What are the common myths about the conflict in Northern Ireland? Is understanding history a barrier to peace building in the country, or a vital part of it? And finally, what are the prospects for Irish unification in future?
I was joined by Dr Thomas Leahy, Dr Eleanor Leah Williams and Dr Jonathan Kirkup for a full roundtable conversation on all these questions and many more. We hope you enjoy the discussion.
What are the common myths about the conflict in Northern Ireland? Is understanding history a barrier to peace building in the country, or a vital part of it? And finally, what are the prospects for Irish unification in future?
I was joined by Dr Thomas Leahy, Dr Eleanor Leah Williams and Dr Jonathan Kirkup for a full roundtable conversation on all these questions and many more. We hope you enjoy the discussion.
Welcome to the Modern British Political History podcast. So we're doing an episode on a topic which I think sometimes isn't looked at enough, and we've got three experts on this topic who I'm really excited to talk with, and they're all got different expertise, coming at it from slightly different angles. So I think it's going to be a really great conversation, and it's the first one of this podcast where we've had a few different guests on at once. So could we just do a little bit of a go around of introductions? Thomas, maybe you'd like to kick us off and lead on some intros? Yeah, thanks.
Speaker 2:Harry. So I'm Dr Tom Sleachy. I'm a senior lecturer in Irish and British Politics and contemporary history at Cardiff University, so my research is mainly been on Irish republicanism in particular and about conflicts related to conflict at a book out 2020 Intelligence, war Against the IRA, which I'll talk a little bit more when we go into questions later on. But current research, a little bit about the Irish government's role, conflicts of peace process, but also working towards a book project on the champagne since 1991. So that's myself.
Speaker 1:Shall, we go to John next.
Speaker 3:Here. I'm a senior lecturer also at Cardiff University. My interest in Northern Ireland is partly that I studied at Queen's University in Belfast and then at Trinity College Dublin and my interest really, as opposed to Thomas looking at republicanism and nationalism, is looking at unionism and loyalism. So a different perspective hopefully for this podcast.
Speaker 1:Great and last but not least, Eleanor.
Speaker 4:So I'm Dr Anna Leah Williams. I'm a junior research fellow at Oxford University and my project now looks at the secret role of civil servants during the peace process in Northern Ireland. But previous to that, most of my research has been looking at the Intelligence War in Northern Ireland and also drawing international comparisons to it, using the Colombian case study.
Speaker 1:Fantastic. Well, you're all incredibly welcome. I'm really grateful for having you all on. I'd just like to kick off thinking a little bit about your personal connection with this topic, really because it's something I think people come across Northern Ireland in probably quite different ways. So could we do a little bit of a round of just what got you interested in the topic of Northern Ireland, Thomas? Would you like to kick us off?
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I can do so for me it's a mix of family background and then studying when I was an undergraduate in university. So family background for me most of my families from the Republic of Ireland some of them be around the border areas as well, but also Scotland. If you want to go right back into my historically it came over to the north. So links my family background linked both sides of the communities north and south on the island of Ireland and really since about 1700 and so far back A lot of the family actually came across, emigrated to England for work.
Speaker 2:So some of these were like the Ford's car factory in Essex and they would often talk about mainly with like history, politics, and mainly about the Republic and mainly about the Irish War of Independence, but occasionally it'd be things about the north, during the Northern Ireland conflict itself for me. So my father used to work for a pharmaceutical company and he volunteered to head up his work in Northern Ireland. So this was during the conflict and he'd know people from across the different communities, work colleagues and then like friends and friends, he used to tell us quite a lot about what he saw, what was happening in different communities there. So that background for me encouraged me when I was doing my history undergraduate, master's and PhD did it at King's College, london in particular undergraduate level, they had a Northern Ireland conflict course which I did and or module or such, and that influenced me into further studies. Really because I was finding that I disagreed with various interpretations about the conflicts of peace process by some authors. So that influenced me to further studies.
Speaker 2:So yeah, that's a background for me.
Speaker 1:Really interesting. I'm particularly interested in getting into which I'm sure we will some of those differing perspectives that you've taken on this against some of the popular theories about Northern Ireland and its politics. Eleanor, would you like to go?
Speaker 4:next. So I have less of a personal link with Northern Ireland compared to Thomas and John. There are a few links between Welsh nationalism and Irish nationalism which I always found a little bit interesting. But my main interest actually came from what I did Thomas's course back in the day. I was one of the first cohorts that took Thomas's Northern Ireland course and so that's where my interest really began. And through that course I came across Peter Taylor's way.
Speaker 4:So Peter Taylor was a BBC journalist during the troubles. He first went out there the day after Bloody Sunday so British Army shot dead 13 non-civilians and he stayed after that and he reported throughout the whole troubles and through that he's done a lot of documentaries which are really great and really good at explaining things. And he's also produced three books from each from the perspective of one of the key actors from the conflict, so the Republicans, the Loyalists and the British state. And it's really personal. It shows the kind of nuanced history that Northern Ireland has. So that really kind of helped me to get big interest in Northern Ireland. But also then through that interest I did my PhD at Queen's University in Belfast, so that really entrenched then all the interest that I had.
Speaker 1:And John.
