Ireland–United Kingdom relations

Although Ireland gained near-independence from Great Britain in 1782, there were revolutionary movements in the 1790s that favored France, Britain's great enemy. Secret societies staged the failed 1798 Rebellion. Therefore the kingdoms of Great Britain and Ireland were merged in 1801 to form the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. On 1 January 1801, the first day of the 19th century, the Great Britain and Ireland joined to form the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. The Act of Union 1800 was passed in both the Parliament of Great Britain and the Parliament of Ireland, dominated by the Protestant Ascendancy and lacking representation of the country's Roman Catholic population. Substantial majorities were achieved, and according to contemporary documents this was assisted by bribery in the form of the awarding of peerages and honours to opponents to gain their votes.[6]

The separate Parliaments of Great Britain and Ireland were now abolished, and replaced by a united Parliament of the United Kingdom. Ireland thus became an integral part of the United Kingdom, sending around 100 MPs to the House of Commons at Westminster and 28 representative peers to the House of Lords, elected from among their number by the Irish peers themselves, except that Roman Catholic peers were not permitted to take their seats in the Lords. Part of the trade-off for the Irish Catholics was to be the granting of Catholic Emancipation, which had been fiercely resisted by the all-Anglican Irish Parliament. However, this was blocked by King George III, who argued that emancipating the Roman Catholics would breach his Coronation Oath. The Roman Catholic hierarchy had endorsed the Union. However the decision to block Catholic Emancipation fatally undermined the appeal of the Union.[7][8]

19th century violent and constitutional campaigns for autonomy or independence culminated in an election in 1918 returning almost 70% of seats to Sinn Féin, who declared Irish independence from Britain and set up a parliament in Dublin, and declared the independence of Ireland from the United Kingdom. A war of independence followed that ended with the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1922, which partitioned Ireland between the Irish Free State, which gained dominion status within the British Empire, and a devolved administration in Northern Ireland, which remained part of the UK. In 1937, Ireland declared itself fully independent of the United Kingdom.[9]

Several academic perspectives are important in the study and understanding of Ireland–United Kingdom relations. Important strands of scholarship include research on identity, especially Britishness and Irishness, and studies of the major political movements, such as separatism, unionism and nationalism. The concept of post-nationalism is also contemporary trend in studies of history, culture and politics in the isles.

The day after the establishment of the Irish Free State, the Houses of the Parliament of Northern Ireland resolved to make an address to the King so as to opt out of the Irish Free State[11] Immediately afterwards, the need to settle an agreed border between the Irish Free State and Northern Ireland arose. In response to this issue a commission was set up involving representatives from the Government of the Irish Free State, the Government of Northern Ireland, and the Government of the United Kingdom which would chair the Commission. Ultimately and after some controversy, the present border was fixed, not by the Commission but by agreement between the United Kingdom (including Northern Ireland) and the Irish Free State.

A further dispute arose in 1930 over the issue of the Irish government's refusal to reimburse the United Kingdom with "land annuities". These annuities were derived from government financed soft loans given to Irish tenant farmers before independence to allow them to buy out their farms from landlords (see Irish Land Acts). These loans were intended to redress the issue of landownership in Ireland arising from the wars of the 17th century. The refusal of the Irish government to pass on monies it collected from these loans to the British government led to a retaliatory and escalating trade war between the two states from 1932 until 1938, a period known as the Anglo-Irish Trade War or the Economic War.

While the UK was less affected by the Economic War, the Irish economy was virtually crippled by the resulting capital flight. Unemployment was extremely high and the effects of the Great Depression compounded the difficulties. The government urged people to support the confrontation with the UK as a national hardship to be shared by every citizen. Pressures, especially from agricultural producers in Ireland and exporters in the UK, led to an agreement between the two governments in 1938 resolving the dispute.

