Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-j824f Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-05T05:11:38.776Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Scotland and Northern Ireland: Constitutional Questions, Connections and Possibilities

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 March 2014

Graham Walker
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

IN HER SUBMISSION TO THE OPSAHL HEARINGS ON THE NORTHERN Ireland problem in 1993, the literary and cultural critic Edna Longley made a simple point about the ‘Anglo-Irish Agreement’. This term for what was a pact between the UK and Republic of Ireland governments is, she argued, a misnomer: ‘[It] obscures the contested area, and panders to the belief – in both London and Dublin – that the UK is coterminous with England.’ Longley later urged that the Northern Ireland problem should be viewed more widely, in its proper context as part of the ‘melting pot’ of cultures of the two islands, Britain and Ireland.

Type
Articles
Information
Government and Opposition , Volume 33 , Issue 1 , January 1998 , pp. 21 - 37
Copyright
Copyright © Government and Opposition Ltd 1998

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 See Pollak, A., A Citizen's Inquiry, Dublin, Lilliput, 1993, pp. 339–41.Google Scholar

2 Longley, E., ‘Challenging Complacency’, Fortnight, 315 (03 1993).Google Scholar

3 See discussion of this episode in Walker, G., Intimate Strangers: Political and Cultural Interation between Scotland and Ulster in Modern Times, Edinburgh, John Donald, 1995, pp. 179–84.Google Scholar

4 Lynch, P., ‘The Northern Ireland Peace Process and Scottish Constitutional Reform: Managing the Unions of 1800 and 1707’, Regional and Federal Studies, 6: 1 (Spring 1996). pp. 45–62 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Dyer, M., ‘Scotland: Does Northern Ireland make a Difference?, Parliamentary Brief (11 1994), pp. 84–85.Google Scholar

5 An excellent guide to the Act and to the operation of devolution in Northern Ireland is provided in Ward, A. J., The Irish Constitutional Tradition, Dublin, Irish Academic Press, 1994, ch. 5.Google Scholar

6 See Kendle, J., Ireland and the Federal Solution, Montreal and Kingston, McGill‐Queen's University Press, 1989 Google Scholar; and Walker, Intimate Strangers, ch. 2.

7 See Ward, op. cit.; Bogdanor, V., Devolution, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1978 Google Scholar, ch. 3; Wilson, T., Ulster: Conflict and Consent, Oxford, Blackwell, 1989, ch. 9.Google Scholar

8 See Purdie, B., ‘Lessons of Ireland’, in Gallagher, T. (ed.), Nationalism in the Nineties, Edinburgh, Polygon, 1991.Google Scholar

9 Ward, op. cit., pp. 122–3.

10 Cornford, J., ‘Constitutional reform in the UK, in Tindale, S. (ed.), The State and the Nations, London, IPPR, 1996.Google Scholar

11 The Royal Commission on the Constitution (Kilbrandon) Report, Cmnd. 5460, 1973, part X, p. 54, 380.

12 Birrell, W. D., ‘The Mechanics of Devolution: Northern Ireland Experience and the Scotland and Wales Bill’, Political Quarterly, 49 (1978), pp. 304–21.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

13 Arthur, P., ‘Devolution as Administrative Convenience: A Case Study of Northern Ireland’, Parliamentary Affairs, 30 (1977). pp. 97–106.Google Scholar

14 See Walker, Intimate Strangers, p. 152.

15 There is no reference to the Northern Ireland case in the only substantial study of the referendum, Bochel, J. et al. (eds), The Referendum Experience, Aberdeen, Aberdeen University Press, 1981.Google Scholar

16 See Gallagher, T., Glasgow: The Uneasy Peace, Manchester, Manchester University Press, 1987, p. 327.Google Scholar

17 See the report on the spat between Alex Salmond (SNP leader) and George Galloway (Labour MP) as reported in the Scolsman, 5 August 1994.

18 See Brand, J., The National Movement in Scotland, London, RKP, 1978, pp. 150–4.Google Scholar

19 See discussion of this theme in Seawright, D. and Curtice, J., ‘The Decline of the Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party 1950–92: Religion, Ideology or Economics’, Contemporary Record, 9: 2 (Autumn 1995), pp. 319–42; Walker, Intimate Strangers, ch. 3.Google Scholar

20 Other destabilizing developments of the period included the miners' strike and the imposition by the Heath government of the three‐day week.

