Northern Ireland a Generation After Good Friday: Lost Futures and New Horizons in the 'Long Peace'

The Good Friday Agreement is celebrated as a political success story, but the truth is more complicated. Northern Irish society has changed, but it still operates in the long shadow of its past. The transition to peace has revealed new forms of violence directed towards women, ethnic minorities, and the poor. Northern Ireland a generation after Good Friday offers a critical and comprehensive reading of a society that appears to have left its violent past behind but remains subject to its gravitational pull.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 312 pages
Publication date: 06 July 2021
Publisher: Manchester University Press

The Good Friday Agreement is widely celebrated as a political success story, one that has brought peace to a region that was once synonymous around the globe with political violence. The truth, as ever, is rather more complicated than that. In many respects, the era of the peace process has seen Northern Irish society change almost beyond recognition. Those incidents of politically motivated violence that were once commonplace have become thankfully rare, and a new generation has emerged whose identities and interests are rather more fluid and cosmopolitan than those of their predecessors. However, Northern Ireland continues to operate in the long shadow of its own turbulent past. Those who were victims of violence, as well as those who were its agents, have often been consigned to the margins of a society still struggling to cope with the traumas of the Troubles. Furthermore, the transition to 'peace has revealed the existence of new, and not so new, forms of violence in Northern Irish society, directed towards women, ethnic minorities, and the poor.

Northern Ireland a generation after Good Friday sets out to capture the complex, and often contradictory, realities that have emerged more than two decades on from the regions vaunted peace deal. Across nine original essays, the authors offer a critical and comprehensive reading of a society that often appears to have left its violent past behind but at the same time remains subject to its gravitational pull.

Weight: 480g
Dimension: 154 x 235 x 20 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781526139283