In Northern Ireland geography is taught in primary and post-primary education, where it is a compulsory subject to age 14. Thereafter, students decide if they wish to continue to GCSE (age 16) and to A-level by age 18. Mirroring geography in the school sector, geographical education also features within initial teacher education programmes in Northern Ireland. However, the configuration of the subject, its place within the local educational landscape and its popularity with students has changed in significant and profound ways. This paper reflects on recent trends and considers the implications for geography and geographical education in the years ahead.
This article examines the changing migration projects of Central and Eastern European migrants in Northern Ireland. It sets out the context for settlement scheme applications, linking it to broader hostile environment policies in the UK. It explores the dynamic nature of people’s migration projects and how these have been challenged in the context of Brexit and the EU Settlement Scheme. The paper discusses the ruptures in migrants’ narratives in relation to how they envision their future in Northern Ireland and their countries of origin, with some moving towards indeterminacy and some searching for fixity/stability in their migration projects. It examines how the Northern Irish context – and the question of the Irish border specifically – adds an additional layer of complexity to the migrants’ shifting future imaginaries. The paper draws on my covert research and in-depth interviews with CEE migrants, where consent was given retrospectively. It discusses the role of the researcher in cutting the covert/overt continuum and ethical dilemmas in the field.
The aim of this paper is to discuss the usefulness of social conflict theory as a theoretical framework for analyzing the conflict in Northern Ireland. The social conflict theories under consideration are Lewis Coser’s functionalist theory of conflict, Ralf Dahrendorf’s theory, and Randall Collins’ sociology of conflict. The main question is whether social conflict theories provide a useful analytical tool in understanding ethnic conflicts: their nature, bases, and the actions of the social actors involved.
This paper examines the literary representation of the beginnings of the Northern Irish Troubles with regard to a gender variable (women’s roles and functions ascribed to them, mostly punitively, by men ), in the selected poems by Heaney, Durcan, Boland, Meehan and Morrissey. The reading of Heaney’s “Punishment” will attempt to focus not solely on the poem’s repeatedly criticized misogyny but on analyzing it in a broader, historical context of the North’s conflict. In Durcan’s case, his prominent nationalist descent or his declared contempt for any form of paramilitary terrorism (including the IRA) do not seem to prevent him entirely from immortalizing female victims of the Troubles. Boland’s attitude seems the most unequivocal: the clear aversion to the language of death and rendering Irish women’s experiences (and children’s) in this discourse. The article concludes with analysis of Meehan’s “Southern” guilt for the situation of Catholics in the North with the simultaneous critique of perpetrated violence and Morrissey’s complicated standpoint: atheist/neutral/Protestant/communist and her striving for the impossible impartiality in a war-ridden and politically divided country. Trying to avoid systemic victimization of Irish women, the paper intends to analyze the historical and political circumstances which made them more susceptible to various forms of attacks at the beginnings of the Troubles, as reflected in the titular labels.
The paper analyzes the collection of the Northern Irish poet Frank Ormsby entitled A Northern Spring published in 1986. On the basis of selected poems, the author of this paper aims to examine the poet’s reflections about World War II, the lives of the soldiers, and the things that remain after a military combat, which are both physical and illusive. The poems included in the volume present the author’s reflections upon the senselessness of war and dying, short lives of the soldiers, the awareness of their own meaninglessness in comparison to the broader picture, and the contradictory and desperate need to be remembered nevertheless. They also show what is left of the soldiers and the war, as well as how life goes on, with or without them.
While the momentous Good Friday Agreement of 1998 was welcomed by many, others firmly said ‘No’, perhaps none more adamantly than the men and women involved in Loyalist paramilitary organizations. As Gary Mitchell depicts in his plays As the Beast Sleeps and Trust, the traditional roles of the UDA and other Loyalist paramilitary organizations were forced to undergo abrupt changes in the wake of modern promises of peace and prosperity. As politics become more predominant, the foot soldiers of the past were forced to make a choice as to whether or not they would continue the armed struggle or give way to the terms of the Agreement. The clash between the armalite and the ballot box, Mitchell suggests in these plays, has not yet been settled.
The paper considers Belfast as an ‘island city’ with reference to issues of identity and economy and especially in connection with a series of statements from the ‘Futures of Islands’ briefing document prepared for the IGU’s Commission on Islands meeting in Kraków in August 2014. Belfast as a contested space, a hybrid British/Irish city on the island of Ireland, exemplifies well how ‘understandings of the past condition the future’, whilst the Belfast Agreement which brought the Northern Ireland peace process to its culmination after decades of violence known as the ‘Troubles’ speaks to ‘island ways of knowing, of comprehending problems - and their solutions’. Finally, Belfast certainly demonstrates that ‘island peoples shape their contested futures’
The purpose of this article is to analyze the opportunities and threats for Northern Ireland after the EU referendum in United Kingdom. As a basis for the research method a study based on the analysis of selected information sources was used. The referendum on the United Kingdom’s continuing membership of the European Union resulted in a victory for those wishing to leave the Union, and has become the impulse for discussions on the possible directions for future developments in Northern Ireland. There are two scenarios being considered: Northern Ireland remaining within the United Kingdom, but outside the European Union, leaving the United Kingdom and uniting with the Republic of Ireland, which would enable it to retain its membership of the European Union. A referendum on unifying Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, which is supported by republicans, is currently neither justified – the lackof sufficient support of the population, nor is it possible – as the proposition would be vetoed by the main unionist parties and by the government in London which is fully committed to maintaining the unity of the United Kingdom. If, however, the unifi cation of Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland occurred, in addition to the enormous initial cost, it could instigate the threat of destabilisation of the political scene and rekindle conflicts between Catholic and Protesant groups. In the long term, uniting with the Republic of Ireland would enable Northern Ireland to maintain a strong developmental impulse arising from the benefits of being a member of the EU; such as access to the Single European Market, structural funds, etc., which the province may lose if it stays within the United Kingdom. The real effects on Northern Ireland will depend on the results of the negotiations and decisions reached by the United Kingdom and the European Union on the conditions on exiting the Union and the future directions, forms and principles for further co-operation. Its economic development is of fundamental signifi cance for the future of Northern Ireland, including the peace process.
The New Irish Republican Army is a terrorist organization that was founded in 2012. Is a continuation of the Irish Republican Army and its later fractions. This group seeks to free Northern Ireland from the “British occupation” and to unite both parts Ireland as an “organic whole.” They oppose Brexit and the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, announcing that they will increase their activity. The purpose of the article is to present the motives and methods used by the terrorist organization New IRA.
PL
Celem artykułu jest przybliżenie motywów oraz sposobów, jakimi posługuje się organizacja terrorystyczna New IRA. Nowa Irlandzka Armia Republikańska to organizacja terrorystyczna, która powstała w 2012 roku. Jest kontynuacją Irlandzkiej Armii Republikańskiej i jej późniejszych odłamów. Grupa ta dąży do wyzwolenia Irlandii Północnej spod „okupacji brytyjskiej” oraz połączenia obu Irlandii w „organiczną całość”. Sprzeciwia się Brexitowi i postawieniu granicy pomiędzy Irlandią Północną a Republiką Irlandii. W związku z tym zarzeka się, że zwiększy swoją aktywność.
