Making Difference: Conflict Over Irish Identity in the New York City St. Patrick’s Day Parade (original) (raw)
Related papers
British Journal of Social Psychology
We examine experiences of collective self-objectification (CSO) (or its failure) among participants in a ‘multicultural’ St Patrick's Day parade. A two-stage interview study was carried out in which 10 parade participants (five each from ethnic majority and minority groups) were interviewed before and after the event. In pre-event interviews, all participants understood the parade as an opportunity to enact social identities, but differed in the category definitions and relations they saw as relevant. Members of the white Irish majority saw the event as being primarily about representing Ireland in a positive, progressive, light, whereas members of minority groups saw it as an opportunity to have their groups' identities and belonging in Ireland recognized by others. Post-event interviews revealed that, for the former group, the event succeeded in giving expression to their relevant category definitions. The latter group, on the other hand, cited features of the event such as inauthentic costume design and a segregated structure as reasons for why the event did not provide the group recognition they sought. The accounts revealed a variety of empowering and disempowering experiences corresponding to the extent of enactment. We consider the implications in terms of CSO, the performative nature of dual identities, as well as the notion of multicultural recognition.
The present study investigates how attendees at national celebratory crowd events—specifically St. Patrick's Day parades—understand the role of such events in representing and uniting the national community. We conducted semi-structured interviews with people who attended St. Patrick's Day parades in either Dublin or Belfast. In year 1, full-length interviews were conducted before and after the events (N = 17), and in years 1 and 2, shorter interviews were conducted during the events (year 1 N = 170; year 2 N = 142). Interview data were analysed using thematic analysis, allowing the identification of three broad themes. Participants reported that (i) the events extend the boundary of the national group, using participation to define who counts as Irish; (ii) the events strategically represent the nature of the national group, maximising positive images and managing stereotypical representations; and (iii) symbolism serves to unify the group but can also disrupt already fragile unity and so must be managed. Overall, this points to a strategic identity dimension to these crowd events. We discuss the implications of these findings for future research in terms of the role of large-scale celebratory events in the strategic representation of everyday social identities.
2018
This thesis argues that by comparing the Toronto and Montreal St. Patrick's Day parade of 1858 and 1866, it is possible to see how the traditions were invented and changed in order to create distinct Irish Catholic identities. The comparison allows us to clearly see how the Toronto parade became more and more Irish nationalistic and secular, opposing themselves to a Protestant Toronto, while Montreal's Irish Catholic community used the tradition of parades to insert themselves more and more clearly in the city's narrative by highlighting their Catholic and loyalist affiliations. Through a performance studies and ritual studies lens, the actions and symbols of the St. Patrick's Day parade will be analysed to demonstrate that Toronto's parades became increasingly nationalistic in tone between 1858 and 1866 to culminate in an open debate on the existence of the parade by the influential members of the Irish Catholic community whereas Montreal's parade used the performances of the day to insert themselves, passively in 1858 and actively in 1866, into Montreal's and Canada's society. Looking at the discourses of the leaders in both cities as well as the newspaper coverage demonstrates the fluidity of an immigrant Irish Catholic identity which adapted to its social, geographical and historical contexts which was as dependent on dynamics within the community as it was with outside forces. This thesis contributes to the study of the experience of Irish immigration to Canada by providing an interdisciplinary work grounded in cultural history and strengthened by performance studies.
Rainbows of Resistance LGBTQ Pride Parades Contesting Space in Post-Conflict Belfast
The article seeks to demonstrate how marchers in the annual LGBTQ Pride Parade strategically contest and reclaim heteronormative public spaces in Belfast, Northern Ireland. There is an exploration of participants adapting transnational symbolic representations and discourses to the distinct national-local cultural milieu in which they are scripted and performed. The discursive frames, symbols, and performances of Belfast Pride are compared to those of sectarian parades in the city. The subaltern spatial performances and symbolic representations of Belfast Pride are depicted as confronting a universalized set of heteronormative discourses involving sexuality and gender identity, while at the same time contesting a particularized set of dominant local-national discourses related to both ethno-national sectarianism and religious fundamentalism in Northern Ireland.
