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The History of Physical
Culture in Ireland
Conor Heffernan
The History of Physical Culture in Ireland
 Conor Heffernan

The History
of Physical Culture
in Ireland
Conor Heffernan
The University of Texas at Austin
Austin, TX, USA

ISBN 978-3-030-63726-2    ISBN 978-3-030-63727-9 (eBook)

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-63727-9

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 Abstract

Physical culture is broadly understood as a late nineteenth- and early

twentieth-­ century phenomenon concerned with purposeful exercise.
Despite its study in other parts of Europe, Asia and North America, its
emergence in Ireland has not previously received thorough academic
attention. In addressing this gap, this book examines the rise of physical
culture in Ireland in the late nineteenth-­ century and traces its
development across the following four decades. In doing so, the reasons
behind Ireland’s fascination with physical culture are discussed. Like
other European nations, Ireland’s physical culture movement was the
result of decades of change in transport, leisure, politics and consumption.
In effect, this was an Irish manifestation of a much larger global
phenomenon and this was reflected in Irishmen’s and women’s continued
consumption of British and American physical culture goods and ideas.
Throughout the forty years covered, physical culture systems were used
for a variety of purposes by a variety of groups. For educators, it was cast
in terms of academic success and ‘correct’ development. For the state, it
became a means of establishing distinct and autonomous identities,
while for individuals, physical culture exercises came to be understood
both as a means of diversion and a means of challenging, or conforming
to, desirable societal identities.
What does the study of Irish physical culture contribute to Irish
historiography and the study of physical culture more generally? In the
first instance, the research highlights the depth and diversity of physical
culture in Ireland, an interest often alluded to in existing historical works

v
vi Abstract

but never fully expanded upon. Secondly, the examination of physical

culture in military, educational and recreational fields highlights previously
understudied aspects within these areas of research. Finally, the history of
physical culture in Ireland is located within the wider context of Irish
history, and accordingly, the book offers a contribution to that history,
noticeably in respect of war, health, gender and the role of the state.
 Acknowledgements

This work would not have been possible without the generosity and fund-
ing by the Irish Research Council’s Government of Ireland Postgraduate
Scholarship, Universities Ireland’s History Bursary, the North American
Society for Sport History’s Travel Grant and University College Dublin
(UCD)’s Lord Edward FitzGerald Memorial Fund. Through these bod-
ies, I was able to conduct research in Great Britain, the United States and
Ireland in addition to presenting at numerous conferences.
In addition, this work benefitted from the patience and kindness exhib-
ited by archivists and librarians towards my often-confused requests. Their
bemusement was no doubt shared by the countless individuals who have
indulged my ramblings since beginning this research. Friends made from
working groups and conferences, on both sides of the Atlantic, have
proved a steady source of support during research. Those already working
in the field of physical culture, including Professor Patricia Vertinsky,
Professor Charlotte MacDonald, Dr. Joan Tumblety, David Chapman,
Randy Roach and Dr. Keith Rathbone, displayed a great deal of academic
generosity, as did sport historians Dr. Dave Day, Margaret Roberts and
Dr. Nicholas Piercey. I am particularly indebted to those working at the
Stark Center at the University of Texas namely, Cindy Slater, Ryan Blake,
Geoff Schmalz, Christy Toms, Dr. John Fair, Dr. Kim Beckwith,
Dr. Thomas Hunt and Dr. Tolga Ozyurtcu. Aside from my Ph.D. advisor,
Dr. Paul Rouse, Professor Jan Todd and the late Dr. Terry Todd have
inspired and improved my work at several turns. As in so many other
physical ­culture dissertations, their contribution here deserves mention.

vii
viii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Advice, friendship and good humour were found at several turns in

universities, conferences, workshops, gyms and through co-authors.
Thanks then to Conor Curran, Aishwarya Ramachandran, Nevada Cooke,
Philip Chipman, Scott Hamilton, Phillipa Levine, Brad Love, Sophie
Lalande, Sean Donnelly, Tim Ellis, Lisa Taylor, Amanda Callan-Spenn,
Raf Nicholson, Matt McDowell, Aidan Beatty, Geoff Levett, Dill Porter,
Gary James, Patrick Bernhard, Jacqueline Hayden, Samantha Oldfield,
Cormac Moore, Mike Cronin, Tom Hunt, Liam O’Callaghan, Matthew
O’Brien, Julien Clenet, Helena Byrne, Maeve O’Riordan, Conor Murray,
Katie Liston, Shane Browne, Krystal Carmichael, Anne Dolan, Aoife
Cranny Walsh, Eimear Farrell, Joseph Quinn, Nick English, David Tao,
David Gentle, Pearse Reynolds, Michael Murphy, James Grannell, Zeljka
Doljanin, Leanne Waters, Marisol Corbitt, Audrey McNamara, Katie
Mishler, David McKinney, Niamh Kelly, Susannah Riordan, David Kerr,
Ellen Murphy, Victoria Felkar, Rob Lake, Simon Eaves, Alec Hurley, Ryan
Murtha, Andrew Hao, Tanya Jones, Lucy Harvard and Lesley Steinitz. To
those who I have forgotten, please forgive a scattered mind! Thanks, or
blame, must also be given to training partners and coaches from numerous
gyms and groups including, but not limited to, Petter, Karl, Tracy, Darren
and Eoin from Phoenix Performance Centre. In particular, Petter and
Karl’s many stories about physical culturists from the past planted a seed
in a then budding mind. Members of the Fitness League proved gracious
and kind in their suggestions and histories. More importantly they invited
me into an amazing community of individuals. Finally, Rocky, Patsy, Mick
and the men from Hercules Gymnasium gave advice and jokes in good
measure.
Closer to home, UCD provided several pillars of support be it the
CHOMI workshops, the UCD Writing Center, the members of my
Doctoral Studies Panel or Kate, Sarah and Emma in the History Office. I
was incredibly fortunate to have the input and advice of Catherine Cox,
William Mulligan, Conor Mulvagh and Lindsey Earner-Byrne at various
stages of the research. Diarmaid Ferriter and Richard Holt were similarly
generous in their comments and critiques. Despite the warnings from oth-
ers, I never felt alone doing my research. Thanks must also be given to my
former Ph.D. advisor Dr. Paul Rouse. Paul’s kind words and encourage-
ment, often interspersed with a demand to improve, meant that the
research was an ongoing process of historical enquiry rather than a
Sisyphean labour. Paul’s input on writing, research and publication was
always simple, direct and effective. Without his confidence in the work,
 Acknowledgements  ix

the present book would have been a rather poorer thing. Likewise, Emily
Russell, Joseph Johnson and those at Palgrave Macmillan showed confi-
dence in the work, which I have hopefully, in some way, justified.
I finally wish to thank those closest to me, namely Susan, Mary and
Paul. Since we moved in together, Susan has entertained research trips to
unexotic places, late-night writing sessions and my incessant need to ask
her opinion. Throughout it all, she has proven a source of understanding
and of inspiration. The ever growing Carney clan have, likewise, always
provided support and jokes in equal measure. Finally, to my parents, Mary
and Paul, thank you for all the support and encouragement which fuelled
this work.
 Contents

1 Introduction  1

2 Combating the ‘Evils of Civilisation’: Recreational

Physical Culture in Pre-­Independence Ireland 17

3 ‘With This Atmosphere of Unrest and Sinister

Rumours…’: Military Physical Culture in Pre-
Independence Ireland 53

4 ‘The Production and Maintenance of Health in Body and

Mind’: Educational Physical Culture in Pre-Independence
Ireland 91

5 ‘Physical Culture Is Good for Body and Soul’: Recreational

Physical Culture in Interwar Ireland127

6 ‘Embracing the Whole Gambit of Physical Exercise’:

Interwar Military Physical Culture169

7 ‘In Ireland the Subject of Physical Training

Had Perhaps, Been Neglected’: Interwar Physical
Culture in Schools205

xi
xii CONTENTS

8 Conclusion: ‘Physical Culture Is Nation’s Need’241

Bibliography251

Index277
 Abbreviations

ACA Alexandra College Archives

BBC British Broadcasting Corporation
BMH Bureau of Military History
CPLA Croke Park Library and Archive
GAA Gaelic Athletic Association
GAD Guinness Archives Dublin
ICA Irish Citizen Army
IFS Irish Free State
IPP Irish Parliamentary Party
IRA Irish Republican Army
NAI National Archives of Ireland
NAK National Archives, Kew
NLI National Library of Ireland
PRONI Public Records Office of Northern Ireland
RIC Royal Irish Constabulary
RUC Royal Ulster Constabulary
UVF Ulster Volunteer Force
YMCA Young Men’s Christian Association

xiii
 List of Figures

Fig. 2.1 Martin Willis, a Sandow customer from the early 1900s.
(‘Reader’s Responses’, Sandow’s Magazine of Physical Culture,
Vol. X, January to June (1903) (London, 1903), p. 240) 29
Fig. 2.2 Mac Millan, an Athlete, Gymnast and Acrobat. (‘Mac Millan:
Athlète, Gymnaste, Equilibriste’, La Culture Physique, 11, no.
225 (1914), p. 16) 50
Fig. 3.1 1905 postcard Depicting Military Gymnastics at the Curragh,
Co. Kildare 59
Fig. 3.2 Ulster volunteer force 1914 drilling demonstration at Limavady. 66
Fig. 4.1 Unidentified school in the west of Ireland c. 1909 105
Fig. 5.1 1938 Broom Advertisement. (Lionel Strongfort Institute,
Lionel Strongfort Course, 1931) 144
Fig. 6.1 ‘Precision marching from RUC physical culture team.’
(Northern Whig, 3 Jun., 1936) 181
Fig. 7.1 Physical education class, Harold’s cross dublin 231

xv
 CHAPTER 1

Introduction
‘There is no department in life in which Physical
Culture does not bear a part.’

This is a book about muscle, health and fitness. It is also a book about
nationalism, transnationalism, education, sport, recreation, gender and
medicine. What connects these areas is the human body. What drives them
is physical culture. As a term, physical culture is almost entirely absent from
our modern vernacular. Over a century ago, it was used as a term and as a
lifestyle—describing one’s self as a physical culturist was a declaration of
commitment to a lifestyle defined by health and fitness.1 Physical culture is
still, however, part of Irish life, and certainly of Irish anxieties. Definitions
of physical culture will be attempted in the following pages but, as will
become clear, there was no one unifying experience. There were multiple
efforts occurring simultaneously. A far easier task is to highlight the prac-
tices that were classed as physical culture. Depending on the group, and
on the motivation, physical culture meant exercising in a gymnasium, per-
forming military drill, physical education classes or gentle exercise at
home. One particularly misguided writer from the late nineteenth-century

Eugen Sandow, The Gospel of Strength According to Sandow: A Series of Talks on

the Sandow System of Physical Culture, by Its Founder (Melbourne, 1902), 6.

1
Thomas Murray, ‘The language of bodybuilding’, American Speech 59, no. 3 (1984),
pp. 195–206.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 1

Switzerland AG 2020
C. Heffernan, The History of Physical Culture in Ireland,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-63727-9_1
2 C. HEFFERNAN

claimed that all the physical culture needed for women was housework.2
There was no one clear way and it was this confusion which enhanced its
malleability. For purists of the late nineteenth- and early twentieth-­century,
physical culture was a practice distinct from sport and but one which
promised to transform an individual’s social, sexual or political life.
Evident of this was the fictional character of Leopold Bloom who, dur-
ing the course of his Ulysses, revealed himself to be a lapsed, although
interested, physical culturist.3 His motivations for doing so stemmed not
from an innate love of exercising but an anxiety surrounding his sexual
prowess and career prospects. Sport has often been discussed with refer-
ence to play, spontaneity and some sort of atavistic desire to compete.4
Physical culture and its practices—weight training, callisthenics and so
on—have rarely been described as admirably. It has, more commonly,
been cast in utilitarian terms.5 Simply put, it is described as a systematic
and effective means of shaping the body. Evident in Greco-Roman times,
if not earlier, physical culture practices have seldom been defined by spon-
taneity and, depending on one’s instructor, enjoyment.6
Done in the gymnasium, the home or military barracks, physical cul-
ture was often defined by structure, rigidity and planning. When Irishmen
and women engaged in exercises, they did so with some form of plan. This
is not to discount the fun had but rather to emphasise that this kind of
activity was, and is, nearly always done with clear and defined motives. It
was for this reason that Jan Todd conceptualised physical culture as
‘purposive exercise’, something done to obtain an obvious physiological
end.7 Where such a practice has long captured the attention of military
minds, and certainly more so from the early nineteenth-century, it was not
until the late nineteenth-century that physical culture became a much
more popular concern. The opening decades of the twentieth-century saw