Speaker 3:Again, I suppose it's university a bit like Eleanor, I did a course with Professor Paul O'Leary, who is at Aberystwyth University now, and he got me interested in the Irish and Britain.
Speaker 3:So there's a diaspora of Irish politics Because it was really British history that I was interested in. From there I got really interested in the relationship between Protestants and Catholics in Northern Ireland so I decided to then study in Queen's University, belfast looking at civil rights really. So I was interested in the connection between the different communities, not really about the violence but really about the social aspects and the political governance sides of Northern Ireland. From there I then studied at Dublin and Trinity College Dublin and I married somebody from Northern Ireland at that point. So I travel over a lot to Northern Ireland and just the interest of how it's changed from a little older than Thomas and Eleanor, so I remember before the Good Friday Agreement and just the changes of how Northern Ireland has been governed. So my interest is less about the conflict side of stuff, the sort of killing, and much more about how Northern Ireland governs itself and the different relationships between the different communities.
Speaker 1:Great and I'm also very interested in social history and, yeah, I hope we will get into a bit of that angle as well as the sort of high politics as well. So sounds good to me. So I think let's kick off just before we think a bit about one question which is about why is there maybe a lack of knowledge about Northern Irish history? Thomas, it'd be helpful just to have a little bit of that intro on Northern Irish politics more generally, just to lay a little bit of the groundwork before we go into some questions. Yeah, definitely that sounds good.
Speaker 2:And what I'll do is just a quick whistle stop tour I'll try and do it in about four minutes of different groups and their background relating to the conflict and the peace process. When we look overall to the Northern Ireland conflict 1969 to 1998, essentially there's about 3,600 plus people die, 40,000 people at least injured, that might be conserved to vestment as well, and you put that in perspective, that's a population during a conflict of about between one to 1.2 million. That's quite a lot of people that were affected by it. The conflict never since when you're talking about political disagreements, happened. Today they're often driven between various sides with essentially contradicting objectives related to the constitutional question. That's the kind of key thing. So we just go through each of the groups for background for people.
Speaker 2:So first you've got Irish Republicans that's represented today by the political party Schimpfheim, and you just have a parametru ring called the Irish Republican Army, so IRA. The objective for them hasn't really changed over the years. So they sought to end what they saw in the conflict as unionist, british Protestant discrimination that existed since 1922, northern Ireland officially formed against Irish Catholic nationalist lived in Northern Ireland. But they also wanted steps towards Irish unification, or reunification as they put it because they believe partition itself permitted discrimination to happen in Northern Ireland, which was undemocrat in the first place. So for Irish Republicans, in their eyes, protestant British Unionists and the UK government together created about, without a political mandate, northern Ireland under British rule by 1922. So in their view that was artificially cutting six of Ireland, the island of Ireland's 32 counties, off from the rest of the state as they see it.
Speaker 2:So my work suggests an armed stalemate was the key reason the IRA and all other sides signed up to peace by the 1990s, and also political stalemate as well. And that's why most Republicans agreed with the peace settlement 1998, not all, but most so. The political party Schimpfheim now, if we've got to modern days, finished first place electorally in Northern Ireland's 2022 election and it's currently leading Republic of Ireland next opinion polls for their election forthcoming. Essentially, they want Irish reunification ASAP, so it's possibly done. If you turn to the other side, to British Protestant also, unionists want to maintain Northern Ireland under UK rule. They argue against United Ireland because they often feel that would see their communities that British Protestants discriminate against. Also, protestant loyalist paramilitaries during the conflict agreed with that analysis. But the difference with them they'd use violence as well to try and stop the IRA before 1998. So both when we're talking about Unionists and loyalists, they both feel loyalty to the UK Protestant crown, in particular since the Reformation period which we won't have to hear today in the 1600s. So all major Unionists and loyalist parties actually then by 2006, they all eventually backed the peace process. The Democratic Unionist Party I'm sure I'll be talking about today, so the DUP, that's the largest Unionist Protestant party in Northern Ireland today, but it lost out in recent elections, first place to Sinn Fein who, as we said now, in first place Also, which I'm sure we'll touch on later, due to Brexit, dup and loyalists won't return to power sharing currently as they feel the new UK and EU economic seaborder which is in the IRAC represents economic Irish reunification which obviously they oppose.
Speaker 2:Last couple of groups. So UK government, in their opinion, claims to uphold the majority opinion in Northern Ireland, supports the constitutional question but also has over the years tried to prevent discrimination, it would say, by any other side against the other people. However, my own personal view on this is early in the conflict, my work would argue that actually the British government primarily switched to trying to repress the IRA, essentially to prevent the two front conflicts with the British army getting caught in the middle. And British governments then have often again, this is my view and my disagree on this sought to minimize Northern Irish politics and violence influencing Westminster affairs. And the reason for that is essentially Northern Ireland parties GMRally not always, we've seen this recently but GMRally electorally don't have a big balance and bearing on making or breaking Westminster governments.
Speaker 2:Last two groups worth talking about Irish government and what used to be the constitutional nationalist party during the conflicts. The Irish nationalist party in Northern Ireland it's called the Social Democratic and Labour Party, stlp used to be led by John Hume is more widely known as a Nobel Peace Prize winner for the peace process. So Irish government STLP disagree with partition. The unionist discrimination that's similar in the conflict to Champagne where they oppose the IRA in Champagne was that they disagreed you should try and force unification because they had a feeling it would provoke civil war. It's counterproductive.
