Transcending the borders of Irish identity? Narratives of northern nationalist footballers in Northern Ireland

Transcending the borders of Irish identity? Narratives of northern nationalist footballers in Northern Ireland

Darragh McGee University of Toronto, Canada

Alan Bairner Loughborough University, UK

AbstractIn light of a growing trend by which Northern Irish-born footballers opt to pledge their sporting allegiance to the Republic of Ireland, the issue of player eligibility has become the subject of much public and political debate across the island of Ireland. In seeking to shed light on this controversial topic, this article examines the myriad factors which are negotiated by northern nationalist footballers when faced with the choice of which ‘nation’ to which they belong. Based on extracts from a series of interviews with northern nationalist players, the study situates their lived experiences within the broader socio-political landscape of Northern Ireland, highlighting a range of factors from the perceived culpability of the Irish Football Association (IFA) to sporting pragmatism on the part of the players. The research is theoretically grounded in the writings of Norbert Elias and Pierre Bourdieu, in particular by utilizing their respective interpretations of the socio-psychological concept of habitus in an attempt to understand the interplay between the relatively superficial and potentially temporary nature of sporting identity and a more deeply ingrained sense of national or political identification.

Keywordscommunity identities, football, habitus, Irish nationalism, Northern Ireland

Article

Corresponding author:Darragh McGee, Faculty of Physical Education and Health, University of Toronto, 55 Harbord Street, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M5S 2E1.Email: [email protected]

International Review for the Sociology of Sport

46(4) 436–455© The Author(s) 2010

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McGee and Bairner 437

Introduction

Stop putting obstacles in the way of nationalists opting to represent the Republic of Ireland . . . The IFA must send out a clear message that it will respect the rights of Irish nationalists as Irish citizens in their own country. The Good Friday Agreement recognises the right of Irish people living in the north to their identity and it is not up to the IFA to deny them that right.

(Raymond McCartney, Sinn Féin)

The decision of Northern Irish native, Shane Duffy, to pledge his sporting allegiance to the Republic of Ireland in March 2010 encapsulates the complex relationship between sport and identity on the island of Ireland. As a Catholic, born in the predominantly nationalist city of Derry, Duffy activated his right to Irish citizenship in Northern Ireland before declaring his sporting allegiance to the Republic of Ireland soccer team. However, Duffy’s decision to ‘go south’ is by no means exceptional, but rather is in keeping with a growing abstention of northern nationalist footballers from the Northern Ireland soccer team in recent years. The origins of this controversy may be traced back to October 2008 and the decision of current Manchester United player, Darron Gibson to pledge his alle-giance to the Republic of Ireland despite having previously represented Northern Ireland at youth level. The Gibson case induced widespread public and political debate and cul-minated in the world governing body, FIFA, ruling on the matter. Much to the dismay of the Irish Football Association (IFA), which administers the game in Northern Ireland, FIFA stipulated that, by virtue of the Good Friday Agreement1 signed in 1998, all foot-ballers from Northern Ireland are entitled to dual citizenship and, thus, to the ‘choice’ of which sporting ‘nation’ they wish to represent.

Sport in Northern Ireland has consistently reflected and, on occasions, exacerbated inter-community divisions (Bairner, 2002). The Gibson case draws our attention to the contested nature of the Northern Irish sporting landscape, wherein controversy over issues of national identity and religion remains highly sensitive despite the signing of the Good Friday Agreement and an ongoing peace process. Ironically, it is the statutes of the Agreement which play a significant role in the current player eligibility dispute inas-much as the issue of dual citizenship becomes particularly pertinent in relation to sport-ing allegiance. The Good Friday Agreement formally recognized:

The birthright of all people of Northern Ireland to identify themselves and be accepted as Irish or British, or both, as they may so choose, and accordingly confirm that their right to hold both British and Irish citizenship is accepted by both Governments and would not be affected by any future change in the status of Northern Ireland. (Annex A, The Good Friday Agreement)

This creates a situation in which one’s national citizenship is a matter of individual choice. As a consequence, individuals born on the island of Ireland may declare them-selves to be Irish, British or other, a ‘choice’ which can have a profound impact on the selection and recruitment of talented young footballers in Ireland. In this regard, whilst the Good Friday Agreement marked a historic moment in the quest for peace in Northern Ireland, it also served to exacerbate an already troublesome relationship between soc-cer’s governing bodies in Ireland whose rival claims to the island’s most talented players create a politically charged environment for all those involved. Indeed, the unwillingness



438 International Review for the Sociology of Sport 46(4)

on the part of some young northern nationalist players to represent Northern Ireland has attracted much political comment from both nationalist and unionist sections of society. The above statement made by Sinn Féin’s Northern Ireland assemblyman, Raymond McCartney, is a particularly poignant example. Pursuing a nationalist agenda, McCartney defends the right of the nationalist footballer to pledge his sporting allegiance to the Republic of Ireland, whilst insinuating that the IFA, an organization viewed with much suspicion within the nationalist community, must accept a degree of culpability for nationalist abstention from the Northern Ireland side. However, the crux of McCartney’s statement is a reference to the ‘birthright’ of these northern nationalist footballers to exercise an Irish identity which transcends the partition of Ireland, thus encouraging the idea of an ‘imagined’ 32-county Irish nation.

To some extent, McCartney’s sentiments are aligned to the long-standing nationalist desire for a united and sovereign 32-county Irish nation-state, although it is ironic that such an expression of an ethnic Irish identity emerges in relation to a game which recog-nizes the boundaries of partition, retains strong links with Britain and, in Northern Ireland at least, appears intimately associated with unionism. This introduces the pecu-liar positioning of soccer which, despite often being labelled ‘the garrison game’2 by members of the Gaelic games fraternity, serves as a vital part of northern nationalist culture. It is against this backdrop that we must understand the comments of Edwin Poots, Northern Ireland Minister of Culture, Arts and Leisure and a Democratic Unionist Party3 (DUP) member, who argued that FIFA, in ruling in favour of the Football Association of Ireland (FAI), had quashed any chance of a shared future for the divided communities of Northern Ireland whilst simultaneously creating a ‘single-identity’ inter-national football team in the state.

