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Introduction: a global history of the Irish Revolution

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 August 2020

Enda Delaney  and
Fearghal McGarry
Enda Delaney*
Affiliation:
University of Edinburgh & Queen's University Belfast
Fearghal McGarry*
Affiliation:
University of Edinburgh & Queen's University Belfast
*
*School of History, Classics and Archaeology, University of Edinburgh, enda.delaney@ed.ac.uk & School of History, Anthropology, Philosophy and Politics, Queen's University Belfast, f.mcgarry@qub.ac.uk
*School of History, Classics and Archaeology, University of Edinburgh, enda.delaney@ed.ac.uk & School of History, Anthropology, Philosophy and Politics, Queen's University Belfast, f.mcgarry@qub.ac.uk
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Abstract

How might the history of Ireland's revolution be reassessed if viewed within a transnational, comparative or global framework? Drawing attention to recent writing on the subject, this introduction considers the conceptual and historiographical issues at stake in reframing the history of the Irish Revolution, as well as considering potential limitations to these approaches. We assess what topics in particular lend themselves to a fresh perspective focusing on Irish nationalism, while also indicating areas where there is considerable scope for new lines of inquiry. In this era of intensive commemoration of the events that unfolded between 1912 and 1923, this special issue serves to remind us that the history of the revolution should not be confined to the island of Ireland. We argue that thinking transnationally and comparatively can promote a more inclusive and diverse global history of Irish Revolution.

Type
Introduction
Information
Irish Historical Studies , Volume 44 , Issue 165 , May 2020 , pp. 1 - 10
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Copyright
Copyright © Irish Historical Studies Publications Ltd 2020

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References

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2 Hoppen, K. Theodore, rev. of Nagle, Shane, Histories of nationalism in Ireland and Germany: a comparative study from 1800 to 1932 (London, 2017)Google Scholar in I.H.S., xlii, no. 161 (May 2018), p. 194.

3 For a more detailed elaboration of some of these points, see McGarry, Fearghal, ‘Reframing Ireland's revolution’ in Delaney, Enda and McGarry, Fearghal (eds), The Irish Revolution, 1919: a global history (Dublin, 2019), pp 8–12Google Scholar; idem, ‘“A land beyond the wave”: transnational perspectives on Easter 1916’ in Niall Whelehan (ed.), Transnational perspectives on modern Irish history (New York, 2015), pp 165–88.

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18 Walsh, Maurice, Bitter freedom: Ireland in a revolutionary world, 1918–1923 (London, 2015)Google Scholar. Richard Grayson's military study, Dublin's great wars: the First World War, the Easter Rising and the Irish Revolution (Cambridge, 2018), also demonstrates the potential for reintegrating Irish experiences of war and revolution.

19 Walsh, Bitter freedom, p. 11. This may be changing. A recent Irish Times supplement (‘Century 1919: war and peace’, Irish Times, 21 Jan. 2019) featured articles on the global ambitions of the Dáil, the global context of the revolution, the Amritsar Massacre, the Paris peace conference and Woodrow Wilson's foreign policy. However, this supplement coincided with the centenary of the most internationalised period of the War of Independence, when Irish republicans looked to the Paris peace conference as providing a route to independence.

20 On this see, in particular, Jones, Heather, ‘Romantic Ireland's dead and gone? How centenary publications are reshaping Ireland's divided understanding of its decade of war and revolution, 1912–1923’ in First World War Studies, ix, no. 3 (2018), pp 344–61CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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23 ‘Row over bid to extend centenary events to cover Ireland and India’ (https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/apr/01/british-row-over-call-extend-centenary-events-cover-ireland-india) (23 Dec. 2019).

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26 For further details, see https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=AH%2FP00914X%2F1 (23 Dec. 2019).

27 See Whelehan (ed.), Transnational perspectives, and also the recent special issue, ‘Ireland and Finland, 1860–1930: comparative and transnational histories’, I.H.S., xli, no. 160 (Nov. 2017).

28 The first publication to emerge from this project was Enda Delaney and Fearghal McGarry (eds), The Irish Revolution, 1919–21: a global history (Dublin, 2019). Research by project staff and other contributors can also be accessed via the ‘Global Irish Revolution’ major theme on R.T.É. and Boston College's ‘Century Ireland’ website: https://www.rte.ie/centuryireland/index.php/global-irish-revolution/.

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37 The editors would like to thank Professor Robert Gerwarth (U.C.D.) and Dr Patrick Mannion (Edinburgh) for acting as expert commentators at the workshop held in Edinburgh in June 2019, and the editors of Irish Historical Studies and the anonymous peer reviewer for very helpful and constructive comments.