A

Abbey Theatre The opening of the Abbey from a conversion of the Mechanics' Hall in Theatre on 27 December 1904 followed from Lower Abbey Street and a disused morgue, the Irish Literary Theatre (1899±1901) cre- was small, with a shallow stage which dictated ated by W.B. Yeats and Lady Gregory, with simple sets. But though poorly equipped, the Edward Martyn and George Moore, to pro- early Abbey was aesthetically innovative. duce a `school of Celtic and Irish dramatic Robert Gregory and Charles Ricketts literature'. When Yeats joined forces with the designed for it, Gordon Craig's screens were self-trained Fay brothers ± William the stage first used on its stage, and Ninette de Valois manager and comedian, and Frank the verse- set up a ballet school for theatre use. In 1905 a speaker ± their company (augmented import- permanent salaried company was established antly by Synge and the talented Allgood and controlling powers were given to the sisters) had the potential to create an entirely directors (some actors seceded, thinking the new kind of Irish theatre, one which aimed, changes contrary to nationalist principles). as a later Abbey playwright, Thomas Kilroy, The Abbey's claim to be a national theatre put it, to `weld the fracture between the was aggressively tested by Catholics and Anglo-Irish and Gaelic Ireland'. The Irish nationalists in their audiences. The peasant National Theatre Society became in 1904 drama was the field where cultural interests the National Theatre Society (NTS) Ltd, clashed most spectacularly. Lady Gregory familiarly known from its inception as the popularized the genre with one-act comedies Abbey Theatre. The ruling perspective in like Spreading the News, which shared the the early years was Anglo-Irish but the dra- Abbey's opening bill with Yeats's heroic matic repertoire contained many cultural verse play, On Baile's Strand. These were strands, including plays written in Irish by acceptable even to ardent nationalists, com- Douglas Hyde, founding president of the mitted to faith in an idealized peasantry, but Gaelic League. the plays of J.M. Synge, best proof of the The company's need for a building and Abbey's early distinction, were not. For subsidy was met, ironically, by an English- those who rioted nightly for a week at perfor- woman, Annie F. Horniman, who admired mances of The Playboy of the Western World in Yeats and his repertory ideal (though not its 1907 the idea of a murderer being taken for a nationalist aspect). The theatre, built in 1904 hero in Mayo was slander (on the `Pure,

5 ABBEY THEATRE Honest and Noble characteristics of the Irish comic and the poignant. Among them, Barry people', as the Liverpool Irish put it). Police Fitzgerald, F.J. McCormick, Siobbhain protection was required for the actors in McKenna and Cyril Cusack became known Dublin and on their first (lucrative) American world-wide (often through Hollywood). tour in 1911. But as Synge wrote to Molly Sean O'Casey, in 1923, brought the Abbey Allgood (Maire O'Neill), rows were prefer- its greatest fame since Synge. Much-needed able to apathy: `We're an event in the history audiences crowded in, electrified by Juno and of the Irish stage.' the Paycock (1925) and The Plough and the Their distinctive repertoire, natural acting Stars (1926), with their profoundly lifelike style and commitment to the ensemble won portrayal of the Dublin tenements during the Abbey a high reputation in their tours the Easter Rising (1916) and the Civil War. abroad (beginning as early as 1903 with the The closeness in time of the plays to the first of many to London). At home they had events they portrayed and O'Casey's sardonic to defend themselves equally against censor- view of nationalist idealism made disturb- ship from the Gaelic League and Dublin Cas- ances inevitable. But as Yeats said, in one of tle, as in 1909 when they defiantly performed his combative speeches from the stage when Shaw's The Showing up of Blanco Posnet. Ten- rioting broke out over The Plough and the sions within the company led to the departure Stars, passionate responses were a kind of of the Fays in 1908and in 1910 of Miss tribute: `Dublin has once more rocked the Horniman, dissatisfied with management pol- cradle of a reputation.' The sadly mistaken icy: she withdrew her subsidy but transferred rejection of The Silver Tassie brought the theatre to the NTS on generous terms. O' Casey's association with the Abbey to a Realism rooted itself early in the Abbey premature end, but his Dublin plays repertoire, despite Yeats's wish for a more remained their classic texts. poetic theatre. A view of Ireland in all its A government subsidy in 1925 gave the regional variety was built up on the little Abbey some financial security at the cost of stage by writers who came to realize, as Len- increasing control over artistic policy by gov- nox Robinson did on first seeing the Abbey ernment nominees among the directors. Yeats players in Cork, that `play-material could be continued to write for their stage (Purgatory, found outside one's own door'. From Padraic 1938), but on his death in 1939 the Abbey's Colum (Broken Soil, 1903) and William Boyle Anglo-Irish phase ended and a narrower idea (The Building Fund, 1905) at the start, the line of a national theatre emerged in the long of realism was carried into the forties and regime of Ernest Blythe (board of directors beyond by writers such as Denis Johnston 1935±41, managing director 1941±67). As (The Moon in the Yellow River, 1931), Paul minister of finance he had negotiated the sub- Vincent Carroll (Shadow and Substance, 1937) sidy but did not want a `cosmopolitan arts and George Shiels (The Rugged Path, 1940). theatre'. His policy required Abbey actors to Lennox Robinson combined writing for the be bilingual, provoking the criticism that dra- theatre (The Clancy Name, 1909) with man- matic quality was being sacrificed on the altar aging and directing for it (1910±14, 1919±35). of the Irish language revival. A decline in As a founder of the Dublin Drama League, he standards in the forties and fifties was exacerb- opened the Abbey stage to productions of ated by the fire which destroyed the theatre in foreign plays; an attempt, like the inclusion 1951, necessitating a move to the run-down of MolieÁre in the early repertoire, to maintain Queen's Theatre. Its size had adverse effects an international perspective in a theatre at on the Abbey's repertory system and on an some risk from parochialism. During this acting style which had already coarsened. time actors of outstanding talent emerged, There was a tendency for actors to play celebrated for their skill in combining the `Abbey characters' and for playwrights (with

6 ABORTION some valued exceptions, such as Hugh McGahern's The Power of Darkness (1991), a Leonard in A Leap in the Dark, 1957) to play which made no attempt to mitigate the write the safe `Abbey play'. shock of its savage action (adapted from A Renaissance dawned for the Abbey with Tolstoy) being set in rural Ireland. The Plough the completion of their handsome new and the Stars in 1991 raised protests about 828-seat theatre (and the small-scale Peacock Hynes's radical, Brechtian handling of a Theatre) in Lower Abbey Street in 1966. Its `sacred text'. Supporters argued that a strong spacious stage and sophisticated equipment breath of fresh air was revitalizing the Abbey gave a series of artistic directors the opportu- tradition. The productions of Hedda Gabler in nity (taken with varying degrees of confid- 1991 and The Iceman Cometh in 1992 stressed ence) to initiate bolder programmes. a European and American context for a thea- Neglected plays from an older Irish tradition tre which no longer needed to insist in narrow were revived (Boucicault's The Shaughraun ways on its Irishness. Hynes left the Abbey in was the success of 1968) and foreign plays 1993, to be succeeded by Patrick Mason and directors reintroduced. In the seventies who, in turn, was succeeded by Ben Barnes and eighties the Abbey again participated in in 2000. The annual W.B. Yeats International a major dramatic revival. Most of Tom Festivals launched at the Peacock in 1989 Murphy's plays (The Gigli Concert, 1983) celebrated not only the achievement of Yeats were seen there for the first time, as were but that of an Abbey Theatre newly poised plays by Thomas Kilroy (Talbot's Box, 1977), to become a unique European cultural insti- Tom MacIntyre (The Great Hunger, 1983) and tution. others who were evolving new dramatic forms katherine worth to express an Ireland in transition. The Abbey's association with Brian Friel, begun abortion In Ireland the law on abortion is in the seventies, gave them the first Dublin governed both by the criminal law, under productions of his Field Day plays and the sections 58and 59 of the Offences Against premieÁre of Dancing at Lughnasa (1990), the Person Act, 1861, and by the Constitu- which won awards in London and New tion, under Article 40.3. The Act of 1861 York. Frank McGuinness, leading playwright provides that any woman who is pregnant of a younger generation, joined the board of and who administers to herself `with Intent directors in 1991; a hopeful augury for an to procure her own Miscarriage . . . any Poi- enterprising future policy. son or other noxious Thing, or shall unlaw- Famed especially as a writers' theatre, the fully use any Instrument or other Means Abbey has not always maintained production whatsoever', shall be guilty of a criminal standards equal to that fame (choice of reper- offence. In addition, it is a criminal offence toire and casting have been under the pres- for any other person to do any of the above sures commonly experienced by theatres with mentioned activities with the intent of pro- a board conscious of its national role, and a curing a miscarriage, whether the woman is core of permanent, salaried actors). Director- pregnant or not. The criminal law does not ial styles have fluctuated within an artistic provide for any exceptions or extenuating policy that sometimes seemed to lack driving circumstances. There are very few reported purpose. After a rapid sequence of short-lived decisions of prosecutions under this statute directorships following an expansive period and there are no reported Irish cases on its under Joe Dowling (1978±85), the appoint- exact scope. ment of Garry Hynes as the first woman As Irish women had access to legal abortion artistic director in 1990 opened a new phase services in Britain from 1967, abortion was of experiment. A Synge-like storm of not an issue in Irish politics until the early criticism greeted her production of John 1980s. Then several organizations succeeded

7 ABORTION in obtaining the support of the Taoiseach, Gar- information which would facilitate women's ret Fitzgerald, for holding a referendum on obtaining abortions in Britain. The legal amending the constitution of Ireland to pro- basis for these actions was the very terms of vide for constitutional guarantees concerning Article 40.3. the right to life of a foetus. Despite the Society The first case to come before the courts was for the Protection of the Unborn Child The Attorney General (SPUC) v. Open Door (SPUC) having the support of the hierarchy Counselling Limited and Dublin Wellwoman of the Catholic church, the referendum was Centre Limited. Both defendants carried on vigorously fought by both sides andis generally pregnancy counselling services, including considered to have been an extremely divisive abortion counselling and giving of names social debate, as Catholics walked out of their and addresses of clinics in Britain which per- churches and politicians spoke out against their formed those services. The Supreme Court party's position. In terms of Irish politics, it ordered that both companies and their created some strange alliances, with funda- employees be perpetually restrained from mentalist Protestant churches in Northern Ire- assisting pregnant women within Ireland `to land coming out in support of the amendment travel abroad to obtain abortions by referral to whilst many Northern Catholics supported the a clinic, by the making for them of travel position of the Church of Ireland and the Pres- arrangements, or by informing them of the byterian, Quaker and Jewish churches in the identity and location of and the method of Republic, which questioned the wisdom of communication with a specified clinic or using a constitutional prohibition to deal with clinics or otherwise'. This decision was chal- such a complex moral and social problem. The lenged before the European Court of Human Methodist church was totally opposed to any Rights. constitutional amendment on abortion. On The second case, SPUC v. S. Grogan and 7 September 1983, 35 per cent of the electorate others, resulted from SPUC seeking to voted in favour of the eighth amendment to the restrain university students from including Irish Constitution. The majority of `yes' votes in their publications the identity and location over `no' votes was 425,096, out of a total elec- of abortion clinics outside Ireland. Before torate of 2,358,651. those proceedings were finally determined The constitution was, therefore, amended as by the High Court, several questions were follows: `The State acknowledges the right to referred to the European Court of Justice for life of the unborn and, with due regard to the a preliminary ruling as to the effect of Euro- equal right to life of the mother, guarantees in pean Union law on the restriction of informa- its laws to respect, and, as far as practicable, by tion concerning services which are lawfully its laws to defend and vindicate that right.' To performed in other EU member states. On date the Irish legislature has not enacted any 11 June 1991 the Advocate General advised statute or adopted any regulations to imple- that: ment this amendment. As a result, there are no guidelines for the medical profession as to The Treaty provisions with regard to the free- how to balance the equal right to life of the dom to provide services do not prevent a Mem- mother and of the foetus or in what circum- ber State where the protection of unborn life is recognized in the Constitution and in its legis- stances the right of the foetus to life should be lation as a fundamental principle from imposing superiortothemother'srighttolife.Itisasif,in a general prohibition, applying to everyone theUnited States, nocivil rights legislationwas regardless of their nationality or place of estab- enacted after the 14th Amendment was passed. lishment, on the provision of assistance to preg- There have been, however, several cases nant women, regardless of their nationality, brought by the SPUC seeking injunctions to with a view to the termination of their stop abortion counselling and the giving of pregnancy, more specifically through the dis-

8 ABSTRACTION tribution of information as to the identity and England. They took their Irish income out of location of and method of communication with the country without reinvesting, spending, or clinics located in another Member State where adequately managing their Irish estates. Fre- abortions are carried out, even though the ser- quently `middlemen' were appointed to take vices of medical termination of pregnancy and care of their absent landlords' Irish affairs; the information relating thereto are provided in this practice imposed a second unproductive accordance with the law in force in that second Member State. layer of wealth extraction, which increased rents for the actual tenants, and came to A Supreme Court decision of 1992 over- epitomize the awareness that Ireland, though turned a High Court decision banning an a sister kingdom in name, was really in a under-age rape victim from travelling abroad colonial position. Thus the absenteeism of to obtain an abortion. As a result, a referen- Anglo-Irish landowners became a symbol of dum held later that year resulted in the con- the inherent corruptness of the landlord sys- stitution being amended to take into account tem. Many activists in the Patriot movement the right to travel and freedom of access to tried to combat absenteeism. Throughout the information on abortion. eighteenth century, absentees were publicly So far, therefore, the practical effects of denounced in published lists containing esti- Article 40.3 of the constitution are that whilst mates `of the yearly value of their estates and a woman may receive non-directive counsel- incomes spent abroad' ± the earliest example ling as to whether or not she should decide to compiled in 1729. Repeatedly the suggestion terminate her pregnancy she cannot be given was made (by Swift, among others) to tax any information as to where she can obtain absentee incomes at a rate of four or even that termination. Books which contain infor- five shillings per pound. Maria Edgeworth's mation about abortion have been removed novel The Absentee (1812) still echoes this from bookshops, and British magazines Patriot disgust with absenteeism, which con- which have included articles on abortion tinued to persist, however, until the abolition have arrived in Ireland with those pages miss- of the landlord system. ing or with blank passages. The full implica- joep leerssen tions of Article 40.3 are still unknown and will remain so until the legislature brings in either abstraction A key feature of early Irish art a statute or regulations, or until further cases just as it was of the Gothic art of northern are brought before the courts whereby the Europe. Its religious justification within the judiciary will interpret the amendment. Judaeo-Christian tradition may be found in catherine forde Exodus 20:4, and it is an important element in Islamic art for similar reasons. Its philo- absenteeism Although the landed classes, sophical justification goes back to Plato, who in the decades following the Battle of the spoke (Philebus) of the beauty of `straight Boyne (1690), were intensely English- lines and curves and the surfaces or solid oriented in culture-political and constitu- forms produced out of these by lathes and tional outlook, there was a growing awareness rulers and squares . . . These things are not that their Irish economic interests did not beautiful relatively, like other things, but coincide with those of England. Restrictions always and naturally and absolutely.' In a on trade and manufacture, imposed on Ire- modern context, Clement Greenberg justi- land by the English government, meant that, fied the abstractionist tendency by defining increasingly, Ireland came to be seen as a the prime features of painting as being two- single, discrete economic system vis-aÁ-vis dimensionality and self-interrogation. England. One of the drains on this system The tendency towards abstraction, based was the fact that many landlords resided in on the assumption that forms and colours in

9 ABSTRACTION themselves embody aesthetic values, is a key recurring concern with abstraction from the element of Irish Modernism, particularly in 1940s onwards, and the work of Camille Sou- its earlier phases, and has remained an impor- ter has been marked by the style at times. tant feature of the visual arts in Ireland up to Other artists who should be mentioned in the present. The most important Irish this context include Colin Middleton, Nano abstractionist is usually taken to be Mainie Reid and Patrick Collins. With the Irish Exhi- Jellett, who together with Evie Hone was a bition of Living Art, abstraction emerged pioneer in Ireland of Cubism. Cubism sacri- as a dominant force and became, in Aidan ficed the representation of things as they Dunne's words, `a virtual orthodoxy in the appear in favour of an attempt to describe heyday of the early 1970s', though under sus- the whole structure of an object and its spatial tained attack by Neo-Expressionism in the situation. (It can thus be seen from one stand- 1980s. Criticisms of abstraction included its point as an extreme form of realism and its tendency towards institutionalization, its relationship with abstraction is complicated comfortable relationship with business and problematic.) Hone's work always patronage, and its association with the retained an `intuitive' element which came much-criticized (particularly in Dublin) to displace the Cubist influence. Her work style of architectural Modernism. later moved away from a focus on painting Michael Farrell moved from figuration to to the use of stained glass. `hard-edge' abstraction, and, finding abstrac- From an Irish `Ascendancy' background, tion to be an overly `aesthetic' style, returned Jellett studied under Walter Sickert, and in to figuration as a better means of making the Paris under Lhote and the `synthetic Cubist' kinds of statement that interested him. Tony Gleizes (who published Du Cubisme with O'Malley attempts to evoke the essential Metzinger in 1912 and whose theoretical per- character of rural landscape, while Barrie spective was influenced by both Catholicism Cooke also goes to nature for abstract shapes and philosophical idealism). Jellett's later to explore questions of growth and structure. work contains a strong devotional element, Cecily Brennan's painting explores issues characterized by a search for the `inner prin- linking landscape and the sublime, while ciple'. Others influenced by Cubism included Gwen O'Dowd's work is gaining increasing Mary Swanzy, May Guinness, Ralph Cusack recognition for the sensitivity combined with and Norah McGuinness. force of her response to natural forms. Laurence Campbell's sculpture is perhaps Sculptors who work or have worked in the influenced by elements of Jellett's work, abstract tradition include Gerda Froemel, though his work became more academic as it Deborah Brown, Edward Delaney (who is developed. Paul Henry's painting, particu- also well-known for figurative bronze works), larly that of his earlier stage, evidences a Brian King, Michael Bulfin, John Aiken, sense of abstraction deriving ultimately from Noel Hoare, John Burke, Eilis O'Connell Whistler. Of the White Stag Group artists of and Michael Warren (whose highly finished the 1940s, Bobby Dawson, influenced by Paul smaller work shows the influence of his train- Klee, was perhaps the most abstract in orien- ing in Italy). Alexandra Wejchert's work is tation, but the group also included Patrick reminiscent of aspects of constructivism and Scott, with his semi-abstract animal imagery, kinetic art, while some of Dorothy Cross's and Paul Egestorff, who studied under Jellett. work falls into the category of abstraction. Doreen Vanston's work of the early 1940s The later painting of Patrick Scott shows a shows evidence of the influence of Picasso. recurring interest in the sphere, and in the The Cubist influence of Lhote continued to 1960s he began his `gold' paintings, balancing make itself felt in the late 1940s in the work of gold, canvas and tempera. Cecil King has Elizabeth Rivers. William Scott has had a produced works in a Minimal `hard-edge'

