Defining events: Power, resistance and identity in twenty-first-century Ireland 9781847799913

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I ri s h S o c ie t y

Defining events Power, resistance and identity in twenty-first-century Ireland

Edited by

Rosie Meade and Fiona Dukelow

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Defining events

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IRISH SOCIETY The Irish Society series provides a critical, interdisciplinary and in-depth analysis of Ireland that reveals the processes and forces shaping social, economic, cultural and political life, and their outcomes for communities and social groups. The books seek to understand the evolution of social, economic and spatial relations from a broad range of perspectives, and explore the c­ hallenges facing Irish society in the future given present conditions and policy instruments.

Series Editor Rob Kitchin already published Public private partnerships in Ireland: Failed experiment or the way forward for the state? Rory Hearne Migrations: Ireland in a global world Edited by Mary Gilmartin and Allen White The domestic, moral and political economies of post-Celtic tiger Ireland: What rough beast? Kieran Keohane and Carmen Kuhling Challenging times, challenging administration: The role of public administration in producing social justice in Ireland Chris McInerney Management and gender in higher education Pat O’Connor

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Defining events Power, resistance and identity in twenty-first-century Ireland

Edited by Rosie Meade and Fiona Dukelow

Manchester University Press

Copyright © Manchester University Press 2015

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While copyright in the volume as a whole is vested in Manchester University Press, copyright in individual chapters belongs to their respective authors, and no chapter may be reproduced wholly or in part without the express permission in writing of both author and publisher. Published by Manchester University Press Altrincham Street, Manchester M1 7JA and Room 400, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010, USA www.manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk Distributed in the United States exclusively by Palgrave Macmillan, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010, USA Distributed in Canada exclusively by UBC Press, University of British Columbia, 2029 West Mall, Vancouver, BC, Canada V6T 1Z2 British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data applied for ISBN 978 07190 9056 1  hardback ISBN 978 07190 9057 8  paperback First published 2015 The publisher has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for any external or third-party internet websites referred to in this book, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.

Typeset in Minion by Special Edition Pre-Press Services Printed in Great Britain by Bell & Bain Ltd, Glasgow

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Contents

List of tables  Notes on contributors Series editor’s foreword

page vii viii x

Acknowledgements

xii

List of abbreviations

xiii

 1 Introduction   Rosie Meade and Fiona Dukelow  2 The birth of Indymedia.ie: a critical space for social movements in Ireland   Margaret Gillan and Laurence Cox  3 In the way of development: Tara, the M3 and the Celtic Tiger   Conor Newman  4 Carts, horses and carriages: love and (same-sex) marriage in the twenty-first century   Angela O’Connell

1

12 32

51

 5 Making ‘race’ an issue in the 2004 Irish Citizenship Referendum   Steve Garner

70

 6 ‘The centre of everything’: Ireland at the Dundrum Town Centre   Denis Linehan

89

 7 ‘Taking back the neighbourhood’: the introduction of ASBOs   Paul Michael Garrett

106

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vi

Contents

 8 All that shimmers is not gold: the Garda Síochána Ombudsman Commission and Garda accountability   Vicky Conway

124

 9 State to the rescue: the bank guarantee and Ireland’s financialised neo-liberal growth model   Fiona Dukelow

143

10 Worlds turned upside down? The Older People’s Uprising, 2008   Rosie Meade

161

11 Cutting back on equality   John Baker, Kathleen Lynch and Judy Walsh

181

12 The Ryan Report: reformatory and industrial schools and twentieth-century Ireland   Eoin O’Sullivan 13 Gay in the GAA: the challenge of Dónal Óg Cusack’s ‘coming out’ to heteronormativity in contemporary Irish culture and society   Debbie Ging and Marcus Free

200

218

Index236

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Tables

  8.1  Complaints against police per 1,000 police

page 133

  8.2  Method of handling admissible complaints by GSOC

134

  8.3  Prosecutions of gardaí

135

11.1  Dismantling the Equality Infrastructure in Ireland, 2000–13

188

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Notes on contributors

John Baker is emeritus professor in equality studies at UCD School of Social Justice. Vicky Conway is a senior lecturer in law at the University of Kent. Laurence Cox is a lecturer in sociology at the Department of Sociology, NUI, Maynooth. Fiona Dukelow is a lecturer in social policy at the School of Applied Social Studies, University College, Cork. Marcus Free is a lecturer in media and communication studies at Mary – Immaculate College, University of Limerick. Steve Garner is a senior lecturer in social policy at the Faculty of Social Sciences, The Open University. Paul Michael Garrett is a senior lecturer in social work at the School of Political Science and Sociology, NUI, Galway. Margaret Gillan is a long-standing activist and advocate of community media and the co-ordinator of Community Media Network. Debbie Ging is a lecturer in the School of Communications, Dublin City University. Denis Linehan is a lecturer in geography at the Department of Geography, University College, Cork.

Notes on contributors

ix

Kathleen Lynch is professor of equality studies at UCD School of Social Justice. Rosie Meade is a lecturer in the School of Applied Social Studies, University College, Cork.

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Conor Newman is a senior lecturer in archaeology at the Department of Archaeology, NUI, Galway. Angela O’Connell is a researcher at the Child Law Clinic, Faculty of Law, University College, Cork. Eoin O’Sullivan is associate professor of social policy and head of the School of Social Work and Social Policy, Trinity College, Dublin. Judy Walsh is a lecturer and head of the Equality Studies Centre at UCD School of Social Justice.

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Series editor’s foreword

Over the past twenty years Ireland has undergone enormous social, cultural and economic change. From a poor, peripheral country on the edge of Europe with a conservative culture dominated by tradition and church, Ireland transformed into a global, cosmopolitan country with a dynamic economy. At the heart of the processes of change was a new kind of political economic model of development that ushered in the so-called Celtic Tiger years, accompanied by renewed optimism in the wake of the ceasefires in Northern Ireland and the peace dividend of the Good Friday Agreement. As Ireland emerged from decades of economic stagnation and The Troubles came to a peaceful end, the island became the focus of attention for countries seeking to emulate its economic and political miracles. Every other country, it seemed, wanted to be the next Tiger, modelled on Ireland’s successes. And then came the financial collapse of 2008, the bursting of the property bubble, bank bailouts, austerity plans, rising unemployment and a return to emigration. From being the paradigm case of successful economic transformation, Ireland has become an internationally important case study of what happens when an economic model goes disastrously wrong. The Irish Society series provides a critical, interdisciplinary and in-depth analysis of Ireland that reveals the processes and forces shaping social, economic, cultural and political life, and their outcomes for communities and social groups. The books seek to understand the evolution of social, economic and spatial relations from a broad range of perspectives, and explore the challenges facing Irish society in the future given present conditions and policy instruments. The series examines all aspects of Irish society including, but not limited to: social exclusion, identity, health, welfare, life cycle, family life and structures, labour and work cultures, spatial and sectoral economy, local and regional development, politics and the political system, government and governance, environment, migration and spatial planning. The series is supported by the Irish Social Sciences Platform (ISSP), an all-island platform of integrated social

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Series editor’s foreword

xi

science research and graduate education focusing on the social, cultural and economic transformations shaping Ireland in the twenty-first century. Funded by the Programme for Research in Third Level Institutions, the ISSP brings together leading social science academics from all of Ireland’s universities and other third-level institutions. Given the marked changes in Ireland’s fortunes over the past two decades it is important that rigorous scholarship is applied to understand the forces at work, how they have affected different people and places in uneven and unequal ways, and what needs to happen to create a fairer and prosperous society. The Irish Society series provides such scholarship. Rob Kitchin

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Acknowlegements

Our thanks to all of the contributors to this volume for their energy and commitment to the project. Thanks also to Maser for allowing us to reproduce his mural ‘Shame and Regret’ as the cover image for our book. We would also like to acknowledge publication funding assistance from the National University of Ireland and the College of Arts, Celtic Studies and Social Science, University College, Cork.

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Abbreviations

AAI AIB ASBO BAI BOI CAA CARR CDA CICA CIFS CMN CPA CRE CTA DGN DPP EA EC ECB EEA EEC EIS ELG ERA EU GAA GDP GLEN GPA

Age Action Ireland Allied Irish Bank Anti-Social Behaviour Order Broadcasting Authority of Ireland Bank of Ireland Coalition Against ASBOs Campaign Against a Racist Referendum Crime and Disorder Act Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse Credit Institutions (Financial Support) Scheme Community Media Network Combat Poverty Agency Commission for Racial Equality Common Travel Area Dublin Grassroots Network Director of Public Prosecutions Equality Authority European Commission European Central Bank European Economic Area European Economic Community Environmental Impact Statement Eligible Liabilities Guarantee Equality and Rights Alliance European Union Gaelic Athletic Association Gross Domestic Product Gay and Lesbian Equality Network Gaelic Players Association

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xiv

List of abbreviations

GSCB Garda Síochána Complaints Board GSOC Garda Síochána Ombudsman Commission HSE Health Service Executive IBEC Irish Business and Employers Confederation ICCL Irish Council for Civil Liberties ICTU Irish Congress of Trade Unions IFSC International Financial Services Centre IHRC Irish Human Rights Commission IHREC Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission IMC Indymedia Centre IMF International Monetary Fund IMO Irish Medical Organisation INM Independent News and Media ISCP Irish Senior Citizens’ Parliament LASC Latin American Solidarity Centre LGBT lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender LRC Law Reform Commission NAMA National Assets Management Agency NGO Non-governmental organisation NLGF National Gay and Lesbian Federation NMS National Monuments Service NRA National Roads Authority NSPCC National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children OECD Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development PD Progressive Democrat SWP Socialist Workers Party WSM Workers Solidarity Movement WTO World Trade Organisation ZTP Zero tolerance policing

1

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Introduction Rosie Meade and Fiona Dukelow

Defining events, critical theory and contemporary Ireland It is easy to slip into caricature and hyperbole when reflecting on Irish society during the first decade of the twenty-first century. Writing in 2014, we continue to wrestle with the political, financial and social legacies of boom and bust that bookended the period. After several years of being lauded as the growth model to follow, and as recession and austerity were normalised in the Republic, it became commonplace in political and public discourse to claim this was ‘payback’ for the consumerist excesses of those years. In 2010 the then Minister for Finance Brian Lenihan (RTÉ, 2010) articulated it thus: ‘I accept that I have to take responsibility as a member of the governing party during that period for what happened, but let’s be fair about it, we all partied’ (emphasis added). A few months later, in April 2011, a report into the causes of the Irish banking crisis pointed to a similar malaise in popular attitudes and behaviour: [T]he way Irish households, investors, banks and public authorities voluntarily reacted to foreign and domestic developments was probably not very different to that in other countries now experiencing financial problems. However, the extent to which large parts of Irish society were willing to let the good times roll on until the very last minute (a feature of the financial mania) may have been exceptional. (Nyberg, 2011:ii, emphasis added)

This suggestion of a collective or generalised frenzy also entered Taoiseach Enda Kenny’s comments at the World Economic Forum in Davos when he observed that ‘people went mad borrowing’: a remark that contrasted somewhat starkly with his earlier ‘State of the Nation’ style pronouncement that the people were ‘not responsible for this crisis’ (Scally, 2012). Aside from evading more structural or internationalist analyses of Ireland’s economy and society during that decade, these narratives oversimplify ‘the’ public mood at the time. They infer that there was little in the way of dissent in Ireland, that conflicts over economic, cultural or social policy were not a

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Defining events

notable feature of Irish society, and that alternative ways of thinking and being were not practised by social movements, community groups and individuals across the state. They also exceptionalise the period, framing it as an extra­ ordinary rupture with what went before; so that by some it is regarded as signifying the overdue abandonment of outmoded allegiances while for others there is nostalgia for the ‘purer’ or more authentic values of the past. This book analyses and critiques Irish society in the early twenty-first century, but seeks to do so by consciously avoiding myth-making and generalisation. Its authors, through a combination of rigorous theorisation and dedicated attention to ‘defining events’, profile struggles, controversies and antinomies that challenge easy acceptance of the one big narrative. We invite readers to revisit and rethink twelve events that span the years 2001–9. Some were high profile at the time and still occupy a prominent place in public consciousness today: for example, the bank guarantee of 2008 and the publication in 2009 of the Ryan Report continue to generate media coverage and frame understandings of or responses to emergent social issues. Some chapters focus on what might be regarded as ‘fringe’ events, which attracted comparatively less attention – the birth of Indymedia.ie perhaps; while others consider events in popular culture, such as reaction to the publication of Donal Óg Cusack’s autobiography or the opening of the Dundrum shopping centre. At first glance these chapters may seem to have little scope for either comparison or commonality, but their authors show that in their individual ways all of these events reveal crucial intersections of structural power and resistance in contemporary Ireland. Irrespective of their status on the mediascape or in folk-memory we argue that these events are important happenings in their own right and merit the kind of considered analysis that is presented here. Clearly this book seeks to stretch our often-taken-for-granted expectations of what the word ‘event’ means. Against a backdrop of 24-hour news feeds, insomniac social media, and a constant barrage of information spliced with entertainment, events appear in an apparently endless procession. Each one is represented as a ‘spectacle’, seemingly disconnected from that which goes before and that which follows, and all destined to be replaced in time by other, newer events. In 1967 Guy Debord designated the modern era as a ‘society of the spectacle’; ‘the whole life of those societies in which modern conditions of production prevail presents itself as an immense accumulation of spectacles. All that once was directly lived has become mere representation’ (1967/1995:12). Such tendencies are most ­apparent in the domains of media and celebrity but reflect something more profound; the spectacle ‘is the very heart of society’s real unreality’, it ‘epitomizes the prevailing model of social life’ (ibid.:13). Depth and subtlety of analysis are sacrificed in the name of speed and newsworthiness while complexity is ironed out in the making of society’s images of itself. Against such tendencies, this book simply asks that we slow our responses

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Introduction

3

down, that we take stock of contexts and contradictions, that, in a word, we think ‘dialectically’. Rather than represent these twelve events as self-contained episodes, we try to adopt a longer and deeper view of their significance. Therefore, chapters (re)open debates about the valuation of national resources or the heritage landscape; changing conceptions of sexual identity and citizenship; the fragility of trust in church, state and public institutions; the nature of economic growth and stability; the remaking of place in the name of consumerism or ‘progress’; and the pluralised forms that resistance takes in twenty-first-century Ireland. Contributors show how the events carry traces of both social structure and human agency. They were shaped by overarching political, economic, social and cultural currents; but they were also responses to proposals, protests, advocacy and demands that have been articulated by a broad spectrum of social actors. This series of ‘defining events’ is analysed with reference to a range of disciplinary traditions in the social sciences. Rather than celebrate uncritically or damn unequivocally, contributors reflect on three central questions. What is the relative influence of hegemonic and oppositional discourses or ideas? What are the various conceptions of identity, progress or truth that inform the actions of those involved? To what extent do events break with or show continuities with the past? This latter question does not propose a retreat into ‘political cynicism’ (Giroux, 2004:131), the assumption that nothing can or will change, or that resistance always and inevitably re-energises existing power configurations. Instead it acknowledges that ‘democracy has to be struggled over even in the most appalling crisis of political agency’ (ibid.). This makes it imperative to clear-headedly track victories and defeats, be they consequences of policymaking, legislative change, lifestyle or life choice, public demonstration or media action. We appreciate the necessary partiality of this approach: different events could have been selected and alternative interpretations could be brought to bear on those being reviewed. Indeed, we hope that readers will suggest other events that are equally or more worthy of analysis, because it is our intention to prompt debate and renewed understandings of what might constitute a politically or socially significant event. Dramatic effect or transformative outcomes are not the only measures. As a totality, this volume suggests that significance can be reflected in both disruptions and continuities in prevailing discourses and forms of action. More troublingly, it can also be reflected in the absence of wider publicity, particularly when dominant power and social arrangements trivialise or obscure social cleavages. Another purpose of this book is to demonstrate the relevance of theory to a critical understanding of the dynamics of life in contemporary Ireland. In so doing, it adopts what Goran Therborn (2007:79) calls an ‘ecumenical conception of theory’, which ‘sees social theory as strung between two ambitious

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Defining events

poles: on the one hand, providing a comprehensive explanatory framework for a set of social phenomena; and on the other, something “making sense of ” such phenomena’. Authors tease out the particularities of the local scene, while simultaneously recording the influence of global forces and structural contradictions. The book is also ecumenical in its recognition of the scope for deliberation and interchange between different disciplines in the social sciences. Contributors come from backgrounds in archaeology, law, sociology, philosophy, equality studies, geography, women’s studies and social policy, and their chapters are inflected by those diverse traditions. They are, nonetheless, united in a shared allegiance to critical understanding, where critique is founded on a concern to reveal and counter aspects of inequality or ideological distortion, and where writers consciously acknowledge the political commitments that inform their work. Power As authors draw on diverse theoretical resources to support and extend their arguments, issues of power, identity and resistance emerge as unifying themes across the text. Contributors, however, conceive of power in different ways, and so invite readers to step inside the debate about one of social science’s most contested concepts. Some authors conceive of power as a capacity (Lukes, 2005), over which elite actors in the state, legislature or mainstream media have control or privileged access. Power enables actors to impose their will on dissenting others – to drive a motorway through opposition (Conor Newman, Chapter 3), to deny some citizens the right to marry (Angela O’Connell, Chapter 4) – but it also operates surreptitiously. It distorts the agenda of public debate so that some voices are never heard in mainstream media (Margaret Gillan and Laurence Cox, Chapter 2) while others are ridiculed – as in the case of opposition to the routing of the M3 motorway – or the public is assailed by fabricated issues – such as the illusionary threats posed by migrants to the concept of Irish citizenship (Steve Garner, Chapter 5) – that undermine their capacity to recognise their real interests. These chapters highlight the extent to which the parameters of decision-making, public discourse and popular imagination are set in line with narrow and reactionary agendas. And as Angela O’Connell’s analysis of the KAL case shows, the effects of such power are simultaneously intimate and public. Alternatively, some contributors adopt more Foucauldian conceptions of power: ‘power is everywhere; not because it embraces everything, but because it comes from everywhere’ (Foucault, 1998:92). They consider how efforts to conduct the conduct – what Foucault (2007) calls to govern – of ourselves and others do not just emanate from on-high but are expressed across the polity by actors including social movements and non-governmental organisations (NGOs). Power’s dispersed and relational qualities do not necessarily render

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Introduction

5

the public sphere more democratic or egalitarian, but they do complicate our understanding of the rationalities and interests that govern contemporary Irish society. Paul Michael Garret (Chapter 7) acknowledges that Antisocial ­Behaviour Orders (ASBOs) were introduced and promoted by Minister for Justice Michael McDowell, but the momentum behind his legislation was generated by multiple forces: international think-tanks, policy-makers in the US and UK, and political parties that channelled constituents’ preoccupations with ‘anti-­social’ conduct. Likewise Rosie Meade (Chapter 10) characterises the Older People’s Uprising as a confrontation between older people, advocacy groups and the incumbent government, yet recognises the dependencies, collaborations and compromises that structure relationships between those actors in a context where social partnership and clientelist politics have dominated. John Baker, Kathleen Lynch and Judy Walsh (Chapter 11) reflecting on government efforts to rein in the Equality Authority, remind us that the state can use its power to constrain dissenting institutions. But they too avoid crude polarisations, with the Authority on one side and the government on the other. While applauding the Authority’s significant achievements, they nonetheless point to a theoretical continuity between the model of equality it championed and that favoured by the government, the privileging of equality of opportunity. Eoin O’Sullivan’s contribution (Chapter 12) also evokes Foucault’s notion of power as coming from everywhere. As Ireland’s confinement culture found expression in the industrial and reformatory school network, O’Sullivan ­ ­observes the enactment of power across church, state and even family to manage, regulate and contain children. But again, Eoin O’Sullivan complicates our under­standing of the significance of the Ryan Report and public responses to it, by questioning the popular assumption that these schools reflected a distinctly Irish pathology. He records how similar investigative processes have been undertaken elsewhere, and that they too have unearthed narratives of abuse and brutality. While mindful of the distinguishing socio-cultural characteristics of Ireland at the time, he points to a recurring ‘pathology of the institution’ which has transcended geographic and national borders. This book also explores how power works ideologically and through policy instruments to support dominant models of capital accumulation. Fiona Dukelow (Chapter 9) discusses how neo-liberalism as both an ideology and practice continues to ‘fail forward’, despite being implicated as cause and aftereffect of the global economic crisis. Since Ireland’s recession was announced in 2008, the urgency of economic stability and renewed growth has become a constant and ubiquitous refrain in the Irish public sphere. Its clarion call of austerity has ensured that neo-liberalism has been normalised within approaches to welfare delivery in particular. Indeed, even though this book seeks to explore a broad range of issues across the spectrum of human experience, it can never really escape the grasp of the economy. Events such as the bank guarantee, but

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Defining events

also the Older People’s Uprising, the decision to build the M3 through Tara, the introduction of ASBOs, and even the Citizenship Referendum, illustrate the form and reach of contemporary capitalism. In Ireland, mainstream analysis pivots on the assumption that the mantra ‘it’s the economy stupid’ should over-determine social, environmental and cultural priorities. In this there are clear resonances with the past – the need to protect economic fundamentals long featuring as the theme in Irish policy-making – but in our era of neoliberalism, this tendency has been amplified and accelerated. Stuart Hall (2013) has ­observed: Neoliberalism’s victory has depended on the boldness and ambition of global capital, on its confidence that it can now govern not just the economy but the whole of social life. On the back of a revamped liberal political and economic theory, its champions have constructed a vision and a new common sense that have permeated society.

Unsurprisingly, perhaps, the salience of Hall’s observations is borne out in Denis Linehan’s (Chapter 6) analysis of Dundrum Town Centre and by Paul Michael Garrett on the introduction of ASBOs. Although not obviously comparable, both problematise the impact of neo-liberalism’s fellow travellers, privatisation of public space, the fetishisation of consumerist identities, and contemporary paranoia over security and order. The gating-off of public space, whether physically in shopping centres or metaphorically through ASBOs, classifies the insiders and outsiders in our economy; those with money to spend who are ready to consume and those who threaten the order of things through their deviant and risky habits. Resistance As Foucault (1998) observed, where there is power there is resistance, and this book analyses the interplay between those conjoined forces. Resistance has become a fashionable, and possibly hackneyed, concept in the social sciences because it redirects emphasis away from issues of ‘social control’ and ‘structure to issues of agency’ (Hollander and Einwohner, 2004:533). It replaces determinism with hope, suggesting that, at the very least, we can step up to power configurations and, maybe, face them down or overturn them. Even when actors present themselves as unwittingly or unwillingly politicised – as with Dónal Óg Cusack’s initial construction of his ‘coming out’ – the public avowal of ‘alternative’ identities can challenge hegemonic values (Debbie Ging and Marcus Free, Chapter 13). Social science’s engagement with resistance is also a necessary corrective to the assumption that ‘progress’ is gifted from on high by benevolent elites. In this volume resistance takes a variety of forms and it is practised by diverse actors. We see resistance that is spearheaded by individuals: Katherine Zappone and Ann Louise Gilligan’s legal campaign for equal marriage rights

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Introduction

7

highlights the deep reservoirs of personal commitment and courage that are necessary for such battles. But oppositional politics and resistance are also enacted through broad-based but less intensive forms of mobilisation, such as the Older People’s Uprising and the campaigns against ASBOs or the Citizenship Referendum. For critical scholars and activists the concept of resistance can host and sustain political optimism; that despite the onslaught of contrary speculation, spectacle and misinformation, alternative ways of thinking and being can find expression in contemporary Ireland. The chapters in this book, however, remind us that outcomes are variable. We find resistances that are partly successful, still evolving, and those are successful in surprising or unusual ways. As Laurence Cox and Margaret Gillan’s discussion of Indymedia effectively illustrates, resistance is not a fixed state or space. Over its history Indymedia’s relevance as a forum for oppositional politics has diminished, a factor that is associated with broader changes in the media and technological landscape, and the evolving communication strategies of activists themselves. Contributors to Defining Events affirm the currency and political validity of interventions that counter conventional views of what is good for the culture, society or economy. In Ireland, however, resistance is not always greeted with respect or credibility within the public and political spheres. Paul Michael Garret reflects on how allegedly troublesome young people have been criminalised via the legal instrument of the ASBO, but legislation also has been utilised to restrict the conduct of activists who are seen to be, as Conor Newman puts it, ‘standing in the way of development’. The chapters on Tara and Dundrum reveal the powerful discursive and disciplinary force of ‘development’; how it is invoked in politics and the media to nullify debate, to disguise its own ideological underpinnings and the provisionality of its assumptions. Development, Gustavo Esteva (1992:10) has written, ‘cannot delink itself from the words with which it was formed – growth, evolution, maturation. Just the same, those who now use the word cannot free themselves from a web of meanings that impart a specific blindness to their language, thought and action’. Against such discursive power, those seeking to reveal the limits or counter-sides to ‘development’, automatically become defined as resisters, and once so defined, are liable to become targets of ridicule at best and brute force at worst. Finally, resistance like power does not always come from below. Rather than attributing an inevitable outlier or heroic status to resisters, some chapters detail how elites may themselves also practise resistance. For example, John Baker, Kathleen Lynch and Judy Walsh note that Irish governments have resisted equality agendas that they themselves have been involved in drafting, thus sabotaging the enactment of more expansive conceptions of equality. Similarly Vicky Conway’s (Chapter 8) detailed account of the Garda Síochana Ombudsman Commission, and its limited scope for action, suggests that a culture of

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Defining events

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police resistance and ministerial obduracy have significantly limited its c­ apacity to pursue real accountability. Identity Identities are constructed at the interface between public policy, collective commitments and individual biographies. They mobilise both power and resistance, as they move beyond the realm of the personal and become focal points for debates about rights, responsibilities, resources and even the borders of the nation itself. The tensions and contradictions inherent in Ireland’s (post) colonial history have generated much soul-searching on what it means to be ‘properly’ Irish: national identity can be presented as a bulwark against oppression; it can service the ambitions of future political and social leadership; it may counter vestiges of racism and exclusion; or alternatively it can reinforce narrow conceptions of who belongs and who does not. Sociological discussions about nationalism often designate the nation as an imagined community, ‘imagined because the members of even the smallest nation will never know most of their fellow-members, meet them, or even hear of them, yet in the minds of each lives the image of their communion’ (Anderson, 2006:6). In Ireland in 2004, fourfifths of those who voted in the Citizenship Referendum agreed that citizenship of the nation should become a privilege that is mediated by bloodlines rather than a right that follows birth on the island of Ireland. Steve Garner explains that the populist discourses of the time constructed pregnant migrant women as parasitic on Ireland’s existing citizenship laws while simultaneously affirming the Diaspora’s unquestionable status as citizens. Ultimately the boundaries of voters’ imagined communities proved permeable to second- or third-generation ‘Irish’ people, most of whom may never set foot on the territory itself, but impermeable to many of the migrant children and parents physically present as co-workers, playmates and neighbours in their localities. More optimistically, however, this book also suggests that conceptions of Irish identity and citizenship are being redrawn in more positive ways. Chapters that detail the after-effects of Donal Óg Cusack’s ‘coming out’, or the momentum created by the KAL Case, suggest that these vital affirmations of sexual identity have pushed institutions – the Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA), the state, the Constitution and the media – towards an, albeit grudging, accommodation to ‘diversity’. As ‘defining events’ they have prompted deliberation on the hegemonic status of marriage or masculinity, and how they must be renegotiated. But these events also highlight the limited contours of public debate, how difficult it is to really escape the hegemonic: to be validated or recognised, ‘diverse’ Irish identities, whether linked to gender, family, sexuality or marital status, must still make peace with vestiges of patriarchy and homophobia. The events also evoke some inherent challenges in translating individual experience into collectivised action. Donal Óg Cusack, Katherine Zappone and Ann Louise Gilligan

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Introduction

9

have granted the wider society access and insight into their ‘private’ lives, and thus they have run the gamut of negative and demeaning judgements. They are building on the groundwork laid by other activists and movements, and inevitably there are differences in tactics and aspiration; regarding what to confront, what to accept and what to reject, what resources to use and what allies to seek. Finally, as Donal Óg’s autobiography reminds us, actors may themselves engage ambivalently with the politics of their own public actions, dismissing the suggestion that they are trailblazers, asserting instead that they simply wish to ‘be’. This book proposes that during the early twenty-first century there was a simultaneous opening up and closing down of Irish identity in its hegemonic forms. Some ways of living and being were assimilated or absorbed by the ­national community but not others. Issues of identity are often portrayed as detached from the realm of the economic – for example in distinctions between so-called ‘identity or recognition politics’ and the ‘politics of redistribution’ (see Fraser and Honneth, 2003) – but here chapters expose this to be an arbitrary or false opposition. Clearly, as Steve Garner shows, the debate about citizenship in 2004 was undercut by economic anxieties, regarding health service spending or migrants’ consumption of allegedly scarce resources. For many voters in that referendum there appeared to be a price on citizenship, and, as other events show, a price has also been put on collective memory, history and heritage. Conor Newman records how the totality of Tara/Skryne’s landscape has been dis-assembled in the name of speed, mobility and the myths of economic growth. Irish social policy has since independence offered only weak commitments to economic equality while the realities of class-conflict and class-interest have by and large been ignored. Yet occasionally, and even though the concept itself remains elusive from official discourses, the continuing salience of ‘class’ in Ireland is exposed. Industrial schools were instruments of regulation, classification and control, but it was working-class children predominantly who were confined within them. While the Ryan Report refers to institutions that have been consigned to the past, the demonisation of specific class identities continues today. Owen Jones (2012:95) argues that in the UK, in both their delivery and in their accompanying discourses, ASBOs have ‘increased the bad reputation of young working-class kids and popularized the Chav caricature’, stereotyping the working class as ‘feckless, non-aspirational, the scrounger, the dysfunctional and the disorderly’. Although the ASBO debate and its actual implementation have been more circumscribed in Ireland, the legislation, as Paul Michael Garret shows, gained traction due to public fears about the problematic character and identities of young working-class people. Furthermore, with the ascent of neo-liberalism and its privileging of the market, there has been an accompanying attack on principles of solidarity and publicness as detailed in chapters by Fiona Dukelow and Rosie Meade. Neither

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the Irish state’s rescuing of private banks nor its deference to speculative bondholders has engendered a sustained questioning or reversal of those trends. If anything they have become more embedded and in a classic ideological inversion it is welfare recipients who are represented as the most conspicuous and voracious consumers of public subsidy. Neo-liberal policies are justified with reference to supposedly self-evident concepts of rationality, fairness, necessity or technical superiority, so that ideo­ logy while not absent is often disguised. But in the face of political opposition or resistant publics, neo-liberalism requires some ideological ballast. According to John Clarke (2004:16–17) the UK’s New Labour, in its remaking of the public sector, transposed ‘identities from the “market” into new locations’, seeking to constitute a ‘modern British people’ who had internalised the subjectivities of ‘the self-directing, choosing, citizen-consumer’. Within neo-liberalism consumption becomes something of a moral imperative, and citizens are responsibilised accordingly, while the state’s policies and practices refashion more and more aspects of life in line with consumerism. But as Denis Lenihan explains, the connection between consumerist identities and structural forces, economic and spatial policy, is typically ignored within populist discourses in Ireland. Consequently, opposition to the creation of Dundrum Town Centre was primarily couched in reactionary terms: shoppers were represented as atomised individuals who had mislaid their moral compasses, gorgers on excess who had lost touch with the spiritual values of the past. Ostensibly critical of the Celtic Tiger, Lenihan shows that these commentaries were effectively blind to political economy. Late capitalist accumulation requires markets and spaces for the reaping of profit; it is not consumers who make shopping centres, but shopping centres that make consumers. Finally, the collected chapters in this book raise some interesting questions about how political and policy change happens in Ireland. For example, in Vicky Conway’s view the creation of the Garda Ombudsman office has been a protracted and imperfect process. Successive governments have constructed the Gardaí as a self-regulating and inherently accountable force; public concerns regarding policing outcomes have been ignored or diverted into an ineffective complaints structure. Influences from abroad, the rolling out of commitments made as part of peace processes in the North, and the shaming of sections of the Gardaí at the Morris Tribunal, ultimately forced the Minister for Justice to create an Ombudsman structure in the name of greater, yet still narrow, ­accountability. However, even within that new structure the police force continues to display an unwillingness to submit to independent or public oversight. Vicky Conway describes a complex narrative where reactionary and progressive possibilities run side by side, always battling for advantage. Despite their obvious differences, this is the story behind the main event in all of the chapters in this book. By thinking dialectically and critically we come to recognise the

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contested and contradictory character of contemporary Irish society. Sometimes indigenous practices of doing and being appear to embody a better way; in other instances policy transfer from ‘outside’ – from the European Union (EU) or international community – appears to offer the promise of justice or greater equality. In Ireland, the state resists the resisters, colludes with abuse, but other times it seems susceptible to positive influence and there are occasions of hope. And what of its people? Sometimes ‘we’ roll over and other times we rise up: there are unpredictable victories, unexpected failures. This book offers no easy prescriptions and rejects facile conclusions, but if there is a single truth to be found within, it is that we cannot take notions of power, resistance or identity for granted. We must grapple with them, think them through theoretically and recognise how they manifest in practice. That is the task that the authors have set themselves over the following twelve chapters.

References Anderson, B. (2006) Imagined Communities – Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, London: Verso. Clarke, J. (2004) ‘Consumerism and the remaking of state–citizen relationships’, Paper Presented at ESPAnet Conference, Oxford, 9–11 September. Debord, G. (1967/1995) The Society of the Spectacle, New York: Zone Books. Esteva, G. (1992) ‘Development’, in W. Sachs (ed.) The Development Dictionary, London: Zed Books, 6–25. Foucault, M. (1998) The Will to Knowledge – The History of Sexuality: 1, Harmondsworth: Penguin. Foucault, M. (2007) Security, Territory, Population: Lectures at the Collège de France (1977– 1978), Basingstoke: Palgrave. Fraser, N., and Honneth, A. (2003) Redistribution or Recognition? London: Verso. Giroux, H. A. (2004) The Terror of Neoliberalism, Boulder, CO: Paradigm Publishers. Hall, S. (2013) ‘The Kilburn Manifesto: our challenge to neoliberal victory’, The Guardian, 24 April. Hollander, J., and Einwohner, R. L. (2004) ‘Conceptualizing resistance’, Sociological Forum, 19(4): 533–54. Jones, O. (2012) Chavs – the Demonization of the Working Class, London: Verso. Lukes, S. (2005) Power: A Radical View, London: Palgrave Macmillan. Nyberg, P. (2011) Misjudging Risk: Causes of the Systemic Banking Crisis Ireland, Dublin: Government Publications. RTÉ (2010) Prime Time, 24 November. Scally, D. (2012) ‘Taoiseach blames crisis on ‘mad borrowing’ and greed’, Irish Times, 27 January. Therborn, G. (2007) ‘After dialectics’, New Left Review, 43(1): 63–114.

2

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The birth of Indymedia.ie: a critical space for social movements in Ireland Margaret Gillan and Laurence Cox

From the Late Late Show to Indymedia.ie Hegemony, the way popular consent to power and economic structures is ­organised, is an alien word to many people, seemingly not from the same world as Middle Ireland with its familiar trivialities. But the complacent idea of The Late Late Show as the nation’s living room is a perfect example of hegemony at work: the state broadcaster offering a cosy, semi-official version of ‘national community’. A more liberal version of hegemony implies that such television programmes make issues and can be found in comments about how ‘it was a breakthrough’ when something appeared on The Late Late Show: not grasping that ‘issues’ make the mainstream media as a result, not a cause, of social movements struggling against the official state of affairs. News is ‘popular’ in Ireland, evident by the fact that in radio’s early years people complained vociferously about uneven access (Horgan, 2001; Pine, 2002). Twentieth-century media were seen as breaking down rural isolation, providing social cohesion and helping Ireland to join ‘the wider world’. Yet in practice knowledge and access to knowledge was tightly controlled within Ireland until very recently. State censorship covered everything from contraception information to interviews with members of certain democratically elected political parties; most people had access only to state television; a single

Both authors have regularly read and sometimes contributed to Irish Indymedia, but neither is part of the editorial team. This chapter is written for a general audience, focusing on the historical context for Indymedia Ireland, its relationship with movements and its wider significance. For this reason the chapter is based on publicly accessible documents except in the discussion of the 2004 Independent Media Centre, where our first-hand experience may add something to what has already been published. A more participatory research project on Indymedia would be valuable, if demanding, and we hope this chapter may encourage someone to carry out such work.

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commercial distributor had de facto control over what periodicals were sold; while a monolithic education system allowed only minor diversity in religious education but none in history or politics. Alongside these official realities, Ireland has widespread traditions of unofficial knowledge. Oral versions of history have long contradicted the colonial account (Lennon, 2004) and the subsequent official pieties of state nationalism. Radical groups – republican, socialist, atheist or feminist – published their own periodicals in the teeth of police and populist repression. For example, a left-wing bookshop in Cork was attacked by a mob and forced to close in 1970. Working-class community groups printed pamphlets about areas into which ‘professional’ journalists did not venture, at times setting up their own radio or even television stations (Gillan, 2010). Magazines associated with alternative lifestyles, from gay and lesbian to organic farming, came and went. From the later 1980s, Ireland entered a particular brand of neo-liberalism backed up by ‘social partnership’ with unions and tax haven arrangements with multinationals. An ever-tightening net of privatisation, public–private partnerships, EU fiscal rectitude and international free-trade agreements meant that government’s scope for new concessions to popular interests – such as the limited welfare state arrangements which had previously secured working-class support for Fianna Fáil (Allen, 1997) – declined. This in turn under­mined popular consent to power and led to a greater reliance on physical repression; particularly visible from the early 2000s in growing police violence against ­political protestors. Well-paid television commentators pronouncing that all was well did not sit easily with armoured police beating protestors in public ­locations, particularly when those protestors were the children of the new middle classes (ní Dhorchaigh and Cox, 2011). The 2000s saw a legitimacy crisis for the Irish state. Hidden historical realities of Magdalene Laundries, ­industrial schools and clerical sexual abuse, which implicated much of the older population in one way or another, started to be named and sought a voice and a space. However, the intensified commercialisation of media in the 1990s and 2000s prompted the designation of broadcasting spectrum and mobile-phone infra­ structure, not as culture or arts but as ‘natural resources’ – in a neo-liberal context, as valuable assets for sale. Without a protected public broadcasting service and ethos, media become tools for their owners to decide what is newsworthy. Thus the 2001 launch of Indymedia Ireland marked a radically different model of media: Internet-based, non-profit, run on a shoestring, democratically produced, open to many different voices, and telling the stories that were firmly kept out of the nation’s living room. This chapter discusses its significance, with reference to the context of media politics in Ireland, the emergence of global Indymedia, an account of how Irish Indymedia was born and a discussion of what happened next.

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Defining events

Who shapes the news in Ireland?

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Chomsky and Herman’s (1994) propaganda model discusses how ownership, funding, sourcing, flak and anti-communism are used to mould the media to ruling class interests. •  Ownership: the state and large corporations are Ireland’s main proprietors, with more concentrated media ownership than in most member states of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) (Flynn, 2013), despite some locally owned papers. For example, in 1983, Tony O’Reilly (cited in Connolly, 2006) had this to say about what media ownership meant for the ability to exploit Irish oil and gas fields: ‘[S]ince I own 35 per cent of the newspapers in Ireland I have close contact with the politicians. I got the block he [the geologist] wanted’. •  Funding: virtually all media are advertising-dependent, so that in practice they sell an audience to advertisers rather than the reverse, and speak to groups with the disposable income advertisers are seeking. •  Sourcing: Irish media have very little research capacity of their own and rely heavily on official sources and commercial news agencies, with ­government spokespersons and other journalists the most frequent interviewees. Occasional non-controversial ‘community content’ does not alter this basic picture.1 •  Flak: this refers to how journalists criticising a major corporation or state body can expect their boss to be contacted immediately with formal complaints, demands for redress and threats of legal action. Social movements and community groups rarely do this when they are misrepresented in the press, and their legal threats are far less credible. In Ireland, elite circles are so small that flak can often be exercised on a first-name basis. •  Anti-communism: while as in the USA most Irish journalists are deeply suspicious of anything left of the Labour Party, anti-communism’s functional equivalent is anti-republicanism. The smear of ‘republican involvement’ is often enough to damn a whole movement in the media, whether it be local opposition to Shell in Mayo or community organising in Dublin. Finally, conventional journalistic practice demands that ‘news’ must always be ‘new’, with little interest in what happened next with yesterday’s news, be it oil and gas or how new rules restrict community broadcasters. Conventional media are highly selective in what they cover; what constitutes ‘newsworthiness’ is determined by something other than what is directly affecting people. Ireland’s media environment has its own peculiarities. The early days of radio left a hybrid model of a state broadcaster – RTÉ – operating partially commercially and partially through state funding, unlike the purely commer-

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cial US model or the UK’s public service model, and leading many to assert that public service broadcasting doesn’t exist in Ireland. The state’s continuing insistence that RTÉ make ends meet through commercial activity undermines public service broadcasting, places it in ongoing conflict with commercial media, stresses competition rather than needs, and hinders strategic alliances with non-profit alternatives. Because of RTÉ’s ‘market monopoly’, radio piracy was an obvious response. Commercial broadcasting media have operated since the development of Century Radio in 1989 as the first licensed alternative to RTÉ Radio in an effort to kill off the pirate stations. That initiative was tarnished by the rapid turnover of media ownership since, but also by the findings of the Flood and Mahon tribunals, which uncovered corrupt payments to politicians – including thenMinister Ray Burke – particularly around the Century licence (Flood, 2002). Community radio emerged through a loophole in the Wireless and Tele­ graphy Act (1988), and has since been legally recognised as separate from state and commercial broadcasting. Government policy reviews often force community and commercial media to compete on the same terrain, and activists must continually struggle for the recognition of their distinct ethos and situation. The Irish media landscape is imperfect, to put it mildly. The Moriarty Tribunal’s final report found that media magnate Denis O’Brien had paid over £147,000 to Michael Lowry, the Minister in charge of issuing mobile-phone licences from 1994 to 1996 (Moriarty Tribunal, 2011). O’Brien owns a large share of the Irish radio market and a ‘substantial interest’ in Independent News and Media (INM), and has a track record of attempting to prevent journalists reporting on the tribunal whilst he was attending (Browne, 2013). Nonetheless, the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland (BAI, 2012a) did not require significant changes to ownership rules, other than placing added regulation on community media. Thus it is not surprising to find a lack of confidence in the veracity and ­integrity of ‘news’ and critical reporting, fuelled, for example, by issues concerning journalistic ethos in current affairs programming on RTÉ (BAI, 2012b). RTÉ’s requirement to compete with commercial operators helps to explain its ­embroilment in ‘infotainment’, sensationalising issues and lowering ethical standards. In this environment people seeking either to put out information ignored in the mainstream or to challenge official versions of stories have not only to articulate their experience but also to create a suitable forum. This gives rise to various ‘alternative’ uses of media. This happened long before Indymedia (Thompson, 1984; Tilly, 2004); since the 1960s increased access to various media, facilitated sometimes by technological changes but also by better educational opportunities including adult and community education, enabled more people to access and participate in media production themselves.

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Defining events

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The alternative media response Alternative media (whether print, broadcast or digital) are alternative in three ways. Firstly, they seek to democratise access to the media and enable groups and experiences which are excluded from ‘official’ (state and commercial) versions of reality to be heard. Secondly, they seek to democratise authorship and production, so that the writer or speaker is no longer a well-paid professional employed by a corporation or state but an ordinary citizen speaking to other citizens. Thirdly, they seek to democratise distribution, to break out of the ways in which the construction of different media ‘markets’ channels different sorts of information to different ‘audiences’, understood primarily as the target groups for different advertisers (Atton, 2002; Downing, 2001). Ireland has many kinds of alternative media. The longest-established are radical media, usually associated with political organisations (socialist, republican, feminist etc.) and tied to their campaigning activity. Following these are community media, produced by and for members of particular (usually urban, working-class) communities on issues which matter to them but are either not represented or caricatured in the ‘mainstream media’. There are independent media, often produced by individuals with some professional training and an interest in ‘breaking into’ conventional media from a critical standpoint. Finally, alternative media in the counter-cultural sense is linked to everything from music scenes via alternative spirituality to zine networks. Around 2000, these media were facing two crises. One was a crisis of organisation. Many social movements had become institutionalised and state-funded under ‘social partnership’, meaning that their primary interest was now in getting their issue into the media that are read by politicians and civil servants, rather than mobilising ordinary people to campaign. Linked to this, traditional distribution strategies – using members to sell periodicals or buy subscriptions – were in steep decline, while the expansion of activism outside the major cities to small towns made the distribution challenge harder than ever. Few alternative media ever made a profit, but now the financial and organisational costs of maintaining a print publication not directly supported by funders (in Ireland, usually some branch of the state) were harder than ever to sustain. The growing availability of computers and the Internet started to provide a real solution. After an initial (then-costly) purchase, publication costs shrank from printing and postage to nearly zero. Similarly, although only those with computers (or access to Internet cafes) could read online material, geographical distribution was no longer a problem. Furthermore, well-produced Irish ­material could be read by respected activist peers abroad. In 1999 a special issue of Community Media Network’s (CMN) Tracking (CMN, 1999) covered alternative print media. Five years later, most of those media either no longer existed

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or had migrated to the Internet. It is in this context that Irish Indymedia came into existence.

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Making global Indymedia In 1999, the World Trade Organisation (WTO) met in Seattle for talks to lower customs and legal barriers protecting developing countries from multinational competition. An alliance of trade unionists opposing the ‘race to the bottom’ on wages, environmentalists objecting to WTO rules forbidding individual countries from banning goods produced in destructive ways, and global justice activists attempting to prevent a further worsening of world poverty, brought 50,000 protestors to the streets of Seattle. Despite police brutality and suspensions of civil rights, the protestors were successful in preventing the meeting from concluding and in emboldening developing countries’ delegates – who were used to being isolated from one another and being threatened into agreement by Northern representatives – to ally and refuse the unfair terms proposed by the WTO leadership. In the 15 years since that event, the WTO, one of the flagship institutions of neo-liberalism, has not concluded a global trade round successfully. The US media were as hostile to social movements as the Irish, and a barrage of caricatures, anonymous stories from police sources and assertions of the ­perfection of free trade filled the airwaves, while protest organisers found themselves unable to gain any mainstream coverage for their issues. In this context, Indymedia – ‘Independent Media’ – was born, using the Internet to circumvent de facto censorship of protestors’ concerns (and police violence) by enabling the immediate upload of text, audio, video and comments. The site was an outstanding success, with over a million hits (Feeney, 2007). Following Seattle it was simply left running, becoming a broader tool for circumventing US media hegemony2 and spawning an international network of autonomously organised sister sites.3 Indymedia – and other activist Internet tools of the day such as PeaceNet, riseup.net, etc. – were the forerunners of today’s interactive ‘Web 2.0’. Radically democratic, with content directly generated by users, they enabled participants to speak and listen directly to each other across great distances without the mediation of ‘professional journalists’. So successful was this model that it later manifested as social media such as Facebook and Twitter (Indymedia London, 2012). Indeed, many of the computer activists who collaborated on projects such as Indymedia went on to work on the commercial forms of Web 2.0. Similarly, video activists who honed their production and editing skills on street protests went on to work in mainstream media, bringing new styles and method­ologies. As Hardt and Negri (2000) observe, capitalism has little creati­ vity of its own and is routinely parasitic on commodifying popular invention.

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The free culture movement and Oscailt The recent Wikileaks and Snowden crises highlight the changes brought about by Web 2.0. People are changing from being largely consumers to makers of media or, if not always creators of original media, at least becoming more interactive with the content. But underlying this change is an ongoing dynamic of challenge and struggle. The ‘free culture movement’ was made up mainly of technology workers and hobbyists – ‘hackers’ and ‘geeks’ – who began three decades ago to respond to an inherent contradiction within the new technology (Davidson, 2011). The minimal costs of computer-based methods of production and distribution undermine the commodification of information. ‘Hackers’ did what people had always done with new technologies – they experimented and shared. As GNU (n.d., original emphasis), the free operating system, clarifies: ‘Free software’ means software that respects users’ freedom and community. Roughly, the users have the freedom to run, copy, distribute, study, change and improve the software. With these freedoms, the users (both individually and collectively) control the program and what it does for them.   When users don’t control the program, the program controls the users. The developer controls the program, and through it controls the users…   Thus, ‘free software’ is a matter of liberty, not price. To understand the concept, you should think of ‘free’ as in ‘free speech,’ not as in ‘free beer’.

Since the formation of the Free Software Foundation in 1984 and its idea of ­‘copyleft’ (giving rights to modify information like software so long as others can modify yours), a range of other initiatives have emerged, such as the Linux operating system, the Creative Commons licensing system, file-sharing sites such as Pirate Bay and, most recently, Pirate Parties in various countries. Some claim that the fundamental relations of production under capitalism are seriously challenged by free software (Davidson, 2011). More ‘business friendly’ initiatives such as the 1998 Open Source Initiative diverted attention from the political to claims of technical superiority; however, the drive behind free culture continues: ‘[i]t is totally wrong to regard our role as to represent “consumer interests”. On the contrary it’s all about leaving the artificial division of humanity into the two groups “producers” and “consumers” behind’ ­(Fleischer, 2005). Irish Indymedia was no stranger to this technical development and designed the Oscailt (‘open’) software for its own website, involving ‘a search engine, categorisation of stories into topics, regions and types, the ability to publish audio and video files … and localised frontpages for each county in Ireland and each topic’ (Indymedia Ireland, 2003). Oscailt has been adopted by a number of high-profile non-profit sites internationally (Oscailt, 2012; Redmond, 2006). This places Indymedia.ie within a global movement that reaches beyond content to address technological issues of control of media production and the social implications of such controls (Feeney et al., 2004; Oscailt, 2007).

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Irish Indymedia: history and politics Indymedia Centre (IMC) Ireland came out of the wave of Irish protests against neo-liberalism around the turn of the twenty-first century (Cox, 2006). Latin American struggles had long inspired Irish activists via solidarity and development work. Paulo Freire’s participatory adult education in Brazil informed much Irish community development; in 1975 Comhlámh was established for returned development workers (Comhlámh, 2013); Irish participants in Nicaraguan ‘Brigades’ learnt about the Sandinista mass literacy campaign, and in 1995 the Nicaragua Support Group began to establish a Latin American Solid­ arity Centre (LASC), which saw activity expand around Brazil, Columbia, Peru, Mexico, Venezuela and Haiti among others. LASC encouraged development education which created links between the local and global (LASC, 2013). In particular, the Zapatista revolution in Chiapas (Mexico) against neoliberalism depended strongly on networking between movements and skilled communication use: In August 1996, we called for the creation of a network of independent media, a network of information. We mean a network to resist the power of the lie that sells us this war that we call the Fourth World War. We need this network not only as a tool for our social movements, but for our lives: this is a project of life, of humanity, humanity which has a right to critical and truthful information. (Marcos, 1997)

The effectiveness of such networks was seen when a loose global coalition of high-powered activists and NGOs stopped the OECD’s Multilateral Agreement on Investment in 1998, foreshadowing the organisation of the Seattle protests. Within Irish groups such as CMN, activists like Mick McCaughan (1995) wrote about the experience of young film-makers documenting the struggle in Chiapas, Mexico; the Zapatista use of media to ‘talk with’ internally in their community and ‘talk to’ the outside world through carefully staged media events, became an important differential in dealing with and using media as a tool that empowers people in struggle (Gillan, 2010; Halkin, 2008). Few Irish activists participated in the 1999 Seattle protests which sparked the first Indymedia, but several were involved in the 2000 Prague protests at the ­International Monetary Fund/World Bank summit, and the 2001 Genoa protests at the G8 summit. The policing of Genoa was the most violent of all European summit protests in the 2000s: the city centre was barricaded off, freedom of movement was suspended, protestors were portrayed as terrorists and over 400 activists and 100 police and carabinieri were injured. On 20 July activist Carlo Giuliani was shot by a carabiniere and his body run over twice. The following night the Diaz schools, used as media, medical and legal support centres, were entered by heavily armed police who systematically beat the sleeping inhabitants, leaving over 60 severely injured and three in

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Defining events

comas, including British journalist Mark Covell.4 Arrestees were abused at the Bolzaneto detention centre, and in 2007 police officers were convicted around this. In 2010, 25 officers received prison sentences and Mark Covell won compensation (Kington and Hooper, 2010). The Genoa events catalysed Irish Indymedia. Ten Irish media activists ­travelled there to work with Italian Indymedia; several later became involved in developing the Irish centre (Crudden, 2011a). In August, they organised a public screening of Italian Indymedia’s Genoa documentary in front of the Italian embassy: ‘I feel as if our small group who went to Genoa to film are becoming part of something bigger. We’re doing Indymedia in our own city now. It’s not a website but it is part of Indymedia, Indymedia Ireland’ (Crudden, 2011b:17). The early Irish activists mostly used video. Their two-hour Genoa documentary Berlusconi’s Mousetrap was produced in collaboration with other activists who filmed events and used footage from the international Indymedia archive. Taking a year to complete (not long for such a project), it generated discussion about how such media can be produced, its authorship, the importance of documenting events, engaging with media, and accessible forms. The production was a binding factor for early Indymedia;5 it models how material can be assembled by people in different locations and how collaboration and sharing material for editing can enable a range of outputs speaking to different audiences. Meanwhile Irish police were also travelling, to seminars in Britain and Europe where they were told that anti-globalisation protestors were ‘the new terrorists’ and encouraged to react more aggressively. This was manifested at anti-privatisation protests in Dublin and most famously at the May 2002 Reclaim the Streets protest which saw a ‘Garda riot’ on Dame Street, with police batoning bystanders (including people in taxi queues and journalists). Activist video recordings were used in court to identify numerous gardaí, providing evidence of police lying (MacRuairi, 2004; Reclaim the Streets, 2003) and a humiliating defeat for the Garda. This and the increased presence of acti­ vist video cameras on subsequent demonstrations led to gardaí taking video of activists at protests, apparently collecting identification of peaceful protestors and eventually presenting ‘video stand-offs’ where activist and garda videomakers were locked in a ‘video shoot’ of one another. Thus was Indymedia Ireland born: initially closely associated with the global justice/anti-capitalist movement against neo-liberalism, highlighting political issues marginalised or directly censored in the mainstream media and bringing to light police brutality which was (and remains) under-reported at best by state and corporate media.6 Citing police treatment of an independent camera operator, one of five people arrested at a Critical Mass cycling demonstration, participants wrote before the launch, ‘[A]gain and again and again and again sustainable, alternative, co-operative actions and perspectives are marginalised

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and ignored by Irish mainstream media in favour of an establishment “party line”’ (Anon., 2001). Similarly, Indymedia Ireland’s first story covered the arrest of 16 people, including an independent camera operator, protesting outside the public–private partnership meeting at the Burlington Hotel in Dublin ­(Irishvidhead, 2001). The site took off slowly, with two other stories in October 2001, none in ­November and one in early December. Six were posted on 18 December, followed by near-silence until after 30 January 2002. From then on the site was consistently active.

Irish Indymedia and the wider left The Irish left is not homogenous.7 For our purposes it falls into three main camps. A reformist left – consisting of parts of the Labour Party and trade unions, together with many NGOs and single-issue campaigns – focuses on gaining access to an imagined ‘mainstream’ and downplays the threat to existing power structures implied by any change. This left thus focuses on gaining access to the mainstream media and often acts as though it risks contamination in the eyes of ‘respectable’ opinion from any association with alternative media. The hierarchical left, represented particularly by Trotskyist and republican parties and some movement organisations, seeks much more radical change but is also concerned with contesting the existing public arena. Thus it tends to combine interventions in mainstream media with the use of other media, in particular ‘own-brand’ media dedicated to members of a particular party or movement, and is wary of ‘uncontrolled’ spaces such as Indymedia. Finally, the non-hierarchical left, represented particularly by anarchists and direct action-oriented movements as well as some community groups, tends to see little scope for using mainstream institutions for social change, and is suspicious of organisationally controlled spaces, preferring independent, self-created media. Responses to the new Indymedia.ie were shaped by these allegiances. The mainstream political boards.ie site discussed Indymedia shortly after its ­foundation, noting its focus on protests both sympathetically and critically (boards.ie, 2002). The anarchist Workers Solidarity member’s viewpoint below underlines the importance of Indymedia to movement participants. There is nothing like reading a press report, listening to a radio report or watching a TV report of something you were involved in, particularly if it was oppositional politics. It doesn’t matter if it was a service charges picket, a critical mass cycle protest, a sit-in or whatever. When you watch the state or capitalist media you don’t recognise the event. It’s different from the one you were at, there are mistakes, distortions or just damned lies. It’s frustrating as hell.   That’s why when somebody gets an alternative media outlet together where

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participants report on the action, where the journalists are working to an agenda of truth and wish to inform and publicise reality, then you’re just blown away. ‘Okay, you say, we have our left papers’. Yeah I know but watching footage of the Shannon protest, hearing the voices reading the truth is so refreshing. I was there – the report is real – the crap in the papers or local radio is just twisted. (McBarron, 2002)

As Indymedia Ireland became a political object, it inevitably satisfied some people more than others. Writing in An Phoblacht on Indymedia’s first anniversary, Justin Moran (2003) noted that it was used ‘almost exclusively by groups and people that have limited access to the establishment media – republicans, socialists, environmentalists, anarchists and a variety of other groups making up what could broadly be termed the progressive left in Irish politics’. He added, ‘[t]heir success is all the more impressive when it is considered that Indymedia is run on a shoestring, with contributors and editors providing their material for free. The quality of their work is often in stark contrast to the laziness of the well-paid corporate media in Ireland who don’t supply the aggressive reporting Indymedia can do’. At the same time, he objected to the lack of central control – ‘a great deal of poorly written, inaccurate and sometimes downright surreal material appears’ – and that the site’s comments facility enabled political conflicts to be expressed publicly (Moran, 2003). From the perspective of 2013, that An Phoblacht thought a comments facility was too radical says a lot about how far activist media pushed then-conventional norms.8 The tension between Indymedia and traditional left groups had already come to a head in its first few months of existence. Indymedia was not rule-free: advertising, both commercial and for political parties, was barred, as was hate speech. In April 2002 the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) barred its members from using the site after IMC editors removed an election advertisement. The issue was debated on the editorial list, with SWP members losing the argument (O’Brien, 2002). The SWP later quietly conceded the issue and members returned to Indymedia Ireland. A sophisticated analysis of Indymedia’s relationship to traditional left groups came from Marc Mulholland (2003), in a lengthy post on Indymedia: [t]he leaders of the various leftist groups have decided not to participate in a site they regard as beneath their dignity. They know that they will be attacked by ireful posters in disrespectful and probably vulgar and abusive terms. The rank and file of the various vanguard revolutionary parties are obviously discouraged from going to have a look-see. Those who do speak-up for their parties usually (though not always) sign on anonymously.

He noted that the heyday of centralised left politics depended on organisational control of the skills and equipment for traditional printing. Transformed in the early 1990s by desktop publishing, the rise of Internet fora was enabling acti­

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vists to break away from party leaderships and form a broader left (Mulholland, 2003). In comments, Indymedia activist Chekov (2003) responded to calls for Indymedia to have a broader political base: [i]t would be hard for indymedia to be any more broadly based politically since the project is open to literally everybody except those promoting hate ideologies. The editorial mailing list, where all decisions are debated, is open to all and includes some people who are, in practical terms, opponents of indymedia. In recent times we have had reasonably regular postings from representatives or members of FF, FG, Labour, SF and the Greens, so it is hard to say that there are barriers to participation from a broadly based user base.   I think that the reason why the left is over-represented on indymedia is that people with a more right wing point of view are massively over-represented in the mainstream media.

Within the left, Indymedia Ireland was particularly associated with direct action groups, who were more likely to experience violent policing and whose perspectives were largely excluded from the mainstream media. Anarchists played a key role here within a wider coalition including socialists, republicans, radical democrats and media activists.

Irish Indymedia and other movements: the Mayday experience While the Internet created possibilities for interactivity and early Indymedia sites offered simple uploading facilities for stories and photos, the questions of who constituted core organising groups, who were active participants, and the skills and the knowledge needed for basic participation remained unresolved. Indymedia was known to activists, but the lack of engagement amongst communities used to self-organising – for example in Dublin’s inner city – was notable. By 2003 Irish Indymedia activists were questioning how they related to real-time, face-to-face activity, geographical place, and control issues; some members voiced a need to ‘get their feet back on the ground’ and to be in touch with community activity. The prospect of an EU summit around Mayday 2004, a visit from US President George Bush, and an anti-immigration referendum (see Chapter 5) posed a unique challenge. Indymedia activists wanted to respond and aspirations were high. Indymedia activists approached two protest organiser groupings around setting up an independent media centre to cover the Mayday events, Dublin Grassroots Network (DGN), and CMN.9 Overall, the 2004 Mayday events themselves were a real success, claimed as the largest ever protests by the nonauthoritarian left in Ireland, and the centre played an important strategic role. DGN activist Dec McCarthy (2005a) wrote: ‘[i]t is likely that these media

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­activists prevented the wholesale criminalisation of the Mayday protests.’ But internal problems were worked out at another level, particularly in and around the independent media centre. While the project met widespread goodwill, horribly poor resources with too few individuals doing too much meant problems were inevitable. Even before the event there were unacceptable levels of non-communication in co-ordination and planning,10 assumptions made around allocation and use of available resources, and conflicts around use of the building.11 Irish activists and international Indymedia representatives ensured rigorous and useful evaluations afterwards (Indymedia UK, 2004; McCarthy, 2005b). However these focused on organisational mismanagement, emphasising lack of experience and the magnitude of the event. While important lessons were drawn for international activist groupings, some key factors were bypassed, particularly the differences between different movements’ approaches to organising, their internal cultures and their expectations. The failure to discuss these meant that an important learning opportunity was lost. A sexist division of labour, privilege and accountability became highly visible as the event progressed. Except for preparation work on the building by volunteers and paid labour,12 men were nowhere to be found when undesirable and ‘boring’ work had to be done. During the event all ‘housework’ was done by women: ‘manning’ the door and reception desk rota; organising morning and evening clean-ups and dealing with refuse; ensuring toilets were clean; opening and locking up; and not least dealing with the visit from the Special Branch after it was all over. Women involved also experienced verbal abuse and threatening behaviour from visitors, but probably the worst insult was women being treated as though they weren’t part of the activist energy sustaining the events. After it was all over, CMN was evicted with three weeks’ notice. The burnout amongst activists has not been assessed. Gender issues remain apparent amongst media activist organisations. Until there is recognition of the structural and cultural inequalities that dominate society and responsibility is taken for redressing how these manifest within our organisations, this will not change. The situation becomes more fragile where resources are short, and so our media organisations are vulnerable.

The contribution of Irish Indymedia Despite these internal weaknesses, other high-profile conflicts in the 2000s symbolised Indymedia’s importance. From 2001, the Government offered Shannon airport to the US military for its wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and ‘extraordinary rendition’, the secret abduction of those seen as enemies to a global network of prisons and torture chambers. This was met with widespread protests, from retired military officers to the far left. In particular, nurse Mary

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Kelly, followed by five members of the social justice group Catholic Worker, damaged US military planes at Shannon. After two failed trials a jury acquitted the Catholic Workers of all charges; Mary Kelly’s conviction was ultimately quashed in 2011. As usual, both RTÉ and corporate media presented the police’s version of events. From 2001, Shell’s plans to extract offshore gas using an experimental highpressure pipeline through communities in Erris, Co. Mayo, have met increasing local opposition, which has been countered by increasingly violent police and private security. From 2003, the destruction of the rich archaeological landscape of the Tara-Skryne valley in Co. Meath was met with a long-running series of protests (see Chapter 3). In all these cases, Indymedia served as a space where campaigners could make arguments excluded from mainstream media (such as the role of corruption) and highlight police brutality and other issues, such as the banning of protestors from whole regions of the country, the use of psychiatric services as court punishments or the employment of East European fascists by private security firms. Salter and Sullivan (2008) show the importance of Indymedia Ireland for the Mayo campaign. Indymedia Ireland also helped to launch a new kind of activist video production.13 Along with its own films, such as Berlusconi’s Mousetrap and Route Irish (Indymedia Ireland, n.d.) (documenting the anti-war movement), particular mention should go to the productive Revolt Video Collective (2013), which has produced a wide range of short films on key campaigns and issues.

The bigger picture In the 2000s, the Internet, and Indymedia, had become crucial to many movements as a tool to mobilise resistance, highlight success, publicise issues and scandals, and generate critical perspectives. Nonetheless, access remained shaped by class, gender and ‘race’. Class was important not simply for access – in a country where 24 per cent of 15-year-old boys are functionally illiterate (Walsh, 2011) and computer access through the 2000s was far from universal – but also in terms of to whom the Indymedia format spoke. There are long-standing working-class political traditions which are very much open to Indymedia’s ‘radical news’ approach, but much larger middle-class groups grow up familiar with the ‘official news’ format (and its understanding of the state as somehow theirs) which a ‘critical news’ approach inflects rather than transforms. Thus while working-class republican and socialist groups sometimes used Indymedia, community groups by and large did not (Gillan, 2010). Gender was another important dimension; in the early 2000s this affected access to and familiarity with computer technology, but as the decade wore on

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the most important gendered aspect of Indymedia became the level of aggression in comment threads. ‘Trolling’, whether by dysfunctional individuals, by police and corporate opponents or by political sectarians, became a serious problem in driving people away from Indymedia – not only women, of course, but there can be little doubt that trolling’s impact is gendered (Sarkeesian, 2012). Finally, there was ethnicity: in a period in which most non-Irish people in Ireland were recent immigrants, levels of access to expensive technology and English often formed practical barriers. So does the allusive nature of much Irish writing on politics, assuming easy familiarity with individuals and organisations, and the assumption of forming an ‘alternative elite’. Indymedia was not responsible for these inequalities. At the same time, it did little to overcome or problematise them. Indications are that the editorial team was more middle-class, more masculine and more native than the overall usership, and this probably played a role. Despite these limitations, Irish Indymedia was crucial in particular for those campaigns which represented wide-ranging movement alliances in the 2000s, particularly the anti-capitalist movement, the anti-war movement and events in Mayo. In a small country, it enabled rapid sharing of news between movements and organisations, and became for some years central to radical politics, playing a role for which there is no easy parallel. It was also used by mainstream journalists, who routinely followed Indymedia for potential ‘stories’ which they could then research independently (or simply rewrite). Internationally, Irish Indymedia was seen as being one of the best, with a dedicated and technically-skilled team of volunteers, a high quality of much news reporting and analysis, a central role in its social movement landscape and a longer lifespan in this role than most other Indymedia centres.

Where to for Irish Indymedia? Today, Irish Indymedia might be seen as past its sell-by date. Many movements have abandoned it, leaving a higher proportion of personalised anti-corruption crusades, animal rights activism, dissident republicanism etc. posting on the site. Serious debate has declined and it is no longer the central forum for Irish movements. Moreover, as social media – the commercial and depoliticised form of the new democratic media once pioneered by computer activists – have become more widespread, movements have increasingly come to re-appropriate them and treat YouTube, Vimeo, Twitter, Facebook etc. as the most effective venues for online communication. In the 30 days before our writing this, the site had just under 50,000 hits; by comparison, in 2008 the site had 13 million hits per month (Indymedia Ireland, 2008).14 Yet Indymedia remains important for announcements and events, helping activists to avoid timetable clashes and hear of each other’s activities. Social-

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ists, anti-war activists, campaigners against the petroleum industry and others continue to use it, albeit more to announce their own activities than engage in discussion. The need for a shared space has not gone away, even if it has become harder to imagine what it might look like. As austerity politics continue and the gulf between popular views and state action on cuts, oil and gas resources, support for US foreign policy etc. continues, mainstream media still represent an elite orthodoxy, in which alternative perspectives are pushed to the margins. The shape of hegemony has changed but not vanished, and the need for unofficial spaces remains. A classic example is the 2011 ‘Rossport recordings’ issue, when a young researcher’s accidental recording of Mayo police joking about raping and deporting protestors posed a practical problem for her and campaigners. There is little doubt that she was correct that releasing the recording and transcripts on Indymedia (Rossport Solidarity Camp, 2011) was the best way to publicise the recording, and that state and corporate media would have been intensely reluctant to publish it. Once the recording had gone viral mainstream media were forced to discuss it in order to preserve their own credibility. Taking their lead from police sources, a Minister for Justice who openly sided with the police and an ombudsman ‘investigation’ which was riddled with factual errors, the official media did their best to turn the issue into a personal attack on her and an antifeminist ‘can’t you take a joke’ approach. Women’s organisations – some embarrassed at the failure of their training of the police around rape and ­domestic violence – came out in support of the researcher. More broadly, the issue provoked widespread criticism of a ‘rape culture’ in policing Rossport but at the same time demonstrated the widespread acceptance of sexual violence and threats in Irish mainstream culture. Indymedia was not the only venue where the campaign could raise these issues, but it was a significant one. In 2014, the future of Irish Indymedia is not obvious, but the needs that created it still exist. Neo-liberalism and austerity politics – justified by the Troika of the European Commission, European Central Bank (ECB) and International Monetary Fund (IMF) – remain dominant in official politics, driving many people into poverty and despair. Policing, of political protestors and workingclass youth alike, remains brutal and cynical (see also Chapter 8). State control over RTÉ remains tight, and only a handful of commercial media outlets are not directly beholden to major corporate interests. Outside of these closed spheres of power, violence and official culture, popular movements are reviving, as seen by the failure of the 2012 household charge, the massive protests following the death of Savita Halappanavar and the resurgence of opposition to fracking across the west Midlands. Whether Indymedia will provide the space for such movements to develop and network or whether this will happen elsewhere remains to be seen.

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Notes   1 Crime correspondents, for example, rely heavily on the Garda Press Office and individual Garda contacts, and hence typically reproduce the police view on protests while downplaying evidence of police violence.   2 On the workings of Indymedia internationally, see Coleman (n.d.)  3 These take a range of political directions: Feeney (2007:241) highlights the different choices made by the Irish and UK Indymedia centres.   4 Subsequently all charges were dropped against those arrested. The deputy police commissioner admitted to the planting of Molotov cocktails and the faked stabbing of a police officer to justify the raid.   5 However, the film’s analysis of Genoa, which presents protestors as unwitting dupes in Berlusconi’s power play, is deeply misleading. Following the vicious police attacks on the Naples summit protest in March, many Italian activists were aware of the risks; Laurence warned a Dublin preparation meeting of precisely this. In practice, too, police brutality at Genoa backfired both on the police and on Berlusconi; a subsequent anti-repression demonstration brought out more protestors than the summit itself, and in 2003 Italy saw massive anti-war demonstrations and a very successful European Social Forum.   6 For all of these reasons participants were sometimes anonymous or used pseudonyms; we only give names of participants who have put their own names to public documents.   7 In practice all political orientations are complex and mixed, but right-wing and authoritarian tendencies often insist on a pretence of unity and loyalty – which regularly falls apart at times of crisis.   8 Ex-IMC Ireland editor James O’Brien (2012) writes that anarchists ‘tended to be the foremost advocates of structures which would, it was hoped, consolidate the site and enable it to become much more popular’ – a position he contrasts with one oriented towards consensus and tolerance of multiple voices. The group’s constitution is available at www. indymedia.ie/constitution.   9 Margaret was CMN Co-ordinator at the time and responsible for the building which had been made available to CMN under a caretaker agreement. Laurence was one of the DGN media spokespeople. 10 Although the CMN Steering Group made clear at the start that a planning group had to be named and commit to meeting regularly to co-ordinate the event, neither the Indymedia or DGN members named made themselves available for meetings. 11 Indymedia activists stated that CMN had ‘given’ their building to support the Mayday activities; the notice on the indymedia website directed international visitors to a nonexistent DGN desk in the CMN building; an entirely predictable police raid on summit accommodation left a huge problem for DGN and resulted in a focus on the CMN building which could not be used for accommodation. 12 This included roofing, plumbing and electrical safety. Where labour had to be bought, CMN paid, but had little funds. Surprising sources of help revealed unexpected goodwill from many corners. 13 See www.indymedia.ie/videos for a partial listing 14 See Indymedia London (2012) for a detailed analysis of this issue.

