Category: The Troubles

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3/31 Discussion Questions

How did the presence of the Irish language fluctuate, in schools and in daily/social life fluctuate throughout more recent Irish history (post revival)?

I’m curious about the Bog bodies/ poems and hope we can talk more about them in class.  Is there a  connection between the idea ritualized killings and premeditated political violence? Was it a fascination with the victim status of the people? Do bodies on display as history and science loose their personhood? Is there any connection with the extremely preserved state of the bodies and the narratives of preservation we were discussing last class?

The last stanza of Punishment is really interesting, especially in how it contains the dichotomy of the civilized and the tribal. I’m trying to read how they are being used. Who is the civilized? Who is the tribal? Even when being used to make a point, does this narrative still promote othering and the idea of the “never ready” as the tribal element?

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Questions for Week 11: the troubles

I’ve drawn some questions about the material that might help the discussion tomorrow. These include:
1. How useful are the analogies and comparisons with African-Americans and Catholics in the north of Ireland?
2. What kind of different perspectives does studying the Irish and American Civil Rights Movements alongside each other add?
3. Is Seamus Heaney’s criticism of Berndaette Devlin and the Black Panthers fair? What does it say about the limitations of these comparisons?
4. How ethical is Heaney’s approach to representing the troubles? Do some of the depictions of victimhood, particularly its gendered aspects, unsettle you?
5. Is Ciaran Carson’s reading of the poems, posted below, fair?

‘It is as if he is saying suffering like this is natural; these things have always happened; they happened then, they happen now, and that is sufficient ground for understanding and absolution. It is as if there never were and never will be any political consequences of such acts’.

Ciaran Carson, ‘Escaped from the Massacre?’, Honest Ulsterman 50 (1975)