University of Galway History Research Seminar: ‘The Irish Face of British Politics: Agrarian “outrages”, Propaganda, and Reform 1830-1845 

University of Galway History Research Seminar: ‘The Irish Face of British Politics: Agrarian “outrages”, Propaganda, and Reform 1830-1845 

Dr Jay Roszman (University College Cork) 

Abstract

Some of the most compelling histories of nineteenth-century Ireland focus not simply on the ways that Britain shaped Ireland, but on the ways that Ireland shaped Britain and its empire. Implicit in these narratives is an understanding of the uneven relationship between the two islands and the various socio-political cleavages within them. This paper builds on this approach by tracing the way Irish problems – especially so-called ‘outrages’ – shaped the politics of the United Kingdom in somewhat underappreciated ways during a pivotal time of change that historians have labelled ‘the decade of reform.’ On the one hand, the paper traces the expanding surveillance of the British state, which tabulated and categorised agrarian violence so to better understand it. However, the focus on trying to alleviate Irish grievances also became a crucial point of contention, as Conservatives fretted about the ways the structures of the United Kingdom were changing by including Irish Catholics and governing in their interests. Thus, the second half of the paper highlights how at faction within the Conservative Party made use of agrarian violence as a tool of political propaganda, which they used to connect Whig governance, fears of imperial instability, and Catholic treachery. This propaganda became a crucial plank in the party’s political campaign and their return to power in 1841.

Biography

Dr Jay Roszman is lecturer in history at University College Cork. He holds an MA in Irish Studies from Queen’s University Belfast and a PhD from Carnegie Mellon University, where he was supervised by David W. Miller. His dissertation earned the Adele Dalsimer Prize for Distinguished Dissertation from the American Conference of Irish Studies (2015). He moved to Cork in 2018. Jay is the author of Outrage in the Age of Reform: Irish Agrarian Violence, Imperial Insecurity, and British Governing Policy, 1830-1845 (Cambridge University Press, 2022), and co-editor (with Heather Laird) of Dwellings in Nineteenth-Century Ireland (Liverpool University Press, 2023).

Registration

This is a hybrid event, in Room G010, Hardiman Research Building, University of Galway (ground floor). For those of you not able to attend in person, the talk will also be streamed on Zoom: https://universityofgalway-ie.zoom.us/j/98971649058.

To attend via Zoom, please register at: https://forms.office.com/e/6QfNfhnchw

This talk is part of the University of Galway History Seminar series.