DomainArticle in Book
Title"Music hall unionism : Robert Martin and the politics of the stage-Irishman"
Title Of BookGray, Peter, 1965- (ed.), Victoria's Ireland? : Irishness and Britishness, 1837-1901 (Dublin: Four Courts, 2004)
AuthorMaume, Patrick
Publication Date2004
Start-End Page69 — 80
Number Of Pages12 p.
Era Covered1837 — 1901
LanguageEnglish
ISBN1851827587
Subject Classification
Person As SubjectMartin, Robert, 1846-1905
CountryIreland
NotesOutlines the career of Robert Martin (1846-1905), humorous journalist and entertainer, Conservative propagandist, Irish landowner, and brother of the novelist Violet Martin ("Martin Ross" of Somerville and Ross). The article discusses how Martin deploys stage-Irish imagery (derived from Charles Lever) of paternalist landlords and submissive tenants joined in drunken hedonism in order to oppose Irish demands for Home Rule, to provide a consoling self-image which compensated for his increasing marginalisation as an Irish landlord, and to link Unionism to the hedonism of the male Bohemian journalists and music-hall attendes who provided his audience. The article also discusses how the misogyny of Martin's writings contrasts with the feminism of "Somerville and Ross", how his political activities influenced nationalist reponses to their writings, and how Martin's depiction of landlords as benevolent parents and tenants as violent and ungratefu l children includes an exaltation of Queen Victoriaas universal matriarch and upholder of familial order.
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