Life
1813-1879; b. 6 Sept., Glenfin, b. Stranorlar, Co. Donegal; ed.
Royal School, Raphoe, and TCD; co-founder of Dublin University Magazine,
Jan. 1833, calling for ‘a repeal of the literary union’; acted
as third editor, 1834-38; contrib. stories such as ‘The Bribed Scholar’
to DUM, 1834-37, later collected as Chapters of College Romance
(1863), and dealing with ‘the romance of truth’; accused Robert
Peel of ‘lack of purpose’ in 1835, and responded to the latter’s
cancelled subscription with warning that only the Dublin University
Magazine could reconcile Irish Tories to his policy; ed. ‘Gallery
of Illustrious Irishmen’ from Jan. 1836; succeeded Longfield as
Whately Prof. Political Economy, 1836-41, inaugurated with Introductory
Lecture delivered before the University of Dublin (Dublin 1837), extending
concept of wealth to immaterial goods; called to Irish bar, 1838; delivered
Protection to Home Industry (1840; pub. 1846), greeted by John
Mitchel as a repeal essay; published a novel, Irish Life in the Castle,
the Courts and the Country (1840), centred on the Davis-like character
of O’Donnell; fnd. The Protestant Guardian, Dublin; political
views altered by famine; A Voice for Ireland: Famine on the Land (April
1847), calling the absence of a proper poor law the ‘moral crime’
of England and warning that current famine administration would cause
anti-British coalition in Ireland (‘a little more treating of Ireland
as a conquered country … and he would be a bold man who would promise
many years continuance of Union’); defended William Smith O’Brien,
1848; public letter to Lord Roden, April 1849; deeply influenced by William
Carleton’s story, ‘The Black Day’; evolved Federalist solution;
MP for Harwich, 1852; MP for Youghal, 1852-65; Inner Temple and English
bar, 1859; reputedly caught in flagrante delicto with Lady Wilde
(acc. Yeats); appeared as a barrister against the Wildes in the Travers
libel case of 1864; defended Fenians in the high court, 1865-69; returned
to Ireland, 1865; President [chairman] of Amnesty Association, 1869; proposed
united Nationalist party in The Nation, Nov. 1869; held founding
meeting of Home Government Association at Bilton’s Hotel, attended
by with Sir John Barrington, King Harman, Major Knox (Irish Times)
and others, 19 May, 1870; launched Home Rule Confederation, 8 January
1873, being credited with inventing the phrase ‘‘Home Rule’’;
elected MP for Limerick, 1871 to his death; proposed in answer to the
Coercion Bill that the ‘Irish party will […] exhaust all the
forms of the house to attain their just and righteous object’, but
professed disapproval of ‘obstruction’ tactics of Biggar and
others; lost leadership of Home Rule Confederation to Charles Stewart
Parnell, 1877; attacked at Home Rule Conference, 1878, for attempt to
ally party with Conservative govt.; further attacked at Home Rule League,
Feb. 1879; trans. Virgil’s Georgics, and wrote historical
tracts and works incl. The History of Italy from the Abdication of
Napoleon (2 vols. 1860); Land Tenure in Ireland: A Plea for the
Celtic Race (1866); The Power and the Land (1867); and Irish
Federalism (1870); d. 5 May; bur. Stranorlar. CAB JMC DNB DIB DIH
MKA FDA RAF OCIL
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Works
Fiction, Chapters
of College Romance (London: C. J. Skeet 1863) [instalments began in
Dublin University Magazine, IV, 23, pp.486-501, Nov. 1834, under
pseudonym of ‘Edward Stevens O’Brien’, appearing irregularly
until Nov. 1837, Dublin University Magazine, X, 59, pp.499-520];
Irish Life: In the Castle, the Courts, and the Country, 3 vols.
(London: How & Parsons 1840); The Gap of Barnesmore: A Tale of
the Irish Highlands and the Revolution of 1688, 3 vols. (London: Smith
&c 1848). Stories incl. ‘The Murdered Fellow’, Dublin
University Magazine, March 1835, pp.322-52; ‘The Man in the Cloak’,
in Dublin Univ. Magazine, XII, nov. 1838, pp.552-68.
