Queering Community: Reimagining the Public Sphere in Northern Ireland

The 'two communities' model of Northern Irish culture has contributed to the erasure of a discursive space, a public sphere, to which Northern Irish subjects might have access. The essay suggests that these 'two communities' (unionist/loyalist and nationalist/republican) actually comprise at least four publics (unionist, nationalist, loyalist and republican). The rhetorical conflation of these publics as 'two communities' reifies their opposition, limits political discourse, and replaces a public sphere with a set of clashing 'cultures'. The essay concludes by examining the Northern Irish queer counterpublic and suggesting the ways it constitutes a more imaginative and effective model for public discourse by imagining a public sphere.