Introduction

Although Ireland is geographically isolated on the fringe of Europe and never experienced Roman occupation, it has experienced many waves of migration since the end of the Roman Empire. Norman, Scottish, and English migrants have come and interacted in a variety of ways with the extant Irish population. Today, Ireland is further influenced by new cultural forces which will provide more change in the new millennium with regard to ethnicity and, more importantly, the identity of the Irish. Although typically understood as a Celtic people, the Irish are an increasingly cosmopolitan European people as Irish emigrants return home and others seek to come to Ireland based on the recent and predicted future performance of the Irish economy. Will the phenomenon of the Celtic Tiger provide for a fundamental challenge to the existing sense of Irish national identity? Will recent migrations, profound economic changes, and recent archaeological findings make the Celtic basis of Irish national identity obsolete?

The thesis of this article is that Irish identity has undergone change that incorporates aspects of a new migratory identity while retaining a unique sense of self. This historic pattern will continue and, despite many economic and social benefits that have come with recent economic growth, the Irish will seek and retain their Celtic identity. While some theorists have previously assumed that a process of cultural displacement occurs when cultures come into contact if not conflict, existing cultures can integrate elements of new and differing cultures, yielding a hybrid culture that nonetheless maintains a traditional sense of national and cultural identity. In the case of the Irish, maintenance of a Celtic sense of identity continues even as the Celtic origins of Ireland are increasingly questioned and as the idealised Celtic world that has been imagined is increasingly integrating with a more cosmopolitan Western culture.

Celts and the Norman Migration

While a debate has recently emerged regarding the Celtic identity of the Irish in the era before the Norman invasion (see Callis 1997; Dietler 1994; James 1998 and 1999; Megaw and Megaw 1996), it is still commonly assumed that Irish society was Celtic until the Middle Ages. Although there were clearly contacts and exchanges on a cultural and personal level before the Norman invasion, 1169 represents the first major migration of the second millennium that challenged the fundamental nature of Irish society. Strongbow and the other Norman invaders - or as Martin (1993) identifies them, settlers - were initially invited in by Diarmait Mac Murchada, the defeated King of Leinster. The Normans have typically been viewed as intruders who fundamentally challenged the existing pattern of Irish kingships and began the process of British forays to control Ireland (Barry, Frame and Simms 1995; Flanagan 1989; Lydon 1998; Orpen 1911; Roche 1995). These invasions and migrations accelerated in later centuries, challenging not just the politics of medieval Ireland but also its identity as a people different from its neighbours in Britain and on the continent.

After the initial migration of Strongbow and other Normans who sought land and wealth in Ireland, King Henry II of England attempted to establish control over the Irish High Kings (Lydon 1998, 64; Orpen 1911, 247-284); or as Martin (1993, 41) describes it Henry II sought to curtail his over-mighty Norman subjects by allying himself with the native Irish rulers. While successful politically in both curtailing the autonomy of the Norman elite and establishing working relationships with native rulers, the intrusion of the King of England into Irish politics did not amount to the incorporation of Ireland into the British legal or cultural system. Martin (1993, 54) emphasises that many Irish viewed the Normans as welcome new arrivals who brought with them religious reform that made them quite popular with those who shared this interest. This reform movement had begun before the Normans arrived but was accelerated by their presence and influence. In addition, the marriage of Strongbow to the daughter of Diarmait and the marriage of other Normans to Irish wives quickly began a process of intermarriage that resulted in an ancestral and cultural fusion between the existing Irish population and the Norman settlers. Irish society, while incorporating many elements of Norman culture, integrated these new settlers successfully resulting in a continuity of existing Irish language and culture. Most importantly, the new Norman Irish quickly came to identify themselves as Irish and with the interests of Ireland (Lydon 1998, 67). From the Irish perspective, the new Norman presence was seen as a new part of the historic struggle between different clans for the pre-eminent position of clan leader in Ireland (Lydon 1998, 66).

The English Conquest and the Bifurcation of Identities

The successful integration of the Normans with the existing population did not completely destroy the extant Irish culture and allowed this primary culture to absorb that of the Normans. Such was not the case with the attempt by Henry VIII to gain direct and complete control over his Irish territory. This included an attempt to create the Church of Ireland and suppress monasteries and other forms of religious disloyalty to the new fusion of Church and State under Henry's rule as well as a policy of suppressing local lords and granting them new status after they had submitted to his primacy (Lydon 1998, 132-136; Quinn 1993). At this time, a dramatic increase in military presence and coercion on the part of the British crown made the relationship between the Irish (both the indigenous and the New Norman Irish) and the British government all the more tense. Thus, the sixteenth and seventeenth century attempts to inflict complete incorporation of Ireland under British rule began a process that continues to this day of British control and Irish resistance. The later English and Scottish settlers who came in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries did not (fully) integrate into the existing Irish culture. Instead, their conquest resulted in the development of a two-tiered society, where the most recent arrivals accrued land, wealth, and social status at the expense of the Old Irish population and earlier Norman immigrants. The different pattern of migration and conquest compared to earlier Norman settlements helps to explain why Ireland continues to suffer from social conflict generated from this wave of British migration.

