The Wild Irish Girl: A National Tale

by Sydney Owenson Morgan

"I long to study the purely national, purely natural character of an Irishwoman."

When Horatio, the son of an English lord, is banished to his father's Irish estate as punishment for his dissipated ways, he goes off in search of adventure. On the wild west coast of Connaught he finds remnants of a romantic Gaelic past - a dilapidated castle, a Catholic priest, a deposed king and the king's lovely daughter Glorvina. In this setting and among these characters Horatio learns the history, culture, and language of a country he had once scorned, but he must do so in disguise, for his own English ancestors are responsible for the ruin of the Gaelic family he comes to love.

Written after the Act of Union, The Wild Irish Girl (1806) is a passionately nationalistic novel and a founding text in the discourse of Irish nationalism. This unique paperback edition includes the 'Introductory Letters' to the novel as well as Owenson's footnotes, rich in detail on the Irish language, history, and legend.

Genres: Classics, Ireland, Irish Literature, Romance, Fiction, Historical Fiction, 19th Century

304 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1806

About the author

Sydney, Lady Morgan, née Owenson, was an Irish novelist.

She was one of the most vivid and hotly discussed literary figures of her generation. She began her career with a precocious volume of poems. She collected Irish tunes, for which she composed the words, thus setting a fashion adopted with signal success by Thomas Moore. Her St. Clair (1804), a novel of ill-judged marriage, ill-starred love, and impassioned nature-worship, in which the influence of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Jean-Jacques Rousseau was apparent, at once attracted attention.

Reviews

[Perry Whitford · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lady Morgan's love letter to early 19th century Ireland, or rather a series of love letters scantily dressed up as an epistolary novel.

Henry Mortimer is our eyes and ears to the overlooked charms of Erin, a prejudiced young Englishman who falls in love with the place and the wild Irish girl of the title, Lady Glorvina, when he is forced to spend some time at his father's estate in Connaught.

He receives a a fresher course in Irish history from the decayed Prince of Inismore and his beautiful young daughter; of its mythical Milesian roots, of Finn McCool, Ossian; of Irish dress, music, language, poetry, hospitality.

Henry is completely captivated by Glorvina, 'this sylphid elegance of spheral beauty was united to all the symmetrical contour which constitutes the luxury of human loveliness.' In modern parlance, she was a stunner.

More importantly, she is also the very personification of Ireland, made clear when Henry Mortimer writes of her 'superior and original character, which is at once both natural and national.'

So what is the Irish character? I think Lady Morgan best sums it up when Glorvina compares it to Irish music: "our national character admits of no medium in sentiment; it either sinks our spirit to despondency, by its heartbreaking pathos, or elevates it to wildness by its exhilarating animation."

For sure the period romance elements of the novel can be a little distracting for a modern reader, all blushing cheeks and lips kissing dewy flowers, but what little plot there is never really gets in the way Lady Morgan's real purpose, to melt the stony hearts of exploitative England towards their wild but hospitable sister country.

I'm of Irish descent on the side of both my parents, so this was a fascinating and enriching read for me.

[Zee · Rating 3 out of 5]

So, this book was the Lit of the Irish book for July. Through letters, it tells the story of a rather arrogant Englishman who's sent into temporary exile to Ireland. He falls in love with an Irishwoman, Glorvina, and learns all sorts of Irish history and customs.

I have mixed feelings about the book. On the one hand I'm biased toward defending it because I was the one to nominatie this book. I'm also probably a little more suited to appreciate it because I've been conditioned to read the driest of classics--this is actually better than some of the books I had to read for my English degree. But the book isn't that great. It's dry, there are needlessly long passages about things I find irrelevant, and the letter format takes some getting used to.

This novel is quintessentially Victorian, basically. It describes society to the detail, it has these gloriously gothic passages, there's plenty of melodrama, a death, everything. If you're into that kind of thing, go for it and give it a read, but I feel like the average Jane or Joe would find this book impossible and annoying.

And the ending. I have to give it away, do if you don't want spoilers stop reading the review here. But ohhhh my gooood his dad and hin after the same woman! I did not expect that. So juicy. Definitely made up for the monotony of the rest of the book. I didn't expect something so intense as those last few chapters but hot damn that interrupted wedding and the prince's death. So good.