Studies in Ethnicity and Nationalism, 2012
One of the more intriguing aspects of St. Patrick's Day celebrations as a nationalised ritual of a performed Irishness, both within and outside Ireland, is the extent to which it represents a dialogue between territorialised and diasporic expressions of Irish identity, and claims of belonging to Irishness. St. Patrick's Day celebrations in English cities are a particularly intriguing example of this contestation, due to the proximity of the two countries and the historical structural and cultural constraints on the public performance of Irish identity in England, as well as their more recent reinvention within celebratory multiculturalism. This article examines how debates around the authenticity of St. Patrick's Day parades in English cities are employed in the identity work of individual Irish people. In doing so, it provides insight on the tensions between Irishness as transnational, diasporic, and ethnic, as experienced in England.
Public Rituals and Community Power: St. Patrick's Day Parades in Lowell, Massachusetts
The development of a political strategy to address the uneven distribution of power and resources in a 19thcentury American city is the focus of this paper. It is argued that public celebrations of St. Patrick's Day in the city of Lowell, Massachusetts must be seen as something more than simple expressions of Irish tradition and culture. Instead, as the literature in social history is making increasingly clear, parades and other forms of mass public ritual are better characterized as demonstrations of community power and solidarity and serve as complex commentaries on the political economy of urban-industrial social relations. In Lowell, the parades were at first used to impress both the Yankee and the Irish communities with the spectacle of Irish respectability. Ultimately they were used to press for Irish participation in republican America on specifically Irish terms.
Event Management, 2022
Cultural events feature prominently in the economic strategies of many cities. However, culture is open to interpretation and cultural expression can be problematic. This paper examines Saint Patrick's Day celebrations in Belfast and how this event has been the victim of a bitter 'cultural war'. Efforts to reframe the event and make it inclusive have had limited success. Like many other post-conflict countries, culture in Northern Ireland is tied to group identity and cultural expression is bound up with the battle for political legitimacy and state sovereignty. This battle for ownership and cultural supremacy has meant that Belfast has been unable to cash in on its authentic links to Saint Patrick. This is unlikely to change because, despite COVID-19 and the prominence given to event tourism in Belfast's new culture strategy, the zero-sum character of the cultural war in Northern Ireland would suggest group identity will continue to trump the economic argument.
The Politics of Camp: Queering Parades, Performance, and the Public in Belfast
2009
Despite the recent resumption of the Northern Ireland Assembly and a recommitment of major political parties to working together on Northern Irish governance, and despite the public perception of increasing tolerance, 1 Northern Irish society would seem to be as divided as ever before. For instance, the number of 'peace lines' 2 dividing Protestant and Catholic housing areas doubled between 1995 and 2005, with most of the walls located in Belfast^ As of 2006, 80% of people lived in 'single identity' communities.* The Good Friday Agreement (1998) effectively reified the 'twocommunity' model of politics,* and neither the subsequent St. Andrews Agreement nor the quotidian workings of politics has done much to unsettle this model. Perhaps one of the most obvious and contentious displays of identity, particularly in post-ceasefire Northern Ireland, has been through parades. Parading peaks during the Orange marching season, which takes place every summer and is concentrated around the 12 th of July in commemoration of William of Orange's 1690 victory at the Battle of the Boyne. After the violent confrontations and protests surrounding the Drumcree parade in Portadown, the Parades Commission was established in 1998 to monitor and regulate controversial parades. 6 Parading, like self-imposed religious housing segregation, does not appear to have diminished; in 2005, for instance, the Parades Commission lists 391 Orange parades; in 2008, it lists 1334.
Public rituals and community power: St. Patrick's day parades in Lowell, Massachusetts, 1841–1874
Political Geography Quarterly, 1989
The development of a political strategy to address the uneven distribution of power and resources in a 19thcentury American city is the focus of this paper. It is argued that public celebrations of St. Patrick's Day in the city of Lowell, Massachusetts must be seen as something more than simple expressions of Irish tradition and culture. Instead, as the literature in social history is making increasingly clear, parades and other forms of mass public ritual are better characterized as demonstrations of community power and solidarity and serve as complex commentaries on the political economy of urban-industrial social relations. In Lowell, the parades were at first used to impress both the Yankee and the Irish communities with the spectacle of Irish respectability. Ultimately they were used to press for Irish participation in republican America on specifically Irish terms.