Movement In Ireland Research Articles

The Female Body in Pain: Feminist Re-enactments of Sexual and Physical Violence in Dorothy Molloy's Poetry

Women's representations of rape and domestic violence can exert a forcible social critique of women's victimization by patriarchal social structures that confine and silence them. One such case is contemporary Irish poet, Dorothy Molloy. Molloy writes boldly about abusive sexual relationships, placing masculine violence toward the female body at the center of her poetry. While it was not a new problem, it was only from 1970s onward, with the reawakening of feminist movements in many countries, including Ireland, that rape and domestic violence were brought to public attention. Born midway through the twentieth century, Molloy belongs to the generation of the Second Wave feminist movement, of those articulate women who engaged actively in the public domain by questioning the Church's and the State's authority on sexual matters. Indeed, during the 1990s she was involved in feminist movements in Ireland, particularly in Christian feminist movements such as BASIC (Brothers and Sisters in Christ), a group working for the ordination of women and the establishment of a new Catholic Church “freed from the sin of sexism and healed from the divisions between men and women.”1

The Gülen Movement in Ireland: Civil Society Engagements of a Turkish Religio‐cultural Movement

In recent years there has been a growing interest among sociologists regarding the transnational engagements of migrant communities and organizations. This paper contributes to this body of knowledge by focusing on a Turkish religio‐cultural society in Ireland, namely the Turkish Irish Educational and Cultural Society (TIECS). This society is affiliated with the Turkey‐based transnational Gülen movement. Drawing on ethnography and qualitative interviews conducted with members of TIECS, the study examines their contribution to the discourse on Islam and integration in Ireland and shows how they exploit global opportunity spaces in order to expand the Gülen movement’s presence in Europe.

Sinn Féin and the New Republicanism in Ireland: Electoral Progress, Political Stasis, and Ideological Failure

This article examines the political and ideological trajectory of the Provisional Republican movement in Ireland. By providing a critical overview of Provisional strategy and tactics, the article attempts to identify the historically fragmented nature of republican ideology and praxis. At key moments, Provisionalism has emphasized and endorsed a range of ideological themes and principles including ethnonationalism, socialism, and constitutional reformism. The tensions and contradictions inherent in this conceptual frame, and the contemporary turn toward conventional electoral politics, power sharing, and cultural pluralism explains the difficulty Provisionals have had in constructing a viable political project that conforms to deeply held and long-standing republican objectives. Moreover, the emphasis on ethnic particularism and identity politics, rather than on social egalitarianism suggests that the Provisionals may no longer be an appropriate vehicle for the articulation of a progressive political agenda in Ireland.

Survival and dispersal of a defined cohort of Irish cattle

An understanding of livestock movement is critical to effective disease prevention, control and prediction. However, livestock movement in Ireland has not yet been quantified. This study has sought to define the survival and dispersal of a defined cohort of cattle born in Co. Kerry during 2000. The cohort was observed for a maximum of four years, from January 1, 2000 to December 31, 2004. Beef and dairy animals moved an average 1.31 and 0.83 times, respectively. At study end, 18.8% of the beef animals remained alive on Irish farms, including 6.7% at the farm-of-birth, compared with 48.6% and 27.7% for dairy animals respectively. Beef animals werae dispersed to all Irish counties, but mainly to Cork, Limerick, Tipperary and Galway. Dairy animals mainly moved to Cork, Limerick, and Tipperary, with less animals going to Galway, Meath and Kilkenny. The four-year survival probability was 0.07 (male beef animals), 0.25 (male dairy), 0.38 (female beef), and 0.72 (female dairy). Although there was considerable dispersal, the number of moves per animal was less than expected.

‘Straight from the Horse's Mouth’: An Empirical Exploration of Success in the Irish Credit Union Movement

It can be suggested that there is major variation between the credit union movements in Ireland and the United Kingdom. This is despite both movements being late starters in international terms (O'Connell 2005). Credit unions in some parts of the world have evolved into highly successful financial providers, offering a huge array of products and services. It can therefore be argued that, in order for the UK's credit union movement to become more significant in the financial market, it needs to compete more effectively with other financial institutions whilst maintaining a hold on its philanthropic ethos. The purpose of this article is to reflect upon empirical work conducted in Ireland on this subject. The central aim of that research was to determine how the UK movement can, as the movement in Ireland has, maintain its values and become viable. The research we conducted appears to suggest that the key to a successful movement is achieving a balance between these seemingly competing interests.

