This Island Nation - Eire

Celtic Revival - Nationalism

Where the Wind Meets the Water, Percy French, 1897

Nationalism

Constitutional and Parliamentary nationalism

“Advanced” nationalism

Cultural nationalism

The Irish Peasant Family Discovering the Blight of Their StoreDaniel MacDonald (1821-53)

Henry Thaddeus Jones (1859 – 1929)Eviction Scene, 1889

Eviction Duty in Ireland, 1886

Mass in a Connemara Cabin, Aloysius O’Kelly, 1883

Departure of Irish Emigrants, Aloysius O’Kelly

Eire (1907), Beatrice Elvery

William Orpen, 1909

Sarah Purser

Portrait of Constance Maud Gonne

Elizabeth Corbet Yeats (1868-1940)

• Dun Emer Press (1902-1908)

• Cuala Press (1908-1946)

• "Five lines of text and ten pages of notes about the folk and the fish gods of Dundrum. Printed by the weird sisters in the year of the big wind.“ James Joyce Ulysses

Elizabeth

Cuala Press

Jack Yeats (1871-1957)

Susan Mary Yeats (1866-1949)

Lily Yeats at Bedford Park John Butler Yeats Still Life, 1895

Two Magpies, Susan Yeats, 1934

Celtic Heroes and Crafts

Irish Language Revival

• 1889 Leabhar sgeulaigheachta(‘Book of story-telling’), folk tales from Irish speakers in the west

• 1892 “On the necessity for de-Anglicising the Irish people”

• 1893 Gaelic League

– language revival

– promote Irish music, dancing, and the recitation of poetry and stories

Literature in Irish

Educated writers

• Donald Hyde

• Patrick Pearse (1879-1916)

Native speakers

• Tomás Ó Criomhthain (1856–1937) An tOileánach("The Islandman"), 1923

• Peig Sayers Peig, 1936

Boer War

• Pro-Boer Irish brigades were formed under the leadership of Major John MacBride and Colonel Arthur Lynch

– Irish miners in Transvaal

• Transvaal Committee, under the leadership of Arthur Griffith and Maud Gonne

Boucicault

Dionysius Lardner Boursiquot• "the most conspicuous English dramatist of

the 19th century.” NYT

• Born, educated Dublin

• Plays in London, NY

– The Octoroon or Life in Louisiana (1859)

– The Shaughran (1875)

– Robert Emmet (1884)

Playwrights

• Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)

• George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)

– John Bull's Other Island (1904)

– Advocated Irish participation in WW I and did not believe an independent Ireland was feasible

John Millington Synge (1871 –1909)

• 1902 Riders to the Sea and The Shadow of the Glen

• 1907 The Playboy of the Western World

• Use of Anglo-Hibernian

• Considered slurs on Irish

Abbey Theatre

• 1899 Irish Literary Theatre. Founded by Lady Gregory, Edward Martyn and William Butler Yeats with assistance from George Moore

• Fay brothers - Æ's Deirdre and Yeats' Cathleen Ní Houlihan in St. Theresa's Hall

• 1903 Irish National Theatre Society Yeats, Lady Gregory, Æ, Martyn, and John Millington Synge with funding from Annie Horniman

Abbey Theatre

• 1904 Bought and refurbished a theatre in Lower Abbey Street

• Initially popular

• Declined after withdrawal of financial backing

• Would revive in 20’s with O’Casey

The Song Of The Old Mother, 1893

I RISE in the dawn, and I kneel and blowTill the seed of the fire flicker and glow;And then I must scrub and bake and sweepTill stars are beginning to blink and peep;And the young lie long and dream in their bedOf the matching of ribbons for bosom and head,And their days go over in idleness,And they sigh if the wind but lift a tress:While I must work because I am old,And the seed of the fire gets feeble and cold. •

1893 Home Rule II

• Gladstone’s fourth term

• Bicameral legislature

• Lord lieutenant and Irish privy council not answerable to Irish parliament

• Commons 347-304; Lords 41-419

Women and Education

• Convent schools – primarily French run

• Ladies seminaries – Dublin, Belfast - Quaker and Anglican

• New private schools in Belfast and Dublin

– Curriculum similar to that of boy’s schools

• 1878 Intermediate Education Bill

– Set up prizes for performance on examinations and open them to boys and girls

Women and Education

• 1879 University Education (Ireland) Act Set up Royal University as an examining body

– 1882 First woman graduate

– 1889 Letitia Alice Walkington, law degree

• 1894 Public Libraries (Ireland) Act

Irish Women in Medicine

Irish Women in Medicine

• Dr. James Barry (~1792-1865)

– Born Cork (Margaret Ann Bulkley)

– Educated Edinburgh

– Served as army doctor, performing first Caesarian In Africa

• 1891 Emily Dickson, licentiate

• 1899 Kathleen Florence Lynn

January 2008, Vol. 98, No. 1 SAMJ

Medicine, Suffrage, Nationalism

• Kathleen Lynn and Madeline French-Mullen

• Lynn was chief medical officer of the Irish Citizen Army

Suffrage

• Organizations

– Unionist Women’s Franchise Association, Munster Women’s Franchise League, Irish Catholic Women’s Suffrage Association, Church League for Women’s Suffrage (Anglican), and Irishwomen’s Suffrage Federation.

• 1908 Irish Women’s Franchise League was militant feminist but also involved in Irish nationalism and the cultural revival.

Women’s Organizations

• 1900 Inghinidhe na h-Éireann (Daughters of Ireland), founded by Maud Gonne

• Published Bean na h-Éireann , "Women of Ireland”– Part of a "bloodless guerilla war against the British

Empire”

– Covered popular women’s topics such as children, dress, cooking and gardening.

– Promoted Irish products

Daughters of Ireland, 1905-6, Maud Gonne w. banner

Maud Gonne MacBride (1865-1953)

• Born England, moved to Ireland

• Became Fenian

• Yeats’ infatuation

• Founder of Daughters of Ireland

Confrontation

Diamond JubileeCounter Event

Lantern Slide Show

1900 Victoria’s Visit

• Organize treat for children

– Protests by roman Catholic clergy

– Counter treat by women’s groups

– L'Irlande Libre and United Irishman “The Famine Queen”

Women’s Militant Organizations

• 1914 Cumann na mBan (Irishwomen’s Council), auxiliary to Irish Volunteers– Initial aims

1. To Advance the cause of Irish liberty

2. To organize Irishwomen in furtherance of this object

3. To assist in the arming and equipping a body of Irishmen for the defense of Ireland.

4. To form a fund for these purposes to be called the "Defense of Ireland Fund"

• 1916 Integrated into ‘Army of the Irish Republic’

Unionist Organizations

• Orange Order from ~1796

– 1903 Independent Orange Order, fraternal, apolitical

• 1891 Irish Unionist Party – Edward Carson and Harold Plunket

– 1905 Ulster Unionists, largely Presbyterian

– Southern Unionists, largely Anglican, wealthy, more moderate

1912 Home Rule III

• Introduced

• Debated

• Amended

Opposition to Redmond

• Redmond opposed to suffrage under any circumstance

Opposition to Home Rule

• 1892 Ulster Convention –20,000 rally against Home Rule

• 1912 Rally of 200,000 in Belfast

Sinn Fein label

Ulster Rally

Pro - Redmond

Ulster Covenant

• Oath to resist Home Rule

• Corresponding Women’s Declaration

• Newspapers announce 28 September as Ulster Day