 said that, on their most recent trip, groceries accounted for 38 per cent of expenditure, clothing and durables (including television sets and furniture) for 28 per cent, ‘other’ for 18 per cent, alcohol for 12 per cent and cosmetics for 4 per cent. Again, there are regional and household variations in what people bought on their most recent cross-border shopping trips. The exception to this rule is the alcohol category, with all regions at and around the 12 per cent average. Significant variations include households in the Border region spending over 50 per cent on groceries, while Dublin and regions in the far South spent significantly above the average on clothing and durables.

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A single market?

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The first point about the QNHS is that it shows that cross-border shopping has increased but also that it remains a minority pursuit. In the first two years of this survey well over eight in ten households in the South (84 per cent and 86 per cent) did not shop in the North. Of those that did, one in three either did the same amount of shopping or less than in previous years. In the twelve months after the second quarter of 2009 only 7 per cent of households said they intended to cross the border regularly to shop and only 4 per cent made six or more such trips. So, while cross-border shopping is now an established part of life, it is not part of everyday life. Second, this shopping is a regular part of life for only some households in Ireland. Geography matters, with the attraction of cross-border shopping lessening with distance from the border. Curiosity may take some shoppers from Munster to Northern Ireland but this appears to be outweighed by the transport costs and time involved. The time point comes from a survey of 500 cross-border shoppers carried out in June 2009, which found that 87 per cent would not travel more than one hour to save a quarter on their grocery bill (Central Statistics Office, 2009). Indeed, the slightly higher proportions of cross-border shoppers in eastern counties may reflect the better road and public transport infrastructure serving that corridor into Northern Ireland. Also, given the amounts spent and on what by shoppers from the far South, it is hard to escape the conclusion that people travelled longer distances for ‘one-off’ purchases rather than for savings on food and drink. This ‘mental distance’ is also reflected in tourism patterns, where people from Munster rarely travel to the border counties, let alone Northern Ireland. There is, of course, the more rational cost–benefit issue: to compensate for the time and cost of travelling to the North from Munster, the expenditure must be high. Third, households in the Southern Border counties are critical to cross-border shopping, though even in this region a majority (59 per cent in 2009 and 57 per cent in 2010) remain ‘domestic in-shoppers’. More than one in ten shoppers from this region travel across the border more than once a month, making a cross-border trip a normal part of shopping patterns. However, this may have been the case long before the current trend. In 2009, shoppers in the Southern Border counties were almost equally split between those who had shopped more across the border in the previous twelve months compared with previous years and those who had done the same or less. In every other region, the split was more like two to one between those who had shopped more and those who had done the same or less. This supports the idea that the population of the border counties have a more established pattern of crossing the border and to some degree bordering counties on both sides act as a single retail market.

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Fourth, despite the anecdotal evidence and claims of interest groups, alcohol is not the primary expenditure category for southern shoppers. Although almost half of households bought some alcohol on their most recent shopping trip, it was not in the top three categories for expen­ diture. Indeed, as shown in recent research (Magennis et al., 2010), there is a close alignment of cross-border shopping patterns with what might be seen as domestic or local shopping. In that work, the authors looked at the private consumption basket used to compile Ireland’s consumer price index (CPI) and suggested that the bulk of cross-border shopping is straightforward substitute shopping, with people buying cheaper cross-border items in the same proportion as they normally buy them at home. Comparing the QNHS spending patterns with the CPI basket is not a perfect guide; however, when the CPI basket is adjusted and rescaled to exclude services, motor fuels and consumption of alcohol on licensed premises, the similarity between the two baskets is striking. This comparison, crude as it is with necessary caveats, suggests a number of things. Firstly, it dispels the myth that purchases of alcohol are the primary motivation for cross-border shopping. It also suggests that, notwithstanding occasional and often considerable once-off purchases, the basket for a typical cross-border shopping excursion is broadly similar to the average basket purchased by households in Ireland. Thus, the bulk of cross-border shopping is normal day-to-day shopping.

A shopping summary

The two sets of QNHS results offer the opportunity to bring a sense of proportion into the debate on cross-border shopping that was missing in the political arguments and media hype. While the QNHS showed in 2009 that one in ten households shopped more frequently in Northern Ireland than in 2008, the two sets of results also make clear that, outside the Southern Border region, there are only very modest levels of crossborder shopping. For all other regions in Ireland, the average numbers of shopping trips is less than or equal to one per year. Indeed, almost no cross-border shopping takes place in households in the Mid-West, SouthWest and South-East regions. The QNHS has also estimated that the total expenditure by southern households across the border was €435 million between 2008 and 2009 and €418 million in the succeeding twelve months. In 2008–09 such expenditure was estimated to have resulted in a loss to the Irish exchequer of approximately €45 million in VAT receipts and €25 million in excise duty. This amounted to less than 0.5 per cent of total Irish government VAT and excise revenue, and less than 3 per cent of total VAT receipts accrued from retail expenditure. Moreover, cross-border shopping is certainly not a new phenomenon. In 1988 a report from the Irish Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) estimated that cross-border shopping amounted to 2 per cent of

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‘national’ retail expenditure (FitzGerald et al., 1988). Using the QNHS figures and Ireland’s total household retail consumption for 2009 (€30.7 billion excluding alcohol), it is clear that cross-border shopping accounts for less than the 1988 proportion (1.4 per cent). This should be a reminder that a jurisdictional border is always associated with movements of goods, services and people (both legal and illegal), and that the balance often fluctuates, depending on economic issues such as tax, cost of living and currency movements, and on social and political developments, which can have impacts on different sectors of the economy. Spending by tourists undoubtedly benefits the South more than the North, at least in absolute terms. The purchasing of cars has been sensitive to both price and tax differences and currently favours northern sellers and southern buyers. Then there is the issue of fuel, which can be traded across the border both legally and illegally. The tax differences here have benefited southern retailers for most of the past decade, with an estimate in 2005 (by the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee at Westminster) that up to £20 million in UK excise duty was being lost to fuel purchases in the South, a figure that is not far removed from the excise duty lost to the Irish exchequer from cross-border shopping in 2010. The level of and interest in cross-border shopping indicate a new transparency and potential market-widening that should ultimately benefit the retail sector in both Ireland and Northern Ireland. Increased availability of information and the removal of barriers (to which the improved cross-border road infrastructure has contributed) stimulate market competition, which can ultimately lead to cost and price reductions. One sign of this is the short-term response whereby some supermarkets on the southern side of the border took steps in 2009 to reduce prices. The development by the Central Statistics Office of a survey on cross-border shopping brought a sense of perspective to the sometimes emotive subject of cross-border shopping. However, it also allows an insight into an activity, shopping, that is part of everyday life and what the ‘border effect’ is on this, especially in terms of the distance effect.

Conclusion Against the problematic short-term economic environment and intensely competitive medium- to long-term outlook, every source of advantage needs to be grasped if the opportunities on offer are to be exploited. Some of these opportunities are based upon evidence that the border is continuing to cause market failure and to reduce the efficiency of the delivery of public goods and services. North–South initiatives, carefully selected on the basis of tackling these border effects, can be an important source of competitive advantage. The initiatives have the potential to deliver mutual benefits to all parts of the island. The benefits include

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creating greater gains in trade and investment, the potential to promote wider economic benefits of knowledge transfer and perhaps delivering world-class sectors (say in renewables) via networks and clusters where North and South separately will find it hard to compete globally. Coopera­ tion can also continue to create opportunities through the reduction of market (or competition) failures, which are caused largely by imperfect flows of relevant business information. If we are looking for a current example of where better information is driving competition and ought to lead to better deals for the consumer, then we need look no further than cross-border shopping as a good case study. Beyond shopping, the opening of access to new or ‘missing’ markets, such as the €19 billion public procurement market or the wholesale and retail energy markets on the island, will also result in savings to consumers and taxpayers. Finally, and, given present circumstances, this is an important point, cross-border cooperation offers the opportunity to deliver more ­efficient and effective public services. Northern Ireland has certainly been a net recipient of assistance, for example in the delivery of the N1–M1 road link. However, there is an opportunity in these times of scarcer resources to create efficiencies by reducing duplication in the planning and delivery of health, education and training services. There have been numerous projects, assisted by EU funding, to find better ways of delivering public services on a cross-border basis (see also chapter 10) and the challenge now is to take the lessons learned to achieve better services with fewer resources. If this is achieved, then cross-border economic and business cooperation can continue to deliver mutual benefits in the difficult decade ahead.

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Chapter 9

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A common floor of rights protection? The Belfast Agreement, ‘equivalence of rights’ and the North–South dimension Colm O’Cinneide

Ethnic, religious, gender, socio-economic and other forms of inequalities persist on both sides of the border and particularly affect everyday life in how they manifest themselves in the employment relationship. Comprehensive anti-discrimination legislation exists in both parts of the island, which is founded upon European Union equality legislation and enforced by equality commissions. However, significantly more ambitious legal and policy strategies have been developed in Northern Ireland to address inequality than have been implemented in Ireland. These strategies have had demonstrable success in helping to break down some of the structural patterns of embedded inequality that have disfigured life in Northern Ireland for generations. However, there appears to be little appetite south of the border to take similar steps to tackle inequality seriously. This difference is all the more notable given that the Belfast Agreement requires Ireland to provide an equivalent level of protection for human rights as applies in Northern Ireland, a requirement which would appear to cover the right to equality and non-discrimination. The significance of this requirement, as well as the manner in which it has been effectively sidelined in law and policy debates on both sides of the border since 1998, is striking: it testifies both to the potential of the North–South relationship to open new possibilities for transforming everyday life throughout the island of Ireland, and also to how this potential remains mired in neglect.

The embedded inequalities of everyday life Everyday life on both sides of the Irish border takes place against a backdrop of deeply embedded structural inequalities, which have been considerably amplified by the economic crisis of the late 2000s but

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were established long before then (Baker et al., 2004). For example, politics remains predominantly male dominated, to an extent that even surpasses most other European societies (see also chapter 7). Socioeconomic inequality appears to be hard-wired into the organisation of society throughout the island, bringing in its wake the social corrosion that Wilkinson and Pickett (2009) have convincingly argued is associated with, indeed causally linked to, wide gaps in income and social capital. Persons with disabilities are confronted with multiple obstacles which make it difficult for them to participate as equals. Members of the Travelling community face ingrained discrimination in everyday life, while the newly arrived ethnic minority groups who have become part of society over the last few decades face considerable difficulties in entering the socio-economic and educational mainstream (Crowley, 2006; Meehan, 2006). These inequalities are particularly pronounced when it comes to employment and working life, an integral part of everyday life where individual lives become intertwined with and shaped by the texture and pattern of social inequalities. The gender pay gap looms wide on both sides of the border. Women also continue to be relatively rare in senior management ranks while remaining predominantly represented in certain low-pay and low-status areas of employment. Other dis­ advantaged groups are subject to similar forms of structural inequalities in the workplace, as evidenced by the steady stream of discrimination cases that are dealt with by the employment tribunals in Northern Ireland and the equality tribunal in Ireland. These embedded inequalities are so much part of everyday life north and south of the border that they almost seem to be a natural part of daily existence. As a result, they often remain unchallenged or un­ examined. However, they play a major role in determining who thrives in the working environment and who does not, which in turn has a decisive impact on how financial resources, social capital, political power and ulti­mately life opportunities are shared out across society as a whole. Both Northern Ireland and Ireland are deeply unequal societies, a reality that often comes to the fore in the sphere of employment, and this inequality shapes and distorts ordinary life throughout the entire island.

North–South responses to inequality The Irish state post-1922 has always been committed to the idea that all its citizens are equal (O’Cinneide, 2010). This attachment to equality as a key value can be traced back to the wording of the Proclamation of Independence in 1916, with its promise to guarantee ‘religious and civil liberty, equal rights and equal opportunities to all its citizens’ and to cherish ‘all of the children of the nation equally’. It is also reflected in the

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sweeping rhetoric of article 40.1 of the Irish constitution, Bunreacht na hÉireann:

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All citizens shall, as human persons, be held equal before the law. This shall not be held to mean that the State shall not in its enactments have due regard to differences of capacity, physical and moral, and social function.

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In Northern Ireland, the text of the Belfast Agreement provided that the new constitutional arrangements emerging out of the peace process should be built upon respect for the principle of equality and nondiscrimination, which was defined in broad terms as extending beyond questions of ethno-religious division to encompass gender, socioeconomic status and other forms of social exclusion (Harvey, 2000). (See below for more detail on this.) Equality has thus been formally acknowledged to be one of the core values that are supposed to shape the emergence of post-conflict society north of the border, and is recognised as a fundamental constitutional right south of the border. In addition, both Ireland and the UK have committed themselves to respecting the right to equality and non-discrimination by ratifying various international human rights instruments, such as article 26 of the United Nations International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and article 2(2) of its International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. As a result, the existence of structural and deeply rooted inequalities should sit uncomfortably with the self-image of Irish society both north and south of the border. However, in reality, their existence is often viewed as inevitable, and perhaps even at times as desirable: Michael McDowell triggered an interesting controversy in June 2004 with his comment that ‘a dynamic liberal economy like ours demands flexibility and inequality in some respects to function’ (McDowell, 2004). The redistribution of wealth is very low on the political agenda on both sides of the border, and few political initiatives have been undertaken in recent years to combat the factors that help to generate these deeply rooted inequalities. In fact, considerable complacency exists about inequality, especially south of the border: Kirby has critiqued what he has described as a ‘self-serving version of history’ that denies historical and current patterns of exclusion in Irish society by instead celebrating uncritically its perceived integrity, unity and openness (Kirby, 2002). The picture is not all bleak. Comprehensive legislation exists in both parts of the island that prohibits discrimination on the grounds of gender, disability, race and ethnic origin, marital status, religion, age, sexual orientation or membership of the Travelling community. (In Northern Ireland, discrimination on the grounds of political opinion is also prohibited.) This legislation sets up a well defined legal framework that individuals can use to combat certain types of discrimination, such

