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Culture War Roundup for the week of July 10, 2023

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Nationalism is a very specific concept: It is that every "nation" has a right to its own state.

This seems to be older than 150 years to me. "A Nation Once Again", the Irish song, is 170 years old. Parnell's "No man has a right to fix the boundary of the march of a nation; no man has a right to say to his country—thus far shalt thou go and no further." refers to Ireland losing its parliament in 1800. Was O'Connell a nationalist when he said "“No person knows better than you do that the domination of England is the sole and blighting curse of this country. It is the incubus that sits on our energies, stops the pulsation of the nation's heart and leaves to Ireland, not gay vitality but horrid the convulsions of a troubled dream.”

After the war of independence in 1921, Ireland demanded "a self-governing Ireland with restitution of confiscated lands and churches, freedom of movement, and a strong Roman Catholic identity" exactly the same terms that O'Neill had asked for in November 1599. Few doubt that De Valera was a Nationalist. Why wasn't O'Neill one, given that he asked for identical terms?

Wikipedia writes:

Generally, Irish nationalism is regarded as having emerged following the Renaissance revival of the concept of the patria and the religious struggle between the ideology of the Protestant Reformation and the Catholic Counter-Reformation.

This seems late to me, and 1169 is a more natural date, if not 1014, or earlier.

In the Cogad Gáedel re Gallaib (The War of the Irish with the Foreigners), which described the Battle of Clontarf the Irish were described as: brave, valiant champions; soldierly, active, nimble, bold, full of courage, quick, doing great deeds, pompous, beautiful, aggressive, hot, strong, swelling, bright, fresh, never weary, terrible, valiant, victorious heroes and chieftains, and champions, and brave soldiers, the men of high deeds, and honour, and renown of Erinn.

The foreigners as: the shouting, hateful, powerful, wrestling, valiant, active, fierce-moving, dangerous, nimble, violent, furious, unscrupulous, untamable, inexorable, unsteady, cruel, barbarous, frightful, sharp, ready, huge, prepared, cunning, warlike, poisonous, murderous, hostile Danars; bold, hard-hearted Danmarkians, surly, piratical foreigners, blue-green, pagan; without reverence, without veneration, without honour, without mercy, for God or for man.

Little has changed, and the foreigners still have blue-green hair.