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Ireland and Irish Studies: A Glossary of Terms Lance Pettitt, Vienna April 2016

Coming to the field of Irish Studies with little or no prior knowledge of Irish history, politics and culture can be a bit daunting. In studying the Revival period in particular, a number of primary texts make references or use terms that might require some explanation. I’ve tried to restrict the scope to ‘modern Ireland’ by which I mean from 1800 onwards into the 20thC. though these notes do refer back to earlier historical periods. For you, reading secondary sources should be easier with this quick reference guide. It isn’t exhaustive or detailed, nor is it very nuanced and I have given some sources for further reading at the end. Although I have divided it into: Political, Political- Geographical, Socio-Cultural (to include Religion), you will see there is a degree of permeability between these categories.

POLITICAL

“Home Rule”. The principle that Ireland should have by constitutional means a degree of political autonomy within the United Kingdom and Empire. It is associated with Sir Isaac Butt M.P. who founded the Home Rule Association in 1870 after the Rev. Galbraith had coined the term. Carried on by C.S. Parnell, it became a popular idea and movement in the 1890s and on into the early 20thC. It was opposed by Irish and Ulster Unionists as a dangerous unpicking of the Union and opposed by Republicans as not being a radical enough departure from the British political system of ruling Ireland. Legislation (Home Rule Bills) were debated in London on three occasions 1886, 1893 and passing only in 1912 as a result of a coalition deal between John Redmond’s Home Rulers and the Conservative Prime Minister, Asquith.

“The [Act of] Union”. The political linking of Ireland to Great Britain by legislation in 1801. Britain had been involved in Ireland since Henry II in the 12thC and through various ‘Plantations’ of settlers in Leinster and Ulster in the 16th and 17thCs. and Ireland was drawn into the political conflicts of European monarchies in the 18th and 19thC, notably in the late-1680s and in response to the French revolution of 1792. Many of these conflicts revolved around institutionalized religion, questions of theological difference, wealth, trade and power associated with royal family dynasties seeking to maintain their puissance. This was always going to be a difficult task across the territorial patch-work of the British Isles, an island fringe off the main, continental landmass of Europe.

“Unionist”. Supporters in Ireland and Britain of the ‘Union’ between the two countries. Typically, of Protestant faith, often landed or titled, connected with the British aristocratic system, the military services, commerce and industry. As a response to ‘Home Rule’, unionists in Ulster began to define themselves and organize politically as ‘Ulster Unionists’.

“Republican”. A person who subscribes to the idea of a political unit of people without an aristocracy or Monarch that is egalitarian and built on merit. In Ireland, republicans drew on ideas from the successful independence of the United States of America, socialist republicans (like Connolly) and on the secular Republican tradition of France. Republicans were either physical force/armed or constitutional. “Fenians” were a 19thC Irish republican group based in America with adherents in Ireland and Britain who supported the Rising in Easter 1916. Other republicans included the Irish Republican 2

Brotherhood – also involved in the Easter rising– who became the IRA (Army) in the Anglo-Irish war of 1919-21.

“Irish Nationalist”. A nationalist is someone who sees a people-nation as a natural unit of political organisation that is linked to a bounded territory, the land. In Ireland’s case this was the island of Ireland. Irish nationalists believed that theirs was a distinct nation or people with its own language, culture and traditions that was separate from the English and British culture and its State formation.

“British”. (‘Britons’, ‘Brits’). The four-nation, composite political identity forged from historical alliances between generations of royal dynasties, peers and Church hierarchies in England, Wales, and Ireland (Colley 1992). In 1536 England and Wales joined in union; Scotland joined that union politically in 1707, Ireland in 1800 (the latter ended in 1921). “Britishness” has tended to be Anglo-centric as an patriotic allegiance, with “Englishness” itself often less forthright or coherent in presenting it essence compared to the other three nations that comprise the United and (Northern) Ireland (Colls and Dodd, 1984). The Irish version of “Home Rule” prefigured a sort of federal union that in the early 21stC that might yet be seen in the Welsh, Scottish and Northern Ireland Assemblies. “Britishness”- always a hybrid identity - has been refigured in the wake of Empire in racial-ethnic terms, and has added “European-ness” (politically in its membership of the EEC/now EU since 1973). These more recent framing notions are themselves under scrutiny now following the Scottish (2014) and European Referenda (2016). Nairn (1981) may have been right!