[Borbála · Rating 3 out of 5]

"... my emotions at that moment were indescribable."

Thanks to Heaven that they were, otherwise I really don't know how I would have been able to finish this novel.

I'm not saying it's bad, but I am saying that the excessively sentimentalist narration (and I'm not exactly a beginner at reading this kind of fiction) and the stereotyping and myth-imbued-history-making did make me roll my eyes every two minutes. The constant mentions of the Milesians and the Greek made me feel as if I was watching My Big Fat Greek Wedding, and I could hear the father saying, "Tell me one word, any word, and I'll show you how the root of that word is Greek"...

So, I found it hard to choose a rating, because I'm the kind of person who gives out ratings below 3 very rarely, for surely, there might be some redeeming qualities, and anyways, based on what are you supposed to rate a book, and other people say it's good and, and, and... So. 3 it is for now.

Not going to lie, the last few chapters had me in a chokehold, so much so, that I kept reading it on the bus to, and before the beginning of a Stabat Mater concert I went to (in a Gothic church, if I may add...).

[Diem · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was an interesting read. The existence of the book was almost more interesting than the material. Published in 1806, after the Act of Union, it was written by a woman with an Irish father and an English mother. Wrapped into a book of, at times, mawkish melodrama is an impassioned defense of the Irish people against the prejudice of the country that has had its boot on the neck of their target for centuries.

The introduction makes a good case for Morgan's defense veering dangerously into the territory of nationalism. But the book is revealing to the modern reader for its assault on colonialism using the very arguments oft repeated today. It makes it hard to continue to make the case for colonialism as a tactic of a time when people "didn't know any better". In fact, the more one reads older literature outside of the canon of "Great Books" the more one understands how very, very much people understood exactly what they were doing. That's why they had to demean and dehumanize the people they were colonizing. To justify actions they knew were immoral by insisting it would have the effect of raising up the uncivilized.

The writing was excellent even things got a bit overwrought. Why is there so much fainting? Men, women...everyone barely holding it together. I have to add that for a book that seemed intent on preserving everyone's virtue...things get sexy. If the word "ardent" had been used one more time this book might not have gotten past the censors.

[Jason Smith · Rating 2 out of 5]

A didactic Irish nationalist novel written primarily with an English audience in mind. The conversations are largely expository evaluations of Irish history, made in an attempt to subvert prevailing attitudes towards the Gaelic race. Owenson's authorial hand is heavy as the novel is riddled with an absurd amount of footnotes that rip you out of the narrative to load more facts (some quite dubious) on the reader.

The most damning element of the book, written at the turn of the nineteenth century following the union of Ireland and England, is the foolish Romantic notion that peace and unity can be found through the mixing of these disparate civilizations; the English sophisticates can bring societal advances and structure to the good, honest people of Ireland without addressing the massive economic and structural disparities. See: Famine.

I qualify all of this with a recommendation to read this if you are interested in the history and attitudes surrounding the Union and Irish history (or at least Irish antiquarianism) in general. Maria Edgeworth, Enlightened Protestant Ascendent provided a response/contrast to Owenson's Catholic Irish Nationalist/Unionist perspective with her novel Ennui.

[lauren]

dnf @ 120

cba with boring books !

[Kathleen F · Rating 4 out of 5]

OK, in fairness this novel is pretty mediocre and rather strange--given its grandiose and very romantic depiction of early 19th Century Ireland. ESPECIALLY when you consider that Lady Morgan/Sydney Owenson was a contemporary of Jane Austen.

But it's critical in that the first Irish novels were written by women (Maria Edgeworth was the original "mother" of the Irish regional novel.)

So for its sheer camp factor and its important vision into Irish literary history, I give it 4 stars. : )

[Andy · Rating 1 out of 5]

Dated and silly. Owenson writes similarly to Jane Austen except for the fact that she lets two men converse without a man in the room. Owenson chose to use the diary format popular at the time, which only served to frustrate me as I had to sift through secondary accounts instead of actually seeing what happened. Owenson's wordiness made this read a struggle.

