Shared Narrative in Post-Conflict Northern Ireland

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kevin Hearty
Keyword(s):  
Northern Ireland ◽  
Post Conflict ◽  
Shared Narrative

Words as Weapons

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Connal Parr
Keyword(s):  
Northern Ireland ◽  
Working Class ◽  
Culture Wars ◽  
Post Conflict ◽  
Literary Heritage ◽  
Republican Movement ◽  
Artistic Merit

‘Culture wars’ in Northern Ireland are literary and rest upon the misperception—and political claim—that Ulster Protestants lack a culture aside from Orangeism. Unionist politicians and Republican writers have accordingly cultivated the myth that Ulster Protestants lack literary heritage and have never been involved in the theatre. The community has internalized a post-conflict ‘defeatism’ and a conviction that it has produced little or nothing of artistic merit. This has been fortified by the individualist, splintered nature of the Protestant community as opposed to the more cohesive and communally robust Catholic equivalent. The Republican movement and its associated writers mainly view literature as an arm of the struggle, which is shown to be important in bringing about an end to conflict, but has led to a derogation of working-class Protestants. The chapter also considers Ulster Loyalist engagement with poetry and drama.

Punk in Belfast, Northern Ireland: Critical Perspectives on the Troubles and Post-conflict “Peace”

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jim Donaghey
Keyword(s):  
Northern Ireland ◽  
Conflict Situation ◽  
The Troubles ◽  
Post Conflict ◽  
Counter Narrative ◽  
Alternative Culture ◽  
Development Agendas ◽  
Critical Perspectives

Punk’s resonance has been felt strongly here. Against the backdrop of the Troubles and the “post-conflict” situation in Northern Ireland, punk has provided an anti-sectarian alternative culture. The overarching conflict of the Troubles left gaps for punk to thrive in, as well as providing the impetus for visions of an “Alternative Ulster,” but the stuttering shift from conflict to post-conflict has changed what oppositional identities and cultures look like. With the advent of “peace” (or a particular version of it at least) in the late 1990s, this space is being squeezed out by “development” agendas while counterculture is co-opted and neutered—and all the while sectarianism is further engrained and perpetuated. This chapter examines punk’s positioning within (and against) the conflict-warped terrain of Belfast, especially highlighting punk’s critical counter-narrative to the sectarian, neoliberal “peace.”

scholarly journals The Perception of the Legitimacy of Citizens’ Assemblies in Deeply Divided Places? Evidence of Public and Elite Opinion from Consociational Northern Ireland

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-20
Author(s):  
John Garry ◽  
James Pow ◽  
John Coakley ◽  
David Farrell ◽  
Brendan O'Leary ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Northern Ireland ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
Public Support ◽  
Policy Issue ◽  
Cross Sectional ◽  
Post Conflict ◽  
Elite Interviews ◽  
Support Decision Making ◽  
Selection Of

Abstract How much public and elite support is there for the use of a citizens’ assembly – a random selection of citizens brought together to consider a policy issue – to tackle major, deadlock-inducing disagreements in deeply divided places with consociational political institutions? We focus on Northern Ireland and use evidence from a cross-sectional attitude survey, a survey-based experiment and elite interviews. We find that the general public support decision-making by a citizens’ assembly, even when the decision reached is one they personally disagree with. However, support is lower among those with strong ideological views. We also find that elected politicians oppose delegating decision-making power to an ‘undemocratic’ citizens’ assembly, but are more supportive of recommendation-making power. These findings highlight the potential for post-conflict consociations to be amended, with the consent of the parties, to include citizens’ assemblies that make recommendations but not binding policy.

