Twenty Years after: Statute of Limitations and the Asymmetric Burdens of Justice in Northern Ireland and Post-war Germany

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
C K Martin Chung
Keyword(s):  
Northern Ireland ◽  
House Of Commons ◽  
Parliamentary Debates ◽  
The Troubles ◽  
The Past ◽  
Balanced Approach ◽  
Post War ◽  
The Uk ◽  
British State ◽  
Reconciliation Process

Abstract In 2018, that is 20 years after the conclusion of the Belfast Agreement ending the 30-year conflict in Northern Ireland known as the ‘Troubles’, the UK Government started a consultation on dealing with its legacy. The House of Commons Defence Committee proposes the enactment of a statute of limitations to shield veterans from further investigations into Troubles-related crimes. It would represent a ‘balanced’ approach to justice, as some paramilitary combatants had also received de facto amnesty through various schemes. This article argues that given the involvement of the British state in the historical conflict, a ‘balanced’ approach to dealing with the past is inadequate. Drawing on parallel parliamentary debates in Germany that began around 1965, that is also 20 years after the end of conflict, the article makes the case that an asymmetric approach is both promising and necessary for the reconciliation process to move forward.

Fascism and Constitutional Conflict

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Loughlin
Keyword(s):  
Northern Ireland ◽  
National Party ◽  
Extreme Right ◽  
The Troubles ◽  
Union Movement ◽  
National Movements ◽  
Post War ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Regional Interests ◽  
British National Party

This work makes an original and important contribution, both to the field of British fascist/extreme Right studies and to the Ulster question. British fascist studies have to date largely ignored Northern Ireland, yet it engaged the attention of all the significant fascist movements, both pro-loyalist and pro-nationalist, from the British Fascists and Sir Oswald Mosley’s British Union of Fascists in the inter-war period to Mosley’s Union Movement, the National Front and British National Party thereafter. As a recurring site of political unrest Northern Ireland should have provided a promising arena for development, however this work demonstrates the great differences between Northern Ireland and Britain that made this problematic, especially the singularity of regional concerns and outlooks and the prominence of the constitutional issue, leaving little space for external parties to develop. Nor did framing the Ulster problem in a European context, such as Mosley’s post-war concept of Europe-a-Nation prove effective. for pro-loyalist extreme Right organisations during the Troubles a common allegiance to symbols of Britishness was offset not only the distinctiveness of regional interests but by the presence of Catholics among their leaders, while their failure to develop successfully as national movements in Britain meant they had little to offer Ulster loyalists. In focussing on Northern Ireland, this study provides insights, both into the strengths and weaknesses of British fascist organisations in the UK as a whole together with how difficult the region was for British organisations to cultivate; indeed, not just the extreme Right but mainstream parties as well.

‘Truth recovery’ and the role of the security forces in the Northern Ireland Troubles

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aaron Edwards
Keyword(s):  
Northern Ireland ◽  
Three Dimensional ◽  
Peace Process ◽  
The State ◽  
Security Forces ◽  
The Troubles ◽  
The Past ◽  
British State ◽  
Peace And Reconciliation

In light of the controversies that remain about Bloody Sunday and other violent episodes involving the state, this chapter examines three important aspects to the debate around truth recovery and the role of the Security Forces in the Troubles. First, it asks what role the Security Forces played in the conflict according to official state narratives. Second, it examines the apparent obfuscation of security forces’ experiences by an anti-state republican agenda. Here the chapter makes the case that republicans do this because of a need to reinforce tropes of meaning that preserve the integrity of the killings carried out by the Provisional IRA, while justifying continued hostility to the British state as well as their commitment to a peace process. Lastly, the chapter asks what consequences these official state and anti-state representations of the past have had on attempts to ‘give a voice’ to Security Forces victims (particularly those from Britain) amidst the apparent obfuscating of terrorist violence. By marginalising the experiences of those who soldiered during the Troubles we risk skewing our understanding of the three dimensional nature of the conflict and further postponing the opportunities to move towards meaningful peace and reconciliation.

scholarly journals THE TROUBLES WITH A LOWER CASE t: UNDERGRADUATES AND BELFAST'S DIFFICULT HISTORY

2018 ◽  
Vol 28 ◽  
pp. 219-239 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sean O'Connell
Keyword(s):  
Northern Ireland ◽  
Oral History ◽  
Social History ◽  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Historical Evidence ◽  
The Troubles ◽  
Lower Case ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Post War

