Birth of a Nation

I am completely biased when it comes to the word nation: I grew up in a very proud nation that does not forget its history. I love my country, and therefore, I am a nationalist. Whilst reading "What is a “nation”?", I couldn’t help be think that Benedict Anderson had slightly exaggerated his theory about imagined nations, or communities. Then I realized I’m a citizen of a part-time political nation and full-time football team.

After re-reading the text a few times, I couldn’t help but feel that Anderson’s theories were, sadly, a coffee-stained, diner napkin blueprint for my little nation. When Anderson points out citizens of the same nation hold “a mental image of their affinity”, I couldn’t help but think of every other poem written by Yeats in his heyday. A beautiful girl named Caitlín Ní Uallacháin or, Kathleen Ní Houlihan, inspired a play of the same name in 1912, written by Yeats and his feminist cohort, Lady Augusta Gregory. A few Irish poets wrote about browbeaten Kathleen and her long, ringlet red hair and soft, fair skin. The poet loved her so much; he would do anything to make her his wife. Yeats was the king of metaphor. Kathleen, in a green dress, with the pale skin, and red hair symbolized a united Ireland, something that, just like Kathleen, still doesn’t exist today. In Ethna Carbery's The Passing of the Gael (1906), Kathleen is a source of comfort for those who crossed oceans to start their lives afresh during the famine. When they longed for their home, they thought of Kathleen. Her image is still prevalent in Ireland today, especially with the on again-off again peace process in Northern Ireland, and the British Monarchy’s lack of control but full ownership over the six counties that live in that union.
This brings me to the mention of “fraternity” in the text and the prevalence of “print-capitalism” in Ireland around the time Kathleen was born into the minds of romantics. A revolution started amongst those wishing to fight for Kathleen. Underground newspapers were produced in the Irish language, not English, full of propaganda and patriotism. Irish was forbidden, and a sense of “comradeship” was instilled in the young men and women who were literate; could speak Irish; and wanted to rise up against British rule. It was smart and it worked. Troops were rallied, and a small nation was united against something much bigger than itself. One of those newspapers still prints as Gaeilge (in Irish), and is now tied to a political party, amalgamating its demographic.

Without getting completely away from point of this text, I agreed with pretty much all of Anderson’s theories. It’s stated that “…yet in the minds of each lives the image of their communion”. I had to smile when I read this. Aside from poor Kathleen, whose image has been used in poems, songs, and political speeches for ten decades, I could relate this particular quote to my imaged nation. Ireland is tiny, and it’s divided into counties no bigger than Boone, Callaway, and Osage tied together. This connects the people who live there even more which means, in a nation one quarter the size of Texas, with just four million people, everyone knows everyone. OK, maybe not everyone, but that doesn’t mean we can’t all just get along- for Kathleen’s sake.

For Carbery’s Passing of the Gael, follow this link & scroll down: http://mysite.verizon.net/cbladey/patat/Poetry.html#The%20Passing%20of%20the%20Gael

Similarly, here is another poem by James Clarence Mangan, Kathleen Ni Houlihan (1914): http://digital.library.villanova.edu/Cuala%20Press%20Broadside%20Collection/Broadside-00073.xml/Image?CurrentImage=2