Many infant industries were established during this "economic war". Almost complete import substitution was achieved in many sectors[12] behind a protective tariff barrier. These industries proved valuable during the war years as they reduced the need for imports. Under the terms of resulting Anglo-Irish Trade Agreement, all duties imposed during the previous five years were lifted but Ireland was still entitled to impose tariffs on British imports to protect new Irish "infant" industries. Ireland was to pay a one-off £10 million sum to the United Kingdom (as opposed to annual repayments of £250,000 over 47 more years). Arguably the most significant outcome, however, was the return of so-called "Treaty Ports", three ports in Ireland maintained by the UK as sovereign bases under the terms of the Anglo-Irish Treaty. The handover of these ports facilitated Irish neutrality during World War II, and made it much harder for Britain to ensure the safety of the Atlantic Conveys.[13]

Ireland adopted a new constitution in 1937. This declared Ireland to be a sovereign, independent state, but did not explicitly declare Ireland to be a republic. However, it did change the name of the state from Irish Free State to Ireland (or Éire in the Irish language). It also contained irredentist claims on Northern Ireland, stating that the "national territory [of the Irish state] consists of the whole island of Ireland" (Article 2). This was measured in some way by Article 3, which stated that, "Pending the re-integration of the national territory ... the laws enacted by the parliament [of Ireland] shall have the like area and extent of application as the laws of Saorstat Éireann" (Saorstát Éireann is the Irish language name of the Irish Free State).

The United Kingdom initially accepted the change in the name to Ireland.[14] However, it subsequently changed its practice and passed legislation providing that the Irish state could be called Eire (notably without a fada) in British law. For some time, the United Kingdom was supported by some other Commonwealth countries. However, by the mid-1960s, Ireland was the accepted diplomatic name of the Irish state.

During the Troubles, the disagreement led to request for extradition of terrorist suspects to be struck invalid by the Supreme Court of Ireland unless the name Ireland was used. Increasingly positive relations between the two states required the two states to explore imaginative work-arounds to the disagreement. For example, while the United Kingdom would not agree to refer to Mary Robinson as President of Ireland on an official visit to Queen Elizabeth II (the first such visit in the two states' history), they agreed to refer to her instead as "President Robinson of Ireland".

As a consequence of the Northern Ireland peace process, Articles 2 and 3 were changed in 1999 formalising shared Irish and British citizenship in Northern Ireland, removing the irredentist claim and making provisions for common "[institutions] with executive powers and functions ... in respect of all or any part of the island."

The Instrument of Abdication signed by Edward VIII and his three brothers

The Irish Free State had been governed, at least until 1936, under a form of constitutional monarchy linked to the United Kingdom. The King had a number of symbolically important duties, including exercising the executive authority of the state, appointing the cabinet and promulgating the law. However, when Edward VIII proposed to marry Wallis Simpson, an American socialite and divorcée, in 1936, it caused a constitutional crisis across the British Empire. In the chaos that ensued his abdication, the Irish Free State took the opportunity to amend its constitution and remove all of the functions of the King except one: that of representing the state abroad.

In 1937, a new constitution was adopted which entrenched the monarch's diminished role by transferring many of the functions performed by the King until 1936 to a new office of the President of Ireland, who was declared to "take precedence over all other persons in the State". However, the 1937 constitution did not explicitly declare that the state was a republic, nor that the President was head of state. Without explicit mention, the King continued to retain his role in external relations and the Irish Free State continued to be regarded as a member of the British Commonwealth and to be associated with the United Kingdom.

During the period from December 1936 to April 1949, it was unclear whether or not the Irish state was a republic or a form of constitutional monarchy and (from 1937) whether its head of state was the President of Ireland (Douglas Hyde until 1945, and Seán T. O'Kelly afterwards) or the King of Ireland (George VI). The exact constitutional status of the state during this period has been a matter of scholarly and political dispute.

The state's ambiguous status ended in 1949, when the Republic of Ireland Act stripped the King of his role in external relations and declared that the state may be described as the Republic of Ireland. The decision to do so was sudden and unilateral. However, it did not result in greatly strained relations between Ireland and the United Kingdom. The question of the head of the Irish state from 1936 to 1949 was largely a matter of symbolism and had little practical significance. The UK response was to legislate that it would not grant Northern Ireland to the Irish state without the consent of the Parliament of Northern Ireland (which was unlikely to happen in unionist-majority Northern Ireland).

One practical implication of explicitly declaring the state to be a republic in 1949 was that it automatically terminated the state's membership of the British Commonwealth, in accordance with the rules in operation at the time. However, despite this, the United Kingdom legislated that Irish citizens would retain similar rights to Commonwealth subjects and were not to be regarded as foreigners.