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References Allen, K. (1997) Fianna Fáil and Irish labour, London: Pluto. Anon. (2001) ‘Indymedia in Ireland’, http://goo.gl/C2w8GW (retrieved 10 August 2013). Atton, C. (2002) Alternative Media, London: Sage. BAI (2012a) Ownership and Control Policy 2012, http://goo.gl/R9BfjK (pdf, retrieved 10 July 2013). BAI (2012b) Report of the Investigating Officer, http://goo.gl/XB0zHG (pdf, retrieved 10 July 2013). Boards.ie (2002) ‘Irish Indymedia Centre opened today’, http://goo.gl/33r6w0 (retrieved 10 August 2013). Browne, V. (2013) ‘O’Brien should be confronted regularly by Moriarty report’, Irish Times, 14 August. ‘Chekov’ (2003) ‘Interesting article’, http://goo.gl/swRJmn (retrieved 10 August 2013). Chomsky, N., and Herman, E. S. (1994) Manufacturing Consent, London: Vintage. CMN (1999) ‘Alternative Print Report’, Tracking: Special Issue, January 1999. Coleman, B. (n.d.) ‘Indymedia’s independence’, http://goo.gl/Wk94ff (pdf, retrieved 17 September 2013). Comhlámh (2013) ‘History’, http://goo.gl/HFRUl7 (retrieved 10 August 2013). Connolly, F. (2006) ‘O’Reilly; more mega millions’, Village, 11 May. Cox, L. (2006) ‘News from nowhere’, in L. Connolly and N. Hourigan (eds) Social Movements and Ireland, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 210–29. Crudden, E. (2011a) ‘Carlo Giuliani was shot dead by Italian police in Genoa ten years ago today’, 20 July, http://goo.gl/xtxq76 (retrieved 10 August 2013). Crudden, E. (2011b) ‘Irishvidheads in Genoa’, http://goo.gl/IXwDZS (retrieved 10 August 2013). Davidson, A. (2011) ‘Wikileaks: a political–economic history,’ http://goo.gl/56FfLp (retrieved 9 August 2013). Downing, J. (2001) Radical Media, London: Sage. Feeney, C. (2007) ‘Why we need to reclaim the media’, in Trapese Collective (eds) Do it Yourself, London: Pluto, 233–45. Feeney, K., Lewis, D., and Wade, V. (2004) ‘Policy based management for Internet communities’, www.cs.tcd.ie/Dave.Lewis/files/04c.pdf (retrieved 10 July 2013). Fleischer, R. (2005) ‘Speech to 2005 Chaos Communication Congress’, http://goo.gl/LNqjfH (retrieved 10 August 2013). Flood, F. (2002) Second Interim Report of the Tribunal of Inquiry into Certain Planning Matters and Payments, Dublin: Government Publications. Flynn, R. (2013) ‘Media ownership concentrated and under-regulated’, Village, 3 May. Gillan, M. (2010) Class, Voice, and State: Developing Community Television in Ireland 2000– 2009, PhD thesis, http://eprints.nuim.ie/2293/ (retrieved 17 September 2013). GNU (n.d.) ‘What is free software?’, GNU Operating System http://goo.gl/aBna2t (retrieved 01 October 2013). Halkin, A. (2008) ‘Outside the Indigenous lens: Zapatistas and autonomous video-making’, in P. Wilson and M. Stewart (eds) Global Indigenous Media: Cultures, Poetics, and Politics, Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 55–78.

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Hardt, M., and Negri, A. (2000) Empire, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Horgan, J. (2001) Irish Media: A Critical History Since 1922, London: Routledge. Indymedia Ireland (2003) ‘Tá Indymedia ag Oscailt’, http://goo.gl/ntMYBq (retrieved 17 September 2013). Indymedia Ireland (2008) ‘FAQ’, www.indymedia.ie/faq (retrieved 17 September 2013). Indymedia Ireland (n.d.) ‘Route Irish documentary film’, http://goo.gl/I3ie0a (retrieved 1 October 2013). Indymedia London (2012) ‘Time to move on’, http://goo.gl/vGClNx (retrieved 17 September 2013). Indymedia UK (2004) ‘Evaluation of IMC facilities in Dublin’, http://goo.gl/zOvCU7 (retrieved 17 September 2013). ‘Irishvidhead’ (2001) ‘16 arrested in Dublin protests’, www.indymedia.ie/article/60038 (retrieved 18 August 2013). Kington, T., and Hooper, J. (2012) ‘Briton beaten by Genoa police wins €350,000 compensation’, The Guardian, 21 September. LASC (2013) ‘History’, http://lasc.ie/node/5 (retrieved, 10 July, 2013). Lennon, J. (2004) Irish Orientalism, New York: Syracuse University Press. MacRuairi, T. (2004) ‘Gardaí identify colleagues in Reclaim The Streets trial’, Irish Independent, 18 October. Marcos (1997) ‘Statement to the Freeing the Media Teach-in 1997’, http://goo.gl/8QRy5f (retrieved 10 August 2013). McBarron, J. (2002) ‘Irish Indymedia launched’, http://goo.gl/iPCpoG (retrieved 10 August 2013). McCarthy, D. (2005a) ‘Looking back on the Dublin EU summit protests’, http://goo. gl/8XOaWn (retrieved 26 August 2013). McCarthy, D. (2005b) ‘Learning from May Day’, Red and Black Revolution, 9 (Spring): http:// goo.gl/yBWGMG. McCaughan, M. (1995) ‘Land and Freedom’, Tracking, Community Media Network Magazine, Issue 1 (retrieved 18 June 2014). Moran, J. (2003) ‘Indymedia Ireland celebrates first birthday’, http://goo.gl/YhNWB8 (retrieved 10 August 2013). Moriarty Tribunal (2011) Report of the Tribunal on Payments to Politicians and Related Matters. Part 11, Volume 1, http://goo.gl/nX947F (pdf, retrieved 11 July 2013). Mulholland, M. (2003) ‘Irish Indymedia and the technological and ideological apparatus of activism’, www.indymedia.ie/article/62080 (retrieved 10 August 2013). ní Dhorchaigh, E., and Cox, L. (2011) ‘What makes an assembly riotous, and who decides?’, in W. Sheehan and M. Cronin (eds) Riotous Assemblies, Cork: Mercier, 241–61. O’Brien, A. (2002) ‘IMC Ireland Editorial, comment to article’, http://goo.gl/xsVmmJ (retrieved 10 August 2013). O’Brien, J. (2012) ‘The WSM and anarchism’, http://goo.gl/uy80ev (retrieved 22 August 2012). Oscailt (2007) ‘Oscailt documentation’, http://goo.gl/ibtWY5 (retrieved 18 July 2013). Oscailt (2012) ‘Oscailt’, www.indymedia.ie/oscailt/ (retrieved 10 July 2013). Pine, R. (2002) 2RN and the Origins of Irish Radio, Dublin: Four Courts Press.

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Reclaim The Streets (2003) ‘Reclaim The Streets Dublin respond to ‘Robocop’ trial’, Press Release, http://goo.gl/wkvofZ (retrieved 11 August 2013). Redmond, J. (2006) ‘Positive coverage of Indymedia in UCD marks new credibility’, http:// goo.gl/jqYrwG (retrieved 10 August 2013). Revolt Video Collective (2013) Revolt Video Collective, 31 January, http://revoltvideo. blogspot.ie/ (retrieved 1 October 2013). Rossport Solidarity Camp (2011) ‘“Give me your name and address or I’ll rape you”: the reality of Corrib Policing’, 5 April, www.indymedia.ie/article/99445 (retrieved 1 October 2013). Salter, K., and Sullivan, S. (2008) Shell to Sea in Ireland, LSE Non-governmental Public Action Programme working paper, http://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/6065/ (retrieved 22 August 2013). Sarkeesian, A. (2012) ‘TEDxWomen Talk about online harassment and cyber mobs’, http:// goo.gl/Q32kld (retrieved 17 September 2013). Thompson, E. (1984) The Making of the English Working Class, Harmondsworth: Penguin. Tilly, C. (2004) Social Movements, 1768–2004, Boulder: Paradigm Publishers. Walsh, E. (2011) ‘Educating Irish people to live and work successfully’, Irish Times, 25 November.

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In the way of development: Tara, the M3 and the Celtic Tiger Conor Newman

Introduction The destruction of the past, or rather of the social mechanisms that link one’s contemporary experience to that of earlier generations, is one of the most ­characteristic and eerie phenomena of the late 20th century. (Hobsbawm, 1994:3)

My wife and I were fortunate to attend the reception in Dublin Castle to celebrate the inauguration of Michael D. Higgins as President of Ireland. There we fell into conversation with an affable and impressive young man who, in reply to our asking whether he had been at the ceremony earlier that day, said that he hadn’t but instead had taken himself off to Tara to offer a prayer for the new president. He felt that it was the right place to make such a gesture. Lots of people go to Tara to pray. Indeed, I would guess that more than half of its thousands of visitors are drawn there by a sense of its deep religious pedigree and are mindful that it is a place where one can meditate on timeless, universal questions and perhaps attune to an historical and more anciently earthed order, as others have done for countless generations. They go there because of the noble principles that Tara stands for: secularisation has diminished neither the need nor the appetite for spirituality and cultural authenticity. The collapse of the moral and intellectual authority of so many of the traditional institutions in the state seems in fact to have accelerated a trend in behaviour that was already evident to those of us who study ancient religious monuments – namely, a popular return to such sites to embrace and bathe in the serenity that comes from being in a place that symbolises genuine and enduring spiritual, moral and historical integrity.1 Tara is such a place. On 25 August 2003 An Bórd Pleanála gave the go-ahead for the M3 motor­ way to be built along the Gabhra Valley through the Tara landscape. The circumstances and controversy of this decision have since become emblematic of the loss of compass that characterised ‘Celtic Tiger’ Ireland; its corporate reck-

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lessness, Three Monkeys regulation – blind, deaf and mute – cheerleader-style economic and spatial policy, and, above all, cultural amnesia. Money became king and nouveau-riche profligacy became the public face of ‘modern’ Ireland. Changes in values and behaviour occurred during those years and serious damage was done to the institutions of democratic governance from a decadelong diet of spin-doctored sound-bites masquerading as public debate and political answerability. The influence over the body politic enjoyed by a small coterie of powerful developer-businessmen and financiers reached its nadir in the infamous ‘Galway Tent’. One of the more pernicious legacies of this period, however, is, as Hobsbawm (1994:3) observed, the extent to which the relevance and value of knowledge of the past were undermined by utilitarianism and a fundamentally flawed model of modernity and of twenty-first-century Ireland. This chapter considers some of the circumstances that permitted a motorway to be built through such a historic landscape. It argues that its context was the illusion of an ahistorical, of-the-moment modernity that arose during a ‘perfect storm’ when the sudden availability of cheap money from the creation of the Eurozone encountered a political landscape of soft regulation, clientelism and ideological torpor; in short, an intellectual ghost-estate. The campaign to reroute the motorway, which lasted for nigh on a decade, took place against this background. If column inches are indicative of the scale and significance of an issue or event, apart from the development boom itself, the M3 controversy was one of the biggest news items of the period between 1999 and 2009. Even though there were arguments that challenged the rationale for yet another motorway through Meath, the campaign was not about halting the M3 but about redirecting it away from the historic landscape of Tara.

Sacralisation and desacralisation: a brief account It is probably fair to say that when the motorway was first mooted most people’s sense of Tara was formed while strolling amongst the monuments on the state-owned land on the crown of the Hill of Tara. Although the existence of a wider archaeological landscape was and is referred to in the audio-visual show in the Visitor’s Centre and in a guidebook (Bhreathnach and Newman, 1995; Newman, 1997; Newman, 2005; Newman, 2011) it lay beyond the reach and experience of the visitor. Instead, it was – and mostly still is – the views from Tara that are trumpeted (Newman, 2007). This fixation reduces its wider landscape to a mere aesthetic backdrop and opens the door to the fallacy that as long as the motorway is not visible from the Hill of Tara then it hasn’t impacted on it. The monumental record at Tara stretches back nearly six thousand years and far beyond the summit of the hill. The earliest written account of the complex, Dinshenchas Eireann (Petrie, 1839), redacting texts as old as the seventh century, includes references to monuments and natural features at the bottom of the hill.

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What makes this place so special is that it has retained its significance throughout the millennia, and by the centuries on either side of the birth of Christ it had become the focus of what is known as sacral or world kingship. The pedigree of world kingship at Tara is Indo-European. Based around the sacrament of hieros gamos (sacral marriage between man and sovereignty goddess), it is redolent with motifs of liminality (MacGoilla Easpaig, 2005), equinity, sacred drinks, fire ceremonies, taboos, ceremonial regicide, and so on. These aspects are preserved in documentary sources, archaeology and place names. For instance, the stream flowing between the symbolically binal hills of Tara and Skryne (aka Skreen) is the Gabhra, which means ‘white mare’; thus linking in to the ancient IndoEuropean tradition of the sovereignty goddess manifesting as a horse (Oaks, 1986; Ní Chatháin, 1991; Doherty, 2005). The demesnes associated with world kingship are typically cosmographical – i.e. they are conceived and developed as analogues of the cosmos, and are imbued with mythological significance that is reflected in place names and in the way monuments are positioned relative to notable natural features (Newman, 2011). The land itself is sometimes conceived of as the body of a deity. The association of Tara with such an institution, coupled with its advantageous geographical position, good soils and benevolent climate, meant that it enjoyed superior status throughout the medieval period (Bhreathnach, 1996a; 1996b; 2005), being associated with the Uí Néill kings of Southern Brega, decisive battles, and so forth. The ‘footprint’ of the earlier, sacral landscape is preserved in the later royal demesne, or ferann ríg, of the early medieval kings of Tara (Bhreathnach, 1996c; 1999). Based on this long pedigree, it commanded particular importance throughout the early modern period as a symbol of Irish nationhood and was described by W. B. Yeats et al. (1902) as ‘probably the most consecrated spot in Ireland’. In 1992 the Discovery Programme embarked on a major research project at Tara: central to its findings was the re-identification of the sacral and historical landscape of Tara. The M3 motorway cuts that landscape in two, prompting Nobel Laureate Seamus Heaney to declare in a BBC Ulster radio documentary, ‘Tar on Tara’: ‘it literally desecrates an area […] the word means to de-sacralise, and for centuries the Tara landscape and the Tara sites have been regarded as part of the sacred ground’ (Fleming, 2008).

The legacy The M3 is now a permanent fixture in the landscape and will, for decades if not centuries to come, affect peoples’ lives in the Meath area, shape spatial development and influence how this landscape is experienced. In the shorter term it will continue to be a significant drain on public finances. Negotiated into its public–private partnership contract is a revenue-guarantee provision to compensate the private partner if pre-agreed thresholds of traffic are not achieved

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annually until 2025. In 2012 the compensation payment was €6.7 million from the public purse (Comptroller and Auditor General, 2011). It is unlikely that the gap between predicted and actual traffic levels will close during the lifetime of this clause seeing that the modelling suggested a 2.5 per cent year-on-year increase in traffic volume. Given unemployment and the contraction of household budgets which is forcing drivers back onto the toll-free N3 (Murphy, 2012), the gap may well widen. If it remains consistent the bill for 2025 alone will come in around €12.83 million, bringing the total cumulative cost of the compensation package (not including 2011’s payments) to €140.64 million. If there is no increase in real traffic volume between now and 2025 the total cumulative bill will be closer to €216 million, almost exactly one-third of the pre-construction estimates of cost for the whole contract. Commenting on the liabilities arising from this and the Limerick Tunnel, Transport Minister Leo Varadkar (in Dáil Éireann, 2012) explained the purpose of these clauses: ‘[T]o enhance the fundability of these projects and obtain competitive funding terms to the benefit of the taxpayer’. Perhaps it is to credit Dr Varadkar, who was not in government at the time, with too refined a sense of irony to suggest that his phrasing is a mischievous return to the nonsensical political idiom of the Celtic Tiger era. He is undoubtedly aware that the terms of these contracts were based on the same Never-Never-Land economics that drove the Irish economy and its passengers into the barren wastelands of ghost estates, negative equity and bad banks. When the M3 controversy was raging the ‘property bubble’ was in full spate and government and media alike were ­enthralled to celebrity bankers, developers and economists. Their talk was of solid underlying fundamentals, soft landings and international envy (see Chapters 6 and 9). That the economy was overheated and over-reliant on the construction sector was common knowledge, but the body politic had no appetite to apply measures to cool it down. Instead, those who expressed concerns were subjected to sometimes quite vituperative attacks by government and media commentators, who denounced them as being irresponsible, politically motivated or just plain wrong. Those of us campaigning on the side of historical culture in the face of dramatic changes to Irish landscapes, townscapes and lifestyle choices were even further off-script. I don’t know who was there five thousand years ago […] but somewhere along the way you have to come to an end of a process. (Taoiseach Bertie Ahern speaking about the controversy, January 2005, in Doyle, 2005)

A clash between a new era and old values, the M3 symbolised the knife that would cut the leathery umbilicus tethering bold, new, materially rich Ireland to the corpse of old, impoverished, historically enslaved Ireland. The valorisation of instantaneous wealth and celebrity represented a brash challenge to historic, pre-Millennium Ireland, giving birth to the fallacy that by liberating

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itself from the shackles of history this benighted generation was somehow also self-inoculating against the possibility of economic downturn. When prudence was called for we got steely political and institutional determination to keep this gravy train going, plough through the naysayers and speak up the promise of unending economic growth. Campaigns of the magnitude of the one surrounding the M3 motorway are complex and multifaceted; a loose alliance of concerned citizens organising petitions, protest marches, letters, position papers, gatherings, etc. They have multiple defining moments. Though their outcome may ultimately be decided in the Dáil or Seanad, at Oireachtas Committees or even in the courts, of ­absolutely crucial importance is how these different strands are mediated by the press and on the airwaves. These opinion-shapers exist in a hierarchy, with radio and television probably exerting greater influence on public opinion than print media. Throughout the M3 campaign there was a palpable sense that, dealing in the currency of sound-bites, many national broadcasters were paralysed when faced with the apparent complexity of archaeological and historical arguments against the route of the motorway. Even more depressing was the way broader, philosophical concerns were totally ignored. In this respect, television and ­national radio coverage trailed far behind the print media in terms of penetrative and reflective analysis. While more systematic assessment than has been possible here may prove otherwise, it seems that arguments against the proposed motorway route achieved greater purchase amongst print journalists than they did in broadcast journalism. In the long run, however, the latter may have been the more important battleground. Regardless, the starting-point in all such debates is a priori familiarity; the extent to which the pump is already primed; which in this case meant the familiar experience of traffic jams versus the unfamiliar one of historic landscapes; the tangible value of a promised reduction in commuting times between Navan and Dublin versus the intangible relevance of a place with historical associations. Stated simply, even though the existence of Tara’s wider historic landscape had been published (Bhreathnach and Newman, 1995) and acclaimed as an important breakthrough in our understanding of Tara as early as 1995, it had not yet translated into public awareness or a tangible aspect of a visit to Tara or for that matter residency there. The general concept of heritage landscapes was not yet embedded in public consciousness as a normative dimension of public heritage in Ireland, despite having been one of the most significant paradigms in cultural geography, heritage management and social science for at least a quarter century. Had, for instance, this aspect of the Brú na Bóinne World Heritage Site been understood, encouraged and grown from the get-go a fuller understanding of the co-dependency of landscape and monument might have emerged, leading to a better appreciation of the why of safeguarding different aspects of the wider landscape context and bringing us closer to genuine shared steward-

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ship. Instead, the initial delivery was characterised by an obsession around the passage tombs, in particular Newgrange, and fixation on the Neolithic aspects of the landscape, fuelling perceptions that the only reason one might want to go there was to access the five-and-a-half thousand years-old corbelled chamber. But the Boyne Valley has so much more to offer, and likewise Tara, where the best kept secret is that the monuments on the state-owned land on the crown of the hill are only a taster of this beautiful and historic landscape. Commendable and imaginative efforts are now beginning to draw out the educational and leisure opportunities present at both places and to reverse some of the negative consequences of the systematic compartmentalisation of what have been decreed as the iconic aspects of the landscape, namely the monuments. Compartmentalisation is out of step with best international practice, e.g. the Council of Europe’s European Landscape Convention (2000) and Framework Convention on the Value of Cultural Heritage for Society (2005). It runs contrary to common sense which recognises that relic landscapes exist in living landscapes: landscapes are temporal mosaics of natural and cultural elements that, because they bear the handprints of bygone generations, are also pages of our own history book. The past work of women and men preserved in the fields, burial grounds, villages and towns around us represents a unique and irreplaceable historical inscription and contributes enormously to the character of places. The values memorialised and newly forged amongst these are dynamic; consequently, managing the historic dimension of the landscape is about navigating and negotiating the processes of change so that values that are of agreed and enduring significance are not unwittingly or unknowingly undermined by the destruction of the antiquities and places that provide access to them or are their touchstones. Such is also good social policy because the connections that people maintain with places are fundamental to human wellbeing. The combination of tangible and intangible attachments to physical things that makes up places manifests in cartographies of the familiar, of home (Baek, 2013). The temporalities of the landscape, on the other hand, the presence of the past and the presence of absences that impart a sense of pastness, provide a kind of existential bulwark against social displacement and assume even greater importance in the context of ageing populations. Attachment to place is always historical; it always has time-depth. Vestiges of the past are not just portals to historical knowledge and remembrance, they are of ontological importance and thus play a primary role in place- and community-making. Temporality is the keystone of place-­making: it takes time to make a place, literally and ontologically. Our investment in place is so thorough that reciprocal imprinting occurs between ourselves and the world we inhabit. As long as we ignore this dimension of human behaviour, changes to inhabited landscapes will give rise to displacement. Reflection on the patina and stratigraphy of time and history on the landscape

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is a recurring theme in the contemplative arts, resulting in a significant and important compendium of poetry, literature, art and music over the centuries. Likewise, analysis of the historical record in its fullest sense is a crucial action in the name of self-knowledge and is central to any civilised society. Consideration of the ontological values of the time-depth or temporality of landscape, however, is rare nowadays outside of the world of metaphysics, even though it seems to have been a preoccupation of many early cultures, albeit focused through a mythopoeic lens. It also occupies a central position, in particular in Heidegger’s proposition that the empirical intuitions of space and time are foundational to being-in-place, vis-à-vis the relationship between humans and the world around them – what Berque (2000) refers to as écoumène. Because we so rarely consider its value from this perspective we render the historical record susceptible to categorisation as a dispensable add-on to modern living. Given that temporality is essential, and that our consciousness of time-depth issues forth from, inter alia, encountering the things around us, care and attentiveness to temporal inscriptions in the landscape are axiomatic to our wellbeing as a species. All of these aspects of the historicised world blend together to inform its phenomenal (in a Husserlian sense) value: but it is a complex blend and one not easily communicated, which is perhaps why metaphor and symbol are often more effective vehicles for circling the idea. Many of the values of landscape are lost in translation from poïetic to scientific language. The qualities of ambivalence and multivalence so crucial to poïetic discourse about landscape represent both strength and weakness. While they are sensitive to the synaptic and protean nature of the relationship between people and place, too often to decision-makers they signify romantic idealism instead of empirical cogency, the sort of stuff, putting it crudely, that is ‘soft’ around the edges, defies mapping and measurement and is anathema to one-size-fits-all regulatory guidelines. Thus are the lines drawn. This shortcoming is by no means peculiar to Ireland. Even bodies charged with and successful at heritage conservation falter when it comes to articulating analytical theses in support of their remit. The autumn 2012 issue of the American National Parks Service quarterly Common Ground, comes with a supplementary booklet entitled The Keys to Preserving America’s Heritage: (1) stewardship, (2) relevance, (3) education, (4) workforce. Stewardship gets about two and three-quarter pages, education about the same, but relevance gets only twelve lines (Anon, 2012). The complex challenge of parsing metaphysical concepts into plain English notwithstanding, if we are not alive to all of the reasons why such things are important we expose ourselves to the perils of compartmentalised thinking and unilateral decisions. In contrast, in the summer 2003 issue of the same journal Jarvis’s editorial reflects on the high calling of the Parks Service voiced by speakers at the Discovery 2000 Conference, St. Louis, Missouri. They declared that it was the Service’s ‘task to make this great experi-

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ment in democracy succeed’ (Jarvis, 2003:2): referring to a genre of stewardship that combines research, interpretation and education, Jarvis observes, ‘[t]he fact that the great places of history, and their associated resources and stories, have been placed in our care […] carries with it a great responsibility beyond mere caretaking. In our care are the places where our democratic society has evolved, exploded, retreated and raged’. He (2003:2) thus affirms that the aggregate of places in care ‘and the stories that they embody create the foundation of our democracy. It is incumbent on us, as the stewards, to make that connection’. As exemplified with the M3 controversy, this chapter argues that during its final years at the Department of Environment, Heritage and Local Government the Heritage Services set itself a far less ambitious role. The true weakness of compartmentalised thinking was revealed during the Celtic Tiger years by the absence of resistance from the body politic to commoditisation of land, a phenomenon that utterly undermined the sense of landscape as enriched, shared, human habitus. Driven by profit-first agendas, such thinking de-coupled ordinary people from the landscape, clearing the way for some unconscionable planning decisions. It would be unfair on those years, however, to suggest that every development project was a sociological failure. Quite the opposite in fact, which goes to show that good design, good architecture and the development of integrated, coherent, people-friendly places was not beyond our ken. It is just that too often good planning capitulated to quick profit. My sense, however, is that the post-boom crisis has weakened the grip of this ideology, replacing it with a desire to reclaim Ireland, its landscape and a model of inclusive, participatory citizenship. But this is now and that was then. Developers ruled and motorways opened up more green fields for ‘development’ than any other government policy. The key to profiting from road building was not in buying land on the route of a motorway; which would in any case be compulsorily purchased; but to acquire land around the exits and interchanges, land ripe for housing estates, industrial parks, services and shopping centres. A glance at the property pages of newspapers during the Celtic Tiger years reveals the appetite for development land with ready access to the motorway network. Proximity to Dublin and Navan, which was growing exponentially, turned the M3 into a potential cash cow (Lee, 2005). Between this demand, traffic modelling to identify the configuration that would maximise traffic draw off existing roads onto the new motorway, and cost–benefit return (i.e. tolls), the ‘emerging preferred route’ became very quickly fixed. Private partners would want to invest only in the configuration that maximised potential toll revenues, and land-owning developers, having invested in the land, would not want to see the route changed either. Such are the commercial opportunities and machinations surrounding ­developments of this nature. The case of the M3, however, was different in one crucial respect: the chosen route passed through the archaeological, histori-

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cal and mythologised landscape of Tara. One might reasonably expect that the state’s regulatory body, the Heritage Services, would have a lot to say about that, that it would prepare a dossier, and that it would either stand over or critique the research that demonstrated the heightened importance of this landscape. But this watchdog did not bark. As far as can be ascertained, no dossier of any substance was prepared. Signing off on the archaeological methodology agreed with the National Roads Authority (NRA), the state service in effect put its imprimatur on testing followed by excavation as an appropriate conservation measure in respect of these monuments and this landscape. This i­llustrates the very narrow definition of conservation and heritage management, by inter­ national standards, adopted by the Heritage Services at this time. One would be forgiven for thinking that rather than seeing it from the perspective of a motorway threatening a landscape and its monuments, it was the other way around: the monuments represented an impediment to a motorway and the role of the Heritage Services was to facilitate the latter. Moreover, contrary to pronouncements about the exceptionally close scrutiny and exacting archaeological constraints applying in this development (Minister Dick Roche, RTÉ News, 2005), the archaeological conditions that were imposed were quite routine. In any case, applauding the archaeological methodology is to miss the point, which is that excavation ahead of development was an utterly inadequate and inappropriate action in respect of the conservation management of this unique cultural resource. The Heritage Services collectively refers to three offices: National Parks and Wildlife, Built Heritage and Architectural Policy, and National Monuments. The extent to which the three offices work in concert, as best international practice would expect and advocate, has varied historically. To encourage an integrated approach to heritage management on the part of the Department of Arts, Culture and the Gaeltacht, the former Minister Michael D. Higgins combined these functions into one executive agency called Dúchas. Assembled as such, however, this triad seems to have posed too coherent and united a front on behalf of heritage and was duly dismantled by a subsequent Minister in the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, Martin Cullen. He also ushered in a series of extraordinary amendments to the National Monuments Act (Newman, 2007:83–4). Described by Cullen as ‘rationalisations’, they were designed to ease the passage of development projects through the planning process and fend off appeals and objections. The now infamous provision conferring on the Minister the authority to order the destruction of a National Monument – paving the way for the removal of the monument at Lismullin which was located on the M3 route – detracted attention from what is surely one of the worst cases of malign and vindictive engineering of the legislature. Section (3) of the 2004 amendment of the National Monuments Act reads as follows:

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Where an archaeological object is found as a consequence of work undertaken by Dun Laoghaire–Rathdown County Council relating to work on the South Eastern Route, then section 8 of the National Monuments (Amendment) Act 1994 shall not apply to the land or any premises under which or in the vicinity of which the archaeological object has been found. (emphasis added)

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Section 8 of the 1994 Act says: (1) Where the finding of an archaeological object has been reported to the Director or a designated person under the provisions of the National Monuments Acts, 1930 to 1994, the Director may inspect, or cause to be inspected by a designated person, the land or premises under which or in the vicinity of which the said object has been found. (2) The Director or a designated person may enter on any lands or premises and there do all such things as may be reasonably necessary for performing his functions under the National Monuments Acts, 1930 to 1994, including carrying out an inspection or excavation where the Director considers that an archaeological object or the site thereof is in immediate danger of destruction or decay. (3) No person shall impede the Director or a designated person in the exercise of his functions under this section.

The back-story to this is that the National Museum of Ireland had publicly queried the position adopted by the National Monuments Service (NMS) over Carrickmines Castle, which stood in the way of part of the South Eastern Route of the M50 motorway in Dublin. The exception created in the 2004 amendment effectively debarred the National Museum of Ireland from further ‘interference’ and removed the prohibition against impeding the director of the Museum from entering the land. Martin Cullen’s legacy was to steer heritage management through an 180 degree turn and drive it in the opposite direction to all international best practice and recommendations.

United they stand, divided they fall From what little there is available to read on the NMS’s response to the impact of the M3 motorway it seems that most of its observations concerned excavation and recording methodologies. No real cognisance was taken of the historical, literary or mythological record or to the manner in which, as discussed already, such remain attached to and enrich the landscape. For the NMS and, as we shall see, the NRA this was about a narrow definition of archaeology and individualised archaeological sites. This is evidenced most starkly in the spread-sheet supplied by the NMS but completed by the NRA in respect of values attaching to sites where archaeological material had been found during test trenching along the route of the M3. Its main purpose is to identify monuments and sites meriting National Monument status, and it lists fourteen criteria, more than half of

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which do not feature in the definition of a National Monument in the 1930 act. In all 38 cases under headings of ‘Historical Significance’ and ‘Cultural Significance’ – distinctions that are highly dubious in the first place – the values are listed as ‘none’. Likewise, in response to the question ‘Group Value/Relationship with other Monuments’, the verdict is ‘none’ in every case. Under the heading ‘Known/Informed Archaeological Potential’ the answers are more variable, but consequently they serve only to create the fallacy of sites having archaeological potential but no cultural value. Absurdity aside, this latter speaks to the separation of archaeology and archaeological values from the mainstream of scientific research into and management of the interwoven complex of assets and values that is heritage. As argued in the final section of this chapter, this separation evolved into an isolation that has damaged the standing of archaeology. We will probably never know the influence the spread-sheet exerted on the NMS’s deliberations. Had the form been filled out by the Heritage Services some independent value might be claimed, but the fact that it is the work of the NRA suggests that it has none. Would that this was an isolated instance of operational failure regarding a regulatory body, but unfortunately it is not. We are all too aware nowadays of the consequences of the soft and naïve regulation that characterised the Celtic Tiger years, but lessons will remain unlearned if we focus only on the bodies officially charged with regulation and not on the other dogs who, in failing to bark, continue to make the role of independent and professionally qualified critical observers more difficult. While it may be surprising to learn that the NMS all but ignored any other than the most narrow archaeological considerations, its position suited the NRA because it allowed it to frame this as a fight between two different schools of archaeological thought. Some in the media swallowed the line. Writing about the M3 controversy, John O’Keeffe (2004), then Irish Independent property editor had this to say: ‘[t]he debate of course highlights the important distinction between professional and non-professional archaeologists, often academics. Academics are often criticised for living in ivory towers with a very weak grasp of reality. This is of course entirely correct’. He continues: ‘[u]nlike their colleagues who criticise [meaning ‘academics’], they are on the coal face and do not have the luxury of never having to make a decision or professionally access digs or finds’. On the coat-tails of this offensive, the late Daire O’Rourke (2004), then Head of Archaeology with the NRA, wrote: ‘[a] number of academic archaeologists are opposed to the M3 Clonee to Kells scheme, as the area round Tara is their particular study area. The main opponents to the NRA’s archaeological programme are non-archaeologists, including a number of historians’. This effort to play down the number of archaeologists opposed to the routing of the motorway notwithstanding, the important point is its implicit dismissal of the views of historians and others whose concerns spoke to internationally accepted definitions of tangible and

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intangible heritage. O’Keeffe (2004) was not the only journalist who failed to realise that most of the senior archaeologists in the country had voiced concern about the impact of this road on the Tara landscape, or that virtually the only archaeologists arguing against the existence of the wider historical landscape of Tara were employed either directly or indirectly by the NRA. Such is reminiscent of the kid-gloved treatment of economists working for the major property lending houses whose talking up of the economy was rewarded with unfettered airtime: Jim Power’s (Friends First) now infamous countering of Morgan Kelly’s predictions of a 50 per cent crash in house prices on a Prime Time Special (RTÉ, 2007) is mirrored by Marie Hunt’s (2007) dismissal of Richard Curran’s prophetic documentary Future Shock – Property Crash: ‘[i]t is simply technically incorrect to assume that that Irish house prices will decline significantly simply on the basis that this has occurred in other economies where the fundamentals were so different … The sensationalist approach of last night’s programme is in our view ­irresponsible’.  The principles of free speech and unbiased, non-judgemental journalism are axiomatic, but so is the imperative to discriminate between vested interests and disinterested, expert advice. Discrimination between the two is what underpins democracy. Central to this is good investigative journalism and connectivity between decision-making and research-derived expertise. For this to occur we need to recognise the important role that an independent research community can and ought to play in democratic governance (Robinson, 2004). There is something sycophantic about the way we trumpet the value of education and yet at the same time deride intellectualism. Rather than speaking to qualities like qualified, considered, knowledgeable and objective, the terms ‘academic’ and ‘intellectual’, particularly when referring to humanities disciplines, have become by-words for out-of-touch, eccentric, mildly comical, privileged and somewhat irrelevant. We need to integrate insights arising from the humanities into public policy in a more holistic way and put an end to the notion that they do not belong to ‘real life’. A radio programme broadcast in 2004, The State We Are In: If These Stones Could Speak (RTÉ, 2004), illustrates both the power and the vulnerability of the media. During the programme Frances Shanahan discusses what is known as ‘archaeological mitigation’ along the route of the M3 with the project archae­ ologist who counts aloud the number of new archaeological sites found by geophysical prospection during the Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) stage of the development: one, two, three, four, five, six. These were the six with the most clearly legible signatures. Including these, however, definitive and ­suspected ­archaeological remains were recorded in 26 of the 30 areas closely surveyed geo­physically (reported to the NRA in January 2001). By the time the programme was broadcast test trenching had already confirmed archaeological remains at 38 different locations in the Gabhra valley. This was widely reported

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almost a month before the broadcast (O’Brien, 2004). In all, 167 archaeological sites were excavated along the 60 kilometres between Clonee and Kells. In a similar vein NRA press officer Brian Cullinane (2004) wrote to the newspapers papers declaring that just two archaeological sites were impacted along the M3, and that geophysics had identified a further three. In the virtual world of media contradictory truths can exist concurrently as long as they never come into contact with one another. The role of the regulators, including the press, is to highlight contradictory information and to play their part in protecting the public from what former Minister for Environment, Heritage and Local ­Government Dick Roche referred to as ‘misinformation, disinformation and downright distortion’ (Newman, 2007). The fact that this remark was directed at the campaigners is telling. Such bullish interventions became something of a hallmark of government in the years leading up to the economic collapse, and describe the landscape and climate that the regulatory bodies operated in during these years, some more closely influenced by the body politic than others. While the record speaks to the sympathies of the chief archaeologist of the Department of Environment, Heritage, and Local Government, it is also fair to say that heritage protection was some way down the list of priorities during the ten years of Fianna Fáil/Progressive Democrat government (1997–2007). This is reflected in a succession of ministers who brought the cabinet’s pro-development ideology to the environment/heritage portfolio: as already observed, Martin Cullen’s interventions in Dúchas and the National Monuments Act sent out an unambiguous message. It was echoed in his successor to the environment/heritage portfolio Dick Roche’s acrimonious dispute with An Taisce, which included the threat to rescind the prescribed status of An Taisce under the Planning Act. At around the same time (2004) Martin Cullen cancelled funding for An Taisce’s work in the area of planning. An indefatigable critic of planning policy throughout these years, An Taisce was a thorn in the side of government and developer alike and was now paying the price; archaeology likewise, with the 2004 amendment to the National Monuments Act (Fenwick, 2005:19). Bullishness was not confined to the government, lobbyists and hubristic ­developers. In deciding to ignore the opinions expressed even by their own ­archaeological consultants and go so far as to contest the evidence that the Gabhra valley is an intrinsic part of the Tara landscape, the NRA placed their own archaeological staff, associates and sub-contractors in the unenviable ­position of having to defend the indefensible. Despite avoiding a handful of sites, the determination of the NRA to drive this road through forcefully asserted a view that was implicit in the NMS’s approach to the M3 – that the mandate and imperatives acting on professional archaeology could, in the final analysis, always be satisfied by excavation. More importantly, it reinforced the notion that this principle could be applied independently of other considera-

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tions, such as history and heritage, so that when it came to ‘archaeological’ sites, excavation-as-a-form-of-conservation trumped all other concerns. Hence we get the very dubious term ‘preservation by record’, not the NRA’s invention but one that suited its purpose perfectly. The term ‘preservation by record’ is spin in its purest form: a virtually meaningless phrase that makes something unpalatable sound positive. It is most prevalent in the lexicon surrounding pre-development excavation but, for obvious reasons, has not been universally adopted by archaeologists. While no one disputes the importance of salvaging information that would otherwise be lost forever, nor the commendable advancements that have been made in the arena of pre-development/rescue archaeology, such is not preservation but rather the compilation of an archival record of data for analysis and interpretation. Contravening all principles of conservation it represents a compromise of last resort, however it became so normative where motorways were concerned that it seemed to be the default action of first resort. This highlights the shallow embedding of the principles of heritage conservation in Irish spatial policy and, importantly, how development of those principles stalled during these years. Above all it testifies to a fairly wholesale capitulation to ‘development’. If the Tara landscape could be run over, what hope was there that heritage could ever out-value development? Conservator-restorers are mandated to preserve the materiality of cultural heritage and, at least in other countries, do so in the context of cross- and transdisciplinary dialogue surrounding the values of heritage (what Dúchas was beginning to do). Not so, apparently, in Celtic Tiger Ireland, where decisions regarding conservation of the monuments and heritage landscapes through which this and other motorways ran were pretty well left up to archaeologists in the NMS. Their failure to apply modern conservation and heritage management theory meant that the archaeology-trumps-all perspective came to dominate. As a consequence, a lop-sided view of the value of the material heritage, including sites and monuments, emerged. Archaeologists found themselves variously in-step with a public that tolerated archaeologists pursuing their own concerns as long as the net result was unencumbered development, or out-of-step with a public that questioned the desirability of archaeological interference with sites and monuments if that meant attempted cultural sterilisation ahead of development. Not only did archaeologists become harbingers of development but many in the public became increasingly uncomfortable with the maxim that once archaeologists got what they wanted from a site there was nothing left worth preserving. Archaeologists have always rightly maintained that public good is created from the knowledge generated and disseminated through research, even ­research that is destructive. However, there is no algorithm regarding the optimal balance between knowledge gained through destructive scientific

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processes (e.g. excavation) and consequent loss of material integrity. Research excavation is materially destructive, but the extent of impact is modulated in order that the knowledge gain is a reasonable trade-off vis-à-vis material loss. In any event research excavation is always only a sample; the site or monument is returned to its former appearance and the context remains undisturbed. Rescue excavation ahead of development, where in the end every trace of the site/monument is erased, raises the ante considerably because it usually heralds substantial changes to the context as well: the site or monument is gone and the landscape setting is changed utterly. In such cases knowledge gain from excavation is manifestly only one consideration. In the case of the M3 the know­ ledge gain should have been gauged against the effect of an impermeable linear concrete barrier bisecting the entire length of the landscape on the ability of current and future generations to experience, understand and benefit from that landscape. Leaving aside the considerable legacy of misinformation propagated by denying the existence and relevance of the wider landscape, the nature of the impact can, in real terms, be measured case-by-case: parts of a once sacred river, named after a sovereignty goddess, flowing through a cosmographical landscape between two hills associated with the ancient institution of sacral kingship have been culverted; an ancient burial ground (fert) placed deliberately on the banks of the Gabhra is under a motorway; and instead of standing sentinel over the valley, the ancient defensive earthwork of Rath Lugh now overlooks a motorway. The scale of the impact, however, is more difficult to calculate because it involves appraising a wide range of existing and potential cultural and economic values. Gone, for instance, is the possibility of planning an intact heritage trail across the valley from Skryne to Tara. The scale of the impact on public sensitivity to the value of protecting heritage is immeasurable. The familiar retort that ‘the majority of sites were unknown before the development and shouldn’t that make the archaeologists happy’, blithely ignores the fact that the sites would have been discovered eventually, and in more benign circumstances, when considerably more of their values could be developed. And, it is not about ‘making archaeologists happy’. Regardless, the quantity, range and calibre of the sites has confirmed beyond doubt the exceptional historical importance of this area and proven correct informed predictions that, owing to its superior historical importance, multiple sites would be impacted along this route. A very high price has been paid to confirm this. By treating the sites and monuments as entities unrelated to one another or to anything else for that matter, such as the nearby hills of Tara and Skryne, the assessment of gains and losses was restricted further; there could be no compound loss because there was no compound whole to begin with. Again, fault lies with the regulatory body, but it also places a question mark over the suitabi­ lity of existing regulatory processes. As Stocker (2013:95) has recently ­observed, ‘the cultural meaning of this landscape was too complex to be resolved by an

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Environmental Impact Assessment’. This is only partly true because sensu stricto an EIS is only as comprehensive as the regulatory body requires it to be. It is incomprehensible that, knowing about the findings of the Discovery Programme (Bhreathnach, 1996b; 1999) and unequivocal warnings in preliminary reports by two separate archaeological consultancies against routing the M3 through this landscape, the regulatory body accepted an EIS from which such warnings were effectively excised, reducing it merely to a list of affected sites. In an effort to close the gap between theirs and traditional research excavations, perhaps to present a more positive face, the NRA framed the work along the M3 corridor as research. Accordingly, in July 2005, along with Meath County Council it published The M3 Clonee to North of Kells Road Scheme ­Archaeology Research Framework, declaring that the results would be, inter alia, integrated into a ‘wider archaeological landscape study’ (Anon, 2005:6) undertaken collaboratively with the University College Dublin School of ­Archaeology. Ordinarily such would be applauded, except that in this instance, contrary to established protocols of research, no direct reference was made to the ongoing research on the Tara landscape, the existence of which is visible only indirectly via the Select Bibliography at the end of the document. Ironically, Tara is present throughout this document by virtue of the fact that it is studiously and glaringly omitted. On the other hand, the frequent references to landscape in the Research Framework (Anon, 2005) reveal the centrality of this paradigm to contemporary archaeology, serving only to reinforce the betrayal perpetrated on the Tara landscape. Research is as much about why as about how, because, as in any field of human endeavour, knowledge gain can be eroded or negated by the manner of its contextualisation: the unearthing of so much useful archaeological data in the Tara landscape is somewhat cancelled out by the denial-in-kind of its context. Mentioning the word ‘Tara’ only once, the Research Framework (Anon, 2005:3) effectively wound the clock back on existing research and, skimming across chronological lines, inadvertently or otherwise positioned the archae­ ological sites along the M3 ‘away from sacred space on the Hill itself ’. The language, as one might expect, has been very carefully crafted and could, at a stretch, be i­ nterpreted to mean almost anything. As such it speaks to discomfiture surrounding an inconvenient truth. Now that the motorway has been built it is gradually becoming safe to mention the sites and monuments excavated along the M3 and Tara in the same breath. The extraordinary complex at Lismullin has evolved from being a site whose ‘location beneath the important ceremonial complex on the Hill of Tara may suggest that [it] is a ceremonial site serving smaller or lesser political units’ (Anon, 2007:4) to being ‘just one component of a wider archaeological landscape … dominated by the extensive remains on the Hill of Tara’ (O’Connell, 2013:4) and a place where excavation has provided ‘a rare glimpse of settlement

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evolution and ritual practices in the wider Tara landscape’ (O’Connell, 2013:1). In time its place in the sacred landscape of Tara will be reclaimed, except that it is too late to experience the natural amphitheatre chosen so carefully for it. As another precious link between past and present is severed, President Higgins’s words (2013) seem relevant: ‘[k]nowledge of history is intrinsic to citizenship … Knowledge of history allows us to debunk myths and challenge inaccuracies, as well as to expose deliberate amnesia or invented versions of the past’.

Note   1 Throughout this chapter I use the words ‘history’ and ‘historical’ in their broadest senses.

References Anon. (2005) The M3 Clonee to North of Kells Road Scheme: Archaeology Research Framework, Meath: NRA and Meath County Council. Anon. (2007) M3 Clonee–Kells Motorway Project: Information on Archaeological Investigations at Lismullin, Co. Meath, http://goo.gl/5WpWoC (retrieved 3 May 2014). Anon. (2012) The Keys to Preserving America’s Heritage: (1) Stewardship, (2) Relevance, (3) Education, (4) Workforce, American National Parks Service. Baek, J. (2013) ‘Tetsuro Watsuji’s fudo, ethics and sustainability’, in C. Newman, Y. Nussaume and B. Pedroli (eds) Landscape and Imagination: Towards a Baseline for Education in a Changing World. Conference, Paris 2–4 May 2013, Florence: Uniscape, 43–6. Berque, A. (2000) Écoumène. Introduction à l’étude des milieux humains, Paris: Belin. Bhreathnach, E. (1996a) ‘Temoria: caput Scotorum?’, Ériu, 47: 67–88. Bhreathnach, E. (1996b) ‘Cultural identity and Tara from the Lebor Gabála to George Petrie’, Discovery Programme Reports 4, Dublin: Discovery Programme and Royal Irish Academy, 85–98. Bhreathnach, E. (1996c) ‘The documentary evidence for pre-Norman Skreen, Co. Meath’, Ríocht na Midhe Records of Meath Archaeological and Historical Society 9: 37–45. Bhreathnach, E. (1999) ‘Authority and supremacy in Tara and its hinterland c. 950–1200’, Discovery Programme Reports 5, Dublin: Discovery Programme and Royal Irish Academy, 1–24. Bhreathnach, E. (2005) ‘The medieval kingdom of Brega’, in E. Bhreathnach (ed.) The Kingship and Landscape of Tara, Dublin: Four Courts Press, 410–22. Bhreathnach, E., and Newman, C. (1995) Tara, Dublin: Stationery Office. Comptroller and Auditor General (2011) Report on the Accounts of the Public Services 2011, Dublin: Stationery Office. Council of Europe (2000) European Landscape Convention, Florence: Council of Europe. Council of Europe (2005) Framework Convention on the Value of Cultural Heritage for Society, Faro: Council of Europe. Cullinane, B. (2004) ‘Letters’, Irish Independent, 28 February. Dáil Éireann (2012) Written Answers – Road Network, Dáil Éireann Debate, vol. 741, no. 4, 17 January. Doherty, C. (2005) ‘Kingship in early Ireland’, in E. Bhreathnach (ed.) The Kingship and

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Landscape of Tara, Dublin: Four Courts Press, 3–31. Doyle, J. S. (2005) ‘Motorway mania is driving us in the wrong direction’, Irish Independent, 8 February. Fenwick, J. (2005) ‘The geophysical survey of the M3 toll-motorway corridor: a prelude to Tara’s destruction’, Ríocht na Midhe Records of Meath Archaeological and Historical Society, 16: 8–22. Fleming, D. (2008) ‘Heaney hits out over tar on Tara’, BBC News, 1 March. http://goo.gl/ IKurGZ (retrieved 1 September 2013). Higgins, M. D. (2013) ‘Remembering the 1913 lockout’, Michael Littleton Memorial Lecture, 19 June, http://goo.gl/bteP7t (retrieved 19 September 2013). Hobsbawm, E. (1994) The Age of Extremes: the Short Twentieth Century, 1914–1991, London: Abacus. Hunt, M. (2007) ‘“Future shock – property crash” programme irresponsible journalism says CBRE’, Press Release, CB Richard Ellis, 17 April. Jarvis, J. B. (2003) ‘The great experiment’, Common Ground: National Parks Service Quarterly, Summer: 2. Lee, J. (2005) ‘Tara tycoons. Political cronies poised to make fortunes as controversial motorway runs close to ancient site and right through their land’, Ireland on Sunday, 13 March. MacGiolla Easpaig, D. (2005) ‘The significance and etymology of the placename Temair’, in E. Bhreathnach (ed.) The Kingship and Landscape of Tara, Dublin: Four Courts Press, 423–48. Murphy, C. (2012) ‘Tolls rise will drive cars off roads – AA’, Herald, 21 October. Newman, C. (1997) Tara: An Archaeological Survey, Dublin: Royal Irish Academy. Newman, C. (2005) ‘Re-composing the archaeological landscape of Tara’, in E. Bhreathnach (ed.) The Kingship and Landscape of Tara, Dublin: Four Courts Press, 361–409. Newman, C. (2007) ‘Misinformation, disinformation and downright distortion: the battle to save Tara 1999–2005’, in C. Newman and U. Strohmayer (eds) Uninhabited Ireland, Tara, the M3 and Public Spaces in Galway, Galway: Aarlen House, 61–102. Newman, C. (2011) ‘The sacral landscape of Tara: a preliminary exploration’, in R. Schot, C. Newman and E. Bhreathnach (eds) Landscapes of Cult and Kingship, Dublin: Four Courts Press, 22–43. Ní Chatháin, P. (1991) ‘Traces of the cult of the horse in early Irish sources’, Journal of IndoEuropean Studies 19: 123–31. Oaks, L. S. (1986) ‘The goddess Epona’, in M. Henig and A. King (eds) Pagan Gods and Shrines of the Roman Empire, Oxford University Committee for Archaeology Monograph no. 8: 77–84. O’Brien, T. (2004) ‘Site excavations on M3 may cost €30m. Council told 38 archaeological sites identified near hill of Tara’, Irish Times, 5 October. O’Connell, A. (2013) Harvesting the Stars: a Pagan Temple at Lismullin, Co. Meath, NRA Scheme Monographs 11, Dublin: Wordwell. O’Keeffe, J. (2004) ‘When it comes to Ireland’s heritage, NRA archaeologists do it better’, Sunday Independent, 12 September. O’Rourke, D. (2004) ‘Letters’, Sunday Independent, 19 September. Petrie, G. (1839) ‘On the history and antiquities of Tara Hill’, Transactions of the Royal Irish Academy, 18: 25–232.

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Robinson, M. (1994) ‘Special Introduction’, in The Role of the University in Society. Proceedings of the Conference held in Dublin Castle on 20–21 May 1994, Dublin: Ollscoil na hÉireann National University of Ireland, 7–9. RTÉ (2004) The State We Are In: If These Stones Could Speak, RTÉ, 1 November. RTÉ (2005) News, RTÉ, 12 May. RTÉ (2007) Prime Time Special, RTÉ, 17 April. Stocker, D. (2013) ‘Book Reviews’, Landscapes 13(2): 92–5. Yeats, W. B. et al. (1902) ‘Letters’, The Times, June 27.

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4 Carts, horses and carriages: love and (same-sex) marriage in the twenty-first century Angela O’Connell Introduction High court judges interpreting a Bill of Rights may at times lead public opinion; but in a democratic society they cannot do so often, or by very much. (Justice William Brennan, cited in O’Mahony, 2010:115)

Family is the cornerstone, the natural, primary and fundamental unit group of society. Marriage is the religious, cultural, commercial, and political institution that defines and embeds its values. Under the weight of considerable critical attention from theorists, and as argued here, marriage and the family based on marriage appear as primary sites for creating, maintaining and reproducing heterosexist relations: under the rubric of ‘love’ there is an erasing or exploiting of the labour of women in providing care (paid or unpaid) for vulnerable and dependent people (including, but not limited to, children) and providing a continuous supply of a low-paid, part-time, flexible workforce to sustain a capitalist economy. Marriage legitimises sexual relationships between men and women, creating a financially, socially and legally privileged unit, thus rendering it an aspirational personal and public state for many people. Same-sex marriage disrupts the gendering of marriage and so threatens the familiar social and economic order. However, the twenty-first century has witnessed a major increase in public support for marriage rights for same-sex couples, and this chapter will trace how an apparently isolated court case grew into a new social movement. The focal point of this chapter is the 2004 High Court case taken by ­Katherine Zappone and Ann Louise Gilligan (the KAL case) for legal recognition of their marriage as a same-sex couple, which had taken place a year previously in Canada. The chapter examines how the two central characters in The author wishes to gratefully acknowledge the support and intellectual insights she received from Mary McDermott while writing this chapter.

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the KAL case, framing their efforts in the language of love and human rights, were able to negotiate support from key government players and a major philanthropic organisation to strategically transform a public campaign for equal marriage into a social movement. The chapter thus explains the origins of the campaign for full marriage rights for same-sex couples by MarriagEquality, the advocacy organisation that emerged from the KAL case, while also acknow­ ledging the ­alternative route towards the same goal that was adopted by the Gay and Lesbian Equality Network (GLEN). The KAL case provides a platform from which to explore the hegemonic status of (heterosexual) marriage in Irish society, and some of the issues the case raises about the relationships between love, marriage and the nation-state, including the role and status of women and children in religion, nationalism and the economy. Despite the scale of social change in Ireland over the 2000s, and in particular the introduction of civil partnership legislation in 2011, such issues remain contested and reflect the prevailing power of patriarchy and hetero­ sexism. The KAL case, taken by two childless, financially independent women who were simply arguing for equal financial treatment before the law, severed the link between marriage and procreation and thus served to illuminate some of the more prevalent economic, religious and socio-political interests of those who were invested in maintaining the privileging of heterosexual marriage. ­Additionally, using interviews I conducted with lesbian couples during 2005–6 for my doctoral thesis (O’Connell, 2010), I present some critiques of marriage as regulator of gender, reproduction and economics. Finally, this chapter explores challenges to the hegemony of marriage in relation to equality and assimilation that are suggested in these narratives by stories of diverse and divergent family practices.

The KAL case On 13 September 2003, in Vancouver, Canada, Katherine Zappone and Ann Louise Gilligan were married to each other in a civil ceremony, having travelled from their home in Ireland to have their long-term relationship solemnised and legally recognised. Their marriage is legally valid for all purposes in Canada. At the time of their marriage, same-sex marriage was legal in most Canadian states, but it was not until two years later that the  Civil Marriage Act (full title: ‘An Act respecting certain aspects of legal capacity for marriage for civil purposes’), ­legalised same-sex marriage across Canada (becoming law 20 July 2005). As Katherine and Ann Louise recount in the memoir of their case (Gilligan and Zappone, 2008), when they returned to Ireland, they sought to have their marriage recognised in Irish law. One route they explored was to follow pre­ cedents in other jurisdictions where a group of same-sex couples would apply for marriage licences, then pursue a case through the courts when they were

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rejected. They tried in vain to find others willing to do this, reporting that most of the gay and lesbian couples they knew at the time held strong ideological and personal views against the institution of marriage. Others whom Gilligan and Zappone approached were just not ready for the public ‘outing’ that such a case would entail. Katherine and Ann Louise subsequently decided to try to have their marriage recognised by the Revenue Commissioners, in order to avail themselves of tax benefits accruing to married couples in Ireland. The Revenue Commissioners refused their claim for married persons’ tax allowances and they took their case to the High Court. As the couple prepared for the case to be heard, they turned to various LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) civil society organisations for support: they talked to friends and professional contacts in many arenas, and they garnered the support of the National Gay and Lesbian Federation (NLGF) and GLEN. Two friends volunteered to found and co-chair an advocacy and fund-raising initiative on their behalf. Through their community education project in Tallaght, Shanty (An Cosán), the couple had a long history of major financial support from Atlantic Philanthropies and were soon in line for a series of grants to support their legal and social activist campaign. This, and a wider fund-raising campaign that featured high-profile fund-raising lunches and dinners, limited the couple’s financial vulnerability when their case finally came to court in October 2006 (Gilligan and Zappone, 2008). The main argument the couple presented in the case was that, under the Irish Constitution’s protection of the family, they have a constitutional right to equality, a right to marry and a right to property. They argued that ‘marriage’ was undefined in Article 41.3.1° of the Constitution, and that changing ­societal ­attitudes and behaviour should be reflected in its current interpretation. In what O’Mahony (2010:79) describes as a ‘clear cut and recent instance of ­judicial ­deference to the legislature in the context of present tense constitutional interpretation’, the High Court found against the couple’s claim that their marriage should be recognised by the Revenue Commissioners. In her judgement, Justice Dunne deferred to the then recently introduced Civil Registration Act (2004), which she claimed clearly reinforced the interpretation of marriage as between a man and a woman, therefore excluding same-sex couples. O’Mahony suggests that this judgement implies that the court would have been amenable to the interpretation of marriage put forward by the plaintiffs if a similar interpretation had been reflected in existing legislation (ibid.).1 Following the judgement, Zappone and Gilligan filed an appeal to the Supreme Court. In 2007 An Cosán was awarded a €50,000 grant from Atlantic Philanthropies to support the couple to co-author a book on social change in Ireland. That book, Our Love Out Loud (Gilligan and Zappone, 2008), would become the story of their fight for the recognition of their marriage. Atlantic Philanthropies, which had an established relationship with the

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couple through An Cosán, were also engaged in supporting rights more broadly for the LGBT community in Ireland. They had previously invested €342,000 to support the development of Gay Community News by NLGF. In 2005 NLGF was awarded €80,000 to ‘improve the access of co-habiting couples to their rights by providing support for the KAL Advocacy Initiative which seeks the establishment of civil partnership legislation in Ireland’ (Atlantic Philanthropies, 2005). Atlantic awarded a further €285,000 to NLGF in 2007 to support the Supreme Court Challenge (now called the KAL Advocacy Initiative). Just over a year after the initial court case, in February 2008, MarriagEquality was formed, which was to become the flagship campaign organisation for the couple’s fight for marriage rights. In 2008, Atlantic Philanthropies (2008) awarded a grant of €400,000 to NLGF for MarriagEquality, with the explicit goal of improving ‘equality of rights for the LGBT community by providing support to its campaign for same-sex marriage’. Around the time of the KAL court case, another national organisation, GLEN, had decided on a different approach to obtain marriage rights for samesex couples. In 2005 GLEN had received core funding (totalling €2.1 million over six years) from Atlantic Philanthropies to advance equality for lesbians and gays in Ireland (Parker, 2012). This major grant enabled them to develop capacity and focus attention on policy and advocacy work rather than on fundraising activities. As Parker (2012:3) describes, With strong anti-discrimination laws in place, the Equality Authority firmly behind them, and a growing acceptance of gays and lesbians as well as a sense of optimism in a booming ‘Celtic Tiger’ economy, GLEN believed it was time to push for the next form of legal recognition – gay marriage. Going after marriage represented a significant step toward equality for gay and lesbian people.

As mentioned above, and as the interview extracts that are presented later in the chapter suggest, there has been a notable absence of consensus around the importance or necessity of marriage within the LGBT community. However, despite this, in their respective campaigns, marriage was established by GLEN and by MarriagEquality as the defining marker of equality for lesbians and gay men in Ireland. The KAL case’s verdict acted as a catalyst for both of these Atlantic-funded organisations to mount their new campaigns, but while the KAL campaign adopted romantic love as its organising principle, GLEN focused its campaign on arguing for equal civil rights. The ‘deference to the legislature’ (O’Mahony, 2010:73) reflected in the KAL judgement suggested to GLEN that, given the conservatism of the Irish judicial system, KAL had been precipitous in taking a court action, and that a more strategic route towards civil marriage might be to pursue change through direct contact with legislators (Parker, 2012). GLEN was already well established as an advocacy organisation and had extensive existing relationships with indi-

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vidual civil service and political figures. An apparently high degree of support from individuals across a range of political parties allowed GLEN to mount a campaign that could avail itself of the traditional clientelism and corporatism of Irish government structures (Murphy, 2012; see also Chapter 10). The two campaigns, each with its own approach, raised significant issues in relation to the institution of marriage. In the following sections I consider the social and legal status of marriage, and its attendant privileges, which have been thrown into relief by the emergence of same-sex marriage campaigns in Ireland, and the consequent opposing arguments that were mounted against them.

Love, marriage and same-sex marriage Heterosexual marriage is exalted as the cornerstone of the family in modern Western states and is highly visible and deeply venerated in laws and customs. Influential anthropologists in the earlier part of the twentieth century placed heterosexual marriage firmly at the centre of their definition of family (Murdock, 1949; Parsons and Bales, 1956, both cited in Hantrais, 2004), and in most societies (even if divorce is easily obtainable), marriage remains the defining public symbol of a stable relationship (Fineman, 2009). Despite its declining popularity (CSO, n.d.) and its noted failures (Fahey, 2012; Hantrais, 2004), marriage continues to be seen as symbolic of a public expression of love, and a commitment to permanency. Studies have indicated that marriage does indeed present a barrier to the dissolution of relationships (Fahey and Russell, 2001) and this stabilising influence is a factor that governments appear to have an enormous interest in promoting, both for economic reasons and in the interests of children (Fineman, 2004; Kennedy, 2001). States which introduced some of the most liberal reforms to extend the definition of the family and allocate rights to children and partnerships not based on marriage – e.g. the UK in the 1990s and 2000s – simultaneously continued to endorse the family based on marriage as the most stable family form for children (Smart and Neale, 1999; Williams, 2004). Although it is common in the West to associate, or even to conflate, love and marriage, marriage also carries with it numerous tangible benefits. For example, in 2004, the US General Accounting Office (USGAO) catalogued 1,138 federal statutory provisions classified to the United States Code in which marital status is a factor in determining or receiving benefits, rights and privileges under the Defense of Marriage Act (1996), which defined marriage as a legal union between one man and one woman (USGAO, 2004). However, elsewhere as well as in the USA, not all couples are admitted to the institution of marriage.2 In many countries where marriage rights are denied to gay and lesbian couples, same-sex marriage has increasingly become the focus of LGBT social activism, and this raises significant issues that have been the subject of socio-

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logical, and particularly feminist, debate for decades. Arguments to justify denying marriage rights to same-sex couples abound, including appeals to the religious basis of marriage (Fineman, 2004) or to natural law (Finnis, 1994); that same-sex marriage undermines heterosexual marriages (Kurtz, 2005); that it poses risks to children’s welfare and promotes social disorder (Dailey, 2005; Kurtz, 2005). Some claim that it opens up the way for polygamy, bestiality and incest (Religious Tolerance.Org, 2009). Opposition to same-sex marriage is often linked to a wider intolerance of homosexuality, as demonstrated by the well-documented violence, harassment and discrimination experienced by gay and lesbian people internationally (Bos et al., 2008; Kelleher, 2009). Rather than declining, examples of statesanctioned homophobia around the world are appearing in the media with increasing regularity. For example, Russia introduced in June 2013 a federal bill banning the distribution of ‘propaganda of non-traditional sexual relations’ to minors, adding to a raft of local laws prohibiting dissemination of literature about homo­sexuality (Wikipedia, n.d.a); while that same month in Greece, several trans women were arrested by the police for no apparent reason during the Thessaloniki pride, brutally attacked, and illegally detained on the grounds of ‘keeping the city clean’ (Wikipedia, n.d.b). In August 2013, The Independent ­reported that 40 schools in the UK had introduced clauses in their sexeducation guidelines to the effect that the governors will not allow teachers to ‘promote’ homosexuality (Morris, 2013). Gay sex is illegal in 76 countries and homosexual orientation is punishable by death in five (Ottoson, 2010). Inter­ nationally, gay and lesbian young people comprise up to 30 per cent of completed youth suicides: lesbian, gay and bisexual youth are four times more likely to attempt suicide than other young people (Kann et al., 2011). By stigmatising or outlawing homosexuality, the dominant ideology, heterosexuality, can be defined, refined and confined by the inclusion or exclusion of certain acts or identities depending on time, place and practice (Calhoun, 1997). It is no coincidence that the issue of same-sex marriage did not come to public attention until the beginning of the gay rights movement in the 1970s, at the same time as homosexuality was removed as a mental illness from the US Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, and homophobia was named as a concept (Herek, 1994). However, in spite of continuing exclusion from marriage, the number of same-sex couples in Ireland, as elsewhere, appears to be rising (CSO, 2011), and studies show that these couples risk being harmed by prohibitions on marriage (Herek, 2006). For instance, Kurdek’s (1998) study of relationship outcomes and their predictors among married heterosexual, unmarried gay cohabiting and lesbian cohabiting couples over a five-year period showed that, although the quality of their relationships did not differ significantly from those of their married heterosexual co-participants, the rate of break-up was more than twice

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as high among the gay and lesbian couples. Kurdek attributes this to the absence of public barriers to relationship dissolution among these groups: there were no marriage ties to be negotiated, no religious opposition to dissolution, and little in the way of family or social disapproval for ending one’s relationship. Nonetheless, Kurdek (1998:565) also notes the high proportion of gay and lesbian relationships that survived the five-year period (86 per cent and 84 per cent ­respectively), leading him to conclude ‘that gay and lesbian partners bear a strong sense of personal responsibility to maintain their relationships’. Protesting their exclusion, same-sex couples all over the world have fought for marriage or marriage-like rights and have achieved equal marriage in a number of jurisdictions, one of the first of which was Canada, where the KAL marriage took place. The MarriageEquality and GLEN campaigns have thus emerged within and contributed to an international advocacy movement for change in marriage rights. They also reflect significant changes in Irish society and values in recent decades.

Marriage and the Irish state Conrad (2004) notes the uncomfortable place that homosexuality has occupied in visions of the Irish nation-state that rely on the heterosexual family, as reflected in the Constitution, to reproduce values and identity. In the KAL case, the plaintiffs’ belief that the climate in Ireland was becoming more open to a wider interpretation of marriage was based on changing patterns of social and religious attitudes and behaviour; reflected in a 2004 government-­ commissioned public consultation on the family which ‘found that most people do not want the traditional nuclear family as a model for policy-makers, that the nuclear family itself is effectively a myth’ (Bacik, 2004:66). One factor in these changing patterns was the disruption of the power of the Catholic Church during the latter part of the twentieth century (Inglis, 1998), brought about mostly by the actions of the media, and a few lone individuals whose stories shook the religious faith of the nation (Connolly and O’Toole, 2005). At this time also politicians were becoming increasingly unwilling to be seen to bow to church pressure on social issues (Inglis, 1998). Entry into the European Economic Community (EEC) in 1973 brought profound economic changes which, over the following decades, also impacted upon the Irish family, enabling the state to refer to ‘Brussels rather than Rome for approval of policies as well as for financial support’ (NicGhiollaPhadraig, 1995:612). ­Connolly (2005:1) describes the Irish state as characterised by gender reforms that ­resulted mainly from the ‘external shocks and pressures’ of European, rather than domestic, policy developments. Kennedy’s (2001) analysis of family change in Ireland proposes that it is primarily economically driven: reduction in small-farm families living on the land and EU-fuelled economic growth led

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to more women working outside the home; while social welfare reforms such as the Unmarried Mother’s Allowance altered ‘the financial framework for marriage’ (ibid.:247). An economic approach, however, only partially explains the phenomena that were witnessed during the latter part of the twentieth century. The family at this time was also going through some profound changes due to ideological challenges as feminist ideas permeated society from the 1960s onwards ­(Connolly, 2005). Those years witnessed significant increases in women in the workforce and third-level education; the use of contraception; children born outside of marriage; and Irish women who travelled to the UK for abortions (Inglis, 1998). The acceptance of feminist ideas into the dominant paradigm reflected the changing expectations of the majority of the population (Connolly, 2005) and resulted in a series of legislative reforms – including: the abolition of the status of illegitimacy for children born outside of marriage (1987); the abolition of actions for the restitution of conjugal rights (1988); the Judicial Separation and Family Law Reform Act (1989); the Maintenance Act (1994); the Domestic Violence Act (1996); and the Family Law (Divorce) Act (1996) – leading to a more individualistic morality and value system where women’s choices around marriage and family were broadened (Inglis, 1998). Fahey (2012) suggests that the signing into law of divorce in Ireland in 1996 failed to produce the expected explosion in marital breakdown because the institution itself had long been in decline, and was already past the stage where legislation could affect its demise. In December 2004 the Law Reform Commission (LRC) published its Consultation Paper on the Rights and Duties of Cohabitants (including both heterosexual and same-sex couples). Like the succeeding 2006 report of the All-Party Oireachtas Committee on the Constitution, it recommended legal recognition of same-sex relationships with ‘marriage-like’ privileges, arguing that it would not be unconstitutional to afford protection to families not based on marriage as long as those protections did not exceed those given to the marital family. These recommendations are radical in that they propose the recognition of a variety of living arrangements, not confining protection or privilege to intimate couple relationships (LRC, 2004; Government of Ireland, 2006). Overall, then, as a result of social changes, almost certainly including the campaigns for marriage equality, Ireland in the 2000s was becoming more ­accepting of the idea of allowing same-sex couples to enter the mainstream. This is evidenced in, for example, rapid changes in public opinion recorded in 2006 where support for the recognition of same-sex relationships grew from 51 per cent at the start of the year to 84 per cent by October (Lansdowne, 2006). In a 2009 online poll, 62 per cent of respondents said that they would vote yes in a referendum to extend civil marriage to same-sex couples (O’Brien, 2009). The Civil Partnership Act came into effect on 1 January 2011 and was ­applauded by some for introducing ‘some of the most far-reaching legal protec-

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tions for gay and lesbian couples in the world’ (Parker, 2012:1). Its legal protections addressed a number of social welfare, tax, immigration and inheritance issues affecting same-sex couples, but more importantly, what civil partnership symbolised was a change in public attitudes towards the function of marriage and, ultimately, towards the family itself. By 2012, 75 per cent of those polled said that they would vote yes in a same-sex marriage referendum (MillwardBrown, 2012), signalling profound changes in public attitudes, not only towards homosexuality but also towards marriage itself.

