‘Conflicting histories: approaching the ethnic history of Ireland'.

 

In Oral History 30, 2, 85-92

 

In Ireland, certain popular versions of history 'belong' to particular segments of society[1].Specifically, there are nationalist and unionist versions of history, found most vitally in the oral tradition.These ethnic histories provide an important basis for political rhetoric; they are a focus for group loyalties; and they are a source of inspiration - providing practical models for action in a modern context[2].In writing about Ireland, the historian will inevitably confront these important historical ideas. More than this, the oral historian will meet people whose views come from these traditions.

Nobody today can write history or social science hoping that his or her work will go unnoticed by the public.Those who, like me, are museum curators or oral historians are likely to feel the easy accessibility of their work with an extra force.The oral historian knows that the informants who offered him much hospitality and consideration are likely to read his publications with some interest.The museum curator must not only publish articles and books, but must also put on public exhibitions aimed at a wide public.However, the situation of the curator and the oral historian is only a special version of one common to all historians.

This article asks what might be a responsible attitude to representing history in a situation of conflict likethe one found in Ireland. A starting point is undoubtedly that historians, in general, want to be truthful.They want to present their findings in a way that is true to their understanding of the topic.However, they may also feel a need to be more generally constructive, particularly, as in Ireland, where serious social divisions have led to a continuing shedding of blood.Sometimes, the historian may want to respect those people whose lives and sensibilities he is dissecting, striving to make a positive contribution in a difficult situation. Sometimes, however, the historian may want to take up the sword of righteousness, praising good, condemning evil and particularly exposing the truth, however harsh. And sometimes, in the face of the social divisions of past and present, the historian may want to take sides.A certain tension exists, therefore, between these different approaches.

One important school of Irish scholarship, called 'revisionism', has nailed the historian's colours to the mast of scientific method. Revisionist history attempts to dispel the 'myths' of the ethnic histories. This is an attractive idea, which appeals to the instincts of those whose professional lives are concerned with the sifting and weighing of evidence.Unfortunately, as I shall argue, the idea of a value-free history is itself a myth.No matter what one's intentions, to practice history is to engage with present-day politics. Importantly too, to dismiss the 'myths' of ethnic history is to attack the people who gain comfort and self-worth from these narratives.It is too easy to see the 'myths' as merely wrong, and their upholders as merely wicked, but neither proposition bears serious examination.

Another approach is multicultural history.Multiculturalism tries to present a history acceptable to both sides or which tries to treat the historical traditions of both sides with some fairness and sensitivity.Such an approach, however, also has difficulties.Not least is the fact that that some forms of history - popular, otherwise - cry out for refutation, being untrue and occasionally malign.

No easy answers therefore can be found to the presentation of history. Ethnic histories in Ireland are in part an expression of the pain arising from the chronic condition of ethnic conflict that became acute in the late 1960s.Many people in the north of Ireland nowadays feel a deep dismay that they and their friends have been so long under threat. Many too have relatives and friends who have been killed or maimed in the Northern Irish Troubles. At the very least, most resent the disruption that the Troubles have brought.Many Protestants, for example, feel very bitter at the atrocities, including bombings, shootings and ethnic cleansing, and some resent their diminished social status.Nationalists too can elaborate whole catalogues of real injustices - from internment and Bloody Sunday downwards - that have taken place over decades.The historical traditions on both sides, referring to a more distant past, give a broader perspective to their real apprehension of having been wronged in the more recent present.One may want to think twice before attacking these people, their history, and their sense of hurt.

ETHNIC HISTORY

In Ireland, there is a well-established form of 'nationalist' history[3], which sees the conflict in Ireland as one between British and Irish, Protestants and Catholics, colonisers and colonised, oppressors and oppressed.The idea here is that, from at least the twelfth century, and especially in the seventeenth century, the British invaded Ireland, stealing her land, and despoiling her culture. The Irish were forced to live lives of poverty, eating a diet of little more than potatoes.In this difficult life, they were sustained by a simple faith in their Church to which, despite persecution, they remained loyal.The modern-day implication of this history is that the British should relinquish their residual claim to rule in the North of Ireland and give back the land of Ireland to the native Irish.

