OPINION
GUEST ESSAY
Northern Ireland Is Coming to an End
June 30,
2021, 1:00 a.m. ET
By Susan
McKay
Ms. McKay
is an Irish journalist who writes extensively about the politics and culture of
Northern Ireland.
BELFAST,
Northern Ireland — It was meant to be a year of celebration.
But
Northern Ireland, created in 1921 when Britain carved six counties out of
Ireland’s northeast, is not enjoying its centenary. Its most ardent upholders,
the unionists who believe that the place they call “our wee country” is and
must forever remain an intrinsic part of the United Kingdom, are in utter
disarray. Their largest party has ousted two leaders within a matter of weeks,
while an angry minority has taken to the streets waving flags and threatening
violence. And the British government, in resolving Brexit, placed a new border
in the Irish Sea.
It’s harsh
reward for what Northern Ireland’s first prime minister, James Craig, called
“the most loyal part of Great Britain.” But the Protestant statelet is not what
it was. Well on its way to having a Catholic majority, the country’s once
dominant political force — unionism — now finds itself out of step with the
community that traditionally gave it uncritical support. And for all his talk
of the territorial integrity of the United Kingdom, Prime Minister Boris
Johnson has made clear his government would cheerfully ditch this last little
fragment of Britain’s empire if it continues to complicate Brexit.
The writing
is on the wall. While the process by which Ireland could become unified is
complicated and fraught, one thing seems certain: There isn’t going to be a
second centenary for Northern Ireland. It might not even last another decade.
A hundred
years ago, the mood among unionists was jubilant. When the king and queen of
England came to Belfast to mark the opening of the new Northern Ireland
Parliament, the streets were decked out with red, white and blue bunting. “The
people could not contain themselves,” according to Cecil Craig, the wife of the
new prime minister. “All Irishmen,” King George V said, should “join in making
for the land which they love a new era of peace, contentment and good will.”
The
Catholic minority, known as nationalists because they aspired to be reunited
with the rest of Ireland, had no such expectations. For 50 years, unionism
dominated the state, instituting a comprehensive system of discrimination in
housing, education, employment and voting. Sectarianism was state policy —
Protestants were instructed by their leaders to distrust and exclude Catholics,
who were outnumbered two to one — and the police force was armed. Britain
turned a blind eye, as did the Republic of Ireland.
But
discontent among nationalists inevitably built, finding form in the late 1960s
in a civil rights campaign that aimed to secure basic rights for the Catholic
minority. Outraged, the unionist state reacted by attempting to beat peaceful
protesters off the streets. The British Army, whose intervention quickly showed
itself to be on the side of unionism, was confronted by the Irish Republican
Army, which responded with its own brutal and sectarian campaign. In 1972 the
British government suspended the regime in Belfast and placed Northern Ireland
under its direct rule.
For almost
three decades, the conflict raged. Around 4,000 people, out of a population of
fewer than 2 million, were killed; communities were torn apart. In 1998, the
Good Friday Agreement brought an end to the violence and inaugurated a
power-sharing executive, in which parties representing the two main communities
operate in mandatory coalition. It was ratified by 70 percent of people in a
referendum. The war was over.
The
arrangement stumbled along for close to two decades, never fully working yet
crucially keeping the peace. But Britain’s vote in 2016 to leave the European
Union threatened the state’s always fragile constitutional relationships. And
when the Conservative government settled Brexit with a protocol that
established a border for goods between Northern Ireland and the rest of the
United Kingdom, it effectively acknowledged the province as a place apart.
Northern
Ireland now has borders with Britain and Ireland — and it is no longer a
majority-Protestant state. The last census, in 2011, showed that the Protestant
population had declined to 48 percent and the Catholic minority had risen to 45
percent. The Protestant community is aging, too: In 2011, only among those over
60 did it have a significant majority, and among schoolchildren, Catholics were
the larger group. The results of a census to be published next year may well
show an overall Catholic majority.
Nor can
unionists count on the votes of Protestants. As a society, Northern Ireland has
become more secular, more tolerant of diversity, less insular. People who
reject conservative social policies have other voting options, and many young
people do not vote at all. Some put their energy into global movements like
climate justice and feminism — and plenty neither know nor care about the
religious background of their friends. The constitutional issue of whether
Northern Ireland is Irish or British does not preoccupy them. They are open to
persuasion.
Unable to
adapt, unionism is on the wane. According to a recent poll, support for the
Democratic Unionist Party has slumped to 16 percent, with Sinn Fein, the party
that emerged from the I.R.A. and whose fundamental aim is to achieve a united
Ireland, well ahead at 25 percent. The next elections, due in less than a year,
could see Sinn Fein take the post of first minister for the first time, in what
would be a symbolically momentous development.
What’s
more, Sinn Fein is surging ahead in polls in the Irish Republic and may enter
government after the next elections in 2025. While around 50 percent of Northern
Irish voters back remaining in the United Kingdom, support for Irish unity is
growing. Though by no means imminent, that goal has never seemed closer.
Against
this backdrop, some unionists have sunk into resentment. Men in balaclavas,
Union Jacks in their fists, have taken to the streets to express their
grievances. But it’s clear that most Protestants, like the rest of Northern
Ireland’s populace, deplore talk of a return to violence. They want normal
politics instead.
And if
unionism cannot deliver it, a growing number of them are tentatively
contemplating what for previous generations was unthinkable: that a unified
Ireland might not actually be the end of the world.
Susan McKay
(@SusanMcKay15) is a journalist and the author, most recently, of “Northern
Protestants: On Shifting Ground.”
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