2
Eustace Miles, The Eustace Miles System of Physical Culture with Hints as to Diet (London,
1908), pp. 60–62.
3
R. Brandon Kershner, ‘The world’s strongest man: Joyce or Sandow?,’ James Joyce
Quarterly 30 (1993), pp. 667–693.
4
Paul Rouse, ‘The sporting world and the human heart: Ireland, 1880–1930’, Irish Studies
Review 27, no. 3 (2019), pp. 309–324.
5
Jan Todd, Physical Culture and the Body Beautiful: Purposive Exercise in the Lives of
American Women, 1800–1870 (Macon, 1999), pp. 2–3.
6
Nigel B. Crowther, ‘Weightlifting in antiquity: achievement and training’, Greece &
Rome 24, no. 2 (1977), pp. 111–120.
7
Todd, Physical Culture and the Body Beautiful, pp. 2–4.
 1 INTRODUCTION 3

a much greater, and unquestioning, acceptance of the idea that individuals

must exercise.8
Distinct from sport, physical culture, or rather its activities, are still a
point of concern in Ireland. In 2019, Healthy Ireland, an inter-­
departmental group created in the Republic of Ireland six years previously,
claimed that only 46% of adult Irishmen and women achieved the mini-
mum amount of exercise needed to maintain healthy lifestyles. A 2018
all-Island survey reported that only 13% of all schoolchildren reached the
minimum targets needed for health.9 The failure of both groups to meet
targets set by the World Health Organization presented a paradox for
those involved in healthcare. Gym memberships in the Republic and
Northern Ireland have grown consistently since 2015, with roughly 10%
of the population estimated to be a gym member.10 At the same time, large
sections of the population appear to be becoming increasingly unhealthy.
Likewise sport holds a central part in Irish life. Gaelic games, soccer and
rugby attract millions of Irish eyes every weekend while stadiums, clubs
and pitches are littered throughout the island. The disconcerting fact
remains that Irish adults and Irish children appear to be less active and
more akin to spectators than participants. In both regions, state agencies
have attempted to increase the population’s activity. Politicians speak of
the need for physical activity, schools have reformed their physical educa-
tion practices, men and women attend gyms to sculpt their bodies while
group exercise classes can be found every night of the week in parish halls
and gymnasiums.11 The need for physical fitness and health is an issue of
both political and personal importance. This is not a new phenomenon,
however, far from it.
In the late nineteenth-century, Irishmen and women likewise exhibited
an intense interest in their health and appearance. At the same moment,
educators and policy makers began to discuss what measures, if any, could
be taken to improve the nation’s fitness. This was not a peripheral or
ephemeral concern, but something which continued for the next several
decades. What united these concerns and the debates they encouraged was
the term physical culture. In one of the first studies of physical culture in

8
Michael Anton Budd, The Sculpture Machine: Physical Culture and Body Politics in the
Age of Empire (New York, 1997), pp. 1–33.
9
The Children’s Sport Participation and Physical Activity Study 2018 (Dublin, 2018), p. 10.
10
Deloitte and Europe Active, European Health and Fitness Report
11
Irish Independent, Jun. 2, 2019, 6.
4 C. HEFFERNAN

Britain, Michael Anton Budd described physical culture as an ‘ideological

and commercial cultivation of the body’.12 This definition has largely
stood the test of time. In the Irish context, physical culture meant every-
thing from group exercise classes to military training. For the period cho-
sen for this book, that is, the late nineteenth-century to 1939, physical
culture practices were found in classrooms, gymnasiums, military barracks,
open fields and, in at least one case, a popular café. In Ireland, this desire
to exercise was not a neutral or banal thing. It traversed military, political,
social and gender histories. Conceptions of ideal health, strong masculin-
ity and vibrant femininity were projected onto the body. Fears of racial
decline, ill health and military defeat drove people into the gymnasium,
community centre or classroom.
The rise of physical culture in Ireland represented a new concern with
the ideological and material control of the body. The Irish body was
reshaped by a confluence of medical innovations, scientific theories and
national anxieties about gender. At the core of these worries was a simple
premise, one simultaneously attractive and improbable; a physically fit
body was a vehicle for broader social or political good. For educators, fit
bodies were integral to educational advancement. For generals, strong sol-
diers were good soldiers whereas for the individual man or woman, a
healthy body was presented as a foundation for a prosperous life. The
purpose then, of this book, is twofold. First it tracks the rise of the Irish
interest in physical culture, marking its influences and defining factors.
Following this, the book explores, in three distinct fields (the military/
police force, the classroom and the gymnasium), how far new anxieties
about the body extended into Irish life. As will become clear, physical
culture’s ideological value was rarely questioned in Ireland during this
period. Where the limits of physical culture became evident was in material
funding. This led to a reoccurring situation in which politicians and the
public clamoured for improving physical culture while simultaneously
lamenting the lack of money available. For those seeking to draw parallels
with Ireland’s present health situation, the Island’s history makes for stark
reading.
The Irish interest in physical culture has largely been dealt with in pass-
ing reference in broader historical works.13 A number of articles have been

Budd, The Sculpture Machine, pp. x–xii.

12

Kershner, ‘The world’s strongest man: Joyce or Sandow?’; Rouse, ‘The sporting world
13

and the human heart’.

 1 INTRODUCTION 5

published but little substantial work currently exists and certainly none
which deals with the origins and transmutation of a global phenomenon
in the Irish context.14 What then, does a study of physical culture have to
contribute to our understanding of Irish history? Restricting the focus of
this book to three key areas, namely education, recreation and the mili-
tary/police, the multifaceted use of physical culture in Ireland becomes
clear. At a basic level, the inclusion of physical culture in Irish schools
spoke of a new turn in Irish childhood, one which sought to holistically
develop mind and body. In recent years a number of works have emerged
concerning the development of childhood and adolescence in Ireland as
an ideological construct.15 This research has been dominated by issues of
gender, nationalism, educational theory and social class.16 Sport has held a
peripheral place within these histories with one or two notable excep-
tions.17 Similarly, work does exist on the development of physical educa-
tion in Irish schools but this has tended to shy away from the ideological
and material realities of such teaching.18 A several-decade study of physical
culture, as found in schools and recreational clubs, speaks a great deal to
the importance of children’s bodies for educators and politicians.
Beginning in the late nineteenth-century, discourses concerning physical
education in schools centred on the creation of strong and athletic bodies.
The development of such bodies in schoolchildren would, it was hoped,
ensure academic achievement while bulwarking the nation-state against
future dangers.
Sport was used in this regard by some in the Gaelic Athletic Association
(GAA) or, in the opening decade of the twentieth-century, groups like Na
Fianna Éireann, but physical education in schools represented a systemic

14
Conor Heffernan, ‘The Irish Sandow school: physical culture competitions in fin-de-
siècle Ireland’, Irish Studies Review, 27, no. 3 (2019), pp. 402–421.
15
Susannah Riordan and Catherine Cox (eds.), Adolescence in Modern Irish History
(London, 2015); Ciara Boylan and Ciara Gallagher (eds.), Constructions of the Child in the
Independence Period (London, 2018).
16
Mary Hatfield, Growing Up in Nineteenth-Century Ireland: A Cultural History of
Middle-Class Childhood and Gender (Oxford, 2019).
17
Richard McElligott, ‘A Youth Tainted with the Deadly Poison of Anglicism? Sport and
Childhood in the Irish Independence Period’, in Ciara Boylan and Ciara Gallagher (eds.),
Constructions of the Irish Child in the Independence Period, 1910–1940 (London, 2018),
pp. 294–296.
18
Deirdre Raftery and Catriona Delaney, ‘Un-Irish and un-Catholic: sports, physical edu-
cation and girls’ schooling’, Irish Studies Review, 27, no. 3 (2019), pp. 325–343.
6 C. HEFFERNAN

attempt to reform the body.19 Possible efforts are made here to include the
student experience. Politicians and educators may have spoken of holistic
development and physiological principles, but schoolchildren often
remembered the fun, or lack thereof, in their physical education classes.
Funding was rarely enough as evidenced by stories of physical education
classes being conducted on public roads, but a deep-seated belief existed
in the transformative power of physical culture for children.
Underpinning the systems and conversations surrounding children’s
physical culture across the decades chosen were developments in the mili-
tary and the police force. After the Crimean War (1853–1856), the British
military introduced a new training system which had great effects across
the Empire. For the first time, the British military began using a systematic
form of physical drill. Thus, in 1860, the military opened its first dedicated
gymnasium in Aldershot alongside the establishment of the Royal Army
Physical Training Corps.20 Owing to its military importance, the second
British military gymnasium was established in the Curragh, Co. Kildare, in
the late 1860s. From then on, military training and its broader influence
was keenly felt in Ireland.21 This explains why early iterations of military
training were found in Irish schools and even police depots.
Work on the military has tended to centre on the class, religious and
political outlook of military members.22 The physical body of Irish troops,
with one or two exceptions, has held a secondary position. Thankfully, the
study of Irish masculinities has gone some way to challenge this position.
Aidan Beatty, Sikata Banerjee and others have stressed the importance of
healthy and strong troops during the War of Independence, 1919–1921.23

19
Marnie Hay, ‘An Irish Nationalist Adolescence: Na Fianna Éireann, 1909–1923’, in
Susannah Riordan and Catherine Cox (eds.), Adolescence in Modern Irish History (London,
2015), pp. 103–128.
20
Fred Eugene Leonard, ‘The Beginnings of Modern Physical Training in Europe’,
American Physical Education Review, 9, no. 2 (1904), pp. 91–93.
21
Con Costello, A Most Delightful Station: The British Army on the Curragh of Kildare,
Ireland, 1855–1922 (Cork, 1996), pp. 80–94.
22
Thomas Bartlett, and Keith Jeffery, ‘An Irish Military Tradition?’, in Thomas Bartlett
and Keith Jeffery (eds.), A Military History of Ireland (Cambridge, 1997), pp. 1–25; David
FitzPatrick, ‘Militarism in Ireland, 1900–1922’, in Thomas Bartlett and Keith Jeffery (eds.),
A Military History of Ireland (Cambridge, 1996), pp. 379–406.
23
Aidan Beatty, Masculinity and Power in Irish Nationalism, 1884-1938 (London, 2016);
Sikata Banerjee, Muscular Nationalism: Gender, Violence, and Empire in India and Ireland,
1914–2004 (New York, 2012), pp. 7–23; Jane McGaughey, ‘Blood-Debts and Battlefields:
Ulster Imperialism and Masculine Authority on the Western Front 1916–1918’, Journal of
 1 INTRODUCTION 7

The military’s fetishisation of strong bodies, which began in the mid-­

nineteenth-­century, held considerable sway in Ireland for several decades.24
Throughout the period studied, one finds a bleeding out of military con-
ceptions of health and fitness into Irish society. For some, this meant the
inclusion of military officers in schools, while for others, it meant manda-
tory drilling practices found in military or paramilitary groups. Among
officers, control and development of the body was thought to have a clear
conversion to the battlefield and was taken as representative of the nation’s
strength. For historians, a study in this regard elevates the body as a light-
ening road for nationalist and patriotic discourses.
Operating on the nexus between institutional physical cultures and the
military barracks was the world of recreational physical culture. Sport his-
torians and historians of recreation in Ireland have only recently begun to
move away from popular sports like Gaelic Football, soccer and rugby.25 A
study of physical culture highlights the vibrancy of recreational cultures, at
times completely, independent from sport. Arguably more democratic in
the kind of facilities and training systems available to Irishmen and women,
recreational physical culture was still bounded by its own strictures. The
most obvious boundaries on recreational physical culture were geographi-
cal. Echoing findings found in regional studies of Irish history, it is clear
that some counties were better equipped than others when it came to
physical culture.26 In the late nineteenth-century, Ireland’s most advanced,
some would say only, industrial city was Belfast which, unsurprisingly, was
praised for the gymnasiums and classes found there. Moving into the
twentieth-century, other cities and towns developed facilities, but as late as
1939, it was clear that rural Ireland and the west of Ireland were areas at
times bereft of formal physical culture.

the Canadian Historical Association/Revue de la Société historique du Canada, 20, no. 2

(2009), pp. 3–27.
24
George Mosse, The Image of Man: The Creation of Modern Masculinity (Oxford, 1998).
25
James Kelly, Sport in Ireland, 1600–1840 (Dublin, 2014); Paul Rouse, Sport and Ireland:
A History (Oxford, 2015).
26
Tom Hunt, Sport and Society in Victorian Ireland: The Case of Westmeath (Cork, 2007);
Conor Curran, The Development of Sport in Donegal, 1880–1935: The Development of Gaelic
Games in Donegal, 1884–1934 (Cork, 2015); Richard McElligott, Forging a Kingdom: The
GAA in Kerry, 1884–1934 (Cork, 2013); Liam O’Callaghan, Rugby in Munster: A Social
and Cultural History (Cork, 2011); Patrick Bracken, The Growth of Sport in Co. Tipperary,
1840-1880 (Cork, 2018).
8 C. HEFFERNAN

Equally influential was the issue of social and economic class. From the
‘birth’ of physical culture in the late nineteenth-century, a clear disparity
existed between the kinds of exercise available for the working and middle
classes. Focused on the English context, and done as a backdrop to a biog-
raphy of Eugen Sandow, David Chapman cited the distinction between
working- and middle-class physical culture.27 Associated more with brute
strength and immorality, working-class physical culture, as defined by
Chapman, was more concerned with recreational weightlifting and asso-
ciational drill. Middle- and upper-class physical culture was characterised
by newly furnished gymnasiums, esoteric systems and a promise of self-­
fulfilment. In line with other European countries from this period, Irish
physical culture was driven largely by an urban middle class interested in
physical and mental betterment. Where working-class children and adults
were often subjected, involuntarily, to physical culture through religious
organisations or factory gymnasiums, wealthier classes could choose from
a variety of systems and locations.
Recreational physical culture was equally important when it came to the
kinds of masculinities and femininities attached to the pursuit. In 2019, a
much-needed handbook on Irish masculinity argued that despite the
vibrancy of research on femininity in Ireland, more work was needed on
masculinity.28 Physical culture, in other contexts, has been linked to
broader issues of gender.29 Given the centrality of the body in ideas of
what it means to be a man or woman, studying the training of the body
provides a new means of enquiry in Irish history. Still in their infancy,
studies of gender in Irish history have, for the most part, been defined by
an interest in monolithic studies of masculinity or femininity. What is
meant by this is that such works tend to focus on nationalist, sporting or
leisure identities.30 These studies have advanced our understandings of the
27
David Chapman, Sandow the Magnificent: Eugen Sandow and the Beginnings of
Bodybuilding (Illinois, 1994), p. 101.
28
R. A. Barr, S. Brady, & J. McGaughey, ‘Ireland and Masculinities in History: An
Introduction’, in R. A. Barr, S. Brady, & J. McGaughey (eds.) Ireland and Masculinities in
History (London, 2019), pp. 1–17.
29
Ina Zweiniger-Bargielowska, Managing the Body: Beauty, Health, and Fitness in Britain,
1880–1939 (Oxford, 2010), pp. 6–10; Joan Tumblety, Remaking the Male Body: Masculinity
and the Uses of Physical Culture in Interwar and Vichy France (Oxford, 2012).
30
Beatty, Masculinity and Power in Irish Nationalism; Banerjee, Muscular Nationalism;
Leanne McCormick, Regulating sexuality: women in twentieth-century Northern Ireland
(Manchester, 2013); Laura Kelly, Irish women in medicine, c. 1880s–1920s: Origins, education
and careers (Manchester, 2015).
 1 INTRODUCTION 9