In contrast, there are specifically Protestant forms of history[4].One major group of historical stories concerns the narrative of the Williamite (or Jacobite) wars (1688-91).Some of the events of these wars are commemorated by Protestant brotherhoods.One such organisation, the Apprentice Boys of Derry, celebrates twice annually the Siege of Derry of 1688-9.The Orange Order commemorates the Battle of the Boyne (1690) on the Twelfth of July.This same victory is also commemorated by the Royal Black Institution with a 'Sham Fight' between King William and King James in the County Down village of Scarva on 13 July.These historical narratives suggest that the Protestants were constitutional monarchists threatened by the forces of an absolutist monarchy and an authoritarian religion[5].

Although these historical traditions still exist in historical writing, they are more readily found in oral tradition.For example, Irish nationalist historical rhetoric is expressed through occasional oblique references in political speeches.It also occurs on the banners of the Catholic organisation, the Ancient Order of Hibernians[6].Here are to be found pictures of Irish heroes, St Patrick above all, but also Rory Og O More, Patrick Sarsfield, Redmond and others.A similar pantheon is painted on the banners of the Orange, and Apprentice Boys organizations.These depict the battles of the Williamite wars, notably the Battle of the Boyne and the Siege of Derry, but the banners also reflect a wide vista of Protestant history[7].These speeches, these banners, and indeed the processions where they are displayed evoke and recall the traditional histories, which are known mainly by word of mouth. The stories, however, are ones that 'everybody knows' but that few people explicitly recount.

Another highly developed idea is that Ulster Protestants are descended from the aboriginal inhabitants of Ulster who were driven out of Ireland by the Gaels in the fifth century AD.According to this view, the Protestant conquest of Ireland in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries was a reconquest by a people who had previously been expelled.The two basic versions of this idea have their origins in written publications, but both have passed into oral tradition.

The first version was elaborated in a series of books by a Belfast doctor, Ian Adamson[8].Adamson claims that one of the earliest tribes in Ulster was a people closely related to the Scottish Picts called the Cruthin. The territory of the Cruthin, he says, was progressively invaded by the Gaels until they were driven out to live in Scotland.These Cruthinic people migrated from Lowland Scotland back to Ulster in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.In the 1970s, this Cruthinic theory of Ulster history gained a considerable following in the largest Protestant paramilitary group, the Ulster Defence Association and then more generally among Ulster Protestants, not least in Ulster Unionist Party circles.

The other version of this story is known as 'British Israel'.British Israelism has its origin in the writings of a nineteenth century Englishman, Edward Hine[9]. Nowadays, however, the easiest way to find British Israelite views is to attend the meetings of enthusiasts and to supplement this attendance with interviews.As one might expect, these Northern Irish sources give a specifically Irish slant to Hine's theories[10].The oral history collection in the Ulster Folk and Transport Museum includes sermons that reflect this same view[11].

British Israelites claim that Ulster Protestants are descended from the lost ten tribes of Israel, or more specifically from the biblical tribe of Dan. They say that the Northern Kingdom of Israel, dispersed at the time of the Babylonian exile, reassembled in the British Isles, which is the real 'Promised Land' given to Jacob in the book of Genesis.This opinion is held by a small minority in many Protestant churches, but it forms a disproportionate strand in the debates of unionism. For a time, it had currency in the second largest Protestant paramilitary organisation, the Ulster Volunteer Force, a segment of which (known as Tara) actively espoused British Israelite views.

Closely related to these Protestant historical theories has been the revival of an Ulster Scots identity.This notion revives an opposition between Presbyterianism derived from Scotland, and the Episcopalian tradition that came from England, an opposition that had been in decline since the 1860s or earlier[12].Disillusioned with the connection with Britain, and especially with England, some Ulster Protestants have used this idea to carve out a distinct Ulster identity, which is neither British nor Irish, but which delineates a special symbolic distance from England.One feature of this movement has been the revival of a distinctively Ulster Scots identity associated with the language and culture of the north east of Ulster.

From the late 1980s, there was growing interest in the idea that the speech found in the north east of Ulster and in parts of Co Donegal is not a dialect of English, but a distinctive language. It is a view consistent with British Israelism, but it is particularly allied to Ian Adamson's Cruthin argument. In consequence of this agitation, the Ulster Scots language is now widely recognised, not least in the Belfast Agreement of Good Friday, 1999.

