The Heroic Outlaw in Irish Folklore and Popular Literature

Folklore, Oct, 2000 by Ray Cashman

Abstract

As a symbolic figure in Irish folklore and popular literature, the outlaw embodies folk morality in conflict with the self-interest and inequity of the state. In the aftermath of British colonisation, the Irish outlaw is represented as more than a criminal. He provides a hero through whom ordinary Irishmen and women can vicariously enjoy brief victories, and imagine their collective dignity in the midst of political defeat and its consequences. Legends, ballads and chapbooks portraying the outlaw are the products of hard-pressed people representing themselves to themselves, reflecting on their strengths and weaknesses, and contemplating issues of morality and justice.

Thomas Crofton Croker, the Anglo-Irish antiquarian and early collector of Irish folklore, observed the popularity of outlaw stories during his travels through Ireland in the early nineteenth century, recording that it was not "unusual to hear the adventures and escapes of highwaymen and outlaws recited by the lower orders with the greatest minuteness, and dwelt on with a surprising fondness" (Croker 1985, 55). Croker also noted that a chapbook about Irish outlaws by John Cosgrave, A Genuine History of the Lives and Actions of the Most Notorious Irish Highwaymen, Tories, and Rapparees, was "one of the most popular books among the peasantry, and has circulated to an extent that almost seems incredible" (ibid.). Widely sold by travelling pedlars and in city street stalls, Cosgrave's chapbook, along with highwayman James Freney's autobiography, The Life and Adventures James Freney, enjoyed multiple reprintings from the late 1750s through the mid nineteenth century. Because they were inexpensive and their contents popular, Cosgrave's and Freney's books were the two most frequently used readers in Catholic hedge schools [1] in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries (Walsh 1847, 102 and 106; O'Hanlon 1932, 2). Furthermore, John Edward Walsh, Attorney-General for Ireland, despairingly observed that, at the dawn of the nineteenth century, the children of the Irish peasantry held James Freney in such high regard that "a representation of his deeds formed a part of their plays and sport" (Walsh 1847, 103).

Whereas Croker was an often sympathetic observer of pre-Famine Irish culture, Walsh disdained the crudeness of common Irish people and lamented the popularity of the outlaw among them: "If the moral conduct of a people is formed by the instruction of their early years, it is not difficult to account for the great laxity observed in the conduct of the lower orders in Ireland, half a century ago ... Their integrity and sense of right and wrong was confounded, by proposing the actions of lawless felons as objects of interest and imitation" (ibid., 102-3). As a guardian of official law, Walsh firmly believed that direct rule by England had delivered Ireland from "brutal violence, barbarism, and recklessness," but it seems that the majority of the "lower orders in Ireland" did not evaluate moral conduct according to the laws Walsh enforced. Generations of Irish people were taught to read, to play, and even to judge right from wrong, through songs and stories of men who resisted the authority of the British military and Protestant landlords. [2]

As a symbolic figure who appears in folklore and popular literature, the Irish outlaw--like Jesse James in America and Robin Hood in England--embodies "a sense of justice based upon kinship and community rather than one based upon impersonal, bureaucratic procedures established by the state" (Kooistra 1989, 11). The socio-political implications of his lawlessness identifies the outlaw among his admirers as a hero rather than as a mere criminal, a hero through whom to imagine their dignity in the midst of perceived political subjugation and social injustice. In outlaw lore we see the Irish representing themselves to themselves, reflecting on their greatest strengths and weaknesses, and commenting on their place in the world. Many messages are conveyed: "We may be poor, but we are intelligent and brave. We may not command armies, but we have our own captains and counts who do not need superior force to successfully resist. We may be governed by hostile foreigners, but we know right from wrong and recognise higher authorities."

Outlaw lore is the product of people full of failure but very sure of moral propositions, which the outlaw embodies. Setting traditional morality in direct conflict with that of the state, outlaw lore not only celebrates the virtues of the outlaw hero but also condemns the materialism, treachery and opportunism of the foreign oppressor and the native informer. Taking into consideration the body of outlaw lore--oral traditions, broadsides, chapbooks--we can imagine common Irish people vicariously enjoying the victories of their heroes during periods of constant defeat, and we can speculate on the role of outlaw lore in maintaining morale and even inspiring action. My purpose here is to introduce Irish outlaws as symbolic figures and to comment on what representations of the outlaw in various media and genres tell us about the concerns of Irish people over time.