King Billy and Mother Ireland in Mirrors

In this study of the visual traditions of loyalism and republicanism, the author makes a deliberate effort to prioritise the popular visual images which are particular to Northern Ireland, and are most prevalent within urban, working-class areas. This in itself makes Mirrors an unusual book because, by virtue of its focus, it contests the dominant characterisation of Irish popular culture as an oral phenomenon. But Mirrors is a curious book in other ways: the political and social history of Ireland which, on the face of it, is important in tracing the origins and circulation of the imagery within Loyalism and Republicanism, is not fore-fronted and indeed is seen to be almost incidental. And, if the lack of political and social history in Mirrors is remarkable, it is also strange that there is no acknowledgement of recent theoretical discourses on the concept of the 'other', on the coloniser and the colonised and how representations of the coloniser have played a major role in the ways that Loyalists and Republicans strive to represent themselves. It is possible that Belinda Loftus has her reasons as to why Mirrors should stop short of an expansive analysis of loyalism and republicanism and their respective images. The book is in large format with a brief text, and the presentation is distinctly populist. In other words, the author's projected audience may well be those for whom the profuse illustrations carry heaviest symbolic meaning. Considerable tact is employed when direct references are made to contemporary loyalists or republicans, the more bitter sites of conflict are avoided and, by and large, Loftus restricts the history and transformations of the images to the more formal aspects. However, in this regard, it is equally possible that the author is herself unclear as to whether she is researching her topic as a conventional art historian, or as a popular sociologist. That said, one of the major stumbling blocks of the book is the sheer incompatability of the central images of King William and Mother Ireland: on the one hand, the seventeenth-century monarch enshrined as the great defender of Protestantism and, on the other, the ambiguous and multi-faceted woman who represents Ireland and the many shades of nationalism. The book splits into two parts, the first historically delineated around the absolute and patriarchal image of King William, while the second is vague and aspirational with permutations of Mother Ireland suggested in everything from Celtic Goddesses to contemporary Irish women. If delicacy and a need to respect the two traditions call for the difference in treatment, the disparity makes for disconcerting reading and a very large question mark over the author's intentions.