'Something That Unites Us All': Understandings of St. Patrick's Day Parades as Representing the Irish National Group

The present study investigates how attendees at national celebratory crowd events-specifically St. Patrick's Day parades-understand the role of such events in representing and uniting the national community. We conducted semi-structured interviews with people who attended St. Patrick's Day parades in either Dublin or Belfast. In year 1, full-length interviews were conducted before and after the events (N=17), and in years 1 and 2, shorter interviews were conducted during the events (year 1 N=170; year 2 N=142). Interview data were analysed using thematic analysis, allowing the identification of three broad themes. Participants reported that (i) the events extend the boundary of the national group, using participation to define who counts as Irish; (ii) the events strategically represent the nature of the national group, maximising positive images and managing stereotypical representations; and (iii) symbolism serves to unify the group but can also disrupt already fragile unity and so must be managed. Overall, this points to a strategic identity dimension to these crowd events. We discuss the implications of these findings for future research in terms of the role of large-scale celebratory events in the strategic representation of everyday social identities.

Parades, Flags, Carnivals and Riots: Public Space, Contestation and Transformation in Northern Ireland

This paper explores one of the defining aspects of politics and identity in Northern Ireland: the control and utilization of public space, particularly urban public space. Ethnopolitical conflict consistently reveals itself through contestation over public space. The role of ritual events is important in the development of political identity and group cohesion. The symbolic landscape will be constructed through displays of identity by dominant groups and their ability to control that landscape by inhibiting displays by other groups. This will reveal itself through frequent contests over rituals and symbols. This paper looks at the role of ritual events in civic spaces in Belfast but particularly asks what role they might play in conflict transformation. The 1998 agreement offered political structures that provided for shared power after 30 years of violent conflict. At the same time, there was an increase in contestation over public space as political groups within the previously marginalized Catholic community demanded recognition within the public sphere and a rebalancing of the public space through changes to the previously dominant Protestant and Unionist expression of identity. The paper concludes by suggesting that in “shared space” a new civic identity that spans the political and ethnic divisions has started to develop in Belfast and that this might evolve despite an increased residential division throughout the urban area.

The Regulation of Public Space in Northern Ireland

The Parades Commission of Northern Ireland was established to regulate the use of public space in the region. Its formal design includes both a role in mediating between groups over how spaces are used and an adjudicative role when agreement between competing groups cannot be reached. We argue that the Parades Commission has only been effective to the degree that its character as a bureaucracy has quelled violence surrounding parades. The Commission's goal of conciliation cannot be attained without a more consistent, transparent and inclusive approach to applying law.

Using Digital Photography and Video in Participant Observation of Contentious Events

In this article, we discuss our experiences of using photography and video while observing contentious parades and protests in Belfast. We show how our use of these methods drew us into a series of unplanned for non-verbal interactions with other event participants who were also freely and abundantly using photographic and filming equipment to capture their own images. This interactive use of photography and video affected us emotionally and influenced what we noticed and what we omitted in our observations. In particular, it forced us to reflect upon and question our role as researchers in the events we observed and in the changing balance of power between researchers and researched.

Symmetrical Solutions, Asymmetrical Realities: Beyond the Politics of Paralysis

The historic significance of the Good Friday Agreement and its role in ending organized political violence is acknowledged at the outset. The article then goes on to probe the roots of the political paralysis built into the architecture of the Agreement that are predicated on a misplaced political and cultural symmetry between the “two communities.” It is suggested that the institutionalized relationship between Northern Ireland and the rest of the U.K. facilitates a cross-party, populist, socio-economic consensus among the nationalist and unionist political parties on the welfare state, taxation and maintaining the massive British subvention to the region. This in turn allows them to concentrate on a divisive culturalist politics, i.e., on antagonistic forms of cultural and identity politics over such issues as flags, parades, and the legacy of the “Troubles” which spills over into gridlock into many areas of regional administration. The article argues for a much broader understanding of culture and identity rooted in the different, if overlapping and interdependent, material realities of both communities while challenging the idea of two cultures/identities as fixed, mutually exclusive, non-negotiable and mutually antagonistic. It then focuses on the importance of Belfast as a key arena which will determine the long-term prospects of an alternative and more constructive form of politics, and enable a fuller recognition of the fundamental asymmetries and inter-dependence between the “two communities.” In the long run, this involves re-defining and reconstructing what is meant by the “Union” and a “United Ireland.”

Traditions and transitions: teenagers’ perceptions of parading in Belfast

The purpose of this article is to explore and illuminate teenagers' experiences of, and attitudes to, parades in Belfast. The research draws on responses from 125 teenagers located in interface areas (areas where Catholics and Protestants live side by side but apart) to government supported attempts to rebrand Orangefest (traditional parade associated with Protestant/Unionist/Loyalist community) and St Patrick's Day (traditional parade associated with Catholic/Nationalist/Republican community) as all-inclusive community events. For the most part, young people access these parades in pre-existing, single identity peer groups and view these parades as either inclusive or exclusive calling into question the extent to which Belfast's city centre can be viewed as shared space.

