“You can’t grab anything with a closed fist”: Reflections on Ulster Protestant Identity in Derek Lundy’s Men That God Made Mad

Résumé En Fr

In Ireland and within Irish studies itself, considerable effort has been expended in the attempt to disclose the complex interaction between past conflicts and contemporary attempts to recoup their significance in the present. Derek Lundy´s Men that God Made Mad: A Journey Through Truth, Myth and Terror in Northern Ireland a work of non-fiction published in 2006, is an invaluable and timely contribution to our understanding of the selectivity of national memory and the indelible link that exists between familial remembrance and its communal counterpart. A generically hybrid work, part historical investigation, part memoir, Lundy’s text combines a blend of meticulous research with autobiographical snapshots, interspersed with an exploration of the connection between personal and collective identities. Claiming that “the lives of my ancestors resonate in the very core of Ulster history” Lundy uses the lives of three such ancestors as a prism through which to examine the standard, received stories of myth and history so prominent within the Ulster Protestant tradition. Moreover, my article will seek to show how Lundy, through an engagement with his own personal background as a member of an Ulster Protestant family, positions himself in a metaphorical space where individual memory, cultural allegiance and concepts of the self merge.

En Irlande et dans le domaine des études irlandaises, un effort considérable a été fait dans le but de dégager un sens des conflits du passé. L'ouvrage non-fictionnel de Derek Lundy, Men that God Made Mad: A Journey Through Truth, Myth and Terror in Northern Ireland, paru en 2006, contribue de façon précieuse et opportune à notre compréhension d'une mémoire nationale et atteste d'un lien indélébile entre souvenirs familiaux et sociétaux. Génériquement hybride, le texte de Lundy participe à la fois des mémoires et du travail d'investigation historique. Illustrée de clichés photographiques personnels, cette recherche explore le lien entre identités individuelle et collective. Parce que Lundy considère que la vie de ses ancêtres résonne dans le coeur même de l'histoire de l'Ulster, il examine des récits mythiques et historiques majeurs de la tradition protestante nord-irlandaise à travers la vie de trois de ses aïeux. En tant que membre d'une famille protestante d'Ulster, il se situe dans un espace métaphorique où s'entremêlent mémoire individuelle, allégeance culturelle et concepts du moi.