Northern Ireland and Lebanon are deeply divided societies, kindred spirits which share a common set of characteristics that have at different times acted as catalysts for protracted ethnic conflict, elite bargains and peaceful coexistence between rival communities. Their experiences vary wildly in the post-Cold War era, yet there are valuable lessons to be learned from the failure of state building in one for the prospects of a shared future in the other.

Lebanon is a small mountainous Mediterranean country which gained its independence during the Second World War under the French mandate. Preserving old traditions of elite bargaining, its dominant Christian and Muslim elites established a power sharing system of government which, despite the tough neighbourhood it was born into, endures today. At the time, this bargain was premised on maintaining Lebanon’s neutrality in regional Arab politics. That meant setting aside Maronite Christian separatist and Sunni Arab unionist aspirations. The 1943 National Pact, as it became known, functioned well enough until the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO) established its headquarters in Lebanon after it was expelled from Jordan in 1970. The PLO’s presence sucked Lebanon ever deeper into the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, aggravating existing political and socio-economic tensions between its different communities. In 1975 the pact collapsed, and civil war broke out, a conflict which lasted fifteen years and left an estimated one hundred and fifty thousand people dead. Occupied by Israel and Syria, with rival militias laying waste and laying claim to different parts of the state, Lebanon’s traditional elites tried to salvage the pact by accepting the 1989 Ta’if Accords—a Saudi-US brokered agreement which charged Syria with restoring Lebanon’s national institutions. Northern Ireland also experienced the collapse of what were newly established power-sharing institutions in the mid-1970s. The British Government was making its first attempt to end direct rule from Westminster by marrying the forces of constitutional nationalism and unionism in opposition to rival groups who were pursuing their objectives through violence or a mixture of politics and the threat of violence. This experiment in mandatory coalition failed. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, a refined consociational agreement finally put an end to violent conflict in Northern Ireland. This time power-sharing was not employed simply as a means of ending British direct rule or furthering Irish unity. An imaginative and inclusive intergovernmental framework was designed to reconcile the two traditions. If the (1988-1991) Soviet demise provided the context for an international agreement to end Lebanon’s civil war, it enabled British and Irish governments to negotiate a comprehensive constitutional settlement, with constructive US support, to regulate political violence in Northern Ireland.

Hyper-sensitive to shifts in international relations, the success of peace accords in Lebanon and Northern Ireland is predicated on the commitment of their guarantors to ensure that they are implemented, policed and nurtured. With American balancing, the Ta’if Agreement aimed to modernise and liberalise Lebanon’s old power-sharing formula, facilitate the future withdrawal of Israeli and Syrian occupying forces, and initiate the reconstruction of a shattered state with petrodollars. Iraq’s decision to invade its oil rich neighbour put paid to this agenda in 1990. Syria’s decision to provide Arab cover to the Western coalition that liberated Kuwait saw it rewarded with petrodollars and the freedom to govern Lebanon without American micromanaging. It is true that Syrian hegemony (1990-2005) brought a degree of peace and stability to this war-torn country, but the loss of sovereignty, the dereliction of the Ta’if reforms, and the politicisation of Lebanon’s civil war militias prevented intercommunal reconciliation.

Bashar al-Asad became president of Syria after his father’s death in 2000, and it was not long before he found himself on the wrong side of US President George W Bush’s ‘war on terror’. The 2003 US led invasion of Iraq, made possible by 11 September 2001 al-Qaeda attacks, represented a hammer blow to the Middle East state system. Lacking his father’s authority and experience, Bashar al-Asad lost control of Lebanon in 2005. The assassination of its charismatic pro-Western Sunni prime minister, Rafic Hariri, divided the country into rival coalitions. Led by pro-Iranian Islamist party Hizballah, the 8 March Alliance viewed Lebanon as the frontline state in a perennial struggle against the US and its regional proxy Israel. Supported by the Christian and Muslim parties which had driven the Syrians out in response to Hariri’s murder, the 14 March Alliance sought to bind Lebanon to the Sunni Arab regional order being championed by Saudi Arabia. Hizballah won the first bout in this contest, surviving Israel’s invasion of Lebanon in 2006. Iran was the primary beneficiary of the subsequent failure of US state building in the region. Since 2011, it has used Hizballah to prevent Asad from losing the war for Syria and protecting Lebanon’s borders from Islamists and Zionists. Baited by Hamas and Israel over the destruction of Gaza that was made possible by the kibbutz massacres of 7 October 2023, there is no question of Hizballah’s readiness to take the hit for Iran in a wider regional conflict at a time of its choosing. Lebanon, therefore, remains in limbo.

During the same period, the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) and the Provisional IRA’s political wing, Sinn Féin, dominated Northern Ireland’s political institutions. Both parties lost the conflict over Northern Ireland on their own terms. But having won the peace, they eventually came together and accepted it. By 2006, emotive issues thrown up by the Belfast Agreement such as police reform, prisoner releases, and decommissioning had been largely resolved and the electoral defeat of moderate unionist and nationalist rivals the previous year heralded the DUP-SF marriage of convenience. With no ideological skin in the game of working towards a non-sectarian shared future, and after making self-serving amendments to the Belfast Agreement’s internal mechanisms at St Andrews (2006), they shared power on a transactional basis between 2007-17. The St Andrews agreement allowed them to agree to disagree agreeably and, for the most part, they worked Stormont’s institutions to their mutual benefit. Consequently, the regional legislative assembly served its first full term since 1965-69. Stable Anglo-Irish relations provided the canopy under which the wounds of the decades of terrorism and political violence began to heal in what was the European Union’s least strategically important flashpoint. Irish society modernised, secularised, and in some respects, became more multicultural. Compared with the long-suffering Lebanese, the Irish had never had it so good, that is until 2016 when the Conservative Government lost a referendum over the UK’s continued membership of the E.U.

One of the many alarming aspects of the crisis that Brexit provoked in Northern Ireland’s peace process, and for questions of constitutional change more broadly in the context of a future border poll on a united Ireland, is that despite having had over fifty years to get comfortable with the idea of political coexistence, and adjust to the sort of constitutional engineering that can make it possible, Brexit illustrated just how fragile the culture of power-sharing between the two traditions on this island actually is. In contrast to Lebanon’s traditional elites, many of whom were desperate to take advantage of the chance offered by the end of the Cold war to return to the status quo ante bellum—power-sharing arrangements based on the concept of ‘no victor-no vanquished’—too many parties in Northern Ireland were content enough to let its institutions fail when it served their short-term interests.

Despite its anti-EU instincts, Brexit was a remarkable success for Sinn Féin. It appears to offer republicans a shortcut to a united Ireland, one that does not entail all the long-term heavy lifting of making Northern Ireland work. Despite DUP leader Jeffrey Donaldson’s devolutionist instincts, Brexit was an unmitigated disaster for his party, serving up just the sort of betrayal by a Westminster government that Ulster unionists have lived in fear of since partition. One outcome is that the DUP appears to have lost the nerve to confidently project power alongside Sinn Féin. Instead, its leaders are hedging their bets and consolidating their vote share, unprepared to take political risks to determine the unionist community’s long-term future.