mechanisms and boundaries of gender in Ireland but are in danger of eras-

ing historical nuance in favour of tight narrative.
This point was brought to the fore by Ben Griffin whose critique of
‘hegemonic masculinity’, the theoretical construct advanced by
R.W. Connell, offered a new means of approaching gender.31 Where
Connell’s theory of hegemonic masculinity distinguishes between an over-
arching archetype of masculinity from which other subgroups are mea-
sured, Griffin instead advanced the idea of ‘communication communities’.
Similar, in a sense to Benedict Anderson’s ‘imagined communities’, such
groups are conceptualised in a recognition of the ‘variegated and uneven
dissemination of particular sets of cultural norms’.32 Communication
communities allow for nuance when dealing with gender as they recognise
the multiple spaces and groups one claims membership of. Such commu-
nities do not discard ideas of hegemony, and, indeed, take account of the
class and social structures which underpin gender identities.33 Griffin con-
ceptualised the study of historical masculinities using a four-fold set of
processes. This begins with a process of ‘cultural contestation’ wherein
certain forms of masculinity are ‘celebrated’ thereby leading to ‘patterns of
subordination, complicity, [and] marginalisation’ in a communication
community.34 Next, there is the process whereby access to the mechanisms
which allow men to identify themselves with these celebrated masculinities
is unequally distributed within that communication community. This in
turn leads to the process by which the performance of a particular mascu-
linity is accorded recognition by others. Finally, the individual is posi-
tioned in the community in relation to sets of institutional practices,
rewards and sanctions.35 A form of masculinity, or indeed femininity, that
is highly prized in one community may take a subordinate role in another.
Issues of class, education, geography and religion explain, in part, such
disparities.
For the purposes of this book, Griffin’s framework provides an ideal
frame of reference. It acknowledges that the dominant social group is not

31
Ben Griffin, ‘Hegemonic Masculinity as a Historical Problem’, Gender & History 30, no.
2 (2018), pp. 377–400; R.W. Connell, Gender and Power (Sydney, 1987); R.W. Connell,
Masculinities (Berkeley, 2005),
32
Benedict Anderson, Imagined communities: Reflections on the origin and spread of
nationalism (London, 1983); Ibid.
33
Griffin, ‘Hegemonic Masculinity as a Historical Problem’, pp. 377–400.
34
Ibid.
35
Ibid, p. 379.
10 C. HEFFERNAN

that which fully embody normative ideals, but rather those who can ‘plau-
sibly present themselves as doing so’ within their communities.36 Put
another way, it is impossible to achieve an abstract ideal entirely but it is
possible to engage in behaviours associated with it. Furthermore, Griffin’s
framework affords a greater place to the body than Connell’s previous
discussions of hegemonic masculinity. Where Connell discussed the mus-
cular body as an emblem or marker of traditionally privileged forms of
masculinity, Griffin stresses the agency of the body within certain com-
munities.37 Bodies acted as a constraint or a facilitator to certain commu-
nities and were, in turn, shaped by the norms and values of communities.
In this regard, Griffin was greatly influenced by Pierre Bourdieu’s study of
habitus which, in the case of the body, refers to both the subtle and explicit
ways in which a body conforms to group standards.38 In the case of an
Irish physical culturist, one learned to move the body in a certain way dur-
ing exercise. The movement involved in completing an exercise in the
gymnasium was an explicit ‘habitus’ learned by the body for those desir-
ous of joining a gymnasium-based community. More subtle bodily move-
ments were found in the efforts of individuals to change one’s posture,
breathing technique or walking gait.39
Potentially innumerable, communities vary depending on their geo-
graphical space, education, occupation, religion and friend group. Such
groups are influenced by the broader cultural, political and social milieu—
in fact they sustain it—but the influences these factors have vary depend-
ing on the group. Although a somewhat chaotic abstraction, there is little
neatness in the idea of potentially thousands of groups coexisting simulta-
neously; the idea of such groups holds truer to reality than other frame-
works.40 In the course of his or her day, a person interested in physical
culture could occupy the realm of work, play, prayer, sexual relations,

36
Ibid, pp. 379–384.
37
Ibid., p. 390; R.W. Connell, ‘An iron man: The body and some contradictions of hege-
monic masculinity’, in David Karen and Robert E. Washington (eds.), Sociological perspective
on sport: The games outside the games (London, 1990), pp. 141–149.
38
Pierre Bourdieu, Pascalian Meditations (Cambridge, 2000), p. 152.
39
G., Noble and M., Watkins, ‘So, how did Bourdieu learn to play tennis?’, Cultural stud-
ies, 17:3–4 (2003), pp. 520–539.
40
An alternative approach to Griffin in this regard is Tony Coles, ‘Negotiating the Field of
Masculinity’, Men and Masculinities, 12:1 (2009), pp. 30–44.
 1 INTRODUCTION 11

relaxation, politics, literature, theatre, home life and so on.41 Put simply,
people moved through different groups, each with their own hierarchies
and principles, constantly. Studying communication communities allows
us to understand a hegemonic ideal—in this case the athletic body—but
also the ‘frequency’ at which it was found. The ideal of the muscular or
athletic frame held considerable sway in Ireland during the period studied
but not all ascribed to the ideals and activities as intensely as others. The
goal of the present work is to study those contexts wherein this interest
was at its highest, while also taking account of the varying motives
attached to it.
Similarities exist between groups but space is given to individual differ-
ence within these pages. Turning to Irish physical culture, the disparities
in Eugen Sandow’s consumer base illustrate the importance of such differ-
ences. In 1905, Private R. Baxton, then stationed in Kildare, wrote to
Sandow’s Magazine of Physical Culture, about his physical transformation.
Submitting photographs of his half-naked physique, Baxton proudly spoke
of his physical transformation, which he felt reflected the body needed by
soldiers. Furthering this point, Baxton asked Sandow to ‘use this’ [the
photograph] in whatever way he saw fit.42 Two years later in 1907, Herbert
Grace, a young Dublin assistant in a hardware store, wrote to the same
magazine. Admitting shame with his physique, which had failed to ‘com-
bat evils and keep in form’, Grace expressed commitment to the idea that
a strong, muscular body was necessary for men seeking to improve their
lot.43 Baxton and Grace shared the same cultural outlet in Sandow’s maga-
zine. Both professed a belief in the muscular body and how it related to
their sense of masculinity but differed in their belief of acceptable mascu-
line behaviour. For Grace, a muscular and lean body, the kind of body he
desired, would help him advance socially and, he implied, sexually. Baxton,
on the other hand, linked his physique to military prowess and soldierly
conduct.
The two agreed on the relationship between muscularity and masculin-
ity but differed in their understanding of what it entailed. Simply put, they
operated in different communication communities. Grace and Baxton
serve as two examples of a much larger phenomenon. This book will not

41
The previously discussed Leopold Bloom is a useful, albeit fictional, example. Brandon
Kershner, ‘The world’s strongest man: Joyce or Sandow?’ pp. 667–693.
42
‘Notes of the Week’, Physical Culture, 16 March (1905), p. 271.
43
‘The Influence of One’, Sandow’s Magazine, 18 July (1907), p. 86.
12 C. HEFFERNAN

discuss a singular type of masculinity or femininity. Such an attempt would

prove exhaustive and, ultimately, futile. Instead, the book examines the
institutions, expressions and strategies used to negotiate gender identities.
These communities were disparate in comparison but shared a belief in the
ideological meaning of the body. Physical culture, and its practices, often
related to a hyper-realised sense of masculine or feminine identity. Here
gender will be studied, not as a monolithic construct, but as an ever evolv-
ing and negotiated process, one at times lacking in studies of Irish gender.44
Physical culture was a global phenomenon, one which spread from
Laos to the United States and many countries in between.45 Physical cul-
turists consumed much of the same literature, used the same equipment,
spoke of the same icons and used the same language. This point was true
for the individual exercisers as well as the military officer or educationalist
seeking to reform the bodies in their care. Physical culture cannot be
counted as the first global fitness trend—that arguably cared during the
mid-nineteenth-century—but it can be depicted as the first transformative
trend, one which swept across bodies, institutions and buildings. Previous
work on physical culture has stressed its ideological value and allure for
policymakers and gym goers. For British exercisers during the same period,
physical culture was a means of stemming the tide against physical degen-
eracy, of reforming the female form, protecting schoolchildren and build-
ing muscular physiques.46 In interwar France, physical culture was tied in
with the regeneration of the French body politic as expressed in its male
citizens.47 Likewise in Germany, physical culture practices were used in
everything from holistic medical practice to the gymnastic systems pro-
moted by the Nazi regime.48 This is to say nothing of physical culture’s
martial, religious and social importance in the United States, Asia or
Russia.49
44
Judith Butler, ‘Athletic Genders: Hyperbolic Instance and/or the Overcoming of Sexual
Binarism’. Stanford Humanities Review 6, no. 2 (1998), pp. 2–6.
45
Simon Creak, Embodied Nation: Sport, Masculinity, and the Making of Modern Laos
(Honolulu, 2015).
46
Zweiniger-Bargielowska, Managing the Body.
47
Tumblety, Remaking the Male Body.
48
Michael Hau, The Cult of Health and Beauty in Germany: A Social History, 1890-1930
(Chicago, 2003).
49
Charlotte Macdonald, Strong, Beautiful and Modern: National Fitness in Britain, New
Zealand, Australia and Canada, 1935–1960 (Vancouver, 2013); Susan Grant, Physical
Culture and Sport in Soviet Society: Propaganda, Acculturation, and Transformation in the
1920s and 1930s (London, 2012).
 1 INTRODUCTION 13

What marks the Irish case study as exceptional within these histories
was the porous, and fractured, nature of Irish society. Ireland is almost
entirely distinguishable from previous studies owing to its distinct political
history.50 The partition of Ireland into Northern Ireland, still connected
to Great Britain, and an Irish Free State in 1921, created a situation in
which two governments enacted dramatically different physical culture
systems and policies. In the past, work has tended to focus on physical
culture in a single nation. Aside from Charlotte MacDonald’s comparative
work, few scholars have compared and contrasted political and recreational
physical culture in two states.51 Discounting, momentarily, the conten-
tious political history of Ireland prior to partition, the sundering of Ireland
in 1921 offers a ready-made and revealing comparison. A study of physical
culture in Ireland tells a great about then about state physical culture.
Ireland’s secondary position in global politics further marks its unique-
ness. Unlike the German, British or French case, where domestic physical
culture industries flourished, Irish physical culturists relied on foreign
materials. That Ireland relied primarily on outside sources of physical cul-
ture, that it had a lacklustre domestic industry and that groups were anx-
ious to mimic foreign efforts, highlights the global reach of physical
culture. Work has already begun in this vein in Asia, but little has been
done in the European context.52 That Irishmen and women wrote to
British, French or American physical culture magazines, tells much about
Ireland’s reliance on the global economy. It is equally correct to see it as
an example of how global products, ideas and markets, came to be local-
ised in the Irish context.
Given the institutional physical cultures found in the military and class-
room, not to mention the recreational physical cultures found in the gym-
nasium and social club, it would be incorrect to understand physical
culture as a minority interest. Problems arose with its provision, and cer-
tainly at times, in its implementation, but its existence could not be denied.
Physical culture in Ireland uniquely reflected Irish interests in nationalism,
health and even militarism, while simultaneously offering a global outlet
for Irish exercisers to interact with, and appropriate, broader global identi-
ties and practices. As varied as the systems and exercises were, the need to
control the body was rarely questioned.

50
Banerjee, Muscular Nationalism.
51
Macdonald, Strong, Beautiful and Modern.
52
Creak, Embodied Nation.
14 C. HEFFERNAN

