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Narratives of Nationalism:Constructing Irish NationalIdentity during the LandWar, 1879–82Anne Kane aa Department of Sociology , University ofTexas , AustinPublished online: 18 Aug 2010.

To cite this article: Anne Kane (2000) Narratives of Nationalism: ConstructingIrish National Identity during the Land War, 1879–82, National Identities, 2:3,245-264, DOI: 10.1080/713687701

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National Identities, Vol. 2, No. 3, 2000

Narratives of Nationalism:Constructing Irish National Identity during theLand War, 1879± 82

ANNE KANE, Department of Sociology, University of Texas, Austin

Abstract This paper explores the process of Irish national identity construction during the

Land War of 1879± 1882. I take a social constructivist approach to nationalism and a

narrative approach to national identity construction, and focus on the discursive struggle

between the various, and often con¯ icting, groups that constituted the land movement. After

decades of self-defeating struggle between con¯ icting nationalist factions, the Land War

provided the `political ® eld’ on which a uni® ed national identity emerged from public discourse

over landlordism and British domination, and collective action based on new symbolic

understandings. At the core of both Land War ideology and the emergent national identity was

a discourse of retribution, con® gured through the collective sharing of narratives, embodying

central themes of the injustice of British and landlord domination, and the rights of the Irish

to the land and the country.

Introduction1

The Irish Land War, the campaign against landlordism and British domination thaterupted in 1879, proved to be a crucial turning point in Irish nationalism. It began asa tenant farmer protest movement against high rents, evictions, and landlord intransi-gence in the face of an agrarian crisis produced by the European wide agriculturaldepression of the late 1870s, and Ireland’s consecutive crop failures in 1878 and 1879.Recognising the opportunity for a renewal of Irish political energy and mass mobilis-ation, the nationalist movement quickly seized organisational control of the agrarianagitation. Leaders from both movements established the Irish National Land League inthe fall of 1879. The immediate result of the Land War was the Land Act 1881, whichdrastically changed the structure of Irish land tenure,2 and contributed mightily to theelimination of landlordism in Ireland.

By destroying landlordism, a major `garrison’ of British power in Ireland, the Irishland movement and Land War structurally advanced the movement for Irish auton-omy. On the cultural level as well, the Land War represents a pivotal moment in Irishnationalism: from it emerged a strong national identity. This national identity repre-sented a major transcendence of material, political, and cultural difference in Ireland;henceforth, it proved `strong enough to override regional, religious and even classloyalties for most of the population, most of the time, at least in certain kinds ofsituations.’ 3 The emergence of a strong national identity in Ireland did not of courseannul these various and long held identities: due to speci® c historical conditions andprocesses of meaning and symbolic construction during the Land War, regional,

ISSN 1460-8944 print/ISSN 1469-9907 online/00/030245-20 Ó 2000 Taylor & Francis Ltd

DOI: 10.1080/14608940020000790

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246 A. Kane

religious, and class loyalties collided and combined to become part of the nationalidentity.

In complicated and highly contingent historical conditions, the land question inIreland became enmeshed in the nationalist movement for independence from Britainat a time when Irish identity was becoming increasingly Catholic. The alliance of tenantfarmers with nationalists and Catholic clergy in the Irish Land League forged togetherthe three interdependent issues of religion, nationalism, and property rights. Yet theseissues were not inherently compatible. The diverse cultural orientations of these groups,due in part to their differential experience of British rule, led to near intractable politicaldivisions between them. With the exception of the Catholic Emancipation movementin the 1820s, the three groups had historically thwarted the goals of each other, andthus themselves, in protecting their own self-perceived interests.4 Additionally, intra-group con¯ ict created obstacles to political alliance and mobilisation. The small andsubsistence oriented peasants believed the large, substantial tenant farmers to be nearlyas oppressive as landlords; conversely, large farmers viewed subsistence peasants as adrag on economic progress. The Nationalists consisted of radicals who wanted com-plete separation from Britain, and `Home Rulers’ who advocated a federal type ofunion.5 Lastly, the Catholic hierarchy and clergy were deeply divided on issues of bothland reform and national independence: the ultramontane faction favoured gradual andconstitutional land reform and movement toward national independence; Catholicclergy operating within the Gallican tradition of Irish patriotism supported more radicalland reform and complete separation from Britain.

So it was that after decades of self-defeating struggle between con¯ icting nationalistperspectives, the Land War provided the `political ® eld’ 6 on which a national identitywas constructed. But what explains this outcome? Given the con¯ icting positions of thedifferent factions, the possibility of an alliance and a viable movement, much less theconstruction of transcendent national identity, seemed grim at the outset of theagitation in 1879. But by mid-1880 the majority of tenant farmers supported the LandLeague, many Irish MPs in the British Parliament were advanced nationalists and landreformers, peasant proprietary was the accepted goal of the Land Movement, andIreland was in the throes of a militant social and political revolt against landlordism andBritish rule.7

The present research explores the process of national identity construction during theLand War. I situate my analysis in the overall perspective that nation is a socialconstruct which `happens’ during certain critical events of political and collectiveaction:8 the Irish Land War was just such a galvanising event. To this foundationalperspective, I marry a narrative approach to national identity construction,9 and focuson the discursive struggle between the various, and often con¯ icting, groups whichconstituted the core of the movementÐ tenant farmers, nationalists, and the IrishCatholic church. I argue that through the sharing and competition of narratives inarenas of public discourse and intense symbolic struggle in the political campaignagainst landlords and British rule, the Irish constructed new meanings, symbolicmodels, and shared understandings about themselves as a nation. I demonstrate thatthough discursive struggle pitted the constitutionalist discourse of `conciliation’ (gener-ally shared by moderate nationalists, bourgeois farmers and merchants, and the Cath-olic hierarchy) against the radical discourse of retribution’ (the stance of radicalnationalists, small farmers, activist intellectuals, and local clergy) both were based onthe central symbolic themes of sacred land, the rights of the Irish to the land and thecountry, and the injustice of British and landlord domination. On this foundation, the

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Irish National Identity 247

various constituent groups of the land movement metaphorically extended the attend-ant meanings of each discourse, fused them with regional, class and Catholic symbolicunderstandings, and produced an Irish national identity. In order to fully demonstratethis process empirically, it is worth reviewing the theoretical framework that undergirdsmy analysis.

Conceptualising Nationalism

Most analysts of nationalism now understand that nations are not concrete entities asmuch as socially constructed categories of meaning and practice. Building on importantstructuralist analyses by scholars such as Ernest Gellner, Eric Hobsbawm, and MiroslavHroch which rejected primordialist conceptualisations of nations and nationalism, EricHobsbawm and Terence Ranger’s edited volume, The Invention of Tradition and thenBenedict Anderson’s seminal book, Imagined Communities marked the beginning of thisconstructionist scholarship on nations and nationalism.10 Along with the general `cul-tural turn’ in social history, scholars began `deconstructing’ nationalism by studying theshared meanings, symbols, discourses and practices by which large human populationsdevelop a sense of themselves as a community. Based on the cultural theory of scholarslike Marshall Sahlins and William H. Sewell, Jr. who conceptualise the `eventful’transformation of symbolic meaning and structure,11 national identity and nationalismare now viewed by many as a contingent symbolic `happening’ induced by collectiveaction in particular and speci® c political events and process.12 The present research issquarely situated within this culturalist perspective.

There are three different, though related conceptualisations of nationalism whichmust be disentangled in discussing Irish nationalismÐ the drive for political autonomy,the development of national identity, and nation building.13 The ® rst conceptualisationof nationalism is straightforward: it is a policy and pursuit of national independence. Inthe case of Ireland, this is the movement for the separation and independence of Irelandfrom Great Britain. The third, nation building, denotes the process of constructing thestate according to the claims, the ideals of the core national group. Both these forms aredependent on the second process of national identity construction, the speci® c subjectof the present research.

