Religion and Conflict in Northern Ireland: What Does Religion Do? 3030969495, 9783030969493

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Religion and Conflict in Northern Ireland What Does Religion Do?

Véronique Altglas

Religion and Conflict in Northern Ireland

Véronique Altglas

Religion and Conflict in Northern Ireland What Does Religion Do?

Véronique Altglas School of Social Sciences, Education and Social Work Queen’s University Belfast Belfast, UK

ISBN 978-3-030-96949-3 ISBN 978-3-030-96950-9 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-96950-9 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Cover illustration: © John Rawsterne/patternhead.com This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Acknowledgments

I am particularly grateful to Nicola Carr, Peter Doak, Jonathan Heaney and Barry McCaffrey for their willingness to read and comment upon parts of this book. As usual, the mistakes, omissions and misconceptions are mine alone.

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Contents

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Introduction References

1 11

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Religion and Conflict in Northern Ireland: Context Brief History Religion in Northern Ireland Religious Landscape Secularisation Conservative Religious Culture Religion and Political Orientation References

13 14 29 29 32 32 33 34

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Religion as Source of Conflict: Interpretations and Evidence General Overview The Weight of History Religion Is Important… Because It Is The Test Case: Protestantism and Unionist Politics References

41 43 45 49 54 62

Religion and the Reproduction of Social Divisions in Northern Ireland Anti-Catholicism and Subjectivism Religion in Socio-economic Context

67 70 77

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Sectarianism, Intra-Class Dynamics and Politics References 5

Sociology and Conflict: Epistemological Challenges The Anti-Catholic Illusio Double Play and Historical Materialism Politics and the Sociological Understanding of Inequalities Inequalities and the Sociology of Religion in Northern Ireland Anti-Catholicism, Anti-Protestantism, Reciprocity and Equivalences References

81 87 93 95 104 106 111 114 116

Conclusion

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Index

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About the Author

Véronique Altglas is a Lecturer in Sociology at Queen’s University Belfast and General Secretary of the International Society for the Sociology of Religion. Her early research focused on the new religious movements originating in India that took root in North America and Europe. By comparing the diffusion of Hindu religions in the West with that of Kabbalah, she developed an analysis of religious exoticism, a significant trend in contemporary religious sensibilities that had not previously been addressed as such, and which underscores the sociocultural logics of bricolage. Her current work is based on an empirical study of a messianic congregation in Northern Ireland and is part of a broader reflection on bricolage and identity formation. Véronique Altglas has published: Le Nouvel Hindouisme Occidental (CNRS, 2005); From Yoga to Kabbalah: Religious Exoticism and the Logics of Bricolage (Oxford University Press, 2014). She edited a four-volume Reader, Religion and Globalization: Critical Concepts in Social Studies (Routledge, 2010), and a collective volume that aims to provide an agenda for a critical sociology of religion: Bringing the Social Back into the Sociology of Religion (Brill, 2018). The present book is in continuity with her interest for epistemological questions specific to the sociology of religion.

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CHAPTER 1

Introduction

Abstract This chapter introduces the scope and argumentation of the book. It is the first critical and comprehensive review of the ways in which sociology has interpreted religion’s significance in Northern Ireland. It examines the shortcomings of existing interpretations and suggests alternative lines of thinking for more robust and compelling analyses of the role(s) religion might play in Northern Ireland. Through, and beyond, the case of Northern Ireland, the second objective of this book is to outline an agenda for a critical sociology of religion. To begin with, it has to fully appreciate the social constitution of religion, instead of envisaging it as free-floating beliefs whose influence on individuals is taken for granted. Breaking with this radical subjectivism requires, consequently, to take full account of social practices and actions. Ultimately, this work engages with essential epistemological issues: how do conflict settings affect the research undertaken on religion, when religion is an object of political and violent contentions? By analysing the scope for objective and critical thinking in such research context, this critical essay intends to contribute to a sociology of the sociology of religion. Keywords Epistemology · Sociology of religion · Northern Ireland · Religion and conflict · Subjectivism · Reflexivity

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 V. Altglas, Religion and Conflict in Northern Ireland, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-96950-9_1

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April 28, 2021, “We must return to the Unionist and Christian values of our party”: in a letter voicing no-confidence in the leadership, lawmakers of the Democratic Unionist Party called for the resignation of their party leader and Northern Ireland First Minister, Arlene Foster. The protest letter expressed grave concerns about the very “future of unionism, Ulster conservatism and the DUP” as well as the party leadership’s failure to prevent the legalisation of abortion in Northern Ireland. For some unionist representatives, the final straw seemed to be Foster’s abstention in a Stormont1 Assembly vote, one week earlier, on a motion calling for a ban on gay conversion therapy. While the majority of her party had voted against it, arguing that such a ban constituted an infringement to religious freedom, Foster and a small number of DUP politicians had chosen to abstain in the voting chamber. Less than 24 hours after the letter of noconfidence in her leadership had emerged, Arlene Foster resigned. Within hours, the first candidate entering the race to replace her was Edwin Poots, a Free Presbyterian and creationist who opposed adoption for gay couples and blood donation for gay men. As Northern Ireland’s Minister of Health at the time, Poots had been previously dubbed by critics as “the perfect minister for the land time forgot” (Reidy, 2013). And indeed, recent headline news seems to confirm the view that Northern Ireland and its politics infused with fundamentalism are out of step with the rest of the world. After all, it is only in the last two years that abortion and same-sex marriage were introduced in Northern Ireland, under legislation passed by Westminster and not through the regional government. But were those who brought about Foster’s abrupt political defenestration acting on religious principles? And if so, is Northern Ireland the place in politics that time forgot? In fact, it seems Northern Ireland can never be forgotten. It was a state born of strife 100 years ago. But in 2021, rather than a fanfare of inclusive celebrations, the region is instead commemorating its centenary in a lowkey and worried manner, amidst political turbulences, violent unrest and of course a global pandemic. On the eve of the centenary in March 2021, riots erupted on the streets of Belfast. The street protests emerged from confused messages on social media: “Enough is enough, they are saying the Protestant people are going to be a minority. Let’s show them who the minority is”. Brexit, which had been supported by the DUP, resulted 1 Stormont refers to the regional parliament, because the parliament buildings are located on the Stormont Estate, in the eastern part of Belfast.

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in a sea border between the region and Great Britain, as part of divorce arrangements between the United Kingdom and the European Union known as the Northern Ireland protocol. Shambolic disruptions to transport, trade and even food supplies aggravated an economy already stressed by the coronavirus pandemic. The NI protocol fuelled anger and anxiety among Protestant unionists loyal to Britain: to some of them, the protocol weakened the region’s place within the United Kingdom and diluted its British identity, while at the same time momentum within nationalism appeared to be building for Ireland’s reunification. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, but more crucially Arlene Foster and her ministers, was blamed for the “Brexit Act of Betrayal”. Worse still, the DUP under her leadership seemed unable to counteract or change the terms of the Brexit agreement. This brief account of the region’s latest turmoil is evidence that the relationships between politics and religion in Northern Ireland remain complex and contested. Is it the unresolved aftermath of British colonialism, political hegemony and social inequalities, incompatible political ideologies of nationhood, or intractable religious differences between Catholics and Protestants? But is religion uniquely significant in Northern Ireland, compared to the rest of Western Europe? And, if so, what role does religion exactly play in the politics and society of Northern Ireland? The Northern Irish case study therefore resonates with a key question for the social study of religion, and which remains one of its greatest challenges up to this day—how religious beliefs, attitudes and identities relate to social practice and, in turn, to social structure and social change. In other words, what does religion do? Those questions are at the core of this book. It is the first critical and comprehensive review of the ways in which religion’s significance in Northern Ireland has been previously interpreted. This critical review concentrates in particular on the—broadly understood—field of the sociology of religion. Of course, academics in other subfields and cognate disciplines refer to religion in their work on Northern Ireland, but they rarely focus on, or problematise, its social role(s) and significance, in contrast to sociologists of religion who seek to develop an in-depth analysis of the manifestations and impacts of their object of study. The texts discussed in this volume include the most significant contributions to the

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sociological analysis of religion in Northern Ireland2 —the work of John Brewer, Steve Bruce and Claire Mitchell in particular. These authors draw on primary research, develop in-depth analyses of religion’s role in the region’s social divisions and have become indispensable references for this subfield. Besides, this volume also explores interpretations that may not dominate the subfield (such as John Hickey’s and John Fulton’s), but of which weaknesses illuminate the theoretical, methodological or epistemological challenges I intend to address. It is all the more important to discuss those contributions: their shortcomings, normative assumptions and, in some instances, expressions of prejudice have typically remained unchallenged, arguably underscoring a problematic “blind spot” in this academic subfield. Ultimately, this volume in turn suggests alternative lines of thinking for more robust and compelling analyses of the role(s) religion might play in Northern Irish culture and politics. Northern Ireland has probably been over-researched, and yet there is no agreement on the causes of conflict. Besides, interpretations of religion’s role are even less satisfying. Perhaps unsurprisingly, scholars of religion have insisted on the significance of religion in understanding Northern Ireland’s enduring conflict. In particular, they emphasise the role of doctrines, beliefs and representations in maintaining communal identities and networks, but also as foundational to the endurance of boundaries, differences and antagonism. Invoking the seventeenthcentury plantations and wars of religions, many have explained Northern Ireland’s distinctive features by pointing out the permanency of local historical conditions—in other words, it is described as the land that time forgot. As a consequence, conflicts relating to religious differences seem intractable and unavoidable, and yet, I will contend in this book that in various instances, social scientists’ own empirical evidence fails to corroborate these assertions about religion’s enduring significance. Thus, it seems that religion is important… simply because it is. In some cases, religion is believed to have an obvious influence on people, which does not need to be explained or demonstrated. Finally, while this literature insists on religion’s crucial role in Northern Ireland, paradoxically, it rarely tries to

2 Ganiel (2022) notes that the sociological studies of religion in Ireland have most of the time focused on either Northern Ireland or the Republic of Ireland, and developed distinctive themes—religion and conflict in the former; the decline of the Catholic Church’s social influence in the latter. The author is probably right in stating that a more integrated approach would be fruitful.

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show how religion contributes to the reproduction of a social order, or to the distribution of power, resources, rights, status or opportunities. The failure to conceptualise this further is unfortunate, because it could be a compelling way to demonstrate religion’s relevance for the making of such a divided society. This book argues that Northern Ireland’s conflict is not, as French sociologist Liogier (2006, p. 154) puts it, one that “objectively opposes Christian fanatic groups”, nor is it a “tragedy of belief” (Fulton, 1991). Its structural causes are fundamental—in particular, class divisions and dynamics, social inequalities and socio-economic conditions. I do not contend that the conflict’s cultural and religious dimensions are unimportant and simply reflect social structures. Rather, religion’s significance, far from being intractable or natural, derives from complex political, economic and social dynamics that need to be addressed, which is what this book intends to do. I will also suggest that, regardless of academics’ theoretical allegiances, there might also be political and epistemological reasons for the tendency to portray Northern Ireland’s divisions as a question of religious ideas and beliefs. Indeed, violent conflicts often come with pressures and censorship, attacks on professional reputations and sometimes threats of physical harm for academics and intellectuals. They also have ideological dimensions: a war of competing narratives about state legitimacy, responsibilities, victims, perpetrators and potential solutions continues to rage in Northern Ireland and could not leave sociological thinking untouched. Through a critical analysis of the sociology of religion in Northern Ireland, I suggest that this conflict has affected academics’ ability to properly address class dynamics, inequalities or sectarian discrimination in a dispassionate manner which, in turn, has prevented more compelling conclusions being reached about religion’s role in Northern Irish society. Through, and beyond, the case of Northern Ireland, this volume addresses key issues that lie at the heart of the sociology of religion, from the social role(s) religion plays to its relationship with agency and social structures. As such, this work builds on recent reflections towards critical sociological studies of religion in order to formulate a future research agenda. To begin with, the study of religion in Northern Ireland is reflective of the broader subfield’s insufficient appreciation of the social constitution of religion. By this, I mean that the study of religion increasingly approaches its object as quasi-autonomous doctrines,

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personal beliefs and attitudes, at the expense of practices, social relations and interactions. The study of religion in Northern Ireland precisely shows that treating the social world as having resulted from subjective representations does not allow academics to explore religion’s complex role appropriately—in the reproduction of social differentiation, divisions or violent mobilisations for instance. More importantly perhaps, the social study of religion can gain in significance by broadening its scope and using religion as a prism to analyse broader social issues rather than limiting itself to the exploration of individual attitudes. This leads us to the methodological weakness of the predominant, subjectivist approach within the social study of religion, which often relies on discourses produced in the context of qualitative interviews. Within the sociology of religion in Northern Ireland, these interviews and their analyses often decontextualise research participants; they focus primarily on subjective representations with little consideration for individuals’ social background and trajectory, and how these interact with the wider context in which these social actors find themselves. It is therefore difficult to understand why certain ideas or worldviews make sense for specific individuals, and in which situations these ideas might become particularly meaningful to them. Religious ideas and beliefs do not influence people in a social vacuum: a robust methodology should therefore contextualise discourses, but it also needs to approach religion as manifested in material culture, practices, interactions, institutions and organisations. Indeed, the Northern Irish case study illustrates the fact that too often, scholars of religion infer, from free-floating discourses, a direct link with social practice and, in turn, to social structure. As a consequence, the relationships between subjective reality and social action remain undertheorised, if theorised at all: the reader just has to accept it exists and that it is relatively straightforward. Yet the various attempts to explain Northern Ireland’s conflict has proved otherwise. Those attempts have in fact been grappling with a complex issue: the power of beliefs and worldviews to make people act in certain ways and, ultimately, to generate social divisions and violent conflicts. The Northern Irish case thus takes us back to sociology of religion’s foundations, by raising the fundamental question of what religion does, or makes people do. Revisiting Max Weber’s sociology, this book argues that social studies of religion would benefit from shifting their focus, at least slightly, from worldview to social action. Finally, the study of religion in Northern Ireland entails epistemological challenges of paramount importance, which relate to what religion

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and conflict do to academics themselves… Sociological knowledge is always, to a certain extent, affected by the settings in which it is both elaborated and released. However, when this context entails a violent conflict and a war of competing narratives, questions of critical reflexivity, objectivity and academic freedom are particularly acute, as shown by research on Northern Ireland. It is therefore particularly striking that the authors discussed in the present review very rarely address their relationship to their object.3 Drawing on Bourdieu’s (2010 [1987]) reflexive sociology, this book demonstrates the need for scholars of religion to address the social conditions in which they produce knowledge, and the ways in which this knowledge is affected by their own positionality when they align with the positions held by social actors. Reproducing beliefs and attitudes within academic interpretations of the social world authenticates the claims and experience of specific social actors—and disqualifies others’. Such “double play”, as Bourdieu calls it, is nonetheless of little use in understanding society adequately. I need to add that this book was particularly difficult, if not painful, to write. A healthy sociology should be “a magical place where people argue about everything all the time” (Wood, 2014, p. 754), for challenges, debates and controversies are essential to advance sociological inquiry effectively. Except, it is not such a magical place; it is a human activity involving highly intense emotions reflecting academia’s acute struggles for symbolic capital. Hence, the many hesitations and oscillations punctuated the writing process of this critical discussion. This essay was initially prompted by my own empirical research on a conservative Protestant congregation in Northern Ireland—people who, strikingly, are engaged in actions, practices and life-changing decisions that directly relate to their religious beliefs. In addition, the sociology of religion undertaken in this region resonates with the sociological problems I have been trying to address all along my intellectual journey—historical determinism and overestimation of religion’s significance (Altglas, 2010), lack of attention to social structures and constraints (Altglas, 2014), and over-inflation of subjectivity (Altglas, 2018). The relationships between socio-political context, social structures (class and trajectories, in particular) and systems 3 As exceptions, see Brewer’s self-presentation as a Christian sociologist and how this contributed to his motivation to write about anti-Catholicism (Brewer & Higgins, 1998, p. ix), while Hickey (1984, p. 2) evokes the difficulty to study a social context that seems familiar but proves to be radically different from the rest of the United Kingdom.

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of religious beliefs and practices especially constitute the object of a lifelong quest which will probably remain an inaccessible star. For this reason, I am grateful for those works commented in this book, for having given me the opportunity to further and test my thoughts. It does not excuse the hurt feelings this book might cause, however. The complex questions raised by the Northern Irish context and the challenges it poses to social sciences also fed into the debate on critical and reflexive sociological studies of religion I have pursued for some time (Altglas & Wood, 2018). Indeed, what also fuelled the elaboration of this book was a couple of observations: firstly, common-sensical sectarian assumptions have made inroads in some of the academic interpretations of Northern Ireland, which in effect prevent a solid interpretation of social divisions and antagonism to emerge. Secondly, these inroads have more often than not been unchallenged. In a context in which sectarianism structures the social world, it is perhaps not surprising that it would be un-theorised, under-theorised (McVeigh, 1990, 1995) and, in some cases, unquestioned or even unrecognised. I, however, do not claim I am more able than anybody else to “face up to [my] social determinants”4 when it comes to Northern Ireland; neither Catholic nor Protestant, but bearing a concern regarding minority status, as a result of being born in a Jewish family that experienced the Holocaust on the one side and brutal emigration from North Africa on the other. To state this could not have any impact on my understanding of the place that has become home for the last fifteen years would be incredibly naive. I can only strive for this personal concern of mine to be adequately channelled in intellectual concerns that are core to sociology—the study of power, social inequalities and the ways in which these interact with ideological justifications, beliefs and worldviews. As such, the role played by religion in social reproduction has been part of my intellectual project for a long

4 “To finish, I want to say again that the sociology of sociology does not want to be, and should not be, a falsely sublimated form of everyday disputes and that, far from summoning any condemnation upon this or that person, or upon the group, it would at least like to have the virtue of enabling everyone to face up to their social determinants – which does not mean accepting them – and to resolutely affirm their interests, by controlling and scientifically reformulating these, which are only able to become interests of reason on condition that it is clear for anyone animated by them that, at least initially, they are never completely based on reason” (Bourdieu, 2010 [1987], pp. 6–7).

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time; it is central to my analysis of the religious exoticism of the middleclasses, or of the relationships between “spirituality” and neoliberal forms of governance. I hope that through this essay, I have not departed from this intellectual path and that readers will be willing to follow me along the pages of this book. ∗ ∗ ∗ The first chapter briefly introduces Northern Ireland: partition and the foundation of the Northern Irish state (1921); the social and political features of Northern Irish society since 1921; the escalation to violence in the 1960s; the fusing of Protestant fundamentalism with unionist politics; and the Peace Agreement (1998) and its aftermaths. This short history will be followed by a presentation of Northern Ireland’s contemporary religious landscape, with the current trends in relation to identity and belonging, progressive secularisation and conservative religious cultures. This chapter aims to remain as descriptive as possible and not to explain Northern Ireland. It does not suggest Northern Ireland is significantly determined by its past (social sciences in Northern Ireland are largely dominated by historical narratives), nor that religion plays a central role in the regional conflict: I would take the risk of writing a narrative similar to those I intend to examine critically in this book. Drawing on secondary literature, the chapter refers to a broad range of authors who often offer different approaches and understandings of Northern Ireland; putting their work into perspective provides the background knowledge indispensable for exploring critically the contemporary debates about religion, politics and violence in this region. Chapter 2 turns to the ways in which sociologists of religion presented their object of study as the prevalent source of conflict and divisions in Northern Ireland. They either underscore competing communities, rival religious institutions, conflicting doctrines and beliefs, or theologically driven prejudice. What these authors have in common is the idea that religious doctrines, beliefs and representations have played a central role in reproducing boundaries and antagonism throughout the region’s history and continue to do so. Such assertions of religion’s primacy are nonetheless sometimes disconnected from empirical evidence. This gives the impression that explaining the Northern Irish conflict through the prism of religion is, for some social scientists, a “by default” position—the relationships between evangelicalism and unionist politics are examined

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as a case in point. Besides, those academics tend to explain contemporary Northern Ireland by its past: it is because religion was historically important that it remains so. As a result, the political effects of religious doctrines and ideas are depicted as unchanging and intractable. Ultimately, such historical determinism leaves substantial questions unanswered: one wonders for instance why populations are “competing” in the first place. Thus, scholars of religion tend to agree that religion in Northern Ireland relates to social differentiation, but they have little to say about how and why it is so. Most studies that present Northern Ireland’s conflict as having religious roots do not pay sufficient attention to social dynamics and contexts that might actually make religious beliefs, symbols and narratives significant. This is what the third chapter of this book addresses. It pays attention to sectarianism, because it seems to be the obvious link between personal views (some being rooted in religious doctrines), individual behaviours, institutional practices and, at the macro-sociological level, the reproduction of social divisions in Northern Ireland. However, sociologists of religion in Northern Ireland have been prone to treat sectarianism mostly as an individual, subjective attitude towards others. Such an approach fails to understand sectarianism (1) in social context, as an expression of Protestant working-class marginalisation for instance, and (2) as discriminatory practice at the institutional level, which contributed to reproduce social inequalities to the detriment of Catholic communities. By contrast, I show how ethnographic and sociological studies of loyalist political culture, which are not primarily interested in religion, shed light on class dynamics as well as political and socio-economic factors that render religious representations potent and meaningful for those who embrace them. Focusing on epistemological issues, this chapter suggests that important reflections on the relationships between religious beliefs, practice and social structures have been missed, possibly because sociologists of religion have felt uncomfortable in addressing prejudice, practices of discrimination and the reproduction of inequalities. Studying sociology in the context of a violent, but also ideological, conflict has generated epistemological challenges for social scientists. Subjectivising the conflict, or on the contrary insisting on its structural and economic dimensions, unavoidably speaks to the political and moral question of responsibility—and hence to the legitimacy of the Northern Irish state. Thus, social sciences undertaken during the Troubles, in particular, reflected public concerns

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and political stakes of that time. I suggest this explains, at least in part, why some academics insist that the conflict had religious roots and pay little attention to its structural dimensions. But here lies the quandary. It is inescapably political to address the reproduction of inequalities, socioeconomic grievances and (experienced or perceived) discrimination in Northern Ireland. And yet it is essential to do so, in order to evaluate the significance of religion, because of the particular ways in which religion is intertwined with the socio-economic and political spheres in this region. This essay’s conclusion summarises the key arguments made in this book regarding the methodological, theoretical and epistemological frailties of the sociology of religion in Northern Ireland. It also discusses the way forward: a robust sociology of religion that appreciates the social constitution of religion, instead of envisaging it as free-floating beliefs whose influence on individuals is taken for granted. A more critical understanding of religion must also reflexively address the social conditions in which we produce this knowledge and the ways in which this knowledge is affected by our own positionality. Reproducing beliefs and attitudes within academic interpretations of the social world leads to the authentication of the claims and experience of specific social actors— and disqualifies others’. The issue is particularly interesting, if not at its most extreme, in contexts of social conflicts and their subsequent wars of narratives. Finally, the case study of Northern Ireland resonates with a key question for the sociology of religion and which remains one of the greatest challenges of the subfield up to this day: what does religion do? Returning to Weber’s comprehensive sociology, the book closes with the theoretical and methodological challenges implied by such a question.

References Altglas, V. (2010). Laïcité is what Laïcité does: Rethinking the French cult controversy. Current Sociology, 58(3), 1–22. Altglas, V. (2014). From Yoga to Kabbalah: Religious exoticism and the logics of bricolage. Oxford University Press. Altglas, V. (2018). Spirituality and discipline; not a contradiction in terms. In V. Altglas & M. Wood (Eds.), Bringing the social back into the sociology of religion (pp. 79–107). Brill.

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Altglas, V., & Wood, M. (2018). Introduction: An epistemology for the sociology of religion. In V. Altglas & M. Wood (Eds.), Bringing the social back into the sociology of religion (pp. 1–34). Brill. Bourdieu, P. (2010 [1987]). Sociologists of belief and beliefs of sociologists. Nordic Journal of Religion and Society, 23(1), 1–7. Brewer, J., & Higgins, G. I. (1998). Anti-Catholicism in Northern Ireland, 1600–1998: The Mote and the Beam. Macmillan. Fulton, J. (1991). The tragedy of belief: Division, politics and religion in Ireland. Clarendon Press. Ganiel, G. (2022). Understanding the sociology of religion in contemporary Ireland. In B. McNamara & H. O’Brien (Eds.), The study of religions in Ireland: Past, present and future. Bloomsbury. Hickey, J. (1984). Religion and the Northern Ireland problem. Gill & Macmillan. Liogier, R. (2006). Une Laïcité “Légitime”. La France et ses Religions d’Etat. Editions Médicis-Entrelacs. McVeigh, R. (1990). The undertheorisation of sectarianism. The Canadian Journal of Irish Studies, 16(2), 119–122. McVeigh, R. (1995). Cherishing the children of the nation unequally: Sectarianism in Ireland. In P. Clancy, S. Drudy, K. Lynch, & L. O’Dowd (Eds.), Ireland: A sociological profile (pp. 620–651). Institute of Public Administration in association with the Sociological Association of Ireland. Reidy, P. (2013, November 11). Northern Ireland’s Edwin Poots: The perfect minister for the land time forgot. The Guardian. Retrieved November 30, 2021, from https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/nov/11/ northern-ireland-edwin-poots-creationist-anti-gay Wood, M. (2014). Lessons from the wire: Epistemological reflections on the practice of sociological research. The Sociological Review, 62(4), 742–759.

CHAPTER 2

Religion and Conflict in Northern Ireland: Context

Abstract This chapter provides a brief history of Northern Ireland: partition and the foundation of the Northern Irish state (1921); the social and political features of Northern Irish society since 1921; the escalation to violence in the 1960s; the fusing of Protestant fundamentalism with unionist politics; and the Peace Agreement (1998) and its aftermaths. This short history will be followed by an overview of Northern Ireland’s contemporary religious landscape, with the current social trends in relation to identity and belonging, progressive secularisation and conservative religious cultures. This chapter aims to remain as descriptive as possible. Drawing on secondary literature, it refers to a broad range of authors who often offer different approaches and understandings of Northern Ireland; putting their work into perspective provides the background knowledge indispensable for exploring critically the contemporary debates about religion, politics and violence in this region. Keywords Northern Ireland · Troubles · Religion and conflict

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 V. Altglas, Religion and Conflict in Northern Ireland, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-96950-9_2

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Brief History While occupied since the twelfth century, England’s complete conquest of Ireland only occurred in the sixteenth century. The English colonisation of Ireland was not devoid of economic interests (Ruane & Todd, 1996, p. 151), but more importantly, in the context of the Reformation and the subsequent “Wars of Religion” that tore Europe apart, Ireland became a prospective battleground, with the threat that Spain, Rome and the native Irish Catholic population could unite against the (Protestant) Crown and attack from the Irish coast. However, Irish rebellions often fought alone and lost. These repeated uprisings motivated the English monarchs to impose a more pervasive economic, political and cultural control on the island. Gaelic-Irish chieftains were removed and expropriated; an English colonial legal and social order was substituted over Irish laws and customs. In particular, a range of Acts known as the Penal Laws imposed civil impediments on Catholics, excluded them from political and economic power and punished the practice of Roman Catholicism (Allen, 2012, pp. 49–58). The decision not to co-opt the Gaelic-Irish upper classes and choosing instead the natives’ expropriation and oppression had crucial implications, according to Allen (ibid., p. 66). It meant that, in order to maintain its power in Ireland, the English Crown had to draw on the support of settlers. England undertook Ireland’s colonisation in the form of plantations, a colonial system to be used in later years on American soil. The Crown removed Irish landowners and encouraged English and Scottish Protestants to settle, with exclusive grants of land and political offices. At the end of the seventeenth century, 27% of the population in Ireland were of new immigration stock, controlling the economic and political institutions through Protestant privilege. In the north-east of the island, the concentration of Scottish Presbyterians combined with pervasive displacements of the native Irish both contributed to the very distinctive demographic and cultural features of the region of Ulster (Ruane & Todd, 1996, p. 21). Consequently, religious divisions distinctively affected Irish history and overlapped with both socio-economic hierarchies and ethnic identities—Catholic natives were predominantly of Old English or Gaelic-Irish stock while Protestant settlers were predominantly of English or Scottish origin, Anglicans and Presbyterians, respectively. The colonial distinction

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between a perceived backwardness on the one hand, and cultural superiority, civilisation and progress on the other, was intertwined with a perception of native Catholics as idolatrous, maintained in ignorance by papacy and an authoritarian clergy (Ruane & Todd, 1996, p. 22). Brewer and Higgins (1998, p. 22) insist on the significance of religious differences in the north-eastern part of Ireland because of the Ulster-Scot’s specific religious culture. In particular, Presbyterianism and its inclination to separatism added to the settlers’ sense of threat, surrounded by a subverted yet aggrieved and rebellious majority. Settling among those they considered to be heathens, Scottish settlers perceived their privileges as the sign of their divine election, the land being granted by God to the people he had chosen and who remained loyal to him. By contrast, poverty, subjugation and failed rebellions seemed to confirm Catholics were unsaved and hence punished (ibid., pp. 22–29). As the Reformation failed in Ireland, Irish natives remained forcefully Catholic. Another effect of the plantation system is that the settlers, while providing a power base for the English Crown, nonetheless needed the latter to secure their predominance. Indeed, they remained a numerical minority, and the conquest of Ireland had only been established through violence, coercion and persecutions of the native majority. Rebellions were recurrent and therefore instigated fears among settlers, suspicious of a lack of loyalty from those who had been displaced—and, perhaps, from those who had encouraged them to relocate to Ireland in the first place. Ruane and Todd (ibid., p. 12) see in the development of this plantation system the roots of a “structure of dominance, dependence and inequality” between Catholic natives, Protestant settlers and the British state. This structure would have long-lasting consequences in relation to communal polarisation and social conflict throughout Irish history: From a British and Protestant point of view, once the structure of dominance had come into being it could not easily be altered for the alienation of Catholics from the established order was a threat to both dominant parties. The only chance of change was to remove Protestant privileges and admit Catholics to equal participation in political power, a policy bound to provoke Protestant resistance with no guarantee of gaining Catholic loyalty, and only slowly, cautiously and uncertainly embraced by the British government. Catholic pressure, Protestant resistance and British reform became the recurrent elements in political struggle.

