Who needs evidence? Radical Feminism, the Christian Right and sex work research in Northern Ireland

This chapter describes my experiences of conducting research on commercial sex in Belfast, Northern Ireland which was conducted as part of a larger British Academy – Leverhulme Trust funded study that examined the policing and legal regulation of commercial sex in Belfast (Northern Ireland) along with three other cities: Manchester (England), Berlin (Germany) and Prague (Czech Republic). This study provided the first empirical analysis of commercial sex in the jurisdiction and was instrumental in shedding light on prevalence rates for those involved in the industry as well as providing demographic information on the age, nationality and sexual orientation of sex workers along with the sector worked in, whether on-street or off-street. In the chapter I consider my role as a researcher and highlight some of the difficulties that I experienced conducting what was seen as controversial research in the politically, socially and culturally conservative context of Northern Ireland.

Small Steps or Giant Leaps? Defining Reconciliation in the Transition from Conflict in Northern Ireland

The context of Northern Ireland in the transition of conflict has produced a range of efforts to bring about reconciliation. However, definitions and understandings of the nature of reconciliation differ. This paper draws together how reconciliation has been defined in theory in Northern Ireland and elsewhere, examines some models of practice in the light of that theory and illustrates the process of reconciliation through general initiatives in Northern Ireland and specific projects seeking to reconcile at community level. It is concluded that, while political and public processes can set a context and space for engagement to take place, reconciliation is fundamentally about personal encounter and relationship, which have to take place in a range of settings and at all levels of a society that has experienced conflict.

Picking on vulnerable migrants: precarity and the mushroom industry in Northern Ireland

This article examines precarious employment in the context of the mushroom industry in Northern Ireland. Migrant workers engaged in mushroom picking were interviewed in the context of wider research investigating forced labour in Northern Ireland. The research found that, while the boundaries between exploitation and forced labour are complex and difficult to discern, there was some evidence of borderline forced labour, according to ILO definitions. However, workers found themselves on a ‘continuum of exploitation’, where initial engagement with the prospect of decent work was superseded by increasing endurance of exploitative practices, brought about by unequal power relationships with employers originating in immigration status. This is examined in the wider theoretical context of precarity, of which precarious employment comprises a part.

Women of an uncertain age: quantifying human capital accumulation in rural Ireland in the nineteenth century

Geary and Stark find that Ireland’s post-Famine per capita GDP converged with British levels, and that this convergence was largely due to total factor productivity growth rather than mass emigration. In this article, new long-run measurements of human capital accumulation in Ireland are devised in order to facilitate a better assessment of sources of this productivity growth, including the relative contribution of men and women. This is done by exploiting the frequency at which age data heap at round ages, widely interpreted as an indicator of a population’s basic numeracy skills. Because Földvári, van Leeuwen, and van Leeuwen-Li find that gender-specific trends in this measure derived from census returns are biased by who is reporting and recording the age information, any computed numeracy trends are corrected using data from prison and workhouse registers, sources in which women ostensibly self-reported their age. The findings show that rural Irish women born early in the nineteenth century had substantially lower levels of human capital than uncorrected census data would otherwise suggest. These results are large in magnitude and thus economically significant. The speed at which women converged is consistent with Geary and Stark’s interpretation of Irish economic history; Ireland probably graduated to Europe’s club of advanced economies thanks in part to rapid advances in female human capital.

Breast cancer outcomes following predictive BRCA testing in Northern Ireland

Objectives: Since 1995, BRCA testing has identified 445 women in Northern Ireland who carry a pathogenic BRCA1/2 mutation, without breast cancer (bca) at testing. This study examined outcomes with reference to management, bca risk, and incidence following positive predictive testing. Methods: Patients were identified from the regional genetics database. Electronic clinical records were used to obtain management and outcome details. Median follow-up was to bca diagnosis, risk-reducing mastectomy (rrm), death, or last follow-up. Results: 169 women had a BRCA1 mutation, and 276 BRCA2. ■ BRCA1 cohort: Median follow-up post-testing was 3 years. 56 Women (33%) had rrm, and 12 are awaiting rrm (total 68, 40%) at a median age of 36 years. 12 Women (7%) developed bca, at a median of 2 years following testing. 4 Women were diagnosed with bcas incidentally at rrm. 7 Patients had bilateral mastectomies following a cancer diagnosis. 1 Woman developed bca following rrm (1.7%). Three deaths were reported: 1 breast cancer (1.7%), 1 ovarian cancer (1.7%), and 1 with no recorded breast/ovarian cancer diagnosis. ■ BRCA2 cohort: Median follow-up post-testing was 6 years. rrm was carried out in 75 women (27%), with 20 awaiting rrm (total 95, 35%); median age: 39 years. 16 Women developed bca (5.8%), at a median of 5 years from testing. 6 Women were diagnosed with cancer incidentally at rrm; 9 women had bilateral mastectomy following diagnosis, and 1 developed bca following rrm (1.3%). Five deaths were reported: 1 bca, 1 ovarian cancer, and 3 with no recorded breast/ovarian cancer diagnosis. Conclusions: The uptake of rrm following predictive BRCA testing in Northern Ireland is comparable with that reported elsewhere. The incidence of bca following rrm is low (<2%) in our cohort, with low breast and ovarian cancer–specific mortality following positive predictive testing.

