Études irlandaises

37-1 | 2012 Varia

Édition électronique URL : http://journals.openedition.org/etudesirlandaises/2927 DOI : 10.4000/etudesirlandaises.2927 ISSN : 2259-8863

Éditeur Presses universitaires de Caen

Édition imprimée Date de publication : 30 juin 2012 ISSN : 0183-973X

Référence électronique Études irlandaises, 37-1 | 2012 [En ligne], mis en ligne le 30 juin 2014, consulté le 24 septembre 2020. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/etudesirlandaises/2927 ; DOI : https://doi.org/10.4000/ etudesirlandaises.2927

Ce document a été généré automatiquement le 24 septembre 2020.

Études irlandaises est mise à disposition selon les termes de la Licence Creative Commons Attribution - Pas d’Utilisation Commerciale - Partage dans les Mêmes Conditions 4.0 International. 1

SOMMAIRE

Études d'histoire et de civilisation

« Les Irlandais attendent avec une légère impatience » : Paris et la demande d’adhésion de Dublin à la CEE, 1961-1973 Christophe Gillissen

German Invasion and Spy Scares in Ireland, 1890s-1914: Between Fiction and Fact Jérôme Aan de Wiel

Magdalen Laundries : enjeu des droits de l’homme et responsabilité publique Nathalie Sebbane

Mobilisation nationale et solidarité internationale : les syndicats en Irlande et la question du Moyen-Orient Marie-Violaine Louvet

“Deposited Elsewhere”: The Sexualized Female Body and the Modern Irish Landscape Cara Delay

Art et Image

“Doesn’t Mary Have a Lovely Bottom?”: Gender, Sexuality and Catholic Ideology in Father Ted Lisa McGonigle

Études littéraires

Fair Game? James Joyce, Sean O’Casey, and the Contesting of Irish Sport Dermot Ryan

“Write it Out in Your Own Form”: Tom Paulin’s Translation of European Poetry Stephanie Schwerter

Le double portrait et les trois oranges : effets de miroir dans Shamrock Tea de Ciaran Carson Elisabeth Delattre

Re-envisioning “Woman”: Medea as Heroine in Versions by Brendan Kennelly and Marina Carr Karen O’Brien

Ghostly Surrogates and Unhomely Memories: Performing the Past in Marina Carr’s Portia Coughlan Shonagh Hill

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Comptes rendus de lecture

A Nest on the Waves Marion Naugrette-Fournier

Léachtaí Cholm Cille XLI Clíona Ní Ríordáin

Les métamorphoses de Sweeney Sandrine Brisset

Elizabeth Bowen’s Selected Irish Writings. Cork Bertrand Cardin

The Book of Howth Jean-Pierre Moreau

Nothing Quite Like it Alexandra Poulain

Radicals Karin Fischer

Repeal and Revolution Chloé Lacoste

Smashing H-Block Yann Bevant

Études irlandaises, 37-1 | 2012 3

Études d'histoire et de civilisation Studies in History and Civilisation

Études irlandaises, 37-1 | 2012 4

« Les Irlandais attendent avec une légère impatience » : Paris et la demande d’adhésion de Dublin à la CEE, 1961-1973

Christophe Gillissen

1 Seán Lemass, Premier ministre irlandais de 1959 à 1967, était convaincu qu’il fallait ouvrir l’économie de son pays au commerce international afin de relancer la croissance et créer des emplois. À cette fin, il avait envisagé une adhésion à la Communauté économique européenne (CEE) dès le début de 1959, alors qu’il n’était encore que ministre de l’Industrie et du commerce : il avait dit au secrétaire du Conseil irlandais du Mouvement européen que « le temps était venu de réfléchir sérieusement à l’Europe car il n’était plus exclu que l’Irlande demande à devenir membre à part entière de la CEE1 ». Il semble avoir évoqué cette possibilité avec son homologue britannique, Reginald Maudling, le 26 mai 1959, lors de discussions au sujet des projets européens de libre-échange et de « leurs implications pour le commerce anglo-irlandais2 ».

2 La réaction britannique ne fut guère encourageante : Lemass expliqua plus tard aux Français que « Londres s’était opposé, en menaçant de dénoncer le Traité de commerce anglo-irlandais, à ce que l’Eire demande à adhérer au marché commun3 ». Mais lorsque le gouvernement britannique modifia sa propre position vis-à-vis de l’Europe, rien ne s’opposait plus à ce que Dublin déposât une demande officielle d’adhésion, ce qui fut fait le 31 juillet 1961. La demande britannique suivit quelques jours plus tard, le 10 août.

3 Dès le 8 novembre 1961, le Conseil européen se prononça en faveur de l’ouverture de négociations avec Londres ; en revanche, il temporisa vis-à-vis de Dublin et ne donna son aval que le 23 octobre 19624. Ainsi, pendant près d’un an, l’Irlande se retrouva-t-elle dans la situation pour le moins inconfortable de devoir envisager la possibilité que son principal partenaire commercial – 75 % des exportations irlandaises étaient alors vendues sur le marché britannique – accédât à une union douanière dont elle-même serait exclue. Ce délai fut dû à la France, qui s’opposa à la candidature irlandaise de manière systématique jusqu’au Conseil européen du 23 octobre 1962.

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4 Afin de comprendre les raisons de ce refus et la manière dont l’Irlande obtint gain de cause au bout du compte, cet article, qui s’appuie en particulier sur les archives françaises, suivra les principales étapes des contacts entre Paris et Dublin de 1961 à 1973.

L’hostilité initiale de Paris

5 Plusieurs éléments permettent de comprendre les raisons de l’hostilité initiale de Paris à l’égard de la demande irlandaise. Tout d’abord, l’Irlande n’était pas arrivée à un stade de développement suffisant pour qu’elle puisse aisément s’intégrer au Marché commun selon un rapport français, qui notait que le produit national du pays était « l’un des plus bas d’Europe », tout comme son taux de croissance5. Il soulignait en outre le « protectionnisme massif » du régime douanier irlandais, ainsi que sa « réglementation phytosanitaire aussi étendue et plus fantaisiste que l’anglaise ». Des efforts considérables seraient donc nécessaires pour s’adapter aux exigences du Marché commun, mais rien ne laissait penser que l’industrie irlandaise serait en mesure de supporter le poids de la concurrence européenne. Paris s’étonnait d’ailleurs que la formule d’adhésion avait été retenue, puisqu’une formule d’association, a priori plus adaptée au cas de l’Irlande, aurait suffi à préserver ses échanges commerciaux avec la Grande-Bretagne6.

6 Un autre problème soulevé par la candidature irlandaise était la politique étrangère de Dublin, dont la neutralité ne correspondait guère aux objectifs politiques des Six7. La délégation irlandaise aux Nations unies prenait alors une part active aux efforts pour accélérer la décolonisation et pour freiner la course aux armements, ce qui la mettait en porte-à-faux avec certains Etats membres de la CEE. Pour Paris, l’affiliation de l’Irlande « à un groupe régional de nature politico-économique » paraissait « à première vue difficilement compatible avec l’orientation de sa politique extérieure8 ».

7 Enfin, la candidature irlandaise soulevait la question de l’élargissement de la CEE. L’admission de quatre nouveaux membres – outre l’Irlande et la Grande-Bretagne, le Danemark et la Norvège étaient aussi candidats – porterait atteinte au statut du français. En effet, si l’usage voulait que les négociations fussent menées en français, les Irlandais et les Danois firent savoir que leurs délégations s’exprimeraient en anglais. De ce point de vue, les négociations d’adhésion marquèrent « le début d’une évolution » néfaste pour le français9.

8 Plus généralement, les autorités françaises pensaient que l’élargissement de la CEE en modifierait profondément la nature, au point de compromettre le projet d’intégration européenne : Il est évident qu’un marché commun à sept ou à dix ne ressemblera en rien au marché commun primitif. L’équilibre politique y sera modifié du tout au tout. La primauté de l’influence française ne pourra être maintenue. À la conjonction franco-allemande qui a été jusqu’à présent pratiquée se substituera au mieux une rivalité franco-anglaise. Sur bien des questions, l’Allemagne se ralliera aux thèses anglaises. La tentative de construction d’une Europe politique à peine ébauchée, ne pourra être poursuivie, faute de buts communs10.

9 On le voit, pour Paris le problème de l’élargissement tenait avant tout à la candidature de Londres. Plusieurs réunions furent tenues à l’Elysée par le général de Gaulle en présence de quelques ministres et hauts fonctionnaires, afin de définir une position sur

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la demande britannique. De leur point de vue, elle transformerait le Marché commun en « une vaste communauté atlantique fondée sur le principe du libre-échange11 ». Si cela n’était pas acceptable, il fallait cependant faire preuve de prudence, car la candidature britannique était soutenue par les cinq autres membres de la CEE et une rupture brutale des négociations pourrait compromettre « la suite de la politique agricole commune12 ». Il fut donc convenu de « faire perdre la négociation dans les sables » en demandant au gouvernement britannique des concessions sur l’agriculture, dans l’espoir qu’il les refuse et ainsi endosse lui-même la responsabilité de l’échec des négociations.

10 En d’autres termes, Paris cherchait à gagner du temps, et la candidature irlandaise, dont les faiblesses étaient manifestes, se prêtait bien à une stratégie dilatoire. Une note interne du Quai d’Orsay, datée du mois d’octobre 1962, confirme que c’était la raison principale de l’hostilité française contre la candidature de Dublin : « Jusqu’ici nous nous sommes refusés à accepter la “recevabilité” de la demande irlandaise, étant donné les inconvénients que nous voyons à l’élargissement du Marché en une Communauté de 8 à 10 pays13. »

Le lobbying de Dublin

11 Par leurs contacts au sein de la CEE, les autorités irlandaises avaient vite compris que leurs difficultés étaient dues pour l’essentiel à la France14. Il leur fallait donc dissiper tout malentendu quant à leur demande d’adhésion auprès des autorités françaises. Dès le mois d’août 1961, l’ambassadeur irlandais rencontra le ministre français des Affaires étrangères, Maurice Couve de Murville, et précisa que l’entrée de l’Irlande ne reviendrait pas à « un vote supplémentaire » pour Londres dans les instances européennes15. Non seulement l’Irlande n’était pas un satellite de la Grande-Bretagne, mais il n’était pas exclu que dans certains domaines, comme la politique agricole, Dublin votât avec Paris.

12 Quelques jours plus tard, deux hauts fonctionnaires irlandais, T. K. Whitaker du ministère des Finances et Con Cremin des Affaires extérieures, se rendirent au Quai d’Orsay pour y rencontrer l’influent directeur des Affaires économiques, Olivier Wormser. Ils lui expliquèrent que leur pays n’était neutre « ni juridiquement, ni idéologiquement », qu’il n’entretenait pas de relations avec les pays communistes, et que sa présence dans la CEE ne compromettrait pas « l’homogénéité de ce groupement16 ».

13 Pour sa part, le Taoiseach (Premier ministre), Lemass, multiplia les déclarations iconoclastes sur la neutralité irlandaise, affirmant que son pays participerait pleinement aux projets d’intégration politique de la CEE, y compris dans leur dimension militaire17. Il fut même envisagé de mettre à la disposition des États-Unis une base aéronavale dans l’estuaire du Shannon, afin de désarmer l’opposition de ceux qui considéraient « le maintien par l’Irlande d’une attitude officielle de neutralité comme incompatible avec son admission » dans la CEE18.

14 Mais ces contacts et déclarations ne suffirent pas à débloquer la situation : plus d’un an après la candidature irlandaise, le Conseil des ministres de l’Europe n’avait toujours pas pris de décision, en raison de l’obstruction de Paris. En effet, les autorités françaises indiquèrent qu’elles en étaient encore à l’étude de la recevabilité de cette candidature,

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tout en étant conscientes que Dublin attendait « avec une légère impatience » une réponse à sa demande d’ouverture de négociations19.

15 Lemass décida alors de prendre l’initiative : en octobre 1962, il fit une tournée des capitales des Six pour y rencontrer les chefs d’Etat et de gouvernement20. La veille de son arrivée à Paris, le Quai d’Orsay transmit au Président et au ministre des Affaires étrangères, qui devaient s’entretenir avec lui, quelques indications visant à expliquer la position de la France : Ce n’est pas par négligence que nous avons tardé à répondre à la demande irlandaise. Nous sommes très conscients de l’importance du problème pour l’Irlande. Mais en toute honnêteté il nous paraît difficile de fournir dès maintenant une réponse tant soit peu concrète. Une des données du problème nous paraît être en effet que l’Irlande a intérêt à se trouver du même côté que la Grande-Bretagne par rapport au tarif extérieur commun de la CEE. Si tel est bien le cas, il n’est guère possible de définir des solutions […] tant que l’entrée de l’Angleterre n’est pas décidée […]. Ce que nous pouvons dire néanmoins c’est que nous étudierons le cas de l’Irlande avec la plus grande bienveillance et que, si l’Angleterre entre dans la Communauté, nous chercherons une formule qui permette à l’Irlande d’être du même côté que l’Angleterre par rapport au tarif extérieur commun21.

16 Pour Paris, il n’était donc pas question à ce stade d’accepter la demande d’adhésion de Dublin.

L’entretien du général de Gaulle avec Lemass

17 Au début de son entretien avec le général de Gaulle, Lemass l’informa du désir qu’éprouvait son pays « à voir le Conseil des Ministres de la Communauté Européenne prendre une décision favorable quant à l’ouverture de négociations avec son pays22 ». Il ne demandait pas que de réelles négociations fussent entamées tant que les pourparlers avec la Grande-Bretagne étaient en cours, mais il fallait que Dublin pût « prouver à son opinion publique la nécessité de prendre certaines mesures dès maintenant en vue d’adapter l’économie du pays aux nécessités au Marché commun ».

18 De Gaulle, après avoir évoqué la dépendance irlandaise vis-à-vis de la Grande-Bretagne, pria « son interlocuteur de lui expliquer quelles seraient les mesures que prendrait l’Irlande dans l’hypothèse où la Grande-Bretagne deviendrait membre du Marché Commun. » Le Taoiseach lui répondit que l’Irlande était convaincue de pouvoir « s’adapter à un marché plus large » et qu’elle en tirerait des bénéfices, tant du point de vue de son secteur industriel que de son secteur agricole ; elle avait donc « l’intention de s’engager sans réserve dans un marché commun économique ».

19 Le Président aborda ensuite la dimension politique, rappelant à Lemass que les Six s’étaient unis en partie pour faire face à la menace soviétique, et que si « la constitution politique de l’Europe ne devait pas se faire, le Marché Commun lui-même tendrait à se disloquer. » Dans ce contexte, il interrogea Lemass quant à la position de l’Irlande, « pays insulaire qui [n’avait] point partagé avec les pays continentaux l’épreuve de la dernière guerre, face à une intégration politique éventuelle d’une association qui ne [pouvait] pas et ne [voulait] pas demeurer neutre ».

20 Le Premier ministre irlandais assura son interlocuteur que son pays acceptait « sans aucune réserve toutes les conséquences politiques de l’adhésion éventuelle de l’Irlande au Marché Commun », ajoutant que la candidature irlandaise était « motivée peut-être

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plus par les considérations politiques que par les avantages économiques ». Il précisa que l’Irlande savait parfaitement que la CEE était un premier pas qui mènerait « sans le moindre doute à une organisation politique » et qu’il était évident que toute organisation européenne s’inspirant d’un même objectif politique devait « également avoir une politique commune de défense à laquelle l’Irlande participerait pleinement ». Il continua : L’Irlande accueillerait favorablement l’occasion historique d’une participation à une organisation politique européenne, ne serait-ce que pour prouver sans ambiguïté qu’elle se refuse de prendre une position neutraliste dans le monde. Le peuple irlandais est conscient de son identité européenne, ne fût-ce que par les liens historiques qui l’unissent aux pays continentaux catholiques.

21 Lemass rencontra ensuite le ministre des Affaires étrangères, Maurice Couve de Murville, qui lui indiqua que « la France ne ferait pas opposition, au prochain Conseil de Bruxelles, à la demande irlandaise d’adhésion », ce dont l’Irlandais se montra « fort satisfait23 ».

22 En apparence, les efforts de Lemass avaient été couronnés de succès, mais le geste de Paris n’était qu’une concession formelle qui ne changeait rien à sa position de fond. En effet, si le Conseil européen du 23 octobre 1962 donna son aval à l’ouverture de négociations avec l’Irlande, Paris insista pour qu’il fût clairement précisé qu’elles ne pouvaient débuter dans l’immédiat et que c’était aux Six que revenait « le droit d’apprécier si l’adhésion » constituait « en définitive la solution la plus appropriée » pour l’Irlande24.

23 En somme, les autorités françaises cherchaient toujours à faire obstruction à l’élargissement de la CEE, mais face à ces atermoiements, Bruxelles et La Haye en vinrent à menacer de bloquer les dossiers en cours – notamment la politique agricole commune – tant que la question britannique ne serait pas réglée. Le général de Gaulle, d’une « humeur épouvantable », décida alors de trancher dans le vif25 : il tint sa célèbre conférence de presse du 14 janvier 1963 où il opposa son veto à la demande d’adhésion de Londres, mettant un terme par la même occasion à la candidature irlandaise.

Visites officielles et accord culturel

24 Dublin ne se découragea pas pour autant. L’objectif d’une adhésion fut maintenu, même s’il fallut repousser l’échéance : pour Lemass, le but était désormais d’accéder à la CEE avant 197026. Dans cette perspective, un bilan de la candidature initiale montrait à quel point il était important, sinon vital, de s’assurer du soutien de Paris. La diplomatie irlandaise multiplia donc les visites officielles, afin de nouer des relations d’amitié avec les décideurs français et de se constituer ainsi un capital de sympathie avec la principale puissance de la CEE.

25 En novembre 1963, Frank Aiken, ministre des Affaires extérieures, rencontra Charles de Gaulle à Paris, pour discuter notamment de la candidature irlandaise. Le Président lui dit comprendre « le désir de l’Irlande de s’associer au Marché commun » et affirma que « la France n’y serait pas opposée27 ». Il expliqua que, « pour beaucoup de raisons, politiques, économiques et historiques », son pays était favorable à l’Irlande, « ainsi qu’à l’entrée de celle-ci dans l’ensemble européen ». Aiken répondit que l’Irlande, « après avoir été coupée de l’Europe par la Grande-Bretagne pendant sept cents ans », désirait, pour des raisons historiques aussi, être associée à l’Europe. Aiken profita de

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l’entretien pour inviter le Général à se rendre en Irlande, insistant « sur le plaisir qu’éprouveraient le gouvernement et le peuple irlandais » à le recevoir.

26 Si le Président ne donna pas suite à cette invitation, une visite officielle de grande importance eut lieu en juin 1964 lorsque, pour la première fois depuis la fondation de l’Etat irlandais, un ministre français des Affaires étrangères se rendit à Dublin. Couve de Murville s’y entretint avec plusieurs ministres, ainsi qu’avec le Président, Eamon de Valera. Les discussions, qui portèrent sur le commerce franco-irlandais, la politique internationale et la CEE, eurent lieu dans un « climat de cordialité et de confiance mutuelle » selon le communiqué final28. Sur la question des candidatures irlandaise et britannique à la CEE, Couve déclara que « le problème pour l’Angleterre est de savoir si elle se sent ou non européenne. Aucun problème de ce genre ne se pose pour l’Irlande qui, elle, a cette conviction29 ».

27 Ce changement de ton dans les relations franco-irlandaises s’explique en partie par la diplomatie irlandaise. Outre l’accueil « particulièrement cordial » réservé au ministre selon une note française, la proposition de jeter les bases d’un accord culturel bilatéral fut également fort bien reçue par Paris. Il s’agissait de promouvoir l’enseignement du français dans les écoles et universités irlandaises, et de pourvoir à la formation des enseignants de français en Irlande, mesures qui ne pouvaient que consolider le statut du français dans une CEE élargie. L’ambassadeur français à Dublin, rappelant que l’Irlande n’avait signé d’accord culturel qu’avec la France, nota : « Si l’adhésion éventuelle de l’Irlande signifie qu’un pays anglophone va entrer dans la Communauté, ce pays manifeste pour notre langue et notre culture le plus grand intérêt30. » Le fait que la délégation irlandaise à la Commission culturelle franco-irlandaise fût dirigée par le secrétaire général du ministère des Affaires étrangères en disait « long à cet égard » selon lui.

28 En somme, les efforts de Dublin amenèrent Paris à voir sa demande d’adhésion sous un jour nouveau et à conclure qu’elle n’était pas de nature à menacer les intérêts français, au contraire. De ce point de vue, la visite de Couve de Murville marqua sans aucun doute un tournant dans les relations entre les deux pays. Le Quai d’Orsay estima pour sa part qu’elle avait « certainement contribué à resserrer des liens anciens que l’écran de la Grande-Bretagne avait déjà depuis longtemps notablement distendu31 ».

Deuxième tentative

29 De fait, lorsque Dublin réactiva sa candidature en mai 1967, les réactions de Paris furent tout autres qu’en 1961, témoignant ainsi d’un changement remarquable dans leurs relations bilatérales. En effet, autant l’économie irlandaise avait pu susciter des doutes sérieux au début de la décennie, autant elle ne constituait plus un obstacle en 1967. Un rapport français soulignait les progrès effectués depuis 1961, notamment suite à l’accord de libre-échange signé avec la Grande-Bretagne en 1965 : il estimait que le pays n’avait « plus guère à redouter la concurrence des pays industrialisés du Continent32 ». Quant à son agriculture, elle bénéficierait de la participation au Marché commun et de la Politique agricole commune. Enfin, en raison du poids limité de son économie, la présence de l’Irlande ne serait « guère sensible » au sein de la CEE. En conclusion, le rapport notait que sa candidature au Marché commun ne semblait « pas poser de problèmes particulièrement difficiles ».

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30 De même, la politique extérieure de l’Irlande ne constituait plus une entrave à la recevabilité de sa demande d’adhésion. Les accords d’Evian avaient mis fin aux divergences franco-irlandaises sur l’Algérie aux Nations unies, tandis que le retrait des forces françaises du commandement intégré de l’OTAN en 1966 avait diminué l’importance de la neutralité irlandaise. Une note du Quai d’Orsay précisait malgré tout que le pays était prêt à adhérer à une construction politique qui pouvait « déboucher sur une coopération militaire33 ». De manière générale, les relations bilatérales entre Paris et Dublin étaient perçues comme « aussi bonnes que possibles », la France étant, parmi les « pays du continent européen, celui avec lequel le peuple irlandais se sent le plus d’affinités34 ».

31 Enfin, sur la question du statut du français, le gouvernement irlandais avait pris des mesures pour rassurer Paris quant aux conséquences de l’élargissement, notamment l’accord culturel franco-irlandais signé le 4 novembre 1967.

32 Cela étant, si Paris n’était plus opposé à la candidature irlandaise, il n’en demeurait pas moins qu’elle était toujours aussi tributaire de la demande britannique, qui avait aussi été réactivée. Or les Six étaient alors engagés dans des négociations « longues et difficiles » sur le règlement financier de la politique agricole35. Dans ce contexte, la candidature de Londres, qui exprimait « souvent la thèse » selon laquelle ce règlement devait être renégocié ou refait, s’avérait pour le moins inopportune du point de vue français36. Se posaient aussi les questions de la livre sterling et de son statut de monnaie de réserve, de l’état de l’économie britannique, et des échanges commerciaux entre la Grande-Bretagne et les pays du Commonwealth, qui rendaient son accession à la CEE malaisée.

33 En octobre 1967, le général de Gaulle réunit un conseil restreint pour décider de la position à adopter sur la demande britannique. Il fut convenu que la Grande-Bretagne n’était toujours « pas mûre pour accéder au Marché commun qui, de son côté, [n’était] pas prêt à la recevoir », et qu’il fallait donc s’opposer à nouveau à la candidature de Londres37.

34 Deux semaines plus tard, le Premier ministre irlandais, Jack Lynch, se rendit à Paris avec plusieurs ministres et hauts fonctionnaires pour s’entretenir des candidatures irlandaise et britannique. Les Français ne leur cachèrent pas leur position, tout en faisant preuve de compréhension quant à la situation de Dublin. Ainsi, le Président français déclara-t-il : De la part de la France, il n’y a eu de tout temps et il n’y a aujourd’hui que de la sympathie à l’égard de l’Irlande. […] Du point de vue de l’Europe, maintenant, il n’y aurait pas grande difficulté à ce que l’Irlande entrât dans la Communauté […] Néanmoins, ainsi que vous le dites vous-même, la difficulté provient de vos liens étroits avec la Grande-Bretagne. […] Dans sa situation présente, la Grande-Bretagne ne peut pas entrer dans la Communauté et elle ne le pourra pas tant qu’elle restera ce qu’elle est. Je ne sais si un jour sa situation sera différente38.

35 La situation avait changé du tout au tout, la France n’étant plus opposée à la candidature irlandaise ; mais le problème de fond, la réticence de Paris à valider l’élargissement, était toujours là. Il n’était plus question de refuser l’adhésion de l’Irlande à la CEE, mais elle ne pourrait y accéder que lorsque la Grande-Bretagne serait elle-même admise.

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Rapprochement

36 En 1969, la démission du général de Gaulle ouvrit la perspective d’une admission rapide des pays candidats, son successeur à la présidence, Georges Pompidou étant favorable à l’élargissement de la CEE. La décision du général de Gaulle de séjourner en Irlande contribua aussi à améliorer les relations bilatérales entre Paris et Dublin39.

37 Il s’agissait d’une visite faite à titre privé, mais l’accueil qui lui fut réservé par les autorités irlandaises conféra à son séjour un caractère quasi officiel40. Lorsque le président, Eamon de Valera, l’invita au palais présidentiel, ils eurent l’occasion d’aborder la question européenne : –« Vous n’êtes pas des continentaux », observa le Général de Gaulle. – « Nous voulons l’être, répondit le Président. La Grande-Bretagne (le mot “ennemi” a été prononcé) est un écran entre l’Europe et nous41. »

38 Avant son départ, le Premier ministre, Jack Lynch, lui offrit un déjeuner de gala au château de Dublin. À l’issue du repas, il évoqua longuement les relations franco- irlandaises, soulignant la dette de l’Irlande vis-à-vis de la France. De Gaulle prit la parole à son tour, revenant à l’idée d’un écran entre les deux pays : Il y a, semble-t-il, eu depuis quelques générations une sorte d’écran entre l’Irlande et la France. Mais il paraît que ce temps-là est passé et qu’il nous est possible à vous et à nous de le traverser, de nous trouver, d’être ensemble par l’esprit et par l’action. C’est l’impression que j’ai recueillie de mon rapide séjour et c’est le souhait que je veux former : puissent l’Irlande et la France se connaître encore mieux tous les jours, se rencontrer et être ensemble dans la pensée et l’action ! Il se tourna alors vers l’assemblée, levant son verre en l’honneur de « l’Irlande toute entière » 42.

39 Tout cela eut un impact considérable sur les opinions publiques française et irlandaise. Du côté irlandais, la visite de de Gaulle fut perçue comme une manifestation de bonne volonté fort appréciable, contribuant ainsi à amoindrir « l’amertume certaine » laissée par l’attitude restrictive de la France à l’égard de l’élargissement de la CEE43. Du côté français, grâce à la couverture médiatique de « l’exil irlandais » du général, nombre de personnes découvrirent un pays encore trop méconnu.

40 Ce fut en tout cas le constat d’une délégation de la Commission des Affaires étrangères de l’Assemblée nationale, qui se rendit en Irlande un mois plus tard. Son rapport, très favorable à la candidature irlandaise, nota que la France avait « un intérêt politique certain à voir adhérer l’Irlande à la CEE » et conclut qu’il fallait resserrer les liens entre Paris et Dublin : Nous avons assisté en quelque sorte à des « retrouvailles » avec les Irlandais. Ce pays, qu’une forte personnalité différencie de la Grande-Bretagne à laquelle on l’assimile trop aisément, ne demande qu’à élargir ses échanges, à renouer des contacts devenus rares avec le continent européen, et tout particulièrement avec la France. Cette situation confère à la candidature irlandaise au Marché commun une grande importance et exige que nous développions nos relations avec ce pays dans tous les domaines. […] C’est pourquoi nous ne saurions trop conseiller la multiplication des contacts et des échanges. L’Irlande doit redevenir familière aux Français44.

41 Du point de vue de Paris, il était désormais acquis que l’Irlande serait un allié dans une Communauté élargie, et il convenait de cultiver les relations franco-irlandaises afin de maintenir l’influence de la France au sein de la CEE45. Ainsi, lorsque le Premier ministre irlandais rencontra le président Pompidou à Paris en 1972, ils se mirent d’accord sur

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plusieurs points, dont la Politique Agricole Commune, les liens avec les organisations militaires, la politique régionale, ou encore l’attribution de postes au sein de la Commission européenne46.

L’Irlande du Nord

42 Un autre enjeu permet de mesurer l’ampleur du rapprochement franco-irlandais : l’Irlande du Nord. Après de la Seconde Guerre mondiale, la France avait toujours refusé son soutien à Dublin sur la question de la partition, jugée beaucoup trop sensible vis-à- vis de l’alliance franco-britannique et donc de l’OTAN. Mais à partir de la fin des années soixante, le renouveau de l’amitié entre Paris et Dublin et le début du conflit en Irlande du Nord amena une inflexion notable dans la position des autorités françaises.

43 Dès le mois d’août 1969, lorsque le gouvernement irlandais voulut soulever la question de l’Irlande du Nord devant le Conseil de sécurité de l’ONU, la France apporta une assistance discrète mais fort appréciée de Dublin47. La politique menée par le Premier ministre irlandais, Jack Lynch, était perçue de manière positive par les autorités françaises, qui estimaient que ce « partisan de la conciliation et du dialogue » n’avait pas « cessé d’affirmer sur le ton de la plus grande modération et dans un esprit à la fois réaliste et libéral, l’objectif de l’unité nationale48 ». Non seulement il n’avait pas dévié de la voie de son prédécesseur, Seán Lemass, qui avait inauguré « une politique de rapprochement avec le gouvernement de Belfast », mais au travers de circonstances difficiles il avait « affirmé avec courage son choix d’une politique de conciliation et de modération dans le délicat règlement de la question irlandaise49 ».

44 En 1970, lorsque le nouvel ambassadeur irlandais à Paris, Eamonn Kennedy, présenta ses lettres de créance au Président Pompidou et au ministre des Affaires étrangères, Maurice Schumann, il eut une discussion avec eux qui « porta presque exclusivement sur la situation en Irlande du Nord50 ». Kennedy les trouva tous deux « très bien disposés à notre égard et compréhensifs ». Schumann lui promit de soulever la question de l’Irlande du Nord avec le ministre britannique des Affaires étrangères, ce que le diplomate irlandais jugea « très encourageant au vu de l’importance de la France quant au succès de la candidature britannique au Marché commun ».

45 En somme, l’approche traditionnelle des autorités françaises, fondée sur la non- ingérence dans les affaires intérieures d’un autre Etat, fut revue à la lumière de l’adhésion prochaine de la Grande-Bretagne à la CEE. Selon le Quai d’Orsay, il était désormais nécessaire d’encourager Londres à prendre des mesures en Irlande du Nord : Jusqu’ici, nous avons considéré que l’affaire relevait de la souveraineté du gouvernement britannique, tout en souhaitant que celui-ci procède aux réformes nécessaires. Si une solution n’intervient pas rapidement, l’affaire d’Irlande du Nord risque cependant de nous concerner de plus près le jour où la Grande-Bretagne et l’Irlande seront toutes deux membres de la Communauté et participeront à la coopération politique51.

46 De fait, quelques mois plus tard, le gouvernement britannique lança une série de réformes majeures afin de trouver un règlement politique au conflit en Irlande du Nord : Edward Heath annonça la suspension du parlement nord-irlandais et le début de consultations intensives avec les partis de la région, sous l’égide de William Whitelaw, ministre des Affaires nord-irlandaises. Cette initiative ouvrit la voie aux accords de

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Sunningdale de décembre 1973, ainsi qu’à la formation d’un exécutif intercommunautaire en 1974.

47 Selon l’ambassadeur français à Dublin, deux facteurs expliquaient « la décision spectaculaire » du Premier ministre britannique52. Tout d’abord, une rencontre avec le chef du gouvernement irlandais lui avait permis de définir les bases d’un règlement acceptable de part et d’autre ; mais dans le même temps, l’influence exercée par « les gouvernements amis de l’Irlande (France, Italie, Belgique, Danemark, États-Unis, Canada, Australie) » firent « prendre conscience à M. Heath des réactions de l’opinion internationale ».

48 Dans le contexte d’une internationalisation du conflit, la dimension européenne n’était pas négligeable, puisque les candidatures britannique et irlandaise à la CEE faisaient de la situation en Irlande du Nord une affaire qui concernait désormais les Six, « en particulier la France et l’Italie » qui firent « pression sur le gouvernement britannique en vue d’aboutir à un règlement de l’affaire du Nord, avant que la Grande-Bretagne et l’Irlande ne deviennent membres de la Communauté53 ».

Conclusion

49 La transformation des perceptions françaises de l’Irlande et de sa demande d’adhésion à la CEE en l’espace de quelques années, ainsi que le rapprochement franco-irlandais, furent remarquables, tant par leur ampleur que par leur rapidité. Ils s’expliquent par nombre de facteurs, parmi lesquels on peut, en guise de conclusion, en souligner trois.

50 Tout d’abord, ils furent facilités par des changements profonds dans le contexte géopolitique. Le refus de Londres de participer à la fondation de la CEE en 1957 amoindrit considérablement la valeur de l’alliance franco-britannique aux yeux des décideurs français, qui optèrent dès lors pour un rapprochement avec l’Allemagne. Le projet d’une Europe indépendante plutôt qu’atlantiste mené par de Gaulle créa un espace où l’Irlande put se rapprocher de Paris et poser les bases d’une alliance franco- irlandaise au sein de la CEE.

51 Par ailleurs, la candidature irlandaise à l’organisation européenne entraîna de nombreuses rencontres bilatérales avec les officiels français, ce qui permit à ces derniers de mieux connaître leurs homologues irlandais et de forger des relations personnelles fondées sur une sympathie et une confiance mutuelles54. En 1961, Paris cherchait à garder ses distances vis-à-vis d’un pays encore mal connu, mais dès 1964 les autorités françaises comprirent tout l’intérêt qu’elles avaient à développer leurs liens avec Dublin dans la perspective d’un élargissement de la CEE, grâce aux visites et entretiens franco-irlandais.

52 Enfin, il faut insister sur l’habileté et la persévérance de la diplomatie irlandaise, confrontée à un défi de taille lorsque Dublin se rendit compte en 1961 que la France était opposée à sa candidature. Si les changements géopolitiques créèrent une ouverture pour l’Irlande, son accession à la CEE n’était pas gagnée d’avance, loin s’en faut. Il lui fallut bien du talent et de la patience pour persuader les autorités françaises que non seulement l’Irlande ne serait pas un satellite de la Grande-Bretagne, mais que Paris et Dublin avaient des intérêts communs qui seraient mieux défendus s’ils agissaient de concert au sein de la CEE.

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NOTES

1. Denis Corboy, « Journey to Europe, first shoots : a personal memoir », p. 60, in Jane Conroy (dir.), Franco-Irish Connections, Dublin, Four Courts Press, 2009, p. 57-64. 2. Dáil debates, vol. 175, col. 585 (27 mai 1959). 3. Affaires étrangères – Archives diplomatiques, La Courneuve (ci-après AEAD) : Secrétariat général, vol. 17, f. 79 (P 11921) : « Conversations franco-irlandaises », 13 oct. 1962. 4. D. J. Maher, The Tortuous Path : The course of Ireland’s entry into the EEC, 1948-73, Dublin, Institute of Public Administration, 1986, p. 138. 5. Archives diplomatiques, Nantes (ci-après AD) : Dublin, vol. 220, n° 2/CE : « Note : Position économique de l’Irlande », 15 jan. 1962. 6. AEAD : Coopération économique, vol. 1391, f. 127 : « Note : Réunion du 18 janvier avec la délégation irlandaise », 13 jan. 1962. 7. Dermot Keogh, « Irish Neutrality and the First Application for Membership of the EEC, 1961-3 », in Michael Kennedy et Joseph Morrison Skelly (dir.), Irish Foreign Policy 1919-1966, Dublin, Four Courts Press, 2000, p. 265-285. 8. AEAD : Coopération économique, vol. 1391, f. 127 : « Note : Réunion du 18 janvier avec la délégation irlandaise », 13 jan. 1962. 9. AEAD : Archives orales, vol. 19, Boegner, n° 3.1.3. 10. AEAD : Affaires financières et économiques, Direction économique, vol. 47 : « Note a.s. adhésion de l’Angleterre au marché commun », 28 août 1961. 11. AN : 5 AG 1, Elysée, vol. 24 : « Compte rendu du Conseil restreint relatif aux Affaires étrangères, 24 mai 1962 ». 12. AN : 5 AG 1, Elysée, vol. 24 : « Compte rendu du Conseil restreint relatif aux Affaires étrangères, 31 juillet 1962 ». 13. AEAD : Coopération économique, vol. 1392, f. 118 : « Monsieur Wormser, de la part de J. Grunewald », 10 oct. 1962. 14. Dermot et Aoife Keogh, « Ireland and European Integration : From the Treaty of Rome to Membership », p. 27, in Mark Callanan (dir.), Foundations of an Ever Closer Union : An Irish perspective on the fifty years since the Treaty of Rome, Dublin, Institute of Public Administration, 2007, p. 6-50. 15. National Archives, Dublin : Department of Foreign Affairs (ci-après NA, DFA), Embassy series, Rome, 19/09/RI : McDonald, 24 août 1961. 16. AEAD : Coopération économique, vol. 1391, f. 38 : Wormser, 7 sept. 1961. 17. Michael J. Geary, An Inconvenient Wait : Ireland’s Quest for Membership of the EEC, 1957-73, Dublin, Institute of Public Administration, 2009, p. 39-45. 18. AEAD : Coopération économique, Vol. 1391, f. 180 : Paris, 19 fév. 1962. 19. AEAD : Europe, Irlande, vol. 46 : « Note : a.s. L’Irlande. Politique extérieure », 10 oct. 1962. 20. Maurice FitzGerald, Protectionism and Liberalisation : Ireland and the EEC, 1957-1966, Aldershot, Ashgate, 2000, p. 192-200.

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21. AEAD : Europe, Irlande, vol. 46 : « Voyage de M. Lemass », 12 oct. 1962. 22. Archives nationales, Paris (ci-après AN) : 5 AG 1, Elysée, vol. 177 : « Entretien du Général de Gaulle avec M. Lemass, Premier ministre d’Irlande, 13 octobre 1962, à 12h30 » (ce document, pour lequel il n’y a pas d’équivalent dans les archives irlandaises, est cité abondamment dans la mesure où jusqu’à présent les publications sur l’adhésion irlandaise à la CEE ont dû se contenter de sources indirectes pour cerner la teneur de l’entretien). 23. AEAD : Secrétariat général, vol. 17, f° 79 (P 11921) : « Conversation avec le Premier Ministre d’Irlande », 13 oct. 1962. 24. AEAD : Coopération économique, vol. 1392, f° 116-117 : « Note : Négociations entre la CEE et l’Irlande », 20 oct. 1962. 25. AEAD : Archives orales, vol. 26, Lucet, n° 4.1.5. 26. AEAD : Europe, Irlande, vol. 49, n° 106/CE : « Note : a.s. Irlande et CEE », 4 juin 1964. 27. AEAD : Cabinet du Ministre, Couve de Murville (1963), Entretiens et messages : « Entretien du Général de Gaulle et de M. Aiken, Ministre des Affaires étrangères d’Irlande, le mercredi 20 novembre 1963, de 16 h 30 à 17 h 15. » 28. AEAD : Europe, Irlande, vol. 49, 12 juin 1964. 29. AEAD : Europe, Irlande, vol. 49, « Entretien entre le Premier ministre d’Irlande et M. Couve de Murville », 11 juin 1964. 30. AD : Dublin, vol. 228, n° 287/D : Harcourt, 2 juin 1971. 31. AEAD : Europe, Irlande, vol. 49, n° 67/84, 16 juin 1964. 32. AEAD : Europe, Irlande, vol. 46, n° 131/CE : « Note : Irlande et le Marché Commun », 26 oct. 1967. 33. AEAD : Europe, Irlande, vol. 46 : « Note : Politique extérieure irlandaise », 27 oct. 1967. 34. AEAD : Europe, Irlande, vol. 49 : « Note : Relations franco-irlandaises », 27 oct. 1967. 35. AN : 5 AG 1, Elysée, vol. 48 : « Note au sujet des conséquences d’une crise possible entre les Six », 17 oct. 1967. 36. AN : 5 AG 1, Elysée, vol. 48 : « Note à l’attention du Général de Gaulle : Conditions de mise en œuvre du règlement financier à partir de 1970 », 20 oct. 1967. 37. AN : 5 AG 1, Elysée, vol. 24 : « Compte rendu du Conseil restreint relatif aux Affaires étrangères, 16 octobre 1967 ». 38. AN : 5 AG 1, Elysée, vol. 177 : « Entretien du Général de Gaulle et de M. John Lynch, 3 novembre 1967, 12 h 15-13 h 15 » (le prénom officiel de Lynch était John, même si en Irlande on ne l’appelait que Jack). 39. Pierre Joannon, L’Hiver du Connétable : Charles de Gaulle et l’Irlande, La Gacilly, Artus, 1991. 40. Françoise Parturier (La lettre d’Irlande, Paris, Albin Michel, 1979) donne nombre d’anecdotes révélatrices du soin pris par les autorités irlandaises pour garantir le succès du séjour de leur hôte. 41. AEAD : Europe, Irlande, vol. 52, n° 302/CM : Harcourt, « a/a séjour en Irlande du Général de Gaulle, 10 mai-19 juin 1969 », 9 juil. 1969. 42. Ces derniers mots ne furent pas diffusés par la radio irlandaise ; on informa par la suite l’ambassadeur que la bande magnétique était trop courte pour les enregistrer…

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43. AEAD : Europe, Irlande, vol. 54, f° 75 : « Fiches d’ambassade », 1966. 44. Assemblée nationale, Rapport d’information, n° 885, 12 nov. 1969, p. 28. 45. AEAD : Europe, Irlande, vol. 51 : Jurgensen, « Note pour le ministre », 5 sept. 1970. 46. AEAD : Europe, Irlande, carton 3356 : « Audience de Monsieur Jack Lynch, le 18 octobre 1972 ». 47. Christophe Gillissen, « Un “jeu subtil de discrétion et d’indiscrétion calculée” : la France et la question de l’Irlande du Nord à l’ONU », Études Irlandaises, n° 35-1 (printemps 2010), p. 39-53. 48. AEAD : Europe, Irlande, vol. 51 : « Note : M. John Lynch, Premier Ministre », 26 nov. 1970. 49. AEAD : Europe, Irlande, vol. 51 : « Note : La situation politique intérieure en Irlande et la controverse autour du problème de l’unité », 26 nov. 1970. 50. NA, DFA : Confidential report, 313/4/R : Kennedy, 15 juil. 1970. 51. AEAD : Europe, Irlande, carton 3355 : « Note : la situation actuelle en Irlande du Nord », 15 oct. 1971. 52. AEAD : Europe, Irlande, carton 3355 : Harcourt, « Attitude du gouvernement irlandais à l’égard de l’initiative britannique en Irlande du Nord », 30 mars 1972. 53. AEAD : Europe, Irlande, carton 3355, n° 206/211 : Harcourt, « Réactions irlandaises au plan Heath », 27 mars 1972. 54. Joseph T. Carroll, « General de Gaulle and Ireland’s EEC application », in P. Joannon (dir.), De Gaulle and Ireland, op. cit., p. 81-97.

RÉSUMÉS

La première demande d’adhésion irlandaise à la CEE, en 1961, suscita une forte réserve de la part de Paris. Malgré les réticences des cinq autres Etats membres, la France bloqua toute décision sur la demande irlandaise jusqu’en octobre 1962. En revanche, Paris se montra nettement plus favorable à la candidature irlandaise lorsqu’elle fut réactivée en 1967. Ce revirement de la politique française s’explique en partie par la diplomatie irlandaise qui sut faire valoir auprès des autorités françaises qu’elles avaient tout à gagner de l’entrée de l’Irlande dans la CEE.

The first Irish application for EEC membership in 1961 met with considerable hostility from Paris. Despite the reluctance of the five other member states, France postponed a decision on the Irish application until October 1962. However, when Ireland reactivated its application in 1967, the attitude of Paris proved much more favourable. Such a change in French policy was partly due to Irish diplomacy which convinced French authorities they had much to gain from Ireland’s admission to the EEC.

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INDEX

Mots-clés : De Gaulle Charles, Lemass Seán, Union Européenne / CEE, relations franco- irlandaises Keywords : De Gaulle Charles, Lemass Seán , European Union / EEC, Franco-Irish relations

AUTEUR

CHRISTOPHE GILLISSEN Université de Paris 4 – Sorbonne

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German Invasion and Spy Scares in Ireland, 1890s-1914: Between Fiction and Fact

Jérôme Aan de Wiel

1 The invasion literature that developed at the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth centuries has been the object of numerous studies as it is acknowledged to have added to the increasing tensions between Britain, Germany and France leading up to the First World War in 1914. For example, in 1969, the French historian Marc Ferro wrote: “Over twenty works in England foresaw the British surprised, invaded and defeated […]. Overall this literature reflected the nagging worries besetting the country1.” Twenty-nine years later, the British historian Niall Ferguson remarked about invasion novelists: “Writers like William Le Queux also played an extremely important role in the creation of Britain’s modern intelligence service. An unholy alliance developed between hack writers and military careerists […]. In any case, most of the information which Le Queux and his associates suspected German spies of trying to obtain was readily available for a small price in the form of Ordnance Survey and Admiralty maps2.” Indeed, it was pure fantasy with serious consequences. While the effects of invasion and spy literature on Britain are well-known, they are far less known regarding Ireland. This study will aim to shed light on the situation in Ireland and show that on occasion fiction met fact and fact met fiction. The border between literature and reality was not always clearly drawn.

2 Before concentrating on fiction and facts, it is necessary to give a brief outline of the international situation between 1870 and the turn of the century. The Franco-Prussian War of 1870 saw not only the humiliating defeat of the French army by the Prussians but also the political unification of Germany, which, until then, had been divided into several states. From then on, it was clear that the newly united Germany was on her way to become the strongest military power on the continent. As to the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, it was safely away from the continent, separated by the North Sea, the English Channel and the Atlantic Ocean. The British Royal Navy had no serious rival. And yet, straight after the Prussian victory over France, a British

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general called Sir George Tomkyns Chesney sensed that Germany would be the power that one day would threaten Britain’s very existence. Chesney was much concerned by what he deemed was British military and naval unpreparedness to face a foreign invasion. To warn public and politicians alike, he published a short book in 1871 entitled The Battle of Dorking. Although Germany is not named, the first pages of the book leave no doubt that it was her that he had in mind3.

3 In 1896, Kaiser Wilhelm II, the German emperor, declared that his country’s destiny was on the seas. In 1898, Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz began a program to develop the German navy and catch up with the Royal Navy. It was the beginning of Germany’s Weltpolitik (world policy) and also of the arms race. At first, Britain tried to reach an understanding with Germany to limit naval armament. After all, the Germans were no colonial rivals unlike the French. But soon, it was clear that Anglo-German talks would lead to nowhere. In Britain, public opinion became increasingly anti-German all the more since Imperial Germany was also becoming a major industrial and commercial rival. The British press spewed its vitriol over the Germans4. General Chesney and his Battle of Dorking seemed to be vindicated. Writers grabbed their pencils and fantasised endlessly about future invasions and wars.

4 The decision of the German government to step up the construction of a modern battle fleet triggered off the need to write about the future war between Britain and Germany and to portray what would be the consequences for both countries. At the beginning of the twentieth century there were about twelve invasion novels published every year5. By the time the First World War broke out in 1914, there were about 400 such books6. Other invasion stories were published by the popular press in a serialised form. Invasion gripped the minds of middle and working classes alike. There were in fact three main reasons for this literature. Firstly, the writers tried to guess what the Germans were up to. Secondly, there was the desire to make the British government want to increase military spending. And thirdly, this was the age of anticipation and imagining what the future would be. To quote Professor I. F. Clarke: “The tales of the war-to-come were part of, and had their special roles in, the great forward movement of the imagination that began about 18707…”

5 The most successful of all the invasion sensationalists was without any shadow of a doubt the Englishman William Le Queux. In 1906, he published The Invasion of 1910 with the help of the prestigious Field Marshal Lord Roberts. His book portrayed the German invasion of Britain and became an international bestseller. Le Queux went on to write other books, notably Spies of the Kaiser in 1909, a particularly bad book 8. Soon, he confused the border between fact and fiction and it was little wonder why the Foreign Office and War Office did not take him seriously.9 Consequently, he became an amateur spy-catcher himself. The anti-German hysteria in Britain had of course been noticed in Berlin. In November 1904, Chancellor Bernhard von Bülow told a British journalist: “[It seems] as if a certain school of your publicists looks upon a paper-war against Germany as the main object of its life10.” Little wonder.

6 Readers of invasion novels reported to William Le Queux on the suspicious activities and behaviour of German immigrants and tourists. The writer was submerged by waves of letters and to his mind they confirmed the fact that Britain was indeed being currently infiltrated by spies, preparing the dreaded invasion. People were afraid of the large number of German waiters in the country, while others spotted Germans making sketches and taking photographs. German barbers and hotel owners on the east coast

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were equally suspects. One man wrote to the Morning Post that there were 90,000 German army reservists in Britain and that they had hidden very exactly 209,000 rounds of Mauser ammunition. Everything was ready for the invasion, he warned11. But more importantly, little by little, owing to the pressure of public opinion and the press, the British government began to pay more attention to what Le Queux and company had to say. Although evidence of real German espionage in Britain was flimsy, the popular spy-craze eventually led to the creation of the Secret Service Bureau, later known as MI5 (domestic intelligence) and MI6 (foreign intelligence)12. At the end of the day, were there that many German spies in the United Kingdom or not? The answer is a resounding no. The British wrongly believed that not only German naval intelligence was operating in their country but also German military intelligence which was not the case. In fact, German military intelligence was focusing on France and Russia. The legendary spymaster Walter Nicolai later admitted that he would have targeted Britain but then the war broke out and it was too late to set up an efficient network13.

7 Having said this, there was some evidence of German intrigue. Since 1906, there had been a secret correspondence between George Freeman, a man working for Clan na Gael (Irish-American republican organisation), and Theodor Schiemann, a German professor and private adviser to Kaiser Wilhelm II. Their correspondence reveals that Freeman was sending information about Irish nationalists in Ireland and in the United States. Freeman had also extensive contacts with Indian and Middle-Eastern nationalists, opposed to British rule. In 1907, Schiemann enquired into the number of Irishmen serving in the Royal Navy, the idea being obviously to figure out whether they could be relied upon to paralyse the navy in time of war against Germany. Freeman was not able to furnish an exact number. The British did not seem to be aware of this correspondence. However, they were aware of other contacts between the Germans and Irish republicans. In 1912, the Dublin Metropolitan Police (DMP) learnt that the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB) had sent an emissary to meet the German ambassador in London. A short time later, the DMP learnt that Clan na Gael was sending one of their men to Berlin14. It would seem that the British did have some legitimate reasons for concern. So, not only literary fantasy was at the origin of the founding of the Secret Service Bureau but also real facts. But how had the invasion scare and spy fever affected Ireland?

8 The Irish had one major contribution to the invasion novels: The Riddle of the Sands written by Erskine Childers in 1903. Childers came from an Anglo-Irish background and before he became the well-known Irish republican, he was a strong enthusiast of the British Empire. At the turn of the century, Childers became worried of a possible surprise invasion by Germany. Being a keen yachtsman he set out to explore the Frisian Isles along the Dutch, German and Danish coastline. He built the following theory. Germany had a rather short coastline facing Britain and the North Sea which would force the Imperial Navy to sail through the narrow strait of Skagerrak between Denmark and Norway. As to the Kaiser Wilhelm Canal, nowadays called Kiel Canal (since 1948) connecting the North Sea to the Baltic Sea, it was not yet deep and wide enough to allow battleships to sail through. In other words, the German Imperial Navy would be like a predictable sitting duck for the Royal Navy.

9 Therefore, Childers imagined that the Imperial Navy could quietly slip through the Frisian Isles, on its way to England. The problem here was that the waters around the Frisian Isles were notoriously shallow, infested with sandbanks. This forms the plot of

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the book. Childers imagined that the Germans were able to build special boats adapted to navigation in both around the Frisian Isles and the North Sea. But two Englishmen, Arthur Davies and Charles Carruthers, stumble across the Germans’ dastardly plan and eventually foil it. The Riddle of the Sands is very technical with much attention paid to detail15. And this is the main difference with all the other invasion authors. Childers’ book is widely regarded as the first modern thriller, a precursor of Frederick Forsythe, John Le Carré, Robert Ludlum and so on. In 1979, the book became a film of the same name by Tony Maylam. In 1987, there was a version for the German television called Das Rätsel der Sandbank (the mystery of the sandbank) by Rainer Boldt. In November 1903, the Irish Times (unionist) commented: “[…] the story, viewed from both points, whether that of politics or adventure, is an interesting and exciting one. Mr. Childers has a very facile pen, and will be heard of again16.” Indeed.

10 The Riddle of the Sands was an instant success. Childers himself expressed the hope that “nobody will read into this story of adventure any intention of provoking feelings of hostility to Germany”. The main purpose of the book, he explained, “is to stimulate interest in a matter of vital importance to Great Britain”. It was above all meant as a warning. It did just that. The very same year, the Conservative government of Prime Minister Arthur Balfour announced the setting up of a new Royal Navy base at Rosyth in Scotland17.Winston Churchill admitted that The Riddle of the Sands was at the origin of the establishment of further bases at Invergordon, Firth of Forth and Scapa Flow18. It looked pretty much as if Childers was playing his part in the current arms race between Britain and Germany. But then followed a rather bizarre episode, once again evidence that fact and fiction were blurred. In August, two British officers, Captain Trench and Lieutenant Brandon, were arrested by the Germans on the Frisian island of Borkum. They had been sent there by British naval intelligence19. In December, they were put on trial in Leipzig and condemned to a prison sentence. It then transpired that Brandon had read The Riddle of the Sands not less than three times… Childers would later meet the two spies20. Even Churchill drew his strategic inspiration from the book when the war broke out in August 1914. He was then First Lord of the admiralty and argued during a cabinet meeting that the Royal Navy should seize one of the Dutch Frisian islands.21 It was never carried out and the chances were that if the Royal Navy had done so, it would have made sure that the neutral Dutch would have joined the Germans in the war. As to Childers, he went sailing again in the North Sea, near the Kiel Canal and in German territorial waters in the summer of 1913 but he felt that he was no longer welcome there22. No wonder.

11 But what was the situation in Ireland? The reality was that Germany was badly known. Therefore, the image that people had of that country was rather vague and this facilitated the task of propagandists23. While this is certainly correct, a survey of twelve Irish newspapers between 1890 and 1914 allows to state that invasion and spy scares were above all reported by the national press rather than by the regional press. For instance, the term “German invasion” is found 96 times in the Irish Times, 61 times in the Irish Independent and 33 times in the Freeman’s Journal as opposed to 12 times in the Southern Star, 10 times in the Leitrim Observer and 9 times in the Anglo-Celt. The term “German spy” is reported 105 times in the Irish Times, 34 times in the Irish Independent and 14 times in the Freeman’s Journal as opposed to 6 times in the Southern Star, 5 times in the Leitrim Observer and 3 times in the Connacht Tribune. Also of interest are the following facts. The Riddle of the Sands is mentioned only twice in the Irish Independent, once in the Sunday Independent and once in the Irish Times. The Invasion of 1910 is

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mentioned 6 times in the Irish Times, once only in the Anglo-Celt, the Connacht Tribune and the Meath Chronicle. However, William Le Queux is mentioned 109 times in the Irish Times, 20 times in the Irish Independent, twice in the Sunday Independent and once in the Meath Chronicle. His name also appears 12 times in the Leitrim Observer although in advertisements for a new book of his, The Money Spider (about a mystery set in the Arctic)24. Evidently, before the war, unlike what was happening in Britain, fear of Germany seems not to have been as virulent in Ireland simply because she had no quarrel with Germany but definitely had one with Britain about home rule.

12 The Irish press did however make some publicity for and offer literary criticism of invasion novels. In October 1906, the Irish Independent commented on Ernest Oldmeadow’s The North Sea Bubble that it was “a remarkable book” 25. Perhaps had the newspaper been inspired by the fact that the decisive battle in Oldmeadow’s imagination takes place at the Shannon river in Ireland and which sees the ultimate defeat of the Germans by the Anglo-Irish army. Was it a subliminal message against home rule? The Irish Independent had also much good to say about Alan H. Burgoyne’s The War Inevitable published in 1908. This book depicts “a treacherous German invasion of England, secretly planned during the illness of the German Emperor”. Yet, the combined Anglo-Japanese forces eventually defeat the Teutonic invaders26. But some Irish newspapers could be most critical of the mass hysteria that invasion scares had produced in Britain. Perhaps one of the most trenchant articles was published by the Anglo-Celt in March 1909. It stated that the English people had worked itself into “a state of agitation” and severely, but also rightly accused the British press of spreading falsehoods on Germany and her Kaiser, particularly Lord Northcliffe’s newspapers: The papers conducted by Lord Northcliffe – Mr Harmsworth that was – raised the cry of a contemplated German invasion – the presence of 50,000 clerks, waiters and others of that Nationality in London alone giving a good foundation for the powers of the imaginative journalist. […] This sort of stuff has resulted in a war-scare in England, the masses being genuinely apprehensive that at any moment the German fleet may batter their cities to ruins, and subject them to a hateful yoke27.

13 The Anglo-Celt then opportunistically, but also realistically informed its readers that if war was on the cards between Britain and Germany, then the British government would do well to quickly satisfy Ireland’s home rule aspirations28! The more extreme nationalist press, however, was taking sides with Imperial Germany. In 1905, the United Irishman declared: “It has been English policy to represent the German Emperor – in Ireland – as a shouting idiot – a policy helped by our imitative and slavish press. The German Emperor is an astute monarch, who has trumped every card which England has played against Germany in Africa, in South America, and in Europe.” In 1908, Arthur Griffith, the founder of Sinn Féin, praised the Kaiser’s foreign policy in Sinn Féin and approved of Berlin’s decision to increase naval expenditure29.

14 Then, there were those Irishmen who did not like their tax money to be spent on the building of dreadnoughts for the Royal Navy. In March 1909, the Irish Times reported that at a meeting of the United Irish League (UIL) in Drogheda, it was suggested that if Ireland had home rule, she would be very glad to build a dreadnought for the Royal Navy, just like New Zealand was currently offering to do. But some UIL members did not agree. One believed that building navy ships was none of Ireland’s concern, only home rule was, and another said that the German invasion scare was “only a political fake, got up to force the [British] Liberal party to spend money30”. In April, the Meath Chronicle wrote about the recent meeting of the Dunshauglin Board of Guardians that a

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Mr Fitzsimmons had put forward an amendment against the raising of additional taxes on Irishmen which would serve to build more dreadnoughts, quick firing guns, submarines and so on. He had added: “[…] As we are not afraid of any German invasion in this country, we refuse to be a party to any further suicidal taxation.” Fitzsimmons’s amendment was ruled out31, but, as will be seen, he was not wrong.

