UNIVERSITY OF NEWCASTLE NEWCASTLE UNIVERSITY`LIBRARY 097 52629 3 ---------------------------- Thesºs L6li b AN EXEMPLARY PROTESTANT: A STUDY OF THE MYTH OF JOHN HEWITT AND ITS PLACE WITHIN CONTEMPORARY LITERARY DEBATE IN NORTHERN IRELAND A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF ARTS IN CANDIDACY FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LITERARY AND LINGUISTICS STUDIES BY SARAH FERRIS NEWCASTLE UPON TYNE APRIL, 1998 11 ABSTRACT This thesis is an epistemological study of John Hewitt's place in critical dialogue on Northern Irish writing and offers a telling perspective on changing attitudes to Protestant cultures after the Troubles re-emerged in 1968. Hewitt's work is of crucial importance because of his insistently biographical style, and the length of his career which began soon after Northern Ireland was founded. The approach consists of close textual analysis of Hewitt's body of work and of material available in public archives, unpublished private sources, and from interviews with his acquaintances and professional associates. Chapters One and Two are a comparative study of Hewitt's, partly self-constructed, presentation as a martyr and the tarnishing of Samuel Ferguson's relationship to Ireland. Ö Analysis of criticism of Ferguson by Robert O'Driscoll, Greagoir Will and David Cairns and Shaun Richards reveals that he was increasingly traduced as a reactionary Protestant and purloiner of Ireland's cultural assets for the Ascendancy. A parallel study of Hewitt shows that he metamorphosed from neglected `exile' to `father of modern Ulster poetry', exemplary Protestant and icon of cultural liberalism. Chapters Three to Seven examine the use of Hewitt by Northern intellectuals, primarily Edna Longley, Michael Longley, Gerald Dawe, Tom Clyde and Frank Ormsby. The thesis develops the theme that Hewitt was imaginatively exploited to create a space apart from the unattractive choices to engage either with a `compromised' ruling class within Northern Ireland or an ascendant romantic nationalism. In this respect, what is considered as Hewitt's `radical regionalism' was particularly welcomed as a means to sustain a critical autonomy in the North. Chapter Three builds on Chapters One and Two by exploring the interrelationship between the development of political conflict, Hewitt's critical revival, and an escalating tendency to stereotype Protestant cultures. Chapters Four to Seven focus on Hewitt as myth maker, untangling the processes whereby he successfully projected himself as a socialist evangelist, radical regionalist, `spiritual maverick', and idealised secular dissenter of English `planter' stock. This extensive body of evidence demonstrates the use of Hewitt as a source for philanthropic models of community harmony, and provides the context within which this use of him takes place: a context which is distinguished by proliferating, negative views of `Protestant' cultures and their literary legacies. 111 TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ABSTRACT ii .................................................................................................................. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS iv ........................................................................................... INTRODUCTION 1 .......................................................................................................... 1 JOHN HEWITT'S DISCIPLES AND THE `KALEYARD PROVINCIALS' 9 .............. 2 SAMUEL FERGUSON AND THE `HERMENEUTICS OF SUSPICION' 39 ............... 3 `ISN'T IT STRANGE THAT PROTESTANTS CAN'T DANCE? ' 66 ......................... 4 JOHN HEWITT: CULTURAL CRUSADER? 104 ....................................................... 5 JOHN HEWITT 'SPIRITUAL MAVERICK'? 165 :A ................................................. 6 JOHN HEWITT : 'AN OLD ACTOR WITH A CORE OF LIGHT IN HIS HEART'?....... 194 7A PERFECT PROTESTANT? 246 ............................................................................... CONCLUSION 292 .......................................................................................................... AFTERWORD 293 ........................................................................................................... BIBLIOGRAPHY 295 ....................................................................................................... IV ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I acknowledge the generous assistance of Roy McFadden through conversations and letting me see his correspondence and papers, and of Noel Carnduff who gave me unlimited access to Thomas Carnduff s papers, and the help of people listed at the end of the thesis who let me interview them. I also acknowledge the help of J. C. Nolan, former Director of the Ulster Museum, in allowing me access to his