# Introduction

## Introduction

Marie-Violaine Louvet, Bairbre Ní Chiosáin and Charlotte Rault

<figure><img src="image_1.png" /></figure>

OpenEdition
Journals

### Electronic version

URL: https://journals.openedition.org/etudesirlandaises/19504

DOI: 10.4000/144cn

ISSN: 2259-8863

### Publisher

Presses universitaires de Caen

### Printed version

Date of publication: June 11, 2025

Number of pages: 7-13

ISSN: 0183-973X

### Electronic reference

Marie-Violaine Louvet, Bairbre Ní Chiosáin and Charlotte Rault, "Introduction", *Études irlandaises* [Online], 50-1 | 2025, Online since 22 May 2025, connection on 13 June 2025. URL: http://journals.openedition.org/etudesirlandaises/19504; DOI: https://doi.org/10.4000/144cn

<figure><img src="image_2.png" /></figure>
Introduction

When re-elected as president of the Republic of Ireland in November 2018, Michael D. Higgins declared in his inaugural speech: “Since we first joined the League of Nations – a centenary we will soon mark – and throughout our time in the United Nations, Ireland has won international respect through our work on peace-building, from disarmament to our leadership in addressing consequences of colonisation and the priority we have placed on humanitarian and human rights concerns”.<fnref n="1" />

This statement was in line with the 2018 government report *Global Ireland: Ireland's Global Footprint to 2025* that established targets to promote Ireland's international image. As well as its goals of further enhancing its diplomatic position on the international stage, developing digital networks, and promoting Irish tourism and culture, the government defined two main axes with objectives to be achieved by 2025: to advance the cause of peace, the respect of human rights, equality and justice, on the one hand, and to contribute to the global fight against poverty and hunger and to promote sustainable development, on the other.<fnref n="2" />

Ireland's commitment to human rights is consistent with the ideals of the
republican tradition as outlined in the 1937 Constitution, which makes reference
to fundamental rights in articles 40 to 45. This constitution, drafted over a decade
before the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the European Convention
on Human Rights, was in many ways ahead of its time, being the first to include
the notion of the dignity of the human person, but also to declare family and
education as legally binding.<fnref n="3" />

The aim of this special issue is to analyse Ireland’s role in promoting human
rights on a national and international scale, but also to measure the distance between

<footnote n="1">1. Inaugural Speech by President Michael D. Higgins, St Patrick's Hall, Dublin Castle, 11 November 2018, online: https://president.ie/en/media-library/speeches/inaugural-speech-by-president-michael-d-higgins.</footnote>

<footnote n="2">2. “International development: Advance Ireland’s values and signature foreign policies, including the promotion of peace, disarmament, human rights, greater equality, and justice, developing our strategic interest in a safer, more peaceful, more equal, more prosperous world; and providing the basis for a successful campaign for election to the United Nations Security Council; Contribute to the global fight against poverty and hunger, and the promotion of equality and justice and sustainable development, amplified in line with a well-managed expansion in our aid programme, working towards 0.7% of GNI by 2030” (Government of Ireland, *Global Ireland: Ireland’s Global Footprint to 2025*, June 2018, p. 65, online: https://assets.ireland.ie/documents/Irelands.Global_Footprint_to_2025.pdf).</footnote>

<footnote n="3">3. Justice Susan Denham, “Some Thoughts on the Constitution of Ireland at 75”, lecture at the conference “The Irish Constitution: Past, Present and Future”, Royal Irish Academy, Dublin, 28 June 2012, p. 19-24, online: https://cdn.thejournal.ie/media/2012/06/20120629cj-speech.pdf.</footnote>
discourse and reality. This special issue aims to juxtapose theory and practice and to analyse how these ideals have been contested, defended and put into practice on a national level in recent history.

The semantic dimension of the notion of “human rights” carries an enormous surplus of values that are universally shared. Virginie Roche-Tiengo’s article “Irish Theatre, Human Rights and Women Changemakers” highlights the stark contrast between the ideals of the 1916 Proclamation of Independence, which guaranteed equal rights and opportunities, and the subsequent backlash against women’s rights in post-independence Ireland, citing specific legislation that restricted women’s freedoms, notably the marriage bar,<fnref n="4" /> introduced in 1924 and effective until 1973, as well as article 41 of the 1937 Irish Constitution, which confined women’s roles to the domestic sphere. The article explores the way in which many Irish women playwrights used theatre as a platform to challenge these societal norms and stereotypes. It emphasises the importance of cultural rights, as outlined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and how these women fought for these rights through their work. The article also addresses the ongoing struggle for gender equality in Irish theatre, citing recent controversies such as the underrepresentation of women playwrights in commemorative events.