The "Dawn of the Practical": Horace Plunkett and the Cooperative Movement

The name of Sir Horace Curzon Plunkett (1854-1932) is unlikely to be found in any catalog of Irish heroes; he is more likely to be portrayed as a prominent might-have-been, consigned to a forgotten corner of Irish history.1 Like some of them, he may arguably be considered intractable thing, an unyielding moderate?a species to which Irish history has not necessarily been kind.2 Superficially, it is inaccurate to say he is forgotten. Most educated Irish persons can correctly identify him as the founder of the cooperative movement in Ireland, and the organizations he founded?among them the Irish Cooperative Organisation Society (ICOS) and the Plunkett Founda tion?are still going concerns, although both face the perennial problem of inadequate funding.3 Yet Plunkett s contribution to the creation of the modern Irish state remains relatively unrecognized. He is no more heralded today than when he felt compelled to quit his country and enter self-imposed exile in Eng land in 1923, after the burning and destruction of his home near Dublin by IRA irregulars. Although the cooperative movement was Plunkett's life work, his restless energy involved him on many fronts. Over the four decades that encompassed the Irish Revival, the Home Rule debates, the Anglo-Irish and civil wars, and the

M. J. KELLY. The Fenian Ideal and Irish Nationalism, 1882-1916. (Irish Historical Monographs, number 4.) Rochester, N.Y.: Boydell Press. 2006. Pp. x, 282. $90.00

Since the apparent conclusion of the recent conflict in Northern Ireland, a distinctive new tendency has become evident in the writing of Irish history. Whereas much academic historical writing produced in the 1970s and the 1980s was vehemently antinationalist, there is now a tendency for historians to write more sensitively and sympathetically about Irish nationalist movements both past and present. M. J. Kelly signals this new atmosphere explicitly in his epilogue, where he castigates (unnamed) “very distinguished historians [of Ireland]” for adopting a contemptuous tone toward the leaders of the Easter Rising (p. 256). Kelly's elegantly written and carefully researched monograph, by contrast, provides an empathetic, subtle, and balanced account of “advanced” nationalism in Ireland during the critical (and under-researched) period between the end of the Land War (1879–1882) and the 1916 Rising. Kelly's book does not, however, provide a full account of the activities of the Fenian movement in Ireland during this period. Instead, his book should be regarded as essentially a study of separatist thought in Ireland as it was conceived by “advanced” nationalist activists. The book demonstrates that the “Fenian ideal” was complex, various, nuanced, evolving, part of the texture of Irish society, capable of inspiring strong emotional responses, and intertwined with constitutionalism (rather than being its enemy, as is often supposed). Moreover, Kelly is alert to the way in which the various conflicts and contests within Irish nationalism were as much “a battle of ideas” (p. 208) as a battle of personnel, and the book makes a significant contribution to the intellectual history of Irish separatism, and to the way in which separatist ideas were a part of the firmament of Irish society and politics during this period.

Geomorphological maps of Irish peat landslides created using hand-held GPS

Please click here to download the map associated with this article. Peat mass movements are relatively common geomorphological phenomena in the uplands of Ireland and parts of northern Britain. Geomorphological mapping of many peat landslides has led to the identification of different types of failures based on repeatedly occurring morphological and geometric characteristics. Furthermore, much of the recently enhanced understanding of mass failures in peat deposits, published in several recent reviews, has been obtained through detailed analysis of the geomorphological maps produced from the new field surveys that are herein presented together for the first time. The map that is the focus of this paper is a composite figure that shows geomorphological maps of the majority of extant bogow and bog slide types of peat mass movements in Ireland, together with two peat ows and a large peat slide that has not previously been described. The paper examines the methodology used to create the maps, and highlights the value of the maps in presenting potentially critical evidence that may not be discernible by field inspection alone. Creating geomorphological maps of peat landslides from field sketches provides highly satisfactory results if selected features are geo-referenced using a hand-held GPS at an average frequency of around once for every 30 m of source area perimeter or other linear component of a landslide. In the case of very large failures and very old and degraded failures, lower frequencies of GPS points can be tolerated because critical morphological evidence appears to scale-up with failure size and smaller-scale morphological details are lost with increasing failure age due to natural degradation of the disrupted peat.