15 Although, the German invasion and spy fever was definitely milder in Ireland, it did nonetheless enter the people’s psyche. In April 1909, the Freeman’s Journal reported that a German spy had been sighted at Kilmallock in County Limerick. He was never found, however32. In November 1912, the Irish Independent reported that a suspicious man was seen camping near a fortified position in Galway. He was arrested and it subsequently turned out that he was a Belgian tourist of a well-known family33. The following year, still in Galway, the Connacht Tribune reported that a mysterious airship had been spotted by the inhabitants. The newspaper recorded their reactions: “Many people were startled by the rumour, and drew highly imaginative pictures of a German invasion, evidently an echo of the recent airship scare in England34.” Unsurprisingly, on occasion journalists used the invasion image in articles which had nothing to do with the actual subject. In May 1907, the Irish Times reported on rumours regarding the establishment of a shipping line between Liverpool and New York by the German shipping company Hamburg-America Line. It titled: “Liverpool and New York Trade; the German invasion35.” It was the same story with the Irish Independent. In April 1909, it wrote about the threat that German trawlers posed to Ireland’s fisheries. The eye- catching title of the article was “A German Invasion; Irish fisheries in peril36”. Without a doubt, such titles could not have failed to influence some people’s opinions and did much to increase their ill-defined fear of Germany.

16 Interestingly, some felt the urge to personally write to Kaiser Wilhelm II. In 1907, somebody in England, very likely an Irishman or woman, sent him the following postcard: “To the German Emperor. Should you invade England in 1910, you will not harm the Catholic churches, will you? A happy Christmas37! But in Ireland, there was a unique phenomenon as some among the nationalists but also unionists were ready to welcome a German invasion. In 1905, a Protestant woman urged the Kaiser to deliver Ireland [sic] from the tyranny of the organised Roman Catholic rule, now existing in the west of Ireland. […] In the name of God come over and deliver us. […] Why should not a German be Lord Lieutenant of Ireland! Amen38.” This was the irony: on the one hand, there were unionist leaders who declared that they would prefer the Kaiser’s rule rather than nationalist Rome rule while on the other hand, advanced nationalists were thinking of an alliance with Germany to get rid of the British! In 1909, the Kilkenny People reported that Major John MacBride, an Irish republican who had fought with Boers against the British in South Africa, had said that in case the Germans invaded Britain he hoped that they would also send 100,000 rifles to Ireland for her liberation. In 1910, however, Thomas Andrews, a member of the Ulster Unionist Council, told the very pro-Conservative Morning Post that he would “rather be governed by Germany than by Patrick Ford and John Redmond [home rule party leader] and Co39”. The question was: who would get Germany’s favour?! The answer seemed to be both. Indeed, in April 1914 the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) smuggled German arms into the country during a daring gun-running operation and it was followed by a gun-running operation of the Irish Volunteers the following July. The irony here was that it was Erskine Childers, by now a committed Irish nationalist, who transported the German

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rifles on his yacht40! It could be said that his writing of The Riddle of the Sands had provided him with enough experience. Fiction was becoming fact.

17 It came as no surprise that all these pro-German declarations and gun-running activities began to seriously worry the authorities in Britain and Ireland. In April 1910, the Dublin Metropolitan Police (DMP) mounted a surveillance operation regarding a certain German professor called Krautwurst. Krautwurst had acquired a house in Sandymount at 17 Strand Road. He had committed no crime but the problem was that his house was “a substantial dwelling facing the sea”… If you were foreign and came from Central Europe, the location of your home or place of work could become problematic. In January 1914, the Irish High Command took the decision to restrict the movements of a German national called Bessler who owned the Salthill Hotel in Monkstown simply because it was near the sea. From now on, Bessler needed a special permit to enter “the prohibited area of the county of Dublin” to visit his family. It was the same with an Austro-Hungarian national called Spacek who was the manager of the Royal Marine Hotel in Kingstown (nowadays Dun Laoghaire)41. In December 1913, the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) reported to Vernon Kell, the head of MO5 (called MI5 in January 1916), the whereabouts of a real German spy, Captain Kurd von Weller, who would be arrested in August 191442. But then, like in Britain, the barber conspiracy began. In Spies of the Kaiser, William Le Queux had written that one spy was a barber. This turned out to be a source of inspiration for Colonel James Edmonds of the British Secret Service, who kept an eye on two German hairdressers in Southsea, one of them, it “was discovered by accident” was wearing “a wig over his own thick head of hair43”. Soon what would nowadays be termed a conspiracy theory blew over to Ireland.

18 In January 1914, the detectives of the DMP had noticed what were believed to be suspicious activities of two German hairdressers, Karl Schmutz and Ernest Heise. Schmutz had joined an Orange Order lodge in Dublin while Heise was in touch with Sinn Féin. In this case, it would seem that the police was rather justified in being intrigued. Indeed, why should two immigrants do so? The chief inspector of the DMP concluded pertinently: It is remarkable that Schmutz and Heise should be identified with two sections of Irishmen who would likely create extreme political strife; and from all the surroundings I respectfully suggest that it is reasonable to assume that the two men named are agents for and in the pay of the German Government44.

19 It might be relevant to point out here that when the war broke out, 22 German agents (real ones!) were immediately arrested and three of them, Karl Gustav Ernst, Frederick William Fowler and Otto Moritz Walter Kruger, were hairdressers45. So, was there a barber conspiracy after all? It is quite clear that barber shops and restaurants located near naval bases for instance could be ideal spots to pick up information and gossip. It should also be mentioned that the Prussians did use some German immigrants in France to prepare their invasion in 1870. Some of them were teachers, waiters and barbers. The British had concluded that the Prussians had used German army reservists in France. Besides, some German military reviews like the Militärwochenblatt, which the British read, had explained the need for saboteurs and spies46. However, this did obviously not mean that every single hairdresser and waiter was a spy unlike what was believed.

20 But, in this long saga of fiction meeting fact, there was a twist, and a big one as it turned out. When Erskine Childers wrote The Riddle of the Sands in 1903, he was right to

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warn his readers about a possible invasion, but he got the enemy wrong: it was not the Germans but the French! Indeed, two boxes of documents in the French military archives near Paris reveal that some French officials seriously toyed with the idea of attacking Britain through Ireland at a time when the British army was away in distant South Africa (incidentally, there are no documents about a German invasion in the German military archives in Freiburg im Breisgau). Between 1900 and 1904, several French intelligence agents were sent to Ireland to explore the possibility of a landing. Ireland was of course a historic ally of France. The agents sent back very precise reports to the Deuxième Bureau (military intelligence) in Paris about topography, quality of the roads, British coastal defences, strength and morale of British troops, estimations of strength and quality of various nationalist and unionist organisations and so on. The agents had reached the conclusion that the southern coast in County Cork would be the best place to land. They were in touch with Irish republicans who gave them a detailed invasion plan in September 1902. Of course, for the republicans an attack on Britain through Ireland would lead to the liberation of their country, so they hoped. On occasion very precise questions were put by the French. For instance, what would the Irish people do in the event of a joint Franco-Russian invasion? No names, be they French or Irish, were ever mentioned in the reports for the Deuxième Bureau. Security concerns were paramount and yet the German embassy in Paris got wind of rumours of a French invasion of Ireland and warned the Foreign Office in Berlin. The rumours, however, were wrongly dismissed.

21 But there was more. The British Special Branch had infiltrated Clan na Gael in the United States. In December 1900, one of its agents reported to London that John MacBride had arrived in New York by way of Paris. In a subsequent secret meeting, MacBride told John Devoy, the leader of Clan na Gael, and a few others that he had recently been “brought to see the leading Minister of the Government in Paris by a well known Deputy, and the question asked him by the Minister was, what would the Irish be prepared to do in say six months or when called upon in conjunction with [France] […]”. The identity of the two Frenchmen remains an enigma although hints would point to René Waldeck-Rousseau, the Prime Minister, and Lucien Millevoye, a French deputy who was the lover of MacBride’s wife, Maud Gonne, despite the fact that Waldeck- Rousseau was from the left and Millevoye from the far-right. The French, German and British sources all fit together like a jigsaw and there can be no doubt that some in Paris had indeed considered attacking Britain through Ireland. But it never materialised. In April 1904, France and Britain signed the Entente Cordiale, which also explained why Irish republicans turned towards Germany as a potential source of support. It is most relevant to notice that after the signing of the Entente Cordiale, French military intelligence immediately lost all interest in Ireland as the sudden lack of documents in the French military archives shows. It was the big hint that confirmed the hard evidence that an invasion had indeed been seriously envisaged47.

22 But with the big twist came a big irony. It was William Le Queux of all people who got the name of the plausible enemy right since in 1903, the very same year Childers published The Riddle of the Sands, he pointed the finger at France in his novel Secrets of the Foreign Office. If only his imagination had known how close to the truth he came! A final observation here. Professor Christopher Andrew, specialist in the history of espionage and author of a seminal study of MI5, has written that the leaders of the British Secret Services “had much better grounds for believing that there was a major German espionage offensive against Britain than most historians [including himself]

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have been willing to recognize48”. The French invasion episode definitely confirms Andrew’s view except that the British were looking across the North Sea and not the English Channel.

23 When the war eventually broke out in August 1914, spy fever reached unprecedented heights of delusions in Britain. The facts are well known and do not need to be detailed here49. The government at once passed drastic legislation to cope with spying. The Aliens Restriction Act allowed the authorities “to impose restrictions on aliens and make such provisions as appear necessary or expedient for carrying such restrictions into effect”. It was followed by the Defence of the Realm Act (DORA) which was almost the equivalent of martial law powers. Home Secretary Reginald McKenna did not manage to assuage the public’s obsession despite the fact that the German spy network had already been smashed with the arrest of 22 spies. The British press was not convinced either by the efficiency of governmental measures50. Ireland too was in the grip of war fever. Civil war between nationalists and unionists regarding home rule had been averted thanks to a last-minute compromise solution found by Herbert Asquith’s cabinet: home rule was put on the statute book and would be implemented after the war, which everybody believed would be short, and a solution would have to be found for Ulster. Nationalists and unionists went to war together, but republicans, Sinn Féin and the Irish Labour Party did not agree.

24 In August, the inspector-general of the RIC wrote: “All classes displayed a strong patriotic and anti-German feeling, and joined irrespective of creed and politics in giving a hearty send off to the Reservists when they left to join the Colours51.” Recruitment figures were outstanding. Between 4 August 1914 and February 1915, about 50,107 Irishmen volunteered to fight in the British army and left for the trenches of France. The press was largely in favour of the war. The Cork Examiner published strategic maps to keep its readers posted52. The Irish Times opined that a German invasion in the north of the country was unlikely, owing to the presence of the well- trained Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF). Therefore, the southern and western coasts would be better options for them, but 150,000 well-trained men could repulse them53. The Irish Independent thought it judicious to re-advertise The Riddle of the Sands to explain the crisis54. The Sunday Independent divulged that Erskine Childers was to serve with the Royal Navy in the North Sea and commented: “The author of The Riddle of the Sands, which, more than any other argument, was the cause of strengthening England’s naval power in the North Sea, will surely give us a great story when the great war is at an end55.” In this the Sunday Independent was seriously mistaken as Childers would devote his energy to Ireland’s struggle for independence.

25 As could have been easily predicted, spy fever took hold of the masses, far more than what had happened before the war. The Freeman’s Journal reported that in Ballina “two persons dressed in clerical garb were arrested […] and detained in a barrack” while outside a hostile mob had gathered. It turned out that the two men with strange accents were in fact Scottish priests56! The Kerryman reported that local fishermen had been shot at by soldiers as their boat had approached a British naval base near Berehaven. One of them had been hit in the leg. Sketching had become a most dangerous activity. The Galway Pilot and Vindicator wrote that a man had been seen sketching near Nimo’s Pier in Galway. He was arrested on the spot but it later transpired that he was from Dublin. The Galway Express rightly commented: “It is rather unpleasant to be a stranger in Galway at present, especially if your physiognomy

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presents a cosmopolitan appearance57.” The Irish Independent had a story about a young man who was seen cycling between Bray and Enniskerry. The police found it suspicious and arrested him. He was only an English tourist58. The Meath Chronicle warned against German balloons, Zeppelins, allegedly seen flying over Drogheda59.

26 In Ireland, the Aliens Restriction Order applied too. The German community in the country was very small. The census of 1911 recorded 963 nationals60, but some Germans and Austro-Hungarians were rounded up and interned although it remains difficult to give an exact figure. The Cork Examiner reported that nine men in Cork and seven in Limerick, including two women, were detained by the army. In Dublin, like in London, Liverpool, Manchester and elsewhere, angry crowds smashed windows of shops owned by Germans61. In Britain, about 8,000 aliens faced police investigations but there was no proof whatsoever of an undercover German military network62. The Irish Independent welcomed these tough measures on aliens. The newspaper was still convinced that a threat existed and considered it a chance to give jobs back to the Irish people and rid the country of foreigners: “One effect of this policy, which will, doubtless, be extended to Ireland, will be that Irish waiters, hairdressers, and other servants will have a better chance of securing employment at reasonable wages in their own country63.”

27 And so 1914 ended, on a very high note in favour of the war. But unlike in Britain, the invasion scare, spy fever and pro-war atmosphere in Ireland would not last. There were a variety of reasons for this. In a nutshell, the leader of the constitutional Nationalist Party, John Redmond, had many difficulties with the War Office in London which was slow in recognising and exploiting Irish patriotism and the bravery of Irish soldiers at the front. Recruitment campaigns were badly organised and the anti-war nationalists and republicans began to mount an effective anti-war campaign. Anti-allied, especially anti-French propaganda spread in the country. Already by the summer of 1915, the inspector-general of the RIC noticed that recruitment figures were seriously dropping. Many farmers refused to enlist and enjoyed the current economic prosperity engendered by the war, a kind of a proto Celtic Tiger. People simply got on with their lives and a kind of political apathy took hold of the masses. The Easter Rising of April 1916 and its consequences made sure that recruitment remained moribund, and that the people took no longer much active interest in the war64.

28 In conclusion, although there were invasion scares and spy fever in Ireland fuelled by a literature that gripped the people’s imagination, the situation was not as virulent as in Britain before the First World War. This was mainly due the different political climate as Irish nationalists were struggling for home rule. Not all of them perceived Germany as being the next enemy, the more advanced nationalists even thinking of a possible alliance with Berlin. The last point materialised during the war and its outcome was of course the Easter Rising in 1916. There was therefore a political counterweight to invasion literature that was certainly far stronger than in Britain. The following example illustrates this. In 1909, Captain Guy du Maurier wrote a play entitled An Englishman’s Home about the German invasion of Britain. The play was a major success in London and was a message in favour of compulsory military service65. But in Dublin, it seemed to have been a different story. The play was performed in the Theatre Royal and the Gaelic American, Clan na Gael’s newspaper, reported that when the German soldiers arrived on stage, the audience shouted: “You’re welcome, Boys!, Long live the Kaiser, Three Cheers for our Friends the Germans, Avenge the Concentration Camps of South Africa [sic].” The German embassy in Washington was visibly impressed by this as

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it sent the Gaelic American’s article to Berlin for further analysis. The German Foreign Office underlined the relevant passages66.

29 Also, the pro-home rule press, and not necessarily extremist newspapers, had correctly guessed that invasion novels served to increase Britain’s military budget. In fact, Admiral Jackie Fisher, the Royal Navy’s first sea lord, reflecting on the novels said: “[They] served the double purpose of supplying false information to subserve expansion of armaments, and of increasing the ill-feeling which had already been worked up between England and Germany67.” On 20 March 1909, the Anglo-Celt wrote a pertinent article entitled “A German Invasion” in which it denounced the British government’s opportunistic attitude and ridiculed the novels: Some men succumb to flattery from a political opponent, and evidently Mr. Haldane [Liberal secretary of state for war] is one of these. He fell in with [the Conservative and Unionist newspapers’] suggestions as to the new Territorial forces and they in return engaged capable novelists to write realistic stories of the capture of England by the Germans within their walls, telling how on a certain Sunday night they cut the telegraph and telephone wires, took possession of a Dreadnought through the action of a German chef and attendants aboard, murdered the most prominent financier in England, captured the Prime Minister, rendered useless the ammunition intended for British troops and placed the capital of England under foreign rule68.

30 There can be little doubt that a certain press in Britain and Germany prepared the public for war and therefore bore some responsibility in its eventual outbreak in August 1914. It must be noted here though that those who were in favour of more military expenditure in Britain were successful only to some extent. For instance, the idea of compulsory military service was not politically popular. Conscription would only be introduced in Britain during the war at the beginning 191669. Ireland would then be left out because of political considerations. A last point of interest. After the Easter Rising, the British sent the 59th division to Ireland to control the country. In September 1916, it participated in military manoeuvres. The order of the division was: “Any German troops south of the Liffey [river near Dublin] are to be vigorously attacked.” It was an order that had little relation with reality as the battle of Jutland on 31 May 1916 had clearly demonstrated that the German navy would not break the blockade imposed by the Royal Navy in the North Sea. But as the French military attaché in London wrote much to his frustration: “No matter how unlikely the landing of important enemy forces with all their equipment is, there are, however, people, and serious people, who do not dismiss out of hand such a hypothesis70.” Would it be exaggerated to suggest that The Riddle of the Sands and The Invasion of 1910 were still at work here?

NOTES

1. Marc Ferro, The Great War (London and New York: Routledge Classics, 2002), first published in 1969, see Chapter 4 “Imaginary War”, p. 29-30.

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2. Niall Ferguson, The Pity of War (London, Penguin Books, 1999), first published in 1998, see paragraphs “Prophets” & “Hacks and Spooks”, p. 12 & p. 14. 3. George Chesney, The Battle of Dorking (Kessinger Publishing, 2004), first published in 1871. 4. Pierre Milza, Les relations internationales de 1871 à 1914 (Paris, Armand Colin, 2003), p. 72-76, p. 93-97 & p. 117-118. 5. I. F. Clarke (ed.), The Great War with Germany, 1890-1914; Fictions and Fantasies of the War- to-Come (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1997), p. 1-2. 6. Tom Reiss, “Imagining the worst: How a literary genre anticipated the modern world”, in The New Yorker, 28/11/2005, p. 106-114. 7. Clarke (ed.), The Great War with Germany, 1890-1914, p. 2 & p. 5. 8. Philip Knightley, The Second Oldest Profession; Spies and Spying in the Twentieth Century (London: Pimlico, 2003) p. 17. 9. Ibid., p. 12-13. 10. Clarke (ed.), The Great War with Germany 1890-1914, p. 17. 11. Knightley, The Second Oldest Profession, p. 9-10, p. 16, p. 19 & p. 20. 12. Christopher Andrew, The Defence of the Realm; The authorised history of MI5 (London, Allen Lane, 2009), p. 14-15, p. 17-18 & p. 25-26. 13. Ibid., p. 52. 14. Jérôme aan de Wiel, The Irish Factor, 1899-1919; Ireland’s strategic and diplomatic importance for foreign powers (Dublin, Irish Academic Press, 2008), p. 48-49, p. 135-139 & p. 57-58. 15. Erskine Childers, The Riddle of the Sands (London, Penguin Books), first published in 1903. 16. The Irish Times, 07/11/1903. 17. Clarke (ed.), The Great War with Germany 1890-1914, p. 3 & p. 10. 18. Knightley, The Second Oldest Profession, p. 16. 19. Andrew, The Defence of the Realm, p. 32. 20. Jim Ring, Erskine Childers: Author of the Riddle of the Sands (London: John Murray, 1997), p. 119 & p. 127. 21. Ibid., p. 153. 22. Ibid., p. 131. 23. Joachim Fischer, Das Deutschlandbild der Iren 1890-1939 (Heidelberg, Winter, 2000), p. 49. 24. Research carried out by search engine in the Irish Newspaper Archive, www.irishnewsarchive.com, and the digital archive of the Irish Times, www.irishtimes.com/search/archive.html (consulted on 02/02/2010). The following newspapers were used: The Freeman’s Journal, The Irish Times, The Irish Independent, The Sunday Independent, The Anglo-Celt, The Connacht Tribune, The Leitrim Observer, The Munster Express, The Nenagh Guardian, The Southern Star, The Meath Chronicle & The Westmeath Examiner. It should be noted that the Cork Examiner and a main unionist newspaper from Ulster are not included. However, there is no much reason to believe that the findings would have been significantly different if they had been included. The time range used

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is from 1 January 1890 until 31 December 1914. Curiously, research in newspapers with the search engines does not always return the same results, but it remains largely relevant nonetheless. 25. The Irish Independent, 01/10/1906. 26. Ibid., 16/11/1908. 27. The Anglo-Celt, 20/03/1909. 28. Ibid. 29. aan de Wiel, The Irish Factor, 1899-1919, p. 51-52. 30. The Irish Times, 25/03/1909. 31. The Meath Chronicle, 24/04/1909. 32. The Freeman’s Journal, 16/04/1909. 33. The Irish Independent, 21/11/1912. 34. The Connacht Tribune, 29/03/1913. 35. The Irish Times, 28/05/1907. 36. The Irish Independent, 30/04/1909. 37. aan de Wiel, The Irish Factor, 1899-1919, p. 25. 38. Ibid., p. 52. 39. Ibid., p. 24 & p. 52. 40. Ibid., p. 69-72, p. 33-34 & p. 36-37. 41. Ibid., p. 52 & p. 67-68. 42. Andrew, The Defence of the Realm, p. 875 (endnote 112). 43. Knightley, The Second Oldest Profession, p. 19-20. 44. aan de Wiel, The Irish Factor, 1899-1919, p. 68-69. 45. Andrew, The Defence of the Realm, p. 38 & p. 873-875 (endnote 112). 46. Ibid., p. 11. 47. Jérôme aan de Wiel, “The French Invasion that never was: the Deuxième Bureau and the Irish Republicans, 1900-4”, in Nathalie Genet-Rouffiac & David Murphy (eds.), Franco-Irish Military Connections, 1590-1945 (Dublin, Four Courts Press, 2009), p. 238-252 & aan de Wiel, The Irish Factor, 1899-1919, p. 3-25 & p. 124-129. 48. Andrew, The Defence of the Realm, p. 10-11. 49. Ibid., p. 53. 50. Ibid., p. 53-54. 51. Jérôme aan de Wiel, The Catholic Church in Ireland, 1914-1918: War and Politics (Dublin, Irish Academic Press, 2003), p. 1-7. 52. aan de Wiel, The Irish Factor, 1899-1919, p. 160-161. 53. The Irish Times, 28/08/1914. 54. The Irish Independent, 21/08/1914. 55. The Sunday Independent, 20/09/1914. 56. aan de Wiel, The Catholic Church in Ireland, 1914-1918, p. 4. 57. aan de Wiel, The Irish Factor, 1899-1919, p. 161. 58. The Irish Independent, 07/08/1914.

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59. The Meath Chronicle, 17/10/1914. 60. Fischer, Das Deutschland Bild der Iren 1890-1939, p. 43 & p. 621. 61. aan de Wiel, The Irish Factor, 1899-1919, p. 161-162. 62. Ferguson, The Pity of War, p. 14. 63. The Irish Independent, 19/10/1914. 64. aan de Wiel, The Irish Factor, 1899-1919, p. 170-172, p. 180-183, p. 196-199, p. 240-241, p. 294-295 & p. 302-306. 65. Clarke (ed.), The Great War with Germany, 1890-1914, p. 17-18. 66. aan de Wiel, The Irish Factor, 1899-1919, p. 51. 67. Knightley, The Second Oldest Profession, p. 28. 68. The Anglo-Celt, 20/03/1909. 69. Ferguson, The Pity of War, p. 15-16, p. 102-104 & p. 198. 70. aan de Wiel, The Irish Factor, 1899-1919, p. 220-221.

ABSTRACTS

The impact of so-called invasion novels on Great Britain before the outbreak of the First World War in 1914 is well-known. However, it is far less known concerning Ireland. This article shows its effects, notably a confusion between fiction and fact which had serious political consequences. There was also a definite difference in the situation in both countries before the war. Yet, this kind of literature was not totally without foundation.

L’impact que la littérature dite d’invasion (invasion novel) a eu en Grande-Bretagne avant le déclenchement de la Première Guerre mondiale en 1914 est bien connu. Par contre, il est nettement moins connu en Irlande. Cet article montre ses effets, notamment une confusion entre la fiction et la réalité qui a eu de sérieuses conséquences politiques, et aussi une différence certaine entre la situation en Irlande et en Grande-Bretagne avant la guerre. Cependant, cette littérature n’était pas entièrement sans fondement.

INDEX

Keywords: Childers Erskine, Dublin Metropolitan Police, pulp literature, diplomacy - secret services, press, Royal Irish Constabulary, First World War, spies Mots-clés: Childers Erskine , Dublin Metropolitan Police, espionnage, littérature populaire, presse, diplomatie - service secrets, Première Guerre mondiale, Royal Irish Constabulary

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AUTHOR

JÉRÔME AAN DE WIEL Université de Reims/University College, Cork

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Magdalen Laundries : enjeu des droits de l’homme et responsabilité publique

Nathalie Sebbane

1 En juin 2010, une organisation irlandaise du nom de Justice for Magdalens (JFM) a pris contact avec la Commission irlandaise des Droits de l’Homme (Irish Human Rights Commission ou IHRC) pour demander qu’une enquête soit diligentée en application de l’article 9.1.b du Human Rights Commission Act voté en 2000. Cette requête devait permettre d’examiner la manière dont les jeunes filles et les femmes qui avaient séjourné dans les établissements appelés Magdalen Laundries avaient été traitées et aboutir à établir la responsabilité de l’État irlandais afin de réclamer et obtenir des excuses publiques et des compensations financières. Compte tenu du caractère sérieux et grave des allégations portées par Justice for Magdalens et du fait que bon nombre d’anciennes pensionnaires de ces institutions étaient désormais très âgées, la Commission des droits de l’homme a décidé de donner priorité à l’examen de la requête.

2 Ladite commission a étudié de près les documents fournis par Justice for Magdalens et a rendu un premier bilan interne en septembre 2010. Sur la base de ce bilan2, la Commission a décidé de ne pas mener l’enquête demandée par Justice for Magdalens mais d’en appeler directement à l’État irlandais afin que ce dernier examine les questions relatives aux droits de l’homme dans le cas des anciennes résidentes des institutions. La commission a ainsi décidé de rendre son bilan public et d’enjoindre immédiatement l’État à mettre en place un mécanisme statutaire afin de prendre en compte les questions soulevées par Justice for Magdalens.

3 Le bilan a été rendu public en novembre 2010 et, pour la première fois, la question de la responsabilité de l’État dans les mauvais traitements subis par les pensionnaires de ces Magdalen Asylums y est soulevée. Le présent article se propose de décrire et d’analyser cette évolution, d’autant plus significative que, jusque-là, seule l’Église catholique irlandaise avait été jugée responsable3.

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4 En effet, depuis les années 1990, la réputation de l’Église catholique irlandaise est entachée de scandales divers et variés4, impliquant non seulement des prêtres mais également des religieux et religieuses travaillant au sein des institutions. Dans un premier temps, et ce jusqu’à la publication des rapports Ryan et Murphy5, c’est l’Église catholique qui a dû porter l’entière et seule responsabilité des dysfonctionnements et mauvais traitements subis au sein des institutions en général, exonérant ainsi le monde politique et l’État. Or, comme l’ont démontré les Commissions Ryan et Murphy, l’État, par le biais du Ministère de l’Éducation, a autorisé que se mette en place un régime quasi carcéral au sein des institutions de prise en charge des groupes dits vulnérables puisqu’aucune mesure de supervision ou inspection efficace n’a été prise. Les congrégations religieuses et les écoles ont été protégées et couvertes pendant des décennies. La Commission a été contrainte d’admettre que les enfants avaient été victimes de traitements inhumains et cruels au sein des institutions et que cela ne relevait plus exclusivement de la responsabilité de l’Église Catholique.

5 C’est précisément cette question fondamentale qui est soulevée par la requête de Justice for Magdalens et qui a été examinée par l’IHRC.

6 L’angle d’approche est également fort intéressant dans la mesure où, pour la première fois, en déplaçant la responsabilité des institutions religieuses vers la sphère publique et politique, il est enfin possible d’envisager que la question du respect ou non-respect des droits de l’homme puisse être abordée sur le plan légal et par une instance internationale.

7 Dans un premier temps, nous reviendrons brièvement sur les origines et la nature des institutions dont il est question, à savoir les Magdalen Laundries ou Magdalen Asylums. Nous montrerons comment ces institutions se sont inscrites dans une perspective historique liée à la progression de l’Irlande vers son indépendance. Nous montrerons également comment l’Église catholique s’est progressivement substituée à l’État dans la prise en charge des groupes de la société perçus comme vulnérables, permettant le développement d’un vaste réseau d’institutions gérés par les congrégations religieuses.

8 La seconde partie de cet article sera consacrée à l’analyse de la requête de Justice for the Magdalens et des relevés de conclusions de la Commission des Droits de l’Homme.

9 En conclusion, nous proposerons un bilan qui rendra compte des forces et les faiblesses des conclusions de l’IHRC et examinerons les perspectives futures.

Les Magdalen Laundries : perspective historique et évolution

10 Au début des années 1990, un certain nombre de scandales portèrent un coup sévère à l’institution de l’Église catholique en Irlande. De révélations sur des cas de prêtres pédophiles6, aux abus subis par des enfants pendant des décennies au sein d’institutions, ces événements marquèrent sans aucun doute le début de la « diminution spectaculaire de la pratique religieuse, le déclin marqué des vocations et la perte quasi totale d’autorité de l’institution de l’Église7 ». À la suite de ces affaires, les médias s’emparèrent de la question et plusieurs documentaires furent réalisés sur les institutions de prise en charge des femmes et des enfants8. En 1993, lorsque Les Sœurs de Notre-Dame de la Charité du Refuge, contraintes pour des raisons économiques, de vendre à un promoteur immobilier le terrain sur lequel avait été construite l’une des

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plus grandes institutions du pays, le Magdalen Asylum de High Park, à Drumcondra 9, demandèrent au Ministère de l’Environnement un certificat d’exhumation car 177 pensionnaires y étaient enterrées, on découvrit les corps de 80 pensionnaires dont le décès n’avait pas été signalé et 22 corps de pensionnaires anonymes, mortes entre 1960 et 1970.

11 En 2002, la sortie du film de l’acteur et réalisateur écossais, Peter Mullan, The Magdalen Sisters, conféra une dimension internationale à cette page douloureuse de l’histoire irlandaise. Le film, très chaleureusement accueilli par le public irlandais, européen et américain, provoqua un tollé au sein de l’Église catholique, en Irlande et dans le monde. À la suite de ce film, de nombreux ouvrages autobiographiques relatant les expériences de femmes ayant séjourné dans des institutions similaires furent publiés10.

12 Si les prémices du « madeleinisme » en Irlande étaient de nature philanthropique, petit à petit, faute de financement, et l’enthousiasme des bienfaiteurs ayant diminué, la plupart des institutions ont été confiées à des ordres religieux, leur conférant une nouvelle dimension. La première institution irlandaise ouvrit ses portes à Dublin en 1767 sous l’égide d’une philanthrope protestante du nom d’Arabella Denny. Elle avait travaillé à l’Hôpital des Enfants Trouvés de Dublin et, inspirée par le modèle du Magdalen Hospital créé à Londres en 175811, avait à son tour décidé d’ouvrir un refuge pour accueillir les femmes qui avaient dû abandonner leurs enfants, souvent illégitimes. De nombreux refuges protestants et catholiques furent établis à la même époque mais tous étaient gérés par des laïcs. Ils s’appelaient Magdalen Refuges ou Magdalen Hospitals12.

13 Au sein de ces institutions, la femme était envisagée en tant que corps-objet sur lequel s’exerçait une forte projection symbolique. Son corps qui n’était plus intact était un objet de scandale en ce qu’il représentait le lieu et la mémoire d’une transgression, même lorsque la femme n’était pas considérée comme responsable de son déshonneur. Par conséquent, le devoir premier des institutions qui prenaient en charge les femmes déchues mais également les femmes dites « en danger » était de faire disparaître le corps-objet qui constituait la mémoire du scandale. En ce sens, les institutions et l’idéologie qui prévalaient dans l’Europe catholique influencèrent indéniablement le développement du système « madeleiniste », tel qu’il se développa en Irlande. Il ne faut cependant pas perdre de vue que les philanthropes irlandais s’étaient inspirés de leurs homologues anglais qui, eux-mêmes s’étaient inspirés d’institutions qui existaient dans l’Europe catholique dès le treizième siècle.

14 Dès 1830, un vaste réseau conventuel se développa en Irlande, lié à l’implantation de congrégations religieuses féminines13. Lorsque les institutions de prise en charge des femmes vulnérables furent confiées à ces congrégations, la perception et représentation des pensionnaires changea. Soucieux de lutter contre le prosélytisme des anglicans, les catholiques commencèrent à envisager la vulnérabilité comme un comportement moral déviant et à instaurer un régime plus répressif et punitif. Ce mouvement ne fit que croître et se renforcer pour atteindre son paroxysme avec l’avènement de l’État Libre.

15 À la suite des mouvements pour l’indépendance de l’Irlande et au moment de la création de l’État Libre, le rôle et le statut de l’Église catholique dans le domaine de la prise en charge des groupes perçus comme vulnérables dans la société devint de plus en plus important. Ainsi, les Magdalen Asylums accueillirent de moins en moins de prostituées et de plus en plus de mères célibataires ou de jeunes filles perçues comme

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en danger moral. En outre, la volonté du jeune État de se démarquer de l’ex-occupant britannique renforçait cet attachement aux enseignements de l’Église et les discours politiques des trois premières décennies du vingtième siècle étaient fondamentalement indissociables des enseignements et valeurs du catholicisme. Les femmes furent au cœur de la construction identitaire de l’État Libre14, une identité nouvelle, religieuse et morale qui devait s’affranchir de l’abâtardissement dont elle avait été victimes15. Dès les années 1920, une série de lois discriminatoires à l’égard des femmes furent votées, influencées par les enseignements sociaux de l’Église, qui renvoyèrent les femmes à leur statut de mères et d’épouses16. Ces lois devaient s’inscrire dans la volonté de l’Irlande de se désolidariser de la Grande-Bretagne et de mettre en exergue ses valeurs morales.

16 C’est précisément dans ce contexte que les Magdalen Asylums accueillirent de plus en plus de pensionnaires. Ils permettaient de cacher des femmes qui, par leur comportement perçu comme immoral, troublaient l’ordre social. L’État se déchargeait ainsi à la fois de la responsabilité financière17, morale et sociale des individus dont il jugeait qu’ils devaient être cachés qu’il jugeait qu’il convenait de cacher. C’est ce que James Smith a appelé « l’architecture irlandaise d’endiguement ». Voici comment il définit ce concept : Dans sa forme concrète, cette architecture englobait un réseau d’institutions interdépendantes parmi lesquelles les maisons maternelles, les agences d’adoption, les Magdalen Asylums, les Industrial Schools et autres maisons de redressement. Oeuvrant conjointement, ces sites d’incarcération cachaient au regard public les éléments les plus indésirables relevant des trois phénomènes sociaux suivants : l’adoption, l’infanticide et la prise en charge des enfants en établissements spécialisés. Dans sa forme plus abstraite, cette architecture comprenait aussi, à la fois la législation qui définissait ces trois problèmes, et de nombreux discours, officiels et publics, qui refusaient d’admettre l’existence et la fonction des institutions chargées de régler ces questions18.

17 Il est très difficile de savoir précisément combien de femmes ont séjourné dans ces refuges puisqu’aucun registre n’est disponible ou accessible. Les congrégations religieuses refusent encore, à ce jour, de les rendre publics. En outre, comme l’a révélé la Commission Ryan19 dans son rapport accablant, les Magdalen Asylums ont toujours réussi à échapper à toute forme de contrôle et d’inspection. L’une des raisons qui expliquent cette situation inédite est qu’officiellement, les femmes y entraient volontairement20. Il ne s’agissait donc pas de lieux d’incarcération mais de refuges pour des âmes en perdition.

18 Depuis les années 1990, néanmoins, d’anciennes pensionnaires et leurs enfants se sont organisés afin que leur histoire soit désormais inscrite dans l’histoire nationale et que soit enfin levé le sceau du secret qui entoure cette douloureuse période.

Analyse de la requête de Justice for Magdalens et du rapport de l’Irish Human Rights Commission

19 Avant de présenter les conclusions de la Commission, il convient de revenir sur la requête déposée par Justice for Magdalens et sur la nature même de cette organisation.

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La requête de Justice for Magdalens

Origines de l’organisation

20 Justice for Magdalens se présente ainsi : « Justice for Magdalenes is comprised of survivors, the family members of survivors, long-time activists in human rights and adoption reform, academics, researchers, archivists and representatives from the political community21. »

21 Le groupe a été créé en 2004 et est l’émanation d’une organisation antérieure, le Magdalen Memorial Committee, formé en 1993, qui s’était engagé dans une campagne afin d’obtenir qu’un monument honore les 133 femmes enterrées sur le terrain du Magdalen Asylum de High Park, à Drumcondra, puis exhumées, incinérées et inhumées au cimetière de Glasnevin22. Les révélations de ces procédures, sans doute peu légales mais qui n’ont fait l’objet d’aucune enquête approfondie, ni par la police ni par les politiques, ont ému l’opinion publique, et des femmes, certaines étant les enfants adoptées d’anciennes résidentes des institutions, ont continué leur engagement et fondé Justice for Magdalens.

22 Le groupe a pour objectifs principaux d’obtenir des excuses officielles de la part de l’État irlandais et de l’Église catholique et d’obtenir, également, que soit mis en place un système de réparation spécifique aux survivantes des Magdalen Laundries. À ce jour, aucune excuse publique ni aucun mécanisme juridique n’existe pour défendre les intérêts des anciennes pensionnaires.

La campagne de Justice for Magdalens

23 En septembre 2009, Justice for Magdalens s’est adressée au ministre de l’Éducation de l’époque en lui demandant des excuses et un projet de réparation pour les anciennes pensionnaires de Magdalen Laundries. Le groupe s’est vu opposer une fin de non-recevoir pour les mêmes raisons que celles invoquées pour le Redress Act23.

24 Justice for Magdalens a ensuite rencontré le Cardinal Sean Brady en 2010, afin d’impliquer les autorités religieuses dans leur campagne. Ce dernier les a encouragés à continuer leurs efforts pour établir un dialogue et un processus de justice et réconciliation pour toutes les parties concernées et leur a même recommandé de rencontrer la Directrice Générale de CORI, The Conference of Religious of Ireland24. La directrice a refusé de rencontrer Justice for Magdalens tout en conseillant à l’organisation de prendre directement contact avec les congrégations religieuses impliquées. Toutes les tentatives ont été infructueuses et inabouties25.

25 Poursuivant sans relâche ses efforts, le groupe a adressé sa requête à la Commission des Droits de l’Homme en juin 201026, afin que celle-ci examine un certain nombre de questions qui pourraient représenter des cas de non-respect des droits de l’homme. La requête soulevait de nombreux points mais nous allons, ici, nous attacher à trois d’entre eux qui nous ont semblé fondamentaux.

Les questions soulevées par Justice for Magdalens

26 Le premier point soulevait la question du degré d’implication et de responsabilité de l’État irlandais dans les circonstances qui avaient permis que des jeunes filles et des femmes soient admises dans ces institutions.

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27 Dans le deuxième point, Justice for Magdalens demandait à la Commission de se prononcer sur la notion de travail forcé et de servitude, compte tenu que les pensionnaires fournissaient un travail pour lequel elles n’étaient pas rétribuées.

28 Le troisième et dernier point invitait la Commission à se prononcer sur la possibilité pour les enfants illégitimes abandonnés sous la contrainte par les résidentes des institutions, puis adoptés, de retrouver la trace de leur mère comme le prévoit la législation européenne en vigueur.

29 Ces questions, fondamentales, permettent de situer le débat sur une nouvelle échelle. En effet, jusque-là, seule la question de la responsabilité de l’Église et des congrégations religieuses avait été soulevée. Or, en invoquant la question d’un potentiel non-respect des droits de l’homme, Justice for Magdalens fait glisser le débat vers une responsabilité de l’État et entre dans une bataille juridique.

L’examen de l’IHRC et ses conclusions

30 Le rapport de la Commission comprend douze relevés de conclusions et pas moins de 108 paragraphes. Il n’est bien entendu pas question de tous les examiner mais de s’arrêter sur ceux qui répondent aux questions fondamentales que nous venons de souligner.

31 1- Concernant le degré d’implication et la responsabilité de l’État dans le processus d’admission des pensionnaires au sein des institutions, la commission relève que Justice for Magdalens a fourni des preuves incontestables (sous la forme d’archives des tribunaux) que dans trois cas, au moins, l’État irlandais, par le biais de son système judiciaire, plus précisément ses tribunaux, avait autorisé que des femmes condamnées pour des meurtres, des homicides involontaires ou des infanticides voient leur peine commuées à des peines avec sursis à condition qu’elles résident dans des Magdalen Laundries. Il pouvait s’agir de femmes condamnées à une peine précise, de femmes placées en liberté surveillée ou en détention préventive. Dès 1936, le Rapport Cussen27 avait demandé que cette pratique soit inscrite dans la législation et que les institutions soient rétribuées pour le service rendu. Cela prouve bien que l’État « trouvait son compte » dans cette pratique et y participait.

32 En outre, des preuves indiquent que l’État subventionnait quelques blanchisseries qui accueillaient des femmes en liberté surveillée ou en préventive. Le Rapport Kennedy28, publié en 1970, qui fut l’un des premiers sur les conditions de vie au sein des maisons de redressement et des Industrial Schools offre un éclairage intéressant :

A number of [girls] considered by parents, relatives, social workers, Welfare Officers, Clergy or Gardaí to be in moral danger or uncontrollable are also accepted in these convents for a period on a voluntary basis. From enquiries made, the Committee is satisfied that there are at least 70 girls between the ages of 13 and 19 years confined in this way who should properly be dealt with under the Reformatory Schools’ system29.

33 Cet extrait illustre bien le fait que même si de nombreux agents privés étaient responsables de l’admission des filles au sein des Magdalen Laundries, l’État était

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également impliqué dans la mesure où la police et les travailleurs sociaux pouvaient les faire admettre aussi.

34 De surcroît, la terminologie utilisée pour qualifier les jeunes filles indique le souci des autorités de souligner le caractère moral du choix. Il s’agissait de filles dites incontrôlables ou en danger moral, ce qui renvoie à la double fonction de ces institutions, à savoir préventive et punitive. Dans un souci de protéger ces jeunes filles d’elles-mêmes, on les enfermait afin de s’assurer qu’elles ne contamineraient pas la société.

35 Ainsi, la Commission des Droits de l’Homme constate, dans sa première conclusion que l’État ne peut nier avoir collaboré et participé à l’admission d’une certaine catégorie de jeunes filles et de femmes dans les Magdalen Laundries.

36 2- La seconde question concerne la manière dont les pensionnaires, ou résidentes, ou encore pénitentes, étaient traitées au sein des institutions. Pour Justice for Magdalens, elles ont subi des mauvais traitements, ce qui justifie une enquête plus approfondie. Dans le chapitre 18 du Rapport Ryan30, la Commission cite des témoignages relatifs aux mauvais traitements subis par de très jeunes filles au sein de « residential laundries ». Pour autant, la définition de ces institutions étant peu claire et précise, la Commission des Droits de l’Homme considère qu’elle ne peut se prononcer sur le fait qu’il s’agissait bien de Magdalen Laundries et non de blanchisseries d’État, même si, à la lecture des témoignages, il est clairement et souvent fait mention de sœurs et de religieuses.

37 La commission note, par ailleurs, que les preuves relatives à ces circonstances dépendent exclusivement des témoignages d’anciennes résidentes, relatés dans le rapport, et dans un documentaire de la BBC. Ce qui nous renvoie à la question des sources et des traces sachant que toutes les archives relatives aux Magdalen Laundries sont entre les mains des congrégations religieuses, ou du moins c’est ce que l’on suppose, et que toute tentative d’y avoir accès est vaine.

38 3- Le troisième point concerne la question du travail au sein des Magdalen Laundries. La Commission note que les résidentes travaillaient pendant des heures dans des conditions difficiles dans les blanchisseries des institutions et que les couvents qui géraient les blanchisseries bénéficiaient financièrement de cet arrangement. En signant la Convention sur le Travail Forcé en 1930, le gouvernement irlandais s’est engagé à prohiber toute forme de travail forcé ou obligatoire. Cette convention comporte des exceptions, notamment concernant les individus sous le coup d’une condamnation, mais le travail fourni doit l’être sous la supervision des autorités compétentes. Or, si des pensionnaires de Magdalen Laundries condamnées à des peines de prison avec sursis pouvaient, en vertu de cette législation, être contraintes de travailler dans les blanchisserie sans être rémunérées, l’obligation de supervision et de contrôle exigé par la loi n’a pas été respectée par les autorités puisque jamais aucun contrôle n’a été effectué au sein de ces établissements par des agents de l’État. Pour autant, en l’absence de preuves ou de documents, la Commission ne peut qu’émettre des suppositions et avancer que l’État irlandais pourrait ne pas avoir respecté la convention de 1930.

39 4- La question de l’adoption est au centre des préoccupations de Justice for Magdalens dans la mesure où, comme nous l’avons souligné, l’organisation est en partie composée d’enfants adoptés dont les mères biologiques sont d’anciennes pensionnaires des Magdalen Laundries. La première disposition législative relative à l’adoption en Irlande date de 1952. Mais bien avant que cette loi ne fût votée, un grand nombre d’enfants,

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très souvent des enfants dits illégitimes, avaient été adoptés de manière tout à fait informelle, notamment par des familles américaines et australiennes. Le certificat de naissance portait le nom des parents adoptifs, effaçant toute trace des origines biologiques. Avant le vote de la première loi sociale pour les mères célibataires en 1973, l’État préférait subventionner le placement des mères et des enfants illégitimes dans des Mother and Baby Homes ou le placement des enfants dans des institutions. Ces Mother and Baby Homes étaient, également, des agences d’adoption, et la Commission se demande, à juste titre, si le consentement de la mère, tel qu’il était requis par la loi de 1952, était demandé et obtenu. Les possibilités d’une mère célibataire de s’occuper et d’élever son enfant à cette époque – sans compter les implications morales – étaient si limitées que la mère n’avait souvent guère le choix que de consentir à l’adoption. Il faut également savoir que l’État finançait les Mother and Baby Homes avec un système d’allocation per capita31. Lorsque les enfants avaient été adoptés, les mères étaient souvent transférées dans des Magdalen Laundries. Dans ces conditions, il est très difficile aujourd’hui pour les enfants adoptés de retrouver la trace de leur mère biologique. Or, cela contrevient aux dispositions de la Convention Européenne des Droits de l’Homme, ratifiée par l’Irlande, en vertu de laquelle, si la mère biologique est présumée décédée, son identité peut être révélée à l’enfant (alors que si elle est en vie son droit à la vie privée est supérieur au droit de l’enfant adopté). La Commission considère dès lors que compte tenu que de nombreuses femmes sont mortes au sein de Magdalen Laundries, les enfants devraient pouvoir connaître leur identité. Pour autant, les congrégations religieuses n’ont pas jugé bon de produire ces documents et les traces de ces femmes ont été, en quelque sorte, effacées. Aucune trace d’acte de naissance ou de certificat de décès n’est disponible. Dans le paragraphe 93 de son rapport, la Commission souligne que ces documents devraient pouvoir être accessibles et que même si tel n’a pas été le cas jusque là, les adoptés pourraient en référer à la Cour Européenne des Droits de l’Homme.

40 D’autres questions sont soulevées par Justice for Magdalens, et examinées par la Commission dans son rapport, mais il serait trop long de toutes les présenter ici et elles découlent des questions fondamentales que nous avons choisi d’aborder.

41 Quoi qu’il en soit, après examen, la Commission a conclu que des questions restent sans réponse et que des infractions ont pu être commises par l’État irlandais. Elle recommande, par conséquent, que ce dernier se penche sur ces questions et prévoit un mécanisme statutaire à appliquer s’il apparaissait que des dysfonctionnements existent.

42 Elle enjoint donc l’État irlandais à se pencher sur la question de sa responsabilité dans les procédures d’admission des pensionnaires des Magdalen Laundries, et d’enquêter sur les conditions de vie de ces femmes au sein des institutions. Si la responsabilité de l’État était avérée, ce dernier devrait alors prendre en compte ces éléments et, en collaboration avec les anciennes résidentes et les groupes de soutien, mettre en place un processus de réparation.

Quel bilan pouvons-nous faire de ces conclusions ?

43 Justice for Magdalens s’est déclarée satisfaite des recommandations faites par l’IHRC et a poursuivi sa campagne de manière très assidue et suivie. Dr. Katherine O’Donnell, la

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Directrice du Women’s Studies Centre de UCD, et membre du Comité consultatif de Justice for Magdalens, a déclaré :

In the midst of an economic crisis that seems to challenge the sovereignty of our state, Irish citizens are daily asking – what kind of social values do we want, what kind of society do we want our children to inherit? In the spirit of these concerns, JFM asks this current government to show the leadership requested by the IHRC; and to immediately apologise and begin the process of acknowledging and ultimately understanding our very recent dark history32.

44 Le gouvernement, par le biais de son ministre de la Justice, a déclaré être disposé à prendre ces recommandations en compte, et a reconnu que le fait que les Magdalen Laundries étaient des institutions privées ne dispensait pas l’État de régler, une fois pour toutes, la question II a précisé qu’une décision serait prise avant Pâques 201133.

45 Le 3 mai 2011, Justice for Magdalens a déposé une requête devant le Comité des Nations Unies contre la Torture afin que pour la première fois, l’Irlande ait à répondre de traitements inhumains sur les pensionnaires de Magdalen Laundries34.

46 Le 3 juin 2011, le Comité contre la torture des Nations Unies (UNCAT)35 a remis ses conclusions36. Elles sont assez accablantes. Le Comité regrette en premier lieu les réductions budgétaires liées au financement de l’IHRC ainsi que sa récente affiliation au ministère de la Justice. Le Comité des Nations Unies recommande ainsi à l’État irlandais de s’assurer que « les coupes budgétaires affectant actuellement les organismes des Droits de l’Homme, et particulièrement l’IHRC, ne paralysent pas leurs activités ni ne rendent leur mandat inefficace37 ».

47 Concernant spécifiquement les Magdalen Laundries, le Comité est clair et se déclare très préoccupé que l’État n’ait pas protégé les jeunes filles et femmes enfermées contre leur gré dans des Magdalen Laundries entre 1922 et 1996. Le Comité affirme également que l’État n’a pas garanti la mise en place de structures d’inspection, alors qu’il est avéré que les pensionnaires y ont subi de mauvais traitements physiques et émotionnels qui contreviennent à la Convention des Droits de l’Homme. Par conséquent, le Comité recommande que l’État partie diligente des enquêtes rapides, indépendantes et complètes sur les accusations de torture et autres traitements ou punition cruels, inhumains ou dégradants qui auraient été commis dans les Magdalen Laundries et, le cas échéant, qu’il poursuive et en punisse les auteurs. Il recommande également que les victimes obtiennent réparation et compensations financières pour les préjudices subis38. Dans le paragraphe 33 du relevé de conclusions, le Comité des Nations Unies précise que l’État irlandais dispose d’un délai d’un an pour mettre à la disposition du Comité des preuves qu’il a pris des mesures pour mettre en œuvre les recommandations formulées dans les paragraphes 8 et 21.

Comment le gouvernement a-t-il réagi à ces recommandations ?

48 Le 14 juin, il a publié une déclaration dans laquelle il s’engage à mettre en place un comité interdépartemental qui sera chargé de faire le lien entre l’État et les autorités

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religieuses, notamment CORI, afin de clarifier « la nature des interactions entre l’État et les Magdalen Laundries39 ». En parallèle, le ministère de la Justice s’engage à rencontrer les congrégations religieuses pour leur demander, et ceci est tout à fait inédit et très important, de « mettre à la disposition des anciennes pensionnaires des Magdalen Laundries et des chercheurs tous les registres et archives dont elles disposent 40 ». En outre, le gouvernement demande que soit engagée une réflexion avec les congrégations religieuses et les groupes de survivantes sur la mise en place d’un processus de réparation et réconciliation41.

49 Le 9 septembre 2011, Justice for Magdalens a rencontré pour la première fois le comité interdépartemental mis en place par le gouvernement. L’association qualifie la rencontre de fructueuse.

50 Le 14 octobre 2001, JFM a soumis au ministre de la Justice un projet visant à établir un processus de réparation et compensation pour les victimes42.

51 Le 26 octobre 2011, le comité interdépartemental a publié un rapport intérimaire dans lequel il précise que son rôle consiste exclusivement à établir les faits et qu’il ne saurait, en aucun cas, faire ou recommander que des excuses soient faites. De même, il ne se considère pas compétent pour statuer sur des cas particuliers ou proposer des mesures compensatoires43. Ce comité poursuit actuellement son travail dont le bilan devrait être rendu public en mai 2012.

52 Même s’il apparaît que la Commission des Droits de l’Homme a été un peu « frileuse » dans son rapport et qu’elle manquait d’informations précises lui permettant de se prononcer sur les violations potentielles des droits de l’homme, elle a refusé de s’engager à approfondir son enquête. Elle a, en outre, délibérément occulté une dimension essentielle, qui est celle de l’accès aux registres des institutions. Elle soulève la question deux fois sans pour autant reprendre ce point dans les re commandations. Or, il semblait évident qu’avant de lancer quelque processus de réparation que ce fût, il était indispensable d’enjoindre, voire de contraindre les congrégations religieuses à mettre à la disposition des autorités et du public ces documents qui, seuls, pouvaient témoigner de l’existence et des traumatismes subis par les anciennes pensionnaires. L’efficacité et l’indépendance de la Commission Irlandaise des Droits de l’Homme ont fait l’objet d’un certain nombre de controverses, notamment liées à sa composition et à ses liens étroits avec le ministère de la Justice. En outre, la Commission ne dispose pas de fonds illimités, ce qui retarde les enquêtes qu’elle engage. On peut néanmoins affirmer que ses conclusions, dans le cas des Magdalen Laundries, ont encouragé Justice for Magdalens à faire pression sur l’État et à s’adresser aux Nations Unies. Dans la mesure où la question du non-respect des droits de l’homme a été abordée et envisagée, il est devenu possible de remettre en question une lecture unilatérale de cet enjeu, renvoyant essentiellement la responsabilité à l’Église catholique et de contraindre l’État irlandais et le gouvernement à prendre leurs responsabilités.

53 Pour autant, s’il est désormais avéré que la perpétuation d’un tel système a été rendue possible par la collusion entre l’Église et l’État, on ne saurait négliger la question de la responsabilité de la société dans son ensemble. Les familles des jeunes filles et jeunes femmes qui ont été enfermées dans ces institutions ont, à n’en pas douter, accepté et collaboré avec un système qui leur permettait de se décharger de leurs responsabilités. Elles ont contribué à dissimuler l’existence d’individus qui étaient perçus comme troublant l’ordre moral qui prévalait en Irlande. Cet aspect de la question doit faire

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l’objet d’une étude précise afin que l’enjeu des Magdalen Asylums soit véritablement analysé et que des réponses complètes soient apportées.

54 Il reste désormais à poursuivre ce combat afin que les jeunes filles et femmes qui ont été victimes de ce régime répressif puissent enfin obtenir les réparations auxquelles elles ont droit.

