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By Mari Fitzduff*

On Good Friday, April the 10th, Northern Ireland politicians stumbled out from the portals of Stormont into the breaking daylight.¹ Many of them were not far from tears. All were obviously exhausted by the roller coaster of adrenaline and the lack of sleep they had incurred during the last few days and nights of the talks, as deals were crafted, walk-outs were threatened and averted, and the apparently insuperable barriers on decommissioning and other issues were overcome. Both the British and Irish Prime Ministers had been called upon to provide support in the last few days and even President Clinton had assisted by encouraging telephone calls. The waiting populace held their breath alternating between despair and hope.

The hope was justified - the miracle happened, the Belfast Agreement was reached. After thirty years of a bloody civil war, Northern Ireland’s political parties finally achieved consensus on the principles, and in some cases the practice, necessary to govern a society divided on constitutional, political, and cultural perspectives. Six weeks later, by a vote of over 71%, and despite the best efforts of fundamentalist nationalists and unionists, the deal was endorsed by the peoples of the island of Ireland, North and South. The road to peace appeared to have been secured.

What had brought Northern Ireland to this particular turning point? What had been the major developments in eventually securing the peace? While obviously the debates about such developments will continue for some decades, the following would appear to have been the most important in creating a positive context for a political solution.

A. Community Development/Community Relations work within and between communities which opened up new possibilities for dialogue and co-operation between them.

When civil violence broke out in 1969 in Northern Ireland and particularly in the aftermath of the riots in Belfast and Derry/Londonderry in August 1969, the British Labour Home Secretary, James Callaghan announced the establishment of a Ministry for Community Relations and a Community Relations Commission which was charged with the promotion of policies which would improve community relations².

The Commission decided to adopt as its main strategy the initiation of local community development programmes across Northern Ireland, based on the belief that communities which lacked self-confidence were more likely to relate aggressively to one another. Furthermore, it believed that the problem, particularly for people in more socially marginalized communities, of relating to the structures of power, contributed to feelings of helplessness and resentment which in turn contributed to community tensions. (Hayes) The Commission survived until the Sunningdale Agreement in April 1974, which set up a new power sharing assembly for Northern Ireland. In one of its first actions, the power sharing assembly abolished the Community Relations Commission on the basis that henceforth the politicians themselves would be responsible for community development and community relations issues. Ironically, the new assembly itself only lasted five months due to disagreement among the politicians about the remit of cross-border bodies which had been set up as part of the Agreement, and a loyalist workers strike which paralysed Northern Ireland.

However, the process of community development remained an important method of facilitating communication within communities, and between government and communities, and this process continued to underpin many programmes subsequently initiated and funded in the last two decades.

Over a decade later, in 1985, the Standing Advisory Commission on Human Rights commissioned a report on the current state of community relations work, and its potential for future development. (Frazer & Fitzduff) This report on the under resourced, underdeveloped and unstrategic nature of much of the work, suggested a theoretical framework for its development, and suggested some practical structures that should be considered if the government intended to take the work seriously. It suggested the creation of a specialist community relations unit within government and the creation of an independent community relations body which would address issues of policy, training, and funding community relations work. In 1987, the Central Community Relations Unit (CCRU) was set up, which was located at the heart of government and in 1990, the independent body, the Community Relations Council (CRC) was established.

Subsequently there was a significant expansion of the number of groups working at peace-building much of which growth was facilitated by a hugely increased financial investment in such work ³ so that by 1998 the number of civic groups engaging in contact work, and developing programmes and training to address issues of human rights, cultural diversity, co-operation on social and economic issues, single identity work, neutral venue work, anti sectarian work, anti-intimidation work as well as political dialogue and mediation work had increased significantly i.e. from 40 in 1986 to 140 in 1996 ⁴.

As the theoretical framework for such a focus expanded the work also began to engage a much wider spectrum of people, including those who had previously been cynical of the ‘peace and doves’ stereotype attached to the work. (Fitzduff) It therefore became more possible to build a coalition of people and organisations addressing both the ‘softer’ issues such as understanding and co-operation, as well as the ‘harder’ issues of inequality, rights, policing and political and constitutional differences.

