Interesting article from Trinity Professor Jane Ohlmeyer on Ireland’s complicated relationship with the British Empire. She covers a lot of important points (it is very difficult to cover all points in one article) with some points worth exploring more https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/ireland-has-yet-to-come-to-terms-with-its-imperial-past-1.4444146

Due to Ireland’s enduring r’ships with Britain and its white settler colonial societies there is an implicit focus on Empire through UK/US lenses. While their #BLM reckonings this year - on ongoing racial inequalities - may be different from Ireland there are connections.

Anti-Black racism is a legacy of European modernity and esp the Transatlantic slave trade. It has not gone away in the US, UK etc but in Ireland it takes different form due to the lack of a large, historic Black community.

Regardless, Black Irish people still experience racism

Another interesting point is Ireland’s entanglement with the British Empire outside of the well trodden ground of North America and the Caribbean. As Prof Ohlmeyer notwd there is a lot less known of the Irish involvement in India and non-white settler colonial societies.

A feature that is quite uncomfortable for many of us to acknowledge is (1) how recent Ireland’s involvement with massacres in places like India is and (2) how similar to Irish experiences were some of the acts perpetrated through the British empire by Irish soldiers.

Leading to Prof Ohlmeyer’s point re Ireland being a ‘laboratory’ for empire. Irish experiences of plantation, famine, massacre, partition, administration and policing became some of our biggest exports to the rest of the British Empire. Often including Irish personnel.

Irish people suffered through the brutality of the British Empire but some Irish people (Catholic and Protestant) were also involved in benefiting from the exploits of Empire. Those involvements varied and fluctuated widely, even within the same person’s lifetime.

A few issues that were not explored - either at all or in detail - that are worth considering (1) our preoccupation with static ideas of bounded national identity don’t reflect how many ppl viewed themselves and those around them. Identity is much more flexible and conditional.

(2) It was not anachronistic before the formation of the modern Irish state for people to view themselves as both British and Irish, of even being British soldiers and Irish nationalist. Identity has been become more bounded since 1920. (3) Irish people had many roles in Empires

that were not the British Empire. Across many contexts, the Irish were soldiers within the Spanish and French Empires, traders within the Portuguese Empire, plantation owners in the Danish colonies. They were also key personnel within the colonial missions of the Catholic Church.

(4) Lastly, it is still amazing how often the 6 counties are left out of these articles. The part of Ireland that continues to be retained with Britain, the most heavily planted and with enduring divisions but also the most potential to present the complicated nature of Empire.