Inventing the myth: political passions and the Ulster Protestant imagination

As the depressing spectacle of inter-party talks designed to revive the Northern Ireland Executive dragged on sporadically through 2017, it became clear that one of the critical areas of division between the Democratic Unionist Party and Sinn Féin, alongside the complex legacies of the conflict, was the issue of cultural politics (or, at least, the political uses of culture). The ostensible sticking point of an Irish Language Act could be understood as a proxy for a much broader series of disputes surrounding questions of cultural expression and equality (in the language of the Good Friday/Belfast Agreement, ‘parity of esteem’). For students of politics elsewhere, this concern with culture as a bone of contention in Northern Irish political life can seem rather esoteric. But, in a highly politicised society, in which many are sensitively attuned both to how their own ‘community’ is represented by the ‘other side’, and how they represent themselves to the outside world, these questions are of central importance.