Fifty years ago, not long before Northern Ireland’s first power-sharing executive took office, Conservative prime minister Edward Heath apparently told Ulster Unionist leader Brian Faulkner that power-sharing with Irish nationalists was the price that his party must pay for maintaining the union. Faced with an IRA insurgency and an Irish Government incapable of advancing any significant political, cultural or societal change to facilitate peaceful coexistence north of the border, very few of Faulkner’s senior colleagues invested political capital in the venture. The public were more sanguine about the coalition government’s prospects however, and Faulkner’s loyalist opponents were forced to resort to unconstitutional action to bring it down. Twenty-five years later, another unionist leader succeeded where Faulkner had failed. David Trimble convinced enough of his senior colleagues that power-sharing with nationalists was the only way that his community could secure its long-term future within the UK.

Devolved government at Stormont was restored, but over the last twenty-five years Stormont’s institutions have suffered numerous suspensions, most recently, the DUP boycott over Northern Ireland’s post Brexit trading relationship with the rest of the UK. Since February 2022, Donaldson has been trying to find a way back through talks with the British Government over the Windsor Framework. Presumably, he has been making the same point to party colleagues that Heath made to Faulkner not long after the start of the troubles.

By shifting the economic border between the UK and the Republic of Ireland to the middle of the Irish Sea, Conservative prime minister Boris Johnson arguably did more damage to the union than three decades of IRA violence. Sympathy for Donaldson’s predicament is in short supply, however. By succumbing to English nationalist arguments about the restoration of British sovereignty from the EU and convincing themselves that a ‘hard Brexit’ would put the spine back into the border between the two parts of Ireland, the DUP was hoist by its own petard. More than that, on both sides of the political divide at Westminster, it is not hard to detect a sneaking regard for Johnson’s duplicity. Having nudged the unionist community firmly towards a united Ireland without altering Northern Ireland’s constitutional position within the UK, Johnson went considerably further in addressing the Irish question than any of his contemporary predecessors. Johnson’s ‘hard Brexit’ shook the Belfast Agreement’s foundations, and it is the Conservative Government rather than the DUP that is primarily responsible for the attendant collapse in public confidence in Northern Ireland’s political institutions.

If Irish nationalists win a referendum on Northern Ireland’s constitutional future due to the failure of these institutions, it will provide the weakest basis imaginable for a shared future between the peoples of this island, for power-sharing is the price that they must pay for reunification—its failure in the north will ultimately lead to its failure on an all-island basis.

If there is a lesson that all democratic traditions on the island of Ireland should take from Lebanon’s experience it is this. Through recurring bouts of civil war, its deeply ethnicised religious communities forged a syncretistic national identity that binds each to the other—for better or for worse—yet regional turmoil, or the ever-present threat of regional turmoil, has robbed them of any prospect of peaceful coexistence and national reconciliation. Its peoples have never had it so good. They have never enjoyed the political good will, the economic sponsorship, or the security guarantees that the Irish take for granted.

Certainly the same cannot be said of the peoples of Northern Ireland, or indeed the peoples of Ireland as a whole. Despite the relative tranquillity of the state system to which Northern Ireland comprises a peripheral part and the benevolence displayed towards it by the actors within it, its deeply ethnicised communities remain unreconciled towards one another. Lebanon is a nation without a state, Ireland is a state without a nation.

Brexit disrupted the tripartite alliance of British, Irish and American governments that acted as midwife to Northern Ireland’s power-sharing institutions. There is no doubt about that. Post-Brexit, the ease with which these institutions have been cast aside by Sinn Fein and the DUP, the absence of an opposition that is capable of filling a political vacuum at Stormont or a civil society with the gravitas to persuade the DUP and SF to reconsider their zero-sum calculations, in tandem with the relative disinterest of the electorate on both sides of the border offer sobering reminders that much work remains to be done before the democratic traditions on this island can fully address the legacy of the conflict and determine what a shared future on an all-Ireland basis must entail.

Michael Kerr is Professor of Conflict Studies at the Department of War Studies, King’s College London

The recent politics of Europe have brought home to many of us the continuing vitality of fears related to social change: what is best described as the fear of cultural loss. Conservative politics across Europe, from Hungary to Spain, have fuelled a sense of the world having evolved in ways that are said to bring irreparable loss to nations, cultures and individuals. In many cases this sense of loss is located in various issues, but fears for British and Irish national and gendered identities consistently inform the theme .

In any account of cultures of loss, is how complex is the making of that sense of loss. If we take the Republic of Ireland as one of the many examples of a country which has, in the past fifty years, seen a transformation of its laws around gender and sexuality, we can see how a powerful literature has supported those changes at the same time as re-considering Irish history. In the works of Sebastian Barry, John Banville, Clare Keegan and Colm Toibin aspects of the past in Ireland are shown in all their evasions, deceits and punitive practices. Yet, what is also recalled is a powerful sense of ‘being Irish’, an identity forged out of the eight hundred years of struggle for independence from the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. That element in the individual sense of having a national identity can inform both sides of the ‘culture wars’ and demonstrates how diverse the construction of cultural loss may be.

Nostalgia has long been considered one of the major English narratives; a way of looking at the past which assumes fixed English identities and a ‘great’ historical past. In this sense its current re-iteration is nothing new and as always provided a place of sanctuary for societies as divided as those of Northern Ireland. But it is not a story which has always convinced everyone, even those often associated with that canonical English literature which may be read as an endorsement of the past. When the English novelist Evelyn Waugh was confronted with a comment about the consistently excellent behaviour of the ‘English gentleman’ he remarked that he himself had never noticed this. Yet this mythical persona has formed the basis of considerable fiction, invoking a world of accepted social cohesion.

That vision of the past, of the ‘good’ and munificent ruling class of England never of course existed. England, the United Kingdom and the Empire were ruled by the privileged for the privileged with occasional bursts of altruism and social improvement. Despite the best efforts of conservative historians such Niall Ferguson and Andrew Roberts to argue the case for the general improvement the British Empire brought to its inhabitants, the balance sheet of the past two hundred years of British history suggests a very different picture .

However, that picture remains deeply alluring for millions of British people especially those who fear attacks or critique of their identities. It is a history of white people (usually male people) strutting the world and exerting dominance over domestic and foreign populations. Should an enemy threaten then a saviour will emerge and the British will come together to fight off this enemy. The traction of the still potent example of Britain’s part in the Second World War remains and has been seen to remain in debates over Brexit a dominant strand in our nostalgia about ourselves. Despite the fact that the human and material resources of both the Soviet Union and the United States played the decisive roles in the Second World War ‘we’ won the war and with it a much-enhanced vision of our national culture. The war time rhetoric of ‘all being in this together’, as problematic as it was then, was used yet again by the Cameron government to justify vicious policies of spending cuts. .[1]

It is through this endless re-play of moments of historical unity and moral clarity that in the second decade of the twenty first century millions of British people feel that the world in which they now live has lost much that is valuable, a sense of loss which it is particularly acute for older generations who did not fight in the Second World War but whose parents did. Younger generations may have little recognition about ‘the war’ given that 1939-1945 were years belonging not just to their grand-parents but also to their great grand- parents. But what that generation has grown up with up is another fundamental transformation of the social world as great as that of the loss of the Empire and its accompanying sense of British global influence and power. Legislative changes across much of the world have endorsed both different kinds of sexual relations and access to forms of contraception and divorce. In these changes what has disappeared for many people is the sense of ownership over the personal relationships of others: the right for a community or a neighbourhood to condemn behaviour (be it homosexuality or the birth of children outside marriage) that does not accord with prevailing norms . Upholding the norms of previous generations, as the case of Northern Ireland suggests is as much a form of political allegiance as resistance to sexual liberalism. Examples of this kind of condemnation constitute too much of the world’s social history. Even when a figure such as Alan Turing played a decisive part in England’s development of radar in the Second World prevailing laws about homosexuality condemned Turing to vicious medical treatments.