“Old English/Irish”. Descendants of the Anglo-Norman settlers of 12thC supported and were sponsored by Henry II. The Norman French had themselves invaded southern England and their families had migrated to Wales and thence over to Ireland to help Henry II qwell internal conflicts between rival Irish lords. The Old English over the centuries became Gaelicised and intermarried.

“Plantation” Settlers. The systematic and organized giving of lands and property to English and Scots settlers in the 17th and 18thC Ireland, displacing Irish and Old English from the favourable land to lesser quality farms. This was either as a reward or to encourage settlement of loyal subjects of the Crown and Church in Ireland who which was seen at the time to be wild, unruly and difficult to control.

POLITICAL-GEOGRAPHICAL

Even from my very cursory reading of Austrian history, I know that its political and human geography are pretty complicated. But here is Ireland’s.

“The ”. Proclaimed in April 1916, as a 32 county independent state separate from the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland under a president not a monarch, the Republic had a difficult birth. After WWI and despite an electoral mandate (1918) for Sinn Fein who stood for a popular Republic, a war of Independence was fought against the British (1919-21), Treaty was signed (1921), Partition was imposed (1920) and a Civil War ensued. Ireland achieved partial independence in the form of ‘ status’ (IFS) from 1922 until 1948.

“The Free State”. A short-form of the Irish Free State (IFS) this was politically like the Dominion status of Canada within the Empire, but with its own parliament in Dublin, but controlled of its ports and an oath of allegiance bound into the Treaty of 1921. The IFS 3 was also known in the 1922-48 period as Eire. ‘Eire’ remained neutral in WWII. In 1949 the Republic of Ireland was formally declared, took itself out of the – that had changed its name to British Commonwealth. Countries like India and Canada decided to remain in.

“Northern Ireland”. Formed by the partition Act of 1920, it formally came into existence in 1921 and had its separate parliament in Belfast (well Hillsborough) though remained part of the UK. It comprised 6 of the 32 counties of Ireland, that is 6 of the 9 counties that made up the ancient province of Ulster.

The North (see also the South) Colloquial term for Northern Ireland, though many parts of the northern areas of Ireland, like Donegal, are in the ‘south’, i.e. the Republic.

“Norn Iron”. Contemporary slang for Northern Ireland, used mostly for fun from people from ‘Norn Iron’, which in pronunciation is supposed to imitate a Northern Irish accent. Try it.

“The twenty-six-counties”. A term used by Republicans who refuse to recognize the IFS, the border partition that created Northern Ireland and indeed the current Republic as an incomplete project.

“The six counties”. A term used by Republicans who refuse to recognize the IFS, the border partition that created Northern Ireland and indeed the current Republic which they see as an incomplete project. They won’t use ‘Ulster’ since that refers to the ancient nine county province of Ulster, not the six-county form.

“Partition/the Border”. The British government partitioned Ireland due to the political and economic pressure of the Ulster Unionists in 1920, giving Unionists power over the new state of Northern Ireland. In the 1920 Act the border was not seen as a permanent solution, but the drawing of the line on the map was contentious. It created an internal, land-border. Britain repeated the same tactic in 1947 in Indian when it created India and Pakistan with similar bloody civil and sectarian conflict leading up to India’s independence in 1949. By popular mandate, the Republic in 1998 voted overwhelmingly to drop the clause in its Constitution (1937) claiming territorial rights over the six-counties.

“The Rising” (Rebellion, Insurrection. Insurgency). The armed rebellion centered mainly on Dublin in Easter 1916 in which Irish republican, socialist and nationalist paramilitary forces took on the British authorities and army in Ireland. The Rising lasted a week, did not have an Irish popular mandate but achieved hugely symbolic importance and became the catalyst for political shifts and more political violence to achieve independence.