In addition, the programme begun in the 70’s of more substantially resourcing community development began to pay significant political dividends. Such work, in the absence of local democracy, had provided for community participation in governmental consultation processes, about social, economic and political issues. By the 1990’s, however, it had also helped to generate a new breed of ‘community’ politicians who developed loyalist, republican and feminist thinking in a way which significantly enriched the political mix of parties who were eventually able to sign the Belfast Agreement.

Parties such as the PUP, the NIWC and Sinn Fein all have considerable experience at community and social politics. ⁵ Such work also provided them with fruitful contacts gained from their collective experience in addressing local social issues together, and such experience should augur well for the social and economic tasks that face them as representatives in the new Assembly.

External assistance offered by the European Union was also of significance. When the ceasefires were declared in 1994, the EU decided to help to underpin the peace by allocating £250,000,000 to help build up the economy and establish peace. Such funds have been useful, as their criteria for distribution included in many cases the need for communities to work together on funding decisions. Such processes ensure that communities can no longer continue to be unaware of each other’s social and economic needs, and have in many cases provided very useful training for future collaborative government at both local and regional level.

B. Political Dialogue and Development work which focused on work with politicians and others on political divisions and political options.

Given the small size of Northern Ireland -less than 3 hours drive from end to end- it is hard to imagine just how difficult it is to facilitate and promote political dialogue. This is partly because of the culture of silence which is adhered to between the communities where raising any issues of cultural or political difference is seen to be either impolite or dangerous, depending upon the circumstances. For politicians, who exemplify community differences, being seen to have any meetings outside of the context of formal dialogue - which dialogue is usually characterised by hostility is almost impossible. And for much of the conflict, it was almost impossible for the government, and most political parties to have any dialogue at all with Sinn Fein, because of their perceived association with the IRA and paramilitary violence. ⁶

In such circumstances, much ingenuity was needed on the part of many groups to facilitate political dialogue and to eventually achieve sufficient consensus between the parties to move into inclusive dialogue.

Primary among these dialogues processes were those conducted by the Quakers and others with and between politicians, particularly during the early nineties and which kept open dialogue through processes of shuttle mediation. In addition, some academics were extremely useful in organising workshops for politicians and others, often outside of Ireland, in places like Washington or South Africa, where it was easier to meet than at home. Often such conferences gave the participants opportunities to address wider perspectives and possibilities for conflict resolution, as well as providing opportunities for relationships to form between the politicians - which relationships could never have formed in the socially and politically constricting circumstances of Northern Ireland.

Another particularly useful initiative was that by a small group of Protestant clergy who opened a confidential process of dialogue with Sinn Fein, at a time when such processes were viewed with deep opprobrium by most political parties, and who provided a useful context within which Sinn Fein could address the reality of their perceptions of the hopes and fears of the Protestant/Unionist community. Other groups such as the Glencree Centre for Reconciliation, just outside of Dublin, also involved itself in workshops with politicians, particularly following the ceasefires of 1994. And community workers themselves -some of whom were ex-republican and loyalist prisoners- eventually began to find many creative ways, despite the danger to them from their own and their opposing community, to involve themselves in processes of dialogue and relationship building through their common social and community concerns.

‘Governments also often lack the flexibility to develop creative processes for the management of diversity.’ Photo Belfast Exposed King St.

What was important about all of the above processes was that they were almost all conducted in confidence and thus provided a safer context within which politicians fears and hopes could be constructively addressed. Such dialogue processes -in addition to those eventually developed by the Government and between political parties- were to prove invaluable in accumulating the possibilities, and the beginning of enough understanding and trust on the part of at least some politicians, to enable the peace process to truly begin.

