Colonial Spaces and Sites of Resistance: Landed Estates in 19th Century Ireland

Abstract

Post-colonial perspectives offer a critique of 19th century colonial discourse in which dominant power structures frequently served to ‘Other’ the colonized, through processes of negative stereotyping and myths of primitive backwardness. In terms of origins, a great many of the landed estates were part of an overt colonial enterprize in the 16th and 17th centuries - involving confiscation, plantation and colonization of the land of Ireland by British settlers. Although the colonial nature of Ireland’s relationships in the British Isles and British empire is sometimes ambiguous, they displayed most of the characteristics of colonial society in the 18th and 19th centuries, especially in the role played by the landed gentry. Routledge talks of the ‘place-specific’ character of popular protest and struggles resulting from the manner in which society endows space and its associated resources with a variety of meanings.