Ireland and Modernity
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Edinburgh
Department Name: Sch of History, Classics and Archaeology
Abstract
Abstracts are not currently available in GtR for all funded research. This is normally because the abstract was not required at the time of proposal submission, but may be because it included sensitive information such as personal details.
Organisations
People |
ORCID iD |
| Enda Delaney (Principal Investigator / Fellow) |
Publications
Delaney, E.
(2011)
Our Island Story? Towards a Transnational History of late Modern Ireland
in Irish Historical Studies
Delaney, E.
(2011)
Turning Points in Twentieth Century Irish History
| Description | The principal findings from this project may be summarised under the following headings: Theory Much of the theoretical literature stress the universal nature of the experience of modernity, even if postcolonial theorists and scholars working in non-western history have challenged such assumptions. This project whilst acknowledging such common features as industrialisation, urbanisation, growth of individualism, the reformulations in the sense of self, as well as alienation, uncertainty and fear of the modern, also underlines the particular elements that emerge in the Irish case. These include the far-reaching role of the state (British pre-1921, and thereafter two irish ones) in education, governance, promotion of order, and fostering notions of good citizens, the centrality of religious belief and practice, the absence of sustained industrialisation outside of north-east Ulster, and the huge diaspora that left Ireland from the 1830s onwards resulting in a transnational exchange of people, ideas, and objects between Ireland and the principal receiving societies, the United States and Britain. The insights derived from social and cultural theory need then to be set alongside the particular features of a society and how they changed over time in order to produce a coherent and nuanced historical account of modernity. Modernity as an experience Charting what elites said about modernity is far less revealing than exploring the diverse range of the experiences of becoming modern. The approach adopted seeks to uncover the social and cultural context of these experiences, and the project has made extensive use of first-hand testimonies, folklore materials, ethnographic accounts to investigate what people made of the changing world around them. From the coming of the railways to changes in the urban and rural landscape and including such diverse subjects as everyday technologies (e.g bicycles), language change, and communications (especially the development of a national postal system). An area that has proved especially instructive has been applying the methods of historians of science and technology such as Chandra Mukerji and applying them in an Irish context. Another field that has shaped this project is the history of the senses, so considerable emphasis is placed on documenting the sights, sounds and smells of modernity in Ireland, and equally the wide range of reactions to this new unfamiliar sensory experience. Cultures of modernity While theorists stress 'big' structural factors, this research has underlined the importance of what may be termed the cultures of modernity. This refers to the body of knowledge, ideas and practices that promoted self-consciously 'modern' values from speaking English rather than Irish, to the embrace of middle-class values of respectability, sexual probity, manners and 'civilised' behaviour. One of the most significant findings is that the dominant institutional forces within Irish society for much of this period (the Catholic church, the state and the major political movements) actively promoted such values. This was reinforced by waves of emigrants who maintained contact through letters at first, and then repeated return visits to Ireland. In short, what emerges after 1870 is a hierarchy of cultures in which pre-modern frameworks are ultimately if gradually displaced by what we would now term 'modern', 'rational' and 'scientific' ways of understanding the world. |
| Exploitation Route | This should influence the agenda in Irish economic and social history |
| Sectors | Creative Economy |
| Description | Thomas J. Flatley Irish Studies Lecture Boston College |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | Placed the issue of modernity on the agenda of ECFs and PhD students working in irish Studies |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |