Michael Banim (1796-1874)

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Bibliographical details
The Ghost Hunter and His Family [Leitch Ritchie, ed., The Library of Romance, Vol. I] (London: Smith Elder & Co. 1833); Do., as The Ghost Hunter and His Family, by J. [or rather Michael] Banim, Author of “Tales by the O’Hara Family” [Parlour Library, 70] (London & Belfast: Simms & M’Intyre 1852), 284pp., 12°; Do. [another edn.] (London: George Routledge & Co. 1863), i, 246pp., 12º; Do. [another edn.] as Joe Wilson’s Ghost [... &c.; World Wide Library] (London: George Routledge & Sons [1870]), 12º; The Ghost-Hunter and his Family. By J. [or rather by Michael] Banim, author of “Tales by the O’Hara Family,” &c. (London: Aldine Publishing Co. [1913]), 124pp., 8º.; Do., trans. as Le Chasseur de spectres et sa famille ... Traduit de l’anglais par A[uguste]. Pichard, 2 vols. (Paris 1833), 8º.

The Croppy: A Tale of 1798 / by/ The Author of the “O’Hara Tales,” “The Nowlans,” / and “The Boyne Water” / [epigraph:] The uncivil kernes of Ireland are in arms - Second Part of Henry VI / In Three Volumes (London: Henry Colburn: New Burlington Street 1828). [Printed by S. & S. Bentley, Dorset Street, Fleet Street.] Incls. errata page - p.14: for Catholic read Catholics; 19: for district bodies read distinct bodies; 77: for source read sense; 112, 113, for winder read windee; 121: for merely read ready; 126: for Lehamberg read Schomberg; 128; for serene read severe; 132: for undesired read undeserved; 134: for increase read inverse; 178: for confusion read compression; 251: for duration read devotion; 288: for returned read repaid; 292: for guests read a guest. Ded: To Sheffield Grace, Esq., F.S.A., &c. / One of the first Anglo-Norman knights who visited Ireland was your ancestor. His descendents identified themselves with the land of his adoption, and chiefly on that account suffered much at different times. With some propriety, therefore, a tale illustrative of the more recent results of misrule in your native country, may be inscribed to you. The compliment is also due to your individual love of Ireland, to your erudite knowledge of her history, and as a slight aknowledgement of your many kindnesses conferred on / The O’Hara Family. [See quotations from the Introductory, infra.]

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Criticism

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Commentary
Daily News (contemp. obit. notice of Michael Banim): ‘The brothers Banim have always enjoyed a certain celebrity, a sort of succes d’estime, in Ireland, where the desire to have some great national novelist has very naturally made people eager to supply deficiencies, and gentle to criticise faults in Irishmen of talent who endeavour to win the title. We do not mean to disparage or to speak in patronising tone of the Banims. They had really some of the greater gifts of the storyteller. Many very powerful dramatic situations, and many vigorous, original, and thoroughly lifelike sketches of character are to be found in their stories. But they failed to force their way finally across the barrier which shut in provincialism of any kind, unless where the impulse of genius carries an author fairly over it. Tales by the O’Hara Family aimed distinctly at a national reputation, and they seemed at one time not to miss the mark by a great deal [...] The early repute of the Banim brothers was a good deal owing to a kind of impression engendered by the marvellous success of Sir Walter Scott. Because Scott’s novels succeeded in bringing Scottish history, legends, life and manners into public notice and into fashion, it seemed to be supposed that other parts of the Empire had a right to expect the same result if attention were likewise directed to them. The feeling prevailed in England just as much as elsewhere. People reminded each other of what delight they had had when Scott illustrated for them his country’s life and history - “Why should not some one do the same for Ireland?” Of course there was not the slightest reason why some one should not do this, provided only that some one had the genius.’ (Alfred Webb, A Compendium of Irish Biography, 1878; copied on on LibraryIreland website, Banim pages; online - accessed 12.07.2010.]

Sean O’Faolain, The Irish ([Penguin] 1947), p.113, refers to Father Connell as ‘one of the earliest novels dealing with priests sympathetically’, adding, ‘I find it rather sentimental. Others have approved of it wholeheartedly’, and quoting Fr. Brown (Ireland in Fiction, 1919): ‘The character is one of the noblest in fiction. He is the ideal Irish priest, almost childlike in simplicity, pious, lavishly charitable, meek and long-suffering but terrible when roused to action.’ Note that O’Faolain has taken up the conjectural date of 1840 from Brown [op. cit.].

