Róisín Healy’s study of the perception of Poland in Ireland during the period from the first partition of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth to the establishment of the Irish Free State is an ambitious attempt to provide a comprehensive account of the way in which public opinion in Ireland, as well as throughout the Irish diaspora, responded to the complex political and social developments in Poland as both countries were experiencing some of the most dramatic and transformational times in their respective histories. In her analysis of the Irish perspective on Hiberno–Polish relations during the period, Healy uses a broad range of sources: she focuses primarily on reports and analyses published in the press, but she also makes reference to parliamentary debates, literary works, theatrical productions, etc. The structure of the book is strictly chronological: the author traces the key moments in Poland’s history during the period, and relates them to the changing circumstances of Ireland at the time, punctuating the narrative with references to turning points in the life of either nation to produce chapters entitled ‘From the United Irishmen Rebellion to the November Uprising in Poland, 1798–1832’or ‘From the January Uprising to the First Home Rule Bill, 1860–1886’. This approach, unorthodox as it might appear at first sight, is actually entirely justified: given that the study comes close to being something of a comparative history of Poland and Ireland during the period, the author needs to properly contextualise her material, and she does so, on the whole, in a clear and well-organised way, even if some of the points she makes about Polish history, while not in themselves inaccurate, might do with some further elucidation – for example, in relation to the reference to the role of the Polish parliament (sejm) and nobility (szlachta) in the election of Polish monarchs before and after the Union of Lublin (1569) (p. 21), or to the use of the terms ‘Austria’ vs. ‘Austria–Hungary’ in relation to the post-1867 period.

The central assumption underlying the Irish perception of Poland and Polish history during the period, and in consequence underpinning the book, is that, distant geographically as the two countries are, and limited as direct interchange between them had been throughout the centuries, Ireland and Poland shared a number of social, cultural, and historical characteristics which made for a special kind of connection between the two nations, a closeness that was particularly keenly felt in the period in question, as both countries ceased to be independent political entities at the end of the eighteenth century, developed strong nationalist movements throughout the nineteenth century, and eventually regained independence after the First World War. The two countries’ powerful sense of identity, defined largely in opposition to their larger and more powerful neighbours, their strong attachment to the Catholic faith, their pre-occupation with the often problematic and painful heritage of the past, and their Romantic belief in the sanctity of the national cause that may demand an ultimate sacrifice are only some of the features of Poland and Ireland that nineteenth-century Irish commentators quoted as they drew parallels between the two nations while discussing the harsh predicament experienced by the Polish people during the period.

This analogy, however, is valid only up to a point: a closer consideration of the two countries’ ethnic and social structures, cultural models, legal systems, and political regimes at various points in their history demonstrates that similarities between Ireland and Poland were only superficial, and that as the nineteenth century progressed, attempts to draw parallels between the two nations began to appear increasingly awkward – for example in relation to their responses to the Italian Risorgimento or to the First World War. Healy duly acknowledges those difficulties as she reports them, noting in particular the ‘uncertainty about the relationship between the Irish and Polish national causes in a fluid international environment’ (p. 227) in the latter part of the period, but she does not actually explicitly query the essential validity of the analogy itself. An important point, in this context, is that the level of freedom of expression enjoyed, on the whole, by the press and the general public in Ireland stands in stark contrast to the restrictions of censorship under which Polish public opinion, particularly in Russia and Prussia, operated for most of the nineteenth century.

A second difficulty with Healy’s book relates to the reference to anti-colonialism in its subtitle. Leaving aside the question of the merits or otherwise of the colonial interpretation of nineteenth-century Irish history, the perception of the Irish support for the Polish cause as an expression of an anti-colonial sentiment is highly problematic: would similar interpretations ever be applied to the national movements that led to the emergence of an independent Belgium and to the unification of Italy? The struggle of small and/or divided European nations against the dominance of multinational empires is one thing; anti-colonialism is quite another. Healy herself does not seem to feel altogether comfortable with this reading, for example when she touches on the issue of the attitude of the Irish to the broad British colonial project; in retrospect, one wonders what the reference to anti-colonialism actually adds to the argument, and whether the book would not have been better without it.

In formal terms, the Polish reader will appreciate a clear attempt to ensure the accuracy of the spellings of Polish surnames and placenames, even though Healy does not always get her linguistic details quite right: she is inconsistent on the notoriously problematic Markiewicz/Markievicz issue, she puzzlingly uses the Polish spelling of Poznań (p. 21) despite having explicitly stated (p. 13) that she would be using the German spelling of Posen as the one more frequently used in contemporary English-language publications, and she does not seem to realise (p. 146) that ‘St Troitsa’ is the Russian for Holy Trinity. All in all, the monograph strikes the reader as well-researched and thorough in matters of detail rather than particularly insightful in its interpretations, solid rather than inspiring, dutifully compiled rather than exciting – though Healy is capable of occasional flashes of inspired brilliance: comparing the appearance of the Virgin Mary, who reportedly spoke to a young Polish girl at Dietrichswalde (Gietrzwałd) in fluent Polish (1877) with her silent appearance at Knock (1879), Healy says: ‘Indeed, to have spoken, [Mary] would have had to weigh in on the language question. To speak in Irish would have been to acknowledge the language of some of her Mayo audience, but not the language of Irish nationalism’ (p. 185).