Partitioned identities? Everyday national distinctions in Northern Ireland and the Irish state

How does political structure affect ethno-national distinction? Partitioned societies are a good test case where we can see the effects of changed socio-political circumstances on historically inherited distinction. This article takes nominally identical distinctions of nationality and religion with common historical roots and shows how they are differentially understood in two polities partitioned in 1920: Northern Ireland, a devolved region of the United Kingdom, and the Irish state. Using a data base of interviews with over 220 respondents, of which 75 in Northern Ireland, conducted between 2003 and 2006, it shows how complex, potentially totalising and exclusive ‘ethnic’ and ‘ethno-national’ divisions are built up from simpler and more permeable distinctions. Respondents interrelate the same elements into a loosely-knit symbolic structure – different in each jurisdiction – which frames expectations and discourse, and which is associated with different logics of national discourse, one focussing on personal orientation, the other on group belonging. The resultant ‘ethno-national’ distinctions function differently North and South.