In recent years, the prospect of deportation after sentence has become an almost inevitable part of foreign national prisoners’ experience in the UK. Since 2006, the year of the so-called ‘foreign national prisoner scandal’, the development of increasingly stringent laws and deportation policies has been relentless. This included the introduction of ‘automatic deportation’ for certain categories of offences and lenghts of sentences; the development of a raft of early removal schemes, allowing for removal of prisoners during a sentence; the imposition of limits to legal aid in deportation cases and, most recently, an introduction of the ‘deport first, appeal later’ rule which limits the number of cases in which deportation can be challenged before the actual removal of the person beyond UK’s borders takes place. The perception of those prisoners as a particular ‘problem’ to be ‘managed’ rather than as individuals who need additional assistance and support, results in an overfocus on deportation to the detriment of their treatment while in prison custody. Foreign national prisoners regularly report lack of access to services in prisons, lack of interpretation and translation, confusion about the criminal justice process, isolation and loneliness. Both during and at the end of their sentences, they often receive little to no support with their re-integration needs. Foreign national prisoners often report difficulties in access to independent immigration legal advice and are rarely provided with any assistance at the time of deportation. This article is based on the author’s doctoral research with male Polish prisoners serving their sentences in Northern Ireland. In the course of the study, seventeen prisoners were interviewed either individually or in small groups between late 2013 and early 2015. The interviews took place in Maghaberry (high security) and Magilligan (medium security) prisons. In addition to interviews with prisoners, a small number of core prison staff responsible for equality and diversity policies were also interviewed, together with representatives of prison monitoring and oversight bodies. The study also included observations of aspects of the prison regime, and in particular the quarterly Foreign National Forum in each of the prisons. Although the main research did not specifically focus on the experiences or processes of deportation, this theme – inevitably – run through a number of research encounters. When speaking about their plans for life after release, most Polish prisoners linked those to staying in Northern Ireland; they wanted to go back to work, continue or re-establish relationships with their families and friends; settle back into the routines outside of the prison. They were, however, very mindful that their plans might come to an abrupt end if they were to be deported at the end of their sentences. The deportation process is complex and the anxiety experienced by Polish prisoners was often heightened by the lack of understanding of immigration law and procedures. Concerns about the lack of interpretation and translation of immigrationrelated documents; gaps in legal advice and confusion about the actual physical process of deportation defined the prisoners’ experience. Stories and advice about preparation for deportation were often exchanged in small group interviews during the research, with prisoners reflecting on previous experiences of people they knew to have been deported. The fact that much information was exchanged in that way, and on other ‘social’ occassions in the prison where the prisoners could meet in a group, meant that it was often contradictory and partial. The overall anxiety was made worse by the fact that prisoners had to often wait for a long time for their deportation decisions, only made aware of what they were towards the very end of their sentences, leaving them with little time to make practical preparations for removal. Adding to apprehension about the deportation process was the possibility of spending additional time in immigration custody in detention centres after their sentence has finished. Those who did not contest deportation were particularly keen to be removed directly from the prison to Poland and the potential for extended detention was a clear source of frustration. Overall, the research showed that Polish prisoners were still provided with minimal support, including at the time when they struggled to understand and navigate the deportation system. They appeared to be left almost entirely at the mercy of the prison and immigration systems, where information from solicitors can be scarce and where their experience is dominated by waiting – waiting for contact with lawyers; waiting for the deportation decision; waiting to be deported. While they wait, their plans for release are put on hold and their re-integration into the community is jeopardised as they are unable to prepare for their life after release while not knowing where that life will be.
Zaangażowanie zbrojne w konflikt wewnętrzny w Irlandii Północnej zmusiło cywilne oraz wojskowe służby wywiadowcze Wielkiej Brytani do wypracowania nowych rozwiązań organizacyjnych oraz metod działania. Szczególną rolę w działaniach wywiadowczych oraz rozpoznawczych, w ramach prowadzonej oficjalnie niemal do końca pierwszej dekady XXI w. operacji antyterrorystycznej w Ulsterze, odgrywały wyspecjalizowane formacje wojskowe. Podczas brytyjskiego zaangażowania w Irlandii Północnej okazało się, jak wielkie znaczenie w procesie pozyskiwania wiedzy wywiadowczej odgrywają przedsięwzięcia realizowane na poziomie taktycznym przez różnorodne pododdziały i oddziały "zwykłych" liniowych jednostek. Różnorodność stosowanych metod wywiadowczych i rozpoznawczych oraz skala zaangażowani sił i środków nie przyczyniły się jednak do osiągnięcia celów adekwatnych do potrzeb i założeń. Brytyjczycy ponieśli porażkę w walce informacyjnej z strukturami Irlandzkiej Armii Republikańskiej (IRA), ponieważ wymagała ona współdziałania i współpracy z społecznością katolicką, a ta bezwarunkowo i z ogromną determinacją wspierał zbrojne wysiłki IRA.
