Project description
Historical significance of Hibernia and modern Irish identities
Political changes in Ireland, Northern Ireland, and the UK have sparked a debate on national symbols and Irish identity. Brexit has shifted the EU identity for Irish and Northern Irish citizens. Supported by the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) programme, the Visualising Hibernia project will study the historical significance of Hibernia, the female personification of Ireland, focusing on the period from c. 1770 to c. 1930. The project will explore how visual representations of Hibernia transcended political, sectarian, cultural, and religious boundaries in Ireland, revealing diverse Irish identities and their complex relationships with Britain and Europe. It will demonstrate how groups across the Irish political spectrum have used Hibernia, ranging from a Protestant minority seeking self-governance to Catholic and radical Republicans or Anglo-Irish cultural nationalists.
Objective
Changing political relations between Ireland, Northern Ireland, and the United Kingdom, and the attendant prospect of a united Ireland, have given rise to lively debate within political and public spheres on the capacity of Ireland’s national symbols to represent pluralist notions of Irish identity. Concurrently, the UK’s decision to leave the European Union has led to shifts in how Irish and Northern Irish citizens identify with the EU. Responding to such developments, ‘Visualising Hibernia’ aims to investigate how visual representations of Hibernia, the female personification of Ireland, historically transcended political, sectarian, cultural, and religious boundaries in Ireland and thereby reveal the historic diversity of Irish identities, as well as their complex relations with Britain and Europe. Focusing on the period from c.1770 to c.1930 ‘Visualising Hibernia’ will produce the first dedicated study of this highly significant but neglected figure in Irish cultural history and Anglo-Irish political relations.
As an inherently classical figure, Hibernia has typically been perceived as the ‘non-native’ embodiment of Ireland adopted by the country’s eighteenth-century ‘Protestant Ascendancy’ ruling elite or as fodder for nineteenth-century British political cartoonists. ‘Visualising Hibernia’ complicates such perceptions by foregrounding how groups across the Irish political spectrum employed the personification in the period c.1770-c.1930 ranging from a Protestant minority seeking self-governance under the British Crown to Catholic and radical republicans or Anglo-Irish cultural nationalists. It will be conducted under the supervision of Prof. Lynda Mulvin, an expert on classical antiquity and its reception, at UCD, a leading institute for research on Irish political and cultural history. It will result in a minimum of three peer-reviewed articles, an online multimedia exhibition, and communication activities including a podcast series.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques.
- humanitieshistory and archaeologyhistoryancient history
- agricultural sciencesagriculture, forestry, and fisheriesagricultureindustrial cropsfodder
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Keywords
Programme(s)
- HORIZON.1.2 - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) Main Programme
Funding Scheme
HORIZON-TMA-MSCA-PF-EF - HORIZON TMA MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships - European FellowshipsCoordinator
4 Dublin
Ireland