The Dictionary of Canadian Biography and the Irish Diaspora

Abstract

How do dictionaries of national biography fit into the context of transnational historical studies? This question is particularly apposite at a time when the very idea of transnationalism is being challenged by the resurgence of atavistic and frequently intolerant forms of nationalism, exemplified in varying degrees by the British withdrawal from the European Union, the election of Donald Trump as President of the United States of America, the politics of leaders such as Vladimir Putin, Tayyip Erdogan, and Viktor Orbán, and the rise of extreme right-wing parties in western Europe. As the post–World War II liberal order threatens to unravel, it is perhaps worthwhile remembering that there is nationalism, and then there is nationalism. ‘When nationalism stunts the growth, and embitters the generous spirit which alone can produce generous and enduring fruits of literature’, wrote the Irish Canadian politician and poet Thomas D’Arcy McGee in 1867, ‘then it becomes a curse rather than a gain to the people among whom it may find favour, and to every other people who may have relations with such a bigoted, one-sided nationality.’1 The kind of nationalism that McGee endorsed had been expressed by his mentor, Charles Gavan Duffy, more than two decades earlier: