Re-Imagining Ireland Panels in Focus

Re-Imagining Ireland has been designed as a dynamic on-going conversation.  Here, panelists will not read formal papers – they will outline their positions in statements that run to no more than 8 minutes each.  A moderator will frame each discussion, describing the agenda and raising some pertinent issues.  Sessions will run to 75 minutes – with 30 minutes reserved for open discussion with the audience.  That audience will include invited as well as registered guests, who will act as questioners and commentators throughout – perhaps informally continuing the exploration at lunches, dinners, and social occasions. 

Keynote Panel: Re-Imagining Ireland If, as Benedict Anderson has claimed, nations and identities are, to begin with, “imagined communities,” then they are constantly being re-imagined in response to history – to changing political, social and cultural realities. This panel will introduce the conference themes, considering recent Irish history and the legacy of the past, and exploring the process of re-imagining that has taken place in Ireland over the last forty years or so, but especially during the last ten.   How technological development, increasing affluence, and Ireland’s new sense of itself as a European player has affected the culture of “old Ireland” and its people will be a central focus. So, too, will the new meanings and emphases now given to the history and cultural achievements of the wider Irish Diaspora.  How, the panelists will ask, are the Irish defining their own identities in relation to other histories, particularly those of the Irish in America?  The group will then consider the peace process in Northern Ireland, asking whether it has required a fundamental reassessment of the nature of Irish identity at home. The Belfast Agreement, however problematic its implementation remains, has profoundly altered the nature of the Northern conflict.  Has the agreement promoted the rise of awareness that compromise and adjustments are necessary if Ireland is permanently to accommodate peace?

Key Panel 1: The Celtic Tiger The economic growth and increasing affluence of Ireland during the 1990s was so spectacular that the country was dubbed “the Celtic Tiger.”  This panel will reflect on the historical dimensions of the current situation as well as related contemporary issues.  Will Ireland continue to ride the “tiger” of US-driven globalization?  Is the phenomenal growth recently experienced a signpost on the road to more-or-less permanent economic and social stability, or an ephemeral effect bound to result in renewed emigration, disillusionment, and socio-political upheaval?  The history of the Irish economy is littered with economic booms followed by recession and stagnation.  The country has shown a fatal vulnerability to economic forces that are seemingly beyond its control.  The 18^th-century surges and declines in the linen market, the severe postwar depression of the early 1800s, and the internationalization of agricultural product exchange in the late 1800s and the first half of the 1900s surely demonstrate this fact.   Ireland’s modest economic boom of the 1960s also proved evanescent, with the Republic reverting in the 1980s to mass unemployment and mass emigration.  Is Ireland’s future now more secure, protected by access to Europe’s markets and capital?  And is Ireland most likely to follow the model of American enterprise or social planning? 

Silicon Ireland The popular image of Ireland abroad may remain that of a green and rural land, but having rushed headlong into modernity, the country finds itself at the forefront of the digital revolution.  Thanks to a massive infusion of U.S. capital in the computer hardware and software sectors, County Kildare takes pride in being called “The Silicon Valley of Europe.”  The Irish government and the MIT Media Lab have jointed forces in an ambitious plan to develop a state of the art digital hub in the heart of inner-city Dublin. What does the future hold for the silicon island?   Is the ground of tradition a protection against the synthetic culture of an increasingly techno-centered world?  Is Ireland melding its ancient strengths in a productive relation with the digital future?

Family in Ireland:  Breaking Silences, Marking Changes We are accustomed to imagining the Irish family as large, close-knit, with roles traditionally defined.  Yet, families are getting smaller in Ireland, with unprecedented numbers of married women now joining the workforce.  Irish men and women, as those in other industrial societies, struggle to find a balance between work and family life.  Increasingly, however, many find themselves wedded, often unwillingly, to a work-rich, time-poor culture.   Non-marital births now account for up to one-third of first-time births in the country.  And while marriage remains popular, increasing numbers are choosing to exchange vows in civil, rather than religious ceremonies.  Divorce legislation was passed in 1995.  Thousands seek abortions in Britain each year, while rancorous debate continues at home on the status of the “unborn” in Ireland’s constitution.  The country has recently been shocked by revelations of child abuse and neglect at the hands of church and state institutions.   How are children valued now in Ireland and how have they been valued in the past?  Can a nation support family and community values by creating conditions that allow for dialogue, breaking through silences, marking and evaluating change?

