Ghosts of the Somme

Jonathan Evershed is a postdoctoral research fellow in the department of Government and Politics, University College Cork, and a visiting fellow at the Institute of Irish Studies, Queen's University Belfast.

"For Evershed, it is important to understand what commemoration means to people who feel left behind, people who feel that the past was far better than an uncertain future. . . . The result is a book well-worth reading." —Slugger O'Toole". . . a thoughtful and provocative exploration of Loyalist discourses of memory in the new (post-Belfast Agreement) Northern Ireland. . . there is no denying that Evershed has written something introspective and unique." —Irish Political Studies"A rich, vivid, complex analysis, at once both empathetic and critical, that provides real insight into the contradictions of working-class loyalism, the invented tradition of the Somme commemorations as a central element of the 'culture war' of 'post-conflict' Northern Ireland, and the difficulties and possibilities of social transformation in the landscape of the post-industrial city." —Mark McGovern, Edge Hill University"The author draws on a theoretical framework strongly influenced by Jacques Derrida and locates his work in debates about memory . . . most of the book is centered around interviews with those invoived in loyalist commemoration and the author's own experience of these. . . . Evershed's book provides a template that other scholars should follow as they interrogate the diverse commemorative agendas of our centenary decade." —History Ireland"Jonathan Evershed's work demonstrates the value of an ethnographical study of commemorative practices in a divided society. Significantly, he engages with Loyalist social memory on its own terms, bringing intellectual curiosity and openness to his subject. This allows Evershed to provide a deeper understanding of the role of commemoration in the construction and assertion of Protestant, Unionist, and Loyalist identity and illustrates the multiple ways in which recourse to the past is freighted with the politics and economics of the present." —Roisín Higgins, Teesside University"In providing an incisive thick description of the centennial commemorations of the decimation of the 36th (Ulster) Division at the Battle of the Somme—a foundation myth of Ulster unionism—Jonathan Evershed deftly reveals how grassroots remodeling of Protestant-Loyalist social remembrance feeds into a culture war, which continues to unsettle Northern Ireland in a charged political climate that has too-readily been hailed as 'post-conflict.'" —Guy Beiner, author of Remembering the Year of the French: Irish Folk History and Social Memory

• ForewordAcknowledgementsList of FiguresList of TablesList of AcronymsIntroduction1. (Re)theorising Commemoration2. 'What does it mean to follow a ghost?': Locating 'the field' and the ethics of empathy3. Policy, peacebuilding and 'the past' during the Decade of Centenaries4. Peace as Defeat: Loyalism and 'culture war' in the 'new' Northern Ireland5. 'Our culture is their bravery': Commemoration and the 'culture war'6. The Golden Age: Memory work and Loyalism's conflicted hauntology7. Dupes no more? Loyalist commemoration and the politics of peacebuildingPostscript: All changed, changed utterly?Bibliography