The event will take place on Thursday 26 January at 4.15 pm at the Irish School of Ecumenics, Bea House, Milltown Park, Dublin.

This event comes at the end of the annual Week of Prayer for Christian Unity (18-25 January).

I am really looking forward to what Patrick Mitchel has to say about the book. He also maintains his own thoughtful and informative blog called ‘Faith in Ireland.’

Evangelical Journeys will be available at a special launch price of 20 euros.

You can download a flyer for the Dublin event here.

The Belfast launch of the book took place in November at East Belfast Mission and featured remarks by Glenn Jordan.

You also can purchase the book at the UCD Press website, where you can get it at a reduced rate of €22.

Read a review of the book, by Blogger Alan in Belfast, here.

Read a review of the book, by  George Irwin in the Church of Ireland Gazette, here.

Please RSVP to Gladys Ganiel by 23 January on gganiel@tcd.ie

Kathy Clarke’s review of the productions in Irish Theatre Magazine puts it better than I could,

True North, a series of plays from Northern Ireland’s most promising young writers, refreshes an audience bored with shying away from truth in the theatre. John McCann, Colin Bell and David Ireland collaborate with Tinderbox Theatre Company on an innovative new project of artistic vision and financial practicality. A unique ensemble of players performs in repertory dramas that tackle what it means to live in Northern Ireland today.

The plays we attended dovetailed with themes that we tackle on our programme: diversity (including homophobia), and dealing with the past through mechanisms such as truth commissions. I blogged previously about the questions raised about homophobia in God’s Country.

Everything Between Us

Everything Between Us was at times an uncomfortable play to watch, not least because of the deliberately shocking language and lurid stories told by Teeni, a wayward soul who has come back to Belfast to disrupt her sister’s work on a truth and reconciliation commission.

Indeed, the dialogue between Teeni and her sister Sandra was an exhibition of extremism – from Teeni’s stories about her adventures while away to the views she expresses about the Northern Ireland conflict and people of other races.

Even Sandra seems at times an extremist: she has taken the extreme measure of attending Alcoholics Anonymous because she finds comfort in it – even when she is not an alcoholic herself!

There are moments of tenderness and tentative reconciliation between the two sisters, but there is little resolution, no happy ending.

The play ends with Sandra exiting – not through the door on stage and back to her work on the truth and reconciliation commission – but through the front of the stage and out the door of the theatre. She confesses as she walks away that it ‘horrifies me to be a human being’.

Teeni remains slumped on-stage, and proclaims: ‘I remember everything.’

This is what that ending said to me: people in Northern Ireland will indeed remember everything about the troubled past, with or without a truth commission or some other mechanism for dealing with it.

This led me to ask,

• Is Northern Ireland ready to face up to what’s so horrifying about humanity, and the way that this was manifested on a day-by-day basis throughout the Troubles?
• Or will each and all be left with their own destructive memories, tearing them apart in so many different ways?

Outreach Workshop on Everything Between Us

As a theatre company, Tinderbox is committed to providing spaces where those sorts of questions can be explored. To that end, Tinderbox’s Outreach Director, Ciaran McQuillan, facilitated a workshop for my students where we could engage with those and other questions.

In the workshop, several students confessed feeling stunned by the intensity of the language and the performance. Some were also uncomfortable with Teeni’s black humour – they found themselves laughing at some of what she said, but felt guilty about laughing about it because it was so offensive.

McQuillan explained that this was a deliberate strategy on the part of the playwright, David Ireland, which culminated in Teeni’s description of an argument she had gotten into with a republican bartender in New York.

Answering Teeni’s retort that ‘oppressed’ Catholics couldn’t be compared both to Jews and to Palestinians, the barman tells her that the Catholics are the Jews during World War II, and the Protestants are the Jews after World War II. Teeni replies that she would rather be the Jews after World War II, because at least by then they had learned to fight back.

McQuillan said that by the time Teeni had reached this point in each of the performances, all laughter from the audience had stopped.