NOTES

1. « In conclusion, the IHRC cannot adjudicate on a breach of human rights. We cannot definitely say that the human rights of these women and girls who resided in the laundries were breached as this is beyond our powers. The Commission has, however, come to the conclusion that there are very clear questions of human rights compliance arising from this assessment. We consider that these substantiate the need to establish a statutory enquiry mechanism to fully and thoroughly investigate the matters raised by Justice for Magdalenes », opening remarks by IHRC Commissioner Olive Braiden, Magdalen Laundries Report launch, 9 Nov 2010, www.ihrc.ie 2. Voir note 1. 3. La Commission dite Ryan, chargée d’enquêter sur les cas d’abus et de mauvais traitements sur les Enfants (The Commission to Inquire Into Child Abuse), a été mise en place en 1999 et a rendu public son rapport en mai 2009. Dans ce rapport, elle a clairement dénoncé la responsabilité de l’État Irlandais dans les mauvais traitements subis par les enfants au sein d’institutions. Un processus d’indemnisation des victimes est en cours mais les modalités restent encore à définir et la question de la contribution des congrégations religieuses n’est pas réglée. 4. Cet aspect sera développé dans la première partie de cet article. 5. Voir note 3 supra. 6. On peut citer le cas de l’évêque Eamon Casey, accusé d’avoir eu un fils avec une femme qui travaillait pour lui et d’avoir utilisé les deniers de l’Église pour acheter le silence de la mère, celui de Brendan Smyth, arrêté et jugé pour des affaires de pédophilie, entre autres. 7. “The dramatic fall-off of religious practice, the steep decline in vocations to the religious life and the near total loss of authority by the institutional church” Conor Brady, Irish Times, 8 octobre 2005. 8. Louis Lentin, Dear Daughter, RTE 1996, funded by RTÉ and Bord Scannan na hEireann (The Irish Film Board). 1997 Banff Television Festival Nomination for Social and Political Documentary, 1996 Creative Excellence Certificate, US International Film and Television Festival. Ce documentaire relatait l’expérience de Christine Buckley au sein de l’orphelinat de Goldenbridge, géré par les Sœurs de la Miséricorde, dans les années 50 et 60. Mary Raftery, States of Fear, RTE, 1999, série en trois parties, qui révéla les abus physiques et psychologiques auxquels furent soumis des générations d’enfants au sein du système des Industrial Schools, sortes de maisons de redressement, entre 1930

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et 1970. Raftery publia, la même année, un ouvrage, Suffer The Little Children, qui déclencha une série d’enquêtes et aboutit à la mise en place de La Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse en 2000 dont le rapport, aussi connu sous le nom de Ryan Report, fut publié en mai 2009. 9. Le Magdalen Asylum de High Park, Drumcondra à Dublin ouvrit ses portes en 1833 selon G. D. Williams (Dublin Charities, Being a Handbook of Dublin Philanthropic Organisations and Charities, Compiled and Published by the Association of Charities, Dublin : 1902) et 1853 selon Rosa M. Barrett (A Guide to Dublin Charities, 1884). 10. Goulding, June, The Light in the Window, Dublin, Poolbeg, 1998. O’Malley, Kathleen, Childhood Interrupted, Virago, 2005. O’Beirne, Kathy, Kathy’s Story, Edinburg, Mainstream Publishing, 2005. La liste n’est pas exhaustive. 11. Inspiré par les institutions catholiques des XVIe et XVIIe siècles des philanthropes anglais. On peut notamment citer Jonas Hanway et Robert Dingley, deux marchands qui avaient parcouru le monde et observé le fonctionnement des entreprises caritatives dans l’Europe catholique. Membres d’un groupe de philanthropes, ils fondèrent le Magdalen Hospital de Londres. Au sein de cet établissement, les prostituées étaient prises en charge corps et âme. On leur enseignait un métier, on les soignait, physiquement et moralement. 12. Deux ouvrages recensent les institutions existant à Dublin à la fin du dix-neuvième siècle :Williams, G. D., Dublin Charities, Being a Handbook of Dublin Philanthropic Organisations and Charities, Compiled and Published by the Association of Charities, Dublin, 1902 et Barrett, Rosa M., A Guide to Dublin Charities, 1884, NLI. 13. The Sisters of Mercy, en anglais. Ordre fondé en 1832 par Catherine McAuley. The Sisters of Charity, en anglais. Ordre fondé par Mary Aikenhead. The Good Shepeherd Sisters ou Sœurs de Notre-Dame de Charité du Bon-Pasteur, ou Sœurs du Bon-Pasteur, en français. Cette congrégation fut fondée à Angers en 1835 par sainte Marie-Euphrasie Pelletier. 14. Pour une analyse de cet argument, voir Maryann Valiuilis, « Neither Feminst Nor Flapper : The Ecclesiastical Construction of the Ideal Iirish Woman, in Mary O’Dowd and Sabine Wicher (eds), Chattel, Servant or Citizen? Women’s Status in Church, State and Society, Belfast, 1995, p. 168-178. 15. Pour une analyse de la construction identitaire de l’État Libre, voir Richard Kearney, On Stories, London, Routledge, 2002. 16. Lois sur les Jurés (1924 et 1927) ; Loi sur la Réglementation de la Fonction Publique (1925) ; Loi sur la Censure des Publications (1929) ; Loi sur les Enfants Illégitimes et la Constatation de Paternité (1930). 17. Le financement des institutions était en effet assuré par le travail des pensionnaires qui y avaient le linge des hôtels, écoles, universités et autres institutions, contrairement à d’autres institutions comme les Industrial Schools qui bénéficiaient de subventions per capita. 18. « In its concrete form, this architecture encompassed an array of interdependent institutions – schools, hospitals, mother-and-baby homes, adoption agencies, and Magdalen laundries – that obscured the less desirable elements attached to a number of interrelated social phenomena, including poverty, illegitimacy, and infanticide. In its more abstract form, this architecture comprised both the legislation that inscribed these issues as well as the numerous official and public discourses that resisted

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admitting the existence and function of their affiliated institutions », James M. Smith, Ireland’s Magdalen Laundries and the Nation’s Architecture of Containment, Notre Dame, Indiana, University of Notre Dame Press, 2007, p. 2. 19. The Commission to Inquire Into Child Abuse (voir note 3). Le Volume 3, Chapitre 18 est intitulé « Residential Laundries, Novitiates, Hostels and other Out-of-home Settings ». À aucun moment, le terme Magdalen Laundries n’est mentionné. Même si la Commission était sensée s’intéresser aux conditions d’incarcération des enfants et adolescents, il est très surprenant que ces institutions n’y aient pas une plus grande place. Le terme Magdalen n’est jamais utilisé. Par conséquent, ces institutions n’ont pas été prises en compte dans le projet de réparation et compensation de 2002, Residential Institutions Redress Act, 2002. 20. Rebecca Lea McCarthy, Origins of the Magdalen laundries : an analytical history, McFarland, 2010, p. 197-198. 21. Site : magdalenelaundries.com Dernière consultation le 21 janvier 2012. 22. “Taking Mary Home”, Mary Raftery, Irish Times, 15 avril 2004. 23. Irish Times, 2 mai 2011. 24. CORI (Conference of Religious Of Ireland) ou La Conférence des Religieux d’Irlande a pour but de servir les dirigeants et à travers eux les membres des congrégations religieuses. Il fournit un forum où les religieux peuvent travailler ensemble dans la mission qu’ils ont en commun. 25. Site : magdalenelaundries.com 26. Site : magdalenelaundries.com 27. Commission of Inquiry into the Reformatory and Industrial School System 1934-1936 chaired by Justice Cussen. C’est ce rapport qui a servi de point de départ à la Commission Ryan. 28. Reformatory and Industrial Schools System Report, 1970, Dublin : Stationery Office. La Commission, présidée par le Juge Eileen Kennedy, s’intéressa de près à la prise en charge des enfants notamment au sein des institutions et parvint à la conclusion que le système existant était insatisfaisant et avait grand besoin d’être amendé et amélioré. 29. Ibid., p. 38, 6.18. 30. Voir note 18 supra. 31. James M. Smith, Ireland’s Magdalen Laundries and the Nation’s Architecture of Containment, Notre-Dame, Indiana, University of Notre Dame Press, 2007, p. 52. 32. Site : magdalenelaundries.com 33. Ibid. 34. Site : magdalenelaundries.com 35. Le Comité contre la torture est un organe composé d’experts indépendants qui surveillent l’application de la Convention contre la torture et autres peines ou traitements cruels, inhumains ou dégradants par les États parties. 36. Site : magdalenelaundries.com 37. Committee against Torture, Forty-sixth session 9 May-3 June 2011, Consideration of reports submitted by States parties under article 19 of the Convention, paragraphe 8.

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38. United Nations Committee Against Torture, Forty-sixth session 9 May-3 June 2011, Consideration of reports submitted by States parties under article 19 of the Convention, paragraphe 21. 39. Government Statement on the Magdalene Laundries, paragraph 1, “to clarify any State interaction with the Magdalene Laundries”, Site : magdalenelaundries.com 40. Ibid., paragraph 2.a 41. Ibid., paragraph 2.C. 42. Site : magdalenelaundries.com 43. Site : magdalenelaundries.com

RÉSUMÉS

Le cas des Magdalen Laundries, institutions gérées par des congrégations religieuses dans lesquelles furent enfermées des centaines de femmes depuis le dix-neuvième siècle, fait l’objet d’une attention particulière depuis les années 1990. Or, depuis que le scandale a éclaté, seule l’Église catholique irlandaise a été mise en cause. On lui reproche d’avoir fait subir des traitements inhumains à ces femmes et d’avoir bénéficié financièrement du travail de blanchisserie qu’elles effectuaient dans ces institutions. En 2010, une organisation, Justice For Magdalens, a demandé à la Commission des Droits de l’Homme irlandaise de diligenter une enquête afin que soit déterminé le degré de responsabilité de l’État et que les anciennes pensionnaires et leurs enfants obtiennent réparation. La Commission a examiné la requête de Justice For Magdalens mais a décidé de ne pas diligenter d’enquête, faute de pouvoir véritablement se prononcer sur la question des droits de l’homme1. En revanche, elle a enjoint le gouvernement irlandais à prendre les mesures nécessaires pour déterminer son degré de responsabilité et réparer les dommages causés. En parallèle, Justice For Magdalens s’est adressée au Comité contre la Torture des Nations Unies afin que soit examinée la responsabilité de l’État irlandais dans les traitements inhumains subis par les anciennes pensionnaires des Magdalen Laundries Le rapport du Comité est accablant. Il n’est désormais plus possible pour l’État de nier sa responsabilité dans cette période trouble et sombre de son histoire. Le scandale des Magdalen Laundries relève désormais des droits de l’homme et, de fait, le gouvernement irlandais doit désormais envisager de rendre justice aux anciennes pensionnaires.

Since the 1990s, researchers, the media and autobiographies of former inmates have extensively covered the scandal of the Magdalen Laundries. So far, the Catholic Church has had to bear the full brunt of the accusations of degrading treatment within the institutions. In 2010, Justice For Magdalens, an organisation created to demand and obtain public excuses and a restoration scheme for former inmates, asked the Irish Human Rights Committee to start an inquiry into the Irish State‘s responsibility and involvement in admission into and abuses within the Laundries. The IHRC examined JFM’s request but refused to start an inquiry based on lack of formal evidence. However, it explicitly asked the Irish State to start its own inquiry and provide a restoration process. JFM went further and addressed a request to the United Nations Committee Against Torture. The UN Committee, after examining the request, asked the Irish government for an independent investigation into the Magdalene Laundries abuse and redress for the women

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who suffered. Magdalen Laundries have now become a human rights issue and the government, especially the Justice Department, is being compelled to act upon UN recommendations and provide answers, excuses and restoration for former inmates.

INDEX

Keywords : human rights, Irish State (Republic of Ireland), Irish Catholic Church, Magdalen Laundries, society and religion, trauma, institutional abuse Mots-clés : droits humains, État irlandais (République d’Irlande), société et religion, Magdalen Laundries, maltraitance institutionnelle, trauma

AUTEUR

NATHALIE SEBBANE Université Sorbonne Nouvelle – Paris 3

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Mobilisation nationale et solidarité internationale : les syndicats en Irlande et la question du Moyen- Orient

Marie-Violaine Louvet

1 Lorsque l’on demande à Hikmat Ajjuri, ambassadeur de Palestine en Irlande, si l’adoption par l’Irish Congress of Trade Unions de la motion en faveur du boycott économique et culturel d’Israël en 2007 l’a étonné, il répond que non « parce que ces organisations sont très sincères. Elles se moquent des intérêts politiques de certains pays1 ». Cette réponse met en lumière sa perception du caractère spécifique de l’engagement syndical en matière de politique étrangère, en ceci qu’il se veut entièrement indépendant de l’échelle des États, et donc du jeu diplomatique.

2 En République d’Irlande, on identifie différentes instances de mobilisation qui produisent un discours sur la question du conflit au Moyen-Orient : les partis politiques, les associations civiles et les syndicats. Il convient d’interroger les caractéristiques des syndicats dans ce panorama. Si l’on prend comme point de départ une définition classique du syndicat de la fin du XIXe siècle, comme celle de Beatrice et Sidney Webb2, on a la description d’une catégorie de personnes, les salariés, qui se mobilisent dans le but d’améliorer leur sort en tant que travailleurs, c’est-à-dire localement dans leur entreprise ou en faveur de leur catégorie professionnelle.

3 Mais l’internationale ouvrière, créée en juillet 1889 lors du Congrès de Paris, oriente aussi les syndicats vers une solidarité internationale dans la lutte des classes. Cependant, si l’internationale élargit la perspective d’action à l’échelle mondiale, elle n’engage pas l’ouvrier à adopter une vision politique autre que celle de l’analyse marxiste de la lutte des classes.

4 Or, force est de constater que l’on assiste en République d’Irlande, comme dans d’autres pays européens, à une évolution palpable de l’identité de l’engagement syndical entre le début et la fin du XXe siècle, qui accompagne, comme dans les autres pays d’Europe,

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une décroissance relative du nombre d’adhérents3. Cette évolution de l’identité de l’engagement syndical passe par un positionnement sur des questions de politique internationale, et, dans le cas qui nous intéresse, sur le conflit au Moyen-Orient.

5 Dans le cadre de notre analyse, nous serons amenés à interroger les modalités de l’inscription du mouvement syndical dans le débat en Irlande sur la question du Moyen- Orient d’une part, et d’autre part à discerner les spécificités de l’engagement syndical dans la politique internationale qui sont dues à sa structure et à sa genèse. Pour ce faire, nous étudierons l’origine du positionnement des syndicats irlandais sur cette question de politique internationale ainsi que leur inscription dans le réseau international des syndicats. Nous tenterons enfin d’analyser les particularités de l’action des syndicats parmi les autres organismes engagés sur la scène internationale.

La naissance d’un engagement

L’Irish Congress of Trade Unions : une structure démocratique

6 En République d’Irlande ainsi que dans le Nord, on recense plus d’une cinquantaine de syndicats rassemblant autour de 600 000 membres, ce qui représente environ 35 % de l’ensemble des salariés. Ces syndicats sont organisés par secteurs d’activité : on peut citer le Teachers Union of Ireland, le National Union of Journalists, ou encore l’Irish Nurses Organisation. Comme dans les autres pays européens, les syndicats irlandais ont perdu des adhérents depuis les années 1980, sans que ce phénomène soit aussi important qu’ailleurs : le Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment recense 47,86 % d’actifs syndiqués en 1986, et 34,80 % en 20014.

7 Les syndicats sont de tailles très variables. Deux d’entre eux se distinguent par leur importance numérique : Services, Industrial, Professional and Technical Union (SIPTU) qui compte 209 900 adhérents, et Irish Municipal Public and Civil Trade Union (IMPACT), qui s’adresse aux services publics et compte 64 500 adhérents. Ces syndicats de travailleurs sont tous regroupés dans un collectif commun, l’Irish Congress of Trade Union (ICTU).

8 L’ancêtre de l’ICTU, l’Irish Trade Union Congress, créé en 1894, a revêtu une forme politique en fusionnant avec le Labour en 1912, lors de l’Irish Labour Party and Trade Union Congress, pour finalement s’en désolidariser en 1930. C’est en 1959 que l’union entre les fédérations du Nord et du Sud de l’Irlande acquiert son nom actuel. Face à l’ICTU, on trouve l’Irish Business and Employers Confederation5 créée en 1993, qui rassemble les syndicats du patronat.

9 L’ICTU réunit ses délégués au moins deux fois par an lors d’une conférence, au cours de laquelle des motions sont discutées dans des comités puis votées en résolutions. Le nombre de délégués est proportionnel à l’importance numérique des adhérents aux syndicats, comme le prévoit la constitution de l’ICTU, adoptée le 28 juillet 1958. Les motions votées peuvent être déposées par les syndicats membres ou par le Conseil Exécutif qui est élu par le système de représentation proportionnelle à scrutin uninominal, comme le prévoit l’article 9 de la constitution. Le vote est effectué à main levée.

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Les pivots du soutien à la Palestine

10 C’est dans ce cadre institutionnel qu’une série d’engagements visant à soutenir la Palestine a été décidée par l’ICTU. En 2005, à la suite d’un travail d’activisme de la base, porté en particulier en Irlande du Nord par Derry Trades Council et Belfast District and Trades Council, la conférence vote une motion pour débuter une campagne de solidarité avec le peuple palestinien : l’association Trade Union Friends of Palestine est lancée dans le Nord et s’étend à la République en 20066. En 2007, lors de la conférence bisannuelle, l’ICTU se dit « indigné des constantes atteintes aux droits de l’Homme subies par le peuple palestinien7 », et en particulier de l’occupation et de la destruction des terres en opposition avec de nombreuses résolutions de l’ONU, de la construction du mur condamné par la Cour de Justice Internationale et enfin de la construction illégale des colonies. L’ICTU vote alors deux résolutions. La première est une critique de la politique européenne envers Israël qui vise à améliorer les relations diplomatiques avec ce pays, en particulier dans le domaine commercial, comme le prévoient les Accords de Barcelone de 19958. La seconde est la mise en place d’une politique dite de « BDS », c’est-à-dire Boycott, Désinvestissement et Sanction. Le boycott est défini par Trade Union Friends of Palestine comme étant académique, culturel et de consommation. Sa mise en place est considérée comme une continuité du boycott imposé par les syndicats à l’Afrique du Sud, dans les années 19809. La politique de désinvestissement consiste à mettre fin aux investissements destinés à Israël ainsi qu’aux contrats des entreprises travaillant sur son territoire. Enfin, la politique de sanction se caractérise par des pénalités dans les accords commerciaux, de recherche et de développement.

L’éventail d’actions engagées

11 Dans le sillage de cet engagement concret en faveur de la Palestine, l’ICTU a décidé de divers moyens d’action qui sont précisés dans le compte rendu de la conférence de 200710. Il s’agit tout d’abord de lobbying politique, à l’échelle européenne et nationale. En effet, l’ICTU entend tout mettre en œuvre pour bénéficier d’une influence directe au Conseil Européen, ceci afin de tenter de mettre fin aux accords Euro-méditerranéens en particulier. Au niveau national, des entretiens avec le ministre des affaires étrangères de la République d’Irlande, en vue de solliciter son soutien, sont préconisés.

12 Une campagne d’information est aussi prévue, en travaillant de concert avec les associations civiles pro-palestiniennes et de défense des droits de l’homme. Il s’agit de développer une campagne médiatique promouvant le boycott d’Israël, afin d’encourager les adhérents à appliquer et à diffuser une politique, dite « éthique », d’investissement. Celle-ci consiste en particulier à identifier et à épingler les entreprises israéliennes, ainsi que toutes celles qui coopèrent de façon plus ou moins directe avec Israël, dans la perspective du boycott.

13 Le dernier volet des actions entreprises a pour but de renforcer les liens de solidarité entre les mouvements de travailleurs irlandais, palestiniens et israéliens, en encourageant les mobilités géographiques et l’échange de délégations.

14 L’ICTU a donc mis en place un plan de soutien à la Palestine, à travers une série d’engagements idéologiques et pratiques. Mais ces mesures, qui positionnent le syndicat sur une question internationale aussi délicate que celle du Moyen-Orient, ne

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doivent pas être lues en dehors du réseau international des syndicats dans lequel l’ICTU s’inscrit. Il est particulièrement éclairant d’interroger les relations entre les syndicats irlandais et les syndicats palestiniens et israéliens, mais aussi d’étudier la mobilisation intersyndicale pour la Palestine à l’échelle européenne et mondiale.

L’inscription de l’ICTU au sein des réseaux internationaux de syndicats

Syndicats palestiniens et irlandais : une collaboration en devenir

15 En Palestine, c’est la Palestine General Federation of Trade Unions (PGFTU) qui est, depuis 1965, l’organisation qui rassemble les syndicats et correspond à l’ICTU en Irlande. Elle comprend 290 000 membres. Le 9 juillet 2005, le PGFTU prend part à un appel lancé à la communauté internationale par plus de 170 associations de la société civile palestinienne, afin qu’elle applique la politique de BDS11. C’est cet appel qui sera à l’origine de l’adoption du boycott par l’ICTU, et qui marquera le point de départ d’un élan de collaboration entre syndicats internationaux et syndicats palestiniens, fondé sur l’adhésion au BDS. Ainsi, le 4 mai 2011, est créée la Palestinian Trade Union Coalition for BDS (PTUC-BDS), à la suite de la première conférence des syndicats palestiniens de soutien à la politique de boycott, désinvestissement et sanction, à Ramallah, le 30 avril 2011. Cette coalition s’est fixé comme objectif premier de promouvoir le soutien au BDS auprès des syndicats du monde entier, dans le sillage de l’appel de 200512.

16 C’est dans ce cadre que se sont développés les liens entre l’ICTU et le PGFTU. En 2007, la conférence exceptionnelle de l’ICTU sur la Palestine et Israël a appelé à envoyer une délégation en Palestine pour constater les faits sur place. Cette délégation, comprenant des secrétaires généraux, des présidents de syndicats et des membres du Trade Union Friends of Palestine s’est rendue en Palestine en novembre 2007. Dans le rapport de la visite, rédigé par la délégation, on apprend que celle-ci a rencontré Mahmoud Abu Odeh, le président du PGFTU pour la branche de Bethléem, ainsi que des responsables de la bande de Gaza qui leur ont fait part des difficultés rencontrées par les travailleurs palestiniens13.

17 L’invitation des dirigeants du PGFTU à la conférence bisannuelle de 2009 avait également pour but d’intensifier la collaboration. Cette hypothèse est confirmée dans le programme officiel de l’année 2010, publié dans le journal Global Solidarity News, où l’ICTU réaffirme sa solidarité avec le PGFTU dans un paragraphe intitulé « Solidarity with the Palestinian trade union movement » :

In 2010 Congress will also develop its solidarity work with the Palestinian people. Congress gives its full support to the Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions (PGFTU) in their call for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign against Israel14.

18 L’intention de resserrer les liens avec le PGFTU est transparente, même si, dans les faits, cela n’est pas toujours évident. David Joyce, Equality Officer de l’ICTU, confirme en 2011 que les liens avec le PGFTU ne sont en réalité pas aussi forts que l’ICTU le

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souhaiterait, et que la communication avec ce syndicat peut s’avérer difficile en raison de la distance géographique et de la barrière de la langue15.

19 Les contacts de l’ICTU avec les syndicats du Moyen-Orient ne se limitent pas à ceux qu’il entretient avec les syndicats palestiniens, et on ne peut mesurer la délicatesse de l’engagement de l’ICTU en faveur de la Palestine que si l’on prend en compte les échanges avec les syndicats israéliens.

Un rapport épineux avec les syndicats israéliens

20 Histadrut est l’organisme qui regroupe les syndicats israéliens. Comme l’ICTU et le PGFTU, Histadrut fait partie de la Confédération syndicale internationale, l’organisation internationale qui rassemble les syndicats du monde entier. Le syndicat israélien a été fondé en 1920 et compte 650 000 membres. C’est uniquement à partir de 1959 que les travailleurs arabes sont acceptés au sein d’Histadrut, et les relations entre le PGFTU et Histadrut sont délicates et souvent tendues. Sous l’égide de la Confédération syndicale internationale, les deux syndicats ont signé un accord historique en août 2008, en vue de développer fraternité et coexistence. Celui-ci prenait le relais d’un premier accord négocié en 1995 mais avorté, à la suite de la résurgence des violences dans la région en 2000, qui donneront lieu au Second Intifada. Cet accord exige notamment le remboursement des cotisations payées par les palestiniens travaillant pour un employeur israélien depuis 1993, et le transfert de 50 % de ces cotisations au PGFTU à partir de 2008. Histadrut s’est aussi engagé à autoriser l’accès à son service d’assistance juridique pour les travailleurs palestiniens employés par des employeurs israéliens, ainsi qu’à assister le PGFTU dans les conflits correspondant à ce cas de figure. Enfin, l’organisation de séminaires pédagogiques et professionnalisants, en particulier dans le secteur du droit du travail et de la santé, venait compléter la série de mesures16.

21 Toutefois, la conférence d’avril 2011 à Ramallah, qui a vu la création du PTUC-BDS, a condamné Histadrut et a appelé les syndicats internationaux à couper tous les liens avec le syndicat israélien, du fait de sa « complicité historique » avec Israël dans ses « violations de la loi internationale et des droits des Palestiniens ». On lui reproche de maintenir des intérêts commerciaux avec les colonies, de permettre aux colons juifs de Cisjordanie de joindre le syndicat, de ne pas avoir condamné l’exécution des neuf activistes turcs à bord de la flottille en route pour Gaza le 31 mai 2010, et enfin de conserver illégalement plus de 2,43 milliards de dollars prélevés sous forme de cotisations sociales sur les salaires des travailleurs palestiniens dans les territoires occupés17.

22 Lors de la visite de la délégation de l’ICTU en Palestine en 2007, les syndicalistes irlandais ont rencontré Histadrut, en la personne de M. Ofer Eini, son président. Était aussi présent M. Shraga Brosh, le président de la Federation of Israeli Economic Organisations, association qui rassemble des employeurs privés. Il a reproché à l’ICTU de soutenir la politique de boycott qui « contredit les principes du syndicalisme en pénalisant les travailleurs, quel que soit le lieu18 ». Il a aussi exprimé son désir de voir le boycott prendre fin à la suite de la conférence bisannuelle de 2009. Histadrut est très actif dans les conférences de l’ICTU et tente de faire basculer les résolutions adoptées. Le 16 avril 2010, l’ICTU a organisé une conférence internationale au château de Dublin consacrée à la question du Moyen-Orient intitulée The Middle East – The Way Forward for

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Trade Union Solidarity en présence du ministre des Affaires étrangères, Micheál Martin19. La directrice du département international d’Histadrut, Avital Shapira-Shabirow s’y est dite « déçue » et « frustrée » du soutien au boycott par les syndicats irlandais.

23 Le conflit entre Israël et la Palestine se répercute donc directement dans l’arène syndicale, avec des alliances qui sont à l’origine de tensions, à la fois dans les rapports entre Histadrut et l’ICTU et au sein même du syndicat irlandais. David Joyce, dans un entretien de mars 2011, décrit la campagne d’Histadrut avant la conférence de 2010. Le syndicat israélien a contacté les médias et les intervenants en leur demandant les raisons de leur participation à cette conférence « partiale », et exprimant leur mécontentement au siège de l’ICTU à Parnell Square, à Dublin, « avec véhémence20 ». Il évoque aussi certains désaccords parmi les membres de l’ICTU. La majorité de militants à l’origine du vote des résolutions de soutien à la Palestine, questionne la légitimité d’Histadrut21, accusant cette organisation de représenter principalement les intérêts des travailleurs de confession juive en Israël. Elle souhaiterait donc couper court à toute relation avec ce syndicat. D’autres pensent que si Histadrut est reconnu par la Confédération syndicale internationale comme légitime représentant des travailleurs en Israël, les relations doivent être maintenues22. Cependant, d’après les rapports publiés par l’ICTU, Histadrut a eu peine à convaincre les syndicats irlandais de sa légitimité. Le message est clair dans les conclusions de la délégation qui a visité la Palestine en 2007 :

In Israel, despite the best attempts of the trade union federation Histadrut and the government to convince us otherwise, discrimination against Arabs and Palestinians, in particular, is pervasive23.

24 Et encore :

It was quite obvious that both the Histadrut and Federation of Economic Organisations were strongly opposed to any boycott. It was also quite evident that these organisations supported the policy of the Israeli government on security issues, but they advocated and stated they enjoyed good relationships with their Palestinian counterparts. While Mr Eini claimed that it was the violent acts of Palestinians against Israel that caused the economic collapse in Palestine, most would argue that repressive Israeli measures and general policy have been the major factor in the collapse of the Palestinian economy24.

25 L’ICTU a des relations directes avec les syndicats israéliens, bien qu’il s’inscrive en porte à faux avec eux. Il n’est pas le seul syndicat dans cette posture, et il est éclairant de lire sa prise de position dans le réseau international des syndicats, et de la comparer à celle de ses pairs.

Inscription au sein du mouvement syndical international de solidarité avec la Palestine

26 Les syndicats palestiniens comptent donc sur les syndicats internationaux pour les soutenir dans la politique de boycott. Le rôle capital en matière d’influence de l’opinion

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publique que peuvent avoir les syndicats est souligné dans l’engagement pris par le PTUC-BDS en 2011 :

Trade unions today are taking the lead in defending the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination, justice, freedom, equality and the right of return of our refugees as stipulated in United Nations General Assembly Resolution 194. Many of them have heeded the call from Palestinian civil society, and its labor movement in particular, to adopt BDS as the most effective form of solidarity with the Palestinians in our struggle to end Israeli occupation and apartheid25.

27 Le cas de l’ICTU n’est pas unique, même s’il est précurseur. Lors de la conférence bisannuelle de l’ICTU en juillet 2011, Rafeef Ziadah, s’exprimant au nom du PTUC-BDS, a loué l’ICTU parce qu’il est le second congrès national de syndicats dans le monde, après le Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), à s’être engagé à boycotter Israël. Quelques dizaines de syndicats ont fait de même à travers le monde et le chiffre évolue constamment26. COSATU, qui est fort de 2 millions de travailleurs et revêt une importance symbolique du fait de l’histoire du boycott dans la lutte contre l’apartheid dans les années 1980, est un exemple, on peut citer aussi le Central Única dos Trabalhadores (CUT) au Brésil, fort de plus de 20 millions de travailleurs, ou encore le Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) représentant 600 000 travailleurs.

28 L’Organisation Internationale du Travail (OIT), agence spécialisée de l’ONU, a souligné que la situation des travailleurs dans les territoires occupés est une situation humaine, sociale et économique déplorable, dominée par un processus de paix en panne27. L’internationale socialiste a quant à elle confirmé au sommet de Casablanca, en 2002, son inquiétude vis-à-vis du sort des travailleurs palestiniens, proposant notamment « la mise en place d’un fonds international pour les réfugiés palestiniens qui pourrait être administré par les Nations Unies dès qu’un accord politique permanent aura été atteint sur cette question28 ». En Europe, la Fédération Générale du Travail de Belgique (FGTB), 1.5 millions de membres, ou encore le Norwegian Electrical and IT Workers Union, 35 000 membres, ont adopté des mesures de boycott. On peut citer, par exemple, l’action du syndicat de dockers suédois Swedish Dockworkers en juin 2010, suite à l’arrestation par Israël d’une flottille internationale qui tentait de briser le blocus de Gaza en mai de la même année. Neuf activistes turcs ont trouvé la mort lors de l’intervention israélienne, et Swedish Dockworkers ont bloqué plus de 500 containers provenant d’Israël, ou à destination de ce pays, pour demander la mise en place d’une enquête internationale indépendante qui détermine les responsabilités29. Au Royaume-Uni, le Scottish Trade Union Congress (STUC), le British Academic Union (UCU), et UNISON UK ont voté le boycott. Toutefois, si le Trade Union Congress, à Londres, qui rassemble les syndicats britanniques, soutient une forme de boycott, il n’est pas allé aussi loin que son homologue irlandais dans la mesure où il n’y a que les produits provenant des colonies considérées comme illégales qui sont boycottés, et non l’ensemble des produits venant d’Israël. On le voit, les positions ne sont donc pas homogènes en Europe : l’organisation European Congress of Trade Unions n’a pas encore statué sur l’harmonisation de toutes les politiques, en particulier du fait de réticences de confédérations de certains pays tels que l’Allemagne30, même si le sujet est débattu.

29 C’est sans ambiguïté que l’ICTU s’est positionné sur la question du Moyen-Orient, s’inscrivant ainsi dans le réseau syndical international de solidarité avec la Palestine.

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C’est aussi le cas de nombreuses associations civiles et de la quasi-totalité des partis politiques en République d’Irlande, qui s’appuient largement sur une lecture du conflit israélo-palestinien à travers le prisme de l’histoire irlandaise, liant ainsi l’histoire du peuple irlandais au sort du peuple palestinien31. Au cœur de ce quasi-consensus pro- palestinien, il convient d’analyser les spécificités de l’engagement syndical en matière de politique étrangère, vis-à-vis des autres instances de mobilisation, c’est-à-dire les caractéristiques qui en font un porte-parole privilégié.

Les spécificités de l’engagement syndical sur une question de politique internationale

Des syndicats cloisonnés au débat sur l’économie et le social ?

30 L’engagement syndical irlandais sur une question de politique internationale correspond à une évolution générale des syndicats européens observée par les sociologues Wolfgang Streeck et Anke Hassel :

Well into the 1980s and 1990s, European unions in particular launched or were involved in political campaigns on a variety of matters not directly related to their members’ economic interests, such as international peace or free abortion. In this they drew on a broad concept of worker interests informed by traditional visions of class conflict and by a syndicalist sense of rivalry with the state over the legitimate representation of workers, not just as workers but also as citizens32.

31 On peut lire ici une tentative de distinction entre le rôle social et économique d’un syndicat, et le rôle que celui-ci peut tenir sur la scène politique à la fois au niveau national, mais aussi à l’échelle mondiale par l’appartenance à un réseau de solidarité international, entièrement indépendant de l’État. En matière de politique étrangère, il y aurait donc une cacophonie entre les voix du syndicat, représentant les travailleurs, et de l’État représentant ces mêmes travailleurs en tant que citoyens, lorsque les syndicats s’éloignent de la position adoptée par l’État. C’est en partie le cas en Irlande, comme nous l’avons analysé avec l’inscription de l’ICTU dans un réseau international de syndicats : les syndicats vont plus loin que l’État en soutenant une action de boycott, contrairement aux recommandations des ministres aux affaires étrangères successifs33. Il s’agit pour l’ICTU d’établir une association avec l’État, de façon à avoir un poids à l’échelle nationale et européenne. Par cette action de lobbying, les syndicats se rapprocheraient du mode de fonctionnement des associations civiles. Pourtant, on a tenté de définir les nouveaux mouvements sociaux, apparus dans les années 1960-1970, par une rupture avec le syndicalisme traditionnel. Erik Neveu établit différents points de rupture entre ces mouvements et les syndicats, notamment leurs « valeurs et revendications ». Les revendications des syndicats sont centrées sur la redistribution quantitative des richesses, c’est-à-dire la lutte pour obtenir des avantages quantifiables, comme l’amélioration des salaires ou des conditions de travail par exemple, alors que celles des mouvements sociaux sont dites « qualitatives » et « non négociables34 », comme l’est le soutien aux causes internationales, qui est soit absolu soit inexistant. Il semble que l’évolution des syndicats en Irlande, dans leur

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engagement international, rapproche leurs revendications de celles des mouvements sociaux, modifiant ainsi leur fonction de départ.

32 Toutefois, les formes d’organisation, notamment la hiérarchie et la délégation d’autorité qui restent traditionnelles, on l’a vu au début de cet exposé dans la description des modalités de vote des résolutions par exemple, différencient radicalement les syndicats des mouvements sociaux dans leur engagement pro- palestinien. Ce n’est pas seulement leur structure mais aussi leur histoire qui particularise les moyens d’action des syndicats. En effet, au cours de leur long passé de négociation avec l’État, ils se sont vu imposer des règles de mobilisation précises qui ne s’appliquent pas aux mouvements sociaux. Par exemple, en Irlande les syndicats ne peuvent pas légalement établir un piquet devant un magasin pour inciter au boycott, comme cela a été fait par l’association civile Irish Palestine Solidarity Campaign devant Tesco à Drumcondra en 2007 par exemple, dans le but de protester contre la vente de pommes de terre israéliennes. Pour un syndicat, il est illégal d’organiser un tel piquet de grève s’il n’existe pas de conflit avec l’employeur le justifiant, selon l’Industrial Relations Act35. C’est l’héritage de l’identité originelle du syndicat en tant que partenaire social qui est à l’origine de telles contraintes juridiques qui peuvent entraver des actions de solidarité internationale, notamment envers la Palestine.

La collaboration avec les partis politiques

33 Tout comme les syndicats, les partis politiques sont des instances indépendantes qui s’expriment en matière de politique étrangère sans que cela soit leur vocation première. L’ICTU avait, dans son histoire, fusionné avec le Labour pour ensuite s’en dissocier. Pour Streeke et Hassel, le moyen le plus efficace d’influencer une politique ainsi que leur levier de pression le plus important, réside dans la relation traditionnelle qu’ils entretiennent avec les partis politiques36. En ceci, les syndicats ont une influence supplémentaire par rapport aux mouvements sociaux et aux associations civiles qui agissent, elles, indépendamment des partis politiques. En République d’Irlande, on a bien ce rapport traditionnel entre syndicats et partis politiques, même si celui-ci n’est pas institutionnalisé. Officiellement l’ICTU, en tant qu’organisation qui regroupe tous les syndicats, se déclare indépendant des partis politiques. Toutefois, une partie des syndicats qui le composent sont eux engagés envers un parti, et traditionnellement le Labour. On pense évidemment au Services, Industrial, Professional and Technical Union, syndicat qui représente 1/3 des membres de l’ICTU. En effet, le conseil national du SIPTU encourage ses membres à soutenir le Labour aux élections, l’aide financièrement pour les campagnes électorales, et le syndicat sert de vivier pour le recrutement de ses officiels. Les syndicats envoient des délégués à la conférence du parti travailliste, et participent aux votes. Ils n’ont pas de pouvoir d’action propre dans le parti, et doivent s’intégrer à sa structure, mais ils peuvent tenter d’influencer ses décisions, notamment en matière de politique étrangère. C’est en particulier le cas à travers l’action de personnalités combinant une responsabilité à SIPTU et dans le Labour. Parmi les Irlandais qui ont pris part à la flottille internationale lancée par l’association Free Gaza, visant à mettre fin au blocus de Gaza en novembre 2011, certains s’identifient à la fois comme activistes pro-palestiniens, syndicalistes et membres de Trade Union Friends of Palestine, ainsi que membres du Labour37.

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34 Le paysage de l’opinion publique en République d’Irlande peut se lire comme un continuum en faveur de la Palestine, en particulier dans les différentes instances de gauche. Les syndicats, par leur capacité d’action et de mobilisation, jouent un rôle non négligeable. Ils s’organisent en réseaux nationaux et internationaux qui usent, sur ce sujet de politique internationale comme dans la bataille sociale, de leur indépendance des structures étatiques.

35 Parallèlement à leurs prises de position sur la question nationale palestinienne, les syndicats ont pu adopter une position plus radicale, celle du boycott, et mener un lobbying d’autant plus efficace qu’il bénéficie de la structure syndicale et de sa capacité à porter la parole, à la fois dans les partis politiques, mais aussi grâce aux élus, dans les débats au sein du Parlement. Contrairement aux associations civiles, les syndicats bénéficient d’un mandat considérable, du fait du grand nombre d’adhérents qui sont autant d’appuis des résolutions votées par l’ICTU. Ainsi, si du fait de l’engagement pro- palestinien de l’ICTU on remarque des points communs de fonctionnement avec les associations civiles, les syndicats présentent un avantage structurel et organisationnel pour faire entendre leur message sur les associations avec lesquelles ils coopèrent, mais qui peuvent, elles, agir de manière plus libre et plus souple du fait de leur petite taille. Dans un cas comme dans l’autre, il s’agit d’influencer l’opinion de manière à créer une force de pression sur les élus, en particulier grâce aux médias.

36 Ce que l’étude de la question du Moyen-Orient nous apprend sur le fonctionnement des syndicats en Irlande c’est d’abord que la voix de la base, à l’origine de la campagne d’activisme pro-palestinien, peut engendrer une position officielle aussi engagée que celle du boycott d’un pays tel qu’Israël, soutenu par le puissant allié nord-américain. Le syndicat est bien un porte-parole alternatif dans la question du Moyen-Orient qui vient porter le message des associations civiles et encourager l’État à adopter une position toujours plus tranchée.

NOTES

1. Entretien mars 2011. 2. Béatrice et Sydney Webb, The History of Trade Unionism, London, Longmans, Green and co., 1896, p. 1. 3. William K. Roche et Joe Larragy, « Cyclical and institutional determinants of annual trade union growth and decline in Ireland : evidence from the DUES data series », European Sociological Review, Vol. 6 No. 1, May 1990. 4. Central Statistics Office Ireland a recensé 34 % d’actifs syndiqués en 2009. 5. L’Irish Business and Employers Confederation (IBEC) est née de la fusion de la Confederation of Irish Industry et de la Federation of Irish Employers. Elle compte 7500 adhérents en 2011, qui emploient plus de 70 % de la main d’œuvre du secteur privé. Source : site internet de l’IBEC.

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6. En Irlande du Nord, le mouvement républicain est traditionnellement favorable à la cause palestinienne, voir John Doyle, « Irish nationalism and the Israel-Palestinian conflict », Working Papers in International Studies, Centre for International Studies Dublin City University, Working paper 2 of 2007. 7. Congress Biennial Delegate Conference 2007, Official Report, p. 51. 8. Les accords Euro-méditerranéens (dits Euromed) ont été mis en place à Barcelone en 1995. Il s’agit de favoriser le commerce avec les pays des rives sud et est de la Méditerranée en créant à terme une zone de libre-échange régionale. 9. « Apartheid in South Africa was weakened by a similar international movement for boycott, divestment and sanctions and it contributed to the fall of the apartheid regime. Despite the obvious differences between the two forms of oppression, the boycott movement against South Africa in the 1980s provides an inspiring model », Congress conference on Palestine/Israel 2010, The Way Forward for Trade Union Solidarity, Official Report, p. 6. 10. Congress Biennial Delegate Conference 2007, Official Report. 11. Palestinian Civil Society Call for BDS, voir site internet du mouvement BDS. 12. Palestinian Trade Union Coalition for BDS (PTUC-BDS) formed at historic conference, voir site internet du mouvement BDS. 13. Israel and Palestine, ICTU Delegation Visit 2007, p. 16. 14. Global Solidarity News, N° 15, Winter 2010. 15. Entretien mars 2011. 16. Israeli and Palestinian trade-unions reach historic agreement, voir site internet de la Confédération syndicale internationale. 17. The Histadrut : its history and role in occupation, colonisation and apartheid, p. 19-20, Mémo rédigé par Richard Irvine pour l’association Trade Union Friends of Palestine, mai 2011, Belfast. 18. Israel and Palestine, ICTU Delegation Visit 2007, p. 10. 19. Dans son discours à la conférence, Micheál Martin a rappelé que le gouvernement irlandais ne cautionnait pas le boycott d’Israël, tout en déplorant les conditions de vie à Gaza : « I regard the current conditions prevailing for the ordinary population of Gaza as inhumane and utterly unacceptable, in terms of accepted international standards of human rights. » Il a aussi sévèrement condamné le blocus israélien sur Gaza : « Most of all, we need to end the completely unjust, unacceptable and counter-productive blockade of Gaza. » 20. Entretien mars 2011. 21. The Histadrut : its history and role in occupation, colonisation and apartheid, Mémo rédigé par Richard Irvine pour l’association Trade Union Friends of Palestine, mai 2011, Belfast. 22. Entretien mars 2011. 23. Israel and Palestine, ICTU Delegation Visit 2007, p. 3. 24. Ibid., p. 12. 25. Palestinian trade-union coalition for BDS, Statement of Principles & Call for International Trade Union Support for BDS, Ramallah, 4 May 2011. 26. Ibid., ou voir Congress Conference on Palestine/Israel 2010, The Way Forward for Trade-Union Solidarity, Official Report, p. 6.

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27. Annual report of the International Labour Office on the situation of workers of the occupied Arab territories, International Labour Office, Geneva, 2010. 28. Voir site internet de l’Internationale Socialiste. 29. « Swedish dockers launch Israeli goods blockade », The Local, 23 juin 2010. 30. Les réserves de l’Allemagne sont patentes concernant toute mesure susceptible d’être taxée d’antisémite, en particulier le boycott d’Israël, qui pourrait évoquer dans l’imaginaire collectif le boycott nazi des magasins juifs le 1er avril 1933, dans le sillage de l’accession d’Hitler au pouvoir. 31. La question de la spoliation de la terre est le socle du rapprochement, largement répandu dans l’opinion irlandaise, de l’histoire de l’Irlande et de l’histoire palestinienne. Voir Shulamit Eliash, The harp and the shield of David : Ireland, Zionism and the state of Israel, Abingdon, Routledge, 2007, p. 43. 32. Wolfgang Streeck et Anke Hassel, «Trade-unions as political actors », Addison J. T., Schnabel C. (ed.), International handbook of trade unions, Cheltenham, Eward Edgar Publishing Limited, 2003, p. 337. 33. Voir par exemple l’article de Micheál Martin, ancien ministre des Affaires Etrangères, paru dans le New York Times le 4 mars 2010 intitulé « Gaza a year later ». 34. Erik Neveu, Sociologie des mouvements sociaux, Paris, Editions La Découverte, 2005, p. 61. 35. Industrial relations Act, 1990, section 1. 36. Wolfgang Streeck et Anke Hassel, op. cit., p. 335-365. 37. Voir l’exemple de Mags O’Brien sur le site internet de l’association Irish Ship to Gaza

RÉSUMÉS

Les syndicats irlandais, réunis dans l’Irish Congress of Trade Unions, se sont faits les porte-voix du soutien à la cause palestinienne en votant notamment le boycott économique et culturel d’Israël en 2007. Indépendants de la structure étatique et fonctionnant en réseaux internationaux de solidarité ainsi qu’en collaboration avec les associations civiles, leur engagement sur une question de politique internationale révèle l’importance accordée au Moyen-Orient dans les milieux militants irlandais.

The Irish Congress of Trade Unions voted the support of the economic and cultural boycott of Israel in 2007. This radical stance, taken on an international issue by the trade unions, establishes their identity as an alternative voice to the State in matters of foreign affairs. They have the specificity of working in national and international networks, together with civil rights associations. The commitment to Palestine highlights the fact that the Irish association of trade unions can be a mouthpiece for activism.

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INDEX

Keywords : activism, Israel/Palestine, Ireland - international relations, trade-unions Mots-clés : Irlande - relations internationales, Israël/Palestine, syndicats, militantisme

AUTEUR

MARIE-VIOLAINE LOUVET Université Sorbonne Nouvelle – Paris 3

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“Deposited Elsewhere”: The Sexualized Female Body and the Modern Irish Landscape

Cara Delay

1 In November 1984 the Catholic parish of Tynagh, County Galway gathered for a unique ritual: the exhumation and reburial of a woman who had been dead for 150 years1. Local tradition asserted that the woman, Áine, gave birth to three illegitimate children in the 1830s or 40s and then became gravely ill. Citing her sexual transgressions, Áine’s parish priest would not help her or give her last rites. Áine soon died, cursing her priest to the very end. After Áine’s death, her priest refused to have her buried in consecrated ground. Áine’s neighbors then placed her remains in a “little… plot” outside of sacred land2.

2 According to local tradition, over the years and then the decades following her death, the spirit of Áine haunted the Tynagh priests, who faced bad luck and met early, sometimes mysterious deaths. Many in the community interpreted these strange occurrences as Áine’s revenge. Residents of Tynagh preserved the memory of Áine by telling stories of the “curse of Áine” and thus reminding each other of the importance of properly treating the body, even the deviant female body, after death. They also sealed the place of her burial in their collective memory. When the Galway community reburied Áine in sacred ground in November 1984, it attempted to put things right, thus restoring order to the Irish landscape.

3 The 1984 Galway reburial case brings together the themes of birth, death, women’s bodies, and the sacred landscape, encouraging us to think about the ways in which they intersected in Ireland’s past. While scholars have studied the importance of Ireland’s land and spaces as sites of modern religious regeneration and emerging national identities, few have examined the relationship between place and gender3. Even fewer have interrogated the connections between bodies and landscapes4.

4 Through an analysis of memoirs and folklore narratives, this essay analyzes the containment of the female body in the modern Irish landscape. In particular, it focuses

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on the ways in which Irish communities controlled the sexualized female body from the 1850s to the 1920s. The bodies of sexually active women, pregnant and post-parturient women, and dead women who had committed sexual transgressions were fraught with meaning; dangerous and polluted, they were isolated from the rest of the community. The regulation of the female body within the landscape became a mechanism for harnessing troublesome women. By separating and containing the impure and sexual female body, nineteenth-century Irish communities established the modern gender hierarchies that would result in what James Smith has labeled an “architecture of containment5.”

5 Recently, scholars such as Smith have analyzed the ways in which the twentieth- century Irish state and Catholic Church controlled sexually deviant women. Smith posits that an “architecture of containment”, which was comprised of “an assortment of interconnected institutions”, most notably Magdalen laundries, isolated the sexually dangerous female body and thus kept the nation pure6. Other scholars have explored the ways in which the newly independent Ireland of the 1920s and 30s claimed a particular connection between women and the land. According to Síghle Bhreathnach- Lynch, the feminization of the Irish landscape in the early twentieth century helped consolidate gender norms, affirming that women were “the passive and voiceless embodiment of nature” who must be dominated by men7. The regulation of women and the landscape thus helped bolster the new patriarchal state that would deny most Irish women a significant active or public role8.

6 Yet as this essay argues, the containment of the sexualized female body and the associations between women and the landscape long predate the 1920s and 30s. The parallels between the landscape and the female body, as well as the regulation of women’s bodies within the landscape, have their origins in vernacular beliefs and traditions (such as fairy belief) that preceded the triumphs of modern Catholicism, the British colonial state, and Irish nationalism. By the mid to late nineteenth century, vernacular traditions, the Catholic Church, and the colonial state coexisted. Each of these systems of authority not only privileged the landscape as a site of power and domination but also regulated the female body, particularly the sexualized female body. As they did so, they paved the way for the “architecture of containment” that would pervade the Free State and later the Republic.

Women’s Bodies and the Landscape in Local Beliefs

7 From pre-Christian times through the modern period, the land has held a special position in Irish history and tradition. The Irish landscape, as Lawrence J. Taylor explains, has long been “pregnant with meaning”, serving as “the anchor of personal and collective history [and] the material with which local, regional, or national identity is constructed9”. The landscape also became the locus of beliefs and practices central to community life. Irish people marked out sacred space in the land, making their topography part and parcel of daily life and religious observances. By the nineteenth century, sites both vernacular and Catholic, including holy wells, Celtic crosses, miraculous statues, apparition sites, medieval church ruins, fairy dwellings, and burial grounds demarcated the countryside10. Mapping the landscape with the sacred and the profane allowed the Irish people to manage nature and create order11.

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8 The intricate connections between women and the landscape also have a long history in Ireland and elsewhere. While it is nearly impossible to trace the origins of the land- as-woman trope, scholars often place such connections within patriarchal traditions articulating that woman was to nature as man was to culture. Within these traditions the feminized land, like woman herself, was to be surveyed, plundered, and controlled by men12. As Catherine Nash has argued, in Irish tradition the landscape, like the female body, is “transversed, journeyed across, entered into, intimately known, gazed upon13”.

9 Vernacular traditions, as well as later Catholic and colonial discourses, all made use of such representations14. Ireland-as-woman was an image popularized by the aisling, an Irish-language dream or vision poem popular in the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries15. As Gearóid Ó Crualaoich explains, within storytelling and legends, the cailleach, or “otherworld female”, personified the landscape and the climate – from “the power of the wind and wave… to the pastoral and nurturing fertility forces of plant and animal life16…” Legends about the cailleach were tied to “natural features of the physical landscape”, establishing a firm link between the topography and the sacred feminine17. Right through the early twentieth century in parts of Ireland, and particularly in the rural and Irish-speaking south and west, legends about supernatural women such as the cailleach and the banshee, or death messenger, remained closely tied to particular locales and elements within the physical environment18.

10 Christian and later colonial Ireland reworked these associations between the feminine and the environment. The colonial system feminized Ireland, categorizing the nation as weak, emotional, and uncivilized. It thus justified English (male) rule. The Irish colonial contest was clearly visible on the landscape. As the English state gained control of the island, it constructed impressive government buildings, roads, and railroads, all of which were tangible symbols of English power and reminders of colonialism’s successes. In the first few decades of the nineteenth century, the colonial State conducted a massive project to map Ireland through the ordnance survey. This project, as Angele Smith explains, “was an act of colonial domination – mapping was a means for Britain to maintain colonial control over Ireland, making the landscape, its people and past known and quantifiable19”.

11 By the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, nationalists appropriated representations of the (gendered female) Irish nation, women, and the feminized Irish landscape. Now, the wild, rugged, uncivilized landscape came to represent the “real” (Gaelic, pre-colonial) Ireland; it, like Ireland’s women, needed to be reclaimed by nationalist men. Nationalists, argues Nash, clearly linked the landscape and the female body; the nationalist “representation of women fixes their bodies as landscapes of control and signifying use20”. Irish nationalism and, ultimately, the independent Irish State, subjected both the land and the female body, as James Smith’s work reminds us, to patriarchal control21.

12 Existing alongside the construction of a feminized landscape in Irish history was an effort to constrain the female body in space and place. By the nineteenth century, people in Ireland and in the Irish Diaspora called on long-standing beliefs and oral traditions to map bodies and landscapes22. They also used beliefs about the landscape to regulate female sexuality. Fairy belief was one of the strongest oral traditions upholding gender norms and dictating female behavior. Popular subjects in storytelling, the fairies were non-human beings that could take human form and meddle in human life. When Ireland’s people told stories and legends of the bizarre and

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the magical, they did more than entertain. Storytelling also was a system of education, informing and instructing people on customs and norms as well as proper behavior. It regulated family and community life23. It is perhaps no surprise, then, that gender is a primary theme in many fairy legends.

13 Fairy legends frequently place the female body in marginal landscapes and thus at the center of danger or drama. Within oral traditions, women proved especially susceptible to fairy-changeling abduction. According to legendry, unsuspecting mortals (usually women and children) could be stolen away or “taken” by the fairies. Supernatural imposters, or fairy-changelings, then took their place in the human world. As Eugene Hynes reminds us, nineteenth-century Irish people associated fairy-women with “specific places24”; as they did so, they mapped meaning onto the female body and the Irish topography. Women who wandered in forbidden or profane places were particularly likely to be “taken away25”. The dangerous terrain into which women drifted was often liminal space, located on the margins of the town or village26. Peter Narváez has shown that women who picked berries in the Irish diasporic communities of Newfoundland were thought to be courting fairy intervention; berry grounds were known as “liminal zones” of “macro-religious danger and tragedy27”. Stories claiming that fairies stole away women who were out picking berries reveal communal anxieties about women venturing outside of the confines of the home or village. They also express the very real fears that women who walked alone through the berry grounds could encounter abuse28.

14 Fairy belief, therefore, reflected realities while it constructed an ideal world. It consistently advocated that women remain at home, safely enclosed within the domestic sphere. In a legend collected in Galway by Lady Gregory in the early twentieth century, the dangers facing women who strayed from home are evident:

15 An old woman from Loughrea told me that a woman, I believe it was from Shragwalla close to the town, was taken away one time for fourteen years when she went out into the field at night with nothing on but her shift. And she was swept [abducted] there and then, and an old hag put into the bed in her place, and she suckling her young son at the time29.

16 This young woman wanders away into dangerous space while improperly dressed. She thus violates social norms and gendered codes of behavior30. The suggestion that she may have committed a sexual transgression is also evident. This legend’s complex message includes the assertion that young wives and mothers must remain safely at home and safely contained within patriarchy.

17 Similarly, another legend tells of the consequences faced by a woman who is out wandering: She said she was walking the road and she met four men, and she knew that they were not of this world, and she fell on the road with the fright she got… And for a long time after she wasn’t in her right mind31…

18 This woman may indeed have been assaulted by four men on the road, but the attack that she suffers is coded through fairy belief. Here, again, the suggestion is that women who “walk the road” leave themselves open to disaster, returning permanently damaged. The telling of such stories sent a clear message to young women: stay at home, and in your proper place, or else you too may fall victim to supernatural abduction.

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19 In Irish custom, cures for changeling abduction were violent, requiring the physical abuse of the fairy-changeling’s body. In order to banish a fairy, people beat or shook it, hit it with a pitchfork, or burned it with a hot shovel or poker. A Kildare legend tells of a man whose wife is “taken away”. Every night at midnight, however, she briefly returns to the home to look at their child. The husband, who wants his wife back, assembles twelve local men with forks to come to the house and prevent his wife from leaving after her nocturnal visit. This threat apparently works; the wife stays put32. Another County Clare narrative is more explicit. A young, newly married woman is stolen away, a morose and silent changeling left in her place. The woman’s husband does not know what to do, but his mother does: [The husband’s mother] went out to the flax and she said to the [changeling] girl: “you’d best get the dinner ready before the men come in.” But when she came in there was nothing done, and [the mother-in-law] gave her a blow with some pieces of the flax that were in her hand, and said, ‘Get out of this for a good-for-nothing woman!’ And with that she went up the chimney and was gone33.

20 After the fairy is banished, the real (human) woman comes back, taking her place in the household and, presumably, behaving more properly from then on. Within legendry, the fairy imposter leaves, and the “normal” wife returns. In reality, of course, a disobedient wife may have been beaten or burned into submissiveness, “returning” well behaved. In her analysis of the 1895 burning death of Bridget Cleary, Angela Bourke argues that changeling accusations masked domestic violence and, fundamentally, served as a mechanism for controlling disrutive women. Cleary, who was reported to be a changeling, was killed when her husband, father, relatives, and neighbors attempted to beat and burn the fairy out of her34.

21 The real-life communities of late nineteenth – and early twentieth-century Ireland not only used stories and legends to control young women; they also employed physical isolation. As the importance of space and place evolved at the hands of a strengthening Catholic Church and powerful Victorian state, how did the relationship between women and space evolve? What David Miller has called Ireland’s late nineteenth- century “chapel-based” religious landscape had as one if its main goals gender separation: in newly built chapels, women and men sat separately, and, ideally, men inhabited the public sphere while women dominated the home35. At the insistence of the clergy, laborers’ cottages, built by the government in the second half of the nineteenth century, contained separate sleeping areas for girls and boys36.

22 The colonial state also constructed an architectural system to contain the deviant body. As Dympna McLoughlin explains, the poor relief system was designed to “alleviate the absolute poverty of the Irish by containing them within the institution of the workhouse37.” Women, however, challenged the system. On the one hand, they entered the workhouses at much higher rates than men; late nineteenth-century poor law guardians complained that the workhouses were overrun with women. More disturbingly, women also used the workhouses to their advantage, sometimes temporarily depositing themselves and their children there and then leaving when they wished38. Viewing women’s mobility and their sexuality as a threat, authorities carefully controlled the space of the workhouse. Men and women were kept apart, and unwed pregnant women were separated from other women and children39.

23 The legacies of this focus on space and geography were significant. By the twentieth century, according to James M. Smith, a newly independent Ireland, with its close

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linkages between the state and the Catholic Church, implemented its “architecture of containment40.” In Smith’s analysis, this system targeted deviant women, and particularly sexually deviant women; his work affirms the civilizing mission’s focus on removing women from public space, keeping women and men apart, and using space to prevent sexual vice.

24 For late nineteenth and early twentieth-century Irish communities, the regulation of unwed mothers proved particularly significant. Many unwed women who became pregnant left their town or village and sought refuge in a neighboring community; this reality reminds us that such women could not find comfortable places within their own communities41. Sara Walsh of County Kerry recalled that a local family, ironically called the Bodies, produced women famous for their sexual transgressions. Local children were taught to avoid the Bodies’ residence at all costs42. In The Farm By Lough Gur, the idyllic rural post-famine upbringing of Sissy O’Brien is disrupted by the pregnancy of an unwed girl. When the girl becomes pregnant, her father banishes her from the household. Forced to take refuge in a pigsty, the girl falls ill. She is allowed to return home only after her baby dies in childbirth, but she is damaged and ruined beyond repair43. These examples demonstrate the literal isolation that sexualized women experienced and elucidate the real-world ways in which communities employed control and containment to regulate female sexuality. Through their tales, rural Irish folk created a metaphorical “architecture of containment” to keep women in line, but they also physically isolated the polluted body if necessary.

Birth, Bodies, and Boundaries

25 Traditional beliefs and rural customs speak to the importance of pregnancy and birth in rural Ireland; indeed, it is no accident that many victims of fairy abduction (such as the woman in the Loughrea legend above) are pregnant or post-parturient. Fairy belief gave voice to the dangers that confronted women during pregnancy and birth. As David Cressy has argued for early modern Britain, pregnancy was a “dangerous journey44”, one that left both women and infants susceptible to fairy-changeling abduction. Similar views pervaded Ireland centuries later, where the deaths of women and children during and after childbirth sometimes were categorized as fairy abductions45.

26 Irish people’s views on the dangers of childbirth are exemplified by several narratives collected by Lady Gregory in the early twentieth century. As a North Galway woman told Gregory: “There are many young women taken in childbirth. I lost a sister of my own in that way46”. The woman’s pregnant sister tries to cross the local river and is suddenly struck on the face. Her face swells, and after she gives birth, she dies. The woman’s sister remembered: “And my mother used to watch for her for three or four years after, thinking she’d come back, but she never did47.” Once more, this woman violates her domestic role by leaving the home and venturing into a dangerous landscape. She does so while pregnant, which puts her unborn child and thus the family lineage in peril. Irish legends and narratives thus constituted part of a complex system of coded language and hidden meaning, and they affirmed clear and strict gender boundaries48. They also required women to control their bodies and move within the landscape in socially sanctioned ways even as they expressed fears that the female body was not so easily harnessed. While fairy belief urged women, particularly

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pregnant women or women of childbearing age, to stay safely at home, it also revealed that this was not feasible or desirable for some.

27 The dangers of childbirth also affected infants. In the early twentieth century, residents of County Limerick explained that even the process of bringing a child to the chapel for baptism was susceptible to evil forces. Along the way, if the woman carrying the child met another woman, she would turn back. And the journey home could be just as precarious. As one woman described, “[r]eturning from the Church the person in charge of the child would not allow anybody [to] touch it or come near it until she had returned it to its mother again49”. The path from pregnancy to baptism, like the journey from chapel to home, was infused with an aura of danger. The very real possibility that death would strike mother or child was expressed through alternative beliefs.

28 Pregnancy and childbirth not only left women open to danger but also left their bodies polluted. New Catholic mothers in nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Ireland were considered unclean until they were churched or purified by their parish priest, usually several weeks after they had given birth50. Catholic women continued to view churching as “a cleansing process” well into the twentieth century51. The bodies of unchurched women posed particular dangers. Legendry and tradition cautioned new mothers, particularly women who had not yet been “purified” or churched, to stay at home. Traditions also cautioned unchurched women not to enter other people’s homes. Kept isolated and insulated from the daily workings of parish life, confined to their homes, limited to interacting with only their immediate family, and forbidden from taking part in local rituals, unchurched women were marked as others, as beings whose experience of birth made them threatening, infused with an aura of danger and thus best kept away from the larger community52. Churching served to remind Irish women that their overall position within the parish community was itself vulnerable and uncertain; because they were female and tainted by the process of birth, women were, at times, ejected from parish life, returning only because the church, priest, and community allowed it.

29 While historians of modern Ireland have yet to investigate the meanings of the lying-in period and churching, some scholars of early modern England have demonstrated that lay people attributed different meanings to the ritual. At times, churching was about pollution and purification, serving as evidence of women’s inferior historical status, contemporary beliefs that intercourse was sinful, and views that women, who took on the dangers associated with birth, were both threatening and vulnerable53. Yet others view churching in a more positive light, arguing that it was a female-centered celebration. David Cressy maintains that churching was a ritual that women demanded and viewed as a ceremony of thanksgiving, not purification; similarly, theologian Natalie Knödel argues that “the practice of churching was by far not an imposition of the male church on women, but something sought after by women themselves54”. And in the work of Adrian Wilson, churching in early modern England becomes the site of “a zone of sexual politics and gendered conflict”, where “women took initiatives and achieved victories55.”

30 Oral histories from twentieth-century Ireland affirm that women interpreted churching in different ways but that, fundamentally, being unchurched was tied to being unclean and isolated. As revealed in the work of social historian Kevin Kearns, Dublin women remembered that they could not wash or comb their hair or even make

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a cup of tea until they were churched56. A Dublin woman’s recollections clearly demonstrated her feelings about being unchurched: You weren’t clean, not fit to do anything, to cook… you were taboo, like a leper. Nobody then had the courage to stand up and contradict the priest, or what he was saying. There were a lot of things then that we went along with. God forgive me now, I feel angry, VERY angry57.

31 Churching thus provides a window into Irish people’s sentiments about the dangers of birth, the uncertainty of the lifecyle, and the connections between gender, purity, and pollution. The movement of pregnant women, unchurched women, or unbaptized infants in public space was viewed as threatening to the community. Polluted bodies could pollute the landscape; at the same time, the landscape was a mechanism for controlling the polluted body. The ideas of pollution associated with pregnancy and childbirth fundamentally served to marginalize women, regulating their actions, keeping them inside certain spaces and out of others.

32 However, the physical and social isolation experienced by post-parturient women should be read not exclusively as control and containment but as something more complicated. Women’s experiences of the aftermath of childbirth differed based on region, class, and marital status. In reality, many poor women could ill afford to take time off from economic production; as the granddaughter of a County Derry agricultural worker remembered, “‘An aunt of my mummy’s gave birth in a field, and went back to work right away. See, in the country areas you had to go back to work the next day58.”’ In 1906, the Belfast Medical Officer of Health claimed that “mothers work in the mills and factories to within a few days of the birth of children, and return to work again as soon as their employers will permit59”.

33 For other women, the post-partum period of isolation allowed them much-needed time to rest and recuperate, allowing them to take a break from their daily chores. Many women must have welcomed a lying-in period since “it was the only rest most of them got in their lives60”. A Star Called Henry, Roddy Doyle’s fictional account of life in the early twentieth-century, illustrates such a view; Melody Nash’s lying-in period is described as a well-needed reprieve from domestic duties in working-class Dublin61. Even fictional works, then, demonstrate conflicting attitudes toward churching, and differing views of the lying-in period as either a much-needed rest or a Church- imposed isolation persisted well into the twentieth century.

Sex, Death, and Burial

34 Like pregnancy and birth, death was a significant passage in the Irish lifecycle establishing clear linkages between gender, the body, and the landscape. “Between death and burial”, writes Christina Brophy, “the recently deceased and his/ her community were in chaotic transition62”. Death, like birth, thus required complex and careful rituals, which, in Ireland, traditionally were overseen by women63. Women cleaned and laid out the body, preparing it for the wake and funeral. At the Irish wake, they keened bitter, desolate laments, allowing all gathered to reflect on the tragedy of death64. In rural Ireland, women controlled life’s passages, managing the processes of birth and death. As a result, they marked themselves as both powerful and vulnerable.

35 Burial was a ritual that allowed for closure, reconciling the body and the landscape. When those who died were polluted or impure, however, proper burial became

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impossible. Stillborn or unbaptized children, for example, could not be placed in sacred ground and commonly were buried in cillíns: graveyards specifically for unbaptized children, outside of the Catholic cemetery65. Similarly, women who committed sexual transgressions were denied entry to sacred ground upon their deaths. Several late nineteenth-century cases from rural Ireland shed light on the ways in which communities continued their attempts to contain and control the female body even after death.

36 David Moriarty, the Catholic Bishop of Kerry, wrote in his diary of such a case while touring his parishes in the summer of 187566. Moriarty described a horrific murder in Kiltomy. A local man, John Quilter, had beaten to death his mother and his paternal uncle (his dead father’s brother). John Quilter’s mother, Honoria Quilter, and his uncle, Thomas Quilter, had been living together, not as brother-and-sister-in-law, but as husband and wife, for nearly twenty years. This violated Catholic prohibitions against consanguinity. The local priest, the Franciscan missionaries, and even Bishop Moriarty himself urged the couple to separate, to no avail. Eventually, the Franciscan missionaries convinced Thomas Quilter to move out of the couple’s home. Still, Honoria attempted to reconcile with Thomas, and he seemed vulnerable to her pleas. The couple remained together even after Bishop Moriarty excommunicated them. Only death would sever the ties between Thomas and Honoria: John Quilter, recently arrived home from an extended stay in America, murdered his mother and his uncle in 1875.

37 In his diary, Bishop Moriarty explained that John Quilter murdered Thomas and Honoria because of the scandal that surrounded their sexual relationship. More interesting to Moriarty, however, was how the community of Kiltomey dealt with the Quilters after their deaths. Thomas and Honoria Quilter were both buried in the local Catholic cemetery. Honoria Quilter’s remains, however, were quickly unearthed and, according to Bishop Moriarty’s diary, “deposited elsewhere67.” On October 13, 1875, the Nenagh Guardian picked up the story, reporting that “The charred fragments of the body of the murdered woman Honoria Quilter have been refused Christian burial by the people in Kerry68”…

38 The community’s treatment of Honoria Quilter’s body brings up intriguing questions: why was she denied a sacred burial while Thomas was allowed to remain in the graveyard? In Bishop Moriarty’s diary, he consistently described Honoria as stubborn and persuasive, suggesting that she, not her husband, refused the dictates of Church and community. By rejecting the advice of the Catholic clergy and refusing to follow local norms or uphold the sexual order of the village, Honoria severed her connection with her community. Her friends and neighbors uttered the last word in the matter when they unearthed Honoria’s bones. Not content to let her death be punishment enough, some people felt it necessary to eject her from the community permanently, displaying her body in a way that shamed her, damned her, and publicized her sins.

39 The 1895 murder of Bridget Cleary also exposes the connections between women’s sexual behavior and the treatment of their bodies after death. Bridget Cleary, who was murdered by her husband, father, and cousins in rural County Tipperary, was a glamorous, alluring, stubborn, and willful woman. Angela Bourke argues that Cleary may have been infertile and was rumored to be having an extra-marital affair69. Bridget Cleary, like Honoria Quilter and Áine, the Galway unwed mother who was denied a sacred burial, transgressed local norms, and particularly sexual norms. After Bridget Cleary’s death, her husband, Michael Cleary, buried her body in a shallow grave, where

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the police discovered it several days later. Michael Cleary and several of Bridget’s relatives who had been involved in the murder were arrested and brought to trial. Local authorities, however, faced a dilemma: with Bridget’s family in prison, they did not quite know what to do with Bridget’s body. After several days, no one in the village would come forward to claim Bridget’s body or to arrange for her burial. The community, after this woman’s death, made a statement about her scandalous life. The police finally buried Bridget Cleary on the very edge of the cemetery, just outside of consecrated ground70.

Conclusion

40 The legacies of nineteenth-century Ireland’s focus on space, gender, and geography were significant indeed. The notion of the polluted female body that could be dominated and mapped like the landscape itself persisted through independence and well into the twentieth century, when the newly strengthened Catholic Church, supported by the native Irish state, employed new tactics in their campaign to control landscapes and bodies. The results would bring scandal to Ireland when the outrage of the Magdalen laundries became public. Created in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the Magdalen laundries were asylums for transgressing women; after Irish independence, they “increasingly served a recarceral and punitive function71”, harnessing thousands of women of varying backgrounds who did not conform to the ideal of Irish womanhood.

41 In 2003, the Irish Times published a story on a Dublin Magdalen asylum. When it was sold in 1993, the bodies of 155 former female inmates were exhumed. These women, whom James Smith calls the “nation’s disappeared”, had lived and died without notice in the laundry, their bodies placed in unmarked graves on the laundry grounds. After the 1993 exhumation, however, 22 bodies remained unaccounted for; these bodies were quietly cremated, and the story was kept secret for ten years72. When it became public, the controversy of the Magdalen asylums caused Irish society to confront the ways in which the bodies of deviant women were “deposited elsewhere” by the State, the Church, and ultimately the Irish people.

42 Yet we must remember that the control and containment of the sexually polluted body was not created with Irish independence. Both the landscape and the female body had long been sites of meaning. In Irish tradition, each could be fertile or barren; each could be sacred or profane. Each was necessary for the regeneration of community life; each consistently was mapped and stamped by patriarchal authorities.

43 The connections between space, place, and the female body remain under-researched in Irish history, however. We still know little not only about how women’s bodies were restricted but also about how women may have negotiated or resisted the harnessing of their “deviant” bodies. In her work on nineteenth-century workhouses, for example, Dympna McLoughlin has demonstrated that many poor women, rather than being “limited and contained”, used the workhouses to survive73. At the same time, nuns were constructing buildings such as orphanages, Magdalen asylums, and hospitals (as early as 1834, the Sisters of Charity, led by Mary Aikenhead, built St. Vincent Hospital in Dublin, the first Catholic hospital run by Catholic nuns in Ireland)74. We must recognize, then, that women were not always passive victims. Perhaps there was an architecture of containment that served to clearly mark out women’s place; if so, however, it seems

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clear that women themselves helped construct this architecture and, in some cases at least, were able to navigate around it.

NOTES

1. Connacht Tribune, 9 November 1984; Nina Witoszek and Pat Sheeran, Talking to the Dead: A Study of Irish Funerary Traditions, Amsterdam, Editions Rodopi B.V., 1998, p. 23. 2. Connacht Tribune, 9 November 1984. 3. On the importance of the landscape in modern Ireland, see Gerry Smith, Space and the Irish Cultural Imagination, Houndsmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave, 2001; B.J. Graham and L.J. Proudfoot eds., An Historical Geography of Ireland, London: Academic Press Limited, 1993; and F.H.A. Aalen, Kevin Whelan, and Matthew Stout, eds., Atlas of the Rural Irish Landscape, Cork, Cork University Press, 1997. For the key works on gender and landscape, see Marti D. Lee and Ed Madden, eds., Irish Studies: Geographies and Genders, Newcastle, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2008 and Sheila Bhreathnach- Lynch, Ireland’s Art Ireland’s History: Representing Ireland, 1845 to Present, Omaha, Creighton University Press, 2007, chapter six. 4. For a notable exception, see Catherine Nash, “Remapping and Renaming: New Cartographies of Identity, Gender and Landscape in Ireland”, Feminist Review No. 44, 1993, p. 39-57. 5. James M. Smith, Ireland’s Magdalen Laundries and the Nation’s Architecture of Containment, South Bend, Indiana, University of Notre Dame Press, 2007. 6. Ibid., p. XIII. 7. Bhreathnach-Lynch, Ireland’s Art Ireland’s History, p. 88. 8. Ibid., p. 96. 9. Lawrence J. Taylor, Occasions of Faith: An Anthropology of Irish Catholics, Dublin, Lilliput Press, 1995, p. 4. 10. Raymond Gillespie, Devoted People: Belief and Religion in Early Modern Ireland, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1997 p. 88; Diarmuid Ó Giolláin, “The Fairy Belief and Official Religion in Ireland”, in The Good People: New Fairylore Essays, ed. Peter Narváez, Lexington, The University Press of Kentucky, 1997, p. 199-200. 11. See Narváez, The Good People; Barbara Rieti, Strange Terrain: The Fairy World in Newfoundland, St. Johns, Newfoundland: Institute of Social and Economic Research, Memorial University of Newfoundland, 1991; and Angela Bourke, The Burning of Bridget Cleary: A True Story, London: Pimlico, 1999. 12. Gillian Rose, “Looking at Landscape: The Uneasy Pleasures of Power”, in Space, Gender, Knowledge: Feminist Readings, eds. Linda McDowell and Joanne P. Sharp, London, Arnold, 1997, p. 193.

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13. Nash, “Remapping and Renaming”, p. 54. For more on the ways in which power has been inscribed on the body, see Michel Foucault’s Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, London, Allen Lane, 1977 and The History of Sexuality, London, Allen Lane, 1978. 14. Nash, “Remapping and Renaming”, p. 44. 15. Ibid. 16. Gearóid Ó Crualaoich, The Book of the Cailleach: Stories of the Wise-Woman Healer, Cork, Cork University Press, 2003, p. 10-11. 17. Ibid., p. 28-29. 18. On the banshee, see Ó Crualaoich, The Book of the Cailleach and Patricia Lysaght, The Banshee: The Irish Death Messenger, Denver, Roberts Rinehart Publishers, 1997. 19. Angèle Smith, “Landscape Representation: Place and Identity in Nineteenth- Century Ordnance Survey Maps of Ireland”, in Landscape, Memory, and History, eds. Pamela J. Stewart and Andrew Strathern, London, Pluto Press, 2003, p. 71. 20. Nash, “Remapping, and Renaming”, p. 50. 21. Smith, Ireland’s Magdalen Laundries. 22. Fairy belief is well-documented primarily in the Celtic, Germanic, and Scandinavian countries of Europe, as well as in Ireland and the Irish diasporic communities of North America. See Rieti, Strange Terrain and Narváez, The Good People. 23. For an analysis of the many functions of fairy belief, see Angela Bourke, “The Virtual Reality of Irish Fairy Legend”, in Éire/Ireland 31, 1-2, Spring/Summer 1996, p. 7-25. 24. Eugene Hynes, Knock: The Virgin’s Apparition in Nineteenth-Century Ireland, Cork, Cork University Press, 2008, p. 3. 25. For an example, see Linda-May Ballard, “Fairies and the Supernatural on Reachrai”, in The Good People, p. 55. 26. On the concept of liminality, see Victor Turner, “Betwixt and Between: The Liminal Period in Rites de Passage”, in The Forest of Symbols: Aspects of Ndembu Ritual, Ithaca, Cornell University Press, 1967, p. 93-111 and Arnold Van Gennep, The Rites of Passage, Chicago, University of Chicago, 1960. 27. Peter Narváez, “Newfoundland Berry Pickers ‘In the Fairies’: Maintaining Spatial, Temporal, and Moral Boundaries through Legendry”, in The Good People, p. 353. 28. Ibid., p. 354-5. 29. Lady Augusta Gregory, Visions and Beliefs in the West of Ireland. Collected and Arranged by Lady Gregory, London, Colin Smythe Ltd., 1970, p. 109. For a similar example from Newfoundland, see Rieti, The Good People, p. 45. 30. Bourke, The Burning of Bridget Cleary. See also Richard P. Jenkins, “Witches and Fairies: Supernatural Aggression and Deviance among the Irish Peasantry”, in The Good People, p. 316. 31. Lady Gregory, Visions and Beliefs, p. 124. 32. Lady Gregory, Visions and Beliefs, p. 108. 33. Lady Gregory, Visions and Beliefs, p. 122. 34. Bourke, The Burning of Bridget Cleary, p. 36-38.

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35. David W. Miller, “Landscape and Religious Practice: A Study of Mass Attendance in Pre-Famine Ireland”, Éire-Ireland 40:1&2 (Earrach/Samhradh / Spring/Summer 2005), p. 90-106. 36. Bourke, The Burning of Bridget Cleary, p. 46. 37. Dympna McLoughlin, “Workhouses” in The Field Day Anthology of Women’s Writing: Volume V: Irish Women’s Writing and Traditions, eds. Angela Bourke, Siobhán Kilfeather, Maria Luddy, Margaret MacCurtain, Gerardine Meaney, Máirín Ní Dhonnchadha, Mary O’Dowd, and Clair Wills, New York, New York University Press, 2002, p. 722. 38. Dympna McLoughlin, “Workhouses and Irish Female Paupers 1840-70”, in Maria Luddy & Cliona Murphy (eds.), Women Surviving: Studies in Irish Women’s History in the 19th and 20th Centuries, Dublin: Poolbeg Press, 1989, p. 133-4. 39. McLoughlin, “Workhouses”, in The Field Day Anthology, p. 722-3. 40. James Smith, Ireland’s Magdalen Laundries, p. XIII. 41. Chris Lawlor, Canon Frederick Donovan’s Dunlavin, 1884-1896: A West Wicklow Village in the Late Nineteenth Century. Maynooth Studies in Irish Local History no. 29, Dublin, Irish Academic Press, 2000, p. 36. 42. Richard White, Remembering Ahanagran: A History of Stories, New York, Hill and Wang, 1998, p. 100-101. 43. Mary Carbery, The Farm By Lough Gur: The Story of Mary Fogarty (Sissy O’Brien), Cork, Mercier Press, 1973 (1937), p. 50. 44. David Cressy, Birth, Marriage and Death: Ritual, Religion and the Life Cycle in Tudor and Stuart England, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1997, p. 44. 45. Lady Gregory, Visions and Beliefs, p. 125. 46. Ibid., p. 91. 47. Ibid. 48. See Joan Radner and Susan Lanser, “Strategies of Coding in Women’s Cultures”, in Feminist Messages: Coding in Women’s Folk Culture, ed. Joan Newlon Radner, Urbana and Chicago, University of Illinois Press, 1993, p. 1-30 and Bourke, “The Virtual Reality of Irish Fairy Legend”. 49. Recollections of Mrs. Kelly, The Pike, County Limerick, 1929. National Folklore Commission, Dublin, 42, p. 188-189. 50. Cara Delay, “Churchings and Changelings: Pregnancy and Childbirth in Modern Irish History”, forthcoming in Women in Irish History and Culture, eds. Maria Luddy, Gerardine Meaney, and Anne Mulhall, p. 15. 51. Linda-May Ballard, Forgetting Frolic: Marriage Traditions in Ireland, Belfast/London, The Institute of Irish Studies, The Queen’s University of Belfast, 1998, p. 134. 52. For a comparative analysis, see Keith Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic: Studies in Popular Beliefs in Sixteenth and Seventeenth Century England, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1997. 53. Ibid. 54. Cressy, Birth, Marriage, and Death, p. 110; Natalie Knödel, “The Thanksgiving of Women after Childbirth, Commonly called The Churching of Women”, Natalie Knödel, University of Durham, April 1995 [accessed 13 December 2011].

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55. Cressy, Birth, Marriage, and Death, p. 110. 56. Ballard, Forgetting Frolic, p. 135. 57. Kevin Kearns, Dublin’s Lost Heroines: Mammies and Grannies in a Vanished City, Dublin, Gill and Macmillan, 2004, p. 172. 58. National Union of Public Employees (NUPE), Women’s Committee, Northern Ireland, Women’s Voices: An Oral History of Northern Irish Women’s Health (1900-1990), Dublin, Attic Press, 1992, p. 22. 59. Ibid. 60. Caitriona Clear, Women of the House: Women’s Household Work in Ireland, 1926-1961: Discourses, Experiences, Memories, Dublin, Irish Academic Press, 2000, p. 112. 61. Roddy Doyle, A Star Called Henry, New York, Penguin, 1999, p. 29. 62. Christina Brophy, “Keening Community: Mná Caointe, Women, Death, and Power in Ireland”, Ph.D. dissertation, Boston College, 2010, p. 168-9. 63. Clodagh Tait, Death, Burial and Commemoration in Ireland, 1550-1650, Basingstoke, Palgrave, 2002, chapter 3. 64. For more on the Irish wake, see Gearóid Ó Crualaoich, “The ‘Merry Wake’”, in Irish Popular Culture 1650-1850, eds. James S. Donnelly Jr. and Kerby A. Miller, Dublin, Irish Academic Press, 1998, p. 173-200. 65. Ballard, Forgetting Frolic, p. 136; Gillian M. Doherty, The Irish Ordnance Survey: History, Culture and Memory, Dublin, Four Courts Press, 2004, p. 130-31. 66. Entry from 7 October 1875. Bishop David Moriarty’s Diary at the Kerry Diocesan Archive, Killarney. 67. Idem. 68. Nenagh Guardian, 13 October 1875. 69. Angela Bourke, The Burning of Bridget Cleary. 70. Joan Hoff and Marian Yeates, The Cooper’s Wife is Missing: The Trials of Bridget Cleary, New York, Basic Books, 200, p. 352. 71. Smith, Ireland’s Magdalen Laundries, p. XV.

72. Ibid., p. XVII and 136-137. 73. McLoughlin, “Workhouses”, p. 726. 74. Tom Inglis, Moral Monopoly: The Catholic Church in Modern Irish Society, Dublin, Gill and Macmillan, 1987, p. 126).

ABSTRACTS

Through an analysis of diaries, memoirs, and folklore narratives, this essay analyzes the containment of the female body in the modern Irish landscape. In particular, it focuses on the ways in which Irish communities both literally and through legendry controlled the sexualized female body from the 1850s to the 1920s. The bodies of sexually active women, pregnant and

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post-parturient women, and dead women who had committed sexual transgressions were fraught with meaning; dangerous and polluted, they were isolated from the rest of the community. The regulation of the female body within the landscape became a mechanism for harnessing troublesome women. By separating and containing the impure and sexual female body, nineteenth-century Irish communities established the modern gender hierarchies that would result in what James Smith has labeled an “architecture of containment”.

À travers une analyse de cahiers et journaux intimes, mémoires et récits populaires, cet article interroge la stratégie de contention dont le corps féminin fait l’objet dans le paysage irlandais moderne. Il s’intéresse plus particulièrement à la manière dont les communautés irlandaises, à la fois littéralement et par le biais des légendes, ont contrôlé la sexualité du corps féminin des années 1850 aux années 1920. Les corps des femmes sexuellement actives, enceintes, ou post partum, mais aussi les corps des mortes ayant commis des transgressions sexuelles, étaient chargés d’une signification de danger et d’impureté, et étaient isolés du reste de la communauté. L’inscription contrôlée du corps féminin dans le paysage devint un moyen de garder sous le joug les femmes posant problème. En isolant et en contraignant le corps féminin impur, les communautés irlandaises du dix neuvième siècle établirent les hiérarchies sexuelles modernes qui ont débouché sur ce que James Smith appelle une « architecture de la contention » (« architecture of containment »).

INDEX

Keywords: gender studies, society and religion, tales and legends, sexuality, women, body Mots-clés: études de genre, société et religion, contes et légendes, femmes, sexualité, corps

AUTHOR

CARA DELAY College of Charleston

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Art et Image Art and Image

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“Doesn’t Mary Have a Lovely Bottom?”: Gender, Sexuality and Catholic Ideology in Father Ted

Lisa McGonigle

1 The sitcom Father Ted, which originally aired from 1995 to 1998 on Britain’s Channel 4, has gone on to achieve widespread popularity and cult status alike, taking top position in a 2008 poll of Ireland’s favourite television programmes and a cohort of loyal “Tedheads” reenacting key moments from the series at an annual “Tedfest1”. Set on Craggy Island, a fictitious island located off the west coast of Ireland, Father Ted centres upon three priests Fathers Ted Crilly (Dermot Morgan), Jack Hackett (Frank Kelly) and Dougal Maguire (Ardal O’Hanlon) and their downtrodden housekeeper, Mrs Doyle (Pauline McLynn), who live together in the parochial house. However, although the programme emerged at a time when the Catholic Church in Ireland was embroiled in a series of scandals Mary Kenny describes how “on one Monday in November 1994, the three leading stories on RTÉ, the national television network, were the political repercussions following the Brendan Smyth case, the collapse and death of a Dublin priest in a homosexual sauna club, and the conviction of a Galway priest for a sexual assault on a young man, all in one news bulletin2”. Arthur Mathews and Graham Linehan, the writers of the show, claim structural rather than political impetus in having chosen priests as comic personae for Father Ted, referencing the sitcom format in this regard. For example, they describe the clerical world as a closed community in which priests appear to all know one other, with such bonhomie enabling them to introduce and dispense of secondary characters with ease, Linehan also remarking that “one of the great things about priests is that they all dress the same. So you can take a concept, impose it on a priest and it becomes funny almost automatically3”. The programme is thus populated by such figures as Father Finnegan, the Dancing Priest who claims “prayer isn’t the only way to praise God, you know. And it keeps you fit as well” (“Think fast, Father Ted”, Season 2), Father Billy O’Dwyer whose DJ-ing has earned him the moniker “The Spinmaster” (“Think fast, Father Ted”, Season 2) and the participants in the annual All-Priests Five-a-side Over Seventy-Fives Indoor Football

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Challenge, the star player of which “can walk up two flights of stairs unassisted. Only needs one nun to help him get out of a chair” (“Escape from Victory”, Season 3). Linehan similarly remarks that “because of the mysterious thing religion is, you can make things up and spoof people… there’s a reference to this disease that old priests get where they get very hairy, and because it’s set in a vaguely mysterious world you might just believe that4”. Rather than critiquing the clergy’s traditional aloofness from the laity or interrogating the mysteries of faith, Father Ted exploits them for comic purpose.

2 With sitcom being an abbreviation, after all, of “situation comedy”, a further structural advantage to the nature of the priesthood, Mathews and Linehan point out, is that none of the characters can easily extricate themselves from the set-up of the parochial house, thereby ensuring plenty of opportunity for situational set-pieces. Ted is a would-be bon-vivant, aspiring to a life of celebrity and glamour, but he must remain exiled on the remote Craggy Island at the behest of his superiors due to his embezzlement of parochial funds, his tetchily repeated defence being that “the money was just resting in my account”. His fellow clerics prove little consolation: the elderly Jack is lost in a perpetual alcoholic haze and Dougal is largely theologically illiterate, variously asking Ted if he believes in the afterlife and offering the advice that “heaven and hell and everlasting life and all that type of thing – you’re not meant to take it seriously” (“Good luck, Father Ted”, Season 1). Mathews describes Ted’s position as being “stuck with three people he had nothing in common with. All the best sitcoms are about thwarted ambition, chasing up blind alleys and being in a situation you don’t want to be in”, elsewhere citing Porridge and Steptoe and Son as classic sitcoms in this vein5.

3 Indeed, Linehan and Mathews repeatedly cite the influence of British sitcom upon Father Ted. When the surreality of the programme was compared to that of Flann O’Brien for example, there is no longer a west coast on Craggy Island, it just “drifted off… now it’s just north, south and east” Mathews remarked that “it would be nice if we could say that we were influenced by some great Irish comic tradition… but really it’s just Reggie Perrin, Fawlty Towers, The Young Ones stuff like that”, elsewhere reiterating that “Ted would not have existed if it hadn’t been for The Young Ones or Only Fools And Horses6”. Linehan also points to the structural similarities to Only Fools and Horses in that “you’ve got the guy who doesn’t think he’s stupid, but is, you’ve got the really stupid guy and you’ve got the old guy” and expressly describes Father Ted as “a sitcom in the British tradition although it was set in Ireland7”. Describing sitcom as “a form of programming which foregrounds its comic intent” in his formalist study of the genre, Brett Mills emphasises that “the sitcom’s primary aim is to be funny8”. “Sitcom”, he argues, “is only meaningful – and explicable as a genre – if its comic intent is understood; it is this which drives and defines it9”. By situating and configuring Father Ted in specifically sitcom terms, Linehan and Mathews similarly seek to emphasise the primacy of the programme’s humour.

4 Conversely, they also attempt to downplay interpretation of Ted as a vehicle for comment upon the Church by emphasising that the mode of the programme is one of comic inflation rather than social realism. Mathews describes “all the characters (apart from Ted) [as] rather extreme caricatures10” and Linehan also remarks that “we didn’t realize we were doing it at the time, but aside from Ted, each central character seems to be a parody of popular perceptions of the Irish. We were certainly sick of the clichés about Ireland – even the nice ones – so it felt good to bend and stretch those

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stereotypes until they became caricatures”11. Granted, it could be argued that the manner in which use is made in Father Ted of stereotypes and stock characters is congruent with how the programme operates as a sitcom, with Brett Mills observing of the sitcom genre that: For representations to be successful and by successful, what is meant is easily understandable they must conform to and utilise normalised social conventions. For the sitcom, whose primary intention is the creation of comedy, “immediacy” is imperative, and to find a character immediately funny that character must be a recognisable type, a representative embodiment of a set of ideas or a manifestation of a cliché12.

5 Marxist critic Terry Eagleton, however, describes himself as a “champion of stereotypes on materialist grounds”, arguing that “stereotypes are not always illusions […] it would be surprising if people who have shared roughly the same cultural and material circumstances over long periods of time did not manifest some psychological traits in common13”, and indeed, rather than the character traits and cultural norms which undergo caricaturisation and comic gigantism in Father Ted being rendered apolitical by dint of their stereotypicality, they instead both serve to satirise Catholic ideology and evince an intertextual engagement with the wider sociocultural context.

6 The manner in which Ted plays with issues of gender and sexuality is perhaps the most concerted example of this satirisation. With the Catholic Church occupying a “moral monopoly14” in post-independence Ireland, vocal on issues of sexual morality and with abortion, contraceptives and divorce all unavailable, the Church’s hegemony thus had particular import for women, and the latter decades of the century accordingly saw much feminist resistance to the Catholic ethos of the State, conflicts and discordant ideologies which provide much cultural source material in Father Ted15. The episode “Rock-a-hula Ted” (Season 2), for example, opens with Dougal and Ted watching a television show on which rock-star Niamh Connolly (Clare Grogan) appears. Mathews explains that the character of Connolly was “inspired by Sinead O’Connor16”, O’Connor’s 1994 rap-song “Famine” positing that “there was no famine. See Irish people were only allowed to eat potatoes. All of the other food, meat, fish, vegetables, were shipped out of the country under armed guard to England while the Irish people starved”, and in “Rock-a-hula Ted”, Niamh Connolly similarly explains that the song she is about to perform is “about how the Church in Ireland secretly had lots of potatoes during the Famine and they hid the potatoes in pillows and sold them abroad at potato fairs… and the Pope closed down a lot of the factories that were making the potatoes and turned them into prisons for children”. More significantly for the gender politics of “Rock-a-hula Ted”, however, O’Connor also achieved infamy for tearing up a picture of Pope John Paul II on Saturday Night Live in 1992 with the words “Fight the real enemy” and subsequently claiming that the Church had been “beating the shit out of the children for years and sexually abusing them17”, claims which Elizabeth Cullingford notes have been largely vindicated in the years since, and for declaring that “the Catholic Church have controlled us […] through their teachings on sexuality, marriage, birth control and abortion18”. As such, O’Connor acts as a readymade cipher for feminist protest against the Church, and in “Rock-a-hula Ted” Connolly, accompanied by a pregnant sign-language interpreter and with an enormous “woman” symbol above her head, accordingly goes on to perform a protest song inveigling against “big men in frocks telling us what to do/they can’t get pregnant like I do”. Later in the episode she also appears on the cover of music magazine Rock Cupboard – a

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tribute to Dublin publication Hot Press, of which Mathews was one-time Arts Editor – under the headline “I am still very angry” and wearing boxing gloves emblazoned with “Clit power”. Ted, however, is baffled by this slogan, wondering “Clit Power? What does that mean? […] I used to know a Father Clint Power. Maybe she’s having a go at him”.

7 Ted’s unfamiliarity with female anatomy is a synecdoche for his obliviousness to feminist concerns at large, not the least of which is the casual subjugation of Mrs Doyle. While watching Connolly on the television, Ted expresses his impatience with “this whole radical feminism lark… this idea that the Catholic Church has some sort of negative attitude towards women” and turns to Mrs Doyle, who has staggered into the room, carrying briquettes. “Mrs Doyle, you’re a woman”, he says, “what do you think of all this stuff? Do you think the Catholic Church is a bit sexist?” However, he pays scant attention to her response, leaving the room to fetch a packet of crisps for himself and when she has finished talking responds with a cursory and dismissive “yeah, whatever”. Furthering the irony is that Mrs Doyle had replied “I’ve always found the Church very responsive to my views. I remember one time I have having terrible troubles at home and the Church gave me great support them. I know a lot of people like to run the Church down but they’re just a load of old moaners. Moan, moan, moan. So, thanks for asking Father, but no, no I have no complaints at all”. Though Connolly may be a humourless ideologue whose claims are historically garbled, the clergy are nonetheless depicted as indifferent to women’s views, with the resulting gender inequity allowing them to watch television while Mrs Doyle whom Eugene O’Brien describes as “the metonym of the role of women in the church19” is engaged in thankless and demanding physical work, her other tasks in the episode including not only vacuuming the parochial house but also digging a draining ditch, retiling the roof, building a greenhouse and washing Ted’s car. O’Brien argues that “the value of Father Ted… is to place the structure of the Church in the crucible of satirical commentary. Satire is very much an interrogative discourse in its mode of operation. As it pokes fun at objects, people and structures, it implicitly questions the standards and codes through which these objects, people and structures were accorded value in the first place20”, and “Rock-a-hula Ted” certainly calls into question the degree of the Church’s regard for women.

8 However, Mathews comments of himself and Linehan that “there’s no way you could call either of us practising Catholics […] but we didn’t want to make a Sinead O’Connor album21”, and throughout Father Ted the attitude of the clergy towards women is largely one of patronisation rather than outright misogyny. Connolly comes to stay on Craggy Island and Fr Liam, a visiting cleric, exclaims “who’s this lovely girl?” He pays no heed to her retort “don’t call me a lovely girl, I’ve sold twenty million records” instead laughing dismissively and his continuing his conversation with Ted. Father Liam is the organiser of the “Lovely Girls” competition, a chaste and sexless beauty pageant which Ted is invited to compere and which is described by Mathews as a “low-budget version of the Rose of Tralee22”. (Such is the cultural currency of Father Ted that the Rose of Tralee is now commonly referred to in popular discourse as a real life “Lovely Girls” contest23.) When Ted remarks fondly of one of the contestants, “doesn’t Mary have a lovely bottom?”, Fr Liam leans across and warns him that this could cause offence. Ted rectifies the situation by declaring “of course, they all have lovely bottoms”, the issue being to avoid any perceived favoritism rather than this sexual objectification and again highlighting Ted’s unawareness of feminist issues. Indeed, the sexual dimension to the competition is intentionally muted. According to Fr Liam, choosing a priest as

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compere “eliminates any sexual aspect” from proceedings in the first place and the participants are subjected less to physical appraisal and more to paternalism and soft- focus sentimentality; dressed in modest below-the-knee floral frocks, the rounds in which they compete include Lovely Walks, Lovely Laughs and a sandwich-making competition in which their sandwiches must not exceed certain dimensions. In his study of Irish beauty pageants such as the Rose of Tralee and the Calor Housewife of the Year, Fintan Walsh has coined the term “homelysexuality” to describe “a domesticated, marketable, and commercially profitable sexual accent, paradoxically devoid of eroticism24” and argues that “the Irish pageant has regulated the production of a female sexual accent in particular, emptied of depth, eroticism, or even what might be understood as subjectivity”, gender norms which are satirised in “Rock-a-hula Ted”.

9 This diminishment of women as either domestic drudges or delightful but disempowered lovely girls also besets Ted in the episode “Grant Unto Him Eternal Rest” (Season 1). Jack appears to have died after ingesting large amounts of shoe polish and his solicitor, a glamorous young woman, visits the parochial house. After she has detailed the terms of Jack’s will to Dougal and Ted, Ted says to her “look, you’re a lovely girl, but I really think we should talk to the solicitor”. When she emphasises that she is the solicitor, a “senior partner with Corless, Corless and Sweeney”, he chuckles and jocularly scolds her for trying to make fun of “the big thickos from the island”, Dougal similarly overcoming his customary bashfulness around women to quip that if she’s a solicitor then he is Boy George. The following scene opens with Dougal singing “Karma Chameleon” and Ted nursing a black eye, reflecting that “it’s true what they say about career girls being very aggressive”. Women, under the conservative gender norms satirized in Father Ted, should appear pleasant, make sandwiches and laugh appealingly at Ted’s jokes, but not assert their autonomy or assume any sort of responsibility without domesticity.

10 Furthermore, the downplaying of any sexual dimension to the “Lovely Girls” competition is perhaps attributable to what Tom Inglis describes as “a Catholic culture of self-abnegation in which sexual pleasure and desire were repressed25” which “meant instituting separations and divisions between the sexes. It also meant eliminating temptations and what the Church termed ‘occasions of sin’. Any place where men and women met socially became problematic26”. Patsy McGarry similarly explains that “told that women were an ‘occasion of sin’ since the time of Eve, men in Ireland were separated from them in school, at Church and social occasions. They were often frightened of them27”. Dougal is indeed daunted by women, remarking in “Rock-a-hula- Ted” that he wouldn’t know what to say to “lovely girls” should he find himself in their presence. Ted advises him that suitable topics for conversation include “anything to do with clothes or perfume, basically” and finishes with the encouraging words that “if you ever meet a woman I’m sure you’d been able to deal with it”. The segregation of the sexes is such that Ted can speak of “if” Dougal should ever meet a woman, and encountering a woman is configured as a terrifying experience with a ferocious species entirely different to oneself, similar perhaps to meeting a bear in the wild.

11 Similarly, when Polly Clark, an attractive novelist, pays a visit to the parochial house in the episode “And God Created Woman” (Season 1), Dougal hides behind the sofa rather than engage in conversation with her, later explaining to Ted “I don’t know many women”. When Ted points out that his mother is a woman, Dougal responds “My mother? She’s not really a woman, Ted. She’s not like the women you see on the telly.

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Like the Gladiators. She wouldn’t be one of them”. Ted must concede that Dougal’s mother would indeed bear little resemblance to the leotard-clad contestants on Gladiators, a physical combat entertainment show, and so points to Mrs Doyle as another example of a woman, at which point Dougal gives him an incredulous look and says “ah come on now Ted”. “Woman”, Monique Wittig contends in The Straight Mind, “is an imaginary formation and not a concrete reality28” and “woman” likewise operates here less a biological category than as cultural construct, “women” being defined by and subsequently feared for their sexuality. Indeed, while it is unlikely that Ted and Dougal are familiar with Wittig’s work, they also corroborate her contention that “‘woman’ has meaning only in heterosexual systems of thought29”. “Aren’t nuns great though Ted?” Dougal says with relief in “Grant Unto Him Eternal Rest”, “it’s good because you feel as nervous with them as you do with real women”. Similarly, when Jack’s solicitor arrives at the parochial house and Mrs Doyle tells Ted “there’s a woman here to see you”, he corrects her; “a woman, Mrs Doyle? You mean a nun”. Wittig argues that lesbians, having stepped outside the realm of heterosexuality, are not “women”, “for what makes a woman is a specific social relation to a man […] a relationship which implies personal and physical obligation as well as economic obligation […] a relation which lesbians escape by refusing to become or to stay heterosexual30” and nuns are similarly not considered “women” in Father Ted, located as they are “beyond the categories of sex31”.

12 Mrs Doyle, however, is unwavering that the solicitor is “a woman”, “a young woman. With a skirt” she adds disapprovingly. Gerardine Meaney argues that “the attractions of the traditional feminine role, particularly as the Catholic Church defines it, are grounded in a deep loathing of femininity […] and those women who identify with it are also expressing a form of self-hatred, a revulsion against themselves as women32”. For Mrs Doyle, champion as she is of the Church, this loathing of femininity is manifested in both the suppression of her own sexual energies and an antagonism towards those women who do not follow suit, Mathews remarking that she “deeply distrusts any woman who isn’t a nun and doesn’t have a mole and a moustache33”. When Polly Clark visits the parochial house she too is met with a hostile reception from Mrs Doyle, who addresses the novelist brusquely, remains stony faced when she and Ted share a joke, and later comments purse-lipped to Ted “I never thought we’d have anyone like her staying here”. She also expresses her disappointment at Ted’s enjoyment of Clark’s work, remarking “I’m surprised at that, Father. I didn’t think you’d like that sort of thing. I read a bit of one of them once. God, I couldn’t finish it. The language […] unbelievable […] it was a bit much for me, Father”. However, she is suspiciously familiar with Clark’s books in light of this alleged repudiation of them. Arms folded in displeasure, she quotes from them at length: Feck this and feck that… You big bastard… Oh dreadful language. You big hairy arse. You big fecker. Fierce stuff. And of course, the F word Father. The bad F word. Worse than feck. You know the one I mean. F you. F your effing wife. I don’t know why they have to use language like that. I’ll stick this effing pitchfork up your hole, that was another one. Bastard this and bastard that. You can’t move for the bastards in her books. It’s wall-to-wall bastards. You bastard. You fecker. You bollocks. Get your bollocks out of my face. God it’s terrible Father.

13 So engrossed does she become in her tirade that even being forcibly escorted from the room by Ted does not deter her, instead shouting back from off-set “ride me sideways, that was another one”. Mathews describes this side of Mrs Doyle’s character as “a kind

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of suppressed sexual obsession masquerading as disgust34”, a prurience which also finds expression in “Cigarettes, Rollerblading and Alcohol” (Season 2) when she describes a couple whom she encountered the year before: They were a bit obsessed with the old… S-E-X. God I’m glad I never think of that type of thing Father. That whole sexual world. God, when you think of it it’s a dirty, filthy thing, isn’t it Father? Can you imagine Father? Can you imagine Father, looking up at your husband, and him standing over you with his lad in his hand, wanting you to degrade yourself? God almighty can you imagine that Father? Can you picture it there Father? Oh get a good mental picture of it. Can you see him there? Ready to do the business?

14 As when describing Clark’s novels, Mrs Doyle becomes extremely animated on the topic of “that whole sexual world”, leaning closer and closer into Ted’s face as she attempts to illuminate the scene for him and the graphicism of her descriptions somewhat undercutting her claims that she never thinks about “that type of thing”. Mrs Doyle’s simultaneous obsession with and denunciation of sex as a “dirty, filthy thing” can be understood as the return of the repressed emanating from what Eugene O’Brien describes as “a culture where repression of desire was very much part of the socio- religious mindset35”. Patsy McGarry describes how in post-Famine Ireland: Sex became taboo. Allied to a Victorian prudery rooted in an eighteenth century wave of evangelical revivalism in Britain, and a Catholic Church seemingly fixated on sex as the only sin, sensuality was suppressed in the Irish consciousness […] In 1854 Pius IX promulgated the Doctrine of the Immaculate Conception and the clergy preached that celibate life was superior to married life, that “impure thought” was evil, as was all sexual activity without a marriage licence. Sexual pleasure was taboo. It was commonly described as “dirty”, “disgusting”, powerful evidence of an inferior animal nature which constantly threatened what was divine in the human36.

15 Additionally, Inglis also observes that “the denial and silencing of sex” did not exist in isolation but instead formed “part of a wider cultural programme of denying and sacrificing the self37”. In “A Christmassy Ted” (Season 2), Mrs Doyle is aghast to learn of an automated Teamaster machine which “takes the misery out of making tea”. “Maybe I like the misery” is her bristly response. Likewise, in “Cigarettes, Alcohol and Rollerblading”, she sets out upon a pilgrimage to St Patrick’s Hill and stops Ted short when he describes the experience as “tremendous fun […] you don’t wear socks and then they chase you with a big plank”, saying that she wants a “good miserable time” instead. St Patrick’s Hill is a thinly fictionalised version of Croagh Patrick, a hill in County Mayo which penitents traditionally climb barefoot on the last Sunday in July, and “Cigarettes, Alcohol and Rollerblading” is adroit in amplifying and parodying what Inglis identifies as the “strong element of self-denial and penitential practice in Irish Catholicism38”. The episode takes its name from the vices which Ted, Jack and Dougal are respectively prevailed upon by a neighbouring cleric to give up for Lent, but they soon lapse in this, leading Ted to compares themselves disfavourably to the figure of Matty Hislop, “a drunkard who found God and punished himself for his sins. He did all kinds of things. He had this terrible allergy to cats so he used to carry a kitten in his pocket and sniff it from time to time. His head just inflated like a balloon”. Ted rings the “Matty Hislop crowd” for assistance with their Lenten abstinence and Sister Assumpta is dispatched to the parochial house. She subjects Dougal and Ted to a “daily punishment” such as dragging them along the ground behind a tractor, replacing their mattresses with bricks, immersing them in ice-cold baths, and chivvying them to “get

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an early start or we’ll miss the rain”. Inflicting hardships such as these upon oneself, she explains, is part of “Matty Hislop’s ten-step programme to rid yourself of your pride”. Sr Assumpta promulgates “a disdain for and detachment from materialism, that is, seeking satisfaction through involvement in the world, particularly through material comforts, consumer products and sensuous pleasures39”. Ted, however, simply feels that she’s “obviously insane”. Mathews similarly explains that Hislop is based on Matt Talbot – a Dubliner who in late nineteenth and early twentieth century atoned for his years of alcoholism through extreme masochism and self-denial, practicing mortification of the flesh and devoting almost unfeasible amounts of time to prayer – and remarks of Talbot, “nowadays he’d be considered mad and given psychiatric help but in Dublin there’s a bridge and a street named after him40”. As Inglis notes, “the rejection of enjoyment, pleasure and desire obtained enormous cultural kudos41” while the Church reigned hegemonic, but in a changed cultural climate such asceticism now appears comic and alarming in equal parts.

16 Just as how the ascetic tradition is implicitly undermined in this fashion, so too are Catholic social teachings subverted in Father Ted through the juxtaposition of mores and norms. In “Song for Europe” (Season 2), for example, Dougal and Ted enter a song contest and Charles, the producer of the show, explains that he is in a gay relationship. Ted is taken aback but attempts to cover his surprise with jovial liberalism, introducing Dougal as his own partner, then clarifying “not my sexual partner! I mean, you know, my partner that I do the song with… not that there’s anything wrong with that type of thing”. Charles’ stony response is to inquire “I thought the Church thought that ‘that type of thing’ was inherently wrong?” After all, the Catholic Catechism denounces homosexual acts as “intrinsically disordered […] contrary to the natural law […] under no circumstance can they be approved”, while the 1986 “Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on the Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons” by the then Cardinal Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict XVI) similarly describes homosexual inclination as a “strong tendency ordered towards an intrinsic moral evil42”. Ted, however, prevaricates around such condemnation: Ah, yes. It does. The whole gay thing: I suppose it’s a bit of a puzzle to us all. I suppose it must be great fun though – not the, eh, you know but the nightclub scene and all that. The whole rough and tumble of – of homosexual activity and having boyfriends when you’re a man. Anyway, don’t worry about what the Church thinks! Sure they used to think the earth was flat! It’s like, you know, sometimes the Pope says things he doesn’t really mean. You know. We all get things wrong. Even the Pope!

17 Charles then asks “what about papal infallibility?”, leaving Ted truly trumped and Catholic moral thinking destabilized through this role reversal whereby the priest endorses social liberalism while his gay parishioner instead draws attention to articles of faith. While Ted’s bumbling might be an example of the “recognisable, stock situations43” that sitcom customarily uses as the base of its comedy, the incident also serves to isolate and undercut traditional Church teaching.

18 The Church’s rigid opposition to contraceptives also becomes comic fodder in Father Ted, a dissonance again existing between Ted’s instinctive response to a situation and the position he is impelled to adopt as part of the Catholic hierarchy. In “Speed 3” (Season 3), he suspects that Pat Mustard, a hirsute lothario milkman, “has been delivering more than dairy products” on his morning rounds, leading to a slew of “very hairy babies” across Craggy Island. When Ted calls Pat to task over this, however, Pat

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denies any responsibility, saying “you need proof for that kind of accusation, Father. And I’m a very careful man, Father. A very careful man”. Ted’s indignant retort is “except when it comes to taking precautions in the bedroom”, to which Pat’s sly rejoinder is “you wouldn’t be advising the use of artificial contraception, would you Father?” Indeed, the Church’s position as declared in Humane Vitae is to unequivocally oppose “any action which either before, at the moment of, or after sexual intercourse, is specifically intended to prevent procreation44”, leaving Ted’s only recourse being to tell Pat Mustard to “just… feck off”. Similarly, in “Kicking Bishop Brennan Up the Arse” (Season 3), Ted has a nightmare in which he is sent to a remote jungle to attempt to convert a tribe of warriors to Catholicism. However, they remain unconvinced and, as they are about to sacrifice Ted to their Volcano God, one of them remarks of Catholicism “it’ll never catch on here. We don’t agree with the Pope’s line on artificial contraception. It’s the 1990s, for goodness sake”, even an animistic jungle-tribe thereby being more progressive in matters of sexual morality than is the Catholic Church.

19 Before being cast in the titular role of Father Ted, actor Dermot Morgan had long been antipathetic towards the Catholic Church in his stand-up routines, as well garnering a reputation as a keen satirist for Scrap Saturday, a radio programme broadcast on RTÉ Radio One in the early Nineties and on which he was the main performer45. Aware of his reputation as an iconoclast, he remarked of Linehan and Mathews that “the guys always say disingenuously if you ask me that [Father Ted]’s just a happy show about priests […] But anything so deranged has to have a subversive element […] for all their protestations of innocence, the fact that they’d hire me at all shows their true intent. It’s like saying, ‘We’re setting up a general practice. Let’s get Dr Mengele in’46”. Though Father Ted may have initially have been broadcast on a British television network and though British sitcom may have acted as so formative an influence for Linehan and Mathews, the appearance of Morgan in Ted would thus have been for an Irish audience that is to say, an audience attuned to the show’s fuller cultural context just one of the many signifiers of Ted’s more antagonistic treatment of the Catholic Church than Linehan and Mathews’ stance on the programme allows for. The comic absurdity which is the keynote of Ted is far from equating with cultural obliviousness; often it is the hierarchy and the “Catholic culture based on practises of chastity, humility, piety and self-denial47” which appear most absurd of all. Not only that, but through the use of stereotypes and set-pieces, the sitcom format facilitates rather than hinders this underlying critique.

NOTES

1. “AJ”, “RTÉ Guide Top 100 TV Programmes”. 2. Mary Kenny, Goodbye to Catholic Ireland, London, Sinclair-Stevenson, 2000, p. 301 3. Ben Thompson, “In the Name of the Father”, Independent, 23 April 1995. (Quoting Arthur Mathews and Graham Linehan, Father Ted: The Complete Scripts, Basingstoke, Macmillan, 1999, p.106)

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4. Ibid. 5. James Rampton, “The Point Is There Is No Point”, Scotland on Sunday, 7 November 1999; James Thompson, “In the Name of the Father”. 6. Ben Thompson, “In The Name Of The Father”, Independent, 23 April 1995; Tom Lappin, “High Priests Of Comedy”, Scotland on Sunday, 1 March 1998. 7. Deirde Falvey, “Fathers of Ted”, Irish Times, 30 December 1995; Graham Linehan and Arthur Mathews, op. cit., p. 92. 8. Brett Mills, The Sitcom, Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Press, 2009, p. 49. 9. Ibid., p. 6 10. Arthur Mathews and Graham Linehan, op. cit., p. 340. 11. Ibid., p. 8. 12. Brett Mills, op. cit., p. 7. 13. Terry Eagleton and Matthew Beaumont, The Task of the Critic: Terry Eagleton in Dialogue, London, Verso, 2009, p. 239. 14. Tom Inglis, Moral Monopoly: The Rise and Fall of the Catholic Church in Modern Ireland, Dublin, University College Dublin Press, 1998. 15. See Ursula Barry and Clair Wills, “The Republic of Ireland: The Politics of Sexuality 1965-2000”, in Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing: Volume V, Irish Women’s Writing and Traditions, ed. Angela Bourke et al., Cork, Cork University Press, 2002. 16. Arthur Mathews and Graham Linehan, op. cit., p. 176. 17. Sinead O’Connor, “People Need a Short, Sharp Shock”, in Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing: Volume V, Irish Women’s Writing and Traditions, op. cit., p. 1619. See also Elizabeth Cullingford, “Seamus and Sinead: From ‘Limbo’ to ‘Saturday Night Live”, in Ireland’s Others: Gender and Ethnicity in Irish Literature and Popular Culture, Cork, Cork University Press, 2001. 18. Quoted by Elizabeth Cullingford, op. cit., p. 248. 19. Eugene O’Brien, “Kicking Bishop Brennan up the Arse”, in Irish and Catholic? Towards an Understanding of Identity, ed. Louise Fuller, John Littleton and Eamon Maher, Dublin, Columba Press, 2006, p. 47. 20. Ibid., p. 57. 21. Ben Thompson, “In the Name of the Father”. 22. Arthur Mathews and Graham Linehan, op. cit., p. 176. 23. Ian O’Doherty, “Sinn Fein Show Their True Colours Again”, Irish Independent, 25 August 2006; Deirdre Reynolds, “I’m Terrified of Stepping into the Shoes of Rose of Tralee Greats”, Sun, 19 August 2006; Brendan O’Connor, “The Roses Need a Few More Thorns”, Sunday Independent, 27 August 2006. 24. Fintan Walsh, “Homelysexuality and the ‘Beauty’ Pageant”, in Crossroads: Performance Studies and Irish Culture, ed. Sara Brady and Fintan Walsh, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2009, p. 197. 25. Tom Inglis, “Origins and Legacies of Irish Prudery: Sexuality and Social Control in Modern Ireland”, Eire-Ireland, 40, n° 3-4, 2005, p. 11. 26. Ibid., p. 21-22.

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27. Patsy McGarry, “The Rise and Fall of Roman Catholicism in Ireland”, in Irish and Catholic? Towards an Understanding of Identity, op. cit., p. 38-39. 28. Monique Wittig, The Straight Mind and Other Essays, Boston, Beacon Press, 1992, p. 59. 29. Ibid., p. 32. 30. Ibid., p. 20. 31. Ibid., p. 47. 32. Gerardine Meaney, Sex and Nation: Women in Irish Culture and Politics, Dublin, Attic Press, 1991, p. 189. 33. Arthur Mathews and Graham Linehan, op. cit., p. 64. 34. Ibid. 35. Eugene O’Brien, “Kicking Bishop Brennan up the Arse”, op. cit., p. 47. 36. Patsy McGarry, “The Rise and Fall of Roman Catholicism in Ireland”, op. cit. 37. Tom Inglis, “Origins and Legacies of Irish Prudery: Sexuality and Social Control in Modern Ireland”, op. cit., p. 24. 38. Tom Inglis, Global Ireland: Same Difference, London, Routledge, 2008, p. 3. 39. Ibid., p. 146. 40. Arthur Mathews and Graham Linehan, op. cit., p. 190. 41. Tom Inglis, “Origins and Legacies of Irish Prudery: Sexuality and Social Control in Modern Ireland”, op. cit., p. 24. 42. Catechism of the Catholic Church, Part 3: Section 2: Chapter 2: Article 6, (accessed December 29, 2011); “Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on the Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons”. 43. Terry Lovell, quoted in Brett Mills, The Sitcom, op. cit., p. 1. 44. Pope Paul VI, “Encyclical Letter Humanae Vitae”. 45. Dermot Morgan, Trendy Sermons, Ward River Press, Dublin, 1981 ; Dermot Morgan et al., Scrap the Collection, Dublin, Lunar Records, 2002. 46. James Rampton, “Altar Egos of the Sitcom”, Independent, 1 March 1996. 47. Tom Inglis, Global Ireland: Same Difference, op. cit., p. 3.

ABSTRACTS

This paper examines discourses of gender and sexuality, and Irish socio-sexual formations, as they are lampooned in television sitcom Father Ted. It argues that despite the claims of writers Graham Linehan and Arthur Mathews that theirs is a depoliticized aesthetic, the series engages with and destabilises Catholic doctrine on issues such as homosexuality and contraceptives by making them the target of satire.

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Cet article se penche sur les questions du genre, de la sexualité et des aspects socio-sexuels irlandais telles qu’elles apparaissent dans la sitcom Father Ted. Il fait valoir que, malgré ce qu’en disent leurs auteurs Graham Linehan et Arthur Mathews, la série est aux prises avec (et déstabilise) la doctrine catholique sur des questions telles que l’homosexualité et la contraception, qui y deviennent des objets de satire.

INDEX

Mots-clés: télévision, études de genre, Father Ted, société et religion, sexualité Keywords: gender studies, Father Ted, television, society and religion, sexuality

AUTHOR

LISA MCGONIGLE University of Otago, New Zealand

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Études littéraires Literary Studies

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Fair Game? James Joyce, Sean O’Casey, and the Contesting of Irish Sport

Dermot Ryan

“Nor should the lighter, but still more important question of the sports of the people be forgotten.” George Bernard Shaw, John Bull’s Other Island

I

1 Daniel Corkery’s essay Synge and Anglo-Irish Literature (1931) is an attempt to purge national culture in the newly formed Free State of any influences that could be construed as originating from Great Britain. Corkery’s canon excludes many of Ireland’s most prominent writers, including Yeats and Joyce, because their work fails to represent those forces that distinguish the Irish national being from its English counterpart. Unlike his English contemporary F.R. Leavis, however, Corkery’s vision of a national culture is, at least nominally, populist rather than elitist. Signaling his essential egalitarianism, Corkery opens his study by evoking a place where every type of Irish person gathers. He invokes a crowd, which comprehends the diversity of Irish life, but a crowd whose struggles have not been represented in the work of those Anglo- Irish authors he wishes to exclude from the canon of Irish letters. Corkery describes a Gaelic Athletic Association (G.A.A.) hurling match.

