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Imagining Ireland’s
Future, 1870–1914
Home Rule,
Utopia, Dystopia
pau l i n e col l om bi e r
Imagining Ireland’s Future, 1870–1914
Pauline Collombier
Imagining Ireland’s
Future, 1870–1914
Home Rule, Utopia, Dystopia
Pauline Collombier
University of Strasbourg (UR2325/SEARCH)
Strasbourg, France
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer
Nature Switzerland AG 2023
This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the
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The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this
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Acknowledgements
Started around 2019 and continued as best as possible during the COVID
pandemic, this project has been a few years in the making and would not
have been completed without the support of quite a few people along
the way.
Archival staff and librarians provided invaluable help. As the pandemic
was raging and international travel was impossible, they emailed scans of
some of the future fictions this book relies upon, in most cases free of
charge. Librarians and archivists were also remarkably forthcoming when
I requested scans of visual material or permissions to reproduce some of
the cartoons and postcards this book displays. I’m immensely grateful to
the following institutions for the help, support and services they have pro-
vided: the National Library of Ireland, Dublin; the Library of Trinity
College Dublin; the National Library of Scotland, Edinburgh; the British
Library, London; the Rare Books and Manuscript Library of the University
of Illinois at Urbana Champaign; the Universitätsbibliothek Heidelberg;
the National Museum of Northern Ireland; the Dublin City Library; the
Catholic University of America Special Collections, Washington DC; the
National Folklore Collection at University College, Dublin; the Oireachtas
Library in Dublin; the Linen Hall Library in Belfast; the Mid-Antrim
Museum in Ballymena; and finally the Bibliothèque Nationale de France
in Paris. The British Newspapers Archive (https://www.britishnewspaper-
archive.co.uk) and the Irish Newspaper Archives (https://www.irishnews-
archive.com) have been most useful databases for this research.
v
vi ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Introduction 1
Irish Self-Government Further Imagined: Pro-home Rule
Fiction 91
Home Rule as an Anti-utopia: Advanced Nationalism and the
Future of Ireland125
Home Rule as Dystopia: What Unionists Feared Would
Happen Under Irish Self-Rule157
Reaching Out to New Converts, Providing an Outlet for New
Voices: The Use of Images and Fiction in the Debate on
Ireland’s Future219
vii
viii Contents
Epilogue325
Bibliography335
Index357
Abbreviations
ix
x Abbreviations
PM Prime Minister
RIA Royal Irish Academy
RIC Royal Irish Constabulary
SFW Sinn Féin Weekly
TCD Trinity College Dublin
TUC Trade Union Congress
UCD University College Dublin
UI United Ireland
UIL United Irish League
UK United Kingdom
UVF Ulster Volunteer Force
WFJ Weekly Freeman’s Journal
YIB Young Ireland Branch
List of Images
xi
xii List of Images
Image 11 ‘The One and Only Hope’, The Irish People, 6 March 1909.
(Courtesy: the National Library of Ireland, Dublin) 69
Image 12 ‘Expectancy’, The Leprechaun Cartoon Monthly, September
1911. (Courtesy: Dublin City Library and Archive) 70
Image 13 ‘A few trifles to be settled when we get Home Rule’, The
Leprechaun Cartoon Monthly, December 1910. (Author’s
collection)72
Image 14 ‘A Peep into the Future’, PAT, 28 August 1882. (Courtesy:
the National Folklore Collection, University College Dublin) 75
Image 15 ‘The Irish Juggernaut’, UI, 22 September 1888. (Courtesy:
Library and Research Service of the Oireachtas, Dublin) 76
Image 16 ‘Her First Work’, WFJ, 22 December 1900. (Courtesy: the
Rare Book & Manuscript Library, University of Illinois at
Urbana-Champaign)78
Image 17 ‘Exorcising a Pest’, FJ, 31 November 1883. (Courtesy:
Library and Research Service of the Oireachtas, Dublin) 79
Image 18 ‘Lord Randolph Churchill is leading on the Demon of
religious strife’, Weekly News, 23 February 1886. (Courtesy:
Library and Research Service of the Oireachtas, Dublin) 80
Image 19 ‘The Modern Champion of England’, UI, 8 May 1886.