10 ABUSE AND POWER style which eliminates all but the essential Dunne, Aidan, `Saving the phenomena: formalist elements of a picture: `This is a cool, classical painting in the 1980s', in Douglas Hyde Gallery, art in which precise visual problems have A New Tradition: Irish Art of the Eighties been considered with a calm intelligence' (Dublin: DHG, 1990). (Frances Ruane). Theo McNab's paintings Irish Museum of Modern Art, Mainie Jellett: 1897±1944 (Dublin: IMOMA, 1991). are characterized by a sense of architectural Kennedy, S.B., Irish Art and Modernism, 1880± precision, while Felim Egan has been inspired 1950 (Belfast: Institute of Irish Studies/Queens by Kandinsky, specifically his notion of musi- University, 1991). cal analogies in painting. Charles Tyrrell's Knowles, Roderic, Contemporary Irish Art (Dublin: early colour field paintings gave way to a Wolfhound, 1982). sense of landscape and the organic through paul o'brien the 1980s, while Roy Johnston, beginning with the examination of natural forms, devel- abuse and power The word `abuse' has oped to a geometrical concern, and later still now become associated with the physical or to an exploration of some aspects of Expres- sexual mistreatment of children. Sexual sionism. Samuel Walsh's painting, though abuse, or the involvement in sexual activity abstract, is influenced by the seasonal and by an older person of a child too young to agricultural changes of the countryside give informed consent, became an issue after where he lives, the theme of the rural and of the establishment of the Sexual Assault Unit landscape being one that, for purely geogra- in the Rotunda Hospital, Dublin, in 1985. phical reasons, is difficult for Irish artists to Though established for adult rape victims, escape. Mary Fitzgerald's work embodies an children, not adults, became the largest element of Orientalism deriving from her group of victims brought forward. Because time spent in Japan. Other names that should of the numbers involved ± about 50 con- be mentioned in the context of abstraction are firmed cases of abuse a month in Dublin ± Anne Madden, Erik van der Grijn, Michael two specialist units were subsequently estab- Coleman, Richard Gorman and Ciaran lished in the Children's Hospitals at Temple Lennon. Street and Crumlin. The relationship in Ireland between In 1994, child sexual abuse became a polit- abstraction, Expressionism and Romanticism ical issue when the sexual abuse perpetrated is often ill defined, though modern Irish art, over years by the paedophile priest Brendan including much that passes for abstraction, is Smyth led to the fall of Albert Reynolds's marked by a recurring element of `naturist' Fianna FaÂil±Labour coalition government. Romanticism, deriving originally from Yeats, On 11 November, Harry Whelehan, the attor- that marks it off from mainstream Continen- ney general, was appointed president of the tal developments. Whether Romanticism, and High Court at the insistence of Reynolds, as a consequence the Irish art that is marked even after Labour walked out of the cabinet by it, is due for a new revival with the current meeting in protest. The new attorney general, interest in ecology is too soon to tell. Eoghan Fitzsimons, was then asked to re- examine the Smyth case to explain a seven- month delay after the UK authorities Reading requested his extradition to Belfast. On 14 November, Fitzsimons told Fianna FaÂil Arnold, Bruce, Mainie Jellett and the Modern Movement in Ireland (New Haven CT: Yale ministers the delay was unacceptable as an University Press, 1991). earlier case provided precedent. The taoi- Douglas Hyde Galley, The Allied Irish Bank Col- seach deliberately omitted this Duggan case lection: Twentieth Century Irish Art, intro. in his explanation of the delay to the Dail on Frances Ruane (Dublin: DHG, 1986). 15 November, and when Dick Spring, the

11 ACADEMY OF LETTERS Labour leader, learned of this omission the Jennifer Johnston, Benedict Kiely, Thomas next day, he pulled his party out of govern- Kilroy, Mary Lavin, Hugh Leonard, Michael ment. On 17 November, both Reynolds and McLaverty, Bryan McMahon, John Monta- Whelehan resigned. On 19 November, Bertie gue, Thomas Murphy, Edna O'Brien, James Ahern was appointed Fianna FaÂil leader and Plunkett, Francis Stuart, William Trevor, began negotiations with Labour to form a new Mervin Wall, and Terence de Vere White. government. It was then revealed that Fianna chris morash FaÂil ministers not only knew of the Duggan case, but also knew of its significance. When Adams, Gerry (1948±) President of Sinn the extent of a deliberate cover-up was FeÂin since 1983. Born Belfast. He joined the revealed, Labour turned to Fine Gael and republican movement in 1964 and sided with the Democratic Left to form a `rainbow the Provisionals in the IRA split of 1969±70. coalition'. He was one of six leading Provisionals who in The Smyth case brought home to the 1972 met William Whitelaw, Secretary of powerful institutions of church and state State for Northern Ireland. While in Long that they could no longer expect to rule with- Kesh Adams wrote for Republican News out being accountable to the public. Because under the pen-name `Brownie'; his articles of the Whelehan appointment, the method of led to the `Armalite and the ballot-box' strat- making judicial appointments was changed to egy. Following the hunger strikes of 1981, prevent party leanings being the main consid- support for the Provisionals grew and, in eration. Above all, the Smyth case proved that 1983, Adams was elected MP for West Bel- live television coverage of DaÂil debates is an fast, a seat he lost in 1992. Adams engaged in important democratic advance. It allowed talks with the Social Democratic and Labour the public to judge for themselves the char- Party (SDLP) in 1988, which ended when the acters and performances of their elected IRA refused to abandon violence. The representatives. Television proved that hon- Hume/Adams talks of 1993 were more suc- est speeches can be more important than great cessful, however, and prepared the ground orations. for the IRA cease-fire of 1994. But as fred lowe Adams told a Belfast rally in August 1995: `They [the IRA] haven't gone away, you Academy of Letters Founded by George know.' His words were borne out by the Bernard Shaw and W.B. Yeats in 1932 to London Docklands bomb in February 1996 combat literary censorship by `giving author- which ended the IRA cease-fire. Sinn FeÂin ity to the utterance' of Irish writers. Mem- increased its vote in the subsequent Forum bership is by invitation only, although elections, standing on an abstentionist plat- membership offers have been rejected, not- form, but continuing IRA violence excluded ably by James Joyce and Sean O'Casey. From the party from the inter-party talks. Adams the 1940s until the early 1980s the Irish regained his Westminster seat in May 1997. Academy of Letters carried out functions The IRA declared a second `unequivocal' similar to those now performed by the Arts cease-fire in July 1997 which, in September, Council, offering awards to new writers and enabled Adams to lead Sinn FeÂin into the honouring established writers. Today it has Stormont talks and stand for election as a only a nominal existence, meeting rarely and Sinn FeÂin candidate to the New Northern providing its members with a prized, if Ireland Assembly in June 1998. His 1996 arcane, form of peer recognition. Although autobiography, Before the Dawn, was a best- the Academy is constituted to admit 35 mem- seller in Ireland. The resumption of violence bers, there are now only 19: John Banville, undermined sales in the US, but the achieve- Eavan Boland, Brian Friel, Seamus Heaney, ment of a peace settlement in Northern

12 AGENTS AND MIDDLEMEN Ireland has since enhanced his international Dublin (1801±9), he was the last of the reputation. `political bishops' of the eighteenth century. patrick gillan His influence was at its height in the 1790s. He is credited with being the first to raise the Addison, Joseph (1672±1719) Essayist, king's coronation oath as a constitutional poet, dramatist and statesman. Born 1 May obstacle to Catholic emancipation. at Milston in Wiltshire, the son of the dean of Lichfield. He was educated at Charterhouse, as a contemporary of Richard Steele, and at Reading Queen's College and Magdalen, Oxford. Cokayne, George E., The Complete Peerage, 12 vols During 1708, he and Steele dominated the (London: St Catherine's Press, 1910±59). Whig literary circle which then included Malcomson, A.P.W., John Foster (Oxford: Oxford Swift. It was the very English Addison, how- University Press, 1978). ever, not his politically aspiring Irish friends, james kelly who first rose to Irish prominence. On 6 December 1708, he was appointed chief secretary to the lord lieutenant of Ireland, agents and middlemen Represented two Lord Wharton. This post, already wrongly faces of the Irish landholding evil known as referred to as that of the secretary of state, absenteeism. The land agent was a common was filled by Addison with such diligence and feature of the Irish countryside during the integrity that he won friends everywhere. long neglectful period between the Boyne Elected MP for Cavan in 1709, he was able (1690) and independence (1922). He was the to overcome his shyness at speaking in the landowner's personal and professional repres- smaller Irish House of Commons. He was entative on his Irish estates, acting as steward, made keeper of the records in Bermingham's manager and sometimes financial adviser Tower, a sinecure post with a nominal salary, also. The extent of his influence depended but one which Addison took seriously, for he partly on the closeness of his relationship began to rehouse and rearrange the public with his employer but mainly on his effi- records. ciency in making the estate pay for itself. In Steele launched the Tatler while Addison the case of long-term absentee owners the was in Ireland, and soon involved Addison, agent often occupied the manor house and who proved to be an essayist without equal. his lifestyle was a satisfying if slightly paler When the Whig Ministry fell in 1710, reflection of that of his opulent master. The Addison lost his post as secretary to the lord middleman leased land from an estate owner lieutenant. In 1714, he was reappointed, this and then became a `professional' landlord, time to the Earl of Sunderland, until 1715, subletting land to tenants and usually subsist- when he moved to the Board of Trade. He ing on the income derived therefrom. Often rose to be secretary of state in 1717, but the subtenants would relet the land or por- retired that year through illness. He died on tions of it and so themselves become a further 17 June 1719. layer of middlemen. Both institutions were fred lowe frowned on by contemporary economists and later historians. The land, it was felt, Agar, Charles (1736±1809) Ecclesiastic and was being managed by persons who had no politician. He was born in Dublin on direct interest in it other than commercial, and 22 December, the third son of Henry Agar who moreover disrupted and undermined the of Gowran Castle, Country Kilkenny, and he deference relationship and formed a barrier died in London in July 1809. Successively between the landlord and his tenants. archbishop of Cashel (1779±1801) and of gerard o'brien

13 AGRICULTURE agriculture The dominant form of eco- and butter to the expanding UK market. nomic activity in Ireland at the turn of the The British, however, alarmed by the conse- century. At independence it accounted for quences of having to rely on food imports just over half of total employment, about during the war, embarked on a policy of three-quarters of merchandise exports and increased self-sufficiency through state sup- about one-third of gross domestic product. port for their own production. Combined By the early 1990s its economic importance with the extensive protection of Continental had shrunk to the point where less than European agriculture, this meant markets for 15 per cent of the population classified them- increased Irish production could only be selves as farmers, and agricultural production found with the aid of increasing, and increas- accounted for around 10 per cent of national ingly expensive, Exchequer subsidies. output. Ireland's social and cultural evolution Accession to the European Economic in this century reflects this transition from a Community (as it was then called) in 1973 largely agrarian to a mainly urban society, dramatically altered the fortunes of Irish agri- albeit one in which the imprint of its agricul- culture (and of the Irish economy) by extend- tural past is rarely far below the surface. ing to farmers the high farm prices paid at the Irish agriculture has a predominantly pas- expense of European consumers and tax- toral orientation for both climatic and eco- payers under the Common Agricultural Pol- nomic reasons. Cattle and dairy products icy. These subsidies are now so important to produced mainly from grass form the back- farm incomes that farmers have developed bone of agricultural production. The cattle one of the most powerful and effective polit- economy has been based on a complex divi- ical lobby groups to defend and extend them. sion of labour between different geographical The Land Acts of the nineteenth and early regions. Traditionally, calves born in the twentieth centuries saw the abolition of the south were purchased for rearing on small historical form of Irish landlordism and western farms and then sold on to the larger vested the land of the country in tenants grazing farms of the midlands and east for who worked it. But while peasant proprietor- fattening and subsequent export or slaughter. ship gave the farmer ownership of the land, it Animals were traded many times. While fair could not guarantee him a living. Even at the days provided much life and colour in rural turn of the century many farms were too small towns in the past, by the mid-1960s they had to yield an adequate income. Furthermore, been largely superseded by the more efficient, there were many landless families who agi- if more clinical, service provided by the live- tated for land redistribution. Despite the stock marts. efforts of the Land Commission in redistri- Irish agriculture has had few golden buting some 2.8million acres to about moments during the twentieth century. The 140,000 allottees until it ceased operations in great agricultural depression at the end of the the mid-1980s, the subsistence groups in rural nineteenth century came to an end when for a society ± landless men, the sons and daugh- brief few years during World War I farmers ters of small farmers ± were gradually earned high prices from a British market squeezed out. starved of food. But depression quickly The social mechanisms which governed returned in the 1920s and was exacerbated this process revolved around the patriarchal by the effects of the economic war with Brit- role of the farmer, which was greatly ain in the 1930s, whose costs were borne strengthened by peasant proprietorship. The largely by the farming class. World War II, farm had to be handed on intact to a single son provided no respite, although in the 1950s and non-inheriting children had to make their there was a brief glimmer of hope that pros- own way in the world. In well-to-do families perity could be achieved by exporting beef there were opportunities in the professions or

14 AHERN, BARTHOLOMEW (BERTIE) in the state or local bureaucracy, but for many the consequences of decades of underinvest- children of smallholders or landless families ment in the space of a few years. Land prices emigration to the cities of Britain and North hit record levels. In one year (1979) average America was the only outlet. farm incomes exceeded average non-farm This small farm economy remained viable incomes for possibly the first time ever. until the late 1950s. The collapse, when it Rural industrialization has provided some came, was sharp and sudden. Output per off-farm employment opportunities, particu- acre on larger farms, which in the 1920s larly for women, and in recent years much had been only one-third the level on smaller has been made of the income potential of farms, grew level in the 1950s and rapidly forestry and agri-tourism. Ireland's rural surpassed small farm levels in the 1970s. areas face a much more diversified future in Important small farm enterprises, such as which agriculture will be just one of the pigs and poultry, migrated to industrial shaping forces. units. Demographic statistics complete the story. Up to the 1950s marriage rates in the west Reading were higher than in the east. After the 1950s Breen, Richard, `Agriculture: policy and politics', the typical figure on small farms became the in Richard Breen, Damian Hannan, David Rott- elderly, bachelor farmer without an heir. man and Christopher Whelan (eds), Understand- Farm surveys showed that these farmers ing Contemporary Ireland (Dublin: Gill and were least likely to be engaged in modern Macmillan, 1990). farm practices. Production stagnated and in Crotty, Raymond, Irish Agricultural Production: Its many cases contracted. The high prices of the Volume and Structure (Cork: Cork University EC boom in the 1970s came too late to help Press, 1966). Drudy, P.J., ed. Ireland: Land, Politics and People these farmers. The demographic collapse was (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, too deep-rooted to allow them to respond, 1982). although higher incomes did permit more to Matthews, Alan, `Agriculture and rural develop- be spent on material comforts and the rural ment', in John O'Hagan (ed.), The Economy of housing stock was radically improved. Ireland: Policy and Performance, (Dublin: Irish In other countries the co-operative move- Management Institute, 1991). ment provided the means for small farms to alan matthews unite to overcome some of the disadvantages of lack of scale. In Ireland the co-operative Ahern, Bartholomew (Bertie) (1951±) message was preached by Sir Horace Plunkett Leader of Fianna FaÂil since November 1994; (1854±1932) and the Irish Agricultural briefly taÂnaiste during the hiatus after the col- Organization Society (today the Irish Co- lapse of the Fianna FaÂil/Labour government operative Organization Society), which he (1992±4). Born Dublin. Ahern's parents were founded in 1894. The movement's main suc- both staunch Fianna FaÂil supporters and, at cess was in dairy processing, where even- the age of 13, he was constituency `director of tually 100 per cent of the industry came lamp-post boys' in the 1965 general election. under farmer control, and in the establish- Later, while employed by the Mater Hospital, ment of livestock marts to replace the tradi- he became a member of the Federated Work- tional fairs. Yet it may be doubted if the ers' Union of Ireland. Ahern was elected to the co-operative spirit ever really took root in DaÂil in the Fianna FaÂil landslide of 1977 and the Irish countryside. was appointed assistant government whip in On the more commercial farms the oppor- 1980; after he topped the poll in elections in tunities provided by EC membership were 1981 and 1982, he became chief whip. A eagerly grasped as farmers sought to undo Haughey loyalist, he held various front bench

