The Importance of Religion to the Irish Troubles

Sean Whalen

            Since the Battle of the Bogside in August 1969, Ireland has been the scene of violent conflict between the Protestant unionists and the Catholic nationalists, who favor UK government and independence respectively. Though these conflicts were officially brought to an end in 1998 with the Belfast Agreement, there continues to be minor clashes between civilians that make Ireland a dangerous place to be. The main reason for fighting was over the fate of Ireland as a state; however, religion played a major role in determining the path and nature of the violence, and is recognized by many people around the world as the primary reason for the tensions. It’s not true that religion was the only factor behind the conflicts, but the Irish troubles illustrate how religion can factor in to international relations by acting as an institution, an actor and a basis for identity.

            The Good Friday Agreement, or the Belfast Agreement, formally established the relational structure between Northern Ireland, Ireland and the UK and set a time limit for the transition to the new structure of relations. At no point in the agreement is religion mentioned other than to affirm “the right to freedom and expression of religion,” as well as other identities such as gender, race and political opinion (“Belfast Agreement”). In their resolution, The Troubles were formally identified as a political struggle, and religion was largely ignored in implementing the new relations. This should not be taken as a signal that religious intentions were not present, just that politics has moved towards a more secular approach to issues like this over time. In fact, religion played a significant role as an actual institution influencing politics and as a cultural identifier shaping relations between people, which were coupled with other factors to generate unrest that escalated into violent conflict.

            A lesser identifiable aspect of religion in The Troubles, its role as an institution, shaped the way that the conflicts grew and played out. The book Religion, Identity and Politics: Boundaries of Belonging by Claire Mitchell addresses this issue thoroughly, as she points out that the Irish culture is based around strong social connections, and the churches play a crucial role in organizing those social structure within the lives of both Northern and Southern Irish (Mitchell, 8). This premise of controlling the manifestations of identity gives the churches in Ireland a great deal of influence over the workings of the island. Mitchell provides historical evidence to “analyze how religion has been used to construct opposition from the top down, [a] crucial point that is sometimes lost in accounts that emphasize the importance of religion” (Mitchell, 9). She has seen that much of the historical happenings would not have occurred the way that they did were it not for religious officials who spread their beliefs and approaches to an issue through the church system and guided the actions of people all around the country.

            There is also the direct relationship between the church and the politicians, which places religion in the realm of a direct actor. Mitchell’s approach to research on the issue has found that both the Catholic and Protestant churches “are involved in political consultation, mediation and representation of their members’ interests” (Mitchell, 39). Despite the move towards a more secular governing style in general, there is still a strong connection between the church and the state, particularly in states like the UK that have a deep connection to the church on a governmental level and a personal level. The government of the UK has a more direct tie to the Protestant church than the Irish does to the Catholic church, which was demonstrated by the observation that the “Protestant church has more representatives in the unionist political parties, but play a less important role in the organization of community life” (Mitchel, 39). With centuries of history connecting it to the government of the UK, the Protestant church relies less on its members influencing society and more on directly working with those in positions of power.

            There are other ways for religion to function as an actor, such as using figures like the Pope for the Catholic church to spread information and influence policy makers directly, but the nature of The Troubles did not allow for a great deal of that action to occur. Nonetheless, in 1979 the Pope visited Ireland amid much of the fighting and saw the devastation of the fighting, he issued a plea to the nationalist provisional government: “On my knees I beg you to turn away from the paths of violence” (Coogan, 228). The Pope is a powerful figure, and his statements can be very influential to politics, but here we can see the role of religion as an actor working against the motives of The Troubles. The plea can be seen to reaffirm the belief that the conflict was entirely religious, as the Catholic church was vehemently opposed to the actions that the Catholics in Ireland were taking, though it did not affect the situation very much. As such, religion as an actor plays a limited role today, as the church leaders do not always share the same politics as the members, and their words seem to have little effect.

            Instead, religion is most influential in relations due to its nature as a social identifier and a creator of values. In her assessment of religion as a cultural issue, Claire Mitchel found that “there is a strong relationship between religious identity and political attitudes” in Ireland, and that “the relationship between churchgoing and strength of theological beliefs and political attitudes is weak” (Mitchell, 21). Even as church attendance decreases, identity with religious issues continues to dictate political attitude. This shows how pervasive religious upbringing can be for defining the outlook of a person, and given that most Northern Irish were protestant and most Southern Irish were Catholic, it seems no surprise that conflicts in ideology would occur. There were clear tensions between the two denominations, but that alone did not cause The Troubles.

            According to John Greer, religion only provided grounding for other issues to come out and manifest themselves in violence. In his research, Greer discovered that as Irish grow older, they become less accepting of other religious groups, but that they are still more accepting than the world average for the same study (Greer). In fact, he found that secondary school pupil were more open towards ‘the other side,’ with Catholics being even more open than Protestants. It would be odd if a group that is more open to other religions than average would break out into violent conflict over religion alone, a statement which Claire Mitchell believes just proves that religion only exacerbated the socioeconomic and cultural issues that were troubling Ireland ever since the British settled on the island (Mitchell, 9). She feels that so called religious tensions were really other issues at heart, but that religious institutions still had a significant role in The Troubles as actors and institutions in their own right, supposedly working for their members. Nonetheless, religious identity is cited more often than any other reason for the conflict, showing that religion can be seen as more of an influence on international relations than it really is, but that religion does have a strong enough role in the world to be recognized for its impact.

            Thirteen years after the Belfast Agreement was implemented, Ireland is still home to tensions around the nations. Despite the occasional phenomenon of violence, Ireland and Northern Ireland are relatively recovered, and the battle grounds of the late 20^th century have transformed into centers of art and culture, but they are still distinctly rooted in The Troubles and shaped by a culture that emerged from them (Spiegel). For thirty years, religion was used in various ways to fuel a war of independence, something vaguely similar to other situations around the world today. With very few theocracies left in the world today, what role will religion continue to play in international relations? It is clear that it will always provide identity for citizens and cause conflict between beliefs, but it seems less likely that religious institutions will be as influential as they have been in the past.

Even in the Arab uprisings of the middle east, religion played only a minor role; instead citizens were revolting to attain rights and representation that are granted around the world. The situation in Israel and the work of terrorist organizations such as al-Qaeda derive most of their conflict from religious values it seems, but how much of their actions come directly from religion. There is no doubt that religion is an integral factor behind much of international relations, but it must not be overlooked that many of the same issues could stem from cultural identities beyond religion, and that religion is only used as justification and reasoning for actions to attain a political end. It is easy to make religion into a sort of scape-goat for actions that result in violence, and its great diversity in the way it interacts with politics would support those claims, but just like the case in Ireland, those actions might be coming from an entirely different source.

Works Cited

Coogan, Tim. The Troubles: Ireland’s Ordeal and the Search for Peace. Palgrave Macmillan: Basingstoke. 2002. Web.

Greer, John. “Viewing "the Other Side" in Northern Ireland: Openness and Attitudes to Religion Among Catholic and Protestant Adolescents.” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion vol. 24 (3): 1985. Web.

Mitchell, Claire. Religion, Identity and Politics: Boundaries of Belonging. Belfast Books: London. 2006. Web.

Spiegel, Brendan. “Where Irish ‘Troubles’ Began, the Arts Heal.” The New York Times. New York City. 16 Nov. 2012. Web.

United Kingdom, The Republic of Ireland. Belfast Agreement. 1998. Web. <http://www.dfa.ie/uploads/documents/Anglo-Irish/agreement.pdf>.