Disavowal of past violence key to laying moral foundations for united Ireland – Irish Times July 19th-22nd, 2022
Disavowal of past violence key to laying moral foundations for united Ireland – Irish Times July 19th-22nd, 2022
Liam Kennedy July 19th
The cry of the “inevitability” of Irish unity has become so strident in recent times that one might wonder if this is not an attempt to bully and herd public opinion down a one-way bóithrín into the fabled “four green fields”. Historians, and not only historians, are likely to recoil from such a teleological view of Irish history. The future is hardly preordained.
The President, Michael D Higgins, has popularised the concept of “ethical remembering” in the context of commemorating controversial aspects of the Irish past. We might also consider “ethical imagining” in relation to constitutional futures. If a united Ireland is the political end game then, quite apart from the many practical concerns, there are ethical considerations that need to be attended to.
These are fundamental because they embody the values that assure mutual trust and the legitimacy of the new institutions of State. Thus, planning for Irish unity, to invoke another term in vogue, includes laying down the moral foundations for the new constitutional order.
But here’s the problem. The tragedy of the quest for Irish unity is that it is wrapped up in the recent and bloody past of the Troubles. The most prolonged period of inter-communal violence in the North since 1700 is to be found in the final three decades of the last century. Ireland’s 30-years war belongs not to the 17th but the late 20th century. An honest and open dialogue needs to recognise not only that dire fact but acknowledge degrees of responsibility for the vast toll of human suffering left in its wake.
The principal driver of violence – not the only one of course – was the republican movement in the shape of the Provisional IRA. In round figures, 60 per cent of Troubles-related deaths were due to Irish republicans, 30 per cent to loyalist paramilitaries, and 10 per cent to the British security forces. The main killing agency was the Provisional IRA, which was responsible for half of all violent deaths. The IRA’s bombing campaign targeted town centres and businesses which tended to be Protestant-owned. The sectarian imprint runs deep.
Criminality
Set against this tangled backdrop of terror and division, it is almost impossible to see how unionists might contentedly cohabit with nationalists in a united Ireland. We should recognise of course that the armed campaign of Protestant paramilitaries was also brutal, bigoted and lacking a democratic mandate. Interestingly, the remnants of Orange paramilitary factions, often mired in criminality, have been sidelined by the unionist electorate. There is no appetite to valorise and elect to public office ex-combatants who have decommissioned their balaclavas.
Not so on the other side of the house. Sinn Féin is the largest party within Irish nationalism. More importantly, its founding members were intimately involved with the Provisional IRA. Some of its most influential members are graduates of the Maze and other prisons on this island. It is, therefore, uniquely placed to offer a public and collective apology for its vital role in reproducing the Troubles, year in and year out, decade after decade, since 1970.
A unity drive that is serious about reconciling conflicting ethno-national interests within Ireland needs to face up to the challenge of repudiating the “armed struggle” and ending the celebratory commemorations of bombers, hunger strikers, political prisoners and killers.
A disavowal of past violence is an essential part of laying the moral foundations for a united Ireland. Otherwise, how could former Ulster unionists feel remotely secure? The public apology should not be confined to unionists, however. It should be directed also to moderate Northern nationalists, and others, who suffered greatly from an insurrectionary campaign imposed upon them. The main killers of Catholics were of course loyalist murderers but the IRA was responsible for several hundred other Catholic deaths. In addition, as part of a campaign of internal terror, the IRA “kneecapped” or mutilated several thousand young Catholics.
How might a collective apology be given effect? Fortunately, there is a model to hand that has the sanction of the United Nations. A recent UN report, Promotion of Truth, Justice, Reparation and Guarantees of Non-recurrence, offers some ethical and practical guidelines. These include “a public statement of remorse or regret related to the wrongful act or acts, or omission, that is delivered with due respect, dignity and sensitivity to the victims”. Especially importantly, it insists on a guarantee of non-recurrence.
Public apologies inevitably relate to the ethical burdens of the past. But they are also forward-looking, as the UN report underlines. They can mark the beginning of a new era of openness and “a break from past cultures of violence”.
