The Northern Irish Conflict: A Chronology
A history of the conflict and the slow progress
towards peace
by Ann Marie Imbornoni, Borgna Brunner,
and Beth Rowen
Click here for recent news on the Irish peace
process.
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HISTORY OF THE PROBLEM: BRITAIN AND IRELAND
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A Centuries-old Conflict
The history of Northern Ireland can be traced back to the 17th century,
when the English finally succeeded in subduing the island after
successfully putting down a number of rebellions. (See Oliver Cromwell; Battle of the Boyne.) Much land, especially in the
north, was subsequently colonized by Scottish and English Protestants, setting Ulster somewhat
apart from the rest of Ireland, which was predominantly Catholic.
The Nineteenth Century
During the 1800s the north and south grew further apart due to economic
differences. In the north the standard of living rose as industry and
manufacturing flourished, while in the south the unequal distribution of
land and resources—Anglican Protestants owned most of the
land—resulted in a low standard of living for the large Catholic
population.
Political separation of Northern Ireland from the rest of
Ireland did not come until the early 20th century, when
Protestants and Catholics divided into two warring camps over the
issue of Irish home rule.
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The Twentieth Century
Political separation of Northern Ireland from the rest of Ireland did
not come until the early 20th century, when Protestants and Catholics
divided into two warring camps over the issue of Irish home rule. Most Irish Catholics desired
complete independence from Britain, but Irish Protestants feared living in
a country ruled by a Catholic majority.
Government of Ireland Act
In an attempt to pacify both factions, the British passed in 1920 the
Government of Ireland Act, which divided Ireland into two separate
political entities, each with some powers of self-government. The Act was
accepted by Ulster Protestants and rejected by southern Catholics, who
continued to demand total independence for a unified Ireland.
The Irish Free State and Northern Ireland
Following a period of guerrilla warfare between the nationalist Irish Republican Army (IRA) and British
forces, a treaty was signed in 1921 creating the Irish Free State from 23
southern counties and 3 counties in Ulster. The other 6 counties of Ulster
made up Northern Ireland, which remained part of the United Kingdom. In
1949 the Irish Free State became an independent republic.
"The Troubles"
Although armed hostilities between Catholics and Protestants largely
subsided after the 1921 agreement, violence erupted again in the late
1960s; bloody riots broke out in Londonderry in 1968 and in Londonderry
and Belfast in 1969. British troops were brought in to restore order, but
the conflict intensified as the IRA and Protestant paramilitary groups
carried out bombings and other acts of terrorism. This continuing
conflict, which lingered into the 1990s, became known as "the
Troubles."
Despite efforts to bring about a resolution to the conflict during the
1970s and 80s, terrorist violence was
still a problem in the early 90s and British troops remained in full
force. More than 3,000 people have died as a result of the strife in
Northern Ireland.
An Early Attempt
A serious attempt to bring about a resolution to the conflict was made
in 1985 when British and Irish prime ministers Margaret Thatcher and Garrett Fitzgerald signed the
Anglo-Irish Agreement, which recognized for the first time the Republic of
Ireland's right to have a consultative role in the affairs of Northern
Ireland. However, Protestant politicians who opposed the Agreement were
able to block its implementation.
The IRA Declares a Cease-fire
Further talks between rival Catholic and Protestant officials and the
British and Irish governments occurred during the early 1990s. Then, in
late Aug. 1994 the peace process received a big boost when the
pro-Catholic IRA announced a cease-fire. This made it possible for Sinn Fein, the political arm of the IRA, to
participate in multiparty peace talks; hitherto Sinn Fein had been barred
from such talks because of its association with the IRA and its terrorist
tactics.