Ireland and immigration: explaining the absence of the far right

ABSTRACT Garner seeks to explain the absence of far-right political formations in the history of the Republic of Ireland, especially in relation to immigration. He argues that the ‘mainstream’ nationalist parties have implemented a racialized governance of Ireland via the issue of citizenship (in the referendum of 2004). While hegemonic ideas on the racial purity of indigenous populations and the highly ambivalent attitudes and policies on immigration pursued over the last decade are characteristic of a broader European trend, this has not, in the Republic, been accompanied by meaningful far-right political mobilization. Ireland has frequently been seen as sui generis in political terms, and indeed emerges in some ways as a counter-case: increasing hostility towards Others has been identified in the midst of rapid economic growth and political stability. A variety of issues related to the country's political development have given rise to an especially small left-wing vote, a nationalist centre ground and longlasting domination by a single populist party, Fianna Fáil. This party has been partnered in government since 1997 by a free-market party, the Progressive Democrats, who have contributed to Ireland's movement towards neo-liberal policies and a highly functional approach to immigration. The transition from country of emigration to country of immigration has thus taken place against an ideological backdrop in which the imperatives of labour demand and consolidating domestic support for reform have made an uneasy match, resulting in the racialization of Irishness. The state has, however, amended the Constitution in order to qualify jus soli citizenship entitlement in the case of particular categories of people: those whose parents are not Irish nationals. The significant stakes of these changes are analysed in the context of state responses to Eire's transition to a country of immigration, and the role of nationalist-populism in the country's political culture.

“The Brothers on the Walls”

The article considers in detail a particular aspect of the political murals painted by the republican movement in Northern Ireland, namely their references to international themes rather than solely Irish matters. These murals are seen as an instance of solidarity with people in struggle elsewhere—against imperialism and state oppression—and thus represent recognition by Irish mural painters of their affinity to liberation movements elsewhere. As such, the phenomenon points to the potential of subaltern nationalism to be progressive. Finally, the article briefly considers the difficulties facing the other main mural tradition in Northern Ireland, that of the loyalists, to engage in a similar process of recognition and solidarity.

The Quaker Meeting Houses of Ireland: An Account of the Some 150 Meeting Houses and 100 Burial Grounds in Ireland, from the Arrival of the Movement in 1654 to the Present Time (review)

