The Territorial Politics of Soccer in Northern Ireland

Abstract

It is in the realm of culture that communities come to understand themselves and to articulate this understanding to the wider world. There are, of course, numerous cultural forms and arenas within which this process can take place. In the modern world, however, sport has become one of the most important of these. As MacClancy suggests, sports are ‘vehicles of identity, providing people with a sense of difference and a way of classifying themselves and others, whether latitudinally or hierarchically’ (MacClancy 1996: 2). This does not mean that the resultant identities are either self-contained or immutable. Indeed, identities are more likely than not to be dual or even multiple (Kellas 1991: 15). Thus, one’s identity as a player of a certain sport or a supporter of a particular team may or may not overlap with other aspects of one’s identity. Nevertheless, sport plays an important role in the construction and reproduction of part of the identity of many (particularly men) in the modern world.