Talk:Irish nationalism/Archive 2

This is an archive of past discussions about Irish nationalism. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

Archive 4

Historically, Ireland has been ruled by Great Britain

What clown wrote this? See History of Ireland and edit this misleading statement. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.40.189.234 (talk) 04:54, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Clerical abuse scandal in Ireland

There should maybe be addtional information on the effects of the clerical abuse scandal in Ireland on the overall movenment of Irish nationalism. It is possible that the scandal allowed for Irish nationalism to become more secular and less influenced by the Catholic Church, essentially because of the massive outrage it provoked among the Irish people. Evaluating the long-term impact of the abuse scandal isn't so easy right now, but it will probably become more evident as the scandal is remembered as more of a thing of the past than one of present matters. ADM (talk) 08:18, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Irish republicanism

There's a mention on the Irish republicanism of the link between the two stances and how they might be seen as identical or different. I think it should be written into this article's lead. It's very important especially in NI. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mac Gille Domhnaich (talk • contribs) 14:25, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Protestants

The reference to Parnell as being "paradoxically" Protestant suggests that it was remarkable. In fact there were always Protestants in the nationalist movement, though they were much scarcer after the suppression of the United Irishmen in 1798 than beforehand. The word would be better omitted, at least until someone finds time to write an article about Protestants in the Irish nationalist movements! Diomedea Exulans (talk) 10:04, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

The "paradoxically" comment might be reworded better, but I think its intent is in relation to Parnell's involvement in the land campaign, rather than in the broader campaign for Home Rule. As for Protestant Nationalists, there's already an article: Protestant Irish nationalists. I've now added a link to the latter from this article's "See also" section. Andrew Gwilliam (talk) 11:35, 2 August 2011 (UTC).

Suggest rapid improvement

I am saddened to see that such an important article is written largely as an unreferenced stream of consciousness. Plus there is so much POV that you could cut it with a knife. I will try and get back here soon but in the meantime I would love to see somebody else have a go at it. It deserves to be better. SonofSetanta (talk) 17:10, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

Erin gobragh

Can somebeody answer here?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Erin_go_bragh#United_Ireland — Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.3.76.133 (talk • contribs) 10:59, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

Bias

This article seems to think the purpose of Irish Nationalism is some bonding excercise between the Gael and foreigners.

It should start really with the high kingship of Ireland.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.255.219.78 (talk • contribs) 21:12, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

Claim of nationalist majority

"Northern Ireland is not a part of the Republic, but it has a nationalist majority who would prefer to be part of a united Ireland." No evidence to back up the claim that the majority is nationalist. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 148.88.152.87 (talk) 18:17, 29 April 2018 (UTC)

Recent edits

Is it just me or is the content of the article starting to move away from the concepts and ideas surround Irish nationalism and more towards a general history of the formation of the modern state? Canterbury Tail talk 15:34, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

The article is being totally rewritten by ManfredHugh. Down to the Fenians section all of the text of early June has been completely replaced in a series of nearly 150 edits. What is there now is a highly personal essay, full of high-flown rhetoric (In April 1782 Henry Grattan passes through the "parted ranks" of drilled and armed Volunteers on College Green "to move the emancipation of his country". The House of Commons carries his declaration of legislative independence by acclaim). For some reason, Patrick Pearse and the 1916 proclamation have now become the focus of the entire article. They are there in "The appeal to history", "Confederates and Jacobites" (17th century), "Patriots and Volunteers" (18th century) and "Young Ireland and Ulster" (19th century). Why? It doesn't make sense. The article as of now is not encyclopaedic. Somebody needs to review these edits and make drastic changes. Scolaire (talk) 13:32, 27 June 2020 (UTC)

I hope you'll excuse me for changing this thread's title; I feel the issue is much bigger than "context". Scolaire (talk) 13:32, 27 June 2020 (UTC)

That's fine. Yes I'm really concerned that this is happening with no discussion and the article is no longer about the article subject. @ManfredHugh: please discuss your changes here as some editors are getting concerned where this article is going. Right now there has been a huge amount of work done, not a single edit summary and the article subject appears to have totally changed. Part of me is tempted to just revert back to the 12th June version but I would not do such a huge thing without consensus. Canterbury Tail talk 15:09, 27 June 2020 (UTC)

Interestingly enough the same conversation is happening on Talk:Unionism in Ireland. Canterbury Tail talk 15:12, 27 June 2020 (UTC)

Yes, I noticed he rewrote that article too. He also did a huge number of edits at Society of United Irishmen. There needs to be an alert at that talk page too, and probably a central discussion at WikiProject Ireland. --Scolaire (talk) 09:30, 28 June 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for your comments below. Yes I agree there are problems in what I have done so far, and reverting back to the original article is certainly an option. What I am doing is a work in progress, and I hope to correct and tighten things. You may still think the entire approach is wrong.