Foundations
Much has been written about the economics and the practicalities of a united Ireland. But the immaterial, it is suggested here, is more material to Irish unity than the material. Unless the moral foundations of any new constitutional arrangement are attended to, then alienation, discontent and civil disturbance are likely to ensue. The values that animated the IRA insurgency threatened Irish democracy, North and South. If these values continue to be normalised within the new political dispensation, then it is hard to see how the apprehensions of sceptical nationalists and moderate unionists can be assuaged, never mind those of hardline loyalists.
But if that is too much to ask, and it may be, then an urgent priority facing those planning for Irish unity are policies and budgets that expand the army and police resources of the Republic of Ireland.
Liam Kennedy is professor of history at Queen’s University Belfast
The legacy of the Troubles - Responses to Liam Kennedy’s article – July 20th
Sir, – Liam Kennedy is absolutely right in his contention that disavowal of past violence is the key to laying moral foundations for a united Ireland published in Opinion and Analysis, July 19th, 2021.
Reconciliation is at the heart of such an approach and, as Prof Kennedy acknowledges, much work along these lines has been done by President Michael D Higgins in his advocacy of “ethical remembering”. This has been very successful at a national level, but there also needs to be a more structured approach to reconciliation for those most affected by the Troubles who seek it at a personal level.
The Truth Recovery Process advocates that, where former combatants on all sides are willing to come forward and provide families with information, and where families wish to avail of such an offer, it should be possible for them to do so through a mediation process agreed by the British and Irish governments, and all of the parties to the Stormont House Agreement. If families wish to pursue truth and justice through the courts that should remain their prerogative, but there is an urgent need for a working alternative.
While occasional breakthroughs in legacy investigations are sometimes highlighted in the media, this happens because they are so rare. Engagement between former perpetrators and victims may be difficult, but done properly it has the potential to yield more positive results than the legal arena, where the outcome of prosecutions are unpredictable and the longest sentence is two years, a fraction of the time spent investigating and prosecuting them.
Alternative routes to addressing the legacy of the conflict are urgently needed.– Yours, etc,
JOHN GREEN,
PADRAIG YEATES,
Truth Recovery
Process CLG,
Dublin 13.
A chara, – The overwhelming opposition of all political groups and victims groups on this island to the British government’s determination to renege on yet another agreement it previously entered into (the 2014 Stormont House Agreement) allows a firm conclusion to be drawn. The imperative is to obstruct any possibility that the murder by British soldiers of innocent, unarmed civilians will be prosecuted. In effect the British government is saying that serving members of its armed forces can murder with impunity. Rules of engagement need not apply. If this is acceptable to them in 1970s Northern Ireland, it will be acceptable to them at any time anywhere in the world where British forces are deployed. This is indeed immoral, dangerous folly and must be challenged using the highest political, diplomatic and legal means. – Yours, etc,
PJ McDERMOTT,
Westport,
Co Mayo.
Sir, – So, the mother of parliaments will simply put aside the laws against violence and murder as and when it is convenient? – Yours, etc,
KEVIN LALOR,
Caragh, Co Kildare.
Liam Kennedy’s Reply – July 22nd
Sir, – Further to my article “Disavowal of past violence key to laying moral foundations for united Ireland” (Opinion & Analysis, July 19th), a number of people have asked me what is the point of asking Sinn Féin and the representatives of loyalist paramilitarism to acknowledge their role in 30 years of terror, if there is little chance of a positive response? Rather like other aspects of legacy, there is always a possibility, if not now then later on.
More immediately, it is empowering for people who do not share the values and obfuscations of armed groups to make demands of those responsible for communal suffering, irrespective of the odds.
The alternative is to let issues of human rights and the morality of orange and green violence go by default.
Challenging terror is surely a democratic imperative.
I would also argue that some kind of emancipatory politics, embodying new ethical perspectives and including public apology, is a prerequisite for stable constitutional arrangements in a new Ireland (whatever shape that might take). – Yours, etc,
LIAM KENNEDY,
Institute of Irish Studies,
Queen’s University,
Belfast.
