Issaac Butt

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.