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Вестник СПбГУ. История. 2017. Т. 62. Вып. 3
F. E. Levin
IN SEARCH FOR NATIONALISM IN EARLY MODERN IRELAND
The study represents reflection on a recent publication of articles by the renowned Irish historian Brendan Bradshaw "'And so began the Irish nation': nationality, national consciousness and nationalism in pre-modern Ireland" dedicated to the issue of national consciousness and nationalism in early modern Ireland. Bradshaw's materials are concerned not only with local Irish questions, but also with the debate between ethnosymbolists and modernists about the roots of nation and nationalism. Bradshaw proves, rather convincingly, that the early Modern period was the defining time for the subsequent development of identity processes on the island. He highlights the institutional factor of the formation of the idea of the Irish nation. It was the emergence of the kingdom of Ireland in 1541 within British composite monarchy and the rising level of political consciousness of English elites in Ireland that enabled manifestations of the idea.
However, there are certain imperfections of the methodological nature in the collection, which is hardly surprising, since the materials are republished and do not correspond to the current scholarly experience of humanities. Having formulated a vague definition of nationalism as 'patriotically inspired commitment to upholding the freedom, identity and unity of one's nation', the Irish historian attempts to find it in the examined period, thus endowing personalities of the 16th and 17th centuries with a level of political thinking which is characteristic of the Modern age. Bradshaw's perception of the texts is quite straightforward since he considers them to be representative of group ideology and ignores their individuality. The fragments of the text provided by him are sometimes interpreted literally on the basis of the context of the period without the recourse to discourse analysis. As the result of such a reading of sources, the identity processes of early Modern time are represented in an overly simplified way. The author of this paper tries to demonstrate which factors impeded formation of nationalism in the examined period. Refs 38.
Keywords: Irish nation, nationalism, early Modern Ireland, the kingdom of Ireland, British composite monarchy, ethnosymbolism, modernism.
For citation: Levin F. E. In search for nationalism in early modern Ireland. Vestnik of Saint Petersburg University. History, 2017, vol. 62, issue 3, pp. 645-654. DOI: 10.21638/11701/spbu02.2017.315
Ф. Е.Левин
В ПОИСКАХ НАЦИОНАЛИЗМА В ИРЛАНДИИ РАННЕГО НОВОГО ВРЕМЕНИ
Исследование представляет размышления по поводу недавно опубликованного сборника материалов известного ирландского историка Брендана Брэдшоу "And so began the Irish nation': nationality, national consciousness and nationalism in pre-modern Ireland", посвященных проблеме национального самосознания и национализма в Ирландии раннего Нового времени. Работы Брэдшоу касаются не только сугубо ирландских вопросов, но и общей дискуссии между этносимволистами и модернистами по поводу того, где берут свое начало нация и национализм. Брэдшоу вполне убедительно доказывает, что раннее Новое время стало определяющим периодом для последующего развития идентитарных процессов на острове. Он обращает внимание на институциональный фактор формирования идеи ирландской нации. Артикуляция самой идеи оказалась возможной благодаря образованию Ирландского королевства в 1541 г. внутри британской композитарной монархии и возросшему политическому самосознанию английских элит Зеленого острова.
Levin Feliks Evgenyevich — Research Associate, Philipp University of Marburg, 10, Biegenstrafie, Marburg, 35032, Germany; vitabrevis620@gmail.com
Левин Феликс Евгеньевич — стажер-исследователь, Марбургский университет им. Филиппа, Бигенштрассе, 10, 35032, Марбург, Германия; vitabrevis620@gmail.com
This study was funded by Russian fund of Humanities (RHF) 16-01-008 'Institutes, theory and practice of Western European monarchies of the XVI-XVIII centuries.
