‘Enlightened Protestants’: the improved shorescape, order and liminality at early seaside resorts in Victorian Ireland

Abstract

This essay examines the introduction of the seaside in Victorian Ireland in relation to the construction and representation of cultural identities, particularly those of the Protestant landed classes. The discussion is set in the context of the creation of early English seaside resorts, a number of which, like the Irish seaside, were established by large landowners for wealthy patrons. Seaside development is related to a nineteenth-century discourse of ‘improvement’ common to both England and Ireland. This discourse acquired special significance in Ireland where it encountered a congruent discourse of religious identity that attributed habits of orderliness to the Protestant ruling class in contrast to the disorder associated with Catholics. The making of the seaside in Ireland embodied typical colonial practices of marking ownership of territory and demonstrating progressiveness. It also entailed imposing a ‘Protestant’ orderliness that delimited it from the surrounding country and Catholic homesteads to provide an improved shorescape as a setting for proper conduct. It has been argued that English resorts like Brighton, and the beach generally, functioned as liminal spaces. This essay concludes by exploring to what extent the new Irish seasides presented opportunities for liminal experience that might disrupt the presentation of new forms of orderliness.