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Mark Carruthers - Alternative Ulsters: Conversations on Identity

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Excellent. Thought-provoking. A must-read - Belfast Telegraph Fascinating - Irish Times Mark Carruthers has done something remarkably clever and refreshing . . . A very important book - Belfast News Letter The best political book of the year - Alex Kane Ulster is an ambiguous and complex place. With six of its nine counties in Northern Ireland and three in the Republic of Ireland, it is perhaps most readily associated with the Troubles of the past four decades. It is also, however, a place with a rich literary, musical and sporting heritage. Its people represent a surprising mix of cultural identities, religious ideologies and political allegiances. There is no one settled Ulster identity but as this collection of conversations bears out, there are many areas where experiences and beliefs overlap - even though people come from very different backgrounds and traditions. In Alternative Ulsters, the broadcaster Mark Carruthers interviews a wide range of high-profile writers, actors, journalists and politicians, each of them with an enduring Ulster connection. He uses his finely tuned skills as an interviewer to draw each contributor into a personal reflection on identity. The stories and experiences that helped shape and influence each of the thirty-six interviewees are presented here in a series of colourful, lively, and at times deeply moving exchanges. Together, these conversations with those who know the place best explore Ulster in the twenty-first century, revealing a freshness of thought and a richness of culture that rarely make the headlines.

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For my parents, Billy and Mabel, who encouraged me from my earliest days to ask questions
This is my country. If my people came
from England here four centuries ago,
the only trace thats left is in my name.
Kilmore, Armagh, no other sod can show
the weathered stone of our first burying.
Born in Belfast, which drew the landless in,
that river-straddling, hill-rimmed town, I cling
to the inflexions of my origin.
Though creed-crazed zealots and the ignorant crowd,
long-nurtured, never checked, in ways of hate,
have made our streets a byword of offence,
this is my country, never disavowed.
When it is fouled, shall I not remonstrate?
My heritage is not their violence.
John Hewitt
CONTENTS
The efforts of a great many people have gone into the making of this publication. Clearly, without the enthusiastic co-operation of my interviewees there would be no book. Without exception they have delivered what I asked of them, embracing my challenge to reflect thoughtfully on their experiences of identity. Some of the contributors are close friends, some are acquaintances and several I had little or no contact with before this project, but without exception they impressed me with their willingness to grapple with the complex issues that identity poses in this contested part of the world. I thank all the contributors for taking part in the journey and I hope they are as happy as I am with how our conversations appear in print.
Gathering together a stable of such distinguished interviewees was never going to be easy and I must thank those who helped me to assemble my wish list. Susie Tyrell, Tamar Thomas, Joana Cannon, Jimmy Nesbitt, John Robinson, Vincent Parker, Richard McAuley, Ian Paisley, Martin OBrien, Grainne Mooney and Stuart Bailie all played a part in helping me to secure the co-operation of particular individuals and I am grateful for their support.
My agents Paul and Susan Feldstein were enthusiastic persuaders for the project from its earliest days and their support and encouragement is gratefully acknowledged. Sean OKeeffe and his team at Liberties Press have been supportive throughout. Alan Murray, in particular, played a crucial role in transcribing the interviews into editable copy and he did so with consistent speed and accuracy. Alice Dawson, Clara Phelan, Therese Murray, Fergal Condon and Megan Marshal also deserve special mention.
The Arts Council of Northern Ireland was quick to offer support for the project under its Support for the Individual Artist Programme and I want to thank, in particular, Damian Smyth and Roisin McDonough. Several of the Belfast interviews took place in my home, but the Lyric Theatre was also the location for some of the conversations and my thanks go to the team there for their hospitality.
Colin Davidson and I have been working together for some time on another project and this publication has benefited enormously from that collaboration. Colins remarkable portraits of eleven of the interviewees add greatly to the quality of the book and Im delighted that he so enthusiastically agreed to them being used.
Several friends and colleagues provided assistance and advice with various drafts for which I am very grateful, among them Jacqueline McIntyre, Damien Magee, Mark Devenport, Seamus Kelters and Neil Martin. My son Andrew was the first to read the draft edits of each interview and he was unswervingly supportive and insightful in the advice he offered, and I am enormously in his debt. My good friends Stephen Douds and Stephen Walker have been unshakably encouraging throughout and their perceptive feedback has been hugely helpful.
Finally a word of thanks to Alison, Andrew, James and Kirsty. They have had to live with the ups and downs of the project for longer than any of us anticipated. I couldnt have managed it without their ever-present love, support and good humour and I promise we can stop talking about identity all the time at home now.
Mark Carruthers
Belfast
12th July 2013
The publishers have made every effort to contact copyright holders. If any material has been used without permission, please contact the publishers.
Gerry Adams - An Phoblacht
George Bain - Bobbie Hanvey
May Blood - Harrison Photography
Joe Brolly - Ray McManus
Gerald Dawe - Bobbie Hanvey
Jennifer Johnston - Caroline Forbes
Mary McAleese - Tony Higgins
Eamonn McCann - Harrison Photography
Jackie McDonald - Pacemaker Press Photography
Martin McGinley - Jim McCafferty
Martin McGuinness - Harrison Photography
Denis Murray - Peter Cooper
Liam Neeson - Nigel Parry
Frank Ormsby - Jonathan Seath
Ian Paisley - Harrison Photography
Glenn Patterson - Harrison Photography
Mary Peters - Harrison Photography
Stephen Rea - Michael Donald
Peter Robinson - Harrison Photography
Original Portraits by Colin Davidson
An Ulsterman by John Hewitt is from The Collected Poems of John Hewitt, ed. Frank Ormsby (Blackstaff Press, 1991) reproduced by permission of Blackstaff Press on behalf of the Estate of John Hewitt.
Ulster teems with apparent contradictions. It is Irish and it is British. Its inhabitants look to Dublin and they look to London. People speak English, Irish and maybe even Ulster-Scots. They are Protestant and they are Catholic. There is no dispute that a great deal divides these people, but arguably it is their Ulster inheritance that unites them.
There is one geographical Ulster of course, which stretches from the northernmost tip of Malin Head in County Donegal, through the heartlands of Mid-Ulster and County Antrim, right down to Virginia in County Cavan, which is a mere fifty miles from the centre of Dublin. But within that majestic sweep there are countless Ulsters, each of them with a multitude of experiences, perspectives and prejudices. And, as this ancient Irish province eases itself into the twenty-first century, its population of almost two million now includes a smattering of Portuguese and Polish speakers. They live and work alongside fellow citizens who are Muslims, Hindus and Bahs, demonstrating that Ulster is no longer a place of just two faith communities.
This collection of conversations is an attempt to take the notional temperature of a place where identity tends to inform a great deal of the day-to-day civic debate. Much public comment has been made in recent years, for example, about an apparent growth in acceptance of the term Northern Irish in certain quarters where that has not traditionally been so, though it is easy to over-simplify the point. The commentator Malachi ODoherty summed up his own position in a Belfast Telegraph article in February 2013:
When I tick a box that says I am Northern Irish, I am saying that my strongest identification is with this region and its people and that I want political stability here in a Northern Ireland that is connected to Ireland, Britain and Europe. I am saying that I see a decent prospect of that being achievable and that I put my political hopes in that future As somebody who designates as Northern Irish, I am saying that where two large communal camps here obsess about identity over practical politics, I prefer politics to work and can compromise further on identity to achieve that.
The poet John Hewitt is widely acknowledged as someone who did much to advance the idea of regional identity. His idea of a hierarchy of values, touched on by Malachi ODoherty, became something of a recurring theme throughout this project. In 1974 in an
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