Religion, Conflict and Peace in the North of Ireland
The St Oliver Plunkett Talks Series, for the 2013 West Belfast Festival
St Oliver Plunkett Church, 8 August, 2013
Thank you for the invitation to speak tonight. This is my second appearance as a speaker in
the festival – many years ago I talked about police reform – but my first in St Oliver
Plunkett’s Church. I feel honoured to be here. There is an element of trepidation, however,
in talking about the Northern Irish conflict. As you all know very well, everyone has an
opinion on this and everyone thinks their opinion is correct.
I call this the Principle of Firm Opinions Wrongly Held, and this principle summarises the
problem we face in Northern Ireland today: we show little tolerance towards the opinions of
those with whom we disagree. This creates specific problems for academics like me. Our
painstaking research, collected by systematic, scientific practice, tends to be decried and
denied if it doesn’t conform to what people already believe to be true. The response to this
is mostly to avoid debating our research in public, restricting ourselves to dialogue with
fellow academics.
However, engagement with the public is an important part of how I see my role as Queen’s
first professor of post-conflict studies. So I seek out opportunities like this as a way of trying
to help contribute to public debate. I take the risk though that the Principle of Firm Opinions
Wrongly Held will mean some people in the audience will disagree with me fundamentally.
All I ask is that you we are polite in our disagreement.
I was asked to talk tonight about religion and conflict as much as religion and peace, so let
me begin there. The Northern Irish conflict was not a religious or holy war. It was not about
theology or different interpretations of Scripture. It was about the legitimacy of the state and
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about equal access to the scarce resources distributed by the state. The substance of the
conflict was entirely political. However, the way the conflict was experienced took on
religious forms. This distinction between substance and form is often misunderstood, so let
me elaborate.
Substance describes the content of the conflict – what it was about; form, describes the way
in which it was experienced and perceived. It was understandable that many people should
fall into the error of confusing the two and thereby mistakenly think there was a religious
element to the conflict. After all, the groups between whom there was conflict were mostly
described using religious labels, the institutional churches often took sides in the conflict,
and religious figures were sometimes the most intemperate when speaking about it. Above
all, the association between religion, identity and territory, which is how many people
themselves make sense of the conflict, goes right back to Abraham’s covenant with God in
the Old Testament. I might add that Jesus’ new covenant breaks that link in the New
Testament, but a lot of the religious rhetoric used during the conflict was drawn from the Old
Testament not the New. So substance and form got confused. What was a political conflict
was given a religious hue.
Having laboured this point, I would like now to address the problems this confusion caused
the churches. Several come to mind, but I want to stress two in particular. First, the
confusion of substance and form caused the churches to be associated in people’s minds
with the conflict; secondly, this confusion between substance and form constrained their
engagement in peace, limiting their involvement. Let me deal with each problem in turn.
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Let’s be clear. The churches never supported violence. There was no encouragement from
the pulpit for holy war. Northern Ireland never experienced Jihad. But the churches could
never rid themselves of association with the conflict because of its religious form. They were
thought to be political and attributed political positions by default; they were thought of as
belonging to one side or the other rather than to Jesus Christ alone. Members of the two
main religious communities often perceived the Other’s churchmen and women to be highly
politicised, while denying this in their own. Political interference was attributed even where it
didn’t exist; and this despite the honourable commitment of all churches to non-violence.
But, of course, there are many instances in recent Irish history when by choice the churches
took sides, when they became highly partisan and political, a historical legacy which, later, at
the height of the violence we call ‘the Troubles’, the churches could not evade, even though
most wanted to. Sometimes by choice, then, and always by default, the churches were
thought of as central to the conflict. This perception still dogs the churches as a legacy of
the past.
However, the most critical problem arising from this confusion of substance and form, was its
implications for church engagement in the peace process. Despite their condemnation of
violence, the churches were not seen as neutral and above the fray. They were seen as part
of the problem. This made it very difficult for them to be seen as part of the solution. The
irreligious and non-religious in Northern Ireland would think this anyway, but so did most
religious people. Wrapped up in the conflict, they were seen as incapable of making
themselves relevant to the peace.
So when I came a few years ago to undertake research precisely on the topic of the
churches’ involvement in the peace process, people’s reaction was incredulous. What role
people asked? Even after four years of painstaking research and publication of a book on
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the topic, which, incidentally, was launched at Clonard Monastery in December 2011, some
people still believed in their firm but wrongly held opinion that the churches did nothing.
