Liverpool Postgraduate Journal of Irish Studies (2018)

Liverpool Postgraduate Journal of Irish Studies

2018

Cover Photograph © SEÁN HEWITT

This journal is available online at www.lpjis.wordpress.com

Liverpool Postgraduate Journal of Irish Studies (2018)

© Liverpool Postgraduate Journal of Irish Studies

General Editor SEÁN HEWITT

Politics Editor ELIZABETH DE YOUNG DEAN FARQUHAR

Literature Editors SEAMUS MAY JAMES GALLACHER

History Editors MICHAEL ROBINSON LUCY SIMPSON

Reviews Editor SEÁN HEWITT

Blogs Editor ANNA WALSH

TABLE OF CONTENTS SECTION I: ARTICLES

The Hysterical Body: Deconstruction & Confinement of the Female Body in the Irish Gothic

1

MARINE GALINÉ

Sorry, Not Sorry: Conflict-Related Apologies in Northern Ireland

17

AMY BLACK

The Making of a Fenian Nationalist: Michael Davitt’s Early Life & Influences JESS WARWICK

35

SECTION II: REVIEWS

Towards a Religious Critical Discourse

54

Fr. Colum Power, James Joyce’s Catholic Categories (Belmont, NC: Wiseblood, 2016) Reviewed by ANDREW J. NEWELL

Choosing to Remember

60

Breandán MacSuibhne, The End of Outrage: Post-Famine Adjustment in Rural Ireland (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017) Reviewed by FRANK SHOVLIN

Past Ireland, Future Ireland?

63

Jefferson Holdridge and Brian Ó Conchubhair, eds., Post-Ireland? Essays on Contemporary Irish Poetry (Winston-Salem, NC: Wake Forest University Press, 2017) Reviewed by NURIA DE COS

Against Shibboleths of Belonging

68

David Wheatley, ed., The Wake Forest Series of Irish Poetry, Vol. IV (Winston-Salem, NC: Wake Forest University Press, 2017) Reviewed by BRIAN McCABE

Popularising Modernism

76

Lise Jaillant, Cheap Modernism (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2017) Reviewed by LISS FARRELL

Tetrarchy and Anglo-Irish Politics

79

Conor Mulvagh, The Irish Parliamentary Party at Westminster, 1900-1918 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2016) Reviewed by IAN G. KENNEDY

In Homage to Eavan

84

Siobhán Campbell and Nessa O’Mahony, eds., Eavan Boland: Inside History (Dublin: Arlen House, 2017) Reviewed by ELLIOT J. RAMSEY

The Definitive Atlas

87

John Crowley, Donal Ó Drisceoil and Mike Murphy, eds., Atlas of the Irish Revolution (Cork: Cork University Press, 2017) Reviewed by MICHAEL ROBINSON

ยง Articles

1

Marine Galiné

The Hysterical Body: Deconstruction & Confinement of the Female Body in the Irish Gothic The Greek origin of the word ‘hysteria’ (ustera, meaning ‘womb’) testifies to its essential and essentialist implication with the female body. Until the end of the nineteenth century, women were generally described in the arts, in philosophical and medical discourses in binary structures, where the innocent and angelic maiden was opposed to the sensitive, melancholy or even lascivious type1. It is thus unsurprising to observe converging discursive points between the application of medical theories onto the female body in scientific texts, and the expression of certain physiological anxieties in fiction, especially gothic fiction.

This article deals with those points of convergence within a particular corpus of Irish gothic fiction. Recent studies on the Irish gothic have specifically pointed to the ontological instability of such a literary tradition and have been inclined to use a variety of terms including ‘mode’, ‘genre’, ‘aesthetic’, ‘register’, ‘tone’ and ‘tradition’.2 A significant number of scholars have agreed on the use of 'gothic mode' in their attempt to acknowledge the porous nature of the Irish gothic. Richard Haslam thus defines the Irish gothic mode as a discontinuous series of themes, motifs and styles, selected by different authors at different times. 3 Before him, Robert Hume, Fred Botting and Margaret Kelleher had also adopted the term ‘mode’.4 Beyond such terminological debates, another common claim in recent scholarship is the particular symmetry between genre and gender considerations in the gothic tradition.5 Indeed, the Irish gothic is partly characterised by relations of power and oppression (sexual, linguistic, political) between the female body and the patriarchal gothic space. Among the works which have been labelled as pertaining to the Irish gothic mode, some self-consciously display the

2

traditional conventions of the eighteenth-century English gothic novel, while others shrewdly deviate from it, inscribing the Irish gothic into a productive generic marginality.

The two texts that this article will cover undoubtedly belong to the latter category. Joseph Sheridan le Fanu is a prolific writer of nineteenth-century Ireland whom scholars often compare to Victorian sensationalist novelists. Born in an Anglo-Irish middle-class family of Huguenot in Dublin, he published The Rose and the Key in 1871. This novel is set in England, as were all of le Fanu’s latest works.6 It nevertheless translates his personal views and anguish about the treatment of mentally troubled women who were diagnosed with hysteria. 7 The narrative follows Maud Vernon’s attempts at escaping from the lunatic asylum where she was sent by her own mother, Barbara Vernon, who covets her daughter’s substantial heritage.

William Carleton is a more transgressive writer, as he was born in a Catholic family of tenants but chose to convert to Protestantism and to express his anti-Catholic views in his fiction. His shorty story ‘The Lianhan Shee’ (1830), which confronts a frightening folkloric figure to a social reality equally dismal, turns out to be far different from le Fanu’s novel. The comparison of two pieces of work that distinct, in terms of biographical elements, literary forms and dates of publication, is part of a wider generic approach along the gender line. This article is thus dedicated to the study of the hysterical woman in two Irish gothic texts and the impact of such a trait in the constitution of an Irish gothic corpus.

I will first assess the relationships between the female body and confinement in nineteenthcentury Ireland, with a specific focus on the treatment of women diagnosed with mania and hysteria. We will then discuss the processes of imprisonment and control of the female element in the two texts under study, before moving on to the physical and discursive potentialities of hysteria.

3

Hysteria and confinement in nineteenth-century Ireland Until the birth of psychiatry in the 1830s, hysteria had been discussed and used in the arts without attracting specific attention from the medical field. It used to be associated to the disorders of the moving and dissatisfied womb with Hippocrates, before incarnating medieval anxieties about witchcraft and demonic possession. 8 The disease was still associated with the female body when Robert Burton popularised the theory of humours in 1621. 9 Not until the end of the eighteenth century were medical reports published on male cases of hysteria, providing new insights into the disease and its potentially nervous (instead of strictly organic) origins.

In the nineteenth century, scientific studies on hysteria thrived, unluckily restoring the gender parameters.10 Irish medical journals such as the Dublin Journal of Medical Science (1832) or the Dublin Medical Press (1846-1864) aligned their biased discourse on women's physical and nervous weaknesses with their English counterparts and published reports which had initially appeared in English local papers: A young woman of sanguino-melancholic temperament, about 22 years of age; who had previously suffered from hysteria, and who presented a peculiar nervous and bashful expression of countenance, frequently observable in the hysterical [‌] 11 It appears that the treatment of female hysteria in Ireland testified to a form of discursive syncretism between medical observations and fiction. Indeed, one notices le Fanu’s use of an English setting to discuss Irish societal themes, which reflects the migration of real medical cases from the English to the Irish press. It is also a case in point of Ireland's liminal position in the enforcement of new legislations within the Union.

Indeed, Ireland is one of the first European countries to formalise a strict legislation in the treatment of madness and lunacy, and to implement a public system of asylums, and this before England. As early as the 1810s, committees were sent by the British government to observe

4

the living conditions of jailed lunatics in Ireland. In 1833, the Connaught District Lunatic Asylum was founded in Ballinasloe, co. Galway, five years before the enforcement of the Dangerous Lunatics Act, whereby any admission in an asylum needed the approval of two justices of the peace and the statement of a third part. However, no medical certificate was deemed necessary until 1867, which lead to a significant amount of abuse. Indeed, workhouses and prisons directors would consider lunatic asylums as a perfect opportunity to get rid of riotous inmates.

The Lunatic Asylum and Pauper Lunatic Act (1845) extended the legislation to England and Wales – as had been said, Ireland would usually serve as test country for the implement of social legislation at the time of the Union. Five years later, the first criminal lunatic asylum in Dublin was founded (Dundrum). From a diachronic perspective, the majority of psychiatric hospitals in Ireland appeared in the second half of the nineteenth century (1830-1900).12 These asylums not only contributed to the reduction of the inmate population, they were also considered as shelters for the poorest and the sickest. 13 Thus, Ireland witnessed a significant increase of its incarcerated population despite a general lowering of its demography, due to the numerous episodes of famine, typhus and cholera it went through. 14 This high inmate population was however not exclusively female, but generally mixed. Nevertheless, genderbased inequalities could be witnessed in terms of treatment, mortality rates and symptomatology. Medical discourses generally lacked specific terms to encompass the variety of mental illnesses. Mid-century diagnoses would come down to mania, monomania or lunacy, while gendered boundaries prevailed – 70% of women were sent to asylums on moral and psychological grounds while men were usually considered insane out of physical causes such as handicap or alcohol.

The same boundaries come out in the social response to mental troubles. Amid the middle classes, women suspected of hysteria were usually kept at home until their fathers or husbands

5

deemed it inevitable that they should be sent to psychiatric asylums. Hysterical women were considered less dangerous than men, and mostly accused of theft or crimes against property. 15 Asylum registers testify to their suicidal tendencies, self-inflicted violence or dementia. These parameters emerge as societal applications of traditional gender schemes where the feminine is relatively harmless but disquieting in its promiscuity.

Furthermore, one needs notice that the increase of asylum mortality rates affected men more than it did women. That situation can be explained by the confining conditions of male and female inmates, where the biological parameter was here in favour of women. Indeed, according to Oonagh Walsh, female patients would be more often granted access to specific rooms dedicated to manual work (which had proven therapeutically beneficial), while men were usually confined to overcrowded basement rooms where the promiscuity facilitated airbound contamination.16 These Irish specificities testify to an ambiguous relation between patriarchal structures of control and the female body, which turns out to be confined but resilient. In the same way, gothic fiction expressed the medical anxieties of the time by catching the readers’ attention to this mistreated female body.

Hysteria and the control of the female body The Rose and the Key as well as ‘The Lianhan Shee’ both pertain to the Irish gothic mode; their plots revolve around the limited perception of one or several female characters who are subjected to masculine oppression. These conventional patterns of coercion are indeed used as narrative devices in the two texts, yet they are enhanced by a reflection on medical discourses where hysteria serves this control.

6

Firstly, the treatment and coercion of the feminine in the gothic are very similar to the confining system of lunatic asylums. Indeed, the medical space appears as liminal, its ambitions both therapeutic and punitive. The medical and the gothic spaces are equally marked by vertical lines and a heteronormative delimitation applied onto their architectures. The contemporary doctrine of confinement was inspired by Philippe Pinel and Alexander Jackson, among others.17 Both published numerous papers on sanity and on the curative powers of moral treatment, and were themselves influenced by the Quakers' ideology of body discipline.

In le Fanu’s novel, the diegetic world reflects reality, and provides the reader with a gothicised psychiatric space whose architecture was designed to confine both body and mind. One can only access Maud’s AA-14 room through circumvoluted corridors, stairs, passages, galleries and recesses – all reminiscent of the medieval castle: Mercy Creswell led the young lady by a back stair. She was interested; everything was so unlike Roydon. As they traversed the passage leading to the hall, the sounds of music again swelled faintly on her ear; […] Up the stair went Maud and her femme de chambre, and the sounds died out. […] They saw now before them the continuation of the long gallery which is interrupted by this massive door. 18 Here the narration is almost narrativised – it doesn't interrupt the narrative and enables the reader to feel the hindered movements and claustrophobic sensations which the writing manages to convey. 19 Maud is moving in a dark, unknown and crammed space, where she paradoxically feels lonely and confined. As the narrative unfolds, the house becomes asylum, where the female individual loses her voice. Allison Milbank sees in sensationalist literature where that type of plot abounds a criticism of Victorian domesticity: the household is as constraining and repressive as the prison or the psychiatric space. 20 In The Rose and the Key, the supposedly familiar environment actually confines and imprisons the heroine. Indeed, Maud is convinced that she was taken to her friend Lady Mardykes’ estate of Carsbrook, while

7

she is in reality in the lunatic asylum of Glarewoods, where she is denied any right to see a relative or to leave the place. The reader is confronted with the internalisation of confining processes, where it is no longer the medieval castle, distant in time and space, which emerges as a prison, but the familiar domestic space which fetters the female body.

To account for Maud’s incarceration on the diegetic level, her body is described as hysterical, out of control and wild. Right from the beginning of the novel, she implicitly threatens the patriarchal order as she claims she will not marry, changes her identity and tries to earn a living by selling her paintings. Her transfer to Glarewoods allows for her inscription in an oppressive space, where hysteria is both a medical label and a masculine weapon against her fragile body.

Confined within the perimeter of Glarewoods, and constantly frightened by the screams of the other inmates, Maud is thus subjected to a process of victimisation that one usually witnesses in the gothic.

The novel juxtaposes familiar/familial, medical and feminine spaces where hysteria is embodied in the language of others, in the narrative but also in the descriptions. Before she is taken to her chamber, Maud finds herself waiting in a spacious paneled room, dark and barren.

The description emphasises the motionlessness of the furniture and the austerity of the room.

The narrative voice follows Maud's thoughts as she progressively associates these elements to the medical world she is about to penetrate: ‘And, somehow, it suggests vaguely the idea of surgery, the strap, the knife, and all that therapeutic torture’ (252). Here, the narrator uses a process that resembles free indirect speech, but nevertheless remains ironical about Maud's situation and future ordeals.

Indeed, this impression of ‘free speech’ is but a narrative ploy. The omniscient narrator actually limits the protagonist's speech until her voice is almost mute, thus imitating the progressive hindering of the hysterical body (and voice) within a medical institution. Indeed, Maud finds it difficult to speak out when she is faced with accusations of violence and hysteria. During her

8

'trial' at the end of the novel, she is described as suicidal, wild and eccentric. Petrified by the inquisitive leers of the doctors surrounding her, Maud slowly loses the power of speech and is unable to answer them. This form of estrangement that the young woman endures illustrates Foucault's premise that confinement triggers alienation. 21 The chapter ends with her shrieks and sobbing, when she is denied all forms of communication: 'While upstairs, Maud Vernon, on her knees, with her face buried in the coverlet, writhed and sobbed wildly in the solitude of an immeasurable despair’ (343). One can draw a parallel between this account and Charcot's last phase of hysteria, namely delirium, which he studied at the Salpétrière. 22 This contextual analogy needs however critical distance as it is only hypothetically conceivable since Charcot gave his first lesson on hysteria in June 1870, while le Fanu finished his novel in 1871. The narrative goal of such an account is to maintain a medicalised description of the heroine, where femininity is expressed in scientific and rational (thus reassuring) terms.

At first, it seems that Carleton's short story apprehends hysteria in a different way as it associates the female body with a social threat. ‘The Lianhan Shee’, published in 1830, takes place in nineteenth-century rural Ireland, which was at the time highly influenced by folkloric tales such as the Lanhan Sidhe’s (a vampiric woman who absorbs the vital energy of her male victim). The incipit of the short story centers around the Sullivans, a family of farmers whose residence and mode of living are characterised by religious fervour and folkloric beliefs. The title character is actually a young woman, Margaret, who used to be a nun, seduced than abandoned by a Catholic priest. She is quickly revealed as a victim and not a supernatural predating figure. The hysteria that is used to describe her belongs to the discourse of the distrustful mob, and to the language of the narrator himself, who details Margaret’s suffering extensively: The dreaded female, on seeing the house in such a crowded state, started, paused, and glanced with some terror at the persons assembled. Her dress was not altered since her

9

last visit; but her countenance, though more meagre and emaciated, expressed but little of the unsettled energy which then flashed from her eyes, and distorted her features by the depth of that mysterious excitement by which she had been agitated.23 Interestingly, the word ‘hysteria’ is not used in the text. The author dedicates his narrative to the description of a liminal character, a female body out of control and disturbing, almost psychotic.24 Margaret is a character that encapsulates the supernatural characteristics of a folkloric figure and the psychological trauma of matrimonial abandonment and social rejection.

Two forms of expression are thus discernible: that of Margaret's bodily language, which she uses in the diegesis to pass on her pain, and that of the narrator's description of such suffering.

Margaret is then both mistress and victim of that female body which writhes, convulses and repulses. She uses the language of the body as she has been denied access to the Symbolic language (as Kristeva uses it) 25 since her expulsion from the patriarchal structure. She expresses an unknown or repressed trauma through her hysterical body, which echoes Elizabeth Bronfen's definition: ‘It is the somatic voicing of traces of a psychically traumatic impact - be this sexual or melancholic - whose origin is unknown or repressed.’ 26 The origin of this trauma is not disclosed to the reader until the end of the text, when Margaret violently confronts the man responsible for her curse.

Characterised by her chaotic and threatening speech, Margaret nevertheless discloses her true personality in the lacuna of her schizophrenic discourse. At times lucid and conscious of her liminality, she is worried by the rejection of the crowd and stands out as those marginal women of nineteenth-century Ireland – prostitutes, spinsters, single mothers… Here, the embarrassing hump she attempts at hiding is reminiscent of the corporal manifestation of unwanted pregnancy, as a result of her illegal intercourse (perhaps even rape) with a priest. The loss of her social status as spouse, or even as mother, dooms her to find her way back into the

10

Symbolical order through hysteria. Her chaotic verbal and physical expression is thus akin to the Semiotic, and even to a new form of expression of femininity. 27

Hysteria and expression of the female body?

The two texts under study stage corporeity and femininity as struggling forces against antagonistic figures. The processes of coercion represented by the psychiatric asylum are multiplied in gothic fiction on social, medical, familial but also discursive levels. Oppression is embodied through walls, masculine figures but also through words – then, only hysteria seems to enable female bodies to express themselves.

The readers of The Rose and the Key may remember a particular striking scene taking place at the end of the novel (chapter 73), which narrates in extenso the punitive bath imposed on a patient of Glarewoods. The patient (who goes under the ridiculous nickname of ‘duchess’) is firmly held by four female attendants while being drenched to the bone, until she eventually passes out.

The female body thus described is at first agitated (‘writhing’, ‘jerking’, ‘stamping’). The vocabulary chosen by the narrator is evocative of physical activity, which is reinforced by the use of the -ing form. Almost incontrollable at first, the duchess's body then progressively subsides, while she is deprived of the capacity to speak (‘shrieks’, ‘ravings’). Maud is confronted with the scene without being able to step in, and she witnesses the young patient’s slow and inevitable decline.

Besides, the narrative lingers on the numerous female attributes of the young woman: She looks lifeless. Her long dark hair clings about her shoulders. Her arms hang helplessly, and the water streams over her - over her hair, over her closed eyes - in rivulets; over her pretty face, that looks in a sad sleep; over her face and vanities; over

11

her white slender hands, that hang by her sides, and over her rings, making little rills and pools along the tiles. (303) The patient's body is characterised by her long hair, while rivulets stream along her body. Such loose and wild hair is suggestive of a wild femininity which is almost lascivious. The repetition of the preposition ‘over’ adds on to the extensive use of independent juxtaposed sentences, a stylistic device which conjures up images of the dripping and flowing of fluids (water, saliva, blood). Thus, the reader's gaze is also made to linger on the victim’s body. Like Shakespeare's Ophelia, the patient is controlled by the liquid element which appears to metaphorically drown her feminine hysteria – her voice, her resilience.

