Anglo-Irish people

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Anglo-Irish
Angla-Éireannach
Methodist, Catholic or other Protestant)
(see also Religion in Ireland)
Related ethnic groups
English • Irish • Irish Catholics • Scots • Ulster Scots • Ulster Protestants • Welsh

Anglo-Irish people (

Roman Catholics. They often defined themselves as simply "British", and less frequently "Anglo-Irish", "Irish" or "English".[5] Many became eminent as administrators in the British Empire and as senior army and naval officers since the Kingdom of England and Great Britain were in a real union with the Kingdom of Ireland for over a century, before politically uniting into the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland
in 1801.

The term is not usually applied to

Irish Nationalists, but most overall being Unionists. And while most of the Anglo-Irish originated in the English diaspora in Ireland, others were descended from families of the old Gaelic nobility of Ireland.[6]

As a social class

The term "Anglo-Irish" is often applied to the members of the

Hiberno-Norman
settlers.

Under the

military. The lands of the recusant Roman Catholic landed gentry who refused to take the prescribed oaths were largely confiscated during the Plantations of Ireland. The rights of Roman Catholics to inherit landed property were severely restricted. Those who converted to the Church of Ireland were usually able to keep or regain their lost property, as the issue was considered primarily one of allegiance. In the late 18th century, the Parliament of Ireland in Dublin won legislative independence, and the movement for the repeal of the Test Acts
began.

of St Patrick's from 1713 to 1745.

Not all Anglo-Irish people could trace their origins to the Protestant English settlers of the Cromwellian period; some were of Welsh stock, and others descended from Old English or even native Gaelic converts to Anglicanism.

country houses, which became known in Ireland as Big Houses
, and these became symbolic of the class' dominance in Irish society.

The Dublin working class playwright

Irish Republican, saw the Anglo-Irish as Ireland's leisure class and famously defined an Anglo-Irishman as "a Protestant with a horse".[7]

The Anglo-Irish novelist and short story writer Elizabeth Bowen memorably described her experience as feeling "English in Ireland, Irish in England" and not accepted fully as belonging to either.[8]

Due to their prominence in the military and their conservative politics, the Anglo-Irish have been compared to the

Prussian Junker class by, among others, Correlli Barnett.[9]

Business interests

At the beginning of the 20th century, the Anglo-Irish owned many of the major indigenous businesses in Ireland, such as

Guinness brewery, Ireland's largest employer.[citation needed] They also controlled financial companies such as the Bank of Ireland and Goodbody Stockbrokers
.

Statue of Anglo-Irish mathematician and theologian George Salmon (1819–1904), in front of the campanile of Trinity College Dublin, the traditional alma mater of the Anglo-Irish class. Salmon was provost of Trinity from 1888 until his death.

Prominent members

Prominent Anglo-Irish poets, writers, and playwrights include

was of Anglo-Irish descent on his father's side but was brought up as a Catholic by his great-aunt.

In the 19th century, some of the most prominent mathematical and physical scientists of the British Isles, including

Sir John Lumsden and William Babington. The geographer William Cooley was one of the first to describe the process of globalization
.

The Anglo-Irishmen Richard Brinsley Sheridan, Henry Grattan, Lord Castlereagh, George Canning, Lord Macartney, Thomas Spring Rice, Charles Stewart Parnell, and Edward Carson played major roles in British politics. Downing Street itself was named after Sir George Downing. In the Church, Bishop Richard Pococke contributed much to C18 travel writing.

The Anglo-Irish were also represented among the senior officers of the

British India; Field Marshal Viscount Gough, who served under Wellington, himself a Wellesley born in Dublin to the Earl of Mornington, head of a prominent Anglo-Irish family in Dublin; and in the 20th century Field Marshal Lord Alanbrooke, Field Marshal Lord Alexander of Tunis, General Sir John Winthrop Hackett, Field Marshal Sir Henry Wilson and Field Marshal Sir Garnet Wolseley. (see also Irish military diaspora
).

Others were prominent officials and administrators in the

Gavan Duffy. Others were involved in finding better ways of managing it, heading the Donoughmore Commission or the Moyne Commission
.

