ABSTRACT

This chapter explores the rather Kantian concern of Michel Foucault that people need a ‘reflective relation to the present’. The popular Marie Jones play A Night in November is representative of how the media has historically portrayed Northern Ireland supporters and is reflective of earlier academic work, which developed this focus on sectarianism in an attempt to explain fan behaviour within the context of the ethno-national divide and political violence between Ulster Protestants and Irish Catholics between the late 1960s and the Good Friday Peace Agreement of 1998. The sectarian behaviour of a section of Northern Ireland supporters has been linked to the ‘siege mentality’ within ‘Ulster loyalism,’ which is reported to have been exacerbated during this tumultuous period of violence. A purposive selection strategy was selected to guide the recruitment of interviewees. The anthem played before Northern Ireland matches remains ‘God Save the Queen,’ the anthem of the United Kingdom.