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‘That beloved country, that no place else resembles’: connotations of Irishness in Irish-Australasian letters, 1841–1915

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2016

David Fitzpatrick
David Fitzpatrick*
Affiliation:
Department of Modern History, Trinity College, Dublin
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Extract

Historians of Ireland continue to place exceptional reliance on the ‘cultural’ explanation of economic, social and political behaviour. In many cases, appeal to supposedly common characteristics of ‘the Irish’ has provided a glib substitute for more rigorous analysis of the interaction between mentality and performance. The nature of Irish ethnicity is postulated rather than explained or demonstrated, so that arguments incorporating such postulates stand or fall according to the plausibility rather than documentation of the writer’s vision of ‘Irishness’. A recent and beguiling example is Joseph Lee’s postulate of the ‘begrudger mentality’, whereby Ireland’s relatively poor economic performance is attributed to this supposedly ‘direct inheritance from . . . traditional Ireland’. Lee sketches an anatomy of ‘traditional Ireland’ which might have generated envy rather than healthy competitiveness, and proceeds to develop with far more elaboration consequences which might have arisen from begrudgery. What he fails to demonstrate is the actual prevalence of this ‘mentality’ in either ‘traditional’ or ‘modern’ Ireland: this we must accept, either intuitively (if Irish) or on trust (if foreign). The logical crudity of this form of explanation calls to mind the corner-cutting of nationalist myth-makers and folklorists.

Type
Articles
Information
Irish Historical Studies , Volume 27 , Issue 108 , November 1991 , pp. 324 - 351
Copyright
Copyright © Irish Historical Studies Publications Ltd 1991

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References

1 Lee, Joseph, Ireland, 1912–1985: politics and society (Cambridge, 1989), pp 646-7Google Scholar.

2 Lyons, F.S.L., Culture and anarchy in Ireland, 1890–1939 (Oxford, 1979)Google Scholar; Terence Brown, , Ireland: a social and cultural history (London, 1981)Google Scholar; MacDonagh, Oliver, States of mind: a study of Anglo-Irish conflict, 1780–1980 (London, 1983)Google Scholar; Foster, R.F., Modern Ireland, 1600–1972 (London, 1988)Google Scholar.

3 Foster, Modern Ire., p. 596.

4 Lyons, Culture and anarchy, pp 17–18.

5 Kearney, Richard, The Irish mind: exploring intellectual traditions (Dublin, 1985), p. 8 Google Scholar.

6 The process by which both Irish and British publicists manufactured the dichotomy of Anglo-Saxon and Celt is explored, inter alia, by O’Farrell, Patrick in Ireland’s English question (London, 1971)Google Scholar and England and Ireland since 1800 (Oxford, 1975)Google Scholar, and by Curtis, L.P. in Anglo-Saxons and Celts (New Haven, 1967) and Apes and angels (Newton Abbot, 1971)Google Scholar.

7 Kearney, Irish mind, p. 7.

8 Akenson, Donald Harman, Small differences: Irish Catholics and Irish Protestants, 1815–1922: an international perspective (Kingston and Montreal, 1988)Google Scholar.

9 Miller, Kerby A., Emigrants and exiles: the Irish exodus to North America (New York, 1985)Google Scholar; O’Farrell, Patrick, Letters from Irish Australia, 1825–1929 (Sydney, 1984)Google Scholar. For further discussion of these works and of the wider exploitation of emigrant letters as asource, see my ‘“Oceans of consolation”: letters and Irish immigration to Australia’ in Fitzpatrick, David (ed.), Visible immigrants (Canberra, 1989), pp 47–87 Google Scholar; Akenson, D.H.,‘Reading the texts of rural immigrants’ in Canadian Papers in Rural History, vii (1990), pp 387–406 Google Scholar.

10 O’Farrell Letters from Irish Australia, pp 2–3.

11 See the appendix for the extent, background and location of each sequence. Certain collections extend to New Zealand, accounting for my occasional use of the inclusive term ‘Australasia’. There are a few letters between Australasia and correspondents of Irish origin in England. I am most grateful to the custodians named in the appendix for allowing me to consult their documents. Several letters not belonging to these nineteen sequences are quoted from sources given in the notes; and several other collections will eventually be incorporated in this project.

