• 1  I would like to thank the Helena Wallace Scholarship fund, Queen’s University of Belfast, for prov (...)
• 2  To use more contemporary wording, such as Michael Hopkinson’s recent argument for the neutral word (...)
• 3  The Hurler on the Ditch, The Trail of the Black & Tans, Dublin: The Talbot Press Ltd., 1921.      

1In the autumn of 1921 a novel describing the Anglo-Irish war, or what the novel calls the ‘Irish struggle’ of 1919-19212 was removed from bookshops by the Royal Irish Constabulary in the south of Ireland and boycotted by the English press.  The novel’s title was The Trail of the Black & Tans written by the anonymous “The Hurler on the Ditch”.3 The identity behind the nom-de-plume was Emily Ussher, resident at Cappagh House, County Waterford. Yet the novel and the author have remained absent from cultural and historical accounts of the period.  

• 4  Francesca M. Wilson, Rebel Daughter of a Country House: The Life of Eglantyne Jebb, Founder of the (...)
• 5  Francesca M. Wilson, Rebel Daughter of a Country House, 54.  Emily’s sibling Louisa attended Newnh (...)
• 6  Percival Arland Ussher (1889-1980): born in Battersea, London; educated at Trinity College Dublin (...)
• 7  Mrs Beverley Ussher (ed.), Public Schools at a Glance (Boarding Schools at £80 a year and over): A (...)
• 8  Mark Bence-Jones, A Guide to Irish Country Houses, London: Constable & Co. Ltd., 1988, 56.

3Emily Ussher, née Jebb, was born at The Lyth, Ellesmere, Shropshire in 1872.4 She was the eldest of six siblings who were all to become high achievers.  Her sister, Eglantyne, went on to found the ‘Save the Children’ fund. In contrast to her siblings, who all went to Oxbridge, Emily was educated at home, apart from a brief spell in Dresden where she studied art and German.5 In a church situated on the Welsh border she married Irish gentleman Beverley Grant Ussher, an Inspector of Schools under the Board of Education in England. Their marriage provided an interesting symmetry between two generations: Emily’s Irish mother had married her English cousin.  In 1899 Emily and Beverley’s only child, Percival Arland Ussher (remembered today as the Irish essayist and writer Arland Ussher6), was born in Battersea. England was to be their home for the next fifteen years, during which time Emily published a guide to English boarding schools and a schoolbook on leaf folding.7 However, in the spring of 1914, with Beverley’s retirement, they moved to the family home in Ireland. Cappagh House, a “two storey Victorian house”8 with a raised but open outlook, reflected the house’s new residents.

• 9  For more information see E. H. Ussher, “The True Story of a Revolution, Or what one of my Reviewer (...)
• 10  See Emmet O’Connor, A Labour History of Waterford, 173-175.

4Beverley and Emily immersed themselves in local society, each following the traits of their respective families.  Beverley became active in local politics and farming issues, while Emily became interested in social issues. By 1916 Emily was a member of the United Irishwomen Association, holding industrial shows at Cappagh, and was involved in the local egg depot and co-operative shop, often to the contempt of her neighbours, the local landed families.9 However, though Emily was active in attempting to improve conditions for the local community, this did not necessarily mean she was willing to sacrifice her own position in society. She was to stand by her landed neighbours when labourers went on strike over a deduction in pay in 1922.10 Viewed through this personal historical lens, Emily is arguably representative of the complexities surrounding the landlord’s relationship to the local community.  

• 11 The True Story of a Revolution, 11-14.   
• 12  Mark Bence-Jones, Twilight of the Ascendancy, London: Constable & Co. Ltd., 1987, 195.
• 13  For more information on Emily’s lecture tour in England see E. H. Ussher, The True Story of a Revo (...)

5However, Emily was not only active in Waterford. She occasionally turned to national issues, periodically going on lecture tours.  In 1916 she lectured in Ireland to a select audience trying to promote awareness of Irish soldiers at the front.11 In 1920 she lectured in London to raise awareness of the atrocities being committed in Ireland at the time by the Black and Tans. As Mark Bence-Jones comments, many of the Ascendancy, even the pro-British, were against the behaviour of the Black and Tans,12 which suggests that Emily’s opinion was not overtly radical. On the cattle-boat out of Waterford she was to meet her landed neighbour and short story writer Gerald Villiers-Stuart of Dromana House on a similar mission. However, despite a press conference organised by family friend Lord Parmoor, with Irish and English press in attendance to hear her talk under the anonymous title “Unknown Lady”, and four further drawing room lectures in London (one with the influential Irish ascendancy figure Lord Monteagle in attendance) and lectures in Shrewsbury and Ellesmere, Emily soon realised that such dialogue had little impact on the influential upper classes as there was no sign of an end to the terrible situation in Ireland.13  

