2 Early modern violence from memory to history
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Ethan H. Shagan
Abstract
The seventeenth century is alive in Ireland in ways like few other places in the modern world. This chapter reflects a moment on the relationship between the two frameworks for early modern Irish history proposed in the 1980s in a famous historiographical debate between Steven Ellis and Brendan Bradshaw. It talks about the problem of violence as it moves from memory to history, as a way of suggesting that other European and Atlantic historians have been down roads that are at least superficially similar. The chapter then talks about what it might mean to write about the 1641 massacres and other instances of largescale early modern violence in the post-sectarian climate of the twenty-first century. It suggests that Ellis's model is not the only one and that Bradshaw was not wrong to acknowledge the long shadow of historical violence.
Abstract
The seventeenth century is alive in Ireland in ways like few other places in the modern world. This chapter reflects a moment on the relationship between the two frameworks for early modern Irish history proposed in the 1980s in a famous historiographical debate between Steven Ellis and Brendan Bradshaw. It talks about the problem of violence as it moves from memory to history, as a way of suggesting that other European and Atlantic historians have been down roads that are at least superficially similar. The chapter then talks about what it might mean to write about the 1641 massacres and other instances of largescale early modern violence in the post-sectarian climate of the twenty-first century. It suggests that Ellis's model is not the only one and that Bradshaw was not wrong to acknowledge the long shadow of historical violence.
Chapters in this book
- Front matter i
- Dedication v
- Contents vii
- List of figures ix
- List of contributors xi
- Series editors’ preface xv
- Acknowledgements xvii
- 1 Introduction – 1641 1
- 2 Early modern violence from memory to history 17
- 3 The ‘1641 massacres’ 37
- 4 1641 in a colonial context 52
- 5 Towards a cultural geography of the 1641 rising/rebellion 71
- 6 Out of the blue 95
- 7 News from Ireland 115
- 8 Performative violence and the politics of violence in the 1641 depositions 134
- 9 Atrocities in the Thirty Years War 153
- 10 Why remember terror? 176
- 11 Language and conflict in the French Wars of Religion 197
- 12 How to make a successful plantation 219
- 13 An Irish Black Legend 236
- 14 Afterword 254
- Index 274
Chapters in this book
- Front matter i
- Dedication v
- Contents vii
- List of figures ix
- List of contributors xi
- Series editors’ preface xv
- Acknowledgements xvii
- 1 Introduction – 1641 1
- 2 Early modern violence from memory to history 17
- 3 The ‘1641 massacres’ 37
- 4 1641 in a colonial context 52
- 5 Towards a cultural geography of the 1641 rising/rebellion 71
- 6 Out of the blue 95
- 7 News from Ireland 115
- 8 Performative violence and the politics of violence in the 1641 depositions 134
- 9 Atrocities in the Thirty Years War 153
- 10 Why remember terror? 176
- 11 Language and conflict in the French Wars of Religion 197
- 12 How to make a successful plantation 219
- 13 An Irish Black Legend 236
- 14 Afterword 254
- Index 274