My reasoning was this. The original article (and the comment I have seen that an article on Irish nationalism ought to start with the High Kings of Ireland) projects nationalism backwards through Irish history. Nationalism (as the Wikipedia entry on nationalism explains) arises only in the modern era because, crucially, it embraces the concept of popular sovereignty. (As I note the term nationalism only becomes current from the 1840s). In these terms, Brian Boru (while of course a heroic figure in nationalist narrative) is not any more an "Irish nationalist" than Alfred the Great was an English nationalist. The term doesn't apply.

I to try to use the the 1916 Proclamation (on which a focus can be justified for a number of reasons), inasmuch as it invokes historical precedent for the Easter Rising, to help make this point, as well as to organise a discussion of the development of Irish nationalism.

The "high flown rhetoric" referred to below (Grattan passing through "parted ranks" etc) is quotation, and clearly identified as such, from 19th century national historians, and is then set against a very much more down-to-earth assessment of the so-called 1782 constitution.

I don't see the article moving away "from the concepts and ideas that surround Irish nationalism." I present these in an historical, chronological, manner, and of course have a ways to go--through the Fenians, the IPP, the Irish Revival, Sinn Fein etc.

I will push on, and try to incorporate suggestions, and edit more severely. But if it all seems on the wrong tangent, then of course the consensus may be reversion.

Thanks, ManfredHugh — Preceding unsigned comment added by ManfredHugh (talk • contribs) 09:58, 28 June 2020 (UTC)

I'm afraid that there is no point in giving a vague rationale and then "pushing on". You need to get consensus for what you are planning to do as well as for what you've already done. I'm going to revert your latest edits until we have a proper discussion on the merits of what you've done to date. Scolaire (talk) 12:41, 28 June 2020 (UTC)

@Scolaire: (Sorry, I don't know how to properly reply on this page). I am not sure that my rationale is more "vague" than the reasons for your reversion. We could revert to the earlier entry, leaving me perhaps to work off-line to see if I can develop something more acceptable. But it very difficult to compose for Wikipedia off the site. The question is whether ON BALANCE what I have written is an improvement on what was there before, and then whether it can be further improved. I don't see the case for reverting to some earlier point in my edits. Thanks— Preceding unsigned comment added by ManfredHugh (talk • contribs) 13:03, 28 June 2020‎ (UTC)

@ManfredHugh: I'm asking you to stop adding new edits while we're still trying to look at the 150 edits you've already done. We can't evaluate the changes properly if the goalposts keep shifting. If you would prefer me to undo all of your edits then I can do that. You could always copy the article as it is now to User:ManfredHugh/sandbox and work on it there (just click "Sandbox" in the links on the top right of your screen). You've been working non-stop for a month. It will take a little while to review it properly. Just hold off for a while, please. Scolaire (talk) 13:25, 28 June 2020 (UTC)

By the way, please type four tildes (the "~" symbol) at the end of your posts – ~~~~. This will add your user name and the time and date. Scolaire (talk) 13:32, 28 June 2020 (UTC)

Okay, here's a preliminary review. At the outset, I can see some pretty major flaws:

You start by saying, "'Nationalism' is a term that gains currency from the late 1840s." You then go into a detailed analysis of the period between 1641 and 1840 – double the size of what was there. If the Confederates, the Jacobites, Grattan's Parliament and the United Irishmen predate the concept of Irish nationalism, then they don't belong in an article on Irish nationalism. At most they should be a one-paragraph, factual (as opposed to critical) section.
The 1916 Proclamation is not the statement of Irish nationalism; it is the statement of Irish republicanism (the clue is in the big Poblacht na hÉireann on the top). It should not be used as a starting point of an encyclopaedia article on Irish nationalism, and certainly not as a prism through which previous nationalist (and pre-nationalist) movements are viewed. You say that a focus on the Proclamation can be justified for a number of reasons. Aside from the fact that it used the words "six times", can you list all the other reasons?
I am very doubtful of your referencing. One statement, for instance, is "As Tone discovered in Belfast, Thomas Paine's Rights of Man was their 'Koran'." It is referenced by Life of Theobald Wolfe Tone, ... written by himself, p. 141 (quote: "Paine's book, the Koran of Blefescu". I'm not kidding; that's it!). A throwaway remark in Wolfe Tone's diary, written after a night's drinking, does not amount to a "discovery", still less a historical fact. No other source that I have ever read makes such an assertion.
I referred above to "high-flown rhetoric". That was wrong. I should have said "purple prose". The example I used was not a quotation; it was original prose incorporating a number of micro-quotations. A better example – without micro-quotations, is the following: Over the course of those 700 years those who believed themselves native to the soil contested possession with the 'foreigner', but these were perceptions shaped and overridden by other interests and alignments. From Diarmait Mac Murchada's invitation to Richard de Clare, Earl of Pembroke, to cross to Wexford in 1170, servants of the English crown in Ireland rarely stood alone without native septs as allies, or faced a challenge that was not joined by those once considered part of a planted English garrison. This is simply not encyclopaedic language.

And that's after only a first reading. I'm dreading having to do a line-by-line review! Scolaire (talk) 18:15, 28 June 2020 (UTC)

Thanks, Scolaire. Yes okay, once I have finished short section on the League of North and South, I'll leave the entry as it is for a while and work in the Sandbox. Thanks for that tip. But as to your points:

1. Yes, as I note, nationalism is as a concept gain currency from the 1840s, but it is characteristic of nationalism that it roots a claim to national sovereignty in history. The Catholic Confederacy, the Jacobite War, Grattan's Parliament, and the United Irishmen are the most common references in Irish nationalist historiography. I hardly deal with these "in detail". Rather I note their place in the nationalist narrative and, then in order to highlight what is then distinctive about nationalism, suggest some of the ways in which they resist a straight nationalist interpretation.

2. Of course, the 1916 Proclamation is statement of Irish Republicanism but Irish Republicanism is nationalist. Of course, there are other strands in Irish nationalism. But what is particularly useful and illustrative about the 1916 Proclamation is that bluntly states two key characteristics of nationalism (borne out, as you would find, in all the theoretical literature): (1) the vindication of the claim to national rights in the historical struggles of the past, (2) (and this is critical) the appeal to the Enlightenment post-American and French Revolutionary concept of popular sovereignty.

3. Yes I know Paine uses Swift's satirical reference to France in Gulliver's Travels to refer to Belfast (which is significant) but why dismiss it as a "throwaway remark"? The Rights of Man (which had repeated print runs in Ireland) is a constant United Irish reference to be found in statements, oaths, government reports, recollections and even ballads, and is acknowledged in all the accounts of the Belfast Society.

3. The first example you gave "of a high flown rhetoric" was direct quotation from nineteenth century Irish Historians (Lecky and O'Brien), and were illustrative of precisely the point made--that retrospective idealisations exaggerated the real import of the events described, i.e. the so-called "Revolution of 1782." Now suggest another passage as "purple prose." I don't why you think these lines ornate and not encyclopaedic. I thought they were a fairly economical way both of recording the onset of the English conquest in 1170 and of noting that since then major conflicts in Ireland have not divided along a simple "Irish"/"English" lines. But if you don't like it stylistically, and have an alternative wording to suggest--great.

Open to any proposals. Thanks for you interest. MHManfredHugh (talk) 20:53, 28 June 2020 (UTC)

I raised the Unionism article at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Ireland/Archive 19#Unionism in Ireland article, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Northern Ireland#Unionism in Irelanf article and Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Unionism in Ireland#Unionism in Ireland article, and received no replies of any kind. The drastic changes to the article were coming at such a pace it was impossible for me to review what had already been done, never mind keep up with new changes. I had hoped my criticism about essay-like writing at Talk:Unionism in Ireland#Recent changes was taken on board, but with @Scolaire: saying What is there now is a highly personal essay, full of high-flown rhetoric I guess it's been ignored completely. I'd be in favour of mass-reversion of all the articles, then a point-by-point examination of any material that could be salvaged. FDW777 (talk) 07:43, 29 June 2020 (UTC)