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as harassment, victimisation or being subjected to less favourable treatment that is directly or indirectly linked to one of the prohibited grounds of discrimination. Much of this legislation now simply reflects the requirements of European law (Ellis, 2005). However, it was often ground-breaking and genuinely innovative when first introduced. For example, the two key statutory provisions in Ireland, the Employment Equality Act 1998 and the Equal Status Act 2000, were among the first examples of comprehensive anti-discrimination legislation in Europe, which covered the full range of grounds listed above (O’Cinneide, 2010). South of the border, the progressive nature of this legislation has often not been followed up by the adoption of sustained policy initiatives designed to combat inequality. In Ireland, promising anti-poverty initiatives such as the National Poverty Strategy have rarely been backed with real vigour, while anti-racist, gender equality and disability equality policies have suffered from a similar failure to match rhetorical commitment with the focused deployment of money, energy and political will (Crowley, 2006). If anything, the anti-discrimination legal framework established by the 1998 and 2000 Acts has been eroded in key respects. A constitutional amendment passed by referendum in 2004 restricted the rights of Irishborn children of foreign nationals. Furthermore, the Equality Authority, which had been established by the 1998 Act to act as an enforcement agency for the anti-discrimination legislation, fell under the shadow of political disapproval. With Niall Crowley as an able chief executive, the Authority carved out a considerable reputation for itself as a result of its willingness to campaign hard to promote equality and enforce the antidiscrimination legislation. However, in 2008, it was singled out and made subject to brutal cuts which amounted to 60 per cent or so of its operating budget, which has seriously impaired its effectiveness (O’Cinneide, 2010). The effect of these policies south of the border has been to limit protection against inequality and discrimination to that offered under the legislation. However, the 1998 and 2000 Acts do not prohibit classbased discrimination, which in any case is often hard and even perhaps impossible to combat using anti-discrimination legislation. Furthermore, anti-discrimination legislation by itself confers protection against only certain specific forms of unequal treatment, such as when an employer clearly differentiates between one individual and another on the grounds of their ethnicity or gender. Its impact on less overt, systematic or structural forms of discrimination is much more limited (Fredman, 2001). Many commentators have suggested that these embedded forms of inequality can be eroded only by the imposition of positive duties on employers and public sector bodies to take action to identify and change policies and practices which disadvantage under-represented groups, in line with equal opportunities best practice (Fredman, 2001). However, there has been little enthusiasm in Ireland for the adoption of such measures. In

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everyday life, the only protection against discrimination that exists are the limited, ‘negative’ provisions of the 1998 and 2000 Acts: there exist no ‘positive’ requirements to take active steps to transform the workplace and public sector services in an equality-friendly manner. The situation is interestingly different in Northern Ireland. The exist­ ence of segregation and widespread discrimination against Catholics in the workplace was identified at an early stage as constituting one of the causal factors underlying the violence of the ‘Troubles’. As a result, the UK government eventually decided to supplement negative prohibitions on religious and political discrimination with the introduction of positive measures designed to ensure that employers took active steps to promote equal opportunities for both major communities in Northern Ireland. The Fair Employment Act 1989 – subsequently revised and extended by the provisions of the Fair Employment and Treatment (Northern Ireland) Order 1998 (FETO) – imposed positive duties on employers with a workforce of ten employees or more to take active steps to ensure there was a fair proportion of Catholics and Protestants in their workplace. This was and remains a relatively far-reaching step to take. It is rare for similar measures to be adopted elsewhere in Europe. For the most part, the only equivalent measures are to be found in the employment equity measures in place for some years in Ontario in Canada, and the affirmative action requirements built into US federal and state public procurement requirements (see Agocs, 2002). Strong evidence exists that the FETO requirements have proved to be very effective in gradually breaking down patterns of systematic segregation and discrimination in the field of employment: the ‘employment gap’ between Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland has narrowed dramatically over the last few decades, and the FETO requirements seem to have played a not inconsequential role in bringing this result about (McCrudden et al., 2010). The FETO requirements have not been extended to cover other equality grounds. They remain viewed as a specific policy response to the particular problem of religious-based discrimination in Northern Ireland, even though the case has been made that similar requirements for positive action could be applied across the other equality grounds, and in particular in the areas of gender, race and disability (Fredman, 2001; O’Cinneide, 2003). However, the UK government undertook in the Belfast Agreement to impose a duty on public authorities in Northern Ireland to promote equality, and this commitment took concrete form in the shape of section 75 of the Northern Ireland Act 1998, which imposes a positive duty on public authorities to give due regard to the need to promote equality of opportunity across all the equality grounds covered by anti-discrimination law (McCrudden, 1998). This ‘positive equality duty’ requires public authorities to monitor the impact of their policies and practices and to adjust them if required to give effect to equality of

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opportunity. It represents an innovative attempt to make public authorities take active steps to engage with equality issues, and research into its impact has suggested that the duty has had some success in achieving this goal (Equality Commission for Northern Ireland, 2007; McLaughlin and Faris, 2004). Indeed, a similar equality duty has now been imposed on British public authorities by the Equality Act 2010. Furthermore, the Equality Commission for Northern Ireland, which performs a similar role to the Irish Equality Authority, remains relatively well resourced. Not everything is rosy north of the border. Anti-poverty strategies remain subject to the vagaries of political will and economic circumstances, while structural patterns of discrimination persist, just as they do south of the border, alongside overt prejudice directed against ethnic minorities and the lingering residue of sectarianism. Furthermore, positive equality duties such as those introduced under FETO and section 75 of the 1998 Act are by no means a panacea: their procedural focus means that they often lack the capacity to deliver substantive outcomes, and their requirements can often be easily satisfied by a ‘tick-box’ approach on the part of public bodies in particular (McLaughlin, 2007). However, the policy response adopted in Northern Ireland and the level of legal protection it affords against discrimination are arguably more advanced than is the case south of the border. The gap between aspiration and reality may be serious on both sides of the border, but in Northern Ireland there is evidence of serious engagement with the problem of inequality that is not so apparent in Ireland.

The neglected North–South dimension

These differences in approach might be expected to generate critical reflection on both sides of the border about how law and policy might better engage with the patterns of inequality and discrimination that distort everyday life throughout the island. However, despite much vacuous sermonising about common links, an underlying if often unspoken assump­t ion appears to exist on both sides of the border that Northern Ireland and Ireland are discrete, detached and separate societies. In particular, there appears to be little political interest in establishing North–South common standards in areas such as rights protection, good governance or non-discrimination. Formal cross-border links are viewed solely in instrumental terms and little enthusiasm appears to exist for attempting to frame normative standards which might apply throughout the island, or for making use of experience in one part of the island to address the problems faced by both. The lack of serious engagement with the North–South dimension is particularly notable given that the Belfast Agreement requires Ireland to provide an equivalent level of protection for human rights as applies in Northern Ireland, a requirement which appears to extend to cover

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the right to equality and non-discrimination. There is an irony here: this equivalence requirement is an aspect of the ‘high politics’ of the Agreement that has considerable potential to impact on everyday life, but it has effectively become a dead letter, a fact which illustrates the lack of seriousness with which the cross-border dimension to policy formation is treated.

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Equality as a ‘core value’ of the Belfast Agreement

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To understand how this equivalence requirement fits into the overall framework of the Belfast Agreement, and its potential implications for equality and non-discrimination law and policy, it is necessary to say a few things initially about the place allocated to human rights, and in particular to the right to equality and non-discrimination, within the scheme of values that underpins the specific provisions of the Agreement.1 The Belfast Agreement can be said to be explicitly founded upon a set of foundational general principles. These include: the recognition of ‘partnership, equality and mutual respect’ as the basis of relationships within Northern Ireland, throughout the entire island of Ireland and between Ireland and Britain; acceptance of the importance of ‘parity of esteem’ for both major communities; the commitment to peaceful means by all parties; and the recognition of the importance and necessity of cross-border and cross-community partnership. 2 Crucially, the text of the Agreement also requires the participants to commit themselves to the ‘protection and vindication of the human rights of all’ as another underpinning foundational principle. 3

1 A brief note on the formal legal structure of the Belfast Agreement may be helpful here. The Multi-Party Agreement (MPA) signed in Belfast in April 1998 is composed largely of three Strands: Strand One is concerned with internal political arrangements within Northern Ireland; Strand Two is concerned with bilateral relations between Ireland and Northern Ireland; and Strand Three concerns multilateral relationships between Northern Ireland, Ireland and the UK. The MPA is accompanied by an agreement between the governments of the UK and Ireland by which both affirm their commitment to the peace process and their willingness to ‘support, and where appropriate, to implement’ the MPA. This agreement, referred to as the ‘British–Irish Agreement’ (BIA), taken together with the MPA, comprises the full ‘Agreement’ in its entirety. The Agreement has subsequently been extended and supplemented by the St Andrews Agreement of October 2006, provisions of which were implemented via Westminster legislation in the form of the Northern Ireland (St Andrews Agreement) Act 2006. The references made here to the ‘Agreement’ are primarily to the MPA and its various sub-sections, including in particular the sub-section entitled ‘Rights, Safeguards and Equality of Opportunity’ but also the ‘Declaration of Support’ and ‘Constitutional Issues’, for example. 2 Multi-Party Agreement, ‘Declaration of Support’, paragraphs 2–5; ‘Constitutional Issues’, paragraph 1(i)–(vi). 3 Multi-Party Agreement, ‘Declaration of Support’, paragraphs 2 and 3; ‘Rights, Safeguards and Equality of Opportunity’, paragraph 1.

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Respect for human rights is therefore recognised to be a key principle within the scheme of values that parties to the Agreement have accepted (Harvey and Livingstone, 1999; Mageen and O’Brien, 1999). This in turn means that equality and non-discrimination should be understood as constituting a core value whose importance has been accepted by the parties to the Agreement. The right to equality and non-discrimination is an integral part of international and European human rights frameworks, and the Agreement clearly recognises that respect for this key right is encompassed in the commitments the parties make to uphold human rights in general (McCrudden, 2001). The importance of equality and non-discrimination as a core value is recognised in the reaffirmation by the UK and Irish governments of their commitment to ‘the principles of partnership, equality and mutual respect and to the protection of civil, political, social, economic and cultural rights in their respective jurisdictions’.4 It is also reflected in the general commitments made by the parties to respect ‘the right to equal opportunity in all social and economic activity, regardless of class, creed, disability, gender or ethnicity’ and ‘the right of women to full and equal political participation’. 5 The Agreement also recognises the importance of ‘equal worth in difference’ in culture, socio-economic position, ethnic and religious identity, sexuality, age and other facets of the interaction of individuals with society. Considerable emphasis is thus placed on the importance of equality as a key animating principle in the text of the Agreement. This reflects the reality that the history of segregation and discrimination in Northern Ireland means that any successful peace process will inevitably have to engage with the lack of equality that has and continues to burden the province. Harvey captured this idea well when he argued that ‘the existence of inequality has distorting effects … if there is a core value which underpins the Agreement, it is equality’ (Harvey, 2000: 81). Talking about equality at a high level of generality, as the Agreement does, leaves many issues unresolved. Equality is a notoriously openended concept, which must be fleshed out by an account of what types of discrimination and unequal treatment are acceptable and what types are not (Westen, 1985). However, Zappone (2001) has argued that the language and provisions of the Agreement reflect the acceptance of a distinctive, reasonably specific and multifaceted concept of equality, defined in substantive rather than formal terms, which is based upon an acknowledgement of the social inequalities that exist north and south of the border. She suggests that this concept of equality is based upon an agreed commitment to a number of core principles, such as the ‘equal 4 British-Irish Agreement, ‘Preamble’. 5 Multi-Party Agreement, ‘Rights, Safeguards and Equality of Opportunity’, paragraph 8.

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worth of different human beings’, the ‘recognition of social group differences’, ‘mutual respect’ directed towards altering social practices to make such respect real and tangible, ‘diverse political participation and representation’ and a sufficient emphasis on minimising the impact of economic inequalities. The commitment of the parties to giving at least partial effect to this tangible and substantive idea of equality is reflected in a number of concrete measures that the UK and Irish governments agreed to implement in the text of the Agreement. The UK government committed itself to introducing what is now the section 75 statutory duty to promote equality for public authorities, and also to establishing the Equality Commission for Northern Ireland. In its turn, the Irish government committed itself to introducing enhanced employment equality legislation and equal status legislation. The Irish government also committed itself to ‘continue to take further steps to demonstrate its respect for the different traditions in the island of Ireland’, by introducing measures to ‘further strengthen the protection of human rights in its jurisdiction’, which would ‘strengthen and underpin the constitutional protection of human rights’ by drawing upon the European Convention on Human Rights and other international human rights legal instruments to ensure ‘at least an equivalent level of protection of human rights as will pertain in Northern Ireland’.6 This ‘equivalence’ provision is highly significant. In tandem with the specific commitments also entered into by the Irish government to introduce enhanced equality legislation, it recognises that establishing a cross-border floor of rights protection may prove useful in establishing a firm and sustainable peace process. It also implicitly acknowledges that a failure to protect basic rights in either part of the island may have a destabilising effect on both societies, and that a serious engagement with human rights by both governments throughout the whole island is required to create the conditions for the worst elements of Ireland’s past to be left behind. Significantly, this equivalence requirement appears to cover the right to equality and non-discrimination along with other human rights. At no point does the text of the Agreement differentiate between equality and other rights and, as noted above, the parties to the Agreement have clearly committed themselves to taking action to combat inequality and discrimination as part of their general undertaking to respect basic rights. Therefore, the equivalence provision commits the Irish govern­ ment to provide a similar level of protection for the right to equality and non-discrimination as exists north of the border. 6 Multi-Party Agreement, ‘Rights, Safeguards and Equality of Opportunity’, paragraph 9.

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To summarise, the parties to the Belfast Agreement have committed themselves to respecting human rights as part of their contribution to the peace process. This undertaking applies with particular force when it comes to the right of individuals to equality and non-discrimination, which constitutes a core value of the Agreement and is recognised as having substantive content, that is, as being more than an empty commitment to treating individuals the same. Both the UK and the Irish governments agreed to implement specific measures to enhance protection against discrimination, which included the introduction of the section 75 public sector positive duty in Northern Ireland and the enactment of the ground-breaking employment equality and equal status legislation in Ireland. The Irish government also undertook to ensure that an equivalence of rights protection applies south of the border as exists north of the border. This commitment appears to mean that the Irish government should provide a similar level of protection for the right to equality and non-discrimination as exists north of the border.

The relevance of ‘equivalence’ and what the ­Agreement has to say about equality for everyday life At this point, the reader may be tempted to ask what relevance this discussion of the Agreement has for everyday life on the island of Ireland. All of the foregoing may seem to embody the ‘high politics’ and abstract rhetoric that have characterised much of the peace settlement and which is critiqued throughout this book. The answer to this question is that the provisions of the Belfast Agreement that relate to equality and non-discrimination have the potential, if taken seriously, to become important reference points in the struggle against inequality and social exclusion. The ‘vision’ of equality set out in the Agreement is substantive, broad and inclusive: it recognises that the peace process should be accompanied by the transformation of Irish society north and south of the border, and that sustained state action is required to tackle systemic and structural patterns of inequality. Furthermore, both the Irish and the UK governments, along with the key parties to the peace process, have committed themselves in the text of the Agreement to take equality seriously. From a legal perspective, the Agreement is not enforceable in a court of law: however, it is both a formal peace agreement and an international treaty agreed between the UK and Irish governments, and therefore its signatories are expected to respect and if possible to implement its provisions (O’Cinneide, 2005). This means that a strong argument can be made that the equality provisions of the Agreement, including the ‘equivalence’ requirement, should be taken into account on both sides of the border in devising policy and legislative responses to the deeply embedded structural

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forms of ­discrimination that continue to distort thousands of lives north and south of the border. The provisions of the Agreement constitute an opening or a point of vulnerability in the existing logic of the socio-­ political order, which activists pushing for social change can use to support their case for better and more sustained engagement with the problems of inequality and social exclusion. As a result, if taken seriously as a guide for action and a framework of values, the Agreement, despite its abstract language, has the potential to be used as a tool of transformation. Like international human rights law, it can serve as a point of comparison to call into question and challenge existing socio-economic and other forms of embedded inequality. However, as is the case again with international human rights law, much depends on whether governments are willing to take their obligations under the Agreement seriously. And here the news is not good. In particular, the potential of the equivalence requirement has been allowed to languish, with the result that the rhetoric of the Agreement has become disconnected from everyday politics and the fight against inequality.