I also was intrigued to learn that in earlier productions of the play, Sandra had exited back through the stage door, seeming to return to her work for truth and reconciliation.

McQuillan said that Sandra’s exit through the front of the stage had been forced upon the crew when performing at a particularly small theatre in the United States. But thereafter they had chosen to keep this as a feature, implying that after everything she had just heard, Sandra couldn’t go back to her work.

McQuillan also helped the group to explore questions such as whether voices like Teeni’s had been marginalised in public debate, and if so, what the consequences of that might be as Northern Ireland attempts to stumble forward.

It may well be the case that these productions have raised some questions that Northern Ireland just isn’t ready to answer.

But putting these questions out for scrutiny in the creative, fictional (and therefore safer?) realm of theatre is a valuable part of a wider public process.

The play is part of Tinderbox Theatre’s True North series of three new dramas about life in Northern Ireland today.

The play presents a complex picture of the life and career of MLA Patricia Williamson – who belongs to a party suspiciously like the DUP – and her relationship with her son Jamie, who fled Northern Ireland a decade ago, literally driven out by parents who saw his homosexuality as sin.

A focal point in the production is the homophobic murder of a young Catholic man by Lithuanian workers in Patricia’s constituency. Speaking at a charity ball the day before the funeral, Patricia refuses to condemn the murder and says that the man’s homosexuality (not his murder) is a failing for which all of society is responsible.

Patricia’s speech reflects a view that is common enough among conservative Christians. The logic flows something like this:

1. the bible says homosexuality is sin,

2. God does not bless people or countries that allow or condone wilful sinning,

3. therefore legislators should make laws against and speak out against homosexuality,

4. this will be ‘better’ for the homosexual, especially if he/she can get therapy and overcome this sin,

5. this will all please God, and he will bless the country again.

The play also explores tensions within the DUP-like party that erupt in reaction to Patricia’s outburst. She has a young political advisor who, while clearly sharing Patricia’s loathing of homosexuality, is horrified by the speech. It is the advisor’s job to manage the damage that Patricia’s speech could cause among the party’s more moderate supporters.

Last night I took part in a post-production discussion of the play with playwright Colin Bell and Ciaran McQuillan, Tinderbox’s Outreach Director.

Bell explained that he wrote the play in part to explore how far (or not) Northern Ireland had come in its treatment of LGBT people. He also said he had been fascinated by the Iris Robinson affair, and her condemnatory comments about LGBT people on the Stephen Nolan show.

Bell said that he knew people who expressed similar views to Iris while growing up in Northern Ireland. From my own academic research, I know that these views are indeed present within the DUP and among some conservative Christians in Northern Ireland.

For example, as the Rev. Ian Paisley was being pushed out as moderator of his Free Presbyterian Church, a group called ‘Concerned Free Presbyterians’ set up a website to rally the voices of criticism.

Although the Concerned Free Presbyterians website has now been taken down, at the time about half of the complaints were that Paisley, as Northern Ireland’s First Minister, would have to support rights for the LGBT community, including funding the gay pride parade. The other half of the complaints were about the immorality of sharing power with the ‘unrepentant terrorists’ of Sinn Fein.

That said, not all conservative or evangelical Christians would share the views on homosexuality presented in the play. Rather, there is a spectrum of beliefs among evangelicals about homosexuality.

For instance, I have heard arguments within evangelicalism both in Northern Ireland and in North America to the effect that Christians’ treatment of LGBT people today is like Christians’ treatment of slaves in days gone by. The say that the Bible was wrongly used to justify slavery, and that the Bible is being wrongly used today to justify discrimination against LGBT people.

Eliminating discrimination against LGBT people is presented as a logical outworking of the gospel because God takes sides with the marginalised.

When challenged that this view is ‘unbiblical,’ I have heard more liberal evangelicals argue that some of the bible passages translated into English reflect the prejudices of their translators. So, for example, the strong condemnations of the apostle Paul are really meant to be referring to paedophilia rather than homosexuality.

