Yes / In 2015, a previously unknown enclosed settlement and burial ground was found near the summit of a low hill in Ranelagh townland, just north of Roscommon town. The site—officially designated Ranelagh 1, and hereafter referred to variously as ‘the Ranelagh site’, ‘the site at Ranelagh’ or simply ‘Ranelagh’—was excavated over a 54-week period by Excavation Director Shane Delaney for Irish Archaeological Consultancy (IAC) Ltd between October 2015 and October 20161 . Excavations revealed that the site was established during the fourth century AD; for over 1,000 years, until the final phase of burial activity proper concluded there shortly after AD 1400, the site would have been a prominent feature in both the geographical and psychological landscape of the time. Cillín (children’s) burials continued at the site until about AD 1650, further asserting this prominence.

Examining representations of gender from a postcolonial feminist perspective, Patriarchs, Pugilists, and Peacemakers: Masculinity in Irish Film analyzes select works of three popular filmmakers whose careers, taken together, span the period from 1939 to the present.1 I argue that these three artists--John Ford, Jim Sheridan, and Paul Greengrass--explore fundamental questions about patriarchy and violence within Irish and Irish-American contexts, and that, in the process, they upset conventional notions of masculine authority. Investigating alternative conceptions of manhood presented in these films, as well as these filmmakers’ complex engagement with Hollywood film genres, I offer a fuller understanding of their subtle critiques of patriarchy. I contend that their illustrations of socially sanctioned male dominance in the lives of women, as well as their portrayals of male and female resistance to patriarchy, constitute a subversive challenge to traditional order. In the process, I address gendered archetypes that are prevalent in Irish and American cinemas and analyze the ways in which Ford, Sheridan, and Greengrass employ and critique these masculine types through their portrayals of fathers, sons, boxers and pacifists. Ultimately, I argue that the recent Irish films of Sheridan and Greengrass gesture toward future modes of manhood that completely disavow patriarchy and violence. In sum, this project plots a trajectory of Irish cinema during the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, charting a progression from ambivalent critique of patriarchy (in the films of John Ford) to outright rejection of patriarchal masculinity (in Jim Sheridan’s work) to reconceptualization of manhood and the family (in the Irish films of Sheridan and Paul Greengrass). / text

Women have been part of modern revolutions since the American Revolution against Great Britain. Most descriptions and analyses of revolution relegate women to a supporting role, or make no mention of women's involvement at all. This work differs from prior efforts in that it will explore one possible explanation for the successes of three revolutions based upon the levels of women's support for those revolutions. An analysis of the three cases (Ireland, Russia, and Nicaragua) suggests a series of hypotheses about women's participation in revolution and its importance to revolutions' success.

