Departments

;

Northern Ireland

  • SOURCE: Washington Post
    4/15/2021

    Why the Hope for Peace is Waning in Northern Ireland

    by James Waller

    "The Troubles, the decades-long Catholic uprising against British rule starting in the 1960s, began with Catholic frustration over a government that would not leave. If widespread violence returns, it will be because of Protestant frustration over a government that would not stay."

  • SOURCE: The Hill
    1/16/2021

    Belfast's Troubles Echo in Today's Washington

    by Niall Stanage

    The Hill's correspondent argues that the pattern of inciting violence and denying responsibility on display in Washington on January 6 has a grim resemblance to the work of demagogue Ian Paisley during the Northern Ireland Troubles. 

  • SOURCE: New York Times
    8/3/2020

    John Hume, Nobel Laureate for Work in Northern Ireland, Dies at 83

    "In the parlance of Northern Ireland, Mr. Hume was a “nationalist” whose dream of a reunited Ireland had no place for the violence embraced by “republicans” like the I.R.A., with its armed fighters and networks of financiers, bomb-makers and sympathizers in the region and in the United States."

  • 6/28/2020

    The Slow Path to Police Reform in Northern Ireland

    by Donald M. Beaudette and Laura Weinstein

    It took deep reforms and patience to build trust in policing across the sectarian divide of Northern Ireland after the Good Friday Accords. Does that process have lessons for the United States? 

  • SOURCE: Washington Post
    6/9/2020

    What the U.S. Can Learn from the History of Northern Ireland

    by Andrew Sanders

    British soldiers deployed to Northern Ireland in 1969 in an operation intended to be a temporary action to quell sectarian violence and inflammatory mob and police attacks on Catholic civil rights advocates. They remained until 2007, a lesson that American politicians should heed. 

  • 3/6/2020

    Covering the Troubles in Northern Ireland

    by Ron Steinman

    I covered the Troubles in Northern Ireland for NBC News for four years, from the summer of 1969 until 1973. Even as a journalist with significant experience covering conflict, I knew I was in for a new ride.

  • SOURCE: BBC News
    8-1-13

    Confidential files give insight into Margaret Thatcher's view of Northern Ireland

    Previously confidential files from 1983 released on Thursday by the National Archives in Kew shed new light on the ongoing attempts by Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher to deal with the political and security situations in Northern Ireland and, in particular, the threat by Sinn Féin to overtake the SDLP as the voice of Northern nationalism.Sinn Féin's record 13.4% of the regional vote in the June 1983 election and the return of its President, Gerry Adams, as MP for West Belfast came as a shattering blow to Mrs Thatcher, who had returned to power with a renewed mandate after the Falklands war.Ministers believed that up to a quarter of the Sinn Féin vote was down to impersonation and intimidation.At a cabinet meeting in June that year, Northern Ireland Secretary Jim Prior warned colleagues that the republicans' success could lead to the destruction of John Hume's SDLP....

  • SOURCE: Telegraph (UK)
    5-6-13

    Northern Ireland peace agreement flawed and elitist, says historian

    The Good Friday Agreement is "flawed and elitist" but will not be derailed by the forthcoming 1916 commemorations or the threat from dissidents, according to historian Professor Paul Bew.The Queen's University academic told the 20th annual Burren Law School in Co Clare that the Agreement "ended the Cold War" within the Island of Ireland."The Good Friday Agreement was an elitist, top down process which explains its inadequacies but also explains why it continues to work," said Prof Bew. "This (the Agreement) is a stable process... it is perfectly clear what the rules of the game are."...