Issaac Butt

by Alan O'Day

This study addresses the themes underpinning the career of 19th century Irish nationalist Isaac Butt, suggesting that he is a complex figure who is best understood in the context of an age before mass mobilization of popular sentiment and one who attempted with varying successes to guide the nation along a path where its peoples shared mutual respect and tolerance. In the short-run he seemed an anachronism but over the longer-term many of his hopes were enshrined in twenty-first century Ireland.

128 pages, Paperback

First published May 28, 2014

About the author

Alan Earle O’Day received his AB from the University of Michigan (1962) and his MA from Roosevelt University (1965). After two years of doctoral study at Northwestern University, he went to London, where he completed his PhD at King’s College, University of London (1971). After holding a succession of short-term academic appointments at the universities of Newcastle, Salford, and East Anglia, and two years at Universität Giessen in Germany, he took a position at North London Polytechnic (now London Metropolitan University) in 1976, where he remained until his retirement in 2001.