Language and Culture in Northern Ireland: the Background to the Irish Language Revival Movement

Abstract

Before embarking on a study of nationalism and related phenomena such as ethnic revival movements, it is important to take note of the significant overlap between the ideologies of nationalism and the theories of the social scientists who study them. Social science inquiry and nationalist ideology grew out of the same social and historical contexts, and share many of the same concepts and assumptions about the world. Anthropologists in particular have in the past contributed to a view of the world as made up of discrete cultural groups, instead of emphasizing the fluidity of culture and the lack of discrete boundaries (Handler 1984, 1988).