Structure
Tracing the Irish interest in physical culture from the mid to late
nineteenth-­century to the eve of the Second World War, this book exam-
ines three key areas of Irish life, the military/police, the school and the
recreational gymnasium. It was here where physical culture’s impact was
keenly felt and indeed within these circles, where physical culture’s impor-
tance or need was rarely questioned. Chapters 1–3 examine physical cul-
ture in military, educational and recreational settings from the late
nineteenth-century to the end of the Irish War of Independence in 1921.
The cessation of Ireland’s conflict with Great Britain is taken as a natural
juncture. Post-1921, Northern Ireland and the Irish Free State diverged
in their use and understanding of physical culture. Chapters 4–6 discuss
physical culture in two interconnected, but politically different, Irelands.
Given that physical culture, as a popular phenomenon, was driven by
new trends in recreation, Chap. 1 begins with a discussion of recreational
physical culture from the late nineteenth-century to 1922. Largely a
middle-­class and male preserve, at least initially, this brand of physical cul-
ture was characterised by fears of physical degeneration, mental sluggish-
ness and a desire to return to nature. Opening with a discussion of famed
physical culturist Eugen Sandow, whose trips to Ireland in the 1890s illus-
trate physical culture’s rapid growth, the chapter discusses the variety of
individuals and groups, who took to physical culture to improve their
bodies and, it was assumed, their lives.
Deeply connected with, and informing, recreational physical cultures
were developments in the military during this period. Martial physical cul-
ture was an incredibly confused affair and it is this complexity scrutinised
in Chap. 2. From the late nineteenth-century to the War of Independence,
martial physical culture referred to those actions taken by the British mili-
tary, those taken by paramilitary groups in the lead up to, and during, the
Great War as well as those undertaken during the War of Independence.
Each of these groups adapted, appropriated and adopted physical culture
systems for their own ends.
Where they shared in physical practices they differed in their motives.
Responding to recreational and military physical cultures, Chap. 3 explores
educational physical culture. As was the case in the post-independence
period, educational physical culture was a topic of intense interest and
debate among politicians and educators but one which suffered from a
lack of funding. Despite this fact, low-cost efforts were pursued, at times
 1 INTRODUCTION 15

vigorously, and helped normalise physical culture in the classroom both

practically and ideologically.
Educational and military physical culture grew in importance during
the interwar period. So too did recreational physical culture, studied in
Chap. 4. Where recreational pursuits drove physical culture in the years
prior to the Great War, the interwar period was more reactive to broader
institutional physical cultures. Educational and military debates influenced
a recreational sector struggling to recover from nearly a decade of conflict.
It is unsurprising that gymnasiums closed during the Great War and strug-
gled to remain open during the War of Independence and Civil War. What
is surprising was the vibrancy brought to physical culture in Northern
Ireland and the Free State when peace returned. This included race
Olympiads, co-operative gymnasiums, new outlets for women’s exercise
and a focus on physical degeneration. What distinguished interwar physi-
cal culture also was, in part, a much more explicit promotion of male sexu-
ality. Individuals in the pre-war period spoke of vigour and vitality. Those
in the interwar period unabashedly claimed that women found muscular
men sexually attractive. The impact this had, in both states, was found
during the 1930s with the rise of pseudo-fascist groups, ‘perfect men’
competitions and a small acceptance of nudism.
That Northern Ireland and the Free State exhibited shared and differ-
ing conceptions of recreational physical culture is clear. This situation was
replicated in the military physical cultures studied in Chap. 5. Still under
the remit of Great Britain, Northern Ireland became the seat of British
military power in Ireland in the early 1920s. Operating in a time of tem-
porary peace, military physical culture was no less important. This point
was reiterated in the Free State. Largely unchanged in the decade follow-
ing the War of Independence, the Irish military adopted a new system of
Sokol physical culture from Czecho-Slovakia in 1934. Within five years of
its implementation, Sokol was found in schools, recreational clubs, public
demonstrations and physical training monographs. Sokol’s growth high-
lighted once more, the broader appeal of military physical culture in Irish
society.
Reflecting the growing institutional importance of physical culture,
Chap. 6 continues this focus on educational physical culture, this time
from 1921 to 1939. Now focusing on Northern Ireland and the Free
State, Chap. 6 centres on both states’ efforts to popularise educational
physical culture under trying circumstances. Still encouraged by a pre-war
conviction that strong students ensured state prosperity and educational
16 C. HEFFERNAN

achievement, the two governments instituted a series of new measures. In

Northern Ireland, educational physical culture was problematised by sec-
tarian concerns. In the Free State, the need for fiscal solvency hampered
the spread of physical culture in classes. Where funding wavered, interest
did not.
Speaking in the mid-1930s on his series with Radio Athlone, Captain
John F. Lucy told Irish listeners:

The people of this country have the tradition of being of good stock and
physique. Compared with other countries, we can, to my own knowledge,
produce a very high percentage of men and women who are potentially
physically fit.
At the same time, we neglect physical culture more than any other nation.
There has been no great national drive to preserve it, as in Germany, Italy
and the middle European countries. This is an incalculable loss to our
country.
The nation that is physically fit is buoyant, cheerful, daring and success-
ful. If the physique of the nation is bad or neglected the people tend to be
gloomy, lazy and intolerant.53

In one passage, Lucy encapsulated the essence of Irish physical culture. It

was routinely recognised as important and worthwhile, but at the same
time, it was seen as neglected and in need of support. The contradictory
and confused nature of Irish physical culture, which was predicated on the
control of the body, was as apparent to those at the time as it is to the
twenty-first-century reader.

53
Captain John F. Lucy, Keep Fit & Cheerful for Young and Old of Both Sexes Including Ten
Broadcast Talks on the Conscious Control of Physical Fitness (London, 1937), p. 9.
 CHAPTER 2

Combating the ‘Evils of Civilisation’:

Recreational Physical Culture in Pre-­
Independence Ireland

Twenty years ago, the term Physical Culture was scarcely known.
Nowadays, everyone understands its meaning.
—A. Wallace Jones, Fifty Exercises for Health & Strength (London.,
c. 1908), p. 9

Written for an English audience, Alexander Wallace Jones’s faith in physi-

cal culture was equally true for Ireland, albeit the Irish context grew from
humbler origins. Visiting Ireland in the late nineteenth-century, Alexander
Alexander, an English physical educationalist, despaired at the state of
Irish physical culture. Admitting that Belfast was relatively advanced com-
pared to the rest of the island, Alexander noted an indifference towards
gymnasium culture bordering on hostility. After several months promot-
ing gymnastics, Alexander was ‘treated more as a deluded eccentric than
one who possessed any merit in his schemes’.1 How times changed. In
1899, Freeman’s Journal casually observed that physical culture’s value
was increasingly recognised in Ireland.2 By that time, hundreds laid claim
to the title of physical culturist, international athletes toured and sold
products while the prospect of a private physical culture class, or indeed,

1
A. Alexander, A Wayfarer’s Log (London, 1919), pp. 105–112.
2
Freeman’s Journal, Sept. 26, 1899.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 17

Switzerland AG 2020
C. Heffernan, The History of Physical Culture in Ireland,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-63727-9_2
18 C. HEFFERNAN

gymnasium was unremarkable. What Alexander made of this development

is unknown but it’s doubtful he recognised this Ireland.
What effected this change, especially in such a short period of time, is
the focus of the present chapter. Beginning in the mid-nineteenth-­century,
and continuing to the early 1920s, the chapter explores the emergence of
a uniquely different form of bodily exercise. Whereas Irish exercisers of the
mid-nineteenth-century were often subjected to ersatz military routines
said to produce slenderness and energy, those in the fin de siècle were told
of muscularity, vigour, nerve, will and strength. For women, physical
activity, as distinct from sport, was nearly non-existent in the 1850s. By
1910 there were recognisable women’s clubs which, during the Great
War, became a primary port of entertainment. Recreational physical cul-
ture, especially from 1890 to 1914, marked a democratisation of a pursuit
formerly associated with the military and the educated elites. From relative
obscurity, a point noted by Alexander, the idea of going to the gymna-
sium, or exercising, was not only normalised but popularised. Regional
disparities existed, especially between rural and urban centres, but a famil-
iarity with physical culture grew. This form of physical culture was built on
a new, arguably modern, relationship with the body. This relationship was
premised on the idea that regulating one’s body led to improved social,
sexual and sporting success. Control of the body was both possible and
necessary.
Leopold Bloom, the fictitious protagonist in James Joyce’s Ulysses, was
one such example.3 Wandering the streets of Dublin on June 16, 1904,
Bloom’s interest in physical culture stemmed from a perceived lack of sex-
ual vigour. Meeting with an eclectic group of individuals during the course
of the novel, Bloom couldn’t quite shake the thought that he ‘must begin
again, those Sandow exercises’.4 ‘Sandow’ was Eugen Sandow, a turn of
the century physical culturist soon discussed. His appeal came from force-
ful claims that the body could be brought to a state of perfection with
unbounding energy.5 As a man struggling with a lack of marital intimacy,
it was perhaps inevitable that Bloom turned to Sandow for help. Bloom’s
interest was reflective of a broader Irish belief which took global messages

3
James Joyce, Ulysses (London, 1960 edition), 17.509.
4
R.B. Kershner, ‘The World’s Strongest Man: Joyce or Sandow?’, James Joyce Quarterly, 4,
no. 31 (2010), pp. 153–173.
5
David Chapman, Sandow the Magnificent: Eugen Sandow and the Beginnings of
Bodybuilding (Illinois, 2006), pp. 9–20.
 2 COMBATING THE ‘EVILS OF CIVILISATION’: RECREATIONAL PHYSICAL… 19

and adapted them for an Irish context. Bloom’s short-lived interest in

exercising can be contrasted with another Joycean character, Mr. Duffy.
Said to live ‘just a short distance from his body’, Duffy was a humorous,
albeit, important indication of the body’s symbolic importance.6
Here physical culture will not be treated as a singular experience. Nor
will the chapter discuss a singular idea of physical culture. Instead, the
chapter interrogates the multiplicities of recreational physical culture
which existed in Ireland during the first ‘wave’ of physical culture. Body
cultures in Ireland existed prior to this time, usually under the title of
gymnastics or physical training. ‘Physical culture’ was a definitive term
which arose in the late 1880s and early 1890s.7 Its ‘birth’ began in the
recreational world and poured into institutions like the military, police
force and schools. Studying this development, the chapter opens with a
discussion of physical culture’s emergence in Ireland with reference to
Irish society and the initial meanings attached to physical culture.
Following this, two waves of physical culture are examined—that found
prior to the Great War and then from 1914 to 1921. Physical culture’s
appeal may have differed for groups but the anxiety projected onto the
body highlighted communalities in Irish thought.

‘Physical Culture Is Applicable Right Through Life

…’: Why Did Physical Culture Come to Ireland?
Physical culture is a mercurial term to define. Understood by some as
going to the gymnasium, for others, it meant ascetic lifestyles defined by
prolonged periods of fasting and cold-water bathes.8 Equally strange were
those for whom physical culture meant a gormandiser’s appetite combined
with Herculean strength.9 For the purposes of clarity, physical culture is
understood here as those activities in which the development of the body
was the primary purpose. It encompassed those efforts to effect change in
the body through diet and exercise. Adding to the problematic nature of
this term is the question of origins. There was no clear birth of physical
culture. Instead, there was a gradual European interest in using physical

6
James Joyce, Dubliners (London, 2013), p. 55.
7
Michael Anton Budd, The Sculpture Machine: Physical Culture and Body Politics in the
Age of Empire (New York, 1997), pp. 1–44.
8
Robert Fitzsimmons, Physical Culture and Self-Defence (London, 1901).
9
George Hackenschmidt, The Way to Live: Health & Physical Fitness (London, 1908).
20 C. HEFFERNAN

training to reform, and strengthen, bodies.10 It was not inevitable that

something classed as ‘physical culture’ would arise in Europe during this
time. Gymnastics and physical training were used by militaries from the
late eighteenth and early nineteenth-centuries.11 Likewise, physical educa-
tion, in Great Britain and mainland Europe, was brought into schools
from the mid-nineteenth-century.12
Why did people voluntarily undertake dumbbell lifting, barbell press-
ing, Indian club swinging and pommel horse vaulting? Furthermore, why
did so many prove willing, and eager, to part with their money to do so?
An obvious, but oftentimes neglected answer, is fun. Studying physical
culture and sport in the late nineteenth and early twentieth-centuries, it is
remarkable how few historians comment on the fun, and friendships cre-
ated on the sporting field or, in physical culture, the gymnasium.
Mandatory physical culture, that found in the military, was often critiqued
for its Spartan nature. That in the recreational gymnasium was often
praised for its appeal. Paul Rouse’s previous assessment that fun was a
major motivation in the Irish sporting movement of this time must be
applied to physical culture.13 Some, like Michael Stokes, spoke of the thrill
of lifting heavy weights.14 Others like Martin Willis and James Galavan
commented on their pleasure in building muscular bodies.15 Lady Lillian
Spender enjoyed ‘barking orders’ at her drill class in imitation of their
instructor.16
Fun was important, and should not be overlooked. Equally influential,
albeit perhaps less obvious, were social and economic changes afoot in
Ireland. Previous studies of physical culture have cited industrialisation, a
growing commercial culture and the ‘modernisation of sport’ as key

10
Budd, The Sculpture Machine, p. xi.
11
Fred Eugene Leonard, A Guide to the History of Physical Education (New York, 1923),
pp. 17–70.
12
Peter C. McIntosh, ‘Therapeutic Exercise in Scandinavia’, in J.G. Dixon, Peter
C. McIntosh, A.D. Munrow and R.F. Willetts (eds.), Landmarks in the History of Physical
Education (London, 1957), pp. 81–107.
13
Paul Rouse, ‘The sporting world and the human heart: Ireland, 1880–1930’, Irish
Studies Review 27, no. 3 (2019), pp. 309–324.
14
Michael Stokes, ‘Irish Lifters’ Decision’, Health and Strength, 25, no. 21 (1919), p. 494.
15
‘Notes of the Week’, Physical Culture, 16 March (1905), p. 271; James Galavan, ‘How
I Benefitted from Physical Culture: By a Sandow Gold Medallist’, Sandow’s Magazine of
Physical Culture, 4 (1905), p. 437.
16
‘Personal diary of Lady Lillian Spender, March 27, 1914’. Public Records Office of
Northern Ireland D1633/2/19.
 2 COMBATING THE ‘EVILS OF CIVILISATION’: RECREATIONAL PHYSICAL… 21

factors in the growth of physical culture in the late nineteenth-century. In

England, the growth of industrial cities across the nineteenth-century
resulted in epicentres of physical culture.17 Industrialisation was equally
important in Ireland, with the caveat that it was far more limited. Belfast
was, for most of the nineteenth-century, the only Irish city which war-
ranted the term ‘industrial’. Other cities, including Dublin, existed in a
sort of quasi-industrial space.18 Disparities in wealth between Belfast and
other Irish areas meant that discourses surrounding the need for physical
culture often began in Belfast and from there spread throughout the
country.19 Working conditions in factories prompted employers and con-
cerned groups to advocate for some form of worker recreation.20 Long
hours in the factory were thought to necessitate some form of leisure to
avoid undue illnesses and create loyalty between worker and owner.21 The
rise of factories, and changes wrought by industrialisation, precipitated
physical culture. People feared the health implications of factory, and even
clerical work. A clever system of physical exercise was regularly presented
a fillip to one’s health. Changes in the economy also resulted in more dis-
posable income, shorter working hours and worker organisations, all of
which supported an eventful interest in physical culture.22
Ireland’s increasing industrialisation impacted consumption patterns.
Caitriona Clear previously noted changes in consumer behaviour and
expectation across Ireland in the late nineteenth-century.23 Increased
wages, leisure time and a desire for social advancement underpinned a new
consumerism defined by material objects. Products were linked to mobil-
ity and products produced for the body took a new importance.24 As

17
Budd, The Sculpture Machine, p. xvi.
18
Jonathan Bardon, A History of Ulster (Belfast, 1993), p. 387.
19
Andy Bielenberg, ‘The Irish Economy, 1815–1880: Agricultural Transition, the
Communication Revolution and the Limits of Industrialisation’, in James Kelly (ed.), The
Cambridge History of Ireland Volume III: 1730–1880 (Cambridge, 2018), pp. 179–203;
Belfast Newsletter, 23 Oct., 1889.
20
Belfast Newsletter, 23 Oct., 1889.
21
Conor Heffernan, ‘Physical culture and Irish modernity, 1893 to 1918’, Leisure/Loisir,
43, no. 2 (2019), pp. 159–184.
22
Paul Rouse, Sport and Ireland: A History (Oxford, 2015), pp. 145–188.
23
Caitriona Clear, ‘Social Conditions in Ireland, 1880–1914’, in Thomas Bartlett, (ed.),
The Cambridge History of Ireland, Volume IV: 1880s to Present (Cambridge, 2018),
pp. 145–167.
24
Stephanie Rains, Commodity Culture and Social Class in Dublin 1850–1916 (Dublin,
2010), pp. 20–25.
22 C. HEFFERNAN

explained by Stephanie Rains, this resulted in a litany of dubious products

emerging in fin de siècle Ireland premised on ideas of social advancement
through a healthier body.25 In Rains’ study, everything from magnetic
belts to fantastical electric devices promised unbounding health and
improved life outcomes—be it socially or sexually. Advertising’s power
was heightened and to great effect.26 The demand and desire for a better
life as forged through the promise of consumer products proved strong in
Ireland, as it did in England, France, Germany, the United States and sev-
eral other regions.27 This meant that many consumers proved more than
willing to purchase physical culture books, devices and supplements from
the 1890s onwards.
Intertwined with this consumer demand was the growing transnation-
alism of Irish life. Changes in consumer demand were fuelled by advances
in transport and communication, which facilitated the spread of ideas.28
Products and magazines from the United States and England entered the
Irish market which meant that Irish physical culturists could contribute to
these periodicals and even those produced in France.29 The ability to pur-
chase products from abroad, or have them sent home from relatives,
ensured an availability of physical culture products and ideas.30 Changes in
Irish consumption and the openness of Ireland’s markets allowed the
region to enter the transnational marketplace of physical culture that
emerged in the 1890s. Previous assertions made by F.S.L. Lyons that Irish
interests in the 1890s were reflective of those found in England could be
equally extended to Europe and the United States.31
Speaking, for a moment, in generalities, enough people in Ireland had
enough money and enough free time to make an interest in exercise tenable.

25
Stephanie Rains, ‘Do You Ring? Or Are You Rung For? Mass Media, Class, and Social
Aspiration in Edwardian Ireland’, New Hibernia Review, 18, no. 4 (2014), pp. 17–35.
26
John Strachan and Claire Nally, Advertising, Literature and Print Culture in Ireland,
1891–1922 (Basingstoke, 2012), pp. 35–58.
27
Frank Trentmann, Empire of Things: How We Became a World of Consumers, from the
Fifteenth-Century to the Twenty-First (London, 2016), pp. 119–173.
28
Philip Bagwell and Peter J. Lyth, Transport in Britain: From Canal Lock to Gridlock
(London, 2002), pp. 17–40.
29
Bernarr Macfadden, ‘The Secret of Human Power’, Physical Culture, 20, no. 1 (1908),
pp. 34–38; ‘Answers to Correspondents’, Apollo’s Magazine, 1, no. 4 (1903), p. 170; ‘Ms.
A Carroll’, La Culture Physique, 1 October (1908), p. 1378.
30
Alison O’Malley-Younger, ‘A Terrible Beauty is Bought: 1916, Commemoration and
Commodification’, Irish Studies Review, 24, no. 4 (2016), pp. 455–467.
31
F.S.L. Lyons, Culture and Anarchy in Ireland, 1890–1939 (Oxford, 1979), p. 7.
 2 COMBATING THE ‘EVILS OF CIVILISATION’: RECREATIONAL PHYSICAL… 23

What they needed were outlets and inspiration. On this point, the larger
associational culture of the age was important, especially the growth of ‘mod-
ern’ sport. Sport existed in Ireland prior to this time, but the mid-­nineteenth-­
century witnessed a move towards codified forms of sport and play in
Ireland.32 This democratisation of sport signalled a move towards acceptable
forms of physical movement.33 Open more to men than women, the emer-
gence of standardised sport allowed individuals the opportunity, with some
reservations, to engage in sports ranging from cricket to tennis.34 Critical in
this process was the articulation of a ‘muscular Christian’. Borne from the
English public-school system in the mid-nineteenth-­ century, ‘muscular
Christianity’ became an ideological tool through which competitive sport
and game playing was elevated to a higher ideal. Under this framework sport
was a means of instilling attributes related to fair play, cooperation, determi-
nation and fortitude. Idealistic in the extreme, ‘muscular Christianity’ gave a
spiritual respectability to sport which later extended to physical culture.35
Like the sporting process found in England, Irishmen created associa-
tions, organised tournaments and competed against one another.36
Workplaces and churches formed teams, newspapers reported on competi-
tive games and, in time, matches were held against Scotland, England and
Wales.37 What distinguished Ireland from these regions was the creation of
the Gaelic Athletic Association in 1884. Founded as part of a larger cul-
tural nationalist project, the GAA’s popularity was mirrored by sports like
rugby or soccer.38 Interestingly, two of the GAA’s founders, Michael
Cusack and Maurice Davin, were said to have been inspired by the mass
gymnastics movements created in Germany and France in the first half of
the nineteenth-century.39 Despite this connection, the GAA was, for many

32
James Kelly, Sport in Ireland, 1600–1840 (Dublin, 2014).
33
A. Bairner, ‘Irish Sport’ in Claire Connolly and Joe Cleary (eds.), The Cambridge
Companion to Modern Irish Culture (Cambridge, 2005), pp. 192–200.
34
Hunt, Sport and Society, pp. 78–82.
35
Neal Garnham, ‘Both Praying and Playing: Muscular Christianity and the YMCA in
North-East County Durham’, Journal of Social History, 35, no. 2 (2001), pp. 397–407.
36
Jennifer Kelly and R.V. Comerford (eds.), Associational Culture in Ireland and Abroad
(Dublin, 2010).
37
Rouse, Sport and Ireland, pp. 60–70.
38
Mike Cronin, Sport and Nationalism in Ireland: Gaelic Games, Soccer and Irish Identity
Since 1884 (Dublin, 1999), pp. 1–22. Other sports, like lawn tennis, did not have as strong
political ties. Simon Eaves and Rob Lake, ‘The Decline of Lawn Tennis in Ireland around the
Turn of the Twentieth Century: Bad Management, Bad Luck or Bad Homburg?’, The
International Journal of the History of Sport, 37, no. 8 (2020), pp. 607–632.
39
Mark Tierney and Margaret MacCurtain, The Birth of Modern Ireland (Dublin,
1969), p. 98.
24 C. HEFFERNAN

decades, removed from physical culture. Teams took a noticeable interest

in physical training from the 1910s, but there was a tendency to disavow
forms of dumbbell training or calisthenics.40 As late as 1974, GAA writers
claimed that hurling or Gaelic football was all the exercise needed for
physical development.41
The use of physical training in these sports was generally limited, but
the emergence of training grounds and playing pitches opened up a ‘third
place’ in recreational life.42 For Ray Oldenberg, the sociologist who coined
the phrase, the ‘third place’ was defined as a separate space from the
demands of work and home wherein individuals congregated, interacted
and, in the case of sport, play.43 In the Irish context, the late nineteenth
and early twentieth-centuries witnessed an intensification of associational
cultures. Groups, like the Gaelic League, worked towards reviving the
Irish language. Others focused on the arts as expressed in the theatre or a
return to nature as found in scouting organisations.44 The emergence of a
sporting ‘third place’, concurrent with a rising associational culture more
generally, made permissible the growth of physical culture clubs and gym-
nasiums from the 1880s. It meant that when physical culture clubs formed
from the 1890s onward, they could model themselves on already-existing
clubs.45 This also held true for physical culture competitions that pitted
individual teams against one another.46
Similarities were also paralleled in the problems affecting Irish sport. A
host of regional studies have found that wealthier classes had greater
choices in recreational outlets and that geography dictated sporting par-
ticipation.47 The same held true for physical culture. For many decades

40
Mike Cronin, Mark Duncan and Paul Rouse, The GAA: A People’s History (Cork, 2014),
pp. 46–48.
41
Liam Ó Tuama, Fánaithe an Ghleanna (Cork, 1974), p. 50.
42
Ray Oldenburg, The Great Good Place: Café, Coffee Shops, Community Centers, Beauty
Parlors, General Stores, Bars, Hangouts and How They Get You Through the Day (Cambridge,
1989), pp. 22–42.
43
Ibid., pp. 22–26.
44
Jennifer Kelly and R.V. Comerford (eds.), Associational Culture in Ireland and Abroad
(Dublin, 2010).
45
On earlier clubs see Martin Moore, ‘The Origins of Association Football in Ireland,
1875–1880: A Reappraisal’, Sport in History, 37, no. 4 (2017), pp. 505–528.
46
The Irish Times, 18 Mar., 1895.
47
Conor Curran, The Development of Sport in Donegal, 1880–1935 (Cork, 2015), pp. 3–8;
Hunt, Sport and Society.
 2 COMBATING THE ‘EVILS OF CIVILISATION’: RECREATIONAL PHYSICAL… 25

Dublin was said devoid of physical training facilities.48 The previously dis-
cussed Alexander Alexander later claimed that despite his best efforts,
Dublin’s elites were ineffectual in bringing physical training to the pub-
lic.49 This appears to have been the case until at least the mid-1880s when
Dublin joined the ranks of Belfast, Limerick, Kilkenny, Carlow and Derry,
and opened its first collection of ‘modern’ gymnasiums.50
Alexander’s critiques of Dublin’s elite fell on deaf ears. His attention
would have been better directed at voluntary groups. From the last decade
of the nineteenth-century Young Men’s Christian Associations (YMCA)
began constructing gymnasiums and acquiring training equipment.51
Physical training, as conducted in YMCA gymnasiums inspired by the
‘muscular Christian’ ideal, became popular during the late nineteenth and
early twentieth-centuries. Churches in Ireland, across the period studied,
tended for the most part to promote physical culture as a means of purify-
ing one’s soul, improving discipline and providing diversion. This was the
case for the Catholic Boys’ Brigade, founded in Dublin in 1894, as well as
various YMCA gymnasiums.52 It is important to stress here that the kinds
of motivations attached to physical culture in a YMCA differed from a
private gymnasium. One ascribed physical culture with religious under-
tones, the other did not. Such differences, as we shall see, had ramifica-
tions for the gendered identities produced in each. The YMCA were often
the first physical culture clubs to offer classes in Ireland. This was certainly
the case in Belfast and its surrounding areas.53 Other cities, like Dublin
and Cork, gradually built YMCA gymnasiums but this did not stop
repeated claims that Belfast led the way in physical training.54 Studies of
physical culture elsewhere have noted the rise of industrialism, commer-
cialism, and sport in the ‘birth’ of physical culture in the late nineteenth-­
century.55 The same appears to hold true for Ireland, if one also accepts
the importance of fun. What made physical culture attractive is a great deal

48
The Irish Times, 15 Jan., 1873.
49
A. Alexander, A Wayfarer’s Log (London, 1919), pp. 105–112.
50
Irish Society, 13 Jul., 1889.
51
‘Minute No. 75 Belfast Dec 18th 1901’, Minute book for meetings of the Executive
Committee of the Y.M.C.A. 1901–1922 (PRONI, D3788/1/5).
52
‘1899 Report of the Catholic Boys’ Brigade’ (Capuchin Archives, Ireland, CA/
COM/BB/7).
53
Y.M.C.A. Annual Report 1907–8 (Belfast, 1908), pp. 6–9.
54
‘Good Old Ireland’, Vitality, 7, no. 6 (1906), p. 270.
55
Zweiniger-Bargielowska, Managing the Body, pp. 2–24.
26 C. HEFFERNAN

harder to answer than what made it possible as that answer requires an

inquiry into the ideologies and motivations of those involved.