Multi-Racialism The Irish definition of “self” has historically been mono-cultural, equated with whiteness and Catholicism.  The rise of a Travelers’ rights movement, and the increase in both immigration and the numbers of those seeking asylum in Ireland, have acted as catalysts for a new debate about nationality, ethnicity, and identity on the island.  In January 2002, a young Chinese man was beaten to death in Dublin in what was widely regarded as a racially motivated murder.  This tragic incident occurred in a context of change that has generated a national debate about “Irishness,” ethnicity, and race.  The kaleidoscopic quality of Irishness, in its various manifestations, both historical and contemporary, is now being discussed, as are historical stereotypes of the Irish as a “race” that did not fit well in civil society.  Such discussion yields perspective on multi-racial problems and how Ireland is responding to racial conflict. It may also suggest a need to revise Ireland’s sense of itself in intercultural terms. 

Celtic Music & Dance The Riverdance phenomenon and the newfound popularity of Irish myth and legend worldwide are aspects of a contemporary Celtic revival that is preeminently expressed through music and dance. The movement has its roots in the ancient traditions of Ireland but transforms and generates musical forms in a world context, challenging notions of authenticity, while at the same time drawing a huge and devoted audience. This panel will explore the relation of contemporary Celtic music to the musical history of the island, considering the meaning of the urge to repossess the old and contrasting approaches in Europe, Ireland, and America towards Ireland’s musical past. 

Life Stories I, II, III To treat Ireland as though there is an essential, traditional, purely Irish reality is to miss the point that the Irish experience is a matrix of highly individualized, communally conditioned, socially fractured, globally dispersed, conflicting, and constantly shifting realities.  To emphasize this point, Re-Imagining Ireland will include a series of “Life Stories.”  These will be told by well-known and not-so-well-known people, who simply recount their experiences as Irish in the world.   Selected individuals from America, Ireland, and the Caribbean will speak of what their lives have been like and how they as persons got to be where they are.  Such forms of expression will play-off and illuminate more abstract analysis. Told by writers, Travelers, and others, the Life Stories will convey with unusual immediacy each individual’s sense of imaginative reality.   They will meld explanation with experience, introducing accounts that challenge the preconceptions of audience and participants alike. 

Celtic Myth & Spirituality The world of the Celts has come to exert a peculiarly powerful attraction, evoking pre-history, mystery, and spiritual yearning.  Some describe this power as an aspect of a hunger for depths that often seem to be missing in a technologically driven world.  Yet, at the same time, archaeologists and ancient historians have been quietly chipping away at the notion that the Irish are or ever were a Celtic people. New interpretations of the evidence question the very basis of the Celtic label, suggesting that the migration of the Celts to Ireland is itself a myth.  Does this really matter to contemporary Irish culture?  Is the Celtic “revival” a positive phenomenon, inviting a diverse world to Ireland’s party?  Does it offer substance and solace, or is it a vacuous and potentially dangerous reversion to 19^th-century romanticism?   

Poverty Amidst Prosperity While many in Ireland enjoy a new-found prosperity, the country’s infrastructure groans under the weight of its success.  Roads are jammed, property prices have spiraled beyond the reach of many, a culture of marketing threatens to envelop rural and urban dwellers, as shopping malls and discount retail outlets mushroom across the land.  Architectural critics argue for sustainable development and bemoan the Manhattanization of cities, including Dublin.  At the same time, it has become clear that the rising tide has not lifted all boats.  While absolute poverty in Ireland has declined in recent years, analysts say that relative poverty is on the increase, leaving many to envy those favored by the boom.  This panel will explore such phenomena, as well as the ways in which community can be sustained despite rapid change.  Speakers will consider the advantages of traditional social structures and how poverty and a sense of dislocation may serve to undermine a nation’s identity.