What ‘equivalence’ would entail

To show how the equivalence requirement represents wasted potential, it is worthwhile sketching out in a little detail what an ‘equivalence’ approach in line with the text of the Agreement might entail. The equivalence clause in the Belfast Agreement is a clear and precise provision. It requires the Irish government to ‘level up’ rights protection such that it at least matches that which exists in Northern Ireland. This does not mean that the Irish government has to adopt exactly the same measures to protect rights as those introduced north of the border. Equivalent rights protection does not necessarily have to be interpreted as requiring the introduction of identical forms of rights protection, especially given the many contextual differences between North and South in many areas. However, achieving equivalence would appear to involve ensuring that a similar degree of effective protection for basic human rights (including the right to equality and non-discrimination) was in place on both sides of the border (O’Cinneide, 2005). If taken seriously, this arguably should have required the Irish government to assess what areas of rights protection in the South had to be enhanced to match that available in Northern Ireland. This exercise could have been particularly important in the context of equality, given that (as already discussed) protection against discrimination is better advanced in some ways in Northern Ireland than it is in Ireland. In particular, there is no equivalent south of the border of the section 75 positive equality duty imposed on public authorities in Northern Ireland and the FETO positive action requirements imposed on em­ ployers. Furthermore, disability discrimination legislation is stronger in

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Northern Ireland than in Ireland, partially as a result of an Irish Supreme Court decision in 1997 to the effect that employers and service pro­ viders could not be required to incur more than minimal costs in making reasonable accommodation for the specific needs of persons with dis­ abilities.7 In addition, until very recently, there was no equivalent south of the border of the legislation in Northern Ireland permitting civil partner­ships to be conducted between same-sex couples. A comprehensive equivalence analysis might have identified these gaps in rights protection. Furthermore, it could have opened the way for a broader debate in Ireland about what was required to transform its political and legal culture to better reflect its commitment to respect human rights and equality. It might even have helped to start a cross-border discussion about the possibility of developing all-Ireland policy strategies to address common patterns of embedded inequality and discrimination.

The neglect of ‘equivalence’

However, once articles 2 and 3 of the Irish constitution were amended by referendum in 1999 to remove the territorial claim to Northern Ireland, the Irish government was widely seen as having discharged its obligations under the Agreement. Little or no political pressure was exerted on it from either internal or external sources to give effect to the equivalence requirement. Furthermore, it appears as if no serious internal government discussions were even initiated on how to give effect to the equivalence requirement. There certainly was no public consultation on this issue. This neglect of the equivalence requirement may be rooted in the very narrow and limited legal interpretation of its provisions adopted by the Irish government. In a Dáil debate in 2004, Aengus Ó Snodaigh TD suggested that a positive equality duty similar to the section 75 equality duty in place in Northern Ireland should be imposed on public authorities south of the border, in order to give effect to the equivalence requirement. In response, Willie O’Dea, Minister of State at the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform, expressed the view that Ireland’s commitment to an equivalence of human rights protection to that applying in Northern Ireland did not extend to ensuring an equivalence of ‘equality provisions’.8 The minister thus appeared to suggest that the equivalence requirement did not extend to the equalising protection conferred by legislation or other measures in Northern Ireland. This could be interpreted in two

7 Supreme Court, in the decision of In the Matter of Article 26 of the Constitution of Ireland and in the Matter of the Employment Equality Bill [1997] 2 IR 321. 8 Dáil Éireann Reports, ‘Equality Bill 2004 (Seanad): report and final stages’, 1 July 2004, vol. 58, cols 1010–12.

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ways. The minister’s comment could be understood as meaning that the equivalence requirement did not apply to the right to equal treatment. However, this would appear to be inconsistent with the clear thrust and wording of the Agreement, which recognises the right to equality as an integral part of the full spectrum of human rights. As a result, the specific requirement to secure an equivalence of human rights has to be interpreted to include achieving an equivalence of equality rights. Equality and human rights cannot be disentangled. Alternatively, the minister could have intended to suggest that the equivalence requirement did not extend to specific equality rights introduced by legislation or other measures in Northern Ireland. This interpretation similarly appears to be inconsistent with the Agreement’s purpose and provisions. The equivalence requirement seems to clearly contemplate that additional measures must be introduced by the Irish government to further ‘strengthen and underpin’ the protection offered by the Irish constitution and the European Convention on Human Rights. Equality legislation pays a central role in ensuring rights are protected in practice. Therefore, it makes sense that achieving equivalence should include the introduction of equality legislation to cover any shortfalls in protection that exist. Therefore, the Irish government as of 2004 appears to have adopted an unduly narrow interpretation of the equivalence requirement, which has effectively deprived it of any substance. It has become in effect a dead letter, despite attempts by the Equality Authority to create a debate about what achieving equivalence might require. The Agreement still binds the Irish government, but there appears to be little appetite to treat its human rights provisions at large, and the equivalence requirement in particular, as having any substantive content. This represents a wasted opportunity. It also constitutes a turningaway from the possibilities of social transformation that remain latent in the text of the Agreement and the peace process as a whole. The equivalence requirement could have been an element of the ‘high politics’ of the Agreement that connected with everyday life: instead, it has been relegated to the realm of abstract rhetoric.

The neglect of the cross-border dimension

The neglect of the equivalence requirement also demonstrates the limited interest in learning from cross-border experience that appears to exist on both sides of the border. The different historical experiences of both parts of the island seem to have inoculated policy-makers against the possibility that serious lessons can be learnt from experience on the other side of the border. For example, the Irish government has shown little interest in considering whether to introduce for Irish public authorities a positive equality duty similar to the section 75 duty in Northern Ireland: in the

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Dáil debate discussed above, O’Dea indicated that his department would consider the matter, but no systematic analysis of the pros and cons of introducing such a duty seems ever to have been undertaken. This lack of interest in cross-border experience is not just confined to issues of equality and non-discrimination. The intense and drawn-out debate on whether a Bill of Rights should be introduced in Northern Ireland law generated remarkably little interest in Ireland. This is remarkable, given that the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission’s (2008) recommendations as to the content of such a Bill of Rights would recognise and give legal effect to a much wider range of rights than are protected under the Irish constitution. It also explains why the idea of a Charter of Rights for the island as a whole, to be discussed by the Human Rights Commissions of both Northern Ireland and Ireland, as required by the text of the Belfast Agreement, has attracted little enthusiasm or interest on either side of the border (Egan and Murray, 2007). Since Ireland was plunged into economic crisis in 2008, serious debates have taken place in the Irish media about the need for constitutional change. Leading commentators such as Fintan O’Toole and Vincent Browne have argued that radical transformative measures need to be taken to address the embedded inequalities that distort daily life in Ireland. However, so far, the political response to these arguments has been tepid. Furthermore, this debate has proceeded with little or no reference to the cross-border dimension and the equivalence requirement, let alone the transformative possibilities latent in the text of the Agreement. Some small signs of progress exist. The coalition government formed in March 2011 made an undertaking to introduce the Electoral (Amendment) (Political Funding) Bill 2011, which, if enacted, would require political parties to field a minimum of 30 per cent of candidates of each gender for national elections.9 However, this type of reform, however valuable it may be, addresses a symptom of deeply embedded inequality, not the root cause. It remains to be seen what will be done to tackle the systemic inequalities that distort everyday life in Ireland. It also remains to be seen what consideration, if any, will be given to the Northern Irish experience of combating inequality through the use of the section 75 and FETO positive duties. There are no easy answers available north of the border. Northern Ireland, like Ireland, remains plagued by deeply rooted inequalities. However, the tentative steps taken north of the border to steer the work of public authorities in an equalityfriendly direction, and to require employers to take some responsibility for actively promoting equality of opportunity for their employees, are interesting attempts to engage seriously with the problem of inequality 9 The Bill had not been published at the time of writing, but its general scheme was published by the Department of the Environment on 9 June 2011. See also chapter 7.

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in daily life. They constitute valuable experiments which public policy in Ireland would do well to take on board. The failure to do so thus far in response to the equivalence requirement constitutes not just a neglect of the Irish government’s commitments under the Belfast Agreement, but also a wasted opportunity to link the ‘high politics’ of the Agreement to achieving meaningful change in everyday life.

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Conclusion As Desmond Clarke has argued, the Belfast Agreement represented a shift away from traditional nationalist and unionist discourses north and south of the border and towards greater recognition of the possibility of different identities existing within a common frame of citizenship (Clarke, 2000). As part of that shift, the Agreement also acknowledges the importance of protecting rights and securing equality of opportunity for all persons throughout the island of Ireland. However, structural and deeply embedded inequalities continue to affect everyday life north and south of the border. The equivalence requirement set out in the text of the Agreement should have made it possible for a process of cross-border learning to take place, and for a serious debate to be opened up south of the border about what could be learnt from the use of positive duties in Northern Ireland. However, that opportunity was wasted. In microcosm, this shows both how potentially transformative of everyday life the Agreement could be, and also how this potential remains mired in neglect.

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Chapter 10

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Realising the potential for cross-border service provision: lessons from the health sector

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North–South cooperation is frequently hailed as one of the quiet success stories of the 1998 Belfast Agreement. When considered against what Conor Brady has described as the ‘cold, denying silence’ which characterised relations between Dublin and Belfast in the decades following partition (Brady, 2005: 7), there has without doubt been a sea change in attitudes towards cross-border cooperation among political elites, most notably within unionism. With the exception of the topic discussed in chapter 9, there is now a remarkable acceptance of the potential advantages of greater North–South collaboration at government level, and the post-Agreement period has seen a flourishing of proposals, frameworks and practical schemes to advance cooperation for mutual benefit. However, it can be argued that much intergovernmental cooperation occurs at policy level or, where it involves changed practices, in niche sectors such as trade promotion, research and innovation, and food safety, which engage relatively small numbers of specialist practitioners. The extent to which enhanced North–South cooperation is affecting the everyday lives of ordinary citizens across the island is less certain. While the ending of conflict and improved infrastructure links have facilitated greater cross-border movement for commerce, tourism and shopping (see chapter 8), evidence for changes in everyday practices and behaviours is difficult to ascertain. In this chapter, we explore one potential mechanism through which formal, government-level, co­operation between North and South may influence ordinary people’s lived ex­ periences – namely, the provision of public services, with a focus on the health sector. We begin by briefly sketching the evolution of North–South relations, from the suspicion and avoidance of the early post-partition decades to the 1998 Belfast Agreement, before outlining current priorities and developments in cross-border cooperation. Against this background, we

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consider the extent to which enhanced cooperation at government level is impacting on everyday life across the island through cross-border provision of public services. As outlined, we focus on the health sector, examining both progress and potential in the delivery of health services on a cross-border basis, and consider some of the challenges and weaknesses encountered to date. Building on this case study, we identify lessons for the provision of cross-border services in other sectors and conclude by making some observations on emerging wider constraints on the development of North–South cooperation.

The changing context of North–South cooperation Avoidance and divergence: North–South relations post-partition While partition was not the first choice of any of the main protagonists in the struggle between nationalism and unionism in the first decades of the twentieth century, the Irish border had, within a few decades of its estab­lish­ment in 1921, developed into a fully fledged international frontier. The 1920 Government of Ireland Act had envisaged an ongoing political relationship between the northern and southern administrations, and provided for an inter-parliamentary body, the Council of Ireland, which would have had responsibility for a number of areas, including private bill legislation, railways, fisheries and animal health issues. However, this body was never formally established and was quietly dispatched as part of the 1925 settlement, which quashed the recommendations of the Boundary Commission for minor alterations to the border line. The fate of the Council of Ireland foreshadowed a recurring pattern in the next decades, where the imperatives of territorial consolidation and state-building drove an increasing divergence between the two jurisdictions. At the core of this process lay the Southern assertion of independence from the United Kingdom, which served to deepen the impact and significance of the border, with the sundering of shared ties between North and South (Coakley and O’Dowd, 2007a). This process culminated in 1948 with the decision of the Costello government to declare the Southern state a republic and to withdraw from the Commonwealth. Following partition, the practical significance of the border for every­ day life on the island quickly emerged with the transformation of public administration. Separate states were constructed in both parts of the island with a striking ‘thoroughness’, as Dublin and Belfast enthusi­ astically built up ‘distinct, parallel structures, between which contact was minimal’ (Coakley and O’Dowd, 2007a: 10). Established all-island administrative bodies were dismantled and the commonality provided

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by previously shared policies and regulations was gradually eroded, as both jurisdictions struck out on their own paths (Coakley and O’Dowd, 2007a). This process of policy differentiation gathered pace with the expansion of the role of the state in shaping and regulating the economy and society in the years following the Second World War, serving to deepen the significance of national borders. As governments took on an increasingly activist role in the provision of public services, exemplified by the establishment of the welfare state in the UK, ‘the practical everyday significance of residence in a territorially delimited state increased’ (Coakley and O’Dowd, 2007a: 11). For the first four decades following partition, contact at government level between North and South was minimal. Political sensitivities inhibited cooperation, with many on the Southern side concerned that working with the Northern authorities implied acceptance of partition, while, for Northern unionists, ‘closer interaction was feared as a potential mechanism for furthering Irish unity’ (Coakley et al., 2007: 33). The limited engagement and collaboration between the Belfast and Dublin administrations up to the 1950s were problem- rather than policydriven, and then generally only considered when it was unavoidable. Indeed, only four significant instances of cooperation occurred in this period, in the areas of electricity transmission and generation, railways and fisheries (see Kennedy, 2000). In the first of these examples, the establishment of a cross-border electricity inter-connector and the construction of a hydroelectric power station near the border on the river Erne, the details of collaboration were worked out by public officials on both sides, with no direct contact between the two governments. It was not until 1951 that ministers met face to face, the first such contact since 1925, when the company which operated the Belfast–Dublin railway service was threatened with closure.