‘The Object of Physical Culture Is to Bring

the Body to the Highest State of Perfection …’:
Deconstructing Physical Culture in 1900s Ireland
What do you do when the ‘world’s most perfectly developed specimen’
visits your country? It is a strange question but one which arose not once,
but twice, in 1890s Ireland. In 1893, Eugen Sandow, an individual
described as the world’s leading physical culturist, docked in Queenstown,
Cork on route to North America. As part of his time there, Sandow toured
the streets and enjoyed a trip on a jaunting car before departing to
Chicago.56 The trip was uneventful for a performer soon described as the
‘Monarch of Muscle’. It nevertheless marked the first time that an interna-
tional ‘physical culturist’ came to Ireland.57 Physical training and gymnas-
tics existed in Ireland prior to the 1880s but it was not until the closing
decades of the nineteenth-century that ‘physical culture’ entered the pop-
ular vernacular.58 As ‘the world’s most perfectly developed specimen’ and
the man who helped initiate a worldwide interest in physical culture,
Sandow’s arrival marked a growing Irish interest in bodily cultivation. His
visit was fleeting but the memory endured thanks to regional newspapers
and companies like Murphy’s Stout, who used Sandow in their advertising.59
The relative lack of interest in Sandow’s Queenstown visit was not due
to an Irish ignorance. His weightlifting victory over a fellow strongman,
‘Samson’, in 1889, captivated Irish newspapers and encouraged a greater
interest in exercise.60 When Sandow returned to Ireland five years after his
Queenstown stop-over, his arrival caused a greater sensation.61 As part of
a month-long theatrical run in Dublin and Belfast’s Empire Theatres, the
strongman, entertained crowds with feats of strength and muscle posing,
lectured doctors on physical culture and developed business relationships

56
The Cork Examiner, 27 Nov., 1893.
57
Following Sandow’s trip, other physical culturists came to Ireland. Evening Herald, 10
Aug., 1895.
58
Freeman’s Journal, 20 Sept., 1898.
59
Munster Express, 20 Dec., 1902.
60
Irish Examiner, 4 Nov., 1889.
61
Freeman’s Journal, 9 May, 1898.
 2 COMBATING THE ‘EVILS OF CIVILISATION’: RECREATIONAL PHYSICAL… 27

that lasted a decade.62 Reflecting on the event a decade later,

W.R. MacPherson, an Irish weightlifter, recorded Sandow’s impact in
quasi-mythical tones:

Sandow descended on Dublin like a thunderbolt, and in a whirlwind of

enthusiasm, with his marvellous and prodigious feats of strength and his
marvellous exhibition of a beautifully developed body created an interest
and inspiration in the hearts and minds of those who beheld him.63

Sandow did not bring ‘physical culture’ to Ireland, this was a slow process,
but he intensified and amplified this interest. At the end of his theatre run
in 1898, Sandow promised audiences that his commercial empire would
expand to Ireland.64 The same was true for physical culture more generally.
During Sandow’s tours, the strongman delivered a lecture on physical
culture for forty members of the public, many of whom were physicians.
At the end of the lecture, Sandow underwent an impromptu medical
exam, which concluded with the prognosis that he was ‘sound as a bell’.65
The next day newspapers spoke of the ‘many eminent surgeons’ who had
‘expressed surprise at the extraordinary extent to which Sandow’s muscles
have been developed’.66 Whereas previously Sandow’s abnormal muscula-
ture may have been regarded as freakish, it was praised as beautiful.67
Sandow’s muscular body became more than a thing of beauty; it became
a status symbol, an indicator to others of his learning and personality.
Before Sandow’s appearance in Dublin, he was deemed ‘a man of mind
and purpose’ by local newspapers.68 Within three years, the Irish Times
praised Sandow for concerning himself ‘with the improvement of the
human race’ through physical culture.69 Sandow himself played on such
ideas in his own writings to elevate the broader importance of his pursuit.
In Strength and How to Obtain It, published in 1897, Sandow told
readers of the inherent benefits found in a love of physical culture. It
would develop brain power, increase vigour, and, if adhered to, move one

62
Freeman’s Journal, 3 May, 1898.
63
W.R. MacPherson, ‘Weightlifting in Ireland’, Health and Vim, September (1916), p. 214.
64
Freeman’s Journal, 3 May, 1898.
65
Dublin Daily Express, 6 May, 1898.
66
Ibid.
67
Freeman’s Journal, 3 May, 1898.
68
The Irish Examiner, 9 May, 1898.
69
The Irish Times, 03 Aug., 1901.
28 C. HEFFERNAN

closer to the ideal of perfection embodied by Sandow.70 Over the next

several years Sandow continually reiterated this message through mono-
graphs, the periodical Sandow’s Magazine of Physical Culture, which ran
from 1898 to 1907 and a host of health devices. Later advertisements for
Sandow’s ‘Physical Culture Institutes’ proved the most ambitious of his
ventures. By the late 1900s, Sandow claimed that physical culture could
make anyone a centenarian, that physical and mental illness could be cured
through his ‘Sandow Developer’ and that his dried milk powders con-
tained the nutritional strength of several dozen eggs.71
It was during the late 1890s and early 1900s, that a litany of entrepre-
neurs, physicians, politicians and athletes sought to advertise, a specific
brand of physical culture. Here some of the more prominent voices are
explored to highlight not only the multiplicity of meanings applied to
physical culture but also to establish a framework for the book. Physical
culture was entrenched in ideas of gender and nationalism. It was through
physical culture that men could become physically and, it was presumed,
mentally strong. The ‘typical’ male physical culturist—as far as one can use
the term typical—was said to possess unbounding energy, remarkable
strength, determination and character.72 For women, until at least the
1930s, physical culture was linked to their body’s functioning—it would
help produce healthy children, reform their ‘defects’ and make them more
attractive.73 Children were told physical culture would make them strong
for adulthood, cure illnesses and improve their education.74 The body
became a vehicle for navigating the world. It was a visual marker, a fleshy
indication of an individual’s drive, stock and ambition. In varying degrees,
physical culture was intimately linked to nationalism. At its most overt,
men were encouraged to become ‘strong Irishmen’, differentiated from
British culture.75 Female physical culture was often tied to motherland,
70
Eugen Sandow, Strength and How to Obtain It: Revised Edition (London, 1901),
pp. 1–25.
71
Chapman, Sandow the Magnificent, pp. 88–165.
72
Jacqueline Reich, ‘“The World’s Most Perfectly Developed Man” Charles Atlas, Physical
Culture, and the Inscription of American Masculinity’, Men and Masculinities 12, no. 4
(2010), pp. 444–461.
73
Mary Lynn Stewart, For Health and Beauty: physical culture for Frenchwomen,
1880s–1930s (Baltimore, 2001).
74
David S. Churchill, ‘Making Broad Shoulders: Body-Building and Physical Culture in
Chicago 1890–1920’, History of Education Quarterly 48, no. 3 (2008), pp. 341–370.
75
Patrick F. McDevitt, ‘Muscular Catholicism: Nationalism, masculinity and Gaelic team
sports, 1884–1916’, Gender & History 9, no. 2 (1997), pp. 262–284.
 2 COMBATING THE ‘EVILS OF CIVILISATION’: RECREATIONAL PHYSICAL… 29

Fig. 2.1 Martin Willis, a Sandow customer from the early 1900s. (‘Reader’s
Responses’, Sandow’s Magazine of Physical Culture, Vol. X, January to June (1903)
(London, 1903), p. 240)

domesticity and producing stronger children. Far more implicit was the
suggestion that Ireland’s national health was waning and every able-­
bodied person was responsible for rectifying the situation (Fig. 2.1).
Groups interested in physical culture shared an appreciation for strong
and healthy bodies, that much is clear. They all, to varying degrees, sought
to control, regulate and manage the body with a previously unheard-of
intensity and scale. What is less clear is what they believed this body would
do, or symbolise. A recent, a much-needed critique, of hegemonic mascu-
linity in history is that by Ben Griffin who, although accepting the hierar-
chical and relationship nature of gender, suggested the study of
‘communication communities’ instead.76 Physical culturists in Ireland
shared the assumption that the fit, strong and healthy body was linked to
an inherent good. It became something to strive for, and something to

76
Ben Griffin, ‘Hegemonic Masculinity as a Historical Problem’, Gender & History 30, no.
2 (2018) pp. 377–383.
30 C. HEFFERNAN

achieve. This process was aided by a shared engagement in new behav-

iours, exercises and media. As will become clear, Irish physical culture
existed in multiple communities operating simultaneously.
Contemporaries of Sandow publishing in Ireland, like the American
physical culturist Bernarr Macfadden, proved even bolder in their state-
ments. Macfadden decried the evils of modern medicine and claimed that
everything from poor eyesight to tumours could be cured through physi-
cal culture.77 Publishing Physical Culture magazine from his New York
office, Macfadden enjoyed a circulation totalling over 100,000 by the late
1900s. Readers claimed nationalities from around the globe, including
Ireland, which featured several contributors.78 This did not mean, how-
ever, that Macfadden’s radicalism was always welcomed. Later reflecting
on their marriage, Mary Macfadden remembered a tour of County
Monaghan in 1914 which ended with Bernarr Macfadden being heckled
for several nights by physicians in the audience before Macfadden ended
the tour and travelled to Great Britain.79
Less pronounced, in either their views or popularity, were a host of
other physical culturists time who captured the attention of Irishmen and
women. The vegetarian tennis player turned physical culturist Eustace
Miles attracted a great deal of attention in Irish periodicals.80 His message?
Exercise the body, eschew meat and a prosperous life was almost assured.81
Hancock Irving claimed that physical culture entailed ‘obedience to the
simple and readily ascertained laws of Nature’.82 This obedience would
make one healthy, happy and rich. Hancock’s audience was evidentially
not as enthusiastic. The physical culturist later expressed incredulity that
some ‘people still question the use of physical culture nowadays’.83 William
‘Apollo’ Bankier expressed a pride in the British race, whom he claimed
excelled in matters of strength. Bankier also tapped into a growing British

77
Robert Ernst, Weakness is a crime: The life of Bernarr Macfadden (Syracuse, 1991).
78
Bernarr Macfadden, ‘The Secret of Human Power’, Physical Culture, 20, no. 1 (1908),
pp. 34–38.
79
Mary Williamson Macfadden and Emile Gauvreau, Dumbbells and carrot strips: The story
of Bernarr Macfadden (New York, 1953), pp. 24–30.
80
The Irish Times, 08 Jun., 1900; The Irish Times, 15 Nov., 1900; Cyclops, ‘Cycling and
Athletics’, The Constabulary Gazette, 12 September (1908), p. 435.
81
Eustace Miles, Failures of Vegetarianism (New York, 1902).
82
Harrie Irving Hancock, The Physical Culture Life: A Guide for All who Seek the Simple
Laws of Abounding Health (London, 1905), p. v.
83
Ibid., p. 59.
 2 COMBATING THE ‘EVILS OF CIVILISATION’: RECREATIONAL PHYSICAL… 31

concern with physical degeneracy to claim that the current generation was
physically frail.84 In all of this was also an implicit celebration of the white
physique. It was the white physique of Sandow many deemed as perfec-
tion and the white physique which elicited attention in magazines.85
Physical culturists could live, it seemed, a paradoxical existence. In 1901,
F.A. Schmidt and Eustace Miles claimed that the British public, which
they extended to include Ireland, had an insatiable appetite for physical
culture literature without a corresponding increase in physical activity.86
One group routinely excluded from such debates were women. Aside
from Bernarr Macfadden, who was a staunch supporter of female physical
activity, many pre-war physical culturists directed their attention at men.87
Echoing the broader sporting milieu, it was assumed that characteristics of
strength and muscle were inherently male. Even those who professed sup-
port for female emancipation, like Eustace Miles, directed their attention
more towards men. This did not mean that women did not use these sys-
tems, but rather that women were absent from the messages attached to
them. When physical culture systems were directed at women, the texts
reaffirmed woman’s supposed frailty. In 1907 Helena Gent published
Health and Beauty. The publishing house, connected to the popular
Health and Strength magazine, was one of the most prolific publishers of
the time and owing to the publisher’s magazine enjoyed a great deal of
advertising.88
Gent opened with a claim of woman’s physical strength, asserting that
ideas of an inferior sex were entirely unfounded. Indeed, Gent stressed her
belief that ‘given the same latitude for indulgence in healthy sport and
outdoor recreation as he, she is equally robust’.89 Seeking to address this
imbalance, Gent did not promote the same systems of physical culture for
men and women, but instead highlighted the benefits of light callisthenics

84
William Bankier, Ideal Physical Culture: And the Truth about the Strong Man
(London, 1900).
85
Richard Dyer, ‘The white man’s muscles’, in Harry Stecopoulos & Michael Uebel, eds.,
Race and the Subject of Masculinities (Durham 1997), pp. 286–314.
86
Ferdinand August Schmidt and Eustace Miles, The Training of the Body: For Games,
Athletics, Gymnastics and Other Forms of Exercise and for Health, Growth and Development
(London, 1901), pp. 1–12.
87
Jan Todd, ‘Bernarr Macfadden: Reformer of Feminine Form’, Journal of Sport History,
14, no. 1 (1987), pp. 61–75.
88
Helena Gent, Health and Beauty (London, 1907).
89
Ibid., p. 5.
32 C. HEFFERNAN

and dumbbells for women. This was a common theme in physical culture
systems. Women were encouraged to exercise by using a simpler, gentler
system.90 At its most absurd, recommendations on female exercise includ-
ing cleaning the home or performing rhythmic movements with bal-
loons.91 Women, of course, were inhibited in what they could, or could
not do publicly. When Eugen Sandow hosted a physique competition for
men in the late nineteenth-century, it took two years to process all of the
entrants. When Sandow attempted a female contest, it was discontinued
after several weeks. Expressing his disappointment in his Magazine of
Physical Culture, the strongman was rebuked by a female contributor who
claimed that it was impossible for women to respectfully display their bod-
ies in such a way.92
The authors discussed thus far—their voices, systems and opinions—
emanated from Great Britain and grew in the Irish marketplace of ideas.
What is remarkable was not this flow of ideas but rather how quickly they
were adapted to the Irish context. A global confidence in the ability to
transform one’s body found favour in Ireland and began a process of
reforming the Irish physique. Taking a cue from Eugen Sandow, many
expressed a faith in the perfectibility of the male body which, it was pre-
sumed, translated to social success. By the early 1900s, ‘Huckleberry Finn’
(J. Maxwell Neilly) of the Irish Times provided a weekly column on physi-
cal culture deeply concerned with masculinity and muscularity. While Finn
often focused on the Royal Irish Constabulary, discussed in later chapters,
he offered a space for the ordinary citizen to express anxieties about their
bodies.93 Other contributors to the Irish Times expressed similar views on
the relationship between muscularity and men’s social standing.94 One of
the most explicit endorsements was found in an anonymous Kerry News’
article from 1904 which argued that ‘the better a man’s physique the
greater his chances of success in any business or profession’. As physical
culture brought ‘the body to the highest state of perfection’, it was
explained that perfect health meant vigorous manhood.95

90
Patricia Anne Vertinsky, The Eternally Wounded Woman: Women, doctors, and exercise in
the late nineteenth century (Manchester, 1990).
91
Irish Times, 2 Mar., 1895.
92
Chapman, Sandow the Magnificent, pp. 128–140.
93
Conor Heffernan, ‘Physical culture, the Royal Irish Constabulary and police masculini-
ties in Ireland, 1900–14’, Irish Historical Studies 43, no. 164 (2019), pp. 237–251.
94
Weekly Irish Times, 24 Mar., 1906; Weekly Irish Times, 27 Nov., 1909.
95
Kerry News, 02 Mar., 1904.
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with the Russian popular literature, from which are introduced
many characters. The poem found so many admirers
because it was an expression of the reverse side of the
philosophy, of the eighteenth century, with its frivolity and
superficiality.

