Normalcy
“Is it… y'know, normal?”
If there’s one question that arises as a Northern Irishman in a foreign land, it’s the above. The questioner inevitably pauses, attempting to get the point across without offending any nationalistic sensibilities. Of course, prima facie, the answer is simply ‘yes’. After the darkness of the Troubles, 1998 brought the Good Friday Agreement, and a great reduction in violence since. In this vein, the recent murder of PC Ronan Kerr by an IRA car bomb was reported around the world as an aberration from the norm. “Northern Ireland is regular”, the editorials cry, but for a few misguided psychopaths. The answer, therefore, is simply to find and jail Mr. Kerr’s killers, and so return to the banality of European statehood. Much as I wish this were the case, it happens to be a fantasy.
To be sure, there have been improvements. Healthy inward migration reflects a rise in the nation’s desirability, as does a 220% rise in house prices in the decade after 1998. Politics in the province are run as a partnership between groups who wished their mutual destruction mere decades before. Some of the UK’s best schools and hospitals are to be found in Northern Ireland, and the commercial outlook is improving. Bombardier employs 5400 in Belfast, and other multinationals such as PricewaterhouseCoopers and Allen & Overy are present. Sounds like any other small European nation, but is it?
If you imagine two of your country’s children meeting for the first time, what would you expect them to discuss? Music, perhaps, or sports, or television. In Northern Ireland, the first question is cryptic to outsiders, “Prod or Fenian?” It asks whether the person is Protestant Unionist or Catholic Nationalist, which determines whether social interaction can occur. There are problems far beyond the verbal, but they are symptoms of the same sectarian disease. The local government mentioned above keeps five parties in constant power, as the concept of 'opposition’ was expected to prompt only violent rejection. Some academically-selective schools are indeed excellent, but the remainder offer the UK’s lowest standards, with only 6% in integrated (dual-community) education. Peeling back the veneer of the business community, Bombardier’s example stands against a sea of industrial closures. PwC operates only satellite offices, and Allen & Overy’s much-trumpeted entry brought data entry and IT, not lawyers. Indeed, 20% of the Northern Irish economy is simply a £6bn subsidy from the UK, given to patch up the province’s long-standing poverty.
Returning to the issue of security, often discussed as if only of historic importance, crippling deficiencies remain. Two days after PC Kerr’s murder, 500lb of explosives were left beside a busy road, with more destructive potential than the Omagh bomb which killed 29. As I began writing this article, teenagers were throwing petrol bombs at Belfast schools. To inhibit such tendencies, massive walls in Belfast and other cities divide the communities, reaching up to 26ft high and miles in length. These are euphemistically termed ’peace walls’, even as the bombs fly. Windows will be fixed and floors swept, but destruction will recommence next weekend.
An American friend who once studied the Northern Irish problem recently remarked that “it really isn’t normal, is it?” He knew me well enough not to pause, but still waited anxiously for my reaction. I would love to have been angered by the audacity of the statement. Unfortunately, he happens to be right.