Editors’ Introduction

Ireland and empire is now one of the most vibrant fields of inquiry in Irish Studies, reflecting in part a burgeoning interest in imperial topics across the disciplines in European and American universities in the last twenty years. Inspired by Edward Said and postcolonial studies, much of the late-twentieth-century work on the British, French, and other empires focused on placing empire and imperial themes within national literatures and histories in order to blur distinctions and divides between domestic society and the colonial world. The writing of empire into modern Irish literature and history proved somewhat contentious at first, producing a vibrant and far-ranging debate on whether or not Ireland after the early modern period could usefully be considered a colony and on the colonial and/or postcolonial affiliations of Irish nationalists and the Irish diaspora