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The News from Ireland | Introduction

‘‘The News from Ireland’’ hearkens back almost 150 years, to a cataclysmic event in Ireland’s history: the Great Famine, which left over a million Irish dead from hunger and drove as many as two million to leave their country of birth. Many Irish peasants were dependent on the potato as their only source of food, and the blight that struck in the 1840s virtually wiped out the country’s potato crop. Yet as the Irish author George Bernard Shaw pointed out in his play Man and Superman, the term ‘‘famine’’ was a misnomer: throughout the entire period, food products were being exported from Ireland instead of being made available to the starving population.

In ‘‘The News from Ireland,’’ Trevor demonstrates the disparity between the starvation of the poor Irish and the comfort of Anglo-Irish who profit from their labor. He evokes the situation through the viewpoint of outsiders who feel no real effect of the famine. His characters are all Protestants, the majority from England. The Pulvertafts, who have inherited an English estate in Ireland, have over the years learned to accept the inequities inherent in Ireland and no longer feel uncomfortable about the position of privilege and ease that they occupy. Their new governess, however, has some difficulty acclimating to her new surrounding and accepting such ‘‘unintentional wickedness.’’ The story chronicles her shift to complacency, and in so doing, it raises more universal themes: the greater issues of personal and social responsibility.

The News from Ireland Summary

‘‘The News from Ireland’’opens with the reflections of Fogarty, a butler in the home of the Pulvertafts, an English family who came to Ireland to claim an estate left to Mr. Pulvertaft by an uncle. The Pulvertafts came to Ireland eight years ago, in 1839. Over the years, the Pulvertafts have cleared the overgrown estate grounds and, in general, learned ‘‘to live with things.’’ Fogarty wishes they had left the estate unclaimed. Like Ireland’s other ‘‘visitors,’’ they have taken what is not theirs.

A new English governess has recently arrived at the Pulvertaft estate. Anna Maria Heddoe fascinates Fogarty because she is another visitor who does not truly belong in Ireland. His obsession leads him to read her diary and correspondence.

Anna Maria’s diary records her homesickness and her confusion at the place in which she now resides. She understands that outside the walls of the estate, the poor Irish people, suffering the effects of the potato famine, die of hunger. Within the walls, however, the Pulvertafts seem unaware of this tragedy. Even the news that a child has been born with the marks of the stigmata on his hand and feet does not interest them. The Irish people consider the stigmata to be a sign from God in these difficult times, but the Pulvertafts remain engrossed in their own business: piano recitals, weddings, and the construction of a road that encircles the property. The road goes nowhere, but Mr. Pulvertaft supports its construction because it allows him to employ the Irish men who have no work.

The narration switches, exploring the family’s and Fogarty’s thoughts about Anna Maria. Mr. and Mrs. Pulvertaft think she is settling in, while the daughters, past the age of having governesses, are not concerned with her at all. George Arthur, the son, compares her to the last governess, and Fogarty thinks that she will make the Pulvertafts face the issue of the child with stigmata. Fogarty and his sister, the cook, discuss... » Complete The News from Ireland Summary