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Abstract
The primary question this study seeks to answer is a simple one: namely, why do we remember the Irish Famine of the 1840s through photographic recall when no photographs of the Famine exist? In order to address this question consideration is firstly given to the visual culture in which Famine iconography established itself; that is, as graphic illustrations. The authors then investigate the effects of later eviction photographs (from the 1880s and 1890s) being reproduced as visual ‘stand-ins’ for famine conditions in current popular histories of the Irish.
What the latter entails is a conflation of two distinct cultural locations. The outcome is the forsaking of historical actuality, a misunderstanding of how photography operates to construct meanings and an obscuring of the narrative-driven basis by which the nation both comes into being and recognises itself as such through visual representations.
Notes
1. The Lawrence Collection, housed in the National Photographic Archive (NPA) (National Library of Ireland) is one of the largest collections in the Archive. It also contains the largest number of eviction photographs (though not complete). On-line access to this Collection (even though the photographs are clearly signposted in terms of context and dating on the NPA database) might explain the reappearance of a number of eviction photographs in contemporary popular texts on Irish history.
2. For example, a photograph from the Vandeleus estate which was targeted in the Plan of Campaign of the eviction of Michael Connell (County Clare) taken c. 1886–1890 (Miller & Wagner Citation1997, p. 27) and a highly emotive image of a lone woman evicted from her home, again taken by the Lawrence studio of an eviction that took place c. 1880–1900 (p. 33). Narratologically this later photograph suits well the authors’ intentions whereby an image of a lone woman metaphorically registers depopulation, the grieving sorrow of Ireland, and, even, possibly, the emigrant's guilt in forsaking the homeland. However, its evidential veracity is questionable on two counts: firstly, it is not a photograph of the Famine (1845–1852) and, secondly its realism is mediated by the nature of the photograph's construction. A closer look at this photograph reveals a group of barely hidden people looking on at the scene. Whether this group is the woman's family or neighbours is unknown, but their presence and curiosity was, very likely, drawn by the spectacle of the photographic encounter. In other words, their presence indicates the staged and reconstructive nature of the image. Far from being a ‘caught moment’ (its truthfulness vouched by lack of mediation) the setting, staging and taking of the photograph suggest conscious mediation and intent.
3. Kinealy has shown that rather than there being a consensus that historians remain deeply divided in their readings of the Great Famine and, indeed, it remains a contentious topic in Irish history, and one that flows over into cultural politics generally, as witnessed by the 150th anniversary celebrations of the event. In this context, Kissane (Citation1995, p. 72) points out: contrary to the populist belief that the Great Famine was a national disaster (and here the term ‘national’ is not unproblematic) current histiography draws attentions to the ‘marked discrepancies’ even within ‘counties and between classes’. Gray (1995, p. 24) stresses that in some areas (north Connaught, south Ulster and north Leinster) the roots of famine were as much ‘in industrial as agricultural malaise’. Kinealy and MacAtasney (Citation2000, pp. 1–10) have shown that the assumption (and one that still lingers) that Belfast and the industrial north-east was not prey to famine is due to a cluster of highly complex and inter-related ideological imperatives that are at variance with the historical evidence.
4. David Lloyd reveals how the ‘post’ in post-colonial states (and here he refers specifically to Ireland) often results in the arresting of decolonisation due to the need for the formation of a nationalist rhetoric that overrides and marginalises other competing voices that were instrumental in the State coming into being in the first place (Lloyd Citation2001, pp. 13–19). Populist accounts of the Famine suggest both a linear reading of its importance and also the writing out of the competing voices to produce, and latterly sustain, a singular nation-building myth.
5. Crawford (Citation1994, p. 87) draws attention to the fact that more people died of disease than actual starvation in the Great Famine. However, it is largely the mass mediated context that makes the 1840's famine different from earlier Irish famines. The famine of the 1740s, which was the first famine in Ireland directly resulting from the failure of the potato crop and in which proportionally more people died from actual starvation, received little attention outside Ireland (Kissane Citation1995, p. 19).
6. The effectiveness of such graphic imagery lay in the fact that it helped to reinforce a prevailing belief that many Irish landlords were cruel and uncaring (Sexton & Kinealy Citation2002, p. 74).
7. This is true even when nationalist organisations attempted to challenge anglicised representations with ‘more militant imagery, their efforts were fatally betrayed by their dependence on English visual culture’ (Loftus Citation1990, p. 60). And, this was a tendency that was to continue through to the early twentieth century (Thompson Citation1999, p. 124).
8. See George Fredrick Watts The Irish Famine (1849–1850), a painting that comments directly on the visual representation or imagining of the Irish famine for an English audience.
9. The influx (due to the Famine) of Irish immigrants into British cities (many of them poverty-stricken and diseased) becomes both visible and seen as a ‘social problem’ by the late 1840s (Curtis Citation1997, p. 30).
10. Chandler (Citation2001, p. 13) notes that: ‘from 1840 onwards instruction in the daguerreotype process was available at the Dublin Mechanics Institute, Lower Abbey Street, and it was quite easy to obtain the necessary materials to practice it’, suggesting ‘it is highly likely that it was being used in Dublin during the early 1840s’. Maquire (Citation2000, pp. 2–3) corroborates this assessment and suggests that photography in Belfast during the 1840s may have been even more developed.
11. Bajac (Citation2002, p. 40) notes, they took some 150 photographs. The intention of this project (though it did not materialise) was to produce a book whose revenue would be used to alleviate the social hardship being experienced in the locality (Rosenblum 1984/1989, p. 343). While the heavy aesthetic overlay to these photographs does not foreground social realism, it does suggest that photographs of ‘everyday’ life were possible.
12. A lithographic copy from a daguerreotype of Daniel O'Connell was offered for public sale in 1844.
13. The Illustrated London News, which began in 1842, is credited with being the first illustrated weekly to carry topical news stories. However, Charles Knight (the paper's editor) placed restrictions on the degree to which illustrators could draw on their own eyewitness testimony, advocating that representations of the seamier aspects of life should be avoided (Fox Citation1977, pp. 74, 93–94).
14. This failure to recognise the range of early amateur production may arise from the association of science with the Anglo-Irish in the nineteenth century. For a fuller discussion of the relation between science and culture in Ireland see Foster (Citation1997, pp. 119–133) and for the eclecticism to be found in one early Anglo-Irish amateur album see Baylis (Citation2008).
15. As Murphy (Citation2004, pp. 20, 24) notes royal visits, including Queen Victoria's 1849 visit, were popular in Ireland. It is only at the time of Victoria's Golden Jubilee (1897) that the caricature of the monarch as Famine Queen becomes widespread in Ireland; this was the time when in England she becomes the symbol of British imperial achievement. Irish nationalist rhetoric utilises this figuration by claiming that if the queen symbolised British success, she could also be positioned as liable for British failures, most notably the Great Famine.
16. Lawrence Catalogue Ireland and the Magic Lantern, National Library of Ireland, MSS, R1365.
17. The photographic prints that formed the basis for Lawrence's evictions lantern slide series (60 slides) are based on eight separate evictions and cover the four provinces of Ireland (Cullen Citation2002, p. 164). In Lawrence's Ireland and the Magic Lantern catalogue the eviction series in followed by 85 individual portraits of the Irish Parliamentary Party in 1890. Cullen notes the significance of this and concludes: ‘the eviction scenes should be seen in a similar emotive light. They marketed national sentiment at a time of great political tension’ (2002, p. 175).
18. Lawrence also purchased photographs from other photographers, including a selection of eviction photographs from the 1880s. These, Rouse (Citation1998, p. 30) suggests were purchased with the intention of printing for distribution. Guy's eviction photographs fall into this latter category: he was either commissioned to take these photographs by Lawrence or his negatives were purchased and distributed by the firm (some of his eviction images also appear in Lawrence's Ireland and the Magic Lantern). In either case, it points to astute marketing by Lawrence of a popular political issue.
19. The Glenbeigh evictions were amply covered by both parliamentary debate and the press of the day, gaining notoriety due to the charge that the land agent deliberately burnt evicted cottages. These evictions formed the cover story (with illustrations) in the Illustrated London News, 29 January 1887 (quoted in Cullen Citation2002, p. 178, n. 28).
20. In actuality, ‘battering rams were rarely used since they destroyed the property’ (MacCarthy Morrogh 2002, p. 11).
21. Kennedy notes that in reality the term ‘cottage’ becomes almost a pejorative word, especially in the west of Ireland where the associations of ‘cottier’ with landlessness lived on whereas the owner of a ‘house’ equated with landowning status (1993, p. 73).
22. While Gibbons’ discussion refers to Irish film, his argument about the construction of the landscape holds true for photography; indeed, he notes how early Irish melodrama strove for photographic likeness (1987, p. 214).
23. The album comprises of 140 photographs of local rural and urban scenes, churches, abbeys, ruins, the two eviction photographs, together with some photographs of political meetings and an image of an effigy of Judge Keogh in Castlebar.