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The purpose of this paper is to explore the nature of industrial relations (IR), and IR conflict in the Irish healthcare sector.

The paper is based on a thematic analysis of Labour Court cases concerning hospitals over a ten‐year period.

The findings of the paper indicate that the nature of IR conflict is changing in healthcare. The paper suggests that alternative manifestations of IR conflict evident in the Irish healthcare sector include: absenteeism as a form of temporary exit; and resistance. The key groups in the sector are discussed in the context of their contrasting disputes. The themes which characterise negotiations are identified as precedent, procedure and partnership.

The research was conducted in the healthcare sector, and thus its transferability is limited. Caution is also required as the research pertains to one national setting, which despite sharing some structural similarities with other health and IR systems, is a unique context. The paper highlights the importance of recognising IR conflict in its various forms. It is further suggested that managing the process of IR conflict may be significant in furthering change agendas.

The value of the paper centres on the investigation of alternative manifestations of IR conflict in the healthcare sector.

The purpose of this chapter is to examine the genesis, operation, and effects of a dispute resolution body known as the National Implementation Body (NIB). The NIB was established by employers, unions, and the State in Ireland and was active between 2000 and 2009. It recorded significant success in resolving major disputes. A distinctive feature of the NIB was its networked character: the body involved key employer and union leaders and senior public servants, who exerted informal pressure on the parties in dispute to reach a settlement either within the NIB process itself or in the State’s mainstream dispute resolution agencies.

The research draws on case studies of disputes and interviews with key members of the NIB.

The findings reveal how the NIB mobilized networks to resolve a series of major disputes that threatened to derail national pay agreements or cause significant economic disruption.

The chapter examines the operation of networked dispute resolution in detail and considers the wider implications of networked dispute resolution in both Continental European and other Anglo-American countries.

The purpose of this paper is to critically explore the importance of the experiences of female former combatants during the Irish Conflict, colloquially known as “The Troubles” and outline key moments of resistance for female political prisoners during their time at Armagh jail. The paper will situate the analysis within a Foucauldian framework drawing on theoretical tools for understanding power, resistance and subjectivity to contextualise and capture rich narratives and experiences. What makes a Foucauldian analysis of former female combatants of the Conflict so inspiring is how the animation and location of problems of knowledge as “pieces” of the larger contest between The State, institutions of power and its penal subjects (ex-female combatants as prisoners). The paper has demonstrated that the body exists through and in culture, the product of signs and meanings, of discourse and practices.

This is primarily qualitative methodology underpinned by Foucauldian theory. There were 28 women and 20 men interviewed in the course of this research came from across Ireland, some came from cities and others came from rural areas. Some had spent time in prisons in the UK and others served time in the Republic of Ireland or in the North of Ireland. Many prisoners experienced being on the run and all experienced levels of brutality at the hands of the State. Ethical approval was granted from the Queens University Research Committee.

This paper only examines the experiences of female ex-combatants and their narratives of imprisonment. What this paper clearly shows through the narratives of the women is the gendered nature of imprisonment and the role of power, resilience and resistance whilst in prison in Northern Ireland. The voices in this paper disturb and interrupt the silence surrounding the experiences of women political prisoners, who are a hidden population, whilst in prison.

In terms of research impact, this qualitative research is on the first of its kind to explore both the experiential and discursive narratives of female ex-combatants of the Irish Conflict. The impact and reach of the research illustrates how confinement revealed rich theoretical insights, drawing from Foucauldian theory, to examine the dialectical interplay between power and the subjective mobilisation of resistance practices of ex-combatants in prison in Northern Ireland. The wider point of prison policy and practice not meeting basic human rights or enhancing the quality of life of such prisoners reveals some of the dystopian features of current prison policy and lack of gender sensitivity to female combatants.

It is by prioritising the voices of the women combatants in this paper that it not only enables their re-positioning at the centre of the struggle, but also moves away methodologically from the more typical sole emphasis on structural conditions and political processes. Instead, prioritising the voices of the women combatants places the production of subjectivities and agencies at the centre, and explores their dialectical relationship to objective conditions and practical constraints.

It is clear from the voices of the female combatants and in their social engagement in the research that the prison experience was marked specifically by assaults on their femininity, to which they were the more vulnerable due to the emphasis on sexual modesty within their socialisation and within the ethno-nationalist iconography of femininity. The aggression directed against them seems, in part, to have been a form of gender-based sexual violence in direct retaliation for the threat posed to gender norms by their assumption of the (ostensibly more powerful) role as combatants. They countered this by methods which foregrounded their collective identity as soldiers and their identification with their male comrades in “the same struggle”.

