M. J. KELLY. The Fenian Ideal and Irish Nationalism, 1882-1916. (Irish Historical Monographs, number 4.) Rochester, N.Y.: Boydell Press. 2006. Pp. x, 282. $90.00

Abstract

Since the apparent conclusion of the recent conflict in Northern Ireland, a distinctive new tendency has become evident in the writing of Irish history. Whereas much academic historical writing produced in the 1970s and the 1980s was vehemently antinationalist, there is now a tendency for historians to write more sensitively and sympathetically about Irish nationalist movements both past and present. M. J. Kelly signals this new atmosphere explicitly in his epilogue, where he castigates (unnamed) “very distinguished historians [of Ireland]” for adopting a contemptuous tone toward the leaders of the Easter Rising (p. 256). Kelly's elegantly written and carefully researched monograph, by contrast, provides an empathetic, subtle, and balanced account of “advanced” nationalism in Ireland during the critical (and under-researched) period between the end of the Land War (1879–1882) and the 1916 Rising. Kelly's book does not, however, provide a full account of the activities of the Fenian movement in Ireland during this period. Instead, his book should be regarded as essentially a study of separatist thought in Ireland as it was conceived by “advanced” nationalist activists. The book demonstrates that the “Fenian ideal” was complex, various, nuanced, evolving, part of the texture of Irish society, capable of inspiring strong emotional responses, and intertwined with constitutionalism (rather than being its enemy, as is often supposed). Moreover, Kelly is alert to the way in which the various conflicts and contests within Irish nationalism were as much “a battle of ideas” (p. 208) as a battle of personnel, and the book makes a significant contribution to the intellectual history of Irish separatism, and to the way in which separatist ideas were a part of the firmament of Irish society and politics during this period.