Snotgreen

Mulligan proposes “A new art colour for our Irish poets: snotgreen.” Given Ireland's millennial association with the color green, this must be heard as a snotty comment on the nationalistic cultural movement to which Mulligan refers: the so-called Irish Literary Revival, also known as the Irish Literary Renaissance or the Celtic Twilight. The Revival was a phenomenon of the last two decades of the 19th century and the first two of the 20th, identified with writers like William Butler Yeats, George Moore, Douglas Hyde, George Russell, John Millington Synge, Lady Augusta Gregory, Padraic Colum, James Cousins, James Stephens, and Edward Martyn. Mulligan's model, Oliver St. John Gogarty, was himself loosely associated with the movement, so the scorn expressed in "snotgreen" probably does not reflect his disapproval so much as that of Joyce, who greatly distrusted the wave of enthusiasm for Irish language, Irish cultural mythology, western peasant traditions, and dreamy romantic meditations. Instead of retreating into an idealized provincial past, he believed, Irish writers should join the community of European nations. 

JH 2011

Photograph of Ben Bulben by R. Todd Felton. Source: Felton, Ireland's Literary Revival (Roaring Forties Press, 2007).

Gaelic Athletic Association event at Croke Park, date unknown.
Source: crokepark.ie.

Ticket for Irish Literary Society lecture given in 1912. Souce: www.whytes.ie.

1913 poster for a Gaelic League language collection. Souce: www.rte.ie.

 Dublin's original Abbey Theatre in 1904. Souce: irelandxo.com.