Ambivalent Realism: May Laffan's "Flitters, Tatters, and the Counsellor"

Abstract

Ambivalent Realism:May Laffan's "Flitters, Tatters, and the Counsellor" Jill Brady Hampton It is probably true to say that few contemporary scholars of Irish literature have heard of May Laffan (1849–1916), let alone read her works. It is also true that any scholar with even a cursory knowledge of present-day debates in Irish literature would be aware of ongoing discussions concerning which writers are, and are not, to be considered part of the "canon"—a debate that grew contentious after the publication of the first three volumes of the Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing in 1991.1 Recent studies of nineteenth-century Irish fiction, particularly of women's contributions, have invigorated the recovery of once-neglected Irish writers. Scholars have recognized the importance of such early Irish authors as Maria Edgeworth, Sydney Owenson, William Carleton, and the Banim brothers. They also have heralded writers from later in the century including Charles Lever, Charles Kickham, George Moore, and Edith Somerville and Violet Martyn (Ross). Research on Thomas Moore retains a vigorous presence in the scholarly literature; oddly, Charles Kickham, the author of Knocknagow —among the most popular and influential of all nineteenth-century novels in English—still fails to attract much attention.2 Widely lauded in the 1870s and 1880s, May Laffan, too, fell into obscurity until fairly recently. [End Page 127] For students of nineteenth-century Ireland never to read the biting satire of May Laffan would be unfortunate. In The Cabinet of Irish Literature (1883), an ambitious early attempt to represent a canon of Irish writing over four volumes, editors Charles Read and T. P. O'Connor (later a prominent Home Rule politician) recognized her distinctive contribution: Miss Laffan is to some extent the precursor of a new school of Irish fiction . . . she deserves the highest praise for the courage and remarkable skill with which she has exposed some of the shams and the narrowness that deface the society of Ireland as of every other country. Her writings in this respect mark unquestionably a new era in Irish literature.3 Read and O'Connor's praise raises questions about both the current Irish literary canon and nineteenth-century writing. They may, of course, have simply been wrong in their judgment; but it may also be that the scholarly neglect of Laffan and other, equally significant, writers provides insight into both nineteenth and twentieth-century critical judgments, and that she, too, warrants a place in the canon. Laffan's acclaimed short story "Flitters, Tatters, and the Counsellor" (1879), an exemplar of Irish literary social realism and penetrating satire, makes the case compelling.4 In 1979, Robert Lee Wolff 's editing of Garland's Ireland: From the Act of Union—1800 to the Death of Parnell—1891 sparked interest in Irish fiction outside the Revival.5 Notably, Wolff was a professor of history, not literature. In acknowledging literature's value as an historical source, Wolff commented that "above all, it was the novelists who taught the reading public about nineteenth-century Ireland. It is the novelists who if given the chance can still today outdo the scholars in teaching us in the late twentieth century about Ireland in the nineteenth."6 Including Laffan, the Garland collection presented a new perspective on Irish Catholic middle-class life, which recent research has further [End Page 128] developed.7 John V. Kelleher, Wolff 's colleague at Harvard, also testified to the value of the Garland collection: But to declare that most of it lacked seriousness showed either that those who leveled the charge had only a few of the lighter books in mind or, more likely, that the Ireland they knew was so changed from what it had been even a few decades earlier that they could have little comprehension of what the older writers had struggled with and tried to express.8 Kelleher also emphasized the helpful information, perceptive observation, and intelligent comment on nineteenth-century Ireland offered by the collected fiction. Born in Dublin, May Laffan was the product of a denominationally mixed marriage, a rarity in the highly sectarian Ireland of the time where religion fostered mental, social, and cultural ghettoes. Her mother, Ellen Sarah, neé Fitzgibbon...