But even without going into biblical scholarship, we can observe the surprisingly irenic position taken by the Evangelical Alliance in the Republic of Ireland, which supports the proposed civil partnership bill.

I’m not a biblical scholar so I’m not in a position to evaluate the validity of all of these arguments. But I think that in Northern Ireland and elsewhere, social prejudice and institutionalised discrimination against LGBT people won’t be fully overcome without leadership on the part of Christians, or people from other religions, whose holy books have been used to justify their marginalisation.

This annual event very much hearkens back to Northern Ireland’s past, and depending on your perspective, is either a celebration of cultural heritage or a destructive ritual that represents the desire of some to cling to old and divisive political aspirations.

Last week, the Belfast Telegraph ran a series of stories on new approaches to Northern Ireland politics, billed by David Gordon as ‘a major debate on moving Northern Ireland politics away from tribal headcounts.’

The Telegraph sought the perspectives of a range of commentators from nationalist, unionist, and ‘middle ground’ perspectives.

The debate was framed in the context of looming public sector cuts and the 2011 Assembly elections, driven by the question of whether Northern Ireland’s current politicians are up to the task of working together and delivering on ‘bread and butter’ issues.

As Prof. Rick Wilford of Queen’s University acknowledged in an article on the first day of the series, there’s a strong temptation for both nationalists and unionists to revert to sectarian politics.

This is especially the case with unionists, since the Ulster Unionist-Conservative alliance has failed and there may be pressure on the UUP and DUP to align in the next election in order to prevent Sinn Fein’s Martin McGuinness from becoming First Minister.

But Wilford and other contributors seemed to subscribe to theory that the 2010 Westminster elections provided some indication that people want to move beyond sectarian politics – for instance, in the SDLP’s attitude towards a possible electoral pact and in the election of Alliance’s Naomi Long in East Belfast.

An article by Gordon, however, highlighted the structural problems in achieving non-sectarian politics – not least the way the Assembly is set up. Gordon says,

All the main Assembly parties are represented in the Executive and there is no official Opposition to hold it to account. That must mitigate further against bread and butter issues dominating elections and political life.

My husband is fond of remarking that the Steven Nolan Show is the opposition in Northern Ireland politics.

I think he is only joking – but I can see his point: when the Assembly is not structured in a way that ensures accountability, maybe holding politicians to account does get left to radio shock jocks.

Alternatively, Wilford floated the idea of Alliance, the SDLP and the UUP,

Devising a [2011 Assembly] campaign on common, cross-community ground rather than, in the UUP’s and SDLP’s case, diving for cover into their respective communal trenches …

Wilford adds that this would,

…herald a decisively new kind of politics — though not as game-changing as the preparedness of a unionist to serve alongside Martin McGuinness as deputy First Minister, should such circumstances arise.

Other contributors – Long, SDLP MLA Conall McDevitt, and Platform for Change Chair Robin Wilson – also expressed the view that Northern Ireland’s middle ground must assert itself. They say that socially, politically, and economically, the cost of sectarian politics is just too high.

Right now, much of Northern Ireland’s so-called middle ground is probably on holiday, deliberately avoiding being in the place over the 12^th of July.

Further, Wilford notes the falling turnout in Northern Ireland elections, which he sees as ‘a sign not of contentment, but of disillusion.’

If there is going to be any sort of meaningful change in Northern Ireland politics, the disillusioned middle ground will have to be tempted back into the voting booths or into community activism, convinced that there really can be a better shared future for all.

Despite the Telegraph’s debate, I’m not convinced that there’s a groundswell of ‘middle ground’ politicians ready to lead them.

Ulster Unionist MEP Jim Nicholson was on hand to offer his thoughts on the proceedings. I was the author of the chapter on the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), and along with the others who had written on Northern parties, we were asked to address the question:

Does Europeanization reinforce or problematize the ‘dual ethnic’ party system in Northern Ireland?

