Róisín Healy

Suicide in Early Modern and Modern Europe

This is a review of recent English- and German-language publications on suicide, both as an act and a subject of discourse, in the early and late modern periods. It argues that, while publications on the theme have increased considerably in the past two decades, the problematic character of the evidence for suicide has led to a focus on attitudes to suicide at the expense of empirical investigations. The latter have largely confirmed the link between social isolation and suicide, posited by Durkheim, but have revealed differences in patterns across social groups. The growth of lenient attitudes to suicide has proven to be more protracted and contested than originally believed. The ambivalent role of clergy, the persistence of religious sanctions against suicide, and continued efforts by the state to curb suicide all suggest that the term ‘hybridization’ better characterizes the changes over this period than the older term ‘secularization’. Finally, this review recommends that historians undertake further empirical investigations of suicide, where possible, and that they broaden suicide research to include suicidal behaviours and alternative responses to despair in order to identify the specific allure of suicide.

Small Nations and Colonial Peripheries in World War I

This edited volume examines World War I comparatively in both small nations and colonial peripheries. Chapters address subject nations within Europe such as Ireland and Poland; neutral states, such as Sweden and Spain; and colonies like German East Africa.This edited volume examines World War I comparatively in both small nations and colonial peripheries. Chapters address subject nations within Europe such as Ireland and Poland; neutral states, such as Sweden and Spain; and colonies like German East Africa.

The Home Rule Bills and Minorities Policy, 1886–1914

This chapter explores assertions of the parallel between Ireland and Poland in the context of the Home Rule Bills of 1886, 1893, and 1912 and the gradual division of Europe’s Great Powers into two political blocs. This period saw the emergence of reservations about the alleged parallel between the two countries. Frustrations with the slow progress of Home Rule and with the coercive practices of the British authorities encouraged advanced nationalists to assert, despite increased Germanisation and Russification measures, that the Irish were in a worse position than the Poles. Indeed, as World War I approached, nationalists interested in military assistance from Germany defended the increasingly repressive policy of the Prussians towards their Polish minority in order to assuage fears of the consequences of a German victory in the war.

From the United Irishmen Rebellion to the November Uprising in Poland, 1798–1832

This chapter examines the period from the United Irishmen Rebellion of 1798 to the November Uprising of 1830–31. The fact that Ireland underwent its own failed rebellion four years after the Uprising of Thaddeus Kościuszko allowed Wolfe Tone to compare himself to the Polish patriot, thereby launching the notion of a parallel between Ireland and Poland as victims of brutal oppression. The loss of Irish legislative independence in the Act of Union of 1800 made the parallel all the more apposite. References to Poland’s suffering in nationalist discourse abounded in subsequent decades, especially on the occasion of the November Uprising of 1830–31, which Daniel O’Connell welcomed, despite his opposition to violence.

From the January Uprising to the First Home Rule Bill, 1860–1886

This chapter examines of the outpouring of solidarity for the Poles during and after the January Uprising of 1863–64. Support for the rebels stemmed from both a belief in the right to self-determination and horror at attacks on the Catholic Church by the Russian authorities. Unlike the unification process in Italy, the Uprising in Poland posed no conflict between the combined commitment to nationalism and Catholicism of most Irish observers. Led by William Smith O’Brien, who visited Poland during the Uprising, Irish nationalists donated money to assist the Poles, but stopped short of sending troops there. The chapter closes by showing how the Kulturkampf in Prussian Poland, which followed German unification in 1871, consolidated Irish Catholic support for the Poles.

Paths to Statehood, 1914–1922

This chapter demonstrates that World War I further undermined Irish nationalist unity on the Polish question, with moderates celebrating the Entente as the champion of small nations, while advanced nationalists condemned Russia for committing atrocities against the Poles. Yet, in the aftermath of the Easter Rising, even moderate Irish nationalists lost faith in the British government and contrasted its delay in implementing Home Rule with its support for a new Polish state in the latter stages of the war. Sinn Fein used this contrast to discredit both the British government and the Irish Parliamentary Party in the elections of 1918. Following their success, Sinn Fein deputies sought to emulate the Poles in asserting Ireland’s right to self-determination on the international stage.

The Repeal Movement and Young Ireland, 1832–1860

This chapter deals with the years between the November Uprising of 1830–31 and the January Uprising of 1863–64. The mounting frustration of Irish nationalists with British governments, which failed to accede to O’Connell’s demand for the repeal of the Act of Union, strengthened identification with the Poles in these decades. Reports of poor government in Ireland, exemplified by the mass deaths of the Great Hunger, persuaded some British as well as Irish commentators that British rule in Ireland was as iniquitous as Russian rule in Poland. Strong critics of colonialism worldwide, members of the Young Ireland movement, most notably William Smith O’Brien, were particularly drawn to the notion of a shared experience of oppression.

The Era of the Partitions, 1772–1798

This chapter charts Irish responses to the partitions of Poland, in 1772, 1793, and 1795, by Russia, Prussia, and Austria. It argues that Edmund Burke’s condemnation of the partitions as an affront against human dignity and European norms of behaviour constituted an early example of Irish anti-colonialism. It then shows the crucial role of the United Irishmen of the 1790s in making the Polish cause popular in Ireland. Seeing themselves engaged in an analogous struggle for independence from their neighbour, the United Irishmen celebrated in particular the Polish constitution of 3 May 1791 and the Polish military hero, Tadeusz Kościuszko, who led a popular rebellion against foreign interference in 1794.

Introduction: Poland and Irish Anti-Colonialism

Healy explains the importance of the Poles, relative to other subject peoples like the Hungarians, within Irish nationalist discourse in the long nineteenth century. While Irish men and women had little direct contact with Poland, many believed that Ireland’s loss of political sovereignty in the Act of Union of 1800 and its experience of religious persecution were mirrored by developments in contemporary Poland. The introduction argues that the Irish nationalist assertion of this parallel should be considered anti-colonial, in that it reflected an insistence on the right to free cultural expression and self-determination in Poland as well as Ireland. Moreover, it was compatible with, and often accompanied by, a commitment to the freedom of non-European peoples.

From Commonwealth to Colony? Poland under Prussia

Prussia’s Polish provinces are a particularly promising site for an investigation of colonial connections in that their acquisition predated that of Germany’s overseas colonies from 1884 by over a century, far longer than was the case in Alsace or Schleswig. This makes it possible to examine the impact of Germany’s colonial empire in Africa and Asia on established patterns of Prussian rule in the east. The province of Royal Prussia, renamed West Prussia, came to the Hohenzollern monarchy in the first partition of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, in 1772, and the province of Poznania in the second partition, in 1793. Prussia extended its territory southward after the last partition, in 1795, which dissolved the rump Polish state entirely, but soon lost the territory to Napoleon’s Duchy of Warsaw in 1807. Apart from some small territorial adjustments, the Congress of Vienna confirmed Prussian rule over West Prussia and Poznania in 1815. While these became part of the new German Empire created in 1871 as a result of the process of unification, they remained constitutionally under Prussian rather than federal control. As the largest of the constituent states, Prussia also provided many of the personnel responsible for the acquisition and governance of overseas territories, which lay under federal control. These territories, known as protectorates, which were acquired from 1884, comprised South-West Africa, East Africa, Cameroon, Togo in Africa, Samoa and New Guinea in the Pacific and, finally, Kiaochow in China.