(Courtesy: Dublin City Library and Archive) 81
Image 4 ‘Ireland a Nation III; Erin: “Take away that Ba(u)ble!”’, The
Union, 14 July 1888. (Courtesy: the National Library of
Ireland, Dublin) 174
Image 5 Frontcover of the Diary of an Irish Cabinet Minister by Frank
F. Moore, Belfast: Olley & Co., 1892. (Author’s collection) 175
Image 6 ‘Home Rule Parliament 1915’, postcard c. 1912 printed by
W. & G. Baird, Belfast. (Author’s collection) 177
Image 7 ‘If Ireland has Home Rule/ “Agin’ the Government” in the
New Irish Parliament”, London Magazine, October 1911.
(Author’s collection) 178
Image 8 ‘The Radical Programme; n°2 Home Rule’, St Stephen’s
Review, 17 October 1891. (Courtesy: the Board of Trinity
College Dublin) 189
Image 9 ‘Aviation in Ireland’, BWN, 28 August 1913 (© The British
Library Board. All rights reserved. With thanks to The British
Newspaper Archive) (www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk) 192
Image 10 ‘Donegall Place under Home Rule’, postcard c. 1912 printed
by W. & G. Baird, Belfast. (Author’s collection) 194
Image 11 ‘Belfast under Home Rule’, postcard c. 1912 printed by W. &
G. Baird, Belfast. (Courtesy: the National Museums of
Northern Ireland) 195
Image 12 ‘Carrickfergus under Home Rule’, postcard c. 1912 printed
by Valentine, Dublin. (Courtesy: the National Museums of
Northern Ireland) 196
Image 13 ‘Rowing for a Fall’, BWN, 2 July 1914. [© The British
Library Board. All rights reserved. With thanks to The British
Newspaper Archive (www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk)] 207
Image 14 Postcard entitled ‘We will cross the Boyne again’, Valentine, c.
1913. (Courtesy: the Board of Trinity College Dublin) 208
Image 15 ‘St Patrick’s Day, 1914’, BWN, 12 March 1914 [© The
British Library Board. All rights reserved. With thanks to The
British Newspaper Archive (www.britishnewspaperarchive.
co.uk)]209
turning point in the history of Irish home rule was reached: the rejection
of David Lloyd George’s budget by the Lords in 1909 led to the vote of a
reform of the upper house 2 years later: it could no longer veto but merely
delay non-money legislation for a maximum of 2 years. Two general elec-
tions had taken place in the meantime, the first in January 1910, the sec-
ond in December 1910. As both resulted in a hung Parliament, the British
Liberals were forced to renege on the step-by-step approach adopted over
the Irish question since 1906. They introduced a third home rule bill in
April 1912, which was ultimately passed by Westminster in May 1914, and
received royal assent in September 1914. However, because Britain had
declared war against Germany on 4 August, the bill was also simultane-
ously suspended for the duration of the war.
As home rule for Ireland became likelier, the opposition to it also grew
more organised and more virulent: the 1886 and 1893 home rule bills
both provoked rioting in Belfast; by 1914, armed militia organising
military-type drills and importing weapons were set up by both Irish
unionists and Irish nationalists, strongly indicating that Ireland might be
on the brink of a civil war. Ulster Unionists even pledged to ‘carry on for
[themselves] the government of those districts in which [they had] con-
trol,’10 obliging Irish nationalists and their Liberal allies to reluctantly
admit the principle of a partition of Ireland. However, this question of
partition was left unresolved, as the July 1914 multi-party conference
organised at Buckingham Palace to discuss the matter did not achieve
actual results and the bill introduced in the Lords to amend the Irish
Government Act and include provisions for partition failed to proceed
because of the start of the war.
