Peacemakers? Peacekeepers? - Women in Northern Ireland 1969-1995

Author(s): Valerie Morgan
Document Type: Research Paper
Year: 1996
Title of Publication: Publication Title
Publisher: INCORE, University of Ulster
Place of Publication: Londonderry
Subject Area(s): N.I. Conflict
Client Group(s) : Women

Background to the Research

  • This paper is a professorial lecture given by Professor Valerie Morgan at the University of Ulster on Wednesday, 25th October 1995. It analyses women's roles between 1969 and 1995 in relation to peace making and the development of community relations in Northern Ireland.

Research Approach

  • Following an account of women's traditional place in Irish Society, and of the ways in which images of women have been used in the iconography projected by both communities, a brief definition of peace and peace making is given, drawing on the work of a range of feminist writers. The main body of the paper focuses on women's roles in relation to violence, based on Galtung's triangular model, with its three elements of physical violence, structural violence and cultural violence.

Main Findings

Physical Violence

  • Women's attitudes to conflict, and responses to physical violence, have ranged from active support of paramilitaries to direct campaigning for peace.
  • Women's involvement in paramilitary groups has been mainly at support level - providing safe houses, passing messages etc. However, they have also transported guns and bombs and have taken part in major operations.
  • Evidence suggests their influence within paramilitary organisations at the policy level is relatively limited, and women seem to be particularly peripheral in the Loyalist paramilitary groups.
  • Some of the most high profile, grass roots, peace initiatives have been led by women and had a majority of women among their activists.
  • During the 1980s, the emphasis for many women peace activists shifted to lower key community development activities.
  • Women's involvement in these areas may reflect differences both in the structures through which men and women tend to operate and in their definitions of peace making.

Structural Violence

  • In their responses to structural violence, actions have been limited partially because women's power and influence in the political and public spheres in Northern Ireland was itself circumscribed.
  • Whilst some Unionist and Nationalist women have campaigned together in response to problems of human rights, these actions have all too often fuelled cross- community resentment and soured relations at local level.
  • The establishment of the Northern Ireland Women's Rights Movement in 1975 acted as an 'umbrella' for a wide range of organisations from both Nationalist and Unionist areas, and helped women to co-operate over common problems and demands such as the very low level of nursery school provision, the uneven implementation of the 1976 Sex Discrimination Order, and legal rights over abortion and divorce.
  • Domestic violence is a major human rights issue and a key element in structural violence. By the late 1980s, women across the community were actively campaigning against domestic violence, and refuge centres and telephone lines had been established in a number of population centres. Such initiatives may not fit the label of 'peacemaking' in the usually understood sense, but they did tackle central elements of gender specific structural violence.

Cultural Violence

  • Galtung saw cultural violence as manifesting itself in areas such as religion, language, arts and ideology. Differences in these spheres played a major role in sustaining antagonisms, motivating discrimination against 'the other' community and justifying or excusing violence.
  • Much of the cultural division in Northern Ireland is in the traditional areas of women's influence such as in the home, the family and the local community. If women were to be labelled as 'peacemakers', it was by combating cultural violence that they may have had the opportunity to be most effective.
  • In relation to religion, women often suffered from the impact of cultural violence as they had very limited influence on the decision-making structures in any of the major churches, despite making up the majority of church attenders. At the same time, they were often very powerful within the family as transmitters of culture.
  • Between 1969 and 1995, women frequently operated through informal or so-called 'track two' channels and there was considerable growth in the range of such groups and organisations - for example, groups focusing on charity, leisure and educational interests.
  • The impact of all this activity on conflict reduction and improved community relations is difficult to evaluate but it seems likely that a number of forces limited its contribution to cultural peacemaking.
  • The most influential organisation in many women's lives was the church. However, joint activities with members of other churches, especially across the Catholic/Protestant divide, were seen as dangerous because it was vital to preserve one's own faith, and contact could pose a risk to personal salvation.

Conclusions

  • To describe women as 'peacemakers' in Northern Ireland says little of value. It is more accurate to say that women have been both peacemakers and peace preventers and that the range of their attitudes and responses has been as wide and varied as that of men.
  • Women may not be peacemakers with a capital P in any simplistic sense, but they have provided some of the vital tools which the whole society needs in order to rebuild peace.

 

 

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