A Troubled Northern Ireland

In December 2012, Belfast City Council held a vote that will always be remembered in Northern Ireland. The flag of the United Kingdom is somewhat controversial in Northern Ireland, unionists tend to love it whilst nationalists tend to hate it. Following 2011, for the first time in history the unionists in Belfast City Council lost their majority. The unionists (DUP, UUP and PUP) had 21 seats, the nationalists (Sinn Féin and SDLP) had 22 and the moderate Alliance party had six seats. This meant that no side had an overall majority and so more compromises had to be made. The issue arose over how often to fly the Union Flag flew over Belfast City Council, the unionists wanted to keep it up permanently, whilst the nationalists wanted it down permanently. So Alliance decided to broker a compromise, which resulted in the Union Flag being flown only 18 designated days.

Cue uproar.

Ever since then there has been numerous ‘flag protests’, reaching the greatest intensity in January 2013. The ongoing troubles has resulted in a rocky year for Northern Ireland. Thankfully the second city of Northern Ireland, Derry, has had a good year. This is largely thanks to the UK City of Culture 2013 taking place in the city. Over 430,000 people visited during the week of the Fleadh Cheoil na hÉireann alone!

Parades have also been a contentious point in Northern Ireland, particularly the 12^th of July parades. One annual flashpoint is in the Ardoyne area in Belfast, the majority nationalist community has a Loyal Orange Lodge march through the area every 12^th of July. This unfortunately results in an annual riot in the area, usually between nationalist youths and the police.

One of the biggest problems left over from the Troubles is how to investigate the 3,300 unresolved murders. Reaching an agreement on this seems to be nigh impossible. One of the problems is that many of the politicians currently in Northern Irish politics were involved in organisations that carried out the murders. Although the politicians may not have actually killed anyone personally, investigating murders could result in some politicians revisiting a past that they would really rather remained buried.

As a result of these unresolved problems, talks between the five major parties began late last year. On the unionist side you had the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) and the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP), opposing them on the nationalist side is Sinn Féin and the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP). Trying to find a middle ground is the Alliance Party. The talks were chaired by American diplomat Dr Richard Haass, resulting in them being referred to as the ‘Haass talks’. The discussions were fraught and at times a deal simply seemed out of the question. Yet the determination of the parties to get past differences and the hard word of Dr Haass has meant that great progress has been made. Unfortunately a concrete agreement has not been made, but with a bit more work in 2014 hopefully a final proposal will be accepted by all five parties.