Transnational activism, solidarity and Ireland: an introduction

At the time of writing, Ireland’s much publicised support for global movements against racism, apartheid and genocide continues to draw both international praise and condemnation. Its overwhelming support for the people of Palestine in the face of current Israeli military offensives, for example, is lauded by like-minded activists, while being derided by those in defence of the actions of the Israeli state.Footnote1 A few years earlier, Ireland was at the centre of a transnational network expressing solidarity with Irish women’s demands for reproductive rights. While feminists globally were mobilised in support of the 2018 Repeal the 8th campaign, it was Irish activists’ effective harnessing of social media platforms to call the diaspora “home” to vote in the ultimately successful referendum for abortion rights that lent the movement its reputation for internationalism. These contemporary experiences of transnational activism build on an array of historical precedents. Ireland has historically constituted both a site of “activism” and a node within broader transnational histories of protest and contention. It has also occupied a privileged location in the political and utopian imaginary of transnational social movements on both the political left and right, from anti-colonial movements to white settler nationalisms. Most prominently, solidarity with Irish republicanism in its various forms has been expressed by movements across the globe since the late nineteenth century. At the same time, and as referenced above, activists in Ireland have also expressed solidarity with causes and movements elsewhere in the world. In this special issue of Irish Studies Review on “Transnational activism, solidarity and Ireland,” we survey some of Ireland’s historical global political entanglements...