Ghosts of Gender: Memory, Legacy and Spectrality in Northern Ireland’s Post-Conflict Commemorative Politics

Abstract

The spectrality of gender in conflict narratives and post-conflict politics has implications for how the conflict is framed, and therefore managed and normalized. This paper adapts Marysia Zalewski’s concept of ‘Gender Ghosts’ to analyse and deconstruct the dominant memory narratives surrounding the legacy of the Troubles in Northern Ireland. This approach underscores the precarious—and often marginalized—role of women, femininity and masculinity, and gender in the writing and rewriting of the conflictual past. Conceptualized as spectrality, this precarity can, however, disrupt and challenge exclusively ethno-nationalist constructions of the past.

Acknowledgements

A previous version of this article was presented at the 2013 Annual Meeting of the Canadian Political Science Association. The author wishes to thank the co-panelists and discussant for their insightful feedback on this project, as well as Siobhan Byrne and Heather Zwicker for reading early drafts. Any errors or opinions are, of course, solely those of the author.

Notes

1. Susan McKay (2014) Northern Ireland’s peace is haunted by ghosts who will not be silenced, The Observer, 4 May, available online at: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/may/04/northern-ireland-gerry-adams-arrest-troubles-haunted-ghosts-past?INTCMP=ILCNETTXT3487

2. Republican prisoners interned in the Maze prison initiated two distinct hunger strikes in this period: the first ended after 53 days on 18 December 1980, after assurances were offered by the British government that the ‘five demands’ for a return of quasi-political status would be met. On 1 December, the seven male protesters were joined on the fast by three republican prisoners in Armagh women’s prison. When it appeared that this agreement had been reneged upon, inmates and the Provisional Army Council authorized a second strike. Beginning on 1 March 1981, this strike lasted until 3 October. In those seven months, 10 men died – including Bobby Sands, who was elected as Member of Parliament for Fermanagh/South Tyrone while on hunger strike. In mainstream republican discourse, these protests are frequently elided; commemorations of the period usually begin on 5 May, the anniversary of Sands’ death, and culminate with a National Hunger Strike Commemoration on or around 20 August – the death of the tenth prisoner, Michael (Mickey) Devine.

3. Recent popular culture remediations of the Hunger Strikes also reinforce this masculinist interpretation of the event and its political meaning. See Graff-McRae, 2014.

4. Mairia Cahill ‘deeply regrets and is deeply sorry’ for dissident involvement. The Journal.ie, 12 November 2015, available at: http://www.thejournal.ie/mairia-cahill-dissidents-2440794-Nov2015/

5. A republican image in reference to the 1916 Easter Rising.

6. … Once, that is, it was established that Sinn Féin held the proper permits for the weapons. See the article, Sinn Fein had valid certification for replica assault weapons, Londonderry Sentinel, 3 January 2013, available online at: http://www.londonderrysentinel.co.uk/news/community-news/sinn-fein-had-valid-certification-for-replica-assault-weapons-1-4637446

7. For a thorough discussion of the gendered politics of the Armagh women’s protest, see Begoña Aretxaga (1997) Shattering Silence: Women, Nationalism, and Political Subjectivity in Northern Ireland (Princeton: Princeton University Press); also Jessica Scarlata (2014) Rethinking Occupied Ireland: Gender and Incarceration in Contemporary Irish Film (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press).

8. Conversely the Dublin Women’s Day ‘tribute’ to Farrell was seemingly uncontroversial – as it was held outside official government space, the event garnered little attention.

9. Also referred to as the Ulster Solemn League and Covenant, this document was signed by nearly 240,000 men on 28 September 1912; a separate, but similar Declaration was signed by approximately an equal number of women. The signatories to the Covenant pledged to resist the proposed Home Rule legislation and uphold the union with Britain ‘using all means which may be found necessary’. The anniversary of the signing has been dubbed ‘Ulster Day’.

10. The UVF, or Ulster Volunteer Force, was formed in 1913, as a militia to support the Ulster Covenant – and to resist Home Rule through armed conflict if necessary. The name was revived in 1966 by a paramilitary organisation, which claimed a direct lineage to the original Volunteers, and adopted the same logo (see, for example, Ulster-Scots Community Network, 2013, pp. 10–11; Public Record Office of Northern Ireland [PRONI], 2013).

Additional information

Funding

This work was funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, under grant number 756-2012-0491.