British-Irish Relations Research Articles

British-Irish historical memory: the legacy of the Anglo-Irish conflict in the first four volumes of the Lives Entwined project

The very name given to the project initiated by the British Council in the mid-2000s, i.e. Lives Entwined, set the tone for the four volumes of essays it has hitherto given birth to, and in which the overarching themes are indeed the strong cultural and historical ties linking British and Irish people and the main stumbling blocks to their reconciliation in decades past, namely the exacerbation of the memory of their strife-ridden past by British imperialism and Irish nationalism, as well as the Troubles in Northern Ireland. This article shall attempt to determine the extent to which the personal accounts given by the contributors to Lives Entwined testify to the “postcolonial recalibration” of British-Irish relations referred to by Tony Reilly in his introductory remarks to the first volume. It shall be argued that while Reilly’s statement is not wide of the mark, the overwhelming majority of the contributors highlighting the end of an era fraught with historical tension between Britain and Ireland, and the emergence, in its stead, of a new and more peaceful one, this assessment of the situation should not be taken for granted too easily nowadays, given the political turmoil brought about by Brexit.

Emotion norms: Ireland, Brexit, backstops and protocols

ABSTRACT The 2016 decision of the UK electorate to withdraw from the European Union drew to a halt a decades-long process of shared Irish/UK Europeanisation. Brexit also posed near existential challenges to the Irish state across the public policy spectrum, initiating something of a debate on Ireland’s strategic position vis á vis the UK and EU26 and the future of the Irish peace process. This paper seeks to assess the emotional content of these debates surrounding the impact of the Brexit crisis on bilateral British–Irish relations and the mediating role of Ireland’s EU membership in the Union’s subsequent negotiations with the UK. The article will argue that Brexit shattered newly developed and instantiated emotion norms, resulting in some reversion to earlier historical emotional patterns but then also a reversal in emotional stereotypes which had long define the bilateral relationship.

Accepting Dominion Status as a Way of Reconciliation of British-Irish Disputes?

The article is focused on an analysis of British-Irish relations in 1921. From the British point of view, the best solution to the conflict seemed to be the granting of Dominion status. It was based on the assumption that the British Empire represented the largest community of free sister nations in the world. On the contrary, Irish officials did not have the confidence to participate in various colonial or imperial projects because they considered themselves a victim of British colonialism. The question of the accepting of the Dominion status divided the Irish political scene into supporters and opponents of the Anglo-Irish treaty. Supporters of the agreement calmed their own sympathizers by claiming that freedom and equality derive directly from Dominion status. However, the lack of precise determination of the rights and duties of the Dominions was a complication of the situation. The question arises as to whether negotiations on reconciliation between Britain and Ireland led from the British and Irish perspectives, in the context of the then unclear situation of what precisely it means to be a Dominion, to a fair solution to the British-Irish Disputes.

The British-Irish Border in the Context of Brexit

The subject of the paper is reflections on the consequences of Brexit for the functioning of the border between Ireland and Northern Ireland. The author explains what this border means when the United Kingdom is no longer a member of the European Union, and thus the border may be a barrier to the free movement of people, goods, capital and services. At the same time, it is stressed that the exit of the United Kingdom from the European Union will have a significant impact on the change of the function of this border, which from then on is no longer an internal border of the Union.
 The aim of the paper is therefore to analyse the consequences of this change, with a simultaneous indication of different models of the UK’s functioning with relation to the European Union and their impact on the British-Irish relations, especially with regard to the various dimensions of the border as a barrier.
 The article presents various scenarios of solutions that will determine their mutual relations as a result of negotiations between the European Union and Great Britain, especially with regard to access to the single European market, which in turn will be influenced by the border between Ireland and Northern Ireland in the scope of the free movement of people, goods, capital and services. The author used the system analysis method and the comparative method.
 The author puts forward the thesis that if the negotiations cause a fairly strong loosening of relations between the UK and the European Union, to mitigate the consequences of such a situation for the Irish-British relations, it will be necessary to find and develop bilateral solutions that will facilitate border crossing. The Smart Border 2.0 concept can constitute such a solution.

