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Illuminating The Irish Free State: Nationalism, National Identity, And The Promotion Of The Shannon Hydroelectric Scheme, Mckayla Kay Sutton

Dissertations (1934 -)

This dissertation focuses on the ways in which the Shannon Hydroelectric Scheme influenced perceptions of Irishness in the fraught context of postcolonial nation building. The Irish Free State, established by a treaty with Great Britain in 1921, faced the difficult task of maintaining order and establishing stable institutions for the new state. One of the government's most audacious efforts to achieve these objectives was to construct the largest hydroelectric dam in the world on the River Shannon in 1925 with the help of German contractors from Siemens-Schuckert. The first half of the dissertation deals with several ideological issues brought to …