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Such a quandary proved difficult to supersede as illustrated by the fate of the United Irishmen’s rebellion. This was a key moment in Ireland’s history that sheds light on the role played by religious differences. Founded by Protestant liberals of all religious persuasions in Belfast in 1791, the Society of the United Irishmen was dedicated to Catholic emancipation and parliamentary reform to grant Ireland more autonomy (Curtin, 1985). Many of them were Ulster-Scots Presbyterians who, as dissenters, had reasons to resent their exclusion from the privileges enjoyed by the Anglicans of English descent. Influenced by the French and the American revolutions, the United Irishmen launched a rebellion against British Rule in 1798 with the aim of founding an Irish Republic. The English forces suppressed the rebellion, after which this egalitarian united front disintegrated. As Penal Laws against Presbyterians were repealed in order to curtail their support for Catholic emancipation, Presbyterians “threw their lot in with the British government” (Bruce, 1986, p. 5). This moment of rapprochement with the Protestant ascendancy and dissociation from native Irish Roman Catholics can be seen as the origins of modern unionism (Cochrane, 1997, p. 36). More broadly, the industrial revolution and the expansion of free trade contributed to create new social class and political alliances that were translated into sectarian divisions. Liberal Presbyterian merchants started to benefit from Belfast’s rapid industrial development, which was tied up with British economy. A legacy of Ulster plantations and settlements, the emerging commercial and industrial bourgeoisie of the city was overwhelmingly Protestant. Belfast became a thriving industrial city. Its economy, resting on linen, shipbuilding and engineering, fostered the emergence of a Protestant and a Catholic proletariat, the latter resulting from rural-to-urban migration after the Great Famine (1845–1849). Threatened by the newcomers, but also by mechanisation, the Protestant working-class strengthened exclusive craft unions and tried to cultivate with the new capitalist elite the contractual relationships that previously existed with landowners, and which granted them particular advantages. A segregated labour market emerged; repeated anti-Catholic riots and sectarian practices in the workplace prevented the development of unified labour movements (Munck, 1985, pp. 241–243). Overall, it might be fair to say that class relations were “experienced as sectarian class relations”, making sectarian and class divisions inseparable (O’Dowd, 1980, p. 25). Thus, the communal polarisation intensified throughout the nineteenth century. On the one hand, the Catholic population’s sharing of

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an experience of domination mobilised to gain emancipation—the last restrictions on Catholics’ rights came in 1829 with the Emancipation Act, in the hope to secure Catholic loyalty—not without opposition from Protestant labouring classes. On the other hand, there emerged a Protestant front defending British rule, opposing what they perceived as a rising Irish republican movement and uniting to maintain their privileges as Protestants. This was most notably undertaken by the Orange Order, a secret society that sprang from eighteenth-century agricultural vigilante groups dedicated to protecting the privileges of Protestant tenants. While the members of the Orange Order were initially from the Church of Ireland, Presbyterians started to join the society in the nineteenth century. A complex organisation with political, religious, cultural and convivial dimensions, the Orange Order consolidated a Protestant identity, associating Protestant religion, anti-Catholicism, loyalty to the union with Britain, and control of economic resources and political power (Kauffmann, 2007). In the same period, a vivid evangelical movement also allowed to connect the different Protestant denominations which, interestingly, became united in a commonly shared anti-Catholic sentiment rather than in attempts to convert Roman Catholics to the true faith (Allen, 2012, pp. 94–133; Bruce, 1986, pp. 5–6; Grob-Fitzgibbon, 2007, pp. 18–19). This Protestant revival and, alongside, a Catholic “devotional revolution” after the Famine (Larkin, 1972) contributed to the communal divide. Besides, as the Penal Laws had failed to repress Catholicism, a strong alliance between the Church and an urban bourgeoisie emerged, making of Catholicism a source of status and distinction (Inglis, 1998). Ultimately, religious differences became more important as the Irish language declined sharply, rendering linguistic differences insignificant (O’Dowd, 1980, p. 5). The 1798 Rebellion and its attempt to overcome Ireland’s colonial structures failed. However, it reinvigorated an enduring insurrectionist Irish tradition and a desire for self-determination, which would later come to fruition with the Easter Rising (1916) and, ultimately, Irish independence in 1921 (Ruane & Todd, 1996, p. 46). Indeed, the nineteenth century is also the era of modern European nationalisms: two irreconcilable political allegiances started to overlap with the existing ethno-religious divide: unionism, committed to the United Kingdom, and Irish nationalism, devoted to Ireland’s self-determination. Following Irish independence, six of the nine counties of Ulster became a new “Northern Ireland” state as part of the United Kingdom—the demands for the three

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remaining Ulster counties were dropped to ensure a unionist Protestant majority in this new state. As such, the Northern Irish state was sectarian in its conception, argues McVeigh (1995, p. 635), for “Northern Ireland was brought into existence to perpetuate Protestant supremacy through formal democracy”. For some Irish republicans, the rationale for partition was a fear of an uprising of a Protestant minority in the nascent Irish “Free State”.1 What at the time seemed a simple and less costly solution to Anglo-Irish relations would become the source of continuous conflicts involving Northern Ireland, Ireland and the United Kingdom (Ruane & Todd, 1996, pp. 47–49). Northern Ireland, more a semi-state than a state, would see both its sovereignty and legitimacy continuously contested (McGarry & O’Leary, 1995, p. 110). The foundation of the Northern Irish state strengthened the formation of an Ulster Protestant distinctive community, contrasting with the new Irish State. There, after Irish independence, Catholicism became a defining component of national identity (Fahey, 1979, p. 254), while an impecunious government reduced its expenditures by allowing the Catholic Church to control schools, hospitals and other institutions (Corráin, 2018, p. 731). Indeed, the expansion of clerical organisations constituted a unique institutional development that enabled the Church to provide core social services, hereby anticipating those of the nascent welfare states (Fahey, 1998, p. 202). The Church was not formally established in Ireland, but because of such partnership with the state, its power was unparalleled among other European societies. It was able to shape policies, in particular in relation to family life and sexual morality, and infuse a conservative religious ethos in everyday life (Inglis, 1998). The Church’s influence was at its zenith in the 1950s; a prescriptive Catholicism dominated the public and private spheres, alongside a remarkable popular piety and large numbers of vocations. Since the early 1960s, Irish society has undergone secularisation, albeit at a significantly slower pace than other European countries, and while religious identification and observance have remained comparatively high (Corráin, 2018, p. 727; Inglis, 2017).

1 The partition of Ireland as part of the Anglo-Irish Treaty split republicans and led to civil war (1922–1923). Ireland’s constitution, written in 1937 by de Valera, claims “the whole island of Ireland” as its national territory. This article of the constitution was, however, removed as part of negotiations of the Good Friday Agreement (1998).

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In the Catholic and independent Ireland, Southern Protestants became a minority and their particularism progressively waned over time. But in the six counties of Ulster, Protestants constituted a majority, with a distinctive Scottish Presbyterian, conservative, religious culture. Religion became meaningful to establish a specific identity in the context of the new Northern Irish state, articulated with the cultivation of a British identity and unionist politics (Bruce, 2007, p. 15; Ruane & Todd, 1996, p. 49). The Orange Order was key in this regard, merging Protestantism, Unionism and Britishness for Protestants of all classes and denominations—while the Catholic Church played a key role in class alliance within the Catholic community (O’Dowd, 1980, p. 15). The Orange Order opposed marriage with Roman Catholics, their members’ participation in Catholic Church services, and encouraged a Protestant child-rearing. It also opposed Catholics’ inclusion in the Ulster Unionist Party and acted to secure preferential access of employment for Protestants. This allowed an effective control of the working classes’ dissatisfaction against the government—until mass unemployment in the 1960s. The Order was considerably influential numerically: at the outbreak of the Troubles in the late 1960s, it is estimated that one third of Protestant men were members of the Orange Order which exerted its influence on all powerful institutions such as the clergy, the police force and the Ulster Unionist Party, in which it was granted official representation (Kaufmann, 2007, p. 15; Tonge & McAuley, 2008, p. 290; Whyte, 1983, p. 31). The overwhelming majority of unionist members of the regional parliament and Westminster elected MPs belonged to the Orange Order (McCaldon, 2018, p. 72). Northern Ireland was characterised by Protestant ascendancy—a form of hegemony perhaps aptly captured by civil rights’ activist Michael Farrell (1976) as “the Orange State”. It involved the control of trade, industries and finance. The Protestant landed gentry and the industrial and commercial bourgeoisie controlled economic life thanks to an exclusive alliance with a Protestant skilled working-class (O’Dowd, 1995, p. 134). In Northern Ireland’s private sector, Catholics would predominantly work in unskilled and lower-paying jobs (Handcock, 1998; Rose, 1971). Catholics were less, but still, discriminated against in the public sector’s employment, even in the late 1980s and, to a lesser extent, in the 1990s (Fair Employment Agency for Northern Ireland, 1989; Li & O’Leary, 2007; Miller, 1986). In addition to occupational differences, Catholics also experienced a higher rate of unemployment—in 1971 for

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instance, Catholic men had 2.62 times more chance to be unemployed than Protestant men (Whyte, 1990, p. 59). By contrast, Protestant unionists had preferential access to jobs as well as housing. Indeed, restricting Catholics’ access to housing was a means for unionist to control councils to artificially secure electoral majorities so that, with gerrymandering and other unfair restrictions of voting rights, the Unionist Party could run the region as a one-party state. Violence against the Catholic community from police forces and loyalist2 vigilante organisations was tolerated; it was justified by the fear of republican upheavals aimed at overthrowing British rule and achieving a united Ireland (Ruane & Todd, 1996, pp. 121–122, 151–155; Whyte, 1983). Protestant predominance was also expressed at the cultural and symbolic level: public space and events associated Protestant and British symbols, thus reinforcing the assertion that Ulster was Protestant and British, hence in contrast to the Southern part of the island. The most obvious and still contentious of these cultural manifestations are annual Orange marches. Celebrating Protestant winning of the Battle of the Boyne in 1690, these marches are core to Ulster loyalism (they take place annually on July 12 but extend through many days of what is called the “marching season”). As protected public political expressions, parades reflected power relationships. They symbolically asserted Protestant rule especially as they pass through majority Catholic neighbourhoods, which has systematically led to sectarian violence and riots. These marches with their musical bands and iconography allow an imagined community of Northern Protestants to maintain boundaries and, in times when their dominance seemed challenged, they function as a ritualistic means to preserve or restore the social order, and for the elite to retain its

2 Loyalism is the most “vociferous” tradition among Ulster unionism. It refers to loyalty to the British crown and in return the expectation for the latter to guarantee the survival of Protestantism in Ireland. It also refers to the loyalty of the Protestant community to itself: in difficult socio-economic periods, loyalism represents a way for working classes to assert Protestant identity and the need for communal self-defence and, in the past, it pressurised the elite on the protection of work and housing for Protestants. Opposing both moderate unionism and civil rights activism that they perceived as a threat to the Union and to their very existence as Protestants, loyalist paramilitary groups developed on a large scale in the late 1960s and 1970s. The most prominent are the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) and the Ulster Defence Association (UDA), who waged violent campaigns during the Troubles (Bell, 1990, pp. 20–21; Ruane & Todd, 1996, pp. 84–85; Todd, 1987).

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power through a celebration of Protestant-unionist unity (Bryan, 2000; Jarman & Bryan, 1998; Todd, 1987). In a nutshell, Northern Ireland seemed to be “a Protestant government for a Protestant People”—an expression attributed to Craigavon, the first Prime Minister of the region, and which is often used to describe the Northern Irish state until 1972, the date at which British rule was re-instated and Stormont, the regional parliament, dissolved. According to McGarry and O’Leary (1996), 1921–1972 represented a period of hegemony, whereby institutions were effectively used as a buttress against Irish unity. The denial of rights for a section of the population was justified by the belief that nationalists would use their rights to destroy the Northern Irish state, hence the necessity of communal self-defence and of protecting security and public order at the detriment of fundamental civil rights for all. Unionist fear of a nationalist irredentism and what has often been described as a “siege mentality” both prevented a more progressive regime. Yet this was not “pure necessity”: one of the failures of unionism, argues Ruohomäki (2008, p. 33), was the absence of any other strategy than political exclusivism. What was misnamed the “Troubles” (civil war might have been more accurate) caused a serious deterioration in intercommunal relations, leaving deep wounds into the Northern Irish society until the present day. In the late 1960s, left-wing and republican organisations, influenced by the American Civil Rights movement, launched a series of campaigns to challenge discriminations against Catholics. This aggravated unionism’s existing political crisis between the party’s liberal and traditionalist members, amidst a reactivation of sectarian tensions (Mulholland, 2000, pp. 199–201). Northern Ireland Prime Minister Terence O’Neill, displaying (at least discursively) a liberal attitude and a willingness to accede to some of the civil rights’ campaigners’ demands, met fierce opposition from unionist hard-liners to any attempted reform of the status quo. At the same time, the civil rights campaign renewed republicanism and desires for a united Ireland which, in turn, exacerbated an already existing sense of insecurity on the unionist and loyalist side. A violent response to the civil rights’ movement from loyalist paramilitary groups and the police, combined with the radicalisation of activists, led to an escalation of the conflict. The British government deployed the army in 1969, initially to protect the population from violence. Segregation intensified: in the summer 1969 for instance, 1820 families fled their homes in Belfast because of intimidation, of these 1505 were Catholic. Overall,

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nearly a third of the city’s Roman Catholic population was displaced that year (McKay, 2005, p. 82). Amidst the escalation of violence, the Northern Irish government took a highly repressive approach in 1971, allowing for the mass arrest and internment without trial of individuals from Catholic and nationalist backgrounds. Bloody Sunday, the murder of thirteen unarmed civilians marching for civil rights in Derry by the British Army in 1972, reinvigorated the Irish Republican Army (IRA)3 and its support from within the Catholic community. By and large, the repressive strategies of the military and police forces towards nationalist communities in particular bolstered support for the IRA and hardened public opinion. There is no space here to tell the story of 30 years of raging conflict, the militancy of republican and loyalist paramilitary organisations, the British state’s collusion with the latter in order to break the former, only to reach a (perhaps temporary) conclusion in 1998, with the Good Friday Agreement (GFA). By then, more than 3500 individuals had died, 40,000 had been injured, and many more had been exposed to violence. Hayes and McAllister’s (2001, p. 901) summary is telling: “One in seven of the population reported being a victim of violence; one in five had a family member killed or injured; and one in four had been caught up in an explosion”. Around 28,000 individuals were compelled to quit their work, and 54,000 households had to move house as a result of harassment or threats. Around 80,000 people have been incarcerated in relation to the Troubles (Hillyard et al., 2005, pp. 6, 8). Ultimately, this type of data does not even begin to capture accurately the human cost of the Northern Irish conflict in terms of poor health, trauma, suicide and high mortality, which have affected the lives and opportunities of so many people in the region and which, sadly, combine with an acute socio-economic deprivation in the region (ibid., p. 7). What will be particularly important for us to address is the role religion might have played in the context of the Troubles. In the late

3 The Irish Republican Army represents the military wing of the republican movement although it refers to different historical organisations that existed throughout the twentieth century. The Provisional IRA was the most decisive movement of the republican tradition; it designates the paramilitary organisation which, following the civil rights movement and from 1969 onwards, opposed British presence in Northern Ireland. For detailed explorations of the PIRA see: English (2012); the broader Irish Republican movement in the context of the Troubles is analysed in-depth by Hanley and Millar (2010).

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1960s, Northern Ireland Prime Minister Terence O’Neill’s liberal political agenda was swept away by a reinvigorated, radical unionism whose figure head was a conservative evangelical pastor, Ian Paisley. Ulster has often been described as a region of fundamentalisms, revivals and religious schisms along liberal and anti-modernist lines. Ian Paisley’s Free Presbyterian Church (1951) is reflective of this context. A charismatic, free-lance pastor rooted in Ballymena (sometimes referred to as the “buckle” of Northern Ireland’s Bible belt), Paisley reconfigured unionism through a defence of the Protestant nature of social and political life in Northern Ireland. His call for a revival was uncompromisingly opposed to political and religious liberalism. Reflecting a traditional evangelical distrust towards the political establishment and their suspected lack of piety, Paisley denounced O’Neill’s reformism as a sell-out of unionism and as an apostasy; he also rejected ecumenism and any congregation involved in interfaith activities, especially with the Roman Catholic Church. The Free Presbyterian Church initially attracted members from conservative rural locations, yet by 1980 it represented fifty congregations, with more than 10,000 members overall (Bruce, 1986, p. 19). Referring to the history of settlers, Paisley’s polarising discourse evoked a besieged Ulster-Scots community, under threat of exclusion and elimination, and compelled to defend itself through retaliation (Farrington, 2008, p. 527). He also drew on religious representations that articulated stringent anti-Catholicism with apocalypticism: the revival he was calling for and his opposition to Catholicism had to be understood in the context of the great cosmic battle between good and evil. The Pope was described as the anti-Christ and the “whore of Rome”; Irish nationalism was seen as identical to Catholicism, both of which it was claimed intended on the destruction of Northern Protestants (Bruce, 1986). Paisley may have alienated the more liberal sections within unionism, but his rallies inspired many within working-class loyalism (Bruce, 1994, pp. 226–227). While he publicly decried attacks on Roman Catholics, his discourses and campaign to mobilise paramilitary militia are claimed by many to have contributed to the outbreak and escalation of the Troubles. Paisley founded the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) in 1971 and, for four decades, he led what ultimately became the largest unionist party. The DUP initially drew a significant number of its supporters and representatives from the Free Presbyterian Church as well as from other conservative congregations. Tonge et al.’s (2014) recent research on the

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DUP shows that it continues to be characterised by a religious membership who expect and believe the party to be led by religious principles. But the party’s demography is changing, and this certainly has implications for future political positions. What has been perhaps consistent and drawn support beyond the confines of conservative religious voters is the party’s rejection of compromise with anything perceived to be part of a republican agenda—this included the Peace Agreement itself. Twenty years after the GFA, the DUP still highlights the need to remain vigilant and protect Ulster from republicans, who they do not trust in government and see as a potential armed threat. Like Paisley who warned of paramilitary violence in order to discourage any change to the status quo, DUP representatives do not always hesitate to trigger conflict and tensions, while condemning those who take them at their words. This generated resentment among working-class Protestants and in particular loyalist paramilitaries, too aware of their political instrumentalisation (Coulter, 1999, p. 93). And yet the 1998 Peace Agreement entailed compromises, from all parties involved. The Republic of Ireland renounced its territorial claims on the North; paramilitary organisations accepted weapons decommissioning; and the police force who had played a long-lasting role in sectarian violence was to be reformed. Republicans consented, for the time being at least, to the continuation of the Union. However, the GFA includes the possibility to call for a referendum on whether the six counties should remain within the United Kingdom or being part of a United Ireland. It also established a power-sharing legislative assembly led by a First Minister and Deputy Minister of the two main Unionist and Republican parties, respectively, with mandatory cross-community voting on important decisions. Some of the agreement’s provisions were abhorrent to unionists, such as the early release of prisoners serving sentences relating to paramilitary activities and the reform of the police force (mostly composed of Protestants, it was seen by Roman Catholics as a partisan body used by the Northern Irish state to maintain a violent subjugation). At the same time, the agreement recognised the legitimacy of Irish nationalist aspirations and gave the respectability of government office to the leaders of Sinn Féin, regarded by critics as the IRA’s political wing. Unwilling to make any concessions on Northern Ireland’s constitutional nature or to enter in negotiations with Sinn Féin, which they saw as associated with “terrorists”, the DUP walked out of the negotiations and was also the only party to reject the agreement. However, the

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Ulster Unionist Party, which had governed Northern Ireland from partition until 1972,4 was divided on the issue of the Peace Agreement which they had helped to negotiate. In later years, the political mandate of the UUP declined and was supplanted by the DUP in 2005. Despite refusing initially to share power with republicans, Paisley became First Minister in 2007 with, as Deputy First Minister, Martin McGuinness, former IRA commander and then leader of Sinn Féin. It is often written that Northern Ireland’s politics remain a zerosum game, in which one party’s gain implies the other party’s loss, hence perpetuating historic, sectarian rivalries. While nationalists overwhelmingly supported the GFA, the Peace Agreement opened a new era, characterised by a growing dissatisfaction and “disillusionment” among the Protestant community and upon which the DUP capitalised (Hayes & McAllister, 2004; McAuley, 2003). In the years that followed the Peace Agreement, Protestant unionists appeared more pessimistic about community relations and sharing political power with those they sometimes regard as former terrorists. Compared with the one-party rule system dismantled by British Direct Rule in 1972, sharing power with republicans necessarily reflected an erosion of political power. By and large, a whole social order seems to be partly dismantled. The Orange Order for instance lost its political influence, firstly with Direct Rule that entailed the dissolution of the unionist-rule parliament, and secondly when it formally severed its traditional links with the UUP in 2005, in opposition to the Peace Agreement negotiated by the party. The Order has also gradually become socially marginalised. Its decreasing membership has become more working-class and loyalist; it also faces an acute public image crisis, with parades being increasingly contested (McCaldon, 2018). However, one could argue such politics is in part maintained because of this new power-sharing system. Consociationalism indeed compels political parties to compete and claim specific group rights in order to maximise the interests of each “community”. This, in turn, argues Taylor (2006) reproduces electoral polarisation in particular through struggles for resources in segregated, working-class areas, such as the opening or closure of hospitals and schools, the development of roads, etc. As a 4 In 1972, the United Kingdom suspended the local Parliament, Stormont, and imposed Direct Rule from Great Britain in order to address the region’s political instability and sectarian violence.

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consequence, consociationalism is suspected to sustain and perhaps reintensify ethno-national categories and the sectarian, bipolar nature of Northern Irish society. Overall, many issues in relation to cultural competition remain unresolved until this day (Morrow et al., 2018, p. 11), in relation to marches and flags, bonfires, commemorations, sports and languages.5 Those issues have remained acute, also perhaps because the Peace Agreement lacked provisions in relation to trust recovery: the legacy of a traumatic past remains highly contested, divisive and yet unescapable. As Lawther (2014, p. 162) brilliantly summarises, One of the main ways by which the conflict was sustained in Northern Ireland was through the reproduction of competing and partial historical narratives. Post-conflict, these contests have continued through other means and have structured the acceptance and rejection of many of the new institutions and efforts at conflict resolution. As yet, there has been little space or opportunity to create a shared understanding or recognition of these competing histories. The transition between truth and denial, between silence and acknowledgement, the past and the future is incumbent on such a process.

Unsurprisingly, Northern Ireland’s governance is highly unstable: since the GFA, the Northern Irish assembly has been suspended five times, for a total of eight years. The succession of political crises, collapses and negotiations of new agreements has become a cyclical pattern which has not enabled the region to reach any long-term political sustainability (Murphy & Evershed, 2021, p. 5). In addition, the ethno-sectarian conflict finds its continuity in a tragic economic context—globalisation, deindustrialisation, effects of civil war, dependence on the British economy and economic austerity (Shirlow & Murtagh, 2006). To a certain extent, “Neo-liberalism is contradicted by the enormous cost of segregation to the public purse” (Nagle, 2009b, 174), with a bigger public sector and higher public spending compared 5 See the report of the Commission on Flags, Identity, Culture and Tradition (2021), which addresses in detail the many issues that remain in dispute. Strikingly, the report has itself come in for widespread criticism. The report took 5 years to complete and cost an estimated £800,000. However, the DUP was accused of blocking its publication. Despite half of the commission’s members coming from both unionist and nationalist political parties, it was unable to reach consensus on several critical issues. As a result, the commission’s report fails to include an implementation plan, with commentators doubtful that this work will have any significant impact on legislation or policy-making.

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to other regions of the United Kingdom. However, the restoration of Stormont’s political institutions opened the way for neoliberal governance that has deepened social inequalities and increased poverty in an already economically crippled region (Murtagh & Shirlow, 2012).6 The peace dividend, based on the hope for foreign investments and in turn for new sources of employment, has not happened. The success of transnational corporations was limited, while economic output and productivity are significantly below average and coexist with dramatic levels of unemployment and low paid work. Following the 2008 crisis, British Treasury policies enforced reductions of government spending and privatisation (O’Hearn, 2008). Risks of poverty and exclusion has therefore remained significantly high and continues to be higher than in the Republic of Ireland and the rest of the United Kingdom (Smyth & Cebulla, 2008, pp. 187–188). In 2002–2003, close to 30% of Northern Irish households were living in poverty, representing half a million individuals (Hillyard et al., 2005, p. 94). Today, more than a hundred thousand families depend on “universal credit”, an aggregated welfare benefit introduced in 2017, and which modalities and limitations have precipitated many into destitution (McKay, 2021, p. 118). Finally, the latest—and incomplete/uncompleted—chapter of Northern Ireland’s turmoil relates to Brexit. Aptly described by O’Connell and Medeiros (2020, p. 400) as a “shot in the dark”, Brexit’s political and economic ramifications for Northern Ireland are potentially far-reaching, and yet entirely/largely unpredictable. Brexit was envisaged as a means/vehicle to reclaim national sovereignty for an externally bounded United Kingdom (Keating, 2021). But this approach showed little consideration for Northern Ireland’s specificities, for the GFA provisions entail “cross-territorial, and cross-national institutions based on shared sovereignty” between the United Kingdom and the Irish Republic (Murphy, 2021, p. 405). Besides, freedom of travel and an open economic trading territory on the isle of Ireland also implied that those two nations remained aligned to the European Union and its single market. Hence Brexit’s greatest conundrum: how to avoid a hard border between the northern and southern parts of Ireland and protect 6 No everyone shares this pessimism: Nagle (2009a) sees in the now shared public space of Belfast city centre the possibilities for recognition, negotiations around an increasingly diverse range of identities. Sectarinism and segregation, however, persist in other places in the city.

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the Peace Agreement, while securing the integrity of the European Union’s single market at the same time. The NI Protocol, agreed by the EU and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson in October 2019, was designed to resolve this dilemma. Northern Ireland was to remain within the European single market, and goods from Great Britain were to be checked when entering Northern Ireland. Critics argue that Brexit seriously aggravated Northern Ireland’s political instability and created further constitutional uncertainty. Despite a majority of the UK electorate voting in 2016 to leave the European Union, Northern Ireland voted marginally to remain within the EU. This vote was split along ethno-religious lines, with unionists more inclined to support leaving (Garry, 2017). The agonisingly protracted negotiations of the United Kingdom’s withdrawal maintained this polarisation. Further, the prospect of a hard Brexit—and hence of a border on the island of Ireland—was supported by the DUP, while it raised nationalists’ opposition (Garry et al., 2021). Ultimately, the finalised EU-UK agreement revived the “Irish question” and precipitated an acute crisis within unionism. Indeed, DUP members of parliament had supported a conservative government which had agreed the creation of a “sea border” between Northern Ireland and the rest of the United Kingdom. The reaction of unionist politicians was to brand the agreed NI Protocol as “the great betrayal”. Outraged unionists claimed the protocol not only relegated Northern Ireland to the periphery of the union but that it also created the conditions for realistic debates about the reunification of Ireland (Coakley, 2020; Murphy & Evershed, 2021). Since the 2016 referendum, successive polls show that the support for Irish unity in Northern Ireland has been growing (Tonge, 2020). Rival unionist parties and loyalist activists accused the DUP of having allowed itself be duped by Boris Johnson’s government. In contrast, the DUP and British Brexiteers raised the spectre of a return to loyalist violence if there wasn’t a renegotiation of the protocol. Despite a series of riots and other more peaceful demonstrations, the EU has not shown any inclination to revise the protocol, other than suggesting minor changes/concessions. Considerably weakened, the DUP suffers from a crisis of leadership, as illustrated by the vignette in this book’s introduction. The party witnessed a dramatic fall of support in successive public opinion polls and by the summer of 2021 was threatened with being relegated to becoming the third largest party within unionism. The next assembly elections in Northern Ireland could deliver, for the very first

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time, a republican as First Minister. Sinn Féin has consolidated its political position in the north and benefitted from a growing popularity in the Irish Republic. Thus, the republican party now finds itself in a position of growing political dominance on both sides of the border (Evershed & Murphy, 2021). While it is predicted that Brexit will impact negatively the Northern Ireland economy (Cauvet, 2019), it is still too early to make a definitive assessment as to whether or not this will be the case. The full implementation of the NI Protocol has yet to take place, while the region’s current economic situation cannot be isolated from the negative impact of the coronavirus pandemic. To date, new border checks and additional paperwork requirements have proven to be an added bureaucratic burden and costly for businesses moving goods between Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Consequently, trade between these two regions has fallen since the beginning of 2021. In contrast, economic activity between Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic has dramatically increased during the same period (Central Statistics Office, 2021). This would appear to suggest a new rerouting of trade and the creation of alternative supply chains in the Anglo-Irish isles. The fear, voiced by loyalist figures, of a looming “economic United Ireland” is perhaps not far-fetched.

Religion in Northern Ireland Religious Landscape Northern Ireland is characterised by an outstanding rate of nominal religious identification as well as intra-communal solidarity (Ruane & Todd, 1996, p. 54). According to the 2011 Census, 40.8% of the population in Northern Ireland identify as Roman Catholics, while 41.6% belong to a Protestant or a non-Catholic Christian denomination. It is, however, expected that the 2021 Census will shed light on a majority of Northern Irish residents now identifying as Roman Catholics. A minority (13.9%) declare to have no religion—this is considerably lower than in Scotland (43.7%), Wales (39.7%) and England (31.9%). The “none” category is, however, growing: this trend reflects a late yet steady secularisation process, and also the desire, for some, to escape the sectarian meanings attributed to religious identification (Anderson & Shuttleworth, 1998, p. 196). Thus, self-identified Christians represent more than 82% of the region’s population, which contrasts with the other parts of the United

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Kingdom, where Christians constitute between 50 and 60% of the population only. These figures point out, beyond the Protestant/Catholic polarisation, a relative religious and ethnic homogeneity. The Ulster Jewish population has been historically insignificant in number and is declining; besides, immigration trends have been very recent, which explains that the number of people belonging to other religions is relatively small. For instance, in 2011, around 89% of the population were born in the six counties, with 6.7% born in other regions of the United Kingdom and Ireland; only 4.3% were born elsewhere. As part of this general background picture, Ulster is also characterised by an intense residential segregation (Doherty & Poole, 1997; Shirlow & Murtagh, 2006; Shuttleworth & Lloyd, 2013). Overall, “the majority of persons from a Catholic or Protestant community background live in places that are at least 81 per cent Catholic or Protestant” (Shirlow & Murtagh, 2006, p. 59). Shuttleworth and Lloyd (2013, p. 64), however, argue that segregation is less pronounced when one considers residence according to national identities (British, Irish and now a large group of individuals identifying as “Northern Irish”), rather than using religious affiliation as a proxy for ethno-national identity. Roughly speaking, the areas located on the west side of the River Bann (Londonderry/Derry, Fermanagh and Tyrone) and border locations (South Down and South Armagh) comprise Catholic majorities. They are also areas that are particularly deprived. Populations identified as Protestant tend to live in eastern parts of the region from Banbridge to Coleraine, in County Antrim and on the coast—Larne, Carrickfergus, North Down and the Ards Peninsula—where the Catholic presence is significantly low (Gregory et al., 2013). Belfast itself continues to be a “divided city” in which ethnoreligious segregation is correlated with economic deprivation (Shirlow & Murtagh, 2006, p. 26). The west part of the city is perceived as its republican heartland, by contrast with east Belfast, a predominantly Protestant-unionist area. The south of the city is particularly affluent and mixed (although segregated on the basis of social class) and, around Queen’s University Belfast, populated by a transient student population. North Belfast, however, includes some of the city’s poorer neighbourhoods—a “checkerboard” of close yet highly segregated communities where sectarianism is still rife (Huck et al., 2019, p. 5). For instance, the DUP political representatives hindered the building of social housing in this acutely deprived area of the city for electoral purposes (in other words, to prevent a growing number of Catholic residents and voters to

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challenge a unionist majority). As a result, in 2018–2019 in North Belfast, the needs in terms of social housing were 26 times higher in Catholic areas than in Protestant areas, that is 1041 versus 40 homes needed (Winters, 2020; see also Wallace, 2015). This being said, many academics rightfully underscore the risk of portraying Northern Ireland as society split into two monolithic confessional blocs (Boal et al., 1997, p. 1; Coulter, 1999, p. 14; Ruane & Todd, 1996, p. 9). Not only does it dismiss other significant if not fundamental intra-communal divisions and segmentations such as gender (McKay, 2021, p. 119), class, ethnicity and generation (Morrow et al., 1991; Todd, 2014, p. 48), but it also reproduces the representations that social sciences precisely intend to analyse critically—the sectarian headcount in particular (Anderson & Shuttleworth, 1998, p. 189). In fact, intra-religious differences are themselves significant, in particular with regard to Ulster Protestantism (McFarlane, 1989). While the majority of Protestant churches and their members are distributed into three main denominations (Presbyterian, Church of Ireland and Methodist), they coexist with very small, yet numerous, churches, fellowships and house prayer groups (Richardson, 1998, p. xi). The Catholic Church has maintained its profile as a key social actor for the community (Morrow et al., 1991, p. 119),7 but that community is fragmented too along attitudes towards doctrinal principles, moral issues, politics and church affairs, and displays increasingly different levels of observance and belonging (Boal et al., 1997, p. 66). In fact, Todd (2014, p. 48) notes that social actors, when interviewed about their identities, situate themselves on far more subtle religious spectrum than a polar distinction between Protestant and Catholics. Denomination matters greatly for Protestant individuals, who are also eager to qualify how religion is important or unimportant to them, while Catholics, both North and South, tended to focus on internal church distinctions: practising or non-practising, traditionalist or liberal, agnostic or atheist: some were ‘à la carte Catholics’; some believed in God and got

7 The Catholic Church plays an essential role in the education system since the latter is overwhelmingly segregated along ethno-religious lines—this segregated education is seen as part of the difficulty to overcome sectarian divisions. For more context and discussion on education in Northern Ireland, see Gallagher (2016) and McGlynn et al. (2004), for example.

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their children baptized, but thought that the church has too much control; some were ‘Irish Catholic’ not ‘Roman Catholic’.