private papers, and Nicola McNee, archivist of the John Hewitt Collection, University of Ulster at Coleraine. I am grateful to the Arts Council Northern Ireland for permission to view the Literature Committee Minutes, and the staffs of the BBC Radio Archive at the Ulster Folk and Transport Museum, Cultra, the Belfast Central Library, the Queen's University Library, the Linen Hall Library, the National Library of Scotland, and the Public Record Office Northern Ireland. Parts of this thesis first gained from the opportunity to receive feedback when given as papers at Liverpool Institute of Irish Studies, Newcastle University and Bath Spa University College. Material derived from Chapter One is forthcoming in Irish Encounters, Sulis Press, Bath, (1998). Finally, I would like to thank my supervisor, Desmond Graham, for his infinite patience and support. 1 INTRODUCTION Northern Irish Protestant voices have suffered negative criticism since the Troubles re-emerged in 1968. Critics often seem to find it difficult to reconcile Protestant narratives to received ideas of `nation' and `national identity', particularly when interpretedthrough a romantic vision of Ireland as a fractured but historical and organic whole. Protestant writers are routinely judged inhibited through lack of a `national tradition', locked in reaction to an obscurantist culture and troubled by identity crises. Chapters One and Two comprise parallel studies of two key `Protestant' writers, SamuelFerguson and John Hewitt. These consider evidencewhich shows that partisaninfluences forced dramaticshifts in their literary reputations. In Chapter One, Hewitt's rise to prominence is juxtaposed with a context receptiveto the `myth' he assiduouslypropagated: that in the 1950s he was victimised by a repressive `establishment' because of his anti- sectarian,radical socialist evangelism.It is suggestedthat this `myth' had little substancebut that by 1969Hewitt's image as `artist beset by bigots' had gained an observable mythological impetus that superseded previous critical indifference to his work. Hewitt claimed that in 1952 he was excluded from the Directorship of the Belfast Museum and Art Gallery because of a Unionist intrigue. To investigate this accusation, Chapter One utilises previously unused archive material, particularly the Libraries, Museums& Art CommitteeMinutes of the Belfast City Council. Also consulted are contemporary newspaper reports and crucial primary 2 evidence held in the Public Record Office Northern Ireland [PRONI], including Roberta Hewitt's Journal. Chapter Two examines a different author, Samuel Ferguson, and a downturn in his reputation that parallels the rise of Hewitt's. The reasons why unsympathetic approaches to Ferguson intensified are complex. When critics interpret Ferguson in the context of the Troubles, his overt Protestantism, stout defence of the nineteenth century British political system and determinedly equable approaches to Irish language literature and Ulster Scots lore seem to be viewed, at best, with embarrassment. Consequently, although Ferguson's contribution to Irish literature was pivotal he became increasingly sidelined. In 1965, Robert O'Driscoll identified Ferguson as an important pioneer and "originator of the Irish literary revival".' By 1976, however, O'Driscoll depicted Ferguson as a cultural nationalist whose romantic identification with Ireland led him to disregard his Protestant integrity and embrace an Irish identity., O'Driscoll's revised emphasisseems to imply that the abandonmentof a distinctive Irish Protestant integrity is a prerequisite for `Irishness'. Chapter Two re-evaluatesFerguson's original correspondencewhich is held at the National Library of Scotland, his publishedwritings and M. C. Ferguson's biography, Sir Sanwel Ferguson in the Ireland of His Day (1896). These suggest O'Driscoll used quotations misleadingly. Subsequent critics then recycled O'Driscoll's work to validate a politically crucial 1 R. O'Driscoll, "Two voices : one beginning", Dublin UniversityReview, 3,8, (1965), 93. 2R O'Driscoll, An Ascendancy of the Heart : Ferguson and the Beginnings of Afodern Irish Literature in English, (1976). 3 misrepresentation of Ferguson. By the 1980s, Ferguson was interpreted largely within a twentieth century Marxist framework and reduced to exploiter of Ireland's cultural assets on behalf of the Ascendancy. The argumentsoutlined in this chapter posit an alternativeview of Fergusonas a patriotic Irishman and convinced Protestant whose intellect subverts crude stereotyping. They contend that Ferguson's passionate dedication to his country's literary heritage is ill served when interpreted retrospectively through the narrow prism of contemporary political and sectarian ideologies. In ChaptersOne and Two, comparisonbetween Ferguson's downgraded