This empirical study explores if, and how, religion and spirituality are relevant subjects for those experiencing mental distress in Northern Ireland (NI) and how, if at all, the subject is engaged with in mental health social work practice. Although there is some controversy in United Kingdom based research regarding the apparent benefit of religion and spirituality within mental health, service user research and literature suggests its importance within recovery. Literature on religion, spirituality and social work practice suggests the need to examine the social and political processes which persist around this subject in social work practice (Henery, 2003; Wong and Vinsky, 2009). This examination is appropriate given the role of religion within the political conflict in NI, the impact of the conflict upon social work practice (Campbell et al, 2013), the high incidence of mental ill health in NI and the apparent role of religion and spirituality within mental distress. This study considers how mental health social workers may engage with this subject within their practice not only as an aspect of service users’ identity but also within post conflict Northern Ireland. The study methodology and design drew upon narrative theory and grounded theory. I interviewed twelve mental health service users and twelve mental health social workers, and half of the participants from each group also took part in a follow-up telephone interview. All of the participants were invited to bring an object which expressed what religion and spirituality meant to them. Analysis explored the views and experiences of mental health service users and social workers about religion and spirituality, within specific aspects of the wider social field. Service user and social worker participants’ accounts suggested that whilst the role of religion and spirituality within mental distress was recognised, its inclusion in mental health social work practice was marked with questions of legitimacy. Some of these questions were explicitly framed within the conflict, whilst others were less so. The study found that although religion was associated with politics, sectarianism and violence, its role, and that of spirituality, as an aspect of identity and meaning-making, appeared to be underdeveloped. Two key findings are of particular note. 10 Firstly that service user participants had their own ‘hierarchy’ of religious and spiritual expression, which on occasion appeared to result in their being critical of other service users’ expressions. Secondly, some service users preferred to keep their spirituality to themselves as a strategy of empowerment. In addition the study also found that service users viewed the mental health professional relationship as focusing upon medical aspects of their care, for example physical health and medication management, with no scope to explore religion, spirituality and mental distress. Thus questions of legitimacy focused around the notion of privacy and whether talking about religion and spirituality within the mental health service user and social worker relationship was too sensitive, given its association with sectarianism. Furthermore, mental health service users were concerned about how a disclosure of religion and / or spirituality within mental distress would be viewed by the mental health professional: would it be viewed as indicative of deteriorating mental health? Overall the study identified a significant gap between how service users draw upon spirituality and / or religion within mental distress, and the space given to this within mental health social work practice. This gap is due to a myriad of factors ranging from the social worker’s biography, to wider issues around how religion and spirituality are conceptualised in contemporary society. This study also highlights the continuing impact of the Northern Ireland conflict on frontline social work provision. There is a need for policymaking to acknowledge the ambivalence that exists around spirituality and religion in mental health social work practice due to the conflict and other relevant factors. Finally, support is needed for practitioners and service users to acknowledge this aspect of mental well-being in a manner that gives service users choice about its inclusion in their mental health care.

Although there has been a wealth of academic literature which has examined counter-terrorism, both in the general sense and in case study focused approaches, there has seldom been an engagement in terrorism studies literature on the nature of the state itself and how this impacts upon the particular response to terrorism. Existing literature has a tendency to either examine one branch of the state or to treat (explicitly or implicitly) the state as a unitary actor. This thesis challenges the view of the state as a unitary actor, looking beneath the surface of the state, investigating intra-state dynamics and the consequences for counter-terrorism. I highlight that the state by its nature is ‘peopled', demonstrating through comparative analysis of case studies from Spain, France, and the United Kingdom, how the individual identities and dispositions of state personnel at all levels from elites to entry level positions determine the nature and characteristics of particular states. I show that if we accept that the state is peopled, we must pay attention to a series of traits that I argue all states exhibit to understand why campaigns of counter-terrorism take the shape and form that they do. I posit that we must understand the role that emotional and visceral action by state personnel in response to terrorism plays, how the character of particular state organisations can impact upon the trajectory of conflicts, and how issues of intra-state competition and coordination can frustrate even the best laid counter-terrorism strategies. Furthermore, I show how the propensity for sub- state political violence to ‘terrorise' populations makes the response to terrorism a powerful political tool, and how it has been deployed in the past for political gain rather than purely as an instrument to improve security. I conclude that future academic analyses of counter-terrorism must take this into consideration, and likewise, state personnel must be mindful of the nature and character of their state should they wish to effectively prevent terrorism and protect human rights and the rule of law.

Diploma thesis "Comparison of systems and impacts of investment incentives in Czech Republic, Slovak Republic and Ireland" compares investment incentives in Czech Republic, Slovak Republic and Ireland in terms of their development and current situation. Furthermore it compares conditions under which investment incentives can be granted. It also compares their impact on foreign direct investments in terms of their inflow, structure and regional distribution in the country. Part of the thesis also deals with comparison of current situation in these countries in terms of investor's risk and international competitiveness when gaining investments.

