Acts of Union: Mixed Marriage in Modern Ireland

“你知道希腊文的endogamein吗？意思是在部落内部通婚。外婚族这个词的意思是和部落外的人结婚。你不能随便越过这些边界--双方都会非常生气。布赖恩·弗里尔的戏剧《翻译》于1980年首次上演，剧中人物吉米·杰克就是这样说的，他毫不掩饰地警告一名爱尔兰妇女与一名英国士兵的关系。《翻译》是一个“跨越鸿沟的爱”故事的例子：一种浪漫叙事，描述了爱尔兰与英国的艰难关系，作为“对立双方”的恋人之间（性）沮丧和危险的浪漫。这些“民族传奇”故事有着令人难以置信的悠久历史，可以追溯到12世纪盎格鲁-诺曼人对爱尔兰的殖民统治。事实上，英国和爱尔兰之间的关系经常被描述为婚姻，爱尔兰是妻子。这种象征意义是很好的，但对于那些参与实际的“混合婚姻”或“混合关系”的人来说，一个伴侣是天主教徒和一个新教徒，或者一个民族主义者和另一个统一主义者，生活是什么样的？有多少对夫妇参与了这种混合关系，这种结合在爱尔兰历史上的特定时期，如独立战争或麻烦时期，不太可能发生吗？他们的孩子怎么了？民族主义社区成员和海外军队之间的浪漫关系是什么样的？这些问题将推动这个研究项目。虽然“混合婚姻”在爱尔兰的背景下被理解为天主教徒和新教之间的意思，这个项目也将触及不同种族的人之间的关系;和爱情和婚姻的变化模式关于LGBTQIA+的权利和增加移民到爱尔兰在二十世纪的最后几十年。该项目的主要学术成果是一本跨学科的合著专著、一系列文章、一次重要的国际会议和一本合编的文集。这一强有力的学术研究方案将辅之以广泛的公众参与和影响战略。计划开展的活动包括：根据该项目的调查结果委托制作一部新的戏剧，将在贝尔法斯特、都柏林、德里和科克演出;一部公共电影系列;一个展览，项目小组成员将进行公开演讲;以及一部纪录短片。公众将通过一个专门的网站和社交媒体随时了解项目的进展情况。跨越政治和/或宗教分歧的婚姻往往是一个有争议的问题;特别是在爱尔兰，这些分歧的风险很高。尽管这种现象相对普遍，而且研究这些婚姻模式可能会给我们带来爱尔兰和英国历史上一个非常动荡的时期，但对这个问题的研究非常有限。采取跨学科的方法，汇集了历史，文化和文学研究，这个项目将产生第一个持续参与“混合婚姻”，或“跨越鸿沟的爱”在整个爱尔兰岛在二十世纪。它将解释爱尔兰文化、政治和社会的叙述如何与爱尔兰人的生活经历相交。有一个杜撰的笑话说，爱尔兰社会，特别是在北方爱尔兰，是如此分裂在其假定的“两个社区”，甚至一个犹太人会被问到他们是“天主教犹太人还是新教犹太人”。这个项目将通过探索那些生活在这种狭隘的二元对立之外的人的故事来扭转这种谬论。因此，它将使我们对英国和爱尔兰之间的关系以及爱尔兰社会本身的结构的理解复杂化和丰富化。

'Do you know the Greek word endogamein? It means to marry within the tribe. And the word exogamein means to marry outside the tribe. And you don't cross those borders casually - both sides get very angry'. So claims Jimmy Jack, a character in Brian Friel's play Translations, first performed in 1980, in a thinly veiled warning about an Irish woman's relationship with an English soldier. Translations is an example of a 'love across the divide' story: a type of romance narrative that depicts Ireland's difficult relationship with Britain as a (sexually) frustrated and dangerous romance between lovers from 'opposing sides'. These 'national romance' stories have an incredibly long history stretching back to the Anglo-Norman colonisation of Ireland in the twelfth century. In fact, the relationship between Britain and Ireland has often been described as a marriage, with Ireland the wife.Such symbolism is all very well but what was life like for those involved in actual 'mixed marriages', or 'mixed relationships', where one partner was Catholic and one Protestant, or one Nationalist and the other Unionist? How many couples were there involved in such mixed relationships and were these sorts of unions less likely to happen at particular times in Ireland's history, such as during the War of Independence, or the Troubles? What happened to their children? What did romantic relationships between members of the nationalist community and the overseas military look like? These are the sorts of questions that will drive this research project. Although 'mixed marriage' in an Irish context is understood to mean between a Catholic and Protestant, this project will also touch upon relationships between people of different races; and the changing patterns of love and marriage with regards to LGBTQIA+ rights and increasing migration to Ireland in the latter decades of the twentieth century. The key academic outputs from this project are an interdisciplinary, co-authored monograph, a series of articles, a major international conference and a co-edited collection.This robust programme of academic research will be complemented by an extensive public engagement and impact strategy. Planned events and activities include: the commissioning and production of a new piece of theatre based on the project's findings, which will be performed in Belfast, Dublin, Derry and Cork; a public film series; an exhibition with public talks by project team members; and a short documentary film. The public will be kept informed about the project's progress through a dedicated website and social media presence.Marrying across political and/or religious divides has often been a contentious issue; especially in Ireland, where the stakes of these allegiances are high. Despite the relative prevalence of the phenomenon and the vital insight that studying these marriage patterns could give us into an extraordinarily turbulent period in Irish and British history, there has been very limited research on this subject. Taking an interdisciplinary approach that draws together historical, cultural and literary research, this project will produce the first sustained engagement with 'mixed marriage', or 'Love across the Divide' across the island of Ireland in the twentieth century. It will explicate how the narratives told about Irish culture, politics and society intersect with the lived experience of Irish people.There is an apocryphal joke that Irish society, especially in Northern Ireland, is so divided between its putative 'two communities' that even a Jewish person would be asked whether they were a 'Catholic Jew or a Protestant Jew'. This project will turn that fallacy on its head by exploring the stories of those who lived their lives beyond this narrow binary. As such, it will complicate and enrich our understanding of the relationship between Britain and Ireland, and the fabric of Irish society itself.