2020 Miegunyah Distinguished Visiting Fellowship Lecture: Brexit, Ireland and the Politics of Victimhood
In this lecture, Fintan O’Toole argues that Brexit espouses not just a nationalist narrative of England’s past, but a bizarrely borrowed version of Irish history.
Wednesday 11 March 2020
Mr Fintan O’Toole, columnist and Leonard L. Milberg Visiting Lecturer in Irish Letters, Princeton University
Brexit is altering the “totality of relationships” on the British-Irish archipelago, perhaps in fundamental ways. In this lecture, Fintan O’Toole argues that Brexit espouses not just a nationalist narrative of England’s past, but a bizarrely borrowed version of Irish history. At the same time as Ireland has been struggling to transcend a nationalism based on grievance and victimhood, a new English nationalism has emerged that nurtures an (arguably less justified) sense of oppression, shame and of resistance against a supposed colonial master.
This lecture is organised by the Gerry Higgins Chair in Irish Studies, School of Culture and Communication, Faculty of Arts