The Wild Irish: A Study of Some English Satires against the Irish, Scots, and Welsh

Abstract

One of the most interesting features of any Celtic revival is the anti-Celtic prejudice by which such a movement is invariably retarded among the English. The universal contempt with which the Anglo-Saxons have long regarded the wild the Scots, and the Welsh is a tradition so powerful that at times it seems to have had considerable importance in influencing the history of literature. In the Romantic movement, for instance, two distinct forces were at work: the one tending to bring to light a vast store of Celtic history and mythology,' the other scornfully ridiculing all such researches. Similarly, in our own century we have seen a distinct revival of literature in Ireland marked by the writings of Fiona Macleod, W. B. Yeats, J. M. Synge, and Lady Gregory, and by the successful tour through the United States of the Players; but interest in this movement has now been lost because of English bitterness over the Sinn Fein uprisings and over the treachery of Sir Roger Casement. In the alternate waves of Celtic popularity and unpopularity we see, as it were, masque and anti-masque. Although the anti-masque may be less significant, it is certainly more entertaining, and its study enables us to understand more fully the masque itself. The wild Irish phenomenon may be defined as a prejudiced way of writing Celtic history, or an inordinate desire to satirize anything and everything Celtic, whether Irish, Scottish, or Welsh. Sometimes it results in the production of a work that is obviously satiric and is accepted as such; more often it manifests itself in a work whose satiric purpose is more subtle, and whose result is correspondingly more deadly. Many an English writer has delighted in suppressing every fact in favor of the Celts and in magnifying all that militates against them. Whether we call such literature