THE CITY AS TEXT - CONSTRUCTING DUBLIN IDENTITY THROUGH DISCOURSE ON TRANSPORTATION AND URBAN REDEVELOPMENT IN THE PRESS

This paper illustrates how the project of 'redeveloping' Dublin city h as been influenced by a set of symbolic and referential functions that may be collectively called insularity. In its political configuration , this insularity constitutes a desire to debase, rather than explore alternative realities of political deliberation on transport and urban renewal issues. In its relatedly cultural form, it aspires to presenc e tradition for tradition's sake. Insularity is both perpetuated and u pheld through a public discourse on the city that is played out betwee n competing social actors. This paper uses a text-oriented discourse a nalysis to examine a section of that discourse in the Irish Times betw een January 1991 and December 1995 to demonstrate how broader ideologi cal codes that perpetuate structural relationships of inequality find expression through discursively-elaborated urban development issues.