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Northern Ireland Since Partition

Formation of the State

The original historic Province of Ulster consisting of nine counties, was partitioned by the 1920 Government of Ireland Act, as was the Irish nation. The British enacted act partitioned Ireland into two states comprised of the six counties referred to as Northern Ireland and the remaining 26 counties referred to as Southern Ireland.  In so doing, the British disregarded the historic and cultural homogeneity of the historic nine-counties province of Ulster by carving out six of its counties to create the Northern Ireland state, a unilateral blatant provocation of historic proportions to ensure a Unionist majority within the enclave and placate a vocal minority loyal to the crown.  

Government

The Executive Committee or the Executive Committee for Northern Ireland was the government of Northern Ireland created under the Government of Ireland Act 1920. Generally known as either the Cabinet or the Government, the executive committee existed from 1922 to 1972. It exercised executive authority formally vested in the British monarch in relation to devolved matters. A Protestant parliament for a Protestant people was a term that has been applied to the political institutions in Northern Ireland between 1921 and 1972.  The implication was that Irish Catholics had no political status in the country. 

Special Powers Act (1922).

The Civil Authorities (Special Powers) Act was passed by the Executive Committee in April 1922. The Special Powers Act gave the government, and by extension its police and security forces, extensive powers to deal with threats and disorder in the Six Counties state. The Act also included severe punishments, such as flogging, for those arrested under its provisions.

The Belfast Pogrom

This was a terror campaign lasting 20 months from 1920 until 1922. It was unleashed against Catholics in the greater Belfast area to ‘teach them a lesson and silence all opposition to the establishment of a Northern Ireland state. The pogrom involved large-scale expulsions of Catholics from their workplaces and from districts where they were a small minority, and violent attacks on isolated Catholic populations. Hundreds of innocent men, women and children were killed by loyalist murder gangs, many of whom were members of the temporary police force known as the Specials. Belfast Catholics were left traumatized and terrified by the scale of the murderous brutality brought down upon their heads.

And it was all carried out with tacit approval from on high. There is evidence that Unionist leaders like Edward Carson and James Craig indulged first in incitement, and then offered support to the pogromists in the terror’s aftermath. British leaders in London did nothing to stop it. They left Craig in control, and largely ignored pro-regime outrages.

Source --- Remembering the Belfast Pogrom - spiked (spiked-online.com)

Northern Ireland and WWII

Northern Ireland also suffered at the hands of the Germans during World War II. Thinking itself a distant and unlikely target, Belfast did little to prepare for Nazi air raids – but the city’s shipyards made it an important strategic target for the Luftwaffe (German air force). In April and May 1940, Belfast was subject to dozens of raids. The worst came on April 15th when two hundred German bombers pounded the city relentlessly, destroying factories, infrastructure, and housing. More than nine hundred Belfast residents were killed, one of the war’s highest single-day civilian death tolls. The bombing destroyed half the city’s housing, leaving one-quarter of its population homeless. 

The situation improved after the war, aided by the British government’s implementation of a national welfare state. Housing, health, and education, previously the responsibility of the under-resourced Northern Ireland government, were now administered and funded by Westminster. Northern Ireland received more than 100,000 new dwellings, while its citizens received national insurance and family allowances.

The Northern Ireland Conflict

In March of 1972, the Northern Ireland state collapsed unable to control protests by the nationalists who after years of pogroms, civil rights discrimination and police brutality had taken to the streets in 1969 demanding relief and redress from such state instituted repression. By 1972, the protests had morphed into warfare over sovereignty that had by the turn of the century resulted in the killings of over 3,500 combatants and civilians.

Timeline:

1. August 14, 1969: British Army first deployed onto streets of Northern Ireland

2.  August 9, 1971: Internment introduced, and violent protests began.

3.  1972:  Bloodiest year of the conflict

4. January 30, 1972:  Bloody Sunday, thirteen civil rights protesters shot dead by the British Army

5.  March 1972: Northern Ireland Government suspended, and Direct Rule imposed. No-go areas (set up 1969) dismantled.

6.  July 21, 1972: Bloody Friday, IRA bombs kill nine people and injure 130 in Belfast.

7.  From 1974: IRA step up bombing campaign on Mainland

8. November 29, 1974: Prevention of Terrorism Act

9. 1980: Seven Republican prisoners launch hunger strike in Maze Prison

10.  1981: Death of Bobby Sands (first IRA hunger striker to die), huge surge in support for Sinn Fein, the IRA’s political wing

11.  October 12, 1984: IRA Brighton bombing of the Grand Hotel kills five people and seriously injures thirty-four.

12.  November 15, 1985: Anglo-Irish Agreement signed, giving Dublin some say in Ulster affairs.

13.   November 1987: Remembrance Day bombing Enniskillen.

14.  December 15, 1993: Downing Street Declaration that people of Northern Ireland can determine their own future. Warrington bomb kills two young boys.