• 14  See The True Story of a Revolution, 29-43. The Usshers had offered Mrs Johnson and her family a pl (...)
• 15  See also Emmet O’Connor, A Labour History of Waterford, 159-161
• 16 The Waterford News, 31^st December 1920, 8

6Returning to west Waterford Emily witnessed her home being protected by the Irish Republican Army (IRA) for the month of July 1920 due to the intervention of Cathal Brugha (1874-1922), Minister for Defence for Dáil Éireann. Brugha had reversed a decision to burn Cappagh House if the RIC sergeant’s Protestant wife Mrs Johnson did not leave in three days.14 This incident was not representative of all IRA activity in the area. Indeed, according to Emily’s journal the reason Mrs Johnson and family had moved to Cappagh House was because the IRA had burnt down the Johnson’s home Cappagh Barracks in April 1920.  The Barracks were part of the Ussher’s estate property. It was because the IRA’s campaign was not against women and children that Cappagh House had been protected, not because the IRA identified with the Usshers. News reports in The Waterford News present other IRA and British military activity, often involving intimidation, in the vicinity of Cappagh House, particularly in nearby Dungarvan, Lismore and Cappoquin.15 There was also the occasional violent act, as seen on 21^st November 1920 when a Constable from Cappoquin, not far from Cappagh House, was shot. He died a week later from the wounds he received during the shooting.16

• 18  Interestingly Irish writer Katharine Tynan also wrote that a “very distinguished English novelist” (...)

As a consequence Emily wrote The Trail of the Black & Tans.18

• 19  Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, or Life among the Lowly, Boston: John P. Jewett’s Compan (...)
• 20  Erskine Childers, The Riddle of the Sands, London: Smith, Elder, 1903.  
• 21  Erskine Childers, Military Rule in Ireland: A Series of Eight Articles contributed to The Daily Ne (...)
• 22  See Eileen Reilly, “Fictional Histories: An Examination of Irish Historical and Political Novels 1 (...)
• 23  See James M. Cahalan, ‘Forging a Tradition: Emily Lawless and the Irish Literary Canon’ in Kathryn (...)

8When Molly Childers mentioned Uncle Tom’s Cabin19 it may not have been the only novel she had in mind. Her husband Erskine Childers (1870-1922) had attempted to warn England of an imminent attack in 1903 in his novel The Riddle of the Sands20 and more recently in 1920 his letters to the British Government concerning the present situation in Ireland had been re-published by the Talbot Press.21 This use of literature as a political tool was not new in Irish affairs.22 One of the most well known examples in the history of Irish women’s fiction is Emily Lawless’ novel Hurrish, which William Gladstone (1809-98) read and praised as he prepared his speeches in favour of Home Rule in Ireland in the 1880s.23  

• 24  For more information on The Talbot Press see John J. Dunne, “The Educational Company of Ireland an (...)
• 25  When Emily offered the novel to the Talbot Press is not known.  The first letter in the Talbot Pre (...)

9Though Emily did not secure an established English publisher that would have the advantage of a wide audience, The Trail of the Black & Tans nonetheless seemed on course to join the tradition of politically influential novels when the young Dublin publisher the Talbot Press agreed to publishthe novel.24However, a stumbling block presented itself. Talbot was still working on the manuscript when a Truce was declared in July 1921.25 Emily’s objective in writing the novel had floundered near the finishing line. However, there was an underlying suggestion that Talbot would only have released the novel when there was a complete end to violence in Ireland, as in a letter dated 17^th September 1921 the Talbot Press literary manager, Mr Lyons, posed the question of whether to bring out the novel if violence resurfaced. This suggests, for the publishers at least, that the end of the Anglo-Irish War was crucial to the timing of the novel’s release.  

• 26  See letters to Mrs E. H. Ussher (sometimes spelt Usher) in The Talbot Press Archives, National Arc (...)

10This was not the only precaution the publisher undertook when releasing the novel. The content of the novel, as well as the external political climate, were considered. They requested that Emily remained anonymous; that the first chapter setting up the Irish Volunteers as enforcers of the law, while the Crown Forces are seen as underhand, became the prologue (thus softening the attack on the Crown Forces), and that bad language be removed on account of the readership anticipated among the nun population. Talbot also did not use the intended three tone dust jacket, which depicted the Crown Forces shooting the tobacconist, until an agreement had been arrived between the Ireland and Britain (and thus the three tone-drawing of the shooting did not appear on the first edition of the book).26 These changes can be read as Talbot anticipating problems a readership might have with the novel, while also reflecting Talbot’s own publishing experience.

