When Peace is Not Enough: The Flag Protests, the Politics of Identity & Belonging in East Belfast

Abstract

The flag protests that occurred during the tail of 2012 and early 2013 gained international media attention. Much of the media attention focused on the involvement of young people and sought to seek answers to how young people who had grown up in more peaceful times could be involved in violence that belonged in Northern Ireland's past. Research being conducted by the authors during the course of the flag protests on young people's experiences of living in post-conflict Belfast enabled the researchers to gain insight and clarity on the flag protests, why they had occurred and underlying factors that fuelled the riots and violence that followed, giving a snap shot of the strength of feeling and overall mood of the Protestant community at that time. Using an interpretative phenomenological analysis approach, 2 focus groups with 14 young people aged between 15 and 24 (M = 17 years) were conducted followed by more in-depth semi-structured interviews with 6 young people from the focus groups and a further 6 interviews with youth and community workers from the East Belfast area.

Keywords:

• flag protest
• rioting
• young people
• identity
• unionist
• loyalist
• east Belfast
• culture

ORCID

DONNA HALLIDAY http://orcid.org/0000-0003-4789-0488

NEIL FERGUSON http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0950-450X

Notes

1. The flag protests placed Belfast and Northern Ireland back in the media spotlight with nightly news bulletins from, for instance, the BBC, and Sky News broadcasting images of the protests and riots beamed around the world. Similarly, local, national and international press reported on the protests and riots on a daily basis. For examples, see Belfast Telegraph, The Guardian, The Times or The New York Times.

2. Social media sites such as Twitter were prevalent with comments about the flag protests and protesters with accusations that the protests were little more than sectarian, with protesters often referred to as ‘fleggers’.

3. For more details of the methodology, see Appendix 1.

4. The literature on PUL identity and history is wide. The following therefore is indicative of suggested further reading: see Bell (1990), Bruce (1994), Bryan (2000), Buckley and Kenny (1995), Cochrane (1997), Campbell (1991), Coulter (1999), Jarman (1997), Loftus (1990), McAuley (1994 ,2010), Shirlow and McGovern (1997), McKay (2005), Porter (1996), Smithey (2011) and Todd (1987).

5. See note 4.