Abstract

This essay examines the political environment in Ireland during the nineteenth century and evaluates the impact of national patriotism upon the social landscape. In analyzing the changing topography of Victorian Ireland, religious ideology played a significant role in carving out the model of Irish culture at the close of the century. Thomas Moore's poetry reflects the cultural significance of both political and religious ideals by his use of imagery and language to unite these two social forces and represent them as thematic cooperatives essential to the identity and survival of Irish nationhood.