Role of sports in Northern Ireland

Sport should be viewed as an important issue to be considered for those who study
nationalism and international relations (IR) because it represents a very powerful political tool in the nation- and identity-building project.

The sectarian nature of Scottish football mirrors the Northern Irish conflict in a number of
ways, most notably in the ways in which social, religious, cultural and ethnic divisions are reinforced.

Sport may have the potential to unify disparate factions, but it can also reinforce their division.
While all societies are to a certain extent divided, the question remains as to whether sport
exacerbates, reifies or bridges these divisions. MacClancy points out that, “Sports … may be used to fulfill a plethora of functions: to define more sharply the already established boundaries of moral and political communities; to assist in the creation of new social identities; to give physical expression to certain social values and to act as a means of reflecting on those values; to serve as potentially contested space by opposed groups.” In addition, Harvey points out that,
Nations that exist within nation-states also use sport to promote their own claims for sovereignty and the promotion of their interests as ethnic groups within established states.

Different forms of communities are solidified or even constructed through sport. Other nations enhance their identity through affirmation or contestation of the hegemonic national model.
Therefore, sport offers an avenue through which the Irish community in Glasgow can continue to express itself, as well as for the Scottish nation to attempt to build itself into something which is coherent and definable. Houlihan points out that, regarding the Irish situation in particular, that the history of that country, “…probably provides the first example of sport being used as a political resource in a nationalist and anticolonialist movement.” Sport is the domain of the masses, and the political opinion of the masses can be much more easily expressed in the stadium than it can in the halls of government. What is urgently needed is a deeper analysis of what impact and effect the political opinions of sports fans have on ‘actual’ politics. I have already argued here that there is, indeed, a relationship between sport and politics, but a deeper probing of what, exactly, this relationship means is crucial not only for the cases under consideration here, but also for international relations in general.

The relationship between the city of Glasgow and its Irish community is long and complex,
and therefore it should not be surprising that nationalist and unionist sentiments are just as evident in Sauchiehall St. in Glasgow as they are in the Falls Rd. and Shankhill Rd. neighbourhoods of Belfast. It is because of the strength and historical embededness of this relationship that a consideration of the impact of sport, and in this case, football in particular, has on social and ethnic identities is crucial for our understanding of the continuing salience of the Northern Irish conflict, as well as for the state of the Scottish nation.
A deeper examination of this relationship requires mainstream IR theory to be more cognisant of the power that everyday life and social rituals have in forming an individual’s political, ethnic, religious and national identity. By taking cues from feminist literature, IR theorists are able to reject the inaccurate public/private divide which pervades our understanding of ‘the international’.

Moreover, an increased focus on the literature on the ‘everyday’ international political economy allows us to be aware that, “Our everyday actions have important consequences for the constitution and transformation of the local, national, regional and global contexts.”
Finally, borrowing from post-modernist and post-structuralist approaches allow us to question more concretely the actions which we claim are political, while also encouraging us to critique and problematise the binaries which pervade our knowledge of ‘the international’.
See Joseph M. Bradley, “Sport and the Contestation of Cultural and Ethnic Identities in Scottish
Society”, in Cronin and Myall, eds. John M. Hobson and Leonard Seabrooke, “Everyday IPE: Revealing everyday forms of change in the world economy”,

Sport is remarkably resilient in the face of the homogenizing forces of globalization, and in this sense is comparable to religion given the depth of commitment and resistance to external (globalizing) forces. Frey and Eitzen argue that, “Sport is a very prominent social institution in almost every society because it combines the characteristics found in any institution with a unique appeal only duplicated by, perhaps, religion.” Even Baron Pierre de Coubertin, the founder of the modern Olympic Games, “...regarded sport as a religion, with its own church, dogma and culture, but above all with religious feelings.”