The settler triangle: Fearghal Mac Bhloscaidh, ‘Dromore and Trillick: revolution and reaction on a colonial frontier, 1906–22’, Settler Colonial Studies, 2026 | settler colonial studies blog

The settler triangle: Fearghal Mac Bhloscaidh, ‘Dromore and Trillick: revolution and reaction on a colonial frontier, 1906–22’, Settler Colonial Studies, 2026

12Apr26

Abstract: This article analyses the experience of partition in the borderlands of Dromore and Trillick, County Tyrone (1906–1922), through the lens of Veracini’s settler-colonial triangle. Using census data, Irish-language sources, IRA and Cumann na mBan records, and government archives, it shows how republican mobilisation drew on cultural revival to articulate a decolonial, anti-sectarian project, while loyalism functioned as the local expression of settler-colonial dominance. The study demonstrates that the Ulster Special Constabulary – armed, funded, and politically protected by the British state – used systematic coercion to secure Unionist rule and enforce the new border. The resulting asymmetry reveals partition not as a democratic compromise but as an imperial settlement sustained by state-backed settler-colonial violence.

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