15.   August 1994: Peace process receives a big boost when the pro-Catholic 1994 IRA ceasefire declared with Sinn Fein entering peace process.

16.  1996: Peace Talks stall and violence resumes with Canary Wharf bombing

17.  1997: Resumption of peace talks

18.  February 1997: Stephen Restorick last soldier to be killed until 7 March 2009

19.  April 10, 1998: Belfast (Good Friday) Agreement

20.  The breakdown of people killed during the conflict is as follows.

The 1998 Good Friday Agreement

In 1998 the British and Irish governments had hammered out an arrangement that became known as the Good Friday Agreement (GFA) to bring an end to the carnage. The Agreement was sanctioned by separate plebiscites in both sided of the border dividing the Irish nation. The main provisions of the Agreement are as follows.

1. The repeal of the 1920 Government of Ireland Act.

2. The removal of Articles 1 & 2 from the 1937 Irish Constitution thus accepting Northern Ireland as an integral part of the U.K

3. The border between Ireland and Northern Ireland would remain open and free of customs or security checks.

4. Northern Ireland would remain part of the United Kingdom until such time as the majority of its people voted for Irish reunification. Both governments would honor the outcome and make provisions to their respective constitution or uncodified constitution as is the case with England.

Other provisions of the agreement would have little or no impact on the future status of the Northern Ireland state.

The European Economic Community/European Union 

The European Economic Community (EEC) was created by the Treaty of Rome in 1957. The six founding members included West Germany, France, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxemburg.  In 1961, the UK, Denmark and Ireland applied for membership of the ECC. France vetoed all three applications in 1963. In 1967, together with Denmark, Ireland, and Norway the UK, submitted its second application to join the ECC. In 1972 after numerous delays, prolonged negotiations and the death of de Gaulle, the UK, Ireland, Denmark signed the Treaties of Accession and formally joined the EEC in 1973.

When the European Union (EU) was created by the Maastricht Treaty in 1993, the EEC was incorporated into the EU and renamed the European Community (EC). In 2009, the EC formally ceased to exist, and its institutions were directly absorbed into the EU. By 2019 the EU had expanded to include twenty-seven countries.

On January 31, 2020, the UK officially withdrew from the EU, the first and only country to do so.

Brexit

In 2016 the British electorate voted in referendum 51.9% to 48.1% to withdraw from the European Union. Northern Ireland and Scottish electorates voted 56% and 62% respectively to remain. England and Wales electorates voted 53.4% and 52.5% respectively to withdraw.

These results are stressing the United Kingdom along its fault lines with Scotland vying for another vote to decide whether to remain in the UK.

After a prolonged transition period and protracted negotiations, the UK officially withdrew from the EU, On January 31, 2020.

As a consequence, it’s difficult to predict what will happen to the political and economic entities in Northern Ireland. However, what can be predicted is that both will be severely tested as they are subject to the interests of outside forces who primarily advocate for their own narrow interests regardless of perceived colonial ties, cultural identities.

The Northern Ireland Protocol.

The Northern Ireland Protocol is an agreement between the EU and UK signed in October 2019 to avoid placing a hard border on the island of Ireland. It is designed to avoid customs tariffs, customs declarations, and customs controls between Northern Ireland and Ireland (by extension the EU) thus subjecting Northern Ireland to EU rules on customs and the regulation of goods. It also requires checks and custom controls on goods entering Northern Ireland for Great Britain and to a lesser extent on goods entering Great Britain from Northern Ireland.

The Unionists communities in Northern Ireland are fearful that this arrangement over the long term will weaken their ties to England and lay the groundwork for a United Ireland.

Shortly after the British signed the Withdrawal Treaty with the EU, they the British, started a campaign to modify the Northern Ireland Protocol, an integral part of the Treaty. They did so to mollify the Unionists and at the same time change provisions of the Treaty that negatively impacted their economy. The EU is refusing to renegotiate an agreement i.e., a Treaty entered into less than two earlier.

The Brexit Impasse and Consequences

The Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) is threatening to collapse the power sharing arrangement set up by the GFA if the Northern Ireland Protocol is not rescinded. If the DUP follows through with their threat, the governance of the Northern Ireland state will revert back to Westminster as has happened on a number of occasions since its inception. Such a scenario would trigger a political crisis for the British government with no predictable outcome for either the DUP or the Northern Ireland state.

   TMMTP

Date posted 8/6/2022