19th century AD

Eire-Ireland:Journal of Irish Studies, Spring-Summer, 2001 by Catherine M. Eagan

REASSURANCES OF WHITE RACIAL BROTHERHOOD

A key strategy for highlighting the whiteness of the Irish was to ensure that their physical descriptions impressed readers. Novelists resisted the assumption that the typical Irishman possessed a "simous nose, long upper lip, huge, projecting mouth [and] jutting lower jaw [and] sloping forehead," as L. P. Curtis has described it, by presenting characters with white skin, Roman noses, and high foreheads. (29) The rural Ireland in Patrick Cassidy's Glenveigh (1870), for example, is populated by lovers with "delicately-shaped" heads and "broad, square shoulder[s]." (30) Dillon O'Brien's The Dalys of Dalystown (1866) describes Henry Daly, the oldest son of the Norman Catholic landowning family, as blessed with "delicately chiseled nostrils," "a proud, disdainful smile," and a "tall, graceful figure." (31) O'Brien's peasants also display strong racial stock, and do not resemble the Celtic stereotype in the slightest, with their "erect and flexible carriage," "regular oval features," and "teeth of pearly whiteness." (32)

The exemplary physiognomy of the Irish is noted in the novels set in America as well, which bodes well for Irish acceptance as whites. Quigley emphasizes the physical perfection of the O'Clery children in The Cross and the Shamrock (1853). Parson Burly and his wife, who encounter the children in the poor house that they run, are astounded at Paul O'Clery's "`roman nose, raven hair, delightfully-carved mouth, and lips, and eyes, and eyelashes quite indescribable, so beautiful are they,'" find his sister "`a perfect Venus,'" and declare that the two younger children, Patrick and

Eugene, appear as if carved by "`some renowned artist of antiquity.'" The parson's wife is so confused by their beautiful appearance that she concludes they "`must belong to some race different from the Celtic half savages which we have read inhabit Ireland.'" (33) Similarly, in Mary Lee, Boyce reminds his readers that there is no meaningful physical difference between the Irish and the English:

   [T]he Irish wear no horns of any description whatever, either behind or
   before--are endowed with the ordinary feelings and sense peculiar to the
   human family--and exhibit arms and legs, hands and hair, precisely like
   their Norman and Anglo-Saxon neighbors. (34)

The authors also assured their readers that the Irish were not only physically similar to the Anglo-Saxon but possessed strength of character worthy of their society as well. The strength of Celtic racial stock was used as a reassurance that the Irish would be good citizens, not as a challenge to Saxon racial strength. One of the most beautiful Irish women in these novels is Rose O'Donnell, the love interest of Henry Daly in O'Brien's The Dalys of Dalystown and the daughter of the elder Mr. Daly's former steward. Her physical beauty and "whiteness" is often referred to, as well as her strength of character. (35) Raised by the Daly family after the death of her father, Rose serves as evidence that the Irish can mix with those of the upper classes if given guidance, which bodes well for Irish social mobility in America. Similarly, McCorry suggests in Mount Benedict that regardless of the environment, the personal integrity and ambition of the Irish will assure their exemplary conduct. McCorry writes of the Catholic Kate Crolly: