Suchergebnisse

Growing institutional cooperation between the Republic of Ireland and the UK, initially directed explicitly at resolution of the Northern Ireland conflict, has taken the form of three parallel institutional structures. First, an Anglo-Irish (later, British–Irish) Intergovernmental Conference has dealt with matters relating to the government of Northern Ireland in areas to which power is not devolved, and with certain other 'sovereign' matters. Second, a British–Irish Council links not just the two sovereign governments but also the devolved institutions in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland and the crown dependencies of Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man. Third, a matching British–Irish Parliamentary Assembly provides common ground for representatives of the legislative bodies of the same jurisdictions. The paper tracks the evolution of these structures, and assesses the significance of the new institutions for the British–Irish relationship.

The intensity of conflict in the Middle East tends to overshadow other instances where ethno-national conflict has a religious base. The author draws attention to one of them: Ireland. He considers the link between religion and nationalism in Ireland from three perspectives. The first is the significance of religion as an "ethnic marker": as an indicator of geopolitical (and therefore ethnic) origin rather than of belief system. The second is the role of religious belief, and its potential to accentuate differences between communities. The third is the impact of social organization: the tendency of faith groups towards separate but internally integrated organization, and therefore towards the promotion of group solidarity. The author concludes by exploring the implications of this link between religion and nationalism following the partition of the island.