Until 1914, self-government for Ireland was thus a prospect the likeli-
hood of which increased but ultimately remained uncertain. At first
doomed because of inner divisions within the Liberal Party and, most of
all, because of the inevitable veto of the Conservative-dominated House
of Lords, it became far more probable once that veto was removed.
Paradoxically though, Irish home rule was never implemented as the UK
engaged in a war that lasted more than anyone could have imagined in
1914. There is therefore no way of telling how self-government for Ireland
would have panned out, and historians have been reluctant to delve into
speculative history about the subject—probably because of how charged it
was, at least until the Good Friday Agreement of 1998.11
This book is not concerned with speculative history. Its aim is rather to
explore the following questions: what did home rulers want? What were
4 P. COLLOMBIER
mainly on political texts and the press and restricts his study to the crisis
provoked by third home rule debate. The purpose of this book is to
enlarge the scope of investigation and go back to the very moment the
home rule movement was born in 1870. Choosing this wider timeframe
allows to take into account the whole duration of home rule struggle and
examine contrastively and diachronically the ways actors from Ireland,
Britain and beyond imagined how self-rule would work in Ireland after
the restitution of an Irish parliament.
Those who speculated over the fate of Ireland were of different political
persuasions: some supported home rule; others were unionists; some were
republican; others were Sinn Féiners or socialists. The discourse on the
future of a politically autonomous Ireland was therefore multifaceted.
Delineating its nature and many characteristics requires to not only revisit
the written sources which have been traditionally employed by historians,
but also to resort to lesser-used sources, in particular literary fiction and
visual documents. Using literature and visual arts in a book concerned
with a political subject such as home rule is relevant: home rule inspired
fiction or ‘home rule novels’,16 with no fewer than 30 examples of predic-
tive fiction in which the question of self-government is openly a source of
speculation. In Ireland in the nineteenth century, literature, politics and
history frequently intertwined;17 particular episodes—such as the Land
War—even gave rise to specific types of fiction.18 However, despite the
significance of the Irish self-rule controversy, home rule fiction has received
little attention, and mentions of it are dispersed among a number of aca-
demic disciplines.19 A few home rule fantasies have been studied individu-
ally20 but there has hardly been a comprehensive investigation of this type
of fiction during the whole length of the home rule debate.21 James
H. Murphy even dismisses its importance in comparison to land war fic-
tion, declaring that ‘the home rule crisis of the mid-1880s (…) hardly
caused a fictional flutter, perhaps confirming its status as more of an epi-
sode in British than in Irish history’.22 This is a misleading statement,
because it considers the home rule issue within a narrow frame space-wise
and time-wise. Speculative fictions inspired by the issue of Irish self-
government were published in Ireland, in Britain and even the United
States; reviews were included in the British and Irish press. Far from being
a purely British affair, Irish home rule was a transnational debate.
