Lee Smithey examines how symbolic cultural expressions in Northern Ireland, such as parades, bonfires, murals, and commemorations, provide opportunities for Protestant unionists and loyalists to reconstruct their collective identities and participate in conflict transformation.

This volume brings together perspectives on social identity and peace psychology to explore the role that categorization plays in both conflict and peace-building. To do so, it draws leading scholars from across the world in a comprehensive exploration of social identity theory and its application to some of the world’s most pressing problems, such as intrastate conflict, uprising in the middle east, the refugee crisis, global warming, racism and peace building. A crucial theme of the volume is that social identity theory affects all of us, no matter whether we are currently in a state of conflict or one further along in the peace process. The volume is organized into two sections. Section 1 focuses on the development of social identity theory. Grounded in the pioneering work of Dr. Henri Tajfel, section 1 provides the reader with a historical background of the theory, as well as its current developments. Then, section 2 brings together a series of country case studies focusing on issues of identity across five continents. This section enables cross-cultural comparisons in terms of methodology and findings, and encourages the reader to identify general applications of identity to the understanding of peace as well as applications that may be more relevant in specific contexts. Taken together, these two sections provide a contemporary and diverse account of the state of social identity research in conflict situations and peace psychology today. It is evident that any account of peace requires an intricate understanding of identity both as a cause and consequence of conflict, as well as a potential resource to be harnessed in the promotion and maintenance of peace. Understanding Peace and Conflict Through Social Identity Theory: Contemporary Global Perspectives aims to help achieve such an understanding and as such is a valuable resource to those studying peace and conflict, psychologists, sociologists, anthropologists, public policy makers, and all those interested in the ways in which social identity impacts our world.

Based on interview material with a wide range of Protestant clergy in Northern Ireland, this book examines how Protestant identity impacts on the possibility of peace and stability and argues for greater involvement by the Protestant churches in the transition from conflict to a 'post-conflict' Northern Ireland.

Fifteen minutes before five o'clock on Good Friday, 1998, Senator George Mitchell was informed that his long and difficult quest for an Irish peace accord had succeeded--the Protestants and Catholics of Northern Ireland, and the governments of the Republic of Ireland and the United Kingdom, would sign the agreement. Now Mitchell, who served as independent chairman of the peace talks for the length of the process, tells us the inside story of the grueling road to this momentous accord. For more than two years, Mitchell, who was Senate majority leader under Presidents Bush and Clinton, labored to bring together parties whose mutual hostility--after decades of violence and mistrust--seemed insurmountable: Sinn Fein, represented by Gerry Adams; the Catholic moderates, led by John Hume; the majority Protestant party, headed by David Trimble; Ian Paisley's hard-line unionists; and, not least, the governments of the Republic of Ireland and the United Kingdom, headed by Bertie Ahern and Tony Blair. The world watched as the tense and dramatic process unfolded, sometimes teetering on the brink of failure. Here, for the first time, we are given a behind-the-scenes view of the principal players--the personalities who shaped the process--and of the contentious, at times vitriolic, proceedings. We learn how, as the deadline approached, extremist violence and factional intransigence almost drove the talks to collapse. And we witness the intensity of the final negotiating session, the interventions of Ahern and Blair, the late-night phone calls from President Clinton, a last-ditch attempt at disruption by Paisley, and ultimately an agreement that, despite subsequent inflammatory acts aimed at destroying it, has set Northern Ireland's future on track toward a more lasting peace.

The autobiography of May Blood and the struggle to improve working conditions and advance the role of women.

Northern Ireland is frequently characterised in terms of a two traditions paradigm, representing the conflict as being between two discrete cultures. Demonstrating the reductionist nature of this argument, this book highlights the complexity of reality.

The book introduces a theoretical framework to understand the role of religious leaders in conflict transformation and peacebuilding.

This book considers the politics of the Protestant Unionist Loyalist population in Northern Ireland during and following the peace process, and the political positioning of the main organizations representing them as they inch towards a post-conflict society. One central question remains: how, if at all, unionism has changed following the political accord and the establishment of devolved government. The book - now available in paperback - sets out in detail how senses of identity and political processes are understood within unionism, and how unionists and loyalists interpret these as a basis for social and political action. This forms the basis for an investigation of the extent to which the political settlement has been grounded within unionism, and how, in turn, unionist hegemony has been reconstructed around the interpretative frame of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP). Drawing on collective memories in a particular way has enabled the DUP to convince broad strands of unionism that they have been able to best identify and resist major threats to the Union, arguing that it was their strategy which finally brought Irish republicanism to account. That reasoning justified their entry into a coalition government with Sinn Fein. This in turn has again brought to the fore the cry of 'sell-out' from other unionists, this time aimed directly at the DUP leadership.

Since the plantation of Ulster in the 17th century, Northern Irish people have been engaged in conflict - Catholic against Protestant, Republican against Unionist. This text explores the pivotal moments in this history.

From the turn of the twentieth century until the end of the Irish Civil War, Protestant nationalists forged a distinct counterculture within an increasingly Catholic nationalist movement. Drawing on a wide range of primary and secondary sources, Conor Morrissey charts the development of nationalism within Protestantism, and describes the ultimate failure of this tradition. The book traces the re-emergence of Protestant nationalist activism in the literary and language movements of the 1890s, before reconstructing their distinctive forms of organisation in the following decades. Morrissey shows how Protestants, mindful of their minority status, formed interlinked networks of activists, and developed a vibrant associational culture. He describes how the increasingly Catholic nature of nationalism - particularly following the Easter Rising - prompted Protestants to adopt a variety of strategies to ensure their voices were still heard. Ultimately, this ambitious and wide-ranging book explores the relationship between religious denomination and political allegiance, casting fresh light on an often-misunderstood period.