The “Most Distressful Nation:” History, Myth, and “the Troubles” in Northern Ireland (original) (raw)
Related papers
Bruised but Unbroken: Cultural Responses to the Irish Troubles
2018
Music and art can be very effective mediums for individual expression, both in personal life and for political thought. It is something that many people can relate to, can reach the heart more directly than mere words, and carries a wide range of unspoken meaning and significance without being reduced to clumsy language. Where words arc useful to express ideas, music and art can often convey emotion more effectively and can be very effective in inspiring action or shaping thought. For this reason, these mediums have been and arc often used to engage with or reject political discourse with great effect. One particularly potent example of this sort of discussion may be seen in the music and art used to comment on the Irish Troubles. This allows the historian to understand more about the complexities of this conflict by feeling the unspoken Young 2 assertions that are not immediately visible through words alone. It may also reveal something about how people thought about themselves, each other, and their histories and identities. The period of Northern Ireland's social and political conflict, known as "the Troubles," has a very long and complicated history, involving animosities about class, ethnicity, religion, and politics going hack for centuries. At its core, the Troubles were a conflict over political status and national identity between republicans wanting union with the Republic of Ireland and loyalists wanting to slay in the United Kingdom, with very old tensions and resentments sometimes spilling over into violence and both fccJingjustified for doing so. 1 It is generally said to have begun with the Battle ofthe Bogside on August 12-14, 1969 and ended with the Good Friday Agreement of 199R. But, even that designation is unclear and debatable. During this period, the violence between the opposing pararnilitaries, police forces, and civilians attracted international attention. Historical Context The origins of the conflict are often considered to go back to the Plantation of Ulster in the seventeenth century, when English and Scottish settlers were granted land by the Crown in the northeast with the aim of establishing a Protestant foothold in the area. This led to economic, social, and religious conflict between the populations as each feared and distrusted the other, sometimes breaking out into violence and reprisals which would only deepen the rift. By the nineteenth century, some politicians began to advocate greater independence fo r Ireland in order 1 Not everyone who wanted separation or union fell into these categories. Actually, most people did not; combatants were the visible minority. Non-violent suppmicrs oflrish unification or of staying with the United Kingdom were often called nationalists and unionists respectively, and the fact that a person might support one of these ideas did nol mean that they necessarily supported the violent expression of it. There were also other varic.:tics of these ideas, such as Ulster nationalism (supporting a Nmthern Treland independent from both the Republic and United Kingdom).
Narratives of Identity in the Northern Irish Troubles
This study examines the manners in which individuals and organizations used historical narratives to justify images of themselves and of the other, contributing both to the outbreak of the Troubles and the difficulty in resolving the conflict. The role of cultural identity formation through symbolic interpretation creates a backdrop that colors struggles over access to political and economic resources and assists in either fomenting conflict or fostering the peaceful resolution of differences. Despite the relative success of the Good Friday Agreement, I argue that many of Northern Ireland’s identity narratives persist and continue to provide a fertile ground to interpret new conflicts through the old lens of identity conflicts. Understanding the construction of these identity narratives and how they contributed to the conflict may provide avenues for identity reconstruction, which may assist in making Northern Ireland’s peace more durable. (Forthcoming in Peace & Change, October 2014.)
The Toxic Legacy of the Northern Ireland Troubles
RUSI Newsbrief, 2019
The 50th anniversary of the day that British troops first deployed to Northern Ireland offers an opportunity to reflect on the legacy of Operation Banner, and whether the security forces contributed to the troubles or prevented them.
‘Cold beads of history and home’: Fictional Perspectives on the Northern Ireland Troubles
This essay explores several novels by contemporary Northern Irish writers with a view to how The Troubles are represented in their pages. Major inspiration for my methodology comes from Hayden White's writings and, to a certain extent, from Linda Hutcheon's notion of historiographic metafiction. Especially, I endorse White's argument that real events do not present themselves to perception in the form of well-made narratives, therefore historiography always, and necessarily, must resort to strategies of representation borrowed from literary discourse. Historical fiction, in turn, though epistemologically unreliable, is capable of addressing unresolved ethnoreligious and political issues in the hope of increasing our scope for understanding each other. In Northern Ireland's heterogeneous culture, this is made possible by juxtaposing a variety of perspectives on its shared historical experience.
A tipper full of skinned limbs: Fiction and the Northern Ireland Troubles
J@RGONIA
This article discusses the potential of a fictional story, a novel, to challenge political narratives in a divided society. I will analyse three novels set during the ”Troubles” (1960s-1998) in Northern Ireland, looking at the ways in which each novel navigates the narrow space between Northern Irish unionism and nationalism, the two dominant narratives in Northern Ireland. I will read the novels politically, interpreting them as rhetorical narratives holding the power to challenge commonplace assumptions. I will apply the ideas put forward by James Phelan concerning the inherent rhetorical nature of narrative in fiction. I will also present Ann Rigney’s concept of cultural memory as an analytical tool for analysing the way in which memory and history have been politicised and how the material analysed offers a critique of that politicisation. I will contextualise the novels in the political, cultural and historiographic debates and political transformations in Northern Ireland. The article concludes that the three novels all seek to challenge and question the political narratives of Northern Ireland profoundly. They engage in a rhetorical act through which commonplace assumptions about the political conflict in Northern Ireland, its premises and its solutions, are presented in a new and challenging way.
The Journal of British Studies, 2011
W hen the Irish Republican Army (IRA) again embarked upon armed struggle in 1956, it was again for "an independent, united democratic Irish republic." "This is the age-old struggle of the Irish people versus British aggression," read the Proclamation of December 1956. 1 The plan was for "flying columns"-which had played an important role in the Anglo-Irish war of 1919-21-to cross into North Ireland's border counties and link up with local units. 2 The four columns were named after republican heroes (Patrick Pearse, Tom Clarke, Bartholomew Teeling, and Liam Lynch) and Tom Barry, who had written the West Cork flying column of the Anglo-Irish War into legend, was called upon to train his successors. 3 By fleeing into the past, however, the IRA was forced once again to retreat: the present problems of the North's security apparatus, the South's hostility, and the Catholic community's indifference could not be overcome by anachronistic tactics. 4 In February 1962, when the IRA finally faced up to the failure of the campaign, the Army Council blamed "the attitude of the general public whose minds have been deliberately distracted from the supreme issue facing the Irish people-the unity and freedom of Ireland." 5 Before continuing with this narrative about the Irish revolutionary tradition, it Simon Prince is a modern British and Irish historian at the Department of History, King's College London. He would like to thank Roy Foster for his advice and guidance. He is also grateful to Robert Tombs,