Party Politics and Religion in Northern Ireland

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Neil Matthews
Keyword(s):  
Northern Ireland ◽  
General Rule ◽  
Religion And Politics ◽  
Party Politics ◽  
Party Competition ◽  
Political Agenda ◽  
Northern Irish ◽  
Political Issues ◽  
Good Friday ◽  
Party Differences

Contrary to popular belief, Northern Irish politics is not an entirely religious affair. The widespread and longstanding use of the labels “Catholic” and “Protestant” to denote political allegiance undoubtedly contributes to such an impression. The relationship between religion and politics in Northern Ireland is, however, more complex than these convenient labels suggest. Indeed the question of whether and to what extent religion possesses any political significance in the region has generated considerable academic debate. Organizationally, there is a clear separation of church and party in Northern Ireland. The main political parties have eschewed formal ties with churches, and faith leaders have largely confined themselves to involvement in “small p” politics. The one exception to this general rule has been the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP). Its close ties with the Free Presbyterian Church has long rendered it a unique case in the British and Irish context. The historical relationship between the main unionist parties and the Orange Order, a quasi-religious organization, further blurs the lines between religion and party politics in Northern Ireland. Since the signing of the Belfast or Good Friday Agreement in 1998, alternative or non-ethnonational political issues have become increasingly salient in Northern Ireland. More specifically, touchstone moral issues have taken center stage on several occasions. Abortion rights and marriage equality, for example, remain high on the contemporary political agenda, with clear party differences observable on each issue. The staunch moral conservatism of the DUP, derived from its commitment to a fundamentalist Protestant doctrine, again sets it apart. The continued exceptionalism of Northern Ireland on these issues, compared with the rest of the United Kingdom and, increasingly, Ireland, serves to reinforce the importance of understanding the role religion plays in shaping party policy programs and party competition in the region.

scholarly journals Richard Bean’s The Big Fellah (2010) and Jez Butterworth’s The Ferryman (2017): two plays about the Northern Troubles from outside of Northern Ireland

2020 ◽  
Vol 73 (2) ◽  
pp. 115-126 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hiroko Mikami
Keyword(s):  
Northern Ireland ◽  
Northern Irish ◽  
The Troubles ◽  
Good Friday ◽  
Good Friday Agreement

During the three decades of the Troubles of Northern Ireland (1969-1998), a remarkable amount of plays about the Troubles was written and almost of them, it seems, had been ‘monopolised’ by (Northern) Irish playwrights. Recently, however, certain changes about this monopoly have been witnessed and those who do not claim themselves as Irish descendants have begun to choose the Northern Troubles as their themes. Also, there have been growing concerns about violence worldwide since 9.11. This article deals with two plays, Richard Bean’s The Big Fellah and Jez Butterworth’s The Ferryman, neither of which was written by an Irish playwright and examines whether and to what extent it is possible to say that they can transcend regional boundaries and become part of global memories in the context of the post-Good Friday Agreement and the post 9.11.

Debates over Irish unification will gain traction

2021 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Northern Ireland ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
Political Agenda ◽  
Successful Implementation ◽  
Northern Irish ◽  
Content Type ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
The Status ◽  
Scottish Independence ◽  
The Uk

Significance The differing perspectives of unionists and nationalists on the creation of Northern Ireland as a political entity within the United Kingdom, together with Brexit and tensions over the Northern Ireland Protocol (NIP), have brought the contentious issue of Irish reunification onto the political agenda in Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic. Impacts Scottish independence would likely increase momentum for a referendum on Irish unity. Successful implementation of the NIP, giving firms access to EU and UK markets, may support arguments for maintaining the status quo. If the UK government abandons the NIP, the adverse trade impact on Northern Irish firms could increase support for unification.

A Shared Future? Exclusion, Stigmatization, and Mental Health of Same-Sex-Attracted Young People in Northern Ireland

2010 ◽  
Vol 43 (2) ◽  
pp. 488-508 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dirk Schubotz ◽  
Malachai O'Hara
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Northern Ireland ◽  
Young People ◽  
Sex Education ◽  
Peace Process ◽  
School Bullying ◽  
Political Agenda ◽  
Same Sex ◽  
Northern Irish ◽  
Young Life

For more than a decade the Peace Process has fundamentally changed Northern Irish society. However, although socioreligious integration and ethnic mixing are high on the political agenda in Northern Ireland, the Peace Process has so far failed to address the needs of some of the most vulnerable young people, for example, those who identify as gay, lesbian, or bisexual. Public debates in Northern Ireland remain hostile to same-sex-attracted people. Empirical evidence from the annual Young Life and Times (YLT) survey of 16-year-olds undertaken by ARK shows that same-sex-attracted young people report worse experiences in the education sector (e.g., sex education, school bullying), suffer from poorer mental health, experience higher social pressures to engage in health-adverse behavior, and are more likely to say that they will leave Northern Ireland and not return. Equality legislation and peace process have done little to address the heteronormativity in Northern Ireland.

‘Britain's Irish Question: Britain's European Question?’ British-Irish relations in the context of European Union and The Belfast Agreement

2000 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 83-97 ◽  
Author(s):  
ELIZABETH MEEHAN
Keyword(s):  
Northern Ireland ◽  
World Politics ◽  
Global Perspective ◽  
Northern Irish ◽  
The Troubles ◽  
Good Friday ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Irish Question ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Eu

If students of world politics can be reasonably accused of ignoring the Troubles in Northern Ireland—in part because they seemed to have little to do with the larger East-West confrontation and partly because they were so obviously about something distinctly national in character—then by the same token specialists on Northern Ireland can justly be accused of a certain intellectual parochialism and of failing to situate the long war within a broader global perspective. The quite unexpected outbreak of peace however only emphasizes the need for a wider understanding of the rise and fall of the Northern Irish conflict. This article explores the relationship between the partial resolution of the Irish Question—as expressed in the Good Friday Agreement of 1998—and the changing character of the European landscape. Its central thesis is that while there were many reasons for the outbreak of peace in the 1990s, including war weariness, it is difficult to understand what happened without situating it in a larger European framework and the new definition of sovereignty to which the EU has given birth.

Language and Cultural Politics in Northern Ireland

2019 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 152-172
Author(s):  
Ronnie Moore
Keyword(s):  
Northern Ireland ◽  
Cultural Politics ◽  
Historical Memory ◽  
Minority Languages ◽  
Northern Irish ◽  
Good Friday ◽  
Irish Context ◽  
Belfast Agreement ◽  
Regional Or Minority Languages

This paper presents an outline of the circumstances surrounding the current political stalemate in Northern Ireland. It considers the role of language as a key justification for the unravelling of the complex political arrangements formulated by The Belfast Agreement or Good Friday Agreement (GFA). The discussion begins by problematizing the notions of “identity” and “minority” in the Irish / Northern Irish context as an important backdrop and within the framework of the European commitment to, and Charter for, Regional or Minority Languages (ECRML). In particular it looks at historical memory, constructed history, ideology and notions of nationalism, as well as the role of politics and manipulation of language.

Political Contest and Oppositional Voices in Postconflict Democracy

2016 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 92-110 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charis Rice ◽  
Ian Somerville
Keyword(s):  
Northern Ireland ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
Institutional Design ◽  
Government Information ◽  
Northern Irish ◽  
Political Issues ◽  
Political Actors ◽  
Irish Context ◽  
The Media ◽  
Media Politics

This article investigates how political institutions affect government–media relationships. Most studies of media-politics focus on majoritarian parliamentary or presidential systems and on how party systems affect journalism. This tends to neglect important issues that pertain in more constitutionally complex democracies, such as the consociational institutions in postconflict societies. Taking the Northern Irish context as a strategic case study, we analyze data from thirty-three semistructured interviews with the actors responsible for communicating political issues in Northern Ireland: political journalists and the two groups of government communicators, civil service Government Information Officers (GIOs) and Ministerial Special Advisers (SpAds). By examining their roles and relationships in this context, we demonstrate the importance of considering the institutional design of the democratic system itself when attempting to develop a more comprehensive and nuanced theory of media-politics. In Northern Ireland, the absence of an official political opposition in the legislature, together with the mandatory nature of the multiparty coalition, means that the media have come to be perceived by many political and media actors as the opposition. This in turn influences the interpersonal interactions between government and media, the way political actors try to “manage” the media, and the media’s approach to reporting government.

