Date: Fri, 06 Jul 2001
Locations in Kellys & O'Kellys

It may be of interest to members of the list to know that the Curragh area where Lord Ballindine keeps his horses is about 12 miles from where I live. It is a large flattish area of commonage, from memory about 5000 acres, with three towns bordering it. On the west is Kildare town, the county town. To the north is Newbridge or Droichead Nua, and to the east is Kilcullen. South of Kildare town about half a mile is the National Stud, founded on Tully estate, his stud farm, presented by Lord Wavertree to the British government in 1915, and passed by them to Irish govt in 1943(?). On the way from Kildare to National Stud one passes Grey Abbey, ruins of a Franciscan house. It does not seem to be associated with any estate, at least on cursory inspection. I think Trollope may have had New Abbey in mind, which is situated to the east at Kilcullen. He describes (Oxford ed, p 131/2) the house sufficiently to identify it, if it still exists, but he may be placing a house from one location on another site.

He mentioned the meeting in Morrisons Hotel in Dublin. The building on this site is now the home of Fred Hannas Bookshop (owned by Easons), and was where Parnell was arrested in the 1880s.

Rory O'Farrell

Date: Sat, 07 Jul 2001 20:13:44 +0100

The Curragh of Kildare, where Dot Blake's Handicap Lodge was situated, was at the time of writing _The Kellys and the O'Kellys_ a renowned horse area. The 5000 acres of commonage were used for exercise of horses stabled in various stables surrounding it. In the 17th century Lord Digby and the Earl of Ormond raced their horses over 4 miles . At that time there was a race each March or April for a "100 guinea plate" (a guinea being 1 pound 1 shilling, the unit in which a professional man was paid; there existed coins of that value at various stages). From then on there were more regular race meetings, with organization which led to the foundation of the Turf Club. A map of 1752 shows the layout of the race course.

The railway reached this area about 1847 (station at Newbridge). The Curragh was also used for army manouevers and summer camps. It wasn't until 1858 that the permanent military camp was built there on part of the commonage.

In this new army camp the Prince of Wales was shortly afterwards discovered in flagrante delecto with Nellie Clifden, usually described as an actress. He was ordered home by his mama, Queen Victoria, and Prince Albert was instructed to give him a good talking to. Prince Albert was so upset by this that he went out for a long walk afterwards, got caught in the rain and came down with a severe cold. This soon developed into Typhoid fever, which has since been traced to the servants latrine which discharged into a gutter near his room, but until her death Queen V held the P of W responsible for the death of his papa.

The army camp attracted various hangers on of both sexes, of doubtful reputation, all aimed at separating the soldiers from their money. There were illicit drinking establishments (shebeens), gambling houses and ad hoc brothels, manned (or should I say womanned?) by The Wrens of the Curragh.

It seems to be the case that Trollope took some of the placenames in the Kellys from this area. I instance Morristown, Castletown, and other names which will be familiar to use from the _Kellys_ are Brown and Dillon, used as placenames in the book, but family names and placenames in differing form here. Near Kilcullen is Halverstowm where Thackeray stayed with Peter Purcell in 1837 (described Irish Sketches) and Harristown where Ruskin met the young Rosie La Touche.

Rory O'Farrell

Kellys and O'Kellys: A Bit Contrived?

Many thanks Rory, I do enjoy it when the locations of a book are mapped out. It somehow brings a seemingly remote story into a closer reality. From reading the first ten chapters I begin to understand why this could be dismissed as one of Trollope's lesser works. It doesn't seem to flow with quite the ease of his later books, and moments of brilliance such as Mrs Kelly's confrontation with Barry - are followed by patches of turgid calm such as Lord Cashel meeting with Frank. Perhaps this was Trollope's intention. I know that we are only just beginning the book, but does anyone else find the writing a bit contrived?

Cheers,
Teresa

Teresa wrote:

“[M]oments of brilliance such as Mrs Kelly's confrontation with Barry - are followed by patches of turgid calm such as Lord Cashel meeting with Frank.”

Ironically, I was about to comment on how much I liked the scene in which Frank meets Lord Cashel. I thought that Trollope had skillfully characterized Lord Cashel through his roundabout way of speaking. Lord Cashel continually approaches -- without ever seeming to arrive at -- his conversational object, so delayed is he by his many parenthetical clauses and polite circumlocutions. This allows both parties to draw wrong conclusions about the other -- to good comic effect.

