This research attempts to describe the material culture of the Gaelic labouring classes living in western Ulster in the Late Medieval period. The research combines ethnohistorical contextual and technical scientific analysis of ‘chance’ finds discovered in the region’s bogs. Technical analysis dates fifteen museum objects, characterises the materials from which they were made, and explores their cultural significance. Absolute dating indicates that one third of the 15 objects analysed relate to the Gaelic lordships of late medieval western Ulster, with the remainder reflecting aspects of Iron Age and Post-Medieval material culture and related cultural pracrices. Contextual analysis of the later medieval objects and their find locations provides new insights into Gaelic Irish culture and landscape interactions in this period and place. In addition, the research explores the trajectory of indigenous materiality in western Ulster beyond the Late Medieval period. To this end, the thesis examines the relationship between Late Medieval indigenous materiality, and the folk material culture that emerges in western Ulster in the Modern period. / Heritage Consortium, Arts and Humanities Research Council (UK)

Scéla Muicce Meicc Da Thó (SMMD; The Tale of Mac Da Thó's Pig) is a humorous Old Irish myth that takes its cues from its Ulster Cycle cousins, notably, An Táin Bó Cúailnge (The Cattle Raid of Cooley). The connective tissue is its cast, plot structure, and the author's mastery of cultural and storytelling traditions. SMMD is brief and rapid, which aids its near-absurdist representation of masculinity, kingship, and honor in heroic saga culture. This thesis uses postcolonial and medieval literary scholarship to analyze medieval and modern depictions of the Ulster Cycle. Contemporarily, the Irish Republicans and Loyalists evoke the image of Ulster boy-hero Cú Chulainn to express their sense of cultural ownership. Chapter One contextualizes the Ulster Cycle, SMMD, and its issue of hyper-masculinity to expand traditional scholarship and interpretation by analyzing how SMMD's humor operates culturally while demonstrating Bourdieu's social capital. This study also considers modern Ireland's murals, some of which draw on medieval themes and contribute to a global understanding of its colonial struggle. There is a spatial quality to these representations that reinforce border sensibilities à la intimidation via images of masculinity that resemble bragging contests in the Ulster Cycle. Chapter Two further interprets medievalism in modern Ireland using the onomastic dindshenchas toward a spatial reading of SMMD relative to public representations of Ulster's boy hero. Overall, this work calls attention to the ongoing issue of medievalism as propaganda. Ireland and the children of its diaspora maintain complicated relationships with its colonial history. Thus, this work's secondary goal is to provide a deeper context to this rather fragmented issue in a way that advocates for the nuance necessary when studying three postcolonial communities on one island.

Linguistic identities and ideologies of Irish and Ulster-Scots speakers in Northern Ireland (NI) and the Republic of Ireland (ROI) are examined through a focus on rampant sectarianism during the violent 30 years known as “The Troubles”. Seven historical events are reviewed such as the 1798 Ulster Rebellion, the Great Irish Famine, the failed Easter Rising of 1916 and the political ideology of Orangeism in the geopolitical landscape of NI. John Hewitt’s The Rhyming Weavers (1974) and Feargal Mac Ionnrachtaigh’s work, Language, Resistance, and Revival: Republican Prisoners and the Irish Language in the North of Ireland (2013) represent the development of resistant and covert identities through Irish and Ulster-Scots language “code” and the creation of prison Gaeltachts with fáinnes as symbols of pride and connectivity. The Ulster Weaver Poets affirmed that “death would be welcome” opposed to a life on the weaving loom under British imperialistic rule while the Republican Irish prisoners “preferred to face death rather than be classed as criminals'' by the British hierarchy (Coogan 1980, 159; Mac Ionnrachtaigh 2013, 134). Brian Friel’s Translations (1980), Hugo Hamilton’s The Speckled People (2003), and Ciarán Collins’ The Gamal (2013) highlight unexpected and disheartening consequences of identity loss and entrapment for characters in ROI as Irish discourse usage is a barrier to fulfillment as well as viewed as violent and dangerous. Commonality in narrative expression is the preoccupation with self-sacrifice, martyrship, and death to reinforce the “authentic” citizen true to Ireland’s future. Newspaper articles, editorial comments, and personal opinion narratives from seven news publications from NI and the ROI are discussed. Whom the languages actually “belong” to— political parties such as Sinn Féin or community members is difficult because roles are intricately interwoven. The Troubles and Brexit have emphasized the hybridity of identities of Britishness and Irishness and subsequent linguistic choices and realities for all citizens of Ireland. All narratives firmly establish that understanding the languages as a form of linguistic resistance to a silencing of a traumatic past, regardless of political positioning or linguistic ideology, are foundational in solutions for the future survival and maintenance of these languages, not to mention social, cultural, and personal healing.

The Táin (Myth / Epic Fantasy, Feature) - In mythic iron-age Ireland, an exiled king allies with a proud queen to steal a magic bull and retake his former kingdom, but his semi-divine foster-son stands in their way. Based on the Irish Epic Táin Bó Cúailnge.