15 AIDS positions during 1982±7; he also served as lord he described politics as `rough, tough, hard'. mayor of Dublin (1986±7). He was appointed According to his mentor, Charles Haughey, minister for labour on Fianna FaÂil's return to Ahern was ideally suited to this milieu: `He's power in 1987. He facilitated the merger of the the best, the most skilful, the most devious FWUI and the ITGWU to create SIPTU in and the most cunning.' 1990. However, many trade unionists felt that patrick gillan the Industrial Relations Act (1990) tilted the balance in favour of employers. He served as AIDS It held a mirror to Irish society, minister for finance (1991±4) and, in 1993, revealing hidden parts that challenged tradi- introduced a controversial amnesty for tional views and icons. AIDS and HIV infec- income-tax evaders. tion were confined to risk groups at the When Haughey stood down as taoiseach in beginning: male homosexuals and then intra- 1992, Ahern was widely seen as indecisive venous drug abusers. Initial fears of society's when he failed to stand in the leadership reacting with homophobia were put aside as contest. He remained at Finance under taoi- more was learnt about the disease and society seach Albert Reynolds and retained the port- saw the benefit of the advice and positive folio in the Fianna FaÂil/Labour government contribution of the gay organizations and that was formed in December 1992. His self-help groups. Drug abusers unfortunately defence of the puÂnt during the 1992±3 cur- did not have the advantage of such an orga- rency crisis was criticized by business inter- nized caring infrastructure, and HIV infec- ests and he was eventually forced to reverse tion and AIDS put another burden upon his policy. their shattered lives. Following the collapse of the government Whilst treatment can now offer substantial in 1994, Ahern was elected leader of Fianna benefit, there is no cure for AIDS. `Know- FaÂil. A song commissioned to celebrate his ledge is the only vaccine', and there is a duty victory, The Man They Call Ahern, proved incumbent upon education and health-care so embarrassing that it was quickly jettisoned. workers to provide the ways and means to He was a lacklustre leader of the opposition allow the behaviour modification that protects and found it difficult to motivate his parlia- against infection. mentary colleagues. He did, however, obtain Behavioural modification of such a strong expert advice on policy development and primordial instinct as sex requires explicit commissioned an independent consultant's information and messages on topics from report on the future of the party. Fianna which Irish society had previously been shel- FaÂil's electoral strategy was drawn up and tered. This posed a challenge to the tradi- the party's image revamped in good time for tional tenets of church and state. That the 1997 general election. Although the par- innocuous piece of rubber, the condom, ty's share of the vote increased only margin- became the centre of many people's attention ally compared to 1992, astute vote and emotion. The adoption of a Scandanavian management resulted in a gain of ten seats. model of health education against sexually Thus Ahern was elected taoiseach in June transmitted diseases with a primary emphasis 1997 and became leader of a Fianna FaÂil/ upon partner selection and fidelity, and with Progressive Democrats minority government condom usage as a secondary protection for supported by three independent deputies. those not so fortunate in choice of partner, Ahern scored a considerable political victory provided a solution that was received as being in 1998, when he gained a mandate from the not only practical and sensible but one that Irish people to drop Ireland's constitutional could be supported by all bodies. The more claim over Northern Ireland, in an effort to explicit messages of safe-sex practices were aid the peace process there. Ten years earlier, left to the voluntary sector.

16 ALCOHOLISM

The statutory bodies had difficulty in cop- Reading ing with the problems raised by covert groups Lampert, Catherine 1988: `The poetry of strange and behaviour in society. The voluntary bedfellows'. groups received no direct support, despite martin mccabe and michael wilson the high value put upon their efforts by all concerned. Some indirect funding was aisling Means `dream' or `vision' in Gaelic furnished through the AIDS Fund and Irish and refers to a stylized form of eighteenth- cultural life has been enhanced by a number century Gaelic political verse. The genre was of events and performances for AIDS chari- established in Munster by AogaÂnOÂ Rathaille ties. (c.1670±c.1726) and typically features a The 1990s saw the beginning of some dream encounter between the poet and a action by the statutory bodies with the provi- beautiful fairy woman who symbolizes Ire- sion of walk-in needle-exchange clinics in land. She tells him of her current distress Dublin, which also distributed condoms. and desired deliverance; he responds with AIDS forced the issue of sex education with hope or despair, depending upon the actual the commencement of a pilot programme in prospects of the return of a Stuart king ± seen schools and the promise of full programmes in as a potential saviour by Irish Catholics ± to the future. the English throne. Late eighteenth-century Surveys of public knowledge of and infor- aisling poems lack political realism, since mation on AIDS in the 1980s showed that hopes of a Jacobite restoration ended with Ireland coped surprisingly well in the face of the defeat of Prince Charles Stuart at the a rather limp performance by the statutory battle of Culloden in 1746. bodies. This has been largely due to the per- sistence of a few individuals and media per- sonalities who kept the topic alive in the Reading public eye in a rational and non-sensational Murphy, Gerard, `Notes on aisling poetry', EÂ igse,1 manner, and whom the public felt they could (1939), pp. 40±50. relate to and trust. OÂ Buachalla, BreandaÂn, `Irish Jacobite poetry', The silent and sad face of AIDS in Irish Irish Review, 12 (Spring/Summer 1992), society is the loss of many talented and gifted pp. 40±9. contributors to all aspects of Irish culture as liam harte well as to their family and friends. david freedman alcoholism Ireland has a higher rate of alcoholism than other European countries. It Aiken, John (1950±) Sculptor. Born Belfast. is the second most common cause of admis- Aiken works in certain types of materials that sions to psychiatric hospitals, comprising can roughly be associated with landscape, but 26 per cent of all cases. Cirrhosis rates are in an unusual way. Influenced very much by low, however, for the typical drinking pattern Robert Smithson's land art and process art, involves binges rather than tippling. Ireland his sculpture and installations use sand, also has a high proportion of teetotallers wood/timber, metal/steel and marble/stone, (25 per cent). and rely a lot on geometric pattern and organ- Historically, the rural Irish indulged in ization of space. His formal fusing of steel drinking at special occasions like markets, and marble displays and contrasts the relative festivals, Christenings and weddings. Wakes softness of the stone and the rigidity of the were an important part of this circumstantial cast metal, foregrounding the formal proper- drinking. Ale was part of Celtic tradition, but ties of each of these materials in an elegant by the eighteenth century it was too expen- fashion. sive, and the common people drank whiskey.

17 ALCORN, MICHAEL Poteen (illegal spint) was distilled in the north paternalism in the escalating landlord±tenant and west. conflict. His diary (published 1907, reprinted In the 1790s, the government, concerned at 1967) provides an entertaining and useful heavy whiskey drinking, abolished tax on chronicle of Victorian London's literary beer, but its consumption was restricted to milieu in accounts of his relationships with towns like Dublin and Cork until the 1850s. Tennyson, Carlyle, Rossetti and Browning. In the 1920s, when Kevin O'Higgins legis- eve patten lated to curb the abuses of the liquor trade, he met with such opposition that he remarked American Conference for Irish Stu- that the publicans of Ireland were far harder dies Two University College, Dublin, his- to deal with than the Republicans. torians a generation apart, Eoin MacNeill and Many famous persons have suffered from R. Dudley Edwards, can claim credit for alcoholism. Anthony Cronin's Dead as Door- inspiring the formation of the American nails describes the excesses of Brendan Behan, Conference (originally Committee) for Irish Patrick Kavanagh and Flann O'Brien, whose Studies. Some thirty years later the confer- writing, however, also reflects the humour ence hosts academic symposia, encourages found in the traditional Dublin public house. study in Ireland and publishes an ever- fred lowe expanding guide to Irish Studies courses in US colleges. Alcorn, Michael (1962±) Born Belfast, john b. breslin 22 January. He studied at the University of Ulster with David Morris, and at Durham Andrews, Christopher Stephen (`Todd') University with John Casken. He was com- (1901±85) Revolutionary and public servant. poser in residence at Queen's University, Born in Summerhill, Dublin, 6 October; died Belfast, before being appointed lecturer in in Dundrum, County Dublin, 11 October. A music in 1989. Influenced by electronic and member of the Dublin Brigade, Irish Volun- computer music techniques, his works have teers, from 1916, he was imprisoned in been performed and broadcast in Ireland, Mountjoy in April 1920. Interned in the Great Britain and Denmark. They include Curragh in 1921, he escaped by tunnelling Hanging Stones for tape and slide projection, out. He took the anti-Treaty side in the In dulci jubilo for chorus and organ (both Civil War, and was interned by the Free 1985), Time Domains for piano (1986), Jubi- State Government until 1924. He then late for piano and computer, Incantation for returned to University College, Dublin, and orchestra (both 1987), and the piano quartet graduated BComm. Making a Song and Dance (1989). Andrews was employed by the Irish Tour- peter downey ist Association between 1926 and 1930, and as accounts inspector in the ESB between 1930 Allingham, William (1824±89) Ballyshan- and 1933. In 1933, he was put in charge of the non-born poet who worked as a Donegal cus- Turf Development Board, which became toms official before taking up a literary life in Bord na Mona in 1946. The board expanded England, publishing his Poems (1850) and rapidly under his direction. In 1958, he becoming editor of Fraser's Magazine (1874± became chairman of Coras Iompair EÂ ireann 9). Anti-imperialist and sympathetic to the (the Transport Organization of Ireland) and Irish peasantry, his enthusiasm for Irish folk oversaw a major reorganization programme. literature was channelled into a collection of In June 1966, he was appointed chairman of his own ballads in 1864. In the same year the RTE Authority, resigning in 1970 when his long narrative poem Lawrence Bloomfield his son David was appointed chief whip of in Ireland advocated a policy of liberal Fianna FaÂil.

18 ANTIQUARIANISM The New University of Ireland, Trinity `the organ of any sect or party'. In February College, Dublin, and Queen's University, 1793, for instance, it offered subscribers Belfast, conferred honorary doctorates on `Curious Accounts of Our Round Towers' him. He wrote an autobiography in two (illustrated with an engraving), comic pieces, volumes. `Remarks on the Book of Revelations' couched in surprisingly ecumenical language, a study of Aeschylus' Agamemnon, and a Reading `Scale of Genius for 1792' (Richard Brinsley Andrews, Christopher, Dublin Made Me, (Dublin Sheridan scored highest; Edmund Burke, and Cork: Mercier Press, 1979). penalized for lack of `humour', ranked ÐÐ Man of no Property (Dublin and Cork: Mer- second). Each edition also carried `Domestic', cier Press, 1982). British and `Foreign' news, accounts of scien- alan dukes tific discoveries, theatre listings, notices of new publications, complex mathematical annals Some medieval monasteries kept questions, poetry (often in Latin or French), annual records of notable events, and com- and a lively readers' correspondence. Con- piled obituaries of prominent individuals, ducted with support from members of Tri- ecclesiastical and lay. The resultant annals nity College and the Royal Irish Academy, are the most comprehensive native record of the Anthologia provided reading material for the history of Gaelic Ireland down to the end an erudite intelligentsia whose interests of the sixteenth century. Medieval Irish extended beyond local political and sectarian annals were local rather than national in power struggles. scope, reflecting the limited world view of chris morash the compilers, who by the sixteenth century were usually lay men. Major surviving compi- antiquarianism Generally, the pre- lations in Gaelic are the Annals of Ulster, the scientific investigation of the past, mainly as Annals of Connacht and the Annals of Loch CeÂ. pursued in the seventeenth and eighteenth Some annals were also produced in the Pale, centuries; in the course of the nineteenth notably those of John Clyn and Thady Dowl- century, antiquarianism was split asunder by ing. One major seventeenth-century research the emergence of academic disciplines such as undertaking of the Irish Franciscans at Lou- philology, archaeology and the new post- vain produced the last great Irish manuscript Walter Scott historiography. Some Irish history of Ireland in the form of annals: the antiquaries were great scholars of European Annals of the Kingdom of Ireland by the Four stature, such as Archbishop James Ussher Masters. It was first published in a classic and Sir James Ware; others were enthusiastic edition with English translation by John amateurs who sacrificed critical analysis O'Donovan in the mid-nineteenth century. for colourful speculation, such as Charles Vallancey. All of them worked at a time when no evidence had yet come to light Reading which allowed scholars to see world history Mac Niocaill, GearoõÂd, The Medieval Irish Annals in other than biblical terms: antiquarianism (Dundalk: Dublin Historical Association, 1975). traces humanity from the Garden of Eden, bernadette cunningham and the human languages and races from the sons of Noah. The main preoccupations of Anthologia Hibernica A monthly periodical antiquarianism were non-classical antiquity, published in Dublin during 1793 and 1794 `to comparative linguistics, and the recuperation diffuse knowledge and rational amusement of non-classical older literature from medie- throughout the kingdom' without becoming val oral sources.

19 ANTIQUARIANISM Antiquarianism in Ireland was a local var- Anglo-Irish antiquarians worked in. Various iation on British antiquarianism generally; hypotheses were advanced to account for the thus, Charlotte Brooke's Reliques of Ancient contradiction. One school (the more conser- Irish Poetry (1789) was a counterpart to vative, anglocentric one) dismissed the stories Bishop Percy's Reliques of Ancient English of ancient Gaelic greatness and civility as Poetry (1765), and the archaeological investi- mere boastful invention and held that Ireland gation of Ireland's Gaelic past matched grow- had until the advent of English-imported civi- ing interest in pre-Conquest, Anglo-Saxon lity been buried in barbarbism; they tended to England. What made the Irish situation spe- see the Gaels as a branch of Scytho-Celtic cial, however, was that the pre-Conquest anti- tribes, and their dour scepticism could vindi- quity of Ireland was not quite a closed book or cate itself by pointing out the patent absurd- a bygone period: it was still remembered by a ities of some of the other, more credulous and living (though rapidly fading) tradition of speculative antiquaries. These latter accepted native Gaelic scholarship. That tradition was that there had been an ancient, refined Gaelic largely active in religious exile in the Irish culture (traced back, in accordance with colleges on the Continent, but to some extent native mythography, to Phoenician or Cartha- within Ireland as well. Thus, it was usual for ginian roots), but that it had been destroyed in antiquarians to rely for information on native internecine wars; or that it had been assistance. Ware employed, in the 1650s, the destroyed by the spoliations of the Danes; bardic scholar Dubhaltach Mac Fir Bhisigh; and there were some who said that the bar- the Welsh antiquarian Edward Lhuyd was barous policy of English hegemonism was to helped, in his Irish investigations c.1700, by blame. This last interpretation was closest to Roderic O'Flaherty; Walter Harris in the the one advanced by the native scholars them- 1740s drew on Hugh Mac Curtin; Vallancey selves, and had the most subversive and poli- relied, in the 1770s, on Charles O'Conor of tically dangerous implications. Belanagar; Charlotte Brooke and Joseph Thus the speculations of Irish antiquarian- Cooper Walker were assisted in the 1780s by ism were not only of a scholarly nature, but Theophilus O'Flanagan. That model per- had political overtones as well. The most sisted into the nineteenth century, when Gae- positive, appreciative interest in Gaelic anti- lic scholars like Edward O'Reilly and Eugene quity was taken by those closest to the Patriot O'Curry provided native expertise to the movement end of the political spectrum. Ulster king-of-arms Sir William Betham and Similarly, the decline of such appreciative to the Royal Irish Academy. antiquarianism after 1800 was partly dictated Another specific feature of Irish antiquar- by an anti-patriotic backlash after the 1798 ianism was the fact that its researches had rebellion, as well as by the advent of new, direct political importance. English supre- more scientific methods of investigating the macy in Ireland had from the beginning past. been based on the axiom that England was The most important long-term effect of entitled to rule Ireland owing to its superior Irish antiquarianism was probably that the civility and culture, as opposed to the Anglo-Irish intelligentsia (which until 1700 benighted barbarianism of the natives. It was had been fervently aware of its English roots this perception which the Gaelic, bardic intel- and its non-Irishness) slowly came to see itself ligentsia was trying to controvert by pointing as the cultural heir of Gaelic antiquity, and out its rich cultural legacy and the ancient began to affiliate itself at the affective level to achievements of the Gaels in arts and letters. Ireland's Gaelic past. In short, Anglo-Irish Such insights squared oddly with the contem- historical self-awareness `went native'. This porary culture-political relations (of per- development made it possible for Ireland's ceived Gaelic squalor and rusticity) that urban, English-speaking population to adopt

