Week 9: “Racial Discourse and Irish History” -Gibbons (Castle)

In his piece on the construction of Irish history, Gibbons, pays considerable attention to the formation of a national identity with specific focus paid on the effects of race. The most interesting aspect of this article was the discussion on the similarities and differences between the English depiction of American Indians, Blacks, and the Irish. With considerable time spent on the difficulty of the English to define the Irish as an ethnically inferior group, despite the apparent similarities in skin tone. According to Gibbons the Irish, in the eyes of the English, began to resemble the American Indians with which a paternalistic viewpoint was given, one of inferiority, but of a less vitrolic nature, than say that of the Blacks. Although the Indians were admired to a degree for the ruggedness and freedom, both of which the Irish did not appear to possess. This comparison ultimately confined the Irish to a place somewhat more inferior to that of the American Indian, one of an uncouth nature, but lacking the freedom and admirable qualities of the Native Americans. This view of ethnicity began, as all race categories ultimately do, to become internalized in Irish culture, ultimately, according to Gibbons, resulting in an ever-increasing desire for equality, but solely on English terms, literature, and sensibilities…a gap that ultimately the Irish would never be able to dissolve.