By incriminating FIFA, Poots appears to exonerate the IFA from any responsibility for the increasing rejection, by northern nationalist players and fans, of the Northern Ireland team. Indeed, the reference to the creation of a ‘single-identity’ Northern Irish interna-tional team is particularly interesting, premised as it is upon the belief that, given the ‘choice’, footballers of a nationalist persuasion would overwhelmingly elect to represent the Republic of Ireland over Northern Ireland. Such a belief is based on the assumption that as members of the northern nationalist community, the players’ decision to represent the Republic of Ireland is merely a sporting reflection of broader political ambitions for a united Ireland. In this article, we argue that such a view underestimates the inherent complexity of Irish nationalist identity in Northern Ireland and also neglects the peculiar positioning in this regard of the professional sports person.

As demonstrated by the rival political innuendo of McCartney and Poots, the manner in which the northern nationalist footballer understands his Irishness, both in relation to the Irish Republic and to Northern Ireland, is highly contentious. As a consequence, northern nationalist footballers are subjected to intense political scrutiny when declaring their sporting allegiance at a young age and on a very public platform. In light of this, the current study seeks to understand the lived experience of the nationalist footballer in Northern Ireland, considering the complex amalgam of factors which may influence and, ultimately, determine allegiance to a particular sporting ‘nation’.

A growing body of literature has emerged on expressions of Irish nationalism in Northern Ireland (Boyce, 1995; English, 2006) and, more specifically, on the role of soc-cer in the expression of divergent forms of Irish national identity (Bairner, 2009; Hassan,




2002). However, as Bairner (2009) has acknowledged, our understanding of such matters has been hindered by a marked reluctance on behalf of professional athletes to discuss their experiences with researchers. Thus, whilst Hassan et al. (2009) discuss the case of Darron Gibson, their analysis has not benefited from an interview with the player himself. The present study confronts this problem through an analysis of eight in-depth inter-views with selected northern nationalist footballers (see Table 1). As a consequence, the study advances our understanding of the professional athlete in general, and adds to the growing fund of knowledge about the sporting culture of the northern nationalist com-munity (Fulton, 2005; O’Connor, 1993). To this end, this article examines, firstly, the factors determining the decision of some northern nationalist footballers to represent the Republic of Ireland football team, second the rationale of those nationalist footballers who have opted to represent Northern Ireland and, finally, the relationship between the professional athlete and the nation.

Habitus matters: Towards a sociology of the athleteIn articulating the relationship between sport and nationalism, numerous academic stud-ies have demonstrated how the ‘sporting nation’ is imbued with values such as patriot-ism, national pride and honour (Bairner, 2001; Hassan, 2002). However, as Cronin (1999) argues, there remains a gap in our knowledge of the relationship between sport and nationalism at the level of the elite athlete. Indeed, in the case of Ireland, academic analysis of the professional athlete has been largely restricted to a few notable exceptions including Bairner’s (2005, 2010) work on the ways in which both Protestant Irish rugby players and Catholic footballers in Northern Ireland understand their experiences of international sport, Maguire and Tuck’s (1998) investigation of Irish rugby players and Holmes and Storey’s (2004) analysis of the contribution of players born outside Ireland to the Republic of Ireland’s football team.

As representatives of the nation, elite athletes become iconic figures – wearing the national colours, singing the national anthem and proudly flying the nation’s flag in the international sporting arena. However, in seeking to understand the heightened sense of nationalistic fervour which surrounds ‘our’ national sporting representatives, it is impor-tant to question how professional athletes negotiate their sense of nationhood. This issue assumes particular significance when considered alongside Benedict Anderson’s (1996: 9) observation that ‘portable nationality, read under the sign of identity is on the rapid rise as people everywhere are on the move’. Nowhere is this more the truth than in the case of

Table 1. Interviews

Name Affiliated club Date of interview

1. Eugene Ferry Derry City FC 26 June 20092. Patrick McEleney Sunderland FC 29 June 20093. Shane McEleney Derry City FC 29 June 20094. Patrick McCourt Celtic FC 2 July 20095. Niall McGinn Celtic FC 3 July 20096. Michael Gault Linfield FC 18 July 2009




the modern athlete. In seeking to understand the resultant complex interplay between lay-ers of identity, the concept of habitus is an appropriate theoretical starting point.

Having been a central feature of sociology since the work of Marcel Mauss (1934) in the 1930s, the socio-psychological concept of habitus has been fruitfully adopted by theorists such as Norbert Elias and Pierre Bourdieu. Whilst the issue of national identity was not an explicit focus of his work, Bourdieu developed a conception of ‘habitus’ as an embodied phenomenon – comprising a set of ‘deeply internalised master dispositions that generate action’ (Swartz, 1997: 101) and serve to bridge the gap between objective social structures and subjective personal experiences. In this regard, whilst inherently individualized, the habitus is reflective of a specific cultural context wherein shared norms, values and beliefs become important markers of a collective identity (Maton, 2008). Hence, in theorizing ways in which cultural com-monalities become inscribed upon the body, Bourdieu (1984) helps us uncover the enabling and constraining influence of structural factors such as family, community and nation upon sporting careers. More broadly, the prominence of national identity in this study also relates to Elias’s work (1991), and specifically his conception of a ‘national habitus code’ in which the nation becomes sedimented, internalized and fused in the minds of its citizens.

In building upon the conceptual basis of Elias (2001), Maguire and Poulton (1999) present a framework in which the idea of a ‘national habitus code’ is situated as a layer of one’s social habitus built deeply into the personality structure of the individual. However, in relation to the elite athlete, the focus must be on how far ‘national habitus codes’ interact with and structure what we may term ‘sporting habitus’. This appears particularly important given the fact that one’s political or national identity may not be coterminous with one’s sporting identity (Bairner, 2001). Given the complex nature of football in Northern Ireland, for example, an understanding of the reflexive, fragmented sense of self-identity helps us to articulate how the nationalist footballer may regard himself as inherently Irish and identify with the Republic of Ireland soccer team but then choose Northern Ireland as his sporting ‘nation’.

In respect of the professional sports person, we must question the degree to which the structuring limits of habitus serve to influence and determine decisions of national alle-giance. In fact, the concept of habitus helps us articulate how the athlete negotiates between structural elements such as family, community and even national pressure on one hand, and career-related factors such as achievement, prestige and reputation on the other. This approach aids our understanding of how nationality and religion are essen-tially assigned to the athlete, but crucially allows for the fact that the athlete retains a level of agency and may consciously test and even contravene seemingly solid layers of identity. In this sense, whilst the concept of habitus may appear deceptively simplistic, it nevertheless offers a valuable explanatory medium through which to understand the mul-tiple and contradictory layers of an athlete’s identity.

