Northern Ireland,employment and the law

Employment Equality in Northern Ireland, vols I‐III Eithne McLaughlin (series ed.), 1997 Belfast, Standing Advisory Committee on Human Rights ISBN 0.9527.5280.8

Vol. I. Fair Employment Law in Northern Ireland: Debates and Issues Denise Magill & Sarah Rose (eds) pp. 202

Vol. II. Policy Aspects of Employment Equality in Northern Ireland Eithne McLaughlin & Padraic Quirk (eds) pp.197

Vol. III. Public Views and Experiences of Fair Employment and Equality Issues in Northern Ireland John McVey & Nigel Hutson (eds) pp. 170     

Sexual citizenship in Belfast,Northern Ireland

In this article we examine the contours and construction of sexual citizenship in Belfast, Northern Ireland through in‐depth interviews with 30 members of the GLBT community and a discursive analysis of discourses of religion and nationalism. In the first half of the article we outline how sexual citizenship was constructed in the Irish context from the mid‐nineteenth century onwards, arguing that a moral conservatism developed as a result of religious reform and the interplay between Catholic and Protestant churches, and the redefining of masculinity and femininity with the rise of nationalism. In the second half of the article, we detail how the Peace Process has offered new opportunities to challenge and destabilise hegemonic discourses of sexual citizenship by transforming legislation and policing, and encouraging inward investment and gentrification.     

Sectarian demography,territoriality and political development in Northern Ireland

"Here we discuss, firstly, the limits of Census-based empiricism [in Northern Ireland] and the usually unacknowledged problems of data and interpretation which have resulted in a seriously misleading ?conventional wisdom'. Secondly, we question its sectarian terms of reference, the over-identification of religion and politics, and misconceptions of ethnicity.... Thirdly, we focus on some of the flawed policy ?solutions' associated with empiricism and sectarianism, including ?internal' power-sharing and ?consociational' strategies for political development."     

The First Government of Northern Ireland, Education Reform and the Failure of Anti-populist Unionism, 1921-1925

This article examines education reform under the first governmentof Northern Ireland (1921–1925). This embryonic periodoffered the Ulster Unionist leadership a chance to constructa more inclusive society, one that might diminish sectariananimosities, and thereby secure the fledgling state throughcooperation rather than coercion. Such aspirations were severelytested by the ruling party's need to secure the state againstinsurgency, and more lastingly, to assuage the concerns of itshistoric constituency. The former led to a draconian securitypolicy, the latter to a dependency on populist strategies andrhetoric. It is argued here, however, that this dependency wasnot absolute until July 1925. Before that, the Belfast governmentwithstood growing pressure from populist agitators to reversecontroversial aspects of its education reforms, only relentingwhen Protestant disaffection threatened the unity of the governingparty and the existence of the state.     

Heritage,identity and community engagement at Dunluce Castle,Northern Ireland

As Northern Ireland transitions out of conflict, increased attention is being paid to the role heritage can play in building peace across society and developing a more sustainable future. Recent archaeological investigations at Dunluce Castle have uncovered elements of the site’s Gaelic past and the remains of an early seventeenth-century town built immediately prior to the Crown-sponsored Plantation of Ulster. The project included a dynamic programme of community engagement and outreach that created opportunities to work as a group in the embodied act of recovering the physical past. This formed a space in which to challenge aspects of the region’s contested past and facilitated the renegotiation of accepted local histories and existing identity constructs.     

Austerity and consociational government in Northern Ireland

Abstract

This article examines the institutional crisis of the Northern Ireland Assembly in 2015 as a case study on the impact of austerity on multiculturalism in Ireland. I make a case for viewing the Assembly as a multicultural institution through pointing to the historical role of community relations policy, which was directed at reconciling “sectarian” Irish nationalists and Ulster unionists. It did so through shifting from an understanding of the conflict as one based on the struggle for Irish national self-determination to one based on conflicting identities. I argue that Sinn Féin’s embracing of multiculturalism is a product of its accommodation to British rule in Ireland. Sinn Féin has made a virtue out of its political volte-face by becoming the strongest advocate of ethnic Irish nationalism in Northern Ireland. The ethnic power politics of Sinn Féin has found its unionist equivalent in the political manoeuvrings of the Democratic Unionist Party. Austerity measures imposed by the Westminster government have created problems for the parties in the power-sharing Assembly, problems that threaten the collapse of the Assembly. It is because of, rather than in spite of, the multicultural mechanisms embedded in the Assembly that the institution has got to crisis point. This is an institutional crisis, not a crisis of multiculturalism.     