What was also useful was the eventual emergence of a party that was not dedicated to a particular political position - but to the dialogue process itself. This was the Northern Ireland Women’s Coalition which was formed just six weeks before the election to the Northern Ireland Forum for Political Dialogue in 1996. It was formed in response to the dismay felt by many women in Northern Ireland at the lack of response by existing political parties to the need to include women in Northern Ireland politics.⁷ The party included nationalists and unionists, and was jointly chaired by two women from both perspectives. Its members came from all classes of life e.g. community workers, professionals, academics, nuns, trade unionists, etc. and they fought the elections on a cross-community approach. They secured a place at the negotiating table, focusing on principles of equality and inclusion. Although originally treated with sexism and hostility by many parties, particularly the unionist parties, they were eventually able to play very useful part by facilitating discussions between the parties -often using a shuttle-mediation approach- on difficult issues like the release of prisoners and decommissioning.

Another newcomer to the peace process was the business community who began to develop their approach to the ending of violence in the early nineties. Whereas before they had been content to complain about the effect of the violence on business from the sidelines, they now began to coalesce with the Trade Unions to see if a more strategic approach could be put into place which would put pressure on both republican and loyalist paramilitaries to end their campaign, and to pressurise the politicians in getting down to the business of building an agreement. Groups like the Chamber of Commerce, the Institute of Directors, the Confederation of British Industry, and all the major trade unions joined together and began to make statements urging the need to end the war, and the need for serious political negotiation. In addition, they involved themselves in dialogue with all the political parties, including Sinn Fein, even before the ceasefires were announced in 1994. Their influence was very salutary, particularly on the Unionist political parties, who began to feel the need to respond to the pressure from them to enter into serious political dialogue.

During the nineties, the United States was also of substantial assistance in helping to develop and secure dialogue and peace. The US had gradually developed a perspective which was able to take account of the needs and fears of Unionists as well as nationalists, and -spurred by the interests of the huge Irish vote in the USA- they began to focus on ways of ending the violence. People like Congressman Bruce Morrison, and business men like Bill Flynn and Charles Feeney visited Ireland to persuade the IRA of the need to end the military campaign, and to engage with the unionist community. Clinton granted a visa to Gerry Adams to enter the US in 1994 while the IRA was still bombing cities and killing people, in the hope that it would assist his alleged quest for a solution. Although such activities were initially viewed with suspicion by many within the British Government, many subsequently came to appreciate the assistance which such interventions were able to offer. Such assistance was particularly exemplified by the assistance of Senator George Mitchell who acted as Chair of the talks process for almost two years and whose efforts were invaluable to its success.

C. Equality work which ensured equal access to power and resources for Catholics as well as Protestants and economic development to assist this.

The outbreak of civil violence in 1969 in Northern Ireland which cost over three and a half thousand lives was significantly attributable to the failure of policies of equity in Northern Ireland since its inception as a state in 1921. Although the newly formed region of the UK contained within its borders a substantial number of Catholics who were unhappy with their status within Northern Ireland, few efforts were made by the newly elected unionist government to sufficiently address their responsibilities involved in governing a divided society. ⁸ Such a failure with its concomitant patterns of inequity, biased voting systems, unrepresentative policing, a maintenance of ghettoisation in education, housing, and workplaces, and a significantly alienated minority created the context for the eventual development of a civil war.

In 1972 the Unionist Northern Ireland government was dismissed by the British government, and direct political and security control for the region from London began, Such belated interest from London -which had previously shown little care for on-going inequities in the region- eventually helped to ensure the development of a more equitable and culturally representative society in Northern Ireland.

In 1969 legislation was introduced to investigate complaints of maladministration by government departments, and in 1972 a commission was established to promote fairness in staff recruitment in the local councils, which had been so noted for their discriminatory nature. In 1973 the Northern Ireland Constitution Act provided for a legislative assembly to address discrimination on the grounds of religious or political belief and the Act also established the Standing Advisory Commission on Human Rights to monitor the effectiveness of laws against discrimination.