MethodologyAs Bairner (2010) suggests, there has been a marked reluctance on the part of northern nationalist footballers to discuss their experiences. Bairner (2010) argues that this is




particularly noticeable in relation to Northern Ireland representation, which brings ‘into sharp focus the hierarchies of identity that consistently serve to complicate the Northern Irish political landscape’. Such difficulties have been equally apparent in this present study, with initial problems of gaining access to the nationalist footballers com-pounded by a subsequent degree of apprehension from the players as to the exact purpose of the research.

Given that the players interviewed are playing in professional leagues in Northern Ireland, the Republic of Ireland and Scotland, initial problems centred on access to the players, with a number of gatekeepers being dealt with before contact with the footballer could be established. However, the eventual success of one of the authors in gaining insights into the previously elusive stories of the nationalist footballer in Northern Ireland raises a number of issues surrounding the researcher’s subjectivity – and, in this case, the key factors which allowed the researcher to overcome the sense of anxiety and apprehen-sion initially expressed by many of the footballers such that the majority of the inter-viewees agreed that their names could be used in the completed study.

Highlighting the presence of the ‘self’ within the research process, Robson (2002) advocates the importance of clearly identifying the subjectivity of the researcher, whose life experiences and inherent biases can have a profound impact upon the data collected. In this current study, it is important to acknowledge that one of the authors could be situ-ated as a young white male student, but perhaps more significantly, as emanating from a Catholic background in the Republic of Ireland. In addition, this researcher has played semi-professional football in Northern Ireland, as well as representing the Republic of Ireland at youth level.

The previous involvement of the researcher in professional football meant that a list of contacts was immediately at hand, with former playing colleagues, coaches and man-agers helping to facilitate initial contact with potential interviewees. However, signifi-cantly, the researcher’s positioning as a Catholic footballer from the Irish Republic was itself important to what Robson (2002) refers to as the co-production of data. In this sense, many of the interviewees were put at ease when they were made aware of the researcher’s experience in football, helping to foster a degree of trust and rapport between researcher and respondent.

Whilst keen to emphasize a shared football experience with the respondents, the researcher remained acutely aware of not giving away so much personal opinion so as to contaminate the data. This proved challenging, particularly with reference to questions of sporting allegiance and religion, which were viewed as crucial to gaining a deeper level of inter-subjectivity with the respondents. Overall, however, the subjectivity of the researcher was a strength of the study, an ‘Irish nationalist football habitus’ becoming a central factor in eliciting relevant information.

‘Becoming’ Republic of Ireland players: Narratives of the nationalist footballer in Northern IrelandOne of the main concerns of this work was the widespread perception that a growing number of northern nationalist footballers are rejecting the opportunity to represent Northern Ireland simply because they originate from the nationalist community and are




simply exercising a widely held community desire for a united Irish identity. Challenging this overtly political reading from the outset, the argument presented here suggests that nationalist footballers declare their sporting allegiance to the Republic of Ireland, not because of some Irish nationalist essentialism, but rather in response to real lived experi-ences in Northern Ireland. The following comments of Eugene Ferry offer a useful intro-duction to the complex attitudes expressed:

I enjoyed my experience with Northern Ireland at the beginning … But when I was all of a sudden dropped from the Under-18 squad I wasn’t at all happy as I genuinely felt that I was better than the other goalkeepers. That was when the Republic of Ireland became a real option for me and I decided that I should pursue my career down there. (Interview, 26 June 2009)

As an ambitious young goalkeeper from the city of Derry, Ferry’s remarks reveal clear elements of sporting pragmatism. Indeed, given that he has represented both Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, his sporting expediency could be cited as evidence of political uncertainty. However, perhaps more significantly, Ferry’s admission that the Republic of Ireland team only became a ‘real option’ following what he perceived to be unjust treatment within the Northern Ireland squad indicates an initial desire not only to represent, but to prioritize, Northern Ireland as his ‘football nation’.

This immediately challenges any claim that those nationalist footballers who have declared their allegiance to the Republic of Ireland have done so out of a refusal to rec-ognize the existence of Northern Ireland and by implication its football team. Indeed, in line with the observations of Elliot (2000) on the broader attitudes of northern national-ists, the nationalist footballers interviewed ‘did not actively work against the Northern state’, with many only pursuing the ‘option’ of the Republic following what they perceived to be unjust treatment, or rejection, by Northern Ireland.

Furthermore, Ferry later articulates a strong sense of pride when he discusses his experience of captaining the Northern Ireland Under-18 squad. At one level, it is con-ceivable that such identification with Northern Ireland may be merely a self-congratulatory expression associated with a sense of personal sporting fulfilment. However, an alterna-tive reading, and one which is advanced here, is that it provides evidence of a long-standing and continuing northern nationalist willingness to represent Northern Ireland in international football.

The decision of northern nationalist footballers to ‘go south’ must be seen as the cul-mination of a complex ‘process’ rather than simply being attributable to any one factor. It is necessary, therefore, to consider the heterogeneous nature of northern nationalist experiences, allowing a range of individually specific narratives to emerge from the interview data. Having said that, a notable degree of continuity characterized the early experiences of these nationalist footballers in Northern Ireland, with their involvement in pursuits such as Gaelic games, and their childhood support for the Republic of Ireland soccer team deemed to be particularly revealing. Within their narratives, it was possible to identify the existence of a distinctive and shared form of Irish nationalist habitus.

Writing about the linkage between social interaction and national identity, Jenkins (1997) points to the importance of a cultural language in the creation of ‘shared meaning’ between members of a nation. This sense of ‘shared meaning’ appears crucial to the




attitudes of the nationalist footballers in Northern Ireland, where segregated schooling, socializing and even sport help to form an exclusive ‘cultural language’. A particularly prominent aspect of the common socialization experiences of the northern nationalist players was their involvement in Gaelic games, the very epitome of Irish nationalist ludic expression (Hassan, 2005). Indeed, the experiences of Niall McGinn4 exemplify the prominent role that the Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) and its rendition of Irish nationalism played in the early lives of these players. He recalled, ‘I would always be out on a Saturday playing a soccer game and then going on the Sunday to play Gaelic … To be honest I really loved doing that. Even now I would have liked to play some Gaelic but it’s just too difficult.’ As Bairner (2010) confirms, such a decision to prioritize a football career is seldom an easy one given that the GAA is recognized in most nationalist com-munities as the main vehicle for an embodied expression of Irishness.

