Grand Opportunity: The Gaelic Revival and Irish Society, 1893-1910

by Timothy G. McMahon

Overview

In this groundbreaking work, Timothy McMahon reexamines the significance of the Gaelic revival in forming Ireland's national identity. In their determination to preserve and extend the use of Irish as a spoken language and artistic medium, members of the Gaelic League profoundly influenced Irish culture and literature in the twentieth century. McMahon explores that influence by scrutinizing the ways in which society absorbed their messages, tracing the interaction between the ideas propagated by the League and the variety of meanings ordinary people attached to Ireland and to being Irish. Comparing press and police reports with census data and local directories, the author establishes the first comprehensive profile of League membership. McMahon's ability to access both English- and Irish-language sources offers readers a rare and richly detailed analysis of primary materials. Grand Opportunity addresses questions that are central to understanding modern Irish identity and makes an indispensable contribution to the wider study of national identity formation.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780815631583
Publisher:	Syracuse University Press
Publication date:	05/09/2008
Series:	Irish Studies
Pages:	356
Product dimensions:	6.30(w) x 9.30(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Timothy G. McMahon is associate professor of history at Marquette University. He is the editor of Pádraig Ó Fathaigh's War of Independence: Recollections of a Galway Gaelic Leaguer. His articles have appeared in History Compass, Éire-Ireland, and Joyce Studies Annual.

Table of Contents

Tables     vii
Acknowledgments     ix
Introduction     1
The Strange Case of O'Growney's Bones     9
Priests and People in the Gaelic Revival     34
"All Creeds and All Classes"? Just Who Made Up the Gaelic League?     85
Cooperating with the Cooperators: Branch Activities and the Regeneration of Ireland     127
The Grand Opportunity: Festivals and the Gaelic Revival     155
The March of a Nation: Dublin's Language Processions     187
Conclusion     211
Abbreviations     221
Notes     223
Glossary     289
Bibliography     291
Index     323

Editorial Reviews

McMahon's book, thus, manages to be both irenic and radical at the same time...In addition, it is written in an accessible style, sometimes focusing on individual life studies such as that of Eoghan O'Growney.

New Hibernia Review

Grand Opportunity provides a richer and more nuanced scholarly assessment of the Gaelic League from its foundation through the first decade of the twentieth century than any other work with which I am familiar.

Loyola University Chicago Frank Biletz

We have finally a much needed and most illuminating account of a movement that was paradoxically so successful in the short run and eventually failed in the long run. . . . Professor McMahon has placed us all in his scholarly debt by rescuing us from the pious generalizations and facile impressions of the mythologizers.

University of Chicago Emmet Larkin