[Keith Boynton · Rating 1 out of 5]

From its labored prose to its bludgeoning didacticism to its insufferable narrator and the glacial progress of its so-called plot, this is as comprehensively tedious and artless a novel as I ever hope to come across. A book to be enthusiastically avoided.

[emma eloise · Rating 2 out of 5]

Read this book for a university class, and although I typically enjoy the literature on my syllabi, this book was extremely underwhelming. Owenson’s attempt to unify the English and Irish through a “forbidden” love story completely missed it’s purpose in my eyes, as the personification of Ireland in a ditzy, flirtatious girl (whose sole purpose it seems is to seduce the Englishman and flounce around) is almost offensive and sets such an obscure stereotype for Irish women. In addition, i’ve researched that Lady Morgan perhaps wasn’t even Irish herself as she was so vague and evasive about the details of her birth, so writing an Irish character full of stereotypes during a time when Irish people were heavily oppressed seems a bit off-putting to me.
Also, I can’t possibly be the only one to see the connections between Britain’s colonial conquest of Ireland and the Englishman’s “conquest” of a wild Irish girl… right?

[Tracey · Rating 1 out of 5]

Dnf at pg 170. It's taken me 3 weeks to read 170pages. The writing is tedious, laboured with footnotes, whose only purpose seems to be to present the author as an authority on all things Irish. While extoling the wonders of Irishness, she uses the anglicized spelling for quite a lot of things. Yes, this book was aimed at an English audience, so it makes sense to a degree; but it's still highly irritating. There are also extremely ironic parallels between the way Horatio insinuates himself into the Prince's family and the colonization of Ireland by England. And the idea that the animosity between both countries could be smoothed over by a simple better understanding of one another is borderline offensive, and most certainly laughable. I'm done here.

[Meg Merriet · Rating 5 out of 5]

This one's been added to my list of favorites. The allegory is phenomenal! Critics are still arguing about the author's intention with it. In addition to being a spellbinding historical text that reads like a twisted gothic fairytale, Wild Irish Girl confronts its readers with a subversive commentary on England's cannibalization of the Irish national identity. To love this book, you have to look past the sexist ideologies of its narrator and appreciate the text as a historical artifact, as well as remember that it was written by a woman who is in many ways mocking the stifling lens of her narrator.

[William · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tough to get through, but ultimately a surprisingly complex romance story about elevating Irish culture, subverting and dismantling Irish stereotypes, and critiquing Aestheticism and Neoclassicism. Needs more bodice ripping though.

[Heather Heckman · Rating 2 out of 5]

My copy of this epistolary novel is 252 pages, but it felt like a 500 page slog. A surprising percentage of the book is spent on telling readers how every Irish tradition or artifact actually has its roots in Greek antiquity in an effort to convince English readers of the time that Ireland had some worth. Watch out for how often the words "nature," "natural," "national," and "national character" are used. They are very much used in the sense of "all people from (pick an ethnicity) are born (natal shares an etymological root with nation) with shared (X) characteristics." So get ready for W.A.S.P. on not-white-enough-people racism. The Wild Irish Girl makes a point of saying that that "national character" of the Irish has some really good stuff in it, but it fully buys into the idea that a person's character is 99% predetermined by their pedigree.

The Wild Irish Girl is half pseudo-anthropology and half messed up romance. I could in no way root for these characters to get together, but in an almost Schadenfreude way it is kind of interesting to watch.

Horatio M., aka Mr. Mortimer, writes flowery descriptions of Ireland and of Glorvina to his best friend back in England. He is a voyeur, and treats 90% of the Irish people he meets as if they were particularly interesting middle schoolers. We never get any perspective from Glorvina, and she spends most of the book silently blushing and sighing. Do you think that isn't a clear, effective medium for conveying thoughts, feelings, and objectives? Never fear! Horatio, whose real identity is not revealed until the last 10 pages, is an expert at interpreting every silent but telling blush (they all mean that she is in love with him). As a metaphor for possible better English - Irish relations, she does love him, and they bring together the best of both countries.

I want to tell Glorvina, "I know it is not your fault you were written this way."

When I finally got to the end, my opinion was that Horatio, his father the Earl, and the power they had, were really fucked up. I originally started this for a class, and did not finish it. But as part of Book Riot's 2023 challenge, #6 is finish a book you DNFed. I am also counting this as part of #14 Read a book with under 500 Goodreads ratings.

