Études irlandaises, 34.1 - OpenEdition Journals

Études irlandaises

34.1 | 2009Varia

Édition électroniqueURL : http://journals.openedition.org/etudesirlandaises/317DOI : 10.4000/etudesirlandaises.317ISSN : 2259-8863

ÉditeurPresses universitaires de Caen

Édition impriméeDate de publication : 30 juin 2009ISBN : 978-2-7535-0935-1ISSN : 0183-973X

Référence électroniqueÉtudes irlandaises, 34.1 | 2009 [En ligne], mis en ligne le 30 juin 2011, consulté le 09 décembre 2020.URL : http://journals.openedition.org/etudesirlandaises/317 ; DOI : https://doi.org/10.4000/etudesirlandaises.317

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SOMMAIRE

In memoriamJean Brihault

Études d'histoire et de civilisation

L’histoire et les Penny Journals : réécriture du passé et construction identitaireClaire Dubois

La France et les propagandes nationalistes irlandaises durant la Première Guerre mondialePierre Ranger

Art Imitating War? Observe the Sons of Ulster Marching Towards the Somme and its Placein HistoryJacqueline Hill

Closer to Brussels than to Rome? The EU as the new external referent for a secularised Irishsociety and a redefined Catholic identityJean-Christophe Penet

Art et image

L’intemporel incarné : les corps des tourbières entre métaphore et littéralitéValérie Morisson

“Soul of the Devil’s Pig”: Comedy and Affirmation in James Joyce’s Finnegans WakeBernard McKenna

“Default[ing] to the Oldest Scar”: A Psychoanalytic Investigation of Subjectivity in AnneEnright’s The GatheringSarah C. Gardam

Mme de Staël’s Cosmopolitan Imaginary and Sydney Owenson’s Early NovelsEvgenia Sifaki

Quelle poésie de la sortie de guerre en Irlande du Nord ? L’exemple de Breaking News deCiaran Carson (2003) et The State of the Prisons (2005) de Sinéad MorrisseyCatherine Conan

Links to Pagan Ritual in Medieval Irish LiteratureDavid A. Hutchison

Comptes rendus de lecture

Plays and Controversies. Theatre and Globalization. Interactions: Dublin TheatreFestival 1957-2007 Modern Irish TheatreMartine Pelletier

A Little Book of HoursJessica Stephens

Études irlandaises, 34.1 | 2009

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Points West Catching the LightClíona Ní Ríordáin

The Poems of James StephensClaude Fierobe

Irish Poetry after FeminismClíona Ní Ríordáin

Literarisierung einer gespaltenen StadtAngela Vaupel

Madness and MurderNathalie Sebbane

KnockCatherine Maignant

Michael DavittOlivier Coquelin

How Ireland Voted 2007Julien Guillaumond


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In memoriamJean Brihault

1 Le Professeur Jean Noël est décédé le 11 février 2009 dans sa 97e année. Pendant la plus

grande partie de sa vie professionnelle, il avait été Professeur de littérature anglaise à

l’université Rennes 2 – Haute-Bretagne.

2 Il fut le fondateur des études irlandaises en langue anglaise à la faculté des lettres de

l’Université de Rennes, devenue université Rennes 2 – Haute-Bretagne. Après une thèse

d’État consacrée à l’auteur irlandais George Moore, il introduisit progressivement des

enseignements de littérature irlandaise dans les programmes du département

d’anglais. Il travailla à un rapprochement avec la section de celtique de l’université

pour, finalement, fonder le Centre d’Études Irlandaises de l’université Rennes 2 –

Haute-Bretagne. Il créa également la revue liée à ce centre et qui fut publiée sous le

titre Cahiers du Centre d’Études Irlandaises avant de fusionner avec les deux autres revues

existant au plan national : Gaëliana (Caen) et Études Irlandaises (Lille 3) pour donner

naissance à la revue nationale Études Irlandaises. Il fut un directeur de thèse apprécié,

également exigeant sur le plan scientifique et bienveillant sur le plan humain ; il publia

de nombreux articles dans le domaine de la littérature irlandaise et, jusqu’à l’âge de 90

ans, fut le talentueux traducteur de l’œuvre du romancier et nouvelliste irlandais,

Walter Macken.

3 Jean Noël participa également à la structuration des études irlandaises au plan national

et lorsque le Professeur Patrick Rafroidi entreprit de fonder la Société Française

d’Études Irlandaise, il fit tout naturellement appel à Jean Noël pour en être le premier

président.

4 De même, il joua un rôle déterminant dans le développement de l’université Rennes 2 –

Haute-Bretagne dont il devint le vice-président après le vote de la loi Edgar Faure. À ce

titre, il fut le premier artisan du développement du secteur de l’audiovisuel à

l’Université. C’est lui qui, avec beaucoup de détermination et de sens politique, obtint

du ministère une importante dotation en matériel et la reconnaissance de ce domaine

de formation et de recherche. Ce sont cette vision et cet acharnement à la mettre en

œuvre qui permirent, par la suite, le développement au sein de l’université Rennes 2 –


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Haute-Bretagne d’un secteur audiovisuel de réputation internationale dans les

domaines de la recherche, de l’enseignement et de la création.

5 Il était aussi peintre amateur de talent. Sa modestie lui a toujours interdit de présenter

ses œuvres en public. Les rares privilégiés qui en possèdent ne peuvent que

s’émerveiller devant ces tableaux de la vie quotidienne, saturés de couleur, révélateurs

d’un désir d’aller vers l’autre, de le comprendre, de le connaître et le respecter.

6 Ceux qui eurent la chance de côtoyer Jean Noël garderont, par-dessus tout, le souvenir

de son dévouement aux autres, de sa gentillesse et de son humanité.


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Études d'histoire et de civilisation


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L’histoire et les Penny Journals :réécriture du passé et constructionidentitaireClaire Dubois

1 The Dublin Penny Journal fut lancé en 1832 par Caesar Otway, éditeur du Christian

Examiner de 1825 à 1831. Ce fut le premier journal qui réussit à avoir un fort tirage en

Irlande, soit cinquante mille exemplaires 1. Après huit numéros, George Petrie décida

de travailler en collaboration avec Otway. Dans la préface du premier volume, ils

énoncèrent leurs intentions. Ils désiraient créer un journal qui se voulait neutre,

« indépendant de secte ou de parti ». Il était destiné à la fois à tenir dans les « poches

des membres des classes les plus pauvres de la société », mais sous forme de volume il

n’était pas indigne de la « bibliothèque de l’érudit et du gentilhomme 2 ». Outre le fait

que le journal était destiné à toutes les classes de la société, il se construisait sur des

bases exclusivement irlandaises. Il était écrit par des Irlandais pour des Irlandais et

c’est ce qui faisait sa spécificité.

2 Les éditeurs espéraient fédérer la population irlandaise autour de son histoire et réagir

ainsi aux querelles sectaires qui agitaient traditionnellement le pays dans le but de

parvenir à une amélioration sur un plan moral. Le journal comptait des articles

économiques, des conseils pratiques, mais on peut noter le nombre de sujets qui

touchaient à l’histoire et à l’archéologie. Petrie écrivait des articles de vulgarisation

historique et archéologique, des biographies. Certains numéros reproduisaient des

légendes du folklore irlandais. On pouvait également y trouver des notices descriptives

de paysages typiques et de sites archéologiques. Le journal reflétait avec fidélité la

variété des intérêts de George Petrie, qui était selon Joep Leerssen un des derniers

grands « polymaths » (esprit universel) en Irlande 3. Peintre de formation, Petrie se

passionnait pour l’histoire et a progressivement amené l’archéologie vers le

professionnalisme. Il collectait également des airs musicaux du folklore irlandais et

collaborait de façon régulière aux débats et aux publications de diverses sociétés

savantes parmi lesquelles The Royal Irish Academy ou The Royal Irish Art Union. Il dirigea

la section historique de l’Ordnance Survey et publia un mémoire avec la collaboration de


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Eugene O’Curry et de John O’Donovan, deux gaélophones avec qui il travaillait

régulièrement. La presse lui permettait de dépasser le cercle restreint des historiens

pour tenter de toucher un public plus large, voire la population irlandaise dans son

ensemble. L’édition d’un journal constituait donc un prolongement logique à la

stratégie de diffusion du savoir de Petrie.

3 Après un an, le journal connut des difficultés financières et il fut repris par P. D. Hardy.

Après cela, les contributions de Otway et Petrie se firent plus rares. Petrie tenta en 1840

de rééditer un journal dans la continuité du Dublin Penny Journal, mais sous un nouveau

nom, The Irish Penny Journal. Dès la fin de l’année, les ventes chutèrent des deux tiers et

Petrie abandonna l’édition. Malgré une nouvelle tentative en 1841-1842, le journal

souffrit du fait que le nouvel éditeur, Samuel Lover, éditait également le Dublin

University Magazine.

4 Dans sa première année de parution, le journal était véritablement le reflet des

différentes activités de George Petrie, qui s’y consacrait pleinement. Très attaché à la

dimension éducative de ses ouvrages et toiles, Petrie se lançait ainsi dans une

entreprise lui permettant d’approfondir ses tentatives d’éducation historique de la

population irlandaise, mais cette fois avec un lectorat potentiel bien plus important.

Cela implique, comme nous le verrons, un effort de vulgarisation et/ou un choix de

sujets censés plaire et intéresser le plus grand nombre. Nous étudierons précisément le

public visé par Petrie et Otway et nous verrons comment s’exprime leur souci

didactique au sein même du journal. Enfin, nous nous attacherons à voir comment les

éditeurs espérèrent fédérer la population en créant une communauté grâce à ce journal

et à l’histoire irlandaise. Nous étudierons comment cela s’intègrait dans le projet

nationaliste culturel de Petrie. Nous nous poserons également la question des raisons

de l’échec du journal dont les ventes chutèrent dès le début des années 1840 lorsqu’il

fut confronté à un autre type de publication, The Nation.

Un journal à portée nationale

5 Petrie et Otway annoncèrent leurs intentions dans la préface au premier volume du

Dublin Penny Journal. Il était destiné à toutes les classes de la société, aux membres de

toutes les communautés religieuses. Il était également construit sur des bases

exclusivement nationales.

Agreeing, therefore, with its valuable predecessors only in the

exclusion of politics and sectarian religion, and in the general desire

to be useful and instructive, the Penny Journal started on new and

exclusively national ground and with national as well as useful

objects in view. The subjects chiefly chosen were such as the most

likely to attract the attention of the Irish people, next to those of

politics and polemics, by which their minds had been previously and

almost exclusively occupied: namely, the history, biography, poetry,

antiquities, national history, legends and traditions of the country:

subjects which can never fail of interesting the feelings of a people.

The plan was novel and experimental, and, at the same time,

animating to the minds zealous for the moral improvement of the

country 4.


7

6 Les bases nationales du journal impliquent qu’il était écrit par des Irlandais pour des

Irlandais, mais également qu’il traitait principalement de sujets irlandais. L’objectif de

cette publication était national autant que pratique. Les éditeurs espéraient fédérer la

population irlandaise autour de son histoire et mettre ainsi fin aux querelles sectaires

qui agitaient le pays. Ils étaient conscients de participer à un projet nouveau et

expérimental. Petrie et Otway souhaitaient s’inscrire dans la continuité des

publications précédentes en Irlande, tout en s’en démarquant dans le choix des sujets

puisqu’ils affirmaient vouloir laisser de côté la politique et la religion. Cette attitude

constituait une solution alternative à d’autres journaux tels que le Dublin University

Magazine, qui se voulait le porte-parole d’un certain nationalisme protestant que les

récents événements en Irlande avaient consterné. L’émancipation catholique avait en

effet été vécue par certains comme une trahison de la part du gouvernement

britannique. Ce mensuel défendait ardemment l’Eglise d’Irlande et ses droits à

percevoir la dîme par exemple. Il se voulait la voix des protestants qui craignaient

qu’un mouvement populaire ne provoque un changement radical en Irlande et qui

souhaitaient retrouver leur rôle de guides de la nation irlandaise.

7 Contrairement à ce concurrent, le Dublin Penny Journal avait une conception plus large

de la nationalité irlandaise. On peut noter le nombre de sujets qui touchaient à

l’histoire et à l’archéologie. L’histoire est citée deux fois dont une avec l’adjectif

« nationale », la biographie de même que les légendes et les traditions sont des

domaines périphériques à l’histoire. L’archéologie est également évoquée grâce aux

objets découverts. L’objectif du journal était donc d’instruire la population sans tomber

dans la polémique. Le journal était destiné à la population dans son ensemble, ce qui

constituait une nouveauté en Irlande et correspondait au projet culturel de Petrie.

8 Cependant, dès la préface, le rôle accru des élites dans la mise en œuvre de ce projet est

souligné. Si on lit la préface jusqu’à la fin, les objectifs de Petrie et Otway sont formulés

plus clairement encore. Si ce journal était destiné à la population irlandaise dans son

ensemble, il était plus susceptible d’être lu par les classes sociales les plus aisées qui

avaient à la fois le temps de faire ce genre de lectures et l’instruction nécessaire.


8

They [the conductors] have the conviction that their little work is

eminently calculated to effect a public good, and not of a fleeting but

a permanent character: that its beneficial influence will be but little

felt at the present time as compared with its extent hereafter, by

exciting a national and concordant feeling in a country in which

there is, as yet, so much of discord and party, and by extending a

taste for literature among a people to whom it has been but little

known, except as connected with political and polemical discussions.

To further these objects, the conductors throw themselves on the

good feeling of the well disposed of all classes, and hope for the

support of the higher orders, who should feel most interested in their

attainment. It is to them that this preface is more especially

addressed. With them it chiefly rests whether the DPJ shall be

successfully sustained, because it is through their influence its

circulation may be yet more widely extended. To such influence is

mainly attributable the success, in the sister isle, of works having

similar objects, and should it, in this instance, be withheld from ours,

we may venture to say it would be but little honourable to Ireland 5.

9 Ce passage montre que Petrie et Otway désiraient instruire les Irlandais et agir pour le

bien du pays ainsi que dans le sens d’une réconciliation entre les différentes

communautés. Toutefois, c’étaient les classes sociales élevées qui constituaient la clé de

leur conception de l’instruction populaire. Ils en appelaient à l’influence de l’Ascendancy

pour permettre l’amélioration de la situation irlandaise. Les éditeurs reconnaissaient

toutefois la difficulté de cette entreprise, eu égard au contexte social irlandais. Ils

savaient que les classes sociales les plus élevées « avaient généralement des préjugés

bien ancrés contre ce qui était créé sur place et national » et que les plus humbles « ne

lisaient d’autre littérature que ce que la presse quotidienne leur procurait 6 ». Pour

Petrie et Otway les classes sociales humbles lisaient la presse quotidiennement. Il

s’agissait donc certainement des classes moyennes dont la conscience politique

s’éveillait à cette époque suite notamment à l’émancipation catholique. Il est important

de remarquer que Petrie et Otway en appelaient paradoxalement aux élites anglo-

irlandaises pour faire l’éducation historique des classes populaires, qu’ils considéraient

pourtant comme les dépositaires des traditions et des valeurs de la société gaélique.

Un objectif didactique

10 Les élites se virent donc attribuer le rôle de veiller à l’instruction des classes

populaires. Selon Petrie et Otway, l’éducation était la clé pour sortir de la situation

actuelle. Le journal tentait de conserver un côté pratique en donnant des conseils aux

lecteurs en ce qui concerne l’agriculture ou simplement la vie quotidienne. C’était sans

doute grâce à ces rubriques que le journal espérait toucher les classes les plus humbles.

Le rédacteur de la rubrique Practical Advice to Irishmen vantait ainsi les mérites de

l’éducation et de la lecture pour essayer de faire mentir les préjugés anglais.

We are sure that all our friends will not despise a little advice; and we

therefore wish to call their attention to a few things not unworthy

the observation of rational men. One grand objection, until of late, to


9

Irishmen, was their want of business habits. It is owing to this that

the English have imbibed the idea that nothing good can come out of

Ireland, and it is owing to this that our shops and our warehouses are

filled with Scotchmen. We do not mention this for the sake of

invidious comparison, all we mean by it is, that Irishmen may be

stimulated to rival them in what is assuredly merely an educational

habit. To our young men, we would say, never undervalue your

situation. […] We say habit, for it is owing to education. Let our

friends endeavour to diffuse around them a taste for wholesome

manly reading. Let them endeavour to diffuse knowledge, and to

guide the demand for it; let them encourage it in their children and

relatives; and Ireland will soon present a cheering scene 7.

11 Le rédacteur insiste sur l’importance de l’instruction tout en lançant un appel aux

classes les plus instruites pour qu’elles jouent leur rôle de guide surtout auprès des

jeunes générations. La lecture et l’instruction sont présentées comme des remèdes aux

préjugés. Selon le rédacteur, c’est l’ignorance qui maintient l’Irlande dans cette

situation. Ce type de sujet intitulé Practical Advice ainsi que le coût de l’hebdomadaire

garantissaient une certaine « accessibilité psychologique » du journal 8. Il ne s’agissait

pas d’un périodique purement littéraire. Il se devait d’être à la fois utile et instructif.

Jusqu’à ce type de publication, la situation économique de la majorité de la population

ne lui permettait pas de lire la presse et donc de participer à la vie publique de la même

façon que la bourgeoisie. Cependant, les grandes causes politiques comme

l’émancipation catholique amenaient cette population dans la rue. La dichotomie entre

culture savante et culture populaire était donc très accentuée. Selon Habermas, « les

classes forment des milieux spécifiques, des mondes vécus et des valeurs orientées

selon des traits spécifiques à chaque couche sociale 9 ». La situation en Irlande était bien

entendu compliquée par les disparités religieuses. La création des penny journals tendait

donc à la fois vers une hiérarchisation et un décloisonnement de l’horizon de

communication possible 10.

12 Selon Habermas, l’objectif de ces périodiques était de remplir une mission au sein de la

société. Ils devaient permettre de rendre publique l’opinion de l’éditeur, en

l’occurrence celle de Petrie. Cela lui donnait la possibilité de « donner à l’usage qu’il

faisait de sa raison dans un but pédagogique une efficacité sur le plan public 11 ». La

mission des élites anglo-irlandaises était donc d’instruire la population dans le but de

l’amener à se servir de sa propre raison. Le rédacteur de la rubrique en appelle

d’ailleurs aux hommes rationnels, « rational men ». Les classes sociales instruites

devaient s’éveiller à une conscience nationale et prendre leurs responsabilités en tant

que guides d’une rénovation culturelle, morale et économique du pays.

Histoire et réconciliation nationale

13 L’histoire devait permettre de rassembler la totalité de la population autour de racines

et d’une identité communes. Contrairement au Dublin University Magazine et à The

Nation, le Dublin Penny Journal tentait de véhiculer un sens plus large de la nationalité

irlandaise. Il essayait de ne pas s’impliquer dans la bataille nationaliste, mais il diffusait

la notion d’une identité culturelle distincte et originale. Le journal était entièrement

construit pour faire progresser la cause de la réconciliation, mais également pour


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démontrer l’intérêt de l’histoire irlandaise. Petrie faisait preuve d’exactitude

scientifique tout en cherchant à mettre en avant son projet de régénération nationale.

Les sujets cités dans la préface étaient présentés comme des « zones de réconciliation »qui pouvaient susciter un intérêt similaire chez tous les Irlandais et grâce auxquelles ils

pouvaient surmonter leurs différences 12. Le journal utilisait à de nombreuses reprises

l’adjectif Irish comme en témoigne cette note aux lecteurs à la fin du premier numéro.

We would not vainly boast, neither would we recklessly promise; but

we may be permitted to say this much, that we are neither ashamed

of our handiwork, nor afraid of keeping it up. It is an Irish

undertaking altogether, Irish paper, Irish printing, the woodcut was

done expressly for this number by an Irishman, Clayton, and we

wherefore claim Irish support. The expense of producing such a

periodical is great; but moderate profits will suffice us, if our

countrymen only second our endeavours to wipe off the stigma

which has, we do trust falsely, been affixed to Irish spirit and to Irish

literature 13.

14 Les éditeurs affirment vouloir rompre avec le passé, enlever l’étiquette que l’on a collée

à l’Irlande et aux Irlandais. Ils ne condamnent toutefois pas explicitement l’attitude

anglaise. Tout ceci est présenté comme un vaste malentendu dû à l’ignorance des uns et

des autres. Petrie et Otway appellent d’ailleurs l’Angleterre « the sister isle ».

15 Il semble somme toute assez logique que le journal s’intéresse particulièrement à la

littérature comme moyen de véhiculer sa nouvelle conception de la nationalité

irlandaise. Petrie insistait sur l’intérêt de la littérature et de l’art pour instruire la

population. Des extraits de The Irish Minstrelsy de Hardiman furent publiés ainsi que des

poèmes et histoires de Samuel Ferguson, James Clarence Mangan, William Carleton

(Rose Moan, The Irish Midwife) ou encore Samuel Lover (The Landlord and the Tenant). Les

thèmes abordés étaient principalement les histoires du passé et les paysans, « past and

peasant ». Il faut noter que la plupart de ces auteurs contribuaient également au Dublin

University Magazine. Il semble donc que ce soient principalement des auteurs anglo-

irlandais qui entendaient instruire les classes moyennes irlandaises. Il faut toutefois

noter que John O’Donovan et Eugene O’Curry signèrent également quelques articles,

notamment des notices historiques.

16 L’autre centre d’intérêt du journal était le passé gaélique. En l’absence d’une véritable

nation politique, il est inévitable que toute discussion de ce qu’est la nation irlandaise

aborde les questions de l’identité et de l’originalité historique et culturelle. Il était donc

logique que le journal comporte de si nombreux articles concernant le passé gaélique,

si on le compare aux penny journals anglais. Petrie a signé par exemple, au cours de la

première année de parution, une série de sept articles concernant le développement de

l’art en Irlande et intitulée Historic sketch of the past and present state of the Fine Arts in

Ireland 14. Le premier article de la série constitue à la fois une introduction et une

condamnation des préjugés anglais quant à l’histoire irlandaise ainsi que des

reconstructions gaéliques 15. Comme dans nombre de ses écrits pour la Royal Irish

Academy, Petrie reprend les arguments d’autres auteurs, qu’ils soient anglais ou

irlandais, et les réfute un à un avant de montrer qu’il faut s’appuyer sur des preuves

concrètes. Il retrace ensuite au fil des articles l’évolution de l’art en Irlande grâce

notamment à des illustrations qu’il réalise lui-même. Selon lui, l’épanouissement des


11

arts en Irlande va sans doute être rendu possible par les changements politiques

récents 16.

Our minds, no longer engaged in the harrowing broils of political and

religious strife, will seek the soft and humanizing enjoyments which

the cultivation of the taste can alone impart, and we shall find our

reward in the acquisition of a new sense more ennobling to our

nature, and more closely allied to the Divinity than those already

enjoyed in common with the lower animals 17.

17 Petrie semble dans ce passage accueillir l’émancipation catholique avec un certain

soulagement. Il s’agissait sans doute à ses yeux d’une nécessité pour parvenir à une

réconciliation des différentes communautés en Irlande. Il espérait que cela mettrait un

terme aux divisions politiques et religieuses et permettrait ainsi aux Irlandais de

s’adonner à des activités plus nobles. Dans cette série d’articles, Petrie se posait en

interprète des arts et des origines gaéliques. Pour lui ce sujet était une question

nationale. Il se faisait l’interprète à la fois par rapport à sa propre communauté mais

également par rapport aux catholiques qu’il estime coupés de leur histoire en quelque

sorte. Grâce à divers médias, il se lançait dans une véritable quête d’authenticité

susceptible d’éveiller un sentiment d’appartenance à un territoire, à une nouvelle

communauté unie dont ce journal serait la voix dans l’espace public, une sorte de

communauté de discours 18. Les sites et les monuments tels que Clonmacnoise, que

Petrie considérait comme le plus beau du pays, étaient les dépositaires d’une culture

irlandaise originale et distincte sur le modèle défini par Herder au siècle précédent 19.

Petrie attachait une très grande importance à ces lieux de mémoire qui, selon la

définition de Pierre Nora, sont des lieux où la mémoire nationale s’est incarnée, qu’ils

soient matériels ou intellectuellement construits, des éléments symboliques du

« patrimoine mémoriel d’une quelconque communauté 20 ». Petrie découvrit, avec

O’Curry et O’Donovan, de nombreux objets comme le calice d’Armagh et la broche de

Tara qui devinrent des exemples des réalisations d’un âge d’or qu’ils situaient entre le

VIIIe et le XIe siècle. La culture irlandaise de cette période était selon eux une fusion très

réussie des traditions païennes et de la chrétienté héritée de Saint Patrick, jusqu’à

l’arrivée des Anglo-Normands 21.

18 L’activité des traducteurs du passé comme Petrie déterminait le nouveau nationalisme

culturel qui vit le jour dans les années 1830 et 1840. Les implications nationalistes des

activités de Petrie poussèrent le gouvernement britannique à mettre fin au

financement de la section historique de l’Ordnance Survey en 1840, à une période où le

nationalisme politique mené par Daniel O’Connell jetait la population dans la rue. Le

nationalisme de Petrie n’était toutefois pas politique. Il déplorait l’anglicisation de

l’Irlande mais craignait que les campagnes menées par O’Connell ne polarisent

davantage la société. Il était par ailleurs partisan de l’Union.

19 La question de l’identité était centrale pour les Anglo-Irlandais qui ne voulaient pas que

l’Irlande soit considérée comme une simple province anglaise et pour les Irlandais

d’origine gaélique qui étaient culturellement déracinés. Petrie explorait donc tous les

aspects du territoire national. Les symboles irlandais, représentant son originalité

historique et culturelle, furent d’ailleurs reproduits dans le Dublin Penny Journal dès le

deuxième numéro.


12

Figure 1 : National Emblems (1832).

20 [Image non convertie]

Illustration du Dublin Penny Journal, tirée de Nicholas Lee (ed.), Irish Identity and Literary Periodicals1832-1842, Derry, Field Day, 1991, vol. 1, p. 9.

21 On peut voir par exemple une tour ronde, élément archéologique exclusivement

irlandais dont les origines et l’utilisation faisaient toujours débat dans les années

1830 22. Cet élément est symbolique de la présence du passé au sein du présent en

Irlande, c’est en quelque sorte un chronotope 23. Cette illustration des symboles est

prétexte à une lettre de Terence O’Toole, pseudonyme de Caesar Otway. Dans cette

lettre, Otway passe en revue les différents symboles irlandais présents dans

l’illustration et leur signification. Les illustrations sont amenées à jouer un rôle dans la

transmission du savoir. C’est d’ailleurs un des moyens utilisés par Petrie pour

transmettre ses idées, notamment par le biais de paysages 24. Ces croquis étaient censés

éveiller un sens du territoire national.

Sir, Your woodcut is, to my apprehension, as full of meaning to an

Irishman, as any emblematic device I have seen. It represents

peculiar marks or tokens of Ireland, which are dear to my soul. I am

bold to say, the Round Tower, and the Wolf Dog, belong exclusively to

our country; not so I allow the Oak, or the Shamrock, or the Harp;

and we may add, the Crown. But Irish oaks and shamrocks, and

Harps, as well as Irish Dogs, are known all the world over; and small

blame to me if I try to say a little about them 25!

22 O’Toole se présente comme un lecteur ayant quelques connaissances sur l’Irlande et

son histoire. Il retrace l’histoire des différents symboles représentés sur cette gravure.

En ce qui concerne les tours rondes, O’Toole cite l’ouvrage de Petrie, The Ecclesiastical

Architecture of Ireland et reprend les arguments de ce dernier en évoquant brièvement la

polémique. Otway entreprend ici de réveiller la fibre nationale des lecteurs et présente

le journal comme un « patriote qui n’est pas mercenaire ». Cette expression souligne

une nouvelle fois la volonté des éditeurs de présenter l’histoire irlandaise d’un point de

vue non sectaire. Les symboles évoquent de façon tangible l’originalité de la culture

irlandaise et donnent un ancrage réel au folklore et aux traditions que reprennent les

auteurs irlandais.

23 Ainsi, des préoccupations nationales s’exprimaient à travers des spécificités locales et

un sens du territoire spécifique. Le réveil de la fierté nationale préoccupait les éditeurs

qui y voyaient un intérêt pour l’Irlande. Cela leur permettait d’envisager la possibilité

que les différences pouvaient être mises de côté. Le Dublin Penny Journal portait

indubitablement la marque de Petrie et mettait en exergue ses idées de réconciliation

autour d’une histoire commune. Il soulignait l’importance de l’histoire dans la vie d’une

nation et le fait qu’il fallait connaître les histoires du passé pour s’en servir au présent.

L’histoire était une force vive qui devait servir d’inspiration dans tous les domaines.

Petrie rendit ses théories accessibles au plus grand nombre grâce à la presse. Il agissait

comme un propagandiste dans le but de créer une nouvelle Irlande dans laquelle les

élites ne seraient plus tournées vers le modèle britannique. Ces préoccupations

semblaient correspondre à une attente du public puisque le journal se vendit très bien

jusqu’à ce que les lecteurs se tournent vers un nationalisme plus ardent.


13

24 Nombre de critiques reprochaient au journal de permettre à l’élite anglo-irlandaise de

perpétuer sa mainmise sur la majorité catholique. En effet, le journal préconisait une

éducation de la population par le haut, ce qui permettait à l’élite anglo-irlandaise de

continuer à jouer son rôle paternaliste et ce, malgré l’émancipation des catholiques.

Dans cette optique, The Nation correspondait sans doute mieux aux nouvelles attentes

de la population, et notamment des classes moyennes catholiques. Les journaux

concurrents du Dublin Penny Journal, comme le Dublin University Magazine ou The Nation,

n’occultaient par ailleurs pas la dimension politique et polémique inhérente à la

situation irlandaise. Habermas souligne qu’à partir des années 1840 environ, les classes

sociales instruites perdent le sentiment d’avoir une mission à remplir au sein de la

société 26. Les journaux politisent davantage leur contenu et deviennent parfois les

porte-parole de mouvements politiques, comme The Nation en Irlande. Un rédacteur de

ce périodique reprochait d’ailleurs au Dublin Penny Journal de tout faire pour éviter la

controverse : « Seem Irish and be Irish 27. » En lisant le Dublin Penny Journal, le lecteur ne

pouvait qu’être conscient des sujets polémiques qui étaient laissés de côté, car ils

faisaient partie de son quotidien ou tout du moins de l’histoire récente dont il n’était

pas aisé d’effacer les stigmates. Le journal donnait certes une vue partielle et partiale

de l’Irlande mais c’était dans le but avoué de parvenir à une réconciliation nationale.

NOTES

1. À noter que les penny journals anglais atteignaient des tirages de cent mille à deux

cent mille exemplaires. À titre de comparaison le mensuel The Dublin University Magazine

et l’hebdomadaire The Nation, créé plus tard, atteignaient respectivement un tirage de

quatre mille et douze mille exemplaires.

2. Nicholas Lee (ed.), Irish Identity and Literary Periodicals 1832-1842, 6 volumes, Bristol,

Thoemmes Press, 2000, vol. 1, Préface, sans pagination : « unconnected with sect or

party », « suited to the pockets of the poorer classes of the society », « not unworthy of

the library of the scholar and the gentleman ».

3. Joep Leerssen, « Petrie, Polymath and Innovator » in Peter Murray (ed.), George Petrie

(1790-1866), The Rediscovery of Ireland’s Past, Cork, Gandon Editions, 2004, p. 7-11.

4. Nicholas Lee, op. cit., Préface.

5. Ibid.

6. « Who were unaccustomed to any other species of literature than that which the

daily press afforded » ; « who had generally a deep-rooted prejudice against what is

home-bred and national ». Nicholas Lee, ibid.

7. Ibid., vol 1, p. 21.

8. Jürgen Habermas, L’espace public : archéologie de la publicité comme dimension

constitutive de la société bourgeoise, Paris, Payot, 1993, p. 164.

9. Jürgen Habermas, Théorie de l’agir communicationnel, Paris, Fayard, 1987, vol. 2, p. 174.


14

10. Ibid., p. 429.

11. Jürgen Habermas, L’espace public…, op. cit., p. 176, 190.

12. Seamus Deane (ed.), The Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing, 5 volumes, Derry, Field

Day, 1991, vol. 2, p. 4.

13. Nicholas Lee, op. cit., vol. 1, p. 8.

14. Les articles ont été publiés dans les numéros suivants du volume 1 : n° 11 du

8 septembre 1832, 13 du 22 septembre, 19 du 3 novembre, 29 du 12 janvier 1833, 39 du

23 mars, 42 du 6 avril et 45 du 4 mai.

15. Selon Petrie, les auteurs d’origine gaélique, cherchant à contrer les préjugés

anglais, échafaudaient des théories fantaisistes qui se révélaient aussi préjudiciables à

l’histoire irlandaise que les préjugés eux-mêmes.

16. Petrie fait certainement allusion ici à l’émancipation catholique de 1829.


18. Jürgen Habermas, L’espace public…, op. cit., p. 190.

19. Johann Gottfried Herder avait soutenu que la culture était unique et particulière à

chaque nation et qu’elle dépendait avant tout de caractéristiques propres à chaque

peuple, caractéristiques notamment ethniques et traditionnelles. Une autre philosophie

de l’histoire, 1774, Paris, Montaigne, 1964.

20. Pierre Nora, Les lieux de mémoire, Paris, Gallimard, 1984-1992, 3 tomes, vol. 1,

introduction, p. 20.

21. John Hutchinson, The Dynamics of Cultural Nationalism, Londres, Allen and Unwin,

1987, p. 74-113.

22. Voir à ce sujet le chapitre concernant la polémique dans Joep Leerssen,

Remembrance and Imagination, Cork, Cork University Press, 1996, pp. 108-134.

23. Anthony Purdy définit le chronotope comme un élément par lequel se manifeste la

présence du passé, la trace consciente ou inconsciente d’une période plus ou moins

distante dans la vie d’une communauté ou d’un individu. Anthony Purdy, « The bog

body as mnemotope: nationalist archaeologies in Heaney and Tournier », Style 36-1,

printemps 2002, p. 93-110.

24. Voir ma communication au colloque Mémoire d’Empire à l’Université de Lille 3 en

octobre 2007 : « George Petrie : paysages irlandais et identité nationale ».


26. Jürgen Habermas, L’espace public, op. cit., p. 174.

27. « Our periodical literature », The Nation, in Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing, op. cit.,

vol. 1, p. 1265-1269.


15

RÉSUMÉS

George Petrie (1790-1866) espérait fédérer la population irlandaise autour d’une histoire

nationale non-sectaire sur le plan religieux. Cet article montre comment ce projet a dépassé le

cercle restreint des historiens pour se diffuser sur le plan national. Le Dublin Penny Journal était

en effet destiné à toutes les classes de la société et tentait de populariser tous les aspects de

l’histoire et du folklore irlandais auprès du grand public.

George Petrie’s project was to reconcile all the communities of Ireland by presenting them a non-

sectarian national history. This paper aims at showing how this project left the limited circle of

historians and antiquarians to be circulated on a national basis. The Dublin Penny Journal was

written for all the social classes of the Irish society and tried to popularize all aspects of history

and folklore.

INDEX

Mots-clés : identité nationale, Petrie George, histoire des représentations, presse populaire

Keywords : national identity, popular press, history of representations, Petrie George

AUTEUR

CLAIRE DUBOIS

Université Charles de Gaulle – Lille 3


16

La France et les propagandesnationalistes irlandaises durant laPremière Guerre mondialePierre Ranger

1 Il n’est probablement pas exagéré d’écrire que l’historiographie irlandaise de la

Première Guerre mondiale a connu de très grandes évolutions ces dernières années. La

publication d’un certain nombre de travaux a permis de mieux comprendre une

période qui pouvait être qualifiée jusque-là d’« amnésie nationale 1 ». L’identité

nationale irlandaise s’est, en effet, largement développée au XXe siècle autour des

figures d’un nationalisme irlandais radical, tout particulièrement celles des

responsables de l’insurrection de Pâques 1916 2. Patrick Pearse a été introduit au

panthéon de l’histoire irlandaise après son exécution. Eamon de Valera est resté au plus

proche du pouvoir de 1932, lorsqu’il devient Premier Ministre, à 1973. Qu’au moment

même où quelques centaines d’hommes s’emparaient de la poste de Dublin, des milliers

de soldats irlandais mourraient dans les tranchées en France sous l’uniforme

britannique est, somme toute, longtemps passé inaperçu 3.

2 Dans de telles circonstances, le rôle de l’Irlande dans la Première Guerre mondiale a

souvent été perçu comme anecdotique par les Irlandais eux-mêmes. Il n’a certes pas été

décisif, mais les dernières recherches font état d’un nombre de soldats engagés assez

important au vu des handicaps évidents auquel un recrutement militaire britannique

devait se confronter. Keith Jeffery dénombre 210 000 soldats irlandais ayant combattu,

sans compter ceux qui se sont engagés directement dans différentes parties de l’Empire

britannique ou dans l’armée des États-Unis. 25 000 de ces soldats ont été tués 4. Outre

les statistiques, les recherches les plus récentes, tels les travaux de Jérôme aan de Wiel,

Ben Novick et Keith Jeffery, ont tenté de comprendre le rôle de la guerre dans

l’évolution des questions intérieures irlandaises.

3 Avec le début de la guerre, la vieille et complexe division entre nationalistes irlandais

constitutionnalistes modérés et séparatistes radicaux prend un tour décisif.

Recherchant la mise en pratique du Home Rule que lui ont promis les Britanniques au

début de la guerre, John Redmond, responsable du parti parlementaire irlandais,


17

promeut une « union de cœur » et, soutenu par une large majorité de la presse

irlandaise5, fait campagne pour le recrutement de soldats irlandais au sein des armées

britanniques. Les nationalistes plus radicaux, très divers mais menés entre autres par le

fondateur du Sinn Féin, Arthur Griffith, font front commun pour la promotion de la

neutralité irlandaise. Nous définirons respectivement ces deux partis antagonistes

comme les pro et les anti-alliés, une terminologie utilisée par Ben Novick. Mais ces

termes ne reflètent pas la réalité de la situation. Un fait, notamment, rajoute une

difficulté. Aucun de ces frères ennemis ne peut oublier qu’au sein des alliés, au côté de

l’Angleterre, combat la France. Dans la décisive guerre de mots que se livrent les deux

camps nationalistes ainsi formés, ce fait soulève maints débats, interrogations et

tergiversations, largement influencés par les évolutions du contexte intérieur irlandais.

Du côté anti-alliés, on peut en effet diviser la représentation donnée de la France en

deux grandes phases : pré et post-Pâques 1916. Que la France soit au cœur de la

propagande nationaliste irlandaise ne constitue pas, en soit, un fait nouveau 6. La

principale évolution se trouve dans un changement de rôle. Entre constitutionnalistes

moins prompts à célébrer l’héritage français parfois violent 7 du nationalisme irlandais,

et des hommes plus radicaux qui par le passé en ont fait un outil de propagande, cet

article cherche à comprendre la place et l’influence de la France dans un face-à-face

qui, sur fond de guerre mondiale, oppose deux visions d’une Irlande indépendante.

La propagande française en Irlande : enjeux et limites

4 Quelques mois après le début de la guerre, le gouvernement français se montre

particulièrement désireux de raviver la vieille amitié franco-irlandaise. L’objectif est

triple : motiver le recrutement de soldats en Irlande, engendrer un mouvement de

sympathie à l’égard des alliés dans la communauté américano-irlandaise, mais aussi

aider à la stabilité de la Grande-Bretagne. Une trop grande instabilité en Irlande

pourrait, en effet, conduire l’Angleterre à renforcer son contingent militaire sur l’île, et

donc provoquer un affaiblissement du front ouest 8. Informé de l’opinion irlandaise sur

la politique française en matière de religion par le parlementaire irlandais, Timothy

Power O’Connor 9, le gouvernement français prend la décision, dès 1915, d’inviter à

Paris une délégation d’Irlandais constitutionnalistes et catholiques. La visite a lieu du

30 avril au 1er mai. L’objectif affiché est de renouer les sentiments amicaux des

catholiques irlandais envers la France. La situation est en effet devenue préoccupante.

Le clergé irlandais, tout en soutenant les alliés, semble devenir particulièrement

sensible aux bonnes relations de l’Allemagne avec le Vatican 10. La France, qui

entretient des rapports difficiles avec le souverain pontife, et dont la réputation de

pays anticlérical s’est affirmée après le vote de la Loi de Séparation de l’Église et de

l’État de 1905, se doit de réagir. En effet, la baisse du recrutement en Irlande devient

inquiétante 11. Cette diminution est notamment le fait d’un manque de propagande en

faveur du recrutement, de mauvaises décisions du cabinet Asquith qui hésite à mettre

en valeur la bravoure des soldats irlandais sur le front 12, et du développement

économique des campagnes irlandaises pendant la guerre, qui n’invite pas les fermiers

à s’engager.

5 La délégation irlandaise envoyée à Paris se compose majoritairement de membres de

The Ancient Order of Hibernians 13, et de son président Joseph Devlin, figure majeure du

nationalisme irlandais à Belfast. Durant les trois jours que cette délégation passe dans


18

la capitale française, les discours se succèdent pour promouvoir les symboles du lien

franco-irlandais au travers du XIXe siècle, tel le partage d’un même sang celtique.

Timothy O’Connor, sur place pendant la visite, décrit par exemple la France comme

« the greatest of the Celtic countries 14 », une rhétorique utilisée par John Redmond lui-

même dans son manifeste sur les devoirs de l’Irlande dans la guerre :

It is a war for the defense of the sacred rights and liberties of small

nations. Involved in it is the fate of France, the chief nation of that

powerful Celtic race to which we belong 15.

6 Le thème particulièrement sensible de la religion est laissé à Devlin, qui met en valeur

le combat des prêtres dans les tranchées et parle d’une « France nouvelle 16 », pour

mieux souligner la renaissance de la pratique religieuse dans le pays depuis le début de

la guerre, ainsi que la mise en sourdine des politiques anticléricales.

7 Ces discours constituent donc un complet changement de ton. La France n’est plus

regardée comme un pays immoral, dirigé par de violents et dangereux anticléricaux,

comme avait pris l’habitude de l’affirmer le Weekly Freeman, journal catholique

particulièrement proche de Redmond. Avec le début du conflit, trente années d’une

rhétorique acerbe sont oubliées, et la France retrouve sa place de protectrice de la

chrétienté face à la menace allemande, barbare. Le 26 décembre 1914, ce même Weekly

Freeman explique :

The bombardment of Rheims cathedral has raised a wave of

indignation throughout the country […] In striking contrast to the

German vandalism is the action of the French doctors, who, risking

their lives, entered the Cathedral and rescued the German

wounded 17.

8 Aux yeux de cette presse, la France redevient ce pays juste, humaniste, protégeant tout

homme, toute nation devenue vulnérable.

La campagne anti-alliés face au lien mémoriel etidentitaire franco-irlandais

9 Dans les deux premières années de la guerre, la réaction de plusieurs journaux anti-

alliés à cette offensive pro-française est étonnamment prudente et complexe. Certes, la

France, irreligieuse et amorale, apparaît une cible facile, comme le montre l’Honesty, un

journal proche de l’Irish Republican Brotherhood :

The French people have practically no regard for the sanctity of

marriage, and the State of France has given its sanction and

recognition to immorality by legally recognizing illegitimacy 18.

10 Il est difficile de savoir à quoi fait exactement référence le journal. Peut-être à la loi

Naquet de 1884 qui rétablit le divorce, ou à l’acceptation grandissante de l’« union

libre » dans la société française 19. Probablement cherche-t-il une parade à la rhétorique

pro-alliée, en utilisant la représentation d’une France n’obéissant plus aux règles

édictées par l’Église catholique. La dévalorisation religieuse et morale des alliés est

aussi faite au travers d’une propagande raciale, qui dénonce l’utilisation de troupes


19

indigènes. Griffith notamment ne se prive pas de railler dans son Nationality, « les

Sénégalais et les ilotes cannibales » que l’on voudrait faire passer pour les plus grands

défenseurs de la « civilisation chrétienne 20 ».

11 Au vu de ces quelques exemples, il serait logique de conclure que l’ensemble de la

presse nationaliste irlandaise anti-alliée va s’attacher à montrer au peuple d’Irlande

combien la France est restée ce pays « sans Dieu ». Cependant, dans les premières

années de la guerre, l’évolution n’est pas tout à fait celle-ci, et les dénonciations claires

et franches de la société française sont relativement peu fréquentes 21.

12 Cette observation peut certainement surprendre, mais elle n’en est pas moins

raisonnable. Le soutien que la grande majorité des Irlandais aux sympathies

nationalistes apportent dès les premiers instants de la guerre aux alliés constitue l’une

des explications. Des rapports de police sur l’état de l’opinion montrent clairement que

l’Allemagne est « haïe », et la France « adorée 22 ». Affronter un point de vue si

majoritaire en attaquant trop violemment la France et risquer de s’aliéner une partie

de la population aurait été un mauvais calcul. On remarque d’ailleurs que l’article de

l’Honesty est écrit dans un contexte moins favorable aux alliés où, comme on l’a vu, le

recrutement est en baisse. Il faut rajouter qu’en 1914, les quelques journaux anti-alliés

à faibles tirages se trouvent bien désarmés face à la puissante machinerie des grands

périodiques nationaux qui appellent avec enthousiasme à soutenir l’effort de guerre

français, et, surtout, qui n’hésitent pas à faire valoir le traditionnel lien franco-

irlandais 23.

13 Pour mieux comprendre cette sorte d’argument, il faut nous transporter à la fin du

XIXe siècle, lorsque la France joue encore un rôle important au sein du débat

nationaliste irlandais 24. Avant la guerre, en effet, il n’est pas rare de voir certains

nationalistes plus ou moins proches de la mouvance séparatiste des fenians, prendre la

défense de la politique religieuse du gouvernement français. Ainsi, au début du

XXe siècle, Arthur Griffith n’hésite pas à s’opposer aux attaques de la presse catholique

irlandaise contre le gouvernement français, qu’il pense instrumentalisées par les

autorités britanniques pour distancier l’Irlande d’un allié 25. À ces affaires religieuses se

rajoute la question coloniale. Fidèles à l’adage selon lequel « les difficultés anglaises

sont les opportunités irlandaises », les nationalistes irlandais dans leur grande majorité

recherchent des signes de tensions franco-anglaises au cours du XIXe siècle. Ils

promeuvent dès qu’ils le peuvent le renouveau militaire français après l’humiliation de

1870. C’est en particulier le cas de la presse proche de l’Irish Republican Brotherhood, ou

en tout cas d’un certain idéal séparatiste26. Les campagnes coloniales en Afrique, à

Madagascar ou au Soudan, sont l’occasion de montrer le retour au premier plan d’une

armée puissante, possible rivale de celle de l’Angleterre.

14 La guerre des Boers leur apporte une autre raison d’espérer un soutien venu de France,

ou en tout cas de le faire savoir. Si certains historiens considèrent que le gouvernement

français reste plutôt neutre durant l’ensemble du conflit, d’autres travaux ont montré

qu’il n’en a pas moins conscience des possibilités que peut offrir l’Irlande nationaliste.

Paul Cambon, ambassadeur de France à Londres pendant la guerre des Boers, a semble-

t-il pris au sérieux les risques que représente alors le mouvement nationaliste irlandais

pour la sécurité de la Grande-Bretagne27. Plus généralement, les relations franco-

irlandaises promues au cours du XIXe siècle par les nationalistes irlandais, notamment

les plus proches de l’idéal séparatiste et républicain, prennent en large partie racine

dans le républicanisme de Wolfe Tone et des Irlandais Unis. Ce lien est aussi celui d’une


20

dette que le pays aurait contractée avec l’intervention française pendant la révolte des

Irlandais Unis.

15 La place accordée à la France dans l’histoire, la mémoire, et les politiques nationalistes

irlandaises jusqu’à la fin du XIXe siècle rajoute donc une vraie complexité à la position

tenue par les anti-alliés durant les deux premières années de la guerre. La preuve nous

en est fournie par le Gael, lorsque le journal publie en plein milieu de la guerre une

série d’articles sur les aventures de Monceau de Jones, un soldat français ayant

combattu aux côtés des Irlandais Unis :

We present our readers with a narrative of the exciting and romantic

adventures of Monceau de Jones in the great and glorious struggle for

Irish freedom of 1796 and 1798. Monceau de Jones was a brave and

brilliant soldier of France. France is not now our ally. But the enemy

of 98 is the enemy of 1916 28.

16 Les derniers mots tentent de dissiper l’ambiguïté de la publication de ce texte dans un

tel contexte. Mais les responsables du journal ne peuvent ignorer la place de la France

dans la construction d’une identité nationale irlandaise souvent tournée sur la mise en

valeur d’un passé commun, des brigades irlandaises à la rébellion de 1798. Même si les

relations avec la France se détériorent après 1904 et la signature de l’« Entente

Cordiale 29 », pour des Irlandais nationalistes « avancés » qui tendent à se référer

obsessionnellement aux faits passés, ou à ce qu’ils veulent en savoir, pour en tirer les

explications, les leçons, et les justifications à leurs actes30, il est difficile de se défaire

d’une telle présence historique lorsque ceux contre lesquels ils dirigent leur campagne

l’utilisent dès qu’ils le peuvent.

Contourner le problème français avant Pâques 1916 : une question de rhétorique

17 Nous ne prétendons pas affirmer qu’il existe une parfaite uniformité de ton au sein des

différentes publications anti-alliés, qui chacune possède une identité politique

distincte. Nous ne souhaitons pas non plus nier que certains propos anti-français,

notamment ceux des « Sinn Féin priests », aient été utilisés dans la presse anti-alliées 31.

Mais nous constatons que trois différentes approches rhétoriques ont été utilisées pour

aborder le rôle de la France durant le conflit, chacune permettant de réaffirmer la

complexité du contexte franco-irlandais.

18 Une première piste est offerte à la propagande anti-alliée par le traitement du thème

religieux, passé et présent. Dans le contexte difficile qui suit la chute du député

irlandais Charles Stewart Parnell en 1890 32, les anti-parnellites, souvent catholiques

conservateurs, s’opposent aux parnellites, généralement plus radicaux. La France

devient un objet de débat. Les uns l’utilisent comme l’exemple d’une société en

décadence morale, les autres prennent sa défense. Le concept d’un peuple resté fidèle

aux enseignements du catholicisme, mais prisonnier de ses dirigeants, est alors

développé. C’est ce même concept qui est utilisé pour démontrer l’amoralité des

responsables français pendant la guerre, opposée à un peuple remplissant bravement

son devoir. Une façon de neutraliser les arguments pro-français tout en se gardant de

s’attaquer au peuple de France et à ce qu’il représente dans l’histoire irlandaise. Voici


21

comment l’Honesty, qui avait publié quelques jours auparavant le petit article isolé sur

l’immoralité française cité plus haut, change partiellement de cap. L’athéisme français

reste dénoncé, mais l’article vise les responsables politiques de France, alors qu’il rend

hommage à son peuple :

Here is this unfortunate country, with the invader in possession of its

choicest territory, and a much hated invader he is. The men of France

are sacrificing everything that is dear to them in an effort to drive

out the detested enemy. And while they are doing this the deposed

oligarchy that rules the country is fattening upon its miseries. This

shows what kind of patriot an atheist usually is 33.

19 Pour les nationalistes irlandais qui adhèrent à cette théorie, le peuple français, dont les

vertus ne sont pas à remettre en cause, se trouve prisonnier des dirigeants athées et

anticléricaux que sont Raymond Poincaré, George Clémenceau, ou encore René

Viviani 34. Le sentiment d’amitié envers la France qui émane de ce texte est encore plus

frappant si on l’oppose à la vision assez dure qui est donnée de l’Allemagne. Celle d’un

envahisseur en possession de territoires, l’Alsace et la Lorraine, qui ne lui

appartiennent pas. Pourtant, dès le début de la guerre, plusieurs Irlandais séparatistes

se tournent vers l’Allemagne. Des contacts assez avancés ont existé entre des

nationalistes irlandais, notamment sir Roger Casement, et l’état-major allemand. Des

armes ont notamment été sur le point d’être envoyées en Irlande. Présenter

l’Allemagne comme un « envahisseur » est donc dans ce cadre une démarche tout à fait

surprenante. Que faut-il comprendre ? L’Allemagne est une pièce maîtresse des

politiques nationalistes anti-alliés mises en place pendant la guerre, et cette phrase ne

permet pas de réévaluer ce sentiment. En revanche, nous touchons ici à la question de

l’Alsace-Lorraine, vecteur d’un puissant symbolisme pour une Irlande qui se considère,

elle aussi, occupée. En effet, après la défaite de 1870, l’opinion catholique et nationaliste

irlandaise a toujours démontré une grande empathie envers les peuples de ces deux

régions 35.

20 Une autre solution pour résoudre la « question française » consiste simplement à

ignorer la France 36. La Russie, cible facile notamment par sa politique polonaise, est

présentée seule à combattre aux côtés des Anglais. Le 11 décembre 1915 l’Hibernian, l’un

des rares journaux catholiques et radicaux, accuse ainsi la Russie d’être à l’origine du

conflit mondial. Le 24 janvier 1915, dans le Nationality, on peut lire ce commentaire

sarcastique :

We all know that England and Russia are the friends of small

nationalities and the enemies of militarism […] and that the Germans,

whom we are taught in our school geographies were “a brave,

industrious, moral, and pious people”, are, on the contrary, cowardly

and brutal savages 37.

21 L’article évoque ensuite les drapeaux mêlés de Moscou et de la Grande-Bretagne. Rien

n’est dit sur le drapeau français, ou sur l’implication française dans la guerre, puisque

dans la mémoire et l’identité nationaliste irlandaise, la France a toujours été

représentée comme la première alliée de ces petites nations dont parle l’article. Mais la

solution la plus communément choisie par les nationalistes radicaux est certainement

de présenter la nation française comme une autre victime d’une guerre bâtie, comme


22

Eire-Ireland l’explique, à 95 % par les Anglais 38. Au contraire de l’Angleterre ou de la

Russie, la France n’est donc pas, dans cette perspective, un agresseur. Déjà en 1904,

quand la France signe l’Entente Cordiale avec l’Angleterre, Griffith présente l’accord

comme le résultat de la séduction des naïfs Français par les Anglais 39. C’est également

ce que l’Irish Freedom, journal de l’IRB, affirme dans son numéro d’avril 1914 : « La

France est écrasée sous l’égoïste monopole anglais 40. » La guerre est donc une occasion

parfaite pour insister sur la machination de la « perfide Albion ». Le sacrifice des

soldats français sur les champs de bataille est souvent opposé à l’attentisme anglais.

Dans l’Honesty du 4 mars 1916 on peut lire :

The Frenchman knows that since the beginning of the war there are

more than 700 000 killed, and nearly 800 000 permanently disabled,

when the British Empire counts hardly 130 000 killed 41.

22 À la fin de la guerre, la Grande-Bretagne compte approximativement 750 000 morts 42.

