Graduate Program
History
Degree Name
Master of Arts (MA)
Semester of Degree Completion
2009
Thesis Director
Newton Key
Thesis Committee Member
David Smith
Thesis Committee Member
Jon Coit
Abstract
This thesis explores the concepts of prejudice and contrasting identities in 1790s London, examining the interplay between English authorities, the United Irish, and the working Irish in London. The thesis examines the agency of the London Irish and the limits to their actions caused by the United Irish presence in London and the English response. First, it analyzes court cases, sessions papers, pamphlets, and trial publications to show where prosecutors, defendants, and witnesses make linguistic ascriptions of Irish, English, and metropolitan identity. This analysis shows that the working-class London Irish were primarily unskilled laborers, beggars, and disembarked soldiers living in ethnic enclaves, but there is also evidence that some Irish assimilated into the English host population, living throughout London, working skilled jobs, and aiming for respectability. Second, the activities of the United Irish in London, particularly those of Father James Coigly, Arthur O'Connor, and John Binns, show that, surprisingly, the London based United Irish were actually trying to foster internationalism and ally with English societies. And yet, when the British government reacted, officials and the press attributed United Irish actions to Irishness, class, or radicalism. The English authority figures and propagators of public fear wielded hegemonic power, managing to subvert and transform the United Irish attempts to create an international identity into one umbrella, pejorative "Irishness" - a group identity that reflected poorly, and dangerously, on the working-class Irish in London.
This thesis comes to three interrelated conclusions: first, the British were not indifferent to the Irish "Others" among them; second, the London Irish and the United Irish cam1ot be universally defined ( although the British attempted to do so); third, the prejudice which built up against the Irish in 1790s London was not racial in nature, but instead based on British ideas of the nation, commerce, and government, and the manner in which the Irish appeared to threaten these institutions.
Recommended Citation
Crawley, Erin K., ""The lower class of traitors have also their architects of plots": The London Irish, the United Irish, and the creation of Irish identities, 1780-1800" (2009). Masters Theses. 427.
https://thekeep.eiu.edu/theses/427
