Abstract
With Brexit being an ongoing issue for all of the European Union, one of the key issues in the negotiations is how to treat Northern Ireland, which is still divided on Brexit ideologically, even 20 years after the official peace treaty (the Good Friday Agreement), which – at least legally – put an end to armed conflict in the area. This paper will look at how in 2018, the 20th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement, the two prevalent opposing nationalisms – unionism and republicanism – are represented in a selection of widely-read newspapers in Northern Ireland. Using Spitzmuller and Warnke’s DIMEAN model, the paper will look at how – given the different ideological backgrounds of the newspapers themselves – these publications treat the anniversary and give a voice to the different parties involved (or abstain from doing so) and whether or not they make explicit links to the Brexit negotiations and the question, whether Northern Ireland is to continue as a part of the United Kingdom, the European Union or a separate customs union solution, in order to both keep the terms of the Good Friday Agreement and deal with two broadly different civic realities, brought about by opposing notions of nationalism.
Highlights
One of the key points in the discussion around Brexit – the United Kingdom leaving the European Union – is how to deal with Northern Ireland, especially in terms of the free movement of goods, services, and people, and the border to the Republic of Ireland
Good Friday 2018 marked the 20th anniversary of the Agreement, and while this occasion sparked different nationalistic sentiments, Brexit adds a new dimension to the portrayal of the GFA and the nationalistic tendencies displayed within the field of domestic politics in Northern Ireland in general
In addition to using the words ‘Nationalism’ and ‘Brexit’ both as search terms within the articles as well as looking for them as concepts, two further elements will feed into this framework: The so-called DIMEAN model (Spitzmüller and Warnke 2011) and the notion of the discourse-historical approach as coined by Ruth Wodak (Wodak and Meyer 2016)
Summary
One of the key points in the discussion around Brexit – the United Kingdom leaving the European Union – is how to deal with Northern Ireland, especially in terms of the free movement of goods, services, and people, and the border to the Republic of Ireland. Almost half of the population (48%, according to the 2011 NI census, cf NISRA 2011, 3) included British as their identity, they are content with living in a part of the United Kingdom, they are not necessarily pro Brexit These people can be considered closer to the Anglican or Presbyterian faith. Both sides have their political parties (most famously Sinn Fein and the Democratic Unionist Party) and paramilitary, mafia-like organisations (most famously the IRA and the UDA). This very basic distinction is by no means intended to draw further divisions or paint the northern Irish situation as black and white and stuck in a violent past, but it is the basis for a proper understanding of current affairs regarding this area, but the Northern Irish media landscape
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