Of the three, the process of national identity formation is the most complex. Nationalidentity, like all forms of collective identity, is a subjectively shared sense of belongingand connection to a particular community, based on symbolic conceptualisations ofsimilarity between oneself and one’ s group, especially in relation to others. Thisperception and its development are problematic and unstable, partially because individ-uals face multiple identity claims. How do claims of national identity become priori-tised among all other claims of social identity and loyalty? How did Irishness supersedeCatholic or Protestant, small farmer or large grazier, peasant or bourgeois, and anyremaining loyalties to Great Britain among Home Rulers? In answering these questions,we address the related issue in the development of national identity, conceptualisationof the `Other’ , those excluded from the identity community because of difference.Identity models are constructed de® nitions of one’s own group and others, of `us’ asopposed to them’ .

During the Irish Land War, nationalist demands were not based primarily on claimsof religious, class or language distinctiveness between the Irish and the British, thoughthese categories of similarity and difference certainly surfaced in discourse. However,the situation of Irish individuals and groups in these categories greatly diverged:

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Protestants as well as Catholics sought political independence; nationalists camefrom the upper, educated class as well as agrarian tenant class; and most peoplenow happily spoke English. The important point of similarity was the commonhistorical experience of British injustice and oppression; upon this experience, asrecounted in traditional narratives and myths and innovated through current politicalstruggle with Britain, Irish nationalism emerged. Thus, Irishness `was superimposedover an array of internal differences in response to contact with the Other, andabove all in response to con¯ ict with the Other.’ 14 Yet, this prioritisation of nationalidentity over other social identities in the struggle against British domination entailednot only battle with the latter, but among the Irish. For example, those Irish whodesired to remain part of the Union and/or supported the landlord system fell out-side the boundaries of the national community. Hence, nationalism is not onlya response against an external agent, but also an internal battle of con¯ ictingsymbolic codes and visions about the nationÐ what it means and who belongs. Duringthe Land War, these two processes intersected through public discourse and narrativecompetition.

Discourse and narrative are at once elements of symbolic structures, such as nationalidentity, and modes of symbolic action. National identity is constituted of symbols andsymbolic codes, connected through discourse and narratives, which become articulatedin public and social action and interaction. Structurally, discourseÐ such as the dis-course of retribution and the discourse of conciliationÐ intertwines particular symboliccodes with social relationships and conditions, thereby articulating meaning and under-standing of speci® c issues and problems. As practice, a discourse asserts a particularargument in dialogue with others. Discourse itself is both structured and made concreteand socially available primarily through narrative.

Narratives are stories through which an individual, community or a society comes tounderstand and recognise itself as such. Narratives provide the foundation and practiceby which a group develops a sense, and de® nes boundaries, of community, andconstructs and de® nes the `Other’ , those outside the community, or nation. Narrativesspecify a society or group’ s founding and values, its critical events, and its aspirations.The formation of national identity is particularly dependent on the narrative form ofmyth, past-oriented stories that recount formative moments of the group’s history,`moments in which enduring tensions that divide rival groups were dramatically atissue.’15 Whether traditional, mythical, or recounting recent events and conditions,narratives con® gure particular social actors, institutions and events into a story line, orplot.

For example, in the various versions of the Con® scation myth, the British (villains)steal the land of the Irish (heroes), through a centuries long process of invasion, war,and land dispossession (temporal events). The institution of landlordism, which main-tains a social structure of colonial oppression, is the result of these events of con¯ ictbetween the two sets of actors. The overall theme of the narrative is British domination.By connecting events and actors from the past to current institutions and socialstructure, narratives integrate the past, the present and possibly the future into evolvingwholes.16

Through this con® gurative capacity, narratives explain to people who they are, whythey are experiencing particular social conditions, and the relationships of socialsolidarity and opposition in which they are situated. In other words, narratives providemeaningÐ they make sense of the worldÐ as it is encountered by speci® c individualsand groups. This explanatory capacity is crucial to identity formation: `we, as individ-

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Irish National Identity 249

uals and collectives, come to be who we are by being located and locating our-selves ¼ in social narratives.’ 17

This locating of self in the narrative, and thus identifying with others, results fromengagement with the narrative. When a person listens to or reads a narrative, they areasked to participate in it. First, because narratives are symbolic structures, and there-fore ambiguous and polysemous, a narrative’s speci® c meaning derives from thelistener’s interpretation of it. Second, narrative `endings’ are often vague: as told, thestory is still unfolding, and the ultimate outcome relies on the listeners’ action. Forexample, how tenant farmers locate themselves, and their potential action, in theCon® scation narrative is crucial to its outcome: if farmers act in de® ance of Britishdomination they may regain the land of Ireland from the landlords. Thus, narrativeengagement guides action: `People act ¼ or not in part according to how they under-stand their place in ¼ narratives.’ 18

While narratives convey important historical information, they go beyond the cogni-tive dimension. Narratives also evoke strong collective emotionsÐ such as pride, shame,rage, and loyalty. This emotional evocation, Comaroff and Stern point out, is part ofnational identity formation.19 According to Bruce Lincoln, narratives `mobilise thosesentiments of internal af® nity and external estrangement that distinguish those groupsand individuals who are able to identify themselves as [members of a community orsociety].’ 20 These sentiments are provoked by something or someone in the narrative,someone or something sacred. This emotional evocation is extended to strong feelingsof af® nity with others who share the same memory, reverence, and emotion for thesacred being or object.21 Thus, the sacred constitutes the basis for collective identity.Those that profane the sacred, by not believing or by maintaining a different under-standing of the sacred object or person, are outsiders to the identity community. Duringthe Irish Land War, land came to constitute the sacred centre of Irish national identity:how an individual or group stood in relation to the land determined whether or not theybelonged to the Irish nation.

My reconstruction of the process by which the Irish formulated an identity during theLand War is based on textual analysis of speeches, debates and discussions, amongmovement participants at land meetings, as well as other arenas of movement actionsuch as local Land League branch meetings, eviction protests and demonstrations, andcourt hearings. Using both local and national newspapers, as well as police reports, Iread more than a thousand accounts, and transcribed hundreds of speeches or excerptsrepresenting the regional, occupational, and political range of participants over theentire time span of the Land War. As we will see, the narrative passages reveal thecentral symbols, meanings and codes of the two main nationalist perspectives, retri-bution and conciliation, as well as the discursive competition between them. Drawingout and on these narratives, I chart the construction of the master narrative(s) of Irishnational identity that emerged from the discursive competition between retribution andconciliation

New master narratives of nationalism built both on traditional myths, legends andstories, as well as narrative accounts of land movement events. The competing national-ist discourses of retribution and conciliation both drew on the same traditional narra-tives about the land’ s sacredness, British domination and con® scation of the land,Catholic repression, the Famine, land consolidation and tenant dispossession, and theheroic strength of the Irish. As many analysts point out, competing groups often use thesame narrative or myth to promote their own position; thus, the narrative becomescontested territory.22 Ironically, as will be demonstrated, this contention over de® ning

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symbolic meaning itself contributes to the transcendence of difference because thesymbolic meanings in each are transformed.

Second, certain events that occurred during the Land War were immediately narra-tivised and integrated into the competing discourses, and eventually the emergingnational identity structure. Once again, how certain events are given narrative form canbe the basis of contention because `the same event can be narrated in a number ofdifferent ways and within a number of different public spheres and communities.’ 23 Forexample, in the general election of 1880, an important contingent event of the LandWar, Irish landlords were virtually eliminated as MPs for Ireland in Parliament. Theevent was incorporated as narrative into both discourses; however, the accounts ofwhom or what groups were to be credited for this feat greatly varied.

