Curing “The Irish Moral Plague”

CURING “THE IRISH MORAL PLAGUE” MICHAEL de NIE Recent scholarship on the Great Irish Famine has begun to emphasize the importance of understanding the political and ideological context in which the British government formulated its much criticized relief policies.1 A crucial element of this context of ideas includes the views and opinions of England’s middle class. During a period of weak governments, political flux, and growing radicalism, the middle-class segment of British society exercised increasing influence in the public sphere. One of the best reflections we have of the opinions of the middle class in this period is provided by the mainstream British press. Periodicals such as the Times, the Illustrated London News, the Economist, Punch, the Quarterly Review, and the Edinburgh Review simultaneously expressed and molded the views of their middle-class readership. While British public opinion was of course composed of numerous diverse and competing elements, it is reasonably safe to argue that the major current of middle-class thought was represented in the pages of these newspapers and journals. Editorials and reports on famine policy were in turn read by members of the government for whom the popular press provided a major source of insight into the minds of their constituents. In this way, the press was fundamental in the definition of political boundaries during the famine. This essay will examine a somewhat neglected aspect of public opinion and press coverage during the famine: the wider question of Ireland’s rehabilitation and regeneration. Throughout the famine years, a vague but CURING “THE IRISH MORAL PLAGUE” 63 1 See James S. Donnelly, Jr., “Irish property must pay for Irish poverty”: British public opinion and the Great Irish Famine,” in Fearful Realities: New Perspectives on the Famine, eds. C. Morash and R. Hayes (Dublin, 1996), 60–96; and Peter Gray, “Punch and the Great Famine,” History Ireland 1:2 (Summer 1993): 26–33; “Ideology and the Famine,” in The Great Irish Famine, ed. Cathal Póirtéir (Dublin, 1995), 86–103; and “Potatoes and Providence: British Government Responses to the Great Famine,” Bullán: An Irish Studies Journal 1:1 (Spring 1994): 75–90. strongly felt need for a fundamental moral and economic transformation of Ireland informed views of Irish distress and British government relief policy. Members of the press saw the famine as an opportunity to modernize Ireland and enact a moral and economic revolution. A prostrate, dependent Ireland, it was argued, could not resist the prescriptions advocated by the press and public—and instituted by the government. It appeared that the forces that had resisted British civilization were now laid low in Ireland , and that economic and social theories could be implemented instead of merely argued. Before we examine the proposals for Ireland’s re-creation in the image of Britain, a brief description of the sources used in this examination of British public opinion will help outline the political positions and popular influences of the major periodicals of the 1840s. The Times, indisputably the largest and most powerful newspaper of this period, had a steadily growing circulation, which by 1850 had topped 38,000.2 Often described as the “Fourth Estate” or the “fourth arm of government,” the Times had unparalleled access to, and influence on, leading politicians. In the 1840s the newspaper supported repeal of the Corn Laws and remained mildly laissez -faire afterward. Politically, the Times was slightly pro-Whig, but this position did not prevent it from harshly criticizing Lord John Russell’s administration on numerous occasions. Along with the Times, the Illustrated London News and Punch, both weeklies, collectively exerted considerable sway over their London and provincial readers, who in turn formed a great portion of what was seen as national middle-class opinion.3 Each newspaper addressed a different aspect of middle-class taste. Punch, with a circulation of approximately 30,000 in the late 1840s, was at times light-hearted and satirical, but it also exhibited a social conscience with regard to the living conditions of the English working class.4 Such sympathy rarely extended to the Irish. The Illustrated London News presented its readers with a mixture of political, social , and cultural commentary.5 Politically nonpartisan...