[Steven Clark · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was interested in this book reading about Sydney Owenson Morgan. The reviews here go from terrible to very good, and I found the book a looong read. The epistolary style wasn't that bad, and I liked Mortimer and Glorvina. My problem was very long passages showing Owenson's erudition...three pages that I had to pass over, and over and over Mortimer talks of how wonderful Ireland is, and doesn't advance the plot. I was recalled of London's Sea Wolf, which was a tough story of survival and social conflict, but when our hero runs off with his girl, it becomes soppy and dull until Wolf Larsen comes back on the scene. Same here.
I miss Jane Austen's plotting and character build-up (these two women should have met), and it's strange Owenson, who is a woman, uses Mortimer as her narrator, an English lord.
However, we have to see the historical context of the book, written after the Union Act, which in effect made Ireland a colony. Owenson uses Glorvina as a heroine demanding Ireland's past glory and poetic strength be recognized. A more contemporary writer writer might have spoken more about the common people and their problems, but Owenson did the best she could, and the book was a best-seller, making her career. She was a kind of Glorvina, becoming a performer in order to sell her offerings...coming from a family of actors, this was natural.
As it was, I wanted to give this two stars, but gave three when I hit the last forty pages. Then, the epistolary style is dropped and Owenson goes to third person, and her prose is strong and compelling, as is description and emotions. I thought 'why didn't Owenson do this a hundred pages ago?' I appreciate this book, and as a screenwriter, I'm sure there's a BBC adaptation here waiting to break out. I enjoyed it intellectually. My heart wasn't in it, but I appreciated Owenson's effort and her knowledge. I have to read another book of hers.

[Dennis Lynch · Rating 4 out of 5]

I first heard of this at the 2023 International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts. It is not fantasy int the traditional sense. But it is an unusual work, written by an Irish woman who was very involved with British High Society. She used that opportunity to tell this story about the Irish people and culture to an audience often blind to that reality.

The structure seems familiar. A young man is sent to an alien land and must learn to cope with it, and thus grow up. Naturally, he meets a beautiful and idealized young woman, and romance slowly grows between them.

There are many references to Irish history, religion and myths. One could spend a long time exploring these background details. Most chapters have a multitude of footnotes, explaining some of this background detail.

Modern readers may be put off by the excessively florid language and the frequent use of quotes from French sources in French. But I found it consistently interesting.

There are more than 70 chapters. The book was originally published in two volumes. But it was an immediate success, and had multiple reprints in its first year. Sadly, it seems to be an almost forgotten book. It definitely should be of interest to folks interested in Irish literature.

[Doll Tearsheet · Rating 2 out of 5]

DNF around 80% through it.

I read most of this book, very slowly, in the earlier months of the year after being on a trying-to-get-back-into-novels-again kick. I mostly read poetry, plays, and nonfiction; before I reread David Copperfield in late 2023, I hadn't finished a novel in several years! This might be a very unpopular opinion on Goodreads, but novels just don't cut it for me unless I really, really fall into them. I struggle with the form and length of them. With the way my ADHD works, it has to be more gratifying than this was.

I agree with a lot of what other reviewers before me have said about it being slow and plotless, having a needlessly dense style of prose (and I like purple prose but Jesus), and Horatio himself is just plain misogynistic. Horrible narrator. It's a shame because I just love the premise of the story, the forbidden love tale that goes back centuries on the characters' family trees. The pathos is so compelling but the actual story is not rewarding. I might be biased, again, in saying that I feel like this would've been much more entertaining if written as a play. But I also think it'd be much more entertaining if it were just written by somebody with different sensibilities than Sydney Owenson.

[No One · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book gives me the impression that the author, Mrs Sydney Owenson, must have had experiences with full stops so troublesome that she is barely willing to use them in her writings, from the fact that almost all sentences in the book are more than three lines in length, sometimes even constituting the whole of a half-page-long paragraph, making the text extremely difficult to navigate through, not to mention the immense density of notes in the text, which frustrates me even more, as I am already having a difficult time swimming in the sea of clauses which Mrs Owenson has created with her laborious prose, which, to my surprise, only narrates such a simple story that would have only lasted half of the book if not written in the format of letters, which makes the progression of the narrative exceptionally slow, almost unbearable combined with her winding prose.

