Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of illustrations
- List of maps
- Preface to the first edition
- Preface to the second edition
- Map: the British Isles
- Introduction
- 1 The Celtic societies of the British Isles
- 2 The impact of Rome on the British Isles
- 3 The post-Roman centuries
- 4 The Vikings and the fall of the Old Order
- 5 The Norman and post-Norman ascendancy
- 6 The decline of the post-Norman empire
- 7 The making of an English empire
- 8 The remaking of an empire
- 9 The Britannic melting pot
- 10 The rise of ethnic politics
- 11 Between the wars
- 12 Withdrawal from empire
- 13 Post-imperial Britain: post-nationalist Ireland
- Afterword
- Selected reading list
- Index
10 - The rise of ethnic politics
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2014
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of illustrations
- List of maps
- Preface to the first edition
- Preface to the second edition
- Map: the British Isles
- Introduction
- 1 The Celtic societies of the British Isles
- 2 The impact of Rome on the British Isles
- 3 The post-Roman centuries
- 4 The Vikings and the fall of the Old Order
- 5 The Norman and post-Norman ascendancy
- 6 The decline of the post-Norman empire
- 7 The making of an English empire
- 8 The remaking of an empire
- 9 The Britannic melting pot
- 10 The rise of ethnic politics
- 11 Between the wars
- 12 Withdrawal from empire
- 13 Post-imperial Britain: post-nationalist Ireland
- Afterword
- Selected reading list
- Index
Summary
By the mid-nineteenth century a system of road, rail and sea communications brought the various communities of the British Isles more closely together than had ever been the case hitherto. To the network of roads built by Telford in the years after 1815 were added regular services of steam packets linking Britain and Ireland and a well-developed railway system. Road and rail routes from London to Dublin via Holyhead across the Menai Straits became a matter of routine. Ireland, Wales and Scotland were now open more than ever to English influences. Ireland in particular became more anglicised than either Wales or Scotland and the number of ‘native’ Gaelic-speakers declined drastically in the second half of the nineteenth century. The culture of southern England seemed destined to reach a position of total dominance throughout the British Isles.
In fact, however, this period (c. 1860–1914) witnessed a remarkable growth of ‘ethnic’ consciousness throughout the British Isles. During the first half of the nineteenth century ‘class’ issues had predominated in such movements as Chartism in England, Ribbonism and the Tithe War in Ireland, the Rebecca Riots in Wales and the Highland Clearances in Scotland. From mid-century, however, it was the dominance of England, particularly that of the south-east, which came to seem objectionable to influential groups in Ireland, Wales and Scotland. In Ireland, the catastrophic death toll of the Famine, accompanied as it was by massive emigration, was blamed, by and large, on the failure of the English government to provide adequate relief.
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- Chapter
- Information
- The British IslesA History of Four Nations, pp. 251 - 279Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2012