When the federation of the thirteen English colonies into the United States of America was finally achieved in 1776, powerful influences had made it certain that this new nation would have religious freedom and that it would not maintain an established church. Among those influences was the influence of an overwhelming number of settlers known as Ulster Scots, or Scotch-Irish, who emigrated into the colonies from Northern Ireland between the years 1720 and 1775. They came as dissenters from the Established Church in northern Ireland and remained dissenters from the Established Church as they found it where they settled along the frontiers of the Southern Colonies of Virginia, North and South Carolina. From 1720, the year these Ulstermen emigrated to the colonies in any appreciable numbers, until 1775 at the outbreak of hostilities between the colonies and England, they exerted a significant influence upon the achievement of religious liberty. Although the Ulster Scots were the most widely distributed of immigrants except those from England, being found in all thirteen colonies at the time of the Revolution, their influence in achieving religious freedom was most effective in the Southern Colonies where their numbers were most effective in the Southern Colonies where their numbers were five times as large as in the north. The development of religious liberty in colonial America has been determined to have had its impetus in three factors. First, the large and influential number of sects in the colonies; second, the liberal philosophy of sects in the colonies; second, the liberal philosophy of the 18th century with its relationalistic temper coupled with a fervent evangelical zeal that is reflected in the revivalistic movement of the Great Awakening across the middle of the 18th century; and thirdly, the ecclesiastical and political influence and interference of England. The Ulster Scots were directly concerned with the first and second factors. The third factor, however, does not relate itself to them primarily because they were situated on the western frontier of the Southern Colonies and not directly connected with any major commercial interests which developed such a display of emotion as was to be found in such centers of commerce as Boston and Philadelphia. The effort on the part of some colonials to prevent the appointment of a resident Bishop of the Anglican Church in the colonies does not appear to have made much impression on the Ulster Scots in the Southern Colonies, as the opponents to such a move were confined principally to the New England and to a lesser extent in the Middle Colonies. Opposition in the Southern Colonies to the appointment of a resident Bishop was found among the Anglican planters who had, for all intents and purposes, control of the Establishment through the vestries and did not wish to lose it. Because the Ulster Scots were the largest group among the sects dissenting from the Establishment who settled in the Southern Colonies their influence was proportionately greater in the achievement of religious liberty in these colonies than any other. But equal in importance with their numerical strength was the site of their settlements in the Southern Colonies. Prevented largely from setting in the more well-established tidewater area of the colonies of Virginia and South Carolina, they were forced to push westward into what was called the back country, or the frontier settlements were initiated by the emigration of these Ulster Scots from the colony of Pennsylvania who came down the eastern and western valleys of the mountain range which extends across the western flank of the Southern Colonies. There, in the isolation of the wilderness, their influence for the achievement of religious liberty exerted itself along with other dessenters from the Establishment so as to hasten the disestablishment of the Anglican church in the Southern colonies at the outbreak of the revolution, and usher in religious liberty.

This thesis seeks to argue for the problematising role of tradition and generational influence in the work of three Northern Irish poets publishing since the late 1990s. The subjects, Colette Bryce (b. 1970), Leontia Flynn (b. 1974) and Sinéad Morrissey (b. 1972), emerged coterminously, each publishing with major UK publishers. Together they represent a generation of assured female poetic voices. This study presents one of the first critical considerations of the work of these poets, and it remains conscious of the dominance of conceptions of tradition and lineage which are notable in poetry from Northern Ireland from the twentieth-century onwards. In suggesting that this tradition is problematised for emerging women poets by precursor-peer dominance and the primacy of male perspectives in the tradition, this thesis combines a study of poetics, themes relating to gender, detachment and paratexts. From consideration of these elements, it proposes that contemporary poets are not necessarily subject to the powers of tradition and influence, but rather, are capable of a selective approach that in turn demonstrates the malleability of contemporary traditions. The approaches are laid out in four chapters which move from a consideration of “threshold” paratexts (following from the work of Gérard Genette), including book reviews and dedications, through studies of thematic divergence and detachment, the changing status of women’s poetry traditions within Northern Ireland and beyond, the significance of gendered subjects in poetry, and influence found not in thematic or paratextual aspects, but in the individual aspects of poetic form. These aspects combine to form poems and the tradition(s) in which they continue. The thesis provides extensive coverage of the work of Bryce, Flynn, and Morrissey, combining close readings with the application of theoretical frameworks interrogating the implications of literary traditions on later writers (especially when the writers are temporally and culturally close), giving particular consideration to gender and feminist politics. It explores a variety of different critical truisms applied to the poetic generations that precede the younger poets and identifies both compliance and divergences from the contemporary Northern Irish canon. In doing so, this study simultaneously illuminates the frailties of the popular, overwhelmingly male, tradition, particularly as regards to representations of women, and provides direction for studies of post-millennial Northern Irish poetry.

Abstract not available. / Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of Natal, Durban, 1991.