In line with Fulton’s (2005) insights, many of the players also highlighted a strong sense of identification with the Republic of Ireland’s football team in the communities in which they grew up. Indeed, a sense of ethnic Irishness is apparent in Ferry’s comments on growing up in Derry:

We always supported the Republic of Ireland since I was a boy … Given that I’m from the Creggan area of the city, I would always see boys running around in Republic shirts. If anyone ever wore a Northern Ireland shirt, they would have known all about it. They would have been given dogs abuse on the streets. (Interview, 26 June 2009)

This opposition to Northern Ireland reflects wider feelings of isolation and abandonment felt in working-class nationalist areas of Derry. Indeed, Ferry’s early exposure to such an ethnic vision of Irishness vividly demonstrates how ‘community’ (English, 2006) contrib-utes to the formation of one’s ‘national habitus’ – in this case, an Irish nationalist habitus. This was reinforced by McGinn, who remarked that ‘as a child, I always supported the Republic team alongside Celtic as did most people in our area’. Interestingly, in conjunc-tion with his support for the Republic, McGinn draws our attention to his childhood affin-ity with Celtic Football Club, which as Bairner (2010) notes, is a club which has historically been synonymous with Irish Catholicism. Conversely, when we consider the experiences of nationalist footballers of Northern Ireland representative teams, the dis-tinct lack of a shared cultural language takes on a heightened significance.

Discussing his relationship with the coaching staff of the Northern Irish team, Ferry commented:

It’s not right to say it but it was always the Protestants that were favoured over the Catholics. It was just a sense you got with the managers always talking to them much more than they did to us … Even with the Belfast lads, they would always take an interest in how they were doing at school but would never ask me, or the other Catholic lad. (Interview, 26 June 2009)

This clearly communicates a sense of marginalization which Ferry then explains as con-clusive evidence of a Protestant bias amongst the coaching staff. Shane McEleney’s rec-ollections strengthen this argument in that he ‘felt a bit left out as they [the coaching staff] just didn’t speak to you’. Clearly, these narratives express a strong sense of




rejection with players disillusioned by what they perceived to be evidence of the unionist character of Northern Irish football. However, although one reading of these narratives would support this claim, an alternative interpretation might suggest that such ‘shared’ banter and conversation between the predominantly Protestant coaching staff and the Protestant members of the team is largely unavoidable.

This latter argument is premised on the belief that, given the divided nature of Northern Irish society, it is natural that there will be a lack of cultural reference points between members of the two main communities. The absence of ‘shared meaning’ between nationalist footballers and the Protestant coaching staff need not have sinister undercurrents. Indeed, references to schools are particularly salient in the context of segregated education, as a consequence of which many of the Protestant members of the coaching staff possess very limited knowledge of the nationalist community. This would suggest that the incidents in question are less the result of religious bigotry than of the binary divisions which permeate all levels of Northern Irish society.

As Connor (1994: 42) argues, the ethno-sectarian conflict which has characterized Northern Irish society has resulted in ‘us-versus-them’ syndrome. The existence of polar-ized identities is acknowledged in the comments of Patrick McEleney, who suggested that ‘there is little sections that form’ amongst the players in the Northern Irish camp, which ‘are all divided into little groups with us Catholics and then them’. Implicit in this is the presence of the Protestant ‘Other’, constructed in Patrick McEleney’s mind as the ‘enemy within’. Separate socialization experiences, together with the political fault lines in wider society, help to explain the lack of interaction between the Catholic and Protestant members of the team. In a revealing illustration of this, Eugene Ferry expressed some ambiguity surrounding his role in the squad, when claiming that:

Even though I was kind of the joker up in Belfast, I was never really comfortable because I knew that I could only joke about certain stuff as you didn’t know how the whole Catholic/Protestant divide would affect things you know … I felt like they didn’t really know each others banter. (Interview, 26 June 2009)

This captures the underlying tension which appears to characterize the Northern Ireland squad. Again though, rather than the result of sectarian malice on the part of either ‘sec-tion’ of players, this lack of interaction is symptomatic of the absence of ‘shared mean-ing’ between them. For these reasons, it is difficult to interpret the above narratives with any degree of certainty. Nevertheless, it is beyond doubt that the sense of marginaliza-tion expressed by both Ferry and Patrick McEleney was an influential factor in their decision to pursue a career with the Irish Republic. Thus, perceptions of unjust treatment within the Northern Ireland team should not be trivialized. Rather, it is important that we explore the role of the IFA, its conduct and its inherent British and unionist symbolism in more depth.

The alienating role of Northern Irish soccer officialdomAs demonstrated thus far, the nationalist footballers interviewed are deeply suspicious of the IFA and its governance of football in Northern Ireland. In large part, this can be




explained with reference to past stories of discrimination and injustice, both actual and perceived. However, this is again too simplistic, serving only to mask the very real exam-ples of maltreatment and IFA culpability which are recurrent themes in the narratives of these contemporary nationalist footballers. As Shane McEleney confirmed:

Without a doubt, my main influence for going down south was the way that I was treated by them [the IFA], as at that age you need to feel welcomed but they never did that . . . I definitely would not consider ever going back to Northern Ireland because of their treatment of me and that basically, Protestants will always be selected over Catholics if at all possible. (Interview, 29 June 2009)

Seen in isolation, these feelings could be viewed as those of a dejected and resentful footballer who had failed to make the grade with the Northern Ireland team. But, in light of a remarkably similar account from Ferry, it appears that major question marks remain over the commitment of the IFA to creating a ‘shared future’ in Northern Irish football.