A Troubled Sleep

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Waller
Keyword(s):  
Northern Ireland ◽  
Violent Conflict ◽  
Religious Leaders ◽  
Risk And Resilience ◽  
Peace Agreement ◽  
Face To Face ◽  
The Troubles ◽  
Tour Guides ◽  
Post Conflict ◽  
Health Practitioners

A Troubled Sleep: Risk and Resilience in Contemporary Northern Ireland revisits one of the world’s most deeply divided societies more than 20 years after a peace agreement brought an end to the Troubles. The book asks if the conflict, while perhaps managed and contained, has been transformed—structurally and relationally—into a win-win situation for both sides. It addresses this question by drawing on ethnographic fieldwork, comparative research, and more than 110 hours of face-to-face interviews with politicians, activists, community workers, former political prisoners, former (and sometimes current) paramilitary members, academics, journalists, mental health practitioners, tour guides, school teachers, museum curators, students, police and military personnel, legal experts, and religious leaders across Northern Ireland. The heart of the book analyzes Northern Ireland’s current vulnerabilities and points of resilience as an allegedly “post-conflict” society. The vulnerabilities are analyzed through a model of risk assessment that examines the longer term and slower moving structures, measures, society-wide conditions, and processes that leave societies vulnerable to violent conflict. Such risk factors include the interpretation of conflict history, how authority in a country is exercised, and the susceptibility to social disharmony, isolation, and fragmentation. Resilience is examined from a survey of the countering influences, both within and outside Northern Ireland, that are working diligently to confirm humanity by reducing or reversing these vulnerabilities. The book concludes by examining the accelerating factors in contemporary Northern Ireland that may lead to an escalation of crisis as well as the triggering factors that could spark the onset of violent conflict itself.

Spaces of Peace

2021 ◽  
pp. 138-151
Author(s):  
Annika Björkdahl ◽  
Stefanie Kappler
Keyword(s):  
Northern Ireland ◽  
Post Conflict ◽  
The People ◽  
The City

This chapter shows that war-making and peace-making “take place” and that sometimes the legacy of conflict obscures manifestations of peacebuilding. The analysis of a “bridge that divides” in the city of Mitrovica in northern Kosovo and a “wall that unites” in Belfast, Northern Ireland, casts light on the benefits that a spatial reading of peace can provide to understand the ways in which spatial infrastructures are lived by the people who use them. The process of space-making (the generation of meanings from a material location) will help explain the agency that emerges by the creators, users, and inhabitants of (post)conflict spaces.

Introduction

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Bolton
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Northern Ireland ◽  
Social Services ◽  
Social Worker ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Conflict Processes ◽  
Post Conflict ◽  
Personal Experiences ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Health And Well Being

In the Introduction, the author describes the background to the book and his personal experiences of violence in Northern Ireland - as a social worker and health and social services manager in Enniskillen and Omagh. He addresses the impact of loss and trauma linked to conflict and the implications for mental health and well-being. The structure of the book is outlined and the author sets the rest of the book in the argument that the mental health of conflict affected communities should be an early and key consideration in peace talks, politics and post-conflict processes.

George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and Post-Conflict Northern Ireland

2019 ◽  
pp. 259-276
Author(s):  
Andrew Sanders
Keyword(s):  
Northern Ireland ◽  
Presidential Election ◽  
Barack Obama ◽  
The State ◽  
The Political ◽  
Hillary Clinton ◽  
Northern Irish ◽  
2008 Presidential Election ◽  
Post Conflict

After Clinton’s second term in office ended, President George W Bush moved the Special Envoy to Northern Ireland to the State Department, but his Envoys, led by Richard Haass and Mitchell Reiss, were no less engaged in Northern Irish affairs as the political figures there sought to create a functional government at Stormont Parliament Buildings. A series of significant obstacles emerged, but the Northern Ireland Assembly finally formed in 2007 before Bush left office. He was succeeded by President Barack Obama who had little interest in Northern Ireland but Obama’s initial Secretary of State, former Senator Hillary Clinton, was well-versed in Northern Irish issues. This chapter also examines the role of Northern Ireland in the 2008 Democratic Primary contest and, to a lesser extent, the 2008 Presidential Election.

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