Funding Peace: The impact of philanthropy on Northern Ireland’s peacebuilding process

Introduction

From the late 1960s to 1998, Northern Ireland was plagued by a violent civil war known as ‘The Troubles’, during which over 3,700 people were killed and an additional 47,000 injured (Hancock, 1998). The sectarian conflict was fought between Nationalist Republican Catholics – who wanted Northern Ireland to secede from the United Kingdom to form a united Ireland – and Unionist Loyalist Protestants – who wished to remain part of the United Kingdom (Purdie, 1990). Paramilitaries targeted each other through tit-for-tat violence, using bombings, guerrilla-style attacks against armed forces, and assassination attempts on political targets. Local activists also engaged in civil disobedience, riots, and mass protests. Although most Troubles-related violence was conducted by extremist Loyalist or Republican paramilitary organisations, approximately 68% of the casualties during the conflict were civilians (CAIN, ‘Fact Sheet on the Conflict in and about Northern Ireland’). The retaliatory violence ended after 30 years through a mutual paramilitary ceasefire and the signing of the Good Friday Peace Agreement on 10 April 1998.

Peacebuilding initiatives in Northern Ireland have existed throughout the years of The Troubles and still provide services 25 years after the Good Friday Agreement. Despite this, many grassroots organisations struggle to fund their proposed initiatives, having limited access to resources that are not short-term. Consequently, philanthropic organisations were, and continue to be, vital to the Northern Irish peacebuilding process. Over the past years, there have been a small number of influential funders, such as Atlantic Philanthropies, Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust (JRCT), and Community Foundation for Northern Ireland (CFNI), who have collectively donated millions of Great British Pounds to peacebuilding organisations. Their grants funded numerous grassroots-level programmes, including physical and mental health services, integrated education, human rights, restorative justice, neighbourhood development, and youth engagement. These, and other philanthropic funders – such as the Ireland Funds – also responded to initiatives that moved the peace process forward, such as meeting the costs of garnering expertise from other conflict-affected regions, such as South Africa (Gormally, and McEvoy, 2009). This paper will examine the philanthropic efforts on education, human rights, restorative justice, youth engagement, health, and minority issues in the context of peacebuilding initiatives.

Summary of Key Issue Areas

Education:

Over the course of the Troubles, philanthropic organisations have donated significantly to enhance education in Northern Ireland. These organisations donated to integrated educational initiatives across Northern Ireland which intermix Catholic/Nationalist/Republican (CNR) students and Protestant/Unionist/Loyalist (PUL) students. Due to the homogeneous demographic of many Northern Irish neighbourhoods, approximately 90% of Northern Irish pupils attend segregated schools – either predominantly Catholic/‘maintained’ schools or Protestant/‘controlled’ schools (Lords Publications and Records, 2006). In response to a parental-driven initiative to tackle this division, the Nuffield Trust, Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, JRCT, and other philanthropic contributions supported integrated schooling which has grown from offering places to 28 pupils in 1981 to 71 integrated schools providing for 27,000 children and young people in 2022 (NISRA, 2022). The Integrated Education Fund (established in 1992) has raised and invested over £26 million to support integrated schools and educational spaces. This investment greatly increased the quality, availability and popularity of integrated education in Northern Ireland. Other organisations, such as Atlantic Philanthropies, invested in shared education initiatives. Consequently, philanthropic support for this area has encouraged and enabled cross-community contact at the earliest possible age (Kilmurray, 2022, p. 14).

Restorative Justice and Reconciliation:

Restorative justice and reconciliation efforts are imperative to the peacebuilding process in Northern Ireland. These efforts include various programmes, such as the social reintegration of ex-prisoners and ex-paramilitaries, memory and memorialization, and truth-telling commissions. An example of philanthropic contribution was the role of CFNI as an intermediary funding body for the European Union Special Support Programme for Peace & Reconciliation of 1995-1999 (SEUPB) which later continued under PEACE II and PEACE III programmes. Specific funding was allocated to facilitate the reintegration of political ex-prisoners (Kilmurray, 2016, pp. 33). Managed by CFNI, early investment supported the establishment of a number of self-help ex-prisoner centres and initiatives, including the Ex-Prisoners Interpretive Centre, Local Initiatives for Needy Communities, Prisoners Aid, Tar Abhaile, Tar Anall, and the Tyrone Prisoners Centre. These organisations provided both CNR and PUL ex-combatants with a variety of support programmes, including counselling, information services, discussion groups, training and education, advocacy opportunities, and inter-community mediation. These initiatives also supported affected families through home maintenance, welfare rights, advocacy, transport, food parcels, and financial assistance (Meehan, 1997). Importantly, the network of ex-prisoner support also provided opportunities for social interaction and information about the ongoing peace process.