Some critiques of marriage Anthropological theories of the family, which place marriage at their centre, have long been critiqued on both empirical and ideological grounds (Fineman, 2009). Cai Hua’s (2001) study of the Na people of the Himalayan region of China portrays a society which functions without marriage. In this culture, brothers and sisters live together, raising the sisters’ children. There is no concept of, or word in the language for husband. Nor is the role of a husband (or father) defined as such: instead, sexual relations with the opposite sex are conducted solely through the ‘visit’ (ibid.:185) by a man to a woman’s room in her own house. Relationships, or açia, among the Na are neither monogamous nor socially monitored, and they end when either of the parties wants them to. Hua found no instance where the açia was lifelong. Critics have long argued that marriage is a highly constructed social and ­political institution, built to serve purposes that reach beyond those of the couples involved. Okin (1998) maintains that children’s rights are subjugated to their parents’ marital or relationship status; Curtin (1986) emphasises property as central to marriage; in the nineteenth century, Mill (1988), and more recently, Nussbaum (1999), each portray marriage as institutionalised gender inequality; and Connell (1994:158) argues that historically, marriage has changed from a social and religious institution into a manifestation of the state’s power to control gender relations through contracts ‘defined and regulated by the state’. My own research into lesbian families, conducted around the time of the emergence of the campaigns for equal marriage, included, in each of its twenty interviews, a question about what future developments participants would like to see for lesbian families in Ireland, without specifically mentioning marriage or civil partnership. Twelve women spontaneously raised the issue of marriage. Of these only one couple said it was their preferred option, while the others all talked about the need for adoption rights, partnership rights or other forms of protection equal to heterosexual families. A number of interviewees expressed strong ideological objections towards marriage as an institution. For example, Jean emphasised the equal value and validity of her relationship irrespective of its legal status:

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Viv is their parent, equal to me, regardless of legal. I mean, legal is legal. I mean, legal doesn’t matter a damn unless you end up in court. Because that’s the only place it applies … in a real sense, it doesn’t matter on a day-to-day, or week-toweek or year-to-year – it’s only if something were to happen it would matter. […] I don’t think that if we got partnership rights, people would treat us that differently, you know. (Jean, interview)

Butler (2004) sees marriage as basic to the state’s legitimation of sexual and kinship relationships, but more fundamentally, by deciding who should and can marry, the state maintains its position as arbiter of what constitutes person­ hood itself, defining the parameters of what types of families are deemed good enough to reproduce its citizens. It also defines respectability and ‘belonging’ (ibid.:111), thus making marriage even more attractive to individuals who desire these markers. This point was also taken up by Pippa: I know people have said, ‘oh, but the legal thing doesn’t mean anything’. But to me, it does mean something … I only kind of realised this recently […] but the way we kind of, grew up as lesbians, or whatever, relationships … were like a passing thing […] and now with Ella, [that] I had to make a big shift. And [I had to] say, no, actually, I am really a partner with somebody, and we’re bringing this child up together, and I’m still kind of in that process, really, and I think that is to do with being a lesbian, and it is to do with … not setting out to make a baby, and not physically making a baby together […] whereas if you get married, …, the law says straight away, what’s hers is his and what’s his is hers, and half and half, whatever … We don’t have that notion, because … we don’t have all those structures in place to reinforce that kind of a thing. (Pippa, interview)

Pippa continued, Once you say you’re married, nobody asks you any more about your relationship – nobody, until you’re separating, or divorcing. It’s like, that’s it! You’ve got it, you’re a unit … So it’s just kind of ease and ease of thinking, and it’s normal, people don’t have to … come outside and think … where did you get that baby from? D’you know what I mean? (A laughs) Or, what does that mean? And what’s that to you? And people’s embarrassment, and all that kind of, ehm, I think that’s part of it. (Pippa, interview)

For some feminists, lesbian families by their very existence provide a ­critique of marriage, by allowing alternative practices of gender, family, kinship and child welfare to be explored (Dunne, 2000; Gabb, 2005; Weston, 1997). In Dunne’s (1998) study of lesbian couples in the UK the women presented their relationships as ‘co-independent’, requiring and nurturing long-term, mutual financial self-reliance from each partner, in contrast to the dependency they perceived as inherent in heterosexual marriage. Niamh considered how she and her partner had negotiated their own relationship in the absence of state ­approval or sanction:

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I think I’m more responsible as a lesbian in this society, as I think we all should be as lesbians in this society, to address the holes in the law, when the law lets us down. (Niamh, interview)

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Rebecca attributed the problems she and her partner were experiencing in relation to joint parenting of their daughter to the absence of adoption rights, not to their exclusion from marriage: And also, I just feel like, with the adoption thing, that Pippa should— Pippa, because there’s a bit of her about a single parent family, and it’s not true, it’s not reality. And I find it really difficult. It causes weirdness in myself. (Rebecca, interview)

Another interviewee, Jean, felt that not being married allowed her more auto­ nomy to create her own relationship and her own role within that relationship, although Edie suggested that such freedom carries an added burden of responsibility when planning children: Because in some ways … it’s two individuals making decisions, maybe more than a couple who will get pregnant in a marriage, or some kind of relationship … And we could go off in different directions about it, so it took some work. (Edie, interview)

Florence felt that she and her ex-partner were handling their break-up creatively because they weren’t married: Perhaps it’s good that there’s—, in some ways, that we don’t have, it’s not as regimented and legal, and set out … in stone, and, d’you know, going to court to demand your rights, because it does leave you to have to negotiate them … and so you can dictate to people, this is how it is, and they say, okay! … Because they haven’t got a stereotype of, this is what it should be. (Florence, interview)

‘Family practices’, such as are illustrated in the above quotations, is now a widely accepted trope in sociological thinking, and suggests that family is not an entity but rather consists of constitutive ways of relating that can take a wide and fluid variety of forms (Morgan, 2011). Another example is provided by Ita, talking about fostering as an alternative idea of family: I think that [fostering]’s just a lovely idea of a family. You know? … And, … it’s not, sort of, I’m your mother, therefore you’re, kind of, duty kind of stuff, that ties people together. (Ita, interview)

Morgan (1996) based his concept of ‘family practices’ on his contention that the hegemonic, heterosexual family excluded not only other heterosexual ways of doing or living family but also gay and lesbian family formations, which, due to their marginalisation, could not benefit from the rights and protections

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given to married heterosexual couples. A more critical focus on the institution of marriage might reveal alternatives that are more just and equal for all citizens than the family based on marriage, such as individual contracts or that the protections marriage affords be extended as rights to same-sex couples (and other family formations) without the need for them to enter into marriage per se (Fineman, 2004; Nussbaum, 1999). Notwithstanding the above critiques, for those who seek legal recognition of their relationships in the absence of a hegemonic vision of family as practice, more modest proposals regarding marriage or partnership rights may appeal. Flood (2009) concedes that legal recognition of couple relationships carries a risk of further marginalisation for those whose lives are not so recognised, but still argues in favour of engagement with legal reform. And as long as particular rights reside solely in marriage, those who seek legal and social protection for their relationships can make a strong argument in favour of extending the right to marry to same-sex couples (Mullally, 2005).

Marriage equality? Why not? The women I interviewed between 2005 and 2006 had mixed views regarding societal debates about the possible introduction of marriage or civil partnership for same-sex couples in Ireland. Debbie saw institutional resistance as the main barrier to full marriage rights: I think, strangely enough, compared to a lot of countries that are kind of legally, or institutionally proactive [where] … the population may actually lag behind, I think the opposite may be true in Ireland, that institutionally it lags, whereas the general population aren’t really that bothered. (Debbie, interview)

Sally felt that most of the current lobbying for marriage and partnership rights was by gay men, and was primarily related to taxation and other financial issues. She felt that for lesbians, children’s rights were a more central concern. Others I spoke with felt that marriage carried some undesirable associations, and ­although interested in acquiring legal recognition of their relationships, especially in relation to their children, did not hold that this necessarily should be tied to marriage. As far as I’m concerned, marriage is a Catholic institution and they’re welcome to it … For me, it’s about having guardianship rights … like, non-birth mothers, non-donating fathers, or whatever way you want to look at it, have equal rights. (Bríd, interview)

Two couples had chosen marriage or civil partnership to cement and c­ elebrate their relationships and to give them whatever limited protections were possible

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for their families. Debbie and Gráinne talked about the pragmatic reasons for getting married in Canada:

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Because it’s legal there … if we’re going to do it, we want to do it the legal way as well, you know? …Although when we come back here, it’s not going to account for squat, but at least in our hearts it’ll be something. (Gráinne, interview)

Ita and Yvonne, since their interview and prior to the introduction of the Irish legislation, had their civil partnership registered in the UK before celebrating a non-legal wedding in their home town. As with Gráinne and Debbie, their wedding was first and foremost a public and formal celebration of their love for and commitment to each other, and the protections that it could offer their children were a strong motivation in making the journey abroad for civil partnership. Yvonne said it felt rather sad to return to Ireland after their ceremony, knowing ‘that this thing we had just done was not being legally recognised’, but felt that recording their relationship legally ‘somewhere’ had symbolic value for them as a couple and added weight to the case for equal marriage rights in Ireland (Yvonne, personal email to author, 22 May 2009). Two couples who had separated still referred to themselves as family, but felt that the possible introduction of marriage or partnership rights would make little difference to the rights of their families: And it’s a different issue, because two years ago, what I would have been seeking was obviously partnership rights, and partnership rights that extended to the child. … Now we’re in a bizarre position, ‘cause if partnership rights do come to Ireland, and they probably will … it is very unlikely that Harriet and myself will get civilly registered, or married, or whatever. (Florence, interview)

Of particular concern to some was the safety and wellbeing of their children if their relationships ended or if something happened to either or both of them. Most of my informants had taken steps to minimise the economic and, where possible, the emotional impact on their child of the death or separation of the parents. We have to work really hard to have children, and we have to … sit down, and we go over every single possible thing that can come our way … Where I’m completely secure in the legal situation, Lydia isn’t, and I think that would raise itself even more due to the fact that we have ended our relationship as a couple. (Niamh, interview)

These stories illustrate how, despite being denied the protections afforded to those at the centre, an outsider position can be a site of innovative alternatives that can inform a vision of a more just and equitable society. Being assimilated into the mainstream, achieving the ‘respectability’ and ‘belonging’ (Butler, 2004) that are central pillars of the movement for marriage equality might, in

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fact, miss an opportunity to dismantle the institution of marriage altogether, allowing for new ways of ordering care, intimacy and love.

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Conclusions Societies that rely on traditional forms of kinship based on marriage to sustain them are slow to concede that alternative kinship patterns might be preferable or even possible. Echoing Connell’s (1994) notion of ‘crises’, Butler (2004) suggests that when social pressure for change mounts, rather than alter rules of kinship, governments allocate marriage rights, or marriage-like rights, to family forms which, although outside the heteronorm, do not seem to challenge fundamental claims about ‘natural’ configurations of kinship. For example, heterosexual step-families may reconfigure and assimilate themselves through adoption as ordinary-looking legal families, while single motherhood is portrayed as a temporary, and undesirable, stage in the journey towards a more ‘traditional’ setup (Fahey and Russell, 2001). The state’s relationship with gay and lesbian families has to date been ambi­ valent. Through stigma and exclusion, or conversely, assimilation into marriage and its benefits, the nuclear family is reinforced; a family that has evolved and is maintained in the service of the state’s patriarchal and capitalist interests. The debate on same-sex marriage has shown that far from being about ‘Just Love’, marriage is a crucial site of such interests. Fineman (2008) argues that justice demands that the state focus on the just operation of the institutions that distribute benefits and advantages, not on the identity of the disadvantaged. In Ireland, mechanisms for grass-roots influencing of social change have been largely co-opted by the state, and the global recession has reduced the capacity of many civil society organisations to pursue activism. There have, however, as other examples in this volume demonstrate, been instances where civil society has successfully mobilised behind a cause with greater or lesser degrees of energy and resources. Where largescale funding from philanthropic organisations was secured, some movements were empowered to increase their capacity to lobby, network and fund-raise in pursuit of their aims. Whether or to what extent those aims were shaped by funders’ ethos or active involvement has yet to be adequately researched. It is clear from the KAL case that the role of (LGBT) civil society organisations, functioning effectively as a lobby rather than as a grass-roots movement, and potentially being influenced by philanthropic bodies, needs to be further examined when thinking about social change in contemporary Western ­societies. The implications of these alliances from a democratic point of view are complex, notwithstanding the need for ever-more sophisticated activist strategies. While direct impacts arising from social movements are difficult to assess, there is a broad consensus that GLEN was highly influential in the draft-

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ing of the civil partnership legislation of 2010; it celebrated this development as a strategic victory for the organisation in the fight for full marriage equality. However, MarriagEquality greeted the event with disappointment, because the opportunity to introduce full equality in marriage had been bypassed. In June 2012, Zappone and Gilligan issued a fresh legal challenge to test the provisions of the Civil Registration Act (2004) and the Civil Partnership Act (2010), which exclude same-sex couples from marriage. ‘It became clear to us that, even if we succeeded with our original case, the provisions within the Civil Registration Act and the Civil Partnership Act would remain,’ Zappone said, ‘so it became imperative to shelve our Supreme Court appeal and proceed to challenge this Act before the High Court’ (Just Love?, 2013). In June 2013, the Convention on the Constitution (2013) issued its formal report to the Oireachtas of the proceedings on marriage for lesbian and gay couples. Jointly welcomed by GLEN, MarriagEquality and the Irish Council for Civil Liberties, the report proposed that the Constitution be changed to provide for same-sex marriage by a directive amendment (i.e. requiring the government to legislate) and that further legislation addressing the issues relating to children being raised by same-sex married parents should follow. In November 2013 the Government responded with a commitment to holding a referendum on same-sex marriage in 2015. This commitment appears to represent a resounding victory for the movement for marriage equality for gay and lesbian couples. The question remains, however, as to what might have happened if the funding and ideological ­resources that were directed towards assimilation into a mainstream institution had instead exploited the opportunity to redefine family and intimate ­relationships in more progressive and inclusive directions; directions based not necessarily on marriage but on, for example, Morgan’s (2011) alternative ‘family practices’ approach. Notwithstanding these reservations, however, in the two years following their introduction in January 2011, some 965 couples had entered civil partnerships in Ireland (GLEN, 2013). Even if, or perhaps partly because, some couples did so for practical rather than romantic reasons, a new relationship between state and family has been born. As of November 2013, the publication of heads of a Children and Family Relationships Bill is forthcoming (O’Brien, 2013). This bill is intended to ‘create a legal structure to underpin diverse parenting situations and provide legal clarity on parental rights and duties in diverse family forms’ (Department of Justice and Equality, 2013). The bill, if enacted, would reflect changes to the Constitution arising from the Children Referendum, placing the child’s ‘best interests’ as paramount in custody, guardianship and access decisions. In a landmark speech delivered at a MarriagEquality conference on LGBT parenting in January 2014, Alan Shatter TD, Minister for Justice, Equality and

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Defence, congratulated MarriagEquality on consistently expanding society’s knowledge of the experiences of LGBT parents and their children. In his speech, he stated that, given the failure of the Civil Partnership Act of 2010 in relation to children, ‘the key issue that needs to be addressed in advance of a referendum is that of children and parental rights’ (Shatter, 2014). This Children and Family Relationships Bill fundamentally re-imagines the nature of family and, for the first time in the history of the state, establishes children’s rights and interests as independent of the relationship between their parents. The financial, social and legal privileges hitherto reserved solely for the family based on marriage will now be distributed on the basis of equality, with the child’s best interests at the centre. Regardless of whether or not this particular piece of legislation is passed, or whether the referendum on same-sex marriage is supported, some fundamental questions about love, marriage and the state have been raised. These questions may change the face of marriage in Ireland in ways that even the founders of the marriage equality movement could not have predicted. A radical transformation is underway.

Notes  1 For a full account of the case and its history see Just Love? (2013), MarriagEquality, (2011a) and MarriagEquality (2011b).  2 Section 3 of DOMA prevented the  federal government  from recognising same-sex marriages until that provision was ruled unconstitutional by the US Supreme Court on 26 June 2013 (United States v. Windsor).

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O’Connell, A. (2010) Just an Other Family? Towards a Lesbian Family Standpoint, National University of Ireland, Galway: Unpublished PhD dissertation. Okin, S. M. (1998) ‘Gender, the public and the private’, in A. Phillips (ed.) Feminism and Politics, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 67–90. O’Mahony, C. (2010) ‘Societal change and Constitutional interpretation’, Irish Journal of Legal Studies, 1(2): 71–115. Ottosson, D. (2010) State Sponsored Homophobia: A World Survey of Laws Prohibiting Same Sex Activity Between Adults, Stockholm: International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Trans Association. Parker, S. (2012) Civil Partnership and Ireland: How a Minority Achieved a Majority, Dublin: Centre for Evaluation Innovation. Religious Tolerance.Org. (2009) ‘Same sex marriage and polygamy’, http://goo.gl/TD7i30 (retrieved 7 August 2009). Shatter, A. (2014) ‘Speech by Alan Shatter TD at the Marriage Equality Conference, 21 January 2014,’ http://goo.gl/334KUt (retrieved 26 January 2014). Smart, C., and Neale, B. (1999) Family Fragments? Cambridge: Polity. USGAO (2004) Letter. Defense of Marriage Act. GAO-04-353R. Weston, K. (1997) Families We Choose: Lesbians, Gays, Kinship, New York, Columbia. Williams, F. (2004) Rethinking Families, London: Calouste Gulbekian Foundation. Wikipedia (n.d.a) ‘LGBT rights in Russia’, http://goo.gl/KvzKB3 (retrieved 14 August 2013). Wikipedia (n.d.b) ‘LGBT rights in Greece’, http://goo.gl/x24STE (retrieved 14 August 2013).

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Making ‘race’ an issue in the 2004 Irish Citizenship Referendum Steve Garner

Introduction On 11 June 2004, the Irish electorate voted on the ‘Twenty-seventh Amendment of the Constitution Bill’ or, as it is more generally known, the Citizenship Referendum (hereafter the Referendum). On that day a large majority of those who voted – almost 80 per cent – sanctioned a withdrawal of the automatic constitutional right to citizenship for all children born in the Republic of Ireland. The Citizenship Act (2005) introduced a distinction between children born in Ireland whose parents were Irish, and those whose parents were not. This act, authorised by the Referendum, thus amended the 1937 Constitution and redefined who belongs to the Irish nation. All nation-states produce rules for admittance into the extended national family of citizens. These citizens exercise rights and bear responsibilities in relation to that nation-state. Typically, membership of the nation is accessible via four routes: birthplace within national territory; ancestry comprised of citizens; marriage to a citizen; and/or completion of an administrative process enabling an individual to transfer citizenship from one country to another (or to add citizenship of one nation to that of another without replacing the former). These rules, and the weight they have vis-à-vis one another are often modified through law, and the amendment made to citizenship law in Ireland in 2004 is the focus of this chapter. Since the French Revolution, there have been two broad traditions of citizenship criteria: one based on bloodlines (the legal principle of ius sanguinis); and one based on the concept of a civic nation bound by allegiance to a set of ideas and qualified through birth within the nation-state regardless of bloodlines (ius soli). Although France (ius soli) and Germany (ius sanguinis) are often presented as the paradigmatic examples of each framing, this is rather a misleading opposition. By the end of the twentieth century, both countries recog­ nised elements of both principles (plus the other two criteria listed above) in a qualified form. Furthermore, the nations that grant unqualified ius soli citizen-

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ship are almost exclusively in the Americas. Virtually all nations there (mainly republics) ­recognise unqualified ius soli, while virtually no others do. Prior to the 2005 act, Ireland was the last European country still to recognise it. Other countries such as Australia and New Zealand have followed a pattern of amending laws to restrict the right to access citizenship, ostensibly to discourage people from strategically having children to procure citizenship. Ireland’s constitutional amendment sought to perform exactly this function and thus can be seen as part of a global trend toward adjusting citizenship rules to filter out unwanted intruders. For many, this seems a practical, fair and objective way to manage the nation’s membership. However, by examining the Irish case more critically, we can analyse what this entails in terms of assumptions about ­belonging, and demonstrate that gaining membership of the nation thus becomes predicated on a set of unequally distributed obstacles that benefit some and disadvantage others. The 1922 Constitution’s temporary establishment of the parameters of citizenship stated that those born in the North of Ireland before December 1922 were included as Irish citizens. The Irish Nationality and Citizenship Act (1935) granted citizenship to all people born on the territory of the Irish Free State. The 2001 Citizenship Act extended entitlement to citizenship to all people born on the island of Ireland, an adjustment that was made as part of the peace process following the 1998 Good Friday Agreement. However, after the Citizenship Act (2005), this only applied to Irish-born children who could count at least one Irish national as a parent. If the child had no Irish parents, there was no longer any entitlement to citizenship unless the parents could prove three years’ legal settlement in Ireland (excluding time spent awaiting the outcome of an application for refugee status). This chapter is interested in Ireland’s shift in emphasis regarding the meaning of citizenship and how it was expressed in the specific wording of the Constitution and in wider discourses of national identity and civil rights. Going beyond that, however, it considers the ways by which the Referendum campaign (March–June 2004) and its associated discourses produced Irishness as a combination of characteristics unobtainable by people outside the diaspora. In order to grasp the breadth of the issues involved, we need an introduction to the key concepts that inform them: citizenship, ‘race’ and racialisation, and the state. After discussing those concepts, I suggest that the Citizenship Act (2005) racialised Irish nationality: i.e. it gave primary preference to bloodlines as its principal criterion for belonging, thus dividing Irish children into two categories with differential access to the rights and responsibilities accruing to citizens, Irish children and ‘Irish-born children’ (‘IBC’).1 If the new citizenship rules were racialised, so too were the discourses surrounding the amendment campaign; and if those discourses were racialised, they were also gendered. Significantly, the Referendum campaign framed pregnant female bodies as objects of resentment, thus focusing differently on the roles of men and women in the

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obtaining of citizenship. Finally, it is noted that while the state is extremely significant in reshaping these rules, states act within broader contexts such as, in this case, the EU and the peace process.

Citizenship There is a vast scholarship on citizenship produced from different perspectives and focused on a variety of angles, such as the division of active citizenship into categories of rights (civil, political and social) (Marshall, 1950); transnational citizenship (Soysal, 1994); and different regimes of rights and meanings of citizenship (Benhabib, 2004). While there is critical engagement regarding the second-class status of women (Pateman, 1988) and ethnic minorities (Young, 1990), and the challenges of multicultural citizenship regimes (Kymlicka, 1995), there is relatively little on the acquisition of citizenship, and how the status of non-citizen impacts people’s lives. As most scholarship starts by focusing on the period after acquisition, and studies citizens’ differential access to resources, it is in many ways trapped by its own borders; the authority of the nation-state extends only to its borders, and the citizens’ rights and responsibilities also end there (Cole, 2000). The gulf between citizens and non-citizens, or ‘denizens’ (Cohen, 1989), in terms of rights is acknowledged as a potential outcome, but not often problematised as a process. In other words, people occupying the ‘inbetween’ status of ‘legal resident but foreign national’, pass under the scrutiny of researchers only when they originally cross the border (as migrants), and/or when they become citizens. This chapter looks at precisely that process of differentiation, and for this we need other conceptual tools. Existing research into citizenship acquisition processes from the applicant’s perspective is minimal (Jones, 2014), but indicates that paths to citizenship are marked by tense and conflictual relationships between officials and applicants. Apparently transparent rules and procedures are often actually experienced as arbitrary and humiliating: requiring applicants to present themselves in ways that subject them to the judgment of individual officials. In terms of our focus on the Referendum we need to clarify that the object was to alter the process of becoming a citizen, and not to alter rights and responsibilities for people who have already acquired citizenship. Since the Referendum was about the threshold of membership of the nation and the process of crossing it, we now turn to the topic of national identity, and its intersections with ‘race’ and racialisation: these concepts are significant for understanding how specific forms of collective belonging have been developed. ‘Race’ and racialisation ‘Race’ has been discredited as a scientific concept since the 1950s (Garner, 2010) and is now understood as a ‘social construct’, i.e. a flexible set of ideas com-

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prised of our collective interpretations. ‘Race’, a social fiction, is to be contrasted with racism, which is an empirically observable and measurable set of discriminations. So we need to establish a level of complexity outside of common-sense understandings of ‘race’ being purely a physical property, or alternatively, only a cultural one (Garner, 2010). ‘Race’ has always been about the overlap of physical and cultural distinctions that people interpret in particular hierarchical ways. Far from being an empirical and scientific baseline from which to discuss beha­ viour and collective destinies, ‘race’ is a socially constructed set of ideas varying in meaning from one historical and geographical location to the next (Garner, 2010). For example, immigrants in Europe have been viewed as problematic across time. Legislation has been passed outlawing their practices, and ideas have been constructed explaining their behaviour. These ideas have been based on binaries such as dirt and cleanliness or backwardness and civilisation, and attachment to different religious ideas. Often, immigrants are seen as not fitting in to local cultures; working for lesser rates of pay than local workers; lowering the quality of neighbourhoods they live in; taking over specific areas of towns and turning them into foreign spaces, etc. These ideas are frequently utilised to make sense of contexts in which indigenous people and immigrants compete for resources, and the former are seeking ways to understand the social changes going on around them. Using racialisation as our key concept means that discrimination toward white European groups, such as Poles, Irish and Gypsy-Travellers, can also be thought of as racialised. Therefore white and non-white immigrant groups are not treated differently in this regard. For example, in the case of the Referendum and Citizenship Act (2005), the children of both white (non-EU) Euro­ peans, and those of people of colour from outside the EU end up disadvantaged vis-à-vis the Irish diaspora. Clearly any group (national or religious) can be racialised, i.e. made discursively into a ‘race’, in a given context. ‘Black’ people; Poles, asylum-seekers, Muslims and ‘Asians’, for example, are racialised in contemporary British discourses, yet each ‘group’ is objectively a diverse body of people, and some, even according to nineteenth-century versions of ‘race’, are clearly multiracial. Turning groups into ‘races’, even temporarily, is therefore a social process specific to time and place. An analysis of racialisation entails a focus on the ‘how’ and ‘why’ this happens, but we also have to ask who is doing the racialising and by what means is it being accomplished. Racialisation can be a consequence of everyday institutional operations, an intrinsic feature of the modern state’s functions of classification, biopolitics, and governance, as Goldberg, Foucault and others argue (see below). In each case, ‘race’ becomes a salient factor in the way that social resources are allocated. Here, the resource is citizenship of a European nation, with all the relative material advantages that brings: potential for higher educational attainment, income, life expectancy and access to a range of welfare benefits. Significantly,

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racialisation can, either implicitly or explicitly, be a strategy for drawing a line around one’s own group, to be used as the basis for anti-racist campaigning (e.g. the US Black Power movement), or alternatively to exclude others from joining a dominant group. The Referendum and ensuing Act can be considered examples of the latter. All immigration policies use classificatory methods that distinguish between problematic and unproblematic bodies, imposing more conditions on the ­latter’s entry into national territory and thus rendering all regimes racialised in some form or another. The world’s first immigration laws per se (in Canada and the USA in the 1880s) were clearly racist, explicitly banning Chinese workers from entering national territory or singling them out for the payment of fees in order to access territory. Prior to these pieces of legislation, Chinese immigrants had been blamed for stealing employment from and corrupting the morals of their North American hosts, through various practices including prostitution and opium smoking. By the twenty-first century, nations do not have outright bans on immigrants from any one country or other, nor are there explicit exclusions of people by racial group. Indeed, all EU nations are required to have equality legislation outlawing racial discrimination and providing redress to its victims. So when we talk about racialising social policy (including laws on citizenship, immigration and asylum, for example) in this context, we refer instead to de facto selection processes carried out through various visa schemes. They indirectly restrict documented flows from particular regions of the world (van Hotum, 2013) and are especially stringent and exclusionary for nationals of developing-world countries. Most importantly, we should also focus on the other side of the equation: although we can conceptualise discrimination in terms of who is discriminated against, who is actually advantaged by such patterns of discrimination is less frequently asserted. Selection processes implicitly benefit those not excluded or those who do not have so many obstacles placed in front of them. In relation to the Referendum we see this very clearly. Under the Citizenship Act (2001) all children born anywhere on the island of Ireland or with an Irish grand­ parent could access Irish citizenship automatically. There was no legal exclusion of any group. The Citizenship Act (2005) restricted this access to children with at least one Irish parent. So children who had previously been able to access citizenship, but whose parents are not Irish nationals, are now barred from this access (unless the parents have also completed the residence qualification). Meanwhile, foreign nationals living abroad, but who have an Irish grandparent, are unaffected. The new Act thus introduces advantage and disadvantage where there was none before. When bloodlines are used as a criterion for inclusion and exclusion, we are dealing with the racialisation of social relationships. Lastly, identifying a policy as ‘racialising’ does not exhaust its meanings. Policy does not have to be formulated in racial terms for its outcomes to be ra-

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cialised. If it did, only a few contexts, such as empire, slavery, Nazi Germany, the segregated Southern States of the USA, Apartheid South Africa, for example, could ever produce racism in this way. Instead, access to a resource or liability for punishment, for example, is governed by criteria that indirectly generate groups of winners and losers in a racialised way. Moreover, policy can combine multiple forms of de facto exclusion: ‘race’, class, religion. For example, the UK’s 1905 Aliens Act was directed at stemming the flow of East European Jews into Britain. The final draft of the law stipulated that immigration officials had the right to prevent disembarkation of passengers who had paid for the cheapest passage and could not show proof of funds to support themselves once in the country. The Act therefore targeted poorer East European Jews, excluding them on the basis of ‘race’, religion and class.

The role of the state in racialisation The state is therefore no neutral arbiter in the production of national membership but is, in fact, the decisive agent: it frames and enforces legislation; it encourages particular versions of national identification and discourages others; it controls a wide variety of resources ranging from employment, social security, through education and policing to control of borders; and it holds the monopoly of violence (Weber, 1919), the right to assert violence against citizens within its borders. Despite scholarly interest in state power, and how it assumes classed and gendered forms (e.g. Pateman, 1988; Scott, 1994), discussion of how the state racialises its populations has been very limited. For Erich Voegelin (1933), the ‘race’ idea was key to defining the nation as unique, and then in convincing people to identify with a territory controlled by a state. States run things according to a vision of the type of people they govern. With rational forms of governance and bureaucracy emerging in the nineteenth century, the political orders on which such biologically fuelled nations were constructed could not easily tolerate different forms of body. David Goldberg (2000) argues in his conceptualisation of the ‘racial state’, that state powers are exercised in a particular context. After 500 years of European imperial expansion, the foundation of new states based on unfree labour regimes, land appropriation and the accompanying establishment of ideas that ‘race’ is a natural part of the social world that explains existing social hierarchies, the exercise of the state’s powers cannot fail to be racialised (based on the idea that white Europeans are more valuable than others). A similar logic, he suggests, is used within the nation to pathologise class and gender differences, and in reference to relations between colonising and colonised people. There biological differences between the dominant and dominated groups become represented as social reflections of the natural order. Michel Foucault (2003) also maintains that the state organises resources

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along racial lines. What emerges from his exploration of ‘state racism’ is the idea that the distinction between those who belong to the state and those who do not is determined along biological lines. The state generates and sustains a ‘race war’ in which a variety of techniques are deployed (biopower) to manage resources in such a way as to preserve the members of the nation from the threats posed by that portion of the population that is not, biologically speaking, the nation. The title of his lecture series, ‘Society Must Be Defended’, refers to the associated justification offered by the state: defending the biologically defined nation against threats from internal and external foes. As we see from the narrative of events surrounding the Referendum, the Irish state framed its call for a constitutional amendment as a way to defend the Irish nation from interlopers, who were represented as absorbing state resources and preventing bona fide members from accessing services, especially maternity services. Yet this is a study of a citizenship referendum taking place in a country with an existing set of legal instruments identifying racist behaviour as a crime; a country that allows for special tribunals to determine cases of racism and a state-funded body, the Equality Authority, to monitor the implementation of legislation (see also Chapter 11). Ireland, like the other nations that have such arrangements, can claim to be pursuing antiracist policies. Simultaneously, however, a variety of functions of state – to do with immigration and justice, people’s experiences of policing (Carr and Haynes, 2013), legislation criminalising Travellers’ nomadic lifestyles (Garner, 2003) and the immigration regime (Lenin and McVeigh, 2006), for example – are racialised. Anti-racist legislation does not nullify racialised practices in all spheres but continues alongside them.

The specifics of the Irish case Historical background Although it has been suggested that a fruitful way to understand the Referendum is through frames that are not specific to Ireland, as usual there are some important elements of the narrative that make this case distinctive. Ireland is not a country of immigration like many states in the Americas that have ius soli citizenship laws; nevertheless, for every year in the crucial decade 1996– 2007, the number of immigrants (including asylum-seekers) exceeded that of ­emigrants, and this is part of the story. Moreover, the special attention paid to children and the family in the 1937 Constitution focuses us on the specific forms of rights attached to citizenship in the Irish regime. In December 1989, the Supreme Court’s ‘Fajujonu Ruling’ established a pre­cedent for non-nationals to obtain the right of residence through having children born in Ireland. The Supreme Court judges agreed that children are entitled to the ‘company and protection’ of their family (as set out in Articles 41 and 42 of the Constitution). This explicit detailing of the link between nation

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and family is very specific to Ireland. The rules surrounding citizenship were not fundamentally altered until after the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, which led to a series of constitutional adjust­ ments, north and south of the border. As a quid pro quo for the Irish government formally relinquishing designs on the whole territory of Ireland, by amending Articles 1 and 2 of the Constitution, Northern nationalists obtained a geographical extension of the compass of Irish nationality. The subsequent Citizenship Act (2001) granted them Irish nationality directly, even if they had hitherto only been able to claim nationality through a grandparent born before 1922. By 2003, this act, and the Fajujonu precedent, had established the para­ meters for who can be a member of the nation (all children born on the island of Ireland), and who can claim residence (people who are not Irish nationals, but whose children are Irish nationals). Numbers and media The background to the Referendum is the rapid transformation of Ireland from a country of emigration to a country of immigration in the period 1996–2007. The 2002 Census identified 5.8 per cent of the population as being foreignborn; by the 2011 Census, this figure had risen to 12 per cent. It is not merely the number of immigrants that caused the country’s population to rise to an estimated 4.23 million, its highest figure since the Famine. Emigration fell steadily between 1996 and 2006, while the excess of births over deaths grew rapidly (CSO, 2006). Indeed overall immigration, as well as asylum applications, peaked in 2002 (as elsewhere in Europe). A substantial proportion of the immigrant population in the late 1990s comprised ‘returning emigrants’, i.e. Irish nationals returning after living abroad. This group made up more than half of all immigrants in the 1990s, and in 2004 comprised 34 per cent, while another 36 per cent were either EU nationals or US nationals. As of 2004, only 30 per cent of the total number of immigrants came from outside the EU. In terms of labour migrants, trends can be measured imperfectly by reference to the numbers of work permits issued (only non-EU nationals require one). Until the late 1990s, US nationals were the largest group receiving permits, yet just prior to the accession of the ten new states to the EU in May 2004, the majority of Irish work-permit holders came from Central and Eastern Europe. The number of permits issued reached a peak in 2002, when 47,000 were granted. Indeed, the accession to the EU of those countries that provided the majority of workers prior to 2004 was a significant factor in the number of permits issued dropping to 27,136 in 2005. As EU nationals, those workers no longer required work permits. By 2005, nationals of the Philippines, the United Arab Emirates, Romania, India and South Africa were those receiving the highest number of permits (Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment, n.d.). Moreover, the number of work permits issued largely exceeded that of asylum applica-

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tions, except in 1999. Nonetheless, much of the focus of government and media commentary was on the latter. Rising rapidly from a very low base of less than 50 per annum in the early 1990s, the number of asylum applications peaked at 11,634 in 2002, before falling to less than 4,500 in 2005. The largest single group within these figures were Nigerians, followed by Romanians, yet the proportion of applicants from ‘Other sources’ has always been higher than that from any particular nation. War-stricken areas of Central and Eastern Africa, and the Middle East are represented in the Irish figures, as they are elsewhere. By the time the Referendum took place, work permits issued outnumbered asylum applications by a ratio of around 5:1. Moreover, the largest ‘ethnic minority’ in the Republic today, strictly speaking, is ‘UK nationals’ and this has been the case at least since 1996. So when we examine the debates on immigration in 2004, we need to bear in mind that waves of immigration had already peaked in 2002 and when we refer to ‘immigration’ in Ireland, only some groups of immigrants are being problematised in the discourse. Furthermore, the existence of racist ideas and practices considerably predates the arrival of asylum seekers and immigrants in the 1990s. This is clear from the practices of the British in Ireland, the longstanding presence of Travellers (McVeigh, 1992), Jews (Lentin, 2002), and previous waves of asylum seekers in the Republic (Fanning, 2002), and their experiences of exclusion. People arriving at the end of the twentieth century entered a space that had long been part of the colonial world in which populations are racialised and placed within hierarchies. The media’s contribution to the racialisation of immigration (NCCRI, 2003; Devereux and Breen, 2004) involved a prolonged focus on asylum-seekers, and on the costs and perceived threats of asylum. This combined with the amalgamation of people with various statuses (asylum seeker, work permit-holder, student, etc.) into an undifferentiated mass. The National Consultative Committee on Racism and Interculturalism (NCCRI, 2003:32) concludes that newspapers engaged in ‘irresponsible, sensationalist and unbalanced reporting’. Ways in which media representations enable the spread of racist ideas include disproportionately negative coverage of asylum and immigration, as well as basing reports on sources that never include minority groups, who have little power to produce and circulate their own representations. Metro Éireann newspaper, set up by Nigerian journalists, Chinedu Onyejelem and Abel Ugba, has provided a platform for alternative critical viewpoints about migration, racism and integration since 2000. Yet initiatives such as this struggle in the context of a much more powerful mainstream media where the majority draw the material with which they form opinions (see also Chapter 2). All the attitudinal surveys (of both Irish public and minorities) from the 1970s to the 1990s (Mc Gréil, 1996) indicate ever-increasing levels of antipathy, and its targeting of Roma, Black people and Muslims, as well as the strain of underlying anti-semitism and anti-Traveller racism (Garner, 2003). While attitu-

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dinal surveys provide only a broad indicator of what people think, their results correlate with the experiences of minorities as expressed in their testimonies to journalists, to researchers (Amnesty International, 2001; Citizen Traveller, 2000), and to the NCCRI (2001–8), a semi-state body, which logged reported racist incidents from 2001 to 2008. The Referendum thus took place after eight years of increasing public discussion of Ireland’s rapid, yet largely negatively perceived, social change resulting from migration. The ‘yes’ campaign and its four main arguments The Referendum’s timing was significant and was in part due to the particular agenda of the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, Michael McDowell. Ironically, as the solicitor defending Fajujonu in 1989 he had helped set existing parameters of citizenship: as Minister he would reconstruct them. At stake for the Irish government was its power to exert control over access to resources and the right to remove bodies from national territory. Three asylumseekers (one Nigerian national and a Czech couple), who had children born in Ireland, had challenged their deportation from Ireland on the grounds of Fajujonu. The Minister challenged the ‘Fajujonu ruling’ in both cases, heard in the Supreme Court in January 2003. By a 5­–2 decision, the Court ruled in favour of the Minister, nullifying the Fajujonu precedent. Parents without Irish nationality who had Irish children could no longer be guaranteed residence. By January 2003, around 10,000 people had successfully lodged claims for residence on the basis of having what the Department of Justice had referred to as ‘Irish-born children’, with thousands of other claims awaiting decisions. The successful case enabled the Minister to announce a referendum on the Constitution’s articles on citizenship, and by doing so in March 2004, he gave the minimum statutory notice required. The objective of the amendment sought by the Minister was to introduce a distinction into the category of Irish children: between those with Irish parents and those without. Since other EU and European Economic Area (EEA) nationals already enjoy the right to residence and employment in Ireland, applying for residence through the route of having an Irish child was useful only for asylum-seekers and labour migrants from developing world nations. The long-term residence and employment rights subsequently acquired offer entitlement to some social welfare benefits and an increased possibility of international mobility. These represent major improvements in life chances for people fleeing repressive regimes and/or dire economic conditions. The Government’s justification for holding a referendum, and voting ‘yes’ was fourfold. 1 Increasing pressure had been placed on the Irish maternity system by an ‘influx’ of non-national women attempting to take advantage of ius soli. This so-called ‘citizenship tourism’ echoed the ‘pregnant pilgrims’ found

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in US discourses (Gutierrez, 2003). In March 2004, when announcing the Referendum, the Minister gave a figure of 60,000 births to non-national women in the previous year. 2 The EU required the harmonisation of citizenship laws. Ireland’s were represented as anomalous in that they granted automatic ius soli, which even France no longer did. 3 The current situation allowed people with no ‘authentic’ claim to Irishness to acquire residence and citizenship. The formula by which exclusion from authentic citizenship was expressed involved reference to ‘social and cultural links’. The definition given by the pro-‘yes’-vote Senator John Minihan (in Seanad Éireann, 2004) provides a synthesis: ‘[p]eople with no social, historic or cultural links to Ireland should not be able to freely confer Irish citizenship on their children. Those children currently born in Ireland will, in turn, be able to confer Irish citizenship on their own children and grandchildren even if they never reside in Ireland’. 4 Having ‘IBC’ was a ‘loophole’ which threatened the integrity of Ireland’s immigration system. The Minister argued that it enabled people to apply for refugee status without having to follow through their applications, because they would be granted residence under a different strand of Irish law (as set out in the Fajujonu ruling). The ‘no’ campaign Organised opposition to the Government’s ‘yes’ campaign proved ineffective and incoherent. In the Dáil, it was led by the Labour Party, the Green Party and Sinn Féin, although joint initiatives were scarce and the parties chose to emphasise different aspects of the amendment. Partly a predictable outcome of the minimal notice given and the fact that EU and local elections took place on the same day, thus stretching resources, it was also an indication of parties’ uneven engagement with the key issues. Socialist Teachta Dála (TD) Joe Higgins argued that the Referendum was a smokescreen for government incompetence (Socialist Party, 2004). Labour claimed throughout that the statistics being provided were unreliable (implying that better statistics would have earned their support). An official Sinn Féin (2004) press release summarised its argument: ‘[i]t is an attack on human rights and will introduce racism to the upcoming election campaign. It also involves a unilateral change to the Good Friday Agreement, something that has implications for the Agreement itself and has the potential to undermine efforts to rebuild the peace process’. The Greens’ ‘Just Citizenship’ campaign poster was a photograph of a message in the window of a house saying ‘No Irish, No Blacks, No Dogs’, and the slogan: ‘Remember This?’ (Irish Election Literature Blog, n.d). In a press release, Green Party TD Ciaran Cuffe (2004) stated:

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[a] No vote tells the Government that it is unacceptable to play the race card for electoral gains, unacceptable to breach agreed guidelines for holding referendums, unacceptable to present anecdotal evidence as fact the way Minister McDowell has done. A No vote is a vote to protect the Good Friday Agreement and a No vote recognises the positive contribution that immigrants make to Irish society.

So while individual politicians and the official party responses of the Greens and Sinn Féin referred to the Referendum as racist – in the Greens’ case linking it visually with historical anti-Irish racism – why the Referendum was racist was not explained. This may have had a polarising effect. For those who saw this as an unproblematic claim, no explanation was required: for those who remained to be convinced, accusations of racism were frequently read as ‘political correctness’. Vague charges of racism are also easily rebutted using circular logics such as Minister McDowell’s (2004) statement: the Government campaign in support of the proposal will not be racist because the proposal itself will not be in any way racist. I simply won’t allow the proposal to be hijacked by those who wish to further a racist agenda; but equally I will be harsh in my criticism of those on the other end of the political spectrum who claim to detect racism in any action, however rational, fair-minded or soundly based, that affects immigration or citizenship policy.

The extra-parliamentary ‘no’ campaign was similarly fragmented. The inaugural meeting of the Campaign Against a Racist Referendum (CARR) held a vote to keep the word ‘racist’ in its title (Indymedia Ireland, 2004). Despite its online presence, the CARR seems to have mobilised relatively few people in Dublin (Keating and McAnulty, 2004). It is not clear to what extent its membership overlapped with those of the various long-standing and effective grassroots organisations (Anti-Racism Campaign, Residents Against Racism, etc.), but clearly the mobilisation did not resonate with significant numbers of people. Staunchly middle-class liberal Dun Laoghaire rather than working-class Dublin produced the highest ‘no’-vote. Various NGOs such as the Irish Refugee Council and the Irish Council for Civil Liberties (ICCL) intervened in the run-up to the Referendum with publications and posters (Irish Election Literature Blog, n.d). The ICCL’s five arguments concisely summarised the ‘no’ campaign; the Referendum was rushed; no evidence of abuse of the system was provided; there is no EU requirement to standardise citizenship regimes; the constitutional change was a unilateral amendment to the Good Friday Agreement; and all children should be equal before the law. The 52 NGOs who a­ ttended the Irish Family Planning Association’s meeting on June 8 (Irish Family Planning Association, 2004), only three days before the poll, seem to have been virtually invisible in the campaign period. Of the various arguments marshalled against the Referendum, concerns

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about the absence of clear information on the relationship between the Constitution’s provision for citizenship and the Good Friday Agreement, and the NCCRI’s (2004) fears that people did not know what they were voting on in the first place, or why, were echoed by the Referendum Commission’s own report. It stated ‘there was widespread confusion among respondents as to what a ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ vote would mean’ (Referendum Commission, 2004:11). While some voters had the ‘yes’ and ‘no’ campaigns’ objectives the wrong way round, RTÉ’s exit poll on voting day showed a majority stating that they had voted against immigration: 36 per cent voted ‘yes’ because the country was being ‘exploited by immigrants’, 27 per cent voted ‘yes’ because there were ‘too many immigrants’ (Human Rights Commission, 2004:3, fn6). People appear to have made their own minds up about what was really at stake (restrictions on immigration), regardless of the arguments of either the ‘no’ or ‘yes’ campaigns. ‘Commonsense’ The ‘yes’ campaign urged people to ‘Vote Yes for Common Sense Citizenship’. Based on the arguments put forward by its advocates, the ‘commonsense’ frame asserted that Irishness (genetic, social and cultural) was properly understood as inherited, and unavailable to those without ‘Irish roots’; that the diminishing pot of national resources was already stretched; and that the state was merely protecting its citizens’ entitlement against encroachments by interlopers. Crowley et al. (2006:4) argue that ‘commonsense citizenship’ is deployed as an essentialising tool to define and draw a distinctive boundary between Irish citizens and (certain) immigrants, working to erase the fluid, relational and contested production of Irishness. Most social scientists share, to some extent, the belief that identities are not fixed but constructed, performed and unstable, whereas ‘commonsense citizenship’ posits a fixed, naturalised, ahistorical and stable version of national identity. These mutually exclusive departure points mean that a critique of the ‘yes’ campaign must deal with its arguments not only on their own terms but also by pointing out its distinctive framing of citizenship issues. Pregnant bodies The presentation of pregnant foreign women as threatening the resources that ought to be preserved for indigenous Irish mothers is particularly emotive. It has been established that women reproduce the nation (Yuval-Davis and Anthias, 1992) and motherhood is a particularly important function of patriotism. Heads of state have frequently appealed to women to have more children, and material incentives have been offered in a number of historical periods and geographical locations – from the USA in 1905, where President Theodore Roosevelt (1905) told the (white) National Congress of Mothers that the declining birth rate was leading to ‘race suicide’, through Nazi Germany’s system of

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financial incentives for Aryan women, to France (Camiscioli, 2009) and Israel’s (Berkovitch, 1997) pro-natalist policies, for example. Another strand of pronatalist social policy is to make abortion more difficult, and this is certainly the case in Ireland (Smyth, 2006). Moreover, Ireland’s population is the only one in Europe that is lower in the twenty-first century than it was in the midnineteenth century, and at the time of the Referendum the fertility rate had fallen (from 3.85 in 1970, the highest in Europe) to 1.89 in 2000, vis-à-vis the EU average of 1.48 in 2000. Objectively, these would be exactly the conditions in which an increase in population would be welcomed. However, the natalist logic is not in play in Ireland in 2004. Rather, the objective is to protect the existing membership by reference to bloodlines. This was also a gendered argument, focused on women’s role in reproduction. Only some kinds of bodies can reproduce ‘authentic’ Irishness, and the ‘social, cultural and historical ties’ evoked cannot easily be attained, even through birth on Irish soil, via these bodies. Yet Irishness can be acquired authentically by diaspora members through a grandparent’s birthplace. The necessary social and cultural ties remain unspecified rather than empirically observable (apart from bloodlines): civic links, or presence and growing up in Ireland are not recognised as routes to acquiring authenticity. Irishness emerges from the 2005 ­Citizenship Act as an idea that looks backwards in time and away from Ireland. It is a strategic shrinkage of symbolic territory to exclude people who have arrived in Ireland since it became a country of immigration in the second half of the 1990s.

Conclusion: what did the Referendum and the Citizenship Act do? The Referendum, the Citizenship Act (2005) and the surrounding discourse are vernacular elements of a set of global trends toward adjusting the rules pertaining to membership of the nation. At this time in human history movement across borders is at least very common, if not the norm. Approaching this movement as problematic per se is a basic element of immigration regimes, and their often poorly conceived linkages with citizenship laws. The set of events in Ireland can be viewed as an example of the state racialising membership of the nation, thus making ‘race’ an explicit part of policy-making; favouring one set of bloodlines over all others where previous legislation made no such distinction. The Referendum, the Act and the discourse thus accomplished four principal things: 1 They have created a distinction in the category of Irish children between Irish children and ‘IBC’ (with fewer rights attaching to the latter) that does not appear in the original Constitutional framing of Irish children, or in any other Citizenship Act prior to 2005.

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2 The idea of ‘social, cultural and historical ties’ has been deployed as a proxy of bloodlines. The path to citizenship available to members of the Irish diaspora who have a grandparent born in Ireland (but no other link) remains intact. Yet, children born in Ireland and who would grow up there are excluded from Irishness because their parents are adjudged to have no ‘social, cultural and historical ties’. Surely only a very narrow understanding of social ties would not count living (and even working) in Ireland as a social and cultural tie of some kind. The historical tie is more ­difficult to argue, as nobody has any control over the past, and ­‘historical’ seems here to denote ancestry. So, in practice, after the Citizenship Act (2005), people whose bloodlines run back to Ireland via Melbourne, Boston or ­Newfoundland, for example, are privileged in terms of citizenship ­acquisition vis-à-vis Irish children whose forebears come from places like ­Bucharest, Lagos or Manila. 3 Ireland has indeed been brought into line with other EU immigration and by extension, citizenship regimes that de facto valorise EU ­nationals over others. Immigration policy based on the Schengen Accords and the Common Travel Area2 revolves around a binary between EU and EEA ­nationals on one side (freedom of movement and settlement), and non-EU nationals (increased scrutiny, requirement to justify movement with ­available funds, etc. and little freedom of movement) on the other (Garner, 2007). For the latter group in Ireland, access to child’s citizenship now depends on the accumulation of three years’ residence (excluding waiting time during application for asylum), which in turn depends on having employment visas renewed. It is therefore, in practice, more ­difficult for a non-EU national to accrue residence in Ireland than for an EU national, and consequently, more difficult to be in a position where a child ­qualifies as an Irish child rather than an ‘IBC’. The outcome of the policy is to discriminate against the children of non-EU nationals. 4 The focus on non-national women has simultaneously racialised and gendered the problem of citizenship. During the period from the late 1990s that led up to the Referendum, an accumulation of erroneous reporting, rising hostility toward migrants and people of colour and popular discourse turned women’s pregnant bodies into embodiments of unfairness. Verbal and physical abuse experienced by pregnant women of colour (Lentin, 2003) results from the circulation of a number of ideas: that having children in Ireland grants citizenship to parents (which is not true; it grants residence); that these women were taking scarce resources away from genuine Irish nationals, rather than querying why these resources (maternity services) were scarce to begin with in the midst of an economic boom; and finally, the discourse around the Referendum raises the question of how we should make sense of who is Irish.

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I suggest that one of the functions of the Referendum and 2005 Citizenship Act was to focus hostility on the bodies of women of colour instead of the ­authorities for the cutbacks to maternity and other welfare budgets. This can be seen in the contrived and deliberately exaggerated statement made by Minister McDowell (2004) rationalising the changes: he stated that 60,000 children had been born to non-national women in the previous year and that the managers of the Dublin maternity hospitals had ‘begged’ him to intervene because women were arriving in the late stages of pregnancy with no medical notes. No figures are available for women who fall into both categories, and by far the majority of these births were to women with immigration status in Ireland. Although hospital managers later distanced themselves from McDowell’s campaign, saying that he had overstated their concerns, this message – that women of colour are coming to Ireland to procure citizenship for themselves and ‘we’ are paying for it – was readily understood in the context of hostility toward migrants, regardless of its veracity. RTÉ’s exit poll, suggesting that 60 per cent of Referendum voters had cast their votes out of concern about immigration (Human Rights Commission, 2004), probably underestimated the degree to which this connection was made. We might therefore suggest that the fractured and incoherent ‘no’ campaign was unable to shift public opinion substantially toward a more liberal interpretation of citizenship, not only because of focusing in too many directions but also, and principally, because the ‘commonsense’ frame imposed by the government and its supporters was more compelling for more people. Finally, the story of the Referendum and the 2005 Citizenship Act shows that despite some of the EU member-states’ sovereignty waning, they retain power to control citizenship, if not immigration, and can thus determine access to its associated resources and benefits. Immigrants in the dominant neo-liberal perspective (Roberts and Mahtani, 2010) are constructed as threatening economic stability. They perform specific functions with no necessary right to a longer-term existence: a judgement based on nationality and/or racialised identity rather than any criteria to do with their contribution. They are ideologically rendered undeserving of certain benefits (usually seen as the counterpart for contributions through work and paying into the economy) even if they are working and paying taxes. To access Irish citizenship after 2005, ancestry is the prime criterion. The basis of citizenship has shifted away from the republican civic model embodied by the 1937 Constitution and the 2001 Citizenship Act, where no distinctions were made within the category Irish children, to a racialised model in which the lines of belonging are redrawn according to bloodlines and ‘commonsense’ understandings of their relationship to the social, the cultural and the historical. In consequence, the Citizenship Act (2005) has reified the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century ideas that national identity is natural and immutable, and that nations are basically homogeneous families.

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Notes   1 I place the term ‘IBC’ in inverted commas throughout to indicate that it is a constructed category and de facto a negative evaluation. The outcome of the 2004 Referendum and ensuing 2005 Act demonstrate that its meaning is ‘Irish born, maybe, but not Irish per se’.   2 The Schengen Zone and the Common Travel Area (CTA) are European inter-governmental agreements organising rules and procedures for travel into and within them. As a general rule, no visas are required for EU nationals, whereas a considerable amount of documentation is required of non-EU nationals. As of July 2013 there were twenty-six members of the Schengen zone, while the CTA comprised the UK and the Republic of Ireland.

References Amnesty International (2001) Racism in Ireland: the Views of Black and Ethnic Minorities, Dublin: Amnesty International. Benhabib, S. (2004) The Rights of Others: Aliens, Residents, and Citizens, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Berkovitch, M. (1997) ‘Motherhood as a national mission: the construction of womanhood in the legal discourse in Israel’, Women’s Studies International Forum 20(5): 605–19. Camiscioli, E. (2009) Reproducing the French Race: Immigration, Intimacy, and Embodiment in the Early Twentieth Century, Durham: Duke University Press. Carr, J., and Haynes, A. (2013) ‘A clash of racialisations: the policing of “race” and of antiMuslim racism in Ireland’, Critical Sociology (doi 10.1177/0896920513492805) Citizen Traveller (2000) A Survey of Travellers, Dublin: Citizen Traveller. Cohen, R. (1989) ‘Citizens, denizens and helots: the politics of international migration flows in the post-war world’, Hitotsubashi Journal of Social Studies, 21: 153–65. Cole, P. (2000) Philosophies of Exclusion: Liberal Political Theory and Immigration, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Crowley, U., Gilmartin, M., and Kitchin, R. (2006) ‘Vote Yes for Common Sense Citizenship’: Immigration and the Paradoxes at the Heart of Ireland’s ‘Céad Míle Fáilte’, Maynooth: NIRSA/NUI Maynooth working paper 3. CSO (2006) Census 2006: Preliminary Report, Dublin: Central Statistics Office. Cuffe, C. (2004) ‘10 good reasons to vote No in Citizenship Referendum on June 11’ (accessed online 17 November 2013). Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment (n.d.) ‘Statistical tables and company listings for the employment permits section’, http://goo.gl/a4Yzdm (retrieved 17 November 2013). Devereux, E., and Breen, C. (2004) ‘No racists here? Public opinion, immigrants and the media’, in N. Collins and T. Cradden (eds) Political Issues in Ireland Today (3rd edn), Manchester: Manchester University Press, 168–88. Fanning, B. (2002) Racism and Social Change in the Republic of Ireland, Manchester: Manchester University Press. Foucault, M. (2003) Society Must Be Defended: Lectures Given at the Collège de France, 1976–77, London: Allen Lane. Garner, S. (2003) Racism in the Irish Experience, London: Pluto. Garner, S. (2007) ‘The European Union and the racialization of immigration, 1985–2006’, Race/Ethnicity: Multidisciplinary Global Contexts, 1(1): 61–87.

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Garner, S. (2010) Racisms, London: Sage. Goldberg, D. (2000) The Racial State, Boston: Blackwell. Gutierrez, C. (2003) ‘Policing “pregnant pilgrims”: situating the sterilization abuse of Mexican-origin women in Los Angeles County’, in G. Feldberg, M. Ladd-Taylor and A. Li (eds) Women, Health, and Nation: Canada and the United States since 1945, Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 379–403. Human Rights Commission (2004) Observations on the Proposed Draft Irish Nationality and Citizenship (Amendment) Bill 2004, Dublin: Human Rights Commission. Indymedia Ireland (2004) ‘Vote No to the racist Citizenship Referendum due on June 11 2004’, http://goo.gl/2wM08T (retrieved 17 November 2013). Irish Election Literature blog (n.d.): ‘Citizenship Referendum – there are so many reasons to vote No … what’s yours?’ Irish Council for Civil Liberties (April 1, 2004): http://goo. gl/4F0qE9 (retrieved 17 November 2013). Irish Family Planning Association (2004) ‘IFPA joins “Voices for a No Vote”’, www.ifpa.ie/ node/364 (retrieved 17 November 2013). Jones, G. (2014) ‘Biology, culture, “postcolonial citizenship” and the Dutch nation, 1945– 2007’, Thamyris/Intersecting, 27(16): 315–36. Keating, K., and McAnulty, J. (2004) ‘Dublin demonstration against the racist referendum – make-believe unity cuts no ice’, Socialist Democracy, 31 May. Kymlicka, W. (1995) Multicultural Citizenship: A Liberal Theory of Minority Rights, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Lentin, R. (2002) ‘“Whoever heard of an Irish Jew?” The intersection of “Irishness” and “Jewishness”’, in R. Lentin and R. McVeigh (eds) (2002) Racism and Antiracism in Ireland, Belfast: Beyond the Pale, 153–66. Lentin, R. (2003) ‘Pregnant silence: (en)gendering Ireland’s asylum space’, Patterns of Prejudice, 37(3): 301–22. Lentin, R., and McVeigh, R. (2006) After Optimism? Ireland, Racism and Globalisation, Dublin: Metro Éireann. Marshall, T. H. (1950) Citizenship and Social Class and Other Essays, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Mac Gréil, M. (1996) Prejudice in Ireland Revisited, Maynooth: St. Patrick’s College. McDowell, M. (2004) ‘Referendum on citizenship of new babies not racist’, Sunday Independent, 14 March. McVeigh, R. (1992) ‘The specificity of Irish racism’, Race and Class 33(4): 31–45. NCCRI/Equality Authority (2003) Case Study: Media Coverage of Refugee and Asylum Seekers in Ireland (RAXEN 3) (accessed online 17 November 2013). NCCRI (2001–8) Six-Monthly Racist Incident Reports: http://goo.gl/Ltpkil (retrieved 17 November 2013). NCCRI (2004) The Citizenship Referendum: Observations, Issues and Concerns, Advocacy Paper Series, No. 3, Dublin: NCCRI. Pateman, C. (1988) The Sexual Contract, Cambridge: Polity Press. Referendum Commission (2004) Report of the Referendum Commission on the Referendum on the Twenty-Seventh Amendment of the Constitution Bill 2004 (Irish Citizenship), Dublin: Referendum Commission. Roberts, D., and Mahtani, M. (2010) ‘Neoliberalizing race, racing neoliberalism: placing “race” in neoliberal discourses’, Antipode, 42(2): 248–57. Roosevelt, T. (1905) On Motherhood, Speech given on March 13, 1905, to the National Congress of Mothers, Washington DC.

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Scott, J. (1994) Poverty and Wealth: Citizenship, Deprivation and Privilege, Harlow: Longman. Seanad Éireann (2004) Twenty-seventh Amendment of the Constitution Bill 2004: Second Stage (Resumed), Seanad Éireann Debate, vol. 176, no. 9, 30 April. Sinn Féin (2004) ‘Sinn Féin will campaign against citizenship referendum’, www.sinnfein.ie/ contents/2026 (retrieved 17 November 2013). Smyth, L. (2006) Abortion and Nation: the Politics of Reproduction in Contemporary Ireland, Aldershot: Ashgate. Socialist Party (2004) ‘Joe Higgins condemns Citizenship Referendum’, www.socialistworld. net/doc/1208 (retrieved 17 November 2013). Soysal, Y. (1994) Limits of Citizenship: Migrants and Postnational Membership in Europe, Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. van Hotum, H. (2013) ‘Human blacklisting: the global apartheid of the EU’s external border regime’, in F. W. Twine and B. Gardener (eds) Geographies of Privilege, New York: Routledge, 161– 87. Voegelin, E. (1933) Rasse und Staat, Tübingen: JCB Mohr. Weber, M. (1919) ‘Politics as a vocation’, in H. H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills (eds) (1958) From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology, New York: Oxford University Press, 77–128. Young, I. (1990) Justice and the Politics of Difference Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Yuval-Davis, N., and Anthias, F. (1992) Racialized Boundaries: Race, Nation, Gender, Colour and Class and Anti-racist Struggle, London: Routledge.

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‘The centre of everything’: Ireland at the Dundrum Town Centre Denis Linehan

I used to drive a beamer, boys, upholstered plush and deep, For to drive the kids to ballet class, the au pair had a jeep, The Missus had an SUV, a vehicle meant for the sticks, For to drive to the mall at Dundrum, me boys, for a latte and Harvey Nix Joseph O’Connor

Introduction Grandiose, linear and deep, Dundrum Town Centre – Ireland’s premier shopping mall – is like a giant luxury ocean liner beached up in the suburbs of South County Dublin. When the mall opened in March 2005, it was greeted by a wave of commentary. For some, it was a fitting addition to the global aspirations of boom-time Dubliners, providing access to the fashion and lifestyle now appropriate for their new success and ideals. But for all the celebration, there was also unease. Dundrum Town Centre became the focus of wider debates about the state of Irish identity as a consequence of change brought by the boom. A few largely marginalised but critical voices also queried what vision of the city it represented. This chapter pursues the idea that Dundrum Town Centre embodied a new set of urban conditions, which were expressed widely and with dramatic effects throughout Ireland during the time known as the ‘Celtic Tiger’, and whose legacies still shape and, in some cases, haunt the urban landscape (O’Callaghan, 2012). The processes underwriting these conditions are to be found in the mall’s built-form and its histories – notably, the business and politics of its development, its reception and the social practices that revolve around it. A close reading of the spatial strategies deployed at the mall – particularly its development, architecture and design – unmasks these processes. Understanding how the site was assembled, designed and envisioned is key to unwrapping the way in which it was represented as a progressive example of

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urban regeneration, and the way in which anxiety about the social transformations in Dublin which it invoked were negotiated and sometimes effaced. In this way, the place-making strategies of Dundrum offer what Guy Debord (2004:26) referred to as ‘the existing order’s uninterrupted discourse about itself, its laudatory monologue’. Though the immediate response to the mall’s opening may suggest that was ‘the event’, the stage-managed occasion serves only to distract from the fact that its launch was enmeshed in new relationships to the city, its politics, its money and its culture. While there is an extensive critical literature on Dublin dealing with the transformation of urban life and its intersection with contemporary capitalism (Corcoran 2012; Moore, 2008; Negra, 2010; Punch, 2006; Slattery 2008), there is a pervasive view about consumption in Ireland that often serves to cloud critical commentary on these processes. In short, this relates to the ‘we all partied’ narrative, a neo-liberal discourse that offers responsibilisation as one of the key modes through which rising consumption and, more generally, social and economic change can be explained (Meade, 2011; Thompson, 2009). In this discourse, the form that society takes is regarded foremost as a reflection of individual behaviour and values. David Lynch (2010:152) argued ‘Dundrum Town Centre was visible proof that midway through the new millennium’s first decade, the prosperous Irish themselves had begun to change. And as they did, healthy economic growth was morphing into speculative excess’. Or, for the ­sociologist Tom Inglis (2009:21), ‘the reality is that Irish people do not just want to consume, but love to do so’. He adds: It may have been the capitalist entrepreneurs who built the Dundrum town center, but it was consumers who wanted if not demanded it. …We have been swept into a hyper active, new world of getting and spending, and of being constantly stimulated and entertained. Irish people see and understand themselves less in terms of their ethnicity, nationality and religion and more in terms of personal tastes, identities and lifestyles. (Inglis, 2009:21–2)

It is clear, however, that individualising social change and reducing explanation about shifts in consumption to a question of values and identity distract from questions about the urban condition and its structure. No more than the tooth fairies, ‘the consumer’ – which must be remembered is also a fictional social category – did not wish Dundrum into being. Rather, its creation lies at the heart of an entirely transformed urban condition, governed by capitalist ­relations and shaped by the direct involvement of a range of professions and disciplines, which draw upon deeply embedded models of development (see also Chapter 3) and new opportunities created by neo-liberalism to create wealth in the context of the globalisation of retail businesses and the financialisation of urban space (Brenner and Theodore, 2002). Drawing on Foucault, Georgio Agamben (2009) has referred to this assemblage as an apparatus, which in the case of Dundrum and the copies and clones of mall-space it mirrors worldwide,

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involve developers, bankers, investors, architects, lawyers, planners, politicians, designers, public relations companies, advertising agencies, brand managers and so on (see Chung, Inaba and Koolhaas, 2002). To grasp why and how these elements might intersect, Frederic Jameson has recently re-animated the long-neglected Marxist view that capitalism operates as a totality. He observes that: the central formal problem of Capital Volume I is the problem of representation: namely how to construct a totality out of individual elements, historical processes, and perspectives of all kinds; and indeed how to do justice to a totality which is not only non-empirical as a system of relationships, but which is also in full movement, in expansion, in a movement of totalization which is essential to its very existence and at the heart of its peculiar economic nature. (Jameson, 2010:5)

Through the systems and passages enabled through globalisation, this ­totality finds expression in places like this mall at Dundrum, where the various ­elements of its apparatus are brought together and anchored in localities. At sites like these, capitalism is revealed as multifaceted and interconnected, and not only expansive in terms of the creation of new capitalist spaces – such as malls, apartment blocks and privately owned bridges and motorways – but also ­relentless in social intensity, appropriating more and more elements of life itself (Agamben, 2009). The urban condition which brings Dundrum Town Centre into being, and which sustains it as an economic and cultural force, is produced through an assemblage of elements, actors and processes, some of which can be revealed as the engines of the neo-liberal city.

A mall in the making Dundrum Town Centre is located in South County Dublin, in the established suburb from which it takes its name. Coming in at just over 100,000 square metres, the construction of the mall was amongst the largest private developments to occur in Dublin during the boom. It cost half a billion euros to construct. There are about 120 shops – including global retailers such as House of Fraser, Harvey Nichols, Hamleys, Hollister, Massimo Dutti, Hugo Boss and Gant – dozens of restaurants, a large cinema complex, a theatre and numerous other services, offices and apartments. Employment at the mall, at peak times, rises to about 6,000 people. It generates over €100 million in Value Added Tax annually. The mall is spread over 6.88 hectares, confined by a bypass on one side and a tram line on the other. In contrast to the general type of shopping mall built in Ireland in the two decades before Dundrum’s construction, Dundrum is a dense, confined structure, almost a kilometre long. Given its size, it is not entirely surprising that in 1999, the first designs for the mall were rejected by the national planning agency, An Bord Pleanála. The monolithic character of the development, particularly in the main building was considered a major

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problem. The board also found plans to demolish an old mill pond and mill house unacceptable. It also criticised the excessive level of separation and difference between the mall and the existing high street in Dundrum. To address these criticisms, the second iteration of the plans for the mall broke up its bulk by creating a series of buildings, interlinked by walkways and open spaces. The new design also attempted to integrate the mall with the existing high street. The criticism of the height and mass of the original planned building encouraged deep excavations to build ‘downward’, creating extensive basements and vast underground parking areas. The impacts of this version of the mall on the neighbourhood and its influence on the retail environment of Dublin, measured on every scale, are substantial. It was the complete transformation of Dundrum, its vistas and townscape that mark the development as so profound. For the architectural critic, Shane O’Toole (2006), this dramatic transformation was ultimately negative, observing that the mall ‘is a self-referential walled city, cut off from the devastated heart of Dundrum village by a moat of traffic’. In a similar vein, Merriman (2005:47) complained: ‘[the] new centre will effectively obliterate existing trade in Dundrum village, and it’s … of the sort of culturally impoverished Ireland that names a multinational focused shopping mall, that could be plonked down anywhere in the developed world, a town centre’. One contributor to Indymedia Ireland (2005), reflecting concerns about how the mall represented the growing privatisation of public space, condemned the site as it ‘appeared to occupy the landscape, dislocate and redefine the geography of Dundrum’. Yet, criticism from the local community was relatively low-key. At the mall’s opening, Dundrum News (2005:1) the local newspaper, reported that older residents were disturbed by the changes: ‘they feel that they are losing their village, so the atmosphere in the last couple of weeks has become very depressing. Every­ body’s been saying it’s just like a ghost town’. Another observed, ‘[w]e had a lovely village to begin with but now it’s going to be a town, it’s totally different’ (Dundrum News, 2005:1). A series of polite, if not wholly bourgeois, letters to the Irish Times measure up to the same thing. One man complained about the impact the mall would have on his local bookshop. However, none of this adds up to the level of protest found in classic land-use conflicts, where urban communities have engaged in long and often frustrating conflicts, often against forms of capitalist regeneration which ultimately destroy their neighbourhoods and habitats. For Henri Lefebvre (1991), these struggles over the use of urban space are critical; he grasped how urbanisation itself was becoming one of the driving forces of contemporary capitalism and unless challenged, would drive out older, traditional and alternative modes of living, neighbourhood after neighbourhood. But there was an absence of struggle at Dundrum. There were no street protests, no sit-ins, no political campaigns, and not even any substantial evidence of NIMBYism. There was just one objection to the final planning

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application made in 1999. This is in stark contrast to protests about regeneration initiatives in inner-city Dublin during the boom, such as at Spenser Dock in the docklands, or at St Michael’s Estate, subject to plans for redevelopment on a public–private partnership basis (Bissett, 2008). Though the community in Dundrum did voice more concerns regarding an extension to the mall in 2008, this consensus about the regeneration of the mall when it was originally proposed is immensely revealing. For the geographer Neil Smith, consensus of this nature is underscored by a number of processes, not least of which is the understanding that conflating the redevelopment of the city with ideas of regeneration, which emphasised private enterprise over public benefit, represented a ‘considerable ideological victory for neo-liberal visions of the city’ (Smith 1996:99). It can be said then, given the consensus around what constituted regeneration, at the time of its opening, the protests about Dundrum were more dispersed, non-territorial and focused around broader identity issues. While these elements of the reception of the mall are interesting in terms of the insights they offer on cultural values, they cannot be relied upon to offer an effective critical insight into the political and economic processes that had remade this neighbourhood and were more generally transforming Dublin. When the mall opened the negative reactions reflected a heightened sensitivity to the direction of the new social identities being produced by the boom. Most of the protests came from often conservative elements of Irish society. Some mobilised facile and unsubstantiated ideas about ‘consumers’ whilst others ­deployed vague criticism drawing variously upon nationalism and nostalgia to comment on urban change. For this group, shopping appeared to represent the contradictions of increased prosperity and the loss of community and broader dislocations. This lament is well represented by the poet, Eavan Boland, whose work celebrates the world of Dundrum, its domesticity, it habitudes and landscape. Like other commentators, in her poem ‘Re-Reading Oliver Goldsmith’s “Deserted Village” in a Changed Ireland’ (2011) – she was struck by the apparent soullessness of the site, its dislocation from memory and its distance from belonging: In a spring dusk I walk to the Town Centre, I stand listening to a small river, Closed in and weeping. Everyone leaving in the dusk with a single bag, The way souls are said to enter the underworld With one belonging. And no one remembering.