We can however perceive the voice of the implied author in the clear denunciation of such practices. However, le Fanu does not use masculine doctors, as he does in the rest of the novel, but the female bodies of four attendants, and the helpless body of Maud, who has become here a mere spectator, almost a voyeur. Thus, even if the violence described in the text is generally patriarchal, it can also be self-inflicted, and even feminine. In the Irish society of the nineteenth-century, numerous cases of admissions were carried out thanks to female testimonies and denunciations. Most infanticide women were turned in by other women, while Magdalen laundries and asylums were run by female figures of authority as well.

Therefore, the integration of medical elements in gothic fiction enables the writers to transcend gender norms. The character of Maud transgresses the reading pact by being guilty of passive complicity, while that of Margaret reverses the codes of the malevolent woman when her real situation is disclosed.

Margaret’s physical deformity seems at first to incarnate her fears of impending madness: Instead of making her any reply, however, the woman, whose eye glistened with a wild depth of meaning, exclaimed in low tones, apparently of much anguish, ‘Husht, husht, dherum! husht, husht, I say – let me alone – I will do it – will you husht? I will, I say –

12

I will — there now — that’s it – be quiet, an’ I will do it – be quiet!’ and as she thus spoke, she turned her face back over her left shoulder, as if some invisible being dogged her steps, and stood bending over her. (393) Truncated, chaotic, her words are deconstructed by her suffering, while she worries about the looming presence of some invisible being watching her steps. One can see him as the incarnation of the man who forsook her a few years earlier or, as the beginning of the short story seems to indicate, as the corporal inscription of her curse; overall, this presence is akin to the menacing villain who chases his victim in the corridors of the gothic castle.

Carleton also draws his inspiration from Irish folklore to distill images of madness and anguish through the body of his protagonist, a body that is scrutinised by the narrator – and the reader.

Pain distorts the physical boundaries of Margaret – spasms, panting, agitations – until it deconstructs her stable identity: ‘Only what?’ asked the stranger, with a face of anguish that seemed to torture every feature out of its proper lineaments. […] ‘Ah!’ shouted the other, ‘are you going to get me killed?’ and as she uttered the words, a spasmodic working which must have occasioned great pain, even to torture, became audible in her throat: her bosom heaved up and down, and her head was bent repeatedly on her breast, as if by force. (395) The narration insists here on the materiality of Margaret's woman's body and focuses on her mouth. The text is similarly fraught with metaphors and images of orality, sexuality, famine and contamination. Margaret strives to have Mary drink her water (so as to pass the curse on) while she begs her to quench her monstrous and endless thirst. These themes are quite paramount in the Irish gothic, where the vampiric figure became extremely popular with Bram Stoker in 1897, after le Fanu had introduced its female incarnation in 1872. Thus, the discourse of the female body dominates Carleton's narrative, and posits the Lianhan Shee as the figure of a new force that haunts the narration and threatens the implied reader. She is a palimpsestic character who appears to conflate several avatars of femininity in the gothic – vampiric threat,

13

patriarchal victim, elusive creature of the Irish folklore – which characterise themselves through a deviant usage of the female body. Thus, is it possible to follow Anne Williams’s lead and envision Margaret's hysteria as a new form of meaningful expression? 28 It appears that the folkloric creature of the Lianhan Shee feeds on language. At the beginning of the tale, the story of Mary Sullivan's encounter with Margaret spreads in the neighbourhood and allows Carleton to toy with the deforming capacity of superstitious rumours: ‘The next day the story spread through the whole neighborhood, accumulating in interest and incident as it went’ (418). Tale-telling seems unreliable in this context; it is an extensive process which keeps morphing, and echoes the inscrutable character of the creature. The Lianhan Shee is thus endlessly rewritten and reborn through language.

Furthermore, when she confronts Father Philip, a fallen Catholic priest who lives secluded from the world, Margaret uses the discourse of the curse against him. She forces him to face his past crimes, and tries to find her way back into his abode: ‘Who and what am I? The victim of infidelity and you, the bearer of a cursed existence, the scoff and scorn of the world, the monument of a broken vow and a guilty life, […]

I am – what you have made me! Behold,’ she added, holding up the bottle, ‘this failed, and I live to accuse you. But no, you are my husband – though our union was but a guilty form, and I will bury that in silence.’(425) The crowd who witnesses their encounter recede with fear – Margaret and Philip's union is considered criminal, almost supernatural. On that very evening, the priest lights up a fire in his kitchen, and gives free rein to his anguish. Mumbling, raving, the priest eventually commits suicide by throwing himself into the fire, thus muting his voice forever.

However, even though Margaret manages to have the masculine voice responsible for her social exclusion silenced, her own lucid voice does not resist:

14

The shock produced by his death struck the miserable woman into the utter darkness of settled derangement. She survived him some years, but wandered about through the province, still, according to the superstitious belief of the people, tormented by the terrible enmity of the Lianhan Shee. (412) Once more deprived of a masculine figure beside her, she cannot reintegrate society and wanders in the woods, still raving and suffering from her curse. The character of Margaret seems to fade away in favour of the folkloric figure she used to be at the beginning of the narrative. Temporarily humanised in the tale, she only benefited from the textual space of the short story to speak out and claim her deviating hysterical body.

Conclusion In both texts, we have seen how female hysteria is the consequence of a voluntary or imposed step outside the patriarchal norm. It resembles Michel Foucault’s conception of madness in general, which he envisions as the psychological effect of a moral fault. 29 Both female characters are thus made visible in the diegetic world thanks to their hysterical behavior which translates their pain and refusal to remain passive.

Freud’s definition of female sexuality is well known for its focus around the notion of lack, or absence. Moreover, Shoshana Felman analyses Balzac’s short story ‘Adieu’ by opposing masculine reasoning to female insanity, where she posits madness as the absence of femininity.30 We have however examined two examples of female hysteria where the narrative sheds light on the physical qualities of women's bodies. Despite their numerous divergences in terms of perspectives, contexts and responses to hysteria, these texts converge on the treatment of and focalisation on the female body.

Obviously, fiction which deals with hysteria is not limited to the gothic; conversely, the motif of the suffering female body cannot stand out as the sole constitutive element of this literary

15

mode. Yet, we have assessed how the Irish gothic mode and its specificities allows hysteria to become a narrative device at the service of terror and horror effects, trapping the reader in a voyeuristic relation to the female body. It also opens new textual (fictional) spaces to the body of the oppressed, despite the denouement of social reintegration (Maud) or exclusion (Margaret) which is concordant with the patriarchal ideology. The hysteric is led to use the coercive space of the lunatic asylum as a temporary shelter (as would many poor Irishwomen) or as the walls against which she can write her own narrative.

Marine Galliné University of Reims Champagne-Ardenne

Notes 1

See for instance Jan Marsh's typology of women in the visual arts; Jan Marsh, Pre-Raphaelite Women: Images

of Femininity (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1989).

2

See Irish Gothics: Genres, Forms, Modes, and Traditions, 1760-1890, ed. by Christina Morin and Niall Gillespie

(Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014).

3

Richard Haslam, 'Gothic: a rhetorical hermeneutics approach', The Irish Journal of Gothic and Horror Studies,

2 (2007), 3-26 (p. 4).

4

Robert Hume, 'Gothic vs Romantic: A Rejoinder', PMLA, 86 (1971), 266-274 (p. 273); Fred Botting, Gothic

(London: Routledge, 1996), p.14; Margaret Kelleher, 'Prose writing and drama in English, 1830-1890: from Catholic emancipation to the fall of Parnell'. In The Cambridge History of Irish Literature, ed. by Kelleher, Margaret and Philip O’Leary (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), p. 472.

5

Consider reading Diane Long Hoeveler, Gothic Feminism, The Professionalization of Gender from Charlotte

Smith to the Brontës, University Park, Penn.: Pennsylvania State University, 1998; Emma J. Clery, Women's Gothic: From Clara Reeve to Mary Shelley, Devon: Northcote House, 2000; Donna Heiland, Gothic and Gender: An Introduction, Oxford: Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 2004; Diane Wallace and Andrew Smith, The Female Gothic: New Directions, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009; Diane Wallace, Female Gothic Histories: Gender, History and the Gothic, Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2013, among others.

6

Many of his novels were first published as serialised short stories in magazines and featured Irish settings.

7

Valeria Cavalli insists on the fact that le Fanu was speaking of experience: 'Le Fanu’s personal experience with

madness and his awareness of too many cases of wrongfiul confinement certainly influenced his views of medicine, and of mind-doctors in particular'. Valeria Cavalli, ‘They said she was mad: Insanity in the Fiction of Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu', (unpublished doctoral thesis, Trinity College Dublin, 2014), p. 45.

16

8

In his treatise, 'Diseases of Women'. See Elizabeth Bronfen, The Knotted Subject (Princeton: Princeton

University Press, 1998), p. 105.

9

In The Anatomy of Melancholy, he associates hysteria to what he calls the melancholy of maids, nuns and widows

– some mental disorder characterised by oppressive black vapours.

10

Mark Micale, Hysterical Men (Harvard: Harvard University Press, 2008), p. 49.

11

The Dublin Medical Press, a weekly journal of Medicine and Medical Affairs, vol VII (Dublin: Medical Press

Office, 1842), p. 133.

12

The Confinement of the Insane, ed. by Roy Porter and David Wright (Manchester: Manchester University Press,

2012), p. 12.

13

Oonagh Walsh, ‘A Lightness of Mind: Gender and Insanity in Nineteenth-Century Ireland’, in Gender

Perspective in Nineteenth-Century Ireland, ed. by Margaret Kelleher and James H. Murphy (Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 1997), pp. 159-167 (p. 160).

14

Porter and Wright, p. 12.

15

Oonagh Walsh, “Gender and insanity in Nineteenth-century Ireland” in Sex and Seclusion, Class and Custody,

ed. by Jonathan Andrews and Anne Digby, (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2004), pp. 69-93, p. 77.

16

Walsh, 'A Lightness of Mind', p. 164.

17

Philippe Pinel published Traité médico-philosophique de l'aliénation mentale in 1801; Alexander Jackson wrote

A Few Observations on the State of the Lunatic Asylum of the House of Industry in 1809.

18

Joseph Sheridan le Fanu, The Rose and the Key, (Dover: Alan Sutton Publishing, [1871] 1994), pp. 254-5.

Further references to this edition are given after quotations in the text.

19

Term borrowed from Clara Mallier, who analyzes the rhythmic patterns of Hemingway's novel according to

Gérard Genette's narrative parameters. Clara Mallier, The Sun Also Rises, roman holographique, (Paris : PUF, 2011), p. 105.

20

Allison Milbank, Daughters of the House: Modes of the Gothic in Victorian Fiction (Basingstoke: Palgrave

Macmillan, 1992), p. 120.

21

Michel Foucault, Folie et déraison : Histoire de la folie à l’âge classique (Paris: Plon, 1961), p. 99.

22

Elizabeth Bronfen describes the delirium phase as such: 'the hysteric would slowly regain her consciousness

thought still remaining for a while in a state of melancholy and displaying loud crying and sobbing'. Bronfen, p.

181.

23

William Carleton, 'The Lianhan Shee', in Traits and Stories of the Irish Peasantry (London: George Routledge

& Sons, [1830] 1877), p. 407. Further references to this edition are given after quotations in the text.

24

This term is used by Julian Moynahan in Julian Moynahan, Anglo-Irish : the Literary Imagination in a

hyphenated culture (Princeton : Princeton University Press, 1995), p. 65.

25

Julia Kristeva, La Révolution du langage poétique (Paris: Seuil, 1974), p. 27.

26

Bronfen, p. 117.

27

Hélène Cixous also associates hysteria with a new form of expression of the feminine, see Hélène Cixous,

Portrait de Dora (Paris: Des Femmes, 1976).

28

Anne Williams, Art of Darkness, a Poetics of Gothic (Chicago: University of Chicago Press), p. 247.

29

Foucault, p. 410.

30

Shoshana Felman, 'Women and Madness: the Critical Phallacy', Diacritics, 5-4 (1975), 2-10 (p. 8).

17

Amy Black

Sorry, Not Sorry: Conflict-Related Apologies in Northern Ireland Violent conflict produces a multifaceted range of legacy issues. These issues may be apparent in the immediate aftermath of conflict, but may also manifest with the passage of time. The experience of conflict may deepen pre-existing societal fissures, perpetuate sectarianism, racism and other forms of ‘othering’, and may facilitate segregation or other forms of violence.

Conflict-related violence may also give rise to a host of challenging issues including: human rights violations, contestation regarding commemorative practices, physical and psychological conflict-related trauma, the emergence of ‘spoiler’ groups who are unwilling to engage in constructive dialogue, damage to the environment and economic landscape, entrenchment of fear and the perception of unsafe spaces, the decommissioning and demobilisation of paramilitary groups, and reintegration of former combatants.

Northern Ireland provides a useful case study for those interested in uncovering how legacy issues may be negotiated in societies that have experienced protracted violent conflict. During thirty years of political violence in Northern Ireland, known colloquially as ‘the Troubles’, approximately 3,720 people were killed and a further 47,541 people were injured. 1 Addressing the legacies of the past has been a contentious aspect of the Northern Ireland peace process. A lack of political consensus on how best to approach the past resulted in legacy issues effectively being side-stepped in the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, enabling a culture of avoidance to take hold and resulting in the prolongation of bringing the past to the table at a political level; a trend that has continued with little resolve in to the present day. 2

18

This contention stems from the main parties having differing interpretations of the causes and consequences of the conflict, and fundamentally, they cannot agree upon the ‘truth’ of what happened, let alone the level of ‘justice’ that has or should be achieved. Many within the main parties have argued that other parties approach the past with a self-aggrandizing agenda that best suits their own constituencies and narratives. There is a general feeling amongst unionists that there has not been a fair peace dividend following the signing of the Good Friday agreement; and many republicans object to the ‘security veto’ invoked by the British Government regarding undisclosed information pertaining to state killings during the conflict. 3 These debates merely scratch the surface of why there has been limited consensus on the events of the past.

An array of mechanisms for ‘dealing’ with the past have been implemented since the Agreement, such as: public inquiries, the creation of the Police Ombudsman Office, civil actions, prosecutions and the PSNI-led Historical Enquiries Team. However, these mechanisms have been largely ineffectual in delivering substantial progress. Attempts to provide a workable framework for ‘dealing’ with the past in Northern Ireland have been undertaken by community leaders, academics, human rights and community organisations, policy-makers and international consultants, who have produced a number of reports, recommendations and legislation for ‘dealing’ with the past. For details see: the Bloomfield Report 1998; Healing Through Remembering 2013; Committee on the Administration of Justice (Northern Ireland) 2015; Eames/Bradley Report 2009; Haass and O’Sullivan Report 2013; the Stormont House Agreement 2014; and the Fresh Start Agreement 2015. 4 Although not yet implemented, the mechanisms for ‘dealing’ with the past outlined within the Stormont House Agreement (SHA) amount to the most substantive effort to date. In addition to the provision of support for victims and survivors through the setting up of an NHS run Mental Trauma Service, the SHA proposes to address the legacy of the past through the

19

establishment of: a Historical Investigations Unit, an Independent Commission on Information Retrieval, an Implementation and Reconciliation Group, and an Oral History Archive. Article 53 of the SHA also states: “In the context of the work of the IRG, the UK and Irish Governments will consider statements of acknowledgement and would expect others to do the same.”

5

Statements of acknowledgement are widely considered an integral component of and first step towards apologies for harms inflicted.6 The inclusion of this article in the SHA serves to widen discourse in relation to conflict-related harms, adding to the current dialogue of truth and justice, and allowing for a deeper exploration of reparative measures such as apologies, as a potential instrument for ‘dealing’ with the legacy of conflict in Northern Ireland.

However, this may prove to be a moot point as the collapse of devolved government in January 2017, and the threat of a return to Direct Rule, has cast ‘dealing’ with the past in Northern Ireland into an even darker shadow.7 Furthermore, Brexit seems likely to present a number of issues that may complicate political initiatives in the future, such as the potential loss of EU peacebuilding money, and uncertainty surrounding the future of the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. With these issues taking centre stage in political debate, discussions on the past have once again stagnated. The UK Government have proposed to initiate a public consultation on ‘dealing’ with the legacy of the past, which may be forthcoming.8 However, the sense of uncertainty surrounding Northern Ireland’s political future does not inspire confidence that there will be any meaningful traction on legacy issues anytime soon. For this reason it appears worthwhile to explore reparations for the legacy of conflict outside of what may be achieved through formal agreements or legislation. This paper is dedicated to uncovering the potential utility of apologies in terms of addressing legacy issues in Northern Ireland. It will highlight the potential benefits and limitations associated with apologies in theory and in practice. It is hoped that this approach will ensure that the analysis proves insightful for scholars researching legacy issues in Northern Ireland and elsewhere.

20

Deconstructing Apology Definitions of apologies are deeply rooted in sociology and can take an array of forms. 9 Tavuchis identifies four typologies of apology, which provide an analytical framework for the categorisation of all apologies, these include: one to one apologies (delivered by an individual to an individual), one to many apologies (by and individual to a collectivity), many to one apologies (given on behalf of a collectivity to an individual), and many to many apologies (issued by a collectivity to another collectivity). 10 In general, apologies can be grouped into two main types: interpersonal apologies (between individuals) and collective apologies (involving at least one group). As will be highlighted below, this distinction is particularly relevant when considering the nuances between state and non-state apologies, in terms of the construction, delivery and reaction to an apology in both public and private domains.

Determining the elements that should considered to be essential for the construction of a legitimate apology has proved to be the source of academic debate. However, consensus appears to have been reached around the idea that for an apology to be effective, it must be perceived as being sincere or genuine. According to Tavuchis, To apologise is to declare voluntarily that one has no excuse, defence, justification, or explanation for an action (or inaction) that has insulted, failed, injured, or wronged another‌ One who apologises seeks forgiveness and redemption for what is unreasonable, unjustified, undeserving, and inequitable. 11 For Tavuchis, a genuine apology must, at minimum, include an acknowledgement of wrongdoing and expression of regret. 12 Similiarly, Goffman asserts that a genuine apology must express embarrassment, demonstrate recognition of wrongdoing, verbally repudiate the harm; commit to non-repetition in the future, and perform penance or offer restitution. 13 Building on these works, scholars have added further criteria depending on who is apologising and to whom. For example, researchers claim that an authentic interpersonal apology requires:

21

naming the wrongs in question, accepting responsibility, expressing regret, promising nonrepetition and providing an offer of repair. James adds additional criteria to adapt this to the collective level; as well the previous actions, a collective apology should be officially recorded in writing, state regret and undertake efforts to ensure sincerity, such as providing the apology at a dedicated ceremonial event. 14 Whilst there are multiple definitions of apologies, four core elements remain consistent within the scholarship: the acknowledgement of an act of wrongdoing; an expression of remorse; a promise of forbearance; and the offering of reparation.

An apology is considered a performative speech act in which the words used to apologise are not only spoken, but also perform the action being spoken. 15 Much of the research that examines apologies considers verbal content alone. However, others emphasise the importance of the performative aspects and argue that they should not be overlooked. 16 Performance is explicitly linked to the perceived sincerity of an apology. 17 At the interpersonal level, sincerity is determined by the perceived remorse of the offender.18 While victims will scrutinise the language and content of an apology, they will also consider the apologiser’s tone of voice and body language, as well as, where, when and how the apology is offered.19 At the collective level, the sincerity standard is more complicated, especially as the actor providing the apology may not have been involved in the wrongdoing. Therefore, remorse is no longer considered the sincerity standard. Instead, scholars argue that the sincerity of an apology can be measured by the way an apology is performed and the actions that follow.20 Even if an apology meets all the criteria that scholars prescribe in terms of content, an apology that is not delivered by an appropriate person, at an appropriate time, in an appropriate place, in an appropriate manner, may still be rejected. Therefore, regardless of an apology’s content, its performative elements can serve to either affirm or contradict its perceived sincerity.