On Dec. 9, 1994, the first officially sanctioned, publicly
announced talks took place between Sinn Fein and British
officials. Negotiators for Sinn Fein pushed for a British
withdrawal from Northern Ireland; Great Britain countered that the
IRA must give up its weapons
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Sinn Fein Participates in Official Talks
On Dec. 9, 1994, the first officially sanctioned, publicly announced
talks took place between Sinn Fein and British officials. Negotiators for
Sinn Fein pushed for a British withdrawal from Northern Ireland; Great
Britain countered that the IRA must give up its weapons before Sinn Fein
would be allowed to negotiate on the same basis as other parties. The
issue of IRA disarmament would continue to be a sticking point throughout
the negotiations.
An Anglo-Irish Proposal for Peace
In late Feb. 1995, the British and Irish governments released their
joint proposal for talks on the future of Northern Ireland. The talks were
to be held in three phases involving the political parties of Northern
Ireland, the Irish government, and the British government. The talks would
focus on the establishment of a form of self-government for Northern
Ireland and the formation of Irish-Northern Irish "cross-border" bodies
that would be set up to oversee such domestic concerns as agriculture,
tourism, and health. Results of the talks would be put to referendums in
Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.
The U.S. Gets Involved
In Dec. 1995, former US senator George Mitchell was
brought in to serve as mediator for the peace talks. His report issued in
Jan. 1996 recommended the gradual disarmament of the IRA during the course
of the talks, thus breaking the deadlock caused by the IRA's refusal to
disarm.
Multiparty Talks Open in Belfast
On June 10, 1996, multiparty peace talks opened in Belfast. However,
because of the breakdown of the IRA cease-fire the preceding Feb., Sinn
Fein was turned away. Following the resumption of the cease-fire in July
1997, full-scale peace negotiations began in Belfast on Oct. 7, 1997.
Great Britain attended as well as most of Northern Ireland's feuding
political parties, including Sinn Fein and the Ulster Unionist Party
(UUP), the largest Protestant political party in Northern Ireland. The
more extreme Democratic Unionist Party and the tiny United Kingdom
Unionist Party refused to join.
Click here for who's who in the Good
Friday Agreement.
Good Friday Agreement
The historic talks finally resulted in the landmark Good Friday Agreement, which was signed by the
main political parties on both sides on Apr. 10, 1998. The accord called
for an elected assembly for Northern Ireland, a cross-party cabinet with
devolved powers, and cross-border bodies to handle issues common to both
the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. Thus minority Catholics
gained a share of the political power in Northern Ireland, and the
Republic of Ireland a voice in Northern Irish affairs. In return Catholics
were to relinquish the goal of a united Ireland unless the largely
Protestant North voted in favor of it.
Real Hope for Peace
With the signing of the Good Friday Agreement, hope ran high that
lasting peace was about to become a reality in Northern Ireland. In a dual
referendum held on May 22, 1998, Northern Ireland approved the accord by a
vote of 71% to 29%, and the Irish Republic by a vote of 94%. In June 1998,
voters chose the 108 members of the Northern Ireland Assembly, the locally
elected government.
International recognition and support for peace in Northern Ireland
came on Oct. 16, 1998, when the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded jointly to
John Hume and David Trimble, the leaders of the
largest Catholic and Protestant political parties, respectively, in
Northern Ireland.
Hope Proves False
In June 1999, the peace process stalled when the IRA refused to disarm
prior to the formation of Northern Ireland's new provincial cabinet. Sinn
Fein insisted that the IRA would only give up weapons after the new
government assembled; the Ulster Unionists, Northern Ireland's largest
Protestant party, demanded disarmament first. Consequently the new
government failed to form on schedule in July 1999, bring the entire
process to a complete halt.
Sinn Fein, Over to You
At the end of Nov. 1999, David Trimble, leader of
the Ulster Unionists, relented on the "no guns, no government" position
and agreed to form a government before the IRA's disarmament. If the IRA
did not begin to disarm by Jan. 31, 2000, however, the Ulster Unionists
would withdraw from the parliament of Northern Ireland, shutting down the
new government.
New Parliament Is Suspended
With this compromise in place, the new government was quickly
formed, and on Dec. 2 the British government formally transferred
governing powers over to the Northern Irish parliament. But by the
deadline Sinn Fein had made little progress
toward disarmament, and so on Feb. 12, 2000, the British government
suspended the Northern Irish parliament and once again imposed direct
rule.
