Anglo-Irish people
Related ethnic groups | |
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English • Irish • Irish Catholics • Scots • Ulster Scots • Ulster Protestants • Welsh |
Anglo-Irish people (
The term is not usually applied to
As a social class
The term "Anglo-Irish" is often applied to the members of the
Under the
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.
The Dublin working class playwright
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
Business interests
At the beginning of the 20th century, the Anglo-Irish owned many of the major indigenous businesses in Ireland, such as
Prominent members
Prominent Anglo-Irish poets, writers, and playwrights include
In the 19th century, some of the most prominent mathematical and physical scientists of the British Isles, including
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
Others were prominent officials and administrators in the
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.
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
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
During the
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
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
Among the prominent Anglo-Irish peers are:
- The 1st Earl of Cork, Lord High Treasurer of Ireland, father of scientist Robert Boyle.
- Cathoirleach (or Chairman) of the Irish Senate(1922).
- The 8th Marquess Conyngham, owner of the Slane Castle rock venue and candidate for Fine Gael in recent Irish general elections.
- The 3rd Earl of Iveagh, of Gaelic Irish descent; head of the Guinness family who sat in the Irish Senate (1973–1977).
- Valerie, Lady Goulding, founder of the Rehabilitation Institute and close associate of former Taoiseach (Prime Minister) Charles Haughey.
- The 6th Earl of Longford, Impresario at the Gate Theatre in Dublin in the 1950s.
- The 7th Earl of Longford (who succeeded his brother (above) in the Earldom), British Labour Cabinet minister, biographer and friend of Éamon de Valera.
- The 3rd Earl of Rosse, astronomer and builder of the then-largest telescope in the world.
- The 18th Baron of Dunsany, author.
- Edmond Roche, 1st Baron Fermoy, Irish peer.
- The 1st Duke of Ormonde, 17th-century statesman, served as Lord Deputy of Ireland on two occasions and commanded Royalist forces in Ireland in the Irish Confederate Wars negotiating with the Irish Confederates on behalf of Charles I.
- Murrough, 1st Earl of Inchiquin, 6th Baron Inchiquin (1618–1674), of Gaelic Irish descent; a Parliamentary commander in the Irish Confederate Wars (1644–1648) before changing sides to become one of the leaders of the Royalist troops in Ireland during the Wars of the Three Kingdoms and the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland (1649–53).
- Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo. He later became Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.
Until the year 1800, the peers of Ireland were all entitled to a seat in the
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:
- Valerie, Lady Goulding
- Lord Killanin (though an Irish Catholic, rather than Anglo-Irish despite his peerage)
- Lord Ashbourne (a renowned Gaelic scholar).
See also
- Normans in Ireland
- Surrender and regrant
- Hiberno-English
- Ulster Scots people
- Plantation of Ulster
- Unionism in Ireland
- Catholic Unionist
- Protestant Irish nationalists
- Souperism
- English diaspora
- Reform Movement
- Confederate Ireland
- Jacobitism
- Irish Unionist Alliance
- West Brit
- Ireland–United Kingdom relations
- Irish migration to Great Britain
- Baron Baltimore
- Derry
- Miler Magrath
- Samuel Beckett
References
Citations
- ^ "Census 2011: Religion: KS211NI (administrative geographies)". nisra.gov.uk. Retrieved 11 December 2012.
- ^ "Census 2011: Key Statistics for Northern Ireland" (PDF). nisra.gov.uk. Retrieved 11 December 2012.
- ^ "8. Religion" (PDF). Central Statistics Office. Retrieved 30 October 2018.
- ^ The Anglo-Irish, Fidelma Maguire, University College Cork Archived 2 May 2006 at the Wayback Machine and Donnchadh Ó Corráin
- ^ 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
- ^ ISBN 0838755569.
- ^
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 aorangeman, 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 - ISBN 0-313-31017-3
- ^ "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.
- Irish Times, 9 April 2011, p.14
- ^ "Henry Ford Museum & Greenfield Village". 5 October 2001. Archived from the original on 5 October 2001. Retrieved 4 August 2019.
- ^ Alan O'Day, Reactions to Irish Nationalism, 1865–1914 (Bloomsbury Publishing, 1 July 1987), 376.
- ISBN 9781134797417.
- ^ Alan O'Day, Reactions to Irish Nationalism, 1865–1914 (Bloomsbury Publishing, 1 July 1987), 384.
- ISBN 9780877452645.
- ^ a b D. George Boyce, Nationalism in Ireland (Routledge, 2 Sep 2003), 309.
- ^ 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.
- ^ The Anglo-Irish Archived 2 May 2006 at the Wayback Machine, Fidelma Maguire, University College of Cork
- ^ Zealand, National Library of New. "Papers Past - RATIFICATION QUESTION. (Ashburton Guardian, 1921-12-14)". paperspast.natlib.govt.nz.
- ^ Modern Irish Poetry: Tradition and Continuity from Yeats to Heaney, Robert F. Garratt, University of California Press, 1989, page 34
- ISBN 0-394-52418-7.
Bibliography
- ISBN 978-0-09465-490-7
- Connolly, S. J. (1992). Religion, Law, and Power: The Making of Protestant Ireland 1660–1760. Clarendon Press. ISBN 9780191591792.
- Killeen, Jarlath (2005). Gothic Ireland: Horror and the Irish Anglican Imagination in the Long Eighteenth Century. 1851829431. ISBN 0140154094.
- ISBN 978-0691037578
- Terence de Vere White (1972), The Anglo-Irish: The Men and Women Who Were Involved in a Confluence of Cultures that Spanned 200 Years. London: Victor Gollancz.