Although the Peace Process is probably secure for at least the next 2-3 years, there have been some spikes recently in terms of problems with equality for Catholics that are worth a post on this blog (there have been several other such times in the last 8 years that I said little or nothing about, but that’s largely because I wasn’t reading the Irish News, with more information than you get from the BBC, until Spring earlier this year). Besides the fact that the border is still there, there is still not total equality for Catholics in N. Ireland. Although this post is not an exhaustive list of that sort of thing in recent months and years, it pretty much covers all such issues in the last two weeks or so and covers a lot of stuff if you look back further than that.
1) July 12th is a major unionist holiday in N. Ireland and the night before most unionist areas have giant bonfires. In recent years and, I think, long before that Irish flags, effigies and election posters of both SF and SDLP politicians are often placed on the bonfire material before it’s lit. Recently attention has been drawn to the approving attitudes towards this of senior DUP members. (see this (as far as I can tell, the only response from anyone in the DUP has been defiance from former health minister Edwin Poots)). Although anti-sectarianism doesn’t demand this of them, SF is so committed to good community relations and the Peace Process that it has been opposed to burning Union Jacks for at least two years if not much longer.
2) A march in commemoration of the 1971 introduction of internment, something that was leveled brutally and almost exclusively at the Catholic population, took place Sunday Aug. 7th. It was organized by dissident republicans in Belfast but when they were banned by the Parades Commission from the city center, a SF MP, Paul Maskey said that it should be allowed into the city center (where according to the Irish News loyalists have marched in recent months).
3) Although there has been very little conflict (in terms of nationalist rioting or large-scale nationalist protests) around this in recent years, there is still the problem of loyal orders (especially the Orange Order) wanting to parade more or less through Catholic areas. To a small degree they (contentious marches allowed to go ahead) still happen here and there (at least 3-4 times in the last two years), and there is potential for it to become a serious problem next year. As far as why it’s wrong for such parades to go more or less through Catholic areas, see this.
4) In recent years Catholics have been about 50% more likely to be unemployed than Protestants. That’s much better than it was during and before the conflict, but still leaves something to be desired in terms of equality.
The Police Service of N. Ireland
A huge chunk of what I’m talking about is about the police. In general, I should say that although the 2011 census found that 45% of N. Ireland’s population had a Catholic ”background” (whether or not they believe in God, they are part of the Catholic community (they’re regarded as “culturally Catholic”)), in recent years only about 31% of police officers come from that part of the population (and only about 20% of police staff come from that community). That gap for police officers is narrower than it was during and before the conflict, but it’s still pretty large and I think one likely partial explanation for it is that there are likely still a lot of times that PSNI officers engage in “political policing” when dealing with Catholics, nationalists and republicans. That's partly based on some anecdotal evidence I've read in the recent past and partly based on a 06 June, 2016 article in the Irish News that reported on something probably relevant to this. In recent years average PSNI strength was about 7,500 officers and the Irish News said:
"In December The Irish News revealed Police Ombudsman had recommended disciplinary action or sanctions against an average of around 300 police officers in every year since 2010.
At the time the PSNI described the figure as "concerning", but added that it was working to reduce the number of Ombudsman complaints, which have averaged at around nine every day since 2010."
I don't know how many of these complaints are about hostility towards Catholics, nationalists, or republicans, but in any case it's fairly alarming.
(If you want some more of my thoughts about the police there, see this)
With that background in mind, there have been some fairly serious crises involving the police recently.
First, recently two offensive banners were put up in County Tyrone celebrating a deceased loyalist paramilitary leader- Billy Wright. One of the initial two banners referred to the killing by the UVF of three IRA members and one civilian in 1991. Despite a complaint about these banners by a member of the public, the police decided they were legal and said that some people wouldn’t be offended by them. This prompted outrage and an unheard of (in recent years) refusal by a senior SDLP politician to meet with a senior police officer (the one who had made the statement about offending people). The response of the police to these banners has also been compared with the removal by police in 2013 of a large sign in Enniskillen that was a derogatory statement about Margaret Thatcher around the time of her death.
Second, an independent (ex-SF) local councilor, Padraig McShane, was violently arrested at an Orange parade July 12th after getting into a confrontation with orange bandsmen who verbally attacked him in connection with an arson attack on his home in 2014. I haven’t heard anything about it in about 3 weeks, but the article I read said an SF assembly member was complaining to the police about the provocative behavior of the bandsmen who verbally attacked McShane.
if you want to go much deeper into this subject see the following:
https://www.policeombudsman.org/Investigation-Reports/Historical-Reports
https://www.policeombudsman.org/Investigation-Reports/Case-Studies
https://www.policeombudsman.org/Statistics-and-Research
So, the Statelet retains an Orange tinge here and there. I still believe it’s unlikely that Catholics will experience total, sustainable equality with Protestants in the British-occupied part of Ireland. Uniting Ireland should definitely still be towards the top of the agendas of progressives, republicans, and nationalists. I talk more in a post here about how Catholics have been treated and how a United Ireland would very likely not see the “tables turned” on Protestants and more generally about the argument in favor of uniting Ireland.
