Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-76dd75c94c-nbtfq Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-30T08:22:23.876Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

13 - Does Religion Still Matter?

Comparative Lessons from the Ethno-national Conflict in Northern Ireland

from Part VII - Northern Ireland

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 June 2021

Nadim N. Rouhana
Affiliation:
Tufts University, Massachusetts
Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian
Affiliation:
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Queen Mary University of London
Get access

Summary

This chapter explores the enduring intersections of popular religion, violence, and ethno-national memory in Belfast. Wider debates on the nexus between religion, violence, and politics are integrated with recent empirical data on the contemporary post-conflict city. The chapter demonstrates how conflicting narratives of nationalism, imperialism, and popular religion materialize in the “sacred spaces,” public rituals, and territorial enclosures of a nominally secular city located historically in the heartlands of Western imperialism.

Type
Chapter
Information
When Politics are Sacralized
Comparative Perspectives on Religious Claims and Nationalism
, pp. 337 - 362
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2021

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

AlSayyad, Nezar, and Massoumi, Mejgan, eds. 2011. The Fundamentalist City? Religiosity and the Making of Urban Space. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Ardoyne Commemoration Project. 2002. Ardoyne: The Untold Truth. Belfast: Beyond the Pale Publications.Google Scholar
Armstrong, Karen. 2014. Fields of Blood: Religion and the History of Violence. London: Vintage.Google Scholar
Asad, Talal. 1999. “Religion, Nation-State, Secularism.” In Nation and Religion: Perspectives on Europe and Asia, edited by van der Veer, Peter and Lehmann, Harmut, 178–96. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Bacchetta, Paola. 2010. “The (Failed) Production of Hindu Nationalized Space in Ahmedabad, Gujarat.” Gender, Place and Culture 17: 551–72.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bardon, Jonathan. 1982. Belfast: An Illustrated History. Belfast: The Blackstaff Press.Google Scholar
Barnes, Philip. 2005. “Was the Northern Ireland Conflict Religious?Journal of Contemporary Religion 20: 5569.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Beaumont, Justin, and Baker, Christopher, eds. 2011. Postsecular Cities: Space, Theory and Practice. New York: Continuum.Google Scholar
Billig, Michael. 1995. Banal Nationalism. London: Sage.Google Scholar
Bollens, Scott. 2007. Cities, Nationalism and Democratization. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Brewer, John, and Higgins, Gareth I.. 1998. Anti-Catholicism in Northern Ireland 1600–1998: The Mote and the Beam. London: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Brewer, John, Higgins, Gareth I., and Teeney, Frances. 2011. Religion, Civil Society and Peace in Northern Ireland. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brewer, John, Keane, Margaret, and Livingstone, David. 2006. “Landscape of Spires.” In Enduring City: Belfast in the Twentieth Century, edited by Boal, Frederick and Royle, Stephen, 180–94. Belfast: Blackstaff Press.Google Scholar
Brubaker, Rogers. 2012. “Religion and Nationalism: Four Approaches.” Nations and Nationalism 18: 220.Google Scholar
Brubaker, Rogers 2013. “Language, Religion and the Politics of Difference.” Nations and Nationalism 19: 120.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bruce, Steve. 1986. God Save Ulster: The Religion and Politics of Paisleyism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Bryan, Dominic. 2015. “Parades, Flags, Carnivals and Riots: Public Space Contestation and Transformation in Northern Ireland.” Peace and Conflict: Journal of Peace Psychology 21: 565–73.Google Scholar
Casanova, José. 2006. “Rethinking Secularization: A Global Comparative Perspective.” The Hedgehog Review 8: 722.Google Scholar
Cavanaugh, William. 2009. The Myth of Religious Violence: Secular Ideology and the Roots of Modern Conflict. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clarke, Stephen. 2014. The Justifications of Religious Violence. London: Wiley-Blackwell.Google Scholar
Coulter, Colin, and Murray, Michael, eds. 2008. Northern Ireland after the Troubles? A Society in Transition. Manchester: Manchester University Press.Google Scholar
Davis, Diane E., and Libertun de Duren, Nora, eds. 2011. Cities and Sovereignty: Identity Politics in Urban Space. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Doyle, Michael. 2009. Fighting like the Devil for the Sake of God: Protestants, Catholics and the Origins of Violence in Victorian Belfast. Manchester: Manchester University Press.Google Scholar
Fraser, Tom G. 2012. “Historical Legacies and the Northern Ireland Peace Process: Issues of Commemoration and Memorialisation.” Shared Space 12: 4150.Google Scholar
