Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Irishmen'

This dissertation explores the relations between various strands of Irish nationalism and the homosocial/homosexual continuum as represented in texts by Irish writers Edward Martyn, James Joyce, Brian Friel, Thomas Kilroy, Frank McGuinness, and Jamie O'Neill. Drawing upon Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick's theories of homosociality, the epistemology of the closet, and homosexual panic as well as Judith Butler's theory of melancholic gender performativity, I argue that the Irish representation of homoeros is not only a submerged counter-tradition within Irish writing, but also an integral part in the constitution of modern nationalist identity. Specifically, homosociality and homoeroticism, I argue, have affected the nature of Irish literary and cultural nationalisms insofar as homosocial desire resides in the heart of romantic nationalism's ideology and symbolism, and in its sacrificial interpellation of the homosexual figure. The first chapter looks at the influential impact of gender and homoeros on the histories of nationalisms by examining homosexual panic in the Irish Gothic, the influence of Dion Boucicault's sentimental melodramas, and by reading the Irish Revival through George L. Mosse's analysis of nationalism's creation of a respectable normative masculinity and through David Cairns and Shaun Richards's discussion of Irish familism and its regulation of sexuality. The Irish Revivalists' reaction to the discourse of Irish feminization informs their understanding of the model Irishman as both peasant and warrior. Also, a homosocial cultural imaginary, akin to romantic nationalism's, shapes Ulster Unionism as well, apparent in Loyalist marches and Orange fraternal organizations. The second section of the introduction consists of three case studies investigating the queer lives of Oscar Wilde, Patrick Pearse, and Roger Casement. Each man is an exemplary figure of the contradictory discourses of homoerotic desire in conflict with Irish nationality. My readings of selected literary texts in the following chapters elaborate upon the queer-inflected construction of masculinist nationalist identity. In Chapter 2, I show how Edward Martyn's play The Heather Field charts a tension between the physical and emotional yearning for men and a brand of Catholic asceticism, or hieratic homoeroticism. In the subsequent chapter, I turn to James Joyce's ambivalent strategies of representation and their imbrication within romantic nationalism. This chapter discusses A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and Ulysses through theories of gender inversion and performativity and homosexual panic within male homosocial relations. In Chapter 4, Brian Friel's The Gentle Island and Thomas Kilroy's The Death and Resurrection of Mr. Roche dramatize Ireland's continuing disavowal of its culture's homosocial foundations through homophobic scapegoating. The fifth chapter reads Frank McGuinness's plays Observe the Sons of Ulster Marching Towards the Somme and Carthaginians through melancholic gender as Northern Ireland's warring communities grapple with psychic and bodily wounds. The dissertation ends with a short epilogue analyzing the homosocial and homoerotic desires configuring the Easter Rising of 1916 in Jamie O'Neill's novel At Swim, Two Boys.
Arts, Faculty of
English, Department of
Graduate

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Dept. of English and Dept. of HIstory. University of Missouri--Kansas City, 2008.
"A dissertation in English and history." Advisor: Jennifer Phegley. Typescript. Vita. Title from "catalog record" of the print edition Description based on contents viewed Feb. 6, 2009. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 233-292). Online version of the print edition.

This thesis represents an important investigation into the much-neglected period of exile endured by many Royalists as a consequence of the violence and alienation of the Wars of the Three Kingdoms (1639-1651).Drawing from extensive archival research conducted in Britain, Ireland and Europe, this study expands upon existing literature on royalism, British and Irish interaction with Continental Europe and seventeenth-century mentalities more generally in order to illumine the unique issues faced by these exiles. Central to this study are the roles and experiences of the Irish element within Charles II’s exiled court. Recent studies focussed upon the place of Ireland within Europe and the North Atlantic are employed to assess such issues as confessional division, court culture, the impact of memory and the influence of conflicting European ideas upon the survival of the exiles and the course of the restoration cause. A thematic, rather than chronological structure is employed in order to develop these interpretations, allowing for an approach which emphasizes the place of individuals in relation to broader Royalist mentalities. Dominant figures include Murrough O’Brien, Lord Inchiquin (c. 1614-1674), Theobald, Lord Taaffe (d. 1677), John Bramhall (1594-1663), Church of Ireland bishop of Derry, Daniel O’Neill (c. 1612-1664), Father Peter Talbot (SJ) (c. 1618/20 – 1680) and James Butler, marquis of Ormond (1610-1688). Through investigation of Irish strands of royalism and the wider issues in which they were set in the course of civil war and exile, this thesis makes a powerful argument for the need to consider seventeenth-century ideas of allegiance and identity not only within a ‘Three Kingdoms’ approach, but Europe more generally. It also makes a compelling case for the centrality of Irish Royalists in the formation and implementation of policy during the exile period through their familiarity with and access to European centres of power and influence.

