IRISH HISTORY SINCE 1850
2. An Gorta Mór
3. The Land League
4. Parnell and Home Rule
5. Unionism
6. The Cultural Revival
7. Home Rule
8. The Easter Rebellion
9. The War of Independence
10. The Free State: '20s
11. The Free State: '30s
12. The Troubles: '60s & '70s
13. The Troubles: '80s & '90s
14. The Celtic Tiger
15. Death of the Tiger
16. Sources
The Cultural Revival
After the Famine many thinkers, artists, and political activists began realizing that traditional Irish culture was in danger of being lost. Ireland was undergoing a process of Anglicization. Most aspects of Irish life were being replaced by British forms. The Irish were increasingly exposed to British authors, playwrights, newspapers, sports, music, business practices, and laws. There was a fear that unless the process of Anglicization was arrested Ireland would cease to be distinctive. There was also a realization that without an indigenous Irish culture the demands for a separate Irish nation would be meaningless. Ireland had to remain distinctive in terms of its culture to truly be free. If Anglicization continued unchecked, any future freedom would result in an independent nation that was culturally indistinct from the rest of Britain. To confront the challenge of Anglicization a series of movements in art, literature, drama, and sport emerged that would champion traditional Irish culture.
During the nineteenth century traditional Irish sports, such as hurling, Gaelic football, and handball, went into steep decline. The reasons for this were:
- The loss of population and stability caused by the Famine.
- Legislation that prevented the holding of fairs and other gatherings on holidays and Saint's Days. Traditional sports had been a feature of such days, but the British authorities and the Catholic Church considered them too rowdy.
- The spread of British sports through the schools and colleges of Ireland. It was felt that games such as cricket taught young men how to become gentlemen whilst Irish games were for the savages and not to be encouraged.
Similarly, people felt that the Irish language was being supplanted by English. Although not a dead language, over the centuries it had been replaced by English. The same problem existed with Irish art and culture. People feared that it was either imported straight from Britain or that Irish artists and writers simply copied the styles from across the Irish Sea. The numbers of Irish speakers fell in the decades after the Irish Famine of the mid-19th century, but was preserved by the work of organizations such as the Gaelic League.
The Cultural Revival was a wide ranging movement that operated in many different areas of Irish society. The work of the cultural revivalists was felt in many disparate areas of life and would play an important role in arresting the spread of English forms of culture. In doing so, the Cultural Revival would play an important role in making people feel more Irish and develop a sense of nationalism.
The Irish Cultural Revival had many different features and motivations. These included:
- A promotion of the language and traditional culture in the arts, literature, theatre, and sport.
- Support for indigenous agriculture and industry.
- A rejection of British forms of culture, which were viewed as destroying the fabric of the Irish nation.
- A realization that the preservation of Irish culture was linked to demands for national independence.
- An overall vision of the Cultural Revival as one that was primarily Gaelic and Catholic.
The Irish weren't being difficult in their demands that they play their own sports, speak their native language, and embrace indigenous culture; they simply wanted to preserve their sense of identity in the face of one of the most powerful empires in the world. Also, the desire to preserve their heritage didn't mean, as many observers in Britain argued, that the Irish were backward or savages. Many sectors of Irish society, such as the middle and upper classes, had embraced British culture. The Cultural Revival aimed at removing the appeal of British Culture and demonstrating how vibrant and important Irish Culture could be.
In fact what they wanted to embrace were traditions of culture that emerged during the pre-British era. These traditions, symbolized by work such as the Book of Kells, were based on high levels of learning. Traditional Irish games, such as hurling, relied on physical and technical skill. By attempting to preserve an Irish culture, the Gaelic League, Gaelic Athletic Association, and others were building on traditions of innovation and excellence. Just because it was different to British culture didn't mean that it was a bad thing.
Two different organizations spearheaded the campaign to preserve an Irish Ireland:
- The Gaelic Athletic Association: Formed in 1884, this sporting organization feared that Irish men were becoming weak and effeminate because they were playing British sports such as cricket, soccer, and hockey, and forgetting the traditional manly Irish games of hurling and Gaelic football.
