The Eternal Paddy: Irish Identity and the British Press, 1798–1882

Introduction

Introduction OFFERING ITS SUPPORT for the proposed Act of Union of Great Britain and Ireland, the Times predicted in April 1799 that "nothing can tend to humanize the barbarous Irish as an habitual intercourse with this country and the opportunities ofobserving the civilized manners ofthose who are from it."· TheAct ofUnion was widely regarded by the British press as an opportunity to remodel Ireland politically, economically , and morally. After the act was passed, the "Irish question" came to focus largely on how Britain might reconstruct Ireland in its own image. The most commonlyprescribed cure for Britannia's "sick sister " Erin was anglicization, the transplantation ofthe qualities that supposedly made Britain first among nations. Simply put, Ireland needed to become less Irish and more British. This transformation proved elusive in the decades following the union, but a second opportunity came in 1846, when the cultural and social forces that had resisted British civilization were weakened by famine and disease. Many British newspapers regarded the potato blight and subsequent distress as a providentiallesson that would force the Irish peasants and their landlords to adopt British characteristics and economic models. In the opening years ofthe famine, large sections of the press boldly predicted that a moral and social revolution was imminent in Ireland, sharing in the Timess confidence that "an island, a social state, a race is to be changed."2 The optimism that accompanied the Act of Union and famine-era legislation such as the reformed poor laws was followed by disappointment and nagging doubts as to whether the Irish could, after all, become British. Public faith in anglicization was already flagging by the fall of 1867, when Britain was rocked by its first experience with Irish nationalist political violence in British cities. These episodes and the 3 4 Introduction general "Fenian Panic" that followed did not extinguish British sympathy for the Irish people or cease popular interest in solving the Irish question. They did, however, throw even more doubt on the anglicization project, leaving newspapers such as the Daily Telegraph with "a feeling that Ireland is inflicted with an incurable disease, and that though we may use the strait-waistcoat for her mad fits, we can have no certain hope of seeing her one day clothed and in her right mind."3 By the end of the Land War in 1882, popular hopes for the transformation of Ireland had disSipated. What began in 1800 as a hopeful endeavor to improve the Irish character, develop the Irish economy, and ensure justice in the neighboring isle became a Simple, if extremely thorny, question of political expediency. The Irish had resisted all British attempts to mollify them with conciliatory measures or to force them into line with coercion bills. As a result, the Sheffield Independent revealed in May 1882 that even Ireland's old friends in the Liberal party found their enthusiasm to aid their neighbor "sensibly cooled, and in some cases extinguished bythe desponding feeling that the regeneration ofIreland is nearly hopeless."4 One could no longer hope to transform Ireland and the Irish, but only somehow to govern them. This studywill explore how and why Britishviews ofIreland evolved in this manner over the course of the nineteenth century.5 To accomplish this, I examine more than ninety London and local newspapers published in England, Wales, and Scotland during four key periods: 1798-1800, 1845-52, 1867-70, and 1879-82. These dates encompass the most important events in the history ofAnglo-Irish relations priorto the home rule bill of1886. These include the 1798 rebellion andAct ofUnion of1800, the Great Famine, the Fenian rising and terrorism in Britain, the disestablishment ofthe Irish church, William Gladstone's land acts, and the political ascension of Charles Stewart Parnell and the Irish Parliamentary party. All of these episodes captured popular and press attention , demanded parliamentary time, and forced Britons to think seriously about the Irish question and its possible solutions. By closely examining reporting on Ireland and its people in these years Iwill reveal not only how Britons interpreted and responded to these crucial events as they unfolded, but also the progression of popular British conceptions about Ireland and the Irish question in the period between the union and the first Irish home rule bill. Throughoutthe nineteenth century, British reporting on Ireland was crucially informed by the enduring stereotypes that constituted Irish identity. "Paddy," the objectified Irishman, was discursively constructed in leading articles, editorial cartoons, and letters to the editor using a [3.137.171.121...