Day: February 17, 2015

Type: Article

Mounsey, Chris. ‘Oliver Goldsmith and John Newbery’, Eighteenth-century Ireland/Iris an dá chultúr, Vol. 13 (1998), pp 149-158.

This article gives an account of London publisher John Newbery’s business relationship with Oliver Goldsmith. Mounsey considers Newbery’s dealings with Goldsmith and other authors including Johnson, Smart and Dodd, and refutes John Ginger’sportrait of Newbery as a ‘Good Samaritan’, with whom Goldsmith was fortunate to be associated. On the contrary, an assessment of Newbery’s business accounts reveals that his authors were low paid, and that Newbery forced them into a position in which they were in debt him. Mounsey concludes that in the eighteenth-century it was common that ‘the newly educated bourgeois writers writing for money had to dance to their publisher’s tune and their works should be read accordingly’. In Goldsmith’s case, Newbery’s influence was so strong that we should, perhaps review the idea that Goldsmith’s works genuinely reflect his own views. When Newbery died and Goldsmith moved out of Islington prison, it must have been a joy to him ‘to regain control over his life and work’.

Type: Article

Morley, Vincent. ‘Tá an cruatan ar Sheoirse’ folklore or politics?’, Eighteenth-century Ireland/Iris an dá chultúr, Vol. 13 (1998), pp 112-120.

This article begins by referring to what seem to be two differing positions held by S. J. Connolly of the significance of the song ‘Tá an cruatan ar Sheoirse’ written by Eoghan Rua Ó Súilleabháin during the American War of Independence. In Religion, Law and Power: The Making of Protestant Ireland 1660-1760 (Oxford, 1992), Connolly had described the song as far removed from ‘informed engagement with contemporary diplomacy and military strategy’ whereas in a recent article, Connolly had cited the song in support of ‘the startling assertion’ that the central premise of Irish jacobitism was the ‘continued incorporation’ of Ireland in the British state. Morley undertakes a detailed analysis of the poem, its contexts and its commentators. He asserts that ‘Tá an cruatan ar Sheoirse’ was composed for a specific audience : the Irish-speaking Catholic population of Munster whose interests in war were in Europe. For the first time since 1763, Britain was engaged in an international war which had the potential to overturn the Revolution settlement. Connolly had criticized Ó Súilleabháin’s song for its lack of American revolutionary references and its failure to understand ‘contemporary diplomacy and military strategy’. But Morley challenges Connolly’s assumptions about Ó Súilleabháin and about levels of English literacy and political comprehension amongst the native Irish, and discusses factors that may have contributed to Connolly’s misreading of the text. In general, Morley believes that ‘the song was written by someone with a good understanding of contemporary diplomacy and military strategy, and that the sentiments expressed in the song are incompatible with continued Irish dependence on Great Britain’ and that Professor Connolly’s reading of the poem is ‘egregiously wrong’.

Type: Article

Tucker, Bernard. ‘‘Our Chief Poetess’: Mary Barber and Swift’s Circle.’, Eighteenth-century Ireland/Iris an dá chultúr, Vol. 7 (1992), Pp 43-56.

Until recently, according to Bernard Tucker, ‘scant attention’ has been paid to Irish women poets of the first half of the eighteenth-century. Despite the success of her collection titled Poems Continue reading Vol. 7: Tucker, Bernard.

Type: Article

Magennis, Eoin. ‘A “Beleaguered Protestant”?: Walter Harris and the Writing of Fiction Unmasked in Mid-Eighteenth Century Ireland’, Eighteenth-century Ireland/Iris an dá chultúr, Vol. 13 (1998), pp 86-111.

