Demos and Denomination::flags, fealty, and the political ontology of protests in Northern Ireland

This paper will examine some of the ways in which processes of denomination<br/>have shaped Northern Irish politics before and after the ‘Belfast’, or ‘Good Friday<br/>Agreement’ of 1998. We concentrate on the formation of the ‘Unionist’ or ‘Loyalist<br/>community’, principally because the flag protests of 2012-2013 have brought the<br/>issue of this community identity to the fore again. The flag is part of a whole<br/>machinery of what we, in this paper, will call ‘denomination’ in Northern Irish<br/>politics and elsewhere. The religious overtones of the term are neither accidental<br/>nor incidental. Acts of denomination posit (assertively, authoritatively) a<br/>collective identity, conceived and constituted ontologically, as an existent entity,<br/>and stake a claim to a whole territory.