Pragmatism over rhetoric: the development of formal North– South cooperation

The late 1950s mark a turning point in North–South relations, with a shift in Southern attitudes towards Northern Ireland from anti-partition rhetoric to an emphasis on pragmatic cooperation as the most effective route to eventual unity (Coakley et al., 2007). With the replacement of Éamon de Valera as Taoiseach by Seán Lemass in 1959, this new thinking increasingly informed Irish government policy. As part of a wider agenda of modernisation and outward-looking economic policy, Lemass ­initiated the development of a formal agenda for North–South cooperation in 1963, when he asked all government departments to identify areas for potential cross-border working. Over the following two years, Dublin developed for the first time a comprehensive plan for ‘practical cooperation in matters of mutual interest’, proposing consultation, information

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sharing and the development of parallel policies in a limited range of non-contentious areas (Kennedy and Magennis, 2007: 37). The desire for improved cross-border relations was reciprocated by the Stormont administration of Terence O’Neill and, following the ground-breaking 1965 meetings between the two premiers, a framework for intergovernmental cooperation was agreed covering areas such as tourism promotion, agricultural research, electricity inter-connection, inward investment, fisheries and educational exchanges (see Kennedy and Magennis, 2007). While the following years saw an upsurge in North–South engagement, with regular meetings at ministerial and civil service levels, growing disorder and political instability in Northern Ireland brought co­opera­ tion to an abrupt end in 1969. However, following the intro­duction of direct rule in 1972, North–South relations received renewed emphasis as part of the search for a political resolution of the conflict. The resultant Sunningdale Agreement of 1973, negotiated between the UK and Irish governments and the recently formed Northern power-sharing executive, provided for a new Council of Ireland, with executive functions, which was to ‘engage in work which has an immediate and obvious benefit for the whole of Ireland’ (Kennedy and Magennis, 2007: 45). While the areas of ‘common interest’ in which it would exercise ­authority were subject to further agreement, the provisional list included natural resources and the environment, agriculture, trade and industry, electricity generation, tourism, transport, advisory health services, sport and culture (Coakley et al., 2007). North–South cooperation again fell victim to political in­ stability within Northern Ireland, with the 1974 Ulster Workers’ Council strike, motivated in large part by opposition to the Council of Ireland, leading to the collapse of the Stormont administration and the return of direct rule. However, as noted by Kennedy and Magennis (2007: 45–6), Sunningdale had enduring significance for North–South relations, ensuring that the ‘North–South dimension’ would form part of any future peace settlement but also repoliticising collaboration by placing joint allisland institutions with executive powers on the agenda, in contrast to the informal inter-departmental cooperation of the 1960s. Debate over the scope, nature and accountability of such institutions was to form an integral part of the negotiations which led to the 1998 Belfast Agreement (Kennedy and Magennis, 2007). However, while traditional unionist suspicion of closer relations with Dublin remained, the context for cross-border cooperation had been significantly altered since the 1970s by common Irish and UK experience of European integration. Membership of the (now) European Union (EU) both encouraged the ‘internationalisation’ of the Irish border, with greater formal recognition by both states of the frontier, and served to ‘transform the meaning of “internal” national borders, rendering them more permeable in economic terms’ (Coakley and O’Dowd, 2007a: 17). Specific European initiatives, such as the single market and the promotion of regional cross-border

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cooperation, both legitimised and stimulated North–South collaboration across a range of sectors and policy areas (O’Dowd et al., 2007). Indeed, the norms and practices of European cooperation, with, for example, an emphasis on reaching decisions by consensus and agreement, can be seen to strongly inform the design and operation of the North–South architecture provided for under the Belfast Agreement (O’Donnell, 1999). While a detailed account of the Agreement is beyond the scope of this chapter (see, for example, Ruane and Todd, 1999; also see footnote 1 in chapter 9, p. 141), it proposed three sets of interlocking institutions: the first dealing with the internal governance of Northern Ireland; the second dealing with North–South relations; and the third dealing with the British–Irish or ‘East–West’ dimension. Under ‘Strand Two’, a North–South Ministerial Council (NSMC) with executive functions was to be established to oversee formal intergovernmental cooperation in six designated areas and to oversee the work of six allisland ‘implementation bodies’ in additional areas (see Coakley et al., 2007, for a detailed account). Following a period of further negotiation between the Irish government and the Northern political parties, it was agreed in December 1998 that formal cooperation between existing agencies would occur in the areas of animal and plant health, education, environment, health, tourism and transport planning. The six new North–South bodies were to operate in the areas of inland waterways, EU programmes, aquaculture, food safety, trade and business development and, most surprisingly, language, with a joint body established to promote Gaelic and Ulster Scots.

Cooperation for mutual benefit: political attitudes and ­priorities post-Agreement

One of the most striking features of cross-border cooperation in the postAgreement period, particularly when considered against the fate of the Sunningdale Agreement, has been the relative lack of political controversy. The removal of Ireland’s territorial claim to Northern Ireland and the enshrining of the principle of re-unification by consent in Ireland’s constitution, fundamental components of the comprehensive settlement reached in 1998, have been of prime importance in facilitating increased unionist acceptance of the benefit of closer working relations between Dublin and Belfast. While concerns remain among unionists about creeping integration by stealth, objections have centred on issues of structure and accountability rather than the concept of cooperation itself. A distinction is drawn between ‘politically motivated’ proposals for North–South collaboration and initiatives which offer mutual benefit to people in both jurisdictions. This more nuanced attitude to cross-­border working is illustrated by the remarks below from First Minister Peter Robinson, of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) (Pollak, 2009: 11):

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We do things where they are to mutual benefit rather than being done so that someone achieves a political goal. That’s the difference between the two: when it’s about practical cooperation as good neighbours that’s something we’re all for, but if somebody’s trying to make us move down a road to a united Ireland, then you’ll find us resisting.

While the DUP continues to resist institutionalised cooperation, preferring ad hoc and informal collaboration, the leading unionist party has no difficulty in acknowledging the potential benefits of addressing common interests jointly with the South. As articulated by Robinson (Pollak, 2009: 14): Clearly there are things not defined by borders … all those kinds of issues where whether there is a border or not makes no difference to the impact they will have on one side or the other. As a general rule, it is sensible to have cooperation in the handling of issues that relate to these kind of areas.

Cooperation for mutual benefit has also become the dominant theme in the discourse of the Irish government, with an emphasis on the potential for cooperation to enhance competitiveness and deliver efficiencies in the delivery of public services. Addressing Dáil Éireann on 9 February 2010, the then Taoiseach Brian Cowen expanded on this rationale for North–South working: In meeting common challenges like promoting economic recovery, dealing with the effects of climate change, guaranteeing our energy security and developing our skills and research and development base, there is a growing recognition that we are strongest when we share approaches and weakest when we work alone. It is in all our interests to work together to identify where we can reduce or share costs, or improve services. For a small island in an increasingly globalised world, it makes simple common sense to cooperate to compete. (Cowen, 2010)

The Irish government has placed particular focus on the economic case for greater collaboration in public service provision. The then Taoiseach set out a broad potential agenda in an interview in 2010: On both sides of the border we need to reorganise our public services so that they are sustainable and affordable, and so we can provide them to the people who need them most. In the interests of taxpayers, both sets of administrations need to examine how we can avoid duplication: for example, how we can cooperate to provide shared services in health, local government, regional planning and development, spatial planning and education. (Pollak, 2010: 12)

This common rhetoric of cooperation for mutual benefit has been accompanied by an expanding range of proposals, scoping studies, pilots and frameworks for cross-border working, in addition to the work plans estab­lished for the NSMC areas of cooperation. For example, a substantial

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blueprint for North–South cooperation is provided by Ireland’s National Development Plan 2007–13, which sets out a comprehensive series of proposed areas for collaboration, subject to agreement with the Northern Ireland Executive. Developed in the context of the still flourishing ‘Celtic Tiger’ economy in the South, the Plan proposed an ambitious agenda of joint investment and cooperation across the policy spectrum, including infrastructure provision, border region development, spatial planning, enterprise promotion, agriculture, culture and social inclusion. The Plan highlights the potential benefits of collaboration in the delivery of public services, with a focus on health and education: Through collaboration, the two Governments can deliver more efficient and effective public services, for example, in the health and education sectors. Greater cooperation in these sectors can result in more efficient use of facilities, better value for money and improved access to services and facilities throughout the island. (Government of Ireland, 2007: 96)

However, as evident from the above sketch of North–South relations over the decades since partition, positive rhetoric and well intentioned proposals do not inevitably translate into practical action. While an overall assessment of progress in North–South cooperation is beyond the scope of this chapter, the next section considers the extent to which enhanced collaboration at government level is having an impact on everyday life across the island through the cross-border provision of public services, with a focus on the health sector.

Cross-border service provision: experiences in the health sector The post-Agreement period has seen several high-profile success stories in North–South cooperation, with, for example, the completion of an all-island single electricity market, the upgrading of the A1/MI Belfast– Dublin road, and joint investment in the City of Derry airport, a strategic access point for the north-west of the island. However, while without doubt of ultimate benefit to ordinary citizens, the extent to which this high-level government collaboration affects everyday life across the island is an open question. As suggested above, one possible avenue through which enhanced government cooperation can lead to changes in the practices of everyday life is through increased cross-border service provision. While the potential for cross-border service delivery to improve efficiency and accessibility is frequently flagged, particularly by the Irish government, there has been limited progress in establishing joint initiatives. Against this background, the health sector stands out as one area with a relatively developed tradition of cross-border cooperation in service

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delivery. Indeed, the original blueprint for North–South collabora­t ion, the Lemass–O’Neill framework of the 1960s, included provision for cross-border hospital arrangements ‘where convenience and urgency makes this desirable’ (Kennedy and Magennis, 2007: 34). Cooperation has developed and strengthened in recent decades, for a range of reasons, including to solve the problem of long waiting lists, to grant access to health care closer to home, to provide access to specialised health care not available in one jurisdiction, to achieve complementarity and economies of scale, to learn and share good practice, to give a political signal, to attract EU funding and to increase patient choice. The Southern National Development Plan 2007–13 provides a cogent rationale for collaboration in the health sector, noting that ‘cooperation on both the planning and delivery of health services and facilities will help deliver more efficient utilisation of valuable new infrastructure, better value for money in terms of public funding, a more balanced regional development, particularly in terms of addressing border effects and improved access to health facilities and treatment’ (Government of Ireland, 2007: 96). The identification of health as a formal area for North–South co­opera­ tion under the Belfast Agreement, as outlined above, has facilitated the development of a more structured approach to collaboration. Between February 2000 and February 2012, the NSMC met thirteen times in the health sectoral format, bringing together ministers from both jurisdictions to forward cooperation for mutual benefit in this area. At its first meeting, the Council identified a detailed programme of work on the following priorities: cancer research, including sharing information and participation in multi-centre trials; health promotion, including collaboration on public information campaigns; accident and emergency services, with provision of ambulance cover in border regions and sharing of emergency admissions; planning for major emergencies; and cooperation on the procurement, funding and use of high-technology equipment. Since 2008, child protection issues have also been included. A range of practical examples of cross-border cooperation in deliver­ ing health services has been facilitated, including, for example, a servicelevel agreement between the Health and Social Care Board for Northern Ireland and Our Lady’s Children’s Hospital in Crumlin, Dublin, to sup­port the provision of paediatric congenital cardiac services. Other key initia­ tives include the establishment of the all-island Institute of Public Health, the tripartite agreement between Ireland, Northern Ire­ land and the United States to collaborate in cancer research and education, and the pur­chasing of operations and procedures in Northern Ireland by the Irish National Treatment Purchase Fund. One of the most high-profile examples of cross-border health service provision has been the planned development of a radiotherapy unit at Altnagelvin Hospital in Derry/Londonderry to treat patients from both sides of the border in the north-west of the island. Cancer services have

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been a major issue of concern for people living in the peripheral northwest region for a number of years. In 2006, campaigning by Donegal people for the retention and improvement of existing services resulted in the establishment of a cross-border referral system for treatment in Belfast City Hospital. Building on this scheme, the Irish government agreed to invest in a new radiotherapy unit at Altnagelvin to serve the entire north-west region. The scheme was formally announced in 2008 and cross-border health professional teams began to develop new clinical pathways. The new unit was planned to operate as a satellite centre linked to Belfast City Hospital and was expected to be operational by 2016. However, in March 2011, prior to the Northern Ireland Assembly elections, the then Ulster Unionist Health Minister Michael McGimpsey postponed these plans, due to a claimed lack of funding. The decision proved highly controversial and following the election the new Health Minister, the DUP’s Edwin Poots reinstated the project. Under a recipro­ cal agreement between North and South, the costs are set to be split, with the Irish government providing €19 million. The new centre is expected to treat each year 1,020 patients from Northern Ireland and 360 patients from Ireland. Announcing the decision to commit funding, Poots remarked that ‘the location of the new centre in the north-west also provides the opportunity for genuine, sustainable and meaningful cross-border cooperation. It has the potential to deliver real mutual benefits to both jurisdictions’ (Department of Health, Social Services and Public Safety, 2011). Indeed, it is increasingly clear that the provision of health care services on a cross-border basis is workable, practical and acceptable to people living on either side of the border. For example, the cross-border ear, nose and throat (ENT) service between the Health Service Executive (HSE) Dublin North East in Ireland and the Southern Health and Social Care Trust in Northern Ireland is facili­t ating Northern ENT consultants’ work in Monaghan Hospital. This scheme significantly reduced waiting lists by treating 2,270 patients from Ireland and 859 patients from Northern Ireland by December 2010. A cross-border vascular service based at the Erne Hospital, ­Enniskillen, had treated 220 patients from the Western Trust Northern Ireland and West Ireland HSE by December 2010. Genitourinary medicine services were being enhanced in the border region in order to treat an extra 5,000 people and, by December 2010, 1,270 people had already benefited from the cross-border sexual health services. During 2010, a total of 195 vulnerable women from Donegal, Tyrone, Monaghan and South Armagh ­participated in crossborder training and development programmes under the Cooperation and Working Together (CAWT) social inclusion programme (box 10.1). This included a behaviour medicine programme for women living with a cancer diagnosis, a carers’ support programme for mothers of children with a disability and a ‘Confidence to Question’ programme for older

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Box 10.1. The Cooperation and Working Together (CAWT) programme

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The Cooperation and Working Together (CAWT) programme has led the development of North–South health sector collaboration. Established in 1992, it brought together health authorities in the cross-border region to pioneer cross-border health and social care activity before the governments officially came on board. Under the INTERREG IIIA programme, CAWT received funding in the region of €10.45 million (£6.74 million) for thirty-seven cross-border health and social care projects and a further seven projects were funded through the EU’s PEACE II scheme to the value of €1.57 million (£1.08 million). This work has established extensive cross-border networks and has implemented pilot projects in areas such as cognitive therapy, suicide prevention, sex offenders, fostering care, health impact assessment training and emergency planning.   CAWT is currently delivering the EU INTERREG IVA Priority 2, Theme 1, ‘Putting patients, clients and their families first’, on behalf of the Department of Health, Social Services and Public Safety, Northern Ireland, and the Department of Health and Children, Ireland. This is the first time that such a large-scale approach across strategic areas of acute hospital services has been adopted, covering primary, community and continuing care, mental health, population health and disability.   Working with the community sector, the programme of twelve projects is focused on enabling patients and clients to have better access to quality health and social care services, with the potential for enhancing choice in care pathways, as well as promoting and protecting health and well-being and reducing health inequalities.   These cross-border projects are as follows: • appointment of twelve additional eating disorder therapists in the border region; • improving services for older people in the areas of telehealth, telecare and social support; • improving education for children and young people with diabetes and developing specialist pre-pregnancy care clinics for women with diabetes planning pregnancy; • investment in sexual health services to establish new clinics in the border region; • establishment of cross-border acute hospital services in the areas of ENT, urology and vascular medicine; • health and social care organisations working in partnership with the community sector to tackle alcohol abuse via the ‘Time IVA Change Border region alcohol project’; • support to people with disabilities by providing them with alternatives to traditional day care services and the piloting of a cross-border awareness programme which aims to change attitudes towards people with disabilities and to improve access to buildings, goods, services and information in their localities; • development and delivery of programmes which aim to improve training, education and opportunities for ‘hard to reach’ groups such as Travellers and vulnerable women; • development and implementation of a community-based approach to managing obesity which will positively impact on the health and well-being of children and their families; • development of a coordinated multi-agency approach to the delivery of specific interventions for children and young people with autistic spectrum disorder and experiencing transitioning, through the ‘Turning the Curve’ project; • improving outcomes for children through an inter-agency approach and the piloting of locality planning groups in the border region; • development of programmes aimed at enhancing the cross-border mobility of staff within health and social care.