This article looks at the attitudes and writings of the eighteenth-century historian Walter Harris within the context of Jacqueline Hill’s theory of the ‘beleaguered Protestant’. According to Magennis, Harris is an example of the complexity of Protestant opinions in mid-eighteenth century Ireland: he was an antiquarian enthusiast, yet sceptical of the Gaelic past and a ‘tribune for Ireland’s achievements and improvements but only in so far as these seemed to lessen the gap in civility with England’. Harris’s patriotism combined with anti-Catholic sentiments and a strong connection to the Church of Ireland, provided the basis of his writing of Fiction Unmasked. Magennis assesses the work in some detail and concludes that Harris’s position is too complex for him to fit easily into Jacqueline Hill’s definition. It would be wrong to see him as a throwback to an earlier age and more accurate to see him as a reflection of how diverse and complex Protestant attitudes actually were in the mid-eighteenth century.

Type: Review Article

Mac Craith, Mícheál. ‘Breandán Ó Buachalla, Aisling Ghéar’, Eighteenth-century Ireland/Iris an dá chultúr, Vol. 13 (1998), pp 166-71.

This is a review (in English) of a major work on Irish Jacobitism : described by Mac Craith as a work of deep scholarship and of meticulous research, ‘a labour of love which has taken the best part of twenty years’ — currently available only in Irish. Non Irish-speakers have consistently underestimated the importance of the evidence of Jacobitism provided by poetry in Irish. ‘While in the English-speaking world, Jacobite ideology, rhetoric and propaganda is contained in a wide variety of sources, varying from broadsides to sermons and political tracts, from medallions and glassware to street demonstrations and effigies, poetry was the sole medium for the expression of Jacobite sentiment in the Gaelic-speaking world’. Thus Gaelic poetry is the key resource for the study of Irish Jacobitism and, as Mac Craith notes, Ó Buachalla quotes from 646 poems from Gaelic Ireland and Gaelic Scotland, many of them unpublished, in the course of this magisterial work. Mac Craith elaborates on the content, argument and significance of each section of Ó Buachalla’s book ‘a particularly useful aspect of the review from the point of view of non-Irish speaking scholars’ and concludes that ‘no serious scholar of Jacobitism in these islands can afford to ignore the evidence provided by Gaelic literature. Breandán Ó Buachalla has placed us all in his debt.’

Type: Article

Le Juen, Yves. ‘The Abbé MacGeoghegan Dies’, Eighteenth-century Ireland/Iris an dá chultúr, Vol. 13 (1998), pp 135-148.

This article examines the papers relating to the demise of the Abbé James MacGeoghegan, conserved in the Archives Nationales in Paris amongst other Ancien Régime ‘Successions en déshérence’. The papers provide valuable information regarding the personal effects of MacGeoghegan, and show that, in the period before his death in 1764, he could no longer afford the lavish lifestyle he had enjoyed earlier when he had developed a taste for fine wine and food, and had purchased, on credit, a gold watch worth nearly half of his yearly stipend. The papers also shed light on MacGeoghegan’s social standing, showing that he consorted with the French aristocracy and with high officials. Upon his death, MacGeoghegan’s money and effects were forfeited to the Crown, which caused panic among his creditors, some of whom went unpaid. The article includes a semi-technical analysis of the contents of the Succession papers and appendix of persons named therein.

Type: Article

Friend, María Losada. ‘Ghosts or Frauds? Oliver Goldsmith and The Mystery Revealed’, Eighteenth-century Ireland/Iris an dá chultúr, Vol. 13 (1998), pp 159-165..

This article looks at Oliver Goldsmith’s 1762 pamphlet The Mystery Revealed as part of the Gothic tradition of the eighteenth century. In the pamphlet, and as well as in his letter entitled ‘A City Night-Piece’ in The Citizen of the World, Goldsmith uses Gothic conventions as a satiric strategy to evaluate the social conscience of Londoners, whose obsession with ghosts, superstition, religious fanaticism, gossip and scandal often ruined the reputations of innocent citizens. Friend discusses the true story of the famous Cock Lane ghost, which Goldsmith refers to in The Mystery Revealed, and which ‘allowed him to explore levels of superstition and credulity, to point out the symptoms of the lack of adequate education and to define the dangerous consequences of the national taste for public scandal and gossip’. Goldsmith is trying to ‘disclose barbarity and irrationality’; he is the ‘critical observer’ who perhaps because of his Irish perspective ‘felt detached enough from English people to criticize them freely’.

Type: Article

Fagan, Patrick. ‘Infiltration of Dublin Freemason Lodges by United Irishmen and other Republican Groups’, Eighteenth-century Ireland/Iris an dá chultúr, Vol. 13 (1998), pp 65-85.

This article gives an account of the infiltration of Freemason lodges in Dublin by the United Irishmen in the 1790’s. Fagan explores the history of the United Irishmen and the organization of Freemason lodges, and discusses the factors that contributed to the ‘hijacking of lodges as fronts for the activities of radical and republican groups’. The article surveys a number of Dublin Freemason lodges, detailing their membership and establishment, concluding that one half of Dublin lodges were infiltrated during the 1790’s by the United Irishmen or other republican groups.

Type: Article

O’Flaherty, Eamonn. ‘Burke and the Catholic Question’, Eighteenth-century Ireland/Iris an dá chultúr, Vol. 12 (1997), pp 7-27.

This article examines Edmund Burke’s writings on the Catholic question, which span nearly four decades and “contain important evidence of the development of Burke’s ideas about the nature of law and obligation and the Continue reading Vol. 12: O’Flaherty, Eamonn.

Type: Article

Lowe, N. F. ‘James Barry, Mary Wollstonecraft and 1798’, Eighteenth-century Ireland/Iris an dá chultúr, Vol. 12 (1997), pp 60-76.

One of James Barry’s paintings, Portraits in the Character of Ulysses and a Companion, depicts Edmund Burke as Ulysses, motioning to his companion to be silent. From Barry’s point of view, Continue reading Vol. 12: Lowe, N. F.

Type: Article

Davies, Simon. ‘Irish Reactions to a French bestseller’, Eighteenth-century Ireland/Iris an dá chultúr, Vol. 12 (1997), pp 87-88.

This article offers a brief discussion of Irish reactions to the French bestseller, Les liaisons dangereuses (1782). The 1784 English translation was pirated and printed in Dublin, and became popular in at Continue reading Vol. 12: Davies, Simon.

Type: Review Article

Barnard, T. C. ‘The Gentrification of Eighteenth-Century Ireland’, Eighteenth-century Ireland/Iris an dá chultúr, Vol. 12 (1997), pp 137-55.

This article assesses the contribution to the study of eighteenth-century Ireland of Dr Kevin Whelan, whom the author characterises as “one of the liveliest writers on eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Ireland” to have Continue reading Vol. 12: Barnard, T. C.

Type: Article

Nic Eoin, Máirín. ‘Secrets and Disguises? Caitlín Ní Uallacháin and other female personages in eighteenth-century Irish political poetry’, Eighteenth-century Ireland/Iris an dá chultúr, Vol. 11 (1996), pp 7-45.

This article discusses the use of vernacular names as the female personification of land and sovereignty in eighteenth-century Irish political poetry. The Continue reading Vol. 11: Nic Eoin, Máirín.

Type: Article

Maguire, W. A. ‘Castle Nugent and Castle Rackrent: fact and fiction in Maria Edgeworth’, Eighteenth-century Ireland/Iris an dá chultúr, Vol. 11 (1996), pp 146-159..

An obituary printed in the August 1789 issue of Gentleman’s Magazine on the death of Elizabeth Malyn, Lady Cathcart, reveals that her husband, Colonel Hugh Maguire, held Continue reading Vol. 11: Maguire, W. A.

Type: Article

Legg, Marie-Louise. ‘Money and Reputations: The Effects of the Banking Crises of 1755 and 1760’, Eighteenth-century Ireland/Iris an dá chultúr, Vol. 11 (1996), pp 74-87..

Following the failure of a number of Dublin banks, 1759 was a year in which the whole banking system of Ireland was on the brink Continue reading Vol. 11: Legg, Marie-Louise.

Type: Article

Kuti, Elizabeth. ‘Rewriting Frances Sheridan’, Eighteenth-century Ireland/Iris an dá chultúr, Vol. 11 (1996), pp 120-128.

This article discusses Frances Sheridan’s career as a playwright in eighteenth-century Ireland. Renowned for her novels The Memoirs of Miss Sidney Bidulph and Nourjahad, Sheridan’s plays have been overshadowed by her accomplishment as a novelist Continue reading Vol. 11: Kuti, Elizabeth.

Type: Article

Bric, Maurice J. ‘Ireland, America and the Reassessment of a Special Relationship, 1760-83’, Eighteenth-century Ireland/Iris an dá chultúr, Vol. 11 (1996), pp 88-119.

This article discusses the relationship between Ireland and America and themes of “Atlantic Patriotism” born out of the Anglo-American conflict. In the eighteenth century, Irish patriots Continue reading Vol. 11: Bric, Maurice J.

Type: Article

Whelan, Kevin. ‘An Underground gentry? Catholic Middlemen in Eighteenth-Century Ireland’, Eighteenth-century Ireland/Iris an dá chultúr, Vol. 10 (1995), pp 7-68.

Despite having been reduced to the position of middlemen and substantial farmers in the eighteenth-century, Irish descendents of the old catholic landowning families occupied an important role as the leaders of political and popular culture in Irish society. The displaced catholic gentry formed a new social and economic system for survival in response to the conflict and upheaval caused by the issues of land ownership. “The descendants of the old proprietors mutated into an underground gentry, the shadow lords of eighteenth-century Ireland.” Whelan’s examines, among othwer topics, the origins of the middleman system and its Jacobite influences, the middleman families’ obsession with ancestry and their contempt for the Cromwellian landlords, and the influence of the middlemen in Irish popular culture. The concept of middlemen gave rise to the ‘catholic big farmer’, a far more conservative line of the Irish catholic gentry who enjoyed prosperity and secure positions in society. Whelan discusses the increasing anxiety felt by the official gentry in response to the independence and power achieved by the families of catholic middlemen and big farmers. The idea of an alternative gentry of Jacobites and United Irishmen strained the relations between protestant landlords and catholic tenants.

Type: Article

Parnell, J. T. ‘‘Que sçais-je?’—Montaigne’s Apology, Hamlet and Tristram Shandy: Enquiry and Sceptical Response’, Eighteenth-century Ireland/Iris an dá chultúr, Vol. 10 (1995), Pp 148-155.

While contemporary critics considered Laurence Sterne’s Tristram Shandy to be a work of plagiarism, modern critics celebrate it for “laying bare of the conditions of literary production”. This article discusses the intertextuality of Laurence Sterne’s Tristram Shandy, with particular reference to Sterne’s literary allusions to Shakespeare’s Hamlet and Montaigne’s Apology. Parnell acknowledges the contextualities explored by one recent critic, Jonathan Lamb, but criticizes the limits that Lamb imposes through a narrow view of Sterne’s influences. Like Swift and Montaigne, “Sterne is intellectually radical and the discourse of his fiction clearly has subversive potential, and yet such potential is paradoxically contained and appropriated for conservative ends”. Parnell maintains that Sterne consciously alluded to particular works popular during the eighteenth century in order to make Tristram Shandy more comprehensible to his readers.

Type: Article

McMinn, Joseph. ‘In State Opinions Alamode: Swift and the Frontispiece to Thomas Burnett’s Essays (1714)’, Eighteenth-century Ireland/Iris an dá chultúr, Vol. 10 (1995), pp 120-126..

