scholarly journals ‘Parallel Games’ and Queer Memories: Performing LGBT Testimonies in Northern Ireland

2017 ◽  
Vol 47 (1) ◽  
pp. 103-118
Author(s):  
Stefanie Lehner
Keyword(s):  
Northern Ireland ◽  
Publicly Funded ◽  
Memory Work ◽  
Post Conflict ◽  
Belfast Agreement ◽  
Theatre Company ◽  
Gay Theatre ◽  
Artistic Director

This essay explores how the notion of ‘parallel games’ works to queer memory in two productions of Northern Ireland's first publicly funded gay theatre company, TheatreofplucK, led by artistic director Niall Rea: the testimonial monologue D.R.A.G. (Divided, Radical and Gorgeous) (2012), written by Rea, and the performed archive installation, Tr<uble (2015), written by Shannon Yee. As post-conflict memory works, both productions trouble a progressivist understanding of ‘moving on’ from the conflict: instead of memories being harnessed to the ethno-nationalist template established by the Belfast Agreement, the plays ‘move’ memory work in different directions at the same time, giving rise to a diverse set of emotions.

Sectarianism

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laura McAtackney
Keyword(s):  
Northern Ireland ◽  
Lived Experiences ◽  
Peace Process ◽  
Place Identity ◽  
Societal Transformation ◽  
The Troubles ◽  
Post Conflict ◽  
Belfast Agreement ◽  
The Impact

An archaeological study of contemporary Northern Ireland adds a material dimension to debates on the impact-or otherwise-of the recent peace process on lived experiences in the province. This chapter has selected the study of security installations, peace walls, and Long Kesh/Maze prison as three manifestations of the Troubles in order to dissect how they have transitioned to the post-conflict context. Of particular note is how incomplete official attempts to refocus place identity have resulted in some of these sites becoming overly identified with one-sided Troubles narratives whilst others have taken on new, if decidedly sinister, meanings. Whilst it is impossible to be definitive about ongoing societal transformation, at this time it is clear that nearly 15 years after the Belfast Agreement (1998) the peace dividends promised by local and international politicians continue to be contradicted by material realities.

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.

scholarly journals The royal New Wave: Aubrey Mellor and Queensland Theatre Company, 1988–1993

2015 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 157-167
Author(s):  
Karen Hands
Keyword(s):  
Artistic Identity ◽  
New Wave ◽  
National State ◽  
Cultural Planning ◽  
Theatre Company ◽  
Artistic Director

AbstractWhen Aubrey Mellor returned to Brisbane in 1988 to become the second artistic director of Queensland Theatre Company (QTC), the company had been under the direction of a British-born and trained director since its formation in 1969. QTC was part of the national state theatre company network established as a result of postwar cultural planning. The network was charged with promoting national drama and producing theatre to a high artistic standard, but this objective imposed very specific constraints around the companies' programming. This was particularly observable at QTC: the company had been culturally and geographically distant from the New Wave movement that emerged in Sydney and Melbourne between 1968 and 1981. Mellor brought his experience of working in key institutions during this movement to QTC where he pursued a personal mission to develop Australian playwriting. During his five-year leadership he transitioned the artistic identity of the company to a more contemporary artistic framework.

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.

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