1 War, Religion, Gender and Psyche: An Irish Perspective Mary Condren Published in “War, Religion, Gender and Psyche: An Irish Perspective,” in Holy War and Gender: „Gotteskrieg‟ und Geschlecht” eds. Christina von Braun, Ulrike Brunotte, Gabriele Dietze, Daniela Hrzan, Gabriele Jähnert, Dagmar Pruin, Centre for Transdisciplinary Gender Studies, Humboldt University, Berlin, (New Brunswick, NJ, London: Transaction Publishers, 2006), pp. 143-177. Could the sacred be, whatever its variants, a two-sided formation? One aspect founded by murder, and the social bond made up of murder's guilt-ridden atonement, with all the projective mechanisms and obsessive rituals that accompany it; and another aspect, like a lining, more secret still and invisible, non-representable, oriented toward those uncertain spaces of unstable identity, toward the fragilityboth threatening and fusionalof the archaic dyad, toward the non-separation of subject/object, on which language has no hold but one woven of fright and repulsion? 1 Introduction The nuclear threat, and the willingness of suicide bombers, pilots and many others to sacrifice their lives to achieve political objectives pose ever-increasing dangers to world security. Never before in human history have we had the capacity (in both conventional and terrorists hands) to make the earth a wasteland. Why have we not achieved civilized means of resolving conflict? Why are our attitudes toward war so ambivalent? Under what circumstances do religions support or undermine violent imperatives? Can gender studies offer anything new to our study of these dynamics? In this paper, I first explore psychoanalytic perspectives on human and social development, focussing on the work of Melanie Klein. I will then outline the background to the last thirty-five years of armed struggle in Ireland. I go to suggest that Klein’s perspective on the human psyche would support contemporary theorist’s perspectives that women are not more peaceable than men: indeed, claims to that effect serve to reinforce female inactivity, or male prejudice toward powerful women. I will suggest that the Irish experience indicates that, although women are not naturally more peaceful than men, the entry of women into the political process can undermine some of the deeply unconscious fantasies that contribute to war. Moreover, the entry of self-conscious feminists, can potentially offer new variables, perspectives and strategies on conflict resolution. Religious discourse permeated the Irish conflict. Using Kleinian categories, I will suggest that the relationship between religion and violence is complex, but not intractable. Religious practitioners are now morally obliged to begin to understand the