Sunday Bloody Sunday

Sunday Bloody Sunday An Analysis of Representations of the Troubles in Northern Irish Curricula and Teaching Material and their Didactic Implications for Political Learning Diplomarbeit zur Erlangung des akademischen Grades eines Magisters der Geisteswissenschaft an der Karl-Franzens-Universität Graz am Institut für Geschichte.: vorgelegt von Moritz DEININGER Begutachter: Univ.-Prof. Dr.phil Alois Ecker Graz, 2019 Ehrenwörtliche Erklärung Ich erkläre ehrenwörtlich, dass ich die vorliegende Diplomarbeit selbstständig und ohne Benutzung anderer als der angegebenen Quellen verfasst und die den benutzten Quellen wörtlich oder inhaltlich entnommenen Stellen als solche kenntlich gemacht habe. Graz, September 2019 Moritz Deininger “The road from mutual distrust to genuine cooperation is a rocky one.” - Smith 2005: xv 1 Table of Contents 1. Introduction ............................................................................................................................ 3 1.1 Preliminary Theoretic Considerations and Methodological Approaches ........................ 5 2. Historic Overview ................................................................................................................ 15 2.1 The Troubles .................................................................................................................. 35 2.2 Current Standstill ............................................................................................................ 62 2.3 Descriptions of the Conflict ........................................................................................... 66 3. The History of Teaching History ......................................................................................... 68 4. Analysis of History for CCEA GCSE ................................................................................... 71 4.1 Narrative Analysis .......................................................................................................... 72 4.2 Didactic Analysis ........................................................................................................... 85 4.3 Curricular Analysis ........................................................................................................ 95 5. Conclusion .......................................................................................................................... 102 6. Bibliography ....................................................................................................................... 109 6.1 Webliography ............................................................................................................... 111 7. Appendix ............................................................................................................................ 113 2 1. Introduction The Northern Ireland conflict is often simply referred to as “the Troubles”. It becomes evident that the Troubles are of considerable significance when examining their impact on contemporary historical memories. Apart from (official) commemorations, parades, and countless exhibitions or scientific papers and books there exists an extensive artistic examination of the conflict. Numerous past and present artists addressed the Troubles in their songs; their genres and conveyed messages hereby often differed substantially. John Lennon or The Police, Paul and Linda McCartney, The Cranberries or U2 all of them sang about the conflict in Northern Ireland. The arguably most famous example for this is a song from the Irish Rock-band U2: “Sunday Bloody Sunday”. The chosen title o*f this paper should thus serve justice to the Troubles’ far-reaching influence, which manifests itself not only in political, and socio-economic realities but also in cultural terms. The Troubles lasted for roughly three decades from the 1960s to 1998. Hence it is one of the most recent conflicts in Europe. Its temporal proximity proves to be a major factor as the majority of the Northern Irish population has witnessed the Troubles in one form or another, and thus naturally drew their personal conclusions from it. In terms of remembrance (culture) the Troubles’ recentness is of significance as every phase of this roughly 30-year conflict is well within the respective groups’ cultural memories (cf. Smith 2005: 41 ff.). The following paper aims at providing an analysis of representations of the Troubles in teaching material and a schoolbook in relation to statutory provisions applicable to the Northern Ireland schooling sector. For this reason, a discursive examination of a GCSE- (General Certificate of Secondary Education – a state exam) schoolbook will be conducted. Thereby it aims at demonstrating how the conflict and its underlying narratives are presented to students. Additionally, it will be evaluated whether the schoolbook representations of the Troubles convey biased narratives from one of the ideological key factions in Northern Ireland. Special emphasis will be laid on how the former conflict parties portray the conflict and which historic episodes they use in order to maintain their account of the Northern Ireland conflict. Apart from the schoolbook analysis, it will be assessed how the GCSE Troubles are taught in class and whether the teaching is compatible with the mandatory curricular requirements, such as the EMU (Education for Mutual Understanding) or The Education (Curriculum Minimum Content) Order, which was passed by the Northern Ireland assembly in 2007. To sum up, representations of and teaching about the Northern Ireland conflict will be examined along didactic criteria. In addition, it will be investigated whether the schoolbook conveys partisan narratives that are 3 attributable to unionist or nationalist perspectives. Furthermore, the paper aims at assessing the compatibility of history instruction as suggested by the selected schoolbook with statutory curricular requirements. The Chapter “Historic Overview” will present a concise summary of past episodes of Irish history in order to provide a holistic overview of central developments, processes and events that paved the way for the Northern Ireland conflict, and narrations thereon. Multiple key events – some dating back almost a full millennium – are at the core of current nationalist or unionist narratives. This chapter aims at illustrating how history is used to maintain present group identities and narratives of conflict, rather than merely summarising political, social and economic Irish history. By highlighting specific episodes of modern history and their consequences insights into the narratives of the respective social groups as well as their cultural practices will be gained. In addition to offering a concise summary of Irish history, this chapter attempts to deconstruct community narratives, Furthermore, it aims at highlighting the significant role historical memory and public history play in Northern Ireland; and why this is of great importance to contemporary political education and history instruction. Subsequently the paper strives for providing a comprehensive overview of the course of the Troubles in subchapter 2.1. Here it will be attempted to name major factors in the escalatory circle of violence that held Northern Ireland in its grip for the better part of two decades. Socio- economic reasons and democratic participative tendencies within the society will be addressed additionally to political historic developments. However, apart from these factors use of violence from state as well paramilitary agents will be discussed and assessed. Subchapter 2.2 – “Current Standstill” seeks to provide a compact analysis of the socio-political operations that determined life in Northern Ireland from the Belfast Agreement, which is more commonly referred to as the Good Friday Agreement, which was signed by royalist and republican conflict parties as well as most political parties in Northern Ireland and the British and Irish governments 1996, to the present day. Attention will be drawn in particular to the application of conflict-resolving measures agreed on by the former conflict parties, as well as the British and Irish governments in the Good Friday Agreement; and why they failed. However, also the most pressing issue of the Irish isle, including its potential and actual consequences will be discussed briefly: Brexit and its implications for the peace process. A short section in this overview will be addressing the question of the conflict’s categorisation. Prescriptions from authors dealing with this subject matter will be analysed in order to establish whether the Northern Ireland conflict can legitimately be called a religious conflict as this 4 remains the public’s standard description of the conflict. Furthermore, the paper attempts to interpret the conflict’s causes in an interdisciplinary fashion; thereby mostly relying on socio- economic, participative and political explanatory patterns. Additionally, it will be aimed toward presenting contemporary community-narratives. Subsequently, in chapter four, it will be evaluated if and to which extent recent scientific findings and assessments thereof have entered the classroom and impacted on teaching realities, more on the methodology and theory this paper is based can be found chapter 1.1. The chapter three – “The History of Teaching History” will attempt to provide a short outline of the causes that shaped modern teaching in Northern Ireland. Here, the question of how the segregated nature of the schooling sector came into being and

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