Irish/ness Is All Around Us
Integration and Conflict Studies
Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, Halle/Saale
Series Editor: Gnther Schlee, Director at the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology
Editorial Board: Brian Donahoe (Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology), John Eidson (Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology), Peter Finke (University of Zurich), Joachim Grlich (Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology), Jacqueline Knrr (Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology), Bettina Mann (Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology), Stephen Reyna (University of Manchester)
Assisted by: Cornelia Schnepel and Viktoria Zeng (Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology)
Volume 1
How Enemies are Made: Towards a Theory of Ethnic and Religious Conflict
Gnther Schlee
Volume 2
Changing Identifications and Alliances in North-East Africa
Vol. I: Ethiopia and Kenya
Edited by Gnther Schlee and Elizabeth E. Watson
Volume 3
Changing Identifications and Alliances in North-East Africa
Vol. II: Sudan, Uganda, and the Ethiopia-Sudan Borderlands
Edited by Gnther Schlee and Elizabeth E. Watson
Volume 4
Playing Different Games: The Paradox of Anywaa and Nuer Identification Strategies in the Gambella Region, Ethiopia
Dereje Feyissa
Volume 5
Who Owns the Stock? Collective and Multiple Property Rights in Animals
Edited by Anatoly M. Khazanov and Gnther Schlee
Volume 6
Irish/ness Is All Around Us: Language Revivalism and the Culture of Ethnic Identity in Northern Ireland
Olaf Zenker
Volume 7
Variations on Uzbek Identity: Strategic Choices, Cognitive Schemas and Political Constraints in Identification Processes
Peter Finke
Volume 8
Domesticating Youth: Youth Bulges and their Socio-political Implications in Tajikistan
Sophie Roche
Foreword by Gnther Schlee
Volume 9
Creole Identity in Postcolonial Indonesia
Jacqueline Knrr
Volume 10
Friendship, Descent and Alliance in Africa: Anthropological Perspectives
Edited by Martine Guichard, Tilo Grtz, and Youssouf Diallo
Foreword by Gnther Schlee
Afterword by Stephen P. Reyna
Volume 11
Masks and Staffs: Identity Politics in the Cameroon Grassfields
Michaela Pelican
Volume 12
The Upper Guinea Coast in Global Perspective
Edited by Jacqueline Knrr and Christoph Kohl
Volume 13
Staying at Home: Identities, Memories and Social Networks of Kazakhstani Germans
Rita Sanders
Volume 14
City of the Future: Built Space, Modernity and Urban Change in Astana
Mateusz Laszczkowski
Irish/ness Is All Around Us
Language Revivalism and the Culture of Ethnic Identity in Northern Ireland
Olaf Zenker
Published in 2013 by
Berghahn Books
www.berghahnbooks.com
2013, 2016 Olaf Zenker
First paperback edition published in 2016
All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purposes of criticism and review, no part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without written permission of the publisher.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Zenker, Olaf.
Irish/ness is all around us : language revivalism and the culture of ethnic identity in Northern Ireland / Olaf Zenker.
p. cm. -- (Integration and conflict studies ; 6)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-85745-913-8 (hardback) -- ISBN 978-1-78533-206-7 (paperback) -- ISBN 978-0-85745-914-5 (ebook)
1. English language--Dialects--Northern Ireland. 2. Group identity--Northern Ireland. 3. Northern Ireland--Ethnic relations. I.
Title.
PE2586.Z46 2013
427.9416--dc23
2012033494
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 978-0-85745-913-8 (hardback)
ISBN 978-1-78533-206-7 (paperback)
ISBN 978-0-85745-914-5 (ebook)
And it can happen to use an image youll understand it can happen that a civilisation can be imprisoned in a linguistic contour which no longer matches the landscape of fact.
Hugh in Act II, Scene 1, of Brian Friels Translations (1981)
To Julia and Nele who was to be
Contents
List of Maps, Figures and Tables
Maps
Figures
Table
Acknowledgements ~ Buochas
F irst, I wish to express my deep gratitude to Gnther Schlee, Director of the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology in Halle/Saale, Germany, for intellectually and financially supporting my research project that ultimately led to this book. During my membership of Schlees Integration and Conflict Department at the Max Planck Institute, I benefited greatly both from his stimulating inputs and the exciting academic environment of the institute in general. I am also heavily indebted to Richard Rottenburg, professor at the Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology, Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg, for creating the highly productive intellectual climate of his research colloquium. In the colloquium and during many other discussions, and also as a postdoctoral fellow of Rottenburgs Max Planck Fellow Group Law, Organization, Science and Technology (LOST), I learnt a lot through his critical engagements.
Furthermore, I wish to thank (in alphabetical order) Brian Donahoe, Frank Donath, Julia Eckert, Thomas Hylland Eriksen, Dereje Feyissa, Markus Hhne, Richard Jenkins, Thomas Kirsch, Karsten Kumoll, Peter Loizos, Johanna Mugler, Boris Nieswand, Johnny Parry, Steve Reyna, Andrea Riester, Margreth Tolson and Julia Zenker for their intellectual contributions, inspiration and friendship. I am also deeply indebted to my informants and friends in West Belfast, who generously shared with me their views and concerns, let me participate in their daily lives and thus made possible my ethnographic research and, ultimately, this book. Is mian liom buochas chro a ghabhil le gach duine i mBal Feirste a chuidigh go fial leis an tionscadal seo. I refrain from naming you individually youse know who youse are.
In the process of reworking the draft manuscript into a book, the detailed comments by the editorial board members of the Berghahn Series Integration and Conflict Studies, Gnther Schlee, John Eidson, Peter Finke, Joachim Grlich, Jacqueline Knrr and Bettina Mann, proved extremely helpful; many thanks to you as well as to three anonymous referees for further helpful suggestions. I am also very grateful to Jutta Turner for producing the maps and illustrations, and especially to Cornelia Schnepel for her invaluable assistance in the production of successive manuscript versions.
