Celebrities, heroes and champions explores the role of the popular politician in British and Irish society from the Napoleonic Wars to the Second Reform Act of 1867. Covering movements for parliamentary reform up to and including Chartism, Catholic Emancipation, transatlantic Anti-Slavery and the Anti-Corn Law League, as well as the receptions of international celebrities such as Lajos Kossuth and Giuseppe Garibaldi, it offers a unique perspective on the connections between politics and historical cultures of fame and celebrity. This book will interest students and scholars of Britain, Ireland, continental Europe and North America in the nineteenth century, as well as general readers with an interest in the history of popular politics. Its exploration of the relationship between politics and celebrity, and the methods through which public reputations have been promoted and manipulated for political ends, have clear contemporary relevance.

Celebrities, heroes and champions examines the popular politician in British and Irish society from the Napoleonic Wars to the Second Reform Act. Covering a range of political movements, it offers a unique perspective on contemporary political culture including the connections between popular politics and an evolving culture of celebrity.

Since long before the age of celebrity activism, literary authors have used their public profiles and cultural capital to draw attention to a wide range of socio-political concerns. This book is the first to explore – through history, criticism and creative interventions – the relationship between authorship, political activism and celebrity culture across historical periods, cultures, literatures and media. It brings together scholars, industry stakeholders and prominent writer-activists to engage in a conversation on literary fame and public authority. These scholarly essays, interviews, conversations and opinion pieces interrogate the topos of the artist as prophet and acute critic of the zeitgeist; analyse the ideological dimension of literary celebrity; and highlight the fault lines between public and private authorial selves, 'pure' art, political commitment and marketplace imperatives. In case studies ranging from the 18th century to present-day controversies, authors illuminate the complex relationship between literature, politics, celebrity culture and market activism, bringing together vivid current debates on the function and responsibility of literature in increasingly fractured societies.

This volume, an original combination of biography, cultural history, and media studies, investigates the first moment in history when philanthropy was used as a self-standing claim to fame and philanthropists started being considered as a distinct breed of public figures. In its search for the cause of this development, it examines the way in which public images of early philanthropists in different parts of Europe were shaped in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. The work draws on a comparison between British prison reformer John Howard, Alsatian pastor and humanitarian Jean-Frédéric Oberlin, and Stanisław Staszic, a key figure of Enlightenment politics in Congress Poland. Revealing parallel mechanisms at play in different national contexts, it argues that famous philanthropists ushered in a new genre of fame, ‘philanthropic celebrity’, that placed Enlightenment ideals about virtue within the framework of early celebrity culture. The book is primarily aimed at advanced students and scholars of history, cultural studies, and social sciences, especially those interested in the concepts of fame and celebrity and in the origins of modern humanitarianism.

Ah Ireland, it's a great little country all the same, if only you could put a roof on it. While we may be a nation of messers and begrudgers, we'll always have a soft spot for our land of sunny spells and scattered showers. Who else but the Irish can perform minor miracles with a prayer to St Anthony? Or truly appreciate the medicinal purposes of Flat 7Up? Not to mention the front room, chipper chips and the 'bad pint'!From things you'll only hear and taste in Ireland to tips for surviving any social situation (an Irish wedding anyone?!), Ronan Moore's witty, irreverent and nostalgic guide will have you laughing your way to a degree in Irishology.Altogether now ... 'Lowwww lie the Fields of Athenryyyy'

Explores the central role of petitions in reshaping the political culture of the United Kingdom in their nineteenth-century heyday.

Examining activist performance techniques, this book shows how women and men could deeply influence public life in the nineteenth century.