Beyond the Academy: Applying Anthropological Research, A Case Study of Demonstrating Impact in the U.K. 2014 REF

The 2014 Research Excellence Framework sought for the first time to assess the impact that research was having beyond the boundaries of the university and the wider academic sphere. While the REF continued the approach of previous research assessment exercises in attempting to measure the overall quality of research and teaching within the higher-education sector, it also expected institutions to evidence how some of their research had had ‘an effect on, change or benefit to the economy, society, culture, public policy or services, health, the environment or quality of life, beyond academia’ (REF 2012: 48). This article provides a case study in how researchers in one U.K. anthropology department were able to demonstrate the impact of their work in the public sphere successfully as part of this major audit exercise.

Violence and Commemoration in the New Northern Ireland: Space, Memory and Management

On June 27th 2012, the Deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland and former IRA commander, Martin McGuinness shook hands with Queen Elizabeth II for the first time at an event in Belfast. For many the gesture symbolised the consolidation of Northern Ireland's transition to peace, the meeting of cultures and traditions, and hope for the future. Only a few weeks later however violence spilled onto the streets of north and west Belfast following a series of commemorative parades, marking a summer of hostilities. Those hostilities spread into a winter of protest, riot and discontent around flags and emblems and a year of tensions and commemorative-related violence marked again by a summer of rioting and protest in 2013. Outwardly these examples present two very different pictures of the 'new' Northern Ireland; the former of a society moving forward and putting the past behind it and the latter apparently divided over and wedded to different constructions of the past. Furthermore they revealed two very different 'places', the public handshake in the arena of public space; the rioting and fighting occurring in spaces distanced from the public sphere. This paper has also illustrated the difficulties around the ‘public management’ of conflict and transition as many within public agencies struggle with duties to uphold good relations and promote good governance within an environment of political strife, hostility and continuing violence.

This paper presents the key findings and implications of an exploratory project funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, explored the phenomenon of commemorative-related violence in Northern Ireland. We focus on 1) why the performance or celebration of the past can sometimes lead to violence in specific places; 2) map and analyse the levels of commemorative related violence in the past 15 years and 3) look at the public management implications of both conflict and transition at a strategic level within the public sector.

Improved lexicon-based sentiment analysis for social media analytics

Social media channels, such as Facebook or Twitter, allow for people to express their views and opinions about any public topics. Public sentiment related to future events, such as demonstrations or parades, indicate public attitude and therefore may be applied while trying to estimate the level of disruption and disorder during such events. Consequently, sentiment analysis of social media content may be of interest for different organisations, especially in security and law enforcement sectors. This paper presents a new lexicon-based sentiment analysis algorithm that has been designed with the main focus on real time Twitter content analysis. The algorithm consists of two key components, namely sentiment normalisation and evidence-based combination function, which have been used in order to estimate the intensity of the sentiment rather than positive/negative label and to support the mixed sentiment classification process. Finally, we illustrate a case study examining the relation between negative sentiment of twitter posts related to English Defence League and the level of disorder during the organisation’s related events.

Twitter Sentiment Analysis for Security-Related Information Gathering

Analysing public sentiment about future events, such as demonstration or parades, may provide valuable information while estimating the level of disruption and disorder during these events. Social media, such as Twitter or Facebook, provides views and opinions of users related to any public topics. Consequently, sentiment analysis of social media content may be of interest to different public sector organisations, especially in the security and law enforcement sector. In this paper we present a lexicon-based approach to sentiment analysis of Twitter content. The algorithm performs normalisation of the sentiment in an effort to provide intensity of the sentiment rather than positive/negative label. Following this, we evaluate an evidence-based combining function that supports the classification process in cases when positive and negative words co-occur in a tweet. Finally, we illustrate a case study examining the relation between sentiment of twitter posts related to English Defence League and the level of disorder during the EDL related events.

Musically Consonant, Socially Dissonant: Orange Walks and Catholic Interpretation in West-Central Scotland

This article examines the music used by the Orange Order, in its public parades, more commonly referred to as “Orange Walks.” The Orange Order is an exclusively Protestant fraternal organization, which traces its roots to 1690 and the victory of the Protestant Prince William of Orange over the Catholic King James. Yet, as in Northern Ireland, many consider the group to be sectarian and view its public celebrations as a display of ethno-religious triumphalism. This article explores the extra-musical factors associated with Orangeism’s most iconic song, “The Sash My Father Wore,” how other groups have misappropriated the song, and how this has distorted its meaning and subsequent interpretation.

Recent statistics have shown that Glasgow hosts more Orange parades each year than in Belfast and Derry/Londonderry combined, yet while there have been many anthropological and ethnomusicological studies of Northern Ireland’s Orange parades, very little research has focused on similar traditions in Scotland. This article seeks to address that gap in the literature and is intended as a preparatory study, laying the groundwork for further analysis.