The Brexit crisis, Ireland and British–Irish relations: Europeanisation and/or de-Europeanisation?

ABSTRACTBrexit is not solely a UK crisis. Ireland, more than any other member state, stands to be deeply and profoundly impacted by the UK’s departure from the EU. The crisis which Ireland faces is multi-dimensional: economic and political, constitutional and existential in nature. The nature and impact of Brexit changes Ireland’s relationship with the EU, and this is because the UK’s decision to leave the European bloc is also a crisis for the EU. Brexit challenges the balance between intergovernmental and supranational institutions and dynamics in the EU; alters power and policy balances; and adds a degree of contingency to EU membership for all member-states. This article explores the various political, economic and constitutional crises generated for Ireland by the Brexit vote and assesses how Brexit impacts on the Europeanisation and/or de-Europeanisation of the Irish political system and British–Irish relations. This includes an analysis of the extent to which the traditional Europeanised characteristics of the Ireland-EU relationship and the British–Irish relationship will endure or perish within the confines of a post-Brexit EU.

The Forgotten Powerhouse: Analyzing the Brief Rise to Prominence of Lawn Tennis in Ireland in the Late-Nineteenth Century

Within the historiography of lawn tennis in Ireland, there remains considerable scope to discern how the sport rose to prominence – reaching its apex in the early 1890s – among the wealthy landed classes, and what influence it had upon the structure and culture of the sport globally. This is set against the assumed view of lawn tennis being a rather marginal sport during the late-nineteenth century when the fight for popularity between native Irish and British team sports dominated media narratives. Separated from much of this commotion, lawn tennis helped to forge landed aristocratic/gentry identity within urban/suburban locales across Ireland – principally in Dublin, where its leading clubs and championship were regarded almost on a par with its equivalents in London – and also emancipate Irish sportswomen, and a small number of working-class coaching-professionals who plied their trade in the leading clubs. Given the broader historical context of increasing land agitation and subsequent rising Irish populist nationalism, the growth of lawn tennis in itself remains an interesting phenomenon. Thus, the brief rise to prominence of tennis in Ireland, and specifically Dublin, is examined, contextualized within broader socio-cultural and politico-religious developments that pervaded the organization of Irish society, and British-Irish relations, during this time.

Brexit and British–Irish Relations

This article examines the impact of Brexit on British–Irish relations to date. Etain Tannam shows how the intergovernmental relationship has flourished, but highlights the challenges posed by Brexit. She argues that strong British–Irish intergovernmental relations are essential to manage the challenges. A formalised institutional framework is and will be essential in the absence of common EU membership. To this end, the Good Friday Agreement’s British–Irish Intergovernmental Conference should be revitalised.

Éamon de Valera: A Will to Power by Ronan Fanning (review)