Key Panel II: Home and AwayIn her inaugural address as President of Ireland in 1990, Mary Robinson eloquently captured the new mood of openness that characterized Irish attitudes towards the wider Diaspora:  “There are over 70 million people living on this globe who claim Irish descent,” she remarked.  “I will be proud to represent them.”  The lighted candle that she put in the kitchen of her official residence in Dublin proved to be an emotional and popular symbol of Ireland's new awareness of this global community. This panel will establish and provide backgrounds for the theme of the day’s discussion – the historic social, cultural and political impact of Irish emigration across the globe, especially to the United States. What have been the achievements and failures of the Irish abroad, and how have these affected Irish culture at home?

Between Europe & America Historically, Ireland has oriented itself towards the Anglo-American world. Indeed, this fact has had much to do with the decisions of key American multinational companies to locate in Ireland – and this, in turn, has been crucial to the emergence of the Celtic Tiger economy.  At the same time, the influence in Ireland of Europe and in particular, of the European Union, has been immense, conditioning how the country has evolved over the past thirty years.  Brussels has to a great extent financially underwritten Ireland’s national development strategy, and Irish legislation is increasingly guided by what is happening in Europe.  Now that the EU is expanding, the Irish are being asked to adapt, perhaps assuming a smaller role than they currently enjoy in running the Union’s affairs.  And already a debate has arisen about whether or not Ireland is and ought to be, as Deputy Prime Minister Mary Harney once put it, “closer to Boston than to Berlin.”  Will the links so carefully nurtured with the United States dissipate as Ireland is swallowed within a “United States of Europe?”  Or will the country retain its historical relationship with America, founded on the legacy of the Diaspora?

Memory, Identity, & the Diaspora This panel will explore how images of the Irish Diaspora are shaped by changing social, cultural, and political circumstances, both in Ireland and abroad.  It will ask how those images are affected by cultural developments among the Irish at home, and among the “native” producers and consumers of Irish images in “home countries” abroad.  Some rural Irish families still gratefully recall “American letters,” containing money critical to their survival, sent home by relatives working in Pittsburg, Chicago, and New York.  Most Irish have, however, come to a new sense of self-sufficiency and power.  No longer dependently waiting, they confidently exercise their creative prerogative in the world.  But they are drawn to come to terms with their global past, to connect with the disconnected Irish abroad, to explore issues of assimilation and identity in a multi-national context.  In this equation, the U.S. has been and is a major factor, and, as the Irish seek out America, Americans are similarly seeking out their Irish connections, testing inherited perceptions of the land their forebears were often forced to flee.  This panel will offer a meeting of the minds, with some surprises, both historical and contemporary.

St. Patrick, Leprechauns, & Shamrocks What does the sometimes kitschy presentation and marketing of Irish traditions and symbols, which often become a vehicle of escapist sentiment, reveal or obscure about Ireland or the Irish abroad?  Who creates and who consumes stereotypical, mass-marketed images of the Irish?  Why have such images taken particular hold today?  How were the Irish represented in the past and what have been the overt and covert social and political implications of these portrayals?  Are stereotypical images encouraged or discouraged by the processes of migration and globalization?

The Irish in America Panelists in this session will assess the contribution of the Irish to America, past and present, and speculate on the future relationship between the U.S. and Ireland.  The story of Irish emigration extends to the seventeenth century, when the first Irish emigrants sailed to British colonies in the New World.  For over three centuries, emigration was incorporated as an Irish way of life.  Most Irish emigrants to America were of peasant stock, the majority finding employment as unskilled labor in factories, mines, and domestic work.  The panel will explore the historical evidence, tracing, for example, the story of the famine generation in the U.S., who, by the 1870s and 1880s, had begun to make important economic and political advances.  By the turn of the century, the Irish had begun to carve out a niche within the American Catholic Church.  But they also achieved their primary success through politics and government. Political power, exercised through tightly controlled systems of patronage, became an ethnic Irish hallmark.  The legacy of this cultural characteristic is evident in the success of Irish politicians and lobbying groups generally, most recently in relation to immigration law reform and the peace process in the North of Ireland.  