© Санкт-Петербургский государственный университет, 2017
Однако в сборнике есть существенные недочеты методологического характера, что неудивительно, поскольку переизданные в нем материалы на данный момент не совсем соответствуют современному состоянию гуманитарного знания. Нечетко сформулировав определение национализма как «патриотического стремления поддерживать свободу, идентичность и единство своей нации», ирландский историк стремится увидеть его в исследуемом периоде, тем самым навязывая персонажам ХУ1-ХУ11 вв. тот уровень политического мышления, которое было характерно лишь для эпохи Модерна. Брэдшоу воспринимает исследуемые тексты достаточно однобоко, поскольку видит в них репрезентацию групповой идеологии, игнорируя их индивидуальность. Порою он буквально интерпретирует приведенные им фрагменты текстов, исходя из общего контекста периода, не прибегая к дискурс-анализу. В результате подобного прочтения источников складывается не совсем правильная картина тех идентитарных процессов, которые происходили в Ирландии раннего Нового времени. Автор исследования пытается показать, какие факторы сдерживали формирование национализма в данный период. Библиогр. 38 назв.
Ключевые слова: ирландская нация, национализм, Ирландия раннего Нового времени, Королевство Ирландия, британская композитарная монархия, этносимволизм, модернизм.
A book by Brendan Bradshaw [Bradshaw 2015], the renowned specialist in Tudor Ireland, comprises a collection of reprints of earlier essays and new materials dedicated to early Modern Ireland, one of the most decisive periods in its history. This collection was published to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the 1916 Easter Rising in the Republic of Ireland, and the recourse to the early Modern period demonstrates that the questions of the historic origins of Irish nationalism, Irish nation, Irish nationhood are still of the same concern for academic circles as they were at the beginning of the twentieth century.
It is hardly surprising that it was Brendan Bradshaw, a committed historian identifying himself as an opponent of revisionism in Irish history and a supporter of 'public history' [Bradshaw 2015, p. 3] who decided to reform not only public, but also scholarly perceptions of Irish history by republishing his contributions. In the interview included in the collection he claims that his mission is to show that the Irish history with its tragic, painful and sometimes shameful events should be represented in a way which incorporates the experience of real people without a detached, skeptical approach to Irish past [Bradshaw 2015, pp. 16-17].
The collected materials serve two principal purposes of the book: to demonstrate the advantages of 'present-centred history' as opposed to 'value-free history' and to show that the ideas of Irish nation and nationalism stem from the early Modern period. The book is divided into six parts. In the first two parts, entitled "historical method" and "introduction", the author presents the theoretical framework of his studies and his main points concerning the period examined. The part entitled "Historical method" includes the following works: "A word on words: definitions and clarifications", in which the author reveals his understanding of such scholarly movements as 'public history' and 'academic history' as well as 'present-centred' and 'past-centred' history [Bradshaw 2015, p. 3-5]; "Nationalism and historical scholarship in Modern Ireland" , where the author's criticism of revisionism in Irish history is revealed (in Bradshaw's opinion, revisionist historians disunite the periods of Irish history by severely objecting to the paradigms of Nationalist historiography, thus making the Irish past 'a foreign country') [Bradshaw 2015, pp. 7-32]; practically the same ideas are repeated in a concise form in the successive article "Revising Irish history" [Bradshaw 2015, pp. 33-41].
The part called "Introduction" contains only one article "Nationality, national consciousness and nationalism" [Bradshaw 2015, pp. 45-116], which is the key work of the symposium. It is there that Bradshaw summarizes practically everything which will be presented in the subsequent parts of the book. He postulates that there are signs of national identity and nationalism in early Modern Ireland starting from the middle of the 15th century and examines changes in the institutional development of Ireland in the early Modern period, changes which triggered identity processes. He then turns to particular cases: narratives by Gaelic and Old English intellectuals (the latter being the descendants of the first Anglo-Norman colonists).