12 Keyran White (Kilkenny) to his son James White (Sydney), 15 Feb. 1851; Sister M. Antonia (Westmeath) to her cousin Christopher Dunne (Queensland), 29 May 1898. Apart from interpolation of sentence breaks, the original spelling, capitalisation and punctuation have been retained in all transcriptions from the letters.

13 John and William Fife (Fermanagh) to Fathy Fife (N.S.W.), 11 Nov. 1860.

14 Biddy Burke (Brisbane) to her parents Patrick and Mary Burke (Galway), 5 May 1884.

15 Isabella Wyly (Adelaide) to her sister-in-law Matilda Wyly (Newry), 2 July 1856;Meta Dunne (Queensland) to her cousin Maggie Dunne (Meath), 25 Sept. 1904; Tobias J. Browne (N.S.W.) to his uncle and cousins (Tipperary), 25 Dec. 1910.

16 Michael Flanagan (Brisbane) to his uncle, Rev. Richard Flanagan (Louth), 18 Feb. 1865.

17 O’Farrell, Letters from Irish Australia, pp 141–6.

18 Biddy Burke (Brisbane) to her brother John Burke (Galway), c. 1880–81. The Irish phrase presumably signified agus an baile beag go brách (‘and Ballybeg for ever’). Ballybeg, the colloquial name for Biddy’s townland of Balrobuckbeg in Annaghdown parish, also connotes ‘small town’.

19 Michael Normile (N.S.W.) to his father Michael Normile (Clare), 21 Oct. 1861.

20 MacDonagh, States of mind, p. 20.

21 John McCance (Victoria) to his cousin William Orr (Down), 14 Jan. 1860, as copied by his son; see also Isabella Wyly Scott (Adelaide) to her sister-in-law Matilda Wyly (Newry), 19 Oct. 1858 and 18 Oct. 1859; Robert Phyffe (Fermanagh) to his brother Nixon Fife (N.S.W.), 21 Jan. 1881. The letters quoted by O’Farrell also contain references to the ‘North of Ireland’, but not (so far as my scan reveals) to ‘Ulster’. The territorial designation ‘Northern Ireland’ was never used by nineteenth-century correspondents.

22 John McCance (Victoria) to his cousin William Orr (Down), 23 July 1861.

23 Richard Flanagan (London) to his brother Michael Flanagan (New Zealand), 20 Aug. 1870.

24 Edward Browne (N.S.W.) to his brother Patrick Browne (Tipperary), 22 Feb. 1899;John M. FitzSimmons (N.S.W.) to his stepbrother Lawrence FitzSimmons (London), 22 July 1847; Michael Normile (N.S.W.) to his father Michael Normile (Clare), 18 Feb. 1863.

25 John M. FitzSimmons (N.S.W.) to his stepbrother Laurence FitzSimmons (Dublin),19 Nov. 1843; Isabella Wyly (Adelaide) to her sister-in-law Matilda Wyly (Newry), 2 July 1856.

26 Phil Mahoney (Melbourne) to his brother-in-law Lar Shanahan (Cork), 18 Aug. 1887; O’Farrell, Patrick, Irish in Australia (Sydney, 1986), pp 149, 191–2Google Scholar.

27 Michael Normile (N.S.W.) to his father Michael Normile (Clare), 1 Apr. 1855, 15 Sept. 1863, 3 Aug. 1856 and 19 Aug. 1860.

28 John Birmingham (New Zealand) to his parents Patrick and Mary Birmingham (Kildare), 22 Nov. 1870.

29 Biddy Burke (Brisbane) to her brother John Burke (Galway), c. 1880–81.

30 Irish-Australian letters are no more communicative about the politics of ‘Ulsterness’ than of ‘Irishness’. Orangeism and Unionism scarcely figure in the three Protestant sequences. Even the Ulster Protestants cited by O’Farrell seldom mentioned Orangeism, and then dismissively ( O’Farrell, , Letters from Irish Australia, pp 112, 143, 151–3)Google Scholar.

31 John M. Fitz Simmons (N.S.W.) to his stepbrother Laurence FitzSimmons (Dublin),19 Nov. 1843.

32 Phil Mahoney (Melbourne) to his brother-in-law Lar Shanahan (Cork), 18 Aug. 1887; see also Patrick O’Farrell, Irish in Australia, pp 214–15.

33 John McCance (Victoria) to his brother-in-law William Orr (Down), 7 June 1858.Charles Gavan Duffy, then Victorian minister of public works, had made ineffectual efforts in Ireland, through his Irish Tenant League, to win the support of Protestant tenant farmers such as the McCances. This campaign had evidently escaped the attention of John McCance, though he and his family did not leave for Australia until 1853.

34 Richard Flanagan (London) to his brothers Michael and Patrick Flanagan (New Zealand), 1 June 1868. On 12 Mar. 1868, Prince Alfred had survived assassination in Sydney.

35 Sarah Ward (Dublin) to Michael Reilly (Victoria), 30 Jan. 1888.

36 Probably from dialect scóipiúil, suggesting ‘dynamo’.

37 William Dalton (Tipperary) to Ned Hogan (Sydney), 15 May 1851 and 22 Feb. 1859.

38 O’Farrell, Letters from Irish Australia, pp 25, 28, 30, 58, 70, 102. Other Protestant emigrants sided with the Scots against the English in shipboard conflicts, or got on ‘first rate’ with the Scots despite their reputation for aloofness (ibid., pp 29, 70).

39 Akenson, , Small differences; Eliot, T.S., Notes towards the definition of culture (rev.ed., London, 1967), p. 21 Google Scholar.

40 The persistence of massive emigration ensured, of course, that these precepts would themselves be modified. Elements of post-Famine social organisation such as the ‘match’, high marital fertility, and the ‘stem’ system of farm succession, could scarcely have been sustained except among a people acculturated to migration.

41 Mary Dugan (Limerick) to her daughter Catherine and son-in-law (N.S.W.), 5 May 1856, in Dalton sequence.

42 John Birmingham (N.S.W.) to his mother Mary Birmingham (Kildare), 27 Apr. 1884.

43 John Birmingham (N.S.W.) to his parents Patrick and Mary Birmingham and to Ellen Mahon (Kildare), c. 1865; Michael Hogan (Melbourne) to his brother Mathew Hogan (Tipperary), Mar. 1857.

44 O’Farrell quotes a comforting flippancy from James Twigg to his sister in Tyrone, reaffirming his devotion to the Irish ‘match’: ‘Could you not send me out a nice little Irish girl with a small fortune?’ In the event, he married a former dancing instructor who according to his brother had been ‘nobody only a servant’ (O’Farrell, Letters from Irish Australia, pp 105, 228).

45 Michael Dunne (Meath) to his brother Christopher Dunne (Queensland), 14 Aug. [1872].

46 John M. FitzSimmons (N.S.W.) to his stepbrother Lawrence FitzSimmons (Dublin),13 Jan. 1841.

47 Isabella Wyly (Adelaide) to her sister-in-law Matilda Wyly (Newry), c.1857. This letter prepared the way for a subsequent declaration of her engagement.

48 William Dalton (Tipperary) to Johanna Hogan (Sydney), 20 Aug. 1853.

49 Eliza Dalton (Tipperary) to Johanna Hogan (Sydney), 22 July 1854. Eliza was not yet aware that Johanna had recently married Michael Duggan from County Limerick.

50 O’Farrell, Letters from Irish Australia, p. 8.

51 Michael and Bridget Normile (N.S.W.) to their father Michael Normile (Clare), 1 Apr. 1855. ‘Derry’ refers to a townland near Ennistymon, not to the city of that name.

52 Michael Normile (N.S.W.) to his father Michael Normile (Clare), 18 Apr. 1865. My map of neighbours invoked by name in the Normile letters reveals a striking line of ‘partition’ north and south of the Normile farm. To the south in ‘Derry’ (Caheraderry), virtually every household was mentioned while many had sent emigrants to Australia. Yet in ‘Carrhuduff’ (Carrowduff), immediately to the north, only three among a score of households were referred to.

