A lot has been written and said over the past month about Fleadh Cheoil na hÉireann in Belfast, culture, and partition. While being able to somewhat accurately report on the effects of the Fleadh, the majority of the commentariat struggles with an analysis of historical developments that have brought us to the current position, and the material(ist) meaning of partition.
Coinciding with the Fleadh, Féile an Phobail in Belfast traditionally hosted a number of events trying to shed light on Irish history, culture, and partition beyond the shallow ahistorical interpretations. The “Writing Belfast in the age of partition” conversation, featuring Michael Magee and Stephen O’Neill, was one such event, and the important points raised in this event are well documented in O’Neill’s newest book, Irish Culture and Partition, 1920–1955 (Liverpool University Press, 2026).
In his book, O’Neill makes an excellent effort to “restore both the genealogy and context of the cultural construction of both Irish states in the first three decades of partition” (O’Neill, p. 277) in response to Margaret O’Callaghan’s important claim that without such work “we read and reread our current discontents ahistorically and partially” (quoted in O’Neill, p. 277). O’Neill makes a solid case against a number of revisionist narratives about partition, namely ideas that partition was something inevitable, and that it represents something finished, a historical event rather than an ongoing process.
Building upon the theory of colonialism and national liberation, and the history of Ireland, O’Neill tackles these dehistoricised myths by observing their reflection in Irish culture. “Partition was not a natural development from cultural differences – it was invented, as a process and a ‘system of thought’ as Said describes Orientalism, and has shifted throughout the decades,” writes O’Neill (p. 18), and resists the interpretation of this process as a loose collection of events and snapshots on a timeline. In this process, he sees culture not as “prefiguring the states [partition] established” but as “creating ‘the condition of common sense which permits [the state’s] reproduction’,” echoing David Lloyd and Paul Thomas (p. 19).
O’Neill works his way through a large corpus of work from the first half of the 20th century and modern commentary on these works, mapping out the landscape in which these narratives emerged. Through this, he also documents a century of hegemonic push for ahistorical reading. These “appeals to oblivion” (p. 272) are a consistent feature, “occasionally considered as necessary for the health of an ongoing peace process” (p. 271), but in general pursue the myths of partition as a once-off event separating what was always meant to be separated. “The production of ‘Ulster’” (p. 91) is a recurring motif, a hegemonic process alongside “the contrapuntal fabrication of a ‘Free State’ aesthetic” (p. 3), both of which drive the hegemonic reproduction of the two “states”.
While many of O’Neill’s literary and historical references would be to an extent familiar to the reader with an interest in Irish literature and history, there is a lot of newness in the depth reached in his analysis, combined with bringing to the surface the lesser-known, but nevertheless critical, works that shed light on the hegemonic processes of production and counter-hegemonic resistance.
While O’Neill’s book is written for an academic audience, as the publishing house and, unfortunately, prohibitive price characteristic of academic presses show, the quality of the materialist analysis and historicising in it help the non-academic reader (whatever that label might describe!) navigate the text without major difficulties.
The sensible understanding of the history-making process makes the reader face critically the ahistorical myths they have been consistently exposed to elsewhere, from the pages of the newspaper of record, TV screens and podiums. Disconnected series of imaginary frames of manufactured “Ulster” and “Free State” aesthetic fall off, and what remains is a story shaped by class and colonial exploitation, a story of a living partition ingrained in the raison d’État(s).
Finally, I want to say that I will be going around telling people to read O’Neill to understand what partition and partitionism mean in the 21st century. As the obfuscation by “realism” makes rounds in the public sphere in Ireland, and revisionist takes on Irish history dominate the ether, a clear analysis such as the one presented in this book is much needed.
Get Irish Culture and Partition, 1920–1955 from a library, ask your library to stock the book, get a reading group going. “In this interim between the beginning of partition and the uncertainty of its end, it may be that we are doomed for a certain term to its history. But changing our ways of hearing, reading, and seeing partition might help to imagine a future beyond it until then” (O’Neill, p. 277).
