Michelle Dolan | MSc Social Anthropology QUB

During the day, the space was marked by schoolbag-bearing young men and women, the area’s party reputation manifested in the beer and Buckfast bottles lining the inner window ledges of the students’ houses. This window display appears as a student pastiche of a working-class practice which I have observed in Belfast, whereby house-proud home- owner’s arrange highly-polished vases of artificial flowers in their windows. An established resident stated that the Holyland had become a ‘Catholic student ghetto’. To verify this claim I walked the streets of the Holyland searching for visible nationalist symbols. Twenty-four streets were encompassed in this count. On March 8th, one tricolour flag was found. I returned one week later (two days before St. Patrick’s Day), to recount. Thirteen tricolour flags were now counted. Given that students form a high percentage of those residing in HMO housing (Smith 2008), and there are 1,144 HMO’s listed as residential stock, an increase of twelve flags contradicts the idea that the Holyland is a Catholic student ghetto. It was however, during this count that a young GAA-clad man passed me by, soloing a ball as he moved through the street. As he did so, two insights about this space crystallised i) though this neighbourhood is not traditionally marked like other Belfast neighbourhoods (murals, flags, pavements), the Catholic students in their GAA sportswear were in fact acting as mobile markers and ii) this is how the Irish identity is played out in the Holyland. It’s not through the palette of the tricolour or other (what might be construed as) overtly nationalistic paraphernalia. It’s through the objects (Gaelic football, hurley stick, sliothar), the actions (solo), and the materiality of the GAA (jerseys, tracksuit bottoms, jumpers and kitbags). Here, I distinguish between two classifications of ‘nationalistic’ objects; hot and banal.



A midweek night out in the student bar, ‘The Hatfield’ highlighted rural practices, again, familiar from my country upbringing, such as ‘cash only’ methods of payment, and an abundance of GAA football jerseys. My companion and I stood out as the only patrons not sporting county colours. This form of apparel is generally not accepted after 7pm in urban establishments. Within minutes, I approached a student wearing the jersey of my home county, Mayo, and prior to even asking his name, I questioned which town he was from. Amused, he replied that he was from County Armagh, but preferred the colours of the Mayo kit. His response indicates that the students identify primarily with the ‘Irishness’ which these jerseys connote, rather than ‘pride in one’s own county’; the latter a concept which is strongly embraced in the Republic of Ireland. On reflection, I realised that in approaching a person I perceived to be a fellow county-man, my motivation was firstly personal, and secondly anthropological. Being carless and an eight-hour bus journey from my home town, I was hoping to coordinate weekend travel arrangements. Feeling comfortable in a familiar environment, I had unconsciously engaged in a classic rural practice, whereby country codes of good will enable one to approach a stranger with a direct request. That it took me five months to realise this, highlights the realities of home-blindness in the field. The young female students immediately stood out, the efforts put into their hair and makeup, contrasting sharply with their casual G.A.A attire. The DJ, alternating between Ibiza club classics and Irish traditional and rebel songs, kept the energy high and the crowd chanting as they bopped and wobbled to and fro in passionate revelry. The to-ing and fro-ing was made more difficult as the floor was awash with spilt drinks, making the trip to the bar a hilarious spectacle to behold, reminiscent of ‘Total Wipeout’. It was all too much for one young lad who at 8.30pm sat, legs sprawled, in a comatose slumber, oblivious to the couple indulging in a passionate embrace beside him. The sodden floor soon became a health hazard as the over-flowing ladies toilets joined the existing deluge. Burly bouncers aggressively refused female customers access to toilet facilities on the second floor, which sent me to the nearby ‘Rose and Crown’ for relief. Upon entry, six framed GAA jerseys caught my eye; Fermanagh, Antrim, Tyrone, Down, Armagh and Derry. In the queue for the toilet I spoke briefly to a woman in her mid-twenties from Belfast. She wore a crop top which displayed her nationalist tattoos. This highlighted differences between rural and urban female forms of nationalism; the rural female students in the Hatfield chose a form of nationalism which can be easily removed (GAA jersey), and replaced if, and when desired, whereas this urban dweller inscribed her body, making permanent her statement of nationalistic identity. This observation beggars the question; is it easier to zealously commit to a nationalist ideology when the commitment is physically optional and impermanent?


‘space is made up of a network of places’ (Tuan 1977)

Michelle Dolan | MSc Social Anthropology QUB · the efforts put into their hair and makeup,...

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