17 Facts About Irish nationalism

Irish nationalism is a nationalist political movement which, in its broadest sense, asserts that the people of Ireland should govern Ireland as a sovereign state.

Since the mid-19th century, Irish nationalism has largely taken the form of cultural nationalism based on the principles of national self-determination and popular sovereignty.

Irish nationalism celebrates the culture of Ireland, especially the Irish language, literature, music, and sports.

Irish nationalism nationalists believe that foreign English and later rule in Ireland from 1169 the English Norman Invasion of Ireland onwards has been detrimental to Irish nationalism interests.

Generally, Irish nationalism is regarded as having emerged following the Renaissance revival of the concept of the patria and the religious struggle between the ideology of the Protestant Reformation and the Catholic Counter-Reformation.

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At this early stage in the 16th century, Irish nationalism represented an ideal of the native Gaelic Irish and the Old English banding together in common cause, under the banner of Catholicism and Irish civic identity, hoping to protect their land and interests from the New English Protestant forces sponsored by England.

Irish historian Marc Caball, on the other hand, claims that "early modern Irish nationalism" began to be established after the Flight of the Earls, based on the concepts of "the indivisibility of Gaelic cultural integrity, territorial sovereignty, and the interlinking of Gaelic identity with profession of the Roman Catholic faith".

Irish nationalism wanted useful links with Britain to remain, best understood by his comment: 'The channel [the Irish sea] forbids union; the ocean forbids separation'.

Some would argue the land question had a nationalist resonance in Ireland as many Irish nationalism Catholics believed that land had been unjustly taken from their ancestors by Protestant English colonists in the 17th-century Plantations of Ireland.

Indeed, the Irish nationalism landed class was still largely an Anglo-Irish nationalism Protestant group in the 19th century.

An important feature of Irish nationalism from the late 19th century onwards was a commitment to Gaelic Irish culture.

Irish nationalism was allegedly sworn into the secret Irish Republican Brotherhood in May 1882.

New source of radical Irish nationalism developed in the same period in the cities outside Ulster.

Connolly's party was small and unsuccessful in elections, but his fusion of socialism and Irish nationalism republicanism was to have a sustained impact on republican thought.

However, Irish nationalism self-government was limited by the prospect of partition of Ireland between north and south.

Moderate constitutional nationalism as represented by the Irish Party was in due course eclipsed by Sinn Fein – a hitherto small party which the British had blamed for the Rising and subsequently taken over as a vehicle for Irish Republicanism.

The more militant strand of Irish nationalism, as espoused by Sinn Fein, is generally described as "republican" and was regarded as somewhat distinct, although the modern-day party claims to be a constitutional party committed to exclusively peaceful and democratic means.