22

Transitional Justice and Apologies Tackling legacy issues is commonly considered an integral component of an inclusive peace and reconciliation process, and is fundamental to transitional justice processes. According to the United Nations Secretary General, there are four pillars of transitional justice which include: justice, truth, reparation, and guarantees of non-recurrence.21 Reparation for harms suffered may include restitution, compensation, rehabilitation, satisfaction or guarantees of non-repetition. There are various approaches and mechanisms that can be implemented to address the legacy of past, these may include transitional justice mechanisms such as truth and reconciliation commissions, reparations for victims, amnesties, apologies, memorialisation, trials and tribunals. The implementation of these mechanisms may also lead to prosecutions, lustration and institutional reforms. Notable examples of such mechanisms include the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa, the Commission for Historical Classification in Guatemala, the Nuremburg trials and the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. Other grassroots-based and arguably more therapeutic approaches to addressing the legacy of the past may involve: commemorative and memorial practices, oral history, storytelling, art, literature, theatre of witness or retreats.

This article considers apologies as a reparative tool that may be employed in transitional societies. Apologies are a branch of ‘satisfaction’, which may involve the confirmation of facts and public disclosure of truth, an official declaration restoring the dignity and reputation of victims, and commemorations. 22 Researchers emphasise the symbolic importance of apologies and debate the extent to which apologies can facilitate reconciliation and healing in postconflict societies.

The scholarship on apologies spans a wide range of disciplines, including law, sociology, transitional justice, political science, history, social psychology and anthropology. This

23

literature maps on to a range of broader themes including: forgiveness, reconciliation, victimhood, accountability, truth, justice, non-recurrence, guilt, authenticity and performance.

Empirically, apologies have been studied through the lens of slavery, the ‘stolen generation’ of aboriginal children in Australia, the displacement of Palestinian refugees, redress for the ‘comfort women’ of Japan, and for genocide in Rwanda. 23 Since 2000, the state practice of offering public apologies for historical wrongs has become increasingly more frequent and has attracted the attention of scholars across a wide interdisciplinary base, leading Gibney et al to characterise the 21 st century trend as representing an ‘age of apology’. 24 Reflecting international norms and standards of transitional justice, apologies have become a central form of reparation in societies ‘dealing’ with the legacy of violent conflict.25 In the context of transitional justice, there is broad consensus amongst scholars that apologies may be employed as a tool or mechanism to enable states and societies to deal with past harms, facilitate reconciliation and contribute towards some form of societal healing.26 Scholars have contributed heavily to theoretical accounts of apologies, with a focus on state or official apologies rather than apologies by non-state actors. However, very little of this research has been informed by substantive empirical research. Such theoretical work needs to be supplemented with fieldwork that investigates whether and why apologies change relationships between groups or minimises reputational damage. There is an overwhelming need for empirical research on whether or not apologies are effective, how they are effective, and why.

The majority of empirical studies that have been carried out have been done so within the social psychology discipline. Social psychologists provide evidence that points to the power of interpersonal apologies in facilitating forgiveness. 27 However, this trend does not appear to be evidenced in collective apologies between groups. Increased interest in this research area has

24

lead social psychologists to theorise why intergroup apologies do not hold same effect, the consequences of this on victims, and propose frameworks for further research. 28 The use of apology in transitional justice and in peacebuilding opens up a moral debate for working through the past. Paradigmatic shifts in the ways in which peace and conflict are perceived globally has led to a more democratic and morally enriched view of how peace (and justice) after conflict should be achieved. As Lundy and McGovern point out, “more international effort has gone into building courts, writing laws, punishing the perpetrator of human rights abuses, supporting human rights NGOs and generally, promoting the rule of law abroad.”29 Empirical analyses of apologies, therefore, may provide a welcome contribution towards understanding how societies may recover from violent conflict.

State vs. Non-State Apologies The rise in digital technology and use of social media has resulted in the visibility of historical wrongs on a global platform. States, government bodies, practitioners, corporations, institutions, politicians and former combatants are open to scrutiny more than ever, and “are apologising or are being called on to apologise, sometimes for events generations earlier in which they played no direct part”.30 Despite heavy critique of the motivations for apologies and their measure of sincerity, the fact remains that the call for and practise of apology suggests a heightened moral conscience concerning how historical wrongs are perceived, responded to or dealt with.

The ethical and legal right of victims of human rights abuses to reparations is explicitly recognised, however, international law has largely developed with a focus on the state. 31 In international human rights law, there are clear frameworks in place which outline states’ obligations with regard to protecting human rights through addressing the legacies of gross human rights violations. This is reflected in the language of, for example, the Articles of State

25

Responsibility, International Humanitarian Law, and International Human Rights Law. However, holding non-state groups to account represents something of a grey area in international law. Despite committing acts ideal for the provision of apologies, scholars note the difficulties in holding non-state actors accountable for reparations as there are no international forums that clearly invoke this responsibility.32 Moffet explains that states are reluctant to hold non-state actors to international human rights law, as doing so may instil a level of legitimacy to these groups. Instead, there has been an emerging international norm in which states provide reparations to victims based on their failure to protect human rights. 33 Scholars argue that the explicit attribution of responsibility for non-state actors to provide reparations is necessary due to the collective nature of the gross human rights violations that occur during conflict. 34 In particular, many human rights abuses that are committed are collective in nature and facilitated through the direction of organisations, leading scholars to argue that the collectives themselves must be held accountable. As Dudai states, “if armed groups can commit state-like abuses, based on their state-like characteristics, then they should be pressed to provide state-like reparations.”35 However, while individuals can be held accountable via International Criminal Law (Rome Statue 1998), no formal rules have been adopted for non-state actors. Yet, merely acknowledging that obligations exist, without defining and assigning those obligations, renders the rights of victims “somewhat meaningless”.36 Beyond official standards, challenges remain in assigning responsibility for reparations to non-state actors. Often non-state groups may cease to exist following conflict, may not have the capacity to provide reparations, or have hidden assets to avoid their provision, which adds greater complexity to the task of holding non-state actors to account. However, scholars contend that the current trend in international law towards accountability, recognition of responsibility and the importance of reparations suggest that non-sate actors are likely to be found responsible for such reparations in the future. 37

26

Apologies, Reconciliation and Follow-through The phenomenon of apologising, Tauvchis argues, is based on the paradox of trying to make amends for the past, despite the fact the past cannot be undone. 38 Given that apologies – or any tool employed to address the past – cannot reverse or undo the harm inflicted, some scholars have urged caution regarding their impact. Standalone apologies are insufficient and should only be considered as one component in a broader package of mechanisms. For example, within the context of the work completed by the Historical Enquiries Team regarding conflict-related deaths in Northern Ireland, Lundy and Rolston examined a collection of official apologies and concluded that the absence of proper investigation into these deaths renders apologies, no matter how heartfelt, as insufficient, as states are not upholding their duty to provide a remedy to past harms which is the international legal standard. 39 Broader actions to follow-through on the ideals and promises of apology are needed if reconciliation is to be achieved. These actions may include: truth-telling mechanisms, material reparations, the construction or memorials, museums, or the introduction of national days of remembrance. Without such actions, particularly at the collective level, apologies are dismissed as ‘gestural politics,’ ‘empty rhetoric,’ or a ‘politics of distraction’. 40 However, apologies in the view of the perpetrator can be construed as an admittance of guilt and culpability. In the case of Northern Ireland, this is where the problem lies – the diverse range of actors involved in the conflict significantly blurs the line regarding who was at fault and with whom the responsibility lies.

Apology in Northern Ireland Apologies are common in everyday human interaction, but in the context of transitional societies, particularly in regard to addressing the legacy of violent ethnic conflict, the interplay between individual and collective apologies – by who and to whom, is thrown into higher relief.

While there is an absence of substantive international frameworks for enshrining the responsibility of non-state actors to make reparations for past harms, a number of apologies

27

and quasi-apologies have been delivered in relation to conflict-related violence in Northern Ireland. Notable apologies include: the Combined Loyalist Military Command, who offered words of remorse to the families of innocent victims in their ceasefire statement in 1994; the INLA’s apology in 1998 for the deaths and injuries of innocent civilians during their armed struggle for liberty, and ceasefire declaration; the IRA’s apology in 2002 on the 30th anniversary of Bloody Friday to the families of non-combatants who were killed or injured as a result of their armed campaign; and David Cameron’s apology in 2010 to the victims and their families of Bloody Sunday. In his apology on behalf of the British Government, Cameron stated that the British army’s actions on Bloody Sunday, which resulted in the deaths of 14 unarmed civilians were, “both unjustified and unjustifiable”.41 However, meaningful apologies (state or non-state) that satisfy the criteria of genuine apologies are not commonly utilised as a means of addressing the past in Northern Ireland. The remainder of this paper will be dedicated to examining why this has been the case, and what this tells us about the prospect of apologies in transitional societies. For further readings on apologies and acknowledgement in Northern Ireland, and transitional justice more generally, see: Cunningham 2004, Rolston 2010, Lundy 2011, Spencer 2011, Dudai 2011 and Moffet 2015. 42 In Northern Ireland, the basic syllogism of the act of an apology, (that apology follows naturally from wrong-doing and the wrong-doer is forgiven) is complicated for a number of reasons. If the wrong-doer has not been ostracised from society - is there then still a need or obligation to apologise? What if the offended party cannot forgive even if the apology is genuine - is the wrong doer still accepted back into society? Is it the offended who then becomes marginalised?

Given the entrenchment of political division in Northern Ireland and the highly politicised nature of apology and the past, how can the sincerity of apology ever be measured? Lundy and Rolston argue that “an apology is superficial without official commitment to policy changes, legal and other support for equality and the elimination of impunity and guarantees of

28

accountability. It is when an apology becomes part of this larger package that it may play a role in societal reconciliation.”43 Whether the space can be found to facilitate such apologies in Northern Ireland is questionable.

State and non-state actors must carefully consider the construction, delivery and reception of an apology before one is offered. In Northern Ireland, there have been few examples of what may be described as a ‘genuine’ apology, which may be due to a variety of reasons. It may be the case that there is an unwillingness to apologise, as those responsible for violence may feel that apologies undermine the legitimacy of their actions during the conflict, for which they are not sorry. However, fear of retribution is perhaps a primary deterrent stopping perpetrators of conflict from coming forward and apologising for their actions. Retribution does not only refer to methods of legal retribution such as trials and tribunals, but apologisers may also face an onslaught of retribution from others who may be associated with similar acts of violence.44 Because apology is so tightly bound with guilt and culpability, this particular mode of retribution is intensified by the fact that there is still a culture of silence surrounding the events of the past.45 It appears that limited space is available to those at fault to make an apology without the risk of causing an avalanche of media-contrived speculation, legal and criminal investigations and harassment for the apologiser and others who may be implicated. In extreme circumstances, the retribution of making an apology may in fact lead to a paramilitary style punishment beating or execution. This lack of safe space available for the expression of apologies arises from the very nature of the conflict itself. The brutality of the violence and level of involvement from state and non-state actors has created the need for extreme caution in the construction and delivery of apologies.

Precisely because the severity of the harms committed is so great, in order to contribute towards some form of social healing, intergroup apologies must be “offered in settings in which sincerity must be communicated formally”.46 The level of seriousness may therefore dictate

29

that apologies should be made publically, in an official capacity, where they may be open to scrutiny. The seriousness of the harm and by whom it was inflicted, are crucial factors in conditioning the political, societal, moral and legal reactions to an apology. The success of an apology rests on the reaction of those to whom it is afforded, as the very act of apologising “shift[s] the burdens of belief and acceptance to the injured party”. 47 This may have an adverse affect, as victims may be manipulated in to making peace with oppression, and may “reinforce structures of inequality”. 48 In summation, in these circumstances, apology becomes tantamount to confession, and on a public stage, can have serious social, political and moral implications for individuals, groups and society.

What does this suggest about the nature of apology in Northern Ireland? One interpretation may be that the politicisation of apology is counterproductive to the transformative power of apology in the sense that the absence of a safe space to offer an apology prevents social exchanges and dialogue occurring between the wrong-doer and the wronged, prolonging the hurt of personal and social traumas. However, a critical view of the circumstances of apology in Northern Ireland, rather than pointing to the constrained position of the apologiser, points instead to the very way in which we conceive apology altogether. Is it morally acceptable for an apology to be more focused on the consequences for the offender, rather that the offended?

Furthermore, an apology that is contrived for a disingenuous purpose or motivation, or one that is presented as an excuse or justification, could be considered little more than an act or performance, delivered by actor in front of an audience. 49 Conclusion Apologies can be delivered at interpersonal and intergroup levels, and can be done so privately or publically, in an official or individual capacity. Given the varying contexts in which the call for apology arises, naturally there has been extensive debate amongst scholars regarding the perceived positive and negative implications of apologising. In one respect, apologies can

30

restore dignity to victims, formally acknowledge hurt and trauma inflicted, repair damaged relationships, and can lead to the rehumanisation of victims and perpetrators. 50 Conversely, however, apologies can be considered as calculated, hollow and self-serving gestures, and if perceived insincere, can further the injustices of victims through inscribing the risk of retraumatisation, placing unfair pressure on victims to forgive or can lead to the reopening of conflict.51 In the case of Northern Ireland, do the risks of apologies outweigh the benefits? At an inter-personal level, apologies may make inroads towards healing relationships between victims and perpetrators. However, there are limited opportunities for inter-group apologies to achieve the same effects, as issues around legitimacy, blame, culpability and admittance of guilt may block the construction and delivery of an apology. The unavoidable politicisation of apologies in such a divided society indicates that the reception of apologies may have little impact in bridging division or facilitating societal reconciliation, and may actually serve to further ignite tensions. Timing is paramount to apologies; a lack of political leadership paired with the reluctance of paramilitary groups to take risks, and uncertain appetite for apologies at a societal level, paves a rocky terrain when considering apologies for the conflict in Northern Ireland. Further empirical research on apologies is imperative in order to gain a more concrete understanding of who should apologise, why they should apologise, to whom, when, for what, and how an apology may be received across an array of levels in a transitional society such as Northern Ireland. What is clear, however, is that apologies should be viewed as one element in a broader package of measures, which should be backed up with follow-through mechanisms, and not as a standalone respond to the legacy of conflict in Northern Ireland.

Amy Black Queen’s University, Belfast ablack37@qub.ac.uk

31

Notes 1

David McKittrick and others, Lost Lives: The Stories of the Men, Women and Children Who Died as a Result

of the Northern Ireland Troubles: The Stories of the Men, Women and Children Who Died Through the Northern Ireland Troubles, 2nd Revised edition edition (Edinburgh: Mainstream Publishing, 2004); ‘CAIN: Sutton Index of Deaths’ <http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/sutton/tables/Organisation_Summary.html> [accessed 10 November 2017].

2

Graham Dawson, Making Peace with the Past?: Memories, Trauma and the Irish Troubles (Manchester ; New

York: Manchester University Press, 2010), pp. 60–61.

3

Patricia Lundy and Mark McGovern, ‘Participation,Truth and Partiality: Participatory Action Research,

Community-Based Truth-Telling and Post-Conflict Transition in Northern Ireland’, Sociology, 40.1 (2006), 71– 88 <https://doi.org/10.1177/0038038506058431>.

4

Kenneth Bloomfield, We Will Remember Them, 1998; Robin Eames and Denis Bradley, Report of the

Consultative Group of the Past, 2009, p. 192 <http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/victims/docs/consultative_group/cgp_230109_report.pdf> [accessed 17 September 2017]; Healing Through Remembering, Core Values and Principles for Dealing with the Past, 2013, p. 7 <http://webpreviews.com/healingthroughremembering/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Core-Values-and-Principles_2013.pdf> [accessed 17 September 2017]; Richard Haass and Meghan O’Sullivan, An Agreement Among the Parties of the Northern Ireland Executive on Parades, Select Commemorations, and Related Protests; Flags and Emblems; and Contending with the Past, 2013 <https://www.northernireland.gov.uk/sites/default/files/publications/newnigov/haass-report-2013.pdf> [accessed 17 September 2017]; Stormont House Agreement, ‘The Stormont House Agreement’, 2014 <https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/390672/Stormont_House_Agre ement.pdf> [accessed 17 September 2017]; Committee on the Administration of Justice (Northern Ireland), The Apparatus of Impunity?: Human Rights Violations and the Northern Ireland Conflict : A Narrative of Official Limitations on Post-Agreement Investigative Mechanisms, 2015; OFMdFM, ‘A Fresh Start - The Stormont Agreement and Implementation Plan’, 2015 <https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/479116/A_Fresh_Start__The_Stormont_Agreement_and_Implementation_Plan_-_Final_Version_20_Nov_2015_for_PDF.pdf> [accessed 17 September 2017].

5

Stormont House Agreement.

6

Nicholas Tavuchis, Mea Culpa: A Sociology of Apology and Reconciliation (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford

University Press, 1991), p. 8.

7

Eamonn O’Kane, ‘Justice or Peace? (Not) Dealing with the Past in Northern Ireland’, British Politics and

Policy at LSE, 2017 <http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/justice-or-peace-not-dealing-with-the-past-innorthern-ireland/> [accessed 14 December 2017].

8

David Young, ‘Police Tell Parties: Stop Stalling on Troubles’, The Times, 16 December 2017, section Ireland

<https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/police-tell-parties-stop-stalling-on-troubles-5fqs8kndf> [accessed 20 December 2017].

32

9

Tavuchis; Erving Goffman, Relations in Public: Microstudies of the Public Order (New York, NY: Basic

Books, 1971).

10

Tavuchis, p. 48.

11

Tavuchis, p. 17.

12

Tavuchis.

13

Goffman, p. 113.

14

Matt James, ‘Wrestling with the Past: Apologies, Quasi-Apologies, and Non-Apologies in Canada’, in The

Age of Apology: Facing Up to the Past, ed. by Mark Gibney and others (Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008), pp. 137–53 (p. 139).

15

Leslie H. Macleod, ‘A Time for Apologies: The Legal and Ethical Implications of Apologies in Civil Cases’,

Cornwall Public Inquiry Phase 2 Research and Policy Paper, Toronto, Ontario, 2008 <https://www.attorneygeneral.jus.gov.on.ca/inquiries/cornwall/en/healing/research/pdf/Macleod_Apologies.pdf > [accessed 20 March 2017].

16

Sanderijn Cels, ‘Interpreting Political Apologies: The Neglected Role of Performance: Interpreting Political

Apologies: The Neglected Role of Performance’, Political Psychology, 36.3 (2015), 351–60.

17

Goffman.

18

Tavuchis.

19

Susan Alter, Apologizing for Serious Wrongdoing: Social, Psychological and Legal Considerations, Final

Report for the Law Commission of Canada, May 1999.

20

Jeffrie Murphy, ‘Remorse, Apology, and Mercy’, Ohio State Journal of Criminal Law, 4 (2007), 423; Mathias

Thaler, ‘Just Pretending: Political Apologies for Historical Injustice and Vice’s Tribute to Virtue’, Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy, 15.3 (2012), 259–78.

21

United Nations, Guidance Note of the Secretary-General: United Nations Approach to Transitional Justice

(United Nations, March 2010).

22

United Nations.

