Colin Coulter
Biographic Data
| ID | 3673578 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Colin Coulter |
| GIVEN NAMES | Colin |
| FAMILY NAME | Coulter |
| SIGNATURE | COULTER C |
| AFFILIATIONS | National University of Ireland, Maynooth |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-5445-4006 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 35 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 112 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 31 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 4 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1994 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2023 |
| H-INDEX | 6 |
Fearghus Roulston, Belfast Punk and the Troubles: An Oral History
Northern Ireland 25 years after the Good Friday Agreement: An introduction to the special issue
In this introduction, we set up a theme that runs through the special issue. There are, we suggest, two dominant readings of the Northern Irish peace process – one ‘liberal,’ the other ‘nationalist’ – that see the region in the process of becoming a multicultural (neo)liberal democracy, albeit in different constitutional settings. The teleogical nature of these perspectives means, however, that they fail to grasp what is perhaps the most essentia…
Seismic’ or stalemate? The (bio)politics of the 2021 Northern Ireland Census
This article provides a critical reading of the 2021 Census of Population in Northern Ireland. A close examination of the available data on religion and nationality leads us to suggest that the Census provides a distorted portrait of Northern Irish society in two crucial, and connected, senses. First, the operation of the Census creates incentives for many residents to identify in ethnoreligious terms who might not ordinarily do so. Second, the f…
Learning to live with ghosts: Spectres of “the Troubles” in contemporary Northern Irish cinema
That Northern Ireland remains profoundly troubled by its own violent past becomes readily apparent in many of the movies that have appeared since the Good Friday Agreement and not least those released since its tenth anniversary. In this article, I provide a broad sketch of recent Northern Irish cinema before moving to a close reading of two critically and commercially acclaimed features released in that period: Hunger (2008) and ’71 (2014). The …
Northern Ireland a generation after Good Friday: Lost futures and new horizons in the ‘long peace’
The Good Friday Agreement is widely celebrated as a political success story, one that has brought peace to a region previously synonymous across the globe with political violence. The truth, as ever, is rather more complicated than that. In many respects, the era of the peace process has seen Northern Irish society change almost beyond recognition. Those incidents of politically motivated violence that were once commonplace have become thankfully…
Good times for a change? Ireland since the general election
The 2020 Irish general election result was widely characterised as both a 'shock' and as a victory for the left. These claims are only partially true. The recent turn to the left was not a sudden development, but rather an expression of how the Irish political landscape has changed since the global financial crash. And while the electorate certainly appear more open to left-wing politics, the principal beneficiaries in terms of the popular vote (…
What Is This, the Seventies?” Spectres of the Past (and the Future) in Recent Northern Irish Television
For all the gains made during its celebrated peace process, Northern Ireland remains haunted by a conflict that claimed more than 3,700 lives. One of the spaces in which the ghosts of the past manifest themselves is that of television drama. In this article, Mark Fisher’s reading of “hauntology” provides the theoretical frame for an analysis of two recent TV series set in Northern Ireland: The Fall and Derry Girls. Although the programs could not…
The distortions of the Irish ‘recovery’
The return of the Irish Republic to economic growth after years of recession has been hailed as a vindication of the country’s adherence to strict austerity policies after the crash. In this article, we provide a critical reading of this familiar rendition of the recent turn in Ireland’s economic fortunes. We argue that the discourse of ‘recovery’ is an ideologically partisan reading that distorts the scale, origins and benefits of the recent spe…
Austerity’s Model Pupil: The Ideological Uses of Ireland during the Eurozone Crisis
During the Eurozone crisis, Ireland would come to be regarded widely as a ‘poster child’ for the remedial powers of the austerity agenda and as a ‘role model’ for the other heavily indebted states. In this article, we offer a critical reading of the narrative of an Irish ‘recovery’ that has gained currency over recent years. Tracing the genealogy of terms such as ‘poster child’ and ‘role model’ reveals that they predate the recent apparent reviva…
From the 'Long War' to the 'Long Peace: An introduction to the special edition
In this introduction, we set out to provide the appropriate historical context for the nine essays that follow. The article documents all of the tortuous course that the Northern Irish peace process has taken over the last two decades, but its principal focus falls on the period in which the previously unlikely pairing of Sinn Féin and the Democratic Unionist Party agreed to share power at Stormont. While the coalition partners were often at odds…
Northern Ireland's elusive peace dividend: Neoliberalism, austerity and the politics of class
The signing of the Good Friday Agreement was meant to signal an era of economic prosperity for those working-class communities that suffered most during the Troubles. Two decades on, this much vaunted 'peace dividend' has yet to materialise. A combination of persistent economic stagnation and the onset of austerity has ensured that the poverty and inequality that marked the era of political conflict continue to blight Northern Irish society. The …
The end of Irish history?: Critical reflections on the Celtic Tiger
The ethnic designation of our amorous hero ensures that a simple advertisement that might otherwise be considered entirely unworthy of comment actually comes to exercise a distinct cultural resonance.That the attractive swain who appears in the promotion should happen -or perhaps even aspire -to be Irish might perhaps be considered as emblematic of a rather broader and more profound change in the meaning(s) of that particular term.In historical t…
End of Irish History?: Reflections on the Celtic Tiger
Pitstop of Death’: Irish newspaper coverage of Iraq war protests at Shannon airport
The airport at Shannon, County Clare, in the west of Ireland, has been a strategically important US military stopping-point in the wars of the twenty-first century and consequently has at times become a focal point for the various forms of protest that have been adopted by the Irish peace movement. This study, drawing upon a database of Irish national newspaper articles dealing with the anti-war movement from September 2002 to May 2003 – a period…
Northern Ireland after the troubles: A society in transition
These people protesting might not be so strident if their own jobs were on the line’: Representations of the ‘economic consequences’ of opposition to the Iraq war in the Irish national press
In this article, the authors examine the ways in which the social movement in Ireland opposed to the Iraq war was represented in the national press. The article draws upon data generated by the largest research project of its type ever conducted in an Irish context. The authors considered representations of the anti-war movement in 11 daily and Sunday newspapers over a period of 9 months. One of the principal threads that ran through newspaper co…
Ireland under austerity
Ireland under Austerity: Neoliberal Crisis, Neoliberal Solutions
Ireland under austerity
The 'fireside chat' that dominated the media coverage of the high-tech conference offers certain indelible insights into the version of Irish society that has been forged out of the experience of crisis and austerity. The imposition of the austerity agenda has necessarily posed serious ideological difficulties for the Irish state. While the austerity agenda is invariably depicted as serving the interests of all, in reality it has served the inter…
British Rights for British Citizens’: The Campaign for ‘Equal Citizenship’ for Northern Ireland
This essay traces the evolution of the demand that the principal British political parties should extend organisation to Northern Ireland. Although originally nurtured by a small Stalinist sect of the far left, the ideal of electoral integration or ‘equal citizenship’ would in time come to exercise considerable appeal among middle-class unionists disorientated by the 1985 Anglo-Irish Agreement. This unlikely political alliance would give rise to …
Not quite as British as Finchley: The failed attempt to bring British Conservatism to Northern Ireland
In a previous issue of Irish Studies Review I examined the unanticipated emergence in the late 1980s of a series of Conservative associations in Northern Ireland. In this follow-up article, I will seek to account for the subsequent swift and ignominious decline in the early 1990s of the Northern Irish Conservatives. While the fortunes of the Ulster Tories were undermined by a number of contingencies – the vagaries of parliamentary arithmetic and …
Northern Ireland: 20 Years After the Cease-Fires
In the closing months of 1994, the principal paramilitary organizations in Northern Ireland declared that their campaigns of violence were at an end. The cease-fires called by republican and loyalist groupings represented the most significant heralds of a complex process of conflict transformation that continues to unfold even twenty years on. In this introduction, we set out to map the key developments that have shaped the tortuous narrative of …
Under Which Constitutional Arrangement Would You Still Prefer to be Unemployed? Neoliberalism, the Peace Process, and the Politics of Class in Northern Ireland
This article seeks to critically examine the political economy of the Northern Irish “peace process.” When the principal paramilitary organizations in the region declared cease-fires in 1994, it was widely assumed that political progress would be followed by economic prosperity. However, this “peace dividend” has never fully materialized. Those working-class communities that were at the center of the Troubles have derived little economic benefit …