21 See Mitchell, J., ‘Conservatives and the Changing Meaning of Union’, Regional and Federal Studies, 6: 1 (Spring 1996), pp. 30–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

22 See Geekie, J. and Levy, R., ‘Devolution and the Tartanisation of the Labour Party’, Parliamentary Affairs, 42 (1989).Google Scholar

23 Much scholarly commentary has accompanied the deliberations of the Scottish Constitutional Convention, especially in the academic journals the Scottish Government Yearbook (until 1992), and Scottish Affairs (from 1992). See, for example, Kellas, J., ‘The Scottish Constitutional Convention’, Scottish Government Yearbook, 1992, pp. 50–8Google Scholar; Lynch, P., ‘The Scottish Constitutional Convention, 1992–5’, Scottish Affairs, 15 (Spring 1996), pp. 1–16.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

24 Walker, Intimate Strangers, p. 168.

25 See debate on ‘Ulster‐Scots Identity’ in Northern Ireland Forum for Political Dialogue, Record of Debates, 23, 10 January 1997; also comments of David Trimble (Ulster Unionist Party leader) reported in Belfast Newsletter, 31 December 1996.

26 Hutton, Will, ‘The State We're in’, Fortnight, 333 (11 1994)Google Scholar; McWhirter, Iain, ‘SNP and Labour should end Stand‐off’, Scotland‐on‐Sunday, 25 09 1994 .Google Scholar

27 McWhirter, I., ‘Doomsday Two: The Return of Forsyth’, Scottish Affairs, 13 (Autumn 1995), pp. 16–26.Google Scholar

28 Michael Ancram as reported in Scotland‐on‐Sunday, 18 August 1996.

29 See Cornford, ‘Constitutional Reform in the UK’.

30 See Lynch, ‘The Northern Ireland Peace Process and Scottish Constitutional Reform’.

31 See Mitchell, J., Strategies for Self‐Government, Edinburgh, Polygon, 1996, pp. 286–7.Google Scholar

32 The work by the sociologists David McCrone and Lindsay Paterson is particularly important in this respect. See, for example, their contributions to section entitled ‘Autonomy and National Identity in Stateless Nations: Scotland, Catalonia and Quebec’, in Scottish Affairs, 17 (Autumn 1996); and Brown, A., McCrone, D. and Paterson, L., Politics and Society in Scotland, Basingstoke, Macmillan, 1996, especially chs 2, 3, 9 and 10.Google Scholar

33 See contributions in Foster, J. (ed.), The Idea of the Union, Vancouver and Belfast, Belcouver Press, 1995 Google Scholar; and Porter, N, Rethinking Unionism, Belfast, Blackstaff Press, 1996 Google Scholar. It should be noted, however, that there are important areas of disagreement between Porter and academic contributors to the Foster collection such as Arthur Aughey.

34 Brand, J., Mitchell, J. and Surridge, P., ‘Social Constituency and Ideological Profile: Scottish Nationalism in the 1990s’, Political Studies, 42:4 (12 1994). pp. 616–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

35 See e.g. comments of Alex Salmond in the Herald (Glasgow), 24 August 1996.

36 Salmond, A., ‘Northern Ireland and the Scottish Question’, Scottish Affairs, 13 (Autumn 1995), pp. 68–81.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

37 See comments of Doherty as reported in the Herald, 13 November 1995.

38 See Bogdanor, V., ‘SNP Going against Spirit of the Times’, Scotsman, 25 09 1996 .Google Scholar

39 Wilson, R., ‘Northern Ireland Peoples, Nations, States and Sovereignty’, Scottish Affairs, 8 (Summer 1994), pp. 44–54 Google Scholar; Kearney, R. and Wilson, R., ‘Northern Ireland's Future as a European Region’, in Kearney, R., Post‐nationalist Ireland, London, Routledge, 1997.Google Scholar

40 See the work of McCrone and Paterson listed in n. 32.

41 Ascherson, N., ‘National Identity’, in Radice, C. (ed.), What Needs to Change: New Visions for Britain, London, HarperCollins, 1996.Google Scholar

42 In addition to the works cited above by McCrone, Paterson, Wilson, Kearney and Ascherson, see Delanty, C., ‘Northern Ireland in a Europe of the Regions’, Political Quarterly, 67: 2 (04–06 1996), pp. 127–34.Google Scholar

43 See Kearney, Post‐nationalist Ireland.

44 For example, McGarry, J. and O'Leary, B., Explaining Northern Ireland, Oxford, Blackwell, 1995 Google Scholar; and Ruane, J. and Todd, J., The Dynamics of conflict in Northern Ireland, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1996 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

45 Longley, E., ‘The Irish Republic: Part of the Problem/Part of the Solution’, Times Change, 8 (Summer/Autumn 1996), pp. 9–15.Google Scholar

46 Kearney, Post‐nationalist Ireland, p. 182; for a discussion of this concept in a Scottish context see Smout, T. C., ‘Perspectives on the Scottish Identity’, Scottish Affairs, 6 (Winter 1994), pp. 101–13.Google Scholar