A Nose Put Out of Joint. Source: Fun (2 March 1867): 253. Courtesy of the HathiTrust Digital Library and the University of Minnesota. — Click on image to enlarge it.
Erin to John Bull.: — “Shure, you’ll purtect me from this impoorted blaygard, that wants to put the commether upon me, that’s nothin’ to do with him ava!.”
Erin, here depicted as a beautiful young barefoot girl, seeks protection from the violence financed by Irish emigrants to the United States. Here as in so many similar struggles self-presented as liberation movements, those in power charge that outsiders stir up what would otherwise have been a peaceful situation. Evictions and other mistreatment of Irish tenants had long produced a climate of simmering violence, and yet it is also true that emigrant money did finance some of those who resisted. The point of this cartoon is not only to blame violence on outsiders but also thereby to suggest that John Bull — England — could provide peace and justice. Unfortunately, the English political parties always managed to give with one hand and take away with the other, so that positive responses to Irish demands were undercut by other actions. Long-requested land reform, which could have gone a long away toward appeasing the Irish, was immediately undercut by passing a Coercion Act that essentially removed all civil rights from the Irish, most noticeably when it permitted authorities to detain Parnell, the Irish member of Parliament, without charges. George P. Landow.
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Last modified 29 April 2016