The distinguished historian R. F. Foster had described the politics of Ireland as defined by an absence of peace.1 There were hopes during 1994–95 that peace could break out – permanently. This did not happen and the question once more for historians and analysts of the island is why has Irish history been so troubled? There are quite literally thousands of books on this subject. Indeed one author has suggested that, in proportion to its size, Northern Ireland has been the most heavily researched area on earth.2 Despite the scholarship on the subject of the Province, there are few definitive answers to this question. In the 1990s the conflict in Ireland appears at once old fashioned but terribly modern. How – at the end of the twentieth century, an era of unprecedented scientific and economic progress – can men still be killing each other over the destiny of a small piece of land? Yet, given the outbreak of civil wars since the end of the Cold War in 1989, the failure to attain enduring peace in Northern Ireland has had a terrible and familiar resonance for other lands enduring conflict, from Bosnia through to Somalia. The question is a common one; how can peoples with different and conflicting political aspirations live in a small geographic area? When they resort to war, how can they be stopped?
These are big questions that require big answers. Even as this book is finished, in the context of Ireland they seem almost impossible to answer. Men and women on all sides of the Irish divide are attempting to find answers to the demands of both communities. But peace in Ireland as always, is fractured by violence. The PIRA have once again reinvigorated their campaign against the British mainland, staging bombings in 1996 in both London and Manchester. PIRA activities have resulted in the exclusion of Sinn Fein from the All Party talks, that it was hoped would set up a new political assembly for the Province. Nationalist paramilitary activity has the capacity to reactivate Loyalist violence and so it seems, the endless spiral of violence continues. Numbers of British troops in the Province are to be increased again.
The book began with an explanation of the roots of the conflict in Ireland during the early parts of this century – the conflict of two nationalisms living (and dying) side by side. The parameters of the struggle remain the same. The Unionists still wish to remain part of the United Kingdom while the nationalists, or the proponents of the more extreme version of it, still do not. Until these two viewpoints – these two Irish nationalisms – are reconciled, the British military will continue its historic role of being both part of the Irish problem and yet central to the underwriting of any solution.
Summer 1996
1 Roy Foster, ‘Defined by the absence of peace’ A Review of Thomas Barlett and Keith Jeffery, A Military History of Ireland (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996) in The Times, 22 February 1996.
2 John Whyte, Interpreting Northern Ireland (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990), p. viii.