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“My wife is Protestant, I am Catholic, and we are happily married” my father told our tour guide as we passed Hotel Europa, which the tour guide informed us is the most bombed hotel in Europe, and a prime symbol of the Protestant- Catholic conflict in Northern Ireland. “That sounds great with your American accent,” the tour guide responded. I was baffled that two sects of Christianity, denominations of the same religion, could have so much hate for each other. After much research, I came to realize that religious leaders significantly manipulated Catholicism and Protestantism to implement their own agendas in a way that justified violence. This manipulation was visible in all aspects of society during the height of the conflict in Northern Ireland between 1960 and 1988, a period also known as the ‘Troubles.’ I will specify how religion significantly influenced society, and why the fact that the conflict is reflected in art is so significant. I hope you enjoy!

The theology of reconciliation, as it applies to God’s relationship with humanity, has been studied extensively throughout ecclesial history. Currently, theologians are expanding this research to include the “horizontal” element of reconciliation, or the implications of God’s relationship with humanity on human to human relations. This dissertation further examines the development of the horizontal understanding of the theology of reconciliation in the context of two Christian reconciliation communities in Northern Ireland, the Corrymeela and Cornerstone Communities. This is attempted by exploring the use of the concepts most commonly associated with the theology of reconciliation, truth, justice, repentance and forgiveness, as interpreted through past publications of Cornerstone and Corrymeela and in interviews with current members. This study illustrates, through the use of a theology of reconciliation model, how the social context moves one’s theological beliefs between a focus on liberating tendencies (justice and truth) and reconciling tendencies (repentance and forgiveness). The result of this analysis show that within both Communities, throughout the years of the Troubles to now, it has been possible to map a movement between a focus on reconciling and liberating tendencies that correlates to the stability of the social context. Implications for further study include: creating a clearer definition of the theology of reconciliation, exploring the theology of reconciliation within other conflict-ridden areas, and working to establish the theology of reconciliation as existing under the umbrella of traditionally understood local theology.

Archaeological records at the Navan site are fragmented and difficult to interpret. This site, in County Armagh, Northern Ireland, features artefacts extending over 4,000 years from the Neolithic period to the Iron Age. This thesis provides a framework for understanding this important material culture. Through an analysis of archaeological theories and specific physical items, links are established among the natural world, culture, and the Navan residents’ understanding of the cosmos. This analysis covers the landscape (e.g. topography), constructed objects (e.g. prehistoric infrastructure such as pools, roads and earthworks), and metaphysical concepts (e.g. sound and time), thus building a holistic picture of how these settlers might have viewed themselves, the physical world around them, and the spiritual world they imagined. While it is not possible to determine definitively these groups’ purposes and motives, the thesis finds clues in the incoherentarchaeological evidence. It explores possible functions for archaeological markers whose significance is not clear. These markers could, for instance, have beenmeans of social separation orceremonial signifiers. Therefore the thesis is both an analysis of a particular site and an investigation into how the archaeological process itself, specifically in a situation of challenging evidence, enables distant worlds to be understood.

This research explores the civic and political participation of Polish migrants in Northern Ireland from a transnational perspective. Examining how migrants construct belonging at multiple scales, it emphasises the role of place in shaping their civic and political participation, attitudes and interests. Despite a significant body of work examining the experiences of Polish migrants in the UK, their civic and political participation remains under-explored. Moreover, given Northern Ireland's status as a relatively recent immigration destination, little is known about how migrants engage in politics and civil society in the region. Employing a mixed methods approach that entailed in-depth interviews, an online survey and ethnographic participant observation, this research elicits a range of insights regarding migrants' motivations for participation in civil society, in formal politics and in political parties. It also sheds light on the barriers to participation which they experience. Drawing on Thomas's (2002) idea of a 'contract' as a means through which claims to citizenship are articulated, the research develops the idea of a 'place-based contract' to conceptualise how migrants construct belonging to civic and political communities, and how this shapes and facilitates their civic and political engagement. I argue that participation is facilitated by a sense of belonging to place which has legal, personal and societal dimensions, and which includes both practical and emotional elements. Highlighting how this process operates across multiple scales, I argue for the need to 'rescale the polity' in order to pay closer attention to how migrants form attachments to place at a scale 'below' the nation-state and how this facilitates engagement in different forms of civic and political activity. As such, the research urges that greater attention be paid to the geographical context in which politics is practised, as well as focusing on the interconnections between migration, political participation, citizenship, identity, belonging and place.

