Ireland and the Imperial World

Ireland and empire is now an established sub-genre in Irish history. Over the last two decades a number of books have appeared exploring, for instance, how the Irish assisted in the administration of the British empire, Irish Christians’ place in creating a ‘spiritual empire’ and how the Irish helped create opposition to the empire and influence the rise of nationalism. How significant the Irish presence in the empire was can be seen in the fact that, on the eve of the Indian rebellion in 1857, half of the East India Company’s European soldiers were Irish, and they made up 40 per cent of regular British troops (p. 3). Under review is a collection of twelve essays, edited by Timothy G. McMahon, Michael de Nie and Paul Townend, with an introduction and afterword, which, split into three thematic sections, looks at Irish citizenship, opportunism and subversion within the empire. The general argument throughout the collection is that ‘the Irish relationship to empire generally and the British Empire specifically affected both Irish identification with the Union and Irish identity itself’ (p. 5). Likewise, Irish society was shaped by its complicated interactions with the Irish in the empire, through families receiving letters and money, and through press reporting of advances and set-backs in the empire

Ancient history · British Empire · Empire · Irish · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Subversion · History · Irish and British Studies · Law · Philosophy