VICTIMHOOD, IDENTITY, AND AGENCY IN THE EARLY PHASE OF THE TROUBLES IN NORTHERN IRELAND

Abstract

This article explores the representation of victimhood in political discourse and the relation between victimhood, identity, and political agency. The empirical material is drawn from the early days of the Northern Ireland conflict and covers the debate on internment that was in operation from August 1971 until December 1975. Both those supporting and those opposing internment drew on images of victimhood—images that were vital in the construction of legitimacy and political agency. First, the rendering of detailed stories of individual suffering and victimhood produced compassion and empathy—features legitimising the different approaches. Second, the construction of victimhood involved mechanisms of inclusion and exclusion, creating “we-them” dichotomies, producing “collectives of victimhood,” which in many cases worked as a platform from which political agency could be voiced. And third, the construction of victimhood produced political truths. The victim was given a particular status embodying a particular moral integrity to determine the truths about “what had really happened,” a status that made the victim a vital agent in the political battle for “the hearts and minds.” The article stresses the importance of studying the representation of victimhood within particular historical contexts and demonstrates the complex and ambiguous effects of the representations of victimhood in violent political conflicts. The examination shows that victimhood has both humanising and dehumanising effects and, depending on the contextual framework, victimhood can create confidence, empowerment, and agency, but also disempowerment and passivity.

Key Words:

• Victimhood
• suffering
• Northern Ireland
• internment
• identity
• agency
• gender

I am grateful to all of those who have offered comments on the article, in particular the late Professor Øyvind Bj⊘rnson, Professor William Hubbard, Svein Atle Skålevåg, Merethe Winsents, and Maja Zahl. I also thank the Centre of Gender Studies at the University of Bergen for financial support, enabling the exploration of the gender dimension. I am also most grateful to the editors of Identities and the two anonymous referees for their constructive and very stimulating comments.

Notes

1. A similar line of reasoning has been put forward by the sociologist Frank Burton, who on the basis of fieldwork in Belfast in the 1970s argued that to cope with a radically new situation in which the existing knowledge and beliefs were no longer valid, a struggle took place to reconstruct both mental and moral worlds; “(…) to accommodate the unthinkable, reinterpreting events to sustain a sense of reality and striving to maintain coherence in the face of massive disturbance” (Burton 1978: 19).

2. For a problematization of this process, see Kleinman et al. 1997 and Jeffrey and Candea 2006.

3. Within some studies of violence and victimhood there seems to exist a notion of deconstruction as somewhat equivalent to denunciation of individual experiences (Jean-Klein and Riles 2005; Jeffrey and Candea 2006).

4. It has been pointed out that in the aftermath of internment, British politicians and newspaper editors agreed that negative coverage of the British Army and the Northern Ireland government, as well as sympathetic coverage of internees' allegations of torture, would have destructive effects on the situation in Northern Ireland. Following this logic, several methods of internal censorship were introduced. Although this applied especially to the television coverage, censorship was also practised in newspapers. Many journalists protested against this practise, but their campaign was hampered by their fears for their careers being ruined by declaring their opposition publicly (Curtis 1998: 6–7, 14). Journalists also had a problem in that the Northern Ireland Criminal Law Act of 1967 had made it an offence for anyone, journalists included, to refuse to give information to the police (Rolston 1996: 238). This implied that journalists could not protect their sources.

5. For instance, many statements from the republican movement and the internees were only published in the Belfast-based nationalist newspaper, the Irish News, and in the Dublin-based Irish Times. Similarly, the News Letter published many statements from loyalists that were not published elsewhere.

6. The political activities of the Official Sinn Fein were in the first half of the 1970s conducted under the label Republican Clubs.

7. The trend was to continue: In the two years prior to internment 66 people were killed; in the first seventeen months of internment, the number had risen almost tenfold to 610 (Dixon 2001: 118). For further information on internment, see McGuffin 1973 and Brady, Faul, and Murray 1975.

8. Between August 1971 and December 1975 1,981 people were interned: 107 loyalists and 1,874 republicans. The number of internees reached its peak in late March 1972, when 924 people were held (Irish Times 6 December 1975).

9. I have found some exceptions to this rule. See for example William Ross quoted in Irish Times 10 July 1974.

10. Statement of the Government of Northern Ireland 21 September 1971. For a similar quote see Irish Times 15 April 1972: “Faulkner said that the forces of law and order were only after gunmen, not innocent people.”

11. Faulkner quoted in Belfast Telegraph 9 August 1971. See also Daily Mail 16 September 1971. The UUP view was echoed by representatives of the Church of Ireland. Rev. D. Gilles declared that the state had to protect ordinary citizens against terror and murder as innocent victims of violence, including women and children, were injured and disfigured for life (News Letter 23 November 1971). The same argument was also put forward by the British Government. See: Letter from Prime Minister Harold Wilson to NICRA, Irish Times 16 July 1974.

12. See for instance James Kilfedder (UUP) (Belfast Telegraph 20 October 1971).

13. Faulkner, Belfast Telegraph 9 August 1971. This fear was also stressed by the Alliance party, which worried about the mental effects of terror on the minds of the people. See Oliver Napier, leader of the Alliance Party, Irish News 26 July 1974

14. Brian Faulkner, Irish Times 15 April 1974.

15. Bob Cooper, Deputy Leader of the Alliance Party, Irish News 11 July 1974.

16. Peter McLachlan (Northern Ireland Unionist Party), Irish Times 24 June 1974.

17. Oliver Napier, leader of the Alliance Party, Irish News 26 July 1974.

18. John Hume, Irish Times 27 September 1971.

19. See for instance Gerry Fitt, Irish Times 15 April 1972.

20. Michael Keogh quoted in Irish News 11 September 1971.

21. John Hume quoted in Irish Times 27 September 1971.

22. Eamon Hanna. Letter to Irish News 4 October 1971.

23. Eddie McGrady quoted in Irish News 1 December 1973.

24. Gerry Fitt quoted in The Times 30 September 1971.

25. Joint statement of the SDLP Executive and Assembly Party, Irish News 12 July 1974.

26. Hume, Irish Times 3 December 1973.

27. Hume, Irish Times 27 September 1971.

28. Hume, Irish Times 27 September 1971.

29. Austin Currie claimed for example that the internment camp “(…) could be described in no other terms except as a concentration camp”. Austin Currie, Irish Press 22 September 1971.