23

Eleanor Bright Fleming, ‘When Sorry Is Enough: The Possibility of a National Apology for Slavery’, in The

Age of Apology: Facing Up to the Past, ed. by Mark Gibney and others (Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008), pp. 137–53; Tony Barta, ‘Sorry, and Not Sorry, in Australia: How the Apology to the Stolen Generations Buried a History of Genocide’, Journal of Genocide Research, 10.2 (2008), 201–14; Shahira Samy, ‘Would “Sorry” Repair My Loss? Why Palestinian Refugees Should Seek an Apology for Their Displacement’, The International Journal of Human Rights, 14.3 (2010), 364–77 <https://doi.org/10.1080/13642980802611145>; Mariko Izumi, ‘Asian-Japanese: State Apology, National Ethos, and the “Comfort Women” Reparations Debate in Japan’, Communication Studies, 62.5 (2011), 473–90 <https://doi.org/10.1080/10510974.2011.588299>; Emil Towner, ‘Documenting Genocide: The “Record of Confession, Guilty Plea, Repentance and Apology” in Rwanda’s Gacaca Trials’, Technical Communication Quarterly, 22.4 (2013), 285–303 <https://doi.org/10.1080/10572252.2013.780963>.

24

Mark Gibney, The Age of Apology, 2008

<https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Age_of_Apology.html?id=pPXpiXQ45osC> [accessed 18 September 2017].

25

United Nations.

33

26

Pablo De Greiff, ‘The Role of Apologies in National Reconciliation Processes: On Making Trustworthy

Institutions Trusted’, in The Age of Apology: Facing Up to the Past, ed. by Mark Gibney and others (Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008), pp. 137–53; Daniel Bar-Tal and Gemma H. Bennink, ‘The Nature of Reconciliation as an Outcome and as a Process’, in From Conflict Resolution to Reconciliation, ed. by Yaacov Bar-Siman-Tov (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), pp. 11–38.

27

Matthew J. Hornsey, ‘Collective Apologies Are Good at Regulating Transgressors’ Emotions, But for Victim

Group Members the Story Is Not So Clear’, Psychological Inquiry, 27.2 (2016), 101–5 (p. 101).

28

Craig W. Blatz and Catherine Philpot, ‘On the Outcomes of Intergroup Apologies: A Review: Intergroup

Apologies’, Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 4.11 (2010), 995–1007.

29

Patricia Lundy and Mark McGovern, ‘Whose Justice? Rethinking Transitional Justice from the Bottom Up’,

Journal of Law and Society, 35.2 (2008), 265–92 (p. 266) <https://repository.edgehill.ac.uk/4296/1/McGovern_Journal_of_Law_and_Society_35,2,_2008.pdf> [accessed 16 October 2017].

30

Patricia Lundy and Bill Rolston, ‘Redress for Past Harms? Official Apologies in Northern Ireland’, The

International Journal of Human Rights, 20.1 (2016), 104–22 (p. 3).

31

Luke Moffet, ‘Beyond Retribution: Responsibility of Armed Non-State Actors for Reparations in Northern

Ireland, Colombia and Uganda’, in Responsibilities of the Non-State Actor in Armed Conflict and the Market Place: Theoretical Considerations and Empirical Findings, ed. by Noemi Gal-Or, Cedric Ryngaert, and Math Noortmann (Leiden ; Boston: Brill Nijhoff, 2015); Ron Dudai, ‘Closing the Gap: Symbolic Reparations and Armed Groups’, International Review of the Red Cross, 93.883 (2011), 783–808.

32

Moffet; Dudai.

33

Cecily Rose, ‘An Emerging Norm: The Duty of States to Provide Reparations for Human Rights Violations

by Non-State Actors’, Hastings International and Comparative Law Review, 33 (2010), 307.

34

Dudai, p. 807.

35

Dudai, p. 807.

36

Rose, p. 332.

37

Dudai; Moffet.

38

Tavuchis, p. 5.

39

Lundy and Rolston.

40

Jeff Corntassel and Cindy Holder, ‘Who’s Sorry Now? Government Apologies, Truth Commissions, and

Indigenous Self-Determination in Australia, Canada, Guatemala, and Peru’, Human Rights Review, 9.4 (2008), 465–89.

41

Andrew McNeill, Evanthia Lyons, and Samuel Pehrson, ‘Reconstructing Apology: David Cameron’s Bloody

Sunday Apology in the Press’, British Journal of Social Psychology, 53.4 (2014), 656–74 <https://doi.org/10.1111/bjso.12053>.

42

Patricia Lundy, ‘Paradoxes and Challenges of Transitional Justice at the “Local” Level: Historical Enquiries

in Northern Ireland’, Contemporary Social Science, 6.1 (2011), 89–105 <https://doi.org/10.1080/17450144.2010.534495>; Lundy and Rolston; Bill Rolston, ‘“Unjustified and Unjustifiable”: Vindication for the Victims of Bloody Sunday: Bill Rolston Reflects on the Saville Inquiry and the PM’s Apology’, Criminal Justice Matters, 82.1 (2010), 12–13

34

<https://doi.org/10.1080/09627251.2010.525916>; Michael Cunningham, ‘Apologies in Irish Politics: A Commentary and Critique’, Contemporary British History, 18.4 (2004), 80–92; John D. Brewer, Peace Processes: A Sociological Approach (Cambridge: Polity, 2010), pp. 169–71; Graham Spencer, ‘Loyalist Perspectives on Apology, Regret and Change’, in Ulster Loyalism after the Good Friday Agreement, ed. by James W. McAuley and Graham Spencer (Palgrave Macmillan UK, 2011), pp. 244–60; Moffet; Dudai.

43

Lundy and Rolston, p. 3.

44

Julie Juola Exline, Lise Deshea, and Virginia Todd Holeman, ‘Is Apology Worth the Risk? Predictors,

Outcomes, and Ways to Avoid Regret’, Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 26.4 (2007), 479–504.

45

Marie Smyth, Truth Recovery and Justice after Conflict: Managing Violent Pasts, Routledge Studies in Peace

and Conflict Resolution (London ; New York: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, 2007), p. 26.

46

C. W. Blatz, M. V. Day, and E. Schryer, ‘Official Public Apologies Improve Victim Group Members’ Global

Evaluations of the Perpetrator Group’, Canadian Journal of Behavioural Science, 46.1 (2014), 337–45 (p. 338).

47

Tavuchis, p. 18.

48

Lundy and Rolston, p. 4.

49

Goffman.

50

Trudy Govier and Wilhelm Verwoerd, ‘The Promise and Pitfalls of Apology’, Journal of Social Philosophy,

33.1 (2002), 67–82; Tavuchis; Lundy and Rolston, p. 3.

51

Cunningham, ‘Saying Sorry’; Hornsey.

35

Jessica Warwick

The Making of a Fenian Nationalist: Michael Davitt’s Early Life and Influences Michael Davitt (1846-1906) was a prominent nationalist and Fenian during the 1860s. His activities as a gun runner for the nationalist organisation, the Fenian Brotherhood, led to his imprisonment under the Treason Felony Act in 1870. It was during and following his incarceration that Davitt became a well-known Irish Nationalist figure campaigning for Irish Home Rule, Labour rights and Land Nationalisation. This was, in part, a result of his acclaimed prison work, Leaves from a Prison Diary, completed during his second term in prison between 1881-82. This work was, like others of its genre, politically motivated. Through its pages, Davitt placed his political identity and specifically his ideology inside his carceral experience, similar to Jeremiah O’Donovan Rossa’s Six Years in Six English Prisons and John Mitchel’s Jail Journal. In addition to his prison writing, Davitt also acted as a freelance journalist from the 1870s until his death in 1906. Michael Davitt has been the focus of much scholarship since his death and his role as the ‘father of the Land League’ has ensured his position in Irish History. Despite his prolific activity as part of the Land War (1879-82) and his subsequent journalism, there has been little scholarship focusing on Davitt’s early influences and particularly on him as a literary figure. This article considers the early influences of Michael Davitt between 1850 and 1880. Within this, this article examines Davitt’s parents, his position in English society, as well as his education, as the basis and origins of his political and literary career. Of key interest is Davitt’s father’s role as an Irish storyteller and educator within their community in Haslingden in Lancashire, as well as Davitt’s use of the Mechanics’ Institute’s facilities, and the influence of the celebrated Chartist, Ernest Jones. This article argues that

36

Davitt’s early influences and experiences shaped him and enabled him to become an influential figure in Irish history.

Migrant Michael Davitt was born in 1846 in Straide, County Mayo, Ireland, during the Great Famine (1845-51). The Davitt family survived, but not without hardship. Martin Davitt, Michael’s father, was able to provide a living for his family by obtaining work with a local relief programme, thus mitigating the loss of his potato crop. Although they survived the Famine, the family were left in rent arrears and were ultimately evicted from their home. The Davitts were part of the vast wave of emigration that started during the Famine and was exacerbated by increased eviction by landlords. The Davitts’ experiences during this period were not unusual.

They arrived in Haslingden, a textile town in Lancashire in late 1850. 1 As migrant Irish in England, the Davitts experienced the poor housing and sanitation of the ‘Little Ireland’ of Haslingden, similar to that of other towns and cities, such as Liverpool, Manchester and Glasgow.2 The increase in Irish migrants following the Great Famine led to hostility with the British.3 Indeed, the population in the Rossendale borough, in which Haslingden was based, rose by twenty percent between 1840 and 1850, ten percent higher than the national increase. 4 In British eyes, the Irish became a social burden, due to the high levels of unemployment and disease amongst the Famine migrants. 5 The forced emigration resulting from the famine meant that the employed migrant Irish had nothing to return to. They were, therefore, willing to work longer hours for less money and would tolerate living in worse conditions than their British counterparts. This ensured tensions within the Working-class areas in which they settled. 6 Irish migrants in the port of Liverpool in 1849 were described in an article in The Times as ‘halfnaked and destitute’ and posing ‘additional burdens on the townspeople’, and it was also suggested that they ‘infected the place with the most malignant pestilence.’ 7 The Davitts, like their fellow Irishmen and women, experienced the distrust of the predominantly Protestant

37

English, who viewed the newcomers with suspicion as they were seen as racially different, poor, criminal, sick, and Catholic, as well as a threat to their employment opportunities. 8 Presumably, such experiences would have ensured stronger ties to Ireland and their Irish community in Haslingden.

Parents Davitt’s parents were one of his most significant influences. Martin Davitt was fluent in both Irish and English and highly literate, which was unusual during this period. Indeed, R.S. Schofield estimates that by 1840 seventy-one percent of Working-class people in Britain had only rudimentary literacy.9 Martin acted as the letter writer for the Irish community in Haslingden, named Rock Hall, and ran a school for the Irish population at night in his home.10 The school taught local quarrymen to read and write in English.11 Along with his educational responsibilities in Rockhall, Martin was also seen as an accomplished Irish storyteller. 12 There were two distinct and important parts of Irish folkloric storytelling tradition - the international saga told by the sgéalaí, and the local tale told by the seanchaí.13 The stories told by the sgéalaí were epic myths and legends. 14 In comparison, the seanchaí told tales of the local area, old stories concerning mermaids, faeries, great battles, ghosts and stories from the life of the seanchaí themselves. 15 Indeed, the narration and style of the seanchaí and the sgéalaí differed significantly.16 The sgéalaí told their stories in the third person in a neutral manner, whereas the seanchaí narrated their tales in the first person as if they had been there to witness the story unfold.17 The myths, legends and tales narrated by the seanchaí and the sgéalaí were eventually translated into English during the Irish Literary Revival of the late nineteenth century. 18 As such the seanchai was a precursor to the Literary Revival.

Martin Davitt held the role of an accomplished seanchaí within Rockhall. As the community’s storyteller, Martin was able to develop and present a specific view of Ireland and Irish culture

38

to his listeners as the purveyor of the collective national property of Irish culture within their host nation. It was only during the Literary Revival that this common national property became accessible to a wider audience.19 It is unsurprising, considering Davitt’s father’s position within Haslingden’s Irish population, that Michael went on to become a literary figure within Irish history. Indeed, his father’s role as seanchaí gave Davitt an understanding of rhetoric and oratory, skills he utilised to great effect throughout his career. An account of the power of his speech during his trial for treason-felony demonstrates this, ‘his speech just before sentence was passed was never reported, the bearest [sic] outline only being given, and it was well perhaps that it was suppressed. This man Davitt is a true orator, powerful to exert the worst possible influence on his impressible countrymen.’ 20 As well as being a literary and educational figure, Martin had, like his son, been a revolutionary figure in his youth. 21 In the 1830s, Davitt’s Father had been active in what T.W. Moody described as ‘one of those agrarian secret societies’.22 Agrarian secret societies were widespread across Ireland during this period as part of the Tithe War which by the 1830s had escalated violently.23 His actions received attention from the authorities, and as a result, he fled to England to avoid prosecution. 24 After returning to Ireland, it appears that Martin Davitt had stopped his rebellious activities and settled down with Michael’s mother, Catherine, shortly afterwards.25 His father’s activities politically, educationally and rhetorically can be seen as having strongly influenced Michael’s choices as a young man. However, despite the visible influence of his father, Michael credits his position within the Land War as stemming from his mother’s influence as his speech to Haslingden in 1883 demonstrates. Here he states that ‘it was there from his mother’s lips, now cold beneath the shade of American soil that he first learned to hate Irish Landlordism, and to register a vow that his life should be devoted to its destruction’. 26

39

Education In this speech, Davitt, not only credited his mother with his political outlook but also emphasised the importance of his education in Haslingden on his ‘stormy political career’. 27 Davitt praised the educational institutions he attended remarking that ‘he could honestly boast that he had never forgotten those lessons of Christian Morality and love to mankind which he imbibed in their school in Haslingden’. 28 He highlighted two of the schools he attended, the Wesleyan School and the Mechanics Institute. 29 In 1857, while working at a local mill, Davitt suffered an injury which cost him his right arm. 30 After he had regained his strength following the amputation of his arm, a local philanthropist, John Dean, sent him to the local Wesleyan School.31 Davitt’s years at the Wesleyan School were good ones; he was respected and well liked and his time there ensured that, although disabled, he could still make a good wage. 32 After finishing his education, Davitt went to work for Henry Cockcroft, the local postmaster and owner of a local printing business. 33 While working for Cockcroft, he also began attending the local Mechanics’ Institute. 34 In Davitt’s address, he expressed how Haslingden and the Mechanics’ Institute had started his political career and stated that it was in the ‘Institute he first read the history of Ireland’. 35 The Haslingden Institute was revived in 1854, and, like other Mechanics Institutes across the country, it was designed to be non-partisan and secular.36 However, Dr John Binns, a principal officer of the Haslingden Institute, had a Chartist background and he, like many others leaders of these establishments, was politically minded and engaged; a fact which showed in his running of the Institute. 37 By 1860, the Institute had a purpose-built location and expanded to offer a variety of lectures and classes as well as a library and a newsroom. 38 Such rooms were found across many institutes and housed a variety of local and national newspapers. 39 For instance, in 1893 the register for the Hartlepool Institute recorded twenty-two daily newspapers, twenty-one weekly newspapers and twenty-two magazines.40 The number of

40

newspaper sources available to members of the institutes suggests that those who used the newsrooms were able to fully engage with national and international political debate.

Interestingly, although it is evident that Davitt was a member of the Institute, there is no record of him receiving a certificate upon the completion of a class.41 His remarks at the 1883 meeting in Haslingden, in which he stated that in the Institute he had ‘first read the history of Ireland’ suggest that Davitt utilised the library and the newsroom rather than taking classes. 42 His use of the newsroom ensured that he became the conveyer of the news for his community. In this role, Davitt took on a position similar to that of his father, but rather than relaying the old stories of his people, Davitt imparted his knowledge of current affairs.

It was during his time working for Cockcroft and attending the Institute that Davitt saw the veteran Chartist leader, Ernest Jones. 43 In 1848, Jones was convicted of seditious behaviour and sentenced to two years in prison. 44 Nearly twenty years later in Manchester in 1867, Jones famously represented the Manchester Fenians, who were charged with murder, as their lead defence.45 Jones had settled in Manchester in 1861 and continued to lecture passionately on working-class radicalism, becoming one of the most influential leaders of the Working-class movement in Lancashire by this period. 46 It was during this time that Davitt attended one of his lectures and was inspired by Jones’ ideas surrounding Working-class rights, land nationalism and Irish nationalism, all concepts Davitt embraced later in life and which feature strongly in his prison work, Leaves from a Prison Diary (1885).47 As part of the Chartists, Jones became known nationally for his songs and poems, which were recited and sung across Britain.48 Moody claims that some of these songs and poems ‘almost certainly found a responsive reader in Michael’. 49 Indeed, one stanza from Jones’ poems on the Crimean war, written in 1856 and printed in The Spectator, demonstrates the rhetorical influence on Davitt, ‘then the Monarch’s brow grew lofty With a brave imperial pride: Even Tyranny looks noble, Seen by such poor Treason’s side.’ 50 The style and content portrayed in Jones’ work, although

41

far superior to Davitt’s verse, contains similar subjects to Davitt’s work. For example, a stanza in Davitt’s poem Innisfail (c.1880) focuses on tyranny and monarchy, ‘Here, chained beneath the tyrant’s hand, By martyr’s blood we swear! To Freedom and to Fatherland, We still allegiance bear; Nor felon’s fate, nor England’s hate, Nor hellish-fashioned jail, Shall stay this hand to wield a brand, One day for Innisfail!’ 51 Innisfail refers to the traditional poetic name for Ireland and the use of this name demonstrates Davitt’s interest in poetic style during this early part of his life. 52 Despite the similarities of topic, however, his writing and the scant records of his poetry that exist do not display any significant similarities to Jones’ work calling into question Moody’s assertion of Jones’ influence on Davitt as a writer. More significant, however, was the political inspiration that Jones played on Davitt during these years of his life.

Fenianism It was not long after Davitt met Jones in 1865 at the age of nineteen that Davitt joined the local branch of the Fenians. 53 This was not unusual in Irish families; it was quite common for intelligent, healthy, young men to join the organisation. 54 Yet, the traditionally accepted view of the membership of the Fenians was that it was made up of poorly educated men. Indeed, much of this was informed by contemporary reports of the Fenians including comments made by the prominent Irish separatist, John O’Leary, describing the men of his movement as riffraff. However, evidence from the Habeas Corpus Suspension Act, Abstract of Cases, 1866-8, demonstrates that this is not altogether accurate. The statistics compiled in 1870 demonstrate that 47.8 percent of those imprisoned under this Act were from skilled Working-class backgrounds. Additionally, the statistics demonstrate that the majority of those involved in Fenianism were prosperous enough to spend some of their earnings on leisure activities. R.V. Comerford has argued that the Fenians constituted a leisure activity to many of these men and that indeed, Fenian meetings were often disguised as social or athletic clubs and groups.

Furthermore, statistics demonstrate that the demographic makeup of the Fenians was

42

predominantly young men under the age of thirty-six. It is not surprising then, considering the demographics of the Fenian Brotherhood, that Davitt and many other young Irish men in England joined the organisation. Indeed, considering Davitt’s background, age, and affluence it would be more surprising if he had not become a Fenian.55 Founded in 1858, the Fenians were born out of the Young Irelanders and named after the band of warriors in the saga of Fionn Mac Cumhail. 56 Although the Fenians constituted the ex-patriot element of the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB), ‘Fenian’ became the general name for both organisations during this period. 57 The focus of this group was the creation of an Irish Republic.58 Soon after Davitt had joined the Fenians, he became the leader, known as the ‘centre’, of the Rossendale ‘circle’. 59 As leader of the circle, he led a detachment of Fenians for an attack on Chester Castle.60 This was Davitt’s only insurrectionist operation, and it was unsuccessful.61 The plan fell apart before it began. An informant warned the police the night before the attack on Chester Castle was to take place. 62 However, as he withdrew his men and sent them home, Davitt demonstrated better judgement than many other commanders and ensured that he and his men eluded the police. 63 This success elevated Davitt within the organisation, and in 1868 he was made the organising secretary and arms agent for the IRB for England and Scotland. 64 As organising secretary, Davitt was the link between the supreme council of the IRB and the Fenian circles across Britain. 65 This position meant that Davitt spent the next two years living as a Hawker, a street seller, ensuring that shipments of arms got to Ireland without attracting the attention of the British government. 66 He succeeded in this role until January 1869, when he became the subject of a police file at Dublin Castle entitled ‘Devitt, Michael, of Haslington’. 67 Davitt was arrested at Paddington Station in London on 14 May 1870. His arrest was a massive blow to the Fenians; they lost an active and prominent member who served as a vital link between the supreme council and the local circles of the Fenians. 68

43

Incarceration Davitt’s arrest also marked the first time his name became public knowledge. His arrest was reported on 17 May 1870 In the Morning Post, ‘Michael Davitt, about 30 years of age, who said he resided in Wilkerson Street, Haslingden, near Manchester, of no occupation, was charged with loitering at and about the station of the Great Western Railway at Paddington, supposed for an unlawful purpose’. 69 Following Davitt’s arrest alongside the gunsmith, John Wilson, Superintendent Williamson stated that he knew Davitt to be a Fenian. 70 Davitt’s Fenian links and activities were shortly discovered, and he was charged with Treason-Felony.