53 Biddy Burke (Brisbane) to her parents Patrick and Mary Burke (Galway), 2 Feb. 1882.

54 Michael Nomile (N.S.W.) to his father Michael Normile (Clare), 18 Apr. 1862.

55 Christopher Salmond (Queensland) to his uncle (Westmeath), 10 Oct. 1865, kindly made available by Miss Marion Salmon, Johnstown, County Westmeath. Catholic Irish reluctance to eat meat on Fridays was an acknowledged social problem, as John Browne indicated in a letter from Birkenhead to his brother Patrick in Tipperary, written on 29 Apr. 1854 just before embarkation: ‘We had the priest on yesterday heir in The caple which he got up himself. His name is Brown, a fine priest. He told us what to do and How to act with the protesttans and gave us leave To eat meat on friday.’

56 Isabella Scott (Adelaide) to her sister-in-law Matilda Wyly (Down), 18 Oct. 1859.

57 John McCance (Victoria) to his cousin William Orr (Down), 14 Sept. 1859.

58 William Fife (Fermanagh) to his daughter Fathy Fife (N.S.W), 10 Dec. 1865.

59 Michael Dunne (Meath) to his son Christopher Dunne (Queensland), 18 June 1869; William Dalton (Tipperary) to Johanna Hogan (Sydney), 20 Aug. 1853. Dalton, unlike his wife, lamented female vocations: ‘My notion is that god Never created a being to go shut themselves Up for life and Say their prayers’.

60 Other letters referred to the sending of newspapers, photographs, locks of hair, bonnets, fancy goods, and occasionally sprigs of shamrock.

61 Isabella Wyly (Adelaide) to her sister-in-law Matilda Wyly (Newry), 6 Mar. 1858.

62 Michael Hogan (Melbourne) to his brother Mathew Hogan (Tipperary), 22 June 1856.

63 Phil Mahoney (Melbourne) to his brother-in-law Lar Shanahan (Cork), 18 Aug. 1887.

64 Michael Dunne (Meath) to his son Christopher Dunne (Queensland), 17 Aug. 1868 and 17 Dec. 1868; Headfort’s testimonial, 11 Aug. 1868. Christopher was promptly rewarded with the post of turnkey in the Queensland prison service.

65 P.R.O.N.I., Downshire rentals, D 671/R8/69-71, 75; Daniel Brennan (Down) to his son Thomas Brennan (Queensland), 11 Mar. 1872. As indicated in Dunne’s letter (just quoted), Arthur Wills Blundell Sandys Trumbull Windsor Hill, fourth marquess of Downshire, had died in 1868. The fifth marquess soon followed him, after giving less than six years of pleasure to his tenantry.

66 Michael Normile (N.S.W.) to his father Michael Normile (Clare), 15 Sept. 1863 and 18 Apr. 1865. On 28 Apr. 1854, Normile had eulogised the Protestant rector of Kilfenora as that ‘good friend Dean Armstrong long may he live’—a reference to his intercession with the Emigration Commissioners to arrange simultaneous assisted passages for Normile and several of his neighbours.

67 This affection was often warmer than that expressed by the Protestant Fifes of Fermanagh. William remarked of the murdered third earl of Leitrim that ‘he was what we call a Bad land Lord’; while his son, though deploring the ‘creeping’ of the Land League into ‘the North’ and noting that many landlords had granted abatements of rent, addedtartly that ‘Our Landlord have given None yet’ (William Fife (Fermanagh) to his daughter Eliza Fife (N.S.W.), 13 Apr. 1878; Robert Phyffe (Fermanagh) to his brother Nixon Fife (N.S.W.), 21 Jan. 1881).

68 Edward O’Sullivan (Victoria) to his brother-in-law John Downing (Kerry), 6 July 1857.

69 John Birmingham (N.S.W.) to his mother Mary Birmingham (Kildare), 27 Apr. 1884, and undated fragment to his parents and brother Maurice.

70 Michael and Bridget Normile (N.S.W.) to their father Michael Normile (Clare), 1 Apr. 1855.

71 William Fife (Fermanagh) to his daughter Fathy Fife (N.S.W), 12 May 1864.

72 Daniel Brennan (Down) to his son Thomas Brennan (Queensland), 11 Mar. 1872.

73 Henry R. Hoeben (Sydney) to his cousin Mary McGann (Clare), 18 Feb. 1878 (kindly made available by Mr Richard Reid, Canberra); Isabella Wyly (Adelaide) to her sister-in-law Matilda Wyly (Newry), c. 1857; Edward Browne (N.S.W.) to his brother Patrick Browne (Tipperary), 22 Feb. 1899.

