Abstract
This article investigates the historical context of Irish involvement in the Anglo- Boer War, but focuses on the literary products - mainly popular ballads and partisan historiography - of this involvement. Irish soldiers participated on both sides of the war, not so much because of identification with South African issues as because it afforded them the opportunity of fighting Irish fights on a displaced battle-field. The war thus presages the explosion of Irish/British strife in 1916 and the subsequent Irish Civil War by more than a decade. As in most wars, the struggle was conducted by the pen and by the sword and the popular Irish verse of the time reveals the sentiments of fervent Irish imperialists, defending the causes of Empire, fervent Irish nationalists espousing the Boer cause, as well as movingly suggesting the dilemma of the majority of Irish combatants, fighting for England while sympathizing with the Boers.
Highlights
Irish nationalism in 1899The outbreak o f the Anglo-Boer War in 1899 had a significant effect on the Irish national movement
Irish nationalism was in a lull and needed an injection to
Seizing the opportunity that the war offered for Irish nationalism with characteristic fervour and rising to the occasion with flamboyant enthusiasm, was, Maud Gonne, who believed that “England’s difficulty [was] Ireland’s opportunity” (Spies, 1980:180-81)
Summary
The outbreak o f the Anglo-Boer War in 1899 had a significant effect on the Irish national movement. The rhetoric o f cxmfllct and conflict by rhetoric: Ireland and iiie Anglo-Boer War__________. The Gaelic League and the Gaelic Athletic Association were keeping the flame of nationalism alive (McCracken, 1995:97). It was that the spectacle of another small rural people, taking up arms in South Africa against the omnipotent British Empire, evoked a sympathetic and enthusiastic response in Ireland and fired languishing dreams of resistance and independence, galvanising, as Donal McCracken put it, “Irish nationalism [to] set it on course for that crucible where Irish independence was forged” (McCracken, 1995:97). It was that the spectacle of another small rural people, taking up arms in South Africa against the omnipotent British Empire, evoked a sympathetic and enthusiastic response in Ireland and fired languishing dreams of resistance and independence, galvanising, as Donal McCracken put it, “Irish nationalism [to] set it on course for that crucible where Irish independence was forged” (McCracken, 1995:97). (This, incidentally, suggests an interesting parallel between Ireland and Quebec, where the outbreak of the Boer War likewise galvanized a small, god-fearing, rural people within the British Empire into nationalist action, with riots occurring in Montreal and the Ligue nationaliste being founded by Bourassa to promote the national interests o f French Canadians [Lower, 1970:152] - a momentum o f which the historical repercussions have still not worked themselves out.)
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