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Yanaihara Tadao and the Irish question: a comparative analysis of the Irish and Korean questions, 1919–36

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2016

Susan C. Townsend
Susan C. Townsend*
Affiliation:
Faculty of Oriental Studies, University of Cambridge
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Extract

Irish nationalism and the success of Sinn Féin in acquiring dominion status for the Irish Free State in 1921–2 had a profound influence upon many nationalist movements in Asia in the 1920s and 1930s. Although the Irish example was of greatest significance for the shaping of political organisations and guerrilla warfare, it was also valuable in inspiring broader academic analyses of the consequences of colonial rule. In 1927 and again in 1936 Professor Yanaihara Tadao of Tokyo Imperial University published an essay on the Airurando mondai or Irish question entitled ‘Airurando mondai no enkaku’ (‘The history of the Irish question’). The main purpose of the essay was to compare Britain’s Irish question with Japan’s Chôsen mondai or Korean question, and it not only provides us with a unique Japanese perspective on Irish history but reminds us of the importance of the Irish example in Asia.

Yanaihara Tadao (1893–1961) is even today much respected in Japan for his resistance to militarism and his sympathy for colonial peoples in the 1930s. In 1910, shortly before his eighteenth birthday, he was touched by the plight of the Korean people under Japanese rule as a result of reading Frederick Arthur McKenzie’s The tragedy of Corea. McKenzie’s tirade against Japanese atrocities in Korea both during and after the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–5 caused Yanaihara ‘to consider the truth of colonial policy’. At this time Yanaihara had just been admitted to the First Higher School, a preparatory college for entry to Tokyo Imperial University, and the years spent at the school proved to be his most formative.

Type
Research Article
Information
Irish Historical Studies , Volume 30 , Issue 118 , November 1996 , pp. 195 - 205
Copyright
Copyright © Irish Historical Studies Publications Ltd 1996

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References

1 For example, the Dobama (We Burmese) or Thakin nationalist party in Burma in the 1930s was fashioned on the Sinn Féin party, and their literature included publications such as Dan Breen’s My fight for Irish freedom (1924). See Maw, Ba, Breakthrough in Burma: memoirs of a revolution, 1939–1946 (New Haven & London, 1968), p. 54 Google Scholar.

2 A11 Japanese names in this article and in the references are given in Japanese style, with family name or surname followed by given name.

3 ‘Airurando mondai no hatten’ (‘The development of the Irish question’) appeared in Keizaigaku ronshû (‘Essays on economics’) in December 1927. A slightly updated version, ‘Airurando mondai no enkaku’ (‘The history of the Irish question’), forms an appendix to Yanaihara’s book Teikokoshugi-ka no Indo (‘India under imperialism’) (Tokyo, 1936) and also appears in Yanaihara Tadao zenshû (‘The collected works of Yanaihara Tadao’), ed. Nambara Shigeru et al. 29 vols, Tokyo, 1963–5) (henceforth cited as Zenshû), iii, 651–706.

4 Before the Russo-Japanese War, Japan, using the same type of gunboat diplomacy that Britain and the United States had used against her two decades before, forced Korea to open some of her ports in 1876. Korea was made a Japanese protectorate in 1905 and annexed in 1910.

5 McKenzie went to Korea in 1904 as Daily Mail correspondent. He published The tragedy of Corea in 1908 and Korea’s fight for freedom in 1920. See McKenzie, Frederick Arthur, Korea’s fight for freedom (repr. Seoul, 1969), prefaceGoogle Scholar.

6 ‘Nikki’ (‘Diaries’), Zenshû, xxviii, 19.

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10 Ibid., p. 632.

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12 Ibid.

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36 William O’Brien was editor of the militant Land League journal United Ireland in 1881. The journal was eventually suppressed and he was arrested. On his release in 1883, he became M.P. for Mallow and founded the United Irish League in 1898 (Boylan, Dictionary, p. 245).

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59 The 1695 penal laws restricted Catholic rights to education, to bear arms or possess a horse worth more than £5, and a further penal law was introduced in 1704 which restricted landholding rights for Catholics and introduced religious tests for those wishing to take office ( Foster, R.F., Modern Ireland, 1600–1972 (London, 1988), p. 154)Google Scholar.

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