Irish republicanisms and radical nostalgia

Abstract

This chapter analyses the complex connections between varieties of contemporary Irish republicanism and the notion of ‘radical nostalgia’, a term adopted from Peter Glazer’s (2005) important work on commemoration of the Spanish Civil War. The first section is devoted to examining the relationship between nostalgia and radical (or revolutionary) politics, and some of the characteristic ways in which socialist and/or radical nationalist movements have utilised nostalgia as a means to mobilise support. In the (alleged) context of the ‘unfinished revolution’ in Ireland, various strands of the republican ‘family’, including both the ‘mainstream’ or ‘establishment republicanism’ of Provisional Sinn Féin as well as many of the myriad so-called ‘dissident’ groups, have sought to lay claim to the legacies and heritage of the Irish ‘struggle’ and ‘resistance’ to British rule in Ireland. In particular, there has been an intra-republican effort to mobilise radical nostalgia in the service of divergent contemporary political goals, leading to a mnemonic competition regarding which branch of the movement can most plausibly claim the mantle of authenticity and continuity with the ‘heroic’ history (both recent and more distant) of Irish republican activism. The chapter further analyses the broad contours of these struggles over ‘ownership’ of republican memory, with specific reference to the experiences of the Troubles in Northern Ireland. Finally, the chapter focuses upon the ‘post-conflict’ generation of republicans, which, it is argued, has often been recruited into ‘dissident’ organisations, at least in part on the basis of a radical nostalgia, or exo-nostalgia, for a past they never knew.