Peering in from the window ledge of the Union: The Anglo-Irish Agreement and the attempt to bring British Conservatism to Northern Ireland
In this article I examine one particular way in which the Anglo-Irish Agreement redefined unionist politics in the late 1980s. While the operation of “direct rule” had drawn the unionist middle classes ever closer to Britain in economic and cultural terms, it had also left them in a precarious position politically. The nature and scale of this political subservience was brought home dramatically in 1985 when the British government signed an inter…
Northern Ireland's Lost Opportunity: The Frustrated Promise of Political Loyalism: The End of Ulster Loyalism
Almost 20 years after the original paramilitary ceasefires, the peace process in Northern Ireland continues to chart a tortuous and, at times, perilous course. There are few moments in recent years
Northern Ireland a generation after Good Friday: Lost futures and new horizons in the ‘long peace’
The Good Friday Agreement is widely celebrated as a political success story, one that has brought peace to a region previously synonymous across the globe with political violence. The truth, as ever, is rather more complicated than that. In many respects, the era of the peace process has seen Northern Irish society change almost beyond recognition. Those incidents of politically motivated violence that were once commonplace have become thankfully…
The end of Irish history: Reflections on the Celtic Tiger
Ireland appears to be in the throes of a remarkable process of social change. Over the last decade, the apparently inescapable status of the twenty-six counties as an economic casualty has been dramatically reversed. In recent years, it has become commonplace for the Irish Republic to register formal rates of economic growth that are the envy of every other western European state. The purpose of this exciting new book is to systematically scrutin…
Under Which Constitutional Arrangement Would You Still Prefer to be Unemployed? Neoliberalism, the Peace Process, and the Politics of Class in Northern Ireland
This article seeks to critically examine the political economy of the Northern Irish “peace process.” When the principal paramilitary organizations in the region declared cease-fires in 1994, it was widely assumed that political progress would be followed by economic prosperity. However, this “peace dividend” has never fully materialized. Those working-class communities that were at the center of the Troubles have derived little economic benefit …
The character of unionism
This paper seeks to offer a critical examination of the existing literature on unionism in Northern Ireland. It contends that recent interpretations have typically failed to grasp fully the essential diversity of the unionist mind. In particular, commentators have proved content to overlook those sécular and liberal impulses that inform the political imagination of modern unionism. The paper concludes with a brief discussion concerning how social…
Northern Ireland's elusive peace dividend: Neoliberalism, austerity and the politics of class
The signing of the Good Friday Agreement was meant to signal an era of economic prosperity for those working-class communities that suffered most during the Troubles. Two decades on, this much vaunted 'peace dividend' has yet to materialise. A combination of persistent economic stagnation and the onset of austerity has ensured that the poverty and inequality that marked the era of political conflict continue to blight Northern Irish society. The …
The Absence of Class Politics in Northern Ireland
These are scarcely auspicious times for the left. An unfortunate confluence of recent social and political trends has conspired to question seriously the value of materialist interpretations of the world. The reconstruction of western societies out of the debris of the economic crises of the nineteen seventies has led to the emergence of increasingly intricate class hierarchies. Changed work practices and accelerated consumption have both served …
From the 'Long War' to the 'Long Peace: An introduction to the special edition
In this introduction, we set out to provide the appropriate historical context for the nine essays that follow. The article documents all of the tortuous course that the Northern Irish peace process has taken over the last two decades, but its principal focus falls on the period in which the previously unlikely pairing of Sinn Féin and the Democratic Unionist Party agreed to share power at Stormont. While the coalition partners were often at odds…
Northern Ireland: 20 Years After the Cease-Fires
In the closing months of 1994, the principal paramilitary organizations in Northern Ireland declared that their campaigns of violence were at an end. The cease-fires called by republican and loyalist groupings represented the most significant heralds of a complex process of conflict transformation that continues to unfold even twenty years on. In this introduction, we set out to map the key developments that have shaped the tortuous narrative of …
Learning to live with ghosts: Spectres of “the Troubles” in contemporary Northern Irish cinema