The Treason-Felony Act (1848) was a significant development in the punishing of political crimes. The act was created in response to insurrections in Europe in 1848.71 In Britain, this ‘Spring of Nations’ inspired the Young Irelanders into action, and, in an attempt to dampen extreme political agitation across Britain, the Government instituted the crime of Treason Felony. 72 Under the act, it was a felony to plot to overthrow the Monarch, levy war against the Monarch within Britain, to compel the Monarch to change counsels, intimidate parliament or to incite foreign invasion.73 The act further combined the crimes of sedition, which was a misdemeanour, and high-treason, which warranted the death penalty. 74 Notable historians Leon Radzinowicz and Roger Hood have argued that the act was specifically designed for and applied towards the Irish, a claim that has been supported by Seán McConville.75 There is significant evidence supporting this. For example, during the third reading of the Crown and Government Security Bill, later known as the Treason-Felony Act, Ireland was mentioned twenty-nine times, in contrast, England was mentioned seven times.76 This Act ensured that those convicted of Treason-Felony, specifically the Fenians, were labelled felons. 77 This label had a lasting impact on the Irish prisoners like Michael Davitt as it prevented them from being categorised as political prisoners, a group which, in Europe at least, had been seen as distinct from the criminal classes since the 1830s. 78 Despite the European view, and several periods in

44

which political prisoners, including the Fenians imprisoned before Davitt, had won some recognition as political inmates, the British justice system continued to see those convicted of political crimes as criminal. As a result, Davitt spent his first term in prison classed as an ordinary convict.79 Following his conviction, Davitt was moved to Millbank for the first stage of his incarceration.

While imprisoned here he was not allowed the privilege afforded to other prisoners of working outside his cell.80 His testimony to the Royal Commission suggested that this was because he was seen as a security threat. 81 It is evident from his account of his time here that his disability was rarely taken into consideration. For example, all prisoners were required to clean their cells daily, but as Davitt had one arm, this task took him longer than the other inmates. 82 Following his time at Millbank, he was moved to Dartmoor. In early September 1872, while in Dartmoor, in the second year of his incarceration, Davitt was able to smuggle out a letter that detailed his prison experience. This letter was published in a variety of papers in England and Ireland including The Freeman’s Journal, The Morning Post and The Manchester Times. The letter illustrated the treatment he and other prisoners suffered here. This letter begins, ‘It is with intense satisfaction that I am now going to tell you, through a confidential channel, how I have weathered the storm of prison abuse since you parted from me last January.’ 83 Throughout the letter Davitt lists a variety of grievances surrounding his treatment, focusing not only on how he was treated as a political prisoner, but also on the general conditions all prisoners were expected to endure. 84 Davitt spent six years and six months at Dartmoor. The prison’s location ensured that its climate was hard, freezing in winter and extremely hot in summer, with little ventilation.85 The condition of the food was so poor that candles had to be given a highly offensive smell to ensure that prisoners would not eat them. 86 The complaints he made surrounding his incarceration at Dartmoor suggest that he was treated harshly, but it does not

45

suggest that this was unusual treatment. For example, in his letter Davitt described an instance in which he was transported from Dartmoor to Portsmouth, he stated that: As I anticipated, I was fastened on the chain between two of the dirtiest men in the batch. Each man had one hand locked to the chain and the other free to assist himself. I asked the chief turnkey if a body-belt could not be substituted for a handcuff in my case, so that I might have a hand free like the other men. He replied ‘ No.’ […] But this is not all. Soon after we joined the train at Plymouth the poor wretch to whose right hand I was fastened was attacked with diarrhoea.

No chain would be undone! No handcuff unlocked, and, amid the laughter of the officers forming our escort, I had to remain in a position which may be more easily imagined than politely described. 87 Although this account suggests institutional bullying and intimidation rather than any specific attack on Davitt, it is interesting to note that he was soon returned to Dartmoor. The reasoning is unclear, but Davitt suggests that ‘it was because on the 12th of July I wrote a letter to my mother, in which I told her that I liked Portsmouth better than I did this place. Three days after I wrote that letter I was brought back here’. 88 Undoubtedly, Davitt’s treatment was different to that of the ordinary felon, and the bullying and intimidation he experienced resulted from his identification as a political prisoner despite the lack of recognition from the system itself.

Indeed, despite the labelling of Davitt as a criminal offender, during and after his prison experience he rejected this term and identified solely as a political offender. In his letter on his prison experience published in 1872, the content of which suggests it was intended for publication, Davitt states that ‘there are few instances of leniency practised towards the remaining political prisoners.’ 89 Certainly, here Davitt is claiming the label of political prisoner, and it is this letter that began to form Davitt’s position within Irish Nationalism. It was following the publication of this letter that Davitt first received public attention as a political prisoner. Following this, he became the subject of much discussion. On 7 September 1872, several days after the letter on prison conditions was published, an article in The Irishman

46

entitled ‘A Protest from Prison’ discussed Davitt’s position within the prison, ‘When punishment was the object, Michael Davitt was Political offender—when amnesty is in question, he is merely non-Political offender.’ 90 Davitt identifying himself as a political offender ensured that the narratives surrounding him would continue in that vein. A second article in The Irishman paints Davitt and his case as such: To treat political prisoners with the same severity as common felons is against the usage of civilized nations, is regarded, in the case of these prisoners, as a wrong to Ireland. These prisoners have certainly been treated with exceptional harshness […] The case of Davitt is even more painful. He is a maimed man, with one arm, and has been injured by forced labours which humanity would have spared him. His sentence of fifteen years was not so much for the heinousness of his crime, selling or purchasing arms, as “warning to others.” 91 It was through this letter that Davitt began to be publicly recognised as a leading Irish nationalist, enabling him to fully engage in Irish nationalist politics on his release from prison in 1877.

Certainly, Davitt’s previous incarceration and status as a political prisoner gave him standing amongst Irish nationalists. A poem entitled ‘Michael Davitt in Prison’, appeared in the Derry Journal in March 1881, one month after he was once again incarcerated. This poem discusses Davitt in line with other heroes of Irish history, such as Robert Emmet (1778-1803). The rhetoric of the hero is applied to Davitt within this poem, ‘Yet his is resolute will, Unconquered and firm strong. Prisons can never bind, The spirits of such as he … Still in the path he showed, His followers plant their feet, Treading the difficult road … Davitt is honoured and blessed, Aid known as a leader of men.’92 Within this poem, Davitt is a rallying figure and because of his prison experience, a martyr. The fact that Davitt is written about in this way demonstrates the rhetorical importance of his first incarceration in shaping him into a prominent nationalist.

47

On his release from prison in 1877, Davitt became an influential political figure. He began his first lecture tour, was instrumental in the ‘New Departure’, gave evidence to the Kimberley Commission (1878) and founded the National Land League in 1879. 93 One of his first engagements on his lecture tour was ‘to make a statement of his prison treatment at a meeting to be held after the opening of Parliament.’ 94 This early lecture tour focused predominantly on Davitt’s experiences as a political prisoner, as did the evidence he gave to the Kimberley Commission on Penal Reform. 95 Soon, it became clear to Davitt that the IRB had gone through significant change since his incarceration; its focus had shifted from armed insurrection to Home Rule.96 This lead to Davitt’s role in forming the ‘New Departure’, an informal alliance struck in 1878 between the advocators of physical force insurrection, primarily in Clan na Gael in America, and those who supported Home Rule within the IRB in Britain and Ireland. 97 This ‘New Departure’ ensured the support of both the IRB and Clan na Gael for the parliamentarian efforts for Home Rule conducted under the leadership of the MP Charles Stewart Parnell. 98 1879 saw the third consecutive year that Irish crops had failed and this enflamed the already brewing Landlord crisis. 99 This crisis was to become the main focus of Davitt’s political life, and his actions here secured his place in Irish history. His response to this crisis was to form the National Land League in October 1879. The Land League was instrumental in fighting the Land War , which lead to Davitt’s second incarceration in 1881. 100 The reasoning behind his re-arrest was convoluted. Indeed, Charles Parnell, speaking in the House of Commons, questioned the Home Secretary regarding Davitt’s re-arrest, ‘I beg to ask the Home Secretary which are the conditions of his ticket-of-leave which Michael Davitt has violated?’ 101 The Home Secretary then refused to answer Parnell’s question. Four months later in August 1881, Parnell again raised concerns surrounding the arrest of Michael Davitt in Commons stating that:

48

This House considers the re-arrest of Mr. Michael Davitt was not warranted by his conduct during the interval which has elapsed since his release on ticket-ofleave […], No convict was re-arrested unless he had done something in violation of the conditions of his ticket-of-leave, or was engaged in some unlawful conduct. He [Mr Parnell] thought the onus of proving that Mr. Davitt had done either of those things was thrown on the Government. Soon after Mr. Davitt’s re-arrest he asked the Home Secretary which of the conditions of the ticket-of-leave Mr. Davitt had broken, and the Home Secretary had refused to answer this, implying that neither of the conditions had been broken […] But if Mr. Davitt was not arrested for a breach of the conditions contained in his ticketof-leave, he must have been arrested for the speeches he delivered in connection with the land movement in Ireland.’102 Undoubtedly, the prominence Davitt gained upon release from his first incarceration gave him a significant position within Irish nationalism. Indeed, his work for this cause was enough for the government to revoke his ticket-of-leave, despite lacking the grounds upon which to do so.

Conclusion The experiences and influences of Davitt’s early life enabled him to become a prominent political figure in Irish history. Indeed, these influences not only led him to prominence as the founder of the Land League but also enabled him to use writing, narrative and political rhetoric effectively. His position in English society as an Irish migrant ensured that he had stronger ties to his homeland and encouraged nationalist feeling within him. This was furthered by his father’s position as a storyteller which not only taught him the myths, legends and histories of Ireland, but also gave Davitt a solid understanding of the use and application of narrative and rhetoric, devices he used to great effect throughout his life. Davitt’s education enabled him to use these devices effectively and facilitated his interest in politics so that he became the peddler of news to his community. Additionally, the politics proclaimed by the Chartist Ernest Jones became the cornerstone of much of Davitt’s ideology. Finally, his experiences as a political

49

prisoner under treason felony gave him prominence as an Irish nationalist leader. Certainly, the letter on prison conditions Davitt penned whilst incarcerated engaged him as a writer and ensured that he would spend the rest of his career producing pamphlets, books and articles on a variety of subjects. Predominantly these works focused on injustices such as the pogroms in Russia, the Landlord-tenant issues in Ireland and of course on the treatment of prisoners.

Considering this, it is surprising that although the works of writers like Moody and Carla King have noted Davitt’s contribution as a key figure in Irish history, his literary activity, explicitly surrounding his prison experience, has received substantially less scholarly attention.

Jessica Warwick Liverpool Hope University warwicj@hope.ac.uk

Notes 1

T.W. Moody, Davitt and Irish Revolution 1846-82 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1982), pp.1-10.

2

R. Swift, S. Gilley, The Irish in the Victorian City (London: Croom Helm, 1985), pp. 1-6.

3

M. A. G, Ó Tuathaigh, ‘The Irish in Nineteenth-Century Britain: Problems of Integration’, in, ed. R. Swift, S.

Gilley, The Irish in the Victorian City, p. 21.

4

GB Historical GIS / University of Portsmouth, Rossendale through time | Historical Statistics on Population for

the Registration sub-District | Rate: Rate of Population Change (% over previous 10 years), A Vision of Britain through Time. Accessed at, www.visionofbritain.org.uk/unit/10563781/rate/POP_CH_10, Date accessed: 28th September 2017 5

Ibid.

6

Ibid.

7

‘Irish Immigration into Liverpool’, The Times, 14 May 1849.

8

Ibid, see also, Moody, Davitt and Irish Revolution, p. 11.

9

C. King, Michael Davitt, (Dublin: University College Dublin Press, 2008) pp. 4-5; R.S. Schofield, ‘Dimensions

of Illiteracy, 1750-1850’, Explorations in Economic History, Vol. 10 (1975), p. 437.

10

Ibid, p. 437.

11

Moody, Davitt and Irish Revolution, p. 13.

12

Ibid, p. 5.

13

D. Kiberd, The Irish Writer and the World (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), p. 44.

50

14

Ibid, p. 44.

15

J. Messenger, ‘Joe O’Donnell, “Seanchai” of Aran’, Journal of the Folklore Institute, Vol. 1 (1964), p. 203.

16

Ibid, p. 44.

17

Ibid, p. 44.

18

C. Weygandt, ‘The Irish Literary Revival’, The Sewanee Review, Vol. 12 (1904), P. 421.

19

N. Vance, Irish Literature: A Social History, (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 1999), p. 166.

20

‘From Our London Correspondent’, Dover Express, 6 September 1872.

21

Moody, Davitt and Irish Revolution, p.5.

22

Ibid, p. 5.

23

R. Foster, Modern Ireland 1600-1972 (London: Penguin, 1990) p. 309.

24

Moody, Davitt and Irish Revolution, p. 6.

25

Ibid, p. 6.

26

‘Mr Davitt at Haslingden’, Freeman’s Journal, 16 January 1883.

27

Ibid

28

Ibid.

29

Ibid.

30

Moody, Davitt and Irish Revolution, p. 17.

31

King, Michael Davitt, p. 5. see also Moody, Davitt and Irish Revolution, p. 17.

32

Ibid, p. 17.

33

Ibid, p. 17.

34

Moody, Davitt and Irish Revolution, p. 21.

35

‘Mr Davitt at Haslingden’, Freeman’s Journal, 16 January 1883.

36

J. Dunleavy, ‘Michael Davitt’s Lancashire Apprenticeship’, Journal of the Galway Archaeological and

Historical Society, Vol. 59 (2007), p. 115.

37

Ibid, p. 115.

38

Ibid, p. 114.

39

M. Walker, The Development of the Mechanics’ Institute Movement in Britain and Beyond: supplying further

education for the adult working classes (London: Routledge, 2017), p. 125.

40 41

Ibid, p. 125.

J. Dunleavy, ‘Michael Davitt’s Lancashire Apprenticeship’, Journal of the Galway Archaeological and

Historical Society, p. 114.

42

Ibid, p. 114; See also ‘Mr Davitt at Haslingden’, Freemans Journal, 16 January 1883.

43

Moody, Davitt and Irish Revolution, p. 21.

44

J. Saville, ‘Jones, Ernest Charles (1819-1869)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford: Oxford

University Press, 2004), http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/15000?docPos=2, accessed 7/10/2016.

45

Ibid.

46

Moody, Davitt and Irish Revolution, p. 21.

47

Ibid, p. 21.

48

Saville, ‘Jones, Ernest Charles (1819-1869)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.

49

Moody, Davitt and Irish Revolution, p. 21.

51

50

‘Ernest Jones Poems on the War’, The Spectator, 5 January 1856.

51

M. Davitt, ‘Innisfail’, in Michael Davitt’s Collected Writings 1868-1906’, Vol 1, ed. C. King (Bristol: Synapse,

2001), pp. 1-2.

52

D. Birch, K. Hooper, The Concise Oxford Companion to English Literature (Oxford: Oxford University Press,

1990), p. 355.

53

Moody, Davitt and Irish Revolution, p. 22.

54

Ibid, p. 44.

55

Moody, Davitt and Irish Revolution, p. 43.

56

Foster, Modern Ireland 1600-1972, p. 390.

57

Ibid, pp. 390-391.

58

Ibid, p. 391.; For more information on the Fenians see R.V. Comerford, The Fenians in Context: Irish Politics

and Society 1848-82 (Dublin: Wolfhound, 1985).

59

King, Michael Davitt, p. 6.

60

Ibid, p. 6.

61

Moody, Davitt and Irish Revolution, p. 49.

62

Ibid, p. 49.

63

Ibid, p. 49.

64

Ibid, p. 53.

65

Ibid, p. 53.

66

King, Michael Davitt, p. 6.

67

Moody, Davitt and Irish Revolution, p. 55.

68

Ibid, p. 80.

69

‘Capture of Supposed Fenians’, Morning Post, 17 May 1870.

70

Ibid.

71

T. Baycroft, Nationalism in Europe 1789-1945 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), p. 17.

72

S. McConville, Irish Political Prisoners, 1848-1922: Theatres of War (London: Routledge, 2003), p.26.

73

L. Radzinowicz, R. Hood, ‘The Status of Political Prisoners in England: The Struggle for Recognition’, Virginia

Law Review Vol, 65 (1978), p. 1436.

74

Ibid, p. 1436.

75

Ibid, p. 1437; See also S. McConville, Irish Political Prisoners 1848-1922, p. 26.

76

‘Crown and Government Security Bill’, Hansard, HC Deb, 18 April 1848, Vol. 98 cc 453-79.

77

Radzinowicz, Hood, ‘The Status of Political Prisoners in England: The Struggle for Recognition’, p. 1421.

78

Ibid, p. 1421.

79

Ibid, p. 1422.

80

‘Royal Com. To Inquire into Working of Penal Servitude Acts. Report, Minutes of Evidence, Appendix, Index’,

House of Commons Parliamentary Papers, 1879. p. 518.

81

Ibid, p. 518.

82

‘Royal Com. To Inquire into Working of Penal Servitude Acts. Report, Minutes of Evidence, Appendix, Index’,

House of Commons Parliamentary Papers, p. 518.

83

Ireland, Morning Post, 4 September 1872.

52

84

Ibid.

85

M. Davitt, ‘A Statement by Mr Michael Davitt (ex-Political Prisoner) on Prison Treatment’, C. King ed., in

Volume 1, Michael Davitt’s Collected Writings, 1868-1906, p. 51.

86

Ibid, p. 51.

87

Ireland, Morning Post, 4 September 1872.

88

Ibid.

89

‘The Treatment of Political Prisoners in English Prisons’, Manchester Times, 7 September 1872.

90

‘A Protest From Prison’, The Irishman, 7 September 1872.

91

‘The Fenian Prisoners’, The Irishman, 10 May 1873.

92

‘Michael Davitt in Prison’, Derry Journal. 23 March 1881.

93

C. King, Michael Davitt after the Land League, 1881-1906, (Dublin: University College Dublin Press, 2016),

pp. 6-11.

94

‘Release of A Fenian Prisoner’, Western Daily Press, Monday 24 December 1877.

95

King, Michael Davitt after the Land League, p. 6.

96

Ibid, p. 6.

97

A. Jackson, Ireland 1798-1998:war, peace and beyond (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010), p. 115.

98

King, Michael Davitt after the Land League, p. 9.

99

Ibid, p. 10.

100

Ibid, p. 11.

101

‘The Convict Michael Davitt’, Hansard, HC Deb 03 February 1881, Vol. 258 c. 68.

