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ABSTRACT
The United Kingdom’s (UK) decision to leave the European Union (EU) has been felt most acutely in Ireland. One group specifically impacted by this decision is Ulster Loyalism. With a historic ‘warrior regime’ role in defending its community, both from irredentist Irish Nationalism and British government subterfuge, how Loyalism responds to Brexit is uncertain. Historically, Loyalism has promoted political violence to stymie UK strategic objectives in Ireland. Therefore, any attempt to diminish the Union between Great Britain and Northern Ireland raises the prospect of a rejuvenated loyalist terror campaign being directed at those it deems a threat to the loyalist community and their territorial sovereignty in Northern Ireland. In its current ‘post-ceasefire’ guise, there appears to be no immediate threat of a loyalist return to violence. Yet, with Sea Border and a nascent ‘Shared Island’ approach enacted by the Irish Government, promoting a regulatory alignment with the EU, Northern Ireland is once again at a crossroads. How Ulster Loyalism responds to such developments then posits a key question for both UK and EU intelligence agencies, on how they respond to any upsurge in loyalist paramilitary violence in a post-Brexit era.
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This is to acknowledge no financial interest or benefit has arisen from the direct applications of this research.
Notes
1. With the end of the Cold War, small wars and ethnic conflicts increasingly came under the influence of the United Nations ‘post-conflict’ peacebuilding programme, where violent conflicts were ‘transformed’ through market-led approaches to Conflict Resolution: and fighters demobilised and reintegrated into their communities through a form of Liberal Peacebuilding. See, Newman, New Perspectives in Liberal Peacebuilding.
2. The Fresh Start Panel Report.
3. For a deeper discussion on the application of violence as a peacebuilding norm, see Cheng, Extralegal groups in post-conflict Liberia.
4. Mitchell, Lost in Transformation.
5. Bruce, The Red Hand; McAuley, Very British Rebels?; and Shirlow, The End of Ulster Loyalism?
6. Miller, Queen’s Rebels.
7. Hall, Ulster Liberalism 1778–1876, 212.
8. McBride, Eighteenth Century Ireland, 167.
9. Adamson, The Ancient Kindred.
10. Bew, Ireland.
11. Todd, “Two traditions in Unionist political culture.”
12. Edwards, “Fearful of the Past or ‘Remembering the Future and Our Cause’?” 457–70.
13. Rossi draws on the work of political theorist Carl Schmitt, to establish that the ‘political is constitutive of the distinction between friend and enemy’ where ‘political actions’ are reduced to ‘friend and enemy’ and only ‘decided by actual participants in a concrete situation.’ 304.