Irlande (IRA) Pays basque (ETA) Corse (FLNC) : Analyse comparativeTrois luttes de libération au cœur de l’Europe contemporaineEn ce début de XXIème siècle, trois Etats membres de la CEE, la Grande-Bretagne, l’Espagne et la France, sont confrontés depuis des décennies à une forte contestation de leurs prérogatives de souveraineté, en Irlande du Nord, au Pays basque et en Corse. Cette contestation, se situant dans une perspective de libération nationale, s’exprime par une action politique publique, mais aussi par une action armée dans le cadre d’une lutte clandestine. Nous nous proposons de procéder à l’histoire comparée des trois organisations utilisant la violence armée comme moyen d’expression et d’action politique : l’IRA, l’ETA et le FLNC. Pour comprendre leurs similitudes et leurs différences, nous contextualiserons chacune d’elles au sein de l’ensemble de la lutte contestataire nationaliste menée en Irlande du Nord, au pays basque et en Corse, nées toutes trois d’une histoire au profil très dissemblable. Parallèlement à l’évolution du discours et de l’action de ces mouvements armés, nous analyserons les répercussions sur la situation politique dans les trois territoires concernés, entre répression menée par les Etats-nations et recherche d’une « solution négociée » pour régler ces conflits. Dans une 1ère partie, nous présenterons brièvement la genèse de ces « trois nations sans Etat », l’Irlande du Nord, le Pays basque et la Corse, et leur histoire respective conduisant à la création de ces mouvements armés au profil politique très différent, comme sont également très différents les modèles étatiques britannique, espagnol et français. Dans un 2ème temps, nous tâcherons de mettre en exergue, la place particulière de ces organisations armées au sein de chacune des trois contestations nationalistes ancrées dans ces territoires. Enfin, nous soulignerons leur rôle central dans les évolutions politiques de ces territoires et les conséquences induites par les solutions envisagées ou mises en œuvre, pour ces mouvements même, mais aussi pour les Etats-nations concernés qu’ils remettent en cause. / Ireland (IRA) Basque country (ETA) Corsica (FLNC): Comparative analysisThree liberation struggles in today’s heart of Europe.In this early 21st century, three member states of the European community:Great Britain, Spain and France have been facing for decades a strong protest against their sovereignty’s prerogatives, in Northern Ireland, Basque Country and Corsica. These protests aiming towards a national liberation perspective, express themselves through public political action but also through undercover military action. We will compare the history of these three undercover organisations, using military actions as a mean of expression and political action: IRA/ETA / FLNC. To understand their likenesses and their differencies, we will contextualise each of them within the dissent nationalist struggle as a whole in Northern Ireland, Basque country and Corsica, all three of them issued from a very different History. Concurrently to the speech evolution and armed actions of these movements, we will analyse the consequences on the political situation in the three concerned territories, between state repression and search of a negociated solution to settle these conflicts. In the first part we shall briefly present the genesis of these three “nations without State”, Ireland, Basque country and Corsica, and their respective history leading to the birth of these armed movments very different in their profiles, like very different are the political state systems in Great Britain Spain and France. In the second part we shall try to highlight the specific position of these military organisations within the three nationalist dissents established in these territories. At last we shall underlign their essential role in the political evolution of these territories and the consequences induced by the proposed or acted solutions for these but also for the states they are fighting against.

This thesis examines the ideological nexus of nationalism and heritage under the social conditions of neoliberalism. The investigation aims to demonstrate how neoliberal economics stimulate the irrationalism manifest in nationalist idealisation of the past. The institutionalisation of national heritage was originally a rational function of the modern state, symbolic of its political and cultural authority. With neoliberal erosion of the productive economy and public institutions, heritage and nostalgia proliferate today in all areas of social life. It is argued that this represents a social pathology linked to the neoliberal state's inability to construct a future-orientated national project. These conditions enhance the appeal of irrational nationalist and regionalist ideologies idealising the past as a source of cultural purity. Unable to achieve social cohesion, the neoliberal state promotes multiculturalism, encouraging minorities to embrace essentialist identity politics that parallel the nativism of right-wing nationalists and regionalists. This phenomenon is contextualised within the general crisis of progressive modernisation in Western societies that has accompanied neoliberalisation and globalisation. A new theory of activist heritage is advanced to describe autonomous, politicised heritage that appropriates forms and practices from the state heritage sector. Using this concept, the politics of irrational nationalism and regionalism are explored through fieldwork, including participant observation, interviews and photography. The interaction of state and activist heritage is considered at the Wewelsburg 1933-1945 Memorial Museum in Germany wherein neofascists have re-signified Nazi material culture, reactivating it within contemporary political narratives. The activist heritage of Israeli Zionism, Irish Republicanism and Ulster Loyalism is analysed through studies of museums, heritage centres, archaeological sites, exhibitions, monuments and historical re-enactments. These illustrate how activist heritage represents a political strategy within irrational ideologies that interpret the past as the ethical model for the future. This work contends that irrational nationalism fundamentally challenges the Enlightenment's assertion of reason over faith, and culture over nature, by superimposing pre-modern ideas upon the structure of modernity. An ideological product of the Enlightenment, the nation state remains the only political unit within which a rational command of time and space is possible, and thus the only viable basis for progressive modernity.

No description available.