102

‘Resolution’, Hansard, HC Deb 20 August 1881, Vol. 265, cc. 510-52.

ยง Reviews

54

Towards a Religious Critical Discourse Fr. Colum Power, James Joyce’s Catholic Categories, Belmont, NC: Wiseblood, 2016, 381 pp, £30, paperback.

Declan Kiberd opens his introduction to Fr. Colum Power’s study, James Joyce’s Catholic Categories, with the remark that, The practice of literary criticism has been, for well over a century, a resolutely secular activity – and this despite the fact that modern literature has often opened up sacred spaces not much explored in everyday life. (9) In pausing to wonder at the self-limiting slide towards secular homogeneity within his own discipline, the Irish literary critic gestures towards an issue more thoroughly diagnosed by Dennis Taylor, Professor of Literature at Boston College. Taylor delineates in no uncertain terms the obvious deficiencies of the secular literary discourse: ‘A great critical need of our time’, he writes, ‘is for ways of discussing religious or spiritual dimensions in works of literature.’i Why? Because, ‘an important part of the literature we read goes untouched by our discourses, or is deconstructed, historicized, sexualized, or made symptomatic of covert power relationships’.ii His conclusion that, ‘[t]he negative hermeneutic of such reductive discourses has been thorough and successful’,iii is echoed by Neil Corcoran, who neatly summarises the issue with his general reflection that religion is ‘a language one has lost the ability to speak’.iv The absence of any potent religious discourse within Joyce criticism, in combination with the pervasiveness of such reductive discourses, is well noted by Fr. Colum Power. While allowing for the contribution of highly competent discussions of Joyce and Catholicism by both Hugh Kenner and William Noon, our critic begins his study with a frank attestation to the state of affairs cited above, that ‘the dominant trend of Joycean critical discourse is secularist, and Joyce’s post-Catholicism and anti-Catholicism has usually been taken for granted’ (22).

55

This said, Power is clear that the central concern of his work is not to forcefully baptise Joyce and his works into the Catholic literary tradition; ‘the goal’, he writes, ‘is not to reclaim him for Catholicism but to discover what kind of apostate he became, how far his apostasy from Catholicism took him from religious belief’ (31). The complexity of Joyce’s relationship with Catholicism, Power argues, is reflected in his simultaneous rejection of the church, and his lifelong habit of attending early morning mass during holy week, a practice documented by his bemused brother, Stanislaus, who Kiberd designates as ‘the kind of atheist that most Joyceans want his brother to be’ (11).

Faced with Joyce’s particular kind of apostasy, which vows itself an enemy of the church and yet is known to weep at the Good Friday liturgy, Power turns to a body of work that, he argues, is reflective of these biographical complexities. The critic finds within Joyce’s writings a refusal to disavow the categories of Catholic thought, language, and symbolism.

Joyce’s undeniable interest in, and adoption of, these categories calls for something more than the deconstructing, historicising, sexualising, and reductive approaches of past and present literary criticism. Indeed, Joyce demands a potent critical discourse, a lens capable of focusing in on the nuances of his conversation with Catholicism, and a framework able to bear the weight of his experiments with its categories.

Power easily demonstrates the necessity of such a discourse through a series of careful close readings of Joyce’s work. Particularly insightful is the critic’s treatment of the first of Joyce’s short stories in Dubliners, ‘The Sisters’. In a recent article featured in The Irish Times, titled ‘Clerical abuse, boom and bust: how Joyce predicted Ireland today’, Terence Killeen wonders whether the sense of queasiness, present throughout the entire story, has its origins in sexual abuse. The likelihood of this, he argues, is confirmed by the second story of the collection, ‘An Encounter’, where the topic is directly addressed. The suggestion with which we are left is that ‘the second story sheds something of a new light on the first’, and, therefore,

56

that ‘the relationship between a boy and a priest’ in ‘The Sisters’, and the mysterious ‘disgrace’ with which the priest is burdened, is sexual in nature.v The reading is a common one, and its inaccuracy is easily exposed by Power. In his reconsideration of the source of the ‘cloud of suspicion’ that ‘hovers strangely over the priest and the relationship’ (156), the critic highlights a detail of the text which, for a secular reader in a secular age, is easily missed. The boy achieves resolution, he observes, upon overhearing a conversation between ‘the sisters’ of the dead priest, who remark that Fr. Flynn was never the same after breaking the chalice during mass: An unbeliever would easily underestimate or even fail entirely to imagine the deep dread present in the heart of every priest of profound faith of one day knocking over in a clumsy moment during the celebration of the Eucharist the chalice containing the Blood of Christ; hence the tendency of many to ascribe to Fr. Flynn sinister aberrations ranging from paedophilia to sexual promiscuity, schism and syphilis (156-7) Both Joyce and the sisters, Power argues, ‘allude to the episode of the chalice obliquely because of its deeply disturbing nature for the faith-filled sensibility’ (157). For Joyce, embarking upon an exercise in “scrupulous meanness”, the pervasive sense of uneasiness is surely best sourced in this slight, albeit loaded, detail, rather than in some sexual aberration that remains unmentioned.

This small extract taken from Power’s work is demonstrative of both the deficiency of a resolutely secular lens, and of the weight that Joyce was willing to accord to religious categories. Ranging from Joycean individuation to the author’s experimentations with the Eucharist, James Joyce’s Catholic Categories delves deeply into the theological elements of Joyce’s work, further demonstrating the necessity of a religious discourse within Joycean criticism. In his consideration of the Eucharist, Power enters into an already vibrant critical discussion, conversing easily with previous works before approaching ‘Joyce’s Eucharistic intentions with an explanation of an important aspect of the Eucharist that has been overlooked

57

by Joyce scholars; namely, the Eucharist as a nuptial union between Bridegroom and Bride’ (280). Concerning individuation, Power explores the process by which, via experience and interaction, individuals attain to a spiritual and personal maturity in the works of Joyce.

Journeying through Dubliners, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, and Ulysses, the critic offers original insights, ‘discern[ing] the influence of a mysterious and merciful God-like principle at work in human affairs to provoke change, epiphanized in Joyce’s prose’ (155).

Indeed, in addition to there being ‘thought-provoking similarities between his positions and Catholic teachings in areas like homosexuality and birth control’, Power notes, in characters such as Leopold Bloom, that, [T]here are more important coincidences in the themes of paternity and mercy, the achievement of identity through relationship, and the agency of an elusive, cultivating presence. There are similarities between the divine and Joycean modes of orchestrating human individuation – admonitio and delectatio, correction and enticement – to provoke personal growth. (239) Although these theological forays into Joyce’s work are certainly informative, they are the tributaries of a larger thesis, which flows through the centre of James Joyce’s Catholic Categories. In this thesis Power does not ignore the obvious challenges that Joyce’s work mounts against the Catholic Church; rather, he finds the challenges themselves to have their roots in Catholicism. Central to Power’s thesis is the argument that both the target of Joyce’s polemic and the nature of the paralysis he sought to depict is a condition, which Power terms as ‘agape without eros’ (106).

Undergirding this argument is a nuanced and theologically informed survey of Irish Catholicism circa the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Power sees in Joyce’s work a reflection of a church which, having undergone a gradual shift away from the values of traditional Catholicism and towards those of cultural Protestantism, is reoriented towards an ascetic Victorian moralism, ‘agape without eros’:

58

For present purposes, eros may be understood as that chief aspect of love that desires union of the self with the other, and agape as that aspect of love that disposes the self towards sacrifice towards the other. (106) If Catholicism revolves around the concept of a love that is both self-sacrificing and desiring of union, then a love which demands self sacrifice without union is, in essence, not Catholic.

Power finds throughout Joyce’s work a reaction against the latter condition, which, he argues, the author saw as general all over Ireland. From ‘Eveline’, the fourth story of Dubliners, where the subject is caught between the dubious advances of a sailor and a life of caring for her unloving father, to the travails of Stephen in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Power draws out the absence of a Catholic concept of eros, and the overpowering and damaging presence of a distorted agape. Premisory to Power’s work, therefore, is the argument that Joyce’s crusade against the Catholic Church was not directed at the church throughout history, nor at its leading thinkers: ‘[h]e did not reject realism or religion’, but rather, ‘he rejected only a very specific historical manifestation of Catholicism’ (70). As such, both the values that form the basis of Joyce’s argument and the categories with which he criticises the Irish magisterium are not those of atheism; rather, Power points out, in finding flaw with the un-Catholic abandonment of eros and the exaltation of agape, Joyce’s critique is profoundly Catholic.

At the outset of this study, Power echoes G.K. Chesterton with his remark that, while Beckett was certainly justified in writing out of a belief that theology was too important to be left to theologians, this ‘beg[s] the rejoinder that literature is too important to be left to literary critics’ (28). By deftly fashioning a discussion between the two disciplines, and by successfully bringing such voices as that of Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger into conversation with James Joyce, the critic demonstrates that the categories of Catholic thought are relevant to the study of Joyce.

More than this, Power confirms the suspicion voiced by Prof. Dennis Taylor, that the religious discourse is potent and valuable, capable of offering new, undiscovered, and insightful avenues

59

into the work of authors such as Joyce. The great achievement of Power’s work, therefore, is to provide a nuanced ‘way of discussing’ the Catholic elements of Joyce’s work.

Andrew J. Newell University of Oxford

Notes

i

Dennis Taylor, ‘The Need for a Religious Literary Criticism’, Religion and the Arts, 1 (1997)

<https://www.bc.edu/publications/relarts/supplements/excerpts/v1-1taylor2.html> [accessed 5 August 2017], para. 1. ii

Ibid.

iii

Ibid.

iv

Neil Corcoran, The Poetry of Seamus Heaney: A Critical Study (London: Faber and Faber, 1998),

p.132. v

Terence Killeen, ‘Clerical abuse, boom and bust: how Joyce predicted Ireland today’, The Irish Times,

16 June 2017.

60

Choosing to Remember Breandán MacSuibhne, The End of Outrage: Post-Famine Adjustment in Rural Ireland, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017, 352 pp, £20, hardcover About 25 years ago I was driving from Donegal Town to my grandfather’s home in Narin, a small coastal village in the parish of Ardara. Just outside of Ardara I stopped to pick up a man about my own age who was thumbing a lift. We quickly got into conversation and I was intrigued and amused to learn that he was a local, from the townland of Beagh, who was a graduate student at Pittsburgh’s prestigious Carnegie Mellon University, writing a thesis about sheep stealing in Gweedore. His name was Breandán MacSuibhne and I didn’t meet him again for twenty years. Friends who passed through Notre Dame, where he worked for a period, would occasionally bring news of him and we corresponded briefly over Field Day Review matters. But it was not until August 2014 when we were both visiting fellows at NUI Galway’s Moore Institute that our paths crossed again. There I saw him deliver an electrifying paper on changes in land ownership in the townland of Beagh between 1830 and 1860 and I grew excited at the idea that there was much more to come via a subsequent book. I have not been disappointed by the final product.

Beagh (pronounced Beh-ha) meant, for me, a bend in the road just before you enter the townland of Sandfield, the birthplace of my grandfather and all the Shovlins I’m closely related to for a long way back. Beagh also meant ‘the hanging stone’, a huge rock left overhanging the Ardara to Narin road, presumably a leftover from the last ice age. As a child that rock worried me as I knew that it would fall on any red haired woman who passed beneath it. I thanked God my sister was blonde and quietly wondered how my Aunt Bella ever managed to get to Ardara.

For MacSuibhne, Beagh clearly means the world, both literally and figuratively, for this is a book in which a minute and exacting analysis of one very small place in Southwest Donegal becomes a rumination on how the living rub along with the dead, how forgetting happens and

61

how outrage (grudges, feuding, revenge, violence) ends. It is an extraordinary act of recovery and is set to become a classic of Irish historiography.

A wide range of archives, oral lore and folk memory are brought together to create a book that has the humbling rigor characteristic of an historian like Theo Hoppen coupled with the deeply affecting prose of a writer like David Thomson. Thomson’s attempts to excavate and revivify the history of the North Roscommon big house, Woodbrook, in his brilliant 1975 book named after the house, sprang frequently to mind. This, I think, is for two reasons. First, the quality of the prose – MacSuibhne is prepared to take risks with his style that other historians of what Gearóid Ó Tuathaigh once described to me as the ‘cold bath in the morning school’ would not dare attempt. Take a passage like the following in which the author writes about the increasing desperation of a rapidly expanding pre-Famine population to find land to support themselves and their children: “And so this half-hill comprises some of the last places man created before the deluge that was the Great Famine. Among them is a forlorn field, facing north and falling from bog to marsh that drains into the unmoving blackness of a turf-stained trout stream which rises and falls with the tide but never seems to flow.” A beautiful couple of sentences, but, like that last desperate field, they have been hard won and fully earned via tireless digging and extraordinary sleuthing through well known sources such as Griffith’s Valuation and local newspapers, but also much less used treasures like the Outrage Papers and – perhaps most interestingly of all – the Chief Secretary’s Office Registered Papers. Once or twice you just have to bow at the sheer tenacity of detective work, as in MacSuibhne’s description of the informer Patrick McGlynn’s flight to Australia with his wife and two little girls in what today would be called witness protection.

McGlynn, the schoolmaster in Beagh, and a letter he writes in April 1856 to Daniel Cruise, the local stipendiary magistrate, lie at the centre of this book. McGlynn seeks to betray his fellow Molly Maguires in order to save his own hide, and, in a roundabout way, you might

62

say he succeeds. The Mollies were a secret, oathbound organization, an offshoot of the Ribbonmen, and were particularly active in West Donegal in the years after the Famine. They eventually became perhaps better known for their activities in the coalfields of Northeastern Pennsylvania where they tried to stand up against the forces of capitalism, frequently ending up on the gallows. One of the many intriguing subplots in The End of Outrage involves MacSuibhne’s uncovering of the transatlantic toing and froing between places like Ardara and Wilkes Barre, Pennsylvania. Young Irish men in the 1860s – in patterns redolent of contemporary Europe and the Middle East – were travelling to the United States, becoming radicalized and returning to their home patch as Fenians. But for those who remained in Donegal, writes MacSuibhne, “unrelenting social and cultural erosion made selective amnesia necessary to sustain any sense of community”. Given the disaster of the Famine and before it the land redistribution of ‘the squarings’ of the 1830s which saw an end to the older practice of rundale, it is remarkable how quickly neighbours managed to forget – or at least forget selectively enough to get on with life.

Forgetting and how it happens is at the very heart of this marvellous book. While scholarly commitment and talent shines through every page, it cannot have been an easy book to write, for MacSuibhne chooses to go against the grain of those who chose to forget, and in remembering he names names, the names of people whose descendants still tend the hearths of Beagh. Some will consider that a foolish act, others a hostile one, but for this reader, at least, it seems one of courage, of integrity and of love.

Prof. Frank Shovlin University of Liverpool

63

Past Ireland, Future Ireland?

Jefferson Holdridge and Brian Ó Conchubhair, eds. Post-Ireland? Essays on Contemporary Irish Poetry, Winston-Salem, NC: Wake Forest University Press, 2017, 432pp., $29.95, paperback.

The image that illustrates the cover of Post-Ireland? is a painting by Manus Walsh depicting an image of the Burren after rain. We see the sharp top of a hill while the rest of the scene is blurred. Perhaps this is a fitting metaphor of what happens in studies in contemporary Irish poetry. While some areas are clearly delineated by an abundance of critical commentary, some others can appear blurred due to a lacuna in the scholarship. A significant example of this is the gap between English and Irish language Irish poets. This collection of fifteen essays tackles this issue, among others, and offers an informed and detailed view of different aspects of contemporary Irish poetry, such as rhyme, subjectivity, Irishness and Irish identity, and ritual.

This collection, the editors write, originates from and dialogues with the concept of ‘after Ireland’ that Declan Kiberd, who contributes to the book, used in an Irish Times article in 2009, as well as the idea of a disappearing Ireland proposed in Justin Quinn’s 2008 essay ‘The Disappearance of Ireland’. From this, the editors propose the concept of the ‘post-Ireland’ of the title. While one of the strengths of the book is its eclecticism, the collection would have benefited from a clearer and more concrete definition of what the editors understand for a postIreland, and a clearer editorial line in which this question that they proposed is answered more directly. The introduction to the volume identifies some shift that occurs in this era of ‘postisms’, post-Troubles, post-Gaelic language, post-Celtic Tiger, post-Catholicism, postModernism, but we find some of these analyses are more effective than others. While nowadays Ireland can easily be appreciated as being both post-Troubles and post-Celtic Tiger by almost any reader, the inclusion of Ireland in the post-Catholic and post-Irish language categories

64

particularly is a problematic one, and more would be needed in order for one to believe this classification.

The editors to this volume also argue that the concepts of ‘Ireland’ and ‘Irish’ in relation to contemporary poetry have shifted. Again, there is no clear sense of where this shift is leading or how it gets there. In any case, the collection is exploratory in nature, which can be invigorating. Perhaps the best characteristic of Post-Ireland? lies in its inclusion of Irish language poets, so often marginalised, and the variety of approaches that it employs.

However promising the concept of a post-Ireland sounded, some essays fail to engage with this fracture in support or refutation in the timeline of Irish poetry. Matthew Campbell’s ‘The Irish Longing for Rhyme’, however, successfully presents a number of insights on the continuity of the poetic tradition in Ireland. This essay is a remarkable account of the prominence of rhyme in contemporary Irish poetry, which Campbell roots in some poets of the recent past such as Yeats or Heaney. Campbell’s key question is why, ‘in this day and age, when all the formal accoutrements of so many art forms have gone through the mill of modernism and its various postisms, … so many Irish poets still long for rhyme?’ (28).

However, the essay pays closer attention to the fact that rhyme allows for ‘serendipity’ in poetry—finding insights through rhyme that the poet might have not been looking for initially—and so the essay shifts to become some apology of rhyme. This essay is a welcome addition to the collection for its original approach to the already widely-discussed subject of rhyme. Campbell uses pertinent examples by poets such as Yeats, Heaney, Peter McDonald, and Paul Muldoon to show that the tight confines of rhyme enable the poem to achieve an originality and sense of surprise, for rhyme conducts the meaning of the poem before it is even written.

Campbell’s piece is complemented by the essay that follows, Eric Falci’s ‘Contemporay Irish Poetry and the Problem of the Subject’. Falci reads the works of Caitriona

65

O’Reilly and Sinéad Morrissey from the point of view of their depiction of the subject. Irish poetry has been argued to not have dealt with the problematic of expression of the poetic subject, perhaps because there is no tradition comparable to the one of England and North America, where avant-garde, experimental poets seem to have taken a more active interest in a critique of the poetic subject (55-56). In this sense, this essay explores a similar unoccurred shift in Irish poetry from a different approach than that of Campbell’s. However, Falci concludes that the work of both Morrissey and O’Reilly serve as a example of how Irish poetry from the last decades ‘rethinks from the inside the nature and stakes of the subject of poetry’ (61), in what he originally calls ‘a conservatism of the experimental sort’ (61), when he recognises that Irish contemporary poetry can be initially thought of as not particularly experimental because the reader can imagine a defined poetic ‘I’ within a defined setting. This reading of Morrissey and O’Reilly, and generally Irish poetry as a whole, as tending towards experimentation in terms of the poetic subject is a necessary nuance to the field. As Campbell’s, Folci’s piece dialogues with the past tradition rooting Irish contemporary poetry very much within earlier tradition, perhaps suggesting that there is no such thing as a clear-cut post-Ireland after all. Similarly, Sullivan’s essay ‘Derek Mahon: Letters to Iceland’ establishes a sense of continuity in Mahon’s collection, even if she signals some nuances that Mahon’s vision entails from the eco-critical perspective.

