Abstract:
This chapter examines the role of Irish Americans in supporting and initiating a range of political campaigns in Ireland since the early 19th century. Some had previously been politically active in Ireland; others, fleeing famine and destitution, arrived in America embittered towards the British government, their sense of victimhood reinforced by hostility towards Catholic immigrants. Such immigrants readily supported political ventures in Ireland and the American tour became an important source of financial as- sistance for Irish campaigners. However, power struggles sometimes occurred between Irish American and Irish leaders, also divided among themselves in terms of aims and strategies. During the recent conflict in Northern Ireland, nationalist supporters of nonviolent politics and proponents of the armed struggle competed for Irish American support. Ultimately, Irish Americans played a significant role in the peace process, particularly by winning President Bill Clinton’s support.
Ó thús an 19ú haois i leith, tá Éireannaigh i Meiriceá agus a sliocht tar éis tacaíocht thábhachtach a thabhairt do bheartais pholaitiúla éagsúla in Éirinn. Tháinig cuid den tacaíocht seo ó dhaoine a bhí gníomhach i gcursaí polaitiúla in Éirinn tráth – Éireannaigh Aontaithe, Éireannaigh Óga, Fíníní, an IRA, daoine a tháinig ar shlite nua chun cás na gCaitliceach in Éirinn agus saoirse na hÉireann a chur chun cinn. Tháinig cúnamh leis ó na himircigh a theith ón nGorta agus ón gcruatan sa 19ú haois, agus dearg-ghráin acu ar rialtas na Breataine, daoine a bhraith gur deoraíocht seachas deis a bhí san imirce. Ach níorbh iad cúinsí na hÉireann amháin a mhúnlaigh an pobal Éireannach i Meiriceá. Nuair a bhain imircigh bhochta Meiriceá amach i lár an 19ú haois, bhí doicheall faoi leith roimh eachtrannaigh Chaitliceacha; mhéadaigh an naimhdeas seo tuiscint na nGael gur dhream faoi chois iad.
Ní raibh an pobal Éireannach i Meiriceá ar aon aigne faoi chúrsaí polaitíochta, ach bhí siad chomh líonmhar sin gurbh fhuirist do pholaiteoirí fuinniúla ó Éirinn roinnt mhaith tacaíochta a fháil i Meiriceá ach teagmháil a dhéanamh leis na daoine cearta. Thuig poblachtánaigh, polaiteoirí a bhí ag díriú ar an Rialtas Dúchais, Cumann Luthchleas Gael agus Connradh na Gaeilge é sin go maith, agus ba ghnách lena leithéid turas a thabhairt go Meiriceá, aithisc a thabhairt ar son na cúise agus airgead a bhailiú.
Ach ní ról tacaíochta amháin a bhí ag na Gaeil i Meiriceá: is i Meiriceá a beartaíodh tús a chur leis na Fíníní ag deireadh na 1850í agus bhí ról lárnach ag John Devoy i dtioncsnaimh éagsúla ag deireadh an 19ú haois agus tús an 20ú haois. Ó am go chéile tharla coimhlíntí cumhachta idir cinnirí i Meiriceá agus in Éirinn, go háirithe i rith chogadh na saoirse.
Nuair a bhris na Trioblóidí amach sa Tuaisceart ag deireadh na seascaidí, thug gníomhairí éagsúla aghaidh ar Mheiriceá arís, poblachtánaigh agus náisiúntóirí in iomaíocht lena chéile. Bhraith feachtas míleata an IRA go mór ar chúnamh ó Mheiriceá, ach ar deireadh bhí ról fíorthábhachtach ag na Gaeil i Meiriceá sa phróiseas síochána agus ba mhór an cúnamh an tacaíocht a fuair siad ó Bill Clinton chun réiteach a fháil ar cheist an Tuaiscirt.
Filed under: Éire, Scholarship and insights, United States | Closed
In one of the most genteel families in Cape Town an Irishman is kept, for no other apparent purpose but that of improving the stock of the slaves. The children of this man are the fairest and handsomest slave children I have seen in South Africa.
British Anti-Slavery propaganda, cited by Donal P. McCracken, ‘A Minority of a Minority of a Minority: the Irish in South Africa’, European migrants, diasporas and indigenous ethnic minorities, ed. Matjaz Klemencic, Mary N. Harris (Pisa: Plus-Pisa University Press, 2009).
Filed under: Éire, Quote, Scholarship and insights, Southern Africa | Closed
Jeffrey Glover, ‘Channeling Indigenous Geopolitics: Negotiating International Order in Colonial Writing’, PMLA 125, 3 (2010)
Abstract
Recent comparative approaches to early American studies have described the networks of literary exchange that linked colonial writing from different imperial contexts. Current methodologies should be expanded to account for the relation between colonial writing and indigenous forms of political media. This essay compares two colonial texts, the Eendracht writings (1632–34), by a group of Dutch colonial agents, and Simplicities Defence (1646), the Puritan Samuel Gorton’s appeal to Parliament. While these texts present radically different versions of New World sovereignty, both use print reproductions of indigenous political media to construct models of republican colonial order that are meant to contrast with Spanish New World regimes. The editorial practices authors employed in preparing indigenous texts for publication often embodied the political relation between imperial states and indigenous polities.