As implied earlier, this is not to suggest that the nationalist footballers see their involvement with the Republic of Ireland side as a counter-hegemonic gesture. As Shane McEleney’s comments show, the decision to ‘go south’ is not so straightforward:

I mean if you gave me two grand right now, I don’t think that I would play for Northern Ireland again, that’s the way I now feel about them (the IFA). I had that bad of an experience with the country through football that, whilst I have no idea how I will get on with the Republic, I certainly can’t stay here after that. (Interview, 29 June 2009)

McEleney believes that he now has no ‘choice’ in the matter, insofar as his experience with the IFA has meant that the Northern Ireland side option is no longer viable. Whilst some apprehension is discernible in his reference to the Republic, the absence of equi-table circumstances within Northern Ireland makes the alternative a risk he is prepared to take. At one level, we may question the extent to which McEleney, or the other play-ers ever truly identified with Northern Ireland, especially given their childhood support for the Republic of Ireland team. However, this does not disguise the fact that many of them exhibited a genuine willingness to represent the country’s football team, only to be discouraged by what they perceived to be the exclusive governance of the IFA.

The nationalist footballers struggled to ‘feel at home’ within Northern Ireland teams. Almost without exception, interviewees cited the retention of unionist and British sym-bolism, most notably the playing of the British national anthem, ‘God Save the Queen’, at international games, as a key factor in their decision to reject the advances of Northern Ireland. Offering a valuable insight into the alienating nature of the current anthem, Patrick McEleney expressed the heightened awareness of an Irish nationalist habitus amidst this unionist atmosphere:

Before I played for Northern Ireland, I knew that I would have to go through ‘God Save the Queen’ and all that. But before my first game, one of the coaches went around each of us, warning us that we better have our heads held high during the anthem. I remember him saying that we better be proud to represent our country. (Interview, 29 June 2009)




This confirms the positioning of the nationalist footballers as ‘outsiders’ within the Northern Ireland side, their Irish identity wholly incompatible with the unionist ethos that pervades all aspects of the team. Moreover, pointing towards the IFA’s culpability in this regard, McEleney revealed the presence of a very assertive form of unionist identity within the confines of the Northern Ireland dressing room – an identity which is alien to, and implicitly dismissive of, the political and cultural backgrounds of the nationalist footballers.

Niall McGinn, a current Northern Ireland senior international, highlighted his sense of bewilderment at the experience of standing for the anthem at Windsor Park:

Just put your head down and try to get through it … Just keep it down. I mean you have boys like Michael O’Connor and Sammy Clingan who are Catholic boys from Belfast and they just keep their heads really low so as to not make a scene but also to show that as Catholics they must be respected. (Interview, 3 July 2009)

The experience of ‘getting through it’ articulated here by McGinn conveys the over-whelming sense of unease that is shared by footballers whose Irish nationalist habitus represents the very antithesis of the unionist mindset surrounding the Northern Ireland team. Indeed, McGinn’s reference to the need for ‘respect’ of identity goes to the heart of this since it is reasonable to conclude that the continuing refusal of the IFA to replace the current anthem with something more inclusive is evidence of its ambivalence towards the nationalist community (Bairner, 2009). Thus, it is unsurprising that many nationalist foot-ballers have concluded that they do not wish to expose themselves to unionist triumpha-lism, opting instead to pursue their international careers south of the geo-political border.

However, it is facile to identify the retention of the British anthem as the sole catalyst for this growing nationalist rejection of Northern Ireland. Alienation amongst the north-ern nationalist footballers must be seen in the context of the broader resonance of union-ist symbolism that has been associated in the past with support for the Northern Ireland team. In particular, a genuine ‘fear’ exists amongst the nationalist players that they will be subjected to sectarian abuse at Windsor Park, a stadium which has long been associ-ated with an overtly loyalist section of the Northern Irish support (Bairner and Shirlow, 1999). This fear is evident in Eugene Ferry’s comments:

Being watched by them [the loyalist supporters] who are just ready to shout abuse at you simply because of the fact that you are Catholic. Like I usually always bless myself before matches but up there I was sort of afraid that they would be watching me . . . you are always aware of it when you are playing. (Interview, 26 June 2009)

This feeling of being watched by the Protestant ‘Other’ is exacerbated by the anti-Catholic rhetoric that has engulfed the stadium in the past, hence Ferry’s suspicion that ‘they are just waiting for me to make a mistake before they will rip into me for it. You just know then that it would be the Catholic that isn’t trying.’ Even if the agitation expressed in Ferry’s comments owes something to paranoia, it has some foundation given the abuse directed at Neil Lennon by sections of the Northern Ireland support in the recent past (Bairner, 2005). Indeed, Ferry’s latter observation is particularly revealing




given that nationalist members of the Northern Ireland side are frequently accused of lacking commitment, or more poignantly, ‘loyalty to the cause’ (Fulton, 2005).

Given their association with Celtic, the involvement of McGinn and McCourt with the Northern Ireland team assumes an elevated level of significance. When questioned about the abuse directed at Neil Lennon, McGinn stated:

I’m now over at Celtic and representing Northern Ireland but I haven’t been getting any threats or abuse from the fans. I’d be lying if I said I haven’t been concerned about it though. Nigel [Worthington – the national coach] has been very supportive so I just hope that if I break into the first team at Celtic that I don’t get any reaction. (Interview, 3 July 2009)

McGinn appears acutely aware of the broader implications of his involvement with Celtic. Indeed, his reference to breaking into the first team may be linked to the experi-ence of Lennon who, as Bairner (2005: 162) suggests, only became viewed as ‘one of them’ following his high profile transfer to Celtic. In this sense, what we may extract from the narratives of these nationalist footballers is a genuine feeling of anxiety, their experience of representing Northern Ireland always overshadowed by politicized con-cerns and their quest for ‘acceptance’ by the unionist support base.

It is possible to conclude so far that, through its failure to replace the British anthem with something more inclusive, and the perceived prejudiced nature of its governance, the IFA has played a significant role in prompting many nationalist footballers to reject the Northern Ireland team. However, as will now be demonstrated, any proper under-standing of this rejection of Northern Ireland must also take into account the complex relationship of northern nationalist footballers with the Republic of Ireland.