Speaker 2:The current Irish government parties will talk about a little bit today as well Finagel and Finafal. Essentially one. Finagel was pro the Angkoris Treaty means partition etc. And the tiny one was against Finafal and they fought the Irish civil war against each other. Those two parties today they're in government together in the Republic in Dublin. They want unity, but generally in the longer term because they don't want divisions reappearing and also which I'll talk about a bit more later in my view they don't want Sinn Fein to dominate all island politics. There was unification today. That's probably what would happen, which is for those governments not something they would favor, finagel or Finafal. So yeah, that's a bit about background. It's a conflict to resist.
Speaker 1:Thanks, thomas. Yeah, that lays some helpful groundwork, I think, for the rest of the conversation and, like you say, it's one of those things where you could go back generations, couldn't you? There's so much history associated with Ireland. But, yeah, that's a really helpful concise summary. So, thinking a little bit about this question I mentioned at the start, which is about a lack of knowledge about Northern Irish history, and I was wondering why you think that might be. To what extent is there some understandable forgetting going on, because there's a lot of pain and conflict associated with that history. It has the geographical sense of distance, even though Britain is not that far from the island of Ireland, but maybe for some reason, there's that sense of distance created by that, or there's probably lots of other factors as well which I'd be really interested to get your guys' views on.
Speaker 3:Obviously, I'm from the UK, and so I went through the British education system and the idea of Northern Ireland being a place apart, and I think really fundamentally it's because, partly, there can only be so much information that any kind of teacher or news organization can really talk about. And I think really Northern Irish politics and history is complicated. We've just talked about the ideas of whether we're talking about nationalism or republicanism or loyalism or unionism, and the uniqueness of the fact that Northern Ireland has relationships with the Republic of Ireland and with the UK and with Scotland particularly. Perhaps and I think also there's the religious dimension is something that a lot of people in the UK, in Britain, just don't quite understand.
Speaker 3:That conflict between Catholics and Protestants, it's something for most of the UK that we put to one side two, three hundred years ago maybe, and it's difficult, I think, for those outside of the understanding the day-by-day aspects of the conflict to understand why. I often get the question like why are they fighting? What are they fighting about? And so when they're fighting about a multi-dimensional conflict about a border, about religion, about culture, about identity, that's very difficult for people to grasp, and particularly, you know, I think, when you've only got so much bandwidth, as they say, and I think that's fundamentally the problem. It's complicated, so talk about it something else perhaps.
Speaker 1:And I think I don't want to get into the politics of Brexit, but I think recently there is parking aside. You know people's views on it. There was a general sense, wasn't there, of it's a very complicated set of arrangements and actually people trying to get their, get their heads around it. So interesting to have that point around, just the sheer complexity of some of these, some of these issues. Eleanor, would you like to come in?
Speaker 4:I've just to jump on John's point of that it's complicated. And yeah, it is, it's really complicated and, like John mentioned, that the schools, at least in Britain, don't teach it in the curriculum or at least systematically throughout the curriculum. And that really translates then to the media. If people number one find it really complicated and there's so many different dimensions to the conflict and then they're not taught about it in the education system either, then the people, the journalists coming through the system aren't aware or knowledgeable about Northern Ireland. So then it's really difficult to report with full awareness about Northern Ireland, especially in mainland Britain.
Speaker 4:So Scotland, england and Wales, where you can really see this taking fruit, and historically there's even been a difficult relationship between the media and Northern Ireland, so during the conflict and there was a kind of broadcasting censorship where you couldn't the BBC or any broadcasting company couldn't broadcast the voice of particular people such as the Republican movement, so Jerry Adams would have a voice over and even within the BBC every program about Northern Ireland had to be vetted by management, senior management, before it. So you can see that already these barriers create a bit of a distance between the media and Northern Ireland. But even this happened in the Republic of Ireland and this was actually much harder in the Republic of Ireland. They did it much earlier, in 1976. So even in the Republic of Ireland you still got this distance between the media and Northern Ireland and understanding it and you can really see this then translating into today.
Speaker 4:So last week we had the legacy bill in Northern Ireland, a legacy bill go through Parliament and House of Lords and there was hardly anything in the media. There was some stuff in Northern Ireland but mainland Britain, hardly anything. There was stuff in Republic of Ireland and it's just because we're not taught about it. There's a lack of understanding. It's really complicated, so then it's not mentioned or people don't even understand that it's important, that this bill is important to the process, so it's not reported. So that adds then to people's lack of understanding about Northern.
Speaker 1:Ireland again, and I was a teacher for two years before being doing my current role and I certainly didn't notice you know Northern Ireland personally being something that was featured heavily, or maybe even much at all, on the curriculum. So, yeah, I could definitely see that point, thomas.
Speaker 2:Yeah it's a good place to pick up, because school curriculums is a big thing for me. If you look in England, scotland, wales, that would be a significant part where there's like a gap in knowledge for a lot of people about it and I think also that partly might link. It is complex to think about some reasons why that is. But yeah, you know, certainly for most young people as you know, harry, from your background, england or Scotland, wales will not come across the conflict and Irish and Northern Irish politics at all, potentially during school. So then, if you think about it, we're dealing with only students who continue history of politics, gcses, a-levels, who potentially might study it. But even within that group there's a small group of schools who might opt for courses or modules related to Ireland background and that might actually be more like Irish War of Independence type stuff which I've seen.
Speaker 2:John, similar to me, we've done tutoring and bits in schools before. So sometimes I have seen that in schools that do about the Irish War of Independence, northern Ireland less so. So young people basically are not given enough opportunities to understand that kind of key Irish UK history and politics interconnection really which the conflict covers, and actually for all of us when we then teach students at Cardiff University. Often they'll say to us so we'll say, oh, what's got you interested in the course? And most of them will often say they've never studied it before Irish, northern Irish politics or conflict. So that's one of the things that motivates them, because they have come across it in the media. But they feel they want greater understanding. If we look into like why that is and this is obviously quite hard to know because I'm not necessarily in like policymakers, heads or boards of exam boards, etc.
Speaker 2:But if I've been a skeptic with that and it does link into some of the things that we were talking about earlier. Like John was saying that you know they could feel that the UK government realises is quite a complicated subject so it's not something necessarily wants to be breached.
Speaker 2:That might also be because they're not keen, maybe, for students in England, scotland, wales to learn about it. As I said, I'm not exactly sure why there is. I mean, one reason might be because it could lead to questions about UK government's role in the North and South of Ireland, but like, that's one view. But the other part of it might just be a sense of indifference which we were talking about earlier to fares on the island of Ireland, as if in some way it doesn't matter. So it's interesting for me because actually I went to school in England, I grew up in England, south East England, and actually I did do things such as Bloody Sundays. I started my GCSEs because my history teacher was really into the island conflicts. That was good that we studied it. But actually it's interesting how I've lived in Wales for over a decade that the story isn't that different. I realised from going to school in England and teaching a bit in schools in Wales, but also at university we never did any Welsh or Scottish history at all when I was at school in England. And that is quite concerning when you think about it because of the way the UK set up with Northern Ireland, scotland, england and Wales together. At the second, obviously we realise you know where England has the greatest population and bits that that's going to have an effect potentially on later governments to come into place. But that means we could have a generation of political leaders from England who don't have any reflections or thoughts about the island of Ireland, or actually parts of Scotland and Wales as well, because they have now the opportunity to do that. So yeah, in some respects it's quite worrying and probably as well.
Speaker 2:The last kind of point again it's picking up on what Ella and John were saying. This kind of this is why I wonder if we looked in could be an interesting assignment for people, or MA fees or PhD. Why is this the case? And maybe it's a whole distancing thing like a generally amortified view that the UK government likes to push Northern Ireland generally away because it doesn't influence UK politics in terms of electoral outcomes generally. And that's why I said we have that amnesty act last week, which really big because essentially means all paramilitaries in the UK forces will have an amnesty from being investigated for anything that happened during the conflict. Now, and it did register a couple of news outlets, as I said, but not as widespread as you think it would be and that was quite surprising. But that links into what we said. Media, education etc. All has a knock on effect.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, that kind of don't don't want to go there aspect. Yeah, it's fascinating. And if, as a bit of an add on then. So we talked about a few ways that this could be helped and rectify this lack of knowledge, whether it's that how the media portrays these issues, or or should portray them more, or what should be done in education. I was wondering is there anything else that you folks would suggest should be done to help this? You know, bridge the gap.
Speaker 2:Can I go first on that? My point would be and it's interesting again from background that just working in schools, I mean sometimes in schools they were doing like English Civil War, the Oliver Cromwell periods and head in the Charles the first and that's really complicated. My view is different sex of Protestantism and also Catholicism around and different groups of in like a parliamentary lobby versus royalist lobby, and this is what I'm saying back. That you know it's interesting.
Speaker 2:like John, said I think there is a perspective, sometimes from I don't necessarily know in like education establishments etc. That it is complicated and it might be too complicated to choose on some, but I don't think that's the case at all. We have this with our own students in.
Speaker 2:You know, as they progress on our degree is actually it's good to you know things need explanation and background, but actually getting people up to speed and that they enjoy that, looking at variety of different opinions, particularly a topic like this, where it's so dispute and either side, how you can view the conflict, it makes me interested to debate with students, and particularly again like England, scotland and the world, because they might be coming at it from a more outside view, particularly now as generations have gone on. But yeah, so that would be my one thought with it, that we do all like the reformation under the tuners. That's quite complicated and students at a level students can do this, so I think it'd be good to have it taught in schools more.
Speaker 1:So I think we can set the set, the expectation of. You know this is tough, but you know we can get our heads around it. I think generally people do rise to that, you know, and like you say in other topics, I think there's slowly, slowly now there's a bit of distance between.
Speaker 4:If we're just talking about the conflict is 25 years, so there's slowly a bit of distance that we can maybe productively talk about it. So I think we can get our heads around it. The Conservative government credit that they have actually been trying to move some Northern Irish history and the kind of troubles related history onto the National Curriculum. I've been working with them to create an educational pack and it's quite difficult from the ages of five to 18 about explaining the conflict at different levels. So it's no mean feat but there are ways of doing it and using kind of practical examples and showing them primary documents and there's so many videos and documentaries from Northern Ireland that showing them these documents and having a discussion I think it's a really good way of promoting kind of awareness of Northern Ireland and also promoting awareness of the different views on what happened as well and having a productive discussion.
