visual, material and print culture in nineteenth-century irelandby ciara breathnach; catherine...

Canadian Journal of Irish StudiesCanadian Association of Irish Studies

Visual, Material and Print Culture in Nineteenth-Century Ireland by CIARA BREATHNACH;CATHERINE LAWLESSReview by: Nicholas WolfThe Canadian Journal of Irish Studies, Vol. 36, No. 2 (FALL/AUTOMNE 2010), pp. 212-215Published by: Canadian Journal of Irish StudiesStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/41955438 .

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will find this text informative and insight- ful, as might film-makers interested in the technical notes, such as decisions about the use of specific film-making equip- ment, the inclusion of non-narrative images and visual framing techniques. One of McLaughlins goals is to evaluate filmmaking processes and to do so in a way that is able to find "a balance that is empathetic and critical" (30). Recording Memories from Political Violence : A Film-Makers Journey is sensitive to this

balance. It is respectful of the stories and their tellers, but it also remains appro- priately sceptical about the abilities of storytelling and memories to facilitate healing and to alter difficult political realities and situations of violence. This book raises difficult questions in text and film about political violence and it is certain to provoke some equally difficult, and necessary, conversations.

- Memorial University

CIARA BREATHNACH and CATHERINE LAWLESS, eds.

Visual Material and Print

Culture in Nineteenth-

Century Ireland

Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2010. 273 pages. ISBN 9781846822515 (cloth) €49.50

Reviewed by Nicholas Wolf

Publications of conference proceedings are becoming increasingly rare, making Four Courts Pressé decision to make this collection available to the public all the more laudable. Arising out of a 2008 meeting of the Society for the Study of Nineteenth-Century Ireland, this collection is dominated by early- career scholars who demonstrate the many ways in which scholarship on the nineteenth-century is moving in newer directions. The essays are consistently engaging, helped by the collections thematic alignment

212 I CJIS Vol. 36, No. 2

around common threads- visual, material, and print objects- so that each contribution further develops ideas raised by its immediate predecessor.

While the thematic organization around media type contributes to the cohesive- ness of the collection, it also disguises the larger scholarly issues concern- ing the nineteenth century raised by this research. The aim of highlighting all types of media - photography, book illustrations, and theater, in addition to the usual tendency to focus on print- is commendable. But the research here could just as easily be dissected in other ways. One theme that crops up repeat- edly is the conflict over creative owner- ship, authorship, and copyright in an Ireland consuming a variety of media cultures, whether Anglophone, continental, or Irish. Thus, Leon Litvack's contribution traces the 1859 legal action over image copyright brought against Dubliner James Robinson for attempt- ing to sell photographs of staged repro- ductions of the scene painted by Henry Wallis in "The Death of Chatterton." The case, Litvack notes, expanded the types



of images considered illegitimate repro- ductions of protected works, and helped encourage greater protection for paint- ings and drawings under the Fine Arts Copyright Act of 1862. Not subject to copyright nuisances (though no less active than Robinson in reproducing creative works for his own purposes), was the Cork scribe Dáibhí de Barra, whose Irish translations of English- language writings are examined by Seán Ó Duinnshléibhe. In addition to an overview of de Barras choice of texts, Ó Duinnshléibhe notes his subjects willingness to add to or subtract from the sources, bringing native elements into the prose. Meanwhile, Dublins consumption of visual culture, namely simultaneous 1821 exhibitions from abroad of representations of the wreck of the Medusa , is the topic of investigation by Niamh O'Sullivan. Although posi- tioned in the beginning, middle, and end of the collection, these three essays together point to a broader need for his- torians to consider the unique legal and creative place occupied by Ireland in appropriating and reproducing foreign (especially English) textual and visual products for its own purposes.

The history of memory, which is quickly making up for lost time in Irish scholarship, is reflected in contributions by Catherine Marshall, Philip McEvansoneya, Emily Cullen, and Maxime Levy. Marshall's identification of the absence of nineteenth- century visual (especially painted) depictions of the Great Famine has relevance to cur- rent debates about presence or absence of "silence" in the aftermath of this event. Scholars of memory tend to work with oral or written sources, but it is

significant that the nineteenth century, through its burgeoning archaeological finds in Greece, Turkey, Egypt, and, most importantly, Ireland, helped supply the objects that gave a materiality to under- standings of the past. McEvansoneyas account of the purchase of the reliquary of St. Lachtin by the Royal Irish Academy not only highlights the importance of the academy's efforts in the absence of a national museum (as he suggests), but also hints at the fascinating history of Irish archaeological discoveries yet to be written. Cullen reveals the stakes in these archaeological finds, noting that the Comerford Cap, a Bronze-age ves- sel initially believed to be a Milesian crown, had become (paired with the harp) a unifying nationalist symbol and a proxy in conflicts waged by antiquar- ians over whether Ireland had eastern or western European origins. The wield- ing of national symbols to shape collec- tive understanding of the past is echoed again in Levy's look at Samuel Lovers novel Handy Andy , a work whose embed- ded illustrations, though caricatures, also referenced key European artistic motifs built on ancient Greece. When these illustrations are 'read' within the context of the surrounding text, Levy argues, they reinforce a message of Ireland as possess- ing a glorious classical past, among other possible interpretations.

