The National University of Ireland Maynooth Paradigms of Irishness
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The National University of Ireland Maynooth Paradigms of Irishness for Young People in Dublin A thesis submitted by Joseph Moffatt, B.A., M.A., For the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Sociology Department Faculty of Social Science Research Supervisor: Mary Corcoran Head of Department: Jan Gray February 2011 Table of Contents Abstract i Acknowledgments ii List of Tables iii Introduction v Chapter 1 – Two Irelands: Traditional and Modern 1 1.1 The Traditional Paradigm of Irishness 5 1.2 The Traditional Paradigms Cultural Terrain 8 1.2.1 Irish Rurality 8 1.2.2 The Irish Language 11 1.2.3 Gaelic Sport 15 1.2.4 The Roman Catholic Church 19 1.3 The Modern Paradigm of Irishness 23 1.4 Unbinding Ireland 25 1.5 Modern Ireland 29 1.6 Bounded Ireland 34 1.7 Privileging Irishness to the Republic of Ireland 36 1.8 Conclusion 39 Chapter 2 - Theorising the Nation 43 2.1 What is The Nation? 46 2.1.1 The nation is imagined as limited 50 2.1.2 The nation is imagined as sovereign 53 2.1.3 The nation is imagined as community 56 2.2 Individualisation 67 2.3 Conclusion 80 Chapter 3 - Methodology 82 3.1 Schools involved in the Research 83 3.2 Quantitative Strategy 89 3.3 Questionnaire Design 91 3.3.1 Family 93 3.3.2 Friendship Networks 93 3.3.3. Symbolism 94 3.3.3.1 Deciding on what symbols to include in the questionnaire 95 3.3.3.2 Framing and evaluating other peoples symbolic notions of Irishness 99 3.3.4 General Questions 101 3.4 SPSS coding and inputting 103 3.5 Qualitative Strategy 107 3.5.1 The Questions Asked 108 3.5.2 Conversational Space 113 3.6 Conclusion 119 Chapter 4 - Catholic Identity and Irish identities 121 4.1 Symbolic relationships towards the Catholic Church 123 4.2 Explaining symbolic identification 125 4.2.1 Negotiating the Catholic Church 128 4.3 How religion informs Irish identity 136 4.4 The Dublin Dynamic 141 4.5 Conclusion 143 Chapter 5 - The Irish Language and Irish Identity 147 5.1 Symbolic identifications towards the Irish language 149 5.1.1 The Generalised Other and the Irish language 152 5.2 Beyond the Symbolic Association of the Irish language 154 5.3 Contesting the Importance of the Irish language 159 5.4 Utilitarianism of language use 164 5.5 Conclusion 168 Chapter 6 - Contemporising Irishness -The General Celebratory Understanding of Irishness 173 6.1 Celebrating Irishness 175 6.1.1 The craic 182 6.1.2 Welcoming 190 6.1.3 Friendly 194 6.1.4 Internationalisation of identity reinforcement 198 6.2 Conclusion 207 Chapter 7 - Mobilising Irishness through Sports 210 7.1 The Importance of Sport 211 7.1.1 Gaelic Sports 214 7.1.2 Symbolic Significance of the GAA 217 7.1.3 The placement of GAA with young people 222 7.2 Soccer 231 7.2.1 The Symbolic Placement of Soccer 234 7.2.2 The importance of soccer 236 7.2.3 Irish sporting ethic 241 7.2.4 Celebrating cooperation 242 7.3 Conclusion 249 Chapter 8 - The American Other 252 8.1 Americanisation 254 8.1.1 American influences; watching televsion and listening to music 257 8.1.2 What Young People watch 257 8.1.3 What Young People listen to 261 8.2 Media effect upon identity 265 8.2.1 Media Context 268 8.3 Americans/America Framing Irish/Ireland 271 8.4 Irish-American bounding Irishness 275 8.5 Commercial pressures upon Irish identity 279 8.6 The American Dream 281 8.7 Role Model Identification 285 8.8 Hip-hop shaping identity 288 8.8.1 Hip-hop as marking difference and resistance 292 8.9 Conclusion 298 Chapter 9 - The Immigrant Other 301 9.1 Multiculturalism and Negotiating Immigrants 303 9.2 Placement of Immigrants 310 9.3 No Welfare, No Blacks, No Refugees 316 9.4 Addressing Difference 327 9.5 Conclusion 337 Chapter 10 - Urban Constructions of Irishness 341 10.1 Privileging Rural Ireland 342 10.2 Urban understandings of community, identity and belonging 349 10.3 Emphasising Modernity 360 10.4 Conclusion 365 Chapter 11 - Paradigms of Irishness for young people 369 11.1 Traditional Paradigm 373 11.1.1 Idealisation and tension 375 11.1.2 Selectivity 376 11.1.3 Criticality 378 11.2 Modern Paradigm 379 11.2.1 The Tra-modern conceptualisation 381 11.2.2 Modern Irish Identity 384 11.2.2.1 Othernesss 385 11.2.2.2 Difference within Irishness 386 11.2.2.3 Openness 387 11.2.3 Inventive Modern Irish 389 11.3 Post-modernising Paradigm 393 11.3.1 Contesting Irishness 396 11.3.2 Individualising Irishness 397 11.4 Conclusion 400 Appendices Appendix 1 – Questionnaire 407 Appendix 2 – Questioning Irishness 417 Appendix 3 – Possible questions to be asked in focus groups 425 Bibliography 428 Abstract The history of Ireland highlights how Irish identity has proved to be both an emotive and divisive force in Irish society. Events in both pre and post-independent Ireland point out how central Irishness has been within