This paper is one of the first to explore the importance of the experiences of female former combatants during the Northern Irish Conflict with specific reference to their experience of imprisonment. The aim of this significant paper is to situate the critical analysis grounded in Foucauldian theory drawing on theoretical tools of power, resistance and subjectivity in order to make sense of women’s experiences of conflict and imprisonment in Ireland. It is suggested that power and resistance need to be re-appropriated in order to examine such unique gendered experiences that have been hidden in mainstream criminological accounts of the Irish Conflict.

This article explores the hypothesis of Clifford Geertz concerning the importance of essentialism (culture) and epochalism (economics) in the creation of new states. It focuses on the Irish state‐building process, examining the thought of the two leaders of the 1916 rising. It finds that Patrick Pearse throughout stressed cultural revitalization and James Connolly stressed economic/social transformation. The article lends support to Geertz’s hypothesis but notes that each leader also came to appreciate the primary concern of the other.

The period from the death of Charles Stewart Parnell (1891) to the establishment of the Irish Free State (1922) was a momentous one for Ireland. There was a cultural revitalization (1891– 1916), a Rising (1916), the Anglo‐Irish War (1919–21), the Treaty (1922), and the Civil War (1922–23) before the new Irish state settled into a routine pattern. This was a period characterized by assertive nationalism, dogmatism, and intolerance that led to violence and bloodshed. The result would be an independent Ireland, but a divided Ireland with potential for explosion in the North. Still there were people who surmounted the polemic of the moment and sought rational compromise and mutual tolerance. These were individuals who sought limited practical objectives, empathized with their adversaries, demonstrated civility, and often predicted the problems of the future. These were the “apostles of peace”. Among Ireland's many notables, three of such caliber stand out — Arthur Griffith, Horace Plunkett, and Eoin MacNeill. These men were intimately associated with the affairs of their day and were recognized for their integrity and professional accomplishment. They were also associated with the major peaceful attempts to solve Ireland's problems and avoid the warfare that ensued. Griffith, the journalist, founded the early Sinn Fein and came temporarily to lead the Irish Free State. Plunkett, the Anglo‐Irish aristocrat, founded the cooperative movement. MacNeill, the civil servant and historian, was involved in starting the Gaelic League and the Irish Volunteers. These were the “apostles of peace” and Ireland's subsequent trauma stemmed from their limited number. The objective of this study is to examine the careers of these three exceptional notables and ascertain if there exist some pattern. Are there generalizations that might be made about them collectively?

Representations of female perpetrators of political violence contribute to society's thinking about women, gender, violence and agency. Analysis of this discourse is vital to understand its influence on society's knowledge of women and violence. The study investigates how gendered narratives are used to frame female ex-combatants in Nationalist and Unionist newspapers in the post-conflict society of Northern Ireland. The media is a central agent in the construction of knowledge; and this is significant for women who have perpetrated crimes or (political) violence. The existing research found that violent women are narrated and interpreted through gendered discursive frameworks to dismiss or make sense of their violence. However, in the Northern Irish case, although the women are constructed within gendered frames, this does not deny their agency in past political violence.

The purpose of this study is to provide evidence to support an emerging theory that interpersonal conflict is the primary cause of workplace stress among a self-selected sample of Irish construction managers.

Eighteen construction managers working in Ireland were recruited for this study. Using semi-structured interviews and interpretative phenomenological analysis as the research methodology, the causes of their workplace stress were investigated.

Participants reported that the principal cause of their workplace stress was high levels of interpersonal conflict between colleagues. The effects of this interpersonal conflict included avoidance behaviour, ill health, absences from the workplace and loss of productivity issues. Deadlines, penalty clauses, lack of appreciation, cliques, costs, communication, temporary contracts and delays were also reported stressors.

A limitation of the study is the small sample of 18 construction managers and the limited geographical area.

The social implications of this study could be to clearly identify that interpersonal conflict may be under reported in the construction industry, and there is a possibility that it is being misclassified as other workplace behaviours such as bullying, harassment and workplace violence. If this is so, this could aid future researchers in addressing this challenging workplace behaviour.

The current consensus in the literature is that the three main causes of workplace stress are bullying, harassment and violence. However, the role and importance of interpersonal conflict as reported in this study, with the exception of North America and China, is not reflected in the wider health and safety research literature. In addition, interpersonal conflict and its reluctance to be reported is largely absent from construction safety research. The findings of this study may be explained if the workplace stress research community is currently misclassifying interpersonal conflict as a manifestation of bullying, harassment or violence. If this is the case, interpersonal conflict needs further research. This is to establish if this cause of construction-related workplace stress needs to be reconsidered as a standalone phenomenon in the wider family of challenging workplace behaviours.