Managing EU PEACE Funds, CFNI adopted grantmaking mechanisms to involve political ex-prisoners themselves in the necessary decision-making processes. The Political Ex-Prisoner Advisory Committee was formed in 1995 with the objective of bringing together representatives of Loyalist and Republican ex-paramilitary organisations to “consider funding applications for local reintegration and conflict resolution projects”, and to “informally [exchange] views on the ongoing peace process” (Stephenson Jr., 2013, p. 332). Essentially, ex-combatants were offered roles in engaging in shared decision-making about peacebuilding and meeting the needs of their members and communities. Atlantic Philanthropies also supported CFNI in this work, establishing that these initiatives served to decrease levels of street violence and criminal activity in interface areas, by positively engaging ex-combatants in the peacebuilding process (Knox and Quirk, 2016, p. 222).

Peacebuilding and Human Rights:

Human rights promotion in Northern Ireland is a key issue in peacebuilding. Dedicated organisations, such as the Committee for the Administration of Justice, relied on philanthropic funding throughout the years of the Troubles and in the post-conflict period to monitor, report on and advocate human rights. In earlier years, the Baring Trust supported work that addressed human rights and social justice issues. JRCT has been a consistent funder in this area and Atlantic Philanthropies took the initiative to lever support from other donors, such as Oak, CFNI and the Sigrid Rausing Trust, to establish a Human Rights Fund in Northern Ireland as a legacy bequest in 2014. This fund provided core support to key human rights organisations for ten years after the end of Atlantic’s grant-making in NI in 2015. In its years of direct operation In Northern Ireland (1991-2015), Atlantic Philanthropies provided over $156 million to reconciliation and human rights projects. These grants funded various projects, including human rights monitoring, academic research, public interest litigation, peacebuilding models for interface areas, public services for minority ethnic communities, inclusive public dialogue, and criminal justice reform (Knox and Quirk, 2016, pp. 260). 

Other philanthropies, such as the Sigrid Rausing Trust, JRCT, CFNI, and the Barrow Cadbury Trust, also supported grounded peacebuilding initiatives. In addition to the Northern Ireland Human Rights Fund, other programmes that benefited from this funding included work on a Bill of Rights in Northern Ireland that has been under consideration but has not yet been formally enacted or implemented, the creation of a peace monitor in Northern Ireland, support for strategic litigation through the Public Interest Litigation Service, the Participation & Practice of Rights (PPR) organisation, the Children’s Law Centre, as well as a range of other advocacy groups (Sigrid Rausing Trust, 2023; JRCT, 2023; Giving is Great, 2023). Philanthropic organisations also funded human rights-based training and education initiatives for prominent local actors and leaders, with an emphasis on promoting and implementing human rights-based approaches. These human rights-based practices include tackling social inequalities, strengthening rights through the rule of law, holding state bodies and governments accountable, and building positive peace between conflicting groups (Knox and Quirk, 2016, pp. 184). Although the categories of ‘peacebuilding’ and ‘human rights promotion’ may sometimes appear vague, this very ambiguity allows for the necessary flexibility to be responsive to proposals that are value-based and timely. It is interesting to note that at a time when peace seemed beyond grasp, it was independent philanthropies that came together to fund the pioneering Opsahl Citizen’s Enquiry Commission in 1992 to offer open and inclusive public dialogue on the future of Northern Ireland (Kilmurray, 2022, pp. 46-47). The Barrow Cadbury Trust joined the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust, the Katherine Howard Foundation, the Tudor Trust and CFNI in funding this work before the years of the peace process that were to emerge in 1994 and following years. This was a clear demonstration that support for peacebuilding can take place before formal ceasefires or peace agreements (EFC Belfast, 2012, p. 3).

