Northern Irish Politics

Urban Schism, Social Strains: Exploring the Collective Identities of Youth in Contemporary Belfast

by David Drissel

Mapping the ‘Doctrine of Vicarious Punishment’: Space, Religion and the Belfast ‘Troubles’ of 1920 – 22’

by Niall Cunningham

This is a copy of a paper I plan to deliver at the European Social Science History Conference at Glasgow University on April 14th, 2012.　　The caption on figure 10 shouldn't read decennial change in population, as the inter-censal period was subject to some alteration around this time. It is a DRAFT! I will adjust when I have time。

Between 1920 and 1922, the city of Belfast, Northern Ireland was the location of intense violence between Catholic... more Between 1920 and 1922, the city of Belfast, Northern Ireland was the location of intense violence between Catholic nationalists and Protestant unionists arising out of the broader political conflict engulfing the island. Approximately 500 people died within the city as a result of these tensions. There existed marked spatial variation in patterns of fatality during these original ‘Troubles’ which accompanied the creation of the Northern Ireland state. This paper will present findings from research into this period which makes use of Geographical Information Systems (G.I.S.) technology to analyse the spatial distribution and impact of political and sectarian deaths in the early years of the 1920s.

Troubled Geographies: An Historical G.I.S. of Religion, Society and Conflict in Ireland since the Great Famine

by Niall Cunningham

This paper emerged out of a presentation at the August 2008 UK Historical GIS Conference held at the University of Essex. It is shortly to be published alongside a selection of contributions to the conference in A.Y. Geddes & I.N. Gregory (eds.) 'Rethinking Space and Place' (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, Forthcoming).

This paper concerns the work involved in the construction of a Historical Geographical Information System of Irish... more This paper concerns the work involved in the construction of a Historical Geographical Information System of Irish religion and society in the period since the Great Famine of the mid-nineteenth century. The work was funded by a Large Grant from the U.K.'s Arts and Humanities Research Council (A.H.R.C.) entitled 'Troubled Geographies: Two Centuries of Religious Division in Ireland'. The project had two main planks of analysis; the first was a study of long-term change in the religious and socio-economic geographies of the island of Ireland over the last 150 years, the second was to explore how these factors related to the spatial distribition of political deaths during the recent Troubles in Northern Ireland from 1969. This was made possible through access to the Sutton Database of Troubles Deaths, kindly provided by the CAIN service at the University of Ulster.

Deterrence, coercion and brute force in asymmetric conflict: The role of the military instrument in resolving the Northern Ireland 'troubles'

by Aaron Edwards

Published in the 'Dynamics of Asymmetric Conflict', December 2011

The use of deterrence, coercion and brute force in effecting peace in asymmetric conflict is often overlooked and a... more The use of deterrence, coercion and brute force in effecting peace in asymmetric conflict is often overlooked and a premium instead is placed on diplomacy and bargaining between states and non-state terrorist groups. Indeed, the relative success of the Northern Ireland “peace process” since the 1990s has amplified the sound of dialogue as a means of ending violent conflict in deeply divided societies. This article adopts a different perspective. Borrowing from strategic theory, it examines the British state's application of force in bringing the Provisional IRA to the negotiating table. It argues that in the “battle of wills” between the British state's security forces and the IRA, a more coercive strategy was adopted by Britain than is openly admitted in the scholarly literature on the Northern Ireland “troubles.” The article concludes with several observations on the importance of the use of force in counter-terrorism operations.

Examining the Underlying Conditions Presdisposing Societies to Terrorism

by Patrick Little

Thesis written for the requirements of the Global Security Studies M.A. Program at Johns Hopkins University.

The document examines theories of underlying conditions which predispose societies to the use of terrorism stemming from cultural, socio-economic and political, and individual psychological factors.

Chapter Summaries- pg. 17
Chapter 1- Case study of Northern Ireland, pg. 20
Chapter 2- Case study of Algeria, pg. 43
Chapter 3- Case study of Chechnya, pg. 79
Conclusion- pg. 103

Abstract

This paper attempts to examine the underlying conditions which predispose societies to... more Abstract

This paper attempts to examine the underlying conditions which predispose societies to terrorism. The paper will specifically focus within three different regions to provide balance to the discussion. These areas are Western Europe in Northern Ireland, Northern Africa and the Middle East in Algeria and Eastern Europe in the North Caucus within the territory designated as Chechnya.

