Dhammaloka in the media

“He thrust a hand inside his robe and, drawing out a small, fat book, laid it in my lap. It contained more than a hundred newspaper clippings, bearing witness to the truth of nearly every assertion he had made.”
– Harry Franck, A Vagabond Journey Around the World (1910), describing a meeting with Dhammaloka

U Dhammaloka was probably born Laurence Carroll, in Booterstown (near Dublin), in 1856. He was an Irish emigrant, a hobo (migrant worker) in the US, an Atlantic and Pacific sailor, a Buddhist monk and an anti-colonial celebrity, active in the countries we now call Sri Lanka, India, Bangladesh, Burma / Myanmar, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, China, Japan and Australia – perhaps also Nepal, Cambodia / Kampuchea and Tibet. He had at least five aliases, a 25-year gap in his biography, was put under police and government surveillance, was tried for sedition, the subject of a proto-extradition request, faked his own death and eventually disappeared in 1913 or 1914.

Three researchers – Burma Studies specialist Alicia Turner, Japanologist Brian Bocking and social movements researcher Laurence Cox – spent a decade each, with a wide network of other researchers, trying to track down this elusive and turbulent monk. The result was published as The Irish Buddhist in 2020 by Oxford University Press. Since then Dhammaloka’s story has been widely told in podcasts, videos and essays talking about different aspects of his life, and by reviewers. There’s a full list here but this is a selection of some of the best:

Podcasts

Myanmar Musings podcast – Dhammaloka and Burma

Plastic Podcasts podcast – Dhammaloka as Irish emigrant

Mindful Cranks podcast – Dhammaloka as Buddhist

New Books in SE Asian Studies podcast – Dhammaloka and Buddhist Studies

Nonviolence Radio show and podcast – Dhammaloka as activist

Dhammaloka turns up in at least another five podcasts. In keeping with his own practice, they don’t all acknowledge where the research came from or name the book – and some of those stray quite far from the truth in pursuit of a good story…

Videos

Belongg (Indian LGBTQ+ activists) book talk / video – book reading

Liu Institute lecture / video – Buddhism and opposition to empire

EPIC Irish Emigration Museum lecture/video – general talk

University College Cork Study of Religions book launch / video – book launch

UCD Asia-Pacific Research Network video – Buddhism and Ireland

Transnational Network of Theravada Studies / Shan State Buddhist University video – for Buddhist Studies scholars

SIETAR Southeast Asia Book Club video – religion and intercultural exchange

…ah but you should have seen the ones that got away, livestreamed but not online…

Essays

Aeon: probably the best overview

Discover Society: “Imagining a new world – the lost futures of Asia after Empire”

OpenDemocracy / Transformation: Dhammaloka’s activist practice

Irish History Compressed: Dhammaloka’s sedition trial and the imperial crisis of 1910-11

Secular Buddhism: Dhammaloka as Buddhist ancestor

ROARMag: “The forgotten futures of anti-colonial internationalism”

Reviews

Tunku Varadarajan for the Wall Street Journal (!)

John L Murphy for Spectrum Culture

Myozan Kodo / Ian Kilroy for the Irish Independent

Tadhg Foley for the Dublin Review of Books

Brendan McNamara for Estudios Irlandeses

Douglas Ober for the Journal of Global Buddhism

Plus another 15 reviews and counting!

Twitter

Dhammaloka would absolutely have used Twitter – at least up to the point Musk bought it. You can follow him at @DhammalokaU – a few good stories in the archives there if you can find them…

Advertisement

“The Irish Buddhist” reviews, videos, podcasts, essays…

#1 Best New Irish Biography to read in 2021

Spectrum Culture rating

Reviews of the book:

• Tunku Varadarajan for the Wall Street Journal
• John Delury for Global Asia
• Ian Kilroy / Myozan Kodo for the Irish Independent
• John L Murphy for Spectrum Culture
• Tadhg Foley for the Dublin Review of Books
• Daniel Seery for Dublin Inquirer
• Douglas Ober for the Journal of Global Buddhism
• Victor Forte for the Journal of Buddhist Ethics
• Brendan McNamara for Estudios Irlandeses
• Joe Culley for History Ireland
• Joie Szu-Chiao Chen for Buddhadharma
• Taylor McNeil for TuftsNow
• Acharya Samaneti for The Tattooed Buddha
• Thomas E Kingston’s 2020 in books
• Olivia Porter in Contemporary Buddhism (paywall)
• Elizabeth J Harris in NUMEN (paywall)
• Joseph Woods for the Irish Times (paywall)
• Ruben Flores for the Irish Journal of Sociology (paywall)
• John Bowman for the Middle Way (paywall)
• Michael Gillingham for Irish Studies Review (paywall)
• Seán William Gannon for Australasian Journal of Irish Studies

Videos, podcasts etc:

• Myanmar Musings podcast
• Plastic Podcasts podcast
• Mindful Cranks podcast
• New Books in SE Asian Studies podcast
• Nonviolence Radio show and podcast
• University College Cork Study of Religions book launch / video
• Belongg (Indian LGBTQ+ activists) book talk / video
• Liu Institute Notre Dame video
• Transnational Network of Theravada Studies / Shan State Buddhist University video
• UCD Asia-Pacific Research Network video
• SIETAR Southeast Asia Book Club video
• EPIC Irish Emigration Museum lecture (video)
• Blindboy podcast
• Out of Ireland podcast
• We, the Irish podcast (Ep 12)
• Also discussed in this Echo Chamber podcast about social movements
• … and this Irish Left Archive podcast about radical publishing
• … and on RTE’s Late Debate books discussion (45 mins in)

Online essays:

• Aeon: “Blue-eyed Buddhist: the story of a working-class radical from Ireland who became a celebrated monk and challenged the British Empire in Asia”
• Discover Society: “Imagining a new world – the lost futures of Asia after Empire”
• OpenDemocracy / Transformation: “The Irish Buddhist monk who faced down the British empire”
• Irish History Compressed: “When Rangoon defended an Irishman challenging the British empire”
• Secular Buddhism: “A secular Buddhist ancestor?”
• Oxford University Press: “Why an Irish Buddhist resisted empire in Burma”
• ROARMag: “The forgotten futures of anti-colonial internationalism”
• RTÉ Brainstorm: “The Irish Buddhist who ended up on trial in Burma in 1911”
• Shepherd.com: “The best books on Buddhism and the west”

Availability:

• Hardcopy at 30% off with code AAFLYG6 from the OUP website (choose your location at the top of their page)
• Ebooks direct from most of the usual sources

“The Irish Buddhist” is out!

The Irish Buddhist: the Forgotten Monk who Faced Down the British Empire is out! We hope you enjoy it.

The hardcopy edition is available now around the world, from the (socially distanced) OUP warehouses. There’s a 30% discount for the hardcopy, available with the code AAFLYG6 from the OUP site ($27.97 / about €20 / £18.19). You can also get it in ebook (various formats but most at / under $25/€25/£20).

[Cover image: Dhammaloka in Rangoon in late 1901, likely Philip A. Klier, for Harper’s Magazine. Color image © Rosemary Taylor, 2010, Inchigeelagh, Cork.]

The Irish Buddhist tells the story of U Dhammaloka, an extraordinary Irish emigrant, sailor, and hobo who became one of the first Western Buddhist monks and an anti-colonial activist in early twentieth-century Asia. Born in Dublin in the 1850s, Dhammaloka energetically challenged the values and power of the British Empire and scandalized the colonial establishment of the 1900s. He rallied Buddhists across Asia, set up schools, published on a grand scale, and argued down Christian missionaries—often using Western atheist arguments. He was tried for sedition, tracked by police and intelligence services, and died at least twice. His story illuminates the forgotten margins and interstices of imperial power, the complexities of class, ethnicity, and religious belonging in colonial Asia, and the fluidity of identity in the high Victorian period.