30. John Hume, Sunday Press 22 August 1971.

31. Joint statement by all detainees in Crumlin Prison issued by NICRA, quoted in Irish News 23 August 1971. See also statement from internees in Long Kesh, quoted in Irish News 5 January 1972.

32. See for instance Kearney, Richard 1988. Transitions. Narratives in Modern Irish Culture. Dublin: Wolfhound.

33. Statement from Long Kesh Comhairle Ceanntair, Sinn Fein, Irish News 28 March 1972.

34. Statement from Long Kesh Comhairle Ceanntair, Sinn Fein, Irish News 28 March 1972.

35. See for instance article in Irish News 10 August 1971, and joint statement by all detainees, quoted in Irish News 13 August 1971.

36. Irish News 10 August 1971.

37. See Irish Times 25 August 1971 and Irish Times 22 September 1971. See also letter John McGuffin (PD) in Irish Times 21 September 1971 and story of Patrick Shivers, Irish Times 24 August 1971.

38. Irish News 24 August 1971. Also reports on hunger strikes in Irish News 28 October 1971, in Belfast Telegraph 1 March 1972 (the detainees on the Maidstone), and in Irish News 31 October 1972.

39. Statement from the internees in Long Kesh, Irish News 20 December 1971.

40. Statement from Long Kesh Comhairle Ceanntair Sinn Fein, Irish News 28 March 1971.

41. Long Kesh Co-ordinating Committee of Republican Clubs, Irish News 4 April 1972.

42. For instance, the internees declared in a New Year message that: ”We know that we are echoing the most fervent wish of all the Irish people when we hope that this year will bring peace to our community and to our country. (…) We ask the people to maintain their support of the unconditional release of all internees and we know that the people will be victorious.” Statement from internees in Long Kesh, Irish News 5 December 1972.

43. Sean McCartney, Sinn Fein Cumann, Irish News 9 December 1975.

44. NewsLetter 4 January 1972.

45. News Letter 14 February 1973.

46. See Irish Times 19 April 1973 and Belfast Telegraph 31 July 1973.

47. See Belfast Telegraph 14 August 1973 and Irish News 14 August 1973.

48. According to the UDA, eight of them, two with broken legs, ended up in hospital thirty-six hours later. See UDA statement, Irish Times 20 December 1973.

49. “Loyalist,” Sunday Independent 7 April 1974.

50. Tommy Stitt, Loyalist Prisoner Association, Belfast Telegraph 1 May 1974.

51. Loyalist Women's Action Committee, News Letter 6 May 1974.

52. One of the statements of the Loyalist Women's Action Committee told the following story: “The searches could not be more thorough as only last week a photograph was found in a visitor's undergarment. Photographs are taken from the wives visiting their husbands and the soldiers on duty show these to the inmates and pretend to be associating with the wives of these forgotten men.” Loyalist Women's Action Committee, News Letter 6 May 1974.

53. Loyalist Women's Action Committee, News Letter 6 May 1974.

54. UDA-statement, Irish News 14 August 1973.

55. Loyalist Women's Action Committee, News Letter 6 May 1974.

56. See Irish Times 4 October 1973 and News Letter 18 April 1974.

57. See Irish Times 19 December 1973. The same tendency was evident in the statements of Vanguard, but although the loyalist internees and their families turned to suffering and betrayal, Vanguard kept their focus on the enemy: the nationalist movement in general and the IRA in particular. See William Craig, News Letter 19 September 1973

58. The first female internees were very young. Liz McKee, the first, was 19 years, and the second, Theresa Holland, was barely 18 (Aretxaga 1997: 75).

59. Letter in Irish News 27 September 1971.

60. Letter in Irish News 27 September 1971.

61. For similar examples see for instance the story of Betty McKeown who was arrested together with her baby son and questioned about her husband's alleged activities (Irish Times 18 January 1972) and the case of Kathleen Coney, whose son was shot while trying to escape from the internment camp at Long Kesh in November 1974 (Irish Times 7 November 1974).

62. This was also the case in the story of another internee, Deirdre Flynn, who was eight and a half months pregnant and made a last-minute appeal to Sunday World. (See Sunday World 8 December 1974.)

63. The papers give different numbers of adopted children. Irish News 5 September 1974 says three, Sunday News 22 December 1974 says two.

64. Green Cross spokesman, Irish News 5 September 1974.

65. Green Cross spokesman, Irish News 5 September 1974.

66. NICRA, Irish News 7 September 1974.

67. Quoted in Sunday News 22 December 1974. The centre also introduced two similar cases involving one Catholic and one Protestant woman.

68. One exception from this tendency was the newspaper reports on the case of Hugh Duffy, a young father who was interned, but later released when his four–month-old daughter fell seriously ill. See Irish Press 27 February 1974.

69. Brigid quoted in Aretxaga 1997: 75.

70. The Agreement. “Rights, safeguards and equality of opportunity,” points 11 and 12. http://www.cain.ulst.ac.uk/events/peace/docs/agreement.htm.

71. Reg Empey, quoted in Belfast Telegraph 14 August 2003. Empey made particular references to the Bloody Sunday inquiry.