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Masculinity, Memory and Authority in Contemporary Republican Belfast Tiocfaidh Ár Lá: Masculinity, Memory and Authority in Contemporary Republican Belfast Emily A. Ravenscroft A dissertation submitted to the faculty of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of Communication Studies. Chapel Hill 2010 Approved by: Dr. V.William Balthrop Dr. Carole Blair Dr. Randall Styers Dr. Michael S. Waltman Dr. Julia T. Wood © 2010 Tiocfaidh Ár Lá: Masculinity, Memory and Authority in Contemporary Republican Belfast ALL RIGHTS RESERVED ii Abstract EMILY A. RAVENSCROFT: Tiocfaidh Ár Lá1: Masculinity, Memory and Authority in Contemporary Republican Belfast (Under the direction of Dr. V. William Balthrop) The Good Friday Agreements in Northern Ireland marked the end of a thirty year period of violence known as the Troubles. The shift from “the bullet” to “the ballot box” was a complicated rhetorical move, particularly for the Republican faction, who had a communal identity predicated upon a public memory of 800 years of opposition to British rule. This public memory, articulated in both verbal and material narratives, was used to justify the war. Both the Leader(ship) and the People articulate these narratives, while being simultaneously articulated by them. In the Northern Irish case, the Leader for a majority of the Republican People has been the Sinn Féin Leader(ship). Their authority is predicated upon an authenticity derived from memories of their embodied masculine performances. Sinn Féin’s authority is currently being questioned by “dissidents.” Their dissonance points to contradictions in the gender performance of the Sinn Féin Leader(ship). In so doing, these “dissidents” contest the foundation of Sinn Féin’s power, particularly in the communities that most earnestly demand the continuity of the nuanced communal gender roles that Sinn Féin supported during the Troubles. 1 Irish for “Our day will come.” This is a famous Republican slogan. iii For my parents iv Acknowledgements I wish to extend my gratitude to all of my interviewees for their time, insight and dedication to my project. I truly hope this dissertation will be helpful as we move closer to an Ireland of equals. I also would like to thank the Fulbright Organization, especially Colleen and Marianne, for their incredibly generous support, both financial and personal. The opportunities they provided during my year in Galway were those of a lifetime. Additional thanks to everyone at Oideas Gael, especially Liam Ó Cuinneagáin and Paddy Gallagher. I appreciate your willingness to put up with my inability to find the right verb tense for so many years. Many thanks also to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Graduate School for their generous financial support throughout the course of my research. Thank you also to each of my committee members for your insights, feedback and patience with this project. I appreciate the care with which you approached each stage of this process with me. Finally, my deepest thanks go to my Carolinian family, the Blairthrops (Bill “B-dawg” Balthrop and Carole “CB” Blair). I hope you know that you two are the reason I am still sane. v TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF IMAGES………………………………………………………………………...……viii Chapters I. INTRODUCTION……….………………………………………………………….…….1 Justification for study……………………………………………………………...2 Parameters of the project………………………………………………………….4 Research methodology……………………………………………………………9 Research questions and thesis……………………………………………………12 II. RHETORIC AND MEMORY……………………….…………………………..…....…17 Rhetoric and memory..……….………………………………………..…….…..17 Constitutive Rhetoric……………………….……………………………………28 Authenticity and Authority………………………………………………………32 Memory and identity…..…….…………………………………………………..39 III. NORTHERN IRISH REPUBLICAN HISTORY………………….………………..…..42 Republicanism in Ireland……...…………………………..……………………..42 Republican oppositional identity and the Northern Irish conflict………….……50 Nationalism and language………………………………………………………..57 vi Sinn Féin: The Leader(ship)……………………………………….…………….76 “Dissidents” ……………………………………………………………………..92 Concerned Families Against Drugs………………………….…………..94 Éirígí……………………………………………………………………..97 IV. REPUBLICANISM AND GENDER……………………………………………..……104 Gender and Sex…………………………………………………………………105 Women and Republicanism…………………………………………………….107 Masculinity and the Republican narrative: The mask………………………….128 V. SHIFTS IN ARTICULATIONS OF AUTHENTIC AUTHORITY……………………165 Sinn Féin’s new articulations of authority……………………………………...166 “Dissidents”: Re-membering “authentic” authority……………………………180 Éirígí……………………………………………………………………185 Concerned Families Against Drugs. …………………………………...192 VI. CONCLUSION………………………..…………………….……………….…………203 APPENDIX…………………………..