On questions of current English views about both sexuality and our national history evidence suggests deep, although not overwhelming, generational differences. It is a pattern to be found across Europe where generations who have grown up since the 1960s and 1970s generally have more accepting views about different sexual choices and less commitment to grandiose, and highly sanitised versions, of English history. But before it is assumed that this entire generation, either in England or elsewhere, occupies a new tolerant space it is important to look more closely at what underlies these changes and what is a fissure, across much of Europe, between different social groups .

One of the first places to look for the origins of Right wing views the views which have supported Donald Trump in the US, Vox in Spain, Reform UK in the United Kingdom and National Rally in France is concern for the erosion of racial and ethnic difference. For example, in her study of the radically divergent lives of two women from Arkansas in the US (The Forgotten Girls) Monica Potts wrote of ‘dominant group status threat’. Essentially, poor white people in the US felt that the colour of their skin owed them a measure of security and comfort; white was, and should be, more privileged than black. Immigration in European countries contributed to the perception that the particular privileges that made up being English (or French or Spanish or American) were being eroded by these changes. ‘Being‘ (English or French et al) had implicitly meant being of a single race, heterosexual and convinced of a country’s ‘greatness’. The slogan much used by the Trump campaign of ‘Make America Great Again’ invoked a sense of loss as much as it assumed that loss could only be repaired by a return to the past.

The case of England is a further instance of this complication. Previous comments here might lead to the conclusion that all of English culture and history is a generally endorsed and taken-for-granted set of assumptions about the glorification of the Empire, Winston Churchill et al. For some in English politics that is certainly the case. But for others, England, and English culture also includes the establishment of the National Health Service and that endlessly radical and critical tradition in which the values and actions which are heralded as definitely ‘British’ have been consistently held to account. In such contexts the sense of ‘loss’ is not one for grandeur, patriarchy and a single, national racial identity but one which celebrates difference and equality. At least as importantly this view recognises the absurdity of assuming that the emergence of new rights (in personal relations as much as in citizenship) removes the rights of others. Yet the fantasy of the fear of the implications of those new rights remains a potent political force. It is also one which can serve to marginalise more pressing political issues: of material inequality, the increasingly urgent problems of climate change and challenges to hard-won legal and institutional rights. Across the globe, a challenge to the false, dangerous and mythical narrative of cultural loss is now of immediate importance.

Mary Evans, Professor Emeritus at LSE

[1] David Cameron’s Big Society Speech 19 July 2010 https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/big-society-speech

In an early ARINS paper on Unionism, Jennifer Todd puzzles as to whether unionism is polity or people centred, and that the community may be perceived as ‘potentially fissile, intermittently ontologically insecure, and quick to favour repressive policies’ while those who align their sense of identity, with their past and belonging are a people who, ‘notoriously, cannot be reassured by reasoned argument, pragmatic appeals or appeasement.’ I find such language confusing given that I sense and know that the pro-union community is not as collectively bound as may be assumed. As the recent Institute of Irish Studies, Liverpool polls have shown the use of short-hand caricature or stereotyping of communities is limiting.

Our polls find that respondents who are pro-union are ‘notoriously’ more varied by religion and identity when compared to respondents who favour Irish unity. The latter are more firmly rooted and designate as Irish or Catholic. While the former includes a significant share of Catholics, migrants and the bulk of those who do not state a faith. Moreover, the majority of the pro-union electorate do not vote DUP, UUP or TUV, and are not incentivised to vote to keep ‘the other side out’. Of course, their majority support for marriage equality and access to abortion services is a favouring of ‘repressive policies’ as would be understood by religious zealots. (See Figure one)

Figure 1: Responses relating to the availability of Abortion Services in Northern Ireland

Negative readings of findings/results undermine the capacity to shift pro-union thinking towards forms of Irish nationalism that engender a perception of being ‘othered’ and plainly misunderstood.

Other myths of socio-economic decline are challenged by the fact that the majority of socially deprived wards in Northern Ireland are Catholic due to a combination of past discrimination, the rise of Belfast and its new economies unlike Derry which has not received the same post-conflict benefits, and a lack of policy imagination within the Assembly especially regarding alternative economic strategies. Far from being disorganised with regard to social capital one of the most successful social economy projects is run by loyalists in Lisburn. The sectarian label is challenged by pro-union supporters who are less likely to be concerned by a relative marrying across the identity divide and more likely to be supportive of integrated education. This is not an insecure community but one that is more secular and increasingly socially liberal and in many ways the epitome of what the GFA aimed for – a plurality of thinking and post-conflict integration. “Othering” and the label of “other” leads to the folly of labelling ‘self’ through narrow definitions of identity wrapped in information short cuts and far from empirically-led hubris. Few in Northern Ireland rise from their beds and peer out the window to check their constitutional status.

As our recent report shows, through analysis of census data there are issues and trends rarely identified in public discourse. These include a) the significant slowdown in the birth rate and no overall majority among those aged under 18 who are Catholic, Protestant or neither b) the near four-fold increase in those who do not state their religion since 2001; a trend which is even more pronounced among the school age population c) the majority of those who do not state their religion are mostly British only or Northern Irish only d) over 30% of Catholics did not state they are Irish only. The goal of sectarian head counting, achieving 50+1, has been undermined by the growth in those not stating a religion and electorally, by the rise of the Alliance Party. It could now be the case that the Catholic demographic highpoint has passed and we are within the era of constitutional stalemate.

Figure 2. Age groups by religious composition

The too easy-to-read guide to unification works on a form of sectarian head-counting in which demographic change will lead to greater support for pro-unity parties. In the 1998 and 2022 Assembly elections Sinn Fein and SDLP share of the vote was the same, yet during that period around 200,000 joined the electorate of which around 16% of that rise equated to the numerical growth in pro-unity voters. If c. 50% of those who joined the register following the head counting paradigm were Catholics then 16% would read closer to 50%. Interestingly, the growth in the Alliance vote as a share of new voters was twice as high.

If we are caught in a stalemate, then we need a new vocabulary to explain the diversity and unfolding of new forms of identity that are not complex or difficult to understand. They merely reflect the decline in fealty to out-dated identity constructs. Increasingly, many who wish to remain in the union have no link to unionist identity or any sense of nationalism allied to their preference to remain in the UK. They are middle income, send their kids to subsidised grammar schools, coast along and holiday yearly in the sun. Constitutional change is viewed as problematic with many knowing the details around cost of living crises in Ireland, the scandals of housing shortages and FDI tax avoidance and that you pay for prescriptions. These are not East Germans dreaming of BMW ownership when a seven series already sits in the driveway. There may be benefits to unity in terms of economics but these are abstract and cannot be guaranteed. Nationalist over confidence forbids any debate regarding flaws in the socio-economic realities of Ireland is met with ‘have you had a look in your own backyard?’