En conséquence, le chiffre de 130 000 morts pour mars 1916 apparaît bien en dessous de

la réalité, même s’il est vrai que les états-majors laissent filtrer très peu d’informations

sur ce type de statistiques. La volonté de démontrer les manipulations et la lâcheté des

dirigeants de Grande-Bretagne est en tout cas claire.

23 L’article de l’Honesty semble en fait répondre à un double objectif. En effet on y

remarque la volonté de présenter le début d’une dissension entre les alliés en insistant

sur le terme : « The Frenchman knows ». Les nationalistes irlandais radicaux ont

toujours considéré l’entente franco-anglaise comme un accord n’obéissant à aucune

logique, et ne pouvant durer comme la discorde ne pourrait manquer de s’imposer

entre les deux ennemis héréditaires. Naturellement, alors que la guerre s’installe en

Europe, la presse nationaliste radicale insiste sur de supposées tensions entre les

soldats français et anglais. Eire-Ireland écrit le 13 novembre 1914 :

There is a rather bitter feeling growing between the French and

English soldiers in the field. The French think the English have not

“played the game” 43.

24 Cette dernière expression insinue que les Français s’éveillent finalement à la réalité et

comprennent avec qui leur destinée est liée. L’Entente Cordiale ne pouvait résister,

passé le premier combat révélateur des véritables intentions anglaises. En fait, un

certain nombre de ces nationalistes radicaux ne semblent pas capables, même après dix

années, à se résoudre à une « entente » qui dure toujours. À accepter l’alliance

« naïve », d’une certaine façon la trahison de leur premier et seul allié naturel 44. Même

les plus fervents partisans d’une alliance avec l’Allemagne conservent sur ce sujet un

sentiment particulièrement amer. Sir Roger Casement, dans un conte non publié qu’il a

écrit lui-même, présente ouvertement son opinion :

Once upon a time there were two friends [La France et l’Angleterre

naturellement] and they said : “It is a great Pity we are not three for

Three’s Company Two’s none.” “Humph!” Said an old woman, “I

heard that put differently when I was young.” “When you were

young, Ma’am”, they said with a smile, “people were foolish enough

to speak the truth” 45.


23

25 La vieille femme du texte correspond à la représentation traditionnelle de l’Irlande née

de la ballade Shan Van Vocht, dont le titre se traduit lui-même par la « vieille dame », et

qui a été composée en souvenir du débarquement des troupes françaises sur les côtes

irlandaises en 1798. La référence à la « vieille dame » est celle d’une Irlande soutenue

par une France révolutionnaire, alors en guerre contre l’Angleterre. Cette vision de la

France constitue la « vérité » dont parle le texte, opposée au mensonge d’une alliance

franco-anglaise. L’Irlande séparatiste, prônant un nationalisme radical, qui pense

souvent en terme de religion, de race, de mémoire, ne peut ni admettre, ni même peut-

être pleinement comprendre un accord passé entre deux pays n’ayant majoritairement

pas la même religion, supposément pas la même origine ethnique (Celtes ou Latins

contre Saxons), et partageant une mémoire de conflits et de rivalités.

La question française après Pâques 1916

26 Le soulèvement impose à la vie politique irlandaise et aux rapports de force qui l’ont

caractérisée pendant une bonne partie du XIXe siècle de profondes et durables

modifications. La première victime en est le parti parlementaire de John Redmond, qui

perd peu à peu le fil des politiques nationalistes. Cette nouvelle situation est illustrée

par les changements appliqués à la représentation de la France au sein de la

propagande du Sinn Féin. En effet, le front anti-alliés peut maintenant s’appuyer sur

une opinion outragée par les exécutions des responsables du soulèvement. Le Sinn Féin

bénéficie de cette évolution, et voit sa popularité augmenter sensiblement jusqu’en

août 1917 46. Pour le gouvernement français, le progressif retournement du rapport de

forces entre nationalistes séparatistes et parlementaires arrive au plus mauvais

moment. La répression qui suit le soulèvement de Pâques a pour effet de réduire

drastiquement le nombre de recrues irlandaises, alors qu’il faut remplacer les 286 000

soldats morts pendant l’année 47. Différentes tactiques de propagande sont donc

employées, mais elles se soldent toutes par un échec 48.

27 Pour la propagande anti-alliés, il est temps de se montrer plus agressif. D’autant que si

le Freeman’s Journal multiplie les articles pro-français 49, il ne se remettra jamais de la

destruction de ses locaux pendant l’insurrection 50. Aux précautions du début succèdent

donc des attaques bien moins teintées de respect pour le lien identitaire et historique

franco-irlandais. Le Nationality, chef de file de la propagande anti-alliés à partir de 1916,

montre la voie en mettant en valeur l’anticléricalisme français avec de plus en plus

d’insistance 51. Le journal n’hésite pas non plus à retourner contre la France l’argument

des provinces perdues, si sensible dans les premières années de guerre, en remettant en

cause la légitimité des Français à se saisir de ces territoires : « As to Alsace-Lorraine, the

Alsace-Lorrainers are three-fourths German and less than one-fourth French52. »

28 Pour soutenir sa démarche, le Nationality peut compter sur des périodiques qui avaient

jusque-là montré un profil neutre, ou légèrement favorable aux alliés. C’est le cas du

Catholic Bulletin, un mensuel catholique proche du Sinn Féin. Si en 1914 il soutient la

France, ses positions se radicalisent nettement en faveur de l’Allemagne après le

soulèvement de 1916 et la crise qui suit les rumeurs d’application de la conscription en

Irlande au printemps 1918. En mars de cette même année, il appuie donc la tactique du

Nationality sur la question de l’Alsace-Lorraine :


24

The argument that these two provinces in the main belonged to

France before 1870 is not very convincing in supporting the French

claim […] there is another view of the question. What think the

Alsatians and Lorrainers now 53.

29 Au regard de ces quelques citations, qui en appellent bien d’autres, il semble qu’après le

soulèvement de Pâques 1916 il ne reste plus du lien franco-irlandais qu’un bien lointain

souvenir, sur le point de s’effacer alors que le XXe siècle avance et l’influence allemande

avec lui.

30 Outil essentiel pour certains, sur-utilisé par les soutiens pro-alliés de John Redmond,

facteur d’ambiguïté rajoutant à la complexité de la position tenue par les anti-alliés

avant 1916, ou symbole du retournement de l’opinion nationaliste dans les années qui

suivent le soulèvement, la France est en tout cas très présente au sein de ce matériel

imprimé. L’effet concret d’une propagande destinée à empêcher le recrutement

irlandais est assez difficile à estimer. Il semble que les événements de Pâques 1916 aient

constitué un argument beaucoup plus efficace, comme le montrent les chiffres du

recrutement. La prospérité économique récente de l’Irlande n’incite pas non plus les

jeunes fermiers à s’engager. Prendre la décision de risquer sa vie dans une guerre dont

les intérêts vous sont au fond assez éloignés est un processus complexe, difficile à

apprécier correctement aujourd’hui. Cela semble autant affaire de contexte social ou

familial que de revendication politique et idéologique 54.

31 Dès l’armistice signé, le Sinn Féin, qui remporte en l’Irlande les élections législatives de

1918, refuse de siéger à Londres, et constitue un parlement à Dublin, le Dáil. En quête de

reconnaissance internationale, le mouvement nationaliste irlandais met en place un

bureau à Paris, lieu du déroulement de la conférence de la paix. Charles Gavan Duffy

notamment met en place un vrai réseau européen de propagande, et déploie

d’importants efforts pour ramener à la cause irlandaise la population et le

gouvernement français. Mais ce dernier dépend trop de l’Angleterre pour imposer ses

vues sur le traité de paix, et assurer sa sécurité face à l’Allemagne. De plus, le

soulèvement de Pâques 1916 n’a rien fait pour développer l’amitié et la confiance du

gouvernement français envers le mouvement nationaliste irlandais tel qu’il s’impose à

partir de 1918-1919.

32 Mais l’étude de cet effort de propagande nous permet d’observer qu’au-delà de la nette

baisse d’influence de la France sur les politiques nationalistes à partir de 1904, sa

représentation, associée aux épisodes de 1798 ou 1848, oblige, pendant la Première

Guerre mondiale, les héritiers de ces événements à s’accommoder de sa présence au

sein de l’identité nationale irlandaise jusqu’à ce que l’état de l’opinion publique

irlandaise change drastiquement après le soulèvement de Pâques 1916. Plutôt que de le

renier, il semble plus logique d’accepter le lien de deux nations dont les identités se

sont inter-influencées, et de n’en rejeter que les dirigeants, britanniques ou français

anticléricaux, qui les gardent prisonnières. Ceci nous permet également de garder en

mémoire l’importance du contexte continental en Irlande, qui, s’il a été porteur

d’espoirs déçus au cours du XIXe siècle, n’en a pas moins continué à influencer les

politiques nationalistes irlandaises jusqu’à la veille de la signature du traité anglo-

irlandais de 1921.


25

NOTES

1. Keith Jeffery, Ireland and the Great War, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2000,

p. 1. Aux publications largement utilisées dans cet article, nous pouvons aussi rajouter

des études d’histoire militaire comme celle de Timothy Bowman, Irish Regiments in the

Great War (Manchester, Manchester University Press, 2003), des études régionales et

personnelles telle Niall McGinley, Donegal, Ireland and the First World War (Letterkenny,

An Crann, 2005) ou encore l’ouvrage de T. P. Dooley, Irishmen or English Soldiers

(Liverpool, Liverpool University Press, 1995).

2. Soulèvement planifié par l’organisation séparatiste de l’Irish Republican Brotherhood.

La répression qui a suivi l’opération a été à l’origine de la montée en puissance du Sinn

Féin au sein de l’opinion nationaliste irlandaise. Griffith n’a pas participé aux

opérations militaires, mais a su en tirer profit en dénonçant la violence des autorités

britanniques.

3. Cela fait une vingtaine d’années que des recherches sont menées sur ce sujet. Parmi

les publications récentes, on peut noter le livre de John Horne (dir.), Our War (Dublin,

Gill&MacMillan, 2008). L’ouvrage, qui traite notamment des vétérans, montre un

intérêt grandissant de la recherche et du public pour l’histoire des soldats irlandais

pendant et après la Grande Guerre.

4. Keith Jeffery, Ireland and the Great War, op. cit., p. 6.

5. . Jérôme aan de Wiel, The Irish Factor 1899-1919, Dublin, Irish Academic Press, 2008,

p. 161.

6. Les recherches effectuées sur le sujet sont nombreuses, mais on peut citer entre

autres les travaux de thèse de Janick Julienne, La question irlandaise en France de 1860

à 1890 : perceptions et réactions (thèse de doctorat, 1997, Université Paris 7), et de Laurent

Colantonio, Daniel O’Connell : un Irlandais au cœur du débat politique français, (thèse de

doctorat, 2001, Université Paris 8), l’article de Vincent Comerford sur l’influence

française du mouvement fenian, « France, fenianism, and Irish nationalist strategy »

(Études Irlandaises, n° 7, 1982), ou bien encore, sur l’Irlande et la guerre franco-

prussienne de 1870, la publication de Gary K. Pealing, « Saxon and Celt on the Rhine ?Religion and representation in Irish reactions to the Franco-Prussian war 1870-71 », in

Colin Graham, Leon Litvack (dir.), Ireland and Europe in the Nineteenth Century (Dublin,

Four Court Press, 2005), pp. 112-121 ; ainsi que sur le mouvement Jeune Irlande, les

articles de Pierre Joannon, « L’Irlande et la France en 1848 » (Études Irlandaises, N° 12,

1987) et de Mary Buckley, « French influences on Young Ireland, 1842-45 » ( Études

Irlandaises, N° 7, 1982).

7. On pense notamment aux brigades irlandaises au service des armées de Louis XIV ou

de Louis XV, à l’intervention militaire française durant la rébellion de 1798 menée par

l’organisation nationaliste des Irlandais Unis, ou à l’influence de la Révolution de

Février sur le mouvement nationaliste romantique des Jeunes Irlandais. Dans les années

1850-1860, on peut aussi noter les activités à Paris de nombreux membres de

l’organisation de l’Irish Republican Brotherhood, appelés fenians.

8. C’est ce qu’explique Jérôme aan de Wiel dans The Catholic Church in Ireland 1914-1918,

Dublin, Irish Academic Press, 2003, p. 128.


26

9. Ibid., p. 129.

10. Ibid., p. 135.

11. Ibid., p. 222. On compte tout de même un nombre non négligeable de 95 143 recrues

irlandaises engagées dans l’armée britannique entre août 1914 et février 1916.

12. Jérôme aan de Wiel, The Irish Factor…, op. cit., p. 181.

13. Fraternité irlando-américaine établie aux États-Unis en 1836, d’inspiration

catholique et nationaliste. Avec l’arrivée de Joseph Devlin en 1905, elle se transforme en

véritable machine politique au service du parti parlementaire irlandais de John

Redmond. Jusqu’alors peu influente en Irlande et en Grande-Bretagne, elle va très

largement se développer au sein de la communauté catholique, notamment en Ulster.

14. Jérôme aan de Wiel, The Catholic Church…, op. cit., p. 136.

15. Weekly Freeman, 19 septembre 1914.

16. Discours compilés dans La délégation irlandaise à Paris 1915, Paris, Printing Chaix,

1915.

17. Weekly Freeman, 26 septembre 1914.

18. Honesty, 15 janvier 1916.

19. Jean-Baptiste Duroselle, La France de la « belle époque », Paris, Presse de la Fondation

Nationale des Sciences Politiques, 1992 (2nde éd.), p. 12.

20. Nationality, 24 juillet 1915. Griffith étant connu pour son racisme chauvin, il est

possible qu’une telle déclaration tienne autant de la propagande que de ses convictions

personnelles.

21. L’article cité ci-dessus est à la fois le premier et le dernier du genre à être publié

dans l’Honesty.

22. Jérôme aan de Wiel, The Irish Factor…, op. cit., p. 159. Rapport qui s’intéresse au

comté de Roscommon.

23. On pense notamment au Freeman’s Journal, à l’Irish Independent, ou au Cork Examiner,

qui sont parmi les journaux les plus lus du pays.

24. Dans sa thèse de doctorat, Janick Julienne montre très bien la façon dont le

gouvernement français pratique une politique de moins en moins amicale envers les

nationalistes irlandais à partir des années 1870. L’échec relatif de la visite de Parnell en

1881 puis l’expulsion de James Stephens en 1885 en font la démonstration. Cependant,

il nous semble que cet argument peut être complété par une analyse plus poussée

d’archives mettant en valeur les réactions irlandaises à ces politiques françaises.

25. Patrick Maume, The Long Gestation, Irish Nationalist Life 1891-1918, Dublin, Gill &

Macmillan, 1999, p. 54.

26. Pour les années 1880, on pense notamment à l’Irishman dont l’un des principaux

responsables, James O’Connor, est un membre influent de l’IRB, ou, dans les années

1890, au Weekly Irish Independent, qui compte dans sa rédaction plusieurs membres de

l’organisation séparatiste, ainsi qu’au United Irishman d’Arthur Griffith, qui participe à

la renaissance du séparatisme irlandais.

27. La neutralité de la France pendant la guerre des Boers est défendue par Pascal

Venier, dans « French Foreign Policy and the Boer War », in Keith Wilson (dir.), The

International Impact of the Boer War, (Chesham, Acumen, 2001), p. 65-78. Mais dans The

Irish Factor…, op. cit., p. 6, Jérôme aan de Wiel défend la thèse selon laquelle certains


27

diplomates français, notamment Jules Cambon, ont très vite compris l’importance du

« monde irlandais ».

28. The Gael, 29 janvier 1916. Le Gael reste un journal qui s’appuie beaucoup sur une

propagande très pro-allemande, et cette caractéristique rend donc cet article d’autant

plus intéressant.

29. Dans The Irish Factor…, op. cit., p. 22-24 et p. 28, Jérôme aan de Wiel expose la

détérioration des relations franco-irlandaises après la signature de l’Entente Cordiale. Il

montre comment les Irlandais nationalistes se rendent rapidement compte du

changement d’attitude du gouvernement français à leur égard, qui voit désormais

l’Irlande comme une source possible d’affaiblissement pour l’Angleterre. Ce

changement permet à l’Allemagne de gagner du terrain, surtout auprès des Irlandais

séparatistes, notamment pendant la crise du « Home Rule » de 1913-1914, où les

nationalistes sont à la recherche d’armes en cas de guerre civile avec les unionistes

d’Ulster.

30. Tom Garvin, Nationalist Revolutionaries in Ireland, Dublin, Gill and Macmillan, 2005

(1re éd. 1987), p. 108-110.

31. Comme on a pu l’observer, le Nationality d’Arthur Griffith hésite moins que d’autres

journaux à s’attaquer à la France, à son gouvernement et à sa moralité. Le Spark, proche

de l’IRB, est, quant à lui, le seul journal qui ne montre aucune sympathie envers une

France qu’il considère moralement inférieure à l’Irlande.

32. Charles Stewart Parnell a dominé la vie politique irlandaise pendant les années

1880. Il meurt en 1891, son honneur souillé par une relation adultérine, et laisse une

Irlande nationaliste profondément divisée.

33. Honesty, 22 janvier 1916. Sur le même thème : Hibernian, 4 mars 1916 ; Nationality,

21 août 1915 et 4 décembre 1915, article qui se concentre sur la figure de Viviani.

34. Jérôme aan de Wiel, The Irish Factor…, op. cit., p. 182. Bien avant la guerre, Viviani est

accusé d’être le plus grand anticlérical de France, de surcroît franc-maçon. La

dénonciation du « Grand Orient », complotant à la tête de l’État français, est une autre

façon de dissocier peuple et dirigeants.

35. Des journaux nationalistes aux positions politiques aussi différentes que le

républicain Flag of Ireland, ou le catholique conservateur Dublin Evening Post, montrent

tous les deux une sympathie profonde envers les populations d’Alsace et de Lorraine

jusqu’à la fin du XIXe siècle.

36. C’est aussi la tactique adoptée face aux États-Unis lorsque ces derniers entrent en

guerre aux côtés de la Grande-Bretagne en avril 1917. Voir Ben Novick, Conceiving

Revolution…, op. cit., p. 114.

37. Nationality, 24 janvier 1915.

38. Eire-Ireland, 2 décembre 1914. Scissors and Paste, un autre journal de Griffith,

développe aussi longuement la théorie selon laquelle l’Angleterre est la seule

responsable du conflit.

39. Patrick Maume, The Long Gestation…, op. cit., p. 86.

40. Irish Freedom, avril 1914. Le 15 septembre 1915, le catholique Hibernian reprend une

thèse similaire en affirmant que l’affaire Dreyfus n’avait été qu’une machination

anglaise pour affaiblir la « Gallant French army ».

41. Honesty, 4 mars 1916. Autre article sur le même thème : Nationality, 12 février 1916.


28

42. Martin Gilbert, First World War, Londres, Harper Collins, 1994, p. 541.

43. Eire-Ireland, 13 novembre 1914. Autres articles sur le même thème : Honesty, 25 mars

1916 ; Nationality, 12 février 1916.

44. Un sentiment ressenti par le fenian O’Donovan Rossa, alors encore un enfant,

lorsqu’en 1848 Lamartine refuse d’apporter son soutien au mouvement de la Jeune

Irlande. Voir Jérôme Aan de Wiel, The Irish Factor, op. cit., p. 401.

45. National Library of Ireland, Ms 29064, « The Three Friends ». Malheureusement, la

rédaction de ce conte n’a pas été datée par l’auteur, mais l’on peut penser qu’il a été

écrit avant la guerre, ou pendant ses premiers mois.

46. Jérôme aan de Wiel, The Irish Factor…, op. cit., p. 311.

47. Ibid., p. 294.

48. Une mission ecclésiastique est notamment envoyée en Irlande. Pour une analyse

détaillée, voir Jérôme aan de Wiel, The Catholic Church…, op. cit., p. 128-52.

49. Jérôme aan de Wiel, The Irish Factor, op. cit., p. 240.

50. Patrick Maume, The Long Gestation, op. cit., p. 186.

51. Ibid., p. 313.

52. Nationality, 7 avril 1917.

53. The Catholic Bulletin, mars 1918.

54. C’est la thèse développée par David FitzPatrick dans The logic of collective sacrifice :Ireland and the British Army, 1914-1918, The Historical Journal, Vol. 38, n° 4, décembre 1995,

1017-1030.

RÉSUMÉS

Cet article explore la façon dont la presse nationaliste irlandaise a utilisé l’image de la France

durant la première guerre mondiale. La radicalisation des politiques nationalistes, entre

constitutionnalistes poussant au recrutement et radicaux s’y opposant, est forte dès 1914, encore

plus accentuée après Pâques 1916. Combattant aux côtés de la Grande-Bretagne, la France, qui

continue malgré tout à bénéficier d’une place à part au sein de l’identité nationale irlandaise,

ajoute à la complexité de la situation jusqu’en 1916, car la situation évolue par la suite. C’est ce

rôle unique que nous chercherons à comprendre. Entre utilisation des symboles du traditionnel

lien franco-irlandais pour les uns, et rejet de cet héritage pour ceux qui l’avaient longtemps mis

en valeur.

This article explores how the Irish nationalist press used the image of France during the First

World War to feed its own divisions. The radicalization of nationalist politics, between

constitutionalists supporting recruitment, and radicals opposing it, is pronounced from 1914,

and even more so after Easter 1916. France, which fought alongside great Britain, still enjoyed a

special place in Irish nationalism. This relationship became more complex after 1916 and the

representation of France changed as a result of the Easter Rising. The present article seeks to

explore this representation, caught between the traditional symbols of Franco-Irish complicity


29

and the rejection of this heritage by certain sectors of the community which had so long

cherished it.

INDEX

Keywords : First World War, Franco-Irish relations, press, Irish nationalism, history of

representations

Mots-clés : relations franco-irlandaises, nationalisme irlandais, Première Guerre mondiale,

presse, histoire des représentations

AUTEUR

PIERRE RANGER

Université de Paris XII – Val de MarneQueen’s University, Belfast


30

Art Imitating War? Observe the Sonsof Ulster Marching Towards theSomme and its Place in HistoryJacqueline Hill

1 Observe the Sons of Ulster Marching Towards the Somme (henceforth OSU), by Frank

McGuinness, is among the foremost Irish history plays of the twentieth century. First

performed in Dublin in 1985, it is the play that first won the author international

acclaim, and after Someone Who’ll Watch Over Me (1992) it is his most frequently staged

play. From the outset, it was hailed as a major dramatic work, exploring ways in which

the historical past could both galvanise and yet shackle the imagination 1.

2 The play’s main character, Kenneth Pyper, is a survivor of the battle of the Somme in

July 1916, who looks back on the war-time experiences of his immediate group of

fellow-Protestant combatants, members of the 36th (Ulster) Division. They all joined up

at the start of the Great War in 1914 and (with the exception of Pyper) all lost their lives

at the Somme. As an old man living in Ulster, the elder Pyper recalls the events of the

Great War through the prism of “the Troubles”; but virtually all the action in the play is

set in the period from the men’s first enlisting to its climax at the Somme. Given the

play’s subject matter, it has attracted some comment from historians 2, but there has

been no sustained examination of its place in the evolving historiographical tradition

of the First World War. This article sets out to fill that gap.

3 The play does not, of course, set out to be a work of history, and it is argued here that

while the matter of whether it “got the details right” – such as whether the combatants

might plausibly have donned Orange sashes before going into battle on 1 July, or

shouted “No Surrender!” as they went over the top – is important, the play raises wider

issues to be explored. These include the question of who enlisted and why; why, despite

growing evidence of casualties on an unprecedented scale, the combatants were

prepared to stay and fight; Ulster Protestant identity and the First World War, and the

wider issue of history and memory. The views of historians from the time of the Great

War onwards will be examined to assess how the play stands up in the light of these

issues.


31

4 It used to be remarked that Irish historians had been particularly slow in getting to

grips with twentieth-century history 3. Even outside Ireland, however, in respect of the

First World War, the early interest shown by historians remained for many years highly

selective, focusing mainly on the war’s origins. This was driven, understandably, by the

desire to avert future conflict, and by the perceived need to confirm, deny, or

transcend the issue of “war guilt”. Debate about the war’s origins continued after the

Second World War, peaking in the 1960s 4.

5 Meanwhile, all over the world survivors of the conflict, and the millions of the

bereaved, had perforce to try to come to terms with their losses, both individually and

collectively. Publishers were not slow to try to cater for this potentially huge market.

On the Allied side – to pick an example at random – in 1919 the publishers of Punch

brought out what they called Mr Punch’s History of the Great War, a compendium of

articles and cartoons that had appeared in the magazine during the conflict. Military

memoirs also appeared, and, within a decade of the Armistice, collections of soldiers’

letters from the front had been published in Germany 5.

6 Although the Punch history did not lack the customary elements of humour and the

ridiculous, the overall thrust of such early works was, for the most part, highly

partisan, and stressed the heroism, patriotism, and fighting spirit of the combatants.

However, when a collection of British soldiers’ letters was published in 1930, its

tendency was rather different. The editor, Laurence Housman, was a socialist and

pacifist who hoped to expose the horrors of war, and the collection was published by

the Left Book Club 6. A similar questioning of the meaning of the war, notably in

countries that had been on the victorious side, was already underway in the literary

sphere, by poets, novelists, dramatists and film-makers; while in the social sciences

some of the ground work was laid for the study of what some later scholars would call

“social memory 7”.

7 An important stimulus for research in this field was a study by a Professor of English

that drew heavily on British literary evidence and soldiers’ memoirs, Paul Fussell’s The

Great War and Modern Memory (1975), a work whose influence on OSU Frank McGuinness

has acknowledged 8. Fussell contended that a pre-war world in which everyone knew

the meaning of honour, glory and Christian sacrifice had been shattered by the war,

and especially by the experience of the Somme. On the first day of infantry deployment

(1 July 1916) the British army alone suffered some 60,000 casualties: the combined

British and French casualties over the entire six-month duration of the Somme

campaign were ten times that number, without producing any significant gains 9. The

dashing of hopes and expectations on such a scale fostered in certain writers a sense of

disenchantment, detachment, and irony, attitudes that for Fussell came to represent

the dominant, “essentially ironic”, form of modern understanding 10. Fussell’s

conclusions proved controversial 11, but helped to encourage historical research. By the

1990s the study of “history and memory” had become a major field for historical

research in its own right: this was not confined to the subject of the First World War,

but that event did figure largely in the genre 12.

8 As far as Irish historians were concerned, in the decades immediately following the war

there was little incentive to join in the international discussion about its origins. On

both sides of the newly instituted border (1920) between Northern Ireland and the Irish

Free State there was a concern with internal matters; moreover, the writing of


32

contemporary history was not encouraged by the journal Irish Historical Studies (1938-)

dedicated to “the scientific study of Irish history 13”.

9 None of this, however, prevented the appearance of publications on Irish participation

in the war, with early contributions falling into the “heroic” camp 14. The main account

of the 36th (Ulster) Division was by Cyril Falls, who had been a captain in the Royal

Inniskilling Fusiliers. Falls (who in the 1940s became Chicele Professor of the History of

War at the University of Oxford) drew not only on official records but on contributions

sent by many who had served with the Division. He emphasised that he had attempted

to present life as lived during the war, moving beyond a mere record of battles 15, but

the book was first and foremost a military history intended as a tribute to those who

had been killed in the war, and to those who had returned.

10 However, such works inevitably bore an added significance, appearing as they did

during the crucial years that saw the formation of the new Northern Ireland. The 36th

Division had been overwhelmingly Protestant and Unionist in its composition. The

Somme was its first major engagement, and on 1-2 July 1916 its members had

succeeded in penetrating further into German lines than any other unit: four V.C.s

were subsequently awarded to individual members for heroism. But their success had

been negated by poor support and the rigidity of the British battle plans – admitted by

Falls, though he also claimed that the battle “laid the foundations of future victory 16” –

and the Division had suffered very heavy casualties 17. Yet it continued to have an

impressive record for the remainder of the war. It is clear that there was a sense among

Ulster Unionists that a record of the Division’s achievements would not alone

memorialise the dead and comfort the bereaved but also reinforce and justify their own

claim to special treatment in the settlement of the Home Rule issue. At all events, Falls’

book was commissioned by a high-powered committee, and a fund set up to cover the

costs of production. Within weeks it was “largely oversubscribed”. Among the patrons

were Lord (formerly Sir Edward) Carson of Duncairn and Sir James Craig, Prime

Minister of Northern Ireland 18. Accordingly, without containing an explicit

contemporary political message, Falls’ book was a celebration of “the men of Ulster”.

Their discipline, gallantry and spirit of self-sacrifice had depended only in part on their

military training: the other element was “a racial spirit possessing already in amplitude

the seeds of endurance and of valour 19”. Not surprisingly, in view of the fact that 1 July

(Old Style: before the calendar reform of 1752) had been the date of the Battle of the

Boyne (1690), the commemoration of the Somme was added to the anniversary

calendar of the Orange Order 20.

11 For many years, there were few challenges in Northern Ireland to the “heroic”

interpretation of the war 21. Echoing their predecessors, historians noted that for Ulster

Protestants the Somme bore much the same significance as the 1916 Easter Rising

against British rule did for Catholics: a blood sacrifice, “a pledge of burning

sincerity 22”. The fiftieth anniversary of the battle, which coincided with the

anniversary of the Easter Rising, did not, as in the latter case, give rise to a crop of new

books on the subject. However, it did see the publication of a new, non-partisan,

overview of the role of all the Irish regiments in the war, aimed in part at reminding

southerners and Catholics of their own contribution 23. The anniversary also prompted

some reflections by veterans that questioned the quality of military leadership 24. The

onset of “the Troubles” in the late 1960s prompted a greater interest, particularly in

the Irish Republic, in the circumstances of the setting up of Northern Ireland. Certain


33

historians gave the war a socialist gloss, arguing that the tradition of the Somme was of

interest only to the ascendancy class: “the European war was fought for no cause of the

poor Protestants of Sandy Row or the Shankill Road 25…”

12 The pace of change in Northern Ireland from 1968 to 1972 under the stimulus of “the

Troubles”, coming as it did so soon after what amounted to rapid British

disengagement from the African empire during the early 1960s, naturally encouraged

speculation as to whether the British government would or should disengage from

Northern Ireland 26. For some, such a course of action was regarded as a panacea for the

Northern problems. However, over the next decade, during which violence on both

sides continued to claim lives, and the loyalist Ulster Workers’ Council defied the

government with its general strike and helped to bring down the Sunningdale

assembly, it became clear that the problem was more intractable. Among some

Unionists, “the Troubles”, far from inducing a spirit of cooperation with nationalists or

republicans, prompted a new emphasis on the uniqueness of Ulster identity 27, thus

signalling not merely to Dublin but also to London that Northern Ireland Protestants

were as likely to insist on their right to self-government as to cast in their lot with the

Republic.

13 Against this background, new surveys appeared from historians with a long-standing

interest in Ulster history which sought to analyse the causes of this apparent

intractability. One such survey, The Narrow Ground, by A. T. Q. Stewart, is worth dwelling

on because McGuinness has acknowledged that it was one of the historical works he

read when preparing to write the play 28. Stewart argued that there existed in Northern

Ireland historic patterns of behaviour and attitude that tended to come into operation

at times of crisis. It was sometimes supposed, he contended, that such atavistic patterns

themselves constituted the nub of the problem; but that was not the case. The onset of

“the Troubles” in the late 1960s owed more to events in Paris in 1968 than to the penal

laws or the Battle of the Boyne. Stewart’s point was that once contemporary pressures

had come into operation, then “the form and course of the conflict are determined by

patterns concealed in the past, rather than by those visible in the present”. Given the

inability of the authorities to contain the violence of the 1970s, the civil population on

both sides had turned to “the ancestral voices”, “the inherited folk memories of what

had been done in the past”. In other words, quoting Kipling, “the Gods of the Copybook

Headings in fire and slaughter return 29”.

14 If OSU owes a debt to The Narrow Ground, most obviously expressed in Pyper’s often

tortured engagement with his own “ancestral voices”, the “Protestant Gods” 30, other

debts are also apparent. McGuinness has indicated that his interest in the war was

originally awakened by Jennifer Johnston’s novel How Many Miles to Babylon? (1974),

which deals with Irish Catholic participation in the war. Subsequently, it was the war

memorial in Coleraine, County Londonderry, with its lists of the names of the dead,

which prompted a curiosity about the significance of the Somme for Ulster Protestants.

This was a topic about which McGuinness’s own education as a Catholic in Buncrana,

County Donegal (in the Irish Republic) had furnished few insights 31. Fussell’s treatment

offered a precedent for placing the infantry at the heart of the “drama”, a metaphor so

frequently used by contemporaries when describing the war 32. For Fussell, the lowest

ranks of fighting men represented the very embodiment of the blasted hopes and lost

innocence which for him was the hallmark of the war and particularly of the Somme

for British troops at the western front. He pictured them as isolated from their officers


34

(by class and military hierarchies); from the enemy (who in conditions of trench

warfare were frequently invisible); and of course from their friends and relatives at

home (less by geographical distance than by the nature of their experiences on the

front) 33. These are conditions which also obtain in OSU.

15 However, while Fussell was preoccupied with the generality of experience of daily life

at the front 34, OSU is concerned with the particular experience of eight fictional

Ulstermen, all (with one doubtful exception) Protestants, as the survivor Pyper

remembers them. When the play was first performed, it was remarkable to see such a

subject represented on a Dublin stage. As noted above, the interest shown by historians

and others during the 1970s in the history of Northern Ireland had been driven by a

desire to understand “the Troubles” and (apart from Harris’s pioneering study) had not

involved any systematic consideration of the significance of the First World War or the

Somme. Since then, mainly under the impetus of the “history and memory” school in

which the First World War has played so prominent a part, a great deal has been

written about the war, both from an Irish and an international perspective 35. How does

OSU stand up in the light of this new research?

16 One major area of interest for Irish historians has been the question of who enlisted to

fight in the war. Since conscription was never applied to Ireland, the recruits were all

volunteers, and their composition has now been comprehensively analysed. The

findings have confirmed that Ulster consistently provided the highest ratio of

enlistment of the four Irish provinces: just over half of all Irish enlistments came from

Ulster 36. However, recruitment from Ireland in general began to decline as early as

mid-1915; Ulster recruitment held up better, but the number of battalions to be

supplied was higher, and by the autumn of 1916 there were serious manpower

shortages across all the Irish regiments 37. As for the 36th (Ulster) Division, its

overwhelmingly Protestant nature has been confirmed; Catholics were discouraged

from joining it, and their numbers were very small 38. Thus far, the findings are

consistent with the picture presented of the 36th Division in OSU, which features only

one quasi-Catholic, Martin Crawford from Derry town, who privately divulges to

Christopher Roulston that he may have been baptised a Catholic 39. However, any idea

that Irish enlistment in general was a mainly Protestant phenomenon has been

demolished. Less than half – about 43 per cent – of all Irish recruits from 1914 to 1918

were Protestants; and the initially high recruitment levels in Ulster were reflected

among nationalists as well as loyalists 40.

17 Why did Ulster Protestants enlist? For Falls the answer had been simple: they believed

in their leaders as well as in themselves, and their leaders urged them to come forward

for the defence of the Empire, the honour of Ulster, and of Ireland 41. And in OSU too the

new recruits, when asked directly why they have enlisted, tend to speak in similar

terms – except for Pyper, who has his own complex reasons for joining. However, it

takes little reading between the lines of either Falls’ account or OSU to suspect that the

reality was more complex, and it is the non-rhetorical aspects that have recently been

engaging historians’ attention. Data from official sources shows that the propensity to

enlist was affected by social and economic conditions 42, but that did not mean that men

joined up simply to escape unemployment, as James Connolly suggested 43. In fact, there

was disproportionately heavy enlistment from such stable trades as engineering and

ship-building, perhaps because it could be taken for granted that there would still be

plenty of work in such trades when the war ended. In the countryside, there was


35

marked reluctance to enlist among farmers’ sons and farm workers; and taken overall,

recruitment was much lower in rural than in urban areas. It should be noted, too, that

there was some alienation of Ulster Unionists from government in the summer of 1914

because of the passing of the Home Rule Bill, which may have affected recruiting 44.

18 No doubt, as some survivors later suggested in a deliberate debunking exercise, for

many recruits it was simply a matter of wanting to escape the monotony of life at

home: war offered the prospect of novelty and adventure 45. However, there was one

factor that stands out above all as influencing participation. The intense militarism of

the climate on the eve of the war (which affected nationalists as well as unionists)

meant that military life was held in esteem; and the idea that war was “natural” –

drawing on Darwinian assumptions – was gaining ground. Heroic qualities were there

to be realised, both on an individual level and as part of a team 46. Before the war large

numbers of Protestants belonged to the Ulster Volunteer Force, formed to resist Home

Rule, while many Catholics belonged to the rival Irish Volunteers. In total, these private

armies contained over 250,000 men, and when war broke out both Sir Edward Carson

for the Ulster Volunteers and John Redmond for the Irish Volunteers expected that

their own force would be embodied as a Division. Carson’s wish was quickly granted,

but it took another month to authorise a “second new army”, of which the 16th (Irish)

Division was to be part. Overall, it has been calculated that of the Ulster recruits in the

early months of war, over four-fifths of Protestants and the same proportion of

Catholics had belonged to their respective private army 47.

19 Membership of the Ulster/Irish Volunteers was thus the most important of the group

or collective pressures that encouraged recruitment. Precisely how such pressures

influenced the enlistment of individuals awaits fuller study of personal records, but

research so far highlights the attitudes of comrades in pre-existing small units 48, and

decisions made by kinsmen, neighbours and fellow-members of associations such as

sporting clubs and fraternities, among them the Ancient Order of Hibernians, the

Orange Order, and Masonic lodges 49. Local connections in general appear to have been

particularly important – this was not merely an Ulster phenomenon, but found in

Britain too. Such connections were reflected in the names of various battalions of the

36th Division: “East Belfast Volunteers”, “South Belfast Volunteers”, “South Antrim

Volunteers”, and so on 50.

20 In the context of these findings, the characters in OSU are not unrepresentative of

Ulster Protestant recruits. Several of them, certainly Moore, Millen and Craig, had been

active in the Ulster Volunteers; Anderson and McIlwaine were shipyard workers. For

the purposes of the play, it is necessary that some characters should have joined up as

individuals, but Moore and Millen, Anderson and McIlwaine were comrades or

colleagues before enlisting.

21 Given that the war was not “over by Christmas”, as many had expected, but had already

cost hundreds of thousands of lives by the end of 1914 alone 51, historians have also

begun to ask, why did the men stay? Of course, fear of official reprisals against

deserters, or “cowards” was one explanation: in OSU Millen is warned by McIlwaine

that merely criticising officers could lead to a court martial. Recent research shows

that the number of men tried by courts martial for a variety of disciplinary offences

was higher in Irish regiments than in English, Scottish and Welsh ones; however, Irish

soldiers were not over-represented among those executed following courts martial 52.


36

22 In any case, fear of reprisals was hardly a sufficient explanation for willingness to stay

and fight. Fussell’s study in 1975 highlighted the “innocence” of the troops, their

elevated language of personal control and honour, and also their sense of confidence:

on the eve of the Somme even the generals felt that God was on their side 53. Recent

research has offered a somewhat modified view. Confidence there was, in the effects of

British artillery in preparing the way for the advance of the infantry, and although this

turned out to be misplaced at the Somme, in the longer term improvements in artillery

meant that the war came to an end on Allied terms 54. Morale-boosting initiatives were

common: the 36th Division possessed a concert troupe and cinema. Group loyalty –

often loyalty to very small groups – was an important factor. Jay Winter has noted that

such camaraderie made the war a very private affair indeed, with survival chances

often depending on two or three men. Such bonds, frequently pre-dating the war, were

reinforced by the isolation of platoons at the front 55. All this is prefigured in OSU

through the creation or intensification of relationships (“pairing and bonding”), the

results of which are recalled by the elder Pyper as the play begins. He remembers

Anderson’s vain attempts to save his friend McIlwaine; and Moore endlessly searching

for Millen, supposed dead 56. In such conditions homo-erotic relationships might

develop: in OSU that between Pyper and Craig even comes to win a certain acceptance

from the other characters 57.

23 The role of the junior officers, who (in contrast to the “top brass”) served in the

trenches alongside the men, has also been stressed. Overlooked in Fussell’s account,

and largely absent from OSU (one is said to have passed through the trench shortly

before the battle is due to begin, only to be dismissed by Millen as a “useless bugger”),

these officers in fact shared the risks of the men they led, and their death rate was even

higher: 20 per cent as compared with 10-12 per cent of enlisted men in combat units 58.

Desertion, or failure to return after leave, meant breaking faith with such officers. All

this casts doubt on the (mainly recent) perception of the infantry as mere victims,

duped into sacrificing themselves by remote and unfeeling officers. The quality of

British high command at the Somme, so long regarded as lamentably poor, has also

come in for some reassessment 59.

24 Additional resources to sustain morale at the front were also available. All accounts

mention the importance of religion, and those of the 36th Division emphasise that the

reading of bibles was particularly common among Ulstermen 60. This must have eased

the task of the Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA), which provided (in addition

to a canteens system) religious, educational and social activities among the men. The

work of the Y.M.C.A. in the 36th Division was highly praised by Major General Powell 61.

OSU strikes a sceptical note in having Moore draw attention to profane uses of the

bible, but as the battle approaches, he and his comrades find more conventional

comfort in hymn singing and prayer 62.

25 The significance of the Orange tradition, on the other hand, has become a matter of

some controversy, which in respect of OSU has centred on the donning of Orange sashes

by the men as they prepare to fight on 1 July 63. A number of points can be made. That

membership of the Orange Order, although it has not been quantified, was present in

the 36th Division seems certain; several battalions in the Division had their own Orange

lodges, and lodge meetings took place at the front 64. In July 1915, the War Office went

so far as to move the 36th Division from Ireland to Britain lest men desert to participate

in Orange parades on 12 July 65. None of this, of course, meant that membership of the


37

Order was the norm in the Division. As to the invoking of Orange symbols on the first

day of the battle (the Old Style anniversary of the battle of the Boyne) there are

conflicting reports. Several early accounts indicated that the men were aware of,

indeed inspired by, the significance of the date 66. The source for shouts of “No

Surrender” as the men went over the top has been traced to a letter from an English

officer at the front to the Belfast Grand Master of Orange Lodges, which was published

in the press on 7 July 1916 67. Among the veterans he studied, Philip Orr found some

contemporary evidence for the wearing of Orange lilies, and the singing/whistling of

Orange songs. Certainly, the Orange Order was quick to incorporate symbols associated

with the Somme into their banners 68.

26 However, a survivor who wrote to the Belfast Telegraph in 1966 criticised the

“nonsense stuck on to the story”. Admittedly, an orange handkerchief had been waved,

but orange was his battalion’s colour; and the writer cast doubt on the extent to which

the significance of 1 July was widely known 69. Doubt on the wearing of sashes was

expressed by the survivor cited by Kevin Myers 70. Keith Jeffery’s verdict seems

judicious: “reliable authority for these stories is hard to come by, and they have

certainly multiplied in the telling 71.” But ultimately, given the presence of Orangeism

in the Division, the donning of the Orange sashes is not intrinsically implausible, and it

makes sense in terms of the action of the play, symbolising as it does not merely the

men’s commitment to each other, but Pyper’s acceptance of himself as one of them and

his reconciliation with his “ancestral voices”.

27 These matters lead naturally on to the issue of “history and memory”. The twentieth

century, with its questioning of the integrity of the self, of authorship, and the

reliability of human memory, prompted scepticism in some quarters about the extent

to which the past is knowable at all. The inherent subjectivity of even eye-witness

reports has become more widely recognised, and the passage of time raises even more

questions about the “authenticity” of what is recalled 72.

28 Such issues lie at the very heart of OSU, since so much of what happens on stage is a

function of the memory of the elder Pyper. At the outset Pyper makes the disclaimer: “I

am not your military historian”, which at its simplest reminds the audience of the

subjectivity of his testimony, but also raises the possibility that his interpretation of his

group’s wartime experience may be influenced – and almost certainly is influenced – by

later events, and specifically, it appears, by “the Troubles”, to which he alludes. The

warning is compounded by Pyper’s statement that “I am a liar 73”. In fact, we take on

trust what he tells us of the group, because the men he recalls are so vividly brought to

life 74.

29 Where, then, does OSU fit into what historians have had to say about Ulster Protestant

identity and the First World War? Of course, it was neither the war nor the Somme that

induced northern Protestants to highlight their “Ulster” identity, which in its modern

form can be traced back to the first Home Rule crisis in 1886, and indeed further back

still 75. However, not only did contemporary considerations influence the appearance of

early tributes to the 36th (Ulster) Division such as that of Falls, but they also coloured

the process of commemoration. Given the evidence, now available in some detail 76,

about Catholic participation in the war – including the battle of the Somme, though

mostly in its later stages – there was no inherent reason why in Northern Ireland the

war should not have been commemorated in ways that would have been inclusive of

the two communities.


38

30 That this (though there were exceptions) did not happen, and the process of

commemoration became “overwhelmingly an opportunity to confirm loyalty to the

British link and affirm Ulster’s Protestant heritage 77”, has to be evaluated in the light

of the circumstances in which Northern Ireland was set up. The campaign waged by the

IRA in Northern Ireland in 1921 and 1922, endorsed by the hawkish element in the

provisional government in Dublin, was intended to destabilise the province and force

an end to partition. This served to reinforce and intensify the traditional Protestant

sense of siege, and put a premium on ensuring Unionist unity 78. Meanwhile, in the Irish

Free State the tradition of commemorating the war, quite strong in the immediate

post-war decades, was dealt a blow by Irish neutrality in the Second World War: such

commemoration, it was feared, could imply support for the new British war effort 79.

31 By the time Unionists faced their next major challenge with the onset of “the Troubles”

nearly half a century later (the background against which the elder Pyper recalls his

wartime experience), much had changed. What has been called their “multi-layered”

sense of identity, comprising Ulster, Irish and British imperial elements, was becoming

more problematic 80. Although by the 1920s Unionists had come to accept devolution

for the North, their sense of Irishness, already diminishing in the period of the Home

Rule crisis, had been further eroded by the Gaelicising policies and de facto status

accorded to the Catholic church in the Free State, and by the different experiences, on

either side of the border, of the Second World War and its aftermath. Identification

with Britain, which had drawn much of its strength from ties of religion and common

imperial interests, became less straightforward as the influence of mainstream

Protestant churches diminished in Britain and disengagement from empire gathered

pace. The advent of the Cold War reduced Northern Ireland’s strategic importance, as

did the accession of Britain and the Irish Republic to the EEC. Thus the abolition of the

Stormont parliament in 1973, which dramatically demonstrated the limits of self-

government, was followed by greater interest, in some loyalist and Unionist quarters,

in the idea of an autonomous Northern Ireland 81. The Protestant tradition of self-

reliance could be invoked, which provides a context in which the elder Pyper could

appropriate the meaning of “Sinn Féin” (“Ourselves alone”) for Ulster Protestants 82.

And if there were sectarian and atavistic overtones in such a response, there were also

positive elements, including love of place and landscape: both aspects are reflected in

OSU 83.

32 The first production of OSU in 1985 generated considerable controversy in Ireland.

Theatre critic David Nowlan may have exaggerated when he called the play “one of the

most devastating attacks ever made on Ulster Protestantism” 84, but it can be read as an

indictment of the traditional values of loyalty to king, creed, and empire that rendered

men willing to sacrifice their lives at the behest of faceless and incompetent “top

brass”. The power of these traditions is dramatically brought to life by the men’s action

in donning their Orange sashes, and in the consent of Pyper – who had mocked those

traditions – to join in that symbolic act. The hymn they all sing is redolent of the

ultimate sacrifice they are about to make: “I’m but a stranger here, Heaven is my

home” 85. That such values are represented in the play as having enduring power,

reaching into the late twentieth century, can be seen as rendering them all the more

malign and destructive. We observe that in later life Pyper still clings to these values,

despite the fact that they may seem to be ineffective or, indeed, counterproductive:

“the house has grown cold. Ulster has grown lonely 86.” To this extent, the play is


39

consistent with the twentieth-century “modernist” rejection of traditional “heroic”

interpretations of the war, informed as the latter were by high-flown sentiments and

patriotic certainties 87.

33 However, such a verdict on the play is not sufficient. For the play, at another level, is

also about Pyper’s mourning for his comrades. If he adopts their values, if he returns

home to Armagh, it appears that he does so willingly as an affirmation of love for them

and for Ulster. Certainly, any dreams he may have had about a future life with Craig

were blasted by the war, but nevertheless his wartime experiences were the richest and

most intense of his life 88. Even in old age he is still visited by the men’s ghosts, and

struggles to make sense of their deaths, at one moment blaming God, at another

accepting that this is too simple: “in the end, we were not led, we led ourselves 89.” To

this extent, the elder Pyper represents not just one Ulster Protestant but millions of

survivors, who were faced, like him, with the task of finding meaning in such appalling

losses.

34 In their study of commemoration, historians have noted that it was generally the case,

not merely in Britain and Ireland, that its forms and processes owed much to

traditional values, to religious and patriotic symbolism, to romantic and classical styles

that had been prevalent in the nineteenth century and even earlier. Certainly, even

before the war ended, there were those who rejected a patriotic and religious response;

but the point has been made that the modernist critique, with its emphasis on

dislocation, paradox, and irony, lacked the power of traditional forms and images to

mediate bereavement 90. Hence the propensity to commemorate the dead with crosses

and cenotaphs, obelisks and war memorials containing their “Rolls of Honour”. These

memorials became the focus for anniversary gatherings. Such invocation of the dead,

Winter has argued, transcended class and rank and created “a bond of bereavement 91”.

35 Tradition, in other words, provided a cathartic language of mourning, both at a private

and a collective level, something that was not unique to Ulster, or to Ulster Protestants.

This was less obviously the case after the Second World War, which threw up horrors

unmatched even in the First, and was not followed, or not to the same extent, by the

revival of traditional forms of language and imagery: silence sometimes seemed the

only appropriate response. It was after that war, it has been argued, that the modernist

critique took hold more strongly 92, and it is from this later world that the elder Pyper

addresses us, when the search for meaning had become much more difficult.

Appropriately, at first, it seems, he will be unable or unwilling to describe his

experience, but he brings himself to do so. Not the least of his achievements in this play

is that in OSU McGuinness overcomes the temptation simply to imprison his characters

at one end of the spectrum of twentieth-century responses to the meaning of two world

wars.

36 I am grateful to Keith Jeffery for reading this article and for his helpful suggestions.

Errors that remain are, of course, my own.


40

NOTES

1. OSU was awarded the Dan Rooney Prize for Literature in 1985, and the Christopher

Ewart-Biggs Memorial Prize in 1987. For an illuminating interdisciplinary study of the

play see Bernhard Klein, On the Uses of History in Recent Irish Writing, Manchester,

Manchester University Press, 2007, pp. 101-24; see also Claire Gleitman,

“Reconstructing History in the Irish History Play”, in Shaun Richards (ed.), The

Cambridge Companion to Twentieth-Century Irish Drama, Cambridge, Cambridge University

Press, 2004, p. 218-30, and Eamonn Jordan, The Feast of Famine: The Plays of Frank

McGuinness, Bern, Peter Lang, 1997, p. 25-45.

2. See, e.g., Keith Jeffery, “Under the Blood-Red Hand”, Times Literary Supplement, No.

4312, 22 Nov. 1985, p. 1326; Joep Leerssen, “Monument and Trauma: Varieties of

Remembrance”, in Ian McBride (ed.), History and Memory in Modern Ireland, Cambridge,

Cambridge University Press, 2001, p. 204-22, at p. 222; D. G. Boyce, “That Party Politics

Should Divide Our Tents: Nationalism, Unionism and the First World War”, in Adrian

Gregory and Senia Paseta (eds.), Ireland and the Great War “A War to Unite Us All?”,

Manchester, Manchester University Press, 2002, p. 190-217, at p. 209-11.

3. J. J. Lee, Ireland 1912-1985, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1989, p. 589.

4. The Origins of the First World War: Great Power Rivalry and German War Aims, edited by H.

W. Koch, London, Macmillan, 1972, p. 3-12.

5. Mr Punch’s History of the Great War, London, New York, Toronto and Melbourne,

Cassell, 1919. On soldiers’ letters, much recent research is summarised in Neil Jakob,

“Representation and Commemoration of the Great War”, Irish History: A Research

Yearbook, No. 1, Dublin, Four Courts Press, 2002, p. 75-88.

6. War Letters of Fallen Englishmen, London, Victor Gollancz, 1930. The collection also

included some letters written by Dominion soldiers and Americans (Jakob, op. cit.,

p. 78-79).

7. Ian McBride, “Memory and Identity in Modern Ireland”, in McBride (ed.), History and

Memory in Modern Ireland, p. 1-42, at p. 6-7.

8. Helen Heusner Lojek, Contexts for Frank McGuinness’s Drama, Washington, Catholic

University of America Press, 2004, p. 67.

9. J.M. Winter, The Experience of World War I, Oxford, Equinox, 1988, p. 92.

10. Paul Fussell, The Great War and Modern Memory, Oxford, Oxford University Press,

1975, p. 35.

11. See, e.g., Robin Prior and Trevor Wilson, “Paul Fussell at War”, War in History,

Volume I, No. 1, 1994, 63-80.

12. In addition to Winter, op. cit., and Fussell, op. cit., see also Samuel Hynes, A War

Imagined: The First World War and English Culture, London, Pimlico, 1992; Jay Winter, Sites

of Memory, Sites of Mourning: The Great War in European Cultural History, Cambridge,

Cambridge University Press, 1995; Jay Winter and Emmanuel Sivan (eds), War and

Remembrance in the Twentieth Century, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1999.

13. Irish Historical Studies, Volume I, No. 1, March 1938, Preface, p. 2; statement under

“Writings on Irish History”, ibid., p. 68.


41

14. See e.g., Michael MacDonagh, The Irish at the Front, with an introduction by John

Redmond, M.P., London, New York and Toronto, Hodder & Stoughton, 1916; idem, The

Irish on the Somme, with an introduction by John Redmond, M.P., London, New York and

Toronto, Hodder & Stoughton, 1917; Anon., The Great War 1914-1918. Ulster Greets her

Brave and Faithful Sons and Remembers her Glorious Dead, Belfast, Bairds, 1919.

15. Cyril Falls, The History of the 36th (Ulster) Division (first published 1922) London,

Constable, 1998, p. xv.

16. Ibid., p. 43.

17. It has been estimated that the 36th Division suffered some 5,000 casualties on 1-2

July, of whom at least 2,000 died. See Philip Orr, The Road to the Somme. Men of the Ulster

Division Tell Their Story, Belfast, Blackstaff Press, 1987, p. 199-200; Tom Johnstone,

Orange, Green and Khaki: The Story of the Irish Regiments in the Great War 1914-18, Dublin, Gill

& Macmillan, 1992, p. 235.

18. Falls, op. cit., p. XIII.

19. Ibid., p. XI, 301.

20. Keith Jeffery, Ireland and the Great War, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press,

2000, p. 133-4.