This article gives an account of a small octavo volume entitled Essays Divine, Moral and Political which was supposed to have been written by Jonathan Swift in 1714 — the year in which the Tories fell from power and Swift took up residence at the Deanery of St. Patrick’s. The volume is in fact a product of political vengeance, probably written by one of Swift’s Whig opponents, Thomas Burnet. One of the most interesting features of the volume is the frontispiece, an engraving which shows Swift on horseback, leaving buildings which are said to represent Swift’s Deanery in Dublin. McMinn analyses the scene depicted in the engraving and its relevance to the Essays. While evidence suggests that the picture is fictitious, having no actual connection to Swift’s Deanery or to Dublin, he concludes that the images are meant to represent Swift as a man “on the run…disturbed by alarming political news: this is the most plausible link between the Whig witch-hunt of the period and the image of Swift departing from his new home”.

Type: Article

Kelly, James. ‘A Most Inhuman and Barbarous Piece of Villainy’: An Exploration of the Crime of Rape in Eighteenth-Century Ireland’, Eighteenth-century Ireland/Iris an dá chultúr, Vol. 10 (1995), pp 78-107..

In eighteenth-century Ireland, the occurrence of sexual violence against women was frequent enough to require strong legislation, including the provision of capital punishment, to punish men who raped women. While evidence suggests that the legislative changes of 1710 made it easier to prosecute a man for rape, resulting in more convictions, the ‘disincentives’ for women to report and prosecute a rapist far outweighed any benefits intended by the law. The patriarchal idealization of female virtue made it necessary for any woman to “maintain the illusion of chastity rather than make public her sexual history”. Kelly discusses documented cases of prosecutions for rape to identify the main features of the crime as perpetrated in eighteenth-century Ireland. Issues of property and class are explored, as well as incidences of child rape. Kelly concludes that “rape has been used in a conscious way by men throughout history to confine women”, creating an “environment in which women were not able to function free of fear”. This article is an extension of the same author’s “The Abduction of Women of Fortune in Eighteenth-Century Ireland” in Pp 7-43.

Type: Note

Gould, Peter. ‘What is the News from Lisbon?’, Eighteenth-century Ireland/Iris an dá chultúr, Vol. 10 (1995), pp 156-57..

A note requesting any reader with information on how news of the Lisbon earthquake of 1755 was received in Ireland to contact the writer who is working on the subject.

Type: Article

Elias, A. C. Jr. ‘Dublin at Mid-Century: The Tricks of The Tricks of the Town Laid Open.’, Eighteenth-century Ireland/Iris an dá chultúr, Vol. 10 (1995), pp 108-119..

This article gives an account of an eighteenth-century pamphlet titled, The Tricks of the Town, which purports to describe the city of Dublin in the early 1750’s. In fact, the city described in The Tricks of the Town is not Dublin at all, but rather London in the late seventeenth-century. The Dublin pamphlet is, except in a few instances, a reprint of a 1746 pamphlet of identical title about London, which in turn is a reprint of a 1699 pamphlet titled The Country Gentleman’s Vade Mecum. The text includes a detailed description of the alterations made to the Dublin edition from the London 1746 edition.

Type: Article

Douglas, Aileen. ‘Mrs. Dingley’s Spectacles: Swift, Print and Desire’, Eighteenth-century Ireland/Iris an dá chultúr, Vol. 10 (1995), pp 69-77.

In his Journal to Stella, Jonathan Swift is concerned with the idea of ‘seeing’ — a theme expressed through the symbolism of Mrs. Dingley’s spectacles. Just as Lemuel Gulliver’s spectacles allow him to see, or rather, to have “an understanding of human identity”, Rebecca Dingley is the third party, “who both sees and does not see”. Swift, knowing that Dingley read his letters to Stella — since Stella’s eyes were too weak to read them herself—made Dingley’s participation integral to the text. “The rhetorical structures of the Journal dictate what Rebecca Dingley sees”. The article also explores Dingley’s eyes as crucial to Swift’s expression of sexual desires, for “her inclusion dissipates the Journal’s sexuality by turning it into a joke”. While it is evident that Swift did not initially intend the Journal for publication, it is within the framework of the epistolary novel that the subject “comes into being”, and provides “a space for passion which might not otherwise exist”. Finally, Douglas draws comparisons with Richardson’s Pamela to suggest that “the Journal to Stella shares with eighteenth-century novels an understanding of the erotic possibilities of print”.