I'm sorry to say there is also another issue. I keep fixing headers per MOS:HEADER and Pokechu22 keeps fixing ISBN numbers, but ManfredHugh continues to break the ISBNs and edit headers to be capitalised when they shouldn't be. At this point, the entire article is no longer really about the article subject and there is potentially a couple (minor) competence issues not to mention the article isn't written in a proper WP:TONE. At this point I feel mass reversion of all the articles is more likely called for and insistence of conversations about changes before/as they are made. I just don't think this article is anything to do with Irish Nationalism any more and is now an essay/paper on the history of modern Ireland. Canterbury Tail talk 11:05, 29 June 2020 (UTC)

I'm officially adding my !vote for wholesale reversion. Scolaire (talk) 12:18, 29 June 2020 (UTC)

Fellow Wiki-ists I don't why this revision is considered "personal" or how it can possibly be said to have nothing to do with Irish nationalism (for which the original article didn't seem to have any guiding conception).

I can draw this out more, but nationalism (as understood in the literature) is claim of sovereignty over a territory for a "people"--as opposed to dynastic house or hereditary estate. It looks backward through history to define "the people" for which it seeks a sovereign state, but it arises as an idea and as a movement only in the nineteenth century in the wake of the Enlightenment and of the French Revolution which broadcast the the idea of popular sovereignty. This is true of Ireland as elsewhere.

The article uses the 1916 Proclamation both because of its obvious historical importance but also because, in its brief statement, it clearly encapsulates these two defining elements of nationalism: invoking both "tradition of nationhood" received from the "dead generations" AND the right of a people (without distinction) to the common ownership of Ireland. In its brevity, it is as good a statement of the nationalist perspective as you will find in the tradition of any state.

And Proclamation--to make this point again--is a nationalist statement. What has been Irish Republicanism but an uncompromising nationalism? It has been a refusal to accept any compromise under the British Crown of the right of the Irish people to independence, and, given that stand, a nationalism willing, in principle, to employ physical force. If you don't think that the Proclamation (whatever else it may be) is an expression of nationalism, perhaps it is your definition of the subject that is personal.

The Proclamation is also useful as a reference at the outset because it invites, and help organise, a brief survey of the background to nationalism's emergence in Ireland. Yes, you could go back further. But for economy I think is sufficient to start where Pearse and many others suggest with the Confederate Wars. Recording the precedents Pearse claims for 1916 acknowledges the historicism of nationalism (it always looks to what it understands as past struggles against foreign domination). But it also illustrates what is distinctive about nationalism--it is not tied to the cause of dynasty (as in Jacobitism) or of a social estate or caste (as in the Ascendancy "patriotism" of the 18th century).

"A paper on modern Irish history"--and do we write about Irish nationalism without engaging modern Irish history? The discussion doesn't dwell on historical events or figures beyond suggesting how they shape contending notions of the "nation" -- ideas about who "the people" are for whom Irish sovereignty is claimed and about different issues and strategies for uniting those people in a national cause.

Again, I don't know where you find "overblown rhetoric"--other than, perhaps, in direct quotation of contemporary sources. As to header protocol and isbn errors, I can only apologise.

But okay, let's have concrete suggestions. Of course, I don't think reverting back to the original article, which was tagged for lack of supporting references and didn't seem to have an organising literature-based understanding of nationalism, is the way forward. Whatever the issues you have with my contributions to what will always be a living document, they are a sustained attempt to do the subject some justice.

All the bestManfredHugh (talk) 14:20, 29 June 2020 (UTC)

Sorry, ManfredHugh, but as an otherwise uninvolved editor, I've restored the article back to the version you originally found it in. Wikipedia works by a system of consensus, which means when one's edits are contested, one stops editing and discusses then on the talk page, as you are doing now. Rather than continuing to edit while discussing here, as you are also doing. It sucks to have a lot of work removed, I know, but this way, your edits can be weighed on their merits and reinserted where felt applicable.
For what it's worth, your fellow discussants are all highly experienced Wikipedians and subject experts, so I'm sure they will make you feel welcome whilst providing valuable advice. Best of luck with your endeavours here! ——Serial^# 09:41, 30 June 2020 (UTC)

That's fine. ThanksManfredHugh (talk) 12:25, 30 June 2020 (UTC).