The first week of November, we turned our attention to Northern Ireland, a region where religion, politics, and identity collide in ways that defy simple explanations. At first glance, the decades-long conflict between Catholics and Protestants seems like a religious war. However, as our readings and class discussion revealed, the reality is far more complicated.
Patrick Grant's chapter, Northern Ireland, Religion and the Peace Process, explores how religion shaped both division and reconciliation. Churches were not neutral observers; they influenced political identities and, later, played roles in peacebuilding. Yet Grant also shows that faith communities often struggled to rise above entrenched loyalties.
Liam O'Dowd, in Does Religion Still Matter?, pushes us to question whether religion is truly the driving force behind the conflict. He argues that while religious labels matter, they often mask deeper issues, national identity, political power, and economic inequality. In other words, being Catholic or Protestant in Northern Ireland is as much about belonging to a cultural and political camp as it is about theology.
Claire Mitchell's chapter, Religious Ideology and Politics, adds another layer: religion provided language and symbols that reinforced political agendas. For unionists and loyalists, Protestant identity closely aligned with British sovereignty. For nationalists and republicans, Catholic identity intertwined with aspirations for Irish unity. These identities were not purely spiritual; they were social, economic, and historical.
In class, we debated whether the conflict was "really" religious. The consensus? Religion mattered, but not in isolation. It was a marker of identity, a way to draw boundaries between "us" and "them." Behind those boundaries lay struggles over land, governance, and equality. Nationalists versus unionists, republicans versus loyalists, the labels tell a story of competing visions for the future.
What struck me most is how religion can both divide and heal. The same faith traditions that fueled mistrust also inspired peace efforts, from grassroots dialogue to the Good Friday Agreement. This dual role reminds us that religion is never just a private belief system; it's woven into the fabric of society, for better or worse.
Northern Ireland teaches us that conflicts labeled "religious" often hide deeper fractures. Understanding those layers is essential if we hope to build peace that lasts.
Sources:
Grant, P. (2000). Northern Ireland, religion and the peace process. In H. Coward & G. S. Smith (Eds.), Religion and peacebuilding (pp. 245–262). Albany: State University of New York Press.Mitchell, C. (2006). Religious ideology and politics. In Religion, identity and politics in Northern Ireland: Boundaries of belonging and belief (pp. 123–148).
O’Dowd, L. (2021). Does religion still matter? Comparative lessons from the ethno-national conflict in Northern Ireland. In N. N. Rouhana & N. Shalhoub-Kevorkian (Eds.), When politics are sacralized: Comparative perspectives on religious claims and nationalism (pp. 337–362). Cambridge University Press.
aB . All Rights Reserved . 2025
