National Identity, Anti-Colonialism, and Race: The Case of Early Irish Nationalism

Abstract

The questions of identity still underpin the whole spectrum of social relations, quite independent of specific forms such social identity might assume. Nevertheless, throughout the modern era (from 1789 on), social identities proceeding from the interrelated but distinct notions / constructs of race and nation would often take the forefront. This may in turn be tied to the emergence of modernist political ideologies and movements striving to form their political strategy as well as the perspective on the world surrounding them in accordance with the aforementioned constructs of social identity. With this in mind, this conference paper seeks to consider the salience of the constructs of nation and race in the context of anti-colonial / national liberation struggle, with the 19th-century Ireland being chosen as a case study of the latter phenomenon. Having selected Ireland as a subject of the present discussion has been motivated by the specificity of Irish nationalism as an exemplary movement from the vantage point of many other anti-colonial movements since then, as well as by the controversies inherent in constructing the notions of ‘Irish nation’ and even ‘Irish race’ on the part of the British – controversies that would be bound to repeat themselves in subsequent decades throughout the colonial worlds of all major European colonial powers.