Irish Nationalist Ideals in The Irish Yankee and The Shaughraun

Introduction: Two Playwrights, One Nationalist Vision

John Brougham's 1840 play The Irish Yankee, or, the Birth-Day of Freedom and Dion Boucicault's 1874 play The Shaughraun are both recognized for advancing a series of Irish nationalist ideas, as each is evidently intended to present Irishmen from a broadly pro-Irish perspective. Brougham and Boucicault are representative figures of Irish dramaturgy in the second half of the nineteenth century, and their works were particularly celebrated in America at the time. The protagonists in each play — Ebenezer O'Donahoo and Robert Ffolliott, respectively — are most probably intended to embody a defining image of the Irishman. Both characters pass through several life-threatening episodes from which they ultimately emerge victorious, demonstrating that Irish individuals are experienced and capable of enduring the most distressing of circumstances.

There was considerable controversy regarding Ireland's position within the British Empire during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Irishmen grew increasingly resentful of their oppression by British authorities. To a certain degree, Ireland's condition as a British colony closely resembled that of other territories within the Empire at the time. People in Ireland were determined to achieve independence by any means necessary, even if that meant rising against the powerful British Empire.

Many Irishmen, convinced that open revolution offered little chance of success, chose to emigrate to the United States, where they could find freedom and be appreciated for their true worth. Roman Catholics in Ireland were especially troubled by their subjugation under a Protestant ruling class primarily interested in exploitation, regardless of the consequences for the Irish people. With the Great Irish Famine devastating the country, a number of writers chose to express solidarity with their nation and with ordinary Irish people by producing texts that advanced Irish nationalist ideas and offered a truer image of the Irishman (Flynn). This confirms that playwrights like Brougham and Boucicault were moved to create plays that reflected their feelings about the oppression of their people. Given that both writers emigrated to the United States, it is clear that they could no longer endure a tyrannical regime that threatened to strip them of their most prized possession — freedom.

Works Cited

Cody, H. Gabrielle, and Evert Sprinchorn. The Columbia Encyclopedia of Modern Drama, Volume 1. Columbia University Press, 2007.

Flynn. "Joyce Sites and Sights: The Iconology of the Subterranean in Late Nineteenth-Century Irish-American Drama." MELUS, vol. 18, no. 1, 1993.

Vernon, Grenville. Yankee Doodle-Doo: A Collection of Songs of the Early American Stage. Payson & Clarke, 1927.