Each chapter of this thesis presents a different case study of the history of a terrorist group and its country of origin. After setting historical foundations, the chapters then analyze these accounts in relation to modern theories of terrorism.

The thesis tests theories of terrorism which are based on the arguments derived from five working groups on the topic at the March 2005, Madrid Summit. The groups included the top experts from around the world who are knowledgeable on the categories of terrorism resulting from cultural, economic, political, psychological and religious (or ideological) factors. The case study used the working groups to test the arguments that have been developed by theorists within these categories in order to help bring further understanding to the topic of terrorism.

This thesis also tested the hypothesis that claims that multiple combinations of underlying conditions within society blend together to predispose societies to the use of terrorism. In spite of the fact that the combinations of factors varied in importance from case to case, the thesis found that all of the potential underlying conditions which predispose some societies to terrorism mentioned at the Madrid Summit are confirmed in the case studies presented.

The thesis shows that the most comprehensive explanations for predisposition of terrorism come from a combination of multiple underlying conditions with varying degrees depending on which society is targeted.

Thesis Advisors: Dr. Ken Masugi, Dr. Mark Stout, Dr. Ariel Roth

'The Further One Gets From Belfast', a second reply to Jeff Dudgeon

by Niall Meehan

Irish Political Review, Vol. 27, No. 2, February 2012

I am grateful to Jeffrey Dudgeon for replying on the contentious subject of the killing of thirteen civilians and four... more I am grateful to Jeffrey Dudgeon for replying on the contentious subject of the killing of thirteen civilians and four British Army personnel in West Cork in late April 1922. I am grateful also to IPR for facilitating the discussion.

Dudgeon ignored my remarks (IPR November 2011) on Peter Hart’s errors and misrepresentations concerning the 28 November 1920 Kilmichael Ambush. I do not know if that means he now accepts my argument. Dudgeon concentrates instead on vindicating Hart’s view of the ‘April killings’ in West Cork in 1922, seen as ‘emblematic’ of IRA attacks on Protestants during the War of Independence period.

In the course of his reply, Dudgeon attempted to demonstrate that Irish Republicanism is anti-Protestant, even though republican ideology and action ‘claim[s] to be non-sectarian’.

During the late 18th Century some Irish Protestants founded The Society of United Irishmen and a significant number, mainly Presbyterian, broke from an assumed allegiance to the colonial system of Protestant supremacy. This tradition of Irish Republican separatism was led by Theobald Wolfe Tone. It was influenced by the American and French Revolutions, the first uprisings in human history to be influenced by secular as distinct from religious ideology. The subsequent 1798 United Irishmen inspired rebellion failed and was brutally suppressed.

These Protestant republicans were considered caste traitors. The best-known modern example is the last Protestant Editor of the Irish Times, Douglas Gageby, who considered himself a republican in the Wolfe Tone tradition. According to Major Thomas McDowell, the newspaper’s then Managing Editor and a fellow Belfast born Protestant, Gageby was (as reported in 1969 to the British Ambassador to Dublin), ‘a renegade or white nigger’.

According to Dudgeon, republicans practice ‘(fake) non-sectarian[ism]’. It is in essence devious, a kind of Roman Catholicism of the fundamentalist Protestant imagination. This view requires empirical proof. Depicting most of the late April 1922 West Cork killings as sectarian and as part of a pattern is therefore important to Dudgeon, who is an Ulster Unionist. Since the Ulster Unionist Party cannot easily shake off accusations of consistent sectarian practice in Northern Ireland (because it is a fact), events like the April killings are a basis for suggesting that the competing Irish ideologies cancel each other out, while confirming a need for ethnic separation. It is a rationale for partition on the basis of sectarian equivalence, a familiarity that breeds contempt.

I will look at this question of IRA sectarianism in two parts, first in terms of the April killings themselves, second with regard to whether they were ‘emblematic’ (Dudgeon’s term) of a consistent practice.