In his essay, Declan Kiberd analyses Heaney’s poetry as an artefact that sought to return to the mythical in a world where useful ritual was on the decline. Kiberd shows how the poet proposes ‘a funeral to end all other funerals’, ‘a healing ritual’ (122) so that grief from the terrorism of the North can be controlled ‘until it is slowly purged in this life’ (124). Kiberd’s essay intertwines textual commentary with very pertinent allusions to the complex fabric of Irish literary history, as well as briefly remarking affinities with other poets that help the reader frame Heaney’s poetics within a wider scope of world literatures. However, the inclusion of

66

this essay in the collection remains somewhat unclear. The reader can imagine that perhaps Heaney’s North was at the core of this shift between Ireland and post-Ireland. This is an engaging idea that will hopefully be explored even more deeply in other works.

Then, there is another kind of essay in this collection, one which aims to not only analyse the current state of affairs of scholarship in Irish poetry, but also to suggest new ways in which it could be improved. Theo Dorgan’s essay makes a necessary critique of a certain tendency of current criticism, this is, a commodification of knowledge by which the term ‘Irish poetry’ seems to mean Irish poetry written in English and that as such leaves out a considerable amount of Irish poets writing Irish poetry in Irish. Dorgan advocates as well for the need to discuss Irish poets of and from the Republic, who have been somewhat overlooked in favour of Northern poets, a ready-made category that contributes to this critical lacuna. Some scholars, Dorgan argues, have shifted their attention to particular texts or poets, to have them fit in a ready-made theory that is reductive and neglecting of the value of the text in itself. Dorgan’s essay is an invigorating account of the fare of the discipline and of some of the risks it might be subject to. However, the value of this essay not only lies in its reflective—and perceptive— quality but in the way in which it concludes, by enunciating ways in which scholarship can improve to be a less reductive one.

The last essay of the collection, Omaar Hena’s ‘Ireland’s Afterlives in Global Anglophone Poetry’ examines, from a comparative point of view, the ways in which postcolonial, English-language poets such as Derek Walcott, Christopher Okigbo or E.A. Markham, engage with the subject of Ireland. A comparative focus always is a welcome addition to almost any poetry essay collection, and Hena is skilful in his analysis. However, as this comparison is limited to English language poets, we are left asking what insights could have been gained from broadening the comparative lens. This is particularly the case if the study of Irish poetry wants to situate Ireland or this ‘post-Ireland’ in a global literary world and

67

seek to answer questions such as why and how this shift in Irish poetry has occurred, and to ask if this is a trait endemic to Irish literary history or if this has this happened across Europe and the world.

Nuria de Cos Trinity College Dublin

68

Against Shibboleths of Belonging David Wheatley, ed., The Wake Forest Series of Irish Poetry, Vol. IV, Winston-Salem: Wake Forest University Press, 2017, 305 pp, $19.95, paperback In Wake Forest University Press’s fourth volume in their Series of Irish Poetry, editor and critic David Wheatley proffers five unique poets for reader’s enjoyment, in an effort to bear ‘witness to different strengths of the Irish tradition and [from] a broad church of divergent styles and interests’ (xvi). This collection of poets gathers together writers who Wheatley believes make an effort at escaping what Beckett termed the ‘accredited themes’ of previous generations, and thus bypass the ‘shibboleths of belonging, identity, and nation that still form the horizons of expectation for so much Irish poetry’ (xvi). Poems from Trevor Joyce (b. 1947), Aidan Matthews (b. 1956), Peter McDonald (b. 1962), Ailbhe Darcy (b. 1981), and Ailbhe Ní Ghearbhuigh (b. 1984) comprise the bulk of the volume, each poet’s work prefaced by insightful critical essays by Wheatley himself – a critical move that only one of Wake Forest’s other anthologies, Volume II, has undertaken, and sure to make it an essential collection for scholars and poetry readers, alike.

In ‘Trevor Joyce and the Irish Experimental Tradition’, Wheatley explores the ways in which Joyce, who once worked as a systems analyst for Apple, writes work which not only provides resonances with Beckett, looking to ancient Chinese poetry – what Wheatley explains as an ‘alteration between hard-edged loco-descriptive writing and a more ritualistic, or incantatory register’ – but also an ‘understanding of poetic diction and the information networks that hem in the language of the lyric poem’ (7-9). For example, in ‘The Turlough’ Joyce lyrically exhibits these characteristics when describing the modern age, alluding to Eliot’s The Waste Land: It is raining elsewhere Vertical rivers reverse

69

stone floods the karst domain each sink turns source Rock brings forth fruit elsewhere [. . .]

London Bridge is falling down elsewhere Circuits and gates have collapsed in sand the face of the glass composed breaks down (23–24) Joyce’s early experimentalism, as in poems like ‘Elements’ and ‘Stillsman’ (the latter not anthologized here), is interrogated up against more traditional writing such as Seamus Heaney’s, and Wheatley posits that readers may well find Joyce ‘dissonant and disorienting’ (11). However, the work of parsing puzzle-like aleatory texts such as those listed above often lies in the palindromic structure by which Joyce constrains them. Additionally, readers taking the time to explore Joyce’s experimental work will be rewarded by frequent brief lyrics which verge on being Zen koans, such as ‘Kindling’:

i put wood in the fire when no one was about now there’s fire in the wood and i can’t put it out (41)

70

Wheatley rightly concludes that ‘Joyce’s poetry cultivates long views and, given its intimacy with rubble and ruin, is well-placed to weather the changes in critical fashion to come’ (15).

The volume’s second poet, Aidan Matthews, writes poems of profound (and incisive) socio-religious character. In ‘Aidan Matthews and the Irish Religious Poem’, Wheatley explains Matthews’s Catholic sensibility as shaped by modern French artists, but claims it found ‘stony ground’ in terms of reception in post-Independence Ireland. Regardless, Wheatley identifies that ‘In Matthews’s hands, a “confessional” Catholic aesthetic becomes the lens for charting social change in middle-class Ireland while retaining a crucial critical distance at the same time’ (63). In Matthews, then, we find religion as a touchstone which as much critiques as supports, as in ‘The Acoustics of Water’, (dedicated ‘for a grandmother’), wherein the poet writes: On the hospital wall a font of holy water Had dried in the heat of a semi-private death.

Sealed mineral drinks were heaped at bed with bars.

The sheets were soaking. All that was left to us Of the Greek New Testament was the change of linen, The dry white windings and the whiteness of feet (79-80) Catholicism in Matthews’s poems, as Wheatley notes, ‘provides the ground bass for all his work, [but is presented against] sexuality, mental illness, and the Holocaust [...] in poem after poem, stitching together the quotidian and the extreme’ (64). In fact, Matthews’s ability to tackle sensitive topics shines forth as he directly addresses the titanic shifts of fortune and attitude the Church has faced in recent times in ‘The State of the Church’, anthologised here.

For an anthology highlighting under-recognized voices in Irish poetry, Matthews is a fit choice, especially in light of the inclusion here of ‘An Answer’, a poem which addresses W.B. Yeats and his poetic legacy directly, and ‘The Death of Irish’, a poem which cannot but

71

be about the infamous ‘language question’ – again, the shibboleths fall. In the latter, a brief three-line lyric, Matthews writes: The tide is gone out for good, Thirty-one words for seaweed Written on the foreshore. (77) Readers should not overlook the powerful choices Wheatley has made with regard to work by both Matthews, and the anthology’s next poet, Peter McDonald, in including explicitly Troubles-related poems. Of all the particular troubles Matthews addresses, we can perhaps look to his ‘Nostalgias’, a poem which features ‘the god-awful, the atrocious names – / Greysteel, Poyntzpass, Omagh, / Kill this, Cull that, Enniskillen – ’ (locations of Troubles incidents in which numerous civilians died), but wherein driving trips with his small daughter, offer a small, feasible sense of how to move forward: All you can do is pray, Gun the motor and touch base: The smell of the child strapped in the seat, Fallen forward and sideways, asleep. (120) In ‘Peter McDonald and the Northern Irish Poem’, Wheatley writes about a poet ‘caught somewhere between memory and amnesia, involvement and detachment’ (125). Pinpointing the role of identity politics in the tragedy that was the Northern Ireland Troubles, Wheatley also recognizes its significance in McDonald’s work, and ‘the threshold it represents into a world of sectarian violence and nightmare’ (125). This sense of urgent dread, present even from childhood in many of McDonald’s poems (indeed, Wheatley refers to his poem ‘Childhood Memories’, not anthologised here) rears its head even in the first selection, ‘The Dog’, in which: The troublemakers wouldn’t show their faces

72

until the very last, so it was said. / The only time they’ll look you in the eye (patters of plaster on the sheepskin rug) it’s then you’ll know that you’re as good as dead. (139) However, even considering the inclusion of poems such as ‘Quis separabit’, which makes use of the paramilitary Ulster Defence Association (UDA) motto, this sense of danger is not entirely pervasive, as many of McDonald’s poems tackle what Wheatley refers to as ‘[t]he relationship of beginnings and destinations’, separate from, subsequent to conflict. For example, in ‘The Aftermath’, the poet writes ‘One by one, without show, and almost meticulously, / from underneath the splintered and multicoloured rubble / everybody emerged, all of the broken and innocent dead’ (156). Thus, in McDonald we find more than simple lament memorializing the Conflict, but also a sense of life continuing, in its varied forms Wheatley next approaches poet Ailbhe Darcy, one of the two women featured in the volume, as a response to – or perhaps, more, a step beyond – the feminist and nationalist poetics of Eavan Boland and others from previous generations. Wheatley’s essay, ‘Ailbhe Darcy and the Post-National Poem’, situates Darcy’s work within an early-2000s debate between Patricia Coughlin and Justin Quinn about the nature of 20th-century Irish women poets as post-national, while acknowledging her wide array of influences. Again, the shibboleths fall, as Wheatley concludes that Darcy ‘does not spend much time in her poetry returning to the toxic patriarchal legacy of the mid-nineteenth century. […] The poet maps herself onto the landscape, comparing the veins in her wrists to the rivers Liffey and Dodder, and breasts to the Sugarloaf and the “thing-mote”’ (190-191). And post-national the poet is, delighting in influences from art to pop culture, as we find in ‘Telephone’, a poem dedicated to Lady Gaga, in which the poet writes: A cinema under the dome, cheap matinée seats, and we have the whole show to ourselves. Pass the cookie dough.

73

[. . .]

I’m in Dublin, I’m stung, wrapped up, stepped out, lit; I’m light-stepping through the darkened park, I’m careening down the hill to the village in the dark; ordering, making the transaction, looking for the place to sit; and raising a glass to yourself, for taking me out of myself. (204–207) If not poems about nation, then, Darcy’s work takes up themes of identity, whereby Wheatley posits that ‘the line between the mundane and the monstrous is routinely crossed… [and] identity is on the move, with no clear sense of where it may come to rest’ (192-193). We see the intersection of the monstrous – which Wheatley identifies as the figure of the ‘domesticated male’ – with questions of identity in several of Darcy’s poems (192). Furthermore, throughout Darcy’s poems selected for the anthology, readers will find frequent allusions to American and English poetry, as well as Irish, tied to a keen ear for language, as in ‘Caw Poem’ where we read: you I caw to be a map

a metronome

a red wheelbarrow beside white chickens a rose by any other name a tangerine and spit the pips

a distance left to run the lion for real

a word that has been won days beyond the rhododendrons

a Huffy Henry hid the day a madeleine

a dare to eat a peach

a long cold drink of water

a pomegranate

a persimmon

you (223-224)

Wheatley’s final selection for the volume, Ailbhe Ní Ghearbhuigh, writes primarily in the Irish language, and her poems are featured in translation, primarily by Wheatley, as well as

by Billy Ramsell, with a few translated by Ní Ghearbhuigh, herself. Wheatley’s essay, ‘Ailbhe Ní Ghearbhuigh and the Buntús Cainte (“The Rudiments of Language”)’, considers the poet within the long history of debates around writing and publishing in the Irish language,

74

especially with regard to Irish language poetry anthologies. According to Wheatley, ‘Ní Ghearbhuigh contributes a wry satire on her own dilemma as a poet in a minority language’ (245). The eponymous poem, ‘Buntús Cainte’, is dedicated ‘for people who cannot understand Irish-language poetry’, and mildly takes to task the variety of responses the poet has received from those who do not understand Irish—and fear they ought to. It is translated here by Gabriel Rosenstock: Gabhaim pardún

Forgive me

ach is tú an tríú créatúr

but you are the third creature

atá tagtha chugam

that has approached me this evening

ag lorg maithiúnais anocht.

Looking for forgiveness.

Gabhaim pardún

Forgive me

as an ruaig

discombobulating

a chur ar do chompord

you and your sense

le d’fhéiniúlacht náisiúnta

of national identity

nuair osclaím mo chlab

every time I open my mouth. (286-298)

As might seem fitting when anthologising a writer using a language not always understood by those around her, Wheatley has chosen some of Ní Ghearbhuigh’s several poems that deal with ‘disappearing local language[s]’ (246). From the ‘tombsilence’ of ‘Bac Seirce’ (‘The Love Bind’), to ‘St Nick’s’ ‘snagcheoil’ (jazz), to the ‘filíocht staccato’ (“staccato poetry”) of ‘Ag Léamh ar an Tram’ (‘Reading on the Tram’), Wheatley’s selection from Ní Ghearbhuigh provide readers with a powerful lyric voice, full of ‘buoyant cosmopolitanism’ which calls into question the shibboleths of ‘fusty old Revivalist debates’ (252). Beyond these explorations of what we might term ‘endangered’ languages, Ní Ghearbhuigh’s poems include themes and motifs – often comingled – around travel, music, sexuality, and religion, making her work diverse and thought-provoking for most any reader.

75

Wake Forest has presented readers with yet another well-considered volume of poetry, and David Wheatley’s critical essays punctuating each poet’s work share insightful – one might hazard, vital – criticism about these writers and their poems. The Wake Forest Series of Irish Poetry, volume IV, easily keeps pace with its three predecessors, as well as other anthologies of Irish writing, and we who do Irish studies are certainly grateful for it.

Brian F. McCabe Claremont Graduate University

76

Popularising Modernism Lise Jaillant, Cheap Modernism, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2017, 184 pp, £75.00, hardcover The preface to the Edinburgh Critical Series in Modernist Culture declares that its contents will ‘aim for a breadth of scope and for an expanded sense of the canon of modernism, rather than focusing on individual authors.’ In Lise Jaillant’s Cheap Modernism, the reprinting of modernist texts in inexpensive uniform editions is examined as a hitherto ignored facet of the democratisation of so-called highbrow literature. In the Introduction, Jaillant details academia’s ignorance of these reprint series in bibliographies and archives alike. She goes on to describe British book-buying habits at the start of the twentieth century in order to position cheap reprint series as a rising trend amongst the working class.

In each of the five chapters, Jaillant tells the story of one or two authors whose publication in a reprint series proved beneficial to their career and, perhaps surprisingly, their prestige. Thus Chapter One describes how Virginia Woolf and T.S. Eliots’ introductions for the Oxford World’s Classics series extended their readership in the United States. Oxford World’s Classics, meanwhile, is also credited with changing the public perception of literature thought by some to be inaccessible by placing advertisements for modernist writers alongside detective fiction. In this way Jaillant’s study is an interdisciplinary one - eschewing distracting modernist theory in favour of convincing material culture to form her evidence. She examines each detail of the books she discusses from colophons, dust jackets and cover design, to paper quality, sales figures (where possible) and critical reception. Such concentration of information periodically defies a straightforward chronology of events; the story of the publication of Radclyffe Hall’s The Well of Loneliness begins and ends in Chapter Two, while the middle is told in Chapter Four. So too the wide array of publishers, agents, and companies within companies lends itself to confusion, as in the hurried conclusion of Chapter Two in which the

77

threat posed by the rise of Penguin Books is reduced to three pages. On the whole, however, the book balances an impressive amount of research with poise.

Chapter Two analyses how reprint publishers courted controversy with the works of D.H. Lawrence and James Joyce, providing careful examination of the actions of then-Home Secretary William ‘Jix’ Joynson-Hicks and how they influenced the topic of censorship in a culture of increasingly subversive fiction. Chapter Three focuses on Wyndham Lewis’s rewriting of 1915’s Tarr for Chatto & Windus’ The Phoenix Library in 1928. The argument Jaillant posits, that in removing much of the experimentation of the earlier version Lewis’s changes ‘[exemplify] the impact of the publishing format on the modernist text’, is one of the most successful in the book. Lewis’s characteristic egoism with regards to the money he might make from a reprint edition is writ large in the context of a publisher which refused to kowtow to his demands. Comparison of both versions of the book - the only textual analysis in Cheap Modernism - is judicious.

Jaillant is less cogent on the subject of the European market; Chapter Four examines Ezra Pound’s backlash against the German publishing houses Tauchnitz and Albatross, which were accused of undercutting their British counterparts. While certainly an interesting story, its connection to modernism is unconvincing. More generally, although the author places emphasis in the Introduction on the tale of reprint series as a European one, her study is sadly undermined at several points in the book which overlook Ireland’s role in the story of modernism. Laurence Sterne is described first as ‘one of the first truly modern English writers’ and later as part of the ‘long canon of English literature’; Ulysses in 1932 as ‘banned in the Anglophone countries’ – despite the fact that it was never restricted from sale in the author’s home country. Irish literature’s fraught relationship with modernism is thus an obvious omission in an otherwise extensive account of reprint culture in the first half of the twentieth century - and surprising in a book which features Dubliners on the front cover.

78

The last chapter of the book looks at Woolf’s use of the Hogarth Press, established by Virginia and Leonard, to print a collected edition of her works. Jaillant helps to disrupt the received narrative she cites from Nicola Wilson: that the Hogarth Press was a ‘small, coterie publishing house [...] outside the concerns of the marketplace.’ Cheap Modernism is most rewarding where it examines the relationship between author and publishing house - in this case one and the same - as symbiotic, both aiming towards increased longevity in a changing marketplace. It is surely some feat to find something new to write on some of the best-known modernist writers. Jaillant’s book sheds light on Eliot, Woolf, Lawrence, Joyce, Lewis and Pound and their practical financial concerns. Yet this male-dominated study would benefit from examining another angle of the reprint industry: the idea that publication of such books was another method by which modernist authors were sorted into ‘accessible’ and ‘inaccessible’; that the reprints benefitted some authors directly and others only through association, if at all.

Cheap Modernism succeeds where it shows how authors responded to the public, to publishers, to a censorious government and even to their own previous selves. The book is a refreshing alternative to a preponderance of criticism on ‘small presses and little magazines [...] original publication and first editions’, and invites closer examination of the subject.

Liss Farrell University of Liverpool

79

Tetrarchy and Anglo-Irish Politics Conor Mulvagh, The Irish Parliamentary Party at Westminster, 1900-1918, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2016, 292 pp, ÂŁ75.00, hardcover

As the centenary of the 1918 election approaches, it is opportune that another volume is added to the broad range of publications that are attempting to throw light on the early development of the Irish state. In examining the role of the Irish Parliamentary Party at Westminster 190018, Conor Mulvagh (2016) is not concerned with issues of internal dissent but on the voting record of the party and its effectiveness in engaging the resolution of the Irish question. John Redmond, John Dillon, Joseph Devlin and T.P. O'Connor are of particular interest as their relationships and disagreements had, in Mulvagh's (2016, 9) opinion, repercussions for the nationalist cause "into the twentieth century."

