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Confessional Identity as National Boundary in National Historical Narratives: I reland and G ermany Compared
Author(s) -
Nagle Shane
Publication year - 2013
Publication title -
studies in ethnicity and nationalism
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.204
H-Index - 8
eISSN - 1754-9469
pISSN - 1473-8481
DOI - 10.1111/sena.12015
Subject(s) - confessional , national identity , narrative , identity (music) , protestantism , sociology , boundary (topology) , gender studies , aesthetics , political science , law , literature , art , politics , mathematical analysis , mathematics
This article explores the question of ‘boundary‐formation’ by examining the significance of historical narratives for defining the nation. Specifically, it compares the historical construction of religious or confessional identity as national boundary in the cases of I reland and G ermany in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The article examines the importance of this historically constructed national identity for rendering continuity to the nation's history and delineating the national ‘Other’, thereby establishing national particularity. The historical ‘joining’ of ‘Irishness’ to Catholic identity and ‘Germanness’ to Protestant identity, as well as providing cultural ‘cement’ for the nation, also had exclusionary implications.