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time being taught to read? Or, to put it another way, how is literacy to be
promoted, whilst at the same time control is exerted over what is read?
Small wonder that English radicals in the early nineteenth century argued
against state education on the grounds that it would be education for the
purposes of the state.
The answer to this difficulty, it was thought, was to teach literacy and
religion simultaneously and thus to make them indistinguishable.
Education and religion combined , Dewar notes, are not only the best,
but seem to be the only adequate, means for rendering permanent the
blessings of a free government, and the comforts and endearments of
civilised life (ibid.: 112). By religion of course was meant Protestantism,
and the aim of such an education was made clear by Taylor when he
asserted that it would make the Irish peasant
Forging the nation 121
sensible of the odious deformity of that gothic superstructure whose
gloomy and fantastic battlements have so long thrown their shadow
over his country, chilling its moral bloom, and causing its virtues to
perish untimely.
(Taylor 1817:14)
Access to literacy and the Bible would give the degraded Irish the
weapons of Christian warfare, which shall prove a deliverance and defence
and safeguard against the fetters and assaults of ignorance and
superstition (Connellan 1824:iv); which is to say that the object of such
an educational programme was the extirpation of Catholicism.
As noted earlier, however, the aims of this mode of education were not
solely religious but often overtly political. Dewar, for example, defends the
teaching of Irish at a time when the whole of Europe is prostrate at the
foot of the tyrant . He does so by arguing that, precisely because of the
Napoleonic threat, it would be self-defeating
not to embrace every measure of uniting the people, of removing every
cause of suspicion in the government, every cause of even seeming
grievance in the subject, of enlightening, improving, and civilising every
part of the population.
(Dewar 1812:126)
The teaching of Irish would comprise such a measure, since it would pacify
that part of the population which some consider dangerous to the security
of the British Empire . This would also have the happy consequence of
directly saving money to the government by rendering the presence of an
extensive military establishment unnecessary (ibid.: 136 7).
One difficulty which was often cited was the belief that an education in
Irish would encourage affection for the language and thus for an
independent nation. The answer to it was ingenious. For, rather than
leading to a love of Irish, it was asserted somewhat counter-intuitively that
it would stimulate a desire to learn English. That is, the encouragement of
polyglossia would eventually lead to a state of monoglossia, linguistically,
culturally and politically. It became a commonplace to propose that the
most likely way to promote the knowledge, and ultimately the use, of the
English language, is to teach the people first their own (Anderson
1818:iv). This apparent contradiction was explained by Connellan s
argument that
with respect to the extension of the English language, it appears likely
to be promoted at present by the cultivation of the Irish. This is what
will open to the native student, an easy path to the first rudiments of
knowledge; when those are obtained, emulation and interest will soon
122 Forging the nation
stimulate him to the acquisition of the English language, on which his
hopes depend.
(Connellan 1814:iv)
As the same writer notes, however, the learning of English was not simply
a linguistic question, for it had important social implications too:
A grammatical knowledge of Irish, as numerous examples prove, is sure
to present to the Irish native a more ready and certain path to an
acquaintance with the English language and the stores of English
literature; and consequently, tends to promote a closer unity between
the subjects of both countries, and to insure a similarity and disposition
of sentiment, both as Christians and fellow citizens.
(Connellan 1824:iv)
If exposure to literacy would incline the Irish towards the English
language, exposure to the Bible and Protestant teaching would complete
the ideological feat and lead to ideal subjecthood, and a state of quietness
and peace in the kingdom.
We noted earlier how many of the texts in favour of teaching the
language for the purposes of proselytising were written with direct
reference to the conflictual social history in which they were set. Denying
that an education in Irish was likely to encourage recollections of past
transactions which it were better were forgotten , Anderson argued that it
was intended to be eirenic rather than inflammatory:
to enable the native to read the Scriptures in his own tongue is the sole
object. You thus afford him that knowledge which is most calculated to
heal every irritable feeling, and to allay every animosity which such
recollections may unhappily still cherish. If the only language they know
has carried the poison of disaffection and disunion through every part of
the system which it has visited in its circulation, let it now convey,
through ramifications not less extensive, the antidote for that poison.
(Anderson 1818:77 8)
Irish was to be made the language of loyalty and peace , rather than a
badge signalling radical difference.
The direct, individual reading of the Bible was thought by many to offer
the prospect of almost miraculous social effects. Indeed its previous absence,
Orpen claimed, was responsible for Ireland s bitter history. Disunity
has arisen, not from difference of language, but from political and
religious feuds, from traditionary practices and hereditary recollections;
but above all from the want of a Scriptuary education of the Poor.
(Orpen 1821:47)
Forging the nation 123
Thus there was a concerted campaign to combine the teaching of Irish
with scriptural education in order to produce a conservative hegemony.
Anderson specifies examples of biblical teachings which could be used:
Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar s; let every soul be
subject to the higher powers; for there is no power but of God: the
powers that be are ordained by God. Whoever, therefore, resisteth the
power, resisteth the ordinance of God& . Honour the King.
(Anderson 1818:82)
He comments that these truths , in Irish or English, would infuse the
most exalted and firmly grounded sentiments of loyalty to the ruling
powers (ibid.). Whatever the actual effect of biblical teaching, its
efficiency was proclaimed generally. Dewar, in an assertion which
probably bears more optimism than truth, claims that an Irishman
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