scholarly journals The Representation and Overcoming of Perpetrator Trauma in Rachel Seiffert’s Afterwards

2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-9
Author(s):  
Paula Romo-Mayor
Keyword(s):  
Northern Ireland ◽  
Structural Violence ◽  
Memory Studies ◽  
Acting Out ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Controversial Subject ◽  
The Troubles ◽  
Good Friday ◽  
Mau Mau ◽  
Good Friday Agreement

Rachel Seiffert’s novel Afterwards (2007) explores the ethically challenging and often neglected fact of perpetrator trauma resulting from sustained structural violence. This controversial subject is conveyed through the stories of Joseph and David, two British ex-servicemen belonging to different generations, who attempt to overcome their war traumas years after their respective involvement in The Troubles in Northern Ireland (from the late 1960s to the Good Friday Agreement of 1998), and the Mau Mau Uprising (running from 1952 to 1960), that ended with Kenya’s independence. The novel fittingly organises the narrative around moments of acting-out, when the protagonists feel equally disconnected from self and world, yet deal with their traumatised condition in strikingly different ways. The paper proposes an analysis of Afterwards from the perspective of Trauma and Memory Studies, with a view to exploring how the “palimpsestuous” (Dillon 4) structure of the novel, along with the repetitive use of imagery evoking holes and emptiness (Bloom 210), allow Seiffert to “perform” (Ganteau and Onega 10) the workings of the disturbed psyches of Joseph and David, so that it builds the unrepresentability of trauma into the textual fabric of the novel.

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.

Banalising Evil?

2021 ◽  
pp. 164-175
Author(s):  
Veronica Membrive
Keyword(s):  
Northern Ireland ◽  
Power Sharing ◽  
Growing Up ◽  
Television Show ◽  
The Troubles ◽  
Good Friday ◽  
Good Friday Agreement ◽  
20Th Anniversary

2018 was the celebration year of the 20th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement of 1998, bringing power-sharing and much peace to Northern Ireland. Twenty years seem a fair distance to address the issue from a comical viewpoint. Lisa McGee's television show Derry Girls (2018) released in Channel 4, and recently in Netflix, seems to convey a nostalgic and caustic outlook at the 1990s during the last years of The Troubles and focuses on the lives of a gang of four Irish teenagers growing up in the setting of Catholic Derry. This chapter will interrogate the banalization of evil conveyed by McGee by tackling the representation of evil and violence in Northern Ireland during The Troubles.

Consenting Adults: The Principle of Consent and Northern Ireland's Constitutional Future

2001 ◽  
Vol 36 (4) ◽  
pp. 472-492 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roger Mac Ginty ◽  
Rick Wilford ◽  
Lizanne Dowds ◽  
Gillian Robinson
Keyword(s):  
Northern Ireland ◽  
Public Attitudes ◽  
Peace Process ◽  
Constitutional Change ◽  
Political Debate ◽  
The Troubles ◽  
Good Friday ◽  
The People ◽  
Good Friday Agreement ◽  
To Come

‘If A Majority Of People In Northern Ireland Ever Voted To become part of a United Ireland what would you do?’ At first sight the question may seem plucked from the realms of constitutional fantasy. A united Ireland seems an unlikely prospect, at least in anything but the long term. Even proponents of unity predict a 15–20 year wait. Yet the 1998 Good Friday Agreement empowers the people of Northern Ireland to decide their own constitutional future. As a result questions on Northern Ireland's future constitutional status, and public reactions to possible changes in that status, are relevant to current political debate.It is important to note that the principle of consent is not a new constitutional invention. It has had a long association with Northern Ireland. It is argued that the peace process and the 1998 Good Friday Agreement have refocused attention on the long-standing consent principle. While consent was part of the constitutional furniture it was often overlooked during the Troubles.This article re-examines consent in the light of the peace process. It draws on evidence from the 1998 and 1999/2000 Northern Ireland Life and Times surveys, as well as a number of in-depth interviews with senior politicians and policy-makers involved in the peace process and the negotiations on a political settlement. First it considers the changing significance of the consent principle to Northern Ireland's constitutional status, arguing that the principle has assumed a renewed immediacy. Secondly, the article reports the findings of the two most recent Northern Ireland Life and Times surveys in relation to constitutional preferences. While public attitudes towards a unitary Ireland or continued Union within the United Kingdom have been surveyed regularly, as far as the authors are aware no previous survey has asked whether people would accept or oppose constitutional change if it was supported by a majority of Northern Ireland's citizens. In other words, no survey has gauged the level of public acceptance of the consent principle. The key question is: would unionists be prepared to come quietly if a majority of Northern Ireland's citizens voted to accept a united 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.

The Shadow of the Gunman: Irish Historians and the IRA

2011 ◽  
Vol 46 (3) ◽  
pp. 686-710 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ian McBride
Keyword(s):  
Historical Inquiry ◽  
The Troubles ◽  
Good Friday ◽  
Political Upheaval ◽  
Good Friday Agreement ◽  
Michael Oakeshott ◽  
Professional Research ◽  
Close Quarter

This article explores the ways in which Irish historiography has been shaped by paramilitary violence, counter-insurgency and the intimate, close-quarter killings that characterized the Troubles. Irish historiography, as a professional or academic enterprise, had long been committed to ideals of impartiality influenced by Herbert Butterfield and Michael Oakeshott. It was also acutely conscious of its proximity to violent political upheaval, and during the 1970s would display a heightened sense of the urgency of dispassionate historical inquiry. Prominent scholars believed that professional research would dispel the ‘myths’ that sustained the gunmen of the Provisional IRA. In the aftermath of the Good Friday Agreement, however, historians face the challenge of explaining the militant republicanism which they had previously sought to defuse. This article considers several recent analyses of the Provisional movement. It reveals the extent to which the most vociferous criticism of the Provisionals descends from the far Left of republicanism itself — from those who belonged to the Official IRA or its successor organization the Workers’ Party, or from the ‘dissident’ republicans of the 1990s.

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