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      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        May 2016

        Northern Ireland and the European Union

        by Mary C. Murphy

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        September 2008

        Northern Ireland after the troubles

        A society in transition

        by Colin Coulter, Michael Murray

        In the last generation, Northern Ireland has undergone a tortuous yet remarkable process of social and political change. This collection of essays aims to capture the complex and shifting realities of a society in the process of transition from war to peace. The book brings together commentators from a range of academic backgrounds and political perspectives. As well as focusing upon those political divisions and disputes that are most readily associated with Northern Ireland, it provides a rather broader focus than is conventionally found in books on the region. It examines the cultural identities and cultural practices that are essential to the formation and understanding of Northern Irish society but are neglected in academic analyses of the six counties. While the contributors often approach issues from rather different angles, they share a common conviction of the need to challenge the self-serving simplifications and choreographed optimism that frequently define both official discourse and media commentary on Northern Ireland. Taken together, the essays offer a comprehensive and critical account of a troubled society in the throes of change. ;

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        May 2025

        Women’s Troubles

        Gender and feminist politics in post-Agreement Northern Ireland

        by Claire Pierson

        How do feminist movements develop and organise in ethno-nationally divided societies? How does this challenge our understandings of contemporary fourth wave feminism? Women's Troubles sets out to answer these questions using rich empirical data and analysis in an examination of feminist activism after the Northern Irish peace agreement. Utilising feminist frameworks and debates on movement building, policymaking, abortion rights, gender-based violence and the UN women, peace and security agenda, Claire Pierson interrogates the opportunities and challenges in articulating a feminist voice and creating feminist spaces in the conflict transformational politics and society. Capturing the complexities of contemporary feminist movement building in a divided society, Women's Troubles contributes to ongoing analysis of contemporary global feminisms.

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        March 2014

        The politics of constitutional nationalism in Northern Ireland, 1932–70

        Between grievance and reconciliation

        by Christopher Norton

        In the changed political landscape of Northern Ireland, where all major political parties with a nationalist agenda are now reconciled to the use of peaceful and constitutional means to achieve their objectives, this book presents a timely analysis of the constitutional nationalist tradition in Northern Ireland in the period leading up to the outbreak of the Troubles. The first book on constitutional nationalism to appear in over a decade, this new and incisive work based on extensive primary sources and existing secondary literature, maps the history of the campaigns of nationalist parties and organisations to redress the grievances of Northern Ireland's Catholics and bring partition to an end. It offers a critical reappraisal of these campaigns and it assesses the outcomes and consequences of the political strategies pursued by an array of nationalist parties and groups. ;

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        January 2026

        Afterlives of the Troubles

        Life stories, culture and conflict transformation in Northern Ireland

        by Graham Dawson

        Focusing on experiential life stories across a range of forms and practices, this book investigates subjectivity, culture and the cultural politics of representation as a neglected dimension of conflict transformation in the Northern Irish peace process. Interdisciplinary critical perspectives from historical cultural studies, oral history and popular-memory theory inform close interpretive engagement with life stories in their cultural, historical and geographical contexts. This enables exploration of the complex temporal dynamics of 'post-conflict' subjectivities in the lengthening 'afterlife' of the Troubles, where feelings attached to conflict experiences are not 'past' but haunt the present, and memory-work carries future-oriented desires for truth, justice and reconciliation. Through case studies responding to the evolving peace process through this prism of life-storytelling, Afterlives maps a contested history of legacy policy-making and approaches to 'dealing with the past', from devolution in 2005-7 through to the Legacy and Reconciliation Act of 2023.

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        November 2024

        Belfast punk and the Troubles: An oral history

        by Fearghus Roulston

      • Trusted Partner
      • Trusted Partner
        Teaching, Language & Reference
        August 2024

        The Northern Ireland peace process

        by Eamonn O'Kane

      • Trusted Partner
        Medicine
        March 2026

        Healthcare in Northern Ireland

        Politics, Policies and Management, 1921-72

        by Donnacha Lucey

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        October 2010

        The Northern Ireland experience of conflict and agreement

        A model for export?

        by Robin Wilson

        The Northern Ireland Experience of Conflict and Agreement presents a salutary warning to the international community against the fashionable view that there is an 'Irish model' which can be exported to cauterise ethnic troubles around the globe. The book draws on extensive archive research in London and Dublin on the 1970s power-sharing experiment, and on interviews with senior officials and political figures from the two capitals-as well as reconciliation practitioners-about the negotiation and chequered implementation of the Belfast agreement. It shows how stereotyped conceptions of the problem as a product of 'ancient hatreds', allied to solutions based on Realpolitik, have failed to transform Northern Ireland from a fragile peace, following the exhaustion of protracted paramilitary campaigns, to genuine reconciliation. The book concludes with practical proposals for constitutional reforms which would favour genuine power-sharing-rather than merely sharing power out-and set Northern Ireland on the road to the 'normal', civic society its long-suffering residents desire. It will be essential reading not only for academics and postgraduates interested in ethnic conflict but also for policy-makers who confront it in practice. ;

      • Trusted Partner
      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        November 2010

        Devolution and the governance of Northern Ireland

        by Colin Knox

        This book offers the first account of what the First Minister, Peter Robinson, describes as the most settled period of devolution in Northern Ireland for almost forty years. It traces the tortuous path to devolved government, the political instability which constantly threatened the institutions, and since May 2007 the bedding down of devolution and its impact so far on the people of Northern Ireland. The book parallels accounts of devolved government in Scotland and Wales. For years Northern Ireland has been the subject of academic enquiry relating to political, constitutional and security issues. Now as a post-conflict society political parties which for years engaged in the politics of antagonism must now redirect their efforts to delivering public policies that will improve the quality of people's daily lives. This has not come easily to them. This book is therefore the first study which looks at devolved power sharing governance arrangements in Northern Ireland and a sequel to Derek Birrell's book Direct Rule and the Governance of Northern Ireland. Manchester: Manchester University Press (2009) The book contains chapters on the key governance institutions: the civil service, local government, non-departmental public bodies, and the vibrant third sector in Northern Ireland. It examines in some detail the major review of public administration ongoing since 2002 and the more recent public services modernising agenda. Importantly, given the sectarian divisions which have segregated every aspect of life in Northern Ireland, the book asks the key question whether it is possible to reconcile the two communities or are they destined to live 'separate but equal' lives. Finally, the book considers topical issues which are at the early stages of implementation: community planning and central-local relations. This book will be of interest to students of devolution across the UK and beyond. It will also be relevant for those researchers working in the area of post-conflict societies. ;

      • Trusted Partner
      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        December 2019

        Northern Ireland and the politics of boredom

        by George Legg

      • Trusted Partner
        20th century history: c 1900 to c 2000
        October 2013

        Northern Ireland in the Second World War

        Politics, economic mobilisation and society, 1939–45

        by Philip Ollerenshaw

        This original and distinctive book surveys the political, economic and social history of Northern Ireland in the Second World War. Since its creation in 1920, Northern Ireland has been a deeply divided society and the book explores these divisions before and during the war. It examines rearmament, the relatively slow wartime mobilisation, the 1941 Blitz, labour and industrial relations, politics and social policy. Northern Ireland was the only part of the UK with a devolved government and no military conscription during the war. The absence of military conscription made the process of mobilisation, and the experience of men and women, very different from that in Britain. The book's conclusion considers how the government faced the domestic and international challenges of the postwar world. This study draws on a wide range of primary sources and will appeal to those interested in modern Irish and British history and in the Second World War.

      • Trusted Partner
        Political structure & processes
        May 2007

        Devolution and constitutional change in Northern Ireland

        by Edited by Paul Carmichael, Colin Knox and Robert Osborne

        This edited book, written by a collection of scholars with an interest in Northern Ireland, tracks its uneasy experience with devolution following the optimistic political period associated with the 1998 Belfast (Good Friday) Agreement. The volume brings together researchers from the Economic and Social Research Council's (ESRC) 'Devolution and Constitutional Change' Programme and other experts to record four key perspectives on Northern Ireland. First, it considers the inextricable link between devolution and constitutional developments. Second, it examines how the main political parties responded to devolution and the major challenges faced by society in moving beyond conflict (such as political symbolism, the role of women, equality and human rights issues). Third, it attempts to assess some of the workings of devolved government in its short-lived form or those seeded in devolution and carried on by direct rule ministers. Finally, Northern Irelands devolved government and associated institutions are located within the wider relationships with Westminster, the Republic of Ireland and Europe. This edited volume will be of interest to students of Irish politics and public policy, but more generally, from a comparative perspective, those with an interest in devolution and constitutional change. It may even assist politicians in Northern Ireland to reflect on the real potential to restore its devolved institutions and draw back from the brink of permanently copper-fastening 'direct rule' from Westminster.

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        April 2008

        Policing the peace in Northern Ireland

        Politics, crime and security after the Belfast Agreement

        by Jon Moran

        This timely and controversial book shows how crime, and the authorities' response to crime, became central to the peace process in Northern Ireland. At times, paramilitary activity threatened to destabilise the peace in Northern Ireland after 1998, but crime was central to maintaining capacity should the groups return to war. Over time, the reduction of crime was central to these groups' own attempts to reform and official judgements as to whether they were genuinely demobilising. The state's response to crime added controversy. Police reform produced the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) and the new Organised Crime Task Force signalled the importance of crime control, but the Assets Recovery Agency, supposedly the 'magic bullet' for organised crime, misfired. Law enforcement was also deeply affected by the British state's response to paramilitary crime. By 2007, peace was apparently secure and paramilitaries were 'de-criminalising', but this often chaotic process was marked with questions about the British state's adherence to the rule of law. Incorporating first-hand research in the PSNI, the book will be of interest to general readers and scholars of Irish Studies, criminology, and British and comparative politics. ;

      • Trusted Partner
        Teaching, Language & Reference
        July 2015

        Politics and peace in Northern Ireland

        Political parties and the implementation of the 1998 Agreement

        by David Mitchell

        Politics and peace in Northern Ireland analyses the complex and contradictory process of implementing the Good Friday Agreement. Using the lens of security dilemma theory, it begins with an original overview of the conflict, the Agreement and post-1998 politics. The book then explores post-Agreement Northern Ireland through the eyes of each of the four main political parties, showing how they tried to shape the course of peace implementation, and how implementation, in turn, shaped the fates and fortunes of the parties. Drawing on extensive original research, this book explains the promise and limits of the Agreement. It shows how and why the two sides' mutual insecurities repeatedly derailed peace implementation, and reflects on the likely direction of parties and politics in the future. This clearly written and up-to-date book will be of interest to scholars and students of recent Northern Irish history, ethnic conflict and peace-making. ;

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