2 Surveying the 30,000 spectators that have gathered in Tipperary, Corkery sees them as “typical of this nation as any of the great crowds that assemble on Saturday afternoons in England to witness Association football matches are typical of the English nation1”. And yet, Corkery laments, “the life of this people I looked upon – there were all sorts of individuals present from bishops to tramps off the road – was not being explored in a natural way by any except one or two writers of any standing2”.

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3 Commentating on Eurovision winner Dana’s candidacy for the 1997 Irish presidential election, the journalist Fintan O’Toole presents a radically different reading of the relationship between hurling and the life of the Irish people. O’Toole cites Dana’s 1970 victory in the Eurovision as the last moment when the forces of Irish conservatism could imagine “television, Europe, technology and pop culture, might not, after all, be a threat to the old order of Church and state3”. He witheringly dismisses the Right’s nostalgic vision of Ireland: “The Ireland that the Catholic Right dreams of never existed outside the pages of Knocknagow. And its pale imitations: curly ham sandwiches on the sideline of the hurling pitch, cycling to sodality, Cidona at the ceili have long faded to nothingness4.” In contrast to Corkery, O’Toole describes an Irish identity first formulated in literature (Charles Kickham’s Knocknagow), then aped on the hurling pitch, and now threatened by the forces of modernization and popular culture. While Corkery argues that the hurling crowd’s representative nature demands expression by a national literature, O’Toole suggests that the Ireland represented by the hurling match is little more than a literary fiction.

4 This paper will have occasion to challenge the assumptions behind Corkery and O’Toole’s arguments. It will consider, for instance, whether the hurling crowd invoked by Corkery was truly typical of the Irish nation. This paper will question O’Toole’s neat opposition of the forces of traditionalism and modernization, asking whether native traditions like hurling could have established themselves so securely in post- independence Ireland without the use of modern technologies. But for the moment, I want to draw attention to the way both writers deploy the hurling match as a kind of synecdoche: this discrete gathering expresses a larger national identity. Both writers situate this Irish game at the heart of their discussion of Irish identity.

5 Yet, for the most part, Irish historians have been reluctant to grant the G.A.A. anything like the importance of the Gaelic League or the Abbey Theatre in the shaping and expression of Irish cultural identity. F.S.L. Lyons’s observation that “revolutions are made with ideas, not hurley sticks” and his attendant claim that the Gaelic League was the most significant factor influencing the rise of “the new and urgent sense of nationality at the end of the nineteenth century” is representative of a general tendency to downplay the significance of sport in the politics of cultural nationalism5.

6 While historians have been skeptical of the importance of the G.A.A.’s contribution to cultural nationalism, the literary representation of Irish sport in the immediate wake of the association’s foundation suggests that, from the outset, Irish writers recognized Gaelic games as a crucial vehicle of identity formation. From the G.A.A.’s foundation in 1884, writers represented sport, not as an innocent leisure activity, but as a site of intense cultural and political contestation. Indeed, I will argue that writers like James Joyce and Sean O’Casey reveal the G.A.A. as more thoroughly embodying the character of an emergent official nationalism than either the Abbey or the Gaelic League.

7 This essay will situate the G.A.A.’s emergence in the historical context of the codification of team sports across Great Britain and explore the ways in which school- boy literature celebrated the culture of team sports, promoting them as a means of forming class alliances, of asserting national identity, and of instilling in England’s sons the martial and imperial values needed to govern Britain’s growing empire. I will then show how literature written in support of the revival of Irish sport explicitly appropriates the martial language associated with English games and adapts it for anti- colonial and nationalist purposes. Finally, I will argue that the work of Joyce and

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O’Casey contests the reappearance in Irish sport of the very chauvinism, militarism, and class sectarianism that had characterized the promotion of codified sport in England.

II

8 Irish criticism is indebted to authors like Eamonn Hughes and William McCormack whose scholarship interrogates the basic concepts and historical narratives used to understand Irish literature and culture. In their work stock ideas, ranging from the Protestant Ascendancy6 to the shift in Irish writing from romance to realism in the wake of the civil war7, have been exposed as so many de-historicized readings of Irish culture. If such investigations invite a reappraisal of terms used with regular insistence in Irish literary and cultural studies, then the concept of revival – a blanket term to describe a range of cultural activities in Ireland in the late nineteenth century – remains so popular and durable that its adequacy as a concept must be considered. When the G.A.A. claims to have revived Ireland’s national pastimes, for instance, what have they revived and how comprehensive was that revival?

9 Most historians of the G.A.A. claim continuity between the activities of the association and Gaelic culture. David Greene prefaces his groundbreaking study of the association’s politics with an account of hurling’s place in the Gaelic poetry of the sixteenth century along with a description of the Statutes of Galway, 1529, which proscribed playing the game8. Likewise, Marcus de Búrca begins his survey of the association by citing provisions in the Brehon laws for compensation to a person harmed by a hurley9. In both these works, hurling is firmly situated at the center of Gaelic culture. Yet, accounts of the Irish pastimes just before and after the mid-nineteenth century famine in Ireland reveal that hurling was not necessarily the obvious pastime the G.A.A. might have wished to revive. When Sir William Wilde (father of Oscar) describes the Finglas Sports Day in his work Irish Popular Superstitions (1849), in a program that includes foot- racing, pig chasing, hopping and leaping, wrestling, sack races and blind man’s buff, hurling is conspicuous by its absence10. When Archbishop Croke praises the revival of hurling in his letter offering patronage to the Association in 1884, this team sport is only one among the many other Irish pastimes, which includes leap-frog, handygrips, wrestling, snap-apple, and bonfire night, that he wishes to see encouraged.

10 While hurling does not feature in the description of the Finglas Sports Day, Wilde does cite the game in a discussion of a number of fairs whose demise the book is documenting. Donnybrook Fair was perhaps the most famous of these gatherings, a 15- day festival of great economic and social significance in the Irish calendar until the mid-nineteenth century. The proscription of these festivals by the civic authorities, encouraged by the Catholic clergy and the temperance movement, followed similar patterns in England where factory employers, land owners, evangelical preachers, and state officials formed an uneasy alliance to monitor, control, and reshape popular leisure activities11. The replacement of these Irish festivals by monthly one-day events are part of a larger restructuring of leisure time across the British Isles as a whole in the interest of the increasing rationalization of work and leisure time. When we speak of the revival of Gaelic games then, we should remember those other pastimes less amenable to the processes of modernization that the association chose to ignore. The codified version of hurling is played within a discrete period of time and can be

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watched in a space that can be readily commodified. Certainly, the codification and promotion of native games by Michael Cusack and the G.A.A. provided recreation for a population whose numbers and morale had been decimated by famine and emigration, yet these sports succeed because they accommodate the cultural expectations and economic realities of late nineteenth-century Ireland. Rather than see the G.A.A. as simply reviving ancient Gaelic pastimes, I suggest that the games promoted by the organization should be considered in the context of those other Irish pastimes they ousted, the economy into which they were inserted, and the contemporaneous sporting models they emulated.

11 Indeed, what is most striking about the early history of the G.A.A. is the essential modernity of the organization. The association took initial form in an exchange of letters between Michael Cusack and the internationally renowned Irish athlete Maurice Davin. Writing to Davin on October 11th, 1884, Cusack launched an attack on Irish sporting bodies affiliated with England because they “did not originate with those who ever had any sympathy with Ireland or the Irish people” concluding that the “vast majority of the best athletes in Ireland [were] Nationalists12”. As Mandle points out, Cusack’s letter was more a “blistering attack on Anglicization than a celebration of Irish sport13”.

12 In this sense, Cusack’s letter bears comparison to Douglas Hyde’s seminal essay “The Necessity of De-Anglicizing Ireland.” Hyde’s essay is not merely an attack on the products of English culture he sees as displacing Gaelic or Celtic art and customs – the music halls, the penny dreadfuls and so on – it is also an assault on the material base, “the land of wealth and factories” that have produced and disseminated them. As J. J. Lee notes, Hyde equated modernization with anglicization. Yet as Lee suggests, many of the developments that Hyde describes as part of the process of anglicization – the proliferation of government boards, the diffusion of popular literature, the growth of mass consumption – could be witnessed more or less simultaneously in all European countries14.

13 Indeed, it is Hyde’s own nostalgia that can be most readily identified as a product of England. Hyde’s sentiments resonate with the arguments of the English arts and crafts movement and such representative figures as William Morris, Eglantyne Jebb, and Mary Fraser Tytler. Hyde’s response to industrialization owes such an obvious debt to English critiques of industrialism that George Bernard Shaw irreverently describes his language movement in the Preface to John Bull’s Other Island as “a quaint little offshoot of English pre-Raphaelitism15”.

14 This is not to suggest that Hyde’s fear of the effects of modernization on Gaelic language and culture were unfounded. The development of steam-driven print technology, the growth of popular journalism, and the monopolization of both by Anglophone culture in Ireland exerted enormous pressure on Gaelic-speaking communities. If, as Benedict Anderson has argued, print lays the basis for the imagined community of the nation, it also privileges the dominant print language, which in the case of Ireland was English16.

15 In stark contrast to Hyde, who rightfully feared the effects of the modernization on the Irish language, Cusack and his associates figured out ways in which the new communication technologies could be harnessed to promote Irish sport. We need only consider for a moment the Irish railway network to get a sense of how new technologies affected the Irish language and Irish sport differently. On returning from

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England, D.P. Moran observed that the Irish-speaking areas of North Cork began where the railway ended and ended where it resumed17. If Moran could lament the deleterious effects of the railway on the Gaelic language, the G.A.A. used the new transport system to its advantage. As early as 1888, special trains were laid on by the railway to bring people to the first Leinster final.18 Indeed, the recognition by both the association and the railway of their interdependence led to some friction between the two parties. The G.A.A. postponed the 1910 All-Ireland final because it was in dispute with the railway over the price of train tickets from Kerry to Dublin19. Ultimately, the mutually beneficial nature of the relationship was acknowledged by the introduction of the inter-provincial Railway Cup played at venues accessible by rail and first sponsored by the Great Southern Railway in 192720.

16 If an expanding Anglophone print culture threatened the Irish language, Cusack proved a master at exploiting mass communications for the benefit of Irish sport. After the G.A.A.’s founding meeting in Thurles in October 1884, the organization, engaged in its first controversy by banning all athletes from competing at a G.A.A. event who had competed in any rival athletic meetings, had an opportunity to demonstrate its acumen for media promotion. The first athletic meeting of the Irish Amateur Athletic Association, founded to protest the G.A.A.’s ban, was a complete failure, because of the blanket advertisement for and attendance of Cusack’s rival event21. The G.A.A. has repeatedly shown its willingness and ability to appropriate the newest developments in the culture industry. Luke Gibbons has looked at the relationship between radio and Gaelic games, arguing that “far from passively relaying the activities of a thriving sporting body to an already captive audience, both radio and press contributed substantially to creating a nationwide audience for Gaelic games22”. Here then, we have a cultural body promoting Gaelic culture, which is willing to use the latest developments in communication technologies to promote its cause, even when these developments were undermining the Gaelic language.

17 Thus, if we want to better understand the particular form Gaelic games took in late nineteenth-century Ireland, we may want to abandon the paradigm of revival and follow W. F. Mandle’s lead in reading the foundation of the G.A.A. as part of the larger emergence of organized amateur sport in the latter half of the nineteenth century in Britain at large. After all, as late as 1882, Michael Cusack, the G.A.A.’s founder, had been writing that cricket was the best game for Irish lads to play23.

18 In England, the codification of team sports was pioneered by the public schools. By 1864, the public schools commission noted that the most important pupils at Eton were not the best scholars but the members of the rowing team. As Bruce Haley notes, at Harrow, the cricket eleven and not graduating seniors were allowed dress privileges24. Codified team sports in England provided a space where the emerging middle-class and the aristocracy could identify themselves as class allies to the exclusion of the working class. Indeed, the proscription of popular pastimes in the British Isles as a whole and their replacement by amateur sports may mark the most significant extension of middle-class dominance from the economic field into areas of culture in the mid to latter part of the nineteenth century25.

19 Contemporary schoolboy literature played an important role in promoting team sport and articulating the ideological functions of these games. Thomas Hughes’s evocation of Rugby in Tom Brown’s Schooldays has fixed the image of the school as one that used sport to develop the young English gentleman. More than any other writer, Hughes is

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responsible for putting the muscle into the muscular Christianity that increasingly began to dominate the thinking of the English middle-classes from the mid to latter half of the century. Although the accuracy of Hughes’s portrait of the school’s principal Thomas Arnold has been contested, not least by the headmaster’s son Matthew, there can be little doubt that Hughes’s vision of Rugby was enthusiastically emulated in schools as well as in fiction in the wake of the book’s publication. Increasingly sport, rather than schoolwork, was seen as the means of developing the character of young gentlemen. “The object of all schools is not to ram Latin and Greek into boys,” declares Tom, “but to make them good English boys, good future citizens; and by far the most important part of that work must be done, or not done, out of school hours26.”

20 Football is the first school activity that Tom encounters on arriving at Rugby. Having played a version of the game in his village all his life, Tom wants to participate but his new friend East warns him that he will be a month learning the rules of this school variety and that it’s “no joke playing-up in a match27”. Following his friend’s advice, Tom is content to watch his team, representing the boarders, beat the day-school team. In the celebrations that follow, Pater Brooke, the captain of the boarders’ team, addresses his cohort one final time before leaving for university. Downplaying his own contribution to the victory, Brooke puts it down to team-spirit: “It’s because we’ve more reliance on one another, more of a house feeling, more fellowship than the School can have. Each of us knows and can depend on his next-hand man better – that’s why we beat ’em today. We’ve union, they’ve division – there’s the secret28.”

21 While Tom Brown’s School Days highlights the role of sport in forming bonds between the traditional aristocracy and the professional middle classes, the novel also shows how sport cultivates the esprit de corps and martial discipline necessary for young Britons to defend the empire. The boarders’ victory celebrations highlight the close association of sport, patriotism, and militarism. The victorious schoolboys sing patriotic numbers commemorating Britain’s military exploits across the sea including “The British Grenadiers,” “The Siege of Seringapatam” and “The Chesapeake and Shannon” and conclude proceedings with a prolonged performance of “God Save the King29”.

22 The narrative arc of Tom Brown’s School Days neatly allegorizes the alliance of the aristocracy and the middle-class as moral and military guardians of Britain’s empire. Tom, the son of a junior barrister, is the first in his family to attend public school. The book charts his growing friendship with East, a member of the aristocracy, who initiates Tom into the world of Rugby College. The book closes as Tom leaves for Oxford and his friend East joins his regiment in India where Tom is confident he will make a capital officer, as “no fellow could handle boys better, and I suppose soldiers are very like boys30”. Tom and East’s friendship and their respective journeys to Oxford and the colonies suggest that an emergent professional middle class can harmoniously cooperate with its aristocratic brethren to govern at home and abroad in Britain’s expanding empire. In Tom Brown’s School-days, we see the beginnings of a shift in public- school literature from preaching ethics to promoting team games and martial virtues. Tom’s view of life is a curious conflation of rugby match and military campaign: life is “a battle-field ordained from of old, where there are no spectators, but the youngest must take their side, and the stakes are life and death31”.

23 As the century drew to a close, literature about sport in Britain focused more and more on this martial aspect of team games, stressing the role athleticism could play in defending the empire and training officials to administer it. J. E. C. Welldon, the

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headmaster of Harrow, isolated those qualities that the English schoolboy learned on the playing fields: pluck, energy, perseverance, self-control and esprit de corps when accounting for Britain’s dominance over its European rivals, concluding that “England has owed her sovereignty to her sports32”. Cecil Rhodes, the paragon of British imperialism, stipulated that his scholarship to the Oxbridge universities only be available to those who commanded prowess in manly outdoor games33.

24 Rudyard Kipling’s “The Islanders,” often quoted as an expression of contempt for the culture of “flanneled fools at the wicket” and “the muddied oafs at the goals,” only underscores how conflated the games of sport and the sport of empire had become. If Kipling locates indolence at the crease, he suggests discipline will be rediscovered there as well: Each man born in the Island entered at youth to the game As it were almost cricket, not to be mastered in haste But after trial and labour, by temperance, living chaste. As it were almost cricket – as it were even your play, Weighed and pondered and worshipped, and practiced day and day. So ye shall bide sure-guarded when the restless lightnings wake In the womb of the blotting war-cloud, and the pallid nations quake34.

25 Henry Newbolt’s hugely popular poem “Vitae Lampada” suggests that the life-lessons of cricket can come to the aid of the Empire. Concluding with a tableau of a daring defense by a young British soldier of a colonial garrison, a young officer, finding “the Gatling jammed and the Colonel dead”, draws on all the resources he has acquired batting out a difficult innings back in England to rally his men35. The poem shares the young Tom Brown’s conviction that soldiers are indeed like children and, in the end, what distinguishes the British abroad is their willingness to “play up Lads! play up and play the game!”

26 Training the bodies and disciplining the minds of the future officers of empire were not the only ways in which sport was seen as contributing to the work of empire. Commentators also saw sports as a means of nurturing cultural bonds between those in the metropolitan center and those in British dominions. J. A. Mangan’s study of sport and empire shows how Victorians conceived of sport as the “social cement of empire”, a means of holding the empire together not through the force of arms, but through bonds of brotherhood36. In the case of Ireland, Alan Bairner suggests that a large section of the middle-class community would have viewed English games less as a cultural importation than as a natural inheritance, confirming Ireland’s intimate ties to the mainland37. Rugby was probably first introduced into Ireland by college students who had attended public school in England and then returned home to complete their studies in an Irish university. The foundation of the Trinity Rugby Club in 1854 gives the club a substantial claim to be the oldest in continuous existence38. Bairner notes that the first honorary secretary of the club, Robert Henry Scott, a Dubliner, had attended school at Rugby, Hughes’s Alma Mater39.

27 The introduction of cricket and rugby into the secondary schools’ curricula quickly followed. By the 1870’s, for instance, rugby was well established in Clongowes. Joyce’s opening description of Clongowes in A Portrait of the Artist makes an interesting comparison with Hughes’s of Rugby. As in Tom Brown’s School-days, Stephen’s first impression of school is of boys swarming around a rugby ball40. Stephen is immediately set off from the rest of the boys by his lack of interest in physical pursuits. But the pervasive culture of teams sports is repeatedly invoked. As the weather improves,

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cricket replaces rugby41. Even Stephen, uninterested in sports in general, wears a cricket cap as a young student42. On visiting Queen’s College, Cork with his father, Stephen is passed by a team of cricketers, “agile young men in white flannels and blazers, one of them carrying a long green cricket bag43”. As we will see, this fleeting image of cricket in college will contrast sharply with the National University in Dublin by the time Stephen attends.

28 To account for the extension of British sports and their ethos from the universities into Irish secondary schools, we have to look, in part, to the zeal of the headmaster. J. A. Mangan suggests that headmasters acted the role of Gramsci’s intellectuals, articulating and promoting the imperial values that the team game embodied44. It is appropriate then, that Stephen Dedalus’s tense exchange on Irish history with Deasy, the unionist headmaster of the school where he teaches, occurs before the backdrop of the playing fields. Nor is it incidental that the students under Deasy’s care are playing hockey. As Birley points out, hockey in Ireland was “a small but significant emblem of ascendancy, smart young Protestant males [took up] hockey rather than hurling45”. The school’s choice of sport promotes as well as reflects Deasy’s unionist sympathies.

29 Stephen has been listening to Deasy’s account of events in Ireland’s recent history. Deasy’s narrative appropriates a number of nationalist campaigns within his own triumphalist unionism. Stephen’s interjections are an attempt to expose the partisan nature of Deasy’s account, which reads the history of unionist victories as a kind of manifest destiny: – History, Stephen said, is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake. From the playfield the boys raised a shout. A whirring whistle: goal. – The ways of the Creator are not our ways, Mr Deasy said. All human history moves towards one great goal, the manifestation of God. Stephen jerked his thumb towards the window, saying: – That is God. Hooray! Ay! whrrwhee! – What? Mr Deasy asked. – A shout in the street, Stephen answered, shrugging his shoulders46.

30 The goal on the hockey pitch that prompts the headmaster’s assertion that all human history moves “toward one great goal, the manifestation of God” betrays Deasy’s conviction that history is a kind of game in which those who win are right. Despite Stephen’s non-committal appeal to the quotidian “shout in the sheet,” the howls of celebration emanating from the hockey field to which he is actually referring suggest that the manifestation of God may be no more than the cries of the victor. Indeed, we can read Stephen’s misattribution as a deliberate ploy to reveal that a cultural imposition (a game of hockey) can be so thorough that it has the appearance of everyday reality (a shout in the street). When Deasy reappears in Circe, trailing the field in a horserace and jeered on by the disappointed Orange lodges, Joyce has him comically brandishing his preferred symbol of Union, the hockey stick47.

31 Whereas Stephen’s exchange with Deasy offers a pointed, if oblique, commentary on the role of sport in Irish schools from the perspective of the educators, Frank O’Connor’s short story, “The Idealist”, registers the impact of the culture of sport from the standpoint of a student. Delaney, the young narrator in O’Connor’s story, is an avid reader of English school-boy fiction and adopts the values and speech of the English school-boys of whom he reads. He admires rugby and cricket because he believes they nurture the virtues of loyalty, pluck, and honesty. Ventriloquizing the speech of a Tom

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Brown, Delaney laments that his school has “no team, so a fellow, no matter how hard he worked, could ever play for the school48”. The story highlights the tension between the narrator’s breathless admiration for English games and their increasing identification by Irish nationalists as garrison sports: I worked hard at the football and cricket, though of course we never had a proper football and the cricket we played was with a hurley stick against a wicket chalked on some wall. The officers in the barrack played proper cricket, and on summer evenings I used to go and watch them, like one of the souls in Purgatory watching the joys of Paradise49.

32 While signaling that Delaney has co-conspirators in his plot to retool the camans of Ireland to play an English game, the passage clearly marks the status of football and cricket as part of the culture of the occupiers. O’Connor also suggests that the narrator’s capacity to reinvent himself is limited. If Delaney yearns to sup on the pleasures of an English paradise, his misery as “one of the souls in Purgatory” has a distinctly Irish flavor. As the story progresses, O’Connor shifts the story’s focus from the sports themselves to the ideological role played by schoolboy fiction in packaging these games as storehouses of English values. Delaney’s efforts to emulate the life-style and values of the English school-boy lead to an open confrontation with his teacher, who tears his latest schoolboy fiction in half labeling it “[d]irty, filthy, English rubbish50 ”.

III

33 The schoolmaster’s suspicion of this “filthy, English rubbish” in O’Connor’s story was not wholly unfounded. The celebration of team games as an expression of England’s national character often coexisted with a conviction that the “native Irish” were incapable of governing their own affairs. While Newbolt’s Vitae Lampada celebrates Britain’s imperial history and the masculine triumphs of the young English player who “led the line that broke the foe” and the military officer, who with the “voice of a schoolboy rallies the ranks,” his poem, “Ireland, Ireland,” reduces Irish history to a dishonoring of a helpless feminized nation: Long ago the anguish took thee, Ireland, Ireland, green and fair, Spoilers strong in darkness took thee Broke thy heart and left thee there51.

34 Newbolt’s recasting of Ireland’s turbulent history as a Victorian melodrama with Ireland playing the role of a wronged and heartbroken damsel-in-distress exemplifies what George Watson identifies as a key feature of late nineteenth-century Celticism: the conviction that change is never generated from within the passive Celtic world but is always imposed from without52.

35 As English team games and the literature that promoted their virtues became a venue for commentators like Newbolt to express their conviction that the English possessed the manly discipline needed to govern an Empire while representing the Irish as helpless victims of history, Irish nationalists seized on sport and its literary representation to engage with and refute these attitudes. The early efforts of nationalists to co-opt sport and its literature to their ends are not without ironies, however, caught as they are in a parasitic relation with the British forms they mimic as much as criticize.

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36 Pádraig Pearse’s The Murder Machine is a blistering attack on the imposition of English educational methods and values on Irish schools, calling for the freedom of Irish educators to create their own curricula. At the same time, Pearse’s text rehearses many of those attitudes to sport propagated in England. Pearse states that schools should “care for the body as well as the mind” and that an ideal school would encourage “nobly-ordered games” for their “moral discipline” and their “physical hardening53”. In this sense, Pearse draws as much from the fields of Eton as he does from the trials of the Fianna. Making the martial values encoded in codified sport even more explicit, Hyde’s “The Necessity of De-Anglicizing Ireland” praises the “brave and patriotic men of the G.A.A.” who have developed the “physique of youth” and taught young Irishmen “self-restraint” and “how to obey their captains54”.

37 The conflation of sport and war in the imperialist poetry of Newbolt and Kipling, is replicated in the nationalist verse of the period. As loyalists promoted British sport to affirm Ireland’s place within the Union, nationalists began to adapt its militaristic rhetoric for nationalist purposes. Reverend James B. Dollard sees in the figure of the hurler the reincarnation of Ireland’s ancient warrior caste: Upon his native sward the Hurler stands To play the ancient pastime of the Gael And all the heroes famed of Innisfail Are typified in him55.

38 Brian na Banban represents the Gaelic athletes as future soldiers for Irish freedom: On Irish Fields when heroes died, And foemen thronged on every side, Our leaders’ joy – their hope and pride Were gleaming pikes – and Hurling men! And if God wills that war’s red train Shall sweep once more o’er hill and plain Our land shall call – and not in vain – For fighting lines of Hurling men56.

39 Joyce quickly identified these militaristic undercurrents, attacking the association’s militarism in Stephen Hero and A Portrait of the Artist. It is noteworthy that by the time Stephen reaches university, Irish games like handball and hurling are the sports in which his companions are engaged, indicating the emergence of the G.A.A. as a major cultural focus on Irish campuses. Both representatives of nationalism in the novels, Madden and Davin respectively, are committed G.A.A. players. Such a portrait would seem to confirm John Hutchinson’s claims that the G.A.A. is chiefly responsible for the revival of student activism at the National University, providing a rallying point for the Catholic intelligentsia57. In Stephen Hero, Madden, captain of a hurling team, reports regularly to Michael Cusack on his school-fellows’ “muscular condition58”. In one exchange, Stephen sarcastically asks Madden if the hurling matches are preparation for the great event. Asked by Stephen about the camans, Madden replies that they are to “raise the physique of the country59”. In A Portrait, Stephen suggests that Davin tell him when they are having their “next rebellion with hurleysticks” so that he can offer them an “indispensable informer60”. In Stephen Hero, Joyce has Stephen play a game of handball with Cranly, which he loses even though he has been given a seven-point handicap61. Joyce’s excision of Stephen’s game of handball from A Portrait ensures that the hero’s aversion to sport for either union or nation, first signalled in his

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representation of the young Stephen’s indifference to rugby at Clongowes, is underscored.

40 While the G.A.A. emulated the jingoism of English sporting bodies by wearing its nationalism very much on its green sleeves, it initially rejected the ideology of amateurism promoted by English sports because it excluded the working class. Michael Cusack repeatedly criticized Irish athleticism because its definition of amateurism debarred labourers, tradesmen, artisans, and even policemen and soldiers from participating in sport62. Despite the G.A.A.’s claims of inclusivity, however, a series of policy decisions early on clearly delineated the social and geographical lines along which the association’s nationalism would run. Specifically, the set of bans introduced by the G.A.A. over the course of its first ten years had the inadvertent effect of alienating larger and larger sections of the urban working class.

41 The bans fell under three basic categories: the boycott rule, which ordered G.A.A. members to boycott all events organized under auspices of English sporting foundations; the police rule, which banned all security forces; and the foreign games rule, which expelled all members playing or watching foreign games. The history of these bans is complex. Often they were introduced for purely political purposes. The first ban on the Royal Irish Constabulary was introduced in 1887 by a National convention controlled by the I.R.B. and led to the resignation of Maurice Davin63. They were often removed if it was thought practical. At one stage in the 1890s, the G.A.A., starved of membership, removed its foreign games ban, cooperated with the I.A.A.A., allowed policemen to play, and military bands to entertain the crowds64. At its most stringent, however, the police ban extended to all British government employees including postal workers, teachers, and civil servants, soldiers, sailors, police, and militia.

42 This is not to suggest that Cusack’s avowal of sympathy for the artisan, tradesman, policeman, the soldier, and the urban working class was disingenuous or that there was any lack of good will on the part of the association towards urban communities. The playing of games on a Sunday, for instance, although offensive to the sabbatarianism of many Irish Protestants, suited many workers who worked a 6-day week. The G.A.A. also supported the workers in the great lock-out in Dublin in 1913, attested by the letter of a young enthusiast, Sean O’Casey, to The Irish Worker: “Evidences are everywhere manifesting themselves of the Gael’s determination to stand by the workers in their magnificent fight to vindicate the liberties of man. The G.A.A. has nobly taken its stand with the workers65.” The National Convention of 1919 that voted to amend the ban which suspended all civil servants from the association for taking the oath of allegiance, also voted to support the Limerick strike relief fund with money and charity games, a tacit endorsement of the “Limerick Soviet”. Yet these gestures, however well meaning, did not slow the erosion of the organization’s base in the towns and cities of Ireland (and among Irish communities in the cities of England and Scotland) as a result of the ban.

43 The organization’s bans disproportionately affected urban working-class communities. O’Casey’s Pictures in the Hallway confirms that his initial enthusiasm for the organization was short-lived. O’Casey’s semi-autobiographical work offers a more tempered appraisal of the association. The book opens with a moving description of the arrival of Parnell’s coffin back in Dublin. O’Casey’s description of the funeral cortege is rich in detail, vividly described through the eyes of a young child:

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No damask, silk, or brocade threw beauty into the moving, silent throng; no rich banners, heavy with heraldry hatched a thousand years ago; not a single jewelled order flashed from a single breast, rising and falling with the dark rolling drumbeat of the Dead March; no bishops, posing as sorrow and salvation, in purple and gold vestments, marched with the mourning people; many green banners, shrouded with crape, flapped clumsily in the wet wind, touched tenderly here and there, with the flag of the United States and the flag of France, floated over the heads of the stricken host, retreating with its dead to the place that would now be his home forever66.

44 What is missing here, of course, is the the cortege of 2,000 G.A.A. men, who six abreast accompanied Parnell’s coffin from St. Stephen’s Green to City-hall, carrying on their shoulders their camans draped in black 67. By O’Casey’s omission, Parnell becomes a figure deserted by all the official organs of nationalism in Ireland, mourned only by the ordinary working people of Dublin.

45 O’Casey came to resent how the policies of the G.A.A. excluded his family in three distinct ways: as Protestants, as workers, and as members of the army. The divided loyalties of the many parties affected by the ban are touched on in the “Cat N Cage” episode of his book. Johnny’s brother Tom, a member of the Royal Dublin Fusiliers, is on leave. On the way to their local bar, Johnny, Tom and an army companion are passed by several jaunting-cars of hurlers wearing green jerseys, waving hurleys and singing a song mocking Irish recruits. A policeman, who has been watching the scene, makes a sympathetic gesture of camaraderie with the soldiers but they ignore him, not wanting to be seen talking to a policeman68. When the three finally arrive at their local, the hurlers are there, standing beside a pair of police officers. The hurlers continue to jeer Tom, who in reply derides their rural origins, dismissing them as “Bog-trotters” and “Hayfoot, strawfoot fusiliers69”. An argument ensues between the hurlers and the two young soldiers over Parnell. Tom accuses the priesthood and the Irish people of sending Parnell to his grave. In a richly ironic turn of phrase, considering the G.A.A.’s historical role in Parnell’s funeral, a hurler replies that “no hand here helped him into his coffin70”. The passage ends with another hurler attacking the barman for insulting Parnell, Tom using a hurling club to strike one of the constables, and the soldiers and hurlers scattering together71. Tom suggests they steal a jaunting car to get away only to discover that the hurlers can’t drive because they are city men and have never ridden a horse-and-carriage in their lives72. Tom takes the reins and the group escapes, soldiers and hurlers parting company with the salute “Parnell forever!” “An’ Ireland too73!” The episode figures the G.A.A. as a source of division between nationalists and members of the Dublin working class. When Johnny makes his first faltering steps into socialism and nationalism, the Gaelic League provides a more welcoming arena for reconciling his nationalist sympathies and his urban working-class origins.

46 Joyce explores the divided loyalties created by the ban in Stephen Hero. In his discussion with Madden about Gaelic sport, Stephen lists the parties effected by the ban – the armed forces, the civil services, and the police – asking Madden to explain why these professions are forbidden from partaking in Ireland’s national pastimes. Stephen points out to Madden that “nearly ten of your friends are sons of police inspectors74.”

47 Despite de Búrca’s efforts to establish the organization’s urban credentials by making much of the Association’s 1904 relocation of its headquarters from Thurles to Dublin75, it is evident that the organization failed to establish a real constituency in the urban areas of Ireland. The fact that De Búrca’s table of G.A.A. presidents boasts only one

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tradesman (out of the list of workers denied access to sport by the English bodies Cusack originally attacked) is a more telling index of urban involvement within the organization’s hierarchy. It is to the countryside then that we must turn to explore the abiding influence of the G.A.A.

48 How did the G.A.A. establish itself so quickly and firmly in rural Ireland? There are two possible answers. An intriguing explanation is offered by Tom Garvin’s claim that the G.A.A.’s use of the parish acted as “a substitute for the old parish factions which had absorbed the energies of the young men in the pre-famine period76”. In this reading, the association fills a political or pre-political void in post-famine Ireland. This places the early evolution of the body firmly in the tradition of secret-societies like Ribbonism and Defenderism that persisted in defiance of the Catholic hierarchy. Garvin argues that the G.A.A. “absorbed much of the old secret society and factional tradition into itself77”. There is evidence that in 1883 the supreme council of the Irish Republican Brotherhood had formed a sub-committee to devise ways of bringing a national athletic body into existence. By 1887, Dublin Castle would describe the association as a “most dangerous organization78”. It is worth remembering that the G.A.A.’s support of Parnell after the divorce controversy was in open opposition to their Catholic patron, Archbishop Croke, who referred to him as “a moral leper”, and that after Parnell’s death, the association elected in his place not a constitutional politician but James Stephens, the founder of the Irish Republican Brotherhood79. Certainly, in A Portrait, Joyce associates the G.A.A. with paramilitary fenianism. Davin, the hurler in A Portrait, is rumoured a “young fenian” by Stephen’s fellow-students80. On discovering that Davin has signed the petition for Universal Peace, Stephen mockingly repeats the paramilitary drills he has read in his friend’s note-book: “Long pace, fianna! Right incline, fianna! Fianna, by numbers, salute, one, two81!”

49 Yet, a more convincing explanation of the association’s success in rural Ireland lies with the organization’s alliance with the Catholic Church. Mandle argues that the introduction of the “one parish, one club” rule was a masterstroke, encouraging the Catholic Church to become involved and allowing the association work through the Church’s social network82. The priests were also responsible for introducing the new sports of hurling and football into the Catholic national schools in the wake of the Powis commission83. Indeed, the fall off in support for the G.A.A. during its years of Fenian militancy represented a decisive victory for the Catholic Church in its struggle with republicanism for the control of the organization.

50 Whereas Joyce associates the G.A.A. with fenianism in A Portrait, by the time he writes Ulysses he identifies the association as more Catholic than republican. In the “Cyclops” episode, Joe Hynes mentions that Nannan is going to ask a question in parliament about the commissioner of police forbidding Irish games in Phoenix Park. The ensuing discussion is related in a parody of a newspaper report on a local political debate. Speakers identify the importance of sport in developing the Irish race and the Citizen closes the proceedings with a stirring rendition of “A Nation Once Again84”. The report ends with a list of the clergy present – a list of twenty-five Catholic priests – underscoring the sectarian flavor of the organization85.

51 Joyce and O’Casey’s distrust of the G.A.A. never blinded them to the centrality of the movement to the development of Irish nationalism. Both writers clearly mark its role in molding the type of nationalism that would come to the fore in the coming decades. Yeats may well wonder if that play of his sent out certain men the English shot, but we

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can be certain that of the fifteen they executed in the wake of the Easter Rising, five were G.A.A. activists.

52 In the summer of 1924, a number of months after the official cessation of hostilities in its civil war, Ireland hosted the Tailteann Games, the largest public event in the history of the newly formed state. Attended by 140,000 spectators, boasting guest speakers ranging from Yeats to Chesterton, the event was Corkery’s hurling match writ large. Organized by the G.A.A., the Games confirmed the central role of Irish sport in the shaping and expression of Irish identity.

53 When Corkery surveyed the crowd in Tipperary, he saw three great forces at work in the Irish national being: “the religious consciousness of the People, Irish Nationalism and the Land86.” As Eamonn Hughes notes, Corkery has revised a formulation from his 1908 essay The Hidden Ireland, altering the last characteristic feature of Irish culture from “rebellion” to “the land87”. From its status as a center of opposition to the British state, Irish culture must now assume a new role as bulwark of the rural status quo. Obviously, Corkery’s triumvirate formulation excludes many constituencies that before and after independence would have considered themselves Irish. Yet, if the hurling crowd fails to represent the Irish nation, it perfectly embodies an official nationalism that was Catholic, exclusive, and rooted in the soil.

NOTES

1. Daniel Corkery, Synge and Anglo-Irish Literature, Cork, Cork University Press, 1931, p. 12. 2. Ibid. 3. Fintan O’Toole, “Dreams of the Catholic Right Rest on Dana”, Irish Times, 5 August 1997, p. 14. 4. Ibid. 5. F. S. L. Lyons, Ireland Since the Famine, London, Fortuna Arts, 1992, p. 227. W.F. Mandle, Conor Cruise O’Brien, and more recently, John Sugden and Alan Bairner are notable exceptions to this tendency to dismiss the political importance of the G.A.A. 6. William McCormack, From Burke to Beckett: Ascendancy, Tradition, and Betrayal in Literary History, Cork, Cork University Press, 1994, p. 83. 7. Eamonn Hughes, “Leavis and Ireland: An Adequate Criticism?” Text and Context (1988), p. 126. 8. David Greene, The Gaelic Athletic Association and Nationalist Politics: 1884-1924, Dublin, Gill and Macmillan, 1987, p. 74-76. 9. Marcus de Búrca, The Story of the G.A.A. to 1990, Dublin, Wolfhound Press, 1990, p. 2. 10. William Wilde, Irish Popular Superstitions, Dublin, Irish Academic Press, 1979, p. 62-63. 11. John Hargreaves, Sports, Power, and Culture, New York, St. Martin’s Press, 1986, p. 21.

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12. Pagraig, Griffin. The Politics of Irish Athletics: 1850-1990, Ballinamore, Marathon Publications, 1990, p. 10. 13. W. F. Mandle, The Gaelic Athletic Association and Irish Nationalist Politics: 1884-1924, London, Christopher Hicks, 1987, p. 4. 14. J.J. Lee, The Modernisation of Irish Society: 1848-1918, Dublin, Gill and Macmillan, 1973, p. 140. 15. George Bernard Shaw, “Preface for Politicians,” John Bull’s Other Island, London, Constable and Company, 1927, p. 35. 16. Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities, London,Verso, 1983, p. 47. 17. Patrick Maume, D.P. Moran, Dundalk, Dundalgan Press, 1995, p. 10. 18. Eoghan Corry, Catch and Kick: Great Moments of Gaelic Football, 1880-1980, Dublin, Poolbeg, 1989, p. 30. 19. Ibid., p. 33. 20. Marcus de Búrca, The Story of the G.A.A. to 1990, Dublin, Wolfhound, 1990, p. 180. 21. W. F. Mandle, The Gaelic Athletic Association and Irish Nationalist Politics: 1884-1924, London, Christopher Hicks, 1987, p. 23. 22. Luke Gibbons, Transformations in Irish Culture, Notre Dame Press, 1996, p. 73. 23. W. F. Mandle, The Gaelic Athletic Association and Irish Nationalist Politics: 1884-1924, London, Christopher Hicks, 1987, p. 3. 24. Bruce Haley, The Healthy Body and Victorian Culture, Harvard University Press, 1978, p. 164. 25. John Hargreaves, Sports, Power, and Culture, New York, St. Martin’s Press, 1986, p. 7. 26. Thomas Hughes, Tom Brown’s School-Days, Macmillan and Co, 1868, p. 59. 27. Ibid., p. 92. 28. Ibid., p. 115. 29. Ibid., p. 113, 121. 30. Ibid., p. 346. 31. Ibid., p. 135. 32. Quoted in Allen Guttmann, Games and Empires: Modern Sports and Cultural Imperialism, Columbia University Press, 1985, p. 5. 33. Derek Birley. Land of Sport and Glory: Sport and British Society, 1887-1910, Manchester, UP, 1995, p. 245. 34. Rudyard Kipling, “The Islanders,” The Collected Verse of Rudyard Kipling. New York, Doubleday, Page & Company, 1907, lines 45-51. 35. Henry Newbolt, “Vitae Lampada,” Poems, Old and New, London, John Murray, 1913, line 11. 36. J. A. Mangan, The Cultural Bond: Sports. Empire and Society, London, Frank Casts, 1992, p. 4. 37. Alan Bairner, “Ireland, Sport and Empire,” An Irish Empire? Aspects of Ireland and The British Empire, Ed. Keith Jeffrey, Manchester, University Press, 1996, p. 60. 38. See Trevor West, The Bold Collegians: The Development of Sport in Trinity College. Dublin, The Lilliput Press, 1991.

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39. Alan Bairner, “Ireland, Sport and Empire,” p. 62. 40. James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Hertfordshire, Wordsworth Classic, 1992, p. 4. 41. Ibid., p. 30. 42. Ibid., p. 70. 43. Ibid., p. 68-69. 44. J. G. Mangan, The Games Ethic and Imperialism: Aspects of the Diffusion of an Ideal, Harmondshire, Penguin, 1986, p. 22. 45. Derek Birley, Land of Sport and Glory: Sport and British Society, 1887-1910, Manchester, University Press, 1995, p. 95. 46. James Joyce, Ulysses, New York, Vintage Books, 1986, p 28: 377-386. 47. Ibid., p. 468: 3988-3989. 48. Frank O’Connor, “The Idealist,” Daydreams and Other Stories, London, Pan Books, 1973, p. 10. 49. Ibid. 50. Ibid., p. 15. 51. Henry Newbolt, “Ireland, Ireland,” Poems, Old and New, London, John Murray, 1913, lines 5-8. 52. George Watson, “Celticism and the Annulment of History”, Celticism. Ed. Terence Brown, Rodolpi, Amsterdam, 1996, p. 211. 53. P.H. Pearse “The Murder Machine”, The Murder Machine and Other Essays, Cork, Mercer Press, 1976, p. 27. 54. Douglas Hyde, “The Necessity for De-Anglicizing Ireland,” Language, Lore and Lyrics, Ed. Brendan O’Consaisc, Blackrock, Irish Academic Press, 1986, p. 168. 55. James B. Dollard, “The Hurler”, Irish Lyrics and Ballads, Toronto, 1917, lines 1-4. 56. Brian Na Banban [Brian O’ Higgins], “Ireland’s Hurling Men”, The Voice of Banba, Dublin, 1907, lines 22-29. 57. John Hutchinson, The Dynamics of Cultural Nationalism: The Gaelic Revival and the Creation of the Irish Nation State, London, Allen and Unwin, 1987, p. 161. 58. James Joyce, Stephen Hero, Ed. Theodore Spencer, London, Jonathan Cape, 1956, p. 66. 59. Ibid., p. 67. 60. Joyce, Portrait, p. 156. 61. Joyce, Stephen Hero, p. 120. 62. Pagraig Griffin, The Politics of Irish Athletics: 1850-1990, Ballinamore, Marathon Publications, 1990, p. 10. 63. See W. F. Mandle, The Gaelic Athletic Association and Irish Nationalist Politics. 1884-1924, p. 38. 64. Ibid., p. 111. 65. Sean O’Casey, The Letters of Sean O’Casey: 1910-1941, London, Cassell, 1975, p. 31. 66. Sean O’Casey, Pictures in the Hallway, New York, Macmillan, 1949, p. 20. 67. See Mandle, Gaelic, p. 85.

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68. O’Casey, p. 74. 69. Ibid., p. 77. 70. Ibid., p. 82. 71. Ibid., p. 88. 72. Ibid., p. 89. 73. Ibid., p. 92. 74. Joyce, Stephen Hero, p. 68-69. Michael Cusack, the Association’s founding father, had earned his living preparing civil servants and policemen for their professional examinations. 75. Marcus de Búrca, The Story of the G.A.A. to 1990, p. 93. 76. Thomas Garvin, The Evolution of Irish Nationalist Politics, Dublin, Gill and Macmillan, 1981, p. 65. 77. Ibid., p. 65. 78. W. F. Mandle, The Gaelic Athletic Association and Irish Nationalist Politics:1884-1924, p. 43. 79. See Conor Cruise O’Brien, States of Ireland, London, Hutchinson, 1972, p. 28-29. 80. Joyce, Portrait, p. 139. 81. Ibid., p. 155. 82. W. F. Mandle, “The Gaelic Athletic Association and Popular Culture, 1884-1924,” Irish Culture and Nationalism. 1750-1950, Ed. Oliver MacDonagh, Dublin, Gill and Macmillan, 1983, p. 106. 83. See Mandle, Gaelic Athletic Association, p. 133. 84. Joyce, Ulysses, p. 260: 900 and 260: 917. 85. Ibid., p. 260: 927-938. 86. Corkery, Synge and Anglo-Irish Literature, p. 19. 87. Eamonn Hughes, “It Seems History is to Blame: Ulysses and Cultural History,” Ideas and Production, 1987: 6, p. 111.

ABSTRACTS

The revival of Gaelic games should be situated in the larger context of the codification of team sports across Great Britain. English schoolboy literature promoted codified sport as a means of forming class alliances, of asserting national identity, and of instilling the martial values needed to govern Britain’s growing empire. Irish literature written in support of the revival of Gaelic games explicitly appropriates this martial language, adapting it for anti-colonial and nationalist purposes. The work of James Joyce and Sean O’Casey contests the reappearance in Irish sport of the very chauvinism, militarism, and class sectarianism that had characterized the promotion of codified sport in England.

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Il faut situer la renaissance des sports gaéliques dans le contexte plus large de la codification des sports collectifs en Grande-Bretagne. Les livres pour écoliers anglais encourageaient le sport codifié comme moyen de former des alliances de classe, d’affirmer une identité nationale, et de propager les valeurs guerrières nécessaires à l’expansion de l’empire britannique. Les ouvrages irlandais destinés à promouvoir la renaissance des jeux gaéliques adoptent de façon explicite ce langage martial, en l’adaptant à des fins nationalistes et d’anticolonialisme. L’oeuvre de James Joyce et celle de Sean O’Casey contestent la réapparition du même chauvinisme, militarisme et sectarisme de classe qui avaient caractérisé la promotion du sport codifié en Angleterre.

INDEX

Keywords: sport - gaelic games, children's literature, O'Casey Sean, Joyce James, Irish nationalism, imperialism/colonialism Mots-clés: sport - jeux gaéliques, littérature pour enfants, O’Casey Sean , Joyce James, nationalisme irlandais, impérialisme/colonialisme

AUTHOR

DERMOT RYAN Loyola Marymount University

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“Write it Out in Your Own Form”: Tom Paulin’s Translation of European Poetry

Stephanie Schwerter

1 As one of the most influential contemporary Northern Irish poets, Tom Paulin chooses translation as a mode of discourse in order to come to terms with the Troubles. Among Northern Irish writers, he is not the only one having become interested in the poetic possibilities offered by the translation and adaptation of foreign literary works. Next to Paulin, Seamus Heaney, Brian Friel and Ciaran Carson are the most prominent authors who employ translation as a strategy to gain a detached perspective on the local situation. The extent to which Paulin’s writing relies on the translation of European poetry is, however, significant. In his poetry collection The Road to Inver. Translations, Versions, Imitations1, he engages with the work of more than thirty European poets. The different poems become interconnected to each other through recurrent themes and images alluding to Northern Ireland. The French, German and Russian literary traditions occupy a particularly important place in Paulin’s oeuvre. Nevertheless, the amount of his translation of French poems is very striking. Whereas he translates different poems from four Russian and five German poets, he takes the work of eight French writers as the basis for his translations2. Paulin’s special attention to French poetry could be explained by his knowledge of the French language. In a personal email exchange, he admits that his translations of Russian and German poems are based on pre-existing translations, whose sources he was unable to remember. In the case of his translations of French poetry, he maintains to have worked directly from the originals3. Comparing Paulin’s translation of French, German or Russian poems, it becomes evident that the poet does not apply a specific translational strategy to a particular literary tradition. His approach to translation seems to work on a more general level. Whereas in some cases he engages with the foreign original intensively before moving away from it, most of the time he digresses significantly from the source after a short involvement with it. Through the identification with foreign cultures, histories and

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political struggles, Paulin attempts to subvert traditional interpretations of the Northern Irish conflict.

2 Whereas he does not explain his individual translation strategy in his critical writing, his aesthetics of translation become indirectly conveyed in his poetry. “Une Rue Solitaire”, the final poem of The Road to Inver, could in particular be read as a reference to Paulin’s approach to translation practice. The poem, which is the only work of the collection not based on a foreign original, takes the form of an epilogue written in English and French: You find the poem’s title But not the poem maybe it does exist so you can try till the what’s-it? Of dawn – till dayclean – try write it out in your own form of this language4?

3 Paulin’s lines hint at the fact that in The Road to Inver the boundaries between translation and creation frequently become blurred. Even if the reader is able to track down the original poem thanks to its title, he or she might not recognize the source text without difficulty. With the line “try write it out in your own form of this language”, Paulin suggests that a translator has to discover his or her individual voice and insert it into the translation of a poem. Thus, he suggests that his translations of poetry in The Road to Inver are to be considered as poems in their own right.

4 In Paulin’s poetics, the concepts “translation”, “version” and “imitation” cannot precisely be distinguished from each other. Therefore, I have opted to employ in the following study “translation” as a general term and chosen to make use of different translation theories to engage with the various poems. As examples taken from the Russian, French and German literary traditions, Paulin’s translations of Anna Akhmatova’s “Leningrad, Mart 1941” (“Leningrad, March 1941”)5, Paul Verlaine’s “Le Squelette” (“The Skeleton”)6 and Heinrich Heine’s “Wenn ich beseeligt von schönen Küssen” (“When I made happy by beautiful kisses”)7 shall be explored. In this context, I will refer to Lawrence Venuti’s concept of domestication and foreignization8, as well as the theories of André Lefevere and Clive Scott, who consider translations as “rewritings9” or acts of “experimental writings”10. In a domesticating translation, terms and concepts closely connected to the source culture become replaced by expressions and value systems typical of the receiving culture. Thus, the original becomes reconstituted in accordance with received concepts of the translator’s cultural environment. The foreign elements of the source text become almost entirely eliminated so that the translation reads as an original in which the translator becomes invisible. A foreignizing translation strategy, on the contrary, aims at non-fluent or “estranging” translations, which are designed to highlight the presence of the translator by underlining the foreign identity of the source text11. In the subsequent analysis, all of the three translations shall be regarded as “domesticating” ones. As they are, however, “domesticating” to different degrees, I will also engage with the above mentioned theories by Scott and Lefevere in the case of those poems, which digress considerably from their sources. Both critics see translation as an act of communication in which the translator offers his personal interpretation or reading of a particular source. As a result, certain elements of the target text are bound to be alien to their source12. In the following analysis, light shall be shed on the reasons why Paulin feels compelled to strive for otherness and “elsewheres” outside Ireland in order to

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overcome the established political framework of Irish Nationalism and British Unionism. Furthermore, I will explore the ways in which the poet uses translation in order to reconsider established notions of power structures through the lens of different literary traditions.

5 The translation of Akhmatova’s “Leningrad, March 1941” can be regarded as a domesticating one as Paulin engages with the Russian original intensively in order to imbue it with Northern Irish connotations. In his translation of Akhmatova’s poem, he visibly inscribes the target text with concepts and socio-political standards from his own cultural environment. Speaking in Venuti’s terms, the approach followed by Paulin aims at “an ethnocentric reduction13” of the foreign text to dominant values of the target culture. This means that Akhmatova’s references to Russian culture and history are transposed into a Northern Irish environment, where they receive additional connotations. Through his translation of “Leningrad, March 1941”, he sets out to articulate his critical attitude towards Ulster Protestantism and the British government. Paulin’s political viewpoints stem from his ethno-religious background and his rejection of it. Having grown up in Belfast’s Protestant community, he turned his back on Ulster Unionism when he became aware of the social inequality created by the British establishment14. He initially believed that “greater social justice in Northern Ireland could be achieved within the context of the United Kingdom”15. As a young man, however, Paulin came to support the Civil Rights movement and to sympathise with the Catholic community. Ever since, he has rejected the establishments of both the Catholic and Protestant Churches as instances of power and control. Therefore, he cherishes the idea of a United Ireland in form of a “non-sectarian, republican state which comprises the whole island of Ireland16”.

6 His political points of view penetrate into his poetry to varying degrees. In his translation of “Leningrad, March 1941”, Paulin establishes a connection between Russia and Northern Ireland through the shared experience of German invasion in 1941. On a second level, he employs Russian and Irish history during the Second World War as a lens through which he sets out to explore the Northern Irish Troubles. It is striking that in his translation Paulin does not adopt the exact wording of the Russian title but transforms “Leningrad, March 1941” into “March, 1941”. Omitting the reference to the Russian city, he delocalises Akhmatova’s poem and thus opens it up to a broader range of interpretations. The title of the Russian original evokes a period of Russian history leading up to the siege of Leningrad, which lasted from September 1941 until January 1944. During the blockade, the city was occupied by the German army and more than half a million people died of starvation17. Akhmatova’s poem captures the atmosphere of looming disaster, reigning before the German attack. Stripped of the reference to the former capital, Paulin’s title “March, 1941” reads as an allusion to the Blitz of Belfast, a series of Nazi bombings, which took place in the spring of 1941. Creating a correlation between Russia and Northern Ireland, Paulin evokes the common experience of warfare and political assault. It could be argued that by means of his translation, he transposes the mood of public anxiety in 1941 to the time before the outbreak of the Northern Irish conflict in 1968.

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7 In the title of her poem, Akhmatova refers to the former capital as “Leningrad” and not “St. Petersburg” and thus she underscores the poem’s setting during the Soviet era18:

(Akhmatova, op. cit., p. 282.)

There is a sundial on the Menshikov house. A boat passes, rising a wave. Oh, if there is on earth anything more familiar to me than the shine of the spires and the reflections of these waters. (my translation) A sundial on the Menshikov house a boat makes a stir as it passes there’s nothing no nothing more familiar to me than the cool glaze of the spires lying flat out on the water (Paulin, The Road, op. cit., p. 72.)

8 With her reference to Menshikov’s house, Akhmatova establishes a relationship between the city’s past and present. Menshikov acted as Peter the Great’s chief adviser and gained considerable political influence in 18th century Russia. He managed to accumulate a vast fortune, which he displayed through the construction of an opulent residence. Employing the French word “cadran solaire” instead of its Russian equivalent, Akhmatova uses the language spoken by the Russian aristocracy and thus transposes her reference to 18th century Russia. Her allusion to the city at the time of Peter the Great presents a contrast to the title of the poem “Leningrad, March 1941”. Evoking different periods of Russian history, Akhmatova establishes a link between tsarist St. Petersburg and post-revolutionary Leningrad. With the image of the “cadran solaire”, she hints at time elapsing and suggests that the glorious era of Peter the Great belongs to the past.

9 In his translation, Paulin replaces the French term “cadran solaire” with its English equivalent “sundial”. In so doing, he deliberately ignores Akhmatova’s subtle allusion to 18th century Russia and underlines the location of the target text in an English speaking environment. Deciding not to keep “cadran solaire” as a “foreignising element19”, Paulin aims at a domestication of the French term used in the Russian original. Paulin takes up Akhmatova’s reference to Menshikov’s house and thus maintains the allusion to treason and greed made in the source text. In a Northern Irish context, the image of Menshikov reads as a subversive allusion to the Protestant community, which gained social and material advantages over their Catholic counterpart through favouritism and discrimination.

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10 In “March, 1941”, Paulin enforces Akhmatova’s prophecy of trouble. He creates an even more threatening feeling than in the Russian original through the use of terms and images, which are stronger than those employed by Akhmatova. The line “a boat passes, rising a wave” is translated by Paulin as “a boat makes a stir as it passes”. Replacing “wave” by “stir”, he chooses a term which evokes a more violent movement and at the same time brings to mind the expression to “stir up trouble”. Furthermore, Paulin plays with the second connotation of the term “stir”, which in contemporary slang is used for “prison20”. Hinting at incarceration and captivity, he evokes the political detainees kept in various interment camps during the Troubles. Through the different meanings of “stir”, Paulin points at looming disaster in a more explicit and emphatic way than Akhmatova. Paulin translates the line “Oh, if there is on earth anything more familiar to me…” with the vernacular turn of phrase “there’s nothing no nothing more familiar to me”, and thus clearly situates his poem in Northern Ireland. In so doing, using Venuti’s terms, Paulin “domesticates21” the setting of the Russian original. Through the use of local speech, he gives his lines an ironic dimension. With “nothing more familiar”, Paulin further hints at the tense political situation in Northern Ireland. In this way, he suggests that even if signs of trouble were already showing, social problems were ignored on purpose by the British government and the Protestant community. Paulin’s inclusion of the vernacular underlines his attempt to produce a domesticating translation of the Russian original. At the same time, his choice of language echoes his appeal for the institutionalisation of a “federal concept of Irish English22”. In Ireland and the English Crisis, he states that “the language question is about nationhood and government23”. Thus, he implies that the language of the coloniser has taken on an authoritarian position, which has to be revised. As language and culture are inextricably bound together, the English language needs to be “first deconstructed and then redefined24” to be capable of becoming “the flexible written instrument of a complete cultural idea25”. The establishment of an “Irish English” language, Paulin maintains, would help to generate a common state of mind in favour of the idea of a non-sectarian United Ireland. It could be argued that in his translation, he sets out to “invigorate26” the English language by means of vernacular terms. Through the integration of new images, concepts and alternative speech forms, Paulin departs from the Russian original in a subtle way, attempting to “personalise” Akhmatova’s poem and imbue it with his own political standpoints.

11 In contrast to the previous poem, Paulin’s translation of “Le Squelette” moves away from the source text in a significant way. Paulin does not only change the meaning of whole sentences, but also replaces entire passages of the original with lines of his own. Apart from that, the used language becomes more obviously politicised. Paulin’s translation has to be regarded as “domesticating” in a broader sense, as he takes a further step away from the original as he did in “March 1841”. In the following, I shall still consider Paulin’s translation as a “domesticating” one but will add the concept of translation as “rewriting” in terms outlined by Scott and Lefevere27. Scott considers the source text of a certain translation as “an instrument by which the translator explores his own voice28”. He argues that a source text is only one realisation of a whole set of possible expressive potentialities which predate it29. According to Scott, the translator extends the expressive relevance of the original, letting it operate in a new creative context. In this way, the target text gives rise to new ways of thinking about the source text’s subject.

