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The Government of Ireland has published its plan to reorder the infrastructure it uses to accommodate and support migrants seeking International Protection (IP) in Ireland. This policy document - entitled The White Paper to End Direct Provision and Establish a New International Support Service - was published on 26th February, 2021. The White Paper proposes to replace Ireland's current but discredited system with a new IP accommodation and support process – to be entitled Ireland's International Protection Support Service. This new system is intended to "treat all applicants to the process with dignity and respect" (Government of Ireland, 2021: 7). Dissonances exist, however. The discursive framing of the IPSS and the spatialities inherent in the proposals suggest a potential rearticulation of state control rather that a diminution of same. I turn to the work of scholars inspired by Giorgio Agamben to help situate the spatialities of this shift, and suggest that the current 'white paper' should simply be seen as a mechanism deployed the Government of Ireland to ensure that its bio-political command and control processes can migrate from the spatially-defined set of control environments currently in effect to a diffuse construction of a spatially networked series of deterritorialised indistinctions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses some of the main findings of a Critical Discourse Analysis of two landmark documents in Irish adult education: Learning for Life: The White Paper on Adult Education (DES, 2000) and the Further Education and Training Strategy (SOLAS, 2014) (from here on referred to respectively as the White Paper and the FET Strategy). The diachronic approach taken by this inquiry permits an exploration of the ways in which language in policy documents has changed over time, particularly in terms of how policy addresses educational inequality. It is in this way that the notion of a discursive shift could be explored, setting this change in language in starker relief. Policy as discourse shapes the formation of this inquiry so the article briefly explicates the approach taken to a Critical Discourse Analysis. Considerations of methodological nationalism widened the focus to consider the influence of European Union (EU) policy discourses specifically in Irish policy formation and these discourses in the statecraft of the EU and nation states. It is from this perspective that the Irish story is also a European one, so the article analyses how the White Paper and the FET Strategy were framed by the EU policy discourses of 'lifelong learning' and 'skills' respectively. As part of this analysis, this article considers the significance of the redefinition of the notion of 'inclusion' to 'active inclusion' and the sharpening of 'evidence based' discourse in policy resourcing of adult education provision. Finally, the article briefly elaborates on the authors' experience of this research and the value of Critical Discourse Analysis as a normative force and a tool for advocacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Inclusion is a central tenet in deliberative democratic theory and an important indicator of the quality of a deliberative mini-public (DMP). Empirical measures of deliberation assess the quality of a deliberative exchange according to criteria drawn from deliberative theory; the discourse quality index is one well-known example. Despite the importance of inclusion in deliberative theory, existing measures do not account for this aspect of deliberative quality. This paper introduces and uses a measure for assessing the inclusiveness of deliberation called "deliberative uptake". This paper describes the new measure and applies it to the case of Ireland's Convention on the Constitution, a forum in which both citizens and politicians were included as members. The results suggest that politician members were more likely to receive deliberative uptake for their ideas than their citizen counterparts. In addition, women and men received similar levels of deliberative uptake throughout the Convention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the late Elizabethan period Ireland became a critical focus of the Tudor regime as the Nine Years War (c.1593-1603) threatened English rule in the second Tudor kingdom and the country became a theatre of the Anglo-Spanish War (1585-1604). As a result of this military emergency officials in Ireland began composing a deluge of policy papers from the mid-1590s onwards. Over two hundred of these treatises are extant. This paper provides the first systematic overview of this war-time discourse on Ireland. In doing so it sheds light on these writings and their significance for the history of late Elizabethan Ireland. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The concept of personal recovery is now a key pillar of service delivery. It aims to support individuals to flourish and establish a new identity following an acute episode or diagnosis. This view of recovery is unique to each person on that journey. However, there has been a significant focus on measuring these experiences. This paper aims to explore the influence of social constructionism on the concept of recovery within an Irish context, seeking to understand the influence of language, discourse and power on service users' experiences. Design/methodology/approach: A qualitative, interpretivist methodology was adopted for this case study design. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 12 service users. Thematic analysis was chosen as the method of analysis. Findings: Personalising recovery did not always lead to the removal of biological symptoms, but with the appropriate supports, individual's recovery journey was greatly enhanced. On the contrary, personal recovery places overwhelmingly responsibility on the individual to succeed, largely driven by neoliberal discourse. This focus on individualism and the pressure to succeed was further experienced when people sought to re-integrate into society and participate in normalised social order. Ultimately, for many service users, they viewed personal recovery as an unfulfilled promise. Research limitations/implications: It is not a representative sample of service users within an Irish context. Originality/value: To the best of the authors' knowledge, this is the first study to explore influence of social constructionism on the concept of personal recovery within a mental health service context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The moral and practical regulation of sexuality and associated risk has been in some ways traditionally bound by Catholic religious doctrine in the Republic of Ireland. Over the last century, however, the emergence of professional social work as a state risk management strategy around sexuality is evident. This tallies with the disrepute of the Church following high-profile abuse scandals and publicized tragedies tied to institutional segregation. This paper presents theoretically informed critical commentary, through uptake of the Foucauldian notion of discourse. It concludes that critique of the regulation of sexuality, should be qualified on three counts. Firstly, tensions between Catholicism and social work remain. Secondly, wariness towards the operation of power is requisite. Thirdly, both that which is said, and unsaid, enlightens present debates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper compares the debate quality in the plenary sessions of an Irish Citizens' Assembly and an Irish parliamentary committee to assess the epistemic effects of public deliberation on a contentious subject: abortion. The unusual occurrence of a similar process of detailed discussion on the same topic in different institutions at around the same time (in 2016–2017) allows us to compare the deliberative capacities of these institutions and thus contribute to discussions on the appropriateness of an increasingly debated democratic reform: assigning political offices by lot. We suggest that the epistemic effect of deliberation on abortion should facilitate nuanced multi-layered discussion that is both 'deeper' in being based on multi-faceted arguments and 'wider' in terms of a more accommodative view. We anticipate that these effects should be more pronounced in the more deliberative, less polarized, environment of a citizens' assembly rather than in a parliamentary committee. The analysis deploys the psychological concept of 'cognitive complexity'. We find that members of the Citizens' Assembly demonstrate a deeper cognitively complex grasp of the subject matter. In contrast, experts and parliamentarians tend to adjust their mode of delivery at a parliamentary committee reflecting the conflictual and strategic aspects of political debates in such a forum. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the subject of division in contemporary Ireland. Contrasting recent legalisation regarding same-sex marriage and abortion in the Republic with the socio-political approach to these matters in Northern Ireland provides an opportunity to analyse how past conflicts structure the sociopolitical landscape and are manifested in political division and social unrest. The impact of Brexit incited instability and a possible return of the border between the Republic and Northern Ireland, putting immense pressure on the political point de capiton of the Good Friday Agreement. The border that previously divided the island and had a significant impact on its inhabitants can be compared with the psychical division of a conscious/ unconscious split subject. This invites scrutiny through reading these contemporary events through a Lacanian understanding of how speaking subjects are colonized by discourses and language in a way that can symbolically oppress individuals and groups. This paper demonstrates how unconscious psychical divisions can manifest and be visible in divisive oppressive laws and can trigger a return to acrimonious conflict and violence when signifiers fail to represent past trauma. By symbolically addressing trauma, there are opportunities for conflicting political parties to coherently articulate these divisions and demonstrate unity in this period of potential transformation, paving the way to stability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A longitudinal and intergenerational perspective opens up possibilities of novel insights into the socio‐spatial practices and relations that constitute, and generate, transnational youth im/mobilities. This paper draws on research conducted over 10 years with young adults who had migrated to Ireland as children with their return‐migrant parents during the Celtic Tiger period. It explores how, as young adults, they envisage and navigate their unfolding im/mobility pathways. In a context where transnational mobility experience is highly valued and celebrated, they draw on their mobility capital as former migrants to self‐position as knowledgeable mobile subjects. However, precisely because of their personal and family mobility resources, their engagements with discourses of hypermobility are selective—simultaneously claiming the cultural capital of transnational mobility and de‐fetishising it by producing grounded interpretations that value place embeddedness. The paper sheds light on some of the tensions of contemporary youth mobilities in contexts of globalisation, uncertainty, and migration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers the educational implications of the recent emphasis on the mental health and well-being of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, questioning/queer (LGBTQ) people in Ireland. Operating from the perspective that discourses constitute rather than merely reflect material reality, thereby shaping or ‘structuring’ how we think about, and act, in relation to queer experience, the paper critically engages with discourses which position LGBTQ youth as universally at risk of mental health difficulties, including self-harm and suicidality. It also