Judith Butler pursues a similar path to Hannah Arendt in her recent book Parting Ways: Jewishness and the Critique of Zionism – making a series of revised and extended contributions to the debate on Israeli state violence and settler colonialism, in such a way that a flash of light may shine through the histories and the memories.

A decision to restrict the flying of the union flag over Belfast City Hall late last year sparked weeks of protests and riots. The cause is rooted deep in the legacy of the peace process.

Postcolonial nationalism is a strange phenomenon. Brought up to despise everything British (as Jonathan Swift put it two centuries earlier, ‘burn everything English except their coal’), we were also imbued with a sneaking suspicion that British was somehow better.

Given a choice, most people prefer a decent life to national or ethnic purity. Given a choice, most people like to get on with their neighbours, to fit in with their communities, to carry on with the business of going to work and raising a family and hoping for the best. 

'The Great British Summer' of 2012 is well and truly over. OurKingdom takes a rollercoaster journey back through the season to close its series.

The latest in a series of official inquiries exposes the extent of corruption in Ireland’s political elite during the long years of rule by the country’s Fianna Fáil party. These tribunals portray a world of moral as well as financial bankruptcy whose roots were planted well before the boom years, says the leading historian Diarmaid Ferriter.