Two decades after a landmark agreement aimed at easing sectarian and political tensions in Northern Ireland, a report finds churches and other places of worship are subject to frequent attacks.
CARE, a United Kingdom-based Christian charity, documented 445 “crimes recorded as criminal damage to religious buildings, churchyards or cemeteries in Northern Ireland” since 2016. Most of the incidents occurred in Belfast, the capital, but episodes of violence were scattered across Northern Ireland. The incidents ranged from arson to graffiti and affected both Protestant and Catholic churches. The report did not address what motivations might have led to the violence.
Nina Shea, director of the religious freedom center at the Hudson Institute, warned that frequent church attacks could escalate into civil unrest if not addressed by authorities.
“Northern Ireland must act fast to protect its churches from further arson and vandalism and identify and prosecute those responsible,” Shea told the Washington Examiner. “Allowing such violence to continue with impunity is a form of religious persecution and enflames civil unrest.”
“While there is a recent history of sectarian religious strife in Northern Ireland, this shocking surge in church attacks also resembles the pattern of deliberate church burnings and desecrations reported on a near daily basis in France, Germany, Italy, and Spain apparently by militant secularists, anarchists, the far left, and Islamists, and others acting out of anti-Christian hatred,” said Shea.
Northern Ireland endured three decades of political and sectarian conflict, known as the Troubles, beginning in the late 1960s. The conflict centered on Northern Ireland’s relationship with the U.K., with unionists favoring continued membership in the U.K., while nationalists wanted a united Ireland. Unionists were usually Protestant, whereas nationalists were often Catholic.
Around 3,600 people died in the Troubles in the three decades preceding the Good Friday Agreement of 1998. That agreement established a power-sharing arrangement between unionists and nationalists in a Northern Irish National Assembly. The government collapsed in 2017 after a scandal involving the first minister, and the Assembly has not functioned for over two years.
Iain King, a visiting fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said the structure of the government highlights the depths of Northern Ireland’s divisions.
“There will be no quick fix,” Iain King told the Washington Examiner. “You can manage the problem. You can probably reduce to approximately zero the number of deaths which result from it, but it will be many generations before Northern Ireland is as the rest of us in Europe or the rest of America in terms of not defining itself in those ways.”
Despite Northern Ireland’s lingering divisions, King noted that frequent attacks do not necessarily indicate a revival of political and sectarian hostilities.
“One of the factors throughout the Troubles was, although there was a large degree of politically motivated, highly strategic violence, there was an even greater proportion of what you might call … sporadic violence where teenagers or youths or young people … decided they were going to do something a bit more than naughty,” including acts of vandalism, King said.
“We need to bear in mind it could be in that sort-of vandalism-type category rather than a deliberate strategic campaign to destabilize and so on,” said King.
While the reason for the anti-church crimes remain unclear, Northern Ireland’s faith communities are trying to determine the appropriate response to the vandalism.
“As a congregation we would welcome any initiatives by Government to protect Churches from further attacks,” said Alistair McCracken, clerk of session for Saintfield Road Presbyterian Church.
Arsonists attacked Saintfield Road Presbyterian Church twice in 2016, causing extensive damage that took two years to repair.
Mark Baillie, policy officer for CARE Northern Ireland, echoed McCracken’s call for the government to protect churches. Funding is currently available to religious buildings in England and Wales for buying cameras, fencing, and other security measures.
“The security protection funding scheme which is available in England and Wales for places of worship should be extended to Northern Ireland as a matter of urgency,” said Baillie.
A representative for the Irish Catholic Bishops’ Conference referred the Washington Examiner to an article in the Irish News with comments from Rev. Michael Canny, a priest in the Diocese of Derry, who was wary of new security measures.
“I personally think that what we need is vigilance and a bit of good sense and, certainly, places of worship and cemeteries are places that people frequent regularly and they shouldn’t be turned into fortresses,” said Canny.
