Troubled Geographies: A Spatial History of Religion and Society in Ireland

Ireland’s landscape is marked by fault lines of religious, ethnic, and political identity that have shaped its troubled history. Troubled Geographies maps this history by detailing the patterns of change in Ireland from 16th century attempts to “plant” areas of Ireland with loyal English Protestants to defend against threats posed by indigenous Catholics, through the violence of the latter part of the 20th century and the rise of the “Celtic Tiger.” The book is concerned with how a geography laid down in the 16th and 17th centuries led to an amalgam based on religious belief, ethnic/national identity, and political conviction that continues to shape the geographies of modern Ireland. Troubled Geographies shows how changes in religious affiliation, identity, and territoriality have impacted Irish society during this period. It explores the response of society in general and religion in particular to major cultural shocks such as the Famine and to long term processes such as urbanization.

Nature as historical protagonist: environment and society in pre-industrial England

This article compares chronologies reconstructed from historical records of prices, wages, grain harvests, and population with corresponding chronologies of growing conditions and climatic variations derived from dendrochronology and Greenland ice-cores. It demonstrates that in pre-industrial, and especially late medieval, England, short-term environmental shocks and more enduring shifts in environmental conditions (sometimes acting in concert with biological agencies) exercised a powerful influence upon the balance struck between population and available resources via their effects upon the reproduction, health and life expectancy of humans, crops, and livestock. Prevailing socio-economic conditions and institutions, in turn, shaped society's susceptibility to these environmental shocks and shifts.

Bridging and Linking in a Divided Society: A Social Capital Case Study from Northern Ireland

This paper reports the results of research into social capital levels in the Central Housing Community Network, part of the community consultation structure of the Northern Ireland Housing Executive. Membership of the forum increased the bonding, bridging and linking social capital of its members and appeared to improve community relations, although that was not its stated purpose. However, the empirical link between social capital and the quality of community relations remains unproven. The research provides an example of the state creating a positive space for interaction with civil society through consultation on service delivery issues. In an international policy environment where ‘mixed’ communities are the ideal, the potential of service-based forums to contribute to community cohesion may have been underestimated.

Towards Educational Inclusion in a Transforming Society: Some Lessons from Community Relations and Special Needs Education in Northern Ireland

This paper takes an original approach to an important aspect of educational research and its role in transforming societies, namely that of educational inclusion. It brings together what some might consider two rather strange bedfellows i.e. community relations and special needs education. It also draws upon new tools for theorising educational inclusion, which give a central role to the discursive nature of human conduct and which take a view of human behaviour as socially embedded and meaningful.

Megalithic Cultures in Britain and their relationship to Western Europe.:Meeting on Megalithic Culture. Comparing Prehistoric ruins of the East and Europe,

H. Kanaseki, Editor. 2003, UNESCO-Cultural Heritage Protection Office: Horen-Cho, Nara.

Organisational Self-Evaluation and Teacher Education for Community Relations in a Transforming Society?

During 2004, the School of Education at the University of Ulster embarked on an innovative three-year project designed to embed community relations objectives within initial teacher education. With the advent of more peaceful times in Northern Ireland, this was a precipitous time for initial teacher educators to review the preparation given to beginner teachers for teaching in an increasingly pluralist society emerging from conflict. The present paper reports on one very specific and time-limited element of the broader project. That is, development work designed to investigate the possibilities of using processes of self-review and evaluation as a lever for improvements in initial teacher education for community relations. Following a brief contextualisation, the background to, and the development of, a set of materials designed to support rigorous and systematic self-review of all aspects of provision in a university-based initial teacher education department is described. The Community Relations Index for Initial Teacher Education (Cr-ITE) was envisaged as being of use to initial teacher education establishments in order to help teacher educators take responsibility for rigorous learning from their practice, whilst placing inclusive values at the centre of organisational development. The final section includes further critical reflection on the role of organisational self-review in transforming teacher education for inclusion in a society emerging from longstanding communal conflict.

Culture and the Irish Border:Spaces for Conflict Transformation

The Irish border has been described as a ‘natural’ cultural divide between the island's two dominant indigenous ethno-national communities. However, an examination of key resources of ethno-national group culture - religion, sport and language - provides evidence to challenge this representation. Moreover, in the post-1994 period of conflict transformation, evidence is also presented to support the proposition that the Irish border region has developed into a cultural space in which Irish nationalist and Ulster unionist ethno-national communities can explore cultural differences and commonalities through cross-border, cross-community contact and communication in small group encounters. This space underpins the reconfiguration of the border from barrier to political bridge between North and South. European Union (EU) Peace programmes for Ireland, beginning in 1995, provided the support for a cross-border approach to escaping the cage of ethno-national conflict in Northern Ireland. However, post-2004 EU enlargement signalled the beginning of the end for EU Peace funding and severe economic recession has undermined the expectation of British-Irish intergovernmental intervention to support cross-border partnerships and their work. Therefore, the outlook for the sustainability of this cross-border cultural space is gloomy with potentially deleterious consequences for the continued reconfiguration of the border from barrier to bridge.