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Subject Area: Political Theory
Collection: The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill

138.: THE IRISH CHARACTER EXAMINER, 22 JAN., 1832, P. 56 - John Stuart Mill, The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, Volume XXIII - Newspaper Writings August 1831 - October 1834 Part II [1831]

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The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, Volume XXIII - Newspaper Writings August 1831 - October 1834 Part II, ed. Ann P. Robson and John M. Robson, Introduction by Ann P. Robson and John M. Robson (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1986).

Part of: Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, in 33 vols.

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138.

THE IRISH CHARACTER

EXAMINER, 22 JAN., 1832, P. 56

This unheaded leading article, an early indication of the interest in national character that led to Mill’s unfulfilled wish to write an “Ethology,” is described in his bibliography as “An article on the Irish character in reply to a correspondent signing himself ‘Erinensis,’ subjoined to the summary of French news [i.e., No. 137], in the Examiner of 22d January 1832” (MacMinn, p. 19). It is listed as “Article on the Irish character, in reply to a correspondent” and enclosed in square brackets in the Somerville College set of the Examiner. The letter by Erinensis, which was not published in the Examiner, has not been located.

we have received a letter, signed Erinensis, accusing us of having “taken advantage of the Périer and Cormenin controversy to fling a deliberate and wanton insult on the Irish character,” and calling upon us to state “from what sources of authority” we have derived our ideas of the Irish character, “or what the relative veracity of our respective countries had to do with the squabbles of Messrs. Périer and Cormenin.”1 As we should be much grieved to be thought capable of going out of our way to say what might hurt the feelings of any one, we shall answer the second question first. We were laying claim, in behalf of our countrymen, to a superiority in private veracity over the French. Now, as the Irish, though they do not consider themselves our countrymen, are considered such by foreigners, we thought it right, in order not to make a false impression, to state that we meant the assertion only of the English and Scotch.

As for our “sources of authority” in regard to the Irish character, we have none that are peculiar to ourselves: our evidence is public notoriety. To go no further, we have reason to believe that most tradesmen of respectability will inform—not our fiery correspondent—but any cooler person, or himself in a cooler mood, that they will give credit to an Englishman or a Scotchman, but not to an Irishman.

Having now answered our correspondent’s two questions, we hope he will not think ill of us for saying, that, as we never hesitate to denounce the national faults and vices of our own country, often at a great sacrifice of our interest as journalists, we think it but fair that we should use as little reserve in speaking of other nations and races of men. We can assure our correspondent that the feeling with which we wrote was any thing but one of reproach or of triumph. We are but too grievously sensible of the load of guilt which lies upon the conscience of England for the vices of Irishmen. Would misgovernment be the crying and dreadful evil that it is, if ages of it were not sufficient to leave any visible stain upon the national character? The only wonder is, that any virtue should survive, in a society the most wretchedly constituted which has existed in Europe since the commencement of modern civilisation. We believe from our hearts that the virtue of Englishmen would, in a few generations, have become utterly extinct under such treatment. What has preserved Ireland from the lowest stage of moral debasement, has been that susceptibility of ardent and generous emotion, which is common to her people with the French, and in which the inhabitants of our own island are, in comparison with either, most conspicuously deficient. But this noble quality, the fountain of so many virtues, is the characteristic excellence of an impressible people—a people all alive to the sensation of the moment, little addicted to calm reflection, and on whom distant motives have comparatively little influence. The virtues of spontaneous growth among such a people, can never be the virtues of self-control: if these are found in such a soil, they must be the fruit of sedulous moral culture. Such a people will be generous, brave, hospitable, keenly alive both to kindness and to unkindness, ardent in their private attachments, in their humanity, in their patriotism. But it requires highly favourable circumstances to render them equally remarkable for the virtues which consist in curbing impulse, and resisting temptation: stern integrity, justice, forethought, self-denial, veracity. In many of the positive virtues, the Irish are probably, the French certainly, our superiors. In many of the negative ones, both, we fear, have much to learn even from so imperfect an example as ours.

[1 ]The reference is to No. 135, where, however, Mill is concerned with Bouvier-Dumolart’s rather than Cormenin’s quarrel with Périer.