The Gaelic Revival

The Gaelic Revival

Anti-Irish sentiment in 19th-century BritainIreland is like a half-starved rat that crosses the path of an elephant. What must the elephant do? Squelch it by heavens - squelch it.- Thomas Carlyle, British essayist, 1840sA Celt will soon be as rare on the banks of the Shannon as the red man on the banks of Manhattan.- The Times, editorial, 1848 (during the famine)A creature manifestly between the Gorilla and the Negro is to be met with in some of the lowest districts of London and Liverpool by adventurous explorers. It comes from Ireland, whence it has contrived to migrate; it belongs in fact to a tribe of Irish savages: the lowest species of Irish Yahoo. When conversing with its kind it talks a sort of gibberish. It is, moreover, a climbing animal, and may sometimes be seen ascending a ladder laden with a hod of bricks.-Satire entitled "The Missing Link", from the British magazine Punch, 1862The Celts are not among the progressive, initiative races, but among those which supply the materials rather than the impulse of history...The Persians, the Greeks, the Romans and the Teutons are the only makers of history, the only authors of advancement. ...Subjection to a people of a higher capacity for government is of itself no misfortune; and it is to most countries the condition of their political advancement.- British historian Lord Acton, 1862[existing policies] will not kill more than one million Irish in 1848 and that will scarcely be enough to do much good.- Queen Victoria's economist, Nassau Senior...more like squalid apes than human beings. ...unstable as water. ...only efficient military despotism [can succeed in Ireland] ...the wild Irish understand only force. - James Anthony Froude, Professor of history, Oxford

From the nationalist The Nation Newspaper 1846The Irish People are expecting famine day by day... and they ascribe it unanimously, not so much to the rule of heaven as to the greedy and cruel policy of England. Be that right or wrong, that is their feeling. They believe that the season as they roll are but ministers of England's rapacity; that their starving children cannot sit down to their scanty meal but they see the harpy claw of England in their dish. They behold their own wretched food melting in rottenness off the face of the earth, and they see heavy-laden ships, freighted with the yellow corn their own hands have sown and reaped, spreading all sail for England; they see it and with every grain of that corn goes a heavy curse. Again the people believeno matter whether truly or falsely that if they should escape the hunger and the fever their lives are not safe from judges and juries. They do not look upon the law of the land as a terror to evil-doers, and a praise to those who do well; they scowl on it as an engine of foreign rule, ill-omened harbinger of doom. - John Mitchell

Home Rule MovementSince the Great Famine in particular, Anglo-Irish politicians increasingly sought Home Rule for the country.This would have made Ireland like Australia or Canada, with an autonomous parliament, but still loyal to the British state. The British mismanagement of the Famine had led many of the Anglo-Irish to become Irish Nationalists. The idea of Home Rule brought the Catholic underclass and the Anglo-Irish elite together.Home Rule, however, was feared by the Ulster Scots, since they would be subjected to a majority Catholic government.

Charles Stewart Parnell: Anglo-Irish Nationalist Leader

Michael Davitt: Nationalist activist and socialist radical

Captain Charles Boycott

Ballinrobe

Charles Stewart Parnells call to ostracise Captain BoycottWhen a man takes a farm from which another has been evicted, you must shun him on the roadside when you meet him you must shun him in the streets of the town you must shun him in the shop you must shun him on the fair green and in the market place, and even in the place of worship, by leaving him alone, by putting him in moral Coventry, by isolating him from the rest of the country, as if he were the leper of old you must show him your detestation of the crime he committed.

The Cultural War

Leaders of the Gaelic Revival early 20th centuryMaude GonnePadraig PearseJ.M. SyngeLady Augusta GregoryDouglas Hyde

Lady Augusta Gregory

The Lake Isle of InnisfreeW. B. Yeats,1865-1939

I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree, And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made: Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee; And live alone in the bee-loud glade. And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow, Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings; There midnights all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow, And evening full of the linnets wings. I will arise and go now, for always night and day I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore; While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey, I hear it in the deep hearts core.

From James Joyces Ulysses and Mrs Opisso in Governor street O what a name Id go and drown myself in the first river if I had a name like her O my and all the bits of streets Paradise ramp and Bedlam ramp and Rodgers ramp and Crutchetts ramp and the devils gap steps well small blame to me if I am a harumscarum I know I am a bit I declare to God I dont feel a day older than then I wonder could I get my tongue round any of the Spanish como esta usted muy bien gracias y usted see I havent forgotten it all I thought I had only for the grammar a noun is the name of any person place or thing pity I never tried to read that novel cantankerous Mrs Rubio lent me by Valera with the questions in it all upside down the two ways I always knew wed go away in the end I can tell him the Spanish and he tell me the Italian then hell see Im not so ignorant what a pity he didnt stay Im sure the poor fellow was dead tired and wanted a good sleep badly I could have brought him in his breakfast in bed with a bit of toast so long as I didnt do it on the knife for bad luck or if the woman was going her rounds with the watercress and something nice and tasty there are a few olives in the kitchen he might like I never could bear the look of them

From Yeats play Catln N HoulihnOLD WOMAN. Sometimes my feet are tired and my hands are quiet, but there is no quiet in my heart. When the people see me quiet, they think old age has come on me and that all the stir has gone out of me. But when the trouble is on me I must be talking to my friends.BRIDGET. What was it put you wandering?OLD WOMAN. Too many strangers in the house.BRIDGET. Indeed you look as if you'd had your share of trouble.OLD WOMAN. I have had trouble indeed.BRIDGET. What was it put the trouble on you?OLD WOMAN. My land that was taken from me.PETER. Was it much land they took from you?OLD WOMAN. My four beautiful green fields.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CDxbQQ3JuK0

Speech by Padraig Pearse (Irish nationalist and revivalist), 1915