Too ‘simplistic’ to connect dissident violence to 1916

Connecting dissident violence in the North to commemorations of the 1916 Easter Rising is too “simplistic” according to a leading political historian.

In the wake of the attempted murder of a prison officer in Belfast, CofI Bishop of Down & Dromore, Harold Miller said he was afraid dissident republicans will attempt further assaults in the North as we approach the centenary of the Easter Rising, echoing a warning from PSNI Assistant Chief Constable Stephen Martin.

However, historian Dr Eamon Phoenix, head of life-long learning at Stranmillis University College in Belfast, told The Irish Catholic  “to tie a dissident upsurge to the centenary celebrations of the Rising would be a bit simplistic”.

While agreeing that there were rising tensions during the 1966 commemorations of the Rising, Dr Phoenix said he didn’t “detect the same tension now in society”.

Interest

“There is a massive interest in the North in the 1916 Rising and the link between the Rising and the Somme. In the last five years there has been a concerted attempt to really approach the decade of centenaries in an objective, balanced and inclusive way,” he said. “In the last two months, for example, I spoke to 300 people in a Church of Ireland hall in Co. Down on the 1916 Rising. The First Minister Arlene Forster attended a seminar in Christ Church Cathedral in Dublin last month and there have been numerous joint seminars and joint approaches to all of this.”

Outrages

He said that “clearly the dissidents choose their moments” and “an organisation determined to commit outrages would like to do it during the Octave of Easter” when there will be a focus on the events of 1916, “but they are not doing it because of the Easter commemorations, they are simply doing it because that has been their policy since the Good Friday agreement”.