Secularisation Conversely, there are commonalities shared by religions in Northern Ireland. The first of these commonalities relates to a late but noticeable process of secularisation. Recent surveys shed light on a drop in faith, growing relativism in relation to other religions and new trends of privatisation and individualisation which foster a more liberal approach to morality (Boal et al., 1997, pp. 20–27, 68; Brewer, 2004). We also observe a decline in affiliation, with an increasing number of individuals declaring having “no religion” in Northern Ireland. A fall in membership affects mainstream Protestant denominations in particular, now composed of an ageing population. Alongside, a vibrant (yet volatile) constellation of evangelical, Pentecostal, Charismatic and independent house churches attracts younger members who have often been socialised in one of the three mainline denominations (Brewer, 2002, 2004). Interestingly, the decline of religious identification affects Protestantism more than Catholicism: among those declaring having no religion, only three out of ten were raised as Catholic (Brewer, 2004, p. 270). This sustained identification among Catholics is not, nevertheless, a reflection of their religiosity: there has been a dramatic decline in church attendance and religious practice among Roman Catholics over the last 50 years (Hayes & McAllister, 2013, pp. 31–32). It is perhaps better explained by the social and political significance of ethno-religious identities: indeed, the legacy of inequalities and a political commitment to an Irish identity might contribute to strong transmission patterns from parents to children. Conservative Religious Culture Northern Ireland, however, remains outstandingly religious in comparison with other regions of Europe. By and large, there is still strong support for religious rites of passage (Fahey et al., 2006, p. 51). A very significant proportion of the population continues to be regular churchgoers and to believe in God, life after death, heaven, hell and sin (Hayes & McAllister, 2013, p. 27). Even among those who are not affiliated, those

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beliefs remain remarkably strong (Fahey et al., 2006, p. 50). A relatively high level of orthodoxy among Catholic churchgoers was noted, although younger generations increasingly display religious individualism (Boal et al., 1997, pp. 28–29). According to Mitchell (2008, p. 139), 32% of the population in Northern Ireland identify as fundamentalist, evangelicals or born again— or as a combination of these three, reflecting the continuity of a relatively conservative religiosity. A growing liberal orientation has grown, mostly among mainstream denominations which tend to be more often relativistic and inclusive. They tend to support ecumenism—but more in relation to Catholicism than conservative Protestant denominations (Boal et al., 1997, pp. 81–82). While these mainstream Protestant churches have conservative members, there seem to be nearly no liberals in the vivid constellation that grew at the periphery of Northern Irish Protestantism and which is distinctively conservative (ibid., pp. 92–99). The latter distinguishes themselves by their approach to morality (a rejection of same-sex marriage and abortion for instance). By comparison to mainline congregations, they maintain their faith in being saved, the conviction that there is only one true religion and that “life is only meaningful because god exists”. They also significantly engage more in prayers than mainline Protestants would (Brewer, 2002, pp. 24–28). Members of these conservative groups are happy to join occasionally other churches that are equally conservative in outlook for services and events, while they would be less inclined to attend Roman Catholic services or ecumenical activities. Anti-Catholicism is a significant factor (Morrow et al., 1991, pp. 29, 243), but this also underscores the significance of denominational boundaries within Protestantism. McFarlane, for example, wrote fascinating pages about how, in the village he studied in the outskirts of Belfast, Protestants differentiated each other in relation to religious fervour (or lack of). Some Presbyterians for instance considered “there’s only a paper wall between Catholics and the Church of Ireland, but a burning bush between us and them” (McFarlane, 1989, p. 31). Religion and Political Orientation By and large, the correlation between Protestant voters and unionist voters has been tremendously robust and consistent over time—as much as it is on the nationalist/republican side (Boal et al., 1997, p. 123;

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Brewer, 2004, p. 267; Ruane & Todd, 1996, p. 54; Tonge et al., 2014, p. 180). Breen and Hayes (1997, p. 225) also note that those declaring having no religion increasingly support less or non-sectarian political parties such as Alliance.8 By contrast, loyalty to unionism is noticeable among conservative Protestants (Brewer, 2004, p. 279), although Mitchell and Tilley (2008, p. 585) argue that this support results more from evangelicals’ conservative moral attitudes than from their unionist identity. Evangelicalism in any case cannot be equated with Paisleyism: in some instances, evangelical organisations showed willingness to contribute to mediation and conflict resolution (Ganiel, 2008). There are also significant variations regarding specific party-political preferences within unionism or nationalism according to gender, class and education level—with liberal educated, women, more inclined towards the Alliance Party, for example. By and large, middle-classes lean towards more moderate parties although at the time of writing, the DUP and Sinn Féin remain the two predominant political forces of the region. The DUP’s future seems however uncertain, considering the party’s internal divisions and plummeting polling numbers.

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8 Alliance identifies itself as a cross-community party. It is liberal in relation to religious and moral issues and in favour of the constitutional relationship with Great Britain, however with equal power-sharing.

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CHAPTER 3

Religion as Source of Conflict: Interpretations and Evidence

Abstract Chapter 2 turns to the ways in which scholars of religion presented their object of study as the prevalent source of conflict and divisions in Northern Ireland. They either underscore competing communities, rival religious institutions, conflicting doctrines and beliefs, or theologically driven prejudice. These authors tend to share the idea that doctrines and beliefs have played a central role in reproducing boundaries and antagonism throughout the region’s history. Such assertions of religion’s primacy are nonetheless sometimes disconnected from empirical evidence. This gives the impression that explaining the Northern Irish conflict through the prism of religion is sometimes a “by default” position—the relationships between evangelicalism and unionist politics are examined as a case in point. Besides, those academics tend to explain contemporary Northern Ireland by its past: it is because religion was historically important that it remains so. As a result, the political effects of religious doctrines and ideas are depicted as unchanging and intractable. Ultimately, such historical determinism leaves substantial questions unanswered. Thus, while scholars of religion tend to agree that religion in Northern Ireland relates to social differentiation, they have little to say about how and why it is so. Keywords Epistemology · Sociology of religion · Northern Ireland · Historical determinism · Religion and conflict

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 V. Altglas, Religion and Conflict in Northern Ireland, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-96950-9_3

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Religion in Northern Ireland has, more often than not, been addressed in relation to conflict—and, later, with regard to its resolution (Brewer et al., 2011, 2013; Ganiel, 2008, 2014; Ganiel & Dixon, 2008). This chapter explores the ways in which scholars of religion presented religion as the prevalent source of conflict and divisions in Northern Ireland. They either underscore rival religious institutions, competing communities, conflicting doctrines and beliefs, or theologically driven prejudice. However, what these authors have in common is the idea that religion is not simply a marker for social differences of a different nature; it is primarily religion that has instead actively produced and maintained those differences throughout the region’s history. As we shall see, these explanations given for the role of religion in relation to social divisions and conflict in Northern Ireland are frustrating. To begin with, this chapter underlines the fact that they often rely on historical determinism. In other words, contemporary Northern Ireland is, at least in part, explained by its past: religion was historically important, and it is assumed that social structures have not significantly changed; religion therefore remains important. This kind of argument therefore tends to present the Northern Irish society as relatively static, if not abnormal and certainly exceptional—while a comparative perspective including other conflicts that involve religion could be particularly fruitful. This reductive determinism is also prone to depict the people of Northern Ireland as made up of two stable, homogenous communal blocs opposed to each other. As such, it is oblivious to intra-communal diversity as well as to complex individual identities. Because of its emphasis on stability, historical determinism also fails to pay sufficient attention to social change and social processes; in particular, paradoxically, it explains away its object of investigation—that is, “conflict”. Ultimately, historical determinism gives the impression that explaining social conflict by religion is to a certain extent a chosen position. This impression is reinforced by the fact that, in many instances, scholars’ own data and observations fail to corroborate their conclusions about religion’s role and significance. Thus, it seems that religion is important… Simply because it is. Ultimately, the argumentation’s tautological nature prevents us from thinking about how much religion is important and, if so, how so, through which social dynamics and processes?

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General Overview The argument that religious differences constitute the origins of social divisions in Northern Ireland has been spelt out in Bruce’s early work— and reiterated later (Bruce, 2007, p. 246). In what has become a classical citation, Bruce (1986a, p. 249) argued that “the Northern Ireland conflict is a religious conflict. Economic and social differences are also crucial, but it was the fact that the competing populations in Ireland adhered and still adhere to competing religious traditions which have given the conflict its enduring and intractable quality”. “Competition” of religious nature is also cited as a key factor in a collection of essays published by Ford and McCafferty (2005), which aims to trace the historical sources of sectarianism in Ireland. Here, the focus is on the failed attempt to impose the Reformation in Ireland and, by contrast, a successful counter-Reformation. This, it is argued, led to Ireland’s “double confessionalisation”: from the late sixteenth century onwards, rival religious institutions fighting for a monopoly on people and power progressively generated “persistent” and “separate” communities, structures, attitudes and cultures, amidst religious controversies and conflict (Ford, 2005, pp. 3, 6). Finally, Fulton (1988, 1991, 2002) provides a theoretical framework for religious competition in the Irish context. His work deploys a Gramscian framework and depicts two opposite communal entities: according to Fulton, the Northern Irish conflict is the result of two dominant blocs of (material and spiritual) interest, seeking hegemony. This generates “two opposing cultures for which religious belonging has great significance and into which religious belief and attitude are incorporated” (Fulton, 1991, p. 2). The emphasis is, however, often placed on beliefs, doctrines and representations. Mitchell (2006), for instance, objects to an under-estimation of religion’s significance to understand Northern Ireland’s social divisions: in her view, religion is not an “empty marker” of differences, but it produces and maintains those differences by providing meaning to boundaries, collective identities and communal networks. Hickey (1984, p. 5) too claims that “so many analyses attempt to downgrade its importance by allocating religion a purely symbolic significance” in what he called the “Northern Ireland problem”. This “problem” results, according to him, from two different sets of religious beliefs that feed in conflicting worldviews and which, in turn, have profound implications for social action and social structures. As we will see later on, Hickey’s

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book focuses in particular on a Catholic autocracy and the fear it triggers among Protestants, a line of reasoning pursued by Fulton as well. Still paying attention to beliefs and doctrines, Brewer and Higgins (1998, 2003), however, focus on the influence of Protestant theology on Northern Irish politics. The two authors examine anti-Catholicism’s scriptural sources specifically because, they argue, this form of prejudice can be traced to specific theological sources and is fundamental to the identities of some Protestants in Northern Ireland. As such, religious ideas (and in particular, representations about a Catholic Other) have been used as a resource for collective mobilisation and as a justification for social inequalities. By and large, a substantial amount of work addresses the ways in which religious beliefs and representations have infused political discourses, shaped attitudes or encouraged mobilisation and, ultimately, contributed to the escalation of political violence during the Troubles. More specifically, studies of religion and politics in the six counties tend to focus on the relations between unionism, Protestant fundamentalism and loyalist paramilitary activism; this is the reason why we will return to this subject matter in detail later on. In this regard, Bruce’s work on Paisley (1986a, 2007) and Loyalism (1992, 1994) represents a central contribution to the literature on religion and politics in Northern Ireland. Bruce underscores the significance of evangelicalism for unionism. He interprets Ian Paisley’s political success, loyalists’ support for the Reverend and his party the DUP, as evidence for the fact that “evangelicalism permeates loyalist politics” (Bruce, 1994, p. 22). According to Bruce, evangelicalism plays a vital role in building loyalists’ “sense of ethnic identity”; it provides a common collective identity and a shared worldview, and it structures the relationships with those defined as others. And it does so, Bruce argues, because religion has played an essential role in generating and maintaining social divisions in Ulster since the time of the plantations, essentially obliterating any other source of differentiation (ibid., pp. 25, 28). Morrow (1997) somewhat echoes this analysis, emphasising the central role of “fundamentalist Protestantism” for unionism: it is a source foundational myths, symbols and narratives, which are re-enacted through the rituals of festivals and marches. It also provides a template through which contemporary politics can be interpreted. The significance of religious representations and beliefs in relation to unionism is a line of reflection equally pursued by Gribben (2007), observing the pre-eminence of millenarian and apocalyptic ideas among conservative evangelicals in

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Northern Ireland. This observation leads Gribben (ibid., p. 59) to assert there is a “pessimistic teleology” shaping evangelical Protestants’ politics which has been determinant in perpetuating social conflict, “act[ing] as a catalyst for deliberately political violence” once this religious worldview is fused with political aims or principles.

The Weight of History …since many observers maintain that popular religion in Northern Ireland remains enmeshed in the disputes of the 17th century, it might be more appropriate to consider the likelihood of religious conflict by reference to 17th century European standards rather than by those of modern Europe. (Badham, 1988, pp. 46–47)

By and large, the literature that emphasised the significance of religion in Northern Ireland discussed competing institutions and communities; conflicting beliefs and worldviews which can feed into prejudice; and a fusion between evangelicalism and unionism that has the capacity to generate divisions and violence. However, these argumentations should already raise questions in the reader’s mind. For instance, let’s turn back to Bruce’s (1986a, p. 249) reference to “competing” populations and religions, which renders the conflict “enduring and intractable”: why are religious differences between Protestants and Catholics the source of persisting “competitions” in Northern Ireland, and not elsewhere? Undoubtedly, the co-existence of Protestant and Catholic communities in other parts of Western Europe for instance has not been the source of similar conflicts in modern times—Switzerland, Belgium or the Netherlands being cases in point (Brady, 1978, pp. 97–98). One would also note that evangelicalism’s relationships to politics has greatly varied over historical periods and across regions of the world. Therefore, why would religious differences be the primary source of conflict in Northern Ireland? The authors I have cited above certainly grapple with the question. As illustrated by Badham above, many have explained Northern Ireland’s distinctive makeup by reference to the enduring nature of local historical conditions. For instance, Gribben (2007, p. 53) writes that “From the plantation to the present day, intra-confessional relationships in the

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north-east of Ireland have been determined by the rhetoric of apocalyptic opposition”.1 Thus, it seems that a specific type of beliefs has shaped social relations in a relatively constant manner. Before him, Hill (2001, p. 5) had underscored the “longevity” and “adaptability” of millenarian beliefs, from the early seventeenth century to the turn of the twenty-first century, and which are “deeply engrained in our culture”. Anti-Catholicism is similarly described as “timeless” (Higgins & Brewer 1998, p. 12) and Protestant politics as having “always had a high theological content and focus” (ibid., p. 16).2 How can we explain such social permanency? Higgins and Brewer (ibid., p. 212) argue that “AntiCatholicism remained important down the centuries because the patterns of differentiation in Northern Irish society have stayed essentially the same. Alternative lines of division are relatively weak in Northern Ireland … with ethnicity, marked by religious difference, remaining as the only salient social cleavage”. Bruce (1986a, p. 27) too insists on a relatively unchanged social structure over four centuries: “That, from the point of settlement, the social groups in competition in Ireland were divided by religion meant that religion remained important. Nothing that has happened since settlement… has reduced the salience of religion”. In other words, religious ideas have continued to be relevant, because religion has remained the main cause of social differentiation. Such an explanatory mode poses a number of important problems. For a start, the perpetuation of the past in the present is a narrative that depicts Northern Irish society as static and unique, if not anomalous or backward. “The tragedy of Ulster is that it remains imprisoned by its past”, lamented Badham (1988, p. 55). Here, he echoes with Hickey (1984, p. 104) who accounts for the Troubles by claiming that while a modernised economy was allowing Catholics to “move from the ‘periphery’ to the ‘centre’”, modernisation had little effect on the political and religious spheres; consequently, resistance to change led to ethnoreligious conflict. Overall, Hickey’s analysis of the Troubles is factually inaccurate (inequalities along ethno-religious lines were significant in the 1960s and were addressed well after direct rule). On a theoretical level, and even if we accept that modernisation trajectories have been plural across regions of the world (Eisenstadt, 2000), such unusual process of

1 Italics the author’s. 2 Italics the author’s.

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modernisation in Northern Ireland where spheres of politics and religion would have remained static requires a compelling explanation. Indeed, Hickey (ibid., p. 81) writes: “The peculiarity about Northern Ireland is that the conflict which took place in the remainder of Europe and in the United States some centuries ago is taking place in this province now”. In fact, Coulter (1999, p. 4) reminds us that conflicts involving religious and/or ethnic minorities seems “perversely”, but essentially modern in contemporary Europe—one only need to think of anti-Semitism in the nineteenth and twentieth century, or the current controversies and conflicts regarding Islam today. Like Coulter, Ruane and Todd (1991, p. 39) observe that: Northern Ireland culture deviates little from mainstream Western culture on issues such as myths, nationalism, religion, compromise and violence. The basic motivation … are not concerns with romantic nationalism or 16th Century theology, but concerns with equality, security and distribution of power. In other words, ordinary liberal-democratic concerns produce conflict in the structural context of Northern Ireland.

It is therefore how these concerns in relation to equal rights, distribution of power and resources have been addressed, that have to be analysed in relation to religion, and these social issues are essentially modern. Besides, the significance of religion in Northern Ireland has not been static: there have been variations in Irish history regarding the ways in which religious differences were, or were not, a source of conflict and divisions (ibid., p. 23; O’Dowd, 1980, p. 4). How much religion matters, and when, is therefore contextual (Todd, 2010) and the context is precisely what needs to be explained in relation to religion’s significance. Ultimately, the tendency to depict Northern Ireland as a “unique” society (Hickey, 1984, p. 3) precludes very fruitful comparisons with other regional cases of conflict and ethno-religious divisions—otherwise undertaken by Allen (2012), Hillyard et al. (2005) or Wright (1987), for example. There are other issues in presenting Northern Ireland as a permanent religious conflict between Protestants and Catholics. Such an approach implies the existence of two opposing confessional monoliths and the fact that the conflict mainly results from endogenous causes hence excluding any other factor, from British government policies to British–Irish relations. A good example is to be found in Fulton’s (1988, 1991) work for instance, who describes “historical”, locked “blocs” (“Protestant-loyalist”

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and “Catholic-nationalist”), of which opposition, rooted in religious beliefs, is the source of communal violence. Yet there was no such thing as two historical blocs that fossilised during the war of religions. Fulton’s (1991, p. 2) claim that “To be a nationalist in Ireland practically means to be a catholic or former catholic, and to be a loyalist means to be an Ulster protestant”—a claim foundational for his overall argumentation—is plain wrong. Loyalists might not necessarily assert a religious identity (Brewer et al., 2013) and certainly not all Protestants would see themselves as loyalists; the same remarks can be made about the socalled Catholic-nationalist bloc; some Protestants have also contributed to Irish nationalism (Ruane & Todd, 1996, p. 29). Finally, diverse and complex identities are in addition increasingly salient (Todd, 2018). As already suggested in the previous chapter, Northern Irish “communities” are internally diverse in relation to religious culture itself, but also social class, gender, generations and political orientations. Locality is also significant,3 the rural/urban divide in particular. In fact, as we shall see later on, the dynamics of differentiation and stratification, among Northern Irish Protestants in particular, will prove to be essential to understand the significance and role of religion in Northern Ireland. Ultimately, individual identities prove to be relatively flexible and changing according to various existing cultural repertoires, social resources and new social circumstances. In fact, Todd’s (2018) most significant and unexpected finding from interviews undertaken in the 2000s in Ireland was that identity change is pervasive among individuals, and even more so in the north than in the south of Ireland. In other words, historical determinism unavoidably leaves substantial questions unanswered regarding the dynamic and multifarious nature of social processes at play. Indeed, by explaining the present by the continuity of the past, the argument risks becoming tautological and losing any explanatory value: Mitchell (2006, p. 135), for example, asserts that religion in Northern Ireland is divisive “because conflict has developed in Northern Ireland, and because religion has historically played a role in that conflict, it has now taken on a special social and political significance”.4 3 McFarlane’s (1989) ethnography of “Ballycuan”, a small village outside Belfast, underscores that in the absence of a significant Roman Catholic population, the most significant form of social distinction had to do with Protestant denominational lines primarily. It was followed by, and in fact intertwined with, social class. 4 Italics the author’s.

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Strikingly, in those deterministic and quasi-tautological analyses, one of the questions left without explanation regarding Northern Ireland’s religious conflict is conflict itself. For example, I referred to Ford (2005, p. 22) who explains Irish social divisions by the fact that competing religious institutions failed to hold a monopoly: “The resultant parallel structures and rival claims provided the institutional framework within which sectarianism could grow and flourish in Ireland not just in the early modern period but right down to the present century”. In this citation, antagonism is unthought. Bruce (1986a, p. 249) understands the “enduring and intractable” conflict in Northern Ireland as resulting from the fact that “competing populations in Ireland adhered and still adhere to competing religious traditions”5 : one wonders what has caused “rivalry” and “competition” in the first place and why these authors focus on religion while overlooking “competition” as a core dynamic to be examined.

Religion Is Important… Because It Is This historical determinism that makes conflict about religious differences in Northern Ireland permanent and perhaps unavoidable was particularly striking, because I had encountered it within the sociology of religion in relation to other objects of studies. In particular, I had issues with the ways in which many sociologists of religion explained the contemporary cult controversies in France by referring to the historical roots of French secularism, from the Enlightenment and the 1789 revolution (Altglas, 2010). Laïcité, a specific process of separation between church and state, was depicted as what drove intolerant reactions to new religious movements and Islam in today’s France, resulting in persistent and discriminatory institutional responses to minority religions. Yet, as for religion in Northern Ireland, the self-explanatory nature of historical determinism sets aside crucial questions relating to social processes and dynamics: for example, how does laïcité, as discourses and practices, manifest itself in religious controversies nowadays? What sort of practices, strategies and mobilisation does it contribute to? Secondly, in this case study too, I found that by imposing a general and monocausal narrative on complex and dynamic social trends, scholars tended to be oblivious

5 Italics the author’s.

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to contradicting empirical evidence. I showed, for example, that laïcité is actually a highly contested value, reflecting divergent political and administrative approaches to the “cult phenomenon”, and which are not necessarily suspicious of religion per se. I also demonstrated that the revitalisation of the French cult controversies in mid-1990s was only possible precisely because it was applied to a wide range of phenomena which were not religious (therapy and counselling, professional training, health and education). In other words, the opposition to the so-called cults drew more support when it was not about religion. This led to the conclusion that historical determinism has inflated the significance of religion (ibid.) or perhaps, as illustrated by the sociology of religion in Northern Ireland, it is the inflation of religion’s significance that makes scholars prone to deterministic argumentations. This critical comment can be illustrated by looking at the ways in which Mitchell (2006) makes the case for the significance of religion in Northern Ireland. Mitchell’s (ibid., p. 1) starting point is that religion’s social and political importance has often been understated. This is a somewhat puzzling assertion, considering the number of sociologists of religion who have underscored its importance down through the years—Bruce, Fulton and Hickey in particular. Yet Mitchell’s point is to respond to those who explain the region’s conflict by focusing on nationalists’ and unionists’ diverging political aspirations.6 By contrast, she maintains that religion is more than a marker of social difference: religious ideas and practices matter in the making of political relationships and social divisions in Northern Ireland. The argument is supported by a series of statements: churches still “cooperate with politicians to represent

6 McGarry and O’Leary (1995) notably explained social divisions in Northern Ireland by referring to incompatible political ideologies of nationhood that opposed an Irishidentifying Catholic community aiming at Ireland’s reunification and a British-identifying Protestant one committed to the union with Great Britain. In other words, the two authors argue that the “national conflict” is primary. There are issues with making ethnonational affiliations the conflict’s origin and drive; interestingly, for the same reasons, I am critical of those who identified social divisions in Northern Ireland as the result of a religious conflict. Communal divisions existed prior to ethno-national identities that emerged in the nineteenth century, so that the latter is rather the result, than the drive, of conflict (Ruane & Todd, 1996, p. 35). Consequently, an explanatory framework that would address how and why ethno-national allegiance is the source of division is said to be lacking, the same way that a compelling interpretation of why religion has been the source of conflict and violence is often absent (Coulter, 1999, pp. 62–63).

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the unionist and nationalist political mainstream” so that religion is intertwined with political power. Furthermore, religious practices and ideas contribute to elaborate collective identities, distinction and segregation; and finally, theological concepts and representations permeate Protestants’ political ideology. These intertwined social processes ultimately “overlap with and reinforce other dimensions of social difference such as ethnicity and inequality”. Thus, the author concludes, “This is why religion is so deeply rooted in political culture and structure in Northern Ireland” (ibid.). From this argumentation, the reader might find it difficult to grasp why is religion the primary source of social differentiation and conflict, what are the social processes at play and how they affect each other. The lack of clarity also derives from the fact that ethnicity and inequalities are not merely “differences” one can equate: rather, the former is a potential source of the latter, and besides not all social “differences” generate inequalities. Another important question is the kind of data and methodological choices one would need to evaluate and analyse the impact of religion on Northern Irish social divisions. Mitchell (ibid., p. 2) aims “to explore the ways in which religious rituals, ideas, doctrines, values and powerful agencies help construct ideas about self and other in an uncertain and divided political situation” by drawing on thirty-five qualitative interviews focusing on individuals’ subjective representations. Such an approach only gives Mitchell access to people’s own account about themselves and the world that surrounds them. It is not possible to provide a reliable analysis on social networks, social structures and stratification, which would allow the author to demonstrate compellingly the social and political significance of religion—the demise of the social through an over-inflation of subjectivity is a theme we will return to later. Thus, some of the key arguments made by the author, above, might have been better supported by, for instance, an exploration of religious institutions’ interactions with political parties (through an analysis of social networks, church initiatives or policymaking, for example) or a study of segregation and social stratification comparing the effect of religious affiliation, gender, age, class and ethnicity. Needless to say, religion is a factor of social differentiation in Northern Ireland—but to explore whether religious meaning matters, and its effects, would require integrating other forms of structural difference and identification, in both the research methodology and the analysis, rather than studying religion within itself,

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as expressed through respondents’ discourses about themselves and the ways in which they perceive the world around them. As a consequence, there is disjunction between the arguments and the empirical evidence presented to support those arguments. This disjunction reinforces the impression that this is religion that was sought and hence found, irrespective of the empirical reality. Religion’s significance seems to be possibly a parti pris, a position chosen in advance. For instance, let’s consider Mitchell’s first argument regarding the intertwining of religion with political power, which is actually the one focusing on religion’s influence at the institutional level (and by definition, the one that lacks solid empirical evidence, because of the author’s methodological strategy). Mitchell observes that the Catholic Church is not involved in party politics (ibid., p. 42). The commitment of Protestant churches to unionist politics is more obvious, but like the Catholic Church, they have no role in political and governmental structures (ibid., p. 55) and do not impact on constitutional matters or policy making (ibid., p. 39). Some Protestant churches are eager to convey their views (usually limited to cultural issues such as the controversial marches of the Twelfth for instance), but the author concedes that there is such diversity of opinions that no legible message comes across in the public domain (ibid., p. 54). In fact, Mitchell notes that the diversity of Protestant churches and denominations leads them to compete to represent what they see as the Protestant community. As a consequence, “there is no clearly defined source from which political mediation is expected to come” (ibid.). Conversely, she finds no evidence that parties are influenced by religious institutions. Political parties do not have an overt religious agenda or membership (ibid., p. 138) apart from the DUP, although the case is not clear-cut as we shall see hereafter. Political representatives do not negotiate with religious representatives (ibid., p. 40) and often prefer to keep religious issues and religious organisations at bay (ibid., p. 138). The fusion of religion and politics was institutionalised in the Orange Order, but Mitchell acknowledges the decline of its role in defending the interests of a Protestant-unionist community (ibid., p. 50). Thus, Mitchell underscores that the role of religious institutions and their representatives is mostly found in mediation (notably during the Troubles between state representatives and paramilitaries) and consultation. Some church leaders were also involved in overseeing weapons decommissioning and legacy issues. One would observe that in a conflict, mediators are chosen among those who do not have any power or interest

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at play and the author does not provide evidence to suggest that religious actors did shape the peace process’s provisions. Mitchell indeed observes that Protestant representatives “sought assurances from politicians” while “the British government would have liked the Presbyterian Church to be ‘persuaders’, selling political change to their congregations” (ibid., p. 52): to me, this underscores church leaders’ powerlessness on the one side and the pragmatic instrumentalisation of “faith communities” on the other side—a far from uncommon practice in modern British governance (Smith, 2004). Unsurprisingly, religious organisations’ involvement in mediation naturally waned after the GFA (ibid., p. 56).7 A similar argument can be made for consultation which, Mitchell recognises, is not decision-making (ibid., p. 40); it is indeed often a box ticking exercise for governmental structures to strengthen the legitimacy of their decision, by claiming the involvement and empowerment of civil society—again, a common practice in modern-day British governance. Lastly, many church representatives chose not to engage with peace organisations, suspecting the latter to be façades for paramilitary operations (notably the conservative Protestants, despite being ideologically close to Loyalism), as Mitchell (2008) argues elsewhere. It is difficult for religious organisations to be authoritative spokespersons for a variety of other reasons. Mitchell notes that the Catholic Church has a strained relationship with a sizeable section of the community it would like to represent—the less moderate nationalists and those who supported republican paramilitary activities (ibid., pp. 42–43). In the Troubles in particular, and during the hunger strike campaign, condemned by the Church, a fraction of the Catholic Community felt let down by the institution and its representatives (Morrow, 1995, p. 160). The decline of the Church’s legitimacy was, in addition, aggravated

7 Some religious organisations were eager to contribute to reconciliation—substantial sums of “peace money” have supported the voluntary and community sector for reconciliation work (Morrow et al., 2018). Yet research underscores eagerness, rather than a significant impact of religious organisations in this domain. In fact, Ganiel (2008) suggests that their potential as facilitators for reconciliation might have been socially and politically underestimated, which again undermines the argument that religions are bound up with political power. Comparing the role of religious actors in peace processes in Northern Ireland and Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kmec and Ganiel (2018) also argue that “‘official’ representatives of religions may not be the most effective partners for peace”, when too close to political power and by contrast with more informal, interpersonal relationships at grassroots level.

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by its own internal dissension in relation to the conflict (Scull, 2019). The influence of Protestant churches in relation to political violence was limited too: loyalism is predominantly working-class and a secular social phenomenon, while the main Protestant denominations appeal to liberal and middle-class constituencies (Mitchell, 2006, p. 53). The latter might have been advocates for peace and reconciliation but “How far this has taken root ideologically amongst church members is another question” (ibid., p. 55). Ultimately, how many are church members for religious organisations to influence political opinions and represent these opinions in the public domain is a significant question which needs to be studied. Mitchell underscores that the pulpit remains a platform for Protestant churches to address political issues, but it only speaks to the converted (ibid., p. 53). With secularisation, the number of churchgoers is diminishing and with them the influence on the hearts and minds is impacted upon less (ibid., p. 138). Similarly, secularising trends and the resulting waning of clerical authority limited the Catholic Church’s public influence in relation to the conflict and its resolution (Scull, 2019). I have read Mitchell’s work with great interest, but based on the author’s data and analysis, I could only conclude that the role played by religious institutions and representatives in the political sphere is relatively minor. Mitchell’s repetition that “churches8 continue to heavily influence the tone, and often the substance of political life” (ibid., p. 40) and that “religion is integrally bound up with power relationships in Northern Ireland” (ibid., p. 1) does not fit with the observations made by herself. Hence, the impression of a parti pris: religion is important… because it is.

The Test Case: Protestantism and Unionist Politics Authors who depict Northern Ireland’s conflict as an opposition of two equivalent confessional blocs tend to overlook the fact that religion does not have the same meaning for those communities. Certainly, republicans were educated in confessional settings and lived in Catholic neighbourhoods, and they nonetheless pursued a secular agenda that 8 We could also underscore the need of having a precise and subtle approach of what “churches” are—complex institutions with different (and sometimes conflicting) objectives, not least because those organisations are composed of lay members, clerics and leaders who represent a plurality of attitudes, commitments, interests, etc. (Morrow, 1995, p. 152).

