Bloody Conflict in America and Ireland: 1968-69

The struggle in Ireland for equal rights between religious groups is a story even older than racism. Before mankind was divided based upon melanin content, ethnicities and societies distinguished themselves from others based upon a certain system of beliefs in a higher power, or oftentimes, multiple higher powers. Even before monotheism came to dominate the religious landscape, particularly in the developed world, ancients would often persecute or justify war, enslavement, and pillaging upon divine inspiration. The advent of monotheism was marked by centuries of religious-inspired conflicts, the Jewish conquest of the Canaanites, for example. Two other important examples are the centuries of oppression, execution, and torture endured by Christians at the hands of the Roman Empire. Charlamagne’s conquests in the north of Europe are also well known for their brutality.

What is the common theme between all these infamous examples of religious warfare and persecution? Not necessarily that the parties involved are religious, after all, the Quakers, Amish, Jain, and most Christians today are well known for their pacifism. The true link between violence, oppression and injustice via religious discrimination is a wedding of religion and the power of the state. The human institution of government as usual poisons the well.

The logic I followed in class holds that when a state and religious ideology are successfully melded, any dissent from the religious body is essentially dissent from the government that is in cahoots with the religious body. By wedding the auspices of the state with the divine power of religion, governments not only obtain ultimate authority on earth but also have the ability to dictate the eternal afterlife – creating the ultimate coercive apparatus. In essence, I argue that the root problem is not religion itself, as there are arguably more examples of religions coexisting and living in peace with one another than there are of conflicting ideologies. Rather, I argue that the uniquely toxic combination of religion and the powers of earthly government creates a wholly unacceptable society rife with religious discrimination, persecution, and violence.

In reading and hearing from McCann I was struck most by the religious divide. I had always known that Northern Ireland was predominantly protestant and the Republic of Ireland was Catholic, but I did not know the extent to which this contributed to the troubles that occurred. I feel that this is something that we take for granted in the United States. While religious discrimination most certainly still exists, I feel that religious communities are pretty well integrated. That is, people of every religion live, work, and form relationships with each other. I was especially surprised that the religious discrimination came between different sects of Christians. From my personal background I have never experienced any Christian who felt that their sect was superior to any other. Further, I have never encountered any Christian who even seemed to care what denomination other Christians were. Perhaps this is unique to my experience, but I feel that in general Christians feel closely enough related in their beliefs that there is little quarrel between them. Additionally, I was also surprised to learn that the conclusion of the troubles in Derry did not resolve the religious divide. It shows just how much the Irish align themselves to their religious views. Religious participation in the United States, by contrast, has declined steadily over the years to the point where I have never personally witnessed religious discrimination— individuals with strong beliefs simply seem to be more rare. McCann wrote about how peace was mostly brought about due to the people not having the stomach to continue the slaughter. It seems to me that this peace was shoddily struck and a true conclusion to the separation of Ireland has never occurred. There remain calls for a united Ireland yet many in Northern Ireland remain loyal to the UK. It is a wonder whether there will ever be a resolution to this seemingly forever ongoing division. I am curious to see if religious communities in Ireland will set aside their differences and begin to coalesce as the religious of the United States seemingly have. Will the Protestants of the north and the Catholics of the south make up and form a united Ireland?

Hearing this week from Eamonn McCann, I was struck by the truth of his statement that “history is painted in primary colors.” For example, the Troubles in Northern Ireland is often described as the battle between the orange (unionists) and the green (nationalists). I think this fixation on different colors and this historical framing that pits one against the other reveals the human tendency to reduce complex situations to easily digestible stereotypes of opposing forces. War and an Irish Town demonstrates that the Troubles were not simply a battle of Catholics vs Protestants, and yet most people generally understand the conflict in those simplistic terms. I think part of what makes the Troubles and 68 in general so overwhelming and difficult to comprehend is the inability to reduce the events to a set of clear definitions, and any attempts to explain the events of 68 in terms of “this” vs. “that” runs the risk of obscuring the nuanced stances and shifts that manifested throughout the era.

