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Contributor:

Professor Jane Ohlmeyer

Talk Title:

Partition: Imperial Contexts

Talk Synopsis:

This talk explores ‘the imperial contexts of partition and… the interconnections between Ireland and India’. It looks at how the Government of Ireland Act ‘formed the basis of the legislation that partitioned India and Pakistan’ and the ways in which Irish people facilitated British rule in India. It also describes some of the links between Irish nationalists and their Indian counterparts, suggesting that ‘the Irish… taught the Indians their ABC of freedom fighting’. It details how the ‘shared imperial histories of Ireland and India’ are still apparent in street names, buildings and statues. And it concludes by noting how one of Lord Mountbatten’s last official functions as Governor General of India was with Eamon De Valera and Jawaharlal Nehru – something that Professor Ohlmeyer suggests was ‘rather fitting… given the part played by Ireland in the breakup of the British Empire.’

Short Biography:

Professor Jane Ohlmeyer is Erasmus Smith's Professor of Modern History at Trinity College Dublin and current Director of the Trinity Long Room Hub Arts and Humanities Research Institute

Further Reading:

Ireland, India and the Empire: 1780-1914 – C. A. Bayly
Imperial Affinities: Nineteenth-Century Analogies and Exchanges Between India and Ireland – S. B Cook
Irish Imperial Networks: Migration, Social Communication and Exchange in Nineteenth-Century India – Barry Crosbie
Ireland, India and the British Empire – Jane Ohlmeyer, in Studies in People’s History, 2.2. (2015)
Ireland, India and empire. Indo-Irish radical connections, 1919-64 - Kate O’Malley
Ireland and India: nationalism, empire and memory – Michael Silvestri

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