In the following analysis, I show that in the discursive processes of the landmovement, through the sharing and contention over narratives regarding their history,their current situation, contingent events of the campaign, and the future, the Irishconstructed a master narrative of The Land, the centralising symbol of Irish nationalidentity.

Land Movement Narratives and Events, and the Emergence of National

Identity

The late 1870’ s economic downturn in Ireland laid bare the problems, temporarilyhidden by prosperity, inherent in the landlord system. In response to landlords’ refusalto decrease rents, a land movement arose in Co. Mayo, among the smallest and pooresttenant farmers in Ireland.

The concept of organising tenant farmer grievances into a social movement origi-nated with nationalist leaders (most important, the former Fenian and radical national-ist, Michael Davitt),24 who understood the urgency of the land crisis and its potentialfor mobilising tenant farmers against both landlords and British domination. Localnationalist and agrarian activists, such as James Daly and Matthew Harris, organisedthe ® rst mass meetings in the western county of Mayo, which immediately galvanisedtenant farmers.25 Soon, `monster’ meetings took place weekly in the west of Ireland.26

The strength of the western movement demonstrated to constitutional nationalistCharles Stewart Parnell, MP,27 that the agrarian movement could be the vehicle tofurther the nationalist cause. When the Irish National Land League (INLL) wasestablished in Dublin in October 1879, Parnell accepted the position of president.28

By the end of 1880, most tenant farmers and nationalists in Ireland, as well as themajority of the Church (most of the clergy, about half of the hierarchy) supported theland movement.29 Local branches of the Land League opened throughout the country,even in the north. Crucial movement activity included: eviction resistance, demonstra-tions at sites of eviction and legal action in the courts; parliamentary action includingreform proposals and obstructionist tactics; and intimidation, ostracising and boycott-ing of people who broke League principles, such as taking the farm of an evicted farmer.But the most prominent and symbolic manifestations of movement activity were themassive `monster’ land meetings which took place every week, sometimes up to 10meetings on any given weekend, between 1878 and 1882.30

Land meetings were ritualistic in their ceremonial form.31 More important, theywere ritualistic in their content: land meetings provided the primary site of movementmeaning construction.32 Substantial numbers of people, usually between 2000 and20 000, attended most meetings. Depending on the region for the particular mix,

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audiences consisted of poor, middling, and substantial farmers, labourers, merchants,and professionals. On the platform sat local leaders, including tenant farmers andclergy, and often a couple of national leaders, central Land League organisers and`advanced’ Irish MPs. At these ritualistic events, speakers delivered emotionallycharged speeches articulating movement demands and goals. Through narrative ora-tion, speakers recounted essential Irish history and mythsÐ the conquest, thecon® scations, Catholic repression, the FamineÐ and expressed the aspirations andvisions held by the Irish people. Of course, as discussed, `the Irish’ and their interestsand world views were not homogenous. Thus, the land meetings, as well as the localbranch meetings, were sites of meaning contention and collision. And as local andnational newspapers gave almost verbatim accounts of both `monster’ and branchmeetings as well as eviction processes, demonstrations, and court proceedings, virtuallyeveryone in the country became involved in the discursive contention and meaningconstruction that led to the formation of movement ideology, and ultimately nationalistidentity.

Discourses of Nationalism: Retributive Opposition to Conciliation with Britain

As the land movement gained strength in the west of Ireland during 1878, collectiveaction was guided by an emerging ideology based on a discourse of retribution thatfused radical nationalism and small farmer culture. The discourse of retributionembodied two principal meanings: on the one hand, it signi® ed that compensation,redress and justice must be obtained from landlords and the British; on the other, itsuggested retaliation and punishment for the wrongs and consequent sufferingsin¯ icted upon the Irish and Ireland. The discourse of retribution argued that when theland is returned to the farmer, and political and social independence from Britain isobtained, the Irish will have justice and prosperity. That landlords would lose theirproperty, and Britain would lose an important component of its empire, would be justpunishment and redress for the damage they had together wrought.

The discourse of retribution opposed the longstanding discourse of conciliation fromwhich moderate reformers of the land and political structures operated. The discourseof conciliation represented compromise, accommodation and patience; it advocatedgradual reform of land tenure laws and British domination through, respectively, theprevailing model of land reform, the `3Fs’ ,33 and the Home Rule movement. Yet, thepolicy of compromise and accommodation with the British government had yieldedlittle but frustration thus far: for decades Home Rulers had made no headway inachieving self-government, the Church was denied the Catholic Education Bill it sodesperately wanted, and no real land reform had come from the much heralded LandAct of 1870. Increasingly, the conciliatory approach represented complicity with theoppressors; beginning in the west, Irish protestors demanded radical goals acquiredthrough a militant and de® ant approach. The narratives shared throughout the west atland meetings provided the divine and historical justi® cations for retributive change.

Narratives recounted at early land meetings stressed above all God’ s intention thatthe land of Ireland belonged to those who cultivated it, and that the unjust land systemimposed upon Ireland by Britain was accountable for Ireland’ s sufferingÐ its poverty,massive emigration, and social strife. At a land meeting of small farmers at Curry in thewestern county of Sligo, Father Peter Canon O’Donohue proclaimed the purpose ofthe `wondrous’ land movement:

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¼ to ® x the Irish tenant on that land whereon he was placed by his greatCreator, the land that has been given to him and to the fruit of which he hasthe most just right and aboriginal title ¼ A free peasantry is now the universalcry, because the cruel, heartless, landocracy has been deaf to every cry forjustice and mercy and because of not having done their duty to their tenantryor their country.34

According to this narrative, the land was no longer being used as God intendedbecause it had been unjustly and brutally con® scated by the British centuries ago. Thenarrative draws heavily from the Con® scation myth which, in all its elaborations andvariations, became a staple of the discourse of retribution, as it provided the primaryjusti® cation for retribution. Con® scation narratives provided historical understandingas well, and challenged the basis on which landlords claimed property rights to the landin Ireland. Not only did the narratives tell how landlords had fraudulently acquired theland, they recounted how landlords continued the con® scation by not properly develop-ing the land, and most important, through unjust treatment (rack-rents, eviction) oftheir tenants. This challenge to landlords was symbolically constructed through theimagery of God endowing the tiller with rights to the land and its fruits that he workedso hard to produce. Landlord corruption violated these rights, Ireland, and Godhimself.

The land movement further renewed the Con® scation narrative by providing a visionof change, based on retribution for past injustice. `Since the time when the cursedfeudal laws were introduced by Norman savages the land of Ireland had been threetimes con® scated, but always in favour of the aristocracy. [We want] a fourthcon® scation, or rather a restitution now in favour of the people.’ 35 This excerpt from acon® scation narrative, delivered by barrister James Killen at the Gurteen meeting, Co.Sligo, in November of 1879, not only expresses the belief that the sacred land of Irelandhad been fraudulently obtained by landlords who had abused it and the people whotilled it, it also provides a vision of restitutionÐ the return of `the land to the people.’ 36

This slogan, emblazoned on movement banners and placards, became a dominanttheme not only of narratives but also of the movement ideology. Thus, land movementnarratives within the discourse of retribution began to plot Irish autonomy. The Irish,as symbolised by farmers, could determine their own destiny, especially if unfettered byan archaic land system, a major symbol of British domination.