ABSTRACTThis paper explores the risks and rewards involved in directing undergraduate students engaged on an oral history project in Belfast. It advocates the role of oral history as a tool through which to encourage students’ engagement with research-led teaching to produce reflective assignments on the nature of historical evidence, particularly autobiographical memory. The particular challenges of conducting oral history in a city beset by ethno-sectarian divisions are discussed. This factor has ensured that the historiography of Belfast has focused extensively on conflict and violence. The city's social history is poorly understood, but employing oral history enables the exploration of issues that take undergraduate historians beyond the Troubles as a starting point. This project probed what is called the troubles with a lower case t, via an analysis of deindustrialisation and urban redevelopment in Sailortown (Belfast's dockland district). It provided evidence with which to offer a new assessment on existing historiographical discussions about working-class nostalgic memory and urban social change, one that supports those scholars that problematize attempts to categorise such memory. The testimony also differed in significant ways from previous oral history research on post-war Northern Ireland.

5. The Significance of Rituals in Parliament

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emma Crewe ◽  
Paul Evans
Keyword(s):  
House Of Commons ◽  
Parliamentary Debates ◽  
Political World ◽  
Members Of Parliament ◽  
House Of Lords ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Power Hierarchy ◽  
The Way

This chapter examines the significance of rituals in the UK Parliament, focusing on the centrality of rules in such rituals, how parliamentary debates are ritualized, and how ceremonies order relationships between different groups in our political world. It first explains the purpose of parliamentary rituals and how they are regulated, showing that the value attached to the way Parliament ritualizes its interaction is strongly contested between Members of Parliament (MPs) and by outside commentators. In particular, it considers Standing Orders, rules made by either the House of Commons or the House of Lords to set out the way certain aspects of House procedures operate. The chapter also discusses how rituals result in conflict and conciliation and as markers of power, hierarchy, and identity in Parliament.

Peripherality and Northern Ireland

1994 ◽  
Vol 150 ◽  
pp. 90-100 ◽  
Author(s):  
Iain Begg ◽  
David Mayes
Keyword(s):  
Northern Ireland ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Policy Action ◽  
The Troubles ◽  
The North ◽  
Working Age ◽  
The Republic ◽  
The Uk ◽  
North Western ◽  
The Eu

In writing recently about the economic problems that Northern Ireland faces (Begg and Mayes, 1994) we argued, uncontroversially, that an end to the ‘Troubles’ would significantly alter the region's prospects. Our analysis, nevertheless, focused on other factors which might be amenable to policy action. With an end to the Troubles in Northern Ireland now on the cards, these other characteristics of the Northern Ireland economy must be expected to be of increased importance in determining the Province's competitiveness compared with other parts of the UK and, indeed, other regions of the European Union. In particular, Northern Ireland is a prime example of a ‘peripheral’ economy, located as it is at the North-Western corner of the EU and facing the further barrier of a sea crossing to markets other than the Republic of Ireland. It is also a region that shares a number of the characteristics of the older industrial regions of Britain, such as high unemployment, persistent emigration of working-age population and difficulties in achieving industrial restructuring (Harris et al., 1990; Harris 1991).

scholarly journals Photographs and “Truth” during the Northern Ireland Troubles, 1969–72

2015 ◽  
Vol 54 (2) ◽  
pp. 457-480 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erika Hanna
Keyword(s):  
Northern Ireland ◽  
Local Communities ◽  
The State ◽  
Historical Writing ◽  
The Troubles ◽  
Sequence Of Events ◽  
Bloody Sunday ◽  
British State

AbstractThis article explores how photographs were used as evidence during the early Northern Ireland Troubles. In particular, it focuses on the collection and use of images at the Scarman Tribunal, which investigated the disturbances of the summer of 1969, and the Widgery Tribunal, which sought to ascertain the sequence of events surrounding Bloody Sunday. Through close readings of how photographs were used at these two tribunals, the article shows how the existence of certain photographs served to anchor discussions of trajectories of violence around certain places and moments, illustrates how photographs taken for publication in newspapers were reread as evidential documents, and indicates the range of plausible truths each photograph was understood to provide. The study shows the importance of exploring the processes and mechanisms through which the state made sense of Northern Ireland to understand how causal accounts of conflict were produced and authenticated—and how, in turn, those explanatory regimes shaped the policies of the British state and the responses of local communities, and became embedded in historical writing on the Troubles.

scholarly journals Equality and Devolution in the United Kingdom: A Story in Three Acts and a Sequel