…………………………………………………………214 REFERENCES…………………………………………………………………………………216 vii LIST OF IMAGES IMAGE 1. Wall of Kelly Cellars Pub, City Centre, Belfast…………...………………...…………..50 2. “Fuck the PSNI”: Graffiti in Ballymurphy Estate, Belfast…………………...………….89 3. Police Station outside of Ballymurphy Estate, Belfast…..…………………...………….90 4. PSNI police vehicle.....………………………………………………………...…………90 5. Mural in Ballymurpy Estate, Belfast………………………………………...…………..91 6. CFAD website banner………………………………………………………...………….96 7. “Up the Hoods, Fuck the RA” graffiti in Ardoyne..………………………...…………..98 8. Éirígí’s Uncle EU……………………………………………………………...………..101 9. IRA statement, Irish Republican History Museum (IRHM)..………………...………...127 10. IRA flier, 1971, IRHM……………………………..………………………...…………127 11. Sister, wife and mother of male Republican prisoners who were “on the blanket” IRHM…………………………………………………………………………………..128 12. Republican women POWs in Armagh prison, IRHM..…………………...……………128 13. Bin lid from women’s protests 1971, IRHM..……………………………...…………..129 14. IRA resistance propaganda……………………………………………………………..140 15. “Belfast IRA men on patrol with new drogue bomb in Northern Ireland 1987”.....…...142 16. Bombay Street mural on the side gable of a Bombay Street house…...………………..145 17. Color guard firing at a hunger striker funeral… ..…………...………………………………146 18. Castelrea bodhran……………………………………………………………………….152 19. The most famous image of Bobby Sands………………………………………………153 20. H-Block Mural on Falls Road…….…………………………………………………….154 viii 21. Bobby Sands Mural on Falls Road……………………………………………………..154 22. Bobby Sands funeral procession………………………………………………………..156 23. An Phoblacht front page………………………………………………………………..158 24. An Phoblacht center left page…………………………………………………………..159 25. And Phoblacht center right page………………………………………………………..159 26. Republican women drilling in formation, IRHM…………………………….…….…..161 27. Gibraltar martyrs mural, sponsored by Sinn Féin off Falls Road………………………164 28. Belfast women’s mural, sponsored by Sinn Féin off Falls Road ………………………164 29. Masked police officer enters Ardoyne…..……………………………………………..179 30. “Sinn Fein get off your knees” graffiti…………………………………………………183 31. “Tell Gerry how we really feel” graffiti………………………………………………..184 32. Éirígí protest march…………………………………………………………………….188 33. Éirígí protest sit-in……………………………………………………………………...189 34. Ballymurphy mural……………………………………………………………………..187 35. Éirígí flag protest……………………………………………………………………….197 36. Hooded drug dealer “scum”…………………………………………………………….201 37. CFAD members………………………………………………………………………...203 38. Ballymurphy mural, West Belfast..…………………………………………………….205 39. Map of Belfast: religious make up……………………………………………………..222 40. Map of Ardoyne………………………………………………………………………..223 ix Chapter 1 Introduction In 1998 the Good Friday Agreement2 established a functioning peace in Northern Ireland.3 Major Republican/Catholic4 factions, including the Provisional Irish Republican Army (PIRA), and major Unionist/Protestant factions, including the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF), agreed to hold to ceasefires and work within the power-sharing political system that had 2 Though commonly referred to as the Good Friday Agreement or the GFA, the agreement’s official name was “The Belfast Agreement.” It is interesting to see such religious, particularly Catholic, language used in parlance. 3 Most Republicans refer to the internationally recognized country of “Northern Ireland” as “The North of Ireland.” They argue that “Northern Ireland” is an illegitimate state imposed upon the people of the island without their consent. I will use both terms in an attempt to provide some moderation and make my work more accessible to those who find either of the phrases offensive. 4The terms Catholic and Protestant in Northern Ireland do not necessarily correlate with regular church attendance. Rather, these titles indicate a political identity with mutually exclusive goals. Nationalists and Republicans are typically Catholic in modern times, though that certainly has not always been the case. These two groups wish to see a united Ireland, with the 6 counties of Northern Ireland joining with the 26 counties of the Republic of Ireland. Unionists or Loyalists are typically Protestant, on the other hand, and wish to keep Northern Ireland independent of the south and united with the English crown. Many would assume that this is a fundamentally religious conflict. I disagree. I argue that cultural Catholicism was important in the development of a certain ethos of sacrifice and community, but the religious institution of the Church was not important to the Republican community per se. In fact, the Church, with a few individual exceptions, provided more of an obstacle to the development of a cohesive Republican "critical mass." However, the idea of a "Catholic community"
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