20 ARAN ISLANDS a Gaelic iconography for its cultural AosdaÂna came into existence partly as a nationalism. result of the realization that while provision for the performance and dissemination of works of art had improved, not enough was Reading being done to honour individual artists for de Valera, Ann, `Antiquarian and historical investi- their achievement or to enable them to go on gations in Ireland in the eighteenth century', producing works of art. One of the most MA thesis, University College Dublin, 1978. remarkable things about its inception was Leerssen Joep, `On the edge of Europe: Ireland in the welcome accorded to it by the general search of Oriental roots, 1650±1850', Compar- public. ative Criticism, 8(1987),pp. 91±112. c.j. haughey O'Halloran Clare, Golden Ages and barbarous nations: antiquarian debate on the Celtic past Apprentice Boys of Derry On 7 December in Ireland and Scotland in the eighteenth cen- tury', PhD thesis, Cambridge, 1991. 1688, 13 apprentices shut the Ferryquay gate Vance Norman, `Celts, Carthaginians and consti- minutes before Lord Antrim's Catholic forces tutions: Anglo-Irish literary relations, 1780± would have gained entry. This inauguration 1820', Irish Historical Studies, 22, no. 87 of the siege became the focal point of Pro- (March 1981) pp. 216±38. testant/loyalist enthusiasm in Derry and joep leerssen beyond. Apprentice boys' clubs developed, the earliest in 1714, but especially in the AosdaÂna Established by An Comhairle mid-nineteenth century. A general commit- EalaõÂon, the Irish Arts Council, with the sup- tee was established in 1859. A memorial hall, port and encouragement of the Irish govern- with elaborately furnished council chambers, ment in 1982. opened in 1877 overlooking the city wall, the Its purpose is to honour those artists whose Walker Pillar and the Bogside. In 1988 the work has made an outstanding contribution to Apprentice Boys claimed 12,000 members in the arts in Ireland and to encourage and assist 200 branch clubs. Annual siege commemora- them to devote their energies fully to their art. tions have been organized every 12 August. Membership is limited to 150 artists of dis- The Boys' insistence on marching on 5 Octo- tinction and vacant places are filled by a ber 1968and on 12 August 1969 helped pre- democratic if rather complicated process of cipitate the disturbances in Derry, the latter election. leading to the introduction of British troops Members are eligible to receive an annuity, on 14 August. known as a Cnuas, to enable them to concen- trate their time and energies on the full-time pursuit of their art. There is no doubt that Reading eligibility for this has released many from the Apprentice Boys of Derry Association, Official sorts of exigency which were once endemic in Brochure of the Tercentenary Celebrations (1988). the artist's situation. Lacy, Brian, Siege City (Belfast: Blackstaff, 1990), AosdaÂna meets in general assembly at pp. 113±27. least once a year to discuss issues of concern w. harvey cox to it as a body or generally relevant to the status of the artist and the arts in society. Aran Islands (OileaÂin AÂ rann) Three islands It recognizes especially significant achieve- famous for Celtic grandeur, medieval sanc- ment in an art form by electing members tity, persistence of folk-ways and flourishing as Saoi. To date those elected include Gaelic. Administratively part of County Samuel Beckett, Sean O'Faolain, Patrick Galway, geologically and ecologically they Collins and Francis Stuart. belong to the Burren, being the broken

21 ARCHITECTURE remains of a limestone escarpment extending the Digbys of Landenstown, County Kildare, west-north-west across the mouth of Galway by whom it was rackrented and neglected Bay. until the 1880s, when the Congested Districts The smallest island, Inis OõÂrr (from `Inis Board began to develop the fishing industry. Oirthir', island of the east, anglicized as In 1922 the estate was bought out and divided Inisheer), has close social ties with Doolin among the tenants. on the Clare coast. Inis MeÂain (middle island, The population was at its peak (3,521) just anglicized as Inishmaan), the least visited, was before the Great Famine, which it seems was selected by J.M. Synge for his sojourns in less severe there than in neighbouring main- 1898±1902, as its life was perhaps the most land areas. Nevertheless, emigration had primitive left in Europe. The largest, AÂ rainn started as early as 1822, and the current or Inis MoÂr (big island, Inismore), has the population is about 1,350. The island commu- islands' capital, Cill RoÂnaÂin (Kilronan), nity responded to its rediscovery by the Irish home to a small but modern fishing fleet, cultural revival of the late nineteenth century and greets perhaps a hundred thousand tour- by producing its own writers, including MaÂir- ists each year. Many of these are drawn by the tõÂnOÂ DireaÂin (1910±88) and Liam O'Flaherty spectacular triple-ramparted cashel, DuÂn (1897±1984). BreandaÂnOÂ hEithir (1930±90), Aonghasa, on the brink of a 300-foot cliff the latter's nephew, was also born in AÂ rainn. over the Atlantic, and traditionally ascribed to Aonghas, a leader of the mythical Fir Bolg. Reading There are also five substantial inland cash- els, a fine promontory fort, and several early OÂ hEithir, B. and OÂ hEithir, R. (eds), An Aran oratories and medieval chapels in the islands. Reader (Dublin: 1991). Cill EÂ inne in Arainn was the site of a mon- OileaÂin AÂ rann: The Aran Islands, a Map and Guide astery said to have been founded by St Enda (Roundstone, 1992). Â in about AD 480 and to have numbered such Powell, Antoine, OileaÂin Arann: stair na n-oileaÂn anuas go dtõÂ (Dublin: n.d., c.1983). celebrities as Columcille CiaraÂin of Clonmac- Robinson, T., Stones of Aran (Dublin: 1986, repr. nois and Jarlath of Tuam among its alumni. Penguin, 1990). But perhaps the islands' most amazing monu- Synge, J.M., The Aran Islands (London: 1907; ment is the nineteenth-century field system, repr. Penguin, 1992). defined by about a thousand miles of drystone tim robinson walling, which is largely intact, modern farm- ing being impracticable in this terrain. architecture The islands belonged to the O'Briens of Ecclesiastical Architecture from 1829 Munster, who built a towerhouse in Inis The immediate post-Emancipation Irish OõÂrr, until they were ousted by the church was typically a rectangular box with O'Flahertys of Connemara in the 1570s. a low-pitched roof, usually Perpendicular Because of the islands' strategic importance Gothic in the provinces and classical in in the context of her Spanish wars, Queen Dublin. Only the largest examples had inter- Elizabeth bestowed them on an Englishman nal columns, usually wooden as at Naas, in 1582 on condition he kept a force there. Tuam Cathedral and Ennis Pro-cathedral. A fort was built at Cill EÂ inne, which saw Among the more elaborate Gothic designs some action after the surrender of Galway to was the T-shaped St Malachy's, Belfast Cromwell's general in 1651: when it was (Thomas Jackson, 1840±4). Neo-classical finally secured by the Cromwellians, it was churches included St Mary's, Pope's Quay, rebuilt and enlarged with stone from the long- Cork (Kearns Deane, 1832±9), Longford deserted monasteries close by. The absentee Cathedral ( J.B. Keane, 1840±56) and, in landlords of Aran from 1744 onwards were Dublin, St Paul's, Arran Quay (1837),

22 ARCHITECTURE St Audeon's, High Street (1841), and Rath- designed Limerick Cathedral (1856±61), mines (1854), all by Patrick Byrne. Byrne also spire by M.A. Hennessy (1878). Among the worked in the Gothic idiom and became more significant late Victorian church archi- aware of the archaeologically correct Gothic tects were William Hague (Letterkenny revival being wrought in Britain by the young Cathedral, 1891±1901) and William H. architect and writer Augustus Welby Pugin. Byrne (Loughrea Cathedral, 1897±1901). Pugin assisted Byrne with the chapel at Loreto The critic Robert Elliott's remark, in 1907, Convent, Rathfarnham, County Dublin that Loughrea was an example of worn-out (1839). Through connections in County Puginism, coupled with his comment that Wexford Pugin obtained further commissions, Gothic was a British style, effectively marked including Enniscorthy Cathedral (1842). His the end of the Gothic revival and sent archi- Irish masterpiece was undoubtedly Killarney tects and clergy off in a hunt for a national Cathedral (also 1842), of which only the walls style. Elliott's friend William A. Scott had had been built at the time of his death in 1852. just designed a church at Spiddal in the Pugin's influence was to dominate Irish Hiberno-Romanesque style, but this and ecclesiastical architecture for the rest of the Scott's later basilica at Lough Derg (1921) century, though his successors were to intro- were too individual to be copied, the main- duce French elements into the Early English stream of Romanesque revival churches being and Decorated Gothic styles that he had distinguished from their Gothic predecessors advocated. From the 1850s the most signific- more by detail than by form. Tired and shop- ant architect was Pugin's sometime Irish worn as it soon became itself, the Roman- associate J.J. McCarthy, known as the `Irish esque revival was accompanied by a major Pugin', who cultivated the hierarchy and encouragement of native artists and crafts- obtained commissions for four cathedrals ± men, with stained glass artists like Derry (1851), the completion of Armagh Michael Healy and Harry Clarke supplanting (1853), Monaghan (1861) and Thurles the ubiquitous Mayer of Munich. (1865) ± as well as numerous churches During the inter-war years some architects throughout the country. The majority were managed to design interesting buildings Gothic, though Thurles is Pisan Ronanesque. within the stylistic constraints of the Roman- From 1860 the practice set up by Pugin's son esque theme, among them Padraic Gregory Edward and George Coppinger Ashlin com- (St Malachy's, Coleraine, 1937) and the firm peted with McCarthy for major jobs, of which of Robinson and Keefe, whose Dublin Cobh Cathedral (1867±1919) was the most churches included the Italianate Foxrock important. Although the partnership broke (1934) and the Byzantine Deco Whitehall up in 1868, Ashlin was to become the fore- (1938). The only really modern church of the most church architect after McCarthy's period, Turner's Cross, Cork (Barry Byrne of death in 1882, designing substantial buildings Chicago, 1927±31), proved to be too like the O'Connell Memorial Church, controversial for the experiment to be Cahirciveen (1886), and, with his partner repeated. The master of combining details Thomas A. Coleman, completing Killarney from different classical and European sources Cathedral in 1908±12. was undoubtedly Ralph Byrne (son of After Pugin, the only English church archi- William H.), whose major works were tect with a significant Irish practice was Mullingar Cathedral (1932±6), SS Peter and George Goldie, who obtained commissions Paul, Athlone (1935±7), and Cavan Cathedral as far apart as Waterford, Cork, Limerick (1937±41). and Sligo, where he designed the cathedral The growth of Irish cities after World (1869±75). Another Englishman, P.C. War II saw the construction of many new Hardwick, architect to Lord Dunraven, suburban churches, the Dublin examples

23 ARCHITECTURE being mostly Romanesque and red-brick, giv- by Cardinal Logue. Of this, the intricately ing way in the early 1960s to the modern carved marble pulpit and rood screen were basilica, typified by low-pitched roofs and removed in 1982. angular or angled windows. After the intro- Work on Augustus Welby Pugin's great duction, from 1963, of the liturgical reforms St Mary's Cathedral, Killarney, County of Vatican II, new plan forms, often based on Kerry, began in 1842. The design, in Early a circle or square, replaced the basilica layout. English Gothic, was relatively severe, depend- Among the more interesting are the churches ing on contrasting stonework, form and mas- of Liam McCormick, the most striking being sing for effect, rather than an elaboration of the award winning Burt, County Donegal carved detail. Work was suspended between (1967). The liturgical reforms also led to the 1848 and 1853, when the shell was open to the remodelling of existing churches and regret- elements. Pugin having died in 1852, it was tably many fine vernacular and High Victor- left to his associate J.J. McCarthy and son ian interiors and fittings were lost in the Edward Welby Pugin to resume construction scramble for modernity. and roof the cathedral, enabling it to be The Church of Our Lady of Refuge, Rath- opened for worship in 1855. A major building mines, Dublin dates from 1854. The last of programme in 1908±12 saw the erection of the Patrick Byrne's great Dublin classical 285-foot spire under the supervision of Ashlin churches, it is said to have been built with the and Coleman. By the 1970s, it was felt that the contributions of servants in this expanding interior was a `museum of Victoriana' suburb. Unusually for Dublin, its plan is a inappropriate to the modern liturgy, so that Greek cross, with a dome, originally slated, all the plaster was stripped out, together with rising above the crossing. As with Byrne's ear- the floors, altar, pulpit and reredos. lier St Audoen's (1841), the walls are built of The Church of SS Augustine and John, John's calp limestone. The facade, though, is faced Lane, Dublin was the first and best of Pugin with granite ashlar, and the Portland stone and Ashlin's Dublin churches, commissioned tetrastyle corinthian porticos were completed apparently in 1860, but not begun until 1862 in the 1880s by William M. Byrne. Following a and not finished (by William Hague) until serious fire in 1920, the church was rebuilt by 1895. Major design credit must go to Edward his son Ralph Byrne, with a copper dome of Welby Pugin, who sent his pupil George Roman proportions. Internally, the original Coppinger Ashlin over to open a Dublin office pilasters and frieze were integrated into an on the strength of the job. The Dublin Builder elaborate scheme of stucco decoration. wrote that `this church promises to be one of The original design for the Cathedral of the finest in the kingdom'. The design St Patrick, Armagh, was an exercise in Per- exploited a dramatic site on falling ground, pendicular Gothic with two towers at the west the composition, in polychromatic sandstone end and a great tower over the crossing. This with limestone dressings, rising to a 160-foot was the work of the Newry architect Thomas stone spire (not completed until 1884). Duff, under whose supervision building Pugin and Ashlin were one of three firms began in 1840, only to be suspended during asked to submit designs in 1867 for a new the famine years. Work did not recommence Cathedral of St Colman at Cobh, County Cork until 1854, Duff having died in the interval. (then Queenstown). Following a row between The new architect J.J. McCarthy preferred the other competitors and the building com- Decorated Gothic, so that the building, mittee, partly over the £25,000 cost limit, the above the level of the aisles, was completed commission went to Pugin and Ashlin. Owing in that style (but without the central tower) to a difficult site and a client intent on elabor- in 1873. A remarkable and costly scheme of ating the design after work had begun, con- interior decoration was undertaken in 1900±4 struction was extremely protracted. The final

24 ARCHITECTURE cost, in 1919, was £235,000, making it prob- considered too expensive, but Dr Lyons ably the most expensive single building con- wanted a spire and got one, based on Francis structed in Ireland to that date. The walls are Johnston's (Protestant) church of St faced externally with Dalkey granite with George's, Dublin. The nave is of the Roman Mallow limestone dressings. The 300-foot basilica type, with a richly plastered ceiling, spire, one of the landmarks of Cork harbour, dome over the crossing and coffered vaults was erected in 1911±13. over the transepts. Spiddal Church, County Galway, a com- pact Hiberno-Romanesque building, was Other Public Architecture built in 1904±7 from the designs of William Leinster House, which today as part of the A. Scott of Dublin. The claim of the commis- Leinster House Complex houses the Irish Par- sioning parish priest Fr. Mark Conroy that it liament, was built from 1745 for James, Earl was `the first effort at a revival of the native of Kildare, to the designs of the German-born architecture developed by the Gael before the architect Richard Castle. Its plan and gener- coming of the Gall' ignores the scholarly ous site gave it the appearance of a country examples, including some churches with house. In 1815 it was sold to the Royal Dublin round towers, erected by the Church of Ire- Society (RDS), which added new drawing land as early as the 1860s. Spiddal, which schools to the north in 1827 (architect almost got a round tower, owed much to H.A. Baker). The Natural History Museum, Scott's Arts and Crafts training in London on the south side of Leinster Lawn, built by and was more a building of its time than a the government in 1856±7 (architect F.V. revived form. Clarendon), was subsequently mirrored by The Church of St Patrick, Newport, the elevation of the National Gallery, County Mayo, built by Sisks in 1917±18, was privately promoted in 1853, but completed R.M. Butler's attempt at adopting the with Treasury funding in 1864 (architect Hiberno-Romanesque style for a relatively Captain Francis Fowke CE, in succession to large building. Its construction, on the hilltop Charles Lanyon). The complex, the Dublin site of its predecessor, was made possible by equivalent of South Kensington, was com- the £10,000 legacy of a parishioner. It is faced pleted with the erection of the National with local red sandstone, with Dumfries sand- Library and National Museum in 1885±90 stone for the entrance and carved work, com- (architects T.N. Deane and Son). Leinster plemented by a roof of green Tilbertwaithe House became the temporary home of DaÂil slates. The interior, which tapers towards the EÂ ireann in 1922, and was subsequently east end (with Harry Clark window), has clas- purchased by the state, the RDS erecting sical columns and a fibrous-plaster vault not new premises at Ballsbridge. stylistically related to the elevations. The west The Government Buildings, Merrion Street, end square tower, surmounted by a flagstaff, Dublin, a quadrangular Edwardian baroque gives it the appearance of an English parish building faced with Portland stone and church. granite, was built in 1904±22 to house the In 1937, the newly appointed Bishop of College of Science (opened by King George Kilmore, Dr Lyons, commissioned V in 1911) and, facing Merrion Street, the Ralph Byrne of Wm H. Byrne and Son to offices of the Department of Agriculture and design a new Cathedral of SS Patrick and Technical Instruction, and the Department of Felim, Cavan, after seventeen years of fund- Local Government. The design was entrusted raising. It was begun by Sisks in September to Sir Aston Webb of London, with Thomas 1938and completed in 1941. Like Byrne's Manly Deane as local executant architect. earlier cathedral at Mullingar and church at Although traditional in appearance, it had Athlone, the style is classical. Gothic was such novel features as concrete floors

25 ARCHITECTURE and roofs, electric power and elevators. In learning in Ireland'. Maynooth and the Queen's 1990±1 the College of Science (latterly the Colleges were placed under the charge of the School of Engineering of University College, Board of Public Works, each college being Dublin) was converted to house the offices of entrusted to a private architect: Maynooth the Department of the Taoiseach. (A.W.N. Pugin), Belfast (Charles Lanyon), The Parliament House, College Green, Cork ± now University College, Cork (Sir Dublin, now the Bank of Ireland, was built in Thomas Deane) and Galway ± now University 1728±39 on the site of its predecessor College, Galway ( John B. Keane). All the Chichester House, where the Irish Lords designs were Gothic, Cork and Maynooth and Commons had sat since 1661. The design being the most interesting. The Cork contract of the new building was entrusted not to the ran smoothly, but the Belfast and Maynooth then surveyor-general Thomas Burgh, but to designs were over budget and had to be cut the young Edward Lovett Pearce, a proteÂge of back, while both the builder and the architect the speaker William Conolly. Pearce had for Galway got into financial difficulties, the probably been a pupil of his cousin Vanbrugh Board of Works taking over the supervision and had studied Palladian architecture at first after Keane's imprisonment in the Dublin hand in the Veneto. The octagonal Commons Marshalsea. chamber, at the centre of the plan, has been Our Lady's Hospital (formerly Eglinton destroyed, but the House of Lords survives. Asylum), Cork, was built to house 500 patients. James Gandon made additions to the House It was the largest of seven district lunatic asy- of Lords (1784±c.9) and was one of the archi- lums commissioned by the Board of Public tects involved in the Foster Place extension to Works in the late 1840s to supplement the the Commons (1786±93). The conversion to a nine establishments erected by Johnston and bank was carried out by Francis Johnston in Murray in 1820±35. Like the earlier buildings, 1804±8. the new institutions were `corridor asylums', The design of the Belfast Custom House was but with the emphasis on wards rather than entrusted by the Board of Public Works to the cells. There was a change in style from classical local firm Lanyon and Lynn. The building, to Gothic. Designed by local architect William erected in 1854±7, is in the form of an Italian Atkins, the Cork asylum was one of the longest palazzo, a style previously used by Lanyon for buildings in Ireland (almost 1,000 feet), ori- country houses. The leading architect in ginally split into three blocks, punctuated with Ulster, Lanyon was the son-in-law of the towers and gables. Atkins made good use of board's architect Jacob Owen. Built to an polychromy, contrasting Glanmire sandstone E-shaped plan on an island site, the elevations with limestone dressings. The elevated site, are faced with Glasgow freestone. As well as overlooking the River Lee at Shanakiel, the customs, the building originally housed appears to have been chosen by the local gov- several other government departments as well ernors for dramatic effect rather than practi- as a post office. The carved figures in the cality, great difficulty being encountered in pediment and spandrils of the east front providing exercise yards on the steep slope. were designed by S.F. Lynn, sculptor Parliament Buildings, Stormont, County brother of the architect, and executed by Down, was the last great neo-classical build- Thomas Fitzpatrick. ing erected in Ireland (1927±32). It was built In 1845 two Irish education acts were on a dramatic hillside site approached by a passed. Under the first, Maynooth College, three-quarter-mile-long avenue. The 27-bay the national seminary, was to get £30,000 facade has a hexastyle Ionic portice and a for extensions and repairs. Under the second, richly carved attic storey over the breakfront. £100,000 was provided `to endow [three] new Like the Dublin Government Buildings, it is [Queen's] colleges for the advancement of faced with Portland stone on a granite base.

