Constructing Irish National Identity

A major statement in both historical and cultural sociology, Constructing Irish Nationalist Identity: Ritual and Discourse during the Land War, 1879-1882, provides a theoretical and methodological model for analyzing symbolic and social transformation in major historical events. Synthesizing the strong program in cultural sociology with eventful temporality, Anne Kane demonstrates the construction of political alliance and the emergence of a counter hegemonic cultural structure over the course of a political movement and campaign. Through deep analysis of the discursive struggles of contentious participants--tenant farmers, nationalists, and the Irish Catholic Church--in the multitudinous enchained ritualistic events of the Irish Land War, Kane illuminates the construction of a reconfigured Irish Nationalist Identity.