Martin Meenagh blog

It is a truism to state that Irish nationalism emerged in opposition both to the behaviour of British authorities and to an imagined and real distinction within the United Kingdom as a separate nation. I write ‘imagined’ because nations are imagined communities of interest, but also because the histories of Ireland and Britain, before, during, and after the Union of 1800 are deeply entwined. They are not the history of the same entity, but large numbers of Irish people, including most nationalists at most times, were royalists, spoke English, worshipped as Protestants, and reacted differently to each other as a collective compared to individuals. As is evident even in the twenty first century in the surnames of British trades unionists, the Irish and British working classes outside of Dublin were and are intimately connected. The lyrics of the anthem of the Labour Party, which for a long time was a party of working people rather than the professional classes, was written by an Iris...

  The Irish Parliament 1297-1800 There was a semi-autonomous Irish parliament between 1297 and 1800. From 1537, this body was divided into an Irish House of Lords and House of Commons on an highly restricted franchise, and whereas it purported to a national authority, it should not be misinterpreted as a national assembly. From 1495, its laws had to be cleared by the Irish and British Privy Councils, for instance, as ‘Ponying’s Law’ subordinated the Irish parliament to the English one. [1] From 1607, in the wake of the Gunpowder Plot, until 1778, Catholics in Ireland were excluded at various times from public office, voting, the army, many forms of ownership, and effectively from public worship and burial. This process was from time to time interrupted, and was not systematic at first, leaving some Irish catholic lords and MPs until the late seventeenth century, for instance. From the early seventeenth century, however, constituencies were changed to give the Irish House of...

  As often in the past three years, I am compiling my briefing notes for students in the intention of putting them online as a book. These are draft notes for one of this term's courses, copied from my main blog. Ireland is an old island which currently contains a young republic and a culturally divided area of British jurisdiction. Consequently, there is a great deal of ‘term shifting’ which goes on in descriptions of the place. Some people feel comfortable thinking in terms of counties, some in provinces, and some in geographical descriptions. Given the historic and current disputatiousness of the Irish, otherwise innocuous terms carry meanings; to call the country ‘Eire’ rather than ‘the Republic,’ to use the terms ‘the State’ or ‘The North’ is to make a conscious decision of which those outside of Ireland’s internal debates are often unaware. Some cities have three names, all of which, in the right circumstances, could start a fight. Paradoxically, however, the association of...