Ethnic Identity in Context: A Comparative Study of Catholicism and Nationalism in Northern and Southern Ireland

Abstract

The Irish sense of identity has traditionally been linked to religious and nationalist issues. However, ethnicity will acquire different forms and modes of expression, depending on the sociocultural context within which it is situated. Thus the differences between the Northern and Southern Irish contexts are likely to impinge on the prevailing sense of ethnic identity (e.g. Lee, 1989; Cochrane, 1994). Using an Identity Structure Analysis approach (Weinreich, 1980/1986), the present study sets out to examine the effects of these differing contexts on the identities of forty young 'Irish Catholics'. A comparison of two undergraduate social science classes (one from Northern Ireland and one from Southern Ireland) explores the informal ideology of each group, as it has developed within the prevailing sociocultural context. The study demonstrates the role of social, historical, political and biographical factors in the construction of individual and group identity. In this way, it is possible to identify salient and consistent variations between the two groups, arising from the sociocultural context within which each is situated. Central to the research are participants' emic perceptions of what it means to be Irish in contemporary Northern and Southern Ireland.