It is easy to condemn this kind of rhetorical use of the past, particularly when we see it done by others, but actually, it is ubiquitous. In Britain, for example, the Second World War provides an important source of images useful for rhetorical purposes.In the United States, the Vietnam War seems to have a similar role.Indeed, not only the past, but also foreign countries are used in this manner.By talking about foreigners, we define ourselves in much the same way as when we talk about the past.In the 1930s, for example, one could locate oneself in the political spectrum by taking a position on the Spanish Civil War.More recently, one could do the same by talking about Chile or South Africa.In the early twenty-first century, one can define oneself by talking about the Middle East. These external situations, partly because of their exotic nature, provide a source of metaphors and rhetoric for situations closer at home. To borrow an idea from Lévi Strauss, foreigners and people in the past, like totemic animal species, are both similar to and different from ourselves.Since they are also somewhat distant, they are easily stereotyped.Therefore, they are bons à penser, good to think with[13].

The rhetorical purpose of ethnic history in Ireland, whether Protestant or Catholic, is centrally to show that one side in the Northern Irish conflict is more deserving of good treatment than the other.Thus, nationalist history explains that British people have treated Irish people badly in the past, and that the Irish therefore deserve restitution in the present.Unionist history, on the contrary, seeks to undermine nationalist rhetoric and suggests on the contrary that the Unionists' claims have the greater validity. And by upholding the claims of one side and not another, the speaker or writer can define his or her status, allegiances and identity in the present day.

REVISIONISM

At first sight, the example of popular ethnic history in Ireland suggests that one cannot write history without taking sides.An important school of Irish historiography, however, has contested this idea. Its proponents allege that their history is 'scientific', and therefore distinct from the 'myths' of ethnic history.It is, therefore, a kind of positivism, but it is commonly called 'revisionism'.

Revisionism arose in the 1960s in opposition to the then dominant nationalist version of history.Kenneth Connell wrote some important essays, under the title Irish Peasant Society[14], casting doubt on the idea that rural Ireland was a haven of Catholic piety. One essay described ether drinking and documented the risks associated with this practice.Death, it was said, could follow not just from intoxication, but also from explosion when the drinker came near to a naked flame.Other essays transformed the image of Ireland's sexual chastity.Late bachelorhood among Irish farmers did not signify sanctity.It was a blight imposed on sons by fathers anxious to keep control over their farms.Another essay by Connell[15] disclosed that the potato, long seen as a symbol of British oppression, was in fact a nutritious vegetable. Ten pounds of potatoes per day, washed down with cups of milk, produced the spectacularly rude health for which Irish manhood was famous.These essays shook the certainties of nationalist historiography.

So too with later revisionists.Piety remained a special target.Sean Connolly[16] documented the unofficial religious practices before the Irish famine.These included drunkenness at wakes and patterns, and a veritable unofficial religion in the form of fairy-belief.Official Catholicism, he says, found many of these practices disreputable, but only after the trauma of the famine could the Church assert its authority, and suppress such practices.

In a different vein, Don Akenson questioned the existence of a distinctively Irish Catholic character different from that of the Irish Protestants.He concluded, quoting Freud, that Irish identities were 'the narcissism of small differences'[17].

More recently, revisionism has criticised Protestant 'mythology'. Morgan, for example, has attacked Adamson's Cruthin theory, calling it 'nonsense' and declaring that Adamson has 'a brass neck in expounding it'[18].Less vociferously, I have heard archaeologists complain privately that, in the (actually quite distant) past, British Israelites have disturbed Irish archaeological sites when looking for the Ark of the Covenant.

In the 1990s, the Ulster Scots language has been a particular target. The historical linguist, John Kirk, has attacked the claims of Ulster Scots enthusiasts, claiming that by linguistic standards, the speech of North East Ulster is a dialect of English, and not a distinct language[19].

Aidan Mac Póilin argues a similar case.What devotees claim to be Ulster Scots, he says, is a form of language that has been 'maximally differentiated' from normal English.Words found in Standard English are neglected in favour of archaic, obsolete or otherwise obscure dialect words.Latinate words are discarded in favour of those derived from Anglo-Saxon.This contrived form of 'Ulster Scots' therefore appears exotic to Standard English speakers, almost a foreign language.Mac Póilin links his argument with an attack on notions of the Cruthin and the Lost Tribes of Israel[20].

