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This paper considers Eoin McNamee's Resurrection Man (1994) as a Troubles novel acutely interested in the ways violence is transcribed into text. It argues McNamee's depictions of the media satirise their attempt to contain historical explanations of the Troubles exclusively within the inherent sectarianism of the region. Instead, McNamee creates discursive encounters between Ulster and different trouble spots around the world, summoning the spectres of British imperialism. Through a discussion of decolonisation, memory and the legacies of Empire, the paper engages with the ways the local and the international intersect to interrogate nationalisms, borders, identities and historical representation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the case for progressive unionism in Northern Ireland today. The paper locates the progressive currents within unionism and explains the forces that have frustrated their development. It contends that analysis of the leadership provided by unionists in civil society and the attitudinal profile of the pro-union electorate nonetheless signals the existence of space to cultivate more progressive forms of unionism. This challenges the largely negative appraisals of unionism in popular discourse. Unionism is shown to possess a diversity and potential that is often unrecognised. The paper therefore promotes a more sophisticated understanding of unionism and its possible political futures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the representation of Northern Irish unionists in British and Irish cinema by investigating a dominant way that the community has been portrayed in fiction films: as prison officers and orderlies. Specifically, Northern Irish unionists have been portrayed as prison officers and orderlies employed in the Maze and Armagh prisons during the period of republican unrest which culminated in hunger strikes in 1981, and a mass prison escape in 1983. The films that depict, to varying degrees, these characters as belonging to the Northern Irish unionist community include Some Mother's Son (1996), H3 (2001), Silent Grace (2001), Hunger (2008) and Maze (2017). In these films, the typical representation of Northern Irish unionists reflects both the community's general 'othering' in cinema and the film-makers' primary interest in Irish nationalism when depicting Northern Ireland. Thus, unionist characters are usually depicted abjectly and feature only as adjuncts to narratives that are principally about Irish nationalists. This study aims to build upon a range of critical work in this area and to add to broader debates that have identified this cinematic deficit whereby Northern Irish unionists are depicted more critically and less frequently than Irish nationalists. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cultural events can mask latent potential for a resurgence of violence following negotiated settlement, building sectarian identities and support through otherwise-legitimate forms of expression. This article examines this phenomenon in Northern Ireland, investigating how Loyalists utilize Eleventh Night bonfires. It is argued that, in becoming more professional in construction and more sectarian in imagery, bonfires build and maintain paramilitary power, generate political capital within Unionism, and reinforce boundaries between groups. Bonfires are a key part of the culture war which has developed in Northern Ireland, raising vital questions about the role of culture following negotiated settlement in deeply-divided societies more broadly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article argues that, at a tactical level, loyalist terrorism in the Irish border region between 1972 and 1974 worked. Cross-border attacks including bombings in Irish towns prompted the Irish government to reinforce security along the border—a long-standing loyalist demand. The loyalist campaign led to the IRA embarking on an effort to punish those who were believed to have passed information to loyalists, resulting in the killing of an Irish Protestant senator and widespread condemnation of the organization in the Republic of Ireland. However, short-term gains were outweighed by a growing perception among nationalists that the British state tolerated or even colluded in such attacks, undermining the British Army's campaign to gain trust (and information) within the Catholic population of Northern Ireland. The article also contends that middle-class loyalists played an important role in mobilizing and equipping loyalist paramilitary organizations. It concludes that the British Army showed an excessive tolerance of loyalists with political capital or ties to the security forces, despite evidence that such individuals were directly supporting the activities of loyalist paramilitaries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Ulster-Scots ethnolinguistic 'revival,' often considered to be the ethnic, cultural or linguistic expression of unionism and loyalism, has recently made inroads into schools across Northern Ireland. With intercommunal educational segregation pervasive in the province, the teaching of such an 'ethnic identity' has potential sociological ramifications. Utilizing an in-depth textual analysis of the Ulster-Scots Agency's educational materials and interviews with educationalists and political elites, I contend that although this ethnicization represents a break of sorts with traditional unionist-loyalist ideas rather than an unproblematic reinforcement of them, it holds considerable potential for the deepening of normative senses of communal difference. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses the political theories of recognition to assess the online political activism which constitutes the informal, political participation of working-class Loyalists in post-ceasefire Northern Ireland. The satirisation of the flag protesters and loyalists more broadly stimulated a competition of narratives regarding the capacity of loyalism and its contributions to a post-conflict social setting. The impact of satire on marginalised groups creates new spaces for those groups to offer alternative perspectives and to resist negative stereotyping from without. In response to the ritual derision which loyalists faced following the flag protests, some engaged in the production of grassroots media which attempted to transform the recognition relations of the group. In examining the relationships between groups in contested societies, particularly those emerging from conflict, theories of respect and esteem offer innovate insights into the role of status and social equality. The deliberative and moral capacities of ‘others’ can be undermined in processes of stereotyping and intra-group esteem generation is a counter to such slights. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article draws on data from one-to-one interviews with members and former members of the Ulster Volunteer Force, Ulster Defence Association, Red Hand Commando, Ulster Political Research Group, and the Progressive Unionist Party to explore the dynamic and fluid perceptions of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) and Sinn Féin among Ulster loyalists. The article will explore how attitudes and perceptions are influenced by the shifting political landscape in Northern Ireland as Ulster loyalists come to terms with the new realities created by the peace process, security normalization, decommissioning, and the rise in the threat of dissident republican violence. The article will also demonstrate that these perceptions are not purely antagonistic and based on the creation of negative, stereotypical “enemy images” fuelled by decades of conflict, but pragmatic, bound to societal and local events, and influenced by intragroup attitudes and divisions, in addition to the expected conflictual ingroupvs.outgroup relationships. Finally, the article will explore how loyalists employ republicanism and the transformation of the Provisional IRA in particular, as a mirror or benchmark to reflect on their own progress since 1994. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Over the past decade or more there has been a growing concern at the levels of educational underachievement within loyalist working-class areas of Northern Ireland. The inability of both educational and social policy initiatives over the past decade to improve the situation in any meaningful way has raised important questions concerning how the problem can be tackled more effectively. Placing the issue within the theoretical framework of Gramsci's hegemony, this paper argues that there is a need to better understand the historical nature of the problem and to recognise the political and social forces that have shaped its existence. It argues that there is a need to move away from explaining Protestant underachievement simply by the availability of jobs in Ulster's industrial past and to place its roots in the complex battle for social, political, and economic power since the 1801 Act of Union. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines talks that took place between British government officials and loyalist paramilitary groups in Northern Ireland at a critical moment in the most recent Troubles. In particular, this article describes talks that took place secretly at the Northern Ireland Office's ‘Laneside’ building, a secluded suburban house used by British diplomats and MI6 officers on the shores of Belfast Lough between 1971 and 1976. Drawing on both recently released archive material as well as interviews with those who worked at and visited Laneside, this article explores what went on at these talks and analyses their outcomes from three different perspectives. This article demonstrates that the most accurate perspective from which to view what occurred in these meetings is neither top-down (government led) nor bottom-up (paramilitary led), but one that looks at what went on there as part of a conversation which both sets of participants for a time found useful. For the loyalists, Laneside had a role as a venue to think about strategy (rather than negotiate ends). For the British these were conversations that were useful in furnishing their understanding of loyalism, and as a place where policies could be explained and problems better understood. Looking at what occurred at Laneside as a semi-autonomous governmental body in Northern Ireland reveals key insights into both the loyalist paramilitaries' political ideas as well as the aims of British policy in Northern Ireland. Furthermore, this middle perspective holds a mirror up to the more familiar talks then occurring between the very same British officials and the Provisional IRA. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Most recent studies of Loyalism in Northern Ireland have focused on the nature and development of Loyalist paramilitaries and their methods, ideology and attitudes to the peace process. This article argues that the nature of Loyalist paramilitarism is primarily masculinist and that there is a perspective that has gone generally unheard from women in Loyalist communities. Using standpoint theory, evidence from interviews with women in Loyalist communities associated with Belfast is analysed and a picture is formed that suggests that there are gendered attitudes towards women who become involved in the conflict through paramilitary organisations and that paramilitaries are not representative of their communities. It is concluded that researchers need to bear in mind the gender dimensions of their work and be aware of who is present and who is absent when research is being carried out. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Paramilitary actors involved in peace processes are expected to contribute to two distinct forms of protection: national-level protection as 'security'; and local-level security as 'safety'. Examining the case of the Ulster Defence Association (UDA) in Northern Ireland, we explain how these two forms of protection have become interlinked in the Good Friday/Belfast Agreement (GF/BA) and the related peace process. Instead of generating a virtuous cycle, this has created a dilemma between providing protection as 'safety' and as 'security'. Drawing on interviews with key UDA-affiliated actors in 2009-10, against the backdrop of increasing 'dissident Republican' violence, we assess how they navigated this dilemma, and its potential effects on the unfolding political context, calling for greater attention to the relationship between different conceptions of protection in peace processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents an examination of the capacity for existing Loyalist paramilitary structures and actors to engage with 'far right' wing action-based and value-based extremism. The author argues that Northern Ireland faces a similar threat posed by far right groups as the rest of the United Kingdom and that utilising a strategic theory approach reveals a number of possible responses to the threat posed by far right extremism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores and reassesses the issues of social decline, educational underachievement and civic erosion in relation to the Protestant working class in Belfast. Prior to the ‘Troubles’ the Protestant working class in Belfast had at its heart a civic-mindedness which was in tune with working-class communities across the UK at the time. This civic-mindedness encouraged the growth of extended communities and placed an importance on church attendance and educational achievement; something which has been conveniently ignored in most analyses. Owing to population movements in Greater Belfast which followed the violence that followed the introduction of internment without trial in August 1971 Protestant church congregations dwindled and school attendances dropped significantly. The paper ultimately seeks to provide a ‘long view’ of the Protestant working-class experience in order to assist those who are concerned with the problems facing it in the current era. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article offers a reflection upon four aspects of methodology in the context of the author's doctoral research in Northern Ireland: managing identity and research relationships, the ethics of dissemination and the reception of potentially polemic research in the academy. It argues that identity influences research in sensitive contexts in ways that are often hard to anticipate, that more inclusive approaches to dissemination can help counter issues related to research relationships, and that responses to work in controversial contexts highlight ambiguities within the academy regarding the nature and function of social science research, presenting particular challenges for early-career researchers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article responds to Dr Aaron Edwards' comments on my previously published article ‘Unionism, truth recovery and the fearful past’ (2011, Irish Political Studies, 26(3), pp. 361–382). It highlights two main areas of concern – the manipulation of the papers' findings into a broader critique of peace process narratives and that the paper ‘skews’ loyalist paramilitaries' contribution to peace-building. Both points suggest a misinterpretation of the arguments contained in my paper and its relationship to the field of transitional justice. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In the late 1960s, the ‘Troubles’ in Northern Ireland began. Most of the British extreme right had just come together to form the National Front (NF) and the new organization's opposition to Irish Republicanism and defence of the retention of Northern Ireland within the Union quickly became entangled with support for loyalist paramilitary organizations. This article concentrates on the period from 1969 to the beginning of the 1990s, when the NF, having split into rival factions, ceased to be the dominant group for Britain's ‘racial nationalists’. Towards the end of the article, we turn our attention to the NF's most important splinter, the British National Party, from its emergence in the early 1980s until after its entry into the European Parliament in the early twenty-first century. British extreme rightists have not taken the same stance on Northern Ireland, and the article will contrast their frequent support for Ulster's retention within the Union with the attraction of one faction of the NF for Ulster independence and, most unexpectedly, the support of some British extreme rightists for a United Ireland. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

During the modern conflict in Northern Ireland, the paramilitaries played an important role in shaping communal identities. The loyalist Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) and the Ulster Defence Association (UDA) enjoyed significant support in the Protestant community and should be understood as one expression of Protestant insecurity. This article considers the nature of this manifestation of Protestant fear during the formative years after the formation of the UDA in 1971 and up to the end of Andy Tyrie's leadership of the organisation in 1988. It argues that the evidence uncovered by an examination of paramilitary literature, as well as that of the loyalist political parties which were affiliated with the UVF and UDA, reveals a complex persona that cannot be understood as entirely violent and exclusive. Instead, after outlining evidence for moderation, it explores what this evidence can reveal about the emergence of political thinking within parts of the UVF and UDA, and concludes that the literature demonstrates how politics was restricted by the primacy of a historical consciousness and the prevalence of sectarianism in the loyalist community, the hardening effect of republican violence, and the lack of a political niche. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this contemporary one-man theatre play, Marie Jones's character, Kenneth McCallister, is prompted to break free from the prejudices in and against Northern Ireland. Indeed, the playwright aims at finding new ways to deconstruct the preconceived idea that there are two different identities in Northern Ireland closely linked to the division between two religious communities. Instead, she seeks connections, even with the Irish who migrated (the diasporic dimension, though, is not to be discussed within this paper). The author explores this possibility through the psychological evolution of a Northern Irish Protestant who comes to lack references in terms of identity. On stage, he recalls the events that launched him on a quest to redefine his identity, an identity in which his religious denomination is taken into account but is not the only community marker. Marie Jones eventually offers an insight into what being and feeling Irish means for someone who has always lived as a Protestant in Northern Ireland. Monologue and the notion of "frontiers" (be they social, political, geographical, historical or theatrical) that emerge only to be destroyed, are some of the theatrical devices she resorts to in order to voice her aim in this experimental play which ultimately proposes to reshape the contours of Northern Irish drama about the Troubles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the Northern Ireland Troubles some Protestant communities suffered more than others. The loyalist Shankill area of West Belfast is one such place. Geographically situated between the republican strongholds of the Ardoyne and Falls, it was regularly exposed to violent attack. The area witnessed a series of republican bombings that included children in the death toll as well as many deadly shootings. Violence of this kind has left an indelible mark on the Shankill community. However, more than other loyalist areas, it was prepared to respond to republican violence with violence. But the community has not emerged from the Troubles with confidence. Unanticipated post-conflict factors of a political, cultural, and territorial nature are undermining efforts to promote community confidence and encourage paramilitary groups to decommission their weapons. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article aims to explore nationalism, generally, and Ulster Loyalism, specifically, through the use of discourse theory and the Althusserian concept of ideology as interpellation. It suggests that nationalism is best understood as a particular discursive articulation that constructs subjects as being of a particular nation and thereby having certain characteristics and political needs and interests. This entails a larger definition of nationalism which encompasses some phenomena not generally taken to be nationalistic. The method is illustrated by a study of some aspects of the ideological discourse of Ulster Loyalism showing this, contrary to some accounts to be a kind nationalism. In the nationalist articulation of Loyalism, religion, democracy and identity are linked together making a unified ideological discourse, based around a sense of specificity and difference to Irish nationalism and Roman Catholicism. Special attention is paid to the role of democracy within Loyalist discourse particular, and in nationalist discourse generally. The article suggests that this way of thinking about nationalism can avoid functionalist and teleological analyses allowing us to focus on the specific ways in which a nationalism operates and to stress the centrality of politics in the process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]