The Republic of Ireland Act came into force on 18 April 1949. Ten days later, 28 April 1949, the rules of the Commonwealth of Nations were changed through the London Declaration so that, when India declared itself a republic, it would not have to leave. The prospect of Ireland rejoining the Commonwealth, even today, is still occasionally raised but has never been formally considered by the Irish government.

A minor, through recurring, source of antagonism between Britain and Ireland is the name of the archipelago in which they both are located. Commonly known as the British Isles, this name is opposed by some in Ireland and its use is objected to by the Irish Government.

A spokesman for the Irish Embassy in London recently said, "The British Isles has a dated ring to it, as if we are still part of the Empire. We are independent, we are not part of Britain, not even in geographical terms. We would discourage its usage [sic].".[15]

No consensus on another name for the islands exists. In practice, the two Governments and the shared institutions of the archipelago avoid use of the term, frequently using the euphemism these islands in place of any term.

Political violence broke out in Northern Ireland in 1968 following clashes over a civil rights campaign. The civil rights campaign demanding an end to institutionalised discrimination against nationalists by the unionist Government of Northern Ireland. As the violence escalated, rioting and attacks by nationalist and unionist groups began to de-stabilise the province and required the presence of British troops on the ground.

In the wake of the riots, the Republic of Ireland expressed its concern about the situation. In a televised broadcast, Taoiseach Jack Lynch stated that the Irish Government could "no longer stand by" while hundreds of people were being injured. This was interpreted as a threat of military intervention.[16] While a plan for an Irish invasion of Northern Ireland was rejected by the Government of Ireland, a secret Irish government fund of £100,000 was dedicated to helping refugees from the violence. Some more actively nationalist Irish Ministers were tried in 1970 when it emerged that some of the fund had been spent covertly on buying arms for nationalists.

Angry crowds burned down the British Embassy in Dublin in protest at the shooting by British troops of 13 civilians in Derry, Northern Ireland on Bloody Sunday (1972) and in 1981 protesters tried to storm the British Embassy in response to the IRA hunger strikes of that year. In 1978, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) trial Ireland v. the United Kingdom ruled that the techniques used in interrogating prisoners in Northern Ireland "amounted to a practice of inhuman and degrading treatment", in breach of the European Convention on Human Rights.

An attempt by the two governments to resolve the conflict in Northern Ireland politically in 1972 through the Sunningdale Agreement failed due to opposition by hard-line factions in Northern Ireland. With no resolution to the conflict in sight, the Irish government established the New Ireland Forum in 1984 to look into solutions. While the British UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher rejected the forum's proposals, it informed the British government's opinion and it is said to have given the Irish Taoiseach Garret FitzGerald a mandate during the negotiation of the 1985 Anglo-Irish Agreement, which was directed at resolving the conflict.[17][18] The 1992 Downing Street Declaration further consolidated the views of the two Governments and the 1998 Good Friday Agreement eventually formed the basis for peace in the province.

The Irish Department of Foreign Affairs established a "Reconciliation Fund" in 1982 to support organisations whose work tends to improve cross-community or North–South relations.[19] Since 2006, the Minister for Foreign Affairs has hosted an annual "Reconciliation Networking Forum" (sometimes called the "Reconciliation Forum"; not to be confused with the Forum for Peace and Reconciliation) in Dublin to which such groups are invited.[20][21]

There is a controversy about the impact that Britain's withdrawal from the European Union will have at the end of the transition period on the border between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland, in particular the impact it may have on the economy and people of the island were customs or immigration checks to be put in place at the border. It was prioritized as one of the three most important areas to resolve in order to reach the Agreement on the withdrawal of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland from the European Union.[22]

The people of the UK voted to leave the European Union in a non-binding referendum on 23 June 2016, an act which would effectively make the Republic of Ireland-Northern Ireland border an external EU border.[23] Due to the lack of supporting legislation, all referendums in the UK are not legally binding, which was confirmed by a Supreme Court judge in November 2016.[24] Despite this, the UK government chose to proceed with the departure from the European Union. All parties have stated that they want to avoid a hard border in Ireland particularly due to the sensitive nature of the border. The border issue is concerned by a protocol related to the withdrawal agreement, known as the Protocol on Ireland and Northern Ireland.[25]