Speaker 3:I think probably I'd look at it more broadly if I was trying to say how it could be changed or improved in the Northern Ireland is very interesting to people who are interested in Northern Ireland.
Speaker 3:There's only two, you know.
Speaker 3:The number of people who live in Northern Ireland is so tiny compared with England or even Wales or Scotland really, and so I think probably if you were going to change how you approach teaching about Northern Ireland, it's really around civics and around the civic identity of what is the UK.
Speaker 3:I think I would probably take it in that way, because certainly in schools you know for kids these days to talk about the troubles, they weren't born in some ways, almost their parents weren't born when the troubles were really at their height, and so I think probably it's more about how we tell the story of these islands, about the different identities, would probably be the way to go about it, because I think Northern Ireland politics for a lot of people in England, at whatever age they are, is what's it got to do with me? Why is this important? Well, if it's important because it tells the story equally of Scottish identity, certainly in places like Glasgow, and it talks about the idea of the Asperer of Irish people in Britain, then that's something we can hold on to. I think that's probably how I would approach it.
Speaker 1:Interesting. And you mentioned stories, john, and that segues us nicely to my next question, which was going to be about myths associated with Northern Ireland and every story you know they often involve some elements of mythology. So if there was one myth that you could debunk that is commonly held about Northern Ireland, its history, its politics, what would it be? Let's go to Eleanor first.
Speaker 4:Well, I think for a lot of people who are new to Northern Ireland, they look at kind of the British state dealing with Northern Ireland and think it's just one entity. They all had this one vision. They were all well coordinated and have a grand plan that they all worked towards and that just wasn't the case, and it wasn't really the case at any point of Northern Irish history at all. So, for example, if we go back to when the conflict began in Northern Ireland and you've got the British Army enter Northern Ireland and you'd think that the police, the RUC, rather than the Constabulary, northern Ireland and the British Army, they'd get along, that's what people would assume. But they didn't. The police found that the army just didn't understand Northern Ireland, whereas the police they knew who the troublemakers were, they knew their parents, their grandparents, what street they lived on, everything, whereas the British Army just didn't have any understanding of the people, the place, the long history that we could talk about today. And that meant on a practical level that they just didn't work together, they didn't share intelligence, they didn't cooperate on the same tasks at all and this really didn't change until kind of the late 70s, which is quite staggering because the conflict began in 1969. But also there were different levels of correspondence as well. So Downing Street didn't talk to everyone the same. So they talked to MI5 and MI6, nushq daily. They talked to the police quite a lot, but they wouldn't talk to the British Army, hardly on the same scale at all. So the British Army were by far the biggest actor on the ground, but they were receiving far less correspondence.
Speaker 4:So then it's really difficult for them to have the same vision and the same grand plan and knowing what to do as the other units, and this brought in rivalry, competition, but also just completely different visions of what was happening and what the best route was for Northern Ireland, but even within the government itself.
Speaker 4:So you have Northern Ireland office that's based in Belfast, we had the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland and then you had obviously a Downing Street, and even in Tony Blairs years there was tensions between Northern Ireland office and Downing Street. So when you have Mo Molem, secretary of State for Northern Ireland, she was getting really frustrated with Downing Street. You can see from the archives that she was getting really frustrated with Downing Street, wanting them to hurry up and that they weren't fully committed to the peace process, whereas on the other side you can see Downing Street really getting frustrated with Northern Ireland office, saying they're going too fast, too hard, too quickly. They just need to slow down. So even these personalities, within the same kind of side, there's big tensions and big competitions, which is something I think it's worth drawing attention to.
Speaker 1:Definitely. It feels like a good lesson for political history in general, not treating groups like monoliths. John, would you like to either build on that or put your own myth into the sort of pot to debunk?
Speaker 3:I don't think people in Britain quite understand the loyalist, unionist perspective of Northern Ireland. I think it's often just seen as it's quite clear, or it seems quite clear what the IRA are. Right, they're sort of freedom fighters that they want the Northern Ireland to be part of the Republic of Ireland. That's a fairly straightforward narrative. I think it's often difficult for loyalists and unionists on two sides. One, the idea that what are they loyal to and what is unionism so are they loyal to? And I think the myth really is that they're not necessarily loyal to the British government. Right, they're loyal to this idea of being part of the United Kingdom. Those aren't the same thing.
Speaker 3:So quite often you see unionists actually in conflict with the UK government, with the Conservatives now, and under the ideas of things like the Windsor framework. And there's a sense, I think, in Britain often that well, if they're not the IRA then they must be like us, so therefore they should just do what we say. And I think it's a difficult. I think often it's quite difficult to understand unionism and loyalism in that sense because of that version of what people in Northern Ireland who call themselves unionists, how they see themselves, how they project themselves about what that means, and often that's about their own identity, their own culture. What they're loyal to is unionism. Is Ulster unionism, orangeism?
Speaker 3:or the orange order or a version of their own history, is what they're trying to protect.
