dc.rights.license | CC-BY-NC-ND | |
dc.contributor.advisor | Kennedy, James | |
dc.contributor.author | Crowley, Mark | |
dc.date.accessioned | 2022-07-23T00:00:52Z | |
dc.date.available | 2022-07-23T00:00:52Z | |
dc.date.issued | 2022 | |
dc.identifier.uri | https://studenttheses.uu.nl/handle/20.500.12932/41867 | |
dc.description.abstract | This thesis looks at the Irish Blueshirts, a fascist organisation that appeared in Ireland in the 1930s. By examining the wider historical context of Irish Independence (1921) and the ensuing Civil War (1922-1923), I hope to shed light on the way in which post-colonial and fascist ideology interacted in the emergence and failure of this movement. In this thesis, I look at the way Irish political identities were historically constructed and how these devolved into a rehearsal of colonial dialectics in the civil war and during the formation of the Irish Free State. Dispute over the Anglo-Irish Treaty that brought independence led to civil war, leaving a deeply ingrained oppositionality in the politics of independent Ireland: pro-treatyite against anti-treatyite. In the 1930s, the resurgent anti-treatyites peacefully took power and the Blueshirts represent a desperate attempt by the pro-treatyites to challenge the increased dominance of their opponents. By exploring the role of colonial dialectics in the emergence of the Blueshirts, I argue that the palingenetic mythic core of fascism was used in an attempt to challenge the monopoly anti-treatyites had achieved over the Irish nationalist tradition of revolutionary republicanism. My examination of the Blueshirts reveals opportunistic motivations behind the embrace of fascist aesthetics and rhetoric by the pro-treatyites, but also the limitations of fascism as a tool to marshal populist support. Through a discussion of why fascism failed in this particular case-study, I hope to offer a better understanding of fascism as an ideology and the post-colonial construction of Irish political identities. | |
dc.description.sponsorship | Utrecht University | |
dc.language.iso | EN | |
dc.subject | This thesis is an examination of the fascist movement, The Blueshirts, that emerged in Ireland in the early 1930s. The historical context of the movement, from the colonial era to the formation of the Irish Free State in 1922 and beyond, is explored through Roger Griffin's theory of the 'palingenetic mythic core' of fascism and post-colonial theory by Frantz Fanon and Edward Said, to argue that the rise and fall of the Blueshirts was deeply rooted in Irelands post-colonial past. | |
dc.title | Dissembled Fascism: The Irish Blueshirts and the Battle for Nationalist Legitimacy. | |
dc.type.content | Master Thesis | |
dc.rights.accessrights | Open Access | |
dc.subject.keywords | Blueshirts; Ireland; Fascism; Palingenesis; Post-Colonialism; Nationalism; Decolonization; Colonial Dialectics; Symbolism; Populism; Revolution; Civil War; Republicanism | |
dc.subject.courseuu | Geschiedenis van Politiek en Maatschappij | |
dc.thesis.id | 6454 | |