Tourism, Landscape, and the Irish Character: British Travel Writers in Pre-Famine Ireland
by William Williams
University of Wisconsin Press, 2007 Cloth: 978-0-299-22520-9 | eISBN: 978-0-299-22523-0 | Paper: 978-0-299-22524-7 Library of Congress Classification DA969.W55 2008 Dewey Decimal Classification 914.15047
ABOUT THIS BOOK | AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY | REVIEWS | TOC | REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE
ABOUT THIS BOOK
Picturesque but poor, abject yet sublime in its Gothic melancholy, the Ireland perceived by British visitors during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries did not fit their ideas of progress, propriety, and Protestantism. The rituals of Irish Catholicism, the lamentations of funeral wakes, the Irish language they could not comprehend, even the landscapes were all strange to tourists from England, Wales, and Scotland. Overlooking the acute despair in England’s own industrial cities, these travelers opined in their writings that the poverty, bog lands, and ill-thatched houses of rural Ireland indicated moral failures of the Irish character.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
William H. A. Williams is professor emeritus of history at Union Institute and University in Cincinnati, Ohio. He is author of many works including Inventing Irish Tourism, The First Century, 1750–1850 and the award-winning ’Twas Only an Irishman’s Dream, and editor of Daniel O’Connell, The British Press and the Irish Famine: Killing Remarks, by Leslie A. Williams.
REVIEWS
"A fascinating and absorbing account of how British travel writers contributed not only to the construction of Ireland as a particular place but how Ireland became a site for reinventing England."—Michael Cronin, Dublin City University, Ireland
“This deeply researched and engaging study explores how anxieties over rapid social and economic change in Britain influenced travelers and commentators writing on Ireland in the pre-Famine era. British travelers found in Ireland a physical and social landscape that did not reflect their idealized visions of the English countryside, but instead consistently reinforced their conceptions of the neighboring island as different and backward. As depictions of Irish rural poverty came to dominate travel narratives, British conceptions of the Irish ‘moral landscape’ increasingly emphasized the innate deficiencies of the Irish character. In addition to a fascinating examination of travel writing in itself, this important book offers critical insight into the formation of what became the dominant British understanding of Irish society and poverty, a view that had a devastating influence on the popular and official response to the Great Famine.”—Michael de Nie, University of West Georgia
“A valuable and lucid study . . . . This book will be instructive and enjoyable reading for all scholars with an interest in both British and Irish studies of the early nineteenth century, as well as those looking for insightful discussions of early tourism as a cultural practice.”—Stephanie Rains, H-Net Review in the Humanities and Social Sciences
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Illustrations
Preface
Introduction
1. Picturesque Tourism in Ireland
2. Historical and Religious Landscapes
3. Putting Paddy in the Picture
4. British Tourists and Irish Stereotypes
5. Tourism and the Semeiotics of Irish Poverty
6. Irish Poverty and the Irish Character
7. Misreading the Agricultural Landscape
8. Discovering the Moral Landscape
9. Landscape, Tourism, and the Imperial Imagination in Connemara
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Index
REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE
If you are a student who cannot use this book in printed form, BiblioVault may be able to supply you
with an electronic file for alternative access.
Please have the accessibility coordinator at your school fill out this form.
Tourism, Landscape, and the Irish Character: British Travel Writers in Pre-Famine Ireland
by William Williams
University of Wisconsin Press, 2007 Cloth: 978-0-299-22520-9 eISBN: 978-0-299-22523-0 Paper: 978-0-299-22524-7
Picturesque but poor, abject yet sublime in its Gothic melancholy, the Ireland perceived by British visitors during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries did not fit their ideas of progress, propriety, and Protestantism. The rituals of Irish Catholicism, the lamentations of funeral wakes, the Irish language they could not comprehend, even the landscapes were all strange to tourists from England, Wales, and Scotland. Overlooking the acute despair in England’s own industrial cities, these travelers opined in their writings that the poverty, bog lands, and ill-thatched houses of rural Ireland indicated moral failures of the Irish character.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
William H. A. Williams is professor emeritus of history at Union Institute and University in Cincinnati, Ohio. He is author of many works including Inventing Irish Tourism, The First Century, 1750–1850 and the award-winning ’Twas Only an Irishman’s Dream, and editor of Daniel O’Connell, The British Press and the Irish Famine: Killing Remarks, by Leslie A. Williams.
REVIEWS
"A fascinating and absorbing account of how British travel writers contributed not only to the construction of Ireland as a particular place but how Ireland became a site for reinventing England."—Michael Cronin, Dublin City University, Ireland
“This deeply researched and engaging study explores how anxieties over rapid social and economic change in Britain influenced travelers and commentators writing on Ireland in the pre-Famine era. British travelers found in Ireland a physical and social landscape that did not reflect their idealized visions of the English countryside, but instead consistently reinforced their conceptions of the neighboring island as different and backward. As depictions of Irish rural poverty came to dominate travel narratives, British conceptions of the Irish ‘moral landscape’ increasingly emphasized the innate deficiencies of the Irish character. In addition to a fascinating examination of travel writing in itself, this important book offers critical insight into the formation of what became the dominant British understanding of Irish society and poverty, a view that had a devastating influence on the popular and official response to the Great Famine.”—Michael de Nie, University of West Georgia
“A valuable and lucid study . . . . This book will be instructive and enjoyable reading for all scholars with an interest in both British and Irish studies of the early nineteenth century, as well as those looking for insightful discussions of early tourism as a cultural practice.”—Stephanie Rains, H-Net Review in the Humanities and Social Sciences
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Illustrations
Preface
Introduction
1. Picturesque Tourism in Ireland
2. Historical and Religious Landscapes
3. Putting Paddy in the Picture
4. British Tourists and Irish Stereotypes
5. Tourism and the Semeiotics of Irish Poverty
6. Irish Poverty and the Irish Character
7. Misreading the Agricultural Landscape
8. Discovering the Moral Landscape
9. Landscape, Tourism, and the Imperial Imagination in Connemara
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Index
REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE
If you are a student who cannot use this book in printed form, BiblioVault may be able to supply you
with an electronic file for alternative access.
Please have the accessibility coordinator at your school fill out this form.
It can take 2-3 weeks for requests to be filled.
ABOUT THIS BOOK | AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY | REVIEWS | TOC | REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE