Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

In the 1820s, as the Irish question released an agitation that would result in a partial answer from the Catholic Relief Bill of 1829, Michael and John Banim produced a string of novels and tales that countered anti-Catholic propaganda and sought to find a middle way between extremes on both sides. In doing so, they cemented their position as the creators of a new national literature, and spokesmen for the rising Catholic middle classes. The brothers were born in Kilkenny in 1796 and 1798 respectively, and educated in Catholic schools, with John then going on to the preparatory Kilkenny College (once attended by Jonathan Swift) and to train as an artist at the Royal Dublin Society – opportunities for an Irish Catholic that would have been more difficult before the Act of Union (1800). Michael, who had hoped to study law, remained in Kilkenny when he was needed to take charge of the family powder-and-shot business. John tried journalism in Dublin and London, wrote poetry, and had some success writing for the theatre – Damon and Pythias (1821) was performed sporadically throughout the nineteenth century. His first novel was Revelations of the Dead-Alive (1824), a fantastic tale about a man who develops his genetic propensity to fall into a death-like coma. When he goes too far he wakes up in London in the year 2023, which allows Banim the opportunity for all too gentle satire ... log in or subscribe to read full text