Northern Ireland: Historical background

1
Northern Ireland Historical background

• Reading
• Tonge (2002) ch. 2 on Stormont, ch. 9 on Direct
  Rule
• Mitchell and Wilford Politics in Northern Ireland
  ch. 1 on Stormont, 6 on Direct Rule

2
Contested Structures

• Three areas of dispute
• Internal structures
• Structural connections to Great Britain
• Structural connections to the Republic of Ireland

3
Majority Rule A Parliament and Government at
Stormont from 1920-1972

• More than a century of union
• A Home Rule parliament
• A Government, a cabinet, even a Prime Minister

Poster from the collection of the Linenhall
library, Belfast.
Stormont. Photo from the website of the Northern
Ireland Assembly
4
Stormont Government, 1920 - 1972
Prime Minister Cabinet N.I. Government
Departments (Education, Health, Finance, etc.)
5

• Situations in which majority groups
• " appear to have gained power for the indefinite
  future . . . were responsible for much of the
  instability in the post-colonial world in the
  first ten years of independence"
• Don Horowitz, Ethnic Groups in Conflict, p.629

6
A Protestant state ?

• They still boast of Southern Ireland being a
  Catholic state. All I boast is that we have a
  Protestant Parliament and a Protestant state
• Lord Craigavon, Prime Minister of Northern
  Ireland, 1934.
• The role of the Orange Order
• Discrimination and Loyalty
• A British Democracy ?

Orange Order Parade, Belfast, 2003 (AP)
7

• The appointments made by the government are
  made, as far as we can possibly manage it, of
  loyal men and women
• Lord Craigavon, Prime Minister of Northern
  Ireland, 1934.

Edward Carson and James Craig (Lord Craigavon)
(Cork Multitext project http//multitext.ucc.ie/
)
8

• I recommend those people who are Loyalists not
  to employ Roman Catholics, 99 per cent of whom
  are disloyal... If you dont act properly now,
  before we know where we are we shall find
  ourselves in the minority instead of the
  majority
• Sir Basil Brooke, Northern Ireland Minister of
  Agriculture (and future Prime Minister), 1934

Basil Brooke (Lord Brookeborough) (Wikipedia)
9
The Relationship with Great Britain

• The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern
  Ireland
• Britain kept its distance
• A section of the British Home Office acted as
  the official channel of communication between the
  Governments of the United Kingdom and Northern
  Ireland
• Britains financial control
• The British Parliament could not interfere in
  Northern Ireland
• Northern Ireland MPs sit in Westminster

10
The collapse of the old regime

• 1968 The civil rights movement
• 1969 The British army on the streets
• March 1972 Stormont Parliament prorogued
  (suspended)
• The restoration of Stormont long remained a
  Unionist dream
• Devolution versus integration

11
Direct Rule 1972-1998 and beyond

• The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (and
  now Wales)
• The Northern Ireland Office http//www.nio.gov.uk/
  
• Direct control of security, prisons, policing,
  constitutional matters, community relations
• Four junior ministers - all from Great Britain

Peter Hain, MP Photo from the NIO website
Hillsborough castle, Co. Down
12
Direct Rule from London, 1972 - 1999
Secretary of State for N.I 4 junior ministers
from GB N.I. Government Departments (Education,
Health, Finance, etc.)
The Northern Ireland Office
13

• The Northern Ireland Departments
• Local Government
• The democratic deficit
• Attempts to end direct rule
• Why not full integration ?

14
A Loyalist demonstration against the Sunningdale
agreement, Stormont, 1974.
15
Direct Rule with a Green Tinge The Anglo-Irish
Agreement, 1985

• The Hillsborough Agreement, November 15, 1985
• The Intergovernmental conference
• the people of Northern Ireland can get rid of
  the Intergovernmental Conference by agreeing to
  devolved government
• Margaret Thatcher, UK Prime Minister, 1985

16
Northern Ireland on the window ledge of the
union?

• 1920 Home Rule created distance
• 1920-1972 British government reluctance to
  interfere
• 1972-1998 repeated initiatives to reduce direct
  British government involvement
• But in many senses the connection has become
  much stronger