Accusations: The Occasioned Use of Members' Knowledge of `Religious Geography' in Describing Events

Abstract

The data analysed here are taken from the transcripts of the Scarman Tribunal hearings (into Violence and Civil Disorder in Northern Ireland in 1969): in this extract a senior police officer is cross-examined about events in which he was involved. In directing the cross-examination the counsel can be heard to draw attention to reports about these events, and to draw certain inferences from the descriptions contained in those reports. On the basis of those inferences the counsel can then be heard to accuse the witness that his action during these events was in some way defective. The descriptions which comprise the reports overwhelmingly employ place names, where these can be used to identify the religion of persons involved, and, in a variety of ways, to thereby document those persons' actions and the character of events. The analysis explores the use made of conventional knowledge of religious geography as an interpretative resource, through which certain descriptive work can achieve a characterization of the scenes reported in such a way as to stand as the basis for the accusation.