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Nastri

Massimiliano (Max) Nastri

Email: mnastri01@qub.ac.uk

Thesis: Relations of Irish Nationalism with Italian Fascism.

The subject of this thesis is the formation of Fine Gael in 1933, particularly in relation to the Blueshirts; it also looks at the rumoured coups during the last months in power of Cumann na nGaedheal. The justification for a new approach to this already well-researched area comes from the recent availability of Vatican, Italian state, and religious sources, hitherto unused. I’m trying to demonstrate why the populist nationalism of de Valera’s Fianna Fail governments failed to attract the Italian Fascist regime, notwithstanding the precise reports the consul from Dublin sent to Rome. As for the Vatican and religious documents, I’m using them to demonstrate the shift in relation to de Valera of the Irish hierarchy, and its resistance to certain Vatican demands. In this research I shall also be focusing on the retrospective rearrangement of the nationalist-tradition emergent in the Cumann na nGaedheal – Blueshirts – Fine Gael transition, with the aim of showing the compatibility, affinity and identity of premises between proto-fascist European neo-nationalist movements at the end of XIX century and the Irish nationalist – separatist ‘tradition’.

Research Interests: late 19th century and early 20th Irish nationalism; Fascist and Vatican policies.

Supervisors: Dr Margaret O'Callaghan and Dr Peter McLoughlin