I want you to see why ordinary people should hold this view, for in their confusion of
substance and form, to them the churches were part of the problem not part of the solution;
and no matter how painstaking the research or persuasive the book, nothing can change
their opinions. I recall a well-known commentator and columnist in the Irish News, saying on
Radio Ulster’s Sunday Sequence programme the morning after the launch, clearly unable to
have read the book in time, telling listeners that we were mistaken – although doing so much
more impolitely than that. Incidentally, we were also attacked on the programme by a
Presbyterian minister and former moderator for not acknowledging enough the contribution
of the churches, although he had the grace later to acknowledge in a private communication
that now he has read the book he felt the Sunday Sequence discussion did not do justice to
it. Of course, if you’re attacked from both sides, perhaps you’ve more or less got it right.
The important question, then, is whether there is any truth in the popular view that the
churches did nothing. My answer is yes and no. Religion was important to the peace, but
only in specific ways and primarily in a manner that, paradoxically, actually sustains the
mishapprenson they did nothing. Let me explain.
The institutional church – by which I mean the church leadership, chief office holders and
bureaucrats – did very little in the peace process other than minimally condemn the violence.
This was for many reasons. They could not agree what peace meant – was it merely an end
to the violence or something more fundamental involving justice and social and political
change? They were also fearful of engagement. What they feared was different between the
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denominations. Some were fearful of openly criticising the British state, some were fearful of
criticism from within their own congregations for being too progressive or not progressive
enough, some were fearful of provoking complaint from members of the other religious
community and confirming that community’s every stereotype about politicised prelates. The
Catholic hierarchy, for example, was very concerned not to give sustenance to baser
Protestant stereotypes that the Catholic Church was the IRA at prayer.
Incidentally, other research we did on religion and ex-combatants, that I will discuss shortly,
confirms that few Republicans were practising Catholics, although I suspect that the
Principle of Firm Opinions Wrongly Held will not diminish the conviction with which this
stereotype is believed.
In addition to fear, though, they mostly lacked the knowledge of how to intervene for good in
the peace process. Their training was as specialists in pastoral care not conflict resolution;
there was a strong feeling that something ought to be done but a lack of skill in knowing
what. They were also parish or presbytery managers not social transformers; the demands
of their daily round precluded active engagement. I could go on, but my next point is the
most important one.
Despite the failures of the institutional church, there was a strong prophetic presence in the
peace process by some religious actors as individuals. The key contribution of religion to
peace was through them. The institutional church did little except speechify about the
violence and write grand statements, but there were courageous individuals on the ground
who did a very great deal. These religious actors mostly worked without the authority of their
church leadership; we were told by Cardinal Cathal Daly, for example, that he did not even
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know what Fr Alec Reid was up to in Clonard. They worked for peace in spaces that were
outside the control of cautious, conservative and largely unsupportive bishops and
moderators. Or they were employed in faith-based NGOs, like ECONI, ecumenical and interfaith communities, like Corrymeela, and independent religious orders, like the Redemptorists
in Clonard, that were not subject to the same level of control and constraint.
We referred to these people as religious independents, mavericks and individuals, and they
were found in every denomination, on both sides, and of every gender. They were often
criticised by their church leadership or held out to dry when it became known they were
involved. The treatment of Fr Alec Reid is a case in point. Some were even banished by
their church leadership and forced to move to elsewhere; the Rev David Armstrong was
forced out of Northern Ireland after wishing happy Christmas to the local parish priest. It was
personally very difficult for them to operate in this sort of unofficial and unsanctioned space.
As testimony to this, many prematurely aged, prematurely retired, became ill with the strain,
or voluntarily left Northern Ireland.
The most effective work of these mavericks, independents and individuals took place in
secret, behind-the-scenes, in back-channel settings, of which most ordinary people,
including their church leaders, were unaware. This was not only what the politics of peace
demanded, in that parties couldn’t be seen to be talking in public, it was essential if they
were to keep their activities secret from cautious, conservative bishops and moderators. But
this also meant that their peace efforts were kept from the rest of us as well. The general
public was simply unaware of just what these mavericks did, what risks they took for peace,
and just how courageous they were. What most ordinary people focused on instead was the
relative weakness of the institutional church; that’s all most people were aware of.
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The legacy of this reverberates today; and it still matters. It matters a great deal because
what we have in Northern Ireland now is the end of large scale violence. What we do not
have is peace in the sense of reconciliation. We have conflict transformation, but not social
transformation. A huge task still remains therefore in building a shared society; and the
institutional church is incapable of helping us inherit this future because of the legacy of its
own failures. Because of its irrelevance, the institutional church earned itself no legitimacy
during the peace process, which has prevented it from playing a major role in post-violence
reconciliation.
Contrast this, say, with most of the churches in South Africa, whose anti-apartheid activities
earned them such respect and legitimacy that they were able to lead the debate in postapartheid South Africa about the meaning of tolerance, truth, reconciliation and forgiveness.
Archbishop Tutu is only the most obvious and acclaimed example of this.
Where, though, are our churches in reshaping the civil sphere in the North of Ireland at the
moment? The churches have simply evacuated the public sphere.