EN
The involvement in the internal armed conflict in Northern Ireland forced the civilian and military intelligence services of the United Kingdom to develop new organizational solutions and methods of operation. A special role in intelligence and reconnaissance actions, conducted as part of the anti-terrorist operation in Ulster (officially carried out almost until the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century) was played by specialized military formations. The British military engagement in Northern Ireland proved the importance for the process of collecting information of undertakings carried out at the tactical level by different subunits and units of regular front-line troops. The variety of intelligence and reconnaissance methods and the scale of engagement did not contribute to the achievement of objectives adequate to the needs and goals. The British were defeated in the information battle against the structures of the Irish Republican Army (IRA), because it required the cooperation and collaboration with the Catholic community that unconditionally and with great determination supported the armed efforts of the IRA.
The abject failure of British Prime Minister Theresa May to get the United Kingdom’s (UK) Withdrawal Agreement from the European Union (EU) through Parliament on 15 January 2019, with MPs overwhelmingly rejecting it by 432 votes to 202, has been put down to a variety of reasons. Primary among them has been the question of the post-Brexit status of the land border between the Republic of Ireland and the UK’s province of Northern Ireland. Although an issue which was initially seen as of minor importance, the significance of the Irish border steadily grew over time until it became the main stumbling block in UKEU Brexit negotiations brought about by the decision of the British people to leave the EU in a referendum held on 23 June 2016. Indeed, the key term of the ensuing debate, namely ‘the Irish backstop’, produced such confusion among politicians, political pundits and the general public that the House of Commons, split between so-called Brexiteers and Remainers, decided to reject May’s deal out of hand. This article seeks to argue that, from June 2016 (the time of the referendum) up to January 2019 (the time of the first vote on May’s Brexit deal in Parliament), the issue of the Irish backstop was seriously underestimated before suddenly taking centre stage and ultimately sabotaging the Withdrawal Agreement from within.
The article analyses the 1996 novel Eureka Street by the Northern Irish writer Robert McLiam Wilson as an example of historical novel discussed in the context of its evolution influenced by the developments in the theory of historiography. Set in the 1990’s Belfast, the novel is both a panorama of the Northern Irish society divided religiously and politically, and a satire on Northern Irish reality and politics. Most importantly, however, it is a romance, which constitutes the generic dominant of the novel and which on the one hand locates it in the venerable tradition of historical romance à la Walter Scott, and on the other introduces essential modifications. The most important of them is the changed concept of history, whose elevated status of an explicatory, unified metanarrative is substituted with several micro-histories; important, too is metafiction which exposes the inevitable constructedness of any historical narrative, both academic and fictional; and the shift of accents from history to romance and love, both presented as a remedy for the traumatic past. Discussing various concepts of the sublime, the essay argues that Wilson’s novel defines it in a different way: the sublime of history perceived as chaos and terror is substituted in the novel with the sublime of love perceived as order and beauty, thus providing hope for the overcoming of the past, its religious and political divisions, and hate.
PL
Artykuł analizuje powieść współczesnego północnoirlandzkiego pisarza, Roberta McLiama Wilsona pt. Ulica marzycieli w kontekście ewolucji gatunku powieści historycznej. Osadzona w Belfaście powieść jest zarówno panoramą podzielonego społeczeństwa Irlandii Północnej, jak i satyrą na północnoirlandzką rzeczywistość i obyczaje. Przede wszystkim jednak jest romansem, który stanowi gatunkową dominantę powieści, sytuując ją z jednej strony w tradycji romansu historycznego à la Walter Scott, z drugiej wprowadzając doń istotne modyfikacje. Najważniejsze z nich to odmienna koncepcja historii, podważająca jej rangę i eksplifikacyjne możliwości i zastępująca jedną meta-narrację Historii wieloma mikro-historiami; metafikcyjność tekstu, zwracająca uwagę na konstruowalność każdej narracji historycznej, tak powieściowej jak i akademickiej; oraz przesunięcie akcentu z historii i przygody na romans i miłość, które przedstawiane są jako schronienie przed traumą przeszłości. Przywołując różne koncepcje wzniosłości artykuł dowodzi, iż w stosunku do tradycyjnej powieści historycznej Wilson definiuje ją odmiennie: wzniosłość historii, postrzegana jako chaos i terror, zastąpiona jest wzniosłością miłości, przedstawianej jako porządek piękna i nadzieja na przezwyciężenie bagażu przeszłości i nienawiści.