That Northern Ireland remains profoundly troubled by its own violent past becomes readily apparent in many of the movies that have appeared since the Good Friday Agreement and not least those released since its tenth anniversary. In this article, I provide a broad sketch of recent Northern Irish cinema before moving to a close reading of two critically and commercially acclaimed features released in that period: Hunger (2008) and ’71 (2014). The …
Austerity’s Model Pupil: The Ideological Uses of Ireland during the Eurozone Crisis
During the Eurozone crisis, Ireland would come to be regarded widely as a ‘poster child’ for the remedial powers of the austerity agenda and as a ‘role model’ for the other heavily indebted states. In this article, we offer a critical reading of the narrative of an Irish ‘recovery’ that has gained currency over recent years. Tracing the genealogy of terms such as ‘poster child’ and ‘role model’ reveals that they predate the recent apparent reviva…
The origins of the Northern Ireland conservatives
This article sets out to tell the story of the Conservative associations that appeared in parts of Northern Ireland in the late nineteen eighties. Ironically, the emergence of the Ulster Tories may be attributed largely to the activities of a small leftist sect. Throughout the seventies and eighties the British & Irish Communist Organisation (B&ICO) developed and advanced an ideological programme of ‘electoral integrationism’. While the case for …
Northern Ireland 25 years after the Good Friday Agreement: An introduction to the special issue
In this introduction, we set up a theme that runs through the special issue. There are, we suggest, two dominant readings of the Northern Irish peace process – one ‘liberal,’ the other ‘nationalist’ – that see the region in the process of becoming a multicultural (neo)liberal democracy, albeit in different constitutional settings. The teleogical nature of these perspectives means, however, that they fail to grasp what is perhaps the most essentia…
Seismic’ or stalemate? The (bio)politics of the 2021 Northern Ireland Census
This article provides a critical reading of the 2021 Census of Population in Northern Ireland. A close examination of the available data on religion and nationality leads us to suggest that the Census provides a distorted portrait of Northern Irish society in two crucial, and connected, senses. First, the operation of the Census creates incentives for many residents to identify in ethnoreligious terms who might not ordinarily do so. Second, the f…
The distortions of the Irish ‘recovery’
The return of the Irish Republic to economic growth after years of recession has been hailed as a vindication of the country’s adherence to strict austerity policies after the crash. In this article, we provide a critical reading of this familiar rendition of the recent turn in Ireland’s economic fortunes. We argue that the discourse of ‘recovery’ is an ideologically partisan reading that distorts the scale, origins and benefits of the recent spe…
Peering in from the window ledge of the Union: The Anglo-Irish Agreement and the attempt to bring British Conservatism to Northern Ireland
In this article I examine one particular way in which the Anglo-Irish Agreement redefined unionist politics in the late 1980s. While the operation of “direct rule” had drawn the unionist middle classes ever closer to Britain in economic and cultural terms, it had also left them in a precarious position politically. The nature and scale of this political subservience was brought home dramatically in 1985 when the British government signed an inter…
What Is This, the Seventies?” Spectres of the Past (and the Future) in Recent Northern Irish Television
For all the gains made during its celebrated peace process, Northern Ireland remains haunted by a conflict that claimed more than 3,700 lives. One of the spaces in which the ghosts of the past manifest themselves is that of television drama. In this article, Mark Fisher’s reading of “hauntology” provides the theoretical frame for an analysis of two recent TV series set in Northern Ireland: The Fall and Derry Girls. Although the programs could not…
British Rights for British Citizens’: The Campaign for ‘Equal Citizenship’ for Northern Ireland
This essay traces the evolution of the demand that the principal British political parties should extend organisation to Northern Ireland. Although originally nurtured by a small Stalinist sect of the far left, the ideal of electoral integration or ‘equal citizenship’ would in time come to exercise considerable appeal among middle-class unionists disorientated by the 1985 Anglo-Irish Agreement. This unlikely political alliance would give rise to …
Not quite as British as Finchley: The failed attempt to bring British Conservatism to Northern Ireland
In a previous issue of Irish Studies Review I examined the unanticipated emergence in the late 1980s of a series of Conservative associations in Northern Ireland. In this follow-up article, I will seek to account for the subsequent swift and ignominious decline in the early 1990s of the Northern Irish Conservatives. While the fortunes of the Ulster Tories were undermined by a number of contingencies – the vagaries of parliamentary arithmetic and …
Class, Ethnicity and Political Identity in Northern Ireland
