The Moral Boundaries of the Nation: The Constitution of National Identity in the Southeastern Border Counties of Ireland

Abstract

This article argues that nationalism is more varied in the way that it constructs its boundaries than contemporary scholarship suggests. In an interdisciplinary, multi-stranded qualitative study of ethno-national identity on the Southern side of the Irish border, it shows the moral repertoires that qualify, conflict with, and on occasion replace, territorial, ethnic and state-centred aspects of national identity. It refocuses attention on the cultural and normative content of imagined national communities, and the different ways in which general norms function in particular communal contexts. It casts a new light on Southern attitudes to Irish unity. More generally, it suggests that a form of ‘moral nationalism’ is possible, distinct from the forms of nationalism—ethnic and civic nationalism and trans-nationalism—discussed in the literature.

Acknowledgements

The authors gratefully acknowledge funding from the EU Programme for Peace and Reconciliation, as part of the HEA North–South Strand Two programmes. They appreciate the constructive criticism given by anonymous reviewers and the editors of Ethnopolitics.

Notes

1. For this reason, second generation interviewees are somewhat over-represented in our quotations, as they were often the most articulate on these issues.

2. The references were to Protestants as a religious not a national minority. Like the adults, the young Protestants in our study described themselves unequivocally as Irish.

3. These interviews were conducted by Dr Theresa O'Keefe as part of the Identity Diversity and Citizenship research programme at the Geary Institute, UCD, between 2003 and 2005.