Inventing the Myth: Political Passions and the Ulster Protestant Imagination

This book approaches Ulster Protestantism through its theatrical and cultural intersection with politics, re-establishing a forgotten history and engaging with contemporary debates. Anchored by the perspectives of ten writers - some of whom have been notably active in political life - it uniquely examines tensions going on within. Through its exploration of class division and drama from the early twentieth century to the present, the book restores the progressive and Labour credentials of the community's recent past along with its literary repercussions, both of which appear in recent decades to have diminished. Drawing on over sixty interviews, unpublished scripts, as well as rarely-consulted archival material, it shows - contrary to a good deal of clichéd polemic and safe scholarly assessment - that Ulster Protestants have historically and continually demonstrated a vigorous creative pulse as well as a tendency towards Left wing and class politics. St. John Ervine, Thomas Carnduff, John Hewitt, Sam Thompson, Stewart Parker, Graham Reid, Ron Hutchinson, Marie Jones, Christina Reid, and Gary Mitchell profoundly challenge as well as reflect their communities. Illuminating a diverse and conflicted culture stretching beyond Orange Order parades, the weaving together of the lives and work of each of the writers highlights mutual themes and insights on their identity, as if part of some grander tapestry of alternative twentieth-century Protestant culture. Ulster Protestantism's consistent delivery of such dissenting voices counters its monolithic and reactionary reputation.

Table of Contents:
Introduction 1: Words as Weapons: Northern Ireland's Ongoing Culture Wars 2: The Strange Radicalism of Thomas Carnduff and St. John Ervine 3: John Hewitt, Sam Thompson, and a Lost Labour Culture 4: Stewart Parker, the UWC Strike of May 1974, and Prisons 5: Ron Hutchinson, Graham Reid, and the Hard Eighties 6: The Anger and Energy of Gary Mitchell 7: Loyal Women? Christina Reid and Marie Jones Conclusion

About the Author :
Connal Parr studied Modern History at the University of Oxford and obtained his PhD in Ulster Protestant politics and culture at Queen's University Belfast in 2013. He was Irish Government Senior Scholar for 2014-15 at Hertford College, Oxford, and went on to convene and teach a course on 20th Century Europe at Fordham University's London Centre from January to June 2016. In September 2016 he became Vice-Chancellor's Research Fellow in the Humanities at Northumbria University. A board member of Etcetera Theatre Company, he has published articles in Irish Studies Review, Irish Political Studies, and the Irish Review.

Review :
No one who reads this book will disagree that Parr has uncovered an entirely admirable if no doubt subsidiary tradition of left-wing, cultured, ever-despairing, ever-hopeful Protestant culture caught between classness and déclassé, reactionary and progressive. This beleaguered community has found a truly ground-breaking and sympathetic interpreter. Connal Parr's book examines the overlooked role of theatre in shaping the imagination of Northern Ireland's Protestants. It makes for lively reading, populated by colourful characters, such as the playwrights Gary Mitchell and Graham Reid, and drawn from rich archival sources. Parr also includes spirited interviews with many of his subjects, all combining to give a strong sense of the Northern Irish theatrical scene in the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. An impressive intervention in cultural history, highlighting dramatic writing from Sam Thompson to Gary Mitchell and beyond. Its one of the most important books to have been written about unionist 'identity' in Northern Ireland. [An] important and ground-breaking book...For those who genuinely seek a nuanced and detailed understanding of [the Protestant working-class in Northern Ireland,] its political and cultural dynamics over the course of the last century, they could do no better than delve into this hugely rewarding book. This is not only an excellent book to read but it is also very readable, being both well-written and informative ... This is a book that deserves to be well read by anyone with an interest in Ireland, also by those with an interest in literature and its role in conveying a message to the outside world whilst also reflecting back to ordinary people the realities of their own space. It is rooted in a wide range of primary sources, a large number of interviews and a grounding in scholarly literature on the modern social, cultural and political history of Northern Ireland. It is a courageous book in many ways ... Parr has made a major contribution to a historically and culturally sensitive understanding of that community and in particular of its combative and progressive dimensions. comprehensive and meticulously -- researched ... raises many important questions. Parr deftly utilizes the texts of these authors' writing, exploring how their work fit within and critiqued the political contexts of their time. Inventing the Myth is a scholarly book. But Parr's writing style is clear enough to be appreciated by a popular audience. unquestionably the product of many years of painstaking reading and reflection, a rarity amongst the vast splurge of books on Northern Ireland. Crammed full of original insight for scholars and students keen to rediscover the lost world of the Ulster Protestant imagination, Connal Parr has given us an indispensable addition to the very best scholarship on the intersection of culture and politics in this troubled part of the world. In exploring the social and political contexts of northern Irish Protestantism, its inheritance of dissent (what Dawn Purvis, former leader of the Progressive Unionist Party refers to as "independent thought") and linking this history to the "literary imagination" and its "connection to the theatre", Parr has opened the door on the history of creative self-questioning and critical debate that is all so often passed by.