{"id":237,"date":"2015-04-11T19:44:31","date_gmt":"2015-04-11T18:44:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thedissenter.co.uk\/?p=237"},"modified":"2015-04-11T19:44:31","modified_gmt":"2015-04-11T18:44:31","slug":"contested-identities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www1.thedissenter.co.uk\/?p=237","title":{"rendered":"Contested Identities"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Contested<\/a><\/p>\n

The Contested Identities of Ulster Protestants: <\/strong>
\nedited by Thomas Paul Burgess & Gareth Mulvenna.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

The book is prefaced\u00a0as a response to co-editor Thomas Burgess\u2019s uncomfortable encounter where:<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2026 a young woman with impeccable Irish Republican credentials spoke up forcefully, and advanced her sure and certain hypothesis that there did not exist \u2013 neither could there ever<\/em> exist \u2013 any legitimate or worthwhile expression of a valid or meaningful cultural contribution emerging from the Ulster unionist or loyalist tradition.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

We’ve all been there.<\/p>\n

The immediate response:<\/p>\n

\u201cI forced a smile of course \u2013 though gritted teeth \u2013 feeling that any spirited defence on the matter would render me a bellicose Paisleyite and monarchist lick-spittle \u2026 once I had left the room, naturally.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

We’ve all done that.<\/p>\n

As the preface ends, the book\u00a0offers a promising\u00a0prospect of journeying\u00a0through the contested identities of Ulster Protestant culture; that we may perhaps better understand some of the reasons as to how things became \u2013 and remain \u2013 anchored in the sorry state of caricature and negative stereotype that the collective identities of that Ulster Protestant (or is it Irish Unionist, or Irish Protestant, or Loyalist or the broad catchall PUL) suffers.<\/p>\n

In a News Letter piece heralding the book\u2019s publication<\/a>\u00a0co-editor Gareth Mulvenna says:<\/p>\n

“Our book sought to take a nuanced look at Protestant identities\u2019. The article suggests that the authors believe \u2018The truth is that there is more to be understood, appreciated and critiqued by journeying through the contested identities of Ulster Protestants.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

There is an admission up front in the introduction to the book that:<\/p>\n

\u201cit us arguable whether a single text could hope to exhaustively reflect the diversity of opinion and experience that exists within the PUL community.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The editors note quickly that:<\/p>\n

\u201cSusan McKay, with her study Northern Protestants, attempted to do just that but ended up creating a deeply self-flagellating tome that failed to reflect the positive aspects of Northern Ireland Protestant Communities. Northern Protestants was more a personal exorcism of Protestant self-loathing that a credible attempt to provide that community with a voice.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

If the book wished to show there are lots of different views on Ulster Protestant identity\/culture, then it does to some extent. If there is a fault it is that the focus is predominantly on the\u00a0\u2018loyalist\u2019 culture\/identity\/place.<\/p>\n

Or perhaps, if not \u2018loyalist\u2019, then a \u2018progressive\u2019 perspective on the Ulster Protestant which invariably settles on the ‘working class”.<\/p>\n

As a consequence of the ‘progressive’ undercurrent, the book becomes quite narrow. The contributors seem an easy reach for the editors, rather than any search for something wider, or deeper.\u00a0In the end the totality of the book\u00a0tends to confirm rather than dispel caricature. Which is a shame because there is a bigger, wider, deeper story to be told – is being told, beyond the ‘progressive’ mind camp.<\/p>\n

Eoghan Harris<\/em> takes a view of Ulster Protestants drawn from his own cultural core. He references the acclaim for Frank McGuinness\u2019s Observe the Sons of Ulster Marching Towards the Somme<\/em> as a moral milestone in the South being prepared to push anti-unionist prejudices to the margins of public life. Yet this was an acceptance through the central nationalist theme of \u2018blood sacrifice\u2019 \u2013 not the sober reflection of the late Sam Starrett\u2019s Home for Christmas; <\/em>of men\u00a0with love for God, King and fellow man.<\/p>\n

