The purpose of this book is to describe the human costs of Northern Ireland’s Troubles, and to set those human costs in the historical, political, economic and social context of Northern Ireland. The book is organised in two main parts. The first part of the book provides a detailed context, both local and international, for the conflict and its human costs that are analysed in the second part. In this analysis, the demography of deaths in the conflict are discussed, and the geographical distribution of deaths and their relationship to other factors such as deprivation examined. Deaths are also analysed by perpetrating organisation and by the affiliations and other characteristics of those killed. Finally, Chapter 7 examines data on the impact of the Troubles on children and young people, and the conclusions look to the future of Northern Ireland in the light of the human costs incurred over the last 30 years.
The book is written in an atmosphere unprecedented in Northern Ireland. The cease-fires of 1994 ushered in a new sense of energy, possibility and determination for many people involved in understanding, participating or intervening in the Northern Ireland conflict. The declared end of violence on the part of both Loyalist and Republican paramilitaries removed a pressure to which we had become habituated in order to live with the relentless violence of the Troubles since the 1960s.
Yet in that new atmosphere, it became painfully clear how those cease-fires had come too late for many. The suffering of those who had lost family members, homes, parts of their bodies, peace of mind or the ability to sleep through the night, could begin to be explored. Until then, it was as if we dared not realise the extent of the damage in case we had to live with more of it.
A mother of five children in Beirut, cited by Raija-Leena Punamaki (1988: p. 4), said:
Let’s talk about psychology when the war is over. When the war is over, I will dream all those dreams I cannot afford to now... If I were to sit down and think of my emotional state, I would break down. You Europeans, you can have the luxury of analysing your feelings; we plainly have to endure.
For the first time in our adult lives in Northern Ireland, after the 1994 cease-fires, it seemed possible to turn our attention to exploring the issue of loss, and the suffering that many people had endured. An earlier study (Smyth and Hayes, 1994) shocked the researchers into the realisation that the depth and scale of suffering might well be greater than anyone imagined. Yet at the time the study was conducted, the violence was continuing. Under such conditions, the conduct of such research was very challenging, and the discourse about suffering and loss was highly polarised - and remains so. The suffering of one group may be dismissed and disqualified by referring to the suffering of another group on the ‘other side’, or to wrongs that have been done by the faction associated with those who had suffered. In that pre-cease-fire atmosphere - and indeed subsequently - there can be competition between groups and individuals for the position of ‘those who had suffered most’. Implicit in this competition is the assumption that those who have lost the most, or had the largest number killed cannot be held morally culpable for any damage done by their side, since any wrongs can be seen as understandable retaliation. Such is the inhuman dynamic of armed conflict.
Repeatedly, those who have been bereaved have called for no retaliation. However, the voices of those who have lost most do not carry sufficient authority, and often go unheeded. Those who have been bereaved and injured, as we demonstrate in this book, are predominantly civilians, unconnected with paramilitary groups or security forces. They have often been randomly targeted. The loss and injuries inflicted are ‘nothing personal’ - it could happen to anyone. Therefore, the bereaved and injured have no basis on which they may influence the political process. They have no political clout, they do not have the capacity to wreck the prospects for peace, nor do they have the power to command the ears of politicians.
They are not a coherent group of people, they do not agree among themselves, they have been hurt by various people - Republican, Loyalist and security forces. They do not all want or feel comfortable with the same things, or with each other.
It was in that atmosphere, and with these concerns that a group of people with direct personal experience of loss in the troubles were invited by one of the researchers to meet in Belfast in order to explore some of these issues. The group that began to meet were diverse - people bereaved by Republicans, Loyalists, the security forces; disabled police officers. It was Out of these meetings that The Cost of the Troubles Study - a Belfast-based recognised charity that researches and documents the impact of the Troubles on the population of Northern Ireland and beyond - was formed.
The Cost of the Troubles Study is a limited company, the directors of which are people bereaved and injured in the Troubles, working in partnership with researchers. The approach is participative action research, in which those with expertise based on personal experience participate in the management, design, data collection and analysis of the research. We wish to avoid the kind of alienation which can happen when researchers see people as containers of data, from which the data can be extracted and appropriated without further reference to those from whom they are extracted. The value of this collaboration between researchers and local experts must be judged on its fertility and this book is part of the produce of that partnership.
Our goal is to establish quality, well documented and scientific research on which work aimed at addressing the impact of the Troubles on the population can be based. To begin with, the project compiled an independent and cross-checked database of deaths in the Troubles since 1969, and much of the analysis presented in this book is based on that data. The project has also conducted 65 in-depth interviews with people across Northern Ireland, and these interviews have been audio-taped, transcribed and coded in NUD.IST. [1] A survey of 3,000 people across Northern Ireland has also been conducted, and both of these exercises will be written up for subsequent publication. A small project with children and young people has led to two publications, one by the young people and the second by one of the researchers (see Cost of the Troubles Study, 1998; Smyth, 1998).
A further goal is to produce materials that are accessible to the general public. For this reason, we have produced one exhibition on the effects of the Troubles on children and young people, and the young people have also produced a book on the same subject. We are committed to giving talks about our findings in local areas, and are exploring new ways in which we can present our work in clear, non-jargonised language, and in attractive and accessible forms. Our audience is the general public, as well as policy makers and other researchers.
