Constructing Irish National Identity

Author Anne Kane analyzes the intertwined cultural, political and social transformations that occur during historical events by focusing specifically on the case of the Irish Land War, a pivotal event in the formation of the modern Irish nation.

This book provides a critical interpretation of the construction of Irish national identity in the longer perspective of history. Drawing on recent sociological theory, the authors demonstrate how national identity was invented and codified by a nationalist intelligentsia in the late nineteenth century. The trajectory of this national identity is traced as a process of crisis and contradiction. One of the central arguments is that the negative implications of Irish national identity have never been fully explored by social science.

A study of the construction of Irish national identity focusing on Irish music and the colonial relationship between Ireland and England.

Gaelicization was a deliberate attempt to reclaim the distinctive identity and civilization of the Irish people. The Irish language was at its core. At the end of the 19th century there was a flowering of Irish cultural nationalism in Ireland and in the United States. Although there was a substantial body of Irish speakers in America, language maintenance was not a priority for them. Rather, the formation of Gaelic societies and the cultivation of the Irish language became a building block of ethnic pride. This embracing of ethnicity in its most advantageous form became a tool of assimilation for the American Irish. Although the Gaelic movements in Ireland and in the United States appeared to be one, they were separate with different focuses. To the Gaelic League in Ireland, the language movement in the United States was an inspiration and a valuable financial resource. The League's missions to America were primarily fund-raising tours for the home organization. The Gaelic societies in the United States were focused primarily on the American Irish and on their need for asserting a distinctive and cultured identity in the new world. -- Publisher description

Why is English national identity so enigmatic and so elusive? Why, unlike the Scots, Welsh, Irish and most of continental Europe, do the English find it so difficult to say who they are? The Making of English National Identity, first published in 2003, is a fascinating exploration of Englishness and what it means to be English. Drawing on historical, sociological and literary theory, Krishan Kumar examines the rise of English nationalism and issues of race and ethnicity from earliest times to the present day. He argues that the long history of the English as an imperial people has, as with other imperial people like the Russians and the Austrians, developed a sense of missionary nationalism which in the interests of unity and empire has necessitated the repression of ordinary expressions of nationalism. Professor Kumar's lively and provocative approach challenges readers to reconsider their pre-conceptions about national identity and who the English really are.

This is a book about Irish nationalism and how Irish nationalists developed their own conception of the Irish race. Bruce Nelson begins with an exploration of the discourse of race--from the nineteenth--century belief that "race is everything" to the more recent argument that there are no races. He focuses on how English observers constructed the "native" and Catholic Irish as uncivilized and savage, and on the racialization of the Irish in the nineteenth century, especially in Britain and the United States, where Irish immigrants were often portrayed in terms that had been applied mainly to enslaved Africans and their descendants. Most of the book focuses on how the Irish created their own identity--in the context of slavery and abolition, empire, and revolution. Since the Irish were a dispersed people, this process unfolded not only in Ireland, but in the United States, Britain, Australia, South Africa, and other countries. Many nationalists were determined to repudiate anything that could interfere with the goal of building a united movement aimed at achieving full independence for Ireland. But others, including men and women who are at the heart of this study, believed that the Irish struggle must create a more inclusive sense of Irish nationhood and stand for freedom everywhere. Nelson pays close attention to this argument within Irish nationalism, and to the ways it resonated with nationalists worldwide, from India to the Caribbean.

