Constructing loyalism: politics, communications and peace in Northern Ireland

Abstract

The Northern Ireland peace process has provided the space for the emergence of an articulate loyalist politics which has had implications for the traditionally obstructive and negative representations of unionist discourse. During talk and negotiations which led to the Good Friday Agreement of 1998, leaders of the Progressive Unionist Party and the Ulster Democratic Party (both political wings of loyalist paramilitary groupings) voiced positions which assisted the possibilities for building constitutional change based along more moderate lines than those associated with dominant unionism. However, have the news media been receptive to such articulations and, if not, what problems have they created for the communication of loyalist positions? By considering such questions, this article explores the development of loyalism and loyalist communications in the early years of peace in Northern Ireland.