A review of the late John Whyte’s (1991) book, Interpreting Northern Ireland, leads to the observation that the conclusions of much of the scholarship on Northern Ireland are closely correlated with the background of those who reach the conclusions. There are few scholars from the Protestant tradition who reach conclusions that challenge the Unionist perspective, and few from the Catholic tradition whose conclusions would challenge the Irish Nationalist perspective. Impartiality is a stance that is perhaps unattainable in Northern Ireland. Are any of us above the situation? We are influenced - even if it is only to react against - our socialisation into a divided society. Researchers from outside Northern Ireland bring other influences to bear: the impact of the British media on international views on Northern Ireland; the impact of the Irish-American vote on perceptions of the conflict here. Research strategies that address rather than ignore this situation are necessary to the advancement of our understanding of the conflict itself.
By enlarging our research team to include those with personal expertise from both of the main traditions in Northern Ireland, we have attempted to move beyond the usual constraints and limits exposed on research by the background of the researchers. Conversely, we have tried to avoid the tendency that can emerge in ‘mixed’ groups to steer away from the most divisive issues. We remain concerned about the impact of the composition of the staff and research team on the research analysis, and it seems to us that we must continue to worry about and monitor these issues. Our goal is synthesis and inclusion, rather than some ‘balance’. As we work, we become aware of other significant differences between us.
The analysis we produce made each us uncomfortable in various ways, and challenged assumptions we each had about the nature of the conflict, and the justifications we had used for our political conclusions. We remain committed to the integrity of the data, and have avoided the tendency to ‘weed out’, omit or explain away the data that challenged our views or beliefs. We have tried to face those discomforts, and we present in this book data and analysis that is uncomfortable in different ways for those in all political standpoints.
In this changing political atmosphere, we have anxieties about the use to which our research will be put, and the actions that it may be used to justify. Nonetheless, we are convinced that reliable and comprehensive audit of the damage done, with all its contradictions, can play a useful role in ‘complicating’ a picture that is all too often seen in simple, polarised, black and white terms. What emerges from our analysis is that no faction or political grouping in Northern Ireland has a monopoly on suffering, nor indeed has any grouping exclusive title to the most overcrowded piece of turf - the moral high ground. Our objective in the long run is to contribute to the synthetic picture of what has happened, a picture that can contain contradictions and paradoxes, and one that can include and connect seemingly opposing accounts.
The differences between us shape our perceptions for reasons that emerge from our analysis of the data. In Chapter 6, we present an analysis of the data on deaths by gender, where it becomes clear that males and females have materially different experiences of the Troubles. In Chapters 5 and 6, we present case studies of selected postal districts which illustrate that our experience of the Troubles is shaped by where we live. Yet we discuss the Troubles as if our experience can be or should be undifferentiated, and we attribute failure to see another’s point of view to narrow-mindedness, when there are real material differences that have shaped our perceptions and lead us to conflicting views. An understanding of these multiple and various realities of the Troubles will, we hope, lead to an improvement in our capacity to recognise and accept realities other than the one we live in. Ultimately, our goal must be to create a common account of the Troubles which includes all accounts in a larger, complex and perhaps contradictory picture. We hope that our work will make a positive contribution to that end.
Many of us, including those working as researchers or providing services to vulnerable people, have operated during the last three decades by not mentioning the Troubles. When the Troubles come to your door in the form of bereavement or other forms of loss, this is a luxury you no longer have. Our work on the data on deaths has changed us. Screening through hundreds and thousands of lines of data, the thought that every line of data used to be a human being with a future, a home, a family, makes work on the data emotionally demanding. It is particularly hard when one comes across data on the death of a child, or the death of someone we know. We are convinced that it is important to maintain this relationship with the data, and that it is crucial that we avoid seeing the data we present in this book as simply sets of numbers. We work closely with the relatives and neighbours of many of those whose deaths are included in this analysis. This keeps us focused on the real priorities.
If we are to build a peaceful society, the hurts of the past cannot be swept under the carpet. If we are to have a society based on justice, then those who have suffered must be a central concern. If we are to have a society based on humanitarianism, then we must go out of our way to comfort, support and listen to those who have lost most. If we are to move beyond the divisions of the present, then we must learn to listen to those who have been hurt in the name of politics or causes we support. And when we are listening, we must learn to allow our hearts to soften in compassion. Commitment is also necessary in order to make good what can be made good, and ease the pain of what cannot. This work is also a way of ensuring that we never forget why peace - if we achieve it - is so precious.
Just after we completed the first draft of this book, a bomb exploded in Omagh on 15 August 1998, killing 29 people. It was the largest number of people killed in a single incident in Northern Ireland. In the tragic aftermath of that event, it seems clearer than ever that the will of the people is for an end to violence. People have suffered enough. The cruelty of that bomb seems to have reaffirmed the will for peace. To add 29 and two unborn babies’ names to our database in a single sitting was hard to do. To realise the long and painful road that faces the family, neighbours and friends of those killed and injured is to realise that it can never truly be over. Our hope is that no more people have to embark on that road.