| Description |
At the core of this research project lies an investigation of social and political protest in the complex transnational space across Ireland and the Irish diaspora. Irish people who emigrated are frequently considered by historians as a separate field of inquiry, set apart from Irish history. I propose to comparatively analyze how Irish people at home, in Britain and the United States engaged with widespread agrarian protest in Ireland during the period 1879-1903. The Irish Land League and subsequent agrarian movements were genuinely transnational phenomena in that they connected Ireland with the diaspora worldwide. My study investigates the sources, nature and chronology of support for these movements. Through combining membership and subscriber lists with new digitised genealogical databases and shipping records, I will create a social profile, which will enable the sustained comparison across national boundaries of key themes and questions, such as mechanisms of political mobilisation; class; the relational landscape between diasporas and the home country; the role of women; social mobility. Through moving beyond the island of Ireland as the ‘container space’ of analysis, this project integrates the history of modern Ireland with that of its diaspora, and develops methodological and theoretical models that will contribute to furthering transnational and global agendas beyond the field of Irish history. In doing so I will make a substantial contribution to the historiographies of Ireland and the receiver countries, Britain and the United States and research in the European Research Area.
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