This dissertation examines Britain's decision to cede naval parity to the United States at the Washington Naval Conference of 1921-1922. The study recognizes that scholarly opinion emphasizes the role of economic weakness in Britain's decision to accept capital ship limitation. The most useful sources in this study are the Cabinet and Admiralty records at the Public Record Office, London. The accounts of the various subcommittees of the Committee of Imperial Defence and the Cabinet Finance Committee are essential. Three sets of records are particularly helpful for the Conference itself: the papers of the British Empire Delegation, the State Department's Conference on the Limitation of Armament, and Butler and Bury's Documents on British Foreign Policy. The papers of the members of the British government provide limited assistance. At the turn of the century, the Royal Navy, imbued with the Alfred Thayer Mahan's doctrines of sea power, enjoyed the nation's confidence. The Great War damaged the reputations of both the battleship and its most ardent supporters. At the Paris Peace Conference, the United States challenged the supremacy of British sea power. In the face of the continuing American naval construction, the British policy of supremacy with economy became untenable. The Jutland and submarine controversies of 1920 exacerbated the government's loss of faith in the battleship and led to an investigation into the future weapons of the Navy. The Imperial Conference of 1921 precluded the possibility of Dominion support for a naval building program or a decision to renew the Anglo-Japanese Alliance in the face of American opposition. The British Empire Delegation at the Washington Conference sought the maximum relief from naval expenditure consonant with traditional measures of national security. In the face of American proposals for Anglo-American equality and a ten-year holiday in naval construction, Britain salvaged superiority in cruisers and two new battleships. These results lead to the conclusion that the Cabinet no longer believed that the battleship remained the ultimate arbiter of naval disputes. The Cabinet therefore choose to disregard the advice of the Admiralty and accept the naval limitation agreement.

This dissertation explores Catholic nationalist residents of Derry, Northern Ireland's expressions of memory over the course of the twentieth century. It contributes to histories of the city within the context of Northern Ireland and deepens understandings of memory and historical consciousness by charting memory work - discussions, writings, displays, commemorations, festivals, protests, religious celebrations, memorials, oral histories, personal accounts and community conversations that simultaneously invoke, draw on and construct the past. The uses of memory provide a map of changes as well as consistencies in Catholics' and nationalists' construction of their cultural, social and political identities. Memory has often been credited with deepening divides between Derry's Protestant unionist and Catholic nationalist communities and exacerbating civil and political conflict. The ways memory work has invented, constructed, justified, continued, or alternately mitigated or collapsed political, religious, economic, social and cultural divides are central to the larger history of the city. Understanding how collective remembrance has changed over time adds to historical interpretations of the conflict. At the same time, the ways key events in the history of the conflict affected memory work lend insight that further memory studies. The focus here on the memory work of Catholic and nationalist Derry both de-centers Troubles-related memory work and offers new explanations for civil conflict that come out memorial expressions. A demographic majority since 1850, Catholic nationalists in the city constituted a political minority until 1973. As they sought recognition locally, worked to influence broader debates over political, social and economic issues, and endeavored to maintain their Irish identity, they drew on the past both to articulate and to formulate their experiences. By following the ways political, religious and community leaders, journalists and ordinary people participated in the construction of the past, it is possible to ascertain the way they understood the present at different moments in the city's history. Through battles over Home Rule, responses to establishment of the Northern state, endeavors to obtain civil rights, efforts to maintain community cohesion through the Troubles and initiatives to heal privately and publicly in the post-conflict era, the concerns of Catholics and nationalists in Derry were expressed through their memory work.

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This dissertation proposes a paradigm in which the political martyrs of Ireland serve as a continuous reproduction of a heroic pattern of martyrdom. Within this model are contained particular mythic patterns of thought. By studying these patterns in relation to Patrick Sarsfield, I intend to show that in the creation of Irish political martyrs a mythology of martyrdom was fashioned and refashioned continuously in different periods of Irish history. This work is an interdisciplinary study, comprising history, mythology, and literature. An examination of the Sarsfield legend reveals that the stories of Sarsfield provide a reassuring connection to an established image of an heroic and glorious Irish past. Irish nationalists have utilized the image of an heroic Ireland, struggling to free itself from centuries of oppression, as part of their construction of martyrs. The transference of characteristics associated with ancient warrior and kingly classes in Ireland to modern nationalist martyrs allows or the continuous witnessing of the tradition of Irish martyrdom. The construction of a mythology of martyrdom serves the needs of a particular community which feels the need to reaffirm or reestablish their identity. The martyrs serve as a continual reaffirmation of communal identity. The Sarsfield stories show that each historical generation reinterprets the deeds of the man in relation to their own perceived circumstances. In this process of creation, the complexities of the individual are simplified, as each martyr must fit a certain mask of martyrdom. An examination of Sarsfield and his legend shows that this method of historical and literary analysis reveals a "demythologized" Sarsfield, and a "mythologized" Sarsfield. Each version is equally valid and useful in understanding a communities perception and creation of their identity.

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