The moral to be drawn is that revisionism, for all its positivist claims and scholarly weight, cannot be portrayed as dispassionate.No less than the views it attacks, it is a form of political rhetoric directed in this case against the religiosity and ethnic chauvinism found among the urban lower classes, and in certain rural areas.

As with ethnic history, revisionist history serves as a marker of identity[21].It differentiates the liberal historian from other writers who propagate an ethnically orientated 'mythology'. It further denies these ethnic causes the fruits of their own rhetoric.Irish nationalist history has indeed wilted under the long onslaught.With only occasional exceptions, one can find Irish nationalist historical ideas only in popular legend, or in disguised form as an attack on Protestant 'mythology'.The historical and now historical-linguistic rhetoric found among Protestants is under a similar pressure to leave the field.

It seems reasonable to see the revisionists' attack on ethnic history as just another kind of historical rhetoric, albeit one backed by the artillery of scholarly skill.The myth put out by revisionist historians is that the revisionists write 'real history', while the ethnic historians, on the contrary, write 'myth'.

In fact, there is often little to choose between ethnic history and 'real' history.For example, an unashamedly committed history of the siege of Derry written by Ian Paisley's deputy, the Democratic Unionist MP Peter Robinson, is broadly correct in both fact and interpretation[22].His 'bias' boils down the fact that he applauds those (largely Protestant) people he regards as heroes, and disapproves of the (generally Catholic) people he sees as villains.

The point, however, is that it is improper to characterise one set of views as myth and the other as the product of impartial scholarship.Both sides in these different debates appeal to the evidence (though professional scholars, of course, have an advantage over the often-amateur ethnic historians).And both sides make out a case heavy in a political rhetoric that is relevant to modern-day concerns.Nevertheless, even those who claim to be scientists are also partial.

MULTICULTURAL ALTERNATIVES

Another response to Ireland's ethnic histories has been multiculturalism.This approach tries to avoid taking sides and attributing blame.As with other rhetorical stances, multiculturalism in Northern Ireland has its origins in specific social circumstances.Some of these are extraneous; others indigenous to Northern Ireland.

One source of multiculturalism has undoubtedly been the expatriates, particularly from Britain, who are detached from the two main ethnic groups, and who are sometimes unwilling to take sides in local disputes[23].Multiculturalism in Ireland - like multiculturalism in relation to the ethnic minorities of Great Britain - has distant origins in the British colonies of Africa[24].In the 1980s, it emerged as a political policy in Ireland under the auspices of the British Government. Its most obvious manifestation was an official body, the Community Relations Council, whose aim was to encourage the culture's diversity.A slogan of this multicultural movement was that all ethnic and other groups should have 'parity of esteem'.

An informal, non-political multiculturalism, however, is also indigenous to Northern Ireland.Even during the most difficult periods of Ulster's troubles, anthropological studies indicated that many people wanted to cultivate close and harmonious relationships across the sectarian divide[25]. As a practical, day-to-day morality in Northern Ireland, therefore, multiculturalism was neither new nor alien.

John Darby, echoing Simmel and Freud[26], has shown that inter-ethnic relationships in Northern Ireland, as elsewhere, contain both conflict and integration, sometimes even love and hate. If mutual hatred is a feature of Northern Irish life, so too is mutual respect.As in the relationships between parents and children, husbands and wives, employers and employees, good relations coexist with antagonism.It is not surprising, therefore, that the anthropological studies that described harmonious relationships in rural areas should sometimes have ambiguous titles.For example, Rosemary Harris’s study in Co Tyrone is called Prejudice and Tolerance in Rural Ulster; and Elliot Leyton speaks of Opposition and Integration.Leyton notes that, despite the sectarian divide, Northern Irish people, at least in his own research, see themselves as 'one blood'[27].

