University of Massachusetts Amherst ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst Doctoral Dissertations 1896 - February 2014 1-1-1996 Another martyr for old Ireland. Sharon Leigh Williams University of Massachusetts Amherst Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations_1 Recommended Citation Williams, Sharon Leigh, "Another martyr for old Ireland." (1996). Doctoral Dissertations 1896 - February 2014. 1233. https://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations_1/1233 This Open Access Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst. It has been accepted for inclusion in Doctoral Dissertations 1896 - February 2014 by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst. For more information, please contact [email protected]. UMASS/AMHERST ANOTHER MARTYR FOR OLD IRELAND A Dissertation Presented by SHARON LEIGH WILLIAMS Submitted to the Graduate School of the University of Massachusetts Amherst in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY May 1996 History @ Copyright by Sharon Leigh Williams 1996 All Rights Reserved — ANOTHER MARTYR FOR OLD IRELAND A Dissertation Presented by SHARON LEIGH WILLIAMS Approved as to style and content by: CI Maria Tymoczko, Chair Carlin Barton Member I Charles Rearick, Member — llA(K^ Joh^ Bracey, Membe^r Bruce Laurie, Department Department of History For my Mother ABSTRACT ANOTHER MARTYR FOR OLD IRELAND MAY 1996 SHARON L. WILLIAMS, B.A. , MIDWESTERN STATE UNIVERSITY M.A., MIDWESTERN STATE UNIVERSITY Ph.D., UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS AMHERST Directed by: Professor Maria Tymoczko This dissertation proposes a paradigm in which the political martyrs of Ireland serve as a continuous reproduction of a heroic pattern of martyrdom. Within this model are contained particular mythic patterns of thought. By studying these patterns in relation to Patrick Sarsfield, I intend to show that in the creation of Irish political martyrs a mythology of martyrdom was fashioned and refashioned continuously in different periods of Irish history. This work is an interdisciplinary study, comprising of the history, mythology, and literature. An examination Sarsfield legend reveals that the stories of Sarsfield image of provide a reassuring connection to an established an heroic and glorious Irish past. Irish nationalists have utilized the image of an heroic Ireland, struggling to free itself from centuries of oppression, as part of their construction of martyrs. The transference of characteristics associated with ancient warrior and kingly classes in Ireland to modern nationalist martyrs allows or the continuous witnessing of the tradition of Irish martyrdom. The construction of a mythology of martyrdom serves the needs of a particular community which feels the need to reaffirm or reestablish their identity. The martyrs serve as a continual reaffirmation of communal identity. The Sarsfield stories show that each historical generation reinterprets the deeds of the man in relation to their own perceived circumstances. In this process of creation, the complexities of the individual are simplified, as each martyr must fit a certain mask of martyrdom. An examination of Sarsfield and his legend shows that this method of historical and literary analysis reveals a "demythologized" Sarsfield, and a "mythologized" Sarsfield. Each version is equally valid and useful in understand a communities perception and creation of their identity. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ABSTRACT v Chapter Introduction 1 I. THE PATRIOT GAME: THE CONSTRUCTION OF A MARTYR . 6 II. THE WAR OF THE TWO KINGS: SARSFIELD AS HERO . 27 III. THE "REBEL" AND THE "FOOL": TONE AND PEARSE . 78 IV. WOULD THAT IT WERE FOR IRELAND: THE CREATION OF A MARTYR 131 V. "THE CIRCUS ANIMALS": SYMBOLISM AND CONTINUITY FROM EARLY IRISH LITERATURE 192 VI. A NATION ONCE AGAIN? THE PRICE OF SALVATION . 238 BIBLIOGRAPHY 258 vii INTRODUCTION The 1689 wars begat the 1798 Rising which begat the Fenian movement of the 1850's-60's which begat Patrick Pearse and the Easter Rising. This genealogy of Irish nationalistic history is simplistic and naive, and yet there is a psychological justice to it. The rebels and martyrs of Ireland were the continuous regenerations and reproductions of a heroic pattern, mothered by particular mythic patterns of thought. These mythic patterns and the ways in which they were realized in molding the development of the legend of Patrick Sarsfield are the subject of this dissertation. I began writing this work with the intent of discussing Sarsfield and his contributions (or lack thereof) to Irish nationalism. I was intrigued by a man who accomplished little of military or political value yet became admired by a large segment of the Irish population. Sarsfield, while being included in the canon of Irish martyrs, seemed a very inadequate and unlikely martyr. The war he involved himself in was not, at the time, a war for Irish freedom. Only subsequent nationalist writers would make it so. Additionally, Sarsfield did not die in of Ireland, but on the Continent, fighting in the service — 2 Louis XIV of