The third part consists of case studies exemplifying Bradshaw's ideas: the articles are devoted to discourses of Old English and Gaelic intellectuals in the 16th and 17th centuries as well as to political practices in Tudor Ireland. In the article "The Tudor reformation and revolutions in Wales and Ireland: the Origins of the British problem" [Bradshaw 2015, pp. 117-140], Bradshaw compares the development of Wales and Ireland in Tudor times emphasizing the differences between two patterns. The next work "The Beginnings of Modern Ireland'' [Bradshaw 2015, pp. 141-162], is the reiteration of the same arguments but it is dedicated only to early Modern Ireland as a prerequisite of modern Ireland. Chapter 7 "Native reaction to the Westward enterprise: a case study in Gaelic ideology" [Bradshaw 2015, pp. 163-176], is concerned with the Gaelic dimension of nationalism and Gaelic elites' reaction to the colonial style of the English government in Ireland. Chapter 8, "Geoffrey Keating: Apologist for Irish Ireland" [Bradshaw 2015, pp. 177-196], assesses the legacy of one of the key historical narratives of the early Modern Ireland, Foras Feasa ar Eirinn (Foundations of knowledge on Ireland), written in the first half of the 17th century by Geoffrey Keating, an Old English Catholic priest, in which the idea of the Irish nation was expressed. In the last chapter of the section, "Patrick Sarsfield and two Sieges of Limerick, 1690, 1691: was there a Hero in the House?" [Bradshaw 2015, pp. 197-226], the author reconsiders the agency of one of the famous Irish Jacobites Patrick Sarsfield during two sieges of Limerick in 1690 and 1692 at the time of the Williamite wars, in which the Jacobite forces tried to defend the town from the Williamite army.
The fourth part [Bradshaw 2015, pp. 227-252], is concerned with reviews of the works written by Bradshaw's opponents, who he takes issues with. In the fifth part [Bradshaw 2015, pp. 253-272], the epilogue, the author restates his arguments again observing the route of nationalism in Ireland. The book ends with the appendix [Bradshaw 2015, pp. 273-311], in which the author returns to the practices of early Tudor government and the attitude of local elites to them. He shares his view on the Kildare rebellion in 1534 and includes abstracts of the treatise for Reformation in Ireland 1554-55.
Joan Redmond reviewing the same book correctly observed that the book 'in many respects is a blast from an older historiographical past' [Redmond 2016]. Moreover, some aspects of the articles overlap each other so the same ideas and examined narratives emerge from time to time throughout the collection. Yet the fact that these articles are collected in one symposium enables the reader to get acquainted with the legacy of Brendan Bradshaw.
Nevertheless, if one considers collection of essays by Brendan Bradshaw as a unified whole, the author's argument can be broken into several points which I am going to discuss consecutively here. Bradshaw is opposed to 'value-free approach' of revisionist histo-
riography1. By applying skepticism to history the revisionist historians attempt to smooth the painful issues of Irish past representing them as normal historical process [Bradshaw 2015, p. 20]. In doing so they invert the prevailing notions of Irish past, demythologizing and depriving it of a continuous narrative. However, in the author's opinion, such an approach is responsible for the credibility gap between the academic and public world. This gap must be bridged because a historian is a mediator, and their empathy to the examined material is a solution to the issue. Therefore, Bradshaw, consciously or not, sticks to Dil-thean's thinking about historical method [Dilthey 2010].
The bone of contention between Bradshaw and revisionists lies in the interpretation of the origins of Irish nationalism, and this argument coincided with a popular debate of the 1980s between ethnosymbolists and modernists concerning the roots of the nation [Smith 1998; Hastings 1997]. The revisionists, in accordance with the modernist understanding of nationalism, perceive its Irish variations as the construct of the Modern period whereas Bradshaw as well as ethnosymbolists date the roots of Irish nationalism to the early modern period.
In the theoretical part Bradshaw enters a minefield of terms denoting nationalism. The author avoids negative connotations of nationalism and defines it in a following way: 'patriotically inspired commitment to upholding the freedom, identity and unity of one's nation' [Bradshaw 2015, p. 47]. The selected definition may make expose the author to criticism for several reasons. First, it is no less ambiguous than other definitions of nationalism formulated by the social sciences [Brubaker 2004, pp. 132-146]2. Second, such a wide definition is hard to distinguish from 'patriotism'3. Third, the author has devised it to justify, at once, his way of classifying the examined material4 and also his own personal sentiments (in his ouevre it is evident that the author is committed to freedom, identity and unity of his nation and it is logical enough to assume that he would like to avoid negative interpretations of nationalism). However, even the instrumental definition suggested by Bradshaw cannot be not fully applicable to his area of study.
Like other scholars, Bradshaw regards the twists in the development of Ireland in the 16th and 17th centuries as the prologue to what would happen on the island later, particularly in the spheres of ethnicity, land and religion which still concern Irish society. The author proves quite convincingly that the event which gave rise to the formation of the Irish nation and crystallization of the modifications of Irish nationalism was the establishment of the Kingdom of Ireland in 1541 (he claims that it was an initiative of the reformers from the Pale rather than the circle of Henry VIII [Bradshaw 2015, pp. 57-58]). Bradshaw draws attention to two types of ideas which emerged there: the idea of inclusive Irish Catholic nation and manifestations of Gaelic exclusive 'nationalism'. Except for the
1 Bradshaw argues with revisionists who focus on different periods of Irish history, among them: [Ellis 1985, 1986; Canny 1988; Natives, Newcomers 1986; Gillespie 1985; MacCarthy-Morrogh 1986; Daly 1986; Dunne 1980, 1982; Morgan 1988; Otway-Ruthven 1968].
2 Rogers Brubaker emphasizes ambiguity in traditional differentiation between inclusive 'civic' and exclusive 'ethnic' nationalism, which Brendan Bradshaw also stresses [Bradshaw 2015, pp. 46-47]. However, 'state-framed' and 'counter-state' forms of nationalism offered by American sociologist as alternatives to current terminology [Brubaker 2004, p. 144-146] also do not manage to describe the diversity of historical experience before the twentieth century.
3 For example, see the definition of patriotism in the Encyclopedia of Nationalism [Encyclopedia of Nationalism 2001, pp. 407-408].
4 Since the theoretical part was written chronologically after Bradshaw's key essays, it seems that the author specifically made up this definition to force his findings into his theoretical framework.
institutional factor which made the Gaelic and English population realize that they are a community of subjects of one king, Bradshaw emphasises the role of the English population that was at the forefront of the construction of the idea of the Irish nation (which was imagined as polyethnic from the start5): their understanding of the Commonwealth and political awareness contributed to the formation of national consciousness. Therefore, his suggestion that English constitutionalism set up the basis of future Irish nationalism is very much of interest.
The Irish nation in order to realize itself required acculturation on ones' terms. On the one hand, there were projects of the Old English, the descendants of Anglo-Norman colonists, as well as efforts of Tudor administration to reform their Gaelic neighbours so that they would acknowledge the English language and social practices (Bradshaw highlights that the reform policy preceded the strategy of conquest [Bradshaw 2015, pp. 57-64]).
Unfortunately, the supporting evidence does not confirm this argument. For instance, Bradshaw identifies Richard Stanihurst's6 contribution to the Chronicles by Raphael Holinshed as an indicator of the shift of perceptions of the native population, drawing attention to the positive attitude of the Palesman to native Irish. Unlike the treatise for the Reformation of Ireland [Bradshaw 2015, pp. 295-311], Stanihurt's writings do not serve to support Bradshaw's point. What he marks as a 'new patriotic outlook' in Stani-hurst's narratives resembles more a reconsidered consciousness of Old English elites in Ireland: Stanihurst tried to revise Old English identity stressing the differences [Lennon 1978, pp. 129-130] between Old English Catholics and the English from England7 (that is why he entitled the former Anglo-Hiberni) as well as between the Old English and native Irish: "Those who live in the English province differ from the Irish in their way of life, their customs and their speech" [Great Deeds in Ireland 2014, pp. 106-107]. Therefore, Stanihurst did not want to transcend the boundaries between the communities but, on the contrary, accepted them, thus recognizing the diversity of subjects of Tudor composite monarchy.
