From Shibboleths to Shared Terminology? The Divisive Place Names of Northern Ireland

Abstract

In Northern Ireland, terminology has become a war zone due to the region’s longstanding ethno-political conflict. Unfortunately, with the exception Hawes-Bilger’s work (2007), there is little current research exploring this phenomenon. This paper aims to fill this current gap in knowledge by conducting a quantitative analysis on the use of contentious place names in Northern Ireland. The terms in this corpus linguistic study will be limited to ‘Londonderry,’ ‘Northern Ireland,’ and ‘the Republic of Ireland’ and their variants. Ultimately, the goal of this paper is to determine if the relative peace throughout the last 15 years has led to less use of politically charged toponyms among the main actors in the conflict: the Republicans and Unionists within Northern Ireland itself.