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had no theological foundation nor religious justification. They did not seek to build a Catholic state but aim at the unification of Ireland. Their attacks focused on the British presence—and this would include Northern Irish Protestants who gave their support to the Union. Therefore, most academics consider that Irish nationalism was mainly motivated by social, economic and/or political grievances. That is not to say that some academics and politicians have not tried to establish a link between Catholicism and Irish nationalism—I will return to this vein of writing in subsequent pages. The case for the significance of religion in Northern Ireland seems, however, most compelling when it comes to the relationships between conservative evangelicalism, unionism and loyalism. Ian Paisley’s ferocious and absolutist rhetoric that blended theology with politics; his ability to draw popular support and mobilise loyalists, to inspire the use of violence according to his critics and challenge the British government; his creation of a new unionist party that reached predominance in the 2000s, all of this seems to establish the impact of Protestant fundamentalism in unionist politics and its role in maintaining social divisions (Bruce, 1986a; Morrow, 1997). Bruce (1986a, p. 268) sees Paisley as offering “the most explicit and articulate representation of evangelical Protestant unionism”. Such fusion—the opposition to an aggrandised Catholic Church threatening Protestantism, combined with unionism’s rejection of being absorbed as a minority in the (Catholic) Irish state—explains his appeal (ibid., pp. 265, 267). Bruce underscores the ways in which Paisley revitalised a tradition, echoing with the ways in which religious rhetoric and biblical references had been used in the political realm, for example, to oppose alterations of the union and mobilising Presbyterian unionists against Home Rule9 in 1912 (ibid., pp. 125, 213). While a liberal unionist strand underlined the advantages of remaining in the union in relation to civil rights and liberties, a covenantal theology of Scottish heritage disseminated through sermons, speeches and newspaper articles asserted the divine right of a chosen people to occupy Ireland (Augspurger, 2018). In the 1960s, Paisley’s religious appeal derived from his evocation of a glorious past, the assertion of Protestants’ superiority and his claims that their religion had been degraded and “sold out” by liberal unionists in their attempts to engage with Roman Catholics (Bruce, 1986a, p. 90). Equally

9 The possibility of an Irish self-government within the British Empire.

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important, however, were the ways in which Paisley drew on a type of religious and street protest that had been long established in Northern Ireland (Farrington, 2008, p. 527). Ultimately, religion’s salience seems also confirmed by the DUP’s physiognomy: in the 1970s, the majority of party’s activists either belonged to Paisley’s Free Presbyterian Church or another conservative denomination (Bruce, 1994, p. 23). In the early 2010s, a third of the party’s members still belonged to the Free Presbyterian Church. Nearly all of them were part of a (non-Catholic) Christian denomination and nearly none of them identified as being non-religious (Tonge et al., 2014, pp. 138–139). However, the role of religion in Northern Irish politics needs to be carefully evaluated. As Tonge (2006, p. 25) notes, “The difficulty with the religious argument is that none of the protagonists in the conflict espoused religious causes”. Indeed, Paisley’s most fierce supporters who might have been inspired by his discourses to mobilise in paramilitary movements and take action to defend a Protestant Ulster during the Troubles were mostly non-religious, especially in Belfast. Some were, but this was not by far the characteristic profile: loyalist paramilitaries of the UVF and UDA were often from a working-class and secular background; their motivations were not based on theological ideas or discourses (Brewer et al., 2013; see also interesting ethnographic illustrations in Bell, 1990). Conversely, most evangelicals tended not to be loyalist—and this, probably, for religious reasons. Many ex-paramilitaries became “saved” in prison, but this usually led them to leave paramilitary organisations (Bruce, 2001, p. 400). More importantly, Paisley did not achieve power because of his religious status. If he was to successfully challenge and defeat the unionist liberal elite, he had to join, and even create, political structures rather than remaining within the institutions of the Free Presbyterian Church (Farrington, 2008, p. 529). As Bruce (1986a, p. 216; 2007, pp. 92, 119) observes himself, the support for Paisley and his party was not due to his religious discourses, of which conservative and intolerant tones alienated a sizeable section of the Protestant population. After all, the DUP could only count on support from around a third of unionist votes until the early 2000s (Bruce, 2007, p. 265). Paisley’s followers were not found among the upper classes, the mobile professionals or those who possessed higher education qualifications; his speeches against ecumenism conveyed an opposition to the cosmopolitan culture of the liberal, educated classes and expressed the uncertainties of the working- and low-middle-class

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elements (ibid., pp. 258–259). His early electoral successes were largely due to conservative, rural Protestants, but in Belfast and particularly in the eastern part of the city, his supporters would have been predominantly secular working-class individuals. In a nutshell, Paisley’s leadership base was initially the rural religious conservatives, before it was enlarged to the secular, working-class and urban discontents (Nelson, 1984, p. 61). And to win this new constituency, religion was more a hindrance than an asset (Bruce, 2007, p. 262; McGarry & O’Leary, 1995, p. 204). The party’s secular base is reflected in the fact that the “support for Paisley and the DUP is conditional on both remaining conventionally unionist”, rather than focused on the assertion of evangelicalism (Bruce, 1986a, p. 210). It derives from essential political principles shared by the Reverend and his supporters: the defence of Protestant Ulster, the destruction of what was perceived to be a republican uprising and the reinstatement of majority rule in Northern Ireland (ibid., p. 113). By and large, what has been consistent and has drawn support beyond the confines of conservative religious voters is the DUP’s rejection of compromise with anything perceived as being part of a republican agenda. Cochrane (1997, p. 41) makes an interesting remark about the DUP’s oppositional politics, whose “reactive nature” and resistance to compromise are in affinity with its conservative evangelical roots. Besides, the belief in fulfilling God’s will might also have contributed to the determination of Paisley and his followers (Bruce, 2007, p. 247). As such, religion did play a role in the political success of Paisley and his party. But as Ganiel and Dixon (2008, p. 420) note, the DUP and its leader showed pragmatism at times and did compromise in order to gain political power.10 Paisley’s political success could also be interpreted by the role he played as an “ethnic outbidder”, whereby one gains political support by claiming to be more hard-line—a common strategy observed in contexts where ethnicity plays a significant role in politics (Farrington, 2008, p. 528).11 Again, the comparative perspective, rather than making a (religious) anomaly of Northern Ireland, is particularly useful. In this 10 In fact, the DUP’s evangelical supporters themselves proved to be more flexible than assumed in relation to their politics and national identity; they adapted to new socio-political circumstances following the peace agreement and new power-sharing arrangements (Ganiel & Dixon, 2008; Mitchell & Todd, 2007). 11 In the 1970s, the DUP’s main challenger was the Vanguard Unionist Party, which was hard-line loyalist and secular. The Party however fell apart when its leader seemed

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regard, one could argue that the DUP’s reference to Christian values and identity echoes with other European far-right parties, in their attempt to assert “Christian”, national identities, in opposition to Islam, migration and the cosmopolitanism of the middle-classes.12 Paisley’s inflexible attitude especially appealed to the party’s members who, since its beginning, included the most vulnerable and marginal sections of unionist Protestants (Coulter, 1999, pp. 91–92; Tonge et al., 2014, pp. 89, 119); this would explain why individuals who are not churchgoers have embraced this polarising discourse. Equally, the shift in favour of the DUP in the 2000s, thus becoming the dominant unionist party, was not so much reflective of Paisley’s influence—in fact, by then, he had lost the control of the party and the political leaders who succeeded him were not Free Presbyterians. “The rapid transformation that saw the DUP trounce the Ulster Unionist Party owed nothing to religion and everything to a rational response to British government policy”, write Bruce (2007, p. 265): what was decisive for the DUP’s success was its uncompromising response to peace negotiations, in the context of unionists’ uncertainties and fears of being forced out of the United Kingdom (Tonge, 2006, p. 25; Ganiel, 2008, pp. 78–79 for empirical examples). This seems to be confirmed by changes in the party’s membership: those who joined the party between 1998 and 2006 are distinctively less religious than those who joined before, and their commitment was clearly motivated by the outcomes of the GFA. After 2006, “there is a higher number of people believing that religion should have maximum influence, compared to the 1998–2006 intake. However, this is well below the 1971–97 figure” (Tonge et al., 2014, p. 145). In short, the DUP’s members are becoming less religious. The religious influence on the party’s political programme is also a matter of debate. Bruce (2007, pp. 189–191) notes that religion did not feature prominently in the party’s manifesto, even in the 1980s, and many of its leaders were opposed to a political imposition of religious principles. Their defence of the union drew on secular and “entirely conventional” principles such as the legitimacy of the majority rule or the state’s legitimate use of force (ibid., p. 244). The party has remained conservative in

to support power-sharing with the nationalist party, the SDLP, and its supporters overwhelmingly joined the DUP (McGarry & O’Leary, 1995, p. 203). 12 I borrow this thoughtful comparison from Peter Doak.

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relation to moral values, reflecting the hard-line religious ethos of the party members. For instance, it strongly opposed abortion rights and gay marriage, both made law by Westminster in 2019 in the absence of a Northern Irish parliament at the time.13 However, two-thirds of DUP voters support the decriminalisation of abortion (Amnesty International, 2018). It would be fair to assume that the DUP’s conservative politics aims to preserve the support of conservative voters: the evangelical vote seems motivated by conservative moral attitudes, rather than a stronger unionist stance, argue Mitchell and Tilley (2008). In other words, evangelicals are not more unionist than liberal Protestants—one more argument to question the salience of fundamentalist Protestantism for unionist politics. Furthermore, the DUP’s policies have become more secular over time, abandoning Sabbatarianism, for example. The DUP dropped the label of Protestant Unionist Party very early on (it became the DUP in 1971), and its association with the Free Presbyterian Church has loosened gradually. Interestingly, the secularisation and professionalisation of the party were precisely undertaken by a more urban and educated party leadership who realised that, in order to enlarge its support base, elections could not be won on the basis of religion in some areas such as East Belfast, predominantly secular, working-class and loyalist (Cochrane, 1997, p. 46). In May 2019, the DUP selected an openly gay female candidate who was subsequently elected on Antrim and Newtownabbey Borough Council. With Paisley’s “Save Ulster from Sodomy” campaign in opposition to the decriminalisation of homosexuality in 1977, this certainly constitutes a significant turning point, reflecting an attempt to draw the support of younger and less religious unionists. Once again, for the DUP to remain in power, the religious factor might not be the most important one—not least because, perhaps later than most societies in Western Europe, Northern Ireland is nevertheless undergoing a process of secularisation, with an increasing number of individuals identifying as neither Catholics nor Protestants. In fact, we noted earlier on that those claiming to be non-religious predominantly come from a Protestant background. Conservative Protestantism is also increasingly diversified, now including more liberal and apolitical trends (Ganiel, 2008). It is therefore perhaps 13 The parliament collapsed in 2017 for three years, following the DUP’s mismanagement of a green energy scheme, and the party’s refusal to implement an Irish Language bill.

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not surprising that at the time of writing, and in the context of acute concerns relating to Brexit and the Irish sea border, fears of the United Kingdom’s dissolution and a possible referendum for a United Ireland in the near future have not taken the form of a religious discourse. It is not a return to a genuine Protestant Ulster that is expressed, but an opposition to the sea border between Northern Ireland and Great Britain, voiced by loyalists in particular. So far, I underlined that in the light of Bruce’s own account as well as others’, the significance of religious beliefs and attitudes for unionist politics cannot be taken for granted. Bruce (1986a, 2007) consistently underscores that religion is not the source of Paisley and his party’s political success, but he (1994, pp. 30–31) also contends that the only explanation for Paisley’s traditional support is that evangelical values, symbolism and beliefs remain central as part of Northern Irish Protestants’ ethnic identity. It constitutes the heart of unionism: A people need a shared ideology if they are to remain a people. Although the minority in the North does draw on religious symbolism, Catholics do not need religion. Three-quarters of a united Ireland already exists within travelling distance. Nationalism is so well-established as to provide a strong source of identity. Ulster loyalists, however, need their evangelical religion because it is the only viable source of a shared identity. After all, they want to be British, but the British do not want them. They are loyal, but loyal to what? The only coherent set of ideas which explains the past, which gives them a sense of who they are, which makes them feel justifiably superior to Catholics, and which gives them the hope that they will survive, is evangelical Protestantism. (Bruce, 1986b, p. 6)

Here (and in a similar vein, in 2007, p. 260), Bruce does attempt to provide an explanatory framework for the primacy of religion in the Northern Irish conflict. He suggests that while Roman Catholics can comfortably draw on Irish nationalism as a secular political ideology and do not need religion, this is not the same for unionists. To put it simply, Northern Irish Protestants are an ethnic group without a nation; their national identity is somewhat thwarted or lacks cogency—an argument often made about unionist political ideology.14 Asserting that people have 14 In his history of Protestant loyalism, Miller (2007 [1978], p. 89) argues that the Ulster Protestant community sits between two nations (Ireland and Britain) and lacks “the myth by which most modern communities reassure themselves that the political

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a vital need to survive through the affirmation of a collective identity, Bruce sees religion as the common heritage and only resource for unionists, including secular loyalists who have not been in a church for some time: “beyond evangelical Protestantism, no secure identity is available” (Bruce, 1986a, p. 258). While Bruce (2007, p. ix) convincingly sheds light on religion’s impact on Paisley’s politics, his argumentation about the centrality of Protestantism for unionism and loyalism is less compelling. For a start, it is not fully consistent with his detailed analysis of Paisley’s politics and loyalism and which I presented earlier. Again, the parti pris of asserting the role of religion seems oblivious to contradictory empirical evidence. Besides, as argued before, it also obscures the complexity of social dynamics. For instance, making Protestantism the essence of unionism does not do justice to the range of unionists’ political sensibilities, some of which do not include evangelicalism (Coulter, 1994, p. 7), and Ulster Protestants do not constitute a homogenous ethnic group of individuals sharing religious representations, experiences or political interests (Cochrane, 1997, p. 60).15 In fact, Bruce’s argument about evangelicalism as core to unionism is only valid if we exclude the liberal unionism of the middleclass on the one hand, and the attraction of working-class Protestants for the Northern Irish Labour Party on the other, which was significant enough to precipitate a crisis within the Ulster Unionist Party in the 1960s (Wright, 1973). By and large, internal divisions in relation to denominational lines and religious culture, social class, political attitudes, attitudes towards loyalism and to the Orange Order, are all key to understanding the social dynamics of divisions and conflict in the region—we will come back on this further on. Finally, Bruce’s arguments open up fascinating sociological questions about the significance and effect of religious ideas, even among those who are not religious (1986b, p. 263), a claim also made by Morrow (1997, pp. 63–64). Curiously, his in-depth accounts of loyalism (1992, 1994) arrangements under which they live (or some other projected arrangements) are inevitable and right: the myth of nationality. The religious system which that community developed in the nineteenth century had such remarkable staying-power in part because it helped meet the need for just such reassurance; it confirmed by modern “empirical” standards that they were God’s chosen people”. Like Bruce, Miller seems to suggest that religion fills the gap of nationhood, so to speak. 15 We could also question the ways in which Bruce rules out the significance of Catholicism in the formation of an equally complex national identity in the Irish republic.

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do not establish the ways in which religious representations permeate through loyalism or are inscribed in practice, nor do they attempt to do so. Referring to the individuals he interviewed and who are religious, Bruce writes (ibid., p. 114): “My discussions could be summarized as saying that most evangelicals wanted a return to the Stormont of the 1950s but accepted that it was not possible”. Religion does not seem to feature centrally in the discourses, references and concerns of Bruce’s research participants, and this is congruent with other studies of loyalism (Bell, 1990; Mulvenna, 2016; Nelson, 1984). By and large, all these pieces of research, including Bruce’s, describe loyalist concerns as revolving around a sense of alienation and a loss of hegemony, the fear of the IRA’s violent campaign, a desire to defend one’s community and British disloyalty which could lead to a united Ireland. Attitudes towards Roman Catholics had therefore more to do with Irish nationalism rather than “because they said the rosary or believed in the doctrine of transubstantiation” (McGarry & O’Leary, 1995, p. 205). In other words, the argument falls short of a demonstration of religion’s role in individuals’ commitments, practice and, ultimately, in relation to social conflict. Thus, presented as self-evident, the socio-political necessity of religious representations seems inescapable, if not inalterable, in Bruce’s argumentation, while specific cultural needs in terms of identity are somewhat naturalised.16 But why is self-affirming identity a matter of urgency or survival? And why can only evangelicalism fulfil this need? If this was the case, why have secularising trends not fundamentally altered the support for unionism?

References Allen, T. W. (2012). The invention of the white race (Vol. 1). Verso Books. Altglas, V. (2010). Laïcité is what Laïcité does: Rethinking the French cult controversy. Current Sociology, 58(3), 1–22.

16 Responding critically to Bruce’s interpretation, Morrow (1997, pp. 69–70) however draws on a similar cultural determinism: “The conflict does not exist because Protestants are Protestants but Protestants are thrown back to fundamentalist myth because the conflict exists”. Yet, one more time, why there is conflict and what triggers it are questions left unanswered in this deterministic perspective about religion’s significance.

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Amnesty International. (2018, October 10). Northern Ireland abortion: 75% of UK public want government to change law—New polls. Retrieved November 30, 2021, from https://www.amnesty.org.uk/press-releases/nor thern-ireland-abortion-75-uk-public-want-government-change-law-new-polls Augspurger, C. (2018). National identity, religion, and Irish unionism: The rhetoric of Irish Presbyterian opposition to home rule in 1912. Irish Political Studies, 33(3), 331–353. Badham, P. (1988). The contribution of religion to the conflict in Northern Ireland. International Journal on World Peace, 5(1), 45–67. Bell, D. (1990). Acts of union: Youth culture and sectarianism in Northern Ireland. Palgrave Macmillan. Brady, J. (1978). Pluralism and Northern Ireland. Studies, 67 , 88–99. Brewer, J., & Higgins, G. I. (1998). Anti-Catholicism in Northern Ireland, 1600–1998: The Mote and the Beam. Macmillan. Brewer, J., & Higgins, G. I. (2003). The roots of sectarianism in Northern Ireland. In O. Hargie & D. Dickson (Eds.), Researching the troubles: Social science perspectives on the Northern Ireland conflict (pp. 107–121). Mainstream Press. Brewer, J., Higgins, G. I., & Teeney, F. (2011). Religion, civil society and peace in Northern Ireland. Oxford University Press. Brewer, J., Mitchell, D., & Leavey, G. (2013). Ex-combatants, religion, and peace in Northern Ireland: The role of religion in transitional justice. Palgrave Macmillan. Bruce, S. (1986a). God save Ulster! The religion and politics of Paisleyism. Clarendon Press. Bruce, S. (1986b). Prods and Taigs: The sectarian divide. Fortnight, 242, 5–6. Bruce, S. (1992). The red hand. Oxford University Press. Bruce, S. (1994). The edge of the union: The Ulster loyalist political vision. Oxford University Press. Bruce, S. (2001). Fundamentalism and political violence: The case of Paisley and Ulster evangelicals. Religion, 31, 387–405. Bruce, S. (2007). Paisley: Religion and politics in Northern Ireland. Oxford University Press. Cochrane, F. (1997). Unionist politics and the politics of unionism since the AngloIrish agreement. Cork University Press. Coulter, C. (1994). The character of unionism. Irish Political Studies, 9(1), 1–24. Coulter, C. (1999). Contemporary Northern Irish society: An introduction. Sterling. Eisenstadt, S. N. (2000). Multiple modernities. Daedalus, 129(1), 1–29. Farrington, C. (2008). Mobilisation, state crisis and counter-mobilisation: Ulster unionist politics and the outbreak of the troubles. Irish Political Studies: An Irish Quarterly Review, 23(4), 513–532.

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Ford, A. (2005). Living together, living apart: Sectarianism in early modern Ireland. In A. Ford & J. McCafferty (Eds.), The origins of sectarianism in early modern Ireland (pp. 1–23). Cambridge University Press. Ford, A., & McCafferty, J. (2005). The origins of sectarianism in early modern Ireland. Cambridge University Press. Fulton, J. (1988). Sociology, religion and “the troubles” in Northern Ireland: A critical approach. The Economic and Social Review, 20(1), 5–24. Fulton, J. (1991). The tragedy of belief: Division, politics and religion in Ireland. Clarendon Press. Fulton, J. (2002). Religion and enmity in Ireland: Institutions and relational beliefs. Social Compass, 49(2), 189–202. Ganiel, G. (2008). Evangelicalism and conflict in Northern Ireland. Palgrave. Ganiel, G. (2014). Can churches contribute to post-violence reconciliation and reconstruction? Insights and applications from Northern Ireland. In J. Wolffe (Ed.), Irish religious conflict in comparative perspective: Catholics, protestants and Muslims: Histories of the sacred and secular, 1700–2000 (pp. 59–75). Palgrave Macmillan. Ganiel, G., & Dixon, P. (2008). Religion, pragmatic fundamentalism and the transformation of the Northern Ireland conflict. Journal of Peace Research, 45(3), 419–436. Gribben, C. (2007). Protestant millennialism, political violence and the Ulster conflict. Irish Studies Review, 15(1), 51–63. Hickey, J. (1984). Religion and the Northern Ireland problem. Dublin: Gill & Macmillan. Hill, M. (2001). The time of the end: Millenarian beliefs in Ulster. Belfast Society Publications. Hillyard, P., Rolston, B., & Tomlinson, M. (2005). Poverty and conflict in Ireland: An international perspective. IPA and Combat Poverty Agency. Kmec, V., & Ganiel, G. (2018). The strengths and limitations of the inclusion of religious actors in peace processes in Northern Ireland and Bosnia and Herzegovina. International Negotiation, 24(1), 136–163. McFarlane, G. (1989). Dimensions of protestantism: The working of protestant identity in a Northern Irish village. In C. Curtin & T. M. Wilson (Eds.), Ireland from below: Social change and local communities (pp. 23–45). Galway University Press. McGarry, J., & O’Leary, B. (1995). Explaining Northern Ireland: Broken images. Blackwell. Miller, D. W. (2007 [1978]). Queen’s rebels. University College Dublin Press. Mitchell, C. (2006). Religion, identity and politics in Northern Ireland: Boundaries of belonging and belief . Routledge.

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Mitchell, C. (2008). For god and... conflict transformation? The dis/engagement of the churches from contemporary loyalism. In A. Edwards & S. Bloomer (Eds.), Transforming the peace process in Northern Ireland: From terrorism to democratic politics (pp. 148–162). Irish Academic Press. Mitchell, C., & Tilley, J. (2008). Disaggregating conservative protestant groups in Northern Ireland: Overlapping categories and the importance of a bornagain self-identification. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 47 (4), 738–752. Mitchell, C., & Todd, J. (2007). Between the devil and the deep blue sea: Nationality, power and symbolic trade-offs among evangelical protestants in contemporary Northern Ireland. Nations and Nationalism, 13, 637–655. Morrow, D. (1995). Church and religion in the Ulster crisis. In S. Dunn (Ed.), Facets of the conflict in Northern Ireland (pp. 151–167). Palgrave Macmillan. Morrow, D. (1997). Suffering for righteousness sake? Fundamentalist protestantism and Ulster politics. In P. Shirlow & M. McGovern (Eds.), Who are the people? Unionism, protestantism and loyalism in Northern Ireland (pp. 55–71). Pluto. Morrow, D., Faulkner-Byrne, L., & Pettis, S. (2018). Funding peace: A report on the funding of peace and reconciliation work in Northern Ireland and Ireland 2007–2017 . Corrymeela; Understanding Conflict Trust. Mulvenna, G. (2016). Tartan gangs and paramilitaries: The loyalist backlash. Liverpool University Press. Nelson, S. (1984). Ulster’s uncertain defenders: Loyalist political paramilitary and community groups and the Northern Ireland conflict. The Appletree Press. O’Dowd, L. (1980). Shaping and reshaping the Orange State: An introductory analysis. In L. O’Dowd, B. Rolston, & M. Tomlinson (Eds.), Northern Ireland: Between civil rights and civil wars (pp. 1–29). CSE Books. Ruane, J., & Todd, J. (1991). ‘Why can’t you get along with each other?’: Culture, structure and the Northern Ireland conflict. In E. Hughes (Ed.), Culture and politics in Northern Ireland 1960–1990 (pp. 27–44). Open University Press. Ruane, J., & Todd, J. (1996). The dynamics of conflict in Northern Ireland: Power, conflict and emancipation. Cambridge University Press. Scull, M. M. (2019). The Catholic Church and the Northern Ireland troubles, 1968–1998. Oxford University Press. Smith, G. (2004). Faith in community and communities of faith? Government rhetoric and religious identity in urban Britain. Journal of Contemporary Religion, 19(2), 185–204. Todd, J. (2010). Symbolic complexity and political division: The changing role of religion in Northern Ireland. Ethnopolitics, 9(1), 85–102. Todd, J. (2018). Identity change after conflict: Ethnicity, boundaries and belonging in the two Irelands. Palgrave Macmillan.

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Tonge, J. (2006). Northern Ireland. Polity. Tonge, J., Braniff, M., Hennessey, T., McAuley, J. W., & Whiting, S. (2014). The democratic unionist party: From protest to power. Oxford University Press. Wright, F. (1973). Protestant ideology and politics in Ulster. European Journal of Sociology, 14(2), 212–280. Wright, F. (1987). Northern Ireland: A comparative analysis. Gill and Macmillan.

CHAPTER 4

Religion and the Reproduction of Social Divisions in Northern Ireland

Abstract Most studies that present Northern Ireland’s conflict as having religious roots do not pay sufficient attention to social dynamics and contexts that might actually make religious beliefs, symbols and narratives significant. This is what the third chapter of this book addresses. It pays attention to sectarianism, because it seems to be the obvious link between personal views (some being rooted in religious doctrines), individual behaviours, institutional practices and, at the macro-sociological level, the reproduction of social divisions in Northern Ireland. However, sociologists of religion in Northern Ireland have been prone to treat sectarianism mostly as an individual, subjective attitude towards others. Such an approach fails to understand sectarianism, firstly in social context, as an expression of Protestant working-class marginalisation for instance, and secondly as discriminatory practice at the institutional level, which contributed to reproduce social inequalities to the detriment of Catholic communities. By contrast, I show how ethnographic and sociological studies of loyalist political culture, which are not primarily interested in religion, shed light on class dynamics as well as political and socio-economic factors that render religious representations potent and meaningful for those who embrace them. Keywords Religious beliefs · Sociology of religion · Northern Ireland · Sectarianism · Social class · Subjectivism

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 V. Altglas, Religion and Conflict in Northern Ireland, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-96950-9_4

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I do not contest the fact that religion has had significance in Northern Ireland, nor do I contend religion is necessarily only a boundary marker. The previous chapter noted how religious narratives, sensibilities and cultures were part of a repertoire used in the formation of political ideologies and identities. Rather, I’m concerned with the ways in which a number of scholars made the case for religion as the driving force shaping northern social divisions and conflict. By referring to a static perception of the past to explain the present, and by overlooking contradictory empirical evidence, Northern Irish society risks being depicted as over-determined, if not frozen. Because of what seems to be a parti pris about religion’s significance, a compelling explanatory framework that analyses the social processes through which religion might actually play a significant role is often lacking. In her analysis of Northern Irish religious identities, Mitchell (2006, pp. 65–66) presents an interesting quote from one of her interviewees, Joe, who explains he could not stomach religious people, religious structures and the type of ‘extreme’ Catholicism with which he was raised. In addition, he says he is not interested in voting, does not identify with either nationalism or unionism and does not like to spend time with opinionated people. Despite this, he maintains a Catholic identity 1 He struggles with this, and says that in application forms he refuses to fill in the boxes relating to religious and national identity. However, Joe also describes how having the label of Catholic has made a difference to his life because of the structure of Northern Ireland, and that this has ‘angered him to the core’. He describes being beaten up, not getting job interviews, losing a job and a subsequent court battle. The point for Joe is that, ‘unfortunately my life has been influenced by the fact that I am a Catholic, of course it has, without a question or a doubt.

Overall, Mitchell’s main aim is to demonstrate how religion is more than an identity marker devoid of content in Northern Ireland; she presents Joe as a counter-example, although I would contend there is substantial meaning attached to the religious label in this excerpt. I nonetheless concur with Mitchell’s interpretation (ibid.): Joe’s reflections illustrate those cases where religion still plays a role as an identity marker, despite

1 Underscored by me.

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an absence of religious commitment, observance or beliefs. Joe is probably far from being an odd case: I have underscored earlier that in the recent years, despite a sharp decline of observance and church commitment among Catholics in Northern Ireland, there is still a strong and unparallel family transmission of identities among them. But this interview also suggests that religious commitment is not necessary for religion to play a role in identities, distinction and divisions. In Joe’s case, religion continues to have an impact as he associates an ascribed religious identity with experiences of stigmatisation and discrimination—what Mitchell calls imprecisely the “structures of Northern Ireland” (ibid.). But what are those structures that give religion significance without individual belonging, practice or belief? Economic grievances, experiences or perceptions of discrimination are absent from Mitchell’s reasoning and her analysis of Joe’s interview. Yet if one wanted to make the case of the primacy of religion as a key factor in constituting social divisions, why not explore the ways in which, for Joe and others, it contributes to social distinction, the reproduction of social stratification, the distribution of power and economic resources attached to ethno-religious identities? This chapter is about such demise of the social with the sociology of religion in Northern Ireland which is, more broadly, reflective of the sociology of religion as a subfield. It focuses on sectarianism, precisely because it seems at the outset to be the obvious link between attitudes (some being rooted in religious representations) and the reproduction of social distinctions and divisions. Yet, as sociologists of religion in Northern Ireland engage with the subject matter, they have been prone to give precedence to doctrines, personal beliefs and discourses, while little is said about sectarianism as practice (whether individual or institutional) and within its wider social context. Consequently, attitudes and representations seem to be isolated from individuals’ social trajectories and experience, and free-floating from wider social processes. By contrast, we will explore research of sectarianism and loyalist political culture, which are not primarily interested in religion, but analyse in various ways the socio-cultural settings in which religious symbolic resources, including anti-Catholicism, are mobilised and for which purposes. More broadly, these ethnographic and sociological studies shed light on class dynamics, political and socio-economic factors that render such resources potent and meaningful for those who embrace them. Ultimately, these pieces of research demonstrate that beliefs and representations do matter, but their significance, far from being intrinsic,

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timeless, intractable or natural, derives from complex political, economic and social dynamics that need to be included in religion’s explanatory framework.

Anti-Catholicism and Subjectivism To begin with, we turn to the work of Brewer and Higgins (1998, 2003), precisely because it tries to show the significance of religious ideas and beliefs in relation to social differentiation, with a focus on anti-Catholicism and its theological origins. Brewer and Higgins indeed consider anti-Catholicism to be a “sociological process”, which they (1998, p. 209) define as the determination of actions, attitudes and practices by negative beliefs about Catholics or the Catholic Church as an institution, which results in these negative beliefs being invoked as an ethnic boundary marker in group identity, which can be used, in some settings, to represent social stratification and conflict.

In other words, anti-Catholicism, as ideas, inspires hostile behaviours, maintains ethnic boundaries and distinctions, and contributes to social divisions. While the notion of “representation” of stratification and conflict above is slightly unclear, Brewer and Higgins (ibid., p. 9) argue that anti-Catholicism more specifically “acts as a rationalisation of the social structural disadvantage and discrimination experienced by Catholics”; in other words, it justifies the social order, and as such, it also reinforces social divisions (ibid., p. 1). Finally, anti-Catholicism constitutes a powerful resource to mobilise Northern Irish Protestants in situations where there has been a need to defend common political or economic interests (ibid., p. 213). According to Brewer and Higgins, anti-Catholic attitudes express themselves according to different modes, some not being religious and some without any political ambitions. By contrast, the authors identify a “covenantal mode”, which is the most recognisable, theologically argued sectarian discourse, with a highly political dimension. Originating in Scottish Presbyterianism, this anti-Catholicism draws on ideas about Ulster as a special place of the timeless cosmic struggle between good and evil. Rome, the Pope and the unsaved Catholics are the enemies wanting to destroy Protestant Ulster; by contrast, Protestants are identified as

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a chosen people who hold a divine entitlement over Ireland and, later, Ulster. Paisley is exemplary of the covenantal anti-Catholicism, in his attempt to mobilise people by calling to protect a Protestant, unionist polity against an enemy, whose representations fuse Catholicism, Irish identity and Irish nationalism. Brewer and Higgins (ibid., p. 1) rightfully suggest paying attention to the “socio-economic and political processes that lead to theology being mobilised in the protection and justification of social stratification and social closure”. This is, however, where the difficulty lies. Focusing on anti-Catholicism’s timeless theological claims, Brewer and Higgins trace anti-Catholic expressions with examples mainly taken from the public discourses of Paisley and other public figures throughout the history of Ireland. The authors conducted qualitative interviews; however, they do not draw extensively on these interviews: this would have shown, however, whether Northern Irish Protestants do hold anti-Catholic attitudes, whether those attitudes relate to theology for some and perhaps not so much for others. Indeed, these representations might not be significantly shaped by religious ideas: Nelson (1984, p. 12) and later Bryan (2000, p. 109) insist instead on beliefs in Catholics’ disloyalty, conspiracies that refer to an alliance between the Catholic Church and/or the IRA, past rebellions, all of which justify discrimination or pre-emptive attacks among those who hold these views. Furthermore, a more efficient use of this collected qualitative data and an in-depth analysis of these discourses could have allowed to explore how sectarian representations may be articulated with other ideas, which may or not be religious, about the world, about politics and about others. It would have enabled the authors to draw what they call a “cognitive map” of anti-Catholicism that they characterise with processes of distortion, deletion, distance and denial (Brewer & Higgins, 1998, p. 176). In the absence of analysis of social actors’ discourses, it seems difficult to draw conclusions on the characteristics of anti-Catholic attitudes among social actors. Besides, little is said about who are the interviewees: it would also have been interesting to link discourses with individuals’ social characteristics and explore how social actors respond to different modes of anti-Catholicism according to their religious commitment but also, perhaps, according to age, gender, educational attainment, professional trajectory, political orientation and so forth. Nelson (1984, p. 12) for instance suggests that working-class loyalists’ representations about their “others” do not involve a sense of superiority or supremacy, which she locates, rather,

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among the middle-classes. Overall, all of this could have prevented an analysis of anti-Catholicism as a language without speakers, interactions or social contexts. Brewer and Higgins assert that religious ideas “represent” and justify social divisions, but what is missing is an investigation of the processes by which ideas are inscribed in practice and thus articulated with the reproduction of inequalities and the exertion of power. Indeed, the study would be significantly enhanced with observations of the ways in which anti-Catholic ideas play significant roles in orienting or shaping social actions, practices and mobilisations. This, in fact, is the missing link to evaluate the significance of theologically based representations in the actual reproduction of social differentiations and inequalities. To grasp the role(s) played by anti-Catholicism, we would want to explore how these attitudes are expressed in ordinary lives2 and activities; how they are reproduced and in which collective settings (family, wider social network, church, school, leisure, political party membership, orange lodge, workplaces, etc.). One might also ask for instance in which social contexts anti-Catholicism is mobilised, for which purposes, and what makes such discourses effective (as appealing and mobilising, leading to collective action, drawing votes, shaping policies, etc.)? Ultimately, because this research focuses on doctrines and discourses, we are left with many unanswered questions about social processes and dynamics in which religious ideas might participate. The structural dimension of sectarianism requires for instance that we consider the role of the state and the ways in which it institutionalised sectarianism—an aspect most sociologists of religion in Northern Ireland do not address. McVeigh (1995) observes that the Northern Irish state was conceived on a sectarian basis to ensure the predominance of the Protestant-unionist majority. The institutional practices in the 1921–1972 period were sectarian in nature—gerrymandering, policing, discrimination in relation to housing, employment and unequal investment in the

2 By contrast, one would find interesting anthropological analyses of sectarianism as embedded in everyday life and interactions (Harris, 1972; McFarlane, 1986, 1989). As the local Orange Order’s kitchen needs building work in the village of “Ballycuan” (McFarlane, 1989), the lodge members turned down the cheaper (Catholic) contractors and decided to undertake the work themselves instead. McFarlane focuses on the ways in which the villagers interpret this decision, showing how sectarian attitudes are actually complex in their motivations, justifications and contestations.

