Girl Interrupted: Citizenship and the Irish Hijab Debate

Social and Legal Studies, Vol. 20, p. 463, 2011

28 Pages Posted: 18 Jan 2012

See all articles by Máiréad Enright

Máiréad Enright

University of Birmingham - Birmingham Law School

Date Written: January 17, 2012

Abstract

This article discusses the case of Shekinah Egan, an Irish Muslim girl who asked to be allowed to wear the hijab to school. It traces the media and government response to her demand, and frames that demand as a citizenship claim. It focuses in particular on a peculiarity of the Irish response; that the government was disinclined to legislate for the headscarf in the classroom. It argues that – perhaps counter-intuitively – the refusal to make law around the hijab operated to silence the citizenship claims at the heart of the Egan case. To this extent, it was a very particular instance of a broader and ongoing pattern of exclusion of the children of migrants from the Irish public sphere.

Keywords: hijab, Muslim, law, Ireland, religion, citizenship

JEL Classification: K400

Suggested Citation

Enright, Mairead, Girl Interrupted: Citizenship and the Irish Hijab Debate (January 17, 2012). Social and Legal Studies, Vol. 20, p. 463, 2011, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1987022

Mairead Enright (Contact Author)

University of Birmingham - Birmingham Law School ( email )

Edgbaston
Birmingham, AL B15 2TT
United Kingdom

HOME PAGE: http://www.birmingham.ac.uk/schools/law/staff/profile.aspx?ReferenceId=119022

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