Abstract
This article locates an understanding of the Shell to Sea social movement (mobilised in response to the building of an onshore pipeline dispute in County Mayo) within a wider narrative which incorporates understandings of civil society containing a diverse set of ‘epic conflicts’ such as the anti-globalisation movement and neo-liberalism or phantasmagoric mythic zones and magic realism. In so doing, it puts forward a deeper understanding of the narrative of ‘the civil society’; one which has its roots in the Aristotelian civics which are integral to the ars vitae or art of living the ‘Good Life’. The article sets out a framework for understanding the Shell to Sea dispute as one where the civil society of a local rural community is targeted by the planners and shapers of a globalised type of risk-based post-modernity, causing a resistance which is embedded in the basis of civility which state, industry and society are meant to embrace and devise opportunities for, rather than having such communities targeted and undermined. The paper approaches these issues using a range of communications theories, including Habermas, narrative theory and interpretation and analysis, and identifies some of the societal strains surrounding the issue of community in (post) modern Ireland.
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