In one rural area, the 'Upper Tullagh' of the mid-1970s, individuals made strenuous efforts to sustain friendships with both Catholics and Protestants. Catholic and Protestant neighbours would help each other with farm work, sometimes purchasing farm equipment with the intention of sharing it. Voluntary associations and the village gala would ensure that both Catholics and Protestants were on the organising committee.There were curious occurrences of Catholics who gave money to support the band associated with the local Orange Hall, or Protestants who turned up to support the fund-raising of the Catholic church[28].

The oral history of the Upper Tullagh reflects this multicultural spirit. Past antagonisms between rich and poor and between farmers and labourers in the area have the potential to be expressed in sectarian terms.Wealthier farmers, for example, were mostly Presbyterian, while poorer farmers and many labourers were Catholic.This aspect of local history, however, is expressed with care and discretion in the interests of local harmony[29].

Indeed, the mutual respect exists more generally in the Irish historiography produced by local, usually amateur historians. Local history societies abound in Ulster, producing historical publications that are 'impartial' in relation to the central issues of Ulster politics[30].One such journal, selected at random from a library shelf, is 12 miles of Mourne: the Journal of the Mourne Local Studies Group.This admirable journal contains short, well-researched articles on historical topics of local interest, much of it originating in oral tradition.Among the articles' titles for the year 2000[31] are: The YMCA harvest camp at Clough, August 1945; The murder of Thomas Armer; St Louis High School: the early years; Greencastle, Co Down: a place apart; Haulbowline Lighthouse; and Charting fishery developments at Kilkeel, Co Down 1821-69.These topics have considerable local interest, but none has any significant ethnic (or 'sectarian') implications.

This multicultural perspective also exists in certain museums.Famously, the Tower Museum in the city of Derry has stried to tell the story of the city, warts and all, from both a Catholic and a Protestant perspective.This rather special exhibition draws on the considerable pride of the local population for their own city.However, it does not neglect the fact that there are different views about particular issues important to the city. Grasping a sharp nettle, the museum unashamedly explores some typical Protestant and Catholic attitudes to local history, acknowledging the value of the diverse points of view with a straight face.

In a similar spirit, the Linen Hall Library in Belfast has assembled a massive collection of pamphlets and ephemera relating to the Northern Irish Troubles.In so doing, it has tried to be even-handed. This collection is widely revered by scholars and public alike for its comprehensive importance.

The Ulster Folk and Transport Museum, where I work, has an open-air museum depicting a small Ulster town and a dispersed agricultural settlement. This museum was inspired in part by a similar communitarian pride that motivated the local history societies and Derry's Tower Museum.In its early years, the Ulster Folk Museum represented only those aspects of Northern Irish life common to both Catholics and Protestants.Buildings, field-patterns, field-boundaries, agriculture, domestic life, crafts, and textiles have few sectarian implications.In the 1980s and 1990s, when political tempers had slightly cooled, buildings such as churches, halls, police station and clergymen's houses were included.All of these have a definite place in sectarian rhetoric, but were displayed, so to speak, dispassionately. In making this display, care was of course taken not to suggest that one person's religion, or political aspiration, is 'better' than another's[32].

CONCLUDING REMARKS

What then is the 'correct' approach to Irish history?This is not an easy question to answer.Many historians still want to adopt a perspective that is identifiable nationalist or unionist. Others see ethnicity and ethnic history as a source of falsehood, and they strive to oppose it whenever it raises its head.Some avowed revisionists covertly espouse a sectarian view, for an opposition to 'myth' can become, for example, an opposition to specifically Protestant myth.Yet others are motivated by a belief in multicultural tolerance, and in the need to allow the different views found in Northern Ireland proper expression.I see all of these approaches in society at large, in the universities and indeed among my own colleagues and work-mates.Importantly too, on specific issues, individuals will shift from one perspective to another, for all are torn by different influences.There is, indeed, virtue in all of these approaches, and in any case, one could not prevent 'a thousand flowers' from blooming, even if one wanted to.All one can do is strike a posture for oneself.

My own view, then, is that historians and social scientists have an obligation to use our expertise in two main directions.First, we have an obligation to the truth, contributing a little to the understanding of the present and past as best we may.Of course, this may lead, willy-nilly to our criticising the views of others in the manner of the Irish historical revisionists.

