ABSTRACT
In one form or another both national identity and nationalism have been constant foci of academic analysis and debate throughout the past century.1 Czeslaw Milosz suggests that, with hindsight, the word 'nationalism' might with equal justification have been substituted for 'Communism' as the 'spectre' which, the beginning of the 1848 Marx/Engels manifesto announced, 'is haunting Europe' (1992, 14). As the twenty-first century approaches, and despite predictions to the contrary, nationalism appears to have become more, rather than less, politically and historically significant. The consequences of the breakup of the Soviet Union, the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Balkan conflicts, continuing violence between Republican and Unionist communities in Northern Ireland, tensions between European Union and national sovereignty - all these are powerfully linked to issues of national identity and nationalism.
