A Troubled Sleep

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Waller
Keyword(s):  
Northern Ireland ◽  
Violent Conflict ◽  
Religious Leaders ◽  
Risk And Resilience ◽  
Peace Agreement ◽  
Face To Face ◽  
The Troubles ◽  
Tour Guides ◽  
Post Conflict ◽  
Health Practitioners

A Troubled Sleep: Risk and Resilience in Contemporary Northern Ireland revisits one of the world’s most deeply divided societies more than 20 years after a peace agreement brought an end to the Troubles. The book asks if the conflict, while perhaps managed and contained, has been transformed—structurally and relationally—into a win-win situation for both sides. It addresses this question by drawing on ethnographic fieldwork, comparative research, and more than 110 hours of face-to-face interviews with politicians, activists, community workers, former political prisoners, former (and sometimes current) paramilitary members, academics, journalists, mental health practitioners, tour guides, school teachers, museum curators, students, police and military personnel, legal experts, and religious leaders across Northern Ireland. The heart of the book analyzes Northern Ireland’s current vulnerabilities and points of resilience as an allegedly “post-conflict” society. The vulnerabilities are analyzed through a model of risk assessment that examines the longer term and slower moving structures, measures, society-wide conditions, and processes that leave societies vulnerable to violent conflict. Such risk factors include the interpretation of conflict history, how authority in a country is exercised, and the susceptibility to social disharmony, isolation, and fragmentation. Resilience is examined from a survey of the countering influences, both within and outside Northern Ireland, that are working diligently to confirm humanity by reducing or reversing these vulnerabilities. The book concludes by examining the accelerating factors in contemporary Northern Ireland that may lead to an escalation of crisis as well as the triggering factors that could spark the onset of violent conflict itself.

Introduction

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-18
Author(s):  
James Waller
Keyword(s):  
Northern Ireland ◽  
Violent Conflict ◽  
Risk And Resilience ◽  
Potential Conflict ◽  
Social Fragmentation ◽  
The Troubles ◽  
Contextual Understanding

Today, more than 50 years since the Troubles began and more than 20 years after they “ended,” has Northern Ireland rebuilt differently enough so as to ensure nonrecurrence of violent conflict? Has the conflict, while perhaps managed and contained, been transformed—structurally and relationally—into a win-win situation for both sides embroiled in the conflict? Does Northern Ireland have the resiliency to withstand the internal and external stressors that may threaten a destabilization of its fragile peace? To answer those questions requires an honest analysis of the current vulnerabilities in Northern Ireland related to memory, governance, and social fragmentation, as well as an assessment of the actors, organizations, and strategies that can reduce or reverse those vulnerabilities. Engaging these coupled realities of risk and resilience, situated in a contextual understanding of contemporary accelerators and triggers of potential conflict, is where reasons for hope, however fragile, will be found.

Punk in Belfast, Northern Ireland: Critical Perspectives on the Troubles and Post-conflict “Peace”

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jim Donaghey
Keyword(s):  
Northern Ireland ◽  
Conflict Situation ◽  
The Troubles ◽  
Post Conflict ◽  
Counter Narrative ◽  
Alternative Culture ◽  
Development Agendas ◽  
Critical Perspectives

Punk’s resonance has been felt strongly here. Against the backdrop of the Troubles and the “post-conflict” situation in Northern Ireland, punk has provided an anti-sectarian alternative culture. The overarching conflict of the Troubles left gaps for punk to thrive in, as well as providing the impetus for visions of an “Alternative Ulster,” but the stuttering shift from conflict to post-conflict has changed what oppositional identities and cultures look like. With the advent of “peace” (or a particular version of it at least) in the late 1990s, this space is being squeezed out by “development” agendas while counterculture is co-opted and neutered—and all the while sectarianism is further engrained and perpetuated. This chapter examines punk’s positioning within (and against) the conflict-warped terrain of Belfast, especially highlighting punk’s critical counter-narrative to the sectarian, neoliberal “peace.”