74 Mary Burke (Roscommon) to her daughter Catharine Burke White (N.S.W.), 28 Nov. 1853. The Protestant William Fife was the only correspondent to refer to his own (77th) birthday: William Fife (Fermanagh) to his son Nixon Fife (N.S.W.), 29 Nov. 1879.

75 Michael Normile (N.S.W.) to his father Michael Normile (Clare), 8 Dec. 1858.

76 Biddy Burke (Brisbane) to her parents Patrick and Mary Burke (Galway), 5 May 1884.

77 Isabella Scott (Adelaide) to her nephew Edward Wyly (Newry), 17 May 1859.

78 William Dalton (Tipperary) to Johanna Hogan (Sydney), 20 Aug. 1853. In 1851 Athassel Abbey House and its offices were valued at £12 10s. per annum, twenty times as much as the Hogans’ idyllic cottage.

79 Bridget Browne (Tipperary) to her uncle Edward Browne (N.S.W.), 1 Nov. 1909.According to the house valuation of 1848, the family house was a substantial building measuring 44 x 26 x 9 feet and worth some £3 per annum; while the 1901 census schedule showed that it had 7 rooms and 2 front windows under its perishable roof (National Archives, Dublin, Valuation House Book, 5.1609; Census schedule, Tipperary, 50/15).

80 Sister M. Antonia (Westmeath) to her cousin Christopher Dunne (Queensland), 29 May 1898. The uncle referred to was the emigrant Christopher Dunne, whose son was the recipient of this letter.

81 William Dalton (Tipperary) to Ned Hogan (N.S.W.), 17 Aug. 1858 (transcription from lost original, with some conjectural readings). Dalton’s sentimentalisation of stir-about suggests the rapidity with which Irish ‘traditions’ were manufactured, calling to mind Louis Cullen’s remark that ‘in diet, for instance, the course of change was so sustained that little was traditional’ ( Cullen, L.M., The emergence of modern Ireland, 1600–1900 (London, 1981), p. 254 Google Scholar).

82 Lyons, Culture & anarchy, p. 17. Also noteworthy is the absence of reference to cooperative farming practices such as meitheal and comar, often regarded as vestiges of some ‘traditional’, communal ethic.

83 Maggie May Dunne (Meath) to her uncle Christopher Dunne (Queensland), 8 July 1904.

84 John FitzSimmons (N.S.W.) to his stepbrother Laurence FitzSimmons (Dublin),19 Nov. 1843; Mary Birmingham (N.S.W.) to her grandparents Patrick and Mary Birmingham (Kildare), 28 Jan. 1879.

85 John Fife (Fermanagh) to his sister Fathy Fife (N.S.W.), 11 Nov. 1860.

86 William Fife (Fermanagh) to his daughter Eliza Fife (N.S.W.), 13 Apr. 1878. No doubt correspondents were inclined to omit reference to their own vices, and those of their immediate connexions.

87 O’Farrell, Irish in Australia, p. 165; Michael and Bridget Normile (N.S.W.) to their father Michael Normile (Clare), 1 Apr. 1855.

88 Biddy Burke (Brisbane) to her brother John Burke (Galway), c. 1880–81.

89 Michael Normile (N.S.W.) to his father Michael Normile (Clare), 19 Aug. 1860 and 8 Dec. 1858.

90 Michael Normile (N.S.W.) to his father Michael Normile (Clare), 21 Oct. 1861.

91 Phil Mahoney (Melbourne) to his brother-in-law Lar Shanahan (Cork), 18 Aug. 1887.

92 Bridget Liptrot (Lancashire) to her sister Maria Dunne (Queensland), 5 Mar. [?1879].

93 Isabella Wyly (Adelaide) to her sister-in-law Matilda Wyly (Down), c. 1857; John FitzSimmons (N.S.W.) to his stepbrother Laurence FitzSimmons (Dublin), 19 Nov. 1843.Otherwise, a line from Goldsmith’s ‘Auburn’ (recte, ‘The deserted village’) was slightly misquoted by Sister M. Antonia (Westmeath) to her cousin Christopher Dunne (Queensland), 29 May 1898.