challenges the corresponding preoccupation with homophobic bullying as the primary lens through which queer experience is understood and addressed in schools, arguing that more space needs to be devoted to other, less harrowing narratives of LGBTQ experience and identity. It highlights some of the more problematic effects of LGBTQ mental health research which frame LGBTQ experience primarily in terms of vulnerability and victimhood and makes the case for a more expansive engagement with LGBTQ identities. The article illuminates the potential that after-queer scholarship holds for a re-imagining of queer youth, sexuality and gender within educational and social research, curriculum materials and educational institutions more generally and concludes with a consideration of specific knowledge and skills that educators should be equipped with in order to disrupt normative understandings of gender and sexuality. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The Irish Republic's economic success story has been simultaneously regarded as antithetical to and indicative of neoliberal hegemony. The question of the neoliberal pedigree of the Irish case is explored here from the perspective of mediatized representations of political economy. The paper's argument is advanced in three distinct stages. First, it outlines a theoretical and methodological rationale for the analysis itself. Second, it formulates a summary account of neoliberalism as discourse(s) and ideology, introducing a key analytical distinction between 'transparent' and 'euphemized' neoliberal discourses. Third, it presents an empirical overview of how neoliberal assumptions are articulated through mediatized representations of political economy. The article shows how the 'Celtic Tiger' can be understood as a case of neoliberal hegemony, as long as it is recognised that neoliberalism is hegemonically constituted through a plurality of (inter)discursive forms and rhetorical strategies. In addition, the paper highlights the constitutive role of media representation, especially the media rhetoric of Irish political leaders, in the production and reproduction of an Irish neoliberalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Conservation of built heritage is a key planning process and goal which shapes urban development outcomes across European cities. In Ireland, conservation of the built heritage is a key part of the planning framework, albeit one that is, in comparative terms, only recently established. While it is widely recognized that the underlying rationale for conservation of built heritage varies considerably (from cultural priorities to place marketing), the literature suggests that heritage and conservation professionals perform a key role in controlling decision-making through an official or “authorized” heritage discourse (AHD), emphasizing expert values and knowledge and based around selective heritage storylines often reflecting elite tastes. Drawing on policy and practice in Ireland, in this paper, we contribute to these debates by further unpacking the AHD, exploring tensions within the heritage policy elite through examination of competing views and representations relating to the purpose of built heritage protection. Based on a discourse analysis following interviews with key national actors, we identify two key narratives—a “museum-curatorial” discourse and an “inclusive heritage” discourse—which in turn frame conservation practices. We argue that subtle variations of heritage meanings have the potential to either reproduce (museum-curatorial discourse) or challenge (inclusive heritage discourse) conventional modes of practice, particularly relating to the relationship between built heritage and identity and the role of public engagement. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Almost 2 million people in the North and South of Ireland identify as Irish speakers and an estimated 70 million around the globe can claim Irish heritage. While Irish ancestry may be distant for many, the Irish language is active in numerous locations in the diaspora, as documented in research profiling communities across the globe (e.g. Callahan, 1994; Garland 2008; Giles 2016; Kallen 1984, 1994; Noone, 2012a; Ó hEadhra, 1998;Ó Conchubhair 2008; Walsh & NíDhúda 2015 inter alia) and evidenced by the existence of many cultural and language groups. Census figures indicate that at least 25,000 people currently speak the language in Canada, the United States and Australia alone (Statistics Canada, 2013; United States Census Bureau, 2015; Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2012), yet very few in-depth general accounts of Irish-language use in the diaspora exist. Linguistic practices within Irish communities worldwide vary widely with regard to Irish-language use and language ideologies, with each community subject to distinct concerns, histories and discourses. As such, each has distinct possibilities for creating social and cultural meaning, possibilities that are fundamentally shaped by the socio-cultural and politico-historical contexts within which the Irish language has existed in the last 200 years. This paper investigates how the Irish language is recruited in constructions of cultural authenticity in three sites in the Irish diaspora: Boston, U.S.; Melbourne, Australia; and St. John's, Newfoundland, Canada. Research is based on open-ended qualitative interviews with 41 learners and speakers regarding the Irish language and their own language practices, and in extensive participant observation of cultural and language-related activities in each site. Thematic content analysis of interview data provides the basis for ethnographic descriptions of each site. A Foucauldian understanding of discourse (e.g. Pennycook, 1994; Foucault, 1981, 1972) affords the identification and delineation of predominant discourses within which Irish-language use is implicated as a meaningful social act, and that are enacted or actively resisted within and across communities, as well as key subject positions made available within these discourses. This approach provides the basis for an exploration of (i) the processes of authenticating a cultural practice within discourse; (ii) how such processes shape the changing configurations of who is included and who is excluded within dominant politico-cultural discourses; and (iii) the various formations of community that exist within and across the diaspora space. The paper shows that the role of the Irish language in authenticating Irish cultural identity is subject to reworkings across time and space, as exemplified in the variety of local meanings it has taken on across the three diaspora sites featured. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper will argue that the creation of a coordinating policy discourse is a key explanatory variable for the emergence and consolidation of social pacts in labor relations. The paper will highlight the limit of functionalist accounts that only focus upon macro-exogenous forces such as European Monetary Union (EMU) entry (or macroeconomic crisis) for inducing the emergence of social pacting. These accounts, whilst necessary, cannot sufficiently explain the continued institutionalisation of social pacts after EMU entry in EU member states (or the passing of an economic crisis). The paper will also highlight the limit of micro-endogenous accounts that only focus upon the organisational politics of trade unions, employers and government. There is a need to integrate both the structural (macro) and actor (micro) centred approaches to fully explain why conflicting economic actors institutionalise concertation strategies in the form of social pacts. It is my argument that focusing upon the tri-partite economic and social councils that enable the discursive-interaction of actors in the policy making process is an essential variable in trying to explain the success or failure of social partnership agreements. To make this argument I will use the evolution liberal corporatism in Ireland as a case study. Tri-partite public policy forums enabled the state to facilitate discursive interaction amongst organised interests on the need for coordinated collective action. Social pacts, in this regard, increase the strategic capacity of the state to manage the public policy process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper builds on the paradox whereby transcriptions are the object of study for investigations into the spoken language but yet omit so much of "what is heard" when an utterance is made. Transcriptions are agnostic with regard to Searlean notions of illocutionary force and perlocutionary effect. The paper proposes that the enhancement of transcriptions with pragmatic and prosodic annotation overcomes that paradox and captures the original utterance more objectively. It argues that annotation is part of transcription. It presents with examples a brief summary of each part of the Pragmatic Annotation Scheme developed for the SPICE-Ireland Corpus: speech acts, tone movements, discourse markers, utterance tags and quotatives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Where they evolve in contentious political contexts, conservation and heritage can be framed by competing priorities reflecting collective remembering, cultural politics and identities intertwined with the symbolic representation of the built environment. Drawing on postcolonial experiences in Ireland, this paper explores the shifting representations of built heritage over the post-independence era and the extent that a residual colonial legacy can perform a role in framing contemporary place-making processes. Empirically, we focus on representations emerging within contemporary 'elite discourses' - built heritage policy-makers, leading conservation practitioners and civil society conservation groups - to explore how they negotiate this postcolonial context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Irish judiciary's approach to bilingualism as the constitutional guarantee of the right to use either Irish or English for any official purpose has proved highly flexible. However, while emphasis has been laid on principles of constitutional interpretation from the practitioner's perspective, the discursive dimension of cases involving language policy has yet to be fully elucidated. This paper combines quantitative analysis with a qualitative perspective to focus on phraseological and argumentative patterns in Supreme Court judgments on language policy, based on a small corpus. First, the ten most frequent lexical bundles of the corpus were extracted to study the main discourse functions of phraseology in context. Second, a manual text analysis was conducted of the two cases where recurrent phraseological patterns were most widely attested. This allowed for the isolation of the argument schemes underlying the structure of the Justices' opinions. While phraseology points to a shared institutional identity of Irish Justices as gatekeepers of the Constitution, the use of argumentative patterns suggests that they may forge heterogeneous professional identities, by shifting from a rigouristic view of language rights to forms of judicial pragmatism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Unlike most OECD countries, Ireland has not yet developed full labour activation policy, but is under increasing pressure to do so. This paper explores why Irish labour activation policy and implementation stalled over the last three decades and the reasons for policy drift in this area. Framed by two crises, the paper maps the politics of Irish labour activation from the 1980s crisis up to the contemporary crisis. It first analyses the politics of labour activation by tracing shifts in political discourses about labour activation over the last three decades. It then draws on bottom-up implementation theory to examine the micro politics of implementation, referring briefly to implementation of supportive labour activation strategies in the 1990s and reviewing in more depth the National employment action plan in