Whose ‘wee country’?: identity politics and sport in Northern Ireland

ABSTRACT

This article responds to calls in this journal for increased attention to identity, culture, power and sport. It explores, for the first time, the lived realities of identity politics in a divided society, through interviews with 12 self-declared Irish nationalists and republicans that represented Northern Ireland. Important insights are revealed into national eligibility decisions for either Irish team, motivated mainly by ‘shop window’ visibility and being seen as the best of a peer group. Political and sporting nationalisms were not necessarily analogous. A significant original finding is that the lived experiences of being closer to ‘the other’ resulted in an overall reinforcement rather than dissolution of difference. Visual and oral ‘national’ symbols such as flag, and especially anthem, delineated such difference, being symbolic walls of the mind. ‘Our wee country’ was thus a polarised and polarising fantasy shield. The article concludes by reconsidering the role of sport as a lens through which to examine identity and its’ place as part of the ‘problem’ and ‘solution’.

KEYWORDS:

• Identity
• habitus
• divided
• sport
• politics
• Northern Ireland

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. The Court of Arbitration for Sport has provided a long clarification on dual eligibility in their 2010 football-related judgement (A/2071 IFA v FAI, Kearns & FIFA). This is subject to the condition that they have not played at senior level for their current association, and that they also meet one of an additional set of conditions: born in that country, parents or grandparents born in that country, two years’ residency (for dual nationals) or four years’ residency (for newly acquired nationality).

2. To our knowledge, fewer players have first represented the RoI (either as youths) and then declared for NI compared to vice versa. Alex Bruce is one example, having played for the RoI at Under 21 and ‘B’ levels up to 2008. His RoI international caps were in non-competitive (friendly) games. Besides Bruce, Patrick and Shane McEleney, Johnny Gorman, Gerard Doherty and Tony Kane have played for both Irish football associations at youth level.

3. Aaron McEneff’s younger brother, Jordan, was also cited as having ‘followed a similar path’. The Hale brothers (Rory and Ronan, playing for Aston Villa and Birmingham City respectively) also ‘made the switch’.

4. An extended theoretical re-statement of the work on habitus is unnecessary here as such insights, including the conceptual socio-genesis of habitus, are readily available elsewhere (e.g. Maguire and Poulton 1999; Tuck 2003; Paulle and Van Heerikhuizen 2012).

5. At least 39 players have represented the IFA and the FAI between 1908 and 1950, a period when the two rival associations competed separately, in the British Home Championship and in the Olympics and World Cups, respectively. Ger Crossley, Gerard Doherty, Mark McKeever and Tony Shields also played for FAI teams between 1995 and 1998.

6. This is not to deny that initiatives designed to tackle sectarianism and promote equal opportunity policies in Irish league competitions have yielded some changes. The ‘Sea of Green’ campaign at Windsor Park, which aimed to make the national stadium more welcoming to Catholics, is claimed to have had some success and it is anticipated that the recent sponsorship deal with Electric Ireland will enable the game to be further opened to girls/women.

7. Lennon retired from international football in August 2002 before his captaincy of the NI team that played Cyprus. Lennon was the target of sectarian abuse and was not the first to receive such treatment at Windsor Park. Anton Rogan, 1980s international player, a Catholic, encountered sectarian abuse during his NI playing career for being a Celtic player as did his teammate Allen McKnight.

8. Those from a nationalist background more heavily populate interface areas (Byrne, Gormley-Heenan, and Robinson 2012).

9. The phrase ‘blue blood’ is usually associated with Linfield FC, a leading Protestant football club founded in 1885 and known as ‘the Blues’. Linfield FC was ‘hated for football-related reasons but also as a consequence of both sectarian division and intra-community rivalry’ (Bairner and Shirlow 2001, 44). In a new 51-year contract, Linfield received an annual payment of approximately £200,000 per annum from the IFA in return for the day-to-day management of what is now known as ‘the national stadium’.