Avec l’entrée en république de la France à l’été 1792, soudainement le potentiel révolutionnaire initié par le bouleversement de 1789 se déploie pour l’Irlande. Dans un contexte d’agitation populaire menée par les Irlandais Unis et les Defenders en Irlande, les exilés irlandais à Paris entrent, eux aussi, en république, d’abord à l’échelle micro-locale lors de la « République au Collège », prise de contrôle éphémère par les étudiants du Collège irlandais de Paris, puis à travers le « festin patriotique », un rassemblement festif de toute la galaxie révolutionnaire atlantique, et particulièrement des « citoyens » des Trois Royaumes. Ces deux événements initient un processus d’engagement personnel de chacun des protagonistes et une dynamique révolutionnaire transnationale à travers le projet d’avènement de la « République des États-Unis d’Irlande et de France », elle-même inscrite dans la perspective plus large de la « République atlantique ». Cet engagement et cette dynamique se déploient d’abord dans le cadre des activités à la fois publiques et couvertes de la société des Anglais, Ecossais et Irlandais de Paris ou Société des Amis des Droits de l’Homme (SADH). Elles contribuent, par le rapprochement entre la France et la SADH, à déclencher la guerre entre l’Angleterre et la France. La dialectique entre dynamique républicaine et contre-républicaine dans le cadre des French Wars conduit les protagonistes de la Républiques des États-Unis de France et d’Irlande à poursuivre et approfondir leur projet, dans une remarquable continuité entre 1792 et 1798. Tout en reconfigurant ses modalités, en variant les répertoires de l’action révolutionnaire en fonction des évolutions du contexte politique et géopolitique, ce projet républicain transnational atteint son apogée avec les expéditions franco-irlandaises de 1796 et 1798. En suivant les parcours de vingt-huit Irlandais patriotes et républicains, en reconstituant leurs réseaux de sociabilité et de circulations, il s’agit d’interroger les raisons et les modalités de l’engagement, dans une perspective d’histoire sociale des idées politiques, c’est-à-dire en étudiant le passage des mots à la pratique, en fonction des circonstances et du cadre social. Dans la dialectique entre Révolution et Contre-Révolution, cet engagement aboutit à un processus de « radicalisation ». Ce faisant, cette thèse interroge l’historiographie existante sur la décennie 1790 en Irlande en cherchant à la replacer dans un contexte de synergies révolutionnaires et en explorant le concept de République atlantique, proposant un regard neuf sur le processus de politisation populaire en Irlande
With the advent of the republic in France in the summer of 1792, the revolutionary potential initiated by the upheaval of 1789 suddenly exploded in Ireland. In a context of rising popular discontent led by the United Irishmen and the Defenders in Ireland, the Irish exiles in Paris also embraced the republic, first at the micro-local scale of the Irish College in Paris of which the students took control in a fleeting but highly significant moment, the ‘République au Collège’, then at the ‘festin patriotique’, a gathering of all the Atlantic revolutionary galaxy, but most notably of the ‘citizens’ of the Three Kingdoms. These two events initiated a process of personal engagement for each of the protagonists and a transnational revolutionary dynamic through the project of establishing the ‘Republic of the United States of France and Ireland’. This commitment and this dynamic were extant throughout the activities, both public and covert, of the Society of the English, Scottish and Irish at Paris or Société des Amis des Droits de l’Homme (SADH). They contributed, because of the collaboration between France and the SADH, to spark the war between England and France. The dialectic between the republican and counter-republican dynamics in the context of the French Wars led the protagonists of the Republic of the United States of France and Ireland to pursue and further define their project in an astonishing continuity between 1792 and 1798. While this republic project varied in its forms and modalities due to the changing political and geopolitical context, it reached its apex with the Franco-Irish expeditions of 1796 and 1798. Following the paths of twenty eight Irish republican patriots, and examining their networks of sociability and circulations, enable to question the motivations and forms of political engagement, in the perspective of a social history of political ideas, i.e. by studying the transition from words to acts, which depends on the circumstances and on the social environment. In the dialectic between Counter-Revolution and Revolution, this engagement leads to a process of ‘radicalisation’. By doing so, this dissertation aims at questioning the prevailing historiography of the 1790s in Ireland, by replacing it in its context of revolutionary synergies and by exploring the concept of the Atlantic Republic, thereby offering a new take on the process of popular politicisation in Ireland

