Readings Papers Schedule

IRISH RENAISSANCE & GAELIC RENAISSANCE

 

INTRODUCTION.  William Butler Yeats.  Augustine Birrell (1850-1933), Chief Secretary for Ireland (1907ff).   Nationalist organizations:  Irish Volunteers (est. 1913); Irish General and Transport Workers' Union (est. 1909, James Larkin); Irish Citizen Army (est. 1913, James Connolly); Cuman na mBan (est. 1913, Constance Markievicz and Kathleen Clarke); Republican Youth Movement called Fianna na Eirean (est. 1909, Constance Markievicz and Bulmer Hobson); Sinn Fein ("Ourselves Alone") (est. 1905, Arthur Griffith and Bulmer Hobson); Gaelic League (est. 1893, Dr. Douglas Hyde, Eóin MacNeill, and Fr. Eugene O'Growney); Irish National Theatre (est. 1898, Augusta, Lady Gregory, and Edward Martyn); Gaelic Athletic Association (est. 1884, Michael Cusack and Maurice Davin).  Alexander Solzhenitsin, August 1914.  George Moore (1852-1933); Edward Martyn (1859-1924);  James Augustine Aloysius Joyce (1882-1941). George Russell, called "AE"; John Millington Synge (1871-1909).  George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950).  Sean O'Casey (1880-1964). Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde (1854-1900).  Sir John Pentland Mahaffy (1839-1919): "Oscar, you must go to Oxford.  You're not good enough for Trinity."

 

II.  ORIGINS OF THE IRISH RENAISSANCE.  Royal Irish Academy (est. 1785).  "Milesian crown"; saffron kilt"; "Tara brooch"; round tower; Irish wolfhound; shamrock; harp.  National and Literary Society (est. 1856, Jeremiah O'Donovan Rossa).  D. P. (David Patrick) Moran (1871-1936).  Friedrich Nietzsche.  Max Weber (d. 1920).  Augusa, Lady Gregory.

 

III.  THE GAELIC RENAISSANCE.  Douglas Hyde (1860-1949), Love Songs of Connacht (1893).  Daniel Corkery (1878-1964) called, in a now famous book, The Hidden Ireland.

Eóin MacNeill; Father Eugene O'Growney.

 

CONCLUSION: GAELIC RENAISSANCE, IRISH RENAISSANCE. George Bernard Shaw (1856-50).  Synge, The Playboy of the Western World.

IRISH POPULATION, NUPTIALITY, EMIGRATION, & LITERACY[1]

 

Table 1:  Population South and North, 1851-36 (in 1,000s)

Year

26 Counties

6 Counties

Total

1851

5,112

1,441

6,552

1881

3,870

1,305

5,175

1901

3,222

1,237

4,459

1911

3,140

1,251

4,390

1926

2,972

1,257

4,229

1936-37

2,968

1,280

4,248

 

Table 2:  Nuptiality (% never married, aged 45-54 years)

Year

Males

Females

1841

10.2

12.5

1851

12.1

12.6

1861

14.7

14.3

1871

17.0

16.5

1881

17.1

17.1

1891

20.0

18.5

1901

23.8

21.9

1911

27.3

24.9

 

Table 3:  Population Change & Net Emigration (in 1000s per year)

Period

Population Change

Natural Increase

Net Emigration rate

1861-71

-6.9

+8.3

-15.2

1871-81

-4.5

+8.0

-12.5

1881-91

-10.9

+5.3

-16.3

1891-1901

-7.4

+4.5

-11.9

1901-11

-2.6

+5.6

-8.2

1911-26

-3.7

+5.2

-8.8

1926-36

-0.1

+5.5

-5.6

1936-46

-0.4

+5.9

-6.3

1946-51

+0.4

+8.6

-8.2

 

Table 4:  Literacy in Ireland, 1851-1901[2]

Province

1851

1901

Connaught

46.0%

90.75%

Leinster

71.5%

95.3%

Munster

54.9%

95.3%

Ulster

73.0%

93.7%

All Ireland

62.8%

93.7%

 


 

[1] Cormac O Gráda, Ireland: A New Economic History, 1780-1939,  214-15, 225.

[2] A. Schrier, Ireland and the American Emigration (Minneapolis, 1958), 162.
History 152A - Modern Ireland - Spring 2005