Description
Book SynopsisOne of the most enduring tropes of modern Irish history is the MOPE thesis, the idea that the Irish were the Most Oppressed People Ever. Political oppression, forced emigration and endemic poverty have been central to the historiography of nineteenth-century Ireland. This volume problematises the assumption of generalised misery and suggests the many different, and often surprising, ways in which Irish people sought out, expressed and wrote about happiness. Bringing together an international group of established and emerging scholars, this volume considers the emerging field of the history of emotion and what a history of happiness in Ireland might look like. During the nineteenth century the concept of happiness denoted a degree of luck or good fortune, but equally was associated with the positive feelings produced from living a good and moral life. Happiness could be found in achieving wealth, fame or political success, but also in the relief of lulling a crying baby to sleep. Reading happiness in historical context indicates more than a simple expression of contentment. In personal correspondence, diaries and novels, the expression of happiness was laden with the expectations of audience and author and informed by cultural ideas about what one could or should be happy about. This volume explores how the idea of happiness shaped social, literary, architectural and aesthetic aspirations across the century.
CONTRIBUTORS: Ian d'Alton, Shannon Devlin, Anne Dolan, Simon Gallaher, Paul Huddie, Kerron Ó Luain, David McCready, Ciara Thompson, Andrew Tierney, Kristina Varade, Mai Yatani
Trade Review‘[L]ively and absorbing… this volume is a brave attempt to bring together a variety of perspectives on happiness, and it contains much good and promising research.’ Caitriona Clear, Journal of British Studies
Table of ContentsIntroduction
Mary HatfieldHappiness and the Irish Nation
1. Expressions of Joy Among Catholic, Ribbon and Hibernian Processionists During the Long Nineteenth Century
Kerron Ó Luain2. The Crimean War, 1854-6: Ireland’s Happiest Nineteenth-Century War
Paul HuddieSocial Conditions and Prescriptions for Happiness
3. ‘Money Can(’t) Buy Me…?’ Health and Wealth in Nineteenth-Century Anglo-Irish Fiction and Memoir
Kristina Varade4. A Consecrated Word: Happiness in the Thought of Alexander Knox (1757-1831)
David McCready5. ‘Was the carver happy while he was about it?’ Trinity’s Museum Building (1853-7) and the Ruskinian Principle of Happiness
Andrew Tierney6. Children’s Happiness and Unhappiness in the Irish Workhouse Institution, 1850-1914
Simon GallaherCultures of Expression: Representations of Happiness
7. ‘Hope for happier days’: Happiness in the Letters between Siblings in Nineteenth-Century Middle-Class Ulster Families
Shannon Devlin8. Finding Happiness in Irish Lullabies, 1860-1910
Ciara Thompson9. ‘Happiness is a warm gun’: What Were the Determinants of Happy Lives for the Irish Gentry?
Ian D’alton 10. ‘To us, books were the great joy in life’: Emotional Expression in Female Reading Records in Early Twentieth-Century Ireland
Mai Yatani11. ‘Hardly worth your while’: The Pursuit of Happiness in Twentieth-Century Ireland?
Anne Dolan