Though the land movement initially demanded reform in the manner of immediaterent reductions and a land bill to afford some tenurial security to the small tenants,through narrative discourse in the ritual of land meetings, these reform goals soonbecame symbolic of Irish tenant degradation and underlined their beggarly dependenceon landlords. Soon, narratives of retribution and justice focused on the rights of Irishfarmers as embodied in the concept of `peasant proprietary.’ For instance, at a landmeeting at Lecanvey, Co. Mayo, John Loden, `a barrister who, in addition to his lawpractice ran a large ranch, rented from the marquis of Sligo and the earl of Lucan’ 37 andthe president of the Mayo Land League, told the audience that

It might ¼ appear strange to some of [you] ¼ to hear proposed ¼ the abol-ition of the land system that has existed in this country since the time of theEnglish conquest ¼ and [you] perhaps ¼ scarcely understand what is meantby ¼ peasant proprietary. [Tenant farmers] now recognise themselves merelyas tillers and tenants of the soil, and the landlords as the owner of it ¼ we

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scarcely know any word to properly express that tenure of land that exists inevery civilised part of the world except England, Ireland and ScotlandÐ asystem that has produced happiness and contentment wherever it exists. Butthe people of Ireland are getting a better idea of the true nature of thatatrocious system which [you] are here today to condemn, and pledge ¼ toobliterate every trace of it from the statute book ¼ .38

In this narrative, Louden strings together events of the past (the conquest,con® scation), power relationships (British domination of Ireland, landlord power overtenants) and a vision of the futureÐ the abolition of landlordism and establishment ofpeasant proprietary, leading to a secure, happy and prosperous Ireland.

As peasant proprietary increasingly became the demand of the land movement, theprevailing and conciliatory model of land reform, the `3Fs,’ was increasingly vili® ed.`Fixity of tenure’ came to mean ® xity of landlordism; rent, whether fair or rack,’was an unjust tax; and partnership with the landlord would perpetuate the landsystem. The following excerpt from a speech delivered by a Mr. Bergin, a tenantfarmer in the southern county of Kilkenny, demonstrates that tenant farmers metaphor-ically situated themselves as bondsmen in narratives detailing the web of power wovenby the land system and land laws, and now believed that only land ownership wouldfree them.

We’ ll not tolerate such a thing [as ® xity of tenure], that is what propped up thefeudal system ¼ ® xity of tenure at fair rents and free sale has been made thetool of the feudal system and the scourge of Ireland, making us paupers andbeggars throughout the world ¼ it is nothing less than a plan to prevent theemancipation of the tenant farmer.39

Soon, the concepts of rights and private property underwent constant scrutiny at landmeetings. In addition to the myth of the Con® scation, narratives about evictions, landconsolidation, and waste challenged narratives defending the property rights of land-lords. Landlords had misused the land and the people who worked it, and thereforeforfeited their rights to the land. Michael M. O’Sullivan, a teacher at a Catholic Collegeand early tenant right activist from Galway, intertwined the sacredness of the land andits profanation by landlords in a stirring narrative delivered at the ® rst mass landmeeting of the movement, in Irishtown, Co. Mayo.

I would say from this platform to the exterminators why do you dare to try tofrustrate the eternal design of God towards men? He made the earth for man’ suse and bene® t, that they might multiply upon the face of it, and do you whoprofess Christianity dare to proclaim that he made it for you only?40

Narratives such as this one stressed the communalist notion that land ownershipinvolves responsibilitiesÐ to the land, those who till it, and the country as a wholeÐ aswell as privileges. And land should be used for the bene® t of all who lived on and tilledit, and not for the pro® t and waste of the few who owned it. This understanding of thesacred nature of the land, that as the foundation of Irish life it must be treated withutmost care, and according to God’s intention, became part of the emerging nationalidentity. Importantly, landlords (and anyone who supported their interests) had vio-lated the land and gone against God; thus, they stood outside the boundaries of theIrish nation.

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The Response of Conciliation

In contrast to the militancy of the west, the tenant farmers in the southern and easterncounties of Ireland maintained a moderate approach to land reform and nationalismthrough the middle of 1880. At the Louth (in the eastern province of Leinster) TenantDefence Association meeting in January 1879, a discussion of an eviction exhibitstenant farmer indignation over perceived landlord injustice. Yet the farmers and theirsupporters recognised the rights of both the crown and landlords. Rev. George Taaffee,P.P. Collon, proclaimed:

The farmers of Ireland ¼ should cry out against the terrible injustice to whichthey are exposed, and demand from the government protection for themselvesand properties. The farmers are as peaceable and law-abiding subjects as thosewho have more power to oppress and rob them.41

At the same meeting, a tenant farmer, O.J. Caraher of Cardistown, spoke aboutorganising for self-protection and change in the land laws, but also identi® ed himself asa subject of crown: `In the face of persecution ¼ they should band themselves togetherand never cease in their efforts to have such a change made in the law as will secure forevery honest and law-abiding subject a right to live on the soil.’ 42

As both passages reveal, these tenant farmers understood themselves to be peaceableand law-abiding, not degraded and desperate as their counterparts in the west. Thedeferential, non-contentious, conciliatory understanding of structural relations is un-mistakable, evidenced by this comment uttered by tenant farmer Michael McCarthy atthe Waterford Farmers Club meeting in October 1879: `[We are not here] to wage waragainst the landlords, but to ask them to help the farmers in their present depressedcondition.’ 43 The understandings portrayed in these narratives also indicate that manyfarmers in the south and east considered themselves British subjects, citizens who hadthe same rights and protections as all other British subjects.

If those moderate participants of the land movement guided by the discourse ofconciliation did not identify completely as citizens of Great Britain rather than Ireland,their loyalty to the former remained strong. Under this condition, widespread national-ist transformation of social identity would be impossible. However, in August 1880,after the movement had experienced some setbacks due to internal con¯ ictÐ especiallythe anti-grazier movement by small farmers and their advocates, a series of `contingentevents and transformative consequences’ set in motion the `nationalisation of narrativeand interpretive frames of perception and evaluation, thinking and feeling,’ 44 among theIrish, especially those who formally advocated conciliation.

Consolidation of National Identity and Movement Alliance

In the summer of 1880, the British House of Lords vetoed the `Compensation forDisturbance Bill.’ 45 Though the bill would have bene® ted only small tenant farmers, allthe Irish were incensed at what they perceived to be British callousness in the face ofIrish agrarian distress. Middle and larger farmers, formerly reluctant to join the landmovement because of its militancy, realised the connection between British rule,landlord power, and their worsening economic conditions. They began to re-evaluatetheir political stance through narrative intertwining of nationalism with land reform.This narrative evaluation is demonstrated in the following excerpt decrying British ruleof Ireland. It was delivered by Thomas Fuller, a large farmer from Dunmanway, at a

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meeting to establish a branch of the Land League in the parish of Ballydehob, Co. Corkon 12 September 1880.

You see that miserable, little, small Bill that was passed in the House ofCommons, that perhaps would not have bene® ted 1000 people in our coun-try, that miserable bill the House of Lords threw out. You have bad landlordsin Ireland, and good ones too, and still they will never enact a law that willmake the bad ones do what is right.46

Based on growing anti-British sentiment and a transformation of narrative under-standing that situated Britain as the enemy of Ireland, larger tenant farmers joined themovement in great numbers in the latter half of 1880. The House of Lords strikingdown the Compensation Bill, the arrest of Land League leaders in November 1880,and imminent coercion measures confronted them, and other moderates, with the factthat even the Liberal British government could not tolerate a constitutional attempt atsocial reform on the part of the Irish. This deep sense of betrayal was expressed byW.H. O’Sullivan, an MP and Land League executive member, at a land meeting inShanagolden, Co. Limerick.

