A Medley Mob of Irish-American Plotters and Irish Dupes

The British Press and Transatlantic Fenianism

Bibliographic Data

ID5777898
AuthorsMichael De Nie (corresponding author)
Year2001
Volume40
Issue2
Pages213-240
Publication date2001-04-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of British Studies (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0021-9371 • E-ISSN: 1545-6986
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1086/386241
OpenAlexW2136532188
LanguageEN
Citations received11
References cited22

In recent years scholars have paid considerable attention to the problem of British identity and "Britishness." Britishness and, for that matter, Englishness or Scottishness, are all, of course, impossible to quantify in any exact manner. While regional identities obviously persisted after 1707, this persistence did not preclude the construction of a national identity, a core set of "British" values that most people in Britain could agree represented them and their success as a commercial, industrial, and imperial power. In the press, popular fiction, and political dialogue, "British" was understood to stand for certain qualities, among them earnestness, prosperity, manliness, freedom, character, and civilization. These were the qualities used to contrast, compare, and find Britain superior to almost every nation and people in the world, especially Ireland and the British colonies. This contrast has been central to scholarship on British identity, most notably Linda Colley's Britons: Forging the Nation, 1707-1837 . Playing on Benedict Anderson's idea of an "imagined community," Colley portrays Britain as an invented nation brought together primarily by confrontation with the French Catholic Other over the course of a century of near perpetual warfare. Britons came to define themselves as a single people "not because of any political or cultural consensus at home, but rather in reaction to the Other beyond their shores." While a number of works seeking to modify, challenge, or even refute Colley have followed, most scholars concur that Englishness (or Britishness) was based above all on comparison with others, especially the Catholic French

Aristocracy (class · British Empire · Britishness · Highbrow · Prosperity · Historical Studies of British Isles · Irish and British Studies · Scottish History and National Identity

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