- The Gaelic League: Formed in 1893, the Gaelic League sought to preserve the Irish language. Its leaders argued that without its own language, Irish — often referred to as Gaelic — Ireland could never be a nation. The League's aim was to arrest the spread of the English language and restore Irish as the native tongue.
The Gaelic Athletic Association was founded by a school teacher, Michael Cusack (probably the character of The Citizen in Joyce's Ulysses, an ultra-patriot), to preserve and cultivate the Irish national sporting pastimes. The Association not only promoted what were called the native games, but also encouraged the use of the Irish language and supported the demands for national freedom.
While the Gaelic Athletic Association was successful in promoting its native games, English sports were still hugely popular. As late as 1900 the game played most often in Ireland was cricket. A decision was made that would profoundly influence the sporting landscape in Ireland: British sports would be banned. From the 1890s the Gaelic Athletic Association banned its members from playing or even watching what were called the foreign or garrison games (those associated with the British military). These were cricket, soccer, rugby, and hockey. With the support of the nationalist press, who vociferously attacked young Irish men who played such games as unpatriotic, the ban was successful and led to a further upsurge in popularity for the native games.
The Gaelic Athletic Association's ban on foreign games was finally lifted in 1971. However, because of the troubles in Northern Ireland, new rules were introduced that banned members of the British Army or Royal Ulster Constabulary from playing any part in the Association. It also decided that the grounds of the Association should not host foreign games. These were controversial decisions, and in recent years have dominated debates within Irish society. As part of its commitment to the peace process the Association dropped its ban on members of the security forces in 2001, and in 2005 agreed that soccer and rugby could be played at Croke Park.
The sports of the Gaelic Athletic Association are still hugely popular today. The Association's national stadium, Croke Park (named after its founding patron, Archbishop Croke), is the largest in the country. Every September it is full to capacity — 85,000 people — for the hurling and Gaelic football finals. All the counties of Ireland — north and south — dream of winning the All Ireland final, and the players who win the title (all of whom are amateurs) become local heroes.
Cusack claimed that the organization spread across Ireland like a prairie fire. This probably overstates the levels of success that the Association achieved. At the time of its establishment the Association forged a close link with the Catholic Church, and based its club structure around the parish. In principle all parishes had a club and the local priest was the President of the club. In practice, clubs often struggled to establish themselves. It wasn't until the period of the ban, and the promotion of the Association by the press as a patriotic act, that the fire really started to burn. The keys to success though were that the games were good to play and watch, were well organized, and, because of the parish organization, they forged a real sense of local community.
giving lectures, forming night classes, establishing branches,
and exhorting native and heritage speakers to value
their linguistic inheritance.
The Gaelic League was the brain child of Eugene O'Downey, a Professor of Irish, and two other academically minded gentlemen, Douglas Hyde and Eoin MacNeill. Hyde focused everyone's mind in a famous lecture titled "The necessity of de-anglicizing the Irish people." He argued that English linguistic and cultural forms were taking over, and unless something was done to change things, the Irish, as a culturally distinct people, would disappear forever. To encourage the work of the League and to spread its message branches were set up across the country. By 1908 there were 599 separate branches in Ireland, and every county was represented. The League organized speakers to travel the country promoting its work. They published books and plays, and through its branches encouraged people to learn Irish and to take part in events and gatherings that promoted traditional culture. They even encouraged people to wear, whenever possible, Irish-made clothes.
Douglas Hyde was a Protestant, as were many of the members of the Gaelic League. Although the League argued that Ireland was a distinct nation because of its culture, this did not initially equate to demands for political separation from Britain. Hyde always argued that the work of the League was politically neutral and that love of the Irish language and culture was something that could bring all Irish people together — whatever their religion. By the time of the First World War this had changed, and the League became an organization that saw itself as one that promoted an identity that was Irish and Catholic. This did not mean however that it was closed to Protestants: it also appealed to them as it was a patriotic movement.