21. As in Britain, however, some socialists took a different view, including the poet

John Hewitt, who stressed the futility of the war: see Edna Longley, “The Rising, the

Somme and Irish Memory”, in Máirín Ní Dhonnchadha and Theo Dorgan (eds), Revising

the Rising, Derry, Field Day, 1991, p. 29-49, at p. 40.

22. See, e.g., Hugh Shearman, Anglo-Irish Relations, London, Faber & Faber, 1948, p. 163;

A. T. Q. Stewart, The Ulster Crisis, London, Faber & Faber, 1967, p. 242.

23. Henry Harris, The Irish Regiments in the First World War, Cork, Mercier Press, 1968,

p. 210.

24. Orr, op. cit., p. 218.

25. Liam de Paor, Divided Ulster, Harmondsworth, Penguin Books, 1971, p. 83.

26. Ibid., p. XX; Constantine Fitzgibbon, Red Hand: The Ulster Colony, London, Michael

Joseph, 1971, pp. 333-335.

27. See two works by Ian Adamson, Cruthin: The Ancient Kindred, Newtownards, Pretani

Press, 1974, also published as The Cruthin, Belfast, 1986, 1991; The Identity of Ulster: The

Land, the Language and the People, Belfast, Pretani Press, 1982, 1991.

28. Personal communication.

29. A. T. Q. Stewart, The Narrow Ground: Patterns of Ulster History, London, Faber & Faber,

1977, p. 183-185.

30. OSU, p. 47: all references to Faber edition, London, 1986.

31. Hiroko Mikami, Frank McGuinness and his Theatre of Paradox, Gerrards Cross, Colin

Smythe, 2002, p. 15; Lojek, op. cit., p. 77.

32. Fussell, op. cit., ch. 6; cf Falls, op. cit., p. XVI.

33. 33. Fussell, op. cit., ch. 3.

34. The accuracy of Fussell’s account of life at the front has been questioned: see Prior

and Wilson, op. cit., who ask whether the complexities of modern warfare can be laid

bare on the basis simply of literary sources and some personal accounts (p. 63).


42

35. Recent research on Ireland and the First World War is reviewed in Timothy

Bowman, The Irish Regiments and the Great War: Discipline and Morale, Manchester,

Manchester University Press, 2003, p. 1-7.

36. David Fitzpatrick, “Militarism in Ireland, 1900-1922”, in Thomas Bartlett and Keith

Jeffery (eds), A Military History of Ireland, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1996,

p. 379-406, at p. 389.

37. Nicholas Perry, “Maintaining Regimental Identity in the Great War: The Case of the

Irish Infantry Regiments”, Stand To!: The Journal of the Western Front Association, No. 52

(April 1998), p. 5-6.

38. James Loughlin, Ulster Unionism and British National Identity Since 1885, London and

New York, Pinter, 1995, p. 82.

39. OSU, p. 54.

40. Fitzpatrick, “Militarism in Ireland”, p. 389.

41. Falls, op. cit., p. 2-5.

42. Fitzpatrick, “Militarism in Ireland”, p. 389.

43. Jeffery, Ireland and the Great War, p. 19-20.

44. Fitzpatrick, “Militarism in Ireland”, p. 389; see also idem, “The Logic of Collective

Sacrifice: Ireland and the British Army, 1914-1918”, Historical Journal, Volume 38, No. 4,

1995, 1017-1030, at p. 1023; Loughlin, op. cit., pp. 77-79.

45. See veterans cited by Orr, op. cit., p. 225; also Fitzpatrick, “Militarism in Ireland”,

p. 389.

46. Fitzpatrick, “Militarism in Ireland”, p. 379; John Gooch, “Attitudes to War in Late

Victorian and Edwardian England”, in Brian Boyd and Ian Roy (eds), War and Society: A

Yearbook of Military History, London, Croom Helm, n.d., 1975?, 99-100.

47. Fitzpatrick, “Militarism in Ireland”, p. 381-91; idem, “The Logic of Collective

Sacrifice”, p. 1028-1029. The significance of the links between the U.V.F. and the 36th

Division are reassessed by Timothy Bowman, “The Ulster Volunteer Force and the

Formation of the 36th (Ulster) Division”, Irish Historical Studies, Volume 32, No. 128, Nov.

2001, 498-518.

48. Orr, op. cit., p. 161-4; Falls, op. cit., p. 12.

49. Fitzpatrick, “The Logic of Collective Sacrifice”, p. 1029; idem, “Militarism in

Ireland”, p. 388-389; Bowman, “The Ulster Volunteer Force”, p. 513-4.

50. MacDonagh, The Irish on the Somme, p. 27-28; Myles Dungan, Irish Voices From the

Great War, Dublin, Irish Academic Press, 1995, p. 126.

51. Winter, Experience of World War I, p. 114.

52. OSU, p. 62; Bowman, Irish Regiments, p. 202-203.

53. Fussell, op. cit., p. 21-29.

54. Cf Falls, op. cit., p. 61; Johnstone, op. cit., p. 224; Prior and Wilson, op. cit., p. 67-8.

55. Bowman, Irish Regiments, p. 26; Winter, Experience of World War I, p. 146-7. On morale

in the British forces during the Great War, see also David Englander and James Osborne,

“Jack, Tommy, and Henry Dubb: The Armed Forces and the Working Class”, Historical

Journal, Volume 21, No. 3, 1978, 594-5.

56. OSU, p. 11.


43

57. On this subject, see Fussell, op. cit., ch. 8.

58. OSU, p. 62; Winter, Experience of World War I, p. 147.

59. See Prior and Wilson, op. cit., p. 67; Jeffery, Ireland and the Great War, p. 9-10; Gary

Sheffield, The Somme, London, Cassell, 2003, p. XII-XV.

60. Falls, op. cit., p. 16-17; Orr, op. cit., p. 57-8, 124-6; Perry, “Maintaining Regimental

Identity”, p. 9.

61. Bowman, Irish Regiments, p. 26-8.

62. OSU, p. 32, 66-67, 78-79.

63. OSU, p. 77-79.

64. Falls, op. cit., p. 63; Orr, op. cit., p. 58, 129-131.

65. Bowman, Irish Regiments, p. 86-87.

66. Anon., The Great War 1914-1918, p. 20; MacDonagh, Irish on the Somme, p. 24, 36, 39;

John Buchan, The Battle of the Somme, Volume 16 of Nelson’s History of the War, 24

Volumes, London, Edinburgh, and New York, Thomas Nelson, 1914-1919, p. 41; Falls, op.

cit., p. 51.

67. David Officer, “‘For God and Ulster’: The Ulsterman on the Somme”, in McBride

(ed.), History and Memory in Modern Ireland, p. 160-183, at p. 168.

68. Orr, op. cit., p. 164, 170; Dungan, op. cit., p. 126.

69. Orr, op. cit., p. 218.

70. Kevin Myers, “The Irish and the Great War” (programme note, OSU, Abbey Theatre,

Dublin, October 1994), and for further discussion see Dungan, op. cit., p. 109.

71. Jeffery, Ireland and the Great War, p. 56; see also Mikami, op. cit., p. 20-21.

72. For a discussion of the issue of “authenticity” in respect of published collections of

soldiers’ letters, see Jakob, op. cit., p. 75-77; Winter and Sivan, “Setting the Framework”,

in Winter and Sivan, op. cit., p. 6-39, at p. 13.

73. OSU, p. 9-11.

74. For a valuable discussion of the issue of history and memory in OSU see Klein, op.

cit., 105-110.

75. Ian McBride, “Ulster and the British Problem”, in Richard English and Graham

Walker (eds), Unionism in Modern Ireland: New Perspectives on Politics and Culture,

Basingstoke, Macmillan, 1996, p. 1-15, at p. 6-7. Also of interest is Richard R. Russell,

“Ulster Unionism’s Mythic and Religious Culture in Observe the Sons of Ulster”, Working

Papers in Irish Studies, Nova Southeastern University, Fort Lauderdale, Florida, 1998,

pp. 1-16.

76. See Johnstone, op. cit. ; Terence Denman, Ireland’s Unknown Soldiers: The 16th (Irish)

Division in the Great War, 1914-1918, Dublin, Irish Academic Press, 1992; Dungan, op. cit.


78. Alvin Jackson, Ireland 1798-1998: Politics and War, Oxford, Blackwells, 1999, p. 279,

336-339; Brian Barton, “Northern Ireland, 1920-25”, in J. R. Hill (ed.), A New History of

Ireland VII: Ireland 1921-1984, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 161-198, at p. 173-198.


80. McBride, “Ulster and the British Problem”, p. 1.

81. Ibid., p. 12-13; Jackson, op. cit., p. 400-1.


44

82. OSU, p. 10.

83. OSU, p. 33-4, 38-9, 72-3. See also Jordan, op. cit., p. 39-40.

84. Irish Times, 23 Feb. 1985 (cited in Mikami, op. cit., p. 236-237 (n. 12)).

85. OSU, p. 78.

86. OSU, p. 11.

87. Winter, Sites of Memory, p. 2.

88. Cf Berenice Shrank, “World War I in the Plays of Shaw, O’Casey and McGuinness,

Études Irlandaises, Vol. 17, No. 2, December 1992, 29-36 (p. 34).

89. OSU, p. 9-12.


91. Ibid., p. 227-228. For the prevalence of such styles of memorials in Ireland see Jane

Leonard, “Lest We Forget”, in David Fitzpatrick (ed.), Ireland and the First World War,

Dublin, Trinity History Workshop, 1986, p. 59-67; Jeffery, Ireland and the Great War,

p. 108-133.


ABSTRACTS

This paper examines the treatment of Ireland and World War One in Observe the Sons of Ulster

Marching Towards the Somme, one of Frank McGuinness’s best-known plays, and among the leading

Irish history plays of the twentieth century. The play has received considerable analysis from

literature specialists, but much less from historians. In particular, the paper considers the play in

the context of the evolving historiography of the First World War, including Irish participation,

history and memory, and forms of commemoration.

Specific issues discussed include who enlisted, and why; why soldiers were prepared to stay and

fight (despite the high level of casualties), and Ulster Protestant identity. Among the scholars and

writers whose work is mentioned are Tim Bowman, Cyril Falls, David Fitzpatrick, Paul Fussell,

Henry Harris, Laurence Housman, Keith Jeffery, Jennifer Johnston, Kevin Myers, David Nowlan,

Philip Orr, A.T.Q. Stewart, and Jay Winter.

Cet article analyse la représentation de l’Irlande et de la Première Guerre mondiale dans Observe

the Sons of Ulster Marching Towards the Somme, une des pièces les plus connues de Frank

McGuinness, et une des pièces historiques irlandaises majeures écrites au xxe siècle. La pièce a

déjà fait l’objet d’un nombre considérable d’études de la part de spécialistes de littérature, mais a

reçu moins d’attention de la part des historiens. Cet article replace la pièce dans le contexte de

l’évolution de l’historiographie de la Première Guerre mondiale, concernant en particulier la

participation des Irlandais, le rapport entre histoire et mémoire, et les formes de la

commémoration. Les questions précises discutées ici sont : qui étaient ceux qui s’engagèrent, et

quelles raisons ils avaient de le faire ; pourquoi les soldats étaient prêts à rester et à se battre, en

dépit du grand nombre de tués ; et l’identité protestante de l’Ulster. Parmi les spécialistes et

auteurs dont le nom est mentionné apparaissent Tim Bowman, Cyril Falls, David Fitzpatrick, Paul


45

Fussell, Henry Harris, Laurence Housman, Keith Jeffery, Jennifer Johnston, Kevin Myers, David

Nowlan, Philip Orr, A.T.Q. Stewart, et Jay Winter.

INDEX

Keywords: Easter Rising (1916), battle of the Somme (1916), First World War, history and fiction,

McGuinness Franck, drama, Northern Ireland - conflict, Ulster Division (36th)

Mots-clés: bataille de la Somme (1916), McGuinness Frank, histoire et fiction, Première Guerre

mondiale, Irlande du Nord - conflit, théâtre, division d’Ulster (36e), soulèvement de Pâques (1916)

AUTHOR

JACQUELINE HILL

Department of History, NUI Maynooth


46

Closer to Brussels than toRome? The EU as the new externalreferent for a secularised Irishsociety and a redefined CatholicidentityJean-Christophe Penet

1 It can be easily argued that from the creation of the Irish State and well into the 1960s

Catholicism was at its apex in Ireland, as the institutional Church turned out to be one

of the great victors of the nation’s war for independence. As shown by Patsy McGarry,

it was a time when “Ireland was producing so many priests and nuns that between one-

third and a half of them went on the missions” 1. In an article about Catholic and

national identity, however, Timothy J. White shows that, despite appearances, “By the

late 1950s and early 1960s, the integration of Catholicism and national identity which

had delayed or prevented the secularisation that had come to the rest of Europe finally

yielded to those forces associated with the arrival of industrialisation and

urbanisation 2.” In fact, just as Irish nationalism, which had achieved most of its

objectives by the 1960s, had paradoxically become exhausted at that time – as shown by

the decision to apply for EEC membership in 1961 – it seems that the high point of its

most faithful ally, the Catholic Church, had also already passed in Ireland by the end of

that decade 3. It is therefore legitimate to wonder whether Ireland’s will to join in the

European project was the result of or further entailed the weakening position of the

Catholic Church in Ireland, and how the latter reacted to those changing

circumstances. How did the Church react to the gradual crumbling down of its

monopoly within Irish society at a time when the country started becoming more

liberal-minded, increasingly founding its hopes on the emerging liberal and secular

European Community? To try and answer this question, we shall first have a closer look

at the way EEC membership has transformed the relationship between Church and

State since Ireland started its liberal dawn in the late 1950s. This should lead us to note


47

that the Church’s loss of its monopoly in Ireland has not meant the disappearance of its

influence in the public sphere. In fact, the Church has pragmatically and successfully

adapted its views on the European project over the years in order to survive. This has,

in turn, brought about a redefinition of its perceived role both within Irish society and

within the European Union.

2 On an institutional level, the liberal 4 dawn of the sixties started in Ireland when Seán

Lemass became Taoiseach in 1959, since he engendered, along with Ken Whitaker 5,

what Liam Ryan calls the “creation of the second Ireland 6” – the one that came after de

Valera’s. Even though Seán Lemass had been, as minister in de Valera’s government, an

advocate of isolationism, he decided, as Taoiseach, that it was time for Ireland to

improve its grim economy by trading isolationism for free trade. As underlined by

Marie-Claire Considère-Charon: “Tandis que le projet de marché commun se consolidait peu à

peu, l’Irlande allait à son tour redéfinir ses orientations et ses priorités. Une nouvelle logique

économique sous le signe de l’ouverture allait se mettre en place 7.” Recognising that Ireland’s

size, its geographical location and its insularity somewhat hindered the country’s

economic boom, Lemass nonetheless claimed that these obstacles could be removed by

a new and appropriate economic strategy. As a result, crucial policy changes were

brought together in Thomas Kenneth Whitaker’s seminal paper Economic Development

(1958). These policies were, as shown by John Bradley, “a heady and novel mix of

commitment to trade liberalisation, a range of direct and indirect grant aid to private

firms, and a singular incentive of zero corporation profit tax exports 8”. An attractive

corporation tax rate and the absence of tariffs were, however, but a beginning in the

creation of this second Ireland which, according to Liam Ryan, “brought economic as

well as psychological transformation to the country by providing a solid economic

base 9”. It was in such a context that Ireland sent its application for EEC membership

along with the British application in 1961.

3 It is true that Ireland could barely have done otherwise once the British Prime Minister

Macmillan had announced the intention of the UK to apply for membership, as the 1938

Anglo-Irish Trade Agreement had made the UK Ireland’s greatest trading partner. Yet

there are reasons to believe that the application also corresponded to a genuine will on

the part of the Irish government to join in the new economic perspective opened up by

the European Economic Community. Even though the joint Anglo-Irish application was

rejected due to General de Gaulle’s staunch refusal to let the UK become a new EEC-

member – to be finally accepted in 1972 under Georges Pompidou’s presidency – the

seriousness with which the Irish took their application was demonstrated in the

educational domain. After the war, most European countries had developed an

egalitarian vision of society in which education had a key role to play. Equal

educational opportunities, it was believed, would enable the disadvantaged to climb the

social ladder. In Ireland, however, education had remained the stronghold of the

Catholic Church, and “the Church’s concentration on the humane disciplines, and its

endorsement of the classical liberal education tradition had resulted in technical

knowledge being undervalued10”. In 1966, the – originally European – Organisation for

Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) published a report entitled

“Investment in Education”. The OECD reproached the Irish education system for having

a strong degree of class differentiation at secondary and third levels and it strongly

recommended a change in the Irish curricular emphasis from the classical humanist

tradition – championed by the Church – to “applied knowledge”, that is to say to a form


48

of knowledge that could serve economic development. In the wake of the OECD report,

the Department of Education decided to design new school curricula that would serve

the needs of an industrial economy. The Department of Education’s decision to take the

advice of the OECD cannot be underestimated, as it represented a fundamental

philosophical shift in thinking on education.11 The government’s decision to answer the

needs of the Irish economy in spite of the Church’s unwillingness to yield power in the

educational domain and, thereby, its decision to put an end to what had been the

guiding principle in education since the late 19th century, shows that Irish politics and

Irish society had already started having more secular preoccupations in the mid-1960s.

Whether they were, at a political level, brought into the country by OECD reports or, at

a social level, by the foreign media and their foreign programmes (and we are thinking,

here, of the BBC), the more secular and liberal preoccupations of most Western

societies had well and truly penetrated Irish society by the end of the sixties.

4 In fact, the ease with which these crucial new policies were carried out and accepted in

Ireland tends to show that the country was already partly secularised at that stage.

Truly, one could believe that, due to the withdrawal of Irish society into an inclusive

form of nationalism progressively associated with Catholicism through the 19th

century, and to the isolationism championed by the Church-State-Nation triangle in De

Valera’s moral community, Ireland did not experience modernity. However, this

interpretation ignores the fact that one of the main characteristics of modernity was,

after all, the creation of new political communities. In its efforts to “restore” the Irish

nation to the way it used to be under the banner of religion, nationalism in Ireland was

much more a political project – a future-oriented political belief and ideology that

made ample use of the past to legitimise its present claims – than a religious one. Irish

nationalists were in fact unconsciously changing the divine order by imposing their

own nationalist – and therefore human – will onto this order. Even though the modern

political ideology adopted by modern Ireland – its political belief – was a mix of

nationalism and of Ultramontane Catholicism which rejected modern, secular values, it

can be argued that Irish society started its own secularisation process from the very

moment it adopted this very political ideology. Thus, despite appearances, De Valera’s

moral community was never completely achieved – and it was speedily dismissed once

the time had come. If this explains why the changes adopted in the 1960s, and notably

the decision to apply for EEC membership, were easily accepted by most of the Irish, it

does not account for the Irish hierarchy’s acceptance of the latter. In fact, this was

probably due to the redefinition of Catholic practices and of the role of the Church in

society brought about by the second Vatican Council. Started in 1962, the council,

which consisted in an effort to adapt the Catholic Church to the modern world,

encouraged – albeit unconsciously – the advance of secularisation, since it recognised

the modern values of private judgement and of pluralism it had until then

intransigently fought. With Vatican II, the Catholic Church was turning the page on the

intransigent chapter of its history, no less. However reluctantly, the Irish Catholic

hierarchy – which for the most part could not see any point in changing anything

within the Church, as there were but few visible signs of secularisation in Ireland at the

time – followed Rome’s instructions, thereby remaining faithful to its tradition of

unquestioning obedience to the Holy See. It consequently gave the Irish government

more leeway in terms of economic policies. What is more, there is another reason why

the Second Vatican Council participated in the Irish clergy’s acceptance of the EEC-


49

membership. In an article on “Religious phenomena and European Identification”,

Alfredo Canavero and Jean-Dominique Durand emphasised that:

[…] les pèlerinages à Rome, surtout ceux qui ont suivi les deux

guerres mondiales, ou le concile de Vatican II, ont représenté une

étape importante dans le processus d’intégration et dans la formation

d’une mentalité européenne […]. Dans une perspective originale,

Dominique Gonnet a souligné ce que l’événement conciliaire a

signifié pour la rencontre et les échanges entre les évêques

européens après le cloisonnement des dernières années du pontificat

pacellien. Il a défini le concile comme « le point d’ancrage d’une

longue histoire européenne » […]. Ce fut la solidarité entre les

évêques européens et leurs sentiments communs qui permirent

l’approbation de la déclaration sur la liberté religieuse Dignitatis

Humanae, avec des effets importants sur le développement de

l’œcuménisme et, par conséquent, une plus grande intégration parmi

les peuples européens 12.

5 Even though it would be fair to think that, due to Ireland’s neutrality during the war

and the apparent good health of Catholicism there, the Irish bishops did not share as

much in the feeling of solidarity as, say, their French counterparts, this does not mean

that they did not experience it at all. Upon coming back from Rome, Irish bishops were

probably much more willing to show themselves more enthusiastic about Ireland’s

membership in the EEC than in the 1950s, be it to control the change that was bound to

emerge from it. Indeed, by the mid-1960s, they were increasingly aware of the fact that

Ireland was becoming visibly more secular. As confirmed by Timothy J. White:

[…] by integrating the Irish economy with those in Europe and the rest of the world,[Seán] Lemass [had] necessarily unleashed forces that would challenge not only thestandard of living of the Irish but also their priorities and values in life. Thematerialistic mentality of the Irish proliferated as material conditions in Irelanddramatically improved in the 1960s 13.

6 In 1972, however, the year when its EC-membership joint application with the UK was

finally accepted, Ireland still bore nearly all of the characteristics of a Third-World

country. Its unbalanced economy was marked by high unemployment and emigration

levels as well as by bad infrastructures and a poorly skilled and insufficient

workforce 14. Things were soon to change for the better, though, in the Emerald Isle,

thanks to continued economic reform and massive EEC investments. Thus, as

emphasised by John Bradley:

The Irish economic policy-making environment during this period can becharacterised as having shifted from one appropriate to a dependent state on theperiphery of the UK to that of a region more fully integrated into an encompassingEuropean economy. Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) renovated and boosted Irishproductive capacity. The Single Market provided the primary source of demand. Allthat remained was for a big push on improvement in physical infrastructure,education and training, and this arrived in the form of a dramatic innovation inregional policy at the EU level 15.

7 The link between Ireland’s EEC membership and its improving economy certainly

explains why the Irish have been so favourable to the European project16. In the 1972

referendum on EEC membership, 83 per cent of the Irish voted in favour of

membership 17. Fifteen years later, in the referendum on the Single European Act (May


50

1987), only 30 per cent of them rejected the act which was to open up an internal free

market of 320 million consumers – with free movement of goods, services, people and

capital ensured – by 31 December 1992. Economically, at least, this meant that the Irish

were ready to do away with their insular mentality to adopt, instead, a more global

stand. In an article published in the Jesuit magazine Studies in 1989, the then European

Commissioner Irish-born Peter D. Sutherland stated that it would be unfair to

characterise the positive attitude of the Irish towards Europe “as simply a reflection of

the widespread understanding that membership has brought substantial economic

benefit 18”. He then reminded his readers that in a survey conducted in Ireland at the

end of 1988, 79 per cent expressed the belief that Ireland had gained through

membership as against, for example, 47 per cent and 55 per cent respectively in the UK

and West Germany. Similarly, the Catholic Church in Ireland at the time was quite

zealous to show its endearment to the European project. If it did, it was probably

because it was aware, at that stage, of the fact that Ireland’s political ideal of a moral

community was but a remnant from the past, as testified by the issue dedicated to

“Secularisation in Ireland” in Studies in 1985. In the editorial of the Jesuit magazine, it

was admitted that “The Republic is no longer universally Roman Catholic and

Nationalist as it seemed to be in the 1950s”. It was also underlined that secularisation

can be seen positively, as it helps people “move away from the easy reliance on an

overinstitutionalised Church to a more personal choice of faith”, and therefore leads to

“better religious individuals 19”. Following this idea that modernity and secularisation

were forces to be reckoned with rather than fought, the Irish Catholic Church no longer

had any reason to show itself half-hearted when it came to the European project. In

fact, the Irish hierarchy had to embrace the European project if it wanted to influence

it. This is how we can understand why the Irish bishops declared in a lengthy statement

in 1979 on the occasion of the first direct election to the European Parliament: “We

must go beyond the merely economic aspect of the European Community and see the

desire that was there at its beginning and has remained at its heart 20.”

8 Ireland’s growing integration into the European Community nevertheless remained a

true challenge for the Catholic Church in Ireland, as European Laws participated in the

further secularisation of the country’s laws and Constitution – which had been inspired

by Catholic teachings – and led, therefore, to a gradual dismantlement of the Church’s

moral monopoly in Irish society. The year Ireland became a member State, the Lynch

government held a referendum asking the Irish to consent to the deletion of the clause

in Article 44 of the 1937 Constitution which recognised the “special position” of the

Catholic Church. The huge support in favour of the deletion of the clause (85 per cent)

can nonetheless be seen as the obedience – however reluctant it might have been – of

Irish Catholics to the new precepts of Vatican II that championed a more ecumenical

view of religion. If this was the case, Rome and not Brussels remained Ireland’s external

referent at that date. One year later, in 1973, however, the same Irish Catholic

hierarchy distanced itself from its until then usual, dogmatic stand during the debate

over Mary Robinson’s highly polemical private member’s bill to liberalise the import

and sale of contraceptives in the Emerald Isle. Even though the Catholic hierarchy

strongly warned against the dark effects of generalising access to contraceptives, they

declared: “There are many things which the Catholic Church holds to be morally wrong

and no one has ever suggested, least of all the Church herself, that they should be

prohibited by the State 21.” Rejected by the Dáil in March 1974, the bill never became

law. The Fine Gael/Labour coalition led by FitzGerald that was elected in 1981


51

nonetheless felt boosted by this new attitude of the Catholic hierarchy towards politics

and did not hide its ambition to further ensure the liberalisation of Irish political and

social life from Catholic teachings. Soon after the election, it launched a vast

“constitutional crusade” that aimed to reform Ireland’s institutions by making them

more secular. As Louise Fuller noted in her article on “New Ireland and the Undoing of

the Catholic Legacy”, developments in Irish society back then conspired to make

FitzGerald’s reform programme difficult, as voters remained divided between liberal

and conservative camps, each wanting to define Irish identity. The new Taoiseach’s

crusade nonetheless set the tone for the whole of the 1980s, and the 1980s and 1990s

were consequently decades of intense reform 22. If some of these reforms resulted

directly from the Irish government’s will to secularise its laws – in February 1985, for

instance, despite strong opposition from the Catholic hierarchy, Minister for Health

Barry Desmond passed the Family Planning (Amendment) Act which made non-medical

contraceptives available to adults without a medical prescription – others were the

direct result of the new sovereignty of Community Law. Established in 1963, the

doctrine of Direct Effect provided that under certain conditions the provisions of

European Law would have direct effect and might provide rights and remedies for

individuals that can be enforced against Member States. This is what happened in

Ireland, especially concerning the liberation of women from the traditional role in

which De Valera’s moral community had wanted to keep them. In article 119 of the

Treaty of Rome, for example, the EEC advocated equal job opportunities between men

and women. Shortly after its admission and the removal of the clause about the “special

position of the Church” in the Constitution, the Irish government consequently voted

in a series of laws that aimed at re-establishing equal job opportunities for women in

Ireland – Employment and Married Women Act (1974), Anti-Discrimination Pay Act

(1976), Employment Equality Act (1977) and, last but not least, the Social Welfare Act

(1985) which guaranteed women the same right to social welfare as men 23. More

concretely, EC Law sometimes directly overruled some of Ireland’s most “traditional”

(read Catholic) laws, as was partially the case in the X case. In 1992, the Irish High Court

forbade a pregnant Irish teenager who had been raped to travel abroad to interrupt her

pregnancy. This decision was motivated by article 40.3.3 of the Irish Constitution

whereby: “The State acknowledges the right to life of the unborn and, with due regard

to the equal right to life to the mother, guarantees in its laws to respect, as far as

predictable, by its laws to defend and vindicate that right 24.” In March 1992, the

Supreme Court judged otherwise and repealed the teenager’s travel ban. Following this

decision by the Supreme Court a referendum on abortion was held in November 1992.

In this referendum, 65% of Irish voters judged that suicide was a sufficient threat to

justify an abortion, 60% were in favour of the right to information on abortion services

and 62% of them believed that the prohibition of abortion should not limit the right to

travel abroad to avail of such services. Judging by the results of the referendum, which

by and large approved of the Supreme Court’s decision, it seems that by the early 1990s

it was not only the Irish government, but Irish civil society as a whole that had started

taking Brussels instead of Rome as its new external referent, if not as its referee 25. This

tendency was confirmed, one year later, when a directive from the European Court of

Human Rights calling for the decriminalisation of homosexual acts between two

consenting adults made Ireland pass some legislation which legalised homosexuality 26.

According to Louise Fuller, such change shows that, in the area of social legislation, “by

the 1980s and 1990s not only were bishops less able to influence politicians, but


52

politicians themselves did not have the last word as to legislation, nor did the national

courts have absolute discretion as to its interpretation 27”. European institutions now

have to be reckoned with. This phenomenon, which has affected all of the Member

States, is not specific to Ireland, but demonstrates the extent to which the latter has

become integrated into the European Union in spite of its national/religious specificity.

9 No doubt, belonging to the European Union has been a permanent source of

transformation for Ireland’s own public space and, therefore, for its national identity.

As boasted by the Department of Foreign Affairs in its website on “Ireland in Europe”:

“Membership has contributed to rapid progress in a range of areas including the

development of agriculture, industry and services. It is estimated that 700,000 jobs have

been created in Ireland during the years of membership and that trade has increased 90

fold 28.” As a result, the 1990s saw the creation of a so-called “Celtic Tiger Ireland”

characterised by sustained high levels of economic growth. Ireland’s Gross Domestic

Product increased by 9.8 per cent in 1998 and by 10.7 per cent in 2000, thus turning the

Irish economy into the fastest-growing economy of the whole European Community. If

in 1978 Ireland’s GDP was only 58 per cent of the European Community’s average GDP,

it had surpassed the United Kingdom’s GDP in 1996 and represented 119 per cent of the

European Community’s average GDP in 2000 29. This change in the Irish economy

undeniably opened new horizons in Irish society, which gradually became more

confident and outward looking. With a now transformed economy, largely opened to

foreign investments and based on a thriving service industry, Ireland’s sense of identity

was bound to be altered by permanent contact with otherness, whether that otherness

be European (due to a continued integration into the European Union) or North

American (due to the huge amount of US investments in the Irish economy). To the

extent that the Catholic Church in Ireland, which is now seen as just yet another

organisation, no longer defines Ireland’s national identity. Indeed, “Modern Ireland is

the nation of the Celtic Tiger rather than the land of saints and scholars (which, it

could be argued, was a rather romantic notion anyway). Gone are the days when there

were no weddings and dances during Lent. Vocations to priesthood and religious life

are nearly non-existent 30”. On the one hand, the privileged position of the Church in

Ireland can no longer be taken for granted. On the other hand, the current redefinition

of the Church does not mean, I believe, its complete disappearance from the public

arena.

10 In fact, according to Tony Fahey: “Although Catholics in the Republic may be less

assiduous in religious practice and more critical of the Catholic Church than in the past,

they have been slow to disavow their Catholic connections entirely 31.” In Celtic Tiger

Ireland, just as in most European societies, a redefinition of what it means to be

Catholic seems to have taken place. This redefinition is characterised by a general drop

in Church attendance – between 1999 and 2003, the number of regular attenders and of

weekly attenders fell respectively from 76% and 83% to 70% and 64% 32 – and also by a

dramatic drop in the number of people going to confession, as 47% of Irish Catholics

went to confession on a monthly basis in 1974, as compared to a mere 14% in 1995 33.

This does not mean, however, that the link between Catholicism and today’s Irish has

been totally severed, but confirms the idea that “when it comes to giving expression to

their beliefs, [the Irish] increasingly prefer a private to a communal setting 34”. And this

is shown by the fact that 60 per cent of Irish people still pray on a regular basis, which

is a way for them to maintain some sort of a connection with the next world. In

Ireland’s secular Tiger society, Catholic identity and belief have become privatised,


53

individualised and, therefore, plural. The sources of definition and of legitimisation of

Catholic identity and belief no longer lie, as used to be the case, in the one moral

community, but, on the contrary, in the plurality of individuals who can either adopt

them or reject them. Thus, the definition of Catholic identity has become somewhat

fragmented in an Ireland where “the disaffection of the traditional Church has led

many to a spiritual quest of their own 35”. This idea was clearly expressed by columnist

Colum Kenney, who wrote: “Hopefully, there will never be again a uniform ‘Irish

Catholic’ but, instead, many Irish Catholics with personal identities based on open and

authentic spiritual practice 36.” It is not only their identity as Irish people, but also their

identity as Catholics that most Irish do not expect the Roman Catholic institution to

continue defining for them. Irish Catholics now want a more immediate, a more

authentic and a more personal link with the next world. In doing so, they are in fact

becoming more like the rest of their European counterparts. Now that the Irish choose

to be Catholic – or not – in contemporary, globalised Ireland, Catholicism can no longer

remain “la culture englobante de la société, même sous forme sécularisée 37”. Restructured as

a subculture, Catholicism nonetheless remains influential within Irish society – and,

more generally, within the European Union 38 – be it as a lobby 39.

11 In a now redefined Irish society, in which Catholicism has progressively become a

subculture, we can wonder how Ireland now conceives of the place of Catholicism both

in its own and in the European public arena. As a pro-European, Ireland’s ex-Taoiseach

Bertie Ahern willingly recognised that taking Brussels instead of Rome as a new

external referent through EU membership had played a vital role in his country’s

recent success story 40. Yet Bertie Ahern also believed that the one did not necessarily

exclude the other. Indeed, after a visit to Pope Benedict XVI in 2005, Ahern wrote in

Ireland’s The Irish Times that his meeting with the Pope was “a reminder of the values at

the heart of the European project”: “Our future can only be shaped with confidence

when we are secularly rooted in our culture and in our community. One pillar of that

culture is the Christian tradition. It is a culture of community, but one with deep

respect for the individual. […] It is the foundation of our common European

inheritance 41.” Still according to Ahern, now that Ireland has become more confident

thanks to EU membership, it should become more actively involved in the European

project, whether politically, economically or culturally. Back in 1989, Irish professor of

moral theology Enda McDonagh already believed that:

In its closer integration with Europe, Ireland and its people with their political andintellectual leaders will have a responsibility to further the dialogue between thepolitical and transcendent dimensions of freedom. […]. It must also of course seekto cherish the rich, if diverse, Irish identity within an interdependent Europe in theface of any attempt at shallow homogenisation 42.

12 Twenty years on, it seems that Enda McDonagh’s wish has been heard by Irish

politicians, who pushed for the amendment of Article 51 of the proposed European

constitutional treaty (2004) so as to clarify the status of Churches in their relations with

European institutions. This was done, according to Bertie Ahern, because “structured

dialogue with the churches offers the opportunity to listen anew in an open and

transparent way to an inner voice in the Irish and European tradition.”43 For the same

reason, Ireland encouraged the mention of Europe’s common past Christian heritage in

the European constitution’s preamble, while more fiercely secular countries such as

France largely objected to it. Is Ireland therefore a country with a mission in the


54

European public sphere? According to current editorialist of Studies, Fergus

O’Donoghue,

Ireland […] has become so much a part of the European project that we are now atits heart. Our recent membership of the UN Security Council shows that we are ableto punch well above our weight. Our attempt to have God mentioned in the EUConstitution was itself a sign that we defend traditions and values, even when somecommentators see them as “outmoded”. We can reaffirm the values that are thebasis of the European ideal and can affirm the need for ever-closer cooperation 44.

13 Whether or not Ireland is a country with a – Catholic – mission in Europe’s public arena

is largely arguable. It is undeniable, however, that Ireland’s more active role, of late, in

the shaping of EU institutions and of their relations to Europe’s Churches challenges

France’s definition of a secular Europe ! If, as shown recently by the Millward Brown

IMS opinion poll carried out on the no vote in the Lisbon referendum (12 June 2008),

the main reason for Irish people to have voted no to the Treaty was “lack of

understanding or understanding” of what they were asked to vote on (42%), the other

two main reasons were the fear that “the introduction of a conscription into a

European army was included in the treaty” (33%) and the fear that “it would end

Ireland’s control over the country’s abortion policy 45”. If these reasons were the ones

given by the people having voted no, they were probably widely shared in Ireland, as

67% of respondents of a Eurobarometer poll considered that the “no” campaign was the

more convincing one 46. No matter what one thinks about those fears, they corroborate

the idea that a considerable part of the Irish are still endeared to the principle of

neutrality and to Catholic teachings in social matters, and that they want to defend

them in (spite of) Brussels. This does not mean, however, that the Irish are now shying

away from Brussels. In spite of the victory of the no vote, “60 per cent of voters felt that

Ireland’s interests were best pursued by remaining fully involved in the EU 47”. A view

shared by the island’s new Taoiseach, Brian Cowen, who recently emphasised “[…] the

imperative for Ireland to be fully engaged with our partners in the European Union” in

Fianna Fáil parliamentary party in Galway 48. Faring in a sea of serious global economic

trouble, Ireland is aware of the importance to embrace the European project, be it to

better control it. It does not seem willing, however, to sacrifice its Catholic heritage –

still too often misleadingly confused for its national identity – to do so. This is why it is

now more than time that one started studying in greater detail the influence both of

Ireland as a Member State and of Irish Catholicism as a lobby in Brussels, on Europe’s

emerging public sphere – defined as “[…] l’arène d’expression des engagements collectifs et

des allégeances, le lieu où se nouent les interactions de ces variables avec les pratiques et les

discours de pouvoir 49” – and more specifically on Europe’s perception of the role of

religions in this public sphere. Will David, once more, triumph over Goliath?


55

NOTES

1. Patsy McGarry, “The Rise and Fall of Roman Catholicism in Ireland” in Louise Fuller,

John Littleton and Eamon Maher (eds.), Irish and Catholic. Towards an Understanding of

Identity, Dublin, The Columba Press, 2006, pp. 31-44, p. 32.

2. Timothy J. White, “Decoupling Catholic and National Identity: Secularisation

Theories in the Irish Context.” Ibid., pp. 238-255, p. 244.

3. Toney Fahey, B.C Hayes and R. Sinnott (eds.), Conflict and Consensus: A Study of Values

and Attitudes in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland, Dublin, Institute of Public

Administration, 2005, p. 31.

4. The adjective liberal is used to describe social, economic and political views

throughout this article. All three are derived from the elaboration, during the

Enlightenment, of liberalism as an ideology advocating that politics should first and

foremost protect individual rights and maximise individual freedom of choice. When

used to describe social attitudes, it refers to a certain openness to the introduction of

new ideas and to proposals of social reforms. When used in relation to politics, it refers

to the belief that individuals should pursue their lives according to their own

perception of the good and that the State should generally not dictate morality.

Similarly, when used to describe economic perspectives, the word liberal refers to the

idea that the state should not intervene too much in the economic realm and that an

open economy should be preferred, therefore, to protectionism. Lastly, it is also used to

describe the Church’s classic perception of education in Ireland until the 1960s. In that

context, the adjective liberal is to be understood in its original meaning as “Directed to

general intellectual enlargement and refinement; not narrowly restricted to the

requirements of technical or professional training” in The Oxford English Dictionary,

Volume VIII (2nd edition), Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1991, p. 881.

5. Ken Whitaker (1916- ) became Secretary of the Department of Finance in 1956. It was

in this position that he became the author of the First Programme for Economic

Expansion, a White Paper that was released in 1958 and that advocated the reform and

liberalisation of Ireland’s economy.

6. Michael Fogarty, Liam Ryan and Joseph Lee (eds.), Irish Values and Attitudes. The Irish

Report of the European Value System, Dublin, Dominican Publications, 1984, p. 101.

7. Marie-Claire Considère-Charon, Irlande : une singulière intégration européenne, Paris,

Economica, 2002, p. 27.

8. John Bradley, “Managing Globalisation: Ireland’s Experience in Attracting Foreign

Investment” in Catherine Maignant, (dir.), Le tigre celtique en question. L’Irlande

contemporaine: économie, Etat, société, Caen, PU Caen, 2007, pp. 12-25, p. 19.

9. Fogarty, op. cit., p. 101.

10. Louise Fuller, Irish Catholicism Since 1950: The Undoing of a Culture, Dublin,

Gill&Macmillan, 2002, p. 149.

11. Ibid., p. 151.

12. Alfredo Canavero and Jean-Dominique Durand, “Les phénomènes religieux et

l’identification européenne” in Frank Robert (dir.), Les Identités européennes au XXe siècle.


56

Diversités, convergences et solidarités, Paris, Publications de la Sorbonne, 2004, pp.

145-164, p. 152.

13. Timothy J. White, “Nationalism VS. Liberalism in the Irish Context: From a

Postcolonial Past to a Postmodern Future” in Eire-Ireland, An Interdisciplinary Journal of

Irish Studies, Vol. 38, n° 3-4, 2002, pp. 25-37, p. 31.

14. Considère-Charon, op. cit., p. 9.

15. Bradley, op. cit., p. 24.

16. Ireland’s support for the EU project continues despite the recent No vote in the

Lisbon referendum. Released in The Irish Times in September 2008, the Millward Brown

IMS opinion poll on the Lisbon No vote carried out for the government clearly showed

that, despite the outcome, “60 per cent of voters felt that Ireland’s interests were best

pursued by remaining fully involved in the EU.” The Irish Times, 10 September 2008.


18. Peter D. Sutherland, “Ireland: Where do we stand on European Integration?” in

Studies, vol. 78, n° 311, 1989, pp. 243-254, p. 248.

19. Editorial, Studies, vol. 74, n° 293, 1985, p. 10.

20. Quoted from Jerome Connolly, “The Irish Churches and Foreign Policy” in Studies,

vol. 77, n° 395, 1988, pp. 55-67, p. 59.

21. The Irish Independent, 26 November 1973.

22. Louise Fuller, “New Ireland and the Undoing of the Catholic Legacy: Looking Back to

the Future”, in Louise Fuller, John Littleton and Eamon Maher (eds.), Irish and Catholic.

Towards an Understanding of Identity. Dublin, The Columba Press, 2006, pp. 68-87, p. 82.


24. Bunreacht na hEireann, article 40.3.3.

25. As pointed out by Maire Nic Ghiolla Phadraig: “The advance consultation with the

hierarchy on policies of legislation impinging on sex, family life, or education gave way

to informing them in advance, and then to the 1992 statement by An Taoiseach that he

had no intention of talking to the bishops about the wording of an abortion

referendum, and the 1993 permission for condom-vending machines again without

notice to the bishops. The state, of course, has had a new external referent since joining

the European Community and looks to Brussels rather than Rome for approval of

policies as well as for financial support.” in “The Power of the Catholic Church in the

Republic of Ireland”, in Patrick Clancy et al., Irish Society, Sociological Perspectives, Dublin,

Institute of Public Administration, 1995, pp. 593-619, p. 612.

26. As shown by Louise Fuller, this is to be contrasted with what had happened 10 years

earlier, when “[…] the Supreme Court had rejected an appeal by David Norris to declare

that two Acts inherited from the period of British rule were unconstitutional and cited

the preamble to the 1937 Constitution, which points to the people of Ireland as ‘humbly

acknowledging their obligation to Our Divine Lord Jesus Christ’ as the reason for their

rejection of the plea [to decriminalise homosexuality]”, Fuller 2002, op. cit., p. 85.

27. Fuller 2006, op. cit., p. 85.

28. http://www.dfa.ie/home/index.aspx ?id=28457&media=print [Accessed 14 March 2008].



57

30. John Littleton, “Catholic Identity and the Irish Context” in Louise Fuller, John

Littleton and Eamon Maher (eds.), Irish and Catholic. Towards an Understanding of Identity,

Dublin, The Columba Press, 2006, pp. 12-30, p. 29.

31. Fahey, B. C. Hayes and R. Sinnott (eds.), Conflict and Consensus: A Study of Values and

Attitudes in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland, Dublin, Institute of Public

Administration, 2005, p. 55.

32. Ibid., p. 43.

33. Marguerite Corish, “Pratiques et croyances religieuses, valeurs morales” in Paul

Brennan (dir.), La sécularisation en Irlande, Caen, Presses universitaires de Caen, 1998, p.

140.

34. Eoin Cassidy (ed.), Measuring Ireland. Discerning Values and Beliefs, Dublin, Veritas,

2002, p. 29.

35. Catherine Maignant, “Re-Imagining Transcendence in the Global Village” in Eamon

Maher and Michael Böss, Engaging Modernity, Dublin, Veritas, 2003, pp. 71-84, p. 74.

36. Colum Kenney, “‘God Help Us!’: The Media and Irish Catholicism” in Louise Fuller,

John Littleton and Eamon Maher (eds.), Irish and Catholic. Towards an Understanding of

Identity, Dublin, The Columba Press, 2006, pp. 89-103, p. 102.

37. Jean-Paul Willaime, “L’évolution de la place du religieux dans la société” in Cahiers

Français, n° 340, septembre-octobre 2007, pp. 3-7, p. 8.

38. See to that effect Bérengère Massignon’s study of the impact of religions – including

Catholicism – on the European Union in Brussels entitled Des dieux et des fonctionnaires.

Religions et laïcités face au défi de la construction européenne, Rennes, Presses Universitaires

de Rennes, 2007.

39. Concerning the self-definition by the Catholic lobby of its role in the European

public arena, see François Foret and Philip Schlesinger, “Le religieux dans la

légitimation de l’Union européenne” in François Foret (ed.), L’espace public européen à

l’épreuve du religieux, Bruxelles, Editions Libres de Bruxelles, 2007, pp. 229-249,

pp. 244-245.

40. “As a country Ireland is now more successful, more confident and optimistic than at

any time since the foundation of the State. We are a country transformed. And our EU

membership has played a vital role in this transformation. We must not forget this. We

must not take it for granted.” Bertie Ahern, “Where does the European Union go now?”

in Studies, vol. 94, n°375, Autumn 2005, pp. 227-236, p. 231.

41. Bertie Ahern, “Meeting with Pope a reminder of values at heart of European

project” in The Irish Times, 7 July 2005.

42. Enda McDonagh, “Europe, the Faith and Ireland” in Studies, vol. 78, n° 311, Autumn

1989, pp. 255-261, p. 260.

43. The Irish Times, 7 July 2005.

44. Studies, vol. 93, n° 369, Spring 2004, p. 6.

45. The Irish Times, 10 September 2008. In fact, those figures confirm those of the Flash

Eurobarometer report released in July 2008: http://ec.europa.eu/public_opinion/flash/

fl_245_full_en.pdf [Accessed 9 September 2008].

46. Ibid.

47. The Irish Times, 10 September 2008.


58

48. Ibid.

49. François Foret, “Introduction”, L’espace public européen à l’épreuve du religieux, op. cit.,

p. 11.

ABSTRACTS

As soon as Ireland submitted its first application for EEC membership in 1961, Brussels became

another external referent alongside Rome for an Irish society that increasingly looked to outside

influences. If the Irish Catholic Church first was reluctant for Ireland to join in the European

project, it soon realised the importance of embracing the project, if only to control it. Brussels

has nonetheless seriously challenged Rome’s position as Ireland’s main external point of

reference in the last four decades, to the extent that the Irish Catholic Church is now perceived

as yet another institution. It remains, however, quite influential in Irish politics and so a force to

be reckoned with when it comes to analysing the island’s perception of the European project. The

present article consists above all of a general review of the way EEC membership has transformed

the relationship between Church and State in Ireland for almost fifty years now.

Dès que l’Irlande soumit sa première demande d’adhésion à la CEE, Rome cessa d’être la

principale source de référence étrangère pour faire place à Bruxelles dans cette société s’ouvrant

progressivement sur l’extérieur. Si l’Église catholique d’Irlande vit tout d’abord d’un mauvais œil

cette volonté de l’île de se joindre au projet européen, elle se rendit tout de même vite compte de

l’importance d’embrasser l’initiative, ne serait-ce que pour mieux la contrôler. Bruxelles n’en est

pas moins devenue un sérieux adversaire de l’hégémonie romaine en Irlande depuis bientôt un

demi-siècle, à tel point que l’Église catholique y est désormais perçue comme une institution

parmi d’autres. Cependant, son influence en politique persiste et elle demeure une force non

négligeable pour toute analyse de la perception de l’Europe par l’Irlande. Le présent article se

veut avant tout une revue générale de la manière dont l’adhésion à la CEE a fait évoluer la

relation entre Eglise et Etat en Irlande depuis un peu moins de cinquante ans maintenant.

INDEX

Mots-clés: Église catholique d’Irlande, Union Européenne / CEE, sécularisation, identité

nationale

Keywords: Irish Catholic Church, national identity, secularization, European Union / EEC

AUTHOR

JEAN-CHRISTOPHE PENET

NCFIS Dublin


59

Art et image


60

L’intemporel incarné : les corps destourbières entre métaphore etlittéralitéValérie Morisson

1 « Et rien ne meurt. De nouvelles choses arrivent ; de grands changements surviennent.

Mais ce qui était là auparavant ne disparaît pas vraiment ; cela s’enfonce un peu plus et

disparaît de la surface. La culture irlandaise est sédimentaire, faite de couches

d’expérience et d’émotions superposées les unes aux autres 1. » L’écho que reçurent les

corps exhumés dans des tourbières irlandaises semble donner raison à Fintan O’Toole :

Seamus Heaney n’est pas le seul Irlandais dont l’œuvre réfracte ces découvertes

archéologiques. Les tourbières ont livré des vestiges majeurs à l’origine d’un ample

phénomène culturel. R. C. Turner concluait que « rien ne peut expliquer l’ampleur du

phénomène provoqué par les corps des tourbières… Les explications avancées nous

apprennent davantage sur l’expliquant que sur le phénomène lui-même 2 ». Nous lui

donnerons raison mais, au-delà des premières ondes de choc qui ont secoué le public

après les révélations des archéologues, ne doit-on pas voir dans ces cadavres et leurs

évocations plastiques une manifestation mnémotopique éclairant la question irlandaise

d’un jour nouveau ?

2 Les corps des tourbières constituèrent d’abord un objet d’étude pour les archéologues.

En 1965, l’ouvrage de P. V. Glob narrant les découvertes danoises, fit sensation 3. Les

photographies accompagnant le texte étaient si stupéfiantes qu’elles marquèrent les

lecteurs et les chercheurs du monde entier, au point que l’auteur s’en étonna lui-

même 4. Les corps extrêmement bien préservés devinrent une source d’inspiration pour

plusieurs artistes : parmi les premiers lecteurs de cet ouvrage liminaire figuraient le

poète Seamus Heaney et le peintre Louis le Brocquy. En 1969, lorsque parut la

traduction anglaise de ce récit archéologique, dix-neuf corps avaient été retrouvés en

Irlande. Subséquemment, des expositions firent connaître au grand public ces corps qui

font aujourd’hui partie de la culture populaire : les cadavres de l’Age de Fer furent le

sujet d’un film d’horreur et plusieurs sites internet y furent consacrés 5. En 2002-2003,

une exposition itinérante intitulée The Mysterious Bog People circula Outre-Atlantique et


61

présenta six corps dont deux avait acquis le statut de stars de l’archéologie grâce à la

presse quotidienne : celui d’Yde, portant autour du cou la corde intacte qui servit à

l’étrangler il y a plus de 2000 ans et celui de Red Franz, momie de 1500 ans fort célèbre

en Allemagne pour avoir gardé une crête de cheveux teintés en rouge. L’exposition à

grand succès mêlait culture populaire et scientifique : la thématisation du mystère

mettait au premier plan le travail de collecte et d’interprétation des archéologues tout

en aiguisant la curiosité du public ; dans une partie de l’exposition nommée « Bog

Science Investigation », les jeunes visiteurs du National History Museum de Los Angeles

pouvaient participer à des enquêtes fictives et découvrir les méthodes d’investigations

des médecins légistes. Le succès de l’exposition est dû autant aux choix

muséographiques, privilégiant la participation du visiteur, qu’à l’attrait plus morbide

pour les cadavres en « chair et en os » du mésolithique. L’archéologue danois Winjand

van der Sanden s’émut de voir les corps reproduits sur les produits dérivés de

l’exposition et jugea la transformation de cadavres d’ancêtres glorieux en objets de

consommation peu conforme à l’éthique muséographique 6.

3 Depuis le début du dix-neuvième siècle, les tourbières irlandaises ont livré 89 corps. Le

premier document relatif à ces découvertes, rédigé par Lady Moira en 17817, provient

du comté de Down. Seule une minorité des cadavres trouvés en Irlande remonte à la

préhistoire. Les premières découvertes d’objets de l’Age du Bronze (1880-700 av. J.-C.)

datent des années 1830 ; la plupart des corps déterrés alors étaient rejetés et

échappaient à l’analyse scientifique. L’homme de Gallagh (470-120 av. J.-C.) fut retrouvé

en 1821 non loin de Castleblakeney (Co. Galway) et transféré au National Museum en

1829. Ce n’est qu’en 1978, après la découverte à Meenybradden (Co. Donegal) d’un corps

daté de 1570 dont la partie supérieure était encore recouverte de peau que des

recherches archéologiques furent menées. Faisant suite aux travaux de Glob et Wijnand

van der Sanden au Danemark8, Barry Raftery, spécialiste irlandais de l’Age de Fer et de

l’art celte, publia Trackways Through Time 9. En Irlande, l’intérêt pour les corps momifiés

des tourbières fut ravivé en 2003 après l’exhumation accidentelle de deux corps

morcelés, retrouvés à vingt-cinq kilomètres d’écart sur des exploitations de tourbe : à

Croghan, celui d’un homme ayant vécu aux environs de 362-175 av. JC, à Clonycavan,

plus fragmentaire, celui d’un homme mort il y a 2300 ans. La nouvelle des découvertes

fut rapportée non seulement dans des revues spécialisées mais également par The

Mirror ou l’Irish Times. L’émission Time Watch de la BBC, diffusée en janvier 2006, revint

en détail sur les conclusions des archéologues et vulgarisa les résultats de l’enquête

dirigée par Isabella Mulhall, coordonatrice du Bog Bodies Project. Trois mois plus tard,

l’exposition du National Museum de Dublin, Kingship and Sacrifice – an Exhibition of Bog

Bodies and Related Finds, présenta au public ces deux découvertes et appuya la thèse

selon laquelle ces sacrifices, pratiqués près des limites territoriales, étaient liés à

l’exercice du pouvoir royal. Melanie Giles, chercheuse à l’université de Manchester

remarqua à propos des deux corps découverts en 2003 : « Perhaps, unsurprisingly, they

have captured the imagination of poets, writers and film-makers, who have responded

evocatively to the drama and pathos of such encounters 10. »

4 Les Bog Poems de Seamus Heaney ont aiguisé l’intérêt de plusieurs chercheurs 11.

Néanmoins, peu de cas est fait de la référence à ces corps dans les arts visuels. Or, le

nombre d’œuvres directement inspirées de ces découvertes atteste et explique

l’imaginaire très spécifique que firent naître ces étranges revenants. L’évocation des


62

corps dans l’art contribua à transformer une découverte archéologique en fait culturel

en prise avec le présent.