Review Article Éamon de Valera: AWill to Power, Ronan Fanning (London: Faber & Faber, 2009), 320 pages. The majority is always wrong; the minority is seldom right’(Henrik Ibsen.) In mathematics the concept of elegance is important. The concept comprises elements of economy, directness, balance and superior judgement. It is art in the service of science or, put another way, it is that approach through which the beauty of logic approaches that of art. In these senses the late Ronan Fanning’s book on de Valera is elegant. Professor Fanning, who died in January this year, was an outstanding historian and public intellectual, and the author of, in addition to this biography, three well-received studies in twentieth-century Irish history. His earlier works included The Irish Department of Finance, 1922– 1958, Independent Ireland 1922–1948 and Fatal Path, a consideration of the extent to which British Government policy towards Ireland from1910–22 was driven by the ambitions, and jockeying for position of British politicians. He was an important member of the group which produced the Dictionary of Irish Biography and was a co-ordinating editor for the first nine volumes in the Royal Irish Academy series, Documents on Irish Foreign Policy. Although pre-eminently a ‘sources’ historian and a scholar of the archives, Ronan Fanning was also a formidable public communicator, willing to cross swords with senior politicians on history-related subjects such as the present round of national commemorations, of which he approved. He was willing, moreover, to put in context major political topics of the day. In mid-2016 he saw Brexit as the biggest threat since the Second World War to Dublin’s independent foreign policy. On occasion, he took issue sharply with journalist colleagues, for example, those of the Sunday Independent, regarding the Hume/Adams talks of the late 1980s. According to Michael Lillis, he played an influential advisory role vis-a-vis Garret FitzGerald and other Irish officials in the negotiations which led to the Carter initiative of August 1977. This first break in its traditional ‘hands-off’ policy was the basis for the constructive diplomatic role the US Government has played in Northern Ireland since then, especially under President Reagan and President Clinton. Studies • volume 106 • number 423 369 Autumn 2017 Review Article Fanning’s overall judgement is that de Valera is the most significant leader in the political history of modern Ireland and is incomparably its most eminent statesman, while remaining its single most divisive figure. This is not an original view: what is most impressive in it, however, is the concision, comprehensiveness and balance of viewpoints which go to make up the case. Particularly convincing are the facts and arguments chosen to illustrate de Valera’s attitudes to and positions on the Treaty negotiations and the Civil War; his thoughts and actions on Northern Ireland; his achievements in the drive towards full independence in the 1930s; the Second World War and neutrality; and, more generally, his attitude to Britain and British–Irish relations. This book also constitutes, as its subtitle implies, a meditation on power: winning it, retaining it and using it. In this respect Fanning covers de Valera’s personality and charisma, his energy, self-contained nature and self-confidence; his dominance of his ministers, party and supporters; and of course, his never-failing appetite for power. As early as 1921, when being inaugurated as Chancellor of NUI, de Valera used the telling phrase ‘the deedful lust of an Alexander’. Fanning also pays graceful tribute to Sinéad de Valera and occasionally even dares to sympathise with her. In what follows I look first at what Fanning considers de Valera’s most fruitful period as Irish leader, the decade and a half between 1932–48, and then, secondly and in greater detail, at the darker features of his legacy; his record in the 1921–23 period, and later in relation to Northern Ireland. In general, I find Fanning’s assessments fair and convincing, but I believe there are significant omissions in his treatment of de Valera’s activities concerning Ulster. According to Fanning, de Valera had a clear programme when he became President of the Executive Council and Minister for External Affairs...

English Votes for English Laws

English Votes for English Laws

Ireland and Brexit: A Roundtable

A panel of five historians and political scientists, from the United States, Ireland, and Britain respond to questions regarding Brexit vote of the United Kingdom in June 2016 and historic and present-day attitudes toward the European Union (EU) in Britain and Ireland. The authors consider regional variations in attitudes toward the EU within both countries. They offer commentary on the implications of the Brexit vote on future British-Irish relations, particularly with regard to the nature of the land border between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland in the future. The article closes with a discussion of how the nature of nation-states has been called into question by the vote, requiring that political actors and nations reconcile states and multi-state entities with nations in a new context.

The Vulnerability of the Northern Ireland Settlement: British Irish Relations, Political Crisis and Brexit

The Good Friday Agreement of 1998 is the cornerstone of stability in Northern Ireland. It is, however, vulnerable to changes in British-Irish relations and priorities. This article argues that this is at the root of recent crises and political stalemate in Northern Ireland. It argues that future shocks – not least the threat of British exit from the EU – are likely to increase instability in Northern Ireland and in North-South relations.

