Identity, Ideology and Conflict. The Structuration of Politics in Northern Ireland.(Review)

There are two ways, at least, for historians to approach Identity, Ideology and Conflict. The Structuration of Politics in Northern Ireland, by John Daniel Cash (Cambridge: U.P., 1996; pp. x +230. 30 [pounds sterling]). One, the most tempting, is to leave out the less familiar bits, the hermeneutics and suchlike, and get on with the historical and political discussion. The second is to at least try to wrestle with the unfamiliar sections, in the hope that they offer new concepts that can be applied to the understanding of ideology in politics, and to the Northern Ireland question in particular. It would be unjust to take the former course; and indeed the discussion of the …