Imagining Ireland's Future, 1870-1914: Home Rule, Utopia, Dystopia [Paperback]

This book attempts to delve into the connection between imagination and politics, and examines the many expectations and fears engendered by the Irish home rule debate. More specifically, it assesses the ways politicians, artists and writers in Ireland, Britain and its empire imagined how self-government would work in Ireland after the restitution of an Irish parliament. What did home rulers want? What were British supporters of Irish self-government willing to offer? What did home rule mean not only to those who advocated it but also to those who opposed it?Introduction.- Home Rule Imagined by Its Champions.- The Future of Ireland in the Pro-home Rule Press.- Irish Self-Government Further Imagined: Pro-home Rule Fiction.- Home Rule as an Anti-utopia: Advanced Nationalism and the Future of Ireland.- Home Rule as Dystopia: What Unionists Feared Would Happen Under Irish Self-Rule.- Reaching Out to New Converts, Providing an Outlet for New Voices: The Use of Images and Fiction in the Debate on Irelands Future.- British Positivists and the Prospect of Home Rule.- Michael Davitt, Utopianism and Home Rule.- William Morris and Irish Home Rule.- Epilogue.

“The book is framed by the idea of utopianism, which Collombier defines as the hopes and fears through which people envision the future. ... the work is well-situated within the context of both historiography on Irish home rule and scholarship on changing literary trends of the turn of the century.” (Katherine Haldane Grenier, Victorian Studies, Vol. 66 (4), 2024)

Pauline Collombier is Associate Professor at the University of Strasbourg, France.This book attempts to delve into the connection between imagination and politics, and examines the many expectations and fears engendered by the Irish home rule debate. Morel3,