Daniel O'Connell, The British Press and The Irish Famine: Killing Remarks

by Williams,Leslie A.

• ISBN13: 9780754605539
• ISBN10: 0754605531
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2016-03-22
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

Through an investigation of the reportage in nineteenth-century English metropolitan newspapers and illustrated journals, this book begins with the question 'Did anti-O'Connell sentiment in the British press lead to killing remarks, rhetoric that helped the press, government and public opinion distance themselves from the Irish Famine?' Continuing her survey of the press after the death of O'Connell, Leslie Williams demonstrates how the editors, writers and cartoonists who reported and commented on the growing crisis in peripheral Ireland drew upon a metropolitan mentality, in which anti-Irish bias was deeply embedded in language and images. She concludes, however, that the real 'subject' of the British Press commentary on the Irish Famine was Britain itself. Ireland was used as a negative mirror to re-enforce Britain's own commitment to capitalist, industrial values at a time of great internal stress.

Author Biography

Leslie A. Williams was an art historian specializing in the Victorian period. At the time of her death she was Chair of the Department of Arts and Humanities at Shawnee State University, Portsmouth, Ohio William H.A. Williams is a historian. He is a member of the faculty of the College of Undergraduate Studies, Union Institute & University, Cincinnati, Ohio

Table of Contents

List of Figures	vii
The Nineteenth Century Series General Editors' Preface	xi
Preface	xii
Author's Acknowledgements	xv
Editor's Acknowledgements	xvii
Introduction	1	(24)
The Times, O'Connell and Repeal --- 1843	25	(22)
Punch, `Rint' and `Repale' --- 1843	47	(25)
Traversers and Priests --- 1844-1845	72	(29)
`The Commissioner' --- 1845	101	(24)
Imagining a Famine/Imaginary Famine --- 1845	125	(26)
`The Battlefield of Contending Factions' --- January to June 1846	151	(17)
Parsing Pharaoh's Dream --- July to December 1846	168	(21)
`A Transition of Great Difficulty' --- January to March 1847	189	(34)
The Death of Daniel O'Connell --- May 1847	223	(18)
`A Conspiracy Against Life' --- June to December 1847	241	(16)
Charles Trevelyan and the `Great Opportunity' --- January 1848	257	(25)
The Uprising at Boulagh --- 1848	282	(25)
A Dream of the Future --- 1849	307	(37)
Conclusion	344	(22)
Bibliography	366	(7)
Index	373