The formal purpose of this paper is to offer a critical examination of the social and political philosophy of electoral integrationism. The critique of electoral integrationism is employed as a means by which to explore the relationship between class, ethnicity and political identity in contemporary Northern Ireland. The paper tenders two principal contentions. First, I challenge the view that the ethnoreligious divisions existent within the prov…
The character of unionism
This paper seeks to offer a critical examination of the existing literature on unionism in Northern Ireland. It contends that recent interpretations have typically failed to grasp fully the essential diversity of the unionist mind. In particular, commentators have proved content to overlook those sécular and liberal impulses that inform the political imagination of modern unionism. The paper concludes with a brief discussion concerning how social…
Direct Rule and the Unionist Middle Classes
In March 1972, as the political climate in Northern Ireland degenerated apace, the Conservative administration in London exercised its constitutional prerogative and dissolved the devolved legislature at Stormont. The introduction of ‘direct rule’ from Westminster represents a significant watershed in the development of modern Northern Ireland. The operation of direct rule over the past two decades has initiated a ‘passive revolution’ which has t…
Contemporary Northern Irish Society: An Introduction
Contemporary Northern Irish Society: An Introduction
This is a critical overview of the various sources of social and political identity in Northern Ireland. The book examines the key variables of sociology - status, class and gender and, in this case, ethno-religion - and explains why ethno-religious sentiment has become the principle source of political identity. A range of themes are covered: the role and status of women; the representations of the conflict and peace process in the media; sport;…
The Absence of Class Politics in Northern Ireland
These are scarcely auspicious times for the left. An unfortunate confluence of recent social and political trends has conspired to question seriously the value of materialist interpretations of the world. The reconstruction of western societies out of the debris of the economic crises of the nineteen seventies has led to the emergence of increasingly intricate class hierarchies. Changed work practices and accelerated consumption have both served …
Unionists after Unionism
Over the last 30 years, the conflict that has overtaken Northern Ireland has often \nseemed like it would never cease. People living in the region have routinely \ndespaired at the prospects of a lasting peace. Academics and other political \ncommentators have been conspicuous among the despondent. In the last decade, \nhowever, the perennial political gloom that shrouds Northern Ireland has \napparently begun to lift. The political events the re…
The origins of the Northern Ireland conservatives
This article sets out to tell the story of the Conservative associations that appeared in parts of Northern Ireland in the late nineteen eighties. Ironically, the emergence of the Ulster Tories may be attributed largely to the activities of a small leftist sect. Throughout the seventies and eighties the British & Irish Communist Organisation (B&ICO) developed and advanced an ideological programme of ‘electoral integrationism’. While the case for …
The end of Irish history: Reflections on the Celtic Tiger
Ireland appears to be in the throes of a remarkable process of social change. Over the last decade, the apparently inescapable status of the twenty-six counties as an economic casualty has been dramatically reversed. In recent years, it has become commonplace for the Irish Republic to register formal rates of economic growth that are the envy of every other western European state. The purpose of this exciting new book is to systematically scrutin…
The new world order of things
These are truly fearful times that we are living through. In the United Nations, attempts to arrive at a diplomatic resolution of the crisis continue apace. The choreography of process serves little though to conceal the absolute certainty of outcome. The script of this war was crafted in Washington many months ago. In the next few days, the full military might of the world's sole remaining superpower will be unleashed on the beleaguered peoples …
Peering in from the window ledge of the Union: The Anglo-Irish Agreement and the attempt to bring British Conservatism to Northern Ireland
In this article I examine one particular way in which the Anglo-Irish Agreement redefined unionist politics in the late 1980s. While the operation of “direct rule” had drawn the unionist middle classes ever closer to Britain in economic and cultural terms, it had also left them in a precarious position politically. The nature and scale of this political subservience was brought home dramatically in 1985 when the British government signed an inter…
Northern Ireland's Lost Opportunity: The Frustrated Promise of Political Loyalism: The End of Ulster Loyalism
Almost 20 years after the original paramilitary ceasefires, the peace process in Northern Ireland continues to chart a tortuous and, at times, perilous course. There are few moments in recent years
Northern Ireland: 20 Years After the Cease-Fires