Youth and Community Engagement

Sectarian violence and division during and after the Troubles had and has a greater impact on the most deprived communities across Northern Ireland. It is these communities that experience disproportionally high levels of poverty, unemployment, crime, homelessness substance abuse, mental ill-health, and domestic violence (Feenan, O’Prey, and Kilmurray, 2020, p. 23). In addition, youth from these disenfranchised areas are vulnerable to gang recruitment, criminal activity, and intimidation by paramilitary organisations. While philanthropic organisations supported efforts for replacing paramilitary ‘punishment shootings and beatings’ with non-violent restorative justice approaches in the 1980s and 1990s, this was still an issue that needed to be addressed in the post-Good Friday/Belfast Agreement years (SEUPB, 2007). Notwithstanding the extensive reform of policing that was carried out in Northern Ireland as an essential aspect of the peace process, there was still an issue of paramilitary control in many disadvantaged areas (Firth, 2014, p. 24). Specifically, the most disenfranchised neighbourhoods throughout Northern Ireland are often the most sectarian, and subsequently more likely to condone paramilitary activity. Local community-based programmes sought to focus on youth engagement to mitigate the risk of paramilitary recruitment among marginalised young people (Kelly, 2005, p. 30). Philanthropic support to youth-centred programmes have been supported financially, with organisations such as Northern Ireland Alternatives, Community Restorative Justice Ireland, YouthAction and many others being funded. The International Fund for Ireland, an independent multi-donor Trust fund rather than a philanthropic organisation, also offers a Personal Youth Development Programme that focuses on individual young people in need of intensive support (Kilmurray, 2022, p. 90). Youth organisations provide a wide range of services that seek to address educational disadvantage, engage in outreach work and undertake skills and community development with young people. They also provide counselling, citizenship development, vocational opportunities, and develop innovative ways of challenging underachievement and disaffection (Harvey, 2003, p. 79; SEUPB, 2007). What is unique in the Northern Ireland context is that they often have an underpinning aim of discouraging young people from being recruited by paramilitary organisations or falling under their threat. Independent philanthropies that put their shoulder to the wheel in support of essential youth work included the Rank Foundation, the Prince’s Trust, the McRoberts Trust, the National Lotteries Charities Board and Comic Relief (EFC Belfast, 2012, p. 3).

Philanthropies have also been responsive to supporting inter-community contact and understanding both within and between ‘single-identity’ communities – defined as “populations that are either 90 percent Protestant/Unionist/Loyalist or 95 percent

Catholic/Nationalist/Republican” (Kilmurray, 2015, p. 85). These initiatives aim to build trust and dismantle negative stereotypes and perceptions between people with conflicting binary identities. In addition, community development groups tackle socio-economic issues in interface areas – defined as any boundary line between predominantly CNR and PUL neighbourhoods given that these areas experience disproportionate levels of poverty, political violence, and poor quality of life (Buchanan, 2016, pp. 85-86). Atlantic Philanthropies invested in integrated, intercommunity initiatives in one such interface area – Suffolk/Lenadoon in West Belfast. The Belfast Interface Project and the earlier Springfield Inter-Community Development Project, later re-named Interaction, also benefited from philanthropic support for their model of structuring the organisation to visibly include leading CNR and PUL activists, thus facilitating cross-community back-channel communications. This strategy of working on both community development and peacebuilding together was also supported by the JRCT and, in a number of cases, by the Ireland Funds (Kilmurray, 2022, pp. 52). Specific examples included the important work of the Creggan Enterprise Ltd in Derry/Londonderry and organisations such as Sperrins Cultural Awareness Association. Philanthropic grants were also provided to community networking organisations that brought activists from different perspectives together around shared interests, such as the Rural Community Network and the Women’s Resource & Development Agency. Evaluation of the impact of Atlantic Philanthropies funded Suffolk-Lenadoon Interface Group showed an increase in support for inter-community initiatives where local facilities were enhanced (Knox and Quirk, 2016, p. 117). Through joint advocacy initiatives, peacebuilding capacity-building programs, and the establishment of shared spaces, these cross-community initiatives worked to challenge harmful stereotypes, although always within a shifting political context which impacted on the work (Kilmurray, 2016, p. 14).

It has, however, also been recognised over the years that inter-community initiatives need to be built on grounded social development and local activism. A wide range of independent funders contributed to this necessary early investment, often with appropriate seeding grants and pilot programmes of support. These included BBC Children in Need, Lloyds TSB Foundation, and Ulster Garden Villages Ltd who all worked locally (EFC Belfast, 2012, pp. 2). British foundations were also supportive, notably the John Moores Foundation, Garfield Weston Foundation, Comic Relief, Esmee Fairbairn Foundation, and the Henry Smith Charity, while both Cooperation Ireland and the Ireland Funds mobilised diaspora resources (Firth, 2014, p. 5).

Mental and Physical Health

Philanthropists also used grant-making and added-value support to address mental and physical health challenges in Northern Ireland, with specific reference to the need to support survivors and victims of the Troubles. For example, the Public Initiatives for Prevention of Suicide and Reaching Across to Reduce Your Risk of Suicide consulted with Atlantic Philanthropies to establish a human-rights-based approach to mental health counselling and suicide prevention. These groups established the Belfast Mental Health Rights Group (BMHRG) as a result of the Atlantic Philanthropies support. The BMHRG developed general practitioner approaches to mental health, provided resources and follow-up appointments to at-risk patients, trained mental health professionals, and encouraged critical reflection on government policies and statutory practice (Knox and Quirk, 2016 pp. 201-204).