France. How then did he become incorporated into the pantheon of Irish nationalistic martyrs? Did his life before death even matter? As I progressed in my studies, I came to realize that with Sarsfield as my focus, I was studying the creation and recreation— of a martyr. By studying the transformations of the legend of Sarsfield, I was analyzing the making of what we term history. A comparison of Sarsfield's life and the creation of his legend, through the telling of the stories and ballads about martyrdom, with the lives and legends of two other famous Irish martyrs (Theobald Wolfe Tone and Patrick Pearse), allowed me to explore the generation of popular history. Roy Foster has questioned why popular or mythic history has not followed professional history in revising its view of the past. He answers his own question when he comments, "The depressing lesson is probably that history as conceived by scholars is a different concept to history as understood at large, where myth is probably the correct, if over-used, anthropological term" ("History and the Irish Question" 192). At the beginning of my academic career, I conceived of history as a field of study which could be examined objectively and in isolation from other areas such This as literature, anthropology or political science. "history" was an independent entity which could be annals, adequately documented with written sources such as Such manuscripts, legal texts, letters and journals. 3 acceptable sources for historical research would allow me to discover how a society functioned. Popular materials, or sources enjoyed by the "masses", such as folk ballads, popular songs, or mythic stories, fell outside of the legitimate scope of historical research. Mythology, though entertaining, was properly studied in a literary field, as mythology consisted of stories where meanings were not clear and could not be reduced to a clear narrative or chronological form. I discovered however, that stories and songs, even without "documentary evidence", contain valuable historical evidence. Robin Ridington, in Trail to Heaven, explains a vision story of a Dunne-za, or Beaver Indian, who tells of experiencing a world in which foxes wear clothes and teach songs, and frogs gamble under a pond. Ridington argues: There is no documentary or scientific evidence to indicate that frogs really sing and dance and gamble beneath the waters of a pond, but the old man said he experienced this, too. There is no documentary evidence of foxes who live like people. Because we lack documentary evidence, we are compelled to class his second story as myth. In our though twor Id, myth and reality are opposites. Unless we can find some way to understand the reality of mythic thinking, we remain prisoners of our own language, our own thoughtwor Id. ... In the Indian thoughtworld, stories about talking animals and stories about the summer gathering are equally true because both describe personal e.xperience. Their truths are complementary. (71) Ridington constructs a compelling argument for two complementary worlds, or realities. In my study I discovered Sarsfield operating in two such complementary 4 worlds: a *'mythic" Sarsfield, developed through the repetition and expansion of songs and stories, and an "historical" or perhaps, "demythologized" Sarsfield, much harder to find, buried as he was under the mythic personae, but documented in journals, letters and diaries of the time. But which Sarsfield is the "authentic" Sarsfield? Searching for an "authentic" Sarsfield implies that one version is true and one is false. Just as I believed history and myth to be opposites, I examined the two Sarsfields to discover which one was "true", I came to the same conclusion as Ridington did in studying the Dunne-za: both are equally true, equally valid. The "historical" Sarsfield allows us to glimpse the actions and thoughts of the people immediately involved in the late seventeenth century; the "mythic" Sarsfield affords us an understanding of the popular interpretations of those actions over the centuries. The popular interpretations conditioned people to fashion their worldview in specific ways, and the continual reinterpretation of the events in turn created a mythology of heroic sacrifice. This work then, will historicize the mythology of heroic sacrifice. The structure of this work may appear confusing to of some readers; I would like to give a brief explanation the choice of chapter divisions. Chapter I is a broad contextual chapter which lays the theoretical framework f contexts of the dissertation. Focusing on the successive 5 mythology, there follows in Chapter II a detailed biography of Sarsfield the man as conceived by objective history. In Chapter III, I examine the lives and legends of Theobald Wolfe Tone and Patrick Pearse in relation to Sarsfield and the framework of modern Irish nationalist ideology, so as to give a point of comparison to other nationalistic martyrs, in order to judge the development of the Sarsfield myth. In Chapter IV I examine the stories and songs of Sarsfield in order to show the transformation of Sarsfield to a martyr figure.