Although all the authors identified some evidence of Europeanization within local political parties, all of us noted that Europeanization has done little to change patterns of ethnic party competition.

For example, in the last election for the European parliament, the DUP’s Diane Dodds’ main campaigning point was that a vote for her would ‘stop Sinn Fein’ from gaining the top seat – not necessarily that she had the best policies on Europe.

That said, Hayward and Murphy’s volume demonstrates that this trend is not exclusive to Northern Ireland or the Republic of Ireland. Campaigning on local, non-European issues happens in European parliament elections all over the continent.

P.J. McLoughlin, who wrote the chapter on the SDLP. So he had perhaps the best evidence when it came to making the argument that Europeanization had or could problematize Northern Ireland’s dual ethnic party system. John Hume, after all, was known to be enthusiastic about Europe.

Hume’s ideas on Europe can be seen as providing some wriggle room for holding national and European identities simultaneously in a way that just might transcend rigid the rigid ethno-nationalism that has characterised Northern Ireland. That, of course, has not really happened.

But Nicholson spoke passionately about his own experience as an MEP and how that had personally helped him to develop a more consensual political style.

Nicholson good-humouredly chided McLoughlin for emphasizing Hume’s role in Europe, particularly in securing peace funding for Northern Ireland. Rather, he said that Northern Ireland’s MEPs had worked effectively together as a team throughout the Troubles, something he said consistently surprised MEPs from other nations.

Nicholson described a personal journey in which he claimed to have moved from a narrow perspective on Northern Ireland politics to a more expansive one that was, indeed, quite reconciliatory. He reiterated the often made point that the EU is in itself a model of effective conflict resolution in the aftermath of centuries of devastating war, and could be an inspiration for Northern Ireland.

It could be easy to be cynical about Nicholson’s glowing testimony about the benefits of Europe. In some ways his comments side-stepped the more difficult question about whether Europeanization has problematized Northern Ireland’s ethnic party system.

But even if Europeanization hasn’t changed the system, Nicholson made a strong case when he chose to focus on the more tangible benefits of Northern Ireland’s involvement in the EU.

The book itself, of course, is about much more than this singular question, and encompasses party politics in the Republic of Ireland as well. See below for a list of chapters and contributors.

1. Introduction: Party Politics and the EU in Ireland, North and South Mary C. Murphy (University College Cork) and Katy Hayward (Queen’s University Belfast)

2. Ireland’s EU referendum experience Jane O’Mahony (University of Kent at Canterbury)

3. Irish Political Parties and Policy Stances on European Integration Kenneth Benoit (Trinity College Dublin)

4. Irish Political Parties’ Attitudes towards Neutrality and the Evolution of the EU’s Foreign, Security and Defence Policies Karen Devine (Dublin City University)

5. Fianna Fáil: Tenacious Localism, Tenuous Europeanism Katy Hayward (Queen’s University Belfast) and Jonathan Fallon (EPS Consulting)

6. Blissful Union? Fine Gael and the European Union Theresa Reidy (University College Cork)

7. The Irish Labour Party: The Advantages, Disadvantages and Irrelevance of Europeanization? Michael Holmes (Liverpool Hope University)

8. The Irish Green Party and Europe: An Unhappy Marriage? Nicole Bolleyer (University of Exeter) and Diana Panke (University College Dublin)

9. Sinn Féin’s Approach to the EU: Still more ‘Critical’ than ‘Engaged’? Agnès Maillot (Dublin City University)

10. ‘Battling in Brussels’: The DUP and the European Union Gladys Ganiel (Irish School of Ecumenics, Trinity College Dublin)

11. Pragmatic Politics: The Ulster Unionist Party and the European Union Mary C. Murphy (University College Cork)

12. The SDLP and the Europeanization of the Northern Ireland Problem P. J. McLoughlin (Queen’s University Belfast)

(Photo: Ulster Unionist MEP Jim Nicholson with participants at the book launch)