Postnationalist Ireland: Politics, Culture, Philosophy

Most of the material in the present volume is original to it, though some sections of the chapters have appeared over the years in earlier, less developed versions. Portions of Postnationalism and Postmodernity’ appeared as ‘Postmodernity and Politics’ (in History of European Ideas, 1993) and as an Irish Times series, ‘Postmodern Ireland’ (1987). Parts of ‘Ideas of a Republic’ were first formulated in another Irish Times series of that name (August 1989) and in more developed form as ‘The Irish Heritage of the French Revolution: The Rights of the People and the Rights of Man’ (in Ireland and France, 1992). Earlier and shorter versions of Chapters 5, 6 and 7 appeared, respectively, as ‘The Fifth Province: Between the Local and the Global’ (in Migrations, 1990); ‘Myth and Motherland’ (in the Field Day series, 1984); and ‘Myth and Modernity in Irish Poetry’ (in Contemporary Irish Poetry, 1992). The final part of this volume comprises three lectures on three Irish thinkers who straddle the national-international divide, given at three conferences: The International George Berkeley Conference at the Sorbonne, 1985; The John Toland Conference of Eighteenth-Century Studies at University College Cork, 1992; and The International John Tyndall Conference at Carlow, 1993. Chapter 3, ‘Genealogy of the Republic’, was first delivered as a series of lectures as Visiting European Professor at Boston College in 1991.

My thanks to the various universities and publishers who solicited this material in its initial drafts; to my colleagues in the philosophy departments of University College Dublin and Boston College, and the following individuals who kindly read the manuscript and offered helpful advice: Simon Partridge of the European Regionalist Movement, Seamus Deane of Notre Dame University, Marianne Elliott of Liverpool University, Luke Gibbons of Dublin City University, Kevin Whelan of Boston College, and Tom Garvin and Attracta Ingram of the Politics Department at University College Dublin. The extent of my

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