Author Biography
James Quinn is the Managing Editor of the Royal Irish Academy's Dictionary of Irish Biography. His specialist interest is in the writing of Irish history in the nineteenth century. He is the author of two biographies, Soul on Fire: A Life of Thomas Russell (2002) and John Mitchel (2008).
Description
In 1842 a small group of Irish nationalists, who would later be known as Young Ireland, founded the Nation newspaper. They saw their mission as awakening the Irish people to the fact that they were an historic nation that should determine its own future. Ireland, they insisted, had a proud history, which told of sufferings bravely endured, resistance that had never faltered and a national spirit that had never been crushed. However, since Ireland's history had mostly been written by its conquerors, the true record of her past had been misrepresented, leading the Nation to proclaim that 'The history of Ireland has not yet been written'. Rectifying this was one of their most pressing tasks, to which they devoted much of their labour. This work examines why Young Ireland attached such importance to the writing of history, how it went about writing that history, and what impact their historical writings had. Young Ireland and the Writing of Irish History deeply explores the Young Ireland vision of history.Often selective and polemical, but ultimately compelling and powerful, their vison would inspire generations with a pride in Ireland's history, and would set the scene for the revolutionary period 1916-21 that followed.
Acknowledgements
Introduction
Chapter 1
- Laying The Foundations
- The Nation, Education And Temperance
Chapter 2
- Reading History
- Contemporary Authors, Antiquarians And Foreign Influences
Chapter 3
- Writing History
Chapter 4
- The Uses Of History
Chapter 5
- Making History
Chapter 6
- The History Of Their Own Times
- Memoirs, Journals And Polemics
Chapter 7
- Continuities
- From The Celtic Union To Griffith's 'Ballad History'
Chapter 8
- The Legacy Of Young Ireland's Writings
Notes
Biographical Notes
Bibliography
Index.
‘James Quinn’s refreshingly impartial Young Ireland and the Writing of Irish History shines a much needed lens on the legacy and impact of the Young Irelanders of the 1840s. Straightforward and unpretentious – a rarity for academic history books – Quinn unravels the early beginnings of The Nation newspaper and its charismatic and passionate staff.’
Irish America, Feb./Mar. 2016
'James Quinn’s new book (indirectly) allows us to appreciate how far we have moved on from insular and unsophisticated debates on revisionism in its scholarly treatment of a defining chapter of Irish identity and ideology, the fashioning of genuinely Irish history by the Young Irelanders. True, the historical writings of Young Ireland are rarely read nowadays and they produced no ‘great’ historian or ‘great work’ of history. But Quinn, unperturbed by the focus on the more fashionable actors and phases of Irish history, had previously taken on the ‘outmoded and even repugnant’ John Mitchell.
In a short biography he had objectively demonstrated how Mitchell’s uncompromising rhetoric had been one of the most influential and resilient strands of Irish nationalism. In this and other short explorations of Young Ireland’s historicist nationalism, now authoritatively developed in this thorough and dedicated study, he defines how their corpus of nearly 70 titles—duly listed separately in the bibliography—constructed an interpretation of Irish history that fuelled generations of nationalists and did much to shape Irish communal memory, well after independence.
UCD Press has produced a reasonably priced, light softback edition with handy cover flaps to mark pages. They have made vintage-effect covers acceptable in academia, duly reproducing the original masthead and font of the first edition of The Nation on 15 October 1842, complete with that iconic image of Davis, John Blake Dillon and Charles Gavan Duffy discussing the paper’s foundation in the Phoenix Park.'
History Ireland Issue 4 (July/August 2015), Reviews, Volume 23
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'Quinn keeps his narrative a tight one, making every page and paragraph count. This is a story of ideas, not of events (the 1848 Rebellion is told in barely a paragraph) nor of people (though there is a list of biographies at the end to help the reader keep track of who’s who), and Quinn is well able to explain them, and the motivations of the men (they were overwhelmingly men, no Countess Markieviczs here) who nurtured them, spread them as best they could and, in the case of those exiled or imprisoned, suffered for them.
Quinn is very much not a writer of the Young Ireland school, keeping as he does his tone admirably impartial as befits the Managing Director of the Royal Irish Academy’s Dictionary of Irish Biography. But towards the end, he lets slip a glimmer of admiration at the Young Irelanders’ achievements. It is hard for even a cynical reader to not feel likewise. For better or for worse, 20th century Ireland was as much a product of the Young Ireland movement as anything. This book should do much in making this team of intellectuals, pedagogues and would-be revolutionaries better known.'
Irish Story July 2015
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‘James Quinn has analysed Young Ireland’s approach to the writing of Irish history with great skill. This is a remarkably well-crafted study, grounded in deep research and written with an elegance of expression which is rare today in works of scholarly history. It is a major contribution to the intellectual history of our country.’
3 July 2015, Felix M. Larkin, The Irish Catholic
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‘James Quinn’s important new book … is a well-researched, well-written and balanced study of the ideas and writings of Young Ireland. The structure and layout of the chapters deal in succession with the environment in which they began their mission; their reading of history; their writing of it; the uses they made of the past; their attempt to make history for themselves; the narrative they wrote of their own times; how their work was continued by later writers; and, finally, their legacy.’
20 June 2015, Donal McCartney, The Irish Times
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‘Quinn has crafted an insightful and impartial examination into a movement which had little interest in impartiality; an exploration into why such history was written and how it was received. While his book will particularly appeal to students of the period, his style is accessible enough for anyone to enjoy.’
17 May 2015, The Sunday Business Post
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