This is a very useful and lucidly written study of the interplay between the printed word and the formation of Irish identity from the late eighteenth century to the first decade of the independent Irish state. Embedding the author’s own research into what is to some extent a synthesis of existing scholarship, it provides both a valuable overview and an in-depth exploration of (a) competing interpretations of ‘Irishness’ over more than a century and (b) the contribution of literacy and literature to these interpretations.

The primary material used in this study ranges widely – personal and state papers; the writings of literary and political figures; school textbooks issued by the Commissioners of National Education; and contemporary newspapers and periodicals. Scholarship by (inter alia) English, Foster, Maume and Privilege provides context and comparisons, a satisfactory balance being maintained between literary and historical scholarship. Bringing the nation to book (possibly more suitable as the work’s main title than its subtitle) is arranged chronologically but with each chapter taking an appropriate thematic approach: the interplay between textual and oral culture (and nationalism) from 1790 to 1850 (chapter 1); the impact of rising literacy up to the 1890s (chapter 2); the competition between ‘Englishness’, Gaelicism and Catholicism from the 1880s to 1922 (chapters 3 and 4); and the continuation of this debate – epitomised in the establishment of censorship – in the first decade of independence (chapter 5 and afterword).

Possibly the least satisfying section of the work (in this reviewer’s opinion, at least) is in the first two chapters where there is far less original interpretation than in the remainder of the book. Despite, for instance, discussion of the United Irish movement’s publication of revolutionary verse in the 1790s, there is little recognition of the shaping and reflection of popular identity by the Irish and English language street ballads produced island-wide from the late eighteenth century onwards – a subject well-covered by historians since Jean-Denis Zimmerman’s Songs of Irish Rebellion (Dublin, 1967). Similarly, the work’s treatment of the class-restricted outlook of Young Ireland is not new, having long since been teased out in Richard Davis’s Young Ireland movement (Dublin, 1988) and in Malcolm Brown’s Politics of Irish literature (London, 1972). On the other hand, there is a particularly useful dissection of both contemporary school texts and the writings of cultural nationalists of many hues, exposing the dilemma faced equally by the state and its enemies – i.e., how to foster literacy while simultaneously controlling its political and social effects through shaping popular reading tastes. In sum, these first two chapters accomplish what they set out to do – i.e., to contextualise the book’s ensuing discussion of orality and print, the consumption of ‘low’ and ‘high’ literature, and the varied efforts to shape identity through literary means.

Murphy’s expertise in contextualising later nineteenth century Irish writings, and in tracing the complex shifts in interpretations of ‘Irishness’, comes into its own in the final three chapters and afterword. The centrality of religion in shaping identity through the control of popular literary taste informs the discussion of the ongoing campaign against ‘objectionable literature’ from the 1890s until the Censorship of Publications Act of 1929. But the limitations of such control are also rightly underlined (though perhaps this might be given even more attention) – the lack of popular support for the Catholic Truth Society of Ireland (1899 – ) and the continuing public consumption of tabloid English publications. Focusing on Yeats as a pivotal figure, but giving due attention to others including Samuel Ferguson, John O’Leary, Edward Dowden, Frederick Ryan, Patrick Pearse, Thomas Clarke and – later – James Joyce, the book pursues further interlocking yet distinct themes. Was there, for instance, a place for non-Irish literature in the shaping of Irish identity? And what exactly determined this Irishness? Was Irish literature the work of Irish-born authors, or of non-Irish authors writing about Ireland? Must Irish literature be written in the Irish language? Must it deal with the (apparently) great and glorious past? Should it be cosmopolitan or specifically Irish? Should it be aimed at a broad popular audience – or could nationality be better served by promoting the work of a small, elite and committed few?

Despite the new Irish state’s opting in 1922 for a sense of Catholic and Gaelic identity, Andrew Murphy’s useful and readable work shows convincingly that from the early nineteenth century onwards all debates about Irish identity were ultimately without resolution. From Young Ireland who called for the revival of the Irish language (but could not themselves speak it), to Yeats who repeatedly changed his mind about the links between literature and nationhood, to Joyce who rejected and up-ended many literary and nationalist canons to create in his writings a more flexible sense of Irishness – all posed questions that are still relevant almost a century after the book’s finishing point in 1930.