Activity: Talk or presentation types › Invited talk
Description
For thirty years, Irish republicans, Ulster loyalists, and British state forces fought for control over the six counties of Northern Ireland during a period euphemistically referred to as the Troubles. Today, in the absence of physical conflict, loyalists and republicans are engaged in a culture war wherein language, music, murals, parades, and sports are used to mark territory and claim symbolic space. Drawing on ethnographic work in loyalist pubs and social clubs across Northern Ireland, this paper focuses on the explicitly sectarian nature of the loyalist song scene and considers loyalist claims that such songs, with their use of anti-Catholic and anti-Irish references, are in fact ironic.