In the closing months of 1994, the principal paramilitary organizations in Northern Ireland declared that their campaigns of violence were at an end. The cease-fires called by republican and loyalist groupings represented the most significant heralds of a complex process of conflict transformation that continues to unfold even twenty years on. In this introduction, we set out to map the key developments that have shaped the tortuous narrative of …
Under Which Constitutional Arrangement Would You Still Prefer to be Unemployed? Neoliberalism, the Peace Process, and the Politics of Class in Northern Ireland
This article seeks to critically examine the political economy of the Northern Irish “peace process.” When the principal paramilitary organizations in the region declared cease-fires in 1994, it was widely assumed that political progress would be followed by economic prosperity. However, this “peace dividend” has never fully materialized. Those working-class communities that were at the center of the Troubles have derived little economic benefit …
Ireland under austerity
Ireland under Austerity: Neoliberal Crisis, Neoliberal Solutions
Ireland under austerity
The 'fireside chat' that dominated the media coverage of the high-tech conference offers certain indelible insights into the version of Irish society that has been forged out of the experience of crisis and austerity. The imposition of the austerity agenda has necessarily posed serious ideological difficulties for the Irish state. While the austerity agenda is invariably depicted as serving the interests of all, in reality it has served the inter…
British Rights for British Citizens’: The Campaign for ‘Equal Citizenship’ for Northern Ireland
This essay traces the evolution of the demand that the principal British political parties should extend organisation to Northern Ireland. Although originally nurtured by a small Stalinist sect of the far left, the ideal of electoral integration or ‘equal citizenship’ would in time come to exercise considerable appeal among middle-class unionists disorientated by the 1985 Anglo-Irish Agreement. This unlikely political alliance would give rise to …
Not quite as British as Finchley: The failed attempt to bring British Conservatism to Northern Ireland
In a previous issue of Irish Studies Review I examined the unanticipated emergence in the late 1980s of a series of Conservative associations in Northern Ireland. In this follow-up article, I will seek to account for the subsequent swift and ignominious decline in the early 1990s of the Northern Irish Conservatives. While the fortunes of the Ulster Tories were undermined by a number of contingencies – the vagaries of parliamentary arithmetic and …
Northern Ireland after the troubles: A society in transition
These people protesting might not be so strident if their own jobs were on the line’: Representations of the ‘economic consequences’ of opposition to the Iraq war in the Irish national press
In this article, the authors examine the ways in which the social movement in Ireland opposed to the Iraq war was represented in the national press. The article draws upon data generated by the largest research project of its type ever conducted in an Irish context. The authors considered representations of the anti-war movement in 11 daily and Sunday newspapers over a period of 9 months. One of the principal threads that ran through newspaper co…
The end of Irish history?: Critical reflections on the Celtic Tiger
The ethnic designation of our amorous hero ensures that a simple advertisement that might otherwise be considered entirely unworthy of comment actually comes to exercise a distinct cultural resonance.That the attractive swain who appears in the promotion should happen -or perhaps even aspire -to be Irish might perhaps be considered as emblematic of a rather broader and more profound change in the meaning(s) of that particular term.In historical t…
End of Irish History?: Reflections on the Celtic Tiger
Pitstop of Death’: Irish newspaper coverage of Iraq war protests at Shannon airport
The airport at Shannon, County Clare, in the west of Ireland, has been a strategically important US military stopping-point in the wars of the twenty-first century and consequently has at times become a focal point for the various forms of protest that have been adopted by the Irish peace movement. This study, drawing upon a database of Irish national newspaper articles dealing with the anti-war movement from September 2002 to May 2003 – a period…
Austerity’s Model Pupil: The Ideological Uses of Ireland during the Eurozone Crisis
During the Eurozone crisis, Ireland would come to be regarded widely as a ‘poster child’ for the remedial powers of the austerity agenda and as a ‘role model’ for the other heavily indebted states. In this article, we offer a critical reading of the narrative of an Irish ‘recovery’ that has gained currency over recent years. Tracing the genealogy of terms such as ‘poster child’ and ‘role model’ reveals that they predate the recent apparent reviva…
Irish and British Studies (30 works) · Political science (28 works) · Irish (24 works) · Politics (23 works) · Sociology (23 works) · Law (22 works) · Political economy (20 works) · Law (19 works) · History (16 works) · Ethnology (12 works)