Create a new account

It's simple, and free.

Constitutional and Revolutionary Nationalism Nationalism in Ireland

Constitutional and Revolutionary Nationalism

Beginning in the nineteenth century, Irish nationalism has been dominated by a merging of the strength of moral righteousness with physical force. Foster states that the traditional view of the period in Ireland from 1848 to the mid-1870s separates the political activity into "constitutional" and "revolutionary" forms. However, Foster rejects this view in favor of inferring a continuous effort on the part of the Irish to reorganize their political expression in a way "that would reflect the new realities of post-Famine Ireland" (373). This paper agrees and concludes that issues of self determination in Irish often involve a combination of both types of force.

After initially appearing in the 1830s, the Tenant Right movement began to dominate Irish politics after 1850. Foster demonstrates in Chapter Nineteen that Ireland's social and political power structure during the 1800s revolved around the fortunes of the landed classes (374). The landlord class monopolized the local government and two-thirds of the Irish Members of Parliament were from landed families. Consequently, it is not surprising that during this time the dominating political issue concerned the issue of land.

Between the late 1840s and the early 1850s, there was an extraordinarily large number of evictions following the Potato Famine. Although the number of evictions declined thereafter, Foster believes the image of the ruthless landlord remained in the public's mind (374) and the landlord's income remained more important than investment in the land (375). Thus, there existed a tension between the tenant's interests and the landlord's. Farms were generally held on yearly arrangements that were only interrupted when the tenant failed to pay rent, which rent often remained a point of contention between landlord and tenant.

The political environment surrounding land issues in Ireland generated the first vi...

Page 1 of 11 Next >

More on Constitutional and Revolutionary Nationalism Nationalism in Ireland...

Loading...
APA     MLA     Chicago
Constitutional and Revolutionary Nationalism Nationalism in Ireland. (1969, December 31). In LotsofEssays.com. Retrieved 05:12, March 29, 2024, from https://www.lotsofessays.com/viewpaper/1680930.html