The Politics of Conflict and Transformation: The Island of Ireland in Comparative Perspective

This book contains original research on conflict, peacebuilding and the current state of identities and relationships in relation to the Northern Ireland conflict. It accesses the state of national identity politics in Northern Ireland a generation after the 1998 Agreement, as well as the impact and meaning of Brexit. It considers feminist and faith-based peace activism during ‘the Troubles’, and expressions of Irish national identity. It also includes revealing comparative case studies: Protestant-Catholic conflict elsewhere in Europe and nationalism in the Balkans.

The Politics of Conflict and Transformation: The Island of Ireland in Comparative Perspective arises from a conference celebrating the work of Jennifer Todd, Professor in the School of Politics and International Relations at University College Dublin, who has been one of the most influential scholars of her generation. Her research has examined conflict and transformation in Ireland from the level of grassroots identities to geopolitical forces. She has placed contemporary crises in the peace process in the context of patterns of conflict and change over centuries. She has both expounded the rich detail of the Northern Ireland and Irish-British conflicts and placed them in their regional and global contexts.

Written by some of the leading scholars on peace and conflict in Ireland, the chapters in this edited volume build on Todd’s work and are a testament to the thematic and methodological breadth and depth of her output. This book will be of interest to students and scholars of Irish and British history and politics, Peace and Conflict Studies, and the sociology of identity, conflict, and peacebuilding.

The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of Irish Political Studies.

Gladys Ganiel is Reader in Sociology at Queen’s University Belfast, specialising in religion and conflict, and religion and change in Ireland. She is author/co-author of six books and more than 40 scholarly articles and chapters, including Transforming Post-Catholic Ireland and Considering Grace: Presbyterians and the Troubles (co-authored with Jamie Yohanis).

David Mitchell is Assistant Professor at Trinity College Dublin at Belfast. He is author of Politics and Peace in Northern Ireland (Manchester University Press, 2015) and numerous journal articles and book chapters on several dimensions of the Northern Ireland transition including party politics, language, sport, mediation and religion.