‘Doing her spiriting’: Lady Morgan's Irish Tempests

Several studies have tried to answer the question ‘where is Ireland in The Tempest?’, while others have assessed Ireland's sense of its own postcoloniality through Irish writers' engagement with Shakespeare's most ‘colonial’ play. This essay argues that Lady Morgan's national tales offer the first significant Irish rewritings of The Tempest. It shows how her allusions to the play constitute coherent intertextual patterns, informed by a clear sense of parallels between the enchanted isle of Shakespeare's imagination and Ireland around the time of the Act of Union. Those parallels, however, challenge the idea that The Tempest illustrates a (post)colonial relation between Ireland and Britain. Instead, Morgan's focus on the spells cast on foreign visitors by the island and by the native magic of Prospero and Ariel suggests that she used the play in order to allegorize possible ways of making the Union work, rather than to impugn the illegitimacy of colonial rule. Her last and most pessimistic national tale embryonically sketches a wild, native Irish Caliban who would later recur in both British and Irish imaginations with the rise of militant radical nationalism, but Morgan's version of the figure still shows important differences with subsequent postcolonial embodiments of Irish otherness. Although seminal in many ways, Morgan's rewritings of The Tempest only later make room for more conflictual uses of the play as an allegory of British-Irish relations.

Ireland on a Plate: Curating the 2011 State Banquet for Queen Elizabeth II

Ireland on a Plate: Curating the 2011 State Banquet for Queen Elizabeth II

Prisoners of History? British-Irish Relations and the Conflict in Northern Ireland

Abstract Is the Northern Ireland problem still “... but Anglo-Irish relations writ small”, as Paul Arthur wrote in 2000? Would a solution to the conflict in Northern Ireland usher a complete “normalisation” of British-Irish relations? This article looks at how the management of the situation in Northern Ireland by the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland has evolved over recent decades, and argues that it is the way in which the two states have been brought to cooperate that has allowed them to go beyond the remnants of colonialism. Northern Ireland has admittedly remained for a long time the main element structuring relations between the UK and the Republic of Ireland. In that sense, it has been both a problem and a solution: it is a problem because many considered it to be a leftover from the colonial period that has to be resolved, but it also calls for a closer cooperation between the two states, which has entailed renegotiating their relations as a whole. In this perspective, we look at how Northern Ireland went from being the main consideration to one of the subjects of British-Irish relations, thus allowing both states to loosen the grip of history. Keywords: Ireland; Northern Ireland; United Kingdom; Conflict; Colonialism ----- Bibliography: Feron, Elise: Prisoners of History? British-Irish Relations and the Conflict in Northern Ireland, ERIS, 3-2014, pp. 94-109. https://doi.org/10.3224/eris.v1i3.19126

Winifred M. Patton and the Irish Revival in London

The place of London in the Irish Revival is sometimes overlooked, yet, at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the city served as a place where Irish political and cultural identities were reinvigorated amongst the migrant community there and fed directly into events back home. The experience of living in London, at one remove from Ireland, appears to have reinforced a sense of belonging and nationhood for many writers, the most prominent of which was Yeats. This article examines the life and work of Winifred M. Patton, a gifted Irish writer and nationalist who lived there between 1893 and 1914. Whilst she never achieved the same reputation as some of her contemporaries, Patton, nevertheless, published widely in Irish nationalist newspapers of the time. Apart from writing poetry, short stories and essays, she was also active in political and cultural organisations such as the Gaelic League and the Irish Fireside Club helping ferment Irish nationalist aspirations at a crucial turning point in British–Irish relations. Based on new research into an archival collection of Patton's papers, this article examines the relationship between migration, gender and nationalism and the role of literature in mediations of cultural identity in the Irish diaspora.

The Complexity of British–Irish Interdependence

The transformation of British–Irish relations from dependence to interdependence from the 1960s to the 2000s occurred in an international setting dominated by both states' membership of the European Economic Community/European Community/European Union and their various relations with the US's global hegemony, politically and economically. This article interprets these changes by reference to complex interdependence and other theories in international relations. Northern Ireland was a central factor in this transformation, but was not its primary cause, as both Ireland and the UK have an abiding interest in normal, stable interstate relations aside from that conflict. Paradoxically, however, just as the official discourse of transformation reached its height the normalisation on which it was based was challenged by the dual constitutional question unsettling the UK: Scotland's vote on independence and a likely referendum on the UK's membership of the EU. Either or both outcomes would profoundly affect the improved relations with Ireland by virtue of the very interdependence that gave both states a new mutual influence on one another.

