North of the Border
by
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I. A Country In Conflict
The interaction between Ireland and Great Britain dates back at least several centuries, if not a couple of millennium. Ulster Protestants claim that before the entrance of the Gaels from Northern Spain onto the island several hundred years BC, a group of people originating from Great Britain called the Picts inhabited Ireland. Whether or not this is so, the Gaels after their arrival became the vast majority of the island's inhabitants. In 1169, competition between Gaelic nobles led to English warriors entering Ireland on behalf of the ambitious King Dermot MacMorrough of Leinster. From this inauspicious beginning has come over 800 years of political intrigue between the islands of Ireland and Great Britain.
Even before the English warriors arrived in Ireland, in the mid 1150s Pope Adrian IV issued a Papal Bull urging the English King Henry II to invade the island and reform the non-conformist Irish Church. This papal maneuver provided King Henry with an excuse to send his own force to Ireland after the successful landing of the English warriors who assisted King MacMorrough. King Henry's force then asserted royal control over the English-held part of Ireland.
During this time period, the Welsh cleric Giraldus Cambrensis ('Gerald of Wales'), who fought in Ireland on behalf of the English Crown, wrote that the Irish were a 'filthy race ... sunk in vice' . He also asserted that the Irish 'would have to be ruled with great discretion' after they had been 'subjugated and reduced to submission.'
Subjugating the entire island, however, took the English Crown over four more centuries. And, in the interim, the Crown had a hard time making sure that the English in Ireland remained English. Over time, many English magnates in Ireland adopted the Irish cultural ways so despised by Giraldus and became immersed into Gaelic Irish society. To guard the English culture within Ireland from being swamped by the more numerous natives, the Crown-allied Irish Parliament passed the Statutes of Kilkenny in 1366. These statutes, which remained until 1613, placed numerous limitations on the conduct of ethnic English and their offspring. It became illegal for English to speak Irish, play Irish sports, or marry Irish people, amongst other restrictions.
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About the Book
North of the Border seeks to educate people about the conflict in Northern Ireland: its history, its participants, and its factions. Aside from generally telling the story, which in certain portions I do, my unique experience with Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland in the summer of 1993 allows me to take the reader into the mindset of individuals living with the conflict. I intend that the reader, by learning the history of Ulster and then meeting various individuals who live there, will get a sense of what is motivating the minds and hearts of Unionists and Nationalists in Northern Ireland.
The book contains a historical overview from ancient Ireland at the time of the entrance of the British to events in Northern Ireland through April 1993, followed by interviews that I conducted with various Unionists and Nationalists, as well as with the police and a prominent lawyer. The focus of the interviews is on feelings and perceptions of local community elites.
The next part of the book details what happened in Northern Ireland between May 1993 and December 1993. The entire early period of the peace process and the concurrent explosion of violence are detailed. In the final section of the book, I use conflict resolution theory to analyze the psychological mindsets of the people in Northern Ireland. I make the analysis sufficiently general as to give it a timeless quality.