26 ARCHIVES The original proposal, in 1922, was for three O'Dwyer, Frederick, `The architecture of the blocks ± a parliament house and two admin- Board of Public Works 1831±1922', in Ciaran istrative buildings as at Pretoria and New O'Connor and John O'Regan (eds) Public Works Delhi. After the parliament house was (Dublin: Architectural Association of Ireland, begun, the architect Arnold Thornley of 1987). ÐÐ `A Victorian partnership ± the architecture of Liverpool was asked to incorporate all the Pugin & Ashlin', in John Graby (ed.), 150 Years offices within it. The main interiors are the of Architecture in Ireland (Dublin: RIAI/Eblana travertine-clad central hall and the Commons Editions, 1989). and Senate Chambers, fitted up by the firm OÂ Fiaich, TomaÂs, St Patrick's Cathedral, Armagh that did the transatlantic liners. (Dublin: Eason and Son, 1987). Raftery, Patrick, `The last of the traditionalists: Patrick Byrne 1783±1864', Irish Georgian Society Reading Bulletin vii, nos. 2, 3, 4 (Apr.±Dec. 1964). de Courcy, Catherine, The Foundation of the Rothery, Sean, Ireland and the New Architecture National Gallery of Ireland (Dublin: National (Dublin: Lilliput Press, 1991). Gallery of Ireland, 1985). Shechy, Jeanne, J.J. McCarthy and the Gothic Duffy, Rev. Francis `The Cathedral of SS Patrick Revival in Ireland (Belfast: Ulster Architectural and Felim, Cavan', Breifne VIII, no. 3 (1992±3). Heritage Society, 1977). Elliott, Robert, Art in Ireland (Dublin: Sealy, Stanton, Phoebe, Pugin (London: Thames and Bryers and Walker, 1906). Hudson, 1971). Gaffney, V. Rev. Patrick (ed.), The Book of Kilmore Thompson, Patrick (ed.), St Colman's Cathedral, Cathedral (Cavan: 1947). Cobh (Cobh: c.1983). The Georgian Society Records of Eighteenth-Century Turpin, John, `The Dublin Society's School of Domestic Architecture and Decoration in Dublin, Architectural Drawing', Irish Georgian Society IV, (Dublin: 1912; repr. Shannon: Irish Uni- Bulletin xxviii (1985). versity Press, 1969). Walker, Brian and Dixon, Hugh, In Belfast Town, Henry, Hanora M., Our Lady's Psychiatric Hospi- 1864±1880 (Belfast: Friar's Bush Press, 1984). tal, Cork (Cork: Haven Books, 1989). Williams, Jeremy, `William Atkins 1812±1887, a Hurley, Richard, `Irish church architecture 1839± forgotten Cork Pre-Raphealite', in Agnes Ber- 1989', in John Graby (ed.), 150 Years of Archi- nelle (ed.), Decantations (Dublin: Lilliput Press, tecture in Ireland (Dublin: RIAI/Eblana Edi- 1992). tions, 1989). frederick o'dwyer Larmour, Paul, Belfast, An Illustrated Architectural archives There are three official archival Guide (Belfast: Friar's Bush Press, 1987). McParland, Edward, `The Bank and the visual repositories for records relating to the gov- arts', in Bicentenary Essays: Bank of Ireland ernment of Ireland: the National Archives, 1783±1983 (Dublin: Gill and Macmillan, 1983). Dublin, the Public Record Office of North- ÐÐ `Edward Lovett Pearce and the Parliament ern Ireland in Belfast and the Public Record House in Dublin', Burlington Magazine Office in London. The Public Record Office CXXXI, no. 1031 (February 1989). of Ireland was established in 1867 in the Four Moody, Theodore William and Beckett, James Courts building in Dublin. In the succeeding Camlin, Queen's Belfast 1845±1949: The History 40 years local and central government records of a University, 2 vols (London: Faber, 1959). were transferred there and a guide to the `New Church, Newport, Co. Mayo', Irish Builder contents was published in 1919. But in and Engineer (26 May 1917). 1922, at the beginning of the Irish Civil `New Church Spiddal', Irish Builder and Engineer (24 August 1907). War, the four courts building was attacked Newman, Jeremiah, Maynooth and Victorian Ire- and the Public Record Office destroyed by land (Galway: Kenny, 1983). fire. All that survived was a small collection O Caoimh, Tomas, Killarney Cathedral (Dublin: of original records and transcripts and calen- Eason and Son, 1990). dars of the burnt manuscripts. Fortunately

27 ARCHIVES the records of the Chief Secretary's office transferred to Belfast from government which were kept in a tower in Dublin Castle offices in Dublin. A 30-year rule applies to (the State Paper Office) escaped the fire, as did government records in Northern Ireland, as some government records which had not yet in the rest of the United Kingdom; in recent been transferred to the Four Courts building. years, because of the troubles, access to what Among these were land surveys from the are considered sensitive files has been seventeenth century in the Quit Rent Office restricted. Apart from central government and records concerned with law and order in records, local authorities in Northern Ireland the eighteenth century. These records were deposit records in PRONI, as do some church subsequently deposited in the Record Office: authorities. PRONI also has an excellent col- but generally, government departments in the lection of private papers. Among the most new state were reluctant to allow public access important are the estate papers of the Down- to their archives and were under no legal or shire and Gosford families and those of the official pressure to do so. marquis and marchioness of Dufferin and In 1991, however, as a consequence of the Ava. PRONI is also the repository for the National Archives Act (1988), the manage- papers of prominent Ulster unionist and ment of Irish government archives was trans- nationalist politicians, including Lord formed. Under the act the Public Record Edward Carson and Viscount Craigavon. In Office was renamed the National Archives addition, there is a large collection of papers and its premises moved from the Four Courts from solicitor's offices and archives of many to Bishop Street, Dublin. The records in the organizations and societies based in Northern State Paper Office were relocated in the new Ireland. These include the records of the Irish premises. The legislation also facilitated the Unionist Association and the Irish Unionist depositing of official records in the National Council as well as many Orange lodges. Archives. From January 1991, government PRONI has also collected archives and docu- records can be made available for public ments relating to industrial and commercial inspection after 30 years. It is left to the dis- development in the province. Among the cretion of individual government depart- most substantial collections in this category ments to withhold confidential or sensitive is the archive of the shipbuilders Harland and material; but in the first year of its operation, Wolfe. historians were agreeably surprised at the The Public Record Office (PRO) in Lon- wealth of records made available for public don holds a very large collection of documen- consultation. Apart from official documenta- tary material relating to Ireland. One of the tion, the National Archives has a large collec- most continuous series is that of the Irish state tion of business records from offices and papers from the earliest years of Henry VIII's companies all over Ireland, and a smaller col- reign to 1782. These papers contain a great lection of private papers. The National variety of documents relating to Ireland Archives receives court and probate records including the correspondence of successive 20 years after their creation and also has Irish administrations, financial accounts, responsibility for pre-disestablishment parish military surveys and reports from govern- registers of the Church of Ireland. ment commissions. They have been calen- The Public Record Office of Northern Ire- dared for the sixteenth and seventeenth land (PRONI) in Belfast was established centuries. Since the destruction of the Irish under legislation passed in 1923. It is the Public Record Office, the state papers in the depository for the records of Northern Ire- PRO have been the main source for the his- land government departments and also holds tory of early modern Ireland. The records of records relating to the six countries which the Home Office, which had overall respons- pre-date the founding of the state and were ibility for the affairs of Ireland until 1922 and

28 ARCHIVES for Northern Ireland 1922±72, have a great Peat Library, Cashel, all have archival collec- deal of material concerning most of the main tions which are mainly concerned with political events in Ireland from the late eigh- Church of Ireland affairs. teenth to the early twentieth century. The The largest public library in Ireland, the Home Office also had responsibility for Irish National Library of Ireland, has a large mis- public services and institutions such as hospi- cellaneous collection of manuscript material, tals and the Royal Irish Constabulary. After mainly in the form of private or family papers. 1922, the Colonial Office dealt with the Irish Among the most important are the estate Free State, and its records contain docu- papers of the Leinster (Fitzgerald), Ormonde mentation on the Irish Free State as well as (Butler) and Devonshire (Boyle) families. Northern Ireland in the 1920s. The records of Papers relating to prominent political figures the British Cabinet after 1916 are also avail- such as Daniel O'Connell, Patrick Pearse, able in the PRO and include many references Roger Casement and John Redmond can to Ireland. also be found in the National Library. Irish Local government archives are deposited in writers represented in the library's collections a variety of institutions including town and include Maria Edgeworth, Patrick Sheehan, county halls and local libraries. In recent years W.B. Yeats and Patrick Kavanagh. The many local authorities have begun to provide library has also accumulated a significant facilities for researchers. The largest collec- number of manuscripts in Irish. In addition tion of municipal records is in Dublin and can it has a collection of Irish maps, topographical be consulted in the manuscripts room in the prints, portraits and original drawings as well City Hall. Records of local institutions such as as an impressive collection of early photo- hospitals and schools are usually still pre- graphs of Irish towns in the Lawrence Collec- served in situ and may be consulted by private tion. Attached to the National Library is the arrangement. Genealogical Office, which has a small The records of the Roman Catholic church archive of genealogical material relating to are organized on a diocesan basis, with the Irish families. largest archive to be found in the Dublin All Irish universities have archive collec- Diocesan Library. The Church of Ireland tions. The manuscripts room in Trinity Col- has its own library and archive (in the Repre- lege, Dublin, has manuscripts relating to sentative Church Body Library in Dublin), as many individuals associated with the college do the Quakers. The Presbyterian and including James Ussher, William King and Methodist churches have archieves and Jonathan Swift. The papers of the Land Lea- libraries in Belfast. The Jewish Museum, gue leader Michael Davitt and the playwright Dublin, can provide information on records John Millington Synge are also in Trinity. relating to the community in Ireland. Copies The library has as well an important collec- of parish records can be found in PRONI, the tion of early Irish manuscripts including the National Archive and the National Library of Book of Kells, the Book of Armagh and the Ireland; or can be seen, with the permission of Book of Durrow. the relevant ecclesiastical authorities, in local The Archives Department in University parish churches. Other ecclesiastical institu- College, Dublin, has over the last 25 years tions such as convents, friaries and schools accumulated a large collection of papers relat- have archives usually dating back to the nine- ing to government ministers of the Irish Free teenth century, and these can often be con- State, including Richard Mulcahy and sulted on inquiry. Public libraries, founded by Desmond Fitzgerald; and for more recent ecclesiastical figures in the eighteenth cen- times, the papers of Desmond's son, Garret. tury, such as Marsh's Library, Dublin, The papers of Eamon de Valera were left to Armagh Public Library and the Guinness the Franciscan Library in Killiney.

29 ARMS TRIAL The Chester Beatty Library in Dublin was Reports of the Deputy Keeper of the Records of the the private library of Sir Alfred Chester Public Record Office of Northern Ireland 1925±72 Beatty and was bequeathed on his death to (Belfast: HMSO). the Irish people in 1968. It has an internation- Reports of the Public Records and Keeper of the State ally respected collection of eastern manu- Papers in Ireland, 55±59 (Dublin, 1928±61). scripts including clay tablets as well as mary o'dowd Arabic, Indian, Burmese, Siamese, Tibetan Arms Trial On 5 May 1970 Jack Lynch dis- and Mongolian manuscripts. missed his finance minister, Charles Other, smaller and more specialized collec- Haughey, from his cabinet. Later the same tions of archives in Ireland include literary year Haughey and others went on trial manuscripts in Irish in the Royal Irish Acad- accused of illegally attempting to import emy, trade union records in the Irish Labour arms. All were acquitted. The trial, the sen- History Museum, legal records in the library sation of the decade, was notable inter alia for of King's Inns, Dublin, and architectural drawings and photographs in the Irish Archi- a conflict of evidence between Haughey and James Gibbons, who had served with him in tectural Archive, also in Dublin. cabinet as defence minister. Afterwards the Apart from the PRO in London, the most DaÂil committee of public accounts invest- important collections of manuscript material igated the disposal of £100,000 voted for relief relating to Ireland in Britain are in the British of distress in Northern Ireland and concluded Library and the Bodleian Library, Oxford. that a large proportion of the money had been The Irish material in these institutions has appropriated to other purposes. In May 1980 never been adequately catalogued but includes a wide variety of material relating Magill magazine stated that almost one-third of the money had gone to the two wings of to Irish officials, politicians and literary the IRA. The circumstances of Haughey's figures. dismissal in 1970 alarmed many opposition, especially Labour, politicians, some of whom claimed that the purpose of the attempted Reading importation was to mount a coup d'eÃtat. Edwards, R.W. Dudley and O'Dowd, Mary, There is no doubt that an attempt at import- Sources for Early Modern Irish History, ation was made, but that the arms were (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, meant for the use of `Republican' elements 1985). in the North. After his acquittal Haughey, Elmes, Rosalind M., Catalogue of Irish Topograph- believing correctly that he had no political ical Prints and Original Drawings, new edn. rev. future outside Fianna FaÂil, set about recon- and enlarged by Michael Hewson (Dublin: Mal- ton Press for National Library of Ireland structing his position and was ultimately Society, 1975). rewarded by his election as Fianna FaÂil lead- Hayes Richard, J., Manuscript Sources for the His- er, and as taoiseach, in December 1979. But tory of Irish Civilisation, 11 vols (Boston MA: the `arms crisis' shadowed the whole of his G.K. Hall, 1965; 3-vol. supplement, Boston later career. MA: 1979). james downey Helferty, Seamus and Refausse, Raymond (eds), Directory of Irish Archives (Dublin: Irish Aca- Arne family demic Press, 1988). Irish Archives, 2, no. 1 (Summer 1992): special issue on maritime history sources. Thomas Augustine (1710±78) Prochaska, Alice, Irish History from 1700: A Guide English composer and violinist; the leading to Sources in the Public Record Office (London: figure in English theatrical music in the British Records Association, 1986). mid-eighteenth century, and teacher of

30 ART 1913±23 numerous singers. He paid extended visits to main stream of development in art from the Dublin between 1742 and 1756, conducting time of Manet and the Impressionists in theatrical works and oratorios. His Alfred and France, was already well established in Ire- Comus became perennial favourites there. His land. As early as 1884 the Dublin Sketching sister Susanna Maria was the singing actress Club had exhibited paintings by James Mrs Cibber, who took part in the first per- McNeill Whistler, the leading avant-garde formance of Messiah. painter in England. In 1899 George Russell, better know as `AE', a painter, poet and Cecilia (neÂe Young) (1711±89) writer, had arranged in Dublin an exhibition Soprano. A sister of Mrs J.F. Lampe and of `Modern Paintings' which included, pupil of Geminiani, she came to Dublin amongst others, works by the better-known with her husband Thomas, remaining there French Impressionists. Russell's hope was after the marriage broke up, where she fol- that the exhibition might stimulate the devel- lowed her career as a singer and looked after opment of modern painting in Ireland and, her niece, Polly Young the singer. They both more importantly, encourage artists to draw returned to London in 1762. upon Irish themes, as the literary men had done, and so create a distinct Irish school of Michael (c.1740±86) art. In 1901 Sarah Purser arranged the cele- Composer and organist. He came to Dublin brated exhibition of paintings by John Butler with his third wife, the singer Anne Venables, Yeats and Nathaniel Hone, held in in 1775, remaining for about five years. He St Stephen's Green, Dublin, and this event performed his father's organ concertos and saw the introduction of Hugh (later Sir Hugh) operas, and conducted his own opera Cymon. Lane to Irish art. Lane, as is well known, The lure of alchemy led him into debt and hoped to establish a recognizably Irish art, confinement in the Marshalsea prison. and in 1908his activities culminated in the brian boydell opening of the Dublin Municipal Gallery of Modern Art, which he considered a prerequi- art 1913±23 Throughout the years from 1913 site to this. Other important exhibitions until 1923, a momentous period in Irish his- which promoted Modernism in Ireland were tory, the development of art was determined `Works by Post-Impressionist Painters'and more than anything else by the growing ascen- `Modern French Pictures', held at the United dancy of the international modern movement. Arts Club, Dublin, in 1911 and 1912 respec- This, however, was linked to and influenced by tively. These years, 1901±11, also coincided the nationalism of contemporary politics and with the residence in Dublin of George the desire among many to establish a distinct Moore, who had known Manet in Paris, and Irish school of art, what at the time was often who was then at the height of his powers as a referred to as a `national' art. novelist and critic. It was through Moore that In the visual arts, the period is not self- William Orpen, one of the most distinguished contained; rather, those forces which we find painters of the time, became involved with the present in 1913 have their beginnings a decade Irish cultural revival. or more earlier, during the fin de sieÁcle, and they Of these events, the appearance of Hugh were to reach their natural conclusion later in Lane was the most consequential and with the century. Yet, nevertheless, the period did him the two strands of development, namely see the formalization of those paths which both Modernism and the search for an Irish school the Modernist and the nationalist painters of art, are united. To begin with the would pursue in the future. Municipal Gallery had opened in temporary By 1913 Modernism, that is, that which is premises, but the Dublin Corporation had generally understood as representing the undertaken to erect a suitable building to

