Publications

Challenging Times: A Journey In Faith
Johnston McMaster

This book is a theological autobiography. It reflects on almost five decades of professional life in an Ireland that has experienced seismic change, which means living through challenging times. These include the death of Christendom in Ireland, the emergence of the secular society, the destructive culture of violence, a reluctant peace nd the perennial challenge of suffering. They are unsettling public experiences. If a faith journey requires reflection on such experiences, then theology keeps changing, being refined, expanding, at times a process of deconstruction and reconstruction. Old models are abandoned and new ones embraced. God, meaning and praxis do not stand still but are in perpetual motion and metamorphoses. This book is a reflection on such a journey in faith.

Johnston McMaster is the author of the Ethical and Shared Remembering programme, 1912-1922 through The Junction, Derry-Londonderry. For sixteen years he directed the Education for Reconciliation programme of the Irish School of Ecumenics, Trinity College Dublin. He is an ordained minister of the Methodist Church and a member of the Irish Council of State.

Partition: What Did It Do For Us?
Johnston McMaster

The Government of Ireland Act received Royal Assent on 23 December 1920. The Act partitioned Ireland. In December 2020 we mark the centenary in the most unprecedented of times, with the devastation of Covid-19, a global pandemic claiming many lives and recognising no borders anywhere on the planet. Covid-19 will be the global context in which we mark partition and it will shape how we do it.

The book explores the long journey to partition and recognises, not just the partition of Ireland, but the partition of the Province of Ulster, the partition of Irish Unionists and of Irish Nationalists. Attention is given to the Boundary Commission, which proved to be an exercise in futility, if not farce. What will we do with the future? The last chapter looks at some potential scenarios, where the future of Ireland might be, and the need to create a covenanted society, of solidarity, neighbourliness and a common good.

Is There Life After Covid-19?
Johnston McMaster

We were ambushed globally. From out of nowhere something was happening in a region in China, and then in a noticeably short time it was in Europe, and then America. Within a few months we had a global pandemic. Covid-19 is devastating, and we are now going to have to redesign the world.

In this book, there is a search for meaning and moral values. Suffering on the present scale or any other, raises ultimate questions about meaning. In trauma and loss, we wrestle with deep questions of meaning, and we are meaning-making people. The early chapters will explore the shaping of a new global order and probe if there is meaning in suffering.

The search for moral values, mainly in this book, but not exclusively, is through the Judeo-Christian tradition. The values and programme for life and action are explored in the Jewish Jesus and the Jewish Paul. The radical tradition of covenant, a different economic programme and just neighbourliness is examined as is the resurrection narrative, not as life after death, but resurrection now, resurrection to newness. The epilogue will draw together the prgrammatic vision and implications for, not only meaning, but the new future beyond Covid-19.

Herstory: A Journey of Liberation From Patriarchal Ethics
Cathy Higgins

Critiquing the society we live in, and identifying changes needed, as well as visioning where we want to get to, has been the work of ethicists from earliest time. We are all ethicists, and these questions concern everyone. Yet a closer look at the key influencers in society, who have shaped ethical discussions and how society has evolved, reveals that for much of history decisions about ethics have been made by men.

This book will explore why that is the case, the consequences for women, in particular, and society in general. The previous book on patriarchy, The Stories We Tell: Re-imagining Human Relations (2019), focused on the Irish experience solely, and was informed by interviews carried out in Derry Londonderry and Donegal. This book explores the journey of liberation from patriarchal ethics in a wider European and global context. It is informed by book research in a number of different disciplines includinf: history, philosophy, theology, literature and political science. It is a book about what it means to be human together. For being human is about ethical living and living within an ethical community.

The Stories We Tell: Re-imagining Human Relations
Cathy Higgins

The Stories We Tell: Re-imagining Human Relations is an exploration and critique of patriarchy through the medium of story. Patriarchy is an unjust and undemocratic social system that has institutionalised gender inequalities and justified the use of dominating power to protect the privileged. This book is concerned to illustrate how patriarchy continues to shape cultural traditions and human relations in Northern Ireland, the Republic of Ireland, and further afield, impacting all areas of life. It juxtaposes personal life-stories shared by women and men living in Derry Londonderry, Strabane and Inishowen with critical reflections on literary works, including biblical texts, to illustrate the damage wrought by patriarchy. Egalitarian practices and proposals from this northwest region on strategies to dismantle patriarchy are outlined. Just peace and the healing of human relations, locally and globally, requires a commitment to ending patriarchy, which is the oldest and most resilient of all the domination systems.