Boland’s position lines up with the underlying intentions of many memoirs of Dublin that rolled into publication during the Celtic Tiger period. Kincaid (2006:204) argues that these ‘remember a city of an earlier time, particularly in a nostalgic way, to lodge a protest about the current wave of “creative ­destruction”

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taking place in the capital’. In the same poem, Boland writes that it is ‘Hard to know which variant / Of our country this is’. The illegibility of the landscape and her sense of estrangement, the breakdown of what the architect Kevin Lynch (1960:2) observed as ‘the mental image of the city which is held by its citizens’, is revealing. In a culture where memories of the city’s urban fabric are central to both place and self-identity, sentiments evoking feelings of dis­location are typical of the rhetoric of loss embedded in these concerns about urban transformation. This seems to be perfectly legitimate, but as much as a journey to Hades is a one-way trip, it is quite limiting in terms of addressing how and why such transformations happen. As much as ‘Nostalgia is a sentiment of loss and displacement’, observed Svetlana Boym (2002:8), ‘it is also a romance with one’s own fantasy’. In other commentary, the urban development of Dublin and the consumer behaviours of Dubliners produce a sense from some conservative writers that they were losing their social power and position. O’Brien (2008:392) complained about the so-called ‘breakfast roll man’ who was now taking over Ireland and ‘students with lunches of lattes and wraps (whatever happened to tea and sandwiches?) or the handbags for 2,000 euro for sale in Dundrum Shopping Centre’. Other observers plying this identity seam raised nationalist tropes, as if this was enough to explain the basis for transformation. The novelist Anne Enright (2006) took to the pages of Irish Times to complain: ‘[W]hen people say ‘Dundrum’ these days they mean a four-storey English high street that landed up the road and started wiping out all of the other names in a radius, including Ballinteer’. But still, she concluded: ‘I actually quite like the place’ (Enright, 2006). The interpretation of contemporary urban capitalism through a postcolonialist lens was a common, but actually quite impotent, critique used in Dublin during the boom. Talking about another shopping centre, according to a columnist in the weekly newspaper, Dublin People, ‘Liffey Valley Centre is like a transplanted Oxford Street and is practically owned by the Duke of Westminster … Is this what Pearse and Connolly died for?’ (Gormley, 2000). The same could be said of the conservative admonishments about consumption, which also don’t actually provide an effective critique of the processes shaping Irish society. Whilst Boland saw a vision of Hell at Dundrum, the Archbishop of Dublin observed: ‘I get the impression that the energy Irish people once put into achieving the salvation of their own souls – and the souls of others – has now been channelled into creating heaven on earth’ (Augustinians in Galway, 2008). Amongst many public commentators, these shifts in Irish values were a matter of acute anxiety. Emily O’Reilly, Ireland’s Ombudsman, protested: ‘released from the handcuff of mass religious obedience, we are Dionysian in our revelry, in our testing of what we call freedom … hence the staggering drink consumption, the childlike showing off of helicopters and four-wheel drives and private cinemas, the fetishizing of handbags and high heels’ (quoted in Alvarez,

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2005). However, it appears no one was really listening to Emily O’Reilly. When it opened in March 2005, Dundrum attracted over 600,000 customers in its first week. Over 12 million came in its first year. And the people are still coming. Ireland comes to Dundrum. More people come to the mall on an annual basis than move through the entire panoply of Irishness: more than all the visits to Bunratty Castle, the Guinness Store House, the Cliffs of Moher and all the rest.

Assembling the mall Dundrum Town Centre was produced through the assemblage of elements and processes driving the production of contemporary urban space. Attention to these processes, rather than the cultural reception of the mall, are where insights about the urban conditions at work there are to be found. As Claire ­Connolly (2002:3) reminds us in her critique of Irish space, and its transformation, ‘a great many things have happened in Ireland that are not primarily concerned with nationality and its discontents: great swathes of contemporary popular culture, multinational capitalism, migrants and refugees all participate in and are moved by global forces that traverse the island of Ireland, blind to the intricate complexities of its past’. While retail-led regeneration is quite a common feature of European cities, the creation of the mall at Dundrum was the first time a whole town centre in Ireland was given over to a private investor to design, build and operate. In the context of contemporary urban governance, it is usual when urban development at this scale occurs that special urban management vehicles are created. In Dublin, for example, agencies of this nature have included the Dublin Docklands Development Authority and Temple Bar Renewal Limited. However, at Dundrum, the development was entirely privatised, controlled in full by Castlethorn Development Ltd and project-managed by Lafferty Ltd, who were responsible for managing the development of several other elements of Dublin’s boom-time skyline: Grand Canal Square, Adamstown and The Pavilions. However, the state was involved, enabling a series of new urban conditions through an entrepreneurial urban planning ethos, its investment in infrastructure, and its light regulation, notably by permitting the creation of ‘upward only rent leases’. These leases, which legally protected the right of landlords to move rent upwards only, provided a highly favourable climate for institutional investors. These entrepreneurial forms of urban governance – which David Harvey (1989) identified as essential to the development of a more intensive capitalist city – found expression in several different processes. The creation of four new local authorities in County Dublin in the early 1990s opened up a more competitive environment for development within and between each borough. Enabled by this broader plan, in 1998, Dun Laoghaire–Rathdown County Council facilitated the development of the site, and redesignated the centre of Dundrum from a ‘district’ to a ‘town centre’. This

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move rezoned key pieces of real estate, notably the almost derelict site – that of the Pye electronics factory, which closed in 1985. The circumstances surrounding this rezoning have been subject to investigations from the Mahon Tribunal (The Tribunal of Inquiry into Certain Planning Matters and Payments), a ­government inquiry into planning corruption. The Tribunal focused on allegations that during the 1990s the infamous lobbyist Frank Dunlop bribed three Dublin county councillors to rezone the Pye lands at Dundrum for commercial development. It is now largely accepted that zoning and planning in County Dublin was corrupted on a considerable scale. As was proved conclusively at Liffey Valley – a large shopping mall on the edge of Dublin – corruption is implicated in the development of many new retail spaces in Dublin. What this amounts to is that the planning laws, which were intended to protect the public good, were ineffective and subject to widespread manipulation and corruption, massaged by what McCarthy (2003:2) called an ‘entire industry of Stateemployed planners, private sector planning consultants, specialist lawyers, PR firms and political door-openers’. In time, these forms of intensive lobbying and the talents acquired when navigating the extra-legal contexts involved in corrupt development decisions, provided developers and their associates with the ideal skills and connections to prosper in an urban planning and development system dominated by entrepreneurialism. These forms of urban governance, which subsequently took root in Dublin during the Celtic Tiger, included the use of neo-liberal models such as the business improvement district system and public–private partnership platforms to provide and manage facilities and infrastructure in the city. In redesignating Dundrum, Dun Laoghaire–Rathdown County Council ­understood the scale of the change, and that any new development would rapidly improve its capacity to raise local business taxes. From this period on, the urban structure of Dundrum was significantly altered, with the introduction of new infrastructure, which in the context of national development was also politically mediated. This comprised mainly the Wyckham and Dundrum bypasses, the completion of the Luas Tram Line and the William Dargan Bridge. Altogether this constituted about €50 million of public investment, some of which was sourced from European Structural Funding. This public investment added immensely to value of the site of the mall, its viability as a retail hub and its ­accessibility. Dun Laoghaire–Rathdown County Council was also responsible for managing the development of the city’s orbital motorway, the M50, just to the west of Dundrum. Once that was completed, it radically changed journey times and traffic flows in Dublin and, despite frequent congestion, largely ensured rapid access to Dundrum from the entire metropolitan area. Direct access from this motorway also enabled Dundrum to become a national retail centre, undermining the primacy of Dublin city centre. The development of this mall also was dependent upon the new inter­sections

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between finance and urban space in the context of economic and cultural ­globalisation. Many large real-estate companies, which grew rapidly during the Celtic Tiger period, developed such competences and the necessary relationships with banks and combined these with local knowledge to compete and shape the market for new urban projects. The decision to develop Dundrum ­occurred against a background whereby retail-led developments grew intensively during the boom. In 1999, there was about 500,000 square meters of shopping space in Ireland, growing to 850,000 square meters at the beginning of 2005. At the time of the crash in 2008, Ireland, on a per-capita basis, was at the top end of shopping space supply in the EU (Dijkman, 2010). Between 1996 and 2000, when this vision of the mall was being gradually assembled, Castlethorn Development accumulated an 11.33 hectare site in Dundrum. Castlethorn was led by Joe O’Reilly, one of several property tycoons, whose success with upmarket housing estates – like Avoca and Carysfort in Blackrock, Rathborne at Ashtown near the M50 and Belarmine at Stepaside in south Dublin – made him a favoured client in Anglo Irish Bank. Following the economic crash in 2008, O’Reilly’s property portfolio was taken over by the National Assets Management Agency (NAMA). He was also involved with the failed public–private partnership in St Michael’s Estate (Bissett, 2008). Through Dundrum and his other projects, O’Reilly became what Theurillat (2011) terms an ‘anchoring actor’ capable of fixing global capital in a local context, by creating highly attractive investment opportunities, and profitable locations for global retail corporations like Tesco and the Inditex group, owners of Zara, Massimo Dutti and Bershka. Through these intermediaries O’Reilly and others like him were able to ­accelerate urban development, often at a massive scale, in ways that would have been impossible before the current period of finance deregulation and ­globalisation (see also Chapter 9). Growth in new shopping centres provides an ­excellent example of the growing phenomenon of the financialisation of urban space, where international investors and pension funds enable new development as a means to create durable rates of return. This new flow of money for development is enhanced by the expansionary impulses of global retailers, like Tesco, Disney or Harvey Nichols. Malls support their expansion, offering ‘turnkey’ opportunities, which simplify investment whilst guaranteeing access to local and regional markets by embedding their store in urban environments that purport to offer new ‘town centres’ with a diverse range of services and attractions for consumers. Dundrum’s design is intimately informed by these principles. The director of the mall has insisted: ‘we are a town centre, not just a shopping centre. People come here to eat, to be entertained in the cinema, the theatre or the night-club; they come to meet friends and so on’ (Electric Mail, 2008). As benign as these observations may appear, the kind of ‘town’ imagined and manufactured at Dundrum is the ‘town’ first envisaged by doyen of mall design, Victor Gruen, who proposed the mall as the basic unit of urban

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­ lanning (Gruen and Smith, 1960). Accordingly, shopping malls were to become p enclosed multipurpose town centres, dedicated to retail and services, reflecting a very narrow idea of the urban. As they have developed and mutated and in particular as they have intersected with practices and policies that worsen urban poverty and exclusion, these kind of mall-as-town schemes, which have proliferated across Europe, now represent for Minton (2009) a wholly blinkered view of public space as a retail playground and business enabler only, and of the poor as trespassers within it.

Designs on Dundrum When the Italian architect Aldo Rossi adopted the concept of ‘the event’ as a core idea is his influential text The Architecture of the City (1966) – arguing that architecture is ‘the fixed stage for human events’ – it is unlikely that he anticipated the degree to which this idea would articulate the calls that consumption make upon the city – whereby the built form must not only reflect the values of capitalism but also be engineered to perform and act upon its users and subjects. This intensification is explained by Agamben (2009:12) as the compulsion for the apparatuses of capitalism to always be invested in a process of subject­ ification, ‘that is to say, they must produce their subject’. Whilst there is undoubtedly a role for theatricality and exhibitionary techniques in the history of retail spaces such as arcades and department stores, the mall takes the construction of the subject to another level. To move through its bright hallways, its climate-controlled atria and its shops glimmering with products, is to witness a whole range of affective strategies to create consumers, assimilate life and align the needs of the store with the needs of its client. At the site itself, the Dundrum mall’s investment in the ‘experience economy’ – designed from the outset – ­illustrates the wider role of theming and spectacle in urban life, and as a more manifest quality of the urban experience in contemporary Ireland. As the director of the mall wrote at its opening, ‘[the mall] will define the way we live today and offer a holistic experience to enrich, indulge and inspire every aspect of our lives’ (in Boland, 2005). In the experience economy, architecture and design have become a foundational part of place-making and urban branding strategies. At Dundrum, in line with retail-led regeneration strategies found internationally, place-making is expressed through design, marketing, advertising and promotional and cultural events. Assembled together, these provide a comprehensive narrative – if not a doxa – through which the spectacle of mall is presented. What is revealed here is how notions of urban space as a performance is core to the contemporary qualities of capitalism and city. This ­approach finds multiple expressions in contemporary mall architecture, which play continuously upon tropes of theatrically and exhibition. Dundrum Town Centre invested heavily in marketing itself as distinctive and unique. Inflected

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through these spaces is a longing, a desire to demonstrate social mobility and distinction. The global appeal of these stores was pronounced. Twenty retailers, like Hamleys the toy retailer, had no other shop in Ireland. Constant reference was made to Dubai as the only other site where Harvey Nichols opened in the same year. This situated the mall as a gateway to ‘the modern’. The advertising video told shoppers: ‘[t]he day of the ordinary shopping centre has passed. We are entering a new era … the fashion district is the jewel in the crown of the Dundrum Town Centre, comparable with London’s Bond street, Milan’s Via Sant Andrea or New York’s Fifth Avenue’ (quoted in O’Brien, 2005) One press advertisement presented a carefully staged black and white portrait of a mother and daughter. In the image the older woman stands over the girl’s shoulder. They pose. They are unsmiling. They are impeccably dressed, in possession of an irrefutable style, apparently invested in for generations. The architecture created by Burke-Kennedy Doyle (BKD), the firm responsible for the development, articulates this discourse. During the long property boom, BKD became one of the most successful architectural firms in Dublin and contributed to the look of the new city, first establishing its capabilities to corporate clients in a keystone office building in the International Financial Services Centre (IFSC) in the 1990s. The firm articulated a modernist design palette that met the aspirational and cosmopolitan needs of urban entrepreneurs and delivered on functionality, whilst providing a measured form that addressed the meek, but nevertheless important, preservationist lobby that sought to regulate the city thrown into rapid development by unregulated financial re-engineering. As with many BKD buildings, the buildings around the mall’s entrance area – designated the ‘Gallery’ district – are pavilion-type structures, which use extensive glazing. These are animated with stylistic sun-shade structures (brise soleil), over doors and windows, and gently curved roof-lines. The design of the entrance successfully cloaks the enormous bulk of the building, but does offer a legible point of access and transition from the relic streetscape of the old Dundrum. The glass walls offer an illusion of transparency, but the reflective skin of the buildings obscures the nature of the space inside. There is no sense of the massive excavations that brought the site into being, nor of the truly vast steel superstructure that supports the building. The giant bunker holding the cars is out of sight, and the descents to basement areas not indicated. It is only on the Dundrum Bypass that a real sense of the site’s size emerges. But here judicious planting and the modulation of the street-line are also engaged in a kind of camouflage. As one of the few concessions to the locality, the mill pond at the mall’s ­entrance deserves detailed consideration, as the strategies used here suggest a great deal about the ethos and politics of the building. In the original plan for Dundrum the mill pond and the mill house were to have been demolished. When permission to build the site was finally granted, the developers agreed to

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retain the 300 year old mill pond. But just as the question arises as to what kind of idea of the urban is imagined and produced at this site, the same issue arises with respect to the treatment of history and how it was deployed. Undertaken by the landscape designers, Mitchell Associates, the conservation of this pond had an important cultural function. Finding the spatial form and the architecture to communicate the relationship between the new and the old, as a kind of moral and a visual guide that framed modernisation, is a common feature of much of the architecture of the Celtic Tiger. In this way, the architectural and landscaping imperatives in Dundrum were comparable to those of other recent exhibitionary spaces in Ireland that have attempted to fabricate links between past and present. For example, the Irish motorways system is strewn with public sculpture drawing upon Celtic mythology (Linehan, 2013). Exemplary in this range of buildings was the Irish Pavilion at the Expo Hanover in 2000, whose building, design and interpretative exhibition ‘worked together to fuse the best in Irish tradition with the ultra-modern’ (Dúl – Murray O’Laoire Associates, 2000). At City West, on the edge of Dublin, BKD were engaged in a similar scheme, which used extensive landscaping and water features to mock up quaint versions of Irishness in the otherwise high-tech business estate (Linehan, 2004). As such, this appeal to history and the past is a fabrication. Henry Giroux (2011) has observed that the neo-liberal present is empty of ‘any notion of historical consciousness and any vestige of social and moral responsibility owed as much to future generations as to the dead’ (see also Chapter 3). Even as An Bord Pleanála, as the moderator of the built environment, insisted that the mall engaged in some element of archaeological conservation, what was produced is what the historian David Lloyd (2008:13) refers to as a widely deployed strategy used during the Celtic Tiger period; one that dissolves the ­violence and complications of the past, ‘into the quasi-natural contours of a now pacified, picturesque landscape’. Hence, this version of the past provides a kind of relief from history. Everything in Dundrum sells a version of the future self, and the past – in the form of the mill pond – is then quite appropriately noted and left at the centre’s entrance. This sentiment also envelops the obelisk placed near the pond. This is a monument to amnesia, as memorable as the inoffensive ornaments placed on the bathroom shelves of the three-star hotels that populate the M50 orbital. The erasure of the past is completed when the mill pond itself is transformed into a fountain in the evening, spraying a dramatic pink, purple and blue wall of water. In these moments, the whole plaza is illuminated, revealing the stage set it is meant to be – a neon proscenium dedicated to prosperity. If one is searching for the architecture of bling, here it is. Inside the mall, the interior architects – now Blackstaff Architecture – were instructed to invent the ‘town’ and create ‘a “lifestyle destination” to include opportunities for retail, leisure and other recreational experiences’ (Blackstaff Architects, n.d.). Even more important to the mall’s mission than the external

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skin of the building, the spatial strategies created and performed inside the mall created the environment to accelerate consumption. Its interior design provides the stage to increase ‘dwell time’ – the average length of time spent in the centre. Key to the interior design were two nodal points within the mall, the ‘Square’ and ‘Dundrum South’, two large atria in which the designers sought to release their ‘playful sense of theatre’ (Blackstaff Architects, n.d.). Pausing in the Square, one gets a sense that the plan was to provide a facsimile of the city inside, with a number of elements put into motion. Presented here is a tinny duplicate of urbanity and publicness, providing ‘the complexity and vitality of urban experience without the noise, dirt, and confusion’ (Crawford, 2002:25). Blackstaff chose high-quality surfaces; thin slices of granite cover the floors to press a contemporary and timeless look, which does not reference the locality and, as such, reflects not just the light from shop windows but also the international imaginaries replicated throughout the centre. The palette of granite tiling includes Carioca Gold, Nero Assoluto and Himalayan Blue. New materials – such as ‘Zerodec’ – were used to provide high-quality wall surfaces. They look like stone, but they are synthetic composites. Glass elevators dash up and down between floors. People eat sushi on colour-coded plates from a conveyor belt, whilst hundreds more move across the ‘square’ on long, diagonally moving walkways. The proposition here is that the city is in motion, but this is a different and posed kind of mobility, first recognised by Frederick Jameson (1991:82), in his comment on travelators, where he suggests that the civic culture of the promenade has been ‘reified and replaced by a transportation machine which becomes the allegorical signifier of that older promenade we are no longer allowed to conduct on our own’. Hence the people on the travelators move in slow motion, gazing at one another, becoming a spectacle in themselves. One commentator on Indymedia Ireland (2005) captured that sense of how the site is staged and implicated in urban conditionalities shaped by consumerism: [t]he place looks like the future used to look in films from the 1960’s, conveyor belts drag you back and forth from floor to floor, as regular as an assembly line, while capsules of consumers shoot up and down. Dundrum Town Centre does not bode well for how our lives are being ordered for us.

However, the diorama of the urban found here is in dialogue with the wider impulse to festivalise urban space (Quinn, 2005) whereby City Councils constantly compete with one another and search for urban revitalisation through the provision of art and culture events such as food, music and film festivals (O’Callaghan and Linehan, 2007). Away from the theatrically of the mall’s internal squares, like money itself, the style becomes more abstract, offering a kind of blankness that generates the essential timelessness of malls almost everywhere. It’s a design that extends the strategy that in the past urged owners to cover their malls in mirrors, hide

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exits and eradicate clocks, as a means to focus customers on shopping. A timeless design is usually a meaningless one. Its visual and semantic shallowness is interceded only by the world of consumption, what Cunningham (2008:236– 7) saw at Dundrum as ‘stasis, an anaesthetised space … a place to be wooed, seduced and enchanted; a place to desire and be desired’. For Jon Goss (1999), in his classic paper on ‘The Mall of America’, the values of ­capitalism become the dominant mode of social experience with a mall. Accordingly, as an urban space, the mall constitutes a ‘closed text’, whose visual and affective cues revolve around the presentation of commodities, products and services. The purpose of its design is to produce and then fulfil the desire to articulate our immediate ­futurity, our future tense: how will I look? What will I wear? What will I eat? How will people see me? Will I feel right in this? Will it do? Dundrum acts upon these strategies – which are based on a range of advanced technical and professional knowledges – particularly in the way the design captures the gaze of the shopper, and modulates his and her movement and feelings in the mall. Several shops have bought in the sleek, lustrous design developed by the Umdasch Corporation, who in addition to running an elite school for retail professionals, specialise internationally in shop-concepts that accentuate brand identity, increase turnover and attend closely to the affective impacts the design will have on the consumer. While it is enclosed, its design offers multiple o ­ pportunities for physical and visual connection between shops, providing multiple opportunities for what is known as the ‘Gruen Transfer’, the moment when shoppers’ original intentions are overridden by the appeal of other commodities on offer and enter shops they initially may have had no interest in. Stepped tiers ensure good visibility between the floors. Light and sound are carefully managed, as a means to generate an appropriate experience. It’s ‘Easy Listening’ in the morning. The tempo is stepped up after 11am. By 3pm it is tuned into middleof-the-road classic hits, and then toned down again at 7pm. Late-night shoppers, who make up some of the mall’s biggest spenders, need to concentrate. The main corridor is illuminated with natural light from above, but there are no windows and no visual connection to the outside world. Compared for instance to the Library in Lucan, built around the same time, with stained glass windows depicting locals, there is nothing to reference the locality inside. Instead, the marketing slogans provide the location: Dundrum is ‘the centre of everything’; ‘Think of it as a great big drive in wardrobe!’ And so, in Dundrum Town Centre, people browse in a sensorium filled with clothes by Diane von Furstenberg, Marc By Marc Jacobs, Moschino, Cheap and Chic, Paul and Joe, All Saints and Selected Femme. Other shoppers ponder over and touch exclusive niche finds: Lipsy, Ash, Barbour, Bayston, Cos, Citizens of ­Humanity, Dr Denim, Etoile Isabel Marant. Every day ­thousands pass into places offering, Guess Jeans, G-Star, Goldsign, I Love My Tee’s, Levi’s, James Perse, Juicy Couture, J-Brand, Lucy in Disguise, Michael Kors, Paige Denim, Paul’s B ­ outique, Sam Edelman,

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Sandro, Salsa Jeans, Seven Jeans, The Kooples, and Victoria Beckham Denim. Thousands of these items leave the store every day, finding life and expression in Dublin and Ireland, used at innumerable sites: homes, weddings, job interviews, family gatherings, university campuses, first dates, parties, offices, bars, rugby matches, golf courses, schools and on and on. There they play an immensely powerful role in navigating the complex world of social distinction shaped by the values of contemporary capitalism, testimony to the continuing decline in Dublin of what Gorz (1990:36) described as the ‘free spaces for the development of a many-sided, communicative, everyday culture and everyday solidarity liberated from commodified relations of buying and selling’.

References Agamben, G. (2009) What is an Apparatus? And Other Essays, Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press. Alvarez, L. (2005) ‘Suddenly rich, poor old Ireland seems bewildered’, The New York Times, 2 February, late edn: A4. Augustinians in Galway (2008) Sunday Newsletter, http://goo.gl/9BTLuD (retrieved 24 January 2014). Bissett, J. (2008) Regeneration: Public Good or Private Profit?, Dublin: New Island Press. Blackstaff Architects (n.d.) Dundrum Case Study, http://goo.gl/kwsgPT (pdf, retrieved 21 March 2013). Boland, R. (2005) ‘A new religion’, The Irish Times, 4 March. Boym, S. (2002) The Future of Nostalgia, New York: Basic Books. Brenner, N., and Theodore, N. (2002) (eds) Spaces of Neoliberalism: Urban Restructuring in North America and Western Europe, Oxford: Blackwell Publishers. Chung, C., Inaba, J., and Koolhaas, R. (2002) The Harvard Design School Guide to Shopping, New York: Taschen. Connolly, C. (2002) ‘Introduction: Ireland in theory’, in C. Connolly (ed.) Theorizing Ireland, Basingstoke: Palgrave, 1–12. Corcoran, M. (2012) ‘Space and the public realm: beyond gated individualism’, Irish Journal of Sociology, 20 (1): 1–18. Crawford, M. (2002) ‘Suburban life and public space, sprawl and public space’, in D. J. Smiley and M. Robbins (eds) Redressing The Mall, New York: Princeton  Architectural Press, 21–30. Cunningham, T. (2008) ‘Jesus in Dundrum: between God and mammon’, in P. Share and M. Corcoran (eds) Belongings: Shaping Identity in Modern Ireland. Irish Sociological Chronicles, Dublin: Institute of Public Administration, 231–42. Debord, G. (2004) The Society of the Spectacle, London: Rebel Press. Dijkman, M. (2010) Europe Real Estate Yearbook, Amsterdam: Europe Real Estate Publishers. Dúl-Murray O’Laoire Associates (2000) ‘The Irish pavilion at Expo 2000, Hanover, Germany’, The Irish Architect, 159: 9–13. Dundrum News (2005) ‘Dundrum – a new era’, Dundrum News, 4 March. Electric Mail (2008) The Last Word, November 2008, http://goo.gl/o6Gk3M (retrieved 21 March 2013). Enright, A. (2006) ‘Not buying it’, The Irish Times, 3 June.

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Giroux, H. (2011) ‘In the twilight of the Social State’, Truthout, 4 January, http://goo.gl/ U3CyUs (retrieved 2 September 2011). Gormley, N. (2000) ‘The British are back and they’re after your money’, Dublin People, 5 May. Gorz, A. (1990) ‘The New Agenda’, New Left Review, I/184 (November–December): 36–46. Goss, J. (1999) ‘Once-Upon-a-Time in the commodity world: an unofficial guide to Mall of America’, Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 89(1): 45–75. Gruen, V., and Smith, L. (1960) Shopping Towns USA: The Planning of Shopping Centers, New York: Reinhold. Harvey, D. (1989) ‘From managerialism to entrepreneurialism: the transformation of urban governance in Late Capitalism’, Geografiska Annaler, Series B: Human Geography, 17(1): 3–17. Indymedia Ireland (2005) ‘Picnics or politics not welcome in the new company towns’, 27 May 2005, www.indymedia.ie/article/70469 (retrieved 9 November 2008). Inglis, T. (2009) Global Ireland: Same Difference, New York: Routledge. Jameson. F. (1991) Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism, Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Jameson, F. (2010) ‘A new reading of Capital’, Mediations, 25(1): 5–14. Kincaid, A. (2006) Postcolonial Dublin: Imperial Legacies and the Built Environment, Min­neapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Lefebvre, H. (1991) The Production of Space, Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Linehan, D. (2004) ‘Edge Geographies: landscape politics at Citywest, Dublin’, Chimera 17(1): 24– 36. Linehan, D. (2013) ‘Reading the Irish motorway: landscape, mobility and politics after the Crash’, in C. Crowley and D. Linehan (eds) Spacing Ireland, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 75–88. Lloyd, D. (2008) Irish Times: Temporalities of Modernity, Dublin: Field Day. Lynch, D. (2010) When the Luck of the Irish Ran Out: The World’s Most Resilient Country and Its Struggle to Rise Again, London: Palgrave Macmillan. Lynch, K. (1960) The Image of the City, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Meade, R. (2011) ‘Brand Ireland: culture in the crisis’, Concept: The Journal of Contemporary Community Education Practice Theory, 2(3): 14–20. McCarthy, C. (2003) ‘Corruption in public office in Ireland: policy design as a countermeasure’, Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) Quarterly Economic Commentary, Autumn: 1–15. Merriman, V. (2005) ‘A Responsibility to dream’, Third Text, 19(5): 487–97. Minton, A. (2009) Ground Control: Fear and Happiness in the Twenty-First Century City, London: Penguin. Moore, N. (2008) Dublin Docklands Reinvented: The Post Industrial Regeneration of a European City Quarter, Dublin: Four Courts Press. Negra, D. (2010) ‘Urban space, luxury retailing and the New Irishness’, Cultural Studies, 24(6): 836–53. O’Brien, B. (2008) ‘The Irish Church today: challenges and opportunities’, The Furrow, 59(7): 392–8. O’Brien, R. (2005) ‘Dundrum Centre director unfazed by hype and hope’, The Irish Times, 4 March. O’Callaghan, C. (2012) ‘Ghost Estates: spaces and spectres of Ireland after NAMA’, in C. Crowley and D. Linehan (eds) Spacing Ireland: Place, Society and Culture After the Crash, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 17–31.

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O’Callaghan, C., and Linehan, D. (2007) ‘Identity, politics and conflict on dockland development in Cork, Ireland: European Capital of Culture 2005’, Cities, 24(4): 311–23. O’Toole, S. (2006) ‘Architecture: reclaiming the streets’, The Sunday Times, 26 March. Punch, M. (2006) ‘The politics of memory: the socio-cultural contradictions of globalisation and urban regeneration in Dublin’, Irish Geography, 39(2): 27–31. Quinn, B. (2005) ‘Arts festivals and the city’, Urban Studies, 42(5–6): 927–43. Rossi, A. (1966) The Architecture of the City, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press/Opposition Books. Slattery, D. (2008) ‘Minding the gaps (epistemological and modern) on Dublin’s light rail system’, International Journal of Baudrillard Studies 5(1): http://goo.gl/UACIqf (retrieved 23 September 2013). Smith, N. (1996) The New Urban Frontier: Gentrification and the Revanchist City, London: Routledge. Theurillat, T. (2011) ‘La ville négociée: entre financiarisation et durabilité’, Géographie, Économie, Société, 13(1): 225–54. Thompson, G. (2009) ‘What’s in the frame? How the financial crisis is being packaged for public consumption’, Economy and Society, 38(3): 520–4.

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‘Taking back the neighbourhood’: the introduction of ASBOs Paul Michael Garrett

Introduction It has been maintained that each ‘society, at each moment, elaborates a body of social problems taken to be legitimate, worthy of being debated, of being made public and sometimes officialized and, in a sense guaranteed by the state’ (Bourdieu and Wacquant, 2004: 236, original emphasis). In the ­Republic of Ireland the ‘moment’ of the ‘social problem’ labelled ‘anti-social behaviour’ arrived when Anti-Social Behaviour Orders (ASBOs) were included in the Criminal Justice Act (2006). From 1 January 2007, these orders could be deployed against adults and, from 1 March 2007, against children (between the ages of 12 and 18 years). Subsequently ASBOs have been used rather sparingly. In summer 2012, it was reported: Only seven ASBOs have been issued since the controversial system was introduced in 2007. More than 5,000 warnings have been issued to adults and children, but only three behaviour orders for children and four civil orders for adults have been handed out so far. No one has received an antisocial behaviour order since 2009. (Kennedy, 2012)

However, the introduction of ASBOs remains significant in that it illuminates the discursive embedding of a more punitive approach to crime and disorder. Equally important, this discourse functions to mask social and economic inequalities promoted by the processes of intensified neo-liberalisation (Allen, 2012). Ian O’Donnell and Eoin O’Sullivan (2003:42) have pointed to ‘the vulnerability of small jurisdictions to changing fashions in criminal justice’. In this context, due ‘to its geography, language and cultural history it is hardly surprising that Ireland is buffeted by waves of change in Britain and the United States’ (O’Donnell and O’Sullivan, 2003:42). This may be true, but there is a need to dwell on the appearance of ASBOs and to inquire why such measures were introduced, in Ireland, in the early twenty-first century. This chapter will address

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four complex and connected questions. First, in relation to the ‘policy transfer’ dimension, how helpful are the contributions of Dolowitz (2000) and Bourdieu and Wacqaunt (1999; 2001) in helping us understand the intro­duction of ASBOs? Second, what has been the impact of ‘made in America’ approaches to crime and ‘disorder’, such as ‘zero tolerance policing’ (ZTP) and fixing ‘broken windows’, on Irish and other European approaches? Third, what are the ways by which primary political definers of ‘anti-social behaviour’, in Ireland, have sought to construct this particular ‘social problem’? Finally, what is the link between the Irish interest in combating ‘anti-social behaviour’ and pervasive transformations in responding to crime and ‘disorder’ within the ­European Union?1

ASBOs: ‘borrowing from the neighbours’? Paul O’Mahony (2005:3) maintained that at ‘one level the provenance of the idea is clear, it is a straightforward borrowing from our neighbours in the UK. It would be insular and chauvinistic to reject ASBOs because of their “foreign” source and because their adoption adds to the appearance that this sovereign jurisdiction is really little more than a regional variant of the British system’. Within the adjacent jurisdiction, ASBOs were, indeed, a key part of the Crime and Disorder Act (CDA) (1998) and came into force, in England,2 on 1 April 1999 (see Garrett, 2007a). Modified by the Police Reform Act (2002) and the Anti-Social Behaviour Act (2003), ASBOs banned individuals from entering certain areas or from carrying out specific acts for a minimum period of two years. An application for an ASBO could be made to a magistrate by police forces, local authorities, housing action trusts and registered social landlords and imposed on an individual deemed guilty of ‘anti-social behaviour’. This was defined, in Section 1 of the CDA 1998, as behaviour which ‘has caused or is likely to cause harassment, alarm or distress’ to persons beyond the perpetrator’s immediate household (in Burney, 2005:7). In the application process, for an ASBO, no jury was involved and ‘hearsay’ evidence was admissible. Once such an order had been granted recipients were also frequently ‘named and shamed’. Furthermore, if an ASBO was breached, the individual concerned was deemed to have committed a criminal offence which carried a maximum penalty of five years in prison. Of the ASBOs imposed between June 2000 and December 2003, 42 per cent were in fact breached, and of that proportion 55 per cent resulted in custodial sentences (Squires and Stephen, 2005:520).3 Paradoxically, in March 2005, Michael McDowell, the Minister of Justice in the Republic of Ireland, asserted that ASBOs seemed to have ‘worked well’ in England. However, the formation of an English campaign group, ASBO Concern (Foot, 2005), and a damning report from the EU manifestly contradicted his assertion (Office of the EU Commissioner for Human Rights, 2005).

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ASBO Concern had drawn attention to some of the problems resulting from the introduction of these orders and pointed to a range of bizarre and inappropriate instances where individuals have been subjected to ASBOs. Specific concerns were also raised about how ASBOs and associated measures risked infringing the human rights of children and increasingly subjecting them to criminalisation (Garrett, 2003; 2009; James and James, 2001; Muncie et al., 2002). Indeed, ‘something like three-quarters of ASBOs were imposed upon young people’ (Squires and Stephen, 2005:519). The introduction of ASBOs within the Republic of Ireland was not entirely shaped by the import of a ‘foreign’ model, and there were of course internal ­dynamics contributing to the discourse on crime, punishment and the ‘search for order’ (Kilcommins et al., 2004). Within every jurisdiction there are of course nationally distinctive discourses on crime and disorder. Ireland, for example, currently has a relatively high number of prisoners compared with countries of a comparable size: in a number of older prisons, conditions are recognised as appalling (Office of the Inspector of Prisons, 2011). Historically, and in contemporary terms, there is also a distinctively punitive approach to young offenders (Ombudsman for Children’s Office, 2011). Frequently, the media appears fixated with crime ‘stories’ and accounts of ‘gangland’ killings; the latter are often presented voyeuristically as melodramatically disturbing sideshows for readers and viewers who are not encouraged to make the connections between violence, intimidation, criminality and how Irish society is predominantly structured and patterned according to social class (Browne, 2013). The Irish government’s plan to introduce ASBOs could, for example, be interpreted as a crude attempt to ‘deliver a short-term pre-election buzz’ prior to elections which were expected to – and did – take place in 2007 (O’Toole, 2005). More historically, since its inception in 1922, the Irish state has periodically been preoccupied with forms of what is now dubbed ‘anti-social behaviour’ (see, for example, Ferriter, 2005). In the early 1930s the Carrigan Report (Committee on the Criminal Law Amendment Acts, 1931) expressed concern about degeneration in social conduct, although, at the time, this was mostly focused on morals, sexual activity and the ‘dangers’ associated with picture houses, dance halls and the ‘misuse’ of motor cars (McAvoy, 1999). However, for this chapter, the external, or ‘policy transfer’ dimension is important. Throughout the 1990s and into the next decade, the political elites in the Republic of Ireland, on account of an increasingly neo-liberal orientation, were more likely to look to Boston than to Berlin (Allen, 2003). However, in relation to social policies having practical consequences, England continued to fulfil a significant role. Thus, in the early twenty-first century – across a range of Irish policies relating to child welfare, crime and disorder – the influence of English policy-making has been apparent. The evolution of, for example, ‘best practice’ paradigms for ‘multi-agency’ responses to ‘child protection’ in Ireland

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(­Department of Health and Children, 1999) were heavily influenced (albeit with a significant time lag) by approaches in England (Department of Health and Social Security, 1988). More recent plans to ‘reform’ child protection are similarly redolent of New Labour’s ‘reform’ agenda in England. The vocabulary and discourse of the Irish ‘change agenda’ frequently echo keywords and pre­occupations from across the Irish Sea: hence, the aspiration to break down ‘silos’ which impede joint working amongst agencies; its desire to set about ‘empowering’ families’ and promote ‘a strengths-based perspective’; and the attentiveness to ‘involving service users’ and to the ‘promotion of social inclusion’ (Task Force on the Child and Family Support Agency, 2012). Programmatically, there are also considerable similarities with England (Chief Secretary to the Treasury, 2003). This is of course partly understandable because of the Republic’s specific historic and contemporary engagement with the UK. Indeed, from its inception in the early 1920s, the ‘ossifying orthodoxy’ of the emergent Irish state retained the ‘institutional and ideological apparatus of the prior colonial state’ (Whelan, 2004:183). This also helps to explain the ‘political and administrative symbiosis between the civil services of the UK and Ireland’ (Taylor, 2005:108). However, the suggestion in this chapter is that an additional layer of complexity relates to how England frequently acts – in the words of Bourdieu and Wacqaunt (1999) – as a ‘Trojan horse’ for the conveyance into Ireland of policies which are, in fact, frequently first formulated in the United States. This is not to simplistically argue that policies initially emanating from the US, then introduced in similar form in England, are mechanistically replicated in the Republic with policymakers and practitioners remaining inert and entirely malleable. Indeed, the detail contained in the plan to introduce ASBOs into Ireland reflected policy departures as well as policy replications. Nonetheless, the similarities were ­striking: so also was what Garland (2001:10) refers to as the ‘emotional tone of crime policy’ in England and Ireland. This refers to the ‘emergence of the fear of crime as a prominent cultural theme’ in both jurisdictions, albeit articulated in different ways, with ‘the images conjured up to accompany new legislation’ tending ‘to be stereotypical depictions of unruly youth, dangerous predators, and incorrigible career criminals’ (Garland, 2001:10).

Pragmatic ‘policy transfers’ or imposition by the ‘Washington ­Consensus’? The ‘impulse to look across, to import novel ideas and replicate models encountered elsewhere can be traced back more or less to the inception of criminal justice institutions in their “modern” forms’ (Newburn and Sparks, 2004:3). Today, all ‘governments are using “foreign” models in the development of ­national programmes, policies, institutions, structures etc’ (Dolowitz, 2000:9).

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One key issue, therefore, is whether a specific instance of policy transfer is either voluntary or coercive: purely ‘voluntary transfer occurs when political actors make a “rational” and “conscious” decision to borrow policies, programmes etc. from another time and/or political system’ (Dolowitz, 2000:12); in contrast, purely ‘coercive transfers occurs when one or more political systems or inter­national organizations impose a policy, programme or institutional reform upon another political system’ (Dolowitz, 2000:12). ‘Voluntary’ and ‘coercive’ are the two extremes of a continuum, and most instances of policy transfer are, it is suggested, unlikely to be situated at one end or the other (Dolowitz, 2000:13). It could, however, be countered that this idea of ‘voluntary’ and ‘coercive’ policy transfer is flawed because it fails to properly incorporate an understanding of how power operates in the relations between states. So, for example, a case of apparent ‘voluntary’ transfer might actually be disguising developments which are far more ambiguous. Dolowitz (2000:14) alludes to this dimension when he comments that in some instances ‘actors turn to policy transfer because they believe that this action will make their system internationally ­“recognized” or “acceptable”’. Yet which states or organisations are granting this international recognition? Are all states across the globe involved? Alternatively, is this r­ ecognition-granting ability or ‘power of consecration’ (Bourdieu and Wacquant, 1999:46) only available to a particular state or core group of states which carry hegemonic and doxic weight? In this context, therefore, the comments, of Bourdieu and Wacquant on the role of the USA may be relevant and help to illuminate the ideological atmosphere in which policy ‘initiatives’ to combat ‘anti-social behaviour’ are ‘picked up’ (Bourdieu and Wacquant, 1999; 2001). For them, it is not simply a case of ‘scholars’ in the USA seeking to export ‘intellectual products (often soiled and faded)’ (Bourdieu and Wacquant, 1999:50). The process is more significant: ‘cultural imperialism’ and the symbolic dominance of the USA is more profound and embedded since today ‘numerous topics directly issuing from … the social particularity of the American society and its universities have been imposed, in apparently de-historicized form, upon the whole planet’ (Bourdieu and Wacquant, 1999: 41). Thus, Bourdieu and Wacquant (2010:4) argue, ‘by imposing on the rest of the world categories of perception homologous to its social structures, the USA is refashioning the entire world in its image: the mental colonization that operates through the dissemination of these concepts can only lead to a sort of generalized and even spontaneous “Washington consensus”’. Phrases such as ‘zero tolerance’ and the fixing ‘broken windows’ approach to crime and disorder (which we are to examine later) can be interpreted as forming part of a ‘new planetary vulgate’ (Bourdieu and Wacquant, 2001:2): they might also be interpreted as an interlinked matrix of ‘screen discourses’ (Bourdieu and Wacquant, 1999: 4) – or ideological distractions – which seek

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to prevent discussion on ‘“capitalism”, “class”, “exploitation”, “domination” and inequality”’ (Bourdieu and Wacquant, 2001:2).4 England, moreover, plays a key role given that the country ‘is structurally predisposed to act as the Trojan horse by which notions of American scholarly common sense penetrate the European intellectual field’ (Bourdieu and Wacquant, 1999:54). This process is, more­over, influenced by the ‘driving role played by the major American philanthropic and research foundations’ and ‘great international think tanks, more or less ­directly plugged into the spheres of economic and political power’ (Bourdieu and ­Wacquant, 1999:46; 50). Wacquant (2001:405), in similar vein, has identified three phases in the ‘worldwide diffusion of the new “made-in-the-USA” ideologies and policies of law and order’. The first phase is that of ‘gestation, implementation, and showcasing in American cities, and especially in New York’: during this phase neoconservative think tanks play a key role. Second, comes the ‘import–export’ phase, ‘facilitated by the links forged with kindred “think-tanks” that have mushroomed throughout Europe in the past decade and especially in England’. The third phase consists in applying a ‘thin scholarly whitewash to these mea­ sures’ (Wacqaunt, 2001:405). Thus, in ‘each country one finds local intellectuals who spontaneously take up the part of “smuggler” (passeur) or relay by vouchsafing with their university authority the adaptation of US policies and methods’ (Wacquant, 2001:406). In Ireland, this has particularly been the case in terms of how a number of economists have acted as conduits for frequently US-­ germinated neo-liberal economic orthodoxies (Allen, 2009). Arguably, in the field of social and public policy, there has been keenness to adopt US ­approaches to working with children and youth in Ireland. In this context, a large philanthropic organisation, Atlantic Philanthropies, has played a key role in funding and influencing Irish discourses and practices in relation to interventions in the lives of children and families (Pinkerton and Dolan, 2007; see also Chapter 4). The polemical and provocative contributions from Bourdieu and Wacquant are useful because they politically locate some of the dynamics of policy transfer which are apt to be masked by more mundane and technocratic explanations. These latter accounts, defective, incomplete and frequently related to ideas ­pivoting on ‘evidence-based practice’, do not provide a rounded analysis of how social policy is generated and fail to aid an understanding of the evolution of what might be termed the ‘politics of anti-social behaviour’ in the Republic of Ireland and elsewhere in Europe. Before looking at the arrival of these politics we need to briefly examine some of the influential ideas, largely derived from the USA, which underpinned the ASBO discourse in the Republic: ideas which pivot on ZTP and the fixing ‘broken windows’ approach to crime, disorder and incivilities (see also Burney, 2005: Table 2.1: 30).

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ZTP and fixing ‘broken windows’ Of course, not all ‘initiatives’ in the area of ‘anti-social behaviour’ policy in England subsequently to influence policy in Ireland were simply lifted from the USA. Moreover, it is clear that there are major differences in ‘anti-social behaviour’ discourses between England and the USA. In the latter, for example, ‘panhandling’ and ‘muggings’ by ‘street people’ have been a focal preoccupation (Kelling and Coles, 1996:14–16); whilst this was relevant in England (with particular cities, such as Liverpool and Nottingham, appearing especially intent on clearing the streets of beggars) this dimension has, perhaps, been less central (Coleman and Sim, 2005). There, the focus tended to be on the ‘sink estate’ with its ‘neighbours from hell’ and ‘feral’ children (Respect Task Force, 2006). The ‘anti-social behaviour’ agenda was also framed by New Labour’s rhetorical deployment of keywords and phrases such as ‘civil renewal’, ‘community ­cohesion’, ‘active citizenship’ and the ‘respect’ agenda. Nonetheless, ideas associated with what is referred to as ‘anti-social behaviour’, in both England and the ­Republic of Ireland, were heavily influenced by similar ideas in the USA. That is to say, ideas germinated in the US have been apt to pollinate these two separate jurisdictions. Similarly, the tone of policy-making rhetoric and the emphasis on ‘toughness’ has been significant. Particular ideological categories, such as Charles Murray’s ‘underclass’ – or later, and with its explicit sense of social loathing, ‘new rabble’ (Murray, 1990; 1994) – have also been important (Macnicol, 1987). As Wacquant (2008:4) has noted: Echoing the alleged discovery of ‘underclass areas’ in the United States, in the closing decade of the century Europe has witnessed the invention of the ‘quartier sensible’ in France, the ‘sink estate’ in the United Kingdom, the ‘Problemquartier’ in Germany, the ‘krottenwijk’ in the Netherlands, etc.

Specific US policies or perspectives relating to crime and ‘disorder’, such as ZTP, have certainly had an impact in England. The ZTP approach in New York was particularly influential in the 1990s because it appeared that the city had witnessed a major fall in its crime rate. Bowling (1999:534), in his study on the impact of ZTP in New York, has conceded that a fall in homicides is ‘real and extraordinary’. However, ‘few policing strategies are evaluated, fewer still evaluated properly so that others can learn what works, for whom, and why’ (Bowling, 1999:548). He concludes that the decline in the homicide rates is unlikely to be attributable to the change in policing strategy ushered in by ZTP: it reveals as much about, for example, changes in patterns of drug use and the market in illegal drugs in New York. Equally important, the social and demographic context and types of crime faced by people in the city are very different from those encountered in English (and other European) cities (Jones and Newburn, 2004). A key publication which influenced policy in this area was Wilson and

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­ elling’s (1982) fixing ‘broken windows’ article published in the Atlantic K Monthly in March 1982 (see also Kelling and Coles, 1996). According to Young (1999:128), Wilson and Kelling’s ‘insight was that the control of minor offenders and disorderly behaviour which is not criminal was as important to a community as crime control. Incivilities, “quality of life” crimes caused a major part of citizens’ feelings of unease in the city’. Thus, preventing, for example, the breaking of windows and ensuring that those that were broken were not left unrepaired in neighbourhoods was an important, yet frequently disregarded, aspect of social order maintenance. As New Labour’s Respect and Responsibility document, which ignored the available US research critical of this approach, was to maintain: ‘If a window is broken or a wall is covered with graffiti it can contribute to an environment in which crime takes hold, particularly if intervention is not prompt and effective’ (Home Office, 2003a:14, emphasis added; see also Home Office, 2003b). Nothing associated with these US approaches to law enforcement appeared to be particularly radical or groundbreaking and they can also be interpreted as being rooted in a rather nostalgic functionalism (Prideaux, 2001). Indeed, it has been maintained that Wilson and Kelling simply repackaged existing ‘police wisdom’ and that the entire fixing ‘broken windows’ approach ‘seems actually to be a euphemism for “fixing” “disreputable” people through the use of ­aggressive policing. Their main policy recommendation to the police is to “kick ass”’ (Bowling, 1999:544; 548). Moreover, certain ‘unwanted consequences have resulted from aggressive policing strategies in New York … Among these are the generation of hostility between the police and community, and increases in police brutality’ (Bowling, 1999:549). More theoretically, the so-called fixing ‘broken windows’ approach can be associated with neo-liberal penality and the political ‘backlash’ against what was perceived to be some of the ‘liberal excesses’ of the 1960s and 1970s (Wacquant, 2009a). Perhaps also this perspective contains a critique of de-institutionalisation and community care policies which began to evolve in this period. More fundamentally, the encompassing approach appeared to hinge on the aspiration to put people (the ‘mentally ill’, ‘street people’, ‘teenagers’) back into their place (see Kelling and Coles, 1996). Nonetheless, it is apparent that the New Labour perspective on ‘anti-social behaviour’ explicitly drew not only on the policy orientation but also on the language and narratives of ‘disorder’ in New York and a number of other cities in the US. Bowling (1999:531) has stated that the ‘romance between the Labour party and “New-York style policing” began in the summer of 1995 when then shadow Home Secretary Jack Straw visited New York to meet police Commissioner William Bratton’. In September 1997, in his first speech as British home secretary to the Labour Party Conference, he then went on to state that he wanted ‘zero tolerance of crime and disorder in our neighbourhoods’ (in Young, 1999:123). Furthermore, Straw summed up

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the CDA 1998 as a ‘zero tolerance strategy’ (Bowling, 1999:533). It is also clear that primary definers of this approach to crime and ‘disorder’ share an intolerance of criticism, and this has often given their remarks a populist and ‘anti-intellectual’ flavour. Bratton, for example, attacked ‘ivory tower academics’ with their ‘virtual-reality theories’, many of whom ‘have never sat in a patrol car, walked or bicycled a beat, lived in or visited regularly troubled violent neighbourhoods’ (Bratton and Kelling, 2006). Similarly, Blair (2006), spoke of his ‘avowed, articulated determination to make protection of the lawabiding public the priority and to measure that not by the theory of the textbook but by the reality of the street and community in which real people live real lives’. The Irish Minister for Justice, meanwhile, dismissed his ASBO critics as ‘pointy-headed intellectuals’ who need to ‘get out of their leafy suburbs, the halls and corridors of their universities and their lawyers’ offices’ (Irish Penal Reform Trust, 2005). More generally, the politics of ‘anti-social behaviour’ in the Republic of Ireland, in part, replicated those in England. However, it is also clear that, on occasions, politicians in Ireland have found their inspiration in the USA and were directly influenced without England playing any mediating role. Indeed, in the late1990s, Fianna Fáil, then in opposition, tended to promote the ZTP approach. In March 1997 it published a document entitled Leading the Fight Against Crime and promised to provide an additional 2,000 prison places and to introduce a policy of ‘zero tolerance’ (O’Donnell and O’Sullivan, 2003:49). Despite the scepticism of the Garda Commissioner about the party’s ZTP plans, it developed ‘an infatuation with the idea’ and Bratton’s then deputy, John Timoney, helped Fianna Fáil draw up its ‘zero tolerance’ approach to crime before it returned to government in June 1997 (O’Donnell and O’Sullivan, 2003:51). Following this, the party’s ‘commitment to “zero tolerance” never waived’ (O’Donnell and O’Sullivan, 2003:52). This was illustrated by the vigorous action the new government took ‘against beggars, against those perceived as offending public order and against prostitutes’ (O’Donnell and O’Sullivan, 2003:54).

Making ASBOs Irish In July 2004, when a new Criminal Justice Bill was initiated no reference was made to the inclusion of ASBOs. However, when the Minister for Justice moved the second stage of the Bill in Dáil Éireann in February 2005, he referred to provisions to deal with ‘anti-social behaviour’. The aim was to empower senior police officers to apply to a Judge of the District Court, by way of a civil procedure, which would prohibit people from behaving in an ‘anti-social way’ (McDowell, 2005). McDowell acknowledged that the ‘concept’ of ASBOs was ‘similar to the concept’ in England, but he was also intent on highlighting alleged differences. The definition of ‘anti-social behaviour’, included within the

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mooted legislation, would not be as ‘broad and … vulnerable to inappropriate use’ as that used in England. Moreover, an application for an ASBO would need to be a ‘last resort’. Other safeguards would include ‘important principles’ such as that of ‘minimum interference, the reasonableness of the complaint, the likelihood of recurrence and the number of occasions on which it [anti-social behaviour] has occurred’ (McDowell, 2005). In addition, the duration of the orders would be for a maximum of two years, as opposed to a minimum of two years as in England, and the penalty for breaching an ASBO would be a maximum of six months’ imprisonment. In terms of children, the application for an ASBO would have to be preceded by a ‘series’ of ‘street warnings’ and the drafting and signing of a ‘good behaviour contract’ by a child and their parent(s) (McDowell, 2005). Furthermore, ‘special provisions’ would provide for a ‘separate type’ of order, ‘good behaviour orders’, for children under 14 years ‘who may engage in anti-social behaviour’ (McDowell, 2005). McDowell also indicated that, unlike in England, there was unlikely to be publicity in respect of children made the subject of ASBOs. More fundamentally, these orders would not provide ‘a crank’s charter’ (McDowell, 2005). Hence, it appeared that McDowell was attentive to the critique being levelled at his mooted legislation and was willing to go some way to try to co-opt components of the critical discourse on ASBOs. He would, it was implied, be intent on formulating legislation simply grounded in Irish ‘common sense’: his would be, in short, a simply technical and sensible measure to deal with a pressing ‘social problem’. ASBO legislation would, in his framing, be non-ideological and situated within an uncomplicated national consensus on the role of parents and children. Moreover, the gardaí would retain their role as reticent interveners in the lives of children and their parents. What is more, his legislation would not simply copy the measures introduced across the Irish Sea. Despite the assurances which the Minister attempted to provide, his ASBO plans met with opposition from a broad range of youth groups, civil liberties organisations, legal experts, children’s rights campaigners, student groups and a number of Leftist political parties. Many of these came together as the Coalition Against ASBOs (CAA), which held a series of public meetings. Furthermore, the state’s Ombudsman for Children and a number of high-profile newspaper columnists condemned McDowell’s plans (O’Toole, 2005). Some of the key concerns which the CAA focused on included: •  legislation already in place to deal with ‘anti-social behaviour’ – for example, the Housing Act (1997), the Public Order Act (1994), the Children Act (2001), Intoxicating Liquor Act (2003); •  the likelihood that ASBOS could result in more young people being criminalised and finding themselves in custody; •  attention directed to the creation, operationalisation and funding of

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ASBOs, which could diminish enthusiasm to fully implement the Children Act (2001); •  the failure of the government to address childhood poverty and to provide sufficient ‘family support’ services; and •  the Garda, tarnished by wave of recent scandals, being given additional powers (see also O’Mahony, 2005). However, the introduction of ASBOs in Ireland also won support in many quarters. The main opposition parties to the Fianna Fáil/Progressive Democrat government – Fine Gael and the Labour Party – both indicated that ‘anti-social behaviour’ was going to be a key issue in the next election which took place in May 2007. Fine Gael (2005) published a discussion paper, Ireland – A Night in the Life, and elaborated on its plans on a related website (www.safestreets. ie). Here the party set out thirty measures which it asserted would address ‘anti-social behaviour’. This package, partly based ‘on the success of “anti-social behaviour” policies adopted in other jurisdictions (e.g. Broken Windows in New York)’ included ASBOs, curfew orders, a public awareness campaign on ASB and various other measures previously introduced in England (Fine Gael, 2005:6). It was also envisaged that controversial ‘intensive’ family support projects set up in England, and which include a residential element for the most ‘troublesome families’, might be set up in the Republic (Fine Gael, 2005:9; see also Garrett, 2007b). The Labour Party published Taking Back the Neighbourhood (2005), which was also infused with the policy, rhetoric and metaphors prevalent in English ASBO politics. As the title of the document implies, it also was heavily influenced by US approaches to crime and associated ‘disorder’. Thus, once again, reference was made to ‘broken windows’ and to keywords from ‘disorder’ discourse in America; for example, ‘mugging’, ‘car jackings’ etc. Perhaps more fundamentally, Taking Back the Neighbourhood, with its emphasis on tackling ‘young thugs’ and perhaps a sub-textual appeal to vigilantism, reflected the changes in the ‘emotional tone’ of policy on criminal justice, identified by Garland (Labour Party, 2005:2). Thus, according to the Labour Party’s debased social-democratic vision, ‘our cities and large towns [we]re plagued with juvenile and adolescent crime and anti-social behaviour’. People had, moreover, ‘been terrorised’, the document stated. ‘The thuggery that is too often at the heart of that terror can simply not be allowed to continue’ (Labour Party, 2005:1, emphases added). In this context, the rhetorical association of ‘anti-social behaviour’ with ‘terror’ and ‘terrorism’ was a discursive strategy followed by New Labour, particularly during the period when Blair was leader (Garrett, 2007a). The approach pursued by the Labour Party in Ireland can also be interpreted as serving to promote the ‘territorial stigmatization’ and the processes of ­‘advanced marginality’ identified by Wacquant (2007; 2009b). In this context,

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particular geographical spaces are constructed as symbolic locations which are then deployed as signifiers for crime and other assorted threats and troubles. In England, particularly during the period of the Thatcher administrations in the 1980s, Liverpool often fulfilled this role (Lane, 1987). In the Republic of Ireland, Limerick has served a similar function (Hourigan, 2011). Within each of these urban locations, specific impoverished neighbourhoods are constructed as pariah zones within the wider city: for example, in Liverpool this has been Toxteth; in Limerick it has been Moyross and Southill. Rather than being disseminated throughout working-class areas, advanced marginality tends to concentrate in isolated and bounded territories increasingly perceived by both outsiders and insiders as social purgatories, leprous badlands at the heart of the postindustrial metropolis where only the refuse of society would accept to dwell. (Wacquant, 2007:67)

As Wacquant (2007:67) avows, discourses of ‘vilification proliferate and a­gglomerate’ about such territories and are generated ‘from below’, in the ­‘ordinary interactions of daily life’, as well as ‘from above’, by journalistic, poli­ tical and bureaucratic fields. In terms of the political field, Irish Labour’s ASBO policy document, from 2005, provides a perfect illustration of this process: refracting the concerns of working-class constituents, from below, and championing, from above, an inflated, hyperbolic discourse in order to prompt ­potentially draconian legislative changes. The final part of this chapter will discuss Bourdieu and Wacquant’s assertion that England, playing the role of ‘Trojan horse’, is mainly responsible for the diffusion of notions of American ‘common sense’ within European intellectual and policy-making fields. Although partly accurate, this formulation may not fully account for the complexity of the issue because the European fixation with ‘anti-social behaviour’ and the ‘fear of crime’ and ‘insecurity’ are now much more pervasive and embedded than their analysis suggests. In short, these ­political and policy themes, although markedly influenced by policies in the US, are not simply imported into Europe from across the Atlantic.

The wider European fixation with ‘anti-social behaviour’, ‘safety’ and ‘insecurity’ In 2000 the Commission of the European Communities (CEC, 2000) provided common guidelines and proposals for the prevention of crime throughout the EU. The document maintained that ‘the concept, however, covers separate ­realities’ including ‘anti-social conduct, which without necessarily being a criminal offence, can by its cumulative effect generate a climate of tension and in­security’ (CEC, 2000:6, emphasis added). That is to say – paradoxically – a crime (in the form ‘anti-social conduct’) could be committed without there having being a ‘criminal offence’. Other documents emerging from the EU have

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served to render elastic notions as to what constitutes ‘crime’ within the Council of the EU, for example, maintaining that crime prevention ‘covers all measures that are intended to reduce or otherwise contribute to reducing crime and citizens’ feeling of insecurity’ (Council of the EU, 2001:4, emphasis added). Aside from this discursive refashioning (and expansion) of what has traditionally been viewed as ‘crime’, specific policy changes in this area have had an impact in many areas of Europe. Balliergeau and Schault (2001:441), for example, in their analysis of social work in the Netherlands and Belgium, have referred to the ‘invasion of social work with security themes’ and the tension that exists between ‘socio-cultural logics’ and competing ‘security logics’. What is more, it is apparent that the evolution of policies pivoting on a rather amorphous and ambiguous ‘security’ are frequently racially and ethnically inflected with, in Belgium, ‘youngsters, particularly immigrants of North African origin’ being ‘removed from public areas’ (Balliergeau and Schault, 2001:433). Van Swaaningen (2005:292) has observed similar developments in the Netherlands, given that ‘virtually all social problems are judged along ethnic lines … It has actually become an exception if there is no reference to ethnicity in debates on nuisance, youth gangs, terrorism, misuse of social benefits, etc’. England aside, it has been maintained, ‘there is probably no European country that identifies so strongly with the United States as the Netherlands’ (Van Swanningen, 2005:293). Thus, many ‘Dutch municipalities “drank” from the same source. By en masse visits to New York, they have probably contributed to the largest “policy transfer” in criminological history and made “broken windows”, and “zero tolerance” the ultimate truism in local safety politics’ (Van Swanningen, 2005:292). This, despite the fact that (as in England and Ireland) the key concerns of New York’s ZTP – extraordinarily high murder rates, a crack epidemic and aggressive panhandling – were not actually ‘serious issues in the Netherlands’ (Van Swanningen, 2005:292). Significantly, the fixing ‘broken windows’ thesis was made explicit in a white paper, ‘Towards a Safer Society’, which was published in 2002 (Van Swanningen, 2005). More generally in the Netherlands, the ‘mantra of veiligheid (safety) has become the cover for a surprising number of controlling and excluding laws and practices, mainly aimed at already stigmatised groups’ (Burney, 2005:147). Perhaps not surprisingly, given this policy, a number of cities have adopted a tough stance on begging. Rotterdam, for example, introduced a ban on begging in two areas of the city in 2003. Dutch police are also empowered to give fixedpenalty tickets for begging, sleeping rough, drinking, urinating and other street misdemeanours. In addition, people can be banned from specific areas. Amsterdam, ‘the alleged stronghold of the liberal elite’, has also been intent on repressing incivilities (Van Swaaningen, 2005). More recently, it has been reported that the city was planning to set up in 2013 what have been termed ‘scum villages’ for ‘anti-social’ tenants (Barkham, 2012).

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Because of these state preoccupations which, to differing degrees, are now apparent throughout the EU, Hornqvist (2002:4) has suggested that Europeans need to ponder whether ‘traditional crime policy’ is giving way to ‘a more expansive logic of security’. That is to say, there is a need to theoretically comprehend some of the changes taking place across the EU, in the area of crime and disorder. The role of the USA is clearly significant, but the evolving shape of practices cannot simply be attributed to the dominance of one omnipotent and hegemonic power.

Conclusion Hornqvist’s (2004) analysis is partly persuasive because it identifies deep and fundamental changes which are gradually taking place across the EU. However, the national dimension is important because transformations are apt to look different in each particular country on account of specific cultures. Influential ‘models and dictions meet resistances, counter-discourses and extant traditions and sensibilities, A crucial question … therefore, is how different are the ways in which ostensibly similar vocabularies are taken up and applied in the distinct settings they encounter’ (Newburn and Sparks, 2004:9). For example, in the Republic of Ireland in the previous decade, the discourse on ‘anti-social behaviour’ was not apt to be discursively conflated with ‘security’ and ‘terrorism’ in the same way as it increasingly is in England. In Ireland talk about ‘anti-social behaviour’ was not framed by a wider managerialist-surveillant discourse, nor did there appear to be a substantial group of compliant ‘think tanks’ pressing for and promoting the ‘anti-social behaviour’ agenda. Moreover, in contrast with the Nether­lands and Belgium, the introduction of ASBOs in Ireland was not racially or ethnically inflected in the ways that similar measures have been in these countries. However, in the Republic of Ireland the pernicious politics of ‘anti-social behaviour’ were populist, reactionary and largely retrograde. This appeared to be especially the case in the middle of the decade when the ASBO idea was first introduced by McDowell and supported by the main opposition parties within Dáil Éireann. As observed earlier, there has been little recourse to ASBOs since they were introduced, because Gardaí appear to be relying on public order legislation which predates the Criminal Justice Act (2006); for example, the Public Order Act (1994) and intoxicating liquor legislation. Prior to entering into government, the Labour Party’s then justice spokesperson, Pat Rabbitte, conceded that the ASBO was a ‘failed mechanism’ and not, in fact, a deterrent to anti-social behaviour (O’Brien, 2009). The lack of use of ASBOs illuminates the aptness of the critiques levelled at these measures when they were still pending in the middle of the last decade. More fundamentally, since ASBOs were introduced

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we have witnessed more of a sense of continuity rather than rupture in terms how the Gardaí responded to behaviour which was perceived as troublesome or ‘anti-social’. In this sense, the coalition of opposition which mobilised against ASBOs achieved a good deal of success: the harshness of the measures operative in England were not merely replicated in Ireland, and the then ruling administration was strategically alert to how it was sensible to dilute the punitive nature of the envisaged orders. How the CAA assembled a counter-hegemonic case against ASBOs remains impressive despite its being unable to prevent the relevant legislation. This activity suggests that the practice of dissent can attain a measure of pragmatic success. However, it might also be argued that the ­attention given to the pending ASBO legislation also served the interests of elites in that it resembled a ‘screen discourse’ distracting attention from what would later come to light as more pervasive and damaging forms of ‘anti-social behaviour’ which were occurring during the same period – the reckless policies and practices of the bankers and property speculators.

Notes   1 This chapter draws on and radically revises a previously published article: ‘Learning from the “Trojan Horse”? The arrival of “Anti-Social Behaviour Orders” in Ireland’, European Journal of Social Work, 10(4): 497–511. I am grateful to Taylor and Francis for permitting me to have recourse to my work once again.  2 England, rather than the UK or Britain, is deliberately used throughout this chapter because the devolved UK administrations are now tending to diverge in approaches to social policy.   3 In May 2012 the Conservative–Liberal Democrat coalition administration announced that it was to introduce a different type of order, the ‘crime prevention injunction’ (see also Chakrabarti, 2012).   4 Vulgate refers to an ancient Latin version of the Scriptures made by St Jerome and others in the fourth century.

References Allen, K. (2003) ‘Neither Boston nor Berlin: class polarisation and neo-liberalism in the Irish Republic’, in C. Coulter and S. Coleman (eds) The End of Irish history? Critical Reflections on the Celtic Tiger, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 56–74. Allen, K. (2009) Ireland’s Economic Crash: A Radical Agenda for Change, Dublin: Liffey Press. Allen, K. (2012) ‘The model pupil who faked the test: social policy in the Irish crisis’, Critical Social Policy, 32(3): 422–40. Baillergeau, E., and Schault, C. (2001) ‘Social work and the security issue in the Netherlands and Belgium’, European Journal of Criminal Policy and Research, 9(4): 427–46. Barkham, P. (2012) ‘Liberal Amsterdam plans to create “scum villages”’, The Guardian, 4 December. Blair, T. (2006) ‘Time for a proper debate on law and order’, 23 June. www.number-10.gov.uk

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(retrieved 30 June 2006). Bourdieu, P., and Wacquant, L. (1999) ‘On the cunning of imperialist reason’, Theory, Culture and Society, 16(1): 41–59. Bourdieu, P., and Wacquant, L. (2001) ‘NewLiberalSpeak: notes on the new planetary vulgate’, Radical Philosophy, 105 (January/February): 2–6. Bourdieu, P., and Wacquant, L. J. D. (2004) An Invitation to Reflexive Sociology, Cambridge: Polity, 2nd reprint. Bowling, B. (1999) ‘The rise and fall of New York murder’, British Journal of Criminology, 39(4): 531–55. Bratton, W., and Kelling, G. (2006) ‘There are no cracks in the broken windows’, National Review Online, 28 February, http://goo.gl/QWPDdi (retrieved 19 September 2013). Browne, V. (2013) ‘Inequality feeds culture of criminality’, The Irish Times, 31 January. Burney, E. (2005) Making People Behave: Anti-Social Behaviour, Politics and Policy, Devon: Willan. CEC (2000) The Prevention of Crime in the European Union: Reflection on Common Guidelines and Proposals for Community Financial Support, 29 November, COM 786. Chakrabarti, S. (2012) ‘A facelift for old thinking’, The Guardian, 23 May. Chief Secretary to the Treasury (2003) Every Child Matters, London, HMSO, Cm 5860, http://goo.gl/9P1I3k (pdf, retrieved 19 September 2013) Coleman, R., and Sim, J. (2005) ‘Contemporary statecraft and the “punitive obsession”: a critique of the new penology’, in J. Pratt, D. Brown, M. Brown, S. Hallsworth and W. Morrison (eds) The New Punitiveness: Trends, Theories and Perspectives, Cullompton: Willan, 101–21. Committee on the Criminal Law Amendment Acts (1931) Report of the Committee on the Criminal Law Amendment Acts 1880–85 and Juvenile Prostitution, Dublin: Stationery Office. Council of the European Union (2001) Council Decision Setting up a European Crime Prevention Network, 26 April, 7794/01. Department of Health and Children (1999) Children First: National Guidelines for the Protection and Welfare of Children, Dublin: Stationery Office. Department of Health and Social Security (1988) Working Together: A Guide to Inter-Agency Co-operation for the Protection of Children from Abuse, London: HMSO. Dolowitz, D. P. (2000) ‘Policy transfer: a new framework of policy analysis’, in D. P. Dolowitz with R. Hulme, M. Nellis and F. O’Neill (eds) Policy Transfer and British Social Policy: Learning from the USA?, Buckingham: Open University Press, 9–37. Ferriter, D. (2005) The Transformation of Ireland 1900–2000, London: Profile Books. Fine Gael (2005) Ireland, A Night in the Life: Anti-Social Behaviour is Hurting Our ­Communities, Dublin: Fine Gael. Foot, M. (2005) ‘A triumph of hearsay and hysteria’, The Guardian, 5 April. Garland, D. (2001) The Culture of Control: Crime and Social Order in Contemporary Society, Oxford: Oxford University. Garrett, P. M. (2003) Remaking Social Work with Children and Families: A Critical Discussion on the ‘Modernisation’ of Social Care, London: Routledge. Garrett, P. M. (2007a) ‘Making “Anti-Social Behaviour”: a fragment on the evolution of “ASBO Politics” in Britain’, British Journal of Social Work, 37(5): 839–56. Garrett, P. M. (2007b) ‘“Sinbin” solutions: the “pioneer” projects for “problem families” and the forgetfulness of social policy research’, Critical Social Policy, 27(2): 203–30. Garrett, P. M. (2009) ‘Transforming’ Children’s Services? Social Work, Neoliberalism and the

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‘Modern’ World, Maidenhead: McGraw Hill/Open University. Home Office (2003a) Respect and Responsibility – Taking a Stand Against Anti-Social ­Beha­viour, London: Home Office. Home Office (2003b) Together – Tackling Anti-Social Behaviour, London: Home Office. Hornqvist, M. (2004) ‘Risk assessments and public order disturbances: new European guidelines for the use of force?’, Journal of Scandinavian Criminology and Crime Prevention, 5(1): 4–26. Hourigan, N. (ed.) (2011) Understanding Limerick: Social Exclusion and Change, Cork: Cork University Press. Irish Penal Reform Trust (2005) ‘McDowell warns of “pointy-headed” threat to social order!’, Press Release, 25 May. James, A. L. and James, A. (2001) ‘Tightening the net: children, community and control’, British Journal of Sociology, 52(2): 211–28. Jones, T. and Newburn, T. (2004) ‘The convergence of US and UK crime control policy: exploring substance and process’, in T. Newburn and R. Sparks (eds) Criminal Justice and Political Cultures, Cullompton: Willan, 123–52. Kelling, G. L., and Coles, C. M. (1996) Fixing Broken Windows: Restoring Order and Reducing Crime in Our Communities, New York: Free Press. Kennedy, J. (2012) ‘Only 7 Asbos issued since system started in 2007’, Irish Examiner, 9 July. Kilcommins, S., Vaughan, B., O’Donnell, I., and O’Sullivan, E. (2004) Crime, Punishment and the Search for Order in Ireland, Dublin: Institute of Public Administration. Labour Party (2005) Taking Back the Neighbourhood: A Strategy For Tackling Anti-Social Behaviour, Dublin: Labour Party. Lane, T. (1987) Liverpool: Gateway of Empire, London: Lawrence and Wishart. Macnicol, J. (1987) ‘In pursuit of the Underclass’, Journal of Social Policy, 16(3): 293–318. McAvoy, S. L. (1999) ‘The Regulation of Sexuality in the Irish Free State 1929–1935’, in G. Jones and E. Malcolm (eds) Medicine, Disease and the State of Ireland, Cork: Cork University, 253–67. McDowell, M. (2005) ‘Address by Minister to Forum on ASBOs’, www.justice.ie (retrieved 23 December 2005). Muncie, J., Hughes, G., and McLaughlin, E. (eds) (2002) Youth Justice: Critical Readings, London: Sage. Murray, C. (1990) The Emerging British Underclass, London: Institute of Economic Affairs. Murray, C. (1994) Underclass: The Crisis Deepens, London: Institute of Economic Affairs. Newburn, T. (2002) ‘Atlantic crossings: “Policy transfer” and crime control in the USA and Britain’, Punishment and Society, 4(2): 165–94. Newburn, T., and Sparks, R. (2004) ‘Criminal justice and political cultures’, in T. Newburn and R. Sparks (eds.) Criminal Justice and Political Cultures, Cullompton: Willan, 1–16. O’Brien, C. (2009) ‘Government to review effectiveness of ASBOs’, Irish Times, 26 June. O’Donnell, I., and O’Sullivan, E. (2003) ‘The politics of intolerance – Irish style’, British Journal of Criminology, 43(1): 41–62. Office of the EU Commissioner for Human Rights (2005) Report by Mr. Alvaro Gil-Robles, Commissioner for Human Rights, on his Visit to the United Kingdom, 4th–12th November 2004, Strasbourg: Council of Europe. Office of the Inspector of Prisons (2011) Office of the Inspector of Prisons Annual Report 2010, http://goo.gl/4e795b (pdf, retrieved 19 September 2013). O’Mahony, P. (2005) ‘Asbos: Another pig in the poke and backward step for juvenile justice’, Unpublished paper, Anti-Social Behaviour Orders: Social Policy and Human Rights Confer-

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ence, Trinity College Dublin, 22 June. Ombudsman for Children’s Office (2011) Young People in St. Patrick’s Institution, Dublin: Ombudsman for Children’s Office. O’Toole, F. (2005) ‘A cynical political gesture’, Irish Times, 14 June. Pinkerton, J., and Dolan, P. (2007) ‘Family support, social capital, resilience and adolescent coping’, Child and Family Social Work, 12(3): 219–28. Prideaux, S. (2001) ‘New Labour, old functionalism: the underlying contradictions of welfare reform in the US and UK’, Social Policy and Social Administration, 35(1): 85–115. Respect Task Force (2006) Respect Action Plan, London: Home Office. Squires, P., and Stephen, D. E. (2005) ‘Rethinking ASBOs’, Critical Social Policy, 25(4): 517–28. Task Force on the Child and Family Support Agency (2012) Report of the Task Force on the Child and Family Support Agency, http://goo.gl/VgZqKV (pdf, retrieved 19 September 2013). Taylor, G. (2005) Negotiated Governance and Public Policy in Ireland, Manchester: Manchester University Press. Van Swaaningen, R. (2005) ‘Public safety and the management of fear’, Theoretical Criminology, 9(3): 289–305. Wacquant, L. (2001) ‘The penalisation of poverty and the rise of neo-liberalism’, European Journal on Criminal Policy and Research, 9(4): 401–12. Wacquant, L. (2007) ‘Territorial stigmatization in the age of advanced marginality’, Thesis Eleven, 9(1): 66–77. Wacquant, L. (2008) ‘Ordering insecurity: social polarization and the punitive upsurge’, Radical Philosophy Review, 11(1): 9–27. Wacquant, L. (2009a) Punishing the Poor: The Neoliberal Government of Social Insecurity, Durham, NC, and London: Duke University Press. Wacquant, L. (2009b) ‘The body, the ghetto and the penal State’, Qualitative Sociology, 32(1): 101–29. Whelan, K. (2004) ‘The Revisionist debate in Ireland’, Boundary 2, 31(1): 179–206. Wilson, J. Q., and Kelling, G. (1982) ‘The police and neighbourhood safety’, Atlantic Monthly, March: 29–38. Young, J. (1999) The Exclusive Society, London: Sage.

