Queering Conflict

Examining Lesbian and Gay Experiences of Homophobia in Northern Ireland

Marian Duggan

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• eBook ISBN: 9781317072515
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: LGBT Studies
• Index: Social Sciences

Queering Conflict offers a unique culturally specific analysis into the ways in which homophobia in Northern Ireland has been informed and sustained during the latter half of the twentieth century. This book takes the failure of the British Government to extend the 1967 Sexual Offences Act to Northern Ireland as its central point to demonstrate the subtle, but important, differences governing attitudes towards homosexuality in Northern Ireland. Both homophobia and hate crimes are shown to be situated within the framework of Northern Ireland's socio-political history as well as part of an overall culture of violence which existed as a result of 'the Troubles'. Duggan shows how the influence of moral and religious conservatism born out of sectarian divisions led to homophobia becoming an integral part of community cohesion and identity formation. Decades of political instability led to the marginalization of rights for lesbians and gay men, but the peace process has led to the development of a discourse of equality which is slowly allowing sexual minorities to situate themselves within the new Northern Ireland.

Chapter 1
Contextualising Prejudice and ‘Hate’ in Northern Ireland

Much of the extensive academic coverage of Northern Ireland has concentrated largely on the three decades of ethno–political conflict known as ‘the Troubles’. This focus has been described as being discernibly disproportionate to the actual size and scale of the issue (see, for example, Bell 1991, Whyte and FitzGerald 1991, Ruane and Todd 1996, Fay et al. 1999, McKittrick and McVea 2001). As a result, it can also be seen as having pushed other social, political and legal issues to the margins. Instead, the national and social divides routinely discussed indicate the importance of demarcating identity: Republican or Loyalist, nationalist or unionist, Catholic or Protestant, Irish or British (Whyte and FitzGerald 1991). In reality these are rarely neat divides: unionists usually align more with a Northern Irish or a British identity, but not always; myriad identities are to be found under the label ‘Protestant’; and nationalists may range from favouring a somewhat limited amount of British intervention to none whatsoever (Whyte and FitzGerald 1991).

This chapter outlines the most pertinent aspects of Northern Ireland’s history to provide a cultural backdrop and necessary context for the forthcoming narratives which were often situated in, and refer to, this significant time. Upon doing so, the chapter shifts focus to concentrate on locating LGB&T communities within what is perceived to be a ‘new’ Northern Ireland, one moving towards a post–conflict identity. Here, the examination indicates how histories of homophobia can be linked to the formation of this political entity. The ways in which homosexuality is understood by the two dominant religious doctrines in Northern Ireland – Catholicism and Protestantism – is also addressed.

Following on from this, the chapter explores the concepts of homophobia, heterosexism and hate crimes. Here, the justification for situating analyses of sexual prejudice within their specific cultural frameworks is exemplified. Understanding and challenging homophobia in Northern Ireland necessarily requires a focus on Northern Irish politics, morality and society before comparisons can be made with places such as Great Britain or the Republic of Ireland. Therefore, although theories of homophobia and heterosexism are part used to understand prejudice against sexual minorities, the following chapters aim to discern if and how these theories may not be as applicable to lesbian and gay experiences in Northern Ireland. Similarly, political shifts towards addressing hate crime indicates the limitations of this move in situating prejudice within the pathologised individual rather than addressing wider social factors. Theories which have arisen in relation to this developing field indicate the need to culturally locate such prejudice within its specific environment. Therefore, in addressing these, a more holistic analysis is provided of the factors informing homophobic ideologies and sustaining homophobic prejudice in Northern Ireland.

A Society in Transition

During the prolonged period of conflict in Northern Ireland, identity and spatial struggles between nationalist and unionist groups overshadowed other minorities, rendering them politically invisible (Kitchin and Lysaght 2003, 2004). As a result, identification within this sectarian currency was often required before individuals and groups claimed access to a politically–recognized ‘self’ (Conrad 1999: 55). This situation remains evident in the devolved Northern Ireland Assembly where MLAs must assign themselves to one of three options: ‘Nationalist’, ‘Unionist’ or ‘Other’. Nevertheless, Northern Ireland is very much a society going through a significant period of transition. The ongoing and relatively successful peace process and the predominant stereotypical Irish temperament of welcoming hospitality have helped shift attention away from these past troubles and towards a more modern image of inclusivity and cultural richness. Indeed, Derry/Londonderry’s1 success in being chosen as the inaugural UK Capital of Culture for 2013 indicates the progress made in Northern Ireland since the late 1990s. Although peace is to be welcomed, it does not mean that the past can be forgotten; the drive for stability is very much an ongoing process in Northern Ireland as has been demonstrated with the dissident Republican events of 2011. The murder of Police Constable Ronan Kerr coupled with the discoveries of several explosive devices in and around Belfast indicates the small but significant threat to the peace process by those who reject the progress which has been made so far. Therefore, an exploration of Northern Ireland’s socio–political history provides some context through which to understand these issues and the reasons for this ongoing sectarian concern.

