This treasured island: Irish nationalist propaganda aimed at children and youth, 1910-16

Bulmer Hobson (1883-1969), a prolific writer and editor of Irish nationalist propaganda and co-founder of the nationalist youth organisation Na Fianna Éireann, knew from personal experience the profound effect that certain reading material could have on a youth. The son of a Gladstonian home ruler, he grew up in a North Belfast Quaker family who ‘argued everything’, ‘discussed everything with good temper’, and barred no opinion. It was, however, the reading material recommended by his neighbours, the poets Alice Milligan (1866-1953) and Ethna Carbery (pseudonym of Anna Johnston) (1866-1902), that started the schoolboy’s conversion to advanced nationalism. These publications included Standish O’Grady’s books based on Irish mythology, Milligan and Carbery’s nationalist newspaper Shan Van Vocht, and the writings of Theobald Wolfe Tone (1763-98). They convinced Hobson that Ireland was not just an island apart, but a nation apart – and that his treasured island nation should become fully independent of the United Kingdom