Author: Christian Case

Yeats, W. B. The Celtic Twilight. Macmillan and Co., 1893. Print.

Yeats, W.B. “The Song of Wandering Aengus.” The Collected Poems of W.B. Yeats, edited by Richard J. Finneran. Springer, 1991. Pp. 59 – 60

Holdeman and Levitas. W.B. Yeats in Context. Cambridge University Press. 2010. Print.

Flannery, Mary Catherine. Yeats and Magic: The Earlier Works. Harper & Row. 1978. Print.

Foster, R.F. The Irish Story: Telling Tales and Making it up in Ireland. Penguin Books, 2002.

Synge, J.M. The Aran Islands. Penguin Books, 1992.

Yeats, W.B. The Stolen Child. 1889.

De Valera, Eamon. The Ireland That We Dreamed Of. Radio Broadcast, 1943.

O’grady, Standish. History of Ireland: The Heroic Period. Porteous and Gibbs, 1878.

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Negative stereotypes in Ireland trace back to their Celtic ancestors who were once openly criticized by outsiders as barbaric heathens with crude traditions and little understanding of the world. Druid traditions were labeled as “pagan” and were often exaggerated by conquerors and explorers such as the Romans as justification for their destruction. Julius Caesar once depicted a druid ritual as including the grisly sacrifice of numerous people within a giant wicker man as an offering to the gods. The truth of this is questionable, and is likely an early attempt to codify the Celts as barbaric. While it is likely that ancient forms of human sacrifice existed, connections to the druids seem especially biased and circumstantial. The Druids and Celts were also portrayed as a warmongering people; seekers of battle and destruction.

This stereotype lived on with the English and their conquest of the Irish. It is a common trend among conquerors to justify themselves and establish their superiority over those they have conquered by labeling them as barbaric, uncivilized savages. Englishman, Edmund Spenser, provides a perfect example of this outlook through his essay: A View of the State of Ireland (1596), in which he describes the Irish people as  “barbaric”, “heathenish”, “brutish and filthy”, and “superstitious”. His specific emphasis on their laziness, criminal nature, and love of war as indications of their evil nature is telling of his bias towards the Irish people and his goals of persuading the English public against towards them. Spenser’s use of these negative stereotypes illustrates their harmful potential; a sort of weaponized opinion against the Irish people. To label the entirety of the Irish people in such a negative light is unrealistic and can only have been done with the intent to influence public opinion against the Irish.

Even as opinion of the Irish people evolved to encompass more positive characteristics, the lingering notion of Irish nature being rooted in a barbaric and uncivilized history prevailed. English overseers (Big House Ascendancy) of the Irish remained suspicious of their Irish subjects, always afraid of their true motivations. There would always be something just below the surface that those of English descent couldn’t quite trust, a result of lingering stereotypes towards the Irish as murdering criminals and liars, no doubt. The Famine would further accentuate the dangerous nature of these lingering stereotypes as the English refused to provide the Irish with aid in their time of need, in part due to the idea that the Irish simply weren’t working hard enough to fix the problem themselves.

“Barbaric heathens” evolved into “promiscuous, lazy drunkards with a penchant for violence”, and while the second would prove less dangerous to the Irish people, it was no less derogatory and continued to reinforce English superiority over the Irish. With revolution came nationalism, and the attempt to dismantle negative stereotypes and replace them with new Irish ideals.

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Yeats uses Celticism to counter these negative stereotypes such as those portrayed in the Punch cartoons. To understand Yeats’ complicated perspectives, it is helpful to know of his background: he is Irish but spent most of his early life in London. He is Protestant but not an imperialist; however, he supports Anglo-Irish leadership and the nationalists’ revolutionary efforts. Yeats’ views directly impact his complex perspective when it comes to his writing.

Similar to how Yeats’ attitudes contradict each other, his methods of portraying an ideal Irish identity are also complicated. Sometimes, being Irish is all about being tied to the unique landscape. Other times, he works toward formulating a more universal Celtic spirit that ultimately determines the ideal Irishness. These ideas negate each other — as soon as one is established, Yeats shuttles to the other one, creating an unstable tone. Despite Yeats’ efforts, there really is no true ideal.

