Literary Networks and Dissenting Print Culture in Romantic-Period Ireland

Jennifer Orr

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN: 9781349565122, 9781137471529
• eBook ISBN: 9781137471536
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: British History
• Index: Literature

Literary Networks and Dissenting Irish Print Culture examines the origins of Irish labouring-class poetry produced in the liminal space of revolutionary Ulster (1790-1815), where religious dissent fostered a unique and distinctive cultural identity.

1

Sentiment, Sociability and the Construction of a Poetic Circle

It seems that no matter how rural the situation of a literary network, collective attempts at creativity and critical conversation in the Romantic period were rarely confined to one particular social class or intellectual discipline, particularly at the latter end of what is known as the ‘sentimental era’. In his proposal of the Öffentlichkeit, the bourgeois public sphere, Jürgen Habermas drew attention to the homosocial fraternal paradigm of sociability, and since then several works have sought to explore the continuity of Enlightenment sociability and sentiment in a wider variety of settings.¹ These include the book club and the literary salon as well as a ‘counter’ public sphere which included radical political societies. Such alternative settings also enabled the inclusion of minorities: women, ‘labouring-class’ groups, and Dissenters. Jon Mee’s Conversable Worlds: Literature, Contention and Community 1762 to 1830 (2011) develops the idea of ‘hazardous conversation’, whereby a number of diverse and competing views might collide within the same circle, producing intense intellectual debate and creativity. More recently, John Goodridge has revised the often underestimated creative relationships between ‘labouring-class’ poets and their contemporaries, particularly the ‘fleeting but intense’ interaction of poets John Clare (1793–1864) and John Keats (1795–1821) (see Goodridge, 2013, p. 61). In examining interactions between ‘brother bards and fellow labourers’ – whether in person or through the imagined communities fostered by poetic correspondence – Goodridge’s exploration of poetic ‘community’ in its wider sense invites Romanticists to examine individual poets with greater care. Such insights are even more applicable to circles operating in rural Ulster during the 1790s, precisely because the horizontal fraternal connections between poets allowed them to transcend just such ‘pernicious’ editorial influences.

For the purpose of this study of Romantic-period sociability in Ireland, particularly Ulster, we might draw on the definition of a literary circle as a space in which ideas could collide among correspondents of varying levels of literary profile, reputation, class, gender and political background. In defining the forms of sociability in which these circles originated, the present study looks at fraternal congeniality developed through the fashion for literary sensibility, mediated particularly through the verse epistle, both in vernacular Scots and in standard English. Such conversations between the poets were not always congenial, being informed by a volatile religious and political context, but though they inevitably conveyed upon the poet a degree of hazard, the overwhelming sentiment conveyed in verse epistles and which cemented private correspondence between poets is the supremacy in poetry of sympathy and feeling. Not only is the origin of the Thomson circle marked by epistolary contact between the members discussed in the introduction, but also its evolution across 25 years: from its inception in the rural labouring-class, Dissenting confessional and patriotic networks of County Antrim; through its solidification in the radical public sphere of 1790s Belfast; and finally to its fruition in the post-Union period.

It is from letters and verse epistles that we can say with certainty that, from its instigation around 1791 and across its main period of growth under Thomson, the circle developed sites of interaction through a number of different forms. These included personal contact: small gatherings by Thomson’s cottage fireside, local religious events such as ‘holy fairs’ (open-air preaching) which doubled as carnivalesque social events, commercial and agricultural fairs, Masonic meetings and other secret political gatherings. Other evidenced forms of interaction include published verse epistles in the Belfast press, and private correspondence, often facilitated through the radical press’s Belfast offices. Thomson’s well-documented relationship with Robert Burns (1759–96), beginning with the famous ‘Epistle to Mr Robert Burns’ (1791), was facilitated by contacts like John (Jack) Rabb in the Belfast press. This formative, sympathetic creative relationship fired Thomson with creative enthusiasm and imbued him with the confidence to reach out to fellow poets in Ulster (STC, p. 18; Ferguson and Holmes, 2009, p. 27). Although the Thomson circle differs from other Ulster circles and salons in lacking a key wealthy patron, it was reinforced by fraternal support. Later the support of other cultural figures like Bishop Thomas Percy (1729–1811), Sydney Owenson (1781?–1859) and Walter Scott (1771–1832) were sought but, as James Kelly observes, it was undoubtedly the figure of Burns ‘the ploughman poet’ who ‘opened up the vista of poetic success that poets aspired to’ (Kelly, 2012, p. 446). In turn, the poets of the circle themselves became inspirational icons for those of future generations like Joseph Carson (c.1805–c.1865) in the 1830s, Robert Huddleston (1814–89) in the 1840s and David Herbison (1800–70) in the 1860s, who cited poets like Thomson, Orr and Beggs as their national inspirations.

