Introduction

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Melanie Swiatloch
Parliamentary Party’s readiness to accept the exclusion of the six northern counties
out of a united Ireland. During the Anglo-Irish War of 1919-22 the IRA was
founded. Despite their seemingly dominant presence during the conflicts – especially
in the news abroad – the IRA was never supported either by the majority of
the Northern Irish population or by the majority of nationalists, although it was
connected to its political wing Sinn Féin.
The stagnating political process in Northern Ireland was reactivated in 1967
when Catholic protestors of the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association
(NICRA) paraded the streets with their slogan “British rights for British subjects.”
The rest of the world was shocked when it saw the use of police batons on a
peaceful demonstrating crowd, which lead the British government to pass a reform
package. In 1970 the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) was
founded by Civil Rights Movement supporting MPs. The SDLP now stood for a
moderate nationalist approach to politics. With the fail of the Sunningdale Agreement
18, increasing IRA and loyalist violence during the 1980s and the objection of
unionists to accept their Irish fellow citizens, Sinn Féin reemerged as a serious
political force in 1982 19. Six years later the SDLP repeated their attempts for a
peaceful resolution of the conflict. Its party leader John Hume together with Sinn
Féin’s top man Gerry Adams entered talks that lead to the Downing Street declaration
20 of 1993 and the paramilitary ceasefires of 1994, and that finally resulted in
the Good Friday agreement (Mallon and Phoenix 4ff). Similar movements and
political parties developed equally on the Protestant unionist side.
This short historical outline of Irish nationalism shows most clearly the fact
that almost everything connected to Northern Irish identity has political roots.
“Nationalism […] must be regarded as a core factor in any interpretation of the
Northern Ireland conflict”, Patrick Mitchel contends (17). Although I agree with
Mitchel it is at the same time quite hart to find a coherent approach towards the
18 In 1973 an assembly formed by UUP, SDLP, and moderate Alliance Party members agreed on a
devolved government for Northern Ireland with a power-sharing executive. For the first time
since 1925 parties of Britain, southern Ireland and Northern Ireland met at Sunningdale, Great
Britain to agree on a Council of Ireland in which ministers from both Irish governments should
be present. In addition both members from the Irish Dáil and the Northern Irish Assembly
should form a consultive assembly. Loyalist opposition in form of the anti-Sunningdale United
Ulster Unionist Council (UUUP) that was formed by three main loyalist parties, followed by a
general strike by the loyalist Ulster Worker’s Council caused the downfall of the agreement in
1974 (Mulholland 94ff).
19 Sinn Féin gained 10 per cent of the vote in the 1982 Northern Ireland Assembly elections (Mallon
and Phoenix 8).
20 On 15 December 1993 both the British and the Irish government signed the Downing Street
Declaration which promised “to foster agreement and reconciliation, leading to a new political
framework […] within Northern Ireland, for the whole island, and between these islands.” How
to convince most Protestants of this proposal was not mentioned, though. A first Downing
Street Declaration had been issued by Britain’s Prime Minister Harold Wilson in 1969, which
stated “that only Northern Ireland could determine for itself whether the union with Britain be
ended” (Mulholland 92, 132).