Ending the siege? David Ervine and the struggle for progressive Loyalism

Drawn from newspapers and interviews with political colleagues, relatives, and conflict intermediaries, this article concerns the late Loyalist political leader David Ervine – an ideal vector through which to explore the recent history and struggle for progressive Loyalism within Protestant working-class East Belfast. It outlines the vital influence of his father, as well as Ervine’s ability to find mentorship in others. It covers his imprisonment in Long Kesh, early political awakening, and later success as a representative of the Progressive Unionist Party. It argues that Ervine’s chief political opposition eventually came from establishment and hard-line Unionism, and that his primary achievement was to articulate Ulster Loyalist positions and demands against this culture. Ervine’s duality as a political representative who was close to the militarism of his former career is shown as being central to his political persona. Ervine’s premature passing is shown to be connected to the pressures arising from pursuing progressive policies and stances from a Loyalist background, frequently under fire from other Unionists

From stereotypes to solidarity: the British left and the Protestant working class

The British left needs to start taking Ulster Unionism seriously, listening and engaging with its concerns, history, and political character

Expelled from Yard and Tribe: The “Rotten Prods” of 1920 and Their Political Legacies

This article investigates the “Rotten Prods” (Protestants) through an archival and historiographical survey of the shipyard expulsions of the summer of 1920, when approximately 7,500 Catholics and a sizable minority of Protestant workers (of a Labour/Left-wing persuasion) were physically driven out of the Belfast shipyards and a number of other workplaces. The historical background to the “insult” is discussed, as is racial violence in British cities and industrial unrest in 1919. It charts the development of the original Home Rule-supporting Protestants to the more radical, working-class “Rotten Prods” of a later era. It explains the political dynamics of violence in 1920 and considers the predicament of “Rotten Prods” per se in the early years of Northern Ireland and beyond. An Irish political lineage emerges that is ideologically different to the more moderate, reformist agenda of Protestant Labour supporters who found a ready home in the Northern Ireland Labour Party (and occasionally Ulster Unionism). Finally, it frames and assesses three exemplars of the tradition: Belfast Labour counsellor James Baird (who was expelled from the shipyards in 1920), the Communist Party of Ireland’s Betty Sinclair, and trade unionist Joe Law.

Drama as Truth Commission: Reconciliation and Dealing with the Past in South African and Irish Theatre

South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission is an internationally regarded – if contested – touchstone for transitional justice, but it functioned above all as exemplary theatre, bringing together thousands of disparate voices. Like the theatrical space generally, it provided a forum for differing narratives about the past to be aired in post-Apartheid South Africa. In Ireland, on the other hand, there has not been – nor are we likely to see – any truth commission. It is this essay’s contention that drama is the nearest the society will get to exploring the past, with the theatre a safe space in which storytelling and debates are taking place beyond the impasse of the political culture. This article approaches this through four plays: Athol Fugard’s The Train Driver and Owen McCafferty’s Quietly (both 2012) and David Ireland’s Cyprus Avenue and Mongiwekhaya’s I See You (both 2016). All reflect complications of dialogue(s) taking place on the past, and themes of reconciliation, in their respective territories

An Identity Pieced Together: Northern Irish Protestantism and the Drama of Ron Hutchinson

This article concerns the playwright Ron Hutchinson (1947–), who left Northern Ireland as a child and after growing up in the West Midlands worked in theatre and television before relocating and permanently settling in the United States. The formative influence of Hutchinson’s Northern Protestant background—notably on Rat In the Skull (1984) and his most recent subjective return, Paisley & Me (2012)—is the principal focus of this piece. The 1980s’ theatrical scene in Ulster, Hutchinson’s experience at London’s Royal Court, the impact of exile, and the local political backdrop are all addressed. The article contends that Hutchinson’s complex engagement with Northern Protestantism reveals it to be highly conflicted and diverse. Drawing on contemporary reviews from theatre critics, interviews with political and theatrical personnel—including Hutchinson himself—as well as unpublished scripts, it concludes with a comprehensive assessment of Paisley & Me, which is sketched and probed from its early drafts to final text

Something Happening Quietly: Owen McCafferty's Theatre of Truth and Reconciliation

This article concerns the Belfast dramatist Owen McCafferty (1961–) and his play Quietly, which debuted at the Abbey's Peacock Theatre in November 2012. Considering antecedents in McCafferty's earlier work, it illustrates how the play reflects a longstanding and contemporary condition whereby individuals in Northern Ireland deal with the legacy of the Troubles on their own terms, essentially bypassing elected representatives engaged in polemical disputes over the past. Based on a real bombing in 1974, the production's development is outlined prior to discussions of the play's depiction of violence, racism, women, and the prospects of an independent truth commission and ‘healing’. </jats:p

Cultural Responses to and the Legacies of Sunningdale

This chapter will focus on the politico-cultural legacies of the Sunningdale Agreement, a period defined by a strange blend of strife and cooperation. It will frame the experiment as a culmination of a certain kind of O’Neillite Unionism, wrenched down by the May 1974 Ulster Workers’ Council strike. The chapter will take into account some of the early promising workings of the Assembly, such as the higher-education motion introduced in January 1974 by one of the last bastions of the Labour tradition within Northern Irish constitutional politics, David Bleakley. This will lead on to the second focus of the chapter, the political emergence of Loyalist groups and the rather more ominous (and certainly more enduring) developments arising from the illegal activities of the same groups, as the Protestant working class continued its fragmentation along class lines, between the forces of law and criminality, and even in language with the appellation ‘Loyalist’ now termed to differentiate Unionist politicians from the paramilitaries. The ambiguous cultural effect on Irish Republicanism will also be considered, exemplified by the Pearse-esque admiration for the strikers rising up against Unionist elites expressed by the Provisional IRA’s Dáithí Ó Conaill. The chapter will fuse high political material with newspapers and memoir, bringing in cultural depictions of the period – such as Stewart Parker’s play Pentecost (1987) – which provide an alternative flavour of life at the time, simultaneously highlighting how the reactions to Sunningdale were rather more complex than has hitherto been presented

Inventing the Myth: Political Passions and the Ulster Protestant Imagination

This book approaches Ulster Protestantism through its theatrical and cultural intersection with politics, re-establishing a forgotten history and engaging with contemporary debates. Anchored by the perspectives of ten writers - some of whom have been notably active in political life - it uniquely examines tensions going on within. Through its exploration of class division and drama from the early twentieth century to the present, the book restores the progressive and Labour credentials of the community's recent past along with its literary repercussions, both of which appear in recent decades to have diminished. Drawing on over sixty interviews, unpublished scripts, as well as rarely-consulted archival material, it shows - contrary to a good deal of clichéd polemic and safe scholarly assessment - that Ulster Protestants have historically and continually demonstrated a vigorous creative pulse as well as a tendency towards Left wing and class politics. St. John Ervine, Thomas Carnduff, John Hewitt, Sam Thompson, Stewart Parker, Graham Reid, Ron Hutchinson, Marie Jones, Christina Reid, and Gary Mitchell profoundly challenge as well as reflect their communities. Illuminating a diverse and conflicted culture stretching beyond Orange Order parades, the weaving together of the lives and work of each of the writers highlights mutual themes and insights on their identity, as if part of some grander tapestry of alternative twentieth-century Protestant culture. Ulster Protestantism's consistent delivery of such dissenting voices counters its monolithic and reactionary reputation