the 2000s. It then maps institutions, political debates and advocacy coalitions to assist in understanding the politics of Irish labour activation policy and how its implementation was shaped and stalled. This analysis of the institutional, ideational, political interests and international factors that shaped or postponed Irish movement from passive to active welfare administration helps us better understand contemporary issues concerning the relationship between political discourse about labour activation and its implementation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Irish public sphere discourse about the United States has, particularly since the September 11 attacks, been regularly reproached for being 'anti-American'. This paper explores the cultural politics of this charge by creatively juxtaposing the analysis of an Irish current affairs programme with a Hollywood made 'Irish' movie. The value of our analysis, we argue, is that, taken together, both objects enable us to problematize the politics of the other, thus providing us with a more complex context for exploring the overdetermined question of political-cultural (dis) identification. We interrogate the ideological simplicity of the discourse structuring the anti-American charge, while at the same time showing how Irish news media representations enable such a discourse to be articulated. We also explore a more generous mode of Irish cultural identification through a reading of Jim Sheridan's 2003 movie In America, though we simultaneously problematize the assumption the movie can be read as a straightforward 'homage' to America. We conclude by cautioning against reified modes of analysis that project a fullness onto political-cultural identities that are always formally open, and over-privilege the national as an object of culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This paper aims to contribute to media studies on climate change through a study of the ways in which the adequacy of transnational measures of tackling climate change are represented in media outlets in the UK, Ireland, Sweden and Finland. Media texts on the European Union Energy and Climate Package, introduced in January 2008 and approved in modified form in December 2008, are analyzed in-depth. Through an exploratory cross-societal comparison of media representations, the paper traces some of the dynamics of contemporary environmental debates. We argue that the adequacy of proposed transnational measures for tackling climate change becomes a relative concept in the media: measures are not adequate or inadequate per se, but contingent upon social context and relative with regard to time and to the comparisons made. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Irish economic boom, commonly known as the Celtic Tiger, provides an interesting and unique opportunity to explore the relationship between the profound shifts in the organization of working life and in the production and consumption of culture. In this paper, we confine our inquiry into the relationship with one aspect of popular culture, namely dance, focusing on the phenomenon of Riverdance which emerged contemporaneously with the Celtic Tiger. We argue that both are deeply immersed in larger organizing discourses, historical narratives about national identity and civilizing attempts to control the body. We identify three distinct 'moments' in the development of Irish dance, which we label as pre-national, 'Traditional' Ireland; national, 'Modern', Parochial Ireland and global, 'Post-modern' Ireland. This provides a narrative through which we explore the transformation of working relations in Ireland during the 19th and 20th centuries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the discursive, technical, and disciplinary mechanisms that frame plantation forests as the dominant model of forest expansion in upland Ireland. It is primarily through this frame that criticisms and local voices are solicited and interpreted. I argue that the dominance of the plantation model, the industry's integration with key environmental and economic goals, and full governmental support leave little room for a case‐by‐case examination of the model and its consequences. Plantations have the potential to shift the nature of private property and the relationship between farmer and field. This reworking of the property relationship is a significant alteration of a central rural feature that has received limited attention owing to the hegemony of current practices. Regardless of the benefits or faults of the plantation model, the dominance of official discourse is such that richer and more contextually dependent discussions are muted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay explores the two meanings of "radical" - the popular one of "sharp-edged'"or "extreme" and the original one of "rooted within the culture" - in relation to selected works of D'Arcy and Arden: The Non-Stop Connolly Show (1975), Vandaleur's Folly (1978) and The Little Gray Home in the West (1978). Within the space of contradiction between these meanings, the paper considers such issues as the political function of the outsider, the rival claims of reform and revolution, relationships between text and means of production and between forms and audience ownership. The perennial question of the battle between republicanism and socialism frames much of the discourse. In concluding, the essay considers where these works stand in the aftermath of Thatcherism and the Celtic Tiger Economy, and whether there is any "radical" legacy left by these works in Irish theatre. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article analyses the framing of solidarity in the Euro crisis discourse. Previous research has argued that the Euro crisis and the debtor–creditor constellation highlights the political conflict around solidarity in the EU. Based on a discursive institutionalist framework, the article investigates the different meanings of solidarity as well as the constellation of actors in Germany and Ireland from 2010 to 2015. Whilst Germany as the biggest creditor country is understood as a potential giver of solidarity, Ireland as a debtor country is conceptualised as a potential receiver of solidarity. The discourse network methodology is applied to study the relation of framing and actor presence. The findings show that the ideational structure of both discourses is different, but the actor constellation is rather similar. In particular, solidarity and austerity are linked in the German discourse, while the Irish discourse focuses predominantly on responsibility and solidarity, and less so on austerity. The actor constellation shows a dominance of German actors in both countries, highlighting the central position of Germany within the Eurozone. The article is the first study to analyse the construction of solidarity in the Euro crisis and contributes to the study of solidarity in hard times. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents the analysis of two speeches given by Rory O'Neill, also known as Panti Bliss, who is so far the most recognisable Irish drag queen. Apart from being a drag queen, Rory O'Neill is also a political activist whose performances were part of the campaign before the referendum concerning the 34th Amendment to the Constitution of Ireland. In the analysis both these aspects of the speaker's identity are taken into consideration. Although the analysis is mostly linguistic, it also considers extralinguistic aspects of communication, e.g. the performer's appearance on stage, as contextual elements are essential in sociolinguistic contexts. Thus, the analysis draws from the theoretical background focused on political discourse and the language used by drag queens to a detailed account of the two speeches in order discuss them in relation to the standards of both a drag performance and a political speech. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Aim: To examine and describe disciplinary discourses conducted through professional policy and regulatory documents in nursing and midwifery in Ireland. Background: A key tenet of discourse theory is that group identities are constructed in public discourses and these discursively constructed identities become social realities. Professional identities can be extracted from both the explicit and latent content of discourse. Studies of nursing's disciplinary discourse have drawn attention to a dominant discourse that confers nursing with particular identities, which privilege the relational and affective aspects of nursing and, in the process, marginalize scientific knowledge and the technical and body work of nursing. Design: We used critical discourse analysis to analyse a purposive sample of nursing and midwifery regulatory and policy documents. Method: We applied a four‐part, sequential approach to analyse the selected texts. This involved identifying key words, phrases and statements that indicated dominant discourses that, in turn, revealed latent beliefs and assumptions. The focus of our analysis was on how the discourses construct professional identities. Findings: Our analysis indicated recurring narratives that appeared to confer nurses and midwives with three dominant identities: “the knowledgeable practitioner,” the “interpersonal practitioner” and the “accountable practitioner.” The discourse also carried assumptions about the form and content of disciplinary knowledge. Conclusions: Academic study of identity construction in discourse is important to disciplinary development by raising nurses’ and midwives’ consciousness, alerting them to the ways that their own discourse can shape their identities, influence public and political opinion and, in the process, shape public policy on their professions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article attempts to uncover the discursive practices that have framed recent debates on prostitution in the Republic of Ireland. As Ireland prepares to introduce Swedish-style laws, which criminalize the purchase of sexual services, we are particularly interested in interrogating the dominant construction of prostitution in recent policy debates and consultations. Taking these spaces as sites for the reproduction of discursive and material practices, we employ methods of critical discourse analysis through Carole Bacchi’s (1999) ‘What’s the problem represented to be’ approach to question: How is prostitution problematized in Irish law and policy? We argue the representation of prostitution in neo-abolitionist discourse in Ireland operates through gendered and racialized assumptions about sex workers and migrant women. The material consequences of this have implications not only for current prostitution law and policy proposals but also for wider feminist spaces in Ireland. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We explore the complex and multidimensional nature of wind power's ‘planning problem’ by investigating the ways different knowledges and knowledge holders seek to accumulate authority over the ‘facts’ of a situation. This is undertaken through an interpretive analysis of how different parties to contentious wind farm debates in Ireland strived to mobilize contending realities wherein they were advantageously positioned as credible sources of knowledge. We advance a novel approach grounded in rhetorical theory that reveals and explains how the different parties to these debates deployed nuanced discursive strategies that constituted their character (ethos) by skilfully interlacing implicit and explicit portrayals of scientific objectivity (logos) with emotive subjectivity (pathos). In doing so, we identify the important role played by ‘rescaling’ in privileging and marginalizing different perspectives within both the contending discourses and the formal processes of planning application assessment. We draw conclusions from this analysis regarding broader debates in environmental governance and suggest how wind power's ‘planning problem’ should be reconceived. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This research aimed to explore information and communication technology (ICT) coordinators' discourse in relation to ICT integration in a sample of Irish post-primary schools. As ICT leaders in their schools, how they conceptualise ICT significantly influences school-based policy and use. The research involved semi-structured interviews with a sample of nine ICT coordinators in the Mid-west region of Ireland. The study found that the coordinators drew heavily on the prevailing policy discourse when justifying the use of ICT in schools. However, they tended to see the evolution of ICT as something beyond their control and perceived ‘progress’ only in relation to hardware acquisition. The findings suggest that the shift from ‘electronic janitor’ to pedagogical leader is in its infancy in Irish schools. Policy-makers may need to take greater cognisance of the importance of pedagogical leadership within a context dominated by a focus on acquiring hardware and resources. At a broader level, educators need to define their collective vision for ICT, rather than placing sole responsibility on a single agent of change. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

As the Irish Government introduces a selection of changes to home defence law, through the Criminal Law (Defence and Dwelling) Act 2011, the Traveller Community, and the Ward-Nally case in particular, are regrettable reference points propelling public support for the use of force in home protection. The national broadcaster, Raidió Teilifís Éireann (RTÉ), has proved to be a central player in the constitution of difference; however, it is often an overlooked and under-researched arena. This article focuses on the use of the elite televisual forum of current affairs programming on RTÉ television to unveil the complex and multiple ways in which discourses of belonging are mobilised with respect to the Irish Traveller Community. It draws on one emotive event involving the Traveller and settled communities, the Ward-Nally case, and looks at the ways in which this forum interpellates the viewer, solidifying rituals of representation that remain within the viewers' consciousness long after a programme has been broadcast. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aim To introduce how nursing students discursively construct their dyslexic identities. Background Identity mediates many important facets of a student's scholarly journey and the availability and use of discourses play a critical part in their ongoing construction. Design A discourse-based design was used to examine the language employed by students in constructing their dyslexic identities. Methods Using narrative methods, 12 student nurses with dyslexia from two higher education institutions in the Republic of Ireland were interviewed during the period February-July 2012. Discourse analysis of interviews entailed a two-stage approach: leading identity analysis followed by thematic analysis. Results Discourses used by students to construct their dyslexic identity correspond with positions on an 'Embracer, Passive Engager and Resister' continuum heuristic. The majority of students rejected any reference to using medical or disabled discourses and instead drew on contemporary language in constructing their dyslexic identity. Nine of the 12 students did not disclose their dyslexic identity in practice settings and drew on not being understood to support this position. In addition, a discourse linking 'being stupid' with dyslexia was pervasive in most student narratives and evolved from historical as well as more recent interactions in nurse education. Conclusion This study indicates variation in how students discursively construct their dyslexic identities, which, in turn, has an impact on disclosure behaviours. Policy leaders must continue to be mindful of wider sociocultural and individualized understandings of dyslexic identities to enhance inclusion prerogatives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Video conferencing has much potential to enrich international social work education. In this educational initiative, video conferencing was used to deliver a joint foundation social work practice class to students attending an MSW degree program both in the United States and in Ireland. Student feedback indicated that they gained an appreciation of the global nature of social work practice. They reported a deeper understanding of shared theoretical perspectives in relation to client engagement, and of the differences in many fields of practice. Students recommended additional opportunities for international discourse using both synchronous and asynchronous distance education methods. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Through the prism of current state discourses in Ireland on engagement with the Irish diaspora, this article examines the empirical merit of the related concepts of 'diaspora' and 'transnationalism'. Drawing on recent research on how Irish identity is articulated and negotiated by Irish people in England, this study suggests a worked distinction between the concepts of 'diaspora' and 'transnationalism'. Two separate discourses of authenticity are compared and contrasted: they rest on a conceptualisation of Irish identity as transnational and diasporic, respectively. I argue that knowledge of contemporary Ireland is constructed as sufficiently important that claims on diasporic Irishness are constrained by the discourse of authentic Irishness as transnational. I discuss how this affects the identity claims of second-generation Irish people, the relationship between conceptualisations of Irishness as diasporic within Ireland and 'lived' diasporic Irish identities, and implications for state discourses of diaspora engagement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rather than the preserve of the theorist, critique is a pervasive modern phenomenon requiring interpretation and analysis. In particular, this article pursues the relationship between liminal transitions and critical discourse, arguing that the former provokes the latter, and that critique makes transition almost interminable. Following Keohane and Kuhling (2004, 2007), the Celtic Tiger is thematised as 'liminality', a suspension of order, which incites and diffuses critical reflection on the 'taken for granted'. This wider social process is tracked by an analysis of a corpus of media texts published between 1997 and 2007, from widely divergent social and political positions. 