Dr Caroline Magennis gave this talk ‘”History exists in your body”: The Legacy of Nationalist Biopolitics in Culture’ at the 'Rethinking the 1980/81 Hunger Strike' symposium on 27 June 2016 at the University of Notre Dame's London Campus. This symposium was co-organised by Dr Alison Garden and Maggie Scull.

For more information on the symposium: https://rethinkingthehungerstrikes.wordpress.com/

Dr Magennis owns the copyright to this content.

Dr Caroline Magennis: 'The Legacy of Nationalist Biopolitics in Culture’

Dr Stephen Hopkins gave this talk '"Our Whole History has been Ruined!" Bobby Sands, the 1981 Hunger Strike and the Politics of Republican Memory' at the 'Rethinking the 1980/81 Hunger Strike' symposium on 27 June 2016 at the University of Notre Dame's London Campus. This symposium was co-organised by Dr Alison Garden and Maggie Scull.

For more information on the symposium: rethinkingthehungerstrikes.wordpress.com/

Dr Hopkins owns the copyright to this content.

Dr Stephen Hopkins: 'Bobby Sands, the 1981 Hunger Strike and the Politics of Republican Memory'

Dr Thomas Hennessey gave this talk ‘The 1981 Hunger Strike 35 Years On’ at the 'Rethinking the 1980/81 Hunger Strike' symposium on 27 June 2016 at the University of Notre Dame's London Campus. This symposium was co-organised by Dr Alison Garden and Maggie Scull.

For more information on the symposium: rethinkingthehungerstrikes.wordpress.com/

Dr Hennessey owns the copyright to this content.

Dr Thomas Hennessey: ‘The 1981 Hunger Strike 35 Years On’

Dr Ian Miller gave this talk ‘Hunger Striking and Medical Ethics during the Troubles’ at the 'Rethinking the 1980/81 Hunger Strike' symposium on 27 June 2016 at the University of Notre Dame's London Campus. This symposium was co-organised by Dr Alison Garden and Maggie Scull.

For more information on the symposium: rethinkingthehungerstrikes.wordpress.com/

Dr Miller owns the copyright to this content.

Dr Ian Miller: '‘Hunger Striking and Medical Ethics during the Troubles’

Dr Laurence McKeown spoke on his experience of hunger striking in 1981 at the 'Rethinking the 1980/81 Hunger Strike' symposium on 27 June 2016 at the University of Notre Dame's London Campus. This symposium was co-organised by Dr Alison Garden and Maggie Scull.

For more information on the symposium: rethinkingthehungerstrikes.wordpress.com/

Dr McKeown owns the copyright to this content.

Dr Laurence McKeown on the symposium roundtable

Fr Joe McVeigh spoke on his experience of campaigning for hunger striker Bobby Sands for MP at the 'Rethinking the 1980/81 Hunger Strike' symposium on 27 June 2016 at the University of Notre Dame's London Campus. This symposium was co-organised by Dr Alison Garden and Maggie Scull.

For more information on the symposium: rethinkingthehungerstrikes.wordpress.com/

Fr McVeigh owns the copyright to this content.

Fr Joe McVeigh on the symposium roundtable

Hugh Logue spoke on his experience of attempting to end the hunger strikes as a member of the Irish Commission for Justice and Peace at the 'Rethinking the 1980/81 Hunger Strike' symposium on 27 June 2016 at the University of Notre Dame's London Campus. This symposium was co-organised by Dr Alison Garden and Maggie Scull.

For more information on the symposium: rethinkingthehungerstrikes.wordpress.com/

Mr Logue owns the copyright to this content.

Hugh Logue on the symposium roundtable

Liam McCloskey spoke on his experience of hunger striking in 1981 at the 'Rethinking the 1980/81 Hunger Strike' symposium on 27 June 2016 at the University of Notre Dame's London Campus. This symposium was co-organised by Dr Alison Garden and Maggie Scull.

For more information on the symposium: rethinkingthehungerstrikes.wordpress.com/

Mr McCloskey owns the copyright to this content.

Liam McCloskey on the symposium roundtable

Dr George Legg gave this talk ‘Medbh McGuckian and the Poetics of Biopolitical Space’ at the 'Rethinking the 1980/81 Hunger Strike' symposium on 27 June 2016 at the University of Notre Dame's London Campus. This symposium was co-organised by Dr Alison Garden and Maggie Scull.

For more information on the symposium: rethinkingthehungerstrikes.wordpress.com/

Dr Legg owns the copyright to this content.

Dr George Legg: ‘Medbh McGuckian and the Poetics of Biopolitical Space’

Funerals are an age-old, spiritual way of saying a final goodbye to loved ones. But during the Northern Ireland ‘Troubles’ they took on a far more political significance with the Irish Republican Army using them to make statements around their struggle for a United Ireland. The laying of the tricolour on coffins and the presence of armed, masked men playing a major part in funeral processions and ceremonies brought the republican organisation into conflict with the traditions of the Irish Catholic Church. Funerals were also used as a way to circumvent the ban on large public gatherings directed at the IRA and its supporters in the North. Indeed, the use of funerals as propaganda had been a source of extreme tension between the Irish Catholic Church and the IRA throughout the twentieth century but it was the 1980s when things came to a head as British security forces greatly increased the policing of these republican funerals. Violent clashes between the police and mourners regularly made the headlines as the conflict appeared to escalate. For members of the Provisional IRA, funerals provided the opportunity to publicly and ‘peacefully’ mourn the loss of a comrade while also drawing attention to their aims and objectives. The decision to use funerals in this way embroiled the Irish Catholic Church in the public debate as controversy surrounding Christian burial on consecrated ground with a full requiem mass for paramilitaries received full media scrutiny. These funerals forced the Church into the political arena, with journalists, civilians, and politicians alike asking why the Church allowed such occasions to happen. Through archival research and oral history testimony, this paper will present early findings on how republican paramilitary organisations used funerals as a means of protest. This paper is part of a wider project, which will provide the first in-depth study of funerals in conflict societies, illustrating how they can reflect or antagonise the relationship between Christian churches and paramilitary organisations.

‘Church and State: The Politics of Irish Republican Funerals’ by Dr Maggie Scull

Dr Maggie Scull is a modern historian whose work explores religious institutions, secularisation, political violence, sectarianism, and peace. She is an adjunct professor of history and politics at Syracuse University London. Previously, she held an Irish Research Council postdoctoral fellowship at NUI Galway. After graduating from Boston University, Dr Scull earned a Master’s and PhD at King’s College London while beginning her teaching career. Her interdisciplinary research explores the relationship between religion and politics in the contemporary period. Her current work examines the role of funerals throughout the conflict in Northern Ireland. Oxford University Press publishes her first book, The Catholic Church and the Northern Ireland Troubles, 1968-98, in 2019. She has been a regular contributor to the international press including the BBC, the Irish Times, and RTÉ Brainstorm.

Maggie Scull

Popular tracks