Race, revival and revolution: defining the Irish Celt

This article considers how the idea of the ‘Celt’ came into being and how the term was leveraged both in service of racism and as a tool for constructing ethnic and political identities. ‘Celt’ is a broad category and this paper focuses specifically on Ireland. Definitions of Celticity came from both within and outside Irish culture and had a diversity of aims. This paper provides a necessary overview of the history of this broad and kaleidoscopic term. It will equip scholars with a better understanding of its use throughout history, particularly in the early twentieth century. After outlining the development of the ‘Celt’ as a racial and cultural category, the paper considers the meaning of Celticity as Ireland approached independence, with particular attention to the revolutionary era, c. 1913–23. The article examines the interplay between Anglo-Irish and revolutionary understandings of the ‘Celt’, and how the idea of a Celtic race was deployed selectively in diverse political and cultural contexts in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In some contexts, the word emphasised solidarity with global independence movements and anti-racist struggles, whilst in others it bolstered the logic of white supremacy. Rather than focusing solely on new engagements with primary texts, one of the aims of this article is to synthesise existing research into a broader narrative of ever-changing classifications and identities. Examining the meanings and uses of this kaleidoscopic term enhances our understanding of Irish identity in a period of political transition.