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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 9-Apr-2021
9-Apr-21 World View -- The Troubles: Violence in Northern Ireland revives as consequence of Brexit

Web Log - April, 2021

9-Apr-21 World View -- The Troubles: Violence in Northern Ireland revives as consequence of Brexit

Brief generational history of violence in the Isle of Ireland

by John J. Xenakis

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

The Troubles: Violence in Northern Ireland revives as consequence of Brexit
Brief generational history of violence in the Isle of Ireland
The beginning of 'The Troubles'

The Troubles: Violence in Northern Ireland revives as consequence of Brexit

Hijacked cars burn at the Peace Wall as rioting broke out in West Belfast, Northern Ireland on Wednesday (AP)

Hijacked cars burn at the Peace Wall as rioting broke out in West Belfast, Northern Ireland on Wednesday (AP)

The last week in Belfast, Northern Ireland, has seen the worst ethnic street violence in decades. There is a concrete "Peace Wall" in Belfast, separating the two warring neighborhoods. People have been lobbing bricks and Molotov cocktails across the Peace Wall in both directions. The violence worsened when the gate in the Peace Wall was smashed open. At least 55 police officers have been injured over several nights of rioting.

The violence has been triggered by the consequences of the Brexit deal that took the United Kingdom (England, Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland) out of the European Union. There were many difficult issues that had to be resolved, but the most intractable was the fact that Northern Ireland is part of the UK, while the Republic of Ireland (Southern Ireland) is part of the EU. This is the only place (if you don't count Gibraltar) where there is a land border separating the UK and the EU after Brexit.

So the biggest deal in the Brexit negotiations was that Ireland and Northern Ireland must have a "frictionless border," so that people and goods could pass freely back and forth without customs and border checks. So a Spanish company that wants to ship goods to England without paying British tariffs could simply trans-ship them through Northern Ireland -- that is, ship them to Ireland, send them across the "frictionless border" to Northern Ireland, and then ship them across the Irish Sea to England. Similarly, an English firm could ship goods to Spain by trans-shipping in the opposite direction, and avoid paying EU tariffs.

Well, that could never work. No politician is going to voluntarily give up tariffs. So the solution is that there has to be a "customs border in the Irish Sea." So goods shipped back and forth between England and Northern Ireland now have to go through customs and result in tariff charges.

During the Brexit negotiations, politicians said that if there were a customs check between Northern Ireland and Ireland, then this would infuriate the "Catholic republicans," and would trigger a revival of "The Troubles," the three decades violence in Northern Ireland. So they did it the other way, and put in a customs check in the Irish Sea, and this has infuriated the "Protestant loyalists," and this is triggering a revival of The Troubles anyway.

Brief generational history of violence in the Isle of Ireland

Northern Ireland's indigenous Gaelic Irish people (usually Catholic, republican, nationalist, "green") have been at war with the descendants of invading English and Scottish people (usually Protestant, loyalist, unionist, "orange") off and on since the 1400s. The Republicans want Northern Ireland to merge with the Republic of (Southern) Ireland, while the Loyalists want to remain loyal to the British crown and have Northern Ireland remain in the UK.

There have been clashes between the two groups since the 1400s, but the most important pattern of wars was set by the Nine Years War (1594-1603), where the Irish Gaelics attempted to overthrow English rule. The result was the Plantation of Ulster, which Gaelics today refer to as genocide and "ethnic cleansing," because the British drove the Gaelics from their land, took it over as landlords, and used the Gaelics as servants.

The next crisis war for Northern Ireland was the Williamite-Jacobite war, climaxing in a victory of the British with the Battle of the Boyne on July 12, 1690. This was the date of the victory of Protestant William of Orange over the Catholic King James II, and it followed England's Glorious Revolution of 1688, where the Dutch Prince William "invaded" England and overthrew King James without firing a shot. Sectarian violence in Northern Ireland tends to increase as July 12 approaches, as it's commemorated by groups like the Protestant Orange Institution.

The border across Ireland first appeared in 1921 as a result of the British-Irish treaty that partitioned the island and ended the Irish War of Independence, with the new borderline running across farms and villages.

The beginning of 'The Troubles'

"The Troubles" began in 1969, when hostilities broke out in Northern Ireland, and the border was reinforced with British Army watchtowers and bomb-proof and mortar-proof inspection facilities. All of those reinforcements were removed as a result of the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, with a new power-sharing accord that was supposed to break down some of the barriers between south and north, including the physical barrier at the border.

The "Good Friday Agreement" has achieved almost mythic status among politicians, and its terms were frequently cited during the Brexit negotiations as inviolable, lest The Troubles begin again. The result was the "frictionless border" between Ireland and Northern Ireland, but instead there's a customs border between Northern Ireland and England, and The Troubles seems to be starting again anyway.

There's a lot of finger-pointing now as to the cause of the new violence, with many people blaming Boris Johnson for his "betrayal" of the Northern Ireland loyalists. But from the point of view of Generational Dynamics, the revival of The Troubles is not surprising, inasmuch as a full generation has passed since the Good Friday agreement, and young kids are not going to care about a piece of paper or an ancient agreement that was signed before many of them were even born.

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(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the Generational Dynamics World View News thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be posted anonymously.) (9-Apr-2021) Permanent Link
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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 9-Apr-2021 9-Apr-21 World View -- The Troubles: Violence in Northern Ireland revives as consequence of Brexit

The Troubles: Violence in Northern Ireland revives as consequence of Brexit

Brief generational history of violence in the Isle of Ireland

The beginning of 'The Troubles'

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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 9-Apr-2021
9-Apr-21 World View -- The Troubles: Violence in Northern Ireland revives as consequence of Brexit