If I wanted to have a simple conversation about the English stereotype towards Irishman, I could point to J.K. Rowling's only Irish character Seamus Finnigan, mishap explosion extraordinaire. But quite frankly, I'm tired of talking about J.K. Rowling's lazy stereotypes throughout her writing. I'm also tired of English authors who have never actually lived in a colonized Ireland being so central to this conversation. #FreetheNorth No. Instead I'd like to talk about Maria Edgeworth. She was an author born in Oxfordshire, yes, but moved to County Longford, Ireland when she was five-years-old and lived there to her death. Since homegirl was alive from 1768-1849 she was in the thick of it, and her writing reads as such.

She wrote a book called Castle Rackrent, an Anglo-Irish fiction novel with a focus on class structure that mirrored her family’s and her own personal experience moving from Britain to Ireland as, well, British people. The story is set in the years leading up to 1782, though it was published in 1800. Why is this important, you may ask? When Edgeworth was a wee- 14-year-old, the Constitution of 1782 restored Ireland’s legislative independence through parliament (thank God).This took power away from the Crown and gave some of it back to Ireland. In short, there was a lot going on politically and socially in Ireland, things that a teenage half-British kid would experience firsthand. Esentially, her characters, while fictional, give us a first-hand look into class structure and how it affected both Brits and Irishmen before Ireland regained a bit of independence.

In the original copy, there is no forward or intro, but in the Oxford classic edition there's a quote form King George III saying he “was much pleased with Castle Rackrent... I know something now of my Irish subjects” . Wow. Side eye my guy. Just your usual colonist, knowing nothing about the people he's stolen freedom from. Ironically, the King's quote, while jovial (in my opinion) from his POV, shows readers the total lack of care and understanding British leaders had for their Irish citizens.

This is why Edgeworth's book is so important. It was the "first socio-cultural novel, [and the first Irish novel]". The quote is again form the forward, and again makes the writer of that forward an ass-hat. As if writers didn't exist in Ireland before Great Britain invaded. The audacity! Ireland has gifted the world with many great writers long before and long since Britain's invasion.

And here's the other thing. Edgeworth uses Irish stereotypes ALL through her story, almost in a way to humanize them to the English. Personally, it feels a little like fetishization. Like her entire story starts on Monday morning, because "anything important" should start on a Monday morning in Ireland. It's as if the English reader can look at that sentence and think, "Oh that silly Irish types".

To anyone unfamiliar with Irish culture, this may seem inconsequential or trivial. But fear not my non-Irish readers, the Editor (not an actual editor, it's a character Edgeworth creates in her narration) includes a glossary addition to explain cultural matters of importance to you all. The page introducing the glossary is titled “Advertisement to the English Reader” and reads:

“Some friends who have seen Thady’s history since it has been printed have suggested to the Editor, that many of the terms and idiomatic phrases with which it abounds could not be intelligible to the English reader without further explanation” (98).

In some ways, this feels like the editor and writer othering Irish culture. Which yes, it's different than English culture, but it's deeper than trivial things like Monday mornings and silly phrases. These distinctions are where readers should be able to tell the true differences in Irish and English culture and the effect of postcolonialism on Irish language and their traditions.

Edgeworth chooses to tell her story through the narration of Thady Quirk, an observer to the Anglo-Irish class of four generations of Rackrent heirs as they experience their downfalls. Thady is not a participant in the story as much as an outside observer. He's a steward, a lower-class Irishman, so to say, who works on the Rackrent property. It is through his eyes that we experience the socio-cultural hierarchy between classes.

Thady’s narrative purpose is strengthened by that of the Editor who includes a preface, many footnotes, and a glossary to help complete the depiction of the Irish experience. While the narration is in first-person and Thady speaks as if things are presently happening, the story is set in the near past (in the years before the Constitution of 1782) during which England was still very much in control of Irish lands and legislature. This is why traditional Irish culture could apparently not go unexplained, as so much of their culture was meant to mirror that of their English counterparts post-colonization.

Hmmm. Not sure how I feel about a wealthy English woman telling the story of the Irish through the eyes of a poor Irishman. Yeah, she may have more insight than the avid Londoner Brit who's never been to Ireland, but she's still viewing it from the lens of someone growing up in a wealthy English home. Oh right, I forgot it was the first Irish novel. Who else could possibly tell Ireland's story than her?? That was sarcasm, if you didn't pick up on it. Moving on.

We're at least seeing a rendition of how the presence of English influenced Ireland's socioeconomic world. We get this through a combo of character narration and the Editor's notes. One thing I can appreciate about this story is that Edgeworth doesn't make the Irish people seem like great lovers of the English people without exception. We get to see some of the resentment that was and is a reality.

Like, pretty early on in the story Thady says, “For let alone making English tenants of them, every soul... was so great a gain to Sir Murtagh.” You may be like, huh? Without understanding the quips of native Irishmen, this line means little. But luckily the Editor's glossary is there to explain:

“It is common prejudice in Ireland, amongst the poorer classes of people, to believe that all tenants in England pay their rents on the very day when they become due... If a tenant disobliges his landlord... the tenant is immediately informed by the agent that he must become an English tenant” (103).

The English are portrayed as responsible and honest tenants while the Irish come across as lazy tenants who cannot pay their rents on time. Isn't that enraging? Especially considering that historically in Ireland this was not an issue like at all before English norms were adopted. The Irish weren't lazy. Maybe they were just subconsciously saving energy for when the Brits starved them in 1845. But what do I know?

But literally the Editor’s explanation depicts the custom that to be a better tenant is to be less Irish and more English, as though the English surpass the Irish as citizens. I can appreciate that perhaps this was the point Edgeworth was trying to make. To show the English their unfair stereotypes plastered on the Irish name. Not all English tenants were so perfect; I mean look at the fictional Rackrent family!

But honestly, to me it seems to be a cop out that minimized English postcolonialism on culture and society through the depiction of differing Irish classes and the differing English and Irish nationalities. She was clearly writing for the English masses and their preconceptions, not to create a genuine portrayal of Irish culture and character.