Ironically, the Scottish immigrant poet Alexander Kemp’s original intention was to be part of a poetic circle founded on one of the principles of the eighteenth-century sentimental tradition: ‘congeniality’. This common ground between poets went much deeper than a mutual love of regional language or expression, but was based on the fact that they dared to write about intense feelings. Many of the poets, though by no means all, chose to employ a mixture of English and vernacular Scots register to create a poetic discourse perfectly adapted to conveying the ‘real feelings of the heart’ (Glass, ‘Verses by the Rev. James Glass, A.M. in answer to those addressed to him by Mr Samuel Thomson of Carngranny’, first published in NS, 3–7 April 1797). This, inspired by Burns’s ‘Epistle to Davie, a Brother Poet’ (1785), anticipates Wordsworth’s claim in the Preface to Lyrical Ballads (1798) of capturing the ‘real language of men’ and was influenced heavily by the eighteenth-century sentimental tradition, which sought to reflect the plight of worldly men, such as the objects of pity encountered by Harley Cameron in Henry Mackenzie’s Man of Feeling (1771). However, the verse epistle between brother poets creates a relationship not of benevolent condescension but of sympathy, which, in turn, produces artistic activity. The concept of ‘congeniality’ arises on multiple occasions in the members’ verse epistles to one another, but such poetry could occasion a fiery combination of clashing political and theological strata. In other words, the epistle can mark the site of exclusivity as much as inclusivity. Mee’s idea of ‘hazardous conversation’ is borne out in the fabric of the Thomson circle; after all, the circle counted among its number men and women of varying political, theological and class backgrounds, including: educated labouring-class poets like Dickey and M’Kenzie as well as active United Irish poets Orr, Mullan and Hope; schoolteachers of radical political persuasions like Thomson, Kemp and Mrs Lamont; and university students and later Presbyterian ministers William Finlay (1787–1834) and Hutchinson McFadden (1780–1812). The circle even ranged from rural landed gentry like Samuel and Margaret Thompson of Greenmount, County Antrim, to metropolitan radicals such as Belfast print traders Rabb and Lamont. A range of theological opinion is represented by the radical Presbyterian ministers James Glass and James Porter (1753–98) who feature alongside Glasgow University graduates of the ‘New Light’ tradition such as the Reverend Hutchinson McFadden, Unitarian convert William Hamilton Drummond and the more evangelical Reformed Presbyterian John Paul (1777–?). Yet all of these individuals were united by a common denominator: love of literature and the desire to see Irish print culture flourish. United by a common patriotic aim of intellectual improvement, the poets were able to transcend political differences, particularly in the challenging post-Union period when ‘Irish’ and ‘British’ became increasingly contested terms of identity.

Membership of the circle

Among the epistolary recipients of such verses were female poets, more often found in Belfast than in rural locations, facilitated by the more egalitarian political culture and demographic mix of the city. That said, both Thomson and Orr encouraged fellow female poets in their own neighbourhoods. Thomson paid tribute to his neighbour Miss S. McNeilly in ‘Stanzas addressed to Miss McN[eilly] of Carngranny, on seeing some elegant lines written by her’ (NP, pp. 149–50). James Orr in ‘Lines Addressed to Mrs D[ave]y’ (1804) demonstrates the poet’s clear respect for female intellectual potential, as he argues that his addressee had not been given sufficient artistic credit for her poetry, ‘Fate, that oft feeds fools on manna, / Gives the bright a brimstone shower!’ He expresses his pleasure at obtaining the friendship of an intellectual equal who is ‘congenial to his heart’, since often ‘Minds forlorn must through the thorny desert / Of existence stray’ (Orr, Poems, pp. 64–5, ll. 21; 5–6; 9–10). Kemp confided in Thomson the happiness that he enjoyed ‘from an affectionate and well-informed female associate’ in his wife (Kemp–Thomson, 17 Dec. 1797, STC, pp. 121), while Orr, in addressing Sam Thomson, rewrites Burns’s praise of Jean Armour’s (presumably sexual) inspiring qualities in the ‘Epistle to Davie’ (Orr, 1804, p. 103–6). Orr seeks to reflect the companionship of an intellectual equal, ‘Sylvia’, who is ‘wi’ sense grac’d, wi’ mense grac’d, / An’ fand o’ truth and taste’ (p. 105). He famously dedicated a verse epistle of 1807 to Sydney Owenson, praising the Irish author as ‘Erin’s friend! And Erin’s glory!’, endorsing Owenson as living proof of intelligent, patriotic Irish women who have struggled against the ‘prejudice’ of ‘some foreign men of letters’:

Fair thy Sisters, yet retiring

From the circles where they shin’d,

Wisely they’re, like thee, acquiring

Excellence of heart and mind.

(‘To Miss Owenson, the Elegant Authoress of The Wild Irish Girl’, BCC, 2 May 1807; repr. Orr, 1817, pp. 84–5, ll. 13–17)

Certainly the Belfast press featured several female poets. Thomson anthologised ‘To an Eolian Harp’ by ‘Emma’ in his Appendix to Poems on Different Subjects (PDS, p. 185). Orr, M’Kenzie and Anderson all exchanged verse epistles in the Belfast News-Letter with Marianne Kenley (c.1770–1818), later Mrs Munster, the Belfast author celebrated for publishing a four-volume Gothic romance novel at the age of 16 (Loeber, 2006, 691).² Discussing the novel, M’Kenzie describes her as ‘a lady [of]… extraordinary genius’ and laments that ‘so little is Irish genius encouraged, that she lost considerably by its publication’ (M’Kenzie, 1810, p. 91n). Finally, and most significantly, Thomson’s radical Belfast connections with Jack Rabb and Aeneas Lamont introduced him to the poet who would become the sole female poet of the circle: Belfast schoolmistress and poet Dorothea Ireland. Aeneas Lamont married Miss Ireland on 12 March 1796, describing her candidly to Thomson as ‘everything I expected or could wish for in a wife – fortune out of th...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• List of Abbreviations
• Introduction: Irish Poetic Networks, 1790–1815
• 1 Sentiment, Sociability and the Construction of a Poetic Circle
• 2 The Creation of Ulster Labouring-Class Poetry, 1790–3
• 3 Revolution and Radical Dissenting Poetry, 1791–8
• 4 ‘Here no treason lurks’: Post-Union Bardic Regeneration
• 5 Dissenting Romanticism in the Early Union Period
• 6 Metropolitan Print Culture and the Creation of Literary Ulster
• Conclusion
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index