Negotiating Irishness: ‘Escaping’ to the Republic of IrelandAs previously noted, many of the nationalist footballers interviewed recalled their child-hood identification with the Republic of Ireland team. This is unsurprising given that many of them come from working-class nationalist areas of Northern Ireland where, as Fulton (2005) suggests, the Republic of Ireland team has attracted a considerable support base. As a result, as Ferry verifies, the nationalist footballers appear to feel at ease within the Republic squad:

I did feel so much more at home with the Republic of Ireland as when you are with Northern Ireland, you can’t be fully comfortable. Like when we were having dinner one evening and one of the Protestant boys got a text message. It was the ‘sash’ that rang on his phone . . . that really does influence you to go down south as there is none of that political kind of thing. (Interview, 26 June 2009)

Here he articulates a clear contrast between the politically charged atmosphere within the Northern Ireland side and the comparatively apolitical environment ‘down south’. At one level, the notion of ‘escaping’ from Northern Ireland may be understood purely in sport-ing terms. However, an alternative reading is that Ferry’s attraction to the southern side is one way in which he, as a northern nationalist, can symbolically deconstruct the geo-political border, thus allowing himself to negotiate a form of ‘Irish’ as opposed to




‘northern Irish’ identity. Whilst it is difficult to know whether such a sense of ‘national identity’ could be a significant influence on a major career-related decision, Shane McEleney’s comments certainly suggest this possibility:

Deciding to represent the Republic has given me something new and to be honest, it gets me away from all the political problems you have up here [in Northern Ireland]. The thought of now being able to represent ‘my country’ makes me feel great … I do see the Republic of Ireland as my country. (Interview, 29 June 2009)

The idea of ‘a new beginning’ articulated here by McEleney is significant for a number of reasons. First, it appears to reinforce the notion of ‘escapism’ articulated by Ferry, the decision to represent the Republic of Ireland giving McEleney the opportunity to break away from the sectarianism that characterizes football in Northern Ireland. Thus, in keeping with Fulton’s (2005) argument, the decisions of nationalist footballers to ‘go south’ appear motivated, in no small part, by a desire to play their football in an environ-ment where their national identity is uncontested.

However, with added significance, McEleney’s assertive reference to the Republic of Ireland as ‘his country’ is indicative of a real sense of belonging. Such an expression of Irishness appears intimately associated with Anderson’s (1991) notion of the ‘imagined community’, with McEleney able to construct the Republic of Ireland team as representa-tive of an ‘imagined’ 32-county Irish nation. This sense of belonging is also evident in the comments of Niall McGinn, whose decision to represent Northern Ireland make such an admission particularly interesting. When questioned about the Irish Republic, McGinn noted: ‘obviously coming from where I do, I would have loved to go and represent the Republic of Ireland’. Such a confession serves to emphasize the aforementioned sense of northern nationalist belonging in relation to the Irish Republic, a phenomenon which must be seen as a prominent factor in the decision of some to represent the nation’s football team.

Whilst the northern nationalist footballers articulated their attitudes and experiences almost exclusively in the context of sport, it is evident that their narratives offer valuable insights into broader attitudes towards the Irish Republic. For example, Ferry recalled his experience of the Irish anthem, stating that:

I’m Catholic you know what I mean and I feel a lot more pride for the Republic of Ireland . . . Its just political sort of stuff you know. You feel very proud standing for the Amhrann na Bhfiann as it represents your country, even if that isn’t the way some people see it. (Interview, 26 June 2009)

He appears to subconsciously deconstruct the border by situating himself as ‘part of’ an imagined Irish nation. Indeed, if we consider the references to both the Republic of Ireland football team, and its national anthem, we could justifiably conclude that such a sentiment is indicative of extreme nationalist politics. However, whilst this might be accurate, it is important to note that Ferry grew up in the predominantly nationalist city of Derry, which as Hassan (2002) argues, never really assumed a sense of northern place. Thus, as Bairner (2001) suggests, we must acknowledge the diverse nature of nationalist identities, which depend to a considerable extent upon the socio-economic and political context in which a person is situated.




It would be foolishly essentialist, therefore, to suggest that we can understand these nationalist footballers as a homogeneous grouping whose experiences and attitudes can be viewed as congruent. Rather, we must acknowledge that a degree of variance is appar-ent in their individual ‘world views’, dependent in large part on where they grew up. Such a line of argument is substantiated by Shane McEleney who articulated some ambi-guity surrounding his identity:

Going to the Republic is what I really want to do but it is still daunting in a way, as you don’t know how you will be received there either . . . coaches might not take to you because you are from the north. Being from Derry, you are kind of stuck somewhere in the middle – a kind of halfway house. (Interview, 29 June 2009)

McEleney conveys the ambiguities of growing up in a nationalist enclave such as Derry – a city which maintains a very real and inherently logical bond with parts of the Irish Republic (Hassan, 2002). However, whilst he clearly expresses a sense of attachment to the Irish Republic, this is tempered by a degree of uncertainty. In seeking to explain this peculiar sense of exclusion, the insights of Ruane and Todd (1996: 261) are particularly valuable. They argue that ‘for many northern Catholics the South is unchartered territory, uncongenial, different, even foreign’. McEleney is clearly concerned that he may be viewed as an ‘outsider’ within the Republic. Indeed, his reference to the coaching staff confirms this feeling, with McEleney situating himself as a troubled ‘northerner’ who might be seen as a potentially disruptive element in the more globally minded southern side. Therefore, as the unique socialization experiences of both Ferry and McEleney confirm, the northern nationalist footballer’s declaration of sporting allegiance is again revealed as the result of a complex amalgam of factors which are inherently specific to the individual athlete.

That said, our analysis reveals some continuity in such decisions – most notably the sense of ‘shared meaning’ between the players, a factor attributed to the existence of an Irish nationalist habitus. More broadly, our discussion challenges many popular beliefs surrounding the reasons why nationalist footballers decide to represent the Republic of Ireland, suggesting that we must focus our interpretations around the lived experiences of the athletes not only in Northern Ireland but also in Ireland as a whole. Indeed, although this analysis sheds important light on a significant aspect of northern nationalist sporting culture which transcends the geo-political border, it is equally important to explore the experiences, attitudes and insights of those nationalist footballers who have opted to represent Northern Ireland, the country of their birth.