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women. During 2010 a cross-border ‘community mobilisation’ process established fifteen pilot sites and engaged over 170 groups in tackling the culture of alcohol abuse and had fed into an internationally recognised early-intervention and family-skills programme to assist and empower vulnerable families. While the above initiatives have delivered real benefits to patients, recent research and feasibility studies have identified considerable potential for greater cross-border collaboration in the provision of routine health services, particularly in the border region. For example, the value of cooperation has been explored by modelling the impact of the border on access to hospital care (Foley et al., 2009). The most significant finding was that while 52 per cent of the population in border areas were disadvantaged by the presence of the border by less than five minutes in terms of ambulance journey times, a full 26 per cent of the residents were disadvantaged by fifteen minutes or more. Put bluntly, for someone suffering a heart attack or in a road traffic accident, this ‘border factor’ could make the difference between life and death. Research has also examined the willingness of people in the border region to access cross-border services and, while concerns have been identified around, for example, differences in perceived quality between the health systems in the two jurisdictions, there is broad support for joined up services among both service users and professionals (Clarke et al., 2006; Taillon, 2010). Despite the above progress, which is delivering real change in how people access health services in the border region, significant challenges remain to be overcome if the potential benefits of North–South co­opera­ tion in the health sector are to be fully realised. Crucially, a sustained strategic approach with clearly defined criteria is required. A strategic framework for health cooperation was completed in February 2009 but full publication was delayed until December 2011 (Department of Health and Children and Department of Health, Social Services and Public Safety, 2011). It was commissioned by both Health Departments and examined the potential for joint working across an extensive range of health and social care services, making a number of recommendations for future cooperation. While the Irish Health Minister of the time indicated her approval for the study’s recommendations, the then Northern Ireland Health Minister was not persuaded that the report should be progressed. In a welcome move, on 1 March 2012 a full cross-party delegation with representatives from the Democratic Unionist Party, Ulster Unionist Party, Alliance Party, Sinn Féin and the Social Democratic and Labour Party travelled to Dublin to discuss cross-border health issues of mutual interest at a meeting of the Committee on Health and Children. A further key issue relates to the evaluation of North–South initiatives in the health sector and, in particular, the setting of criteria for success. The measurement of successful cross-border cooperation is not well defined and depends on perspective. For instance, in March 2011, when

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speaking in the Northern Ireland Assembly, the Health Minister pointed out that not all cross-border cooperation projects are as fruitful as antici­ pated, and cited the example of the two cross-border general practice out-of-hours schemes, one operating in the South Armagh/Castleblaney area, which was averaging thirty-four patients a month, and one in Donegal/Londonderry, which was averaging ten patients a month. These pilot schemes were intended to inform decision-making on the provision of general practitioner services in border areas and they have often been cited as successful cross-border schemes by service providers. Information about the numbers of patients and professionals and the volume of services moving across the Irish border is still fragmented, incomplete and unreliable or in some cases wholly lacking. The current public sector reforms do not provide for the estimated 23,481 crossborder commuters in the Irish border region (Shiels and O’Kane, 2010). An attempt has been made to define a framework for cross-border health cooperation to capture the extent of collaboration across EU borders (Wismar et al., 2011) and this definition and framework could usefully be applied on the island of Ireland. The CAWT programme is actively negotiating to ensure that services and projects it develops are incorporated into mainstream health and social care activities after the EU funding phase. However, cooperation in health care is still not systematically catered for within the psyche of the public sector in either jurisdiction. While there is much praise for CAWT’s strategic role and the fact that it has been able to overcome administrative and cultural barriers to deliver vital services, there are limits to its work. It is not able to replace services already existing on one or other side of the border, and there is concern that its current level of programmes will not be sustained when the EU funding that supports them is no longer available. Often, cooperative agreements contain a number of important restrictions designed to protect the interests of services currently ­delivered within one jurisdiction. To deliver acceptable truly reciprocal cooperation, flexible funding arrangements still need to be developed.

Cross-border service provision: lessons from the health sector The tentative efforts, described above, to develop practical cooperation in the health sector demonstrate that cross-border service provision can be feasible, publicly acceptable and mutually beneficial. Cooperation to date has enhanced patient access to care, particularly in peripheral areas of the border region, and offers real efficiencies through the sharing of resources and expertise and joint investment in health infrastructure. However, the experience of North–South health cooperation also

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­ emonstrates that considerable barriers need to be overcome in order to d establish cross-border services. Despite the progress of recent years in cross-border cooperation, with, for example, the development of an institutional structure under the NSMC and broad political acceptance North and South of the potential benefits, both administrations on the island remain overwhelmingly single jurisdiction in their focus and outlook. While some efforts have been made to coordinate policy in areas such as spatial planning, with the relevant departments currently developing a non-statutory ‘framework for collaboration’, public administration largely continues to operate ‘back to back’, with little evident consideration of the North–South dimension. For example, major health reform programmes in both Northern Ireland and Ireland were developed without any obvious consideration of either the implications for crossborder health care or the potential benefits of greater collaboration in service delivery (Clarke and Jamison, 2006). The resultant mismatch of policies, priorities and programme criteria inevitably constrains and inhibits collaboration between state agencies on both sides of the border. The implications of mismatched policies are especially evident in the health sector, where, for example, differing criteria for hospital planning complicate efforts to examine the potential for shared facilities in the border region (Jamison and Butler, 2007). In addition to the continuance of parallel policy-making, experience in the health sector demonstrates significant structural constraints on cross-border working at administrative level. Where cross-border service provision implies rationalisation and concentration of facilities and functions, public institutions can perceive North–South working as a challenge to their core functions, funding and, in the longer term, survival. As outlined above, previous cooperative agreements in the health sector have included limitations to protect the interests of existing providers in each jurisdiction. Similarly, attempts to further greater provision of joint hospital services have in the past been constrained by concerns about undermining the viability of individual institutions (Jamison and Butler, 2007), a particular issue in the border region where a number of hospitals are perceived to be under threat of closure/downgrading as a result of reform proposals. While such concerns can be raised by proposed collaboration in a single-jurisdiction context, they have a particular deaden­ing effect on efforts to promote cross-border working, as territorially bounded institutions focus on their own reproduction and, as a result, ‘develop conservative cultures not prone to creating innovative cross-border links’ (Coakley and O’Dowd, 2007b: 302). A further structural constraint on cooperation in service provision relates to the centralisation of administrative structures in both Northern Ireland and Ireland, with European experience suggesting that cross-border working is more successful in states where regions and municipalities have significant devolved power (Coakley and O’Dowd, 2007b).

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The challenges to the provision of services on a cross-border basis identified above relate to a wider set of emerging constraints which need to be addressed if the potential of public sector North–South cooperation is to be fulfilled and, ultimately, have a sustainable impact on everyday life across the island. The first constraint relates to the need for ‘maturation’ in the practice of cross-border collaboration. Well over a decade on from the Belfast Agreement, much North–South cooperation in the public sector continues to consist of small-scale, pilot and one-off initiatives, which remain peripheral to the day-to-day activities of their sponsor agencies, and, as discussed in relation to work of CAWT (box 10.1), remain dependent on, progressively decreasing, EU funding. The rationale for particular schemes can often be difficult to ascertain, with little evidence of cost–benefit analysis for the pursuit of policy on a cross-border basis, leaving projects open to charges of symbolism or political motivation. Cross-border working remains a niche area or, more pejoratively, a ‘backwater’, in the civil service, with perceived negative implications for career development (O’Dowd et al., 2007: 280). If these limitations are to be overcome, the delivery and funding of North–South cooperation need to be mainstreamed and integrated into the public administration systems of both jurisdictions. There is a need for a new policy-making culture, replacing the practice of ‘back to back’ policy develop­ ment, where proposed initiatives are routinely ‘proofed’ to identify both the potential benefits of joint approaches and unintended negative cross-border impacts. In particular, collaboration must be initiated much earlier in programme and infrastructure development to explore opportunities for coordination and synergy. However, if North–South cooperation is to be considered as a mainstream policy option, there must be no perception of special treatment for cross-border initiatives. Proposals for collaboration need to undergo similar levels of scrutiny to those applied to single-jurisdiction projects, with the identification of a clear rationale and business case. A starting point is provided by the 2006 study on the potential for all-island economic collaboration published by the British and Irish governments which proposed two tests for cross-border cooperation: • ‘Evidence of market failure or evidence that the good or service is a true public good’; • ‘Evidence that the market failure arises from the existence of the border or, in the case of the public good, the provision of the public good (or service) could be more efficiently provided on a coordinated basis’ (British–Irish Intergovernmental Conference, 2006).

Similarly, there is a need to provide tangible evidence of the benefits of cross-border working. Projects need to have clear, shared criteria for success established from the outset and to be subject to robust evaluation to assess their effectiveness, efficiency and impact. The absence of

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thorough assessment and review of the benefits of cross-border projects undermines arguments for greater cooperation, with the unsubstantiated claims of some proponents open to challenge. The second constraint relates to the piecemeal and uncoordinated nature of current North–South initiatives in the public sector. While the establishment of the NSMC and its sectoral work plans has enhanced coordination, there remains no overarching framework for public sector cooperation. Existing ‘quasi’-frameworks such as the Common Chapter (an agreed text common to the development plans for EU structural funds submitted by both Northern Ireland and Ireland) and the Southern National Development Plan 2007–13 suffer from specific weaknesses – the former resulting in limited practical actions (see Magennis, 2007) and the latter being an aspirational document produced largely independent of cross-border input. Against this background, the need for the development of an agreed strategic framework for public sector cooperation has been regularly highlighted by advocates of greater North–South collaboration (e.g. North South Ad Hoc Group, 2007). Such a framework would bring coherence to North–South collaboration, by setting priorities and drawing together existing disconnected projects from across the policy spectrum into a ‘comprehensive and integrated programme of actions’ (North South Ad Hoc Group, 2007: 67). It would also drive implementation by setting targets and indicators of progress across all areas of cooperation, enabling robust review and assessment of achievements. Finally, a more fundamental constraint on the long-term development of North–South cooperation relates to the ability of both governments to maintain public support and legitimacy for cross-border working. As briefly alluded to above, the design and practice of the North–South institutions have been strongly influenced by the European model of transnational cooperation. However, as cross-border working in Ireland shares the strengths of this approach, it is also seen to share some of its weaknesses, with signs that it is ‘technocratic, excessively dependent on consensus, heavily bureaucratic, and largely confined to elite circles of practitioners and enthusiasts’ (Coakley and O’Dowd, 2007b: 301). This concern that North–South cooperation is increasingly the preserve of elites and, similar to European integration, vulnerable to public ‘ennui’ and loss of legitimacy has been strengthened by the reduced funding available for non-state actors to interact and collaborate across the border. The EU, through its PEACE and INTERREG programmes, and other international funders, such as the International Fund for Ireland, have been the main source of support over the past two decades for civil society and community groups to engage in North–South activity, broadening participation and encouraging grassroots acceptance of the legitimacy of cross-border working. However, with the imminent wind-down of large-scale international funding, there is concern that ‘cross-border cooperation will revert to being an elite-dominated,

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Lessons from the health sector

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i­ ntergovernmental activity’, resulting in the exclusion of large sections of people ‘who remain ignorant, apathetic and potentially hostile’ (O’Dowd et al., 2007: 282). While addressing this issue will require a long-term and multi­faceted approach by both governments, including a willingness to provide ongoing support for cross-border reconciliation and cooperative activity in the non-state sector, one potential vehicle for ensuring the engagement of wider society in North–South collaboration is provided for in a yetto-be implemented clause of the Belfast Agreement. Under Strand Two, provision was made for a ‘North South Consultative Forum’, which would bring together representatives of civil society from both jurisdictions to advise the governments on social, economic, cultural and other issues with a cross-border dimension. While the Forum has yet to be formally established, largely due to lack of enthusiasm among the unionist parties, it has the potential to promote transparency and public awareness, through open consideration and debate of the evolving agenda for crossborder cooperation, and to provide a mechanism for feeding sectoral and minority perspectives into the North–South policy-making process.

Conclusion The 1998 Belfast Agreement has been the catalyst for an un­deniable trans­ formation in intergovernmental relations between Northern Ireland and Ireland. Facilitated by the all-island institutional structure provided by the NSMC, the period since the Agreement has seen a flourish­ing of collaborative initiatives at official level, with consultation, information-sharing and joint cross-border actions now commonplace. While proponents of greater North–South cooperation can become frustrated at the slow pace of change, the progress of recent years, particularly when viewed in the historical context of cross-border relations, must be acknowledged. The change in political rhetoric alone, with broad acceptance of the potential mutual benefits of closer collaboration, is striking when the suspicion and hostility of the immediate post-partition era are recalled. However, the extent to which deepening cooperation at government level is affecting the everyday life of ordinary citizens across the island remains open to question. Changes in what de Certeau terms ‘ways of operating’ (see chapter 1) are evident in areas such as commerce, tourism and shopping, where the opening up of the border has created new possib­ilities and incentives for visiting the other jurisdiction, but the direct impact of intergovernmental initiatives on everyday practices is more difficult to ascertain. In this chapter, we have considered how enhanced cross-border collaboration is leading to changes in how people access health services

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in both jurisdictions. While there is some evidence that the pioneering schemes described above are delivering real benefits to patients by improving access to services, particularly in the border region, health sector cooperation remains limited in scope. Despite the rhetorical support of government, and the apparent willingness of citizens to cross the border for quality services, much collaboration in service provision continues to be small in scale, exploratory and transient, with the reliance of more innovative projects on EU funding raising concerns over sustainability. Experience in the health sector suggests that if the potential of North–South cooperation is to be fully realised, and have lasting impact on everyday life on the island, committed and active political leadership will be required to overcome the considerable structural, procedural and cultural barriers which remain.

