ABSTRACT
Focusing on Northern Ireland for a study of attitudes to national identity is to choose an extreme political environment in which to research. The experience of Northern Ireland and its 35 years of “troubles” represents a textbook case study of what can happen when competing conceptions of national identity, and opposing claims of sovereignty over the same territory, clash. Although constitutionally a part of the “United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland” (to give the United Kingdom its full title), with a majority of its inhabitants professing a desire to keep it that way (the unionist position and community), the status of Northern Ireland has, both since its creation by the partition of Ireland in 1921 and more recently since the beginning of the “troubles” in 1968, has been contested (both peacefully through democratic politics and violently through terrorist campaigns such as the Provisional IRA) by those supporting the reunification of the island of Ireland (the nationalist position and community). It is a place where these two different senses of national identity – allegiance and loyalty – run deep, with both communities being able to draw upon long-established historical narratives, events and politicised cultural traditions with which to defend, celebrate and articulate their competing and oppositional identities (Barry 2003).
