How can it be that, in Northern Ireland, a generation that has never known violence has such reverence for the gunmen?
For those poor naïve souls amongst us who like to think that one day there might be peace and goodwill and acceptance between Northern Ireland’s two communities, it has been a depressing summer. One crowd burned Irish flags and effigies of Sinn Fein politicians. Grown men sang songs revelling in the death of a young woman from the other community. The other side responded in kind, with a Belfast Festival of Irishness which featured a field full of people born long after the IRA’s ceasefire singing “up the ra” and a bonfire in Derry which set fire to Union Flags and Orange symbols. This is the province, and the hate, that many southern Irish people want to see integrated into our state.
I confess, I struggle to see the appeal.
If anything, the absence of regular atrocities in Northern Ireland appears to have made the atmosphere worse.
In the long miserable years of the troubles, there were, at least, moments when either side would just go too far. A murder or a shooting or a bombing so grizzly and so without justification (think Enniskillen here, if you’re a “Republican”, or the showband murders if you are a “loyalist”) that they would momentarily unite all sides in genuine revulsion. Indeed, it is usually forgotten that during those years there was a genuine aspiration in the mainstream of both communities for better relations: Sinn Fein never prospered, politically, while the IRA was active. Mainstream Unionism could be obstinate and at times infuriating, but it was almost always – with one or two shameful exceptions – clear in its condemnation of loyalist atrocities.
Now, by contrast, there are almost no unifying events: The centenary of the history of Northern Ireland was decreed offensive and political by Republicans, including by the Republic’s own President. St. Patrick’s Day is still seen as an entirely “Republican” festival, even by Unionists who apparently genuinely regard themselves as “Irish and British”. Outside of Christmas, there is not one single event on the calendar that appears to unite the North’s two tribes. The absence of violence was supposed to bring them together. If anything, it appears to have driven them further apart.
In mainstream circles in the Republic, of course, you will not need to go far to find an answer for the current outbreak of ill-feeling: Brexit, they’ll say. But then again, ask Irish mainstream opinion why the milk in your fridge has gone sour, and they’ll say Brexit. It’s the single-transferable hate object for mainstream southern opinion. But perhaps there is truth in it, on this occasion.
Brexit, after all, has done two things: First, it has stoked Republican hopes that a United Ireland is “inevitable”. Indeed, much of the southern triumphalism about Brexit has been that it would inevitably result in the breakup of the UK. As a piece of political analysis, this is hopeful and speculative, but when you combine it with the raging row over the protocol and the border in the Irish sea, it feels to some Unionists as if the Southern Government is actively working to break up the UK, and isolate Unionism. Second, Brexit is seen by some loyalists as the ultimate “FU” to the Republic: These people don’t see a hard border as a problem, but a feature. More separation is a good thing, for those who always viewed cross border institutions with sneaking suspicion.
None of that, though, explains the radicalism of the youth, or why a generation raised in peace would be so eager to celebrate their “side” during an era of violence.
The Good Friday Agreement is, I think, an under-rated reason for the increased division. The future of Northern Ireland is now in the hands of its people, which means that in the absence of a hot war, the two tribes are now engaged in a demographic war: “Cross Community Education” tends to be opposed by both, in part, I think, because of the fear in some Republican circles that young Republicans might grow up to be Unionists if educated beside Unionist children, and vice versa. When the future of your country is entirely dependent on head count, it is increasingly vital to radicalise every child. It’s why shops sell Rangers and Celtic kits in sizes for two year olds. Imprint the identity early, never let it be challenged.
It is also, I think, what stokes the fantasies of extermination: All Taigs are Targets. Why? Because the more Taigs there are, the more likely a United Ireland is. Similarly, “Planters go home”, or whatever the equivalent is, these days, on the nationalist side, is simply an expression of the idea that the Unionist community itself is an obstacle to Republican dreams. The whole thing is structured in such a way as to ensure that politically, the two communities are a fundamental threat to each other’s future.
And that future is never secure: For Unionism, the very constitution has a threat to their way of life built into it. For nationalists, hope is built in. Both sides are so focused, endlessly, on the national question that each sees every move by the other as part of a nefarious long term plot. And of course, each is right.
Left to their own devices, the two communities in Northern Ireland simply cannot be trusted not to start killing each other, at some point in the future. If it had sense, the UK Government would simply enforce cross-community schools as a matter of law. Until these people are forced to see each other as neighbours, and partners in a shared future, they’re not much use to anybody, Irish or British.