Violent realities: Stories from an Irish Minority

Authors

  • Tony John Walsh Maynooth University National University of Ireland Maynooth Co Kildare Ireland

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.13021/G8ncetp.v4.1.2016.1350

Abstract

The small Irish Protestant minority has had complex, blurred and dramatically changing relationships with roles of both victimizer and victim. It has moved from an alignment with forces of British colonial power to extreme marginality, persecution and the threat of extinction following Irish political Independence. In the last decade it is coping with sudden acceptability and growth. It has moved from being mildly aligned to Britain to being quite fiercly Irish and has been variously (and often simultaneously) execrated, marginalized, silenced, silent, depressed, superior, patronized and patronising.

Utilising Foucaultââ¬â¢s notions of discourse, power and resistance, this paper explores a small number of vignettes emerging from a recent narrative research inquiry into Irish Protestant identity. The paper draws also on Bronwyn Daviesââ¬â¢ concept of positioning through language and social interaction to increase, challenge and complicate our understanding of the layered, nuanced and often contradictory dynamics of victimhood and victimizer in that evolving scenario.

Author Biography

Tony John Walsh, Maynooth University National University of Ireland Maynooth Co Kildare Ireland

Dr. Tony Walsh is an academic and Head of the Department of Adult and Community Education at Maynooth University, Co Kildare, Ireland, where he is also Director of the Centre for Studies in Irish Protestantism and Co-Director of the Centre for Transformative Narrative Research. He is a member of the Advisory Board of the Edward M. Kennedy Institute for Conflict Intervention at the University and until recently was joint co-ordinator of the Doctorate in Adult and Higher Education and co-ordinator of the MA in Leadership, Management and Defence Studies, a partnership programme with the Irish Defence Forces. Trained as a systemic-constructivist psychotherapist he was co-founder of the Institute of Psychosocial Medicine, Co Dublin and of the Dublin Bereavement Counselling Service and was for many years a member of the Southern Executive of the Council on Social Responsibility of the Irish Methodist Church. He has edited, jointly edited and contributed to a number of books on radical adult education, post-positivist research, suicide, defence issues, and multiculturalism. As well as working in Ireland he continues to engage in research projects in the United Kingdom, the USA andà Palestine.

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Published

2016-12-31

Issue

Vol. 4 No. 1

Section

Articles