Frank had been apprehensive about having to speak with Lord Cashel, and in his anxiety had given up all ideas of being the cool-headed negotiator that Blake had advised him to be. Instead, like an out-classed blunderer, he concedes everything to Lord Cashel. Yet Lord Cashel comes off as out of touch -- perhaps more of a blunderer than Frank. He carries the day, not because of any inherent superiority but because of the power of his position. He knows he can intimidate Frank, and he does.

Todd

To Trollope-l

Re: The Kellys & O'Kellys, Chs 7-12: Different Temperaments & Intimidation

July 8, 2001

First I want to thank Rory for the exact details and description of this piece of Irish landscape Trollope is filling in with his imagined characters and their stories. It seems as if in all Trollope's novels that we can check he began with a fully realised real place which he referenced thoroughly and whose interstices he filled with imagined places, happenings, and people: this is true of the London books, of those whose scenes take place in others parts of England, of those in places outside England; even Barsetshire is built through analogies which familar names just outside it and threaded through.

In response to Teresa's comment I agree that this is recognizably an early fiction. In my essay on Trollope's use of letters I argued that his use of letters here was simply typical of the way letters were normally threaded into novels of the period. The texts are remarkably persuasive because the presence of characters is evoked; they work with the plot beautifully, but there's nothing innovative in any of this. Similarly there is a plainness -- I can't think of a better word for it -- in the way Trollope follows his story line simply. He is in the grips of this story and without much fuss moves back and forth between the two; the truth is, though, he was never innovative in narrative technique. The later novels which we've just been reading show him stretching the same technique to just beyond where leaving off a bunch of characters for too many characters causes clumsy back- tracking. Trollope doesn't attempt to hide the multi-plot or two threads going at a time and there is no intricate weaving in the way of some of the Pallisers. Then again in the later books it's sometimes so obvious how we are going through parallel incidents in two plots. All his books are contrived in this way: perhaps it's that in this one the plots are so plain. I see very little psychological expressiveness in the story: Trollope's own psychic life is hidden; he is as yet working hard to present his visions to us and work them out very thoroughly.

So on the other hand, I would say that "positive" marks of the early character of the book are its fullness; how long each chapter is, how carefully worked out are the characters. It's all fresh: the Frank Lord Ballindine character represents the first time Trollope has imagined this young gentleman ne-er-do-well who is also sensitive, warm, and not very good at manipulating people. I agree with Todd about the scene between Frank and Lord Cashel:

"I was about to comment on how much I liked the scene in which Frank meets Lord Cashel. I thought that Trollope had skillfully characterized Lord Cashel through his roundabout way of speaking. Lord Cashel continually approaches -- without ever seeming to arrive at -- his conversational object, so delayed is he by his many parenthetical clauses and polite circumlocutions. This allows both parties to draw wrong conclusions about the other -- to good comic effect.

Frank had been apprehensive about having to speak with Lord Cashel, and in his anxiety had given up all ideas of being the cool-headed negotiator that Blake had advised him to be. Instead, like an out-classed blunderer, he concedes everything to Lord Cashel. Yet Lord Cashel comes off as out of touch -- perhaps more of a blunderer than Frank. He carries the day, not because of any inherent superiority but because of the power of his position. He knows he can intimidate Frank, and he does."

I was drawn in just as strongly to the scene between Frank and Dot Blake and Trollope's comments on them. Each of Trollope's novels is a world unto itself and he always has some master themes as well as a landscape that is individual to each. In this one I'd say he is for the first time analyzing an important aspect of how people interact with one another, using custom, law and their positions: Todd uses the word intimidation. We see this in the scenes between Barry and his sister, where he can't intimidate her sufficiently so he resorts to physical brutality; we see this in the scenes between Barry and Mrs Kelly where she will not knuckle under to his threats to take the law against her. In my experience it is very common for working class and lower middle class people to be frightened by threats of law, and to knuckle under to gross exaggerations of what can be done using them. Trollope is examining how people use this kind of intimidation, how lawyers get involved.

On the level of the lower class story in the novel he stays with large pragmatic gestures. The scenes are scintillating because it exhilarates us to see the kind of person who might be bullied into allowing evil to go forth because it's the easiest thing to do standing firm on behalf of helping someone else. Who would not when so threatened give an Anty up rather than take the trouble and risk? But Mrs Kelly choses to be her sister's keeper. It is made believable because she has a self-interest: maybe they will get the income. But then again maybe not. She is a real-life heroine because we recognize a familiar situation where most would yield to anxiety.

