Women and political violence in Northern Ireland: newspaper imagery during the troubles

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-21
Author(s):  
Joyce P. Kaufman
Keyword(s):  
Northern Ireland ◽  
Political Violence ◽  
The Troubles

Belfast Blues

Worldview ◽  
1973 ◽  
Vol 16 (11) ◽  
pp. 5-13
Author(s):  
Richard J. Neuhaus
Keyword(s):  
Northern Ireland ◽  
Political Violence ◽  
White Paper ◽  
The Troubles ◽  
The People ◽  
Moments Of Truth

Take or leave a few lives, about 865 people have been killed by political violence in Northern Ireland since the troubles broke out afresh in 1969. It is not improbable that the toll will reach a thousand by March, 1974. The outsider is inclined to view March, 1974, as a kind of moment of truth for Northern Ireland, for that is the date by which, according to the British “White Paper“ of March, 1973, the people of Northern Ireland are to get themselves together around an elected Assembly. What happens if they don't get themselves together by then is unclear, but the alternatives now under discussion are not pleasant to contemplate. An outsider, such as I, might view March, 1974, as the fast approaching moment of truth, but as one Protestant leader there remarked: “Ireland has been undergoing ‘moments of truth,’ ‘definitive crises’ and 'once-and-for-all decisions’ for several hundred years now.

scholarly journals 'Making Strange': Defamiliarising Perspectives on the Troubles

2010 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
pp. 105-118
Author(s):  
Stephanie Schwerter ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Northern Ireland ◽  
Political Violence ◽  
Power Structures ◽  
Northern Irish ◽  
Medbh Mcguckian ◽  
Literary Traditions ◽  
The Troubles ◽  
Russian Literary ◽  
New Vision ◽  
Literature History

In Irish literature a substantial number of writers turn to different cultures and histories in order to contemplate on their own environment through the lens of otherness. In particular, poets from Northern Ireland draw upon contrasting literary traditions to articulate their personal experience of political violence through an international framework. In the poetry of Seamus Heaney, Tom Paulin and Medbh McGuckian a noticeably strong link between Northern Ireland and pre- and post-revolutionary Russia can be discerned. Through allusions to Russian literary figures, politicians and social conflicts, the three poets attempt to reconsider established power structures ingrained in Northern Irish society and challenge conventional interpretations of the Troubles. Employing Victor Shklovsky’s technique of defamiliarisation, Heaney, Paulin and McGuckian take Russia as a point of comparison and contrast. In so doing, they attempt to generate a new vision of the Northern Irish situation and work against the traditionally one-sided discourse of the conflict. In the following article I analyse the different ways in which the three writers establish links to Russian literature, history and culture in order to give voice to their individual perceptions of contemporary Northern Ireland. In this context, I shall shed light on the reasons why they feel compelled to look outside their own culture in order to come to terms with the Northern Irish Troubles.

Digital Resource: Conflict Textiles

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elsie Doolan
Keyword(s):  
Northern Ireland ◽  
South America ◽  
Political Violence ◽  
Shining Path ◽  
Dirty War ◽  
Resource Conflict ◽  
The Troubles ◽  
Digital Resource ◽  
The Government ◽  
Made In

The Conflict Textiles website is a digital resource that allows users to learn more about how individuals who have experienced or been impacted by political violence have used textiles to respond to and recount their experiences. Some of the textiles on the website were made in response to the wars and conflicts in South America in the 1970s and 1980s (including the Dirty War in Argentina, the Pinochet regime in Chile, and the conflict in Peru between the government and the Shining Path), while others have emerged as a response to the Troubles in Northern Ireland. The majority of the textiles were created by women, though in some instances, men have also contributed to their creation. Conflict Textiles is the name of both the digital resource and a physical collection of textiles. Originating from the Art of Survival International and Irish Quilts in 2009 in Derry, Northern Ireland, this collection and online repository highlights the prolific use of textiles as a medium through which individuals are able to express themselves and the overarching nature of this medium as a form of expression. These two entities, the website and the physical collection, coexist, with the Conflict Textiles website documenting the textiles present in the physical collection and events that occur, or have occurred, in association with the collection. In this way, the Conflict Textiles website serves as an online repository of the physical Conflict Textiles collection and allows users internationally to learn more about a collection that includes textiles from dozens of different countries including, but not limited to, Chile, Northern Ireland, and Argentina.

