Joseph E. Thompson - American Policy and Northern Ireland: A Saga of Peacebuilding

Cover

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American Policy and Northern Ireland

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A SAGA OF PEACEBUILDING

Joseph E. Thompson

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Thompson, Joseph E., 1938
American policy and Northern Ireland : a saga of peacebuilding / Joseph E. Thompson.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index.
ISBN 0275965171 (alk. paper)
1. United StatesForeign relationsNorthern Ireland. 2. Northern IrelandForeign
relationsUnited States. 3. United StatesForeign relations19451989. 4. United
StatesForeign relations19895. Northern IrelandPolitics and
government19691994. 6. Northern IrelandPolitics and government1994
7. Irish AmericansPolitics and government. 8. Peaceful change (International
relations)History20th century. I. Title.
E183.8.G7T47 2001
327.730416dc21 00064947

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data is available.

Copyright 2001 by Joseph E. Thompson

All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be
reproduced, by any process or technique, without the
express written consent of the publisher.

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 00064947

ISBN: 0-275-96517-1

First published in 2001
Praeger Publishers, 88 Post Road West, Westport, CT 06881
An imprint of Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc.
www.praeger.com

Printed in the United States of America

The paper used in this book complies with the
Permanent Paper Standard issued by the National
Information Standards Organization (Z39.481984).

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Copyright Acknowledgment

The author and publisher gratefully acknowledge permission for use of the following material:

Excerpt from Bogland from Selected Poems 19661987 by Seamus Heaney. Copyright 1990
by Seamus Heaney. Reprinted by permission of Farrar, Straus and Giroux, LLC, and Faber and
Faber Limited, Publishers.

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Dedicated to
those courageous peacemakers
who put their careers on the line and
gave of their precious time to help bring peace
to Northern Ireland. On a personal level,
for Jim and Alice,
who stay and work for peace.

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Northern Ireland is that northeasterly section of the island that remained part of the United Kingdom when Ireland was partitioned in 1920. Irish nationalists who avidly support a united Ireland refuse to speak of Northern Ireland, for the term carries with it a political stigma. They believe that this term connotes the separation of the islands six counties of Antrim, Armagh, Down, Fermanagh, Tyrone, and the cryptic Derry (for nationalists) or Londonderry (for unionists) or LDerry (for the ambivalent) from Ireland, with political allegiance to Britain. Irish unionists go to the other extreme and use the term Ulster to refer to Northern Ireland. This term, however, leads to another political stigma, as when unionists refer to themselves as Ulster Protestants. In response to unionists using this term, Irish nationalists insist that traditional Ulster consists of nine counties, Northern Irelands six counties plus Counties Cavan, Donegal, and Monaghan (these three counties are now part of the Irish Republic). Regardless of a political stigma and because the governing state is the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (U.K.), the legal term of Northern Ireland is used throughout this book. To do otherwise is to concede to the emotional demands of political correctness imposed by either of the opposing communities in Northern Ireland.

Overall, Northern Irelands politics and population have changed little since the island was partitioned. The 1991 census registered 1.6 million people living in a territory that occupies less than 3 percent of the whole United Kingdom. While Northern Ireland is approximately the geographic size of the state of Connecticut, its population is only one-third of Connecticuts population. A misrepresentation imposed on the American culture concerns the division within the population. Protestant and Catholic are terms used in America to refer to members of the different community traditions. However, not all

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Protestants support the continued union of Northern Ireland with Britain, and not all Catholics are infallibly for a united Ireland. Protestant and Catholic are religious-identification components in the Irish society, and no person lives on the island without identifying with one or the other religion, yet no one religion was linked to any one political decision until the late nineteenth century. In the past, religions have reconciled and worked together for a common goal. The recent trend to identify one religion with one political aspiration for Northern Irelands future is detrimental reductionism. The tendency to analyze complex events in Northern Ireland through simple sound-bite terms can be avoided by using political identifications for political groups.