[The rest, including Jeff Dudgeon's piece, is in the attached PDF. Also included, an article from the same IPR edition on General Frank (FP) Crozier, first Commander of the Auxiliary Division, by Manus O'Riordan]

What is NISL? A Northern Ireland Sign Language? (2003) IASLI Newsletter 4.3 - Dublin: Irish Association of Sign Language Interpreters.

by Shane Kieran Gilchrist

"Why would they ever come here?" Imagining Immigration in Northern Ireland

by Katie Keenan

Blog entry 3 December 2010 on ApplyingAnthropology.net and blurb in the SFAA Newsletter, November 2010, p. 35.

A brief look at the new challenges posed by immigration to Northern Ireland after the 2003 European Expansion. A brief look at the new challenges posed by immigration to Northern Ireland after the 2003 European Expansion.

Towards Linguistic Diversity? Community Languages in Northern Ireland

by Philip McDermott

Shared Space: Journal of the Community Relations Council 2008 vol 5

Acquisition, Loss or Multilingualism? Educational Planning for Speakers of Migrant Community Languages in Northern Ireland

by Philip McDermott

Current Issues in Language Planning (2009), Vol. 9, No. 4, pp483-500

This paper deals with the development of English as an Additional Language (EAL) in Northern Ireland's education... more This paper deals with the development of English as an Additional Language (EAL) in Northern Ireland's education system.



Abstract:


Debates surrounding linguistic heritage in Northern Ireland have primarily centred on Irish (Gaelic) and Ulster-Scots. However, closer analysis suggests that there have long been other languages spoken in the region. Cantonese, Mandarin, Polish, Lithuanian and Portuguese are all spoken throughout Northern Ireland as the region experiences large-scale inward migration for the first time since the arrival of Scottish settlers in the 1600s. The fact that many of the new arrivals have come with little or no English language skills has implications for a number of public services, not least education. This paper will discuss how schools have responded to the needs of an increasingly multilingual environment by analysing new procedures and by drawing on interviews conducted with stakeholders in the area.

Negotiating belonging: Discourse on culture and language for migrants from the global South

by Philip McDermott

Co-authored with Elly Odhiambo, Published in Policy & Practice: A Development Education Review, Vol. 11, Autumn 2010, pp. 112-119

‘Irish isn’t spoken here?’ Language policy and planning in Ireland

by Philip McDermott

(2011) McDermott, P. "‘Irish isn’t spoken here?’ Language policy and planning in Ireland". In English Today, Vol 27, No.2. pp25-31

This paper offers an overview of the development of language policy relating to the Irish language in both the... more This paper offers an overview of the development of language policy relating to the Irish language in both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland.

National Identities, Historical Narratives and Patron States in Northern Ireland

by John Barry

Published in Political loyalty and the nation-state,  edited by Michael Waller and Andrew Linklater (2003)

Expressions and conceptions of loyalty are especially potent and contentious in the constitution of collective... more Expressions and conceptions of loyalty are especially potent and contentious in the constitution of collective identities in Northern Ireland. On the one hand we have the Orange marches - Protestant religious-political expressions of loyalty to the British monarch and Protestant faith which date back to the late eighteenth century.  Some of these insist on marching through Catholic-nationalist areas where they are not welcome and are seen as expressions of Protestant-unionist domination and oppression.  Thus, the relationship between loyalty, identity, and history is particularly interesting in Northern Ireland, not least because there are long-standing political discourses, practices and institutions associated with ‘loyalism’, within unionist politics and history.  Loyalism in Northern Ireland is an ideology, a movement and an identity, associated with more extreme unionism, in the same way that ‘republicanism’ is associated with more extreme or militant ‘nationalism’. 

After the War of Independence, some further questions about West Cork, April 27-29 1922

by Niall Meehan

Irish Political Review, Vol 23, No3, March 2008

In The Irish Political Review (February 2008), Jack Lane commented on an RTE 'Hidden History' documentary on the July... more In The Irish Political Review (February 2008), Jack Lane commented on an RTE 'Hidden History' documentary on the July 1921 IRA execution of Brothers named Pearson at Coolacrease, Co Offaly. Lane observed, ‘The devil is in the detail’ provided by researchers Pat Muldowney and Philip McConway, but largely ignored by the programme makers. Jack Lane goes on to comment on later killings of loyalists in Dunmanway, West Cork, between April 27-29 1922, while the Truce between Irish and British forces was in force. The killings took place four months after a split over the terms of the Anglo Irish Treaty, two months prior to the outbreak of the Irish Civil War. The killings are important to those who suggest that the Irish War of Independence was a largely sectarian or ‘ethnic’ conflict. Jack Lane correctly points to the pivotal role of Peter Hart’s 'The IRA and its Enemies' (1998) in promoting this view, one shared by the historian Roy Foster and some journalists who assiduously promote it. The April 1922 killings in Cork are used to give the impression that the same thing happened elsewhere, for instance the Coolacrease killings in Offaly in July 1921. However, while correctly pinpointing the April 1922 events as ‘the elephant in the parlour’, Jack Lane engages in speculation in which the ‘detail’ is left behind. In this article I look at some of the detail  in Peter Hart's analysis in 1998 and compare it to his PhD version some six years earlier.