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Part IV. Conclusion: a comparative perspective on inclusion in everyday political life

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Chapter 11

A ‘new politics’ of participation?

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Elizabeth Meehan and Fiona Mackay

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Peter Mair’s ‘popular component’ in constitutional democracy (see chapter 1) had a high profile in pre- and post-devolution politics in the UK. Though the Northern Ireland context of devolution was unique and ‘new politics’ not in its lexicon, elements of the values behind reform in Scotland and Wales were present there. ‘New politics’ was most fully developed in Scotland. Scottish reform demands had linked dimensions (Keating, 2005: 13). Power within Scotland was to be moved from old elites with a niche in the centralised UK state. And Scottish govern­ment, located in Scotland, was to be ‘democratised and made more accountable and participative’. Part of the vision was to create more effective governance and better policy, through more responsive policy-making at a spatial level that had some ‘territorial solidarity’ and was more conducive to a ‘synthesis’ of economic competitiveness and social cohesion (Keating, 2005: 198–9). But there was also a normative element that aspired to democratic enhancement and more inclusive and representative politics than at Westminster. Moreover, this vision was supplemented with the ideal of participatory democracy, involving citizens more directly in policy formation and decision-making. Participation was also expected to encourage better policy-making. Through participatory consensus-building, there would be lower implementation costs, a reduced likelihood of policy fiascos and greater public ownership of programmes. Participation in policy-making, not merely voting, would promote active citizenship and improve democratic dialogue, leading to enhanced trust and legitimacy and greater social cohesion. But comparative research suggests that effective and meaningful participation can be complex and far from easy to achieve. Neither are outcomes predictable. For example, participation does not inevitably result in consensus, particularly when views are polarised, especially

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to the extent to which they tend to be in Northern Ireland. And there is scepticism about the motives of governmental advocates of increased popular participation. These doubts give rise to questions such as:

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• Has devolution has delivered more open decision-making and more participatory politics? • Have expectations about the nature and effects of a ‘new politics’ of participation been borne out?

This chapter’s focus is on Northern Ireland, with Scotland as a point of comparison. It outlines efforts in Northern Ireland to try to ensure that citizens can shape the ‘normalisation’ of political life (not its de­ politicisation – see chapter 1). It does so by examining the short-lived Civic Forum and the statutory duties in the Northern Ireland Act 1998 (see chapter 9) as forms of inclusive policy-making. In drawing some comparisons with Scotland, the chapter assesses the depths of ‘new politics’ in the two devolved systems. It concludes by identifying issues that need to be a­ ddressed for there truly to be a ‘new politics’ of participation. The overall finding is that, while high expectations in Scotland for a more participatory polity have been somewhat disappointed, there have been some positive changes there, but that the situation in Northern Ireland may be less promising.

Civic participation in Northern Ireland There is a history of voluntary activity in Ireland from the end of eighteenth century which intensified in Northern Ireland in the second half of the twentieth century. The significance of the voluntary and community sector in policy-making is connected to sectarianism in local formal politics, the ‘democratic deficits’ of direct rule by Westminster and the conditions for receipt of funding from the European Union (EU). In the 1990s, women’s groups were particularly active in partnership-based policy-making (Meehan and Mackay, 2009). While there are reports of street-level and institutional racism (McGarry et al., 2008), it is difficult to know, as noted in chapter 1, about the civic predispositions of minority ethnic communities and the organisations they might have joined before or after the 1998 Good Friday Agreement (GFA). But there is evidence that, elsewhere in Ireland and the UK, members of minority communities are active, or potentially so, in Putnam’s (2000) ‘bonding’ and ‘bridging’ associations (ETHNOS, 2005; Fanning and O’Boyle, 2010; Kiwan, 2010). When devolved government was being planned, there was an openness in some quarters to a continued role for the voluntary and community sector after the advent of ‘normal politics’. In Assembly discussions of the Civic Forum in 2009, some speakers recalled the original hope that restored representative self-government would not threaten

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the more informal space of governance that had developed while getting the business of government done during violent conflict and direct rule. The Civic Forum and equality duties were the two main participatory inno­vations introduced by the GFA and the Northern Ireland Act 1998. The Civic Forum was short-lived, partly due to suspensions of devolution and partly because it was disliked by significant sections of elected politicians. The section 75 equality duty (see chapter 9) is now an entrenched feature of the policy architecture, although, in implementation, it may not live up to hopes that lie in ‘mainstreaming’ as a potentially transformative democratic innovation.1

The Civic Forum The tradition of participation and EU-inspired district partnerships led the transversal party (see chapter 1), the Northern Ireland Women’s Coalition (NIWC), to propose the constitutional innovation of a Civic Forum. This was to be a way of bringing Northern Ireland’s ‘vibrant’ civil society2 into the political arena to ensure that the new arrangements were participatory and inclusive (Fearon, 1999: 6; Hodgett and Meehan, 2003). The voluntary and community sector had gained ex­perience in the politics of everyday policy-making from ‘keeping the fabric of society together’ during the conflict (more so than those preoccupied with ‘high’ constitutional politics; Women and Citizenship, 1995). This was not to be lost. The NIWC’s case for a Civic Forum held symbolic value (com­parable with institutional aspirations in Scotland) and offered a practical mechan­ism for the new system of governance to be more consultative. Many people, particularly women, were uncomfortable in the formal political arena but were involved in informal political activities and wanted to contribute to policy development. Hence, the intention was for 1 Mainstreaming is an approach which seeks to achieve equality on a more universal basis than is possible by redressing specific cases of unequal treatment. Moreover, it seeks to examine the impact of the whole range of public policy and implementation. Sometimes it is directed at gender and sometimes a spectrum of groups who ex­perience disadvantage and inequality. Importantly, it involves participation by the groups concerned. A further discussion is provided later in the chapter. 2 A working definition of civil society is that it comprises social networks, associations and organisations that are notionally distinct from the state and market, although the distinction is increasingly blurred in contemporary societies. Deliberation, discussion and networking are key mechanisms for civic activity, in contrast to bureaucratic rules or market mechanisms (Cohen and Areto, 1992; Young, 2000). Civil society in the UK is typically seen to include trade unions, sectoral interest groups and lobby groups, pressure groups, social movement organisations, community groups, voluntary sector organisations, church/faith groups, and so on.

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the Civic Forum to promote a new, more inclusive and consultative style of politics. Indeed, 37 per cent of the members of the new Civic Forum were women, compared with 13 per cent in the first Assembly. Moreover, its existence would more fully utilise the wealth of policy expertise outside the political parties and civil service. The GFA (paragraph 34) and Northern Ireland Act 1998 specified that the Civic Forum would comprise representatives of the business, trade union and voluntary sectors and would act as a consultative mechanism on social, economic and cultural issues (see also McCall and Williamson, 2001). Further detail was left to the new Northern Ireland Executive.

The inauguration and work of the Civic Forum

The First Minister and deputy First Minister (designates), David Trimble (Ulster Unionist Party) and Seamus Mallon (Social Democratic and Labour Party) – neither being an advocate of this innovation – were charged with making arrangements for obtaining the views of the Forum, providing administrative support and establishing guidelines, to be approved by the Assembly, for its selection (section 56, Northern Ireland Act 1998). In February 1999, they announced its basic composition: a chair, plus six people nominated by the First Minister and deputy First Minister and fifty-four other members, chosen by extra-Assembly nominating bodies, from business, agriculture/fisheries, trade unions, voluntary and community sectors, churches, culture, arts and sport, victims (of the ‘Troubles’), community relations and education. They also announced that there would be a review of the Forum in 2002 (Office of the First Minister and deputy First Minister, 2005b). Towards the end of 2000, after umbrella bodies had been charged with producing a list of representatives for membership, public advertise­ments were placed for the post of chair (subsequently filled by business leader Chris Gibson). The Forum met for the first time in October 2000 and adopted a mission that it would ‘exercise effective community leadership and directly influence the building of a peaceful, prosperous and just, cohesive, healthy and plural society’ (ibid.). It was not until February 2001 that the First Minister proposed a motion to the Assembly about how it would relate to other institutions. To the Office of the First Minister and deputy First Minister (OFMDFM), it would ‘offer its views on such social, economic and cultural matters as are from time to time agreed between the Chairperson of the Forum and the First Minister and deputy First Minister’. Subject to resource constraints, the Forum would not be prevented from addressing any issue. The Assembly could also invite it to offer views (Office of the First Minister and deputy First Minister, 2005c). Thus, formally at least, a wide range of civic society was given a place in the structure of government and a voice in the governance processes.

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The Civic Forum was accepted by a later deputy First Minister as an example of inclusive democracy but, from the beginning and even in its absence, it has been objected to by other politicians. The Civic Forum started by examining issues in the first Draft Programme for Government, poverty, peace-building and lifelong learning. Its contribution to the consultation on that programme led to some improve­ments in the final version with respect to these issues, especially as they affected women (for details, see Meehan and Mackay, 2009). The Forum consulted widely on policy concerns about educational disadvantage and childcare for women entering or re-entering further education. Such issues were included in its substantial anti-poverty strategy document. 3 Between October 2000 and October 2002, it met in plenary form a dozen times and dealt with particular programmes through standing committees and working groups. In October 2002, devolution was suspended (see footnote 1 in chapter 1, p. 3) and, in the absence of a legal power for the OFMDFM to defray its expenses, the Civic Forum was immediately shut down (unlike cross-border cooperative bodies). That the Civic Forum had the potential to be a form of inclusive democracy is clear from favourable comments on its work in some responses to the protracted ongoing review of the Forum and comments in the Assembly on its future. On the other hand, it suffered from different ideas, within its own membership and outside, about the meaning of consultation, who were the ‘unheard voices’ it was to bring in, how it was to do so, and so on (Bell, 2004). It remains controversial and it is not clear that it will be re-established.

The uncertain future of the Civic Forum

When it began to seem likely that devolution would be re-established, the Transitional Assembly’s Preparation for Government Committee considered the terms of reference that had been proposed for the first review of the Civic Forum. Committee members ‘were divided on whether the Civic Forum, as originally constituted, was the most appro­ priate mechanism for obtaining the views of civic society’. But they agreed that there ‘should be a review of the mechanisms for civic society to promote its views’ and, following the full restoration of devolution in 2007, the new First Minister (Ian Paisley Snr, Democratic Unionist Party, DUP) and deputy First Minister (Martin McGuinness, Sinn Féin) decided to commission a fresh review under wider terms of reference. 3 The development of the strategy was led by Robin Wilson, Director of Democratic Dialogue (no longer in existence). The strategy report was written by Wilson, with Gráinne Kelly: A Regional Strategy for Social Inclusion (May 2002); see also the Forum’s publication Can Do Better: Educational Disadvantage in the Context of Lifelong Learning (October 2002) (Wilson, 2002; Civic Forum (Northern Ireland), 2002).

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The new review went through a consultation process in 2008. Over sixty written responses were received (Office of the First Minister and deputy First Minister, 2005d). According to Paisley’s successor, Peter Robinson, DUP, forty-four of the submissions favoured ‘some mechanism of engagement’, nineteen of which made explicit reference to a Civic Forum, but there was ‘little demand for a return to the same structure … that operated between 2000 and 2002’ (Official Report of the Northern Ireland Assembly, 2009a). The week before these replies to questions in the Assembly by the First Minister, there had been a debate on a private member’s motion in which Stephen Moutray, DUP, called on the Executive not to restore the Civic Forum but to ‘investigate modern ways to interact with the public, including online interactive means of helping to shape policy’ (Official Report, 2009b). Despite Moutray’s apparent openness to e-democracy, he used his speech to vilify the original Forum. He and three DUP colleagues described it as ‘anti-orange’ and ‘made up of people who were rejected by the electorate’ (ibid.). Others, in contrast, stressed the impediments of problems in the overall political process (e.g., Mitchel McLaughlin, Sinn Féin). Many speakers referred to the positive role played by civic society in times of crisis, the need to avoid making assumptions that only elected politicians knew what was good for people, and the need for people to have a sense of ownership of the new experience of devolved government. There were mixed views on the use of modern technology to promote democracy. Dawn Purvis (PUP) was scathing about the physical in­ accessibility of the Stormont Parliament Building4 but also believed that ‘to substitute technology for the voice of real people [was] cynical, mean spirited and strange’ (ibid.). Anna Lo, Alliance Party, and first minority ethnic member of the Assembly, also argued for the benefits of face-to-face deliberation. On the other hand, there was support for the idea of investigating e-­democracy, even among those supporting a return of the Forum. The debate about face-to-face interaction revealed a community divide on the concept of democracy. Mainstream unionists argued that face-to-face interaction belonged properly to the representative sphere – in constituency work and presentations by civic groups to Assembly committees. Others were in favour of supplementing representative democracy with participatory channels. What the fate of the Civic Forum implies for the future of inclusive participation remains to be seen.

4 It is in a suburb. Some buses go fairly near but entail a long walk up an exposed and windy avenue leading to the Parliament Building.

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Section 75 of the Northern Ireland Act There are two section 75 duties, one on the promotion of equality and the other on promoting good relations. At times, there has been an uneasy relationship between them and the former is more entrenched than the latter. The Northern Ireland equality duty covers a number of categories (see chapter 9) and is, therefore, an attempt at what is called diversity mainstreaming rather than gender mainstreaming (see also chapter 6). For some years, the Standing Advisory Commission on Human Rights (SACHR)5 had looked to section 71 of the Race Relations Act 1976, which placed a duty on local authorities in Great Britain (not Northern Ireland), to eliminate discrimination and promote equality. It repeated in a 1998 review of employment legislation its call for something comparable in Northern Ireland (Hinds, 2003; Hinds and O’Kelly, 2006). A non-governmental organisation, the Committee on the Administration of Justice (CAJ), led support for the SACHR’s recommendation. It was joined by members of the equality agencies6 and others concerned to move from the elimination of discrimination to the promotion of equality and beyond equality defined as ‘parity of esteem’ between the ‘two communities’. Their call became embedded in the negotiations over the GFA and drafting of the Northern Ireland Act 1998. The aim for a broader conception of equality is reflected in the Agreement’s requirement that all legislation passed in the Assembly be ‘equality proofed’ and compliant with international human rights standards (Strand One, paragraphs 5, 6 and 8 – see Northern Ireland Office, 1998) – as well as in the statutory duties. Advocates of a broad conception of equality supported the work of an Equality Coalition, led by the CAJ and the trade union UNISON, during the passage of the Northern Ireland Act. The Equality Coalition intervened throughout the twin processes of developing a firmer approach to mainstreaming and of enacting a form of devolution with equality and human rights at its core. Donaghy (2003: 6) cites McCrudden’s (1998) description of this as the ‘parallel peace process’. She notes that, ‘in construct[ing] the equality agenda’, the Equality Coalition and the equality agencies were seen by both British and Irish governments as the main actors with which ‘they had to deal because of their influence on this issue’. 5  Established in the wake of Sunningdale in 1973 but superseded on 1 October 1999 by the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission (a product of the Good Friday Agreement). 6 The Commission for Racial Equality for Northern Ireland, the Equal Opportunities Commission for Northern Ireland, the Fair Employment Commission and the Northern Ireland Disability Council. These bodies were replaced by the Equality Commission for Northern Ireland on 1 October 1999.