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regional infrastructure. After 1972, the British state managed sectarianism without dismantling it, a function the Northern Irish state has continued to perform after the Peace Agreement. This is what McVeigh and Rolston (2007, p. 20) call the “‘good relations’ statelet”: today’s calls for “good community relations” and celebrations of a “shared future” serve to deflect attention from the fact that the state does not respond to sectarianism and racism, but rather contributes to their perpetuation. Overall sectarianism has been largely under-theorised, note McVeigh (1990, 1995), critical of those conceiving it as a religious dispute or unpalatable thoughts people entertain in their mind. For McVeigh (1995, p. 643), sectarianism is best approached as a “changing set of ideas and practices, including, crucially, acts of violence, which serves to construct and reproduce the difference between, and unequal status of, Irish Protestants and Catholics”. In other words, social practice and action are essential aspects of sectarianism, which has a direct role in the reproduction of social, structural inequalities—and more broadly on every aspect of social life, from cradle to grave. Thus, very much like racism, sectarianism generates a type of social structure and therefore must be studied as such. Thus, the study of sectarianism by sociologists of religion sheds light on the fact that they often inflated the significance of beliefs and discourses at the expense of other dimensions of religion. Thus, antiCatholicism is, most often than not, approached as personal attitudes rather than practices, with little connection to social processes and structures. Bruce for instance proposes an interpretation of the relationships between anti-Catholicism and Northern Ireland’s social makeup, which again asserts the primary role of religion: If there is a connection between political interests and sustained antiCatholicism, it is not that the former has suddenly or recently produced the latter, but that the latter made the former inevitable. Religious conflict, combined with differences in language, ethnic identity, and economic circumstances created basic divisions in the people who populated Ireland. Such divisions meant that the formulation of political interests would deepen and reinforce the religious divisions. (Bruce, 1986a, p. 247)

In short, religious and cultural differences are the source of conflicting interests, and hence of social divisions; social structures are relegated to an effect of attitudes. Bruce (1994) thus opts for a strong subjectivist

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approach, as illustrated by his study of loyalism, in which he mainly focuses on loyalists’ worldview to understand the conflict in Northern Ireland. What matters, Bruce argues, is not the social reality but how social actors perceive this social reality (ibid., p. vi). Needless to say, representations are important to understand social actors’ motivations and actions, but surely these representations are not totally independent from social reality, which therefore need to be part of the analysis. Perhaps not for Bruce, since he considers, these social actors “act as they do in response to their vision of the world” (ibid.). In other words, Bruce presumes the effect of representations and beliefs on individuals’ commitments, practice and, ultimately, social conflict. By doing so, Bruce risks falling into the pitfall he himself pointed out in other studies, which take too often for granted the claims made by social actors (ibid.). Besides, there is here a debatable assumption: representations might not be simply translated into action which implies, in turn, that the study of representations alone might not allow us to understand Northern Ireland’s violent conflict. Beyond the study of sectarianism, the link between social representations and practices is often under-theorised within the sociology of religion in Northern Ireland. An extreme example would be Hickey (1984, p. 59): in his demonstration that the Northern conflict is essentially about religious doctrines and beliefs, Hickey makes the point that that “beliefs themselves are of fundamental importance in formulating social action” to the point that “doctrine can, in fact, account for sociological reality” (ibid., p. 63). Hickey is followed by Mitchell (2006, pp. 149–150) who, more cautiously, assumes that “subjective meanings constitute the social world, at least partially”. Simply claiming that from representations and beliefs we can assume or infer social practices and structures, to the point the latter do not need further enquiry, is a highly problematic assumption. Subjective reality obviously has implications for social practice, but again this precisely needs to be considered at a theoretical level as well as empirically demonstrated. Through this kind of lenses, the world becomes a battlefield of floating, yet powerful ideas and ways of thinking. In this regard, Spencer’s (2012) book on reconciliation in Northern Ireland represents a case in point. Like Hickey’s, it rests on the claim that Protestants and Catholics have different ways of thinking about the world which, in turn, generate antagonism. For instance, “Unlike with the Protestant perspective, which derives meaning

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from a dialectical approach to Scripture (and shapes the broader worldview), the analogical imagination of the Catholic seeks to link events and ideas through historical, mystical and ethical systems of thinking” (ibid., p. 152). From this follows an essentialising portrayal of a Protestant and a Catholic mindset which, needless to say, is not presented with any empirical data. Once again, we have to believe with the author that individuals are truly shaped by theology and doctrine, and regardless of their actual religious socialisation, their socio-professional trajectory, their gender, age and generation, and ethnicity. In other words, individuals are not socially constituted; they are the empty bearers of cognitive processes, which quasi-magically generate social divisions in Northern Ireland. Focused on subjective reality, it is not surprising that sociologists of religion in Northern Ireland also tend to overlook what people actually do—for instance they do approach sectarianism as individual and institutional practices, and interactions. It is striking that for instance, there is no in-depth sociological or anthropological research on the Orange Order, an explicitly exclusive Protestant organisation defending the material interests of Protestants.3 It would have been the ideal institutional space to explore the ways in which beliefs, sectarian attitudes, religious and national identity, symbolism and rituals interacted with exclusionary practices inscribed in institutions, politics or employment. In fact, the Order’s Protestantism itself has not been analysed (McCaldon, 2018, p. 175). Treating the social world as being driven by beliefs and representations does not allow us to explore how religion might be precisely significant in the ways in which it might contribute to social order and structures. Fulton’s (1988, 1991) work is from this point of view remarkable. Referring to Gramsci to portray a battle between two sets of politicoreligious alliances seeking hegemony, very little is said about the actual political and the economic dimensions of this competition; what are the material interests at play, how political power is exerted and contributes to the reproduction of the social order; what are religious discourses’ political effects; how do they interact with social stratification? It is a conceptualisation of hegemony devoid of substance, social structures, dynamics or defined stakes. Gramsci never thought of the significance of

3 A good presentation of the Order and its organisation can be found in Bryan’s (2000) study of parades and marches.

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ideology without consideration to class relations—subalternity in particular (Howson & Smith, 2008, p. 2). Fulton, however, converts a Marxist theory into a subjectivist framework, which he justifies by asserting, amazingly, that there are no class divisions in Ireland, since they are obliterated by the religious struggle for hegemony: “By providing core beliefs, and by reinforcing their separateness for both alliances, religious beliefs and institution equally suppress class divisions, become embroiled in cementing alliances, and help retain the overall divisional structure of Ireland as a whole” (Fulton, 1991, p. 112). The idea that religious conflicts obliterate social class as a structure is utterly puzzling. In fact, the development of modern capitalism and social stratification is absolutely part and parcel of Northern Ireland’s social divisions, in such a way that class and sectarianism cannot be disentangled (O’Dowd, 1980). Fulton (ibid., pp. 96–98) recognises the reproduction of inequalities as a result of Protestant ascendency, but this does not seem to affect his explanatory framework, nor does it prompt him to use the concept of hegemony in the Northern Irish context in other ways. Fulton’s work is illustrative of the fact that, overall, the authors who claim that religion was and remains the main factor of social differentiation and conflict in Northern Ireland have little to say about the ways in which religion is intertwined with the reproduction of those divisions, even at the individual and subjective level—Joe, Mitchell’s interviewee, could have prompted reflections in this direction. Ultimately, the Northern Irish case study poses central and utterly complex sociological problems that lie at the heart of contemporary sociology of religion. Indeed, by and large, in the subfield, there is an inadequate appreciation of the social constitution of religion, which we described as a “shift away from the social” in reference to Kapferer (2005, pp. 1–2). Religion as a sociological object is increasingly subjectivised and often summarised as individual beliefs, discourses and representations, at the expense of attention given to social relations, interactions, the formation of institutions and organisations, and social power, which in turn affect individuals’ attitudes and practices. As a result, discussions of what people are doing together in specific relations and organisations that involve broader interactional and institutional configurations of social power are often missing. As such, this shift away from the social is also undertaken by treating religion as an isolated phenomenon in itself, which does not encourage connections between the study of religion with main sociological debates, such as the renewed interest in social class formations, in the management of social diversity, in racial and ethnic theories,

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in the nature of individualisation and reflexivity in contemporary societies and so forth (Altglas & Wood, 2018). The sociology of religion in Northern Ireland is, in this respect, reflective of these wider theoretical and epistemological issues of the subfield.

Religion in Socio-economic Context Critical of the sociology of religion’s insulation, Robertson (1985, p. 358) once wrote that “It is not the sociologist of religion per se but rather the sociologist treating religion as part of a larger set of problems who may well be seen as most relevant to the discipline as a whole”. Sociological studies of religion in Northern Ireland are quite reflective of Robertson’s observation. Ethnographies of Loyalist bands, Orange Order marches and commemorations, which are not primarily interested in religion, have often told us more about its manifestations in relation to social divisions. Those pieces of research compellingly demonstrate that the role played by religious beliefs, practices and identities has to be understood in relation to class structures, dynamics and in a given socio-economic context. In fact, it is probably sterile to try to approach the Northern Irish conflict without turning to its socio-economic dimensions. Indeed, Bell (1990) emphasises the importance of social fragmentation, unemployment, the loss of Protestant privileges and political uncertainties for an understanding of the loyalist culture and, beyond, what religion has to do with social conflict in late twentieth-century Northern Ireland. While Belfast was once the industrial capital of the island, the Northern Irish economic situation has been tragic from the second half of the twentieth century onwards. Engineering, linen production and shipbuilding represented nearly half of the manufacturing employments in Northern Ireland when the region experienced a stark decline of its industrial sector in the 1950s: as a consequence, the effects on the economy were devastating with unemployment figures being four times the national average (Bew et al., 1979, pp. 133–135). Then, between 1960 and 1985, manufacturing declined by 45% (Mulvenna, 2015, p. 167). Dependence on export to Britain, a violent conflict limiting outside investments, all of this would prevent a transition to new technologies or knowledge-based investments. The British state had responded to the Troubles by sponsoring multinational corporations and investments, but such an economy is particularly vulnerable to global downturns (Whyte, 1990, pp. 52–53). The British government also increased public expenditure in Northern

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Ireland which, since 1974, increased at twice the rate of the other regions of the United Kingdom in the mid-1980s. This inflated public sector certainly generated a source of employment which primarily benefited the middle-class and contributed to the development of a Catholic middleclass. It did not, nonetheless, prevent the doubling of unemployment between 1970 and 1979, and a further doubling between 1979 and 1982, and therefore the emergence of destitute, working-class communities. Much of the increase in public expenditure found itself used in social security payments, with some parts of the regions being acutely affected by durable and hardcore unemployment along sectarian lines (O’Dowd, 1986, 1995). Levels of inactivity were—and still are—significantly higher than in the rest of Britain (Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency, 2021). In the post-War period, Roman Catholics were relatively marginalised from the employment market compared to Protestants; consequently, it is probably fair to say that the regional economic decline was felt more dramatically (and, differently) by the Protestant working-class who had not experienced such mass, long-term unemployment before. Direct rule (1972–1998) and equal opportunities policies implemented in the 1980s onwards partially dismantled the Orange system that had favoured Protestants in the employment market. In addition, in the same period and by contrast with their Roman Catholic counterpart, the Protestant working-class experienced communal fragmentation due to an absence of effective leadership and poorly planned redevelopment. The relocation of the Protestant working-class inner-city population had adversely affected traditional patterns of kinship and neighbourhood solidarity (Bell, 1990, pp. 21–22). With the loss of their source of employment in the industrial sector, this also fed into experiences of marginalisation and loss. Bell (ibid., p. 21) thus understands sectarianism as a “complex fusion of class, ethnic and religion-based elements” (to which I would add gender4 ), and a response to Protestant working-class’ marginalisation at political and economic levels. Loyalism and its sectarian culture, a mythical representation of the Protestant people and Ulster as its territory, can be understood as an attempt to resolve, at the symbolic level,

4 Brady (2013) links sectarian attitudes to masculine hegemony in the 1920s and 1930s in Ireland and Northern Ireland, arguing that gender’s relations to religion and politics have been under-estimated.

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the material difficulties and the contradictions faced by the Protestant working-class, which find themselves economically marginalised and excluded from powerful social and political institutions, despite the claims of the all-Protestant alliance (ibid., p. 22). As such, Bell (ibid., p. 149) argues compellingly that anti-Catholicism should not be understood as “a pathology of individual sentiment”. Nor can it be understood as a set of persistent and compelling theological ideas, without considering what are the social conditions that make those ideas meaningful, for specific social actors, and within particular social relationships. In other words, religious representations and symbols do not exist in isolation to other features of individuals’ identities, trajectories and life conditions: the perception of threats and decline of the Protestant communities that Bruce evokes might well find its strength, at least in part, in those dramatically changing social conditions and intra-communal class relations. The emergence of Loyalist paramilitaries during the late 1960s and early 1970s allowed for community identification and status in a hypermasculine environment in lieu of industry among young Protestant males (Mulvenna, 2015, pp. 159–168). Hillyard et al. (2005, p. 17) note that in contexts of socio-economic grievances and deprivation, violence has often allowed the restoration of a sense of status and power for men in particular.5 In the late 1980s, it is the marching bands with their expressive display of Protestant identity and difference, via a mixture of commemorations, martial music and loyalist symbolism, that have become the most important mobilising agency for working-class Protestant youth. Bell (1990, p. 20) underlines that “the loyalist sense of identity achieves its positive valency (that is, being more than simply not-Irish) in being actively paraded”. These commemorations are also associated with other ritualised practices: kerb painting, erecting flags, setting bonfires, etc. Thus, rather than being expressed through beliefs or doctrines exclusively, religion contributes significantly to a material culture and to an “embodied ideology” centred on loyalty: These marching bands with their expressive display of Protestant identity via ‘party music’, and Loyalist iconography and with their focal concern with the symbolic defence of territory (where you can or cannot ‘walk’)

5 This, needless to say, applies to republican paramilitary organisations as well: Burton (1978, pp. 110–111) describes the performance of manliness in his outstanding ethnography of the Provisional IRA in North Belfast.

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have since the mid-1970s become a central element of popular Loyalism. The bands and their parades seem to provide for the dispossessed Loyalist youth of Ulster a sectarian habitus within which their generational concerns with communal identity and with winning public space become fused with the focal concerns of a parental Loyalist culture with territoriality and ethnic solidarity. (ibid., p. 59)

Religious identity and sectarianism elaborate the representations of an imagined Protestant community rooted in an idealised territory (Ulster). Through ritualised celebrations and mythic representations (the siege of Derry, the Battle of the Boyne and the World War I battle of the Somme in 1916), Protestant heroes are seen as defending themselves and resisting constant threats—rom Catholic rebels of the past to contemporary republican paramilitaries. Mulvenna (2015, p. 171) observes: “In many respects the remembrance of these past events and the manner in which the Twelfth of July in particular is celebrated are representative of Protestant working-class attempts to form a sense of autonomy in a society from which they feel increasingly cut adrift”. Sectarianism is in part a response to dislocation and alienation. Paradoxically, loyalist expressions of exclusivism and violent assertions of territory during the annual “marching season” might increase the working-class sense of disenfranchisement by liberal accusations of loyalism as being bigoted and backward (Bell, 1990, p. 149). Finally, this sense of disempowerment has been aggravated by the gradual erosion of Protestant ascendency over the last decades. The Peace Agreement was experienced as a further erosion of this ascendency, with power-sharing perceived as victory for nationalists. The expressions of an assertive and confident Irish republican culture, the fragmentation of unionist parties on peace negotiations, the fear of being sold out by Great Britain and the decline of the Orange Order, all these continued to feed into the Protestant community’s incertitude (Halliday & Ferguson, 2016, p. 533). The sheer significance of political and economic factors is obvious in the recent years: we already noted that the state has not dismantled sectarian social structures, and the consociationalist political system reproduces Northern Ireland’s polarisation of ethno-religious groups through competition for resources and votes. In addition, austerity measures have deepened social inequalities, poverty and social exclusion (Murtagh & Shirlow, 2012) and, as such, have aggravated this polarisation. It is therefore perhaps not surprising that the start of the twenty-first century

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witnessed a series of violent controversies around Orange marches and their contested routes in Catholic areas, and long-lasting protests after the Union Jack stopped being flagged continuously on the City Council in 2012 (Coulter & Shirlow, 2019). The loyalist protests against the NI protocol that set a sea border between Great Britain and Northern Ireland as a result of Brexit might be interpreted in a similar manner, although it is perhaps too early to tell. Yet I would suspect that this sea border is an acute question, not only because of what it symbolises, but also because of the social experiences it resonates with.

Sectarianism, Intra-Class Dynamics and Politics Studies of sectarianism underscore the tremendous importance of understanding religion, not only as discourses and ideas, but inscribed practice and interactions, and more importantly in their social, economic and political context. Beliefs, ideas and worldviews are not free-floating, isolated from individuals’ social experiences and trajectories: on the contrary, they make sense in relation to the latter. In addition, internal dynamics and processes of social differentiation within Protestant-unionist communities are essential to the sociological understanding of social divisions in Northern Ireland. Let’s pursue our examination of sectarianism. Many authors, including Brewer and Higgins (1998), emphasise that anti-Catholicism was functional in elaborating a Protestant solidarity and sense of commonality, despite denominational lines and social class divisions which have both been highly significant. Anti-Catholicism is therefore integrative but more than that: more largely loyalism has traditionally provided a “vehicle for Protestant working-class assertion”, pressurising the unionist elite to protect a privileged access to labour or housing (Ruane & Todd, 1996, p. 92). Some also remarked that the unionist upper-class has been particularly eager to encourage sectarian attitudes among a stranded and marginalised working-class to maintain the social order (e.g. Bew et al., 1979, p. 132; Coulter, 1999, p. 97). Thus, throughout most of the twentieth century, the Ulster Unionist Party and the Orange Order sought to unite classes without disrupting the existing social order by asserting an all-Protestant predominance and encouraging ethno-religious distinctions: “Significantly, unionist politicians did not challenge the assumptions behind loyalist demands that the state should favour the Protestant interest: they simply showed that it did” (Ruane & Todd, 1996, p. 92).

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Consequently, the Orange system defused class tensions. The fusion of unionism and loyalism around Protestant particularism and interest sheds light on critical relationships between religious identities, anti-Catholicism and the reproduction of social differentiation. If one wanted to approach sectarianism as a personal attitude, we could argue that sectarian attitudes are socially functional in the sense that they allow for the status quo not to be questioned. Thus, the bipolar and uncompromising representations of united Protestants against a threatening Catholic republican community limited the development of a more inclusive and egalitarian unionism as well as cross-community socialism. This is where, ironically, one could claim that religious symbolism, rituals and commemorations have been highly relevant and effective. Indeed, social class seldom wield an “affective power” similar to nationalism, religion or ethnicity remarked Coulter (1999, p. 99). By contrast, the loyalist popular culture is highly effective in mobilising the Protestant working-class youth, through its rehearsed myths and ritualised commemorations. In other words, the symbolic and religious Protestant repertoire has effects, which might not be the ones the like of Bruce or Mitchell imagined. These effects are also perhaps limited: referring to the pivotal work of Stuart Hall on British youth subcultures (as in Bell, 1990, p. 23; Clarke et al., 1993 [1975]) notes that loyalist popular culture, as a response to alienation and social tensions, operates at the cultural and symbolic level. As such, it does not threaten the social order. Nor does it address deprivation or produce effective political participation; from this point of view, if we were cynical, we would suggest that loyalism and its parades are highly functional. Indeed, Bryan (2000) argues that parades and other commemorative events allowed for the middle-classes to assert their social and political position through ritual performances, symbolic and discursive references to a Protestant Community fighting against a Catholic enemy. This way, a “respectable” Orangeism secured the support of the working-class and could draw on threats of loyalist sectarian violence—an increasingly awkward alliance in the current socio-political context, and as parades and marches became more paramilitary, aggressive and confrontational vis-à-vis the state. What I am aiming at here is the ways in which sociologists of religion can capture the significance of religious representations or beliefs, and I contend that this significance has to do with social contexts as well as class relations. Shedding light on the social constitution of religion does not, by any means, imply a caricatural Marxist reductionism, in assuming that

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the religious and cultural are only projections of social forces. Rather, it is about grasping the interactions between worldviews and attitudes on the one hand, and social structures on the other hand, in the making of social divisions in Northern Ireland. Let me illustrate this endeavour by one of the most sophisticated sociological pieces on social structure, politics and religious representations in Northern Ireland—strikingly written, again, by a non-sociologist of religion (Wright, 1973). In this article, Wright focuses on the Ulster Protestant community’s ideological repertoires. His aim is to grasp how representations contribute to class dynamics, and how they are mobilised in specific socioeconomic contexts. In other words, Wright seeks to understand how and when certain beliefs become significant and contribute to social divisions and conflict. In the Protestant-unionist repertoire of ideologies,6 Wright explores the appeal of exclusivist representations—loyalism and “Evangelical Protestantism”, the latter illustrated by Paisley. Predisposing to hostile attitudes towards Catholics, these two repertoires leave very little space for trust, cooperation and solidarity. They are also prone to the defence of Protestants against an enemy: “the role of the ‘extremist’ ideology is to magnify both the aspirations and the irreconcilability of Catholics in the minds of Protestants. In short, the main implication of the ‘extremist’ ideology is to make many think that their particular position depends upon the maintenance of Protestant power, whether it actually does so or not” (ibid., p. 243). Looking at class structure and economic change, Wright makes farreaching observations (ibid., pp. 263–264) regarding social stratification within the Protestant community after World War II. Comparing incomes in Northern Ireland and Great Britain, he notes that the wages for skilled labour were significantly higher in the six counties, while wages for unskilled labour tended to be lower than in the rest of the United Kingdom. In other words, socio-economic inequalities were relatively pronounced among workers in Northern Ireland. As suggested earlier, these inequalities were in part “managed” by the assertion of Protestant ascendency through the Orange system. Protestant workers were discriminated positively, while Roman Catholics would experience unemployment 6 Wright (1973) draws a distinction between “extreme” and “liberal” unionist ideologies. By contrast, Todd’s (1987) contrasts two unionist traditions according to what kind of imagined community is at play. However, both Todd’s and Wright’s typologies imply a distinction between a liberal/progressive unionism from an exclusive and closed one.

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in a more pervasive manner. However, this equilibrium would have been seriously affected with the dramatic economic decline that followed World War II, and which O’Dowd (1986, 1995) aptly described. Since most old trades had been the monopole of Protestants workers, it is Protestant unemployment that significantly rose. This time, persistent unemployment could not be branded as a “Catholic issue” that had often been crudely portrayed (Catholics’ laziness, their reliance on welfare, etc.). Nor could unemployment be easily addressed by the elite in a context of economic downturn, by protecting (or claiming to protect) Protestant jobs—an argument increasingly difficult to make in the international arena of the second half of the twentieth century (Wright, 1973, p. 265). Wright develops a line of arguments that pay attention to the social divisions internal to the Protestant-unionist community (see also Bew et al., 1979 and Farrell, 1976, for instance). Until the 1960s, a relatively oligarchical regime had maintained the power of unionist families from the bourgeoisie and landed gentry (O’Dowd, 1980, p. 13). The control of political and economic power by upper and middle-class unionists was relatively accepted for the sake of unity against a common enemy. Besides, “Great efforts were made to equate labourism and socialism with Republicanism” (Munck, 1985, p. 254): working-class Protestants were often reluctant to criticise the ruling class, risking being accused of being a communist and/or betraying one’s own community (Nelson, 1975, p. 170).7 Interestingly, Nelson (ibid., p. 42) also emphasises the Protestant working-class’ lack of experience of political leadership, its culture of obedience and discipline discouraging autonomy and change, and a deference towards their political leaders. But at this point in time, the liberal unionists supporting O’Neill seemed out of touch with the interests of the Protestant working-class. The civil rights slogan, “50 years of Unionist misrule”, was increasingly heard from the lips of working-class loyalists (ibid., p. 25). This economic situation, and the resentment of the Protestant working-class towards the elite, precipitated unionism to a political crisis

7 “So Protestants were asked in the Orange ideology to support not just the union, but

also the local political order that safeguarded it” (ibid., p. 42). In a classic ethnography of a rural area in the 1950s, Harris (1972, pp. 187–190) evokes the predicament for the Protestant poor: feeling threatened by the idea of an absorption in a united Ireland, and hence voting for unionist representatives whom they did not trust to defend their interests.

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in the 1960s. While the Ulster Unionist Party had ruled Northern Ireland since its creation in 1921, it risked losing key sectors of the workingclass votes to the NI Labour Party (Nelson, 1984, p. 52). However, it is Protestant, hard-line populism that mostly benefited from the postwar crisis and overcame socialism that was not deeply rooted among loyalist communities for reasons explained above. While this hard-line unionism has sometimes crossed class (Cochrane, 1997, p. 62), in that period of time the liberal middle-class were likely to support Prime Minister O’Neill. O’Neill asserted that democracy entails the right of minorities—although he did very little to dismantle sectarian structures or practices. He had a substantial agenda in terms of economic, planning and governance reforms, but his attempt to save traditional industries from the increasing context of international competition and to attract foreign investment failed, as much as the promise that prosperity would annihilate nationalist grievances (Mulholland, 2000). Class tensions and backlash against the elite should not be under-estimated in the escalation of violence that led to the Troubles (Walker, 2008, p. 365). As Bruce (2007, p. 90) underlines himself, Paisley rose by opposing O’Neill’s secular, cosmopolitan and reformist Unionism with an uncompromising loyalism and an assertion of Protestant Ulster. Paisley’s attacks against the liberals downgrading Protestantism and selling out Ulster mobilised the working classes, because they were familiar with his traditional repertoire focusing on the defence of a besieged Protestant community against an enemy, but also because these discourses resonated with the experiences of an economically threatened community. In addition, the civil rights movement that rose at the end of the 1960s seemed to “confirm” the danger felt among the Protestant unionists who were particularly socially vulnerable. Thus, Wright (1973, p. 273) argues, “hostile ideological predisposition coupled with occupation of a situation apparently threatened by the catholic demands, synthesized the twin components of the sense of being threatened. It combines the general assumption of hostility with the awareness that oneself is the particular target of that hostility”. If Bruce (1986b, p. 6) accurately pointed to the significance of community threats and survival among Protestant unionists, references to these social experiences and to which these cultural themes relate would make his interpretation more compelling. Indeed, Wright (ibid., p. 275) and others (Mulvenna, 2015, p. 159; Nelson, 1984; Walker, 2008) note that while moderate unionism had

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conceded that Catholics were victims of housing and job discrimination, the Protestant working-class who mobilised in support of Paisley or Loyalism would often have experienced deprivation too and did not feel they were the winners of sectarian discrimination.8 Not always cognisant to anti-Catholic discriminatory practices, they would perceive themselves as disadvantaged compared to the British working-class, and “whose loyalty has forced extra sacrifices on them and not rewarded them with extra benefits” (Nelson, 1984, p. 13). Easier access to employment did not prevent exploitation—Protestant workers were all too aware that they could be replaced by a Catholic surplus army. They had preferential access to housing, but some lived in squalid conditions. By contrast, it has been said that it is a new rising Catholic generation, brought up by educational reform after World War II and accessing higher education for the first time, who proved to be less accepting of discriminatory practices and provided the impetus behind the civil rights campaign in Northern Ireland (Miller, 1986, p. 231). In a context of economic decline, one can imagine that this Catholic upward mobility would have contributed to a sense of insecurity, later on aggravated by the rise of republican paramilitary organisations such as the Provisional IRA. Loyalist mobilisation and violence have been interpreted as a response to this socio-political situation in the late 1960s and the sense of frustration and insecurity it fostered. As a consequence, “Socio-economic and politico-religious issues fused into a generalized hostility to official Unionism and to the Catholics simultaneously” (Wright, 1973, p. 277). The escalation of violence that

8 The comparative perspective is once again particularly fruitful. Allen (2012) draws on Irish history to provide an analysis of slavery in the Anglo-American context. He argues that “racial oppression” in both Irish and American contexts (race being understood as a social construction and thus applicable to Ireland) constituted a response, from the ruling classes to the potential solidarity of the labouring classes. Analysing labour and class at the end of nineteenth century in the United States, Allen shows how competition between African American and white workers was functional. On the one hand, it was beneficial to provide a privilege differential to white workers to prevent any form of solidarity with African American workers. On the other hand, while having at its disposal a cheap, if not free, African American labour force, “it was equally in the interest of the employers of wage-labor, as well as of bond-labor, that the differential be kept to no more than the minimum necessary to the purpose of keeping the European-American workers in the ‘white race’ corral” (ibid., p. 198). In other words, racial oppression is a system of social control, which is detrimental to all segments of the labouring classes, even those incrementally favoured.

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led to the Troubles was not fuelled by a naturally powerful religious discourse, nor can it be explained exclusively by Paisley’s charisma and oratory skills that Hennessey (2005, p. 380) emphasises. A familiar set of political and religious representations proved to be particularly adequate to express, and respond to, an economic crisis, its dramatic effects on individuals and communities, and for Paisley to benefit from unionism’s crisis. It is in this perspective that one can understand the significance of Paisley’s ability to galvanise and mobilise the masses, and why his reference to Protestant Ulster, his anti-Catholicism and rejection of ecumenism, and his refusal to any political compromise could make sense for specific social actors. In other words, Wright’s explanation of the Troubles shows that beliefs and representations matter tremendously in that they can affect social action and mobilisation. But it also demonstrates that there is no inner power in ideas and representations: they are instead rendered significant by, and within, specific social contexts, in the light of which they need to be understood. Hence the importance given here to economic downturn and experience of unemployment and social structure. In some ways, I believe that Wright here sets the bar for the sociological study of religion. By and large, social sciences have underscored that social inequalities, lack of economic development and poverty represent a high risk for violent conflict, in particular when poverty overlaps with religious, ethnic or regional identities (Hillyard et al., 2005, p. 16). Why has the sociology of religion eluded this dimension, as it precisely searched for the significance of religious ideas, practices and identities, is a question we now turn to, with a deeper exploration of epistemological issues.

References Allen, T. W. (2012). The invention of the white race (Vol. 1). Verso Books. Altglas, V., & Wood, M. (2018). Introduction: An epistemology for the sociology of religion. In V. Altglas & M. Wood (Eds.), Bringing the social back into the sociology of religion (pp. 1–34). Brill. Bell, D. (1990). Acts of union: Youth culture and sectarianism in Northern Ireland. Palgrave Macmillan.

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Bew, P., Gibbon, P., & Patterson, H. (1979). The state in Northern Ireland, 1921–72: Political forces and social classes. Manchester University Press. Brady, S. (2013). Why examine men, masculinities and religion in Northern Ireland? In L. Delap & S. Morgan (Eds.), Men, masculinities and religious change in twentieth-century Britain: Genders and sexualities in history (pp. 218–251). Palgrave Macmillan. Brewer, J., & Higgins, G. I. (1998). Anti-Catholicism in Northern Ireland, 1600–1998: The Mote and the Beam. Macmillan. Brewer, J., & Higgins, G. I. (2003). The roots of sectarianism in Northern Ireland. In O. Hargie & D. Dickson (Eds.), Researching the troubles: Social science perspectives on the Northern Ireland conflict (pp. 107–121). Mainstream Press. Bruce, S. (1986a). God save Ulster! The religion and politics of paisleyism. Clarendon Press. Bruce, S. (1986b). Prods and Taigs: The sectarian divide. Fortnight, 242, 5–6. Bruce, S. (1994). The edge of the union: The Ulster loyalist political vision. Oxford University Press. Bruce, S. (2007). Paisley: Religion and politics in Northern Ireland. Oxford University Press. Bryan, D. (2000). Orange parades: The politics of ritual, tradition and control. Pluto Press. Burton, F. (1978). Politics of legitimacy: Struggles in a Belfast community. Routledge and Kegan Paul Ltd. Clarke, J., Hall, S., Jefferson T., & Roberts, B. (1993 [1975]). Subcultures, cultures and class: A theoretical overview. In S. Hall & T. Jefferson (Eds.), Resistance through rituals: Youth subcultures in post-war Britain (pp. 9–74). Cambridge University Press. Cochrane, F. (1997). Unionist politics and the politics of unionism since the AngloIrish agreement. Cork University Press. Coulter, C. (1999). Contemporary Northern Irish society: An introduction. Sterling. Coulter, C., & Shirlow, P. (2019). From the ‘long war’ to the ‘long peace’: An introduction to the special edition. Capital & Class, 43(1), 3–21. Farrell, M. (1976). The Orange State. Pluto Press. Fulton, J. (1988). Sociology, religion and “the troubles” in Northern Ireland: A critical approach. The Economic and Social Review, 20(1), 5–24. Fulton, J. (1991). The tragedy of belief: Division, politics and religion in Ireland. Clarendon Press. Halliday, D., & Ferguson, N. (2016). When peace is not enough: The flag protests, the politics of identity & belonging in East Belfast. Irish Political Studies, 31(4), 525–540.