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12 “Le Squelette” was published in 1884 in Verlaine’s collection of poetry Jadis et Naguère. Paulin not only translates but also “recreates” the French poem, as he shifts the thematic focus of the original from literature to politics. He uses the source text as a frame to explore his political views on Northern Ireland, engaging with the consequences of warfare. The French original, however, does not have any political dimension. It reads as a parody of the picaresque novel, a literary genre which originates in 16th century Spain, and parodies the medieval romance of chivalry. In the picaresque novel, the comic adventures of a hero of low social class are depicted in order to expose the corrupt nature of society. While in the romance of chivalry the action develops around an honourable knight, in the picaresque novel the protagonist is conceived as an anti-hero far from meeting the ideals of courtly chivalry. The picaresque novel is marked by the realistic and detailed depiction of unpleasant aspects of human existence. The illustrated human weakness receives a comic distortion through an exaggerated representation.

13 In “Le Squelette”, the characteristics of the picaresque novel are imitated and amplified in a grotesque way. The speaker narrates the story of two drunken horsemen, who ride through the fields and come across a disintegrating human body. Paulin locates his translation in present-day Northern Ireland through the use of vernacular vocabulary and contemporary slang. In the first line of his poem, he translates “deux reîtres” (“two riders”) by means of the Ulster Scots terms “two pachels”, signifying “blundering, inefficient worker30”. The adjective “saoul” (“drunk”), which Verlaine uses to describe the two horsemen, is translated by the contemporary Anglo-Irish slang term “stocious”, meaning “entirely drunk31”. Furthermore, in the French original the two characters “run” through “the fields”, whereas in Paulin’s translation they “lurch back” over a “battlefield”. Replacing “fields” by “battlefield”, he evokes “warfare” and thus draws attention to the central theme of his poem. The dialectical term “lurch” translates into Standard English “to steal about suspiciously32” and renders an ironic picture of the two riders. Seen in the context of the described battlefield and in the light of contemporary Northern Ireland, the two horsemen can be interpreted as “warriors” or “soldiers” and read as an allusion to the British Army as well as the paramilitary organisations of both sides. Presenting the two riders in a grotesque light, Paulin questions their authority as fighters involved in a political struggle. In this way, he points at the absurdity of the Northern Irish conflict, shedding a critical light on violence as a means to resolve political discrepancies. It could be said that in the case of Paulin’s translation of “Le Squelette”, the source text progresses through the new connotations and additional concepts added to it. Speaking in Tony Harrison’s terms, Paulin’s translation “reenergizes33” Verlaine’s poem with the help of references to Northern Ireland.

14 In the second part of “Le Squelette”, Verlaine elaborates the comic encounter between the two horsemen and the skeleton. In their drunken state the two “heros” decide to offer a drink to the dead body. Illustrating their grotesque behaviour in an exaggerated way, Verlaine aims at a humoresque subversion of the ill-fated protagonists in the picaresque novel. Thus, he achieves a parody of a literary genre which in itself is already a parody. Paulin, however, underlines the added political dimension of his translation by dwelling on images of war and destruction:

Or, peu mystique, nos capitaines Fracasse Songèrent (John Falstaff lui-même en eût frémi)

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Qu’ils avaient bu, que tout vin bu filtre et s’égoutte, Et qu’en outre ce mort avec son chef béant Ne serait pas fâché de boire aussi sans doute. (Verlaine, op. cit., p. 149.)

So not being mystical, our two Captain Fracasses Thought (even John Falstaff would have shuddered ) That they had drunk and that all the drunk wine drained away And in addition that this dead body with its gaping gullet would not mind having a drink as well. (my translation) but then they see this gnawed daft […] skeleton lying there among the puddles and shellholes the mud the debris the bust abandoned weapons - like a trapdoor its mouth gapes open as it lies there static a bleached symbol of ending (Paulin, op. cit., p. 10.)

15 Calling the two horsemen “Capitain Fracasse”, Verlaine alludes to the comic protagonist of the picaresque novel “Capitaine Fracasse” by Théophile Gauthier and thus highlights the parodic character of his poem. Through the reference to John Falstaff, a Shakespearian figure of scandal and subversion, Verlaine yet again exposes the grotesque nature of the two horsemen. The fact that even the unscrupulous Falstaff would have been appalled by the idea of treating the dead body with a drink underscores the absurdity and inappropriateness of the two characters’ behaviour. With his portrayal of the two horsemen, Verlaine mocks the traditional protagonists of the picaresque novel lacking in moral values and social sophistication.

16 Paulin in his translation echoes the humorous tone of the French original. Presenting the disturbing content of his poem in a comic way, he implicitly refers to the picaresque novel, which is marked by the discrepancy between its serious content and its comic form. However, through his choice of imagery and language, Paulin creates a more disturbing atmosphere. Adding to the source text terms such as “shellholes”, “debris”, “weapons” and “trapdoors”, he evokes devastation and destruction more explicitly. Thus, he creates a gloomy picture hinting at the pointlessness of political violence. Through the use of the word “static” and the description of the skeleton as a “bleached symbol of ending”, Paulin alludes to stagnation and the absence of positive prospects for the future. “The Skeleton” is marked by an awareness of the subversive power of language.

17 Conceiving his poem as a parody of war and alluding to genres such as the picaresque novel, children’s literature and to French symbolist poetry, Paulin sheds a new light on the Troubles. In contrast to Verlaine, who as a member of the Parnassian poets, does not aim at a discussion of moral and social issues in his poem, Paulin uses “The Skeleton” to condemn warfare. Whereas for Verlaine the aim of poetry is a purely aesthetic and non-political one34, Paulin argues that poetry does not exist in “a timeless vacuum or a sound proof museum35” and should engage with shortcomings of society. In “The Skeleton”, Paulin uncovers a variety of discourses and speech forms in order to explore the Northern Irish conflict through an alternative framework. Deviating from linguistic norms through the use of slang terms and the vernacular, Paulin exploits the possibilities of language. With the play with different forms of language, he attempts to break free from the established one sided discourse of the Troubles, in which authors

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traditionally take the part of one or the other ethno-religious community. In so doing, he sets out to find an appropriate poetic voice in which to engage with the consequences of political violence.

18 In his translation of Heine’s “When I made happy by beautiful kisses”, Paulin moves even further away from the original as he did in “The Skeleton”. It could be argued that he pushes a domesticating approach to its extremes. The digression from the source text manifests itself already in the choice of title: refusing to translate the German title, Paulin calls his poem “Don’t”. As the meaning of the title only becomes evident against the overall context of the poem, the connection to the source text becomes blurred. Paulin’s translation of the German poem could therefore be seen as a “creative act36” or as “experimental writing37” through which the distinction between authoring and translation becomes obscured. Paulin enters a relationship with Heine, which amounts to “co-authorship38”, as he uses the German source text merely as the starting point for his own creative writing. According to Lefevre, all rewriting of an original text reflects a certain ideology and functions in a manipulative way in order to operate in a given society39. In the translation of Heine’s poem, a certain “manipulation” of the original becomes evident: Paulin considerably departs from the original after a very short engagement with it and imbues it with new political connotations.

19 Choosing a poem by Heine as a source text for his translation, Paulin refers to one of the most controversial German poets. In his poetry, Heine attacked German chauvinism, feudalism and absolutism. Promoting social equality, he revolted against the reigning monarchy. Heine’s critical and satirical writing brought him into serious difficulties with the German censorship so that he decided to emigrate to France in 1831. Having fallen out of favour with the German state, he was forced to stay in France until his death. In this way, his voluntary exile turned into an imposed one40. Heine’s rejection of the existing social order in 19th century Germany and his emigration must have had some bearing on Paulin’s interest in the German poet. As Heine, Paulin considers himself as a political dissident. Advocating for a United Ireland, he goes against the political values cherished by his own Protestant community. In this way, he refuses to accept the status quo in Northern Ireland in the same way as Heine rejected the repressive monarchy in Germany. Similar to the German poet, Paulin left his native country. Having moved to England after a childhood in Belfast, he regards himself as “a kind of immigrant or émigré”41, moving between different cultures. Paulin can be regarded as an “Ulsterman déraciné” in more than one way42, as he occupies the position of an outsider in both England and Northern Ireland. While in England, in his “chosen exile”, Paulin stands out against the local population because of his Northern Irish background, in Northern Ireland he remains an outcast due to his refusal to clearly belong to one of the two communities. His “internal” and “external” immigration points at a further parallel to Heine. Neither in Germany, nor in France did Heine manage to be “at home”. In Germany he was rejected because of his Jewish roots and had to wrestle with anti-Semitism even after his conversion to Protestantism. In France, he never fully integrated into the local society as he still regarded Germany as his “fatherland” and “spiritual home43”.

20 The given biographical parallels between Paulin and Heine show in the juxtaposition of “Wenn ich beseligt von schönen Küssen” and “Don’t”. In the German source text, as well as in Paulin’s translation, the central themes are exile and displacement:

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Wenn ich beseligt von schönen Küssen, In deinen Armen mich wohl befinde, Dann mußt du mir nie von Deutschland reden; (Heine, op. cit., p. 279.)

When I, made happy by your beautiful kisses, lie in your arms, do not mention Germany to me. (my translation) Don’t mention it ever – not when we’re lying in bed or eating dinner not when I’m making a meal of your wet cunt don’t mention Deutschland to me. (Paulin, op. cit., p. 8.)

21 In the first stanza of the original, Heine’s negative attitude towards his home country becomes evident through the unambiguous line: “Do not mention Germany to me”. The evoked warm relationship between the speaker and his lover presents a sharp contrast to the speaker’s dismissive remark about Germany. Thus, Heine implies that his “love affair” with Germany is over. The fact that the poet left his native country due to political persecution and censorship seems to explain the harsh tone of the quoted lines. In “Don’t” Paulin takes up Heine’s image of an amorous relationship, imbuing it with explicit sexual connotations. Replacing Heine’s “beautiful kisses” with “wet cunt”, he chooses vulgar over poetic language in order to give his lines a more scathing tone. Through the use of slang and colloquial abbreviations such as “we’re” and “don’t”, Paulin creates his own language and sets Heine’s poem in a contemporary context. Employing the German word “Deutschland” as a “foreignizing element44”, he underlines the connection to the source text before noticeably leaving it behind. In the first stanza of “Don’t” the reader could gain the impression that Paulin engages with the historical situation in Germany at Heine’s time. In the course of the poem, however, it shows that Paulin merely uses 19th century Germany as a lens to engage with Northern Ireland. Whereas Heine in his second stanza continues to give voice to his rejection of the existing social order in Germany, Paulin introduces Northern Irish concepts in order to translocate his translation into an alternative cultural environment:

Ich kanns nicht vertragen – es hat seine Gründe Ich bitte dich, laß mich mit Deutschland in Frieden! Du mußt mich nicht plagen mit ewigen Fragen Nach Heimat, Sippschaft und Lebensverhältnis; – Es hat seine Gründe – ich kanns nicht vertragen. Heine, op. cit., p. 279.

I cannot bear it – it has its reasons. I pray you, leave me in peace with Germany! Don`t torment me with endless questions about home, family and way of life; – It has its reasons – I can’t bear it. (my translation) all that’s been written and said about homeland, family slums I’ve gone right the way through it so don’t tell me I want to go back – all the cards are there on the table

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but the table’s a long way away Paulin, op. cit., p. 8.

22 In Heine’s poem, the “reasons” for the speaker’s emigration are not cited but merely hinted at. In this way, he implies that they would be too painful to be spelled out. The notion of “pain” is taken up in the verb “torment”, which suggests a tense relationship between the speaker and his home country. The unexplained “reasons” read as a subversive attack at German monarchy and as a criticism of the repressive politics carried out under the authoritarian regime. Along these lines, the concept of “home” takes on a negative meaning: it appears outdated and a thing of the past. Implying the speaker’s mental and spatial distance from Germany, Heine engages with the themes of “exile” and “uprootedness”.

23 In his translation, Paulin introduces politicised Northern Irish concepts through the terms “homeland” and “family slums”. With “homeland” Paulin refers to colonisation and invasion. Implying that “homeland” equals “disputed land”, he suggests that both religious communities in Northern Ireland claim possession of the same land. Through the term “family slums”, Paulin clearly hints at the discrimination against Catholics. Whereas the Protestant community was supported by the British state, its Catholic counterpart suffered from political and social inequality in terms of employment, housing and civil rights. “Family slums” hint at the appalling conditions in which many Catholics had to live with their often large families. The line “all that’s been written and said” reads as an articulation of scorn about the interminable discussions about the Northern Irish situation. In this way, Paulin captures the political atmosphere in Northern Ireland at the time when the poem was translated. First published in Walking a Line in 1994, the translation of “Don’t” was most likely written before the first ceasefire declaration of the IRA. Therefore it can be argued that it reflects the disappointment about the slow moving Peace Process largely felt by the Northern Irish population. In Paulin’s translation the rejection of the speaker’s native country is pronounced in a more emphatic way than in the German original. He replaces Heine’s “leave me in peace with Germany” with “don’t tell me I want to go back”, and thus gives voice to his pessimism about the Northern Irish situation. Scott’s perception of translation as “recreation” seems to apply in a particular way to Paulin’s translation of Heine’s poem. In Scott’s terms, the translation could be regarded as “a response” to a specific “textual opportunity”45. In this manner, Paulin’s poem assures the progress of the source text in what Walter Benjamin calls the original’s “afterlife46”.

24 In his engagement with the translation of poems by Akhmatova, Verlaine and Heine, Paulin contemplates the Northern Irish situation through the lens of French, Russian and German poetry. With his poetics he sets out to “give a sense of history and society47 ” in order to open up new imaginative ways in which to do so. In an interview he states: “What I really want to do is to punch holes in history – tunnel through it – in order to get out into a kind of freedom which is contemplation and vision48”. In his translation of the poems we have studied, Paulin seeks to achieve the desired vision by creating a geographical and mental distance to Northern Ireland. Through the juxtaposition of different world views, he attempts to find an appropriate poetic voice to generate alternative visions of Northern Ireland which are free from absolutes. His translations enable him to experiment with different registers and dialects of English as well as foreign vocabulary. Employing a language in his translation containing German vocabulary, as well as English slang and vernacular terms, Paulin sets out to subvert the traditional discourse of the Northern Irish conflict, in which words easily take on

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propagandistic meanings. In this way, he aims at the deconstruction of the so-called Northern Irish “war of words49”, the linguistic propaganda war carried out during the Troubles in order to win over the “hearts and minds50” of the local population and to influence an international audience. In this sense, it could be argued that Paulin’s translations act as a plea for an innovative vision of the Troubles. Through his individual use of language, he subversively questions the ways in which the media and the British government attempted to manipulate the public’s perception of the Northern Irish conflict. Thus, he suggests that language as it currently exists cannot adequately engage with the situation in Northern Ireland. Implying that Northern Ireland has to be discussed in many “languages”, he refuses to engage with the Troubles in sectarian terms. In this way, he suggests that new ways of expressions have to be generated in order to encourage new manners of thinking.

25 Paulin’s aim, however, to promote an understanding of history through his poetry, has to be seen in relative and not in absolute terms. In his translation of “Le Squelette”, he engages with an apolitical poem parodying a specific literary genre in order to express his rejection of warfare. Translating “Leningrad, March 1941”, he attempts to establish a correlation between the Northern Irish Troubles and the political violence in Russia carried out during the Second World War. With the poem “Don’t”, he evokes a parallel between the authoritarian power structures of 19th century Germany and the established social order in Northern Ireland under British rule. In this context, the question arises whether his poems further a comprehension of the Northern Irish conflict or whether they amount to overstatements. Particularly, in the case of Paulin’s translation of Akhmatova’s and Heine’s poems, it could be argued that the created parallels seem out of proportion. Considering that 19th century Germany was governed by an authoritarian monarch, the established parallel to Northern Ireland could be seen as excessive. Furthermore, one might argue that the cruelties committed in Russia during the German invasion are not on the same scale as the political violence during the Troubles. However, Paulin seems to have intentionally chosen to rework established notions of power through amplification in order to give emphasis to his political views and to draw attention to the Northern Irish conflict on an international level. Through his translations of foreign poems, he responds to the Troubles in his personal poetic voice, rejecting the established discourse of republican nationalism and loyalist unionism. “Extending the expressive relevances of the originals51”, Paulin – as proposed in his epilogue “Rue Solitaire52” – “writes the poems out” in his own language and creates poetic works in their own right. Pleading for a widening of perspectives and the suppression of local and provincial sentiments, Paulin attempts to move away from the eatsian concept of “great hatred – little room”, and rejects a restricted, biased vision of the Northern Irish conflict.

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NOTES

1. Tom Paulin, The Road to Inver. Translations, Versions, Imitations, London, Faber, 2004. 2. Paulin translates works from the following French poets into English: Paul Verlaine, Charles Baudelaire, André Chénier, Arthur Rimbaud, Albert Camus, Gérard de Nerval, Tristan Corbière and Stéphane Mallarmé. The German poets whose work form the basis of Paulin’s translations are Rainer Maria Rilke, Johann Wolfgang Goethe, Heinrich Heine, Bertold Brecht and Simon Dach. The Russian originals used by Paulin are poems by Anne Akhmatova, Vladimir Mayakovsky, Marina Tsvetaeva and Alexander Pushkin. 3. Cf. personal email received from Tom Paulin on 04.02.2009. 4. Ibid., p. 100. 5. Anna Akhmatova, Beg Vremini, Moscow, Slovo, 1995, p. 282. 6. Paul Verlaine, Œuvres poétiques complètes, Paris, Robert Laffont, 1992, p. 149-150. 7. Heinrich Heine, Werke und Briefe. Berlin, Aufbau Verlag, 1972, p. 279. 8. L. Venuti, The Translator’s Invisibility. A History of Translation, Abingdon, Routledge, 2008, p. 19-20. 9. C. Scott, Translating Rimbaud’s “Illuminations”, Exeter, University of Exeter Press, 2006, p. 13; Lefevere, A., Translation, Rewriting and the Manipulation of Literary Fame, London, Routledge, 1992, p. VII. 10. Scott, op. cit., p. 6. 11. Venuti, op. cit., p. 15. 12. Scott, op. cit., p. 13; Lefevere, op. cit., p. 6. 13. Venuti, op. cit., p. 68. 14. J. Haffenden., Viewpoints. Poets in Conversation, London, Faber, 1981, p. 159. 15. Tom Paulin, Ireland and the English Crisis, Newcastle, Bloodaxe Books, 1984, p. 16. 16. Paulin, op. cit., p. 17. 17. R. Service, A History of Modern Russia. From Nicolas II to Putin, London, Penguin, 2003, p. 266-267. 18. My translations of Verlaine’s, Heine’s and Pushkin’s poems given in this study are intended to provide an understanding of the original texts for the non-franco-, germano- or russophone reader. For that reason, they are source orientated and designed to reveal as much as possible of the originals’ content. In order to enhance the clarity of the content, I have chosen not to imitate the rhyme and verse patterns of the various source texts. 19. Venuti, op. cit., p. 19-20. 20. J. M. Sinclair, English Dictionary. 21 st Century Edition, Glasgow, Harper Collins, 2000, p. 1508. 21. Venuti, op. cit., p. 19-20. 22. Paulin, Ireland, op. cit., p. 191. 23. Ibid., p. 182.

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24. Ibid., p. 15. 25. Ibid., p. 191. 26. Ibid. 27. Scott, op. cit., p. 13; Lefevere, op. cit., p. VII. 28. Scott, op. cit., p. 10. 29. Scott, op, cit., p. 8. 30. James Fenton, 2000. “Ulster-Scots-Agency. 31. John Ayto, Oxford Dictionary of Slang, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2003, p. 151. 32. Sinclair, op. cit., 925. 33. T. Harrison, Phaedra Britannica, London, Rex Collings, 1976, p. VI. 34. Cf. Henri Troyat, Verlaine, Paris, Flammarion, 1993, p. 45. 35. Tom Paulin, “Introduction”, The Faber Book of Political Verse, ed. Tom Paulin, London, Faber, 1986, p. 17. 36. Scott, op. cit., p. 13. 37. Ibid., p. 6. 38. C. Scott, Translating Baudelaire, Exeter, University of Exeter Press, 2000, p. 9. 39. Lefevere, op. cit., p. VII. 40. J. Hauschild, Werner, M., Heinrich Heine, Munich, DTV, 2002, p. 55. 41. Haffenden, op. cit, p. 157. 42. A. Robinson, Instabilities in Contemporary British Poetry, London, Macmillan, 1988, p. 100. 43. Hauschild, Werner, op. cit.. 44. Venuti, op. cit., p. 19-20. 45. Scott, op. cit., p. 104. 46. Walter Benjamin, “The Task of the Translator: an Introduction to the Translation of Baudelaire’s ‘Tableaux Parisiens’”, Venuti, L. (ed.), The Translation Studies Reader. Second Edition, London, Routledge, 2008, p. 20. 47. Haffenden, op. cit., p. 168. 48. Ibid. 49. Shane Alcobia-Murphy, Governing the Tongue, Cambridge, Cambridge Scholar Press, 2005, p. vii. 50. L. Curtis, Ireland and the Propaganda War. The British Media and the ‘Battle for Hearts and Minds’, London, Sásta, 1998. 51. Scott, 2006, op. cit., p. 22. 52. Paulin, op. cit., p. 100.

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ABSTRACTS

The contemporary poet Tom Paulin attempts to communicate a new perspective on modern-day Northern Ireland through the lens of foreign literary traditions. He chooses translation as a means to give voice to his political views. Seizing upon the differences and similarities of Northern Ireland and various European countries, he sets out to subvert the traditional interpretations of the Northern Irish conflict. This article focuses on Paulin’s translation of poems by Anna Akhmatova, Paul Verlaine and Heinrich Heine and explores the different ways in which the poet transplants the Russian, French and German originals into a new cultural context.

Le poète contemporain Tom Paulin s’est fixé comme objectif de transmettre une nouvelle façon de considérer l’Irlande du Nord par le prisme de traditions littéraires cosmopolites. Chez Paulin la traduction devient un moyen d’expression politique. Il joue des différences et des similitudes qui peuvent exister entre l’Irlande du Nord actuelle et d’autres pays pour déconstruire les interprétations traditionnelles du conflit nord irlandais. Cet article porte sur les traductions par Paulin de poèmes de Paul Verlaine, Anna Akhmatova et Heinrich Heine. Dans ce contexte, nous explorerons les différentes manières dont Paulin transplante les originaux russes, français et allemands dans un nouvel environnement culturel.

INDEX

Mots-clés: Irlande du Nord - conflit, poésie, Paulin Tom, traduction Keywords: Northern Ireland - conflict, poetry, Paulin Tom, translation

AUTHOR

STEPHANIE SCHWERTER EHESS

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Le double portrait et les trois oranges : effets de miroir dans Shamrock Tea de Ciaran Carson

Elisabeth Delattre

Like some son looking for his father, or the father for his son We try to piece together the exploded fragments. (Ciaran Carson, « Hamlet »)

1 Ouvrage en prose publié en 2001, Shamrock Tea1 comporte en couverture une vision fantasmagorique d’une partie du célèbre tableau du peintre flamand Jan van Eyck, Arnolfini et sa femme2, double portrait datant de 1434 que l’on peut voir à la National Gallery de Londres. Cette huile sur bois sert de toile de fond à cet ouvrage de fiction sélectionné pour le prix Booker, qui fait suite à un autre ouvrage en prose Fishing for Amber publié deux ans auparavant3. Shamrock Tea est à la fois un roman – l’histoire du narrateur, jeune garçon nommé lui aussi Carson – un récit historique et policier, un essai sur Oscar Wilde ou Conan Doyle, un traité sur l’art de peindre, une biographie du philosophe Wittgenstein, un livre de réflexion sur la magie noire et les drogues hallucinogènes, voire encore un pamphlet sur la politique nord irlandaise, le tout dominé par la présence récurrente de St Patrick ou celles de Dympna, sainte patronne des fous, et autres figures de la mythologie chrétienne, car « tout est lié » (« everything connects ») selon l’auteur, en somme un ouvrage inclassable4 qui fait penser à celui de Julian Barnes publié en 1985 : Flaubert’s Parrot. Qui plus est, la présence, dans l’ouvrage de Carson, d’un perroquet surnommé « Vittoria », n’est évidemment pas fortuite. Carson emprunte autant au registre du réalisme qu’à celui du fantastique et du conte oral en juxtaposant les légendes, les rêves et les mythes religieux.

2 La complexité du texte de Shamrock Tea5 a sans doute pu parfois rebuter ou dérouter critiques et/ou lecteurs. Elmer Kennedy-Andrews écrit à ce propos : « In a metafictional text such as Shamrock Tea, where the story has only tenuous connection with reality as it is commonly understood, the reader can all too easily get lost6. » Certes, la part de mystère subsiste jusqu’au bout, qu’est-ce exactement que Shamrock Tea ? Diverses définitions

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sont données dans le cours du récit, mais le lecteur reste dans l’incertitude. Comme le constate par ailleurs Conan Doyle, « there was more to shamrock than meets the eye » (229). Si l’on ne peut pas parler de mystification proprement dite, l’impression reste floue, l’auteur s’ingéniant à brouiller les cartes7 pour rester peut-être maître du jeu. Le gommage des frontières entre les genres, les textes, les époques, est un facteur de déstabilisation ontologique tout autant qu’esthétique qui trouve un outil de choix dans le maniement infini et obsédant du portrait et de son miroir. Certes le double, comme image spéculaire, est en relation directe avec le stade du miroir ; il instaure également une relation formatrice et aliénante entre le sujet et la société. Le phénomène du dédoublement vise à remettre en question la représentation du monde et la réalité, on assiste alors à une mise en crise de l’histoire et du discours historiographique, car le récit historique officiel prend une tournure hétérodoxe.

3 On s’attardera tout d’abord sur la construction hybride et plurielle, qui fait du récit une sorte de miroir brisé. Cette partie sera intitulée « tous pour un » en référence à la décision finale de la jeune Bérénice de participer à l’aventure surnaturelle qu’est cette traversée du miroir, au voyage dans le passé auquel les trois enfants, devenus tels les trois mousquetaires d’Alexandre Dumas, sont conviés : « All for one and one for all » (249). L’analyse portera ensuite sur la déstabilisation à laquelle le récit tout autant que les figures du narrateur et du lecteur sont soumis, le texte devenant un miroir dont les reflets deviennent brouillés à force d’être multipliés, avant de conclure sur le concept de la trinité dans la représentation du temps, qui vise à donner une appréhension englobante du monde, le concept du double débouchant sur celui du triple.

« Tous pour un »

4 Pour Carson, tout découpage représentationnel de la réalité, comme toute proposition conceptuelle, ont toujours un caractère provisoire, une sorte de chaîne reliant toutes choses8. Le monde est à la fois unique et multiple, comme il le déclarait en 2001 lors de la parution de Shamrock Tea :

All the things of the world are like each other in some way, and the world is one thing in some sense while at the same time being a multiplicity of different things. It’s up to yourself, at the end of the day, whether you agree with Wittgenstein that the world is everything that is the case plus a lot of other stuff as well – which it might be9.

5 Carson échafaude son oeuvre à partir d’un réseau complexe d’échos intertextuels qui ont une double incidence, puisqu’ils fournissent l’arrière-plan esthétique de la référenciation mais aussi les outils d’un retour critique sur la représentation. Les deux épigraphes sont significatives à cet égard. L’extrait du Livre de peinture (Het Schilder- boeck), publié en 1604 par le peintre, poète et théoricien flamand Karel van Mander, désigne l’espace originel du texte, celui de la peinture, et plus précisément des couleurs qui forment l’arrière-plan de l’écriture, puisque l’ouvrage de Carson est divisé en cent un chapitres ayant chacun pour titre une couleur, dont certaines ne sont pas dénuées d’ironie ou de clins d’œil narquois, ainsi « Dorian Gray », « Whiskey », « Sardonyx », ou encore « Imperial Blue », etc. Shamrock Tea apparaît ainsi comme une sorte de palette sur laquelle l’auteur compose son écriture en forme de tableaux. La deuxième

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épigraphe est une célèbre citation du philosophe britannique d’origine autrichienne du XXe siècle, Ludwig Wittgenstein, lequel apparaît lui-même comme personnage dans le récit où il joue le rôle de jardinier du pensionnat jésuite où est conduit le jeune Carson après sa consommation illicite de Shamrock Tea dans le bureau de son oncle Célestin. Cette citation, « The world is everything that is the case », devient un leitmotiv, elle est mise en abyme et remise en question à la fois10. A l’orée du texte de Carson, la présence de ces deux épigraphes donne au lecteur quelques clés de lecture. L’auteur, en tant que créateur, énonce ses choix esthétiques et philosophiques et met en place des codes de référence. On peut dire qu’en cet avant-poste, l’auteur « abat ses cartes11 », quitte à les reprendre par la suite. De la même manière, la présence d’une bibliographie en fin d’ouvrage indique les « dettes » de l’auteur qui sont nombreuses et classées par catégories. Celle-ci témoigne de la vaste documentation qui sous-tend l’ouvrage. On peut y voir un « relevé des icônes de l’auteur12 », selon Antoine Compagnon, elle a un « caractère citationnel13 », mais aussi participe de la polyphonie du texte.

6 Shamrock Tea peut se définir comme un récit à tiroirs nécessitant un travail de réinterprétation et de réécriture du lecteur, car une partie du dénouement se trouve au chapitre inaugural. Le sort de Bérénice et de Maeterlinck après leur entrée finale dans le Double Portrait est révélé d’entrée de jeu, à l’insu du narrateur, information que le lecteur doit engranger dans sa mémoire : « On 20 July 1434, at the hour of tierce as told by the great Belfry of Bruges, in Flanders, two green-skinned twin children – a boy and a girl of about thirteen – materialized from a storm-grating in the town square, clothed in garments of what appeared to be frogskin. » (2) Qui plus est, la clé de l’intrigue n’est révélée que dans le dernier quart du livre, jusque-là le héros de l’action (mais aussi le lecteur) est dans l’ignorance totale de ce qu’on attend de lui. C’est en effet au chapitre 79, intitulé « Whiskey », que le plan est révélé aux trois enfants, Carson, sa cousine Bérénice et son ami Maeterlinck, par l’oncle Célestin, plan qui n’est pas dénué d’humour :

Our plan is beautiful and simple: we will infiltrate the water of the Silent Valley with a powerful concentration of Shamrock Tea. The inhabitants of Belfast will have Shamrock Tea in their tea, in their coffee, in their whiskey; they will wash themselves in Shamrock tea, and be baptized with Shamrock Tea. They will see the world as it really is, a world in which everything connects; where the Many is One, and the One is Many. There will be no division, for everything in the real world refers to something else, which leads to something else again, in a never-ending hymn of praise. The world is an eternal story. (236).

7 Il s’agit d’un texte fragmenté, morcelé, lacunaire, répétitif et par ailleurs infini, ou pour le moins indéfini, mais dont aucune des parties ne peut être séparée de l’ensemble. La multiplication des registres, le décrochage des voix narratives, l’usage d’un discours indirect libre mais aussi de dialogues et de style télégraphique, l’intrusion de citations en font un texte polyphonique. La construction hétérogène du livre, mais en même temps suivie, et son enchaînement logique ont été soulignés par son auteur au cours de l’entretien déjà mentionné :

How much is planned and how much is worked over in retrospect I can’t really say. It’s the old matter of saying: Once upon a time there was a King in Ireland, what did he do, what did he wear, what

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happened to him… you invent the story as you go along. I don’t know if you can say there’s such a thing as a plot in the book, but I think there is at least a definite sense that one thing leads to another14.

8 En multipliant les fragments narratifs, les moments du récit, en les imbriquant, en les interrompant, Shamrock Tea précarise le récit afin de le démultiplier, de le relancer sans cesse. La structure circulaire accentue encore ce phénomène, puisque les derniers mots reprennent l’incipit de l’ouvrage15 : « Perhaps I will return one day to the world I first entered. For now, I wish to record something of it, if only to remind myself of what I am. The first things I remember are the colours of my bedroom wall paper… » (1 et 303).

9 L’ambiguïté entre réalité et fiction est au centre du protocole de Shamrock Tea. Cette construction par fragments laissant le sens comme libre, suspendu, peut par certains côtés se rapprocher de la forme du haïku qui a, on le sait, constitué un modèle pour la poésie de Carson. Yves Bonnefoy écrit, à propos des haïkus : « On croirait plutôt les pages d’un herbier depuis longtemps constitué, ou les pièces d’un jeu complexe, précieusement ouvragées16. » Seules subsistent en fin de compte la dynamique de la langue, l’engendrement des métaphores et des répétitions factuelles qui tissent le texte : « Image begets image » (27). Celles-ci le stratifient, dessinent un dédale de miroirs gauchis dans lesquels le dire se reflète imperceptiblement changeant, faussement fidèle à lui-même, et dont Loyola House, le pensionnat où est envoyé le jeune Carson, est emblématique. Mélange de style néo-classique et gothique, il est le labyrinthe où se perd l’imaginaire et où toute surveillance devient impossible, ce qui permet toutes les transgressions dans la discipline : « It was difficult, indeed, to tell on which floor of Loyola House one happened to be at any given time: the corridors were full of unexpected landings, the staircases of twists and turnings. Rooms telescoped into other rooms. » (121) Cet édifice symbolise les rêveries labyrinthiques analysées par Gaston Bachelard dans Les terres et les rêveries du repos. Bachelard y voit « une dimension angoissée17 » où domine la solitude. Le labyrinthe donne le sentiment à la fois d’un monde clos et sans limites dont la configuration est analogue à celle d’une pensée coupée du réel, fonctionnant en circuit fermé. On pourra y voir dans la vision de Carson une forme de représentation de la vie18.

10 Confronté à sa propre logique, le texte fait retour sur lui-même, sur ses propres conditions d’émergence par le biais de ces « croisements registraux19 » diégétiques et métaphoriques, dont parle Paul Zumthor à propos de la poésie orale, ce qui contribue au brouillage de l’écriture symbolisé par le phénomène du double qui apparaît de manière spectaculaire au chapitre 21 intitulé « Permanent Black » : la marque du stylo plume utilisé par le jeune Carson est un « Parker Duofold20 ». C’est avec ce stylo offert par sa mère qui espérait en faire un écrivain – à l’image d’un grand-oncle nommé très ironiquement Augustine Joyce –, que le jeune garçon s’initie aux mystères des van Eck, lesquels auraient été trois frères selon la légende. Afin de mieux s’approprier le texte, ou de s’en imprégner, il recopie des extraits à l’aide de ce stylo auquel il attribue un pouvoir magique : « as if by magic, the words would become mine » (62).

Brouillages et reflets

11 En définitive il y a dans Shamrock Tea un style éminemment poétique qui brouille le jeu énonciatif, opère la confusion entre pensée et parole vive et contraint le lecteur à

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effectuer un travail de mise en scène pour commencer à comprendre le texte. L’étrange21 côtoie le réel ou se substitue parfois à lui, et fait du récit un texte fantastique, en ce sens qu’il y a « incertitude épistémologique22 », voire « hésitation23 » entre les explications naturelles et surnaturelles, entre l’étrange et le merveilleux. Il est significatif à cet égard qu’il soit fait mention de The Turn of the Screw qui aurait troublé le sommeil du père Brown, le directeur général du pensionnat Loyola House. On se souviendra que le dynamisme de ce récit fantastique le plus justement célèbre de Henry James repose sur le dialogue implicite entre le surnaturel et la folie. Le père Brown est lui-même le reflet inversé du personnage du même nom dans les nouvelles de G. K. Chesterton24 mettant en scène avec un humour décapant un prêtre catholique, détective de génie aux méthodes intuitives infaillibles.

12 Le texte de Shamrock Tea met en jeu des stratégies de variations et de métamorphoses, toute une mise en scène de travestissement qui constitue comme le théâtre de l’être et qui, en même temps, tend à dépasser le stade de l’illusion, ou plutôt à faire comme si l’illusion était la réalisation. Ainsi que l’explique l’oncle Célestin aux enfants, le tableau de van Eyck est un chef-d’œuvre d’illusion, « a masterpiece of illusion, is it not? » (52). Le Double Portrait devient bien un procédé par lequel le transfert est possible d’un monde à l’autre, ainsi que le définit le jeune Maeterlinck au chapitre 98, « Myrrh »:

One thing, sir, he said, is clear. We are all implicated in the case of Shamrock Tea, and of the Double Portrait, which might be described as a translating device. I use ‘translating’ according to its Latin etymology, which means to carry over or to transfer from one place or condition to another. (292-3)

13 Considéré comme l’alter ego du jeune Carson, son frère presque jumeau, Maeterlinck est présenté comme étant le neveu du grand écrivain belge prénommé Maurice dont on connaît l’importance du symbolisme dans son œuvre, mais aussi les essais métaphysiques, notamment un ouvrage La Vie des abeilles (1901), dont des extraits sont reproduits parfois verbatim, non sans quelques jeux de mots ici et là : « as busy as bees » (133), ou « bees on the brain » (135), ou encore « bee’s knees » (225). Selon Maeterlinck, un être humain est double, et possède une existence à la fois intérieure et extérieure. On peut dire que dans l’ouvrage de Carson le double apparaît sous des formes multiples et tout d’abord par le truchement privilégié du miroir.

14 À bien des égards, le miroir dans le tableau de van Eyck est un chef-d’œuvre en lui- même, un véritable trompe-l’œil. Il s’agit d’un miroir convexe entouré de 12 médaillons miniature dépeignant des scènes de la vie du Christ. Le reflet dans le miroir comprend l’autoportrait de van Eyck en compagnie d’un autre homme, peut-être le témoin officiel de la cérémonie du mariage. Dans l’ouvrage de Carson, ces personnages ne sont pas identifiés, sans doute pour lui donner une connotation plus universelle et plus incertaine encore, ainsi que l’explique le père Brown : « The two figures in its looking-glass are about to enter the pictured room from another time and space. They are anyone and anybody. They could be me and you » (272). Mais cette composition illusionniste est aussi contredite par la signature ostentatoire et surdimensionnée qui dénonce l’artifice de la tridimensionnalité de ce tableau. Selon Jean Fabre, dans un essai sur la littérature fantastique, « [l]e miroir devient carrefour de miracles : le reflet peut y prendre une autonomie redoutable et le miroir-écran présenter des tableaux animés du passé, du présent et de l’avenir ; permettant de savoir à distance, il se fait passage entre deux

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mondes25 ». Le rôle « multiple » joué par le miroir est ainsi « à la mesure, et peut-être au-delà de sa charge potentielle initiale26 » ; le récit du rêve de Maeterlinck est emblématique à cet égard : « As they whirled around me, I became the bees, or they became me. I glimpsed myself in the mirror: I had become a spinning wraith, composed of blue and yellow molecules. Faster and faster we spun, the colours merging, till they became a haze of green » (200). On peut véritablement parler de mise en abyme, de miroir interne « réfléchissant l’ensemble du récit par réduplication simple, répétée ou spécieuse27 ». Car le reflet dans le miroir est un double, c’est-à-dire à la fois un autre et un même.

15 Si, pour Ciaran Carson, la représentation suppose une fracture, une déconstruction, il existe aussi le sens du miroir dans ce qu’il a de plus intime dans notre imaginaire, celui non pas de refléter mais de faire apparaître, telle est la réflexion du jeune Carson :

I remember now gazing at my face sometimes in the washbowl mirror in the morning, wondering who this bleary stranger was who could not look me properly in the eye. At other times, it was as if I had been newly born and saw the world with the clear uncomprehending vision of a child. (184)

16 Un miroir fascine tant par ce qu’il contient, potentiellement, ce quelque chose que l’on ne peut pas voir, l’horreur de soi, de la mort, ce qui donne au récit une connotation tragique et fascinante, car pénétrer dans ce miroir implique la disparition de l’être au monde. L’angoisse ressentie par le personnage est palpable, d’autant que la précision n’est pas garantie quant à la destination de ce voyage dans le temps et dans l’au-delà : « Given that infinity of worlds, you need not deliberate about a choice of rooms. Only make the leap of faith and you will arrive at where you meant to be » (294), tel est le conseil donné aux enfants par le colonel Hay, vétéran des guerres contre Napoléon, après un détour erroné dans l’Irlande du début du XIXe siècle. En définitive « [l]a mort s’inscrit à la fois dans l’aventure narrée et dans l’absence de signification qui instaure l’ambiguïté finale28 », puisque le doute persiste à la fin de l’ouvrage et l’interprétation est laissée au lecteur. Il n’y a pas de point final mais trois points de suspension.

17 Le thème du double, qui apparaît dans Shamrock Tea sous toutes ses formes peut-on dire, pose alors la question de l’unité et de l’unicité du sujet, et se manifeste par la confrontation surprenante, angoissante, surnaturelle, de la différence et de l’identité. C’est la découverte faite par le jeune Carson lors de sa lecture du « Yellow Book » :

I shut the book, trembling. For all its lacunae, its sometimes feeble grasp of chronology, its slipshod description, for all its shabbily objective voice, there could be no doubt about it: the Yellow Book was a portrait of myself. I had just looked into its crooked mirror. (184)

18 Le jeune garçon est une proie toute prête aux manifestations du surnaturel, « curiouser and curiouser29 », s’exclame à plusieurs reprises Bérénice, sa cousine et compagne de jeux, à bien des égards considérée comme sa sœur jumelle. Le narrateur s’installe dans un double rôle, celui de témoin et de victime. C’est à la fois un personnage en creux, apte à recevoir le surnaturel et les réactions du lecteur devant l’insolite. Car une épreuve attend les trois enfants avant de partir dans le temps. La tâche que leur assigne le père Brown après avoir prétexté un manque d’attention en classe, est de lire les Vies des Saints (Lives of the Saints), qui se trouvent dans la bibliothèque. Mais ces lectures mènent à d’autres puisque les enfants découvrent, au milieu de l’agencement

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inhabituel des livres, un album très étrange, sans titre, divisé en sections précédées de chiffres, dont la lecture stupéfait Carson car l’ouvrage contient des références précises à lui-même et à ses comparses: « a thick loose-leaf album bound in yellow cloth, divided into three sections of colour-coded pages, yellow, blue and green » (175). Cet ouvrage dont des extraits sont reproduits sur une douzaine de paragraphes apparaît comme une sorte de miroir codé de la vie réelle, mais qui joue le rôle de mémoire plus véritable que celle que chaque être peut avoir de sa vie passée. C’est ce qu’explique l’Oncle Célestin, qui semble être de mèche avec le Père Brown :

The books are not mere biographies. Some passages include scenarios that failed to materialize; some describe events as they happened, but not as you remember them; and some are fictions. But all in all, the books contain more truth than other people’s memories of themselves, which are constantly revised to suit their current images of themselves. (211)

19 Ce « Yellow Book », littéralement le « livre jaune », allusion évidente à Oscar Wilde, vu lui-même comme complémentaire indissociable de Conan Doyle30, devient une caricature de l’ouvrage de Carson, une sorte de mise en abyme, de reflet, de double de l’écrit lui-même. La fin de l’ouvrage comporte à la fois la clé de l’angoisse vécue jusque- là et une sorte de tremplin pour prolonger le saut dans l’inconnu. Mais le héros cherche aussi à savoir et attend avec curiosité une chose qui s’est produite et qu’il voudrait revoir. C’est ce qui le pousse irrésistiblement à passer de l’autre côté du miroir et à se fondre dans le Double Portrait, même si la première expérience relatée au début se solde par une très grosse fièvre et une incapacité temporaire à faire la distinction entre les dimensions31.

20 Certes la nature du Double signifie moins que sa fonction. « L’essentiel », selon Jean Fabre dans Le Miroir de sorcière, « est que la figure du Double s’impose comme le lieu privilégié où l’altération joue à plein puisqu’elle frappe au cœur même de la psyché et de la personne ». « Je » devient un autre, cet autre qui est en moi « plus moi-même que moi32 ». Lorsque le narrateur retraverse le portrait pour réintégrer le monde des vivants, il devient un autre lui-même, presque identique à celui qu’il était en le quittant, en l’an 1959, mais avec un léger décalage puisque l’année est alors 1952, le lieu n’étant plus Belfast mais Gheel, les deux villes étant considérées comme des doubles l’une de l’autre. Une période d’adaptation devient nécessaire avant de trouver équilibre et sérénité : « I only gradually learned that it was not the same world as that I had left, although it was almost identical in most respects » (297), déclare-t-il dans le chapitre antépénultième intitulé très ironiquement « Chameleon ». Entre-temps, il a perdu ses deux compagnons de voyage, car ils s’étaient trouvés face à deux Doubles Portraits, deux portraits originaux que van Eyck, selon la légende vraie ou fausse, aurait peints, mais dont l’un a semble-t-il disparu depuis le XIXe siècle.

21 Dans Shamrock Tea, on assiste à la démonstration de la conception métaphysique du double, la référence à la caverne platonicienne au chapitre 60, intitulé « Dorian Gray », faisant écho à la « caverne sombre » qui n’est autre que le cinéma d’où émergent au chapitre 54 (« Danube Blue ») les deux amis que sont le père Brown et Wittgenstein, le film cinématographique représentant pour ce dernier la réalité et non l’imaginaire. Or, chez Platon, notre monde n’est que le double et l’ombre de celui des Idées : on ne connaît pas, on re-découvre, on se souvient, car toute chose connaissable n’est que le

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double d’un modèle inconnaissable, l’apparence de l’être, le phénomène du noumène. Et c’est cette même explication qui apparaît au chapitre 60 (« Dorian Gray ») : « You have shown me a strange image, and they are strange prisoners. Like ourselves, I replied » (180). En définitive Shamrock Tea explicite l’idée freudienne selon laquelle le double ne serait en réalité qu’un aspect particulier d’une forme plus fondamentale, un élément dans un ensemble beaucoup plus vaste, constitué par la répétition du même : « Dans le couple maléfique qui unit le moi à un autre fantomatique, le réel n’est pas du côté du moi, mais bien du côté du fantôme : ce n’est pas l’autre qui me double, c’est moi qui suis le double de l’autre33. » C’est pourquoi sans doute Carson, une fois intégré dans son nouveau monde, change-t-il de nom et prend-t-il celui de son ami disparu, Maeterlinck, qui est aussi celui de son nouveau protecteur ou père adoptif, un riche marchand de tableaux nommé Henri Maeterlinck, apprenant ainsi à devenir un autre lui-même: « I learned to become another person » (297).

Trinité et temps

22 Le temps apparaît ici comme la quatrième dimension qui régit le monde dans lequel nous vivons, le miroir étant assimilé aux rouages d’une horloge (« toothed like the cog- wheel of a clock » [272]). Le Double Portrait en est l’emblème significatif, comme l’interprète le père Brown au début du chapitre 91, « Orange Tea » :

The panel on which the picture is painted is made up of three Irish oak boards. Inscribed on the back wall are the words, Johannes de eyck fuit hic, and the year, 1434. Add these digits and they make twelve, which is three times four. Four stands for the fourth dimension, time. (271)

23 La cérémonie à laquelle sont conviés les trois enfants devient une sorte de rituel initiatique présidé par Célestin, lequel les investit d’une mission dite « historique ». De manière significative elle commence par un passage par la bibliothèque du collège, dépositaire des connaissances accumulées au fil du temps : « Yet each had contributed their solitary labours to that vast community, and I felt a tremor of excitement at the part that we three were to play in rewriting the history book of Ireland » (251). Au double s’adjoint le triple ou plutôt la trinité. La clé en est donnée par le père Brown au chapitre 89, « Oak », dans son récit d’une rencontre qui aurait eu lieu dans un passé indéfini entre van Eyck et Saint Patrick, après avoir bien sûr absorbé une dose de Shamrock Tea. Le trèfle aux trois feuilles que lui aurait présenté Patrick, la saison étant le printemps en Hibernie, était symbolique de la trinité et de l’unicité de l’être: « These represent the past, the present and the future, which form what we call the Trinity. This means that one person can be three: the person in his memory, the person who thinks himself to be, and the person he wishes to be » (265-6).

24 Le triple est encore symbolisé par les trois figures du tableau de van Eyck, « l’homme, la femme et le chien », mais aussi par les trois oranges situées à la droite d’Arnolfini, et que les trois enfants devenus les « trois silencieux » (« the Silent Three » [250]) sont chargés de récupérer par l’oncle Célestin, le maître d’œuvre de ce plan scabreux. Toutefois on se souviendra, et ce détail est à la fois ironique et satirique, que ce portrait n’est pas celui que l’on peut voir à la National Gallery, car celui-là a perdu son pouvoir, ayant été déplacé de son contexte d’origine, Bruges, et soumis au regard de millions de

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non-croyants. Car il existe, ou plutôt existait, selon le père Brown, un autre tableau identique également peint par van Eyck lors de son voyage en Irlande. Les trois enfants doivent donc voyager dans le temps, dans le Bruges du XVe siècle pour ramener les trois oranges qui, selon les mémoires du peintre, contiendraient un concentré de ce fameux Shamrock Tea, susceptible d’affecter trois fois la population de Bruges et ses environs, laquelle à cette époque était égale à celle de l’Irlande du Nord en 1959. Ils doivent donc entrer dans le portrait après avoir bu une décoction de ce même breuvage préparé par l’oncle Célestin : « To all intents and purposes, Shamrock Tea is now a thing of the past, and exists only in the past. You must therefore go back into the past in order to retrieve the future » (236). Ainsi aura lieu la réécriture de l’histoire de l’Irlande, par ce truchement l’Irlande sera unifiée, tel est le rêve de Célestin. Car Célestin, lui-même fumeur invétéré de tabac et autres substances, dont Shamrock Tea, et par ailleurs possesseur d’une copie du tableau de van Eyck à l’origine de toute cette aventure, s’était investi d’une mission politique, comme il l’explique au début de ce même chapitre : « Our mission, said my uncle Celestine is clear. Ireland has been too long divided. It has been said that the border between North and South exists more in the mind than in any geographical reality; we must, therefore, alter that mind-set. Everything takes place in the brain » (235). En bon détective, le père Brown quant à lui voit une vision de l’Irlande dans les cinq voiles superposés qui couvrent l’épouse d’Arnolfini, telle Sainte Dympna, patronne, entre autres, des somnambules : « These five fifths are the five provinces of Ireland » (272). La référence faite au concept mythique d’une cinquième province, c’est-à-dire d’une vision culturelle pluraliste de l’Irlande, est sans doute battue en brèche par la comparaison de cette carte de l’Irlande « faite d’un réseau de fils sans fin » avec le corps du chien à poils durs qui figure dans le tableau. Et c’est au père Brown que revient la tâche de le démêler ou plutôt de l’entremêler davantage.

25 De manière générale, l’œuvre de Carson fait grand usage des nombres, on peut même dire que le nombre est forme et en ceci il rejoint encore une tradition médiéviste, issue du néoplatonisme, « en ce qu’il projette dans le monde sensible l’image d’une Idée subsistante34 », comme le rappelle Paul Zumthor. Sans doute cette profusion de dates sert le propos réaliste de l’auteur qui lui permet d’ancrer son récit dans le fantastique et de jouer sur cette frontière incertaine, brouillée entre les codes et les genres, sans lesquelles le récit sombrerait dans le chaos. Sans doute, pour reprendre les termes de Léo Bersani, « [l]a précision de la date ne sert pas uniquement l’illusion de l’authenticité historique35 ». Elle nous permet « de rendre le vécu plus accessible à notre soif de catégories et de distinctions significatives36 ». Dans ce contexte, les nombres « régissent l’espace et le temps, de même que l’individu, la société et les choses auxquelles sont joints l’un et l’autre37 ». Aux temps médiévaux, dans la composition du discours, tout autant que dans la scansion d’une activité, on faisait intervenir le nombre « pour l’intégrer à un ordre38 ». Ainsi, conclut Zumthor, on assistait à la manifestation de « l’harmonie latente dans les objets, les âmes, les actes, c’est-à-dire la solidarité qui les unifie » car « le nombre ouvre un espace ; il confère figurativement une dimension à l’éthique même, un mode d’existence mesurable à tout ce qui concerne le destin humain39 ». Le monde actuel, déstabilisé par la modernité, ne possèderait plus ces notions englobantes, et la tâche des protagonistes de Shamrock Tea serait donc de tenter de les recouvrer.

26 Devenu bibliothécaire dans la ville flamande de Gheel, le narrateur, Carson alias Maeterlinck, atteint une sorte de paix et de sérénité, dans cette ville qui accueille les fous et les saints d’esprit sans distinction ni ségrégation, où il côtoie Sherlock Holmes et

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Wittgenstein. Comme il le déclare en incipit du dernier chapitre intitulé « Blank » : « I have reached a kind of equilibrium in myself. This world is not perfect, but neither was the one from which I am an exile » (301). Tout se passe comme si les miroirs et les doubles fantomatiques ne fournissaient que des reflets inversés des autres, d’où, selon Clément Rosset, la nécessité de renoncer au double. « Car le miroir est trompeur et constitue une “fausse évidence”, c’est-à-dire l’illusion d’une voyance : il me montre non pas moi mais un inverse, un autre ; non pas mon corps mais une surface, un reflet40. » Tout comme Rosset voit une image du retour à soi dans la sereine plénitude qui se dégage des tableaux de Vermeer, Carson, pourrait-on suggérer, aurait la même vision à l’égard des tableaux de van Eyck. Car la peinture, ici le Double Portrait de van Eyck, permet de saisir l’immédiat dans toute sa réalité ainsi que l’explique Célestin au chapitre 17, intitulé « Oxblood » :

Painting, he said, is the art of making things real, because you have looked at things as they are. In order to paint a twig, you must look at a twig and to paint a tree you must look &c. Only then do you bring the two things together. But you must also remember the injunction of Cennino41, that the occupation known as painting requires you to discover things not seen, and present them to the eye as if they actually exist. (50)

27 La jouissance de soi implique de ne plus chercher à se voir, mais bien de plonger dans ce très peu de réalité des choses quotidiennes, qui est aussi toute la réalité. « Il faut donc que le soi suffise, si maigre semble-t-il ou soit-il en effet : car le choix se limite à l’unique, qui est très peu, et à son double, qui n’est rien42. » Mais le double a aussi son côté constructif, toute histoire de double est également un Bildungsroman. Le texte permet de viser cet horizon ontologique où je deviens un autre, il emmène l’écrivain, et le lecteur, vers ce point imaginaire d’une altérité radicale en laquelle l’identité s’accomplirait, qui est celle de la lumière suprasensible : « Van Eyck duplicated with the brush the work of goldsmiths in metal and gems, recapturing that glow which seemed to reflect the radiance of the Divine, the superessential light » (63). Cette lumière permettra sans doute d’accéder à la Nouvelle Jérusalem que les héros de Shamrock Tea vont construire en Irlande, « in Ireland’s green and pleasant land » (219), car ils étaient tous catholiques, même le trio formé par Conan Doyle, Wilde et le poète jésuite Hopkins pour qui l’univers est infini à qui sait percevoir sa qualité sacramentelle43 : « We are all Catholics in this together » (219). Et l’orange, dont le parfum domine littéralement l’ouvrage de Carson, pourrait bien avoir été le fruit paradisiaque originel. Telle est la réflexion de Maeterlinck : « Ghent, it was said, had invented the orangery: might the original paradisal fruit have been an orange? » (113). Les trois oranges du tableau de van Eyck symbolisent vraisemblablement la fécondité, mais dans la vision de Carson elles ont sans doute aussi une signification multiple, poétique autant que politique.

28 Pour Carson, il n’existe pas une façon définitive de raconter une histoire44 et « la littérature n’est qu’un autre élément dans un univers de discours45 » qui est le nôtre. Loin de se développer logiquement, l’ouvrage de Carson ne cesse de miner son propre discours, de se ramifier pour rejoindre de précédents rameaux. L’ouvrage se tourne sur lui-même, plonge dans son propre réseau métaphorique qui devient peu à peu sa seule échelle référentielle. Dès lors, le livre ne représente plus la réalité mais contribue à la créer, à lui donner forme, tout en s’en démarquant. Même si le monde de Shamrock Tea

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est un monde fascinant et envoûtant pour le lecteur, une sorte de Tea Party à la Lewis Carroll, il n’en reste pas moins un univers inquiétant et sombre, où le plus fou n’est pas celui qu’on pense46. Ce monde deviendra « a minefield salted with eyebright47 » dans un recueil de sonnets publié en 2009 sous le titre On the Night Watch, avant que le poète, dans Until Before After publié l’année suivante, ne transporte son lecteur, « over threshold // after threshold », « to our room // full of light48 ».

