The Road to Peace - NORAID Online

Overview

Throughout history the island of Ireland has been regarded as a single national unit. Prior to the Norman invasion from England in 1169, the Irish people had their own system of law, culture and language and their own political and social structures. Following this invasion the island continued to be governed as a single political unit, as a colony of Britain, until 1921.

At various times over the next 800 years, Irish men and women resisted British rule and attempted to assert Irish independence. Such resistance was repeatedly crushed as the British attempted to subjugate the Irish population.

Between the years 1916 and 1921 Irish nationalists waged a combined political and military campaign against British occupation. In 1920 partition (dividing Ireland into two sections - the 26 southern and the 6 northeastern counties) was imposed by a British Act of Parliament. The consent of the Irish people was never sought. It was never freely given. The partition of Ireland was merely an innovation of the British government's tried and trusted colonial strategy of divide and rule, used throughout its former colonial empire.

1500 Years A Nation

The division of Ireland into two separate states was imposed by England under the Government of Ireland Act passed in the Westminster parliament in 1920. Yet the nationhood of all Ireland has been an accepted fact for more than 1500 years and has been recognized internationally as a fact. Professor Edmund Curtis, writing of Ireland in 800 AD says that "she was the first nation north of the Alps to produce a whole body of literature in her own speech." And he continues: "the structural unity of Ireland had now remained intact for four centuries in language, law, religion and culture." There was national kingship in Ireland under the High King for more than five centuries before the foundation of an English or French monarchy, and a large number of these High Kings of Ireland came from Ulster.

The Viking invasions of the eight, ninth and tenth centuries were repulsed under the leadership of the High Kings.

In 1169, the Norman invasion began. The Irish resisted strongly and it was not until 1601 in the reign of Elizabeth I of England that the Gaelic system of law and organization was broken. In that year a combined Spanish and Irish force was defeated at Kinsale, County Cork, in the province of Munster. In 1607, the resistance of the Northern province of Ulster collapsed and the Northern chieftains went into exile.

After being under attack for more than four centuries, all of Ireland was now under English control. During that time many of the English settlers had become "ipsis hibernicis hiberniores" -- more Irish that the Irish themselves. In 1609, the lands of the Ulster chieftains were confiscated and planted with settlers from England and Scotland, many of whom were English soldiers.

County Derry was completely taken over by the merchants of the city of London who renamed it "Londonderry". [Today, the majority of the people of Ireland refer to the historic and political entity as "Derry". Pro-British loyalists -- and more and more the US press -- use the term Londonderry. The political implications of which name is used are obvious.] The Scot colonizers predominated in the north of Ireland. These Scots "planters" came from another Celtic people who had the same basic language, law and literature as the Irish but differed from them in religion. But the native Irish were Roman Catholic, the colonizers were Presbyterian and Protestant -- or Anglican. Scottish nationalism, and the Catholic religion, had also been subjected to brutal repression and military outrage against civilian populations amounting to near genocide [see the film Brave Heart for an insight].

Most of the Irish remained on their lands because the planters needed their labor, but they remained as tenants rather than owners of their own land. By 1641, the Irish revolted, establishing a national parliament in Kilkenny which stood not only for independence but for full liberty of religion and conscience. This national revolt of the Irish people was brutally crushed by Oliver Cromwell in 1649, its people murdered by the tens of thousands, the Catholic religion outlawed, and the rights of its native people reduced to little more than livestock.

Unionist Rule

Throughout the 19th century and until partition in this century, the British government provided its colonial rule in Ireland with a cover of "democracy". In the changed conditions of a partitioned Ireland it now used the wishes of Irish Unionists in North East Ireland as justification for its continued occupation.

Within the Six County statelet, the British government fostered political division between Irish Catholics and Irish Protestants through a system of political, social and economic privilege. The inbuilt, manufactured unionist majority meant continuous government by the Unionist party. Today, the Unionist community represents some 20% of the Irish nation.

For nationalists, life under Stormont rule meant institutionalized discrimination, electoral gerrymandering and human rights abuses and sectarian pogroms instigated by a sectarian state. Indeed, patterns of discrimination which existed at this time remain today with nationalists still 2.5 times more likely to be unemployed.

Civil Rights

Organized discontent began to emerge in the late 1960s leading to the formation of the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association. Their moderate demands were:

one person one vote
an end to the gerrymandered local government boundaries
an end to discrimination in the allocation of housing
an end to discrimination in employment
the repeal of the Special Powers Act

These demands were viewed by the Unionist majority as a threat to their privileged position. However, the violent reaction of the state shocked the world as television cameras relayed scenes of unprovoked attacks on civil rights marches and demonstrations. As widespread political unrest spread the British government saw its position being compromised and on August 14th, 1969, British soldiers were deployed in Belfast and Derry. Within a relatively short period came the introduction of curfews in nationalist areas, internment without trial and the murder of 14 unarmed civilians in Derry on Bloody Sunday in 1972. Within weeks of this massacre the British government abolished its local assembly, Stormont, and resumed direct rule.

Government by Repression

Since its creation 74 years ago, the Six County statelet has been in constant crisis. Its survival has always been dependent on repressive legislation, coercion and discrimination with human rights abuses long accepted as a fact of life.

Emergency legislation renewed last year includes widespread powers of arrest and detention. In the last 26 years over 60,000 people have been arrested and held for a period of up to seven days in British interrogation centers such as the one in Castlereagh where many were subjected to torture and inhuman and degrading treatment. The British government has been found guilty of human rights abuses by the European Court of Human Rights on numerous occasions.

Since 1969 British forces have killed 357 people in the Six Counties with 294 killed by the British Army and 53 by the RUC. Almost 200 of those killed were civilians. With a handful of exceptions members of the British forces have received immunity for these murders. This is in stark contrast to the cruel sentences given to members of the nationalist community.

In addition to this oppression, nationalists have suffered from attacks from loyalist murder gangs. Over 900 people (almost 90% nationalist) have been assassinated by loyalist paramilitaries, many of these killings carried out in collusion with members of the British army and RUC.

Peace Process

British rule in Ireland has been based on division and coercion and lacks any democratic legitimacy. Every attempt to set up political solutions based on partition and British involvement has failed. The British government has squandered each and every attempt to negotiate in good faith, including the recent IRA cessation of military operations in 1994 that lasted for nearly 18 months. During this period, the republican movement has sought to engage with all of the people of Ireland and with the British government to create an agreed upon democratic Ireland. The British government refused to move forward and the chances for peace were again squandered.

Today, Sinn Fein and the republican movement are as dedicated as ever to a negotiated, democratic solution and for establishing the foundations for a just and lasting peace for all of the people of Ireland.

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