LIBERTY AND NATIONALISM IN IRELAND, 1798–1922

What was 'liberty' then? Most Irish political movements and parties between 1798 and 1922 proclaimed 'freedom' as their ultimate goal. The problem was that Protestants and Catholics, Unionists and nationalists, and indeed different currents of nationalism, each had a different vision of what 'true' liberty entailed. The preservation of the Union with Britain, the end of that Union, the terms under which either of such aims might be achieved, and (from 1921) both partition and the end of partition, were each identified with 'freedom'. Furthermore, the past was as controversial and divisive as both the present and the planning for any future settlement - for 'history' was about deciding who was to blame for one or the other of the many tragic developments in Ireland's past.