The purpose of this master's thesis is to explore how creative spaces in libraries function, their goals and how they affect the role of their host libraries by undertaking a qualitative multi-case study in three public libraries in Dublin Ireland .This uses the four spaces model as a theoretical framework in analysing the empirical data which was gathered from semi-structured interviews of librarians and an events planner in the spaces as well as a document analysis of related strategic documents. The results of the study show that creative spaces offer a way for libraries to attract more and diverse groupings of patrons to their service and primarily have a role as learning and inspirational spaces. They enable libraries in particular to help give equal access to STEM resources and encourage experience based learning in all age groups from young to old. Each space has an individual character and its content and role is dependent on the host library and can act as a force multiplier for the various goals and roles of the library itself.

Post-liberal, hybrid peace, a new model of peacebuilding, aims to step away from the top-down imposition of liberal peace. In order to recognise the local, the new model considers the interaction between the international and the local as a dynamic power interaction, through which the means and ends of peace can be mediated. Yet, it has already been criticised for its theoretical underpinnings which would, ultimately, impede it to achieve its objectives. This thesis aims to determine the concrete impacts of the elements pinpointed by the critiques. It adopts an alternative focus on both the programme itself and the affected population’s perspectives. Through an instrumental case study of the EU Peace III Fund’s peacebuilding in Northern Ireland and the Border Region, the thesis highlights that these critiques can take different, practical forms. It enables to unveil the importance of exploring the affected population’s perspectives, of the initial context as well as the external peacebuilder’s belief that it knows, still, what is best over the affected populations.

Ireland had, by the year of 1998, been an island of war and conflict to some extent for almost 1000 years. The northeast part of the island, called Northern Ireland, had been under British domination for over 25 years when “the Troubles” ended by the year of 1998. This essay aims towards explaining how the first generation after “the Troubles” has been shaped in terms of political and religious beliefs and attitudes in the society of Belfast. Furthermore, this study seeks to understand the complex nature of the peace agreement and the political consociational power-sharing system that permeates Belfast and it’s people. By conduct interviews with six, picked young persons from Belfast, this essay will, in a qualitative and theoretical way, explain what, and even more so, why the prevailing attitudes exists, and which influences they are derived from. By a socialisation and Marxist theory, these articulated attitudes will be explained, compared and analysed on a deep level.

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The connection between religion and conflict is widely known, but the literature lacks in the understanding on how religion can be used in conflicts. This study aims to investigate how religion was used by paramilitary organizations in the North Ireland conflict. With the theory on how religion can overcome collective action problems, four central themes regarding how religion can benefit social movements was used to examine these organizations. The organization was analysed using journalistic sources mainly based on interviews with terrorists from these organizations. Using these four themes the similarities and differences between these organizations could be analysed and how religion was used could be better understood. The main result was that none of the studied organizations used religion to a big extent, but that the protestant side had a bigger use of it than the catholic one. With this in concern, the study was critically analysed, and further research was purposed.

This thesis examines the abilities of constitutional mini-publics to make legitimate constitutions. Legitimacy in this thesis is defined as following the ideal of public reason. It is a quantitative study of the third weekend of the Irish Convention on the Constitution (a constitutional mini-public). They deliberated on and recommended amending the Constitution to allow same-sex marriage. Previous research into the legitimacy of constitutional mini-publics has been limited to studying their form, for example, participant selection or decision-making process. This thesis analyses the content of the deliberation. A series of theme analyses were performed to discover the reasons used. The reasons were categorised as public or nonpublic. The Convention on the Constitution justified all their decisions with public reasons. Showing constitutional mini-publics can make legitimate constitutions based on the ideal of public reason under the right circumstances.

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