See also:
Troubled History
A tenth anniversary critique of Peter Hart's The IRA and its Enemies
http://gcd.academia.edu/NiallMeehan/Books/75341/Troubled-History--a-tenth-anniversary-Critique-of-Peter-Hart-s--The-IRA-and-its-Enemies-

Secondary Transfer Effects of Intergroup Contact: Alternative Accounts and Underlying Processes.

by Charis Psaltis

Tausch, N., Hewstone, M., Kenworthy, J., Psaltis, C., Schmid, K., Popan, J., et al. (2010). Secondary Transfer Effects of Intergroup Contact: Alternative Accounts and Underlying Processes. Journal of Personality & Social Psychology, 99, 282-302.

Although intergroup contact is one of the most prominent interventions to reduce prejudice, the generalization of... more Although intergroup contact is one of the most prominent interventions to reduce prejudice, the generalization of contact effects is still a contentious issue. This research further examined the rarely studied secondary transfer effect (STE; Pettigrew, 2009), by which contact with a primary outgroup reduces prejudice toward secondary groups that are not directly involved in the contact. Across 3 cross-sectional studies conducted in Cyprus (N = 1,653), Northern Ireland (N = 1,973), and Texas (N = 275) and 1 longitudinal study conducted in Northern Ireland (N = 411), the present research sought to systematically rule out alternative accounts of the STE and to investigate 2 potential mediating mechanisms (ingroup reappraisal and attitude generalization). Results indicated that, consistent with the STE, contact with a primary outgroup predicts attitudes toward secondary outgroups, over and above contact with the secondary outgroup, socially desirable responding, and prior attitudes. Mediation analyses found strong evidence for attitude generalization but only limited evidence for ingroup reappraisal as an underlying process. Two out of 3 tests of a reverse model, where contact with the secondary outgroup predicts attitudes toward the primary outgroup, provide further evidence for an indirect effect through attitude generalization. Theoretical and practical implications of these results are discussed, and directions for future research are identified.

“For God and the Empire”: An Irish Historian's Rapid Rise, Strange Fall, and Remarkable Resurrection

by Niall Meehan

Co-authored with Kerby A Miller, in Field Day 7 (annual review), 2011

more https://shop.nd.edu/C21688_ustores/web/product_detail.jsp?PRODUCTID=2897&SINGLESTORE=true

Field Day Review, 7, 2011
Editors: Seamus Deane & Ciarán Deane, paperback: 270 pages, ISBN 978-0-946755-51-6


Introduction to Niall Meehan, Kerby A Miller, essay:

The early 1980s were a momentous era in recent Irish political history. The post-Hunger Strikes rise of Sinn Féin threatened British policy in Northern Ireland and—alongside severe economic problems—also endangered what establishment figures called political and social ‘stability’ in the Irish Republic. In the same period, moreover, the appeal of Irish Republicanism resurged among the traditionally and (from the Dublin élite’s perspective) dangerously ‘green’ Irish in the United States.

In one or both parts of divided Ireland, a combination of censorship, repression, mass migration, and the Anglo-Irish Agreement of 1985 maintained ‘acceptable levels’ of violence and dissent. At the same time, however, the British and Irish political establishments also relied on academics and journalists. Their task was to ‘revise’ and destabilize ‘traditional’ Irish and Irish-American understandings of the history and contemporary implications of British imperialism and Irish resistance—on the grounds that popular perceptions of past events, such as the Great Famine and Partition, generated ideological, emotional, or even practical support for militant Irish Republicanism.