56Quaker History The fundamental question is whether this book with its flaws is a better choice for a modem reader than struggling through one of the older versions currently available. Unfortunately, the answer is no. Paul BuckleyEarlham School of Religion The Quaker Meeting Houses of Ireland: An Account of the Some 150 Meeting Houses and 100 Burial Grounds in Ireland, from the Arrival of the Movement in 1654 to the Present Time. By David M. Butler. Dublin: Irish Friends Historical Committee, 2004. 256 pp. Maps, illustrations, notes, and index. This year (2004) is the 350th anniversary of the Quaker movement in Ireland. As part of the commemorations, the Irish Friends Historical Committee has published The QuakerMeetingHouses ofIrelandby David M. Butler. The author's previous two-volume Quaker Meeting Houses of Britain (1999) set the stage for the Irish volume. Although it should be considered a stand alone work, Butler's Irish book is akin to a third volume. It has the same dimensions, a similar cover design, and a similar treatment of the subject. The book is organized into six sections. The introductory pages provide basic information on Irish Friends, including an extensive list of sources. The next four units cover the provinces of Ireland. Each province has an introductory essay, a list of sources pertinent to that province exclusively, and an entry for each meeting. The entries provide an historical essay with sketches and floorplans of the Friends meeting house (FMH). In his 55page appendix, Butler enlarges upon his excellent essays from the Britain books, inserting Irish examples as appropriate. One of my greatest surprises was to find that Butler retained the following sentence from his 1999 appendix (page 206): "No outside precedents show in the design of early Quaker meeting houses, only those arising from within the movement." This understanding has been challenged recently. Meeting houses such as Lisburn (1709, p. 165) and Ettington (England, 1688) are strikingly similar to the Puritans' Guyhirn Chapel (1660), and the Hertford FMH (England, 1670), is quite similar in appearance to the 1653 Sudbury Congregational MH. Did Friends and other English nonconformists borrow from each other during the late seventeenth century? Or are the similarities superficial or coincidental? Butler does not say. When I spoke with Butler in the spring of 2004, he said he sought to identify in the book the uniquely Quaker traits of FMHs in Ireland. Two Book Reviews57 examples ofintrinsic Quaker values surfacing in the Irish book represent a break with his English volumes. In Ireland, as in America, the dominant signification of the term gallery was the facing bench area, not the balcony -like area (loft). Butler notes this and follows suit rather than using the term minister 's stand as in his English volumes. Second, Friends traditionally have not used the prefix saint in proper nouns, as that was usually inconsistent with the use of the word hagios in scripture. Whereas in his earlier work, Butler included entries under "St. Austell" (1:70) and "St. Helens" (1:337), neither being the name used by Friends, in this volume Butler describes the location of a Dublin burial ground as "Stephen's Green [usually with the prefix St, but not among Friends]." With the completion of this book, seven of the eight yearly meetings organized before 1800 have a printed inventory of meeting houses. New York YM remains as the architectural "black hole" of the ancient yearly meetings. These works vary in quality and thoroughness, but Butler's works in England and Ireland are first rate. Seth HinshawDowningtown, Pa. Historical Dictionary of the Friends (Quakers). Ed. by Margery Post Abbott, Mary Ellen Chijioke, Pink Dandelion, and John W. Oliver. Lanham, Md.: Scarecrow, 2003. 32 + 432 pp. Illustrations, appendixes, bibliography , and index. $80. Prior to this book's publication, there were few up-to-date resources for reference in the area of Quaker studies. For scholars looking for reference sources, improvisation has often been the order ofthe day. The Haverford College library, for example, possesses a "Dictionary of Quaker Biography " that is housed in over 100 bi nders. The initial volume states that it was begun under the editorship of William Bacon Evans a half-century ago. This mammoth...

The Irish Women's Movement: From Revolution to Devolution (review)

Reviewed by: The Irish Women’s Movement: From Revolution to Devolution Molly Horan The Irish Women’s Movement: From Revolution to Devolution, by Linda Connolly , pp. 324. Dublin: Lilliput Press, 2003. Distributed by Dufour Editions, Chester Springs PA. $26.95. Linda Connolly's sociological history takes a fresh approach to examining the Irish women's movement through a sociological lens using social movement theory, demonstrating the interdisciplinary nature of contemporary Irish Studies through incorporation of multiple modes of analysis, including feminist and postcolonial theory, history, journalistic documentary, and sociology. The dense theoretical language of the text initially appears daunting, but the [End Page 157] reader who navigates the challenging introduction is rewarded; the text crosses disciplinary boundaries with ease to provide a comprehensive, multifaceted insider's perspective of the women's movement in Ireland from the 1860s to the present. Connolly reviews the current literature in Irish social history and identifies within it substantial gaps and misrepresentations. These include the view of Irish women as "late developers," the automatic pairing of Irish feminism with nationalism, and what the author sees as the "selective use of Irish feminism to corroborate the post-colonial reading of Ireland." The history charted in her examination of the Irish women's movement takes into account the experiences of those who have rejected or have been often bypassed by feminism—for example, rural women, working-class women, and Catholics working toward an inclusive model. Far from dogmatically preaching feminism or idealizing the women's movement, Connolly casts a penetrating critical gaze that exposes the large-scale picture of the movement by discussing its racist and elitist biases, its successful and its unsuccessful tactics, and its tendency to elevate "personalities," which she rejects by identifying her own interviewees anonymously as "Founder Member IWLM" or "Member Well Woman Center, Radical Activist." The movement itself operated to change women's lives independently of the "feminist" label; Connolly notes, for instance, that such organizations as the Irish Housewives Association formed a "brave tiny army" allowing more traditional women a niche for political agency. A feminist orientation clearly permeates the book's language and methods. Connolly incorporates the feminist credo "The Personal is Political" by transcending the political arena into the cultural manifestations of the movement, giving voice to individual activists and recognizing the diversity of the movement as essential to its success. Case studies help to weave together strands of the movement, beginning with the mainstream policy-driving organization, the Council for the Status of Women, then turning to the conservative Irish Housewives' Association, the radical Irish Women's Liberation Organization, and finally, the modern melding of interests in Irishwomen United. Despite Connelly's stated interest in amplifying the grassroots, community-based feminism of working class, nonacademic organizations, her prose reflects the values and methods of elite academic writing. Outsiders to academic feminist theory may well find this history inaccessible, as it assumes a common discourse and cultural understanding that even the activists interviewed may not share. For scholars, however, the text legitimizes and establishes a distinct space for the Irish women's movement in sociopolitical history, [End Page 158] while consistently challenging the field to do further research analyses, such as a study of feminist politics North and South. The text charts the women's movement in Ireland through four clear historical stages following the creation of the state in 1921: abeyance, advancement, reappraisal, and new directions. Connolly outlines each in the introduction, forcefully front-loading her argument and exploring each stage in its own chapter, drawing together the diverse elements that have shaped the movement. This emphasis on process is essential to the author's concept of history as a result of inextricable forces constantly converging and remaking themselves, that "the unity of a movement is not given at the outset but is the historically contested result of mobilization processes, in the course of which all those involved try to structure the field in accordance with their perceptions and preferences". Beginning with the prevalent characterization of Irish women as "late developers," Connolly firmly dispels this assessment by proving empirically that during the hostile environment of the post-independence period in Ireland, feminism continued to work behind the scenes...