I regret to think that a Government with Mr. Gladstone at its head, andhaving such radical supporters as Mr. Bright and Mr. Chamberlain ¼ shouldallow themselves to be forced into the false position of prosecuting a numberof men because they try to redress a great grievance by legal and constitutionalmeans.47

The coercive efforts by the British power structure to stem Irish insurgency signalled toall tenant farmers, as well as the con¯ icting nationalist factions and the clergy, that`Now [is our] time to unite together hand in hand to crush the present system and toshow [we can] not be put down by any Government or landlord,’ as John Hyde toldfellow farmers at Shangarry, Co. Cork.48 Thus, nationalist sentiment, which includedunderstanding the land system to be a tool of British domination, among tenant farmersstrengthened during the second half of 1880, and consolidated the Land Leaguealliance.49

In de® ance of the government and landlords, tenant farmers and their supportersopened 36 new League branches, mostly in the east and south, between the time of thearrests and the end of 1880. In Co. Cork, at a meeting to establish a League branch inthe town of Ballyclough on 7 November 1880, a Dr. G.J. Nealon advanced a narrative,which would be repeated many times in various forms, about why the movementleaders had been arrested, and how the Irish people must respond.

¼ a great crisis [has] arisen ¼ the leaders of the Irish people [are] about to beimprisoned for no other object than ¼ work[ing] to keep the people of Irelandfrom famine and starvation ¼ the government of England [seeks] to prosecuteand persecute ¼ them ¼ [We must] show the Government that they [are] notproceeding against a few insigni® cant individuals, but against men who [are]backed up by the people of Ireland.50

Nealon’s narrative undermines the government’ s claim that the arrests are consti-tutional by using the emotionally charged metaphor of famine and starvation tosymbolise the result of lawful’ landlordism. Once the audience’ s anger over both thearrests and the consequences of the land system are aroused, he inspires a feeling ofuni® ed resistance to injustice: one body, one voice, powerful enough to shake’ , to defyBritain.

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Thus, for Irish moderates the arrests and the imminent coercion law exempli® ed thetyranny of English rule. As Father John Robinson, curate for Dunsany, declared at ademonstration in Co. Meath ` ¼ we ¼ look on the Government prosecution of thenoble Parnell and his colleagues as a vile and degrading movement to place the ironheel of despotism on the neck of our suffering country.’ 51 The metaphors hereÐ `vileand degrading movement’ symbolising the government’ s action, `iron heel’ and `des-potism’ symbolising constitutionalism, and `the neck’ symbolising the land movementleadersÐ articulate the horror and anger at the arrests and prosecution felt by most ofthe Irish. The elevation of Parnell, and to a lesser degree the other arrested leaders, toa symbol of Irish heroism and righteousness is notable. Heroes and martyrs for Irelandwere a mainstay of traditional narratives; Parnell now enjoyed this status in theemerging narratives of nationalism.

On 24 January 1881, the government introduced the `Protection of Person andProperty Bill.’ It empowered the government and its agents to suspend the ordinarylaw in selected districts of Ireland whenever that was deemed necessary.’ In effect, theIrish executive could arrest and imprison without trial any person reasonably suspectedof treasonable practices or agrarian offences. Two speeches delivered at the Mullingardemonstration, in the rich grazing county of Westmeath on 3 March 1881, provided anarrative expressing the emotional reaction to the repressive measures. First, HenryGill, an MP, recounts what coercion demonstrated about English `constitutionalism’ .

In order to suspend the Habeas Corpus Act, [Parliament] had ¼ to suspendthe British constitution ¼ [The Irish members] had torn off the mask ofhypocrisy of English statesmen who pretended to ® ght for the liberties of otherpeoples ¼ but who, as soon as it came to be a question of the liberties of theIrish people ¼ showed they could treat people ¼ as cruelly as the Russiansever treated the Poles.52

Gill’ s part of the narrative reveals the source of Irish outrage at Britain: the villainy ofParliament, and its hypocritical and cruel action in robbing the Irish of liberty and theirrights. The second part of the narrative provided by the parish priest of Mullinger, Co.Westmeath, Father Gaughran, suggests the appropriate action the Irish should take,and what its consequences might be.

In this crisis, what is your duty? Shall you cower beneath the threat of coercionand abandon the cause you have ¼ so nobly sustained? Men of West-meath ¼ the eyes of Europe are upon you, Europe watches with bated breathwhat action you take in this momentous crisis of Irish history. Let coercion doits worst, it can never quench the claims ¼ and never succeed in silencing thespirit of your earnestness.53

In his narrative, Father Gaughran dispels the fear that coercion measures may provoke,and admonishes the tenant farmers to continue their brave struggle against Britishinjustice.

Taken together, the narrations of the repressive British response to Irish economicdistress and demands for social reform clearly portray the subjugated status of Ireland.The Irish palpably felt, and now understood, the difference in treatment betweenthemselves and English subjects.54 As important, the narratives diminished the validityof a conciliatory stance vis-aÁ -vis the British; even British Liberals and radicals could notwithstand being corrupted by unjust, oppressive evil. The narrative implied that theIrish must ® ght a militant, self-reliant campaign against British tyranny, and not backdown to it as they had for centuries.

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The Land as Master Narrative and Core of National Identity

As the above analysis suggests, throughout the course of the Land War a masternationalist narrative emerged from the collision of the discourses of retribution andconciliation, in the context of political action against a repressive power structure. Thismaster narrative also intertwined and transformed symbolic codes from the land andnational movements. With the land as the central symbol and plot foundation, thenarrative provides a full account of who the Irish are, what their experience is and hasbeen, what social relations and events have led to the present situation, and how theIrish can reclaim their strength and independence.

In the agrarian movement narratives, situated primarily within the discourse ofretribution, the land is the sacred object over which three social actorsÐ tenant farmers,landlords, and the British governmentÐ struggle. These story elements, and theirsymbolic entailments, were scrutinised at every land meeting. Narrators described theland as the foundation of Irish society and nation, belonging by providential right to theIrish people, and speci® cally to those who tilled the soil. As it does in most agrarian-based societies, land symbolised independence to the Irish.55 Tenant farmers wererepresented as the `bone and sinew’ of Irish society, owners of the land by right, yetoppressed to near extermination by the combination of landlords, the land system, andthe British government. The narrative vili ® ed landlords, portraying them as tyrannical,evil, avaricious, and inhumane. Landlord tyranny was backed by the land system, itselfsymbolically important and unanimously discredited by land movement narratives asfeudal, felonious (referring both to con® scation of land during conquest and to presentday injustice of system), hideous, hateful, and murderous. The land system symbolisedinvasion, `enslavement,’ and the general misery suffered by the Irish. Together, land-lords and the land system provided the primary `garrisons’ of British domination.

The elements of the nationalist portion of the discourse of retribution are no lessrich. On one side is England, most often symbolised by the British government, andcharacterised by its historical aggression, oppressive policies, and misrule. At landmeetings, nationalist narratives invoked memories, in any number of conceptual combi-nations, of Saxon invasions, the atrocities committed, the repression of Catholicism, theend of Irish self-government with the accursed Union of 1801, and above all thecon® scation of land. The assumed consequences of Union were repeated regularly: theloss of native industry, the impoverishment of farmers, perennial famine, emigration,and extermination. Indeed, these consequences were usually portrayed as consciouspolicies of the British. Added to this vili ® cation was the explicit characterisation of thegovernment as absolutist, tyrannical, and thoroughly unjust.

The people of Ireland comprise the opposing actorÐ the `hero’ Ð in the nationalistnarrative. To some extent, speakers at land meetings did `glorify’ the Irish in contrastto the evil of the British. In large part, this was accomplished through the retelling ofmyths about the glory of Ireland before the conquests and the bravery of martyrsresistant to the resulting English domination. A symbolic concept of contemporary Irishmen, `manhood’ , was often invoked to represent the `courage, the perseverance, andthe discipline manifested in the endurance that the Irish had displayed throughout thecenturies.’ 56 Yet at the time of the Land War this symbolic image was ambiguous, morerepresentative of what the Irish should and could be than what they actually were. Itwas used by speakers to motivate, not to glorify, the people of Ireland. Likewise,af® rmation of the Irish as patriots was a consistent but an ambiguous theme. Meetingspeakers often implicitly reprimanded meeting participants for not being patriotic

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enough. Therefore, at its core in 1879, the collective Irish identity evoked shame asmuch as pride. The Irish had failed themselves and Ireland since the invasion: they hadallowed themselves to be conquered, to have their ancient clans decimated, their landcon® scated, their religion repressed, and their government taken away and replaced byforeign rule.