The introduction to the work is relatively short while the first chapter opens with a summary of the strength of the Irish Parliamentary Party under Parnell's stewardship and gives a comprehensive review of the literature. The second chapter narrates the development of what Mulvagh calls the tetrarchy of leadership where he presents Redmond, Dillon, O'Connor, and Devlin as the four pillars of Irish parliamentary representation in Westminster. Chapter three deals with the IPP's relationship with the liberal party who come to power, its pursuit of the resolution of the Irish issue through the Council and home rule bill, as well as the emergence of Sinn Fein. Chapter four outlines the IPP's efforts to secure home rule and the exploration of the concept of a temporary partition of the country to achieve independence. It also deals with the impact of this on the leadership of the party and the influence of the tetrarchy on this process. Chapters five and six deal broadly with the Irish question, the effect of the first world war on the home rule process, the 1916 rising and the 1918 election. Mulvagh (2016, 9) also devotes two chapters (seven and eight) to a "quantitative study of the entire party's activity and

80

parliamentary contribution" which he claims will "complement the study of leadership" that is the primary focus of the book. In undertaking such a study, Mulvagh concentrates on two aspects of this work namely the use of parliamentary questions and voting patterns of the party.

While on the first inspection, this division of the book appears not to sit well, in Mulvagh's (2016, 9) opinion it is necessary to give a "grounded picture" of the work of the party in Westminster.

In charting the evolution of the Tetrarchy from the 1890's, throughout the first decade of the century, Mulvagh alludes to broader issues within the IPP and focuses on those who eventually would lead the party from 1909. Despite his opposition to Redmond’s election as chairman, in Mulvagh’s opinion, Redmond’s support for Dillon during the expulsions of Healy and O’Brien began the tetrarchical approach to leadership of the party while O'Connor acted as midwife to the partnership (Mulvagh, 2016, 38).

Joseph Devlin came to prominence in the 1902 election as MP for Kilkenny North.

According to Mulvagh, Devlin’s organisational ability, youth, religion and the fact that he was from Belfast made him an attractive counterbalance to the senior members of the leadership.

These qualities provided credibility for the leaders of the party as it entered directly into the issues facing the country. Mulvagh argues that it was the period between 1907 and 1909 that was fundamental in shaping the leadership direction of the Irish party. 1907 saw the liberal government present the Irish Council bill but simmering in the background was a growing grassroots dissent that would demonstrate itself in support for the emerging Sinn Fein party. For Mulvagh, it would be this moment that would shape the Irish Parliamentary party.

Mulvagh contends that when it came to the First World-War, Dillon was more in touch with Irish public opinion, than either Redmond or O'Connor from their base in Westminster could have been. It is evident from the narrative that for Mulvagh, Devlin was the most successful of the tetrarchs during this period having "straddled the gap between Dublin and

81

London" while keeping Dillon up to date with political activity in Westminster (Mulvagh, 2016, 124). However, despite maintaining unity in the wake of Redmond's support of the war, Dillon's frustrations with the recruitment of Irish soldiers for the war effort and the experience of dealing with the British military lead him to vent feelings of dissent. This vocalising of dissent led to a split in the tetrarchy with Redmond and O'Connor supporting the war effort while Dillon and Devlin opposed. O'Connor, who was close to Dillon and maintained relations with Redmond acted, according to Mulvagh as a bridge between the estranged leaders.

Mulvagh begins chapter six by assessing the threat that Sinn Fein posed to the Irish party in the wake of the outbreak of war in 1914. According to Mulvagh, Dillon and Devlin were concerned about the propaganda value of Sinn Fein's anti-recruitment strategy and its impact on the IPP electorate. The variety of channels through which Redmond and Dillon communicated in the aftermath of the rising, evidenced the disarray among all aspects of Dublin society in the wake of the conflict. From Mulvagh's (2016, 132) point of view, the tetrarchy was aware of the "...scale, nature and imminence of the threat that loomed towards the end of Holy Week 1916." However, it was Dillon, not Redmond or O'Connor who fully understood the ramifications of the rising for the nation. Continually, throughout the book, it is Dillon that Mulvagh frequently cites as the dominant influence within the tetrarchy.

One of the aims of Mulvagh's study is to place the IPP within the British parliamentary system by "writing it firmly into the British constitutional narrative" (Mulvagh, 2016, 12).

Mulvagh's study dismisses the placing of Irish nationalism into the simple categories of right and left-wing politics which were emerging during the period. Mulvagh positions himself as building on the work of two earlier studies of the Irish Parliamentary Party, by F.S.L. Lyons (1951) and Conor Cruise O'Brien (1957). Mulvagh sets out to addresses what he identifies as a weakness in O’Brien’s and Lyons’s work, by situating "Irish nationalist behaviour in the house of commons within the wider British party context" (Mulvagh, 2016, 17).

82

The book is an attractive looking hardback presentation with merged photographs of the Irish Parliamentary Party and the palace of Westminster on the front cover. While including detailed tables and figures, it would have benefitted from the inclusion of photographic plates. The author's investment in the project is evident from his description of the initial explorations of an undergraduate thesis through postgraduate studies to doctorate and publication. This progress is encouraging for others who are following a similar path. At a cost of ÂŁ75.00 (hardback) and ÂŁ90.00 (ebook), it is regrettable that this book is placed beyond the reach of most interested readers though it is a worthy addition to any library either public or private.

Throughout the book, the depth of scholarship and engagement with literature is evident through the consistent citing of primary and secondary sources. In justifying his archival approach, Mulvagh emphasises Lyons's (1968) work on his biography of John Dillon as well as the work that both O'Brien (1957) and Eugenio F. Biagini (2007) undertook in examining the power dynamics of the nineteenth-century experience of the party. His use of these authors highlights the difference in approach that he takes to the archival work that brought him to examine the correspondence of these four MP's. However, in outlining this difference, Mulvagh acknowledges the limitations set by the fact that only Redmond and Dillon's papers are available for examination. However, the additional primary material used throughout the book provides a broader human context for the familial relationships of the main protagonists within the leadership of the IPP. Particular mention is made of Denis Gwynn's (1932) biography of Redmond which in Mulvagh's opinion is a central text for understanding Redmond. He acknowledges Alvin Jackson's (1989) work on The Ulster Party which provided him with a template for this study of the Irish Parliamentary Party. Mulvagh situates his work within the context of an established body of work to which he wishes to contribute by addressing questions utilising both

83

quantitative and archival methods. While attempting to resolve misperceptions of the Irish Parliamentary Party at Westminster, Mulvagh provides a fresh perspective on the issue of Anglo-Irish relations which has influenced politics in this nation for almost a century.

Ian G. Kennedy NUI Galway and St. Angelaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s College, Sligo

84

In Homage to Eavan Siobhán Campbell and Nessa O’Mahony, eds., Eavan Boland: Inside History, Dublin: Arlen House, 2017, 368 pp, £36.50, paperback.

Eavan Boland is, without a doubt, one of the most prominent female voices in Irish poetry of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, and her vast body of work has been of significant influence to many contemporary writers and thinkers. She began her literary career in 1962 with the publication of her pamphlet 23 Poems – while still an undergraduate at Trinity College Dublin – and at a time when education and literary vocation were still seldom regarded as realistic ambitions for young women. Later, she published numerous collections of poetry exploring the themes of womanhood, motherhood and nation, as well as Object Lessons (1995) and A Journey with Two Maps (2011) – two memoirs that muse on the obstacles, pressures and challenges involved in being both a woman and a poet. The recipient of an American Ireland Fund Literary Award, her work has been shortlisted for both the Forward and T. S. Eliot poetry prizes in the UK, and in 2016 she was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Siobhan Campbell and Nessa O’Mahony’s book Eavan Boland: Inside History pays necessary and overdue homage to a path-breaking poet whose life and writings have left an undeniably distinctive mark on the cultural landscape of contemporary Ireland.

Titled in response to Boland’s first volume of selected poems Outside History (1990), this collection of essays, poems and other insights recognises her as a crucial cog in the promotion and amplification of the female voice in literature. The book opens with a foreword from Boland’s long-time friend and former President of Ireland Mary Robinson, within which she remarks upon the relationship that began in their student days and has continued to develop in the decades since. She stresses the importance of the imagination that Boland has instilled in her, as well as the need to view ‘civic life and an imaginative life as inseparable’ (12). But,

85

crucially, Robinson speaks more generally to Ireland’s rich literary history of combining vision and voice, positioning the poet as an agent of public service to nation: a sentiment that Boland herself has echoed.

Colm Tóibín’s essay on Boland’s marrying of myth and experience within her poetry homes in on several of her works, focusing partly on tracing the progression of her feminist treatment of character. Tóibín notes that in ‘Song’ (from The War Horse, 1975) Boland lends from the Irish prose narrative The Pursuit of Diarmuid and Gráinne, but rather than recreating what he terms ‘a story of female transgression’, she represents Gráinne as a ‘woman who leads rather than follows’ (47-8). Through oscillating between celebrating Ireland’s mythical heritage and moving toward a modern feminist poetics, Boland rewrites aspects of the legend, particularly its portrayal of female sexuality, giving her work ‘contemporary resonance’ and a sense of urgency (48). Tóibín’s essay frames much of her writing as balanced in a nuanced, transient space between the public and the private, grappling with the subject of nation and of the historically removed, shadowy spaces occupied by women in the cultural conscious.

The poems included in this volume are all alive to the political, feminist impulses of Boland’s own work, with Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill’s ‘We are Damned, My Sisters’ (trans. by Michael Hartnett) musing on the etiquette traditionally demanded of women by systems of patriarchy.

Refusing relegation to an archaic stereotype of propriety, she contrasts nights spent ‘in Eden’s fields’ with ‘drinking and romping with sailors and robbers’, and the speaker repeats the mantra that she and her sisters are damned for their resistance in conforming to enforced expectations of womanhood (267). Jean O’Brien’s ‘Resonance’ – prefaced with ‘for Eavan Boland’ – speaks similarly to the spaces women have traditionally occupied, and to the significance of the domestic sphere in facilitating the transmission of oral histories – passed down to women, by

86

women. The poem is possessed of a grief intertwined with a need to share stories of the lives of women that are ‘like a snail’s history / small and carried on its back’ (289).

An especially compelling chapter is an exchange between Boland and Paula Meehan. Titled ‘Two Poets and a City’ and transcribed from their conversation at the Abbey Theatre in 2014, the pair explore their respective relationships with Dublin and discuss its impact on the poetry that they have produced. Their visions of the city differ greatly but, as they acknowledge, inherent to the city as a space – its architecture, its style, the power structures that have underpinned its construction – is its position as ‘a place where the ghosts of power are remembered and tested’ (319). In discussing the Dublins of Joyce, MacNeice and Beckett – among others – they speak to the multiplicity of the city, its varying representation within contemporary literature, and their own ever-altering perceptions of it.

Campbell and O’Mahony’s extensive new volume Outside History showcases important reappraisals of Boland’s work, as well as scholarship engaging with the place of the woman/poet in the contemporary world. Poetry indebted to the writer’s influence provides a fitting counterpart to the volume’s critical contributions, and illustrates the deep, profound impact that Boland has had on other Irish women writers. This volume traces the extraordinary career of a prolific poet, positioning her long legacy of work firmly inside history.

Elliot Ramsey University of Liverpool E.J.Ramsey@liverpool.ac.uk

87

The Definitive Atlas John Crowley, Donal Ó Drisceoil, Mike Murphy and John Borgonovo, eds., Atlas of the Irish Revolution, Cork: Cork University Press, 2017, 984 pp, £55, hardcover Following on from the success of Atlas of the Great Irish Famine (2012) Cork University Press released Atlas of the Irish Revolution edited by John Crowley, Donal Drisceoil, Mike Murphy and John Borgonovo. The reader is immediately struck by the breadth and depth of the study.

Four years in the making, the collection weighs close to five kilograms and, at almost 1,000 pages long, contains 140 contributors and 300 maps. Broadly structured thematically and chronologically, the collection is arranged in ten parts starting with ‘Before the Revolution’ and ending with ‘Memory and Culture’. With notable exceptions, there is an impressive array of contributors. As the introduction makes clear, the book aims to amalgamate a ‘wide range of established scholarship and new research’ on the Irish Revolutionary period. The book benefits from this approach with a rounded comprehension of the Revolution. For example, Atlas features leading historians such as the late Michael Hopkinson and Ronan Fanning who present some of their final outputs on military history during the Revolution and the British perspective respectively. Similarly, Margaret Ward’s and Diane Urquhart’s research into the often-neglected role of women and gender also features. Amalgamated alongside these established scholars is research produced by more junior academics including post-doctoral researchers. This balance allows hitherto little-known topics to be presented including a comprehension of child casualties, the Easter Rising and its representation in contemporary European newspapers, the importance of railways and caves during the guerrilla struggles and the recently-accessible military pensions collection. The book is genuinely multidisciplinary deploying literary scholars, historians, film studies researchers, geographers, archaeologists, political scientists and art historians.

88

Numerous broad trends are appropriately discussed throughout the collection including increasing nationalism, feminism, anti-imperialism, cultural politicking, popular protest, voting patterns, militant insurgency and propaganda. Importantly, the Irish Revolution is not conceptualised in isolation regarding period and location. Atlas does a sterling job in recognising influential socio-cultural, economic and political factors such as the important role of the Irish Diaspora, the Gaelic League in the late nineteenth century and the 1913 Dublin Lockout. The importance of the First World War and its impact on moulding public and political feeling also receive appropriate coverage. Unsurprisingly, the Easter Rising is well covered as is the Anglo-Irish War. With regards to the latter, the book benefits from taking an all-Ireland approach to the conflict in chapter seven’s ‘Regional Perspectives’. With individual case studies of counties and provinces, the reader is provided with a knowledgeable overview of the impact of the conflict across Ireland and not just the areas which witnessed the most hostilities. The book also does a fine job of conceiving the Irish Revolution as a transnational episode which is evident, for example, in the essay ‘Ireland, India and Empire’ which looks at how the Irish revolution impacted upon the wider British Empire.

Coinciding with the ‘Decade of Centenaries’, this book is a deserved recipient of its success to date. In addition to widespread critical acclaim, winning awards such as the Irish Book of the Year 2017, the collection has thus far surpassed 20,000 sales far exceeding its original print run of 8,000 copies. Priced at less than £60, the publishers deserve immense praise for the affordability of the work especially with single-authored academic books costlier than this substantial work. The extensive use of illustrations, photographs, maps, postcards, diaries, minute books and correspondence, many previously unreleased before publication, help to bring the history of the period to life. The Atlas of the Irish Revolution is easily accessible and highly readable. It will surely go on to hold a central place in the historiography remaining a feature in any module handbook dedicated to modern Irish History. It will be of

89

immense benefit to both academics and the public at large with both a professional and amateur interest in this fascinating period of history.

Michael Robinson University of Liverpool

ยง

91

Contributors Amy Black received her B.Sc. (Hons) in Sociology from Ulster University in 2014, and her MA in Understanding Conflict from the University of Liverpool in 2015. Amy was 2014 winner of the Institute of Irish Studies’ Essay Competition, and was awarded a £5000 scholarship for the payment of her tuition fees. Following the completion of her MA, Amy began work with prominent peacebuilding charity, Co-operation Ireland, and worked on a number of their youth and community projects. Amy is currently a second year PhD candidate at Queen’s University Belfast. Her thesis will investigate attitudes towards apologies for conflict-related violence in Northern Ireland, with a focus on the attitudes of the post-ceasefire generation. Amy’s research is funded by the Department of Education and Learning.

Nuria De Cos Lara is a PhD candidate in the department of English in Trinity College Dublin. Her research is primarily on cross-cultural transitions into modernity with particular focus on the Spanish and Irish contexts as represented by the works of William Butler Yeats and Juan Ramon Jimenez. She has presented widely as well on issues of translation and meaning in poetry. She was the recipient of the prestigious Caixa scholarship in 2014, the Trinity Leventhal Scholarship in 2017 and is currently the holder of the Peter Irons Scholarship in department of English in Trinity.

Liss Farrell is currently in the third year of her PhD in Irish Studies at the University of Liverpool. Her BA, for which she won the George Huxley and David Thistlewood prizes, and MA were also completed with the university’s Irish Studies Institute. Her current research, which has been made possible by the Sir Joseph Rotblat Alumni Scholarship, is concerned with familial relationships in James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake. She is co-editor of the literary arts zine Goodbye alongside Elliot Ramsey. She has also produced and directed several plays including Samuel Beckett’s Endgame (Eleanor Rathbone, 2013) and a collection of short Irish plays for the Liverpool Irish Festival (Lantern Theatre, 2014).

Marine Galiné is a French contractual Ph.D. student with particular interests in gothic studies, Irish literature and gender studies. Prior to starting her PhD, she worked for two years as an English teacher in secondary education. She holds a master’s degree and a B.A. in English literature and linguistics from the University of Reims. Her current research centers round the representation of women and femininity in nineteenth-century Irish literature, but she is also interested in the transdisciplinary use of the gothic in films and series. She has published on William Carleton's "Wildgoose Lodge" (1833) and co-edited a collection of post-graduate essays on the crisis/crises of the body in various disciplines.

Ian G. Kennedy is a PhD student in the School of English at NUI Galway where he is examining the impact of arts policy on social change in Ireland between 1948 and 1968. He holds an MA in Irish Studies from NUI Galway, an MA in Religious Education from the University of Wales and a BA in Theology from St. Patrick’s College, Maynooth. Currently teaching academic writing at St. Angela’s College Sligo, he has worked for over twenty years in primary, secondary and higher education.

92

Brian F. McCabe is a PhD candidate from Claremont Graduate University, holds a Masters in Irish Literature and Culture from Boston College, and is a regular participant in Notre Dameâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Irish Seminar. Currently, Brian works as Research Assistant to Professor Robert Faggen at Claremont McKenna College and editor of Foothill: a journal of poetry. In 2015, Brian was named the Emerging Scholar for ACIS-West. Currently, Brian is at work on his dissertation, Burning the Balaclava: Writing Reconciliation in Northern Irish Drama from the Troubles.

Andrew Newell graduated with a BA from the University of Liverpool in 2015. Though an English literature student, Andrew was privileged to take several modules with the Irish Studies Institute, where, under the inspired supervision of the academics at the Institute, he gained an abiding appreciation for Irish literature. Having graduated with an MSt in eighteenth-century English literature from the University of Oxford, Wycliffe Hall, in September 2017, Andrew has now embarked upon a DPhil at the same institution: he is the first literature scholar to be a student at Wycliffe. His research is mainly centred around the hymnody of William Cowper; his interests extend beyond the literature of the eighteenth century, to a broader fascination with literature and theology.

Frank Shovlin is Professor of Irish Literature in English at the University of Liverpool. He is author of 3 monographs on, variously, the Irish Literary Periodical, James Joyce and John McGahern. He is currently editing The Letters of John McGahern for Faber and Faber and is Head of Department at the Institute of Irish Studies.

Elliot Ramsey received both his BA and MA degrees in English from the University of Liverpool, where he worked on modern and contemporary literature. He co-edits the literary arts zine Goodbye, leads workshops in creative writing for a learning disability charity, and will begin his PhD in 2018, researching Christopher Isherwood. His other interests include British and Irish modernism, contemporary poetry, and the works of James Baldwin and Samuel Beckett.

Michael Robinson is a Wellcome Trust funded Early Career Researcher at the University of Liverpool, interested in the First World War and post-war disability. In January 2017, he completed a PhD on the post-war rehabilitation of disabled Irish First World War veterans in inter-war Ireland.

He has articles from his doctoral research published in Irish Studies Review and Etudes Irlandaises.

Jessica Warwick is a Doctoral candidate at Liverpool Hope University as part of the Vice Chancellors Scholarship. Her research focuses on Anglo-Irish prison literature from 1860 to 1922. Specifically, it concentrates on the political use of prison narratives as part of nationalist rhetoric and myth building.

We hope that submissions for LPJIS, No. 4 (2019) will open in summer 2018. Please check our social media for further details. Our twitter, @LPJIS, is updated regularly.