Trying to be truthful, however, cannot free anybody from engaging in the political process. So secondly, I try not to be too eager to condemn nor attribute blame. Such detachment perhaps comes more easily to an anthropologist or to an oral historian, than it does to those other kinds of researcher who never meet the people they study.In my own research among Catholics and Protestants, and specifically into Irish brotherhoods and fundamentalist churches, I have personally liked most of the people I met.Moreover, I have found much to admire and not too much to blame.So I do not feel disposed to be too harsh.For purposes of analysis, however, it is often enough to explore the viewpoints of the different groups in Northern Ireland, without crashing down on them too hard from a great moral height.In any case, by reporting dispassionately on the diversity of views found in Northern Ireland, one finds oneself encouraging a dialectic in which one set of views rub off against others.

I believe there is little hope for a Northern Ireland that fails to give due respect to huge tracts of its population.Groups such as the Orange Order, the Freemasons, the Knights of St Columbanus and the Hibernians, the churches, the political parties and even the paramilitaries all need to be treated respectfully.Given the divided nature of Northern Ireland, it has become a self-indulgence to decide that this or that portion of the population - and their ideologies - ought to be derided or anathematised.

In avoiding sectarian conclusions in their oral history, the population of the Upper Tullagh do not delude themselves about the sectarian nature of Northern Irish society.Nor do the writers in the local history journals nor the curators of the Tower Museum in Derry.However, they are showing that other stories can be told.Some of these other stories are about the friendliness that occurs between Catholics and Protestants.Some explain that many of the different viewpoints of Catholics and Protestants have a certain validity.And some of these stories are not about Catholics and Protestants at all, but about people in their complexity leading ordinary and unusual lives.

In writing history, the historian has no choice but to present a point of view, and to present his identity to others. Despite this, the historian of Ireland is not doomed to take sides in the quarrel between unionists and nationalists.He or she can indeed reflect the fair-mindedness that so frequently exists in the local population at large. There is little doubt that there have been major historic wrongs perpetrated by both Catholics and Protestants over the centuries. Over these same centuries, historians have joined in the fight, arguing over which side was most wicked or most virtuous.Perhaps in this historical moment, there is a need to exercise restraint, to suspend judgement, to keep the sword of righteousness in its scabbard.

 

 

 

[1] Simon Harrison 'Ritual as intellectual property' Man, 27, 1992, pp225-244; Simon Harrison,'Four types of symbolic conflict',Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 1, 1995, pp 255-273.

[2] The idea that history provides models for action, rhetorical models and a focus for allegiance is found in Anthony D Buckley, '"We're trying to find our identity": uses of history among Ulster Protestants', in Elizabeth Tonkin, Maryon McDonald and Malcolm Chapman (eds) History and Ethnicity, London: Routledge, 1989, pp 183-191.

[3] Buckley, 1989.

[4] These theories are explained in detail in Buckley, 1989; see also John D Brewer with Gareth I Higgins, Anti-Catholicism in Northern Ireland, 1600-1998: the mote and the beam,Basingstoke: Macmillan 1998, see especially chapter 4.

[5] Buckley 1989;Anthony D Buckley and Mary C Kenney, Negotiating Identity: rhetoric, metaphor and social drama in Northern Ireland, Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1995, Ch. 3.

[6] Photographs of such banners are available at the Ulster Folk and Transport Museum.

[7] Neil Jarman, Material conflicts: parades and visual displays in Northern Ireland, Berg: Oxford, New York, 1997, pp 163-8, and especially pp 171-89.See, however, Buckley and Kenney 1995, Ch. 11 for a discussion of the Biblical images in the banners and regalia of the Royal Black Institution, a sister body to the Orange Order.

[8] See especially: Ian Adamson, The Cruthin: the ancient kindred. Belfast, Donald: 1974; The Identity of Ulster: the land, the language and the people, Belfast: Pretani.

[9] Edward Hine, Forty seven identifications of the British nation with the lost ten tribes of Israel founded upon five hundred scripture proofs, London, Glasgow 1874; The British nation identified with lost Israel Robert Banks, London 1910.

[10] See Buckley 1989. Interviews and meetings, tape references: R84.6-7; R86.240-241; R245-247; R250-252, Ulster Folk and Transport Museum Sound Archive.

[11] Sermons, Rev Robert Bradford MP, Tape references C86.12-21, Ulster Folk and Transport Museum Sound Archive.

