Conflict in Northern Ireland

Résumé du document

This essay will demonstrate that the current situation does not immediately menace the peace in Ireland, but actually breaks the compromise the Good Friday agreement had made possible; and, that this situation could, in the long term, cause a revival of nationalisms which could, at the end, seriously threaten the peace.

At first, we will have a flashback on the former Irish conflict and the Good Friday agreement of 1998, in order to better understand what the causes of that old conflict were and assess if these causes can be considered as obsolete or not. At second, we will demonstrate how the current Brexit crisis is menacing the Irish peace since we understood – too late – its incompatibility with the former agreements. Finally, we will try to imagine if some scenarios could cause a new conflict in Ireland in the medium to long term.

Extraits

[...] Additionally, this border had nothing historical before 1922, and had been only defined in order to organize a partition between Catholic and Protestant counties. "Nobody wants to return to the borders of the past," Theresa May said, admitting at the same time as "indefensible" the continuation of a free movement of persons and of goods. This border could cause new frustrations: at the present time, we do not know what would be the conditions for entering or leaving the United Kingdom from Ireland (for persons and for goods), and possibly London does not know it itself; as the Republic of Ireland will remain in the European Union, they should be the same than the ones going to apply between the United Kingdom and any other European country: passport, visa? [...]

[...] After 20 years of unity, will the border come back ? However, a second factor could cause unpredictable but potentially huge consequences in Ireland: with the Republic of Ireland remaining in the European Union and the United Kingdom leaving, the European Union border will cross the Irish island, as the UK-Irish border was crossing it during the past century, making this line appear as a terrible symbol of division for the Irish people. And, we are in the specific case of a border reappearing, after everyone had forgotten it - but still remembers what this border meant in the past. [...]

[...] Paradoxically, reopening these memories was not the wish of the Irish - most of them voted to remain - but the thunderclap of Brexit made us all remember that, even if it had not been the only factor, the fact that the United Kingdom and Ireland were both members of the European Union had made the peace possible, by making the border between Eire and Ulster obsolete. But, the reintroduction of border controls will be a first step back for a peaceful Ireland. [...]

[...] If prevention can reduce the risk, it can never make it disappear. Conclusion After decades of troubles in Northern Ireland, and more generally, centuries of war in Ireland, the Good Friday Agreement appeared as the best possible compromise to finally bring back peace in the island; even if it did not solve all problems, at least Ireland lived more 20 years of peace, proving that different communities could definitely live together in Ireland, especially within the frame of the European integration. [...]

[...] ) without having the right to negotiate it in Brussels anymore. An impossible deal for London, if we remember that the pro-Brexit politicians and people felt a lack of sovereignty and wanted to leave the Union in order to build a British prosperity based on free trade and new agreements outside Europe; the reason the negotiations excluded the option of a "soft Brexit" between 2017 and 2019, until, a few weeks ago, the Prime Minister Theresa May reopened this option, by despair more than by conviction. [...]