Sir John Winthrop Hackett emigrated to Australia where he became the proprietor and editor of many prominent newspapers. He was also influential in the founding of the University of Western Australia and was its first chancellor.

Prolific art music composers included Michael William Balfe, John Field, George Alexander Osborne, Thomas Roseingrave, Charles Villiers Stanford, John Andrew Stevenson, Robert Prescott Stewart, William Vincent Wallace, and Charles Wood.

In the visual arts, sculptor John Henry Foley, art dealer Hugh Lane, artists Daniel Maclise, William Orpen and Jack Yeats; ballerina Dame Ninette de Valois and designer-architect Eileen Gray were famous outside Ireland.

William Desmond Taylor was an early and prolific maker of silent films in Hollywood. Scriptwriter Johanna Harwood penned several of the early James Bond films, among others.

Philanthropists included Thomas Barnardo and Lord Iveagh
.

Confederate general Patrick Cleburne was of Anglo-Irish ancestry.

Discussing what he considered the lack of Irish civic morality in 2011, former Taoiseach Garret FitzGerald remarked that before 1922: "In Ireland a strong civic sense did exist – but mainly amongst Protestants and especially Anglicans".[10]

Henry Ford, the American industrialist and business magnate, was half Anglo-Irish; his father William Ford was born in Cork to a family originally from Somerset, England.[11]

Attitude towards Ireland's independence

The Anglo-Irish, as a class, were mostly opposed to the notions of Irish independence and Home Rule.[12] Most were supporters of continued political union with Great Britain, which existed between 1800 and 1922. This was for many reasons, but most important were the economic benefits of union for the landowning class, the close personal and familial relations with the British establishment, and the political prominence held by the Anglo-Irish in Ireland under the union settlement.[13] Many Anglo-Irish men served as officers in the British Army, were clergymen in the established Anglican Church of Ireland or had land (or business interests) across the British Isles – all factors which encouraged political support for unionism. Between the mid-nineteenth century and 1922, the Anglo-Irish comprised the bulk of the support for movements such as the Irish Unionist Alliance, especially in the southern three provinces of Ireland.[14]

During

Irish nationalist MP Tom Kettle compared the Anglo-Irish landlord class to the Prussian Junkers, saying, "England goes to fight for liberty in Europe and for junkerdom in Ireland."[15]

However, Protestants in Ireland, and the Anglo-Irish class in particular, were by no means universally attached to the cause of continued political union with Great Britain. For instance, author

became leading figures in finding a peaceful solution to the 'Irish question'.

During the

Anti-Treaty IRA during the Irish Civil War. Considering the Irish State unable to protect them, many members of the Anglo-Irish class subsequently left Ireland forever, fearing that they would be subject to discriminatory legislation and social pressures. The Protestant proportion of the Irish population dropped from 10% (300,000) to 6% (180,000) in the Irish Free State in the twenty-five years following independence,[18] with most resettling in Great Britain
. In the whole of Ireland the percentage of Protestants was 26% (1.1 million).

The reaction of the Anglo-Irish to the Anglo-Irish Treaty which envisaged the establishment of the Irish Free State was mixed. J. A. F. Gregg, the Church of Ireland Archbishop of Dublin, stated in a sermon in December 1921 (the month the Treaty was signed):

It concerns us all to offer the Irish Free State our loyalty. I believe there is a genuine desire on the part of those who have long differed from us politically to welcome our co-operation. We should be wrong politically and religiously to reject such advances.[19]

In 1925, when the Irish Free State was poised to outlaw

Irish Senate
:

I think it is tragic that within three years of this country gaining its independence we should be discussing a measure which a minority of this nation considers to be grossly oppressive. I am proud to consider myself a typical man of that minority. We against whom you have done this thing, are no petty people. We are one of the great stocks of Europe. We are the people of Burke; we are the people of Grattan; we are the people of Swift, the people of Emmet, the people of Parnell. We have created the most of the modern literature of this country. We have created the best of its political intelligence. Yet I do not altogether regret what has happened. I shall be able to find out, if not I, my children will be able to find out whether we have lost our stamina or not. You have defined our position and have given us a popular following. If we have not lost our stamina then your victory will be brief, and your defeat final, and when it comes this nation may be transformed.[20]

Peerage

Following the English victory in the

Hiberno-Norman aristocracy), or the Gaelic Guinness family. Some were families of British or mixed-British ancestry who owed their status in Ireland to the Crown, such as the Earls of Cork (whose surname is Boyle and whose ancestral roots were in Herefordshire
, England).