Funding for healthcare programs became a priority for many philanthropic organisations. Alongside the specific needs arising from the direct and indirect impact of the Troubles, there was a realisation that many issues had received limited statutory attention and/or investment due to the predominant focus on the side effects of the ongoing violence. Programmes delivered at a community-level, or by NGOs, that benefitted from philanthropic investment included end-of-life care, sexual and reproductive health training, public health initiatives, supporting women’s health and lobbying and advocacy for improved healthcare provision (Atlantic Philanthropies, 2023; Giving is Great, 2023; JRCT, 2023). The priority given to independent organisations established often on a self-help basis to support victims and survivors of the Troubles filled the gap left by the lack of government policies and statutory provision until 1999 given the official narrative that Northern Ireland was a normal society in the grip of an aggravated crime wave rather than experiencing violent political conflict (Feenan, O’Prey, and Kilmurray, 2020, pp. 53-54).

Minority Rights

There is always a risk in peacebuilding that the dominant focus is on political diplomacy and peacemaking sidelines important grassroots-level and/or rights issues. Thus, philanthropic donations were critically important in facilitating action and provision in important areas such as women’s reproductive rights, immigrant and refugee rights, disability rights, and LGBTQ+ rights. Social justice was seen by activists as integral to peacebuilding and the creation of a rights-based political dispensation in a post-Agreement Northern Ireland (Kilmurray, 2012, p. 107). Consequently, philanthropic support on these issues was seen to contribute to inclusive conflict transformation and peacebuilding.

Support for women’s rights organisations from philanthropic sources has been evident since the mid-late 1970’s and on into subsequent decades. This included grants to the Northern Ireland Women’s Aid Federation and local centres and refuges for victims of domestic violence, the Women’s Information Day Group, which brought women’s groups from deprived areas together on a monthly basis, and the growing number of place-based Women’s Centres (Feenan, O’Prey, and Kilmurray, 2020, pp. 17). Throughout the 2000s and early 2010s, women’s support and advocacy organisations have continued to receive funding, expanding cross-community networks and collaborating on policy issues. Currently, philanthropic funding supports advocacy and policy development, as well as programmes that build the confidence and participation of women. This builds on long-term support which also saw the innovative seed funding for the Northern Ireland Women’s Coalition – a movement that resulted in Coalition representatives being elected to the negotiations that resulted in the Good Friday/Belfast Agreement in 1998. Two grants from JRCT and the Global Fund for Women enabled the Coalition to successfully field candidates in 1996 (Kilmurray, 2022, p. 65).

Philanthropic grants have supported other marginalised populations in Northern Ireland, including people with disabilities, members of the LGBTQ+ community as well as racial minorities in the region. Evidence shows that both the Henry Smith Charity and the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation, among other funders, provided grants to Disability Action NI – an organisation that offers services as well as advocacy for, and with, people with disabilities (Firth, 2014, p. 12). Funding for diversity training programs and direct funding support to organisations that represent and advocate on behalf of racial minorities highlights the importance of a more inclusive society in Northern Ireland, particularly as the post-Agreement years have seen greater demographic diversity (although still small as compared to either Great Britain or the Republic of Ireland). Resourcing rights-based approaches has also been important in the LGBTQ+ community where organisations such as JRCT and the Community Foundation for Northern Ireland have long been supportive. Specific rights-related initiatives and organisations that have been the beneficiaries of philanthropic support on a more general basis include PPR, the NI Law Centre, the Human Rights Consortium, and the Equality Coalition which operates on a cross-sectoral basis. Although somewhat differently positioned on the philanthropic scale, the National Lotteries Community Fund also has a long record of support for community and NGO initiatives that support both marginalised groups and communities in Northern Ireland, although it has less facility for engaging in work or advocacy that might be seen as more political in nature (EFC Belfast, 2012, p. 3).

Conclusion

Philanthropy has contributed and continues to contribute directly and indirectly to peacebuilding in Northern Ireland. Philanthropy has at times directly supported the political process by forging links with experts from other conflict-affected societies. At other times, it has funded social change initiatives that have bolstered group and community confidence in the positive impact of peacebuilding. Philanthropic investment spans a wide array of sectors, including education, restorative justice, human rights, youth and community engagement, mental and physical health, and minority rights. Despite these investments, building peace can be as time-consuming as conducting violent conflict, and peace processes are rarely straightforward.  Challenges persist, particularly in a region where uncertainties remain regarding the constitutional framework and future Continued philanthropic support is essential for sustaining the grassroots organisations that cultivate local confidence in the value of peacebuilding while addressing emerging challenges positively and inclusively.. It is this investment that can contribute to ensuring the long-term success of peacebuilding in Northern Ireland.

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