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The implementation of section 75 The very process of mainstreaming is meant to encourage participation in policy-making. Among other advantages (e.g. more rational and evidence-based policy-making), it should enhance openness and transparency because it requires consultation with affected interests at an early stage in the policy cycle. Properly implemented, the statutory duties build a ‘crucial link between government and civil society’ through greater participation and should lead to greater governmental accountability (Equality Commission for Northern Ireland, 1999: 82). The methods promoted by the Equality Coalition were critical in the form of mainstreaming that was adopted. As Hinds (2003: 191–2) points out, public authorities are required by the Equality Commission for Northern Ireland (ECNI) to consult ‘representatives of persons likely to be affected by the [equality] scheme; and such other persons as may be specified in the directions’. She goes on to say that: consultation and engagement [throughout the processes] with the widest range of groups affected by the legislation … is at the core of the Northern Ireland approach to mainstreaming.

Thus, Donaghy (2003) categorises the approach as ‘participativedemocratic’. She contrasts this with the top-down ‘expert-bureaucratic’ approach,7 while other observers (e.g., Squires, 2007) suggest that the appli­ca­tion of mainstreaming in Northern Ireland represents a combination of the models. In its most ambitious form, the participative-­ democratic approach to mainstreaming is said to be capable of transforming society, not only in the achievement of equality as outlined in chapter 9, but also in fully democratising society through its inclusive participatory and dialogic methods (Squires, 2007: throughout but ­especially 136–7, 170–5). This is especially true of diversity mainstreaming that is aimed at a range of protected groups and the cross-cutting or intersectional inequalities that they are likely to experience (for example in terms of race, religion and gender). In a context of disappointment in mainstreaming elsewhere, even the emphatically participatory intent of Northern Ireland’s schemes is attenuated by practical problems. There are difficulties in identifying groups to be included and a large burden falls on voluntary associations that engage in this participation – which, elsewhere, tends to divert participation from grassroots affected groups to funded, professionalised non-governmental organisations (Squires, 2007). Donaghy (2003) notes that resource and capacity impediments in Northern Ireland risk making 7 Nott (2000), cited by Donaghy, coined the terms participative-democratic and expert-bureaucratic to describe competing approaches to mainstreaming. The first focuses primarily upon consultation and the second primarily upon in-house expertise and technical instruments.

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participation unsustainable. At first, the ECNI was able to provide some remuneration through a section 75 consultation development grant but this came to an end. Moreover, Side (2009) raises the question of whether the energy spent on section 75 has, as it were, ‘let the political parties off the hook’ over the question of promoting women’s political participation (see chapter 7) and it is possible that the same could be said about the other equality categories. Before turning to initiatives in Scotland, two other matters should be mentioned. The first is the role of the voluntary and community sector during suspensions of devolution in Northern Ireland. Two reviews of section 75 were carried out for government by experts who consulted widely (Meehan and Mackay, 2009). Both highlighted, inter alia, the burden on civil society organisations. More generally, Wilford and Wilson (2006: 26) observed that the voluntary sector had resumed ‘its old direct rule role of privileged interlocutor for government’. According to Minister David Hanson, a new joint forum for cooperation ‘represent[ed] the ethos of Government working with the sector to help deal with issues of common interest affecting people in Northern Ireland’ (ibid.). The issues he referred to included violence against women, community ­relations, environmental governance, poverty, education (specifically the transfer test, the traditional method for grammar school selection and a matter of controversy between nationalists and unionists) and health (though the sector’s impact was mixed) (Meehan and Mackay, 2009). Secondly, after devolution was restored in 2007, evidence began to emerge of less hostility from elected politicians towards the voluntary and community sector. For example, two sessions of the new Assembly revealed consensus across the traditional divide for better financial support for minority ethnic and women’s groups to promote integration and community activism (Official Report, 2008a, 2009b). But this should be tempered by the pessimistic prospects noted in chapter 7.

Comparisons with Scotland This section deals briefly with the motivations for and the contexts of reform; some similarities and differences in institutions and procedures; and the depth of ‘new politics’.

Motivations and contexts

The prime goal of the most powerful architects of Northern Ireland’s new institutions was to end violence between communities with different national aspirations. Nevertheless, the strong base of community activism brought into being new parties for which the absence of violent conflict over the constitution was not the same as peace and an

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i­nclusive political culture. This injected concerns similar to those found in Scotland, for example a broader conception of equality, participation, transparency and collaboration, and an end to adversarial politics rooted in sectarianism (see chapter 7). However, in Scotland there had been a much longer, more widespread movement that explicitly developed the equation of devolution with democracy or popular sovereignty and good governance. The Scottish Constitutional Convention had involved a wide range of groups and networks, enhanced their role and politicised many of their members. Among these were women’s groups and women activists in other organis­ ations (Brown, 1998; Nairn, 1994). Scottish ‘new politics’ embodies key themes and aspirations that are expressed in the founding documents of devolution8 (Brown, 2000; Keating, 2005; Mitchell, 2000; Sloat, 2002): a new institutional balance, the displacement of adversarial politics by a new, more European way of conducting business within the Parliament and a ‘step change’ (Bonney, 2003: 460) in popular participation by citizens outside the Parliament. Moreover, as a result of women’s activism, with some male champions, it became accepted that the ‘new politics’ under devolution would mean little if it did not equally enable women to be active as political representatives and civic actors (Mackay et al., 2002). Though there was little focus at the time on minority ethnic groups, there is an argument, and some evidence to support it, that nationalist projects in Scotland and Wales carry a logic that encourages the inclusion of the latter (Kymlicka, 2009; Meehan, 2010b).

Institutions and procedures

A Scottish Civic Forum was introduced as an independent body and without the constitutional basis of the one in Northern Ireland. It, too, fared badly, though differently from the latter. Intended to bring together churches, trade unions, community groups, professional bodies and businesses, it spent six years encouraging such groups to have their say on key issues. With a membership of about 700 groups and individuals, it held about thirty-five debates, involving around 2,500 people, throughout Scotland on policy-agenda matters such as the smoking ban and prostitution tolerance zones. However, it never played the promi­ nent role expected of it, in part because some of its potential functions were pre-empted by the proactive stance of the Scottish Parliament itself (Ascherson, 2003). The Civic Forum then lost its core government funding (Swanson, 2005a, 2005b). 8 Notably the Consultative Steering Group (1999). The Executive adopted the Parliament’s founding principles. Although it is not required to consult, it is committed to do so.

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The Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body declined to step in to persuade the government to change its mind and suggested the Forum could acquire funds by tendering for parliamentary projects. Nonetheless, on such an unsustainable basis the organisation has more or less wound up. A less charitable commentator (Hassan, 2011) argues that the cessation of funding ‘was no surprise’ as, according to him, it had behaved more like a gatekeeper than a facilitator. Nevertheless, a petition to the Scottish Parliament’s Public Petitions Committee (SPPPC) in May 2007 by John Dowson called upon Parliament and government to review their consultation and participation practices and to consider reinstating Forum funding. The SPPPC agreed later in the year to seek governmental and parliamentary responses and, in early 2008, to write again to the government about its investigations into how to improve community partnership and civic engagement. However, in May 2008 it closed further consideration of the petition on the grounds that neither government nor Parliament had any plans to provide direct funding for the Forum and that both had recently reviewed their consultation and participation practices.9 The Forum was, however, commissioned by the government, until 2009, to work on building capacity in civic society in the area of sustainable development. And Parliament introduced an alternative, its own Community Partnerships Project, ‘to give a voice to people typically under-represented in political life’, such as young people with disabilities, ‘difficult to reach’ young people and people from black and ethnic minority backgrounds (Creative Scotland, 2010). Similarly to Stephen Moutray’s proposed alternative in Northern Ireland, the Scottish government and parliamentary bodies make extensive use of information technology to foster participation. An early comparison (Fawcett, 2001) of the devolved parliamentary websites found the Scottish and Welsh sites to be more welcoming than the Northern Irish one. This finding was reinforced in a review by the ­Bertelsmann Foundation of Berlin (2002: 9; see also Ascherson, 2003) of internet use by parliaments and governments worldwide: ‘There is no doubt about it. As regards participation, Scotland is out in front.’ Since then, the website of the Northern Ireland Assembly has improved, providing a virtual tour and the opportunity to look in on live debates. Mainstreaming – potentially as much a method of participation as a policy itself – also exists in Scotland, though initially without the statutory basis to be found in Northern Ireland’s section 75. The introduction of new race, disability and gender equality duties in Scotland as in England and Wales (which came into force in 2002, 2006 and 2007, 9 For a summary and further links see http://archive.scottish.parliament.uk/ business/​petitions/docs/PE1082.htm (accessed January 2012).

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respectively) brought the rest of the UK closer to the section 75 regime. However, in the absence of any systematic review of their operation in Scotland it is difficult to draw conclusions (Mackay, 2009). There are equality or gender units in both Executives. There is an equal oppor­ tunities committee, with duties to consider the inclusion of marginalised groups, in the Scottish Parliament, but it has no counterpart in Northern Ireland. In the latter, equality issues are the remit of the Assembly committee that scrutinises the work of the OFMDFM and both deal with many other matters. The Parliament and Assembly both pay some atten­ tion to gender issues in the form of family-friendly hours of business. Additionally (and possibly uniquely) there is in Scotland a crèche for the care of visitors’ children. With respect to links with civil society, relationships tend to be issuespecific in both Scotland and Northern Ireland (unlike in Wales, with its formal consultative networks). Scotland, however, has the striking public petitions innovation, noted above – now also on agendas for the UK Parliament and Ireland’s Dáil (the latter drawing on the European Parliament – see de Bréadún, 2011). Despite a disappointing response to the Dowson petition, the SPPPC has been judged to be a success (see, for example, Ascherson, 2003). It enables individuals, community groups and organisations to voice grievances or raise issues of public concern and could be used as route by the Community Partnerships Project mentioned above. Once petitions are submitted, they are considered by the SPPPC, which can take a number of courses of action, including a process leading to legislation. Some 1,200 petitions on a range of issues have been considered. The then Minister for Parliamentary Business, Bruce Crawford (2009), illustrated the serious attention paid to petitions with one about knife crime. The SPPPC organised a debate in the chamber – to which people from outside Parliament were invited to come and to contribute – and made a strong request to the government to respond.

Assessment of the place of ‘new politics’ in post-devolution politics

For a long time, it was difficult to say much about the relationship between devolution and ‘new politics’ in Northern Ireland because of the suspension of institutions, except to note the Civic Forum’s small, specific impact on the first Programme for Government. Consultation, if not participation in its fullest sense, continued through the implementation of section 75 during direct rule and still does under restored devolution. Given that the most positive comments about participation by the voluntary and community sector in Northern Ireland relate to the context of direct rule and given the division of local political opinion on the Civic Forum (or any alternative), it is still difficult to come to a judgement about devolution and ‘new politics’, though there may be

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some grounds for optimism in the consensus over the need to support the work of women’s groups and minority ethnic communities. Meehan and Mackay (2009) judged Scotland (and Wales) to have achieved ‘a mixed score card’ on whether devolution had improved participation. Assessments by public bodies concur that there is progress towards the goal of more participation through the quantity and variety of structures, mechanisms and opportunities for inclusion (Scottish Civic Forum, 2002;10 Scottish Parliament Procedures Committee, 200311). Academic commentators (e.g., Paterson in footnote 11; Bonney, 2003; Keating, 2005) conclude that, despite uneven progress, there is more open decision-making, marking a break with the pre-devolution culture of civil service secrecy and limited, often tokenistic, consultations. The voluntary sector is seen as the main beneficiary in Scotland of new regimes and inclusionary practices, enjoying closer relationships than before devolution with elected representatives and government. If the different political context in Northern Ireland means that such a relationship there was more obvious under direct rule, the different contexts also mean that discernible policy impacts under devolution are more obvious in Scotland. These can be seen in respect of legislation on, for example, domestic violence, land reform, housing, community care and health. On the other hand, our research found that the quality of participation in Scotland varied by group, issue and geography (Meehan and Mackay, 2009). And, as in Northern Ireland, it was affected by feelings of ‘consultation fatigue’ among poorly resourced civic associations. One Scottish trade unionist put it thus: ‘I really do feel there are so many opportunities that we never had before placed in front of us – so many opportunities – that it actually weakens your ability to focus and to know what are priorities’ (Mackay et al., 2005: 15). Also on the other hand, the Scottish Parliament is nested in older institutions (Mackay, 2006). Despite high expectations that the new Parliament would at all costs avoid the habits of Westminster, some old ways of doing things persist into the new institutions – as might have been predicted according to the theory of path dependency. Even during coalition governments, the experience of being able to do things through 10 ‘There is no doubt that the Scottish parliament has created new ways for people to participate in the democratic process, and that the executive is carrying out a great deal more consultation’ (Scottish Civic Forum, 2002: 81). 11 ‘The Parliament has been engaging successfully with the established networks and organisations of what might be called “civic life” or civil society. These groups are generally equipped (although frequently not well equipped) and certainly eager to engage with the Parliament. In the words of a recent commentator [Paterson, 2002: 59]: “The voluntary groups and non-governmental organisations have never been as thoroughly consulted as they are being now”’ (Scottish Parliament Procedures Committee, 2003: paragraph 59).

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executive dominance remained germane in the minds of politicians. This attenuated the dialogue and consensus-building that were to have character­ised the Parliament. It remains to be seen what will happen now that the Scottish National Party (SNP), having been a minority govern­ment, has an outright majority – a situation for any party that was not on the original agenda. The Assembly debate about the future of the Northern Ireland Civic Forum reveals the continuation of a strong attachment to conventional representative democracy, albeit led by a diarchy through a constitutionally entrenched power-sharing arrangement. Also less promising for the fate of ‘new politics’ in both Scotland and Northern Ireland is that the representative democracy/participatory democracy spectrum by and large coincides with the old sectarian or constitutional divisions. Media cultures do not help to dispel the impression that Execu­ tive dominance, rather than wider participation and collaboration, is key to effective governance. Moreover, Scotland’s civil service is a pre-devolutionary one, part of the overall British civil service, another factor that is said to slow down adaptation to change. In contrast, Northern Ireland has its own civil service. In the past, however, it was often castigated for simply ‘reading over’ from Whitehall and Westminster in what it did. But, as noted, political circumstances gave it an incentive to consult civic associations and there was a particular group of civil servants who could see this as the way forward in difficult times (Sweeney, 1998).