            The “colour-coding of Northern politics” lamented by McCann is not only an issue in historical analysis today; sectarianism was also very much a reality in 68 itself. In War and an Irish Town, McCann described how the Good Friday Agreement only heightened sectarian divisions between nationalists and unionists, effectively forcing Northern Irish citizens to pick a side and preventing opportunities for a united working class of both Protestants and Catholics to come together and realize its common goals. Similarly, in the U.S. Civil Rights Movement Martin Luther King recognized that a serious obstacle to the movement was the black vs. white division that prevented white moderates from expressing solidarity with their oppressed black neighbors. These sectarian impulses even extended across the Atlantic, such as when McCann lost speaking engagements in the U.S. after showing public support for the Black Panthers. To many Irish Americans, African Americans were an enemy whose experiences were completely separate from their own, whereas McCann viewed the struggle for racial equality and the struggle for Irish civil rights as pieces of the same fundamental struggle against oppression. These constructed boundaries of black and white, orange and green, accentuate people’s differences, causing neighbors to forget their similarities as human beings seeking universal freedoms.

            The “us vs. them” mentality promoted by this sectarianism is often a catalyst for violence, as seen in the films, novel, and memoir we’ve read so far. For example, the Committee in Uptight, modeled on the Black Panthers, barred whites from participating in their meetings or activities because they didn’t believe they could trust any white people to actually help their movement. The Committee also utilized violence to forcefully advocate for racial equality since the nonviolent means promoted by King had resulted in little progress and in King’s assassination. In his memoir, McCann reflects on the blind generalized hatred Catholics and Protestants felt for one another in Derry, a sentiment that facilitated people’s adoption of violence in the fight for Irish civil rights. When people lack a sense of solidarity with their neighbors, the colorful divisions between people become their entire identities, and when one’s identity is attacked, it’s hard not to violently retaliate. Reading War and an Irish Town in light of our discussions on the readings of previous weeks has helped me recognize the polarization that incites violent action and reaction, as well as the importance of solidarity to make nonviolent protest fruitful.

From all the speakers we’ve had in class who have been a part of 68, its easy to see the passion they have for their role in the movements of the time. You could literally see Geoff, Sam, and Sarah lighting up as they recounted the old days in the poster workshop. The same goes for Eammon McCann as he remembered marching in protests and feeling connected to fellow protestors across the Atlantic shouting the same rallying cries he was. At the time of the protests, I’m sure none of them imagined those moments in the poster workshop or on the streets as being some of the best of their lives. They were focused on effecting change and I would imagine that was by far the dominating component of their thoughts. However, even as they focused on achieving the social progress they yearned for, they were forming deep connections with the people around them, the movement itself, and that point in history. It seems like those connections created a consolation of sorts for 68ers and the movement of 68. Yes, 68ers are often very assertive that not enough was achieved, but because of their deep connection to their place in history, they’re still able to wistfully remember those “glory days” with fond memories. While these important social movements may not always achieve as much in society for the target populations, it’s important to acknowledge that they do have positive effects on many of their participants, giving them meaning and happiness well into the future.

In addition to the satisfaction all 4 of these 68ers exhibited, being a part of 68 also clearly caused a lifelong commitment to standing for social progress. I believe it was Sam who proudly mentioned that he was still a radical to this day, and Eammon McCann was probably the best example. He spent his entire life fighting for social justice and admits he is most proud of raiding Raytheon in Derry to protest the creation of deadly weapons in his hometown. Although he did say he grew up to politically active parents, I think its unfair to not attribute some of his future life to the way growing up and being active in 68 shaped him.

In short, I think that when judging the successes of 68, it’s important to not discount all the positive outcomes that happened on the level of the individual. Not only did many protesters find personal fulfillment through the roles they played, a clear positive, but many like Eammon McCann were motivated to devote their lives to social justice, carrying the work of 68 on many many years later.