Since the Irish were symbolically polluted by their complicity in their own op-pression, the principle of Irish rights to self-government and to the land provided animportant alternative to England’s evil. This concept originated from many externalsourcesÐ the principles of the French Revolution, radical English philosophers, es-pecially John Stuart Mill, as well as from indigenous political thought. Throughmovement discourse and narration, the symbolic concept of rights was quickly mouldedto the speci® city of the Land War. From the early agitation to the end of the Land War,demands of independence, liberty, freedom, justice, the right of self-preservation andself-determination were central to the discourse of retribution.

The Land and National Symbols Integrated

The symbolic logic which united the land and the national struggle was founded upon,and can be traced through, intersecting symbols and concepts: redolent with bothnationalist and agrarian meaning, and which expanded the power of the symbols whenthe two meanings converged in narratives and the emerging national identity. Therewere three core integrating symbolic elements: land, symbol of life to the Irish people,and of Ireland as a nation; England, oppressor of everything Irish; and Ireland’s rights

to land and self-government. The related symbolic concepts contributing to intersec-tion were con® scation of the land and nation, and independence from landlords andBritain.

The symbols of the land symbol structureÐ farmers, land and landlordsÐ paralleledthose of the nation structureÐ the Irish, Ireland and England. Just as the landlords hadobtained the land through con® scation, so England had gained controlled of Ireland;just as the farmers could claim ultimate rights to the land, the Irish had all rights toIreland. And independence of the land and nation was the common goal. Moreover,not only do the land symbols parallel the nation symbols, they can be thought of as oneand the same. Virtually at least, tenant farmers were the Irish people, Ireland was theland, and landlords and England were inseparable.

From Imagery to Action in the Creation of National Identity

Throughout the Land War, the symbolisation of land, landlords and the land systemremained fairly consistent. In terms of a basic structure of binary opposition, land andtenant farmers were glori® ed; landlords, land laws, and the British were vili® ed.However, conceiving this symbolic structure based solely on a binary opposition ofsacred and profane symbols, and labelling symbols permanently sacred or profane,obstructs the complexity of the structure, and more importantly the structuring processof emergent national identity. Structural complexity in symbolic systems is due toambiguous meaning in symbolic concepts; ambiguity and polysemy allow symbolicchange and transformation, and action based on symbolic interpretation moves thissymbolic transformation.57 During the Land War, as movement participants workedout the meaning of core symbolic concepts through the collision of conciliatory andretributive narratives, these symbolic elements underwent transformation: the British

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government, and landlords, were increasingly profaned; the tenant farmers, and byextension all the Irish, became more sacred.

In general, the British government and what it represented (unjust land laws, povertyand starvation, social and political dependency), and everything that represented it (theAct of Union, landlords, and Parliament), was despised by most Irish. However, thosesubscribing to the doctrine of Home Rule and a discourse of conciliation initially helda progressive vision of the latter. The action of the British government during the LandWar, how it was narrativised, and ® nally how the Irish acted based on new symbolicunderstandings (opening new League branches, holding more militant demonstrations,boycotting landlords, resisting eviction) contributed to the profanation of the British.And in the process, the discourse of conciliation underwent a transformation towardmilitancy.

Though the tenant farmer was increasingly sacralised during the course of the landmovement and in the formulation of Land League ideology, at the same time he, or atleast his past behaviour, was vili ® ed. At almost every meeting, speakers from all threerepresentative groupsÐ clergy, nationalists, and land reformersÐ symbolised the Irish,especially the tenants, as slaves, beggars and serfs. They were prostrate, deferential, andpolitically impotent vis-aÁ -vis their oppressors. Though this imagery demonstrated theinjustice the Irish were forced to suffer, these symbols and the narratives that embodiedthem also placed the blame on the Irish themselves. They were too cowardly andavaricious to stand up to the landlords and the English government.

Sacralisation depended on a transformation: when the Irish began to act on theirown behalf during the Land War, their symbolic characterisation in the emerging landnarrative became more positive. As long as farmers were symbolised in degradingrelationship to landlords, they could not be sacred; as long as the Irish remain in adominated position to Britain, they could not be sacred. The elevation of Irish nationalidentity was contingent on a conversion and redemption from degradation. Onlythrough determined action in ® ghting for independence from landlords and Britaincould Ireland and the Irish, symbolised by farmers, once again become sacred.

Conclusion

If nationalism truly is `an instance of historical contingency, linked to political interven-tion, new ideologies, and cultural change, and expressing a transformation of socialidentity, initially on the part of individuals, but eventually for whole populations,’ 58

Ireland, and the Land War, provides an exemplary case study. The present researchillustrates how Irish national identity emerged from a mass political campaign againstlandlords and British rule, a struggle bringing together diverse social groups, united intraditional symbolic understandings of domination yet divided over current interests,goals and strategies. In the effort to build and maintain an alliance of opposition to thecombined power structure of landlordism and British rule, the participants in the LandWar, and virtually all the Irish, engaged in a sustained discursive struggle. In thecontext of contingent events and their own collective action, the Irish constructed newsymbolic models, renovated their political culture and transformed diverse socialidentities in connection with a new national identity.

Recent research into nationalism has shown that the construction of symbolicstructures like national identity occurs in political struggles, between the dominantpower holder and the contending movement,59 and among members of the socialmovement or community.60 The British government’s repressive reaction to the land

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movement certainly motivated speci® c action on the part of the land movement, andalso contributed to the construction of the new understandings and meanings withinthe movement. Yet even when stimulated by external forces, such as British or landlordaction, intramovement contention remained the refractor of movement meaning con-struction. Though there was a general consensus concerning the movement’ s broadgoalsÐ land reform and some form of national independenceÐ how these ends shouldactually look and work and how they ought to be reached was deeply contested. Shouldland reform follow a program of co-possession with landlords, should peasant pro-prietary be the eventual end, or should landlords be dispossessed of their land immedi-ately? Should national independence take the form of federalism and Ireland remainbound to Britain, or did Irish autonomy demand complete separation from Britain?Should the movement adhere to a strategy of moderate agitation and parliamentarypressure, or should radical methods, and possibly violence, be followed?

These issues re¯ ected not merely problems of strategy, but more important, differ-ences in cultural understandings within the land movement. These differences wererepresented by two competing discourses: conciliation argued the moderate stance oneach of these questions, retribution guided the radical view. Thus, discursive compe-tition on the one hand, and collective action on the other, transformed both thesecultural models, and contributed to the formation of a national identity structure whichembodied the transformed understandings and their symbolic representations.

The sharing of narratives anchored public discourse during the Land War, andallowed symbolic transformation. For example, through the sharing of narratives suchas the Con® scation, people came to understand that the institution of rent resultedfrom Britain stealing the land, as well as the country, of Ireland. Thus, rent came torepresent injustice, both to the farmers and the whole Irish nation. This expandedunderstanding of rent, from a form of payment to an instrument of oppression,contributed to the formation of movement goals. If rent preserved an unjust system,prevented the Irish from possessing their God given right, and maintained the Irish ina state of insecurity and servitude to both landlords and the British, then any landreform must abolish rent. Logically, this also meant the eradication of landlords.Increasingly, peasant proprietary, now a symbolic pillar in the discourse of retributionbecame the accepted goal of the land movement, even among many former moderatesas they came to understand the tyranny of British domination and how landlordismsupported it.