Representing ‘my football nation’: The nationalist footballer and Northern Ireland Commenting on his ‘choice’ of sporting allegiance, Ferry observed:

It would always have been the Republic as I supported them as a boy. But then when I got called up to the Northern Ireland team, I didn’t care so much about that. I would say ‘I don’t care that my pride is with the Republic, I’m only playing football for them’. (Interview, 26 June 2009)




This provides a fascinating insight into the ways in which the nationalist footballer understands and negotiates his sense of sporting allegiance. At one level, Ferry regards the Irish Republic as ‘his nation’, with an admission to childhood support and, perhaps more significantly, to a sense of personal ‘pride’ in the south. However, his latter refer-ence to ‘only playing football for them’ is equally revealing. Here, Ferry plays down the significance of his decision to represent Northern Ireland, appearing to indicate that a sense of sporting identity is relatively superficial. Indeed, considering the way he describes the Northern Ireland side as ‘them’, one could be forgiven for questioning why he has made such a decision at all.

Hassan (2002: 73) suggests that the answer may well cohere around a ‘peculiar mix of sporting expediency and opportunism’. To a certain extent, Hassan is correct to iden-tify the pragmatic dimension, but such an explanation fails to acknowledge the complex ways in which athletes negotiate different layers of their identity. McGinn’s comments make this explicit:

When it comes to football matters, you don’t really think about whether it has to be the Republic of Ireland as ‘my country’. That is kind of different to your football stuff. You don’t really take that into consideration when it’s about football. (Interview, 3 July 2009)

Here, McGinn clearly distinguishes football matters as separate from his sense of national identification with the Irish Republic. Indeed, as in the case of Ferry, McGinn’s com-ments appear to suggest that his football identity is less embedded than his national identity. Therefore, the conception of a form of ‘Northern Ireland football identity’ emerges through which nationalist members of the team are both happy and, in many cases, proud to represent what essentially becomes their ‘football nation’.

However, adopting what initially appears to be an opposing position, Paddy McCourt suggested that ‘it’s a great thing to be with the Northern Irish team as obviously you are very proud to be playing for your country as that is an opportunity that anyone would jump at’. If we accept this declaration at face value, we could conceivably view McCourt’s senti-ments as evidence of an emerging sense of Northern Irishness within the nationalist com-munity. However, when considered alongside his subsequent comments, such a reading becomes difficult. Explaining his reasons for choosing Northern Ireland, McCourt stated:

When I got called up to play for Northern Ireland, I decided then that they would be my team. I wasn’t going to go here and then there as I wouldn’t want to be seen as someone who did a u-turn. I mean you pick a country to play football for and mine just happened to be Northern Ireland. (Interview, 2 July 2009)

Whilst exhibiting a commendable degree of personal integrity in his loyalty to Northern Ireland, McCourt nevertheless trivializes his decision as being ‘merely’ about playing football. It appears that he is almost certainly expressing a football identification with Northern Ireland, or what Bairner (2010) refers to as a ‘Northern Irish football con-sciousness’. As highlighted by McGinn and Michael Gault, this football consciousness is constructed in conjunction with, rather than in opposition to, national identification with the Irish Republic.




Combining the Bourdieuian and Eliasian interpretations of habitus, a framework is proposed through which we seek to delineate between an athlete’s habitus – most notably the distinction between a form of structuring ‘national habitus code’ – and a related ‘sporting habitus’. In expressing a sporting affinity with, rather than a political allegiance to, Northern Ireland, nationalist footballers such as McGinn, Gault and McCourt have isolated Northern Ireland as their ‘football nation’, from their national or political identification with the Republic of Ireland.

Such a reading serves to refute any suggestion that an emergent sense of ‘national identity’ prompts nationalist footballers to represent Northern Ireland. Rather, their narratives reveal evidence of a Northern Irish football identity, a relatively superficial and temporary dimension of their ‘sporting habitus’. Northern nationalist footballers can benefit from the advantages of playing international football with Northern Ireland without necessarily recognizing the legitimacy of the political entity which the ‘national’ team represents – a condition which bears comparison with that of Northern Irish unionist rugby union players and their relationship with an all-Ireland national team (Bairner, 2005).

Whilst it helps us to dispel any romanticized claims for the existence of a shared Northern Irish identity in international football, ‘sporting habitus’ itself provides only a partial expla-nation for nationalist representation of Northern Ireland. As suggested by Hassan (2002), we must also acknowledge the degree of flexibility exhibited by these players whose deci-sions are often heavily influenced by a pragmatic and career-focused mentality.

Commenting on the professional footballer’s declaration of sporting allegiance, Holmes and Storey (2004: 101) argue that the ‘lure of international football along with the prestige, money and career-enhancing opportunities’ must be seen as determining factors. The attitudes of many of the players discussed here are no different, particularly those who opted to represent a Northern Irish side which continues to symbolize all that their parental culture has traditionally opposed. Introducing such a line of argument, Paddy McCourt suggested that:

When you begin playing football, you set out to play at the highest level and if that chance comes with Northern Ireland, then you have to take it. I was thinking about the career of Paddy McCourt and what would present the best opportunities. (Interview, 2 July 2009)

McCourt here displays a clear sense of sporting pragmatism, in which he justifies his decision to represent Northern Ireland in terms of the potential for personal sporting accomplishment. Reinforcing such a possibility, McGinn, who by his own admission remains a keen Republic of Ireland fan, described the dilemma he faced regarding his ‘choice’ of sporting allegiance:

I mean when Northern Ireland called me up, if I had of said no, I would rather hold out for the Republic, I might never have got that opportunity. So I’m glad that I took the chance. You can’t really think about stuff like that. If the chance comes then you have to grab it and use it to enhance your career. (Interview, 3 July 2009)

Unquestionably, McGinn could have squandered the opportunity to play international football had he decided to reject the advances of Northern Ireland. In that respect, the




comments offer a valuable insight into his mindset. He clearly prioritizes his football career over any sense of attachment he may feel towards the Irish Republic. Thus, con-sidered alongside the sentiments of McCourt, McGinn’s comments serve to confirm the suggestion that nationalist representation of the Northern Ireland football team is based, to a large extent, on career-related pragmatism.

This form of ‘sport-specific reasoning’ was a consistent theme throughout the interviews, with many of the footballers willing to play for almost anyone in order to expe-rience international football. Certainly, Gault does little to refute such a claim, advocating the importance of ‘utilising the precious time you get in the international spotlight. It is a massive shop window with so many scouts and managers from big leagues watching’. In light of such an opportunistic stance, it would not be inappropriate to conclude that the ‘nation’ is merely a platform upon which these players seek to raise their individual profiles and advance their careers. Therefore, this type of sporting pragmatism is undoubtedly a prominent factor in the willingness of nationalist footballers to represent Northern Ireland.