On the level of the upper class story the theme is subtilized. The reason Lord Cashel can intimidate Frank Lord Ballandine is not because Ballandine is naive and would believe stories like Barry or be afraid of the Dalys of the world. It is rather that in his nature Ballandine is not what Dot calls cool. The chapter in the 1859 edition called "Dot Blake's Advice" shows Trollope at his maturest: he never wrote better than this, and after this he didn't investigate this theme in this way so fully again. He turned it to other uses, made it serve another purpose, didn't do it for its own sake. What he shows is that Blake has a cold nature, calculating, dense, not stupid or unimaginative in the sense of not understanding the person in front of him; but not involved emotionally, not worried whether others approve of him, will like him. Trollope tells us Blake and Ballandine bore one another; he suggests their friendship is about as "real" or phony as most in the world if it be friendship to spend time together in a similar occupation. Ballandine has sensitivity, genuine honesty; he was, says Trollope

"in most respects a better, and in some, even a wiser man than his friend. He often felt that the kind of life he was leading -- contracting debts which he could not pay, and spending his time in pursuits that were not really congenial to him, was unsatisfactory and descreditable" (Oxford Kellys, introd. McCormack, p. 130).

Ironically it is precisely this better nature which makes him fodder for intimidation; it accounts for his "inability" to defend" himself against Cashell, especially since Cashell can't see any personality but those like himself, can't recognize motives which are unlike his own and is himself so egoistic, unemotional about others. Blake laughs at Frank for loving Fanny, or saying he does, but Frank does really yearn for her, and to be married, and turn over a new leaf. He's just weak in front of the mores of his day and habit and does what's easiest this ten minutes. He is also not a hypocrite. That puts him at a real disadvantage. Mrs Kelly is an expert player; Blake too lives performatively. He tells Ballandine you must not allow Lord Cashell to see you are worried about the consequences of your acts, about what Cashell can do to you; you must pretend to be above this. Above all don't apologize. Which is precisely what Ballandine proceeds to do. Of course he loses the round.

The portrait of Lord Cashel is similarly slowly built up and also fit into this theme of who can intimidate who into yielding, and how it's done. I am not making up this astute psychology; it's all there in the text. There is hardly another novelist of the period who in their most mature books could convey this or understand how important it is as the basis of social interactions. Trollope does. And he does so plainly. Anty had to hire an agent so as to put out of her hands any immediate ability to give in. Her nature is conceived as stubborn enough not to be totally defeated in life, but in need of someone else's ability to build psychological barriers. The scene between Cashel and Fanny is presented in terms of his ability to manipulate her, and his "wrong step" when he oversteps the "mark" by openly accusing Frank of being mercenary. He had to stay on the level of insinuation for her not to spy his real purpose and the falseness of the portrait of Frank he is building up. Maybe one of the reasons for the plainness of the book's language and design is Trollope wants us to look at the characters through clear glass to see this basis of social dynamics. It is an insight at the heart of all his stories about characters who fight to dominate or against subordination; later, as I say, it will become but one axiom in his presentation of social psychology.

Other things I liked which seemed to me to colour this book's world particularly and give it flavor and individuality: the story of how Martin must travel on the Ballinasloe canal-boat and how miserable such a trip makes someone precisely because they hope to read, hope not to be oppressed by the presence and activities of others at close range, hope to be comfortable. We feel Trollope took this trip many times and writhed with frustration at the comedy of man- and woman-kind. Of course the rich lord goes by his own comfortable barouche. The scene between Daly and Barry over the liquor: how Barry gradually works his way into telling the vicious plan he has is presented through the mind and eyes of Daly taking it in. This way there is intensity because we are in a mind that is filled with suspense but is clairvoyant enough to see through Barry's fake words. I loved the phrase Daly almost used: "Things would come out which you wouldn't like like; and your motives would be -- would be -- seen through at once, the attorney was on the point of saying ..." (Ch 9, "Mr Daly, the Attorney", p 113). This reminded me of one of Talleyrand's comments about talk and writing: "La parole a été donnée à l'homme pour cacher sa pensee" (words were given to men so they could hide their thoughts).

If Trollope had wanted to give an epitaph to several of the chapters of this and last week's reading, he could have done no better than quote Talleyrand whose words encapsulate their theme.

