TY - JOUR
T1 - Alternative Ascendancies: Anglo-Irish Identities in the Nineteenth Century
AU - Jedrzejewski, Jan
PY - 2019/12/16
Y1 - 2019/12/16
N2 - The common perception of the Anglo-Irish, or the Protestant Ascendancy - the Anglophone, predominantly Church-of-Ireland, and essentially Britocentric aristocracy, gentry, and professional class, which played a dominant role in the social, economic, political, and cultural life of Ireland from the seventeenth to the early twentieth century - is of a community which, despite its privileged position in Irish society, was nonetheless, in consequence of its colonial roots and its isolation from and distrust of the country’s Catholic majority, paradoxically always a community in decline, passively clinging to the memories of the past and unable to play a constructive role in the formation of the cultural identity of a modern, independent Ireland. The paper takes an issue with this interpretation of the contribution of the Ascendancy to Irish culture, particularly in the nineteenth century; taking the examples of three Romantic and Victorian Ascendancy writers, Lady Morgan, Sir Samuel Ferguson, and George Moore, it argues that their vision of Ireland was much more open-minded, inclusive, and progressive than the popular myths of the Ascendancy, such as in particular the tradition of Big House fiction, would lead most readers to believe.
AB - The common perception of the Anglo-Irish, or the Protestant Ascendancy - the Anglophone, predominantly Church-of-Ireland, and essentially Britocentric aristocracy, gentry, and professional class, which played a dominant role in the social, economic, political, and cultural life of Ireland from the seventeenth to the early twentieth century - is of a community which, despite its privileged position in Irish society, was nonetheless, in consequence of its colonial roots and its isolation from and distrust of the country’s Catholic majority, paradoxically always a community in decline, passively clinging to the memories of the past and unable to play a constructive role in the formation of the cultural identity of a modern, independent Ireland. The paper takes an issue with this interpretation of the contribution of the Ascendancy to Irish culture, particularly in the nineteenth century; taking the examples of three Romantic and Victorian Ascendancy writers, Lady Morgan, Sir Samuel Ferguson, and George Moore, it argues that their vision of Ireland was much more open-minded, inclusive, and progressive than the popular myths of the Ascendancy, such as in particular the tradition of Big House fiction, would lead most readers to believe.
KW - Anglo-Irish
KW - Protestant Ascendancy
KW - Ireland
KW - nineteenth century
KW - identity
KW - literature
UR - http://pjes.edu.pl/start/issues/3-1-2017/
UR - https://pure.ulster.ac.uk/en/publications/alternative-ascendancies-anglo-irish-identities-in-the-nineteenth
UR - https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Alternative-Ascendancies%3A-Anglo-Irish-Identities-in-J%C8%A9drzejewski/59c82adc0f146c67de4034719928989cbc7a998b#paper-header
M3 - Article
SN - 2543-5981
VL - 3
SP - 55
EP - 77
JO - Polish Journal of English Studies
JF - Polish Journal of English Studies
IS - 1
ER -