Those engaged in the cultural revival, for all their good ideas, had a big problem. How to actually implement their ideas and make Ireland Irish? However they may have felt, Ireland, in the late nineteenth century, had a close political, economic, and culture relationship with Britain, the world's largest trading and economic power. They couldn't simply ignore Britain and hope that it would go away. What the Gaelic League and the Gaelic Athletic Association tried to do was to convince people to embrace their own culture, to make them proud to be Irish, and through their various branches and clubs, to let people enjoy themselves in words, songs, music, and play.
As well as promoting Irish Culture amongst the Irish people, the period of the Cultural Revival allowed for the emergence of many of Ireland's most notable artists in the fields of literature, drama, and the arts. Everyone it seemed was an artist, working on their latest poem, play, or painting. The very presence of such high levels of quality work appeared to make real the old adage that Ireland was the country of saints and scholars. As well as men such as Douglas Hyde and Eoin MacNeill from the leadership of the Gaelic League, the period from the 1880s through to the 1920s witnessed the arrival of such luminaries as the writers W.B. Yeats, James Joyce, Maude Gonne, Oscar Wilde, and Samuel Beckett, the playwrights J.M. Synge and Sean O'Casey and the artists Jack Yeats, William Orpen, and Sean Keating. These people defined Ireland during an age of change. They turned to Ireland — especially the West of the country and its ancient folklore — for their inspiration, and their work still finds an audience today.
The writers and artists of the Cultural Revival drew their inspiration from Ireland's past. In the search for an authentic representation of this, many of them turned to the West of Ireland for inspiration. The West of Ireland — particularly counties Kerry, Clare, Galway, and Mayo — attracted these arty types as it was seen to be unspoiled. The region had not modernised greatly, and it still contained a large Irish-speaking population who made their living off the land and lived traditional lives. Particularly important were the Aran and Blasket Islands and Connemara, as it was there that oral traditions of folklore and history were dominant. In effect the West was a living museum, full of Irish-speaking people whose past had been passed down to them in oral form from generation to generation. In them, and in the landscape, the writers and artists found a living version of the Ireland that they felt defined the aims of the Cultural Revival.
It always seems as if the writers of the Cultural Revival were obsessed with fairies. Lots of their books and poems feature the little creatures, and there's even a famous cartoon of W.B. Yeats meeting one. But the use of fairies in the literature of the Cultural Revival did have an important point. It gave them a focus for linking together the old traditions of Ireland with the time that they lived in.
In some ways it was a man called Standish O'Grady who started it all. He wrote a book in 1878 called The History of Ireland. It dealt not with recent history, but Ireland's ancient past: old sagas, folk tales, and myths. For the readers of his work there was the realization that what O'Grady had found, and they were reading, were stories about Ireland's ancient Gaelic tradition. The stories dealt with ancient Irish characters — superheroes if you like — who were chivalrous and made old Ireland a better, more heroic place. Douglas Hyde followed O'Grady into the ring in 1889 when he published a collection of folk stories based on fairy tales and folk lore. These were published in Irish — what was felt by many to be the true language of the Cultural Revival — and drew on the oral memories and traditions of the residents of the West of Ireland. What Hyde brought to life was a world of superstition, mythology, and morality tales that hit a nerve. The traditions and people of the West were seen as romantic and truly Irish. The writers believed in the oral tradition they had discovered and Ireland that was, as one historian has noted, "miraculously preserved from the contaminating influences of civilization."
What the fairies, the ancient legends that inspired them, and the old people who still told the tales gave to the Cultural Revival was great raw material to work with, and a subject matter that was distinctly Irish. Although the writers who worked during the Cultural Revival were inspirational, and provided Ireland with a unique and distinctive literature, the people involved were mostly from elite Anglo-Irish backgrounds and were Protestants. But, due to their position as members of the gentry, many of them were close to the land. Many of them had estates or properties in the West of Ireland. So while they were distinct from the traditions they wrote about by virtue of their class, they were familiar with them by virtue of living amongst them.
There are a whole host of writers that can be connected to the Cultural Revival, and many more who were inspired by it. But all that is really needed are the main players. The ones who really drove things along at the end of the nineteenth century, and who, by associating together often, can be seen as the inspirational core for the whole movement.