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8 All that shimmers is not gold: the Garda Síochána Ombudsman Commission and Garda accountability Vicky Conway Introduction [Det Sergeant] John White started to shoulder me into [Garda] John Dooley and then John Dooley shouldered me back over to White … as though I was a bit of dirt.   When White came in at the start, he had a batch of [post-mortem] photos and he … started to push them into my face and I started to close my eyes tight and every time that I opened my eyes, I could get a glance of blood so I had to close them tight again … White kept roaring and shouting that this was the work of my husband and that I was nothing but a ‘dirty lying murdering bastard’ … that I was telling nothing but lies all day and that I was Satan and I was the devil … He was roaring and shouting that much that the spits was coming out of his mouth hitting me in the face.   He says that I was going to get stabbed by somebody in Raphoe and whenever this happened, he would come up and spit on my grave … He told me Richie Barron was going to come back and haunt me … I thought he was going to hit me, because he was punching the table and punching the wall. Whenever you’re never in bother with any Gardaí, the whole of your life, you don’t know what to expect, but you don’t expect these sort of things. (Morris, 2008a:3.51)

Roisin McConnell stated the above in testimony to the Morris Tribunal. Roisin had not broken any law. She and eleven others were unlawfully arrested in ­December 1996, as gardaí, without basis or substantiation, investigated whether her husband had committed murder. There are many excerpts from the Tribunal which could be presented here as evidence of the wrongdoing of gardaí. This is not the most extreme. Indeed, this excerpt is purposefully presented because it is not extreme. Roisin was not seriously assaulted, wrongfully prosecuted or wrongfully convicted of a crime. She was unlawfully detained for a few hours, shown graphic photographs and called names as the interrogating garda got

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angry. On the scale of potential police abuse this is not exceptional. For Roisin, however, these were life-changing events. Within a week of her detention she was admitted to hospital for psychiatric help as a consequence of this experience, where she was treated by electro-convulsive therapy. She complained to no avail. She endured nineteen days of evidence at the Tribunal relating to her detention, as numerous members of the force lied about her experience. She spent two days giving evidence, reliving her ordeal. Twelve years after her ordeal, when the relevant Morris Report was published, the Garda Commissioner apologised to Roisin and other individuals who had been wrongfully arrested. And she might be considered ‘lucky’, as her story has been heard, her abuse confirmed in official discourse and an apology provided. By contrast to many countries the scale of abuse by police in Ireland may not seem serious. People do not regularly die in garda custody, and the police do not conduct extrajudicial killings. Irish people do not routinely bribe police for administrative tasks. In the last decade alone, however, controversies have emerged: the discretionary wiping of penalty points (Department of Justice, 2013); the policing of protests both in the West of Ireland (Shell to Sea) (Front Line Defenders, 2010; GSOC, 2012a; see also Chapter 2) and in Dublin (student fees);1 allegations of collusion between gardaí and a known drug dealer (GSOC, 2013a); the disappearance of money from an evidence store room (Anon., 2013); a number of deaths from or following police contact such as John Carty (Barr, 2006), Brian Rossiter, Terrance Wheelock and John Maloney; and the deaths of two raiders in a post office in Lusk. Less easy to identify are those abuses which might not be classified as serious, but what Roisin’s experience documents is that ‘less serious’ abuses of police powers can have significant and long-lasting effects on those individuals and their families, as well as on the integrity and operation of the criminal justice system. The events in Donegal were the final catalyst in the reform of the Garda Síochána Complaints Board (GSCB) and the establishment of the Garda Síochána Ombudsman Commission (GSOC) in 2007. This chapter explores that change and analyses its significance. First, its establishment is contextualised with critical discussion of police governance and accountability, paying particular attention to complaints systems and their role in police oversight. Next, a brief review of police complaints systems in Ireland is provided. The various factors that contributed to the establishment of GSOC are explored and an analysis of its operation suggests that it is not as significant a change as is often presented. This chapter argues that the reforms to the complaints mechanism are predominantly procedural in nature and, when located in the broader context of police governance and accountability, embedded cultural problems reveal themselves as undermining these attempts.

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Police accountability

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Accountability … renders the police answerable for what they do. Thereby it prevents them from slipping into an enclosed fortress of inward thinking and social isolation which would in the long term result in a siege mentality – the police in their fortress (happy as long as it is secure) and the rest of us outside, unhappy, uncertain and insecure (for we do not know what they will do or how they will do it). (Scarman, 1981:5.58)

To enhance the rights of all, the police often need to constrain the rights of some, which means, as Jones (2003:606) explains, that ‘the powers that the police possess to protect fundamental liberties simultaneously provide the potential for severe abuse of these freedoms’. It is a complex scenario whereby the state must balance both empowering and constraining the operation of the police so as to best protect the rights of citizens. Rights to privacy, liberty, bodily integrity and property can all be superseded to enable the police to perform their functions effectively. Further, the police have the monopoly on the legitimate use of force in the civil context2 (Reiner, 2000a; Sanders and Young, 2000). An additional layer of complexity is added by the inevitable exercise of discretion by police. It is neither possible nor desirable that all laws be enforced all the time, and therefore individual situations require police, often lower-ranking members (Muir, 1977), to interpret the rules (Reiner, 1992). They make un­ supervised on-the-spot decisions to stop and search, to arrest, to use force and so on (Scraton, 1985). Both the nature of democracy and human rights obligations impose standards on the application of that discretion such as reasonableness, necessity and proportionality, but these terms evade clear definition and are interpreted in accordance with subjective values (Bullock and Johnson, 2012). By providing checks on the exercise of powers, accountability mechanisms aim to regulate the application of discretion (Newburn and Jones, 1996). Further, by enabling us to believe that police are using these powers appropriately, accountability helps ensure the legitimacy of the police (Beetham, 1991). This in turn enhances the community’s willingness to cooperate with the police, aiding it to be a more effective and efficient force (Newburn and Jones, 1996:121). In the UK this is key to ‘policing by consent’ whereby the police are ‘citizens in uniform’ (Brogden, 1987; Reiner, 2000a). This applies both to specific, legislative powers and to broader conceptions of power, such as an ability to make people do things they would not otherwise do, to influence decisionmaking (Lukes, 1974) or to impact on debates concerning justice, all of which are within the capacity of the police. Loader (1997:4) explains that, ‘[t]he symbolic power of the police has become the power of legitimate pronouncement: a power to diagnose, classify, authorize and represent both individuals and the world, and to have this power of “legitimate naming” not just taken seriously, but taken-for-granted’.

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The police have political power, with a capacity to determine right and wrong, good and bad, and to identify the ills of society. Acknowledging this requires that we situate discourses of police accountability in broader social, cultural and political debates and it urges avoidance of micro-level, procedural reforms. Yet this is often absent in definitions of the term. Dictionaries focus on responsiveness, where actions are explained post-facto. They refer not to pre-emptive control or governance of actions, or the wider context of power, but simply to taking responsibility for and explaining specific actions. Day and Klein (1987:109) suggest that accountability incorporates ‘answerability, responsiveness, openness, efficient estate management, not to mention participation and obedience to external laws’. Bowling and Foster (2002) prioritise cooperation with the wider community, highlighting that it is not the police alone that make decisions about policing. Similarly, Bayley (1983:36) places community values at the centre: ‘actions, severally and collectively, congruent with the values of the community in which it works and responsive to the discrepancies when they are pointed out’. This not only incorporates explaining behaviour but also lends account­abi­ lity an element of influence on the behaviour of the police or, as Chan (1999) describes it, both controlling the police and demanding explanations. Other writers (Jefferson and Grimshaw, 1984; Lustgarten, 1986; see also Walsh and Conway, 2011 for review) prioritise control; having to seek explanations for behaviour indicates that attempts to control the police have failed. The Patten Commission (Independent Commission for Policing in Northern Ireland, 1999) adopted this combined approach which attempts to ensure that ­behaviour is controlled from the outset to avoid wrongdoing and where that fails, procedures are in place to uncover why and to provide redress. To achieve this goal, the Commission identified five variants of accountability required for a robust framework: transparency, and democratic, legal, financial and internal accountability. Legal accountability is often the most visible face of accountability, often bearing the brunt of expectations: the British police are ‘answerable to the law’, making them ‘the most accountable and therefore the most acceptable police in the world’ (Mark, 1977:56). In practice, legal accountability refers to complaints systems and to civil and criminal actions. The courts can have a role in im­posing legal accountability, but criminal and civil actions are difficult, lengthy and costly, pitting citizens and police in adversarial positions (Smith, 2001). As the more accessible variant, police complaints’ systems carry the weight of ­responsibility and are expected to provide redress and restore public confidence. Despite this focus and reliance, procedural flaws have abounded: delay is common­place and institutional resistance inhibits the cooperation of police forces. Above all, however, attention in practice and theory has focused on independence and the involvement of police in investigations of complaints

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(­ Goldsmith and Lewis, 2000). An international trend has witnessed increased levels of external review or civilian oversight (Goldsmith, 1990; Prenzler and Ronken, 2001), culmin­ating in Northern Ireland with the creation of the Police ­Ombudsman who i­nvestigates every single complaint independently ­(Seneviratne, 2004). The focus on independence, however, risks losing sight of the scale of police power and the broader context of accountability. Patten demands a broader framework. Democratic accountability functions through elected representatives (Loader, 1994), involving the public in governance and accountability beyond individual engagement with the legal mechanisms outlined above (McLaughlin, 1992). Achieving the goal of ­­democratic involvement has long been contentious (Lustgarten, 1986). The Patten Commission proposed two bodies to deliver this. The Policing Board, composed of elected representatives and independent members, governs the police: setting objectives and priorities, developing plans, negotiating budgets, monitoring spending and performance and making senior appointments. The Chief Constable retains ‘operational responsibility’, while government provides financial support and outlines national requirements. This method democratically ­separates control of policing in a tri-partite arrangement (Lustgaren, 1986). In addition, District Policing Partnership Boards provide decentralised forums for direct engagement and dialogue between the police and communities. Patten also emphasises financial accountability, given the cost of the service to the community, promoting planning and auditing. This is an area which can, however, become politicised; for example, Loader (1994:5222) argues that the ‘managerial turn’ in British politics led to a shift in the debate to notions of service delivery. These external measures should be also combined with strong systems of internal accountability, usually in the form of disciplinary codes. The effectiveness of such codes is dependent on a responsive system of internal scrutiny and the fair and transparent enforcement of disciplinary pro­cedures (Chan, 1999). Finally, Patten (Independent Commission for Policing in Northern Ireland, 1999:5.14) placed transparency at the heart of accountability: ‘[p]eople need to know and understand what their police are doing and why … Secretive policing arrangements run counter not only to the principles of a democratic society but also to the achievement of fully effective policing’. Transparency is achieved primarily through the public dissemination of information on policing, in a proactive, rather than a reactive manner. The natural inclination of police forces is, however, to be ‘defensive, reactive and cautious’, so achieving transparency can be culturally challenging (ibid., 1999:5.16). While each of the above mechanisms is important and can contribute to a holistic approach to police accountability and governance, care must be taken not to deconstruct accountability into tick-box exercises. Holistic accountabi­ lity challenges the culture of policing (Chan, 1996; Reiner, 2000b) and the resultant norms and values that pervade that occupation. This becomes even

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more apparent if we broaden our discussion beyond legislative power to symbolic power and recognise the political economy of policing.

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An Garda Síochána and police accountability On its establishment, the colonial system of governance which operated in the Royal Irish Constabulary was replicated in An Garda Síochána: linear, centralised control, with the Commissioner directly answerable to the Minister for Justice (Conway, 2013a). Today this still forms the basis of democratic accountability, whereby the Minister, and not the Commissioner, can be questioned in Dáil Éireann about policing. There is no facility beyond this for the Commissioner to be questioned about policing. Walsh’s (1998) study highlights the ineffectiveness of this system in producing democractic accountability. Until the 1980s, internal accountability was the other dominant mechanism. Discipline has always been strictly regulated and enforced in An Garda Síochána. Legislation from the 1920s provides both codes of discipline3 and inquiries to investigate breaches.4 McNiffe (1997:155) documents that between 1922 and 1931, 500 men, close to 5 per cent of the intake for that period, were dismissed, predominantly for indebtedness or drunkenness. In 1934 gardaí shot dead a young, unarmed man at an auction of cattle seized by police. Calls for an inquiry were ignored. Unusually, the victim’s father sued members of the force. While the judge found in favour of the applicant, his criticism was limited to particular members, rather than the force as a whole: ‘[t]hey are an excrescence upon that reputable body’ (Lynch v. Fitzgerald and Others [1938], IR382 at 390/391). Concerns as to garda use of powers have consistently arisen over the decades. In April 1966 the National Council for Civil Liberties and the Labour Party held a meeting to protest at garda brutality (Conway, 2013a). Even though Ireland had at this time signed (not ratified) the European Convention on Human Rights, it seems that the police could engage in this violence without fear of repercussion. The dominant attitude to police violence was evident in political rhetoric: ‘[t]hose who live by force can hardly expect to be treated with velvet gloves’ (Ryan in Dáil Éireann, 1969). Until the 1980s complaints were dealt with internally under disciplinary regulations (Walsh, 1998). No information was published about the volume or handling of these. Scandals in the 1970s and 1980s mobilised concern about accountability substantively for the first time. In the late 1970s it was alleged that a ‘Heavy Gang’ was operating within the force, using oppressive and violent methods to secure confessions from members of paramilitary groups (Conway, 2013a; Kilcommins et al., 2004). These allegations were consistently denied by officials in both the force and the Department of Justice, but the death of Peter Matthews in custody and the events of the Kerry Babies case (Inglis, 2003;

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­ cCafferty, 1987) pushed the government to change. When police powers of M arrest and detention were significantly extended by the Criminal Justice Act (1985), politicians conceded to the creation of an external complaints mechanism. A board to review investigations conducted by gardaí and make recommendations on sanctions was proposed. Garda opposition was staunch: [m]any Gardaí feel genuinely hurt that they, and their profession, should be held in such low esteem by the Government that they can no longer be trusted, can no longer be accorded the same rights and respect as all other public servants – not to mention the criminals. At a time when Gardaí are under siege from all sides the least they could have hoped for was that their own Minister for Justice would not add to the cacophony of abuse, but would instead do something to boost flagging morale … How more accountable are they going to have to become before the Government is satisfied? (Garda News, 1985 cited by Prendergast in Dáil Éireann, 1986)

Following some concessions, the Garda Síochána (Complaints) Act (1986) created the GSCB. Under this legislation, investigations were conducted by a member of the force who submitted reports to the board. The board’s function was to review investigations, with independent investigations permitted only in exceptional circumstances.5 There was a garda member on the board and investigations conducted by gardaí were limited to gathering statements (Walsh, 2009:326), not questioning the veracity of those. Subsequent to an investigation there would be either a tribunal, on which a garda sat, or if it appeared criminal it was referred to the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) (Walsh, 1998). This was, therefore, a review rather than an investigatory body (Prenzler and Ronken, 2001). The GSCB was poorly resourced, regularly experienced backlogs and on one occasion suspended operations due to shortcomings in funding (Cusack, 1989). In its final year of operation, the board had an office staff of just eighteen and a half persons to deal with 1,200 complaints: by way of comparison, the Office of the Police Ombudsman in Northern Ireland employs nearly 150 people to deal with just over 3,000 complaints per annum. The level of complaints was low, never surpassing 1,400 a year. On the other hand, civil actions were initiated regularly: between 1997 and 2007 almost €17 million was paid in compensation in civil actions (Conway, 2013a). The GSCB increasingly became a cause for complaint from bodies such as the Irish Council for Civil Liberties, the Irish Human Rights Commission (IHRC) (IHRC, 2002), the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT) (CPT, 1995; 1999; 2003), the National Crime Forum (1998) and a variety of academics (Walsh, 1998; Brewer et al., 1996; Kilcommins et al., 2004). The board itself acknowledged the inadequacies of its operation, calling for the establishment of a new body in each of its last five reports (2002-2006). Never were its failings more evident than in the reports of the Morris Tribunal.

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The GSCB and Donegal When Richard Barron died on a roadside in Donegal in October 1996, the garda investigation was quickly recognised to be flawed. An internal investigation was conducted and in the process other allegations concerning the district emerged. After much political machinations the Morris Tribunal was established in 2002. Over six years the Tribunal produced eight reports, which represent the most damning examination of policing in Ireland (for reviews, see Conway, 2010; 2013a; Conway and Walsh, 2011). Justice Morris found that gardaí engaged a local woman to plant fake bombs in Donegal and Northern Ireland, which they would then ‘find’. He held that gardaí applied tunnel vision in the investigation of the ‘murder’ of Mr Barron, when, had proper procedure been followed, it would have been quickly classified as a hit and run (Morris, 2005). Instead, over a dozen people were wrongfully arrested and treated oppressively in custody (Morris, 2008a) while some were harassed by gardaí (Morris, 2008b) and one person made a false confession. Findings were made of entrapment of innocent persons, the planting of bombs and guns, abuse of process and ill-treatment of detained persons (Morris, 2006a; 2006b). Garda witnesses repeatedly lied to investigators and in turn to the Tribunal. Justice Morris was critical of senior gardaí who were negligent in the performance of their duties, permitting these events to occur. This was not a case of rotten apples, nor was there any reason to believe there was something peculiar about the district. One Tribunal module concerned the handling of the sixty-one complaints which were submitted to the GSCB. Due to a delay in gardaí submitting the complaints it was a year before they were considered collectively. The delay, the connections and the severity of the allegations were a ‘cause of deep concern’ for the GSCB (Morris, 2008b:11.13), prompting many unusual steps to be taken. Special meetings were held, the chief executive officer travelled to meet with the complainants and an assistant was provided to the investigator. It took another year for the report to be submitted, by which time victims were complaining of delay. And while reports normally were three to five pages in length, this report was more than 1,000 pages with 2,000 pages of appendices. Justice Morris (2008b:12.54) concluded that the investigating officer met a ‘Blue Wall of Garda denial’ during his investigation. The investigating officer told the Tribunal that in a number of instances, such as the complaints of Roisin McConnell, the alleg­ ations were ‘pretty awful’, and ‘he simply did not believe that any member of an Garda Síochána would have abused women to the degree alleged by the complainants’ (Morris, 2008b:12.104). The gardaí involved denied every accusation and the investigator was not permitted to challenge their statements. Even after submission of the report progress was delayed due to ongoing internal investigations and prosecutions. It was not until July 2001, almost five years after the initial complaints were submitted, that the GSCB felt that it could take action.

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At this point, however, the victims withdrew their complaints and the GSCB had to close the investigation. The system, Morris (2008b:12.109.4) felt, ‘did not and could not give effective redress to complainants’. The scale of the complaints went ‘far beyond its capability’ (Morris, 2008b:11.104). The victims of abuse in Donegal tried alternative avenues, appealing to political representatives who regularly questioned the Minister. However, it later transpired that the Minister did not receive a copy of the internal investigation and was in the dark as to the scale of the problem. Existing democratic accountability mechanisms failed, exposing a culturally embedded resistance to transparency and accountability on the part of garda management. It was the Tribunal and civil actions which provided redress for victims, exposing the failure of existing mechanisms. It was in this context that GSOC was created. The reforms were announced early in the work of the Tribunal and GSOC was operational before this report had been published. The work of Justice Morris had no bearing on these ­developments, save for the Tribunal’s existence giving urgency for reform. Other events motivated these changes. With the Good Friday Agreement, Ireland committed to harmonise its police accountability frameworks with those in the North. There was also an international movement towards more independent models of handling police complaints. Numerous other juris­ dictions, inclu­ding England and Wales as well as parts of Australia and Canada, had reformed their complaints mechanisms (Smith, 2004). Further, the human rights context required reforms. The European Court of Human Rights ruled that complaints being investigated internally, where the complaint relates to a breach of human rights, is not an effective remedy as required under Article 13 of the Convention (Govell v. UK [1998]): any effective system requires full and complete independence. The impetus for reform of the complaints mechanism was, therefore, multifaceted and in all likelihood would have occurred irrespective of the Morris Tribunal.

GSOC: a procedural assessment GSOC, established under the Garda Síochána Act (2005), began work in May 2007. A three-person Commission, all appointed by government, GSOC’s functions are to receive and investigate complaints, report to the Garda Commissioner or the DPP as appropriate and examine Garda practice and ­procedure where requested. This is a much broader remit than that of its ­predecessor. The admissibility of complaints is largely unchanged. There is a six-month time-limit and complaints must relate either to a breach of the disciplinary code or to a criminal offence. The Garda Commissioner cannot be the subject of a complaint. There are now more structured forms of investigation, which incorporate a greater degree of independence. Allegations may be dealt with by way of informal resolution (s.90), a garda investigation which may or may not be

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s­ upervised (s.94), or an independent GSOC investigation, the form of which will vary depending on whether the conduct appears to involve an offence (s.98) or not (s.95).6 For those appearing to involve an offence (s.98) the investigator has all the powers, immunities, privileges and duties of a garda, including entry, search, seizure, arrest, detention and charge. Searches of Garda stations may be conducted where permission is granted. The granting of such fundamental powers to civilians investigating the police is significant and marks a shift from the basic taking of statements under the previous system. This only applies to s.98 investigations, however. In addition to complaints received from the public, the Garda Commissioner must refer any matter involving conduct of a member for investigation if it resulted in death or serious harm (s.102(1)). Equally, if GSOC believes that the conduct of a member has resulted in death or serious harm they must investigate (s.102(4)). The Minister can also direct GSOC to examine any issue of policy, practice or procedure of An Garda Síochána.

To what extent change? The GSOC’s annual reports (GSOC, various years) provide information based on which its contribution to police accountability and the state of police ­accountability more broadly in Ireland can be critically analysed. After ­flurries of complaints in 2007 and 2008, levels have settled at between 2,089 and 2,275 complaints per annum. Analysis based on complaints per 1,000 gardaí, which can account for changing garda numbers since the recession, reveals that despite the increase, complaints against the gardaí remain low compared with police forces in England and Wales (see Table 8.1). 8.1  Complaints against police per 1,000 police Year

Ireland

England and Wales

2008 186 2009 145 2010 157 2011 164 2012 156

310 206 221 225 213

Data source: GSOC Annual Reports (various years) and Independent Police Complaints Commission (various years).

There are numerous possible explanations: members of the service may be committing fewer abuses than their UK counterparts, Irish people may be less inclined or willing to complain about gardaí, or they may not have confidence

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in the complaints system. I argue that there are reasons to believe the second and third points may be at play. There is a significant upward trend of inadmissibility of complaints;7 rising from 27 per cent in 2007, to 32 per cent in both 2008 and 2010 and reaching 39 per cent in 2011. Two out of five people who are sufficiently concerned or dissatisfied to complain are told that their complaint cannot be considered. This must detract from public confidence in the system and thereby its legitimacy. More significantly, the evidence suggests GSOC is not the independent body it is perceived to be. Table 8.2 displays the handling of admissible complaints up until the end of November 2011, from which point relevant data have not been published. Where discretion exists (i.e. outside of s.102 investigations) independent investigations only occur where the complaint appears to involve an offence (s.98), just 35.5 per cent of cases. Over 40 per cent of complaints are still investigated by gardaí under section 94, most without GSOC supervision. Further, the GSOC has seconded some gardaí to its office so there may be garda involvement in its ‘independent’ investigations (Walsh, 2009:340). 8.2  Method of handling admissible complaints by GSOC Method

2007 2008 2009 2010 2011* Total

Informal Resolution

228

136

215

172

268

1,019 (13.4%)

Unsupervised garda investigation

312

638

519

728

512

2,709 (35.5%)

28

175

125

73

37

438 (5.7%)

GSOC investigation (not criminal)

2

30

23

25

80 (1%)

Supervised garda investigation

GSOC investigation (criminal)

384

641

559

632

497

2,713 (35.5%)

Garda referral death/serious harm

247

129

103

103

82

664 (8.7%)

GSOC initiated death/serious harm

1

2

2

1

6

Total 7,623 *November. Data source: GSOC Annual Reports (various years).

It is disappointing that just 35 per cent of investigations are independently investigated. This may well be a resource issue. From the beginning of the ­recession in Ireland GSOC’s budget has fallen from €11,645 million in 2008

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to €8,381 million in 2012. However, in 2008, €2 million went unspent. Staff numbers have fallen from ninety-two in 2008 to eighty in 2012. The resignation of a number of investigators in 2009 resulted in a reduction in the number of investigation teams, hampering capacity and contributing to delays. GSOC (2013b:23) has proposed a ‘lease-back’ system whereby less serious complaints could be d ­ irected to gardaí to handle, thus removing them from any GSOC oversight. Young people do not, it seems, make complaints about gardaí (Conway, 2009). Since 2009 just two per cent of complaints have come from persons aged zero to seventeen. Given the scale of interaction between police and young people, this low figure cannot be taken as representative of young people’s experience of policing. This age group features more prominently in death or serious injury referrals (constituting 10 per cent in 2009 and 2010) where the incident has to be recorded, whether the victim desires this or not. Young people clearly have serious, negative interactions with the police, but where they have a choice, it appears, they are unwilling to complain. GSOC has conducted seven public interest investigations concerning a broad range of topics: criticisms by a judge of garda evidence in a criminal trial; ­comments of gardaí recorded during ‘Shell to Sea’ protests (see Chapter 2); ­allegations of collusion between gardaí and a known drug dealer; the ­adequacy of a garda investigation into a fatal road traffic incident (prevented by the Courts due to time limits: Keegan v. GSOC [2012]); the death in custody of ­Terrence Wheelock; the circumstances of the arrest of a juvenile; and ­allegations stemming from the report into child sexual abuse in the Diocese of Cloyne. GSOC was denied permission to conduct an investigation into the garda practice of ­policing protests and civil disobedience. This suggests a degree of ­political control and an unwillingness to scrutinise policing that has a political ­dimension. A discernible impact is the number of prosecutions which have been brought against gardaí as a consequence of GSOC investigations (see Table 8.3). 8.3  Prosecutions of gardaí

Gardaí referred to DPP

Prosecutions of gardaí

2008 31 2009 33 2010 27 2011 19 2012 26 Data source: GSOC Annual Reports (various years).

11 5 11 7 6

Convictions of gardaí 1 2 0 5 0

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Three of those convicted in 2011 for assault and attempting to pervert the course of justice were given custodial sentences, the first time this flowed from a GSOC investigation. Despite this result, GSOC released a statement in June 2013 expressing concern at the cooperation of gardaí with their investigation in that case, and drawing attention to the fact that some information they had sought but not received was produced in court by the defence. In its 2012 annual report GSOC took the unusual step of discussing serious delays in the complaints process. Of all unresolved cases at the end of 2012, 73 per cent were overtime. Twenty-one were over two years old. GSOC attributes part of this delay to gardaí consistently not meeting protocol-agreed time-frames for exchanging information. On one occasion GSOC has waited 542 days for a request for sensitive information to be fulfilled. It has also been denied data which it considers routine and non-sensitive but which An Garda Síochána ­determines is sensitive. Even efforts to meet, discuss and resolve these issues have taken ‘far too long’ (GSOC, 2013b:8) This reflects what Goldsmith and Lewis (2000:1) have documented elsewhere as ‘an entrenched reluctance to engage in public self-examination’ on the part of An Garda Síochána. A number of points can be made about this overview. First and foremost, the GSOC is independently investigating a small portion of cases. At the very least Ireland is required to ensure that allegations concerning breaches of human rights are independently investigated. This could potentially include matters such as oppressive questioning (right to a fair trial) or unlawful detention (right to liberty), the taking of DNA to store on a database (right to privacy) or a stop and search (right to privacy). At the moment we do not have the data to say whether or not all these cases are being handled in this way. Serious delay in the review of cases is clear. This is damaging both for complainants and for gardaí subject to the complaints process. It detracts from the legitimacy of the system. This analysis also reveals that the GSOC is not being entirely transparent: it has stopped releasing data on how admissible complaints are being handled and data concerning admissibility have been presented in different formats, making analysis difficult. Given that so few cases are independently investigated, the fact that the GSOC felt a need to comment on the delay caused by a lack of cooperation from the force is particularly noteworthy. This reveals that the culture of the gardaí is not inclined to accept GSOC oversight.

Concluding remarks There can be no doubt that the GSOC represents an improvement on the GSCB. A third of complaints are now independently investigated by investigators who are sufficiently empowered to conduct effective investigations. Gardaí are now excluded from the decision-making process. It is more likely that human rights obligations are thus satisfied. That said, concerns about numerous procedural

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matters have been identified: the exclusion of the Commissioner from its remit; admissibility requirements and delays; the continued involvement of gardaí in many investigations; the political appointment of GSOC members; and the limited engagement with young people. External factors are also impacting on its work namely the recession, political influence on public interest inquiries and, most significantly, if not unsurprisingly, gardaí resistance. While recognising these problems is important, the role of the GSOC and its contribution to accountability must be contextualised. The GSOC represents just one form of legal accountability, which in turn is just one form of police ­accountability. The 2005 Act introduced other relevant reforms, inclu­ ding a duty to account, a breach of which constitutes a dismissible offence, local policing committees, a Whistleblower’s Charter, a Professional Standards Unit and an Inspectorate. Many of these were necessary and important changes. However, the overarching governance structures for the service remain heavily centralised and politically controlled. Indeed, if anything, the Act embeds these further, giving the Minister the power to demand any information or documents from the Commissioner. The associated problems of politicisation have already become apparent through Minister for Justice Alan Shatter’s handling of the penalty points fiasco (Conway, 2013b). Democratic accountability remains weak and transparency largely absent. Cultural resistance to change and oversight (Chan, 1996) is being permitted to obstruct reforms, without any effort being made to address the cultural problems. Yet by the time the Morris Tribunal produced its final reports the Minister for Justice, Dermot Ahern (in Dáil Éireann, 2008), was able to point to a suite of new measures and legislation and distract the public with a list of changes: [i]t is now an organisation that is more open to the outside. It has a new professionalism in its management development and selection systems. It is prepared as never before to perform its functions effectively, efficiently and fairly in responding to the needs of local communities. Thanks in large measure to the findings and recommendations of the Morris Tribunal, we now have a system of oversight in place to ensure, as far as humanly possible, that the abuses uncovered by the tribunal do not recur.

Some politicians called for the creation of an independent police authority which could assume many of the governance functions, but the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, Michael McDowell (Dáil Éireann, 2006), rejected these ideas off hand: ‘Dáil Éireann is Ireland’s police authority and accountability through the Minister and the Commissioner is the most appropriate mechanism for democratic oversight of a modern police and security service’. But nothing has changed since Walsh’s study of the Dáil in the 1990s (Walsh, 1998), discussed above, and so a conclusion of appropriateness is without basis. Not only have the foundations of the architecture of accountability ­remained

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the same, but through a focus on legislative and procedural changes, attention has not been turned to tackling cultural attitudes towards the exercise of power and responsiveness to oversight. As Conor Brady (2012), one of the first members of the Ombudsman Commission stated, the ‘Garda Síochána has been a fortress shut against outsiders for 90 years. The 2005 Act sought to alter that. But while the Garda establishment seem to be able to accept this in their heads they appear to have difficulty doing so in their hearts’. In part this can be explained by Irish attitudes to power and, in particular, the powerful role permitted to An Garda Síochána in Irish society. Perhaps most worrying is the absence of any sense that the issues which existed when problems emerged in Donegal have been addressed through legislation. International experience shows that once the hype over scandals recedes and the debates are over, attention to accountability subsides and further scandals arise. In New York, despite the Knapp Commission’s investigation into corruption in the 1970s, police abuses of power once again necessitated the establishment of the Mollen Commission in the 1990s (Punch, 2000; Skolnick, 2002). Similarly in the UK, despite the work of the McPherson Inquiry following the death of Stephen Lawrence (McLaughlin and Murji, 1999; Newburn and Reiner, 2007; Punch, 2000), the Metropolitan Police are once again in the throes of controversy. Accountability is a perpetual issue, which needs to be revisited continually, not dealt with once and then assumed adequate. It cannot be remedied by procedural reforms but requires acknowledgement of the cultural aspects and an ongoing commitment to reform thereof.

Notes   1 In November 2010 Gardaí and students clashed in Dublin resulting in allegations of garda brutality.   2 The army and prison services may use force in other, non-civilian contexts.   3 The Garda Síochána Disciplinary Regulations (1926), amended in 1971, 1989 and 2011.   4 The Garda Síochána (Temporary Provisions) Act (1923).   5 In 2006, the GSCB’s final complete year of operation, this constituted eight per cent of cases adjudicated by the Board, a substantial increase on the previous year when four per cent went to Tribunal, (GSCB, 2007).   6 For a table outlining the structure of the system see Appendix XI and for a full discussion of the Commission’s operation see Conway (2004; 2005) and Walsh (2004).   7 The data provided are not entirely consistent. For some years the data indicate the number of complaints deemed inadmissible and for other years the data indicate how many allegations were inadmissible (one complaint often contains numerous allegations). In 2012 we are simply told how many decisions as to admissibility were made that year, which could refer to complaints lodged in 2011.

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References Anon. (2013) ‘Second sum of money goes missing from Balbriggan Garda Station’ The Journal.ie, 27 April. Barr, J. (2006) The Tribunal of Inquiry into the facts and circumstances surrounding the fatal shooting of John Carthy at Abbeylara, Co. Longford on 20th April 2000, Dublin: The Stationery Office. Bayley, D. H. (1983) ‘Accountability and control of the police: lessons from Britain’, in T. Bennett, (ed.) The Future of Policing (Cropwood Conference Series), Cambridge: University of Cambridge Institute of Criminology, 146–62. Beetham, D. (1991) The Legitimation of Power, London: Macmillan. Bowling, B., and Foster, J. (2002) ‘Policing and the police’, in M. Maguire, R. Morgan and R. Reiner (eds) The Oxford Handbook of Criminology, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 980–1033. Brady, C. (2012) ‘Trust an issue as Garda fortress shut to outsiders’, Irish Times, 23 May. Brewer, J. D., Guelke, A., Hume, I., Moxon-Browne, E., and Wilford, R. (1996) The Police, Public Order and the State: Policing in Great Britain, Northern Ireland, the Irish Republic, the USA, Israel, South Africa and China, 2nd edn, Basingstoke: Macmillan. Brogden, M. (1987) ‘The Emergence of the police: the colonial dimension’, British Journal of Criminology, 27(1): 4–14. Bullock, K., and Johnson, P. (2012) ‘The impact of the Human Rights Act 1998 on policing in England and Wales’, British Journal of Criminology, 52(3): 630–50. Chan, J. (1996) ‘Changing police culture’, British Journal of Criminology, 36(1): 109–34. Chan, J. (1999) ‘Governing police practice: limits of the new accountability’, British Journal of Sociology, 50(2): 251– 70. Conway, V. (2004) ‘Garda Síochána: Garda Síochána Ombudsman Commission’, Irish Law Times, 22: 157–62. Conway, V. (2005) ‘An Garda Síochána Act 2005 – breaking down the thick blue wall?’, Irish Law Times, 24: 368–72. Conway, V. (2009) ‘A sheep in wolf ’s clothing? Evaluating the impact of the Garda Síochána Ombudsman Commission’, Irish Jurist, 43: 109–30. Conway, V. (2010) The Blue Wall of Silence: The Morris Tribunal and Police Accountability in Ireland, Dublin: Irish Academic Press. Conway, V. (2013a) Policing Twentieth Century Ireland: A History of an Garda Síochána, London: Routledge. Conway, V. (2013b) ‘Politicians power over policing is unhealthy’, Sunday Business Post, 26 May. Conway, V., and Walsh, D. (2011) ‘Recent developments in police governance and accountability in Ireland’, Crime Law and Social Change, 55(2–3): 241–57. CPT (1995) Report to the Irish Government on the visit to Ireland carried out by the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CPT), Strasbourg: CPT. CPT (1999) Report to the Irish Government on the visit to Ireland carried out by the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CPT), Strasbourg: CPT. CPT (2003) Report to the Government of Ireland on the visit to Ireland carried out by the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CPT), Strasbourg: CPT.

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Cusack, J. (1989) ‘No response to garda board call on funds’, Irish Times, 16 December. Dáil Éireann (1969) Committee on Finance Vote 21: Garda Síochána, Dáil Éireann Debate, vol. 239, no. 7, 26 March. Dáil Éireann (1986) Garda Síochána (Complaints) Bill, 1985: Second Stage (Resumed), Dáil Éireann Debate, vol. 364, no. 11, 20 March. Dáil Éireann (2006) Garda Reform: Statements, Dáil Éireann Debate, vol. 628, no. 4, 29 November. Dáil Éireann (2008) Morris Tribunal: Statements, Dáil Éireann Debate, vol. 364, no.11, 20 March. Day, P., and Klein, R. (1987) Accountabilities: Five Public Services, London: Tavistock. Department of Justice (2013) Report on Allegations of Irregularities in the Operation of the Fixed Charge Processing System, Dublin: Stationery Office. Front Line Defenders (2010) A Breakdown in Trust: A Report on the Corrib Gas Dispute, Dublin: Front Line Defenders. Goldsmith, A., and Lewis, C. (2000) Civilian Oversight of Policing: Governance, Democracy and Human Rights, Oxford: Hart Publishing. Goldsmith, A. (1990) ‘Taking police culture seriously: police discretion and the limits of the law’, Policing and Society, 1(2): 91–114. Govell v. UK [1998] 4 EHRR 438. GSCB (2007) Annual Report 2006, Dublin: GSCB. GSOC (various years) Annual Report, Dublin: GSOC, www.gardaombudsman.ie/publications.htm (retrieved 30 January 2014) GSOC (2012a) Report pursuant to Section 103 of the Garda Síochána Act 2005 into alleged comments made by Gardaí, on March 31st 2011, relating to two female protestors arrested at a “Shell to Sea” demonstration at, or near, Aughoos, Erris, Co. Mayo, Dublin: GSOC. GSOC (2012b) Annual Report, Dublin: GSOC. GSOC (2013a) Report into allegations of collusion by members of the Garda Síochána with an individual in the movement and supply of controlled drugs, and the nature and extent of any relationship/s between members of the Garda Síochána and that individual, Dublin: GSOC. GSOC (2013b) Annual Report, Dublin: GSOC. IHRC (2002) A Proposal for a New Garda Complaints System, Dublin: IHRC. Independent Commission for Policing in Northern Ireland (The Patten Report) (1999) A New Beginning: Policing in Northern Ireland, Belfast: HMSO. Independent Police Complaints Commission (various years) ‘Annual police complaints statistics’, http://goo.gl/TlBBOi (retrieved 30 January 2014). Inglis, T. (2003) Truth, Power and Lies, Irish Society and the Case of the Kerry Babies, Dublin: University College Dublin Press. Jefferson, T., and Grimshaw, R. (1984) Controlling the Constable, London: Muller/Cobden Trust. Jones, T. (2003) ‘The governance and accountability of policing’, in T. Newburn (ed.) Handbook of Policing, Devon: Willan, 603–27. Keegan v. GSOC [2012] IEHC 356. Kilcommins, S., O’Donnell, I., O’Sullivan, E., and Vaughan, B. (2004) Crime, Punishment and the Search for Order in Ireland, Dublin: Irish Academic Press. Loader, I. (1994) ‘Democracy, justice and the limits of policing: rethinking police accountability’, Social and Legal Studies, 3: 521–44. Loader, I. (1997) ‘Policing and the social: questions of symbolic power’, British Journal of Sociology, 48(1): 1–18.

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Lukes, S. (1974) Power: A Radical View, London: Macmillan. Lustgarten, L. (1986) The Governance of the Police, London: Sweet and Maxwell. Lynch v. Fitzgerald and Others, [1938] IR382. Mark, R. (1977) Policing a Perplexed Society, London: Allen and Unwin. McCafferty, N. (1985) A Woman to Blame: The Kerry Babies Case, Dublin: Attic Press. McLaughlin, E. (1992) ‘The democratic deficit: European Union and the accountability of the British Police’, British Journal of Criminology, 32(4): 473–87. McLaughlin, E., and Murji, K. (1999) ‘After the Stephen Lawrence Report’, Critical Social Policy 19(3): 371–85. McNiffe, L. (1997) A History of the Garda Síochána, Dublin: Wolfhound Press. Morris, F. (2005) Report of the Tribunal of Inquiry into certain Gardaí in the Donegal Division: (a) and (b): Report of the Investigation into the Death of Richard Barron and Extortion Calls to Michael and Charlotte Peoples, Dublin: The Stationery Office. Morris, F. (2006a) Report of the Tribunal of Inquiry into certain Gardaí in the Donegal Division: (d): Report on the Circumstances Surrounding the Arrest and Detention of Mark McConnell on 1st October 1998 and Michael Peoples on 6th May 1999, Dublin: The Stationery Office. Morris, F. (2006b) Report of the Tribunal of Inquiry into certain Gardaí in the Donegal Division: (g): Report on the Garda Investigation of an Arson Attack on Property Situated on the Site of the Telecommunications Mast at Ardara, Co. Donegal in October and November of 1996, Dublin: The Stationery Office. Morris, F. (2008a) Report of the Tribunal of Inquiry into certain Gardaí in the Donegal Division: (b), (d) and (f): Report on the Detention of ‘Suspects’ Following the Death of late Richard Barron on 14th of October 1996 and Related Detentions, Dublin: The Stationery Office. Morris, F. (2008b) Report of the Tribunal of Inquiry into certain Gardaí in the Donegal Division: (c) and (j) Report on Allegations of Harassment of the McBrearty Family of Raphoe and Report into the Effectiveness of the Garda Síochána Complaints Board Inquiry, Dublin: The Stationery Office. Muir, W. K. (1977) Police: Streetcorner Politicians, Chicago, IL: Chicago University Press. National Crime Forum (1998) Report of National Crime Forum, Dublin: Institute of Public Administration. Newburn, T., and Jones, T. (1996) ‘Police accountability’, in W. Saulsbury, J. Mott and T. Newburn (eds) Themes in Contemporary Policing, London: Policy Studies Institute, 120–32. Newburn, T., and Reiner, R. (2007) ‘Policing and the police’, in M. Maguire, R. Morgan and R. Reiner (eds) The Oxford Handbook of Criminology, 4th edn, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 910–52. Prenzler, T., and Ronken, C. (2001) ‘Models of police oversight: a critique’, Policing and Society, 11(2): 151–80. Punch, M. (2000) ‘Police corruption and its prevention’ European Journal on Criminal Policy and Research, 8(3): 301–24. Reiner, R. (1992) ‘Policing a postmodern society’, The Modern Law Review, 55(6): 761–81. Reiner, R. (2000a) ‘Crime and control in Britain’, Sociology, 34(1): 71–94. Reiner, R. (2000b) The Politics of the Police, 3rd edn, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Sanders, A., and Young, R. (2000) Criminal Justice, 2nd edn, London: LexusNexus. Scarman, B. (1981) Report on the Disturbances in Brixton 10th to 13th April 1981, London: HMSO. Scraton, P. (1985) The State of the Police: Is Law and Order Out of Control? London: Pluto Press.

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Seneviratne, M. (2004) ‘Policing the police in the United Kingdom’, Policing and Society, 14(4): 329–47. Skolnick, J. (2002) ‘Corruption and the blue code of silence’, Police Practice and Research, 3(1): 7–19. Smith, G. (2001) ‘Police complaints and criminal prosecutions’, The Modern Law Review, 64(3), 372–92. Smith, G. (2004) ‘Rethinking police complaints’, British Journal of Criminology, 44(1): 15–33. Walsh, D. (1998) The Irish Police: A Legal and Constitutional Perspective, Roundhall: Sweet and Maxwell. Walsh, D. (2004) ‘The proposed garda complaints procedure: a critique’, Irish Criminal Law Journal, 14(4): 2–26. Walsh, D. (2009) Human Rights and Policing in Ireland: Law, Policy and Practice, Dublin: Clarus Press. Walsh, D., and Conway, V. (2011) ‘Police governance and accountability: an overview of current issues’, Crime Law and Social Change, 55(2–3): 61–86.

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9 State to the rescue: the bank guarantee and Ireland’s financialised neo-liberal growth model Fiona Dukelow On the Saturday after Ireland’s bank guarantee was announced, Seán ­FitzPatrick, the chairman of Anglo Irish Bank (Anglo), agreed to participate on Marian Finnucane, a weekend radio programme. Questioned about the guarantee and the state of the Irish banks, he laid the blame for the banks’ troubles on the global crisis but acceded that a ‘thank you’ was appropriate, ‘because we owe our lives to the Government and what they did’ (cited in Carswell, 2011:223). Later that evening he gave a speech at an event at a golf club in which he urged the government to implement a ‘brave’ budget to tackle the ‘sacred cow’ of universal child benefit, state pensions and medical cards for the over-70s which should, he opined, be administered on a ‘wealth basis’ (cited in O’Brien, 2008). While his statements provoked controversy, they foretell what Peck, Theodore and Brenner (2012:15) call the ‘perverse legacy’ of the global financial crisis, which ‘has been a further entrenchment of neoliberal rationalities and disciplines’. Despite the widespread resort to bank bailouts, of which the Irish case is the most extreme example, neo-liberalism seemed to yet again defy its contradictions. It was able to overcome the paradox of belief in the free market and the minimal state and the actual practice of major state intervention to prop up collapsing financial systems. Moreover, the costs borne by states have been subjected to what Blyth (2013:73) describes as ‘the greatest bait and switch in modern history’. Financial market failure has been transmuted into a problem of state over-spending, for which there is no alternative cure but austerity, with Ireland again featuring as a prime example. This chapter looks at how the bank guarantee epitomises the Irish case of the perverse legacy of the crisis and the contradictory path of neo-liberalism. Discussing the bank guarantee and the ensuing crisis is to wade into by now well-worn territory. The crisis has generated endless commentary which identifies a range of culprits for Ireland’s economic disaster, including a cast of nutty bankers, greedy builders, public sector wasters, crony politicians, inept bureau­crats and, more broadly, the peculiarities of Irish character and culture,

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culminating in the crisis as an Irish ‘freak show’ (Lewis, 2011). Such causes are relayed in a stream of books and articles telling the inside story of Irish politics and Irish banks, a commentary enterprise which has diversified into events such as an economics comedy festival, Kilkenomics, and even a musical puppet show, Anglo: The Musical. In the main these tell individualised, personalised and usually male stories of greed, stupidity and excess, the majority framed against a benchmark of neo-liberalism as common-sense economics and politics. While undoubtedly factors such as greed, excessive risk-taking and regulatory policy failures played a role in the Irish crisis, the aim of this chapter is to present these both as symptoms of the deeper dynamics of a financialised neo-liberal growth model and as expressions of how neo-liberal practices and discourses have mutated in the crisis, remaining dominant despite, or even because of, their incongruities. If the Irish economic model was a lodestar of neo-liberalism prior to the crisis, Ireland’s subsequent policy reaction is also an exemplar of the fissures between neo-liberalism as a set of ideas and how relationships between state and market are actually forged and evolve in existing neo-liberal contexts. As Peck (2010a:107) observes, neo-liberalism’s contradictions are not so much its downfall but a source of the ways in which it continues to move forward: ‘more often than not, the new neoliberalism learns (and evolves) by doing wrong, having become mired in the unending challenge of managing its own contradictions, together with the social and economic fallout from previous deregulations and mal-interventions. It fails, but it tends to fail forwards’. This chapter first poses the bank guarantee as a moment of Irish neo-liberalism failing forward by examining the context in which the guarantee was announced and how Ireland’s subsequent banking bailout became the most costly bailout of the global financial crisis. It then explores the nature of neo-liberalism by considering recent debates of its non-demise and of how they have played out in the Irish case. The final section widens the focus again and considers the concept of financialisation and the financialisation of Ireland’s political economy, locating the guarantee within a longer lineage of ‘business as usual’ before and after the crisis.

Saving the day and mortgaging the future Ireland’s bank guarantee had a diminutive beginning. A 282-word statement was released by the Department of Finance at 6.45am on the 30 September 2008 before financial markets started trading for the day. The statement announced the government’s intention to guarantee, with immediate effect and for a period of two years, all deposits, bonds, senior debt and dated subordinated debt in Ireland’s six domestic banks (Department of Finance, 2008). The guarantee followed a year of intensifying global financial instability, with scenes of stock market panic – as global investment banks such as Bear Stearns ­announced

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major losses after several years of spectacular growth – and of people queuing outside retail banks, such as Northern Rock in the UK, to withdraw savings. Governments began taking what seemed radical actions to shore up their banking systems, including nationalisation and the injection of emergency ­liquidity to keep cash flowing and banks open for business, though nothing as extensive as Ireland’s blanket guarantee (Honohan, 2009). These were attempts to resolve the credit crunch which halted the normal flow of money through the financial system amid concerns about toxic assets and fears that money loaned to banks would not be repaid. The news on 15 September that Lehman Brothers, a major US investment bank, was filing for bankruptcy ramped up the credit crunch, and trouble amongst Irish banks seemed to reach a crisis point. Irish banks had grown massively in relation to the size of the economy over the 2000s. Growth in lending had risen ‘from a stock of €120bn in 2000 to almost €400bn by 2007… By the end of 2007, total loans and advances to customers stood at over twice GDP, up from 1.1 times GDP in 2000’ (Nyberg, 2011:12). Banking profits grew enormously too. Anglo for example reported an 826 per cent rise in after-tax profits between 2000 and 2007, and it ‘was widely admired domestically and abroad, and lauded … as a role model for other Irish banks to emulate’ (Nyberg, 2011: ii). All of this appeared benign to the Central Bank and the Financial Regulator, institutions which had been restructured in the early 2000s, devolving more responsibility to the banks for risk assessment and regulating on light touch principles of trust, flexibility and user-friendliness (Taylor, 2011). However the banks were gradually losing stock market value since 2007, creating a widening discrepancy with their balance sheet value based on loan assets. On the day before the guarantee, Irish banks lost 26 per cent of their stock market value, with Anglo alone losing 46 per cent (Coyle, 2008). The credit crunch also meant that banks were having difficulty rolling over foreign borrowings. They had become increasingly dependent on such wholesale funding from international banks rather than the more traditional and stable source of depositor funding. A high proportion of wholesale funding was short term (Regling and Watson, 2010). While the scale of toxic bank assets and the associated property bubble had yet to fully unfold, the severity of the credit crunch triggered a real risk that Irish banks would collapse, with Anglo first in line, having run out of money the day before the guarantee (Committee of Public Accounts, 2012). Detail on what precisely happened on the night prior to the announcement and how the government reached its decision to implement a blanket guarantee remains obscure. This is despite two ‘preliminary’ inquiries about the conduct and regulation of the banking sector over the 2000s (Honohan, 2010; Regling and Watson, 2010) and a report from a Commission of Investigation set up to examine the banking sector (Nyberg, 2011). Another preliminary report, this time outlining a framework for a full parliamentary inquiry into the banking

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crisis, was published in 2012 (Committee of Public Accounts, 2012). As of early 2014, such an inquiry has yet to take place. Meanwhile, ‘Anglo Tapes’ (Irish Independent, 2013) leaked to the media give insight into the crisis at Anglo and the bank’s cavalier, misleading dealings with the Central Bank and the Financial Regulator around the time of the guarantee. They have prompted further controversy about the circumstances in which the guarantee was decided.1 With the exception of the Regling and Watson report, which did not examine the guarantee, the investigations to date all comment on the ‘absence of a “paper trail”’ (Nyberg, 2011:77) about what happened in the weeks prior to the guarantee. The key source of advice and written documentation on the impending crisis came from private consultants Merrill Lynch, appointed to provide policy options and recommendations (Nyberg, 2011). However, as a corporate actor it was not a disinterested advisor, having both Anglo and Allied Irish Bank (AIB) as customers for its financial services.2 Yet, apparently, its advice was to implement a more limited guarantee. Discussing Department of Finance minutes of a Merrill Lynch presentation in the week leading up to the guarantee, the Committee of Public Accounts (2012:132) reports that ‘[a] guarantee is described in the presentation as the – best/most decisive/most impactful measure from the market perspective, but Merrill Lynch advised that a blanket guarantee for all banks could be a mistake and would affect Ireland’s credit rating and prolong the survival of weak institutions’. As for the Central Bank and the Financial Regulator, there was found to be an ‘absence of documentation setting forth the advantages and disadvantages of possible alternatives and their quantitative implications’ (Honohan, 2010:120). Both institutions seemingly held the view that the problem was one of liquidity rather than insolvency. The final trigger for the guarantee was a series of overnight emergency meetings apparently held at the request of AIB and Bank of Ireland (BoI) (Carswell, 2011), after the day of dramatic share price losses. The meetings involved the Taoiseach, the Minister for Finance, the Governor of the Central Bank, the Financial Regulator, the chief executive and chairman of both banks, and various government officials, with advice also on hand from Merrill Lynch3 (Committee of Public Accounts, 2012). Once the decision was made to provide a blanket guarantee there was an ‘incorporeal’ cabinet meeting by way of early morning calls seeking the assent of other government ministers. Legislation – the Credit Institutions (Financial Support) Bill – was rapidly drafted to underpin the guarantee, formally known as the Credit Institutions Financial Support Scheme (CIFS), and debated equally rapidly in the Dáil and the Seanad in sittings that lasted into the early hours of 2 October. In these debates, government ministers were at pains to down-play the risks and costs of the guarantee. It was, Brian Lenihan the Minister for Finance argued, ‘in no way a bail-out for the financial system’ (Lenihan in Dáil Éireann, 2008a). Both he and the Taoiseach, Brian Cowen, pointed to the underlying

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solvency of the banking system, contrasting estimated assets of approximately €500 billion with liabilities worth approximately €400 billion. The guarantee, it was argued, was about ensuring that the banks continued to have funds to conduct their day to day business. In the government’s view the credit crunch for Irish banks originated in the global financial turmoil, its epicentre being the US sub-prime mortgage crisis, which had nothing to do with the health of the Irish banking system although the wider Irish financial services sector was deeply implicated in the global credit crunch (as discussed later). The guarantee was intended to provide confidence to lenders to Irish banks that their money would be safe. Moreover, Ministers argued that the guarantee would pay for itself by a scheme of costs imposed on the banks (which at the time of the debate still had to be worked out), and the state would not be exposed to risk in undertaking the guarantee. Lenihan (in Dáil Éireann, 2008a) declared, ‘the State is underwriting very substantial liabilities in monetary terms but is … at a far remove from loss arising from these liabilities’. Explaining why this was the case, Cowen expressed confidence that the costs imposed on the banks who would avail themselves of the guarantee would cover any money to be paid out and, failing that, bank shareholders would be next in line. He pledged ‘to ensure the Irish taxpayer w[ould] not be held liable in any way for any deficit that might occur in the event of there being a problem in the future’ (Cowen in Dáil Éireann, 2008b). In extremely premature assessments of its likely effect, other government members lauded its innovative, decisive and exemplary nature. John Gormley (in Dáil Éireann, 2008a) argued that ‘rather than follow the lead of Britain or the USA, we in Government are convinced that we have a better remedy. We are delivering an Irish solution to a global problem which fits our small open economy … This bold move has seen commentators from around the world look on with a degree of admiration’. Not fearing overstatement, but paradoxically turning out to be correct, Fianna Fáil senator Marc MacSharry (in Seanad Éireann, 2008) predicted: ‘the Irish State will go down in history for the action it has taken in recent days’ and, he continued, ‘we have witnessed an unprecedented act of leadership by the State’. Other Dáil parties, Fine Gael and Sinn Féin, cautiously supported the guarantee. The Labour Party declined support, pointing to lack of information about the risks the state was taking on and arguing that the Bill amounted to ‘an extraordinary blank cheque’ (Burton in Dáil Éireann, 2008a). Outside the Dáil, reaction was mixed. Other initial analyses from the left questioned the guarantee, focusing on its inequities and uncertainties (Indymedia Ireland, 2008). Cautious acceptance seemed to prevail amongst advocacy groups such as the Conference of Religious in Ireland and the Combat Poverty Agency (Minihan, 2008). Stockbrokers and financial commentators predictably welcomed it and criticism amongst economists was rare, with the exception of Kelly (2008), whose dissenting analysis of the guarantee

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as ‘inept and potentially dangerous’ was treated with disdain. For a brief spell the guarantee seemed to perform its confidence trick; ratings agencies remained positive, the banks recovered their stock market losses of the previous days and seemed to continue to function normally. This ‘normality’ was short-lived. The risk-free premises on which the guarantee was announced were quickly revealed as fictitious as the value of bank shares began to fall again, the property crash accelerated, and revelations about how Anglo ran its business showed extremely lax loan approval procedures and fraudulent banking practices designed to obscure its insolvent status.4 Across the sector, bank assets turned out to be as compromised as the argument that the guarantee was virtually risk free. The plummeting property market upon which banks assets were concentrated meant that banks were insolvent and could not repay their liabilities. Just over two years after the guarantee was announced,5 during which time the state encountered a vortex of crises, the state itself was effectively insolvent. The guarantee transformed the banking crisis into a fiscal crisis and the fiscal balance swung from a surplus of 0.1 per cent of GDP in 2007 to a deficit of 30.8 per cent of GDP in 2010 (Eurostat, 2013).6 The fiscal crisis was compounded by a wider economic crisis tied to the collapse of the construction sector. The construction sector was inflated by the banks’ lending practices, and by procyclical fiscal policies reflecting heavy government reliance on construction for economic growth, tax revenue and job creation. The escalating cost of recapitalising the banks raised interest rates on Irish government bonds, pricing the government out of financial markets. Irish banks were also heavily dependent on ECB liquidity because they could no longer rely on inter-bank lending, and as the ECB threatened to reduce this, the State was forced to enter a programme of financial aid with the EU/ECB/IMF in November 2010 (Burke, 2011). The guarantee, therefore, was first in line in a cascade of events related to the banking crisis, including the nationalisation of Anglo in January 2009, the creation of the National Assets Management Agency (NAMA),7 and a series of ‘final announcements’ about bank recapitalisation in which the costs escalated and all banks originally covered under the guarantee, with the exception of BoI, were effectively nationalised.8 The banking crisis is calculated to have cost the state €64.1 billion, adding 41 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP) to the national debt (Committee of Public Accounts, 2012),9 which grew from 25.1 per cent of GDP in 2007 to 117.6 per cent in 2012 (Eurostat, 2013). The size to which the banking sector had grown, the scale of its toxic assets and the scope of the government’s underwriting catapulted Ireland to the top of the list of recent banking crisis costs. Laeven and Valencia’s (2013:247) study of banking crises from 1970 to 2011 – in which they measured their cost across three ­dimensions: fiscal cost, increase in public debt and economic output loss – found that ‘Ireland holds the undesirable position of being the only country currently undergoing a banking crisis that features among the top-10 of cost­

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liest banking crises along all three dimensions, making it the costliest banking crisis in advanced economies since at least the Great Depression’. When it was taken, the guarantee might have been seen as the most costeffective option and the underlying problem a temporary matter of liquidity. However, the emergency, improvised nature of the guarantee and the fact that it was built on erroneous assumptions and advice had all the hallmarks of a neo-liberal government ‘failing and flailing forward’ (Peck, 2010b:7). Despite the assurances on the costs of the guarantee and the denial that it was a bailout for the banks, the principal rationale was a preparedness to save the banking system. As Honohan (2010:199 original emphasis) notes, prior to opting for the guarantee, ‘early on a clear consensus view emerged that no Irish bank should be allowed to fail, in the sense of having to close its doors and not repaying depositors and other lenders’. And, at that point, ‘the damage had already been done’ (Honohan, 2010:5). Despite these observations, the dominant framing of the two banking inquiries’ investigations into the banking guarantee revolved around technical questions: about the appropriate scope of the guarantee in terms of the banks included; the type of liabilities guaranteed; and whether in both cases a narrower guarantee might have been appropriate. Such questions obscure the underlying contradictory challenges that drive a neo-liberalised state’s policy decisions. Wanting to let no bank fail, but doing it in a way that conforms with market interests and expectations, ultimately compelled ‘further rounds of (mis)intervention in the form of market-friendly governance’ (Peck, 2010b:7). They came with major costs from which the market was shielded. A rapid turn to retrenchment followed in almost all other areas of state expenditure (for early examples, see Chapters 10 and 11). After Greece, Ireland’s fiscal adjustments of 18 per cent of GDP between 2008 and 2014 are the largest in the Eurozone. In the post-crisis neo-liberal orthodoxy Ireland is upheld as a country redeeming itself of its reckless past with pain and determination, bearing ‘proof ’ of austerity as ‘growth friendly fiscal consolidation’, a concept introduced to the neo-liberal lexicon of economy theory by the G20 and the ECB during 2010 (Blyth, 2013). However, there is only feeble to non-existent evidence of this in Ireland’s economic performance since 2008.

The non-demise of neo-liberalism In the heat of the financial crisis it was widely expected that events would herald the end of neo-liberalism. The crisis seemed to prove that free markets simply did not work as efficient, self-correcting mechanisms. Naomi Klein (2008 in Peck, 2010b:273) likened the crash to the fall of the Berlin Wall, speaking of neo-liberalism’s ‘ideological certainty that has long passed … because reality has intervened’. That states were now coming to the rescue of ‘free’ markets was further proof of neo-liberalism’s contradictions. However, the politics of

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the crisis and its aftermath have served as another lesson in neo-liberalism’s pragmatism and flexibility, and how analysis must focus on ‘actually existing neoliberalism’ (Brenner and Theodore, 2002). As is now widely observed, the crisis has not been a crisis for neo-liberalism, prompting renewed debate on its characteristics and its resilience. A key point is that neo-liberalism is multi­ faceted (Cahill, 2012); it is at once an ideology, a form of politics and a set of practices, and the crisis is a reminder that ‘neoliberal practices have never been very neoliberal in spirit’ (Konings, 2012:64, original emphasis). As Peck (2010a:106, original emphasis) suggests, ‘the practice of neoliberal statecraft is inescapably, and profoundly, marked by compromise, calculation and contradiction’. These contradictions are moreover an expression of neo-liberal power relations, in which state regulation enables and restricts different market interests rather than simply effecting free exchange between rational individual actors. In this way, as Konings (2012:64) notes, ‘the recent deployment of political capacities appears less as the breakdown than as the provisional culmination of the neoliberal era and its distinct practices’. The dominance of neo-liberal policy responses to the crisis can be seen as an outcome of the hold corporate power, especially financial power, has gained during the neo-liberal era. These aspects of neo-liberal power and practice have at least two other implications for understanding neo-liberalism in the financial crisis and how a crisis of its own making has not been its undoing. Firstly, identifying the crisis with a puncturing of the myth of free markets is less the point than the fact that equating neo-liberalism with free markets is an oversimplification (Edwards et al., 2012). Acts such as state guarantees of banking liabilities are therefore a reminder that markets are not free but are constructed outcomes of various configurations of social and political relationships. As such they require constant intervention, the creation of market rules, or regulation/deregulation and reregulation to make them work; which, in neo-liberal terms, means working in market-friendly ways to boost, for example, ‘market confidence’ and ‘investor sentiment’. Secondly, neo-liberalism is in many ways more statist than antistatist. As Dean (2012:78) recognises, neo-liberalism calls for a ‘free economy – strong state’ and the latter is needed to ‘promote economic freedom and markets and to neutralize the pathologies of democracy’. Rather than shrinking the state, the neo-liberal project has been more about its retasking. Thus, Peck (2010b:9) suggests, ‘neo-liberalism in its various guises, has always been about the capture and reuse of the State, in the interests of shaping a pro-corporate, freer trading “market order”’. In particular it is in crisis times that this retasking is heightened, when what are deemed emergencies require exceptional measures, articulated as bold, brave and decisive acts of leadership. In the process, rationalities deployed to bolster policy decisions that involve great cost and new tasks for the state, such as banking guarantees and bad banks, are not necessarily presented as ideal policy choices but ones for which there is no choice.

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Common sense mutates into ‘no alternative’ and presents alternatives as unthinkable, catastrophic options: ‘the partisans of the established order cannot really call it ideal or wonderful. So instead, they have decided to say that all the rest is horrible’ (Badiou cited in Fisher, 2009:5). Thus, as the cost of saving the Irish banks loomed larger, the stakes attached to the guarantee and its justificatory logic became equally sweeping: ‘[l]et me be clear: had that guarantee not been introduced, we would not now have an economy, never mind a banking system’ (Lenihan in Dáil Éireann, 2010). While the logic of no alternative to saving the banks reveals the strong statist implications of neo-liberalism, the follow up of no alternative to austerity tracks neo-liberalism’s more familiar anti-statist script and its displacement strategies (Peck, 2013a; Blyth, 2013). As states assumed responsibility for private banking debt and such debt quickly slipped into being narrated as ‘our debt’, they were simultaneously castigated for their subsequent debt crises, the blame for which narrowed to the welfare dimensions of the state. Irish inflections of these narratives manifested in political discourse that sought to collectivise responsibility and engender guilt with claims that ‘we began to spend far more on ourselves than we could afford’ and ‘let’s be fair about it, we all partied’ (Lenihan in RTÉ, 2010). This is, however, an uneven collectivisation of debt and responsibility. Austerity is justified with reference to the ‘generous’ nature and disincentivising effects of social protection and the limits to which tax can be imposed on wealth and high incomes (Considine and Dukelow, 2012). Resolve to rein in welfare expenditure is matched with determination to ‘pay our debts’, and default is defined in terms of bad conscience: ‘default would mark us out as a country that “won’t” rather than “can’t” pay our debts’ (Kenny, 2011). While campaigns such as ‘Anglo Not Our Debt’ challenged claims that banking debt was ‘our debt’, the pressure exerted met with efforts only to renegotiate the cost of the debt in a way ‘that is perceived as more affordable by both the Irish public and international markets’ (Fine Gael/Labour, 2011:5). The Irish case of debt displacement and repayment belongs to a broader set of responses in which enormous transfers of wealth are occurring under austerity, as state efforts to manage the crisis in market-friendly ways result in ‘wealthfare’ (Zahariadis, 2008, in Farnsworth, 2012:8). As Konings (2012:54) explains, ‘public interventions in the wake of the crisis represent some of the most inegalitarian uses to which state power has ever been put. Massive amounts of public funds have shielded financial elites from experiencing the consequences of bad debts’. While dominant austerity discourses obscure the transfer of wealth involved, they also obfuscate the dynamics of the longer-term financialised neoliberal growth model of which the crisis and the crisis response are both part. This is the broader canvas in which the non-demise of neo-liberalism and the specific Irish case can be located.