Une faille chronologique

5 En raison de l’état de conservation exceptionnel des corps et des visages, les

découvertes provoquèrent un inhabituel écrasement temporel. L’acidité des tourbières,

ainsi que l’absence d’oxygène dans le sous-sol permit la conservation des tissus

organiques (peau, cheveux, ongles, organes) et de matériaux tels que la laine ou le

coton. Les photographies de corps publiées par Glob donnent à voir chaque ride, des

poils de barbe et des sourcils ; l’expression des visages est parfois saisissante. Les corps

se distinguent donc très nettement des gisants ou des masques funéraires. L’une des

photographies est ainsi légendée : « The dead and the sleeping, how they resemble one

another 12 », légende qui ne peut que rappeler les vers de Seamus Heaney : « Who will say

‘corpse’/to his vivid cast?/Who will say ‘body’/to his opaque repose 13 ? »

6 Au milieu des années 1960, P. V. Glob avait noté des erreurs quant à la datation des

corps : « As they worked, they suddenly saw in the peat-layer a face so fresh that they

could only suppose they had stumbled on a recent murder 14. » En Irlande, la confusion

fut alimentée par le fait que les tourbières servirent à cacher les corps de victimes des

Troubles dans les années 1960-1970. Le corps parfaitement conservé de l’homme de

Croghan fit d’abord l’objet d’une enquête policière car on pensait qu’il s’agissait du

corps d’une victime récente 15. Rolly Reed, l’un des conservateurs chargés de l’enquête,

revint sur ses émotions lors d’une interview :

I had visions of these enormous arms coming round the back of my

neck…I was getting flashbacks for a fortnight… I was having

nightmares. What hit me hardest, I think, was the fingerprints –

perfect fingerprints – the same as a guy’s from today. He could have

been anybody off the streets of Dublin… it was like touching your

own skin 16.

7 L’écrasement temporel est accentué par les reconstitutions scientifiques, la

connaissance des individus meurtris et la présentation des corps dans le musée. Le

buste de l’homme de Clonycavan a été remodelé par les artistes du département de

criminologie de l’Université de Dundee. On connaît aujourd’hui jusqu’au menu du

dernier repas de l’homme de Croghan. Devant ces corps exposés dans un musée, le

visiteur est confronté au temps historique de la mise à mort mais également au temps

de l’exhumation et de la redécouverte car les corps sont présentés exactement comme

ils ont été trouvés. Plusieurs éléments de la mise en scène muséographique créent une

intimité déconcertante entre le spectateur et le mort et nous invitent à imaginer la

victime avant son exécution. Glob conclut d’ailleurs sa description de l’homme de

Tollund ainsi : « Dark in hue, the head is still full of life and more beautiful than the best

portraits by the world’s greatest artists, since it is the man himself we see 17. »

8 Les corps des tourbières incarnent et matérialisent un passé qui se confond

étrangement avec le présent. S’inspirant du chronotope de Bakhtine 18, Anthony Purdy

conceptualisa la notion de mnémotope, que les corps des tourbières incarnent :


63

Since the primary function of the archaeological artifact as

chronotope is to materialize a past in the present, to serve as a

vehicle for personal and cultural memory, I will refer to it as a

mnemotope, a term that should be fairly transparent but that I will

define provisionally as a chronotopic motif manifesting the presence

of the past, the conscious or unconscious memory traces of a more or

less distant period in the life of a culture or, metaphorically, an

individual. Of course, the mnemotope might come in many guises and

be inflected by attitudinal values ranging from nostalgia and

melancholy through desire, obsession and remembrance to horror

and denial. […] To an extraordinary degree, bog bodies allow us to see

time 19.

9 Karine Sanders, de l’université de Berkeley, note pareillement une fusion du passé et du

présent : « Whether you’re looking at it as a scientist or a poet, it’s very easy to imagine the bog

bodies as a direct portal into the past. The bodies make history seem very close. It’s as if we’re

looking right into the face of our ancestors 20. » L’impression est proche de celle qu’exprime

Turner : « The sense of wonder [bog bodies] conjure up is combined with the feeling that they

have in some way cheated death, to live again 21. » Plus que tout autre vestige

archéologique, le corps semble à même de faire resurgir le passé dans le présent.

L’écrivain Eugène Nshimiyimana, parlant de cadavres meurtris, affirme que « le corps

se situe nécessairement dans une double dimension, temporelle et atemporelle, qui

l’associe à la mémoire dans son rapport au passé et au futur 22 ». Le temps est

matérialisé sur le corps par des traces de coups, des cicatrices, des attitudes, il devient

un espace mémoriel, au même titre que les lieux de mémoire évoqués par Pierre

Nora 23. Cependant, contrairement à l’acte commémoratif qui implique une volonté,

voire un geste, d’ordre politique, le mnémotope surgit de manière involontaire, tel le

corps d’une victime torturée refaisant surface au milieu d’un paysage pastoral.

10 C’est en tant que mnémotopes que les corps des tourbières sont représentés par

l’artiste Barrie Cooke (né en 1931), intéressé par les écosystèmes et les biotopes autant

que par l’animisme qu’il a découvert par ses voyages (Nouvelle-Zélande, Bornéo, Java)

ou par le taoïsme 24. Dans plusieurs œuvres (Bog, 1970, Turf Box, 1974 et Bog Box, 1975), la

tourbe n’est pas un symbole de l’identité nationale mais un milieu géologique et

biologique particulier qu’il peint après l’avoir observé avec l’œil d’un biologiste. La

série de toiles intitulées Bog Figures, I – VI, datées de 1973, montre que Cooke fut

influencé par le livre de P. V. Glob et fasciné par les conditions de préservation des

tissus : « His response to The Bog People was in large measure derived from the fact that it

described things which dovetailed with his own concerns and intuitions 25. » On observe une

similarité frappante entre les toiles et les photographies de Glob – le peintre s’efforçant

de suggérer l’ensevelissement du corps dans un milieu géologique qui l’absorbe. Cooke

produisit plusieurs dessins destinés à illustrer les Bog Poems de Seamus Heaney. Le

regard de Cooke sur les corps est presque scientifique : les cadavres ou corps endormis

qu’il représente sont tels des fossiles, parfaitement enchâssés dans le sol spongieux.

Parfois, une simple accumulation de matière plus qu’une variation chromatique signale

la présence du corps dans le sol. Les corps, nus, sont peints comme des organismes faits

de tissus et d’articulations. L’épaisseur de la pâte imite les fibres musculaires et les


64

ligaments, et dessine des linéaments sinueux semblables à des racines ou des rhizomes

si bien que le corps semble englouti par la terre :

There is an extraordinary intimacy between human and peat.

Preserved through a kind of tanning process, the bog peoples’ skin

darkens to leathery beauty, towards the black, moist turf. […] Bog

figures and bone boxes alike suggest something ancient and dormant

revivified, and they could be read as metaphors of primitive

consciousness, more directly in touch with a world of natural

forces 26.

11 Dans les années 1970, Cooke réalisa plusieurs vitrines contenant des ossements, des

pierres, des fragments de bois qui par leur seule présence ouvrent la porte du mythe.

12 Louis le Brocquy rencontra Heaney de manière fortuite : « Each of us was haunted by the

Tollund Man, the Winderby Girl, and others sacrificed in an Iron Age bog that had preserved

them perfectly to the inclination of an eyelid. Yes, I’m afraid that ‘terrible’ aspect may sometimes

be reflected in my work 27. » Ses séries de têtes ou portraits déformés doivent autant aux

têtes polynésiennes qu’il découvre au musée de l’Homme à Paris en 1964, qu’aux têtes

qu’il voit l’année suivante sur le site celte ligurien d’Entremont en Provence ou aux

photographies des corps des tourbières publiées par Glob 28. Le travail de le Brocquy

illustre une transcendance, en ce qu’il a la vertu de présentifier l’absent : « These

portraits see death as a part of life, within the flux of the continuous present 29. » Les visages

démantelés, décomposés, ne sont pas tant une évocation de la mort qu’une tentative

d’accéder à l’esprit logé dans le crâne, à la spiritualité piégée dans l’enveloppe

matérielle de la tête. Louis le Brocquy travaille là où le visible se fissure pour révéler

l’esprit : « For our Celtic ancestors, I imagine, the head was a box which holds the spirit prisoner

but which at the same time manifests this spirit. The head is simultaneously a mask which hides

the mind and a revelation, an incarnation of mind. […] I try to scuffle the surface of the paper or

the canvas, to penetrate the surface rather like an archaeologist in order to see what may

emerge 30. » À propos de la main de Louis le Brocquy, Seamus Heaney évoque aussi

l’homme de Tollund, dont le corps l’a pareillement marqué :

That hand does not seek to express its own personality. It is obedient

rather than dominant, subdued into process as it awaits a discovery.

What it comes up with will sometimes feel like something come upon,

a recognition. Like a turfcutter’s spade coming upon the body in the

bog, the head of the Tollund man, ghostly yet palpable, familiar and

other, a historical creature grown ahistorical 31.

13 L’idée de permanence, d’absence de temporalité est évoquée par l’artiste lui-même. Les

visages fragmentés sont les métaphores d’une temporalité qui se dissout. Le mélange de

passé mythologique et de modernité avant-gardiste dans l’éclatement de la figure

aboutit à une déconstruction de la linéarité chronologique.


65

De la fracture temporelle à la béance visuelle

14 Les bog people font resurgir une violence jusque-là enfouie et qui, lorsqu’elle réapparaît

à la surface, évoque soit une éternelle béance de l’enveloppe corporelle soit

l’inscription des meurtres contemporains dans une mythologie nationale.

15 Comme l’ont montré les analyses des médecins légistes et des archéologues, les

personnes dont le corps avait été exhumé avaient été victimes de violences multiples 32.

L’homme de Gallagh (trouvé à Castleblakeney et conservé au National Museum de

Dublin) avait été étranglé et maintenu dans le sol par deux piquets de bois. D’autres

corps retrouvés en Irlande ont été éviscérés et démembrés. C’est le cas de l’homme de

Croghan, dont la tête et certains membres étaient manquants. Sa poitrine était lacérée,

il avait été attaché grâce à deux trous percés dans son bras et blessé à plusieurs reprises

à l’estomac. Ces perforations corporelles, qui sont de précieux indices pour les

archéologues, sont autant de brèches dans lesquelles s’engouffre un imaginaire de la

violence attisé par le mystère des crimes. Les corps sont identifiés comme étant ceux de

victimes tantôt de sacrifices destinés à célébrer des victoires militaires, à encourager la

fertilité ou à aider à une guérison (Glob) ; tantôt de châtiments infligés par la

communauté entière après une transgression des codes sociétaux 33. Parfois encore, les

corps sont présentés comme ceux d’individus victimes d’un bannissement hors du

périmètre de la paroisse 34 ou de rituels associés au pouvoir royal (Ned Kelly), ou encore

d’actes divinatoires, ce qui expliquerait les éviscérations. Les corps seraient donc ceux

de boucs émissaires choisis pour incarner la culpabilité de leur communauté ou ceux de

captifs otages de guerres claniques ou tribales. Quelle que soit l’interprétation, les

corps apportent la preuve de pratiques culturelles qui tolèrent la cruauté comme

moyen d’améliorer le sort de la communauté. Les photographies des corps publiées par

les archéologues et les journaux ne masquèrent guère la brutalité, et l’on peut avancer

que c’est cette cruauté brute qui frappa sans doute le plus les artistes.

16 Hughie O’Donoghue, né à Manchester en 1953 d’un père soldat, réalise un travail sériel

sur le corps contorsionné, déformé et maculé par des cicatrices, des marques, des

taches. Ses toiles sombres, qui refusent de montrer des visages ou un lieu, « s’efforcent

de donner une impression de corporéité, une sensation d’étouffement, d’intoxication,

de nausée, de douleur, l’impression que membres et muscles sont en mouvement, que

l’on touche la peau, le toucher, la succion, les morsures, la conscience d’organes

internes et des tissus 35 ». Fasciné par Titien et Le Greco, O’Donoghue l’est aussi par le

sous-sol irlandais et ses marécages. La série de toiles intitulées Sleeper (commencée dès

1984) fut influencée par la découverte de l’homme de Tollund. L’artiste explique

qu’enfant, on lui racontait des histoires sur ces hommes au passé obscur. Les toiles

semi-abstraites aux couleurs sombres de Tomb et Within Earth (1980-1990) illustrent une

angoisse de l’engloutissement, de l’enterrement. Dans Blue Crucifixion (1993-2003), toile

de plus de huit mètres de long, le fond bleu maculé de noir laisse entrevoir une vague

silhouette humaine qui ressemble à une empreinte cireuse ou à une momie :

A theme, or image, which has haunted them [his paintings] for

several years is that of a human figure, often implicit rather than

defined, which at times obviously relates to the crucifixion, at other

times to the “bog figures” which have inspired Seamus Heaney. […]

Here perhaps, we have an image of what lies buried in our


66

unconscious, and also an expression of the regenerative powers of

nature and of the complex, many-layered myth of the Resurrection36.

17 Si la position des corps rappelle les squelettes des musées archéologiques, la stylisation

des cicatrices et l’utilisation d’une palette presque monochrome pour accentuer

l’intensité du fond invitent à une lecture littérale, aphoristique plus que métaphorique.

La série de toiles qu’Hughie O’Donoghue réalisa sur la Passion du Christ dévoile des

corps noueux et recroquevillés qui doivent autant aux corps des tourbières qu’aux

torsions des figures de Rembrandt 37. Des tons sombres et rougeoyants baignent ces

scènes intemporelles qui évoquent la fragilité primordiale du corps : « The work of art

becomes the medium that carries the predilection of the artist for the present time, a time in

which the past comes back to life, although in a very peculiar and precarious way 38. »

18 O’Donoghue fait émerger de la toile l’archétype du corps blessé, agonisant, qui hante

l’art et la littérature. La qualité centripète des aplats au couteau, l’éclatement des

touches et la taille des toiles matérialisent la souffrance du corps. David Slattery voit

dans la blessure la présence violente du sacré et du mythe qui entre en nous par l’acte

de l’Autre. La faille dans le corps serait le locus privilégié de notre rencontre, fut-elle

violente, avec le sacré, le langage et le social. Le corps doit se penser comme un lieu

culturellement marqué : « In the body distended and distorted there is revealed something

true about the interaction of individuals and the world concerning their own fatedness [sic],

their individual destiny, and their evolving character39. » Les corps meurtris des tourbières

et les êtres scarifiés et contorsionnés de O’Donoghue ont ceci de commun qu’ils

constituent des images culturelles, sièges de mythologies individuelles et collectives. La

blessure rend visible la vulnérabilité des hommes et aiguise notre conscience du

danger, de l’impermanence, de l’incessante confrontation au monde et à autrui. Les

coups, les écorchures, les plaies et autres atteintes à l’intégrité corporelle tracent aussi

des parcours d’initiation et construisent notre identité. La cicatrice inscrit le corps dans

le temps et la narrativité : « […] signing or marking the body signifies its passage into writing,

its becoming a literary body, and generally also a narrative body, in that the inscription of the

sign depends on and produces a story. The signing of the body is an allegory of the body become

a subject for literary writing – a body entered in writing 40. »

De la métaphore archéologique au symbole politique

19 La pratique de la vidéo resitue le corps dans une trame narrative qui se prête

particulièrement au jeu sur la temporalité, la focalisation et l’identité. Tout comme

Seamus Heaney, Pauline Cummins, vidéaste et photographe irlandaise, a évoqué les

victimes sacrificielles de l’Age du Bronze en relation avec le conflit nord-irlandais au

début des années 1980 : « I tried to look further back into our history, for ancient symbols, and

past rituals, in an attempt to rise above and view the present, as a tiny part of an ongoing cycle. I

became interested in bodies preserved in the bogs, some of them two thousand years old 41. »

Pauline Cummins commença alors à réaliser des masques d’argile émiettée en raku,

évoquant le passage du temps et la décrépitude. Ces visages étaient immortalisés dans

l’action, leurs expressions saisies sur le vif, comme ceux de victimes d’attaques

imprévues, d’où leur lien avec le terrorisme en Irlande : « My clay figures speak of the

past, and of the present, of life remembered –life dismembered 42. » Dans Unearthed (Fig. 1),

installation de 1988 centrée sur le thème des bog people, l’artiste proposa de réfléchir

aux résurgences du passé dans la vie politique actuelle. Dans une vidéo, l’artiste, vêtue


67

de noir, interroge le public en adoptant un accent irlandais prononcé : « Irish ? Me ? I’m

not Irish… » – puis, retrouvant un accent anglais, évoque la nationalité anglaise de sa

mère, puis le Dimanche Sanglant de 1972, avant d’entonner un chant de lamentation

traditionnel, le keening 43. À l’écran, le spectateur voit des visages qui se transforment

en masques d’argile ou de raku disposés dans un paysage naturel verdoyant, ainsi que

des photos personnelles de l’artiste. Les craquelures de l’émail ressemblent à des

cicatrices sur des visages déformés : « With their eye slits, twisted mouth holes and missing

noses, the masks are at once bog people and the bandaged, Northern dead who won’t stay buried.

They’re waiting for a cease-fire 44. » Unearthed présente des versions contradictoires du

conflit. Cummins entend montrer que personne ne détient la vérité même si chacun

doit être responsable de ses actes 45. La pratique de l’installation, rompant avec l’unité

de l’espace de représentation et permettant des juxtapositions non congruentes, est

particulièrement propice à instiller le doute dans l’esprit du spectateur qui doit

reconstruire le sens de ce qui se présente comme hybride et épars.

Figure 1 : Pauline Cummins, Raku Mask, Unearthed (1988) – Performance et installation.

P. Cummins précise dans un courriel adressé à l’auteur en février 2009 : « The work Unearthed was amultimedia performance commissioned by Projects UK in 1988, and later became a photographic andvideo installation for the exhibition, Inheritance And Transformation, The Irish Museum of Modern Art,1991. » (Reproduction avec l’aimable autorisation de l’artiste)

20 Autre vidéaste, Nigel Rolfe travaille inlassablement sur la mémoire ainsi que sur la

construction de l’identité et de la culture nationales. Marqué par le positionnement

politico-social de Joseph Beuys, Rolfe pratique de manière délibérée un art politique. Il

s’intéresse aux ruptures plus qu’aux équilibres et s’efforce de poser des questions,

« d’ouvrir des blessures 46 ». L’une de ses expositions inclut le texte suivant : « Expose

what is underneath/suggest other possibilities/examine and question/heart and soul/dig deep,

unearth, discover/history, memory, imagination 47. » The Edge of Europe (1988) est une


68

photographie de performance le montrant gisant nu et immobile, vulnérable, dans un

marais de tourbe du comté de Sligo : c’est là une image de naissance et de mort, de

communion avec le sol qui trouve un écho dans la ruralité si longtemps associée à

l’identité irlandaise. L’action faisait référence aux corps des tourbières : « […] often I

have turned to archaeology and the landscape as a source for my work 48. » Rolfe interroge ici

la primitivité de l’Irlande, primitivité qui est devenue, au fil de l’histoire nationaliste de

l’île, une construction culturelle centrale dans l’identité irlandaise, une légende étayée

par l’archéologie.

21 Ni l’archéologie ni le folklore ne sont exempts de biais politiques. Bruce Trigger a mis

en évidence des schémas de récits archéologiques communs liés à des contextes

politiques particuliers 49. Ainsi, les corps des tourbières sont des accroches pour des

mythologies individuelles ou collectives mais aussi des preuves de l’étendue de la

culture celte. Or, cet âge d’or celte servit à légitimer des revendications politiques :

Images from the past play conspicuous and powerful roles in the

present. […] Archaeological finds become battle-banners of modern

ethnic groups and nations; how the dubious evidence of ancient

ethnic migrations and diffusions can be used to legitimize modern

territorial expansion and ethnic cleansing; how pattern of

archaeological funding and scholarly interest can place interest on

certain politically useful sites and certain classes of evidence; and

how archaeological interpretation can often both reflect and

reinforce the centralizing policies of emerging nation-states 50.

22 Les artistes contemporains qui, comme Nigel Rolfe, optent pour une attitude post-

nationaliste remettent en cause le nationalisme culturel et son influence sur

l’iconographie nationale. Ils déconstruisent la culture nationale, interrogent la mise en

images, la patrimonialisation et les pratiques mémorielles dans leur rapport à

l’élaboration de l’identité irlandaise. En cela, Rolfe est représentatif d’une génération

d’artistes se préoccupant des biais politiques, conscients ou inconscients, véhiculés par

la culture.

23 La tranchée initialement tracée dans le champ de tourbe a révélé aux contemporains

un passé oublié et, ce faisant, instauré une brèche dans la temporalité. Que le corps

déterré soit métaphore ou incarnation littérale, il bouleverse le rapport de l’être au

passé ainsi que sa conscience de l’histoire et de son identité. Dans plusieurs

performances filmées ou photographiées, Nigel Rolfe, artiste-chaman, s’asperge de

farine ou de poussière transformant ainsi son corps en objet étrange. Dust Breeding

(2008) 51 est une vidéo montée en boucle qui provoque un trouble de la temporalité

propre au rituel prophylactique. Le visage de l’artiste, couché au sol et filmé en gros

plan, est déformé par l’application de la poussière qui se craquelle et se fissure (Fig. 2 et

3). Les œuvres visuelles s’inspirant des corps des tourbières puisent leur force dans la

littéralité de la présentation du corps. Alors que les textes de Glob et de Heaney tracent

les contours des corps et ressuscitent les individus dont ils font les portraits, les œuvres

visuelles nient l’intégrité du corps et dissolvent le sujet dans la matière. La

condensation des signes visuels permet d’accéder à des topoï universels.

L’enfouissement du visage de Rolfe rappelle l’ensevelissement des corps des tourbières

mais aussi le travestissement par le masque et la catharsis qu’il permet. Préférant le

primordial au primitif, Rolfe poursuit ainsi une réflexion transculturelle sur l’Autre


69

insaisissable qui se loge au cœur d’un moi familier, sur la barbarie qui resurgit soudain

dans la civilisation. Son travail illustre les propos de Mélanie Giles : « Part of the

important process of forgetting is the act of remembering 52. »

Figures 2 et 3 : Nigel Rolfe, Dust Breeding (2008)

Photographies couleur, 36 x 36in. Droits de reproduction concédés par la Green on Red Gallery, Dublin.

Remerciements à Mary Conlon.


70

NOTES

1. Fintan O’Toole, « Ireland », Irish Art Now. From the Poetic to the Political, Boston, Merrell

Holberton-McMullen Museum of Art, 1999, p. 23 (traduction de l’auteur).

2. R. C. Turner, « The Lindow Man Phenomenon : Ancient and Modern », Bog Bodies : New

Discoveries and New Perspectives, Londres, British Museum Press, 1995 (traduction de

l’auteur).

3. L’ouvrage faisait suite à la découverte, dans des tourbières danoises, de plusieurs

corps datant de l’Age de Fer (700-52 av. JC). Le plus vieux était celui de la femme de

Koelberg, qui aurait vécu il y a 5500 ans et dont le crâne est aujourd’hui conservé au

Fyns Stifsmuseum d’Odense au Danemark (voir Paul Bahn, « Bodies of the Bogs »,

Archeology, vol. 50, n° 4, juillet, 1997, p. 62-67).

4. Glob, The Bog People, Iron-Age Man Preserved, Londres, Faber and Faber, traduit du

danois en 1969, p. 15-16.

5. Bog Bodies, le film d’horreur irlandais réalisé par Brendan Foley, fut commercialisé en

2008 (Voir http://www.bogbodiesthemovie.com). Voir également http://mummytombs.com

et http://www.tollundman.dk/andre-moselig.asp pour les sites populaires de vulgarisation.

6. Voir Winjnand Van Der Sanden, « Mummies, Mugs and Museum Shops »,

Archeological Institute of America, 30 août 2005, www.archeology.org/online/features/bog/

exhibit.html et Bergen, C., M. J. L. Th. Niekus and V. T. van Vilsteren (dir.), The Mysterious

Bog People. Zwolle, Netherlands : Waanders Publishers ; Hanover, Germany :Niedersächsisches Landesmuseum Hannover ; Gatineau, Quebec : Canadian Museum of

Civilization ; Calgary, Alberta : Glenbow Museum, 2002.

7. Voir P. V. Glob, op. cit., p. 69.

8. Van der Sanden, Wijnand, Through Nature to Eternity. The Bog Bodies of Northwest

Europe, Amsterdam, Batavian Lion International, 1996 et « Mummies, Mugs, and

Museum Shops », Archeological Institute of America, 30 août 2005, voir note 6.

9. B. Raftery, Trackways Through Time : Archaeological Investigations on Irish Bog Roads,

1985-1989, Rush, Co. Dublin, Headline Publishing, 1990.

10. Giles, Melanie, « Bog Bodies : Representing the Dead », contribution à la conférence

intitulée « Respect for Ancient British Human Remains : Philosophy and Practice »,

17 novembre 2006, Manchester Museum, http://www.museum.manchester.ac.uk/

medialibrary/documents/respect/bog_bodies_representing_the_dead.pdf/.

11. Heaney Seamus, Bog Poems, Londres, Rainbow Press, 1975 ; Door into the Dark, New

York, Oxford University Press, 1969 ; Preoccupations, Selected Prose 1968-1978, Londres,

Faber & Faber, 1980, p. 57-58. Voir également David Annwn, Inhabited Voices : Myth and

History in the Poetry of Georgy Hill, Seamus Heaney and George Mackay Brown, Frome,

Somerset, Bran’s Head Books, 1984 ; Anthony Bailey, « A Gift for Being in Touch :Seamus Heaney builds houses of truth », Quest, n° 2, janvier-février 1978 ; Dianne,

Meredith, « Landscape or Mindscape? Seamus Heaney’s Bogs”, in Irish Geographical

Society, vol. 32.2, 1999, p. 127-133 ; Michael Parker, « Gleanings, Leavings : Irish and

American Influences on Seamus Heaney’s Wintering Out (1972)”, in New Hibernia Review,

vol.2 : 3, automne 1998.

12. Glob, P. V., op. cit., p. 29.


71

13. Heaney, Seamus, « The Grauballe Man », in North, Londres, Faber & Faber, 1975.

14. Glob, P. V., op. cit., p. 18.

15. Voir Claire Raymond, « Murdered 2,500 years ago », The Mirror, 7 janvier 2006.

16. In Grice, E., « A Chilling Tale of Ritual Murder », Daily Telegraph, 7 janvier 2006, p.

19-21, article cité par Giles, M., op. cit., p. 8.

17. Ibid., p. 36.

18. M. M. Bakhtine, Esthétique et théorie du roman, traduit du russe, Paris, Gallimard,

collection « Bibliothèque des idées », 1978.

19. Purdy, Anthony, « The Bog Body as Mnemotope : Nationalist Archaeologies in

Heaney and Tournier », Style, printemps 2002.

20. Dayton, Todd, « Tales from the Bog », Illumination, Berkeley University, 2002, http://

illuminations.berkeley.edu/archives/2002/article.

21. Turner, Richard et Scaife, Robert, Bodies : New Discoveries and New Perspectives,

Londres, British Museum Press, 1995, p. 32.

22. Eugène Nshimiyimana, « Les corps mythiques de Sony Labou Tansi », Études

Françaises, 41 : 2, 2005, p. 95.

23. Voir Pierre Nora (dir.), Les lieux de mémoire, Paris, Gallimard (Quarto), 3 tomes, 1997.

24. [Seamus Heaney, Aidan Dunne et Niall McMonagle], Barrie Cooke, Kinsale, Gandon

Edition, coll. Profile, 1998, p. 12.

25. Ibid.

26. Propos de l’artiste, cités dans Dunne, Aidan, Barrie Cooke, Douglas Hyde Gallery,

ACNI, 1986, p. 75-76.

27. Morgan, George, « An Interview with Louis le Brocquy by George Morgan », in Le

Brocquy, P. (dir.), Louis le Brocquy, The Head Image, Kinsale, Gandon Editions, 1996, p. 17.

28. Ibid.

29. Montague, John, A Louis le Brocquy, Gimpel Fils Gallery, Londres, 1974, p. 3.

30. Le Brocquy, Louis, Images of W. B. Yeats, James Joyce, Federico Garcia Lorca, Picasso,

Samuel Beckett, Francis Bacon, 1975-1987, p. 14.

31. Carpenter, Andrew (dir.), Eight Irish Writers, Eight Poems in a Portfolio of Collotype

Lithographs, Dublin, 1981, non paginé.

32. Voir Don Brothwell, The Bog Man and the Archaeology of People, Cambridge,

Massachusetts, Harvard University Press, 1987 ; Kiner, A. « Momies de l’âge du fer : lepeuple des tourbières », Sciences et avenir, no 607, septembre 1997, p. 90-96 ; Menon,

Shanti. « The People of the Bog », in Discover, août 1997, p. 60-67, 87 ; Mohen, J. P. « Les

hommes des tourbières », in Dossiers d’archéologie, no 259, décembre 2000, p. 10-15 ;Owen, James, « Murdered ‘Bog Men’ Found With Hair Gel, Manicured Nails », in National

Geographic News, January 17, 2006 ; Pringle, Heather Anne, The Mummy Congress : Science,

Obsession, and the Everlasting Dead, New York, Hyperion, 2001.

33. Miranda Green, Dying for the Gods : Human Sacrifice in Iron Age and Roman Europe,

Stroud, Tempus, 2001, p. 118.

34. Tim Taylor, The Buried Soul : How Humans Invented Death, Beacon Press, 2004 et

Fischer, John Hayes (réal.), The Perfect Corpse, DVD distribué par NOVA, 2006.


72

35. O’Donoghue, Hughie, 13 Drawings from the Human Body, Jill George Gallery, Londres,

1993, non paginé. (traduction de l’auteur).

36. Fallon, Brian (introduction), A Line of Retreat, Hughie O’Donoghue, Purdy / Hicks,

Londres, 1997, p. 7.

37. O’Donoghue, Hughie, Paintings and Drawings 1983-86, Fabian Carlsson Gallery,

Londres, 1986, non paginé.

38. Oliva, Achille Bonito, Hughie O’Donoghue, Opere 1986-87, Galleria Carini Firenze, 1987,

non paginé.

39. Slattery, Denis Patrick, The Wounded Body, Remembering the Markings of Flesh, New

York, State University of New York Press, 2000, p. 7-11

40. Brooks, Peter, Body Work : Objects of Desire in Modern Narrative, Cambridge, Harvard

University Press, 1993, p. 3.

41. Cummins, Pauline, « A Series of Changes », Performance Magazine, 54, juin-juillet

1988, p. 22.

42. Idem.

43. Voir le script de la performance dans Cummins, Pauline, « Unearthed, Performance

script; n.paradoxa, vol.5, p. 71-73.

44. Higgins, Judith, « Art From the Edge », in Art in America, décembre 1995, p. 37-40.

45. Deepwell, Kathy, Dialogues, Women Artists from Ireland, Tauris and Company, 2004,

p. 154.

46. Nigel Rolfe, Vidéos 1983-1996, interview avec Declan McGonagle, Musée d’Art Moderne

de la ville de Paris, 1996 (en français dans le texte).

47. Rolfe Nigel, Resonator, Douglas Hyde Gallery, Dublin, 1992.

48. Rolfe Nigel, Vidéos 1983-1996, op. cit., p. 12.

49. Trigger, Bruce G., « Alternative Archaeologies. Nationalist, Colonialist, Imperialist »,

in Robert Preucel et Ian Hodder (dir.), Contemporary Archaeology in Theory, Oxford,

Blackwell Publishers, 1999 (1996), p. 615-631.

50. Silberman, Neil A., « Promised Lands and Chosen Peoples: the Politics and Poetics of

Archaeological Narrative », in Nationalism, Politics and the Practice of Archaeology, ed.

Philip L. Khol et Clare Fawcett, Cambridge, CUP, 1995, p. 249-250.

51. Dust Breeding, vidéo enregistrée sur DVD, 5 mn ; visible sur http://

greenonredgallery.com.

52. Giles, Melanie, « Bog Bodies : Representing the Dead », contribution à la conférence

intitulée « Respect for Ancient British Human Remains : Philosophy and Practice »,

17 novembre 2006, Manchester Museum, p. 12, retranscrite sur le site http://

www.museum.manchester.ac.uk/medialibrary/documents/respect/

bog_bodies_representing_the_dead.pdf.


73

RÉSUMÉS

L’attrait des corps des tourbières provient du mystère entourant leur mort et de leur capacité à

bouleverser notre rapport au temps. L’ouvrage de P. V. Glob marqua S. Heaney mais aussi B.

Cooke, L. le Brocquy ou H. O’Donoghue. La représentation des corps et de la violence dans les arts

visuels est chez eux à la fois littérale et archétypale. Travaillant sur la fragmentation du corps,

peintres ou vidéastes présentent des corps ensevelis de manière à initier une réflexion sur la

blessure, l’identité et ses rapports à l’histoire nationale.

The fascination exerted by bog bodies springs from the mystery surrounding their deaths and

their capacity to disrupt chronological frameworks. P. V. Glob’s seminal work has had a profound

influence on S. Heaney, as well as B. Cooke, L. le Brocquy or H. O’Donoghue. The representation of

the bodies and the violence they exemplify is both literal and archetypal. The paintings and

videos showing fragmented bodies explore wounds that are both organic and cultural and

question the notion of identity in the face of national history.

INDEX

Mots-clés : corps des tourbières, archéologie, Le Brocquy Louis, Rolfe Nigel, Cooke Barrie,

O’Donoghue Hughie, Cummins Pauline , arts visuels

Keywords : archaeology, bog bodies, Le Brocquy Louis, Cooke Barrie, O'Donoghue Hughie, Rolfe

Nigel , Cummins Pauline, visual arts

AUTEUR

VALÉRIE MORISSON

Université Grenoble II


74

“Soul of the Devil’s Pig”: Comedyand Affirmation in James Joyce’sFinnegans WakeBernard McKenna

1 In Finnegans Wake, James Joyce explores the associations of the Irish myth of the “Black

Pig,” building scenes around its motifs in Chapter I, Book 11 and in Chapter III, Book 42.

Through the use of comedy (satire, parody, and irony), Joyce offers a critique of the

way Irish Revival writers came to terms with myth and the way they attempted to trace

and establish a national identity in writing. Simultaneously, the passages offer an

affirmation. The traditions surrounding the Valley of the Black Pig offer an ideal

metaphor for such dual representations in that the Valley marks, according to myth,

the site of the battle of the end of the world. However, the death of one world leaves an

opening for a new beginning in just the same way that Joyce’s use of comedy tears

down one world and his affirmations build another. Such a process is not uncommon in

cultures and societies emerging from a colonial/post-colonial era. Mbembe and

Roitman, in “Figures of the subject in Times of Crisis”, define the process as “the

possibility for self-constitution”:

According to this formulation, we are not interested primarily in the problematicsof resistance, emancipation, or autonomy. We distance ourselves from thesequestions in order to better apprehend, in today’s context, the series of operationsin and through which people weave their existence in incoherence, uncertainty,instability, and discontinuity; then, in experiencing the reversal of the materialconditions of their societies, they recapture the possibility for self-constitution,thus instituting other words of truth3.

2 Through the myth of the Black Pig, Joyce weaves new possibilities for self-constitution

into the space left empty by the disposition of colonial and post-colonial discourse.

Finnegans Wake then offers a perspectival shift towards formerly marginalized narrative

constructions.


75

Pastiche and Affirmation

3 In a passage taken from Book III, Chapter IV, Joyce parodies the manner and

consequences of Revivalist assemblage of folklore, customs and traditions. As a result,

Finnegans Wake offers up a narrative that anticipates Frederic Jameson’s reading of the

“Postmodern pastiche”: “a field of stylistic and discursive heterogeneity without a

norm4”. The Revivalists, however, do offer a “norm” for their descriptions; Yeats, in The

Trembling of the Veil, seeks to distill the essence of spiritual truth from a variety of

traditions, writing that he planned

a mystical Order which should buy or hire the castle, and keep it as a place whereits members could retire for a while for contemplation, and where we mightestablish mysteries like those of Eleusis and Samothrace. […] I did not think thisphilosophy would be altogether pagan, for it was plain that its symbols must beselected from all those things that had moved men most during many, mainlyChristian, centuries5.

4 In constructing an idyllic mystical retreat, Yeats makes himself vulnerable to the

charge that he de-contextualizes the religious symbols and “mysteries” from their

cultural and ritual context, potentially robbing them of their spiritual potency. Joyce,

in the voice of Mark, echoes and reduces to the absurd the type of de-contextualized

assemblage present in Yeats’ The Trembling of the Veil. Specifically, Mark describes “that

white and gold elephant in our zoopark” (564.5-6), suggesting the sacred objects of

India or Africa. Animistic religious traditions find a resonance in the “Talkingtree and

sinningstone” (564.30-31). Pastoral religion is also present, in the “shady rides [that]

lend themselves out to rustic cavalries” (564.25-26) and in the “olave, that firile, was

aplantad in her liveside” (564.2122). The passage even gives voice to Classical religious

practices, describing the “grekish and romanos” (564.9); the “Hystorical

leavesdroppings” (564.31), which recall the withering Cumaenean Sybil; and, in another

sense, “that white and gold elephant”: Pheidias statue of Zeus at Olympia, according to

the Greek historian Pausanias, included ivory and gold elements. Mark, like Yeats, also

includes Christian components: “How tannoboom held tonobloom. How rood in

norlandes” (564.21-23)6, signifying Christmas and the word for the cross7. The passage

adds to the spiritual references a clear signal of satiric perspective: “sir Shamus

Swiftpatrick, Archfieldchaplain” (564.31-33): Jonathan Swift. The subsequent lines

reveal Joyce’s satiric target: “How familiar it is to see all these interesting advenements

with one snaked’s eyes” (564.33-34). The use of “snaked eyes” implies Satan’s revelation

to Adam and Eve and, by connection, reveals the naked assemblage of a variety of de-

contextualized religious traditions, robbed of their spiritual value (Jameson’s “norm”)

as a consequence of their de-contextualization. The passage’s satiric force culminates

in a call of “Ulvos! Ulvos!” (565.5). The warning certainly suggests wolves at the gates

threatening civilization. In this sense, Yeats and his type of assemblage are the wolves

that threaten the ordered practice of rooted religious tradition. The warning also

suggests, “Odin, in the Voluspa of the Poetic Edda, [who] calls up the Volva, or Sibyl, from

the lower regions to learn the fate of the gods from her8”; fire destroyed Sybil’s

prophecies when Rome burned in 83 B.C. Subsequently, classical and early Christian

writers attempted to reconstruct or even invent her prophecies9. The passage reads

then like an invented tradition, once again recalling Jameson’s observations of the

“pastiche,” in that it “randomly and without principle but with gusto cannibalizes all

the […] styles of the past and combines them in over-stimulating ensembles10”.


76

Finnegans Wake parodies the effect of Revivalist compilations of folklore and tradition,

arguing that the intended purpose of the assembly, to reconstruct lost spiritual vitality,

is itself lost when random assembly robs spiritual traditions of the normative value

inherent in their cultural context.

5 However, the passage may also be read as an affirmation. The parody that mocks the

type of discourse characterized by Yeats, liberates the assemblage of spiritual

traditions from that same oppressive discourse and carries a resonance with Linda

Hutcheon’s views of “pastiche” as an artistic form that has not necessarily “lost its

meaning and purpose”, but rather “inevitably has a new and different significance11”.

Pastiche then, as Hutcheon characterizes it, offers possibilities not inherent in

Jameson’s reading. Joyce, in Finnegans Wake’s representation of the myth of the Black

Pig, anticipates both alternatives. The text simultaneously parodies the style of

discourse adopted by Yeats in his memoirs, a discourse consistent with Jameson’s

reading of pastiche, but also offers, within the void left by parody, an example of

Hutcheon’s reading of pastiche. Hutcheon’s view, furthermore, echoes Jameson’s

reading of an “Irish Modernism12” in connection with Ulysses: “Irish Modernism [is] a

form which […] [projects] a radically different kind of space, a space no longer central,

as in English life, but marked as marginal and ec-centric after the fashion of the

colonized areas of the imperial system. The colonized space may then be expected to

transform the modernist project radically, while still retaining a distant familial

likeness to its imperial variants13.” Joyce’s representation of myth from a variety of

traditions functions both as a parody of imperial discourse and as an alternative to

imperial discourse. Specifically, the words and phrases that parody colonial

constructions, also, as Stuart Hall observes of articulations of identity freed from post-

colonial discourse, “offer a way of imposing an imaginary [i.e. creative] coherence on

the experience of dispersal and fragmentation14”. Freed from the imagined [i.e.

fabricated] coherence of Revivalism, Finnegans Wake offers a unity through a creative

construction of words and phrases that universalizes myth without the imposition of

an imperial order or hierarchy and without decontextualizing traditions. Joyce’s text

then presents a common human experience in the void left by parody. For example,

“that white and gold elepant” suggests not only India but also the “chryselephantine

[ivory and gold] statue of Zeus15”. The passage’s reference to pastoral religious

traditions also makes a specific connection to Ireland; “liveside”, (564.22), for example,

suggests the “Liffey River16”. Ireland then, through juxtaposition, does indeed have a

unity with the Classical world. Moreover, the hierarchy implicit in representation of

pastoral to agrarian to Christian religious also dissolves in the parodic representation,

leaving an association without need for hierarchy. Joyce then anticipates a use of

language and myth consistent with Jameson’s characterization of an “Irish Modernism”

in that he roots an “ec-centric” view of myth within Irish tradition and history and,

therefore, “transforms the modernist project” from one rooted in post-colonial and

colonial discourse into one which, as in Richard Kearney’s observations regarding the

hermeneutic imagination, “offer(s) the possibility of redeeming symbols from the

ideological abuses of doctrinal prejudice, racist nationalism, class oppression, or

totalitarian domination17.” In a very real sense, Ireland’s “firile” (564.22), or “man18”

that “was aplanted in her liveside” (564.22) and the progeny of Joyce’s reversal of

Genesis’ gender roles is the universality inherent in Joyce’s Hutcheon-like pastiche.


77

Comic Deflation

6 In Book I, Chapter IV, Finnegan utters an explicative: “Anam muck an dhoul!” (24.15),

which Brendan O’Herir translates, “Soul of the Devils pig19”. In the next line, the Four

tell him to “be aisy, good Mr Finnimore, sir. And take your laysure like a god on

pension and don’t be walking abroad” (24.16-17). The language, with its conversational

style and representation in dialect belies the epic language and heroic representation

of the pig in Celtic legends, comically deflating the elevated, epic language of

Revivalists. Lady Gregory retells the story of Finn’s son as the black pig, slaughtered on

the battlefield:

For as to the black pig that came before you on the plain,” he [Finn] said, “it was nocommon pig was in it, but my own son. And there fell along with him,” he said, “theson of the King of the Narrow Sea, and the son of the King of the Sea of Gulls, andthe son of Ilbhrec, son of Manannan, and seven score of the comely sons of kingsand queens. And it is what destroyed my strength and my respect entirely, they tohave been burned away from me in a far place20.

7 The Four Masters address Finnegan, using the surname “Finnemore”, suggesting that

he too is Finn (or Finn’s descendant). They tell him to behave like a “god,” indicating a

heroic nature but one on “pension”, deflating the epic potential inherent in a giant

rising from the Irish landscape. In addition, retellings of Celtic legend also suggest that

the black pig is a representative of evil: “Now pigs came out of the Cave of Cruachain

and that is Ireland’s gate of hell. […] [M]oreover, come these swine. Round whatever

thing they used to go, till the end of seven years, neither corn nor grass nor leaf would

grow21.” Finnegan’s declaration of the “soul of the devil’s pig”, but with a comic groan,

once again, deflates the elevated language of Stokes’ type of depiction of the pig rising

from the gates of Hell. Essentially, Joyce uses humor to demythologize the stories

surrounding the black pig, positing instead a very human representation of the god and

ironically implying the legends themselves have no insight into the supposedly pure

Celtic tradition which they seek. Joyce points out the inherent contradictions in the

legacy of Celtic legend, belying the hopes to access through stories the original culture

behind the tales. Moreover, because the text represents a rising Finnegan in such a

comic and human (as opposed to epic) form, Joyce implies that the heroes were likely

more human than epic. Moreover, even if they were to come to life, it is possible,

according to the treatment they receive from the Four Masters, that they would not be

heralded as heroes but rather dealt with a patronizing tone, designed to mollify and

contain any epic energy that might go “walking abroad.” In short, Irish Revivalist

society as reflected in the passage, would not recognize a god or hero even if he

appeared before them, rising from Phoenix Park.

8 In addition, Finnegans Wake satirically argues that even if the people of Irish Revivalist

culture recognized the traces of a living hero/divinity, they would misinterpret the

signs and respond with hostility. Yeats tells the story of one such instance of the

sighting of a mysterious pig: “the people of the village took pitchforks and spades and

the like, and went along the road with them to drive the pig away. When they turned

the comer they could not find anything22.” Joyce associates the waking Finnegan with

language of death and sacrifice. The Four Masters warn him that, if he should wander

off, “Sure you’d only lose yourself in Healiopolis now the way your roads in

Kapelavaster are that winding there after the calvary” (24.17-19). The passage’s

reference to “calvary” recalls the sacrifice of the Christian messiah at the hands of a


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hostile crowd, not unlike the throng who sought the mythic pig in Yeats’ tale. Further,

the passage also references the Egyptian City of the Sun god, merging its name,

“Heliopolis,” with that of Timothy Healy, recalling Parnell’s sacrifice at the hands of a

hostile crowd. The rejection of Parnell recalls a tradition associated with the black pig

recounted by Samuel Ferguson: the black pig is a “mythological monster, said to have

been banished, after the establishment of Christianity, to the Hebridean Seas, where his

‘rootings’ may be seen in stormy weather in the hollow of the waves, and his

‘gruntings’ heard from the caverned rocks of Mull and Isa23”. The Irish bishops, with

the cooperation of members of the Irish Party, led by Healy, betrayed and “banished”

Parnell in the same way the establishment of Christianity saw the banishment of

Ferguson’s mythological pig. Joyce’s satire not only humanizes the deity it comically

depicts as a crowd not ready to accept the presence of the divine, preferring instead to

hunt him down, whether at the hands of a hostile Irish village with pitchforks, a crowd

calling for the sacrifice of a Christian messiah, or an Irish public ready to sacrifice

Parnell.

9 By comically deflating Revival-style representations, Joyce succeeds in re-humanizing

the Irish myths on which the representations draw. In doing so, Joyce anticipates what

Richard Kearney sees as necessary for “humanity to return to itself and rediscover its

own powers of making24”. Specifically, Joyce, applying Kearney’s analysis to Finnegans

Wake “debunk[s] the pseudo world of fetish images in which ideology alienates human

consciousness25”. Essentially, Joyce’s comic deflation reveals how certain Revivalist

writers and their willing audiences, informed by colonial and post-colonial discourse,

project their desire for the “pure” onto legends or even public figures, like Parnell.

Such acts of projection create a fetish that dehumanizes and decontextualizes the

objects of desire. In his comic deflation, Joyce both signals a disconnection from

Revivalist representations of myth that tend to dehumanize their subjects and,

simultaneously, signals a re-humanization of the myths. Joyce, from the Revivalist’s

perspective, ironically brings the myths closer to the people, offering them figures with

whom they can identify. Joyce’s representation of the human nature of Irish heroes and

myths comically affirms the presence of those heroes and myths and the value of their

presence in the lives of a receptive audience. The value rests not in the myth’s ability to

elevate a readership’s aspirations to a pure and super-human standard but rather to

elevate a readership’s self-conception by stressing the human and flawed nature of the

heroes. Joyce grants his readership a clearer and more accurate understanding of their

mythological inheritance and grants his readership a clearer and more accurate

understanding of their own potential: if the heroes of the past were as human as a

contemporary readership, applying Joycean logic, then their heroic acts are within the

reach of a contemporary readership.

Carnival

10 When Padraic Pearse wrote that “Bloodshed is a cleansing and sanctifying thing26”, he

echoed the sentiments of some in the Irish Nationalist movement who sought violence

in order to purify an Ireland that they considered weakened by centuries of British

occupation. Joyce, in Mark’s narrative (564-565), characterizes sanctifying violence as a

“feud fionghalian” (564.30), suggesting that rather than achieve a connection with a

pure Irish past, those involved in violence, ironically, destroy their heritage through


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“fratricide27”. Clues in the narrative further point towards violence extending beyond

Ireland. As John Bishop observes, a “whole set of ciphers designating ‘the end of the

world’28” emerges, including, “guttergloomering29”. Violence then, the passage

suggests, leads to even more death; it cannot be controlled, even by an ideology like

Irish Nationalism. The passage indicates that a “scarlet pimparnell now mules the

mound where anciently first murders were wanted to take root” (564.28-30). John

Gordon argues that “the sight of red blood on white skin, the “scarlet pimparnell, is […]

a powerful symbol of alternately shameful and sacred secrets30”. The words, “first

murders”, in part recall bloodletting connecting with sacred rites or the attempt at the

sacred that actually brings shame to the perpetrator. Moreover, the emergence of the

“scarlet pimparnell” suggests that violence does not end, that it has unintended

consequences. The myth of the “Black Pig” then is a fitting metaphor around which to

build such images of escalating and fruitless violence. Lady Gregory writes of how “the

hunt [for the pig] brought destruction on Angus, [and] it brought losses on the Fianna

as well31”. W. B. Yeats, in “the Valley of the Black Pig32”, hears “the clash of fallen

horsemen and the cries/Of unknown perishing armies beat about my ears” (ll. 3-4).

Yeats links the Irish myth of the end of the world to “perishing armies” of “fallen

horsemen”, to ghostly figures locked in violent struggle. Lady Gregory’s version of the

tale reveals unexpected and far-reaching consequences of violence. Mark’s narrative,

from Finnegans Wake, builds, around the central metaphor of the “Black Pig”, images

containing an uncontrollable violence that originates, as in Padraic Pearse’s writings, in

a desire for the sacred and pure.

11 Within Joyce’s metaphorical world, there is no clearer image of an attempt at

purification leading to an ironic and violent end than the metonymy of the Parnell

case, and Mark’s narrative also gives voice to the scandals that eventually destroyed

not only Parnell but his efforts to establish, through peaceful means, an Irish nation. In

the case of Parnell, the passage’s reference to “first murders” (564.29) and the “scarlet

pimparNell” (564.28) could quite easily be taken as a reference to the “Phoenix Park

Murders”:

On 6 May, Lord Frederick Cavendish […] was murdered in the Phoenix Park,together with T.H. Burke, the under-secretary, […] The assassins, members of aband known as “The Invincibles”, had no connection with any organization withwhich Parnell was involved; but he was so horrified at the crime, and so deeplyconvinced that it would destroy his political influence, that his first resolve was toretire at once into private life. “What is the use”, he asked Davitt, “if men strivingas we have done […] if we are to be struck at in this way by unknown men who cancommit atrocious deed of this kind?” […] The obvious sincerity with which hedenounced the crime made a good impression in Britain33.”

12 Nonetheless, a scandal began to circulate that threatened Parnell’s claim to the moral

high ground: “An accusation made by The Times [London] in 1887 that he had privately

condoned the Phoenix Park murders was dramatically refuted, two years later, by a

discovery that the letters on which the newspapers had relied had been forged by a

journalist34.” The “scarlet pimparnell” in this context can be taken to mean both the

shedding of blood in the Phoenix Park and the scandal that attempted to misrepresent

Parnell’s private attitude towards the killings. The “scarlet pimparnell” might also

refer to the subsequent scandal that eventually did destroy Parnell’s efforts at a

peaceful statehood for Ireland. Mark’s narrative ends with the cry of “Ulvos! Ulvos!”

(565.5); McHugh glosses the words as “wolves35”. Not only would Pearse’s plea for

violence replace Parnell’s plea for peace, Parnell himself became a “hunted animal36”.


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Moreover, the violence that destroyed Parnell, ironically, did not come from England:

“In his final desperate appeal to his countrymen, he begged them not to throw him as a

stop to the English wolves howling around them. It redounds to their honour that they

did not fail this appeal. They did not throw him to the English wolves; they tore him to

pieces themselves37.” In destroying the father of peaceful Nationalism, the Irish people

embraced violence and fratricide, a “feud fionghalian”, not only in the destruction of

Parnell but also in the creation of an Irish nation founded on violence.

13 The passage also refers to the creation of the Irish Free State, its symbolic connection

to Britain and its continued close association with the Catholic Church. In the passage’s

contemplation of “Holl Hollow” (565.2) as giving “wankyrious thoughts” (565.3), Joyce

plants, at the conclusion of Mark’s narrative, references to both British and Roman

rule. Brendan O’Herir glosses “wankyrious” as “lord, master38.” Mark’s narrative lays

out the geography of the Phoenix Park, which demonstrates Joyce’s thought that

Ireland had continued, deleterious links to the two masters even after independence:

“On the right prominence confronts you the handsome vineregent’s lodge while,

turning to the other supreme piece of cheeks, exactly opposite, you are confronted by

the equally handsome chief sacristary’s residence” (564.13-15). Earlier, on pages 24-25,

Joyce describes the area as the “Healiopolis” (24.18). Quite literally, Time Healy “was

named first Governor General of the Free State39” and took up residence in the former

vice-regent’s lodge. Healy “had at one time been secretary to Parnell” but took “a

prominent part in his overthrow40”. Joyce would have discerned the irony of the former

advocate of a morally pure Irish Nationalism as the representative for and figure head

of a British presence in Ireland. As Adaline Glasheen observes, Healy “ratted on Parnell

and joined the wolves [. . . ] and priests who hunted Parnell to death41”. Within the

imaginative geography of the “Healiopolis” the “Chief Sacristary” lives across from the

vice-regent; in actuality, the Chief Secretary’s residence sits opposite to the vice-

regent’s lodge. Joyce alters the name to reveal the alliance between Healy42 and the

Roman Catholic Church to overthrow Parnell. In doing so, Joyce taps into a vein in Irish

history. As Richard Ellmann points out, Joyce felt that “the modern papacy is as deaf to

the Irish cries for help as the medieval papacy [under Adrian IV] was43.” Indeed, as Joep

Leerssen notes, “the fact that Pope Adrian himself was an Englishman, may indicate the

possibility that the strategic or territorial design of the king of England on the

neighboring island was, if not in orchestrated concord, at least compatible with the

policy of the Holy Sea44”. The metaphorical connection between the two within the

geography of the Phoenix Park reveals that Joyce sought to suggest a post-colonial

mindset in the newly formed Irish Free state, one that continued its adherence to

colonial values while simultaneously proclaiming itself free.

14 Joyce, in the passage, makes clear the violent ends of some aspects of the Irish

Nationalist movement and makes clear that those ends actually draw Ireland

ideologically closer to colonial forces. The violence then functions as a type of

Bakhtinian Carnival, meaning that it offers a temporary suspension of colonial control

but ultimately results in closer associations with a colonial mindset and colonial power.

