Introduction

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Melanie Swiatloch
Catholic because they are in a group of similar thinking individuals. In Eureka
Street Aoirghe is also backed up by a group in form of the Just Us (although she
has the guts to say what she thinks when she is on her own, too). Ronnie knows
he can run down other people like Catholics and people with a migration background
because he is supported by his Protestant colleagues. Jake and Rajinder
can hardly speak up to him because they are simply outnumbered by them. The
Irish poetry reading Jake and his friends attend is also of relevance because here
the aim is to identify as a group that shares the same myths in contrast to the
Protestant residents of Northern Ireland. All these examples illustrate ingroup
members comparing themselves as a group to an outgroup as described by Gallagher.
In Where They Were Missed both scenarios are shown. While living in Belfast Saoirse
and Daisy are bullied by the other children in their street because Saoirse and
Daisy are the only ones with a Catholic background. After having moved to the
south of Ireland one could assume that Saoirse would now belong to the ingroup
of Catholics living there. Instead, she feels as an outsider again. As already stated
the difference of Jake, Chuckie, Saoirse and Cate lies in the fact that they do not
join either nationalist or unionist groups and thus do not take a clear stand. This
detail allows them to think beyond their own cultural horizon and paves the way
for Jake’s vision of the New Irish.
4.1. Areas of Conflict
“Cities are simple things. They are conglomerations of
people. Cities are complex things. They are the geographical
and emotional distillations of whole nations.”
Eureka Street, Robert McLiam Wilson
(1996, 215)
Segregation in Northern Ireland is largely an urban conflict that arose already in
the nineteenth century. Concerning the twentieth century Boal and Livingstone on
the basis of data illustrating the percentage distribution of Protestants and Catholics
in Belfast show that in 1911 59 per cent of the citizens were living in almost
completely segregated areas with an increase in numbers to 67 per cent in 1969
and 77 per cent in 1972. By contrast to general models of urban social relationships
between interethnic groups the numbers do not show an expected decline;
the source seems evidently to be the harsh outbreak of intensified unrest during
the time of the Civil Rights Marches and afterwards (164ff).
One of the Belfast areas best known for conflict is the zone between the Protestant
Shankill area to the north and the Catholic Falls area to the south (both are
situated in West Belfast). Dispute and tension in this part of town – where two