Home rule future fiction deserves all the more attention as it was
extremely varied in nature and in content. The stories have different
lengths and take different forms. They are also at the crossroads of distinct
6 P. COLLOMBIER
with the readers. As was mentioned earlier, the period between 1879 and
1916 witnessed the production of a considerable body of ‘land war fic-
tion’,27 which overlaps with our texts: Ballymuckbeg (1884), The Siege of
Bodike (1886) as well as The Reconquest of Ireland, A.D. 1895 (1881), The
Great Irish Rebellion of 1886: Retold by a Landlord (1886) and 1895 under
Home Rule (1893), which tackle the fate of Irish landlords or comment on
land legislation, are all specimens of land-war writing.28 Irish and British
fictions also included political and parliamentary novels and this subgenre
certainly inspired The Next Generation (1871) or the outrageous satires
centred on fictitious parliamentary debates Hibernia’s House (1881),
Opening and Proceedings of the Irish Parliament: Two Visions (1886), and
The Diary of an Irish Cabinet Minister (1893). Several of our stories are
also war fictions and stem from another tradition inaugurated with the
publication of The Battle of Dorking by George Chesney in 1871. Future
war tales and invasion tales were a popular and influential type of literature
between 1871 and 191429 and writers inspired by the Anglo-Irish situa-
tion recurrently speculated that the settling of Ireland’s political fate might
evolve into violent conflict.30
Borrowing from a wide range of well-established as well as new and
popular literary forms was certainly a strategy for authors and publishers
to make a political point while adhering to the tastes of the day and attract
as large and diverse a readership as possible. Fiction mattered all the more
in politics as reading expanded significantly due to an increase in literacy
rates over the course of the nineteenth century.31 By the time Isaac Butt
launched his HGA in 1870, it also had become an eminently political
activity in Ireland.32 That home rule novels were intended to attract inter-
est from a large public can be inferred from the advertisements and reviews
published in the press. Moreover, most of the fictions discussed in this
book were short and sold at a cheap price. Some of the publishing houses
were known for producing affordable and popular or radical literature
targeting the working classes or lower middle classes. While a majority of
these predictive works were published anonymously or under a nom de
plume, not all were. However, few of the authors writing in their own
names can be said to have been well-known either in politics or in litera-
ture. Interestingly a few female authors experimented with this genre,
albeit often anonymously. Fiction therefore provided a medium through
which greater numbers could be mobilised, and a space where alternative
voices could become involved in the debate (chapter ‘Reaching Out to
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nekem ékszert? Hogy fogadjak el tőle ily drága ajándékot? Nem…
nem… nem lehet! Visszaküldöm még holnap, jókor reggel, a
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tanítványa van, valaki más küldhette, neki eszébe sem jutott. Erre
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Elkedvetlenedve kelt föl helyéről. Nagyon rosszul esett neki az a
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sőt talán megbosszulja magát s kigúnyolja az ő begyeskedését. Már
most mit csináljon az ékszerrel? Így is, úgy is baj. Méregbe jött s oly
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– Igazán keményen itéltem meg szegény Bélát – suttogta,
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finom ember, gondolta, hogy ha így titkon küldi, mint atyámnak régi
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Valóban magam sem sejthettem volna, ha szolgája történetből nem
dadog. De miért küldi szolgájától? Maga, szegény, csak nem
hozhatta, idegenre pedig nem bízhatni ennyi kincset… De mi ez? –
kiáltott, hirtelen a gyertyához emelve a karpereczet – ide valami van
írva, talán a nevem. Nem az… «Aime celui qui t’aime, et sois
heureuse en lui»… Szép, nagyon szép. Ezt abból a könyvből írta ki,
melyből a minap egy verset olvasott föl nekem. Mily lelkesen olvasta,
hogy kiemelte e sort! Mintha most is hallanám, látnám s hajának
rózsaillata lengene körül. Oh, édes Bélám, te sohasem czéloztál
szerelmedre, csak most vallod be s mi gyöngéden. S én mégis
vádollak. Bocsáss meg! Ime, karomra húzom karpereczedet. Mi jól
áll… Hát e fülbevalókat miért nem próbálnám föl? Ah, be fölséges,
mi szép leszek a jogászbálban?
E végszavakat már tükre előtt mondta, a fényes, tiszta, nagy
tükör előtt, mely gyönge világítás mellett is teljes szépségében
sugározta vissza alakját. Megkönnyebbülve, szabadulva az
önvádtól, egészen átadta magát a szerelem, hiúság és kiváncsiság
felindulásának. Nem gondolt semmi egyébre, csak arra, hogy szép,
hogy Béla szereti s csak azzal törődött: vajjon nem volna-e jó báli
ruhájában próbálni fel az ékszereket. Legalább azt sejtettem minden
mozdulatából. A fiókból fésüt és kefét, a szekrényből ruhát vett elő.