In an essay published in 1983, Dr. Raymond J. Raymond, a young Irish historian teaching in the United States, succinctly described what, he contended, should be modern Irish history’s principal functions. It should refute, he avowed, one or more of three Irish nationalist beliefs, all of which he characterized as ‘romanticized and un-historic’. These beliefs were: first, ‘[that] the history of Ireland is a history of British oppression’; second, ‘[that] the British presence in Ireland has been disastrous for the Irish people’; and third, ‘[that] Irish freedom had to be achieved through violence’.

Such scholarly opinions naturally seemed authoritative, and, indeed, in the early 1980s no young historian of Ireland appeared to have a brighter future and greater potential influence, especially in the United States.....

What happened next.... ?

Read Field Day Review 7, 2011.

Contents:

Essays

Stephanie Rains: 'The Ideal Home (Rule) Exhibition: Ballymaclinton and the 1908 Franco-British Exhibition';
Tony Crowley: 'The Art of Memory: The Murals of Northern Ireland and the Management of History';
Niall Ó Dochartaigh, ' “Everyone Trying”, The IRA Ceasefire, 1975: A Missed Opportunity for Peace?';
Kevin Honan, 'The Political Conscious: “A Further Round of Reflection” on Fredric Jameson's Valences of the Dialectic';
James Chandler, 'Cinema, History, and the Politics of Style: Michael Collins and The Wind that Shakes the Barley';
Luke Gibbons, ' “The Wild West of European Finance”: Anachronism, Modernity and the Irish Crisis';
Niamh O'Sullivan, '“All Native, All our Own, and All a Fact”: John Mulvany and the Irish-American Dream';
Niall Meehan & Kerby Miller,
' “For God and the Empire”: An Irish Historian's Rapid Rise, Strange Fall, and Remarkable Resurrection';
Lucy Cotter, 'Ambivalent Homecomings: Louis le Brocquy, Francis Bacon and the Mechanics of Canonization';
Seamus Deane, 'A Church Destroyed, The Church Restored: France's Irish Catholicism'
(ed and transl) 'Montalembert Letter on Catholicism in Ireland'

Introduction to JBS 50.4 (October 2011)

by Brian Cowan

Co-authored with Elizabeth Elbourne

1.  William Perkins, “Atheisme,” and the Crises of England’s Long Reformation (pp. 790-812)  more

1.  William Perkins, “Atheisme,” and the Crises of England’s Long Reformation (pp. 790-812) 
Leif Dixon

Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/661199

2.  Evil Counsel: The Propositions to Bridle the Impertinency of Parliament and the Critique of Caroline Government in the Late 1620s (pp. 813-839) 
Noah Millstone

Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/661000

3.  The Citizens of Morley College (pp. 840-862) 
Andrea Geddes Poole

Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/661021

4.  Remembering the 1605 Gunpowder Plot in Ireland, 1605–1920 (pp. 863-891) 
James McConnel

Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/661200

5.  1688 and 1888: Victorian Society and the Bicentenary of the Glorious Revolution (pp. 892-916) 
Edmund Rogers

Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/661209

6.  Voices and Silences of Memory: Civilian Internees of the Japanese in British Asia during the Second World War (pp. 917-940) 
Felicia Yap

Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/661602

7.  Narrative and the Start of the Northern Irish Troubles: Ireland’s Revolutionary Tradition in Comparative Perspective (pp. 941-964) 
Simon Prince

Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/661184

Between a Rock and Hard Gospel - the Orange Order and the Church of Ireland

by Niall Meehan

Church & State Magazine No. 99 First Quarter 2010

The Church of Ireland Hard Gospel project arose from media depictions of the Orange Order's contentious use of Church... more The Church of Ireland Hard Gospel project arose from media depictions of the Orange Order's contentious use of Church property and facilities, and from participation in the Order by clergy and laity. The Church divided against itself, its pluralist image in Ireland ensnared in sectarian conflict during the 1990s.

After Easter each year the Orange Order initiates public celebration of what the supremacist organisation regards as its British way of life, based on support for biblical Protestantism and the “being Protestant” British monarchy. It habitually wears out shoe leather until leaves fall in the autumn, in celebration of “civil and religious liberty”. Approximately 2,500 marches, parades, feeder parades, band practices and bonfires occupy the highways and byways of the North. Many Britons, on encountering these displays, find them alien to British identity.

