Background to the Research

• Whereas other research has concentrated on politics for the solution to the conflict in NI, this article focuses on the support which violent methods have amongst the Catholic and Protestant communities.
  

Research Approach

• The article looked at surveys completed in 1968, 1973, 1978, 1995 and 1998 to trace the patterns and draw the conclusions outlined in the article.
  

Main Findings

Aggregate Patterns of Violence

• There has been violent conflict in Ireland for centuries, beginning with agrarian violence. This moved to an urban setting when Catholics and Protestants moved to Belfast in the 19th Century, drawn by the jobs created through industrial advances. This led to violence, with 60 deaths caused by rioting.
• 3,289 people had been killed in the period between 1968-1999, with 40,000 people injured. The two main areas of conflict where Belfast and Londonderry. Over 17,000 people have been charged with terrorist offences since 1972.
• The Provisional IRA killed the most people, 1,696 since 1972. The other republican movement at the beginning of the conflict was the Official IRA. It declared a ceasefire in 1972, with dissenters forming the INLA. The INLA specialised in assassinations and killed 117 people.
• Loyalist terrorists between them killed 991 people, 439 of which were caused by the UVF, who were formed in 1966. The UDA caused relatively few deaths, working mostly through its proxy organisation, the UFF, which killed 254 people. The remaining deaths caused by loyalists were through fringe organisations or committed by other individuals.
• Of the security forces, the British Army killed 297 people, the RUC and the UDR 64 people. 125 of the deaths caused by the Army were members of the IRA, or other republicans.
• Nearly all combatants are male, exclusively so amongst loyalist organisations. The average age of British Army soldiers killed is 24.6 years, those in the IRA 24.9 years.
• 54% of those from NI who died were Catholics.
• There have been several conflicts within the overall ambit of the troubles. The conflict that caused the most deaths was that between the republicans and the security forces. Another element was the loyalist campaign against the civilian population, mainly Catholics. Thirdly, the republican campaign against civilians, mostly in the form of indiscriminate bombings.
• Relatively few republican deaths have been caused by loyalists, and vice versa, despite the antagonism between the sides. Four times as many republican deaths were caused by their own side as the number of loyalists they killed, and the loyalists killed twice as many of their own members as they killed republicans.

Personal Exposure to Political Violence

• People from NI have more experience with political violence than any other advanced industrial societies. The three forms of political violence are; direct experience of violence (being the person attacked), indirect experience (knowing someone who has been attacked) and collective exposure to violence (being caught up in a violent act such as a riot or explosion).
• Catholics have more direct experience of violence than Protestants, especially in the form of intimidation. They also have more experience of indirect violence, although the differences are not as marked, as equal numbers of both sides of the community reported knowing someone killed or injured in 1995. Catholics have more experience of collective exposure to violence as there are more riots in their areas, although both sides have a similar exposure to explosions.
• Location, gender and age also impact on a person's exposure to violence. Those who live in Belfast or Londonderry are more likely to be killed in the troubles. Men are more likely to be exposed than women, Protestant men in their thirties are more exposed to violence than any other group. Protestants who attend mixed schools have a greater chance of being exposed to violence.

Public Support for Political Violence

• There is popular ambiguity towards the use of political violence in NI. Within other nations, support for violence exists immediately following a war or civil conflict, this evaporates once a democratic institution comes into place. However, in NI two methods of gaining political change exist side by side; the use of politics, and the use of force. The use of violence depends on how expedient it would be to use it, and groups who normally use one of the above methods often utilise the other one as well, e.g. Sinn Fein and the IRA.
• Support for violence amongst the public is hard to gauge and may be dependent on the political circumstances at the time of asking. In 1968, a survey found that half of Protestants surveyed felt that the use of any means necessary to attain a political goal was right, whereas only 13% of Catholics agreed. This changed in 1973, when 25% of Catholics agreed that violence was a legitimate way to achieve goals, whereas only 16% of Protestants agreed. This change is attributed to the violence which affected Catholics in the early years of the conflict, and their desire to stop Protestant attacks. In 1978, half of Catholics interviewed felt that IRA members where 'patriots and idealists', slightly fewer Protestants felt the same way about loyalist paramilitaries. A 1998 survey showed that 31% of Protestants showed some sympathy with loyalist terrorists, with 24% of Catholics showing similar sympathy with republicans.
• The surveys showed that there existed some sympathy with the actions of the other side's paramilitary behaviour.

The Consequences of Political Violence

• Political violence impacts on people's lives, their livelihoods and their property. Violence begets violence; many paramilitaries state some form of violent experience as their reason for getting involved in paramilitary organisations. It disrupts the exercise of democracy in NI, with the recent issues concerning decommissioning causing problems in the NI Executive.
• Those who have been indirectly exposed to violence in both communities are more likely to have sympathy with paramilitary activities. Protestants who have been directly affected by violence are less likely to be sympathetic whereas Catholics in the same situation are more likely to be sympathetic.
• Attitudes towards paramilitaries shape views on decommissioning. Those who support the paramilitaries are most likely to oppose decommissioning.
• Protestants exposed to collective violence are more likely to support decommissioning, whereas the opposite is true of Catholics. This is perhaps due to the role of the security forces, who are most likely to be in opposition to Catholics in collective violence, thereby garnering support for paramilitaries.

Conclusion

• Only a sustained period of peace is likely to break the cycle of violence in NI, with undercurrents of support for paramilitary organisations likely to continue for some time.