Speaker 3:What they're trying to defend is what they see as Northern Irish or the North of Ireland, or have we want to frame it. It's that that they're loyal to, and so that's often a myth which often leads to conflict, because that sense of that loyalism and unionism is just says no to everything. Because they say no to the Republic of Ireland, they say no to any kind of idea of Northern Ireland being part of anything to do with the Republic, and then they say no to the UK government as well, and you're like well, that's often that the problem is that, well, what are you for? So I think if I could put a myth forward you know, try and debunk something I would say that is what they're for, is their own version of their own identity and culture, which really I think is very difficult to translate. I don't think that many people in Britain quite get what that is, because it isn't Englishness or Scottishness or Welshness. It's a very particular type of Ulsterness which is often overlooked.
Speaker 1:Those kind of distinctions are completely new to me. So that's really helpful. And you know I'd expect there's some who listen to this, who it'll be. It'll be new to them. So we're over halfway into this episode and towards towards the end I want to get a little bit of debate, maybe going on a question. So I'm going to throw perhaps more sort of devil's advocate kind of question to you three and see what you make of it. So I'm quite a big fan of the historian Dominic Sandbrook and he makes sort of as he often does a slightly polemical point about his history that there's often this view that understanding more about history is is a really positive thing and that will help reduce sort of civil strife with with longstanding issues. But he suggests sometimes is it actually a barrier? Understanding history? Can you be, can you, can you have two stronger sense of history? At what point is there a need to sort of be able to let go of some of the history to be able to to move forward? So what do you make of that as a point?
Speaker 2:I can go first. I disagree with it because of the context of what we're talking about and I actually think the greater appreciation of, say, irish history and probably more crucially it's competing interpretations within the island of Ireland for different groups is really needed and I think that's particularly on the part of the British government and I think that's continuously with the British government. There are exceptions to that, but some of the mishaps or mistakes in policy more kind of background and I think appreciation of different views in Irish history will give us a sense of how people probably can interpret it from different communities today. I think that's sometimes overlooked at certainly a UK government level. So I can give a couple of examples for that to try and back up what I'm saying. So you know this is very much about UK government at times ignoring how their decisions in a present situation are going to be viewed with an eye to the past by Irish Republicans, the Irish government's over the years also in this also loyalist, etc.
Speaker 4:So if we go into the conflict.
Speaker 2:First example would be the British government kept unanimous Protestant majority rule and devolution going at storm and so didn't use to have power share needs to be, because you know this is the majority of the population. That's partly what was partitioned as six county state you have some majority rule and the British government kept that going until March 1972. That was pretty monumental era. And there's as well alongside that because of the conflict was going on. They then indiscriminately targeted the Irish nationalist community, at first in the North through in tandem out trial. So the time about trial is just essentially you could bring someone on suspicion they might be engaged in Republican activities. We gave it that way. But loads of innocent people were originally arrested and some of them released. And then there were allegations about certain people subjected to what the European Court human rights later said was in human and degrading treatment in the late 70s.
Speaker 2:When they looked at it this was a massive era from August 1971.
Speaker 2:Because that and other incidences only serve them to cement, you know, quite a sizable minority of the northern nationalist community to back the IRA before 1998.
Speaker 2:Because in their view those kind of things made them believe British rule could not provide democratic government and equality. And then you know, as the conflict continues, there was episodes where the British government, you know, gave efforts to try and solve the conflict and things seem to be improving. But even then, say the 1990s, where John made just government, seem to make progress on the peace process. Initially, if you look between the 1995 to 1997 period, and you've seen this in the National Archives now the British UK government called everyone knows this because it was publicly known for the IRA after it seized power, to start decommissioning weapons before peace talks. I think that was another major blunder because Irish history shows even during the Irish Civil War in the 1920s the losing side did not decommission this weapons and that definitely wasn't going to work, in my view, in the Northern Ireland conflict because there was a stalemate situation between all sides and it didn't make sense to kind of particularly focus on one side giving up weapons for everyone else.
Speaker 4:Well, I tend to disagree with Sam Berke as well, but I think, yeah. But bouncing back to Thomas's point, I think it can. If you have a stronger sense of history you can actually make more sensible policy decisions. So if you could.
Speaker 4:Thomas mentioned internment without trial, and that happened in 1971, where the British army or the British government interned people that were supposedly linked to the Republican movement. The intelligence was off, but if they looked at history they knew that they should have had the Republic of Ireland. So historically they didn't introduce internment before, but historically they'd had the Republic of Ireland doing it with them concurrently together. So if they had a stronger sense of history they would have known that's not going to work. If it's just in the north, just in the north, it's not going to happen. But they went with it again, despite it not being done in the South, and it was a massive failure.
Speaker 4:And even I think people should have a stronger sense of history by applying to other scenarios.
Speaker 4:So in the 70s and 80s you had a kind of spike of nationalism in Wales and to counter that the Brits then thought, oh yeah, they'll had a mini scale internment then, and that again was a massive failure based on inaccurate intelligence.
Speaker 4:They didn't arrest anyone relevant and again it just hardened views within the Welsh nationalist community. So you can see, if people had a stronger sense of history and a stronger sense of longer history as well, I think better policy decisions would be made. And again, just going back to the Good Friday agreement with me going into with DUP, if they had a strong sense of history they would remember that the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland during that years said that the British government had no strategic interest in Northern Ireland. Well, obviously they were not going along with that line and that line was so central in getting a peace process in Northern Ireland. So the fact that they're just countering what they said, historically said, as an institution, really shows that they have no idea of the long history of Northern Ireland. And again, if they had a longer history of Northern Ireland and a better history, I think the better policy decisions would be made.