Újonnan fésülte magát, egészen máskép rendezte fürteit s egyszerre
csak szebb, ünnepélyesb, úribb alakot váltott, inkább kiemelkedtek
halántékának körvonalai s fehér, kerek nyakának szépsége. A báli s
otthoni ruha közt csakugyan nagy különbség van. Alig lehetett
Charlottera ismerni ebben a virágkoszorús fehér ruhában, mely most
van először rajta. Erre már illik az ékszer! Bátran letekinthet karjára,
oly fehér, gömbölyű s oly szépen simul reá a smaragdos
aranykarperecz; bátran hajlonghat, a nyakláncz sárgazöldes fénye
most élénkíti, majd enyhíti nyaka és válla szikrázó fehérségét s
valami tündéri bájt kölcsönöz körvonalainak; azok a fülbevalók mi
kedvesen rezegnek, mint harmatcsöppes zöld levélkék, mintha édes
titkokat susognának neki s a melltű alatt mi örömben dobog a szív,
mintha az a melltű nem is volna egyéb, mint egy szívéből nőtt virág.
Bohó ábrándjából és öröméből a folyosón hallszó léptek verték
föl. Azt hitte, atyja; hirtelen lecsatolta a karpereczet, a nyaklánczot is
le akarta vetni. De abban hagyta, a léptek elhangzottak. Nem atyja
volt, hanem valamelyik lakó.
– S ha atyám így találna is?… Azt mondanám, ruhámat
próbálom, az ékszert cserébe kaptam az aranyművestől anyám
ékszereiért, persze pótolnom kellett sokkal, de gazdálkodtam, egy év
alatt sokat meg lehet takarítani a konyhapénzből, meg sok másból.
Atyám elhinné, de hazudnék. Ártatlan hazugság. Nem hazudtam-e
még máskor is neki, mert levertem egyik legkedvesebb képét s azt
mondottam, hogy magától esett le; mikor a minap nagyon fájt a
fejem, nem mondtam-e, hogy nincs semmi bajom, ne hívjon orvost; s
nem hazudott neki édes anyám is halálos ágyán, mikor azt
mondotta, hogy jobban van, pedig szegény már haldoklott? Az ilyen
hazugság szabad.
Így megnyugtatva magát, újra fölcsatolta a karpereczet, újra a
tükörbe nézett és mosolygott a tükörnek, arczának, mosolyának
boldogságának. Teljesen meg volt elégedve magával s kétszer-
háromszor ismételte suttogva: – Aime celus qui t’aime, et sois
heureuse en lui.
– Bizony senki sem lesz nálamnál szebb a jogászbálban. Hogy
fogok illeni Bélához! Annát, azt a büszke leányt itt a szomszédban,
enni fogja majd a méreg. Elbúhatik majd silány ékszereivel; mindig
fitogtatja, magára rakja, még ha csak a Városligetbe megy is, pedig
az ékszer csak bálra, estélyre, nagy társaságba való. Mit tudja ő,
csak füszerárús leány, csak commis-k udvarolnak neki. Nem is
tudom, vajjon meghívják-e a jogászbálba. De ha nem jönne is el,
lesz ott nekem elég ismerősöm, asszony, leány, férfi. Bámulni fogják,
hogy a midőn belépek, Béla elémbe jő, üdvözöl, tánczra kér. Nem is
tudom, tánczolok-e mással! Bámulni, irigyelni fognak, szent igaz, de
rágalmazni is. Nem illik, hogy oly szegény lánynak báró úrfi
udvaroljon, azt az ékszert is bizonyosan ő adta neki ajándékba s így
tovább. Jaj, a gonosz nyelvűek!… De van benne valami igaz, van…
van… Oh, ha szegény jogász volna, mint más, de azért épen oly
szép, csinos, úri, mint most. Oh, ha jövendőben, mikor végez, nem
jószágait venné át, hanem valami hivatalba lépne, oly hivatalba,
melyből tisztességes úri módon meg lehet élni. Akkor nem
rágalmaznának, tudnák, hogy nőül vesz. Nem a bárót szeretem
benne, nem akarok báróné lenni. De vajjon lehetnék-e?…
Újra fölcsatolta a karpereczet, újra a tükörbe
nézett.