Assessing the relative importance of British influence and of indigenous impulses in shaping an independent Ireland, this book identifies the relationship between personality and process in determining Irish history.
The Modernisation of Irish Society surveys the period from the end of the Famine to the triumph of Sinn Fein in the 1918 election and argues that during that time Ireland became one of the most modern and advanced political cultures in the world. Professor Lee contends that the Famine death-rate, however terrible, was not unprecedented. What was different was the post-Famine response to the catastrophy. The sharply increased rate of emigration left behind a population of tenent farmers engaged in market orientated agriculture and determined to protect and improve their position. It was this group that used the British political system so skillfully, a process elaborated and refined in the Land League and Home Rule movements under Parnell. The Parnell era left a lasting legacy of modern political engagement and organisation which was carried on in essentials by the later Home Rule party and by Sinn Fein, and – beyond the terminal date of the book – would make its mark on the politics of independent Ireland. The Modernisation of Irish Society was first published as volume 10 of the original Gill History of Ireland.
Explores the history of the Irish in America, offering an overview of Irish history, immigration to the United States, and the transition of the Irish from the working class to all levels of society.
This volume brings together some of the most distinguished historians from Ireland to offer their own interpretations of key issues and events in Irish history.This volume brings together distinguished historians of Ireland, each of whom tackles a key question, issue or event in Irish history since the eighteenth century and:* examines its historiography* assesses the context of new interpretations* considers the strengths and weaknesses of revisionist ideas* offers their own interpretation.Topics covered are not only of historical interest but, in the context of recent revisionist debates, of contemporary political significance.These original contributions take account of new evidence and perspectives, as well as up-to-date historical methodology. Their combination of synthesis and analysis represent a valuable guide to the present state of the writing of modern Irish history.
Hegemony and Fantasy in Irish Drama, 1899-1949 offers a theoretically innovative reconsideration of drama produced in the Irish Renaissance, as well as an engagement with non-canonical drama in the under-researched period 1926-1949.
The years of Ireland’s union with Great Britain are most often regarded as a period of great turbulence and conflict. And so they were. But there are other stories too, and these need to be integrated in any account of the period. Ireland’s progressive primary education system is examined here alongside the Famine; the growth of a happily middle-class Victorian suburbia is taken into account as well as the appalling Dublin slum statistics. In each case, neither story stands without the other. This study synthesises some of the main scholarly developments in Irish and British historiography and seeks to provide an updated and fuller understanding of the debates surrounding nineteenth- and early twentieth-century history.
“Tap[s] the power of new geospatial technologies . . . explore[s] the intersection of geography, religion, politics, and identity in Irish history.”—International Social Science Review Ireland’s landscape is marked by fault lines of religious, ethnic, and political identity that have shaped its troubled history. Troubled Geographies maps this history by detailing the patterns of change in Ireland from 16th century attempts to “plant” areas of Ireland with loyal English Protestants to defend against threats posed by indigenous Catholics, through the violence of the latter part of the 20th century and the rise of the “Celtic Tiger.” The book is concerned with how a geography laid down in the 16th and 17th centuries led to an amalgam based on religious belief, ethnic/national identity, and political conviction that continues to shape the geographies of modern Ireland. Troubled Geographies shows how changes in religious affiliation, identity, and territoriality have impacted Irish society during this period. It explores the response of society in general and religion in particular to major cultural shocks such as the Famine and to long term processes such as urbanization. “Makes a strong case for a greater consideration of spatial information in historical analysis―a message that is obviously appealing for geographers.”—Journal of Interdisciplinary History “A book like this is useful as a reminder of the struggles and the sacrifices of generations of unrest and conflict, albeit that, on a global scale, the Irish troubles are just one of a myriad of disputes, each with their own history and localized geography.”—Journal of Historical Geography
Professor Dermot Keogh's Twentieth-Century Ireland, the sixth and final book in the New Gill History of Ireland series, is a wide-ranging, informative and hugely engaging study of the long twentieth century, surveying politics, administrative history, social and religious history, culture and censorship, politics, literature and art. It focuses on the consolidation of the new Irish state over the course of the twentieth century. Professor Keogh highlights the long tragedy of emigration, its effect on the Irish psyche and on the under-performance of the Irish economy. He emphasises the lost opportunities for reform of the 1960s and early 70s. Membership of the EU had a diminished impact due to short-term and sectionally motivated political thinking and an antiquated government structure. Professor Keogh looks at how the despair of the 1950s revisited the country in the 1980s as almost an entire generation felt compelled to emigrate, very often as undocumented workers in the United States. Professor Keogh also argues that the violence in Northern Ireland from the late 1960s was an Anglo-Irish failure which was turned around only when Britain acknowledged the role of the Irish government in its resolution. He extends his analysis of the twentieth-century to include a wide-ranging survey of the most contentious events—financial corruption, child sexual abuse, scandals in the Catholic Church—between 1994 and 2005. Twentieth-Century Ireland: Table of Contents - A War without Victors: Cumann na nGaedheal and the Conservative Revolution - De Valera and Fianna Fáil in Power, 1932–1939 - In the Time of War: Neutral Ireland, 1939–1945 - Seán MacBride and the Rise of Clann na Poblachta - The Inter-Party Government, 1948–1951 - The Politics of Drift, 1951&1959 - Seán Lemass and the 'Rising Tide' of the 1960s - The Shifting Balance of Power: Jack Lynch and Liam Cosgrave, 1966–1977 - Charles Haughey and the Poverty of Populism - Ireland in the New Century