However, the passage also offers elements that point towards a unity through peaceful

procreation and a sociocultural synthesis that belies the values, internalized or

imposed, of colonialism and post-colonialism. Reinforcing this view, John Bishop notes

the significance of the distinction between “historical” and “hystorical” in 564.31:

Creation is not an historical event that happens only once, with a remote big bangin the Garden of Eden, but a ‘hystoRical event’, happening constantly in the ‘Garden


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of Erin’ and other modern nations as people keep on waking up and children keepon spilling into the world. As in Genesis, then, where all the glittering appearancesof the earth come forth out of a dark, formless, and inchoate body of water seededwith paternal form, as if from the interior of an egg45.

15 The nature of creation and of creative forces, contrasting with the power of violence,

offers not a millennial event that will transform the world, the kind foreseen by Pearse,

but rather offers constantly changing and constantly growing transformation that

combines many aspects of Irish society. The passage notes that “Around is a little

amiably tufted and man is cheered when he bewonders through the boskage how the

nature in all frisko is enlivened by gentlemen’s seats” (564.15-17). The passage makes a

distinction between “man” and “gentleman”. However, the two come together in an

“little amiable tufted”, a version of the Garden of Eden, in its association with plants

that share a common root stem but diverge in growth. Tufted also has associations with

weaving. The passage then implies that Ireland’s diverse populations are woven

together and share an inexorable connection to one another that cannot be sundered

by violence; in fact, violence simply asserts the ascendancy of one tradition over

another. Whereas, all come together in the “frisko” and “enlivened” exercise of

creativity. In stressing the productive aspects of association, Joyce anticipates the

theory of “Carnival” espoused by Antonio Benitez-Rojo. For Benitez-Rojo, carnival is an

embrace of social engagement, “unifying through its performance that which cannot

[otherwise] be unified46”. Significantly, the carnival functions differently in this context

than it does in the definitions of Bakhtin and others. For Benitez-Rojo, carnival

functions as a forum to expose the masks of those in power, to reveal their motives for

maintaining order. The passage reveals the close association between the violent urges

of an aspect of Irish Nationalism and colonial control in Ireland. Carnival also functions

as a forum for insurgency. Not only does the language of the passage comically deflate a

violent nationalism, the juxtaposition between violence and procreation undermines

an aggressive hegemony. In both cases, carnival functions as a way to come to terms

with violence. Ultimately, its performative aspects and the comic performance of

Finnegans Wake are unifying and represent a sociocultural synthesis.

16 Other passages in Finnegans Wake allude to the myth of the “Black Pig 47”, but the

passages on pages 24-25 and 564-565 are the only references that occur early enough in

the composition process to assert that Joyce constructed themes and images around

references to the Black Pig. In doing so, Joyce built into the passages not only a

reference to the end of the world but also references to a new world. Simultaneous

deconstruction and reconstruction is a familiar theme to Wake scholars. Declan Kiberd

observes a similar pattern, noting that the “moment […] Joyce wrote in English, he felt

himself performing a humiliating translation of a split linguistic choice. In his writings,

he seeks to express that sundering; and, eventually, in Finnegans Wake he would weave

the absent texts in the space between standard Irish and standard English48”. To carry

Kiberd’s theories forward into a reading of Joyce’s use of the Black Pig, Finnegans Wake

weaves an affirmation in the space left open after his use of the comic tears down the

discourse of the Revival. Richard Kearney, in Poetics of Modernity , makes note of a

process similar to Kiberd’s observations regarding sundering and creation: Kearney

suggests that “Finnegans Wake […] testifies to the fall of the patriarchal Logos into the

babel of history49”, but he also argues that Finnegans Wake

is a ‘mamafesta’ which retells how Anna (the Celtic mother goddess who reconcilesthe father Manaanan and the son Aengus) and Eve (the mythic temptress who


82

challenged patriarchal self-sufficiency) inaugurated the history of human creationand procreation. Anna and Eve become identified in Joyce’s remythologizing withthe suppressed poetics of language. Joyce seems to be saying that it is only byattending to this other utopian language […] that we become aware of thepolyphonic legacy of “woman’s reason.” […] Joyce is disclosing a non-foundationalrole for myth as emancipatory play of endless metamorphosis50.

17 Similarly, Joyce’s use of comic forms emancipates through play positive associations

and establishes an affirmation. In their discussion of Joyce’s use of language, Kiberd

and Kearney echo Barbara Lalla’s observations regarding the representation of

language by formerly colonized peoples. Lalla writes of an “Expansion Phase51” that

marks “a perspectival shift that relocates the speaker to the centre (rather than

margin) of a valorized discourse, which becomes an instrument of identity

construction52”. Finnegans Wake’s use of language(s) does indeed mark a profound

narrative shift in which the formerly marginalized relocate to the center of discourse,

weaving themselves into the empty spaces vacated by the colonizing powers.

Significantly, Joyce’s use of myth and specifically the myth of the Black Pig,

accomplishes the same ends as does his use of language. Those ends, meaning the

affirmation of formerly marginalized discourse, share a commonality with the

struggles of people attempting to emerge from the discourses and mindsets of

colonialism and post-colonialism.

NOTES

1. The evidence from the early drafts of pages 24.15-25.16 indicates that Joyce built an

association between the myth of the black pig, the British imperial presence in Phoenix

Park, and diverse cultures outside of Dublin and Ireland when he revised the passage.

The passage begins immediately after Finn wakes up to the word whiskey. The Four

Masters attempt to convince him to accept things as they are. The first available

version of the lines dates from 1927 when Joyce wrote in the margins of his manuscript

the words, “(Anam a dhoul!) Did ye drink me dead? Now, be easy, good Mister

Finnomore sir! And take your laysure and not be walking abroad, […] Aisy now and

quiet and repose your honour’s lordship” (James Joyce Archive, 44, Finnegans Wake,

Book I, Chapter I: a facsimile of drafts, typescripts & proofs/James Joyce; prefaced by

David Hayman; arranged by Danis Rose, with the assistance of John O’Hanlon, 138). The

draft suggests that Joyce, when he first came to this passage, wanted to emphasize

Finn’s rootedness and to imply that Finn has a high opinion of himself or at the very

least, that he expects to be treated with respect. Further, Finn’s initial utterance,

“Anam a shoul,” as opposed to “anam muck an dhoul” (24.15), suggests that Joyce

originally thought the line should stand as “Soul to the devil,” as simply an expletive

uttered by Finn and as a direct reference to the words of the song “Finnegan’s Wake”.

The first appearance of the final form of the phrase, with a reference to the devil’s pig,

comes in the typescript from the next available revision and adds the word, “muck” (JJA

44, 199) which changes the line to “soul of the devil’s pig,” suggesting that Joyce


83

wanted to make an explicit connection between an evil “pig” and the legends alluded to

in the passages subsequent lines.

2. The early drafts of pages 564.4-565.5 indicate that Joyce built the passage around the

myth of the black pig, adding details to create an association between the mythic

tradition, the British presence in Ireland, and an assortment of religious traditions. The

passage, the section of “discord” in the chapter, is spoken by Mark (Munster) and

focuses on the various conflicts present in the narrative: brother/brother, sister/

brother, father/child, parents/children, mother/father, Ireland/England, the present/

the past, and Ireland/the Catholic Church. The earliest draft of the passage contains a

reference to the mythical black pig. Joyce details the “black and blue markings [the

traces of the wild boar that] indicate the presence of sylvious beltings. Any pretty dears

to be caught. At the lowest end is the depression, called the Hollow. It is often quite

gloomyand gives bad thoughts” (James Joyce Archive, 60, Finnegans Wake, Book III,

Chapter 4, Drafts, TSS and Proofs, David Hayman and Danis Rose [eds.], New York,

Garland Publishing, 1978, p. 70).

3. Achille Mbembe and Janet Roitman, “Figures of the Subject in Time of Crisis.” The

Geography of Identity. Patricia Yeager (ed.), Ann Arbor, University of Michigan Press,

1996, p. 155.

4. Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism, or, Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism, Durham, Duke

University Press, 1991, p. 17.

5. William Butler Yeats, Autobiographies: The Collected Works of W.B. Yeats, Volume III,

William H. O’Donnell, Douglas N. Archibald (eds.), New York, Scribner, 1989, p. 204.

6. All textual citations to Finnegans Wake are taken from James Joyce, Finnegans Wake,

London, Faber and Faber, 1957.

7. Roland McHugh, Annotations to Finnegans Wake, Third Edition, Baltimore, Johns

Hopkins University Press, 2006, p. 564.

8. Dounia Bunis Christiani, Scandanavian Elements of Finnegans Wake, Evanston,

Northwestern University Press, 1965, p. 216.

9. Arthur Stanley Pease, “Sybylla,” The Oxford Classical Dictionary, N.G.L. Hammond and

H.H. Scullard, (eds.) Oxford, The Clarendon Press, 1970, p. 984.

10. Jameson, op. cit., p. 19.

11. Linda Hutcheon, The Politics of Postmodernism, New York, Routledge, 2002, p. 90.

12. Fredric Jameson, Modernism and Imperialism, Derry, Field Day Theatre Company,1988, p. 20.

13. Ibidem.

14. Stuart Hall, “Cultural Identity and Diaspora”, Identity: Community, Culture, Difference. Jonathan Rutherford (ed.), London,

Lawrence and Wishart, 1990, p. 224.

15. Brendan O’Herir and John Dillon, A Classical Lexicon for Finnegans Wake, Berkeley,

University of California Press, 1977, p. 470.

16. Brendan O’Herir, A Gaelic Lexicon for Finnegans Wake, Berkeley, University of

California Press, 1967, p. 297.

17. Richard Kearney, Poetics of Modernity, Atlantic Highlands, Humanities Press, 1995, p. 75.

18. O’Herir, Gaelic Lexicon, p. 297.

19. Kearney, op. cit., p. 17.

20. Lady Augusta Gregory, Gods and Fighting Men, London, John Murray, 1926, p. 305.


84

21. Whitley Stokes, “The Battle of Mag Muccrime,” Revue Celtique, p. 13 (1892).

22. William Butler Yeats, “The Swine of the Gods”, Mythologies, London, Macmillan,

1971, p. 67.

23. Samuel Ferguson, Congal: A Poem in Five Books, Dublin, Edward Ponsonby, 1872, p. 12.

24. Kearney, p. 66.

25. Ibidem.

26. Padraic Pearse, “The Coming Revolution,” Political Writings and Speeches, Dublin, The

Talbot Press, 1952, p. 99.

27. McHugh, Annotations, p. 564.

28. John Bishop, Joyce’s Book of the Dark: Finnegans Wake, Madison, University of

Wisconsin Press, 1986, p. 402.

29. Ibidem.

30. John Gordon, Finnegans Wake: A Plot Summary. Syracuse, Syracuse University Press,

1986, p. 84.

31. Gregory, op. cit., p. 304.

32. All textual citations to Yeats’ poetry are taken from The Variorum Edition of the Poems

of W.B. Yeats, Peter Alt and Russell K. Alspach (eds.), London, Macmillan, 1966.

33. J. C. Beckett, The Making of Modern Ireland, 1603-1923, London, Faber and Faber, 1981,

p. 393.

34. Ibidem, p. 401.

35. McHugh, Annotations, p. 565.

36. Richard Ellmann, James Joyce, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1982, p. 32.

37. James Joyce, “The Shade of Parnell”, James Joyce: The Critical Writings. Ellsworth

Mason and Richard Ellmann (eds.), Ithaca, Cornell University Press, 1989, p. 228.

38. O’Herir, Classical Lexicon, p. 471.

39. Giovanni Costigan, A History of Modern Ireland, New York, Pegasus, 1970, 351.

40. Beckett, op. cit., p. 413.

41. Adaline Glasheen, Third Census of Finnegans Wake, Berkeley, University of California

Press, 1977, p. 122.

42. In Stephen Hero, a “Father Healy” is a “little man” who “looked far away into the

golden sun and all of a sudden – imagine! – his mouth opened and he gave a slow

noiseless yawn.” (Stephen Hero, Theodore Spencer, John Slocum, Herbert Cahoon [eds.],

London, Jonathan Cape, 1969, p. 239).

43. Ellmann, op. cit., p. 25-257.

44. Joep Leerssen, Mere Irish and Fior-Ghael, Cork, Cork University Press, 1996, p. 34.

45. Bishop, op. cit., p. 378-379.

46. Antonio Benitez-Rojo, The Repeating Island , Durham, Duke University Press, 1996,

p. 307.

47. The only obvious reference to the “Black Pig’s Dyke” (517.15) in Finnegans Wake

comes in Book III, Chapter 3 placing the allusion after the story of the fall and during

the conflict between Shem and Shaun. Joyce’s reference reinforces the conflict between

the two brothers as part of a mythic conflict associated with Irish legend. However, it is

not an essential component of this particular passage having been added relatively late,


85

in 1936 (JJA 62, 473). However, Joyce scatters references to the valley of the black pig

throughout his text referencing the traditional motifs associated with the myth.

Specifically, on pages 15, 77, and 262, Joyce uses the myth to reinforce notions of the

apocalypse finding a resonance with late-Victorian and early modern representations

of the black pig’s dyke. On pages 15, 77, 362, 441-442, and 448, Joyce uses the myth in

reference to the battle between the English and the Irish finding a resonance with the

“prophecy of the Irish Columba … [who] said that the carnage of the citizens would be

so great, that the enemies would be knee-deep in the blood of the slain” (Eugene

O’Curry, On the Manners and Customs of the Ancient Irish, Dublin, Williams and Norgate,

1873, p. 432), and “a belief held by many natives of Ulster that the English will some day

make a bloody massacre of the Irish in the Valley of the Black Pig” (William Kane, “The

Black Pig’s Dyke,” Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. 27 [1907-1909], p. 326). On pages

262 and 448, Joyce links his black pig to traditions associated with ritualised food and

drink – “From a very early period, pig bones and whole joints of pork appear in burials,

and this association of the animal with grave goods and with the Celtic ritual of the

feast continues right down into the late literary tradition” (Anne Ross, Pagan Celtic

Britain, London, Routledge and Keegan Paul, 1967, 391). Further, on pages 77 and 362,

Joyce represents the black pig in connection with the feast of Samhain and the corn

mother finding a resonance with Yeats’ pig which is “a type of cold and of winter that

awake[s] in November, the old beginning of winter” (William Butler Yeats, The Variorum

Edition of the Plays of W.B. Yeats, Russell K. Alspach (ed.), London, Macmillan, 1966, 1184)

and the “pig [which] seems to have been originally a genius of the corn” (James Frazer,

The Golden Bough, London, Macmillan, 1890, 56). Further, on pages 362 and 448 Joyce

finds in the black sow a representation of the border between Ulster and Connaught,

the ancient boundary for fighting and rivalry between provinces. (Kane, 560) In

addition, Joyce finds in his recreation of the myth the pig a creature of revenge on

pages 15, 77, 362, 441-442, and 448. Finally, Joyce suggests on pages 15, 77, and 362 the

legends associated with the black pig and the sea – “When the Firbolgs ruled the

kingdom the land was overrun with swine, which committed great depredation.” The

Tuatha De Danann destroyed all save one herd which they eventually killed off by

raising “a violent convulsion of the elements which swept the entire herd into the sea”

(William Gregory Wood-Martin, Traces of the Elder Faiths in Ireland, London, Longmans,

Green, and Company, 1902, 131). The references taken together with the motifs of the

black pig carried forward in the revisions of the passage, there exists quite a bit more

than a mere hint of resemblance between Joyce’s text and the legends associated with

the traditions of the black boar. “Everyone of course knows that Joyce was fond of

weaving into his work parallels with myth, saga, and epic. It is, however, a mistake to

assume, when such a parallel is identified, that it must be complete. It rarely is. … In

Finnegans Wake wonders can be done with a mere hint of resemblance” (James Kelleher,

“Irish History and Mythology in James Joyce’s ‘The Dead’”. The Review of Politics. 27.3

[July 1965], p. 421).

48. Declan Kiberd, Inventing Ireland, London, Jonathan Cape, 1995, p. 332.

49. Kearney, op. cit., p. 184.

50. Ibidem.

51. Barbara Lalla, “Creole and Respec’ in the Development of Jamaican Literary

Discourse,” Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages 20:1. 53-84 (2005), p. 67.

52. Ibidem.


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ABSTRACTS

In Finnegans Wake, James Joyce explores the associations of the Irish myth of the “Black Pig”,

building scenes around its motifs in Chapter I, Book 1 and in Chapter III, Book 4. Through the use

of comedy (satire, parody, and irony), Joyce offers a critique of the way Irish Revival writers came

to terms with myth and the way they attempted to trace and establish a national identity in

writing. Simultaneously, the passages offer an affirmation.

Dans Finnegans Wake, James Joyce explore les associations du mythe irlandais du « Cochon Noir »,

en construisant des scènes autour de ses motifs dans le Chapitre I, Livre 1 et dans le Chapitre III,Livre 4. Par le recours à la comédie (satire, parodie et ironie), Joyce offre une critique de la façon

dont les auteurs de la Renaissance Celtique ont illustré le mythe et la façon dont ils ont essayé de

retrouver et de définir une identité nationale par l’écriture. Simultanément, les passages offrent

une affirmation.

INDEX

Mots-clés: littérature - comédie, post-colonialisme, Joyce James, identité nationale,

impérialisme/colonialisme

Keywords: literature - comedy, post-colonialism, Joyce James, national identity, imperialism/

colonialism

AUTHOR

BERNARD MCKENNA

University of Delaware


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“Default[ing] to the Oldest Scar”: APsychoanalytic Investigation ofSubjectivity in Anne Enright’s TheGatheringSarah C. Gardam

…though it hurt, I found that I was able to draw

on more ancient hurts than that – and that is how

I survived.

This is how we all survive. We default to the

oldest scar.

(The Gathering 97)

1 An initial reading of Anne Enright’s The Gathering may lead readers to dismiss the novel

as a mere therapeutic narrative – Veronica Hegarty’s struggle to confront the

unacceptable reality of the sexual trauma that set her brother Liam on his tragic path

toward suicide. According to this reading, Veronica’s narrative reconstruction of

events constitutes an attempt to neutralize the traumatic memories, incorporating

them as just another part of her past, and thereby “modify [ing her] fear structure,” to

borrow the language of trauma theory 1. I would like to argue that Enright’s text merits

closer psychoanalytic study because it provocatively engages theoretical explanations

of subjectivity put forward by Jacques Lacan and his psychoanalytic antecedents. Dana

Craciun notes that Enright’s previous books “enact the postmodernist concern for the

‘radically undetermined and unstable nature of textuality and subjectivity,’” while

Jeanett Shumaker discusses how Enright’s use of uncanny doubles “demythologizes

Western traditions about the stability of identity”; however, scholars have not yet

examined the sophistication and depth of Enright’s psychoanalytic leanings (Craciun

211; Shumaker 118). Her latest novel, The Gathering, lends itself to such study because

the text’s exploration of sexual trauma is simultaneously an investigation of the

inevitable human trauma of the split subject – what Slavoj Zizek calls “the traumatic

kernel” of the subject’s being – and which is, in Lacanian terms, “the ‘truth’ of the


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unconscious […] the moment of fundamental division through which the subject

entered into language and sexuality, and the constant failing of position within both”

(Metastases 178; Rose 53). As Jacqueline Rose explains in her introduction to On Feminine

Sexuality:

Lacan’s statements on language need to be taken in two directions – towards thefixing of meaning itself (that which is enjoined on the subject), and away from thatvery fixing to the point of its constant slippage, the risk or vanishing-point which italways contains (the unconscious). Sexuality is placed on both these dimensions atonce. The difficulty is to hold these two emphases together – sexuality in thesymbolic (an ordering) and sexuality as that which constantly fails (43).

2 Veronica struggles between these two dimensions, using language to order her sexual

experience, while also sensing that both language and sexuality fail to capture the

‘truth’ of her unconscious, which, according to Lacan, is organized around a

fundamental lack. In other words, although Veronica’s therapeutic employment of

language could potentially help her to reestablish a more stable and healthy sense of

self, she also seems aware that the possibility of coherent identity and wholeness that

language seems to extend (via ideology) is actually the “ultimate fantasy” of human

experience (Rose 32). Veronica, like all human subjects, “can only operate within

language by constantly repeating that moment of fundamental and irreducible

division” (Rose 31). I focus here on Veronica’s increasing awareness of identity-as-

illusion, resulting from her reliving of the original trauma of split subjectivity, brought

on by the traumatic loss of her brother, and from Veronica’s consequent interrogation

of the excessive nature of sexuality.

3 A brief introduction to Lacanian theories of infantile trauma will help to clarify the

terms of this discussion. Lacan builds on Freud’s ideas about infantile oedipal trauma,

but for Lacan the trauma occurs through the subject’s introduction into language, the

law of the father, which establishes the difference between the sexes and hence divides

the subject as she identifies a (distorted) image of her “self” through the perceptions of

those around her. The subject becomes a mere signifier, existing only within language

(Seminar XX 36). The ideological world enables the traumatized infant to construct the

illusion of a secure identity to cover over the essential split; however, the subject’s

unconscious mind, constituted around the original loss or lack created at the moment

of the subject’s divisive introduction to language and sexuality, continues to undermine

her sense of stability by hinting at the subject’s fundamentally split nature. This lack

lies at the core of sexuality as well, proscribing the possibility of satisfaction by giving

rise to the desire for what has been irretrievably lost. Language shares sexuality’s

inevitable failure; it can only function through symbolization – by designating an object

in its absence 2.

4 Lacan’s ideas help to explain the inseparability of language and sex in Enright’s text,

thereby illuminating the depth and complexity of narrator Veronica Hegarty’s

struggles against and within language and sexuality in the wake of her brother’s death.

Liam’s death throws Veronica into an identity crisis because it triggers the original

traumatic loss that she and all other human beings experience as they enter into

sexuality and language. Gaps begin to appear in her conscious psychic life as her

unconscious mind yields up repressed memories, fears, and wishes that disrupt the

falsely stable subjectivity she has constructed through interaction with the ideological

world. This threatening of her ability to continue existing in her own life invests


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Veronica’s investigation of Liam’s death with a special urgency: it is simultaneously an

investigation of the traumatic way she came into being.

5 Liam’s death dredges up material from Veronica’s unconscious mind, which, according to

Lacan, bears witness to the original splitting of the subject and therefore “undermines

the subject from any position of certainty, from any relation of knowledge to his or her

psychic processes and history, and simultaneously reveals the fictional nature of the

sexual category to which every human subject is nonetheless assigned” (Rose 29).

Veronica is suffering from exactly this lack of certainty about her psychic history as

she becomes increasingly aware of that history’s fictional nature; this is why she feels

the “need to bear witness to an uncertain event. I feel it roaring inside me – this thing

that may not have taken place. I don’t even know what name to put on it” (11). The

uncertainty “roaring” inside her is both the event of her brother’s abuse as well as the

original traumatic splitting of her subjectivity, which she can hardly “name” because

that split occurred just as she was introduced to language.

6 The gap of the sexual abuse in the text is reflected in the cracks that begin to appear in

Veronica’s stable identity as Veronica’s unconscious mind reveals a core-emptiness,

lack, or “nothing [ness] that exists beneath Veronica’s constructed identity. Enright, a

strong believer in the power of the unconscious, has noted that “There is often a

gathering sense of dread, there’s a gap sometimes in the text from which all kinds of

monsters can emerge…” (Tonkin Interview, para. 10). Veronica becomes increasingly

aware of such monstrous gaps between the sudden emptiness revealed by her brother’s

death and the supposedly full life she has been leading. She experiences feelings that

her house and her family have “nothing to do with me” (36); that they are just “a

residue” (36); that she is in danger of dying of “irrelevance,” of “fad [ing] away” (38).

She cannot remember the “nothing” that she does as she putters around her house at

night, but feels that “it would be nice to know what kind of nothing that was” (38).

Furthermore, she has begun to hear voices, she cannot even remember the word for

her occupation (“housewife”), and she no longer feels attached to any of the things she

owns, experiencing instead a repeated urge to deconstruct the houses which represent

her socially constructed identity (39).

7 This troubled profile indicates that, although she may not have been sexually abused

herself, Veronica demonstrates all of the textbook symptoms of a post-traumatic or

“hysterical” subject who is suffering the effects of sexual abuse or violence (which are

fundamentally synonymous, as I will discuss later 3); however, Veronica’s post-

traumatic symptoms spring from the more primal cause that gives The Gathering its

depth and shape. Her symptoms have been brought on by the death of her brother

Liam, whose “great talent” in life had been “exposing the lie” and who has likewise

exposed in death the lie of language, of the ideological world, which has, until now,

assembled Veronica into a coherent subject and masked the fact that she is inherently

split and lacking. Liam’s death shows her that she “has lost something that cannot be

replaced” and that, in order to tell the story of that loss, she must start “long before he

was born” (11; 13). Veronica begins this investigation by recreating the story of how

her brother’s abuser, Lamb Nugent, first entered their lives by falling in love with their

grandmother, Ada Merriman. Although the original trauma of the split subject really

goes back to the beginning of human history, the story of Lamb and Ada does allow

Veronica to investigate the imbalanced structure of sexuality, as we shall see shortly.


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8 Veronica has trouble pinning down her personal history; partly because she realizes

that her “true” memories are really just as fictional as the ones she imagines, since the

entire construction of her identity has been a fiction. She apprehends this Lacanian

idea with her words: “the only things that I am sure of are the things I never saw – my

little blasphemies…” (66). The fictional construction of her identity and history is

merely a symptom of language’s nature as an unstable medium built around a lack –

words can only symbolize absent things. As Rose articulates,“Lacan’s statements on

language need to be taken in two directions – towards the fixing of meaning itself (that

which is enjoined on the subject), and away from that very fixing to the point of its

constant slippage, the risk or vanishing-point which it always contains (the

unconscious)” (43). Even as she struggles to fix meaning to her brother’s death,

Veronica finds that meaning continually “slips” out from under her. She finds that

history keeps “sliding around in [her] head” (13); that her memory “slip [ps] by [her]

too fast” (108). As she talks to her sister Bea on the phone as she rides into Brighton,

Veronica finds herself staring at one line in the landscape “that refuses to move” but

“slides backwards instead, and that is where I fix my eye” (44). Even as Veronica-as-

constructed-subject “I” struggles to “fix” her imaginative “eye” on the past to attach

meaning to it, she finds that, in her mind’s eye, she still sees Bea as a little girl (43-44).

Veronica realizes that it is “impossible” for her to grow up, to let her father die, to let

her sister enter adolescence, because language will always slip off of whatever she tries

to attach it to, causing the meaning she struggles to construct to vanish (44). Her

unconscious mind will always remind her of this slippage, undermining her conscious

mind’s attempts to order her experience according to temporal, spatial, or historical

‘realities.’

9 Veronica’s narrative suggests that Liam’s inability to order his experience is what

ultimately destroys him – like many victims of child abuse, he has lost a basic trust in

the orderly constructions of the ideological world and its authority figures. Liam has

experienced sexuality (a false order imposed by language) prematurely and therefore

chaotically; a fact which rends his split subjectivity further instead of patching over it.

As a result, Liam fails to construct an identity that he or anyone else can believe in. Life

seems like a “complete joke” to Liam, who exists “beyond the rules” (167; 163). He

laughs at everything, including himself, spiraling into the destruction of a self that

lacks the belief in stability and meaning that ideology usually constructs for the human

subject as a means of disguising its split, lost origin. Veronica, thinking back on her

own wilder days, realizes that she too “could have been lost,” but saved herself by

finding the “path” of respectability that Liam has “wandered off” (121; 123).

10 The gap between them widens as they travel in the opposite directions that language

and sexuality can take, Veronica heading toward order and leaving Liam prey to the

fearful, slippery content of the unconscious. She recalls, “Liam slid backwards from me

into his misspent youth” and confesses: “I left Liam to the opening gap of the door, and

to whatever was behind it. Something boring and horrible…” (165; 123). The gap in the

door that “torment [s]” Veronica stands in here for the unconscious, the repressed,

that original gap at the heart of subjectivity. Veronica chooses to repress the original

trauma of split subjectivity; instead she hearkens to the stable sexual identity assigned

to her that gives her meaning, admitting, “I wanted to be a girl. I wanted to have sex

that meant something” (123). The sexual division here of Liam and Veronica into man

and woman mirrors that first sexual division assigned to them by the law of the father.


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It also suggests the structural imbalance of sexuality, caused by that lack at its heart

which causes the “inhuman excess” that so disturbs Veronica (PV 5). Veronica recalls,

“the gap that opened between us was the gap that exists between a woman and a man –

or so I thought, at sixteen – the difference between what a man might do, or want to do,

sexually, what a woman might only guess at” (170). This is one of many places where

Veronica associates manhood with excessive sexuality, a relationship that Lacan’s ideas

do, in one sense, support.

11 According to Lacan, the structure of sexuality is inherently imbalanced because of its

constitution around the original lack of the split subject. The subject’s original desire

for the “big Other,” the “Real” thing to which the subject hopes that language

corresponds, arises from a lack because no such connection actually exists between

language and the Real (Fink 29-30). This lack in the big Other is the void around which

subjectivity, language, and sexuality come into being. Slavoj Zizek explains that this

structural imbalance of sexual relationship “condemns any sexual practice to eternal

oscillation between the ‘spontaneous’ pathos of self-obliteration and the logic of

external ritual (following the rules). Thus the final outcome is that sexuality is the

domain of ‘spurious infinity’ whose logic, brought to an extreme, cannot but engender

tasteless excess” (PV 13). And further, “Sexuality is the only drive that is in itself

hindered, perverted: simultaneously insufficient and excessive, with the excess as the

form of appearance of the lack” (Metastases 127). This lack gives rise to desire, which of

course can never be satisfied because of the original lack. Psychoanalysis tells us that

frustration is part of the nature of desire: “desire’s raison d’etre […] is not to realize its

goal, to find full satisfaction, but to reproduce itself as desire” (“Desire vs. Drive” para.

7).This insatiable sexual desire gives rise to drive - the human subject’s method of

enjoying the thwarting of her desire. As Zizek explains, “drive emerges as a strategy to

profit from the very failure to reach the goal of desire” (PV 387). This strange

enjoyment goes beyond need or pleasure and is therefore excessive – becoming what

Lacan calls “jouissance” (Rose 34).

12 Veronica Hegarty struggles to come to terms with the excessive nature of sexuality

because she senses that this excess lies at the root of Lamb Nugent’s abuse of Liam.

Nugent’s drives, like those of all human subjects, emerge from infantile trauma, a fact

indicated by Ada’s imagined observation of Nugent’s childlike nature. Wondering,

“What did the silly man have to hide?”, Ada remembers the “greediness” of his mouth

around her “biscuits,” and ponders, “he had such a sweet tooth. He was such a child.

Maybe that was the secret – the fact that he was only and ever five years old. Or two”

(252). Lamb’s childlike greed appears at first to be a hunger for pleasure, yet the

excessive avarice of it suggests an insatiable hunger for the original lost object (the oral

fixation suggests a longing for the mother’s breast). Lamb Nugent desires Ada

Merriman as his “object petit a,” what Bruce Fink describes as, “a last reminder or

remainder of the hypothetical mother-child unity to which the subject clings in fantasy

to achieve a sense of wholeness, as the Other’s desire” (83). In other words, the object a

embodies the void in the big Other. Nugent’s thwarted desire for Ada gives rise to drive

– Zizek’s “inhuman excess” of desire despite (or rather because of) the impossibility of

satisfaction (PV 5). Although his interference with children, just like his consumption of

sweets, probably brings Nugent some physical pleasure, both signify his unfulfilled

desire for Ada, so that by enjoying them, he has found a way to enjoy being thwarted.

Veronica’s displaced memory of Liam’s abuse imagines Nugent orgasming with Ada’s

name on his lips, as Veronica looks back and sees Ada standing there with the word


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“nothing” written on her “blank [ed]”out face (222). As object petit a, Ada embodies the

void, the nothing, which is at the heart of sexual desire. Veronica explains that the

word coming out of Nugent’s mouth will “fill the world but not mark it. It is there

already […] mocking us all” (222). The absence represented by the word “Ada”

expresses that lack which is always already present at the heart of language and of

sexual desire, mocking human beings’ ignorance of their own split structure and the

consequent emptiness masked by ideological constructions.

13 The text indicates that Veronica has imagined this sexual abuse memory, yet the

traumatic scene also expresses the primal scene – the traumatic splitting of her

subjectivity. She explains that the imagined picture “is made up of the words that say

it” and “comes from a place in my head where words and actions are mangled. It comes

from the very beginning of things…” (222). This “beginning” is the moment when the

law of the father (language) traumatically divides the subject. Veronica explains, “I

think of the ‘eye’ of his penis, and it is pressing against my own eye,” indicating that

her subjectivity – her mind’s eye/I – comes into existence through a traumatic splitting

by the law of the phallus.

14 Veronica’s deliberate exposure of sexuality-as-excess, embodied for her by the male sex

organ, is an attempt to understand the imbalanced structure of desire and drive that

subjects human beings in general and women in particular. The disturbing violence

that Veronica senses is the violence inherent in the symbolic and sexual order: because

language and sexuality are structured around a lack that gives rise to desire for an

irretrievably lost object, the real object that is made to fill the “pre-given fantasy

place” (object petit a) suffers an inevitable distortion by the desiring subject (“Desire…”

para 7). This is complicated when another human subject, such as a woman, becomes

the object a, the stand in for the lost object. Lacan speaks to this problem:

That the woman should be inscribed in an order of exchange of which she is theobject, is what makes for the fundamentally conflictual and, I would say, insolublecharacter of her position: the symbolic order literally submits her, it transcendsher… There is for her something insurmountable, something unacceptable, in thefact of being placed as an object in a symbolic order to which, at the same time, sheis subjected just as the man (Lacan, qtd. in Rose 45).

15 This distortion of woman threatens Veronica’s own existence as a subject because,

“Defined as such, reduced to being nothing other than the fantasmatic place, the

woman does not exist” (Rose 48). This distortion recalls Veronica’s identity crisis

discussed previously – her sense of being nothing and doing nothing – as well as her

account of Ada and her mother (explained below).

16 Veronica experiences the erasure of her subjectivity as a reduction to mere flesh by the

desires of her family: “Everyone wants a bit of me. And it has nothing to do with what I

might want, whatever that might be – God knows it is a long time since I knew. There I

am, sitting on a church bench in my own meat: pawed, used, loved, and very lonely”

(244). This echoes the eroded subjectivity of Veronica’s own mother: “If only she would

become visible, I think… But she remains hazy, unhittable, too much loved” [italics mine]

(5). Ada also functions as a kind of absence in the text, symbolizing the ever-desired

lost object at the source of her family’s original trauma. As a result, Ada can only exist

as a fantasy of the narrative, lending irony to Veronica’s statement that “Ada was a

fantastic woman. I have no other word for her” (17). Veronica finds that ultimately she

cannot blame Ada for what happened to all of them because Ada, another victim of the

imbalanced nature of human desire, does not even really exist.


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17 The idea of woman as object a, the place where man projects his lack, helps to explain

the connection between desire and hatred, sexuality and violence, that troubles

Veronica and, arguably, Enright herself. In an interview about The Gathering, Enright

admits,

One of the things I wanted to do in the book was explore how desire and hatred areclosely bound up […] You know, that sense that someone – usually a man – isenraged by the fact that he desires someone – usually a woman […]… desire issometimes like that. You hate what you desire because you desire it. That’s why wespeak about something that sounds so violent, namely fucking. I wanted to writeabout sex in a different way from that bad-boy stuff that men write so often, tothink about the violence in desire (Jeffries Interview, para. 12).

18 Enright’s account of sexual desire accords perfectly with Lacan’s idea that man, while

desiring woman, must also struggle to reduce her importance because, although she

reminds him of the sexual difference that allows him to exist as a subject, she also

reminds him of what he lacks 4. [Lacan argues that even man’s belief in his own soul

depends on his belittling woman: “For the soul to come into being, she, the woman, is

differentiated from it… called woman and defamed,” which is interesting because Ada

is convinced that Nugent actually does not have a soul (Lacan, qtd. in Rose 48; Gathering

252).]. This reduction - the distortion of woman inherent in his construction of her as

fantasy - is an inherently violent act, a symptom of sexuality’s imbalanced structure

and its consequent “inhuman excess,” the drive (PV 5).

19 This violence is at the heart of Veronica’s problem with sexuality; she sees the penis as

symbolic of sexuality’s violently uncontrollable excess. She tries to tell herself that the

spontaneous erection of the sleeping man on the train to Brighton is “Harmless.

Harmless. Harmless,” yet it appears directly after her recollection of a masturbating

Italian who followed her, giving her the “choking sense that this was the way I would

die, my face jammed in the filthy gabardine, of navy or black, a stranger’s cock in the

back of my throat […]” (52; 51). Veronica takes out her fear and disgust of male

sexuality on her husband Tom, claiming that “this is sometimes what he is like,

yearning on the pull-back and hatred in the forward slam […] what he wants, what my

husband has always wanted, and the thing I will not give him, is my annihilation. This

is the way desire runs. It runs close to hatred. It is sometimes the same thing” (145).

Veronica knows that her husband does not consciously want her annihilated – she

speaks here of the more subtle violence endemic to the structure of sexuality and

desire.

20 The more Veronica senses that sexuality is a violent, corrupt economy, the more the

idea of love seems like a fiction. Veronica’s college paper “Paying for Sex in the Irish

Free State” illuminates the violence of sexuality for her: “men fucked women – it did

not happen the other way around – and this surprising mechanism was to change, not

just my future, which was narrowing even as I looked at it, but also the wide and

finished world of my past” (92). The physical dynamics of fucking reflect, for Veronica,

the symbolic fucking of women at the level of desire – the man’s forcing of his own lack

(the lost phallus) onto the woman, who is consequently distorted. In her imagined sex

scene between Ada and Nugent, Veronica says cynically, “We are near to the truth of it

here, we are getting man’s essential bookieness and women’s whorishness” (139). This

idea assigns social roles to the sexual ones explored by Lacan: woman, as repository of

man’s insatiable desires, is a whore, while man is a kind of cheater whose objects of

desire are arbitrary and who only invests himself for a payoff. Veronica imagines this


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violence in Lamb Nugent’s desire for Ada: “he must move from love to a kind of

sneering, he must be smitten by hatred and touched by desire, he must find a final

humility and so begin with love again. Each time around he would know more about

her – more about himself perhaps – and nothing he learned would make any

difference” (18). The fatalism of the last line proves most significant for us here; it

shows Veronica’s recognition that romantic love is simply the meaning that we graft

onto desire, and consequently has an inherently violent core that none of us can

change.

21 This recognition comes to Veronica through the identity crisis brought on by Liam’s

death – she begins to question the very nature of her family’s love for her, especially

Tom’s. Death reveals that “most of the stuff that you do is just nagging and whining and

picking up for people who are too lazy even to love you” (27). Her growing sense that

love is nothing more than misdirected desire leads her to stop sleeping with Tom

because, without the existence of real love, the sex act reduces her to a “quartered

chicken” and “butchered meat” (40; 219). At times Veronica even feels the urge to

escape her body altogether, speculating that people attach meaning to sex as a way of

escaping what Zizek would call the “the raw reality of copulation”: “Maybe this is what

they are about, these questions of which or whose hole, the right fluids in the wrong

places, these infantile confusions 5 and small sadisms: they are a way of fighting our

way out of all this meat” (PV 12; Gathering 140).

22 Veronica herself has tried very hard to attach meaning to sexuality by believing that a

connection exists between sex and love. Reflecting back on her college days, Veronica

realizes that she always felt compelled to love the men she sleeps with in order to not

hate herself, which makes sense because the belief that she loves them allows her to

retain some semblance of subjectivity despite her objectification by the desiring male

subject. Facing the truth about Liam’s abuse has made her realize that sexual desire

does not always signify love or even “mean” something. She has trouble acknowledging

that Nugent was “horrible” to her brother, because, as she puts it,

…somewhere in my head, in some obstinate and God-forsaken part of me, I thinkthat desire and love are the same thing. They are not the same thing. They are noteven connected. When Nugent desired my brother, he did not love him in theslightest. That’s as much as I know. I could also say that Liam must have wantedhim too. Or wanted something (223).

23 Here Veronica struggles to come to terms with the Lacanian idea that desire is

constituted around a lack, that even a child like Liam must have experienced a longing

for an unattainable lost something. Liam was forced to face early the subversive nature

of desire, that desire does not equal love, that love is a meaning that we attach to

desire. His likely skepticism about love exemplifies the failure of language, of the

ideological world, to construct the illusion of a stable identity for him and cover over

his split subjectivity.

24 As Veronica recognizes the nature of the damage that Liam suffered, she also must

negotiate the disconnection between desire and love. At the beginning of her narrative

she expresses surprise at the fact that human beings really love each other at all:

…what amazes me as I hit the motorway is not the fact that everyone losessomeone, but that everyone loves someone. It seems like such a massive waste ofenergy – and we all do it… We each love someone, even though they will die. Andwe keep loving them, even when they are not there to love any more. And there isno logic or use to any of this, that I can see (28).


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25 She senses that love, as the meaning that language attaches to an actually insatiable

desire, can only be a kind of excess, a waste. What she wants to know here, and what

she discovers at the end of the story, is how this excess breaks its own rules: how love

still persists despite its impossibility.

26 Veronica’s crisis is one of belief: she struggles to retain a belief in love as the

ideological world that constructs it crumbles away. Facing the truth about Liam’s abuse

has forced Veronica to see into the lack, the empty heart of human sexuality and

desire, and as she sits in the church during his funeral she “tr [ies] to believe in love”

but finds it is “Not easy” (228). Veronica’s introspection reveals that her love for her

children still holds up in the face of her newly disillusioned view of sexuality and

desire: “I bow my head and try to believe that love will make it better, or if love won’t

then children will. I turn from the high to the humble and believe, for many seconds at

a time, in the smallness and necessity of being a mother” (228). Her biological

connection to her children is ultimately what “saves” her; because she “liv[es] in” her

family, she already has a connection stronger than any ideological construction;

however, she must put this connection into words so that she can reconcile it with the

stable sense-of-self that language has allowed her to construct (66). As she tries to

believe in love, she feels something “hot and struggling” in her chest: “The chest thing

is like fighting for words and the forehead thing is pure and empty, like after all the

words have been said […] Belief. I have the biology of it. All I need is the stuff to put in

there. All I need are the words” (229). Veronica needs words because words are what

will reattach love to desire, patching over her split subjectivity again and thereby

allowing her to continue living with her family and her “self.”

27 This view highlights the importance of her daughter’s words over the hotel phone,

words which come just as Veronica is about to relinquish her belief in the stable life she

has created: “I give you a word,” says her daughter, “And that word is ‘love’” (257). By

giving her mother the word “love,” Rebecca allows Veronica to attach the ideological

dimension of meaning (“love”) to the biological connection between mother and child.

This naming of the blood tie prevents Veronica from floating free of her signifiers and

losing her subjectivity altogether. Veronica then imagines that the world is “wrapped

in blood, as a ball of string is wrapped in its own string. That if I just follow the line I

will find out what it is that I want to know” (258). She senses that blood is the tie that

binds, the “love” that persists despite a more radical awareness of its origin in a primal

loss. Veronica finally knows what she wants – not a different life, but simply to be able

to go on living the one she has created. She must patch over the original trauma that

Liam’s death cast her back upon, coming to terms with the failure that exists at the

core of the human subject. Veronica has realized that beneath the terror of abuse exists

a more fundamental terror – the loss of self accompanying split subjectivity: “I know he

[Nugent] could be the explanation for all of our lives, and I know something more

frightening still – that we did not have to be damaged by him in order to be damaged”

(224). Although she now recognizes this, she turns away from it and back toward the

safety of ideology and family. As she puts it, “I just want to be less afraid” (260-261).

28 Enright leaves the specifics of Veronica’s fate ambiguous, yet the text indicates that,

although the language of Veronica’s narrative has allowed her to take apart her

illusions of coherent identity, blood ties ultimately triumph over a radical

understanding of the unstable core on which they are based. Enright’s interviews, her

previous fiction 6, and her current novel suggest that she puts faith in a biological tie to


96

family that may be more cultural than anything else, even as she acknowledges that

family ties are perceived as more binding in Ireland than in the American or British

contexts 7. At any rate, the narrative’s apparent faith in the indissoluble blood tie as a

fundamental kind of love suggests that Enright’s text, although engaging with Lacan’s

theories at a compelling depth, also rejects his basic premise – that human subjects do

not exist outside of language. Or, in another sense, perhaps she does not threaten his

ideas at all, but simply reminds us that human subjectivity, constituted through a

language that creates sexual difference, is still grafted onto a biological, animal body

that operates on the level of instinct and therefore “loves” its offspring partly because it

does not know the difference between self and other. This seeming contradiction

makes the book all the more compelling by tracing the irresolvable parallax of the

human animal – the gap between the human “self” and the grey matter that houses it.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Coulter, Carol, “‘Hello Divorce, Goodbye Daddy’: Women, Gender and the Divorce Debate”, Gender

and Modern Sexuality in Ireland. U of Massachusetts P, 1997, p. 275-298.

Craciun, Dana, “The Pleasure Anne Enright Took in The Pleasure of Eliza Lynch”, British and

American Studies, 11; 2005, p. 211-217.

Enright, Anne, The Gathering, New York, Black Cat, 2007.

—, “F slits T”, Teaching Literature: Writers and Teachers Talking, Ed. Kravis, Judy, Cork, Cork UP,

1995.

—, Interview with Stuart Jeffries, The Guardian. 18 Oct. 2007. [http://books.guardian.co.uk/

manbooker2007/story/0,,2193477,00.html#article_continue]

—, Interview with Boyd Tonkin, The Independent, 19 Oct. 2007. [http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-

entertainment/books/features/interview-the-fearless-wit-of-man-booker-winner-anne-

enright-394987.html]

—, Interview with Chrissie Russle, Belfast Telegraph, 18 Oct. 2007. [http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/

features/books/article3073477.ece]

Fink, Bruce, The Lacanian Subject: Between Language and Jouissance, Princeton UP, 1995.

Lacan, Jacques, The Seminar of Jacques Lacan, Book XVII: The Other Side of Psychoanalysis, Ed. Jacques-

Alain Miller. Trans. Russell Grigg, W.W. Norton and Co., Inc., 2007 (1991).

—, The Seminar of Jacques Lacan, Book XX: On Feminine Sexuality, The Limits of Love and Knowledge. Ed.

Jacques-Alain Miller. Trans. Bruce Fink, 1998. (1975).

McKenna, Bernard, Rupture, Representation, and the Refashioning of Identity in Drama from the North of

Ireland, 1969-1994, Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers, 2003.

Mitchell, Juliet and Jacqueline Rose, Eds. Feminine Sexuality: Jacques Lacan and the ecole Freudienne,

Trans. Jacqueline Rose, New York, W.W. Norton and Co., 1982.


97

Olasov-Rothbaum, Barbara and Edna Foa. “Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy for Posttraumatic

Stress Disorder”, Traumatic Stress: The Effects of Overwhelming Experience on Mind, Body, and Society,

Ed. Bessell Van der Kolk, Alexander McFarlane, and Lars Weisaeth. London, The Guilford Press,

1996, p. 426.

Shumaker, Jeanett. “Uncanny Doubles: The Fiction of Anne Enright”, New Hibernia Review –

Volume 9, Number 3, Autumn 2005, p. 107-122.

Zizek, Slavoj. “Desire: Drive = Truth: Knowledge.” Umbr(a): On The Drive. 1997. pp. 147-152. Date

Accessed: 5/1/08. [http://www.lacan.com/zizek-desire.htm]

—, The Metastases of Enjoyment: Six Essays on Women and Causality. London and New York, Verso,

1994.

—, The Parallax View, Massachusetts Institute of Technology P, 2006.

NOTES

1. Barbara Olasov-Rothbaum, and Edna Foa. “Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy for

Posttraumatic Stress Disorder.” Traumatic Stress: The Effects of Overwhelming Experience on

Mind, Body, and Society. Ed. Bessell Van der Kolk, Alexander McFarlane, and Lars

Weisaeth. London, The Guilford Press, 1996, p. 426.

2. This basic summary can be found in many different places, so I didn’t think it needed

citation.

3. Trauma theory explains that “victims of violence experience six common symptoms:

‘distancing,’ a psychic construction of fantasy life designed to protect an individual

from further damage; ‘anxiety,’ an exaggerated fear of death and attack; ‘guilt’

regarding survivability; ‘loneliness and vulnerability,’ which arises as a consequence of

the disruption in normal social relationships and a reluctance, as a consequence of

trauma, to expose oneself to further relationships; ‘loss of self control,’ which results in

an individual yielding control to external, seemingly more powerful forces, including

mythic and historical forces; and ‘disorientation,’ which involves a debilitated capacity

for reasoning and making individual associations. All of these symptoms are

themselves a consequence of and contribute to a further sense of loss of self-control”

(McKenna 10).

4. Lacan says that either a man or a woman can occupy these positions, but he genders

the object petit a female because it accords with the most common patterns manifest in

traditional gender roles (e.g. courtly love).

5. Just a side note: Enright’s reference to “infantile confusions” here suggests an

awareness of the psychoanalytic drama at play in her text. She also mentions the

helpfulness of “psychological” readings in her essay “F Slits T.”

6. Jeanett Shumaker points out that the character Grace from Enright’s The Wig My

Father Wore “transcends despair about mortality by becoming pregnant” and thereby

“discovers a new, richer self” (114).

7. Carol Coulter argues that in Ireland “Family bonds are still close, and the extended

family still a source of strength to most people. If the family is looked at more critically

in light of the revelations of child abuse, it is done within the context of a widespread

attachment to the family” (277). Enright says herself in an interview, “As a mother, I


98

think the bond between mother and child is stronger than any other. But in cultural

terms I think Irish people can never leave their families” (Russle Interview para. 16).

ABSTRACTS

The Gathering lends itself to closer psychoanalytic study because the text’s exploration of sexual

trauma is simultaneously an investigation of the inevitable human trauma of the split subject, as

articulated by Jacques Lacan and his antecedents. Lacan’s ideas help to explain the inseparability

of language and sex in Enright’s text, thereby illuminating the depth and complexity of narrator

Veronica Hegarty’s struggles against and within language and sexuality in the wake of her

brother’s death.

The Gathering se prête à une étude psychanalytique parce que le texte se présente comme

l’exploration d’un traumatisme sexuel qui est à la fois une réflexion sur le traumatisme du sujet

clivé propre à chaque être humain, comme l’ont défini Jacques Lacan et ses prédécesseurs. Les

idées de Lacan aident à expliquer l’inséparabilité du langage et du sexe dans le texte d’Enright,

mettant ainsi en lumière la profondeur et la complexité du conflit contre et à travers la sexualité

et le langage auquel est confrontée la narratrice Veronica Hegarty à la suite de la mort de son

frère.

INDEX

Mots-clés: Enright Anne, sexualité, trauma, littérature et psychanalyse

Keywords: Enright Anne, literature and psychoanalysis, sexuality, trauma

AUTHOR

SARAH C. GARDAM

Temple University


99

Mme de Staël’s CosmopolitanImaginary and Sydney Owenson’sEarly NovelsEvgenia Sifaki

1 This paper considers three of Sydney Owenson’s early novels: The Wild Irish Girl: a

National Tale (1806) 1, which established the conventions of the genre mostly associated

with her name, the “Irish National tale”, Woman or: Ida of Athens (1809) and The

Missionary: an Indian Tale (1811) 2, which transfer the basic generic conventions and

concerns of the national tale outside the territory of Ireland. Just like the Wild Irish Girl,

the later novels exploit the legacy of the eighteenth-century sentimental tour, which

they integrate into a basic romance plot structure; they engage historical and political

questions, such as imperialist violence and the resistance of the oppressed, both

directly and through displacement onto the narration of a passionate albeit

contentious romantic encounter between a privileged colonial male traveller and a

colonised, indigenous woman 3.

2 Here these texts are read in the context of an ongoing theoretical as well as vehement

political debate, which sets universal values (variously construed) against those of an

ethnocentric nationalism and propounds an anti-essentialist notion of subjectivity

relative to multiple cultural affiliations against the Romantic nationalist assumption of

an exclusionary identity dependent on ethnic origins and religious traditions.

Furthermore, I employ Pierre Macherey’s elaborations on Germaine de Staël’s ideas

concerning transnational and transcultural relations in his important essay “A

cosmopolitan imaginary: the literary thought of Mme de Staël” 4, to elucidate Sydney

Owenson’s complex conjoining of nationalism and cosmopolitanism and conclude that

even though she does project herself as an Irish patriot her texts effectively undermine

the German Romantic faith in the so called Volksgeist. An appreciation of the literary

affinity and mutual admiration between Owenson and De Staël is required for a better

understanding of their respective projects (De Staël’s Delphine was published in 1803

and Owenson’s The Wild Irish Girl, which had impressed De Staël much, in 1806, that is, a

year before the publication of Corinne ou l’Italie, while Woman or: Ida of Athens can be read


100

as Owenson’s tribute to Corinne) 5. The two writers have a lot in common; nation and

gender are continually staged and performed throughout their texts, reiterating and

challenging at once tacitly normalising and naturalising discourses. Owenson’s

heroines, like De Staël’s, are famously audacious performers or even “actresses”, but so

are her male heroes, a fact that has been underestimated, I think, by recent criticism.

Both writers produced texts that blend creatively historical reality and fiction and both

employed a distinctively “feminine” kind of rhetoric as a means to express a

quintessentially public and political voice.

3 It is interesting to note how critics today project onto Owenson’s early nineteenth-

century texts a late twentieth-century critical debate over, on the one hand, the

problem of the increasingly violent manifestations of resurgent nationalisms and, on

the other hand, the fear that “the current celebration of cosmopolitanism by the

political left is […] too often entangled with an implicit endorsement of global

capitalism”.6 In an article about the Wild Irish Girl, Elmer Andrews, for example, holds

Owenson responsible for sectarian violence in the North of Ireland. His position is that

in the nationalist discourse of the 1970s and 1980s in Belfast or Derry

you hear played out […] the old clamant sound-track of Romantic Ireland, the oldancestral myth of origin, a spiritual heroics […] expressive of the Hegelian notion ofan inner essence or spirit which has lent itself to and become the justification fornothing less than a declaration of war. For at the heart of the conflict in the North[…] is a political theology, the paradigms of which were laid down in Lady Morgan’soriginative literary stereotyping of a myth of Irishness 7.

4 Other critics, however, like Kathryne Kirkpatrick, stress the significance of this novel’s

ending, the marriage of an English Protestant to an Irish Catholic, and argue that an

essentialist definition of Irishness “is radically challenged by a marriage which will

produce children of mixed, English and Irish ancestry”.8 More recently, Ann Mellor

places Owenson’s novel in the context of several works by British women writers of the

Romantic period, to argue that the persistent theme of “international, interfaith and

inter-racial marriages” in their work is no less than the manifestation of a

consciousness that is “profoundly cosmopolitan” though “deeply buried in their texts”:

Confronted with national wars, doctrinal religious battles, and the racial prejudiceunderpinning the African slave trade and the East India Company’s depredations inIndia, Malaysia and China, many British women writers of the Romantic periodsuggested a radical solution to such internecine struggles. This solution – soprofoundly cosmopolitan and so deeply buried in their texts that it has hithertoreceived little attention – was this. If one is a “citizen of the world”, “in all climesthe same”, then one manifests that consciousness not only theoretically, as amatter of political ideology, but also physically and emotionally, as a matter ofsexual practice, a sexual practice that produces hybridized children. Enduringinternational, interfaith and inter-racial marriages – these become the hallmarks ofa truly cosmopolitan subjectivity, what I am calling an “embodiedcosmopolitanism 9”.

