The story so far: The third and final season of the popular BBC show Derry Girls premiered on Netflix on October 7. Set in Northern Ireland’s Londonderry in the 1990s, the show follows the many misadventures of a group of friends who attend a girls’ Catholic school, and their families.
Serving as a strong backdrop for the show is the country’s political turmoil during this time. Created by Lisa McGee, Derry Girls has received rave reviews from critics and has been loved by audiences worldwide.
In India too, the show has generated interest in the history of Ireland, specifically the Troubles and the 1998 referendum that led to the Good Friday Agreement.
What were the Troubles?
The Troubles, also known as the Northern Ireland Conflict, was a turbulent period in Northern Ireland’s history that began in the late 1960s and lasted till 1998. Two groups – the unionists and loyalists (mostly Ulster Protestants) on one side and nationalists and republicans (mostly Roman Catholics) on the other -- fought over concerns of ethnonationalism and whether Northern Ireland should be a part of the U.K. or not. The loyalists wanted Northern Ireland to remain within the U.K., while the nationalists wanted it to be a part of a united Ireland.
How did the conflict begin?
Although the Troubles are usually considered to have begun in the 1960s, they are linked to the age-old history of the Irish island (which was predominantly Roman Catholic) and its occupation by British settlers (mostly Protestants).
The early 20th century saw a rise in nationalism on the island, which led to the Irish War of Independence in 1919. It was a guerrilla war, fought between the Irish Republican Army (IRA), and the British forces. In 1920, the U.K. Parliament enacted the Government of Ireland Act in a bid to end the war. The legislation provided for the division of Ireland into two self-governing parts within the U.K. Northern Ireland was formed by combining four majority loyalist counties – Antrim, Down, Armagh, and Londonderry (also called Derry) – along with Fermanagh and Tyrone which had small Catholic nationalist majorities. Donegal, Cavan, and Monaghan, which had significant nationalist majorities, were combined with 23 remaining counties to form the southern part. Both Northern and Southern Ireland were to have their own parliaments, but continue to remain part of the U.K.
However, within a year, the Anglo-Irish Treaty was agreed upon, creating an Irish Free State, now the Republic of Ireland, in the south. Northern Ireland was given the option to either be a part of the Irish Free State or the U.K. The Anglo-Irish Treaty ended the 1919 Irish War of Independence, and Northern Ireland chose to remain a part of the U.K.
Northern Ireland began functioning as a self-governing region of the U.K. in 1922. Protestants formed the majority of the region, while Catholics formed around one-third of the population. Post this, the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) were in power, primarily due to the support of the Protestants who wanted Northern Ireland to be a part of the U.K.
Protestants versus Catholics
During this time, under the UUP, Catholics argued that they were discriminated against in public service schemes like allocation of housing, jobs, and government investment in their neighbourhoods.
Although the rival groups were identified by their religious identities, scholars believe that the divide itself was not religious in nature but rather rooted in political differences. Most Catholics identified as Irish and wanted to be a part of an Irish Republic, while most Protestants identified as British and wanted to be a part of the U.K.
The 1947 (Northern Ireland) Education Act was a turning point, bringing in sweeping changes for social reform. The Act provided free education for all children over the age of 11. Since its enactment, the number of students in secondary education doubled in less than a decade, Belfast Telegraph reported.
As a direct result of the Education Act, the number of well-educated Catholics demanding equal opportunities increased sharply in the 1960s. Activists like John Hume, a Londonderry resident, and Bernadette Devlin, were involved in the formation of civil rights groups. One such group was the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association (NICRA), formed in 1967.
On October 5, 1968, NICRA organised the Duke Street March in Londonderry to protest against discrimination and gerrymandering. The march was banned by the Northern Ireland government one day before it was scheduled, but NICRA decided to not suspend their protest. Events soon turned violent, and the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC), the local police, used batons and water cannons against protestors.
Violence ensued on another occasion too, when the Protestants organised the Apprentice Boys march in Londonderry in August 1969. Three days of rioting and clashes between RUC and nationalists came to be known as the , after the Catholic area where the confrontation happened. Soon after, rioting and violence spread to other parts as well, including Belfast, where the British Army was sent to restore order.
The British Army was first seen as a neutral party, but after their efforts to disarm republican paramilitaries, the nationalists began seeing them as a part of an RUC-loyalist nexus. Meanwhile, the IRA sided with the nationalists, although they were less concerned with affairs in the north as time passed. A splinter group – the -- emerged as the protector of the nationalists in Northern Ireland.
Provisional IRA resorted to guerrilla warfare, justifying violence in what they believed was a continuation of the Irish War for Independence. The unionists too resorted to arms, with organisations like the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) and Ulster Defence Association (UDA) cropping up.
Bloody Sunday
On January 30, 1972, members of the British Army’s Parachute Regiment fired at protestors during a Catholic civil rights demonstration in Londonderry, killing 13 people and injuring over a dozen, one of whom died later. This incident came to be known as Bloody Sunday, and it caused a spike in the recruitment to the Provisional IRA. It became one of the most controversial and historically significant incidents during the Troubles.
In 2010, the Saville Report concluded that the demonstrators did not pose any threat to the troops and the shooting was unjustified. Then-U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron formally apologised for the shooting.
More violence
In the mid-1970s, the IRA began avoiding direct engagement with British troops and rather resorted to other tactics like bombing cities in England.
The 1973 Sunningdale Agreement offered some respite from violence by creating the Northern Ireland Assembly with proportional representation for all parties, with members from the Dáil (the Irish legislature’s lower chamber) and the Northern Ireland assembly. The agreement fell through in 1974 after unionist opponents of power-sharing held a general strike.
The violence, too, did not abate. In 1984, IRA bombed a Conservative Party conference at the Grand Hotel in Brighton, England, and killed five people. Margaret Thatcher, who was the Prime Minister of the U.K. at the time, had a close shave, escaping injury in the bombing.
Peace negotiations and the Good Friday Agreement
After decades of violence, serious efforts for peace in Northern Ireland began in late 1980s. In 1994, the Provisional IRA declared a unilateral ceasefire. This was followed by a ceasefire from the loyalist factions too. IRA, however, broke it in 1996 when the republican Sinn Fein party was not allowed to take part in peace negotiations.
The ceasefire resumed in 1997 and Sinn Fein was allowed to attend the talks. The UUP and the nationalist Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) were also a part of the negotiations.
These negotiations culminated in the Good Friday Agreement, or the Belfast Agreement of 1998.
The Good Friday Agreement is seen as the most definite end of the Troubles. The multiparty agreement restored self-government in Northern Ireland based on power-sharing and affirmed the legitimacy of the aspiration for a united Ireland.
“It is for the people of Ireland alone, by agreement between the two parts respectively and without external impediment, to exercise their right of self-determination on the basis of consent, freely and concurrently given, North and South, to bring about a United Ireland, accepting that this right must be achieved and exercised with and subject to the agreement and consent of a majority of the people of Northern Ireland. ”The Good Friday Agreement
The agreement provided a three-part framework for power-sharing:
- The Northern Ireland Assembly and Executive for elected political parties to share power
- The North-South Ministerial Council to develop cooperation between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland
- The British-Irish Council to promote relationship between Ireland and England.
It also promised the release of prisoners, including transferred prisoners, convicted of scheduled offences in Northern Ireland. Public referendums to approve the Good Friday Agreement were held in both Ireland and Northern Ireland in May 1998, and it was agreed on with an overwhelming majority.