NOTES

1. Ciaran Carson, Shamrock Tea, London, Granta Books, 2001, 308 p. Les références à cet ouvrage apparaîtront entre parenthèses dans le corps du texte. Une traduction française est parue en avril 2004 aux éditions Actes-Sud sous le titre Thé au trèfle (traduction Sophie Bastide-Folz). 2. Ce tableau ne comportait pas de titre à l’origine. Il figure à la National Gallery sous le nom de The Arnolfini Marriage. Il est encore appelé Arnolfini and his wife ou même The Betrothal of the Arnolfini. 3. Fishing for Amber reçut un accueil parfois mitigé de la part des critiques, ainsi l’opinion d’un critique américain: « A Belfast writer much admired in Britain, Carson is known to American readers primarily as a poet. His first novel published in the United States, “Fishing for Amber”, attracted little notice. But “Shamrock Tea”, which made the long list for the most recent Booker Prize, could win Carson a cult following here. Like “Fishing for Amber”, the new book is a magic carpet embroidered with stories within stories. “Shamrock Tea”, though, is more streamlined, its humor better camouflaged and more intricately rigged » (Kenneth Baker, San Francisco Chronicle, Sunday, January 13, 2002. 4. Lors de la parution de l’ouvrage, John Kenny écrivait à propos de ce caractère hétérogène : « Issued in Granta’s neat small hardback format, Ciaran Carson’s new novel is not a novel. As with his two previous prose works, The Star Factory (1997) and Fishing for Amber (1999), the publishers advise a cataloguing of the book as “Fiction”; yet to accept the applicability of that term would be to pass too easily over the intriguing intergeneric project Carson has recently adopted » (John Kenny, « My word! Carson’s at it again », Irish Times, 17 March 2001. 5. Voir l’article de Catherine Conan, « L’auteur et ses fantômes dans la prose de Ciaran Carson : Fishing for Amber et Shamrock Tea » in Gaïd Girard (ed.), Territoires de l’étrange dans la littérature irlandaise au XXe siècle, PUR, 2009, p. 93-102. 6. Elmer Kennedy-Andrews, « Carson, Heaney, and the art of getting lost » in Ciaran Carson. Critical Essays, edited by Elmer Kennedy-Andrews, Dublin, Four Courts Press, 2009, p. 233. Dans un chapitre consacré en partie à Shamrock Tea, Neal Alexander conclut: « One version of reality only ever exists in tension with its possible others, and Carson’s narrative imagination highlights the processes whereby identities are formed and

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negotiated » (Neal Alexander, Ciaran Carson: Space, Place, Writing, Liverpool, Liverpool, University Press, 2010, p. 170). 7. C’est ce que souligne Neil Corcoran à propos de l’oeuvre en vers de Carson : « Carson’s narratives […] are, rather, exfoliations, turnings and returnings, digressions and parentheses, lapses and dissolvings, mazes of the seemingly aleatory and circuitous » (N. Corcoran, Poets of Modern Ireland, Cardiff, University of Wales Press, 1999, p. 180). 8. « For all life is a great chain, the nature of which is known when we are shown a single link of it » (12). 9. John McKeown, « Plotting the swirling kaleidoscope », The Irish Times, April 2 2001, [http://www.ireland.com]. 10. Comme le souligne Stan Smith le terme « everything » est un mot favori de Carson : « Paradoxically, its very inclusiveness may reduce all specific things to one thing : their mere totality. Yet regularly, his deployment of the word is in contexts which emphasize evanescence, indeterminacy, volatility. […] This is where Carson renegotiates Wittgenstein, for “everything that is the case” also includes everything which is not. » (Stan Smith, « Ciaran Carson’s virtual realities », in Ciaran Carson. Critical Essays, op. cit., p. 120). 11. Antoine Compagnon, La Seconde main ou le travail de la citation, Paris, Seuil, 1979, p. 337. 12. A. Compagnon, op. cit., p. 333. 13. Ibid. 14. John McKeown, op. cit. 15. On retrouve un écho intertextuel dans l’un des tous premiers poèmes de Carson, « An Early Bed » : A bubble of damp jaundiced the scrolled flowers on the candy-striped wallpaper. (« An Early Bed », in The New Estate, Belfast, Blackstaff Press, 1976, p. 12, poème reproduit en incipit de Selected Poems, Winston-Salem, Wake Forest University Press, 2001, p. 3). 16. Yves Bonnefoy, « Du haïku », in Entretiens sur la poésie, 1972-1990, Paris, Mercure de France, 1990, p. 134-135. 17. Gaston Bachelard, La Terre et les rêveries du repos [1948], Paris, Corti, 1969, p. 211. 18. Bachelard indique en conclusion de son chapitre consacré au labyrinthe : « l’espace de l’être saisi dans sa primitivité est un couloir, un couloir où glisse la vie, la vie qui va toujours croissant, creusant. » (Gaston Bachelard, op. cit., p. 241). On pourra y voir une analogie avec l’image du puits de mine, « the mineshaft // of until » dans le poème « Overhead » (Ciaran Carson, Until Before After, Loughcrew, Gallery Press, 2010, p. 28). 19. Paul Zumthor, La Lettre et la voix, Paris, Seuil, 1987, p. 239. 20. Sans doute en raison de ses liens avec l’Empire britannique : « Parker Pens are Empire Made » (62), cette marque de stylo plume ne fait pas partie de la nombreuse collection décrite en détail dans l’ouvrage en prose, The Pen Friend, publié en 2009. 21. « When it’s going well you do feel that you enter into another world, as if you’re exploring that other world, it’s quite uncanny. And the knowledge that, whatever you write, it’s true, because it’s the real world, is also uncanny » (John McKeown, op. cit.) 22. « epistemological uncertainty » (Brian McHale, Postmodernist Fiction [1987], London/ New York, Routledge, 1996, p. 74.

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23. J’emprunte cette expression à Todorov : « Le fantastique est fondé sur une hésitation du lecteur – un lecteur qui s’identifie au personnage principal – quant à la nature d’un événement étrange. Cette hésitation peut se résoudre soit pour ce qu’on admet que l’événement appartient à la réalité ; soit pour ce qu’on décide qu’il est le fruit de l’imagination et le résultat d’une illusion ; autrement dit, on peut décider que l’événement est ou n’est pas. » (Tzvetan Todorov, Introduction à la littérature fantastique, Paris, Seuil, 1970, p. 165). 24. G. K. Chesterton, Father Brown [1910-1923], Harmondsworth, Penguin Classics, 2001, 397 p. 25. Jean Fabre, Le Miroir de sorcière. Essai sur la littérature fantastique, Paris, José Corti, 1992, p. 217 26. Ibid. 27. Lucien Dällenbach, Le récit spéculaire, Essai sur la mise en abyme, Paris, Seuil, 1977, p. 52. 28. Jean Fabre, op. cit., p. 234. 29. Cette exclamation est aussi celle que prononce Alice après avoir mangé le gâteau : « “Curiouser and curiouser!” cried Alice (she was so much surprised, that for the moment she quite forgot how to speak good English). » (Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland [1865] in The Annotated Alice edited by Martin Gardner, Harmondsworth, Penguin Books, 1970, p. 35). 30. « Wilde and Doyle, who might be said to be two sides of the same coin » (214). 31. « Unable to distinguish between dimensions » (33). 32. Jean Fabre, op. cit., p. 239. 33. Clément Rosset, Le Réel et son double, 1976, Paris, Gallimard, 1993, p. 91. 34. Paul Zumthor, La Mesure du monde, Paris, Seuil, 1993, p. 402. 35. Léo Bersani, « Le réalisme et la peur du désir », in Roland Barthes et al., Littérature et réalité, Paris, Seuil, 1982, p. 51. 36. Ibid. 37. La Mesure du monde, op. cit., p. 402. 38. Ibid., p. 405. 39. Ibid., p. 406. 40. Clément Rosset, op. cit., p. 93. 41. Cennino Cennini, peintre et écrivain d’art italien du début du XVe siècle, auteur d’un traité relatif aux techniques et aux débats artistiques : Libro dell’arte. 42. Clément Rosset, op. cit., p. 124. 43. « If the doors of perception were cleansed, everything would appear as it is, infinite » (227). 44. « There is no final way of telling a story » (R. Brandes, « Ciaran Carson interviewed », The Linenhall Review, 8, 1990, p. 84). 45. « Literature is just another element in a universe of discourse » (Frank Ormsby, « Ciaran Carson interviewed », The Linenhall Review, 8:1, 1991, p. 6). 46. Je fais référence aux paroles de l’auteur lors de l’interview déjà citée : « It’s about madness at the end of the day. You could say that the whole book is about somebody who is actually insane. He’s even in hell maybe […] But at the end of the writing you’re not sure which is the real world : the one you’ve written or the one you physically inhabit. The world in

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Shamrock Tea is a curious, interesting world – I hope – but it’s not all pleasant, there’s a definite dark side to it » (McKeown, op. cit.). 47. Ciaran Carson, On the Night Watch, Loughcrew, Gallery Press, 2009, p. 14. 48. Ciaran Carson, Until Before After, op. cit., p. 119.

RÉSUMÉS

Cet article a pour but de montrer comment, par le biais de la représentation picturale, en l’occurrence une huile sur toile du peintre flamand Jan van Eyck, Ciaran Carson a introduit dans Shamrock Tea une dimension hybride et plurielle qui fait de ce récit en prose un miroir aux reflets infiniment changeants. Certes le phénomène du double tend à remettre en question la représentation du monde et de la réalité, mais dans le même temps le concept de la Trinité, métaphorisée par les trois oranges du tableau, vise à donner une appréhension englobante du monde.

This article aims at showing how, by way of pictorial representation, ie. an oil on wood by Jan van Eyck, Ciaran Carson has introduced a hybrid and plural dimension in Shamrock Tea, which transforms this prose narration into a multiple and forever changing mirror. Indeed, the concept of the double tends to question the representation of the world and reality, yet at the same time the metaphor of the trinity embodied by the three oranges in the painting purports to offer an all-including apprehension of the world.

INDEX

Keywords : Carson Ciaran, visual arts Mots-clés : Carson Ciaran, arts visuels

AUTEUR

ELISABETH DELATTRE Université d’Artois

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Re-envisioning “Woman”: Medea as Heroine in Versions by Brendan Kennelly and Marina Carr

Karen O’Brien

Re-envisioning “Woman”: Medea as Heroine in Versions by Brendan Kennelly and Marina Carr

1 Irish writers have an enduring fascination with Greek tragedy. As Marianne McDonald informs us: “In the twentieth century, there were written close to fifty Irish versions and translations of Greek tragedy in English and close to fifty more in Irish1.” While paying homage to the ancient Greeks, modern adaptations of Greek tragedy in Ireland often have been politically motivated to reflect specific concerns at critical times, recalling Ireland’s long history of cultural conflict, political division, and civil unrest. Two adaptations of Medea – Brendan Kennelly’s Medea and Marina Carr’s By the Bog of Cats – reflect not only on the general Irish political situation but also, significantly, on the often overlooked intimate struggles of the position of “woman” as a broader humanistic enquiry.

2 In these plays, first presented in Dublin a decade apart in 1988 and 1998 respectively, the conflation of the political and the personal brings attention to women’s position and often disregarded social realities. Kennelly, on the one hand, relates Medea’s rage to her triumphant vengeance as a political metaphor of the Irish situation in the North. In Kennelly’s version, Medea’s triumph supersedes her rage. On a more personal level, however, Medea reflects the intimate knowledge Kennelly gained from women who were deeply and profoundly suffering from betrayal and oppression. His personal experience with women’s suffering from injustices propelled in response the writing of Medea, a process that assisted his own private transformation through addiction recovery. Carr, on the other hand, at first appears less celebratory of her Medea figure, renamed Hester, who commits suicide by the play’s end.

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3 However, Hester’s sense of justice and the poetic mode of her death allow the play to offer a more thorough critique of women’s subjection to men and enact protest to effect agency and transformation.

4 With one Medea figure triumphant and the other dying, these revisions of Medea ultimately offer different models of resistance to gendered injustice and alternate strategies to depict transformative potential. On the surface these adaptations gain significance from their specificity of context and setting in place and time, but they ultimately offer broader social relevance, not in terms of the more universal confrontation of institutional authority but for each tragedy’s quest for human transformational possibility and in varying but very personal ways.

5 This wider implication would suggest that specificity of time, place, and political circumstance do not necessarily narrow or limit the play’s overall relevance. José Lanters, in an article on the debate about globalization and Irish drama, states: “In spite of entrenched attitudes on the part of audiences and critics, it is possible to see a gradual move away from insular themes and positions in Irish drama over the past few decades2.” Lanters points to a possible shift occurring in post-September 2001 adaptations of Greek tragedy in which at least one version seeks to be less insular and allegorical in terms of its politics and Irishness (38). The apparent trend away from specificity, even if transnational in its approach, however, as Lanters suggests, does not necessarily make such plays more “global”. She states: “It is not just that [truly great plays] are ‘universal’ in a broadly humanistic way, but that they gain relevance in new social or political circumstances without having to have that relevance emphatically imposed on them3.” Whether the play is “universal” or even if relevance is imposed, specificity of place and time is determined through the particularized context of each production’s or reader’s reception.

6 At this time of continued production of adaptations of Greek tragedy in Ireland, it would seem also important to consider specificity and universality of previous adaptations from an inverted perspective, not only for their imposed relevance but also for their broader humanistic inquiry. Kennelly’s and Carr’s adaptations depict a particular moment in a way that remembers Ireland’s long, tragic history, but the versions, additionally, transcend geographical and temporal limits to engage with profound feelings of deep loss and human suffering, opening a path to examine the affective potential to touch individual human lives in their own particularized contexts on pages and stages across the globe.

Heroines of Justice

7 The most frequently produced adaptations of Greek tragedy in Dublin have been those based on the myths of Oedipus, Antigone, and Medea. Sophocles’ Antigone and Euripides’ Medea were given preference in the last two decades of the century. Antigone was a significant theatrical force in Ireland in the mid-1980s for confronting civil injustices. Three versions were written by Irish poets Tom Paulin, Brendan Kennelly, and Aidan Carl Mathews in 1984, and Athol Fugard’s adaptation of Antigone, The Island, was presented at the Gate Theatre in 1986. Each of these modern Antigones responded, in its own way, to the efforts to advance human rights and to settle the political situation, particularly conflict and violence in the North of Ireland. When Seamus Heaney’s version of Antigone, entitled Burial at Thebes: A Version of Sophocles’ Antigone,

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was released in 2004, Thomas Sutcliffe wrote: “Antigone itself could probably be said to have acquired Irish citizenship by now, given the number of pointed adaptations of the play that Irish writers have produced4.” If the 1980s were the decade when Antigone became an Irish citizen, however, the 1990s may be said to have conferred the same privilege on another, very different woman: the Medea.

8 Four translations and adaptations of Medea received critical attention in Dublin from 1989 to 2000. Three of these versions were first produced in two major theatres in Dublin: the Abbey Theatre and the Gate Theatre. Both theatres have frequently staged Greek adaptations since their inception in 1904 and 1928 respectively. In 1989 the Gate Theatre presented Brendan Kennelly’s Medea after it was staged at the Dublin Theatre Festival the previous year. In 1998 the Abbey Theatre staged a loose adaptation of Medea by Marina Carr, entitled By the Bog of Cats In 1991 Irish poet Desmond Egan published a straight translation of Medea that has not been professionally staged to date. On Egan’s translation, Brian Arkins states that “such adherence to Euripides forces us to interrogate the meaning of the Greek text […] without recourse to any modern material5”. This could not be said of many other Irish Medeas, which are very much in dialogue with “modern material”. In 2000 another version of the Medea – written by Kenneth McLeish and Frederick Raphael and starring Irish actress Fiona Shaw –was first presented at the Abbey Theatre before achieving international acclaim. This extraordinary proliferation of new Medeas suggests that the well-known mythic lineaments of this classical tragedy provided Irish playwrights at this particular moment with a way to articulate contemporary concerns. While Antigone brought to the stage debates about the political situation and national identity, Kennelly’s and Carr’s re-envisionings of Medea are significant not only for their sociopolitical perspective but also for their additional exploration of the position of “woman” in society more broadly. In Medea, the general Euripidean themes of exile and abandonment remain powerful, but the contemporary Irish versions of Medea resonate in particular with gender issues concerning motherhood and familial relationships. Kennelly’s and Carr’s adaptations warrant a closer look for their response to gendered injustice. They similarly highlight unfair treatment of women through engagement with more personal dimensions of human experience but attempt to disrupt inequalities in contrasting ways.

Kennelly’s Medea Figure: Terror and Triumph

9 Kennelly sets his version in Corinth but connects his Medea to the broader oppression of colonialism in Ireland. McDonald argues: “It is not difficult to align this [Kennelly’s] Medea with Irish Republicans, raised as Catholics, who will stop at nothing to secure what they see is just. In this case, Jason resembles England, exploiting Medea for what he can get from her6.” Kennelly makes powerful references to bombs, recalling England’s colonization of Ireland as well as the effect of fervent nationalism7. Jason suggests that Medea pray for common sense, specifically sense enough to view his urge for powerful royal connection as “useful opportunity” rather than to perceive the betrayal as “shameful8”. Medea counters: Prayer is not a way of coping with fools. Prayer is for dealing with the injustice caused by fools,

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rhetorical idiots and blind, ambitious power-hungry cretins. Prayer, my plausible friend, is anger at what is, and a longing for what should be. Prayer is a bomb at the door of your house9.

10 The words “prayer” and “bomb” connect religious prayer to national violence. Through his use of poetic language, Kennelly evokes imagery of the Troubles and then connects this national, public memory with the issue of the women’s position, particularly as it is embodied in Medea’s private rage, sense of intimate betrayal, and desire for marital and sexual justice. Bomb imagery further links the public memory and private rage as the Messenger describes the carnage of the death of King Creon and his daughter upon receiving Medea’s poisoned gifts: The house became a house of chaos. Then the Princess, lying there, eyes closed, groaned in agony, began to revive […] Her body became a flame, […] Shrivelled and contorted by the agony of fire she fell on the floor, and only her father was able to recognise her, so charred and melted her beautiful features. Nobody could tell where her eyes were, nobody discern the least sign of the beauty of her face. She was a melting, ugly, burning thing. The blood, mingling with fire, fell in blazing drops from her head, the flawless white flesh melted from her bones, as the unseen poison consumed her, bit by bit […] the black ruin that was once a fair princess10.

11 The graphic language throughout the passage evokes the imagery one would expect in the aftermath of a bomb explosion, and Medea’s sense of justice clearly resonates with Ireland’s political situation. The scenes also correlate with nationalist ideology and acts of terrorism in Ireland. Although she aims to shield herself and persevere as a woman on her own terms, Medea’s extreme acts function to complicate our perception of woman. McDonald writes, “Suffering in Euripides leads to arming […] it teaches the victim to imitate the victimizer11”. As prey turned predator, Medea destabilizes and politicizes conventional gender binaries. McDonald calls Medea “every philandering husband’s nightmare12”. However, Medea’s strategies of militant resistance link her to classic discussions about activist tactics and leave us to consider how best to expose injustice.

Kennelly’s Personal Resonance

12 Kennelly’s exploration of the nature of Medea’s rage resonates with his life in a very personal way. Kennelly candidly discusses his identification with Medea’s fury in the preface to his published play text. While battling alcoholism in 1986 he sought recovery at St. Patrick’s hospital in Dublin. During his stay, he attended group meetings where he experienced the rage of betrayed women through their stories of endured abuse and deception. In the preface to his Medea, Kennelly writes:

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I was trying to recover from prolonged alcoholism and I found myself listening, […] especially to women. The women I listened to ranged in age from about seventeen to about seventy. Many of them had one thing in common. Rage. Rage mainly against men, Irishmen like myself. […] I became aware of the fact that a major reason for their rage was because they were more conscious than the men they’d lived with, or left, or been jilted or betrayed or beaten up by. […] [T]heir words were often savage and pitiless and precise. Some of them seemed to me to be unutterably hurt. […] The rage of these women was the rage of people who’d been used and abused over the years by men who quite often didn’t even visit them in hospital. […] This was the rage that I tried to present in Medea13.

13 How does a man effectively translate Medea to meditate on women’s rage against men? As a man, Kennelly offers the “consciousness” that the indignant women found absent in men. In this way, his version serves as an apology for “Irishmen like myself”. Kennelly’s exploration of women’s rage against men acknowledges the wrongs and wounds suffered. The structure of the play itself reflects his journey to sobriety. A shift in language occurs between acts I and II, as discussed by Kelly Younger in his book, and the language serves as a metaphor for Kennelly’s very personal struggle to recovery14. In Act I, Kennelly uses vivid, unforgiving words for Medea to confront Jason and his betrayal: Stink of the grave, rot of a corpse’s flesh, slime of the putrid world, unburied carcass of a dog in the street, black-yellow greeny-spit of a drunk midnight – these are my words for you15.

14 John McDonagh points to “Kennelly’s penchant for the venomous mot juste” in this scene, comparing it to a translation by Philip Vellacott in which Medea calls Jason a mere “filthy coward16”. The choral ode in act II, in contrast, presents moderate to sober language: “Love knows no limits […] My truest home is moderation, it’s/like living in a house of courage.” The emphasis on moderation, limits, and courage corresponds with the philosophy of the ancient Greeks and suggests that this principle of restraint is necessary to Irish society as well. In his recent book release, Arkins states, “This archetypal role that Medea plays links up both with Kennelly’s own personal life and with wider concerns about society in Ireland17”. Kennelly’s experience of recovery brings an important contemporary Irish resonance to his Medea, but the most significant aspect is the play’s conflation of the political and personal to make the presence of “woman” more profound in a broader context.

15 More than responding to Irish political issues, Kennelly demonstrates the contemporary importance of his version of Medea as a warning to spectators and readers that women are not to be disregarded. McDonald asserts, “Brendan Kennelly transformed the main rebel women he put in his plays into heroines, and specifically Irish heroines18”. Kennelly, additionally, presents the broader “human passion19” of his Irish heroine through her powerful force unleashed with insult and injury. In his preface, Kennelly writes: The Medea I tried to imagine was a modern woman, also suffering a terrible pain – the pain of consciousness of betrayal by a yuppified Jason […]. Medea, as I imagined her, plans to educate Jason in the consciousness of horror; she destroys his world but leaves him intact. [….] Medea, as I see her, inflicts on Jason the ultimate cruelty; she sentences him to life20.

16 In addition to conveying the enormity of betrayal through Medea’s rage, Kennelly seeks for Medea a quality of the extraordinary. She is able to alter her position and transform

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her life predicament. Kennelly illustrates Medea’s exceptional resilience: “Euripides presents her as an abandoned, betrayed woman bent on revenge; he also brilliantly suggests the twisted consequences of that revenge. Medea is transfigured into an almost superhuman destroyer by her sense of wrong21”. Medea, numinously and willfully, relegates Jason from his newly-found royal status to an inglorious inferior. She transcends being a scorned woman to reach wondrous glory. Kennelly’s entitles Medea to this superhuman quality in extending Euripides’ ending to ask: “And yet I wonder, and will always wonder–/ Is Medea’s crime Medea’s glory22?” We already know the answer because Medea is victorious. McDonald analyzes it concisely: “In Euripides’ play, Medea’s victory was ambiguous; in Kennelly’s play, she wins23.” Although the triumphant vengeance of Medea depicted in Kennelly’s added lines does not translate the uncertain ending of Euripides’ original, it depicts Kennelly’s personal quest for transformational power through recovery and his experience of women’s oppression.

17 Kennelly’s Medea works to redefine the position of “woman” for both Irish women and women more generally as well as to reflect broadly on the promise of human transformation. Kennelly gives Medea strength and glory. She chooses to become an agent to resist gendered injustice. She refuses to self-destruct in the face of betrayal, loss, and exile. Medea, alternately, produces consequences for Jason’s violation and drive for power by strategically devising a plot of vengeance. Jason’s new royal refuge becomes a quasi-bomb site. The result is reported by the Messenger: “Side by side they lay,/father and daughter,/King and Princess, unfleshed,/dead. Burnt bones./[…] Two burnt corpses on a royal floor24.” Without justifying the violent murder of King Creon and the Princess or her subsequent acts of filicide, Kennelly’s version evokes empathy with Medea’s decision to become an active agent rather than a passive victim, propelling agency relevant to Irish debates about the position of women in society.

18 Women have suffered gendered injustice in both private and public spheres, particularly in regards to marriage and motherhood. For women in Ireland, marriage ultimately served as an oppressive, unjust institution of “social exclusion”. John McDonagh asserts: “Marriage proves to be the ‘revelation’, a state of free-fall as the man exhibits ‘a sudden loss of interest in her body’, usually leading to the social exclusion of the woman25.” Although the Irish Constitution of 1937 aimed to protect the family structure by not obliging the mother to work outside the home, its repetitious emphasis on the woman’s place in “the home,” as articulated in section two of article 41, politicizes the maternal, promoting woman as mother to the exclusion of other roles. In her examination of article 41, Melissa Sihra states that “‘woman’ is explicitly defined by the role of ‘mother’, and the two terms remain interchangeable26”. Kennelly’s Medea unsettles this interchangeability without lessening the social value of either role. Medea finds her womanhood chiefly in terror and triumph, and she makes the difficult decision to sacrifice motherhood, as seen when she brutally murders her children.

19 J. Michael Walton contends: “Knowing at first hand, and sympathizing with, the struggles of women in Ireland, Kennelly seems to find a kind of justice in Medea’s destruction of her children that places in the frame a whole stratum of Irish social history27” (29). Despite the fight for equal rights throughout the twentieth century, Irish women often sacrificed their ambitions for the greater good of the country only to find themselves silenced and devalued. Arkins states: “Kennelly’s Medea should be read against the reality of marital breakdown in Ireland, and the debates about divorce that

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took place in the 1980s and 90s (it became legal in 1997)28.” Arkins links Kennelly’s personal experience of divorce to his identification with betrayed women who provided him with “female knowledge” for the writing of Medea29. For Medea, matrimony appears as an affliction to private life, but she outmaneuvers Jason to assert herself in the male-identified public sphere. The conflation of Irish politics and the position of woman in Kennelly’s Medea functions to resist gendered injustice and ultimately to enact a broader human transformation by the play’s end.

Carr’s Medea Figure: Suicide as Literary Protest

20 Carr’s By the Bog of Cats is freely adapted, unlike Kennelly’s version, which more closely translates Euripides’ original30. First presented at the Abbey Theatre, Carr’s version alters the locale from Corinth to an icy bog of the Irish Midlands with its distinct dialect. Although it is a loose adaptation, By the Bog of Cats retains the general plot and themes of Medea as well as the driving force of Medea’s rage without sacrificing her original fusion of passion and reason. Written from a woman’s perspective, Carr’s version counters “traditional” Western perspectives of motherhood, marriage, familial relationships, and Catholicism to magnify the position of “woman” and provide a mode of transformation through death.

21 Frank McGuinness’s well-known programme note from the first Abbey production tells us that Carr “knows what the Greeks know. Death is a big country. […] I am certain in this play she writes in Greek31”. The bog landscape “from which Carr writes”, Sihra argues, is “where the ethereal cohabitates with the mundane, where the world of poetry and storytelling is a necessary part of the everyday32”. This dual status of death and of landscape functions to challenge the rigidity of hierarchal structures and insular thought. The play resists such structures by symbolically presenting transformative possibility, specifically through the landscape’s liminal link to the Other world and through the performance of poetic death. McDonald tells us the Irish versions of the classics often have been used as a form of protest33, and as such, Carr’s utilization of such elements as death and landscape serve as a mode of literary protest.

22 Hester is known to be from a family of “travelers,” derogatorily referred to as “tinkers.” She resides in a caravan on the bogside avoiding the more permanent house, staking her undying claim to the landscape: I was born on the Bog of Cats and on the Bog of Cats I’ll end me days. I’ve as much right to this place as any of yees, more, for it holds me to it in ways it has never held yees. And as for me tinker blood, I’m proud of it. It gives me an edge over all of yees around her34…

23 Hester demonstrates cultural difference through her hybrid form of foreigner-native. Her outsider status is similar to Euripides’ Medea, who in Corinth is considered a barbarian, or non-Greek. Hester’s difference is interpreted as witchery, resembling Medea’s characterization as a sorcerer. Despite being marginalized as an outsider and a woman, it is her “tinker blood” that gives her “an edge” to strike back and pursue vengeance on a more elevated scale. Likewise, Medea’s foreigner status enables her to deal with the oppression she suffers as a woman. Carr, like Kennelly, explores woman’s subjugated position in society and the resulting nature of her fierceness. Both Medeas strike with fury at the heart of patriarchy and materialism. Hester refuses to be victimized and instead exerts force to retaliate. Her suffering and rage activate

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personal strength to fight for justice and honor for herself beyond the limits of morality and law in the face of oppression.

24 Carr utilizes death as a poetic mode to show potential for transformation where there seems to be none. At the beginning of the play, Hester encounters a dead black swan, her alter ego whom she drags along leaving in her wake a trail of blood in the snow. Mary Trotter states: “The death of the swan, frozen into the bog it was unable to fly away from, reflects Hester’s own psychic entrapment within this community35.” The swan foreshadows Hester’s death, which looming propels Hester’s defiance against a seemingly inevitable fate. Hester is greeted, additionally, by the Ghost Fancier, a supernatural Death figure who arrives mistakenly at dawn to carry her into the world of the nonliving. Ghost Fancier, unable to decipher linear time, confuses dawn for dusk and promises to return at twilight, the play’s end, to escort Hester into exile through a “death dance36”. Both the black swan and Ghost Fancier portend Hester’s death, and Carr’s use of foreshadowing shifts, as Trotter notes, “from the Euripidean source in a more Irish, feminine, and psychological territory37”. This new private territory offers a symbolic space of potential transformation. Her most powerful characters are able to transverse the threshold of the living to communicate with the dead. By the Bog of Cats, however, differs from Euripides’ Medea in two important ways: Hester’s act of filicide; and her ultimate escape through suicide. The deaths of mother and child demonstrate brave resistance to the prescribed role of motherhood to redefine the position of “woman”.

25 Hester’s purpose for killing her daughter, Josie, is multifaceted. It is not simply an act of revenge or resistance. Hester’s slaying of Josie is motivated, moreover, by her instinctive need to protect Josie in the future from the self-interested Carthages and child molesting Xaviers of the world. Carthage Kilbride, her longtime life partner, has taken everything that Hester has not already lost in life. When Carthage threatens to take their daughter Josie, Hester replies: “I should’ve known ya always meant to take her too38.” As a result, Hester kills Josie in a desperate attempt to hold on to something of her own. Hester’s killing of Josie overall emphasizes the mother-daughter bond, whereas Medea’s murder of her two sons is a subversive act to destroy the father-son bond and relegate Jason to the broken emotional state of the perceived stereotype of woman. John McDonagh states: “In Ireland in the year 2000 six children died at the hand of a suicidal parent […] The taking of children by a suicidal parent is an occurrence that brings the often bizarre nature of parental love into sharp focus and can, in certain circumstances, be regarded as an act of ultimate love39.” Hester’s filicide is enacted to spare Josie the same anguish of abandonment she suffered by her own mother at the same age of seven. The “act of ultimate love” affirms motherhood while showing a performance of maternity that is wildly at variance with “traditional” ideas of acceptable motherly characteristics.

26 Carr’s personal life interestingly demonstrates a strong dedication to both motherhood and self-actualization. She relates her private experience of childbearing and growing a family to her writing career in a meaningful way. In the introduction to her second volume of plays, she claims her works are mostly memorable for their proximity to her experience of childbearing. She states: “What I remember most about these plays was I was either pregnant, breastfeeding, or about to be pregnant40.” Interweaving parental responsibility and childbearing into her brief discussion of each play, she suggests that motherhood is somehow connected to her writing41. Her own success as a writer

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demonstrates that family need not come to the exclusion of professional development and that motherhood does not preclude great success outside the home. Nor does it exclude political agency, as By the Bog of Cats, with its critique of capitalism, addresses injustices beyond the domestic sphere.

27 The literary representation of “woman” in her play works as a rejection of conservative values of the family but not of the family itself. Hester desires family life but seeks justice and redefinition of the notion of “woman”. By the Bog of Cats explores the women’s position through the role of mother, specifically maternal abandonment, to resist the stereotypical role of motherhood. In By the Bog of Cats, ultimately, the absence and ineffectuality of mothers work to counter “tradition”. Hester has spent her life waiting for her mother, Big Josie, to return. Big Josie deserted her at the age of seven. The themes of abandonment and exile correspond to Euripides’ Medea but are also frequent in Irish literature. Hester and Big Josie were relegated to the periphery of society, exploited, and repressed by the likes of the wealthy farmer and landowner Xavier Cassidy, who is soon to be the new father-in-law of Carthage. Carthage’s given name recalls the Greek seaport lost in battle and the surname portends Hester’s final demise. Trotter states: “In many of Carr’s plays mundane, materialistic individuals are juxtaposed by deeply passionate figures – usually women – in touch with a sense of history, desire, purpose, or love that can make them behave obsessively, cruelly, selfishly, and tragically. They are a far cry from the long-suffering obedient women who have inhabited so much of Irish drama42.” Even Josie’s grandmother, Mrs. Kilbride, cruelly taunts her granddaughter for being a Swane-Kilbride mix rather than a full- blooded Kilbride. Hester’s defiance, however, redefines the position of “woman” in Irish drama and society, especially in her struggle both to gain autonomy and to abandon the logic of the oppressive social structures that generate feelings of bias, fear, and hatred to which characters like Carthage and Mrs. Kilbride have succumbed. In the end, Hester willingly chooses death for her daughter as a symbolic act of protest and love.

28 After slaying Josie, Hester commits suicide, which functions as an act of courage, her own escape and refuge from patriarchy. In the Other world, however, Hester intends to maintain an everlasting bond with Carthage and exact her vengeance on him through eternal haunting. Fed up with being disregarded especially by those closest to her, she warns: Ya won’t forget me now, Carthage, and when all of this is over or half remembered and ya think ya’ve almost forgotten me again, take a walk along the Bog of Cats and wait for a purlin’ wind through your hair or a soft breath be your ear or a rustle behind ya. That’ll be me and Josie ghostin’ ya43.

29 Even though Hester and Carthage never married during their fourteen-year relationship, Hester’s obsession with “ghostin’” Carthage is a response to an unrequited marital vow that transcends “until death do us part” with the promise of a never- ending union.

30 Still, By the Bog of Cats works to destroy and redefine symbols and structures of marriage, family, and the authority of the Church. While the plot structure of By the Bog of Cats is similar to Euripides’ Medea in its story of abandonment, betrayal, and vengeance, the centrality of the wedding and marriage of the Jason figure, Carthage, ultimately works to undermine the power/authority of its structure and symbolism. Hester, like Medea, is in conflict with Carthage. Despite their broken bond, Hester and

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Carthage share an attachment deepened by their complicity in the murder of Hester’s brother, Joseph. The murder brought Hester additional inheritance, which was used to finance Carthage into business. The financial capital positioned him as a respectable suitor for a new life he now seeks with the prosperous Cassidy family. Medea, similarly, sacrificed her brother in Jason’s interest. Carr, however, departs from Euripides’ structure but continues to emphasize themes of abandonment and exile to explore the role of motherhood. Unlike Medea, Hester claims that the primary motivation for killing Joseph was his disregard for her feelings of rejection by her mother: If ya hadn’t been such an arrogant git I may have left ya alone but ya just wouldn’t shut up talkin’ about her as if she wasn’t my mother at all. The big smug neck of ya! It was axin’ to be cut. And she even called ya after her. And calls me Hester. What sourt of a name is Hester? Hester’s after no wan. And she saves her own name for you – Didn’t she ever tell ya about me44?

31 Joseph exacerbated Hester’s sense of abandonment stemming from her mother’s departure. Hester feels that she does not have a sufficient familial tie being named after “no wan”. Furthering Hester’s sense of exclusion, Carthage, now set to marry Caroline Cassidy, daughter of Xavier, intends to silence and exile Hester so she does not interfere in his new life.

32 Carr not only shows a disillusioned view of the institution of marriage but also deconstructs its symbolism and structure through Hester’s resistance to physical and psychic confinement. In Euripides’ original, Medea poisons King Creon and his daughter, but Hester does not kill for vengeance in the same way. In fact, Hester spares Xavier and Caroline. She instead arrives uninvited to Carthage and Caroline’s wedding donning a wedding dress herself. The wedding dress is significant as there are four white dresses, complicating the notion of matrimony. Caroline, the bride, obviously wears a wedding gown, but Mrs. Kilbride also takes liberty to don a white dress, perhaps an incestuous move. Josie wears her communion dress, and perhaps that along with her desire to go on her father’s honeymoon also suggests incestuous desire, more interesting in conjunction with the religious connotation of the dress. Finally, Hester presents herself in the wedding dress once purchased but never worn for her own marriage to Carthage. The white gowns represent sociocultural “tradition” yet the accumulation of them undermines the trinity of femininity, Irish identity, and the Catholic Church. After thoroughly ruining the wedding, Hester burns down Carthage’s house and shed with livestock, lashing out against his materialism and her unjust treatment. The wedding dress deteriorates into ruin. The destruction of the wedding and the dress symbolically illustrates the substantive breakdown and fall of these social structures of “tradition”.

33 Carr, additionally, reflects on the authority of the Church as ineffectual. The eccentric Father Willow is more interested in flirting with the unholy Catwoman than in attending to his congregation members. While these occasional references may suggest inclusiveness of spiritual belief or may serve as residual belief to reflect partial or abandoned faith, overall they seem to suggest the impotency or irrelevance of religion in the contemporary moment. Karl Marx stated that religion “is the opium of the people45”, and Carr’s drama perhaps reveals openness to alternatives to the metaphorical opiate. The play works to unveil and disrupt the power of ideological opiates that function to maintain social hierarchy.

34 Ultimately, Hester’s dance with death provides a release that fulfills her particular need for personal freedom from the constraints of social inequalities. Ghost Fancier arrives

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providing a supernatural intervention, a sort of deus ex machina, with heightened theatrical and poetic resonance. Simply stated, it presents rich staging potential: They go into a death dance with the fishing knife, which ends plunged into HESTER’s heart. She falls to the ground46.

35 Hester’s efforts end tragically, but the poetic treatment of death suggests agency. McDonald confirms: “In Carr’s play death is a refuge for the mother and daughter, a place where they can be free from patriarchy47.” Eamonn Jordan further affirms: “Hester murders her daughter not out of some irrational impulse but with the calculation and formality that defy the accusation of hysteria or frenzy. Her own destructive agency is in evidence48.” In Carr’s adaptation, as in Kennelly’s, the conflation of sociopolitical realities and gendered injustice works to resist these authoritative social structures and provide a mode of transformation.

36 Although Hester’s suicide may at first appear to be reinforcement rather than subversion of the maternal role, Hester’s “edge” demonstrates her defiance, in particular resistance to oppression of traditional structures of motherhood and matrimony. Her suicide death at the play’s end does not affirm and reestablish patriarchal order. In Carr’s plays, Sihra states, “[d]eath on stage does not indicate finality, but movement; it is a poetic drive to excavate what it means to live […] ‘Death’ per se, can offer no resolution unless it is viewed as a symbiotic dynamic of living49”. Carr’s characters have concerns beyond motherhood and the role of the wife. Her woman characters depict the quest for a space to express themselves differently from the limits of representation in modern Irish drama. Carr expands the limits of previous gender representation through the poetic use of death and the Otherworld. By investigating women’s experience outside the domestic sphere, Carr opens possibilities for women to be perceived and represented differently and to occupy new psychic and physical spaces on the stage.

Mythic Transformation

37 Kennelly and Carr have written versions of the Medea myth that not only show that tensions of Athenian culture are still current in Ireland but also reflect a quest to overcome oppressive forces of a broader human struggle. These revisions of Medea, however, ultimately offer different models of resistance to gendered injustice. Medea’s fury resonates in personal ways for Kennelly, most significantly in how suffering activates change, seen particularly through a man’s coming to consciousness about women’s rage against men. Kennelly suggests that this recognition facilitated his personal journey to recovery. The rage of Carr’s Medea also brings identification with Irish life. Carr takes liberties with the original to make it resonate with Irish myth and Ireland’s Midland landscape of bogs. Unique to Greek tragedy, Carr brings to the forefront a woman’s perspective through the emphasis on the mother-daughter relationship. In seeking alternate ways to generate movement out of cycles of gendered oppression and entrapment, Hester must take exile. It is in the realm of death that she finds refuge and freedom. Carr disturbs the power of symbols and structures of marriage, family, and the authority of the Church to resist gendered injustice and shows symbolic transformational potential in a quest for the redefinition of the position of “woman”.

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38 The re-envisioning of Greek myth in these Irish versions works to enlarge the relationship between Irish history and sociopolitical realities in the present. They also stage resistance to gendered injustice and demonstrate the transformative potential of social struggle in broader dimensions of human life.

NOTES

1. Marianne McDonald, “Rebel Women: Brendan Kennelly’s Versions of Irish Tragedy”, New Hibernia Review, 9, 3, Autumn 2005, p. 123. 2. José Lanters, “‘Cobwebs on Your Walls’: The State of the Debate about Globalisation and Irish Drama”, Global Ireland, eds. Ondřej Pilný and Clare Wallace, Prague, Litteraria Pragensia, 2005, p. 37. 3. Ibid., p. 42. 4. Thomas Sutcliffe, “Everyday Clichés Come under Fire”, The Independent-London, 23 April, 2004, p. 5. 5. Brian Arkins, Irish Appropriation of Greek Tragedy, Dublin, Carysfort Press, 2010, p. 77. 6. Marianne McDonald, op. cit., p. 130 7. See Marianne McDonald, “‘A Bomb at the Door’: Kennelly’s Medea, 1992”, Eire-Ireland, 28, 2, 1993, p. 129-137, particularly p. 134. Also see McDonald, “Rebel Women”, op. cit., p. 132. 8. Brendan Kennelly, Medea: A New Version, Newcastle upon Tyne, Bloodaxe Books, 1991, p. 42. 9. Ibid., p. 42. 10. Ibid., p. 68-69. 11. Marianne McDonald, “A Bomb”, op. cit., p. 130. 12. Marianne McDonald, “Rebel Women”, op. cit., p. 129. 13. Brendan Kennelly, op. cit., p. 6-7. 14. Kelly Younger, Irish Adaptations of Greek Tragedies: Dionysus in Ireland, Lewiston, The Edwin Mellen Press, 2001, p. 140-141. See also Marianne McDonald, op. cit., “Rebel Women”, p. 123-136. 15. Brendan Kennelly, op. cit., p. 36. 16. John McDonagh, “’Is Medea’s Crime Medea’s Glory?’ Euripides in Dublin”, Amid Our Troubles: Irish Versions of Greek Tragedy, eds. Marianne McDonald and J. Michael Walton, London, Methuen, 2002, p. 228. 17. Brian Arkins, op. cit., p. 79. 18. Marianne McDonald, “Rebel Woman”, op. cit., p. 125. 19. Ibid., p. 125. 20. Brendan Kennelly, op. cit., p. 8.

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21. Ibid., p. 8. 22. Ibid., p. 75. 23. Marianne McDonald, “’A Bomb’”, op. cit., p. 136. 24. Brendan Kennelly, op. cit., p. 70. 25. John McDonagh, op. cit., p. 215. 26. Melissa Sihra, “Introduction: Figures at the Window”, Women in Irish Drama: A Century of Authorship and Representation, ed. Melissa Sihra, New York, Palgrave, 2007, p. 2. 27. J. Michael Walton, “Hit or Myth: The Greeks and Irish Drama”, Amid Our Troubles: Irish Versions of Greek Tragedy, eds. Marianne McDonald and J. Michael Walton, London, Methuen, 2002, p. 29. 28. Brian Arkins, op. cit., p. 79. 29. Ibid., p. 79. 30. Still, Kennelly adds over 800 lines to Euripides’ approximately 1400 lines in Medea. 31. Frank McGuinness, “Writing in Greek”, Programme note for By the Bog of Cats (Programme Note: Abbey Theatre, 1998), The Theatre of Marina Carr: “before rules was made”, eds. Cathy Leeney and Anna McMullan, Dublin, Carysfort Press, 2003, p. 87-88. 32. Melissa Sihra, “Reflections Across Water: New Stages of Performing Carr”, The Theatre of Marina Carr: “before rules was made”, eds. Cathy Leeney and Anna McMullan, Dublin, Carysfort Press, 2003, p. 103. 33. Marianne McDonald, “Classics as Celtic Firebrand: Greek Tragedy, Irish Playwrights, and Colonialism”, Theatre stuff: Critical Essays on Contemporary Irish Theatre, ed. Eamonn Jordan, Dublin, Carysfort Press, 2000, p. 16. 34. Marina Carr, By the Bog of Cats…, County Meath, Gallery Books, 1998, p. 35. 35. Mary Trotter, Modern Irish Theatre, Cambridge, UK, Polity Press, 2008, p. 188. 36. Marina Carr, op. cit., p. 80. 37. Mary Trotter, op. cit., p. 188. 38. Marina Carr, op. cit., p. 75. 39. John McDonagh, op. cit., p. 218. 40. Marina Carr, “Introduction”, Plays Two, London, Faber and Faber, 2009, p. IX.

41. Ibid., p. IX-X. 42. Mary Trotter, op. cit., p. 188. 43. Marina Carr, By the Bog of Cats, op. cit., p. 80. 44. Ibid., p. 61. 45. Karl Marx, “Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Law”, Collected Works, eds. Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, 3, Moscow, Progress Publishers, New York, International Publishers, 1975, p. 175. 46. Marina Carr, By the Bog of Cats, op. cit., p. 80. 47. Marianne McDonald, “Classics”, op. cit., p. 22. 48. Eamonn Jordan, “Unmasking the Myths? Marina Carr’s By the Bog of Cats and On Raftery’s Hill”, Amid Our Troubles: Irish Versions of Greek Tragedy, eds. Marianne McDonald and J. Michael Walton, London, Methuen, 2002, p. 261.

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49. Melissa Sihra, “Reflections Across Water: New Stages of Performing Carr”, The Theatre of Marina Carr: “before rules was made”, eds. Cathy Leeney and Anna McMullan, Dublin, Carysfort Press, 2003, p. 112.

ABSTRACTS

Brendan Kennelly’s Medea and Marina Carr’s By the Bog of Cats are particularly striking versions of Euripides’ Medea for their representation of Medea’s rage in light of sociopolitical realities within Ireland. Both versions conflate the general Irish political situation with the broader issue of “woman,” paying homage to struggles encountered by contemporary women. Significantly, these revisions of Medea ultimately offer different models of resistance to gendered injustice and similarly reflect on transformative potential in broader dimensions of human life.

Medea de Brendan Kennelly et By the Bog of Cats de Marina Carr sont deux réécritures de la Médée d’Euripide qui nous frappent par leur représentation de la rage des femmes devant la réalité socio-politique irlandaise. En rendant hommage aux luttes quotidiennes des femmes d’aujourd’hui, ces pièces abordent de grandes questions sur l’identité féminine tout en explorant la situation politique irlandaise à plus large échelle. À travers leurs adaptations différentes du personnage et de l’histoire de Médée, les pièces proposent de nouvelles formes de résistance à l’inégalité sexuelle et nous mènent à une réflexion sur les possibilités de transformer la vie humaine.

INDEX

Mots-clés: Kennelly Brendan, études de genre, théâtre, femmes - représentations littéraires, Carr Marina Keywords: Kennelly Brendan, drama, gender studies, women - literary representations, Carr Marina

AUTHOR

KAREN O’BRIEN University of North Carolina

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Ghostly Surrogates and Unhomely Memories: Performing the Past in Marina Carr’s Portia Coughlan

Shonagh Hill

1 Memory relies on citation and repetition, and its reperformance in the present serves to transmit and reinvent the past. Key to a feminist project of reclaiming unrepresented female experiences and envisioning a different future through dialogue with this past is the process of reassessing dominant narratives of history and cultural memory. The reappearance of spectres of the past onstage can potentially prompt an excavation of the forgotten layers of embodied history; addressing the exclusion of particular experiences from collective memory and thus how cultural memory shapes gendered and national identities. In Marina Carr’s Portia Coughlan (1996) ghostly performances stage the unsettling effects of the past as it resurfaces in the present; of both individual memory and the cultural memory of female experience as defined by limiting myths of an idealized and domesticated passive Irish femininity. This article will focus on the haunted body in order to examine the processes of memory and history as layers of somatic memories which are exposed and reperformed. Furthermore, I will address how performance can highlight the body as a site of memory, history and forgetting.

2 History and memory are narratives which can be fixed and memorialized, so how do we engage theatrically with history as continual process in order to open up these concealed pasts? In Cities of the Dead: Circum-Atlantic Performance, Joseph Roach examines the cultural activity of the circum-Atlantic region as embodied through performance. In order to examine the extent to which Portia Coughlan is trapped in a cycle which reaffirms the past, I will employ several of Roach’s key concepts: surrogation, genealogies of performance and environments of memory. In The Location of Culture, Homi K. Bhabha develops Freud’s notion of the uncanny, characterised by the disquieting return of the familiar in an unfamiliar context, as the unhomely whose re- emergence disturbs the boundaries of what is private and public: “The unhomely moment relates the traumatic ambivalences of a personal, psychic history to the wider

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disjunctions of political existence1.” Furthermore, Bhabha’s unhomely can address the embodied experience of performance: subversive and uncanny performances of the past which question cultural memory. Roach’s and Bhabha’s work describes the resurfacing of the repressed and forgotten through the performing body and offers the means to address the potentially destabilizing and uncanny effects of performing elided pasts. Alice Rayner suggests that ghosting should retain an element of uncertainty and the uncanny: “Making full use of the term ghost and haunting involves, it seems to me, their remaining in the realm of uncertainty2.” Do the ghosts of Portia Coughlan perpetuate a purgatorial space of congealed history and memory, or can production choices, such as direction, lighting and set design, utilise these ghosts to address the unhomely past and displace inherited models of femininity?

3 Carr’s early plays Low in the Dark (1989) and Ullaloo (1991) interrogate the performance of gender through an experimental absurdist form. The three plays which followed, The Mai (1994), Portia Coughlan (1996) and By the Bog of Cats… (1998), marked a shift towards a style which blends heightened realism with mythic allusion, yet is firmly set in an Irish Midlands locale. Carr’s more recent Woman and Scarecrow (2006) marked a return to a less realist and more experimental style, yet despite changes in theatrical form, Carr consistently engages with representations of Irish woman and the expression of female subjectivity. The closing decade of the twentieth century witnessed positive changes for Irish women including the election of a female president, changes in divorce laws and fierce debate over abortion laws. Pat O’Connor has drawn attention to the “widespread misperception of the gender of what has become known as the Celtic Tiger, in a situation where male employment has been virtually static and female employment has increased dramatically3”. However, despite these changes, women still have to negotiate the legacy of restrictive models of femininity as enshrined in the extant Article 41 of the 1937 Constitution of Ireland which places women in the domestic sphere and grants the role of mother dominance over other models of femininity: 2.1. In particular, the State recognises that by her life within the home, woman gives to the State a support without which the common good cannot be achieved. 2.2. The State shall, therefore, endeavour to ensure that mothers shall not be obliged by economic necessity to engage in labour to the neglect of their duties in the home4.

4 Carr’s three Midlands plays are centred on women who reject the gendered confines of her environment through suicide. This article is concerned with the ways in which Portia’s performance embodies and resists the traces of the past.

5 Portia Coughlan is set on Portia’s thirtieth birthday which is also the fifteenth anniversary of the death of her twin brother Gabriel. Gabriel haunts Portia and the play throughout, both visually when the audience see his ghost and aurally as he is evoked by singing. Act I charts the early part of the day and Portia’s encounters with her husband Raphael and her parents, who criticise her for neglecting her “duties” as a mother and wife. Portia’s conversations with lovers and friends highlight her discontent in her home, while her desire to be reunited with Gabriel is connected to the alternative space of the Belmont River, where he drowned. Act II opens with the recovery of Portia’s drowned body and the community’s reaction to this, while Act III returns to the hours that lead to her suicide. In the third act Portia’s arguments with Raphael and her mother further focuses our attention on the notion of the “natural mother5”. I will argue that Portia’s actions in the final scene of the play see her

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fulfilling, and ultimately rejecting, her duties as mother and wife. Textual analyses of Carr’s work, such as Clare Wallace’s Suspect Cultures: Narrative, Identity and Citation in 1990s Drama, suggest that the chronological reversal of Acts II and III, a structure of “echoes and return”, connotes inevitability and tragic destiny6. Thus the implication is that Portia’s suicide is the fulfilment of her desire for re-union with Gabriel and therefore an embrace of a lost past. In contrast, Cathy Leeney highlights Carr’s narrative disruption of the linear certainties of the realist form, as well as Carr’s utilisation of the instabilities of stage space and dramatic language7. Like Leeney, I am interested in how Carr’s work “may under certain performance conditions, impress upon an audience not defeat, silence or obliteration but thrilling, moving exhilarating life8”.

6 In Hysteria, Trauma and Melancholia: Performative Maladies in Contemporary Anglophone Drama, Christina Wald asserts that Portia is shaped by her experience as a melancholic. My focus on cultural memory and the perpetuation of models of femininity overlaps with Wald’s proposal that “Portia’s melancholic state involves a profound failure, or refusal, to fulfil the gender expectations of her environment9”. However, I differ from Wald’s interpretation of Portia’s suicide as solely a result of her melancholic state and her obsession with, and submission to, a lost past: “Portia’s melancholic perception, which is so profoundly preoccupied with the past that it cannot envision a non- determined, open future10.” Though Portia’s individual memories may manifest an obsession with Gabriel, the cultural memories addressed by the play serve to conceive of the need for alternative futures as suggested in the space of the Belmont River. Through the prism of Roach’s work I would like to reconsider Portia’s actions as an engagement with and rejection of the cultural memory of Irish women’s experiences: the repression of female subjectivity by restrictive models of domesticated femininity. In addition to Gabriel’s presence, the audience are presented with a second ghost: Portia’s ghostly performance of restrictive feminine roles in Act III as an engagement with cultural memory. Portia feels suffocated by the roles of mother and wife, resulting in her otherworldly description of herself: “Ah’m dead Maggie May, dead an’ whah ya seen this long time gone be a ghost who chan’t fin’ her restin’ place, is all11.” This article will reference two productions of Portia Coughlan staged on the Peacock stage of the Abbey Theatre, Dublin: the 1996 premiere directed by Garry Hynes with Dearbhla Crotty in the title role and the 2004 production, which was part of the Abbey’s centenary year programme, directed by Brian Brady with Eileen Walsh as Portia. The productions’ presentation of ghostly and surrogated bodies interrogate, to varying degrees, performances of the past and the transmission of individual and cultural memory.

Surrogation and the ghosts of individual memory

7 Roach highlights the close connection between “memory, performance and substitution” through his concept of surrogation which reproduces cultural memory by inserting substitutes “into the cavities created by loss through death or other forms of departure12”. Roach points to the Mardi Gras krewes of New Orleans as an example of the self-perpetuation of tradition and community: the roles of King Rex and King Zulu are taken on by new people each year but the apparent seamlessness of tradition is maintained through their performance. Following loss, culture reproduces itself

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through the incessant process of substitution or surrogacy which performs memory and defines identity. However, Roach also highlights the ways in which genealogies of performance and surrogation can doubt the transmission of tradition. While “more than a century of white supremacist entitlement” stood behind King Rex, King Zulu’s performance offered “a deconstruction of that white genealogy and the veiled assertion of a clandestine countermemory in its stead13”. This countermemory serves to underline the risks inherent in the process of surrogacy, risks also present in the process of myth-and memory-making, when “befuddled celebrants come to embrace desperate contingencies as timeless essentials14”. Performance choices can enable interrogation of the surrogates in Portia Coughlan as nostalgic performances of an elusive past, and these surrogates can expose the traces and reveal the limits of individual and cultural memory.

8 Roach describes the construction of an effigy through performance: “They consist of a set of actions that hold open a place in memory15.” Gabriel’s ghost is an effigy whose performance asserts the twins’ relationship and represents the past’s hold over Portia; a past which she is obsessed with recovering, even through death. Portia articulates Gabriel’s function as a surrogate for something that has been lost, though she still desires their union: “Suppose he’s not there when I go? […] Before I was always sure, was the one thing as kept me goin’ – Now I don’t know any more, and yet I know that somewhere he lives and that’s the place I want to be16.” Portia’s final words of the play suggest that she remains trapped in the past: “And though everyone and everythin’ tells me I have to forget him, I cannot, Raphael, I cannot17.” The stage directions which follow these lines reinforce this interpretation as the play closes with Gabriel’s “triumphant” singing. However, the uncanny aspects of Gabriel’s ghost can be utilized in performance to undermine memory and Portia’s idealization of the past. Freud’s uncanny is defined by the troubling reappearance, in an unfamiliar context, of that which has been repressed, the frightening element can be shown to be something repressed which recurs […] for this uncanny is in reality nothing new or alien, but something which is familiar and old-established in the mind and which has become alienated from it only through the process of repression18.

9 The unsettling eruption of that which has been wilfully or subconsciously forgotten can thus unfix perpetuated narratives of the past. Alice Rayner suggests that, if words are successful in naming the ghost, there is no ghost. If the experience of the uncanny does not precede the argument about its undoing of ontology or repetitions of history, it is only an idealization19.

10 Gabriel’s ghost incorporates the “undoing of ontology or repetitions of history” as he jeopardizes Portia’s ability to function in her world. He threatens her sense of individuated identity as well as undermining her myth of their unity: before drowning he told her, “I’ll come back and I’ll keep comin’ back until I have you20”. As Roach points out, the surrogate threatens to replace the author of its representation21, just as Portia’s identity is under threat of being subsumed by Gabriel’s hold over her. The stage directions for the opening scene of the play set the twins up visually as doubles as “[t]hey mirror one another’s posture and movements in an odd way; unconsciously22”. In relation to the process of surrogation, Roach quotes Bhabha’s claim that “[m]imicry is at once resemblance and menace23”, and as Portia’s mirrored double, Gabriel questions and threatens the individuality and reliability of her identity. In the opening scene of the 1996 production, Gabriel stood in the shadows behind Portia so that he

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visually echoed her, thus serving an uncanny purpose through highlighting Portia’s potential to function as a surrogate and her living death.

11 As a reflection of Portia, Gabriel creates the uncanny sense that Portia is living a ghostly existence: his ghost mirrors Portia’s own unfulfilled life. Portia’s life is described in terms of deadly suffocation; she says “the house is creakin’ like a coffin […] Sometimes I can’t breathe anymore24”. The 1996 production emphasised Portia’s restrictive and isolating domestic context so that the focus was not solely on her obsession with the past and Gabriel. Garry Hynes’ direction exposed the cultural memory of women’s experiences in the Irish home, described by Portia as “this livin’ hell25”. Kandis Cook’s set and Jim Simmons’ lighting design conveyed the claustrophobic confines of the domestic space, anchored by the repeated tableau of Portia sitting in an isolating spotlight at a kitchen table, surrounded by shadows. Presenting Portia as a ghostly body or surrogate that evokes cultural memory, rather than focussing solely on Gabriel’s ghost as a surrogate that fills a gap in Portia’s unfulfilled life, begs the question, is her life unfulfilled due to his absence or unfulfilled due to the stifling restrictions of the familial and domestic roles she is expected to perform? Richard Kearney suggests that exploration of the past is necessary for the development of our narrative identity: The challenge, in other words, is to envisage the existence of a narrative self prepared to work through the pain of the past in dialogue with its Others. This would operate as a memoried self who recognizes the limits of remembering whilst resisting the fetishism of the immemorial26.

12 Kearney’s memoried self acknowledges the limits of the homely past, thereby avoiding sealing it off from unhomely memories and from the present. Is it possible in performance of the play to enable Portia to operate as a memoried self who enables critical engagement with both individual and cultural memory?

Genealogies of performance and the perpetuation of cultural memory

13 Roach’s concept of genealogies of performance highlights repeated or reperformed behaviour which is remembered through the body as living memory: “Performance genealogies draw on the idea of expressive movements of mnemonic reserves27.” Genealogies of performance thus focus on how history and memory are enacted on and remembered through the body. These genealogies are described as “counter- memories” which expose “the disparities between history as it is discursively transmitted and memory as it is publicly enacted by the bodies that bear its consequences28”. Engagement with these counter-memories can attend to the ways in which memory and the past are embodied and performed, and thus question narratives disseminated discursively. Genealogies of performance reiterate the past but they can also cast doubt on their own perpetuations. Portia Coughlan offers two revealing examples of genealogies of performance: firstly, in the community’s reaction to Portia’s death in Act two, and secondly in Portia’s performance in the final scene of Act three as a ghost of a ghost. These scenes highlight the embodiment of cultural codes and the necessity of reperformance to ensure the continuation and adoption of genealogies of performance. However, performance of these scenes can also harness the potential that repetition offers to disrupt and interrogate this process.

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14 The 1996 published script includes stage directions for the opening of Act II which describe the cast’s movements in reaction to the discovery of Portia’s body. The directions suggest that the cast move as one body: “Ensemble choreography, all movements in unison29”. Portia’s swaying body, dripping with water, is juxtaposed with the unified and controlled movements of the cast, directed to “take a step back … stop … take another step back … look up at the dead Portia30”. Portia’s uncontrollable body is a “messy visual image” which disrupts the sense of purification and catharsis traditionally created by tragic theatre31. The 1996 production utilised the “ensemble choreography” to create a sense of ritual. The cast were motionless and dimly lit in a semi-circle facing the audience while Portia’s body became the pivotal point between the audience and cast, once more isolated by a spotlight. The cast stood and watched as Portia’s body was lowered and their silence and lack of movement jarred with the noise of the creaking pulley and Portia’s suspended body. The sense of ritual was evoked when the cast walked off after Raphael, carrying Portia’s body, in a funereal procession of slow and rhythmic pace. The “ensemble choreography” re-enacts the past through ritual, or genealogies of performance, but repetition also creates a sense of the uncanny. The funereal procession was unsettling as the cast seemed more like ghosts or shadows, and therefore more dead, than Portia’s swaying and uncontrollable body. The funereal atmosphere was compounded in the scene change that followed when the table which Portia sits at throughout the play was carried on as if it were a coffin born by pallbearers. This served to further underline the claustrophobia of Portia’s home, thereby offering reasons for her need to escape, even through death. The 2004 production did not create a sense of ritual in this key scene and both the vast sense of space created by Bláithín Sheerin’s set design and Paul Keogan’s lighting, together with the isolated positioning of the cast, failed to create a sense of imprisonment.

15 In act three we witness Portia’s ghostly return on stage, after we have seen her dead body. Portia therefore functions as a surrogate of the Portia we have seen in act one: a ghost of a ghost. Acts I and II reveal Portia’s rejection of traditional models of femininity, contained within the familial and domestic sphere. Portia tells Raphael that she never wanted children and that his belief that he could “woo her into motherhood” has failed: “I can’t love them, Raphael. I’m just not able32.” Indeed, Portia’s relationship with her own mother is fraught and results in violence. Portia’s performance in Act III: of the duties of mother and wife, mimics restrictive gender roles. Portia is coerced into performing the roles society makes available to her and this is denoted in the final scene by her putting on the birthday gifts from her husband and parents, a bracelet and dress, before cooking dinner for her husband and putting the children to bed. Portia’s ghostly body exposes the disparity between the discursive transmission of history which perpetuates traditional gendered norms, and counter-memories which evoke the failure and refusal to fulfil restrictive models of Irish femininity. Portia’s ghostly performance highlights counter-memories which are “publicly enacted by the bodies that bear its consequences33” to expose the implications of both repressing and disrupting myths of femininity defined within the domestic space and family unit.

16 Portia’s refusal to fit traditional models of femininity is met by exclusion and denial of her subjectivity. Drawing on Judith Butler’s work, Wald maps the “real” and ghostly bodies of the play onto gendered norms to suggest that, Portia Coughlan offers counter-fantasies to culturally accepted notions about which bodies matter and which do not in terms of life and death but also in terms of appropriately sexed and “unruly” bodies34.

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17 Wald argues that Portia’s melancholic state unhinges the borders between life and death, male and female; a sentiment echoed by Portia’s mother: “If ya passed your day like any normal woman there’d be none of this35!” Portia’s mimicry of traditional feminine roles in the final scene of the play evokes a genealogy of performance which “document(s) – and suspect(s) – the historical transmission and dissemination of cultural practices through collective representations36”. Wald’s reading of Portia as a melancholic suggests that she displays an “inability to conceive of a future that is radically different from the past and present37”. However, unlike Wald, I do not interpret the chronology of the play as reinforcing “the melancholic sense of the future’s definiteness and inescapability38”. Instead, the third act enables Portia’s ghostly performance to critically engage with surrogacy as a process of self-invention which relies on reperformance and thus has the potential to keep the narrative of the past in process. As a ghost of a ghost, Portia highlights the performance of gendered roles, as well as revealing the uncanny potential of the surrogate to evoke counter- memories and the unhomely past. Portia offers a critical genealogy of performance through her engagement with the repression of female subjectivities by restrictive models of femininity, as well as the suggestion of alternatives which refuse to be contained. Gabriel’s surrogacy fails to live up to Portia’s expectations but her own surrogacy creates a surplus as she exceeds roles through mimicry, underlined by her associations with the Belmont River and her movement beyond the confines of her home.

Environments of memory and the resurfacing of the unhomely past

18 In an interview, Carr declared her fascination with “nature invested with human memory or human association39”. The uncanny return and reperformance of the past is closely linked to place in Portia Coughlan. Past actions shape our present world and though genealogies of performance attempt to forget or bury aspects of cultural memory, bodies and the landscape enable these counter-memories to retain a presence and resurface. Roach’s discussion of Pierre Nora’s concepts of places of memory, “the artificial sites of the modern production of national and ethnic memory”, and environments of memory, “the largely oral and corporeal retentions of traditional cultures40”, is particularly useful in its address of the ways in which space functions as a repository of memory. Places of memory are “a place in which everyday practices and attitudes may be legitimated, “brought out into the open”, reinforced, celebrated, intensified41”. Roach names these spaces behavioural vortexes as they perpetuate identities and modes of behaviour; they are “a center of cultural self-invention through the restoration of behaviour42”. Portia’s home is a behavioural vortex which legitimates history and provides a space for the re-enactment of the genealogies of performance which Portia is stifled by. The 1996 production’s repetition of the tableau at the kitchen table uncannily echoed the restrictive feminized domestic space within the canon of Irish theatre.

19 Melissa Sihra highlights Portia’s sense of dissonance with her home: “In her troubled relationship with home, which she likens to being buried alive, Portia displays a painful manifestation of woman’s exile from the Symbolic, which Luce Irigaray identifies as déréliction43”. The absence of adequate cultural representations of woman leads to

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Portia’s incongruence with her home; highlighted in the 1996 production as she sat trapped at the kitchen table and isolated in a spotlight. Portia feels confined by unaccommodating models of femininity and unable to express herself as a desiring subject in the space of the home. The constraining nature of this behavioural vortex was juxtaposed with her corporeal freedom in a scene where she dances at the High Chapparal bar with her friends Stacia and Maggie (act three, scene four). The audience experience the release of Portia’s contained energies, an exciting moment which also warns of the danger of further suppressing her frustration and rage. Portia’s energy is irrepressible and violently explodes in act three when she leaps onto her mother and pinions her to the ground: “You’ve me suffocated so I can’t breathe any more44!” Violence is a means of resistance and expression for Portia; a violence which results in her suicide as a strategy for refusing genealogies of performance and the restrictive space of home.

20 In Carr’s plays watery landscapes evoke freedom from culturally constructed roles and offer a place of possibility for the central women. As Sihra suggests, Portia’s “plea for spaces of possibility beyond the monological discourse of home is expressed in her intimate connection with nature45”. Through the process of death, the Belmont River offers a space of transformation which can accommodate unexpressed, as well as unstable and ghostly forms of subjectivity. The river is a free flowing space of movement which evokes Portia’s desire for self-invention and renewal. Sihra contends that in Carr’s work, “[d]eath on stage does not indicate finality but movement; it is a poetic drive to excavate what it means to live. The plays cannot offer transformative possibility if they are reduced to the literal, where death is regarded in terms of plot rather than poetics46”. As a ghostly surrogate, Portia’s life stages the process of death and thus questions “what it means to live”. In an interview prior to the premiere of Portia Coughlan, Carr remarked that, “[i]n all of us there is a twin. That shadow part of you is often the best part of you. That identity has been fudged or subsumed in Portia, and in a sense, she’s like a walking ghost herself47”. Portia’s home is a place of memory where she can only mimic the roles she rejects so in order to transform the future, Portia engages with a space outside the domestic confines.

21 Both the inability to suppress the past and expression of “the shadow part” of the self are strongly associated with the Belmont River. Environments of memory enable the eruption of the forgotten and unhomely past of Irish women’s confinement, and resistance, to domestic and familial roles; they can accommodate unhomely bodies who dislocate these roles through performance of alternatives. Like Portia’s haunted body, the river enables the resurfacing of repressed cultural memory and the articulation of disruptive female energies which refuse limiting tropes of femininity. Portia’s unhomely surrogacy fuses the personal and political through representation of the cultural memory and genealogies of performance which have prescribed woman’s role in twentieth century Ireland. If we view Portia as a melancholic, trapped in the past, then the river can be interpreted as a place of memory: a shrine to Gabriel. Conversely, the river can be construed as an environment of memory if we link it to an interrogative female mythmaking, the oral tradition of storytelling and female bodily freedom. Fintan O’Toole’s review of the play underscores the breakdown of simple binaries in the flow of the river; a breakdown which facilitates the unsettling resurfacing of the unhomely: And both landscape and speech belong to the wider set of metaphors that hold the play together, images in which clear distinctions keep breaking down. […] And in

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that awful psychic entanglement, the borders between the living and the dead, between male and female, between the born and unborn, between the past and present, dissolve in the river’s interminable flow48.

22 The Belmont River disrupts the imposition of fixed roles, and is therefore an environment of living memory which facilitates shifting and unstable identities excluded by traditional gendered spaces. Roach highlights Jonathan Arac’s description of a critical genealogy which “aims to excavate the past that is necessary to account for how we got here and the past that is useful for conceiving alternatives to our present condition49”. Portia’s haunting genealogy of performance keeps the past in process in order to intervene in the perpetuation of cultural memory but to what extent can she conceive of alternative futures which accommodate expression of her “unruly” subjectivity?

23 Sue-Ellen Case suggests that in Sarah Kane’s 4.48 Psychosis the conflict between the desire for social change and its’ failure is its negative utopia. The limits placed on Portia’s desire to effect change illustrate this negative dialectic: “the contradiction between the evident possibility of fulfilment and the just as evident impossibility50”. This contradiction is embodied in the tension between Portia’s desires and the regulatory norms which restrict them; the conflict between her agency as suggested in performance and the traditional models of femininity available to her. Anna McMullan describes the struggle of Carr’s women to accommodate themselves within the authorised structures of their world: “The trauma of this dislocation is figured through corporeal unhomeliness, taken to its extreme in Carr’s female suicides51.” Portia’s ghostliness highlights the discrepancy between the stifling confines of the world she inhabits and her desire for more accommodating spaces. Portia Coughlan functions as a negative utopia as Portia’s death simultaneously evokes freedom and constraint: the impossibility of making her unhomely body signify within existing structures. She is therefore doomed to ghostliness within this world but the potential of this uncertain state can be harnessed to put pressure on dominant models of femininity and facilitate the unsettling eruption of the unhomely past of cultural memory.

Demanding alternative futures: the vitality of the ghostly surrogate

24 Suicide, for the tragic heroine, is imbued with a sense of fatalism and represents the endpoint of her journey. However, Carr’s disruption of linear narrative, together with the intensity of Portia’s performance, leaves the audience with a sense of Portia’s battle, rather than defeat and closure. Portia’s performance can both engage with the past and demand an alternative future by simultaneously highlighting her troubling presence as a ghostly surrogate and her vitality. Cathy Leeney draws attention to the experience of watching a performance of Portia Coughlan, an affective experience which is invigorated by Portia’s energy rather than melancholia: In performance, despite her monstrous aspects, Portia’s energy fuels the piece, overtaking the negative images of destruction, failure and suicide and enacting, in their stead, a passionate subjectivity of astonishing vigour52.

25 This is echoed by Fintan O’Toole’s review of the premiere production, where he remarks upon the necessity of Portia’s energy, “for if Portia once settles into any single emotional mode, the play would sink under its own weight53”. Portia may be a ghost of

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a ghost but the audience are left in no doubt as to her strength of character and refusal to be silenced. The lead actors in both the 1996 and 2004 productions, Dearbhla Crotty and Eileen Walsh, presented intensely moving and passionate portrayals of a woman whose complexity and energy undoubtedly haunted the audience; a haunting which persists in its disturbance of stifling and restrictive models of passive femininity. The sense of Portia’s longing for Gabriel is overpowered by the audience’s experience of Portia’s energy. Leeney suggests that “the energy of human presence in performance celebrates the potential for transformation54”, and though an alternative world is not given full visual expression, Portia’s transgressive energy suggests the freedom generated by the River Belmont.

26 Ghosting and surrogation can idealize the past, fetishizing it into a fixed and closed narrative sealed off from the future. This occurs when the uncertainty of the uncanny and unhomely is neutralized and fails to trouble the present. Haunting enables the past to be kept alive in the present but it is critical that its presence is questioned through interrogation of our reception of memory and history. Uncanny ghosts and haunted bodies force us to rethink simple binaries of past and present, live and dead, history and memory. Solely focusing on Gabriel’s ghost as a surrogate emphasises Portia’s unhealthy relationship with a lost and elusive past. However, attending to Portia’s role as a ghostly surrogate can shift the focus from an interrogation of individual memory to critical engagement with the unhomely past as perpetuated by cultural memory; this focus on cultural memory was highlighted in the 1996 premiere production. Portia’s unity with Gabriel, as well as limiting models of femininity confined within the home and nation, are exposed as myths maintained by surrogation. As surrogates, both Gabriel’s ghost and Portia’s ghostly body open up fixed narratives of the past to articulate unhomely memories, both individual and cultural. These narratives of the past are thus set in process, enabling engagement with alternatives to perpetuated and limiting norms of femininity. Roach suggests that genealogies of performance can potentially engage with the future, highlighting the “possibilities of restored behaviour not merely as the recapitulation but as the transformation of experience through the displacement of its cultural forms55”. Portia’s haunted body recapitulates the past through her mimicry of genealogies of performance in the final scene of the play which, in turn, question and displace inherited models of femininity. Portia’s ghostly surrogacy, together with her transgressive and energetic performance, troubles categories of liveable and viable bodies. Portia’s suicide can therefore be understood as a rejection of the past and inherited myths of femininity as she demands alternative expression in the river. However, the space of the Belmont River is a negative utopia which articulates the unhomely past of cultural memory in order to convey Portia’s rejection of the space of the domestic, while simultaneously signalling the attempt and failure to negotiate representation within legitimated structures.

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NOTES

1. Homi K. Bhabha, The Location of Culture, London, Routledge, 1994, p. 11. 2. Alice Rayner, Ghosts: Death’s Double and the Phenomena of Theatre, Minneapolis and London, The University of Minnesota Press, 2006, p. XXIII. 3. Pat O’Connor, Emerging Voices: Women in Contemporary Irish Society, Dublin, Institute of Public Administration, 1998, p. 256. 4. Department of the Taoiseach - Constitution of Ireland - Bunreacht Na hÉireann. November 2004. Government of Ireland, [http://www.taoiseach.gov.ie/index.asp?docID=243], Accessed March 2010. 5. Marina Carr, Portia Coughlan, in Plays One, London, Faber and Faber, 1999, p. 233. 6. Clare Wallace, Suspect Cultures: Narrative, Identity and Citation in 1990s New Drama, Prague, Litteraria Pragensia, 2006, p. 261. 7. Cathy Leeney, “Feminist Meanings of Presence and Performance in Theatre: Marina Carr’s Portia Coughlan”, Opening the Field, Irish Women: Texts and Contexts, Patricia Boyle Haberstroh and Christine St Peter (ed.), Cork, Cork University Press, 207, p. 92-101, p. 99. 8. Ibid., p. 92. 9. Christine Wald, Hysteria, Trauma and Melancholia: Performative Maladies in Contemporary Anglophone Drama, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2007, p. 190. 10. Ibid., p. 195. 11. Marina Carr, Portia Coughlan, in The Dazzling Dark, Frank McGuinness (ed.), London, Faber and Faber, 1996, p. 293. The play’s first publication in The Dazzling Dark (1996) is marked by a strong Midlands phoneticized dialect. Subsequent publication in Plays One (1999) included some adjustments to the text and a more standardized form of English. I will refer to both publications. 12. Joseph Roach, Cities of the Dead: Circum-Atlantic Performance, New York, Columbia University Press, 1996, p. 2. 13. Ibid., p. 20. 14. Ibid., p. 30. 15. Ibid., p. 36. 16. Marina Carr, Portia Coughlan, in Plays One, London, Faber and Faber, 1999, p. 240. 17. Ibid., p. 255. 18. Sigmund Freud, “The “Uncanny”, Art and Literature, Vol. 14, Harmondsworth, Penguin, 1990, p. 363. 19. Alice Rayner, Ghosts: Death’s Double and the Phenomena of Theatre, Minneapolis and London, The University of Minnesota Press, 2006, p. XXIII. 20. Marina Carr, Portia Coughlan, in Plays One, op. cit., p. 250. 21. Joseph Roach, op. cit., p. 6. 22. Marina Carr, Portia Coughlan, in Plays One, op. cit., p. 193. 23. Joseph Roach, op. cit., p. 6.

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24. Marina Carr, Portia Coughlan, in Plays One, op. cit., p. 207. 25. Ibid., p. 222. 26. Richard Kearney, Strangers, Gods and Monsters: Interpreting Otherness, London, Routledge, 2003, p. 188. 27. Joseph Roach, op. cit., p. 26. 28. Ibid. 29. Marina Carr, Portia Coughlan, in The Dazzling Dark, Frank McGuinness (ed.), op. cit., p. 272. 30. Ibid. 31. Maria Doyle, “Dead Center: Tragedy and the Reanimated Body in Marina Carr’s The Mai and Portia Coughlan”, Modern Drama, 49:1, Spring 2006, 41-59, p. 48. 32. Marina Carr, Portia Coughlan, in Plays One, London, Faber and Faber, 1999, p. 221. 33. Joseph Roach, op. cit., p. 26. 34. Christine Wald, op. cit., p. 198. 35. Marina Carr, Portia Coughlan, in Plays One, op. cit., p. 211. 36. Joseph Roach, op. cit., p. 25. 37. Christine Wald, op. cit., p. 196. 38. Ibid. 39. Heidi Stephenson and Natasha Langridge (eds.), “Interview with Marina Carr”, Rage and Reason: Women Playwrights on Playwriting, London, Methuen, 1997, p. 146-155, p. 154. 40. Joseph Roach, op. cit., p. 26. 41. Ibid., p. 28. 42. Ibid. 43. Melissa Sihra, “The House of Woman and the Plays of Marina Carr”, Women in Irish Drama: A Century of Authorship and Representation, Melissa Sihra (ed.), Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2007, p. 201-218, p. 210. 44. Marina Carr, Portia Coughlan, in Plays One, op. cit., p. 248. 45. Melissa Sihra, op. cit., p. 201-218, p. 211. 46. Melissa Sihra, “Renegotiating Landscapes of the Female: Voices, Topographies and Corporealities of Alterity in Marina Carr’s Portia Coughlan”, Australasian Drama Studies, 43, October 2003, 16-31, p. 28. 47. Victoria White, “Twin Speak”, The Irish Times, 19 March 1996. 48. Fintan O’Toole, “Figures on a Dark Landscape”, The Irish Times, 2 April 1996. 49. Joseph Roach, op. cit., p. 25. 50. Sue-Ellen Case, “The Screens of Time: Feminist memories and hopes”, Feminist Futures? Theatre, Performance, Theory, Elaine Aston and Geraldine Harris (eds.), Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2006, p. 105-17, p. 111. 51. Anna McMullan, “Unhomely Bodies and Dislocated Identities in the Drama of Frank McGuinness and Marina Carr”, Indeterminate Bodies, Roger Cook, Naomi Segal and Lib Taylor (eds.), Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2003, p. 181-191, p. 189. See also, Anna McMullan, “Unhomely Stages: Women Taking (a) Place in Irish Theatre”, Druids, Dudes and Beauty Queens, Dermot Bolger (ed.), Dublin, New Island, 2001, p. 72-90.

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52. Cathy Leeney, “Ireland’s ‘exiled’ women playwrights: Teresa Deevy and Marina Carr”, The Cambridge Companion to Twentieth-Century Irish Drama, Shaun Richards (ed.), Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2004, p. 159. 53. Fintan O’Toole, “Figures on a Dark Landscape”, The Irish Times, 2 April 1996. 54. Cathy Leeney, “Ireland’s ‘exiled’ women playwrights: Teresa Deevy and Marina Carr”, op. cit., p. 150. 55. Joseph Roach, op. cit., p. 29.

ABSTRACTS

In Marina Carr’s Portia Coughlan (1996) ghostly performances stage the unsettling effects of the past as it resurfaces in the present; of both individual memory and the cultural memory of female experience. Through application of Joseph Roach’s concepts of surrogation, genealogies of performance and environments of memory, as well as Homi K. Bhabha’s unhomely, this article argues that Portia’s haunted body embodies and resists inherited myths of an idealized and domesticated passive Irish femininity.

Dans la pièce de Marina Carr Portia Coughlan (1996), la présence des fantômes met en scène les effets perturbants du passé quand il refait surface à la fois dans la mémoire individuelle et dans la mémoire culturelle de l’expérience des femmes. À travers les concepts de substitution, de généalogie de la performance et d’ environnement de la mémoire, ainsi que du concept de non- familier formulé par Homi K. Bhabha, cet article montre que le corps hanté de Portia incarne et repousse tout à la fois les mythes reçus en héritage d’une féminité irlandaise idéalisée, passive et domestique.

INDEX

Mots-clés: théâtre, femmes - représentations artistiques, mythologie, corps, Carr Marina Keywords: drama, women - artistic representations, mythology, body, Carr Marina

AUTHOR

SHONAGH HILL St. Patrick’s College, Drumcondra, Dublin

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Comptes rendus de lecture Books Reviews

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A Nest on the Waves

Marion Naugrette-Fournier

RÉFÉRENCE

David WHEATLEY, A Nest on the Waves, Gallery Press, 2010, ISBN 978-1-85235-503-6.

1 « House on the swing bridge, house in the air. » Le dernier recueil de David Wheatley s’ouvre sur une instabilité paradoxale, une construction impossible de l’esprit qui sont les deux piliers en équilibre sur lesquels s’appuient les poèmes de A Nest on the Waves, titre improbable s’il en est. Cet oxymore est une autre allusion aérienne, qui renvoie à la croyance populaire selon laquelle les oiseaux marins que sont les pétrels pondraient leurs oeufs en mer, d’où cette trouvaille aux accents surréalistes du nid niché au creux de la vague. Mais Wheatley est un poète de la trouvaille, comme le décrit fort bien Maria Johnston, rapprochant en ce sens Wheatley de Muldoon. La comparaison est éclairante, car Wheatley déploie la même attention ludique à la forme que Muldoon, et aime à jouer avec les conditions de possibilité d’une langue à l’autre, ainsi dans « Migrant Workers »:

The children they have yet to meet Call here/there home in this/that tongue.

2 La dichotomie visuelle induite par la barre oblique / inscrit au coeur du poème la double vie de ces travailleurs saisonniers, souvent issus de pays étrangers, contraints à un déracinement permanent entre deux pays, « here/there home » : there home se trouve dans l’oblique.

3 Le motif du voyage sans attaches est d’ailleurs un leitmotiv du recueil de Wheatley, lui- même déraciné de ses attaches irlandaises et ayant trouvé un nouveau port d’attache poétique à Hull, dans les pas de Philip Larkin et d’autres poètes plus contemporains comme Christopher Reid et David Kennedy, avec lesquels il a ainsi contribué à un recueil de poésie en hommage à Hull comme ville de poésie, intitulé Architexts (2007). Certains de ces poèmes sont repris dans A Nest on the Waves, dans lesquels Wheatley se

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fait archi-tecte et archi-texte de sa ville d’adoption, comme dans « At the Sign of Ye Olde White Harte », où il fait allusion au siège de Hull en 1642 pendant la première guerre civile anglaise, ou encore dans le premier poème du recueil mentionné ci- dessus, « To Wilmington Swing Bridge », où il rend hommage à cette maison aérienne du pont tournant de Wilmington qui enjambe la rivière Hull. Ceci ne l’empêche nullement par ailleurs d’aller explorer d’autres horizons plus lointains, tels que l’Australie dans la séquence intitulée « For the Night Parrot: Australia », où le poète échange le pétrel pour le kakapo, ou « perroquet de nuit » en maori, connu pour être le seul perroquet au monde à ne pas pouvoir voler, et dont il emprunte la voix : « I have begun to speak with the voice of a bird./Whose voice, warbling, booming, falsetto,/Will I imitate if not my own? »

4 Wheatley, le poète-oiseau ? Le titre d’un de ses précédents recueils publié en 2006 à Gallery Press, Mocker, faisait également allusion à un oiseau, « Le Moqueur », tel que le surnommait Buffon, épithète qui convient particulièrement bien à l’ironie mordante de Wheatley…

5 Dans A Nest on the Waves, le poète semble avoir enfin trouvé sa voix, dont l’élaboration passe d’abord par l’écho d’autres voix que la sienne, comme celle d’Ali Farka Touré, à qui Wheatley rend un long et magnifique hommage dans « Lament for Ali Farka Touré », à l’écoute des sons et des sens d’une autre langue:

In my tongue Mali means ‘hippo’ and Bamako “place of crocodiles”.

6 Et tel un pigeon voyageur, Wheatley revient après son tour du monde à son port d’attache initial, l’Irlande, à ses routes, dans de très beaux poèmes comme « In Memory of the N11 » et «To the M62 », et dans « In Glencolumbkille », à sa langue d’origine, le gaélique: « Is fada ó bhaile a labhraíonn an pilibín./ It is far from its nest the lapwing sings ».

AUTEURS

MARION NAUGRETTE-FOURNIER ENS/Sorbonne Nouvelle

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Léachtaí Cholm Cille XLI

Clíona Ní Ríordáin

REFERENCES

Tadhg Ó DUSHLAINE, Caitríona Ní CHLEIRICIN (eag.), Léachtaí Cholm Cille XLI : Filí INNTI go hiontach, Maigh Nuad, An Sagart, 2011, ISBN 1-903896-65-7, 12 €.

1 This collection of essays is the fruit of the 2010 Léachtaí Cholm Cille Symposium. The Symposium has been in existence since 1970 and, as Tadhg Ó Dúshláine points out in his editorial, the year corresponds to the publication of the first edition of the review INNTI.

2 The broadsheet, launched in Cork’s Country Club, sent a frisson through the world of Irish language publishing and literature, and many of those present at the launch of the first edition vividly remember the event as the moment when Irish language poetry was revitalised and liberated into the streets. More than a thousand people attended the party to celebrate the publication of the second number a year later, in 1971.

3 Theo Dorgan’s article, linking Bob Dylan and the New Gaeltacht, bears witness to the tangible excitement felt by the schoolboys in the North Monastery School in Cork, Dorgan amongst them, when Michael Davitt and Paddy Brennan erupted into the classroom selling copies of the broadsheet. Both the paper and the vendors seemed to come straight from Berkeley, offering the counter culture of the sixties in Irish. The poets, as he puts it, had one foot in California and the other on the sand of Dún Chaoin. Dorgan makes the connection between Davitt and Bob Dylan. Davitt himself also acknowledged the influence of the Beat poets. The importance of the movement for Dorgan is summed up when he says INNTI meant that the Irish language was transformed for him: no longer a school subject, it became a means of expression, a language owned by the people and not by the Brothers or the authorities, a language in which the poetry of the everyday could be written. Interestingly, he also makes the point that for him the language in which the poetry is written is unimportant; he sees it as part of a whole, a lyrical movement that flourished in Ireland in the following years,

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where Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill was as great a heroine for the English language poet Paula Meehan as she was for Mary O’Malley, who moves between both languages.

4 The essays that follow Dorgan’s stirring témoignage analyse different aspects of the poetry associated with the movement. Pádraigín Riggs examines the work of Liam Ó Muirthile, looking at the various languages of the poet. She stresses the connection Ó Muirthile had to the French language, discussing in detail the various translations Ó Muirthile undertook of poets as varied as Jacques Prévert, François Villon or Guillaume Apollinaire. For Riggs, Ó Muirthile excels in his use of language, or languages; she traces the origins of rare terms and identifies the deep connection with the Gaeltacht felt in poetry and use of language of this city boy.

5 Ownership and use of the Irish language, “an teanga seo leath-liom” (this language half mine), were an issue for one of the tutelary figures of these poets, Seán Ó Ríordáin. He himself was targeted for the quality of his not quite Gaeltacht Irish on the publication of his first collection. His reaction to the poets and his influence on them is explored in an essay by Róisín Ní Ghairbhí, and also in that by Tadhg Ó Dúshláine himself. Ó Dúshláine stresses the Cork identity of the early issues (the first three numbers were published in Cork). His discussion, of these poets as a school, is illuminated by TS Eliot’s thinking on the idea of young writers with certain affinities. Elsewhere, Caitríona Ní Chléiricín and Caoimhín Mac Giolla Léith examine other poets associated with the journal, such as Louis de Paor and Gabriel Rosenstock, while Pádraig de Paor examines the more recent work of Derry O’Sullivan.

6 This issue of Léachtaí Cholm Chille makes a significant contribution to the understanding of the INNTI generation of poets and it should make an invaluable addition to all research libraries.

AUTHORS

CLÍONA NÍ RÍORDÁIN Université Sorbonne Nouvelle – Paris 3

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Les métamorphoses de Sweeney

Sandrine Brisset

RÉFÉRENCE

Pascale AMIOT-JOUENNE, Les métamorphoses de Sweeney dans la littérature irlandaise contemporaine, Presses Universitaires de Caen, 2011, ISBN 978-2-84133-378-3, 18 €.

1 La légende de Sweeney, dont les premières traces apparaissent en Irlande dans des manuscrits du Moyen-âge, a frappé l’imagination de nombreux auteurs contemporains au rang desquels le prix Nobel Seamus Heaney. Ce « mystérieux roi poète métamorphosé en oiseau et condamné à la folie et à l’errance » (7), personnage à la fois tragique et grotesque a déployé ses ailes sur la littérature irlandaises de notre époque, pour inspirer chef d’œuvre après chef-d’œuvre.

2 Dans cet ouvrage, remarquable par sa clarté d’expression et par la qualité de son analyse, Pascale Amiot-Jouenne examine les transformations du mythe de Sweeney. L’introduction, qui recense les apparitions de cette étrange créature depuis ses origines jusqu’à nos jours, est le fruit d’un travail de recherche qui impressionne par son envergure, sa précision et son exhaustivité. Elle annonce une étude magistrale que les chapitres suivants viennent confirmer.

3 L’auteur s’intéresse également aux arts plastiques et intègre huit pages illustrées reproduisant les œuvres de divers artistes ayant trouvé dans Sweeney la source de leur inspiration. Le dialogue entre le texte critique et ces images est particulièrement réussie dans le chapitre intitulé « Sweeney Astray et Sweeney’s Flight » où la photographie de Rachel Giese Brown, « Rook », participe à merveille au lyrisme dont il est question dans le texte critique.

4 Le premier chapitre s’attache aux origines du mythe et compare diverses représentations de Sweeney tel qu’on le rencontre dans plusieurs manuscrits. Puis vient l’analyse d’une sélection d’œuvres littéraires dont les auteurs comprennent Austin Clarke, Flann O’Brien, Seamus Heaney, Lucy Brennan, Paula Meehan et Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill.

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5 Tandis que Flann O’Brien maintient le paradoxe de Sweeney en tant qu’hybride capable de susciter chez le lecteur le rire aussi bien que les larmes, Austin Clarke, Seamus Heaney et Lucy Brennan laissent entendre une tonalité lyrique trouvant son origine dans l’identification au personnage. Certes, le roi oiseau laisse quelques plumes dans le processus de métamorphose, mais ce qu’il perd en exotisme il gagne en intimité avec le lecteur. Le Sweeney d’Austin Clarke était encore en proie à la folie et à l’errance : « comme dans la romance originelle, l’accent est mis sur l’exil et la privation » (75), mais celui de Heaney retrouve pleinement la raison et laisse entendre la douleur et la souffrance d’une victime rongée par la culpabilité. La transformation est avant tout contextuelle chez Paula Meehan qui intègre le mythe au cœur d’une représentation dramatique dont le réalisme fait néanmoins place à une tonalité lyrique des plus émouvantes. Enfin, c’est sans doute chez Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill que la transformation s’avère la plus radicale puisque selon cette perspective qui rend la parole aux femmes, le malheureux Sweeney se retrouve réduit à l’état de vieillard impotent.

6 L’étude de ces variations littéraires sur le thème de Sweeney est d’autant plus convaincante qu’elle ne se limite pas à des commentaires d’ordre général mais comporte des microlectures dont la finesse et la sensibilité sont un véritable plaisir pour le lecteur. Au terme de cette découverte des métamorphoses de Sweeney, un souhait s’impose alors : celui de voir le texte traduit en anglais pour que des milliers de lecteurs puissent à leur tour en savourer la qualité.

AUTEURS

SANDRINE BRISSET St. Patrick’s College, Drumcondra, Dublin

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Elizabeth Bowen’s Selected Irish Writings. Cork

Bertrand Cardin

RÉFÉRENCE

Eibhear WALSHE (ed.), Elizabeth Bowen’s Selected Irish Writings. Cork, Cork University Press, 2011, ISBN 978-185918-449-3, 39 €.

1 Remarqué pour ces publications précédentes sur Elizabeth Bowen, Eibhear Walshe, enseignant dans le Department of Modern English de University College Cork, rassemble, pour la première fois, les écrits relatifs à l’Irlande de la romancière anglo-irlandaise dans une anthologie intitulée : Elizabeth Bowen’s Selected Irish Writings. A la suite d’une introduction de vingt-cinq pages signée par le responsable de publication, le volume se compose de conférences, cours, essais, lettres, rapports, articles critiques et comptes rendus de lecture rédigés par Bowen entre 1929 et 1970.

2 Cet ouvrage est digne d’intérêt non seulement pour les lecteurs familiers de l’œuvre romanesque de Bowen, mais, plus largement, pour quiconque cultive le goût de l’histoire, la culture et la société irlandaises. En effet, le recueil est constitué de préfaces ou postfaces des ouvrages de Bowen rédigées à l’occasion de nouvelles éditions, d’introductions de romans de Sheridan Le Fanu, d’essais sur James Joyce ou Sean O’Faolain, mais aussi de comptes rendus d’ouvrages sur la vie en Irlande au XVIIe siècle, d’écrits sur la Big House ou encore sur la Seconde Guerre mondiale. Ce conflit occupe une place importante dans cette anthologie, comme en attestent les cinq rapports de 1942 rédigés à l’intention du Ministry of Information de Londres sur la neutralité controversée de l’Irlande et l’attitude de Dublin vis-à-vis de la guerre ou encore l’article sur la Conférence de la Paix qui se tint à Paris en 1946.

3 L’ouvrage s’abstient de tout commentaire et permet au lecteur de mieux cerner l’attachement de cette femme à son Irlande natale, et en particulier au comté de Cork, qu’elle perçut en toutes circonstances comme un lieu de stabilité et de créativité dans

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un monde en proie au chaos. Il témoigne des relations difficiles que la romancière entretint avec le nouvel Etat irlandais, notamment en raison de sa qualité de représentante d’une ancienne classe dirigeante issue de la colonisation dont l’état d’esprit ne reflétait pas celui de l’Irlande profonde.

4 L’écartèlement identitaire qu’elle put ressentir à maintes reprises ne fut toutefois en aucune façon paralysant mais constitua probablement le terreau de son engagement. En effet, en toute occasion, face aux événements du monde qui lui fut contemporain, Elizabeth Bowen sut courageusement prendre position et faire montre d’un esprit critique caractéristique de sa personnalité exceptionnelle.

5 Ce volume, dont les dernières pages sont enrichies d’annotations, d’une bibliographie et d’un index bienvenus, constitue un ouvrage passionnant qui complète de façon opportune les publications déjà nombreuses sur Elizabeth Bowen.

AUTEURS

BERTRAND CARDIN Université de Caen – Basse-Normandie

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The Book of Howth

Jean-Pierre Moreau

RÉFÉRENCE

Valerie McGOWAN-DOYLE, The Book of Howth: Elizabethan Conquest and the Old English, Cork, Cork University Press, 2011, XVII + 206 p. ISBN 978-185918-468-4, Hardback, £35.

1 L’auteur présente un document attribué à Christopher St Lawrence, septième baron de Howth (près de Dublin) et rédigé entre 1569 et 1579. Il ne s’agit pas d’une édition du texte mais d’une enquête sur les circonstances de sa rédaction, sur son contenu et sur ce qu’il nous apprend de la situation politique en Irlande sous Elisabeth Ire. 130 pages d’analyse, trois appendices, 9 pages de bibliographie, 36 de notes et un index nous font découvrir un manuscrit assez déroutant qui ne subsiste sous forme complète que dans la bibliothèque archiépiscopale de Lambeth et, sous forme fragmentée, à Trinity College, Dublin.

2 Le « Livre de Howth », environ 180 feuillets (recto verso, avec une dizaine de pages blanches) comprend deux parties : d’une part, un résumé de la « conquête » de l’Irlande depuis l’arrivée de John de Courcy et de la famille St Lawrence (sous Henry II) jusqu’à 1579, d’autre part, des miscellanées : extraits de textes historiques, de contes, de poèmes, des listes de géants, de propriétaires fonciers, de rébellions, d’événements surnaturels etc. La première partie elle-même est largement constituée par des emprunts à des annales ou chroniques (de Fabyan, de Hall, de Hussey, de Stow, de Holinshed) plus ou moins fidèlement retranscrites. À cela s’ajoutent des notes marginales apportant évaluations et commentaires.

3 L’ensemble a été copié par une douzaine de scribes (non identifiés) en plus de Howth lui-même, le principal auteur des notes. L’ordre de présentation ne correspond pas à l’ordre chronologique de rédaction et plusieurs paragraphes ou sections ont été ajoutés dans des interstices de parties déjà rédigées. Il est peu surprenant qu’une compilation aussi hétéroclite, pourtant connue et ayant largement circulé au XVIe siècle, ait découragé toute publication avant (et après) les résumés du Calendar of the Carew

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Manuscripts Preserved at Lambeth (6 volumes), édités par J. S. Brewer et William Bullen en 1871.

4 Selon Valerie McGowan-Doyle, Brewer et Bullen ont largement contribué à dévaluer l’intérêt de ce texte en le présentant comme d’auteur et de date incertains, d’authenticité douteuse, d’importance limitée. Ils ont en outre commis des erreurs de transcription (plusieurs sont répertoriées dans l’appendice C, p. 137-140), dénaturant ainsi le message. Malgré trois très brefs articles de J.H. Round parus dans The Antiquary en 1883 et quelques allusions dans des panoramas généraux sur l’Irlande de R. Bagwell (1885-1890) et de St John Seymour (1929), il fallait tout reprendre à zéro. C’est ce que fait Valerie McGowan-Doyle qui n’a pas de doute sur le rôle de Howth dans la rédaction du document et mène son enquête avec perspicacité.

5 Après avoir présenté le contexte historique (et historiographique) puis la situation personnelle du baron (chapitres 1 et 2), elle part de la structure du document, en déduit son mode de composition pour retrouver les étapes de sa genèse ; de là, elle découvre une cohérence, au départ peu évidente, et donne, au final, une interprétation générale convaincante. L’écriture de la douzaine de scribes permet de les différencier, d’apprécier l’apport de chacun et, tenant compte des événements rapportés, de repérer deux phases principales de rédaction (1569-1573 et 1573-1579) avec, à l’intérieur de chacune, des moments qui peuvent être datés avec précision (Appendice B, p. 135-136). Une fois ce travail d’archéologue accompli, les strates dégagées et la chronologie établie, une analyse détaillée des contenus, accompagnée de rapprochements, d’inférences, conduisent à des conclusions partielles que McGowan-Doyle prend soin de comparer avec des éléments historiques extérieurs ou avec l’utilisation du manuscrits par quelques personnes y ayant eu accès.

6 De cette investigation méticuleuse, ressort la thèse de l’auteur : bien que très disparate dans sa forme et par ses contenus, le « Livre de Howth » obéit à une intention unique. Il s’agit, pour le baron, de défendre la communauté à laquelle il appartient : l’ancienne aristocratie descendant des conquérants anglo-normands du XIIe siècle (« Old English ») et de dénoncer les thèses des nouvelles élites, administrateurs, soldats et bénéficiaires de “plantations” (« New English ») envoyés par les Tudors en Irlande, surtout après 1550, pour parachever la conquête de l’île. Les Irlandais de souche (« Gaelic Irish ») apparaissent peu ici.

7 Au Gouvernement de Londres, à ses représentants sur place, notamment Sir Henry Sidney, qui voudraient faire endosser à ces « Vieux Anglais » la responsabilité d’une conquête manquée – inachevée en tout cas – et les priver d’une partie de leur influence pour lancer une autre politique capable, elle, de contrôler toute l’Irlande, Howth n’a de cesse qu’il ne renvoie la balle dans l’autre camp. Il montre, au contraire, que depuis Henry II, toutes les actions des « Vieux Anglais », y compris ses propres ancêtres, ont visé ce but. S’ils n’ont pas encore réussi, ce n’est pas en raison de leur médiocrité ou de leur « gaélicisation » (thèse de leurs adversaires) mais à cause d’arrivées successives et mal organisées de nouveaux venus maladroits ou corrompus ou hostiles aux anciens féodaux dont les efforts, en vue d’une pacification de l’île, ont été chaque fois réduits à néant. L’histoire est donc un enjeu capital, un instrument dont chaque communauté cherche à s’approprier l’interprétation pour dénoncer l’autre.

8 Le « Livre de Howth » doit se lire dans cette perspective et ses composantes les plus surprenantes prennent alors sens. Ainsi les événements surnaturels montrent le soutien ou l’hostilité de Dieu, les histoires de géants servent à « prouver » que les

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hommes d’aujourd’hui ne sont pas à la hauteur de ceux d’autrefois à cause des fautes et des abus commis durant quatre siècles (sous-entendu par l’autre camp).

9 L’importance du contexte politique se vérifie pour chaque élément de la compilation et nulle part elle ne se révèle mieux qu’au moment du procès de Shane O’Neill en 1569, le contenu de l’acte d’accusation ayant probablement poussé Howth à entreprendre la rédaction de son livre (p. 91-92). McGowan-Doyle démontre que ce livre répond à tous les arguments contenus dans les treize pages – pas moins – du préambule de l’Act of Attainder voulu par Sidney et qui pose des problèmes de fond à propos de l’« échec de la conquête », bien au-delà de l’insubordination de O’Neill. L’histoire, le rôle des communautés, le prétendu déclin économique, l’instabilité sont traités par Howth dans une perspective totalement opposée à celle choisie dans la loi visant O’Neill.

10 De même, tout au long des dix années de rédaction de son livre, il rendra coup pour coup aux responsables politiques en mal de changements. Il s’en prend en particulier à deux mesures qu’il juge anticonstitutionnelles : la nouvelle utilisation du « cess », en 1570 et sutout à partir de 1576 lors du troisième mandat de Sidney comme Lord Deputy (le « cess », est un impôt local) et la réforme de « coign and livery », (fourniture d’approvisionnements à l’armée – des expressions qu’il aurait été bon d’expliquer et que tous les lecteurs ne sont pas censés connaître).

11 Mais Howth prendra soin de ne pas attaquer Elisabeth qui le vexera pourtant, lors de leur unique rencontre, en lui demandant s’il parle anglais. Il donne, dans son recueil, les neuf raisons habituelles (directement empruntées à Edmund Campion – Two Bokes of the Histories of Ireland, 1571) pour justifier les droits de l’Angleterre sur l’Irlande. Il conteste la nouvelle politique du gouvernement au point d’être deux fois emprisonné mais ne s’en prend jamais à la souveraine, ni à la prérogative royale, affirmant au contraire la loyauté, depuis quatre siècles, de sa famille à la Couronne et ne condamnant que l’abus de pouvoir des (nouveaux) administrateurs locaux – le procédé classique des opposants en régime monarchique1.

12 Son livre révèle donc un exercice d’équilibrisme entre deux fidélités, les inquiétudes d’un groupe social en déclin, ses contradictions et ses efforts pour résister à des tendances « modernistes », celles du vaste mouvement de centralisation que connaissent alors tous les pays d’Europe. Howth incarne les valeurs d’une communauté qui cherche à maintenir son identité, qui croit la (re)trouver dans ses « traditions » mais cette identité et ces traditions sont chaque jour mises à mal par une évolution qui réduit leur statut et leur influence.

13 Il faut louer Valerie McGowan pour la minutie de son enquête ainsi que pour la clarté de ses conclusions. Elle a su, par sa patience, démêler les fils d’un écheveau très embrouillé. Sans doute fallait-il avancer lentement pour que la démonstration soit convaincante ; on pourra néanmoins regretter des répétitions (parfois la répétition de renvois – cf. trois fois « as noted above » dans le même paragraphe, p. 118-119). Reste qu’elle nous livre un travail universitaire de bon niveau, réalisé surtout pour les universitaires, qui rendra service aux chercheurs ; les documents rédigés à cette époque charnière par de « Vieux Anglais » sont très rares et celui-ci méritait les efforts de décryptage qui lui sont consacrés pour la première fois.

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NOTES

1. Howth fera un troisième séjour en prison, en 1579, et sera condamné à 1 000 livres d’amende, pour violences à l’égard de sa femme, d’un domestique et de sa fille de treize ans aqui décèdera quinze jours après les coups. L’homme est violent, immoral, et nul ne saurait excuser ces actes ; mais le procès servira aussi à étendre le champ d’application de la loi anglaise en Irlande et à intimider les « Vieux Anglais » (p. 30-32). Howth lui- même ne s’en tirera pas trop mal puisqu’il ne passera que dix-neuf semaines en prison, verra son amende réduite à 500 livres en 1582 et obtiendra un siège au Court of Castle Chamber.

AUTEURS

JEAN-PIERRE MOREAU Université Sorbonne Nouvelle – Paris 3

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Nothing Quite Like it

Alexandra Poulain

REFERENCES

Nicholas GRENE, Nothing Quite Like it, An American-Irish Childhood, Bantry, Somerville Press, 2011, ISBN 978-0-9562-231-59.

1 Among the host of Irish memoirs which have appeared in recent years, Nicholas Grene’s Nothing Quite Like It sounds a very distinctive note. Subtitled An American-Irish Childhood, the book captures the reminiscences of the boy who arrived in Wicklow from his native Illinois at the age of five in the early 1950’s. What makes this familiar enough story of a childhood in rural Ireland unlike any other is the unusualness of Grene’s identity status (he is hyphenated ‘the wrong way out’, and describes himself, with characteristic humour, as “an Anglo-Irish, American, Polish Jew”) and the relative eccentricity of his family. Both his parents, whom he recalls with fond admiration, were intellectuals and academics, his mother a philosopher who studied with Heidegger and wrote one of the first books in English on his works, his father a Professor of Classics who taught six months a year in Chicago, and spent the rest of the year farming in Wicklow. In an Ireland where “to be Protestant […] was not to be Catholic”, Grene came to be raised as a Protestant fortuitously, after refusing to face the humiliation of returning to the local Catholic school where he failed to button up his stiff corduroy trousers on his very first school day, and insisting on making a fresh start at the Protestant school instead.

2 Grene’s voice as he recollects his boyhood’s years is unique and unforgettable, combining a passionate sense of place, based on an intimate understanding of and fierce attachment to the land, the family farm, the local people and practises, with a tone of amused distance, as if he had always retained something of the intrigued outsider. Several chapters are dedicated to his life on the family farm in Ballynaclash, and recapture his memories of “the house”, “the men and the village”, “farming”, “Friends and relations” in vivid, minute detail. A full chapter is dedicated to the epic operation of “Thrashing”, another to the evocation of Tom Cullen, pillar of the Clash

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community and Grene’s mentor in all things agricultural. Other chapters focus on the successive stages of the young boy’s education, and draw a humorous, often less than flattering portrait of himself as a temperamental, bellicose boy and posturing young intellectual: first at Ballinatone National School, then as a boarder at Drogheda Grammar School (where he was underfed but initiated into the joys of hockey and inspired by his unorthodox maths and Greek teacher JR Pope), finally at Belfast Royal Academy when his mother became a Senior lecturer at Queen’s after divorcing his father. The final chapters chart his eminently educational but rather burlesque experiences as a kibbutznik in the summer of 1964, and an au pair on a French farm in Cholet the following summer, as well as his arrival as freshman in TCD (where he is now a Professor of English).

3 The book is beautifully designed and features many pictures of the young Grene and his family, the house in Clash and the locals, the schools and their prominent teachers. As we read on, it feels as if has opened the family album for us and lets us leaf through it at leisure, passing amused comments as he watches over our shoulder in friendly intimacy.

AUTHORS

ALEXANDRA POULAIN Université Charles-de-Gaulle – Lille 3

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Radicals

Karin Fischer

RÉFÉRENCE

John CUNNINGHAM, Unlikely Radicals – Irish Post-Primary Teachers and the ASTI, 1909-2009, Cork, Cork University Press, 2010, 379 p., ISBN 978-1-85918-460-8.

1 Unlikely Radicals est un ouvrage de commande à l’occasion du centenaire de l’ASTI (Association of Secondary Teachers, Ireland), la principale association irlandaise d’enseignants du second degré, créée en 1909 et devenue officiellement un syndicat (membre de l’ITUC, Irish Trade Union Congress) en 1919. John Cunningham, de l’université de Galway, retrace l’histoire de cette organisation en adoptant une approche chronologique, avec une ambition d’exhaustivité qui fait du livre un ouvrage de référence, non seulement sur l’ASTI passée et présente, mais aussi plus largement pour l’histoire de l’éducation en Irlande. Comme le fait remarquer l’actuel Secrétaire Général de l’ASTI John White dans son avant-propos, Unlikely Radicals est tout à la fois une histoire des enseignants et une fenêtre sur l’histoire sociale, culturelle et politique irlandaise du vingtième siècle.

2 L’auteur fait ressortir de chaque période étudiée les thématiques jugées les plus marquantes, de la volonté collective d’améliorer les conditions de travail exécrables des enseignants qui a conduit à la fondation de l’ASTI au tout début du siècle au rejet de la marchandisation de l’éducation à l’heure du « Tigre celtique », en passant par l’émancipation, à la fois tardive et relative, des enseignants non religieux (lay) vis-à-vis d’une Église catholique toujours très présente dans l’enseignement secondaire irlandais et par les combats successifs pour une meilleure reconnaissance de la profession et pour les salaires. Sur l’ensemble de la période, l’auteur est particulièrement attentif à la question de la discrimination subie par les femmes dans la profession, dans la société irlandaise (avec le « marriage bar » jusqu’en 1973 entre autres), mais aussi longtemps au sein de l’association elle-même. Il évoque les différents combats syndicaux, leurs échecs et leurs victoires souvent en demi-teinte, sans passer sous silence les dissensions et parfois les contradictions existantes au sein de l’ASTI (et entre organisations

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enseignantes irlandaises). Tout en s’attachant à rendre compte des nuances et de la complexité des débats internes qui ont animé l’association, l’auteur évite ce que la chronique des tribulations d’une telle organisation pourrait avoir de fastidieux en en proposant un portrait vivant, parsemé de citations et d’anecdotes révélatrices, instructives ou savoureuses, et imprégné des grandes évolutions de la société irlandaise.

3 L’ouvrage est éclairant sur l’évolution des conceptions du statut social des enseignants, de l’enseignement, du rôle de l’éducation dans la société, mais aussi sur les tendances conservatrices et autocratiques à la fois de l’Église catholique et des gouvernements irlandais successifs durant la majeure partie du vingtième siècle. Si l’ASTI s’est opposée aux uns et aux autres à plusieurs reprises, ses prises de position n’en font pas pour autant un mouvement “radical”, et l’expression choisie pour le titre est à prendre avec une bonne pincée de sel (la citation dont elle est tirée est teintée d’ironie lorsqu’on la replace dans son contexte – p. 278). Même s’il s’agit d’une commande, John Cunningham fait preuve à la fois de l’empathie et de la distance critique nécessaires à une telle entreprise, ce qui fait de son livre une contribution importante à l’histoire de l’éducation et à l’histoire sociale irlandaises.

AUTEURS

KARIN FISCHER Université d’Orléans

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Repeal and Revolution

Chloé Lacoste

RÉFÉRENCE

Christine KINEALY, Repeal and Revolution: 1848 In Ireland, Manchester, Manchester University Press, 2009, ISBN 978-0-7190-6517-0.

1 Après une thèse sur les Poor Laws, Christine Kinealy a consacré plusieurs ouvrages à des sujets aussi divers que la Grande Famine, la vague d’immigration qui l’a suivie, la mémoire ou le nationalisme irlandais aux États-Unis. Dans cet ouvrage, elle revient sur les années 1840, mais s’intéresse au mouvement nationaliste plutôt qu’à la Famine elle- même, dont les dernières années coïncident avec le Printemps des Peuples, qui voit se développer et s’exprimer les aspirations nationales. En Irlande, l’agitation contre la domination britannique trouve un moyen d’expression différent dans les années 1840 et obtient une adhésion populaire de plus en plus forte, notamment grâce à la presse nationaliste. Parmi les nombreux titres de cette époque figure The Nation, journal créé et alimenté par des jeunes membres de la middle class, surnommés la Jeune Irlande, dont l’originalité réside à la fois dans l’intérêt porté à des mouvements étrangers et dans la volonté affichée de promouvoir une culture irlandaise qui puisse être opposée à celle, dominante, des Britanniques. Ce sont des membres de ce groupe qui ont ensuite dirigé la révolte avortée de 1848.

2 L’ouvrage couvre en fait une période bien plus large, de l’émancipation catholique au développement du nationalisme irlandais aux États-Unis, en revenant sur les itinéraires de chacun des principaux acteurs après le soulèvement. Seuls deux des neuf chapitres concernent directement l’année 1848 elle-même. L’auteure s’attache d’abord à décrire le contexte politique : la popularité de Daniel O’Connell après 1829, la mise en place du mouvement pour l’abrogation de l’Acte d’Union, les divisions au sujet de la Famine, la popularité déclinante de Daniel O’Connell et la rupture entre la Jeune Irlande et l’organisation du « Libérateur ». Les trois derniers chapitres concernent les suites du soulèvement : la tentative de fuite des principaux acteurs, l’arrestation et le procès de la plupart d’entre eux ; mais aussi la déportation, en captivité en Tasmanie, puis libres

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aux États-Unis pour la majorité. Enfin, Christine Kinealy analyse les répercussions plus lointaines du soulèvement : l’influence sur les Fenians et la mémoire de 1848 telle qu’elle a été entretenue, en Irlande et aux États-Unis, jusqu’à nos jours.

3 Quoique très fouillée, la partie qui concerne directement la Jeune Irlande et le soulèvement n’apporte que peu de nouveaux éléments. L’originalité réside dans le reste de l’ouvrage. Christine Kinealy utilise des sources d’une grande diversité et livre un compte-rendu détaillé sur les débuts du mouvement pour l’abrogation, sur les tensions entre Jeune et Vieille Irlande, sur le lien avec les chartistes. Elle s’attarde également sur l’évolution idéologique de O’Connell, depuis les années 1830, un aspect rarement étudié ou même évoqué dans les ouvrages concernant le nationalisme en Irlande dans les années 1840.

4 Symbole fort pour les nationalistes, le soulèvement de 1848 a souvent été minoré dans l’historiographie révisionniste, qui a rejoint les journaux conservateurs de l’époque en le présentant comme un désastre mal préparé, mal géré et achevé par une ridicule bataille dans un potager. L’ouvrage de Christine Kinealy permet de comprendre une révolte menée par un groupe non révolutionnaire. Si elle admet la défaite du soulèvement lui-même, elle insiste plutôt sur l’impact moral et idéologique du discours nationaliste de la Jeune Irlande dans son ensemble. L’idéal d’association entre les religions pour une même nation est à la base de tous les mouvements nationalistes ultérieurs.

5 Quelques répétitions d’un chapitre à l’autre peuvent, en de rares occasions, causer quelques confusions pour qui ne maîtriserait pas déjà cette période. Mais l’ouvrage n’en reste pas moins un compte-rendu extrêmement précis et érudit qui remplit tout à fait l’objectif annoncé d’établir la portée idéologique, sinon militaire, du soulèvement de l’été 1848 en Irlande.

AUTEURS

CHLOÉ LACOSTE Université Paris-Sorbonne

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Smashing H-Block

Yann Bevant

RÉFÉRENCE

F. STUART ROSS, Smashing H-Block, The Rise and Fall of the Popular Campaign against Criminalization, 1976-1982, Liverpool, Liverpool University Press, 2011, 226 p., ISBN 978 1 84631 743 9

1 F. Stuart Ross se décrit à la fois comme universitaire et comme militant, et cet ouvrage traduit bien comment l’implication de l’auteur peut aussi être mise au service de fins académiques. Smashing H-Block, qui représente 192 pages hors bibliographie et index, est divisé en huit chapitres organisés selon une logique chronologique couvrant les dix années 1972-1982. Ces chapitres sont d’inégale longueur, ainsi le premier portant sur les années 1972-1975 se veut un préambule à la période qui fait l’objet véritable de l’étude, comme le précise le sous-titre du livre. Ces différences de volume entre les chapitres s’expliquent également par l’attention particulière portée par l’auteur à certaines périodes qu’il considère comme des moments charnière. L’ouvrage est fort bien documenté, et tire une grande partie de son intérêt des sources primaires convoquées par l’auteur, même si ce dernier ne sacrifie pas pour autant le travail sur les archives, qui contribue à renforcer la crédibilité de son propos. Smashing H-Block est un titre qui s’inspire de la campagne politique du même nom menée sous l’impulsion du mouvement républicain (campagne dont les ressorts sont décrits avec minutie), et le sous titre est aussi révélateur de la thèse défendue par l’auteur. L’objet du livre est en effet d’examiner les ressorts de la campagne contre la criminalisation du mouvement et des militants républicains, et en conséquence contre les H-Blocks.

2 En substance, F. Stuart Ross affirme que l’analyse du combat mené lors de cette campagne remet en question l’hagiographie républicaine traditionnelle qui place au premier rang la lutte menée de l’intérieur par les prisonniers et le sacrifice de ceux-ci à travers les grèves de la faim de 1981, en soulignant l’importance de la large base militante et du mouvement populaire dans les changements de stratégie et dans les transformations politiques et sociales issues de la campagne contre la criminalisation.

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En ce sens, l’ouvrage de F. Stuart Ross s’inscrit clairement dans une perspective « History from Below » et interroge de manière convaincante à la fois un mythe de la tradition républicaine et le récit historique dominant. Le titre de la conclusion (« Ordinary People Doing Extraordinary Things »), tiré d’une citation de Laurence McKeown, est tout à fait évocateur. Ce dernier a en effet été un des acteurs majeurs du mouvement des prisonniers dans la période étudiée par l’ouvrage, et il a ensuite joué et continue de jouer un rôle dans le développement de Coiste na nIarchimi . La reconnaissance explicite par Laurence McKeown de l’importance de tous ceux dont les noms n’apparaîtront jamais dans les médias (« our struggle in prison would never have achieved the same success without the people on the outside […] Once again, ordinary people doing extraordinary things ») est aussi une reconnaissance de la justesse du propos de F. Stuart Ross.

3 Même si l’on peut regretter le renvoi des notes infrapaginales à la fin de chaque chapitre, qui complique toujours un peu pour le lecteur l’utilisation de l’appareil critique, il convient de saluer dans cet ouvrage un apport remarquable à la connaissance de ces moments importants dans l’histoire irlandaise, tout comme il convient de saluer la capacité de l’auteur à captiver son lecteur par un style simple et alerte au service de la compréhension des évènements et des enjeux de la période. Jon Tongue a dit de cet ouvrage que c’était « a riveting read ». Sans nul doute Smashing H- Block s’impose comme un document de référence pour tous ceux qui travaillent sur le mouvement républicain ou sur cette période de l’histoire du Nord.

AUTEURS

YANN BEVANT Université de Rennes 2 – UEB

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