ABSTRACT
Northern Ireland is often portrayed, especially to British audiences, as a backward place left behind by the tide of history, in which warring tribes are engaged in an atavistic religious feud which the modern world has outgrown. The conflict is represented as violent, criminal, and above all, irrational. In Northern Ireland itself, not surprisingly, things are seen very differently. Few people regard the conflict as primarily religious. The perceived causes of the Troubles arise ‘less from the peculiarities of the local cultures than from perceived, and rationally perceived, constitutional and political insecurity in both communities’ (McGarry and O’Leary 1995:244).
