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Being Irish2

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 March 2014

Ciarán O'Kelly
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Abstract

This article is one of a series commissioned by Government and Opposition exploring identity politics in several national and international contexts. Though ostensibly a civic republic, Ireland has been shaped by a certain conception of Irish culture. Cultural claims are typically political but have the potential to allow community interests to override concern for individual well-being. The construction of the Irish state focused on the maintenance of an idea of being Irish rather than on the welfare of people throughout Ireland, both North and South. As a result, a conservative formulation of Irish identity was locked into the state's structures.

Type
Politics of Identity – V
Information
Government and Opposition , Volume 39 , Issue 3 , 2004 , pp. 504 - 520
Copyright
Copyright © Government and Opposition Ltd 2004

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Footnotes

2

My thanks go to Richard Bellamy, Alan Cromartie, Anne-Maree Farrell, Ron Peek and Niamh Nic Shuibhne for comments on an earlier draft of this paper.

References

1 ‘The Politics of Identity’ is an on-going series edited by Richard Bellamy.

3 On the defining characteristics of encompassing groups, see Avishai Margalit and Joseph Raz, ‘National Self-Determination’, in Joseph Raz, Ethics in the Public Domain, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1994, pp. 128ff.

4 See Wright, Jane, ‘Minority Groups, Autonomy, and Self-Determination’, Oxford Journal of Legal Studies, 19: 4 (1999), p. 607f.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

5 De-Shalit, Avner, ‘National Self-Determination, Political, not Cultural’, Political Studies, 44 (1996), p. 911.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

6 To an extent, this paragraph tracks Margalit and Raz's description of the characteristics of encompassing groups. See Margalit and Raz, ‘National Self- Determination’, op. cit., pp. 128ff.

7 Chaim Gans, The Limits of Nationalism, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2003, p. 169.

8 See table in John Coakley, ‘The Foundations of Statehood’, in John Coakley and Michael Gallagher, Politics in the Republic of Ireland, 3rd edn, London, Routledge and the Political Studies Association of Ireland, 1999, p. 9.

9 Three key texts in Irish history are Joseph Lee, The Modernisation of Irish Society, Dublin, Gill and MacMillan, 1989; R. F. Foster, Modern Ireland 1600–1972, London, Penguin, 1989; F. S. L. Lyons, Ireland Since the Famine, London, Fontana, 1973.

10 Edward Said, Culture and Imperialism, London, Vintage, 1994, p. 281. See also Luke Gibbons, Transformations in Irish Culture, Cork, Cork University Press, 1996.

11 W. B. Yeats. The Poems, London, Everyman, 1990; J. M. Synge, Collected Plays and Poems and The Aran Islands, London, Everyman, 1996; on Yeats and the Celtic Revival in general, see Gibbons, Transformations in Irish Culture, op. cit.; Declan Kiberd, Inventing Ireland, London, Jonathon Cape, 1995; Marjorie Howes, Yeats's Nations, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1996; A. Norman Jeffares, A New Commentary on the Poems of W. B. Yeats, London, Macmillan, 1984.

12 Michael Collins, The Path to Freedom – Articles and Speeches by Michael Collins, Cork, Mercier Press, 1968, p. 95. See also some comments of IRA fighter Ernie O’Malley, in Richard English, ‘Green on Red – Two Case Studies in Early Twentieth Century Irish Republican Thought’, in D. George Boyce et al. (eds), Political Thought in Ireland Since the Seventeenth Century, London, Routledge, 1993, p. 172.

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15 Bunreacht na hÉireann, article 2. In the wake of a June 1998 referendum and as part of the implementation of the Good Friday Agreement, this article, along with article 3, was substantially amended to read: ‘It is the entitlement and birthright of every person born in the island of Ireland, which includes its islands and seas, to be part of the Irish Nation. That is also the entitlement of all persons otherwise qualified in accordance with law to be citizens of Ireland. Furthermore, the Irish nation cherishes its special affinity with people of Irish ancestry living abroad who share its cultural identity and heritage.’

16 Proclamation of the Irish Republic, Easter 1916.

17 Trimble, David, ‘Reply to a Letter by Gerry Adams’, Irish Times, 3 February 1998 Google Scholar (courtesy of ).

18 Teachta Dáile – an Irish member of parliament. Gaeltacht – an Irish-speaking area.

19 Address by Minister Síle de Valera at Boston College, MA, 18 September 2000, at http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/special/2000/devaleraspeech/; On the political context of the speech see, Garret FitzGerald, ‘Minister's Frustration is no Basis to Query EU’, Irish Times, 30 September 2000; Proinsías De Rossa, ‘Government Detached from European Ideas’, Irish Times, 23 September 2000.

20 Rory O’Donnell, ‘New Ireland in the New Europe’, in Europe: The Irish Experience, Dublin, Institute of European Affairs, 2000, pp. 189–90.

21 Éireann, Dáil, The Republic of Ireland Bill, second stage, 24 November 1948), vol. 113, p. 393,Google Scholar quoted in Daly, Mary E., ‘Irish Nationality and Citizenship since 1922’,Irish Historical Studies, 32: 127 (May 2001), p. 377.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

22 Quinn's Supermarket Ltd. v. A. G. [1972] IR, 1, 23. In Quinn's Supermarket Ltd. v. A. G., the benefits of worship are not restricted to Catholics, though the justices concerned saw no conflict with the acknowledged special position of the Catholic Church in the constitution. See James Casey, Constitutional Law in Ireland, London, Sweet and Maxwell, 1982, pp. 556–7.

23 Bunreacht na hÉireann, article 40, §1, 3, 6.

24 See McGee v. A. G. [1974] I.R. 284.

25 Bunreacht na hÉireann, preamble.

26 Norris v. A. G. [1983] IESC 1; [1984] IR 36 (22 April 1983).

27 Norris v. A. G. [1983] IESC 1; [1984] IR 36 (22 April 1983).

28 Case of Norris v. Ireland [1989] ECHR 6/1987/129/180.

29 Coone, Tim, ‘Survey of Ireland (3): A few wobbles have not upset the tandem – The Fianna Fail–Labour coalition is approaching the June Euro-elections in a confident mood’, Financial Times, 25 May 1994;Google Scholar See for example, Éireann, Dáil, ‘Private members' Business’, Criminal Law (Sexual Offences) Bill, 1993, second stage, vol. 432, 23 June 1993.Google Scholar

30 Ibid.

31 See Anne-Maree Farrell, ‘Contaminated Blood and Political Scandal in Ireland’, in John Garrard and James Newell, Scandals in Past and Contemporary Politics, Manchester, Manchester University Press, forthcoming.

32 Declan Kiberd, ‘Strangers in their Own Country: Multi-Culturalism in Ireland’, in Edna Longley and Declan Kiberd, Multi-Culturalism: The View from the Two Irelands, Cork, Cork University Press, 2001, p. 50.