Shoneenism is a pejorative term, used in Ireland from at least the 18th century, to describe Irish people who are viewed as adhering to Anglophile snobbery. Some late 19th and early 20th century Irish nationalist writers, like D. P. Moran (1869–1936), used the term shoneen (Irish: Seoinín), alongside the term West Brit, to characterize those who displayed snobbery, admiration for England or mimicked the English nobility. A stereotypical shoneen also reputedly shows corresponding disdain for Irish nationalism and the decolonisation of Irish culture, such as the Irish language and Irish traditional music.
History and use
Since the 1800s, the words shoneen and shoneenism have been used by Irish nationalists as terms of derision and are always uncomplimentary towards the shoneen as the Irish language diminutive ending een (ín) when used in this manner has a loading of contempt. One suggested etymology of shoneen is seoinín, meaning "Little John" in Irish, referring to John Bull, a national personification of the British Empire in general and of England in particular. The following lines were published in 1882, under the pseudonym Artane:
There is not in this wide world a creature so mean,
As that mongrel of mongrels, the Irish shoneen!
Published in 1910, Patrick Weston Joyce's work English as We Speak it in Ireland, defines a "shoneen" as "a gentleman in a small way: a would-be gentleman who puts on superior airs", noting that the word is always "used contemptuously".
James Joyce uses the term in several of his works, a practice which some Joycean scholars attribute to the frequent use of the term by Irish nationalist journalist D. P. Moran in The Leader newspaper. In Writers and Politics: Essays and Criticism, a series of essays published by Conor Cruise O'Brien in 1965, O'Brien noted that advocates of a particular form of Irish nationalism, including D. P. Moran, would describe those who were deemed not to be an "Irish Islander" as either "a West Briton, if of Anglo-Irish descent, or a shoneen if of Gaelic ancestry".
The Irish historian and academic, F. S. L. Lyons, defined a "shoneen" as a person "of native Irish stock who committed the unforgivable sin of aping English or West-Briton manners and attitudes".
In 2017, the Irish Court of Appeal's judge Gerard Hogan reportedly described a preference in legal circles to refer to the European Convention of Human Rights, instead of the Constitution of Ireland, as a "sort of legal shoneenism".
See also
References
- Keenan, Desmond (2018). Pre-Famine Ireland: Social Structure: Second Edition. Xlibris Corporation. ISBN 9781984569547.
In the 18th century, Shoneenism was a term used in Ireland to describe an ostensible Irishman who was viewed as adhering to Anglophile snobbery
- Gannon, Sean William (2018). The Irish Imperial Service Policing Palestine and Administering the Empire, 1922–1966. Springer International Publishing. p. 192.
- Dolan, Terence Patrick (2020). A Dictionary of Hiberno-English. Gill Books.
- Moran, D.P. (1905). "Chapter 4 "Politics, Nationality and Snobs"". The Philosophy of Irish Ireland.
- Murphy, John A (27 August 2006). "The subtle and everyday legacy of Irish-Irelanders". independent.ie. Independent News & Media. Retrieved 21 November 2022.
- Taylor, Miles (2004). "'Bull, John (supp. fl. 1712–)'". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/68195. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
- Gavin M. Foster (18 February 2015). The Irish Civil War and Society: Politics, Class, and Conflict. Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 71–. ISBN 978-1-137-42569-0.
- Artane (1882). Young Ireland: An Irish Magazine of Entertainment and Instruction. Nation and Weekly News. p. 472.
- Joyce, P.W. (1910). English as we speak it in Ireland. Dublin: M.H. Gill & Son. p. 321.
- McMahon, Timothy G. (1996). "Cultural Nativism and Irish-Ireland: "The Leader" as a Source for Joyce's "Ulysses"". Joyce Studies Annual. 7: 67–85. JSTOR 26283656.
- Cruise O'Brien, Conor (1965). Writers and Politics: Essays and Criticism. Chatto and Windus.
- Lyons, F. S. L. (1973). Ireland Since the Famine. Fontana Books. p. 233. ISBN 9780006332008.
- Comyn, Francesca (14 November 2017). "Hogan: 'Legal shoneenism' has replaced 'golden era' of Constitutional law". businesspost.ie. Business Post. Retrieved 21 November 2022.