Durkheim and National Identity in Ireland ― Applying the Sociology of Knowledge and Religion

Durkheim and National Identity in Ireland uses the classical sociology of Durkheim, in association with established theories of nation formation, to explore the development of opposed national identities in Ireland and Northern Ireland. James Dingley looks at Catholicism, the core of Irish nationalist identity, and draws upon its established sociological association of pre-industrial, rural peasant society and culture. By contrast, Dingley reviews Protestantism as the core of Ulster identity, with the equal association of industrial, scientific society, as the key elements in explaining why Ulster Unionists evolved an opposed and incompatible culture and identity to Irish nationalism. These underlying religious philosophies of Catholicism and Protestantism illustrate how religion acted as a symbolic representation of socio-economic separate development, and examine a Durkheimian analysis as an alternative approach to conflict resolution in Northern Ireland.

James Dingley is a sociologist who has researched terrorism and nationalism at the University of Ulster, UK, and Queen's University Belfast, Ireland. He is former Head of Department of Business and Management, University of Kurdistan-Hawler, Iraq, and Chairman of the Francis Hutcheson Institute, Belfast, Ireland. He has published widely in major international journals and this is his fifth book in the area of terrorism and nationalism.