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Financialised neo-liberalism and ‘business as usual’ The concept of financialisation refers to the variety of ways in which finance has altered the structure of economies since the 1970s (Krippner, 2005; Epstein, 2004). However, approaches vary in their focus and degree of emphasis across a number of elements. These have to do with how finance is at the base of three types of changes: to how wealth is created, to how it is distributed, and to the exercise and influence of corporate power and its relationship with the state. In terms of how wealth is created, financialisation is associated with enormous growth in financial trading and ‘innovations’ in what financial instruments or products can be traded. The financial sector of the economy has gone far beyond the classic role of providing credit to fund productive activities, to creating a new mode of accumulation where ‘forms of money themselves became commodities that could be packaged and sold to an unprecedented degree’ (Panitch and Gindin, 2009:38) and whose trading involves speculative rather than productive gain. The nature of the financial trading system also changed in the process, shifting from a ‘bank-based’ to a ‘capital market based’ system (Lapavitsas, 2011). Non-financial corporations began to bypass banks and raised capital by direct trading in financial markets, whilst banks began turning to ‘households and individuals as sources of profit … [and] to financial market mediation to earn fees, commissions and profits from trading’ (Lapavitsas, 2011:620). One of the ways banks did this was by earning fees from securitising mortgages and selling them on in capital markets as mortgagebacked securities or credit debt obligations, a process which Northern Rock for example became heavily involved in, leading to its bank run in 2007. By the 2000s these products had become a significant component of financial product innovations. Mortgage securitisation is not new; however, changing banking regulations in the USA meant that since 1997 sub-prime mortgages could be rated AAA. This opened up a new stream of mortgages for conversion into ­securities, which investment funds such as pensions, mandated only to invest in AAA-rated ­investments, could now invest in. The profit levels of financial firms grew substantially more than those of nonfinancial corporations. In the USA the total share of profits stemming from the financial sector ‘grew from 10 per cent in the early 1980s to 40 per cent in 2006’ (Crotty, 2008:10). Such trends bolstered a shareholder value orientation in corporate governance and decision-making based on ‘downsize and distribute’ rather than ‘retain and invest’ (Lazonick and O’Sullivan, 2000, cited in ­Stockhammer, 2010). Short-term financial gain became prized over the longterm development of non-financial companies and workers lost out to shareholders via job and wage cuts. These trends meant the share of income going to labour declined relative to capital. Finance began to play a growing role in the form of debt accumulation amongst individuals and households (mortgages and other loans) and in household asset accumulation (life insurance, pensions,

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housing). In both ways workers’ income became financialised and a source of profit extraction for financial institutions (Lapavitsas, 2011). Financialistion might also be said to have a role in shaping attitudes towards money, creating financialised subjectivities with particular associations of freedom, responsibility and guilt in relation to money and debt (Langley, 2007; Lazzarato, 2012). The shaping of financialised subjectivities post-financial crisis, in terms of resistance and/or lack of it, is under-explored and may be of relevance in terms of the impact of the ‘we all partied discourse’ in the Irish case. If this describes ‘popular financialisation’, at the other end of the spectrum is ‘elite financialisation’ and the ascendance of a new rentier class (Pollin, 2007) or, in Marx’s terms, ‘monied’ capitalists (Lapavitsas, 2011), whose wealth derives from i­nterest on lending money to others rather than direct investment in the productive economy. Financialisation also extends to the rising political and economic power of financial actors in national and global contexts. The nature of that power is inextricably tied to the rise of neo-liberalism. As Palley (2013) argues, financialisation must be understood as financial neo-liberalism, in which the neo-liberal growth model, based on ‘free’ markets and monetarist economic policies, came to be dominated and driven by financial sector interests, leading to growth based on credit and asset price inflation rather than on industrial producti­ vity and real wage growth. National financial markets were opened up and the international flow of capital was liberalised, with the USA at the forefront, instituting a regulatory regime that facilitated the creation and expansion of financial markets at home and driving the internationalisation of the USA’s financial capital and financial system (Panitch and Gindin, 2009). While the USA might be the heartland of neo-liberal financialisation, by the 2000s the EU had followed suit, wanting to emulate the seeming success of US growth. Greater leeway for European financial capital occurred via the creation of the single market and economic and monetary union (EMU), in efforts to liberalise and internationalise what was seen as Europe’s underdeveloped capital marketplace (Sablowksi, 2009). The financialisation of Ireland’s economy sits between these two larger planes and processes of financialisation. The growth of the domestic banking sector and the policies which underpinned it over the 2000s is part of a deeper integration of the Irish economy with the dynamics of international financialisation and the global financial crisis. Ireland’s first encounter with financialisation occurred through the establishment of the International Financial Services Centre (IFSC). Conceived in the 1980s, this project was designed to transform Dublin’s derelict docklands into a financial services centre that would profit from the massive expansion in inter­ nationally circulating financial capital. It was envisaged that it could operate along the lines of the existing hybrid ‘onshore/offshore’ financial services centre in the European Commission (EC) based in Luxembourg (Reddan, 2008). Offshore centres emerged in the 1980s in small island countries facilitating compa-

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nies controlled by non-residents and servicing financial transactions initiated elsewhere. To attract business they offer a tax and regulatory environment that compares favourably to ‘onshore’ financial services centres, such as London and New York. Luxembourg offered a version of this service within the EC, attracting subsidiaries of EC banks with a regulatory and fiscal environment less stringent than the banks’ home base (Reddan, 2008). The IFSC was driven by an Irish version of the rentier class, which McCabe (2011) describes as a comprador class comprising national financial elites acting as conduits between international financial capital and the state. The IFSC was promoted by a small group of stockbrokers and adopted by the Fianna Fáil government which came to power in 1987 (Reddan, 2008). Establishment of the IFSC became the remit of a committee set up by government, later becoming known as the Clearing House Group. It was located in the Department of the Taoiseach, combining Irish financial elites in banking and stockbroking with senior government and state agency figures from the Department of Finance, the Revenue Commissioners and IDA Ireland. The Group still operates on this basis, facilitating a direct line of communication between financial market actors and the state. The competitive regulatory and tax regime it crafted succeeded in attracting major international financial flows to Dublin, and Ireland became a ‘world leader in the financialisation of the economy’ (Ó Riain, 2012:198). By the late 2000s Ireland hosted ‘over half of the world’s top 50 banks and half of the top 20 insurance companies … IFSC investment was equivalent to about 11 times Ireland’s GNP’ (Tax Justice Network, 2011:2). Its success is attributed in particular to its regulatory rules, which offered enormous leeway. As Stewart (2008:2) notes, ‘it was not especially the low-tax regime that attracted funds to Dublin, but other features: Ireland ticks certain boxes for funds and the regulators in their home countries … perhaps most alluring of all, however, is its “light touch r­ egulation”’. Initially an attractive site for US financial capital, financial liberalisation in the EU meant the IFSC also became attractive to European investment funds. Thus, besides the flow of European finance to the Irish domestic banking sector which seemed to offer very profitable returns, European finance was attracted to Ireland as an accommodating site of fund management. While the former helped to fuel the toxic asset base of the Irish property market, through the latter Irish financialised neo-liberalism played its role in the global toxic asset boom. Thus, ‘many toxic developments in the “subprime” markets of the U.S. and elsewhere can trace their lineage back to Ireland’ (Tax Justice Network, 2011:2) where securitised sub-prime mortgages could be routed through and held off balance sheet (Stewart, 2010). The Dublin branches of many international banks were hit by the sub-prime crisis and credit crunch; such ‘banks bought (long-term) asset-backed securities – typically stuffed with poor-quality mortgages’ (Hendrikse, 2013:190) on the basis of short-term funding and excessive leveraging, permitted by the Irish regulatory regime. Once the credit

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crunch hit, several German banks such as Sachsen Bank and Hypo required financial support from the German government after ‘seeing their holdings of “triple A” rated paper parked in Dublin-based conduits lose their inflated values’ (Hendrikse, 2013:190). Bear Stearns’ trouble could similarly be partially traced back to Ireland where a holding company, Bear Stearns Ireland Ltd., had leveraging of ‘one dollar of equity financing $119 in gross assets’ (Tax Justice Network, 2011:7), making it extremely vulnerable in the credit crunch. Ireland’s domestic banking crisis and the readiness of the government to prevent bank failure is thus part of a longer and wider history of how Ireland integrated itself with the global spread of financialised neo-liberalism, the market-friendly policy settings it instituted, and its efforts to restore its international reputation post-crisis. In the aftermath of the crisis, Irish banks are still in zombie mode despite the state’s gargantuan efforts to revive them. Other elements of Ireland’s policy reveal its ‘business as usual’ approach and its commitment to a financialised neo-liberal growth model, with all of the implied calculations, compromises and contradictions. After a brief fall in investment and the end of trading in sub-prime mortgage-based securities, investment in the IFSC recovered quickly and reached new highs (Stewart, 2013). Reregulatory decisions and policy discourse focus on the necessity of enhancing ‘tax offerings’ to the financial sector. Budgets since 2009, despite being framed under the mantle of ‘no alternative to austerity’, have actually enhanced corporate welfare by introducing new tax breaks (Dukelow, forthcoming). Many of these have been introduced after Clearing House Group lobbying (Smyth, 2013). Ireland’s corporate tax regime has come under increased international scrutiny for the funds routed through Dublin subsidiaries of transnational companies such as Google and Apple. Such companies report massive profits but pay minimal amounts of tax on the basis that they are not treated as tax resident for corporate tax purposes in Ireland (Stewart, 2013). The notion that Ireland is a tax haven is vigorously denied and the corporate tax regime staunchly defended as part of Ireland’s international pro-enterprise brand. Under this denial, Ireland maintains several features of tax havens, including a tax, regulatory and legislative regime that is ‘very responsive to the needs of multinational corporations’ (Stewart, 2013:10). An OECD report on tax havens which concludes that no country is a tax haven, affirms the Irish regime’s ‘cooperative compliance approach’ based on trust, which helps the ‘Irish Revenue to gain a better understanding of the needs and behaviour of large business’ (OECD 2013:80 in Stewart, 2013:11); this language has all the tenor of pre-crisis light touch regulation. Successive governments therefore continue with ‘growth chasing beggarthy-neighbour modes of governance’ (Peck, Theodore and Brenner, 2010:112) which do little to create sustainable, productive growth and remain subservient to financial market interests.

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Conclusion This chapter has ended far from its starting point of the night the Irish government decided to save the banking system with a blanket bank guarantee. It has tried to contextualise that decision and its consequences as part of the bigger picture of Ireland’s adoption of a financialised neo-liberal growth model. The contradictions and power dynamics of such a model propelled it into saving the banking system and transferring the costs from the financial markets to the Irish nation. Yet even in the era of austerity, corporate welfare and regulation continues to be enhanced in the related cause of boosting Ireland’s offerings in the marketplace of inward financial investment. Recent debate about the use of the term neo-liberalism brings attention to the risk of overusing the term in critical analysis and of trying to explain everything with recourse to an allencompassing logic of neo-liberalism (Peck, 2013b). Against this, mainstream debate suggests that neo-liberalism is a misnomer, a term which critical theorists use for ideas that do not actually exist in real political and policy contexts. The ‘real’ context of Irish politics has been long built on a version of the mainstream treatment of neo-liberalism, and the bank guarantee and subsequent policy decisions are predicated on pragmatic, ‘no alternative’ policy choices, variously dictated by the financial markets, the troika, or simply ‘no-nonsense’ mathematics. Thus, in responding to a question about the extent of austerity to be decided in the 2014 Budget, the Minister for Finance, Michael Noonan (cited in McGee, 2013) replied, ‘I’m not a martinet. I’m not ideological on these issues. I was just good at arithmetic when I was in primary school’. Where ideology passes for good arithmetic, it is important to demonstrate the choices nation-states actually make, the context in which they are made and the effects of making them – in short, the contradictory and calculated moves of actually existing neo-liberalism in local settings. Events such as the bank guarantee demonstrate how the Irish state is mired in the contradictions and challenges of market-friendly state intervention. Yet, as Thompson (2010) reminds us, such actions reveal the degree of power that states still retain in an era of globalised financial markets, which, given political will, could be used differently.

Notes   1 The tapes’ revelations prompted the Governor of the Central Bank to suggest that criminal charges might be made on the basis that individuals ‘were deliberately misrepresenting the position of the bank with a view to accessing financial support from the Central Bank’ (Honohan, cited in O’Carroll, 2013). However, the Central Bank (2013) subsequently stated that on review ‘no new issues have been identified that relate to suspected criminal offences having occurred’. See also note 4.   2 Apparently, Merrill Lynch was aware of the highly precarious state of the Irish banks. A report produced by Merrill Lynch employee Philip Ingram, which analysed the banks’ risky lending practices, overvalued assets and reliance on short-term funding, was

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retracted shortly after publication in March 2008. In 2010 it was revealed that Merrill Lynch was also involved in facilitating back to back loans between Anglo and Irish Life and Permanent which were recorded as customer deposits in order to improve the bank’s balance sheet (Brennan, 2013).   3 A memorandum on the pros and cons of a guarantee was provided during the emergency meetings, which again did not reference the precariousness of the banks.   4 An arrangement to manipulate the value of Anglo shares by unlawfully arranging loans for ten Anglo customers and six members of the Quinn family to purchase Anglo shares resulted in criminal charges against three Anglo bankers: Sean FitzPatrick, William McAteer and Pat Whelan. The 2014 trial acquitted FitzPatrick and sentenced McAteer and Whelan to community service on condition of their suitability.   5 By this point the original bank guarantee, the CIFS, had expired, but was supplemented by a Credit Institutions (Eligible Liabilities Guarantee) Scheme (ELG) introduced on 9 December 2009. The ELG guaranteed the majority of the liabilities under the CIFS and new bonds issued by banks participating in the scheme for up to five years. The ELG no longer applied to new bonds issued after 28 March 2013.   6 The 2010 figure included approximately €30 billion bank recapitalisation costs financed by promissory notes. The Central Bank provided the finance for recapitalisation and the government provided the Central Bank with promissory notes, a promise to pay the money in the future. Payment was based on the government borrowing €3.1 billion annually over 10–15 years to cover the cost of the notes and interest. The full amount of the promissory notes excluding interest was recorded in the general government deficit in 2010. In 2011 the government deficit figure was 13.4 per cent of GDP. A promissory note deal agreed with the ECB in February 2013 saw them being replaced with 20–40-year bonds, spreading the cost over a longer term.   7 The purpose of NAMA was to substantially relieve the banks of their bad loans. By 2011, loans worth €74 billion were purchased by NAMA at a valuation of €32 billion (Comptroller and Auditor General, 2012). This money was raised by issuing government-­ guaranteed bonds. The cost of these bonds does not appear in government accounts. NAMA was created as an off balance sheet ‘special purpose vehicle’: the borrowings required to establish it are not recorded as government debt. The first five tranches of loans (€26.4 billion) transferred to NAMA are estimated to have been overvalued by 23 per cent (Comptroller and Auditor General, 2012). The eventual cost of NAMA to the state once all assets are disposed of is uncertain, but such overvaluation adds to the risk that NAMA will result in further sovereign debt.   8 While the state has majority ownership in these banks, it has taken a hands-off approach to their management; aiming to restore them to private market health. There is no political will to explore alternative bank models (Stewart, 2010).   9 This does not include the cost of NAMA. See note 7.

References Blyth, M. (2013) Austerity the History of a Dangerous Idea, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Brennan, D. (2013) ‘Why Ireland’s 2008 Blanket Bank Guarantee decision was taken: part 3’, Irish Left Review, 25 April, http://goo.gl/4cHfTJ (retrieved 8 November 2013). Brenner, N., and Theodore, N. (2002) ‘Cities and the geographies of “Actually existing neo­liberalism”’, Antipode, 34(3): 349–79. Burke, M. (2011) ‘Who benefits from the crisis in Ireland?’, Soundings, 47: 130–42.

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Cahill, D. (2012) ‘The embedded neoliberal economy’, in D. Cahill, L. Edwards and F. Stilwell (eds) Neoliberalism Beyond the Free Market, Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 110–27. Carswell, S. (2011) Anglo Republic: Inside the Bank that Broke Ireland, Dublin: Penguin Ireland. Central Bank (2013) ‘Statement on Anglo Irish Bank, Press Release’ 24 September (accessed online 8 November 2013). Committee of Public Accounts (2012) Report on the Crisis in the Domestic Banking Sector: a Preliminary Analysis and a Framework for a Banking Inquiry, Dublin: Houses of the Oireachtas. Comptroller and Auditor General (2012) National Asset Management Agency Management of Loans, Dublin: Government of Ireland. Considine, M., and Dukelow, F. (2012) ‘From financial crisis to welfare retrenchment assessing the challenges to the Irish welfare state’, in M. Kilkey, G. Ramia and K. Farnsworth (eds) Social Policy Review 24, Analysis and Debate in Social Policy. Bristol: Policy Press, 257–76. Coyle, D. (2008) ‘Government guarantee bolsters financials’, Irish Times, 1 October. Crotty, J. (2008) Structural Causes of the Global Financial Crisis: a Critical Assessment of the ‘New Financial Architecture’, Amherst, MA: Political Economy Research Institute, University of Massachusetts. Dáil Éireann (2008a) Credit Institutions (Financial Support) Bill 2008: Second Stage, Dáil Éireann Debate, vol. 662, no. 1, 30 September. Dáil Éireann (2008b) Leaders questions, Dáil Eireann Debate, vol. 662, no. 1, 30 September. Dáil Éireann (2010) Credit Institution (Eligible Liabilities Guarantee) (Amendment) Scheme 2010: Motion, Dáil Éireann Debate, vol. 716, no. 1, 29 September. Dean, M. (2012) ‘Free economy, strong state’, in D. Cahill, L. Edwards and F. Stilwell (eds) Neoliberalism Beyond the Free Market, Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 69–89. Department of Finance (2008) ‘Government decision to safeguard the Irish banking system, Press Release’, 30 September, http://goo.gl/DHzK3I (pdf, retrieved 8 May 2014). Dukelow, F. (forthcoming) ‘“Pushing against an open door”: reinforcing the neo-liberal policy paradigm in Ireland and the impact of EU intrusion’, Comparative European Politics. Edwards, L., Cahill, D., and Stilwell, F. (2012) ‘Introduction: understanding neoliberalism beyond the free market’, in D. Cahill, L. Edwards and F. Stilwell (eds) Neoliberalism Beyond the Free Market, Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 1–12. Epstein, G. (2005) ‘Introduction’, in G. Epstein (ed.) Financialization and the World Economy, Northampton: Edward Elgar, 3–16. Eurostat (2013) ‘Government deficit/surplus, debt and associated data’, http://goo.gl/nWA4L4 (retrieved 8 November 2013). Farnsworth, K. (2012) Social versus Corporate Welfare: Competing Needs and Interests in the Welfare State, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Fine Gael/Labour (2011) Government for National Recovery 2011–2016, http://goo.gl/ k8SeMb (retrieved 8 November 2013). Fisher, M. (2009) Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative? London: Zed Books. Hendrikse, R. (2013) ‘Entangled geographies of “Irish” finance’, Eurasian Geography and Economics, 54(2): 182–201. Honohan, P. (2009) ‘Resolving Ireland’s bank crisis’, Economic and Social Review, 40(2): 207–31. Honohan, P. (2010) The Irish Banking Crisis Regulatory and Financial Stability Policy 2003– 2008, Dublin: Central Bank. Indymedia Ireland (2008) ‘Initial thoughts on the gov[ernmen]t’s guarantee to Irish banks

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and its wider implications’, 3 October, www.indymedia.ie/article/89318 (retrieved 8 November 2013). Irish Independent (2013) ‘Anglo Tapes’, various dates, July. Kelly, M. (2008) ‘Bailout inept and potentially dangerous’, Irish Times, 2 October. Kenny, E. (2011) ‘Government beginning to deliver results for the state’, Irish Times, 2 November. Konings, M. (2012) ‘Neoliberalism and the state’, in D. Cahill, L. Edwards and F. Stilwell (eds) Neoliberalism Beyond the Free Market, Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 54–66. Krippner, G. (2005) ‘The financialisation of the American economy’, Socio-Economic Review, 3(2): 173–208. Laeven, L., and Valencia, F. (2013) ‘Systemic banking crises database’, IMF Economic Review, 61(2): 225–70. Langley, P. (2007) ‘Uncertain subjects of anglo-american financialisation’, Cultural Critique, 65: 67–91. Lapavitsas, C. (2011) ‘Theorizing financialization’, Work, Employment and Society, 25(4): 611–26. Lazzarato, M. (2012) The Making of the Indebted Man An Essay on the Neoliberal Condition, trans. J. D. Jordan, Los Angeles, CA: Semiotext(e). Lewis, M. (2011) ‘When Irish eyes are crying’, Vanity Fair, March. McCabe, D. (2011) Sins of the Father: tracing the decisions that shaped the Irish economy, Dublin: The History Press. McGee, H. (2013) ‘A Spinner who has mastered the conjurer’s art of misdirection’, Irish Times, 21 September. Minihan, M. (2008) ‘Advocacy groups broadly welcome government’s move on banks’, Irish Times, 1 October. Nyberg, P. (2011) Misjudging Risk: Causes of the Systemic Banking Crisis in Ireland, Dublin: Government Publications. O’Brien, T. (2008) ‘Bank chief calls for brave budget’, Irish Times, 6 October. O’Carroll, S. (2013) ‘Patrick Honohan gives unexpectedly frank answers about bank crisis … to a German newspaper’, The Journal.ie, 2 July, http://jrnl.ie/974706 (retrieved 8 November 2013). Ó Riain, S. (2012) ‘The crisis of financialisation in Ireland’, The Economic and Social Review, 43(4): 497–533. Palley, T. (2013) Financialization The Economics of Finance Capital Domination, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Panitch, L., and Gindin, S. (2009) ‘Finance and American Empire’, in L. Panitch and M. Konings (eds) American Empire and the Political Economy of Global Finance, Basingstoke: Palgrave, 17–47. Peck, J. (2010a) ‘Zombie neoliberalism and the ambidextrous state’, Theoretical Criminology, 14(1): 104–10. Peck, J. (2010b) Constructions of Neoliberal Reason, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Peck, J. (2013a) ‘Pushing austerity: state failure, municipal bankruptcy, and the crisis of fiscal federalism in the United States’, Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society, doi:10.1093/cjres/rst018. Peck, J. (2013b) ‘Explaining (with) neoliberalism’, Territory, Politics, Governance, doi:10.108 0/21622671.2013.785365. Peck, J., Theodore, N., and Brenner, N. (2010) ‘Post neoliberalism and its malcontents’, ­Antipode 41(s1): 94–116.

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Peck, J., Theodore, N. and Brenner, N. (2012) ‘Neoliberalism, interrupted’, in D. Cahill, L. Edwards and F. Stilwell (eds) Neoliberalism Beyond the Free Market, Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 15–30. Pollin, R. (2007) Resurrection of the rentier, New Left Review, 46, July/August: 140–53. Reddan, F. (2008) Ireland’s IFSC A Story of Global Financial Success, Cork: Mercier Press. Regling, K., and Watson, M. (2010) A Preliminary Report on the Sources of Ireland’s Banking Crisis, Dublin: Government Publications. RTÉ (2010) Prime Time, 24 November. Sablowski, T. (2009) ‘Towards the Americanization of European Finance? The case of financeled accumulation in Germany’, in L. Panitch and M. Konings (eds) American Empire and the Political Economy of Global Finance, Basingstoke: Palgrave, 135–58. Seanad Éireann (2008) Credit Institutions (Financial Support) Bill 2008: Second Stage, Seanad Éireann Debate, vol. 191, no. 2, 1 October. Smyth, J. (2013) ‘The bankers got virtually everything they wanted’, Financial Times, 2 May. Stewart, J. (2008) ‘Shadow regulation and the shadow banking system, the role of the Dublin International Financial Services Centre’, Tax Justice Focus, 4(2): 1–3. Stewart, J. (2010) Mutuals and Alternative banking: a Solution to the Financial and Credit Crisis in Ireland? Dunfermline: Carnegie UK Trust. Stewart, J. (2013) Is Ireland a Tax Haven? Dublin: Institute for International Integration Studies. Stockhammer, E. (2010) Financialisation and the Global Economy, Amherst, MA: Political Economy Research Institute. Tax Justice Network (2011) ‘Mapping Financial Secrecy Ireland’, http://goo.gl/zpp1Al (pdf, retrieved 8 November 2013). Taylor, G. (2011) ‘Risk and financial Armageddon in Ireland: the politics of the Galway tent’, The Political Quarterly, 82(4): 596–608. Thompson, H. (2010) ‘The character of the state’, in C. Hay (ed.) New Directions in Political Science, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 130–47.

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Worlds turned upside down? The Older People’s Uprising, 2008 Rosie Meade

Introduction The Government has decided to abolish the automatic entitlement to a medical card for those over seventy who are above the eligibility criteria. Support will be available to this group to help them meet their healthcare costs. An annual cash grant of €400 per person will be paid to those over seventy who do not qualify for a medical card or a GP visit card subject to an income threshold. (Lenihan, in Dáil Éireann, 2008a)

Although it was anticipated, Brian Lenihan’s budget announcement of 14 October 2008 would kick-start an extraordinary week in Irish politics. The recently promoted Minister for Finance was charged with navigating what he judged to be ‘one of the most difficult and uncertain times in living memory’ (Lenihan in Dáil Éireann, 2008a). The still unfolding sub-prime crisis had brought down Lehman Brothers, the US financial services giant, which filed for bankruptcy on 15 September. Ireland’s recession was confirmed within ten days by the Central Statistics Office (RTÉ, 2008a) and on 30 September Minister Lenihan committed the state to guarantee all banking liabilities for at least two years (see Chapter 9). Prefaced with a grim assessment of the global threats bearing down on the nation, his first budget speech set out the ‘historical task’ facing the government and the Irish people as a whole: to stabilise the economy, rationalise expenditure and rein back ineffective ‘universal entitlements’ (Lenihan in Dáil Éireann, 2008a). The international scale and rapid pace of events – he remarked ‘the world financial system has been turned upside down’ – rendered this a crisis rather than the ‘soft landing’ that was hitherto a mainstay of media prediction (McWilliams, 2008). Nonetheless, Lenihan, invoking the can-do vernacular of the SWOT analysis, exhorted the populace to recognise this ‘opportunity for us all to pull together and play our part according to our means’ (Lenihan in Dáil Éireann, 2008a). For many older citizens, however, the budget generated alternative or countervailing opportunities: ‘pulling together’ was reframed as collective action and solidarity, while ‘playing

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their part’ was registered as protest and resistance. Public commentaries on the recession or citizens’ responses to austerity typically reference the Older People’s Uprising as an effective if singular demonstration of ‘people power’ or ‘pensioner power’ (www.herald.ie, 2008). For example, Miriam Lord (2008) of the Irish Times described a ‘truly extra­ordinary’ scenario; ‘so many elderly people, pillars of their community, committed voters, decent law-abiding men and women, out on the streets laying siege to the Dáil was unprecedented’. More recently Taoiseach Enda Kenny (in Dáil Éireann, 2012) evoked his own ambivalent memories of the protests; ‘Elderly people were out before when a decision was made about medical cards. They were very articulate and vociferous and knew exactly where the sore point was. Some of those people were in wheelchairs. I do not want to see that’. The Uprising was short-lived by comparison with the other campaigns that are analysed in this volume (see Chapters 3 and 4), but its lingering significance has been endorsed by Atlantic Philanthropies (2013), among others. ­Atlantic funds a range of Irish NGOs in the name of a ‘robust civil society’ and its website frames the protests as evidence that its grantee, the Irish Senior Citizens’ ­Parliament, successfully empowered ‘older people to advocate for themselves’ (Atlantic Philanthropies, 2011). In contrast, while economist Colm McCarthy (2008) recognised the Uprising’s success as a spectacle – ‘an apocalyptic reaction to relatively minor expenditure cuts’, ‘the pensioner’s Woodstock’ – it was, he argued, emblematic of the public’s wrongheaded refusal to admit the gravity of the economic crisis. This chapter offers a critical reading of the Uprising and its place in recent Irish history. It is not a definitive analysis: it cannot capture the personal significance of this ‘event’ for individual participants; it offers no insights into the advance organisational work by activists and NGOs that advocate with and for older people; and it is guarded in its assessment of the Uprising’s overall achievements. Instead, I analyse the forms that resistance took and the extent to which it transgressed or reinforced the clientelist norms of political engagement in Ireland. More specifically, I interpret the Uprising’s political and ethical significance with reference to the Foucauldian concept of counter-conduct. This chapter also contextualises the protests, situating them against an appraisal of the fading status of ‘universalism’ in social policy, a decline that is at least partly linked to the ascendance of neo-liberalism. Moreover, given Ireland’s historical unease over universal health care, I critique the peculiar and politicised origins of the over-70s medical card in 2001. The Uprising was a defining event for a nation in transition to recession, but it also exposed some troubling continuities in Irish political discourse and practice. Among them: the resilience of a ‘stroke culture’ in the policy arena; the ongoing subordination of social policy to economic rationalities; and the deployment of ideological dissimulations to undermine public debate about the substantive character of our welfare state.

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‘People Power! Pensioners show the way’ (WSM, 2008: 1) In popular recollections of the Uprising, two key events stand out: Age Action Ireland’s (AAI) public meeting of 21 October and the March on the Dáil by 15,0001 older people and supporters that occurred a day later (Indymedia Ireland, 2008). The meeting, originally slated to be held at a Dublin hotel, was moved to St Andrew’s Church in order to accommodate an estimated crowd of 1,800. By booing and silencing government spokespersons – most notably Minister of State John Moloney – and cheering opposition politicians, attendees registered an apparently unanimous objection to the budget announcement (Healy, 2008). The following day’s march coincided with a student demonstration against college fees, and once again a government representative, Máire Hoctor, Minister of State for Older People, was heckled and jeered. Various poli­ ticians, including Fine Gael Leader Enda Kenny and Labour’s Eamon Gilmore, mingled with protesters at the March on the Dáil, which preceded a Dáil vote on an opposition motion to reverse the proposed change (Carbery, 2008). Demonstrators had been mobilised by the Irish Senior Citizens’ Parliament (ISCP), and its president Sylvia Meehan gave a spirited defence of universal entitlement as essential for older people’s ‘citizenship’, ‘self-respect’ and ‘dignity’ (Carbery, 2008). The lively scenes moved the Irish Times (2008) to editorialise on ‘the return of street politics’ as the ‘grey generation’ reminded politicians of the consequences of ignoring their ‘health and wellbeing’ even if, as it sanctimoniously opined, the ‘rudeness of protesters’ undermined their cause somewhat. There was, however, more to the Uprising than two Dublin/National gatherings. From budget-day, Joe Duffy’s Liveline2 became an animated forum for older people, carers and their lobby groups. Callers described what their medical cards meant to them, vented their anger at government, disputed its prescription of budgetary cutbacks to older people and incited others to resist (Liveline, 2008). Marches occurred in Tralee and Clonakilty and an estimated 2000 attended the Campaign for a Real Public Health Service demonstration in Cork on 18 October (Indymedia Ireland, 2008–9). Protesters picketed the constituency offices of Minister for Defence Willie O’Dea, and Minister for Health Mary Harney, and on 25 October, in order to sustain the Uprising’s momentum, ‘up to 200 people of all ages braved appalling weather conditions’ at a march in Limerick (Limerick Leader, 2008). In Ireland boundaries between left and right have been blurred by the dominance of a populist and clientelist political culture – exemplified in the ‘TD’s clinic’ – which obliges national legislators to prove their responsiveness to the needs of local constituents (Kirby and Murphy, 2011; O’Carroll, 1987/2008). Interestingly, this same tradition was successfully exploited by protesters as they targeted elected representatives: the ISCP urged members to ‘Get out There! Get Working! Get talking to your local politicians and demand that this be withdrawn’ (Hayes, 2008). A forum of Fianna Fáil councillors responded with

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an ‘emergency’ convention in Ballinasloe, making known its ‘anger that there would be any possibility of anyone losing their entitlement’ and advising the Taoiseach to reconsider the plans (Siggins, 2008). As they practised their democratic right to protest, many participants in the Uprising self-identified as voters – ‘we voted 4 you now vote 4 us’. The implied threat of an electoral backlash by older people fuelled mutterings of rebellion on the backbenches of Fianna Fáil, prompted TD Joe Behan to resign from the party and caused Independent Finian McGrath to withdraw support from the coalition government. By the time of the March on the Dáil, the government had already wavered in its approach to means-testing yet still refused to concede on the promised abandonment of universality. Instead it proposed self-administered assessments that relied on ‘better-off ’ older people to relinquish their cards. Public pressure forced repeated revisions of the new eligibility thresholds, and as the controversy rumbled on, five alternative versions were publicised. Evidently the budget announcement had been rushed, ministers had not negotiated with the Irish Medical Organisation (IMO) around a fee structure and the Health Service Executive (HSE) struggled to specify the new criteria (Donnellan, 2008a). This only partly explains the confusion, however; the revisions were designed to neutralise popular disquiet and Mary Harney reassured the public that only 20,000, as opposed to the previously anticipated 125,000, would lose their cards. The government’s tenacity in disposing of the principle of universality seemed curiously at odds with efforts to minimise the numbers affected, a paradox that would prompt the ISCP (n.d.) to question the deeper purpose of this ‘elaborate clerical exercise’. Undoubtedly, the protests succeeded in preserving the entitlements of many who would otherwise have lost them. The Uprising was provoked by a tangible policy change, but also reflected concerns about the status of older people in Ireland and the subordination of social provision to the putative demands of the economy. The protests worked what Jessica Kulynych (1997:333) calls the ‘dual meaning’ of demonstration. The first, more typical, usage relates to how demonstrations ‘point out’ or articulate protesters’ interests or grievances (ibid.). Placards at the March testified: Age 85 Need Help to Stay Alive I Need my Medical Card Please A Budget to Die for

Alternatively, demonstration translates as ‘a show’ or ‘performance’ whereby ‘defiance [is] embodied in action that flies in the face of acceptability’ (ibid.). Protests enumerated older people’s fears, arguments and demands but also demonstrated their capacities for transgressive and resistant conduct. Ageist

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constructions of older people as passive, passé or burdensome were countered by protesters who embodied the activist role. Carrying banners declaiming ‘Older and Bolder’ or wearing tee-shirts with the AAI logo, they performed their shared spirit of collective purpose, while, for some at least, picketing clinics or shouting down TDs signified a willingness to transgress the polite norms of political engagement. The Uprising also revealed the breadth and force of an older people’s lobby and its political efficacy. National organisations like AAI and the ISCP played a central mobilising role, but even at the March, protesters demonstrated local affiliations – ‘The Banner Fights Back’, ‘National Widows Association Drogheda Branch’, ‘Tara Disabled Mineworkers and Pensioners’. This underscored the geographical range and legitimacy of their resistance while simultaneously putting TDs and councillors on notice. It also tapped into popular disquiet regarding the quality and accessibility of Irish health services, disquiet that had not been allayed by the economic boom of the preceding decade.

Economising and politicising the medical card Condemnation of Ireland’s two-tier or ‘apartheid’ (Burke, 2009) health services is commonplace. The health system itself is complex; private and public services coexist and even overlap, and entitlements are finely graduated so that only a minority qualify for free access to primary services via the medical card regime.3 According to the WHO/European Observatory on Health Systems and Health Policies (2012:60), ‘Ireland is the only EU health system that does not offer universal coverage of primary care’. While there are seams of universalism within the system,4 in its character and functioning it actively promotes inequality. Most obviously, private medical insurance legitimises accelerated admittance to a raft of secondary services (Burke, 2009). Orla McDonnell and Órla O’Donovan’s (2009) research traces the anti-welfarism that informed the promotion of private health insurance during the 1950s and explores how policy-makers continue to represent it as a marker of moral responsibility and community solidarity today. In effect, individuals and families are responsibilised to demonstrate their consumer sovereignty and self-sufficiency by insuring themselves against risk, and in so doing relieve the state, fellow citizens and the public system of the ‘weight’ of their dependency (ibid.). Ostensibly selective entitlement to medical cards seems redistributive, ringfencing free access to services for those whose medical needs outweigh their individual capacities to pay. Problematically, however, means tests impose arbi­trary lines between those who qualify and those who do not: marginal ­improvements in earnings can render former recipients illegible, and this very prospect emerged as a recurring anxiety for Liveline callers on budget day. Although means-testing is typically rationalised with reference to its effectiveness

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at targeting the neediest, the success of Ireland’s health system is questionable in this regard. Research suggests that the proportion of the population entitled to medical cards fell during the Celtic Tiger period because income thresholds did not keep pace with economic growth (Layte, Nolan and Nolan, 2007). In particular the ‘working poor’ were disadvantaged by eligibility criteria that were seen to ‘penalise families with children’ (Keilthy, 2009:16). In his December 2000 budget speech the then Minister for Finance Charlie McCreevy announced that from 2001 all Irish residents aged over 70 would become eligible for medical cards, irrespective of means. This move seemed counter-intuitive given the market orientation of much health policy and ­McCreevy was an unlikely champion of universalism. He had previously caricatured critics of his tax reduction and individualisation measures as ‘left-wing pinkos’ because, allegedly, ‘money belonged to the people who earned it and not the state’ (Dowling, 2000). Nonetheless the new measure was rationalised as the logical conclusion of his policy agenda: ‘[i]n my 1999 Budget, I announced that the income limits for Medical Cards for people aged 70 years or over would be doubled over three years … That process will be completed next March, and it is now proposed to take the next step’ (McCreevy in Dáil Éireann, 2000). McCreevy’s announcement framed the extension of entitlement, which had been recommended by advocacy groups (e.g. National Council on Ageing and Older People, 1999), as proof of the government’s commitment to a ‘fairer society’. Despite making much of its welfare credentials, the speech also re­iterated policy-making’s bottom-line: the ‘over-riding need to keep our economy competitive and … ensure that this is reflected in our approach to how we reward ourselves’ (McCreevy in Dáil Éireann, 2000). Since the foundation of the state in 1922, decisions about the form and substance of welfare are typically deemed ancillary to economic considerations, a tendency John Clarke (2007) describes as the ‘subordination of the social’. This means that the expansion or retrenchment of welfare is rationalised first and foremost with reference to economics rather than a priori concepts of need or justice. Comparing the speeches of McCreevy and Lenihan, we see how both the gifting and withdrawal of medical cards were framed as consistent with prudent management of the economy. Lofty references to national solidarity – McCreevy’s ‘fairer society with opportunity for all’, Lenihan’s ‘[t]his Budget serves no vested interest’ – mask what Mary Murphy (2012:358) denotes as Ireland’s ‘dominant technocratic ideology’. In other words, economic governance is represented as immune from or transcendent of political dispute, while its role in sustaining social inequality is obscured. Announcing the over-70s scheme, McCreevy reassured the public that in drafting the budget he had duly considered representations from the social partners. From the 1980s, successive governments secured agreement with business, farming and trade union sectors around a regime of low corporation

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taxes, industrial peace, competitiveness, and flexibilisation of the public sector; all standard elements of the neo-liberal package (Meade, 2012). As Jamie Peck (2004:403) explains, however, neo-liberalism ‘cannot, exist in pure form, but only manifests itself in hybrid formations’. Against more archetypical tendencies such as dismantling welfare or ‘pitting the state against trade unions’ (Kitchin et al., 2012:1307), Ireland’s distinctive hybrid was underpinned by the consensus ideology of partnership and some strategic concessions to social policy. In 1996 the elevation of the Community and Voluntary Pillar to the ranks of national partnership created a space from which its members could pursue enhanced recognition of their social sector, while defending and (even) extending the welfare entitlements of their constituencies. Within these arrangements, AAI and the ISCP became recognised as the voices of older people. While the comparative influence of the Community and Voluntary Pillar within social partnership is questionable, it may have contributed to a “‘softer”, more muted … more consensual’ (Peck, 2004:393) application of neo-liberalism whereby some welfare gains were secured, among them the over-70s card. If ministers attempted to make the medical card fit with their economic agendas, they used it to further narrow political agendas as well. Mel Cousins’s (2007) work on ‘budget-cycles’ highlights the tendency for incumbent governments to expand social security spending at key moments in order to enhance their prospects of re-election (also Murphy, 2012). Putting it more crudely, McCreevy’s move was widely recognised as an archetypical Fianna Fáil stroke: a pre-emptive effort to buy off older voters and boost the party’s PR in advance of the 2002 election (Burke, 2009; Whelan, 2008). In the clientelist culture of Irish politics unsuccessful medical card applicants often lobby TDs for a review of their cases and McCreevy’s gesture reflected this familiar modus operandi, but on a grander scale. Paddy O’Carroll (1987/2008:44) remarks that strokes are defined by a discernible ‘theatricality’ – e.g. the big-stage budget speech – but also occur on the ‘fringes of acceptability’. Critics accused McCreevy of wilfully misdirecting resources, favouring comparatively well-off pensioners over more needful cases (Burke, 2009), and Fintan O’Toole (2005) estimated that up to 8,000 other people who ‘actually need medical cards’ lost them, because the ‘State couldn’t afford the cost’. Although probably not intended by O’Toole, some of the wider commentary approximated the hackneyed ‘deserving versus undeserving’ formula that undercuts populist discourses about welfare. Dr James Reilly – later to become Fine Gael’s spokesperson on health and later still health minister – then chair of the IMO’s GP committee, decried McCreevy’s measure: ‘government is handing out free medical cards to people who can afford golf club fees and at the same time neglecting those who can not afford to attend to their children’s health’ (www.irishhealth.com, 2000). In an under-appreciated Damascene conversion, he subsequently condemned Brian Lenihan’s budget: an ‘attack on the elderly under the guise of patriotism, when it was more like an

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act of terrorism. The principle is simple: universal health care for everyone over the age of 70’ (Reilly in Dáil Éireann, 2008b). Viewing this controversy over the longer term, it becomes clear that Fianna Fáil holds no monopoly on strokes.

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The ‘burdens’ of universalism The principle of universalism provides for freely accessible services, payments, utilities or goods where ‘an essential link is forged between the extension of social rights and citizenship’ (Danson et al., 2012; Thompson and Hoggett, 1996:26). It renders benefits non-negotiable: irrespective of our identities, means or geographical location we can avail of them without prejudice and without charge. Citizenship rights and welfare entitlements are, therefore, mutually a­ ffirming. For Richard Titmuss (1965:19), one of the architects of Britain’s N ­ ational Health Service, universalism was intrinsically linked to the ‘demand for one society; for non-discriminatory services for all without distinction of class, income or race; for services and relations which would deepen and enlarge self-respect; for services which would manifestly encourage social integration’. Hitching universal rights to redistributive taxation and social insurance systems would, he hoped, bolster the broader public’s engagement with and allegiance to the welfare state. Titmuss (1965) presciently argued that means-tested, or what he termed discriminatory, benefits segregate recipients, constructing them as burdensome and as a drain on the economy. If in the public mind the link between availing of and contributing to the cost of benefits is broken (Alcock, 2011; Danson et al., 2012), the welfare state becomes regarded as an expensive yet residualised sphere beyond the direct experience of the majority. Furthermore, what might seem like a clerical exercise is a disciplinary practice. Means-testing is designed to weed out those judged as claiming irresponsibly, immorally or unfairly: it affects a sceptical attitude towards entitlement, thus stigmatising and exceptionalising recipients. This tendency intensifies in times of austerity when retrenchment forces the needful into ever more testing competition for scarce resources and the concept of need is itself narrowed. Because the over-70s card was crudely politicised from its introduction, an opportunity for informed public debate on universalism’s social benefits and broader scope was sacrificed. Facing down the threat of retrenchment, the Uprising created a vital space from which older people could both defend and promote the benefits of the universal card based on personal experience. The ISCP’s pre-Budget Submission (2008) called for the extension of the scheme to all those aged sixty-five and over, bravely asserting the card’s social worth even as hegemonic discourses pushed the inevitability of austerity. Likewise, Robin Webster of AAI, anticipating the withdrawal of automatic entitlement, argued that it would undermine ‘the current push towards community care and the drive to keep older people out of hospitals and nursing homes. It would not

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result in any reduction in illness among older people but ensure that by the time they came to doctors’ surgeries that their illnesses would be more advanced’ (Lavery, 2008). Government spokespeople adopted a somewhat anomalous position in order to defuse support for universalism: medical card retraction was essential for economic wellbeing but would disadvantage only a minority of better-off older people. Nonetheless, sceptical protesters were mindful that a more fundamental right was being sacrificed, and Phonsie Franklin, an organiser of the Limerick march on 25 October, warned: This protest is solely about the over-70s, and their entitlement to the medical card. At the outset, the government wanted to save €100m, but only five per cent of people are losing their medical card. The government are only getting €5m. What the hell is that all about? It just serves to allow the government to con the people again. Next year, 20 per cent of people will lose their card, and the year after it will be 30 per cent. (Limerick Leader, 2008)

There is a broader context for these developments. Neo-liberalism, or what Nikolas Rose (1999) calls ‘advanced liberalism’, has no truck with universalism, and conceptions of the social state, solidarity, and even public-ness have lost their leverage as the opposing principles of marketisation, individualisation and privatisation, somewhat ironically, have been universalised. As its core functions are redrawn, the state must ensure that all national policies, irrespective of the sphere, actively enable ‘a market to exist’, that they ‘create and sustain the central elements of economic well-being’ (ibid.:141). In this framework the enterprising, self-sufficient individual who exercises (responsible) choice with impunity becomes the poster-child of subjectivity. To expect governments to directly provide broad-based services and welfare or to guarantee some kind of ‘incremental progress for all’ (ibid.) is, apparently, to hark back to an outdated, sluggish and expensive model of state interventionism. In a climate of austerity, it becomes increasingly difficult to protect the principle of universalism against charges of wastefulness and inefficiency, even when research points to the contrary. As Mike Danson and colleagues (2012:8) explain, evidence demonstrates ‘a clear and established causal link between equality and sustainable and sustained economic development, and universal benefits are the bedrock of all the European societies who lead the rankings which measure economic success in particular’. Brian Lenihan’s budget speech (Dáil Éireann, 2008a) affirmed Ireland’s allegiance to the current hegemony – ‘[w]e have a low tax burden by European standards. As a country, we have made a choice to reward work and enterprise’ – but in the name of political stability, governments must generate a measure of social consensus around potentially unpopular policies. Given that the budget proposed tough medicine for tough times, Lenihan (Dáil Éireann, 2008a) also found it necessary to frame this as ‘no less than a call to patriotic

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action’. Again, as Nikolas Rose (1999:145) explains, patriotism, with its connotations of solidarity and collectivity, might be understood as the obverse of economic rationality, which is presented as selfish and self-interested. In advanced ­liberalism, however, economic rationality is characterised as the ne plus ultra of patriotic commitment. Drawing on the discourses of romantic nationalism – ‘we can secure the gains which have been the achievement of the men and women of this country’ (Lenihan in Dáil Éireann, 2008a) – the minister sought to revive Fianna Fáil’s traditional skill at mobilising populist feeling (O’Carroll, 1987/2008:51). His calls for patriotic action resemble the discourses of ‘virtuous necessity’ (Clarke and Newman, 2012) that have gained traction in the UK recently. They too solder economic rationalisations for cutbacks to a moralistic rhetoric of ‘responsibility and interdependence’ (ibid.:303). The Uprising, however, demonstrated protesters’ explicit refusal of those discourses. Many who attended the Cork and Dublin marches wore or waved tricolours, while others wielded banners bearing more subversive reflections on patriotism: Hatchet Harney and Patriot Lenihan Out! Our Patriotic Duty Revolution

Defending and rationalising medical card retrenchment, Minister Lenihan also appealed to vague concepts of fairness and the presumed inefficiencies of universalism. ‘Government policy is to target resources at those in greatest need. Universal entitlements irrespective of means do not target those in greatest need … in some cases there is a need to differentiate between those who have and those who have not’ (Lenihan in Dáil Éireann, 2008a). His ideological line was embellished by party colleague Mary O’Rourke who mocked the pledges to universalism that were emanating from the opposition benches. [T]he Labour Party represents socialism, the essence of which is that those who deserve something get it, and those who do not deserve it do not. This allows one to target scarce resources at those most in need. I understood that to be the essence of socialism. It appears this is no longer the case because the Labour Party now wishes everybody over the age of 70 years to get a medical card, regardless of means … Second, a quality of the Fine Gael Party that I have always admired is that of self-reliance, that one should provide for oneself where possible and should not rely on Government. (O’Rourke in Dáil Éireann, 2008c)

Such ideologically charged interventions inverted Titmuss’s arguments about the relationship between equality and universalism by dissociating the principle of free access from that of redistributive taxation. They also sought to cultivate resentment. Tánaiste Mary Coughlan ridiculed efforts to retain the cards of ‘well-off pensioners, … senior civil servants, High Court Judges, property tycoons, ministers of state and hospital consultants’ (Kerr, 2008); a verita-

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ble rogues’ gallery of those deemed culpable for the excesses of the Celtic Tiger. Taoiseach Brian Cowen claimed that higher income taxes ‘could put many people’s jobs at risk’ (O’Brien, 2008), while Mary Harney, interviewed for Marian Finucane’s radio show, observed that ‘we are moving away from universality … when you give something to everybody regardless then it means that somebody else needs it more’ (RTÉ, 2008b). Again there are parallels with other contexts where austerity has become normalised in the wake of the global economic crisis. Identifying the resurgence of ‘anti-welfarism’ internationally, Paul Hoggett et al. (2013), recognise how it resuscitates the ‘deserving versus undeserving’ binary, fuelling resentment of a mythologised class of feckless or parasitic benefit-consumers. Antiwelfarism undermines public faith in welfare per se, ostensibly in the name of a ‘fairness agenda’ (ibid.). Instead of being seen to (somewhat) equalise opportunity or reduce poverty, the welfare state is recast as a discriminatory mechanism that penalises so-called hard-working, responsible citizens. This rhetoric, which gains credibility precisely because universalism as a principle and as a practice has been deposed, has been shamelessly exploited by the UK’s C ­ onservative– Liberal Democratic coalition in its unprecedented attack on welfare (ibid.). During the Uprising, the Irish government built its defence by targeting supposedly better-off or more prosperous pensioners. In doing so, it fostered competition within a self-defining community of interest and reflected back the uglier face of the contemporary ‘fairness agenda’: ‘one which foments rivalries and inequalities rather that building solidarities among those who “have little”’ (Hoggett et al., 2013:16). This section has considered some ideological aspects of the medical card controversy. Government spokespersons retreated into populism, patriotism and resentment, but they also ‘dissimulated’ (Thompson, 1990) as they sought to deflect important social policy issues arising from the debate. Minister Harney even tried to convince the public that the Uprising had nothing to do with universalism, claiming that only one person who had addressed her about the controversy had mentioned the principle (RTÉ, 2008b). However, on RTÉ (2008b) that same morning, Joe Behan asserted that he was leaving Fianna Fáil because of his commitment to universal health care, and two days later it was named ‘Fine Gael policy’ (O’Regan, 2008). Although government spokes­ persons repeatedly invoked the spectre of universalism, whether directly or by implication, Mary Harney still maintained that medical card retrenchment was not ‘a matter of principle or policy’ (O’Regan, 2008), and thus sought to deny its deeper political implications. Government representatives also dissimulated around the specific conditions that rendered the over-70s medical card scheme so costly. When M ­ cCreevy announced the scheme in 2000 the cabinet had not secured a fully costed agreement with the IMO around a fee structure for general practitioners (GPs)

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(Burke, 2009: Donnellan, 2008b). The negotiating strength and privileged status of that professional body ensured that by the time of the scheme’s introduction doctors would receive an annual capitation fee of €640 for each non-meanstested patient over the age of seventy. When contrasted with the standard €160 medical-card fee, older patients became more lucrative for GP practices. It was this deal, and not universalism per se, that ultimately skewed the cost of provision towards an unanticipated €243 million annually (Burke, 2009:298).

The Uprising as ‘counter-conduct’ Since 2008 the discourses and practices of austerity have been firmly implanted in the Irish policy-making field. As Kieran Allen (2012) observes, the IMF and European Commission look upon Ireland as their ‘model pupil’ thanks to its willing implementation of spending cutbacks over a series of budgets. Media pundits regularly speculate on the scale of public discontent and the (un)likelihood of its fermentation into mass resistance. In these discussions the Uprising almost inevitably features as a yardstick of what is both possible and improbable. For the Irish Left in particular, sources of inspiration are precious, and in its immediate aftermath, the anarchist Workers Solidarity Movement (WSM) (2008:1) optimistically hailed the Uprising as a sign that ‘politics in Ireland had changed drastically’. At the March on the Dáil there was a sense that the deeper roots of Ireland’s crisis were being interrogated by protesters. Many placards countered government constructions of need, economic rationality and the costliness of medical cards, by reforging connections between mismanagement of the financial sector and the crisis in public finances. Hands off the medical cards for the over-70s Stop the bleeding of the needy To fill the pockets of the greedy Levy Bank Profits Rob the Pensioners to Bail out the Bankers Shame, Shame, Shame

Recent protests that have centred on ‘sectional’ interests or focused on ‘local mobilizations’ against service withdrawal (Allen, 2012:436–7) have, in some instances, secured vital revisions or temporary reversals of policies. However, neither they nor the high-profile boycotts of new charges and taxes have been consolidated within a sustained and broad-based culture of resistance. Against the early optimism of the WSM, there is understandable disappointment in the Left that, as Laurence Cox (2012:n.p.) acknowledges, ‘our movements have

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been rolled over so quickly’. The Foucauldian concept of ‘counter-conduct’ is useful when analysing the Uprising and what it might reveal about the limits of resistance in Ireland. It helps us assess the extent to which protest broke with dominant discourses and political processes, but equally how it played with and reflected back existing power configurations. Introducing this concept during the Collège De France lecture series (1977–78) Michel Foucault (2007) situates ‘counter-conduct’ alongside his analytical account of ‘governmentality’; a concept that in turn captures how power – to govern – in contemporary society is oriented towards the ‘conduct of conduct’ (Davidson, 2011; Death, 2010). It is not only governments that govern. Whether deployed via state policy instruments, the Troika’s periodic reviews, the counsel of professional ‘experts’, or exhortations to self by individual actors, to govern means to validate and call particular forms of conduct into being. Appeals that citizens ‘play their part’ or ‘share the pain’ are thus distinctive efforts at government in our era of austerity. But government is not always effective or successful, and Foucault (2007:201–2) acknowledges those varying instances of ‘resistance, refusal or revolt’ – collectively ‘counterconduct’ – that ‘struggle against the processes implemented for conducting others’. By refusing to shoulder the consequences of economic mismanagement or act like compliant patriots, older people in their various ways resisted government through their counter-conduct. Foucault did not concede to a purist conception of resistance as external to or alienated from an opposing power. Instead, power and resistance are represented as mutually constitutive, while government and counter-conduct coexist within a similar dyad. But as Arnold Davidson (2011:27) clarifies, this does not render counter-conduct ‘a merely negative or reactive phenomenon’. More than a kneejerk ‘NO’, counter-conduct has something productive to say about ­government as it is actioned in our personal, cultural, social and political spheres. It is ‘an active intervention … in the domain of the ethical and political practices and forces that shape us’ (Davidson, 2011:32). For many participants in the Uprising, this was an opportunity to face down ageism, as reflected in the budget’s targeting of older people and as a force within Irish society. Under­ scoring Foucauldian arguments about the co-dependency of power and resistance, they sometimes appropriated ostensibly ageist language as they did so. Mary what’s next Euthanasia? OAP not RIP Just Shoot Us. It would be quicker

Similarly, if the Government denied the deeper politics of medical card

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r­ etrenchment, presenting it as technocratic solution for an economy gone adrift, demonstrators accentuated the political by prophesying their future conduct as voters.

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Fianna Fáil Out Fianna Fáil You discriminate We’ll eliminate No Means Test Voters will not forget

The concept of counter-conduct recognises that events like the Uprising are ethically informed and expressive of agency. Qualitative research by Jackie Fox and Sarah Quinn (2012) explores the motivations and formative experiences of seven participants in the protests. It recognises the growing prominence of ­extra-parliamentary activism by older people in European politics, while ­exploring the Uprising’s contribution to the (re)making of interviewees’ own activist identities. This is important work, not least because much of the media coverage at the time patronised the protesters. Analysing the Irish Indepen­ dent and Irish Star’s reporting on the protests, researchers found that although coverage was broadly critical of the Government, demonstrating ‘sympathy for and solidarity with older people’, the newspapers drew on ageist stereotypes to frame older people as ‘victims’, ‘frail, infirm or vulnerable, or as unlikely ‘radicals’ (Fealy et al., 2012:90–3). Even when coverage breaks with standard media preoccupations with supposedly dangerous, violent or semi-professional protesters, it continues to disparage protest as aberrant or extraordinary, particularly for older citizens. It is tempting to bite back at smarmy media reports by over-estimating the activist credentials of older people, but if we want to appreciate what changes and what stays the same with protest, we need to be cautious. Carl Death (2010:245) admits that ‘the political subjectivities performed through protests’ are often ‘exaggerated or momentary’, but, crucially, this does not render them ‘unimportant or insignificant’. Examining the ‘components’ of counter-conduct we can register the context-specific forms that resistance takes in this era of neo-liberal governmentality, yet avoid giving ‘a sacred status to this or that person as a dissident’ (Foucault, 2007:202). The most prominent, although certainly not all, events associated with the Uprising were led by organisations, AAI and ISCP, with a previous involvement in social partnership. They were also members of the Older & Bolder NGO alliance that lobbied for positive-ageing social policies. Assessing the Uprising’s political significance, Patricia Conboy (2008:11),

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Older & Bolder’s project director, wrote: ‘[w]e have also seen what happens when major policy change is introduced without effective consultation and communication with the people most affected by that change. In this case it was older people and their message has been clear “nothing about us without us”’. We cannot know if this statement encapsulates the hopes or aspirations of all who participated in activism over that eventful week. Clearly, for some lead organisations at least, participation in protest was not indicative of a rejection of partnership with the state; instead, this was an opportunity to embed it further. In Ireland’s post-corporatist climate, ‘binary conflict’ (Death, 2010: 247) between authentic outsiders and insiders is somewhat difficult to map. Likewise, the Uprising did not constitute a rupture with the clientelist norms of representative democracy in Ireland. Protests were centred on the Dáil or constituency offices; opposition politicians were conspicuously present at the March on the Dáil; some protesters carried banners with Fine Gael, Labour and Socialist Party logos, while others hailed Joe Behan’s decision to exit Fianna Fáil. Simultaneously reflecting and reproducing the personality fixated character of Irish politics, placards singled out individual ministers: Shame on you Brian for even trying 2 Brians No Brain Harney you’re fired Hard hearted Harney Who’s the real virus in Health?

Although reproachful of ministers perceived as betraying the interests of older people, conversely, those placards affirmed and thus reinforced their status as authoritative decision-makers. This reminds us that counter-conducts are ‘closely linked to the regimes of power’ (Death, 2010:240) which they oppose, and in that they are reflective of the hybridised, contradictory and governmentalised times in which we live. The Uprising was an expression of countervailing power by protesters who sought to conduct the conduct of their elected representatives. They adroitly adopted tactics and techniques that won the attention of the wider public, mass media and political elites. But power relationships and politics in Ireland had not changed drastically; instead, clientelist traditions were refracted through protest tactics, and afterwards ministers still behaved as if social policy is an after-thought to economic and electoral considerations.

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Conclusion The Uprising showed that significant numbers of older people were unwilling to walk meekly into austerity’s embrace as they demonstrated their collective capacity to mobilise, picket, protest and shape public debates. Even though neo-liberalism has been compromised by the global economic crisis, policymakers in Ireland and elsewhere seem unwilling to abandon its orthodoxies. The budget of October 2008, and those that followed, privilege a reified model of economic stability: one that renders other considerations – health, welfare, justice or culture – secondary and subordinate. There is nothing particularly new about this, and the evolution of social policy since Independence has been variously constrained and enabled by economic rationalisations. Neo-­ liberalism, however, brings its own distinctive threats for those who are committed to the survival and expansion of the welfare state along democratic and egalitarian lines. As Jacques Donzelot (2008:12) observes, ‘social policy is no longer a means for countering the economic, but a means for sustaining the logic of competition’. New discourses of fairness meet a resurgent anti-welfarism, as policy-makers urge citizens to follow ‘choice’ and ‘opportunity’ into the marketplace. Meanwhile, those judged needful, deserving or entitled to benefits are represented as a necessarily diminishing sub-group constituted by society’s most marginal citizens. Recognising that the health needs of older people are unlikely to be prioritised in this climate, many protesters at the March on the Dáil carried mocked-up posters for the Coen Brothers’ film, No Country for Old Men. If Irish discourses about the economy affect a common-sense or technocratic character, discourses about welfare reek with judgement. Applicants must prove the legitimacy of their need as thresholds go higher; patriotism requires that we endorse welfare retrenchment and find a new competitive edge. As counter-conduct the Uprising publicly affirmed the legitimacy of universal provision for older people, if not for all. Fine Gael grafted the concept onto its health policy and the Irish Times initiated a brief debate on its ethics and effectiveness (Clancy and McDowell, 2008; Keenan, 2008). Neo-liberalism dismisses universalism as a relic of the past and there is a pleasing symmetry in the fact that those who themselves struggle against ageist labels emerged as its champions. Demonstrating the crucial distinction between social solidarity and social consensus, protesters spoke eloquently of the difference the medical card made to their lives, countered the ethics of the bank bail-out and warned politicians that as voters they would remember. However, through a series of ideological dissimulations and revised eligibility criteria, the government successfully withdrew automatic entitlement. Fine Gael and Labour condemned the proposal in 2008, but by 2014 still oversaw its administration and, at the time of writing this, still had not clarified the structure of their promised universal model of GP care. The Uprising reveals that counter-conduct works with and within con-

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straints. Protesters did not claim or hold out for new political horizons; instead, they projected the clientelist bargain on to the national stage. They won concessions with regard to eligibility thresholds and raised the spectre of a sensitive and mobile older people’s vote. Undoubtedly, these are victories, but after the Uprising the ways we think and talk about social policy, whether practising government or resistance, remain largely unchanged. Finally, the IMF (2012) and EU (European Commission, 2012) continue to express concerns regarding the cost of universal benefits, particularly those linked to age, so that every year the Budget is preceded by tedious media speculation about the fate of child benefit or free travel for older people. Let us hope that the events of the Older People’s Uprising continue to haunt the collective memory of policy-makers, warning them against acceding to IMF and EU demands on the expansion of means-testing across the policy field. If so, this would be another unanticipated but still vital success for the Uprising: not on the scale that we on the Left envisage or need, but an important step towards salvaging principles of solidarity in these deeply demoralising times.

Notes   1 Attendance figures for demonstrations are often disputed and necessarily provisional.   2 Liveline is a popular radio ‘phone-in’ show on RTÉ.  3 Between the 1940s and 1950s attempts to universalise access to health services were resisted by the Roman Catholic hierarchy and Ireland’s professional medical lobby.   4 All Irish residents are entitled to public hospital services ‘free of charge or at a reduced cost’ (HSE, 2013) and all pregnant women are eligible for maternity care under the ‘Maternity and Infant Care Scheme’ (HSE, 2010)

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Clarke, J., and Newman, J. (2012) ‘The alchemy of austerity’, Critical Social Policy, 32(3): 299–319. Conboy, P. (2008) ‘Fresh impetus to improve older people’s lives’, Irish Times, 27 October. Cousins, M. (2007) Political Budget Cycles and social security budget increases in the Republic of Ireland, 1923–2005, http://goo.gl/syJlg2 (retrieved 4 July 2013). Cox, L. (2012) ‘Challenging austerity in Ireland: community and movement responses’, Concept, 3(2): no pages (http://goo.gl/Mw5S2x). Dáil Éireann (2000) Financial Statement of the Minister for Finance Mr. Charlie McCreevy TD, Department of Finance: Dublin, 6 December, http://goo.gl/04FsnR (retrieved 12 July 2012). Dáil Éireann (2008a) Financial Statement of the Minister for Finance Mr Brian Lenihan TD, Department of Finance: Dublin, 14 October, http://goo.gl/ne17a7 (retrieved 9 July 2012) Dáil Éireann (2008b) Medical Cards: Motion, Dáil Éireann Debates, vol. 664, no. 3, 21 October. Dáil Éireann (2008c) Financial Resolution: No. 15, Dáil Éireann Debates, vol. 665, no. 1, 23 October. Dáil Éireann (2012) Leaders’ Questions, Dáil Éireann Debates, vol. 751, no. 4, 17 January. Danson, M., McAlpine, R., Spicker, P., and Sullivan, W. (2012) The Case for Universalism, Jimmy Reid Foundation, http://goo.gl/e45TlY (pdf, retrieved 5 July 2013). Davidson, A. (2011) ‘In praise of counter-conduct’, History of the Human Sciences, 24(4): 25–41. Death, C. (2010) ‘Counter-Conducts: a Foucauldian analytics of protest’, Social Movement Studies, 9(3): 235–51. Donnellan, E. (2008a) ‘Five sets of eligibility criteria for over-70s medical cards in just a week’, Irish Times, 22 October. Donnellan, E. (2008b) ‘No easy solution through knocking on IMO’s door’, Irish Times, 21 October. Donzelot, J. (2008) ‘Michel Foucault and liberal intelligence’, Economy and Society, 37(1): 115–34. Dowling, B. (2000) ‘McCreevy hits back at “pinko” opponents’, Irish Independent, 7 July. European Commission (2012) Economic Adjustment Programme for Ireland Spring 2012 Review, Brussels: European Commission. Fealy, G., McNamara, M., Treacy, P., and Lyons, I. (2012) ‘Constructing ageing and age identities: a case study of newspaper discourses’, Ageing and Society, 32(1): 85–102. Foucault, M. (2007) Security, Territory, Population: Lectures at the Collège de France (1977– 1978), Basingstoke: Palgrave. Fox, J., and Quinn, S. (2012) ‘The meaning of social activism to older adults in Ireland’, Journal of Occupational Science, 19(4): 358–70. Hayes, M. (2008) ‘Over 70 medical card crisis: call to action’, Irish Senior Citizen’s Parliament, 10 October, http://iscp.wordpress.com/2008/10 (retrieved 19 December 2011). HSE (2010) ‘Maternity and Infant Care Scheme’, http://goo.gl/LYzGLw (retrieved 19 July 2012). HSE (2013) ‘Hospital Charges’, http://goo.gl/ePqxjH (retrieved 3 May 2014). Healy, A. (2008) ‘Minister booed off the altar by over 1,000 pensioners’, Irish Times, 22 October. Hoggett, P., Wilkinson, H., and Beedell, P. (2013) ‘Fairness and the politics of resentment’, Journal of Social Policy, FirstView Article, April: 1–19. IMF (2012) International Monetary Fund Fifth Review Under the Extended Arrangement,

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European Department in Consultation with Other Departments: Washington DC. Indymedia Ireland (2008) ‘Medical card protest in Dublin – photo story’, 23 October, http:// goo.gl/5xZvKQ (retrieved 7 July 2012). Indymedia Ireland (2008–2009) ‘search words medical card over 70’, http://goo.gl/nIzU7u (retrieved 7 July 2012). ISCP (2008) Budget Submission 2009, Dublin: Irish Senior Citizens’ Parliament. ISCP (n.d.) ‘Over 70 Medical Card Crisis’, http://goo.gl/zko26e (retrieved 15 July 2012). Irish Times (2008) ‘The return of street politics’, Irish Times, 23 October. Keenan, D. (2008) ‘Systems of stark contrast’, Irish Times, 16 December. Keilthy, P. (2009) Medical Card Eligibility: Profiling People Living in Poverty without a Medical Card using EU-SILC 2006, Dublin: Combat Poverty Agency. Kerr, Á. (2008) ‘Uproar over a ‘stupid, callous own-goal’, Irish Independent, 17 October. Kirby, P., and Murphy, M. (2011) Towards a Second Republic, Dublin: Pluto. Kitchin, R., O’Callaghan, M., Boyle, M., Gleeson, J., and Keaveney, K. (2012) ‘Placing neoliberalism: the rise and fall of Ireland’s Celtic Tiger’, Environment and Planning A, 44: 1302–26. Kulynych, J. (1997) ‘Performing politics: Foucault, Habermans and postmodern participation’, Polity, 30(2): 315–46. Lavery, M. (2008) ‘Medical cards for the elderly “must stay free”’, 4 October, http://goo.gl/ VZkrZM (retrieved 23 July 2012). Layte, R., Nolan, A., and Nolan, B. (2007) ‘Health and healthcare’, in T. Fahey, H. Russell, and C. T. Whelan (eds) Best of Times? The Social Impact of the Celtic Tiger, Dublin: Institute for Public Administration, 105–22. Limerick Leader, (2008) ‘Medical Card controversy: pensioners plan protest as Opposition urges u-turn’, Limerick Leader, 27 October. Liveline (2008) pod-v-141008-32m29s-liveline.mp3 14 October (retrieved 26 July 2012). Lord, M. (2008) ‘Sight of pillars of community laying siege to Dáil was truly unprecedented’, Irish Times, 23 October. McCarthy, C. (2008) ‘Public fails to grasp depth of financial mire’, Irish Times, 5 November. McDonnell, O., and O’Donovan, Ó. (2009) ‘Private health insurance as a technology of solidarity?’, Irish Journal of Sociology, 17(2): 6–23. McWilliams, D. (2008) ‘Fundamentalists still preach the false gospel of property’, 27 January http://goo.gl/oT4p9t (retrieved 19 July 2012). Meade, R. (2012) ‘Government and Community Development in Ireland’, Antipode, 44(3): 889–910. Murphy, M. (2012) ‘Interests, institutions and ideas: explaining Irish social security policy’, Policy and Politics, 40(3): 347–65. National Council on Ageing and Older People (1999) Annual Report. Dublin: NCAOP. O’Brien, C. (2008) ‘Cowen wants “time and space” to rework medical card restriction’, Irish Times, 20 October. O’Carroll, P. (1987/2008) ‘Strokes, cute hoors and sneaking regarders: the influence of local culture on Irish political style’, in C. McGrath and E. O’Malley (eds) Irish Political Studies Reader, Abingdon: Routledge, 41–54. O’Regan, M. (2008) ‘FG calls for introduction of universal healthcare’, Irish Times, 22 October. O’Toole, F. (2005) ‘Legacy of medical card fiasco’, Irish Times, 3 May. Peck, J. (2004) ‘Geography and public policy: constructions of neoliberalism’, Progress in Human Geography, 28(3): 392–405.

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Rose, N. (1999) Powers of Freedom, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. RTÉ, (2008a) ‘CSO figures show economy in recession’, 25 September http://goo.gl/sgHcsN (retrieved 20 July 2012). RTÉ, (2008b) Marian Finucane Show, 18 October, http://goo.gl/zSfNSj (retrieved 23 July 2012). Siggins, L. (2008) ‘Angry forum agrees to allow Cowen space’, Irish Times, 20 October. Thompson, J. B. (1990) Ideology and Modern Culture. Cambridge: Polity Press. Thompson, S., and Hoggett, P. (1996) ‘Universalism, selectivism and particularism: towards a postmodern social policy’, Critical Social Policy, 16(1): 21–44. Titmuss, R. (1965) ‘The role of redistribution in social policy’, Social Security Bulletin, 28(6): 14–20. Whelan, N. (2008) ‘Medical card changes are needed to remedy earlier error’, Irish Times, 18 October. WHO/European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies (2012) Health system responses to financial pressures in Ireland: policy options in an international context, http://goo.gl/ x4QRsa (pdf, retrieved 21 June 2013). WSM (2008) ‘People Power! Pensioners show the way’, Workers Solidarity, 106 (November/ December): 1. www.herald.ie (2008) ‘Pensioner power at gates of the Dail’, 22 October, http://goo.gl/ NHAEur (retrieved 27 June 2013). www.irishhealth.com (2000) ‘Doctors angry over medical card change’, 7 December, http:// goo.gl/xxiatM (retrieved 31 May 2013).

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Cutting back on equality John Baker, Kathleen Lynch and Judy Walsh

Introduction In October 2008, the Minister for Finance announced a 43 per cent reduction in the budget of the Equality Authority (hereafter EA). The cut was opposed by the Authority’s board and its CEO, Niall Crowley. A request to reduce it to 32 per cent, based on a revised work plan, was rejected. Crowley resigned, as did six board members, including the nominees of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU) and the Irish Business and Employers Confederation (IBEC). Sharp exchanges took place on the Dáil floor and in the media, while civil society mobilised to defend the EA but clashed with its new leadership. The resignation letters of David Joyce (ICTU), Finola McDonnell (IBEC), and Frank Goodwin (Carers’ Association) referred to the failure of the Department of Justice to engage with the EA’s revised plans, its compromised independence and doubts about its future capacity (Coulter, 2009). For Goodwin the equality agenda was ‘badly damaged. It seems to be deliberate’ (ibid.). Crowley (2010) subsequently wrote a book setting out the processes leading up to these events and their aftermath. A new CEO was appointed and staff continued to carry out the body’s mandate under straitened circumstances. Exchanges with the government appear to have been more muted, but there have been some points of contention. For example, Brian Merriman, Head of Legal Services, has criticised the state’s persistent resort to expensive legal actions (Smyth, 2010). Earlier in 2008 the government had proposed merging several statutory bodies, including the EA; a number of community and voluntary groups formed the Equality and Rights Alliance (ERA) in response. The original proposal was eventually replaced by a simpler merger of the EA and the IHRC into a new body, the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission (IHREC), a process underway at the time of writing. The ERA reacted critically to the 2009 budget cut, brought its concerns to the European Parliament, and has been actively engaged in debates about the current merger.