Through the example of Irish theatre, Roche-Tiengo’s article illustrates how a human rights-based discourse can actually trigger change. This echoes a stance often adopted by the Irish government as Charlotte Barcat’s article exemplifies. She explores the role of human rights discourse and the Irish government’s lobbing in the campaign to obtain a second official inquiry into Bloody Sunday. On 30 January 1972, British soldiers killed thirteen civilians during a protest against internment without trial in Derry/Londonderry. The event caused outrage and deepened tensions in Northern Ireland while the Widgery Inquiry (1972) largely exonerated the soldiers. This initial inquiry was widely criticised by victims’ families and Irish nationalists, and Barcat details the journey to secure another official inquiry, the Saville Inquiry (1998-2010). Early responses interpreted Bloody Sunday as a human rights issue due to violations of the European Convention on Human Rights, particularly concerning the issue of internment and the “right to life”. In the 1990s, the Bloody Sunday Justice Campaign (BSJC) chose to emphasise universal human rights over republican narratives. Initially limited in influence, the Irish government actively engaged with the BSJC from the 1990s, recognising the human rights framing and including it in peace process negotiations. Taoiseach John Bruton’s administration compiled a detailed report in 1997 discrediting the Widgery Inquiry, leveraging it to pressure the UK government. Persistent lobbying by the BSJC and the Irish government coincided with shifting UK political dynamics, particularly under Tony Blair’s Labour government. On 29 January 1998, Blair announced the Saville Inquiry, marking the first time

<footnote n="4">4. The marriage bar required single women in public sector jobs to resign when they married and banned married women from joining the permanent civil service.</footnote>
the conclusions of a UK public inquiry were overturned. Barcat shows that the BSJC's focus on human rights proved instrumental in gaining Irish government support and international attention, eventually overcoming initial UK reluctance.

Ireland's genuine commitment to the protection of human rights has been internationally recognised. For example, Ireland was elected to the United Nations Human Rights Council for the first time in 2012, which came ten years after Mary Robinson left her position as United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and almost ten years before Ireland ended its permanent mission to the United Nations Security Council.<fnref n="5" /> Sitting at the United Nations Human Rights Council was perceived as a significant opportunity for Ireland to advance a meaningful discourse on human rights at international level, but also as an opportunity to vindicate human rights at home.<fnref n="6" /> The creation of the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission, a state-funded independent body, had indeed marked a stepping stone in the state's commitment to a human-rights based approach,<fnref n="7" /> demonstrating its commitment to foster a culture of respect for human rights, equality and intercultural understanding across society.<fnref n="8" />

Nevertheless, in spite of a strong commitment to human rights, reality has sometimes caught up with the Irish state which, at times, has failed to act as the guarantor and protector of human rights it is meant to be. As history has shown, the most severe breaches of human rights have been caused by the states themselves, and the Republic of Ireland has been no exception to this general rule, as Mathew Staunton shows in his article “‘What is this adventitious strange power?: Sources for Teacher Privilege and Schoolchildren’s Rights in 20th-Century Ireland”. It focuses on the “privilege” that Irish teachers had to physically discipline pupils, highlighting the complex interplay of historical, religious and legal factors that shaped the understanding and implementation of children’s rights in 20th-century Ireland. The use of physical force to intentionally harm a child’s body would, in other contexts, be considered as battery. Staunton explains why corporal punishment was not considered a civil wrong for many years by highlighting the historical links

<footnote n="5">5. Ireland managed to secure 124 votes at the United Nations General Assembly in 2012 and sat at the Human Rights Council between 2013 and 2015. It continues to engage in work at the Council as an observer state. Mary Robinson resigned from the Irish presidency to be appointed High Commissioner for Human Rights in 1997. Ireland also served as one of the 15 members of the Security Council on four other occasions: in 1962, 1981-1982, 2001-2002 and 2021-2022.</footnote>

<footnote n="6">6. See Michael D. Higgins, “The Human Rights Discourse: Its Importance and Its Challenges”, address at the Human Rights Commission’s annual lecture, 10 December 2012, online: https://president.ie/en/media-library/speeches/the-human-rights-commissions-annual-lecture.</footnote>

<footnote n="7">7. The Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission was created in 2014 as a continuation of the Human Rights Commission which operated since 2000 and the Equality Authority which was established in 1999.</footnote>

<footnote n="8">8. United Nations Human Rights Council resolution 24/16 on the role of prevention in the promotion and protection of human rights, OHCHR request for information regarding the prevention of human rights violations and its practical implementation, response of Ireland, March 2015, online: https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/Documents/Issues/IntLaw/PreventionStudy/MemberStates/Ireland.pdf.</footnote>
with British law and the teachings of the Catholic Church. He shows how the Irish
constitutional framework failed to protect children's rights and often prioritised
the rights of the family over the rights of individual children, creating a legal space
in which children's welfare could be overlooked. The article convincingly discusses
how principles of natural law prevailed, particularly those articulated by Saint
Thomas Aquinas, who argued that children are extensions of their parents and
should be governed by parental authority until they reach maturity. The author
then reflects on the dissonance between the promise in the 1916 Proclamation of
the Irish Republic to value all children and the reality of their treatment under the
law. It suggests that despite constitutional provisions designed to protect families,
they have often failed to protect the individual rights of children. The article also
highlights the importance of international standards in forcing legal development
in the area of human rights protection. The growing international recognition of
children's rights, particularly after the International Year of the Child in 1979,
contributed to a shift in interpretation that led the Supreme Court to interpret the
Constitution in a way that recognised the individual rights of children.

This gap between discourse and practice is also illustrated by Nathalie Sebbane,
whose article “The Magdalene Laundries Legacy: Human Rights, Institutional Abuse,
and Ireland’s Path towards Transitional Justice” critically examines Ireland’s uneasy
relationship with human rights, specifically focusing on the Magdalene laundries
and the state’s handling of the abuses within these institutions. Beginning with the
initial public exposure of these abuses in the late 1990s, the article meticulously
traces the long and arduous journey toward official acknowledgment and redress. It
analyses the Irish government’s reactions to domestic advocacy groups like Justice
for Magdalenes and international bodies like the United Nations Committee against
Torture, revealing a pattern of reluctance and resistance in addressing these historical
human rights violations. The author highlights how activists employed a human
rights framework to challenge the state’s narrative and demand accountability, and
draws on survivor testimonies like that of Elizabeth Coppin, whose experiences
exemplify the often-ignored struggles for justice.

By examining key interactions and responses, the article exposes the discrepancies
between Ireland's self-portrayal as a champion of human rights on the global stage and
its struggle to confront and atone for its past injustices, ultimately raising questions
about the true extent of its commitment to protecting vulnerable populations and
ensuring effective and meaningful remedies to the survivors of historical abuses.

Ireland's official discourse on human rights can sometimes be perceived as
a way to reassert its legitimacy, hence as a tendency to exhibit this commitment
in a superficial manner. This contradiction is highlighted by Karin Fischer in the
article entitled "Freedom of Thought, Conscience and Religion and Other Human
Rights in Irish Schools: Between Theory and Practice, Exemplary Approaches and
Internal Contradictions", where she discusses the development and implementation
of human rights education in the Irish school system. She argues convincingly
that there is a gap between the curricular objectives that have been influenced by
international standards and the practical implementation of human rights education
in Irish schools, highlighting some contradictions in the Irish state's approach. The article provides a detailed overview of recent developments in primary and secondary school curricula and teaching materials, enabling the author to demonstrate that the persistence of a largely denominational and structurally discriminatory school system remains a significant obstacle to the full implementation of human rights education. Indeed, it prevents its ability to depart from moral – and often Catholic – underpinnings. At primary level, the introduction of social, personal and health education does not focus on human rights but rather on equity and justice; at secondary level, civic, social and political education adopts a human rights-based approach and aims to promote a critical understanding of the rights and responsibilities of individuals in a democratic society, but fails to address collective social and political issues.

Fischer uses the example of the approach to the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion to illustrate the difficulty for civic education in Ireland to depart from its moral and Catholic foundations: on the one hand, this right is enshrined in the Irish Constitution and is therefore part of human rights education; on the other hand, the right of children not to attend religious schools is regularly breached in Ireland. The final element raised by Fischer is the under-representation of citizenship education as a whole in the curriculum, which hinders the realisation of human rights education as a fundamental element of schooling. Finally, she argues that this situation is not conducive to the successful promotion of individual emancipation as a process towards autonomy of thought, non-denomination and the assertion of rights for oneself and others.

If the ability of the Irish state to deliver human rights education clearly undermines the human-rights based discourse adopted by the government at many levels, international human rights frameworks have often been used in the Northern Ireland context thereby establishing standards for domestic legislation. The Northern Ireland conflict known as the Troubles (1960s-1998) opposed the Catholic/nationalist/republican community to the Protestant/unionist/loyalist community and was characterised by violations of human rights, mostly due to sectarian discrimination, state violence and paramilitary activity. The Good Friday Agreement, which ended the conflict, provided for the creation of human rights protections mechanisms, including the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission. Besides, the incorporation of the European Convention on Human Rights into British legislation with the Human Rights Act (1998) was significant regarding the need to deal with the legacy of the Troubles, in a post-conflict society divided by issues regarding justice, truth-recovery and reconciliation. Using international human rights frameworks facilitated discussions between the two communities and the British state because it enabled actors and law-makers to break away from ethno-sectarian and political divisions and use the respect for human rights and dignity as the lowest common denominator.

