Staging a Shared Future argues that theatre provides vital insight into the construction and use of narratives in the Northern Ireland since the 1998 Good Friday Agreement (GFA). This document signaled the end of thirty years of violent conflict between Protestants and Catholics, but could not heal the distrust that remained. Thus, one of the goals of the ongoing peace process has been to replace old sectarian narratives emphasizing differences and grievances between the communities with newer narratives emphasizing similarity and shared purpose. I examine nine plays staged in Belfast since the GFA that have endorsed and interrogated these new narratives of progress and argue that theatre, as an inherently communal event, provides an excellent opportunity for residents of the state to collectively imagine what a "shared society" actually means. I conduct close readings of complete productions including script, direction, acting choices, venue, and marketing. I also compare these performances to other forms of public discourse including television, government policy documents, radio, and fiction. Chapter one provides an overview of Northern Irish theatre and public discourse; each subsequent chapter explores the ways theatre has tackled one particular issue facing the construction of a "shared future" narrative. Chapter two focuses on productions that staged meetings between Catholics and Protestants. The Wedding Community Play Project (1999), Two Roads West (2009), and National Anthem (2010) offered different visions of what it would take for these historical enemies to consider themselves equal partners in the state. Chapter three looks at the state's general discomfort with public discussions of Troubles-related traumas. Convictions (2000), The Chronicles of Long Kesh (2009), and The Sign of the Whale (2010) all advocated for ways of addressing trauma that did not depend on competitive grief or hierarchies of victims. Chapter four concentrates on representations of those who have been marginalized within Northern Ireland. To Be Sure (2007), This is What We Sang (2009), and God's Country (2010) all pointed to the need for Northern Ireland to think broadly about ideas of "belonging" and to create a more inclusive "shared future." Throughout, I argue that theatre will play an essential role in negotiating the continuing tensions within Northern Ireland. / text

The examination of Scottish and Irish links with the Atlantic realm of the British Empire has made an important contribution to national histories and imperial historiography. This thesis concentrates on an underdeveloped field of eighteenth- century historical studies of Scotland and of Ireland. Eighteenth-century perceptions of the English East India Company (EIC) in Scotland and Ireland have been analysed throughout this study, an approach offering a number of advantages. By shifting the geographic focus, established conceptualisations of Scottish and Irish provincialism, formulated within the field of Atlantic history, have been reviewed using evidence relating to the Asian Empire. This dissertation also contributes to Scottish and Irish comparative historiography. It exposes distinct similarities and subtle differences in the reactions of Scottish and Anglo-Irish societies to the EIC. Factions within both societies sought access to global trade, particularly once the parliaments of their respective countries had been constitutionally liberated. The monopoly posed fundamental questions in the politics of union and empire in both Scotland and Ireland. It prominently featured in Irish debates over union at the end of the eighteenth century, just as it had in Scotland in 1707. Nonetheless, Scottish and Anglo-Irish societies remained sensitive to the extra- commercial character of the EIC. Proposals for participation in the East Indies trade offer insights into the complexities of their respective political cultures. Responses to the EIC have been used throughout this thesis to test influential theories in imperial historiography, regarding the political culture which promoted overseas expansion. Accepted ideas regarding the role of the British Empire in the construction of North British and Anglo-Irish identity have been challenged. The hypothesis that provinciality was a product of the Atlantic Empire is also contested. This dissertation questions certain aspects of the ‘gentlemanly capitalism’ thesis. The notion that East India patronage inhibited Scottish debate should also be reassessed. Furthermore the thesis contends that the importance of the Eastern Empire to contemporaries has been underestimated in both Scottish and Irish historiography.

"Beyond the Ethnonational Divide: Identity Politics and Women in Northern Ireland and Israel/Palestine" is a comparative analysis of the conflict resolution processes and peace-building strategies employed in Northern Ireland and Israel/Palestine, focusing on the experiences of women’s feminist peace movements. I draw on feminist thought in the international relations and comparative politics literatures, as well as the critical identity politics literatures developed outside these fields, to demonstrate the value of broadening our understanding of social identity in conflict. In particular, I apply a post-positivist realist approach to identity to evaluate the extent to which women’s feminist peace communities develop untested ideas related to conflict resolution and peace-building in these cases. I argue that the dominant ethnonational conflict resolution literature, developed largely within the comparative politics field, advances an ‘elite accommodation’ strategy for resolving conflict that grants the most militant and sometimes violent ethnonational leaders the authority to speak for the body public during transformative constitutional moments. I propose that conflict resolution schemes that privilege ethnonational elite political figures and treat the interests of all actors in intrastate conflict as fundamentally derived from ethnonational interests do not produce a stable post-conflict period of peace and governance, they fail to secure human rights, equality guarantees and justice provisions for all communities in a post-conflict period, and they fail to capitalize on the local, participant knowledge and alternate visions of conflict resolution and peace that are developed in “subaltern” identity-based communities. In my view, when we consider the genesis and development of the feminist peace movements in Israel/Palestine and Northern Ireland, we can see how a politics based on solidarity and alliances, across ethnic, national, gender, class and sexuality divides, is informed by the endogenous conditions of conflict and also the exogenous development of transnational feminist theory and praxis. The negotiation of identity in women’s feminist peace communities has been complex and, at times, difficult. However, it has also led to the development of novel ideas related to peace, inclusion, human rights and justice that have been sidelined, to varying degrees, in the conflict resolution processes in both cases. / Thesis (Ph.D, Political Studies) -- Queen's University, 2009-01-23 11:47:13.061

