ABSTRACT

A fter hundreds of years of conflict, and decades of paramilitaryterrorism, a series of ceasefires in the 1990s by paramilitary groups onboth sides in Northern Ireland led, eventually, to the Belfast Agreement, signed on Friday, April 10, 1998. This agreement received the support of 71% of the Northern Irish electorate in a referendum which in turn led to the setting up of a local assembly and a power-sharing government,

embracing all the major political parties. (The assembly has collapsed at the time of writing this chapter; however, there are strong hopes that it will soon be restored.) One of many aims of the Good Friday Agreement was to create an “inclusive society” (Robinson, 2003); a society that would turn its back on sectarian violence between Catholics and Protestants, and in which people would “firmly dedicate ourselves to the achievement of reconciliation, tolerance, and mutual trust, and to the protection and vindication of the human rights of all.” (Article 2 of The Agreement). In this chapter we will focus specifically on exclusion in the form of the religious segregation that lies at the heart of Northern Irish society and, we argue, its problems.