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Harris, R. (1972). Prejudice and tolerance in Ulster: A study of neighbours and ‘strangers’ in a border community. Manchester University Press; Rowman and Littlefield. Hennessey, T. (2005). Northern Ireland: The origins of the troubles. Gill & Macmillan. Hickey, J. (1984). Religion and the Northern Ireland problem. Gill & Macmillan. Hillyard, P., Rolston, B., & Tomlinson, M. (2005). Poverty and conflict in Ireland: An international perspective. IPA and Combat Poverty Agency. Howson, R., & Smith, K. (2008). Hegemony and the operation of consensus and coercion. In R. Howson & K. Smith (Eds.), Hegemony: Studies in consensus and coercion (pp. 1–15). Routledge. Kapferer, B. (2005). Introduction: The social construction of reductionist thought and practice. In B. Kapferer (Ed.), The retreat of the social: The rise and rise of reductionism (pp. 11–18). Oxford. McCaldon, A. (2018). The Orange Order in Northern Ireland: Has political isolation, sectarianism, secularism, or declining social capital proved the biggest challenge? (Doctoral dissertation, University of Liverpool). The University of Liverpool repository. https://livrepository.liverpool.ac.uk/3027947/ McFarlane, G. (1986). ‘It’s not as simple as that’: The expression of the Catholic and protestant boundary in Northern Irish rural communities. In A. P. Cohen (Ed.), Symbolising boundaries: Identity and diversity in British cultures (pp. 88–104). Manchester University Press. McFarlane, G. (1989). Dimensions of protestantism: The working of protestant identity in a Northern Irish village. In C. Curtin & T. M. Wilson (Eds.), Ireland from below: Social change and local communities (pp. 23–45). Galway University Press. McVeigh, R. (1990). The undertheorisation of sectarianism. The Canadian Journal of Irish Studies, 16(2), 119–122. McVeigh, R. (1995). Cherishing the children of the nation unequally: Sectarianism in Ireland. In P. Clancy, S. Drudy, K. Lynch, & L. O’Dowd (Eds.), Ireland: A sociological profile (pp. 620–651). Institute of Public Administration in association with the Sociological Association of Ireland. McVeigh, R., & Rolston, B. (2007). From Good Friday to good relations: Sectarianism, racism and the Northern Ireland state. Race & Class, 4, 1–23. Miller, R. (1986). Social stratification and mobility. In P. Clancy, S. Drudy, K. Lynch, & L. O’Dowd (Eds.), Ireland: A sociological profile (pp. 221– 243). Institute of Public Administration in association with the Sociological Association of Ireland. Mitchell, C. (2006). Religion, identity and politics in Northern Ireland: Boundaries of belonging and belief . Routledge.

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Mulholland, M. (2000). Northern Ireland at the crossroads: Ulster unionism in the O’Neill years, 1960–9. St. Martin’s. Mulvenna, G. (2015). Labour aristocracies, triumphalism and melancholy: Misconceptions of the protestant working-class and loyalist community. In T. P. Burgess & G. Mulvenna (Eds.), The contested identities of Ulster protestants (pp. 159–176). Palgrave Macmillan. Munck, R. (1985). Class and religion in Belfast—A historical perspective. Journal of Contemporary History, 20(2), 241–259. Murtagh, B., & Shirlow, P. (2012). Devolution and the politics of development in Northern Ireland. Environment and Planning C: Government and Policy, 30(1), 46–61. Nelson, S. (1975). Protestant “ideology” considered: The case of “discrimination”. In I. Crewe (Ed.), British political sociology yearbook (Vol. 2: The Politics of Race, pp. 155–187). Groom Helm. Nelson, S. (1984). Ulster’s uncertain defenders: Loyalist political paramilitary and community groups and the Northern Ireland conflict. The Appletree Press. Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency. (2021). Labour force survey. Retrieved November 30, 2021, from https://www.nisra.gov.uk/system/files/ statistics/labour-market-report-november-2021.pdf O’Dowd, L. (1980). Shaping and reshaping the Orange State: An introductory analysis. In L. O’Dowd, B. Rolston, & M. Tomlinson (Eds.), Northern Ireland: Between civil rights and civil wars (pp. 1–29). CSE Books. O’Dowd, L. (1986). Beyond industrial society. In P. Clancy, S. Drudy, K. Lynch, & L. O’Dowd (Eds.), Ireland: A sociological profile (pp. 198– 220). Institute of Public Administration in association with the Sociological Association of Ireland. O’Dowd, L. (1995). Development or dependency? State, economy and society in Northern Ireland. In P. Clancy, S. Drudy, K. Lynch, & L. O’Dowd (Eds.), Irish society: Sociological perspectives (pp. 132–177). Institute of Public Administration. Robertson, R. (1985). Beyond the sociology of religion? Sociology of Religion, 46(4), 355–360. Ruane, J., & Todd, J. (1996). The dynamics of conflict in Northern Ireland: Power, conflict and emancipation. Cambridge University Press. Spencer, G. (2012). Protestant identity and peace in Northern Ireland. Palgrave Macmillan. Todd, J. (1987). Two traditions in unionist political culture. Irish Political Studies, 2(1), 1–26. Walker, G. (2008). The protestant working class and the fragmentation of Ulster unionism. In M. Busteed, F. Neal, & J. Tonge (Eds.), Irish protestant identities (pp. 360–372). Manchester University Press.

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Whyte, J. H. (1990). Interpreting Northern Ireland. Clarendon Press. Wright, F. (1973). Protestant ideology and politics in Ulster. European Journal of Sociology, 14(2), 212–280.

CHAPTER 5

Sociology and Conflict: Epistemological Challenges

Abstract Focusing on epistemological issues, this chapter suggests that important reflexions on the relationships between religious beliefs, practice and social structures have been missed, possibly because sociologists of religion have felt uncomfortable in addressing prejudice, practices of discrimination and the reproduction of inequalities. Studying sociology in the context of a violent, but also ideological, conflict has generated epistemological challenges for social scientists. Subjectivising the conflict, or on the contrary insisting on its structural and economic dimensions, unavoidably speaks to the political and moral question of responsibility—and hence to the legitimacy of the Northern Irish state. Thus, social sciences undertaken during the Troubles, in particular, reflected public concerns and political stakes of that time. I suggest this explains, at least in part, why some academics insist that the conflict had religious roots and pay little attention to its structural dimensions. But here lies the quandary. It is inescapably political to address the reproduction of inequalities, socioeconomic grievances and (experienced or perceived) discrimination in Northern Ireland. And yet it is essential to do so, in order to evaluate the significance of religion, because of the particular ways in which religion is intertwined with the socio-economic and political spheres in this region. Keywords Epistemology · Sociology of religion · Northern Ireland · Sectarianism · Pierre Bourdieu · Discrimination © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 V. Altglas, Religion and Conflict in Northern Ireland, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-96950-9_5

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In a nutshell, the structural causes of Northern Ireland’s conflict are fundamental, but this does not entail that its cultural and religious aspects are mere projections. Religion and culture1 have tremendous importance, precisely because they have been inscribed in structural social relations that generate conflicting economic and political interests. The previous chapter demonstrated that it is possible to take seriously both social structure and culture, in order to shed light on the significance of a religious repertoire of symbols, beliefs and mobilisation in their wider social context. By contrast, making of free-floating ideas and representations the source of social divisions subjectivises the conflict and “mistakes its expressions for its causes”; but it also tends to “displace responsibility for the conflict”, argue Ruane and Todd (1991, pp. 39–40). Here, Ruane and Todd touch upon the epistemological and political implications of academic explanations given to Northern Ireland’s social divisions. This is what this fourth and final chapter is about. The chapter’s starting point is Hickey’s (1984, 1985) treatment of religion in the context of the Troubles, as exemplary of the epistemological issues that arise when politics infuses academic knowledge. More broadly, this chapter tries to grasp how the unavoidable politicisation of social studies of Northern Ireland affected the ways in which scholars addressed the significance of religious beliefs and of social structures through, for instance, a rejection of historical materialism. I contend that the political implications of addressing class, inequalities and sectarian discrimination could not but affect the interpretations being made about social divisions in Northern Ireland and about the religion’s significance. This will be illustrated, ultimately, by the subjectivisation of sectarianism. Once again, through its propensity of normative analyses, the sociological study of religion in Northern Ireland is relatively representative of the sociology of religion in general. Within the subfield as a whole, normativeness is often detected in the inflation of religion’s social significance even when it is contradicted by empirical evidence, and in the far too common tendency to evaluate positively religion’s beneficial influence—a “religion is good for you” principle (Williams, 2008, p. 3), which does not add 1 Incidentally, authors focusing on religion often seem oblivious to the role played by other cultural factors in the making of collective identities, solidarity and resilience—the Irish language among sections of the Catholic Nationalist communities being a significant case in point.

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much to the sociological understanding of social life. However, the question of scholars’ position is particularly challenging here. A violent conflict creates acute political and public debates, which sometimes come with censorship, attacks of professional reputations and even threats of physical harm for scholars and intellectuals. Besides, it unavoidably entails competing narratives about its causes, victims and perpetrators: in such contexts, it is nearly unavoidable that social sciences participate in the cultural and ideological war that has taken place.

The Anti-Catholic Illusio This section draws on Hickey’s (1984) Religion and the Northern Ireland Problem as a case in point, firstly because this sociologist is probably the most radical proponent of the notion of religion as the source of the conflict in Northern Ireland, and secondly because his explanatory logic is deeply affected by the epistemological issues, unfortunately reiterated in Fulton’s (1988, 1991, 2002) publications. By and large, and despite problematic stances and significant inaccuracies, Hickey’s work has remained unchallenged (except by Loughlin, 1989); it continues to be cited as a significant contribution to the sociology of religion in Northern Ireland in recent work (e.g. Barnes, 2005; Elliott, 2013; Mitchell, 2006; Southern, 2009). Hickey (1984, 1985) contends that differences in terms of beliefs and doctrines are the roots of the conflict between a Protestant and a Catholic community in Northern Ireland. I also already mentioned that in his opinion, ideas and representations can “account” for social actions and, more broadly, for social reality as a whole (1984, p. 63). His focus is therefore on the relationships between theological stances and the social structures they have, according to him, generated (ibid., p. 78). Yet Hickey (ibid., p. 68) focuses on one specific religious feature in his explanations of the Troubles: divine grace in Roman Catholicism. Since in the Catholic Church, grace requires the ministry of a priest, Hickey argues that the clergy, and by extension the institution, hold tremendous authority over the members of the community they serve. Thus, he argues, “the Roman Catholic clergy have reached a point where, through their sacramental role, they in fact control parishes and a school

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system,2 and exercise a control over their lay members which represents a frightening monolith to an outside observer” (ibid., p. 69).3 The Catholic Church’s authoritarianism, which can be observed in “its extreme form” in the Republic of Ireland (ibid., p. 85), encouraged Irish nationalism; it requires Protestantism to be “rejected” or “absorbed”, claims Hickey (ibid., p. 42). As a consequence, such “autocratic clergy” triggers Protestants’ fears and hence their “determination to defend their belief system at all costs” (ibid., p. 85). It is because, according to Hickey, Protestant religious culture is in full contrast to Roman Catholicism’s. The religiosity of the former is characterised by individualism; Protestants are therefore attuned to freedom and democracy, and prone to base their social life on voluntary association (ibid., p. 86)—needless to say, Hickey left the significance of fundamentalist Protestantism in Northern Ireland out of the equation. As a result of their different religious beliefs, Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland would unavoidably have opposing ideas about the organisation of social life, concludes Hickey (ibid., p. 87). However, in a somewhat disjointed final chapter, Hickey argues that it is the civil rights movement in 1968, and O’Neill’s concessions to Roman Catholics, which prompted Protestants’ fear to be absorbed in the (Catholic) Irish Republic and in turn triggered the Troubles (ibid., p. 124). There is no space to write an exhaustive critique of Hickey’s assumptions and arguments. Needless to say, it essentialises the Catholic and Protestant religions to the extreme. Here, the subjectivisation of the conflict is total: from Hickey’s focus on Catholicism, one would indeed wonder why such inter-religious conflict does not manifest itself in every society in which it coexists with Protestantism, or with any other religion. We also wonder how, from his assumptions, we can explain the existence of democratic politics and governments in countries in which the Catholic Church has been predominant; or why in the name of Protestantism, the twentieth-century “Orange state” had a restricted understanding of

2 Cormack and Osborne (1995, p. 499) explain that after partition, state-provided schools were de facto Protestant schools with a Protestant and unionist ethos, and in which the Protestant clergy exerted a significant influence. This raised suspicions of the Catholic Church and encouraged the institution to set its own education system. Besides, by and large Catholics often had little trust towards the state and its institutions, due to its discriminatory practices in relation to policing, employment and housing. 3 Underlined by me.

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individual freedom and rights when it came to some of its citizens. To state the obvious, there is no direct and systematic correlations between specific religious doctrines and political systems throughout the world. And there might be reasons, other than grace, to explain the strong links between the Republic of Ireland and Catholicism following Ireland’s independence. Hickey’s writings share the weaknesses we have already underscored in the pieces of research that focus on religion to explain social conflict: they tend to depict the Northern Irish society as structured around two clashing blocks amalgamating ethno-religious identities and political allegiances, with no considerations of internal diversity and dynamics. Equally problematic is the assumption that religion uniquely shapes individuals’ behaviours and mindsets—Dillon (1990) for instance showed the Northern and Southern Catholics’ political views differ as much as Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland (see Todd, 2014 for more recent evidence). Contrary to Protestant unionists’ representations and fears, there is no unified, unchanging Irish Catholic culture that encompasses North and South. It is not clear that religious faith and beliefs are what shape social actors’ view in a distinctive manner: surveying Northern Irish churches in the 1980s, Morrow et al. (1991, pp. 243–244) conclude that churched individuals approached the political situation they found themselves in, in the same manner as those who were not churched. The book also contains many inaccuracies about the island’s history and sociology—for instance on the presentation of Ireland as a theocratic state (Loughlin, 1989), the alleged Catholic Church’s covert encouragement of the IRA (Hickey, 1984, p. 125); or what initiated the escalation of violence. Indeed, contrary to Hickey’s account, the civil rights movement was not the start of social tensions; Paisley’s mobilisation of the Protestant working-class preceded, rather than appeared in reaction to the civil rights movement—and O’Neill actually made no concession in demands of equal rights.4 4 On the crisis of unionism in the 1960s, Bew et al. (1979, p. 33) argue that “it had nothing to do with opposition to civil rights-type reforms, since O’Neill made no attempt to introduce any”. The knowledgeable reader about the region’s history would be startled by Hickey’s account of violence at Burntollet in 1969, without any mention of the police force (ibid., p. 25) for instance. Equally revealing: 1972 is presented as the most violent year of all, without any reference to Bloody Sunday (ibid., p. 27). The restoration of direct rule that same year and attempts to find an “acceptable” and “effective” form of government since then are evoked: the reader will have to wonder whether this includes

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By and large, normativeness is often visible in the pursuit of an argument in clear contradiction to the available evidence, reflecting an ideological posture linked to the social positioning of scholars themselves (Altglas & Wood, 2018, p. 4). In fact, the author conducted empirical research (Hickey, 1984, p. 127), but at no point does he mobilise any of the 297 interviews conducted; the reader will discover the existence of this survey in the final appendix. The disjunction between the argumentation and research data is therefore complete and, as such, prompts questions. Another disjunction strikes the reader who compares this book with Hickey’s (1967) previous work about Catholics in England and Wales. This is a relatively thoughtful study that explores the progressive assimilation of Catholic communities in the context of industrialisation and urbanisation. As Hickey seeks to understand what hindered their integration until early twentieth century, he puts great emphasis on the ways which these communities were affected by harsh conditions of living, antiCatholicism and anti-Irish sentiments. He describes the Catholic Church’s role in reinforcing community bonds through welfare, religious and social activities—and never as an authoritarian institution. While grace and the authority it is supposed to confer on the clergy determine the fate of Northern Ireland, Hickey (1967, p. 178) notes in his earlier book that “The position of the priest in relation to the laity varies, naturally, from society to society and from epoch to epoch”.5 Here, Hickey does not allude to any doctrinal or liturgical characteristics of Catholicism and in fact relativises the significance of religious beliefs for the socio-historical processes he interprets (ibid., p. 169). On Northern Ireland, however, Hickey’s (1984) main narrative focuses on the fears and concerns of the majority Protestant population. It insists on an objectively “real” Catholic threat that explains fears and violent reactions among Protestants: as such, it naturalises the latter’s need to “defend” themselves and reiterates existing, politically situated arguments and representations. Indeed, Hickey’s narrative suggests that the Northern Irish “problem” is in fact a Catholic problem. By opposition to Protestants who belong

internment which is absent of this historical overview (ibid.). Hickey accounts for the Troubles as the result of the Northern Irish’s own mindset and action, without any references to political motives and influences beyond the six counties, with an absence of discussion regarding the role of the British government. 5 The italics are mine.

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to different denominations, yet are “united on a basis of mutual respect” writes Hickey, Roman Catholics are themselves united, and therefore part of a social structure, on the basis of their world view which shows them an image of themselves as heirs to a tradition and a set of beliefs that give them a destiny and a right as yet unfulfilled. In order to achieve these, they are welded into an authoritarian structure which both inspires and confines them in their purpose and, at the same time, makes it well-nigh impossible for them to communicate across the religious divide. (ibid., p. 79)

Hickey’s writing echoes with a narrative one can find among politicians and intellectuals, hostile to Irish nationalism, and who attributed the responsibility of the conflict to a religious, exclusivist Catholic Irish nationalism (Ruane & Todd, 1996, p. 29). It is found, for example, in the writings of O’Brien, a controversial Irish political figure who moved from the Labour Party to Unionism in the mid-1990s and whose opposition to the Provisional IRA and other republican movements cannot be dissociated from his understanding of Northern Ireland.6 O’Brien (1994, p. 4) describes the Troubles as a “Holy War”, resulting from the “major convergence” of Catholicism and Irish nationalism. Unsurprisingly, such literature depicted the Catholic Church as a homogenous institution having considerable political influence on its members7 ; it also amplified the significance of Catholic theology and beliefs for the mobilisation of nationalist communities during the Troubles, despite a dearth of empirical evidence.8 Such a rhetoric classically made of the Catholic 6 On O’Brien and Northern Ireland, see Kelly (2021) and O’Callaghan (2018); the wider opposition to republicanism among sections of the Irish left is addressed by Hanley and Millar’s (2010) study of the Official IRA and the Workers’ Party. 7 Such view is largely discredited by Scull’s (2019) analysis of the Catholic Church’s role during the Troubles. 8 The recent sociological literature sometimes alludes to the republican movement’s use of Catholic symbols and themes in the context of the 1980–1981 hunger strikes (hunger strikers as Christ figures, Christian martyrdom, etc.), thereby referring—implicitly or explicitly—to Irish author O’Malley (1990, 1995). The focus on the Maze prison’s hunger strikes obviously entails a narrow scope, yet O’Malley argues that this political campaign demonstrates the critical influence of religion in the conflict. In his view, the Catholic Church’s refusal to condemn the hunger strikers for committing suicide, while Protestant churches unanimously saw these deaths as self-inflicted, reveals fundamental ideological differences between two communities which, in turn, explain the impossibility

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Church a bête noire conspiring to seize power in Northern Ireland; it emphasised the influence of the religious institution on the Irish state and Northern Irish nationalism, and fantasised on the representation of a strong, united and exclusive community. Thus, in the context of the Troubles, an intellectual unionist defence contrasted an anti-liberal Irish state controlled by, and fused with, a theocratic Catholic Church on the one hand, and Britishness (and Protestantism) associated with liberal values and civil liberties on the other hand (Miller, 2007 [1978], p. 85). The union with Great Britain would then appear all the more desirable and necessary; Catholics’ ascribed disloyalty was also justification for restricting individual rights and freedom during the Troubles (Ruohomäki, 2008, pp. 82, 218–219). In other words, it is about the legitimacy of unionism, to which Hickey contributes. This is underscored by the author’s main argumentation, but also by the wording of countless details. For instance, the presentation of Northern Ireland as a “new, small state” fighting for its survival and besieged by an all-Ireland nationalist Catholic community (ibid., p. 11) as well as repeated references to the Catholic “threat”, all of which resonating with unionism’s most radical ideological repertoire. Hickey also repeatedly refers to the legitimacy of the “majority” and its aspirations—the “majority rules” being a principle that was consistently used by unionists to justify Protestant ascendency. Needless to say, Hickey does not reflect on the origins and nature of this naturalised “majority”, nor on the ways in which, in certain situations, the wishes of the so-called majority might infringe principles and rights that are commonly accepted in contemporary democratic societies.

of mutual understanding. In short, the Catholic Church, having the authority to interpret Christian principles, is seen by Protestants as morally ambivalent about right and wrong, truth and honesty. It confirms their impression that Catholics are deceptive and untrustworthy, while their direct relation to the scriptures would be more consistent, if not literal (O’Malley, 1990, pp. 171–189; 1995). O’Malley reiterates flaws already identified in this book—the caricatural depiction of monolithic communities, the essentialisation of Catholicism and Protestantism and the lack of problematisation of religious motives for conflict. Religion is reduced to theology and individuals to the manifestation of doctrines and beliefs. O’Malley has also been criticised for misinterpreting Catholic clerics’ responses to the campaign (Brewer et al., 2013, p. 97) and the hunger strikes’ meanings (Feldman, 1991; O’Leary, 1991), but also for embedding prejudice into his analysis—an irony for a peace activist. As noted by Coulter (1999, p. 56), “Perhaps the most glaring shortcoming of the interpretation that O’Malley advances is that it rests upon remarkably crude stereotypes of both religious traditions and those who follow them”.

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Conflating emic and etic discourses, Hickey thus reproduces sectarian representations that were common in Northern Ireland at the time and which, to say the least, are unhelpful in providing a meaningful interpretation of the Northern Irish society. Hickey repeats uncritically, and objectifies, fears of Catholics. The reproduction of sectarianism is at its highest as the author shares his “own impressions of the overrepresentation of Roman Catholic students” in higher education (ibid., p. 145). Beyond the fact that many would question the sociological relevance of this distasteful headcount, it is interesting that Hickey draws conclusions by simply accepting social actors’ prejudice as an accurate description of the social world. Indeed, the author explains that his impressions are “supported” by the fact that locals, uncomfortable with the presence of Catholic students, referred to the University of Ulster in Coleraine as “Vatican City” (ibid.).9 A respondent to a small survey Hickey undertook among students left their questionnaire blank, “with the anguished question, ‘Are there any students of the Protestant faith in this university?’”. This question too comforted the author’s “impressions” about Catholic over-representation; he could have instead recognised it as a sectarian response to Catholics’ recent and increasing access to higher education.10 Scientificity, ultimately, is overthrown by political blindness. It is therefore unsurprising that Hickey never ponders over sectarianism in his book on religion in Northern Ireland, despite making of the regional conflict a religious question. The notion does not even feature in the index. Lastly, Hickey is not an outlier. Fulton draws on Hickey’s work (Fulton, 1988 in particular) and applies a Gramscian framework to Northern Ireland’s conflict, explained in terms of a struggle for hegemony between a Protestant and a Catholic bloc. But, in fact, Fulton focuses on what he names the Catholic Church’s culture of “monopoly” (ibid., pp. 17–18). His most recent work (Fulton, 2002) pays slightly more attention to the role of the Orange Order and the Protestant Covenant

9 Coleraine was the second university opened in Northern Ireland, in 1968. Established in a predominantly Protestant area instead of (mainly Catholic) Derry/Londonderry, this was seen as a sectarian decision by nationalists (not without reasons, cf. Mulholland, 2000, pp. 53–57) and, as such, it was one of those social controversies that contributed to the tensions leading to the Troubles. 10 Roman Catholics were only 32% to access Higher Education in the early 1970s—and 50% by the early 1990s (Cormack & Osborne, 1995, p. 518).

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tradition; however, like Hickey, he tends to see this “historical bloc” mainly as a response to a Catholic threat and has little to say about it—an interesting blind spot considering the significance of Orangeism, loyalism and conservative Protestantism for unionist politics. Besides, note in passing that by focusing on the Catholic Church’s alleged desire of social control, both Hickey and Fulton substantially downgrade the significance of beliefs and representations. For scholars who want to underscore the social effect of religious beliefs (Fulton’s book is called The Tragedy of Belief , after all), it seems incredibly reductive. With Fulton, Northern Ireland’s conflict seems one more time rooted in Catholicism—and one more time the argumentation does not seek to draw on empirical research. Fulton (1991) describes a hegemonic and ethnocentric philosophy consubstantial to the Catholic Church, an institution that exerts its power in the Republic of Ireland and cultivates a nationalist claim on the whole isle (ibid., pp. 17, 24). Fulton thus reasserts the representation of an alliance between the Catholic Church and Irish nationalism (ibid., p. 103); an entire chapter is dedicated to “monopoly Catholicism” and what he calls its “political religious synthesis” (ibid., p. 139). As in Hickey, making of Northern Ireland’s conflict a religious issue within this interpretative framework reiterates, and contributes to, a particular type of political discourses and writings. Fulton explains that Protestants, whose culture is characterised by freedom of conscience and democratic values, would lose their liberties in a united Ireland and would be subjected to a “total catholic-nationalist domination” (ibid., p. 93). No thought is given to the fact that, as far as they were concerned nationalist communities probably felt Northern Ireland had very limited provisions for those liberties at the time.11 Thus, for Fulton, the “threat is real” and not just a perception,12 hence reflecting a (relatively hard-line) unionist ideological worldview:

11 Fulton’s reflection on violence (1991, pp. 125–131) focuses on the extent to which the Irish state, church and population support republican paramilitary activities in the North, without ever pondering over other sources of violence in the region—the Northern Irish state against its population, the British army forces, loyalist paramilitary groups, intra-communal violence, etc. 12 “One of the aims of this book has been to point out that such a threat is real, and that Northern Protestants would lose a number of their liberties in a united Ireland, unless monopoly Catholicism in Ireland was ended and the church leadership modified its political-religious belief and strategy” (ibid., p. 229).

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Catholic monopoly has thus played an indirect part in promoting structures offensive and invasive to Protestants when in a monopoly position: the Roman Catholic Church has always been institutionally blind to the moral rights of Protestants in civil society and before the state, and to the correct exercise of citizenship by its own Catholic faithful. (Fulton, 2002, p. 195)

By and large, Fulton’s argumentation exposes a clear political position: Northern Ireland is a religious (i.e. Catholic) problem, which has little to do with Protestant ascendency, social inequalities or prejudice (1991, pp. 1, 3). Unsurprisingly, his reflections on sectarianism are very superficial—they are furthermore obfuscated by the fact he equates sectarianism with fundamentalism13 Indeed, the author’s core argument is that high levels of religiosity, in particular “on the catholic side” as he called it, but also among Paisleyites, generate violence and popular support for violent actions (ibid., pp. 7–17). That paramilitary organisations were typically composed of secular individuals and the republican movement was driven by a secular political agenda seems irrelevant to Fulton’s theory of religious violence. Here again, the ways in which the Northern Irish conflict is presented as a religious issue contribute to a politically situated stance: the author (ibid., p. 4) aims at “combatting the nationalist view on Ireland as a national unit” and wants to challenge the view that the Irish Republic is a peaceful and “politically integral society”, which in fact supports republican violence in the North (ibid., p. 15). By contrast, and very much like Hickey, Fulton has willingly “omitted any protracted consideration of Britain’s present role” (ibid., pp. 1–2), on the basis that it is, according to him, not a fundamental factor in contemporary Northern Irish divisions. Suffice to say, many scholars would have much to respond to this reading of Anglo-Irish politics. Ironically, insisting on using Gramsci’s approach to hegemony, Fulton could have reflected on the role the Marxist philosopher attributes to intellectuals in social domination. Hickey’s and Fulton’s work illustrates epistemological issues which have long been an area of interest for this author (Altglas & Wood, 2018; Wood & Altglas, 2010). These issues relate to the ways in which the scientific knowledge we produce is affected by scholars’ positionality, when they align with the positions held by social actors themselves, in 13 Interestingly, he describes sectarianism as an Irish phenomenon (ibid., p. 13), overlooking its roots and significance in British history. Anti-Catholicism is mentioned in passing, and Irish Nationalism seems to explain its enduring presence (ibid., p. 118).

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an attempt to accumulate the benefits of (apparent) scientificity and one’s position in a given field. This is what Bourdieu (2010 [1987], p. 6) called double play, which leads to participation in social and political struggles and, perhaps more importantly, bad science. This is why Bourdieu argues that it is never sociologically profitable. Indeed, those who take part in such struggles are tied to unquestioned beliefs and representations that are inherent to a field of social action—what Bourdieu (ibid., p. 3) calls illusio. The illusio is “the ordinary experience of a social universe”; it “belongs to the ‘natives’ of the field, those who possess in a practical state the skills required to flourish in it because they are the products of that same universe” (Costey, 2005).14 As a result, because of the power of its evidence, the illusio tends to generate a confusion between emic and etic discourses, so that the representations, values and interpretations of social actors become confused with what should have been their sociological analysis. Ultimately, reproducing beliefs and attitudes within academic interpretations of the social world leads to the authentication of the claims, strategies and experience of specific social actors—and disqualifies others’; both Hickey’s work and Fulton’s work are acutely illustrative of this. The issue is particularly interesting, if not at its most extreme, in a context of socio-political conflict such as Northern Ireland. Because interpreting the causes of social divisions inextricably places or displaces responsibility, or seems to designate victims and perpetrators, social sciences could not be immune to political stakes (Anderson & O’Dowd, 1993; Ruohomäki, 2008).

Double Play and Historical Materialism Both Fulton’s work and Hickey’s work shed light on the ways in which politics infused academic knowledge during the Troubles; their presentation of religion as an independent and primary variable in Northern Ireland’s conflict is also part of their specific political positioning. I contend that, more broadly, the politicisation of social studies of Northern Ireland has affected the ways in which scholars addressed the significance of religious beliefs and of social structures. The emphasis on beliefs and representations in relation to social conflict places, contests and replaces responsibility (Ruane & Todd, 1991, p. 40). Conversely, the

14 Author’s translation.

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focus on social stratification and inequalities has had political implications, in part because Marxism has played a central role in both intellectuals’ scholarly debate and political engagement regarding Northern Ireland (McGarry & O’Leary, 1995, pp. 62–63). I believe this intellectual context carries significance for the understanding of the sociological knowledge produced about religion in this region. Indeed, political and intellectual discussions furthered James Connolly’s15 thoughts and developed traditional Marxist interpretations of the conflict in Northern Ireland. This body of literature was influential in the early days of the civil rights movement, in particular in the writings of figures such as Eamonn McCann (1974), Michael Farrell (1976), later on among Sinn Féin leaders, and also among left-wing intellectuals discussing the Irish case. Thus, a “green Marxism” (i.e. sympathetic to Irish republicanism) focused on British imperialism and capitalism as the cause of the conflict in Northern Ireland. Underscoring Ireland’s colonial past, Marxism provided an anti-imperialist intellectual framework, opposing a British oppressor to an Irish united working-class which, in turn, conceives Irish republicanism as a war of liberation. Like many Marxian analyses of racism, sectarian violence was interpreted as a means for the elite to divide the working classes along ethno-religious lines, in order to maintain its monopoly over power and resources. In this perspective, religious identities are only projections of class struggle (which of course give little significance to those identities and what constitutes them), and sectarianism could only be solved by the end of the class struggle. Sectarianism being seen as structural, the Northern Irish state would be inherently undemocratic and irreformable; therefore, a united and socialist Ireland would be the solution to strive for (McGarry & O’Leary, 1995, pp. 62–91; Ruohomäki, 2008, pp. 55–60). An orange Marxism emerged in response, reflecting the attempts from unionist intellectuals to challenge what they perceived as the hegemony of the nationalist narrative on Irish history and politics (Ruohomäki, 2008, pp. 116–117). Springing from the British and Irish Communist Organization (BICO), this literature argued that the roots of Northern Ireland’s problems were not a British colonial enterprise, but a reactionary

15 Born in 1868 in Scotland from Irish parents, Connolly was a republican socialist and a trade union leader. One of the leaders of the 1916 Easter Rising, he was sentenced to death and executed.

