Modernism, Migration, and Irish-German Connections in the 1930s and 1940s: The Impact of Modern Physics and Dance on Ireland

Modernism is notoriously difficult to define (recent scholarship states that “(t)here is no such thing as modernity, only multiple modernities.”1 A number of features of modernity as defined by Michel Foucault, however, can be utilized to characterize this category as a phenomenon which is marked by developments such as a questioning or rejection of tradition; the prioritization of individualism, freedom, faith in inevitable social, scientific and technological progress, rationalization and professionalization.2 My interest is to look at modernity and migration in the context of Irish-German relations, focusing on the role of particular German-speaking immigrants to Ireland in the 1930s and 1940s and to what extent we can find examples of intermediaries of modernity coming to Ireland.