Neither Irish or British nationalism has much to offer given a reliance upon the Orwellian form of two legs and four legs. It is replete with stereotyping, claims that constitutionalism is organic and a refusal to read shifts in identity and the varied reasons for constitutional preference.

If those who seek unity do not seek to understand those shifts, that being pro-union has multiple forms and that most seek interdependence and better inter-community relationships then the capacity to draw pro-union people to Ireland’s cause will remain remote. A starting point would be to realise that within pro-unionism the traditions of Orangeism, monarchism and the behaviours of sectarianism are minority concerns. These shifts away from traditional forms of unionism but remaining pro-union have been tracked by surveys and polls we have conducted since the late 1990s. We have found a small decline in Catholics who favour the union but among those who state they are Protestant or of no faith they have remained at the same level of support for the union. They have not shifted, in significant numbers to be being undecided or now pro-unity. Therefore, the fundamental vulnerability at present, for the pro-unity campaigners is the need to build a society in Ireland that is so economically advanced and socially inclusive that membership of it is beyond doubt. That may lead to the shifts in pro-union thinking. Accepting structural and societal weaknesses in the Republic would also help start a proper debate concerning futures.

As University of Liverpool Irish Institute surveys show, Northern Ireland is a much more nuanced place than some commentators assume. Neither form of rhetorical device employed by unionism or nationalism holds the sway that they once did which is why ignoring nuance is a dystopian tactic akin to 2+2 equals 5. We should start with the data and build up never assert data to ‘prove’ polemic.

Increasingly, sections of the electorate in Northern Ireland are coming to realise that the totem of the two nationalisms is merely power assertion based upon deception at the expense of progress, transition and reconciliation. Those who will eat grass to either gain unity or maintain the union must take great care with shifts in data and recognising changing facts. Without such recognition of change and the dynamics therein that are not linked to traditional forms of constitutionalism, the hollowness of these respective ideologies will remain and continue to deliver distortion and its corrupting effects.

Professor Peter Shirlow (FaCSS) is the Director at the University of Liverpool’s Institute of Irish Studies. He was formerly the Deputy Director of the Institute for Conflict Transformation and Social Justice, QUB. He is the Independent Chair of the Executive Office’s Employers’ Guidance on Recruiting People with Conflict-Related Convictions Working Group and a board member of the mental health charity Threshold. He is a Visiting Research Professor at the Senator George J. Mitchell Institute for Global Peace, Security and Justice. He sits on the editorial boards of Irish Political Studies and International Planning Studies. He is a member of the ARINS Advisory board.

Jennifer Todd, MRIA, cited in this article replies below:

Why does Professor Shirlow have to ‘short-hand caricature’ other views in order to present his own findings? This University of Liverpool, Irish Institute survey is interesting and valuable. I look forward to discussing it further at some stage soon.

It shows – as many have done before that the Protestant and pro-union population is varied. This was one point of my ARINS article that there is no one size policy or form of dialogue that fits all. That’s why it’s necessary to look at all the parts.

Shirlow’s selective quotations suggest falsely that I’m lumping all unionists together and saying none can be talked to. He can’t have been that ‘confused’. My article called for ‘a reflexive and dialogic approach’ and argued that ‘mutual respect and recognition does not come from protecting identities but rather it requires autonomous change in them’. His own interpretation of ‘the unionist community’ is interesting and deserves further discussion. I have a few questions. Is he really saying that there are no unionist hardliners? Or that they are really reasonable and it’s hardline even to talk about them?

Perhaps I am reading too much into the first couple of sentences. Is this good old school joshing and jostling? Far better we tease out what is happening within unionism.

Jennifer Todd

Professor Jennifer Todd MRIA, Geary Institute, UCD

As a historian I take a longer view of contemporary events. What many assume to have been eternal is not always so. History reveals there have been identities and structures in Ireland not remembered today. This insight into the past shows us a future way forward.

The question of Irish reunification has long been the goal of nationalist Ireland, both north and south. To be clear we do not see a referendum on the border resulting in a vote for unity anytime soon. But the full implications of Irish unity have recently been addressed in earnest (ARINS, UCL Constitution Unit). For a united Ireland, or ‘New Ireland’, will have to deal with the reality of a million Northern Irish Protestants as a minority in any new state: the same mistakes, in regard to the Catholic minority in the North, with the creation of Northern Ireland in 1921, must not to be repeated. The question is whether Irish nationalism is ready to make some fundamental sacrifices to accommodate the unionists of Northern Ireland in a new state; for a united Ireland will be a new state and a multi-national state, radically different from what the 26 counties is today. What would a New Ireland look like? Are the citizens of the Republic ready to embrace this New Ireland? Will it be an authentic and welcoming place rather than a ‘cold place’ for Unionists.

The Brexit referendum shows the folly of a simple slogan: for ‘Brexit means Brexit’ read Irish unity means Irish unity. Unity does not, necessarily, equate a United Ireland in the traditional sense of one nation state. So, regardless of whether unionists participate in shaping any future Ireland now, it is important that nationalists, North and South, continue preliminary discussions amongst themselves about the kind of New Ireland they are prepared to accept before engaging with Unionists. Nationalists are fully aware of the economic and religious barriers to unity. There is one elephant in the room which ought to form serious consideration: the Britishness of Northern Unionists and how that may be accommodated in a new Ireland.

A nation is an imagined community composed of a narrative its citizens tell one another: those national myths that constitute great shared events. Above all it is a shared consciousness. When Germany was united, after the fall of the Berlin Wall, at least the Germans shared a common sense of national identity, albeit, shaped by the experience of a partition since the Second World War. This is not the case with Ireland and Northern Ireland.

Competing Historical Narratives

On the island of Ireland there are two competing dominant national narratives. The first is the struggle for Irish freedom. This is the nationalist narrative of Irish history. But there is another: the Unionist national narrative. This alternative tale is one of participation in the British state and the British Empire. If one takes one year, 1916, one can see parallel histories and national memories for that year. For Nationalists the primary event was the Easter Rising as part of the struggle for Irish independence. For Unionists, however, 1916 represents the sacrifice of Ulster Protestants, at the Battle of the Somme, for King and Empire: it represents their loyalty to Britain and membership of the British nation state. Same year; different histories.

As powerful as is the Easter Rising for nationalists, in the Irish national story, the Somme is equally as powerful in the psychology of Unionists. The Rising represents the foundation myth of the Irish state; the Somme represents the foundation myth of Northern Ireland. It does not matter that these myths may be full of inaccuracies: it is a reality that large numbers of people believe in them. But the Somme is but one part of this story. Two of the great shared events of Unionism are those, such as the building of the Empire and the participation in the First World War and the Second World War. This was why the nationalist, John Redmond, forced to deal with the reality of Unionist opposition to Home Rule, advocated fighting in the British Army for Ireland and for Home Rule in 1914: to prove to Unionists that Nationalists could also be loyal subjects of the Empire. And it almost worked.