As discrimination in housing had been a major grievance, control of all public housing allocation was transferred from local council authorities to a regional authority, and voting reforms were introduced i.e. house ownership was no longer deemed a prerequisite for voting rights, and the multiple vote given to business owners was abolished, as both of these had effectively discriminated against Catholics. Local council boundaries were redrawn more accurately to represent the reality of citizen distribution, and a proportional representation system of voting was introduced which increased nationalist chances of gaining power where their numbers were substantial enough, and increased the number of councils under nationalist control.

Extra attention was also given under the TSN programme to providing further opportunities for training, to increasing development work for indigenous industry creation, particularly in the most marginalised areas, and to ensuring that individual job creation agencies further biased their work towards those areas that were most seriously disadvantaged.

Two decades later, under the jurisdiction of direct rule from London, many inequities have been addressed. Complaints are no longer heard in Northern Ireland about rigged voting systems, unfair housing allocations, or unequal educational funding. Only primarily in unemployment -where levels of long-term unemployment among Catholic males is still twice as high as among Protestant males- does a significant problem remain, despite the various legal and social initiatives which have been undertaken to address the issue. Such advances mean that the anger and resentment many Catholics felt at being excluded under a Unionist regime is no longer as potent a factor in continuing the support for violence.

D. Education work which provided new possibilities for contact and mutual understanding between children and young people.

The educational systems -like most systems in Northern Ireland- is sectarian, with almost all children attending single identity schools. In 1981, the first integrated school for both Catholic and Protestant children was opened, and since then more than thirty have been established through the hard work of parents. ⁹ Although still only serving a small minority of children (3%) they have served as a vital initiative in transforming the existing education system. Under pressures from such schools, some of the existing schools are now willing to consider opening up participation to pupils from other communities.

Significant work has also been undertaken to ensure that, even within segregated schools, pupils have an opportunity to address existing cultural and political divisions.

By the early 1990’s, through the dedication of academics and teachers determined to address cross-community misunderstanding and division, programmes within schools designed to increase understanding among children and young people e.g. Cultural Heritage, Mutual Understanding and Contact programmes were an obligatory part of every schoolchild’s curriculum. And by 1990, a common history curriculum was being taught in all schools in Northern Ireland, whereas before 1990 Catholic and Protestant schools often taught completely different versions of history. By 1994, a common religious curriculum was inaugurated. Through such initiatives, the power of the schools as a purveyor of perspectives which often increased mistrust and prejudice between communities had been diminished.

E. District Council Community Relations programmes which established locally led initiatives to address issues of division between the communities.

Northern Ireland has twenty six local councils which have, with varying degrees, exemplified the hostility which has pervaded much of Northern Ireland public life. In many cases they were significantly responsible for the kind of discriminatory behaviour that led directly to the civil unrest of 1969. Their abuse of powers was so obvious that they were all stripped of most of their responsibilities in housing, health care, and social services which were all centralised. Even when using what limited powers were left to them their work was often characterised by acrimony, hostility and in some cases physical violence.

However, a decision was made by the Central Community Relations unit to involve these councils in community relations work and in 1990, a District Council community relations programme was developed which was eventually established within all Councils despite deep resistance by most of them. Each of the twenty six district council now has at least one full-time community relations worker addressing coexistence needs in its local area and as their programmes has had to ensure an overall commitment from what are often very divided councils, their very existence has marked a substantial sign of progress in the field.

Such programmes involved contact work, co-operative economic development programmes between the communities, cultural events such as concerts, drama etc which exemplified cultural diversity, mediation, problem solving and political discussion workshops. The evidence is that where such relationships have been active for at least two years, relationships between communities have significantly improved. (Knox and Hughes)

F. Cultural Traditions work which developed programmes to exemplify cultural differences as positive, rather than negative. This included Media work which validated cultural diversity and promoted discussion on issues of difference.

