ABSTRACT
In any discussion of British-Irish relations ‘the other’ lurks menacingly in the undergrowth. ‘The Agreement Reached in Multi-Party Negotiations’ signed in Belfast in April 1998 made a sustained effort to breach this binary hold. Specifically, in section vi., in consideration of CONSTITUTIONAL ISSUES the signatories ‘recognise the birthright of all the people of Northern Ireland to identify and be accepted as Irish or British, or both, as they may so choose . . .’; and in para. 6 of the Strand One section it was stated that at their first meeting ‘members of the Assembly will register a designation of identity – nationalist, unionist or other . . .’ (emphases added). We might say that at a stroke the adamantine politics of identity and territory had been blown away and the dangerous cul-de-sac of narrowness had been challenged: ‘Wrestling with political issues of identity is not in itself an abnormality though wrestling with virtually nothing else is’ (Porter 1996, 8). Ethnocentricity was being replaced by a more nuanced interpretation of identity. It was a literary critic who recognised as much when he asserted that much ‘of the language of the Belfast Agreement is vague, even ‘poetic’. That is because it offers a version of multiple identities of a kind for which no legal language yet exists’ (Kiberd 2000, 630). We may abandon the prosaic for now and linger with the poetic in terms of understanding the complexity of the historic relationship of Britain and Ireland. We will do so by challenging the concept of the binary and by adapting a more inclusionary and comparative approach to the study of history. The 1998 Agreement and its out-workings will be our starting point for the simple reason that the Northern Ireland peace process has been heralded as a tentative model that can be exported to other trouble spots of the world. One of our Nobel Laureates cites General David Petraeus as speaking of the influence that the Northern Ireland paradigm had on US policy in Iraq as well as those who sought to inject a ‘creative breakthrough’ in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
drawing from the inspiration of Northern Ireland. While he remained deeply sceptical he was alluding to a trend that had gained momentum (Trimble 2007). A more upbeat appraisal is offered by a former Secretary of State to Northern Ireland (Hain 2007, 36). He mentions four particular factors – personalities matter, aligning international influence, a holistic political framework, and the centrality of dialogue – that assisted the process in Northern Ireland. While all of these may be relevant at the negotiation and implementation stages of an intractable conflict and while it might be seductive to search for the elusive ‘creative breakthrough’, they can distract from a deep understanding of the nature of conflict. Zartman’s (1989) concept of the ‘ripe moment’ for intervention ‘composed of a structural element, a party element, and a potential alternative outcome – that is, a mutually hurting stalemate, the presence of valid spokespersons and a formula for a way out’ is attractive. But it is also limited because it may be more prudent to view the ‘ripe moment’ as a process rather than a specific point in time: ‘While the “ripe moment” deals with the shifts, theories on possible settlement are dealing with the end product. This leaves the highly important interim period inadequately studied’ (Schulze 1997, 104). That ‘interim period’ may be a matter of years, decades, or much longer. That is why this chapter will be both longitudinal and latitudinal, and will probe our theoretical understanding of nationalism. That is, we will be abandoning the mindset of the ‘dreary steeples of Fermanagh and Tyrone’ in favour of an analysis of the longue duree as practised by the French Annales School. There the emphasis is on long-term trends and on socioeconomic conditions. It encourages a shift from fatalism, from what Benedict Anderson refers to as ‘the pervasive “frog under the coconut shell mentality” created by “official nationalism” ’. The frog has lived his life in a half coconut shell which is his shelter – ‘. . . before long the frog begins to feel that the coconut bowl encloses the entire universe. The moral judgement in the image is that the frog is narrow minded, provincial, stay-at-home and self-satisfied for no good reason’ (Anderson 2016, 15). It is worthwhile noting, too, that Irish political science was in its infancy and in terms of academic research relatively little had been written on the Northern Ireland question in the previous 50 years. That which was produced in the next two decades was not particularly effective (Whyte 1990, 246-254). The first significant academic contribution came from an American political scientist who had begun his research prior to the outbreak of violence. In his pioneering work he introduced a comparative dimension drawing on the Reconstruction period in the US and on the work of the Dutch political scientist, Arend Lijphart, who was developing his ideas on consociational democracy (Rose 1971, 447-473). Indeed it was Lijphart’s seminal essay (1975, 83-106) on cases, theories and solutions that set the tone for much academic analysis and policy formulation over the next four decades. That, too, will be the thrust of this chapter. We are less concerned with examining the entrails of the claustrophobic bilateralism that characterised BritishIrish relations for so long, and more with the paradigm shift that moved the
sovereigns towards a more agreeably wider embrace which enabled them to forge a ‘solution’ to the Northern Ireland conflict. We will concentrate on the general historical process, the dynamics of ‘British’ history, the impact of the colonial experience and more recent developments in ‘Europe’, all of which contributed to creating a level playing field – to borrow a (sub-Sartrean) cliché.
