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7 English pantomime and the Irish Question Jill A. Sullivan A mong the glitter and gauze of a Victorian pantomime, one of the central ingredients of a successful production was topical references, what I have referred to elsewhere as ‘social referencing’, a range of comments on socioeconomic and political matters of the day.1 The political references ranged from passing comments on recent scandal to extended commentary on policies. In addition, productions often included unscripted appearances by characters ‘made up’ to look like leading personages of the day
The first twenty years (1377-97) of Richar II's reign was characterised by war and rebellion, show trials, scandalous royalty, horrible murders, attempts to solve the Irish question and the making of England's oldest alliance. This richly-documented period offers exceptional opportunities and challenges to students, and the editor has selected material from a wide range of sources: well-known English chronicles, foreign chronicles, and legal, administrative and financial records. This book describes the complex domestic and international situation which confronted the young king, and offers guidance on the strengths and weaknesses of the reign's leading chronicles. Students of Richard II's reign are blessed with numerous written sources. This reign saw the last great flowering of medieval chronicle-writing.
problems that faced farmers such as the need to access new agricultural technologies and to expand the availability of credit. These new co-operatives had an immediate effect upon the people's working lives in rural districts. Moreover, a co-operative society also played an important part in framing how the rural economy functioned, created new gender norms, and made decisive contributions to the political culture of the time. Co-operation and the Irish question The late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries saw a great deal
dialogue would produce the type of Ireland we would all want to see – an Ireland with no one dominating.67 The Irish Question: a British problem? Even before taking charge of the SDLP, Hume had produced a considered case against the British guarantee and what was, in his mind, a direct product of that guarantee: the unionist veto. In ‘The Irish Question: a British problem’, an article which was published in the highly prestigious Foreign Affairs journal in late 1979, Hume bluntly argued that ‘the two greatest problems in Northern Ireland are the British guarantee … and
where they proved inadequate to the task, the state found alternative allies and agents within Irish society. This, in a nutshell, is the principal reason why the Irish land question was at the centre of the larger ‘Irish question’, in all its complexity, throughout the Union period, and why shifting formulations of the Irish land question reflected changing circumstances and challenges for the rulers of the state in seeking to make Ireland a safe and stable constituent of the United Kingdom.13 At the beginning of the Union era, Ireland’s population, already growing
Zealander; it taught me all I have ever needed to know about the insolubility of Ulster’s problems’. ‘Again and again’ he would recall this undergraduate exchange, but his ignorance of the ‘Irish question’ remained and was later revealed ‘when my father stumped me by asking for the Labour Party’s policy on Irish unity in the 1945 election campaign’.9 Despite his great intellectual curiosity, Healey viewed Ulster’s problems as unsolvable, and best forgotten. Yet it was Healey who complained about the lack of intelligence regarding the situation in Northern Ireland when he
the unusual position of having its long-standing ally, the Liberal party, in government. However, the general election that copper-fastened the primacy of the Liberal party resulted in such a resounding victory that the new government had no need for Irish support in the chamber. As a result, the Irish question was relegated to a lower priority than it had occupied for many years previous while a raft of legislation promised in the Liberal manifesto was put before parliament. For the Irish party leadership, having doggedly opposed a hostile government for ten years
strongly with nationalist discourse. Land was inextricably linked to the ‘national’ or Irish question, and controversies about the ownership of land grew acute in the aftermath of the Great Famine (c. 1845–49). It reached a crescendo during the prolonged period of agrarian unrest and civil disturbances that characterised the rolling land wars from the 1870s to 1890s. Tenant farmers sought redress for their grievances regarding land redistribution, rent and tenure. Land thus played a potent role in invigorating and reinforcing the nationalist movement against British
not appreciate this English view. The Irish were beginning to develop a true sense of nationalism in the modern sense of the word; the Irish Question would come to dominate British politics in the second half of the century. 4 As an English upper-class, Protestant, secular lady, Nightingale would meet resistance from Bridgeman from the very first time they came into contact. As well as their generally hostile attitude toward the English, Bridgeman and Croke disliked Nightingale personally and were proud of the encounters in which they
Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP). In November 1975 Convention supported a UUUC report that called for a restoration of majority rule and rejected power sharing and an institutionalised Irish dimension. Wilson himself had long been sympathetic to the idea of a united Ireland. His policy adviser, Bernard Donoughue, noted that Wilson had ‘radical instincts on the Irish question’ and in May 1974 had drafted his own ‘Doomsday Scenario’ to consider the possibility of British withdrawal. At one level this could be seen as in contradiction to the objective noted above