QUB Talks 100 – The Partition of Ireland: Causes and Consequences

About QUB Talks 100 – The Partition of Ireland: Causes and Consequences

Leading academics explore the causes and consequences of the Partition of Ireland in a series of authored talks, developed by Queen’s University Belfast with support from the BBC.

Publisher

BBC Radio Ulster

Category

history

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

24 May 2021

Latest episode

4 Oct 2021

Latest episodes

25 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   4 Oct 2021

   Dr Robert Lynch - Partition and the Anglo-Irish Treaty

   Contributor: Dr Robert Lynch Talk Title Partition and the Anglo-Irish Treaty Talk Synopsis: This talk explores the background to the Anglo-Irish Treaty and its immediate (and lasting) effects. It suggests that ‘the most extreme paranoias of the Unionist psyche’ were reinforced by the events of the post-Treaty period, including as a result of growing unionist mistrust of the British government. And it explores how the Boundary Commission allowed ‘both sides to place radically different interpretations on the shape of any future settlement.’ It also looks at Sinn Féin’s attitude towards/understanding of unionist concerns and the extent to which these may have been predicated on a sense of unionism as ‘somehow inauthentic… and that conflict in Ireland was due fundamentally to the British presence’ rather than the ‘reality that there were almost one million people in Ulster who wanted nothing to do with their nationalist project.’ And it concludes by suggesting that ‘Ulster’s experience in 1922’ shaped the ‘rather draconian defensiveness’ of the Unionist government which emerged in its aftermath as well as creating disunity within the ‘northern Catholic minority’ and between northern and southern nationalists. Short biography: Dr Robert Lynch, University of Glasgow Further Reading: A State Under Siege. The Establishment of Northern Ireland 1920-1926 – Brian Follis Partition and the Limits of Irish Nationalism – Clare O'Halloran The Northern IRA and the early years of partition, 1920-22 – Robert Lynch The Partition of Ireland, 1912-1925 (Cambridge, 2019) – Robert Lynch Northern Nationalism. Nationalist Politics, Partition and the Catholic Minority in Northern Ireland 1890-1940 - Eamon Phoenix

2. 

   27 Sept 2021

   Professor Robert Savage - Broadcasting and the Border: How partition influenced broadcasting on the island of Ireland

   Contributor: Professor Robert Savage Talk Title Broadcasting and the Border: How partition influenced broadcasting on the island of Ireland Talk Synopsis: This talk explores the development of broadcasting in Ireland during the 1920s and how the new radio stations in Belfast and Dublin were affected (and constrained) by politics. It describes the growing popularity and influence of broadcast services and the impact of new technologies, competition and wider social changes on the work of programme-makers in the BBC and RTÉ. It reflects critically on aspects of editorial decision-making and output by both broadcasters, but suggests that despite ‘all of [their] inevitable failures and shortcomings, ‘independent public service media’ remain ‘an indispensable component of any truly democratic society.’ Short biography: Professor Robert Savage is the Director of the Boston College Irish Studies Program and a member of the university’s History Department faculty. Further Reading: The BBC's Irish Troubles, Television, Conflict and Northern Ireland – Robert Savage A Loss of Innocence? television and Irish Society 1960-1972 – Robert Savage Broadcasting and Public Life, RTÉ News and Current Affairs 1926-1997 – John Horgan: Luck and the Irish, A Brief History of Change from 1970 – Roy Foster A Post-Nationalist History of Television in Ireland – Edward Brennan 2RN and the Origins of Irish Radio – Richard Pine

3. 

   20 Sept 2021

   Professor Bill Kissane - The Partition of Ireland in a Global Context

   Contributor: Professor Bill Kissane Talk Title: The Partition of Ireland in a Global Context Talk Synopsis: This talk explores partition in an international context and also the similarities and differences between what happened in Ireland and elsewhere, including Cyprus, India and Palestine. It suggests that most partitions are ‘provisional’ because they ‘fail to resolve conflicts’ and looks at ‘the identity shifts that occur when borders change’ and what these meant (and mean) in an Irish context. It looks at how majority rule ‘polarised rather than reconciled’ communities in Northern Ireland and the way in which Partition led to ‘consolidation and identity formation based on religion’ in the decades that followed. And it concludes by considering what the experience and effect of partition might mean for future attempts to resolve deep-seated territorial  conflicts. Short biography: Bill Kissane is a Reader in Politics at the London School of Economics. Further Reading: Literature, Partition and the Nation State – Joe Cleary 'Ethnic Conflict and the Two State Solution: the Irish Experience of Partition'. Mapping Frontiers, Plotting Pathways, Ancilliary Paper, No.3, 2004. Institute of British Studies. Queens University Belfast – John Coakley 'Shackles Across the Heart: Comparing Ireland's Partition', A Treatise on Northern Ireland Vol 1, pp.370-397 – Brendan O'Leary Partitions and the Sisyphean Making of Peoples – Dirk Moses. Partition in Ireland, India, and Palestine: Theory and Practice – T. G. Fraser

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