The Celtic Twilight is one of Yeats’ earliest collections of works that aims to answer his question, “Can we not build up a national tradition, a national literature, which shall be nonetheless Irish in spirit from being English in language?” This discussion of ‘national’ ideas emphasizes the dismantling of stereotypes and pursuit of an ideal Irish identity.

An example of this negation between the two different ideas is evident in “A Voice.” In this work, Yeats begins by describing walking on “marshy ground” — a reference to the bogs of Ireland — before quickly moving into telling of being “preoccupied with Aengus and Edain, and with Manannan, God of the Sea”. This discussion of Irish folklore represents the Celtic spirit, yet it cancels out the landscape portion. In his attempt to disassemble the derogatory Irish stereotypes, Yeats tries to have these separate ideals both ways, which is unattainable.

Yeats:

Yeats uses Celticism to counter these negative stereotypes such as those portrayed in the Punch cartoons. To understand Yeats’ complicated perspectives, it is helpful to know of his background: he is Irish but spent most of his early life in London. He is Protestant but not an imperialist; however, he supports Anglo-Irish leadership and the nationalists’ revolutionary efforts. Yeats’ views directly impact his complex perspective when it comes to his writing.

Similar to how Yeats’ attitudes contradict each other, his methods of portraying an ideal Irish identity are also complicated. Sometimes, being Irish is all about being tied to the unique landscape. Other times, he works toward formulating a more universal Celtic spirit that ultimately determines the ideal Irishness. These ideas negate each other — as soon as one is established, Yeats shuttles to the other one, creating an unstable tone. Despite Yeats’ efforts, there really is no true ideal.

The Celtic Twilight is one of Yeats’ earliest collections of works that aims to answer his question, “Can we not build up a national tradition, a national literature, which shall be nonetheless Irish in spirit from being English in language?” This discussion of ‘national’ ideas emphasizes the dismantling of stereotypes and pursuit of an ideal Irish identity.

An example of this negation between the two different ideas is evident in “A Voice.” In this work, Yeats begins by describing walking on “marshy ground” — a reference to the bogs of Ireland — before quickly moving into telling of being “preoccupied with Aengus and Edain, and with Manannan, God of the Sea”. This discussion of Irish folklore represents the Celtic spirit, yet it cancels out the landscape portion. In his attempt to disassemble derogatory Irish stereotypes, Yeats tries to have these separate ideals both ways, which is unattainable.

The Celtic Ideal: The Warrior and the Druid

The ancient Celts, the origin of much of Ireland’s mythology and folklore, were warrior people. The Celts idealized courage, wisdom, eloquence and cunning in their warriors and emphasized the importance of an “agrarian society that venerates nature.” These beliefs have survived through the myths and folklore that permeate Irish culture. In his article, “The Prisoners of the Gods” (1898), Yeats said, “the peasants believe in their ancient gods and that to them, as to their forbears, everything is inhabited and mysterious. The gods gather in raths or forts, and about the twisted thorn trees, and appear in many shapes, now little and grotesque, now tall, fairhaired and noble, and seem busy and real in the world, like the people in the markets or at the crossroads.” Even as modernity encroached on Ireland, its people held onto that magic passed onto them for centuries.

From an outside perspective, especially that of the English who sought to conquer these people, the Irish likely seemed superstitious and strange. Long after most nations had moved onto prayer and sermons, the Irish still spoke as if the gods walked among them and faeries lived in the hills. Alongside their general scorn for materialism and urbanization, these “pagan” beliefs would have set the Irish apart from the English in a way that was not easily reconciled. When stereotypes of Irish barbarism, and uncivilized pagan customs emerged, the English likely felt somewhat justified while the Irish recognized such labels as an attack on their culture and national identity.