Cheers to all,
Ellen Moody

From Rory O'Farrell:

One thing puzzles me; I have looked at Terry's A Trollope Chronology and browsed through the relevant section of Mullen's Anthony Trollope and cannot find any slot where Trollope might have spent much time in the Curragh area. Of course, this is not to say that he didn't. He wrote the Kellys 1846-47 according to the Chronology, so logically he should have visited the Curragh area, if he ever did, sometime between his arrival in Ireland in September 1841 and early 1846. He did spend time on duty and on holiday in Kingstown (now Dun Laoghaire, pr Dunleary) July/Aug 1842. Railways did not facilitate access to the Curragh until 1847 (i.e., after the period in question). If his diaries/Post Office daybooks are ever published in detail they may answer the question of when he visited the Curracgh.

Rory O'Farrell

Date: Mon, 09 Jul 2001

At 03:13 09/07/01, Ellen Moody wrote:

the story of how Martin must travel on the Ballinasloe canal-boat and how miserable such a trip makes someone precisely because they hope to read, hope not to be oppressed by the presence and activities of others at close range, hope to be comfortable. We feel Trollope took this trip many times and writhed with frustration at the comedy of man- and woman-kind. Of course the rich lord goes by his own comfortable barouche.

The canal boats on the Grand Canal departed from Portobello harbour, which still exists. It has been reduced in size recently, as there are very few boats. Beside the harbour still stands the building which was The Portobello Hotel, now used as a grind school. On top of this building is an open cupola where a lookout could be positioned to give advance notice of the arrival of a boat. In the 1860s a horse-drawn omnibus overturned into the canal at this place, with several of the occupants drowned, including Mrs O'Connell and an O'Connell daughter. From Portobello Harbour the canal makes its way to the sea - I have not had time to check when this link was made. Shortly after I was born (oct '45), my parents lived in a flat on the main entrance level of a house in Herbert Place, about 400 yds from Portobello, beside the canal on the way towards the sea. One of my earliest memories is of looking out the window of that flat to see Guinness barges (the brewers, not the bankers referred to in the _Kellys_) making their way along the canal to bring Guinness down the country, the barges drawn by a horse. I can also remember the cold winter of 1947 with people skating on the frozen canal, and my father holding up a piece of the ice to show me how thick it was.

Rory O'Farrell Email: ofarrwrk@iol.ie

Date: Mon, 09 Jul 2001

I wrote:

One thing puzzles me; I have looked at Terry's A Trollope Chronology and browsed through the relevant section of Mullen's Anthony Trollope and cannot find any slot where Trollope might have spent much time in the Curragh area. Of course, this is not to say that he didn't. He wrote the Kellys 1846-47 according to the Chronology, so logically he should have visited the Curragh area, if he ever did, sometime between his arrival in Ireland in September 1841 and early 1846. He did spend time on duty and on holiday in Kingstown (now Dun Laoghaire, pr Dunleary) July/Aug 1842. Railways did not facilitate access to the Curragh until 1847 (i.e., after the period in question). If his diaries/Post Office daybooks are ever published in detail they may answer the question of when he visited the Curracgh.

I have since discovered that the canals ceased to offer a passenger service in 1856. The Grand Canal Company had five hotels along their route - one at Portobello in Dublin, and another as far as I know at Robertstown, the stop of disembarkation for the Curragh, although to my mind it is a toss up whether one would get off at Naas (pr Nay ce) or Robertstown. To go to the Curragh by horse or carriage would take substantially a day. Allowing for the ride from R'town or Naas to the Curragh (8 - 10 miles), I suppose the journey would take nearly the same time whichever method of travel one used. If he were interested in horses, it is possible that Trollope might have visited the Curragh, or traversed it on his way to or from the west of Ireland, depending on which area he was currently based, although he would be more likely, I think, to buy a horse locally at the local fair, (Ballinasloe Horse Fair is still held, and still a major horse event) or from a local breeder or stable owner.

Our perception of distance from minor place to minor place is distorted, as the roads that readily spring to mind are all major motor roads, which radiate from Dublin. In Trollope's time most traffic was local, and there were, and still are, very minor roads leading from one place to another, by which you might travel very quickly, but which are not readily known to the outsider.

Rory O'Farrell Email: ofarrwrk@iol.ie
Tinode, Blessington, Co Wicklow, Ireland