- W.B. Yeats (1865--1939). The giant of the Cultural Revival, and a writer who subsequently developed even finer work after the period of the First World War. Awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1923, he also served in the Irish Senate from 1922--28.
- Lady Augusta Gregory (1852--1932). With Yeats she was the guiding light of the Cultural Revival. Famous for her role in establishing the Abbey Theatre and known for her one-act plays such as "The Gaol Gate" (1906) and "The Rising of the Moon" (1907).
- George Russell (1867--1935). Known by his pen name, AE, Russell spent his life understanding the spirit world. He was a playwright and poet, and helped develop the talents of others.
- George Moore (1852--1933). Moore divided his time between London and Dublin, and a writer fascinated by the potential of art and the work of artists. His impact in Ireland was highest at the turn of the century and his The Untilled Field was published in Irish (1902) and English (1903).
- Douglas Hyde (1860--1949). Famous for his folklore writing, Hyde's greatest impact was as an organiser and scholar. He was founder of the Gaelic League, the first Professor of modern Irish at Trinity College (1909--32), and first President of Ireland (1938--45).
- John Millington Synge (1871--1909). Synge had been working in Paris in the 1890s when he met Yeats, who convinced him to travel to the Aran Islands. His works The Aran Islands (1907) and Playboy of the Western World (1907) capture best his observations of Irish life.
The writers of the Cultural Revival were a small and select group. They knew each other well and often collaborated on their works with others from the group. They drew their inspiration from a wide range of contemporary intellectual fashion, and duly dabbled in occultism, mysticism, magic, and folklore. What they were searching for were new and exciting ways to present literature that was about Ireland, and inspired by things Irish.
When all the writers started to get together, meeting at various times at gatherings hosted by Lady Gregory at Coole Park, the conversation inevitably moved on from what they were working on, to where it might be staged. While all the writers had conceived and began producing a national literature for Ireland, they had a problem. No national theatre. It was Yeats and Lady Gregory who really drove the idea of a national theatre along. Initially the idea of a national theatre was delivered at various venues, and the most important fact was the performance of plays with an Irish character. In 1904, six years after its initial foundation, the national theatre idea found a permanent home at the Abbey Theatre. The original structure was destroyed in a fire in the 1940s, and the current theatre opened in 1966.
The first play that was performed under the auspices of a national theatre was Yeats's play The Countess Cathleen, which was problematic. The problem was that the play featured Cathleen preparing to sell her soul to the devil to feed the starving Irish (remember, this is only a few decades after the famine). While good theatre, the idea that the good Catholic Irish would ever consider selling their soul was abhorrent, and the critics had a field day. But like any art form, controversy is good news. The work that was staged by the national theatre movement was mostly high quality and met a need within people to engage with Irish-inspired plays. The Irish Literary Theatre, as it was called, went from strength to strength.
The plays that were staged mixed those in English with others in Irish, such as Hyde's The Twisting of the Rope. It also constantly dealt with the thorny issue of the Irish nation. There had been one in the ancient myths and tales, so could there be one in the future? Yeats certainly thought so. His landmark play, Cathleen ni Houlihan, focused on an old woman who represented Ireland. She talked to her audience of those who have assisted her in the past, and might die for her in the future. It struck a chord with the public, and was a very popular play.
The Irish Literary Theatre was renamed the Abbey Theatre in 1904. For the quality and range of work that has been produced there, it is one of the most important places in Irish history. While it was important for allowing the writers of the Cultural Revival a place to stage their work, it also gave them the means to communicate their ideas with the public. It wasn't always a place of consensus, and there were regular controversies over the works that were performed. But that in itself was a sign of its success. It showed that the public was engaging with the debates that were being put forward.
There were three very broad categories of Irish art that emerged in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries that defined the national style. They were:
- Paintings of the landscape.
- Depictions of peasant people and their lives.
- Sculptures and paintings of the great historic and contemporary figures in Irish life.
All this work often came together in exhibitions that were explicitly designed to showcase Irish art, and was also driven by the teaching at Dublin's Municipal School of Art. From there a group of artists emerged, tight-knit like their literary counterparts, who explicitly set out to create a national art.
All this art was all very well, but in the same way that the writers needed a theatre, so the artists needed a national gallery. There had actually been a national gallery in Dublin for ages, but it was traditional. It displayed the great art of Europe, and had little inclination to embrace Irish art. What the artists needed was someone who wished to embrace their project, and understood the need for a gallery and a collection that was avowedly Irish in content and intent.
Sir Hugh Lane was an art dealer and collector who became interested in Ireland and the Cultural Revival through his aunt, Lady Gregory. He commissioned Irish artists such as Jack Yeats to undertake commissions, and worked closely with others in the Cultural Revival movement to open an art gallery for Irish art. He finally achieved this goal in 1906 when the Dublin Municipal Gallery opened. He gave lots of his own collection to the gallery, and convinced many others to do the same. The gallery was quickly established as one of the most important in Ireland.
Lane also offered to leave the Gallery his collection of French paintings, the so-called Lane bequest, on condition that a permanent gallery was built to house them. Dublin corporation failed to do this, and the paintings controversially went to the National Gallery in London. In 1914 Lane died on board the Lusitania when it was torpedoed by the Germans off the coast of Cork. The issue of the Lane bequest became a source of disagreement between London and Dublin, and was only resolved in 1959. It was agreed that the paintings would be shown alternatively between the two cities. The Lane Gallery is still open in Dublin, and contains, as it was supposed to, a great collection of national art.
When Lane died in 1914, it was rumored that he also had with him paintings by Monet, Rembrandt, Rubens, and Titian on board the Lusitania. These were supposedly insured for $4 million. But were they ever on board, and what happened to them? The wreck of the Lusitania is now protected by a heritage order, but those who have seen the wreck claim they have seen sealed tubes down there that might contain the pictures.
Many historians have argued that the Cultural Revival bridged the gap between the fall of Parnell and the rise of Redmond. For a decade Irish nationalism was without a strong leader and lacked political cohesion. Into the void stepped the Cultural Revivalists. They ensured that the Irish people, when lacking political leadership, remained active and engaged with the idea of what it was to be Irish.
The main reasons why the Revival has to be seen as important are:
- It allowed for the creation of sporting, literary, and theatrical forms that were, by definition, Irish.
- The revival stemmed the flow of British forms of culture into Ireland.
- By playing games, reading books, attending the theatre, or using the language, the Revival allowed people to think of themselves as Irish.
- Although not explicitly political in its aims, the work of the Revival linked the promotion of an indigenous culture with the aspiration for an independent Ireland.
The various movements associated with the Revival spurred on many Irish men and women to become activists. Many of the leading figures of the revolutionary period cut their teeth in the organizations such as the Gaelic League and the Gaelic Athletic Association.
The simple question in relation to the cultural revival is, did it work? Clearly the Gaelic League and the Gaelic Athletic Association did have successes. The cultural revival attracted mass memberships, and in both the cultural and sporting arenas their work in the late nineteenth century laid the foundations for a vibrant Irish culture that still exists today. However the clock couldn't be turned back. While the Irish language was preserved it never replaced English as the main vernacular of the Irish people. The influence of Britain was simply too great. Alongside a burgeoning native culture, the Irish continued to be affected by the media, arts, and sports of its near neighbor. But what the later decades of the nineteenth century had shown was that Ireland could be Irish. This might seem an obvious statement, but an important one. By making people think of themselves as Irish, and treasure their language and heritage, the Cultural Revival ensured that people didn't become British. Ireland would remain distinct, and not simply a geographic unit of Britain which, in its habits, was no different to London or Manchester. For all its success, the Cultural Revival didn't convince everyone. Many people simply went about their daily lives and remained untouched by everything that was happening. Many unionists and Protestants understood that the Revival was challenging their values, and so ignored it, preferring instead to play cricket, watch plays written by English writers, and dismiss the Irish peasant as backwards rather than noble.