Presentation:  Re-Imagining Irish Art To be in Ireland and be fully in the world was, in the last century, for many Irish artists, a contradiction in terms.  Early in the 20^th century, in fact, many Irish artists took James Joyce’s advice – they became silent, cunning, or went into exile.  The 1990s, however, saw seismic changes in Irish society and culture, North and South.  These are boldly reflected in the work of a generation of homegrown and home-employed artists – rooted in place, but determined to explore a particular moment in a cultural shift with transnational connections.  Presented in conjunction with an exhibition from the Irish Museum of Modern Art, this discussion will focus on the significance of advances made recently in the visual arts in Ireland.  Has it become possible for Irish artists, using new and traditional media, to work through the seeming contradiction between the local and the global?  Are Irish artists renegotiating definitions of Irishness, helping to articulate a new, more questioning and problematic identity that is validated by the present rather than the past?  How does visual art interact with other cultural forms in Ireland today and can art created in Ireland be valued beyond the Irish context?  Irish artists are not alone in facing such questions.

The Universe of the Gaeltacht Irish is almost unique among minority languages in having state support and a thriving and dynamic literature.  The Irish Diaspora includes many from traditional Gaeltacht areas who benefited from free educational programs, beginning in the late 1960s, and mostly emigrated to find work.  In recent years, they have been enabled to reconnect with, or recover, their use of Irish, via electronic media.  And they and theirs at home are no longer stigmatized – as Ireland has become more prosperous, Irish has emerged as a badge of identity, an element in a repossession of traditional culture.  What are the historical origins of the Gaeltacht, regarded as those remnant areas of Ireland where Irish is spoken?  How does the vision of a Gaeltacht fit in a multicultural Ireland?   Is the question of Gaeltacht civil rights still an urgent or compelling issue?  What is the effect in present-day Ireland of poetry, films, or TV programs that emanate from places that some designate as remote, traditional, and peripheral?   Is the Gaeltacht still primarily a group of places on the map – or has it found a new status as an idea that is free of any particular location.

Irish Empires Is the notion of an “Irish empire” a fraud?  Did church leaders eager to pose a “spiritual” alternative to the material power of the British Empire initially introduce this idea?  Is the concept now secularized and promoted by revisionist scholars and journalists as an alternative to and critique of Irish and Irish-American nationalism?  Or has the history of Irish influence abroad – the result of exile and emigration, missionary work, and peace-keeping – a peculiar resonance in the increasingly interconnected world of the twenty-first century? And how does the re-emergent history of Irish involvement in the British Empire interact with Irish perceptions of the new immigrants arriving in Ireland, especially from Africa? 

Ireland & Britain For many centuries, Irish identity has been crucially shaped by a difficult, often hostile, yet always intimate relationship with Britain.  Samuel Beckett’s famous reply to the question, “Vous etes Anglais, Monsieur Beckett?” – “Au contraire,” has been the template for a deeply influential set of attitudes. To be Irish was, above all, to be not English, or not British. This patterning of identity gave priority to key points of distinction: If Britain was urban, Ireland must be essentially rural.  If Britain was Protestant, Ireland must be essentially Catholic. If Britain was a monarchy, Ireland must be a republic.  In recent years, however, this structure of thought and feeling has been changing. On the one hand, the Belfast Agreement has forced a recognition that Irish and British identities not merely co-exist on the island but are interdependent. On the other, the Republic has ceased to be economically dependent on Britain and is, within the context of the EU, an equal partner on the world stage. At the same time, the voice of the Irish Diaspora within Britain itself has become louder and more self-confident, creating a new notion of British/Irish identity that has its own dynamic of conflict and confidence.  This panel will explore the possibilities emerging as Ireland finally embraces peace in the global marketplace, and Britain moves further from its imperial past

Living with Hollywood Hollywood cinema may be a quintessential American institution, but it is also the only truly global cinema that we have.  Its economic and aesthetic domination, certainly in the Western world, is almost total. The erratic history of British cinema has shown clearly the impossibility of trying to compete with Hollywood.  And yet, in the shadow of this behemoth, nations and national cultures throughout the world struggle to make films that have a particular local or national resonance.  What can a national cinema become when faced with the global commercial cinema?  In this discussion, the Irish cinema will be treated as a model to assess the problems presented to the film industries of countries everywhere.

