John McGahern's 'Oldfashioned' and Anglo-Irish culture (Pre-published version)

Abstract

In John McGahern’s 1985 short story ‘Oldfashioned’, he ably demonstrates why a sensitive, bookish, Catholic young man raised in the repressive, anti-intellectual Irish Free State might be attracted to the way of life being led by the country’s dwindling Church of Ireland population. Throughout ‘Oldfashioned’, McGahern suggests that Catholics in the young state are, in the main, overly fixated on money-making, gossip, and a prosaic practicality, and that they are suspicious of anything that smacks of foreign influence. By contrast, he implies that those from Anglo-Irish Protestant backgrounds are often more open to learning and aesthetic beauty, and take a much wider view of the world. McGahern also contends in the story, however, that Catholics cannot cross over to an Anglo-Irish cultural milieu without gravely compromising their ties to their own people. As the story demonstrates, the gulf that exists between the two communities is caused primarily by the fact that Anglo-Irish Protestants are frequently open to the cultural and economic ties that Ireland has to Britain, whereas most Irish Catholics are wilfully blind to the significant influence that the neighbouring island has on their lives. By examining frequently-ignored ‘British’ aspects of Irish life and by paying homage to the Anglo-Irish literary tradition throughout the story, McGahern reveals that his perspective on Anglo-Irish Protestants is quite unlike that of other Irish Catholic short story writers publishing during his lifetime; indeed, McGahern’s ‘Oldfashioned’ can be more easily compared to stories by writers from Church of Ireland backgrounds in which they reflect on the long, slow decline of their own community. Also, McGahern’s openness to the British aspects of Ireland’s past and present – as demonstrated by this story and by his writings more generally – indicate that his view of Irish history is influenced by Irish historical revisionism; McGahern differs from many revisionists, however, in that he does not attempt to downplay the trauma and injustice endured by many Irish people under English (later, British) rule.