Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Figures and tables
- Acknowledgements
- Editors’ note
- Foreword
- Foreword
- Chapter 1 Conditions under which language policy affects social stability
- Chapter 2 The case of the Catalan language: Some lessons
- Chapter 3 Language and hegemonic power: How feasible is conflict management by means of language policy?
- Chapter 4 The language issue and the quest for lasting peace in Africa: Prospects and challenges
- Chapter 5 The role of language in the process of constructing, preserving and reinforcing peace in Africa
- Chapter 6 Language policy and identity conflict in relation to Afrikaans in the post-apartheid era
- Chapter 7 Linguistic politics and the Northern Ireland peace process
- Chapter 8 Language policy and conflict management: A view from Galicia
- Chapter 9 Overcoming ethno-liguistic divisions: Developing educational materials in post-war Bosnia-Herzegovina
- Chapter 10 On language and peace: Some theological remarks
- Abbreviations and glossary
- Author biographies
Chapter 7 - Linguistic politics and the Northern Ireland peace process
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 19 March 2020
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Figures and tables
- Acknowledgements
- Editors’ note
- Foreword
- Foreword
- Chapter 1 Conditions under which language policy affects social stability
- Chapter 2 The case of the Catalan language: Some lessons
- Chapter 3 Language and hegemonic power: How feasible is conflict management by means of language policy?
- Chapter 4 The language issue and the quest for lasting peace in Africa: Prospects and challenges
- Chapter 5 The role of language in the process of constructing, preserving and reinforcing peace in Africa
- Chapter 6 Language policy and identity conflict in relation to Afrikaans in the post-apartheid era
- Chapter 7 Linguistic politics and the Northern Ireland peace process
- Chapter 8 Language policy and conflict management: A view from Galicia
- Chapter 9 Overcoming ethno-liguistic divisions: Developing educational materials in post-war Bosnia-Herzegovina
- Chapter 10 On language and peace: Some theological remarks
- Abbreviations and glossary
- Author biographies
Summary
This article concentrates on the role of language in the political horse-trading that characterised the final stages of the Northern Ireland peace process. Much has necessarily been left unsaid. My excuse for producing an account in primary colours is that while the Good Friday Agreement of 1998, a political settlement, is itself full of ambiguity – sometimes involving a creative fudge, sometimes bordering on the incoherent – debates among our politicians around cultural issues tend to be simplistic, reductive and polarised. My own work, which involves promoting the Irish language on a cross-community basis in Northern Ireland, has made me aware that, among the general public, positions on the language issue can be complex, nuanced, contradictory and ambivalent, but to deal with such complexity adequately would require a much longer work and an entirely different approach.
I will begin by establishing the context of this theme, or, rather, by establishing a number of contexts – political, historical, ideological and linguistic. The main focus will be on the issue of the Irish language, around which most of the political controversy originated, with some references to Ulster Scots, which did not become a political issue until very recently.
A little background will first be necessary. Northern Ireland is currently working its way out of a long conflict best described as a low-intensity war. The core issue in the conflict is Northern Ireland's constitutional status: on one side are those with a British political identity, unionists, who wish to remain within the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland; on the other are those with an Irish political identity, nationalists, who wish to break the union with the UK and join (they would say rejoin) the southern state in a united Ireland. The society is also sharply divided along religious lines, and there is a high – if diminishing – correlation between political and religious identity, nationalists tending to be Catholic, and unionists tending to be Protestant. The conflation of political and religious identities is reflected in an official designation which is not replicated anywhere else in the United Kingdom, that of ‘perceived Catholic’ and ‘perceived Protestant’.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Language Policy and the Promotion of PeaceAfrican and European case studies, pp. 77 - 92Publisher: University of South AfricaPrint publication year: 2014