They are always accompanied by physical attacks on Catholics and by other provocations, some of which are detailed here. The Order's insistence on marching in some mainly nationalist areas of Northern Ireland caused a crisis in the Church's relationship with the Order during the 1990s. Sectarian violence that accompanied the Order's attempts to defy bans on marching in those areas appalled many Church members. The ban on marching through the mainly nationalist Garvaghy Road in Portadown in particular, one week prior to the annual 12th July protest, provoked violent opposition:

“In 1995, after two days of violence, mediation between local nationalists and the Order took place and a limited parade was allowed. In 1996, the parade was banned. While police and soldiers held the Orangemen back behind steel barricades, Billy Wright - who by this time had a terrifying reputation throughout mid-Ulster - sent his gang to murder a Catholic [Michael McGoldrick, a taxi driver]. The chief constable changed his ruling. The parade would be allowed, he said, because otherwise too many lives might be lost.” (Susan McKay, Guardian, 17 Nov 2001)

The epicentre for mobilisation against police and then statutory Parades Commission marching bans was the Drumcree Parish Church. It was used for an Orange Order church service each year, before a futile post-1996 attempt was made to walk the Garvaghy Road. Facilities offered by the church, in the form of meeting rooms, plus toilet and cooking facilities, helped to maintain the protest for weeks on end, year after year.

[....] Download PDF for rest of article

Orangewomen Show their Colors: Gender, Family, and Orangeism in Ulster, 1795-Present

by Christi McCallum

My PhD Dissertation is just now available; however, it is only viewable to SIUC students.  For a copy, others have to consult interlibrary loan or ProQuest's Dissertation Express Service.

The Orange Order is a Protestant fraternal order within Northern Ireland that has branches across the former British... more The Orange Order is a Protestant fraternal order within Northern Ireland that has branches across the former British Empire. Since its formation in 1795, it has been described as a brotherhood, definitively male with a triumphalist parade culture maintaining Protestant `civil and religious liberties' by celebrating the victory of King William III at the Battle of the Boyne in 1690. My dissertation explores the role of gender within Orangeism. Notions of `brotherhood', `sisterhood', and `family' in the lodges are explored, as are the roles of women within Orangeism. In particular, the `family' nature of Orangeism has played a major role in the inclusion of women and children in Orange demonstrations and parades. Evangelical beliefs in women's moral superiority and the necessity of her influence over her family and community provided women with a public presence via Orange processions and female lodges. Men were forced to accept their utility as political mothers who could inculcate Orange values in children and in the wider community through their influence and philanthropic work. In short, Orangeism was never simply a brotherhood; the familial metaphor enabled women to gain influence as `sisters' and to perform various politicized (and sometimes militarized) domestic roles within the public space provided by the order. Orangeism gave them a political base from which to petition, challenge governmental policies they deemed unfair, and to threaten or commit violence when peaceful methods failed.

Antigone Stopped in Belfast: Stacey Gregg's "Ismene".

by Anastasia (Natasha) Remoundou-Howley

published in New Voices in Classical Reception Studies, August 2011, Issue 6, Open University.

This article explores the resurgence of Sophocles’ Antigone in Stacey Gregg’s Northern Irish play.... more


This article explores the resurgence of Sophocles’ Antigone in Stacey Gregg’s Northern Irish play. Gregg transplants the Greek heroine’s apolitical act in Northern Ireland to question politics, society, as well as estimate the impact of the internal sectarian divisions and the (im)possible means of reconciliation in the present and the future. The political inflections and valuable individual insights into notions of violence, mourning, history, memory, ethics, nationalism, belonging, community, civil disobedience, kinship, love, hatred, justice, reconciliation, forgiveness and peace with which Gregg invests her adaptation, are delivered with admirable originality. Taking over from the 1980s ‘conventionally dated’ (Hall 2004:20-21) political conflicts to a new millennial figuration of the myth, the young playwright interrogates Irish history, politics, culture and the legacy of revenge in Northern Irish society. Most significantly, Gregg voices the troubling effects of violence and its exorcism through mourning practices that shift their focus on Ismene’s persona after whom her version takes its title. Gregg takes note of the immense impact the McCartney case had in Irish society in recent years, and in 2007 decides to adapt Antigone as a response to that overwhelming real-life family drama which resembles the two sisters’ agon against the state and each other to bury their slain brother.