Type: Article

Archibald, Douglas. ‘Edmund Burke and the Conservative Imagination’, Eighteenth-century Ireland/Iris an dá chultúr, Vol. 10 (1995), pp 127-147.

According to Douglas Archibald, the ‘conservative imagination’ of Edmund Burke resides in a fragile balance between vision and realism, contrasting with a personal longing and impulsiveness hinging on hysteria. “Burke defines the conservative imagination in its moments of excess as well as in its moments of insight and harmony. He is our model of the pathology of that imagination as well as of its strengths.” Archibald discusses Burke’s background as an Irish catholic of no connection or wealth, who despite his insight and unwavering faith in tradition and the party, was the political underdog in Irish politics and subsequently suffered political and personal defeat. Archibald concludes that the often ‘apocalyptic’ characteristics of Burke’s ‘conservative imagination’ are felt also in the writings of Swift, Pope and W. B. Yeats.

Type: Article

Lurbe, Pierre. ‘Epsom as emblem: John Toland’s Description of Epsom.’, Eighteenth-century Ireland/Iris an dá chultúr, Vol. 9 (1994), Pp 129-136..

This article discusses The Description of Epsom (1711) by John Toland, a far lesser known work than his ‘scandalous’ Christianity not Mysterious (1696), and a surprising departure from his usual Continue reading Vol. 9: Lurbe, Pierre.

Type: Article

Silke, John J. ‘Bishop Coyle’s Pious Miscellany’, Eighteenth-century Ireland/Iris an dá chultúr, Vol. 9 (1994), Pp 114-128..

Irish catholics writing in the eighteenth century believed there was a ‘common cause’ between catholicism and the Irish language. The fact that Anthony Coyle, bishop of Raphoe wrote his Collectanea sacra: or Continue reading Vol. 9: Silke, John J.

Type: Article

Ross, Bianca. ‘Of Prejudice and Predilection: Lady Morgan and her ‘Annals of St. Grellan’’, Eighteenth-century Ireland/Iris an dá chultúr, Vol. 9 (1994), Pp 99-113..

This article discusses the problems associated with Lady Morgan’s use of Irish history in The O’Briens and the O’Flahertys: A National Tale (1827). Of Continue reading Vol. 9: Ross, Bianca.

Type: Article

O’Brien, Gillian. ‘”Spirit, Impartiality and Independence” The Northern Star, 1792-1797’, Eighteenth-century Ireland/Iris an dá chultúr, Vol. 13 (1998), pp 7-23.

The ‘increasingly literate and politicised society’ of eighteenth-century Ireland demanded a quick and efficient method of communicating, and thus influenced the increase in the number of newspapers being published in Ireland in the latter half of the century. At the same time, the strong growth in the publishing industry in Belfast concerned Dublin Castle, particularly when it came to one newspaper, The Northern Star, which went on sale in January 1792. This article discusses the appearance and makeup of The Northern Star in detail and considers its impact on its readers. The shareholders were predominantly members of the United Irishmen of Belfast and O’Brien explains how an extensive distribution system was developed throughout the island to spread United Irish opinion to as many people as possible. In late eighteenth-century Ireland, the purchase of The Northern Star was as potent a symbol of freethinking, independent citizenship as bearing arms.

Type: Article

Carey, Daniel. ‘Swift Among The Freethinkers’, Eighteenth-century Ireland/Iris an dá chultúr, Vol. 12 (1997), pp 89-99.

Jonathan Swift’s ongoing ‘literary battles’ with freethinkers impelled him to use a variety of rhetorical strategies to combat the threat which freethinkers posed to Anglican orthodoxy and to Swift’s political position as a Tory. Continue reading Vol. 12: Carey, Daniel.