'Critical discourse' then emerges as a series of interrelated tropes; disfigurement, cynicism, influence and unmasking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the 1850s and 1860s, the British Empire faced a threat from nationalists advocating self-rule for Ireland. Known as the Fenians, the English press quickly identified them as a monolithic terrorist organization and blamed them for all manner of threats against the Empire; furthermore, they argued that elements in the United States, for reasons of their own, supported the separatists. However, the image of the Fenian was far more complex than the simple rhetorical image constructed in the British press, especially when an alternate stream of pro-Irish rhetoric is considered. Indeed, the Fenian was as much a rhetorical cultural construct as it was a transnational independence movement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on the contest that defined Irish political discourses on the Iraq war (2003). It supplies a different angle to current research on international political discourses on the war, as Ireland's official position diverged from that adopted by pro-war governments (e.g. Britain, Spain, Eastern European states and Australia) and anti-war governments (e.g. France, Germany and Russia). This position was a more nuanced, or ambivalent, one that neither explicitly supported nor opposed the US-British decision to launch the war in March 2003. Principally, this article presents a discourse analysis of the session of Dail Eireann on 20 March 2003 which debated the controversial government decision to provide over-flight and landing facilities to the US military during the war. This analysis traces the ways in which both government and opposition parliamentary actors sought to achieve resonances between their arguments and historically-established 'master frames' of Irish foreign policy. This practice of constructing frame resonances emerges as a pivotal ideological resource relied upon by parliamentary actors to win the argument regarding Ireland's response to the Iraq crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

According to a widely held view, Ireland's economic success story in the 1990s is attributable to the social partnership process. An extensive supply side consensus between the actors is regarded as key to its success. However, in spite of its popularity, consensus has neither taken shape as an analytical concept nor has its creation been thoroughly scrutinised. In fact, the question remains unanswered as to how and under what conditions initially antagonistic actors began to consider the same (supply side) solution as the only possible route. Based on a Foucauldian perspective on power and discourse, this article examines the creation and structure of popular unanimity within the Irish social partnership model in order to reposition consensus from an explanans to an explanandum. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the context within which abortion law and discourse in Northern Ireland must be situated and understood, relying in part on post-modern insights into the wider and long-term implications of feminists engaging law and by examining the strategies employed in Northern Ireland around the issue of abortion. In 2001, the Family Planning Association (Northern Ireland) took legal action to force the devolved government to defend at a procedural level the unequal and uncertain form of common law abortion regulation for Northern Ireland. The authors examine the strategy of this review as well as the response of the High Court, suggesting that while it may begin to challenge the legitimacy of abortion law, feminists and pro-choice advocates must prepare for challenges beyond that, the greatest being the cultural challenge. The courts, legislators and other public and political institutions (including the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission and the Northern Ireland Women's Coalition) consistently explain the law's lack of provision for women with reference to the `pro-life' majority views of Northern Irish people. The authors question the legitimacy of this claim in a cultural climate of intimidation against the expression of alternative views. Women will continue to be marginalised and devalued in this debate if the silencing of the pro-choice community and bodies responsible for protecting human rights is not redressed. A case is therefore made for a reconceptualisation of the abortion debate from the perspective of women's agency, which, alongside litigation and other strategies, is necessary to overcome the cultural censure that currently prevents meaningful dialogue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The health of a nation tells much about the nature of a social contract between citizen and state. The way that health care is organised, and the degree to which it is equitably accessible, constitutes a manifestation of the effects of moments and events in that country's history. Research around health inequalities often focuses on demonstrating current conditions, with little attention paid to how the conditions of inequality have been achieved and sustained. This article presents a novel approach to inequalities research that focuses on examining powerful historical discourses as legitimising processes that serve to sustain unequal conditions. The use of this Foucauldian historical genealogical approach in a study of the Irish health care system is explored and proposed as a novel approach to the research of health inequities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]