On the other hand, there was an alternative variant of Irishness — Gaelicization. Apart from territorial and judicial factors, in Old English versions of Irishness, Catholicism was another unifying force which could connect two ethnic groups. However, the differences in culture and in historical memory — the memory of the conquerors and of the conquered — were not overcome. Bradshaw correctly asserts that it was Geoffrey Keating8 [Bradshaw 2015, pp. 78-89; 177-196] who attempted to tackle these dichotomies [Bradshaw 2015, p. 88] and that he was the first national historian [Bradshaw 2015, p. 88]. Keating's idea of Irish nation combined Catholicism, shared experience, allegiance to the English crown, memory of the conquered and of the conquerors, and Gaelic cultural prac-
5 In Bradshaw's terms, nation has always a polyethnic basis [Bradshaw 2015, pp. 46-47]. The definition is borrowed from Hastings [Hastings 1997, p. 19].
6 Richard Stanihurst was born in Pale, the main place of residence of English influence in Ireland. Because of his allegiance to Catholicism he later migrated to the Continent. He contributed the description of Ireland to Holinshed's Chronicles and then wrote another prominent work, De Rebus in Hibernia Gestis.
7 This separation from the motherland was quite new.
8 Geoffrey Keating (c.1580- c.1644) was an emigrant Catholic priest of Old-English descent, who completed a doctorate in the University of Rheims and lectured in the University of Bordeaux. Later he returned home to serve in the diocese. In Ireland he wrote his most famous historical work, Foras Feasa ar Eirinn (The Foundation of Knowledge about Ireland) in which he narrated the Irish history from the beginnings to the Anglo-Norman Invasion.
tices. Therefore, in Keating's rendering, Irish nation should be based on the appropriation of Gaelic practices and pre-Anglo-Norman history.
Bradshaw's willingness to present a continuous narrative of the history of Irish nationalism prevents him from seeing discontinuities in its intellectual history. So his analysis of Foras Feasa ar Eirinn demonstrates a one-sided approach. Even though Keating created a protonational discourse of the history of Ireland which was picked up by later nationalists, he, unlike Patrick Pearse9 and Sinn Fein, whom Bradshaw connects to Keating, was rather loyalist [O Buachalla 1993, p. 20] than separatist (not only did he acknowledge the Anglo-Norman conquest of the 12th century, but also pleaded his allegiance to the Stuart dynasty). Therefore, Foras Feasa ar Eirinn articulated a discourse of particularism within the British monarchy.
Another exaggeration is the author's uncritical statement that Keating's vision "was shared in an inchoate way by a growing constituency of the Irish Catholic political elite of his day whose outlook and values were shared by exposure to the same cultural environment, the same ideological currents and the same political, religious and socio-economic upheavals as those to which Keating himself was exposed" [Bradshaw 2015, pp. 88-89]. In fact, Keating's idea of Irish identity was not initially welcome by the Old English elite, particularly of the Pale, who continued to retain their separate identity, that is why his interpretation did not prevail during the Confederate era [O hAnnrachain 2000; Kidd 2004, p. 154; Levin 2016, p. 78].
Brendan Bradshaw also presumes the existence of distinct Gaelic nationalism in bardic poetry which he associates with ethnic nationalism. In the collection the author publishes his case study of the poetry from Leabhar Branach, poems dedicated to the Leinster clan of O'Byrnes of Colranell [Bradshaw 2015, pp. 163-176]. The author is challenging two viewpoints on early Modern bardic poetry: 1) that it does not reflect the sign of change and is still concerned with local issues and patrons 2) that even if there were any changes, they originated from the emigration on the Continent.