I want to give sharper focus to this complaint by highlighting the issue of ex-combatants. In
research on ex-combatants, we studied a self-selected sample of Republican and Loyalist
ex-combatants, men and women. It involved the use of in-depth interviews – long hours of
talking in private – to probe their connection with the institutional church. We wanted to see
the role of religion in the decision, first, to take up arms, and then to desist, as well as
religion’s contribution, if any, to their current feelings of well-being.
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Most of the public comments on this research have addressed the fact that we revealed,
against people’s expectations, that a few Republican ex- prisoners are practising Catholics,
and practised right throughout their participation in armed struggle. People expected this of
Loyalist ex-combatants, not Republicans. But this misses our point. The main point of the
study was not to explore the religious beliefs of the ex-combatants we interviewed. It was to
examine whether or not the Christian principles which were enshrined in the religious values
of the community which they came from and on whose behalf they were fighting, influenced
them to take up arms, in a form of holy war, or influenced them to desist from violence, in a
form of holy peace.
It was the greatest achievement of the institutional churches in Northern Ireland that they did
not encourage these combatants to take up the military campaign. The churches did not
engage in Jihad. No ex-combatants we interviewed felt they were motivated by religion to
fight, either for Ulster or Ireland. But it was the greatest failure of the institutional church that
none of them gave up the armed struggle because of its teachings and precepts. They
rejected the institutional church because they in turn felt ostracised, marginalised and
rejected by it. Ex-combatants talked about being made to feel like scum by the institutional
church. Their decision to desist from violence was largely taken for non-religious reasons,
mostly as a conversion to politics rather than to God.
This is not to deny that some had religious reasons for giving up violence; after all, the
phenomenon of religious conversions in prison is well-known. But it was not as a result of
the institutional church. The institutional church was mostly embarrassed by combatants; in
some cases church leaders refused to talk to them. The institutional church featured
nowhere in their narratives as an influence on the choice of peace.
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In line with my previous arguments though, ex-combatants who did convert, did so after
coming across religious mavericks, independents and individuals who had a prophetic
presence in their lives and neighbourhoods. This came sometimes in the form of prison
chaplains, sometimes through visiting parish priests and pastors ministering to their needs in
prison and to those of their families on the outside, or through the leaflets and religious
pamphlets displayed around the jail. And yet, the Loyalist religious converts we talked to said
mostly that their own religious conversion in prison came after the religious conversion of
family and friends on the outside, not directly from churchmen and women at all.
The irrelevance of the institutional church is compounded by ex-combatants’ experiences of
it upon release. The failure of the institutional church to engage with post-conflict healing
more generally means it also neglects the special issues affecting ex-combatants today. If
we are to have a shared future, ex-combatants need to be a part of it; a shared future cannot
include some and exclude others. My point is that the churches are not envisioning this
shared future for us, let alone standing up for the right of ex-combatants to be part of it.
If I can be permitted an aside, the ex-combatants we talked to mentioned a range of
concerns – issues around the meaning of forgiveness, atonement, guilt and blame, their
social reintegration, employment prospects, problems around self-harm, domestic violence
and substance abuse, and the like. Of course, there are differences between Loyalist and
Republican prisoners around some of these concerns, as well as between religious and nonreligious ex-combatants, and male and female, young and old ex-combatants.
What I want to emphasise tonight, though, is that these issues are dealt with at a pastoral
level in the congregation for those ex-combatants who happen to practise and are not
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broaden out by the institutional church into a debate in the civil sphere about the specific
issues facing ex-combatants as part of a shared future. Thus, sad to say, much of the
support ex-combatants receive is not from religious actors at all. The churches, quite frankly,
are at a loss to know what to do about ex-combatants. They might not be alone in that, of
course, but the churches should be doing more given what the New Testament says about
Jesus coming alongside prisoners.
I find it difficult to conclude this talk. I fear I have been very negative. I am actually very
hopeful for the future here. But as a Christian I regret that the institutional church made itself
both irrelevant to the peace process and now also to the process of post-conflict healing. But
I am also very grateful for the prophetic presence of those courageous individuals,
mavericks and independents that lived out the Sermon of the Mount as a practice. They
deserve to be blessed for their peacemaking, for as Jesus said, they are the children of God.
But let me close positively. There are two lessons from this story. First, the institutional
church needs to reoccupy the civil sphere and begin to takes its place alongside other civil
society groups and together envision our shared future, pressuring the politicians to, frankly,
get their act together. We have the politics of the school yard that should make politicians
thoroughly ashamed. Secondly, this generation needs to find its Alec Reids, Ken Newells,
David Porters, John Dunlops and the rest. An earlier generation of religious actors helped us
end the violence. We now need a new generation of courageous, risk taking religious actors
to fight with equal tenacity and perseverance to win the peace. Thank you.
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