“Ulster”. The name of an ancient province consisting of nine counties. Ireland itself consists of four historic provinces: Ulster in the north, Leinster in the east, Connaught in the west and Munster in the south-west. These provinces are sometimes popularly, allegorically referred to as the ‘Four Green Fields’, or personified as an old woman, Cathleen ni Houlihan (hence YEATS/GREGORY play on this theme).

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SOCIO-CULTURAL

“The Irish Revival”. (Renaissance) a period roughly between 1870 and 1921 when a range of organisations, writers and activities collectively can be seen to recover the , use old myths and legends, visual design, sports, political ideas, folk stories, writings as the basis for contemporary cultural and political action. Effectively to argue for the cultural distinctiveness and therefore political autonomy- self governing - of Ireland, separate from the UK. Sometimes referred to as the “Celtic Revival” though it takes in more than just Celtic culture (see also “Celtic”)

“Irish, Gaelic”. Strictly, Irish or Gaelic is the language spoken in Ireland and it is one of a group of Celtic languages (Breton, Cornish, etc.) in Europe. It has strong written as well as oral tradition, though its written forms declined after the 17thC with the break up of the Bardic schools. There are were three main dialects of Irish (Ulster, southern and ‘Gaeltonic’) though as a result of the Revival period, the institutionalization of Irish in schools, government, dictionary creation and in publishing and in modern communications media tended to flatten these regional differences out into an “official” Irish.

“Hiberno-English” (or ‘Irish English’). English as it is spoken and sometimes written in Ireland with certain phrases and vocabulary that are deemed non-standard and drawing on the vernacular Irish language that was widespread in Ireland until the 18thC.

“Anglo-Irish”. (see also ‘Ascendancy’) The Protestant descendants of English settlers in Ireland that acquired land titles and property to exercise political, economic and social power. Owners of large country estates, with ‘the Big House’, sometimes as absentee landlords, they often educated their children in England. As a class it was at its height in the 18thC. and located itself in the Society spheres of Dublin and London Although instrumental in the Irish Revival of the late-19thC, the Anglo-Irish as a political and social class began to lose their position of control over affairs in Ireland after the Land Acts of the 1880s. Yet – despite being affiliated with Anglo-British culture, did not feel at home in England. Deane (1985:30) insists upon the distinction – not observed by WB Yeats – between an ‘aristocracy’ and the ‘’ – claiming the latter a ‘predominantly bourgeois social formation’. “Anglo-Irish Literature” means Irish literature written in English language and not just by this narrow class.

“Ascendancy, the.” Often used as a synonym for ‘Anglo-Irish’. Anglican Protestant upper classes who owned land, ‘titles’ and privileges, fought for the British monarchy, courted political power from Westminster and also the short lived Irish parliament in the late-18thC. Writers on this course from this background include Lady Augusta Gregory, J.M. Synge, George Moore and Edith Somerville & Violet Ross. It is important to distinguish Anglo-Irish and Ascendency from the middle-class Protestants of Ireland who were merchants, traders, members of the professions (medicine, law) or who owned businesses. On our course, Yeats and Shaw came from middle-class, comfortable families. Whilst Synge attended Trinity College, neither Yeats nor Shaw did. Both were in their different ways autodidacts: one esoteric, the other internationally socialist. Wilde

“Ulster Protestant”. A loose term referring to people from Ulster who would have a familial upbringing in one of the Protestant faiths and tending to have political affiliations with either unionism (note the small unofficial ‘u’) or Loyalism (note the 5 capital ‘L’), though many Ulster protestant writers exhibit a conflicted or disaffected sense of these religious-political heritages. There are no writers in this tradition on the Proseminar course, but Ron Hutchinson (Rat in the Skull) appears as the token “Prod” on the MA course. Others might be John Hewitt or Stewart Parker.

“West Brit(on)”. A pejorative term for an Irish person who apes the manners and values of the British to the detriment of native, Irish culture. Gabriel in Joyce’s ‘The Dead’ (Dubliners) is accused of being one.