One Irish army officer looked forward, positively, in 1915, to a united Ireland, one in which Irish people could work together. That officer was Captain Sir Basil Brooke, who later, as Lord Brookeborough, became the hard line Prime Minister of Northern Ireland. Following the Easter Rising he no longer described himself as Irish, but as a Britisher or Ulsterman. Sir Edward Carson looked forward, in 1917, to a partitioned Ireland, but a temporary partition, in which the two parts of the island would eventually come together in a united Ireland. It is well to remember the British Government, too, with the Government of Ireland Act 1920, that partitioned the island, looked to a Council of Ireland that would provide the mechanism to vote the two Irish Parliaments out of existence and into one assembly for the whole Ireland. Partition envisaged eventual Irish unity but a united Ireland under the crown.

To understand the unionist sense of dual Irish-British identity we need to recognise that Britishness was once a global identity: one could be British and Irish; British and Scottish; British and Canadian; or British and Australian. To be a British subject one merely had to acknowledge allegiance to the Crown. Now Britishness has shrunk, reduced to an archipelago in the North Atlantic. Perhaps the United Kingdom will break up in the face of Scottish nationalism and the English nationalism of Brexit. Nevertheless, when Unionists now say they are part of a British nation they believe it. Unionists are consistent in defining their identity as Ulster British; British and Northern Irish; or British Irish. The common denominator is British in this multi-layered identity.

This Britishness has been a long time in its creation. Unionist national heroes are Irish, from the Duke of Wellington, at Waterloo, to Sir Alan Brooke (Lord Alanbrooke), Winston Churchill’s military Chief of Staff in World War II. The Unionist identity allows them to be part of great national myths in a British story. Their culture can be local – bonfires on the 11th night and the marching season on 12 July – celebrating their loyalty to the Queen, the Union Flag, to pride in Shakespeare, the Battle of Britain or the sporting success of Northern Irish athletes competing for Great Britain in the London Olympics of 2012. It is unrealistic for this identity to dissipate if there were to be a united Ireland.

All of this is history. What is its relevance now, it may be asked? The present form of nationalism, in independent Ireland, is relatively recent. Prior to the Irish Free State, Irish nationalism operated in a political and cultural environment shaped by 800 years of English and then British involvement in Ireland. It is unrealistic to believe this did not have an impact: it can be seen today from the Royal College of Physicians to the Royal Irish Academy to name but two.

Republicanism took independent Ireland towards a completely new identity dispensation. Republicanism was now part of the public discourse: prior to 1916 – and introduced for the first time in the late 1700s it was a minority view; Ireland operated for 800 years in a Britannic shaped world. From Daniel O’Connell, through Charles Stewart Parnell, to John Redmond, the only realistic form of government for Ireland was a monarchy within the British imperial framework.

John Redmond, for example, hoped that a new form of Irish nationality, based on the sacrifice of Nationalists and Unionists in the trenches, would form a new Ireland. This was the essence of Home Rule – an Irish national conscious in an overarching Britannic imperial loyalty.

There is evidence of this working among Unionists. Basil Brooke, then a captain in the British Army, looked forward in 1915, to a new political dispensation after the War. But, for Brooke, the Easter Rising was a watershed. From 1916 he never regarded himself as an ‘Irishman’ again, preferring ‘Ulsterman’ or ‘Britisher’ instead to describe his nationality. Sir James Craig, like Brooke a future Northern Ireland Prime Minister, expressed similar views – this time over Ireland’s exclusion from conscription in 1916. The point here is this: that Unionist involvement in the War was central to their sense of psychological participation in the British national project.

In 1911, for example, Arthur Griffith, the founder of Sinn Fein, actually argued for what he termed the creation of a ‘Brito – Hibernian Empire’: he saw an ultimate solution to Ireland’s relationship with Britain as both countries becoming full partners in the imperial enterprise. This was behind his call for Dual Monarchy and the repeal of the Union, to restore the old Kingdom of Ireland: separate kingdoms but the same King. In 1927, Kevin O’Higgins met Sir Edward Carson, in London, and proposed the coronation of the British king, separately, as King of Ireland, in Dublin.

What partition did was to remove having to deal with this Unionist reality, abandoning Northern nationalism, and pursuing the dream of an independent Catholic Gaelic and Republican Ireland for the 26 counties. Independent Ireland turned inwards. Remember that Eamon de Valera, when offered the prospect of a united Ireland in 1940, by Winston Churchill, turned it down because of the sacrifices he would have to make to win Unionist consent. Now no one expects a repudiation of republicanism: but if the dream of Wolfe Tone, to unite Protestant, Roman Catholic and dissenter, in the common name of Irish, is to be realised, some serious thinking as to what that will involve, needs to take place.

Unionist Opposition to Irish Unity

Unionist opposition to Irish unity stems from their Protestantism and the economic link with Britain. Most nationalists recognise this. But opposition to unity also stems from the sense of belonging to a British nation. Nationalists have not recognised the intensity of this, since John Redmond and Home Rule, partly because it challenges the very notion of there being one nation on the island. To admit there might be two national identities on the island suggests partition of some form should exist. Even if one does not accept this two nation argument it should now be possible to recognise Unionist Britishness, as Redmond did, within the language of one nation, two traditions on the island or that of a British heritage. There is scope for a new version of what used to be called a ‘Union of Hearts’.

At the very least Stormont, with power-sharing, should persevere. But the Northern Ireland Protocol demonstrates that a sovereign nation, like the UK, can cede considerable influence over part of its territory to another entity, in this case the European Union. Likewise, the Anglo-Irish Agreement, which preceded the protocol, conceded the right of the Irish government to be consulted, and to put forward policies, for a part of the UK’s territory – the North. It would not take a significant step to imagine unique constitutional arrangements for Ireland to do the same.

The Nation and State Need Not be Co-Terminus

The point is the nation state, while is the dominant political entity now, was not always so. British kings reigned over multiple entities, and were kings of Ireland, Scotland and England – three separate kingdoms and crowns, one person; the Hanoverians who were kings of Great Britain and Ireland and, at the same time, rulers of the Electorate of Brunswick-Lüneburg, part of present day Germany. The Holy Roman Empire, which had existed since 800 AD, until abolished by Napoleon Bonaparte, had hundreds of individual entities governed by kings, princes, dukes, counts, and abbots with an Emperor as its figurehead. Its replacement, the nineteenth century German Confederation, contained an association of 39 German-speaking states plus two great powers, Austria and Prussia, but did not contain all of the Austria Empire nor all of Prussia. The point here is the ability to think creatively about what a New Ireland might be like and it does not have to be a unity state nor merely a federal state. A confederalist, as opposed to a federal, state can be imaginative. It need not be confined to a nineteenth definition of a ‘nation state’.

The simplest model, for an Ireland apart from a unity state, would be a federal Ireland with Stormont retaining its current powers. Unionists, of course, could no longer be unionists: but they would still be loyalists, retaining their longstanding sense of Britishness and allegiance. In a New Ireland, Unionists could constitute a significant minority, perhaps holding the balance of power in the Dáil. This would force the rest of the island to take account of their presence.

Alternatively joint authority could be the form of government if Ireland had sovereignty over the North, post an independence referendum, but chose to administer a shared territory in conjunction with the British government (the reverse could also be true with continuing British sovereignty being exercised over the North). Alternatively, again, joint sovereignty, with both the UK and Ireland, with both countries becoming part of a confederation, could administer Northern Ireland as the intersection between two nations and two cultural identities. This may appear to be a somewhat fanciful notion but the Anglo-Irish Agreement and Northern Ireland Protocol/Windsor Framework have created unique circumstances in administrating part of the British state; and, of course, as we have seen, history provides a number of alternative models.

