This thesis, by examining the attitudes of Catholics who engaged in collective action in Ulster during the years 1848-1867, challenges the prevailing historical consensus that the period between the Famine and the Land War was one in which Catholic Ireland was content within the Union. It documents five key social and political forms of collective action that existed in Catholic Ulster during these years, and the mentalities which such action derived from. The work concludes that, in contrast to those scholars who maintain that nationalism was only imported into the north from the 1880s onwards, its lineal antecedents can be traced back to the years 1848-67 at least, if not much earlier. Moreover, when considering the accumulated forms of collective action in the province during these years it becomes clear that at least some Catholics were not being absorbed into an accommodation with British power; on the contrary, the culture and behaviour of those Ulster Catholics who practiced collective action exhibited a variety of disaffected mentalities which were inherently inimical to the state and, in the case of political forms of organisation such as the Confederates and the Fenians, were explicitly hostile to the British government.
Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:709687 |
Date | January 2016 |
Creators | Ó Luain, Kerron Rónán |
Publisher | Queen's University Belfast |
Source Sets | Ethos UK |
Detected Language | English |
Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
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