Implicit in many analyses of life in Northern Ireland are the themes of politics, religion, nationality, identity and conflict. The language used to depict tensions often situates these along religious lines, but while religion may have played some part in segregating communities the crux of the conflict was political and based on national identity (Mitchell 2006). Part of ensuring community stability requires recognising how the intersectionality of several linked elements goes back further than the events of the 20th century. A brief summary of key events is necessary to indicate the complexities to what is commonly referred to as ‘the Northern Ireland question’.

The creation of Northern Ireland as a political entity is less than a century old – the result of a long and drawn–out process of partition from what eventually became the Republic of Ireland. Prior to the plantation period of the 16th and 17th centuries, the island of Ireland was an autonomous, largely agricultural, Catholic country, where religious adherence bound otherwise rural, isolated communities (Ruane and Todd 1996). Ulster, in the uppermost north–east of the island, is one of the four provinces which historically (and geographically) comprise of nine counties.2 British Protestant settlers who arrived in the country primarily inhabited this well–positioned north–east area, taking ownership of land possessed by the native Irish then forcing them to rent it back. Many of these Protestant settlers were Scottish, bringing with them the Presbyterian religion: an increasingly puritan form of Protestantism that was more regimented than Catholicism (Connolly 1995).3 The struggle for control of Ireland led to the Battle of the Boyne in 1690, where the Protestant King William of Orange defeated the Catholic King James II, deposing him of the British crown and effectively establishing Protestantism in Ireland.

The Descent into Conflict

In the decades that followed, the industrial revolution prompted an expanding linen, shipbuilding and engineering industry with much of the production being located in Ulster. Therefore, most of the incoming wealth was harnessed by the increasingly Protestant north–eastern part of Ireland (Hayes and McAllister 2001). By the time of the Act of Union 1800, which created the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, a quarter of Ireland’s four million population were descendents of the Protestant settlers. The following year Westminster abolished the Irish parliament, taking complete control of Irish affairs. Opposition to this Act was both political and physical, with a principal organisation being the Repeal Association founded by Daniel O’Connell in 1840 and a splinter group, the Young Ireland movement forming from this and commencing physical action in 1848.

Few benefits of this revolution were felt by the native Catholic Irish. Their hostility towards British rule intensified following the 1845–1849 famine years in which the failure of the staple potato crops meant that thousands of poorer Catholic Irish people starved or migrated. The British Government refused to intervene financially, fearing that the money may be used to arm the increasingly unsettled Irish. As a result, Irish Catholics put forth a series of motions for what became a succession of Home Rule Bills. Their aims included removing the British from Dublin Castle, where they were currently overseeing the Irish administration. Unsurprisingly, the Protestant minority opposed these Bills, fearing religious and political oppression as well as a diminishment of their growing wealth (Amstutz 2004). Finally, in 1920 The Government of Ireland Act split the island of Ireland, enacting Home Rule in 26 largely southern counties while governing the remaining six – Fermanagh, Armagh, Tyrone, Derry/Londonderry, Antrim and Down – directly from Westminster. The Anglo–Irish Agreement of December 1921 created the Irish Free State a year later, eventually to be renamed the Republic of Ireland. Opposition to this partition was intense amongst those who sought a united Ireland facilitated by the British Government’s withdrawal.

The new political state of Northern Ireland was christened by violence; 428 people were killed in the two–year period that followed partition, two–thirds of them Catholic (McKittrick and McVea 2001). The Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) was established in 1922 to quell tensions. However, with the majority of its 3,500 members being derived from Protestant communities, many Catholics were sceptical of the RUC’s ability to be impartial. As World War Two broke out, tensions abated somewhat with communities becoming more integrated, especially in larger urban areas (Feldman 1991). The post–war period was also relatively calm, remaining that way until the mid–1960s when tensions again began to mount as a result of perceived unfair treatment towards Catholics by the predominantly Protestant/unionist government. A succession of peaceful demonstrations, marches and protests aimed at highlighting this discrimination tapped into similar civil rights movements taking shape in England and America, most notably the black civil rights uprisings. A series of events in the late 1960s and early 1970s – including Bloody Sunday, a report about which recently decreed that those shot and killed by British servicemen were indeed innocent after a 12 year investigation into the event – led to the worst period of sustained combat in Northern Ireland’s short history.