The stranger, the foreigner and the pilgrim are all familiar figures in literature, philosophy, theology and mythology. This figure - travelling the world in search of refuge and sanctuary – is one which has had a particular resonance for many millions of Irish people in recent centuries. This book is a window on a new aspect of the Irish experience that is the “strainséir” or pilgrim. It is one man’s story of exile and renewal in a world where the concepts of home, place and diaspora are all changing at frightening speed. Jean “Ryan” Hakizimana’s story is the story of an artist, the colours of whose palette reflect the multicultural tapestry that is Irish society today. It is a narrative that involves a journey halfway across the globe, a portrait of the “modern” world incorporating exile, starvation, and genocide before the final “liberation” that is the healing process of painting. Traumatised from the horrific childhood experiences he witnessed during the genocides of Burundi and Rwanda in the mid-1990s it was almost a decade later and at a distance of many thousands of miles that African artist Jean Ryan once again found the will to paint. This book sheds light on the diaspora experience of the “new” Irish, the refugees and asylum-seekers who are changing the face of many of Ireland’s villages and towns that until recently had been emptied by widespread emigration. The economic “miracle” that has transformed Ireland in the past decade has been accompanied by much rhetoric regarding multiculturalism, integration and dialogue with the newer peoples and cultures that now live in Ireland. As of yet, however, there has been few attempts to chronicle or engage in dialogue with the many different aspects of the diaspora experience that define these “new” Irish, the young Irish who will carry a renewed and exciting new Irish identity into the future. One of the greatest challenges facing Irish society and the indeed the Irish educational sector is how best to harness the benefits of the wide range of cultural experiences, values and peoples that are now part of the Irish cultural fabric. This book is one of the first attempts at such a new an exciting intercultural dialogue in Ireland. It is only through such a process of dialogue that we may uncover a “new politics of truth” (Foucault, 1977), a new discourse and a more productive understanding of the relationship that now exists between the various strands of Ireland’s multicultural society.

This book examines the origins of Ireland in its first independent incarnation, the Irish Free State (1922-1937). It explores how contemporary public relations and propaganda techniques were used to construct an identity for this new state – a state which after enduring seven years of insurrection and civil war, became one of the most stable democracies in Europe. This stability, the book argues, was constructed not solely through policies enacted by governments, but through the construction of a Gaelic, Catholic and Celtic national identity. By shifting the perspective to how nation building was communicated, it weaves an interdisciplinary narrative that initiates a new understanding of nation building - providing insights of increasing relevance in current world events. Avoiding a simplistic cause and effect history of public relations, the book examines the uses and effects of early public relations from a political and societal perspective and suggests that while governments were only modestly successful in their varied propaganda efforts, cumulatively they facilitated a transition from violence to peace. This will be of interest to researchers and advanced students with an interest in public relations, propaganda studies, nation building and Irish studies.

From the dark shadow of civil war to the pastel-painted towns of today, Making Ireland Irish provides a sweeping account of the evolution of the Irish tourist industry over the twentieth century. Drawing on an extensive array of previously untapped or underused sources, Eric G. E. Zuelow examines how a small group of tourism advocates, inspired by tourist development movements in countries such as France and Spain, worked tirelessly to convince their Irish compatriots that tourism was the secret to Ireland’s success. Over time, tourism went from being a national joke to a national interest. Men and women from across Irish society joined in, eager to help shape their country and culture for visitors’ eyes. The result was Ireland as it is depicted today, a land of blue skies, smiling faces, pastel towns, natural beauty, ancient history, and timeless traditions. With lucid prose and vivid detail, Zuelow explains how careful planning transformed Irish towns and villages from grey and unattractive to bright and inviting; sanitized Irish history to avoid offending Ireland’s largest tourist market, the English; and supplanted traditional rural fairs revolving around muddy animals and featuring sexually suggestive ceremonies with new family-friendly festivals and events filling today’s tourist calendar. By challenging existing notions that the Irish tourist product is either timeless or the consequence of colonialism, Zuelow demonstrates that the development of tourist imagery and Irish national identity was not the result of a handful of elites or a postcolonial legacy, but rather the product of an extended discussion that ultimately involved a broad cross-section of society, both inside and outside Ireland. Tourism, he argues, played a vital role in “making Ireland Irish.”

This book examines the development of opposed Nationalist and Unionists identities as products of different economies, symbolically represented in religious differences, that impelled conflicting cultures and ideals of best interest that were fundamentally incompatible within a single identity.