14. Rossi, “Breaking the nexus,” 304.
15. Ibid.
16. Ibid., 305.
17. Bruce, The Edge of the Union.
18. Elias, The Civilising Process, 268.
19. Ibid., xii.
20. Shirlow and McGovern, Who are the People?
21. O’Gorman and Blackstock, Loyalism and the British World, 2.
22. Gibbon, The Origins of Ulster Unionism, 22.
23. Bartlett, Ireland- A History, 371.
24. See note 18 above; Mckenny, The Laggan Army in Ireland 1640–1685, 38.
25. Elias, The Civilising Process, 261–267.
26. Ibid.
27. Jackson, Ireland 1798–1998, 331.
28. Bew, Ireland, 402.
29. Haines, Fred Crawford, 284–285.
30. McDermott, Northern Divisions.
31. Bowman, Carson’s Army.
32. Spencer, The State of Loyalism in Northern Ireland, 60.
33. Bruce, The Red Hand, 24–25.
34. Garland, Gusty Spence, 43–44.
35. Ibid., 44.
36. Edwards, A history of the Northern Ireland Labour Party, 101.
37. O’Neill. The autobiography of Terence O’Neill.
38. Edwards, A history of the Northern Ireland Labour Part, 132.
39. Boulton, The UVF, 6.
40. McCann, Burnt Out.
41. Purdie, Politics in the Streets.
42. Jackson, Ireland, 369.
43. Purdie, Politics in the Street, 137.
44. Reynolds and Parr, “Northern Ireland’s 1968 at 50,” 5.
45. White, Out of the Ashes.
46. Nelson, Ulster’s Uncertain Defenders, 128.
47. Taylor, Loyalists, 97.
48. Smith, Inside Man, 26.
49. Wood, Crimes of Loyalty, 1.
50. Wright, Northern Ireland, 11.
51. Taylor, Loyalists,152–59.
52. Hennessey, The Northern Ireland Peace Process, 90–1.
53. Bowyer-Bell, The Irish Troubles, 335.
54. Novosel, Northern Ireland’s Lost Opportunity, 63.
55. Ibid., 62–87.
56. Ibid., 71.
57. Newman New Perspectives in Liberal Peacebuilding.
58. Paris, At War’s End.
59. Muggah, Security and Post-Conflict Reconstruction.
60. Brennan, “Ulster’s Uncertain Menders,” 189.
61. Ibid., 194.
62. Ibid., 230.
63. See, for example, Cheng, Extralegal groups in post-conflict Liberia.
64. Springer, “Violence sits in places?” 91.
65. Shirlow and McEvoy, Beyond the Wire, 2.
66. Elliot, “The Northern Ireland forum/entry to negotiations election 1996.”
67. Ibid., 119.
68. Brennan, “Ulster’s Uncertain Menders,” 239.
69. Shirlow and McEvoy, Beyond the Wire,123.
70. Lynch, “Evaluating the Peace-Building Impact of Structural Funds Programmes,” 25.
71. Mitchell, “For God and …,” 149.
72. Shirlow, The End of Ulster Loyalism? 109.
73. Anderson, The Billy Boy.
74. Shirlow, The End of Ulster Loyalism? 120.
75. Ibid., 108.
76. McAuley, “Whither New Loyalism?” 336.
77. Shirlow, “Rejection, Shaming, Enclosure, and Moving On,” 733–46.
78. Brennan, “Ulster’s Uncertain Menders,” 31.
79. Nolan, “The Cruel Peace.”
80. Monaghan and Shirlow, “Forward to the Past?” 650.
81. Black, “Shock figures show brutal reality of paramilitary ‘law’ in Northern Ireland.”
82. PSNI. 7.
83. Nolan, The Flag Dispute.
84. PSNI. 6.
85. Nolan Flag Dispute.
86. White, “Civil Society and Peace in Northern Ireland,” 448.
87. Tonge The Democratic Unionist Party, 163.
88. The Housing Executive NI estimate ‘[o]ver 90% of social housing areas remain segregated into predominantly single [identity] communities, with this rising to 94% in Belfast.’ The Housing Executive’s Community Cohesion Strategy 2015–2020, 3.
89. Shirlow and Murtagh, Belfast, Segregation, Violence and the City.
90. Hristov, Paramilitarism % Neoliberalism, 166.
91. Ibid., 231.
92. BBC Spotlight.
93. Greer, “Typical Unionists?” 49.
94. Belfast Telegraph, “Ulster’s in distress.”
95. Tonge, The Democratic Unionist Party, 164.
96. Ibid., 165.
97. Hayward & Murphy, “The EU’s Influence on the Peace Process and Agreement in Northern Ireland in Light of Brexit,” 284.
98. Interview with UDA Ex-Combatant1. 2 September 2020.
99. Interview with UDA Ex-Combatant2. 4 September 2020.
100. Dorling & Tomlinson, Rule Britannia, 241.
101. Hayward, “The pivotal position of the Irish border in the UK’s withdrawal from the European Union,” 2.
102. Geoghegan, “Revealed: the dirty secrets of the DUP’s ‘dark money.”
103. Maidment, “No surrender!”
104. Jackson. Ireland, 141–271.
105. Geoghegan, “Michael Gove a ‘fanatic’ who would damage peace process.”
106. Mulvenna. Labour Aristocracies. 165.
107. Interview with UVF Ex-Combatant, 31 August 2020.
108. Interview with UVF Ex-Combatant, 31 August 2020.
109. Interview with UDA Ex-Combatant2, 4 September 2020.
110. Hutchinson, ‘Brexit Ruling’.
111. Carroll, “Betrayal? Ridiculous.”
112. Ibid.
113. Belfast Telegraph, “UVF watching Brexit developments ‘very closely’.”
114. Interview with UDA Ex-Combatant1, 2 September 2020.
115. Interview with UDA Ex-Combatant, 2 September 2020.
116. Alderdice The Fresh Start Panel. 2016.
117. Interview with UDA Ex-Combatant1, 2 September 2020.
118. PSNI Chief-Constable, Northern Ireland Affairs Committee. Q57.
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Seán Brennan
Seán Brennan Ph.D. is an independent researcher whose work focuses on developing a deeper understanding of liberal peacebuilding paradigms. His doctoral thesis, exploring the challenges Ulster loyalists face reintegrating into a post-ceasefire space, won the 2018 Basil Chubb Award for best political science thesis from an Irish university.