I. The Northern Ireland Peace Agreement, Minority Rights and Self-Determination

1998 ◽  
Vol 47 (4) ◽  
pp. 943-950 ◽  
Author(s):  
Colin Warbrick ◽  
Dominic McGoldrick ◽  
Geoff Gilbert
Keyword(s):  
Northern Ireland ◽  
Minority Groups ◽  
Religious Affiliation ◽  
Holistic Approach ◽  
Minority Rights ◽  
The Other ◽  
Self Determination ◽  
Peace Agreement ◽  
The Troubles ◽  
The Right

The Northern Ireland Peace Agreement1 was concluded following multi-party negotiations on Good Friday, 10 April 1998. It received 71 per cent approval in Northern Ireland and 95 per cent approval in the Republic of Ireland in the subsequent referenda held on Friday 22 May, the day after Ascension. To some, it must have seemed that the timing was singularly appropriate following 30 years of “The Troubles”, which were perceived as being between a “Catholic minority” and a “Protestant majority”. While there are some minority groups identified by their religious affiliation that do require rights relating only to their religion, such as the right to worship in community,2 to practise and profess their religion,3 to legal recognition as a church,4 to hold property5 and to determine its own membership,6 some minority groups identified by their religious affiliation are properly national or ethnic minorities–religion is merely one factor which distinguishes them from the other groups, including the majority, in the population. One example of the latter situation is to be seen in (Northern) Ireland where there is, in fact, untypically, a double minority: the Catholic-nationalist community is a minority in Northern Ireland, but the Protestant-unionist population is a minority in the island of Ireland as a whole.7 The territory of Northern Ireland is geographically separate from the rest of the United Kingdom. The recent peace agreement addresses a whole range of issues for Northern Ireland, but included are, on the one hand, rights for the populations based on their religious affiliation, their culture and their language and, on the other, rights with respect to their political participation up to the point of external self-determination. It is a holistic approach. Like any good minority rights agreement,8 it deals with both standards and their implementation and, like any good minority rights agreement, it is not a minority rights agreement but, rather, a peace settlement.

Haunting and transitional justice: On lives, landscapes and unresolved pasts

2020 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-22
Author(s):  
Cheryl Lawther
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Northern Ireland ◽  
Transitional Justice ◽  
Violent Conflict ◽  
Politics Of Memory ◽  
Human Rights Abuses ◽  
Call To Action ◽  
Post Conflict ◽  
Transmission Of Trauma

This article explores practices of haunting and ghosting after conflict-related loss. This is not to suggest a focus on the occult or the paranormal, but to use these phenomena as a prism through which to understand the intersection between unresolved pasts and the transmission of trauma post-conflict. As Michael Levan notes, trauma lingers ‘unexorcisably in the places of its perpetration, in the bodies of those affected, in the eyes of the witnesses, and in the politics of memory’. The ghost, according to Avery Gordon ‘is the principal form by which something lost or invisible or seemingly not there makes itself known or apparent to us’. In this article I argue for three conceptualisations of haunting when past traumas remain unaddressed: the haunting of lost lives, the haunting of landscape, and the haunting presence of the unresolved past. The article focuses on Northern Ireland, a post-conflict jurisdiction described as being haunted by a ‘conflict calendar in which every day is an anniversary’ and extensive fieldwork with victims and survivors of the conflict. The article concludes by arguing that the presence of ghosts and the experience of haunting represent a ‘call to action’ in the quest to deal with a legacy of violent conflict and human rights abuses.

Northern Ireland

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Monica McWilliams ◽  
Avila Kilmurray
Keyword(s):  
Northern Ireland ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Women's Movement ◽  
Women's Activism ◽  
Peace Agreement ◽  
Institutional Dynamics ◽  
Good Friday ◽  
Post Conflict ◽  
Alternative Means ◽  
History Of

Women’s activism played an important role in conflict transformation in Northern Ireland, from the early civil rights activists to the development of the Northern Ireland Women’s Coalition political party. This chapter follows the history of activism in Northern Ireland, using the trajectory to illustrate how the exclusion of women from formal institutions resulted in a women’s movement that became an alternative means for creating change. It identifies important characteristics of women’s activism, including a willingness to build broad alliances in civil society and framing tactics that brought gender-specific interests to the peace process and the Good Friday peace agreement. As the chapter examines the successes and challenges of the post-conflict women’s movement in Northern Ireland, it reflects on the power of creativity and innovation in altering institutional dynamics during times of transition.

scholarly journals Journeys through the Hidden City: Giving visibility to the Material Events of conflict in Belfast

2017 ◽  
Vol 35 (6) ◽  
pp. 1053-1075 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Coyles
Keyword(s):  
Northern Ireland ◽  
Inner City ◽  
Power Relations ◽  
Urban Landscape ◽  
Conflict Transformation ◽  
The Troubles ◽  
Post Conflict ◽  
Government Documents ◽  
Sectarian Conflict ◽  
Foucauldian Analysis