Among the prominent Anglo-Irish peers are:

Field Marshal Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, from a portrait by Sir Thomas Lawrence

Until the year 1800, the peers of Ireland were all entitled to a seat in the

Georgian Era, titles in the peerage of Ireland were often granted by the British monarch to Englishmen with little or no connection to Ireland, as a way of preventing such honours from inflating the membership of the British House of Lords.[21]

A number of Anglo-Irish peers have been appointed by Presidents of Ireland to serve on their advisory Council of State. Some were also considered possible candidates for presidents of Ireland, including:

See also

References

Citations

  1. ^ "Census 2011: Religion: KS211NI (administrative geographies)". nisra.gov.uk. Retrieved 11 December 2012.
  2. ^ "Census 2011: Key Statistics for Northern Ireland" (PDF). nisra.gov.uk. Retrieved 11 December 2012.
  3. ^ "8. Religion" (PDF). Central Statistics Office. Retrieved 30 October 2018.
  4. ^ The Anglo-Irish, Fidelma Maguire, University College Cork Archived 2 May 2006 at the Wayback Machine and Donnchadh Ó Corráin
  5. ^ a b The Anglo-Irish, Movements for Political & Social Reform, 1870–1914, Multitext Projects in Irish History, University College Cork Archived 2 May 2006 at the Wayback Machine
  6. ^ .
  7. ^

    Pat: He was an Anglo-Irishman.

    Meg: In the name of God, what's that?
    Pat: A Protestant with a horse.
    Ropeen: Leadbetter.
    Pat: No, no, an ordinary Protestant like Leadbetter, the plumber in the back parlour next door, won't do, nor a

    orangeman
    , not if he was as black as your boot.
    Meg: Why not?

    Pat: Because they work. An Anglo-Irishman only works at riding horses, drinking whiskey, and reading double-meaning books in Irish at Trinity College.

    — From act one of The Hostage, 1958
  8. ^ "Roberts, Kitchener and Wolesley were three national heroes of the nineteenth century whom Correlli Barnett sees as prime examples of the Anglo-Irish gentry, the nearest thing Britain ever possessed to the Prussian Junker class". Desmond and Jean Bowen, Heroic Option: the Irish in the British Army, Pen & Sword, Barnsley, 2005.
  9. Irish Times
    , 9 April 2011, p.14
  10. ^ "Henry Ford Museum & Greenfield Village". 5 October 2001. Archived from the original on 5 October 2001. Retrieved 4 August 2019.
  11. ^ Alan O'Day, Reactions to Irish Nationalism, 1865–1914 (Bloomsbury Publishing, 1 July 1987), 376.
  12. .
  13. ^ Alan O'Day, Reactions to Irish Nationalism, 1865–1914 (Bloomsbury Publishing, 1 July 1987), 384.
  14. .
  15. ^ a b D. George Boyce, Nationalism in Ireland (Routledge, 2 Sep 2003), 309.
  16. ^ Christopher, David (2002). "The fate of Cork unionists 1919-1921". www.reform.org. Archived from the original on 16 March 2004. Retrieved 3 February 2011.
  17. ^ The Anglo-Irish Archived 2 May 2006 at the Wayback Machine, Fidelma Maguire, University College of Cork
  18. ^ Zealand, National Library of New. "Papers Past - RATIFICATION QUESTION. (Ashburton Guardian, 1921-12-14)". paperspast.natlib.govt.nz.
  19. ^ Modern Irish Poetry: Tradition and Continuity from Yeats to Heaney, Robert F. Garratt, University of California Press, 1989, page 34
  20. .

Bibliography