| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
NORTHERN
IRELAND__________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
End of an Era
After years of bloodshed and months of wrangling,
Northern Ireland has its own government.
By Kieron Wood
On December 1, 1999, after more than a quarter of a century, Britain ended its direct rule of Northern Ireland. The British Parliament handed over the reins of power to a new Belfast-based assembly comprising Nationalists and Unionists. It was the first time that Republicans and Loyalists had fully shared governmental power in Northern Ireland.
The long journey had begun in 1922 when Britain decided to pull out of Ireland after ruling the island for 800 years. Protestants loyal to the British Crown feared their religion and culture would be destroyed in a united Catholic Ireland, so Britain insisted that six of the (mainly Protestant) counties of the province of Ulster should be established as the separate statelet of Northern Ireland, which would remain part of the United Kingdom. (Three of Ulster’s counties were left in the so-called Irish Free State, which was eventually to declare itself a Republic in 1949).
The Irish Republican Army (IRA), which had forced Britain’s withdrawal by a lengthy war of attrition, refused to accept the 1922 treaty, and initially waged a brief but savage civil war against treaty supporters in the Free State. Later the IRA resumed its “armed struggle” against Britain in the six counties of Northern Ireland. But terror was met with terror; the attacks were soon matched by those of armed Loyalists (so-called because they remained loyal to Britain).
Beginning in 1922, Northern Ireland had its own government, whose structures were heavily biased in favor of Protestant Unionists. But a widening political awareness among Catholics gradually led them to demand equal rights from the Protestant majority. In 1968, Northern Irish Catholics began a civil rights campaign for “one man, one vote.” (Until then, many Protestant businessmen had more than one vote.)
Unionists grew increasingly disturbed by the truculent intransigence of the Catholic minority. In 1971, the government of Northern Ireland introduced internment without trial for suspected Republicans; and on January 30, 1972 (which was to be known as “Bloody Sunday”), British paratroopers shot and killed 14 Catholic civilians during a civil rights march in Derry. The resulting civil unrest prompted Britain in 1973 to abolish the Northern Ireland Parliament and to introduce direct rule from London.
But the unrest continued. In 1973, the so-called Sunningdale Agreement (an attempt at power sharing between Protestants and Catholics) failed after a general strike by Unionists. The following year, Loyalists bombed Dublin and Monaghan, killing 30. In 1981, ten Republicans died while on hunger strike for political status in prison in Northern Ireland. (Hunger striker Bobby Sands was elected to the British Parliament on his death bed. An embarrassed British government changed the law to forbid serving prisoners to stand for election.)
An IRA bomb attempt on the life of the British prime minister the following year failed, but in 1985, the British and Irish governments—realizing the need for an eventual resolution of the Irish problem—signed the Anglo-Irish agreement. For the first time, the Dublin government was allowed a consultative role in the affairs of the Northern Catholic minority.
In 1993, the British government finally accepted the right of the people of Ireland to self-determination, and the following year the IRA declared a cease-fire. Loyalists paramilitaries followed suit. But that cease-fire broke down in 1996 after Britain’s Conservative government refused to allow Sinn Fein (the IRA’s political wing) to join all-party talks on the political future of Northern Ireland.
The Good Friday Agreement
With the landslide general election victory of Britain’s Labor Party in 1997, the IRA resumed its cease-fire. Talks restarted in Belfast between the government of the Irish Republic, Britain’s new Labor government, and representatives of all Northern Ireland’s political parties. These discussions, under the chairmanship of former US Senator George Mitchell, eventually led to the peace agreement which was signed on Good Friday 1998.
Following the so-called Good Friday Agreement, voters in Northern Ireland and the Republic voted on proposals for a new cross-community Northern Ireland Assembly to take responsibility for a wide range of local government and cross-border powers. The “Yes” vote in the Republic topped 95 percent. In the North, despite opposition by extremists on both sides—Unionists and Republicans—the electorate voted “Yes” by a majority of almost three to one.
In the subsequent election for the new Assembly, the moderate Catholic and nationalist Social Democratic and Labor Party (SDLP) topped the poll with 22 percent of the vote. Close behind came the Ulster Unionist Party, which also favored the agreement, capturing 21 percent. In third place with 18 percent was the Democratic Unionist Party of Rev. Ian Paisley, which opposed the agreement. Sinn Fein won just under 18 percent of the votes.
Ulster Unionist leader David Trimble, who had risked his political future by sitting down at the conference table with Sinn Fein, was elected First Minister of the new Assembly. His deputy was to be the SDLP’s Seamus Mallon.
But Unionists insisted that the Assembly could not begin its work until the IRA had handed over all its weapons. “No guns, no government,” was the cry. An international disarmament commission headed by Canadian General John de Chastelain tried to provide a formula to start “decommissioning” all paramilitary weapons by February 2000.
The talks came close to breaking down as the Unionists insisted that the IRA hand over its weapons in advance, while Sinn Fein pointed out that this was not a condition set forth in the Good Friday Agreement. Eventually a series of talks under the aegis of Senator Mitchell produced agreement on a complex solution: the Assembly would be set up, and then the IRA would immediately appoint one of its members to work with General de Chastelain to arrange the turnover of weapons. Unionists were skeptical, but the momentum toward an accord was steadily building, and in late November the deal was done.
Closing the deal
After eight centuries of history, the pace of change was extraordinarily rapid. Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II signed the devolution order after a special meeting of the Privy Council, and the formal transfer of powers from Westminster to Belfast followed a few hours later. Devolution triggered the removal from the Irish Constitution of Articles 2 and 3, in which the Republic lays claim to Northern Ireland. The first full meeting of the Northern Ireland Executive took place the next day, followed shortly afterward by the IRA’s appointment of an interlocutor to serve as liaison with Gen. John de Chastelain’s decommissioning body. Under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement, the general is responsible for the method and timetable of the destruction of paramilitary weapons.
The new assembly, which met in full session for the first time on December 6, will have full legislative and executive power over matters which had previously been the responsibility of the six Northern Ireland government departments: finance and personnel, agriculture, education, health and social services, economic development, and environment. The Northern Ireland Secretary in the British government retains responsibility for security issues.
The most controversial ministerial appointment was that of Sinn Fein’s Martin McGuinness to the position of Education Minister. Unionists expressed concern that McGuinness (who speaks Irish, and attends Mass daily) would force Protestant children to learn the Irish language. McGuinness did say he supported the right of parents to have their children educated in the Irish language if they wished. But more conservatively, he said he would not be pressing for any increase in multi-denominational education in the North, and would be content to continue with the existing system of separate Catholic and Protestant schools.
But not all Ministers were concerned with matters of such social importance. The first
decision of the 108 members of the new Assembly was to vote themselves a pay raise of
$12,000.
Kieron Wood writes regularly for CWR from his base in Dublin.
Back to Catholic Information Center on Internet's Main Periodical Page
Back to Catholic World Report - January 2000 - Table of Contents