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At its core, the conflict in Northern Ireland is not about religion or political insecurity over sovereignty or boundaries per se. Instead it is about two communities trying to expand their economic, political, cultural, and religious sense of self. Thus, the conflict is best understood as resulting from the interplay of the imaginary, symbolic, and real at the heart of subjectivity. How people construct their communal identity or interpret themselves is mainly unconscious, and the rationalizations this involves are the key to analysis of the conflict. The institutionalization of rationalizations involved in the interplay of these three orders reinforces communal division and prolongs antagonism. Interests become a focus of violent conflict when one's own aggression is rationalized as attack by the other and neuroses are badly handled.
I begin by presenting a brief examination of the literature on the republican and loyalist communities in Northern Ireland. This literature review suggests that there is a need to go beyond an examination simply of how people positively interpret themselves to a more critical and searching examination of the unconscious dynamics in the constitution of political identities. I then present an outline of Lacanian key to analysis of the conflict. The institutionalisation of rationalisations involved in the interplay of these three orders reinforces communal division and prolongs antagonism. Interests become a focus of violent conflict when one's own aggression is rationalised as attack by the other and neuroses are poorly handled.
In my section on findings, I attempt to identify some typical republican and loyalist communal meanings and their rationalisations that contribute to the reproduction of relations of domination. In my conclusion I point out the relevance of Lacanian analysis to the management of ethno-national conflicts. I end with a series of recommendations.