Hay, MarnieORCID: 0000-0002-7802-2096
(2011)
The propaganda of Na Fianna Éireann, 1909-26.
In: Shine Thompson, Mary, (ed.)
Young Irelands: Studies in children’s literature.
Four Courts Press, Dublin, Ireland, pp. 47-56.
ISBN 978-1-84682-141-7
In 1909 two Irish Protestant nationalist activists, Countess Constance Markievicz
(1868-1927) and Bulmer Hobson (1883-1969), established a nationalist youth
organisation called Na Fianna Éireann, or the Irish National Boy Scouts.2
The
foundation of the Fianna was an Irish nationalist manifestation of the proliferation of
‘pseudo-military youth groups’ that occurred in many western countries in the late
nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. These groups were not only part of the cult
of discipline, training and manliness that grew out of the menace of the coming war in
Europe,3
but also a reaction to a widely-perceived fin-de-siècle ‘decadence’. For
instance, the British Army’s poor performance against a force of South African
farmers during the Boer War (1899-1902) provoked much concern that British men
were in a state of decline. Fearing that they were losing their competitive edge in
industrial and military affairs and that their populations were deteriorating both
physically and morally, western countries like Britain began ‘to look to the health,
education and moral welfare of the rising generation’.4
The establishment of youth
groups was one way of dealing with the perceived problem.
Metadata
Item Type:
Book Section
Refereed:
Yes
Uncontrolled Keywords:
Ireland; early 20th century; nationalism; youth movements;