scholarly journals From Troubles to Post-Conflict Theatre in Northern Ireland

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Phelan
Keyword(s):  
Northern Ireland ◽  
Northern Irish ◽  
Irish Theatre ◽  
Irish History ◽  
The Troubles ◽  
Good Friday ◽  
Post Conflict ◽  
Late Twentieth ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Late Twentieth Century

The signing of the Good Friday Agreement in 1998 was a watershed moment in Irish culture, as much as in the political sphere. Up until that moment, late twentieth-century Irish history had been dominated by the conflict that erupted in Northern Ireland in the late 1960s, and Northern Irish theatre was dominated by the ‘Troubles play’—initially in the 1960s in the work of Sam Thompson, and later in plays by writers such as John Boyd, Graham Reid, and, in more complex ways, behind the formally adventurous work of Stewart Parker and Anne Devlin. However, since 1998, writers such as Owen McCafferty have inaugurated the search for a theatrical form appropriate to a post-conflict culture in which scars and divisions still remained. This chapter covers the arc of development of Northern drama over the period, leading up to some of the innovative performances of companies such as Theatre of Witness.

How parties compete (1)

2021 ◽  
pp. 105-132
Author(s):  
Paul Webb ◽  
Tim Bale
Keyword(s):  
Northern Ireland ◽  
Party Systems ◽  
Party Politics ◽  
Party Competition ◽  
Two Dimensional ◽  
Formal Models ◽  
Liberal Democrats ◽  
Plaid Cymru

This is the first of three chapters that considers how modern parties compete for votes and office. Since most formal models of party competition are based on the strategic use of ideological appeals to electors, it concentrates on describing the ideological stances of the parties in Britain: the Conservatives, Liberal Democrats, Labour, Greens, UKIP, and the Brexit Party/Reform UK are all covered. (The SNP, Plaid Cymru, and the major parties of Northern Ireland are covered in the course of Chapter 1’s discussion of devolved party systems.) This chapter concludes with a two-dimensional map summarizing the main ideological traditions found in British party politics today.

Michael Longley’s ‘Ceasefire’ and the Iliad

2020 ◽  
pp. 308-325 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maureen Alden
Keyword(s):  
Northern Ireland ◽  
Close Reading ◽  
Northern Irish ◽  
Good Friday ◽  
Good Friday Agreement ◽  
The Many

This chapter examines the genesis and global reception of Michael Longley’s ‘Ceasefire’, offering a close reading of its relationship with Homer’s Iliad. Both Longley and Homer share a concern with decorum in bereavement. Of the many bereaved in the Northern Irish conflict some were incited to further violence while others found a way to move towards forgiveness; the Iliad, however, offers a different path forward, away from these alternatives, through decorum, ceremony, and endurance. For Longley, the opposite of war is not peace but civilization. A ceasefire, after all, is not the end of the conflict, yet it enables the Iliad to end not with war but with ceremony. In Northern Ireland, too, cooperation between enemies, such as that between Priam and Achilles, is what enabled the Good Friday Agreement.

‘The Troubles we’ve seen’: film, television drama and the Northern Irish conflict in Britain

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Hill
Keyword(s):  
Northern Ireland ◽  
Peace Process ◽  
Television Drama ◽  
Northern Irish ◽  
The Troubles ◽  
Good Friday ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Relative Scarcity

This chapter examines films and television dramas dealing with the impact of the Northern Ireland ‘Troubles’ in Britain and the controversies that they generated. It begins with a consideration of early TV dramas such as The Vanishing Army (1978) and Chance of a Lifetime (1980) dealing with the experiences of the returning British soldier. This is followed by an examination of the representation of the IRA’s activities on the British ‘mainland’ in productions such as The Patriot Game (1969), Hennessy (1975), Eighteen Months to Balcombe Street (1977) and The Long Good Friday (1979) as well as an analysis of how the miscarriages of justice that emerged in the wake of the IRA’s bombing campaigns were turned into (documentary)-dramas such as Who Bombed Birmingham? (1990) and In the Name of the Father(1993). The chapter then concludes with some consideration of the ‘peace process’ and the relative scarcity of dramas dealing with the divisions and tensions that were a feature of the earlier period.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document