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-15
Author(s):  
Paula Devine ◽  
Grace Kelly ◽  
Martina McAuley
Keyword(s):  
United Kingdom ◽  
Great Britain ◽  
Northern Ireland ◽  
Peace Agreement ◽  
Good Friday ◽  
Left Behind ◽  
The Past ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
The Uk ◽  
The Way

Within the United Kingdom (UK), many of the arguments driving devolution and Brexit focused on equality. This article assesses how notions of equality have been shaped over the past two decades. Using a chronology of theoretical, political and public interpretations of equality between 1998 and 2018, the article highlights the shifting positions of Northern Ireland (NI) and the rest of the UK. NI once led the way in relation to equality legislation, and equality was the cornerstone of the Good Friday/Belfast peace agreement. However, the Equality Act 2010 in Great Britain meant that NI was left behind. The nature of future UK/EU relationships and how these might influence the direction and extent of the equality debate in the UK is unclear. While this article focuses on the UK, the questions that it raises have global application, due to the international influences on equality discourse and legislation.

scholarly journals ‘Gentility Keeps Breaking Through’: Women and the Middle-Class Northern Protestant House in Janet McNeill’s The Maiden Dinosaur

2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 36-53
Author(s):  
Dawn Miranda Sherratt-Bado
Keyword(s):  
Northern Ireland ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
The Troubles ◽  
Post War

Janet McNeill’s fiction has experienced a recent revival, led by London-based publisher Turnpike Books, which reissued three of her novels between 2014 and 2015, with a fourth due in autumn 2019. The Maiden Dinosaur (1964/2015) is her best-known book, and it depicts Northern Ireland at a transitional moment in its history, during the post-war period and preceding the recommencement of the Troubles. McNeill explores vestigial systems of power that endure in Northern Ireland amidst the shifting gender, class, religious, and political contexts of the early 1960s. This essay analyses her rendering of the middle-class Northern Protestant house, and argues that it is a metonym for patriarchal structures that pervade mid-century Belfast society. McNeill examines how the women of her generation manoeuvre within this circumscribed space, and her novel represents an aesthetic gesture of self-liberation.

Serving in troubled times: British military personnel’s memories and accounts of service in Northern Ireland

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
K. Neil Jenkings ◽  
Rachel Woodward
Keyword(s):  
Northern Ireland ◽  
Military Personnel ◽  
Past Experience ◽  
Military Deployment ◽  
Hostile Environment ◽  
Service Personnel ◽  
The Troubles ◽  
Memory Work ◽  
British Military ◽  
The Uk

Operation Banner saw the deployment of over 300,000 British soldiers to Ulster during the Troubles and as such they can be seen as constituting a third community during this period. Drawing on interviews with former service personnel structured around their personal photographs, and using published memoir accounts of military deployment to Northern Ireland, this chapter explores the memory work undertaken by former personnel to make sense of their past experience. Individuals, some still teenagers and serving in a hostile environment that for many looked just like home on the UK mainland, often experienced traumatic and life changing events when deployed. Using the themes of ‘youth and experience’, ‘security and danger’ and ‘trauma and memory’ we examine the often conflicting emotions and responses of these former military personnel to their experiences of the Troubles, and the work undertaken in the present to contain and make sense of this.

Book Reviews

Focaal ◽  
2006 ◽  
Vol 2006 (48) ◽  
pp. 158-172
Author(s):  
Christian Lund ◽  
Anthony D. Buckley ◽  
Gavin Smith ◽  
Martijn Koster ◽  
Johannes Stahl ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
North Carolina ◽  
Northern Ireland ◽  
Soziale Ungleichheit ◽  
The Troubles ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Cultural Turn ◽  
Life Politics

Deema Kaneff, Who owns the past? The politics of time in a ‘model’ Bulgarian villageWilliam F. Kelleher Jr., The troubles in Ballybogoin: Memory and identity in Northern IrelandDon Kalb and Herman Tak, Critical junctions: Anthropology and history beyond the cultural turnJonathan Xavier Inda (ed.), Anthropologies of modernity: Foucault, governmentality, and life politicsTatjana Thelen, Privatisierung und soziale Ungleichheit in der osteuropäischen Landwirtschaft. Zwei Fallstudien aus Ungarn und RumänienAndré Celtel, Categories of self: Louis Dumont’s theory of the individualGerald Sider, Living Indian histories: Lumbee and Tuscarora people in North Carolina

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