When Revivalists, such as Yeats, and nationalist politicians, such as De Valera, proposed the Irish ideal as a return to the country-side, a rejection of materialism, and an embracement of tradition and the family, they reintroduced timeless Celtic ideals to the Irish public. Rather than accepting criticism of their culture, the Irish held fast to their cultural identity and sought to replace derogatory stereotypes with the image of Ireland as it once was. The problem with this approach is that while is succeeded in some part by reinvigorating Irish culture, it was also unrealistic. Progress required modernization, and while Ireland continued to urbanize and progress as a country, the Irish people were also being encouraged to embrace tradition and the simple, country life. For many people struggling to survive in cities, such as Dublin, the Irish ideal was impossible to meet.

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The notion of Ireland brings together different opinions, though romanticizing has been very prevalent across artists, authors, and notorious people. J.M. Synge was an Irish author who spent time on the Aran Islands, recording his experiences and thoughts. Many of these thoughts were contained comments in which he romanticized the landscape, the people, and the lifestyle. Romanticizing a people is one story of how the author wants them to be, where Synge has decided the lifestyle he finds best. He refers to the way the people have been shaped into perfect humans due to their life on the islands, comparing them to animals. “The agile walk of the wild animal” is how he describes the people, treating them as more of a thing to behold rather than a human being. While this can be seen as a positive in form of the people and being opposed to normal negative aspects, Synge is choosing how to present the Irish people as a whole to the world. There is no diversity in this way of expression and it enforces that the people are simple, primal, and nature-oriented. 

 

Eamon De Valera employs a similar tactic, treating the landscape as a catalyst for nationalism. He reminds the people of how the landscape is and can be if people return it to that beauty. Romanticizing a landscape can be dangerous though, as this then excludes all of the people who are poor and live in dilapidated cities. He describes the picturesque landscape of Ireland with rolling hills and unending green. These factors are lost on people who do not live that exclusive lifestyle. Acting as the leader of a whole group of people, exclusivity is brought only to some who agree. The power dynamic here is drawn from the Ideal Ireland as De Valera uses the beauty to keep nationality as the primary cause. 

The image above of the boy in urban Ireland is important because the Irish Revivalists like Synge and Yeats mostly portray the ideal as being connected to an urban landscape. The Revivalists are searching for an ideal and in their search, they completely ignore an entire aspect of Irish culture. When thinking of the Irish ideal, the common thought is the beauty of landscape. The urban life has been lost in the search, putting the Revivalists in yet another single story category.

William Butler Yeats often does the same thing as De Valera, employing the beauty and simplicity of Irish life that only applies to some. In his poem, The Lake Isle of Innisfree, Yeats describes the return to this island in which he will live a simple but fulfilled lifestyle. As a romanticization, this can be considered negative because people who read his poem will imagine a united Ireland in this one sense. That united Ireland is a stereotype single story that is often expressed, that the simplicity is the key to an Ideal life. While this can be a fine opinion of a single person, presenting the opinion to readers who will succumb to the ideal is negative. The public may then see Ireland as ideal but they will also consider the people to be altogether simple, with a lack of any diversity or room for difference. 

Something that both Yeats and Synge do is that they rewrite how certain views of the Irish are interpreted. As a stereotype, aspects such as mysticism, language, and a simplistic lifestyle have been considered wrong. They were motives for oppression because those aspects were uncivilized and the Irish were viewed as not being true humans or being treated in a human way. Yeats uses a significant amount of mysticism and Celticism in his works but this is the idealized version, moving towards a positive rather than a negative. These are virtuous and considered a value when Yeats portrays them. A similar view is how Synge idealizes the people of the Aran Islands. As discussed before, he has a view of what makes their bodies perfect. Leaving out whether this is negative or positive, the stereotype here has shifted from barbaric to an adapted to their environment people due to Synge’s works.

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On one of our first days of class, we discussed topics that we stereotypically associate with Ireland. The following ideas came to mind: overconsumption of alcohol, having a lot of babies, the color green, sheep, bogs, potatoes, emotionally sporadic, and poverty. The idea that thinking of Ireland sets off mental triggers for certain words is very ill-advised, it paints a diverse Ireland in a way that can be summarized by one word. This is not only simply wrong, but it is damaging to the people, the culture, the economy, and the view from other parts of the world. 