Anglo-Saxon/Irish Relations before the Vikings, ed. James Graham-Campbell and Michael Ryan

This volume results from a joint symposium held by the British Academy and the Royal Irish Academy in 2005. It comprises eighteen papers which explore early medieval British-Irish relations from a range of different disciplinary perspectives. Broadly speaking, the first seven papers deal with texts; the next ten are concerned with objects; and the ‘addendum’ provides a later medieval perspective on pre-Viking-Age links between England and Ireland. The range of authors is very impressive, including both seasoned experts and young stars of early Insular studies. This makes the volume essential reading for anyone working in this field. The book begins with Patrick O’Neill’s keynote lecture on the origins of the Old English alphabet. A persuasive case is made that it was developed in the seventh century by English scholars trained in Ireland. This constitutes an impressive start to the volume. The contact between Irish and English ecclesiastics continues as a major theme. Fiona Edmonds sets out the practicalities involved in communication between Northumbrian and Irish churches. This includes a perceptive discussion of route-ways, ports and guesthouses. Paul Russell explores Gaelic names in the Durham Liber Vitae, and how these may be identified and dated. Roy Flechner’s paper analyses scholarly links in the mutual development of English and Irish canon law. He highlights the sophistication of Insular collections in their recognition of diversity. The Canons of Theodore, archbishop of Canterbury, and the great Collectio Canonum Hibernensis are shown to acknowledge differences (between Graeci and Romani or Hibernenses and Romani) in a manner which sought to reconcile conflict.

The Blair Years – A Northern Irish Perspective1

This paper looks at New Labour’s devolution policies form the vintage point of the Northern Irish experiment. It explores the multiple consequences of the new constitutional framework set down by the Good Friday Agreement of 1998, from the logical redefinition of British-Irish relations to the less self-evident potential redefinition of cross-border relations in Ireland itself. The paper also looks back on the history of devolution to Northern Ireland with a view to bringing out the crucial contribution of the Blair administration. Finally it provides an insider’s view into the operations of the Northern Irish Executive and through comparative analysis highlights the specificities of devolution Northern Irish style.

Northern Ireland, British-Irish Relations and American Concerns, 1942-1956

This article considers the political impact of particular Irish controversies during the Second World War and the post-war period. It highlights the American dimension to these controversies, and examines what they reveal about different sets of inter-governmental relations, especially that of London and Belfast. The article argues that the context of wartime, and the circumstances of the post-war era, should have led to more effective cooperation between the Westminster and Stormont governments to the end of improving the operation of devolution and ensuring the curtailment of corrupt practices. The article also contends that there were significant tensions between different areas of successive London governments which hampered the effective handling of Irish matters.

Status and Statehood: Exchange Theory and British-Irish Relations, 1921-41

This article is an exploratory application of exchange theory to selective aspects of the British-Irish relationship as it evolved from 1921 to 1941. Conceptions of national status and their constitutional manifestation were central to both internal governmental authority and external relations with and within the British Empire. We are not suggesting that national status questions regarding full independence and territorial unity were necessarily more powerful than economic and strategic concerns, such as defence costs arising from participation in war, or economic costs associated with Irish unification. Instead, our more modest claim is that conceptions of national status are also decisive and should not be dismissed because they are less easy to quantify. They are important because a pre-condition for consensual conflict regulation is the recognition of a degree of conceptual status-parity ie, the perceived value and legitimacy of the national status of the other. For inter-governmentalism, relative parity creates potential for mutualist exchanges instead of the debilitating consequences of one-sided exertions of power associated with control regimes and overly rigid, statist, 'nationalising' projects.