Irish Identities and Political Thought in Early Modern Historical Writing: Greek and Roman Sources

Current political debates relating to Brexit, the Northern Ireland Protocol, and the integration of the Republic of Ireland into the European Union, which reveal the pluralism of Irish identities including European, nationalist, and unionist visions, can be traced back to seventeenth-century reflections on conquest, state-formation, the Reformation, and colonial plantations in Ireland.

This project investigates two foundational pieces of the seventeenth-century Irish historical writing: the Irish-language Foras Feasa ar irinn by Geoffrey Keating (1580-1644) and the Neo-Latin Cambrensis Eversus by John Lynch (1599-1677).

Their narratives defended the history of Ireland from claims by the twelfth-century historian Giraldus Cambrensis about the barbarous nature of the Irish people which were utilized by his early modern followers to justify the English conquest of Ireland in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

The project asks how and why early modern Irish authors exploited the cultural capital of classical rhetoric, history, and political thought through both Irish and Latin in order to fashion a distinct representation of Irish history, which underlined connections between Ireland and Britain as well as between Ireland and Europe.

The results of the study will impact current understanding of the varieties of Irish national discourse as the Irish Republic reflects on a centenary of independence from Britain and on a fiftieth anniversary of its membership of the European Communities.

The proposed research would be carried out at Aarhus University which excels in interdisciplinary research on European literature and culture, including Classical languages and culture and their reception in Ireland.

AU university will enable me to update my expertise in early modern Irish and Neo-Latin languages and in Classical reception, which is necessary for the completion of this project.