Territoriality and Migration in a Divided Society: Lay Theories of Citizenship and Place in Northern Ireland

The study of citizenship has increasingly focused on the ways in which spatialized understandings of the concept can be used to marginalise and exclude social groups: exclusive constructions of national boundaries, local neighbourhoods and public spaces can deny marginalised groups their social and political rights. Less attention has been paid to how constructions of place can accommodate different groups’ rights and promote peaceful coexistence. This is particularly important in locations where migration disrupts existing understandings (‘lay theories’) of the relationship between residency, identity and collective rights. The present research examines how spatialized understandings of citizenship shape perceptions of intergroup mixing in previously segregated areas of a post-conflict society. Critical Discursive Social Psychological (CDSP) analysis of 30 interviews with long-term residents and recent migrants to increasingly mixed areas of Belfast shows that, while all pa
rticipants acknowledged Northern Ireland’s territorialisation, different lay theories of citizenship underpin the possibility and desirability of intergroup coexistence. Long-term residents drew upon understandings of the negative citizenry of the outgroup to argue against the possibility of peaceful coexistence within their locale, while recent incomers gave evidence of their own experiences of good citizenship within the shared spaces of neighbourhood to demonstrate that this could and should be achieved. The implications of lay theories of citizenship for the study of residential migration and mixing are discussed

Location decision-making of 'creative' industries: the media and computer games sectors in Dublin, Ireland

There has been significant research undertaken examining the “creative class” thesis within the context of the locational preferences of creative workers. However, relatively little attention has been given to the locational preferences of creative companies within the same context. This paper reports on research conducted to qualitatively analyse the location decision making of companies in two creative sectors: media and computer games. We address the role of the so-called “hard” and “soft” factors in company location decision making within the context of the creative class thesis, which suggests that company location is primarily determined by “soft” factors rather than “hard” factors. The study focuses upon “core” creative industries in the media and computer game sectors and utilises interview data with company managers and key elite actors in the sector to investigate the foregoing questions. The results show that “hard” factors are of primary importance for the location decision making in the sectors analysed, but that “soft” factors play quite an important role when “hard” factors are satisfactory in more than one competing city-region.

A state-of-the-art review and feasibility analysis of high altitude wind power in Northern Ireland

In many countries wind energy has become an indispensable part of the electricity generation mix. The opportunity for ground based wind turbine systems are becoming more and more constrained due to limitations on turbine hub heights, blade lengths and location restrictions linked to environmental and permitting issues including special areas of conservation and social acceptance due to the visual and noise impacts. In the last decade there have been numerous proposals to harness high altitude winds, such as tethered kites, airfoils and dirigible based rotors. These technologies are designed to operate above the neutral atmospheric boundary layer of 1,300 m, which are subject to more powerful and persistent winds thus generating much higher electricity capacities. This paper presents an in-depth review of the state-of-the-art of high altitude wind power, evaluates the technical and economic viability of deploying high altitude wind power as a resource in Northern Ireland and identifies the optimal locations through considering wind data and geographical constraints. The key findings show that the total viable area over Northern Ireland for high altitude wind harnessing devices is 5109.6 km2, with an average wind power density of 1,998 W/m2 over a 20-year span, at a fixed altitude of 3,000 m. An initial budget for a 2MW pumping kite device indicated a total cost £1,751,402 thus proving to be economically viable with other conventional wind-harnessing devices.

Archives of Working-Class Life: The Labour Movement, Working-Class Cultures and Conflict in Northern Ireland since 1945'

With Dr Seán Byers (83-page report funded by Irish Department of Foreign Affairs, in collaboration with Trademark Belfast, published online on 30 September 2016).

‘Ulster Says No’: Regulating the consumption of commercial sex spaces and services in Northern Ireland

Commercial forms of sex such as prostitution/sex work, strip clubs and even sex shops have been the subject of much political debate and policy regulation over the last decade or so in the UK and Ireland. These myriad forms of commercial sex and land usage have managed to survive and even thrive in the face of public outcry and regulation. Despite being part of the UK we suggest that Northern Ireland has steered its own regulatory course, whereby the consumption of commercial sexual spaces and services have been the subject of intense moral and legal oversight in ways that are not apparent in other UK regions. Nevertheless, in spite of this we also argue that the context of Northern Ireland may provide some lessons for the ways that religious values and moral reasoning can influence debates on commercial sex elsewhere.

Lay Catholicism and Religious Policy in Cromwellian Ireland

The conquest of Ireland between 1649 and 1653 created almost as many problems as it solved for the English government of the country. Not least of these was how, if at all, the majority Catholic population was to be won over to Protestantism. This article reassesses Cromwellian religious policy towards the Catholic laity and traces its evolution up to the end of the decade, taking account also of Catholic responses to official measures. It argues that the supposed leniency of government policy has been overstated and that Catholics who refused to conform to Protestantism in fact risked heavy penalties.

The Republican Movement, 'Disappearing' and Framing the Past in Northern Ireland

Despite a rich body of research on the conflict and peace process in Northern Ireland, the ‘disappearances’ carried out by Republican armed groups have so far escaped scrutiny. In this article I examine how the Republican movement has framed the rationale behind ‘disappearing’ as a rational response to informing and as an example of historical continuity. In doing so, Republicans appear to attempt to confer legitimacy on their choice of target and normalize the use of the practice within a Republican framework. However, these rationales incorporate techniques of neutralization and attempts to contextualize the ‘disappearances’ in such a way as to distance the Irish Republican Army from agency. Such distancing speaks to a third, overarching rationale for ‘disappearing’: the avoidance of an embarrassment that has continued into the postconflict period. I consider why Republicans persist in claiming the ‘disappeared’ were legitimate targets, killed by a method for which there is historical precedent, when such framing left them open to criticism at a time when they were seeking to demonstrate that they had left violence behind. I conclude that Republican attempts to satisfy two audiences resulted in a gulf between their engagement in the process of recovering remains and their rhetoric surrounding this issue. In so doing, light is shed on some of the challenges the Republican movement faced in their transition away from violence. More broadly, the value of unpicking the framing of key actors in transitional processes is illuminated.