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In this chapter, we review the Authority’s operations in the decade between its establishment in 1999 and the 2008 crisis, summarising its work in assisting complainants, conducting research and communicating with the public. We go on to explain why the Authority was attacked, by examining in more detail how its legal work triggered a backlash from powerful sectors of Irish society, how its cases against the state challenged the status of politicians and public officials, and how its plans to conduct inquiries may have threatened other powerful interests. We place these events in a broader cultural context, noting that antiegalitarian ideas have been buttressed by both the traditional conservatism and anti-intellectualism of Irish society and the new ideology of neo-liberalism, and illustrating the ways they have been used by religious, political and bureaucratic elites. We conclude by arguing that the EA and its successor are primarily based on liberal egalitarianism rather than equality of condition and that egalitarians should therefore maintain a critical distance from the equal-opportunity mindset they run the risk of legitimising.

What the EA did Equality bodies in general are creatures of statute but are meant to function independently of both state and civil society (Yesilkagit and Snijders, 2008). Maintaining independence often proves difficult, especially for bodies funded by a government department it is tasked with policing (O’Cinneide, 2002), as is the case with the EA and the Department of Justice. The Authority was accorded an extensive set of functions by international standards and its budget was considered adequate when benchmarked against comparable bodies in other countries (Holtmaat, 2007). But as we discuss below, relations with government came increasingly under strain when the EA began to exercise its powers. The EA’s main purpose is to combat discrimination and promote equality of opportunity in the areas covered by Ireland’s primary anti-discrimination laws, the Employment Equality Acts (1998–2011) and the Equal Status Acts (2000–12) (hereafter the Equality Acts). These acts added seven new grounds of complaint and covered goods, services, education and accommodation for the first time. Although the conception of equality underpinning these laws is not articulated with any precision, it is clearly informed by liberal egalitarianism, a point we return to below. The legislation centres on an individual redress model; its enforcement mostly operates via complaints referred by private persons. The discretionary power given to the Authority to assist complainants played a major role during the decade we are concerned with. This assistance included referral to other sources of advice, advocacy directed at resolving grievances informally, and representation in legal proceedings, most of which took place at the independently constituted Equality Tribunal. The Authority also has several additional powers,

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including the ability to conduct inquiries and equality reviews and to initiate legal proceedings in defined areas and circumstances. Finally, the A ­ uthority plays a compliance and promotional role in advising the public on the operation of the law, drafting codes of practice, conducting equality reviews on a consensual basis, conducting research and developing guides for good practice. At the outset the EA focused on securing voluntary compliance with the law, building strong collaborative relationships with a range of actors, including the IBEC and ICTU. Unlike its UK counterparts, the Authority never carried out inquiries or mandatory equality reviews. Plans to do so were dropped following the events of 2008. There was a strong demand for the EA’s legal assistance services from the start. The vast majority of complaints were resolved informally or withdrawn and so never reached a court or the Equality Tribunal. The Authority provided full legal assistance in dozens of cases each year, with a peak of sixty-eight in 2008. Its criteria for assisting a complaint included its strategic significance and the complainant’s particular circumstances. A substantial part of the EA’s legal work involved complaints against the public sector. Anti-discrimination law, in place since 1977, had been regularly used against the state as an employer. But under the Equal Status Act, the state’s provision of services could also be challenged. For the first time, people had recourse to an accessible and effective forum, the Equality Tribunal, for attacking discriminatory practices in the provision of public accommodation, social benefits and so on. They also had access to expert free legal advice, and in some cases full legal representation, from the EA. The Tribunal could not only provide enforceable remedies for individuals but also direct service providers and employers to change their practices and implement corrective measures. In its development and research activities, the EA adopted an expansive understanding of its mandate, as evidenced by a series of reports on implementing equality for lesbians, gays and bisexuals, older people, and carers respectively (EA, 2002; 2003a; 2005a). Instead of focusing narrowly on labour market or access-to-service issues, vast swathes of government policy were subjected to critical scrutiny. Significantly, the affective system – the set of social practices concerned with relations of love, care and solidarity – was identified as a key site of analysis in these reports and in some other EA publications (e.g. McGinnity and Russell, 2008), thereby challenging the tendency of liberal conceptions of equality to uncritically accept a public/private divide. Many of its other publications adopted a commendable focus on addressing systemic discrimination, especially that experienced by minority groups such as Travellers and trans people (e.g. Collins and Sheehan, 2004; EA, 2006a). It also forged partnerships with the Combat Poverty Agency (CPA) and the Central Statistics Office to highlight the links between poverty and inequality (e.g. EA and CPA, 2003) and to produce vital data on inequality.

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The EA’s research was used consistently in its communications and legislative review work. However, its repeated recommendations for including socio-­economic disadvantage and other new grounds of discrimination, for removing exemptions from public functions, and for introducing positive duties to promote equality (EA, 2003b; 2004a), were ignored by government. The Equality Acts were improved, but mostly as a result of EU directives. National law-makers saw fit instead to reduce the level of protection, as discussed below. Overall, we consider that the EA achieved a great deal in an environment that was often hostile. In its assistance role, it successfully supported hundreds of complaints against discrimination. Within its research function, it set out lines of argument and evidence that supported greater equality. Within its ­development, education and communications functions, it established a high public profile for pro-equality positions and brought them into a wide range of institutions.

Why the EA was attacked In our view, three aspects of the EA’s activities were particularly important in explaining the attack it encountered. First, its work in assisting complainants and in strategic litigation triggered a backlash from powerful sectors of Irish society. Secondly, its role in supporting complaints against the state threatened both the power and self-image of politicians and public officials. A third factor may have been its plans to conduct inquiries. The EA’s casework consistently attracted controversy and resistance. Attacks in the media, well documented by Crowley (2010), were particularly focused on a small part of its work. The EA could take cases in its own name but did so very rarely. For example, it successfully resolved many cases of discriminatory advertising every year; the only one to reach the Tribunal was a successful complaint in 2000 about ageism against Ryanair (Crowley, 2006:78–9). Despite this conciliatory approach, the Ryanair case led to the Authority being castigated in some sectors of the media (Crowley, 2010:67–74). This litigation, and the EA’s activities more generally, were characterised as an assault on free speech mounted by ‘a grim and unsmiling priesthood with apparently arbitrary legal powers’ (Myers, 2001). Following a similar pattern, the EA’s only legal action against a club – its case against Portmarnock Golf Club’s ban on women’s membership – provoked controversy in the media, which continued until the EA lost its case before the Supreme Court in 2009 (Walsh, 2012:289–93). It was, however, the Authority’s role in supporting complaints by Travellers that provoked the strongest backlash. The most effective attack was a campaign against the Equal Status Act initiated by some publicans in 2002. The campaign was supported by the Vintners’ Federation of Ireland and included the threat of a national ban on Travellers’ access to pubs (Crowley, 2006:101–3; Humphreys,

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2002). Tadhg O’Sullivan, CEO of the Vintners’ Federation, framed his position within a disparagement of the ‘equality industry’ (Andrews, 2002). The immediate conflict was resolved by the Minister of State for Equality, Willie O’Dea. The EA had briefed him on the offence of procuring discrimination under the Act, advising that ‘this section of the Act could be applied to those involved in seeking to have a blanket ban on serving Travellers’ (Crowley, 2006:103). So if a resolution had not been reached, the Authority could have sought the initiation of criminal proceedings. We do not know whether this was considered at the time. Instead, a controversial report by the Commission on Liquor Licensing (2002) recommended the transfer of jurisdiction for cases alleging discrimination by licensed premises to the District Court (Crowley, 2006:101–6). The government complied, despite considerable opposition from NGOs and the EA (Haughey, 2003a; 2003b). As a consequence, the number of claims in that area dropped considerably (EA, 2008:55–6). The EA’s support for cases against the state, particularly under the Equal Status Act, was a second important factor in generating opposition. Complaints against the public sector in the area of goods and services climbed steadily, rising from 25 per cent of all case files in 2004 to 50 per cent in 2007 (EA, 2005b:87; 2008:39).1 The details of a few of these cases illustrate their general importance. In 2003, the EA supported a significant challenge to the Department of Social and Family Affairs; under the settlement, a gay couple were given access to the Free Travel Scheme on a par with opposite-sex couples (EA, 2004b:13). By the following year, however, this outcome had been reversed by legislation (Walsh, 2012:52–3). Three years later another gay couple took on the same department. With the support of the EA they contested the refusal to grant them an adult dependent allowance, which would have enabled one partner to care for the other at home during a serious illness. The complaint was settled by granting the allowance ex gratia, but it was strategically important for testing a signi­ ficant exemption in the Equal Status Acts (Walsh, 2012:53–4). In highlighting the continued exclusion of same-sex relationships from social welfare entitlements, it contributed to the momentum that led to civil partnership legislation in 2010. From 1985, Travellers who applied for Supplementary Welfare Allowance in Dublin were dealt with through a segregated service in the city centre, requiring lengthy journeys from outlying areas (Harvey, 1994:42–3). The practice was challenged in 2003 by Edward Reilly with the support of the EA (Walsh, 2012: 135). A robust Equality Tribunal decision in 2007 upheld the complaint, ordered the highest possible compensation and directed that Reilly be paid at his local health centre or any other venue open to non-Travellers (Fay, 2008). Significantly, the HSE was also given a general order to end discriminatory practices against Travellers.

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As we saw above, the law’s bite against discrimination in pubs was diminished in 2003. Soon thereafter, the government enacted changes to protect some of its own activities. These included the reversal of a Tribunal decision that would have prohibited discrimination against non-EU nationals in accessing educational grants, and the introduction of a broad, ambiguous exemption that prevented a challenge to the direct provision system for asylum seekers (Walsh, 2012:63). The Authority contested all of these moves (e.g. EA, 2004b:14). Many other complaints against discrimination by public bodies were supported by the EA and highlighted in its communications. Its annual reports and press statements consistently drew attention to the high volume of such cases, calling on public bodies to adopt good practice, and praising those that had engaged positively (EA, 2004b:31; 2005b:23, 80; 2006b:88). In our assessment, the EA positioned itself as an agent of social change rather than an agent of the state. That orientation was perfectly compatible with its statutory mandate and with international standards, but met opposition nonetheless. According to Pegram (2013:9) ‘within government circles the EA under the stewardship of its first CEO was criticised for its adversarial stance towards the state … [O]fficials viewed the EA as often behaving inappropriately – acting more like a campaigning NGO than a state agency’. In Crowley’s own view (2010:112–13), these challenges threatened the authori­tarian culture of the public service. The tensions generated by successful litigation against the state were cited by many civil society actors, including Amnesty International and the trade union IMPACT, as contributing to the 2008 crisis (Healy, 2009; McDonald, 2008). A third reason for the development of opposition to the EA may have been the prospect of its using its powers of inquiry. The central purpose of an inquiry is to produce an authoritative account of the facts surrounding significant issues or events. When conducting an inquiry, the Authority can oblige people to provide information and documents and can summon witnesses. A report is published, and if the Authority finds that any person has breached the legislation it may serve a non-discrimination notice obliging them to remedy those breaches. (A non-discrimination notice is a legal instrument similar to an ­injunction.) Comparative experience suggests that inquiries are especially useful for addressing matters affecting vulnerable groups and for getting at information that it is impossible for individuals to source (Barry, 2003). For example, an inquiry into pay inequality in the City of London conducted by the UK Equality and Human Rights Commission (2009) revealed a 55 per cent gender pay gap. The Australian Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission’s ‘Stolen Children’ inquiry (1997) generated a major debate about the treatment of indigenous people (O’Cinneide, 2002; Samson and Short, 2006). The EA began to explore the possibility of conducting inquiries during 2006 and 2007, consulting with the UK Commission for Racial Equality (CRE) (EA,

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2007:10–11; 2008:101). The CRE had deployed its power to conduct inquiries for several decades, but had been hampered by legal challenges (Dickens, 2007). Work began on criteria for identifying when an inquiry might be an appropriate strategy; adequate resources were identified as a key issue (EA, 2007:10–11). In autumn 2007, stories about exploitative practices in sheltered workshops were carried in the national media. According to these reports, over 4,000 people were working in these workplaces in Ireland, ‘performing such work as shrink-wrapping two-for-one offers for supermarkets and inserting leaflets in mail-shots. People working in these workshops are being paid as little as €15 per week and in some instances nothing at all’ (Holland, 2007a). Journalist Mary Raftery trenchantly criticised the government, ICTU and National Disability Authority for failing to act (Raftery, 2007). It was reported that both the EA and the IHRC were examining the matter (Holland, 2007b; 2007c). The ICTU wrote to the Authority in February 2008 seeking an inquiry.2 It appears that the Authority was receptive to the request; in resigning from the EA’s board, David Joyce, the ICTU nominee, noted that the cuts would undermine the EA’s capacity to conduct inquiries (Coulter, 2009). Unsurprisingly, they have never materialised. In our view, the presence of a dissenting perspective within the apparatus of the state was seen as a serious threat to privileged and powerful sectors of Irish society. In both the private and public sectors, it disturbed ‘business as usual’ in ways that had perhaps never been envisaged by the elites responsible for the original Equality Acts. The EA was not expected to be an independent voice for equality: it was expected to behave as an arm of a politically compliant civil service. In retrospect, then, it should not seem surprising that the state eventually took steps to reduce the Authority’s capacity and to engineer the departure of a proactive CEO. In fact, the Minister for Justice, Michael McDowell, had tried to remove Crowley from his post in 2004, though this was not publicly known at the time (Coulter, 2010). All of this is an important reminder to egalitarians that although egalitarian policy requires the state to be powerful and ­effective, it does not follow that a powerful and effective state is always conducive to equality.

Dismantling the equality infrastructure of the state The attacks on the EA, culminating in the 2008 cuts, must not be read in isolation from their historical context. While it was the pre-eminent equality agency, it was not the only equality-oriented body closed down or cut back between 2001 and 2013. Groups representing or supporting Travellers, people with disabilities, women, children, carers and those living in poverty, among others, were all adversely affected. Table 11.1 summarises the most prominent of these developments.

Traveller education (source: Harvey 2013:1) 2008–13

Budget cuts higher than any other group:   •  Interagency activities, –100%   •  Traveller education, –86.6%   •  Traveller accommodation, –85%   •  Equality work, –76.3%   •  National Traveller organisations, –63.6%

15% budget cut 35% budget cut

National Women’s Council of Ireland (158 member organisations)

2008–11 2012

Discontinued (formally abolished 2012)

Closed and merged into HEA

24% budget cut Merged with EA

Educational Disadvantage Committee (established by Education Act 1998; 2005   appointed 2001)

2003

Early 2000s Closed

Gender Equality Unit – Department of Education

Higher Education Equality Unit – University College Cork (established 1993)

2009 2013

Irish Human Rights Commission (IHRC)

43% budget cut Merged with IHRC

2009 2013

Equality Authority (EA)

Actions taken

Year(s)

Organisation/activity

11.1 Dismantling the Equality Infrastructure in Ireland, 2000–13

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Closed

2008 2009

Centre for Early Childhood Development and Education (established 2002)

Combat Poverty Agency (established 1986)

Closed

2009 2009 2009 2011

National Consultative Committee on Racism and Interculturalism   (established 1998)

National Council on Ageing and Older People (established 1997)

Women’s Health Council (established 1997)

People With Disabilities in Ireland (established 2000)

Closed

Closed

Closed

Closed

Gender Equality Desk at the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform 2009

Crisis Pregnancy Agency (established 2001) 2009 Closed and merged into HSE as Crisis   Pregnancy Programme

Closed

  •  FAS Special Initiative for Travellers, –50%   •  National Traveller Partnership, –32.1%   •  Traveller SPY youth projects, –29.8%



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This assault on so many equality bodies reflected a growing disenchantment with the language and principles of equality. Even those on the ‘left’ began to speak in terms of fairness rather than equality. It is important to examine the cultural and political context in which this occurred. In his commentary on the EA crisis, Crowley (2010:112) observes that ‘[t]here is a perspective in parts of the Government and of the statutory sector that suggests that people should be grateful for the services provided. People have to be deserving, not demanding, of public support – it cannot be a matter of rights’. In passing anti-discrimination legislation – initially in the 1970s and much more extensively in the 1990s – the state had conferred rights on those who experienced discrimination. Two cultures came into conflict over this ­development: the long-standing culture that defined access to public services and protections as a form of charity given at the goodwill of the state, and a culture that defined public services and protections as basic rights. The new ­legislation enabled people to vindicate these rights in tribunals and courts. And by listing nine grounds on which discrimination was prohibited, citizens were no longer defined as undifferentiated ‘universal’ persons devoid of gender, ethnicity, sexuality, etc. Citizens were recognised in their intersectional c­ omplexity.3 Although, as discussed below, the equality legislation was informed by equality of opportunity rather than equality of condition, it nonetheless created new terms of reference for public discussion and analysis about equality and social justice. These terms of reference, however, were neither culturally familiar nor politically accepted. Attitudes to equality in Ireland are best understood in the context of its continued conservative nationalism and anti-intellectualism. From its foundation in the 1920s, the state never had a socialist or even a Labour-led government. Communist, socialist and even social democratic politics were demonised as dangerous, especially in the 1930s (Allen, 1997; Lee, 1989: 184). Feminism was so absent that it did not even merit demonisation for most of the twentieth century; it was an inadmissible political subject (Connolly, 2002). Policies for people with disabilities were largely those of tolerance laced with charity ­(McDonnell, 2007), while lesbians and gay men had to fight for their rights via national and international courts (Gilligan and Zappone, 2008; Rose, 1994; see also Chapter 4). The principles that have guided much of Irish welfare policy have been those of voluntarism and subsidiarity, principles strongly influenced by Catholic social teaching (Inglis, 1998). These have been interpreted to mean the absence of state intervention even when it is necessary for complying with the state’s own laws. Behind the voluntaristic approach to service provision lies an ideology of charity. The lack of a critical left and feminist analysis was not unrelated to the fact that ‘religious and socioeconomic organizations such as trade unions, business, parts of the bureaucracy and the churches defended their turf in ways

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that ­effectively preserved a status quo’ (Garvin, 2004:3). A deeply consensualist and at times strongly anti-intellectual approach that foreclosed dissent was promoted in Irish political and intellectual life (Lee, 1989; Lynch, 1987; Whyte, 1984). This approach found institutional expression in the social partnership system which, despite its merits, had real drawbacks. It deskilled trade unionists and community activists at local level and made conflicts over inequality seem less substantial than they really were (Allen, 2010; Meade, 2005). The consensus culture created a political and intellectual void that was readily filled by neoliberalism (Kirby, 2002; Lynch, 2006; Phelan, 2007). The late 1980s and early 1990s saw the emergence of a virulent, globally extended neo-liberalism (Harvey, 2005). Neo-liberalism was more hostile to social rights, particularly those that curtailed property rights, than mainstream liberalism (ibid.). It was founded on the primacy of the market; social rights were increasingly contingent. While neo-liberalism was particularly hostile to socialism and social democracy, it also heralded a type of public culture and governance that was antithetical to equality in subtle organisational ways, especially through the promotion of ‘new managerialism’ (Lynch et al, 2012). New managerialism (sometimes known as ‘new public service management’) was embraced by the Irish government from the 1990s onwards (Collins, 2007), institutionalising it in the Strategic Management Initiative (1994) and the Public Service Management Act (1997). Although framed as an initiative to ‘modernise’ civil and public services, its goals were distinctly political and driven by business values: ‘NPM [New Public Service Management] … is based on an economic understanding of governance in which the market – or approximations to it – is regarded as the ideal mechanism for the allocation and delivery of public services. Central to this approach is the perception of the citizens as customers’ (Collins, 2007:31). The new legislation instituted a division of power that maintained centralised control while responsibilities were decentralised. Within the machinery of the state it fostered a managerial elite which, though held accountable to ministers and government, had considerable organisational power.4 Performancerelated pay, and the benchmarking of public to private sector salaries, led to substantial awards to higher civil servants, equating them to senior executives in the private sector (Cradden, 2007:176–7). In other countries, politicians wrote the new managerial reforms, often in the face of deep opposition from public servants; in Ireland, senior civil servants were their willing allies (Gleeson and Ó Donnabháin, 2009:29). The Strategic Management Initiative ‘was neither imposed nor forced. It emerged from the concerns of senior civil servants about the current performance of the system over which they presided and its ability to meet the challenges of supporting an effective State for the twenty-first century’ (Murray, 2001:4). Thus, the EA was established at a time when market values were taking hold within government

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departments and support for equality was far from given. Citizens were being redefined as customers rather than citizens with rights.5 The deep-rooted cultural resistance to equality from the past was being married to a new ideological resistance to equality from neo-liberalism. One of the factors that gave neo-liberalism, and anti-egalitarianism generally, power in Ireland was that they had an explicit political voice in the Progressive Democrats (PDs). A minority political party in electoral terms, winning less than 5 per cent of the national vote from its establishment in the 1980s until its dissolution in 2009, it nevertheless held the balance of power in government for an extended period (1997–2009) and used this very effectively in pushing forward pro-market policies. The views of its best-known Minister, Michael McDowell, were indicative of its position on equality: ‘[a] dynamic liberal economy like ours demands flexibility and inequality in some respects to function. It is the inequality that provides incentives’ (Reilly, 2004). Neo-liberalism was not confined to the PDs, however: many in both Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael were unperturbed by persistent inequality. Their policies had, over many decades, promoted inequality in Ireland, on occasion with the compliance of the Labour Party as a coalition partner (Allen, 1997; Kirby and Murphy, 2011). In their manifestos for the 2011 election, Fine Gael made only one, albeit significant, reference to equality, while Fianna Fáil did not refer to equality at all.6 Although the Labour Party manifesto contained many references to equality, these were dominated by a vague rhetoric of ‘fairness’ (Labour Party, 2011). In government with Fine Gael, it has supported cutbacks in basic services for some of the most vulnerable people in Ireland. Equality would appear to be of largely rhetorical importance to Ireland’s most powerful political parties. Whether it is moving the EA to the relatively inaccessible location of Roscrea,7 succumbing to the demands of powerful lobbyists like the Vintners’ Federation, or writing letters that undermine Travellers’ rights to housing (as Minister Phil Hogan of Fine Gael did in 2012: McMahon, 2012), equality is politically dispensable. This failure to take equality seriously has resulted not only in persistent prejudice against a variety of groups in Ireland, including Travellers, other ethnic minorities, people with disabilities and women (Mac Gréil, 2012), but also in the almost complete absence of policies for addressing economic and other structural inequalities. Given the combination of a conservative, charity ideology, the anti-intellectualism of Irish life, the consensus-driven character of academia and politics, and, more recently, the overriding power of global neo-liberalism, it is hardly surprising that Ireland has not developed a commitment to equality.

The EA and egalitarianism In our work on equality, we distinguish between liberal egalitarianism and

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equality of condition (Baker et al., 2009). Liberal egalitarianism is premised on the assumption that there will always be substantial inequalities. The challenge for people who are attracted to the ideal of equality is therefore to find a way of reconciling that ideal with those inevitable inequalities. Their typical approach is to look for principles that would make inequalities fair; the central ideas that they use for this purpose are those of a social minimum and equal opportunity. Policy positions on social welfare payments and the minimum wage are framed in terms of reducing poverty. Proposals governing access to education and employment are justified by the aim of giving everyone a fair chance to succeed and protecting them from discrimination. Prohibitions on harassment, hate speech and the provision of goods and services are advocated for the sake of ensuring that social differences are tolerated by dominant groups. Equality of condition is a much more ambitious objective. It is committed to eliminating, or at least dramatically reducing, inequalities in at least five major dimensions of people’s lives. In the dimension of resources, it does not try to make inequalities of income and wealth fair, but to do away with those inequalities altogether, except where they reflect different needs. In the dimension of respect and recognition, it is not limited to the toleration of those who are different from the norm, but recommends the celebration of social and cultural diversity and a critical dialogue between equals. In the dimension of love, care and solidarity, equality of condition involves taking people’s needs for these relationships seriously, so that everyone has ample prospects for engaging in them, and it calls for us to relate to each other with care. In the dimension of power, it aspires to replacing top-down hierarchies by democratic cooperation. In the dimension of working and learning, it calls for a world in which everyone can do satisfying work and develop their potential. In short, equality of condition calls for everyone to enjoy conditions of life that are in broad terms as good as anyone else’s. The Equality Acts and the EA’s role within them fall very much within a liberal egalitarian perspective, as they focus on equal opportunity and the toleration of differences. Some aspects of the legislation and of the Authority’s core work go beyond the thinnest understandings of equal opportunity by endorsing positive action for disadvantaged groups, but the standard justifications for positive action are typically based on the idea of equal opportunity: that it is only by means of positive action that members of traditionally disadvantaged groups can be compensated for their lack of opportunity in the past. For example, Irish access routes to third-level education for students from socio-economically disadvantaged backgrounds (Higher Education Access Route) and for disabled students (Disability Access Route to Education) are designed to make up for the lack of opportunities that the best-qualified of these students have had in school (see Access College (2013) for details). They are quite clearly not designed to ensure that everyone in Ireland has equally good conditions of living.

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The EA’s activities were not always closely confined to liberal egalitarianism. As we have pointed out, their research work, in particular, was important in emphasising structural inequality and in asserting the public importance of love and care. One way of justifying such work is to argue that true equality of opportunity is only achievable in a society where the conditions of people’s lives are much more equal, since privileged groups generally use their advantages to ensure that they have better opportunities than others. Nevertheless, it is important for egalitarians to distinguish between conceptions of equality that are generally accommodating towards major inequalities and those that are not. From this point of view, the Equality Acts and the EA, in virtue of the prominence they give to the idea of equal opportunity, could be seen as ideologically reinforcing a relatively conservative conception of equality. Imagine having an equality authority that was explicitly committed to the progressive realisation of equality of condition and that was therefore legally charged with developing policies for compressing inequalities of income and wealth, for promoting intercultural dialogue on a truly equal basis, for democratising society, for restructuring education and the division of labour, and for ensuring that everyone had the love, care and solidarity they needed. That would be a very different organisation from the one set up by the Equality Acts. As we noted above, Irish society is a very long way from endorsing that vision. We can think of all the individuals, groups and organisations committed to greater equality of condition as belonging to an implicit, inchoate social movement. The distinction between liberal egalitarianism and equality of condition raises an important strategic question for this movement, namely whether ­devoting a substantial proportion of its limited energies and resources to promoting and defending equal opportunity is a distraction from promoting a more radical agenda. On the one hand, one might argue that unless we can secure a public commitment to equal opportunity, we cannot hope to build support for equality of condition. It can also be argued that one of the ways inequality works is by encouraging limited expectations – by ensuring, for example, that most working-class children aspire to working-class occupations, incomes and deference to authority (Gomberg, 2007). If some working-class people are able to break through barriers of prejudice and social closure, that can generate the wider self-confidence that is necessary for believing in equality of condition. These arguments view liberal egalitarianism as a step towards equality of condition. On the other hand, one might argue that the political base for equality of opportunity will always be fragile because of a widely held if unarticulated understanding that equal opportunity is a sham within a deeply unequal society, and that the benefits of anti-discrimination legislation will rarely extend beyond relatively small sections of the population. Equal opportunity provides real gains to people from subordinate groups whose lives have been diminished by

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discriminatory practices, but that does not necessarily provide other members of these groups with a strong reason to fight for it. Nor is the success of some group members necessarily conducive to equality of condition: it may simply foster the belief that social advantages should be available only to those exceptional individuals who deserve them, leaving others with the belief that they deserve their own disadvantages. Strategically, then, the struggle for equal opportunity runs the risk of helping to legitimate the very inequalities that it aims to provide fair access to, throwing doubt on the assumption that equal opportunity is a politically necessary stage on the path to equality of condition. Perhaps what we should be concentrating on is equality of condition itself. Instead of devoting our limited energies to ameliorating and helping to legitimate a system of gross inequality, we should perhaps be directing them towards dismantling this whole system. These issues are clearly related to how the equality movement should relate to the new IHREC. It is important to try to get the Commission to operate as robustly as possible; but to what degree should this aim be prioritised? We should certainly encourage the appointment of staff and commissioners with a broad understanding of the Commission’s remit, and we should remind people that equal opportunity depends on greater equality of condition. But we should also maintain a critical distance from an equal-opportunity mindset that leaves social hierarchies unquestioned. As is so often the case in the equality movement, there is no need for all of us to choose one path or another – it can be more effective to be engaged in a number of different forms of activity, to adopt a strategic pluralism in our ­approach (see Baker et al., 2009). But we need to do this in an informed, ­strategic manner so that the case for equality of condition is not eclipsed by the demands of equal opportunity. This entails that our engagement with the ­Commission should always seek to understand its remit within a broader egalitarian perspective, and that many of us should feel free to work for equality of condition independently of the challenges and controversies that the Commission will inevitably face. Having a commission for human rights and equality is a good thing, but we cannot let it dominate the politics of equality.

Conclusion The cut in the budget of the EA in 2008 and its immediate effects constituted a defining event in recent Irish history. It was a major blow to the imaginative and progressive activities of the Authority, which had carried out extensive, strategic casework, expanded the agenda of public policy with its research, and engaged in important forms of development, educational and communications work. Three aspects of the EA’s activities were particularly important for explaining why it was attacked: a backlash from powerful interests against its

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legal work; a reaction from politicians and public officials against its support for complaints against the state; and a fear of its plans to conduct inquiries. The budget cut occurred within the wider context of a culture that was traditionally resistant to equality and has more recently been infected by a globally powerful neo-liberalism. These anti-egalitarian ideas, deeply embedded in the capitalist economy, are endorsed by religious, political and bureaucratic elites. There is, however, an egalitarian movement in Ireland that has resisted these forces and continues to aspire to a more equal world. In doing so, its members need to recognise that, important as it has been, the EA is primarily an expression of liberal egalitarianism, with its commitment to equal opportunity in an unequal world. We should not let its defence distract us from pursuing the more radical aim of equality of condition.

Notes  1 Although some of the increase may have been due to reductions in other forms of complaint, especially those against licensed premises (EA, 2008:55), the Authority’s reports show a clear upward trend in its case files concerning the State.   2 The letter is available at www.ictu.ie/equality/disability.html (retrieved 22 July 2013).   3 For a critique of the universal model of citizenship see Leydet (2011).   4 For example, under the Public Service Management Act (1997), Section 4(1)(h), the head of a Department or Scheduled Office has the power to manage ‘all matters pertaining to appointments, performance, discipline and dismissals of staff below the grade of Principal or its equivalent’.   5 For example, the Customer Charter of the Department of Education and Skills states a commitment ‘to providing our customers with a quality service’ guided by twelve ‘Quality Customer Service Principles’ (Department of Education and Skills, 2013). The EA itself has a Customer Service Policy, including a Customer Charter and Customer Service Action Plan (EA, 2013).   6 Fine Gael’s manifesto states: ‘We will encourage all public bodies to take due note to [sic] equality and human rights in carrying out their functions’ (Fine Gael, 2011:73). This commitment, repeated in the Programme for Government, has been welcomed by civil society groups, but they have called for it to be strengthened (ERA, 2012). There are no references to equality in Fianna Fáil’s manifesto, although it calls for gender balance on state boards and election lists (Fianna Fáil, 2011:29, 35). Sinn Féin’s (2011) manifesto was the most egalitarian, but its allegiance to equality has not been tested in government.   7 The move, partially effected in 2007, was part of a plan to decentralise the civil service to rural constituencies. Announced by the Fianna Fáil–PD government in the 2003 budget, it was widely seen as a way of attracting votes.

References Access College (2013) ‘Welcome to Access College’, www.accesscollege.ie (retrieved 8 January 2013). Allen, K. (1997) Fianna Fáil and Irish Labour, London: Pluto.

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Allen, K. (2010) ‘The trade unions: from partnership to crisis’, Irish Journal of Sociology, 18(2): 22–37. Andrews, R. (2002) ‘Publicans complain of “equality industry”’, Sunday Tribune, 7 July. Australian Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission (1997) Bringing Them Home: Report of the National Inquiry into the Separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children from Their Families, Sydney: Australian Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission. Baker, J., Lynch, K., Cantillon, S., and Walsh, J. (2009) Equality: From Theory to Action, 2nd edn, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Barry, E. (2003) ‘Different hierarchies – enforcing equality law’, in C. Costello and E. Barry (eds) Equality in Diversity: The New Equality Directives, Dublin: Irish Centre for European Law, 411–34. Collins, E., and Sheehan, B. (2004) Access to Health Services for Transsexual People, Dublin: EA. Collins, N. (2007) ‘The public service and regulatory reform’, in N. Collins, T. Cradden and P. Butler (eds) Modernising Irish Government, Dublin: Gill and Macmillan, 115–36. Commission on Liquor Licensing (2002) Report on Admission and Service in Licensed Premises, Dublin: Department of Justice and Equality, http://goo.gl/nZE0mH (retrieved 12 August 2013). Connolly, L. (2002) The Irish Women’s Movement, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Coulter, C. (2009) ‘Five Equality Authority board members resign’, Irish Times, 20 January. Coulter, C. (2010) ‘Former chief of equality body details events leading to his resignation’, Irish Times, 10 May. Cradden, T. (2007) ‘People management: HRM in the public service’, in N. Collins, T. Cradden and P. Butler (eds) Modernising Irish Government: The Politics of Administrative Reform, Dublin: Gill and Macmillan, 157–193. Crowley, N. (2006) An Ambition for Equality, Dublin: Irish Academic Press. Crowley, N. (2010) Empty Promises, Dublin: Farmar. Department of Education and Skills (2013) ‘Customer charter’, http://goo.gl/6w4g4c (retrieved 26 July 2013). Dickens, L. (2007) ‘The road is long: thirty years of equality legislation in Britain’, British Journal of Industrial Relations, 45(3): 463–94. Equality and Human Rights Commission (2009) Financial Services Inquiry, Manchester: EHRC. EA (2002) Implementing Equality for Lesbians, Gays and Bisexuals, Dublin: EA. EA (2003a) Implementing Equality for Older People, Dublin: EA. EA (2003b) Overview of the Employment Equality Act 1998 and the Equal Status Act 2000 in Light of the Transposition of the EU ‘Race’ Directive, Framework Employment Directive (FED) and the Gender Equal Treatment Directive (GETD), Dublin: EA. EA (2004a) Building an Inclusive Workplace, Dublin: EA. EA (2004b) Annual Report 2003, Dublin: EA. EA (2005a) Implementing Equality for Carers, Dublin: EA. EA (2005b) Annual Report 2004, Dublin: EA. EA (2006a) Traveller Ethnicity, Dublin: EA. EA (2006b) Annual Report 2005, Dublin: EA. EA (2007) Annual Report 2006, Dublin: EA. EA (2008) Annual Report 2007, Dublin: EA.

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EA (2013) ‘Customer service policy’, http://goo.gl/Bz4jUn (retrieved 26 July 2013). EA and CPA (2003) Poverty and Inequality, Dublin: EA and CPA. ERA (2012) Submission on the Heads of Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission Bill 2012 to the Oireachtas Committee on Justice, Equality and Defence, Dublin: ERA. Fay, R. (2008) ‘Castle Street to finally end’, Equality News, Winter (2007/2008), Dublin: EA. Fianna Fáil (2011) Real Plan, Better Future: 2011 Manifesto, Dublin: Fianna Fáil, http://goo. gl/GjWX1O (pdf, retrieved 26 July 2013). Fine Gael (2011) Fine Gael Manifesto: Let’s Get Ireland Working, Dublin: Fine Gael, http:// goo.gl/40xN3e (pdf, retrieved 26 July 2013). Garvin, T. (2004) Preventing the Future, Dublin: Gill and Macmillan. Gilligan, A. L., and Zappone, K. (2008) Our Lives Out Loud, Dublin: O’Brien Press. Gleeson, J., and Ó Donnabháin, D. (2009) ‘Strategic planning and accountability in Irish education’, Irish Educational Studies, 28(1): 27–46. Gomberg, P. (2007) How to Make Opportunity Equal, Oxford: Blackwell. Harvey, B. (1994) Combating Exclusion: Lessons from the Third EU Poverty Programme in Ireland, Dublin: CPA. Harvey, B. (2013) Travelling With Austerity, Dublin: Pavee Point. Harvey, D. (2005) A Brief History of Neoliberalism, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Haughey, N. (2003a) ‘Pub claims move “strengthens equality law”’, Irish Times, 28 June. Haughey, N. (2003b) ‘Calls for draft laws to undergo assessment of impact on equality’, Irish Times, 10 June. Healy, A. (2009) ‘“Significant equality crisis” outlined’, Irish Times, 12 March. Holland, K. (2007a) ‘Sheltered workshops at the centre of exploitation claims’, Irish Times, 27 August. Holland, K. (2007b) ‘Human rights body inquiry into sheltered workshops’, Irish Times, 28 August. Holland, K. (2007c) ‘An insult to the intelligence’, Irish Times, 1 September. Holtmaat, R. (2007) Catalysts for Change? Equality Bodies According to Directive 2000/43, Luxembourg: Office for Official Publications of the European Communities. Humphreys, J. (2002) ‘Mayo publicans up equality law ante’, Irish Times, 10 August. Inglis, T. (1998) Moral Monopoly, 2nd edn, Dublin: University College Dublin Press. Kirby, P. (2002) The Celtic Tiger in Distress, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Kirby, P., and Murphy, M. (2011) Towards the Second Republic, London: Pluto. Labour Party (2011) One Ireland: Jobs, Reform, Fairness – Manifesto 2011, Dublin: Labour Party, http://goo.gl/09qUKo (pdf, retrieved 26 July 2013). Lee, J. (1989) Ireland, 1912–1985, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Leydet, D. (2011) ‘Citizenship’, in E. N. Zalta (ed.) The Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy, Fall 2011 edn) http://goo.gl/s2muUo (retrieved 12 August 2013). Lynch, K. (1987) ‘Dominant ideologies in Irish educational thought: consensualism, essentialism and meritocratic individualism’, Economic and Social Review, 18(1): 101–22. Lynch, K. (2006) ‘Neo-liberalism and marketisation: the implications for higher education’, European Educational Research Journal, 5(1): 1–17. Lynch, K., Grummell, B., and Devine, D. (2012) New Managerialism in Education, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. McDonald, D. (2008) ‘Equality budget cut over feud with state’, Irish Independent, 16 December. McDonnell, P. (2007) Disability and Society, Dublin: Blackhall Press. McGinnity, F., and Russell, H. (2008) Gender Inequalities in Time Use, Dublin: EA.

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Mac Gréil, M. (2012) Pluralism and Diversity in Ireland, Dublin: Columba Press. McMahon, Á. (2012) ‘Hogan heavily criticised over Traveller letter to constituent’, Irish Times, 27 September. Meade, R. (2005) ‘We hate it here, please let us stay! Irish social partnership and the community/voluntary sector’s conflicted experiences of recognition’, Critical Social Policy 25(3): 349–73. Murray, J. A. (2001) ‘Reflections on the SMI’, Working Paper 1, Dublin: The Policy Institute at Trinity College Dublin. Myers, K. (2001) ‘An Irishman’s diary’, Irish Times, 14 February. O’Cinneide, C. (2002) A Single Equality Body: Lessons from Abroad, Manchester: Equal Opportunities Commission. Pegram, T. (2013) Bridging the Divide: The Merger of the Irish Equality Authority and the Human Rights Commission, Studies in Public Policy 29, Dublin: The Policy Institute at Trinity College Dublin. Phelan, S. (2007) ‘The discourses of neoliberal hegemony: the case of the Irish Republic’, Critical Discourse Studies 4(1): 29–48. Raftery, M. (2007) ‘Scant regard for disabled workers’, Irish Times, 30 August. Reilly, J. (2004) ‘McDowell in fresh attack on “excessive equality laws”’, Sunday Independent, 30 May. Rose, K. (1994) Diverse Communities: The Evolution of Lesbian and Gay Politics in Ireland, Cork: Cork University Press. Samson, C., and Short, D. (2006) ‘The sociology of indigenous peoples’ rights’, in L. Morris (ed.) Rights: Sociological Perspectives, London: Routledge, 168–86. Sinn Féin (2011) There is a Better Way: Sinn Féin General Election Manifesto 2011, Dublin: Sinn Fein, http://goo.gl/fbxhLB (pdf, retrieved 26 July 2013). Smyth, J. (2010) ‘Equality body’s concern at state’s appeals’, Irish Times, 21 October. Walsh, J. (2012) Equal Status Acts 2000–2011: Discrimination in the Provision of Goods and Services, Dublin: Blackhall. Whyte, J. H. (1984) Church and State in Modern Ireland 1923–1979, Dublin: Gill and Macmillan. Yesilkagit, K., and Snijders, B. (2008) Between Impartiality and Responsiveness: Equality Bodies and Independence, Brussels: Equinet.

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12 The Ryan Report: reformatory and ­industrial schools and twentieth-century Ireland Eoin O’Sullivan Introduction On 20 May 2009, ten years after the then Taoiseach Bertie Ahern apologised to those who were victims of childhood abuse in reformatory and industrial schools and promised a full inquiry into the operation of those institutions, the final report of the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse (commonly known as the Ryan Report after its chair, Mr Justice Sean Ryan) was published. Running to five volumes and some 3,000 pages, it was described as ‘a seminal event in the vindication of the human rights of survivors of child abuse in Irish Reformatory and Industrial Schools’ (Powell et al., 2013:7). The culmination of nine years of work, under two different chairs, the inquiry heard from 1,500 witnesses who had resided in various institutions for children between 1914 and 2000. It held a series of public hearings where politicians, civil servants, leaders of the religious congregations that managed the institutions, and other voluntary bodies gave evidence on their respective roles in maintaining the i­nstitutions; examined in detail the archives of the Department of Education – the government department with primary responsibility for managing reformatory and industrial schools from 1924; and conducted detailed investigations into the operation of fifteen industrial schools, one reformatory school, three residential schools for deaf children, one residential school for children with an intellectual disability, and one Place of Detention. The Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse (CICA) was formally established a fortnight after the state’s apology in May 1999. It was chaired initially by Ms Justice Mary Laffoy of the High Court and later by Mr Justice Sean Ryan (from 2004) following Justice Laffoy’s resignation in 2003. It had been placed on a statutory footing in May 2000, when the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse Act was enacted. These developments followed a period of sustained debate on the treatment of children in residential institutions that had been funded and regulated by the state, but managed primarily by Catholic religious congregations. The treatment of children in such institutions came to

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the forefront most publicly with the showing of a documentary in early 1996 on the recollections of a former pupil in Dublin’s St Vincent’s Industrial School (more commonly known as Goldenbridge) during the 1950s. The programme, entitled Dear Daughter, focused on the experience of Christine Buckley who alleged that the children in this institution were subjected to a regime of cruelty and neglect (Torode and O’Sullivan, 1999). This was followed in 1999 by States of Fear, a three-part documentary shown on RTÉ. This in-depth analysis of the reformatory and industrial school system in Ireland generated considerable debate, and led, in part, to the government apology mentioned at the beginning of the introduction (Raftery and O’Sullivan, 1999). The resulting Commission was required: to listen to victims of childhood abuse who wanted to recount their experiences to a sympathetic forum; to fully investigate all allegations of abuse made to it, except where the victim did not want this to happen; to consider whether the way institutions were managed, administered, supervised and regulated contributed to the occurrence of abuse; and to publish a report on its findings to the general public, with recommendations to address the effects of abuse on those who suffered and to prevent future abuse of children in institutions (childabusecommission.ie, n.d.; see also, Brennan, 2007, for a detailed account of the establishment of the Commission and the difficulties it encountered; and Powell et al., 2012, for a helpful overview of the report). The scale of the system under inquiry was set out early in the final report, where it states that between 1936 and 1970, ‘170,000 children and young persons (involving about 1.2% of the age cohort) entered the gates of the 50 or so industrial schools’, and a further ‘approximately 2,000 to 3,000 children and young persons spent time in a reformatory’ (CICA, 2009a:41). The fate of those who entered the gates of the reformatory and industrial schools, in addition to those entering the mother and baby homes, hospitals and orphanages also discussed in the report, was bleak. The Report concluded that these institutions did not meet children’s ‘developmental, emotional and educational needs’, where ‘a climate of fear, created by pervasive, excessive and arbitrary punishment, permeated most of the institutions and all those run for boys’, with ‘sexual abuse “endemic in boys’” institutions’ (CICA, 2009b:451, 452, 453). This chapter sets out to explore the responses to the Ryan Report and, more generally, to analyse differing explanations for the system of industrial and ­reformatory schools that operated for over 100 years. It also attempts to briefly place the Irish experience in comparative perspective. Ireland was not unique in confronting abusive regimes in institutions where children were maintained by state, religious and other philanthropic bodies for their protection, reclamation and rescue. It also notes some methodological difficulties associated with understanding and interpreting past practices in such institutions, and with the use of commissions or committees of inquiry, which aim to serve both investigative and therapeutic functions.

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Responses to the Report Given the scale of the institutionalisation of children during the period under inquiry and the Commission’s unambiguous findings, based on the evidence and information before it, that the children committed to these various institutions suffered physical, emotional and sexual abuse, it was hardly sur­prising that the publication of the Ryan Report generated widespread shocked commentary, not just in Ireland but across the globe. It led to abject apologies from the religious congregations that managed the bulk of the institutions that were the subject of the inquiry. For example, the Christian Brothers of Ireland, who operated industrial schools in Artane, Carriglea, Glin, Tralee, Salthill and ­Letterfrack, apologised ‘openly and unreservedly to all those who ha[d] been hurt either directly or indirectly as a result of the deplorable actions of some brothers, or by the inaction and inappropriate action of the congregation as a whole’ (Collins, 2009). This was in contrast to what the Report had noted as the conditional and partial apologies, or in some cases, the absence of any apology, that characterised the response from the majority of the congregations when the Commission was first established. The Report can be seen as the culmination of nearly two decades of ‘scandals’ that subjected, in particular, the various congregations of the Catholic Church, to widespread criticism and angry denunciation. The editorial in the Irish Times (2009), the day after the Report was published, captured well the mood of many, when it stated: The Report of the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse is the map of an Irish hell. It defines the contours of a dark hinterland of the State, a parallel country whose existence we have long known but never fully acknowledged. It is a land of pain and shame, of savage cruelty and callous indifference. The instinct to turn away from it, repelled by its profoundly unsettling ugliness, is almost irresistible. We owe it, though, to those who have suffered there to acknowledge from now on that it is an inescapable part of Irish reality.

Two weeks after the publication of the Report, thousands of people marched in Dublin from the Garden of Remembrance to the Houses of the Oireachtas to demonstrate solidarity with those who were abused in the institutions covered in the Report. It was undoubtedly a seminal moment in understanding the ­experiences of many Irish children in their formative years and unleashed widespread anger against the congregations that managed the institutions. There was criticism that the Report did not name those who were accused of abuse. This was due to various legal challenges by the Christian Brothers, ­resulting in the Commission making a decision not to name those accused of abuse – pseudonyms are used throughout the Report – and leading Powell et al. (2013:21) to describe the Report as ‘flawed because of the anonymity provided to the accused, both living and dead’. However, as the Irish Times editorial noted, the history of the reformatory

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and industrial schools was not a hidden history. Most counties had either an industrial or a reformatory school (with the exceptions of Leitrim, Carlow, Meath, Kildare and Laois) during the period covered by the Inquiry. Cork alone had nine industrial schools in the 1950s, the largest number in any one county. And while the public may not have been fully aware of the scale of the abuse within the schools, there was sufficient ‘folk knowledge’ that these were, by and large, not pleasant places; indeed, children were regularly threatened with them. Dozens of autobiographical accounts of life in various industrial schools had been published over the previous twenty years, the majority describing them as bleak, unpleasant and in many cases abusive places. Generally, reformatory and industrial schools were key components of an extensive network of institutions, including psychiatric hospitals, Magdalene homes and County Homes, that ­coercively confined over one per cent of the population in the 1950s (O’Sullivan and O’Donnell, 2012). Significantly, however, rather than 170,000 individuals entering the industrial schools between 1936 and 1970 as stated by the Report (CICA, 2009b), the figure is in fact 25,000, and from the beginning of the Free State, the figure is some 37,000. For the reformatory schools, just over 3,600 children and young persons were committed between 1936 and 1970. The explanation for this discrepancy appears to be confusion between the stock figures and the flow figures contained in the Annual Reports of the Department of Education. Thus, in 1950, 991 children were committed to industrial schools in the year ending June – i.e. the flow figure – but there were 6,378 children in the schools at the year-end June 1950. If 170,000 unique individuals entered reformatory and industrial schools between 1936 and 1970, it would require an average of 5,000 committals per annum to the schools. This figure of 170,000 has been cited in virtually every commentary on the Inquiry (see for example, Garrett, 2013; Holohan, 2011). The Ryan Report provides a detailed description of the origins and operations of reformatory, industrial and other allied schools, stressing the governance and regulatory failures within the congregations, and between the religious congregations and the state that facilitated the resultant abuse of children. However, the Report does not explicitly and comprehensively address why the system of institutional care for children took such deep root in Ireland, the longevity of the system or its scale. This is not a criticism of the Report, as its terms of reference did not require it to fully address these issues. Furthermore, as Skold (2013:15) notes in relation to abuse inquiries elsewhere, ambitious time-frames posed substantial ‘methodological challenges, and in particular contextualizing historically what we understand as abuse and neglect’. The Report also documents the detailed exchanges between the Commission and the religious congregations on the contentious issues of the funding of the schools and the health of the children. It is clear from a close reading of the Report that many

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aspects of the operation and context of the schools remain contested, and that while the narrative derived from the Report – and in many cases derived from the summary of the Report – is now the accepted truth, that these were grossly abusive institutions, this may gloss over the complexity of the role, function and longevity of the system. This is not to deny that abuse took place with these institutions, but rather to stress that the functioning of reformatory and industrial schools occurred within a complex web of institutions that regulated and confined up to 30,000 individuals, but in particular women and children, at any point in time in the first forty years after Independence. This requires explanations that move beyond micro-level descriptions of the abuse of power within specific institutions to macro-level explanations of how power was distributed and exercised in post-Independence Ireland. It is of note that after the publication of the report of the Inter-Departmental Committee to establish the facts of state involvement with the Magdalene Laundries (2013), chaired by Martin McAleese, the four congregations of nuns that managed Magdalene Laundries in Ireland (the Mercy Sisters, the Sisters of Our Lady of Charity, the Sisters of Charity and the Good Shepherd Sisters), have stated they will not be contributing towards the compensation fund set up by the Irish Government. This suggests that these congregations are no longer willing to have the label of ‘abusers’ attached to them, arguing that the McAleese report shows a more complex reality than that expressed by advocate organisations on behalf of the women placed in the laundries. The report also clearly identifies the role of the state in committing women to these institutions. Thus, the simple narrative of oppressive Catholic nuns incarcerating ‘fallen women’ is challenged by, and undermined by, the involvement of the state – in particular the Department of Justice – and also by the role of families in placing their daughters in the laundries, the wider public in supporting the enterprise through utilising the laundry services, and the claims by the congregations that they provided a form of supported employment for women for whom few other options existed.

Understanding reformatory and industrial schools Provision for destitute and orphan children developed from the late 1700s, ­primarily in the form of boarding-out societies that placed children with ­‘respectable families’, mainly in rural areas. However, with the growth of Irish religious congregations from the beginning of the nineteenth century and the importation of French female congregations, an institutional model of child welfare had evolved by the mid-nineteenth century. Existing orphanages and boarding-out societies were colonised by these congregations, and their ­institutional model was copper-fastened by the introduction of legislation to establish reformatory and industrial schools in the 1850s and 1860s (see

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O’Sullivan, 2001, for further details). The first reformatory school in Ireland opened in 1859 to cater for young offenders, and by 1870 there were ten reformatory schools throughout the country. The number of children committed to reformatory schools rose from 140 in 1859 to 740 a decade later. After 1870, only one new reformatory was certified, and the number of reformatory schools declined, with many reclassifying themselves as industrial schools. The need to provide residential care for homeless and destitute children also was increasingly recognised, and the industrial school system, based on models in England and Scotland, was applied to Ireland in 1868. Between 1870 and 1970 there were at any one time approximately fifty industrial schools in Ireland and just over 100,000 children were committed to these schools during that period (Sargent, 2013). The gender composition of these industrial schools is significant, for, without exception, they always accommodated more girls than boys; girls were admitted at a much earlier age and remained in care longer. In the first detailed history of child welfare in Ireland published in 1980, Robins (1980:295) noted that by end of the nineteenth century, ‘the increasing participation of religious and lay voluntary organisations in the provision of care for homeless children reflected the growing public interest in the welfare of children generally’. This care included the establishment of reformatory and ­industrial schools which, he argued, were ‘prompted by genuinely humanitarian considerations’ (Robins, 1980:301). A key question therefore, is how these ­humanitarian considerations could result in a system that produced the damning verdict by the Commission in 2009.

Church, state and family Possibly the most popular narrative is that the state, in an unholy alliance with the Catholic Church, imposed a rigid sexual morality on the country, and incarcerated those who failed to comply in church-run institutions. Films such as the The Magdalene Sisters (released in 2002) provide a graphic account of this perspective (for a critique see McCormick, 2005). There is, of course, some element of truth in this narrative. Catholic congregations did operate reformatory schools, Magdalene homes, mother and baby homes, orphanages and industrial schools. However, all of these institutions, with the exception of mother and baby homes, predated the establishment of the Irish state, and in the case of the mother and baby homes, the recommendation that they should be established was made in the first decade of the twentieth century. Furthermore, the majority of Magdalene homes were managed by the Good Shepherd Sisters and the Order of Our Lady of Charity, orders that were brought from France in the mid-nineteenth century to run the institutions because of their prior expertise and experience of running such establishments. Similarly, the Sisters of the

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Sacred Heart of Jesus and Mary, who operated the first mother and baby home in Ireland, established in Cork in 1924, came from England with their extensive experience of running such homes in that country. All of the institutions cited in this popular narrative of the alliance between Catholic Church and Irish state operated across Europe and North America; thus they were not unique to Ireland, as is sometimes intimated. While C ­ atholic congregations managed reformatory and industrial schools and, as noted above, confined up to 8,000 children at the peak of their operation, in terms of scale, the majority of those coercively confined in mid-twentieth-century Ireland were confined in mental asylums (containing a staggering 21,000 individuals in 1958) and county homes (former workhouses containing 8,000 in the early 1950s), which were operated exclusively by the state via the local authorities (O’Sullivan and O’Donnell, 2012). Thus, the institutions can hardly be seen as responses to the creation of a Catholic State. Nor were the Catholic congregations actively seeking individuals to confine: rather, families also had a role. Buckley (2008), utilising the records of the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC), demonstrates that families requested that the Society place their children in ­industrial and reformatory schools, although it is not possible to clearly quantify the scale of this practice, due to the absence of many key records for the relevant period from the NSPCC/Irish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. At a broader level and returning to the issue of abuse within schools, Fagan, a Marist Priest, argues that the teachings of the Catholic Church contributed to the prevalence of abuse in church-run institutions. For Fagan (2009:24), ‘[t]hat Catholic Ireland could allow the institutionalised physical and sexual abuse that occurred in so many of our institutions for over six decades raises questions about the quality of our Catholicism … We need to recognise the bad theology that was such a negative feature of our religion, unquestioned for centuries, and face up to the challenge of renewal’. However, it is not clear how bad theology, rather than poor formation of personnel and rigid hierarchical systems, could allow the abuse to take place. Sr Stanislaus Kennedy (1996) makes the point that Catholic religious bodies cannot be held solely to blame for incidents of abuse in children’s institutions. She argues: it is glib and facile and all too comforting to be self-righteous about the past. It is easy, but not very accurate, to dismiss what happened in child care in the past as belonging to a past that has nothing to do with us; to demonise individual nuns and clerics or whole religious orders and blame ‘the Church’ for what happened; to distance ourselves from it and exonerate ourselves. What happened was the collective responsibility of society. (Kennedy, 1996:270)

The point highlighted by Kennedy demonstrates that we need to shift our focus

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solely from the ‘Church’ if we wish to fully understand these institutions. We need to more fully understand the role of the state and families in maintaining reformatory and industrial schools: indeed a sole focus on the church may limit our understanding. Reformatory and industrial schools in Ireland operated for over 100 years, while in neighbouring jurisdictions they were closed earlier; in England and Wales in 1931, Scotland in 1932 and in Northern Ireland in 1950, albeit sometimes with only a change in nomenclature. Their comparative durability in Ireland required the active involvement of the religious congregations, state institutions and Irish families. The role and responsibility of state institutions with regard to reformatory and industrial schools has been set out in academic analyses in a variety of, and sometimes contradictory, ways, demonstrating that state institutions did not have a singular objective. Arnold (2009) attributes responsibility for the abusive regimes that flourished in these schools largely to the state, which is seen as having failed in its duty of care to those under its authority. He graphically contends that: The Irish State bathed its hands in the blood of generations of innocent children tormented by the prison warders who took charge of them and who were, in the main, nuns and brothers of different religious orders. The State imprisoned these children. They were not imprisoned by the religious orders, who did not have the power in law to do so. The State constructed the regime of committal, punishment and privation that ruined the lives of those incarcerated in the industrial schools and reformatories. (Arnold, 2009:19)

In Arnold’s account the full coercive power of the state was brought to bear on the most vulnerable of its citizens. Maguire (2010:42–3), on the other hand, contends that the dominance of an institutional model of provision for destitute children was due to the miserly nature of the state. [W]hen the Irish Free State came into existence, a vast and extensive religiouslyrun system existed to provide for ‘problem’ children, and it was convenient and cost-effective from all perspectives to allow the system to continue … The local authorities, who were responsible for relieving poverty and destitution, were often stingy and mean-spirited in dispensing relief and this, too, resulted in children living in poverty or being committed to industrial schools.

In this account, it was a mixture of indifference and tight-fistedness on the part of the state that allowed the reformatory and industrial schools to prosper during the middle decades of the twentieth century. Gilligan (2009) offers a more subtle thesis where what he terms the ‘public child’ (the boy or girl placed in a reformatory or industrial school) was a marginal consideration, lacking advocates in the political, legal or policy ­ worlds, whereas the middle-class or ‘private child’, as evidenced by the intro-

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duction of legal adoption in 1952, was accorded a more privileged place in public policy. This explanation, which proposes that children of different social classes were treated differently, also chimes with Margaret Lee’s (2009) account of those who worked in the reformatory and industrial schools. Lee’s (2009:55) position is that ‘the religious who managed the industrial schools until the late sixties failed to treat the children with due dignity because these same religious were trapped within the social class structure, and the gospel values did not penetrate the secular value system’. She contends that in Ireland, and due to the rigidity of their allegiance to the ‘class system’, neither political nor religious ‘leaders’ proved themselves ‘capable of giving justice to the children’ (ibid.). In some analyses of the range of institutions that were utilised to manage women and girls, the notion of a patriarchal Irish state is raised. For example, Crowley and Kitchin (2008:364) argue that ‘County Homes, Mother and Baby Homes, Industrial and Reformatory Schools, and Magdalen Asylums formed a network of independent institutions that incarcerated women who transgressed society’s sexual norms as defined by Church and state’. Similarly, for Ferguson (2007:131–2), Ireland after Independence, was: a deeply patriarchal system, as the male-dominated ISPCC [Irish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children], the police, the education department, Catholic Church and the industrial schools sought to correct so-called ‘immoral women’. The judgement of deviance by parents and children and the consequent regime of appropriate treatment in the schools and beyond depended on a view of appropriate gender roles and sexuality. Unless worked with, such children would be a huge threat to the future social order. Treatment was framed in terms of moral reclamation, and a return to the lost state of childhood innocence.

Elaborating this theme, Smith (2004) argues that what he terms Ireland’s ­‘containment culture’ emerged in the late 1920s and was specifically concerned with sexual immorality, displaying in particular a simmering anxiety about unmarried mothers. Other analysts, when documenting the institutionalisation of children in the twentieth century, have stressed the need to place both the institutions and the practices that occurred within them in their wider historical and ­societal context. For example, Maguire and Ó Cinnéide (2005:649) argue that ‘[t]he complaints that have been made by former industrial school residents thus must be evaluated within the context of the prevalence of corporal p ­ unishment in homes and schools generally’. They suggest that the perpetration of violence against children was, to an extent, tolerated and normalised across the society of the time, therefore, arguing that it can be misleading to apply today’s standards to yesterday’s events. In other words, tougher treatment reflected rougher times and the threshold for accepting harsh treatment has been raised over time.

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Complex and contradictory institutions Linking these various perspectives on the role of the state and the role of the Catholic Church, a number of common themes emerge. Firstly, they suggest that priests, nuns and brothers undertook the work of providing services for women and children in particular, because the Irish state was unwilling to under­take the development of a range of welfare services itself and the religious took up the slack. Secondly, the state was unable to develop a welfare infrastructure due to the poor economic conditions facing the country after Independence. Thirdly, the state was reluctant to get involved in running these services as they were seen as the preserve of the church, and thus the state failed in its obligations to citizens. Fourthly, the state only intervened in particular areas of social policy, primarily those that impacted on the middle classes, and it was reluctant to intervene in services for the poor. The role of the ‘state’ is complicated by the fact that officials within the ­Department of Health persistently challenged the purpose of institutional ­provision; this demonstrated that the state is not a unitary entity, but rather that diverse institutions of the state differed profoundly over the child welfare system (O’Sullivan, 2009). The Department of Health consistently advocated for family support services, and if a child needed alternative care, it argued that this should in the form of foster care rather than residential care. From the ­appointment of the first Inspector of Boarded out Children in 1902, this remained the ­ ­ Department’s consistent position. Only from 1970 onwards did this policy objective gradually translate into practice. The fact that all the ­Inspectors of Boarded out Children, who were based in the Department of Health (and pre-1947, in the Department of Local Government and Public Health), were females in a largely male-dominated civil service surely did not aid their policy recommendations. Likewise, the Catholic Church is not a unitary body, and a persistent critic of the reformatory and industrial school system was Frank Duff, the founder and charismatic leader of the Legion of Mary (Kennedy, 2011). It should also be noted that only a minority of the Catholic religious orders and congregations, active in Ireland between 1934 and 1970, operated reformatory and industrial schools. Of the operative reformatory and industrial schools in 1969, half were managed by one congregation alone, the Sisters of Mercy, and others such as the Presentation Sisters, the Oblates of Mary Immaculate, the Institute of Charity Rosminians and the Sisters of Charity of St Vincent de Paul operated only one school each. Thus it is difficult to sustain a view that the ‘Catholic Church’ was responsible for the schools, when only a minority of Catholic congregations had any direct involvement in them. Rather, a very small number of congregations, primarily native Irish congregations – particularly the Sisters of Mercy and the Christian Brothers – aided by imported French congregations based

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on the mission of their founding members, operated these schools. In terms of hierarchy within Irish Catholicism, these congregations did not have a high status in comparison with for example, the Jesuit Fathers or the Loreto Nuns. In addition to the role of the state and the Catholic Church, and as already observed above, others have suggested a role for Irish families in understanding the role of institutions in confinement. The argument here is that Irish families utilised certain institutions to manage their deviant or troublesome members. For example, Earner-Byrne (2011:51) has argued that there has been no ‘real “national conversation” regarding the ways in which Irish society, as a whole, facilitated the system that ultimately violated the rights of poor families, and led to the abuse of so many children’. Thus, existing accounts of the role and function of reformatory and industrial schools offer complex and conflicting explanations: in some accounts the state, largely in the guise of the Department of Education, was firmly implicated; other accounts resolutely damned the religious congregations; and more recently, the role of Irish families in sustaining these institutions has been questioned. This should not be surprising given that the institutions in question operated for over a century – under British imperial rule and under native government – containing thousands of children at the height of the system, and were visible throughout the length and breadth of the country. In addition, our understanding of sexual, physical and emotional abuse has shifted legally and normatively over this period. Nor are conflicting interpretations of the role and purpose of industrial schools confined to Ireland. For example, Moore (2008:384) concludes in a recent overview of the function of industrial schools in England that they ‘cannot be understood as anything other than a central and invaluable part of the child protection movement’, and thus represents them as a positive and benign development, whereas Humphries (1981) argues that it was only the children of the working classes who were subjected to such regulation and that middle-class values were imposed on these children: [W]hether a working class child was an orphan, a vagrant, a truant, a rebel at home or school or a thief, the assumption was often made by magistrates and officials that he or she was the off-spring of a degenerate and deprived class, requiring intensive disciplinary treatment in a reformatory. (Humphries, 1981:211)

Thus, the dominant narrative derived from the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse, which privileges the dysfunctionality of church and state, and allows the experience and raw emotion of the former residents to be heard, needs to be tempered by the messiness that is the history of reformatory and industrial schools. Again, this is not a criticism of the Commission, but it rather highlights the limitations of this form of historical inquiry in grasping a complex and contested history. The experience in other countries is instructive in this regard and is explored in the following section.

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Inquiries into residential care in comparative perspective Inquiries into institutional abuse are not unique to Ireland, and considerable debate has taken place on the extent and nature of abuse in residential child welfare settings in other jurisdictions. Skold (2013) has identified nine countries where inquiries or truth commissions have been established to investigate allegations of abuse and neglect of children in institutions and in some cases foster care. In addition to Ireland, these comprise, Australia, Britain, Canada, Denmark, Germany, Iceland, Norway and Sweden. In January 2013, an inquiry into the institutional abuse of children in Northern Ireland was established (Convery, 2013). Skold (2013:7) notes that despite the different forms of child welfare provision operating in these countries, ‘the informants have told partially similar stories about an existence marked by physical violence, emotional violation, sexual abuse, exploitation, and neglect, all of which occurred for the better part of the twentieth century’. This is well illustrated with descriptions of corporal punishment in children’s homes in Norway and Ireland. Ericsson (2012:84), in his analysis of inquiries into the operation of children’s homes in Norway, notes that: a plethora of objects were used to beat the children with: belts, canes, clothes hangers, birches, bunches of keys, ski bindings (ski bindings in the 1950s and 1960s were equipped with a steel wire), books, carpet beaters, wet towels, hairbrushes, gogs chains, ball bats, riding lashes, brooms, forks, hoes (some of the institutions were also farms). The use of an object may indicate a planned chastisement. However, one also gets the impression that furious members of staff simply grabbed what was at hand and lashed out.

In the Ryan Report (CICA, 2009c: 41), male witnesses gave accounts of being hit or beaten with a variety of sticks, including canes, ash plants, blackthorn sticks, hurleys, broom handles, hand brushes, wooden spoons, pointers, batons, chair rungs, yard brushes, hoes, hay forks, pikes and pieces of wood with leather thongs attached … Other implements described included bunches of keys, belt buckles, drain rods, rubber pram tyres, golf clubs, tyre rims, electric flexes, fan belts, horse tackle, hammers, metal rulers, butts of rifles, t-squares, gun pellets and hay ropes. Witnesses also reported having objects thrown at them, such as blocks of wood or sliotars.

Thus, it would appear that whether children were in Norway or Ireland, the brutality experienced by some, owed little to what one commentator called the ‘pathology within Catholicism’ (McLoone-Richards, 2012:402). In explaining physical abuse, a pathology within institutional settings appears to offer greater explanatory power. Reformatory and industrial schools were part of the great confinements of the nineteenth century, where a vast institutional infrastructure was erected to confine the sick, the insane, criminals, inebriates and others

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who were deemed to require salvation. And as Ignatieff (1978:214–15) argues:

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It was no accident that penitentiaries, asylums, workhouses, monitorial schools, night refuges and reformatories looked alike, or that their charges marched to the same disciplinary cadence. Since they made up a complementary and interdependent structure of control, it was essential that their diets and depravations be calibrated on an ascending scale, school–workhouse–asylum–prison, with the pain of the last serving to undergird the pain of the first.

With the exception of the prison, these institutions have largely closed, their abject failure to achieve the expectations of their founders, apparent even very shortly after their construction. It is not surprising then that the descriptions of abuse in Irish reformatory and industrial schools are found in descriptions of reformatory and industrial schools in other countries, but they are also similar to descriptions of life in asylums for the insane, Magdalene laundries, workhouses etc. The classic work of Goffman (1961), amongst others, demonstrates that such total institutions are inherently abusive.

Commissions of inquiry and writing history Just under 1,000 individuals who had experienced a committal or placement in either an industrial or reformatory school between 1914 and 2000 were interviewed by the Ryan Commission, either by the investigative committee or by the confidential committee.1 The other 500 individuals who were interviewed described their experience in a range of other institutions such as hospitals, private orphanages, mother and baby homes and non-residential schools. While a relatively detailed profile of those who gave their testimonies to the confidential committee is provided, it is not possible to determine if those who presented before the Commission were representative of all those who entered the schools during this period. A relatively small number of schools, primarily the boys’ schools, accounted for the majority of complaints of abuse. Yet the majority of schools were for females, albeit always containing far fewer residents than the boys’ schools, and at any point in time during the period under investigation, there were more girls than boys in the schools (O’Sullivan, 1998). In all of the Inquiries noted above, a key methodological feature is their use of oral testimony from former residents of residential institutions. For example, the Swedish Inquiry into child abuse and neglect commenced in 2006 after a television documentary highlighted abuse, including sexual abuse, in a children’s home. The Inquiry team interviewed 866 people and presented its findings on 29 September 2011. Skold et al. (2012:19) make the point in relation to the Swedish Inquiry that while the 866 people who presented their story ‘in no way can be considered representative for the whole group of children in ­municipal or state care’, they do ‘provide a sizeable sample’. This is a valid

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observation and applies to the Irish situation. The 1,000 individuals who gave evidence to the Commission are a sizeable sample, but we do not know if the sample was representative of all those who had experiences of the institutions. Selection bias is likely in such situations, whereby those who experienced the most damage would be more likely to give evidence either for therapeutic purposes, which may or may not have been realised, or to seek restitution. This has led Smith (2008:32), commenting on various inquiries into abuse in residential care in the UK, to conclude that such inquiries are ‘blunt instruments to gauge the true facts of what went on in residential care’. Smith (2010:306) further argues that ‘in the current climate discussion of abuse is untroubled by contingency or historical interpretation’. He argues that while it is ‘proper to listen to those who recount abuse, their accounts should not be our sole source of knowledge. They are but one of many possible versions and should not, without rigorous supporting evidence, be privileged over the ­versions of other former residents, of staff who worked in these institutions or of those expressed in contemporary documentary accounts’ (2010: 312). This is not always possible, and where it was possible to match narrative ­accounts with case files, as was the case for some of those who gave evidence to the Swedish Inquiry into Child Abuse, Skold et al. concluded: our qualitative study of the documentary records of 140 individuals indicates that it is problematic to check interviewees’ stories against their records. We have found examples of both wrongfully eliminated case files, massive files of genuine notes and files with fewer comments and observations. The opportunities to prove or falsify the abuse or neglect mentioned by the interviewees are limited. (Skold et al., 2012:26)

In Australia, innovative methodologies are being developed to grapple with these complex issues. See for example Swain et al. (2012:17), where an outline of a collaborative project between academic historians and former residents of various care settings in Australia is described with the objective of writing a ‘history which is sensitive and responsive to multiple audiences’ (also Swain and Musgrove, 2012). The preceding discussion is not to question the ‘truthfulness’ of the accounts given by those who gave evidence or described their experiences in reformatory and industrial schools to the Commission. Instead, it seeks to problematise the method of inquiry rather than debating the veracity of the accounts given.

