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Political Ideology in Ireland: From the Enlightenment to the Present
Editor: Olivier Coquelin, Patrick Galliou and Thierry Robin
Date Of Publication: May 2009
Isbn13: 978-1-4438-0528-5
Isbn: 1-4438-0528-9
First delivered as part of an international conference held at Brest University in November 2007—under the aegis of the Centre de Recherche Bretonne et Celtique (CRBC)—, this collection of essays essentially aims at interrogating history in order to better understand the political and ideological complexity of early XXIst-century Ireland. This complexity reflects, in many respects, Ireland’s uniqueness among the Western European nations. Some of the multiple persuasions within the gamut of Irish political ideology, from the Enlightenment to the present, are thus explored from diverse angles of approach—dialectical, taxonomic, theoretical, practical, individual, collective—, and through a diverse range of disciplines—human sciences, political science, social sciences, literature, philosophy and art history—and themes—from Jonathan Swift’s rhetorical complexity to the evolution of Irish republicanism after 9/11, including the reassessment of Daniel O’Connell’s political ideology, Owenism in Ireland, Oscar Wilde’s socialistic ideology, the ideological development of the Republican and Loyalist prisoners…

This unique collection of essays, far from being a static historiographical description, provides food for thought and sheds light on the fascinating ambivalent dynamics lying at the heart of the building process of a modern nation resulting from the aggregate of individual will, collective ideals and Zeitgeist.

The impressive variety of issues raised by authors of diverse origins (United States, Ireland, Britain, France), including leading experts in the above-mentioned areas (Richard English, Robert Mahony, Jonathan Tonge, Kieran Allen, John Sloan, Christopher Murray, Vincent Geoghegan…), therefore, widely contributes to the fact that the present book will be intellectually stimulating and enlightening, at least as an introduction, for all the students and scholars of Irish studies and other related disciplines.

Olivier COQUELIN is a tutor at the University of Western Brittany (Brest / Quimper), wherein he is also an associate member of the Centre de Recherche Bretonne et Celtique (CRBC). His research work focuses on the history and ideological analysis of the Irish political and social movements in the modern and contemporary eras.

Patrick GALLIOU is Emeritus Professor of English at the University of Western Brittany, Brest. He is currently editing the correspondence between George Bernard Shaw and his French translator, Augustin Hamon.

Thierry ROBIN is a lecturer at the University of Western Brittany, Brest / Quimper. His research focuses on contemporary Irish literature and the connections between ideology, epistemology and the concept of reality. His favourite writers include Oscar Wilde, Flann O’Brien and John Banville.

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Sample pdf (including Table of Contents)

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Interesting reviews

From Border States in the Work of Tom Mac Intyre: A Paleo-Postmodern Perspective

''Catriona Ryan has more than achieved what she set out to do.She has emphatically presented Tom Mac Intyre as a writer with a distinctive voice who not only provides a crucial link in the chain that goes back through Kavanagh to Yeats, but as a bridging figure, a transgressive author whose reflections on the Irish literary scene, and on writing more generally, have much to tell us about the ways in which constrictive critical currents can cut off living literary streams. It is clear from Catriona Ryan's painstaking excavation that Mac Intyre has been wrongly neglected. Her thoughtful and perceptive critical intervention will remedy that wrong.''
- Willy Maley, Litteraria Pragensia, 22:44 (2013), 131-134, p. 134.

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– Dr Steven Vine, Swansea University

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– Dr Aidan Arrowsmith, Manchester Metropolitan University