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Symbols in Northern Ireland. Edited by Anthony D. Buckley. Belfast: Institute of Irish Studies, The Queen's University, 1998. 198 pp. Illus. L8.50. ISBN 0 85389 692 5
The nine essays in this volume deal with what editor Anthony Buckley terms the "serious business" of symbolism in Northern Ireland, inspired by the exhibition Symbols, put together by Rhonda Paisley in 1994 under the auspices of the Cultural Traditions Group of the Community Relations Council. Both the exhibit and the book are intended to give a sense of the range of symbols employed in Northern Ireland and the variety of contexts and meanings that they can inhabit. The book benefits from a clear introduction by Anthony Buckley, who places the specifics of each author's work within the broad context of symbol scholarship, and of Northern Ireland. I am not sure, however, that I agree with Buckley's assertion that symbols "dare us to laugh"; I would be careful about suggesting that insisting that others respect what you do is necessarily the same thing as daring someone to laugh at what you respect.
Buckley and the contributors to this volume deserve credit in generating one of the great strengths of...