Recently, I have been taken aback by our guest speakers with direct experiences of revolutionary Ireland. Eamon McCann and Geoff Brown in particular showed a youthful exuberance and tenacity that I did not expect. I expected a drawn-out historical narrative told by a few tired old men, but to them, their movement was still happening, and they showed such a passion and exuberance for their beliefs and past actions that I was genuinely surprised.

In War and an Irish Town, McCann documents many violent events and their surrounding circumstances. What struck me the most about this writing, however, occurs in the dedication of the writing. McCann lists over 50 people who were presumably killed in the events which he spoke about in the reading. It is a very somber reading accompanied by a very somber dedication, which led me to think that McCann’s presentation would be equally sullen.

I was surprised by his excitement and energy. This was not a man broken by past experiences or loss, though it was clear that they weighed heavily on his mind. McCann was the embodiment of a man who was dedicated to Irish freedom and peace, even to the present day, in which he remains a devout socialist. His demeanor compared with the material of the text showed him as a very strong and committed person.

One of the things that has been on my mind for the past couple of weeks is the idea of radicalism, and how it is perceived by others and the radicals themselves. This was especially so after listening to Eamonn McCann speak during class. I suppose that there are varying degrees of trust of radicals, but it seems that the average person is generally distrustful of radicals. There are probably many reasons for this, but it seems that most of this distrust simply comes from the idea of change, especially change to the extent where you enter the realm of the unknown. Even if the system in place is problematic and sets up people to suffer, the idea of entering the unknown often is seen as more problematic that maintaining the status quo. I suppose this is the same logic many people apply to the fear of death. Despite many people’s belief that death is the ultimate neutral state, they would rather continue living in moderate pain. Of course, this is not to suggest that a radical revolution is the same thing as death, it is simply to point out the shared feature: uncertainty.

I suppose this idea of uncertainty must also be present in the mind of radicals, just probably to a lesser extent. I seriously doubt that radicals can dedicate great chunks of their lives to a cause without the constant weight of some amount of doubt about how their visions will actually manifest themselves. Maybe it’s just me, but I have a hard time believing people can be so sure of their imagined future. Based on this assumption, which to me seems perfectly reasonable, I wonder what exactly keeps radicals going, and how they deal with that uncertainty. Maybe it’s the belief that their future will at the very least be better than the current system. This further begs the question of whether or not radicals base their beliefs more in the hope for a new future or in the hatred of the current system. What is scarier to the average person?

The main theme that we have discussed and seen in class is divide and conflict, whether it be the divide between groups of people or the divide within oneself and their own beliefs and actions. Both the novel and film versions of The Informer provide great illustrations of such conflict, whether it be between the groups or within the individuals themselves. In his letters, MLK also spoke of the divide and conflicts not only between white people and African Americans but also within the revolutionary group. In its entirety, 1968 is a year comprised of different divides becoming increasingly more contentious and eventually explosive.
There have been many blog posts about history repeating itself and questions and theories as to why this is true. One I’d like to propose is that we, as a species, feel the need to categorize and group this, usually to help us understand things better. It was thus inevitable that we would begin to do this with ourselves. In a class I took last semester called ‘Race and Racism’, we learned and spoke about race being a social construct and being (incorrectly) used to explain differences in physical appearances within the human species and then (once again, incorrectly) projected to ‘inherent’ qualities and differences between the man-made groupings. The way of dividing has resulted in animosity festering between the said groups. The main reason I thought of this was because of a quote I read in War on an Irish Town which stated: “A Unionist minister would reply…if the situation was reversed Catholics would do the same thing to Protestants,” (McCann 52). I wonder if Eamonn agrees with this sentiment? Perhaps the man would’ve been correct, everything around us seems to be a power struggle, especially between the groups that have been created in our society: gay, straight, white, Black, Asian, man, woman, nonbinary, etc. Then again, it also seems like a convenient excuse to continue subjugating others without feeling as guilty.
So what of my previous blog post speaking of the role of love in a revolution? MLK and Maya Angelou both seemed to agree that the key ingredient to any successful revolution is love, more specifically agape according to MLK. Yet, as we see the cracks in our society and the different sides of different movements, there seems to be more of a love to hate than anything else. Do we naturally divide and do these divides inevitably create the conflicts we have been discussing in class and witnessing today? Where is the love?

