Northern Ireland has been the focus of media attention since the resurgence of violence in the wake of the civil rights movements of the 1960s. However, media constructions of an apparently incomprehensible cycle of violence and atrocity have produced an image of a society separated from the wider world. This book breaks down this narrow view and provides a detailed account of Northern Irish society and politics in the last 30 years. Distributed by Taylor and Francis. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR
This study considers writing within the cultural context of Northern Ireland and discusses how writing creates a sense of community, and the different forms this takes when written from loyalist or republican perspectives. The book takes its major theoretical energy from readings of Antonio Gramsci's concept of hegemony and Walter Benjamin's work on historiography. hese are applied to major writers such as Seamus Heaney, Tom Paulin, Paul Muldoon and Edna Longley and to institutions such as the Ulster Folk and Transport Museum.
Despite the staggering number of books related to the Northern Ireland political arena, most of the literature concentrates on only a few dimensions of ?the conflict? and especially on constitutional policy and the on-going search for a resolution of the antagonisms. This original textbook, the first of its kind, serves as a comprehensive examination of the subject by exploring these topics and other important dimensions of politics which have been overlooked and undervalued.Politics in Northern Ireland is written by a team of distinguished academics, drawn from both within and outside Northern Ireland. It adopts the analytic tools of political science and brings a comparative perspective to bear on the politics of Northern Ireland. Early chapters examine the historic sources of conflict, analyze the period since the outbreak of the modern troubles, and discuss the differences between the communities. The book then examines the nature of parties, elections, and elective assemblies, before focusing on policy matters, such as fair employment, policing, and gender. In the concluding chapter, contributors consider relations with the Republic of Ireland and discuss events as current as today's headlines, including the historic breakthrough in negotiations, the referendums, and the Assembly elections. The result is a well-rounded core text designed for the classroom, as well as for those interested in learning more about different facets of politics in Northern Ireland.
For the past 30 years, the so-called 'Troubles' thriller has been the dominant fictional mode for representing Northern Ireland, leading to the charge that the crudity of this popular genre appropriately reflects the social degradation of the North. Aaron Kelly challenges both these judgments, showing that the historical questions raised by setting a thriller in Northern Ireland disrupt the conventions of the crime novel and allow for a new understanding of both the genre and the country. Two essays on crime fiction by Walter Benjamin and Berthold Brecht appear here for the first time in English translation. By demonstrating the relevance of these theorists as well as other key European thinkers such as Antonio Gramsci, Louis Althusser, and Slavoj Zizek to his interdisciplinary study of Irish culture and the crime novel, Kelly refutes the idea that Northern Ireland is a stagnate anomaly that has been bypassed by European history and remained impervious to cultural transformation. On the contrary, Kelly's examination of authors such as Jack Higgins, Tom Clancy, Gerald Seymour, Colin Bateman, and Eoin McNamee shows that profound historical change and complexity have characterized both Northern Ireland and the thriller form.
... ein ausserordentlich gelungenes Kompendium zur Geschichte Nordirlands vom 16. Jh. bis zur Gegenwart. Dem sorgfaltig redigierten, mit einer sehr nutzlichen Auswahlbibliographie sowie einem Personen- und Ortsregister versehenen Band ist der Charakter eines umfassenden Standardwerkes zu attestieren. Es eignet sich sowohl zur schnellen und zuverlassigen Information uber historische Ablaufe und Zusammenhange als auch zur vertiefenden Einarbeitung in die verschiedenen Aspekte des komplexen Nordirlandproblems." Zeitschrift fur Geschichtswissenschaft "... ein Nachschlagewerk, das uber die Geschichte und Gegenwart der Provinz, uber politische Hintergrunde und soziale Verhaltnisse umfassend und kompetent informiert." Historische Zeitschrift Aus dem Inhalt: Teil 1: Die historische Entwicklung (mit Beitragen von: Hiram Morgan, Belfast, John McCavitt, Belfast, Tony Canavan, Belfast, Brian Girvin, Cork, Peter Collins, Belfast, Michael T. Foy, Belfast, Jurgen Elvert, Kiel) Teil 2: Nordirland (mit Beitragen von: Andreas Helle, Frankfurt/Main, Brian Barton, Belfast, Sabine Wichert, Belfast, David W. Harkness, Belfast, Arthur Aughey, Jordanstown, Dietmar Herz, Karlsruhe, Patrick J. Roche, Belfast, Duncan Morrow, Jordanstown, Helge Berlinke, Kiel) Teil 3: Der Konflikt (mit Beitragen von: Arthur Aughey, Jordanstown, Steve Bruce, Aberdeen, Henry Patterson, Jordanstown, Duncan Morrow, Jordanstown, Brian Lennon S.J., Portadown, David E. Butler, Coleraine, Gottfried Schroder, Kiel, Bernd Grossheim, Kiel, Ulrich Kockel, Liverpool, Roland Sturm, Tubingen, Klaas Hartmann/Christopher Schumacher, Kiel)
Lee Smithey examines how symbolic cultural expressions in Northern Ireland, such as parades, bonfires, murals, and commemorations, provide opportunities for Protestant unionists and loyalists to reconstruct their collective identities and participate in conflict transformation.
This book examines periodical production in the context of post-revolutionary Ireland, employing the unique lens of genre theory in detailed comparisons between Irish, English, Welsh, and Scottish magazines.
Northern Ireland presents a fundamental challenge for the sociology of religion – how do religious beliefs, attitudes and identities relate to practices, violence and conflict? In other words, what does religion do? These interrogations are at the core of this book. It is the first critical and comprehensive review of the ways in which the social sciences have interpreted religion’s significance in Northern Ireland. In particular, it examines the shortcomings of existing interpretations and, in turn, suggests alternative lines of thinking for more robust and compelling analyses of the role(s) religion might play in Northern Irish culture and politics. Through, and beyond, the case of Northern Ireland, the second objective of this book is to outline a critical agenda for the social study of religion, which has theoretical and methodological underpinnings. Finally, this work engages with epistemological issues which never have been addressed as such in the Northern Irish context: how do conflict settings affect the research undertaken on religion, when religion is an object of political and violent contentions? By analysing the scope for objective and critical thinking in such research context, this critical essay intends to contribute to a sociology of the sociology of religion.
This collection is the first to examine how the city is written in modern Irish fiction. Focusing on the multi-faceted, layered, and ever-changing topography of the city in Irish writing, it brings together studies of Irish and Northern Irish fictions which contribute to a more complete picture of modern Irish literature and Irish urban cultural identities. It offers a critical introduction to the Irish city as it represented in fiction as a plural space to mirror the plurality of contemporary Irish identities north and south of the border. The chapters combine to provide a platform for new research in the field of Irish urban literary studies, including analyses of the fiction of authors including James Joyce, Roddy Doyle, Kate O’Brien, Hugo Hamilton, Kevin Barry, and Rosemary Jenkinson. An exciting and diverse range of fictions is introduced and examined with the aim of generating a cohesive perspective on Irish urban fictions and to stimulate further discussion in this emerging area.
This book examines the range and complexity of unionist political identities, ideas and beliefs in the non-English parts of the United Kingdom in the mid-twentieth century. It discusses the careers of eight politicians from Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland and uncovers the varieties of unionism that held the multi-national UK together. Challenging the idea that Britain was in the process of breaking up, it argues that the Union provided a focus for loyalty in the United Kingdom that contributed to the continuing formation of identities of Britishness.