Equity, Diversity and Interdependence: Cultural Policy in Northern Ireland

This paper examines the new presence of "culture" within politics in Northern Ireland and attempts by cultural policymakers and community activists to constructively shift the meanings of "identity", "tradition" and "heritage". It focuses on the work of the Community Relations Council and the strategic development of its three principles of equity, diversity and interdependence, in relation to specific controversies about culture in Northern Ireland and wider debates about pluralism and multiculturalism. The distinctive configuration of questions of pluralism and culture in Northern Ireland highlights the ways in which multicultural theory is shaped by its geographies of development and circulation and how ideas of culture and multiculture work in different places and travel with sometimes ambiguous effects. At the same time, the pragmatic combination of optimism, realism, encouragement and critique in cultural policy in a context of continued division and political instability complicates familiar accounts of the geographies and politics of multiculture.     

The military, psychiatry, and "unfit" soldiers, 1939-1942

This article examines the psychiatric screening of U.S. soldiers during the Second World War, established by psychiatrist Harry Stack Sullivan (1892-1949), as a key moment in the public application of clinical psychiatry, as well as a turning point in Sullivan's intellectual and professional career. After a brief look at the ideas and expectations Sullivan brought to the screening system, I discuss a major problem of the screening: the mismatch between the medical concept of disease prevention and the realities of the mass screening as a public policy. As a way to highlight this mismatch, I focus on Sullivan's failure to protect homosexual men from medical and social stigmatization by screening them out of the armed forces. Despite his liberal approach to the issue of homosexuality before the war, which he had created in his clinical practice, Sullivan was unable to persuade the military and the public of gay men's right to serve the nation. The examination of how his sympathetic view of homosexuality became circumscribed reveals not only the gap between clinical insights and public policy, but also how tentative views of homosexuality in public debate among liberal psychiatrists during the decade preceding the war contributed to the failure to make non-homophobic policy in the 1940s. This article shows that the relative conservatism in the politics of sexuality among liberal psychiatrists, as well as the intransigent conservatism as seen in homophobic tradition of the Army, contributed to the discriminatory screening criteria.     

Religious Identity and the Future of Northern Ireland

Religion matters in Northern Ireland because it shapes social and personal identity and influences the very different worldviews of people within the two cultures of the province (Protestant and Catholic). Because religion matters so profoundly, no long-term solution to the political problems of the province will be possible without acknowledging its impact on values and thinking. The significance of the expressions "the Catholic community" and "the Protestant people" is explored as is the impact of religious ideas on current policy issues. A comparison of Northern Ireland and the United States is offered as a way of suggesting the effect social and economic mobility will have on attempts to resolve the province's political troubles.     

The last glaciation in the Western Mourne Mountains,Northern Ireland

During the late‐Midlandian (25–13 ¹⁴C ka BP), the last Irish Ice Sheet was thicker in the Western Mourne Mountains than previously argued. Geomorphological and sedimento‐logical analysis shows that regional ice from the Irish Ice Sheet spilled over the mountains, reaching a major limit 5 km along Pigeon Rock Valley. These findings differ from the previous view that a local valley glacier occupied the valley during this period. The pattern of deglaciation was reconstructed using glacial and periglacial evidence. A complex topographic environment in the upper reaches of the valley suggests that regional ice stagnated as it wasted away. During the Nahanagan Stadial (Younger Dryas, ca. 11–10 ka ¹⁴C BP) an arcuate ridge was formed on the western flank of the valley. Calculations suggest that the Equilibrium Line Altitude, influenced by topographic conditions favourable for snow accumulation, was approximately between 1736 m and 1386 m lower during the Nahanagan Stadial than at present.