14 Growth and Political Violence in Northern Ireland , 1920 – 96 * Vani

It is a sad comment on the state of our world that certain regions are generally perceived as being ‘theatres of war’. For the past quarter of a century, Northern Ireland has been such a region. Reviled by their countrymen, ignored by investors and shunned by tourists, the 1.5 million residents of Northern Ireland have had to bear the opprobrium of a violence which was perpetrated by only a handful of their number and towards which the vast majority of the province’s population, in common with the rest of the world, felt nothing but revulsion. Today, given the Irish Republican Army (IRA) cease-fire in July 1997, there is a reasonable prospect that this long nightmare may have ended and that ‘the Troubles’ (as the political violence in Northern Ireland is euphemistically termed) may be over. If so, then what prospect does this hold for economic welfare in Northern Ireland? This is a legitimate question because, for a long time, Northern Ireland has been one of the most economically deprived regions of the UK: its per capita GDP is only 80 per cent of the UK average and it has (and has had for several years) the highest unemployment rate in the UK. In the European Union (EU) too, Northern Ireland is one of the poorest regions, occupying – by descending order of per capita GDP – the 136th position out of a total of 179 regions. It is an Objective 1 region for the disbursement of EU Structural Funds, both because of its low income levels and because of its high unemployment rate. Moreover, this low level of economic performance has routinely been blamed on ‘the Troubles’ – had it not been for the violence, the region would have been much more prosperous. The purpose of this chapter is not to deny this argument but rather