Consenting Adults: The Principle of Consent and Northern Ireland's Constitutional Future

2001 ◽  
Vol 36 (4) ◽  
pp. 472-492 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roger Mac Ginty ◽  
Rick Wilford ◽  
Lizanne Dowds ◽  
Gillian Robinson
Keyword(s):  
Northern Ireland ◽  
Public Attitudes ◽  
Peace Process ◽  
Constitutional Change ◽  
Political Debate ◽  
The Troubles ◽  
Good Friday ◽  
The People ◽  
Good Friday Agreement ◽  
To Come

‘If A Majority Of People In Northern Ireland Ever Voted To become part of a United Ireland what would you do?’ At first sight the question may seem plucked from the realms of constitutional fantasy. A united Ireland seems an unlikely prospect, at least in anything but the long term. Even proponents of unity predict a 15–20 year wait. Yet the 1998 Good Friday Agreement empowers the people of Northern Ireland to decide their own constitutional future. As a result questions on Northern Ireland's future constitutional status, and public reactions to possible changes in that status, are relevant to current political debate.It is important to note that the principle of consent is not a new constitutional invention. It has had a long association with Northern Ireland. It is argued that the peace process and the 1998 Good Friday Agreement have refocused attention on the long-standing consent principle. While consent was part of the constitutional furniture it was often overlooked during the Troubles.This article re-examines consent in the light of the peace process. It draws on evidence from the 1998 and 1999/2000 Northern Ireland Life and Times surveys, as well as a number of in-depth interviews with senior politicians and policy-makers involved in the peace process and the negotiations on a political settlement. First it considers the changing significance of the consent principle to Northern Ireland's constitutional status, arguing that the principle has assumed a renewed immediacy. Secondly, the article reports the findings of the two most recent Northern Ireland Life and Times surveys in relation to constitutional preferences. While public attitudes towards a unitary Ireland or continued Union within the United Kingdom have been surveyed regularly, as far as the authors are aware no previous survey has asked whether people would accept or oppose constitutional change if it was supported by a majority of Northern Ireland's citizens. In other words, no survey has gauged the level of public acceptance of the consent principle. The key question is: would unionists be prepared to come quietly if a majority of Northern Ireland's citizens voted to accept a united Ireland?

scholarly journals Richard Bean’s The Big Fellah (2010) and Jez Butterworth’s The Ferryman (2017): two plays about the Northern Troubles from outside of Northern Ireland

2020 ◽  
Vol 73 (2) ◽  
pp. 115-126 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hiroko Mikami
Keyword(s):  
Northern Ireland ◽  
Northern Irish ◽  
The Troubles ◽  
Good Friday ◽  
Good Friday Agreement

During the three decades of the Troubles of Northern Ireland (1969-1998), a remarkable amount of plays about the Troubles was written and almost of them, it seems, had been ‘monopolised’ by (Northern) Irish playwrights. Recently, however, certain changes about this monopoly have been witnessed and those who do not claim themselves as Irish descendants have begun to choose the Northern Troubles as their themes. Also, there have been growing concerns about violence worldwide since 9.11. This article deals with two plays, Richard Bean’s The Big Fellah and Jez Butterworth’s The Ferryman, neither of which was written by an Irish playwright and examines whether and to what extent it is possible to say that they can transcend regional boundaries and become part of global memories in the context of the post-Good Friday Agreement and the post 9.11.

The mental health impact of the Troubles, 1969–1999

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Bolton
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Northern Ireland ◽  
Health Impact ◽  
Peace Accord ◽  
The Troubles ◽  
Good Friday ◽  
Belfast Agreement ◽  
Good Friday Agreement ◽  
The Impact

This Chapter is the first of two that describe efforts to understand the mental health and related impacts of the conflict in Northern Ireland, often referred to as The Troubles. The Chapter covers the period from the outbreak of violence in the late 1960’s up until the period around the peace accord, the Belfast Agreement (or Good Friday Agreement) of April 1998. The early studies reveal little, if any, major effects on the wellbeing and mental health of the population, but as the years go by, evidence starts to build of the impact of the violence, particularly as the ceasefires of the early and mid 1990’s take hold. The developing understanding of the impact was due in part to the evolution of methods and approaches being used by researchers - which is discussed in more detail at the end of Chapter 5.

The Future of British–Irish Relations after Brexit

2020 ◽  
pp. 254-273
Author(s):  
Etain Tannam
Keyword(s):  
Northern Ireland ◽  
Peace Process ◽  
Good Friday ◽  
Sectarian Violence ◽  
Good Friday Agreement ◽  
Potential Methods ◽  
The Uk ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Eu

This chapter assesses the impact of UK withdrawal from the EU on British–Irish relations. It examines yet another possible disintegrative effect of Brexit on the UK system, namely the re-unification of Ireland. The 1998 Belfast/Good Friday Agreement, bringing to a close decades of sectarian violence in Northern Ireland, had created an excellent working relations between Dublin and London. However, Brexit has threated this equilibrium, and has unexpectedly brought back on the agenda a possible border poll. The chapter then looks at the unfolding of the Brexit negotiations from June of 2016 to March of 2020 from the perspectives of British–Irish relations. It also studies the importance of the British–Irish relationship and the EU in the peace process in Northern Ireland, and considers potential methods of managing the relationship after Brexit.

