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Theatre in Northern Ireland: IntroductionDateline: 28th January, 2001 Northern Ireland - or Ulster, as its Unionist people prefer - is the smallest of the four countries that make up the United Kingdom, consisting of just six counties: Antrim, Armagh, Down, Fermanagh, Londonderry and Tyrone. As everyone knows, it is a country and a community divided along religious and political lines, with the minority Catholic population being, generally, Republican (i.e. wishing for a united Ireland via union with Eire) in feeling, and the majority protestant people being, in general, Unionist, that is, wishing to uphold the Union between Britain and Ulster. There are three main political groups in the Province: the Ulster Unionist party, which has strong ties to the Orange Order; Sinn Fein which is totally Republican and is generally regarded as the political wing of the Provisional Irish Republican Army; and the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP), a more centrist, albeit nationalist, group. There are, of course, extremist groups on both sides, the best known probably being the Democratic Unionist Party, founded and led by Ian Paisley. Many of the smaller politcal groups have ties to various protestant paramilitary groups. There are many who would consider Sinn Fein to be an extremist party, but its successes in the polls have made it part of the Northern Ireland mainstream political scene. This has been seen by extremist republicans as a betrayal, which has led to the foundation of other paramilitary groups such as the Real IRA. What makes the situation worse is the fact that it is a conflict that has gone on for centuries, not just years. The key date for Unionists, and especially the Orange Order, is 1690, the year of the Battle of the Boyne. You still see the phrase "Remember 1690" printed proudly on walls. The IRA traces its beginnings to the beginning of the last century and the time before the founding of "Irish Free State". Its main key date is 1916, the date of the Easter Uprising. There are, therefore, really two cultures in Northern Ireland: the protestant majority relate to the British mainland, whilst the catholic minority share the culture of Eire. The two cultures are not massively different, of course. There is certainly a much larger difference beween the cultures of the British and the French than between the British and the Irish, but that is probably a greater cause for mutual suspicion than a wider difference would create. The conflict is deeply engrained in the Northern Irish psyche and is the background to so much literature and art, and whilst nowadays you will find that artists of all kinds are generally - although not invariably - strong supporters of the peace movement, this conflict still lies at the heart of much modern Irish drama, for instance, even though the writers' and performers' aims are to heal the wounds. NEXT>> Theatre Articles Indices: |
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