From 1968 to 1998, social and political life in Northern Ireland was dominated by often violent sectarian struggles (see O’Hearn 1983, Feldman 1991, McKittrick et al. 1999, Hayes and McAllister 2001, McKittrick and McVea 2001, Amstutz 2004). The high number of casualties during this period illustrates the severity of the Troubles. Estimates suggest that almost 40,000 people were injured and more than 3,500 people were killed (Fay, Morrisey and Smyth 1999). These are significant figures when contrasted against Northern Ireland’s population, which currently stands at just 1.7 million. It is evident, then, that ethno–political tensions have dominated life in Northern Ireland for a significant period of time. Although progress has been made with regards to peace and stability, the events of the past cannot be overlooked when analysing interpersonal or political relationships. Additionally, these events were so predominant in society that other socially progressive, cultural developments occurred far later (if at all in some cases) in Northern Ireland than elsewhere in the UK.

The Belfast (Good Friday) Agreement 1998 signalled an end to the worst years of the Troubles and the start of the current peace process. This new era was characterized by several amendments to policing and legislation which arose as part of the post–Patten era of institutional change in the police service. The Patten Report, published following the signing of the 1998 Agreement, recommended changes designed to harmonise traditionally divided members of Northern Ireland’s communities. Negative connotations associated with the RUC centred on the inherent British ethos and suggestions of brutality towards members of Catholic communities. As part of the measures brought in to address this, the RUC was renamed the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI). Changes to recruitment meant that Catholics, women, ethnic minorities and members of the LGB&T community were actively targeted to diversify membership. The enactment of various laws and policies enshrining equality and promoting good relations, trust and mutual respect was rolled out beyond the PSNI. This has set the scene for Northern Ireland currently being at its most culturally diverse, benefitting largely from migration as a result of a growing European Union. These values were also outlined in the first of the Programme for Government documents, which offered guidelines to embed these values in the ‘new’ Northern Ireland.

Following the 1998 Agreement, a wealth of specific laws aimed at enhancing LGB&T rights, equality and protection from discrimination and victimisation were introduced to Northern Ireland. The key organisations tasked with implementing equality and combating hostility included the Office of the First Minister and Deputy First Minister (OFMDFM), based at the Northern Ireland Assembly (NIA). Here, politicians are known as Members of the Legislative Assembly (MLAs). Responsibility also resided to a lesser degree with the Northern Ireland Office (NIO), based at Westminster (CJINI 2007). Northern Ireland was in a period of ‘direct rule’ (governed from Westminster), so much of this legislation was implemented by the Labour government and not domestically. Although advantageous to members of LGB&T communities in Northern Ireland, it appeared that Northern Irish politicians, if left to their own devices, would be less willing enact such laws. The failure to implement this legislation through domestic channels meant that underlying social and political prejudices towards homosexuality were not engaged with, challenged or addressed. Northern Irish politicians opposed to homosexuality were not made to state this on the record in the same way as many have openly objected to extending the 1967 Abortion Act to Northern Ireland. This may have been a crucial opportunity that was lost for Northern Irish LGB&T communities to confront negative ideologies and rectify problematic prejudices.

Histories of Homophobia in Northern Ireland

Several important historical events can be seen as informing contemporary representations of homophobia in Northern Ireland. These events indicate the ways in which homosexuality has been constructed as foreign (not naturally occurring in Ireland) and, perhaps most importantly, as British. Homosexuality may have been used by the Irish as a weapon against the British to undermine their dominance during the conflict over who ruled Ireland. Towards the end of the 19th century, a scandal broke of alleged homosexuality between elite members of the British establishment governing at Dublin Castle and criminal justice bodies. Hyde (1955: 133) provides an in–depth account and analysis of the numerous Irish men charged with sexual offences under the different criminal law Acts imposed by the British Government, claiming that ‘[t]he widespread belief that homosexual ‘vice’ was rampant in official circles in Ireland did much to discredit Gladstone’s Liberal administration at this time’.

The activities were brought to light by two Irish nationalists who were also staunch supporters of the Home Rule Bills which were passing through Westminster during this period. The resulting prosecutions occurred just prior to the amendments made to the 1885 Criminal Law (Amendment) Act, which widened the scope of the criminal law to include any unspecified sexual acts between men that could be termed ‘gross indecency’. Alluding to the simultaneous timing of these events, Rose (1994: 6) indicates that there may be some importance in the fact that ‘Irish nationalist ideology developed during such a homophobic period in European history’. The Irish effectively employed homosexuality as the ‘alien other, linked to conspiracy, recruitment, opposition to the nation, and ultimately a threat to civilisation’, in doing so instigating early dichotomous divisions between identities in Ireland (Stychin 1998: 9).