Functions of collective victimhood

2018 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 183-197 ◽  
Author(s):  
Orla Lynch ◽  
Carmel Joyce
Keyword(s):  
Northern Ireland ◽  
Political Violence ◽  
Conflict Transformation ◽  
Collective Identities ◽  
Social Psychological ◽  
The Troubles ◽  
Protracted Conflict ◽  
The Social ◽  
Societal Level ◽  
Collective Victimhood

The conflict that played out in Northern Ireland between 1969 and 1998 is commonly referred to as the Troubles. Over the course of almost 30 years just under 3,700 people were killed and an estimated 40,000–80,000 injured; it is thought that 80% of the population of Northern Ireland knew someone who had been killed or injured in the violence. The protracted conflict that played out between local communities, the state and paramilitary organisations left a legacy of community division in the region; competing narratives of victimhood emerged and they served to inform intergroup relations. This article will provide a brief overview of the functions of collective victimhood as manifested in the social psychological literature, drawing on the example of the Troubles in Northern Ireland as a case study. In doing so, we will focus particularly on the mobilisation of collective victimhood as both a precursor for involvement in conflict but also as a justification after the event. Additionally, we are interested in the superordinate (broad societal level) re-categorisations of subgroups based on collective identities, including victimhood, and how they can be used as a conflict transformation resource. Ultimately, we will argue that research has tended to overlook how those involved in (as well as those impacted by) the Troubles construct and mobilise victimhood identities, for what purpose and to what end. We argue that in order to understand how collective victimhood is used and to understand the function it serves, both as a precursor for involvement in conflict and as a conflict transformation resource, we need to understand how parties to the conflict, both victims and perpetrators, construct the boundaries of these identity categories, as well as their rhetorical counterpart perpetrators of political violence.

Hungering for Revenge: the Irish Famine, the Troubles and Shame-Rage Cycles, and their Role in Group Therapy in Northern Ireland

2005 ◽  
Vol 38 (2) ◽  
pp. 219-235 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cecil A. Rice ◽  
Jarlath F. Benson
Keyword(s):  
Northern Ireland ◽  
Group Therapy ◽  
Political Violence ◽  
Symbolic System ◽  
Psychic Trauma ◽  
Historical Explanation ◽  
Group Relations ◽  
The Troubles ◽  
Irish Famine ◽  
Group Members

The authors assert that one may view intractable political violence as a genre of ‘emplotted’ action in which society enacts, writes and organizes its narratives into a symbolic system and a mode of historical explanation and a configuration of group relations, which have a storytelling capacity of their own. We demonstrate that in Northern Ireland there is a constant making and narrating of history and that this repetitive and reciprocal ritual of reliving history is a means of managing a profound psychic trauma and displacement which engenders and entrenches political violence, that profoundly affects therapists and their group members.

scholarly journals Political Violence and Re-victimization in The Ferryman

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mesut Günenç
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Northern Ireland ◽  
Political Violence ◽  
Republican Party ◽  
Young Men ◽  
Irish Republican Army ◽  
Typical Representative ◽  
Major Point ◽  
The Troubles ◽  
The Disappeared

<p>Jez Butterworth’s <i>The Ferryman</i> (2017) is a play about the Carney family living in 1980s Ireland during the period of the rebellion of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) and its efforts to get rid of British sovereignty in Northern Ireland, a period known as ‘the Troubles’. This paper focuses on Jez Butterworth, one of the most distinctive voices of the contemporary British theatre scene and a typical representative of the 1990s cultural trend, and his tragedy <i>The Ferryman</i>, which portrays the struggle and conflicts between Catholic nationalists and Protestant loyalists in Northern Ireland in the last decades of the twentieth century. The second major point of the study is that the power of the Irish Republican Party has a heavy impact on the play. The paper also discovers how Sean Carney and other members of his family both embody and apply the story of Eugene Simons and other members of ‘the Disappeared’. Like other young men, Seamus Carney became a victim during the Troubles and the campaign of political violence. The discovery of his body symbolizes how political violence created the Disappeared and shows that re-victimization and re-traumatisation continue in the aftermath of the Troubles.</p>

scholarly journals A pension for injured victims of the Troubles: reparations or reifying victim hierarchy?

2018 ◽  
Vol 66 (4) ◽  
pp. 297-319
Author(s):  
Luke Moffett
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Northern Ireland ◽  
Political Violence ◽  
Armed Conflict ◽  
Armed Groups ◽  
The Troubles ◽  
Internal Armed Conflict ◽  
Complex Approach ◽  
State Practice

Reparations have been often-used victim-centred measures to redress both private harm and gross violations of human rights. However, with the increasing occurrence of internal armed conflict and political violence, identities of victims and perpetrators in protracted conflicts can become blurred for some individuals. In countries like Peru and Northern Ireland that have suffered protracted violence, victimhood has been contested around which individuals are seen as innocent and deserving in order to exclude any members of non-state armed groups from claiming reparations. This article explores the issue of a proposed Bill on a pension for injured victims of the Troubles in Northern Ireland. It identifies that there is no consistent state practice or human rights jurisprudence in this area, but instead offers a more complex approach through four models that can grapple with the seeming diametrically opposed victimhood and responsibility, by including victimised perpetrators in reparations programmes such as that proposed for a pension for seriously injured victims in Northern Ireland.

scholarly journals Social identification and post-traumatic stress symptoms in post-conflict Northern Ireland

2007 ◽  
Vol 191 (2) ◽  
pp. 146-149 ◽  
Author(s):  
Orla T. Muldoon ◽  
Ciara Downes
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
Northern Ireland ◽  
Political Violence ◽  
Low Income ◽  
Traumatic Stress ◽  
Social Identification ◽  
Post Traumatic Stress ◽  
The Troubles ◽  
Post Conflict ◽  
Post Traumatic

BackgroundUnderstanding of the psychological impact of politically motivated violence is poor.AimsTo examine the prevalence of post-traumatic symptoms subsequent to the ‘troubles' in Northern Ireland.MethodA telephone survey of 3000 adults, representative of the population in Northern Ireland and the border counties of the Irish Republic, examined exposure to political violence, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and national identity.ResultsTen per cent of respondents had symptoms suggestive of clinical PTSD. These people were most likely to come from low-income groups, rate national identity as relatively unimportant and have higher overall experience of the ‘troubles' than other respondents.ConclusionsDirect experience of violence and poverty increase the risk of PTSD, whereas strong national identification appears to reduce this risk.

scholarly journals Derry Girls and containment: conflict-related and transgenerational trauma in Northern Ireland

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maggie Long
Keyword(s):  
Northern Ireland ◽  
Political Violence ◽  
Political Conflict ◽  
Emotional Reactions ◽  
Situation Comedy ◽  
Transgenerational Trauma ◽  
Peace Agreement ◽  
The Troubles ◽  
Psychosocial Studies

In this article, I consider role of the television show Derry Girls in providing containment for the unbearable aspects of conflict-related and transgenerational trauma in the context of Northern Ireland. Derry Girls is a situation comedy set during the political conflict of Northern Ireland in the 1990s. The show provides nostalgic, satirical and affectionate observations on the seemingly mundane and at times farcical misdemeanours of a group of young people living out their everyday lives in the backdrop of sectarianism, bigotry and political violence. First airing in 2018, 20 years after the peace agreement in Northern Ireland, Derry Girls offers a forum for experiencing a flavour of life in the height of the Troubles, evoking strong emotional reactions in audiences through laughter, consternation and tears. I consider the role of psychosocial studies in framing understanding of the show as a cultural outlet for and container of societal level trauma and collective pain.

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