Irish-English Relations in the 19th Century

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I was browsing through the help wanted section of an issue of The Times from 1839 when I came across the above ad. I started noticing more and more ads with the same short sentence at the end: "No Irish need apply." I previously thought that the English and Irish had similar cultures since they were so close in location, but I was very wrong. The English passionately hated the Irish. After some research I've determined three main reasons. The English despised the Irish historically and religiously but also because the flood of Irish immigrants to England during the Industrial Revolution caused greater competition in the job market.

               On January 1st, 1840, Harvey Marriott's letter to the editor about the condition of the Irish poor appeared in the Times. The country had never been worse. He claimed that the main problem of the Irish was the lack of coal. The quality and quantity of the fuel was low. The most horrible part was that he predicted the dilemma might spread to England.

                    The extreme poverty of the Irish was the result of the Great Famine that occurred between 1845-1852, caused by overdependence on the potato crop. Widespread starvation caused what is known as the Land War, which was not really a war but rather a boycott (in fact, this was the first time the term "boycott" was brought into the English language). Tenants refused to pay rent to their landlords and the English army was brought in to assist the police and to enforce the law. The English interference only deepened the harsh feelings between the English and the Irish.

  --> The above article from April 25th, 1839, describes the many bills created for Irish improvement. Most bills were about who owned what land. Common topics included use of wasteland, mortgage issues (allowing the Bank of Ireland to lend money for mortgage), leases, tenants for life, and land boundaries.

Irish family being evicted, c. 1879. The Irish were usually the tenants of English landlords. Credit: Wikimedia Commons

  --> I came across an article about "the Irish gentleman" and "the Irish jontleman" from October 31st, 1836. The Irish gentlemen was considered rare. The article defines the Irish “jontlemen” (opposite of gentlemen) as a impudent man with features too vulgar for a “female pencil” to draw. Irishmen were historically stereotyped as vulgar and rude by the English. The Anglo-Saxons (the English) had always hated the Celts (the Irish). In the 12th century, Gerald of Wales, the archdeacon of Brecon, stated “The Irish are barbarous and rude.” The Irish were treated as almost less than human, in the same way that the Africans or Native Americans were treated by the British.

--> The help wanted ads in The Times were the most common form of racism against the Irish. This ad is from December 14th, 1840:

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The family who created the above ad requests "a respectable young woman" so automatically the Irish were not included. The Irish were considered uncivilized. An article in the Cardiff and Merthyr Guardian from August 31st, 1850 said of two criminals: “They both had the scowling brows, the pug nose, the retreating foreheads and the animal lips of the Irish Celt, so peculiarly marked in the lower classes of that country...we maintain they had not a single redeeming feature in their countenances but bore the distinct and characteristic traits of sanguinary villains...” The Irish were depicted as evil. No upright English person would have an Irish servant in their home.

            The help wanted ad at the top of the page from October 21st, 1839 requests a neat and clean servant who is an early riser. Stereotypically, Irish people did not have any of these characteristics. They were considered lazy and dirty because of their extreme poverty.

            The English were also reluctant to give jobs to the Irish because of increased competition for jobs and less space for housing. Thomas Carlyle, a Scottish philosopher, describes Irish immigrants in 1840: “...the uncivilized Irishman, not by his strength but by the opposite of strength, drives out the Saxon native, takes possession in his room. There he abides in his squalor and unreason, in his falsity and drunken disorder...” Because of the Industrial Revolution, everyone came to the city for jobs, the Irish included. English cities were already overcrowded and the droves of Irish people flooding in did not help the situation.

          The general hatred of Catholics in England made Irish life even worse. Catholics were seen as intolerant and authoritarian. They were known for trying to force their religion on everyone else. But even non-religious people hated the Irish Catholics because of the Church of England. The Church of England made religion political. It instilled an even deeper, nationalist hatred for the Irish in the middle and lower classes, who typically didn't practice religion as much as the upper class. On top of all of that, France and Spain, England's biggest adversaries, were Catholic countries. 

            Although unjust, Irish racism was a normal part of daily life for most British people in the 19th century.

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