For the entire period of the existence of the state, expressions of cultural and political identity have been contentious. Flag flying, the use of the Irish language, language and unionist and nationalist parades, have all been seen as a threat to the political realities and aspirations of the other side. In a contested territory, such expressions have a significant potential to accrue into civil disorder. (Mc Cartney 1994)

Since 1921, many such expressions on the part of nationalists in Northern Ireland were deemed illegal. Several legislative Acts (1951 and 1954) outlawed the flying of the Irish flag, and laws were also passed forbidding the use of Irish language street signs (1949) or the use of any language other than English in court (1739). All transactions with the government had to be conducted in English. ¹⁰ Such laws contributed to significant community tension and defiance - e.g by 1992 over 550 Irish language street signs had been erected in nationalist areas in clear defiance of the law and many nationalists also began to use the Irish language and its lack of official support as a cultural weapon with which to challenge the authorities.

Much of this has now changed - mainly due to the work of the Cultural Traditions Group (CTG), a group of academics, practitioners and policy makers, drawn from both the nationalist and unionist communities, an operating under the auspices of the Community Relations Council. ¹¹ Many within this group recognised that the negative government response to the Irish language had been both short-sighted and unnecessary. They established and achieved government funding for the Ultacht Trust, a group set up on a non-sectarian basis to develop and fund the Irish language. The government were also persuaded to fund those schools that taught through the medium of Irish on the same basis as other schools, and to assist with the funding of a daily newspaper in Irish.

Eventually, in 1992 the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland announced that where there was a local demand, street names in Irish could be erected alongside the English name. Correspondence in Irish is also now dealt with by the government, and although there is as yet no official policy on publishing official documents in Irish, this does happen when requested e.g. the Belfast Agreement was published in Irish.

In broadcasting, there were also many issues that were a source of considerable contention to the nationalist minority. There was an exclusion on the reporting of minority cultural issues, including sport, and the Irish language was banned from radio and television for almost the first fifty years of the Northern Ireland state. Following the Civil Rights campaign, the new-found culturally assertive capacities of the nationalist community began to achieve some successes in the early 1970’s when the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) was persuaded to introduce occasional radio programmes in the Irish language. Although there was considerable resistance from many unionists, the BBC persisted with the experiment, and were eventually persuaded to introduce a regular Irish-language programme in 1981, followed by some schools broadcasting in 1985. In 1991 the BBC broadcast its first television production in Irish. Although the total hours broadcast in Irish are still minimal, particularly when compared to those available in Gaelic in Scotland, or in Welsh in Wales, the barriers to the use of Irish in broadcasting have now substantially disappeared.

In addition to its work on the language, the Cultural Traditions Group also helped to further develop the work of the broadcasting companies by encouraging, and in some case funding, initiatives which exemplified cultural diversity programming and encouraged debate on political and cultural issues. Such work has assisted a context of diversity and challenge which has eventually led to a much healthier and open context for discussion on the many issues which were eventually pertinent to the Belfast Agreement and the setting up of the subsequent Assembly. The use of the Irish Language, and expressions of nationalist and Irish identity have now receded as a significant source of political tension. The community are now used to hearing regular Irish language programmes on radio and television, the tricolour usually flies freely, without official interference, and street names in Irish are now accepted as delivery addresses by the postal services. A constructive framework for valuing diversity has now at last been laid and has ensured a much more positive context for the agreements on cultural pluralism that were made in the Belfast Agreement.

Lesson Learnt

Investing in a top-down, hierarchical approach to the management and transformation of an ethno-political conflict is unlikely to succeed for a variety of reasons. Governments themselves are often seen as part of the problem by minority groups because (as was the case in N.Ireland) they are often seen to have validated and resourced their particular groups and ignored or excluded the needs of other groups. Governments also often lack the flexibility to develop creative processes for the management of diversity and indeed experience in places like Northern Ireland, South Africa and the Middle East has shown that training for such diversity is often in the first instance developed through the more independent processes of NGOs and others, where bureaucracy is often lighter, and independent funding sometimes ensures a more open approach to such issues.