PSYCHE

FROM BOOK I

The goddess donned her ancient gala dress, and seated in the
shell, as they paint in pictures, glided over the waters on two large
dolphins.
Cupid, bestowing his imperious look, bestirred all Neptune’s court.
The frisky waves, perceiving Venus, swam after her, replete with
merriment. The watery tribe of Tritons issues to her from the abysses
of the waters: one dives all about her and pacifies the wanton waves;
another, whirling in the depths, gathers pearls at the bottom and
drags forth all the secrets of the sea to place before her feet. One,
struggling with the monsters, forbids them to disport nearby; another,
briskly leaping into the coachman’s seat, scolds loudly those he
meets and orders them to stand aside; he proudly holds the lines,
and steers his path away from rocks, and crushes impudent
monsters. One, with trident, precedes her on a whale and drives all
far out of the way; he casts about him his angry looks and, that all
may know his will, loudly blows a coral horn; another, having come to
the goddess from distant regions, bears before her a bit from a
crystal mountain instead of a mirror. This sight refreshes her
pleasure and the joy upon her brow.
“Oh, if this sight,” proclaims he, “for ever remained in this crystal!”
But the Triton’s wish is vain: that vision will disappear like a dream,
and nothing will remain but the stone, and in the heart a fatal flame
which will consume him. Another has joined the retinue of the
goddess, and protects her from the sun and cools the sultry beam by
sending upwards a stream of water. Meanwhile sirens, sweet
singers, sing verses in her honour, and mingle fiction with truth in
their attempt to extol her: some dance before her; others,
anticipating her wishes, are present to serve her, and with fans waft
coolness to the goddess; others, borne on the crests, breathe
heavily in travelling post from fields, beloved by Flora, and bring her
flowery wreaths. Thetis herself has sent them for small and great
services, and wishes only that her husband stay at home. The
weather being most favourable, the storms dare not annoy her, and
only the Zephyrs are free to fondle Venus.

FROM BOOK II

Psyche awoke from her sleep not sooner than midday past, nay,
one hour after midday. All serving-maids came to dress the princess,
and brought with them forty garments and all that with them went.
For that day Psyche designated the simplest of all gowns, for she
hastened as soon as possible to inspect the marvels of the palace. I
shall follow in the princess’s track and shall present the mansion to
you, and describe all in detail that could amuse her.
At first Psyche visited the rooms, nor left a corner in them where
she did not pass a while; thence to the conservatory and to the
balcony; thence on the veranda, and down, and out, to inspect the
house from all sides. A bevy of girls were slow in following her; only
the Zephyrs were fast enough, and they guarded her, lest running
she should fall. Two or three times she inspected the house from
within and from without. Meanwhile the Zephyrs and Cupids pointed
out the architecture to her and all the marvels of nature, which
Psyche was anxious to inspect. She wished to see all, but knew not
where to begin, for her eyes were distracted now by one thing, now
by another. Psyche would fain have looked at everything, but running
around so much, she soon became fatigued.
While resting herself, she looked at the statues of famous masters:
those were likenesses of inimitable beauties, whose names, in prose
and verse, in various tales, both short and long, reign immortally
among all the nations and through all the ages: Calisto, Daphne,
Armene, Niobe, Helen, the Graces, Angelica, Phryne, and a
multitude of other goddesses and mortal women appeared before
her eyes in lifelike form, in all their beauty arrayed along the wall. But
in the middle, and right in front of them, Psyche’s image stood on an
elevated pedestal and surpassed them all in beauty. Looking at it,
she herself fell to wondering, and, beside herself with wonderment,
stopped: then you might have perceived another statue in her, such
as the world had never seen.
Psyche would have stayed there a long time, looking at her image
that held sway over her, if her servants who were with her had not
pointed out in other places, for the pleasure of her eyes, other
likenesses of her beauty and glory: up to her waist, her feet, her
lifelike form, of gold, of silver, of bronze, of steel, her heads, and
busts, and medals; and elsewhere mosaic, or marble, or agate
represented in these forms a new splendour. In other places Apelles,
or the god of artists who with his hand had moved Apelles’s brush,
had pictured Psyche in all her beauty, such as no man could have
imagined before.
But does she wish to see herself in pictures? Here, Zephyrs bring
her Pomona’s horn and, strewing flowers before her, disport with her
in vales; in another, she with mighty buckler in her hands, dressed as
Pallas, threatens from her steed, with her fair looks more than with
her spear, and vanquishes the hearts through a pleasant plague.
There stands Saturn before her: toothless, baldheaded and grey,
with new wrinkles on his old face, he tries to appear young: he curls
his sparse tufts of hair, and, to see Psyche, puts on his glasses.
There, again, she is seen like a queen, with Cupids all around her, in
an aërial chariot: to celebrate fair Psyche’s honour and beauty, the
Cupids in their flight shoot hearts; they fly in a large company, all
carrying quivers over their shoulders, and, taking pride in her
beautiful eyes, raise their crossbows and proclaim war to the whole
world. There, again, fierce Mars, the destroyer of the law of peace,
perceiving Psyche, becomes gentle of manner: he no longer stains
the fields with blood, and finally, forgetting his rules of war, lies
humbled at her feet and glows with love to her. There, again, she is
pictured among the Pleasures that precede her everywhere and by
the invention of varied games call forth a pleasant smile upon her
face. In another place the Graces surround the princess and adorn
her with various flowers, while Zephyr, gently wafting about her,
paints her picture to adorn the world with; but, jealous of licentious
glances, he curbs the minds of the lovers of licentiousness, or,
perchance, shunning rebellious critics, hides in the painting the
greater part of her beauties, though, as is well known, before Psyche
those beauties of themselves appear in the pictures.
In order that various objects, meeting her eyes, should not weary
her, her portraits alone were placed upon the wall, in simple and in
festive gowns, or in masquerade attire. Psyche, you are beautiful in
any attire: whether you be dressed as a queen, or whether you be
seated by the tent as a shepherdess. In all garments you are the
wonder of the world, in all you appear as a goddess, and but you
alone are more beautiful than your portrait.
Gavriíl Románovich Derzhávin. (1743-1816.)
Derzhávin was born near Kazán, deriving his descent from
a Tartar Murza, and passed his childhood in the east, in the
Government of Orenbúrg. His early education was very
scanty. In his fourteenth year his mother hastened with him to
Moscow to enter him for future service as the son of a
nobleman; but, her means being exhausted, she returned with
him to Kazán, where she placed him in the newly opened
Gymnasium. Even here the lack of good teachers precluded
his getting any thorough instruction; his only positive gain was
a smattering of German, which was to help him later in
acquainting himself with the productions of the German Muse.
In 1762 he entered the regiment of the Transfiguration
(Preobrazhénski) as a common soldier. Whatever time he
could call his own in the crowded and dingy barracks in which
he passed eight years of his life he devoted to reading and to
imitations of Russian and German verse. In 1772 he was
made a commissioned officer, and was employed to quell the
Pugachév rebellion.
It was only in 1779 that Derzhávin began to write in a more
independent strain; one of the best odes of this new period is
his Monody on the Death of Prince Meshchérski. But the one
that gave him his greatest reputation was his Felítsa, with
which began a new epoch in Russian poetry. Lomonósov,
Sumarókov, Tredyakóvski, and a number of minor poets had
flooded Russian literature with lifeless odes in the French
pseudo-classic style, written for all possible occasions, and
generally to order. Just as a reaction was setting in against
them in the minds of the best people, Derzhávin proved by his
Felítsa that an ode could possess other characteristics than
those sanctioned by the French school. In 1782 he occupied
a position in the Senate under the Procurator-General
Vyázemski. He had an exalted opinion of Catherine, whom he
had not yet met, and he spoke with full sincerity of her in his
ode. The name Felítsa was suggested to him by the princess
in her moral fable (see p. 276 et seq.). The chief interest in
the ode for contemporary society lay in the bold attacks that
Derzhávin made on the foibles of the dignitaries. Its literary
value consists in the fact that it was the first attempt at a
purely colloquial tone of playful banter, in a kind of poetic
composition formerly characterised by a stilted language,
replete with Church-Slavic words and biblical allusions.
Numerous are the references made by the poets of the day to
the Singer of Felítsa (see p. 358 et seq.); they all felt that
Derzhávin had inaugurated a new era, that the period which
had begun with Lomonósov’s Capture of Khotín was virtually
over.
Catherine made Derzhávin Governor of Olónetsk, and later
of Tambóv; but neither in these high offices, nor later, when
Paul appointed him Chief of the Chancery of the Imperial
Council, and Alexander I. made him Minister of Justice, was
he successful. His excitable temperament, combined with a
stern love of truth which brooked no compromise, made him
everywhere impossible. Of the many productions which he
wrote after Felítsa, none gained such wide popularity as his
Ode to God. Though parts of it bear strong resemblance to
similar odes by Klopstock, Haller, Brockes, and to passages
in Young’s Night Thoughts, yet the whole is so far superior to
any of them that it soon was translated into all European
languages, and also into Japanese; there are not less than
fifteen versions of it in French. Derzhávin lived to hear
Púshkin recite one of his poems and to proclaim him his
spiritual successor. The following translations of Derzhávin’s
poems in English are known to me:
God, On the Death of Meshcherski, The Waterfall, The Lord
and the Judge, On the Death of Count Orlov, Song (The Little
Bee), in Sir John Bowring’s Specimens of the Russian Poets,
Part I.; To a Neighbour, The Shipwreck, Fragment, ib., Part II.;
To God, The Storm, in William D. Lewis’s The Bakchesarian
Fountain, Philadelphia, 1849; The Stream of Time, in J.
Pollen’s Rhymes from the Russian; Drowning, by N. H. Dole;
Ode to the Deity, by J. K. Stallybrass, in The Leisure Hour,
London, 1870, May 2; Ode to God, by N. H. Dole, in The
Chautauquan, vol. x; On the Death of Meshcherski, in C. E.
Turner’s Studies in Russian Literature, and the same in
Fraser’s Magazine, 1877.

ODE TO THE DEITY

O Thou infinite in being;

Living ’midst the change of all;
Thou eternal through time’s fleeing;
Formless—Three-in-one withal!
Spirit filling all creation,
Who hast neither source nor station;
Whom none reach, howe’er they plod;
Who with Thine existence fillest,
Claspest, mouldest as Thou willest,
Keepest all; whom we call—God!

Though the lofty mind could measure

Deepest seas, and count the sand,
Of the starry rays the treasure,
Thou no number hast, no strand!
Highest souls by Thee created,
To Thy service consecrated,
Ne’er could trace Thy counsels high;
Soon as thought to Thee aspireth,
In Thy greatness it expireth,
Moment in eternity.
Thou didst call the ancient chaos
From eternity’s vast sea:
On Thyself, ere time did ray us,
Thou didst found eternity.
By Thyself Thyself sustaining,
From Thyself unaided shining,
Thou art Light—light flows from Thee;
By Thy words all things creating,
Thy creation permeating,
Thou wast, art and aye shalt be.

All existence Thou containest

In Thee, quick’nest with Thy breath;
End to the beginning chainest;
And Thou givest life through death.
Life as sparks spring from the fire,
Suns are born from Thee, great sire:
As, in cold clear wintry day,
Spangles of the frost shine, sparkling,
Turning, wavering, glittering, darkling,
Shine the stars beneath Thy ray.

All the million lights, that wander

Silent through immensity,
Thy behests fulfil, and squander
Living rays throughout the sky.
But those lamps of living fire,
Crystals soaring ever higher,
Golden waves in rich array,
Wondrous orbs of burning ether,
Or bright worlds that cling together,
Are to Thee as night to day.
Like a drop in sea before Thee
Is the firmament on high:
What’s the universe of glory,
And before Thee what am I?
In yon vast aërial ocean
Could I count those worlds in motion,
Adding millions to them—aught
I could fancy or decipher,
By Thy side is but a cipher;
And before Thee I am—naught!

Naught! And yet in me Thou rayest,

By Thy gift and through Thy Son:
In me Thou Thyself portrayest,
As in one small drop the sun.
Naught! Yet life I feel throughout me,
And, content with naught about me,
Upward fly with eager heart.
That Thou art, my soul supposes,
Tries, and with this reas’ning closes:
“Sure I am, hence Thou too art.”

Yes, Thou art—all nature tells me;

Whispers back my heart the thought;
Reason now to this impels me:
Since Thou art, I am not naught!
Part of Thine entire creation,
Set in nature’s middle station
By Thine order I abide;
Where Thou endest forms terrestrial
And beginnest souls celestial,
Chains of beings by me tied.
 I’m the link of worlds existing,
Last high grade of matter I,
Centre of all life subsisting,
First touch of divinity.
Death to dust my body sunders:
In my mind I wield the thunders.
I’m a king, a slave to Thee:
I’m a worm, a god! Whence hither
Came I, wonderful? Oh, whither?
By myself I could not be.

Thine am I, Thou great Creator,

Outcome of Thy wisdom sole;
Fount of life, blest conservator;
Of my soul the king and soul!
Needful to Thy just decreeing
Was it that my deathless being
Pass to Thee through death’s abyss:
That my soul, in body vested,
Wend, by death refined and tested,
Father, to Thy deathlessness.

Traceless One, unfathomable!

Now I cannot see Thy face:
My imagining’s too feeble
E’en Thy shadow here to trace;
But, if we must sing Thy glory,
Feeble mortals, to adore Thee
In a worthy attitude,
We must rise to Thee to wreathe Thee,
Lost in distance far beneath Thee,
And—shed tears of gratitude.

