The boundaries of Irish national identity: The emergence of the Irish-Ireland ideal, 1890-1912

This dissertation treats a group of Irish cultural nationalists who emerged after the fall of Parnell in 1890-91. These advocates of the "Irish Ireland" ideal, who included Douglas Hyde, David Patrick Moran, William Butler Yeats, William Patrick Ryan, Horace Plunkett, George W. Russell, and Arthur Griffith, promulgated their ideas primarily in a number of new nationalist newspapers. They contended that the revival of the Irish language and indigenous cultural traditions was of greater significance than the struggle for mere political independence. In considering their debates about the parameters of national identity, the dissertation argues that the underlying issue concerned the status of the Anglo-Irish Protestants and their inclusion in or exclusion from the authentic Irish nation. These debates provided the ideological foundations for the Irish Free State that emerged in 1921. Social legislation passed in subsequent years manifested the institutionalization of a conception of the Irish nation, which had first been articulated by the Irish-Ireland movement, that acknowledged the primacy of Gaelic traditions, regarded the Irish language as an essential embodiment of nationhood, and recognized a special role for the Catholic Church in formulating social policy. The dissertation maintains that this definition of Irishness prevailed because it was congruent with the social values of the primary nation-forming class, which consisted of Catholic larger farmers and shopkeepers.