Christopher Morash explores the stories and political trajectories of an acting-Governor of the Territory of Montana and Union Army General, a Confederate newspaper owner, a Premier of Victoria, and many other important figures. Despite their divergent trajectories, these individuals applied many of the same ideas that they had developed during their original Irish political project to their respective nations and movements. Young Ireland is a vital new perspective in the field of Irish diaspora studies, highlighting the impact the Young Ireland generation had on emerging democracies and international debates, both in spite of and because of their defeat and dispersion.
About the Author:
Christopher Morash is an Irish diplomat. He holds a PhD in History from the University of Cambridge, where he held a prestigious National University of Ireland Travelling Studentship.
Praise for Young Ireland:
"The most comprehensive account of the dispersal of the Young Ireland members away from their homeland . . . No other work synthesizes so effectively the experience and worldview of Young Ireland as well as the members’ legacies."
—Malcolm Campbell, the University of Auckland
"Young Ireland is a well-researched and timely study of Irish nationalism, politics, and ideas as seen through a trans-national lens. Morash weaves the post-1848 stories of the Young Ireland expatriates into the settler narratives of Canada, the United States, and Australia. In so doing, the book underscores the ironic twist in the careers of many Young Irelanders who had fought against British colonialism in Ireland, but who in exile emerged as leaders and agents of the colonial project in the British Empire, or as advocates of American Manifest Destiny. It is a provocative read indeed."
—Mark G. McGowan, St. Michael’s College, University of Toronto
"Will make a significant contribution to scholarship in several distinct areas . . . The importance of the argument is clear, the research in both primary sources and secondary works is comprehensive, and the writing is lively and engaging."
—David Brundage, author of Irish Nationalists in America: The Politics of Exile, 1798–1998
"Hitherto, most studies of Young Ireland have focused on the movement’s Irish activities during the 1840s and its impact on subsequent generations of Irish nationalists. Christopher Morash broadens the lens, and argues that the careers of many Young Ireland leaders had a greater impact in the countries where they wound up rather than in Ireland itself. Their legacy, he shows, was mixed: in the United States, Canada, and Australia they not only played a major part in nation building, but also perpetuated forms of settler colonialism that displaced and dispossessed Indigenous peoples."
—David A. Wilson, University of Toronto
"Morash has produced a wide-ranging and beautifully written book. In it, he recovers the complex intellectual world of Ireland’s ‘1848’ and the lasting imprint Young Ireland left on not only Irish nationalism but also on a ‘globalized liberalism,’ and its many tensions and contradictions, that still define our world today."
—Patrick Griffin, Director, Keough-Naughton Institute for Irish Studies, University of Notre Dame
