Making the nation from below: Violence and identities in the Basque Country and Ulster

Abstract

In Northern Ireland the population has been classified into different communities following political/religious categories. Scholars, as well as the people in general, have usually compared the situation in the Basque Country with that existing in Ulster. In this article we explore whether Basque society might be classified using the kind of categories valid for the Northern Irish, trying to address the following question: To what extent does Northern Ireland’s “nationalism from below” reflect the same kind of political-religious communities prevailing in the Basque Country? In order to find an answer we focus on the evolution of radical nationalist groups in the Basque Country, Spain, the United Kingdom and Ireland in the second half of the twentieth century.