Islandness, nations and ‘peerie places': Shetland and Ireland as archipelagic neighbours

This article considers Shetland and Ireland, at their different scales and with their different relationships to nationhood, in terms of ‘islandness’ and as archipelagic neighbours. After outlining how ‘islandness’ applies to these two places, and discussing relevant work on divided islands, small islands and archipelagos, it turns to the relationship between Shetland and Ireland. These islands relate to each other not as part of a transnational ‘Celtic’ or ‘Gaelic’ imagined community, as might be said of Ireland and Scotland’s Western Isles/Na h-Eileanan Siar, but through shared labour networks and migratory routes. In the twentieth century, as examined through archival and observational material and an interview, these include the coastal workers following fishing in the decades after the ‘herring boom’, and the transient Irish labourers brought to Shetland by its ‘oil boom’. At one moment in 1981, Ireland’s violently contested divided island status and Shetland’s small island experience of rapid social change collided, with an IRA bombing attempt at the opening of Sullom Voe oil terminal. ‘Islandness’ operates not only as a storehouse for the symbolic repertoire of national identities but also as a disruptive edge to narratives of nationality as natural or simple, and viewing encounters across Britain and Ireland through an ‘islandness’ lens refocuses established narratives of mobility and interrelationship.