Primarily, however, governments find it hard to deliver on political agreements because politicians are often the people who find it the hardest to develop policies of diversity in the face of the fears of their electorates. Thus there is often a need for a constituency for such validation to be developed by their electorate which can enable or permit them to move with energy on such policies, and here NGOs and others can play a crucial part. Such was the case in Northern Ireland where the work of the NGOs was crucial in developing processes of dialogue, models of training, and constituencies for political agreement both during the pre-agreement phase of the peace process, and the ‘YES’ campaign that followed to secure its endorsement.

Both approaches of course have their limitations, and tension between groups and institutions about prioritising such approaches was both limiting and unnecessary. ¹² Eventually, groups focusing on relationship building began to energetically included dialogue on difficult issues of structural problems as part of relationship building, and those involved in such structural work began to avail of the skills of those who could provided the productive context within which such dialogues could take place. ¹³

When very contentious issues arose in multi-party talks -such as decommissioning or policing- and began to slow down the talks processes, the use of independent commissions to discuss these issues with neutral facilitators was very helpful. Prime examples of these were the Independent Commission on Decommissioning and the newly formed Independent Commission on Policing. Such developments meant that these issues were not allowed to derail the various talks processes.

Perhaps the most major creative success is the Belfast Agreement itself, which has developed a unique constitutional framework which secures a system of overlapping and interlocking national and cultural loyalties, and which has effectively brought an end to the idea of any possible identity or loyalty hegemony in Northern Ireland. All citizens can now legally avail of both British and/or Irish passports. People can choose to look to London or to Dublin -or to Northern Ireland- for their cultural identity and heritage. The agreement has broken the much out-dated notion -in this world of increasing ethnic mobility- that nationality, ethnicity and territory are necessarily legally or constitutionally overlapping.

The Future

It is a well established fact to those of us working in conflict that in fact conflicts do not end - they just change. Undoubtedly significant challenges remain to be addressed. ¹⁴ Among these can be numbered the possible further development of some of the splinter groups who have split from the main paramilitary movements, and the need for the existing Assembly parties to constructively and collectively deal with this challenge. The issue of contentious parades still remain unresolved and there is the continuing difficulty of the possible destabilisation of the Assembly through the growth of more ‘anti-agreement’ representatives who could coalesce around such issues as the failure to agree to a process of decommissioning and the difficulties in re-developing a police service that is more acceptable to nationalists.

However, thanks to the previous work undertaken, and to the nature of the Belfast Agreement itself, there is now in place a variety of very useful mechanisms which have been designed to deal with these and other inevitable difficulties that will arise over the coming years.

Effectively, the war is ended. For many, committee papers have been substituted for guns. Meetings with British civil servants -and even British Prime Ministers - have become part of daily life for erstwhile Sinn Fein/IRA and Loyalist activists many of whom are now full or part-time engaged in national and local politics and who are now having to depend upon the use of politics rather than force to address the myriad local and regional issues that are now their collective responsibility.

The road to such an agreement has been long, complex and often bloody. Almost thirty years and three and a half thousand dead have been the result of the fear, discrimination, intransigence, anger and violence with which communities and government have limited their much surer and swifter progress towards peace. The peace has been long in the coming, and hard in the making. It does, however, at last appear that the hard work and the courage of many, creative approaches to both dialogue and constitutional solutions have eventually yielded enough to take Northern Ireland to a future where politics and not violence will primarily prevail. If this proves to be the case - it will truly be a new beginning for Northern Ireland.

REFERENCES

Disturbances in Northern Ireland - Report of a Commission appointed by the Governor of Northern Ireland, Cameron Report. Belfast, Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1969.

Adding Insult to Injury, Committee on the Administration of Justice. Belfast, CAJ 1992.

A Typology of Community Relations work and Contextual necessities, Mari Fitzduff. Belfast, Policy and Planning Unit, Northern Ireland Office, 1989.

Improving Community Relations, Hugh Frazer and Mari Fitzduff. Belfast, Standing Advisory Commission on Human Rights, 1986.

Policing a Divided Society, Andrew Hamilton. Coleraine, Centre for the Study of Conflict, University of Ulster, 1995.