Even though Bradshaw admits that the majority of the poems in the book of O'Byrnes is focused on dynasty and locality [Bradshaw 2015, pp. 170-171], he singles out several pieces composed by Tadhg O hUiginn and his contemporaries to Hugh and Feagh O'Byrnes as signs of new ideology. In these poems Irish dynasts are imagined as national leaders and future banishers of foreign troops, besides that the topics of the necessity of Gaelic solidarity and legitimacy of Gaelic claims to the entire island are raised [Bradshaw 2015, pp. 170-174]. Although Bradshaw agrees that the aforementioned themes comprise traditional topoi of the bardic poetry, he comes to such a conclusion: "in the menacing atmosphere of the 1570s, with conquest and colonization pushing steadily forward, it seems clear that such ideas, addressed to a dynast hostile to the government were being translated from the realm of poetic fancy to that of political ideology" [Bradshaw 2015, pp. 170-171]. The traditional themes were made to reflect a new ethos of political nationality [Bradshaw 2015, pp. 170-171]. However, the author does not clarify the source of such presupposition and does not provide the readers with the quotations from Leabhar Branach so that they could probe author's analysis.
Given the specificity of bardic poetry as a genre with its inherent formalism and conventionality, the aforementioned themes require more careful contextualization than the
9 In one of his essays Pearse traced the history of Irish resistance to English authority from the first years of Anglo-Norman Invasion, from 1169 [Pearse 1924, pp. 232-234].
author's literal interpretation inferred from the general context of the period. If the ethno-cultural substrate of poetry is hardly deniable10, the level of politicization or the new ideology which Brendan Bradshaw ascribes to them is arguable. Native bardic poets tended to reflect the surrounding reality in a traditional framework of power relations typical of Gaelic society [Leerssen 1986, pp. 151-253]. The kind of poetry Bradshaw examines was still attached to the poet's patron [Leerssen 1986, p. 178]. Correspondingly, the references to the high-king of Ireland and to conflicts between Gaeil (natives) and Gaill (foreigners) represented bardic perceptions of authority: the dynast was suggested to demonstrate strength in order to deserve power. The image of high-king in early Modern poetry signified merely the same as it did in the Middle Ages [Byrne 1973, p. 262]: the strongest chief among others. Furthermore, appeals to Gaelic solidarity [Leerssen 1986, p. 178] or to native patria11 are also in need of qualification: it is likely that they indeed did not transcend the local boundaries of authority of a certain sept.
As far as Bradshaw's definition of nationalism is concerned, regressing Gaelic polities [Simms 2000] did not form the language of sovereignty and freedom. The opponents of Bradshaw are correct in emphasizing that the political vocabulary of Irish was supplemented by new word such as maitheas poiblidhe (the commonwealth) [O Buachalla 1983, p. 129], or naision (nation) due to the influence of the emigres. Nevertheless, as Leerssen asserts the material of bardic poetry was a raw material for cultural nationalism, but not nationalism per se: "What is needed to make a coherent construct out of these materials is, then, a syntax; a mode of defining the interrelations between the different constituent units. Certainly, bardic poetry in itself did not contain such a 'syntax' of national thought. ... The professional bardic ideal of a Gaelic culture remained without a central political focus" [Leerssen 1986, pp. 189-190].
The 'British' perspective of the events in early Modern Ireland highlighted in early Modern Ireland is a valuable contribution to historiography. The comparison Bradshaw makes between the reform strategies of Tudors in Wales and Ireland is very indicative: in the former case the native elite got the privileges and liberties it had not possessed earlier [Bradshaw 2015, p. 128], whereas in the latter, on the contrary, in the process of the reformation of the country both autochntonous and colonial elite were deprived of the previous privileges which caused resistance [Bradshaw 2015, pp. 139-140]. These two cases show the way British composite monarchy tried to govern the ethnic diversity of its subjects. The productive role of British monarchy in forging the ethnic identities on the British Isles is usually underestimated, and Bradshaw's studies fill the lacunae. Unfortunately, the author does not include the protestant versions of 'patriotism' which were articulated in early Modern Ireland (which are researched by Colin Kidd [Kidd 2004, pp. 162-181] and Joan Redmond [Redmond 2016]) in the scope of his studies, and this fact does not allow the readers to gain a more comprehensive understanding of Ireland in the 16th and 17th centuries.
