Past imperfect Episode 17: Jane Ohlmeyer on Ireland and India’s Intertwined Histories

Past Imperfect Episode 17 features SPJIMR Prof. Dinyar Patel in conversation with Jane Ohlmeyer, Erasmus Smiths Professor of Modern History at Trinity College Dublin and author of Making Ireland. Question: What unites a European island country of 5 million people and a subcontinental nation of 1.45 billion? Answer: A remarkably deep and complex history. Jane Ohlmeyer explains how the Irish—as both colonial victims and members of the colonial elite, army, and bureaucracy—shaped British India from the 1600s onward. Ireland gave India some of its staunchest allies, such as Annie Besant, and its most recalcitrant colonial governors, like Michael O’Dwyer of Punjab. And the Irish have influenced modern India in some profoundly unexpected ways. Bombay’s second governor—the Irishman Gerald Aungier—instilled its commercial ethos and transformed the city into a cosmopolitan entrepot. India’s “City of Dreams” retains several reminders of Irish inputs from nearly four centuries ago.