GDL

This article explores relationships between imperialism and nationalism, illustrated by their interac-tions in the struggle over devolved Irish ‘Home Rule’ and partition between 1885 and 1925. Ireland’s par-tition border was primarily an imperial creation shaped by the prolonged, complex and unequal interactions between Irish nationalism and British imperialism. But partition was by no means an inevi-table outcome of a mutually constitutive and ambiguous relationship where British imperialism had long


characterised Ireland as a frontier zone but one within the core of empire. The Irish case serves as a re-minder of the role of imperial arbitration in modern state and nation-building, and also in sowing the seeds of contemporary conflicts. This argument draws on the recent ‘re-discovery of imperialism’ and is ad-vanced as a corrective to reading history backwards through the lenses of contemporary national states.It challenges the tendency to draw overly sharp temporal and spatial distinctions between imperialism


and nationalism as rival ideologies and practices.

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