The era between the close of the nineteenth century and the onset of the First World War witnessed a marked increase in radical agitation among Indian and Irish nationalists. The most outspoken political leaders of the day founded a series of widely circulated newspapers in India and Ireland, placing these editors in the enviable position of both reporting and creating the news. Nationalist journalists were in the vanguard of those pressing vocally for an independent India and Ireland, and together constituted an increasingly problematic contingent for the British Empire. The advanced-nationalist press in Ireland and the nationalist press in India took the lead in facilitating the exchange of provocative ideas—raising awareness of perceived imperial injustices, offering strategic advice, and cementing international solidarity. Irish and Indian press coverage of Britain’s imperial wars constituted one of the premier weapons in the nationalists’ arsenal, permitting them to build support for their ideology and forward their agenda in a manner both rapid and definitive. Directing their readers’ attention to conflicts overseas proved instructive in how the Empire dealt with those who resisted its policies, and also showcased how it conducted its affairs with its allies. As such, critical press coverage of the Boxer Rebellion, Boer War, Russo-Japanese War, and World War I bred disaffection for the Empire, while attempts by the Empire to suppress the critiques further alienated the public. This dissertation offers the first comparative analysis of the major nationalist press organs in India and Ireland, using the prism of war to illustrate the increasingly persuasive role of the press in promoting resistance to the Empire. It focuses on how the leading Indian and Irish editors not only fostered a nationalist agenda within their own countries, but also worked in concert to construct a global anti-imperialist platform. By highlighting the anti-imperial rhetoric of the nationalist press in India and Ireland and illuminating their strategies for attaining self-government, this study deepens understanding of the seeds of nationalism, making a contribution to comparative imperial scholarship, and demonstrating the power of the media to alter imperial dynamics and effect political change.

This study has collected and analysed a database of place-names containing potential ethnonymic elements. Competing models of ethnicity are investigated and applied to names about which there is reasonable confidence. A number of motivations for employment of ethnonyms in place-names emerge. Ongoing interaction between ethnicities is marked by reference to domain or borderland, and occasional interaction by reference to resource or transit. More superficial interaction is expressed in names of commemorative, antiquarian or figurative motivation. The implications of the names for our understanding of the history of individual ethnicities are considered. Distribution of Walh-names has been extended north into Scotland; but reference may be to Romance-speaking feudal incomers, not the British. Briton-names are confirmed in Cumberland and are found on and beyond the fringes of the polity of Strathclyde. Dumbarton, however, is an antiquarian coining. Distribution of Cumbrian-names suggests that the south side of the Solway Firth was not securely under Cumbrian influence; but also that the ethnicity, expanding in the tenth century, was found from the Ayrshire coast to East Lothian, with the Saxon culture under pressure in the Southern Uplands. An ethnonym borrowed from British in the name Cumberland and the Lothian outlier of Cummercolstoun had either entered northern English dialect or was being employed by the Cumbrians themselves to coin these names in Old English. If the latter, such self-referential pronouncement in a language contact situation was from a position of status, in contrast to the ethnicism of the Gaels. Growing Gaelic self-awareness is manifested in early-modern domain demarcation and self-referential naming of routes across the cultural boundary. But by the nineteenth century cultural change came from within, with the impact felt most acutely in west-mainland and Hebridean Argyll, according to the toponymic evidence. Earlier interfaces between Gaelic and Scots are indicated on the east of the Firth of Clyde by the early fourteenth century, under the Sidlaws and in Buchan by the fifteenth, in Caithness and in Perthshire by the sixteenth. Earlier, Norse-speakers may have referred to Gaels in the hills of Kintyre. The border between Scotland and England was toponymically marked, but not until the modern era. In Carrick, Argyll and north and west of the Great Glen, Albanians were to be contrasted, not necessarily linguistically, from neighbouring Gaelic-speakers; Alba is probably to be equated with the ancient territory of Scotia. Early Scot-names, recorded from the twelfth century, similarly reflect expanding Scotian influence in Cumberland and Lothian. However, late instances refer to Gaelic-speakers. Most Eireannach-names refer to wedder goats rather than the ethnonym, but residual Gaelic-speakers in east Dumfriesshire are indicated by Erisch­-names at the end of the fifteenth century or later. Others west into Galloway suggest an earlier Irish immigration, probably as a consequence of normanisation and of engagement in Irish Sea politics. Other immigrants include French estate administrators, Flemish wool producers and English feudal subjects. The latter have long been discussed, but the relationship of the north-eastern Ingliston-names to mottes is rejected, and that of the south-western Ingleston-names is rather to former motte-hills with degraded fortifications. Most Dane-names are also antiquarian, attracted less by folk memory than by modern folklore. The Goill could also be summoned out of the past to explain defensive remains in particular. Antiquarianism in the eighteenth century onwards similarly ascribed many remains to the Picts and the Cruithnians, though in Shetland a long-standing supernatural association with the Picts may have been maintained. Ethnicities were invoked to personify past cultures, but ethnonyms also commemorate actual events, typified by Sasannach-names. These tend to recall dramatic, generally fatal, incidents, usually involving soldiers or sailors. Any figures of secular authority or hostile activity from outwith the community came to be considered Goill, but also agents of ecclesiastical authority or economic activity and passing travellers by land or sea. The label Goill, ostensibly providing 178 of the 652 probable ethnonymic database entries, is in most names no indication of ethnicity, culture or language. It had a medieval geographical reference, however, to Hebrideans, and did develop renewed, early-modern specificity in response to a vague concept of Scottish society outwith the Gaelic cultural domain. The study concludes by considering the forms of interaction between ethnicities and looking at the names as a set. It proposes classification of those recalled in the names as overlord, interloper or native.