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This paper examines the inner debate in Basque nationalism resulting from the Easter Rising between 1916 and 1918. Basque nationalists firmly believed that the Irish Revolution would affect the British war effort, the outcome of the Great War and hence Basque political vindication itself. The official nationalist leadership and its organ, Euzkadi, supported Great Britain, arguing a British military triumph in Ireland and in the Great War would bring a worldwide era of autonomy for national minorities. Pro-independence militants, however, not only expressed solidarity and outspoken support towards the rebels, but also associated their victory with a post-war scenario favourable to independence movements. This study focuses on the two competing Basque nationalist interpretations as presented in the media. Simultaneously, traditionalist parties (i.e. Carlists and Integrists) exacerbated nationalists’ differences in order to weaken a direct political rival. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Maria Edgeworth was an Anglo-Irish writer who was born in 1768 and died in 1849 and thus was able to witness the economic and ideological changes that shaped British society in the aftermath of the French Revolution. Though Edgeworth upheld utilitarian and enlightened ideas very similar to the ones inspiring the American Founding Fathers, studies on her oeuvre have never been interested in the vision of America reflected in her tales and novels. This paper analyses some of Edgeworth's little-explored narratives and corresponds to three different moments in her career. Edgeworth considered America to be a place where the individual could begin a new life away from home ("Tomorrow" [1804]), a tolerant country open to all religious creeds (Harrington [1817]) and an alternative motherland for the Irish during the Famine (Orlandino [1847]). The author was conditioned by the historical circumstances in Ireland, and she remained faithful to her pedagogic aim. However, instead of resorting to an idealisation of America, Edgeworth associated the new land with freedom and hope. In these narratives, and from a more or less serious point of view, she depicted America as a prize reserved for courageous hardworking people and even as an escape from the grim reality at home. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Eilís Ní Dhuibhne's first novel, The Bray House (1990), is a futuristic, dystopian fantasy that envisions Ireland, Great Britain and most of Western Europe - except for the northern territories - as already laid waste by nuclear disaster in an unspecified near future. In this paper, my intention is to consider how the narrative, like other futuristic and science-fiction stories, displaces the present onto an apocalyptic future so as to bring out and criticise present-day social, cultural and political trends, particularly, the institutional tendency in Ireland to package and market History as Heritage. Some of the issues raised by the novel which will be addressed here are: For what purposes and from what perspective and attitude is the past interpreted and translated? What happens when it is precisely our treasured lifestyles that we see dissected, interpreted and analysed as if they already formed part of an arcane past? How can we feel the sense of nostalgia that heritage-based analyses imply if we are asked to mourn what we have not yet lost? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]