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Contesting Postwar Belfast

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Contesting Peace in the Postwar City

Part of the book series: Rethinking Peace and Conflict Studies ((RCS))

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Abstract

This chapter employs relational space on postwar Belfast (Northern Ireland) to understand the role of space in its urban conflicts over peace(s). The focus is both on how society produces and how it is produced by space in its material, perceived, and lived dimensions. The first line of analysis explores how Belfast’s seemingly given ethnonational geography is not “just there”, but—in contrast—is actively produced by those supporting the Catholic and Protestant ethnonational peace(s). This production happens through everything from erecting flags and painting murals to spreading fear of “the other” or clustering into “our/their” residential areas. The second line of analysis explores how Belfast’s built environment—e.g. its peacewalls and defensive architecture, its houses and roads, and its city centre—“talks back” to society by actively producing ethnonational and socioeconomic divisions that in turn support the ethnonational and normalising peace(s) whilst undermining the coexisting one.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Northern Ireland is part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (UK).

  2. 2.

    The two main groups in Belfast are often labelled differently. One side is Catholic, Nationalist, or Republican while the other is Protestant, Unionist, or Loyalist. These labels shift from person and from intent. Catholic/Protestant ascribes group belonging. Nationalist/Unionist are more political as Nationalists want “Irish unity” and Unionist want to remain within “the Union” (i.e. the UK). Republican/Loyalist are used to depict those prepared to go to war to achieve these political goals—with Loyalists being loyal to the UK and Republicans wanting to join the Republic of Ireland. These labels, however, are protean and often used interchangeably. I will for analytical clarity therefore use the labels Catholic/Protestant throughout this book.

  3. 3.

    Then one political entity (like Scotland or England) within the UK encompassing the entire island.

  4. 4.

    The currently largest party—the Democratic Unionist Part (DUP)—did not sign it.

  5. 5.

    The second largest party in Northern Ireland after DUP is Sinn Féin (the political wing of IRA).

  6. 6.

    The BA/GFA enables Northern Ireland to become part of the Republic of Ireland if the majority of people in both political entities agree. It thereby gives hope to the territorial dreams of both sides as it neither abolishes the UK continuity nor excludes the possibility of a united Ireland.

  7. 7.

    The power-sharing in Northern Ireland enforces mandatory coalitions between the largest ethnonationalist parties (MPs need to declare themselves Nationalist, Unionist, or Other). This means that political power is based on ethnonational belonging—especially since the four major parties in Stormont are either Nationalist or Unionist.

  8. 8.

    Ulster is one of the four historic regions of Ireland and compromises nine of the 32 counties of Ireland. As Northern Ireland consists of six of these nine, Ulster has become something that Protestants identify with.

  9. 9.

    Catholics and Protestants often support opposing sides in other conflicts, such as the Israel-Palestine conflict, where Catholics identify with the “Palestinian freedom fight” and Protestants with “Israel’s right to defend itself from terrorists”.

  10. 10.

    Which are derogatory terms for Catholics and Protestants.

  11. 11.

    “Peacewalls”—to be elaborated later in the chapter—are walls built to separate Catholic and Protestant communities in Belfast.

  12. 12.

    An interface is an area in Belfast that lies just next to a peacewall.

  13. 13.

    The frequent exaggeration of danger does not mean that risks do not exist (interview with former police officer 2014). Many people in Belfast have had family members killed and/or have experienced violence themselves (see e.g. Murtagh and Shirlow 2006; Shirlow 2003b). Many of my interviewees have also had negative experiences.

  14. 14.

    This is not isolated or anecdotal. It has been thoroughly mapped how many in Belfast have spatial patterns that both actively and subconsciously avoid “their” spaces (Boal 1996; Byrne 2012; Gaffikin and Morrissey 2011; Hughes et al. 2008; Murtagh and Shirlow 2006; Shirlow 2003a).

  15. 15.

    There are Catholics from west Belfast more willing to work in London than in east Belfast (interviews with NGO activist focusing on space and territory 2015).

  16. 16.

    Common message on murals in Protestant areas, but also reflected in how certain Catholic dissidents view the postwar situation of Belfast (interview with former political prisoner 2014)

  17. 17.

    I wish to thank Brendan Murtagh for bringing this phrase to my attention.

  18. 18.

    Most people who could move from the violence-ridden inner-city areas during “the Troubles” did so.

  19. 19.

    The university’s car park was symptomatically built on a prime location intended for social housing.

  20. 20.

    In Northern Ireland, much of the housing is publicly owned, so apart from renting privately or buying accommodation, people can sign up for social housing.

  21. 21.

    High-density housing should not be confused with overcrowding. The latter is about too many people living in the same residential unit while the former is about types of houses that can absorb many people on the same piece of land (see Jacobs 1994)

  22. 22.

    The literal translation of the French word cul-de-sac means “in the bottom of a bag”, a translation that fairly well captures these types of houses.

  23. 23.

    An added consequence of social housing reconstruction was that the vibrancy of and mixing in the streets was lost. The homogeneity of the new houses removed businesses, restaurants, and bars from the residential areas while the cul-de-sacs created small and isolated clusters, effectively leading people to lose any reason to venture into areas they do not live in (an interview with NIHE official 2015).

  24. 24.

    The intentionality behind the Westlink is disputed (cf. Murtagh 2002 with Cunningham 2014). Yet it nevertheless functions like a cordon sanitaire since it separates working class areas from more affluent ones—irrespective of the underlying intentions (or the lack thereof) regarding is construction.

  25. 25.

    Few people reside in the city centre (this applies both to working and middle class people), meaning that to “live” the city centre one must be able to get there (interview with NIHE official 2015).

  26. 26.

    There are jobs in shops, bars, cafés and restaurants, but they more often than not go to (middle class) students and youth rather than someone from working class areas such as Falls, Shankill, Short Strand, or Tiger’s Bay. The high unemployment numbers in these areas is indicative of this (see Nolan 2014).

  27. 27.

    This is a “generic” quote in the sense that all three interviewees use the same or similar words to express this quite shared sentiment.

  28. 28.

    In the 2019 local election to Belfast City Council, only 17 out of 60 councillors came from explicitly non-ethnonationalist parties.

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  1. Department of Political Science, Lund University, Lund, Sweden

    Ivan Gusic

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Gusic, I. (2020). Contesting Postwar Belfast. In: Contesting Peace in the Postwar City. Rethinking Peace and Conflict Studies. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-28091-8_6

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