94 Edward Browne (N.S.W.) to his brother Patrick Browne (Tipperary), 22 Feb. 1899;and to his nephew Vall Browne (London), inscribed by his son Edward P. Browne, 2 Feb. 1899.

95 I have so far failed to pinpoint any model in literature or in school readers and copybooks for the conventional salutations, farewells, and enquiries concerning health, which appear without great variation in most Irish letters. Parallel study of other categories of correspondence would enable us to judge the extent to which the form of these letters was specifically Irish.

96 Biddy Burke (Brisbane) to her parents Patrick and Mary Burke (Galway), 5 May 1884, quoted above.

97 Michael Flanagan (Brisbane) to his uncle, Rev. Richard Flanagan (Louth), 18 Feb. 1865.

98 Isabella Wyly (Adelaide) to her sister-in-law Matilda Wyly (Newry), 2 July 1856.

99 John and his wife Agness McCance (Victoria) to his mother Essie McCance (Down), 7 Oct. 1856; John Birmingham (N.S.W.) to his parents Patrick and Mary Birmingham (Kildare), [1878]; Michael Normile (N.S.W.) to his father Michael Normile (Clare), 19 Aug. 1860; William Dalton (Tipperary) to Ned Hogan (Sydney), 22 Feb. 1859.Admittedly, Dalton’s revision of ‘half the world knows not how the other half lives’ has arecognisably Irish twist and sting.

100 John Fife (Fermanagh) to his siter Fathy Fife (N.S.W.), 11 Nov. 1860. Variants of this phrase were recorded by pupils in two Donegal schools in 1937–8, but seem not to have been reported from other counties under study in the Republic (U.C.D., Department of Irish Folklore, Schools Collection, MS S/1118, pp 257,488; cf. card index to proverbs in seven other counties).

101 Michael Normile (N.S.W.) to his father Michael Normile (Clare), 1 Apr. 1855; William Dalton (Tipperary) to Ned Hogan (Sydney), 17 Aug. 1858; Sean Gaffney and Cashman, Seamus, Proverbs and sayings of Ireland (Dublin, 1974), no. 404 Google Scholar; advice from Mr Marcus Bourke, Dublin.

102 Catherine Brennan (Down) to her sister Mary McKee and her husband Joseph McKee (Victoria), 29 Nov. 1869.

103 William Fife (Fermanagh) to his children Fathy and Nixon Fife (N.S.W.), 18 Jan. 1860.

104 Michael Normile (N.S.W.) to his father Michael Normile (Clare), 1 Apr. 1855.

105 General overviews of the origins of Irish-Australians may be found in O’Farrell, Irish in Australia; MacDonagh, Oliver, ‘The Irish in Australia: a general view’ in MacDonagh, Oliver and Mandle, W.F. (eds), Ireland and Irish-Australia: studies in cultural and political history (London, 1986), pp 155-74Google Scholar; articles by myself and others on Irish settlement in Jupp, James (ed.), The Australian people: an encyclopedia (Sydney, 1988), pp 553-95Google Scholar.

106 O’Farrell exaggerates the extent to which social and cultural factors had restricted composition and survival of letters sent to ‘the Catholic south’ (O’Farrell, Letters from Irish Australia, p. 5). It is however true that these are greatly outnumbered by letters to Ulster.

107 The differences between the major emigrant ‘streams’ from Ireland are discussed in my article ‘Irish emigration in the later nineteenth century’ in I.H.S., xxii, no. 86 (Sept.1980), pp 126-43Google Scholar.

108 See Miller, Kerby A., Emigrants and exiles; Akenson, ‘Reading the texts’; Houston, Cecil J. and Smyth, William J., Irish emigration and Canadian settlement (Toronto,1990), pt III Google Scholar. Forthcoming editions of Irish-American letters, by Kerby Miller and by Ruth Ann Harris, will facilitate comparisons between different axes of migration. Key issues inviting comparison include the relative importance of religious as against political affiliations, responses to other races, and the significance of ethnic networks of ‘Irish’ neighbours overseas.

109 For a critique of Miller’s Emigrants and exiles, see my article ‘The Irish in America: exiles or escapers?’ in Reviews in American History, xv (1987), pp 272-8Google Scholar.