Troubled Spaces: Territoriality and the Troubles in Northern Ireland

Niall Cunningham (Lancaster) RAIan Gregory (Lancaster) PIPaul Ell (QUB)Chris Lloyd (QUB)Ian Shuttleworth (QUB)

A spatial conflict

Photographs courtesy of CAIN, *Brixton Gunner@Flickr

• Space has played a critical role in the conflict in Northern Ireland and an appreciation of this is crucial in our efforts to achieve a better understanding of the dynamics behind the recent Troubles

• Actual and notional boundaries have been central to the formation of identity in Northern Ireland historically

•Spatial conflicts endure and still lie at the heart of many inter-communal antagonisms

•The Troubles have had a profound effect on the (re)development of the built environment

*

The reality: increased detail, increased polarisation

Legend

peacelines

wards

Catholics (%)

% Cath. pop. by 100m GS

75.0 to 94.9

95.0 or more

Protestants (%)

% Prot. pop by 100m GS

75.0 to 94.9

95.0 or more

Belfast: A divided city

Ardoyne/Glenbryn

New Barnsley

A population in flux

Henry Taggart Memorial BA Base

Vere Foster BA Base

Police Station and peaceline

Legend

! BA deaths

# BA killings

# BA multiple deaths

! BA multiple killings

peacelines

Highfield (Protestant)

Ballymurphy(Catholic)

New Barnsley

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

http://www.cain.ulst.ac.uk/sutton/

Georeferencing the Sutton database

Cartographic Analysis I - Deaths by status group

Cartographic Analysis II - Crosstabs

• Extremely detailed statistical and spatial data

• Powerful physical and notional demarcation of space

• Not just one conflict, but many

Statistical Analysis – Cluster hunting

Households in social rented accomm. (%)

Economically active unemployed (%)

Catholic (%)

n 6072 6072 6072min 0.09 0.56 0.18median 6.67 9.52 31.07max 85.71 54.55 94.95

Households in social rented accomm. (%)

Economically active unemployed (%)

Catholic (%)

n 56 56 56min 0.25 2.53 0.53median 11.11 14.29 71.88max 68.44 40.00 90.53

Table 1: Summary statistics for all cells

Table 2: Summary statistics for ‘High-high’ grid cells

• Statistical analysis of the data is at an early stage

• ‘Moran’s I’ technique looks at the level of spatial autocorrelation between data points by measuring how far variables at those points differ from their mean

• OSNI 1 km grid square provide useful quadrats upon which to base the analysis

•‘High-high’ grid squares are those where they and surrounding squares tend to have higher rates of killing, and are hence, ‘clusters’

• ‘High-high’ areas are characterised as disproportionately Catholic and above average on some measures of deprivation

History, economy and space

Girls’ Primary School

Glenbryn

Ardoyne

War by other means: The Holy Cross Dispute, Ardoyne, Autumn 2001

Holy Cross Girls’ Catholic Primary School

Glenbryn (Protestant)

Ardoyne (Catholic)

Going to school, Ardoyne 2001

• Was not a source of conflict during the Troubles•Glenbryn residents said the protests were the result of years of intimidation from Catholic neighbours•Catholic encroachment?

Conclusions & further work• Geographical approach has never been attempted before and it offers

new possibilities in understanding religious change and religious conflict

• Very clear geographies of killings developed during the course of the Troubles and different types of killing vary markedly

• This preliminary research opens the way for a deeper analysis of deaths in relation to a wide range of other factors such as poverty, housing and education

• A deeper analysis of the spatial patterns in the Troubles dataset and to relate these to broader socio-economic factors

• To disseminate these findings to a broader audience by the creation of an online atlas of Irish Religion and Society

• To do so with the intention of going beyond simple binary definitions to explore the varied concurrent conflicts and changing inter-communal relationships which together constituted the modern Troubles