31 ART 1913±23 house the collection. Lane in turn agreed to William Orpen raised the issue in a number donate to the Gallery a group of 39 important of compositions such as Sowing New Seed French Impressionist pictures if the corpora- (1913), a picture symbolizing Irish rejuvina- tion kept to its word. By 1912, however, no tion, The Western Wedding (1914) and The final decision having been made on the mat- Holy Well (1916). But Orpen, who had a ter, Lane began to feel that the corporation flourishing portrait practice in London, was was procrastinating and he removed his 39 to an extent ambivalent towards events in Impressionist works to the National Gallery, Ireland, although as a part-time teacher at London. In 1913 he made a will bequeathing the Dublin Metropolitan School of Art he these pictures to London, but in 1915, before exerted an enormous influence on a younger sailing to America, wrote a codicil to this will generation of painters. Orpen, however, never leaving the pictures to Dublin provided that a returned to Ireland after the end of World suitable building was found for them within War I, so that his essays in the cause of a five years of his death. However, the codicil distinct Irish art must be treated with some was unwitnessed and was therefore invalid circumspection. when Lane drowned in the Lusitania later in Sean Keating studied under Orpen at the 1915. Subsequent events regarding the pic- Metropolitan School and later worked in tures ± of which the best known are, perhaps, London as his studio assistant. In 1916 he Degas's Sur la Plage, Manet's EÂ va GonzaleÁs, returned to Ireland to find his inspiration in Monet's VeÂtheuil: Sunshine and Snow, the west, in particular in the Aran Islands, Pissarro's Printemps, vue de Louveciennes and which he had first visited in about 1913 or Renoir's Les Parapluies ± stem from this 1914. Henceforth, the area dominated much point. In brief, despite well-substantiated of his subject matter and he forged from it a protestations from Lane's executor, his aunt, strongly nationalist art. From 1916, in com- Lady Gregory, and others that the pictures positions such as The Men of the West, until should be returned to Dublin, they remained the Civil War ± with Men of the South (1922), in London, and in 1924 the British govern- On the Run: War of Independence (c.1924) ± ment appointed a committee of inquiry to and later, Keating chronicled Ireland's emer- determine whether Lane, when he signed gence to nationhood; while in An Aran Fish- the codicil, thought it to have legal force. erman and his Wife of the 1920s, Half Flood This committee published its findings in and The Race of the Gael, both of the 1930s, he 1926 and decided in favour of the Dublin set down an idyllic vision of rural Irish life argument, but resolved that had Lane and character which perfectly matched the known of recent developments at the Tate mood of the period. Gallery he would have destroyed the codicil. Ireland's struggle for independence greatly While the legal aspect of this whole affair has affected Jack B. Yeats, the most important never been in doubt, the moral aspect is not Irish painter to have emerged this century. yet permanently resolved. The Hugh Lane In a number of paintings done in the years Municipal Gallery of Modern Art, as the immediately before and after the gaining of institution is now called, is the most tangible independence Yeats recorded the revolution- memorial we have to Lane and his efforts to ary events of the time. Bachelors Walk, In stimulate the development of Irish painting, Memory (1915), a seminal image of the period, yet the gallery has never been at the forefront On Drumcliffe Strand (1918), The Island Fun- of developments in Irish art. eral (1923), A Westerly Wind (1921), a picture The years before 1920 in Ireland saw a rich in metaphor, and Communicating with growing awareness of national identity. Prisoners (1924), for example, show him at The literary revivalists had contributed to his best and illustrate his sense of universal this awareness and in the visual arts human experience which characterizes so

32 ART 1913±23 much of his work. Yeats, who was something applied, was greatly influenced by French of a loner, was an observer of events, working Fauvism. She had first shown such paintings from what he called `a pool of memories', and in Ireland at her exhibition in the Mills' Hall, throughout his career he recorded the chan- Dublin, in 1919 and thus when she joined the ging circumstances of Irish life. Dublin Painters her work was already known. In August 1920, amid the uncertainties of In the mid-1920s she developed a style which, the time, Jack B. Yeats, Paul and Grace in terms of the simplification of forms and Henry, Mary Swanzy, E.M.O'R. Dickey, sense of dynamic energy, is part Cubist and Letitia Hamilton and a few others founded part Futurist in derivation, but she did not the Society of Dublin Painters, their aim long persist in this. being to circumvent the hostility of the art In 1923, at the Dublin Painters' autumn establishment towards avant-garde painting. exhibition, Mainie Jellett showed two abstract With the Dublin Painters we see the begin- paintings which were a development from her ning of the steady ascendancy of Modernism experiments with Cubism. These works, both in Irish painting. The society took rooms at simply titled Decoration, were the most 7 St Stephen's Green, Dublin, and there held advanced paintings by an Irish artist to have regular single and group exhibitions of mem- been exhibited in Ireland by that time. The bers' work. From its inception until the 1940s pictures caused a considerable stirr in the the Dublin Painters' Society represented all press, George Russell (AE), for example, that was progressive in Irish painting. Its betraying the critical mood of the period, members espoused no common aesthetic, describing them as examples of `artistic but rather were united in their individuality malaria'! In the following years, however, and common interest in avant-garde painting. Jellett and her friend Evie Hone continued Paul Henry, a prominent member of the to show similar works at the Dublin Painters' society in its early days, had spent much of gallery, although they met with little acclaim. the decade before 1920 living and working on Mainie Jellett is the most important Irish Achill Island, where he recorded the harsh life Cubist painter and she is one of the few of the people in images set down with a Post- Irish artists of her generation to espouse a Impressionist rigour. In 1919, however, distinct theory of art, which, in terms of her Henry and his wife, Grace, settled in Dublin search for `inner rhythms' and `inner princi- and the following year conceived the idea of ples' derived from nature, she saw as being a founding the Dublin Painters' Society. These spiritual matter. and the immediately subsequent years saw Those artists whom we have mentioned, Henry at the height of his powers with com- without exception, looked to France for their positions such as the various versions of his inspiration, but Cecil Salkeld, another mem- Potato Diggers (1910±12), which show his ber of the Dublin Painters' Society, had stu- debt to the French painter J.F. Millet, or died in Germany and it is due to him that an Dawn, Killary Harbour (1922±3) which, with influence from the Neue Sachlichkeit move- its closely modulated forms and atmospheric ment, which greatly influenced European art tones, betrays the influence of Whistler, in the inter-war years, can be found in Ire- whom Henry knew and admired as a student land. Salkeld first exhibited at the Dublin in Paris. Painters in about 1923 or 1924, showing in Another founder-member of the Dublin all probability works such as Composition Painters' Society was Mary Swanzy. Like (1922), a watercolour with extremely angular many of her contemporaries, she had studied and stylized forms, Cinema (c.1922), a wood- art in Paris and in the early years of the cut, and The Tennis Party, an oil of 1923. All century had developed a style which, in of these pictures illustrate the German terms of her use of bright colours briskly influence on his work at that time. Like

33 ART, CONTEMPORARY Mainie Jellett, Salkeld held a distinct philo- In terms of periodization, the following loose sophy of art, which he set down in the journal chronology is proposed; 1960±72, 1972±83, To-Morrow in 1924. There he defined art as 1983±present. Beginning with the establish- `the crystallisation of idea into form' which ment of the Independent Artists Group in the spectator, through thought, transmutes 1960, we may identify a period characterized into idea again. This theory, which he held by the conflict between the three organiza- to throughout his life, is essentially tional nodes of the Royal Hibernian Academy Expressionist and again shows the influence (RHA), the Irish Exhibition of Living Art of his time in Germany. (IELA, founded 1943) and the Independents. In sculpture, the period from 1913 until This period ends with the reconfiguration of 1923 saw little innovation. Oliver Sheppard's the IELA Committee in 1972, the crisis in art Death of CuÂchulain, of 1911±12, which char- education practice at the National College of acterizes his work at the time, is in the Belle Art and Design (NCAD) and the restructur- EÂ poque tradition of late nineteenth-century ing of the Arts Council of Ireland in 1973. sculpture, although his `In Mystery the Soul In the period 1972±83, art practice in Ire- Abides'(c.1920±8) is less heroic. The work of land is marked by the conflict between what Sheppard's foremost pupil, Albert Power, is may be termed an `internationalist Modern- more naturalistic, as can be seen from his ism' and a `Romantic Modernism', which can 1916 Memorial in Limerick and his Madonna be very loosely identified with the IELA and and Divine Child (1921±2). Other, more minor the Independents respectively. This period sculptors working in the period include Roas- comes to an end in the controversial exhibition mond Praeger, Frank Wiles, Morris Harding of 1983, `Making Sense: Ten Artists 1968±83', and Joseph Higgins. They are more senti- and the furore around the selection of the mental in approach than Sheppard and Irish contributors to the international exhibi- Power, as Praeger's The Philosopher (c.1920), tion ROSC 1984. The current period of art Wiles's Dawn of Womanhood (1918) and production may be identified with the gen- Higgins's Boy with a Boat (c.1910), for eration of artists in the newly restructured art example, show, although Higgins's head of colleges who have been educated within the Michael Collins, carved in wood in 1922, is a framework of the debates around Modernism boldly Expressionist piece of work. and postmodernism, identity and difference, As we have said, the period under discus- and the poststructuralist critique of `the sign'. sion in Irish art is not self-contained, yet in it The suggestion implicit in this crude chrono- one sees the gradual polarization of those logy is that the development of contemporary paths along which future developments were art practice in Ireland since 1960 is to some to proceed. Perhaps this polarization was in degree autonomous from the extraordinary itself the major achievement of the time, for political, economic and social upheavals of with it artists both articulated the critical this period. This must, of course, be cor- issue facing them ± the need for some kind rected. Indeed the development of a complex of genuine expression of the national con- field of contemporary art practices in Ireland sciousness ± and mapped out ways of achiev- in recent decades might itself be seen as a ing it. manifestation of the dramatic transformations s.b. kennedy of Irish political, economic and social life. The proposed chronology might equally be art, contemporary In summarizing the justified in terms of the transformations of developments in Irish art practice over the political and economic processes. last three decades, it is necessary to make In terms of patronage, an understanding of some prefacing remarks. These pertain to per- the role of state and corporate sponsorship is iodization, patronage and critical structures. crucial. The Arts Councils, Allied Irish Banks

34 ART, CONTEMPORARY (AIB), Guinness Peat Aviation (GPA) and lesser extent still life. Such a hegemony was other large financial institutions have played maintained by two established RHA figures, a determining role in the construction of a Sean Keating and his pupil Maurice canonical body of late twentieth-century McGonigal, and their role in the then Irish art. There is a significant overlap National College of Art. They operated within between the Arts Council initiatives and, a paradigm of traditional painting techniques say, those of the AIB Collection, as evidenced harnessed to a conservative nationalist politic in the key role played by Dr Frances Ruane of which saw painting and sculpture as very the NCAD in contributing to Arts Council much in the service of the nationalist project. Exhibitions and ventures both curatorially Explicit in this project was a resistance to and critically and in acting as advisor to the change and a deep suspicion and hostility AIB on its collection. Correspondingly, the towards Modernism with its cosmopolitanism direct involvement of private collectors such and formalist approach to material. as Patrick Murphy with the organization of By the late 1960s, there was pressure to state cultural initiatives such as the ROSC change the rigidified aesthetic of the RHA series of exhibitions from 1967 to 1988 should which dominated the National College of be remarked as indicative of the concentrated Art. An attempt on the part of some staff to patterns of patronage and exhibition in place. produce students with a `comprehensive Finally and in summary, a pattern of criti- vision [and] a flexible critical sensibility' met cism can be discerned whereby a handful of with resolute resistance. The ensuing conflict practitioners in the 1960s and 1970s cham- led to disputes between the college authorities pioned the cause of certain individual artists and the students who were seeking transfor- in relation to one or more of the valorized mations to curricula in line with the limited terms `Irishness', `Modernity', `individuality', Modernism of the newly developed founda- `expressivity', `sensitivity' and `landscape'. tion studies course. Eventually, after a long Dorothy Walker's writings on the work of and hard dispute, some compromises were Louis Le Brocquy are an appropriate example achieved. A new managerial system of educa- of this tendency. With the establishment in tion was introduced, based on the British 1981 of Circa by the Artists' Collective of model. This brought with it a conception of Northern Ireland, the initiation of a critical artistic production which `laid great emphasis discourse around contemporary art practices on the evolution of an individual, marketable began in earnest. This project, a journal style on the part of each student'. devoted to contemporary visual culture in Ire- Abstract Modernists such as Patrick Scott land, was complemented by the occasional and Cecil King developed a hard-edged form- foray into issues of visual culture by a journal alism which by 1970 began to acquire a limited such as Crane Bag. The importance of Circa hegemony in its promotion as a national style. since 1981 has been its commitment to rigor- This was supported at state level by the Arts ous public and critical debate around contem- Council of Ireland led by Donal O'Sullivan porary visual culture. Rather than simply SJ. This apparent shift in patronage was reinscribe the pre-valorized set of terms iden- greeted with vociferous criticisms on the part tified above, Circa sought to interrogate these of the Independent Artists. Chief amongst and provide a much-needed critical forum for the members of this group were Michael the discussion of contemporary visual art pro- Kane and James Mc Kenna, who subscribed duction. neither to the modern abstractionist ILEA The dominant mode of art practice in Ire- nor to the anti-Modernism of the RHA. land in the early 1960s was characterized by They advocated a range of informal figurative the academicism of the RHA, which preoccu- and semi-abstract styles which they believed pied itself with landscape, portraiture and to a constituted a more organic and democratic

35 ART, CONTEMPORARY aesthetic. The Independents further identi- Charles Harper and Michael O'Sullivan, who fied this informal aesthetic as particular to were painters and sculptors. Regular partici- Irish experience and culture. pants in IELA exhibitions included Michael Their position was in some way vindicated Farrell and John Burke. Abstract formalism by the community of painters living and dominated these shows, although as an organ- working in Ireland from the late forties and ized group the artists managed to maintain a early fifties. These painters displayed a pre- degree of heterogeneity and a plurality of occupation with nature, rural life and the approaches, materials and concerns, such as landscape. Patrick Collins, Nano Reid, Tony responses to events in Northern Ireland. O'Malley, Camille Souter, and later Sean However, any antagonisms which may have McSweeney and Barrie Cooke all applied a been subsumed throughout the 1970s between semi-abstract, lyrical approach to their sub- those who pursued an international Modernist ject matter, producing a `poetic genre' of aesthetic, on the one hand, and those who painterly work which represents a school of pursued a more Romantic Modernism which Irish landscape that spans three decades. This manifested itself in expressionism and pain- work was produced in a High Romantic mode terliness, on the other, certainly re-emerged in which treats the landscape as an enduring the controversy surrounding the selection of repository of native value and identity. The Irish artists for ROSC 1984. personal response to this centrally important ROSC's importance for contemporary art motif was posited as an alternative to an in Ireland cannot be overstated, in that it imported modernity and celebrated as a became the first showcase of late twentieth- moment of transcendence. This work was century modern art in Ireland and contributed claimed as quite `independent of mainstream to an assessment of Irish art in an international international movements . . . not so much a context. Its originator, Michael Scott, was rejection of the international avant-garde, well known for his interest in the development but a tacit recognition that these styles may of an Irish Modernism with its `criteria of not be wholly appropriate in an Irish context'. transcendental excellence and visual poetry'. Landscape was promoted as the quintessen- However, ROSC 1984's committee, which tial subject matter in Irish art, where artists included two European collectors, failed to articulate their `Irishness' and express their come to a decision on the 10 places set aside `Celtic imagination'. Beyond landscape as for Irish artists. The strong implication was the privileged signifier for this Celtic sens- that Irish art was not on a par with the inter- ibility, the portraiture of Louis le Brocquy national work to be shown. Another selection has also been presented by this discourse jury was set up to deal with this problem and as essentializing and reifying this Celtic ima- it too failed, coming up with 22 names instead gination. of 10. When forced to choose, Michael Kane The Committee for the Living Art was protested and resigned his position. His radically transformed in 1972 by the displace- promotion of Romantic Modernism and ment of the older 1943 membership by a neo-Expressionism did not find favour with younger generation. Under the chairmanship the ROSC committee. Finally Ronald Tallon, of sculptor Brian King, IELA changed its an architect and colleague of Scott, was complexion and policies. IELA had always appointed to complete the list, which ended been open to international Modernist influ- up reproducing the abstract Modernism ences and was represented in Ireland at this that Kane had railed against in his protest. time as a conduit for conceptualism and The ROSC episode is instructive in that it minimalism as these were circulating and brought to the fore the tensions that had diversifying in the international art world. crossed the art scene in Ireland over the Some of its members included Robert Ballagh, previous 20 years.