The ‘peace-walls’ of Belfast represent a widely acknowledged architectural legacy of the Troubles, the period between 1969 and 1994 when sectarian conflict in Northern Ireland was most extreme. This paper reveals a further crucial but unacknowledged architectural legacy. It is a Hidden City of unassuming inner-city architecture where everyday pervasiveness masks a capacity to perpetuate conflict-era forces in a post-conflict city. The first half of the paper presents a Foucauldian analysis of declassified government documents revealing the knowledge created through undisclosed systems of power-relations. Here a problematisation of accepted norms reassesses the Troubles-era urban landscape and exposes the latent significance of its socio-material complexity. The second half of the paper illustrates the material consequences of related hidden policy practices on the contemporary post-conflict community. It borrows from Goffman to offer an exposition of the institutionalisation of movement and meaning at play in the Hidden City. A triangulation of interviews, photography and architectural fieldwork is used to theorise the Material Event, a construction of meaning derived from the interaction between people, architecture and the wider systems of power-relations. The paper concludes by demonstrating the complexity of the systemic challenges posed by the Material Events and how these help constrain conflict-transformation practices.

scholarly journals What Difference Does Peace Make? Intimate Partner Violence and Violent Conflict in Northern Ireland

2019 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 139-163 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jessica Leigh Doyle ◽  
Monica McWilliams
Keyword(s):  
Intimate Partner Violence ◽  
Comparative Analysis ◽  
Northern Ireland ◽  
Women Victims ◽  
Partner Violence ◽  
Intimate Partner ◽  
Violent Conflict ◽  
Post Conflict ◽  
Political Settlement

This article investigates how the transition from violent conflict to peaceful political settlement has shaped intimate partner violence (IPV) in Northern Ireland focusing on three issues, which are policing, paramilitarism, and firearms. It does so on the basis of comparative analysis of interview findings with more than 100 women victims of IPV from across Northern Ireland conducted at two junctures: first in 1992 during a period of violent conflict, and later in 2016 at a time of enduring peace. The findings trace the changes that have occurred across these areas and highlight any problems that remain in the post-conflict environment.

“Was There Ever a Before?”

2021 ◽  
pp. 99-156
Author(s):  
James Waller
Keyword(s):  
Northern Ireland ◽  
Real Time ◽  
Risk And Resilience ◽  
Peace Agreement ◽  
Potential Conflict ◽  
Sustainable Peace ◽  
Challenges And Opportunities ◽  
Time Assessment

We know the cessation of conflict is not the solution to all the drivers of that conflict. In the case of Northern Ireland, it is far too much to expect that slightly more than 20 years of “peace”—faltering and hesitant throughout—somehow has counteracted completely the prior 30 years of destabilizing conflict (let alone the 800 years of deep identity divisions). In this current moment, while many elements of the peace agreement have held fast, the peace seems more fragile than ever. Part II of this book offers a real-time assessment of the degree to which contemporary Northern Ireland is letting its hard-earned peace slip through its fingers. Engaging these coupled realities of risk and resilience in the context of contemporary accelerators and triggers of potential conflict will help us understand the challenges and opportunities a society faces in moving from conflict to a stable, enduring, and sustainable peace.

“A Farewell to Peace?”

2021 ◽  
pp. 269-318
Author(s):  
James Waller
Keyword(s):  
Risk Factors ◽  
Northern Ireland ◽  
Structural Integrity ◽  
Violent Conflict ◽  
Irish Society ◽  
Northern Irish ◽  
Post Conflict ◽  
Triggering Factors ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
The Stability

The risk factors discussed in the previous three chapters are a creeping, erosive rot that continue to undermine the structural integrity and stability of Northern Irish society. If left unaddressed, they can drag this deeply divided “post-conflict” society back into the abyss of violent conflict. There are a range of internal and external accelerants, some of which could metastasize into triggers, that further threaten the stability of peace in contemporary Northern Ireland and increase the risk of violent conflict. Among these are (1) acute economic deterioration, (2) outbreaks of limited paramilitary violence, and (3) a vote on a united Ireland. These three accelerants are cross-cutting and intersecting. In the context of these accelerants further undermining the structural integrity and stability of Northern Irish society, there are a soberingly wide range of triggering factors that can make the return of violent conflict in contemporary Northern Ireland likely or imminent.

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