Filed under: Empire, literature, Scholarship and insights, United States | Closed
Martin Chatfield Legassick, The Politics of a South African Frontier: The Griqua, the Sotho-Tswana and the Missionaries, 1780–1840 (Basler Afrika Bibliographien, 2010).
This book publishes Martin Legassick’s influential doctoral thesis about the pre-industrial South African frontier zone of Transorangia. The impressive formation of the Griqua states in the first half of the 19th century outside the borders of the CapeColony and their relations with Sotho-Tswana polities, white frontiersmen, missionaries and the British administration at the Cape take centre stage in theanalysis. The Griqua, of mixed white and Khoisan descent, secured hegemony in afrontier of complex partnerships and power struggles.
This study, completed in 1969, “remains by far the best account of what is a crucial,and fascinating, episode in Southern African history … constructed on the impressive basis of documentary and other forms of primary source material”. Robert Ross, University of Leiden
Well done Basler Afrika Bibliographien: this is a fantastic decision to publish Legassick’s thesis, written way back in 1969. My copy of Professor Legassick’s thesis sits tired and scruffy on my shelf. I can’t wait to get ahold of this new copy, with spine, and of course, an index! It would be hard to come across a more important, and higher quality thesis on South African history for this early nineteenth-century period, than this.
Filed under: Africa, Scholarship and insights, Southern Africa | Closed
Ulf Johansson Dahrea, ‘There are no such things as universal human rights – on the predicament of indigenous peoples, for example’, International Journal of Human Rights 14, 5 2010
Abstract:
There is a gap between the normative ideas of universal human rights and social practice. This discrepancy in the human rights field is analysed in relation to the contemporary social and political marginalisation of indigenous peoples. The problem is analysed from the theoretical approach known as ‘communitarian pragmatism’. Discrimination and oppression of indigenous peoples is still widespread, despite the global democratisation initiatives and the political and legal adoption of human rights principles. Based on several years of fieldwork on indigenous peoples and human rights, this paper argues that there are no such things as ‘universal human rights’.The reason why human rights is not an adequate instrument is that the universalism of human rights focuses on a cosmopolitan individual, who is detached from his/her cultural and social context. However, indigenous peoples, like most other persons, live their lives in local social circumstances. The solution to this problem, it is argued, is that human rights have to be locally grounded to be a relevant instrument for social change.
Keywords: indigenous peoples; social practice; pragmatism; equality
Filed under: Africa, Asia, Australia, Éire, Canada, Israel/Palestine, law, New Zealand, Scholarship and insights, Southern Africa, United States | Closed
adrian guelke on the comparison between afrikaner nationalists and northern ireland unionists
Adrian Guelke, ‘THE FLEXIBILITY OF NORTHERN IRELAND UNIONISTS AND AFRIKANER NATIONALISTS IN COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVE’, Working Papers in British-Irish Studies No. 99, 2010
Abstract:
A common feature of comparisons of Northern Ireland and South Africa prior to South Africa’s transition and the Northern Ireland peace process was the siege mentality of the dominant communities in the two societies. The paper examines two attempts to analyse this in greater depth that were published before the major changes of the 1990s: Michael McDonald’s Children of Wrath and Donald Akenson’s God’s Peoples. It reviews their arguments in the light of the current situation in both Northern Ireland and South Africa. Consideration is then given to how the discourse on the character of both communities changed in the course of the 1990s and to the comparisons that changing circumstances gave rise to, while a striking instance of the recent use of the older comparison of the Unionists and Afrikaner nationalists is noted and discussed. The paper concludes by asking whether the no- tion of a siege mentality still has any current applicability in these two cases.
Filed under: Éire, Scholarship and insights, Southern Africa | Closed
Brazilian historians are well familiar with the Brazilianists: American scholars who travel to the Latin American country’s archives looking, one might say, to encounter themselves as Americans.
From her interesting H-Net review, ‘The Pitfalls of the Transnational Approach to Race and Nation in Brazil and the United States’, which looks at Seigel’s Uneven Encounters: Making Race and Nation in Brazil and the United States (2009).
Filed under: Latin America, Scholarship and insights | Closed
The Canberra Times, Thursday 9 July 1953, p. 6. via Trove Newspapers
Filed under: Australia, Empire, media, Southern Africa | Closed
Ethics and research I teach social science research methods and students learn that great care must be taken to prevent harming anyone in the name of research. In fact, if people are involved in a research project on our campus (as opposed to inanimate objects such as films or political speeches) then a review committee oversees the research. Thi … Read More
Filed under: Scholarship and insights, United States | Closed
