The Northern Ireland - Irish Republic Boundary - article ; n°2 ; vol.10, pg 215-226

J. Neville, H. Douglas, Peter Petera.Compton

Description

Espace, populations, sociétés - Année 1992 - Volume 10 - Numéro 2 - Pages 215-226
Irreconcilable cultural and economic differences caused the Partition of Ireland in 1921. The complex intermingling of Catholic Nationalist and Protestant Unionist on the ground meant that the International Boundary created unredeemed minorities and a deep sense of injustice. This legacy helps to explain the contemporary conflict in Ireland. The Boundary, through its influence upon migration and demographic change, has been an important factor in creating distinctive democratic regimes in the Irish Republic and Northern Ireland. The impact of the Boundary is seen most clearly in the destructive and selective economic, social and para-military activities of the boundary adjacent zones.
Today the boundary zones contain the spatial distillation of contradictory cultural and political aspirations. National perceptions continue to dominate group behaviour despite the growth of supranational integration and the decline of state boundaries elsewhere in the European Community.
La frontière entre les deux Irlandes.
De profondes différences culturelles et économiques ont provoqué la partition de l'Irlande en 1921. Le brassage complexe entre les nationalistes catholiques et les protestants unionistes a engendré de multiples insatisfactions et un sentiment profond d'injustice. La frontière entre les deux Irlandes a été un facteur important de l'apparition des différences démographiques. Son influence se manifeste très clairement dans les activités économiques, sociales et para-militaires qui animent les régions proches de la frontière.
12 pages
Source : Persée ; Ministère de la jeunesse, de l’éducation nationale et de la recherche, Direction de l’enseignement supérieur, Sous-direction des bibliothèques et de la documentation.

Sujets

• Sociologie, société et politique

Informations

• Publié par: ESPACE-_POPULATIONS-_SOCIETES
• Publié le: 01 janvier 1992
• Nombre de lectures: 20
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

J. Neville
H. Douglas
Peter A. Compton
The Northern Ireland - Irish Republic Boundary
In: Espace, populations, sociétés, 1992-2. Population et frontières - Population and frontiers. pp. 215-226.
Abstract
Irreconcilable cultural and economic differences caused the Partition of Ireland in 1921. The complex intermingling of Catholic
Nationalist and Protestant Unionist on the ground meant that the International Boundary created unredeemed minorities and a
deep sense of injustice. This legacy helps to explain the contemporary conflict in Ireland. The Boundary, through its influence
upon migration and demographic change, has been an important factor in creating distinctive democratic regimes in the Irish
Republic and Northern Ireland. The impact of the Boundary is seen most clearly in the destructive and selective economic, social
and para-military activities of the boundary adjacent zones.
Today the boundary zones contain the spatial distillation of contradictory cultural and political aspirations. National perceptions
continue to dominate group behaviour despite the growth of supranational integration and the decline of state boundaries
elsewhere in the European Community.
Résumé
La frontière entre les deux Irlandes.
De profondes différences culturelles et économiques ont provoqué la partition de l'Irlande en 1921. Le brassage complexe entre
les nationalistes catholiques et les protestants unionistes a engendré de multiples insatisfactions et un sentiment profond
d'injustice. La frontière entre les deux Irlandes a été un facteur important de l'apparition des différences démographiques. Son
influence se manifeste très clairement dans les activités économiques, sociales et para-militaires qui animent les régions proches
de la frontière.
Citer ce document / Cite this document :
Neville J., Douglas H., Compton Peter A. The Northern Ireland - Irish Republic Boundary . In: Espace, populations, sociétés,
1992-2. Population et frontières - Population and frontiers. pp. 215-226.
doi : 10.3406/espos.1992.1526
http://www.persee.fr/web/revues/home/prescript/article/espos_0755-7809_1992_num_10_2_1526J. NEVILLE School of Geosciences
H. DOUGLAS The Queen's University
Peter A. tOMPTON of Belfast
Belfast, BT7 INN
Northern Ireland
- The Northern Ireland
Irish Republic Boundary
island. To the established cultural dif
ferences of two centuries were added
distinctive economic needs and priorities
ORIGIN Two boundary people the came 17th Partition major Century. with into delimitation the Ireland socio-economic of Although Plantation Ireland was not in and the of 1920. new, events the movement Ulster associated this The underlie in Planfirst the of which tied North-East Ireland to the capital
and markets of Britain and the raw
materials of the British Empire.
tation settled for the first time, in the In this context it is not surprising that as
North-East of Ireland a significant non- Irish Nationalism and Republicanism,
Irish cultural element. The «Planters» of broadly associated with Catholicism, grew,
the desire to maintain the Union emerged predominantly Scottish Presbyterian origin
were not unlike the native Catholic Irish in in the largely Protestant North-East of
material wealth but they differed in Ireland. Thus Unionism grew to oppose the
religious affiliation and cultural heritage independence movement, and different
(Robinson 1984). These differences led to group values and aspirations matched each
other in increasing intensity on the march a history of turbulent conflict and a lack
toward political polarity. Violent of any significant assimilation. The second
Unionist reaction to the Home Rule Bill of major differentiating force emerged from
the Industrial Revolution. In the first 1912 convinced the Government when it
decades of the 19th Century the seeds of returned to the «Irish problem» after
World War I, that Parition provided the modern industrial capitalism took root and
flourished in North-Est Ireland. Centred only solution to implacable national and
political contradictions. Somehow the on Belfast and focussed on linen manufact
Unionist population concentrated in the ure, shipbuilding and engineering the
associated economic changes brought to North-East of Ireland would have to be
that part of Ireland the processes of modern separated from Irish Nationalists who
isation and urbanisation which were predominated in and controlled the rest of
scarcely felt through the rest of a the island. Although controversial, Parti
predominantly rural and agricultural tion would reflect the geography of 216
political aspiration and give cognisance to the South, which became the Irish Free
the principles of national self-determi State but allowed the six counties, which
nation established at the Treaty of Vers became Northern Ireland, to retain their
ailles. status as part of the United Kingdom. The
The outcome was the Government of Irish Free State after constitutional change
Ireland Act 1920 which provided for two in 1949 became the Irish Republic. North
separate parliaments North and South. The ern Ireland, with a population two-thirds
Northern area comprised the six counties of whom were Protestant and Unionist,
of Antrim, Armagh, Down, Fermanagh, thus achieved its goal of continued Union
Londonderry and Tyrone. In 1921 the with Britain.
Anglo-Irish Treaty gave independence to
LOCATING THE BOUNDARY
Partition on the basis of the six counties counties had to be resisted as each contain
ed a Catholic Nationalist majority. brought little satisfaction to either of the
national groups involved. Unionists were Nationalists in the new Irish Free State
attracted to a nine county Partition which strongly opposed Partition in any form but
would have equated the new Northern accepted it as a temporary measure in 1921
Ireland with the historic Province of Ulster while preoccupied with an internal civil
war. The illusion that Partition and the six and so would have included the not in
significant Protestant populations of county boundary would be a temporary
Counties Donegal, Cavan and Monaghan. reality was encouraged by article XII of the
However, the desire to include these three Anglo-Irish Treaty which set up the Irish
Figure 1. Distribution of Population by Religion in North-Eastern Ireland, 1911.
Majority -areas
Protestant
Roman Catholic
km 40
i I 217
Border 1920 Act
— — changes
proposed by I.B.C
Proposed territorial changes
from Irish Free N.I to State ^
from Irish Free State
to N.I.
Border zone within which
religious distribution by
townland was considered
by I.B.C.
• ENNISKILLEN
'••* Upper
Lough
Erne
Figure 2. Irish Boundary Commission Territorial Proposals, 1925.
international boundaries in Central Europe Boundary Commission. Article XII stated :
«The Commission shall determine, in ac at that time, the Irish Commission was fac
ed with the near impossible task of cordance with the wishes of the in
habitants, so far as may be compatible with separating two opposed groups who where
economic and geographic conditions, the inter-twined in a most complex pattern in
boundaries between Northern Ireland and which no one group formed an obvious
the rest of Ireland» (Hand 1969). The six majority (figure 1). The minor boundary
realignments recommended that fewer than county boundary was thus not automaticall
25,000 Nationalists should be transferred y to become the new International Bounda
ry. To Irish Nationalists it appeared from Northern Ireland to the Irish Free
State and around 4,800 Protestants from inevitable that « recognition of the wishes
of the inhabitants» would ensure trans the Free State to Northern Ireland.
However in October 1925 before publicaference of much of counties Fermanagh
and Tyrone and significant parts of Ar tion of the Report, a substantially accurate
forecast of the award appeared in the magh and Londonderry to the new Irish
State. When this transference took place Morning Post Newspaper. The detail and
the map contained in the article gave rise Northern Ireland would be too small to
establish economic viability and so would to political turmoil throughout Ireland
(figure 2). The Irish Free State Commissnot continue to exist as a separate political
entity in the island of Ireland. ioner resigned, the Commission was
dissolved and its Report containing the proAfter four years deliberation the Boundary
Commission chose a restricted interpreta posed Boundary changes suppressed. In
December 1925, in return for financial contion of Article XII and in its Report recom
mended only limited change in the location siderations, the Irish Government signed an
of the Boundary. As with the redrawing of agreement with the British which accepted 218
to work for the downfall of the new terthe international legality of the Boundary
ritorial order. At a practical level the new between Northern Ireland and the Irish
Free State as set out in the original 1920 international Boundary cut through set
Act. tlements and agricultural holdings and
The total failure of the Boundary Commiss across at least 180 roads ove