As If I Cared
Damian Gorman

£10.00

DAMIAN GORMAN has been described as “Ireland’s best-kept secret”. While he has worked as a writer and encourager of writing for more than 35 years – and his poems (and plays) have featured regularly on television, radio and online platforms – he has only very rarely published them. And never more than very few at a time.

AS IF I CARED is the first comprehensive selection of his best-known and best-loved poems, along with some other “bits and pieces”. Renowned for his readings – both live and filmed – he has attempted to carry the register of a reading into book form here. With two thoughts in mind – 1) that it should be entertaining, and 2) that it hold in its heart Adrienne Rich’s thought that “without tenderness, we are in hell”.

Reformed Always to be Reformed
Johnston McMaster

£10.00

This publication is about a long lasting revolution in modern European history. What happened in the sixteenth century changed Europe and the legacies endure. The most bitter wars in Christian history were fought at this time. The religious map of Europe took shape. Ireland experienced the Reformations, Anglican, Reformed and Catholic, producing a bitter, sectarianised and violent history.

We no longer live in the sixteenth century and our twenty-first century questions are different. In a declining West we are now faced with challenges to reform our political, economic and cultural systems and institutions. For Christian faith communities in relation to other globalised religions, what will ‘reformed‘ theology look like?

Ethics and the Easter Rising
Johnston McMaster and Cathy Higgins

£10.00

The 1916 Easter Rising has become the foundational myth of the Irish Republic. It was set in the wider context of nineteenth century militarised nationalism. There was a world before the Rising, larger than Ireland, and there were Irish risings before the Rising. There were watershed events that led to the Rising in 1916, and the Great War was the framing event of the whole decade 1912-1922, that shaped contemporary Ireland. Seven men signed the Proclamation and their characters are explored. Their executions, with the resonance of martyrdom for Irish Catholic sensibilities, turned a failure into success. Women were involved in various ways, some in the Rising, some with radically alternative voices. There was a gendered dimension to the Rising and Patriarchy was dominant and pervasive. These important themes are dealt with as the book moves into critical and ethical evaluation.

Ethical and Shared Remembering Information Booklet 
Johnston McMaster in partnership with Maureen Hetherington

Information Booklet. An overview of the Ethical & Shared Remembering project and it’s aims and objectives.

Churches In Exile
Cathy Higgins

£10.00

What is the future of the churches in Ireland? The recent census in Northern Ireland confirms that fewer people are identifying with any church, whether Catholic or Protestant. Is this a sign of end times for church, or just church as we know it? Like any institution, since its 1st-century beginning, the Christian Church has undergone huge changes in self-understanding and in its various external manifestations. Change is never easy and, as the history of the Christian church demonstrates, it can often her fraught with anxiety, and result in conflict and division. This book explores diverse models of church from the past and present that offer ethical examples of engaged faith and practice that are an antidote to the present malaise in Irish churches, currently struggling under the collapse of moral authority and belief systems. Drawing on the biblical experience and metaphor of exile as a source of inspiration and hope, this book challenges contemporary Irish churches to be a counter-cultural movement that meets the real need for more authentic expressions of faith rooted in a spirituality of justice and peace.

Personalities of The Decade 1912-1922
Johnston McMaster

£10.00

Facts and figures do not make history interesting. Personalities do. People are history-makers for good and ill, and during the crucial decade, 1912-1922, there were key personalities and key players. Politicians were exclusively male.

The book features four nationalist/republican political personalities, four unionist leaders and four British politicians, though one of the latter was not a constitutional politician the constitutional monarch. They were all people of their time who can be judged critically but only in the context of their time.

As personalities of the time they are like the rest of us, flawed and contradictory. So we see genius and flaws in their personalities, things to affirm and things that make us cringe. But what would we have done and would we have acted differently?

For better and worse these twelve shaped the rest of our twentieth century and their shadows fall on our still difficult pathway. They were not the only key personalities and players. There were others but books have limits and apologies of your favourite politician of the revolution and change is not here.

War and Memory
Johnston McMaster and Cathy Higgins

£10.00

1912-1922 was a critical decade of change and violence in Ireland. The events of the decade need to be seen together and not in isolation from each other. It shaped the socio-political landscape in Ireland for the rest of the 20th century and the unresolved issues of that time contributed to the more recent, violent conflict.

The defining event of the decade was the Great War (1914-1918). This book attempts to reflect on the Great War and memory through an ethical prism. It begins with the imperial context, essential for a critical understanding of the world that went to war. The book ends with the affirmation that humans always have choices, which means that there were and always are alternatives. The 20th century could have been different and so can the 21st, depending on our choices.