A New Beginning
Throughout the spring, Irish, British, and American leaders continued
to hold discussions to try to end the impasse. Then on May 6 the IRA
announced that it would agree to put its arms "beyond use" under
the supervision of international inspectors. Britain returned home rule powers to the Northern Ireland Assembly
on May 30, just three days after the Ulster Unionist Party,
Northern Ireland's largest Protestant Party, again voted in favor of a
power-sharing arrangement with Sinn Fein.
On June 26, 2000, international monitors Martti Ahtisaari of Finland and Cyril Ramaphosa of South Africa announced that they were
satisfied that a substantial amount of IRA arms was safely stored
and could not be used without detection.
However, while the IRA did allow for the inspection of some of its arms
dumps, the months limped by without any real progress on disarmament.
Caught in the middle was David Trimble, who was accused by his fellow
Protestants of making too many concessions to the Republicans. On Oct. 28,
2000, he was nearly ousted by his own party, a move that surely would have
spelled the end for the Good Friday Agreement. But Trimble survived,
pledging to get tough by imposing sanctions on Sinn Fein.
Into 2001, Still No Major Progress
Through the first months of 2001, Catholics and Protestants remained at
odds, especially over the establishment of a neutral police force in
Northern Ireland and IRA disarmament. In early March 2001, the IRA
unexpectedly initiated a new round of talks with Northern Ireland's
disarmament commission, but no real progress was made.
Trimble Resigns
Shortly before Britain's general election on June 7, Northern Ireland's
first minister David Trimble announced that he would resign on July
1 if the IRA did not start disarming. The announcement helped bolster his
position among his constituents, and Trimble managed to hold on to his
seat in the British Parliament. However, his pro-British Ulster Unionist
Party fared badly overall. In the weeks that followed, the IRA took no
steps to dismantle its arsenal, and Trimble resigned as planned.
Violence Renewed as Marching Season Begins
The fragile peace process faced another crisis in mid-June when
sectarian violence broke out again in Belfast. The clashes began after a
group of schoolgirls and their parents were stoned by Protestant youths as
they left a Catholic primary school. In what was deemed the worst rioting
in several years, rival mobs hurled gasoline bombs, stones, and bottles
and set fire to cars. The violence coincided with the start of the annual
"marching season" when Protestant groups commemorate past victories on the
battlefield against the Catholics.
IRA's Offer to Disarm Rejected
On Aug. 6, 2001, the commission responsible for the disarming of
paramilitary forces in Northern Ireland announced that the IRA had agreed
to a method of permanently placing its weapons arsenal beyond use.
Although the commission did not disclose any details or indicate when
disarmament might begin, Britain and the Republic of Ireland hailed the
plan as a historic breakthrough. Protestant leaders in Northern Ireland
were less enthusiastic and rejected the proposal as falling too short of
action.
On Aug. 11, Britain's secretary of state for Northern Ireland, John
Reid, suspended the power-sharing government for one day, a move that
allowed Protestant and Catholic politicians six more weeks to negotiate
before British authorities would be required to call for new elections to
the assembly. (In the event of new elections, moderate David Trimble stood
little chance of being reelected, since Protestants as well as Catholics
have become increasingly opposed to the Good Friday Agreement.)
The IRA withdrew its offer to disarm on Aug. 14, but veterans of the
process were confident that the matter remained on the negotiating
table.
Northern Ireland Government Suspended Again
With some small progress having been made on policing and arms
decommissioning, Britain suspended the devolved government again on Sept.
22, creating another six-week window for the parties to resolve their
differences. The move was criticized by UUP leader David Trimble, and on
Oct. 18, the three remaining Ulster Unionist cabinet ministers resigned,
in an attempt to force Britain to impose direct rule again
indefinitely.