The British felt the issue of Northern Ireland, was settled, but Brexit reopened it. Since 2007, Northern Ireland has been jointly controlled by the two historic enemies, the DUP and Sinn Féin who cooperated smoothly under the 1998 power-sharing agreement. The UK favoured Brexit because of the English vote, in which Irish issues were rarely discussed. The decision for Brexit which upset a delicate balance and focused attention on the century-old partition of Ireland. The snap general election called by Prime Minister Theresa May in 2017 gave the DUP--the party founded by hard-liner Protestant Ian Paisley--a decisive role. The role of the 10 Unionist Democratic MPs opposing any differential treatment for Northern Ireland blocked the implementation of Brexit and provoked another snap election in 2019. Memory mattered as people recalled the unpleasantries of the past such as the bloody Irish War of Independence and the 50th anniversary of the civil rights movement and the outbreak of the Troubles. Nevertheless observers reported a growing element of people from Northern Ireland are seeking to escape the traditional dichotomy between orange and green.[26][27]

An Euler diagram showing the major political entities of the British Isles.

The British-Irish Council (BIC) is an international organisation[28] laid out under the Belfast Agreement in 1998 and created by the established by the two Governments in 1999. Its members are:

• the two sovereign governments of Ireland and the United Kingdom;
• the three devolved administrations in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales
• the three governments of the Crown dependencies of Guernsey, the Isle of Man and Jersey.

The Council formally came into being on 2 December 1999. Its stated aim is to "promote the harmonious and mutually beneficial development of the totality of relationships among the peoples of these islands". The BIC has a standing secretariat, located in Edinburgh, Scotland, and meets in bi-annual summits and regular sectoral meetings. Summit meetings are attended by the heads of each administrations (e.g. the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom) whereas sectoral meetings are attended by the relevant ministers form each administration.

While the Council is made up of representatives from the executive of the various administrations in the region, it does not have executive power itself. Instead, its decisions, so far as they exist, are implemented separately by each administration on the basis of consensus. Given this – that the Council has no means to force its member administrations into implementing programmes of action – the Council has been dismissed as a "talking shop" and its current role appears to be one mainly of "information exchange and consultation".[29]

In addition to the Council, the British–Irish Parliamentary Assembly (BIPA) is composed of members of the legislative bodies in the United Kingdom, including the devolved legislatures, Ireland, and the British Crown dependencies. It is the older of the two 'all-islands' institutions (BIC and BIPA) having been founded in 1990 as the British-Irish Inter-Parliamentary Body. Its purpose is to foster common understanding between elected representatives from these jurisdictions and, while having no legislative power, it conducts parliamentary activities such as receiving oral submissions, preparing reports and debating topical issues. The Assembly meets in plenary on a bi-annual basis, alternating in venue between Britain and Ireland, and maintains on-going work in committee.

These institutions have been described as part of a confederal approach to the government of the British-Irish archipelago.[29][30]

The offices of the North/South Ministerial Council on Upper English Street, Armagh

The North/South Ministerial Council (NSMC) coordinates activity and exercises certain governmental functions across the island of Ireland. The Council is responsible for developing and executing policy in at least twelve areas of co-operation, of which:

• at least six are executed separately in each jurisdiction
• at least six are executed by an all-Ireland "implementation body"

Further development of the role and function of the Council are possible "with the specific endorsement of the Northern Ireland Assembly and Oireachtas, subject to the extent of the competences and responsibility of the two Administrations."

The North/South Ministerial Council and the Northern Ireland Assembly are defined in the Good Friday Agreement as being "mutually inter-dependent, and that one cannot successfully function without the other." Participation in the Council is a requisite for the operation of the Northern Ireland Assembly and participation in the Northern Ireland Executive. When devolution in Northern Ireland is suspended, the powers of the Northern Ireland Executive revert to the British–Irish Intergovernmental Conference.

Meetings of the Council take the form of "regular and frequent" sectoral meetings between ministers from the Government of Ireland and the Northern Ireland Executive. Plenary meetings, attended by all ministers and led by the First Minister and deputy First Minister and the Taoiseach, take place twice a year. Institutional and cross-sectoral meetings, including matters in relation to the EU or to resolved disagreements, happen "in an appropriate format" on a ad hoc basis. The Council has a permanent office located in Armagh, Northern Ireland, staffed by a standing secretariat.

