The Ghost Limb: Alternative Protestants and the Spirit of 1798
Where did the spirit of 1798 go? Did northern Protestants forget their history? Who are the keepers of the flame?
In The Ghost Limb, a group of northern Protestants retrace the steps of the United Irishmen, who worked for the unity of Protestant, Catholic and Dissenter over two hundred years ago. In a quest to reconnect with this lost heritage, they walk and talk through the landscapes of County Down and Antrim. They go to political meetings, take Irish language classes, visit graveyards, pubs, churches and protests. Commune with radical ghosts and personal ancestors. Chalk messages on walls.
As they search for the spirit of 1798, they bring a new politics alive in the present. They begin to imagine a different future.
The book pulls together history, politics and personal stories, with a little magical thinking, to bring alternative Protestant identities back into the light.
Purchase from Beyond the Pale Books
Susan McKay
“Frustrated by silence and ablaze with hope, generosity, and the stubborn love she has for home, Claire Mitchell looks back to 1798, then forges on to map brave new 21st century ways to be a Northern Protestant dissenter.”
Linda Ervine
"Claire manages to articulate the frustration and sadness I have often felt as a Protestant who prefers the radicalism of 1798 to the ‘No surrender’ of 1690, and offers a compelling vision for the future."
Evangelical Journeys: Choice and Change in a Northern Irish Religious Subculture
Co-written with Gladys Ganiel
Dublin, UCD Press, 2011
Why do some people become more religiously conservative over time, whilst others moderate their views or abandon faith altogether? Drawing on 95 interviews with evangelicals and ex-evangelicals in Northern Ireland, this book explores how religious journeys are shaped by social structures and by individual choices. It tells the stories of pro-life picketers, liberal peace-campaigning ministers, housewives afraid of the devil, students deconstructing their faith and atheists mortified by their religious past. Through hearing everyday stories about love, family, work and health, as well as politics, this book explores the many different worlds of ordinary evangelicals in Northern Ireland and the surprising ways in which their beliefs and practices can change over time.
Purchase Evangelical Journeys
Religion, Identity and Politics in Northern Ireland: Boundaries of Belonging and Belief
London, Routledge, 2005
Based on my PhD research, this book is about the subtle, as well as the obvious, ways that religion still seemed to matter in Northern Ireland in the wake of the 1998 Agreement.
Drawing on a range of interview material, the book traced how individuals and groups in Northern Ireland had absorbed religious types of cultural knowledge, belonging and morality, and how they reproduced these as they went about their daily lives.