[12] Peter Brooke, Ulster Presbyterianism: the historical perspective, New York: Gill and Macmillan, 1987, pp 175ff

[13] Claude Lévi-Strauss, Totemism, translated by R Needham., London: Merlin, 1964.

[14] Kenneth H Connell, Irish Peasant Society: four historical essays, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1968.

[15] Kenneth H Connell, The potato in Ireland', Past and Present, 23,1962

[16] Sean E Connolly Priests and People in pre-famine Ireland 1780-1845, New York: Gill and Macmillan, 1982.

[17] Donald, H Akenson, Small differences: Irish Catholics and Irish Protestants, 1815-1922.Dublin: Gill and Macmillan, 1991.

[18] H J Morgan. 'Deceptions of Demons', Fortnight 322, 1990.

[19] John M Kirk. 'Ulster Scots: realities and myths.' Ulster Folklife 44, 1998, pp 69-93.

[20] A Mac Póilin. 'Language, identity and politics in Northern Ireland', Ulster Folklife, 35, 1999, pp 108-132

[21] Mcfarlane, 1978.

[22] Peter Robinson, Their cry was 'No Surrender' Belfast: Crown, 1988. Discussed in Buckley and Kenney, 1995, pp 46-48.

[23] English people only sometimes adopt a multicultural perspective.Some British people living in Northern Ireland have joined Protestant churches and have adopted a unionist perspective.Others, especially those with socialist or liberal tendencies, have identified with the nationalists. I am an internationalist and socialist, who finds it difficult to identify with either unionists or nationalists.

[24] The 'indirect rule' of the British Empire, unlike the 'direct rule' of the French, required a certain tolerance for a variety of different cultures (See Margery Perham, Lugard, Collins: London, , 1956.) Not all multiculturalists are imperialists, however.

[25] In the 1960s, the Unionist Prime Minister of Northern Ireland, Terence O'Neill, attempted a catastrophically unsuccessful policy of reconciliation between Catholics and Protestants that today might be called 'multiculturalism'.

[26] J Darby, What's wrong with conflict? Coleraine: University of Ulster, Centre for the Study of Conflict 1991.See also Georg Simmel, Conflict: the web of group affiliations, New York: Free Press of Glencoe, 1964.In 1915, when Simmel first published this text, Sigmund Freud also drew attention to the coexistence of love and hate in family relationships. Sigmund Freud, 'Instincts and their vicissitudes' International Journal of Psychoanalysis 3, 2, 1915, pp 84-100.

[27] Rosemary Harris, 1972 Prejudice and tolerance in Ulster: a study of neighbours and 'strangers' in a border community Manchester: Manchester University Press.'Eliot Leyton, The one blood, Institute of social and economic research, Memorial University of Newfoundland 1975.Leyton, 'Opposition and integration in Ulster' Man, 9, 3, 1976, pp 185-98.

[28] A D Buckley A gentle people: a study of a peaceful community in Ulster, Cultra: Ulster Folk and Transport Museum, 1982.

[29] Buckley, 1982, 21; Anthony D Buckley, 'Neighbourliness: myth and history', Oral History, 1983, 11, pp 44-51.

[30] The Clougher Record, The Bann Disc, East Belfast Historical Society Journal, The Glynns, Lecale Miscellany, 12 Miles of Mourne; and others.

[31] 12 Mountains of Mourne,8, 2000

[32] See Buckley and Kenney, 1995, ch 13.Anthony D Buckley'Presenting a divisive culture: two exhibitions at the Ulster Folk and Transport Museum', inSusan M Pearce (ed) Museums and the appropriation of culture, Leicester: Athlone Press, 1994.Anthony D Buckley and Mary C Kenney, 'Mutual understanding and cultural heritage in an oasis of calm: divided identities in a museum in Ulster', in Ulrich Kockel, Culture, Tourism and Development,: the case of Ireland, Liverpool, University of Liverpool Press, 1994, pp 129-147;Anthony D Buckley 'Religion, ethnicity and the human condition: a view from a Northern Irish museum', in Crispin Paine (ed) Godly Things: Museums, Objects and Religion, Leicester: Leicester University Press, 1999, pp 80-96.