The Northern Irish: A Struggle for Cultural Survival

1
The Northern Irish A Struggle for Cultural
Survival Maureen Thon Gettysburg College ANTH
223 Indigenous Peoples, The Environment, and
the Global Economy

• The People
• - While Catholics in the Republic of Ireland
  enjoy freedom from the United Kingdom, the lives
  of Irish Catholics living in Northern Ireland
  have been plagued with violence and persecution
  since the split. Only 43 percent of those living
  in Northern Ireland are Catholic due to the
  influx of Scottish and English settlers invading
  the territory beginning in the sixteenth century.
  The nature of the struggle makes this a story
  involving both the Republic of Ireland and
  Northern Ireland, thus both countries colors
  deserve representation.
• Before the invasion of the British, Northern
  Ireland was united as the country of Ireland. The
  Irish worked as farmers, sailors, and metal
  workers. The people were organized into clans,
  each with their own class and political system.
  All clans however were united in their ancient
  culture and language.
• The Irish language is perhaps one of the most
  important facets of their indigenous culture.
  Gaelic, their ancient language, is thought to
  have arrived on the shores of Ireland in the six
  century B.C. It remains the official language of
  the Republic of Ireland but has diminished in use
  in Northern Ireland due to British attempts to
  stomp out the culture.
• In 999 and 1012 , Brian Boru (of the OBrien
  clan) defeated Norse invaders ushering in an era
  of cultural renaissance and continuity for the
  Irish.
• With the arrival of the British in the sixteenth
  century, the strength of the indigenous Irish
  culture was challenged. As Henry VIII declared
  himself king, tensions between predominantly
  Irish Catholics and British Protestants
  flourished as Henry began his colonization of the
  small island. Since then, the indigenous Irish
  have struggled against the oppression of the
  British to preserve their ancient culture.
• (Taaffe 2001101-106)

• Conceptual Question Has the process of
  globalization affected the cultural survival of
  Northern Irish Catholics?
• Globalization is a process that has been
  occurring for thousands of years, just like the
  Northern Irish Catholics have been fighting for
  cultural survival for a thousand years.
• The initial invasion of the British in the
  sixteenth century lends itself to being described
  as a situation of cultural homogenization, a
  phenomenon of globalization of culture. The
  British were hoping to destroy the indigenous
  Celtic culture of the Northern Irish through
  wiping out their language and also demolishing
  the Catholic Church. By doing this, the British
  would have been able to wipe out an entire
  culture and create a more dominant British
  culture featuring more people that extended
  around the British Isles. Globalization made it
  easier for the British to invade and take
  advantage of the minority groups through the
  increased interpenetration of cultural ideas.
• However, the Northern Irish Catholics responded
  with an unwavering ability to preserve their
  language and culture. Instead of cultural
  homogenization then, the Northern Irish Catholic
  persevered to protect their ancient language and
  culture.
• Though those in Northern Ireland have been able
  to hold on to elements of their traditional
  Celtic culture, the on-going conflict between
  Catholics and Protestants makes one question the
  possibility of true cultural survival. As
  globalization processes continue to change, there
  is hope that it will aid in a greater
  understanding between the two groups and their
  cultural difference. With improvements in
  technology and faster communication, peace may be
  closer than doubters may think.
• - This concept of cultural homogenization was
  investigated by Hugh Brody in his writings on the
  Inuit in the Arctic Circle. With the growing oil
  industry in the region and introduction of modern
  technology, many Inuits fear they are losing
  their indigenous culture. However, Brody explains
  that the improvements only add to the culture of
  the people as they continue to live
  traditionally hunting and using the resources of
  the Arctic to the best of their ability.

Official Flag of Northern Ireland
From bbc.co.uk
From sca.org.au

• The Troubles
• -Though bounded between the years of 1968 and
  1998, cultural, military, and political violence
  between Irish Catholics and Protestants continues
  with an intermittent regularity. The violence
  carried out in this time, was based off of over a
  thousand years of oppression by the British to
  eradicate indigenous Irish culture.
• Fighting was carried out mostly between members
  of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) who fight for
  disunion from the United Kingdom and
  Loyalist/Unionist paramilitaries aligned with the
  British state. IRA members were inspired by the
  Civil Rights Movement taking place in the United
  States at the time as they sought an end to
  housing discrimination, electoral
  gerrymandering, and religious discrimination
  (Taaffe 2001115) as well as complete freedom
  from the United Kingdom.
• - In 1972 at a peaceful protest carried out by
  Nationalists, fourteen unarmed demonstrators were
  killed as British troops opened fire. This event,
  which was to become known as Bloody Sunday,
  marked the tipping point for the IRA. Frustrated
  by the continued ill treatment by the British,
  they began unleashing a steady stream of violent
  attacks with the goal to kill. The British with
  their own string of fatal violence.
• -The Troubles have claimed the lives of more than
  3,600 people. Both the IRA and Loyalist fighters
  site that an overwhelming majority of victims are
  innocent bystanders chosen for death because of
  their religion. Both sides used brutal
  terroristic methods in their fighting.
• The desire to end the unnecessary violence and
  the work of moderate politicians on the part of
  both groups resulted in the 1998 Good Friday
  Agreement implemented to end the violence
  associated with The Troubles. After a series of
  failed peace talks, this agreement has been the
  most progressive. The agreement sought peaceful
  ways for the two groups to coexist without
  violence, making constitutional changes in both
  British and Irish laws. The area remains fraught
  with tension today but hopes are alive for peace
  to prevail.
• ( Taaffe 2001114-119, OToole 2000118, Hammer
  200964-73)