I’ve been trying to imitate her style of writing in the paragraph above by using just a single full stop. But if you actually read the book, you would soon discover that my language is far too simple and lacking in vocabulary when compared with that of Mrs Owenson.

[Brandi McKandi · Rating 3 out of 5]

I agree with another review...this wild Irish girl is not wild at all. Inspired to read this from another allusion in another story (The Lost Bookshop), I was excited to delve into a piece of literature that is over 200 years old. While I appreciated and loved it for its historical context and storyline, and that it is considered such a classic, the wordiness and run on sentences made me feel like my ADHD could have written this or that perhaps the author, with the excessive descriptions, may have been neurodivergent herself. Ironically, reducing word count and finding better descriptors is something I'm currently studying. This book was too wordy and thus caused boredom trying to get through it, however 3 stars for the opportunity to dive into such historical literature. It was a great book when factoring in the time period in which it was written, but it could have used a heavy edit.

[Ellie Kidger · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked this, but I feel like there was so much potential for this novel to break more boundaries. It is a great exploration of English colonialism in Ireland, and looks at Scotland in parts, as well as taking the time with the history of Ireland and it's culture. Meanwhile, the courtship of Horatio and Glorvina is a good look at non-sentimental love.
However, I wasn't a fan of the ending. It feels tacked on and a bit too convenient, despite being a somewhat satisfying conclusion to Horatio's narrative.

[Mayra · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ho letto questo romanzo perché vi ho incentrato la mia tesi. Da una prospettiva da pure lettrice non mi ha entusiasmato: a volte divaga troppo, ci sono troppe note al testo che distraggono dalla storia e non riuscivo a percepire l’amore che dovrebbe esserci tra i due protagonisti. Da un punto di vista letterario, o almeno di qualcuno che lo ha studiato attraverso saggi critici, lo trovo brillante. Esprime perfettamente la situazione irlandese del suo tempo e con un’attenta lettura in quella “freddezza” dimostrata da Glorvina si può leggere anche qualcosa di più in chiave proto-femminista.

[Gabby Harkness · Rating 3 out of 5]

Despite not fitting my typical style of novel, I truly enjoyed this book. I think the metaphorical union of England and Ireland through Glorvina and Horatio is so incredibly thoughtfully illustrated, and I adored Glorvinas unique character. It was a rather slow in the beginning, but there the plot twist towards the end of the novel was perfectly executed. Would absolutely recommend, especially for someone who enjoys novels with embedded historical elements!

[Heather · Rating 2 out of 5]

Rather poorly written, definitely “tells” rather than “shows.” Glorvina certainly can’t be classed as “wild” and Horatio is obnoxious to the very end. In some ways it would have been more romantic had Glorvina married the Earl; his intentions seemed much purer than the son’s, who crafted the love affair he found the most interesting.

[Clara Helm · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loved the descriptions of the Irish countryside. Main character has a bad case of the og-18th century manic pixie disease. But an interesting twist on the colonial fiction and Owenson makes some interesting areas of connecting the Irish tradition with other ancient civilizations —- reclaiming its right to the “classic”

[Lena · Rating 2 out of 5]

A pretty terrible book, especially if you read it in the horrible facsimile edition which was the only thing the Harold Washington library had. I guess it's representative of the sentimental novel mixed with the revival of Irish folk culture but not worth it

[Caitie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This thing is so chalked full of Irish history and culture that it made me think about getting a Masters before Going for a PhD just because of how stupid it made me feel.

Also ending was fucking crazy

[Ann Brogan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Dull and turgid, I couldn’t finish it.

[Clemy-chan · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was such a meandering narrative of such a short and simple story... I literally had to skim most of the footnotes to manage to get through it.

[Piper · Rating 4 out of 5]

The enjoyment of A Sicilian Romance by Ann Radcliffe and the close-reading potential of The Edible Woman by Margaret’s Atwood

[Roan · Rating 4 out of 5]

a thought provoking snapshot of romanticism through the eyes of an Irish author who supported British lordship over Ireland. Much to analyze here!