Ulster Scots Identity and Culture: The Missing Voices

Abstract

In recent years, the Ulster Scots cultural movement has become increasingly prominent, primarily among Protestants/unionists, in Northern Ireland. This movement is frequently seen as a form of cultural unionism that has emerged in response to sociopolitical change. Thus, Ulster Scots is typically seen as a response to the growing confidence of Irish nationalist culture and to a sense of dislocation among unionists in the face of UK devolution and changing conceptions of ‘Britishness.’ These notions reflect a potential politicisation of the movement and have led many to question the ‘authenticity’ of an Ulster Scots communal identity. In this article, we acknowledge the importance of sociopolitical conditions for the emergence of the Ulster Scots culture/identity. However, we challenge the suggestion implicit in much academic and nonacademic writing that this culture/identity is somehow contrived in response to such developments. Drawing on interviews and focus group discussions, we show the significance of Ulster Scots as a means of self-understanding and identification in everyday society. Crucially, these interviews were conducted not only with political and cultural leaders (who have hitherto been the focus of Ulster Scots research), but also with ‘grass-roots’ Ulster Scots people, for whom the official movement holds varying degrees of importance. We demonstrate that Ulster Scots functions as a cultural resource not only at the macro-level of official rhetoric, but also at the micro-levels of identity formation, self-understanding, and communal consciousness. We conclude that Ulster Scots is a ‘real’ and lived experience for a self-defined community and, hence, functions similarly to any cultural identity category.

Keywords:

• Ulster Scots
• identity
• discourse
• Northern Ireland
• cultural recognition
• Protestants

Notes

1 The word ‘contractarian’ is drawn from Contractarian Moral Theory and is commonly used with reference to Ulster unionist ideology. It refers to reciprocal relationship of rights and duties between the state and its citizens and an equality of rights and duties between the citizens of the state. See Aughey (1989) for additional information.

2 As discussed later, there are of course a number of variants of what may be broadly termed NI British/Protestant/unionist identity, each reflecting a particular strand of political and cultural perspective (see Gallagher 1995; Porter 1996; Todd 1987).

3 Indeed, there is scant support among either sector of the population for the idea of an independent NI state (see Gallagher 1995). In the most recent Northern Irish Life and Times (NILT) survey, for instance, this option was selected as ‘a long term policy for Northern Ireland’ by 5% of Protestants and 10% of Catholics, with overall support of just 7% (NILT 2003).

4 This is to be distinguished from what Smith (2001: 54) calls a participants’ primordialism’—i.e., primordial ties as constructed and felt by participants themselves.

5 The problem here seems to be a confusion amongst both lay and academics, between a legitimate ‘identity process’ such as ‘invention,’ or ‘definition by what one is not’ and the appropriation of such processes for specific political ends.

6 We would like to take this opportunity to clarify our position and that of the Institute of Ulster Scots Studies (IUSS) at the University of Ulster. The IUSS was established in 2001 to develop understanding of the Ulster Scots history, culture, and heritage in both local and global contexts. Work at the Institute is interdisciplinary, with researchers drawn from disciplines such as history, language and literature, social science, communication, and cultural studies (and from all social and cultural backgrounds). IUSS research is centrally concerned with academic analysis, and indeed the stimulation of informed debate, around the issue of Ulster Scots. Further detail on remit and activities of the Institute can be accessed at www.arts.ulster.ac.uk/ulsterscots/.

7 We are aware that not all of these researchers work within the specific DA paradigm that we are describing, but all conduct empirical discursive analyses, and we believe that they share enough commonality to serve as illustrative examples of the ‘discursive approach to cultural identity.’

8 In this article, we use the term ‘cultural identity’ as a generic reference for identities predicated upon attachment to a particular place or place collective.