Liberty, Equality and the Rights of Cultures: The Marching Controversy at Drumcree

2000 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 26-45 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shane O'Neills
Keyword(s):  
Northern Ireland ◽  
Peace Process ◽  
Discourse Theory ◽  
Cultural Conflict ◽  
Good Friday ◽  
Good Friday Agreement ◽  
Rational Acceptability ◽  
Normative Basis ◽  
Theoretical Assessment

This article offers a normative-theoretical assessment of a key aspect of the continuing cultural conflict in Northern Ireland. The marching controversy at Drumcree has had a destabilising effect on the peace process and it represents a serious threat to the achievement of the kind of political accommodation outlined in the Good Friday Agreement. The aim is to apply Jürgen Habermas's discourse theory of rights to this dispute so as to assess which, if any, of the conflicting claims should take priority. By seeking to assess the rational acceptability of the better arguments on either side, I reject the view that these claims are irreconcilable. In the concluding section I outline four principles that provide a normative basis for just resolutions to conflicts over contentious marches in Northern Ireland.

scholarly journals The Representation and Overcoming of Perpetrator Trauma in Rachel Seiffert’s Afterwards

2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-9
Author(s):  
Paula Romo-Mayor
Keyword(s):  
Northern Ireland ◽  
Structural Violence ◽  
Memory Studies ◽  
Acting Out ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Controversial Subject ◽  
The Troubles ◽  
Good Friday ◽  
Mau Mau ◽  
Good Friday Agreement

Rachel Seiffert’s novel Afterwards (2007) explores the ethically challenging and often neglected fact of perpetrator trauma resulting from sustained structural violence. This controversial subject is conveyed through the stories of Joseph and David, two British ex-servicemen belonging to different generations, who attempt to overcome their war traumas years after their respective involvement in The Troubles in Northern Ireland (from the late 1960s to the Good Friday Agreement of 1998), and the Mau Mau Uprising (running from 1952 to 1960), that ended with Kenya’s independence. The novel fittingly organises the narrative around moments of acting-out, when the protagonists feel equally disconnected from self and world, yet deal with their traumatised condition in strikingly different ways. The paper proposes an analysis of Afterwards from the perspective of Trauma and Memory Studies, with a view to exploring how the “palimpsestuous” (Dillon 4) structure of the novel, along with the repetitive use of imagery evoking holes and emptiness (Bloom 210), allow Seiffert to “perform” (Ganteau and Onega 10) the workings of the disturbed psyches of Joseph and David, so that it builds the unrepresentability of trauma into the textual fabric of the novel.

Building bridges? Remembering the 1641 rebellion in Northern Ireland

2018 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 100-114 ◽  
Author(s):  
Naomi McAreavey
Keyword(s):  
Northern Ireland ◽  
Peace Process ◽  
History And Memory ◽  
Good Friday ◽  
Post Conflict ◽  
Good Friday Agreement ◽  
Before And After

This essay explores the changing place of the 1641 rebellion in the memory cultures of Ulster loyalist communities before and after the Good Friday Agreement of 1998. Focusing on the loyalist centres of Portadown and West Belfast, I show that commemorative activities particularly flourished during periods of crisis in these communities as they moved (or were moved) towards compromise. The 1641 Depositions Project has argued that the ‘memory’ of 1641 must be replaced by ‘history’. The potential for the transformation or dissolution of loyalist memories depends on the willingness of these communities to forget a long-established element of the expression of a ‘besieged’ Ulster Protestant identity, which in turn depends on their investment in the peace process. Nascent attempts to accommodate the history and memory of 1641 in post-conflict Northern Ireland suggest that perhaps the fledgling peace is not yet secure enough for such divisive memories to disappear.

Banalising Evil?

2021 ◽  
pp. 164-175
Author(s):  
Veronica Membrive
Keyword(s):  
Northern Ireland ◽  
Power Sharing ◽  
Growing Up ◽  
Television Show ◽  
The Troubles ◽  
Good Friday ◽  
Good Friday Agreement ◽  
20Th Anniversary

2018 was the celebration year of the 20th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement of 1998, bringing power-sharing and much peace to Northern Ireland. Twenty years seem a fair distance to address the issue from a comical viewpoint. Lisa McGee's television show Derry Girls (2018) released in Channel 4, and recently in Netflix, seems to convey a nostalgic and caustic outlook at the 1990s during the last years of The Troubles and focuses on the lives of a gang of four Irish teenagers growing up in the setting of Catholic Derry. This chapter will interrogate the banalization of evil conveyed by McGee by tackling the representation of evil and violence in Northern Ireland during The Troubles.

The Long Peace Process

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Sanders
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Northern Ireland ◽  
Reagan Administration ◽  
Peace Process ◽  
The United States ◽  
Congressional Hearings ◽  
The Troubles ◽  
Good Friday ◽  
Northern Ireland Conflict ◽  
International Fund

This book examines the role of the United States of America in the Northern Ireland conflict and peace process. It assesses Northern Ireland as both an international and a domestic issue in the United States during the years of conflict there. It looks at how US figures engaged with Northern Ireland, as well as the wider issue of Irish partition, in the years before the outbreak of what became known as the “troubles”. From there, it considers early interventions on the part of Congressional figures such as Senator Edward Kennedy and the Congressional hearings on Northern Ireland that took place in the aftermath of Bloody Sunday, 1972. It analyses the causes and consequences of the State Department decision to ban the sale of weapons to the Royal Ulster Constabulary, before considering the development of the US role in Northern Ireland through the Reagan administration and the onset of US financial support for conflict resolution in the form of the International Fund for Ireland. It then assesses the dynamics behind the role that President Clinton assumed following his election in 1992, before examining how Presidents Bush and Obama attempted to seize on the momentum of the 1998 Good Friday Agreement

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