Similarly, narrative conversation in the face of numerous manifestations of Britishrepression transformed a central pillar of the conciliation discourse, `constitutionalism’ .

Though moderate groups of nationalists, farmers and clergy joined the movementcommitted to constitutional change, government coercion measures provoked shock, asense of betrayal, anger and indignation among them all. Tenant farmers, clergy andmovement leaders expressed and shared these sentiments through narratives laden withmetaphors profanely symbolising the British Government and its actions, and sanctify-ing the Irish and their reactions. In these narratives, land movement participants andtheir leaders acted lawfully and constitutionally; the British government and landlordsviolated the `constitution’ by not upholding the rights of the Irish. Thus, `consti-tutional’ became the badge of the land movement, not the British government.Through this transformed understanding, `constitutional’ (though now in a moremilitant con® guration) regained a sacred status between both moderates and radicals,and developed into the accepted route to justice, because it had been symbolicallydisconnected from the British government.

From narrative discourse a widened symbolisation of rent,’ now arranged in relation

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to landlord power, the desecration of the land, and British domination, contributed tothe emerging structure of national identity: the Irish, as symbolised by the farmers,would regain control and ownership of their land (Ireland). The components ofdomination would be outside, abolished from, the Irish nation. The Irish nation wouldbe independent from Britain, rid of landlords and the misery they in¯ icted, and the landwould be tilled by owner-occupiers for the bene® t of all the Irish and Ireland. Thenarrative reconstruction of constitutionalism, portraying it to be a characteristic of theIrish but not Britain, also con® rmed Ireland’ s right to the land and self-determination.

This review of the symbolic reconstruction of rent and constitutional, and how thisreconstruction helped fuse the discourse of conciliation and retribution, underscoresthe value of narrative analysis of nationalism. Narratives provide the crucial windowinto the simultaneous processes of symbolic transformation and the dynamic unfoldingof the `political ® eld’ on which the instantation’ of nationalism occurs. Furthermore,narrative analysis reveals the construction of shared understandings on which peopleidentify themselves as part of a nation. We ® nd that these understanding are not basedon categories such as race and religion, but instead on particular, symbolicallycon® gured common experience. The shared, historical experience of British domi-nation and its tragic consequences for Ireland, symbolically represented by the land andfarmers, formed the basis of Irish national identity.

Finally, because narratives undergird nationalism by providing certain understand-ings that promote particular actions, we can better comprehend how nationalismbecomes tragic. The Irish nationalist perspectiveÐ built on narratives about the BritishConquest and the Evil Empire, the Con® scation of land, the Repression of Catholicismand the heroic response of the Church, the Villainy of landlords, the Famine and theVirtue of Irish farmersÐ that took strong hold during the Land War has contributed tothe sectarian hostility and violence that has since plagued Ireland. Similar cases aboundthrough the world today. Fortunately, just as nationalist identity is socially andsymbolically constructed, it can be deconstructed through the same analysis of narra-tives of nationalism.

Correspondence: Anne Kane, Department of Sociology, University of Texas, Austin, TX78712, USA.

Notes

1. Author’ s e-mail: aekane@mail.la.utexas.edu. This research was supported partly by a FulbrightFellowship to Ireland. Earlier versions of this paper were presented at University College, Dublinand the Queen’s University of Belfast, Program in Agrarian Studies. I am grateful to theanonymous reviewers for National Identities, and Stephen Heathorn, for helpful revision sugges-tions. Special thanks also go to Rachel Parker-Gwin.

2. By establishing commissions to determine fair rents and by allowing tenants the right to sell theirinterest in a holding (based on improvements they might have made), the Act essentially createda form of co-possession between landlord and tenant, whereas before the landlord had absoluteproperty rights.

3. Geoff Eley and Ronald Grigor Suny, Introduction’ , in Geoff Eley and Ronald Grigor Suny (eds),Becoming National (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994), pp. 3± 37.

4. These previous movements include the Repeal Movement and the Young Irelander Movement(1840s), Catholic Education Movement (`University Question’ 1840s), Tenant Right Movement(1850s and 1870s), Fenian Movement (1860s), the Amnesty Movement (1868), and the HomeRule Movement (1870s). On these movements and the inability of Irish social groups to form

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alliances see R. V. Comerford, `Churchmen, Tenants, and Independent Opposition, 1850± 56’ , in

W.E. Vaughan (ed), A New History of Ireland: Vol. V, Ireland Under the Union, 1801± 70 (Oxford:Oxford University Press, 1989), pp. 396± 414; Oliver MacDonagh, `Politics, 1830± 45’, in W.E.Vaughan (ed), A New History of Ireland: Vol. V; and Emmet Larkin, The Making of the Roman

Catholic Church in Ireland, 1850± 1860 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1980),and The Consolidation of the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland, 1850± 1860 (Chapel Hill: Universityof North Carolina Press, 1987).

5. `Home Rule’ would give the Irish power to make domestic decisions only, and was to be achievedthrough parliamentary consent. Radical nationalists, advocating complete separation from GreatBritain, were prepared to use violence and physical force if necessary to attain it.

6. For this conceptualisation see Craig Calhoun, `Nationalism and Civil Society: Democracy,Diversity and Self-Determination’ , in Craig Calhoun (ed), Social Theory and the Politics of Identity

(London: Basil Blackwell, 1994), pp. 304± 335. See also Rogers Brubaker, Nationalism Reframed:

Nationhood and the National Question in the New Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,1996).

7. For analysis and statistics on tenant farmer support see Samuel Clark, Social Origins of the Irish

Land War, (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1979), and Andrew Orridge `WhoSupported the Land War? An Aggregate-data Analysis of Irish Agrarian Discontent, 1879± 1882’ ,Economic and Social Review, 12/3, 1981, pp. 203± 233. For information on political af® liation ofIrish MP s see Brian Walker, Parliamentary Election Returns in Ireland, 1801± 1922 (Dublin: RoyalIrish Academy, 1978).

8. See Calhoun, `Nationalism and Civil Society’ , and Brubaker, Nationalism Reframed; on social andcultural construction in historical events, see William H. Sewell, Jr, `Historical Events asStructural Transformations: Inventing the Revolution at the Bastille’ , Theory and Society, 26,1996, pp. 245± 280.

9. On narrative identity see Margaret Somers, especially `The Narrative Constitution of Identity: ARelational and Network Approach’ , Theory and Society, 23, 1994, pp. 605± 649.

10. Ernest Gellner, Thought and Change (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1964); Eric Hobsbawm, The

Age of Revolution (New York: New American Library, 1962); Miroslav Hroch, Social Preconditions

of the National Revival in Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985); Eric Hobsbawmand Terence Ranger (eds), The Invention of Tradition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,1983); Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Re¯ ections on the Origin and Spread of

Nationalism (London, Verso, 1983).11. Marshall Sahlins, Historical Metaphors and Mythical Realities (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan

Press, 1981); William H. Sewell, Jr, `Political Events as Transformations of Structure.’12. In addition to Calhoun and Brubaker, see Prasenjit Duara, `Historicizing National Identity, or

Who Imagines What and When?’ in Geoff Eley and Ronald Grigor Suny (eds), Becoming National,pp. 151± 177.

13. The following conceptualisations draw on Brubaker, Nationalism Reframed.14. Linda Colley, Britons: Forging the Nation: 1707± 1837 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press,

1992), p. 6.15. Bruce Lincoln, Discourse and the Construction of Society (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989),

p. 21.16. Francesca Polletta, ª It was Like a Fever.. . º Narrative and Identity in Social Protest’ , Social

Problems, 45/2, 1998, pp. 137± 159.17. Margaret Somers, `The Narrative Constitution of Identity’ , p. 606.18. Margaret Somers, `The Narrative Constitution of Identity’ , p. 618.19. John Comaroff and Paul C. Stern. 1994. `New Perspectives on Nationalism and War,’ Theory and

Society, 23, 1994, pp. 1± 10.20. Bruce Lincoln, Discourse and the Construction of Society, p. 21.21. On memories of the sacred see, for example, Simonetta Falasca Zamponi, `Of Storytellers and

Master Narratives: Modernity, Memory, and History in Fascist Italy’ , Social Science History, 22/4,1998, pp. 479± 513.