These responses are both positives and negatives, but what they all have in common is their contribution to creating a national identity.  A lot of stereotypes can be discussed as having a grain of truth based on the idea of landscape. The problem with this type of thinking is that Ireland as a whole is categorized under these modes, preserving Ireland as a single story to the rest of the world. Additionally, these stereotypes were used in literature.

William Butler Yeats employed some of these stereotypes in order to make his works that would be vague more ‘Irish’ to appeal to a more specific audience. Specifically, The Celtic Twilight by Yeats contains many works pertaining to the Irish landscape in particular. In his folklore tale, “A Voice”, these generalizations are made by the description of “marshy ground” (like bogs), and children dressed in olive green clothing. However, this examination of stereotypically Irish things backfires when there is mention of something beyond the general knowledge of outsiders to Irish culture: Yeats writes that he was “preoccupied with Aengus and Edain, and with Manannan, God of the Sea” — this radically excludes a wider audience. The exclusion and inclusion of certain types of audiences is very interesting, as Yeats can be argued to be someone who was delivering positive stereotypes. The positive stereotypes are the beauty of Ireland and the simplicity of this life he wishes to return to. Though, the simplicity as also quite the problem because of thinking Ireland is just a simple place while it has cities as well. Especially during the time of Yeats, Dublin would have been very populated. 

As discussed in another page, J.M. Synge is another who has contributed to the single story issue. He tends to portray the Aran Islands in a way that it is Ireland completely and the lifestyle there is found all over the country.

Irish Stereotypes like Celticism ingrained in everything are prevalent throughout the world which shows that the single stories have been bought into. That dangerous exchange of power makes Ireland seem simple and it is often found with things like alcohol and bars. Many “Irish” bars in United States are portrayed with Celtic imagery or most often: Leprechauns and clovers.

The bar pictured above is a prime example for how the Irish stereotypes are played out in the world. This is Kelly’s Saloon, an establishment that portrays many of the negative aspects that can be thought of for Irish Stereotypes. The name of the bar has a four-leaf clover in it, everything is green, and the sign is the particularly harmful aspect. 

The most harmful piece of this sign is the symbol being a “drunken Irishmen”. This is an extremely disrespectful image as it portrays the Irish this way entirely. The single image here connects to the idea of the single story, it is something that people will call towards their minds when they think of the Irish people from a simple stereotype plastered in the middle of a bustling town. That is the problem with having stereotypes so visible to the public, especially in an area that may not have a very large Irish population. The image will be seen and let to continue, portraying an entire country’s population as a single image.

The Irish ideal is looked for in many forms. Eamon De Valera has searched for this by demanding what he expects of people for a truly Irish person. He says “That Ireland which we dreamed of would be the home of a people who valued material wealth only as the basis of right living, of a people who were satisfied with frugal comfort and devoted their leisure to the things of the spirit-a land whose countryside would be bright with cosy homesteads” (De Valera 466). He is being exclusive to a certain group of people as well as making sure the average person is following the “ideal” life to bring back an “ideal” Ireland. It is significant that he uses the word “we” as a way to collectively use the entire Irish people as one mode of bringing back the Ideal, even if individuals do not necessarily agree.

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Language is an important factor in what is considered to be the ideal Ireland. The Irish Gaelic had dwindled as time passed and there have been revitalization attempts due to the association of Gaelic with Irish Identity.

Language itself is often used as a barrier or a way to oppress. Irish has been no exception and the motive for dehumanizing the Irish people early on was rooted in viewing the language as “barbaric”. The impact of language on how a culture is viewed shifts over time. Irish Gaelic was spoken more when it was considered “barbaric” and then dwindled over time. The continuous decline can be taken from the pressure put on Ireland during the time but then later, the language is seen to be something important for nationality. There is an embrace of the language and its ties to the landscape in which the people hold dear.

The Gaelic League, or Conradh na Gaeilge,  was a significant establishment founded in 1893 to revive the language. Classes ran all across the country that led a standardized way to reading and speaking. There were many works also published in Gaelic during this time of the Irish Revival. 