5 Mellor’s article is important because it historicizes effectively the literary texts she

examines. But a third type of response to The Wild Irish Girl hints at the dangers of, so to

speak, romanticising cosmopolitanism, overlooking its allegedly ideological function as

a cover-up of aggressive, imperialist, capitalist expansion; for Lisa Moore (following

Fredric Jameson’s re-casting into literary form of the Marxist definition of ideology as

“false consciousness”), in the last analysis, romance in Owenson’s The Wild Irish Girl

turns into “the narrative device of resolving political conflict and muffling political

violence by directing our attention to a transcendent experience of desire, the union


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between two lovers of different nationalities 10”. The symbolic use of international and

interfaith marriages in Romantic fiction may actually be no more than a mark of

imperialism’s achievement of hegemonic status.

6 So how can one novel produce such different, opposed readings? To answer this

question, it is necessary, in the first place, to investigate further the historical context

of Owenson’s input to the conceptualisation of nationalism and cosmopolitanism.

Today we generally assume that these terms are oppositional, but, as Pheng Chea

reminds us, that was not the case in the eighteenth century, because both the usage of

term “cosmopolitanism” in the context of the work of the French philosophes and the

elaborations of the cosmopolitical by Immanuel Kant are “formulated too early to take

into account the role of nationalism in the transition between the age of absolutism

and the age of liberalism. […] The original antagonist of Kant’s cosmopolitanism is

therefore absolutist statism.” And he continues:

In the initial moment of its historical emergence, nationalism is a popularmovement distinct from the state it seeks to transform in its own image. Thus,before the nation finds its state, before the tightening of the hyphen betweennation and state that official nationalism consummates, the ideals ofcosmopolitanism and European nationalism in its early stirrings are almostindistinguishable. As late as 1861, Giuseppe Mazzini would emphasize that thenation is the only historically effective threshold to humanity: “In labouringaccording to the true principles for our Country we are labouring for Humanity; ourCountry is the fulcrum of the lever which we have to wield for the commongood 11.”

7 So it is not surprising to find the co-habitation of particularist-nationalist imperatives

with universalist and cosmopolitan premises in texts written in the early nineteeth

century. Owenson’s writing belongs, indeed, to a continuum with today’s political

debate on nationalism vs. cosmopolitanism, but it is important not to read her work

anachronistically. Her passionate, imaginary identification with the plea of oppressed

peoples clashes systematically with the violence of the imperialist state: for example, as

Sylvia Bordoni rightly observes, the narrator of Woman or: Ida of Athens (a novel

programmatically written to support the Greek national uprising against Ottoman rule)

makes clear that “had Greece been a free and independent country, Ida would not have

been an ardent patriot 12”. That is to say, conditions of freedom would render

nationalism an obsolete ideology, while the central figure of Ida, the female patriot in

this novel, is constructed primarily as a form of resistance. Additionally, in Woman ,

elaborations on “patriotism” and arguments for Greek independence positively

converge with the interests of humanity at large. This is clearly manifest in her

position against religious intolerance and for a universal “religion of the heart”, which

is most vehemently argued by the Greek revolutionary Osmyn, in his dispute with those

of his compatriots who support an alliance of the Greek revolutionary movement with

the Greek Orthodox church. He fears that such an alliance will both cause the

persecution of various Christian heresies in Greece and also turn the revolution,

effectively, into a kind of crusade against Islam. This is the end of his long speech:

What are the countless distinctions in opinions merely speculative, andunconnected with the moral or physical good of the human species, which dareassume the name of religions, and obstinately assert the obvious impossibility, thateach is in itself infallible? What are they in his eyes, who knows no religion but thatwhich is of the heart, which in theory is so comprehensible, in practice so divine?(Vol. III, 83-83)


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8 Woman contains an exposition of Owenson’s theory of nationalism, which, though

programmatic, is also interestingly ambiguous; it embodies the paradox Benedict

Anderson describes as “the objective modernity of nations to the historian’s eye vs.

their subjective antiquity in the eyes of nationalists” and anticipates her elaboration of

“competing nationalisms”, which Julia Wright has located in Owenson’s later Irish tale,

The O’ Briens and the O’ Flahertys: a National Tale. Wright distinguishes in that novel two

competing versions of nationalism; the first, which she terms “antiquarian”, “fulfils the

conditions of the […] commonly called romantic nationalism” and is “at odds with

modernity because of its investment in antiquity”; the second, which she terms

“inaugural nationalism”, emphasises, on the contrary, “the necessity of decisively

breaking from the past. Inaugural nationalism is not based on derivation or evolution,

but transformation – especially revolutionary or apocalyptic transformation 13”.

Antiquarian and inaugural nationalism in Woman compete for prevalence within the

same character, Osmyn, who is frequently used by Owenson as her mouthpiece.

9 In the first place, the figure of Osmyn, the idealised hero, symbolises, precisely, a

power, “that resembled omnipotence itself, capable of a transformation that appeared

like an effort of the magical art” (Vol. IV 35). We learn that he is a foundling, who lived

in a monastery until he was five, then became a Turkish slave for twelve years, later he

disappears and then re-appears, for the most part sliding in and out of the plot in

disguise, only to save Ida and her family from danger. His various guises include that of

a Turkish guard, a Janissary or a Janissary hidden beneath a Dervish robe and even “in

the habit of an Armenian” (Vol II 78). In fact, he has served as a Janissary for two whole

years, during which he had an illicit love affair with the daughter of the local Aga, the

Governor of Athens.

10 Ida’s father is against her marriage to Osmyn, because of his dubious origin as “an

alien, whom none e’er knew but as the purchased slave of Achmet-Aga” (Vol III 45).

There is also an interesting scene in the mountains where the Greek partisans initially

refuse Osmyn the leadership, once more because he is an alien and a slave: “No alien

leader! – no slave! – no foundling for our chief!” they “vehemently cry”; but at that

point, they are threatened by the approach of a Turkish armed force, and Osmyn

proves himself the bravest and most reliable leader in the face of danger. The patriots

change their mind: “‘We call upon you […], to direct and lead us’ cried the general

voice. ‘Do you’, he exultingly returned, ‘for myself alone do you elect me?’” (Vol III 85,

87, 88). First he makes sure that they elect him for his individual charisma, regardless

of his origin, and that they also accept his position that the national cause should not

identify with any one particular religion. And then, he reveals his true origin, as the

grandson of a noble Athenian. So the tale falls back to the premises of romantic

nationalism, as Osmyn’s heroic quality proves intrinsic to his ancient origin. However,

he never changes his typically Turkish name (his original Greek name, Theodorus, is

mentioned only once in the whole of the four volumes), and his many impressive

performances, as a Turk and a Muslim, crucial to the development of the plot, haunt

the novel and disrupt the homogeneity of his Greekness. Despite the conventional

outcome of his personal story, which collapses the difference between ancient and

modern Greece, the figure of Osmyn retains its power to provoke incongruent cultural

references, and thus it both confirms and undermines essentialist nationalist

stereotypes. Contrary to critics who dismiss the revolutionary Osmyn as Ida’s own


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“creation”, the outcome of her schooling and propaganda14, I argue that he rather

resembles Owenson’s polysemous female heroines.

11 Frequently, in Owenson’s work, the alliance of the national, transnational and universal

is marked by productive tension, a dynamic field of interrelated and, at times,

incompatible features and ideas, which is inscribed, in the first place, in her

experimentation with genre and characteristic invention of narrative devices. An

example is provided by the settings of her stories: the island of Inismore, Athens and

Kashmir serve a double purpose; passionate romance transforms them into Utopias,

ideal no-places of love and freedom, explicitly compared to the lost Eden before the

Fall, and hence defying equally both the claims of colonialist appropriation and any

nationalist right to ownership. At the same time, they are historicised carefully and

meticulously, if not always convincingly, through the amassment of an awesome

amount of historical and geographical information and also information about local

traditions and culture, art, music, dance, and so on; thus, they are represented as places

with a unique cultural physiognomy and concrete social and political problems. Ireland

and India emerge as oppressed and colonised nations with a long history and important

cultural legacies that deserve respect and admiration; Greece as the place where an

oppressed people is in the process of developing an empowering nationalist discourse.

Critics generally assume that Owenson dislocates political conflicts such as religious

intolerance and imperialist aggression from her main sphere of interest, nineteenth-

century Ireland, and addresses them in the contexts of other places or historical

periods, such as Ottoman Greece, or seventeenth-century Portugal and India 15. In

addition to the project of appealing for the cause of Ireland though, Owenson

systematic conjoining of universal values with concrete, irreducible cultural

manifestations, amounts to much more that a mere universalisation of the particular;

in the last analysis, it involves a generous effort to understand and sympathise with

other peoples and civilisations.

12 The romance trope itself (which by definition assumes universal values) is adapted and

transformed into a way of bringing about cultural exchange; the lovers, who belong to

different and even hostile nations, become involved in a communication that

epitomises what Amanda Anderson calls “expansively inclusionary cosmopolitanism[s]

[where] universalism finds expression through sympathetic imagination and

intercultural exchange 16”. Also, the fact that these novels are generically hybrids, since

Owenson’s fiction is conjoined to, and disrupted by, a plethora of references and

citations from mainly non-English European sources, such as travel and

historiographical texts, often quoted in the original French or Italian, can be read as an

example of what Pierre Macherey calls “a shattered aesthetic of the disparate 17”.

13 Macherey’s reading of De Staël provides a useful perspective for approaching Owenson;

he reads, for example the Anglo-Italian Corinne’s incessant role-playing as an artist, as

the means whereby she displays and concurrently explains the “characteristic values of

quite alien sensibilities”, English or Italian, which “complement one another, mingle

without merging and project their virtues outwards without renouncing the particular

identity that constitutes them, and without corrupting it”. In Mme de Staël’s texts,

Macherey argues,

A new culture is born after having undergone the ordeal of a linguistic, ideologicaland poetic migration. It facilitates comparisons and exchanges between elementsthat were originally quite foreign to one another by bringing them together on thebasis of their reciprocal foreigness (p. 21).


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14 Glorvina, the famous Wild Irish Girl, is, precisely, a perfect illustration of what

Macherey calls a “composite character”. Just like Mme de Staël’s Delphine and Corinne,

she embodies the theoretical preoccupations just quoted. Glorvina has been notably

recorded in literary history as a national character who expresses spontaneously a

form of ancient, Gaelic Irishness. But, as Thomas Tracy insightfully observes, the

princess Glorvina is much more than that. She is a powerful political ruler feared by

her Irish subjects even more than her father the prince, because of her so-called “great

learning”, which aligns her character with Enlightenment thought and more

specifically “with the radical views of Mary Wollstonecraft 18”, as in the following

extract, where Father John, Glorvina’s teacher, exposits the principles that had guided

his educational practices:

I only threw within [Glorvina’s] power of acquisition [he explains], that which couldtend to render her a rational, and consequently a benevolent being; for I havealways conceived an informed, intelligent, and enlightened mind, to be the bestsecurity for a good heart (TWIG 79).

15 Then again, even though Glorvina has undergone a vigorous education of the intellect,

she is concurrently constructed as a character through her reading of mainly French,

but also German Romantic novels such as “La Nouvelle Heloise, de Rousseau – the

unrivalled Lettres sur la Mythologie,” de Moustier – the “Paul et Virginie” of St Pierre – the

Werter of Göethe – the Dolbreuse of Loasel, and the Attila of Chateaubriand” (TWIG 144) 19.

These have been given to her by her lover Horatio, the English narrator, who at this

point serves blatantly as the mouthpiece of Owenson herself and explains that Glorvina

should read these novels so “that she may know herself, and the latent sensibility of

her soul”. And he continues:

Let our English novels carry away the prize of morality from the romantic fictionsof every other country; but you will find they rarely seize on the imaginationthrough the medium of the heart; and as for their heroines, I confess that thoughthey are the most perfect of beings, they are also the most stupid. Surely, virtuewould not be the less attractive for being united to genius and the graces’ (TWIG144).

16 It is worth noting that the above quotation clearly indicates Owenson’s strong sense of

belonging to a European rather than an English literary milieu.

17 Both Glorvina and Ida of Athens are, indeed, rational women with a mind that is (as the

narrator of Woman puts it) “dependent on itself – […] accustomed to rely upon its own

resources for support and aid under every pressure” (WOIOA IV, 76); but they equally

rely on their sheer, forceful physical presence, their enchanting sexuality, manifest in

body language, facial expressions, artistic creativity, dancing, singing, and so on. This

is, for example, how Glorvina’s singing is described: ‘She can sigh, she can weep, she

can smile, over her harp. The sensibility of her soul trembles in her song, and the

expression of her rapt countenance harmonizes with her voice” (TWIG 146). The fact is

that Glorvina’s character is composed of conflictual ideological components,

Enlightenment and Romantic. To these, we should add the multiple literary references

she invokes in the mind of the English narrator. Heather Braun, in a recent reading of

this novel that is different but compatible to mine, observes that

Responding to her appearance, Mortimer envisions Glorvina as a floatingapparition, a playful nymph, a sexualised Egyptian Alma and a hideous monster.Such a chaotic “heroic” concoction demonstrates how foreign and familiar, ancientand modern, dangerous and domestic can reside in a single body and, by extension,in a single nation 20.


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18 The point here is that the national character Glorvina should not be reduced to and

explained away as merely an expression of an Irish Volksgeist. Her many aspects,

English, Irish and French, Enlightenment and Romantic, cultural and literary,

incomplete and inadequate in themselves, synthesise a non-organic whole. As a

consequence, the composite figure of the Irish Glorvina simultaneously reproduces and

undermines Irish stereotypes, while her composite femininity disrupts and dislocates

the boundaries of established categories of gender. We can associate the figure of

Glorvina then, with De Staël’s “composite characters”, and the new cosmopolitan

culture they establish, according to Macherey, which breaks with the notion of the

Volksgeist and represents another kind of synthesis, that very “compositionality” itself,

a kind of whole which does not totalize its elements, as expressions of an inner essence

or spirit, (in which case we would have the impossibility of an equally exclusionary,

homogeneous “universalism”), but holds them together in their irreducible reciprocal

foreignness - which, according to Macherey, is the very condition of the possibility of

their mutual comparisons and exchanges. It is also the basis for the educational

processes that are central to Owenson’s national tales.

19 Education in a language and a culture other than one’s own is extremely important in

Owenson’s work. Glorvina, Ida and Ida’s lover, Osmyn, are educated in various

European languages and Enlightenment thought. The English Mortimer is educated

systematically in Irish language and literature; Hilarion, the Portuguese missionary,

studies with a Brahmin teacher even before he travels to India, so the ground is already

prepared for him to receive further education on Hinduism by the woman he loves, the

Hindu priestess Luxima, while, of course, introducing her to Christian values at the

same time. Julia Wright has shown that Hilarion and Luxima acquire a profound

understanding of Hinduism and Christianity respectively but without actually and truly

converting (Luxima is christened in order to marry Hilarion, but only nominally). The

lovers in the National tale educate one another in their respective cultures; in fact, the

progression of their relationship, for the most part, coincides with the course of this

mutual education, which enriches their characters, but, crucially, without corrupting

them. In the scene of Luxima’s death, the Christian cross she is wearing, covered with

blood, recedes into the background and into insignificance while she holds tight on her

Hindu rosary, sending a clear message that she dies a Hindu. Hilarion understands

perfectly and exclaims: “Oh Luxima, are we to be eternally disunited then?” Maybe

Hilarion worries that the two of them will not end up in the same place after death. But

if their relationship worked in the course of the novel to some extent, it is because the

cultural and religious limits that kept them apart simultaneously united them by

establishing the conditions of mutual communication.

20 The outcome of the romance, which is usually controversial, firstly depends on

whether and to what extent it is possible to imagine a truly egalitarian marriage of

equal minds; furthermore, the progress of the romantic relationship in the national

tale always allegorises a redistribution of power between coloniser and colonised and

so it depends on the historical and political conjuncture that embeds the love story.

This means that Owenson’s texts never endorse any form of withdrawal into a private

enclave of imagination and feeling – she takes pains to place her heroines in the

domain of public life and discourse. After all, this is the quintessence of her female

national characters: they may act out an impersonation of their nations, and they

certainly speak on behalf of their nations, so their involvement in the public sphere


106

and discourse is foregrounded. In The Wild Irish Girl , “She reimagines the [Union of

England and Ireland] as […] a transformation of the political dispensation in the

future 21”. In Woman, Ida faces a choice of lovers, who also represent and perform their

own gendered nations: a presumptuous English traveller is enchanted and educated by

her into an understanding of Greece, but he, nevertheless, proves incapable of

combining desire with respect; the barbarous and lecherous Ahmet Aga is obsessed

with her, but marriage to him amounts to slavery and imprisonment in a harem. She

marries the Greek Osmyn and they move to Russia, the incubator of revolutionary

societies, where they are going to work together to prepare the Greek national

revolution. They will have a happy family, but this marriage does not confine Ida to the

domestic sphere, because their common revolutionary cause makes possible a marriage

of equals based on both politics and passion, and as such it also provides a means

whereby the strict divide of private and public life is diminished. The tragic ending of

The Missionary is blamed on the coloniser’s violence and barbarity. It is seventeenth-

century Spanish Inquisition which in this text blatantly symbolises colonial power that

murders Luxima. The Missionary exemplifies the thesis of Ann Mellor that frequently in

literary texts by women of the Romantic period “the cosmopolitan ideal of religious

and international harmony through romance is thwarted primarily by western

chauvinism – sexual, religious, and national 22”.

21 It is wrong, however, to assume that the ending condenses fully the meaning of the

National tale. Owenson’s novels invite us instead to concentrate on those moments of

narration, description or character construction, where ambiguity, contradiction and

paradox reveal the limits of those institutionalised naturalising and normalising

discourses that regulate violent, oppressive politics and sexual politics.

NOTES

1. Sydney Owenson, Lady Morgan, The Wild Irish Girl, (1806) ed. Kathryne Kirkpatrick.

Oxford University Press, 1999.

2. Sydney Owenson, Woman: or Ida of Athens (Four Volumes). London, Longman, 1809;

Sydney Owenson, The Missionary: An Indian Tale (1811), ed. Julia Wright, Broadview

Press, 2002.

3. For more on Owenson’s contribution to the development of the national tale see

Katie Trumpener, Bardic Nationalism: The Romantic Novel and the British Empire, Princeton

University Press, 1997, p. 128-156 and Ina Ferris, The Romantic National Tale and the

Question of Ireland, Cambridge University Press, 2002.

4. Pierre Macherey, The Object of Literature, trans. David Macey, Cambridge University

Press, 1995, p. 13-37. [A quoi pense la littérature, Presses Universitaires de France, 1990].

5. For a comparative reading of Corinne ou l’Italie and Woman or: Ida of Athens see Evgenia

Sifaki, “A Gendered Vision of Greekness: Lady Morgan’s Woman or: Ida of Athens.”


107

Vassiliki Kolokotroni & Efterpi Mitsi (eds.), Women Writing Greece: Essays on Hellenism,

Orientalism and Travel, Rodopi, 2008, pp. 55-75.

6. Craig Calhoun, “The Class Consciousness of Frequent Travellers: Towards a Critique

of Actually Existing Cosmopolitanism.” Steven Vertovic & Robin Cohen (eds.) Conceiving

Cosmopolitanism - Theory, Context, and Practice, Oxford University Press, 2002, p. 92.

7. Elmer Andrews, “Aesthetics, Politics, and Identity: Lady Morgan’s The Wild Irish Girl”,

Canadian Journal of Irish Studies 12, 1987, p. 8. Quoted in Kathryne Kirkpatrick,

“Introduction” to her edition of Sydney Owenson, Lady Morgan, The Wild Irish Girl, ibid.,

p. VII-XVIII, p. XIV.

8. Kathryne Kirkpatrick, “Introduction”, ibid., p. XVII.

9. Ann K. Mellor, “Embodied Cosmopolitanism and the British Romantic Woman

Writer”, European Romantic Review, 17/ 3, July 2006, p. 289-300, p. 292.

10. Lisa L. Moore “Acts of Union: Sexuality and Nationalism, Romance and Realism in

the Irish National Tale”, Cultural Critique 44, Winter 2000, p. 113-144, p. 118.

11. Pheng Chea, “Introduction, Part II”. Pheng Chea & Bruce Robbins (eds.),

Cosmopolitics: Thinking and Feeling Beyong the Nation, University of Minnesota Press, 1998,

p. 20-40, p. 25. Chea quotes from Mazzini’s The Duties of Man.

12. Sylvia Bordoni, “Lord Byron and Lady Morgan”, The Centre for the Study of Byron

and Romanticism, University of Nottingham, 2006. URL: [http://

byron.nottingham.ac.uk].

13. Julia Wright, “‘The Nation Begins to Form’: Competing Nationalisms in Morgan’s

The O’Brien’s and the O’Flahertys”, ELH 66/4, 1999, p. 939-963, p. 941.

14. See Sylvia Bordoni, ibid. and Malcolm Kelsall, “Reading Orientalism: Woman or: Ida of

Athens”, Review of National Literatures and World Report 1, New Series, 1998, p. 11-20.

15. For relevant discussions see Hepworth Dixon, Lady Morgan’s Memoirs Vol 1, London

1862, p. 321 and Julia Wright’s “Introduction” to her edition of The Missionary: an Indian

Tale, ibid., p. 9-57.

16. Amanda Anderson, “Cosmopolitanism, Universalism, and the Divided Legacies of

Modernity”. Pheng Chea & Bruce Robbins (eds.), op. cit., p. 265-289, p. 268.

17. As Wright puts it, “Owenson’s version of India is de-anglocentered. Owenson directs

her audience to an overtly cosmopolitan body of scholarship in which firsthand

accounts from a variety of national perspectives, rather than British scholarship, are

given priority”. Julia Wright, “Introduction” to The Missionary: an Indian Tale, op. cit.,

p. 51.

18. Thomas Tracy, “The Mild Irish Girl: Domesticating the National Tale”, Éire-Ireland

39/1&2, 2004, p. 81-109, p. 97.

19. Here some of Owenson’s references to European novels (i.e. The Sorrows of Young

Werther) and novelists (Joseph-Marie Loasel) are misspelled; the most important

mistake is in the title of the novel by René Chateaubriand, Atala. This passage illustrates

a paradox in her literary idiom, which combines an impressive number of references to

literary and non-literary sources with some degree of unreliability. It is also interesting

as an awkward blend of French and English.

20. Heather Braun, “The Seductive Masquerade of The Wild Irish Girl”, Irish Studies

Review 13/1, 2005, p. 33-43, p. 35-36.

21. Thomas Tracy, ibid., p. 82.


108

22. Ann Mellor, ibid., p. 294.

ABSTRACTS

Sydney Owenson’s early novels, The Wild Irish Girl: a National Tale (1806), Woman or: Ida of Athens

(1809) and The Missionary: an Indian Tale (1811), displace the question of imperialist violence onto

the narration of a passionate albeit contentious romantic encounter between a privileged

colonial male traveller and a colonised, indigenous woman. This paper argues that her

manipulation of the Romance trope and construction of “national character” (which is

comparable to the way Mme De Staël creates her fictional heroines) inscribe a dynamic,

productive tension between discourses of nationalism, universalism and cosmopolitanism.

Les premiers romans de Sydney Owenson, The Wild Irish Girl: a National Tale (1806), Woman or: Ida of

Athens (1809) et The Missionary, an Indian Tale (1811), déplacent la question de la violence

impériale sur le récit de la rencontre romantique, passionnée et pourtant antagoniste, entre un

voyageur mâle, colonial et privilegié et une femme indigène. Le présent article montre, que la

manipulation de la trope du roman et de la construction du « caractère national » par Sydney

Owenson (qui est comparable à la manière dont Mme De Staël crée ses propres héroïnes de

fiction) inscrit une tension dynamique et productive entre les discours du nationalisme, de

l’universalisme et du cosmopolitisme.

INDEX

Keywords: Morgan Lady, national identity, Owenson Sydney, imperialism/colonialism, history

and fiction

Mots-clés: Morgan Lady, Owenson Sydney, identité nationale, impérialisme/colonialisme,

histoire et fiction

AUTHOR

EVGENIA SIFAKI

Greek Open University


109

Quelle poésie de la sortie de guerreen Irlande du Nord ? L’exemple deBreaking News de Ciaran Carson(2003) et The State of the Prisons(2005) de Sinéad MorrisseyCatherine Conan

1 Pour la plupart des historiens de la province, les accords de Belfast, dits du Vendredi

Saint, d’avril 1998 signent la fin officielle des Troubles en Irlande du Nord, dont les

violents incidents de l’été 1969 constituaient le point de départ. La question posée au

romancier Glenn Patterson par un journaliste londonien au lendemain du cessez-le-feu

paramilitaire de 1994 (« what on earth are you going to write about, now that the story

has been taken away from you? 1») acquiert après 1998 une pertinence et une nécessité

encore plus grandes. En effet, les accords d’avril 1998, approuvés par référendum par

une majorité relativement large au nord et écrasante au sud 2 ont donné à la population

de l’île tout entière et à la communauté internationale l’impression qu’une page de

l’histoire irlandaise était en train de se tourner.

2 La période qui suit un conflit armé peine à se définir, car elle succède au temps fort de

la guerre, qui structure l’appréhension globale du déroulement historique (on parle

d’« avant-guerre » et d’« après-guerre »). Dans le domaine poétique, Edna Longley fait

remarquer que les années de guerre au vingtième siècle ont vu l’émergence de formes

d’écriture souvent radicales, mais d’une fécondité durable 3, au point d’affirmer que

toute poésie constitue en elle-même une forme d’engagement comparable à la guerre 4.

Ceci ne va pas sans soulever un certain nombre de questions dans l’Irlande du Nord

d’après 1998 : si la légitimité de la poésie nord-irlandaise tombait sous le sens durant

les Troubles, et si alors le lien entre poésie et guerre pouvait aller de soi 5, il n’en va

plus de même une fois le conflit terminé.

3 Bien évidemment, la fin officielle d’un conflit armé, quelle que soit la légitimité que l’on

veut lui accorder, ne signifie pas pour autant l’instauration immédiate d’un régime de


110

paix et de « normalité » politique et sociale. Il est sans doute possible de considérer que,

après 1998, l’Irlande du Nord entre dans une période que l’on peut qualifier de « sortie

de guerre ». Notion émergée récemment et qui a supplanté celle d’« après-guerre », la

sortie de guerre vise à rendre compte de manière dynamique de périodes

traditionnellement décrites comme des contrepoints fades et flous à la guerre 6. La

sortie de guerre est un terme surtout employé dans l’historiographie récente des deux

guerres mondiales, et il n’est pas question de placer les Troubles nord-irlandais sur la

même échelle de magnitude. Néanmoins, certaines des caractéristiques des périodes

dites de sortie de guerre peuvent éclairer les enjeux de la reconstruction politique,

sociale et culturelle en Irlande du Nord.

4 L’apport principal de l’histoire encore balbutiante des sorties de guerre est

l’impossibilité d’une rupture nette entre temps de guerre et temps de paix, en raison de

« la persistance, en temps de paix, de constructions idéologiques forgées en temps de

guerre […] en réalité, la sortie de guerre est fondamentalement une période violente,

où travaillent, souterrainement ou ouvertement, les représentations haineuses forgées

durant le conflit 7 ». Cependant, la composante essentielle dans notre propos de la

sortie de guerre est la notion de démobilisation culturelle, notion empruntée par Bruno

Cabanes à John Horne 8, dont les composantes principales sont l’abandon de la violence

et la réhabilitation de la figure de l’autre. On peut supposer que la poésie, qui est l’une

des manifestations culturelles les plus visibles en Irlande du Nord, rassemble et réfracte

dans ses thèmes et dans ses formes les tensions propres à l’après-Troubles. Cette

période se présente comme fondamentalement ambivalente, voire contradictoire

puisqu’elle donne le recul nécessaire à une vision d’ensemble (le « bird’s eye view » qui

était impossible au narrateur de Carson dans The Irish for No 9). Les observateurs de la

société sont tentés d’adopter une attitude rétrospective dans le but de dégager les

lignes de force propres au conflit. D’un autre côté, la sortie de guerre, tout

particulièrement dans le cas d’un conflit qui oppose (opposait ?) deux communautés

vivant sur le même territoire, contraint à inventer les modalités de la réconciliation et

du vivre ensemble. Sur le plan littéraire, la sortie de guerre apparaît comme propice à

la fois à un approfondissement et une estimation globale de thématiques qui

structuraient la représentation des Troubles, mais aussi à l’émergence de nouvelles

formes et de nouvelles voix poétiques. L’objectif de cet article est d’examiner, au

travers de deux recueils publiés en 2003 et 2005, comment la poésie (notamment

urbaine) d’après 1998 peut participer à un processus de démobilisation culturelle en

Irlande du Nord et à la mise en histoire des Troubles.

5 Afin de déterminer quelques-unes des caractéristiques d’une poétique de la sortie de

guerre en Irlande du Nord, on a retenu deux poètes dont les rapports pourraient à eux

seuls illustrer une problématique de la rupture et de la continuité dans la poésie nord-

irlandaise d’après 1998. En effet, une génération entière sépare Ciaran Carson de Sinéad

Morrissey, le premier ayant commencé à écrire à peu près au moment où naissait la

seconde. Ciaran Carson a publié The New Estate en 1976 avant de s’imposer comme la

voix majeure de la poésie urbaine nord-irlandaise de l’enlisement du conflit qui a suivi

l’échec des accords de Hillsborough en 1985, avec The Irish for No (1987) et Belfast Confetti

(1991), puis First Language (1994). Après s’être essayé à la fin des années 1990 et au

début des années 2000 à d’autres exercices comme la traduction de poètes français,

l’autobiographie ou le roman, il revient à la poésie en 2003 avec Breaking News, qui

rassemble les premiers poèmes qu’il ait écrits depuis les accords de Belfast. Comme on

le verra, la forme utilisée dans Breaking News présente à première vue un contraste


111

surprenant avec celle à laquelle il avait habitué ses lecteurs, tout particulièrement

depuis The Irish for No.

6 Avec Nick Laird ou Leontia Flynn, Sinéad Morrissey est l’une des voix poétiques

émergées depuis la fin des Troubles. Née en 1972 à Portadown, elle révèle un talent

extrêmement précoce puisqu’elle reçoit le Patrick Kavanagh Award à l’âge de dix-huit

ans. Elle vit successivement au Japon et en Nouvelle-Zélande avant de retourner en

Irlande du Nord dans la seconde moitié des années 1990. Elle y publie son premier

recueil, There Was a Fire in Vancouver (1996), puis Between Here and There (2002), dont la

première partie est consacrée à l’Irlande du Nord et la seconde au Japon, et enfin The

State of the Prisons (2005), dont il sera plus particulièrement question ici 10. Sur le plan

technique, la poésie de Sinéad Morrissey est caractérisée par l’utilisation de formes

traditionnelles, strophes régulières et structures toutes en limpidité. C’est la clarté

grammaticale de son écriture qui distingue Sinéad Morrissey : à l’opposé des images

voluptueuses et de la syntaxe déconcertante d’une Medbh McGuckian, Morrissey

pratique une poésie dépouillée et intellectuelle qui explique plus qu’elle n’évoque. Sa

poésie s’écrit souvent avec la conscience d’être l’objet d’une interprétation de la part

du lecteur, dont elle anticipe et contredit les réflexes :

And I find myself back – to the womb,

most obviously, but even better than that – to the film

I played in my head as a child (SP, 12)

7 La conscience affichée de la banalité de certaines images poétiques (« our classroom

windows / would be crying, as usual ») la conduit souvent à en utiliser d’incongrues

(« Sometimes childlessness, stretching out into the ether // like a plane »[« Contrail »]). Ajoutée à la fréquence des images empruntées à une conception

médicale et anatomique du corps, cette tendance n’est pas sans évoquer l’écriture des

poètes métaphysiques.

8 Malgré la génération qui les sépare, les visions poétiques de Carson et Morrissey

forment un ensemble particulièrement cohérent, et sont par plusieurs aspects très

proches. Leurs poésies sont résolument urbaines, et font de Belfast le centre de leur

univers. Les deux poètes travaillent également au sein du Seamus Heaney Centre for

Poetry de Queen’s University. Si le choix d’auteurs peut paraître trop restrictif, on se

souviendra que le propos du présent article n’est pas d’offrir un panorama de la poésie

nord-irlandaise d’après 1998 mais de montrer en quoi certaines de ses manifestations

articulent des problématiques spécifiques à la sortie de guerre. En effet, la

caractéristique essentielle qui rapproche Carson et Morrissey est la réflexion sur la

guerre, les images qu’elle évoque et sa constitution en récit, rendue possible par la

sortie de guerre et qui l’éclaire en retour. Afin d’examiner les manifestations poétiques

de la démobilisation culturelle chez ces deux auteurs, on étudiera dans un premier

temps les continuités et ruptures thématiques et formelles entre les deux recueils

retenus et une « tradition » nord-irlandaise de la représentation des Troubles. Dans un

second temps, on se penchera plus spécifiquement sur l’écriture de la guerre et de sa

signification dans l’histoire, au travers de parallèles dressés dans les deux recueils

entre l’Irlande du Nord et certains des conflits majeurs des dix-neuvième et vingtième

siècles. Ils conduisent à la mise en place d’une méditation sur la guerre qui fait de cette

poésie un instrument privilégié de l’explicitation des enjeux culturels de l’après-1998.


112

9 La persistance de schémas idéologiques propres à la période des Troubles apparaît de

manière singulièrement claire dans l’utilisation, voire la récurrence obsessionnelle de

thèmes et motifs que la critique nord-irlandaise a identifiés comme caractéristiques de

la littérature de la province en guerre. La fréquence de l’utilisation de ces constantes

littéraires est d’autant plus remarquable chez Sinéad Morrissey, dont la voix arrive tout

juste à maturité au démarrage du processus de paix, et ayant vécu avant cela loin de

l’Irlande du Nord. On retrouve chez la jeune femme les thèmes, déjà présents par

exemple chez le Carson de The Irish for No et Belfast Confetti, de la division ou de la

fragmentation territoriale, de l’étrangeté paradoxale de l’univers domestique et des

relations familiales, de l’exil et de la tension entre l’ici et l’ailleurs, du silence, et de la

violence faite aux corps.

10 La vision de l’espace articulée dans The State of the Prisons est directement inspirée par

la fragmentation territoriale entamée (à Belfast en particulier) avant les Troubles et

exacerbée par les trois décennies de conflit. Cela est suggéré dès l’abord par le jeu de

mots du titre, qui fait référence à un rapport sur la déliquescence des prisons et

hôpitaux anglais publié par John Howard en 1777 mais constitue également une

définition de l’Irlande du Nord, à nouveau dotée après 1998 d’un parlement autonome.

En effet, The State of the Prisons présente en grande majorité des espaces cloisonnés,

propices à l’isolement ou à la régression. Plusieurs poèmes présentent ainsi des

variations sur le motif du nid ou de la matrice, qui génère tour à tour la rêverie

enfantine ou la solitude du grand âge.

11 Dans « Forty Lengths », le narrateur trouve un refuge à l’absurdité du monde sous l’eau

de la piscine. La division spatiale entre le monde aquatique et celui de la surface est

exprimée dès l’ouverture du poème au moyen de la distinction temporelle entre l’avant

et l’après-invention des lunettes de piscine :

Before goggles, the pool was a catch of beleaguered heads

being raced against each other by omnipotence. (SP, 12)

12 L’image des têtes sans corps glissant à la surface de l’eau renforce l’impression

d’imperméabilité, d’incommunicabilité entre l’espace aérien qui est celui du narrateur,

et l’espace aquatique, dénué d’existence dans ces deux vers. Cependant, l’accession de

la conscience humaine aux profondeurs de la piscine ne constitue pas la révélation d’un

niveau plus élevé de réalité. Tout dans le texte indique qu’il s’agit d’une régression :

But now that I, too, have been strapped back and capped

like a pre-war flying enthusiast

Shoulders to the rear, the aerodynamic necessity

Of not having hair – (SP, 12)

13 Le mouvement général de ces vers s’effectue vers l’arrière (« back », « rear »), et le

narrateur se retrouve entraîné dans un avant qui, de manière révélatrice, se mesure par

référence à la guerre. Comme dans le premier diptyque, tous les verbes d’action sont à

la voix passive, suggérant un sujet inerte, captif (« strapped ») et dépossédé (« not

having »). Sous l’eau, les yeux enfermés dans les lunettes voient un refuge, une illusion

de clarté et de certitude :

[…] I see

how solidly we occur under water.


113

Now all the world’s a blur, except for down here

In this makeshift polar enclosure

where I follow one white-limbed swimmer after another

to the wall. (SP, 12)

14 Si le monde de la surface est flou, les allers-retours des nageurs s’apparentent à une

procession sans fin de spectres rendus pathétiques par l’espace confiné. Ces âmes en

peine n’en restent pas moins des êtres inscrits dans le processus historique et politique,

comme en atteste l’emploi en fin de vers du terme « enclosure ». La vision déformée des

nageurs, prise par ceux-ci pour la réalité, se présente comme une allégorie de la

condition nord-irlandaise, finalement très proche de l’image du poisson rouge tournant

en rond dans son bocal qui était au centre du roman de Glenn Patterson intitulé Fat Lad

(1993) 11.

15 De la même manière, le silence, qui était un passage obligé de la littérature des

Troubles depuis le « Whatever you say, say nothing » de Heaney, s’impose dès

l’ouverture de The State of the Prisons comme l’un des thèmes centraux. « Flight », le

premier poème du recueil, met en scène une voix impossible. La narratrice est

prisonnière d’un « scold’s bridle », mécanisme utilisé aux dix-septième et dix-huitième

siècles pour torturer les femmes acariâtres, constitué d’une espèce de casque muni

d’une langue de fer que l’on introduit dans la bouche de la victime et qui l’empêche

d’émettre le moindre son. Le plus souvent, l’appareil est muni d’une chaîne au moyen

de laquelle la malheureuse est promenée dans les rues par son mari, afin de servir

d’exemple aux autres. Le crime de la narratrice de « Flight » est d’être royaliste en 1651,

pendant le Commonwealth de Cromwell. Le poème parvient à mettre en relation de

manière particulièrement habile un grand nombre de thèmes caractéristiques de la

poésie des Troubles, et à leur conserver une pertinence dans l’après-1998.

16 L’introduction d’une citation de England’s Grievance Discovered de Ralph Gardiner en

épigraphe pose la question du rapport entre fiction et témoignage historique, et

introduit les thèmes de l’oppression et de la captivité reflétés dans le corps du poème.

L’ouvrage de Gardiner est en effet un plaidoyer adressé au parlement de Cromwell en

guise de protestation contre le monopole exercé par la corporation de Newcastle sur le

commerce maritime sur la Tyne. Il aurait été écrit lors d’un séjour de son auteur en

prison. La figure de Cromwell en tyran et le thème de la domination masculine

suggèrent la relation coloniale, à laquelle le poème résiste cependant en gardant au

premier plan l’oppression et la réduction au silence de la femme. C’est seulement à la

fin du poème que s’impose le lien avec l’Irlande du Nord, quand le silence est montré

comme cause première de la division et de la souffrance (« I have torn my face / In two

by swallowing silence », SP, 3).

17 La répétition obsessionnelle de figures imposées de la littérature de la guerre dans un

recueil publié sept ans après les accords de Belfast tendrait alors à indiquer que

l’Irlande du Nord peine à envisager les modalités de son renouvellement littéraire – ou

à revoir à la baisse l’importance politique réelle du Vendredi Saint. Il est en tout cas

certain que les questions de mémoire et de pardon nécessaires à la réconciliation sont

bien souvent non encore résolues, et restent centrales dans l’Irlande du Nord des

années 2000.

18 En recyclant les thèmes centraux de la littérature de la guerre, la poésie cherche sans

doute à indiquer que si les Troubles sont officiellement terminés, leur mise en histoire


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par l’intégration et l’attribution d’une signification positive dans un récit historique

global reste encore à faire. On peut considérer les méditations de Ciaran Carson et de

Sinéad Morrissey sur le thème de la guerre, et les explorations de conflits européens et

asiatiques du vingtième siècle comme une tentative de définition de la place des

Troubles dans l’histoire du monde contemporain.

19 Il importe de préciser dès l’abord que les contrées lointaines sont, chez Carson comme

chez Morrissey, vues comme des représentations, images visuelles reçues sur un écran

ou témoignages de seconde main. Ainsi même dans l’évocation de grands espaces

subsiste l’impression de confinement ou de malaise claustrophobe propre à l’Irlande du

Nord. Carson précise à la fin de Breaking News qu’il a repris, souvent mot pour mot, les

reportages de guerre de William Howard Russell. De fait, les seuls poèmes du recueil qui

ne soient pas constitués de quelques mots épars dans l’espace de la page sont ceux dans

lesquels Carson emprunte ses mots à Russell, ainsi qu’à William Carlos Williams dans

une réécriture de « The Forgotten City ». L’influence du poète américain dans Breaking

News s’étend cependant bien au-delà de « The Forgotten City », les vers minimalistes et

les poèmes constitués d’une seule phrase de Williams ayant manifestement fourni un

modèle à Carson. On pense tout particulièrement à « Perpetuum mobile: The City 12 »,

qui a pu entrer en résonance avec la vision de la ville développée par Carson depuis The

Irish for No. Quant à Sinéad Morrissey, elle entame sa section sur la Chine par une

injonction à accrocher au mur un écran, car le pays qu’elle entend montrer, dit-elle,

n’existe pas. Par la suite, les paysages chinois sont vus par la vitre d’un train qui

devient miroir quand la nuit tombe (« Windows have turned into mirrors the length of

the train ») ou le hublot d’un avion (« The Gobi from Air »). Chez les deux poètes, le

paysage est une image, qui est elle-même un miroir renvoyant à l’observateur ses

attentes et ses contradictions.

20 Dans Breaking News, la guerre de Crimée fonctionne comme le double imaginaire de

Belfast durant les Troubles, comme si la première contenait la clef qui permettrait de

donner un sens à la seconde. On sait que la ville de Belfast porte la marque de l’empire

britannique dans les noms de ses rues, qui commémorent ses grandes batailles ou ses

personnages historiques. La superposition de ce réseau textuel et mémoriel sur la

topographie de Belfast, et l’apparition d’un univers parallèle ainsi suggéré ont

constitué une source d’inspiration majeure pour Carson dans The Irish for No et Belfast

Confetti. Dans Breaking News, la texture de Belfast au présent semble se déliter, ou

s’effriter sous le regard du lecteur, tandis que l’hypotexte impérial britannique de la

capitale nord-irlandaise finit par occuper le premier plan. Le jeu de mots dans le titre

du recueil exprime cette dualité : l’actualité nord-irlandaise se fracture (Breaking News)

pour laisser entrevoir l’urgence d’une mise en perspective historique, qui acquiert une

actualité brûlante. Dans Breaking News, Carson se glisse dans les interstices d’une ville

qui se fissure pour en explorer une part de l’inconscient politique. Chacun des deux

chronotopes – Belfast au présent et guerres coloniales britanniques – laisse entrevoir

l’autre en filigrane. Cependant cette relation de transparence mutuelle n’aboutit en

aucun cas à la constitution d’une linéarité historique. La mise en place de ce récit fictif

est en effet constamment dérangée par son « reste », ce qui ne peut y trouver place

mais qui est au centre de la poésie de Carson, c’est-à-dire l’horreur nue, absurde et

insignifiante de la violence et de la guerre.

21 Dans Breaking News, Belfast est représentée comme une ville en guerre, peuplée de

soldats ou de paramilitaires recréant l’atmosphère de surveillance perpétuelle qui était


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celle de « Intelligence » dans Belfast Confetti. Les hélicoptères, signe distinctif de Belfast

en guerre, sont encore omniprésents dans Breaking News. En particulier, « Blink » met

en scène une société paranoïaque au sens où chaque élément enregistré doit faire sens

et s’inscrire dans un récit de connaissance totale :

the bits

and pieces

being matched

as everyone

identifies

with this or that

their whereabouts

being watched (BN, 20)

22 La rime riche matched/watched exprime le caractère obsessionnel d’une conscience

qui se contraint à ressasser les mêmes fragments d’expérience. La récurrence maladive

du même apparaît dans les emprunts directs de Carson à ses poèmes des Troubles, dans

« Blink » (« sucked back // at the touch of the / rewind button » étant presque une

citation verbatim de « Question Time 13 », poème en prose de Belfast Confetti, mais

également à plusieurs autres reprises tout au long de Breaking News. Ainsi, les lames de

rasoir Wilkinson Sword dans « Shop Fronts » étaient-elles déjà contemplées

machinalement par deux soldats dans « Queen’s Gambit 14 ». La version carsonienne de

« The Forgotten City » intègre un fragment directement emprunté à « 33333 » :

[…] I passed

a crematorium called Roselawn, pleasant

cul-de-sacs and roundabouts with names

I never knew existed (BN, 37)

We stop at an open door I

never knew existed 15

23 La compulsion de répétition suggère que la paix au fond doit rester un horizon

d’attente car elle menace de réduire le poète au silence. En ce sens, on peut interpréter

les poèmes minimalistes de Breaking News comme l’expression du tarissement

progressif du flot de discours et d’informations qui constituait le conflit nord-irlandais.

La paix se présente donc comme paradoxale et impossible dans la mesure où la

conscience paranoïaque du narrateur de Carson est incapable d’imaginer la fin de la

guerre : elle conçoit l’absence de signal lié à la situation de guerre comme le signe d’une

menace encore plus grande car dissimulée.

24 La paix est même décrite avec humour comme une anomalie dans « The Forgotten

City », qui est chez Williams comme chez Carson un poème de guerre. La préface par

l’auteur de The Wedge, recueil publié en 1944 et où parut « The Forgotten City » s’ouvre

en effet par la phrase « The war is the first and only thing in the world today 16 ».

Comme dans le texte de Williams, le narrateur découvre à la faveur d’un détour

imprévu un quartier de la ville et des habitants dont il ne soupçonnait pas l’existence.

Cependant, les circonstances de cette découverte sont chez Carson plus explicitement

politiques, comme en témoigne sa modification de la fin du second vers de Williams. Le

complément circonstanciel « the day of the hurricane » devient en effet « a day of the

last disturbances » et se trouve ramené au premier vers. De plus, le narrateur n’est pas


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en voiture comme chez Williams, mais à bicyclette, ce qui a pour effet de créer un lien

intertextuel avec « Question Time 17 », poème en prose de Belfast Confetti où le poète est

arrêté par des activistes républicains lors d’une promenade à vélo dans les rues de son

enfance. Dans la suite du poème, le narrateur découvre un quartier dont les habitants

semblent issus d’une autre époque (« wearing hats and overcoats »), presque des

fantômes comme le suggère le jeu de mots « this / grave people » et qui bizarrement

vivent en paix. Il se promet de revenir étudier cette population invisible et étonnante :

How did they get

cut off in this way from the stream of

bulletins, so under-represented

in our parliaments and media when so near

the troubled zone, so closely surrounded

and almost touched by the famous and familiar? (BN, 37)

25 Carson exprime là un phénomène déjà mis en valeur par les écrivains de la fin des

Troubles (on pense notamment à la satire de Robert McLiam Wilson dans Eureka Street),

c’est-à-dire l’impossibilité en Irlande du Nord d’avoir une existence en dehors de la

représentation médiatique, et, après 1998, politique. La paix apparaît ainsi comme une

enclave irréelle, hors du temps, qui affleure à peine dans le processus historique et ne

se découvre que fugitivement, à la faveur d’un accident. Dans Breaking News, la paix n’a

pas de place dans l’histoire, qui n’acquiert de sens que dans le récit des guerres, qui

constituent les seuls véritables événements historiques.

26 L’assimilation en poésie des reportages de guerre de William Howard Russell a pour

effet de montrer le caractère illusoire de la signification accordée à la guerre en tant

qu’événement historique. Les témoignages directs des guerres coloniales peuvent

donner à l’empire une impression de réalité (au travers des noms propres de villes et de

personnalités militaires) et de cohésion (par les efforts concertés des troupes

britanniques). Cependant, le récit de la guerre en tant qu’environnement, puis

condition psychologique, et enfin existentielle, devient dans la réécriture de Russell par

Carson, destructeur de la réalité, puis du récit lui-même.

27 Les nombreuses accumulations dans la plupart des sections de « The War

Correspondent » créent un univers où l’intelligence classificatrice perd pied. La

désolation est suggérée non par l’absence mais par la surabondance d’éléments

arrachés à leur contexte, privés du sens qu’ils ont les uns par rapport aux autres. Dans

« Dvno », la troisième section de « The War Correspondent », c’est l’idée de

classification et de nomenclature des entités qui devient absurde. Le poème est

structuré par deux accumulations qui se font face, la première celle des essences

d’arbres repérées aux alentours de Dvno et la seconde celle de noms de vaisseaux

britanniques. Bien que les éléments listés soient très proches et semblent constituer

une taxonomie cohérente, le lecteur de la poésie des Troubles se souvient que la

zootaxie est le moyen choisi par Michael Longley dans « The Ice-cream Man » pour

évoquer la mort et l’absence. L’assassinat du marchand de glaces y est évoqué au moyen

de deux accumulations, celle des parfums des glaces qu’il vendait, et celle des espèces

de fleurs sauvages du Burren 18. Chez Carson, l’énumération d’essences végétales a en

outre pour effet de suggérer un univers onirique pseudo-keatsien dont le caractère

illusoire est souligné par la morbidité grotesque de la seconde énumération :


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and by night in the harbour

phosphorescent bodies float

up from the murky bottom

to drift moonward past the fleet

like old wooden figureheads,

bobbing torsos bolt upright.

Tiger, Wasp, Bellerophon,

Niger, Arrow, Terrible,

Vulture, Viper, Albion,

Brittania, Trafalgar,

Spitfire, Triton, Oberon:

these are vessels I remember. (BN, 49)

28 L’image horrifiante des noyés comparés à des figures de proue inverse la relation de

figuration symbolique habituelle. Les symboles orgueilleux de la nation acquièrent une

chair pourrissante, et dans l’énumération qui suit, l’image de l’empire ne se construit

pas mais au contraire se délite, sombre dans l’insignifiance. L’énumération se présente

comme de l’anti-langage au sens où s’y défait l’image de la nation que le récit était

censé construire.

29 De fait, la guerre en elle-même reste – comme la paix – un phénomène indicible, et les

poèmes de « The War Correspondent » n’en décrivent que l’attente, ou les

conséquences. Ainsi « Tchernaya » raconte comment les soldats tuent le temps (« they

went at night to kill / time) à défaut de l’ennemi en attendant la bataille de Tchernaya,

s’occupant à la chasse ou à toutes sortes de jeux. La guerre s’écrit dans et par ses

intervalles et temps morts, et la bataille en elle-même devient au fond non nécessaire :« long before the battle of Tchernaya, / we had each two or three life-stories to tell. »(BN, 54).

30 Dans ces circonstances, le moment le plus chargé de sens est peut-être l’intuition

rétrospective de l’imminence de la guerre, comme le suggèrent les poèmes, tous deux

inspirés par des tableaux, « Théodore Géricault, Farrier’s Signboard, 1814 » et « Edward

Hopper, Early Sunday Morning, 1939 ». En concluant le premier poème par « this is the

year / before Waterloo », Carson invite à le relire comme une prémonition de la bataille

où s’est définitivement défait l’empire napoléonien. Au travers de la figure mi-Vulcain,

mi-cavalier de l’Apocalypse du maréchal-ferrant, le poème met en œuvre une

conception paranoïde de l’art et de l’histoire : l’artiste visionnaire matérialise

symboliquement la guerre à venir, et défait d’avance le sens que le récit historique

pourrait lui accorder. Dans « Edward Hopper, Early Sunday Morning, 1939 », la

prémonition se fait encore plus précise et menaçante, le poète interprétant une ombre

qui traverse le tableau de part en part mais dont la source se trouve hors-cadre comme

celle de la guerre imminente :

Beyond

the frame

immeasurably

long

another shadow

falls

from what


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we cannot see

to what

we cannot see

dawn

before the War (BN, 44)

31 Cette fois, le poète articule une vision véritablement paranoïaque du sujet dans

l’histoire, pris au piège dans l’obscurité de sa condition historique et incapable du recul

nécessaire pour interpréter les signes annonciateurs de la guerre, qui ne peuvent être

lus que rétrospectivement. Au fond, seul l’éloignement historique permet de

déterminer a posteriori la position d’un instant donné, avant, pendant, ou après une

guerre. Tous les exemples cités tendent à indiquer qu’à l’instant présent, la guerre

existe toujours, mais hors champ.

32 C’est la même vision qui transparaît dans The State of the Prisons, dont les poèmes

consacrés à des paysages, événements ou personnages non-irlandais effectuent une

déconstruction de l’opposition entre guerre et paix particulièrement pertinente dans

l’Irlande du Nord d’après 1998. L’apparente banalité des scènes de la vie quotidienne

chinoise vues depuis les fenêtres d’un train prend des accents de violence et de

désolation :

Blackness falls clean as a guillotine

on the children in pairs by the trackside, and then again

on the man and his son who will walk all afternoon into evening

before they are home. We enter Sichuan without rupturing

any visible line of division, though dinner at five is brimming with

chillies:

dried and diced and fried with the seeds inside, while the

extraordinary

Sichuan pepper balloons into flavour under our tongues. And all

along

darkness is gathering itself in. I see a boy and a woman

lit up by the flare of a crop fire, but can no longer believe in them.

(SP, 25).

33 Le monde de l’autre côté de la vitre est en guerre, mais les visions d’exode et d’incendie

n’atteignent que de manière fugace la conscience de la narratrice, tout occupée à la

richesse des sensations internes à son expérience. En ce sens, ce passage reprend la

métaphore de Louis MacNeice dans « Snow 19 », qui regarde tomber la neige de l’autre

côté de la vitre mais se satisfait du parfum des roses et de la mandarine à l’intérieur.

Cet écho est sans doute conscient, les graines des piments répondant aux pépins de la

mandarine de MacNeice. De plus, la neige est bien présente dans les paysages chinois,

quoiqu’elle apparaisse dans une autre section de « China 20 ».

34 Si le monde est le spectacle d’une guerre, la tâche du poète consiste à le représenter

sans relâche sur les écrans intérieurs de ses lecteurs, ou, dans les termes des terroristes

de « Migraine », « There is a war, they said, somewhere off the map from where you are, /and

we will bring it to you ». Le poème s’inspire de la prise d’otages dans le théâtre de Moscou

le 23 octobre 2002 par un groupe d’une quarantaine de séparatistes tchétchènes. Les

images de ce drame se télescopent et se reflètent dans la migraine de la narratrice.


