Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

The rubric of Britishness describes only partially and contentiously the poetic field of Northern Irish culture. For the entirety of the historical period surveyed in this volume, Northern Ireland has remained a part of the constitutional government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland; this is the political entity created by the Government of Ireland Act in 1920, and is thus a remnant of the Act of Union of 1800. The provisional solution to the centuries-old Irish problem through the expediency of partition continues to stir the pots of British and Irish politics; the welcome changes introduced by the peace process begun in 1994, especially the dramatic reduction in military and paramilitary violence following the Good Friday Agreement of 1998, have not yet solved the problem of the state. Consequently the terminology used to name the poetic field itself is implicated in the political crisis, as even a brief survey of the terms in play makes clear. There is, to begin with, an appreciable difference between describing a “Northern Ireland” poetry and a “Northern Irish” poetry; the former describes a political State that has never enjoyed unchallenged legitimacy, and the latter denominates a subset of an ethnicity and another State with which many residents of Northern Ireland vehemently do not wish to associate. Other names have proven yet more unpalatable. ... log in or subscribe to read full text