More needs to follow Good Friday Agreement
President Biden’s recent trip to Ireland triggered a number of thoughts.
Years ago, while doing research for a book on the “Troubles” in Northern Ireland, I walked the streets of Belfast. Where the Falls Road and Shankill Road met, barbed wire separated the streets. A sign announced, “Peace Line, Road Closed,” and young boys on the other side of the barbed wire were taunting a British soldier.
When the boys saw me taking pictures, they pointed me out to the soldier. He ran at me with drawn bayonet and brought me, hands held high, to a barracks, where I was grilled for two hours before being released.
Earlier that day, members of the Irish Republican Army, posing as photographers, had fired on British soldiers. The soldier’s reaction, therefore, was clearly understandable.
Less understandable was the reaction of the boys. Simply because I looked “different” and was on the Catholic (Falls) side of the barbed wire and they were on Protestant (Shankill) side, the boys immediately switched from taunting the soldier to siding with him.
Of course, much has changed since those days. President Biden went to Ireland to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement, which, in 1998, largely ended the conflict that had ravaged the North since 1969. For that agreement, we should all be grateful. (Inhabitants of Northern Ireland certainly are.)
However, peace did not bring people together. Paradoxically, the agreement, while ending the violence, segregated Catholics and Protestants further.
What had been peace lines beginning in 1969 became walls in many cases over the years. Today, there are nearly 100 walls in Northern Ireland. And those walls, while helping to maintain peace, continue to separate those in the North by religion.
How did the conflict devolve into a religious war, with Protestants seeking to remain aligned with the United Kingdom? One need look no further than Randolph Churchill (Winston’s father). In an attempt to enhance his power in the 1880s, Churchill proposed splitting the six, predominately Protestant, counties of the North from the rest of the island.
It wasn’t always this way. For nearly two centuries, religion was simply not an issue, with Catholics and Protestants united in their fight for independence. In fact, most of the early independence leaders were Protestant, including Wolfe Tone, Robert Emmet, Charles Parnell and Roger Casement.
By 1922, though, when the 26 predominately Catholic counties of the South gained independence from the United Kingdom as the Irish Free State (renamed Ireland in 1937), the six northern counties remained within the United Kingdom. Although fighting continued sporadically in the North, it increased dramatically after the civil rights uprisings of 1969, until brought to an end by the Good Friday Agreement.
Ending the fighting was one thing; ending religious sectarianism another. However, two things seemed clear: The drive for a united Ireland, the goal of Catholics and Protestants for nearly two centuries, might again resurface were Catholics, through their higher birth rate, eventually to outnumber Protestants in the North; and sectarianism would only end if children, relegated to segregated schools, attended school together.
In the 2021 census, Catholics finally surpassed Protestants. Whether, in fact, demands for a united Ireland will increase over time remains to be seen.
Sectarianism, though, is another matter. Attending schools with children of different religious faiths would appear to be the only logical way to bring Northerners together.
The peace lines and walls helped end violence by keeping people apart. Now the challenge is to end segregation and bring people together, which, so long as lines and walls remain, make the task nearly impossible.
As the poignant words of James Taylor remind us,
“You’ve got to be taught to hate and fear You’ve got to be taught from year to year It’s got to be drummed in your dear little ear You’ve got to be carefully taught.” Through segregated schools, the children of Northern Ireland have been carefully taught, with lessons learned in school reinforced at home. If true peace is to come to the North, all barriers — not just physical ones — must come down.
Until Catholic and Protestant children attend school together and learn to understand each other, they will hate each other as adults and continue to live in a divided society.
The Good Friday Agreement accomplished a great deal. However, much more needs to be done, starting with the removal of physical barriers and school integration.
Perhaps, on the 50th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement, the people of Northern Ireland will have a real cause for celebration.