In one of the first posts on Writing the ‘Troubles’, Eli Davies wrote ‘the starting point for my research is an observation, and it’s by no means an original one: that women’s experiences of the conflict in Northern Ireland are excluded in mainstream discourse’. This observation is also the starting point of my own research... Continue Reading →
By Daniel Finn The two major Irish conflicts of the last century led to very different outcomes in terms of legality and state formation. The War of Independence gave rise to a new state that established its own form of constitutional legitimacy. The IRA campaign of the 1970s and 80s, on the other hand, could... Continue Reading →
By Melissa Baird- The influence of the United States – its government, its Irish diasporic population, or the common overlap of both – on the ‘Troubles’ has been increasingly well researched.[1] However, the role of the United States in the Northern Irish civil rights movement, and how this related to the ‘Troubles’, is something that... Continue Reading →
By Tim Wilson- My new book Killing Strangers sets itself a simple exam question to answer: How have forms of political violence changed over time? In answering that question, it attempts to link the changing ‘repertoires’ of protest violence with deeper processes of modernisation. Its arena is Western Europe and North America; its timespan, the... Continue Reading →
By Ian Cobain- Author Colm Tóibín once told his creative writing class at Manchester University that “you have to be a terrible monster to write”. You should be prepared to make use of the unguarded comments of others, he said, even if those who uttered them may be identifiable. All that matters, is whether those... Continue Reading →
By Michael Livesey- In January 1975, the Gardiner Committee on Terrorism and Subversion published its final Report on ‘Measures to Deal with Terrorism in Northern Ireland’. The Report made several recommendations to the Government of Harold Wilson, relating to security and prison administration. Chief amongst these were recommendations to abolish Special Category Status in Northern... Continue Reading →
By Hugh Hanley- During his lifetime, Conor Cruise O'Brien was one of the most significant and most controversial public intellectuals in Ireland. A diplomat, a historian, a literary critic, a university administrator, a tenured professor, a journalist, a politician, a playwright, O'Brien was also among the most vociferous critics of the Provisional IRA during the... Continue Reading →
By Matthew Gault On 30 August, public and digital anthropologist Kate Ellenberger began a discussion on Twitter about using images of the deceased, in particular of their bodies, without the consent of family members. She also reflected on the impact these images can have on readers. In Northern Ireland we frequently see images of the... Continue Reading →
By Robert W. White- Many people readily accept the view that it was Jim Gibney who first suggested putting hunger striker Bobby Sands forward as a candidate when Frank Maguire, the MP for Fermanagh/South Tyrone, passed away. The story is consistent with the general notion that younger, Belfast-based activists, led by Gerry Adams, were more... Continue Reading →
By Deirdre Canavan- Alternative narratives of the ‘Troubles’ are gaining increasing recognition, both in academic circles and in popular culture, particularly those that platform the gaps and absences in available histories. This denotes a broader desire to move away from the dominant accounts in order to gain a consciousness of the ‘Troubles’ that has hitherto... Continue Reading →