In reading the excerpt from War and an Irish Town and listening to our class conversation on Monday, I was struck by Eamonn’s telling of his childhood experience with Irish Protestants in Derry. The matter-of-fact way he talked about never having really encountered any Protestants until starting college but being raised in an environment where he was taught to regard them with contempt was a reminder to me about how profoundly sad prejudice and systematic hatred are.

This is not only something I’ve experienced in the context of Eamonn’s story. My family is Irish-American and Catholic. The popular comedic trope about the racist (or misogynistic, or whatever the case may be) old relative that we all have is fulfilled in the case of my family in the older generations and their persisting bitterness toward Protestants. I grew up in an environment where it took me a long time to even realize that being Catholic wasn’t the typical American experience; it didn’t even occur to me until I was in maybe 5th grade that going to Catholic mass and Sunday School every weekend was unusual. I grew up so entrenched in this Irish-American Catholic identity that it skewed my understanding of my surroundings. Of course, young children are the products of the environments in which they exist; I thought being Catholic was normal because that is all I knew. It was difficult for me to understand that historically, being Catholic was seen as bad. That idea was so biblical to me. Religious martyrdom (literally and psychologically) was something that happened hundreds of years ago, how could it be something that dragged people down in a supposedly civilized world, in my life time? As a result of this upbringing, there is this internal wound that flares up when I encounter reminders of the wrongs committed, which perpetuates this bitterness toward the wrongdoers. And my family left Ireland like 150 years ago; my relatives didn’t even suffer the injustices of the 20th century in Ireland.

So this makes me sad. In the grand scheme of the history of the world, two peoples can’t be much more similar than Irish Catholics and Irish Protestants living in the same town. And yet the divide feels enormous. In the breakout room discussions on Wednesday, my group talked about how religious beliefs inform value systems, which play in a significant role in identity formation. From this perspective, the divide between Catholics and Protestants in Ireland seems almost absurd. Two groups of the same race, from the same country, both practicing Christianity should have so much in common in terms of identity. But faith was weaponized and used as a tool for subjugation, and now we are unsure if the world will ever see a united and free Ireland.

Our discussions in class thus far paired with the reading and conversations with Eamonn McCann has made me realize how truly different Irish Americans are from those who still live in Ireland. Of course, one can expect that when people emigrate from a country, their ideals and habits may change as they find themselves in a new country and a new culture. However, in the case of Irish Americans, there are very stark differences between the two groups. For example, when Eamonn traveled to America to talk about Irish civil liberties, he came into contact with the Black Panthers. This was frowned upon by Irish Americans, and his talks were canceled. The following quotation clearly displays the differences in ideology between the two groups:

“The argument of the Left was that our natural allies in the United States ought surely to be those who, like us, were fighting against oppression. The counter-argument, not just from Irish Americans but from many civil rights ‘moderates’ at home, too, was that it made no sense to alienate powerful US interests, that to gratuitously introduce issues of injustice in the US would, as one prominent Bogside Repiblucan put it to me, ‘split our support’” (McCann 4). 