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Catholicism and the irredentism of Irish nationalists who deny the selfdetermination rights of the Protestant nation in Northern Ireland. The civil rights movement is thus understood as a nationalist front, responsible for the escalation of violence. From this point of view, the opposition to a United Ireland from the Protestant working classes (Loyalism, Unionism) was presented as a genuine and emancipatory movement, rather than a manipulation from the elite to maintain their power over the labouring classes. For this unionist-leaning Marxism, inequalities along ethno-religious identities should not be seen as consubstantial to Northern Ireland’s state and social structures. These inequalities have been instead described as the result of an uneven economic development, due to the Protestant work ethic. Like many other unionist intellectuals, orange Marxists have difficulties accepting the existence or the significance of discrimination in the reproduction of social inequalities in Northern Ireland (Ruohomäki, 2008, pp. 105–106).16 Ultimately, they were likely to conclude that the union with Great Britain, envisaged as Northern Ireland’s inclusion in a liberal, prosperous and pluralist British entity, serves the working classes better. As many political and intellectual unionist thinkers of the time, orange Marxism reflected a quest for legitimacy of the Northern Irish state in deconstructing the anticolonial interpretation that had dominated the Irish question (McGarry & O’Leary, 1995, pp. 130–150; Ruohomäki, 2008, pp. 59–63).

Politics and the Sociological Understanding of Inequalities “I was Irish, most of my immediate colleagues at the university were English. While I saw the conflict against a backdrop of historical colonial conflict in Ireland, they knew little of that history and were seldom interested in it” recalls O’Dowd (1990, pp. 36–37), lecturing in sociology at Queen’s University Belfast at the time. By and large, academics’ personal trajectories have affected theoretical allegiances and approaches. They probably always do so, but the lack of reflexive discussion within the sociology of religion in Northern Ireland is perhaps noteworthy. In the 16 What was called a “red marxism” recognised the inequalities and discrimination endured by the Ulster Catholic population and gave precedence to working-class unity over specific constitutional arrangements, i.e. being part of the United Kingdom or of a United Ireland (McGarry & O’Leary, 1995, p. 140).

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context of the Northern Irish conflict, scholars’ attention to class, inequalities and distribution of power, or the role of sectarian discrimination in the reproduction of social divisions, means that all these core sociological issues could not be devoid of political implications. Not least because, as this book has shown so far, culture, representations and narratives have been part of the conflict that took place in the region (again, it is fair to assume that all social conflicts have ideological and cultural dimensions). The causes of social inequalities in Northern Ireland in particular have been a moot point in social sciences, reflecting but also contributing to the public debate surrounding discrimination in the Northern Irish state in its first fifty years of existence and beyond. It is an acutely painful and contentious argument that carries moral weight and resonates with the legitimacy (or lack of) of the Northern Irish state. On the one hand, the Catholic community shares a perception of abuse of state power (repressive police forces, internment) and economic and political discrimination. On the other hand, Protestants’ attitudes towards the question of discrimination against Catholics varied; nevertheless, a majority did not recognise their existence or depth and tried to rebut those accusations (Whyte, 1983, p. 1). For some, these claims were simply trying to mask an illconcealed nationalist agenda (Rose, 1971, pp. 272–273); this has been a long-standing perception which, for some, justified unionists in failing to make any concessions.17 The idea was that since nationalists do not accept the legitimacy of the state, granting them equal rights or parity of esteem will never be sufficient, but could instead be used by them to achieve their goals towards a united Ireland (Ruane & Todd, 1996, p. 155).18 Finally, allegations of anti-Protestantism have been a common unionist response to point out that Protestants have been victims too, either from republicans’ violence or as minority in the Republic of Ireland— the latter narrative being redressed in the academic literature (Whyte, 1990, pp. 151–154). The extent of discrimination against the Catholic minority is tremendously complex to gauge. While some accusations were possibly inflated, there was enough evidence of a “consistent and 17 For an in-depth and qualitative analysis of Protestants’ perceptions of discrimination in the early 1970s, see Nelson (1975). 18 The recent survey undertaken on the DUP by Tonge et al. (2014, pp. 147, 180) found that party members tend to reject sectarian discrimination as a myth; most DUP members believe that there is also discrimination against Protestants in Northern Ireland, differing only over its extent.

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irrefutable pattern of deliberate discrimination against Catholics” (Darby, 1976, pp. 77–78). This pattern varied locally but was rendered effective by the state’s failure to forbid or properly control institutional malpractice (Whyte, 1983, pp. 30–31), and that this discrimination was part of social control at territorial, constitutional, electoral, legal and cultural level until the Troubles started (McGarry & O’Leary, 1996, pp. 107–152). One more time, this suggests that sectarianism was not so much a question of individual attitudes, rather than a systemic system of institutional practices from the unionist government and party, in an attempt to maintain control over political power. As far as the academic debate is concerned, Ruane and Todd (1996, p. 172) aptly summarise what has been at stake: “Arguments which stress discrimination as a cause of inequality appear to attribute moral blame to Protestants. Structural arguments are either of a ‘no fault’ kind or place the responsibility on Catholics for their situation, as do many cultural and political arguments”. Several structural factors were underscored to explain inequalities along ethno-religious lines, such as the legacy of the past, an unfavourable demographic structure in relation to the labour market, Roman Catholics’ residence in locations with high unemployment, their unfavourable occupational and class profile, and their over-representation in recession-prone industries. While they tended to be employed in semi-skilled and unskilled manual jobs, they were under-represented in more stable, highly skilled industries such as engineering and electricity provision, banking and financial services, in the upper echelons of civil services or at the managerial level in the major industries (O’Dowd, 1986, pp. 216–217; Ruane & Todd, 1996, p. 172). However, one would note these factors are not “given” and require explanations about why Catholics occupied unfavourable social spaces and positions in the first place. The differential in unemployment was often described as a legacy issue of past (and not present) discrimination; yet research shows that even in the 1980s and 1990s, religion continued to have a small yet significant effect on professional trajectories (Kelley & McAllister, 1984; Li & O’Leary, 2007; Miller, 1986).19 Pieces of work

19 Controlling the effects of structural factors, Miller’s (1986) study of social mobility in civil service underscored patterns of discrimination. Unequal appointments and disparities in salaries, argued Miller (1986, pp. 228–229), could not be solely explained by a historical legacy of poverty and disadvantage. In fact, these were observed among younger rather than older generations of employees in civil service, shedding light on the persistence

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underscoring enduring discriminatory practices were scarce and subject of controversies, and some of their authors faced pressures that prevented some of their publication. Overall, scholars failed to conceptualise sectarianism, notes McVeigh (1995, p. 623), because this endeavour could never be neutral, but also because of scholars’ own social and political position and, I would add, the illusio this positioning entails. Academics embracing a unionist perspective would question the existence or significance of sectarianism (McVeigh, 1990, p. 119). A British position would assume that sectarianism was dismantled by direct rule and the state is “now neutral arbiter in an atavistic sectarian struggle between Protestants and Catholics” (ibid., p. 120). On a nationalist side, an identification as victims of sectarianism, on the one hand, and the focus on British imperialism of which sectarianism is simply a manifestation, on the other hand, both hinder a comprehensive analysis (ibid., pp. 120–121). Thus, while an academic body or work, sympathetic to republicanism, might have underscored the significance of inequalities, discrimination and the legacy of British colonialism (hence an unfortunate lack of interest for religion, perhaps), a unionist-leaning academic literature presents Irish nationalism as responsible for the escalation of violence and questions the significance of Ireland’s partition, inequalities or discrimination for the understanding of the Troubles. This is what McGarry and O’Leary (1995, p. 106) call the “politics of denial”. It has permeated public and academic discourses; this is noticeable among those who prefer to speak of “perceived” discrimination (e.g. Hickey, 1984, p. 23) or who blamed Catholics for their own poverty and lack of social mobility. Some authors deny the existence of discriminatory practices, evoking the blind laws of the work market that, they believe, cannot discriminate along ethnoreligious lines (McGarry & O’Leary, 1995, p. 107). A striking example is Harris’s (1972) seminal ethnography of prejudice in County Tyrone in the 1950s, which nonetheless ends with a problematic conclusion, and whose arguments are strikingly disconnected from her empirical data and analysis. In those final pages, Harris attempts to explain inequalities by focusing on Roman Catholics’ attitudes—their emigration from

rather than the decline of disparities. Li and O’Leary (2007) compared data from the Continuous Household Surveys, 1985/6 and 2002/3, and noted significant progress for Catholic men in particular, in relation to unemployment avoidance. They nonetheless found that they continue to face disadvantages in terms of access to the salariat and earnings.

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the region invalidates the political advantage they could have had; their “educational handicaps partly self-imposed” or caused by large families, transmitting disadvantages to next generations (ibid., pp. 216–218). Harris also argues that they constitute a “subgroup” that cultivates a dichotomic perception of their environment, leading them to believe that there are discriminated against. This is, for Harris, at the heart of the problem of minority relationships with the dominant group (ibid., pp. 220–221). Harris’ political point is made clear in the last lines of her conclusion, which blames the 1960s civil rights activists for provoking conflict, while “sophisticated Catholics were becoming more interested in improving their lot with Northern Ireland than with dismantling it as a political unit” (ibid., p. 224). One could help but wonder how this perspective could have affected Harris’ ethnographic analysis. But also, why her conclusion has remained unchallenged. Consequently, in this perspective, inequalities, if they are to be acknowledged, are to be explained or justified by other factors: this has often led to the blame being put on the social groups subjected to discrimination (O’Dowd, 1986, p. 217). An illustration is found in the collective book The Northern Ireland Question: Myth and Reality, edited by Roche and Barton, and whose introduction argues that “the existence of discrimination in the ‘six counties’ is an ideological imperative of Irish Nationalism” (Roche & Barton, 1991, p. 3). In particular, Compton’s (1991, p. 113) chapter on employment differentials in Northern Ireland insists that “Catholics under-representation in the economic sphere is far too generalised for overt discrimination to be a plausible explanation”. The author explains ethno-religious differences in the workforce by some of the arguments covered above, and by the fact that Protestants are possibly better workers, with reference to their Protestant ethics (ibid., p. 79)—overall, the instrumentalisation of Max Weber’s work to justify class differences along ethno-religious lines has been far from exceptional. For Hewitt (1981, p. 362), another contributor to this book,20 the origins of the violence of the Troubles spring from Irish nationalism, rather than economic grievances that are according to him “considerably exaggerated”. They were, claims Compton (1991, p. 113), “tangential”

20 This chapter is a republication of Hewitt’s (1981) article in the British Journal of Sociology ten years earlier. It was followed by critical reactions, such as O’Hearn (1983) on the issue of discrimination in particular.

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and in fact weaponised.21 Analysing the work of unionist intellectuals and scholars, Ruohomäki (2008, p. 107) argues that “The authors of the Myth and Reality collectively purge unionists from discrimination in housing, employment, voting as well as gerrymandering. Some blame still remains, but everything is rationalised as acts of defending the state”. Discrimination therefore becomes a “necessary evil” in response to the threats posed by Irish nationalism. I have sketched the outlook of this war of narratives within the academic field, for the reader to grasp a crucial quandary for scholars and intellectuals writing about Northern Ireland. It has been inherently political to address inequalities along ethno-religious divisions, but it has been equally unavoidable to seek to address them in order to think appropriately about the significance of religion in Northern Ireland’s conflict and social structures. How this affected the capacity for the sociology of religion in Northern Ireland to analyse the relationships between religious beliefs, practices and identities, and social divisions is opened to question. It is neither possible nor desirable to speculate on the various authors’ intentions. But a sociology of sociology is necessary in order to reflect on the conditions of the production of knowledge, and how these conditions affect this knowledge. In what follows, I attempt to provide a number of examples that show how challenging it has been to write about religion in the context of conflict and address adequately religion in relation to social divisions.

Inequalities and the Sociology of Religion in Northern Ireland Sociologists who insisted the most on the importance of religion to understand Northern Ireland’s social divisions did not often consider social inequalities to have had great significance. Hickey and Fulton, for

21 “Lying at the root of the political strife in Northern Ireland is the unresolved status of the province and the continuing determination of Irish republicans to create an allIreland polity. The economic grievances of Catholics are tangential to this in so far as the basic problem would still be with us even if these grievances could be resolved. They nevertheless serve the purpose of directing attention away from the real nature of the Northern Ireland conflict and gain much sympathy for the Catholic case, both throughout the British Isles and internationally” (Compton, 1991, p. 113).

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instance, take note of the existence of Protestant predominance but interestingly fail to consider, even remotely, the possibility that it could have played a role on Northern Ireland’s social divisions. Again, the question of how much discrimination there has been is complex—although it is today difficult for sociologists to say it was absent or even marginal. Bruce (1994, p. 28) rejects Marxist understandings of unionism and loyalism for their reductionism. In other words, because they understand unionism and loyalism as solely driven by material interests, Marxists are led to see that cultural or religious differences are insignificant, or even as a mask for these material interests. It is difficult for me to fully evaluate my agreement or disagreement because Bruce does not refer to any particular work or author, and of course I agree that some Marxist interpretations of religion have been limited by this reductionism. But conversely, I question how academic knowledge is potentially affected by a lack of appreciation of the significance of the reproduction of social inequalities in Northern Ireland—which Bruce (ibid.) sees as “much exaggerated in subsequent myth-making”. Besides, if we were to accept Bruce’s assertion that social inequalities were exaggerated for political purposes, from the subjectivist perspective he defends, social actors’ perception of being discriminated against would logically affect their behaviours and, as such, it should have a significant place in explanatory framework. As illustrated by the analysis of Joe’s interview in Mitchell’s (2006) book, this has rarely been the case. It is because, I believe, a moral defence takes over: “Unionists do not approve of discrimination. In theory, they are very much in favour of treating all people fairly. After all, that is their legacy”, writes Bruce (1994, p. 54). Besides, he adds, “There may be also characteristics of Catholics that retard their social mobility, irrespective of the behaviour of Protestants”—transmission of disadvantages, large family and curriculum of catholic schools (ibid., p. 57). Bruce is later echoed by Mitchell (2006, p. 109): “Theology is not just a thin veneer masking underlying Protestant desires to oppress nationalists”. Undoubtedly, there is more to religion than an expression of material interests, but the significance of discrimination and the reproduction of inequalities, and at the very least their perception among nationalists in the region’s conflict, could have been better assessed. Taking into account the reproduction of social class and inequalities does not necessarily imply explaining away religious representations and beliefs nor to cast a social group as the villains. Nor does it entail that social actors involved in unequal social relations (in other words, all of

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us) are cynical about it. Sexism or racism, for instance, does not require that male and/or white individuals actively seek to oppress women and ethnic minorities. The reproduction of social divisions does not require cynicism. In fact, it is probably the opposite; they might well be facilitated by profoundly held assumptions about fairness, merit and legitimacy (Bonilla-Silva, 2003). We could add that there is no empirical evidence to assert that societies with a Protestant majority or culture are necessarily more equal or, again, that there exists a simple correlation between religious beliefs and social structures (Bruce, 1994, p. 54). Ultimately, experiences or perceptions of inequalities and discriminations are considered marginal, because it is assumed that equality would not undermine support for Irish nationalism (Bruce, 1994, p. 132). Such assumptions logically lead to setting aside issues of inequalities from analyses of the conflict in Northern Ireland and give precedence to other factors. Mitchell (2006, p. 136) reiterates Bruce’s point, yet in a reasoning that takes us far beyond sociological thinking: A good, if necessarily simplistic, way of thinking about the causes of conflict in Northern Ireland, is hypothetically to eliminate the factor at hand and then reimagine the situation asking if conflict would still be likely. Thus if one feels that the root of conflict is economic deprivation and poverty, then imagine that everybody in Northern Ireland was given employment and a decent wage. Given that deep cultural, national and political inequalities would still exist, it is unlikely that conflict would disappear. … Based on this, we may conclude that whilst deprivation certainly contributes to conflict, it is not the essence of what conflict is about.

My lack of vision might be to blame, however, I do see how one can “eliminate” unemployment, material conditions of living or inequalities (or any social feature, for that matter) from a given social context; how the “imagination” of what it would then be has any sociological relevance; and how what is imagined and concluded is not the result of the dreamer’s common sense, linked to their own social positioning. Such an approach, I believe, hinders a critical exploration of the relationships between religion, politics and social structures.

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Anti-Catholicism, Anti-Protestantism, Reciprocity and Equivalences The political nature of discussions about discrimination (hence about sectarianism) has been such that it might affect our capacity to fully explore the role of religion in relation to the reproduction of social stratification and inequalities in Northern Ireland. By extension, it might well be that more theoretical and valuable reflections on the relationships between prejudice, actors’ actions, institutional practices and social structures are lost. Mitchell (2006, p. 121) is right in stating that it is important “not to over-simplify the social and political consequences of theological antiCatholicism” in assuming that beliefs have a direct relation to behaviours. She draws on the example of a young born-again woman who feels able to engage with Catholics, and hence shows that the Protestant conservatives’ principles of her respondent do not necessarily impact negatively on her attitude towards others. Conversely, Mitchell (ibid., p. 109) wants to “challenge[s] the assumption that Catholics do not have negative feelings about Protestants”. Rather, she asserts, they are more “subtle” about their prejudice.22 Here, reducing sectarianism to individual attitudes (ibid., pp. 103–105; pp. 109–114 and pp. 119–122) allows comparisons and perhaps equivalences: Mitchell addresses anti-Protestantism as a pendant of anti-Catholicism, since both are thought as personal attitudes towards others. Ultimately, the author aims to show that religion plays a role in Catholics’ perception of Protestants (ibid., pp. 113–114). Mitchell believes that “History has bequeathed 23 to Irish Catholicism … a sense of being the powerless underdog” (ibid., p. 109) and hence religious notions of victimhood play a powerful role in the elaboration of Catholic self-identity. While her Catholic interviewees do not castigate Protestants for their different religious tenets, the sociologist underscores the ways in which they refer to traits associated with religion to describe Protestants. 22 This resonates with politically situated views—see, for example, McGarry and O’Leary (1995, p. 448) on Thomas Wilson, economic adviser to unionist governments in the 1960s, who complained that “When Catholics are bigoted, they usually manage to be so in a better tone of voice”. Mitchell’s wording is also close to O’Brien’s (1994, p. 92) statement that sectarianism is “evenly distributed”, yet “The difference is that the Catholics, having been historically the underdogs, are much better at dissimulating their sectarianism”. 23 Italics the author’s.

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Thus, they are depicted as inflexible, austere or more formal, showing intolerance in relation to the Catholic community; they are also portrayed as being law abiding and more “scientific”. By contrast, they tend to define themselves as inclusive, which is “othering” and as such, Mitchell (ibid., p. 109) argues, it “can sometimes lie at the heart of strained social and political relationships”. It is not clear who or which academic work the author intends to challenge, regarding the view that Roman Catholics are not prejudiced. In addition, it is not an academic controversy; social scientists would have no issue in assuming that everybody has stereotypical or negative representations about others, and especially amidst a violent conflict.24 Instead, it seems that the argumentation, and in particular the subjectivisation of sectarianism, is about redressing the balance in a debate that pertains to the political and public sphere. My problem with this is less the desire for scholars to contribute to important social debates than the ways in which it might affect the knowledge they produce. According to Mitchell, Catholics have stereotypical views of Protestants based on religion. She, however, does little to integrate her own observations in her argumentation: the depictions of Protestants expressed by her interviewees were affected by, at the time of her research, intense sectarian tensions against a Catholic Church and its small community in the heart of Northern Ireland’s “bible belt” (ibid., pp. 109–112).25 Generally speaking, it is unsurprising that Catholics perceive a religious element in their “others” since unionism and loyalism heavily drew on Protestant references and symbolism in their political narratives. It does not mean Catholics are not prejudiced or that they have moral justifications for being so: this would be again an attempt to place, displace and replace moral responsibility, which has little sociological value. Rather, my point is that by taking part in a public and political controversy, Mitchell sets limitations to an analysis of the significance of religion and sectarianism which could have been more far-reaching. 24 Research on attitudes tend to converge on the fact that religious affiliation is a factor in producing stereotypical views, and that the pattern is stronger for those who have a Protestant background although, as elsewhere, the level of education is a strong predictor (Hayes & McAllister, 2013, p. 45). 25 The picketing of Our Lady’s Catholic Church in Ballymena (Harryville) by conservative evangelical loyalist Protestants, in response to nationalist objections to an Orange Order parade at the end of the 1990s. After decades of attacks, the church was eventually closed and demolished.

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As a consequence, there is also a deficit of sociological analysis by treating prejudice as an individual, subjective attitude towards others, and as such considering those attitudes, anti-Catholicism and antiProtestantism, are the mirror image of each other. Such an approach discourages its analysis as the product of social conditions at the macrosociological level—that is to say, communities’ incompatible interests in the Northern Irish state, in the ways in which it is currently structured (Ruane & Todd, 1991, p. 28). The reduction of sectarianism to personal attitudes also fails to properly grasp its structural manifestation in the distribution of power and material resources, social mobility, different political mobilisation or even the ways in which this form of “othering” can be experienced differently by individuals. I have already underlined the importance of understanding sectarianism as inscribed in practice, and institutional practice in particular: electoral practices, employment in the public and private sectors, policing, housing, uneven regional development policy and more largely the state’s failure to forbid or dismantle those practices. As a consequence, Brewer and Higgins (1998, p. viii) are absolutely right when they write that “Anti-Protestantism exists as a negative discourse and a set of pejorative beliefs amongst some Catholics, but it has not defined a type of society”. More broadly, scholars have long underscored the fact that prejudice is not so much a matter of opinion rather than being structurally embedded in social relations, and the reproduction of social power and inequalities in particular—a point made by McVeigh (1990, 1995) about sectarianism in Northern Ireland, but also historian Noiriel (2007) regarding nineteenth- and twentieth-century anti-Semitism in France or Bonilla-Silva (2003) on institutionalised racism “without racists” in contemporary United States, for example. This is, ultimately, a paradox: by failing to consider sectarianism as structural, we miss the opportunity to look at the potential significance of religion in relation for social divisions and conflict in Northern Ireland.

References Altglas, V., & Wood, M. (2018). Introduction: An epistemology for the sociology of religion. In V. Altglas & M. Wood (Eds.), Bringing the social back into the sociology of religion (pp. 1–34). Brill. Anderson, J., & O’Dowd, L. (1993). Limited thinking. Fortnight, 315, 30–31. Barnes, L. P. (2005). Was the Northern Ireland conflict religious? Journal of Contemporary Religion, 20(1), 55–69.

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Bew, P., Gibbon, P., & Patterson, H. (1979). The state in Northern Ireland, 1921–72: Political forces and social classes. Manchester University Press. Bonilla-Silva, E. (2003). Racism without racists: Color-blind racism and the persistence of racial inequality in the United States. Rowan and Littlefield. Bourdieu, P. (2010 [1987]). Sociologists of belief and beliefs of sociologists. Nordic Journal of Religion and Society, 23(1), 1–7. Brewer, J., & Higgins, G. I. (1998). Anti-Catholicism in Northern Ireland, 1600–1998: The Mote and the Beam. Macmillan. Brewer, J., Mitchell, D., & Leavey, G. (2013). Ex-combatants, religion, and peace in Northern Ireland: The role of religion in transitional justice. Palgrave Macmillan. Bruce, S. (1994). The edge of the union: The Ulster loyalist political vision. Oxford University Press. Compton, P. A. (1991). Employment differentials in Northern Ireland and job discrimination: A critique. In P. J. Roche & B. Barton (Eds.), The Northern Ireland question: Myth and reality (pp. 69–116). Avebury. Cormack, R. J., & Osborne, R. D. (1995). Education in Northern Ireland: The struggle for equality. In P. Clancy, S. Drudy, K. Lynch, & L. O’Dowd (Eds.), Irish society: Sociological perspectives (pp. 467–528). Institute of Public Administration. Costey, P. (2005). L’illusio chez Pierre Bourdieu. Les (més)usages d’une notion et son application au cas des universitaires. Tracés: Revue de Sciences Humaines, 8, 13–27. https://doi.org/10.4000/traces.2133 Coulter, C. (1999). Contemporary Northern Irish society: An introduction. Sterling. Darby, J. (1976). Conflict in Northern Ireland: The development of a polarised community. Gill & Macmillan. Dillon, M. (1990). Perceptions of the causes of the troubles in Northern Ireland. Economic and Social Review, 21, 299–310. Elliott, L. (2013). Religion and sectarianism in Ulster: Interpreting the Northern Ireland troubles. Religion Compass, 7 (3), 93–101. Farrell, M. (1976). The Orange State. Pluto Press. Feldman, A. (1991). Formations of violence: The narrative of the body and political terror in Northern Ireland. University of Chicago Press. Fulton, J. (1988). Sociology, religion and “the troubles” in Northern Ireland: A critical approach. The Economic and Social Review, 20(1), 5–24. Fulton, J. (1991). The tragedy of belief: Division, politics and religion in Ireland. Clarendon Press. Fulton, J. (2002). Religion and enmity in Ireland: Institutions and relational beliefs. Social Compass, 49(2), 189–202. Hanley, B., & Millar, S. (2010). The lost revolution: The story of the official IRA and the workers’ party. Penguin Ireland.

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Harris, R. (1972). Prejudice and tolerance in Ulster: A study of neighbours and ‘strangers’ in a border community. Manchester University Press; Rowman and Littlefield. Hayes, B. C., & McAllister, I. (2013). Conflict to peace: Politics and society in Northern Ireland over half a century. Manchester University Press. Hewitt, C. (1981). Catholic grievances, Catholic nationalism and violence in Northern Ireland during the civil rights period: A reconsideration. British Journal of Sociology, 32(3), 362–380. Hickey, J. (1967). Urban Catholics: Urban Catholicism in England and Wales from 1829 to the present day. Geoffrey Chapman. Hickey, J. (1984). Religion and the Northern Ireland problem. Gill & Macmillan. Hickey, J. (1985). The role of the churches in the conflict in Northern Ireland. Studies: An Irish Quarterly Review, 296, 402–410. Kelly, S. (2021). ‘I was altogether out of tune with my colleagues’: Conor Cruise O’Brien and Northern Ireland, 1969–77. Irish Historical Studies, 45, 101– 121. Kelley, J., & McAllister, I. (1984). The genesis of conflict: Religion and status attainment in Ulster, 1968. Sociology, 18(2), 171–190. Li, Y., & O’Leary, R. (2007). Progress in reducing catholic disadvantage in Northern Ireland. In Proceedings of the British Academy (Vol. 137, pp. 551–589). Oxford University Press. Loughlin, S. (1989). The role of the churches in the conflict in Northern Ireland: A reply to John Hickey. Studies: An Irish Quarterly Review, 78(311), 306– 311. McCann, E. (1974). War and an Irish town. Penguin. McGarry, J., & O’Leary, B. (1995). Explaining Northern Ireland: Broken images. Blackwell. McGarry, J., & O’Leary, B. (1996). The politics of antagonism: Understanding Northern Ireland. The Athlone Press. McVeigh, R. (1990). The undertheorisation of sectarianism. The Canadian Journal of Irish Studies, 16(2), 119–122. McVeigh, R. (1995). Cherishing the children of the nation unequally: Sectarianism in Ireland. In P. Clancy, S. Drudy, K. Lynch, & L. O’Dowd (Eds.), Ireland: A sociological profile (pp. 620–651). Institute of Public Administration in association with the Sociological Association of Ireland. Miller, R. (1986). Social stratification and mobility. In P. Clancy, S. Drudy, K. Lynch, & L. O’Dowd (Eds.), Ireland: A sociological profile (pp. 221– 243). Institute of Public Administration in association with the Sociological Association of Ireland. Miller, D. W. (2007 [1978]). Queen’s rebels. University College Dublin Press. Mitchell, C. (2006). Religion, identity and politics in Northern Ireland: Boundaries of belonging and belief . Routledge.

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Morrow, D., D. Birrell, Greer, J., & O’Keefe, T. (1991). The churches and intercommunity relationships. Centre for the Study of Conflict. Mulholland, M. (2000). Northern Ireland at the crossroads: Ulster unionism in the O’Neill Years, 1960–9. St. Martin’s. Nelson, S. (1975). Protestant “ideology” considered: The case of “discrimination”. In I. Crewe (Ed.), British political sociology yearbook (Vol. 2: The Politics of Race, pp. 155–87). Groom Helm. Noiriel, G. (2007). Immigration, Antisémitisme et Racisme en France (XIXe– XXe) Discours Publics, Humiliations Privées. Fayard. O’Brien, C. C. (1994). Ancestral voices: Religion and nationalism in Ireland. Poolbeg. O’Callaghan, M. (2018). Conor Cruise O’Brien and the Northern Ireland conflict: Formulating a revisionist position. Irish Political Studies, 33(2), 221–231. O’Dowd, L. (1986). Beyond industrial society. In P. Clancy, S. Drudy, K. Lynch, & L. O’Dowd (Eds.), Ireland: A sociological profile (pp. 198– 220). Institute of Public Administration in association with the Sociological Association of Ireland. O’Dowd, L. (1990). Introduction. In A. Memmi (Ed.), The colonizer and the colonized (pp. 29–66). Earthscan Publications. O’Hearn, D. (1983). Catholic grievances, Catholic nationalism: A comment. British Journal of Sociology, 34(3), 438–445. O’Leary, B. (1991). Book review: Padraig O’Malley, biting the graves. Irish Political Studies, 6, 112–122. O’Malley, P. (1990). Biting at the grave: The Irish hunger strikes and the politics of despair. Blackstaff. O’Malley, P. (1995). The question of religion. Fortnight, 336, 22–27. Roche, P. J., & Barton, B. (1991). Introduction. In P. J. Roche & B. Barton (Eds.), The Northern Ireland question: Myth and reality (pp. 1–15). Avebury. Rose, R. (1971). Governing without consensus: An Irish perspective. Faber and Faber. Ruane, J., & Todd, J. (1991). ‘Why can’t you get along with each other?’: Culture, structure and the Northern Ireland conflict. In E. Hughes (Ed.), Culture and politics in Northern Ireland 1960–1990 (pp. 27–44). Open University Press. Ruane, J., & Todd, J. (1996). The dynamics of conflict in Northern Ireland: Power, conflict and emancipation. Cambridge University Press. Ruohomäki, J. (2008). “Could do better”: Academic interventions in Northern Ireland unionism [Doctoral dissertation, University of Jyväskylä]. https:// jyx.jyu.fi/bitstream/handle/123456789/18996/1/9789513933609.pdf Scull, M. M. (2019). The Catholic Church and the Northern Ireland troubles, 1968–1998. Oxford University Press.

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Southern, N. (2009). Ethnic conflict: Religion and peace-building in West Belfast. Irish Studies in International Affairs, 20, 83–101. Todd, J. (2014). Social structure and religious divisions: Comparing the form of religious distinction in the two Irish states. In J. Wolffe (Ed.), Irish religious conflict in comparative perspective (pp. 146–165). Palgrave Macmillan. Tonge, J., Braniff, M., Hennessey, T., McAuley, J. W., & Whiting, S. (2014). The democratic unionist party: From protest to power. Oxford University Press. Whyte, J. H. (1983). How much discrimination was there under Stormont 1921–68? In T. Gallagher & J. O’Connell (Eds.), Contemporary Irish studies (pp. 1–35). Manchester University Press. Whyte, J. H. (1990). Interpreting Northern Ireland. Clarendon Press. Williams, R. H. (2008). From the editor. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 47 (3), 1–4. Wood, M., & Altglas, V. (2010). Reflexivity scientificity and the sociology of religion: Pierre Bourdieu in debate. Nordic Journal of Religion and Society, 23(1), 9–26.