Benedict Kiely, Poor Scholar: A Study of the Works and Days of William Carleton [1st edn. 1947] (Dublin, Cork: Talbot Press 1972): ‘The mental process that led the Irish countryman into the ranks of the Whiteboys was well enough described by Michael Banim in the story Crohoore of the Bill-Hook, when a poor man called Dermid decides, after suffering increasing exactions from collectors of tithes and collectors of rent, that there is no law or mercy in the land for the papist or the poor. Then Dermid: “continued his long walk, chewing the ever-rising cud of this bitter, and desperate, and obstinate thought; he brought to mind at the same time, all the life’s labour and sweat he had uselessly expended; he crossed the threshold of his puddled hovel, and heard his children squalling for food; and then he turned his back on them; walked hastily abroad; gave a kick to the idle spade he met on his way; sought out some dozen Dermids or Paddies similarly situated with himself; between them they agreed to take the tithe-proctors and the law of tithes into their own hands; proposed silly oaths to each other; and the result was “the boys” ... called, apart from the abbreviation, Whiteboys.”’ (p.119.)

Barry Sloan, Pioneers of Anglo-Irish Fiction (Gerrards Cross: Colin Smythe 1986), p.74-108, remarks that ‘[the reader of Ghost-Hunter] must not allow himself to be convinced that the slaughter of Anthony Dooling and his wife was a horrific deed, and then reject the terror felt by the peasants when Crohoore appears briefly in their midst, and their belief that he could fairy blast them, as incredible or far-reached. Both reactions were real for [the Banims] and the kind of people about whom they were writing. Indeed what the modern reader may be inclined to dismiss as the unreal world was often, precisely because of its unpredictable and uncontrollable nature, a far more frightening type of reality than the realm of material objects and observable experience.’ (p.248.)

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Quotations
“Crohoore of the Billhook” - Preface: ‘In deed, when as voracious compilers of our history, we are admitted as witnesses where others would be unwelcome, we dislike to reveal all we see and hear [...] In this case, it is play [the reader] must be content with thwat we choose, or, after due reflection, deem advisable to give him; seeing that we might keep it all to ourselves, were we so inclined.’ (The O’Hara Family, NY 1918, p.266; quoted in Kendra Reynolds, UG essay, UU 2011.)

“Crohoore of the Billhook”: ‘Come, come, none of your ochowns, Peery. Don’t be the laste unasy in yourself, agra. You may be right sartin I’ll do the thing nate and handy. Tut, man, I’d whip the ears of a bishop, not to talk of a creature like you, a darker night nor this. Divil a taste I’d have him; and wouldn’t bring back any o’ the head wid me neither - musha, what ails you, at all? You’ve a better right to give God praise for gittin’ in the hands of a clever boy like me, that - stop a bit, now - that ’ud only do his captain’s orders, and not be lettin’ the steel slip from your ear across your wind-pipe - Lord save the hearers! Stop, I say! There, now; wasn’t that done purty.’ (In Peep O’Day, NY 1865, p.100; quoted in Patrick Sheeran, “The Novels of Liam O’Flaherty: A Study in Romantic Realism”, Ph.D., UCG 1972, p.180.)

