Niall Cunningham

CRESC, University of Manchester

Segregation in Northern Ireland in 2001 – 1km. grid squares

17th century plantations of Ulster

Religious segregation – a legacy of history

Space is imperative to an understanding of the conflict, ‘Topography is the key to the Ulster conflict. Unless you know exactly who lives where,

and why, much of it does not make sense…Ulster’s troubles arise from the fact that people who live there know this information to the square inch, while strangers know nothing of it’ (Stewart, Narrow Ground, 56)

Deaths during the Troubles

• This study utilises data on all Troubles-related deaths collated by Malcolm Sutton and hosted by Dr. Martin Melaugh at the University of Ulster’s CAIN archive

• Search facility enables the user to identify incidents using a diverse range of criteria

• An ongoing and constantly revised process with regular input from the wider, non-academic community

• ‘Troubled Geographies’ analyses 3,524 deaths from January 1969 to December 2001

• Using spatial information from the Sutton database and other sources, such as contemporary newspaper accounts, locations were given for each fatality and entered into a Geographical Information System (GIS)

http://www.cain.ulst.ac.uk/sutton/ The Sutton Database on the CAIN website

Perpetrators by broad status group

British

Security

Loyalist

Paramilitary

Republican

Paramilitary

not

known Total

Victims by broad

status group

British Security Count 13 14 1015 7 1049

% group 1.2% 1.3% 96.8% .7% 100.0%

Civilian Count 189 828 642 52 1711

% group 11.0% 48.4% 37.5% 3.0% 100.0%

Irish Security Count 0 0 1 0 1

% group .0% .0% 100.0% .0% 100.0%

Loyalist

Paramilitary

Count 14 89 45 1 149

% group 9.4% 59.7% 30.2% .7% 100.0%

Republican

Paramilitary

Count 140 41 165 12 358

% group 39.1% 11.5% 46.1% 3.4% 100.0%

Total Count 356 972 1868 72 3268

% of total 10.9% 29.7% 57.2% 2.2% 100.0%

Victims and perpetrators

• Deaths were heavily skewed to the early part of the conflict, with 1972 representing the nadir with more than 1/6 of deaths occurring in that year• Civilians were overwhelmingly the largest victim group, accounting for nearly half of all fatalities• 86% of civilians were killed by paramilitaries and 11% by the security services

‘... (quite incredible - - I believe you are now in the most dangerous posting in the world, not excluding Saigon)’.Hillenbrand [U.S. State Dept.] to Penberthy [Belfast Consulate] Source: N.A.R.A., College Park, MD

Deaths across the period of the Troubles

Cross-tabulation of victims and perpetrators

The geography of political deaths

Republican paramilitary deaths by 2001 local gov. wardDeaths by region

British security paramilitary deaths by 2001 local gov. ward

• There existed pronounced differences in geographies of fatality amongst various status groups during the conflict• Outside Belfast, members of the security services died in greater numbers in close proximity to the border with the Irish Republic and particularly in South Armagh• For republicans, deaths were also concentrated in South Armagh, but also in a band running across mid-Ulster

Deaths and religious segregation

• Religious segregation increased significantly over the period of the Troubles, but it is important to differentiate between what might be termed ‘real’ and areal segregation •Deaths occurred overwhelmingly in highly-segregated areas of Belfast and across Northern Ireland more generally, with by far the greater proportion occurring in the areas of most extreme polarisation

Belfast deaths by extent of residential religious segregation Deaths and residential religious segregation in Belfast

The agency of ‘religious’ space

‘Our boys drove over from the Shankill and out of the Tiger’s Bay to do the hit. They were a good team, fully tooled up, but when they got there big high iron gates were locked, blocking off access past the priest’s house and parish offices. Getting over the gates and back out would have taken time and the Peelers and the Army were all over the area so they called it off’. (U.D.A. leader Johnny “Mad Dog” Adair, quoted in Wood, Crimes of Loyalty, 172)

Republican random killings in Belfast and residential religious segregation

Loyalist random killings in Belfast and residential religious segregation

Shankill

New Lodge