Sam McCready<\/em> and Neil Symington<\/em> provide a useful insight to Marching Bands, but no more than in Darach MacDonald\u2019s 2010 book Blood and Thunder: Inside an Ulster Protestant Band<\/a><\/p>\n

Brian Kennaway<\/em> rehearses his falling out with the Orange Order, again. Why not the wider insights of Ruth Dudley Edwards\u2019s The Faithful Tribe: An Intimate Portrait of the Loyal Institutions<\/em>?<\/a><\/p>\n

John Williams<\/em> and Alister McReynolds<\/em> seem to be unsure of whether the American Branch is Scots-Irish or Scotch-Irish, and a\u00a0chapter is spent never quite reaching a conclusion. A better understanding of that American, and the common notes with his Ulster\/Scottish roots might be found in Karen F McCarthy\u2019s The Other Irish: The Scots-Irish Rascals Who Made America<\/em><\/a>\u00a0 or Jim Webb\u2019s Born Fighting: How the Scots-Irish Shaped America\u00a0<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

Graham Reid<\/em> and Billy Hutchinson<\/em> provide a personal story of growing up in a \u2018working-class\u2019 area, Malachi O\u2019Doherty<\/em> provides a outsiders observation onto \u2018loyalists\u2019 today, and Gareth Mulvenna takes a view of why \u2018the Protestant Working-Class and Protestant Community\u2019 might be where it is today. Yet none reach into the essence of why Ulster Protestants became who they are as does John Bew\u2019s The Glory of Being Britons: Civic Unionism in Nineteenth-Century Belfast<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

The book narrows Ulster Protestantism through the prism of the \u2018progressive\u2019. In doing so it fails to reflect the diversity of opinion and experience that exists within the \u2018PUL\u2019 community. In its almost singular focus on the L, of Loyalism, it dwells on a section of the Ulster Protestant population which electorally remains a small and possibly just as marginal by individual personal identification, even among the \u2018working-class\u2019. For a broader\u00a0view, you\u2019ll need to read more widely. The suggestions above are good start points.<\/p>\n

That is not to say there are not essays in this book worth a read. It does not however provide, in any way, a more positive response to that young woman with impeccable Irish Republican credentials \u2013 though it is probable that young woman wouldn\u2019t care if it did.<\/p>\n

This book review was submitted to Slugger O’Toole: it seems though that a more\u00a0consensual ‘progressive’ approach to book reviewing was preferred.<\/span><\/em><\/span><\/h6>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Contested Identities of Ulster Protestants: edited by Thomas Paul Burgess & Gareth Mulvenna. The book is prefaced\u00a0as a response to co-editor Thomas Burgess\u2019s uncomfortable encounter where: \u201c\u2026 a young woman with impeccable Irish Republican credentials spoke up forcefully, and advanced her sure and certain hypothesis that there did not exist \u2013 neither could there […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,6,12,13],"tags":[19,33,41,71,86,98,104,139,140,142,145,158,160,171,204,209,226,227,248,260,265],"class_list":["post-237","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book-review","category-general","category-review","category-unionist","tag-alister-mcreynolds","tag-billy-hutchinson","tag-british","tag-darach-macdonald","tag-eoghan-harris","tag-gareth-mulvenna","tag-graham-reid","tag-jim-webb","tag-john-bew","tag-john-williams","tag-karen-mccarthy","tag-loyalist","tag-malachi-odoherty","tag-neil-symington","tag-progressive-straightjacket","tag-pul","tag-ruth-dudley-edwards","tag-sam-mccready","tag-thomas-burgess","tag-ulster-protestant","tag-unionist"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www1.thedissenter.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www1.thedissenter.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www1.thedissenter.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www1.thedissenter.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www1.thedissenter.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=237"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www1.thedissenter.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www1.thedissenter.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=237"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www1.thedissenter.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=237"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www1.thedissenter.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=237"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}