The Romantics and the Question of Ireland

Abstract

The Irish Rebellion of 1798 was of telling significance for Ireland itself and for Britain as a whole; there were also important connections with Europe. Its consequences were palpable throughout the nineteenth century and beyond. Some contemporary writers, such as Shelley and Byron, commented very actively on these consequences but many others reflected little or nothing of them. In his letters Keats refers to a visit to Ireland; he notes the ever-present poverty, but does not offer any reflection on its social and political context. Irish writers themselves reveal an awareness of this context, but are often highly circumspect in their comments. In her Irish Tales Maria Edgeworth restricts her treatment of Irish poverty almost entirely to social terms. Little of Thomas Moore's poetry touches on the subject, and where he does comment on the Act of Union he makes no mention of the events that led up to it. It is only more than thirty years after the event that he comments vigorously and explicitly on the rebellion, in his biography of Lord Edward Fitzgerald.