• In the News
• As recently as April of 2011, a Catholic police
  officer who had recently joined the Northern
  Ireland police force was killed after a bomb
  planted in his car exploded. The incident is the
  first death of a police force member since March
  2009. The story reveals that The Troubles in
  Northern Ireland have not completely passed. The
  site of the killing, Omagh, is significant as it
  was the location of the deadliest car bombing of
  the conflict which killed 29 people in 1998 (New
  York Times 2011).
• Queen Elizabeth has planned a visit to Northern
  Ireland in May 0f 2011 and the Real IRA, a
  faction which broke off from the IRA in 1990s has
  issued a warning to the Queen The Queen of
  England is wanted for war crimes in Ireland and
  not wanted on Irish soil (McDonald 2011). The
  group claims they will continue with their string
  of police murders in protest of the visit.

• Threats the Northern Irish Catholics Face
• Beginning in the twelfth century with the arrival
  of Henry II, Ireland has faced persecution and
  undeserved oppression from their English
  neighbor. Their struggle for cultural survival
  has thus been going on for almost one thousand
  years.
• Colonization
• Beginning in 1606, British settlers were
  implanted in Ulster, a county of northern Ireland
  as part of the expansion of the British Empire.
  These settlers were granted land in the area on
  the condition that they would guard against
  native resistance and build a society based upon
  Protestantism, and English law (Mulholland
  20022). Through colonization, the British hoped
  to depopulate the land and resettle it with
  Scottish and English who were loyal to the
  crown. The wild Irish were forced to move off
  their own lands and move to reservations. The
  land they were moved onto was often uninhabitable
  and did not lend itself to cultivation.
  Colonization was the first threatening method
  used to destroy the indigenous culture. By 1778,
  5 percent of land remained in the hands of
  Catholics.
• -Termination of Irish Celtic Culture
• With the colonization efforts that were made to
  dispel indigenous peoples from their homeland,
  moves were made to eradicate the ancient Celtic
  culture of the Irish. The English Crown was
  intent on destroying all remaining vestiges of
  Irish culture, language, and identity and to
  terminate the Catholic Churchs presence on the
  island (Taaffe 2001107). Rights denied to
  Catholics included owning a horse, owning land,
  education, holding public office, voting,
  speaking or teaching Gealic, and marriage between
  a Catholic and a Protestant. Upholding these laws
  was usually carried out through violent means.
• -Kidnapping, Slavery, and Death
• To further erase indigenous Irish culture from
  society, efforts were made to simply get rid of
  the people. In just a few years of the eighteenth
  century almost two hundred thousand Irish were
  kidnapped and sold into slavery while 40,000 were
  made foreign soldiers. British also engaged in
  literally hunting Irish rebels as sport. In the
  eighteenth century, 600,000 indigenous Irish
  perished through actions taken against them.
• -Violence
• Beginning in the 1960s and 70s, brutal acts of
  violence have been perpetrated by northern Irish
  Catholics and Protestants alike. This war has
  highlighted the cultural differences of the two,
  pitting them against one another to this day.
• (Taaffe 2001107-110, Mulholland 20022)

• Peace in the Future
• Renewed full commitment to the Good Friday
  Agreement would encourage peace process to
  proceed. This demonstrates that the governments
  of both sides are willing to work towards peace,
  insinuating that the real problems lie in the
  control of the groups that continue to fight.
  Internationally, these groups are seen as
  terrorist organizations and are treated as such.
• - The Peace People this activist group founded
  in 1976 protests against the on-going violence in
  Northern Ireland. They continue to do work to
  heal divisions and encourage non-violent
  communication between the two groups.
  http//www.peacepeople.com/.

• Works Cited
• Associated Press
• 2011 Bomb kills officer in Northern
  Ireland. Electronic New York Times. April 2,
  2011. http//www.nytimes.com/2011/04/03/world/euro
  pe/03Ireland.html?refnorthernireland, accessed
  May 2, 2011.
• Brody, Hugh
• 2000 The Other Side of Eden. New
  York North Points Press.
• Hammer, Joshua
• 2009 Getting Past the Problems.
  Smithsonian. Vol. 39. Issue 12. 64-73.
• McDonald, Henry
• 2011 Queens Irish Visit is an
  insult, says Real IRA. Electronic Guardian.
  April 25, 2011. http//www.guardian.co.uk/uk/201
  1/apr/25/real-ira-queen-visit-insult, accessed
  May 2, 2011.
• Mulholland, Marc
• 2002 Northern Ireland A Very Short
  Introduction. Oxford Oxford University Press.
• OToole, Fintan
• 2000 Are the Troubles Over?
  Reprinted in Wilson Quarterly. Winter 2001, Vol.
  25 Issue 1 118.
• Taaffe, Thomas
• 2001 The Northern Irish. In
  Endangered Peoples of Western Europe Struggles
  to Survive and Thrive. Jean S.
• Forward, ed. 101-123. Westport
  Greenwood Press.
• 2011 Flag. Electronic Document.
  http//www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-1143
  1919, accessed May 2, 1011.
• Book of Kells Image. Electronic Document.
  http//www.sca.org.au/scribe/articles/building_on_
  belief.htm,
• accessed May 4, 2011

From telegraph.co.uk
From beinformedjournal.org