Conclusion

Northern Ireland is not only a problem because of the conflict and lack of political progress; it is also a problem about which theoretical questions can be asked and for which an explanatory framework can be sought. (Clayton, 1998, p. 40)

Synthesis Let me summarise the key arguments made in this book. My intention was to explore the ways in which sociologists of religion have interpreted the role of religion in Northern Ireland’s social divisions. They have been particularly prone to insist on the primacy of religious beliefs and representations and to do so they either referred to diverging tenets from rival religious institutions, attitudes of prejudice rooted in theology, a pessimistic millenarianism infusing politics or evangelicalism as the source of ethnic identity among Protestant unionists. These are seen not only as contributing to the making of collective identities and social networks, but also as perpetuating boundaries and antagonism between two competing or hegemonic ethno-religious communities. I have argued that the sociology of religion in Northern Ireland shares certain methodological, theoretical and epistemological frailties which, more often than not, are reflective of difficulties within the subfield as a whole. These interpretations of religion’s role in Northern Ireland © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 V. Altglas, Religion and Conflict in Northern Ireland, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-96950-9

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resonate with a not so uncommon propensity, within the sociology of religion, to inflate the importance of its object. In some instances, they are unsupported by empirical data, and as such, they give the impression that explaining the Northern Irish conflict by religion could be a default position. Furthermore, the claim that religion is the root of Northern Ireland’s social divisions is often justified by assertions about the region’s unique and constant social features throughout its history, back to the plantations and the European wars of religions. As a result, the political effects of religious doctrines and ideas appear to be fixed in time as well as intractable: such a deterministic explanation does not allow to fully appreciate social dynamics nor context, in the light of which the significance of religious beliefs and worldviews would have to be interpreted. Nor does it address the reasons why religious differences would be unavoidably translated into social relations of “competition” and antagonism, or even what generated “competition” in the first place. Overall, the studies of religion in Northern Ireland are often characterised by an insufficient appreciation of the social constitution of religion. For example, the Northern Irish society is depicted as made of two opposed religious “blocs”, and little attention is paid to intracommunal heterogeneity in relation to social class, gender, political orientations, religious denominations and sensibilities, which are actually essential to understand the region’s dynamics of conflict. More broadly, I have tried to show that class relations, and political and socio-economic factors especially, enable us to grasp how religious and symbolic resources can be meaningful for specific social actors, and in relation to precise socio-economic and political circumstances they experience. Beliefs and representations do therefore matter, but their significance, instead of being timeless and inexorable, varies and depends on political, economic and social dynamics that need to be addressed in the explanatory framework of Northern Ireland’s social divisions. In short, religion is not an independent variable; in fact, it became a significant and enduring source of communal conflict because distinctions based on ethno-religious identities entailed differential access to power and material resources (Ruane & Todd, 1996, p. 12). Yet paradoxically, while a certain literature insists on religion’s crucial role in Northern Ireland, it rarely tries to show how religion could contribute to the reproduction of a social order or to the distribution of social power, resources, rights, status or opportunities. Instead, it often treats religion as a self-contained phenomenon that is effective in itself, and by itself.

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This tendency to isolate the object “religion” results, in part, from a highly subjectivist approach which is prone to overstate the social significance of religious doctrines, discourses, representations and beliefs at the expense of other dimensions of religion (practice, material culture, social relations, institutions, etc.). Treating the social world as being made of, and driven by, subjective representations does not allow academics to treat religion as socially instituted and organised, nor does it enable them to explore how religion might precisely be significant in the ways in which it reproduces social stratification and divisions. Indeed, often very little is said about who are, sociologically, those who hold particular views; what are their social background, trajectory and experience; and how these interact with the wider socio-political context in which social actors find themselves. As a consequence, religious attitudes are treated as freefloating, powerful drive for action; however, a discussion about the power of ideas, where this power comes from, and how it connects to social action is missing—I will come back to this issue hereafter. To summarise, there is a need for the sociology of religion, in Northern Ireland (and elsewhere for that matter) to better appreciate the social constitution of religion beyond a narrow description of its subjective dimensions. It has to broaden its scope by exploring religious beliefs and practices in connection with other social trends and phenomena—gender, social class, ethnicity, power, politics and violence, inequalities, emotions or embodiment, just to name a few. Such decompartmentalisation of the sociological study of religion would encourage scholars to engage with debates within other sociological subfields and social theory and in turn, enhance the relevance of the study of religion for the discipline as a whole. Critical Sociology and Social Conflict In addition to theoretical and methodological weaknesses, the sociology of religion in Northern Ireland entails significant epistemological challenges generated by undertaking research in the context of a violent, but also ideological, conflict. I have underscored that subjectivising the conflict, or on the contrary, insisting on its structural and economic dimensions, unavoidably speaks to the political and moral question of responsibility—and hence to the legitimacy of the Northern Irish state. Thus, social sciences about this region of the world have unavoidably reflected public concerns and political stakes of the time—this is particularly noticeable in the writings published during the Troubles.

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Sociologists who insisted on the importance of religion in explaining Northern Ireland’s social divisions did not often consider conflicting interests, the reproduction of inequalities, socio-economic grievances and (experienced or perceived) discrimination to have great significance. But while it is inescapably political to address those specific issues, it is at the same time essential to do so in order to develop a sociologically sound interpretation of the role and significance of religion for Northern Ireland’s conflict, because religion is fully intertwined with the socioeconomic and political spheres in this region—and, most likely, in other conflict zones. Conversely, sociologists who have sympathies for nationalist communities perhaps have granted little significance to religion and focused predominantly on the reproduction of social inequalities. As a consequence, overall, important reflections on the relationships between beliefs, representations, prejudice, actors’ actions, institutional practices and social structures have been missed: this underscores that the issue with the politicisation of academic research is not so much about the legitimacy for scholars to express political positions than their failure in advancing compelling sociological interpretations. By and large, the study of religion in Northern Ireland sheds light on the sheer importance for academics to break from the beliefs and prenotions that originate in their ideological posture and social positioning. Once they engage in social and political games (the “double play”), they become tied to a taken-for-granted stance (the “illusio”), involving the prenotions and beliefs linked to specific social fields (religion, politics, etc.). As such, scholars uncritically align themselves with positions taken by social actors, which invariably lead to conflating the accounts of individuals and collective social actors with what should be their sociological analysis. Instead, socially situated discourses are authenticated as they become embedded in an argumentation that presents itself as scientific. Hickey’s work, and perhaps to a lesser extent Fulton’s, is acutely illustrative of those pitfalls, in giving an academic veneer to unionist representations and, unfortunately, replicating and giving legitimacy to sectarian views. Some would argue, perhaps rightfully, that I am making of scientific objectivity a moral principle (Reed, 2021, p. 107, in response to Altglas & Wood, 2018). But is the primary ethical responsibility placed upon us not to pursue our occupational task effectively, in other words,

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advancing knowledge about the social world? My point, above, is that using academia’s symbolic capital for moral or political objectives often proved to be incompatible with the development of an insightful sociology. My critics may also argue that it is impossible for academics not to have beliefs and values; there is therefore no possibility for us to reach an absolute objectivity. Those critics are right, but this should not justify abandoning objectivity as a standard for social scientific research altogether; nor should it be an implicit attempt to justify unreflexive academic politicking. Bruce’s latest book on the sociology of religion’s methodology offers us a response to this issue, with a soon-to-be-famous metaphor: “that it is impossible to maintain a completely septic environment does not mean that I would have been as well having my gall bladder removed in a sewer as in a hospital operating theatre” (Bruce, 2018, p. 29). Bruce (ibid., p. 9) also suggests a standard for relative objectivity: research results and argumentations should not depend on, or reflect, the social positioning of those who produced them. I have not found that every study of religion and conflict in Northern Ireland presented in his book could pass Bruce’s test. In fact, it would be fair to ponder over what some of those studies have contributed to. The sociology of religion in Northern Ireland has mostly been written in the context of a social conflict that has both physical and intellectual dimensions. During the Troubles, the “double play” was not simply about accumulating the benefits of (apparent) scientificity and a position in the public and political realm as Bourdieu (2010 [1987]) puts it. Pressures were sometimes exerted to prevent the publication of academic work, or the recruitment of academics for their political opinions and commitments (Downing, 1975). Edgar Graham, a law lecturer and unionist politician, was shot and killed on Queen’s campus in 1983, while another lecturer and founding member of the Irish Republican Socialist Party, Miriam Daly, was murdered at her home in 1980. Sinn Féin activist and QUB law student Sheena Campbell was also shot dead in October 1991 on Botanic Avenue. Some of the university’s departments were targeted with explosive devices. It is also probably fair to say that Queen’s University Belfast, Ulster’s main higher education institution, did not adequately secure academic freedom. “The official policy of Queen’s authorities has been public non-involvement and self-resignation as a political island, combined with powerful private links to the existing structure of Orange

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power” (ibid., p. 9).1 Thus, university senior management repeatedly stated the institution’s need to remain “neutral”—a controversial avoidance for those calling for a sense of civic responsibility at a time of civil violence, internment without trial and other limitations to civil rights and individual freedom (Boal & Logan, 1998, p. 125). Based on this principle of neutrality, an academic member of the university recalls the university’s explicit discouragement of social research on the conflict, the vice-chancellor considering that “Direct university involvement in society negates professional independence and jeopardizes the contract social that gives autonomy to the university in return for its institutional neutrality” (Froggatt, 1977, cited in Taylor, 1988, p. 29 and Gallagher, 2019, p. 53). As Gallagher (op. cit.) notes, this so-called neutrality in effect “placed the institution, by default, on the side of authority”. Note in passing, at present academic freedom in Northern Ireland is still distinctively affected by the politics of the region. There is little doubt that such context has an impact that we cannot, however, fully measure on academics’ public engagement, their research agenda and publications. In other words, and coming back to Reed’s (2021) comment, insisting on pursuing scientific objectivity should not be seen as a moral weapon one scholar uses against another. Instead, it might be a powerful means to call for the protection of research autonomy and academic freedom, especially for those writing about social conflicts and controversies. This might actually become vital at a time when research is increasingly co-opted in political agendas, constrained by expectations of having “social impact” for it to be funded and hence pursued. So-called social impact, is it necessary to say it, can only reflect the interests of social groups and, often, of those enjoying social power and legitimacy. This is why Bourdieu’s (2013, pp. 9–10) call for a reflexive sociology seems more important than

1 Queen’s university Belfast had strong bonds with the local elite, which was reflected in the composition of key university committees and granted power to a small group of local, middle-class Protestant males. It was riddled with ethno-religious discrimination— equally concerning were gender inequalities. The investigation by the Fair Employment Agency (1989) found that 79% of the Northern Ireland-born employees were Protestant and 21% Catholic, with no Catholics at senior level of the university’s administration. A new legal framework in Northern Ireland and subsequent complaints of discrimination presented to the Fair Employment Tribunal compelled the institution to review its policies and culture in the 1990s (Cormack & Osborne, 1983; Jones & Cassidy, 1993; Smyth, 1994; Taylor, 1987). Queen’s employment practices and workforce are nowadays in line with other British universities.

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ever: “To be truly autonomous and cumulative, and to conform fully to its scientific vocation, sociology must also and above all be reflexive … It must take itself as an object and put to work all the instruments of knowledge at its disposal to analyse and master the social effects wielded upon it and that can interfere with the properly scientific logic of its functioning”. This reflexive endeavour is essential to a critical sociology of religion: it requires a rupture with the subjective presuppositions taken for granted by both those being studied and the scholars themselves. It also implies a reflection about the social conditions in which we produce sociological knowledge, how these conditions affect this knowledge and finally, how this knowledge is instrumentalised within the religious or the political field for instance. The Northern Irish case shows that this reflexive endeavour is critical in contexts of social conflicts. What Does Religion Do? Finally, the study of religion and social conflict in Northern Ireland resonates with a fundamental theoretical issue for the sociology of religion, which is what I want to address before closing this book. By critically evaluating the interpretations of Northern Ireland’s conflict which emphasise the significant role of religious doctrines, beliefs and representations, we have been wrestling with the question of the power of ideas to make people do certain things, and ultimately to generate social, violent conflicts. In other words, the discussion about the role of religion in Northern Ireland poses the general question of what does religion do? Throughout this book, I criticised a radical subjectivism among scholars of religion in Northern Ireland, prone to make of doctrines, personal beliefs and worldviews the roots and drive of social dynamics. Consequently, the reader is frequently confronted with the assumption that, from representations and discourses, we can infer a direct link to social practice, interaction, mobilisation and, in turn, social structure and conflict. At the extreme, religious doctrine is said to “account for sociological reality” (Hickey, 1984, p. 63). The relationship between subjective reality and social action is subsequently under-theorised, if theorised at all: the reader just has to accept it exists and that it is relatively straightforward. The various attempts to explain Northern Ireland’s conflict, however, proved us otherwise. The sociology of religion in Northern Ireland, and elsewhere, needs a more solid approach to social action. This leads us back to Max Weber,

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not least because I noticed that scholars who argue that religious values and beliefs are the source of conflict and divisions in Northern Ireland often justify their approach by referring to the Weberian interpretative or comprehensive sociology. There is nothing surprising: sociologists of religion have been, by and large, heavily influenced by Weber, because of his emphasis on religious meaning and its potential effects on life conduct. However, Weber is interested in worldviews and values in so far as they can affect what we do and how we conduct ourselves. In fact, Weber (1978 [1922]) envisages sociology as a science of social practice, which aims to differentiate various types of actions. In other words, the main object of the comprehensive sociology is social action, not meaning (Weber, 1981, p. 152). From this point of view, disconnecting the study of worldviews and representations from what people do is a limitation to the sociological investigation, if not a misunderstanding of the Weberian project. Instead, as sociologists of religion, we should pay more attention to the ways in which individuals’ beliefs and views connect with their practices, actions and behaviours—a missing link I have underscored in the study of religion and conflict in Northern Ireland. This has implications for research strategies that too often draw solely on the method of interview and hence on discourses produced in particular settings. Indeed, the over-reliance on qualitative interviews can be problematic when sociologists want to infer, from individual discourses, what people actually do. One would find that quite often, what people do and what they say they do are two different things. Secondly, I am not sure that discourses allow us to assess the effects of religious representations and beliefs on social actors’ actions and conducts. For instance, when do religious values and beliefs contribute to motivation or, on the contrary, to the justification for action they would have undertaken anyway, or both (Vaisey, 2009)? This poses the question of whether sociologists capture the effects of religious views on the behaviours of social actors, or their pre-existing social dispositions to conduct themselves in a certain way, and for reasons that might, or might not, relate to their religious convictions (or, again, a bit of both). This seems impossible to assess, especially when interview techniques decontextualise discourses (as often noticed in the sociology of religion in Northern Ireland) and do not analyse them in relation to individual’s class, gender, age, social trajectory, etc. Social practices, conduct and actions are better captured by ethnography and methods of observation; it is an obvious statement to make, but these methodological approaches are strikingly underused

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within the sociology of religion. In fact, I have underlined that ethnographic research in Northern Ireland has provided a unique insight into the ways in which religious symbolism, representations and beliefs are embedded in social actors’ practices, collective mobilisation and how they resonate with specific social experiences and the wider social, economic and political context. Furthermore, I’m always surprised by the ways in which those referring to Weber to affirm the primacy—or even the autonomy—of the subjective reality are oblivious to Weber’s attention to material interests. By and large, sociologists of religion have paid little attention to the question of social class2 critical of Marxism’s understanding of religion (i.e. religion being simply a function of class position, although Marxist theory has more to say about religion than the way it is often described). As far as the Northern Irish case study is concerned, it was also suggested that Marxism’s role in political contentions probably affected academics’ propensity to address social structure and stratification. Thus, authors (e.g. Hickey, 1984, pp. 62–63; Mitchell, 2006, pp. 118–119) selectively draw on quotes from Weber’s work which reject a reductive materialism and never take stock of Weber’s consideration to complex interplays between ideas, material interests and social conduct. There is therefore a need to address misconceptions around Weber’s consideration of values and worldviews which have too often led to an over-inflation of subjective reality and a lack of consideration of how the subjective relates to social positions and trajectories, practices, conducts and, in turn, social change. These misconceptions are rather unfortunate, because there is a lot to learn from Weber’s work, about what religion might actually do. In his reflection on social sciences, Weber (1949, p. 56) argues that worldviews cannot be deduced from a specific class position. Yet he also states that the individual’s adherence to a particular view of the world depends, to a large extent, on its “elective affinities” with their class interests. This echoes with fascinating pages Weber wrote on the religious transfiguration of good fortune and suffering. The “theodicy of 2 There are exceptions—for example, Wood (2007) links social class to practices of possession in his work on New Age. Schäfer (2015) has developed a quantitative method to analyse habitus in the religious field, based on fieldwork in Pentecostal movements in Latin America. The research I conducted on the middle-classes, religious exoticism and techniques of the self explores the relationships between social class, governance and socio-economic constraints as being key to understand religious systems of beliefs and practices and individual religious trajectories (Altglas, 2014).

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good fortune” legitimates the conditions of existence of the privileged (it is not enough for human beings to have a good life, they also need to believe they deserve it, says Weber), while the promises from a religion’s hopes of salvation are oriented towards the less favoured (Weber, 2004 [1915]). In his sociology of religion, Weber explores at length the ways in which different social strata (the bureaucrats, the intellectuals, the peasants, the warriors and the bourgeoisie) and their respective life conduct had a determinant imprint on specific religions and their characteristic features which, through their “practical impulses for action”, in turn affected economic ethics (Weber, 1978 [1922], 1993 [1922], 2004 [1915], p. 56). Of course, this intellectual endeavour is best achieved in The Protestant Ethics and The Spirit of Capitalism, describing “elective affinities” between religious ethics and economic behaviour, in particular between Puritan asceticism and the practice of saving, between the Protestant work ethic and the bourgeois work discipline, between the Puritan requirement of methodical life conduct and the rational pursuit of profit (Weber, 1992 [1905]). His references to “elective affinities” convey ideas of relationship of reciprocal attraction and influence, mutual choice, active convergence and mutual strengthening between social position, material interest, religious meaning and life conduct, and which are never simple or monocausal (Löwy, 2004, p. 99; Weber, 2004 [1915], p. 56). The Weberian approach to religion precludes both a reductive analysis of religious beliefs as simply reflecting social structures and conditions, and an absolute subjectivist approach giving religious message autonomy or primacy (Bourdieu, 1987 [1971], p. 119). From this point of view, it is perhaps not so much materialism than unidirectional and reductive interpretations that Weber rejects, whether it is a materialist or a subjective determinism. Those who believe religion continues to reign on Ulster’s politics would learn from the Weberian approach to meaning and action. In a classic citation, Weber presents interests as the primary drive for social action, while representations and values somewhat provide an orientation to the ways in which this material interests will find their expression: It is interests (material and ideal), and not ideas, which have directly governed the actions of human beings. But the ‘worldviews’ that have been created by ideas have very often, like switches, decided the lines on which the dynamics of interests have propelled behaviours. (Weber, 2004 [1915], p. 69)

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Arlene Foster did not lose the leadership of the DUP because she was unable to prevent the decriminalisation of abortion in Northern Ireland, or because she abstained on the vote concerning gay conversion therapy. Instead, critics argue that it was a fear of losing elected office and the party’s alarming decline in the polls in the approaching 2022 elections that prompted DUP representatives to demand Foster’s resignation—in other words, the necessity to maintain political power. Yet the public allegiance and references to Christian values among those who forced Arlene Foster from the highest political office in Northern Ireland at such a crucial time in the state’s history are not unsignificant either. These are the “switches” that give a certain shape to social action. They signal a desire to reassert political control via the hard-line politics that once earned the DUP its success and, against all odds, compel the United Kingdom and the EU to remove the sea border, repeal abortion laws and, above all, stem the influence of Sinn Féin and Irish nationalism. The conservative religious positions of Foster’s successor, Edwin Poots, did not grant him solid grounds as leader of the DUP: his downfall took place after twentyone days, accused of having compromised with Sinn Féin’s demands on an Irish Language act. Perhaps it would have been otherwise, had Poots known that, after all, “theodicies are always sociodicies” (Bourdieu, 1991 [1971], p. 16).

References Altglas, V. (2014). From Yoga to Kabbalah: Religious exoticism and the logics of bricolage. Oxford University Press. Altglas, V., & Wood, M. (2018). Introduction: An epistemology for the sociology of religion. In V. Altglas & M. Wood (Eds.), Bringing the social back into the sociology of religion (pp. 1–34). Brill. Boal, F. W., & Logan, K. (1998). A shared space in a divided society: The Queens University of Belfast. In H. van der Wusten (Ed.), The urban university and its identity (pp. 121–135). Springer. Bourdieu, P. (1987 [1971]). Legitimation and structured interests in Weber’s sociology of religion. In S. Lash & S. Whimster (Eds.), Max Weber, rationality and modernity (pp. 119–136). Allen & Unwin. Bourdieu, P. (1991 [1971]). Genesis and structure of the religious field. Comparative Social Research, 13, 1–44.

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Bourdieu, P. (2010 [1987]). Sociologists of belief and beliefs of sociologists. Nordic Journal of Religion and Society, 23(1), 1–7. Bourdieu, P. (2013). In praise of sociology: Acceptance speech for the gold medal of the CNRS. Sociology, 47 (1), 7–14. Bruce, S. (2018). Researching religion: Why we need social science. Oxford University Press. Clayton, P. (1998). Religion, ethnicity and colonialism as explanations of the Northern Ireland conflict. In D. Miller (Ed.), Rethinking Northern Ireland: Culture, ideology and colonialism (pp. 40–54). Longman. Cormack, R. J., & Osborne, R. D. (Eds.). (1983). Religion, education and employment: Aspects of equal opportunity in Northern Ireland. Appletree Press. Downing, J. (1975). Nothing to hide: The Boehringer case and academic freedom in Northern Ireland. Council for Academic Freedom and Democracy. Fair Employment Agency for Northern Ireland. (1989). Report of an investigation into the Queen’s University of Belfast under section 12 of the fair employment (NI) act 1976. Fair Employment Agency. Gallagher, T. (2019). Embedding engagement: The example of Queen’s University Belfast. In S. Bergan, I. Harkavy, & R. Munck (Eds.), The local mission of higher education: Principles and practice (pp. 52–61). Glasnevin Publishing. Hickey, J. (1984). Religion and the Northern Ireland problem. Gill & Macmillan. Jones, B., & Cassidy, F. (1993). Equality of opportunity and fair participation in employment: The review by employment equality services of the structure, procedures and practices of the university, as they relate to the provision for and application of equality of opportunity and fair participation in employment, together with the university’s response to the recommendations arising from the review. Queen’s University of Belfast. Löwy, M. (2004). Le Concept d’Affinité Elective chez Max Weber. Archives de Sciences Sociales des Religions, 127 , 93–103. Mitchell, C. (2006). Religion, identity and politics in Northern Ireland: Boundaries of belonging and belief . Routledge. Reed, J.-P. (2021). Review of Véronique Altglas and Matthew Wood (Eds.), Bringing back the social into the sociology of religion: Critical approaches. Critical Research on Religion, 9(1), 107–110. Ruane, J., & Todd, J. (1996). The dynamics of conflict in Northern Ireland: Power, conflict and emancipation. Cambridge University Press. Schäfer, H. W. (2015). Habitus-analysis 1: Epistemology and language. Springer. Smyth, C. (1994). Queen’s University Belfast & the fair employment crisis: Competing theories and probable futures. Queen’s University of Belfast Department of Politics. Taylor, R. (1987). The limits of liberalism: The case of Queen’s academics and the “Troubles.” Politics, 7 (2), 28–34.

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Taylor, R. (1988). The Queen’s University of Belfast: The liberal university in a divided society. Higher Education Review, 20(2), 27–45. Vaisey, S. (2009). Motivation and justification: A dual-process model of culture in action. American Journal of Sociology, 114(6), 1675–1715. Weber, M. (1949). The methodology of the social sciences. Free Press. Weber, M. (1978 [1922]). Economy and society: An outline of interpretive sociology. University of California Press. Weber, M. (1981). Some categories of interpretive sociology. The Sociological Quarterly, 22(2), 151–180. Weber, M. (1992 [1905]). The protestant ethic and the spirit of capitalism. Routledge. Weber, M. (1993 [1922]). Sociology of religion. Beacon Press. Weber, M. (2004 [1915]). Weber’s ‘introduction to the economic ethics of the world religions’. In S. Whimster (Ed.), The essential Weber: A reader (pp. 55– 80). Routledge. Wood, M. (2007). Possession, power and the new age: Ambiguities of authority in neoliberal societies. Ashgate.

Index

A academic freedom, 7, 125, 126 academic knowledge, 7, 9, 11, 77, 94, 103–105, 111, 112, 115, 125, 127 alienation, 15, 62, 80, 82 anti-Catholicism, 7, 16, 17, 23, 33, 44, 46, 69–73, 79, 81, 82, 86, 87, 95, 98, 103, 114, 116. See also sectarianism anti-Protestantism, 114, 116. See also sectarianism

B Belfast, 2, 16, 21, 27, 30, 33, 48, 56, 57, 59, 77, 79, 106, 125, 126 beliefs, 3–11, 33, 42–46, 48, 60, 69–71, 73–77, 79, 82, 83, 87, 94, 95, 97–100, 102, 104, 111, 112, 114, 116, 121–125, 127–130 Bourdieu, Pierre, 7, 8, 104, 125, 126, 130, 131

Brewer, John, 4, 7, 15, 44, 46, 70–72, 81, 116 Brexit, 2, 27–29, 60, 81 Bruce, Steve, 4, 16, 17, 19, 23, 43–46, 49, 50, 55, 56, 58, 60–62, 73, 74, 79, 82, 85, 112, 113, 125

C Catholic Church, 17–19, 23, 31, 52, 53, 55, 70, 71, 95–97, 99–103, 115 conflict, 4–7, 9–11, 15, 18, 21, 22, 24, 26, 34, 42, 43, 45–52, 54, 56, 60–62, 68, 70, 73, 74, 76, 77, 83, 87, 94–97, 99, 101–107, 110–113, 115, 116, 122, 123, 125–128

D Democratic Unionist Party. See DUP deprivation, 22, 30, 79, 82, 86, 113

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 V. Altglas, Religion and Conflict in Northern Ireland, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-96950-9

135

136

INDEX

discourses, 6, 23, 44, 49, 52, 56, 62, 69, 71–73, 75, 76, 81, 85, 101, 102, 104, 109, 123, 124, 127, 128 discrimination, 5, 10, 19, 49, 69–72, 86, 94, 106–112, 114, 124, 126 discriminatory. See discrimination double play, 7, 104, 124, 125 DUP, 2, 3, 23–25, 28, 30, 34, 44, 52, 56–59, 107, 131

E elective affinities, 129, 130 emic and etic, 101, 104 epistemological. See epistemology epistemology, 4–6, 10, 11, 77, 87, 94, 95, 103, 121, 123 ethnic. See ethnicity ethnicity, 14, 30, 31, 44, 46, 47, 51, 57, 60, 61, 70, 73, 75, 76, 78, 80, 82, 113, 121, 123 evangelicalism, 9, 17, 23, 32, 34, 44, 45, 55, 57, 59–62, 115, 121

F Foster, Arlene, 2, 3, 131 Free Presbyterian, 2, 58 Free Presbyterian Church, 23, 56, 59 Fulton, John, 4, 5, 43, 44, 47, 48, 50, 75, 76, 95, 101–104, 111, 124 fundamentalism, 2, 9, 23, 33, 44, 55, 59, 62, 96, 103

G Good Friday Agreement (GFA). See Peace Agreement

H hegemony, 3, 19, 21, 43, 62, 75, 78, 101, 103, 105 Hickey, John, 4, 7, 43, 46, 47, 50, 74, 94–104, 109, 111, 124, 127, 129 historical determinism, 7, 10, 42, 48, 49

I identity, 3, 4, 9, 14, 17–20, 27, 30–32, 34, 42–44, 48, 50, 51, 57, 58, 60–62, 68–71, 73, 75, 77, 79, 80, 82, 87, 97, 105, 106, 111, 114, 121, 122 illusio, 95, 104, 109, 124 IRA. See Irish Republican Army Irish Republican Army, 22, 24, 25, 62, 71, 79, 86, 97, 99

L labouring classes. See working-class legitimacy, 5, 10, 18, 24, 53, 58, 100, 106, 107, 113, 123, 124, 126 loyalism, 10, 20–25, 28, 29, 44, 47, 48, 53–57, 59–62, 69, 71, 74, 77–86, 102, 106, 112, 115 loyalist. See loyalism

M Marxism, 76, 82, 103, 105, 106, 112, 129 Marxist. See Marxism materialism, 94, 129, 130 methodological. See methodology methodology, 4, 6, 11, 51, 52, 121, 123, 125, 128 middle-classes. See social class Mitchell, Claire, 4, 33, 50–54, 59, 68, 69, 74, 76, 82, 95, 112–115

INDEX

N nationalism (Irish), 3, 17, 23, 34, 48, 55, 60, 62, 68, 71, 96, 99, 100, 102, 109–111, 113, 131 nationalist, 21, 22, 24, 25, 28, 33, 48, 50, 53, 58, 80, 85, 99, 101–103, 106, 107, 109, 112, 115, 124 O Orange Order, 17, 19, 25, 52, 61, 72, 75, 77, 80, 81, 101, 115 P Paisley, Ian, 23–25, 34, 44, 55–61, 71, 83, 85–87, 97 Paisleyism. See Paisley, Ian paramilitary, 20–24, 44, 53, 56, 79, 82, 86, 102, 103 Peace Agreement, 9, 22, 24–28, 53, 57, 58, 73, 80, 112 poverty, 15, 27, 80, 87, 108, 109, 113. See also deprivation power, 5, 6, 8, 14, 15, 17, 18, 20, 24, 25, 34, 43, 47, 51–54, 56–59, 61, 69, 72, 75, 76, 79, 80, 82–84, 87, 100, 102, 104–108, 116, 122, 123, 126, 127, 131 practices, 6, 7, 10, 16, 49, 50, 70, 72–77, 79, 85–87, 108, 109, 111, 114, 116, 123, 124, 126, 128, 129 prejudice, 4, 9, 10, 42, 44, 45, 100, 101, 103, 109, 114, 116, 121, 124 Presbyterianism, 14–17, 19, 31, 33, 53, 55, 70 R reflexive. See reflexivity

137

reflexivity, 7, 8, 11, 106, 125, 127 representations, 4, 6, 9, 10, 23, 31, 43, 44, 51, 61, 62, 69, 71, 72, 74–76, 79, 80, 82, 83, 87, 94, 95, 97, 98, 101, 102, 104, 107, 112, 115, 121–124, 127, 128, 130 republican, 17, 18, 20–22, 24, 25, 29, 30, 33, 53, 54, 57, 79, 80, 82, 86, 99, 102, 103, 105, 107, 111 republicanism, 21, 99, 105, 109 S sectarian. See sectarianism sectarianism, 5, 8, 10, 16, 18, 20, 21, 24–26, 29–31, 34, 43, 49, 69–76, 78, 80–82, 85, 86, 94, 101, 103, 105, 107–109, 114–116, 124 secular, 54, 56–58, 60, 85, 103 secularisation, 9, 18, 29, 32, 54, 59 segregation, 26, 27, 30, 51 Sinn Féin, 24, 29, 34, 105, 125, 131 social action, 6, 43, 74, 87, 104, 123, 127, 130, 131 social class, 5, 7, 9, 10, 14, 16, 17, 19, 20, 23–25, 30, 31, 34, 48, 51, 54, 56–59, 61, 69, 71, 72, 76–86, 94, 97, 105–108, 110, 112, 122, 123, 126, 128, 129 social differentiation, 6, 10, 46, 51, 70, 76, 81, 82 social divisions, 4, 6, 8, 10, 42–44, 49–51, 55, 68–70, 72, 73, 75–77, 81, 83, 84, 94, 104, 107, 111, 113, 116, 121, 122, 124 social inequalities, 3, 5, 8, 10, 11, 27, 32, 44, 46, 51, 72, 73, 76, 80, 83, 87, 94, 103, 105–114, 116, 123, 124, 126 social stratification, 48, 51, 69–71, 75, 76, 83, 105, 114, 123, 129

138

INDEX

social structure, 3, 5–8, 10, 17, 42–44, 46, 49, 51–53, 69, 73–75, 77, 80, 83, 85, 87, 94, 95, 99, 103, 104, 106, 111, 113, 114, 124, 127, 129, 130 sociology of religion, 3, 5–7, 11, 49, 69, 74, 76, 77, 87, 94, 95, 106, 111, 121, 123, 125, 127, 128, 130 subjective. See subjectivism subjectivisation. See subjectivism subjectivising. See subjectivism subjectivism, 6, 7, 10, 51, 70, 73, 74, 76, 94, 96, 112, 115, 116, 123, 127, 129, 130 T Troubles, 10, 19–22, 44, 46, 52, 53, 56, 77, 85, 87, 94, 95, 98, 99, 101, 104, 108–110, 123, 125 U Ulster Unionist Party, 19, 20, 25, 58, 61, 81, 85

unionism, 2, 3, 9, 16–21, 23–25, 28, 30, 33, 34, 44, 45, 50–52, 55–62, 68, 71, 72, 80–85, 87, 96, 97, 100, 102, 105, 107, 109, 111, 112, 115, 121, 124, 125 unionist. See unionism united Ireland, 20, 21, 60, 62, 84, 102, 107 unreflexive. See reflexivity

V violence, 2, 5–7, 9, 10, 15, 20–22, 24, 25, 28, 44, 45, 47, 48, 50, 54, 55, 62, 73, 74, 77, 79–82, 85–87, 95, 97, 98, 102, 103, 105–107, 109, 110, 115, 123, 126, 127

W Weber, Max, 6, 11, 110, 127–130 working-class. See social class worldview, 6, 8, 43–45, 74, 75, 81, 83, 102, 122, 127–130