Unionist Cultural Alienation

Right now unionists are experiencing a siege mentality after a period in which they felt in the ascendency. The confidence of controlling their own destiny, since the Good Friday Agreement and the St Andrews Agreement, has given way to a feeling their identity is under attack in Northern Ireland. There is a process of cultural alienation occurring among the Unionists in the North. They see the advance of their nationalist neighbours, such as increasing prominence of the Irish language, sharing power with nationalists (particularly Sinn Fein), a Nationalist First Minister designate, as part of a cultural and political retreat. A serious situation of political and cultural alienation is developing in the North.

While this may be interpreted as Northern nationalists legitimately demanding their cultural rights, there is a real fear of the deBritishisation of Northern Ireland among Unionists. The North was set up as the ‘Protestant’ part of the island; the fact that it contained one third of its population as Roman Catholic, who did not give their consent to be governed by a Protestant government, made it fundamentally unstable. But, regardless of the rights and wrongs of 50 years of unionist rule/misrule in the region, there is a real concern, a real sense of a long-term erosion, a fear of long-term defeat, particularly since the final Brexit deal. This is not healthy for any society. It was not healthy for Northern society when it affected nationalism in 1921; it is not healthy for Northern, or indeed Irish, society when it affects unionism in 2022.

New Symbols

Recognising the symbolic and cultural Britishness of Unionists may go a long way to acknowledging their place in a potential New Ireland. Northern Ireland could constitute a bridge between Ireland and Britain. As a bare minimum unionists would expect that the guarantees established under the Belfast Agreement would continue to apply to their community in any new dispensation. This would mean the British Irish intergovernmental Council would act as a guarantee to look after Unionist interests. There would continue to be a British Irish Council in which Unionists would participate. The birthright of all the people of Northern Ireland to identify themselves as Irish or British, both, or neither, would continue.

But there ought to be more recognition of this Britishness. Ireland could rejoin the Commonwealth – but, remember, this is no longer a ‘British Commonwealth’, but one composed of independent states, many republics. It is not the British Commonwealth of 1948 when Ireland declared a formal republic. More recognition of the links between Ireland and Britain may be needed. It is interesting to observe that, 1917, Eoin MacNeill was ahead of his time, writing an article that advocated a United Ireland as a republic within the British Commonwealth.

The status of Northern Ireland could be federal and confederal within Ireland and between Britain and Ireland. A British Secretary of State for Northern Ireland could be appointed to be act as a guarantor of Unionist rights. Unionist representation might continue in the British Parliament, but with non-voting rights in the House of Commons/Lords. This would guarantee the continued voice of Unionists in a place where they could air their concerns, and recognise their sense of Britishness. They would not be ‘silenced’ and able to raise any concern for their community in a New Ireland. The Irish Tricolour could continue to be the National Flag of the Irish state; but it could have dual status in Northern Ireland, alongside the Union Jack; or St Patrick’s Cross might be adopted for the North. Or the Tricolour and Union Flag could fly alongside one another rather like the EU flag does, in the Republic, with the Tricolour. Perhaps there could be a completely new National Flag of Ireland incorporating both Irish and British symbolism.

The constitution of Ireland would have to be changed. Irish would no longer be the first language of a New Ireland. Irish and English could be equal and recognised as having ‘equal respect’ for one another as Scots Gaelic and English are in the Scotland Act 2005. And what of Ulster Scots? The heritage of the British community in Ireland could be recognised in the constitution, perhaps given an official status. More than this the right of people to define themselves as part of the Irish nation or part of the British nation (or both/neither) could be enshrined in the Constitution. Perhaps it might better if the right to a British (alongside Irish) cultural heritage were explicitly recognised in the Constitution.

Monuments are considered lieux de memoire or sites of history. They reveal a lot about the dominant narrative in a state. One monument that might be erected in Dublin to replace Nelson’s column, destroyed in 1966 by the IRA, might be Lord Nelson again; or failing such a radical move, a statue of Sir Edward Carson, or Sir Ernest Shackleton the Irish Polar explorer, other prominent Unionists. Unionist ‘heroes’ or Irish soldiers who served in the British Army British-Irish military figures (Lord Roberts VC or Lord Kitchener – a Kerryman) might be appropriate.

Finally, consideration as to whether Amhran na bhFiann, with its talk of the ‘Saxon foe’, remains appropriate for the whole of Ireland: there was controversy when ‘Ireland’s Call’ was played outside the jurisdiction of the Irish state, at Ulster’s rugby ground in Belfast rather than God Save The Queen. This illustrates the sensitivity around all these issues. It ought not be forgotten that most all Ireland sporting bodies are a legacy of pre-partition Unionist Ireland. The conversion of the title of the ‘British Isles’ rugby team to the ‘British and Irish Lions’ illustrates what might be achieved with a little imagination.

None of these suggestions would make the majority of people, on the island, any less Irish than they already feel; nor would it involve surrendering any of their national identity. But it would acknowledge that Irishness is a mature, confident identity secure enough to accommodate other identities. It would surely be wise to start thinking about this now. The important question to ask is does one want to unite territory or to unite people, to borrow from John Hume? It means that a New Ireland ought to recognise its British, as well as its Irish, heritage.

Thomas Hennessey is Professor of Modern British and Irish History at Canterbury Christ Church University.

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The “Mapping Diversity, Negotiating Differences: Constitutional Discussions on a Shared Island” report by Dr Joanne McEvoy (University of Aberdeen) and Professor Jennifer Todd (University College Dublin) finds that inclusive deliberation is best placed to manage division, increase participation and involvement of diverse voices, and deliver the active engagement of those who feel marginalised, excluded, and “othered”.

The report is based on extensive research over several years which found that grassroots communities across the island invite opportunities to engage in constitutional discussion but feel alienated from the technical language often used in the debate. Rather than focusing on institutional design, they favour constitutional discussion as a way to discuss wider issues with potential to bring about a better society. The research showed convergence of views among different groups (women, ethnic minorities, and youth) and on both sides of the border. People wish to see bottom-up discussion, focusing on lived experience and real problems. They want to see improved communication between grassroots and policymakers; and they call for radically inclusive constitutional discussion. In pointing to potential ways forward, the Report builds on the work of the Shared Island initiative. It recommends widespread participation, linking local deliberations (e.g. the recent deliberative forum held in L/Derry) with larger forums. Inclusionary research has flourished in recent years (e.g. Ashe et al, O’Keefe et al) but we need to bring this work together, to strengthen channels of communication between grassroots participation and political planning, and to ensure that inclusion and participation are cumulative, relevant, applicable and augment democratic processes. A dedicated research Centre could coordinate the emerging best practice on the island on participation and deliberation. The Report findings provide the footing for further collaborative and coordinated constitutional deliberation.

Listen back to episode #12 of the ARINS podcast in which Joanne McEvoy and Fidelma Ashe explore the ways in which including and encouraging popular engagement can not only enrich constitutional discussion but critically can shape constitutional change.

