Citation

McDowell W. Stud. Ethn. Nation. 2009; 9(1): 89-112.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2009, Association for the Study of Ethnicity and Nationalism, Publisher John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

10.1111/j.1754-9469.2009.01030.x

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

This paper, which emanates from the field of theatre studies, examines plays written by Belfast writer Gary Mitchell in and around the time of the Good Friday (Belfast) Agreement of 1998. Mitchell occupies a unique position in Irish theatre, being the first playwright to emerge from and offer a dramatic critique of paramilitary-dominated Loyalist communities. Central to the paper is the argument that Mitchell offers a set of important insights into how such communities reflect academic debates around masculinities, imagined national communities and the relationship between masculinity and violence. The paper looks at three plays which received premieres around the time of the Belfast agreement and utilises the theoretical approaches offered by proponents of hegemonic masculinity as well as post-Foucauldian thinkers.