Symbolic Equality: Law and National Symbols in Northern Ireland

2012 ◽  
Vol 19 (4) ◽  
pp. 339-358
Author(s):  
Alex Schwartz
Keyword(s):  
Northern Ireland ◽  
General Principle ◽  
Public Life ◽  
Public Culture ◽  
Case Law ◽  
Good Friday ◽  
Relative Success ◽  
National Symbols ◽  
Good Friday Agreement ◽  
The Way

The way in which the law regulates the display of national symbols has important consequences for minority national groups. If the majority is allowed to monopolise the official display of national symbols, members of the minority may be further alienated and discouraged from participating in public life. In contrast, a more even-handed approach to national symbols has the potential to foster an inclusive and pluri-national public culture. This article evaluates the regulation of national symbols in Northern Ireland. It contrasts the relative success of legislation regulating the display of symbols in the workplace with the latest equality litigation under Northern Ireland’s Good Friday Agreement of 1998 (‘the Agreement’). With respect to the latter, it is argued that the case-law suffers from a general failure to apreciate the implications of the Agreement for the display of national symbols. The article goes on to explain how equality with respect to the display of national symbols – or ‘symbolic equality’ – should be understood as an extension of the Agreement’s commitment to the more general principle of ‘parity of esteem’.

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.

The mental health impact of the Troubles, 1969–1999

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Bolton
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Northern Ireland ◽  
Health Impact ◽  
Peace Accord ◽  
The Troubles ◽  
Good Friday ◽  
Belfast Agreement ◽  
Good Friday Agreement ◽  
The Impact

This Chapter is the first of two that describe efforts to understand the mental health and related impacts of the conflict in Northern Ireland, often referred to as The Troubles. The Chapter covers the period from the outbreak of violence in the late 1960’s up until the period around the peace accord, the Belfast Agreement (or Good Friday Agreement) of April 1998. The early studies reveal little, if any, major effects on the wellbeing and mental health of the population, but as the years go by, evidence starts to build of the impact of the violence, particularly as the ceasefires of the early and mid 1990’s take hold. The developing understanding of the impact was due in part to the evolution of methods and approaches being used by researchers - which is discussed in more detail at the end of Chapter 5.

Confederal and Consociational Futures

2019 ◽  
pp. 290-364
Author(s):  
Brendan O’Leary
Keyword(s):  
Great Britain ◽  
Northern Ireland ◽  
European Integration ◽  
Good Friday ◽  
Eu Membership ◽  
Good Friday Agreement ◽  
The Future

The concluding chapter critically reviews the role of European integration in improving British-Irish relations, and in the making of the Good Friday Agreement. Four major votes across Northern Ireland between 2016 and 2017 are surveyed, paying particular attention to the 2016 referendum on EU membership. Predictions are made about the future of Northern Ireland and its union with Great Britain or its reunification with Ireland based on unfolding developments. Transformations South and North, political, social, and economic, are emphasized. The closure of the prospects of a second partition of Ulster is highlighted. Discussion about the possible breakdown, decay, or amendment of existing consociational provisions, and possible modes and modalities of Irish reunification are considered against three twilights that are highlighted, and sketched.

Conclusion: “I Hope It Wasn’t All a Waste”

2021 ◽  
pp. 319-336
Author(s):  
James Waller
Keyword(s):  
Northern Ireland ◽  
Good Friday ◽  
The Road ◽  
Sustainable Peace ◽  
New Beginning ◽  
Good Friday Agreement

As we have seen throughout history, the road to a sustainable peace is a long and winding one, rife with potholes and perils. So, in a comparative sense, Northern Ireland deserves credit that the Good Friday Agreement, despite rewarding separateness over integration, has held for more than 20 years. Yet it seems there is a dangerous trajectory in contemporary Northern Ireland that has regional, global, and, most importantly, human implications for how we understand the transitions a society goes through in moving from conflict to a stable, enduring, and sustainable peace. More than two decades after the Good Friday Agreement, Northern Ireland finds itself in a shallow, troubled sleep, and its future, moving more quickly each day, is trending in a darker and more dangerous direction. How it awakes from that troubled sleep will determine whether it is on the edge of a new beginning or a painfully familiar old precipice.

7 The Supreme Court and Northern Ireland

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dickson Brice
Keyword(s):  
Law Enforcement ◽  
Northern Ireland ◽  
Supreme Court ◽  
Criminal Law ◽  
The State ◽  
Good Friday ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
Good Friday Agreement

This chapter begins by considering the arms trial in the early 1970s and outlines the gist of the Sunningdale Agreement in 1973 before considering the challenge to that Agreement dealt with by the Supreme Court in the Boland case. There follows an examination of the Court’s views on the constitutional status of Northern Ireland in McGimpsey v Ireland, decided in the wake of the Anglo-Irish Agreement of 1985, and on the constitutionality of the Belfast (Good Friday) Agreement in the Riordan case. There is an analysis of Law Enforcement Commission’s report and of the Court’s views on resulting Criminal Law (Jurisdiction) Bill 1975. The focus next moves to the shifting views of the Supreme Court on when it is appropriate to extradite suspected terrorists to Northern Ireland. Cases concerning Dominic McGlinchey, Séamus Shannon, Robert Russell, Dermot Finucane and Owen Carron are examined, as is the state of extradition law today.

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