Conclusion Overall, post-devolutionary politics continues to raise perennial questions about the costs and benefits of participation. These concern:

• the dilemmas of more participatory decision-making for civil society actors; • whether open decision-making necessarily means better decisionmaking; • whether more participatory decision-making is, indeed, more demo­ cratic, given inequalities in civil society, different capacities to organise, special interests and cynicism about the ‘usual suspects’.

While these need to be addressed seriously if ‘new politics’ is to be realised, it is important not to be deflected by the cynics’ use of the epithet ‘usual suspects’. This is often deployed to discredit people who were marginalised – just at the moment they get a chance to come in from the cold. The devastating effects on women and/or minorities of using this language can be seen in Canada and Australia (Sawyer, 2004). The high proportion of female representatives in the Scottish Parliament limits its purchase there. In Northern Ireland, the proponents of

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c­onventional representative democracy still show the same cynicism about the likely members of a new Civic Forum that they expressed in 1998 about those advocating its creation. Moreover, although criticised, some members of the Northern Ireland Executive have no compunction about using exclusionary language about some of the marginalised – namely gays and lesbians. In contrast, the 2011 elections returned three openly gay Members to the Scottish Parliament with the minimum of fuss. Indeed, one of these three, Ruth Davidson, went on to be elected leader of the Scottish Conservatives. Whatever the limitations of participation in Scotland, it is clear that there is no appetite to return to the old patterns of ‘command and control’. Since civil society ‘has not ceded monopoly of public authority’ to the new institutions (McCrone, 2003: 56), there is no going back from the idea that participatory and representative democracy must coexist. It is not clear that civil society will be able to maintain this stance in Northern Ireland so long as old divisions coincide with differences of opinion about the value of participation in the polity after direct rule.

Acknowledgements This chapter draws upon two research projects, the funders of which the authors would like to thank: the Gender and Constitutional Change Project (L2192520233), directed by Dr Fiona Mackay and funded under the Economic and Social Research Council’s Devolution and Constitutional Change Programme; and the Devolution Monitoring Project (1999–2009), led by Professor Robert Hazell, University College London (Northern Ireland section by Professor Rick Wilford and Dr Robin Wilson, Queen’s University Belfast). This was funded at first by the Econ­omic and Social Research Council, subsequently joined by the UK Ministry of Justice, the Scotland Office, the Wales Office and the Scottish government.

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abortion 84, 102 active citizenship 169 Adams, Gerry 34, 74 affirmative action 17 alcohol, purchases of 132 Alliance Party 32–3, 107–10, 113 Allport, Gordon 14, 56 Altnagelvin Hospital 158 Anderson, Martina 110 Anglo-Irish Agreement (1985) 24, 26 Ashdown, Paddy 35 Bacik, Ivana 111 Ballymena 45–7, 50 Basten, A. 51 Bebbington, D. 69 Belfast 22, 42–51 Belfast Agreement (1998) see Good Friday Agreement Belfast City Council 101 Bell, Eileen 112 Bill of Rights debate 148 Bill of Rights Forum 113 Blair, Tony 28 Boal, F. W. 40 ‘border effect’ 117, 133, 160 Bourdieu, Pierre 40 Brady, Conor 117, 150 Brown, Derren 80 Browne, Vincent 148 Brubaker, R. 8–9, 16, 40

Burgess, Catriona 106 business networks 122

Canada 139, 182 Carson, Joan 111 Castlederg 44–52 Catholic Church 69 ceasefires 25, 39 Charter of Rights for the whole of Ireland, proposed 148 church attendance 68–9 Civic Forum, Northern Irish 19, 170–4, 180–3 Civic Forum, Scottish 178–9 civil partnerships 146 civil society 176–7, 183 Clarke, Desmond 149 class differences 93–7 Cluj, Romania 8–9 Coakley, J. 151–3, 162, 164 Committee on the Administration of Justice (CAJ) 175 communal identity 44 community activism 177 community organisations see voluntary and community sector Community Relations Council 33 commuting, cross-border 127 Confederation of British Industry (CBI) 120

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Connellan, Liam 120 consensus-building 169–70, 182 consociational arrangements 35 consultation and ‘consultation fatigue’ 180–1 Consultative Group on the Past in Northern Ireland 31 contact theory 56–8 containment policy 25, 29, 34 Contemporary Irish Identities Project 84 conversion, religious 71, 74, 77–8 Cooperation and Working Together (CAWT) programme 158–60 Costello, John 151 Coulter, C. 95 Council of Ireland, proposals for 151, 153 Cowell-Myers, Kimberley 113 Cowen, Brian 155 Crawford, Bruce 180 cross-border commerce 17, 117–34 cross-border cooperation 120–5, 134, 140, 150–66 cross-border flows of people 17–18, 125–6 cross-border shopping 128–34 Crowley, Niall 138 cultural identity 52

Dáil, the 106 Davidson, Ruth 183 de Brún, Bairbre 109 de Certeau, Michel 7–8, 16, 18, 40, 165 DemocraShee 100, 103 Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) 3–4, 10, 28, 30–2, 101, 105, 108–13, 155 Department of Education for Northern Ireland 58–9, 62 depoliticisation of society 10–12, 82 devolution 19, 22, 28–9, 32, 34–5, 107, 119–21, 171, 178–81 d’Hondt system 32 discrimination 136–42 in employment 17 on grounds of disability 145–6 legislation against 138–9 Donaghy, T. 176–7

205 Dovidio, J. 56–7 Downing Street Declaration (1993) 25 Dowson, John 179 dual mandates for elected politicians 108–9, 113 Dunclug 44–7, 49, 51

economic conditions 48, 118–19 e-democracy 174 education 14, 33–4, 49, 54–67, 119, 127–8 Education and Training Inspectorate 60–1 Employment Equality Act (1998), Irish 138 Enterprise train service 125 Equal Status Act (2000), Irish 138 equality, promotion of 6, 32, 84, 136–47, 171, 175 in Good Friday Agreement 137–45 Equality Authority, Irish 138, 147 Equality Coalition for Northern Ireland 175–7 Equality Commission for Northern Ireland 102, 140, 143 equality of opportunity 138–42, 148–9 equivalence of rights as between Northern Ireland and the Republic 141–9 ethnic minorities 136, 140, 170, 178 ethno-nationalist division 8–10, 44, 83–6, 93–7 European Convention on Human Rights 143, 147 European Union (EU) 25, 28, 33, 39, 103, 119–20, 134–5, 138, 153–4, 160–6, 170 evangelicalism and evangelical communities 15, 69–82 exiting from 80–2 everyday life and cross-border linkages 123–5, 150–1, 156, 165 inequalities embedded in 135–6 and religious change 77–81 study of 7–10

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206 Fair Employment Act (Northern Ireland) (1989) 17, 139 Fair Employment and Treatment Order (FETO) 139–40, 145, 148 faith, religious, maintenance of 79 faith schools 55–6 Farry, Stephen 108 femininity 86–8 Foster, Arlene 101, 107, 110–11

Ganiel, G. 69–70 gender identities and gender-based inequality 51, 84–97 see also women’s role in society and politics Gibson, Chris 172 Gildernew, Michelle 109 global economic environment 118 Good Friday Agreement (1998) 3, 6, 17–19, 27–9, 31, 34, 74, 84, 95, 97, 100, 108, 117, 120, 135–50, 153–4, 157, 165, 171–2 equality and non-discrimination provisions 137–45 Government of Ireland Act (1920) 22, 151 government ministers, women as 109–10

Hamber, Brandon 28 Hanna, Carmel 109 Hanna’s House organisation 103 Hanson, David 177 Harvey, C. 142 Hassan, G. 179 Hayes, B. 59–60 health services 18, 157–66 Hewstone, M. 59 Hillsborough Agreement (2010) 32–3 Hinds, B. 176 Home Rule 20 human rights 135, 137, 140–8, 175 identity see communal identity; cultural identity identity politics 47 Ikon group 76–7

everyday life.indb 206

Index inequality 145, 148–9 embedded in everyday life 135–6 North–South responses to 136–41 information technology, uses of 174, 179 Ingersoll, J. 73 Institute for Conflict Research (ICR) 40 integration 49, 52, 177 in schools 54–5, 59–62, 66 inter-community relations 33, 35, 51, 56–67, 112 interface communities 46 intergovernmental relations 24–5, 150, 153, 164–5 international law 145 Inter-Parliamentary Union 106 InterTradeIreland 120–5 Irish Business and Employers Confederation (IBEC) 120 Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU) 102 Irish Republican Army (IRA) 26, 29 Irish Times 10 Jones, P. N. 70

Kelly, Grainne 28 Kennedy, M. 153 Kennedy, Tony 5, 16–17, 99 Kerr, Ronan 34 Kilrea 44–7, 49–51 Kirby, P. 137 Knox, C. 64 Kolind, Torsten 12 Lagan, Kate 111 league tables 61 Lemass, Seán 152, 157 Lenihan, Brian 128 Lewsley, Patricia 112 Lo, Anna 113–14, 174 local government 99–106 Londonderry 22 Lysaght, K. 51 McAllister, I. 59–60 McCall, C. 13

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McCrudden, C. 175 McDowell, Michael 137 McGimpsey, Michael 158 McGuinness, Martin 5, 34, 173 McGurk, Tom 10 McIlveen, Michael 45 McIlveen, Michelle 107 Mackay, F. 181 McKittrick, D. 10 McLaughlin, Mitchel 174 Magennis, E. 153 mainstreaming 102, 175–6, 179 Mair, Peter 10–11, 18–19, 169 Mallon, Seamus 172 marching season see parades Marx, Karl 20 Meehan, E. 181 ‘mental mapping’ 42–3, 47 monuments, erection of 31 Morrice, Jane 110–11 Moutray, Stephen 174, 179 Murray, D. 55–6 Murray, M. 95

National Development Plan 2007–13 156–7, 164 New Lodge 42, 45 Newry 22, 45–6, 48–51 Newtonstewart 44, 46, 50 Newtownabbey Borough Council 101 Ní Chuilín, Carál 110 ‘normalisation’ of political life 12, 39, 81, 119, 170 North South Consultative Forum 165 North–South Ministerial Council (NSMC) 154–7, 162–5 Northern Ireland Act (1998) 139, 171–2 section 75 175–7 Northern Ireland Assembly 3, 29, 84, 99, 102–14 political culture of 110–11 website of 179 women members of 104–14 Northern Ireland Executive 3–4, 33, 35, 99, 103, 109, 112, 156, 172, 183

207 Northern Ireland Women’s Coalition (NIWC) 99–100, 102, 104, 111, 171 Northern Ireland Women’s European Platform (NIWEP) 99, 103–4 O’Cinneide, C. 6 O’Connor, Tim 120 O’Dea, Willie 146–8 O’Dowd, L. 151–3, 162, 164–5 Omagh District Council 101 O’Neill, Michelle 110 O’Neill, Terence 153, 157 Orange Order 35, 75 O’Toole, Fintan 148

Paisley, Ian Snr 34, 70, 75, 78, 173 parades 33, 35, 45, 51–2 paramilitaries 30–1, 35, 92 participation in political decisionmaking 98–100, 169, 180–3 see also women’s role in society and politics partition of Ireland 23–4, 117, 151–2 partnership working 27 Paterson, Owen 55 Patten, Chris 27 Paz, Yehuda 3 peace-building 33, 55, 81–2 peace process 25–7, 30, 36, 39, 52, 82, 99, 143–4 PEACE programmes 33, 119, 159, 164 petitions, public 179–80 Pickett, K. 136 Pitkin, Hannah 11 policing 13, 27–9, 32 repatriation of powers 4 political culture 110–12 Pollak, A., 5 Poots, Edwin 158 power-sharing 24, 26, 28, 153, 182 public sector, size of 119 public services, provision of 18, 134, 151–2, 155 see also health services public sphere 81–2 Purvis, Dawn 107–8, 114, 174 Putnam, R. 170

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qualitative data 64 Quarterly National Household Survey (QNHS) 129–33 Queen, the 29 Quigley, Sir George 16–17, 119–20 quotas for women election candidates 107

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racism 13, 170 reconciliation, promotion of 20, 26–8, 31–6, 62, 165 religion 68–9 ‘civil’ 70 experienced as a journey 70, 73–9, 82 see also evangelicalism and evangelical communities ‘research fatigue’ 42 Rigby, Andrew 11–13 Ritchie, Margaret 110–11 Robinson, Iris 110 Robinson, Peter 34–5, 55, 154–5, 174 Rodgers, Brid 109 Rooney, Denis 6 Ross, Alastair 108 Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) 29 Ruane, Catriona 109 Saville Inquiry 10 school buses 49 school uniforms 49–51, 66 Schools Community Relations Programme 58 Scotland 105–6, 169–70, 178–83 sectarianism 9, 13–14, 24–5, 32, 35, 40–7, 50–2, 55, 75, 112, 140, 170, 178 secularisation 68 segregation 14, 39–52, 56, 59, 139, 142 self-disclosure 57, 60 Sex Discrimination (Election Candidates) Act (2002) 106–7, 113 sexism 111 Shandon Park 44–6, 48, 51–2 Shared Education Programme (SEP) 14, 33–4, 54, 63–7 effectiveness of 63–6

Index Shirlow, P. 51 shopping 17, 49–50 cross-border 128–34 Shuttleworth, I. 127 Side, K. 177 Sinn Féin 10, 25, 28, 30–2, 101, 104–5, 110 Smith, Christian 71 Smyth, Peter 120–1 Snodaigh, Aengus Ó 146 Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) 28, 109–10 socialising 50 Standing Advisory Commission on Human Rights (SACHR) 175 Stephan, W. G. and C. W. 57 Stranmillis 41, 43–7, 49 Stringer, M. 59–60 students, mobility of 127 Sunningdale Agreement (1973) 153 supernaturalism 72 superordinate goals 65–6

teacher training 60–1 territorial claim to Northern Ireland 146, 154 Tigers Bay 42, 45 Todd, Jennifer 8 tourism 125–6, 133 trade, cross-border 123–5 Traditional Unionist Voice 31 transversal politics 16 Trimble, David 172 Tyrone County Gaelic Football Association 35 Ulster Defence Regiment (UDR) 29 Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) 28, 104–10 unemployment rates 119 United Nations international covenants 137 Security Council Resolution 1325 103–4, 113 United States 25, 27, 139 violence 23–4, 30–1, 34–6, 177 against women 84, 92 male-on-male 91–2

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visitors to Ireland 125 voluntary and community sector 170–1, 176–7, 180–1

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Wales 106, 178–81 Ward, Margaret 110 weapons decommissioning 27–8 Weir, Peter 108 Wilford, R. 177 Wilkinson, R. 136 Wilson, R. 35, 177 Wilson, S. 111 Wilson, T. M. 13

209 Women in Local Councils (WiLC) 100–1, 103 women’s groups 170 women’s role in society and politics 15–16, 83–6, 91, 98–114, 136, 171–2, 177–8 see also gender identities and gender-based inequality workplace relations 48–9 Wright, F. 23 Zappone, K. 142–3 Zero28 organisation 77

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