The Role of Motherhood Symbols in the Conflict Imagery of Northern Ireland

Abstract

Mirrored versions of motherhood symbolism used by Nationalist and Loyalist have served both to unite and divide Northern Ireland. This narrow range of Irish symbolic representations of motherhood may be due to patriarchal influences of Orangeism, the Protestant dependency on the written word (Loftus, 1982), the patriarchal nature of the Old Testament, and the development of Protestantism’s aniconic culture (Brett, 1999). Such motherhood symbolization is a powerful social organizer. In this visual essay, I discuss my own artwork, which has been influenced by my exposure to Renaissance/Catholic/Nationalist motherhood imagery in my childhood, as a form of social production (Wolff, 1983) that both resides within and yet disrupts the Irish motherhood discourse.