This article addresses the nature of contemporary racism and sectarianism in Northern Ireland in the context of the Good Friday Agreement (GFA) and its outworking. It responds to the increasing dominance of the ‘good relations’ model for understanding and addressing race and sectarian division in Northern Ireland. It debunks the gathering support for the notion that Northern Ireland is somehow ‘post-sectarian’ – finding instead a state formation that hides its incapacity to address rising racism and sectarianism under the fig leaf of ‘good relations’. It locates these key developments in the specific new formation of the statelet which has emerged from the GFA.
‘The fundamental reality is that Northern Ireland has not worked and, as an entity divorced unnaturally from the rest of Ireland, will not work.’ Dáil Debates, 1 July 1982; quoted in Martin Mansergh (ed) The Spirit of the Nation: the speeches and statements of Charles J. Haughey (1957–1986) (Cork, Mercier Press, 1986), p. 658.
3.
IRA statement, 28 July 2005. Óglaigh na hÉireann (‘Volunteers of Ireland’) is the IRA's name for itself.
4.
Robbie McVeigh, ‘The undertheorisation of sectarianism’, Canadian Journal of Irish Studies (Vol. 16, 1992), pp. 119–122.
5.
Robert Moore, ‘Race relations in the Six Counties’Race (Vol. 14, 1972), pp. 21–42.
6.
Bill Rolston, ‘Legacy of intolerance: racism and Unionism in South Belfast’, IRR News (10 February 2004), <http://www.irr.org.uk/2004/february/ak000008.html>.
7.
J.C. Beckett, The Making of Modern Ireland (London, Faber and Faber, 1965), p. 450-450.
8.
Ronald McNeill, Ulster's Stand For Union (London, John Murray, 1922), p. 279-279.
9.
Rex Cathcart, The Most Contrary Region: the BBC in Northern Ireland 1924–1984 (Belfast, Blackstaff Press, 1984).
10.
Keith Jeffery, ‘The Irish Military Tradition and the British Empire’, in K. Jeffery (ed) ‘An Irish Empire’? Aspects of Ireland and the British Empire (Manchester, Manchester University Press, 1996), p. 95-95.
11.
The power-sharing Executive has been suspended by the British government on four occasions, most recently from October 2002 until the present. On each occasion, the ostensible reason was the unionists' objection that the IRA, and by extension Sinn Féin, had failed to live up to its responsibility to decommission, that is, get rid of all its weapons.
Peter Shirlow and Brendan Murtagh, Belfast: segregation, violence and the city (London, Pluto Press, 2006).
14.
BBC News, ‘Lennon quits international football’, 23 August 2002, <http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/internationals/northern_ireland/2208857.stm>.
15.
See Anne Cadwallader, Holy Cross – the hidden story (Belfast, Brehon Press, 2004).
16.
Irish News (12 May 2006).
17.
Irish News (20 August 2005).
18.
Currently, as a result of reverse discrimination policies, the organisation is currently 20 per cent Catholic. See <http://www.u.tv/newsroom/indepth.asp?pt=n&id=75410>.
19.
A New Beginning: policing in Northern Ireland (1999).
20.
See, for example, the argument in ‘Race crime and sectarian crime legislation in Northern Ireland: a summary paper’, Northern Ireland Office (November 2002).
21.
See, for example, Angelique Chrisafis, ‘Racist war of the loyalist street gangs’, The Guardian (10 January 2004).
22.
Thus the consultation paper prepared by the Central Community Relations Unit in 1992 on behalf of the British government said: ‘Although there has been legislation on race in Great Britain since 1965, a similar body of law has not been introduced in Northern Ireland. The main reason for this was that successive Governments believed that there was insufficient evidence of problems arising to warrant legislation equivalent to that in Great Britain.’ CCRU, Race Relations in Northern Ireland (Belfast, CCRU, 1992).
23.
See Robbie McVeigh, The Next Stephen Lawrence? Racist violence and criminal justice in Northern Ireland (Belfast, Northern Ireland Council for Ethnic Minorities, 2006).
24.
Section 75 of the Northern Ireland Act 1998 (with which the British government claimed to give effect to the GFA) places a statutory duty on public authorities to promote equality of opportunity ‘between persons of different religious belief, political opinion, racial group’ as well as a range of other categories like sexual orientation and gender. In addition, without prejudice to this obligation, public authorities promote good relations between persons of ‘different religious belief, political opinion, or racial group’.
25.
Meanwhile the CCRU was renamed the Community Relations Unit (CRU) in 2000 and became part of the Equality Unit of the Office of the First Minister and Deputy First Minister.
26.
CRC press release, ‘Good relations framework launch’, 29 September 2004.
27.
CRC, A Good Relations Framework: an approach to the development of good relations (Belfast, 2004). p. 6-6.
28.
David Miller, ‘The New Battleground? Community relations and cultural traditions in Northern Ireland’, Planet: The Welsh Internationalist (Vol. 102, December/January1993), pp. 74–79. Robbie McVeigh, ‘Between reconciliation and pacification: the British state and community relations in the north of Ireland’, Community Development Journal (Vol. 37, 2002), pp. 47–59.
29.
A. Sivanandan, ‘RAT and the degradation of black struggle’, Race & Class (Vol. 25, no. 4, 1985), pp. 1–33.
30.
Neil Jarman, No Longer a Problem?: sectarian violence in Northern Ireland (Belfast, Institute for Conflict Research, 2005).
31.
Equality Commission for Northern Ireland, Fair Employment Monitoring Report No. 15: A Profile of the Northern Ireland Workforce – Summary of Monitoring Returns 2004 (Belfast, ECNI, 2005).
32.
<http://www.nicie.org/aboutus/>.
33.
Richard McMinn and Eamon Phoenix, ‘The Chilver Report: unity and diversity’, Irish Educational Studies (Vol. 24, no. 1, 2005), pp. 5–19.
34.
Bill Rolston, ‘Dealing with the past: pro-state paramilitaries, truth and transition in Northern Ireland’, Human Rights Quarterly, (Vol. 28, no. 3, 2006), pp. 652–675.
35.
A. Sivanandan, Communities of Resistance (London, Verso, 1990).
36.
John Reid, Institute of Irish Studies, Liverpool, 21 November 2001, <http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/1669044.stm>.
