Introduction

232
Melanie Swiatloch
Despite these quite clear arrangements of rather British or rather Irish identities
not every person that considers himself/herself Irish prefers the reunion with
Ireland. According to Mulholland 41 per cent of Catholics were against it and six
per cent said they would abstain from voting in 1972. In 2001, however, 59 per
cent of Catholics were in favour of a reunion. By comparison only two per cent of
Protestants would prefer that option (Mulholland 147). Concerning politics on
both Protestant and Catholic sides almost 90 per cent vote for unionist or nationalist
parties respectively (ibid. 148).
Waddell’s and Cairn’s surveys cover the period between 1968 until the end of
the 1980s and early 1990s. Caldwell, Madden and McLiam Wilson continue analysing
the development of Northern Irish identities, however, in the sense that
clear statements concerning community belonging as shown in Waddell’s and
Cairn’s surveys are no longer that easy to make. People are subject to transformation
and community structures are beginning to adjust gradually. Thereby, each
author puts a different emphasis of change of identity on the characters. Jake, for
instance, calls himself a “reformed character” (McLiam Wilson 193), which indicates
a conversion he has undergone. Having experienced a bad childhood with
“povertystuff” and “Irishstuff” (ibid. 103) which Jake does not explain any further,
his foster-parents Matt and Mamie have turned him into a “human being”
(ibid. 105). He used to be involved in fighting but has given it up (ibid. 86). Instead,
Jake has become quite a sympathetic character who not only cares for his
cat (although he often expresses his dislike for it) but also for the twelve year old
Roche. He believes in “Rousseau and the Social Contract, the natural right and the
social right” instead of people going out and getting what they want (ibid. 181).
Danine Farquharson talks about an “ethical drive that underlies the story” of
Eureka Street; namely that “empathy can stop violence” (Farquharson 66). This
idea leads her to Immanuel Kant’s categorical imperative and that “empathy is a
way of identifying with as many fellow humans as possible in order to participate
in a common moral sense” (ibid. 72). Jake thus undoubtedly has found a way out
of the sectarian stubbornness that accompanied the Troubles. With his best friend
Chuckie being a Protestant he is on the right way of becoming the “New Irish”
(McLiam Wilson 164) he imagines (see quotation in the introduction). In terms of
identity as described by Waddell and Cairns he still thinks of himself as being Irish
although not as openly as Aoirghe does (ibid. 98). Asked by her “Don’t you consider
yourself Irish?” he simply answers, “Sweetheart, I don’t consider myself at
all” (ibid. 98). But a few lines below he says “being Irish” (ibid. 98). This again
indicates an inbetween state of identity. On the one hand Jake is aware of his Irish
roots but on the other hand he is not willing to live solely with this identity. For
him times of radical nationalism and fanatic unionism are over. This becomes also
clear in the poetry reading he attends (which has been already mentioned earlier in
a different context). Again Jake is highly cynic about the happenings. Although
being Irish himself he cannot hear anymore about a romanticised Ireland. His