36 ART, CONTEMPORARY The role of the Arts Council is also crucial neo-Expressionism had established in Europe to any understanding of contemporary Irish and North America. The artists Michael art. In the early eighties, it addressed itself to Mulcahy and Brian Bourke, for instance, the visual arts with increased vigour. This represented the convergence of metaphysical development reinforced earlier initiatives concerns with references to indigenous cul- such as the radical restructuring in 1973, tures and symbols using Expressionist ges- increased funding and resources, new proact- tures which excavated myth and mythologies. ive policies, and the extending of the council's There were of course others, some of remit to encompass most areas of cultural whose work roughly fits into the idiom of welfare. In its short history, it has proven a neo-Expressionism but who had been passed major force in the developing and profiling of over (Eithne Jordan, Cecily Brennan and the arts and cultural agendas. The Arts Coun- Gwen O'Dowd), and others again who sought cil promoted business sponsorship of the arts, to move beyond the pure formalism of some finding its most powerful expression in major of the Modernist work that had preceded financial institutions such as the major banks them. Sculptors like Eilis O'Connell and (Bank of Ireland and AIB) establishing collec- Alistair Wilson combined an abstract use of tions of contemporary art. colour and material with formal elaboration. Arguably the most controversial and This period is also marked by a dispersal of remarkable development in the international previous groupings away from the encamp- art world of the early 1980s was the fore- ments of the previous decades into new con- grounding and prioritization of a range of figurations. For instance, the Independents' expressive, painterly, figurative styles. Parti- group suffered a major decline and subse- cularly central in this renovation of `Expres- quent death in the mid-1980s. IELA was sionism' was the presentation of this work also discontinued at this time, although the along national categories, as evidenced in the annual open `Exhibition of Visual Arts' debates around the 1981 exhibition `A New (EVA) held in Limerick has in many ways Spirit in Painting'. In the art capitals, this neo- replaced it. Expressionism was based on a reinvigorated After 1983, Irish art saw the emergence of art market. It thus seemed that entering into young artists who had assimilated the debates the new decade the Independents and the around the prominent discourse of national/ practices endorsed by this grouping were cultural identity and art production in Ire- well positioned to claim the mantle of `Irish land. This discourse of cultural nationalism art', particularly within the international in the visual arts may be seen to have culmin- arena. Paddy Graham was propelled centre- ated in the `Sense of Ireland ' series of exhibi- stage due to the rise of neo-Expressionism, tions in London in 1980. A new generation of and was joined by a generation of younger practitioners were now beginning to articulate artists who were returning to painting as a themselves outside the ambit of this essen- reaction against the conceptualism and tially conservative discursive frame. These minimalism of the late 1970s. Some of these would have been seen as continuing the tradi- artists were represented in a show in 1983 tion of IELA and its outward-looking attitude which was an attempted response to `A New to international influences and concerns. Spirit in Painting'. `Making Sense: Ten Artists Artists such as Alanna O'Kelly, Dorothy 1968±83' was funded by the Arts Council of Cross, Willie Doherty and Kathy Prendergast Ireland. However, as a show it drew criticism engaged with art discourses which privilege for its failure to include any women and for conceptual and theoretical concerns, and their the male artists' obsessive preoccupation with work might be termed `issue-based'. This their own identities, thus reaffirming the period also witnessed a more vigorous and resolutely masculine myth-making that concerted effort on the part of these artists

37 ART, CONTEMPORARY to address the social, historical, political and political allegory in elaborating the conjunc- cultural dimensions of the conflict in the tion of landscape and the contestation of North. power. Rita Duffy's tragi-comic paintings Critics have remarked upon an apparent seek to represent women in their quotidian commonality of approach among artists existence and share with John Kindness's towards issues arising out of the current pol- work a wit and incisiveness that deconstructs itical crisis. They suggest there is an oblique, traditional and dominant images of Ireland often understated mode of address employed and Irish culture. The late eighties were which allows critical response to the prevail- marked by the rejection of the earlier, unre- ing rhetorics and media representations. flexive debates around `Irishness', while an Brian McAvera argues that the northern investigation of the politics of place and the artists use `strategies of subtext [whose] local has emerged. Important in this develop- angle of approach is layered and subterran- ment beyond the narrow preoccupation with ean'. This understated and tentative mode of the particularity of the `Irish' is the assertion articulation was remarked upon particularly by key artists of the politics of gender as the by the US art critic Lucy Lippard in 1984, premise and agenda for their work. when she came to Ireland in search of political Coming to the fore with this work are and activist art. This contention was also women artists who have been politicized and made by critics and historians in `A Sense of galvanized by critiques of Modernism's seem- Ireland ', where it was suggested that such an ing intractable gender bias, and the debates approach may well in fact betray an under- around gender and representation which ema- lying `Celtic imagination' or some putative nated from feminist art practices and theories notion of `Irishness'. Later in 1988, McAvera and cultural criticism in North America and went even further and termed this a Britain during the 1970s. This process of `genetic' predisposition to oblique modes of politicization must be seen as concomitant address within Irish culture. It may be with the socio-political cultural upheavals remarked that the work of Willie Doherty and controversies of the 1980s in the Repub- has contained within its thematic concerns lic. These have arguably impinged very dif- and rhetorical strategies an implicit critique ferently on women's lives and on men's: the of power and domination played out not on abortion and divorce referenda, the feminiza- human bodies, although this is certainly tion of poverty and the rapid growth in unem- implied, but on the borderlands ± cityscapes ployment. A number of women artists were and militarized zones ± through surveillance. producing critiques of the traditional role and Doherty's photo-texts continue the land- image of women in Ireland that they found scape tradition so privileged within the oppressive. Much of the art of this period canon of art production in Ireland, and yet concerned itself with the representation of they undermine the neutrality and `inno- the nation as female. Produced across diverse cence' of any representation of the land. Like- media, this work has engaged a broad series of wise Victor Sloan's images, through their thematics and concerns related to the (female) violation and disruption of the pristine sur- body, identity, history and the land. There is face of photographic meaning, produce cri- too a concerted effort to articulate a gender tiques of the triumphalism of the Loyalist specificity in this art with a particular feminist community. Some Northern painters also revision of landscape. These developments combine comment on the historical roots of may be identified in the work of Kathy the conflict with the tradition of landscape. Prendergast and Alanna O'Kelly. Dorothy Dermot Seymour employs ironic images of Cross's sculptures and installations are pre- the militarization of the landscape, while occupied with the issues of sexual identity, Micky Donnelly makes use of symbol and gendered power relations and the gendering

38 ART EDUCATION of objects and processes. The problematics of acted out. In the past the agenda has been to the `gaze' and the `fetish' may be said to establish a canon of specifically Irish art and operate as pivotal elements in many of her the legitimacy of a given practice as appropri- installations. ate to Ireland, and hence the correctness of a It would be difficult not to remark upon the particular conception of Ireland. Recent work significance of James Coleman's contribution has attempted to change this agenda and to the development of avant-garde art prac- establish a plurality of concerns and altern- tices in the Irish context. Since the late sixties ative models of artistic value. However, this Coleman has acted as an invaluable agent for very pluralism is in itself a contestable and international influences and developments contested frame. On the one hand it can be around time-based art, performance and mobilized as a testament to the advanced cul- video art in particular. He is not, however, tural life of Ireland in the interests of cultural the only art practitioner working in these diplomacy or international business. On the media. Nigel Rolfe from England and Alastair other hand the seeming pluralism may erase McLennan from Scotland arrived in the the unresolved conflicts central to contem- 1970s, and have through their own practices porary social experience. and their teaching acted as considerable forces in the initiation of an indigenous performance Reading praxis. Symptomatic of the general post- modern pluralization of practices are the dif- Dunne, Aidan, `Back to the future: a context for ficulties presented by any attempt to Irish art of the 1980s', in A New Tradition: Irish summarize the period from 1983 to the pre- Art of the Eighties (Dublin: Douglas Hyde Gal- lery, 1990). sent. The older blocks of affiliations have Fowler, Joan, `Locating the context ± art and pol- dissipated. Thus, the cosmopolitan pop art itics in the eighties' in A New Tradition: Irish Art of Elizabeth Magill and the theory-based of the Eighties (Dublin: Douglas Hyde Gallery, multimedia group Blue Funk co-exist with 1990). the Expressionism of David Crone, Michael ÐÐ `Speaking of gender . . . Expressionism, fem- Cullen and Anita Groener. Abstraction and inism and sexuality', in A New Tradition: Irish formalism, so dominant in Irish painting and Art of the Eighties (Dublin: Douglas Hyde Gal- sculpture in the 1970s, continued into the lery, 1990). 1980s and 1990s. The paintings of Mary Fitz- Hutchinson, John, `The nature of landscape', in gerald, Richard Gorman and Felim Egan, and A New Tradition: Irish Art of the Eighties the sculpture of John Aiken, all indicate that (Dublin: Douglas Hyde Gallery, 1990). McAvera, Brian, Catalogue essays for `Directions the impact of abstract formalism has been Out' (Dublin: Douglas Hyde Gallery, 1988). formidable in contemporary art practice in Ruane, Frances, `An aspect of Irish painting', in Ireland. Six Artists from Ireland, catalogue essay for the Contemporary art in Ireland bears the Arts Council and Department of Foreign traces and marks of a series of struggles and Affairs, Dublin, 1983. institutional shifts that have occurred in the martin mccabe and michael wilson last 30 years. This has amply demonstrated the need to examine the institutional frames art education A significant development in of art education and production when seeking Irish art since the 1970s is that the majority of to identify the continuities and discontinu- younger artists to have emerged since then ities, movements and traditions, that make hold academic qualifications in their subject. up the contemporary art environment. Con- The `self-taught' artist and the artist who temporary art production and consumption in trained through evening classes are now in a Ireland is a complex of sites where particular minority. Today there is a marked distinction contestations around representation are being between the amateur artist and the concerns

39 ART EDUCATION and practices which constitute the profes- several created by the British government to sional artist, even while very few Irish artists encourage better standards of design. While earn a living through their art alone. In sec- the Belfast school had closer links with indus- ondary education, art is a recognized subject try than its counterparts in the rest of Ireland, and is taught in the vast majority of schools, it too developed art classes, which became though its prestige is slight compared to the central to its existence. Since the 1960s, the traditional academic subjects and, particu- school has undergone dramatic structural larly in the Republic of Ireland, `art' is changes, and is now part of a university. In predominantly understood in terms of the Republic, the art schools experienced a naturalism. This view has been contested dormant period after the Irish Free State within tertiary education since the 1970s was established in 1922. It was not until largely as a result of the introduction of after (though not as a direct result of) student Modernist and, latterly, postmodernist con- protests at the National College of Art cepts, which coincide with a general expansion between 1969 and 1971 over the perceived of art courses in the sector during the period. irrelevance of their courses that the present The philosophy and structure of art system was created. courses in tertiary education is similar to the A major development in tertiary education model established in England in the 1960s, in the Republic since the 1970s is the emer- which, in turn, is based on the Bauhaus school gence of the Regional Technical Colleges. in Weimar Germany. The course structure is The purpose of the RTCs is to provide higher built around an induction to various materials technical education, and to provide higher- in which the nature of the end product is level courses in regions of the country where open-ended. The course develops through these were not previously available. Art and increasing specialization in an area of study. design courses were part of the new develop- For the most part this has been governed by ment, and art courses became available in Modernist beliefs; for example, the integrity RTCs at Waterford, Galway, Sligo and Let- of the material and work processes and an terkenny. Meanwhile diploma-level art emphasis on individual interpretation and courses were also offered at Dun Laoghaire understanding. School of Art, and later at the College of Prior to this the old system of art education Marketing and Design in Dublin. As a neces- was centred in schools in Dublin, Belfast, sary part of this expansion, new teaching Cork and Limerick. These institutions sur- posts were created, which brought an influx vive but they have been transformed into the of teacher-artists, many of whom were from National College of Art and Design, the Uni- the United Kingdom and who introduced the versity of Ulster at Belfast, the Crawford philosophy and attitudes of the new English Municipal School of Art and the Limerick system. The art departments within the College of Art, Commerce and Technology, RTCs, as well as those within the older col- respectively. The oldest of these, dating from leges, became sites of conflict between Mod- 1746, is the National College of Art and ernists and traditionalists. By the 1980s, the Design in Dublin, which, until it was restruc- Modernists had gained the upper hand within tured in the early 1970s, epitomized the eight- tertiary art education, but in the 1990s this eenth-century academy by its exclusive dominance is under threat as art colleges and emphasis on the learning of techniques, par- art departments are under increasing pressure ticularly drawing. The nineteenth-century to conform to product-based models of higher schools at Cork and Limerick had similar education with more quantifiable learning emphases. outcomes. The school in Belfast was established as a Other tensions have emerged. The school of design in 1849 and was one of Republic of Ireland has a highly centralized

40 ASCENDANCY education system, and the modern, non- acclaimed in Edinburgh; by 1925, when the university tertiary sector was planned in such Arts and Crafts Society of Ireland (founded a way that `centres of excellence' were to be 1894) held its seventh exhibition, the Irish identified; many courses are maintained with Free State was established and the original low-level qualifications in the expectation that momentum had been lost. students will move elsewhere to achieve Although rooted in the utopian socialism of higher ones. This may be understandable Ruskin and Morris, the Irish movement was from a planning point of view in a country led not by architect/craftsmen but by philan- with scarce resources, but it creates hierar- thropic patrons concerned to educate and chies rather than offering genuine differences employ unskilled, mostly rural labour faced and therefore choices between courses, and is with severe poverty. By 1910 the desired skil- a source of political rivalry between regions. fully executed, apposite interpretations of a In art education, only Dublin, Cork and mythical past expressed in a contemporary Limerick offer degrees while other colleges idiom were being exhibited. While the Dublin offer diplomas and certificates. A comparable School of Art became the centre of activity, situation exists at Belfast, where for decades with lectures, demonstrations and exhibitions the college has struggled against a self-image in its immediate vicinity, particularly at the of being small and provincial compared to National Museum, there were notable work- colleges in mainland Britain. As in the shops and short-lived industries throughout Republic of Ireland, many of the best students the country. move to the larger centres. Since 1970 art education has witnessed extensive growth. It has also become part of Reading a national system of higher education in both Bowe, Nicola Gordon, `Aspects of nationalism in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. the Irish Arts and Crafts Movement 1886±1925: There are many benefits from this develop- suggested parallels and context', GPA Irish Arts ment; for example, art is linked to other ter- Review Yearbook (1991). tiary subjects, which brings status and opens nicola gordon bowe the possibility of postgraduate study. In this regard, the MA course in fine art at Belfast is ascendancy The word (deriving from well regarded in Ireland and abroad. While astrology) first appears with precision in greater emphasis on higher qualifications for Richard Woodward's Present State of the artists within a national system has helped to Church of Ireland (1787, recte 1786) where it establish better standards of professional connotes the predominant status of one reli- practice and has helped to reinstate theoret- gious denomination in a state; Protestant ical premises in fine art practices, it also ascendancy, with regard to Ireland, is only encourages greater conformity than was the one of several instances therein. The fuller case three decades ago. The enhanced insti- term is deployed with some conceptual rigour tutionalization of art education brings with it in the February 1792 Irish parliamentary a growing inability to directly address chan- debates on Catholic relief. Edmund Burke's ging conditions in art and society. scathing analysis of it ± linking it to jobbery joan fowler and municipal corruption ± occurs in his May 1792 `Letter to Richard Burke'. There- Arts and Crafts Movement The visual after, Protestant ascendancy has a mixed counterpart to the Yeatsian literary revival press and the term does not occur with any and driven by political and romantic nation- great frequency in the Union debates (1799± alist ideologies, it began c.1886, when Irish 1800.) The shift from the term's signifying a home industries, especially lace, were political or social condition to its naming a

