Nationality and local politics in late nineteenth-century Ireland: the case of County Westmeath

The work of K. Theodore Hoppen has forced historians of nineteenthcentury Ireland to question the role and significance of nationalism in politics, particularly local politics. Parochialism is for Hoppen the predominant political sentiment in Irish life. In the words of one reviewer, Charles Townshend, 'his general image is of an anarchic society pursuing its particular concerns in defiance of governments and revolutionaries alike’ Yet, as Townshend points out, this image cannot adequately explain the political mobilisation which followed from the Land War, apparently for national ends. Nor can it encompass the dual nature of this, and earlier, temporary mobilisations, 'movements that were simultaneously national and local, modern and traditional - in which nationalist rhetoric reinforced local claims, and the release of local energy could be tapped to sustain the nationalist claim.