I thought of the writer Finnoula O’Connor and her wonderful 1993 book In Search of a State when surveying the thin pile of newspapers at a sweetshop in Leitrim, a few kilometres south of the border one day in late June. In the book, O’Connor relates the story of a Catholic from Northern Ireland holidaying just over the border who goes looking for a copy of The Irish News only to find the newsagent doesn’t stock the paper. The Irish News is the paper of northern nationalists and O’Connor spins its absence as a parable about just how tangibly different ‘the South’ feels.

When I read the book first, the story captured in print for the first time an important part of my relationship with different parts of the island. Irrespective of religious and national identity, for this Northern Irish Catholic, the South always felt somewhat different from and out of sight from me, shed of familiar mainstays such as The Irish News. Heck, even the Tayto crisps looked and tasted different south of the border.

To be sure, newspaper stacks are thinner compared to 1993 when O’Connor published her book, but her observation was still accurate that clammy late June day I was passing through. About ten Irish Times, double that in Irish Independents (or ‘Indos’,) but not a copy of The Irish News to be had.

Such uncoupling– if indeed that is the right word as it presumed there was a coupling at some point may only have become more pronounced over time. It’s certainly one of the main themes I took from the ARINS Irish Times survey and coursed through conversations I’d had the few days prior to me staring at the newsagent’s rack. I’d been in Galway hanging out with old school friends to commemorate the turning of our half-centuries. Rendering us a band of older voters in Lucid Talk survey demographic speak, and more likely to identify with Europe than younger voters in Northern Ireland. Some of the gang like me, no longer live on the island, others went South, others stayed North. One friend who lives just outside Belfast – moderate of persuasion, normally – was saying that the miscellanea of arches and flags sprouting from every lamppost in his town was putting him in mind to vote for unification in a border poll. Our two friends who live south of the border didn’t seem enamoured of the idea. Immoderate of persuasion, normally, the idea that the place they left would join the place they moved to engendered lukewarm enthusiasm. In survey terms they’d need some persuading.

I bought a copy of the Guardian instead and noticed an absence there too. Whereas in O’Connor’s 1993 there would reliably be a story about Northern Ireland daily, on this day there was none. And upon doing some research I discovered that wasn’t particularly unusual. There were less than ten Northern Ireland stories in the Guardian in all of June.

And this was not just an anomaly for that calendar month. Google searches for phrases such as ‘Northern Ireland peace process’ from 2004 (when data started to be collected) show that, apart from a small spike during Brexit negotiations, the trend is resolutely downwards. In the average month in 2005, there were more than 30 times as many mentions of ‘Northern Ireland peace process’ as there were in a typical month in 2022. While the specific search term may have been too restrictive, the trend line seems clear. This part of my once island home feels fading from view, on a trajectory to join the likes of Biafra, Angola and Timor-Leste, places where klieg lights of attention used to shine bright in previous decades but now no more?

Fig. 1 Relative interest in Northern Ireland Peace process on Google. See attached file (top right of this page) for full data taken from Google Trends on 4 July 2023.

As I drove on up the road, reflecting on how my own upbringing during the Troubles must in some indelibly way contributed to a career working in or around conflict, it struck me that there is dwindling attention to Northern Ireland in this respect too. Is the province still a case study and inspiration for the resolution to other conflicts? It’s hard to see it in the everyday. Though the Europa occasionally hosts long-serving peacebuilders unpuzzling the legacies of divided societies, gone are the days Northern Ireland’s politicians would be flying hither and thither articulating lessons and drinking in acclaim for the sagacity of their contributions. I remember meeting a now late politician in the early 2000s at a conference in Derry/Londonderry lamenting how difficult it was to co-ordinate a trip to Harvard, Bogota, and Famagusta before heading on to deliver a keynote in South Africa. Few of his contemporaries would have similarly punishing schedules.

And is this trend of fading from view present in academia and policy research too? In the late 1990s and 2000s it felt like an edited volume on conflict management or resolution could not be published without Northern Ireland featuring. While of course, there’s a possibility I was plugging in the wrong keywords the trendline here seems downwards.

There’s two ways of thinking of this inattention. The first is positive. Northern Ireland receding from the limelight is a good thing, a settling back into the natural order of other regions in the isles. The other, downbeat, is what I thought when I eventually tracked down an Irish News, in a newsagent over the border, in a little town festooned with bunting and a new arch with King William on his white horse and King Charles looking stooped in military regalia. The headlines were of giant bonfires being laid, effigies being erected, two stories of stalemate in efforts to get the political institutions up and running again, institutions which, in the last five years at least, are more likely inert than active. The price of political inertia at home is manifest in our international media as Bakhmut replaces, Belfast, Mariupol replaces Magherafelt. The thought that danced in my mind when I hopped back in the car, was this, what are we Northern Irish paying attention to these days when no-one is paying us any attention?

With thanks to Terence Wood of the Australian National University for assistance in Google searching.

Gordon Peake is Senior Adviser, Pacific Islands at the United States Institute of Peace. He is the author of Beloved Land: Stories, Struggles and Secrets from Timor-Leste, and Unsung Land, Aspiring Nation: Journeys in Bougainville.

The term ‘Mexican’ – from the old song ‘South of the Border Down Mexico Way’ and used by northerners to describe their southern neighbours – is light-hearted and inoffensive, while ‘Nordie’ can be deeply offensive and condescending. A ‘peace dividend’ is apparent since 1998, though a ‘hard cultural border’ may be forming since Brexit, which leaves us little space for the new Irish and Diaspora Irish.

As for the shaping of identity, this begins in childhood when we pick out our favourite brand of ice cream.

Chaired by Martin Doyle, books editor of the Irish Times, the panellists were Síobhra Aiken, author and lecturer at the Department of Irish and Celtic Studies, Queen’s University Belfast; Barry McCrea, author and Professor of Literature at the University of Notre Dame; Julie Sinnamon, Chair of European Movement Ireland; and Nick Whelan, CEO of Dale Farm Ltd. While 12th July bonfires and effigies were lit around Northern Ireland in commemoration of the Battle of the Boyne (1690), speakers and audience members gathered in Dublin and discussed immense progress, a casual ‘othering’ of northern Irish people, and ‘two cultural zones, north and south’.

Moving south or moving north brings an opportunity to challenge misconceptions about the other community in a divided society on the shared island. In both cases, the arrival of fresh eyes can help to throw light on inequities which often prevail unnoticed for long-time residents of a jurisdiction. Stark differences between the education system ‘up north’ and ‘down south’, disparities in education outcomes and the pressures of early streaming in Northern Ireland were noted. The infamous ‘ElevenPlus’ or ‘transfer test’ was criticised by one speaker whose children recently went through the drill: ‘It’s a brutal exam. It’s a Leaving Cert for 11 year olds.’

The sectarian component of the exam was rigorously criticised: ‘There are two exams, one for Catholics and one for Protestants. It promotes segregation and this idea that there are two societies in Northern Ireland.’ (To date there have been two ElevenPlus tests. One for Catholic maintained schools and one for state schools. From November this year there will be a joint set of tests.)

The speakers and indeed audience participants had an experience of crossing a border to live ‘on the other side’; many claimed a ‘hybrid identity’ originating from a border town, or identified as Dubliners whose people came from the north.