Of course, not every Catholic person in Ireland held the same ideology. There were plenty of those with conservative beliefs who aligned with Irish Americans. After listening to Eamonn talk about his life in Ireland, I think there are distinct differences in people’s everyday lives that created this divide in ideology. In America, the Irish did not experience extreme persecution. They were free to practice their religion, and their ability to speak English enabled them to prosper in the new culture. Catholics in Ireland, on the other hand, faced extreme persecution from the Protestants. Of course, this treatment was not on the same level as the dehumanization that occurred in America with African Americans, but Catholics were definitely treated as belonging to a lower class than the Protestants. Those that were actively persecuted were able to see the connection between their struggles and those of African Americans. To those in Ireland, it made sense to ally themselves with people in America who were able to understand their struggles. Both African Americans and Irish Catholics had the same overall goal: an increase in civil liberties for those who had been oppressed. 

Towards the end of class, I began to think about the fight for African American civil liberties that is still ongoing today. I thought to myself, “I wonder if there are parallels in the Irish community today. Surely Catholics in Ireland would support the BLM movement as they had supported the civil rights movement years ago.” However, according to Eamonn, those in Derry who attempted to participate in BLM protests were warned that they could go to jail for their actions. When people attempted to express their solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement, police would begin to question them: “Why are you here? What is your name? You could get in trouble for this.” The goal of the police was clearly to disrupt the event. Eamonn told the class that he has seen many protests in Derry and none of them have had the same resistance from the police that occurred for the BLM protest. I found this very interesting, especially since I had thought that Ireland would be more sympathetic to the BLM cause. After doing some research, I found that although there isn’t persecution of Catholics in Ireland today as there was in the 1960s, there is still prejudice present. The peace walls that divided the Protestants and Catholics are not completely torn down. For those of you that read this post, my question to you is this: Why do you think that Derry had such a negative reaction to the BLM movement when plenty of left Irish Catholics supported the civil rights movement? This question is something I’ve been asking myself over the course of the week and I have yet to formulate a satisfying answer.

One question that got me thinking in class today was whether there was anyone to blame for the violence that occurred in Derry, and what role did the different groups involved in it play? I think the conclusion was that no one definite could really be blamed because there were smaller events leading up to the big displays of violence, and all of the groups were involved in that so we couldn’t necessarily point the finger at one particular group. I found it interesting that Eamonn McCann, though, quite blatantly seemed to blame those who were in higher positions for the massacre of Bloody Sunday. The soldiers who got blamed and did the time for it claimed that they were just following orders that were given to them by people who were higher up, but I wonder how far these orders can be traced back? Will they be able to find who, in the end, was the one sole person to give the direct order? Was there one sole person, or was it a group decision? I find that it is growing more and more difficult to find exact people to blame in today’s movements and displays of violence, because no one is in charge. This can also go back to our talk about movements having a central leader, and whether that is important or not when making a movement. I myself am not entirely sure of a leader’s importance in a movement, but a leader is very important for the opposing side, mainly because then there is someone to blame, whether it is right or wrong to blame them.

How are we supposed to assign blame to anybody in movements today or back in the movements, protests, revolutions of 1968 and beyond? I don’t think it is entirely possible in either case. If the Civil Rights movement under Dr. King had become incredibly violent against his wishes and many people had been hurt or killed, would he still have been to blame? He was the leader, so it seems that that is the obvious answer, but we all know it is not. The people who did the violent acts should have been blamed and punished, but is it the same for the Black Panthers, whose leader preached violence? Because they were violent in the name of Malcolm X, should he have been blamed and punished for every crime committed? How about the soldiers in Derry who were just following orders? Should the people they say ordered them to do it be blamed and punished? I think the idea of blame in this context can get a bit blurry. Should it still be that the people who committed the violent acts are the ones that get punished? Is there a sort of primary and secondary blame that should be observed? The soldiers were just doing what they were told, but could they have chosen not to pull the triggers, not to further the violence? It seems to me that the primary blame should be placed on those that give the orders for violence, but a secondary blame should still be placed on those that committed the acts, because we all have the free will to choose not to do something we know isn’t right, so there is still a conscious choice on our part to commit the violent act. Blame is a tricky thing to assign to people, but people always want to do it.