Too often, the story of the pan-Asian Buddhist revival movement and Buddhism’s remaking as a world religion has been told “from above,” highlighting scholarly writers, middle-class reformers, and ecclesiastical hierarchies. By turns fraught, hilarious, pioneering, and improbable, Dhammaloka’s adventures “from below” highlight the changing and contested meanings of Buddhism in colonial Asia. Through his story, authors Alicia Turner, Laurence Cox, and Brian Bocking offer a window into the worlds of ethnic minorities and diasporas, transnational networks, poor whites, and social movements. Dhammaloka’s dramatic life rewrites the previously accepted story of how Buddhism became a modern global religion.

 

Endorsements:

“This groundbreaking study rewrites our understanding of the first Westerners to embrace Buddhism as a living faith. The authors offer a vivid portrait of a working class Irishman in colonial Burma for whom Buddhism was not just a personal spiritual quest but a radical social and political practice.”

—Stephen Batchelor, author of Secular Buddhism and After Buddhism

“This is an extraordinary book. The authors have painstakingly tracked down scraps of evidence of U Dhammaloka’s life from across continents, often in the most unlikely of places, and have succeeded in piecing together a wealth of information to reveal an unlikely and likeable hero. The result is not simply a gripping story. It is an education into the lives, ingenuity, and resilience of the usually undocumented, ordinary people living precarious lives on the margins of society across the globe at the height of Empire. It retraces the extensive networks of cooperation they formed in common cause for survival and a dignified life against a backdrop of extraction, exploitation and misrepresentation. This is a history of those who usually have no voice in its writing, a history that dismantles the civilizing myths of colonialism.”

—Kate Crosby, Professor of Buddhist Studies, King’s College, London

“With notable tenacity and thoroughness, the authors trace the wandering career of the first European convert Buddhist monk, U Dhammaloka. Recounting the life of the fascinating twentieth-century working-class Irishman turned Burmese Buddhist monk, the authors bring into sharp relief the ways in which currents of intellectual, religious, and economic change made Buddhism a global tradition in an age of migration, colonization, and empire in Asia.”

—Richard M. Jaffe, Director of the Asian/Pacific Studies Institute and Professor of Buddhist Studies, Duke University

“Among the early European converts to Buddhism, we think of Madame Blavatsky, Alexandra David-Neel, and Ananda Metteyya. But there were many more, perhaps none more intriguing than the Irishman U Dhammaloka. Drawing on some impressive detective work, the authors here paint a fascinating picture—more than a sketch, less than a portrait—of this shape-shifting Buddhist monk. In the process, they provide many insights into fin-de-siècle Buddhism.”

—Donald Lopez, Arthur E. Link Distinguished University Professor of Buddhist and Tibetan Studies, University of Michigan

 

Reviews:

“The Irish Buddhist captures a time of significant change and enterprise, one which easily resonates with the world of today.

The subtitle of the book is “The Forgotten Monk Who Faced Down the British Empire” and this biography is a fascinating, informative insight into a wonderful character who, without a decade worth of joint research, may well have been lost to the great ocean of the past.”

—Daniel Seery in Dublin Inquirer

 

Dhammaloka trailers…

So…

Just before the crisis really started to hit outside of China, South Korea and Iran, we’d written a bunch of essays for different online publications on different aspects of Dhammaloka’s life and times, to go with the book launch.

The book didn’t come out on March 20th as expected for obvious reasons – but it’s now out from OUP NY (and OUP Europe on May 28th); order here with a 30% discount off using the code AAFLYG6. Or in ebook from all the main suppliers.

While we’re all waiting, here are the essays which have been published so far this year:

OpenDemocracy / Transformation: “The Irish Buddhist monk who faced down the British empire”

Irish History Compressed: “When Rangoon defended an Irishman challenging the British empire”

Secular Buddhism: “A secular Buddhist ancestor?”

Oxford University Press: “Why an Irish Buddhist resisted empire in Burma”

ROARMag: “The forgotten futures of anti-colonial internationalism”

RTÉ Brainstorm: “The Irish Buddhist who ended up on trial in Burma in 1911”

Belongg book talk (video): “The Irish Buddhist”

Discussed in the Echo Chamber podcast: “Laurence Cox on movements”

On the Blindboy podcast

And in the Irish Times

More to come…

“The Irish Buddhist” out April / May

Publication of The Irish Buddhist has been delayed but it should be out in April (North America) / May (Europe) with Oxford University Press.