The Great Famine (1845--1852) was not only a catastrophic moment in Irish history, it was and remains an important source of textual production, particularly in regard to literature and drama. These cultural products carry a powerful discourse used to communicate various social and political agendas. From the beginning, Irish novelists, poets and dramatists have confronted the question of the Famine's meaning then and now. At each historical moment, they have interrogated the Famine and have employed various discursive strategies to communicate to their readers and audiences. / This dissertation makes four primary claims: (a) The historical Irish Famine has remained a source of discursive activity by Irish writers, and so constitutes a phenomenon that merits communication research; (b) This discursive content constructs the Famine in ways that communicate its meaning for contemporary readers in successive historical periods; (c) The multiple discursive meanings of the Famine are often contradictory, and demonstrate the conflicting socio-cultural and political goals of both writers and their readerships; and (d) The emergence and evolution of Famine discourse, which consistently recruits pre-existing discourses, provides an important site for examination of the communicational function of imaginative literature and drama. / A survey of Famine literature and drama reveals inconsistent patterns of textual production and discursive content. By determining the historical periods of Famine literary and dramatic production, and by analyzing the contextual dimensions and textual features of representative works, the reasons behind periods of high and low output, the purposes of discursive maintenance and manipulation and the relationship between literary and dramatic discourse and readerships can be approached. To undertake this analysis, five central tropes---land, national identity, religion, gender and agency---are employed. These themes are multi-layered and mutually implicated both on the level of textual production and consumption, that is, in their writing and in their reading/viewing. These tropes have been employed in and through the communicational perspectives of several thinkers, notably Pierre Bourdieu and Teun van Dijk. / Termed an Gorta Mor in the Irish language, the Famine dramatically altered Ireland's social, economic and political fabric, triggered massive emigration to America, Britain and Canada, and etched itself into the Irish psyche as an enduring, if frequently repressed, moment of trauma. As such, a study of its role in communication, in human meaning-making, can illuminate not only Irish experience but the human capacity to tell a bitter, painful story, for specific ends, by remembering and manipulating its elements and to use that story as tool in achieving social and political goals, and in obtaining or maintaining power.

Using Northern Ireland this study seeks to establish what conditions on the ground must be cultivated in order for this ripe moment to come to pass. This thesis argued that five conditions in particular were necessary, though not necessarily sufficient, for the success of the Belfast Agreement. These five conditions (1) the inclusivity of the negotiation process, (2) efforts to foster positive cross community contact, (3) the positive involvement of external ethno-guarantors(EEGs), (4) the involvement of formal international primary mediators, and (5) the use of targeted economic aid. What emerged was that when taken together, these conditions created the pillars upon which a more stable agreement was reached. What is also important is that none of these conditions are short term investments; they all involved a long term commitment to peacebuilding that began long before the official negotiations of the BA.

The history of Ireland is complex, and has been plagued with religious, political and military influences that have created divisions within its population. Ireland's experience throughout the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars highlighted and intensified such divisions that have influenced Irish society into the twenty-first century. This body of work is an analysis of the British army in Ireland during the period 1793 to 1815, which proved to be a critical era in British and Irish history. The consequences of the events and government policies of that time helped to determine the social and political divisions within Ireland for the following two centuries. The intention of this thesis is to provide an analytical synthesis of the military history of Ireland during this time, focusing on the influences, experiences and reputations of the various elements that comprised the Irish military forces. This revisionist study provides an holistic approach by assessing the militia, yeomanry, fencible and regular regiments in relation to their intended purpose within Britain's strategy. By focussing on deployment, organization, performance, leadership and reputations, as well as political and military background, a number of perpetual misconceptions have been exposed, especially in relation to the negative historiography surrounding the Irish militia and yeomanry due to sectarian bias. This work shows that Ireland became an important facet of the tactical and strategic thinking of both the French and British governments at this time, with Britain needing to defend the kingdom against any possible invasion to secure its own defence. This resulted in the British military occupation of a kingdom whose population had been polarised by civil rebellion, invasion and renewed religious bigotry. A close examination of the military history of the kingdom during these crucial years provides a better understanding of how the Irish became, and remained, a socially and politically divided people, while being subjected to the political and military dominance of Britain.

No description available.

This thesis will read James Joyce's novel A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man as a text that is fundamentally concerned with ecological issues, demonstrating awareness of the land beyond and outside of Dublin. Joyce frequently depicts the colonization of Ireland as centered on the control of land in the form of agriculture, which he brings into the political foreground of the novel's characters. I will argue further that this novel is critical of the violent nationalist rhetoric and insurrections of early 1900s Ireland, a movement which perpetuated the agricultural control of land. As an effective rebellion to this aporia, which Joseph Valente has termed “the metrocolonial double bind,” I will read the novel’s queer ecology, a non-violent resistance that moves beyond constricting categories of human/animal, urban/rural, and opens up the world for novel ways of living and being.

Using Northern Ireland this study seeks to establish what conditions on the ground must be cultivated in order for this ripe moment to come to pass. This thesis argued that five conditions in particular were necessary, though not necessarily sufficient, for the success of the Belfast Agreement. These five conditions (1) the inclusivity of the negotiation process, (2) efforts to foster positive cross community contact, (3) the positive involvement of external ethno-guarantors(EEGs), (4) the involvement of formal international primary mediators, and (5) the use of targeted economic aid. What emerged was that when taken together, these conditions created the pillars upon which a more stable agreement was reached. What is also important is that none of these conditions are short term investments; they all involved a long term commitment to peacebuilding that began long before the official negotiations of the BA.

No description available.