Description

Great White Tent

Edited by Alwyn Thomson (ECONI Research Officer)

For two years ECONI was involved in a research project entitled God, Land and Nation, exploring the relationship between religious and political identities. In 1996 ECONI published Faith in Ulster, which gave unionists an opportunity to reflect on their own identity.

This book, The Great White Tent, invites twenty-five contributors from the nationalist tradition to share their perceptions of unionist identity. Politicians, academics, clergy, community activists and journalists representing a broad cross-section of nationalism question, challenge, appeal to, and reflect on their unionist co-citizens.

“The publication of this book presents a huge challenge to the Protestant community in Northern Ireland,” said David McMillan, a member of ECONI’s Steering Group. “The challenge is to be prepared to listen to the opinions of those whom we have lived alongside, yet for so long have been strangers to, as they reflect on how we appear to them.”

ECONI believes that the diversity, which this publication represents, will contribute to a broader understanding of identity and help to break down simplistic and stereotypical perceptions of the ‘other’ community.

Published by ECONI in 1999