However, on Oct. 23, the IRA announced that it had begun to disarm, and
it appeared that the peace process had once again been rescued from the
point of collapse. Guns and explosives at two arms dumps were put beyond
use.
Trimble regained his position as first minister in the power-sharing
government in a vote rerun on Nov. 6, after narrowly losing his reelection
bid in the initial vote a few days earlier. Mark Durkan, who succeeded
John Hume as leader of the largely Catholic SDLP (Nov. 10), was elected
deputy first minister.
IRA Scraps More Weapons
On April 8, 2002, international weapons inspectors announced that the
IRA had put more stockpiled munitions beyond use. The move was welcomed by
British and Irish leaders alike, who expressed the hope that Protestant
guerilla groups would also begin to surrender their weapons.
However, in mid-June British and Irish political leaders called for
emergency talks to try to stem the rising tide of violence that had been
ongoing in Belfast for several weeks. Police believed that the nightly
outbreaks of firebombing and rioting were being organized by Protestant
and Catholic paramilitary groups in direct violation of standing
cease-fire agreements. The street disturbances continued into July, and a
19-year-old Catholic man was shot—the first death caused by
sectarian violence since January.
IRA Members Arrested in Colombia
The call for talks also came hard on the heels of a BBC report
concerning three IRA members who had been arrested in Aug. 2001, in
Bogota, Colombia. According to the BBC, one of the men involved in the
weapons activity was Brian Keenan, the IRA representative charged with
disarming the guerilla group in Ireland. The three Irish guerillas were
accused of testing new weaponry and teaching bomb-making techniques to
Colombian rebels. They were scheduled to go on trial in Colombia in
July.
Also in July, during the annual Orange Order parade through Portadown,
Northern Ireland, Protestant supporters of the Orangemen hurled stones and
bricks to protest the ban on marching down Garvaghy Road, past a Catholic
enclave in the town. Throughout Northern Ireland, members of the Orange
Order march to celebrate the military victory of Protestant King William
of Orange over the Catholics in 1690. Two dozen police officers were
injured and several people were arrested.
IRA Apologizes for Deaths
On July 16, 2002, the IRA issued its first apology to the families of
the 650 civilians killed by the IRA since the late 1960s. The apology was
released several days before the 30th anniversary of the IRA's Bloody
Friday attack on July 21, 1972, which left 9 people dead and some 130
injured. During the attack in Belfast, 22 bombs exploded during a period
of only 75 minutes.
Trimble Threatens to Resign Again
In late Sept. 2002, First Minister David Trimble announced that he and
other Unionist leaders would force the collapse of the Northern Ireland
Assembly by resigning unless the IRA disbanded by Jan. 18, 2003. The
ultimatum came under pressure from hard-line constituents within the
Unionist Party, following a number of incidents (including the trial of
IRA guerillas in Colombia on weapons-related charges) that pointed to
continued IRA military activity.
Britain Suspends Home-Rule Government Again
By early October, the situation had deteriorated, with Trimble
threatening immediate mass resignation unless the British threw Sinn Fein,
the IRA's political wing, out of the Assembly. The discovery of an alleged
I.R.A. spy operation within the Northern Ireland Assembly was the last
straw. Britain's Northern Ireland secretary, John Reid, suspended the
power-sharing government on Oct. 14, 2002. It was the fourth time the
British government had had to take back political control of Northern
Ireland since the Northern Ireland Assembly came into being in Dec.
1999.
On Oct. 30, in response to the British move to impose direct rule
again, the IRA suspended contact with the arms inspectors who were
overseeing the disarmament of Northern Ireland's guerilla and paramilitary
groups. The Council on Foreign relations has estimated that Protestant
paramilitary groups have been responsible for 30% of the civilian deaths
in the Northern Irish conflict. The two main Protestant vigilante groups
are the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) and the Ulster Defence Association
(UDA). Strongest during the 1970s, their ranks have diminished since then.
While Protestant paramilitaries have observed a cease-fire since the IRA
declared one, none of these groups has made any moves toward surrendering
their weapons as stipulated by the Good Friday Accord.