Profiling Irish Women
Cathy Higgins

£10.00

In December 1920 Hanna Sheehy Skeffington published the final issue of the suffrage newspaper, the Irish citizen. She remarked, with heavy heart, that the women’s emancipation movement was just “marking time”. In 1922 the Irish Free State Constitution established the equality of the sexes, and a similar equality was granted to women in Northern Ireland and Great Britain in 1928. Yet these developments failed to deliver the socio-political and economic opportunities those at the vanguard of the women’s movement had expected. What went wrong? Were women not persuasive enough in their arguments? Did men not wish to share power? Were there other socio-cultural and political dynamics at work?

This book outlines and critiques the various complex factors that impacted the development of the women’s movement in the late 19th century and early 20th century in Ireland. In addition, it adopts an historical fiction approach to imaginatively bring to life historical women from this period. The women profiled are drawn from unionist, nationalist, labour and suffrage movements, which dominated at that time. The hope is that as these women share their experiences, aspirations and fears, reasons for the ultimate failure of feminism to liberate women will become clearer. There is no quick fix to establishing gender equality but if we are serious about making it a reality in 21st century Ireland, north and south, then there is no avoiding honest grappling with the obstacles that stood in its way a century ago, some of which are live issues today.

Peer Mediation A Process For Primary Schools
Jerry Tyrrell

£10.00

Using the direct experience of a number of people who have successfully set up peer mediation in schools, this book explains, step by step,how to set up such processes in your school – the pitfalls and the rewards – and offers advice and practical experience on how to overcome resistance.

No Dope Here? Anti-Drugs Vigilantism in Northern Ireland
John Lindsay

£10.00

Since the 1990s, the accusation most commonly levelled against the victims of ‘punishment’ attacks and murders has been one of involvement in the trade in illegal drugs. This brutal paramilitary ‘justice’ is one of the least researched aspects of the Northern Irish conflict. This book looks at drug use in Northern Ireland, and at paramilitary attempts both to profit from it, and to ‘police’ it through violence.

A Passion for Justice: Social Ethics in the Celtic Tradition
Johnston McMaster

£10.00

The story of early Irish or Celtic faith communities provides insights, models and inspiration for a new Irish story. This book explores the early Irish or Celtic Story of people and personalities, their stories part history, part myth, in Celtic perspective both powerful means of recognising truthful ethics.

Visioning the Future 2012-2022
Johnston McMaster in partnership with Maureen Hetherington

This booklet is about a vision which is needed for a different kind of Northern Ireland and Ireland. A new kind of common good is to be imagined and creative dreaming is required for the shaping of a 21st century civic society, which is both local and global.

Living with the Legacy: Key Themes of the Decade, Past and Present
Johnston McMaster and Cathy Higgins in partnership with Maureen Hetherington

This booklet examines the key themes of a century ago, not only trying to look critically at them, but also to be serious about the present. How do we deal with nationalism, religion, violence in the 21st century? What are the challenges for now?

Lamenting in Hope: A Theology of Trauma and Healing
Johnston McMaster and Cathy Higgins in partnership with Maureen Hetherington

This booklet looks at a modern Ireland, with its history of violence which has become an Irish ethos, a destructive spirituality of Ireland, which needs to be acknowledged and critiqued in order to work towards hope and peace…. “There is serious ethical and theological work to be done”.

Ulster Covenant and Easter Proclamation
Johnston McMaster in partnership with Maureen Hetherington

The Ulster Covenant and Easter Proclamation are, for many, sacred texts. They represent the respective foundational documents of two parts of Ireland. This booklet explores the shared values of these two religio-political documents.

Ethical Theological Responses to Shared Remembering: 1912-1922
Johnston McMaster and Cathy Higgins in partnership with Maureen Hetherington

This booklet is an attempt to provide those in the faith community with a basis for critical theo-ethical reflection on a crucial and defining decade in Irish history. People of faith have a contribution to make to a decade of commemoration and the public square.

Ethical and Shared Remembering: A Decade of Change and Violence 1912-1922
Johnston McMaster in partnership with Maureen Hetherington

This booklet represents an overview of the decade 1912-1922. Rather than an in-depth treatment, it explores the decade as a whole and the inter-relationships between all the key events.

Doing Public Theology: An Introduction
Johnston McMaster

Please contact Drumalis Centre for more information and to request a copy of this publication http://www.drumalis.co.uk/