Speaker 1:The phrase about not knowing history and being doomed to repeat it comes to mind. A bit with some of that stuff, john.
Speaker 3:I think probably Ireland. If there's one thing Ireland does its history right in that you know who's to blame for the conflict. Well, it's obviously Cromwell or William III, right? Well, if that isn't knowing his? The point here, I suppose, as someone we're trained historians, is about versions of history. But we all have a history Northern Ireland almost more than anywhere else, the idea of, you know, in the Battle of the Boine there's a really important idea of origin myths for Ireland and Northern Ireland. You know there's a whole load of origin myths around Battle of the Boine 1916, and then you know what was happening in Dublin, you know, around the General Post Office and then happening on the Somme and the sort of formation of Northern Ireland as a result of Ulsterman giving blood for the king and country.
Speaker 3:So if there's one thing I suppose this is in a sense what one thing that Sam Brook is talking about is too much history can be a bad thing, and I think probably there are parallels with that. I think America currently is an example of that, where versions of what the Constitution means, what it stands for, is it. You know, it's almost like a biblical document in America, this idea of, and they're fighting over it now over how the Supreme Court is formed and what it's for and the role of the president. So our examples I think of, if you want to argue too much, history obviously, as a historian I would argue that history is complicated, there's loads of nuance, everyone's got a story. There is no one version of history and I think that's one of the problems, I think, with some of Sam Brook's argument, and I think you're right, it's polemical, right. He's just putting it out there, this idea that if we could just all agree then we could all be friends and civil strife would all end.
Speaker 3:And in Northern Ireland, of all places, you know the picking out of what is important in history bloody Sunday, bloody Friday Northern Ireland's got a whole series of things that can pick out and say you know, this is what we're fighting over, this is what it's all about. But obviously it's too simplistic to say if we could all sort of forget our history and all be friends after the Good Friday Agreement, everything would be wonderful. You know, the problem in a sense is how you get two versions of history to try and create that idea of if it even is possible to get an idea of a shared idea of what happened in the past and how that influences what we do in the future. I have to be honest. I think it's a better way to go. Look, we have to disagree over this. It's okay to disagree. It's not a problem to have different versions of history. The important bit is that I don't want to kill you over that history. That's the issue that I think perhaps you know Sam Brook is probably arguing about.
Speaker 1:And last one, if it's possible to do a quick fire around on such a big question, but I'd be really interested to get your thoughts on the future, because we've talked a lot about the past, haven't we, on the prospects for Irish unification, tom, could you kick us off on that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I can. I thought it's just useful as a quick background. How does that occur if you have a unification poll? So I'm going to go for an agreement that stipulates if the UK Secretary of State for Northern Ireland believes the majority for unification exists in Northern Ireland from polling data, essentially, and consecutive polling data, they can decide to hold a referendum. Inferiorly, you need to do that in consultation with the Irish government, but they don't have to, and then what would happen is it'd be a north-south self-determination exercise separately, but concurrently. So what that means is the people in the north and south of Ireland separately have to say go to the battle box and both have to say yes to make that happen. You can't have one part saying no because it just doesn't happen, and then you kind of build on that question too. From my view, will it happen? Yes, I think in the next decade or so, and I suspect that it will happen and I actually suspect this quite likely that will be a yes vote for various reasons.
Speaker 2:To kind of quickly turn to First one is just the first time in history as we talked about 2022, shem Vane Irish Nationalist Party finished first place, stormed the Northern Ireland elections in that year and that actually coincides with a trend for declining also in this British Protestant population. When we look at census data compared to the rising Irish nationalist population in Northern Ireland to give you a primary school level and children from those backgrounds there's quite a sizable Irish nationalist population now in comparison, and remember the unification vote all it needs is 50 plus 1% to succeed either side of the border. So that's getting a lot closer in the north. And so the different opinion polls you can see like you go have Lord Ashcroft, lord of the Northern Ireland Life and Time Survey shows varying different amounts pro and against unification. But they all have shown, particularly since Brexit, that the pro unification amount has gone up.
Speaker 2:The second point of this quickly is just you know, ever since the 1970s, although the people in the Republic of Ireland were against the conflicts in terms of violence, there's always been a majority in favour of unification in the Republic and even if, again, the different parties like Finnegan and Finnefoil believe it should be more longer term, they've always been in favour of unification and they've never actually accepted that partition was justified. Finnegan and Finnefoil just accepted that was the case. That's what happened and you know. Also when we see Sinn Féin writing high in polls in the Republic. It's not a secret for people who vote for Sinn Féin that they want an Irish unification poll. So in the short term. So therefore that's more evidence that the Republic to me would be voting in favour.
Speaker 2:And I just thought what was interesting. Finished like my part of this is OK, so we get the result. But I actually think that could be where the really interesting stuff starts to happen. So a couple of points on this. First, as Irish nationalist parties agree on the island of Ireland that then there needs to be a separate referendum about what form of state should the unitary state be? So is it a unitary state, one government, two devolved parliaments, federal, confederal, etc. And they actually don't agree on that. So it'd be interesting to see what turns up.