41 ASHFORD, WILLIAM quasi-aristocratic elite is not completed until The rules of modern field sports were codi- well into the nineteenth century. Its latter- fied in the second half of the nineteenth cen- day connotations (of an early eighteenth-cen- tury, and the organized structure of football tury hegemony based on landed estate) con- in Ireland took a form which has changed tinue to appeal to nationalists and revisionists little in the interim. The Gaelic Athletic alike, despite the evidence summarized Association (GAA) codified a version now above. W.B. Yeats (cf. `Commentary on ``A called Gaelic football, initially strongest in Parnellite at Parnell's Funeral'' ', 1934) can the towns but eventually through the coun- take some credit for this. tryside. The same association inherited hurl- w.j. mccormack ing, which appears to have been stronger in the early days of the GAA. But the codifica- Ashford, William (1746±1824) Painter. tion in England of the rules of association Born Birmingham; died Dublin, 17 April. In football resulted in the attraction of adherents 1764 he came to Dublin to work in the Ord- in Ireland, especially in Dublin, where the nance Office and from 1767 exhibited elegant Shelbourne and Bohemians clubs were amateur flower-pieces and still lifes with the formed around the time of the GAA's foun- Society of Artists, perhaps teaching himself. dation. He first showed landscapes in 1772. His fresh The national organization split in the topographical views of Dublin and of country 1920s, the only field sports body to do so. houses (engraved by Milton and others), Professional club football in the Republic painted with a realism and vitality that differed was at its peak of popularity in the 1930s, from the more romantic Irish style, soon when crowds of several thousand people became popular. He was honoured by his con- used to gather outside newspaper offices in temporaries in being chosen first president of Dublin on Sunday afternoons to learn the fate the Royal Hibernian Academy in 1823. of their teams playing in Cork or Limerick. Club matches between the top Dublin teams Reading attracted crowds of 30,000 and upwards on a regular basis. Crookshank, A., and the Knight of Glin, The As a participation sport, soccer was largely Painters of Ireland, c. 1660±1920 (London: confined to the urban areas until recent times, Barrie and Jenkins, 1978). but there has been a rapid expansion in rural Strickland, W.G., A Dictionary of Irish Artists areas. In 1991, a survey by the Football Asso- (Shannon: Irish University Press, 1968). Wynne, M., `William Ashford and the Royal Char- ciation of Ireland found that there were over ter School Clontarf, County Dublin', Irish Geor- 3,000 clubs registered, with 110,000 players gian Society X, no. 4 (Oct.±Dec. 1967). (excluding schools). This included active hilary pyle junior leagues in every county in the Repub- lic. The professional club game has, however, association football Football in various declined dramatically, with the better players forms was played in most parts of medieval opting to ply their trade in Britain and the Europe, but all the evidence suggests that leading English and Scottish clubs enjoying stick-and-ball games were dominant in Ire- active support, including regular travelling land. Football was most probably introduced spectators, from Ireland. The Republic's by the soldiery, and became popular in the clubs have lost out to television. garrison towns and their hinterlands in the The international team has, after decades seventeenth century. O'Maolfabhail argues of near misses, enjoyed great success since the that the game played at that time was more mid-eighties. The team, consisting entirely of like modern Rugby, but that two variants of players from British clubs, reached the hurling were more widespread. quarter-finals of the 1990 World Cup in

42 ASTRONOMY Italy, and each of their games there attracted was a courageous captain and devoted himself record television audiences in Ireland. The to making meticulous surveys of uncharted game in which they were eliminated, in coasts, perhaps motivated by being ship- Rome, attracted over 20,000 spectators who wrecked at the age of 15. He was appointed had travelled from Ireland. hydrographer of the Admiralty in 1829, a post Eamonn de Valera remarked that Rugby he held for 26 years. He is probably best and hurling were the games most suited to remembered for his table for estimating the the Irish temperament, but the public appear force of wind at sea ± the Beaufort Scale. It to have, as in other matters, voted with their was Beaufort who got approval for Charles feet. Darwin to sail with Fitzroy on board the Beagle. The most renowned resident of Dunsink Reading was William Rowan Hamilton. Born in O Maolfabhail, 2,000 Years of Hurling in Ireland Dublin in 1805 and educated by his uncle, (Dundalk: Dundalgan Press, 1973). he had a prodigious command of languages. colm mccarthy While still an undergraduate, he was appointed professor of astronomy and he astronomy The remarkable blossoming of lived at Dunsink until his death in 1865. He astronomical activity which took place in Ire- made fundamental contributions to the math- land during the nineteenth century was influ- ematical theory of optics and mechanics and is enced by the founding of observatories at regarded as Ireland's greatest mathematician. Dunsink near Dublin in 1783 and at Armagh He is probably best known for his idea of in 1790. These institutions were later com- quaternions, which came to him in a flash of plemented by private observatories at Mark- inspiration on 16 October 1843 when he was ree, Parsonstown and Daramona and by the walking with his wife to a meeting of the work of many talented individuals who made Royal Irish Academy, of which he was pres- useful contributions both within Ireland and ident. He recorded the famous quaternion abroad. The scientific activity provided a sti- equations in his diary and scratched them mulus for the successful telescope-making with his penknife on the stonework of firm of Thomas and Howard Grubb. Brougham Bridge, which crosses the Dunsink Observatory was established by Royal Canal. Each year it is the custom for Trinity College as a result of a bequest of a mathematics students to retrace his steps former provost of the college, Francis along the canal, perhaps in the hope that Andrews. The first professor of astronomy, they may have an idea that will make them Henry Ussher, was responsible for choosing as famous as Hamilton. the site and for designing the building, which Hamilton was followed in the chair of was completed in 1785. The main objective of astronomy by F.F. Brunnow, R.S. Ball, astronomy at that time was the accurate mea- A.A. Rambaut and C.J. Joly, all of whom surement of the positions of stars, and special pursued observational work, which had been attention was paid to the circulation of air somewhat neglected under Hamilton's around the telescopes in order to achieve tenure. Robert Ball went to Dunsink in observations of the highest possible quality. 1874, where most of his observational work The first student at Dunsink was a was done with the 12-inch refracting 14-year-old lad, Francis Beaufort, from telescope, erected in 1868. He is best remem- Navan, County Meath, who had a passion bered as an accomplished public lecturer and for the sea. During 1788 he spent five months for his many popular books on astronomy. In with Ussher studying astronomy and meteo- 1892 he was appointed Lowndean professor rology before embarking on a naval career. He of astronomy and geometry at Cambridge.

43 ASTRONOMY The story of Armagh Observatory is domin- reflector in 1839. It was surpassed in 1845 ated by two men named Robinson: its founder, by his great 72-inch telescope, the `Leviathan Archbishop Richard Robinson, and its long- of Parsonstown'. Among the assistant astro- serving director, T.R. Robinson. Thomas nomers attracted to Birr were G.J. Stoney, Romney Robinson was born in Dublin in W.H. Rambaut, R.S. Ball, C.E. Burton, 1793 and spent his childhood in Belfast. A R. Copeland, J.L.E. Dreyer and O. Boeddiker, child prodigy with a reputation as a poet, he all of whom made significant contributions. was appointed director at Armagh in 1823. His Daramona Observatory was set up by manual and observational skills enabled him to William E. Wilson on the family estate at make many technical improvements in tele- Streete, County Westmeath. In 1870, at the scope design and he became one of the most age of 19, Wilson took part in an expedition to respected practical astronomers of his time. Iran to observe a total eclipse of the sun, and He played a key role in encouraging Thomas the following year he bought a 12-inch reflec- Grubb to establish his telescope-making firm tor from Grubb. Ten years later it was in Dublin. His varied interests included replaced by a 24-inch Grubb reflector, meteorology, to which he contributed by his which was used for stellar photography and invention of the cup anemometer for measur- for pioneering experiments to measure star- ing windspeed. Beset by financial problems light electrically. Wilson measured the tem- and failing eyesight, Romney Robinson died perature of the sun's surface and obtained a in 1882 after being in office for 59 years, a value which compares favourably with record unlikely to be surpassed. modern estimates. The next director was J.L.E. Dreyer, who The existence of these institutions inspired was born in Copenhagen in 1852. Dreyer's many private individuals to attempt astro- work on nebulae at Birr led him to revise nomical work; the most eminent include: John Herschel's catalogue of galaxies and to produce in 1888 a New General Catalogue of 1 Wentworth Erck (1827±90) of Bray, Nebulae and Clusters of Stars, which is still County Wicklow, had an observatory widely consulted; this is the origin of the equipped with a fine 7.5-inch refractor. prefix `NGC' used for such objects. In 1877 he was the first in the British The earliest private observatory of signific- Isles to observe the two moons of Mars, ance was built at Markree Castle near Sligo, which had been discovered a few weeks the home of the Cooper family. Edward J. previously in Washington with a much Cooper was born in Dublin in 1798and he larger telescope. spared no expense in equipping his observa- 2 Isaac Ward (1832±1916) of Belfast had a tory. In 1831 he bought a 13.3-inch lens (then 4.3-inch refractor and was renowned for the largest in the world) which had been made his keen vision. In August 1885 he dis- by Cauchoix in Paris and mounted it on a covered a new star in the Andromeda temporary wooden stand. Acting on advice nebula. When the distance of the nebula from Romney Robinson, Cooper ordered a was estimated 30 years later it was permanent mounting from Thomas Grubb realized that Ward had actually observed of Dublin and this was put in place in 1834. a supernova ± the first to be seen in an Cooper employed several assistants, the external galaxy. longest serving being Andrew Graham, 3 William H.S. Monck (1839±1915) was who discovered the minor planet Metis in born near Borris-in-Ossory, not far from 1848. Parsonstown. A lawyer by profession, he The best-known private observatory in Ire- bought Erck's telescope and in August land was at Birr where William Parsons, the 1892 made the first electrical measure- third earl of Rosse, completed a 36-inch ments of starlight from his Dublin home

44 AUTOBIOGRAPHY at 16 Earlsfort Terrace. He was among the Atkinson, Sarah (1823±93) Writer. Born first to realize the existence of giant and 13 July, in Athlone. At 25 she married a dwarf stars and has been described as `a young Dublin physician, George Atkinson, brilliant amateur astronomer'. following the death of her only child. She 4 Agnes M. Clerke (1842±1907), born in ploughed her energies into writing and chari- Skibbereen, County Cork, is best known table works. With her friend Ellen Woodlock, for her Popular History of Astronomy dur- she established a school in Dublin, St Joseph's ing the Nineteenth Century, which was Industrial Institute, and organized a girls' acclaimed on its publication in 1885. As school inside the South Dublin Workhouse. a result of the high quality of her work, Their aim was to train girls to earn an honest she became an internationally recognized livelihood. authority on astrophysics. Sarah Atkinson's writings include biogra- 5 John E. Gore (1845±1910) grew up near phies of Mary Aikenhead (the foundress of Cooper's observatory at Markree. After a the Irish Sisters of Charity), John Hogan, and short career as a civil engineer in India he studies of various Irish saints. returned to Ireland at the age of 34. He She died 8July. was a skilled observer of variable stars and published eight books and over 80 papers, Reading as well as a translation of Flammarion's best-selling Popular Astronomy. Irish Monthly, XXI±XXIII. 6 Charles E. Burton (1846±82) was born rachel furmston in Cheshire of Irish parents. He was employed at Birr, Dunsink and autobiography Modern Irish autobiogra- Greenwich. He learnt the art of grinding phical writing dates, roughly speaking, from speculum at Birr and made his own high- 1800, and its history may be divided into quality silver-on-glass mirrors. An expert three main periods. These loosely correspond planetary observer, he made many to the major phases in the articulation of original observations of the planet Mars. modern Ireland's political and cultural con- He suffered from persistent ill health and sciousness. Distinct though these periods are, died suddenly at the age of 35. their autobiographies share certain thematic, 7 Margaret L. Huggins, neÂe Murray (1848± formal and ideological interests. Among the 1915), was born in Monkstown, County most persistent of these are a preoccupation Dublin. She married William Huggins, with the fashioning of social and cultural who was 24 years her senior and who identity, an ethnographic approach to place had his own observatory in London, and people, and an oppositional point of where he carried out fundamental work view. The relative prominence given each of in stellar spectroscopy. The marriage has these interests distinguishes a particular per- been described as `one of the most suc- iod's autobiographies. From within the famil- cessful husband-and-wife partnerships in iar spectrum of reminiscences, diaries, letters the whole of astronomy'. and other conventional autobiographical out- lets, each period produces a particular auto- The nineteenth century was a golden age biographical pretext which typifies, for the for astronomy in Ireland. In spite of a poor time being, the form's possibilities and estab- climate, the observational work was pursued lishes its specific cultural relevance and aes- with considerable success and much of the thetic presuppositions. theoretical work was of lasting benefit to The prototype for the narratives of opposi- science. tion and recuperation which are represent- ian elliott ative of the first period of modern Irish

45 AUTOBIOGRAPHY autobiography is The Life of Wolfe Tone accompanied by innovative formal develop- (1826). Foremost among other noteworthy ments. Among these may be noted the ima- works in the same vein is John Mitchel's Jail ginative deployment of commonplace Journal (1854), and from that date to the end autobiographical forms such as diaries, the of the nineteenth century there is a steady compression of temporal and spatial condi- flow of similar titles, culminating in the auto- tions for dramatic effect, and a tendency biographies of William O'Brien. This period's towards a pictorial aesthetic. In terms of con- themes are legitimacy, empowerment, agency tent, these works deal intimately with family and integrity. These are articulated as correct- matters, with a particular emphasis on child- ives to the clandestinity, subversion, deracina- hood. Structures of inner life, dwelling on tion and judicial reprisal in terms of which a sexual identity and theoretical thought, are ruling oligarchy allegedly characterizes the also to the fore. Mind is considered of more matter of Ireland. The tone of these narratives consequence than world. Criticism is impli- is extrovert, and their focus is on action, citly claimed to be a higher form of politics, organization and the discovery that public thereby becoming synonymous with a rheto- events possess a permeable structure. The ric of self-actualization. The enactment of narrators speak as embodiments of a collective this synonymity, and the ethos of moderniza- aspiration rather than as instances of indi- tion to which it subscribes, constitute the viduation. The point of view is retrospective presence of these autobiographies' most and compensatory, not reconstitutive and important innovation, the persona. The intel- analytical. Print bears permanent witness to lectual sophistication implict in this ethos the values which action was unable to install, appears under stress in Sean O'Casey's with the result that the personal dimension of sequence Mirror in My House (1939±54), and autobiography is subsidiary to the form's is absent from the personae of the autobiogra- putative power as a manual of possibility and phical romances of Liam O'Flaherty and a rhetoric of commitment. Francis Stuart, works which have been vir- The personal element, critically consid- tually overshadowed by modern Irish auto- ered, typifies the second period of modern biography's third period. Irish autobiography. Dating from George Inaugurated by such works as Twenty Moore's Confessions of a Young Man (1888), Years A-Growing (1933), The Islandman this period features not only autobiographies (1937) and An Old Woman's Reflections by, most notably, W.B. Yeats, in addition (1939), this period rejects the persona and to Moore's Hail and Farewell trilogy, but opposition in favour of community and also reformulations of the autobiographical recuperation. The works in question not impulse in works as diverse as James Joyce's only encode a nativist moment in modern A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and the Irish letters but establish expectations which travel works of J.M. Synge. In a period when subsequent autobiographies have found diffi- the political aspirations of earlier radical auto- cult to outgrow. These nativist works convey biographers appeared to be realized in action, recollection as self-possession, and provide a autobiography as a form virtually overlooked repertoire of themes concerning affiliation, the fact, Ernie O'Malley's On Another Man's language, place, and the rituals which inhere Wound (1936) being the most outstanding in them. The reactionary appeal of these exception. Dissident thought, shaped by the themes is unwittingly identified in Patrick oppositional personality, keynotes the moral Kavanagh's The Green Fool (1938), while the landscape of Irish autobiography during the response to them of even writers with the period of the separatist climacteric. nationalist credentials of Frank O'Connor This shift in emphasis replaces self- and Sean O'Faolain is ambivalent, as may be aggrandisement with self-awareness, a change noted by comparing their autobiographical

46 AVIATION works with Robert Harbinson's tetralogy Whilst Aer Lingus was to confine itself depicting Northern Irish realities, or with until 1958to European operations, Ireland's Brendan Behan's Borstal Boy (1958). Despite geographical position caused it at an early its problematic populism, the nativist narr- stage to become the focus for those attempt- ative of communal and cultural integrity still ing, in both a public and a private capacity, to informs much contemporary Irish autobio- fly the Atlantic. The pioneer crossings of graphy, where it appears as self-deceiving Alcock and Brown (west±east, 1919) and nostalgia. Notable exceptions are Noel The Bremen (east±west, 1928) either began Browne's Against the Tide (1986), Denis or terminated in Ireland, and in the 1930s Donoghue's Warrenpoint (1991) and Hubert international interest in the opening of com- Butler's republished essays. The huge mercial flying-boat services resulted in the international success of Seamus Deane's auto- establishment of a base at Foynes on the biographical novel Reading in the Dark and Shannon estuary and the first proving flights the much-acclaimed Angela's Ashes by Frank by Pan-American and Imperial Airways of McCourt both attest to a powerful new trend Britain in July 1937. At the same time work in Irish autobiographical writing which is now had started on the site of a landplane base ± exploring the darker and more disturbing Rineanna ± on the opposite Clare shore; and aspects of growing up in Ireland. Without with the supremacy of the landplane estab- the insights of feminism, the testimony of lished following World War II this airport, emigrants, and other sources likely to develop thereafter known as Shannon, became a man- the form, the third period of Irish autobio- datory refuelling stop for transatlantic ser- graphy is typified by a glut of works whose vices until the advent of the big jets. In the uncertainty and evasiveness perhaps reveal a meantime Foynes had created Irish Coffee to larger cultural anomie but which seem to warm flying-boat passengers ferried ashore in counteract modern Irish autobiography's inclement conditions, and Rineanna had inau- literary and historical significance. gurated the world's first duty-free shop. george o'brien Though Cork airport was opened in 1961, domestic routes were not seriously developed aviation The first aircraft to fly successfully until the 1980s with the establishment of a in Ireland was built and piloted by Harry private airline, Ryanair, which began serving Ferguson ± better known for his tractors ± provincial centres, linking them directly with in County Down in December 1909, six years British destinations. Aer Lingus responded, after that of the Wright brothers. In the but some of these routings have proved at best following decade serious flying was largely marginally viable. confined to the operations of the British Royal Flying Corps, which set up bases in several parts of the country; but following Reading independence in 1921 the growing impor- Byrne, Liam, History of Aviation in Ireland tance of both military and civil aviation was (Dublin: Blackwater, 1980). recognized with the establishment of an Corlett, John, Aviation in Ulster (Belfast: Black- Army Air Corps in June 1922 and of a staff, 1981). national airline, Aer Lingus, in April 1936. Share, Bernard, The Flight of the Iolar: The Aer The latter's first revenue flight, from Dublin Lingus Experience 1936±1986 (Dublin: Gill and to Bristol, took place on 27 May utilizing the Macmillan, 1986). company's first aircraft, a DH84 Dragon bernard share named Iolar (Eagle).

47