The Irish Border as a European Union Frontier: The Implications for Managing Mobility and Conflict

Abstract

The 1998 Good Friday (Belfast) Agreement defined the conflict in Northern Ireland as being over the border between this part of the United Kingdom (UK) and the Republic of Ireland. This article defines and understands the Agreement as one of a number of ‘border regimes’ that operate between the two jurisdictions on the island of Ireland and, in doing so, seeks to explain how it is that Brexit has such significant implications for the management of conflict and mobility here. Against the backdrop of the European Union’s (EU’s) external border regimes, we argue that the most significant point about border regimes is not inclusion/exclusion across a state border but hierarchies of rights and treatment within a jurisdiction. This helps illustrate why it is that the UK’s withdrawal from the EU holds such significance for the peace process in Northern Ireland and for mobility within and across the islands of Ireland and Great Britain more broadly.