There’s a 30% discount available using the code AAFLYG6 from the OUP site.

[Cover image: Dhammaloka in Rangoon in late 1901, likely Philip A. Klier, for Harper’s Magazine. Color image © Rosemary Taylor, 2010, Inchigeelagh, Cork.]

 

Endorsements:

“This groundbreaking study rewrites our understanding of the first Westerners to embrace Buddhism as a living faith. The authors offer a vivid portrait of a working class Irishman in colonial Burma for whom Buddhism was not just a personal spiritual quest but a radical social and political practice.”

—Stephen Batchelor, author of Secular Buddhism and After Buddhism

“This is an extraordinary book. The authors have painstakingly tracked down scraps of evidence of U Dhammaloka’s life from across continents, often in the most unlikely of places, and have succeeded in piecing together a wealth of information to reveal an unlikely and likeable hero. The result is not simply a gripping story. It is an education into the lives, ingenuity, and resilience of the usually undocumented, ordinary people living precarious lives on the margins of society across the globe at the height of Empire. It retraces the extensive networks of cooperation they formed in common cause for survival and a dignified life against a backdrop of extraction, exploitation and misrepresentation. This is a history of those who usually have no voice in its writing, a history that dismantles the civilizing myths of colonialism.”

—Kate Crosby, Professor of Buddhist Studies, King’s College, London

“With notable tenacity and thoroughness, the authors trace the wandering career of the first European convert Buddhist monk, U Dhammaloka. Recounting the life of the fascinating twentieth-century working-class Irishman turned Burmese Buddhist monk, the authors bring into sharp relief the ways in which currents of intellectual, religious, and economic change made Buddhism a global tradition in an age of migration, colonization, and empire in Asia.”

—Richard M. Jaffe, Director of the Asian/Pacific Studies Institute and Professor of Buddhist Studies, Duke University

“Among the early European converts to Buddhism, we think of Madame Blavatsky, Alexandra David-Neel, and Ananda Metteyya. But there were many more, perhaps none more intriguing than the Irishman U Dhammaloka. Drawing on some impressive detective work, the authors here paint a fascinating picture—more than a sketch, less than a portrait—of this shape-shifting Buddhist monk. In the process, they provide many insights into fin-de-siècle Buddhism.”

—Donald Lopez, Arthur E. Link Distinguished University Professor of Buddhist and Tibetan Studies, University of Michigan

 

 

Book events

University of Oxford, Glorisun Lecture Series in Buddhist Studies:

“Researching colonial Buddhist history from below – Irish-Burmese monk U Dhammaloka, subaltern
perspectives and plebeian movements”. Lecture by Laurence Cox and Brian Bocking, Monday May 22nd 2023

Laois Libraries Decade of Centenaries Programme:
Register here

“Irish-South Asian radical connections”. Talk by Catherine Candy (on Margaret Cousins) and Laurence Cox (on U Dhammaloka), Tuesday March 21st 2023, online

European Society for the Academic Study of Religions / Irish Society for the Academic Study of Religions conference keynote: Register here

“Against Empire, against God: U Dhammaloka “the Irish Buddhist” and the academic study of religions. Keynote lecture by Alicia Turner, Brian Bocking and Laurence Cox, Tuesday June 28th 2022

Society for Intercultural Education, Training and Research (Southeast Asia): Video here

“U Dhammaloka, the extraordinary “Irish Buddhist” in early 1900s Bangkok and Singapore“, lecture by Brian Bocking, Wednesday March 16th 2022

Mahidol University, Thailand:

“Buddhism went West; Buddhists went East. The extraordinary career of U Dhammaloka ‘The Irish Buddhist'”. Special lecture, Inaugural College of Religious Studies seminar, August 6th 2021

University College Dublin, Ireland: Video here

“Asia through Irish eyes: an Irish Buddhist hobo in Myanmar”. Laurence Cox, UCD Asia Pacific Research Network, Thursday Feb 18th 2021

Princeton, USA:

“Irish hobo, Buddhist monk, anti-colonial celebrity: the strange story of U Dhammaloka”, lecture by Laurence Cox. Fund for Irish Studies, Lewis Arts Center, Friday Feb 5th 2021

Dublin, Ireland:

“From Irish hobo to Buddhist monk: an extraordinary emigrant”, lecture by Laurence Cox. EPIC – The Irish Emigration Museum, Thursday Jan 21st 2021

Maynooth University, Ireland:

Union members’ educational with Laurence Cox. Irish Federation of University Teachers, Wednesday Dec 16th 2020

Lausanne University, Switzerland:

Seminar with Brian Bocking. South Asian Studies, Tuesday Dec 8th 2020

University College Cork, Ireland: Video here

Book launch with Brian Bocking, Alicia Turner, Laurence Cox. Department of the Study of Religions, Thursday Nov 19th 2020

Melbourne, Australia:

Lecture by Brian Bocking, “A long-lost canvas: early Irish Buddhists in Melbourne”. Irish Studies Centre, University of Melbourne, Tues 1 Sept 2020

Shan State Buddhist University / Transnational Network of Theravada Studies: Video here

“Why was U Dhammaloka forgotten for a hundred years?” Laurence Cox and Brian Bocking. Rainy Season Research Series, Friday July 24th 2020

BELONGG (Indian LGBTQ+ activist group): Video here

Book club / author reading, “The Irish Buddhist”. Laurence Cox, Wednesday May 13th 2020.

Dhammaloka on trial

Laurence Cox will be giving an advance glimpse of Dhammaloka’s story in TCD’s Long Room Hub on Friday, October 11th at 4.30:

An Irish Buddhist on trial for sedition

On Friday, January 13^th, 1911, the bazaars of colonial Rangoon closed down and “men women and children” pulled a gaily decorated cart containing Buddhist monk U Dhammaloka to the Chief Court for his appeal against his conviction for sedition. Dhammaloka – an Irish-born sailor, hobo and “poor white” – was a thorn in the side of the colonial establishment: a celebrity preacher drawing mass audiences across Burma with his challenges to empire, Christianity and western culture; a skilful organiser in today’s Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand; and active from Japan to Sri Lanka.

Using new material from a forthcoming OUP book with Brian Bocking and Alicia Turner, this paper explores the complex anti-colonial relationships made visible by the trial and the “forgotten futures” foreshadowed by pan-Asian Buddhist organising. The drama of Dhammaloka’s sentence, extradition attempt, faked death and final disappearance underlines the wider significance of religion and power in the high imperial period.

The paper is part of the (free) annual conference of the Irish Society for the Academic Study of Religion, which runs from 2 – 8 pm. Conference enquiries to Dr Alexandra Grieser at griesera@tcd.ie

“The Irish Buddhist” book out in March

It’s finally happening! After ten years of our joint research on U Dhammaloka, “The Irish Buddhist: the forgotten monk who faced down the British Empire” is due out in March 2020 from Oxford University Press.

Photo of U Dhammaloka, 1902 (c) Brian Bocking

We’ll be updating this site with details of launch events which we’re planning for a few countries.

If you’re interested in hosting a talk or other events around the book, drop us a line via this email address and we’ll get back to you. We live in three countries and two continents (N America and Europe) and like talking about this story…

 

“Encounters between Buddhism and the West”

A new podcast from the Religious Studies Project (supported by the BASR) features Laurence Cox discussing Dhammaloka, the Irish encounter with Buddhism and dissident Orientalism. Just over 36 minutes long.

“The Dharma Bum” film – animated trailer now out

A trailer for the Dhammaloka documentary “The Dharma Bum” is now out at https://vimeo.com/131488311. The film, scheduled for release in 2016, uses some beautiful animation to tell the story of Dhammaloka, and the search for Dhammaloka. More about the project here.