Irish cultural nationalism and the Protestant minority: the conditions and parameters of “Irishness”

Abstract

Among the various expressions of nationalism in Europe, Irish nationalism could be said to have persisted as the most politically relevant and culturally influential. Its ideological importance in Ireland’s struggle for independence traces back centuries, yet its most recent and successful incarnation differs significantly in character from past formations. While Irish nationalism’s political project remains unfinished, as six of the island’s counties form the constitutionally British state of Northern Ireland, its cultural project appears to have succeeded in the popular imagination and historical consciousness. This success would come at the expense of Ireland’s Protestant minority, for whom the conditions and parameters for authentic “Irishness” were deliberately exclusionary and limiting. This analysis of the cultural nationalist framework for nationality, identity, and religion in independent Ireland examines the trajectory of nationalism in Ireland and highlights the contentious reasons as to why it took such a course and how it proved problematic for some members of the historic Irish nation.

Keywords: Irish nationalism, cultural nationalism, Irishness, identity, nationality, Catholic, Protestant