SotA Anthology 2015-16
Punch magazine began
life as a copy of the French
satirical
magazine
Le
Charivari, with the first
edition
being
subtitled
“The London Charivari”.
According to the magazine’s
official website, Punch was a
“very British institution” with
the cartoons in its pages
able to “sway governments”
and “capture life in detail” in
the 19th and 20th centuries.
Bold statements indeed, but
its circulation figures would
certainly mark it out as more
than a niche magazine.
Despite its claim on swaying
governments, however, the
website itself goes on to
state that as time went past,
the magazine began to
criticise those governments
less and less, and from the
turn of the 20th century until
after the Second World War
“Punch was the voice of
the British establishment”.
It is vital to keep that in
mind; that Punch’s place
was not to criticise those
in government, but in
fact to portray them in as
positive a light as possible
- light satirical jokes were
permitted,
but
nothing
essentially damaging to their
reputation. Anyone outside
of this realm, however,
could be considered ‘fair
game’, and the Irish fell
readily into that category,
as shown by the hideously
racist depiction of “Paddy”,
discussed at length by
Michael De Nie (2004).
What this short study is
focussed on is not the
depiction of this Catholic
peasant stereotype but
rather its antithesis; the
feminine folk ideal of Ireland,
Figure 1: The Golden Moment, 1916, Bernard Partridge
Erin. More specifically, the
way in which the depiction
of the harp so often carried
by Erin transformed during
the years that marked
the foundation of the Irish
Free state, 1920-22, in
stark contrast to the years
immediately preceding it
(c.1914-19). These years
were ones of conflict in
Europe in which both British
and Irish fought side by side
in the trenches, despite
the very real fears of Irish
civil war in 1913 due to the
Home Rule issue. It is in
this context, then, that the
first image (above) shows
the symbolic Erin as a
unifying force between the
often battling leaders of the
Nationalist and Unionist
sides respectively, John
Redmond and Edward
Carson; the unifying force,
perversely, being the War.
In what is described as
‘The Golden Moment’, Erin
tells the opposing political
leaders that “you’re both
Irishmen; why not bury
the hatchet in the vitals of
the common enemy”. The
common enemy, in this
case, is Germany. Erin
and her harp are seen
here as being nobly above
politics, advocating wartime