Irish Nationalism in Canada

Irish Nationalism in Canada
Author: David A. Wilson
Publisher: McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP
Total Pages: 258
Release: 2009
Genre: History
ISBN: 0773536353

According to conventional historical wisdom, Irish nationalism in Canada was a marginal phenomenon - overshadowed by the more powerful movement in the United States and eclipsed in Canada by the Orange Order. The nine contributors in this book argue otherwise - and in doing so make a major and original contribution to our understanding of the Irish experience in Canada and the place of Irish-Canadian nationalism within an international context. Focusing on the period 1820 to 1920, they examine political, religious, and cultural expressions of Irish-Canadian nationalism as it responded to Irish events and Canadian politics. They also look at tensions within the movement between those who argued that Ireland should share the same freedom that Canada enjoyed within the British Empire and revolutionary republicans who wanted to liberate both Ireland and Canada from the yoke of British imperialism. Irish Nationalism in Canada sheds light on questions such as transference of old world political traditions into North America, the dynamics of ethno-religious conflict, and state responses to a revolutionary minority within an ethno-religious group. Contributors include Donald Harman Akenson (Queen's University, Kingston), Sean Farrell (Northern Illinois University), Mark G. McGowan (St Michael's College, University of Toronto), Frederick J. McEvoy (Independent Scholar), Michael Peterman (Trent University), Garth Stevenson (Brock University), Peter M. Toner (University of New Brunswick), Rosalyn Trigger (University of Aberdeen), and David A. Wilson (University of Toronto).

Canada to Ireland

Canada to Ireland
Author: Michele Holmgren
Publisher: McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP
Total Pages: 427
Release: 2021-12-15
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 0228009588

In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Irish writers played a key role in transatlantic cultural conversations – among Canada, Britain, France, America, and Indigenous nations – that shaped Canadian nationalism. Nationalism in Ireland was likewise influenced by the literary works of Irish migrants and visitors to Canada. Canada to Ireland explores the poetry and prose of twelve Irish writers and nationalists in Canada between 1788 and 1900, including Thomas Moore, Adam Kidd, Lord Edward Fitzgerald, Thomas D’Arcy McGee, James McCarroll, Nicholas Flood Davin, and Isabella Valancy Crawford. Many of these writers were involved in Irish political causes, including those of the Patriots, the United Irish, Emancipation, Repeal, and Young Ireland, and their work explores the similar ways in which nationalists in Ireland and Indigenous and settler communities in Canada retained their cultural identities and sought autonomy from Britain. Initially writing for an audience in Ireland, they highlighted features of the landscape and culture that they regarded as distinctively Canadian and that were later invoked as powerful unifying symbols by Canadian nationalists. Michele Holmgren shows how these Irish writers and movements are essential to understanding the tenor of early Canadian literary nationalism and political debates concerning Confederation, imperial unity, and western expansion. Canada to Ireland convincingly demonstrates that Canadian cultural nationalism left its mark on both countries. Contemporary decolonization movements in Canada and current cultural exchanges between Ireland and Indigenous peoples make this a timely and relevant study.

John C. O'Neill

John C. O'Neill
Author: Thomas Fox
Publisher: McFarland
Total Pages: 241
Release: 2019-07-26
Genre: History
ISBN: 0786497939

 In June 1866, an 800-man contingent of the Irish Fenian Brotherhood invaded Canada from Buffalo, New York, in an effort to free Ireland from British rule. The force was led by Irish-born John Charles O'Neill, a veteran of the Union Army's 5th Indiana Cavalry. The three-day invasion was a military success but a political failure, yet O'Neill was celebrated for his leadership and humanity. Elevated to the presidency of the Fenian Brotherhood, "General" O'Neill would again lead Irish nationalists against Canada in 1870. Jailed and later pardoned by President U.S. Grant, O'Neill left the Fenians and attempted a third, futile attack into Canada. O'Neill then became a colonizer, urging Irish Americans to abandon cities in the East to settle on the fertile plains of the West. O'Neill City, Nebraska, is named in his honor. This first full-length biography covers the rise, fall and resurgence of a remarkable figure in American and Irish history.

Parallel Paths

Parallel Paths
Author: Garth Stevenson
Publisher: McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP
Total Pages: 448
Release: 2006-05-05
Genre: History
ISBN: 0773576622

Predominantly Catholic societies subjected to British conquest and partial colonization, Ireland and Quebec rebelled unsuccessfully and entered the modern era with populations divided by language and religion. Ireland failed to achieve home rule within the United Kingdom and chose armed resistance, which led to independence for most of the country at the price of partition. Quebec achieved home rule as a province within the Canadian federation, which led to a century of relative stability followed by the Quiet Revolution and the rise of an independence movement. Almost simultaneously with increased pressure for independence in Quebec, the Irish question erupted again with an armed struggle between supporters and opponents of partition in the six northern counties.