There is no joint parliamentary forum for the island of Ireland. However, under the Good Friday Agreement, the Oireachtas and Northern Ireland Assembly are asked to consider developing one. The Agreement also contains a suggestion for the creation of a consultative forum composed of members of civil society from Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. Under the 2007, St. Andrew's Agreement, the Northern Ireland Executive agreed to support the establishment of a North/South Consultative Forum and to encourage parties in the Northern Ireland Assembly to support the creation of a North/South parliamentary forum.

Independent of the direct involvement of Government of the United Kingdom, the devolved administrations of the mainland United Kingdom and the Crown dependencies also have relationships and with Ireland.

For example, the Irish and Welsh governments collaborate on various economic development projects through the Ireland Wales Programme, under the Interreg initiative of the European Union.[31] The governments of Ireland and Scotland, together with the Northern Ireland Executive, also collaborated on the ISLES project under the aegis of the Special EU Programmes Body, set up under the Good Friday Agreement.[32] The project was to facilitate the development of offshore renewable energy sources, such as wind, wave and tidal energy, and trade in renewable energy between Scotland, the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland.

  The Common Travel Area

  Schengen Area (EU)

  Schengen Area (non-EU)

  States due to join the Schengen Area

Ireland and the United Kingdom are the only parts of the European Union not obliged to join the Schengen free-travel area. The Crown Dependencies, which are outside of the EU, are not members either. Instead, a Common Travel Area exists between the two states and the Crown Dependencies. The Common Travel Areas is not founded on any formal agreement between Ireland and the United Kingdom and is not provided for in legislation. Instead, it is an informal arrangement between the states. When the Schengen Area was incorporated into the European Union through the 1992 Amsterdam Treaty, the first formal recognition of the Common Travel areas was made though an annexed protocol exempting their obligations to join.

The UK's reluctance to join the Schengen Area, through concerns over loss of independent border controls, is usually cited as the reason for not joining. Britain argued that, for an island, frontier controls are a better and less intrusive way to prevent illegal immigration than other measures, such as identity cards, residence permits, and registration with the police. Consequent difficulties for Ireland, given its location and shared border with the United Kingdom (at which border points would have to be set up), would then make it very difficult for Ireland to join without the United Kingdom.

Except for a period during and in the years after World War II, neither Ireland nor the UK have placed restrictions on travel between each other for citizens resident in each others states since Irish independence. Even during wartime, when Ireland remained neutral and the United Kingdom was a belligerent during World War II, the only significant restrictions on travel between the states were an Irish prohibition on the wearing of military uniforms by British citizens when in Irish territory and the instatement of passport controls between Great Britain and the island of Ireland. When Ireland suddenly declared itself a republic in 1949, thus making it impossible to remain in the British Commonwealth, the UK government legislated that even though the Republic of Ireland was no longer a British dominion, it would not be treated as a foreign country for the purposes of British law.

Prior to post-World War II, both states mutually recognised each other's entry visas for foreigners. However, in 1952 changes to UK law rescinded this arrangement. In 2011, the first public agreement between the British and Irish governments concerning the maintenance of the Common Travel Area was published.[33]

The agreement, which is non-binding, envisions increased co-ordination between Irish and British immigration arrangements and that, from July 2011 Ireland would recognise UK short terms visas on an 18-month pilot basis for nationals of 16 countries. The agreement also mooted the possibility of "Common Travel Area visit visa" including the possibility of a pilot project.

There are no special arrangements for travel between the Common Travel Area and the Schengen Area and a Schengen visa entitle entry. However, citizens of the European Union, Norway, Iceland, Liechtenstein and Switzerland may enter as a right using only their passports.

A 1924 passport, issued after the secession of the Irish Free State, bearing the name United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. The Irish Free State also issued passports from 1924 onwards.