Key Panel III:  Peace and Northern Ireland Through many crises and setbacks, the peace process in Northern Ireland has moved forward determinedly and against all the odds. This panel will consider the wider social and cultural contexts of the peace process and how it has affected culture and identity throughout Ireland.  How has the movement for peace been sustained, and what are the historical, political and religious backgrounds to the problem?  What kind of sacrifices, reassessments and compromises were necessary on all sides to get the process to where it is now?  Does the struggle for peace in Northern Ireland contain lessons applicable to the search for peace and reconciliation elsewhere?  Such questions will be considered as this panel examines the parameters of an oscillating but remarkable process that has attempted to re-imagine and reconfigure a historically destructive set of relationships.

Unionism Unionism was a great monolith, securely housed within another great monolith: Stormont in Belfast – until 1972.  But after thirty years of the Troubles, Unionism is fragmented and fractious.  The Ulster Unionist Party, precariously led by David Trimble, is split; one faction has persistently sought to undermine the now-suspended power-sharing arrangements.  Ian Paisley's Democratic Unionist Party claims the Good Friday Agreement is the road to ruin, but has been willing to sit in the executive at Stormont nonetheless, confusing the paramilitary foot-soldiers who provided the muscle that brought down the last attempt at a power-sharing government in 1974.  Many Unionists say they don't want change –  "not an inch" and "no surrender" are deeply rooted political notions.  A new liberal, flexible Unionism has emerged, but it remains embattled.  Indeed, Unionism, like its Nationalist antagonist, has also made considerable compromises to ensure that the Northern Irish peace process has got as far as it has. This panel will consider the current state of Unionism in Northern Ireland and assess its future direction.

Ulster’s Protestants: Complex Identities For many in Northern Ireland, the designation “Protestant” is more about ethnic identity than the practice of religion.  In working class areas, increasingly religiously segregated, established religion may have little influence in terms of ethical, moral, and social teaching.  This panel will explore the diverse and often conflicted relations between Protestants in Northern Ireland – divided into more than 50 denominations, many of them overtly critical of each other – and the Catholic minority.  Though Protestants comprise a majority in Northern Ireland, that majority is not secure, and the community’s sense is that they are already a minority in the whole of the island.  This has proved demoralizing – many of the people are fearful, unsettled, and some have moved to extreme positions.  Churches have not dealt effectively with anti-Catholic sectarianism, and there has been a rise in attacks on Catholics.   But some Protestant leaders see integration with Catholics as a goal.  Still others have abandoned the designation “Protestant,” in favor of an identity unlimited by the past. 

Re-Inventing the Past History, suggesting a broad engagement with the past, is an interest that in Ireland goes well beyond the ivory towers of the academy.  This panel will consider how history is remembered, written, and re-written and will look at the importance of popular history to Irish circumstances and sensibility.  Is every history a form of fiction and is all fiction in some sense history?  Much of Irish identity has been founded on competing versions of the past.  Conflicting historical narratives have been part of the sectarian conflicts of recent decades and, before that, acted to create mutually exclusive notions of “Irishness.”  The appetite for history among the reading public remains enormous, however, and the desire for a useable past is, if anything, deepened by the rapid change of recent decades.  But is it possible to narrate a commonly accepted history without repressing awkward truths?   

The Irish & Scots Irish in Virginia This panel will reflect on and explore the history of the Irish in Virginia – from the first settlement at Jamestown, to the movement into the Virginia backcountry, to the Western frontier and beyond – which is just now coming to light.  Writer and historian Brian McGinn, reports that a Cork native, Francis Magnel, was a crew member on the trio of ships that brought the original colony to Jamestown in 1607.  He settled there and was followed by Denis O’Connor, a tradesman who arrived in 1608.  Several of the colony’s earliest leaders, including the first president of its governing Council, were hardened veterans of the Irish wars fought by Elizabeth I.  “Not surprisingly,” says McGinn, the attitudes of these Englishmen towards the Native Americans was strongly colored by prior experience with the native Irish. 