Liam Kennedy and Brice Dickson convincingly use international human rights standards as analytical frameworks to demonstrate that abuses perpetrated by non-state actors in Northern Ireland during and after the Troubles could qualify
as human rights abuses, even though they had not been perpetrated by a state. The authors argue that, contrary to global patterns where state actors are often the primary violators of human rights, in Northern Ireland, paramilitary organisations were responsible for the most serious and persistent violations. The paper focuses on two main aspects: the system of vigilante or “informal justice” administered by paramilitary groups in both loyalist and republican communities, and developments in human rights law since the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, particularly concerning abuses by non-state actors in the Northern Ireland conflict. The authors describe how paramilitary organisations established “no-go areas” early in the conflict, excluding security forces and implementing their own forms of “justice”. These practices included tarring and feathering, shootings, beatings, exiling, and, in some cases, killings. The article highlights the psychological and physical impacts of these “punishments” on victims, often violating multiple human rights as outlined in international declarations. The study contributes to the broader discourse on human rights in Ireland by examining the complex role of non-state actors in perpetrating abuses, challenging the notion that human rights violations are solely a state responsibility.

Joana Etchart’s article provides an insightful historical analysis of human rights discourse in Northern Ireland, illustrating its complexity and its persistence and shedding light on the first attempt to link community relations policy with international human rights standards. She notes that even when international standards such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights are used as a norm, individual states adopt their own terminology and practices. The article therefore examines the circumstances in which human rights discourse was introduced in Northern Ireland in the 1960s, following the drafting of a comprehensive Northern Ireland bill based on the Human Rights Bills of Canada and the United States. Adopting a comparative law perspective, the author draws parallels between the situation in Northern Ireland and Canada’s approach to human rights, highlighting how different nations faced similar challenges in aligning national policies with international human rights definitions. The article also addresses two significant issues from the 1960s: the difficulty of aligning local practices with international standards, and the failure to promote meaningful discussions about rights between different communities in Northern Ireland. As policy-makers consider how to address human rights issues in Northern Ireland today, despite various efforts over the decades – including proposals for a Bill of Rights following the Good Friday Agreement –, this historical perspective sheds light on contemporary human rights debates in post-Brexit Northern Ireland, where similar tensions remain.

Charlotte Rault looks into the “no diminution of rights” principle in Northern Ireland in the post-Brexit context. She examines the legal challenges of the principle and the implications for the constitutional future of Ireland. Rooted in international human rights law, the no diminution of rights principle prevents states from regressing on previously established rights. Before Brexit, Rault argues, European integration had acted as a balancing force between British and Irish legal frameworks, thus enhancing the peace process in Northern Ireland. However, Brexit disrupted
this scheme and caused risks for inequalities in human rights protections between Northern Ireland, the Republic of Ireland, and the rest of the United Kingdom. Even though the no diminution of rights principle was enshrined in Brexit agreements such as the Ireland/Northern Ireland Protocol and the Windsor Framework, the UK government has displayed inconsistent adherence to these commitments, thus threatening the legal framework and raising concerns about widening disparities in rights protections. Rault highlights several possibilities to solve this issue: drafting a Northern Ireland Bill of Rights – which remains unlikely due to political disagreements – or an all-Ireland Charter of Rights to ensure rights protection across the island – which remains complex in implementation – or finally political unity, which, she contends, would be the most reliable solution to uphold consistent rights protections aligned with European standards.

The theme “Ireland and Human Rights: Idealism and Pragmatism, Discourse and Reality” chosen for this issue of *Études irlandaises* originated in a two-day conference held at the University of Toulouse Capitole on 18 and 19 November 2022. It also partakes in the GIS EIRE (Études irlandaises: réseaux et enjeux) research project that specifically focuses on Ireland and human rights. The editors would like to thank the authors and reviewers for providing new insights into and reflections on the GIS research topic, and for their valuable contributions and their outstanding support and effort in contributing to this special issue.

Marie-Violaine LOUVET

Université Toulouse Jean-Jaurès

Bairbre Ní CHIOSÁIN

Université Toulouse Capitole

Charlotte RAULT

Université Toulouse Capitole