Quest for acceptance: The relationship between nationalist footballers and their communityAt first glance, a quest for community acceptance appears absent from the actions of those nationalist footballers who decide to represent Northern Ireland in the knowledge that the team receives little support from their wider community. However, as McGinn reveals, these nationalist players are forced to ‘present’ themselves in an attempt to gar-ner respect for and, more importantly, acceptance of their decision. He states that:

I get the odd joke when I’m home about me playing for them, but it was just a matter of making sure the boys know that I’m only there to play football and that’s the only thing. They have even now started to watch the games; although I know they are only supporting me and wanting me to do well. (Interview, 3 July 2009)

This conveys the significance of community in McGinn’s everyday life. He must ‘con-vince the boys’ that his decision to represent Northern Ireland is not indicative of some wider national identification. Such a position is shared by Ferry, whose early connections with Northern Ireland were viewed with disdain by many of his friends in Derry, prompt-ing an interesting reaction:

When I was home or talking to people around the community about Northern Ireland, I felt as though I had to call ‘them’ all ‘orange bastards’ and all. You feel like you sort of have to put that on even though it’s not really what I think. These boys don’t understand what its like to sit and chat with Protestant boys and wouldn’t understand if I explained so I just don’t . . . I just tell them what I think they want me to say. (Interview, 26 June 2009)

Here, Ferry admits to having presented a distorted picture of his experiences in the belief that this would ensure acceptance amongst his nationalist friends. His verbal castigation of the Protestant players demonstrates that he is acutely aware of the implications of admitting that he has developed friendships with them, opting instead to satisfy the requirements of his nationalist friends.




In seeking to understand Ferry’s actions, Erving Goffman’s (1971) writings are use-ful, allowing us to argue that the nationalist footballer may in fact ‘perform’ nationalism in an attempt to avoid ‘stigma’ or a tainted sense of Irish identity. The eagerness of Ferry and McGinn to justify their decisions to represent Northern Ireland represents a carefully constructed attempt to endear themselves in relation to the less flexible ‘national habitus’ of those within their own communities. Indeed, in McGinn’s case, such a dramaturgical element is especially evident, as he not only manages to garner community acceptance for his decision, but even receives a considerable degree of support in his international career with Northern Ireland.

Bringing together the key elements of this discussion, it is possible to conclude that there remains more evidence of divergence than of convergence within the Northern Irish sporting context. Indeed, in line with Bairner (2009), it is suggested that whilst the decision of nationalist footballers to represent Northern Ireland may reflect the existence of a ‘Northern Irish football consciousness’, ultimately the prospect of a more embedded sense of nationalist belonging appears unlikely, at least for the foreseeable future.

ConclusionIt is essential that we understand the relationship between the nationalist footballer in Northern Ireland and sporting nationalism as both complex and multi-faceted. This study demonstrates the importance of recognizing the individually specific nature of northern nationalist identities, which can only be understood with reference to the wider political context. It is apparent from all the interviews that a degree of continuity can be detected in the close relationship of the players to their Catholic and nationalist roots. An ‘Irish nation-alist habitus’ provides the basis for a form of shared cultural language between the players, something which assumes particular importance when viewed in the context of interaction within Northern Ireland squads. The distinct lack of any shared socialization experiences on the part of Protestant and Catholic players leads to confusion, unease and ultimately, a perception, on the part of the nationalist footballers, of marginalization and maltreatment.

This study challenges the common assumption that the inclination of nationalist foot-ballers to ‘go south’ is attributable solely to an intrinsic identification with the Irish Republic. Whilst such a sense of belonging is a factor, the continuing ambivalence of the IFA towards the nationalist community, as reflected not least in use of the British anthem, ‘God Save The Queen’, emerges as more significant. Indeed, it is fair to say that, together with more career specific decisions, the continued use of the anthem represents one of the key determinants of nationalist abstention from the Northern Ireland side.

Whilst the Good Friday Agreement has done much to strengthen the constitutional status of Northern Ireland, there remains considerable evidence of divergence within football settings exacerbated by the recent FIFA ruling. To explain the willingness of nationalist players to represent Northern Ireland, it is important to explore the hierarchi-cal and layered nature of their sporting and political identities. The theoretical insights of Elias, Bourdieu and Goffman help us to understand the interplay between the superficial and temporary nature of sporting identity, which must be seen alongside a more deeply ingrained sense of national or political identification. For these reasons, whilst we may speak of a ‘Northern Irish football consciousness’, it appears that, for the time being at




least, the prospect of an uncontested Northern Irish national identity amongst northern nationalists remains elusive.

Notes

1. The Belfast Good Friday Agreement was signed on the 10 April 1998 and represented a historic settlement between Unionist and Nationalist politicians. The Agreement subsequently allowed for the establishment of a devolved (from Westminster) power sharing government assembly in Belfast, wherein the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), despite previously opposing the Agreement, entered into government alongside the Irish Republican party, Sinn Fein following democratic elections. See also the insightful analysis of Todd (1999), ‘Nationalism, Republicanism and the Good Friday Agreement’ in Ruane and Todd (eds) After the Good Friday Agreement.

2. The term ‘Garrison’ is a commonly used term denoting a collective military presence in a given location. In Ireland, the game of soccer has historically been labelled the ‘garrison game’ due to its perceived association with, and connection to, the British military stationed in Northern Irish towns and cities.

3. The Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) is the largest political party in Northern Ireland, holding strong links with the Protestant community. Despite opposing the singing of the 1998 Belfast Good Friday Agreement, the DUP has, since 2006, been part of a power sharing devolved government in Northern Ireland alongside the Irish Republican party, Sinn Fein.

4. Niall McGinn represents an interesting example of a northern Catholic who played both soccer and Gaelic football at a high level with Dungannon Swifts and county Tyrone respectively, before deciding to privilege a soccer career after signing for Derry City FC in 2008. McGinn subsequently secured a move to Glasgow Celtic FC in 2009 whilst building on his previous two appearances for the senior Northern Ireland team. He has currently represented Northern Ireland on six occasions.

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Documents

Transcending the borders of Irish identity? Narratives of northern nationalist footballers in Northern Ireland