As a dominion of the British Empire, citizens of the Irish Free State were regarded as British subjects in common with all other members of the Empire. Historically, as late as 1942, British jurisprudence was that Irish citizenship "did no more than confer ... a national character as an Irish citizen within the wider British nationality". Indeed, for some years, the British authorities refused to accept Irish passports.[34]

Starting from the basis of common citizenship, the two states to this day provide reciprocal recognition to each others' citizens. British and Irish citizens can avail themselves of public services (for example, health care and social welfare) in each other's jurisdictions on an equal basis and are entitled to the right of abode, with deportation only in the most exceptional of circumstances. They each have equal voting (and standing) rights in all elections held across the United Kingdom and Ireland (except for the election of the President of Ireland and referenda).

Northern Ireland occupies a unique location in the citizenship of the islands, with Northern Ireland people being recognised under the Good Friday Agreement as (in general terms) simultaneously British and/or Irish citizens according to their choice.

The interaction of overlapping citizens rights and laws has led to some cases of exploitation of loopholes to avoid the intention of the law. For example, the Twenty-seventh Amendment of the Constitution of Ireland was required to amend the potential for abuse of the rights of Irish citizenship to the right to abode in the United Kingdom. Before then, Irish citizenship was granted on the basis of jus soli (i.e. being born on the island of Ireland was reason in itself to be considered an Irish citizen). In one case, a Chinese migrant to the UK, living in Wales on Great Britain, chose to give birth to a child in Northern Ireland, on the island of Ireland, to take advantage of Irish citizenship laws. Consequently, her child was born an Irish citizen by virtue of jus soli and so was entitled to permanent abode in the UK even though the mother did not have the right to visit the Republic of Ireland. The mother and father then claimed the right to stay in the United Kingdom by virtue of being the guardians of a citizen of the European Union who would be unable to look after itself should they be deported.

A single wholesale electricity market exists on the island of Ireland since 2007. Work towards common arrangements for the transmission and distributions of natural gas, including a common retail market arrangements by 2014, on the island are also underway.[35]

In 2004, a natural gas interconnection agreement was signed between the United Kingdom and Ireland, linking Ireland with Scotland via the Isle of Man.[36]

In 2011, the members of the British-Irish Council agreed an "All Islands Approach (AIA)" to electricity grid infrastructure and have launched a programme of joint work examining renewable energy trading as well as interconnection and market integration.[37]

The United Kingdom and Ireland share a number of civic bodies such as the Royal National Lifeboat Institution, that provides sea-rescue across Britain and Ireland.

The three lighthouse authorities in the archipelago (the Northern Lighthouse Board, Trinity House Lighthouse Service and the Commissioners of Irish Lights) are funded by a single General Lighthouse Fund managed by the UK Department for Transport and paid for by light dues levied on ships calling at British and Irish ports. While this broad arrangement will continue, the total cost of the Commissioners of Irish Lights' work in Ireland (not Northern Ireland) will be met from income raised domestically as from 2015—16.[38]

The Republic of Ireland and the United Kingdom normalised military cooperation with the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding between the Irish Department of Defence and the British Ministry of Defence in January 2015.

The Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) provides a framework for developing and furthering bilateral co-operation and relations between the Department of Defence and the UK Ministry of Defence. The MOU takes into account matters such as military forces training; exercises and military education; exchange of views on EU Common Security and Defence Policy; potential for joint contributions to UN Crisis Management Operations; joint procurement initiatives; pooling and sharing resources; general sharing of reform in defence services; potential for staff exchanges; sharing of information, and joint contribution to Security Sector Reform and capacity building in crisis locations. It envisages cooperation and exchanges involving both civil and military personnel. The signing of the MoU places already existing co-operation arrangements in the Defence area between Ireland and the UK on a more formal and transparent footing, while fully respecting the differing policy positions and security arrangements of both States.

To date, I have not been requested to appear before the Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality to discuss the Agreement. However, I would welcome the opportunity to brief the Committee should the opportunity arise.

Dáil approval was not required for the Memorandum of Understanding. However, in the interests of transparency and good administrative practices, the Document has been laid before Dáil Éireann by lodging it to the Dáil Library on 21 January 2015.

— Simon Coveney, "Dáil Written Answers Nos. 354-370"[39]

Historically, Ireland has maintained a policy of strict military neutrality since the foundation of the state. As a result, Ireland has never joined the UK as an active ally, during any modern conflict.