—Translated by J. K. Stallybrass, in The Leisure Hour, London,

1870, May 2.
 MONODY ON PRINCE MESHCHÉRSKI[147]

O iron tongue of Time, with thy sharp metallic tone,

Thy terrible voice affrights me:
Each beat of the clock summons me,
Calls me and hurries me to the grave.
Scarcely have I opened my eyes upon the world,
Ere Death grinds his teeth,
And with his scythe, that gleams like lightning,
Cuts off my days, which are but grass.

Not one of the horned beasts of the field,

Not a single blade of grass escapes,
Monarch and beggar alike are food for the worm.
The noxious elements feed the grave,
And Time effaces all human glory;
As the swift waters rush towards the sea,
So our days and years flow into Eternity,
And empires are swallowed up by greedy Death.

We crawl along the edge of the treacherous abyss,

Into which we quickly fall headlong:
With our first breath of life we inhale death,
And are only born that we may die.
Stars are shivered by him,
And suns are momentarily quenched,
Each world trembles at his menace,
And Death unpityingly levels all.
The mortal scarcely thinks that he can die,
And idly dreams himself immortal,
When Death comes to him as a thief,
And in an instant robs him of his life.
Alas! where fondly we fear the least,
There will Death the sooner come;
Nor does the lightning-bolt with swifter blast
Topple down the towering pinnacle.

Child of luxury, child of freshness and delight,

Meshchérski, where hast thou hidden thyself?
Thou hast left the realms of light,
And withdrawn to the shores of the dead;
Thy dust is here, but thy soul is no more with us.
Where is it? It is there. Where is there? We know not.
We can only weep and sob forth,
Woe to us that we were ever born into the world!

They who are radiant with health,

Love and joy and peace,
Feel their blood run cold
And their souls to be fretted with woe.
Where but now was spread a banquet, there stands a coffin:
Where but now rose mad cries of revelry,
There resounds the bitter wailing of mourners;
And over all keeps Death his watch,—

Watches us one and all,—the mighty Tsar

Within whose hands are lodged the destinies of a world;
Watches the sumptuous Dives,
Who makes of gold and silver his idol-gods;
Watches the fair beauty rejoicing in her charms;
Watches the sage, proud of his intellect;
Watches the strong man, confident in his strength;
And, even as he watches, sharpens the blade of his scythe.
O Death, thou essence of fear and trembling!
O Man, thou strange mixture of grandeur and of nothingness!
To-day a god, and to-morrow a patch of earth:
To-day buoyed up with cheating hope,
And to-morrow, where art thou, Man?
Scarce an hour of triumph allowed thee
Ere thou hast taken thy flight to the realms of Chaos,
And thy whole course of life, a dream, is run.

Like a dream, like some sweet vision,

Already my youth has vanished quite.
Beauty no longer enjoys her potent sway,
Gladness no more, as once, entrances me,
My mind is no longer free and fanciful,
And all my happiness is changed.
I am troubled with a longing for fame;
I listen; the voice of fame now calls me.

But even so will manhood pass away,

And together with fame all my aspirations.
The love of wealth will tarnish all,
And each passion in its turn
Will sway the soul and pass.
Avaunt, happiness, that boasts to be within our grasp!
All happiness is but evanescent and a lie:
I stand at the gate of Eternity.

To-day or to-morrow we must die,

Perfílev, and all is ended.
Why, then, lament or be afflicted
That thy friend did not live for ever?
Life is but a momentary loan from Heaven:
Spend it then in resignation and in peace,
And with a pure soul
Learn to kiss the chastening rod.
—From C. E. Turner’s Studies in Russian Literature, and the same in
Fraser’s Magazine, 1877.

FELÍTSA[148]

Godlike queen of the Kirgíz-Kaysák horde,[149] whose

incomparable wisdom discovered the true path for the young
Tsarévich Khlor, by which to climb the high mountain where grows
the rose without prickles, where virtue dwells that captivates my soul
and my mind! Oh, teach me how to find it!
Instruct me, Felítsa, how to live voluptuously, yet justly; how to
tame the storm of passions, and be happy in the world. Your voice
enthuses me, your son guides me, but I am weak to follow them.
Disturbed by worldly cares, I control myself to-day, to-morrow am a
slave of my caprices.
You do not emulate your Murzas,[150] and frequently go on foot;
the simplest food is served at your table. You disdain your rest, and
read and write by the tallow dip, and from your pen flows bliss to all
the mortals.[151] Nor do you play cards, like me, from morning until
morning.[152]
You do not care overmuch for masquerades, and do not set your
foot into a club. You keep old customs and habits, and make no Don
Quixote of yourself. You do not saddle the steed of Parnassus,[153]
do not attend the séances, to see spirits,[154] do not go to the
East[155] from your throne; but, walking on the path of humility, your
gracious soul passes an even tenor of useful days.
But I sleep until noon, smoke tobacco and drink coffee. I change
the work-days into holidays, and live in a whirl of chimerical
thoughts: I now take booty from the Persians, now direct my arrows
to the Turks; now, imagining myself to be the Sultan, I make the
world tremble with my looks; or, suddenly attracted by a sumptuous
garment, I hasten to the tailor for a new caftan.[156]
 Or I am at a sumptuous feast, where they celebrate in my honour,
where the table sparkles with its silver and gold, where there are a
thousand different courses,—here the famous Westphalian bacon,
there slices of Astrakhán fish, there stand the pilau and the cakes,—I
drink champagne after my waffles and forget everything in the world
’midst wine, sweetmeats and perfumes.
Or, ’midst a beautiful grove, in an arbour, where the fountain
plashes, by the sound of a sweet-voiced harp, where the zephyr
scarcely breathes, where everything inclines to luxury, and entices
the mind to joy, and the blood becomes now languid, now flows
warm, inclining upon a velvet divan, I rouse the tender feelings of a
young maiden, and inspire her heart with love.
Or, in a magnificent tandem, in a gilded English carriage, I drive
with a dog, a fool, or friend, or fair maiden to the Swings, or stop at
the taverns to drink mead; or, when I get tired of that, for I am
inclined to change, fly, with my cap posed jauntily, on a mettled
steed.
Or I delight my soul with music and singers, the organ and flute, or
boxing and the dance.[157] Or, dropping all care of business, go on
the chase, and take pleasure in the barking of the hounds[158]; or, on
the banks of the Nevá, enjoy at night the sound of horns and the
rowing of agile oarsmen.[159]
Or, staying at home, pass my time playing “Old Maid” with my wife;
or we climb together into the dove-cot, or, at times, play Blindman’s
Buff with her, or sváyka,[160] or have her examine my head; or I love
to pore over books, to enlighten my mind and heart, that is, I read
Pulicane and Bovo,[161] or yawn and fall asleep over the Bible.
Such are my debauches, Felítsa! But the whole world resembles
me, no matter if one passes for a sage: every man is a living lie. We
travel not by the paths of light, we run after the whims of pleasure.
’Twixt the Indolent and the Choleric,[162] ’twixt vanity and vice, one
seldom finds the straight road to virtue.
 Suppose we have found it! How are we weak mortals not to
blunder, where even Reason stumbles and follows after passions,
where learned ignoramuses bedim our heads as the mist bedims the
wanderers? Temptation and flattery dwell everywhere, and luxury
oppresses all the pashas. Where, then, dwells virtue? Where grows
the rose without prickles?
It becomes you alone, O Empress, to create light from darkness,
dividing chaos harmoniously in spheres, to firmly unite them by a
common bond; you alone can bring forth concord out of discord, and
happiness out of violent passions: thus the sailor, crossing the sea,
catches the gale in his sails and safely guides his ship.
You alone hurt not, nor injure anyone; though you may connive at
stupidity, you tolerate no mean act; you treat peccadillos with
condescension. You do not choke people, as the wolf chokes the
sheep, but you know their worth: they are subject to the will of kings,
but more to righteous God who lives in their laws.
You judge soundly of merits, and mete out honour to the
deserving: you deem him not a prophet who merely makes rhymes.
And as for that entertainment of the mind,—the honour and glory of
good caliphs, the lyric strain to which you condescend,—poetry is
pleasing to you, acceptable, soothing, useful,—like a refreshing
lemonade in summer.
Rumour tells of you that you are not in the least haughty, that you
are pleasant in business and in jest, agreeable in friendship and firm;
that you are indifferent to misfortune, and so magnanimous in glory
that you refused to be called “Wise.”[163] Again, they justly say that
one may always tell you the truth.
This, too, is an unheard-of thing and worthy of you alone: you
permit the people boldly to know and think all,[164] openly or in
secret; nor do you forbid them to say of you what is true or false; and
you are always prone to forgive those crocodiles, the Zoiluses of all
your benefactions.
Rivers of joyful tears stream from the depth of my heart. Oh, how
happy the people must be there with their fate, where a meek,
peaceful angel, clad in porphyry splendour, wields the heaven-sent
sceptre! There one may whisper conversations and, without fearing
punishment, at dinners not drink the health of kings.
There one may erase Felítsa’s name in the line, or carelessly drop
her portrait on the ground. There they do not celebrate preposterous
weddings, and steam people in ice baths, and pull the mustaches of
dignitaries; princes do not cackle like sitting hens, nor favourites
laugh loud at them and smear their faces with soot.
You know, O Felítsa, the rights of men and kings. While you
enlighten the manners, you do not turn men into fools. In your
moments of rest you write fables for instruction and teach the
alphabet to Khlor: “Do no wrong, and you will cause the bitterest
satirist to become a hated prevaricator.”
You are ashamed to be called great, lest you be feared and hated:
it becomes only a wild she-bear to tear animals and suck their blood.
Need one have recourse to the lancet, unless in extreme fever, when
one can get along without it? And is it glorious to be a tyrant, a great
Tamerlane in cruelty, where one is great in goodness, like God?
Felítsa’s glory is the glory of a god who has calmed strife, who has
covered, dressed and fed the orphaned and the poor; whose radiant
eye emits its light to fools, cowards, ungrateful people and the just,
and enlightens alike all mortals, soothes, cures the sick,—does good
for good’s sake;
Who has given the liberty to travel to other lands, has permitted
his people to seek gold and silver; who makes the waters free, and
does not prohibit cutting down the woods; who orders to weave, and
spin, and sew; who, freeing the mind and the hands, orders to love
commerce and the sciences, and to find happiness at home;
Whose law and hand distribute favours and justice. Announce,
wise Felítsa, where is the villain separated from the honest man?
Where does old age not go a-begging, and merit find its bread?
Where does revenge not drive anyone? Where dwells conscience
with truth? Where shine virtues?—if not at your throne?
 But where does your throne shine in the world? Where do you
flourish, celestial branch? In Bagdad, Smyrna, Cashmir? Listen:
wherever you may live and my praises reach you, think not that I
wish a hat or caftan for them. To feel the charm of goodness is for
the soul a wealth such as even Crœsus did not possess.
I pray the great prophet that I may touch the dust of your feet, that
I may enjoy the sweet stream of your words and your look. I entreat
the heavenly powers that they extend their sapphire wings and
invisibly guard you from all diseases, evils and ennui, that the
renown of your deeds may shine in posterity like stars in the
heavens.

FROM “THE WATERFALL”

Lo! like a glorious pile of diamonds bright,

Built on the steadfast cliffs, the waterfall
Pours forth its gems of pearl and silver light:
They sink, they rise, and sparkling cover all
With infinite refulgence; while its song,
Sublime as thunder, rolls the woods along,—

Rolls through the woods,—they send its accents back,

Whose last vibration in the desert dies:
Its radiance glances o’er the watery track,
Till the soft wave, as wrapt in slumber, lies
Beneath the forest shade; then sweetly flows
A milky stream, all silent, as it goes.

Its foam is scattered on the margent bound,

Skirting the darksome grove. But list! the hum
Of industry, the rattling hammer’s sound,
Files whizzing, creaking sluices, echoed come
On the fast-travelling breeze! Oh no, no voice
Is heard around but thy majestic noise!
 When the mad storm-wind tears the oak asunder,
In thee its shivered fragments find their tomb;
When rocks are riven by the bolt of thunder,
As sands they sink into thy mighty womb:
The ice that would imprison thy proud tide
Like bits of broken glass is scattered wide.

The fierce wolf prowls around thee—there it stands

Listening,—not fearful, for he nothing fears:
His red eyes burn like fury-kindled brands,
Like bristles o’er him his coarse fur he rears;
Howling, thy dreadful roar he oft repeats,
And, more ferocious, hastes to bloodier feats.

The wild stag hears thy falling waters’ sound,

And tremblingly flies forward,—o’er her back
She bends her stately horns, the noiseless ground
Her hurried feet impress not, and her track
Is lost among the tumult of the breeze,
And the leaves falling from the rustling trees.

The wild horse thee approaches in his turn:

He changes not his proudly rapid stride;
His mane stands up erect, his nostrils burn,
He snorts, he pricks his ears, and starts aside;
Then rushing madly forward to thy steep,
He dashes down into thy torrents deep.

—From Sir John Bowring’s Specimens of the Russian Poets, Part I.

THE STORM

As my bark in the restless ocean

Mounts its rough and foaming hills,
Whilst its waves in dark commotion
 Pass me, hope my bosom fills.

Who, when warring clouds are gleaming,

Quenches the destructive spark?
Say what hand, what safety’s beaming,
Guides through rocks my little bark?

Thou, Creator, all o’erseeing,

In this scene preserv’st me dread!
Thou, without whose word decreeing
Not a hair falls from my head!

Thou in life hast doubly blest me,

All my soul to Thee’s revealed,—
Thou amongst the great hast placed me,—
Be ’midst them my guide and shield!

—From W. D. Lewis’s The Bakchesarian Fountain.

THE STREAM OF TIME[165]

The stream of time, with onward sweep,

Bears off men’s works, all human things,
And plunges o’er Oblivion’s steep
Peoples and kingdoms with their kings.
If for a space amidst the swirl
The lyre of trumpet some sustain,
They’re swept at last in ceaseless whirl,
And none escape Fate’s common main.

—From John Pollen’s Rhymes from the Russian.

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