Tag: Nationalism
The Overton Hourglass
June, 2003: shortly after take-off, an ultralight aircraft crashes near Caro, Michigan. The pilot is a newlywed man in his early forties. He dies in the wreckage. His name was Joseph Overton. In the world of politics, however, Joseph Overton...
Ireland Shouldn’t Care About Palestine or Israel
The Irish have a misplaced sense of nostalgia when it comes to Palestine. As the heirs of an anti-colonial past we tend to view contemporary politics through a lens uncommon to most Europeans. From the Plantations to the northern conflict,...
Aontú: Friend or Foe?
The Potential of Tóibín-ism: Ten years since the economic crash, Irish politics is a graveyard of parties that have attempted to fill an imagined political vacuum. Reports of the death of our two (and a half) party state have been...
A Vanishing Ireland
The Great Famine of the 1840s was undoubtedly the most catastrophic event in Ireland's history. With an estimated one million dead and another million lost to emigration, the population of the island fell by around 25% in the space of...
Atlanticism and Ireland’s Post-Brexit Dilemma
Brexit and the English Connection: In cynical geopolitical terms, Ireland exists as the Western European equivalent of Belarus. An English speaking cultural appendage of Anglo-America surviving off FDI and with a monetary policy set in Brussels. For all the fanfare...
The Necessity of the Irish Nation-State
I find truth in the observation that from the 1960’s onwards the scholars and thinkers of Ireland, and those unfortunate enough to unwittingly consume their opinions, elevated the external and the imported over the domestic and native. Persuaded by the...
The Genius of Eoghan Ruadh Ó Néill
Eoghan Ruadh Ó Néill was born some time in the 1580s. He left for Spain in his youth, and took up service in the Spanish military. The Ulster that Ó Néill grew up in was a destitute place in the...
Why The Good Friday Agreement Will Fail
“Secular liberals and socialists expected tribal passions would gradually disappear, while improved means of communication and a better scientific understanding of the universe would take its place. But it turned out not to be so.” - Leszek Kolakowski Ireland’s Fukuyama...
Irish Conservatives and Nationalists Need a Mythos
There is much that can be said about Peter Hitchen's 2010 book, The Rage Against God, that is relevant to modern Ireland. Though the author delivers a critique of secularism from the platform of his Anglican faith, the trends that...
The Resurrection of Hungary: A Modern Parallel for Ireland
“The new state that we are building is an illiberal state, It does not deny foundational values of liberalism, such as freedom, etc. But it does not make this ideology a central element of state organization, but applies a specific,...