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Victorian Ireland – particularly the period of 1850-90 – has sometimes been viewed as a time of both “great importance politically and no importance culturally,” according to James H. Murphy, who is the Burns Library Visiting Scholar in Irish Studies this semester: “I have spent my scholarly career uncovering new ways of understanding its political importance and challenging the false assumptions about its cultural lack of importance.”
Murphy will discuss some of these characteristics of Victorian Ireland when he presents “Novelists and Politicians in 19th-Century Ireland” at the Burns Visiting Scholar in Irish Studies Lecture this coming Wednesday at 4:30 p.m. in the Burns Library’s Thompson Room.
A Vincentian priest and professor of English at DePaul University since 2001, Murphy has pursued a career as both an historian of fiction as well as a political historian. Dublin-based for much of his life, he is the author or editor of 14 books, including, as author, Irish Novelists and the Victorian Age, Abject Loyalty: Nationalism and Monarchy in Ireland During the Reign of Queen Victoria, Ireland’s Czar: Gladstonian Government and the Lord Lieutenancies of the Red Earl Spencer, 1868-1886 and, as editor, the 19th-century volume of the Oxford History of the Irish Book.
He holds two doctorates from University College Dublin and is also a graduate of Trinity College, Dublin, Maynooth University and the University of London. He is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society.
Murphy recently sat down with Chronicle to talk about his research interests, and why Victorian Ireland is now receiving more attention and respect than hitherto.
Q: What prompted you to take the Burns Visiting Scholar post?
Murphy: I love being at DePaul, and have had a wonderful and very productive time there. The attraction for me in coming to Boston College was that, unlike DePaul, which is primarily a teaching university – though it has many wonderful scholars on its faculty – BC is a research institution. I enjoy being able to talk with other researchers and compare experiences and observations.
And, of course, BC’s offerings in the area of Irish Studies are superb. This fall, I’ve attended the Irish Studies conference celebrating the 150th birthday of W.B. Yeats, I’ve been to [Associate Professor of English] Jim Smith’s study group on the 1916 Easter Week Uprising, and gone to [Associate Professor of the Practice of English] Joe Nugent’s reading group for Finnegans Wake. Plenty to do here.
Q: Your research has centered on the so-called “Long Century” in Irish history [1791-1922], with particular focus on the Victorian period. What is it about that era which interests you?
Murphy: I find those years interesting because you see certain trends, actions and behaviors emerging that, among other things, eventually change the relationship between Ireland and Britain, and Ireland’s view of itself. And I have always wanted to resist the perspective of the present shaping our understanding of the past. Such openness leads to new insight.
For instance, it is assumed that Irish Nationalists were always hostile to the British monarchy but the monarchy actually was quite popular in Ireland for most of the 19th century, even among Irish Nationalists. Thousands of Irish cheered Queen Victoria when she visited. But as British politicians increasingly used various governmental and political institutions against the Nationalists, the Nationalists had to demonize the monarchy, because it was a bonding institution.
One project I’m undertaking as Burns Scholar, and using the library’s resources, is looking at the Dublin City Council in the 19th century. Dublin Corporation, as it was officially known, was the most prominent bastion of Protestant control for years, but power suddenly shifted to Catholics. In 1841, Daniel O’Connell became the first Catholic since the reign of James II to be Lord Mayor of Dublin – which meant he presided over the council – and he tried to turn the position into a platform for his political goals, notably Irish self-government.
So, if you examine how these various institutions functioned over a period of time, you see shifts in the power relationships and how this affected the stability of the state.
Q: You also research Irish literature in a historical context – what stands out to you about Victorian Ireland in that respect?
Murphy: There’s been a tendency among critics to depict the Irish as having been “culturally assimilated” during the period. In fact, quite a lot was going on, and women writers in particular were attracting a lot of attention: One was M.E. Francis – the pen name of Francis Blundell – who wrote Miss Erin, a semi-allegorical novel about a young politically active woman who embodies Ireland.
I’d make the argument that Victorian Ireland has a lot of parallels to 21st-century Ireland: Back then, Ireland was part of an empire, and her best novelists were living in London; now, Ireland is part of a globalized world – and, again, her best novelists are living abroad, like Colum McCann, who’s in New York.
Actually, I’d say that’s a tendency in my work – I focus more on commonalities, not the extremes.
Q: How did you become open to the idea of working in academia? Are there experiences or mentors you see as having steered you in that direction?
Murphy: When I was an undergraduate at Maynooth University, I had an English professor who was also a priest, named Peter Connolly – a brilliant lecturer. In the 1960s he was quite instrumental in opening up cultural debates that were going on at the time; he was an advocate for openness to new cultural perspectives.
For example, in 1960, Edna O’Brien had published her first novel, The Country Girls, which was considered scandalous at the time because of the candid way it dealt with sexual matters and other social issues. Connolly appeared at a public meeting where O’Brien was speaking and he got up to defend her work, quite a bold thing to do. So to have a teacher with that kind of background was very inspiring.
Unfortunately, today one sees a stereotyping and a polarization within debate in Ireland. Irish history of the past 50 years or so is depicted in very black and white terms, and in contemporary Irish discourse, Catholicism is presented simply as a culturally and socially regressive force – which is not true in actual experience. Peter Connolly valued the richness of Irish cultural heritage, but also within a framework that was open to progressive change. It saddens me to see how reductive the conversation has become.
Q: Next year will be a landmark in Irish history: the 100th anniversary of the 1916 Easter Week Rising. As a historian, what do you think is an underappreciated or overlooked aspect of Ireland’s fight for independence?
Murphy: After the revolutionary period, there were two states that essentially became their worst selves. Northern Ireland turned into an oppressive sectarian country; independent Ireland, to a degree, tended to look inward instead of developing a forward vision.
I believe they would’ve benefited by remaining in some kind of connection, and with a more gradual process of independence. This scenario, however, would’ve asked quite a lot of both sides, which had great contempt for one another. But whatever its intentions the Irish revolution made such a possibility less likely. Nationalism can be a unifying and empowering force but it can also be exclusionary. The experience of the Irish revolutionary period and its aftermath shows us both of these tendencies in operation.