Friedland, Roger, and Hecht, Richard. 1998. “The Bodies of Nations: A Comparative Study of Religious Violence in Jerusalem and Ayodha.” History of Religions 38: 101–49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ganiel, Gladys. 2016. Transforming Post-Catholic Ireland: Religious Practice in Late Modernity. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goh, Daniel P. S., and van der Veer, Peter. 2016. “Introduction: The Sacred and the Urban in Asia.” International Sociology 31: 367–74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gorski, Philip S., and Turkmen-Dervisoglu, Gulay. 2013. “Religion, Nationalism and Violence: An Integrated Approach.” Annual Review of Sociology 39: 191210.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hassner, Ron E. 2009. War on Sacred Grounds. London: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Hayden, Robert M. 2015. “Intersecting Religioscapes and Antagonistic Tolerance: Trajectories of Competition and Sharing of Religious Spaces in the Balkans.” In Religion, Violence and Cities, edited by O’Dowd, Liam and McKnight, Martina, 6074. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Hepburn, Anthony C. 2004. Contested Cities in the Modern West. London: Palgrave.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jarman, Neil. 1999. Material Conflicts: Parades and Visual Displays in Northern Ireland. Oxford: Berg.Google Scholar
Jarman, Neil 2005. No Longer a Problem? Sectarian Violence in Northern Ireland. Belfast: Institute for Conflict Studies.Google Scholar
Jones, Emrys. 1960. The Social Geography of Belfast. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Juergensmeyer, Mark. 1993. The New Cold War? Religious Nationalism Confronts the Secular State. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Juergensmeyer, Mark 2003. Terror in the Mind of God: The Global Rise of Religious Violence. Rev. ed. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Koster, Jan. 2003. “Ritual Performance and the Politics of Identity: On the Functions and Uses of Ritual.” Journal of Historical Pragmatics 4: 211–48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Leonard, Madeleine. 2010. “Parochial Geographies.” Childhood 17: 329–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McAlister, Elisabeth. 2005. “Globalization and the Religious Production of Space.” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 44: 249–55.Google Scholar
Mitchell, Clare. 2006. Religion, Identity and Politics in Northern Ireland: Boundaries of Belonging and Belief. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate.Google Scholar
Mitchell, Clare 2010. “The Push and Pull between Religion and Ethnicity: The Case of Loyalists in Northern Ireland.” Ethnopolitics 9: 5369.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nolan, Paul, Bryan, Dominic, Hayward, Katy, Radford, Katy, and Shirlow, Peter. 2014. The Flag Dispute: Anatomy of a Protest. Belfast: Queen’s University Institute of Conflict Transformation and Social Justice.Google Scholar
O’Dowd, Liam. 1987. “Church, State and Women: The Aftermath of Partition.” In Gender in Irish Society, edited by Curtin, Chris, Jackson, Pauline, and O’Connor, Barbara, 36. Galway: Galway University.Google Scholar
O’Dowd, Liam 2014. “Symmetrical Solutions, Asymmetical Realities: Beyond the Politics of Paralysis.” Studies in Conflict and Terrorism 37: 806–14.Google Scholar
O’Dowd, Liam, and Komarova, Milena. 2013. “Three Narratives in Search of a City: Researching Belfast’s ‘Post-conflict’ Transitions.” City 17: 526–46.Google Scholar
O’Dowd, Liam, and McKnight, Martina, eds. 2015. Religion, Violence and Cities. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
O’Leary, Brendan, and McGarry, John G.. 1993. The Politics of Antagonism: Understanding Northern Ireland. London: Athlone Press.Google Scholar
Pullan, Wendy. 2013. “Bible and Gun: Militarism in Jerusalem’s Holy Places.” In Religion, Violence and Cities, edited by O’Dowd, Liam and McKnight, Martina, 7596. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Redmond, John. 1961. Church, State and Industry in East Belfast. Belfast: self-published.Google Scholar
Rolston, Bill. 2010. “Trying to Reach the Future through the Past: Murals and Memory in Northern Ireland.” Crime, Media, Culture 6: 285307.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Russell, Raymond. 2013. Census 2011: Key Statistics at Northern Ireland and LGD Level. Belfast: Northern Ireland Assembly Research Paper.Google Scholar
Shirlow, Peter, and Murtagh, Brendan. 2006. Belfast: Segregation, Violence and the City. London: Pluto Press.Google Scholar
Sinha, Vineeta. 2016. “Marking Spaces as ‘Sacred’: Infusing Singapore’s Urban Landscape with Sacrality.” International Sociology 31: 467–68.Google Scholar
Smyth, Lisa, and McKnight, Martina. 2013. “Maternal Situations: Sectarianism and Civility in a Divided City.” Sociological Review 61: 304–22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stier, Oren B., and Landres, J. Shawn, eds. 2006. Religion, Violence, Memory and Place. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Tilly, Charles. 1990. Coercion, Capital and European States, A.D. 990–1990. London: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Todd, Jennifer. 1988. “The Limits of Britishness.” The Irish Review 5: 1116.Google Scholar
Todd, Jennifer 2010. “Symbolic Complexity and Political Division: The Changing Role of Religion in Northern Ireland.” Ethnopolitics 9: 85102.Google Scholar
van der Veer, Peter, and Lehmann, Harmut. 1999. “Introduction.” In Nation and Religion: Perspectives on Europe and Asia, edited by van der Veer, Peter and Lehmann, Harmut, 315. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
van der Veer, Peter, and Lehmann, Harmut, eds. 1999. Nation and Religion: Perspectives on Europe and Asia. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Wilson, Robin. 2016. The Northern Ireland Peace Monitoring Report: Number Four. Belfast: Community Relations Council.Google Scholar
Wilson, Tim K. 2010. Frontiers of Violence: Conflict and Identity in Ulster and Upper Silesia, 1918–1922. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wolffe, John. 2011. “Protestant-Catholic Divisions in Europe and the United States: An Historical and Comparative Perspective.” Politics, Religion and Ideology 12: 241–56.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×