Culture, Belonging and a Sense of Place

Abstract

In November 2000 at the University of Liverpool, the former Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Dr John Reid delivered a paper on the uneasiness of British and Irish communities in Northern Ireland. Neither Protestants nor Catholics feel entirely at home in the region. This chapter explores the construction of a sense of place for different political traditions in Northern Ireland. While tensions here are rooted in conflict between two different geographical contexts, I wish to query whether difficulties also stem from different understandings of the concept of culture and its relevance for the public sphere.