Belatedness

Bibliographic Data

ID23655657
AuthorsCillian Mcgrattan (0000-0002-3835-5654, Swansea University, corresponding author)
Year2013
Pages20-38
Publication date2013-01-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeCHAPTER
VenueMemory, Politics and Identity (SOURCE_BOOK)
PublisherPalgrave Macmillan UK (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1057/9781137291790_3
OpenAlexW4256012150
ISBN9781137291790
LanguageEN
References cited35

Writing on the occasion of the first visit to the Irish Republic by a British monarch since independence in May 2011, the Sinn Féin leader, Gerry Adams, described it as an ‘opportunity’. 1 Like many commentators, Adams framed the visit within the context of the peace process, with the unprecedented security operation and the callow protest from the republican pressure group Éirígí providing a contrasting backdrop to the rhetorical tropes of the post-1998 Belfast/Good Friday Agreement period. 2 Thus, he argued, the peace process ‘transformed the political landscape in Ireland and [has] resulted in a peaceful dispensation based on an historic accord between Irish nationalism and unionism’. In this vision, the 1998 Agreement represented a ‘foundation upon which new relationships ... can be forged’. What that forging would entail, Adams explained, was a reassertion of Irish sovereignty and independence. On the one hand, this entailed the need for people on the island of Ireland to make political decisions free from interference by Britain. On the other, that reassertion would also entail a reshaping of political identities: the new Ireland must embrace our island’s diversity in its fullest sense. This includes English and Scottish influences, the sense of Britishness felt by many unionists, as well as indigenous and traditional Irish culture and the cultures of people who have come to Ireland in recent times. 3 In short, the visit of a monarch whose six decades on the throne witnessed Britain moving from the end-days of Empire to a multicultural state would allow Ireland to throw off the shackles of its colonial heritage and claim its place at the table of the post-modern, neo-liberal world order. 4 These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.

Britishness · Independence (probability theory) · Irish · Irish nationalism · Nationalism · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Sovereignty · History · Irish and British Studies · Law · Migration, Refugees, and Integration

Tools

Open DOILibgen