Speaker 2:And then the big question more John will talk about this like what will see us and also loyalists do if they lose the referendum. So are they actually going to participate in creating a new state or just obstruct it? And if the latter happens, what are the UK and Irish governments going to do about that? Now, like finishing point for me is I still think that, even if there is unionist and loyalist resistance. If that vote happened and it was positive and favour of unification, I think it will still go ahead because it's part of the Good Friday Agreement and Irish Republicans, via Schim fame, were told and they agreed that 50 plus 1% north and south was all it took for unity and that was a really key factor in getting the IRA to stop its campaign. So I just think the Irish and UK governments, they know that and so it'd be quite hard to change the rules of the game now and then claim, particularly to Irish Republicans, that's democratic. I think it will store up big disputes in the future. But yeah, that's my thoughts on that.
Speaker 3:I'm going to take a different side to this to Thomas and say no, I don't think there will be a vote, and the reasons for that are because of the history of referendums in the UK Brexit, brexit. I think if there hadn't been a Brexit vote, or if the vote for Brexit had been a positive remain, then I think there'd be much more likelihood of a second Scottish referendum and a further Northern Irish referendum, because when you set referendums, you expect to win them. You want to know the result before you set the referendum. Now, after six years, of just what is Brexit, what does it mean? I think the idea of this, of what would be a completely unique example of a geographical area of one country going to another sovereign state this isn't the creation of a Northern Irish sovereign country in the UN. This is Northern Ireland as a geographical landmass and people moving into the Republic of Ireland the enormity of that, just the complexity of it, is unbelievable and so, given, as Thomas says, this is based on in the Secretary of State triggering this, I just cannot see, given the conflict that's been in Northern Ireland, the consequences of a referendum in and of itself would be absolutely astronomical. The enormity of that would mean for us, to unionists and loyalists. I think the threat of violence, of even just triggering it, would be very high. And then I have to be honest, I imagine it would be a position of the ulcer unionists and loyalists to say, well, we're just going to abstain, right, we're just going to destroy this referendum, we're not going to vote, because how can you then have a mandate for moving an entire million people in, even if we say that that is 50 plus one, you know, that's half the population of Northern Ireland voting no to their entire history moving into another geographical space With an entire, with a history which is based on, you know, conflict between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. So there are so many impediments. The other impediment, I suppose, as Thomas says, that both sides of the border need to vote yes. Well, the Republic of Ireland may vote yes, but Northern Ireland may vote very narrowly yes. That's an extremely difficult narrative to say well, you voted yes, so tough luck, that's it forever. Now, like when do you have a second referendum to go? Like, with Brexit, people go well, we'd like to go back in. Please, can we end the referendum? Or how do you do that in Northern Ireland? Has that even possible.
Speaker 3:I think there are so many sort of constitutional issues that haven't really been thought through with this idea that you know that well, basically it'll just eventually happen. And then you know there'll be a majority in the north and therefore it'll just happen naturally. Yeah, I can't see loyalists and unionists going. Well, fair enough, I'll follow the democratic mandate Bye. I don't see that happening, so the trigger point would have to. In some senses, I'm the sort of reverse of Thomas. I feel that if you're going to have a referendum on a unification, you need to set all your ducks in order. First you say this is what it's going to be, not, let's do it. And then let's see what happens. You need to say look, if we decided that you want we were going to come back, to come together as one island. This is what it means for tax. This is what it means for your citizenship, this is what it means for everything. Every single nuance would have to be covered, every T crossed, every I dotted before you have the referendum. And that's decades, decades away, in my opinion.
Speaker 1:Interesting. So we've had a question around the appetite, I suppose, for a referendum and the complications that come from that. We've had a clear yes to the question of Irish unification being on the cards and a clear no. Eleanor, where do you come in on this?
Speaker 4:I think I'm on the fence between John and Thomas. I do see it happening, but not in the near future. I think you're more in the decade medium, not completely long decades, decades, decades, but also not within the next decade either. People are tired of Brexit and COVID and then the cost of living crisis that people probably wouldn't want more answered into in their lives. But I think, due to maybe the British how the British government has handled all three of those, it's made people within Northern Ireland actually question things more rather than the status quo as well. So, for example, especially Brexit with the Irish passports and things like that, things have changed, but I don't think it's in the near future.
Speaker 4:I remember Siobhan Fenton, who works for Sinn Féin. She mentioned that they're really looking at Scotland because, like Thomas mentioned that the Secretary of State of Northern Ireland has to trigger a border poll, which is just a referendum, and they're looking at Scotland. So, whatever threshold Scotland reaches for them to trigger another referendum, well, that's what they'll use as their mandate then for a referendum in Northern Ireland. So I think you're looking at again long futures on this one where Scotland needs to change its position first, and then Northern Ireland, and then the history of the UK definitely shifts there onwards.
Speaker 1:Thank you. Well, let no one say that you don't get a range of different views on this podcast and some stuff for listeners to take away and mull over where they might sit on that spectrum. So I'm going to just say thanks so much to all three of my guests for joining me on this one. It's been a really interesting conversation for me and I've certainly learned a lot, and I hope listeners have enjoyed it as well. So thanks so much for being on the podcast.