‘You can judge any society, any nation, on the way it treats its minority,’ one speaker noted. ‘And people are capable of saying extraordinarily insulting things about northerners.’ Northerners are made conspicuous by virtue of the ‘harder consonants’ of their accent. ‘In the south we think there is only one kind of Irishness. We feel that northern Irishness is not just inauthentic, but somehow threatening. Irish identity is fragile, because the Irish state and its institutions are relatively new.’

‘In many ways the north invigorated and created Irish culture,’ noted the speaker, arguing that in the 1960s and ’70s figures such as the Clancy Brothers (member Tommy Makem came from County Armagh), Seamus Heaney and the Field Day journal helped create a porous relationship between north and south.

The speaker suggested a ‘hard cultural border’ has since emerged, and two distinct ‘cultural zones’. Sport too can play a uniting and dividing role, and speakers noted the influence of both the GAA and IRFU, both all-Ireland sporting bodies. Even when it comes to taste, choice of brands can be divided between north and south – a preference for Dale Farm ice cream in the north and HB in the south a case in point: ‘There are still two societies, and two brands for each society’.

It is more than possible this casual othering comes from a place of fear. The legacy of the Troubles and the ‘whiff of ArmaLite’ was mentioned. One attendee whose Dublin parents came from Antrim remarked that ‘It was only after the troubles began in 1969 that my father was asked where he came from.’

A speaker described their expectations on moving up north, of it being a ‘half-way house between English culture and Irish culture.’ What they found was a brilliant workforce with a generational legacy of hard work, highly educated, with a great resilience.

However, they noted, ‘It’s fundamentally an advantage to be based here rather than up north when it comes to state support, where the focus can be on constitutional and tribal politics rather than on driving prosperity.’

The panellists discussed their preconceptions of about the neighbouring jurisdiction, in contrast to their lived experience. One speaker recalled the 1970s contraceptive trains, which brought a group of feminist activists to Belfast to buy birth control pills. Things have since transformed socially in Ireland, which has legalised for gay marriage and abortion.

For many Irish people from the south, visiting Northern Ireland was not part of growing up, aside from a shopping trip to Newry, Co. Down. The transition to living there was described as difficult and at times alienating.

‘It’s a wonderful place to be if you have money and a really tough place to be from a lifestyle point of view.’

Northerners are perceived as prioritising ‘family, farm and church’, as being direct, straight forward and ‘straight talkers.’ One speaker observed the ‘lack of fudging’ among Northerners, while in the south they had become accustomed to the ‘wink and the nod’. It was even suggested that the Belfast Agreement was come to by deal-makers with an ability to ‘fudge’ the details, without which it might not have come about.

Language too reflects identity conceptions and misconceptions, echoing the work of Roisin Costello on language politics [read article]. There is a rebirth in Irish language interest in the north, with TG4 launching their children’s TV channel, the Belfast Gaeltacht, and seven primary schools teaching through Irish in west Belfast.

And yet, as one speaker noted, the Irish language department at Queen’s struggles to be visible in a vast university with competing concerns. The speaker noticed, for example, the lack of signage for the department. This is despite Queen’s University’s connection with one of the longest running Irish language societies in the world – An Cumann Gaelach, established in 1906.

Belfast may be considered the cheapest city in the United Kingdom, but for more than one speaker, the most striking facet of life upon moving up north was poverty. The discrepancy in quality of life between north and south has been outlined in a 2021 study by Adele Bergin and Seamus McGuinness [read article]. Life expectancy is lower in the north of Ireland, and it was noted that in the north, 74 per cent of 15 to 19 year olds are currently in education, while in the south the figure is over 90 per cent. (See article by Anne Devlin and Seamus McGuinness). The related problem of ‘digital poverty’ among young people further hinders education.

Since the Good Friday Agreement, has there been such a thing as a ‘peace dividend’? The question was put as to whether peace has brought prosperity, or greater investment. A speaker noted that following the Troubles in the North, there were great risks for multinationals looking to invest in Northern Ireland. It was recalled anecdotally that in 1993 employees from one multinational (which was not named) were due to stay at the Stormont Hotel just before it was bombed.

After 1998, a wave of north-south bodies were established, leadership programmes encouraged, and initiatives harnessing north-south co-operation. This and the Shared Island initiative has harnessed institutional commitments to developing the economy, and attracting Foreign Direct Investment.

Today there is a vibrant technology start-up scene in the North, with great opportunities for employment encouraging young people a to stay in the north, and enticing those who have gone further afield to return home. A speaker highlighted the pleasant surprise of a more affordable property market: ‘I can buy a house in the north with three months payslips – my friends have no opportunity to buy in Dublin.’

The Chatham House Rule was observed, and quotes have been anonymised.

To find out more about ARINS – Analysing and Researching Ireland North and South – see arinsproject.com

Extracts from John Doyle, Jennifer Todd and Joanne McEvoy’s article in The Irish Times>>

Surveys give a snapshot of declared opinion at a point in time. What they don’t do is capture the strength of conviction or willingness to consider alternatives. Focus groups do that – they give participants time to volunteer their views and to explain and reassess their reasoning.

Research conducted last year by ARINS – which is a joint research project of the Royal Irish Academy and the Keough-Naughton centre for Irish studies at the University of Notre Dame – and The Irish Times on future political arrangements on the island of Ireland, relied on two major polls and on focus groups – with some interesting and unexpected results.

While the results of the simultaneous surveys published last year found that there are currently clear majorities against unity in the North and in favour in the South, the research as a whole – including the focus group discussions – also revealed that for many people there is an appetite for further information and discussion on the topic.

What we learned offers direction for the next phase. One striking insight were the information gaps on major issues. There was a lack of understanding, North and South, on public entitlements on the “other” side of the Border. Most participants had never had a formal conversation about Irish unity in this type of professional setting and wanted such dialogue to start now – long before referendums. People in each jurisdiction knew very little about the cost of living, the school system, the health service or benefit entitlements in the other. They also knew almost nothing about what would happen if referendums voted for Irish unity – not even on clear issues such as EU membership, and they wanted expert information on such topics.

The research showed people’s strong desire for a more structured discussion on the implications of a united Ireland, and for expert information – in particular on economics and public services. And it showed that participants – even those who initially expressed strong opinions – were open to considering alternatives.

In the two Northern Ireland focus groups most of the participants were clear that the issue of Irish unity was not just a matter of traditional identity politics. They said things like: “I don’t think it’s as simple as Catholics voting for a united Ireland and Protestants not. I think it’s become a much more open debate now.” Even when identity seemed to determine initial uncompromising responses – as in the immediate Southern refusal to contemplate change in the national flag, anthem and emblems – by the end of the session even the most assertive participants’ openness to dialogue on these issues was evident.

The next phase should be one of scoping out and debating the range of acceptable ideas and only narrowing down to defined options later in the process. What is needed now is a sustained and systemic process of discussion and deliberation. Both the survey and the focus groups reveal a lack of knowledge, a lack of prior discussion, but also a willingness to listen, learn and change opinions. Whatever the outcome of referendums, an open deliberative process can build a greater degree of acceptance by those who end up on the “losing side”.

The Irish Times piece is based on the authors’ peer-reviewed paper, which was published last month in Irish Studies of International Affairs: Time for Deliberation, not Decision, on the Shape of a New United Ireland: Evidence from the ARINS Survey Focus Groups

Survey results are published here.