Interpreting Northern Ireland

Author: John Whyte

Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1990, pp. 328

Reviews the principal interpretations of the causes of conflict in Northern Ireland, including various Nationalist, Unionist and Marxist accounts, and proposed solutions. Concludes that both the traditional nationalist and traditional unionist interpretations had lost their popularity over the previous 20 years to be replaced by one prioritizing internal causes. Points also to the serious disagreements among Marxist commentators but acknowledges the major contribution a number of them, including McCann, Farrell, Bew, Gibbon and Patterson, have made to the literature, Suggests a new paradigm may be needed which, among other things, would take account of the contrast between different parts of Northern Ireland where areas only a few miles apart can differ enormously ‘in religious mix, in economic circumstances, in the level of violence, in political attitudes.’