By the nineteenth century, British control of Ireland resulted in the loss of the Irish language as a vernacular for many in Ireland. In addition, other elements of Irish culture that had been passed down for generations increasingly became marginalised by the new more dominant Victorian British culture. While many aspects of Irish culture (and especially its economy and social organisation) followed or conformed to British patterns, the Irish maintained a strong and unique sense of identity. They continued to pursue a separate political identity and destiny in the context of British colonial control. In the era of Parnell, Irish political interests focused on Home Rule within the Empire. As that movement faded, the Irish continued to distinguish their identity and interests from the British, even if they increasingly conformed to British patterns of culture.

By the turn of the century, Irish nationalism could no longer be maintained within the context of the British Empire. Instead, based on a separate national identity, which had in the nineteenth century become fused with the separate Catholic religious identity, the Irish sought complete independence and a sovereign state. Ultimately, the Gaelic revival sought to restore Gaelic culture and also proclaim Irish independence from British rule. After achieving independence in the form of the Free State, the Irish aspired to recreate the idealised Gaelic world of those who imagined it within the Gaelic revival in the form of active government policy (White 1999a).

Recent Migrations and the Challenge to Celtic Identity

Ireland is now undergoing a "silent revolution" (Inglehart 1979), where Irish traditions and national culture are increasingly challenged not just by external forces but also by domestic developments. Ireland's changing socio-economic conditions, spurred on in the last few years by what has become known as the Celtic Tiger phenomenon (O'Hearn 1997) have led to a fundamental challenge to an inherited sense of national identity that emphasised its Gaelic origins in the de Valera era (White 1997). Ireland has experienced a dramatic change not only in its economic fortunes, but many other aspects of society have also undergone significant change. For example, Ireland has increasingly become a secular society where the privileged position of the Catholic Church has been challenged by internal scandal and growing loss of faith, especially among the youth of Ireland (Dillon 1998). This secularisation has tended to undermine the fusion of nationalism and religion that O'Brien (1988) has cited as being a vital aspect of Irish nationalism in the past century.

One particular aspect of Ireland's successful economic strategy has had significant repercussions in terms of both the nature of Irish society as well as perceptions of Irish identity. Instead of pursuing an economic strategy of autarky and economic isolation, Ireland has integrated its economy with that of the European Union. Not only has this transformed Ireland's historic dependence on trade with Great Britain and opened up markets for its goods on the continent of Europe, but also, more importantly, it has opened Ireland to a flow of culture and ideas from the European mainland. Ireland is increasingly seen (and conceives itself) as a cosmopolitan centre of European culture, not an isolated and peripheral region that seeks to remain aloof from European developments and affairs (White 1999a).

Another significant aspect of change in Irish society today is the transformation of a historic demographic pattern that provided for a steady population since the famine. This is especially meaningful since the intruders or settlers who arrived over the past millennium have challenged Ireland’s identity. Unlike the past, where migration threatened the extant Celtic culture and identity of the Irish, the most recent developments in Irish demography and migration make it seem that Irish identity is more secure than at any time in its past (MacLaughlin 1997). After a dramatic decline in death rates and a subsequent drop in birth rates, immigration to Ireland has started to replace the waves of emigration that have affected the island for the past century. This seems to offer hope that Ireland's history of defying the logic of the demographic transition may end and that immigration may be replacing emigration as Ireland's increasingly successful economy attracts Irish and other workers to seek employment in its rapidly expanding labour market (White 1999b).

The Celtic Basis of Irish Identity

While the process of rapid social change is often associated with cultural displacement or loss, recent economic growth and the concomitant social changes that have come to Ireland have not destroyed Ireland's sense of national identity (White 1997). The identity of the Irish has endured and even prospered through a process of inclusion of the Other instead of maintaining an exclusionary conception sense of Self. The conclusion that the Celtic identity of the Irish is based, not on a simple inheritance, but on a complicated pattern of cultural interaction between those historically defined as Celts and other peoples is increasingly debated by historians and Celtic scholars (Callis 1997; Dietler 1994; Green 1995; James 1993, 1998, and 1999; Megaw and Megaw 1996; Sheehy 1980). Chapman captures the argument quite well:

While Celtic scholars have historically depicted Ireland as "the oldest and purest of the Celtic countries" (Chadwick 1997 [1971]), archaeologists and anthropologists are increasingly coming to the conclusion that Ireland's Celtic identity is based upon a relatively recently derived sense of self rather than a continuous historic past (Dietler 1994). Beginning in the Iron Age, the Celtic peoples of Europe shared a common language, art, and literary tradition, but they did not necessarily share a common sense of political identity (Fitzpatrick 1996; James 1999). James writes that "[t]he Celts were not a homogeneous family of peoples possessing a single, self-conscious ethnic identity." (1993, 9) The Irish emphasis on Celtic origins began in the eighteenth century with "Celtomania", as Cunliffe describes it (1997, 11). The Celtic origins of Irish identity were further developed in the nineteenth century as part of the Celtic Revival (Sheehy 1980). In the twentieth century, Ireland's Celtic origins and identity have been emphasised by de Valera and other nationalist politicians who see Ireland's unique Celtic origins as justification for the political aspirations of independence and inspiration for policy once statehood has been achieved (White 1999c).

Today, Ireland's Celtic origins and identity are utilised not so much for political gain or posturing, especially in the Irish Republic, but more as a source of national pride in terms of historic artistic and cultural achievement. While the Celtic Tiger has clearly produced a material society far different from the life of those identified as Celts in early Irish history, pride in contemporary Irish economic success reverts back to a cultural identity that predates the arrival of software and pharmaceuticals that resulted in export-led growth. Ireland is Celtic today because it conceived of itself as Celtic in the past. This is the "invented tradition" the Irish use to identify themselves and differentiate themselves from others (Hobsbawn and Ranger 1993).

Conclusion

Instead of solely focusing on a mythical Celtic past, the Irish now conceive of themselves as a society that promotes art and culture, that enjoys Irish as well as European sports, and that succeeds economically, based on its strategy of export-led growth, low taxation, and investment in human capital. Inevitably, the Irish are confronting the challenge of redefining their Celtic cultural identity in light of the many changes that have come to their society in recent years, but this task is not much more demanding than the changes required by the Norman invasion more than 800 years ago. While individuals may appear to have quite steady or stable conceptions of self and identity, societies experience an ongoing process of generational replacement, which allows subtle and sometimes not-so-subtle changes to occur over time. While much is transferred from one generation to the next, significant differences persist between groups throughout the life cycle (Abramson and Inglehart 1995). In the Irish case, this will allow the youth of today to redefine their Celtic identity in ways that will differ from their parents and grandparent's generation. This will also allow Ireland's Celtic civilisation to be not just an imagined social construct of the past but a vibrant identity that survives in postmodern Ireland. This identity has, since the time of the Norman invasion, become increasingly hybrid, based on the interaction of those identified as Celtic and those migratory groups identified as non-Celtic peoples who inhabit the island of Ireland and the remainder of Europe.

While James (1999, 136-144) may believe that present and future Irish claims to Celtic ancestry are bogus based on the divergence of material reality and a lack of common identity among those who lived in Ireland in the Iron Age, he does not appreciate the ability of each group to claim a common identity even if the historic basis for such claim is mythical (White 1999c) or imagined (Anderson 1991). Ricoeur contends that ideologies, such as nationalism, and utopian visions are "two opposing sides or complementary functions ... of social and cultural imagination." (1986, 1) In the case of the Irish, the Celtic nature of their national identity is not based on the reality of a common ancestry or a homogeneous culture in the pre-modern era, but the common belief and desire of the majority who live in Ireland to believe that this was so. If James' requirements were necessary for individuals to seek and have the shared aspirations and experiences of a nation, who could justly claim a common identity worthy of sovereignty and self-governance in our contemporary world? The Irish claim to a mythical national past - in this case Celtic - is similar to many other post-colonial societies which have created national myths in recent decades, striving to overthrow their colonial master and rediscover the wisdom of their ancestors. For the Irish and other post-colonial peoples, the mythical past becomes a necessary reality to create a modern sense of identity that provides the unity for society to function and govern itself. Irish Celtic identity is not based on a desire to live in the past but survive in the present and future.

An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Annual Conference of the Celtic Studies Association of North America, March 24, 2000 in St. Louis, Missouri. The author would like to thank many at the conference for their helpful comments and suggestions. The Classics Library of the University of Cincinnati made some of the research materials for this paper available, and I am appreciative of their assistance. I would especially like to thank Jose Maria Mantero, Robert Snyder, Anthony Sculimbrene, and Katherine Kirk, for their assistance in the writing and editing of this article. Of course, all errors and omissions are solely the responsibility of the author.

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Copyright © Timothy J. White, 2000
This edition copyright © Celtic Cultural Studies, 2000
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