A thread to inform. THE SWORD OF KNOWLEDGE
The Politics Of Antagonism
Brendan O'Leary & John McGarry 1993
The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side,but he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them. (George Orwell,Notes on Nationalism,1945) P 1
Nationalist paramilitaries combined have been responsible for over 57% of all deaths in the present crisis. P 26
However,the security forces are responsible for less than 12% of all deaths suffered in the present crisis. P 27
Since the local security forces (the RUC and the UDR) are recurited primarily from Protestant civilians the simple comparision of Catholic and Protestant civilian death-rates obscures the number of victims suffered by the Protestant community as a whole. P 34
Protestants understandably interpret killings of Protestant members of the local security forces as sectarian. It is equally evident,and contrary to what Irish-American nationalist propagandists imply. The security forces have been responsible for only 11.8 per cent of the overall death-toll. P 35
Northern Ireland had extraordinarily low rates of 'ordinary,decent' crime before the late 1960s P 41
Since 1986 they (nationalist paramilitries) have classified as 'legitmate targets' all those who work for organizations which supply the security forces,dramatically extending their potential targets in both communities. P 43
The 'ordinary' homicide and violent crime-rates for N.I., both before and after 1969 are consistently less than those reported for the rest of the U.K. (Heskin 1985). In a recent international survey(Van Dijk,Mayhew, and Killias,1990) N.I. had the lowest percentage of respondents who had been victims of crime (15 per cent): lower than Switzerland,Finland,Norway,Belgium,Scotland,France,England and Wales(20 per cent), West Germany,Spain,The Netherlands,Australia,Canada and the USA (30 per cent) P 51
Paramilitary actions have been claimed by the INLA since 1987,but it is sometimes suggested that the IRA uses INLA's name to cover for events it does not wish to claim as its responsibilty. P 52
THE COLONIAL ROOTS of Antagonism
Unlike its predecessors in Ireland the plantation of Ulster 'worked': the settlers were neither rapidily outnumbered,nor culturally absorbed by the natives,and a large-scale building programme led to the construction of over twenty new towns,which became both garrisons and centres for the diffusion of the settler culture. These ordered towns and villages of Ulster were visable outposts of Scots and English culture: P 56
As Wentworth,Charles 1's deputy in Ireland put the English governing imperative in 1633: 'The truth is,we must....govern the native by the planter,and the planter by the native'(Beckett,1966:65). This triangle of intergovermental relations - planters,natives and the Crown (the English equivalent of the state) - became an enduring motif in Ulster history. P 59
The three communities were divided by their language,dialects,religion,and political status. Although some of these clevages cross-cut one another, for most part of the succeeding centuries,they marked and maintained ethnic boundaries. The native Irish of west Ulster spoke Gaelic,as did a minority of the Scots settlers(and their predeccessors); but over the next three centuries the Gaelic language would practicallly die out in Ulster,except in the remoter parts of Donegal. The new inhabitants of Ulster mostly spoke English,as it seems did some of the native Irish of east Ulster,although the 'Ulster-Scots'spoke English with a different dialect and accent. P 61
In Ulster the large population of Presbyterians,mostly of Scottish stock,was also the subject to the Act of Uniformity,and obliged to pay tithes to the Church of Ireland. Their numbers were replinished in the century after the original plantation by new waves of Calvinist immigrants who found Ulster more congenial than Scotland. P 61
In Ulster Irish Catholic royalists had captured most of Ulster again overunning the plantation towns,but they failed to win the siege of Derry/Londonderry in 1689. This epic saga became a central event in Ulster Protestant mythology,providing Ulster loyalists with their most enduring slogan: 'No Surrender!' P 69
This willingness was partly because of the efforts from the 1760s of the middle-class Catholic Committee to secure some legal rights for Catholics: they lobbied with the argument that it was possible to be Catholic and loyal to the Crown and parliament. P 71
The epicentre of insurrection in the summer of 1798 were in Wexford and eastern Ulster where both Catholics and descendants were present in large numbers (Cullen,1981:210-33). The high ideals of the United Irishmen were not accomplished in practice. The actions of many Catholic peasants in the Defender organizations were difficult to distinguish from ethnic sectarianism,and Catholic killings of Protestants undoubtedly had the lon-term effect of deradicalizing the more liberal Presbyterians,weening them off the interest in republician and non-denominational Irish nationalism. P 72
In December (1912) the UUC demanded the exclusion of all of Ulster from the home-rule bill.and Carson proposed an admendment to that effect in January 1913. For Carson it was a wrecking admendment; but for James Craig,the leading Ulster unionist,it was a serious but problematic proposal. In all of Ulster,unionists were in a precarious majority. The rhetoric of 'Protestant Ulster' could not disguise that Catholics formed nearly half of the population of the province,the overwhelming majority in the three counties of Cavan,Donegal and Monaghan,and small but clear majorities in Fermanagh and Tyrone. If the UUC bargained for the exclusion of Ulster's nine counties then they were unlikely to be able to keep it out of Nationalist control,but if they surrendered parts of Ulster to control the rest,they would betray their covenant with their brethren. P 92
On 23 June 1914 the goverment's amending bill to permit temporary exclusion by county-option was introduced in the Lords. Five days later Franz Ferdinand was assassinated at Sarajevo and the European powers began the descent into the Great War. The House of Lords,with its in-built Unionist majority,altered the amending bill,and demanded the exclusion of all of Ulster. On 12th July the U.U.C. declared itself the Provisional Goverment of Ulster.
Home rule for in N.I. would provide Unionists with an effective bulwark against the untrustworthy intentions of London goverments and the claims of Irish republicians. Unionists lobbied hard to ensure that the Belfast parliament would govern the six counties of the north-east rather than the nine of the historic Ulster; In the nine counties of historic Ulster, Protestants precariously outnumbered Catholics (56:44),but without Cavan, Donegal and Monaghan the religious ratio altered dramatically in favour of Protestants (65.5:34.5). The Unionists got what they wanted: 'those districts they could control' Sir James Craig,the first Prime Minster of N.I. after elections were held there in 1921,envisaged the six counties as a new 'impregnable Pale', a rampart behind which the descendents of British settlers could defend civilization. Despite his earlier willingingness to consider a boundary commission he declared the six counties (almost) non-negotiable: ''I will never give in to any rearrangement of the boundary that leaves our Ulster area less than it is under the Goverment of Ireland Act'' (McArdle 1951:658)