22. On narrative contestation, see Lincoln, Discourse and the Construction of Society; Jeffrey Alexanderand Philip Smith `The Discourse of American Civil Society: A New Proposal for CulturalStudies’ , Theory and Society, 22, 1993, pp 151± 207; Marshall Battani, David Hall and Rosemary

Powers `Culture(s’ ) Structure(s): Making Meaning in the Public Sphere’ , Theory and Society, 26/6,1996, pp. 151± 207.

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23. Ronald Jacobs, `Code, Co-Text, and the Rodney King Beating’ , American Journal of Sociology,

101/5, 1996, p. 1241.24. Michael Davitt was the son of tenant farmers who had lost their farm in Co. Mayo (Connaught).

He served time in English prison for IRB (Irish Republican Brotherhood, the forerunner of theIRA) activity, and returned to Ireland after his release in December 1877.

25. Paul Bew, Land and the National Question in Ireland (Dublin and Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Gill andMacmillan and Humanities, 1978); Donald Jordan, Land and Popular Politics in Ireland (London:Cambridge University Press, 1994); T.W. Moody, Davitt and the Irish Revolution 1846± 82

(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1982).26. Since Daniel O’Connell’ s Repeal Movement of the 1840s, the metaphor `monster’ has been used

to describe massive demonstrations in Ireland. Many newspaper accounts of land movementmeetings led off with the title `Monster Meeting in ¼ ..’ .

27. Parnell had recently succeeded Isaac Butt as the head of the Irish Home Rule movement, partiallydue to his more militant stance, including his infamous obstructionist tactics in Parliament. Hesoon became President of the Irish Parliamentary Party, which he and fellow Irish `advanced’

ministers, transformed from a body mostly loyal to Britain to one demanding reform andautonomy.

28. Michael Davitt was a co-founder of the Irish National Land League and, along with CharlesParnell, the co-leader of the Land War.

29. Samuel Clark, Social Origins of the Irish Land War; T.W. Moody, Davitt and the Irish Revolution

1846± 82.30. Moody estimates that by December 1880 alone at least 450 land meetings, with an average

attendance of 5000, had been held. Davitt and the Irish Revolution 1846± 82, p. 437.31. Peter Alter, `Symbols of Irish Nationalism’, in Reactions to Irish Nationalism (Dublin: Gill and

Macmillan, 1987) pp. 1± 20.32. For a discussion of meaning construction in the ritual of the land meetings see Anne Kane,

`Theorizing Meaning Construction in Social Movements: Symbolic Structures and Interpretationduring the Irish Land War, 1879± 1882’ , Sociological Theory, 15/3, 1997, pp. 249± 275.

33. The `3Fs’ refer to fair rent, ® xity of tenure and free sale of the tenant’ s interest in his holding upon

quitting it (or being evicted). Under this reform plan, land would be essentially co-possessed’ bylandlord and tenant.

34. Sligo Champion, 23 January 1880.35. Limerick Reporter, 21 November 1879.36. James Killen, along with Michael Davitt and James Daly (both movement founders), were arrested

and charged with using seditious language at the Gurteen Meeting. In response, public indigna-tion erupted. In speeches at subsequent land meetings, in newspaper editorials and letters, andeven from the pulpit, narratives emerged which exalted the traversers’ and vili® ed the govern-ment. See for example, the account of a massive land meeting in Dublin on 21 November 1879(Freeman’ s Journal, 22 November 1879).

37. Moody, Davitt and the Irish Revolution, 1846± 82, p. 271.38. Freeman’s Journal, 2 November 1879.39. The Nation, 22 May 1880.

40. Connaught Telegraph, 26 April 1879.41. Dundalk Democrat, 11 January 1879.42. Dundalk Democrat, 11 January 1879.43. Freeman’s Journal, 14 October 1879.44. Rogers Brubaker, Nationalism Reframed, pp. 20± 21.45. The bill proposed to repeal a clause in the 1870 Land Act which debarred any claim to

compensation for disturbance from a tenant ejected for non-payment of rent, and to suspendevictions for two years (until December 1882) among tenants paying £10 or less a month whocould not make their rent due to the agrarian crisis.

46. Queen vs. Parnell and others: [Reports by police reporters of speeches at Land League meetings,1880], National Archives, Dublin, no. 22768.

47. Cork Daily Herald, 22 November 1880.48. Cork Daily Herald, 8 November 1880.49. Not surprisingly, the nationalist component of the land movement kept most tenant farmers

in Ulster from participating. For discussions of the Land War in Northern Ireland, seeFrancis Thompson. `The Landed Classes, the Orange Order, and the Anti-Land League

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264 A. Kane

Campaign in Ulster, 1880± 1881’ , Eire-Ireland, 22, 1985, pp. 102± 121; Frank Wright, Two Lands

on One Soil, Ulster Politics before Home Rule (Cambridge: Gill & Macmillan, 1996).50. Cork Daily Herald, 8 November 1880.51. Dundalk Democrat, 24 December 1880.52. Freeman’s Journal, 7 March 1881.53. Freeman’s Journal, 7 March 1881.54. Indeed, feudal and slave imagery abounded in land meeting discourse and narratives. For

example, Father Cornelius McCarthy, the parish priest at Knockaderry, addressed the assemblyat Newcastle West, Co. Limerick, `Brother Slaves’ (Cork Daily Herald, 8 November 1880). FatherE.H. Conington told the crowd at the Ballaghaderrenn Demonstration in Co. Mayo that ` ¼ theprosecution ¼ is an effort to ¼ make us Irish equal to the serfs and slaves in Russia’ (Connaught

Telegraph, 27 November1880). At a land meeting in Kilmeena, Co. Mayo, tenant farmerJoseph McKenna stated that `The English government ¼ refuses to recognise the claims ofthe ¼ down-trodden slaves of Ireland (Connaught Telegraph, 20 December 1880).

55. Anne Kane and Michael Mann, `A Theory of Early Twentieth-Century Agrarian Politics’ , Social

Science History, 16/3, 1992, p. 421± 454.56. Mary Helen Thuente, `The Folklore of Nationalism,’ in Thomas Hachey and Lawrence

McCaffrey (eds), Perspectives on Irish Nationalism (Lexington: The University of Kentucky Press,1989), pp. 55± 56.

57. For a discussion of the structuration of cultural systems and symbolic transformation see Kane,`Theorizing Meaning Construction’ , and William H. Sewell, Jr., `The Concept(s) of Culture’ ,Victoria E. Bonnell and Lynn Hunt (eds), Beyond the Cultural Turn (Berkeley: University ofCalifornia Press, 1999), pp. 35± 61.

58. Geoff Eley and Ronald Grigor Suny, `Introduction’ , p. 9.59. See for example, Liah Green® eld, Nationalism (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1994);

Margaret O’Callaghan, British High Politics and a Nationalist Ireland (Cork, Ireland: Cork Univer-sity Press, 1994). Charles Tilly, Popular Contention in Great Britain 1758± 1834 (Cambridge, MA:Harvard University Press, 1995).

60. See for example, Prasenjit Duara, `Historicizing National Identity’ ; Linda Colley, Britons;Christopher Ansell, `Symbolic Networks: The Realignment of the French Working Class, 1887±1894’, American Journal of Sociology, 103/2, 1997, pp. 359± 390.

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