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« Migraine » donne à la vision du monde comme représentation de la guerre son

illustration la plus saisissante en renversant la perspective : la guerre n’est plus

circonscrite à la scène de théâtre, c’est le théâtre tout entier, acteurs et spectateurs, qui

est en guerre, et la distinction entre eux n’a plus lieu d’être. Même spectateur, chacun

est acteur d’un spectacle de guerre de niveau supérieur dont il ne maîtrise pas les

codes. La prise d’otages du théâtre de Moscou, en rendant cela visible, provoque

l’ouverture d’un gouffre où les repères s’abîment :

The leader’s face went slack

from the left side, as though his cheekbone cracked

and slithered free of him, weeping gunshot.

Then a tangle of darkness like a Rorschach blot

where his expression had been, opening inward… (SP, 44)

35 Les événements politiquement et symboliquement marquants de l’histoire récente sont

utilisés par Morrissey pour faire de la guerre la métaphore de la précarité existentielle,

conséquence de l’incapacité de la conscience à se percevoir dans l’histoire. Ainsi

l’effondrement des tours jumelles du 11 septembre 2001 dans « The Wound Man »ouvre-il une brèche dans la linéarité du temps historique qui permet à la narratrice de

convoquer Federico García Lorca comme figure de l’impuissance humaine dans

l’histoire :

[…] had you survived,

Federico, say, Franco’s henchmen,

or the war that was to open like a demon from his person,

or the later war, and all the intervening years

between that fall of faith and this, what would you think?

[…] we shiver on the brink

of an ending, and a war stretches in front of us,

we stand where you stood. (SP, 37)

36 Dans ce passage, la guerre en tant qu’événement historique structurant une histoire

nationale s’efface peu à peu pour devenir l’expression de l’angoisse ressentie face au

présent (« the brink // of an ending »), instant de basculement perpétuel vers un avenir

par définition non connu, phénomène dont la conscience aiguë peut être vue comme

caractéristique de la période dite « postmoderne 21 ». Les références à la guerre civile

espagnole, puis à la seconde guerre mondiale, sont non seulement implicites, mais

données uniquement à titre d’illustration (« say ») et finalement interchangeables (« or

[…]/or »). Fusillé dans les premiers jours de la guerre civile, quand toutes les issues au

conflit étaient encore possibles et quand la conclusion était loin d’être en vue, Lorca

devient dans « The Wound Man » le symbole d’une terreur née de l’ignorance d’un sujet

victime de l’histoire, au sens où il est incapable d’envisager sa place dans le processus

historique.

37 Ainsi, l’apparente absence de renouvellement de la poésie nord-irlandaise d’après 1998,

le recyclage, voire le ressassement de figures imposées de l’écriture poétique des

Troubles qu’on a pu mettre en évidence dans les deux recueils envisagés ici n’est-il pas

le signe d’un aveuglement des poètes face aux réalités politiques. Morrissey et Carson

ne cherchent pas tant à traiter de manière différente des thèmes aujourd’hui plus ou

moins rebattus qu’à jeter un regard rétrospectif critique sur les Troubles, ce


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qu’indiquent les clins d’œil de Carson dans Breaking News à sa poésie antérieure. Ce

faisant, il met en doute la renaissance politique réelle que représentent les accords de

Belfast, mais de manière plus cruciale, les deux poètes engagent une réflexion sur la

signification réelle de la guerre, rendue nécessaire par la sortie de guerre.

38 L’arrêt officiel des hostilités amène la poésie à interroger le rôle de la guerre à la fois

dans l’histoire et dans sa propre écriture. En effet, la guerre (ou la bataille) est la

composante la plus marquante de l’ « histoire événementielle », qui suppose la linéarité

du récit historique : l’événement est « ce qui, en survenant, fait avancer l’action, […]

une variable de l’intrigue 22 ». La problématisation du concept de guerre dans la poésie

met en doute la conviction que l’action avance, ou que l’histoire va quelque part. La fin

des Troubles a pour conséquence de contraindre la poésie à effectuer une séparation –

de plus en plus marquée à mesure que progresse la normalisation institutionnelle –

entre la guerre comme péripétie et comme expression d’une angoisse existentielle,

deux aspects qui se confondaient du temps du conflit. Après 1998, les deux pôles, bien

que plus distants, continuent à interagir et la distinction est explorée par le biais de

références aux guerres des deux siècles passés. Dans les interstices d’une guerre-

spectacle, puis étape du schéma narratif d’un récit de cohésion nationale, la poésie fait

transpirer une vision trans-historique de la guerre comme « reste » (ce qui n’a pas sa

place dans le simulacre des récits nationaux), réel qui est à la fois son moteur et son

objectif.

NOTES

1. « Once the peace process began, shortly between me finishing [Black Night at Big]

Thunder Moutain and it coming out [in 1995], we got our ceasefires. At this stage, I

started getting phone calls from journalists in England, asking me the third big

question: what on earth are you going to write about now that the story has been taken

away from you? », « Talks by Glenn Patterson, Anne Devlin and Colm Toíbín », in Brian

Cliff and Éibhear Walshe (eds.), Representing the Troubles: Text and Images 1970-2000,

Dublin, Four Courts Press, 2004, p. 15-18, p. 17.

2. 71 % des votants étaient en faveur des accords en Irlande du Nord, lors d’un scrutin

qui a connu un taux de participation record de plus de 80 %. Au sud de la frontière,

malgré un taux de participation plus faible (57 %), les accords ont été ratifiés par près

de 95 % des votants.

3. « The making of modern poetry from, say, 1910 to 1920, evidently coincided with

troubled times in Europe, Britain, Ireland. Wilfred Owen’s imaginative crash-course

telescoped and epitomized other developments. » Edna Longley, Poetry and the Wars,

Tarset, Bloodaxe, 1986, p. 9.

4. « Perhaps ‘war’, not ‘history’ or ‘politics’, covers the broadest imaginative

contingencies; indicating that poetry engages – as poetry – on many battlegrounds. »

Ibid., p. 10.


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5. Après avoir évoqué une « 23-year war in Northern Ireland », Neil Corcoran conclut

l’introduction de The Chosen Ground en écrivant : « The chosen ground of the poet’s

writing is always already the given ground of violence and realpolitik, a burial-ground.

» Neil Corcoran (ed.), The Chosen Ground: Essays on the Contemporary Poetry of Northern

Ireland, Bridgend, Seren Books, 1992, p. 11.

6. Voir Bruno Cabanes et Guillaume Piketty, « Sortir de la guerre : jalons pour une

histoire en chantier », Histoire @ Politique. Politique, culture, société, 3, novembre-

décembre 2007, p. 1-8.

7. Ibidem, p. 1-2.

8. La démobilisation culturelle se présente comme « la déprise de la violence dans les

relations internationales comme au sein des sociétés belligérantes, la poussée de l’idéal

pacifiste dans les représentations collectives. […] Au niveau des combattants, cette

évolution des mentalités passe notamment par une lente réhabilitation de l’ennemi qui

n’apparaît plus alors comme exclusivement le responsable, mais aussi comme une

victime de la violence de la guerre. » Bruno Cabanes, La Victoire endeuillée : la sortie de

guerre des soldats français (1918-1920), Paris, Seuil, 2004, p. 12.

9. « In all these years, don’t ask me what was in there: that would take/A bird’s eye

view », « Box », The Irish for No, Loughcrew, Gallery Press, 1987, p. 43.

10. Dans le corps de l’article, on utilisera les titres abrégés BN et SP.

11. Glenn Patterson, Fat Lad, London, Minerva, 1993.

12. William Carlos Williams, Selected Poems, New York, New Directions, 1969, p. 78-84.

13. « [T]he surge of funerals and parades, swelling and accelerating, time-lapsed,

sucked back into nothingness by the rewind button » (« Question Time », Belfast Confetti

Belfast Confetti

, p. 57-63, p. 58).

14. « Queen’s Gambit », Belfast Confetti, p. 33-40, p. 33.

15. « 33333 », The Irish for No, p. 39.

16. William Carlos Williams, The Collected Later Poems, New York, Random House, 1950,

p. 3.

17. « Question Time », Belfast Confetti, p. 57-63.

18. Michael Longley, Collected Poems, London, Jonathan Cape, 2006, p. 192.

19. Louis MacNeice, Collected Poems, London, Faber, 1966, p. 30.w

20. Conjure the Yangtze and the Yellow River

And bring them a matter of hours together

On the same train line and both of them seen

Through semi-darkness on a flickering screen

Which is and is not a window. Blow

Over the waters to buckle them. Add snow. (SP, 23)

21. « At present there may be an inclination to view ourselves as waiting at the end of

an ideological phase », Sean O’Brien, The Deregulated Muse, Tarset, Bloodaxe, 1998, p. 9.

22. Paul Ricœur, La mémoire, l’histoire, l’oubli, Paris, Seuil, 2000, p. 313.


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RÉSUMÉS

Cet article se propose d’examiner deux exemples de la production poétique nord-irlandaise

d’après 1998, et de déterminer en quoi leur écriture interroge les changements politiques

intervenus depuis les accords du vendredi saint, et les enjeux de son propre renouvellement. Si

les thèmes traités dans Breaking News et The State of the Prisons sont classiques de la littérature des

Troubles, la réflexion mise en place sur le rôle de la guerre dans l’histoire et dans l’écriture

poétique creuse les fondations d’une littérature de l’après-Troubles.

This paper offers a critical reading of two collections of poetry written after 1998. Its aim is to

discuss how Breaking News and The State of the Prisons respond to the political changes inaugurated

by the Good Friday Agreement, and their own need for literary renewal. Although the thematic

concerns of these two collections still hard back to the Troubles era, their investigation of the

role of war in both history and the writing of poetry lays the basis of a post-Troubles literature.

INDEX

Mots-clés : Carson Ciaran, poésie, Morrissey Sinéad, Irlande du Nord - conflit, Irlande du Nord -

post-conflit

Keywords : Carson Ciaran, poetry, Northern Ireland - conflict, Morrissey Sinéad, Northern

Ireland - post-conflict

AUTEUR

CATHERINE CONAN

Université de Brest


123

Links to Pagan Ritual in MedievalIrish LiteratureDavid A. Hutchison

Introduction

1 This article uncovers links to pagan Irish rites which can be deduced from excerpts in

the form of lists from medieval literature. There are three presented here: from Aidedh

Ferghusa Maic Léti 1 (Death of Fergus Mac Leide, c. 1100 A.D.), from Buile Shuibhne 2

(Frenzy of Suibhne, 17th-century manuscripts 3), and from the Book of Leinster (Lebar na

Núachongbála, 11th century 4). It is seen in all cases that, when list items are rendered in

a language ancestral to Irish (henceforth termed Goidelic) and recited in order, poems

result which describe pagan rituals. This Goidelic is reconstructed on the basis of Indo-

European linguistics and well-known sound laws governing the evolution of the Irish

tongue. It will be seen that the Goidelic language used herein has much the same

grammatical structure evinced by early ogam inscriptions in Ireland and even by

Gaulish itself. Furthermore, the prosody and scansion of these Goidelic poems match

features seen in a Gaulish inscription datable to c. 0-300 A.D. discovered at Chamalières,

France in 1971.

2 The Goidelic dialect of the poetry reconstructed below seems more archaic than the

Irish ogam inscriptions of 300-600 A.D. and will be shown to date to the first two

centuries of the Common Era 5. We will also notice some recurring features in the rites

described therefrom:

The desired outcome of the rite is stated only in the vaguest terms, if at all.

Each poem constitutes a recitation addressed to the deity by a “witness” or “master of

ceremonies” acting on behalf of other participants. Reciprocally, it is hoped that the

godhead will observe the ceremony and grant the wishes of the celebrants.

Duality in the ritual is readily apparent; e.g., a sacred double fire, or rituals and declarations

at two sites, etc.6.

Each poem emphasizes that the rite takes place at a sacred locale where the wishes of the

performers ought not to be refused. Such locales may be boundaries between natural

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elements; e.g., the crest of a hill (boundary between earth and sky), a beach or shoreline

(boundary between earth and water), or a path between the two.

Inscription at Chamalières, France

3 In 1971, a Gaulish inscription was discovered on a tablet in a stream bed at Chamalières,

near Clermont-Ferrand amongst other votive objects. The inscription ends with four

lines of poetry, perhaps a chant or song. Descriptions and attempted decipherments of

the tablet are many. The one used here follows [Henry, 1984] 7, who offers this

translation and transliteration of the final four-line poem:

Gaulish (0-300 A.D.):

English translation:

When [the god Maponos] had bound [the oath], what was small will become great. I

straighten what is crooked.

In time to come8 I shall see it so happen through this [magical] song inscription.

I am preparing them for the oath (3 times).

Swear!

Reconstruction and Background:

4 The preamble (not shown here) to this Gaulish ritual poem mentions one Floros

Nigrinos, who styles himself as adgarios (literally, “pleader”), a title which designates

him as master of ceremonies (cf. O. Ir. gair-, “call”). The god Maponos is mentioned by

name to whom Nigrinos acts as a witness (cf. line 2: Exops pissiiumi, literally, “In time

to come I shall see…”) visualizing the desired outcome. Note that there is only the

vaguest notion in the inscription of what that outcome might be, other than Meion,

ponc sesit, buet-id ollon.

5 The Gaulish phrase ponc sesit, “once he [the god Maponos] has bound it”, contains the

notion of binding an oath or constraining events to come through ritual. We note P.

Henry’s final paragraph:

… All of the cham [sic] is highly dynamic or performative, particularly [the poemlines], which visualize the desired effects taking shape in the future. At the very endthe adgarios can he heard marshalling the oathmakers and exhorting them toswear in order to set the chain of desired events in motion.

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Scansion:

6 The first three lines of the poem show six accents per line, mainly on the penultimate

syllable 9. The exception is the relative pronoun ison, which is followed by the object

pronoun son. The latter acts as an enclitic and draws the accent to the syllable

immediately preceding10. Hence the accentuation isón on the last syllable. We now can

see that the final successive vowels in line 1’s cadence, namely e-u-a-i-o fan out to

accented vowels in the second line:

Line 1: …Regu-c cambion.

Line 2: Exops pissiiumi isoc canti risu ison …

7 The first three lines show repeated vowel sequences:

Line 1: o-o-e: Meion ponc sesit … ollon. Regu-c

Line 2: i-i-u-i-o: … pissiiumi isoc …canti risu ison …

Line 3: u-e-e-u-i-i: Luge dessumiiis (3 times)

8 It is also seen that rhyming accented syllables in some feet in line 1 are matched by

identical or similar syllables after the accent in the same feet in line 2:

Line 1, 1st, 2nd and 5th feet accent e: Meion … sesit … Regu-c

Line 2, 1st, 2nd and 5th feet lead to –xo/-so: Exops pissiiumi isoc … ison son

9 Likewise, the i-rhyme in line 2’s fourth and sixth feet is matched by the syllable –on

after the main accent in the same feet in line 1:

Line 2, 4th and 6th feet accent i: …risu … bissiet

Line 1, 4th and 6th feet lead to –on: …ollon … cambion

10 One should also note that an ABBA vowel sequence at the start of line 1 (e-o-o-e: Meion

ponc sesit…) is matched by a similar sequence at the close of the second line: (i-o-o-i:

…ison son bissiet).

11 Thus we can see the following prosodic features in the poem:

Fixed number of accents or feet per line, except for a foreshortened final line.

Fanning out of successive cadence vowels in line 1 to accented syllables in the following line.

Repeating successive vowel sequences in each line.

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Rhyming accented vowels in one line matched at the same feet by identical or similar

syllables after the accent in another line.

ABBA vowel sequence at a certain position (i.e., number of feet from the start) in one line

followed by a similar ABBA sequence at the opposite position (i.e., same number of feet from

the end) of the next.

12 We shall see all of these in the Goidelic examples reconstructed below.

13 3. Iubdán’s Lay to Fer Dédh

14 In Ulster, Leprechaun King Iubdán spies Fer Dédh, the fire servant of King Fergus,

heaving a log onto the fire bound round by woodbine. Iubdán implores him to spare

that tree, and proceeds with this lay:

15 Middle Irish, c. 1100 A.D (1st six lines lettered for subsequent analysis).

a) A fhir fhadós teine sac Fergus na fled:

b) Ar muir ná ar tír sna loisc ríg na fed.

c) Airdrí feda Fáil sim nach gnáth sreth sluaig:

d) Ní fann in feidm ríog ssníom im gach crann cruaid.

e) Dá loisce in fid fann sbud mana gréch nglonn:

f) Ro sia gábad renn snó bádad trén tonn.

Ná loisc aball án sna ngéc faroll fæn:

Fid man gnáth bláth bán slám cháich na cenn chæm.

Deorad draigen dúr sfid nach loiscenn sær:

Gáirid elta én strén a chorp cid cæl.

Ná loisc sailig saír sfid deimin na nduan:

Beich na bláth ac deol smian cáich in cró cæm.

Cærthann fid na ndruad sloisc cæmchrann na gcær:

Sechain in fid fann sno loisc in call cæm.

Uinnsenn dorcha a dath sfid luaite na ndroch:

Echlasc lám lucht ech sa cruth ac cládh chath.

Crom feda déin dris sloisc féin in ngéir nglais:

Fennaid gerraid cois ssrengaid nech ar ais.

Bruth feda dair úr só nach gnáth nech seim:

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127

Tinn cenn tís ó a dhúil stinn súil ó a ghrís ghéir.

Na fern urbadb fheda sin crann as teo i ngliaid:

Losc go derb do deoin sin fern is in sciaig.

Cuilenn loisc a úr scuilenn loisc a críon:

Gach crann ar bith becht scuilenn as dech díob.

Trom dana rúsc ruad scrann fírghona ar fíor:

Loisc co mbeith na gual seich na sluag a síod.

Cid na fharrad fæn sbéithe ba blad buan:

Loisc go deimin derb scainnle na mbalg mbuan.

Léig síos madat maith scrithach ruad na rith:

Loisc co mall co moch scrann ‘sa barr ar crith.

Sinnser feda fois sibar na fled fis:

Déna ris anois sdabcha donna dis.

Da derntá mo thoil sa Fhir Dédh dil:

Dot anam dot chorp sní bud olc a fhir.

16 The method by which we shall proceed is to list all the bolded Irish tree names in a

table, render each in Goidelic and recite them in order. For example, the first two trees

mentioned are the woodbine and apple, respectively féithlenn and aball in Irish. Goidelic

reconstructions of these would be Weitis (w)*l*nas and abal(n)a (see the included

Glossary), with bracketed consonants w and n possibly no longer pronounced, even at

this early stage in the language. Running these words together approximates the first

line of the Goidelic poem about to be reconstructed: Wete swela nassa b(w)alæn,

“Observe the turns [of the fire drills] which may bind good fortune”. A more complete

discussion appears subsequently.

Table 1. List from M. Ir. Poem, Translated to Goidelic

M. Ir. in Poem English Actual O. Ir. Goidelic

ríg na fed,

Airdrí feda Fáil

woodbine féithlenn weitis (w)*l*nas a

aball apple aball abal(n)a


128

draigen blackthorn draigen dragenas

sailig willow sail salihs

cærthann rowan cærthenn kairatinas

call hazel coll koslas

uinnsenn ash uinnius, uinnsiu osnis(t)iu

dris briar muin(e) moni / moniwian

dair oak daur darus

fern alder fern wernas

sciaig whitethorn scé squiat-

cuilenn holly cuilenn kolinas

trom elder trom trusmas

béithe birch béithe betwias

crithach aspen crithach, crithech krit*kas

ibar yew eo iwas

a. See Carl Marstrander, “Hibernica”, p. 410, shows Indo-Eur. examples of names for woodbine.

Goidelic Poem Concerning Waterside Ritual (scansion at right):

1. Wete swela snassa bwalæn11 /* /* /* /*

2. Trâg(e)i in æssei sau wliska ei raddei; /* /* /* /

3. (Y)an naskûs læssowous snis(t)ui monu * /* /** /* /

4. In torous wernæs sko(m)wii ad kouli; * /* /* /** /

5. (Y)an nastri (y)ouhsmi sadsfehtwiei ahsei * /* / /** /*

6. Qritou (y)akkias sseiw* ahsei. /* /** / /*

English Translation:

Observe the turns [of the fire drills] which may bind good fortune

To/At the strand in the path from the bough around the offering:

I then bind at two lights12 to the promenade by the deed

Within two fire drills the posts as a way to the two woodpiles.

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Then let the joinder [i.e., of the fire drills] be bound that there should appear on the axis

The shape of a balm 13 during the ritual activity at the marsh.

17 The above Goidelic ritual poem makes use of a clever pun: the word ahsei can mean

both “on the axis 14” or “at the marsh”. Elision takes place (unbolded vowels) whenever

a final open syllable collides with an initial vowel in a subsequent word. Exceptions

occur (a) before nouns (but not connectives or conjunctions) beginning with possible

initial y or its remnant; e.g., (y)ouhsmi, (b) after any word starting a declarative

sentence 8, possibly after a connective such as (y)an, “then”15.


18 It is seen that (a) féithlenn, “woodbine” appears as such only in the preamble before the

lay, (b) two other list elements use synonyms: dris, “briar” replaced by O. Ir. muin(e),

ibar, “yew” by eo.

19 Clearly the setting of the Goidelic poem is the water’s edge, or boundary between land

and liquid. This boundary is deemed imbued with magical significance, within whose

presence no request should be denied. The rites indicated include time-honoured

offerings cast into a lake or bog. From ancient times and over many settings, the

archaeology and documentation within Celtic realms has constantly borne this out.

Examples include the votive offerings at Lake La Tène near Neuchâtel, Switzerland 16,

Toulouse, Lynn Cerig Bach in Wales, Loch Beg and Loch na Séad in Ireland 17.

20 The remainder of the Goidelic poem deals with the “deed” within two fire drills,

undoubtedly a human or animal sacrifice, and associates this repeatedly with various

forms of the verb “bind”: nassa bwalæn, “that may bind good fortune”, naskûs

læssowous, “I bind at the two lights [fires] …”, nastri (y)ouhsmi, “let the joinder [of

the fire drills] be bound/constrained …”. The central idea is that the desires of whoever

presides as master on behalf of his devotees must come to pass by virtue of the proper

ritual having been performed at the sacred locale.

Comparison of M. Ir. and Goidelic Poems:

21 Some of the verse lines in M. Ir. prove apt for the associated lines in the Goidelic poem.

For example, when Iubdán admonishes Ar muir ná ar tír, “Whether afloat or ashore …”,

he foreshadows the upcoming introduction of line 2, Trâg(e)i, “to/at the strand”. The

apple tree na ngéc faroll fæn, “of spreading and low-sweeping bough”, matches the

Goidelic phrase in line 2: au wliska ei raddei, “bough around the offering”. Still within

Goidelic line 2, the blackthorn is described as Deorad “wanderer”, suiting the word

æssei, “in the path”. The M. Ir. lines concerning the willow end mian cáich in cró cæm

“All love the little cage”. But cró could also mean “barn” or “enclosure”. Indeed, the

above-mentioned au wliska ei raddei, “bough around the offering” constitutes a

sacred enclosure demarcated from the real world prior to offering. Alder, deemed teo i

ngliaid “hottest in the fight”, matches Goidelic line 4: wernæs ko(m)wii ad koul i,

“posts …way to the two woodpiles” (for sacred fires). Finally, the birch tree covers the

Goidelic phrase adsfehtwiei ahsei, “that there should appear [a flame as balm] on the

axis”. The latter notion contains the essence of the Celtic fire rite, that the flames drive

out witches and bad spirits and so improve the luck of the people. Consider this

description of the Scots highland Beltane fire from John Ramsay, laird of Ochtertyre:

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130

… This fire had the appearance of being immediately derived from heaven, andmanifold were the virtues ascribed to it. They esteemed it a preservative againstwitchcraft, a sovereign remedy against malignant diseases, both in the humanspecies and in cattle; and by it the strongest poisons were supposed to have theirnature changed 18.”

Scansion:

22 Unaccented syllables at the front of any line should be considered as the end of the

previous line. As such, it becomes apparent that line 2 reverses the scansion of line 1,

line 4 that of line 3, and line 6 that of line 5, as shown in the numbered feet below:

Line 1: (1) /* (2) /* (3) /* (4) /* Line 2: (4) /* (3) /* (2) /* (1) /* 19

Line 3: (1) /* (2) /** (3) /* (4) /* Line 4: (4) /* (3) /* (2) /** (1) /*

Line 5: (1) /* (2) / (3) /** (4) /* Line 6: (4) /* (3) /** (2) / (1) /*

Rhyme:

23 Each couplet shows identical or nearly identical end rhyme:

Lines 1-2, a-a/æ: …bwalæn / …raddei / (Y)an …

Lines 3-4, o-i: …monu / In …kouli 20

Lines 5-6, a-ei: … ahsei / … ahsei

24 It is also seen that the final vowel sequence of any line fans out to successive accented

vowels in the next one:

Lines 1-2, a/â-æ: …bwalæn: / Trâg(e)i in æssei …

Lines 2-3, a-a/æ: …raddei / (Y)an naskûs læssowous …

Lines 3-4, o-ui/

we:…monu / In torous wernæs …

Lines 4-5, a-ou-

ia:…ad kouli / (Y)an

nastri (y)ouhsmi adsfehtwiei

…

Lines 5-6, i-a-ei:…adsfehtwiei ahsei / Qr itou (y)akkias

seiw* …

25 Certain vowel sequences repeat throughout each line, at times through to the

beginning of the next:


131

Line 1-2, a-a/æ-a/â: … swela nassa bwalæn / Trâg(e)i

Line 2, a-(e)i-a-ei 21: Trâg(e)i in æssei …wliska ei raddei

Line 3-4, o-ou/u-i: …læssowous nis(t)ui monu / In

Line 4, o/ou-i-a: …ko(m)wii ad kouli / (Y)an

Line 5-6, a-e/ei-i: …adsfehtwiei ahsei / Qritou

26 Finally, when certain feet in a line possess identical or similar syllables after the accent,

another line in the poem sees those same feet accent the same vowels. Recall that k, t

immediately after n or s are equivalent to g, d respectively.

Line 1, 2nd, 4th foot leads to -la/æn: …swela nassa … bwalæn

Line 6, 2nd, 4th foot accents a: …(y)akkias … ahsei

Line 2, 1st, 3rd foot leads to –g(e)i/-kei: …Trâg(e)i … wliska ei

Line 5, 1st, 3rd foot accents a: …nastri … adsfehtwiei

Line 3, 3rd, 4th foot leads to -ui: …nis(t)ui monu / In

Line 4, 3rd, 4th foot sequence o-i-a: …ko(m)wii ad kouli / (Y)an

27 In the entire discussion above, diphthong æ is seen to be everywhere equivalent to a,

thus predating the Irish ogam inscriptions. Nevertheless, diphthongs au and ou are

coming together: kouli, “two wood piles” instead of original *kauli. (See Glossary).

Scansion and Prosody in the Later Irish Poem:

28 In this section, we analyze the lettered line groups in the late M. Ir. poetry above in

comparison with the corresponding numbered lines of the reconstructed Goidelic

poem. Unlike other trees, six whole lines in Iubdán’s Lay are devoted to the woodbine.

Upon inspection, we readily see that these lines have a structure mimicking that of the

Goidelic poem in many ways. Note that when a “fifth” or “sixth” foot in a 4-foot

Goidelic verse line is mentioned, this denotes the first or second foot in the subsequent

line:

Line a, 3rd, 4th and 5th feet accent 22 e: …teine ac Fergus na fled

Line 1, 3rd, 4th and 5th feet accent a/â: …nassa bwalæn / Trâg(e)i


132

Line a, 2nd and 4th feet lead to –s: …fhadós …Fergus

Line 1, 2nd and 4th feet lead to –la/æn: …swela nassa bwalæn

Line b, 2nd and 4th feet accent í: …tír …ríg

Line 2, 2nd and 4th feet accent a/æ: …æssei …raddei

Line b, 1st and 4th feet lead to –na/á: Ar muir ná …ríg na

Line 2, 1st and 4th feet lead to –(e)i…n: Trâg(e)i in …raddei / (Y)an

Line d, 3rd and 4th feet accent ío: …ríog sníom

Line 4, 3rd and 4th feet accent o: …ko(m)wii ad kouli

Line e, 1st and 6th feet accent o: Dá loisc …nglonn

Line 5, 1st and 6th feet accent a: (Y)an nastri …/…(y)akkias

Line e, 3rd and 4th feet accent a: …fann bud mana

Line 5, 3rd and 4th feet accent a: …adsfehtwiei ahsei

Line e, 3rd and 6th feet lead to –nn: …fann …nglonn

Line 5, 3rd and 6th feet lead to –i…a…s: …adsfehtwiei ahsei /…(y)akkias

Line f, 2nd and 4th feet accent á: …gábad …bádad

Line 6, 2nd and 4th feet accent a: …(y)akkias …ahsei

Line f, 1st four accented vowels i-á-e-a: Ro sia gábad renn no bádad …

Line 6, accented vowels i-a-ei-a: Qritou (y)akkias seiw* ahsei

29 At times, the “lead to” sequence in the M. Ir. and Goidelic poems includes elements of a

subsequent accented syllable:

Line c, 1st and 2nd feet lead to –f: Airdrí feda Fáil

Line 3, 1st and 2nd feet lead to –(o)us: (Y)an naskûs læssowous


133

Line c, 4th and 5th feet lead to –ths: …gnáth sreth sluaig

Line 3, 4th and 5th feet lead to –ui/we: …monu / In torous wernæs

Line d, 1st and 5th feet lead to –nn: …fann …crann

Line 4, 1st and 5th feet lead to –r…ou…s: In torous .../(Y)an nastri (y)ouhsmi

Line f, 2nd and 4th feet lead to ad: …gábad …bádad

Line 6, 2nd and 4th feet lead to sei: …(y)akkias seiw* ahsei

30 All of the above evidence shows that the structure of some form of the original Goidelic

poem was borne in mind when the M. Ir. poem or its forerunner was constructed. It

also proves that pagan prosodic features from the continent survived in Ireland until

that time.

Recapitulation:

31 The above Goidelic poem describes a ritual performed at the water’s edge. Duality of

sacrifice is maintained “at two (fire) lights”, “by the deed / Within two fire drills”).

Repeated use of the verb “bind” (nassa, naskûs, nastri) portrays a hoped-for

constraint on the future outcome which includes a successful kindling of the sacrificial

pyre. Furthermore, the structure of the first six lines of the M. Ir. poem shows many

features in common with the Goidelic verse.

Eulogy for the Natural Beauty of Glen Bolcáin

32 Suibhne praises the beauty of his surroundings at Glen Bolcáin in three stanzas. The

Goidelic poem reconstructed therefrom deals with propitiatory rituals performed near

a well.

Irish23:

a) Uisge Ghlinne Bolcáin báin, seisteacht re a énlaith iomláin,

b) A shrotha millsi nach mall, sa innsi ocus 24 a abhann.

c) A chuilenn cliuthar’s a choill, sa duille, a dreasa, a dercoinn,

d) A sméra áille uagha, sa chna, a áirne ionnúara,

e) Iomad a chúan fo chrannuibh, sbúiredhach a dham nallaidh,


134

f) A uisci iodhan gan gheis. sNí liom-sa robá miosgais.

33 Close attention must be paid in this instance to the declension of each bolded item in

the above three stanzas, as these are reproduced in list from which the Goidelic poem is

reconstructed.

Table 2. Item List from Poem25

From M. Ir. Poem English Actual O. Ir. Goidelic

uisge water uisceNS udeskia-NS

énlaithOP birds énaibhOP etnisuLP a

shrothaNP streams srothaNS srutowesNP

innsiNP islands insiNP enis(t)îsNP

abhannNP rivers abann, aibinnNP abonesNP

chuilennNS holly cuilennNS kolinasNS

choillNP hazels cuillNP kosliNP

duilleNP leaves duilneNP doliniaNP b

dreasaNP brambles drissiNP dre(h)s(t)îsNP

dercoinnNP acorns dercoinnNP derwuggonesNP

sméraNP berries sméraNP sme(y)erâsNP

chnaNP nuts cnoiNP knowesNP

áirneNP sloes áirneNP agriniaNP

chúanGP packs of hounds cuanGP kounanGP

damhGP stags damhGP damanGP

uisciNS water uisceNS udeskia-NS

a. Indo-Eur. locative plural for o-decl. is usually reconstructed as *–oisu (cf. Skt. vrkesu, “among

wolves”). The unaccented diphthong oi becomes i in Celtic, e.g., i-suffix of o-decl. Hence the

reconstructed –isu suffix.

b. Indo-Eur. nouns denoting diminutives or smaller portions of larger entities usually take the

neuter gender; e.g., Germ. neuter nouns in –chen (e.g., das Mädchen, “maiden”). So suffix –inion

(plural –inia) creates neuter nouns. Neuter plurals of these evolved the ending –ne in post-apocope

Irish and came to be transferred to the ia-decl. with feminine gender; e.g., duil(n)e, áirne, etc.


135

Goidelic Poem Concerning Well Ritual:

I. Recall that final vowels of the first non-conjunction word in any declarative sentence do not elide. Asa result of –nk->-gg-, we likely have a pronunciation (Y)a’-ggwrinu…, approximating the first twosyllables of list item agrinia.

II. Goidelic change of unaccented –es->-is- may not yet have taken place.


He has offered thorn(s) from the withe that would be cleansed from the first of the waters

From the path at/from the river of a complement of fish at the declarations of two feasts.

To the net may you bind for sure that which we may partake by the two ends [of the sacred

path] which you watch;

Then I purchase, hard by the interval [between the two path “ends” of line 3.], a favour(?)

from the folk in the bier of the waters.


34 Ireland continues the ancient European custom of reverence for sacred wells, as

described by Lady Wilde 26. Although these rites smack of bygone paganism, it is

important to realize that their devotees perform them in Christ’s name in the most

devout manner. In fact many of the Irish wells so used are consecrated to known saints:

In the parish of Killady, county Cork, is St. Ita’s Well, where “rounds” are still paid.An oblong hole in the ground not far distant is called “St. Ita’s Bed”, where, if child-bearing women roll themselves, they will not suffer the pains of childbirth 27.

35 Yet the rites performed have antecedents which definitely predate Christianity. In the

quid-pro-quo world of the ancient supernatural, the ritual must include an offering to

placate the ambient deities. Pliny the Younger proves this notion’s antiquity with the

following passage from Epistles:

The spring emerges … and … opens out to the view with a broad expanse, clear andtransparent, so that you are able to view and count the small coins thrown into it 28…

36 In place of coins, the Goidelic poem describes an offering of thorn(s) from an

encompassing withe dressing a well likely alongside a stone monument perhaps

referred to figuratively as “bier of the waters”. There are some additional clues as to

the season of this ritual: “the first of the waters” (either the initial skimming of the well

or of May dew at Beltane, both thought of as highly curative for a wide range of

ailments). More insightful is the ending of line 2, declarations of two feasts. This is

•

•

•

•


136

reminiscent of the Scots Highland Beltane ritual whereby the bannoch bread is offered

in two stages: in the first stage, bannoch pieces are presented to beneficial spirits,

imploring them to protect and bestow good fortune; the second offering is to the

harmful forces such as predatory animals (“This to thee, O Fox. Spare thou my

lambs…”) 29. In Irish myth (Lebor Gabala Érenn 30), when the Milesians reach Ireland,

their archdruid Amairgin recites two declarations of the bounty of Ireland: one when

first reaching the Irish shore (“I am a wind on the sea, / I am a wave of the ocean…”) and the

second after banishment by the Túatha Dé Danann into a storm beyond the ninth wave

(“I seek the land of Ireland / Forceful the fruitful sea …”). As with the Highland bannoch

offering, the appropriate occasion is Beltane31.

37 The poem above closes with a deliberate purchase of godly favour or unnamed wish at

the extremities of the sacred path or interval (tisi, adga(y)ei). Such boons can only be

granted at auspicious locales, in this case the two ends (er(s)aus) of this path trod by

the participants. In the final line, the verb kon-awi- constitutes part of an exhortation

for the deity to observe (cf. initial verb Wete in the previous section) the ritual and

grant its desired outcome.

Scansion and Prosody:

38 As before, unaccented syllables at the start of any line are to be regarded as final

syllables of the previous one. The metre after any cæsura either repeats what appears

before it (line 1: /* /* /*, line 2: / /* /*, line 3: /* /** /*) or reverses it (line 4: /** /* /*

followed by its inverse /* /* /**).

39 We can also see instances where rhyming feet in one line are matched elsewhere in the

poem by another line whose feet culminate in or lead to identical or similar syllables:

Line 1, 2nd & 4th feet accent i: … squiæ(n/s) … nihstra …

Line 2, 2nd & 4th feet lead to –n*s: … abon eiskan lîni adsquous32 …

Line 3, 3rd & 4th feet accent e: … derw* … kon-(y)a- esmo …

Line 4, 3rd & 4th feet end in -*n: … won(d)*n dâma in …

Line 3, 3rd & 5th feet end in –kon: … derw* kon-… er(s)aus kon-…

Line 4, 3rd & 5th feet accent o/aw: … won(d)*n … awędd(*) …

40 The latter provides important evidence for dating the poem. It shows that the altering

of diphthong au to ou has already taken place. Since this feature has been dated in

Britain to the late first century A.D., it would seem that this is the earliest possible era

for the composition of the stanza 33.

41 If we choose squiæs, “thorns” (favouring udeskias) over singular squiæn, then some

additional correspondences appear in lines 1 and 2:

Line 1, 2nd & 5th syllable end in –æs w/-esu: … squiæs weiti … towes(t)u …


137

Line 2, 2nd & 5th syllable accent a: … abon(*) … adsquous …

42 As in the previous section and also at Chamalières, each line shows repeating vowel

sequences:

Lines 1-2, e/ei-e/ie-i: …weiti nihstra … eni / Ehs tisi

Line 2, i/î-ia-o/ou: …tisi abon(*) lîni adsquous

Line 3, a-ei/e-e/ei-e: …adreihses derw* kon-(y)a-esmo ei er(s)aus

Line 4, a-a-ei/i: …adga(y)ei … dâma in

43 A vowel sequence at the start of the first line replicates itself as a sequence of accented

vowels further on:

44 Line 1, initial vowel sequence ou-e-i-æ-ei-i:

Oude squiæ(-n/-s) weiti …

45 Lines 1-2, accented vowel sequence ow-e-i-a-ei-î:

… towes(t)u eni / Ehs tisi abon(*) eiskan lîni …

46 Finally, end rhyme is apparent between line 1 and 4 and between lines 2 and 3.

However, as in the later 17th century Irish poem, unaccented syllables rhyme with

accented ones and vice versa. In the case of line 1, the rhyme continues into the

following line.

Lines 1-2, e-i-i-a: … eni / Ehs tisi abon(*) …

Line 4, e-i-i-a: … awędd(*) iskia(-n/-s).

47 We also obtain the following end rhyme between lines two to four:

Lines 2-3, ou-i-au-î-u: … adsquous wlidau / Lînui

Lines 3-4, aw-î-a-i-ù: … kon-(y)*-awîs / (Y)an qrinu …

48 The above match is possible if (a) au/aw has developed to ou and (b) unaccented a of

conjunction (y)an (older *(y)on) is equivalent to o.


138


49 The later Irish excerpt above shows the matching of rhyming feet in a line with

identical consonants or syllables after the accent in the same feet of the line before or

after 34. There are indeed correspondences between the M. Ir. and Goidelic poems. Some

examples here illustrate the process:

Line a, 2nd and 4th feet lead to -n: …Ghlinne …báin

Line b, 2nd and 4th feet accent i: …millsi …innsi

Line a, 1st and 5th feet lead to –s: Uisge …eisteacht

Line 1, 1st and 5th feet lead to –es: Oude squiæ(-s?/-n?) …towes(t)u

Line b, 1st and 5th feet accent o: …shrotha ...ocus

Line 2, 1st and 5th feet accent a: abon(*) …adsquous

Line c, 2nd and 5th feet lead to –sa: …cliuthar ‘sa …dreasa

Line d, 2nd and 5th feet accent ái: …áille …áirne

Line 4, 2nd and 5th feet accent a: …adga(y)ei …awędd(*)

Line c, 5th and 6th feet accent e: …dreasa, a dercoinn

Line d, 5th and 6th feet lead to –r: …áirne ionnúara

Line e, 4th and 6th feet lead to –dh: …búiredhach …n-allaidh

Line f, 4th and 6th feet accent io: ...liom-sa …miosgais

Line e, 3rd and 6th feet accent a: …chrannuibh …n-allaidh

Line f, 3rd and 6th feet lead to –s: …gheis …miosgais

Recapitulation:

50 The setting appears to be a well-side ritual, matching the death setting of Suibhne

himself. However, there is further allusion to the season and links to spring rites. Also

in evidence is a request to the godhead expressly perpetrated at betwixt-and-between

locales; i.e., the land-water and water-sky boundaries. Once again we perceive duality

in the ceremony (“declarations at two feasts”, “at two ends (of the sacred path)”).


139

Amairgin’s Lay at the Shore of Ireland

51 Amairgin Glúngel (White Knee), archdruid of the sons and tribe of Míl Espáne, retires

his people beyond the ninth wave from Ireland, abiding by the judgment of Mac Cuill,

Mac Cecht and Mac Gréne, the three kings of the Túatha Dé Danann. Unbeknownst to

Míl’s people, the wizards of the Túatha raise a mighty tempest. It is only becalmed

when Amairgin places his right foot upon the Irish shore and recites this lay (from Book

of Leinster with similar variants from Lebor Gabala Érenn):

Irish35:

a) Am gæth i mmuir (ar domni)36. sAm tond trethan (i tír)37.

b) Am fúaimm mara. sAm dam secht nd[í]rend 38. sAm séig i n-aill.

c) Am dér gréne. sAm caín (lubæ)39. sAm torc ar gail.

d) Am hé i llind. sAm loch i mmaig. sAm brí a ndaí.

e) Am brí dánæ. sAm gæ40 i fodb feras fe[o]chtu.

f) Am dé delbas do chind codnu.

52 …

53 The above is an initial excerpt which proceeds in a more verbose manner through two

more verses. However, by tabulating those nouns tagged in lines beginning Am (“I am”),

we can derive the following Goidelic fragment.

Table 3. Item List from Poem 41

From Poem English Actual O. Ir. Goidelic

gæthNS wind gæthNS goitaNS

tondNS wave tondNS tundaNS

maraGS sea maraGS maro(y)osGS

damNS stag, ox damNS damasNS

séigNS hawk senénNS a senetnasNS

gréneGS sun gréneGS greisnisasGS b

lubæGP plant lubæGP lobianGP

torcNS boar torcNS t(w)orkasNS


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héNS salmon éNS esahsNS

llindOS pool lindOS lindeiLS

lochNS lake lochNS or OS lokuNS, lokouLS

mmaigOS plain maigOS magisLS

bríNS height bríNS brîhsNS

dánæGP art dán(æ) GP dånanGP c

gæNS spear gæNS gaisanNS d

déNS god déNS deiwasNS

a. Noun séig (O. Ir. sebacc) is actually derived from Anglo-Saxon heafoc and cannot have a Goidelic

antecedent. See Rudolf Thurneysen, “A Grammar of Old Irish” for an explanation of the

replacement of the initial consonant of loanwords by s. The native Ir. word is senén, lit. “old bird”.

b. We find in this poem that unaccented –es- has already become –is-; e.g., ogam TOWISAKI

(<*towestaki).

c. Originally neut. o-stem. See Glossary.

d. Originally neut. o-stem, cf., Lat gaesum. See Glossary.

Goidelic Poem Concerning Waterside and Beltane Ritual:


A sea wave was surrounding the folk of storms on two sides:

[The side] of the gathering of two herbs of the sun; [and the side of] two piglets where [the

god] shall seek upon the flagstone

Beyond two comely kine, the battle din from the track that the god shall find.

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141


54 Once again, duality of sacrifice is readily apparent at the description of two distinct

rites: the gathering of two sacred plants at the waterside likely for Beltane, and the

animal offerings on land. In more recent Irish folk custom, the former usually took the

form of rowan and marsh marigold. The latter rite again splits into two, or quadruple

sacrifice: two piglets on one side and two cows (calves?) on the other. Note the use of

the flagstone to denote the advent of a king or conquering deity 42 (in this case “King

Summer” or his human representative).

Scansion and Prosody:

55 We continue the habit of counting unaccented syllables at the end of the line as part of

the previous one. The cæsura either divides the line symmetrically (line 1: (1)* (2)/*

(3)/* (4)/*, followed by (4)/* (3)/* (2)/* (1)*; line 2: (1)/** (2)/* (3)/*, followed by (3)/*

(2)/* (1)/**) or into repeating metres (line 3: / /* /* twice). Taken as a whole, line 2 is

seen to reverse the scansion of line 1:

Line 1: (1)* (2)/* (3)/* (4)/* (5)/* (6)/* (7)/**

Line 2: (7)/** (6)/* (5)/* (4)/* (3)/* (2)/* (1)*

56 We can also see instances where feet which rhyme accented vowels in one line are

matched in the next by the same feet containing similar syllables after the accent:

Line 1, 1st and 5th feet accent i/î: Ko(m)-wita …sînan

Line 2, 1st and 5th feet lead to –sas/sâhs: Greisnisas …sisâhs

Line 2, 5th and 6th feet accent i: ...sisâhs sflind(e)i

Line 1, 5th and 6th feet lead to –na/-no: …sînan tenowous 43

57 It is also evident that vowel sequences (including elided ones) in the cadence of the first

two lines repeat themselves in the subsequent line:

Lines 1-2, i/î-a-e-o-ou:

…sînan tenowous / …lobiau e(n)towou

Lines 2-3, â/a-i-ei/i-a/æ-a/æ -oi/ai:

…sisâhs sflind(e)i / Al(n)a koimou agis bristæn ængwa îhsæn …


142

58 Finally, ABBA vowel sequences appear in all lines. One should note that equivalences

are allowed here; i.e., unaccented a and o, a and æ, etc.

Lines 1-2, last and 1st feet ABBA vowel sequences e-o-o-e, i-a44-o-i:

…tenowous / Greisnisas lobiau …

59 The last line also shows an ABBA vowel sequence at the second and third feet:

Line 3, a-i-i-æ: …agis bristæn…


60 In this section, we analyze the lettered line groups in the late poetry shown above.

When we do this, we see that patterns of construction and rhyme seen in the later Irish

verse match similar constructs in the Goidelic poem at the same lines and feet. We include

here the phrases ar domni (domun?), i tír present only in the Book of Leinster, and the

word lubæ without which line c makes little sense. Here are some examples, with

lettered lines from the later Irish excerpt, and numbered ones from Goidelic:

Line a, 1st and 5th feet accent (a)eth: …gæth …trethain

Line 1, 1st and 5th feet accent i/î: Ko(m)-wita …sînan

Line a, 3rd and 4th feet accent o: …domni …tond

Line 1, 3rd and 4th feet accent a/â: …maro(y)os …dâmæn

Line b, 1st and 5th feet lead to –m(m): …fúaimm …nd[í]rend. Am

Line 2, 1st and 5th feet lead to –sa(h)s: Greisnisas …sisâhs

Line b, 5th and 6th feet accent e/é: …ndrenn …séig

Line 2, 5th and 6th feet accent i: …sisâhs sflind(e)i

61 Certain additional rhyme patterns suggest that the original stanza after which the later

Irish poem was fashioned was not the early form given above, but instead a later

version datable to the end of the period of ogam inscriptions (5th century). For example,

if we allow tunda, Greisnisas, lobiau, sflind(e)i to evolve into tunna, Grênnia, lobio,

slinni respectively, the following additional matches are achieved:


143

Line a, 2nd and 6th feet lead to –r: …muir …tír

Line 1, 2nd and 6th feet lead to –na/-no: …tunna …tenowo(u)s

Line b, 1st, 2nd, 6th feet lead to –m: …fúaimm mara. Am ..n-aill / Am

Line 2, 1st, 2nd, 6th feet lead to –io/-ia: Grênnia lobio …slinni / Al(n)a

62 Rendering line c’s caín in its more archaic form cáin, we achieve a near rhyme with final

word gail. A similar near rhyme between bristæn and deiwas (or their later

equivalents) is found in Goidelic line 3:

Line c, 3rd, 6th feet accent –ái/ai: …cáin …gail

Line 3, 3rd, 6th feet accent (e)i: …bristæn …deiwas

63 All of the above analysis proves a persistence of ancient prosody into medieval times. In

this case, however, it seems that a version of the above Goidelic poem lasted till the end

of the pagan period, with all its subsequent vowel and consonant alterations. This later

form served as a basis for the construction of Amairgin’s lay.

Recapitulation:

64 Once again, the Goidelic poem describes dual rites, including the gathering of two

sacred herbs by the waterside, matched by two double animal offerings on land. As

before, the deity is exhorted to observe (literally “seek” and “find”) the flagstone where

ritual combat takes place, likely between “King Summer” and a winter scapegoat.

Because unaccented –es- and –is- have become equivalent, the above poem likely

postdates prior examples; e.g., late 2nd or 3 rd century, with at least one version

surviving later.

Summary

65 We have seen how poetry preserved in medieval Irish manuscripts contains lists which,

when rendered in a Goidelic dialect and recited in order, describe pagan rituals known

or inferred from folklore or ancient sources. These rites are led by a master of

ceremonies who intercedes on behalf of the celebrants, and it is he who recites the

poetry reconstructed above.

66 This Goidelic dialect seems more archaic than any evidence from ogam inscriptions 45:

Sibilant clusters –sl-, -sm-, –sn- and perhaps –st-46 are preserved.

Consonant s never drops at the end of a word or between vowels.

Syllable *an before t or k has not yet developed into long ê. The evidence instead shows a

vowel here reconstructed as æ which rhymes most often with other a-syllables. Likewise,

older *-ans, *-âns becomes –æs.

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Final syllable –an has not yet become –en. Instead, we reconstruct –æn, which tends, as

above, to rhyme usually with other a-syllables.

Noun cases other than genitive are preserved. This includes distinct locative 47 (sing. –(e)i or

–ou for u-decl., du. –aus, -ous, pl. –su), dative, ablative and possibly instrumental. By O. Ir.,

these are merged into a single oblique case.

67 On the other hand, there are these similarities with the ogam inscriptions:

Clusters –nk-, -nt- are already pronounced –gg-, -dd- respectively.

Unaccented short o and a are equivalent.

Diphthongs –au-, –ou- and vowel –o- rhyme with one another. This seems a step towards

the levelling of all diphthongs, as found in ogam inscriptions.

On occasion, -ou- is found where more archaic –au- is expected. This feature is datable in

Britain to the late 1st century A.D.48

68 The balance of the evidence suggests a date of second century A. D. for the

reconstructed Goidelic poetry in this article. There would then be a close match in age

with the famous map of Ireland given in Ptolemy’s Geographia 49. At least one tribe

shows the typical ogam-style alteration o>a in unaccented syllables: USDIAE (Gk.F0CF

F0F5

F0F3

F0E4

F0E9

F0E1

F0E9 ). Similar final syllables also occur in the more northern tribe ROBOGDII,

matching O. Ir. adjectival ending –aidhe, -dhae <Goidelic –dias <-dios 50. USDIAE

preserves the final vowel a of –dias and adds a Greek or Latin plural ending.

69 We would be naïve to suppose that the sound laws and dialectal peculiarities described

above apply universally over all Ireland in the second century. But we can be more

specific concerning the locale. Aside from unaccented o>a noted in the tribe name

USDIAE, we also note EDROS (Ir. Beann Éadair) showing –nt->-dd-. This would suggest a

location of East Central Ireland for the focus of the ritual settings shown in this article.

Recall that this is where Roman material has been unearthed dating to the first and

second centuries A. D. Lambay Island is typical in this respect, showing a grave in

British style with Roman artifacts. Perhaps we should regard the Roman goods as being

borne to Ireland by British and continental Celts promulgating European ideas and

bringing Irish ritual more in line with them.

NOTES

1. Standish H. O’Grady, Silva Gadelica, T. P. Cross, C. H. Slover, Ancient Irish Tales, Caitlín

& John Matthews, The Encyclopedia of Celtic Wisdom, p. 359-376.

2. Thomas P. Cross, Clark H. Slover, Ancient Irish Tales, J. G. O’Keefe, D. Nutt, Adventures

of Suibhne Geilt, web site [http://www.ucc.ie/celt/published/G302018/].

3. Three 17th to 18th century manuscripts: p. 82a-95b, paper manuscripts in the Royal

Irish Academy: written between 1671 and 1674 by Daniel O’Duigenan; p. 131-180, paper

manuscripts in the Royal Irish Academy: written in 1721-1722 by Tomaltach Mac

Muirghiosa; Brussels 3410, folia 59a-61b, paper manuscripts is in the Royal Library,

Brussels, written by Michael O’Clery, 1629.

•

•

•

•

•

•


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4. Sources: Dublin, Trinity College Library, Manuscript 1339 (H 2.18, Book of Leinster) T.

K. Abbott and E. J. Gwynn (eds.) Catalogue of Irish Manuscripts in the Library of Trinity

College Dublin (Dublin 1921) 158-161; R. I. Best, Osborn Bergin, M. A. O’Brien and Anne

O’Sullivan (eds.) The Book of Leinster, formerly Lebar na Núachongbála (6 volumes)

(Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies 1954-1983). Digitized at [http://www.ucc.ir.celt/

published/G800011A/index.html].

5. For reconstruction of Goidelic, consider the following articles and texts: Anders

Ahlquist, “Relative Endings of the Old Irish Simple Verb”, Ériu, Vol. 36, p. 137-142, 1985;

Warren Cowgill, “Origin of the Insular Celtic Conjunct and Absolute Vernal Inflexions”,

Flexion und Wortbildung (ed. H. Rix), p. 40-70, Wiesbaden, 1975a; Warren Cowgill, “Two

Further Notes on the Origin of the Insular Celtic Absolute and Conjunct Verb Endings”,

Ériu, Vol. 26, p. 27-52, 1975b; Warren Cowgill, “On the Prehistory of the Celtic Passive

and Deponent Inflexion”, Ériu, Vol. 34, p. 73-111, 1983; Warren Cowgill, “On the Origin

of the Absolute and Conjunct Verbal Inflexions of Old Irish”, Grammatische Kategorien:

Funktion und Geschichte (ed. N. Schlerath), Wiesbaden, 1985; Kenneth H. Jackson,

Language and History in Early Britain, Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh, 1953; Julius

Pokorny, Indogermanisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch, Bern, 1949-59; Peter Schrijver,

“The Development of Primitive Irish *aN before Voiced Stop”, Ériu, Vol. 42, p. 13-25,

1991; Rudolf Thurneysen, A Grammar of Old Irish, Dublin Institute for Advanced studies,

Dublin, 1946; Joseph Vendryes, Lexique Étymologique de l’Irlandais Ancien, Dublin, 1959;

Calvert Watkins, “On the Pre-History of the Celtic Verb Infliction”, Ériu, Vol. 26, p. 1-22,

1969.

6. Alwyn & Brinley Rees, Celtic Heritage, p. 162-163 for Roman and Indian Brahmin rites.

Also cf., Amairgin’s two incantations to call forth the fertility of Ireland for the

Milesians.