This thesis is an examination of the influence and impact of the ‘Troubles’ in Northern Ireland, post 1968, on the practice of Irish history, on southern Irish broadcast media and on the southern Irish modernisation process. I will examine the uneasy and contested transition in systems of hegemony in a society where the state is not coterminous with perceptions of nationhood, where society is anxiously suspended between conservation of its existence and popular nationalist aspirations, where southern economic dependency interacted uneasily with northern political instability and sectarianism. The thesis examines the ‘Ulsterisation’ of the War of Independence by some historians and its aftermath as an ideological project. It pays particular attention, using the case-study method, to the imposition of a sectarian character on republican forces during the war of independence by the highly influential Newfoundland historian Peter Hart, and will explain why this research is ideologically problematic within Irish historiography. I will link this to (in a second case-study) the project undertaken in the early 1970s by Irish government minister (also an academic historian and political scientist) Conor Cruise O’Brien to undermine and eradicate from popular awareness secular anti-imperialist aspects of Irish nationalist consciousness, primarily through, in case-study three, the imposition of broadcasting censorship and support for repression. I question O’Brien’s positing of a ‘Catholic nationalism’ as an overarching basis for Irish statehood by, in case-study four, an examination the largely unexplored socio-economic position of Protestants in southern Ireland and the forms of social control imposed on and within that community. The thesis examines how official reaction to the conflict combined repression and broadcasting censorship during the 1970s to revise popular perceptions of Irish history and Irish society. Control of understanding of the present was combined with attempts to take control of perceptions of the past, in order to circumscribe the parameters of what is feasible in the present, so as to preserve the socio-economic status quo. It specifically explores the impact of the post 1968 Northern Ireland conflict on: • The attempt by proponents of Irish revisionist historiography to portray Irish resistance to British rule as ‘Catholic nationalism’ and as a mirror image generally of Ulster unionist sectarianism; in the context of • The simultaneous transformational change of economic direction in the southern Irish economy and society, which imparted to this project increased impetus, opportunity and political scope.

Cette thèse a pour origine le constat de l’implication forte d’une fraction de la société civile irlandaise, de l’homme de la rue, d’associations politiques militantes, de syndicats mais aussi de l’appareil diplomatique, dans le rapport de force en Palestine, depuis la Guerre des Six jours de 1967, qui soulève l’indignation populaire. Le paroxysme de ce phénomène prend place en Irlande du Nord, où Unionistes et Nationalistes brandissent les drapeaux israéliens et palestiniens, pour témoigner de leur attachement à l’un ou l’autre des acteurs du conflit au Moyen-Orient. Il s’agit ici d’explorer les origines et l’évolution de cette mobilisation, en définissant le contour d’une perspective irlandaise protéiforme sur le conflit israélo-palestinien, qui s’appuie sur un faisceau multiple de lectures domestiques des événements au Moyen-Orient, fondées sur autant d’appréhensions de l’histoire irlandaise. Celles-ci s’épanouissent dans un entremêlement de narrations contradictoires du conflit israélo- palestinien, qui animent le discours politique irlandais autour du débat sur l’identité postcoloniale de l’Irlande. Cet exposé propose une analyse des manifestations de solidarité transnationale avec Israël et la Palestine, que ce soit à l’échelle nationale et supranationale, des partis politiques, ou des syndicats et des associations civiles. Il s’attache à mettre en lumière les facteurs, à la fois historiques, et par là-même ancrés dans l’identité de l’Etat irlandais et de l’Irlande du Nord, mais aussi stratégiques, diplomatiques et religieux, qui participent à une domestication irlandaise du conflit au Moyen-Orient. La récupération politique de ce conflit dans la propagande du militantisme républicain irlandais au début des années 1970, mais aussi dans les discours politiques et au sein de la société civile, ainsi que la réaction pro-israélienne plus récente, qui échappent encore à un apport théorique, constituent le cœur de ce travail de recherche. / The starting-point of the writing of this thesis is the observation of the strong commitment of a layer of Irish civil society – from the man on the street to political parties, associations and trade unions – to the defence of one antagonist or the other in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, ever since the Six Day War in 1967, which aroused international indignation. This phenomenon is particularly striking in Northern Ireland, where Israeli and Palestinian flags have been flown by Unionists and Nationalists as signs of solidarity and identification. The purpose of this research is to look into the origins and the evolutions of such expressions of transnational solidarity, by defining the multifaceted Irish approach to the Middle-East question. This approach is based on a prism of domestic readings of the conflict, originating from different conceptions of Irish history. Indeed, the intermingling of the sometimes contradictory readings of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict feeds into the Irish political debate, revolving around the supposedly postcolonial identity of Ireland. This thesis develops an analysis of the transnational solidarity in Ireland with Israel and Palestine, be it at a national or supranational level, from political parties, trade unions and civil associations. It endeavours to cast light on the factors which structure the Irish domestication of the conflict in the Middle East, be they historical and connected to the very identity of the Irish Republic and Northern Ireland, or strategic, diplomatic and religious. The political exploitation of the conflict in Irish republican propaganda from the beginning of the 1970s, bolstered by connections with Palestinian resistance movements, and the more recent pro-Israeli response particularly within Unionism, which have never been analysed together in a comparative way, are at the core of this research.

L’Irish Republican Army (IRA), le principal groupe paramilitaire républicain, fut fondé en 1969. Dès lors, il lutta contre la présence britannique en Irlande du Nord et pour la réunification de l’île d’Irlande. Le désarmement de l’IRA, considéré comme irréalisable jusqu’en 2001, s’accomplit pourtant bel et bien entre 2001 et 2005 dans le cadre du processus de paix. Le 26 septembre 2005, l’IRA avait officiellement déposé les armes. Quels mécanismes avaient alors permis, au sein du processus de paix nord-irlandais, d’aboutir à la "mise hors d’état de nuire" de l’arsenal de l’IRA qui déclarait pourtant encore en 1998 qu’il n’accepterait pas de rendre les armes ? Comme l’annonce le titre de cette thèse, trois questions sous-tendent notre analyse : quels étaient les enjeux de l’abandon de la violence et du désarmement pour l’IRA et le Sinn Féin durant tout le processus de paix ? Quelle était la portée symbolique du désarmement pour le groupe armé clandestin et pour le mouvement républicain dans son ensemble ? Enfin, quels mécanismes, tant diplomatiques que psychologiques, avaient pu convaincre l’IRA d’abandonner la violence puis de désarmer ? À la demande du groupe clandestin, la nature du dispositif de désarmement et le nombre d’armes détruites demeurent confidentiels. Cette étude ne prétend donc pas révéler des secrets d’État, mais bien de mettre en évidence la dynamique du processus qui a mené l’IRA de la violence armée à l’abandon des armes. / The Irish Republican Army (IRA), the main Republican paramilitary group in Northern Ireland was founded in 1969. From then on it fought to put an end to the British presence in Northern Ireland and to achieve the unification of Ireland. The decommissioning of the IRA, which seemed unrealizable until 2001, was indeed accomplished between 2001 and 2005, as part of the Peace Process. On 26 September 2005, the IRA officially laid down its weapons. What mechanisms played a role in the IRA putting its arsenal beyond use during the Northern Ireland Peace Process, despite the armed group’s declaration in 1998 that there would be no disarmament? As mentioned in the title of this thesis, three questions underlie our analysis: What was at stake in the giving up of violence and in decommissioning for the IRA and Sinn Féin during the Peace Process? What was the symbolic significance of decommissioning for the IRA and for the whole Republican movement? Finally, what diplomatic and psychological mechanisms managed to convince the IRA to give up violence and then to disarm? At the clandestine group’s own request, the technical aspects of decommissioning and the number of arms which were destroyed still remain confidential. Therefore, this study does not reveal any State secrets, but rather underlines the dynamics of the process which led the IRA from armed violence to the giving up of arms.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Open University. BLDSC no. DX213068.