Masculinity and Power in Irish Nationalism, 1884-1938

Masculinity and Power in Irish Nationalism, 1884-1938
Author: Aidan Beatty
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 275
Release: 2016-09-23
Genre: History
ISBN: 1137441011

This book is a comparative study of masculinity and white racial identity in Irish nationalism and Zionism. It analyses how both national movements sought to refute widespread anti-Irish or anti-Jewish stereotypes and create more prideful (and highly gendered) images of their respective nations. Drawing on English-, Irish-, and Hebrew-language archival sources, Aidan Beatty traces how male Irish nationalists sought to remake themselves as a proudly Gaelic-speaking race, rooted both in their national past as well as in the spaces and agricultural soil of Ireland. On the one hand, this was an attempt to refute contemporary British colonial notions that they were somehow a racially inferior or uncomfortably hybridised people. But this is also presented in the light of the general history of European nationalism; nationalist movements across Europe often crafted romanticised images of the nation’s past and Irish nationalism was thus simultaneously European and postcolonial. It is this that makes Irish nationalism similar to Zionism, a movement that sought to create a more idealized image of the Jewish past that would disprove contemporary anti-Semitic stereotypes.

Irish and Scottish Encounters with Indigenous Peoples

Irish and Scottish Encounters with Indigenous Peoples
Author: Graeme Morton
Publisher: McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP
Total Pages: 392
Release: 2013-05-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 0773588817

The expansion of the British Empire during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries created the greatest mass migration in human history, in which the Irish and Scots played a central, complex, and controversial role. The essays in this volume explore the diverse encounters Irish and Scottish migrants had with Indigenous peoples in North America and Australasia. The Irish and Scots were among the most active and enthusiastic participants in what one contributor describes as "the greatest single period of land theft, cultural pillage, and casual genocide in world history." At the same time, some settlers attempted to understand Indigenous society rather than destroy it, while others incorporated a romanticized view of Natives into a radical critique of European society, and others still empathized with Natives as fellow victims of imperialism. These essays investigate the extent to which the condition of being Irish and Scottish affected settlers' attitudes to Indigenous peoples, and examine the political, social, religious, cultural, and economic dimensions of their interactions. Presenting a variety of viewpoints, the editors reach the provocative conclusion that the Scottish and Irish origins of settlers were less important in determining attitudes and behaviour than were the specific circumstances in which those settlers found themselves at different times and places in North America, Australia and New Zealand. Contributors include Donald Harman Akenson (Queen's), John Eastlake (College Cork), Marjory Harper (Aberdeen), Andrew Hinson (Toronto), Michele Holmgren (Mount Royal), Kevin Hutchings (Northern British Columbia), Anne Lederman (Royal Conservatory of Music), Patricia A. McCormack (Alberta), Mark G. McGowan (Toronto), Ann McGrath (Australian National), Cian T. McMahon (Nevada), Graeme Morton (Guelph), Michael Newton (Xavier), Pádraig Ó Siadhail (Saint Mary's), Brad Patterson (Victoria University of Wellington), Beverly Soloway (Lakehead), and David A. Wilson (Toronto).

Between Raid and Rebellion

Between Raid and Rebellion
Author: William Jenkins
Publisher: McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP
Total Pages: 533
Release: 2013-02-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 0773589031

Winner: Joseph Brant Award (2014), Ontario Historical Society Winner: Clio Prize (Ontario) (2014), Canadian Historical Association Winner: The James S. Donnelly Sr. Prize (2014), American Conference for Irish Studies Winner: Geographical Society of Ireland Book of the Year Award (2013-2015) In Between Raid and Rebellion, William Jenkins compares the lives and allegiances of Irish immigrants and their descendants in one American and one Canadian city between the era of the Fenian raids and the 1916 Easter Rising. Highlighting the significance of immigrants from Ulster to Toronto and from Munster to Buffalo, he distinguishes what it meant to be Irish in a loyal dominion within Britain’s empire and in a republic whose self-confidence knew no bounds. Jenkins pays close attention to the transformations that occurred within the Irish communities in these cities during this fifty-year period, from residential patterns to social mobility and political attitudes. Exploring their experiences in workplaces, homes, churches, and meeting halls, he argues that while various social, cultural, and political networks were crucial to the realization of Irish mobility and respectability in North America by the early twentieth century, place-related circumstances were linked to wider national loyalties and diasporic concerns. With the question of Irish Home Rule animating debates throughout the period, Toronto’s unionist sympathizers presented a marked contrast to Buffalo’s nationalist agitators. Although the Irish had acclimated to life in their new world cities, their sense of feeling Irish had not faded to the degree so often assumed. A groundbreaking comparative analysis, Between Raid and Rebellion draws upon perspectives from history and geography to enhance our understanding of the Irish experiences in these centres and the process by which immigrants settle into new urban environments.