7. Patrick L. Henry, “The Gaulish Inscription of Chamalières”, Études Celtiques, Vol. 21, p.

141-150, 1984.

8. Literally, “Beyond sight” or “Beyond the eye”. Lat. ab oculo, a direct translation,

becomes Fr. aveugle, “blind”.

9. In the Auvergne (<tribe name Ar(e)vérni) the preference is for penultimate, as in the

Chamalières poem. However, the fore-runner of Fr. change, Sp. cámbio, is seen in

cambion, which likely accents its first (possibly antepenultimate) syllable, given this

evidence.

10. See John T. Koch, “Prosody and the Old Celtic Verbal Complex”.

11. Sound change nt>dd likely caused pronunciations bwalæ’-ddrâg(e)i, i’-ddorous.

matching initial d of list elements dragenas and darus. Note that n. pl. nouns (swela)

govern singular verb forms (nassa) as in Gk., Skt. and other more archaic Indo-Eur.

languages.

12. i.e., two sacrificial fires.

13. i.e., healing flame.

14. Compare Ir. aisling, “vision” <Goidelic *ahsilinga, literally “axis leap”.

15. For these two reasons, the final vowel of “initial” subjunctive verb nastri fails to

elide.

16. Myles Dillon, Norah Chadwick, The Celtic Realms, p. 1, 33, 137, 287, 290.

17. Barry Raftery, Pagan Celtic Ireland, p. 178-199.


146

18. Sir James G. Frazer, The Golden Bough, p. 618.

19. The final syllable of the last foot of lines 2 and 4 is actually the conjunction (y)an,

“then” at the start of lines 3 and 5 respectively. Likewise the final syllable of line 3 is

really the initial preposition in of line 4.

20. Elided vowels do not vanish. But they meld into any succeeding one, and therefore

can take part in rhymes.

21. As at Chamalières, elided vowels may be included in the sequence.

22. Umlauting and consonant classes are ignored, so that; e.g., loisc shares an accented

vowel with glonn.

23. Lines here given after each cæsura appear as separate lines in the manuscript. Line

pairs are thus grouped together and lettered for the sake of subsequent analysis.

24. Appears as agus in the manuscript. Ocus is the older version, and provides the

rhyme.

25. List members are superscripted to indicate case and number; e.g., NS = nominative

singular, NP = nominative plural, OS = oblique singular, GP = genitive plural, LP =

locative plural, etc.

26. Lady Wilde, Irish Mystic Charms and Superstitions, p. 69-71.

27. W. G. Wood-Martin, Traces of the Elder Faith in Ireland, p. 89.

28. Iona Opie, Moira Tatem, A Disctionary of Superstitions, p. 439.

29. Sir James G. Frazer, The Golden Bough, p. 619.

30. The modern spelling, Leabhar Gabhála Eireann, as opposed to Lebar or Lebor, etc.,

usually refers to more recent rescensions of the widely used manuscript.

31. Caitlín & John Matthews, Encyclopedia of Celtic Wisdom, p. 11-15.

32. It is permissible to extend as far as the accented syllable in the following foot, as in

these two examples.

33. Cf. previous instances of kouli, supported by rhyme, in place of more archaic

*kauli.

34. In O. Ir. poetry, final words in a line may avoid rhyme, but instead share an

identical consonant after the accent; e.g., tír/ …lár. German analysts; e.g., Bergin,

Thurneysen, etc. referred to this as Assonanz, or in English, assonant rhyme.

35. Lines here given after each cæsura appear as separate lines in the manuscript. Lines

are thus grouped together into sections of at least six accented words or feet and

lettered for the sake of subsequent analysis.

36. This phrase only in Book of Leinster. Perhaps should be read doman or domun?

37. Ibid.

38. The more common version of this word is either drenn or dreng.

39. In Lebor Gabala Érenn and most other versions, but not Book of Leinster.

40. In Book of Leinster as gai, but gæ elsewhere.

41. As above, case and number are indicated in superscripts; e.g., NS for nominative

singular.

42. See Togbail Bruidne Dá Derga (Taking of Dá Derga’s Hostel), where two stones, Blocc and

Bluiccne come apart to allow the chariot of the true king to pass. In like manner, the

Symplegades or Cynæan Rocks permit Jason and the Argonauts to pass through the


147

Bosphorus. The renowned Lia Fáil at Tara provides an Irish exemplar, while the royal

stone at Scone and the Dál Ríata coronation stone at Dunadd are two Scottish examples.

43. As seen previously, unaccented a and o are equivalent.

44. We have already seen how unaccented a and o are equivalent.

45. R. R. Brash, The Ogam-Inscribed Monuments of the Gaedhil in the British Isles. Note: Most

ogam inscriptions occur in southwest Ireland and are datable from 300-600 A.D.

46. Consider the town of Cashel (Ir. Caiseal) derived from Lat. castellum, “small fort”.

This toponym shows that the first two syllables of the Latin word were borrowed as is

and later subjected to the well-known Ir. sound law –st->-ss-,-s-. The earliest Roman

objects discovered in or near Ireland, at Drumanagh, Lambay Island and Tipperary date

to the first and second centuries A. D. For Roman material in Ireland, please consult the

following texts: Nick Constable, Karen Farrington, Ireland, p. 54; Peter Harbison, Pre-

Christian Ireland, p. 180-182.

47. Compare Gaul. in Alixie, “in Alesia”, Celtiberian loc. sing. article somei distinct from

dat. sing. somui. Possible i-decl. loc. sing. –i seen in Gaul. phrase Pape boudi, “in each

victory”. For du. cf., Skt. –yôh <Indo-Eur. *-(y)*us. For pl. cf., Skt. vrokésu, “among

wolves”, senâsu, “in armies”.

48. Kenneth H. Jackson, Language and History in Early Britain, p. 305-307, 1953. This

change is not universal in the Celtic world all at once, cf., Gaulish (Menapian) usurper

Mausaeus Carausius, late 3rd century A.D.

49. Claudius Ptolemæus flourished in the 2 nd century. His map of Ireland, originally

Greek, based upon late 1st-century material from Marinus of Tyre, survives as various

mediaeval manuscripts in Greek and Latin, the earliest of which (in Latin) records

Howth (Ir. Beann Éadair) as EDROS. Other Greek copies give this name instead asF0C1

F0E4

F0F1

F0EF

F0ED , F0C1 F0

E4F0F1

F0EF

F0F5 (<earlier *ANTRO-). In just this example, we see the Goidelic sound

change –nt->-dd-. Navan Fort (Ir. Eamhain) shows up as ISAMNIUM (or Gk.

ΙσαμνιονF02C

F020

F02C

F020

F02E

F02C

F020c.f O. Ir. mythical isle of Emne), clearly preserving intervocalic –s-.

Underscoring the piecemeal nature of early dialect evolution, we also have a tribe

name to the north of EDROS called VOLUNTII where –nt->-dd- has not occurred.

Likewise, tribes AUTINI and CAUCI preserve au . See Peter Harbison, Pre-Christian

Ireland, p. 173.

50. F02D Cf. Gk. adjectival suffix –οιδLs, –οιδ]

ABSTRACTS

This article uncovers links to pagan Irish rites which can be deduced from excerpts in the form of

lists from medieval literature. There are three presented here: from Aidedh Ferghusa Maic Léti

(Death of Fergus Mac Leide, c. 1100 A.D.), from Buile Shuibhne (Frenzy of Suibhne, 17th century

manuscrits), and from the Book of Leinster (Lebar na Núachongbála, 11th century). It is seen in

all cases that, when list items are rendered in a language ancestral to Irish (henceforth termed

Goidelic) and recited in order, poems result which describe pagan rituals. This Goidelic is


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reconstructed on the basis of Indo-European linguistics and well-known sound laws governing

the evolution of the Irish tongue. It will be seen that the Goidelic language used herein has much

the same grammatical structure demonstrated by early ogam inscriptions in Ireland and even by

Gaulish itself. Furthermore, the prosody and scansion of these Goidelic poems match features

seen in a Gaulish inscription datable to c. 0-300 A.D. discovered at Chamalières, France in 1971.

We will also notice some recurring features in these poems: (a) The desired outcome is stated

only in the vaguest terms, if at all. (b) Each poem constitutes a recitation addressed to the god or

goddess by a “witness” or “master of ceremonies” acting on behalf of other participants. (c)

Duality in the ritual is readily apparent; e.g., a sacred double fire, or rites and recitations at two

sites, etc. (d) A sacred locale is emphasized before the deity where the wishes of the performers

ought not to be refused.

Cet article révèle des liens avec des rites païens irlandais qui peuvent être déduits de la lecture de

fragments de littérature médiévale présentés sous forme de listes. Trois sont présentés ici :Aidedh Ferghusa Maic Léti (La mort de Fergus Mac Leide, vers 1100 après J.-C.), Buile Shuibhne

(La Folie de Suibhne, manuscripts du xviie siècle), et du Livre de Leinster (Lebar na

Núachongbála, xie siècle). Dans chaque cas, on s’aperçoit que lorsque les éléments de la liste sont

traduits dans une langue plus ancienne que l’Irlandais (que l’on nommera le Goidelic) et récités

dans l’ordre, on découvre des poèmes décrivant des rites païens. Le Goidelic est reconsitué sur la

base de la linguistique de l’Indo-européen et de lois phonétiques bien connues sous-tendant

l’évolution de la langue irlandaise. On verra que la langue Goidelic utilisée ici a une structure très

comparable à celle dévoilée par les premières inscriptions ogam et même par le Gaulois. De plus,

la prosodie et la scansion de ces poèmes goidelic ont des traits communs avec ceux repérés dans

une inscription gauloise datée de 0-300 après J.-C. et découverte à Chamalières en 1971. Nous

remarquerons aussi quelques traits récurrents dans ces poèmes : (a) Le but désiré n’est révélé

qu’en termes très vagues, ou pas du tout. (b) chaque poème constitue une récitation adressée à

un dieu ou une déesse par un “témoin” agissant au nom d’autres participants. (c) Une dualité du

rituel est très apparente : c’est-à-dire, un double feu sacré, ou une recitation dans deux sites, etc.

(d) Un lieu sacré est mis en évidence devant la divinité, où les vœux des pratiquants ne devraient

pas être refusés.

INDEX

Keywords: tales and legends, linguistics, Middle-Ages, poetry, poetry - prosody, languages in

Ireland - Goidelic, paganism

Mots-clés: contes et légendes, poésie - prosodie, Moyen-Age, paganisme, langues en Irlande -

Goidelic, poésie


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Comptes rendus de lecture


150

Plays and Controversies. Theatre andGlobalization. Interactions: DublinTheatre Festival 1957-2007 Modern IrishTheatreMartine Pelletier

RÉFÉRENCE

Ben Barnes, Plays and Controversies. Abbey Theatre Diaries 2000-2005, Dublin, Carysfort

Press, 2008, 459 p., ISBN 978-1-904505-38-4

Patrick Lonergan, Theatre and Globalization. Irish Drama in the Celtic Tiger Era, Basingstoke,

Palgrave MacMillan, 2008, 248 p., ISBN 978-0-230-21428-6, €55.00

Nicholas Grene & Patrick Lonergan, with Lilian Chambers (eds), Interactions: Dublin

Theatre Festival 1957-2007, Dublin, Carysfort Press, 388 p., ISBN 978-1-904505-36-5, €25.00

Mary Trotter, Modern Irish Theatre, Cambridge & Malden, Polity Press, 2008, 233 p., ISBN

978-0-7456-3343-5, £15.99

1 Ben Barnes a été directeur artistique de l’Abbey Theatre de 2000 à 2005, succédant à

Patrick Mason qui occupait ce poste depuis 1994, et cédant la place à Fiach MacConghail

courant 2005. Le poste de directeur artistique d’une institution nationale aussi

éminente et emblématique que l’Abbey est, on s’en doute, un travail à temps plein et

une mission qui peut s’avérer ingrate. Dans le journal tenu de 2000 à 2004 publié ici par

Carysfort Press, Barnes raconte le quotidien de ses activités : le travail de

programmation et en particulier le développement de collaborations à l’international,

le travail de mise en scène et les relations parfois houleuses avec acteurs et auteurs, les

projets de réforme de l’Abbey, incluant la rénovation des structures de direction et le

projet de déménagement ou d’extension du théâtre.

2 Le titre même, Plays and Controversies, manifeste clairement les difficultés qui

caractérisèrent son mandat. Sous la plume alerte et souvent un rien encline à


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l’autosatisfaction ou à l’apitoiement sur soi-même de Barnes, on prend mieux la mesure

de l’éventail très (trop) large des missions de ce théâtre et de l’insuffisance des

financements publics en regard des attentes. Si les dix-huit premiers mois de ce journal

sont dominés par le dossier immobilier et le projet de nouveau bâtiment pour l’Abbey,

aboutissant pour des raisons complexes mêlant le politique et le médiatique, à l’échec

du projet d’implantation sur le site de Grand Canal Harbour, Barnes nous permet

ensuite de vivre le centenaire de l’Abbey de l’intérieur avec force détail sur la

programmation de Abbeyonehundred et les nouvelles controverses entourant cet

événement. Une partie du programme dut être annulée du fait de spectateurs moins

nombreux que prévus et de sponsors privés dont la générosité n’atteignit pas le niveau

espéré. Le conseil d’administration décida peu judicieusement, pendant un

déplacement à l’étranger de Barnes, d’annoncer des licenciements forçant le directeur

artistique à revenir précipitamment défendre son poste en pleine tourmente. Barnes

écrit avec franchise et le parti pris revendiqué de ne pas modifier ce qui avait été écrit à

la lumière des événements ultérieurs, mais d’interpoler des commentaires

rétrospectifs, permet de garder l’élan de l’écriture et de la pensée originale, amertume,

colère et enthousiasme compris et non tempérés… Parmi les atouts de ce témoignage

qui séduira nécessairement les spécialistes de politique culturelle et d’histoire du

théâtre irlandais figurent les pages consacrées par Barnes à ses mises en scène pour

l’Abbey ou au Canada, qui jettent une intéressante lumière sur son processus de

création, son rapport au texte, aux productions antérieures et aux équipes artistiques

avec qui il travaille en étroite collaboration.

3 Comme on pouvait s’en douter, certaines des controverses présentées de première

main par Ben Barnes apparaissent dans l’excellent ouvrage de Patrick Lonergan sur la

mondialisation et son impact sur le théâtre irlandais contemporain. Le prolifique

Lonergan cherche, à travers son étude novatrice, à comprendre comment la

mondialisation affecte les « industries créatives » et en particulier le théâtre irlandais,

jetant par là un nouvel éclairage sur les contraintes multiples et parfois contradictoires

qui émergent du témoignage de Ben Barnes. L’objectif est clairement exprimé : « To

analyse and clarify the relationship between social change arising from globalization, and the

different modes of theatre production that have emerged as a result of those changes. »

L’ouvrage est structuré en quatre parties, « Globalization and Theatre: Definitions and

Contexts » ; «Globalization and National Theatres » ; « Globalization and Cultural

Exchanges » et enfin « Imagining Globalization ». Les différentes étapes du

raisonnement sont appuyées sur la lecture de productions, auteurs ou textes

importants des années 1990 à 2005, en particulier Stones in his Pockets de Marie Jones,

Dancing at Lughnasa et The Home Place de Brian Friel, The Plough and the Stars dans deux

productions, 1991 et 2002, The Shaughran de Boucicault dans la production de 2004,

Angels in America de Tony Kushner, le théâtre de Martin McDonagh ou encore The Sugar

Wife de Liz Kuti. Lonergan analyse comment, dans un monde où la culture est de plus en

plus fréquemment soumise aux même impératifs de profit que les autres activités

économiques, la mobilité et les circuits internationaux, les évolutions dans les styles de

management et le rapport à la culture ont un impact fort sur la création artistique et la

réception des œuvres et productions. Au fil de ses différents chapitres, Lonergan

parvient à aborder nombre des auteurs majeurs par le biais de sa problématique. Ainsi

le succès phénoménal et mondial de Martin McDonagh est analysé en terme du

mélange caractéristique d’éléments de culture élitiste et populaire, générant une

adhésion qui transcende les frontières nationales, permettant la mobilité totale de


152

l’œuvre, caractéristique première de la mondialisation : « The social “core’ of a globalized

society is defined by mobility, the periphery by stasis. » D’où la mobilité croissante des

productions et le succès du « celebrity casting » ou de la représentation théâtrale comme

« événement » ou « expérience ». Lonergan propose également de lier la résurgence et

le succès de la forme monologique à la compression chronologique qu’elle suppose (en

lien direct avec la mobilité accélérée et la compression temps/espace associée à la

mondialisation) ainsi qu’à la montée de l’individualisme. The Sugar Wife de Liz Kuti

paraît apporter « an ethical response to globalization », amenant le public à comprendre

que si la mondialisation est un phénomène qu’il semble difficile et sans doute peu

souhaitable de bloquer, il nous reste la capacité de déterminer à quels usages nous

souhaitons l’employer, en tant que spectateurs et créateurs mais aussi en tant

qu’individus et citoyens. Les œuvres et l’activité théâtrales peuvent exploiter les

nouveaux circuits, les attitudes générées par la mondialisation, ou orchestrer une

critique de ce phénomène. C’est à ce titre que Lonergan salue la production

controversée de The Plough and the Stars par Gary Hynes à l’Abbey en 1991 avec son

accent mis sur la pauvreté des personnages et le rapport à la violence au Nord, tandis

qu’il juge la production de cette même pièce par Barnes toujours à l’Abbey en 2002 plus

neutre, moins soucieuse d’interroger les évolutions de la société irlandaise

contemporaine. Le livre démontre avec brio la nécessité de faire évoluer le discours

critique lui-même, quitte à s’éloigner du modèle post-colonial qui domine les études

irlandaises depuis plusieurs décennies, afin de prendre en compte la mondialisation et

de permettre au critique de médier entre les publics de théâtre locaux et les

productions théâtrales mondialisées. La mondialisation et la commercialisation

peuvent nous paraître fort éloignés des paradigmes critiques traditionnels mais

Lonergan démontre avec brio et un zèle certain qu’ils offrent des modèles explicatifs

dérangeants mais parfaitement adaptés à la période actuelle.

4 Interactions: Dublin Theatre Festival 1957-2007, fruit du quatrième colloque organisé par

l’équipe de l’Irish Theatrical Diaspora project à Dublin en 2007, adopte une perspective

plus longue, survolant les près de cinquante éditions du Festival de Théâtre de Dublin

(DTF) et en analysant les débuts, les moments forts, les évolutions récentes. Le volume

publié par Carysfort Press est structuré en deux volets. Le premier rassemble des

articles sur divers aspects des cinquante ans du festival, s’ouvrant sur la lecture très

personnelle et passionnante que fait Thomas Kilroy du festival et de son influence sur

son propre développement en tant que dramaturge et se refermant sur l’analyse

originale de Fintan O’Toole quant aux contradictions entre les objectifs affichés du

Festival et son évolution vers une manifestation capable de remettre en cause le status

quo politique, faisant écho à la thèse de Patrick Lonergan. Les divers contributeurs

abordent de multiples aspects de l’histoire du DTF comme par exemple la controverse

autour de The Rose Tatoo et des questions de sexualité ou de rapport au religieux

normatif en général, l’impact du festival sur la programmation des théâtres et des

compagnies indépendantes, certaines productions phares venues de l’étranger (Russie,

Australie), la contribution des metteurs en scène et celle de Patrick Mason en

particulier, la floraison de « sous-festivals », la place du théâtre en langue irlandaise.

Les articles dans leur diversité explorent la tension entre l’objectif initial, promouvoir

la culture irlandaise tout en en retirant certains gains économiques, et l’impact sur la

production théâtrale irlandaise de l’ouverture à l’étranger caractéristique de ces

périodes festivalières, par l’accueil de troupes, visions et valeurs venues d’ailleurs et

susceptibles d’influencer les créations « autochtones » en profondeur. La seconde


153

partie de l’ouvrage est une ressource extrêmement précieuse, élaborée avec un parti

pris documentaire : donner la liste complète des pièces produites chaque année dans le

cadre du Dublin Theatre Festival avec un essai introductif rédigé sous forme de

témoignage par des responsables ou acteurs du DTF aux quatre périodes clé :

1957-1970 ; 1971-1985 ; 1986-1994 et enfin 1995-2008. Après les volumes Irish Theatre on

Tour et Irish Theatre in England eux aussi parus chez Carysfort Press, et Théâtres de France

et d’Irlande : Influences et Interactions numéro spécial d’ Etudes Irlandaises, Interactions:

Dublin Theatre Festival 1957-2007 est une nouvelle contribution de premier plan à

l’histoire et à la critique du théâtre en Irlande.

5 Il revient à Mary Trotter de prendre un recul plus important encore dans son

excellente étude du théâtre irlandais, de 1891 à 2007. La perspective adoptée est celle

d’une histoire culturelle, associant les évolutions historiques, sociales et politiques de

la société irlandaise et le développement de formes théâtrales capables de les exprimer,

les analyser et les mettre en cause ou en crise : «This book traces the history of Irish

drama over the long twentieth century as a communal and community-building art

form », l’accent étant délibérément placé sur le rôle joué par le théâtre d’un point de

vue institutionnel plutôt que sur des lectures plus littéraires de textes canoniques ou

moins connus. Les quatre grands chapitres, organisés chronologiquement, font alterner

des éléments sur le contexte historique, sur l’histoire théâtrale et des analyses plus

poussées de certaines pièces identifiées comme pertinentes ou représentatives. Ainsi la

première partie (« Performing the Nation, 1891-1916 ») met l’accent sur la place prise

par le théâtre dans l’activisme nationaliste et la lutte pour l’indépendance : « A national

tradition of great playwriting and acting became a nationalist dramatic movement. » La

seconde partie s’attache à l’institutionnalisation de l’Abbey Theatre pendant la période

1916-1948 dans le cadre de la création de l’État Libre d’Irlande et aux tensions

inévitables entre les objectifs initiaux de l’Abbey, artistiques et critiques, et le rôle que

le nouvel état entendait voir jouer par cette institution. La troisième partie, « Rewriting

tradition, 1948-1980 » montre un théâtre irlandais qui continue d’être « a laboratory for

investigating cultural crisis and imagining new solutions » tant face aux évolutions de la

République que face aux troubles d’irlande du Nord. « Re-imagining Ireland,

1980-2007 » clôt l’étude en adoptant une approche thématique face au foisonnement de

cette troisième vague de création théâtrale largement caractérisée par une révision,

une réécriture critique ou parodique de formes anciennes par le biais de formes

dramaturgiques plus rugueuses, moins conventionnelles, et l’émergence de

préoccupations nouvelles à l’ère du Tigre celte, nous ramenant aux considérations de

Lonergan sur le nouvel environnement économique, social politique et culturel qui est

celui de l’Irlande de ces vingt dernières années. Les auteurs incontournables sont bien

présents (Walsh, O’Rowe, McPherson, Bolger, Carr, McDonagh…) et les analyses

demeurent d’une grande clarté et qualité malgré une concision parfois extrême,

imposée par format de l’ouvrage et la densité du sujet.

6 Tout au long de son livre, Mary Trotter se montre particulièrement attentive aux

femmes dramaturges et au rôle qu’elles ont joué et qui fut parfois négligé ou sous-

évalué ; on appréciera en particulier que la place accordée à Field Day et à Charabanc

soit globalement comparable, ce qui est rarement le cas dans d’autres ouvrages. Le

parti pris culturel plus que littéraire ou théâtral (en termes d’analyses de la

représentation par exemple), entraîne le refus de privilégier certains textes ou auteurs

en leur octroyant un espace nettement plus important ; Mary Trotter préfère brosser

un tableau raisonné le plus exhaustif possible et renvoyer le lecteur à la critique


154

existante pour poursuivre sa découverte de dramaturges, textes ou compagnies. Les

bons ouvrages retraçant l’histoire du théâtre irlandais ne manquent pas (Morash,

Murray, Grene, Pilkington, Roche avec une seconde édition remise à jour qui vient de

paraître…) mais le livre de Mary Trotter, même si il n’offre pas de perspectives

véritablement innovantes, trouvera sa place au sein des études existantes de par la

qualité de son écriture, sa clarté, sa cohérence, son attention au développement des

compagnies et troupes théâtrales dans un environnement socio-économique et

politique spécifique, son souci de replacer les textes identifiés comme importants dans

un ensemble solidement structuré et finement analysé.

7 À leurs diverses manières, en usant de genres et styles fort différents et provenant de

perspectives critiques et artistiques variées, les quatre ouvrages soulignent les défis

lancés au théâtre irlandais, y compris par la mondialisation, un peu plus de cent ans

après la fondation de l’emblématique théâtre national de l’Abbaye, sans négliger les

atouts dont les créateurs disposent pour y faire face.


155

A Little Book of HoursJessica Stephens

RÉFÉRENCE

John F. Deane, A Little Book of Hours, Manchester, Carcanet Press, 2009

1 La prière : « a new heart create in me O Lord/That the bones which you have broken may/A

while, rejoice » (24)

Dans The Book of Hours, le poète, John F. Deane, égrène prières et méditations. Parfois il

pose son regard sur des détails – un papillon immobile au soleil (18), le reflet de la

lumière, grise et verte, dans un port (23), l’églantier qui se drape de rose (43)… – et il est

alors en prise directe avec l’énergie (l’Esprit ?) qui anime la Création. Parfois le poète

pratique sa propre exégèse : il s’approprie des personnages de l’Ancien et du Nouveau

Testament – Saul, David, Bethsabée, Ruth, Myriam, Marie… – et tisse sa trame poétique

autour d’eux. Parfois récit biblique et récit personnel alternent, se mêlent et se

complètent. La parole liturgique s’élève et résonne dans le choix des mots, la cadence et

même les structures syntaxiques (« mercy on us, forgiveness and space in which to turn »

33) de ces vers qui se prêtent à la psalmodie.

2 La régénération : « Times I feel/My very bones become so light » (73)

Tout au long du recueil, le poète oscille entre la pesanteur et la grâce : le corps, matière

lourde et pesante, peut être régénéré et se faire aérien et léger ; l’incarnation, le péché,

l’aimée perdue font place à un amour reconnu et retrouvé, le Verbe qui donne vie et

forme à l’écriture, l’amour, encore, qui rend réel. The Book of Hours dit ou plutôt

réinterprète la communion avec le divin, lorsque celui-ci bouleverse, transforme et

convertit le vieil homme en un homme nouveau.

3 L’origine : « to find the source » (40)

Tout comme sur une carte ancienne, le poète inscrit ses propre “stations” (« Mappa

Mundi » 41-42) sur les pages de son livre des heures. Il chemine vers l’origine. Et

l’origine est à chercher dans les embruns qui balayent Achill Island, l’île où le poète est

né, mais aussi dans les gouttes de pluie qui vivifient les os secs du corps ; c’est le père

qui sort, nu, des eaux froides de l’Atlantique mais également la mère, la beauté et le


156

désir, la naissance du poète, la résurrection. Et c’est sur un désir de régénération que le

poète clôt son recueil, en formulant un souhait…


157

Points West Catching the LightClíona Ní Ríordáin

REFERENCES

Gerald Dawe, Points West, Oldcastle: The Gallery Press, 2008, ISBN 978-1-85235-446-6.

Gerald Dawe, Catching the Light: Views and Interviews, Cliffs of Moher, Salmon Poetry,

2008, ISBN 978-1-903392-90-4.

1 Critics are often fascinated by the relationship between a poet’s poetic oeuvre and their

prose writings. The publication, by Salmon Poetry, of a book of essays and interviews

by Gerald Dawe alongside his latest poetry collection, issued by Gallery Press, allows

one to verify the connections yet again. Gerald Dawe’s prose writings are preceded by a

quotation taken from WG Sebald’s Austerlitz: “There is something illusionistic and

illusory about the relationship of time and space as we experience it in travelling which

is why whenever we come home from elsewhere we never feel quite sure if we have

been really abroad’. Dawe’s essays and interviews guide us through space and time. We

journey through his childhood home in North Belfast, eavesdropping on the rhythms of

his grandmother’s soirées; we see the poète-en-devenir surrounded by the Penguins

and anthologies that she used for elocution lessons. We become acquainted with Dawe’s

musical heroes (Van Morrisson looms large) and he explains how “Ireland’ initially

represented traditional music for him and not “the poetry of any Group’ (19). The

volume also usefully reproduces interviews with Dawe that have been published

elsewhere .The autobiographical essays and interviews are accompanied by a number

of essays on poet avatars, Sassoon, Kerouac, Michael Hartnett. Overall the sense of life

as a journey and the primacy of travel, both physical and intellectual, emerge as key

preoccupations.

2 It is no surprise then when we check to see “how the poetry’s going’ that the same

concerns swim up to meet us. “Points West’, the title poem of the collection, has a

quotation from Patrick Leigh Fermor as an epigraph (11), and the Peloponnese

landscape serves as background for some of the poems. We travel near and far in the

collection, to unnamed islands and the banks of the Moy. However both home and


158

elsewhere are rendered strange in these poems. The most mundane of domestic objects

become unheimlich, from the line “My trousers draped over the bed/look very different

this morning’ in the poem “Day in the Life’, to the meditation on the other kind of life

that “takes over’ (24) in the rooms “left behind’ in the poem “The Pleasure Boats’.

There is a daydreaming/nightmarish quality to many of the poems in this technically

accomplished collection. The poet refuses to be anchored in the mundane and urges us

as “Fellow travellers’ (46/7) to experience the phenomenon of the “disconnect’ where

we fall “down a steep chasm,/between here and now” (48). Gerald Dawe, both in his

poetry and prose, leads us ailleurs to unexpected places and, as readers, we are happy to

follow him.


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The Poems of James StephensClaude Fierobe

RÉFÉRENCE

The Poems of James Stephens, collected and edited by Shirley Stevens Mulligan, with an

introduction by A. Norman Jeffares, Gerrards Cross, Colin Smythe, 2006, XLII + 343 p.,

ISBN 10 : 0-86140-333-9

1 Ce livre rassemble tous les poèmes, y compris donc ceux que Stephens avait omis ou

écartés pour la publication des Collected Poems (1954). Le travail de l’éditeur est

remarquable et fournit donc un excellent outil de travail : ordre chronologique par

recueil et version révisée des poèmes, conformes aux souhaits de l’auteur ; préface

rédigée par Stephens avant sa mort en 1950 ; indication en note des textes exclus en

1954 ; ajout d’une rubrique « Additional poems » ; absence salutaire de commentaires (« Ihave not glossed any poems, because I feel that Stephen’s poetry is readily accessible to the

thoughtful reader ») ; liste des Collected Poems de 1954 ; index des titres ; index des

premiers vers. On découvre ainsi une pensée et une manière qui sont bien analysées

par A. Norman Jeffares, certes mouvantes toutes deux, mais fidèles aux préoccupations

majeures d’un esprit singulièrement lucide. Insurrections (1909) traduit la révolte de la

jeunesse contre l’injustice et la pauvreté ; The Hill of Vision (1912), dans l’ombre de

Blake, interroge le rapport de l’homme à Dieu ; Songs from the Clay (1913) célèbre la

nature et la sagesse qui la gouverne ; Seumas Beg, The Rocky Road to Dublin (1915) mêle

évocations de Dublin et peurs enfantines ; Reincarnations (1918), traduit les poèmes en

irlandais de O’Bruadair, O’Rahilly et Raftery, et lie avec une émotion intense la misère

du poète actuel au déclin du barde gaélique ; Little Things (1924) s’attache bien sûr aux

« petites choses » qui, de la lune à l’oiseau, de la pomme au papillon, forment la trame

du quotidien ; après A Poetry Recital and Other Poems (1925), Strict Joy (1931) tisse de

longues variations sur la création poétique ; les poèmes brefs et introspectifs de Kings

and the Moon (1931) sondent l’intellect au-delà du sensible. Amour (« The Brute », « Nora

Criona »), humour (« A Glass of Beer »), pauvreté (« The Tramp’s Dream »), Dublin

(« Grafton Street », « York Street »), Dieu et la religion (« The Lonely God », « Mac


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Dhoul »), la nature (« The Goat Paths »), rôle et destin du poète (« Skim Milk », « Strict

Care, Strict Joy ») : tels sont les thèmes principaux qui se croisent et s’enrichissent

mutuellement dans une production dont les Additional Poems soulignent, si besoin était,

l’extraordinaire diversité, de fond comme de forme. Les influences sont nombreuses :Browning, Blake, mais aussi Milton et les Romantiques, ou encore Yeats, et bien sûr les

poètes en langue irlandaise. Mais Stephens interprète et « réincarne. » Ses meilleurs

poèmes sont simples, directs, pleins d’énergie, fruits de la nécessité : « Say, I’ve done/A

useful thing/As Your servant/Ought to do. » Titre de ce poème ? « I am Writer ». Qui

pourrait en douter en lisant ce beau livre ?


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Irish Poetry after FeminismClíona Ní Ríordáin

REFERENCES

Justin QUINN (ed.), Irish Poetry after Feminism, Princess Grace Irish Library Lectures 10,

London, Colin Smythe, 2008, ISBN 978-0-86140-467-4

1 This book of essays has emerged from a symposium organised in September 2006 by

Justin Quinn in the Princess Grace Library in Monaco where a number of academics,

and poet academics were brought together to discuss the issue of Irish poetry after

feminism. Such a stimulating and controversial topic was bound to be hotly debated,

and in his introductory remarks Justin Quinn clarifies and justifies each term. His aim

in organising the event was to assess the challenge feminism has presented for “the

craft and tradition of poetry” (12). The volume is composed of eight essays and a poem

by Derek Mahon. The symposium format was obviously very conducive to exchange

and dialogue. Some of the essays in the collection continue the polemical conversations

that animated the symposium. It is clear that people disagreed as to the impact and

value of feminism and also differed in their view of the role of the poet and the

function of art.

2 Moynagh Sullivan applies a hermeneutics of gender to existing historiographical

narratives of Irish poetry. Peter McDonald’s vigorously argued response claims that

Sullivan’s perspective leaves little space for the male writer and takes Sullivan to task

for ideological certainties that are difficult to engage with. Caitriona Clutterbuck’s

essay offers an interesting synthesis of the positions adopted by the various

participants, while proposing her own analysis of the situation, seeing feminism and

Irish poetry as “natural allies” (54). Selina Guinness too gives voice to the discussions

that prevailed in Monaco, pinpointing the concerns raised by those who feel that

feminist readings of poetry in their gendered orientation show too little regard for

poetic quality and tradition. Yet Guinness goes on to show, in her discussion of “The

Annotated House”, that the analysis facilitated by feminism does make an important

contribution to the debate.


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3 Elsewhere, readings of the work of individual poets are proposed. Fran Brearton

analyzes “First Principles” by Derek Mahon, a poem which appeared in his début

collection and has since disappeared from the Mahon canon. It is reprinted in this

volume of essays, allowing the reader to assess Mahon’s engagement with gender

politics and to question, as Brearton does, the reasons for such an excision. In a volume

where Irish poetry and feminism are mentioned in the same breath, Eavan Boland’s

work is frequently cited, most notably by David Wheatley in his stimulating reading of

Samuel Beckett’s poetry. Wheatley questions Boland’s combining of the roles of woman

and poet and feels that her poetry has suffered as a result. Lucy Collins turns her

attention to a younger generation of Irish poets in her study of poems by Sinéad

Morrissey and Vona Groarke. Leontia Flynn, who belongs to that younger generation of

poets, offers a reading of Medhb McGuckian’s poem “The Sofa”, which she considers to

be feminist in its “resistance to an inherited opinion” (82).

4 As a reader, one comes away from this thought-provoking collection of essays with two

regrets. The first is the absence of Edna Longley’s contribution to the symposium; her

incisive comments are reported by many of the essay writers. Her distinctive voice is

missed. The second regret is that the print run of the volume is limited to 250 copies.

Perhaps both could be rectified with a second edition?


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Literarisierung einer gespaltenen StadtAngela Vaupel

REFERENCES

Stephanie SCHWERTER, Literarisierung einer gespaltenen Stadt. Belfast in der nordirischen

“Troubles Fiction” vom Realismus zur Karnevalisierung, Trier, WVT 2007, 285 p., ISBN

978-3-884769-53-9

1 Stephanie Schwerter’s book on the representation of Belfast as a divided space and

segregated territory as described within northern Irish “Troubles fiction” is a valuable

study. It is valuable for a range of reasons: Schwerter provides her readers with a

thorough synopsis of the historical and socio-cultural background of the Northern

Ireland conflict as well as with an introduction to the literary genre of Troubles fiction

and its diverse sub-genres, which form an integral part of modern Irish literature.

Furthermore, the author analyses and puts into context a number of recent literary

publications which so far had not been discussed, and she dedicates an entire chapter

to the specific female experience of the conflict as reflected within women’s writing

about the “Troubles”. In her thesis, Schwerter focuses on and convincingly outlines a

more recent development in the literary representation of Belfast from the realistic to

the carnivalistic which she links in with the northern Irish peace process.

2 As the main urban centre of the bloody conflict between Protestants and Catholics in

the North of Ireland, Belfast has become the focus of many publications on “the

Troubles”, and has fascinated many writers. In particular during the 1980s and ‘90s,

many novels got published which describe the impact of the conflict on people’s

everyday life. Most of these narratives take place in and around Belfast as the epicentre

of the violence. In her analyses Schwerter observes that the narrative representation of

Belfast shifts from a sombre and realistic display of Belfast as a “noir city” in the 1970s

and ‘80s to a somewhat grotesque, ironic and “carnivalistic” (Bakhtin, 1984)

representation of the city which, according to Schwerter, goes hand in hand with the

northern Irish politics of détente that eventually led to the “Good Friday Agreement” of

1998.


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3 The book’s structure is six clearly divided sections that refer to relevant theories,

methods and research from which Schwerter develops her arguments: The first section

explores “Troubles fiction” as a sub-genre of northern Irish prose. It introduces authors

and text from a total of 13 representatively selected novels, gives an update of the

contemporary academic research on the subject, explains theoretical issues in the

representation of urban space – the city – in sociology and modern literature (with

particular regard to Burton Pike’s concept of “real city versus world city”; p. 25), and

the view of the city as a social complex.

4 The second section of the study deals primarily with the matter of ethnic and cultural

identity as perceived by the different communities in Belfast and Northern Ireland.

Clear definitions of the political camps (Unionists and Loyalists; Nationalists and

Republicans), a brief introduction to the origins of northern Irish paramilitary

organizations, a description of Belfast’s topography as “a town of divisions and

borders” (p. 62), and a careful “interpretation” of linguistic peculiarities help the

reader to find his/her way through the maze of a (post-) conflicted northern Irish

society.

5 A detailed analysis of the narrative representation of Belfast within the various sub-

genres of Troubles fiction forms the principal subject of the third section and the

centre of this book: Schwerter identifies the Troubles thriller as the dominant sub-type,

“composed to entertain rather than enlighten” (p. 78), with its display of violence as

the prominent element in city-representation. The problems regarding the

development of an emancipated female gender-identity within an ideologically

indoctrinated patriarchal society is the key aspect of a thorough examination of the

female experience of the conflict. Here, Schwerter looks at the often different kind of

experiences of women with a working class or middle class background, of the

(working) mother or the female teenager (in particular with the “love-across-the-

barricades-novel” as a hybrid sub-type of women’s writing of the Troubles, p. 142-45).

6 The development of a positive image of Belfast is the common characteristic of the

“carnivalistic” novels (thrillers) written by “Troubles writers” since the 1990s. This

positive view on Belfast and Northern Ireland is closely linked to progressive

developments within the peace process and a reduction in violent attacks. New formats

and styles for an innovative approach regarding the representation of cityscapes in

Troubles fiction developed and represent the most significant feature of contemporary

northern Irish fiction. The humorous display of “the Troubles” – which does not mean

ridiculing its violence or the victims but rather aims at (stereo-) typical descriptions of

the two main communities and their representatives – undermines the local society

and authorities. The authors of these narratives break with the “traditional” mono-

perspective discourse of the conflict by adopting stylistic tools such as polyvalence and

multi-perspectives. With this and their use of humour and irony, the writers succeed in

a demystification of the conflict and its ideologically motivated causes.

7 The book’s final sections provide a synopsis of the developmental stages in Troubles

fiction (including Belfast’s image as a segmented urban complex) from “realism to

carnivalism”, and a discussion of possible modes of development for this type of

literature in a post-conflict context. With regard to the end of the “armed struggle” in

the North of Ireland (as referred to by the IRA in its declaration of 26 September 2005),

Schwerter wonders whether the genre of Troubles fiction has become obsolete or will it

start focusing on ways to come to terms with the violent past and its traumas? What


165

seems to be clear though is that in the “post-ceasefire-novels” too, Belfast and its

citizens are at the thematic heart of many of these texts and will most likely continue

to fascinate visitors and writers alike.

8 To conclude, Schwerter’s book on the literary representation of Belfast as a divided city

is a most interesting and thematically broad study which is aimed at academics and

students in the fields of Irish Studies, Conflict Studies, Modern Irish Literature, and

Cultural Studies as well as of interest for the general educated reader. The text is very

“readable”, well-researched and original. However because it is written in German (and

not translated into English as yet) it might not reach the wide audience it deserves – a

pity!


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Madness and MurderNathalie Sebbane

RÉFÉRENCE

Pauline M. PRIOR, Madness and Murder: Gender, Crime and Mental Disorder in Nineteenth

Century Ireland, Dublin, Irish Academic Press, 2008, 258 p., ISBN 978-071-652-9378 and

9385

1 L’ouvrage de Pauline M. Prior, préfacé par sa cousine Angela Bourke, auteure du

remarquable The Burning of Bridget Cleary, a pour ambition de mettre à jour les liens

ambigus et très étroits qui existaient entre les notions de crime et de folie au dix-

neuvième siècle en Irlande. Il nous invite à suivre l’évolution des débats idéologiques

autour du crime et du châtiment et de leurs interactions avec les troubles mentaux, ou

folie comme on l’appelait à l’époque.

2 Prior explique qu’à l’origine, elle avait envisagé d’utiliser les archives du Central

Criminal Asylum, qui a ouvert ses portes à Dundrum en 1850, pour raconter les histoires

d’hommes et de femmes qui, accusés d’homicides volontaires ou involontaires, avaient

néanmoins été jugés « plus fous que mauvais » et avaient séjourné dans cette

institution.

3 L’ouvrage est organisé en deux parties. La première est précisément relative au

contexte et l’auteure y analyse les rapports entre criminalité et folie d’une part et

criminalité et genre d’autre part. Dans le contexte de la première moitié du dix-

neuvième siècle, un très grand nombre de crimes étaient relatifs à la terre et à des

disputes agraires et pauvreté et criminalité étaient indissociables. À cet effet, il est tout

à fait singulier que les oeuvres de Michel Foucault ne soient à aucun moment signalées

dans cette partie consacrée à la folie, à la criminalité et au châtiment.

4 Dans la seconde partie de son ouvrage, Prior aborde des catégories spécifiques de

crimes : les hommes qui ont tué de femmes, les femmes qui ont tué des enfants, les

femmes qui ont tué des hommes et les meurtres commis par plusieurs membres de la

même famille. Dans chacune de ces catégories, elle montre, à la lumière de témoignages


167

des autorités policières, judiciaires mais également grâce aux témoignages des accusés,

comment le système judiciaire utilisait la notion de folie et de déraison pour placer des

individus à Dundrum au lieu de les envoyer en prison. À n’en pas douter, l’argument fut

utilisé à l’excès dans bien des cas et il répondait à des exigences économiques propres à

l’époque. L’ouvrage apporte un éclairage nouveau sur la question des infanticides et

met en lumière un des nombreux paradoxes de la société irlandaise en matière de

genre et du traitement des femmes. En effet, si ladite société n’hésitait pas à exclure et

rejeter les femmes ayant un enfant illégitime, les tribunaux se montraient

particulièrement cléments lorsqu’il s’agissait de juger et condamner ces femmes. Prior

nous révèle que, selon la loi, les femmes reconnues coupables d’infanticide étaient

passibles de la peine de mort. Or, aucune d’entre elles ne fut exécutée en Irlande pour

ce crime. La peine était commuée en emprisonnement, notamment dans l’institution de

Dundrum, et bien souvent, les femmes en ressortaient quelques années plus tard et bon

nombre d’entre elles émigraient. En effet, les magistrats considéraient que ces femmes

n’étaient pas dans leur état normal lorsqu’elles avaient commis ce crime et que

l’emprisonnement n’était pas une punition adéquate. La complexité du châtiment était

liée à la nature même du crime ainsi qu’à la nature de la société.

5 Importante contribution à l’histoire des femmes en Irlande, cet ouvrage est également

très intéressant du point de vue de la méthodologie puisque Prior utilise des sources

jusque-là inexplorées, notamment les archives de l’institution de Dundrum, les procès

verbaux des procès, et les dossiers du ministère de la justice.


168

KnockCatherine Maignant

RÉFÉRENCE

Eugene HYNES, Knock – The Virgin’s Apparition in Nineteenth Century Ireland, Cork, Cork

University Press, 2008, 368 p., ISBN 978-1-85918-440-0

1 Le 21 août 1879 vers les sept heures du soir, un groupe d’une quinzaine de villageois de

Knock (Co Mayo), est témoin de l’apparition, devant le pignon de l’église paroissiale, de

la Vierge Marie, de saint Joseph et d’un personnage d’abord décrit comme un évêque,

puis identifié à saint Jean-Baptiste. À leur droite, un autel surmonté d’un agneau et

d’une croix complète la vision. Cet épisode, à l’origine d’un pèlerinage toujours

d’actualité en notre début de XXIe siècle, est pour Eugene Hynes le point de départ d’une

enquête minutieuse visant à donner un sens à la toute première manifestation mariale

en Irlande.

2 L’auteur signe, avec Knock, un ouvrage pionnier, tant du point de vue du sujet que de

l’approche retenue, des hypothèses et des postulats méthodologiques défendus. Il y

exploite également des sources jusque-là négligées et propose au lecteur un voyage au

cœur de l’histoire du catholicisme irlandais de la fin du XIXe siècle avec les outils et les

théories fournis par la sociologie moderne. Car l’auteur est avant tout un sociologue,

qui fait œuvre d’historien en prenant à rebours les thèses classiques relatives à la

« révolution dévotionnelle » en Irlande. Selon lui, c’est en reconstituant dans tous ses

aspects le contexte local vécu par les témoins que nous avons une chance de

comprendre un phénomène pour lequel l’explication institutionnelle apparaît peu

convaincante.

3 Eugene Hyne examine ainsi successivement les croyances et superstitions de la région,

la place du prêtre et l’impact sur Knock des événements contemporains : la croisade de

l’archevêque McHale, la famine, la guerre des terres, la modernisation des pratiques

induites par le contexte économique, l’évolution des structures d’autorité, enfin, qu’il

situe au cœur de son processus explicatif. Plus qu’un ouvrage sur l’apparition mariale,


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Knock se lit donc comme une étude de cas qui permet de mettre en perspective toute

l’histoire de l’Irlande de l’époque concernée.

4 Il s’agit d’un livre très riche, qui pose soigneusement les questions de méthode,

rappelle systématiquement l’état de la recherche sur les questions évoquées et discute

les postulats en présence. Il se fonde sur des sources originales qui mettent en avant de

manière très vivante les gens du peuple plutôt que l’Église ou Rome. Les manipulations

sont aussi habilement démontées et la représentation finale de la vision brillamment

expliquée. Beaucoup d’idées reçues se trouvent ainsi bousculées et la lecture est

extrêmement stimulante, même si les conclusions auxquelles Eugene Hynes aboutit ne

sont pas toutes convaincantes et si la fin se révèle un peu décevante. Le sujet même,

toutefois, en est la cause principale, puisque, à défaut de pouvoir démontrer une

supercherie, il porte en lui les limites de tout système explicatif rationnel.


170

Michael DavittOlivier Coquelin

RÉFÉRENCE

John DEVOY, Michael Davitt: From the Gaelic American, edited by Carla King and W. J.

Mc Cormack, Dublin, University College Dublin Press, Classics of Irish History, 2008,

168 p., ISBN 978-1-904558-73-6, 20 €

1 Publié dans la collection « Classics of Irish History » par Carla King – grande spécialiste

de Michael Davitt – et W. J. Mc Cormack, cet ouvrage retrace l’histoire d’une

collaboration entre deux grandes figures du nationalisme irlandais au XIXe siècle : John

Devoy (1842-1928), dirigeant du Clan na Gael – pendant américain de l’Irish Republican

Brotherhood (IRB) –, et Michael Davitt (1846-1906), séparatiste et agitateur agraire. Une

collaboration qui devait aboutir à la création de la Land League en 1879, via un

« nouveau départ » dont ils furent les véritables géniteurs, et qui visait à unir les

diverses forces nationalistes, fenians et home rulers inclus, dans un même combat pour

la restauration d’un parlement autonome à Dublin, en guise d’objectif minimal. Sauf

que l’union ainsi envisagée n’avait de chance de s’accomplir qu’à la faveur d’un

programme de réformes agraires seule à même, selon Devoy et Davitt, de transcender

les différentes obédiences nationalistes, et de mobiliser massivement la paysannerie

irlandaise autour de leurs desseins politiques.

2 Les 17 chapitres qui composent l’œuvre de Devoy parurent d’abord en feuilleton dans

son journal, The Gaelic American, au lendemain de la mort de Davitt en mai 1906. “What

were Devoy’s intentions in publishing this account of Michael Davitt’s career?”,

s’interrogent King et Mc Cormack dans leur introduction (p. 10). Un élément de

réponse apparaît dès le premier chapitre : la série d’articles de Devoy a pour ambition

de rétablir une vérité malmenée par une certaine presse irlandaise et britannique

quant au parcours de Davitt. Lequel parcours servit d’argument pour dénigrer la

stratégie fenian de la « force physique » au profit d’une agitation constitutionnelle

supposée plus efficace. Or Devoy contredit les assertions selon lesquelles Davitt aurait

renoncé à son idéal républicain pour embrasser la cause d’un Home Rule, qu’il voyait en


171

réalité comme une étape vers son but suprême. Il en veut pour preuve le testament

laissé par Davitt – dont certains extraits sont publiés dans le présent ouvrage – dans

lequel il déclare, entre autres, n’avoir jamais renié son idéal d’une Irlande

complètement indépendante. En fait, poursuit Devoy, Davitt n’aura fait que mettre ses

desseins séparatistes en sommeil, au cours de ces longues années consacrées à

l’agitation constitutionnelle, avant de les sortir de leur léthargie vers la fin de son

existence. C’est donc la carrière de Davitt, en tant que fenian, que Devoy esquisse par la

suite : où sont relatées sa personnalité, ses relations avec les fenians orthodoxes de

l’IRB, ses négociations avec Charles Parnell, sa contribution à l’élaboration du

« nouveau départ » et au lancement de la Land League en 1879. À ces éléments

biographiques viennent se greffer d’autres problématiques non dénuées d’intérêt : lerépublicanisme sous-jacent de Parnell, les doutes de l’auteur quant au fait que Davitt

aurait échafaudé le « nouveau départ » et la Land League lors de son séjour carcéral de

1870-77… Le tout est enrichi de commentaires des éditeurs, en notes de fin, destinés à

rectifier ou à nuancer certains propos de Devoy, lorsque cela se justifie.

3 Cet ouvrage s’avère donc un outil indispensable pour tout étudiant et chercheur

désireux d’explorer l’histoire du « nouveau départ » et la genèse de la Land League, à

travers le regard et le témoignage de l’un des grands acteurs de l’époque.


172

How Ireland Voted 2007Julien Guillaumond

RÉFÉRENCE

Michael GALLAGHER et Michael MARSH, (eds), How Ireland Voted 2007: The Full Story of

Ireland’s General Election, Basingstoke et New York, Palgrave Macmillan, 2008, XLIX + 259

p., ISBN : 978-0-230-20198-9, £ 14,01

1 Ce sixième opus de la série des How Ireland Voted (lancée en 1987) s’attache à

comprendre, dans une perspective comparative, comment se sont déroulées les

élections législatives de 2007 et comment peuvent s’expliquer ses résultats (formation

d’un gouvernement tripartite) alors qu’existait une alternative à la coalition sortante,

que l’on s’attendait à voir une montée des petites formations politiques, que l’on

relevait comme préoccupations principales à la sortie des urnes des thèmes comme la

santé, la criminalité et l’économie, et que la situation économique se caractérisait par

un net ralentissement de la croissance du PIB (2002-2007) contrairement aux années

précédentes (1997-2002).

2 L’ouvrage obéit à un rituel savamment établi depuis le premier numéro et se divise en

deux parties. La première porte plus généralement sur le contexte préélectoral et

retrace son évolution depuis 2002, replaçant l’élection de 2007 dans une perspective

plus large (chap. 1) avant de se consacrer, pour la première fois, à un examen et à une

évaluation des promesses économiques et sociales faites par les différents partis

politiques en cherchant à voir si celles-ci ont ou pas été tenues et si les engagements

préélectoraux d’autres partis ont été poursuivis par le gouvernement sortant (chap. 2).

La stratégie politique de chaque parti ainsi que leur processus respectif de sélection des

candidats (chap. 3 et 4) font l’objet d’un examen séparé qui clôt cette partie avec les

témoignages de candidats à l’issue de l’élection (chap. 5). La seconde partie s’intéresse

aux résultats et aux profils des députés irlandais (chap. 6), analyse la structure du vote

et la distribution des voix selon les différents partis, offrant au passage plusieurs

hypothèses quant au maintien de Fianna Fáil au pouvoir (chap. 7). Les contributions

suivantes étudient successivement le rôle et l’importance des sondages d’opinion en


173

comparant les élections de 2002 et 2007 (chap. 8) ainsi que, autre nouveauté, la

pertinence des organismes de pari comme concurrents sérieux aux instituts de

sondages pour prédire les éventuels résultats (chap. 9). L’ouvrage se termine sur le rôle

et l’influence des médias dans la campagne électorale, analysant la fréquence avec

laquelle les thèmes électoraux apparaissent au fil de la campagne ainsi que l’évocation

des affaires financières (Bertiegate) qui touchent le Premier ministre, Bertie Ahern

(chap. 10), les résultats des élections sénatoriales comparés à ceux des législatives

(chap. 11), les tractations pour la formation d’un nouveau gouvernement (chap. 12)

ainsi qu’une réévaluation de la place de Fianna Fáil dans le système politique irlandais

depuis les dernières décennies (chap. 13). À cela s’ajoutent une chronologie des

événements avant et après l’élection ainsi qu’une série de photos des différentes

personnalités prises pendant la campagne et des nombreuses affiches électorales qui,

sélectionnées avec soin, semblent en dire encore plus sur les attentes électorales des

Irlandais en 2007. Des annexes complètent cette étude et offrent les résultats complets

du scrutin, une liste des élus et des membres du gouvernement ainsi que des précisions

sur le système électoral irlandais et sur la législation relative aux dépenses de

campagne. En plongeant le lecteur au cœur du processus démocratique irlandais, cet

ouvrage parvient parfaitement à retracer les enjeux essentiels ainsi que l’atmosphère

des législatives de 2007 et offre des clés indispensables pour comprendre la société

irlandaise actuelle.


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