In the 1600s and 1700s land grants of up to 4,000 acres were made to more than 200 Irish individuals in 31 Virginia counties.  Second-generation Charles Lynch was a friend of Thomas Jefferson and a member of the House of Delegates.  His second son, John Lynch is known as the founder of the City of Lynchburg.  Peter Lyons, born in Ireland in 1734, was named a Virginia Supreme Court Judge in 1788.  As University of Virginia Professor K. Edward Lay has documented, Jefferson hired five Irish master craftsmen to help direct the building of Monticello and the University of Virginia.  The hidden history of the Irish, says local historian Kevin Donleavy, is all around Jefferson’s Charlottesville – as names like Enniscorthy and Vinegar Hill attest.  According to the 1850 census, 289 Irish-born residents were living in Charlottesville and Albemarle County, a good number of them on Vinegar Hill – named after a decisive battle in Ireland’s 1798 uprising – which later became an African-American community.  Charlottesville’s commercial hub, Emmet Street, is named after local resident John Patten Emmet, nephew of the executed Irish patriot, Robert Emmet.  Immigrant Irish cabinet-maker Edward Butler, a signatory in 1779 of the ‘Albemarle Declaration of Independence,’ built the oldest house still standing in Charlottesville.

Irish Nationalism In January, 2002 the Irish gave up their own currency, the Punt, to join the new common currency of Europe, the Euro. In the same month, Sinn Fein's four elected MPs were given and accepted their own offices at Westminster, the seat of British imperial power that Irish republicanism has opposed for almost a century.  The coincidence of these events illustrates the great changes that have taken place within Irish nationalism in the last decade – a series of compromises, negotiations and reassessments that have been crucial to the success of the peace process in Northern Ireland.  This panel will look at the changes in Irish nationalism and will discuss whether these are a precursor to the eventual withering away of nationalist feeling generally in the wake of a seemingly inexorable process of globalization.  Does the state of contemporary Irish nationalism, in other words, forecast or reflect a more general global process?

Religion & Identity Very often in Ireland religion (Catholic or Protestant) is read as an indicator of political and cultural identity (Irish Nationalist, Ulster Unionist).  How true has this been in history and how appropriate is it to an understanding of contemporary notions of cultural identity?  Do actual belief systems dictate the politics of Nationalism and Unionism?  Can we read off political tendencies (intransigence, martyrdom, etc.) against aspects of religious belief?  This panel will consider the relationship between religious belief and political perspective and assess the historical case for seeing religion as a fundamental marker of cultural and political identity.

Post Colonialism & Ireland In recent years, Ireland's status as a post-colonial society has been the subject of much debate. On one side, it has been argued that the colonized have merely aped the colonizer and that Ireland now resembles an offshore version of Anglo-British culture.  In its drive towards affluence and economic growth, has Ireland jettisoned most of what made it distinctive and justified its earlier anti-colonial struggle in the first place?  Or does Ireland's position as one of Britain's first colonies and subsequently one of the first colonies to make a break with the colonizer, give it exemplary world significance?  This panel will consider Ireland's post-colonial heritage and will explore, especially, what lessons the Irish experience might hold for developing nations elsewhere, as they struggle to emerge from economic and cultural domination.

Finding Identities in a Global Community A recent issue of an American journal describes Ireland as the most globalized society in the world.  And yet sectarian distrust and cross-community violence persist; even in the Republic, individuals often reflexively identify themselves in terms of the old, tribal allegiances.  Is it possible, as some propose, to fly free of a divisive history, to find a new identity as citizens of the world?  Are there already in Ireland substantial groupings of individuals who acknowledge their roots while weaving a new identity based on extra-Irish, global affiliations?  But granting this is the case, are globalization and the maintenance or escalation of ethnic/sectarian conflict truly logically exclusive alternatives?

Faith of Our Fathers: Irish Catholicism Now The Republic of Ireland is almost universally regarded as a Catholic country and the Church there still exerts considerable influence.  In Irish society, the historical connection between Church, people, and the state was virtually unquestioned and unquestionable.  Recently, however, the Church has to some extent been de-legitimized, particularly in terms of its moral governance and power.   Responding to revelations of sexual misdemeanors and abuse on the part of some clergy, the media has acted both a catalyst and conduit of public anger and indignation.  Irish Catholics have come to question their spiritual leaders in an unprecedented fashion.  Church attendance, especially among the young, has declined steeply.  The rise of forms of á la carte Catholicism in Ireland, as well as the spread of secular outlooks, are among the topics to be addressed in this session.