The role of the Community relations Commission in Northern Ireland, M. Hayes. London, Runnymede Trust, 1972.

Community Relations and Local government, C. Knox and J. Hughes. Coleraine, Centre for the Study of Conflict, University of Ulster, 1994.

Clashing Symbols?, Clem McCartney. Belfast, Institute of Irish Studies, Queen’s University, 1994.

‘The Geographical location of Violence in Northern Ireland’ Political Violence, Michael Poole. Belfast, Appletree Press, 1990.

Governing Without Consensus: An Irish Perspective, Richard Rose. London, Faber, 1971.

The Management of Conflict, Mark Ross. Yale University Press 1993, and Why do they do what they do? Theories of Practice in Conflict Management. Paper presented to the European Conference on Peace and Conflict Resolution, Belfast 1998.

Notes

1 Stormont is the traditional seat of government in Northern Ireland, just on the edge of the city of Belfast.

2 The city is usually called Derry by Catholics, while Londonderry is the preferred name of most Protestants

3 e.g. from a quarter of a million pounds in 1990 to approximately £7 million per annum by 1997

4 Single identity work is work which is done within a community to increase confidence building prior to contact/co-operative work. Neutral venue work addresses the need to develop physical meeting places which were acceptable to both community - much needed in Northern Ireland when most local venues were sectarian. Anti-sectarian work examined exclusion and discriminatory processes by groups and individuals, against other groups, and developed programmes to address these phenomena i.e. reviewing the cross-community nature of staff and management, patrons, choices of holidays, and cultural practices within institutions which were alienation to one or other community. Anti-intimidation work includes work addressing the difficulties of divided workplaces where contentious issues of flag flying and discrimination have frequently resulted in violence and sometimes in murder and included the implementation of staff policies and training to deal with such intimidation.

5 The (PUP) Progressive Unionist Party, and the NIWC (Northern Ireland Women’s Coalition) all have their basis in local community work. Sinn Fein also draws much of its support from such work.

6 It subsequently emerged of course that the British government had eventually involved itself in ‘deniable’ dialogue with the IRA, and in the late eighties/early nineties, John Hume, the leader of the SDLP (Social Democratic and Labour party) began a dialogue with Gerry Adams, which was received with much hostility by most parties. These talks addressed a possible pan-nationalist, non-violent approach to achieving their common goal of unity in Ireland as well as the talks between Sinn Fein and the Irish government which were assisted by the efforts of several Catholic priests.

7 There are no women members of parliament from Northern Ireland, and only 11% of local councillors are women.

8 Catholics constituted approximately a third of the population in 1921.

9 Initial establishment and fund raising for such schools has to be undertaken on a voluntary and private basis. When schools have established viability of pupil numbers, the Government will in some cases provide funding for the schools.

10 Ten per cent of the population claim to have a knowledge of the Irish language. (Census Report 1990)

11 The Community Relations Council (CRC) was an independent body set up in 1990 to promote community relations. The Cultural Traditions Group (CTG) was part of the Council.

12 Mari Fitzduff, Beyond Violence: Conflict Resolution Approaches in Northern Ireland UNU Press 1996. Chapter 2.

13 A very effective example of this was the distribution of peace funds from the EU in Northern Ireland much of which was undertaken by and through NGOs, often working in partnership with politicians and business people. Initial evaluations are endorsing the effectiveness of this model.

14 For an expanded discussion on many of these issues see Mac Ginty, R ‘The Northern Ireland Agreement: Threats and Opportunities’ Paper prepared for a seminar in the university of Kent, June 1998.

*Mari Fitzduff is currently Professor of Conflict Studies, and Director of INCORE (Initiative on Conflict Resolution and Ethnicity). INCORE is a joint initiative of the University of Ulster and the United Nations University whose aim is to address the management of conflict through an integrated approach using research, training and policy development. Previously, she was Director of the Northern Ireland Community Relations Council which works with government, statutory bodies, trade unions, businesses, and community groups developing programmes addressing issues of conflict in Northern Ireland.

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