The Croppy: A Tale of 1798 (1828) - “Introductory”: ‘Introductory and historical, and not comprising a word of the Tale to which it leads; so that some readers will probably pass it by; and yet we intreat all who wish really to understand even the most fictitious parts of our story, to give it an indulgent and careful perusal. / Few can forget that, in the year 1798, a wide-spread conspiracy, which partially exploded, existed amongst Irishmen of every rank and sect, - having in view a separation from England, and the establishing, upon the ruins of British dominion, an Irish Republic. [p.1.] / The name adopted by the conspirators was that of United Irishmen; but as this name was inherited by them, the necessary task of explainign its nature and import cannot be accomplished without tracing it from its source. / In 1777, Britain was engaged in the war with her Colonies. France, entering into an alliance with America, had sent the soldiers of her despotic monarchy to fight for republicanism. England, in what of troops, withdrew her garrisons from Ireland, in order to transport them over the Atlantic [...] (pp.1.-2.) [The ensuing pages give an account of the formation of the Irish Volunteers, the emergence of the United Irishmen and their proscription; the emergence of the Peep o’ Day Boys and the Defenders in response to sectarian attacks by the Protestant lower orders. “Introductory” ends: ‘Many were the differences between the inauguration, upon the very eve of warfare, of the Catholic Republican of the South, and that of the original framers of the conspiracy in the North; many were the differences between their views and feelings in the common struggle; but no difference between them is so remarkable, [22] or so melancholy, as the fact that the effort, whcih had been planned in a spirit of sectarian unanimity, should thuse change into a merely religious contest throughout the southern and western parts of Ireland. Previous to the insurrect, almost every Prottestant, whether sworn or note, chose to be considered as an Orangemen; by skillful management, in able hands, the badge of that party became a necessary symbol of loyalty; few of the established religion, therefore, from motives of choice or of prudence, as the case might be, appeared abroad without it. The Catholic peasant confounded all the late adherents of his abhorred enemies with the first and worst who had persecuted him; Protestant and Orangeman became, in his mind, synonymous words; and in this delusion he caught up his rude and formidable pike, when, without time being afforded him to reflect, he was precipitated, by United Irish emissaries on the one hand, and by monstrous and wanton outrage on the other, into the melee of civil strife.’(pp.22-23; end.)

Intentions: ‘After John"s death [... h]e [Michael] himself had stated the object with which The Tales by the O’Hara Family [i.e., John and Michael Banim] were written to have been “insinuate through fiction the causes of Irish discontent, and to insinuate also, that if crime were consequent on discontent it was no great wonder; the conclusion to be arrived at by the reader, not by insisting on it on the part of the author, but from sympathy with the criminals.”’(Alfred Webb, Compendium of Irish Biography; quoted on LibraryIreland website Banim pages; online - accessed 12.07.2010; still available at 30.06.2023.)

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References
Justin McCarthy, ed., Irish Literature (Washington 1904), selects ‘The English Academy’ from Father Connell, a Tale [60-75]; ‘Lynch Law on Vinegar Hill’ from The Croppy [showing agrarian lawlessness and bigotry in the United Irishmen, viz, “Murphy must have a pike through Talbot. I had one through Whaley!” 76-85]; ‘The Stolen Sheep, an Irish Sketch’ (from Bit o’ Writing) [‘the Irish plague, called typhus fever, raged ... in almost every third cabin there was a daily corpse’; ending with a judge’s address to the jury, ‘That the prisoner at the bar stole the sheep ni question, there can be no shade of moral doubt. But you have a very peculiar case to consider. A son steals a sheep that his own famishing father and his own famishing son may have food. His aging parent is compelled to give evidence against him here for the act. The old man virtuously tells the truth, and the whole truth, before you and me. He sacrifices his natural feelings-and we have seen that they are lively-to his honesty, and to his religious sense of the sacred obligations of an oath. Gentlemen, I will pause to observe that the old man’s conduct is strikingly exemplary, even noble. &c’. The owner of the sheep, Evans, then bursts into court and undertakes to keep the accused in honest employment. 85-97].