Conclusion The analysis above suggests that the publication in May 2009 of the Final Report of the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse, rather than providing a final narrative on the experiences of those committed or placed in reformatory and

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industrial schools, provides a starting point for a mature debate on the role and function of these institutions. The methodological limitations of the ‘inquiry approach’, which privileges the narratives of those who were in the institutions, may serve important therapeutic functions, but they may also result in a historical account that has only ‘victims’ and ‘abusers’, with abuse occurring as a result of system failures and lack of adequate governance. This is undoubtedly part of the story, but the importance of class and gender, of the role of state institutions, of the complexity of church institutions, and of all the issues which frame and define the purpose of these institutions, is downplayed, resulting in a decontextualised, ahistorical account. The Departments of Health and Education, for example, held diametrically opposing positions on child welfare from the 1920s onwards. Health was of the belief that maintaining children in their families of origin should be encouraged and facilitated and, if this was not possible, foster care rather than institutional care should be provided. In contrast, the Department of Education was of the view that institutional care offered many benefits and went so far as to prohibit the boarding-out of children from industrial schools in the 1940s. Local authorities appeared to be primarily concerned with minimising their costs with regard to dependent children and inclined towards institutional care because of its lower cost to them. Nevertheless, although the complexity of the state has been identified and its overlapping functions with other agencies noted, the complexity of philanthropy and religion has not yet been subjected to the same degree of ­historical interrogation. While work has been conducted on the differences between ­religions in the organisation and form of services provided, little work has been conducted on the differences in emphasis and delivery within particular organised religions. Just as it is problematic to ascribe to the state a unified set of policies and practices, it is equally problematic to ascribe to the C ­ atholic Church (and, no doubt, other churches), and the voluntary sector more ­generally, a unity and common modus operandi in the organisation, structure and delivery of child welfare services. Although the end objective – the rescue of children from poverty and vice – may be similar, a range of different tactics, often conflicting, are evident in achieving that objective. The publication of the Ryan report will be a defining moment, if the Report is used as a basis for a comprehensive, sensitive and nuanced account of the history and use of reformatory and industrial schools in nineteenth- and ­twentieth-century Ireland.

Note   1 The Confidential Committee allowed former confinees of the schools to describe their experiences ‘in a confidential setting’, whereas the investigative committee allowed for cross-examination in a more adversarial format.

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References Arnold, B. (2009) The Irish Gulag: How the State Betrayed its Innocent Children, Dublin: Gill and Macmillan. Brennan, C. (2007) ‘Facing what cannot be changed: the Irish experience of confronting institutional child abuse’, Journal of Social Welfare and Family Law, 29(3–4): 245–63. Buckley, S. A. (2008) ‘Child neglect, poverty and class: the NSPCC in Ireland, 1889–1939 – A case study’, Saothar – Journal of the Irish Labour History Society, 33: 57–70. childabusecommission.ie (n.d) ‘About the Commission’, http://goo.gl/XKfl4S (retrieved 21 November 2013). CICA (2009a) Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse, vol. 1, Dublin: Stationery Office. CICA (2009b) Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse, vol. 4, Dublin: Stationery Office. CICA (2009c) Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse, vol. 3, Dublin: Stationery Office. Collins, D. (2009) ‘Cardinal Brady: “Profoundly sorry and deeply ashamed”’, Irish Examiner, 21 May. Convery, U. (2013) ‘Locked in the past: a historical analysis of the legal framework of custody for children in Northern Ireland’, European Journal of Criminology, doi: 10.1177/1477370813494895. Crowley, U., and Kitchin, R. (2008) ‘Producing “decent girls”: governmentality and the moral geographies of sexual conduct in Ireland (1922–1937)’, Gender, Place and Culture, 15(4): 355–72. Earner-Byrne, L. (2011) ‘Child sexual abuse, history and the pursuit of blame’, in K. Holmes and S. Ward (eds) Exhuming Passions: The Pressure of the Past in Ireland and Australia, Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 51–70. Ericsson, K. (2012) ‘The punitive repertoire of children’s homes and reformatories’, Journal of Scandinavian Studies in Criminology and Crime Prevention, 13(2):76–93. Fagan, S. (2009) ‘The abuse and our bad theology’, in T. Flannery (ed.) Responding to the Ryan Report, Dublin: The Columba Press, 14–25. Ferguson, H. (2007) ‘Abused and looked after children as “moral dirt”: child abuse and institutional care in historical perspective’, Journal of Social Policy, 36(1): 123–39. Garrett, P. M. (2013) ‘A “catastrophic, inept, self-serving” Church? Re-examining three reports on child abuse in the Republic of Ireland’, Journal of Progressive Human Services, 24(1): 43–65. Gilligan, R. (2009) ‘The “public child” and the reluctant State’, Eire-Ireland, 44(1–2): 265–90. Goffman E. (1961) Asylums, New York: Doubleday. Holohan, C. (2011) In Plain Sight: Responding to the Ferns, Ryan, Murphy and Cloyne Reports, Dublin: Amnesty International Ireland. Humphries, S. (1981) Hooligans or Rebels? An Oral History of Working Class Childhood and Youth 1889–1939, Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Ignatieff, M. (1978) A Just Measure of Pain: The Penitentiary in the Industrial Revolution 1750–1850, London: Peregrine. Inter-Departmental Committee to establish the facts of State involvement with the Magdalen Laundries (2013) Report, Dublin: Department of Justice and Equality. Irish Times (2009) ‘The savage reality of our darkest days’, Irish Times, 21 May. Kennedy, F. (2011) Frank Duff: A Life Story, London: Continuum Books. Kennedy, S. (1996) ‘Child care in Ireland’, The Furrow, 47(5): 270–6. Lee, M. (2009) ‘Searching for reasons: a former Sister of Mercy looks back’, in T. Flannery

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(ed.) Responding to the Ryan Report, Dublin: The Columba Press, 44–54. Maguire, M. J. (2010) Precarious Childhood in Post-Independence Ireland, Manchester: Manchester University Press. Maguire, M. J., and Ó’Cinnéide, S. (2005) ‘“A good beating never hurt anyone”: the punishment and abuse of children in twentieth-century Ireland’, Journal of Social History, 38(3): 65–52. McCormick, L. (2005) ‘Sinister Sisters? The portrayal of Magdalene Asylums in Ireland in popular culture’, Cultural and Social History, 2(3): 373–9. McLoone-Richards, C. (2012) ‘Say Nothing! How pathology within Catholicism created and sustained the institutional abuse of children in 20th century Ireland’, Child Abuse Review, 21(6): 394–404. Moore, M. (2008) ‘Social control or protection of the child? The debates on the Industrial Schools Acts 1857–1894’, Journal of Family History, 33(4): 359–87. O’Sullivan, E. (1998) ‘“Restored to virtue, to society and to God”. Juvenile justice and the regulation of the poor’, in I. Bacik and M. O’Connell (eds) Crime and Poverty in Ireland, Dublin: Roundhall Sweet and Maxwell, 68–91. O’Sullivan, E. (2001) ‘“Mercy unto thousands”: constructing the institutional child’, in A. Cleary, M. Nic Giolla Phadraig and S. Quinn (eds) Understanding Children. Volume One: Education, Support and the Role of the State, Dublin: Oaktree Press, 45–78. O’Sullivan, E. (2009) ‘Residential child welfare in Ireland 1965–2008: an outline of policy, legislation and practice’, in CICA (2009b) Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse, vol. 4, Dublin: Stationery Office, 245–430. O’Sullivan, E., and O’Donnell, I. (2012) Coercive Confinement in Ireland: Patients, Prisoners and Penitents, Manchester: Manchester University Press. Powell, F., Geoghegan, M., Scanlon M., and Swirak, K. (2012) ‘Child outcasts: the Ryan Report into Industrial and Reformatory Schools’, in D. Lynch and K. Burns (eds) Children’s Rights and Child Protection: Critical Times, Critical Issues in Ireland, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 15–28. Powell, F., Geoghegan, M., Scanlon, M., and Swirak, K. (2013) ‘The Irish charity myth, child abuse and human rights’, British Journal of Social Work, 43(1): 7–23. Raftery, M., and O’Sullivan, E. (1999) Suffer the Little Children: The Inside Story of Ireland’s Industrial Schools, Dublin: New Island Books. Robins, J. (1980) The Lost Children: A Study of Charity Children in Ireland, 1700–1900, Dublin: Institute of Public Administration. Sargent, P. (2013) Wild Arabs and Savages: A History of Juvenile Justice in Ireland, Manchester: Manchester University Press. Skold, J. (2013) ‘Historical abuse – a contemporary issue: compiling inquiries into abuse and neglect of children in out-of-home care worldwide’, Journal of Scandinavian Studies in Criminology and Crime Prevention, 14(1): 5–23. Skold, J., Foberg, E., and Hedstrom, J. (2012) ‘Conflicting or complementing narratives? Interviewees’ stories compared to their documentary records in the Swedish Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse and Neglect in Institutions and Foster Homes’, Archives and Manuscripts, 40(1): 15–28. Smith, J. (2004) ‘The politics of sexual knowledge: the origins of Ireland’s containment culture and the Carrigan Report (1931)’, Journal of the History of Sexuality, 13(2): 208–33. Smith, M. (2008) ‘Historical abuse in residential care: an alternative view’, Practice: Social Work in Action, 20(1): 29–41.

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Smith, M. (2010) ‘Victim narratives of historical abuse in residential care: do we really know what we think we know? Qualitative Social Work, 9(3): 303–20. Swain, S., and Musgrove, N. (2012) ‘We are the stories we tell about ourselves: child welfare records and the construction of identity among Australians who, as children, experienced out-of-home “Care”’, Archives and Manuscripts, 40(1): 4–14. Swain, S., Sheedy, L., and O’Neill, C. (2012) ‘Responding to “forgotten Australians”: his­torians and the legacy of out-of-home “care”’, Journal of Australian Studies, 36(1): 17–28. Torode, R., and O’Sullivan, E. (1999) ‘The impact of Dear Daughter’, Irish Journal of Feminist Studies, 3(2): 85–97.

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13 Gay in the GAA: the challenge of Dónal Óg Cusack’s ‘coming out’ to hetero­ normativity in contemporary Irish ­culture and society Debbie Ging and Marcus Free Introduction In 2001, Gay Ireland, a new Irish magazine aimed at a male gay audience, launched a small-scale but significant billboard advertising campaign to ­announce its arrival. The poster featured two Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) players kissing, one wearing a Kerry jersey, the other a Dublin one. The caption read, ‘Relax, it’s a gay thing’. The campaign sparked angry complaints and prompted a torrent of radio-show call-ins, as well as a death threat to the offices of the Irish Advertising Standards Authority. According to Nicola Byrne (2001), in the Observer, [t]he Gaelic Athletic Association has made no public comment on the posters, but a senior member of the body’s ruling board told The Observer that members were ‘seething’. ‘The GAA is sacred in Irish life and this ploy to sell a few more magazines is cheap and distasteful. It will backfire’, he said.

Both the poster itself and conservative public reaction to it served to highlight some kind of unspoken but founding principle of Irish cultural life, namely that homosexuality and the GAA could never coexist. However, just eight years later, in 2009, Dónal Óg Cusack, goalkeeper for the Cork Senior hurling team, publicly announced that he was gay in the Irish Mail on Sunday (McGrath, 2009), shortly before the release of his auto­biography, Come What May. Cusack’s coming out was a significant moment in Irish and international sport, given the extraordinary paucity of openly gay athletes anywhere, but particularly within Ireland and especially in the GAA. According to sports journalist Tom Humphries (2009), ‘hurling is a critical part of life in rural Ireland, a traditional and heroic game played by men’s men, in the ­traditional and heroic sense of that phrase. It is one of the few remaining doors through which gay men and women in Ireland fear to tread’. Somewhat sur­prisingly,

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therefore, Cusack claimed that revealing his sexual orientation had in fact strengthened his bond with his fellow players. In the Mail on Sunday (McGrath, 2009), he described going for a walk with then captain Seán Óg Ó hAilpín, ­reporting that they had ‘a deep and complex conversation from both sides and we came out of it like brothers’. Since then Cusack has been noted as one of the few ‘openly gay sporting heroes’, both in Ireland and beyond. Brian Sheehan, director of Ireland’s GLEN, was cited as saying that Cusack’s announcement was a ‘watershed’ moment (Bradley, 2010; Chu, 2010), while the autobiography won the William Hill Irish Sports Book of the Year award in 2009. This chapter asks whether, to what extent and why Dónal Óg’s coming out was a significant milestone in Ireland’s very recent history. It explores the ways in which it represented change and/or continuity in a small island nation in which both traditional and (post)modern concepts of gender and sexuality coexist and compete. Rather than considering the event simply as a positive development in its own right, which it undoubtedly was, we also explore the public discourse that evolved around it, asking what voices and perspectives dominated. With this in mind, the chapter considers not only how Cusack presented himself and his sexuality in his autobiography but also, more importantly, how the mainstream Irish media responded to and dealt with the topic. Of particular interest is how Cusack’s sexuality was framed in the context of his sportsmanship, his masculinity and his Irishness. For example, we ask whether the ostensible incongruousness of homosexuality and male team sportsmanship was foregrounded in the coverage and whether Cusack’s sexuality was perceived as a threat to or compatible with received understandings of Irish manhood. Finally, we consider what the visibility of an openly gay GAA player might mean for LGBT sports people in Ireland. While difficult, owing to the inevitably personal nature of an autobiography, it is important to distinguish here between Donal Óg the private person who happens to be gay and Donal Óg’s coming out as a public event, particularly the reception of his auto­biography as a public text. This analysis is not intended to burden Cusack the individual with responsibility for queering Irish sport or acting as a political representative for the LGBT community, but is concerned rather with the ­political impact of and media response to his coming out as a significant social and cultural event in Ireland.

Masculinity, homophobia and sport The presence of and reasons for homophobia in organised sport are well documented in a growing body of academic literature. Engagement in sport is considered a core part of becoming a man, with the masculinity of boys who do not play sport often called into question. Given that heteronormative mascu­ linity is predicated on a disavowal of all things feminine, sport provides an

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arena in which men can display extreme physical strength and endurance, in which they can actively display their non-femininity. Males who do not play sports, especially team sports, are often considered feminine and therefore gay. Alternatively, women who display extreme physical strength and endurance are considered to have violated stereotypical codes of femininity and are frequently accused of being masculine and by default lesbian. According to Eric Anderson (2002:861), gay male athletes present a paradox in that ‘they comply with the gendered script of being a man through the physicality involved in sports but violate another masculine script through the existence of same-sex desires’ and, thus, threaten to undermine sport as the key area for masculine performance and privilege. Similarly, citing Griffin (1998), Southall et al. (2009:64) point out, ‘[i]f gay male athletes, who are stigmatized as being feminine, can be as strong and competitive as heterosexual male athletes, they may threaten the perceived distinctions between gay men and straight men and thus the perceived differences between men and women as a whole’. Anderson, himself a gay distance-running coach who came out in 1993, was the first publicly recognised gay high-school coach in the US. His book, In the Game (2005), documents his and his athletes’ experiences of homophobic prejudice, bullying and sometimes physical violence. According to Anderson, the problem was not only restricted to the behaviours of athletes but also institutionalised: the school he worked for effectively colluded in violent homophobic incidents and attitudes by passing them off as disagreements and failing to identify homophobia as the issue. Anderson’s experiences in the mid-1990s propelled him to undertake a PhD and conduct more extensive research into homophobia and organised sport. While he found that there was little or no overt violence against gay athletes, they are nonetheless discriminated against in complex ways, both overtly and covertly: ‘[o]ppression largely appears in the form of don’t ask, don’t tell, a covert system of stigmatization that attempts to nullify the gay athlete’s agency and visibility’ (Anderson, 2005:8). Interestingly, Anderson’s more recent work (2009; 2011; Adams, Anderson and McCormack, 2010) has stressed a notable decline in homophobia in sport in the US and UK and the development of a more ‘inclusive masculinity’ that is not simply tolerant of diversity in sport and beyond but is actively supportive of homosexuality, eschews violence and is characterised by ‘emotional bonding’ and ‘homosocial tactility’. In spite of this, however, the list of openly gay male athletes remains very short. At the time of writing it includes Dónal Óg Cusack, US National Basketball Association former player John Amaechi and current player Jason Collins, Olympic diving medallists Matthew Mitcham and Tom Daley, Welsh international rugby referee Nigel Owens, Welsh rugby player and former British Lions captain Gareth Thomas, US soccer star Robbie Rogers and former German international soccer goalkeeper Thomas Hitzlsperger. Much has been written in recent years about the extent and ex­tremity of homo­phobia in British soccer in particular. Before Rogers, Norwich City striker Justin

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Fashanu was the only high-profile footballer to come out, a move which ended his career and allegedly led to his suicide (Sweeney, 2010). According to the Belfast Telegraph (Anon., 2010), ‘not a single Premiership player seems willing to denounce homophobia on the terraces. Earlier this year, the Football Association couldn’t find a player from the top flight to endorse a video designed to discourage anti-gay hate-chants. The project has been abandoned’. Considering that British soccer is often regarded as one of the birthplaces of metrosexuality, such rigid taboos on homosexuality seem surprising. Equally surprising is that British soccer, in many ways a stark counterpoint to the amateurism and rugged, rural manliness of Gaelic games, should prove less tolerant of homosexuality than a reputedly conservative and patriarchal Irish institution such as the GAA. Indeed, in a still predominantly Catholic country in which church and state remain uncomfortably conjoined – for example, openly gay teachers can be dismissed from Catholic schools on the grounds that they do not comply with the school’s ethos1 – one might reasonably expect that Cusack’s revelation was something of a bombshell. On the contrary, however, his coming out was greeted with widespread support from within and outside the organisation. In blogs and comment threads he was repeatedly praised by fans for having ‘the balls’ to face up to homophobia and was described over and over as a ‘real man’ for sticking by his principles. Although he said he had many ‘draining, hard conversations’ (Phelan, 2009), his family supported him and, when he announced his decision to go public to his Cork teammates, senior player Brian Corcoran sat beside him throughout the meeting with his arm around his shoulders in a gesture of protectiveness and support. The public announcement of his sexuality was also warmly greeted by Ireland’s LGBT community, with gay writer Colm Toibín, in collaboration with Maura Dooley (2009), penning a poem in his honour and proclaiming him the first ‘openly gay Irish hurler since Cúchulainn’.

The GAA and the making of manhood The historical and current-day significance of the GAA in the construction of both Irish and masculine identity cannot be underestimated. It played a crucial role in the reconstruction of a postcolonial Irish identity, a core aspect of which was the remasculinisation of Ireland in response to the debilitating effects of hundreds of years of occupation, famine and a pervasive cultural imagery of the Celt as either feminine and childlike on the one hand or irrational, un­disciplined and savage on the other. The GAA’s founder, Michael Cusack, actively promoted the ‘need’ to foster an identity that was distinct in every way, both from Ireland’s former colonisers and from the paradoxical imagery of Irishness that they had created. According to Catherine Nash (1996), the nationalist reconstruction of Irish identity necessitated a significant shift away from the feminised imagery of the Celt toward the more robust, masculine ideal of the Gael, and nowhere was

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this ideal more manifest than in the GAA’s concept of Irish manhood. Michael Cusack (cited in McDevitt, 1997:265) claimed that ‘the game was invented by the most sublimely energetic and warlike race that the world has ever known … It teaches the use of arms at close quarters, it gives its votaries that courage which comes from a consciousness of having in one’s hand a weapon which may be used with deadly effect’. As well as negating images of manhood physically diminished by famine and colonial rule, the distinctly ‘muscular masculinity’ (McDevitt, 1997) embodied by indigenous sports provided an antidote both to Britishness and to the feminisation and infantilisation of Irishness inherent in the colonial dynamic. It was important, however, that this distinctly physical masculinity should not be conflated with another colonial stereotype of the Irish male, that of the irrational, undisciplined and terrier-like fighter described by Joanna Bourke (1998). Selfdiscipline thus became a defining factor of Irish male identity, a value that was actively fostered by the Church, the educational system and the GAA. Indeed, since its foundation in 1884, one of the GAA’s core missions had been to abolish a tradition of violent and unruly play in the indigenous games of hurling and Gaelic football by focusing attention instead on mental and spiritual control. According to Patrick McDevitt (1997:278), the GAA standardised the games by imposing strict rules and regulations and thus ‘displayed to the English that the Irish were a fraternal and peaceable people who were quite capable of governing themselves’. In many ways, the precarious project of redefining Irish masculinity hinged upon the need for the Irishman to be aligned with nature and prepared to kill without becoming primitivised, yet also to be civilised, intellectual and capable of self-governance without becoming feminised. According to McDevitt (1997:279), the games, and by extension Irish masculinity, ‘were characterized by dichotomous conflicts between civilizing tendencies and violent content, between a desire to be viewed as peaceable and disciplined and a determination to present an impression of incipient revolution, and lastly, between the paramountcy of muscular stature and the ascendancy of intellectual control’. Another dominant feature of the GAA was its rootedness in local communities. At organisational level, the embedding of GAA clubs within the parish system ‘ensured that it would become part of the daily fabric of life at the heart of small communities’ (Cronin, 2007:41), while the success and dominance of the rural teams ‘underscored the enduring image of the manly and virile Gaelic body as rooted in a flourishing and fertile rural landscape’ (McDevitt, 1997:269).2 This strong sense of community and anti-individualism is still vital to the GAA’s public image today as a harbinger of tradition and communitarian anti-globalisation. As Cronin (2007) cogently points out, it is, paradoxically, the GAA’s ostensible rejection of the commodification of its players’ bodies and insistence on amateurism that has proved so appealing to corporate spon-

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sors such as Bank of Ireland, Guinness, Vodafone, ESB and AIB. Indeed, all of the recent television and billboard advertising campaigns for the GAA and its sponsors are underpinned by a vision of Irish masculinity that is deeply communal, rural, anti-individualistic, amateurist and untainted by the excesses of modern consumerism and celebrity culture.3

Doing and undoing ‘orthodox masculinity’ in Come What May Anderson and McGuire (2010:251) note that much recent scholarship has challenged applications of Robert Connell’s (1995) concept of ‘hegemonic masculinity’ to sport for ‘unduly examining the negative aspects of sporting culture, perhaps even trivializing the positive aspects’. Anderson contrasts ‘inclusive’ with what he calls ‘orthodox’ masculinity. Orthodox masculinity is a ‘conservative masculinity’ that is not necessarily ‘hegemonic’ over subordinate or ‘inclusive’ masculinities. However, it is characterised by men remaining ‘tactically and emotionally distant from one another’ (Anderson, 2009:8) and exhibiting ‘homohysterical’ behaviour, i.e. tending to ‘dissociate with femininity, gay men, or any expression, desire, discourse, or behaviour coded as feminine/gay’ ­(Anderson, 2009:75). Cusack’s account of his teammates’ uniformly positive response when he ‘came out’ may certainly be indicative of comparable positive change within Irish sport and society, but Anderson’s distinction seems inapplicable to Come What May. Both the book’s publication and its warm reception evince its undoubted cultural significance as a challenge to ‘heteronormative’ assumptions about sport. However, it is possible that its positive reception was partly due to the reassuring formal and thematic conservatism in it that cuts across A ­ nderson’s ‘inclusive’/‘orthodox’ categories. Cusack undoes Anderson’s ‘orthodox’ masculinity to a degree in coming out, but there is no evidence of ‘inclusive’ masculinity in Anderson’s sense, in that the sporting and gay aspects of his life are rigidly separate spatially, while his masculinity is presented as distinctly ‘orthodox’ in its conservatism. Indeed there are clear echoes of Paul Ryan’s (2003) accounts of Irish gay men’s narratives of coming out in the 1970s, the unobtrusive and socially unthreatening nature of which he described as ‘coming out, fitting in’. Cusack emerges from his autobiographical narrative as a modern-day hero epitomising most if not all of the exalted ‘traditional’ qualities of Irish sporting masculinity outlined above. Throughout the book he emphasises his modest origins and the tightness and solidarity of the Cloyne community: his father grew up in a small terraced house with ten siblings, next door to his mother’s family, in which there were fourteen children. The book’s simple but rhetorically forceful style facilitates its pervasive theme of players’ and families’ rootedness in community, of their status as mere servants to a timeless tradition. The following passage, for example, has an almost Biblical quality:

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In 1966 my father was the goalie when the club won its first Intermediate ­championship. In 1970 my Uncle Pat played, he was the goalie too. In 1997 I played. In goals of course … It comes down through us and on to those after us. The love and the madness. All the love and madness. (Cusack, 2009:22)

As this passage also illustrates, the book imitates the simple rhythm of everyday speech, repeatedly deviating from formal grammatical conventions in its extensive use of ‘parataxis’, a rhetorical style in which phrases or clauses are juxtaposed without conjunctions (Jasinski, 2001:539), giving the prose a blunt, no-nonsense quality. The style generates a traditionally ‘masculine’ image of ­matter-of-fact self-assuredness, of confidence rather than defensiveness. This is emphasised by the ending of paragraphs in brief statements of sometimes only one or two words. Following his account of coming out to his family, for example, he concludes, ‘That’s me. Still Dónal Óg’ (Cusack, 2009:155). The brevity and abruptness here suggest that his sexual orientation is incidental to his identity in the broader sense as a hurler and native of Cloyne. There are other features of what might be seen as stereotypically tough ­‘hypermasculinity’ in the book. In several instances, for example, Cusack recounts his maintaining control of situations where he is potentially vulnerable, by withholding information and putting his interlocutor on the defensive. He describes himself as a contrarian, a ‘feisty fucker who doesn’t mind rubbing people the wrong way’ (Cusack, 2009:158). These intimations give the book a rhetorical momentum which has the cumulative effect of reassuring us of ­Cusack’s uncompromising masculinity in every respect apart from his sexual orientation. He undoes the supposedly inextricable link between hetero­ sexuality and ‘hypermasculinity’ through the revelation of his sexual orientation, but in a conventionally ‘muscular’ discursive style. Cusack is far removed, therefore, from the ‘metrosexual’ masculinity represented by David Beckham. As Mark Simpson (1994) observed in his original coining of the term, ‘metrosexuality’ was a ‘straight’ appropriation of the new openly gay masculinity of the 1990s. By contrast with the ‘metrosexual’ themes of corporeal and sartorial style, Cusack’s book focuses largely on the details of training, playing, competition and the asexually ‘homosocial’ environment of club and county teams. Even his account of his campaigning work and negotiations for the Gaelic Players Association (GPA) can be seen as a construction of tough, uncompromising masculinity through differentiation from the manipulative but decidedly unathletic administrators he derides and the compliant players and teams within the GAA. He dismisses Cork’s Kilkenny rivals, for example, through the feminising insult ‘Stepford wives’ (Cusack, 2009:6). Cusack’s physical muscularity was stressed in David Sharrock’s (2009) interview for the Ottawa Citizen, in which the journalist emphasises that Dónal Óg has ‘the wrist of a handshake that grips like a vice’ (presumably as opposed to a stereotypically effeminate ‘limp wrist’), but also that he ‘wears a band on which

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is stamped ceannairceach féin smacht, Gaelic for “rebel self-discipline”’. Here ‘rebel’ refers to Cork’s common labelling as the ‘Rebel County’, evoking both its part in the War of Independence and its people’s widespread cultural reputation in Ireland for ‘contrariness’.4 Indeed, Come What May frequently draws on images and metaphors of warfare to describe Cusack’s tactical moves as a hurler and GAA member. It also evokes images of pain, suffering and endurance, other key aspects of the Gaelic masculine ideal and the enduring ambivalence towards violence. For instance, in the following account of the characteristic acrimony of even informal intra-familial hurling contests, there is at best mock disapproval: ‘the games would still be filthy. Desperate. Desperate. […] The field is where we gather and where we celebrate and where we take our beatings. Sacred ground, I think’ (Cusack, 2009:145). According to McDevitt (1997:271), the values of the GAA were strongly underpinned by a Catholic concept of male suffering: The inherent physical discomfort associated with intense training and the playing of contact games meshes with wider Catholic teaching on pain and on the salvation brought about through suffering. The image of a healthy male body enduring the agony of crucifixion was one of the most important images of shared Irish life, if not the primary one … The theme of sacrificing the male body for the salvation of Ireland was shared throughout much of the nationalist community.

Dónal Óg Cusack may have little regard for such religious symbolism – he is keen to point out in Come What May that his religion and the religion of Cloyne was and always will be hurling, not Catholicism. However, as his playful juxta­ position of celebration, beatings and sacred ground indicates, his ostensible adherence to a traditional, virile and grounded type of masculinity may well explain the widespread acceptance of his sexuality. In spite of both Anderson’s (2002) and Griffin’s (1998 in Southall et al., 2009) assertions that homosexuality disturbs our expectations of what it means to be a (sports)man, and Anderson’s case for a new ‘inclusive masculinity’, perhaps it is precisely the maintenance of an ostensibly non-queer performance of masculinity that has enabled Irish people to accept Cusack’s sexual orientation – as merely one aspect of his character which could be, and indeed for many years had been, easily ignored. As Cusack (2009:98) remarked, ‘[t]he gay life and the life of Cork hurlers don’t really overlap, and I could step from one world to the other with more and more ease as I got older’. Both his life as a gay man and his account of it in the book are compartmentalised and rigidly, spatially separated from the heteronormative world of hurling. Thus, having spent a night, on a team holiday, with a nameless stranger in Vietnam (who kindly ‘drove me back to the city […] miles out of the way’) he describes returning to the team, ­emphasising that this is a restoration of the hierarchy of heteronormativity and homosexuality: ‘my night had its own history that they aren’t imagining and

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that doesn’t really matter. I’m back with the boys’ (Cusack, 2009:99). None of the gay men in his life have identities or are described as being of lasting significance. ‘The boys’, by definition, are his (straight) teammates. Cusack does indirectly highlight the continuity rather than discontinuity between heterosexual and homosexual orientation, remarking that ‘I get more out of men. I just do. Always have […] To the world I live in I’m a man’s man. And in the early years I was that and I was also going into gay nightclubs in Cork all on my own’ (Cusack, 2009: 96). However, his lives as ‘man’s man’ and ‘gay man’ are presented as complementary but inevitably separate. The book has a consistent pattern of introducing, but curtailing references to, his life as a gay man, and there is a near homology between this pattern and the life he describes. In a pivotal chapter, just after he describes receiving a phone call from his sister (who has heard the rumours in Cork) to ask if he is gay, he interrupts the story to recall his gruelling, punitive training with teammate Seán Óg Ó Hailpín in South Africa. It is as though the revelation’s potential disruption to the ‘homosocial’ company of the team must be minimised through a story of sado-masochistic training. He describes it as ‘pure torture. Seán Óg is one tough man to train with. He has no mercy on you’ (Cusack, 2009:116). Arguably, Cusack’s proof of his masculine toughness in his refusal to respond to vicious taunts from opposition supporters also helped to perpetuate this rigid separation over the course of his later career when rumours were widespread in Cork. He describes how, while one opposition supporter behind the goal chanted through a megaphone, ‘he’s gay, he’s bent, his arse is up for rent’ (Cusack, 2009:259), he opted to ignore it, worrying only for family and friends as ‘it doesn’t hurt me at all’. By refusing to be put off, to be angered or to allow his concentration to be ‘penetrated’ by the verbal violence from the voices behind the goal, he proves his fortitude. However, his account is not too distinct from Christian masochism in its emphasis on stoic endurance, ‘come what may’. Individual fortitude legitimises a refusal to cross the boundary between personal and public (even when that boundary is regularly breached by his would-be tormentors), and to publicly challenge homophobia. Undoubtedly, Cusack’s revelation of his gay identity and his startling account of such episodes constituted a significant political decision and a new direction on his part. However, Eibhear Walshe’s argument that the book was ‘a different kind of sports memoir’ is not entirely accurate. Walshe (2009) contends that the book was, ‘a Trojan Horse (an image used by Cusack himself), unsettling the accepted norms surrounding Irish male identities. His decision to come out via his sporting recollections is all the more radical and liberating because the world he depicts is an intensely male one (in the conventional sense)’. Considering Cusack’s autobiography as ‘a sports book by a fella who just happens to be gay’ is potentially radical in its suggestion of a post-homophobic, post-gendered world. Dónal Óg’s gayness is also potentially radical in that it

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does not just confound essentialist stereotypes about (Irish) masculinity. His masculinity additionally confounds essentialist stereotypes about homosexuality. To that extent, the revelation of his sexuality through a sporting memoir was indeed a ‘Trojan horse’, whereby Cusack was seen to subvert gender norms from within. On the other hand, Come What May is a largely conventional sports memoir that emphasises the divide between Cusack’s life as a gay man, seemingly characterised by evanescent, discontinuous, inconsequential experiences, and his identity as a sportsman and a member of a family and community whose internal cohesion and timelessness he repeatedly stresses. It down-plays the personal and political significance of his sexual orientation in undoing assumptions of heteromasculinity embedded in sport and in Irish society more generally. And it is a portrait of a gay man who is reassuringly ‘straight’, rather than in any way constituting a ‘queering’ of sport, or a questioning, unpicking, subversion, extension or reconstruction of sport’s acceptable spectrum of gendered styles and behaviours. As a political intervention the book’s publication is arguably limited in a way that is similar to the limitations of GLEN’s campaign for the legalisation of homosexuality in the late 1980s and early 1990s. As Richard Dunphy (1997:250, 256) has argued, ‘gay law reform was often presented in GLEN’s discourses as affirming rather than challenging the centrality of the family in Irish life and the flattering self-images of the Irish “nation” offered by nationalism’ through its mobilisation of the discourses of ‘the Irish [as] a “naturally” fair and tolerant people’, and ‘Ireland as family’. This may be seen either as ‘an astute subversion of dominant discourses, using them to actually legitimize a multiplicity of national and sexual identities and family forms’, or as ‘a dangerous evasion of much of the reactionary nature of Irish nationalism and of the repressive nature of the family as the central institution in Irish life’ (Dunphy, 1997:256). Twenty years later, the gay marriage debate evinces a similar problematic (see Chapter 4). While there is broad agreement that equality means that the same rights must be afforded to everyone, the question remains: by buying into the institution of marriage, are same-sex couples imitating and condoning a heterosexist, patriarchal institution and thus marginalising other, more radical family structures? Or does the availability of marriage to everyone radically transform the nature of that institution from within?

Queering the pitch? Come What May’s media reception and social ­impact The tone and tenor of media coverage of Cusack’s revelation similarly illustrate the book’s significant but partially limited impact in undoing hegemonic assump­tions of sexual orientation and of gender identity and behaviour in sport. Most interviews and articles respectfully took their cue from the autobiography,

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carefully emphasising the player’s unquestionable masculinity, rebel spirit and penchant for controversy, and reiterating Cusack’s claim that his sexual orientation is merely one aspect of his identity. Articles that fixated on or mildly sensationalised Cusack’s sex life were few.5 Nearly all were unequivocally pro-gay, but they were also keen to emphasise Cusack’s manliness. Evening Herald columnist Gerry O’ Carroll (2009), for example, assured readers: ‘make no mistake, he’s a man’s man’, while the Irish Times (Anon., 2009) opined that: ‘[m]ost Irish people […] know that the manly virtues of the hurling field – strength of body and character – are incompatible with stereotypes of gay men but not with the reality of their lives and talents’. In the Observer, Come What May’s ghost-writer Tom Humphries (2009) recounts that he ‘manfully’ tries to keep up with Cusack while walking around Cloyne, summing up very well the dominant discourse that surrounded this event: For a top sportsperson to out himself with such unblinking bravery is rare enough anywhere but Cusack has been the undisputed leader of just about any team he has ever played on. He has been outspoken on player welfare issues in hurling and Gaelic football, the leader of three strikes by his own team and the lightning rod for more vitriol and abuse than most people could handle, regardless of their sexuality.

With this pun on strikes and lightning rod, Humphries could hardly have found a more appropriate metaphor for the combination of phallic power and stoic endurance he himself promoted through the carefully stylised writing of their co-produced book. Humphries (ibid.) also stresses that Cusack’s ‘disclosure of his sexuality occupies just two chapters of the 35 that comprise his life story and he says that proportion is about how much importance he places on the issue’. Cusack had also given this figure when prompted by host Ryan Tubridy, during an earlier appearance on RTÉ’s The Late Late Show (RTÉ, 2009a). The interview, however, highlighted some additional tensions within the book in ways that were not apparent in the print media coverage. Cusack was introduced on set by the resident band’s playing of David Bowie’s gender-bending ‘Rebel Rebel’, but Tubridy dismissed the international furore over Cusack’s coming out, thus down-playing the book’s key revelation, suggesting that the presenter may also have been aware of more conservative elements among the show’s viewers. (Declan McManus (2009) reported that ‘Tubridy revealed the programme had received many, many texts of an abusive nature, so much so he couldn’t read most of them out’.) Tubridy quickly moved on to those parts of the book devoted to Cusack’s hurling career and the GPA. Nonetheless, the reception from the more typically muted and unresponsive Late Late Show ­audience was very warm, with applause and laughter at the story of his father’s response to his coming out, that he needed to be ‘fixed’. Cusack himself exceeded the book’s

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limitations by reading an email received by his publisher, Penguin Ireland, following publication. The email, from a man not yet ‘out’ to his family but who hoped that it would give him the ‘courage on [his] journey to come out to [his] own Dad’, attests the personal, and by implication broader cultural significance of Cusack’s revelation. This act by Cusack himself helped to place the book in the domains of personal, familial and social politics alike. Two weeks later on the same show (RTÉ, 2009b) Irish American comedian Des Bishop joked that ‘if [Cusack] could stop the reign of Kilkenny in some way, I wouldn’t ride him, but I would definitely give him a hand job, just a hand job, just because I want the Liam McCarthy Cup’. Bishop also remarked that Cusack’s coming out proved that ‘you can be a proper fucking man and be gay as well’, and in the process celebrated Cusack’s uncompromisingly ‘hard’ masculinity. But his joke is possibly unique in Irish media reception of the book in (albeit humorously) making explicit the latent homoeroticism in sport and drawing together the celebrated homosociality of sport and the taboo on open homosexual attraction. That it was a ‘dangerous’ joke, in the context of Irish public service broadcasting, was evident in Tubridy’s defensive verbal and corporeal reaction. Interjecting ‘OK, OK, OK!!’ to close Bishop down, and leaning back in his chair, he continued ‘I’m enjoying this’, while making imaginary quotes with his fingers. The oftentimes contradictory currents in the book and its media reception are indicative of the ways in which it inspired open discussion of sexual orientation and homophobia in Irish society. In trying to gauge its impact, though, there remain two interrelated problematics, that of equality and acceptance on the one hand and that of queerness or difference on the other. Since its publication in 2009, Cusack’s book has become increasingly identified with the LGBT rights movement, in the process transcending the specific boundaries of hurling and sport. With English rugby player Ben Cohen, he has helped publicise Belong To’s annual Stand Up! Awareness Week Against Homophobic Bully­ing, launched in 2010. The campaign ran in 1,700 Irish secondary schools and youth organisations in March 2012 (Belong To, 2012). However, his statements have often endorsed the supposedly positive features of Irish culture and society without necessarily acknowledging the more problematic and restrictive features of Irish life, particularly where religion, the state and education are concerned. He helped launch the 2012 campaign with the remark that, ‘as a people we’re extremely tolerant and compassionate’ (Murray, 2012), despite the glaring anomaly that the Catholic Church, which controls nearly all Irish primary schools, can directly discriminate against LGBT teachers. He also reiterated the strategy of ignoring verbal abuse at games on the basis that it is ‘more a reflection of [the abusers] than on me’ (ibid.). Obviously, it is unreasonable that Cusack should bear the ‘burden of representation’ for an entire ‘community’ that is, in reality, as diverse and divided as

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any other social group, and it is important to draw a distinction between Dónal Óg as an individual and his public persona, which includes his autobiography, public speaking and advocacy work. In the latter role, Cusack treads an interesting and arguably highly effective line between cultural conservatism and a more politically engaged questioning of Irish society. His speech at Sinn Féin’s 2010 An Phoblacht Summer School was a scathing critique of the political failures of the ‘Celtic Tiger’ (Cusack, 2010). Although it did not concentrate on homophobia in Irish society or draw on his direct experiences, arguably its rhetorical force partly relied on his reputation for honesty and openness deriving from his ‘coming out’. His metaphor of the ‘three-card trick’ for the generation, movement and concealment, as such, of the fictional capital generated in the boom years is an interesting contrast with what appears to have been widely accepted in Irish media and society as his integrity and courage to reveal the truth of his sexual orientation in an enduringly homophobic culture; and his association with a broader sense of social justice, represented by his work for the GPA in promoting and protecting player welfare. In August 2012 his ‘Foyle Pride Festival’ speech was notably different in content and style from the account of his gay identity in the book in his confident and witty embrace of the broader politics of sexual orientation in Ireland. Connecting the political significance of the Civil Rights movement in Derry and the Stonewall Riots in 1969, he remarked that ‘in the summer of 1969 when gays and lesbians were engaged in the Stonewall riots in New York City, the battle of the Bogside was happening here in Derry’ (Cusack, 2012). He also challenged the coalescence of Catholic and Protestant religions in opposing gay marriage, the combined political logic and irony of which was highlighted by his doing so in ‘a [Northern] society where people are learning to live with each other with less fear and loathing’, yet where ‘surveys show a hardening of attitudes against gay and lesbian people. To see two religious faiths coming together to oppose gay marriage strengthens the theory that fear of gays and lesbians is “the last great prejudice of our times”.’ Widely quoted in Irish national media, and printed in full by some, the speech was indicative of his movement into a new phase as an openly political speaker, a significant development from his tentative steps into the spotlight on the Late Late Show three years earlier. At the launch of the 2012 ‘Stand Up’ campaign, Cusack expresses some mystification as to why, when ‘there are gay people in all parts of society […] for some reason, young gay people tend to move away from playing team sports’ (Donnelly, 2012). Cusack is of course right to name and condemn the ­enduring homophobia of much team sport (Anderson’s research notwithstanding), but it is also important to unpack the complexity of homophobia and to ­acknowledge that it is not simply a matter of the acceptance or rejection of gay players. Endemic to homophobia is its attack on forms of intellectual, emo-

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tional and bodily b ­ ehaviour that deviate from ‘heteronormativity’. As David Plummer (2006) notes, sexual orientation is by no means its only target. Rather, it is anything deemed to be a ‘queer’ threat to, or an actual queering of hetero­ normativity. Plummer (2006: 124) observes that: In addition to targeting boys who are perceived to be effeminate, homophobia also targets boys who are babyish, whose physical development is late, who are not peer-group oriented, whose appearance differs from peer-group expectations, who conform too much to the authority of adults at the expense of peer-group loyalty, who distinguish themselves in reading and academic pursuits, who are good at school subjects that do not belong solely to a boy’s domain, and who avoid tough team sports; on the odd occasion, homophobic words even target homosexuality!

To be gay, openly or otherwise, but indistinguishable from the hetero­normative behaviour of ‘straight’ players may well ensure acceptance. But homophobic bullying can target any imaginary ‘deviation’, particularly in the tightly policed world of sport, which is why ‘sportophobia’ (Plummer, 2006) is so common among gay boys and men. More challengingly, then, considering queerness – rather than homosexuality – in sport is perhaps a more robust test of social tolerance. Graeme le Saux, the former England and Chelsea defender, is an interesting case in point. Although not gay, he endured homophobic abuse from players, teammates and fans for 14 years and considered quitting football. According to Patrick Barkham (2010), le Saux was subjected to this treatment simply ‘because he took an interest in the arts, read the Guardian and was not part of the game’s laddish drinking culture’. While this behaviour is by no means radically queer, it suggests that in the world of British football, signs of non-orthodox masculinity are as intolerable as suggestions of homosexuality. Former National Basketball Association player and promoter of diversity at the 2012 Olympic Games, John Amaechi, offers some useful insights into the homosocial dynamics of male team sports. The problem is not that such team sports are too masculine for homosexual players but that they are too potentially homoerotic. Male sportsmen can kiss, hug and strut around naked because they are comfortable with the certainty of their own heterosexuality. According to Amaechi, Sport is the last bastion of male intimacy … Research has shown that, if you look at any environment where there is a huge amount of external machismo, internally there will be a level of intimacy that is quite shocking. It’s partly our own fault because what we’ve done in society is say that men can’t cry, they can’t talk to each other, none of that stuff. So they are left with these enclaves where it is acceptable to be intimate. (cited in Forsyth, 2009)

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An openly gay man threatens this comfort zone because he intrudes on their bonding habits as well as threatening to expose their homosocial intimacy as homoeroticism. Former rugby player and columnist Hugh Farrelly (2009) seems to confirm Amaechi’s arguments in his contention that coming out in a sport such as Irish rugby ‘would threaten the balance of [its] slightly skewed world’. Rugby’s ­physical intimacy, in play and in dressing-room and tour ‘antics’, requires that participants are ‘extremely comfortable with the male form’. It is an environment of ‘close physical contact’ that is ‘not for the shy or insecure’ and that ‘frequently involve[s] an element of nudity’. Arguably, these are all euphemisms for enjoying physical intimacy without any acknowledgement of its homo­eroticism, and with an implicit taboo on open homosexuality. Since we do not yet inhabit a post-homophobic, post-gendered world, it is worth considering how less traditional exemplars of Irish manhood than Dónal Óg might fare in Irish sporting circles were they to come out. The positive reception of Dónal Óg Cusack and others’ ‘coming out’ strongly indicates that they are acceptable because they fit in as ‘one of the boys’. Moreover, John Amaechi is sceptical about the transformative significance of established players going public about being gay. While admiring Gareth Thomas’s courage in doing so, he asks, ‘If Gareth Thomas had come out at 14, would he still have captained the British Lions? Does he make it through all those amateur coaches, those selection committees, the under-18 team, the under-21 team?’ (cited in Forsyth, 2009). Thomas himself said quite candidly that ‘in many ways (rugby) is barbaric, and I could never have come out without first establishing myself and earning respect as a player’ (cited in Cummiskey, 2009).

Conclusion Amaechi, Farrelly and Thomas’s comments suggest that successfully coming out is both precarious and highly conditional in the world of male team sports. It would appear to be essential that the homosocial bond of the team is not disrupted or called into question, either by drawing attention to one’s sexuality in any way apart from the abstract or political or by deviating from ­accepted norms of masculinity. In other words, one’s personal sexual life, desire and queerness must still remain invisible. Given male team sports’ exalted role in legiti­mating ‘orthodox’ masculinity in boys’ development and its uses in promoting ­‘naturally’ bellicose masculinity, it is questionable whether the pitch can ever be truly queered. Indeed, whether gay or not, one might justifiably argue that the prioritisation of male team sports in education and society at large is central to many of the difficulties faced by young men in ‘doing’ socially acceptable forms of masculinity. Cusack has commented: ‘if me not being the stereo­ typical gay person can help in any way, then it’s worth’ publishing the book

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(RTÉ, 2009a). While non-stereotypical manifestations of LGBT are crucial to evolving beyond limiting notions of sexuality as static, dichotomous or easily categorisable, the question remains as to how a more ‘stereotypical gay person’ might fare in the world of Irish sport or how a non-stereotypical ‘straight’ person with or without an interest in sport might deviate from gendered expectations in a socially ­acceptable way within more traditional contexts. Dónal Óg Cusack’s coming out was a hugely significant event, which represents both continuity and change. It represented continuity in the sense that cultural and educational institutions which normalise heterosexuality as orthodox masculinity are not required to change simply because of the fact that they include LGBT people. A more radical transformation of sporting culture would arguably include a greater respect for female athletes and teams, and the inclusion and acceptance of non-normative masculinities and femininities as well as players who simply ‘happen to be gay’. It represented change, however, in that it sent out a clear and powerful message within the hugely popular sporting culture of the GAA that unravelled accepted notions about sex, sexuality and gender as essentially linked and, as such, opened up potentially new avenues for ‘doing Irish manhood’.6 It also posed a defiant challenge to homophobia, ­arguably all the more powerful because Cusack speaks a language that is understandable to straight men. However, the extent to which being gay in the GAA continues to signal social and cultural change ultimately depends on whether more and younger men will feel sufficiently encouraged to come out to their teammates and whether Irish sport – be it GAA, soccer or rugby – will come to tolerate more queer male identities in the future.

Notes   1 Section 37.1 of the Irish State’s Employment Equality Act (1998, 2004) ‘allows dismissal on the grounds of non-compliance with the ethos of an institution’ (Neary, 2013:3).   2 This trope is quite literally visualised in a recent (2009) print advert for the ESB AllIreland Minor Football and Hurling Championships, showing the muscular lower legs of a male footballer standing on a vibrant green pitch. Beneath the grass, a flourishing set of roots grows from each football boot.   3 Themes of father–son relationships and rites of passage to manhood underpin the recent GAA/Vodafone advert, based on excerpts from Rudyard Kipling’s poem ‘If ’ as well as the GAA Allstars Vodafone advert (‘Or is it something that runs deeper? Call it DNA. Better still call it GAA’). Other sponsors’ taglines such as Bank of Ireland’s ‘Ask Not What Your County Can Do For You’, Guinness’s ‘Not Men, But Giants’ and AIB’s ‘Be kith, be kin, be clan’ and ‘Belong’ are deeply suggestive of a national and masculine identity that is essential, eternal and unchanging. Elements of the mythical and the spiritual are also evident in Guinness’s ‘Free-In’ advert (‘Believe’), in which the opponents morph into pagan warriors, and in the Club Energise Sports advert (‘Fuelling the passion’), in which GAA players literally walk on water.

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Defining events

  4 See Free’s (2010) analysis of the widespread disagreements among Irish soccer supporters concerning Cork born former national team captain Roy Keane.   5 For example, Bray’s (2009) article relates the Vietnam story but concludes where Cusack awakens alongside ‘a fella’, confusedly wondering ‘Who is beside me? Where am I? S**t.’ She omits the story of his safe return to the team hotel.   6 Indeed, in January 2014 Cusack’s younger brother Conor, also a Cloyne hurler, revealed that he too is gay. He further intimated, though, that having had relationships with men and women, his sexual orientation is a complex matter: ‘I’m not sure what label society would categorise me under. Life for me is never black or white, but more about different shades of grey’ (cited in Morgan, 2014).

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Cusack, D. (2012) ‘Transcript of Dónal Óg Cusack’s speech’, Irish Times, 25 August. Donnelly, K. (2012) ‘Gay GAA star stands up to bullies’, Irish Independent, 3 March. Dunphy, R. (1997) ‘Sexual identities, national identities: the politics of gay law reform in the Republic of Ireland’, Contemporary Politics 3(3): 247–65. Farrelly, H. (2009) ‘Rugby likely to stay firmly in the closet’, Irish Independent, 23 October. Forsyth, P. (2009) ‘Out on his own’, Scotland on Sunday, 27 December. Free, M. (2010) ‘Antihero as national icon? The contrariness of Roy Keane as fantasy embodiment of the ‘new Ireland’, in P. Dine and S. Crosson (eds) Sport, Representation and Evolving Identities in Europe, Bern: Peter Lang, 189–212. Humphries, T. (2009) ‘Dónal Óg Cusack: “There was no torment or agonising”: Ireland’s first openly gay sports star tells Tom Humphries why he decided to come out’, The Observer, 15 November. Jasinski, J. (2001) Sourcebook on Rhetoric: Key Concepts in Contemporary Rhetorical Studies, London: Sage. McDevitt, P. F. (1997) ‘Muscular Catholicism: nationalism, masculinity and Gaelic team sports, 1884–1916’, Gender and History, 9(2): 262–84. McGrath, S. (2009) ‘Dónal Óg: Yes, I’m gay’, The Irish Mail on Sunday, 18 October. McManus, D. (2009) ‘Brave move, but has anything changed?’, Irish Independent, 24 October. Morgan, G. (2014) ‘Former hurler follows brother Dónal Óg Cusack by revealing he is gay’, Irish Independent, 28 January. Murray, N. (2012) ‘Cusack stands up to homophobic bullies’, Irish Examiner, 3 March. Nash, C. (1996) ‘Men again: Irish masculinity, nature, and nationhood in the early twentieth century’, Ecumene, 3(4): 427–53. Neary, A. (2013) ‘Lesbian and gay teachers’ experiences of “coming out” in Irish schools’, British Journal of Sociology of Education, 34(3): 583–602. O’Carroll, G. (2009) ‘GAA must now show support for Dónal Óg’, Evening Herald, 21 October. Phelan, A. (2009) ‘My teammates helped me through ordeal of coming out – Donal Óg’, Herald.ie, 19 October. Plummer, D. (2006) ‘Sportophobia: why do some men avoid sport?’, Journal of Sport and Social Issues, 30(2): 122–37. RTÉ (2009a) The Late Late Show, RTÉ, 23 October. RTÉ (2009b) The Late Late Show, RTÉ, 9 November. Ryan, P. (2003) ‘Coming out, fitting in: the personal narratives of some Irish gay men’, Irish Journal of Sociology, 12(2): 68–85. Sharrock, D. (2009) ‘Rebel rocks hurling to the core’, Ottawa Citizen, 4 November. Simpson, M. (1994) ‘Here come the mirror men’, The Independent, 15 November. Southall, R. M., Nagel, M. S., Anderson, E. D., Polite, F. G., and Southall, C. (2009) ‘An investigation of male college athletes’ attitudes toward sexual-orientation’, Journal of Issues in Intercollegiate Athletics, 2(Special Issue): 62–77. Sweeney, E. (2010) ‘Narrow minds in high places’, Sunday Independent, 5 December. Tóibín, C., and Dooley, M. (2009) ‘Villanelle for Dónal Óg’, http://goo.gl/MqIhti (retrieved 1 October 2013) Walshe, E. (2009) ‘A Trojan horse for unsettling Irish male identities’, Irish Times, 29 October.

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Index

activist video 20, 25 Agamben, Georgio 90–1, 98 Age Action Ireland (AAI) 163, 165, 174 ageism and the older people’s uprising 173–4 Ahern, Bertie 200 Ahern, Dermot 137 Aliens Act (1905) 75 Allen, Kieran 172 Allied Irish Bank (AIB) 146 alternative media 16, 21 Amaechi, John 220, 231–2 American National Parks Service Common Ground 38 Amnesty International 186 An Bord Pleanála 91, 100 An Cosán, 53, 54 Anderson, Eric ‘inclusive masculinity’ 220, 223 In the Game 220 ‘orthodox masculinity’ 223 Anglo Irish Bank (Anglo) 97, 143, 145, 148, 157n.4 ‘Anglo Tapes’ 146, 156n.1 ‘Anglo Not Our Debt’ 151 An Taisce 44 Anti-Social Behaviour Act (2003) 107 anti-social behaviour discourses 112 Anti-Racism Campaign 81 Archbishop of Dublin 94 Arnold, Bruce 207 ASBO Concern 107, 108 Atlantic Philanthropies 53–4, 111, 162 attachment to place 37–8 attitudes to equality in Ireland 190 austerity politics 27, 151 anti-welfarism and 171 Australian Human Rights and Equal Opportunity

Commission ‘Stolen Children’ inquiry 186 Bank of Ireland 146 Barron, Richard 131 Bear Stearns 144, 155 Behan, Joe 164, 171, 175 Belong To Stand Up! Awareness week Against Homophobic Bullying 229, 230 Bishop, Des 229 Blyth, Mark 143, 151 Boland, Eavan 93 Bourdieu, Pierre, and Wacquant, Loïc 106, 107, 109, 110, 111 Boym, Svetlana 94 Brady, Conor 138 Buckley, Christine 201 Burke-Kennedy Doyle (BKD) 99, 100 Bush, George 23 Campaign Against a Racist Referendum (CARR) 81 Campaign for a Real Public Health Service 163 Carrigan Report 108 Castlethorn Development 95, 97 O’Reilly, Joe and 97 Central Bank 145, 146 Century Radio 15 Children and Family Relationships Bill, 65 Chomsky, Noam and Herman, Edward propaganda model 15 Christian Brothers of Ireland 202, 209 citizenship acquisition 72 ‘commonsense citizenship’ 82 criteria 70

237

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Index EU citizenship regimes 84, 86n.2 Citizenship Act (2001) 71, 74, 77, 85 Citizenship Act (2005) 70, 74, 83–4 Civil Marriage Act Canada 52 Civil Partnership Act (2010) 52, 58, 65, 66, 185 Civil Registration Act (2004) 53, 65 Clarke, John New Labour 10 ‘subordination of the social’ 166 Clearing House Group 154 clientelism 33, 55 clientelist norms in Irish politics 5, 162, 163, 167, 175, 177 Coalition Against ASBOs (CAA) 115–16, 120 Cohen, Ben 229 Collins, Jason 220 Combat Poverty Agency 147, 183, 189 Comhlámh 19 Commercial broadcasting media 15 Commission to Inquire in Child Abuse (CICA) 200, 201 Commission on Liquor Licensing 185 Community Media Network (CMN) 16, 23 Mick McCaughan 19 Community radio 15 compartmentalised thinking 38–9 complaints against the gardaí 133 Conboy, Patricia 174–5 Connell, Robert Hegemonic masculinity 223 Connolly, Claire 95 Consultation Paper on the Rights and Duties of Cohabitants 58 consumption in Ireland 90 Inglis, Tom and 90 Lynch, David and 90 Corcoran, Brian 221 Coughlan, Mary 170 Council of Europe’s European Landscape Convention (2000) 37 counter-conduct 172–5 Foucault, Michel and 173 resistance in Ireland and 173 county homes 206 Cousins, Mel ‘budget cycles’ 167 Covell, Mark 20 Cowen, Brian 146, 147, 171 Cox, Laurence 172–3 credit crunch 145 Credit Institutions Financial Support Scheme (CIFS) 146, 157n.5 Crime and Disorder Act (CDA) 1998, 107

Criminal Justice Act (1985) 130 Criminal Justice Act (2006) 106, 119 Crowley, Niall 181, 185, 186, 187, 190 Cuffe, Ciaran 80 Cullen, Martin 40, 41, 44 Cullihane, Brian 44 Curran, Richard Future Shock – Property Crash 43 Cusack, Conor 234n.6 Cusack, Donal Óg An Phoblacht Summer School 230 Foyle Pride Festival speech 230 hypermasculinity 223 LGBT rights movement 229–30 life as a gay man 226 orthodox masculinity 223 Cusack, Michael 221 Daley, Tom 220 Danson, Mike 169 Davidson, Arnold 173 Dear Daughter 201 Death, Carl 174 Debord, Guy 90 ‘society of the spectacle’ and 2 Defense of Marriage Act (1996) 55 defining events 2–4 Department of Arts, Culture and the Gaeltacht 40 Department of Education 200, 209, 214 Department of Health 209, 241 desacralisation 33 Discovery 2000 Conference St Louis 38–9 Domestic Violence Act (1996) 58 Donzelot, Jacques 176 Dooley, Maura 221 Dublin Grassroots Network 23 McCarthy, Dec and 23–4 Dublin People 94 Dúchas 40, 44, 45 Duff, Frank 209 Dundrum News 92 Dunne, Ms Justice Elizabeth 53 écoumène 38 Employment Equality Acts (1998–2011) 182 Enright, Anne 94 Equality and Rights Alliance (ERA) 181 Equality Authority 76 as an agent of social change 186 equality of condition and 193 equality of opportunity and 194 liberal egalitarianism and 193–4 structural inequality and 194

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238 equality legislation individual redress model 182 liberal egalitarianism 193 equality movement and strategic pluralism 195 equality of opportunity 194–5 Equality Tribunal 182, 183, 185 Equal Status Acts (2000–12) 182 Esteva, Gusto 7 EU crime policy 117–19 European Court of Human Rights 132 ‘experience economy’ 98 Fagan, Father Sean 206 ‘Fajujonu ruling’ 76, 79 Family Law (Divorce) Act (1996) 58 Farrelly, Hugh 232 Fashanu, Justin 220–1 Fianna Fáil 13, 154 neo-liberalism 192 stroke politics 167 Zero Tolerance Policing 114 Fianna Fáil/Progressive Democrat government (1997–2007) 44 financialisation 152–3 Ireland 153–5 light touch regulation 154 corporate tax 155 corporate welfare 155 of urban space 97 Financial Regulator 145, 146 Fine Gael bank guarantee 147 health policy and medical card entitlement 176 Ireland – A Night in the Life 116 neo-liberalism 192 FitzPatrick, Sean 143, 157n.4 fixing ‘broken windows’ 113 ‘folk knowledge’ and industrial and reformatory schools 203 Foucault, Michel governmentality 173 ‘Society Must Be Defended’ 76 ‘state racism’ 75–6 see also counter-conduct Fox, Jackie and Sarah Quinn 174 Framework Convention on the Value of Cultural Heritage for Society (2005) 37 Franklin, Phonsie 169 ‘free culture movement’ 18 ‘free software’ 18 Freire, Paulo 19 GAA

Index community 222–3 concept of Irish manhood 222 Garda Commissioner 132, 133 Garda controversies 125 Garda Síochána Act (2005) 132 Garda Síochána (Complaints) Act (1986) 130 Garda Síochána Complaints Board (GSCB) a cause for complaint 130 creation of 130 Morris Tribunal and 131–2 Garda Síochána Ombudsman Commission (GSOC) accountability 137 creation of 132 delays in the complaints process 136 Morris Tribunal 132 public interest investigations 135 resource issues 134–5 Gay Community News 54 Gay Ireland 218 Gay and Lesbian Equality Network (GLEN) 52, 54, 55, 57, 64, 65, 219 Genoa protests 19–20 Berlusconi’s Mousetrap and 20, 25n.5, 28 Gilligan, Ann Louise 6, 8, 52, 53, 65 Gilligan, Robbie ‘public child’ and ‘private child’ 207–8 Gilmore, Eamon 163 Giroux, Henri 100 Giuliani, Carlo 19 Global Indymedia 17 Goldberg, David ‘racial state’ 75 Good Friday Agreement 71, 77, 80, 81, 82, 132 Good Shepherd Sisters 204, 205 Goodwin, Frank 181 Gormley, John 147 Gorz, André 103 Governmentality 173,174 see also Foucault, Michel Goss, Jon ‘The Mall of America’ 102 Green Party and the Citizenship Referendum 80, 81 ‘growth friendly fiscal consolidation’ 149 ‘Gruen Transfer’ 102 Gruen, Victor 97–8 Halappanavar, Savita 27 Hall, Stuart 6 Harney, Mary 163, 164, 171 Harvey, David 95, 191 Health Service Executive (HSE) 164, 185

239

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Index hegemony 12 heritage landscapes 36 Brú na Bóinne World Heritage Site 36 Heritage Services 40 Higgins, Joe 80 Higgins, Michael D. 32, 40, 48 Hill of Tara 33–4 Dinshenchas Eireann 33 Discovery Programme 34, 47 hieros gamos 34 Seamus Heaney 34 Hizlsperger, Thomas 220 Hoctor, Máire 163 Hogan, Phil 192 Hoggett, Paul 171 homophobia in organised sport 219–21, 230–1 Plummer, David 231 ‘sportobhobia’ 231 state-sanctioned 56 Hua, Cai 59 Humphries, Tom 218, 228 Hunt, Marie 43 identity Irish identity 8–9 GAA and 221–3 Irishness and the 2005 Citizenship Act, 83 national identity 8 Institute of Charity Rosminians 209 institutional abuse corporal punishment 211 Goffman, Erving 212 Ignatieff, Michael 212 inquiries 211 Australian inquiry 213 methodological limitations 212–3 oral testimony 212 Swedish inquiry 212, 213 UK residential care 213 immigration to Ireland 77–8 IMPACT 186 independent media 16, 19 independent media centre 12n., 23, 24 ‘infotainment’ 15 International Financial Services Centre (IFSC) 99, 100, 153 ‘Irish-born children’ 71, 79, 80, 83, 86n.1 Irish ‘common sense’ 115 Irish Constitution 1992 Constitution 71 Citizenship Referendum 70, 71, 85 Good Friday Agreement 77

marriage and 53, 57 protection of the family 53, 76 Irish Council for Civil Liberties 65, 81 Irish Human Rights Commission (IHRC) 181 Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission (IHREC) 181, 195 Irish Left 21, 172, 190 Irish Medical Organisation (IMO) 164, 171 Irish National and Citizenship Act (1935) 71 Irish Refugee Council 81 Irish Senior Citizens Parliament (ISCP) 162, 163, 164, 165, 168, 174 Irish Times 92, 163, 176, 202–3, 228 Irish welfare policy and ideology of charity 190 see also universalism, means-testing Jameson, Frederic 91, 101 Jesuit Fathers 201 Joyce, David 181, 187 Judicial Separation and Family Law Reform Act (1989) 58 KAL case 51, 52–5, 64 Kelly, Mary 24–5 Kelly, Morgan 43, 147 Kennedy, Sr Stanislaus 206 Kenny, Enda 1, 162 Klein, Naomi 149 Kulynych, Jessica dual meaning of demonstration 164 Labour Party 80, 129 bank guarantee 147 medical card entitlement 176 neo-liberalism 192 Taking Back the Neighbourhood 116, 117 Laffoy, Ms Justice Mary 200 Latin American Solidarity Centre 19 Lee, Margaret 208 Lefebvre, Henri 92 Lehman Brothers 145, 162 Lenihan, Brian 1, 146, 147, 151, 162, 166, 169–70 lesbian families 60–1 liberal egalitarianism 193 Lismullin 40, 47 Liveline 163 Lloyd, David 100 Lord, Miriam 162 Loreto Nuns 210 Lynch, Kevin 94 Magdalene laundries 13, 204, 205 McAleese report 204

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240 Maguire, Moira 207 Maintenance Act (1994) 58 marriage critiques of marriage 59–62 family 51 heterosexist relations 51 heterosexual marriage, 55 Irish state 57–9 MarriagEquality 52, 54, 57, 65–6 Mayday 2004 and Irish Indymedia 23–4 McCarthy, Colm 162 McConnell, Roisin 124, 131 McCreevy, Charlie 166, 167, 171 McDevitt Patrick 222 McDonnell, Finola 181 McDonnell, Orla 165 McDowell, Michael 79, 81, 85, 107, 114–15, 119, 137, 187 McGrath, Finian 164 MacSharry, Marc 147 means-testing 165–6 see also universalism Meehan, Silvia 163 mental asylums 206 Mercy Sisters 204 Merrill Lynch 146, 156–7n.2 Merriman, Brian 181 Metro Éireann 78 Mitcham, Matthew 220 Minihan, John 80 Moloney, John 163 Moran, Justin 22 Morgan, David ‘family practices’ 61–2, 65 mother and baby homes 205, 206 Mullholland, Marc 22 Murphy, Mary 166 Nash, Catherine 221 National Assets Management Agency (NAMA) 97, 148, 157n.7 National Consultative Committee on Racism and Interculturalism (NCCRI) 78, 79, 82 National Council for Civil Liberties 129 National Lesbian and Gay Federation (NLGF) 53 National Museum of Ireland 41 National Monuments Act 40–1, 44 National Monuments Service Carrickmines Castle 41 response to the impact of the M3 motorway 41–4 National Roads Authority 40 response to the impact of the M3 motorway

Index 41–5 National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) 206 neo-liberal city 91 neo-liberalism austerity politics 27 contradictions 143, 144, 149–50 New Labour and anti-social behaviour 113 ‘new managerialism’ 191 policies 10 in practice 150 social partnership 13, 166–7, 191 universalism 176 No Country for Old Men 176 Noonan, Michael 156 Northern Rock 145 Oblates of Mary Immaculate 209 O’Carroll, Jerry 228 O’Carroll, Paddy 167 O’Dea Willie 163, 185 O’Donnell, Ian 105 O’Donovan, Órla 165 Ó hAilpín, Seán Óg 219, 226 O’Keeffe, John 42, 43 Older and Bolder 174 Onyeljelem, Chinedu 78 Order of our Lady of Charity 205 O’Reilly, Emily 94 O’Reilly, Tony 14 O’Rourke, Daire 42 O’Rourke, Mary 170 O’Sullivan, Eoin 105 O’Sullivan, Tadhg 185 O’Toole, Fintan 167 O’Toole, Shane 92 Our Love Out Loud 53 Owens, Nigel 220 patriarchal Irish state 208 Peck, Jamie 144, 149, 150, 156 ‘preservation by record’ 45 Progressive Democrats neo-liberalism 192 pro-natalist social policy 83 Police Reform Act (2002) 107 Police accountability 126–9 definitions 127 exercise of discretion 126 Patten Commission 127 democratic accountability 128 financial accountability 128 legal accountability 127–8

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Index transparency 128 ‘policing by consent’ 126 policy transfer 109–11 coercive 110 cultural imperialism 110 voluntary 110 power as a capacity 4 corporate 150, 153 media and 14 Equality Authority exercise of 182–3, 186 Foucauldian conceptions 4–5, 173 hegemony and 12–13 ideology 5–6 ‘people power’ and the Older People’s Uprising 162–5 police 126–7 Power, Jim 43 Presentation Sisters 209 Public Order Act (1994) 119 public–private partnership 34, 96, 97 protest against 21, 93 queerness in sport 231 Barkham, Patrick 231 Saux, Graeme le 231 Rabbitte, Pat 119 ‘race’ as a social construct 72–3 racialisation 73 immigration policies 74 the state 75 Eric Voegelin, 75 Raftery, Mary 187 see also States of Fear Reclaim the Streets protest 20 Referendum Commission 82 reformatory and industrial schools history 204–5 role of Catholic Church 205–6, 207–8 role of families 206, 210 role of state 207, 209 Reilly, Edward 185 Reilly, James 167–8 rentier class 153, 154 rescue archaeology 45 research excavation 46 Residents Against Racism 81 resistance 2, 3, 4, 6–8, 11, 132 absence of 39, 153 Foucaldian concept of 173 gardaí resistance to GSOC 137, 138 institutional resistance 62, 127

241 internet and indymedia as resistance tools 25 Older People’s Uprising and 162, 165, 172, 173, 174, 177 to the Equality Authority 184, 192 Roche, Dick 44 Rogers, Robbie 220 Roosevelt, Theodore 82–3 Rose, Nikolas ‘advanced liberalism’ 169 patriotism 170 Rossi, Aldo 98 ‘Rossport recordings’ 27 RTÉ 14–15, 27 Ryan, Mr Justice Sean 200 Ryan, Paul 223 sacral landscape 34 same-sex marriage 51 Convention on the Constitution (2013) 65 opposition to 56 Shanahan, Frances 43 Shannon airport 24 Shatter, Alan 65 137 Sheehan, Brian 219 Shell 14, 25 Shell to Sea 125,135 Simpson, Mark ‘metrosexuality’ 224 Sinn Féin 80, 81 bank guarantee 147 Citizenship Referendum 81 Sisters of Charity 204 Sisters of Charity of St Vincent de Paul 209 Sisters of Mercy 209 Sisters of Our Lady of Charity 204 Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and Mary 205–6 Smith, Neil 93 social partnership 5,13, 16, 174, 191 see also neo-liberalism Socialist Workers Party 22 state censorship 12 States of Fear 201 St Vincent’s Industrial School (Goldenbridge) 201 Tara 32–5 The Late Late Show 12, 228, 229, 230 Ryan Tubridy 228, 229 Therborn, Goran 3 The State We Are In: If These Stones Could Speak 43 Thomas, Gareth 220, 232 Titmuss, Richard 170

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242 see also universalism Toibín, Colm 221 Trans people 183 Travellers 183, 184–5, 192 Tribunals Flood 15 Mahon 15, 96 Moriarty 15 Morris 124, 125 see also Garda Síochána Complaints Board; Garda Síochána Ombudsman Commission two-tier health service 165 Ugba, Abel 78 UK Commission for Racial Equality (CRE) 186 UK Equality and Human Rights Commission 186 universalism austerity 169 means-testing 168 principle 168 Richard Titmuss 168 University College Dublin School of Archaeology 47 unofficial knowledge 13 Varadkar, Leo 35 Vintners’ Federation of Ireland 184–5, 192 Wacquant, Loïc 111, 117 see also Bourdieu, Pierre; Wacquant, Loïc Walshe, Eibhear 226 Webster, Robin 168 Wireless and Telegraphy Act (1988) 15 Workers Solidarity Movement 172 World Trade Organisation 17 Yeats, W.B. 34 Zappone, Katherine 6, 8, 52, 53, 65 Zero Tolerance Policing (ZTP) 112

Index