Irish Literature and the Union with Britain, 1801–1921

Abstract

Studies of Romantic and Victorian literary culture often sideline Irish writing—not always out of Anglocentric prejudice, but also because Irish literature in those periods was frequently informed by very specific concerns. Throughout the long 19th century and until Irish independence in 1921, Irish authors grappled with the far-reaching consequences that the controversial 1801 Act of Union between Britain and Ireland had on all aspects of Irish society. Ireland had long been subject to British rule, but in the 1780s the Irish Parliament had gained unprecedented autonomy. In 1798, Irish radicals inspired by French revolutionary ideals staged a rebellion to overthrow British domination altogether. London responded to Irish turmoil by trying to tie Ireland to Britain through a complete union of both kingdoms. The dissolution of the Irish parliament and the transfer of Irish MPs to Westminster expanded the definition of the United Kingdom, but also heralded a period of prolonged instability within the new polity, as the goal of Irish assimilation proved problematic from the outset. The promise of Catholic emancipation was not fulfilled until 1829; beyond that date, institutional anomalies and the stationing of British troops in the country betrayed the fact that Ireland was both a region of the United Kingdom and a colony of the British Empire. Irish discontent with the Union never subsided, as campaigns for the repeal of the Union, abortive rebellions, and critiques of British mismanagement (particularly after the Irish Famine of 1845–1851) all illustrate. Attempts to advance, complete, redefine, or sever the Union often gave the “Irish question” a prominent place in public debates in Britain and Ireland (for pragmatic reasons, the persistence of the Union in Northern Ireland until this day will not be considered here). The Union impacted Irish literature on several counts. The removal of the Dublin Parliament dealt a blow to the Irish capital’s status as a cultural center at a time when much literary activity still depended on elite patronage. The Irish educated classes increasingly spent time moving between the British Isles. The end of Irish legislative autonomy extended British copyright laws to Ireland, with devastating consequences for Irish printing that had thrived on cheap reprints of English books in the 18th century. In the longer term, the Union would accelerate the linguistic and cultural anglicization of Ireland, but also produce backlashes against those very tendencies. The very terms on which the Union was realized, the expectations and reactions it produced, and the debates that had surrounded the passing of the Act kept echoing through decades of Irish writing, spawning themes, tropes, and whole genres that gave a distinctive coloring to Irish literature. But the Union also influenced British writing itself, as writers from the larger island delved into the “Irish question.” This bibliography on Irish literature therefore includes forays into 19th-century British writing, as both literary traditions were unsettled by the reverberations of a Union that failed to merge them, but still questioned their very contours.