Long a central area of nineteenth- cen- tury historical scholarship, Irish reli- gious history has undergone a resurgence in recent years. Catholicism is the only denomination fully addressed in this collection. Catherine Lawless provides a compelling glimpse into the material culture of the newly emerging Catholicism of the time, represented by both artisanal

Book Reviews | 213



and industrial stained-glass windows and statuaries. The tendency has been to overlook these visual items, so central to the Roman-influenced, continental- style Catholicism that would become so influential, and it is particularly insight- ful to consider the connection between Catholicism and mass industrial produc- tion. This harnessing of mass technology by the Church is evident in other ways, too, most notably in its sponsor- ship of print. Robin Kavanagh investi- gates the founding of the Catholic Penny Magazine in 1834, a result, she argues, of the challenge brought by Protestant periodicals of the same cast and of the encouragement of French Catholics (like the Comte de Montalembart) who were in touch with Archbishiop Daniel Murray. Although it could be argued that Irish Catholic mastery of the press had as much precedent in çighteenth-century pamphlet wars, Kavanagh convincingly demonstrates the importance of the alli- ance between faith and print, as well as the broader European context in which it was fashioned. This use of print tools was also evident abroad, as revealed in Patrick Naughtins look at the Melbourne Advocate . Founded in 1868, the Advocate became the primary voice of Irish- Australian Catholics in Victoria, and pro- cured the explicit support of the Church. In fact, where the battle over denomina- tional education was concerned, church and newspaper worked together closely to oppose liberal advocacy of state-sup- ported schooling- even if, as Naughtin shows, the Advocate functioned firstly as a voice for Irish nationalism in Australia. Patrick Maumes exploration of the writings of Margaret Cusack, the Nun of Kenmare, are relevant here, too: Maume highlights the popularity of ultramontane

214 I CJIS Vol. 36, No. 2

Catholicism, paired as it was with an emphasis on miraculous apparitions at Lourdes and Knock, that was so evident in Cusacks generation of Catholics (and Catholic converts) who came of age under Pius IX.

A fourth set of contributions add to another growing field of research in nineteenth-century Ireland: the tradi- tional print press and its relationship to nationalist (in most cases) politics. Oliver Coquelin makes a convincing case for the central role of the prison writings of John Mitchel and Michael Davitt in the evolution of republican nationalist and social- ism-based nationalism, respectively. One wonders, however, if it isn't the evolution of the genre of prison writing itself that might present more scholarly possibili- ties. What, for example, are the origins of prison writings, and why has this for- mat been so fruitful for Irish national politics? Davitt reappears in Carla King's investigation of his journalism career, and in particular his later years as a pro- ponent of labour politics via various newspaper editorships. Davitt s career as a labour advocate, and thus uneasy gad- fly of mainstream nationalism, is nicely paralleled by Felix Larkins look at W.H. Brayden and Thomas Sexton, two men whose tenure at the Freeman's Journal up until 1912 reveals another point of poten- tial friction between what was supposed to be a reliably nationalist paper and the Irish Parliamentary Party.

The remaining essays add to continued historical investigations into the dias- pora, women's history, class, and race. Australia is the diasporic destination best represented here, particularly by Kiera Lindsey s portrait of an early play,



The Currency Lass ; or My Native Girl , by Dublin emigrant Edward Geoghegan, produced (and then forgotten for over a century) in New South Wales. Together with Sarah Roddy s look at the contents of the many emigration guides circu- lated in Ireland- for which she rightly identifies the prominent role of clergy in writing and distributing - one gets a sense of the centrality of print and even literary self- representation to the migra- tion experience. Elizabeth Boyle, on the other hand, addresses the unfair criti- cisms that have been made of the Celtic scholar Margaret Stokes on account of the tendency of her writings to address a popular audience. Not only was Stokes's approach typical of the time, Boyle notes, but she was well-connected with top con- temporary scholars like George Petrie; more telling, at least for scholars interested in the common ties binding edu- cated women of the nineteenth century, Stokes was a product of the historically central Alexandra College. Class and

race, meanwhile, remain underexplored by scholars of the nineteenth century, as two contributions here remind us. Noting the overlap between photography and race-based anthropology, Justin Carville's essay serves as a warning of the relevancy of racial discussions to Irish history given both the early contributions of the island to photographic technology and the racialized interest of the time in western Ireland. Lastly, although less relevant to this collections broader theme, an update on the progress of an ongoing ESRC project on the poor law neverthe- less commands attention through the conclusions made by its team regarding class, gender, and the complicated work- ings of welfare in Ireland, especially for the later century when the classic picture of crowded workhouses was superseded by a system based around casual (often male) inmates.

- New York University

ANN SADDLEMYER, ed.

W. B. Yeats & George Yeats, The Letters

Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011. 624 pages. ISBN: 9780198184386 (cloth) £30.00

Reviewed by Richard Allen Cave

It was astute of Ann Saddlemyer and the commissioning editor at OUP to bring out her distinguished biography of George Yeats before editing for publi- cation one of her major sources for that

volume. With the new work one can gauge how judiciously and sensitively Professor Saddlemyer has summarised that source and expertly extrapo- lated from it inferences about this most remarkable of marriages, one that might initially have seemed destined to fail. A fortnight before their wedding Yeats wrote to George: "I will live for my work & your happiness" (12). One might ques- tion this ordering of priorities in a love- letter, except he continues: "My work shall become yours and yours mine"; he expresses his desire for her physically but assures her that that phallic urgency "will not make me the less the student of your soul." What the ensuing collection of letters shows is how those promises

Book Reviews | 215



visual, material and print culture in nineteenth-century irelandby ciara breathnach; catherine...

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