UC Santa Cruz

AbstractBetween Subject and Alien: Decolonization, Citizenship, and the Irish Diaspora in Interwar Britain, 1921-1937 Daniel McKenna Joesten

Historians of the British Empire have traditionally viewed the era of decolonization as the period following the end of the Second World War to the late 1960s. One of the critical issues that arose as a result of decolonization after WWII were questions of imperial migration and who had the right to domicile in Britain as a wide array of British subjects from various current and former colonies came to Britain in search of employment, opportunity, and a better life. Their presence, however, called into question Britain’s immigration practices, such as the free flow of people from the empire and what characteristics defined a British subject. Looking back to the 1920s and the establishment of the Irish Free State, it is evident that these issues were not new. This dissertation argues that, in crucial respects, the establishment of the Irish Free State raised questions around citizenship that shed light on the paradox of a global British identity. More specifically, this dissertation highlights an earlier case of decolonization that raised tough, fundamental questions about imperial belonging versus local autonomy, which in turn had implications for migratory restrictions that we usually associate with the era of postwar decolonization and Commonwealth migration to Britain. This dissertation examines the experiences of Irish migrants and the Irish diaspora in interwar Britain through the framework of decolonization studies, applying several theoretical concepts that have emerged in recent studies of the postwar British Empire to the establishment of the Irish Free State decades earlier. This includes grappling with the legacy and consequences of the hard-fought debates between anti-colonial nationalists and British officials and the interdependence of the Irish Free State and Britain before, during, and after decolonization. Race relations, which had a lasting impact on Irish migrants and the diaspora in interwar Britain as the Irish were continuously racialized and discriminated against, also figure significantly in this study. More broadly, there is a continuity between interwar and postwar colonial subjects as, on the individual level, they sought the rights to free movement, domicile, and equal treatment across the empire, including in Britain. The cases examined throughout each of the following chapters demonstrate the limitations of inclusiveness concerning imperial migration during the interwar period and illustrate that certain classes of Irish migrants did not fit into the changing conceptions of the ideal British subject. Moreover, the Irish experiences explored in this dissertation are a case of imperial and postcolonial migration and an early example of Britain attempting to discriminate between different classes of British subjects in the metropole. Finally, this dissertation recounts how the British state defined and policed the boundaries of nationality, citizenship, subjecthood, and borders in interwar Britain, and how the Irish maneuvered within those shifting boundaries. As these categories were in flux, and ill-defined, this dissertation shows how the British state and the Irish negotiated such definitions and boundaries in practice throughout the interwar period.