Stephen Brown, Ireland in Fiction (Dublin: Maunsel 1919), lists Crohoore of the Billhook (Duffy [1865 &c.; 1st edn. 1825]) [oppressed peasantry retort with savage outrages and secret societies, esp. Whiteboys; set in Kilkenny]; The Croppy (Duffy [1865 &c.; 1st edn. 1828]) [samples of outrages by which the people driven to revolt; liberal and mild nationalist (acc. Brown); rebellion in vulgarest and least romantic aspect; Sir Thomas Hartley the sole noble char., others chiefly unattractive]; The Mayor of Windgap (Duffy [1865 &c.; 1st edn. 1834]) [murders, abductions; Kilkenny 1779]; The Bit o’ Writing [sic] (London 1838), called here a volume of stories, and rep. with another story, ‘The Ace of Clubs’ [O’Connell Press Ser.] (Dub: Gill 1886), 144pp.; notes also Paris ed. (1835); Father Connell ([1840; recte 1842]) [‘ideal Irish priest, almost childlike in simplicity ... but terrible when roused’; life-story of Neddy Fennell, orphan protégé; saves Fennell from judicial sentence through appeal to Viceroy, dying at his feet; Mrs Molloy, the priest’s housekeeper; Costigan, the murderer-robber; Mary Cooney, poor outcast, and her mother the potato-beggar, et al.]; The Ghost-Hunter and His Family ([1833] Simms & M’Intyre 1852)]; The Town of the Cascades, 2 vols. (Chapman & Hall 1864), 283pp., 283pp. [set in Ennistymon, Co. Clare, concerning peasant chars. and alcohol induced tragedy]. Note, the dates in this bibliography in conjunction with the publisher cited are generally wrong. Brown remarks of Father Connell that title character is ‘strictly modelled’ (see Preface). Further: ‘... the last scene where to save his protegé from an unjust judicial sentence, Father Connell goes before the Viceroy and dies at his feet is a piece of exquisite pathos. ... The author faithfully reproduces the talk of the peasants, and enters into their point of view ... the most pleasing of the Banims’ novels.’ Of Ghost Hunter, ‘intricate plot [unspecified] ... though the author is on the side of morality, there is too much about abduction.’ [Note, the dates in this bibliography in conjunction with the publisher cited are generally wrong.]

Brian Cleeve & Anne Brady, A Dictionary of Irish Writers [rev. edn.] (Dublin: Lilliput Press 1985), lists Crohoore of the Billhook (Duffy [1865 &c.; 1st edn. 1825]) [oppressed peasantry retort with savage outrages and secret societies, esp. Whiteboys; set in Kilkenny]; The Croppy (Duffy [1865 &c.; 1st edn. 1828]) [samples of outrages by which the people driven to revolt; liberal and mild nationalist (acc. Brown); rebellion in vulgarest and least romantic aspect; Sir Thomas Hartley the sole noble char., others chiefly unattractive]; The Mayor of Windgap (Duffy [1865 &c.; 1st ed. 1834]) [murders, abductions; Kilkenny 1779]; The Bit o’ Writing [sic] (London 1838), called here a volume of stories, and rep. with another story, “The Ace of Clubs” [O’Connell Press Ser.] (Dublin: Gill 1886), 144pp.; notes also Paris edn. (1835); Father Connell ([1840; recte 1842]) [‘ideal Irish priest, almost childlike in simplicity ... but terrible when roused’; life-story of Neddy Fennell, orphan protégé; saves Fennell from judicial sentence through appeal to Viceroy, dying at his feet; Mrs Molloy, the priest’s housekeeper; Costigan, the murderer-robber; Mary Cooney, poor outcast, and her mother the potato-beggar, et al.]; The Ghost-Hunter and His Family ([1833] Simms & M’Intyre 1852)]; The Town of the Cascades, 2 vols. (Chapman & Hall 1864), 283pp., 283pp. [set in Ennistymon, Co. Clare, concerning peasant chars. and alcohol-induced tragedy]. Note & check: there is a confusion and/or repetition of material in present record and the record of Fr. Brown, S.J., supra - plot material, &c., being largely repeated in each. The provision of plot summaries is not typical of Cleeve.

Seamus Deane, gen. ed., The Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing (Derry: Field Day 1991), Vol. 1, does not select anything from Michael Banim, but notes him at [682, 687, by name only], 1081, [1139, John assisted by Michael publ. Tales of [recte by] the O’Hara Family [sers. 1 & 2 in 1825, 1826], [1171, biog. John Banim]. Do., Vol. 2; cites Michael Banim as co-author with John of Tales by the O’Hara Family, 2 series. (Simpkin and Marshall 1825; Colborn, 1826), and The Bit o’ Writing [sic] (Saunders and Otley, 1838).

Belfast Public Library holds copies of Bit o’ Writin’ (1848); Crohoore the Billhook; The Croppy; The Ghost Hunter; Here and There through Ireland [recte, Mary Banim]; The Mayor of Wind-Gap; Peter of the Castle; Tales of the O’Hara Family, Pts. 1, 2 & 3.

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