Human rights are a defining feature of how the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) has been 'imagined and made' in its post-conflict society. This thesis marks the first attempt to make sense of how human rights are articulated, interpreted and applied by those intimately involved in Northern Irish policing. Based on extensive access to the PSNI, I marshal qualitative data collected from interviews with over one hundred police officers from various departments. I tour four sites of local policing to expose and examine the vernaculars and practices of human rights that lurk within each. The story I tell over the course of eight chapters is one of a police service trying to sustain human rights as a central narrative to explain its daily work and build its organisational identity in a divided society, to varying degrees of success. I argue that human rights are, in fact, a malleable, contested and conditional concept to 'imagine and make' a police service and regulate the decision-making of its officers; perhaps much more so than police reformers in Northern Ireland had realised or the PSNI wish to acknowledge. In the first half of the thesis, I identify and deconstruct how the PSNI's chief officers and local political parties seek to express and mobilise competing visions, values and agendas through human rights narratives. I then pay close attention to how human rights are interpreted and translated by junior officers performing two forms of routine policing in N.Ireland: the 'dirty work' of the Tactical Support Group and the 'community work' of Neighbourhood Policing Teams. I ask to what extent officers have internalised human rights as way of making sense of their daily work. In the second half of the thesis, I explore police officers as an important, but poorly understood, class of human rights practitioner. To better grasp how officers interpret and apply human rights standards, I closely analyse two sites of policing where distinct schemes of human rights-based regulation exist: public order policing and police custody. This thesis contributes to understandings of the concept of human rights, its interactions with law and politics and the condition of policing in contemporary Northern Ireland.

<p><p> <strong>Abstract</strong></p></p><p> <strong>Titel: </strong>Terms of endearment: A study on how strangers are addressed in Northern Ireland and Ireland</p><p><strong>Författare: </strong>Kristina SkagerströmEngelska C, 2009</p><p> </p><p><strong>Antal sidor: 16</strong></p><p> </p><p><strong>Abstract: </strong>The aim of this study was to find out whether<strong> </strong>terms of endearment are used by native speakers of English while addressing strangers and if so, what are the reasons? Another aspect is if they use familiar body language while addressing a stranger. This study was carried out based on a number of observations in Northern Ireland and Ireland.</p><p>Since the aim of the study was to see why terms of endearments are used the researcher needed the help of a male observer to see if the reasons were gender related. Nine restaurants of different social class were visited, nine stores of different social class, the observers spoke to nine taxi drivers, they visited nine hotels of different social class; and asked nine people for directions in the street.</p><p> The results showed that no young people addressed either of the observers with terms of endearment. There was no difference in social class. There was a big difference in how the male and the female observer were addressed by people over the age of 40. While the male observer was addressed very polite, the female observer was addressed with a very informal speech were the participants used terms of endearments such as "love" and touched her on the shoulder.</p><p> <strong>Nyckelord: Terms of endearment, Northern Ireland, Ireland, Observations</strong></p>

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Johns Hopkins University, 2001. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 374-400). Also available on the Internet.

Abstract  Titel: Terms of endearment: A study on how strangers are addressed in Northern Ireland and Ireland Författare: Kristina SkagerströmEngelska C, 2009   Antal sidor: 16   Abstract: The aim of this study was to find out whether terms of endearment are used by native speakers of English while addressing strangers and if so, what are the reasons? Another aspect is if they use familiar body language while addressing a stranger. This study was carried out based on a number of observations in Northern Ireland and Ireland. Since the aim of the study was to see why terms of endearments are used the researcher needed the help of a male observer to see if the reasons were gender related. Nine restaurants of different social class were visited, nine stores of different social class, the observers spoke to nine taxi drivers, they visited nine hotels of different social class; and asked nine people for directions in the street.  The results showed that no young people addressed either of the observers with terms of endearment. There was no difference in social class. There was a big difference in how the male and the female observer were addressed by people over the age of 40. While the male observer was addressed very polite, the female observer was addressed with a very informal speech were the participants used terms of endearments such as "love" and touched her on the shoulder.  Nyckelord: Terms of endearment, Northern Ireland, Ireland, Observations

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