"Cover"--"Title page"--"Copyright page" -- "Dedication" -- "Contents" -- "Introduction" -- "A vigilant nation" -- "Sport and Irish masculinity" -- "Musical expressions of community and conflict" -- "A fragmented literary revival" -- "Conclusion" -- "Bibliography" -- "Index

This book attempts to delve into the connection between imagination and politics, and examines the many expectations and fears engendered by the Irish home rule debate. More specifically, it assesses the ways politicians, artists and writers in Ireland, Britain and its empire imagined how self-government would work in Ireland after the restitution of an Irish parliament. What did home rulers want? What were British supporters of Irish self-government willing to offer? What did home rule mean not only to those who advocated it but also to those who opposed it?

What If? is an entertaining, thoughtful, provocative and original look at some of the milestones of twentieth century Irish history that offers a glimpse of what might have been. We all know that there was nothing inevitable about much of modern Ireland's history. Things could have turned out very differently, so it is natural to wonder what would have happened if certain events had never occurred or happened in a different way. What If? is the thought-provoking, enjoyable and insightful book that explores this conceit as its starting point, asking of key events in twentieth-century Ireland: 'what if?' Based on Diarmaid Ferriter's acclaimed RTÉ Radio One series, the book looks at twenty events in twentieth-century Ireland, each of which was discussed on Ferriter's show with two experts, and speculates on how things might have developed had circumstances been different. In doing so, Ferriter also sheds much new light on what actually did happen, how Ireland changed during the course of the twentieth century and the experiences of those who lived through it. The big questions are tackled: what if there had been no 1916 Rising? What if Ireland had been invaded during World War II? What if there had been no programmes for economic expansion? What if Mary Robinson had not been elected president in 1990? But the book also poses other, less obvious, questions: what if James Joyce and Samuel Beckett had stayed in Ireland; if Britain had blocked Irish immigration in the 1950s; if there had been no Late Late Show or Magill magazine; if Bishop Eamon Casey had never met Annie Murphy; or if John Charles McQuaid had never been Archbishop of Dublin? What If? Alternative Views of Twentieth-Century Ireland: Table of Contents Introduction - What if there had been no Late Late Show? - What if there had been no pro-life amendment referendum in 1983? - What if there had been no Magill magazine? - What if John Charles McQuaid had not been appointed Archbishop of Dublin in 1940? - What if Ben Dunne had not gone on a golfing trip to Florida in 1992? - What if Bishop Eamon Casey's secret had not been discovered? - What if there had been no 1916 Rising? - What if the Treaty ports had not been returned in 1938? - What if the Blueshirts had attempted a coup in 1933? - What if de Valera had stood down as leader of Fianna Fáil in 1948 instead of 1959? - What if Donogh O'Malley had not introduced free secondary education in 1967? - What if the Irish Press had not closed down in 1995? - What if James Joyce and Samuel Beckett had stayed in Ireland? - What if Frank Duff had not established the Legion of Mary in 1921? - What if the Jim Duffy tape had not been released during the 1990 presidential election? - What if Proportional Representation had been abolished in 1959 or 1968? - What if T. K. Whitaker had not been appointed Secretary of the Department of Finance in 1956? - What if the members of U2 had gone to different schools in the 1970s? - What if Britain had imposed restrictions on Irish immigration in the 1950s? - What if Noël Browne had not been involved in Irish politics?

A provocative history of Ulysses and the Easter Rising as harbingers of decolonization. When revolutionaries seized Dublin during the 1916 Easter Rising, they looked back to unrequited pasts to point the way toward radical futures—transforming the Celtic Twilight into the electric light of modern Dublin in James Joyce’s Ulysses. For Luke Gibbons, the short-lived rebellion converted the Irish renaissance into the beginning of a global decolonial movement. James Joyce and the Irish Revolution maps connections between modernists and radicals, tracing not only Joyce’s projection of Ireland onto the world stage, but also how revolutionary leaders like Ernie O’Malley turned to Ulysses to make sense of their shattered worlds. Coinciding with the centenary of both Ulysses and Irish independence, this book challenges received narratives about the rebellion and the novel that left Ireland changed, changed utterly.

This book explores the performance of Irish collective memories and forgotten histories. It proposes an alternative and more comprehensive criterion of Irish theatre practices. These practices can be defined as the 'rejected', contested and undervalued plays and performativities that are integral to Ireland's political and cultural landscapes.

Assessing the relative importance of British influence and of indigenous impulses in shaping an independent Ireland, this book identifies the relationship between personality and process in determining Irish history.

Based on author's thesis (doctoral)--National University of Ireland.