At the heart of the Irish Catholic identity was the ‘heterosexual, procreative, patriarchal family’ upon which the success and survival of the Church depended in such desperate times (Martin 1997: 96). These families were characteristically large in number, owing to the strict teaching of the Roman Catholic Church against any form of birth control. Sexuality was seen to be a gift from God to be used only for procreation. In uncertain times, the family offered a form of stability, recognition and security for both the individual and the community. Drawing on Foucault’s (1976) concept of the family cell as regulating normative heterosexuality against the deviant ‘other’, Conrad argues that, ‘the centrality of the family cell to social, economic, and political organization defines and limits not only acceptable sexuality but also the contours of the private sphere, the public sphere, and the nation itself’ (2004: 4). In other words, the primacy and continuation of the family cell was central to Irish national identity, homogeneity and community. The ideology of the family is not just heterosexual and procreative, but also alludes to history, continuity, regularity and the familiar. Homosexuality, on the other hand, is perceived to be on the negative end of this dichotomy. Conrad (2004: 25) claims that it was perceptions of homosexuality as ‘flexible’ and ‘unstable’ which caused concern for British and Irish societies, stirring up wider fears over control:

The concept of the homosexual as a foreign body, an infectious agent in the family cell, thus reveals a profound anxiety not only about sexual identity but also about the stability of the nation and state and the security of their borders.

This early implication of homosexuality as ‘a tool in the hands of the Irish nationalists’ was employed in a manner which made it impossible to ‘equate homosexuality with the nationalist ideal of Irishness’ (Hanafin 2000: 54). Indeed, Hanafin argues that ‘the Irish self that was posited by the postcolonial elite was pure and clean, expelling what it considered to be ‘impure’ elements’ (2000: 51).

Analyses of the trial and execution of Sir Roger Casement, a British revolutionary and Irish nationalist sympathiser involved in the failed Easter Rising of 1916, indicate how homosexuality was used to cast aspersions on one’s integrity by both sides in the Irish conflict. During his trial, Sir Casement’s diaries were seized and made public. These apparently indicated that he was homosexual, a fact which was referred to repeatedly in court (Hyde 1955, Dudgeon 2002, Conrad 2001, 2004). Although it was his political actions which sealed his fate, the employment of his diaries to illustrate his seemingly deviant sexual exploits, though entirely unrelated, effectively enhanced the allegations made against him. The links between sexual deviancy and general deceit had been strongly forged. Conrad (2001: 129) notes how the treatment of Roger Casement illustrates the importance placed upon dividing sexual and national identity at the time:

Both the British and the Irish made his sexuality foreign, either by denying it and accepting his patriotism (the Irish Nationalist response), or by accepting both his Irish nationalism and his sexuality as evidence of the same problem.

While for the British fears of homosexuality may have centred upon treason and blackmail, for the Irish fears of homosexuality tended towards invasion of difference and the onset of change. In both cases, the breach of borders could be seen as physical and metaphorical, yet comprising of very real fears for both sides. Expanding on this, Stychin (1998: 194) indicates that defining homosexuality through colonial discourses implies change, difference, unpredictability and unknowing:

This use of homosexuality has been exemplified by the colonial contamination model. In this guise, same sex acts and identities are seen through the lens of colonialism, and homosexuality becomes a symbol of modernity, contrasted to a ‘traditional” way of life based on heterosexual marriage and strict gender roles that existed before the perversion of the colonial encounter.

Stychin’s discussion of modernity and marriage is further reinforced by the Christian dominance which continues to inform Northern Irish society. Importantly, differences in understanding and responding to homosexuality shape the ways in which lesbians and gay men have been, and continue to be, perceived and responded to by Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland.

Demarcating Key Differences between Catholicism and Protestantism

Northern Ireland is a Christian society, with Catholicism and Protestantism comprising the dominant doctrines. Several core social and political themes can be identified to differentiate between Catholic and Protestant ideologies. While Catholicism remains strongest in social and institutional spheres (including within education sectors in Northern Ireland) Protestantism is more dominant politically as a result of strong and voracious ideologies (Mitchell 2006). Social identities divided along these lines often, but not always, indicate nationality and political preference. Importantly, what sets Northern Ireland apart from the rest of the UK is the way in which religion functions both top–down in a political sense and bottom–up in a community sense (Mitchell 2006). Although overshadowed by political tensions in the conflict, religion continues to greatly influence social and cultural differences in modern–day Northern Ireland.

The social and cultural dominance of Catholicism remains an important part of life ...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Dedication
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• List of Tables and Figures
• List of Abbreviations
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• 1 Contextualising Prejudice and ‘Hate’ in Northern Ireland
• 2 Constructing ‘Acceptable Victims’: Violence, Regulation and Resistance
• 3 Playing Sexual Politics: Overcoming Criminalisation, Conflict and Condemnation
• 4 The Moral Maze: Negotiating Sexual and Spiritual Selves
• 5 A Woman’s Worth: Lesbian Lives in Northern Ireland
• 6 Experiencing ‘Rebirth’: Surviving Sexual Disallowance
• Conclusion
• Bibliography
• Index