Trinity College Dublin Nationalism, Republicanism and Change Reconciliation in Northern Ireland

Trinity College Dublin

Nationalism, Republicanism and Change

Reconciliation in Northern Ireland


Learning Outcomes

• Have a framework for understanding nationalism/republicanism (identity, community, ideology)

• Understand differences between nationalism and republicanism

• Analyse the relationship between changes in nationalism/republicanism and the peace process


Key Texts

• Jennifer Todd (1999) in Ruane and Todd, After the Good Friday Agreement

• Jonathan Tonge (2002) Northern Ireland: Conflict and Change, chapter 5

• Richard English (2009) Terrorism, chapter 3 There are a number of other readings on your

syllabus that are worth checking out. Also explore the websites of the nationalist/republican political parties.


Identity Community Ideology

Individual and collective self-understanding, where we ‘fit’ in society

Feeling of belonging to a certain social group

A system of concepts about self and others

Who I am Who we are Why we are this way


Nationalism and Republicanism

Irish nationalism & republicanism should be seen in the context of wider nationalist and republican movements


Nationalism and Republicanism

Nationalism and republicanism may appear monolithic from the outside (‘pan-nationalist front’), but this is not the case.

(hunger strike memorial, Dungiven)


Tonge (2002) Four core themes of nationalism

– The partition of Ireland was unjust

– Politics in Ireland should, therefore, concentrate upon the rectification of this injustice


Four core themes of nationalism

• Self-determination for the Irish people is necessary

• A purely internal settlement is impossible in Northern Ireland


Tonge, Republicanism’s core ideas (from Coogan)

– Republicanism (linked to development of true Irish state)

– Nationalism (Ireland has existed as a nation for 1500 years)


Republicanism’s core ideas

– Militarism: armed struggle is justified

– Romanticism (including Gaelic culture and ideas of martyrdom)


Tonge (2002)

• Republicanism’s Core Ideas (from Coogan)– Socialism– Anti-imperialism– Anti-colonialism (NI

as colony, ROI as neo-colonial state)


McGarry and O’Leary (1995)

• Nationalists and Republicans disagree about four matters:– the present (and future) membership of the Irish

nation– the feasibility of unifying the Irish nation within an

Irish state– the goals and means for Irish unification– the fundamental causes of the Northern Ireland

conflict (page 21)


Tonge (2002)

• Nationalists and Republicans disagree about four matters:– The extent to which Irish people are a single

nation– The degree to which the British government is

responsible for the problem in NI– The necessity of Unionist consent for

constitutional change– The use of force to establish a united Ireland


McGarry & O’Leary (1995): Four Types

• Civic Constitutionalists: ‘declare themselves secular and civic’; hold the British state historically responsible; would stress Gaelic language rather than Catholic religion; oppose violence (page 17)



• Civic Militants: Irish nation should be defined inclusively and territorially, can be sought with violence, Irish territory currently occupied by imperial power (page 18)

(mural, Springhill)



• Ethnic Constitutionalists: ‘Catholic in religious origin and belief, … hardline on law, order and social policy, and puritanical if not always authoritarian in matters of private morality. … hold Britain historically responsible. … endorse the past struggles of Irish nationalists, but mostly oppose the use of violence to advance the ‘re-integration’ of the national territory’ (page 18-19)



• Ethnic Militants: Defend armed revolutionary violence; use some civic rhetoric but largely an ethnic appeal (page 19)

(internment bonfire, Aug. 2008)


Group Work: Discuss Focus Questions and Report Back

Reflect on the components that make up nationalist and republican identities. To what extent does your own personal identity include (or not!) any of those components? Does your identity impact on your ability to interact with people with nationalist/republican identities within your organisation or the community?


Analysing Change in Nationalism/ Republicanism

• Todd (1999) on Change – The distinctive liberal nationalism of John Hume and the SDLP

• Photo: Hume with David Trimble and Bono at 1998 U2 concert


Todd on the context of change‘The assumptions of classic nationalism were shaken by

events in Northern Ireland in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Northern Catholics were mobilized on civil rights rather than nationalist aims; reform of Northern Ireland – but not a united Ireland – came onto the British political agenda; and the British political system proved not to provide a favourable arena for such reform (Ruane and Todd, 1996, chapters 5, 8). Republicans attempted to force the British government to change its strategy and to create conditions where classic nationalism would be viable. Constitutional nationalists instead responded by ideological change.’ (page 53)


Hume’s Ideology: first level principles

• Pluralism (rejects classic nationalist model of a world of nation-states; stresses multiple identities and institutional arenas – Irish America, EU, local community)


Hume’s Ideology: First level principles

• Dialogic (agreement can’t be predisposed or coerced, only created by inclusivist dialogue which is supported by institutional safeguards.)

• Egalitarian (Rights include formal, communal and cultural rights. Diversity is seen as strength, not weakness; syncretic notions of identity based on multiple, overlapping institutional arenas)


Hume’s Ideology: First level principles

Non-nationalism (self-determination remains a central value but is redefined in non-nationalist and non-majoritarian terms)


Hume’s Ideology: Second level principles

• Irish identity is a core identity in Northern Ireland

• Irish identity requires institutional recognition within Northern Ireland

• Irish identity requires institutional recognition through the involvement of the Irish state in Northern Ireland

• Sees change as evolutionary, gradualist


Todd on Republican Revisions

• ‘Traditionally republicanism had combined classic nationalist axioms with an emphasis on the need for complete separation from Britain and for radical social change: in Adams’s phrase, republicanism combined separatism, secularism, antisectarianism, nationalism and radicalism (Adams, 1986, pp. 132-33; see also Patterson, 1989).’ (Todd, page 56)


Factors contributing to change amongst republicans

• success of electoral strategy after hunger strikes of 1981• increasing role of Irish government in Northern Ireland• stalemate in the armed struggle• Adams-Hume talks (see Moloney, A Secret History of the IRA)• Temptation of political power?


Why did the IRA abandon violence?

Richard English (p. 78):

1. Inefficacy of continued violence2. Potential rewards of more peaceful tactics3. Acknowledgement of previously

unrecognized political and economic realities


Republican Ideology: Convergence with Hume?

• First level principles: democracy and equality


Second level principles

• Second level principles: Irish unity and independence (but second level more specific than Hume, want: ‘a strong equality agenda incorporating radical reform of the police, total demilitarization, and strong North/South linkages which would open the possibility of an eventual united Irish nation state’, Todd, page 59)


Republican Ideology: Differences with Hume

• rather than compare with gradualist models of European integration, compare with South Africa

• emphasis on dismantling colonial structures• radical change or transformation of society must occur• rather than emphasise inclusivist identities, assume that

unionist/loyalist identities were oppositional and supremacist and must change

• Irish unity still seen as desired but not pre-determined


Sinn Fein in Power: a sea change in republicanism?


Who would have thought it?


Questions Remain

• Is this ideological continuity in a new phase of the struggle?

• Is this a conversion to constitutional nationalism?

• Are these simply strategic changes?

• Is the IRA an ‘old boys club’?

Documents

Trinity College Dublin Nationalism, Republicanism and Change Reconciliation in Northern Ireland