The politics of noraid

This article examines the political thinking of the most important American support organisation for the Irish republican movement during the course of the Northern Ireland conflict. Noraid's primary function was fund raising and in general terms its propaganda differed little from that of the Provisonal Republican movement in Ireland. However it was also an organisation founded and rooted in a section of Irish America, subject to quite different political and cultural pressures than the republican movement in Ireland. Using the organisation's newspaper the Irish People, the article explains how Noraid promoted an Irish ethnic identity based on a history of nativist discrimination against, and class division among, Irish Americans. Furthermore it appealed to the Irish to emulate the perceived success of other American ethnic groups. The article concludes that it is too simplistic to consider Noraid a ‘right wing’ or ‘conservative’ organisation as its politics could appeal to diverse constituencies.

Hand-to-hand history: Ephemera and Irish Republicanism

The lack of engagement with ephemera in contemporary accounts of nationalism owes something both to the difficulty in finding this material and to assumptions that underwrite ideas not just about what constitutes source material but also about the proper subject matter of history itself. In this paper, I argue that ephemera offer an important resource for considering how those within the broad-based Irish republican movement record the intellectual and political shifts and developments in their commitments as well as in their relationship to other social movements in Ireland. An examination of posters and leaflets produced by Irish republicans for specific protests reveals the intersection of Irish republicanism and other social discourses. Protests are linked to the ephemeral realm not only by their performative status but also by the often occasional nature of their goals. The immediacy of what is being protested frequently overrides any sense of the historical value of the writing produced to articulate those goals. At the same time, ephemera challenge the official account of the historical incidents out of which they emerge, and it is these two aspects of ephemera – their timeliness and their relation to history – that this essay seeks to explore. Such an engagement with ephemeral materials and the theoretical questions they raise – not just about the particular groups that produce them, but also about historiography – can help scholars to recognize ways in which ephemera work to close the gap between theory and praxis.

William Maume: United Irishman and Informer in Two Hemispheres

Radical and revolutionary movements in Ireland in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries are reputed to have been riddled with spies and informers. Their persistent influence helped to distract attention from other causes of failure. Weaknesses within movements, such as internecine strife among leaders, poorly-conceived strategies and exaggerated estimates of popular support, could be hidden behind an interpretation of events which placed responsibility for failure on a contingency that was normally beyond rebel control. In some respects, therefore, it was in the interests of Irish leaders, and sympathetic later commentators, to exaggerate the influence of spies and informers...

Alternative Agriculture Movements and Rural Development Cosmologies

D INTRO o movements for alternative agriculture contribute to sustainable development? If so, how do they do so? Should they be seen solely as movements for technical change (change in the forces and means of production and consumption to make these less damaging to nature), or can they be understood more broadly as movements for rural regeneration and the recreation of community within rural spaces? In Habermas' (1984, 1987) terms, do they articulate instrumental-strategic or communicative forms of reason as the basis for social and for society-nature relationships? This paper draws on ongoing research into the organic food and farming movement in Ireland (see also Tovey 1997, 1999) to explore some aspects of these questions. It argues that much recent discussion of rural development overlooks the significant part which can be played in this by social movements, and as a result, underestimates some key elements in processes of change, particularly around the reconstruction of rural civil society. DUCTION

Inequality and political violence in a divided society: Charismatic movements in Northern Ireland

Economic analysis tells us little about terrorism. A common misconception is that if the lower classes who engage in such warfare can be uplifted economically, they will shed irrational hatred for the ‘other’ in favor of friendly relations that further individual economic gain. In Northern Ireland, increased economic growth has led to little, if any, lessening of tensions between opposing paramilitaries. Even as a political alternative to violence appears feasible, ethnic cleavages endure. Rejecting economic development as a solution, I suggest Weberian charisma as an analytic tool through which we can understand individual decisions to support terrorist organizations. Economic inequality is a determinant only insofar as it reinforces the charismatic attraction to the cause. Through understanding the charismatic relationship we can evaluate structural elements that allow political violence to persist. Then we may begin to understand why economic gains fail to produce ethnic harmony.

REGARDING IRELAND IN A POST-COLONIAL FRAME

This essay considers the applicability of postcolonial theory to Irish culture and history. It develops the concept of multiple rhythms or temporalities of social struggle for which only that of nationalism is determined punctually by the struggle for the state. The domination of Irish historiography by state-oriented narratives occludes the histories and the formal or organizational aspects of other forms of social movement, such that the postcolonial project is directed simultaneously towards the mapping of such alternative movements and to the critique of statist historiographies, whether imperialist, nationalist or ‘revisionist’. Where postcolonial theory has tended to emphasize the ‘hybrid’ nature of colonial cultures, this essay prefers to focus on the productive interface between the incommensurable social and cultural formations of colonial modernity and colonized non-modernity. At this interface emerge continually both new subaltern social formations and practices, which cannot be understood as ‘traditional’ and new forms of colonial state institution that are summoned into being by anti-colonial practices, for which the model of an advanced state coming to bear on a backward population is clearly inadequate. The essay draws from the history of agrarian movements in Ireland and banditry in the Philippines and from contemporary techniques of state surveillance and resistance to it in Northern Ireland.

The Ambiguous Role of Welfare Structures in Relation to the Emergence of Activism Among Disabled People: Research evidence from Northern Ireland

The boundary between the disability movement and traditional forms of welfare production, whether in the statutory or voluntary sectors is discussed in this article. Drawing on the resource mobilization paradigm in social movement theory, it discusses the role played by existing welfare structures in the formation of disabled people as activists and in the initial stages of mobilization. The article reports on the findings of interviews with activists in the emerging disability movement in Northern Ireland, a region with a very low level of movement activity. It concludes that in such areas, disabled people often lack the resources to mobilize on their own account and are heavily dependent on formal welfare for the necessary networks and opportunities. Although this can be a significant constraint, it is not necessarily so if these opportunities enable the infant movement associations to grow beyond the welfare settings lying behind their emergence. This is more likely to take place if other supportive factors are in place. Many of the required resources are to be found within more traditional voluntary organisations. Few of these organisations play any role in the process of mobilization. But where mobilization is taking place, they are invariably present.

Right to speak Irish: représentation de la langue gaélique en tant qu’enjeu de mobilisation militante en Irlande du Nord

The Irish language movement in Northern Ireland was formed in the 1970’s. Pragmatic and symbolic implications of this minority language revival considerably evolved, reflecting and depending on important political changes happening in this European province. The following article deals with the representation of Irish language and the most recent strategy developed by the Irish language activists for its promotion. This presentation is relating on data collected in 1997 amongst Irish Medium Education teachers in Belfast, as part of an anthropological study conducted for the University of Neuchâtel (Switzerland).