Showdown in 2003
In March and April 2003, negotiations were again underway to reinstate
the Northern Ireland assembly. But Sinn Fein's vague language, weakly
pledging that its "strategies and disciplines will not be inconsistent
with the Good Friday Agreement caused Tony Blair to challenge Sinn Fein to
once and for all make a clear, unambiguous pledge to renounce paramilitary
for political means." According to the New York Times (April 24,
2003), "virtually every newspaper in Britain and Ireland has editorialized
in favor of full disarmament, and the Irish government, traditionally
sympathetic to Sinn Fein, is almost as adamant about the matter as London
is."
In Nov. 2003 legislative elections, the Ulster Unionists and other
moderates lost out to Northern Ireland's extremist parties: Ian Paisley's
Democratic Unionists and Sinn Fein. The prospect of power-sharing between
these antithetical parties looked dim.
Deadlocked in 2004
An effort to revive the deadlocked powersharing negotiations was
broached in March 2004 by Tony Blair and Ireland's Bertie Ahern, who
announced, "The elections were in November, this is March, we must move
on." In Sept. 2004, another round of talks, aimed at ending the impasse,
broke up with no significant progress. A $50 million bank robbery in Dec.
2004 was linked to the IRA, although Sinn Fein has denied the connection.
Sinn Fein's growing acceptance as a political organization suffered a
severe setback as a result, putting power-sharing negotiations on hold
indefinitely. Evidence of the IRA's criminality as well as its continual
refusal to give up its weapons has strained its relations not only in
Northern Ireland and Britain but in the Republic of Ireland as well.
Violence and Vigilantism in 2005
The brutal murder on Jan. 31, 2005, of Belfast Catholic Robert
McCartney by the IRA, and the campaign by his five sisters to hold the IRA
accountable, further diminished the IRA's standing, even in Catholic
communities that had once been IRA strongholds. The IRA's subsequent offer
to kill the men responsible generated further outrage. Instead of inviting
Northern Irish political parties to the White House—the custom for
the past several years—the U.S. invited the McCartney sisters instead.
Real Hope in July 2005
On July 28, the IRA stated that it was entering a new era in which it
would unequivocally renounce violence: The statement said that IRA members
have been "instructed to assist the development of purely political and
democratic programs through exclusively political means," and that "all
I.R.A. units have been ordered to dump arms" and "to complete the process
to verifiably put its arms beyond use."
Delays in 2006
In Feb. 2006, the Independent Monitoring Commission (IMC), a watchdog
agency monitoring Northern Irish paramilitary groups, reported that
although the IRA "seems to be moving in the right direction," dissident
republican paramilitaries are still engaged in violence and crime.
On May 15th, Northern Ireland's political parties were given six months
(to Nov. 24) to come up with a power-sharing government or else
sovereignty will be revert indefinitely to the British government.
In October, a report by the Independent Monitoring Commission in
Northern Ireland indicated that the IRA had definitively ceased all
paramilitary activity and declared that "the IRA's campaign is over."
Milestone Meeting in 2007
Shortly after parliamentary elections in March, Gerry Adams, the leader
of Sinn Fein, and Rev. Ian Paisley, the head of the Democratic Unionist
Party, met face to face for the first time and hashed out an agreement for
a power-sharing government. The new administration is scheduled to take
control in May.
Former Enemies Resume Power-Sharing Government
Local government is restored to Northern Ireland as Rev. Ian Paisley,
leader of the Democratic Unionists, and Martin McGuinness, of Sinn Fein,
are sworn in as leader and deputy leader, respectively, of the Northern
Ireland executive government. "I believe we are starting on a road to
bring us back to peace and prosperity," said Paisley. British prime
minister Tony Blair praised the historic deal. "Look back, and we see
centuries marked by conflict, hardship, even hatred among the people of
these islands," he said. "Look forward, and we see the chance to shake off
those heavy chains of history.”
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