However, the identity processes in early Modern Ireland triggered by the British monarchy are more complex than those represented by the author. Bradshaw's willingness
10 The laments about the state of Ireland were connected with the decline of the traditional social order and the decay of the position of the poet as part of it [Leerssen 1986, pp. 179-192].
11 The same can be said about usage of patria in other European narratives. Patria was usually associated with usage of birth [Elliott 1969, p. 48].
to see in this period the same things Irish nationalists of the beginning of the twentieth century saw there restricts his historicist approach.
By modernising the early Modern phenomena the author of the reviewed book fails to evaluate the specificity of the historical context. That is why scholars have to be careful while applying terminology aimed at describing modern phenomena in the modern period to primary sources in order to keep their sense from backfiring. For example, early Modern Irish intellectuals perceived the 'nation' in the medieval sense, which is different from modern interpretations. 'Natio' in the Middle ages signified the belonging of the individual to a certain estate or territory, and in this sense it was used in early Modern Irish narratives [Gschnitzer, Kozellek, Schonemann, Werner, 1992, pp. 219-220].
As far as nationalism is concerned, Colin Kidd shows quite persuasively that fullblown nationalism could not emerge until the 19th century, until the Biblical mode of ethnicity which stressed the origins of all people from Noah was not discarded [Kidd 2004, pp. 9-33]. According to the definition of 'nationalist argument' by John Breuilly, which I find more successful than Bradshaw's, "it is a political doctrine built upon three basic assertions: a) there exists a nation with an explicit and peculiar character; b) the interests and values of this nation take priority over all other interest and values; c) the nation must be as independent as possible" [Breuilly 1982, p. 2]. From this perspective, the early modern manifestations cannot be called nationalism since the idea of the Irish nation was vague12, and the 'nation' as well as ethnicity was not the priority principle of politics [Kidd 2004]. Nonetheless, there is some justification in talking about ideas of protonation and manifestations of proto-nationalism in early Modern Ireland but to title Irish intellectuals as 'architects of nationalist ideology' [Bradshaw 2015, p. 89] is an exaggeration.
Another flaw in Bradshaw's approach is to regard the examined texts as representative of the collective mentalities of the period and to ascribe them to certain ideology. Raymond Gillespie warns against such equations and highlights that "within the Irish social system political thought might be best understood as a series of conceptual maps or sets of symbols through which contemporaries tried to make sense of the events in the political world around them. Each mental map does not have many cul-de-sacs and unexplored routes" [Gillespie 2000, p. 108]. Current scholarship recognizes the diversity of discourses actualized in early Modern Ireland [Kidd 2004; Canny 2001; Community in early Modern Ireland 2006; Gillespie 2000; O hAnnrachain 2000; Rafferty 2013] and underlines that neither the 'ethnic', nor the 'national' was in the foreground of this transitional period.
In spite of some imperfections of Brendan Bradshaw's materials, they are a valuable contribution to the research of early Modern Ireland. The book will be of interest to a wide audience not only to those interested in the history of Ireland and Britain, but also to those who are concerned with the phenomena of nations and nationalism. The provocative character of the author's insights demonstrates that the issues raised by him are still topical and worthy of research.
12 As Ian Campbell puts it: "the arguments of these intellectuals [Irish] for the unity of Gaelic Irish and English Irish must be understood as a fragile and contested political programme" [Campbell 2014, p. 44].
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Received: 22.04.2017 Accepted: 10.08.2017