Political writings, A Voice for Ireland: The Famine in the Land; What has been done and what is to be done (Dublin: McGlashan 1847), viii, 59pp [detailed review of same, in Dublin University Magazine, XIX, 172, Apr. 1847, pp.501-40]; Protection to Home Industry, some cases of its advantages considered (Dublin 1846); The Rate in Aid: A Letter to Lord Roden (Dublin 1849); The Irish People and the Irish Land: A Letter to Lord Lifford with Comments on the Publication of Lord Dufferin and Lord Rosse (Dublin: Falconer 1867), 298pp.
Pamphlets, Address Delivered before the College Historical Society on the evening of Monday June 24 at the close of the Session by Isaac Butt, Schol., at Trinity College, Pres. of the Society (Dub, printed for the society by J. S. Folds, Bachelor’s Walk 1833), 31pp. See also Richard Bagwell, A Plea for National Education, in Answer to Mr. Butt’s proposal for its destruction (Dublin: Hodges, Foster & Co. 1875), 35pp. [in answer to "The Problem of Irish Education"].
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- Terence de Vere White, The Road to Excess: A Biography of Isaac Butt (Dublin:Browne & Nolan 1946) [stand. biog.];
- David Thornley, Isaac Butt and Home Rule (London 1964);
- W. J. McCormack, ‘Isaac Butt and the Inner Failure of Protestant Home Rule,’ in Ciaran Brady, ed., Worsted in the Game, Losers in Irish History (Dublin: Lilliput 1989);
- Brendan Ó Cathaoir, ‘Federalism in Irish History’ [2-pt. ser. on Butt], Part 1, The Irish Times 1 Sept. 1975, p.12);
- Joseph Spence, ‘"The Great Angelic Sin": The Faust Legend in Irish Literature, 1820-1900’, in Bullán: An Irish Studies Journal, 1, 2 (Autumn 1994), pp.47-58 [espec. p.52];
- Joseph Spence, ‘Isaac Butt, Nationality and Irish Toryism, 1833-1852’, in Bullán, 2, 1 (Summer 1995), pp.45-60.
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Notes
William Carleton: Butt was the recipient of the dedication
of William Carleton’s new edition of Traits & Stories (2
vols. in 1; c.1853). See also Irish Book Lover, 3, 4, 5. there
is a chalk portrait by J B Yeats [NGI].
Samuel Ferguson addressed a sonnet to Butt, adverting to his rejection by the Irish party: ‘Isaac, the generous heart conceives no ill, / From frank repulse. The marriage suit denied / Turns love to hatred only when ‘’tis Pride, / not true Love, woos ... Lovely she stands, though she has said thee nay, / And sad expectance clothes her brow in gloom, / While guardians tyrannous withhold her dower; / Now shows her soul’d magnanimous assay, / And when her day in that High Court shall come, / Plead in your old love’s cause with double power.’ (Poems, ed., A. P. Graves [n.d.; 1916], p.103.) SEE Also George Sigerson’s elegy on the death of Butt, noticed by Graves in his Introduction (ibid., xxv.)
W. B. Yeats relates that Butt was caught in flagrante delicto with Lady Wilde; see Joseph Spence, ‘"The Great Angelic Sin": The Faust legend in Irish Literature, 1820-1900’, in Bullán: An Irish Studies Journal, 1, 2 (Autumn 1994), ftn.35, p.58.
Joyce Connection: Note that Butt is alluded to as a standard of Irish eloquence along with others in ‘Aeolus’ episode: ‘Where have you a man now at the bar like those fellows, like Whiteside, like Isaac Butt, like silver-tongued O’Hagan?’ (under heading ‘Clever, Very’, in James Joyce, Ulysses, Bodley Head Edn., p.175).
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Princess Grace Irish Library (Monaco)