Celem artykułu jest spojrzenie na rzeczywistość polityczną Zjednoczonego Królestwa Wielkiej Brytanii i Irlandii Północnej z perspektywy pogranicza. Jest ono rezultatem działań politycznych, obszarem, w którym znajdują one swój wyraz, ale i na zasadzie sprzężenia zwrotnego są siłą napędową tych procesów. Tożsamości pogranicza w Wielkiej Brytanii odgrywają znaczącą rolę w kształtowaniu rzeczywistości politycznej. Ich zróżnicowanie, siła artykulacji interesów, uczestnictwo w rywalizacji politycznej, w dużej mierze, choć nie był to czynnik jedyny, przesądziły o obecnym kształcie ustrojowym państwa. Jednocześnie zauważalny jest, subtelny na razie, wpływ przeobrażeń ustrojowych na zmiany tożsamości. Coraz więcej mieszkańców, obok identyfikacji narodowej /regionalnej, wskazuje także na związki z Wielką Brytanią jako całością, co świadczy o tym, że Zjednoczone Królestwo, dzieląc się władzą raczej umacnia państwo niż prowadzi je ku rozpadowi, choć takie ryzyko przy dewolucji w brytyjskich warunkach istnieje.
EN
The aim of this article is to look at the political reality of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland from the perspective of borderlands understood as a result of political action, an area in which they are expressed, but at the same time are the driving force of these processes. Identities of borderlands play a significant role in shaping political reality in the UK. Their diversity, the strength of their interests’ articulation, participation in political rivalry, although it was not the only factor, have determined the current political system of the state to a large extent. At the same time the impact of political transformations on changes in the identities is noticeable. More and more of them, in addition to their own national/regional identification, also indicates the relationship with the United Kingdom as a whole, which suggests that devolution rather strengthens the state, than leads towards disintegration, although such a risk exists in reality.
Alan Clarke’s films from the 1980s are usually characterized as radical tests of the boundaries of social realism and narrative minimalism. As such, they have been described as highly political, although their political potential relates primarily to form rather than content (plot or story). Clarke’s critical approach to current affairs in Britain leads not only to a stark and pessimistic diagnosis of the state of the nation and the country but also to an analysis of the national and social traumas of the 1980s. Specific formal and narrative strategies employed by the director are highly affective – he uses intersecting patterns of different, persistent, and repetitive rhythms, visual, aural, and temporal, not to convey an intellectual meaning but rather to affect the viewer, to immerse them in a kind of trance-like experience. The author uses Jill Bennett’s reflections on trauma and affect in art to analyse the rhythmic designs of two of Clarke’s films: Road (1987) and Contact (1985).
PL
Filmy Alana Clarke’a z lat 80. zwykle postrzega się jako radykalne testy granic realizmu społecznego i narracyjnego minimalizmu. Traktuje się je więc jako szczególnie polityczne, choć potencjał ten odnosi się przede wszystkim do formy, a nie treści (fabuły czy historii). Konsekwencją krytycznego podejścia Clarke’a do bieżących wydarzeń w Wielkiej Brytanii jest nie tylko surowa i pesymistyczna diagnoza stanu narodu i kraju, ale także analiza narodowych i społecznych traum lat 80. Specyficzne strategie formalne i narracyjne zastosowane przez reżysera są wysoce afektywne – wykorzystuje on nakładające się na siebie rozmaite natrętne i repetytywne układy rytmów, zarówno wizualnych, dźwię-kowych, jak i czasowych, nie po to, by wyrazić znaczenia intelektualne, ale by działać na widza afektywnie, wciągnąć go w pewne transowe doświadczenie. Autorka wykorzystuje refleksje Jill Bennett na temat traumy i afektu w sztuce do analizy rytmicznych układów w dwóch filmach Clarke’a –Road (1987) i Contact (1985).
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