Douglas Hyde was a prominent figure in the Gaelic Literary Revival and published A Literary History of Ireland. This book was a good example of how the Gaelic League functioned due to it’s progression through time from an Irish perspective.   “Who were those Celts, of whose race the Irish are to-day perhaps the most striking representatives, and on whose past the ancient literature of Ireland can best throw light?” (Hyde 1).  The quotation brings with it a connotation of the leadership and merit of Ireland as well as the place in which these proud people of today have garnered their strong will. Hyde ends his book by exposing how the language is a failure because the education system has failed to promote it. He says about the system, “But even with the smallest philological regard for the meaning of words, it cannot be called education” (Hyde 637).

As language is held in high regard because of its association to Irish identity, many leaders have continuously brought the subject to the forefront of Irish politics. The problem with this mainstreamed view of the language is that it can e used to ostracize and punish, or it can be used to bolster national identity. Eamon De Valera in the 1943 speech The Ireland That We Dreamed of, relied on the comeback of Gaelic for the revitalization of an independent Ireland. While this isn’t negative on its own, people who did not speak the language felt left out as De Valera put responsibility on the individual to constantly use Gaelic. Those who disagreed with De Valera could be considered opposed to nationalism and an independent Ireland. This narrow margin for authentic Irish is very exclusive to people who agree and support De Valera’s methods. De Valera also titled his speech in a way that the language is associated with the beauty and good-nature Ireland, placing people who do not speak Gaelic as someone who opposes Ireland altogether.  The revitalization argument can be supported with seeing how the prevalence of the language has been constantly decreasing.

 

 

There is even an association called the Gaelic League in Detroit that serves to preserve and promote Irish culture or tradition. While not exactly the same, it is interesting to see a comparison in America to the Gaelic League in Ireland. The reason for bringing up this website is the expression of Irish Identity outside of Ireland itself. From someone like De Valera, there is no authenticity because the true Irish is tied to the landscape and to an extreme nationality. This is again exclusive, leaving out a greta number of Irish people who have emigrated and want to be included in their heritage. Does De Valera agree with these people outside of Ireland speaking the language or does revitalization only have a place in the actual country? Language allows for a sense of place and folks outside of the actual country of Ireland can still want that feeling. The tie into Irish culture is prevalent, even in places like Detroit (among others). Their website can be found here.

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We’re all familiar with Irish stereotypes. There are commonly known ones that have a negative impact on the people as a whole: being drunk, having a lot of children, and poverty. These negative traits have been established through history as a mode of oppression. As a group, we have looked into how these stereotypes influence the view on an ideal or authentic Ireland. How do the negatives affect nationality or the view of famous Irish people.  Examples of how Irish people were treated can be seen in various political cartoons:

In this image by Thomas Nast, we see the stereotypical and awful view of an Irish man with a face like an ape. This showcases the negative perspective on the Irish — to this artist, they are primitive. He sits atop a barrel of gunpowder carelessly, bottle of rum in hand.

Here is a similar, more telling cartoon. Notice the aggression in the man’s face, the pose, and the many children surrounding him. Spot the woman fading in the corner, feeding another child. The detail that she is in the background tending to the young ones alone emphasizes the man’s uncaring and wild nature.

As can be seen, the Irish have been depicted with overwhelmingly negative stereotypes. As a way to counter these derogatory labels, various writers have responded by pursuing an ideal Ireland. Throughout this web-page, we aim to analyze the romanticization of the landscape.

What makes this pursuit of the ideal so complicated is the way it constantly contradicts itself: while the Irish people are sensitive to diversity, something pure ties them together.

The focus of this web-page is on the idea of how stereotypes function and how they influence what is said to be ideal or authentic. There are many ways to dissect this and we have broken down several ways to analyze the negative or positive aspects to what these stereotypes do:

• The Impact of Language
• Myth and Folklore
• General Stereotypes
• Evolution of Irish Stereotypes
• Romanticized People

 

• Works Cited