Quels horizons politiques pour l’Irlande au XIXe siècle ? Une étude de quelques caricatures du temps de Parnell

Abstract

The 1880s were a period of crucial development for moderate nationalism in Ireland under the leadership of Charles Stewart Parnell. Intense enthusiasm for a growing and more and more successful Irish parliamentary party developed in nationalist circles, especially in the nationalist press (Weekly Freeman and United Ireland), where caricatures were regularly published to support Charles Stewart Parnell and his colleagues. Artists such as John Fergus O’Hea, John Dooley Reigh and Thomas Fitzpatrick published cartoons which “celebrated the vicissitudes of a nation struggling to be reborn by means of Home Rule.” (L. Perry Curtis Jr., Images of Erin in the Age of Parnell, Dublin : National Library of Ireland, 2000, 20.) This paper will study nine of the cartoons they published between the early 1880s and early 1890s. These cartoons are particularly striking as their backgrounds present rather well-defined details which illustrate the ups and downs of Ireland’s political life and serve to express Irish aspirations at a time when the Irish people struggled with land issues but also hoped for a better, brighter future under Home Rule. In other words this paper will show how Irish cartoonists used horizon lines as spaces where they could represent the aspirations and expectations of the Irish nation.

Keywords

• nationalism
• cartoon
• Home Rule
• Irish Parliamentary Party
• Stewart Parnell Charles
• William Ewart Gladstone