“Celts, the./Celtic”. The Celts were Indo-European in origin from c. 1200 BC who gradually migrated and settled over generations in what is now Scotland, Wales and Ireland. It is a cultural rather than a racial classification for a people. Celtic language, civilization and culture were variously rediscovered in the 18th and 19thCs Ireland – often by a privileged Anglo-Irish class archeologists, philologists, antiquarians - to help define Irish cultural . The so-called ‘Celtic Twilight’ was a pejorative term used by Irish nationalist journalists, politicians and writers who dismissed Celtic as an invented tradition adopted specificially in the early writings of WB Yeats. Interestingly, figures like Yeats who in the 1880s and 90s drew on ancient topics and themes associated with Celtic mythology and culture, were responding in part to the mobilization of ‘Celtic’ by thinkers like Ernest Renan and, in England, the influential Matthew Arnold, notably in his Oxford lectures published as ‘The Celtic Element in Literature’ (1867) and his establishment of a Chair of Celtic Literature.

RELIGIOUS

“Protestant”. The main Protestant Church in the period we are studying is of Anglican domination, or known as , similar in many respects to the Church of England. Protestantism was the faith of the State’s ruling, minority class in modern Ireland from 1537 until 1870, its intellectual base was Dublin’s Trinity College which also produced clerics, philosophers, writers and politicians. Its status as a minority faith was linked the political and economic fortunes of the Anglo-Irish. That marginal status was further compounded when the British PM Gladstone who disestablished the Church in Ireland in 1869. By the 1880s Protestants as a faith and social class were on the wane, change driven through by the demographic, institutional and political forces that allowed the Catholic Church and Catholicism to be recognized as the popular faith of the majority of people in Ireland. The Catholic faith was boosted by the cataclysm of the Famine, new ‘devotional revolution’ in practices installed by Cardinal Cullen from the 1860s and the rise of a largely conservative middle-class who was nationalist, or “Home Rule” in outlook. A small number of Catholics were landed and aristocratic in origins, e.g. George Moore, the novelist we study and Edward Martyn, a co-founder of the Irish Literary Theatre.

“Presbyterian”. A minority Protestant faith, associated with its location in the northern parts of Ireland, often linked with the faith brought by the Plantation of Ulster and Leinster by the Scots and English in 17thC. Presbyterianism was a non-Established church with a theology that differed from both the Irish and English Anglican faiths. In Ulster, Presbyterianism was the largest Protestant denomination (along with Methodists, Baptists and other independent groups) and its members tended to be Loyalists (in favour of the Union, Unionists).

“Catholic” (Roman Catholic) Ireland began to move from paganism to Christianity during the 5th and 6thCs. but it took until about the 12thC. before Roman Catholicism 6 emerged as the majority faith of Ireland and Adrian IV became the first English Pope in xx. However, as a consequence of the Reformation and Henry VIII’s rejection of the primacy of the Pope in Rome in 1535 a theological, political and cultural rift arose between Ireland and Britain, and their oscillating relations with Catholic Europe and Rome in particular. Since the reign of Elizabeth I (1590s onwards), the preeminent faith of Great Britain has been Protestantism even though there were periods of rule by monarchs of Catholic faith. Under Protestant rule, Catholics in Great Britain and Ireland were marginalized in public life and disenfranchised under the until the Emancipation Act in 1829.

In the 1880-1912 period Unionists in Ulster, seeing the association of “Home Rule” with the Catholic majority dubbed it “Rome Rule” suggesting it was a foreign, Papish plot to undermine their faith and the Union.

“Dissenter”. A catch-all word referring to those religious faiths that were non- Established, or dissenting from the mainstream Anglican faith associated with Ascendancy, monarchy and power of Great Britain. Dissenters as a term emerged following the English Civil War (1641-1651) and the Confederate War in Ireland (1641- 53), as absolute monarchies were challenged, the established religion of the monarch and its link to the state came under attack from new, popular forms of protestant theology and political organisation.

Sources

Connolly, S.J. Ed. The Oxford Companion to Irish History, Oxford: Oxford UP, 1998. Goodby, John. Ed. Irish Studies: The Essential Glossary, London: Arnold, 2003. McMahon, Sean and O’Donoghue, Jo. Eds. Brewer’s Dictionary of Irish Phrase and Fable, London: Weindenfield & Nicolson, 2004. Welch, Robert. Ed. The Oxford Companion to Irish Literature, Oxford: Oxford UP, 1996.