Irish society and also highlights how a sense of national identity has often been assumed as shared, natural and fundamentally taken for granted. Accepting that hegemonic understanding of Irishness change, so in 1900 – when Ireland was of course part of the United Kingdom – the dominant sense of Irishness may differ to that of 1971 or 2004, there can be no avoiding the position that people in Ireland remain firmly socialised through a discourse of nationalised identity. The aim of this research is to investigate how young people engage with this nationalised identity and position their own self-understandings of Irishness. Following on from explaining young peoples‟ sense of identity this research formalises their understandings of Irishness into particular paradigms of Irish identity. The findings show that though young people strongly identify with Irishness their understandings are often shifted around to accommodate varied meanings which can be implied of Irishness. Young people then hold both a solid and fluid sense of Irishness which allows shifting meanings of Irishness to fit contextual sitations. Young people may overwhelming identity with Irishness but in comparison to how emotive and essentially stable Irishness was for much of the Twentieth century, it is fair to say young people embrace a brand of Irishness that might be termed Light Irishness. i Acknowledgements Without the encouragement of certain people it would not have been possible to have completed this project. Professor Mary Corcoran, my supervisor, has been a source of constant support throughout my years at Maynooth and I gratefully acknowledge her advice and support throughout the period of this research. Also Dr. Brian Conway, my second supervisor, offered invaluable comments towards the completion of this draft. I would also like to thank the teachers and principals who facilitated the research but also – and perhaps most importantly – the young people who participated, as without their active engagement there would be no project to speak of. Thank you to Lazarus (now deceased), Steinbeck and Max – my dogs – for stimulating debate and providing a welcome distraction and allowing me to be their intellectual equal. To the people who make coffee and tobacco as without their help this project would have been a lot more stressful. To all the good people I‟ve encountered in Maynooth – Darragh, Niall and Mary – and the bad – Morgan and Tony, Maynooth‟s own Chuckle Brothers. Also importantly all the staff and students – far to many to list – at NUI Maynooth for their endless support. To Nick Cave and Nurse With Wound for providing a decent soundtrack to my life. And finally Ciara. You are my ambassador of quam – kind of – which along with this and everything else makes me love you. If you weren‟t here I really don‟t know what motivation I would have had to finish this, Luv U Poo. ii List of Tables Table 3.1 - Breakdown of Schools‟ profile that participated in the research 86 Table 3.2 - Schools rate of participation in questionnaire returns and/or focus groups 87 Table 3.3 - Symbols of Irishness and valency 97 Table 3.4 - Sample of how answers nominally coded with the Mean/Proportion and Standard Deviation of the answer given 104 Table 3.5 - Sample of how specific variables were designed alone with the Mean and Standard Deviation values for each variable 106 Table 4.1 - Gender and Class breakdown of personal symbolic attachment to the Catholic Church 124 Table 4.2 - Gender and Class breakdown of symbolic attachment to the Catholic Church for Generalised Other 125 Table 5.1 - Personal symbolic significance of the Irish Language and Speaking the Irish language 149 Table 5.2 - Class/Gender breakdown of personal symbolic attachment to the Irish language and Speaking the Irish language 150 Table 5.3 - Symbolic Importance of the Irish language and Speaking the Irish language as projected onto the Generalised Other 152 Table 5.4 Class/Gender breakdown of the Generalised Other‟s symbolic attachment to the Irish language and Speaking the Irish language 153 Table 6.1 Celebratory Symbols of Irishness 177 Table 6.2 Top seven ranked Symbols of Irishness 178 Table 6.3 Personal Symbolism of Irishness viewed through Class and Gender 179 Table 6.4 Identification towars Symbols of Irishness based upon Gender 180 Table 7.1 Symbolic Significance of the GAA 217 Table 7.2 Gender breakdown in personal and Generalised Other symbolical attachment to the GAA 218 iii Table 7.3 Gender and class breakdown in personal and Generalised Other symbolical attachment to the GAA 219 Table 7.4 Gender and class breakdown in personal and Generalised Other symbolical attachment to the Irish soccer team 234 Table 8.1 Country of origin programme preferences for young people 257 Table 8.2 Country of origin of programmes preferences based upon Gender and