• 27  Mrs. Thomas Concannon, Makers of Irish History, Dublin: The Talbot Press Ltd., n.d.  The Accession (...)
• 28  Letter to Alice Stopford-Green, 29^th December 1916, 1048/1/38, The Talbot Press Archives, National (...)

11Talbot was no stranger to censorship. The Great War, and the Rising of 1916, had resulted in the censorship of some of Talbot’s, and their co-publisher The Educational Company of Ireland’s books. Immediately after the Rising of 1916 the Educational Commissioners had withdrawn Irish history books in National Schools in Ireland. This action directly affected The Educational Company of Ireland, who subsequently experienced a torrid time in attempts to get the Commissioners to sanction their Irish history books, in particular Katharine Tynan’s Book of Irish Historyand Helena Concannon’s Makers of Irish History.27 In a letter to the historian Alice Stopford Green Talbot’s literary manager stated that the problem was due to a sectarian divide among the commissioners on the correct version of Irish history.28Interestingly, religion was emphasised over politics. After experiencing various forms of censorship it is perhaps no surprise Talbot attempted to play safe with Emily’s novel. However, despite precautions, The Trail of the Black & Tans was to receive censorship from the nation the book had been written for: England.

• 29  For example, see Declan Kiberd, Inventing Ireland, London: Jonathan Cape, 1995, 364-366.

12Elizabeth Bowen’s well-known account of the Irish struggle of 1919-1921 in The Last September has been read as an example of a member of the landed class unable to record the Irish struggle at first hand, as Bowen presents the Irish struggle off-stage from the Big House setting of Danielstown House.29 In contrast, the Irish struggle of 1919-1921 is at the centre of the narrative of The Trail of the Black & Tans, though notably no reference is made to the novelist’s own class except in reminiscences over Uncle Pat’s argument with his landlord over constitutional issues.

• 30 The Trail of the Black & Tans, dedication.  
• 31  Letter to Sir William Robertson Nicholl, 2^nd November 1921, 1048/1/68, The Talbot Press Archives, (...)

13The Trail of the Black & Tans describes the Irish struggle of 1919-1921 through the Cromwell family.  Despite the historical association the name might suggest, the Cromwells are a Catholic nationalist farming family.  Shaun, Johanna, Nellie and Mary, having lost their parents to the influenza epidemic of 1918, form the Cromwell family. Spending a quiet night by the fire talking of events ‘abroad’ and singing Irish nationalist songs, they are disrupted by the arrival of the Crown Forces who are acting on a tip-off by a bitter ex-employee of Shaun Cromwell’s. Knowing that the discovery of his dead father’s gun under martial law will mean death Shaun flees and joins the IRA. Constitutionalist Uncle Pat fulfils Shaun’s departing wish that he must look after Shaun’s sisters, but soon Uncle Pat is on the trail of Shaun under the request of the ambiguous mother figure of Johanna. The narrative follows Uncle Pat’s trail as he witnesses numerous atrocities by the Black and Tans, before becoming passively involved in IRA activity. The novel ends with Uncle Pat dead, and Shaun and Johanna emigrating to America with little hope of changing Ireland if Uncle Pat’s earlier trip to America is considered.  Uncle Pat had left Ireland when his Constitutionalist stance became too controversial, only to return to be still branded, but out-dated. The same fate seems to beckon for Shaun and Johanna. The deliberately bleak outlook enables the novel to suggest help should come from the people to whom the book is dedicated: “the Non-Conformists of England”.30 A letter from the Talbot Press to Sir William Robertson Nicholl suggests the novelist is addressing the Church of Non-Conformism, not the political group.31

• 32  In the first edition a drawing of the Cromwell sisters’ hurrying their brother Shaun out of the ho (...)

14However, it would be wrong to assume that the novel simply condemns the Black and Tans and their associates under the umbrella title of the Crown Forces, as the title of the novel – and dust jackets32 - may suggest. The simple opposition in the prologue (that was originally the first chapter) of the IRA as upstanding law enforcing agents, compared to the underhand Crown Forces, becomes far more complex in the main story, as individuals are freed from blame.  

• 33 The Trail of the Black & Tans, 12-24.

15For example, Captain Brown, a young and ambitious Black and Tan soldier, is presented as attempting to follow orders to the best of his ability, constantly checking his own conduct on the raid at the Cromwell house. Though he is described as hating his present job, he reasons that he is just following orders set by the British administration. It is this latter organisation that the novel consistently attributes blame to, not to individuals or the King. Furthermore Captain Brown is evidently inept at his job. He is unaware of his privates making eyes at the Cromwell girls or the repeated looting they undertake during the raid. Also he has acted on the word of an informer who is seeking revenge, instead of enlisting help from the local RIC man, who is shown to know his fellow countrymen.33 The novel raises questions about the suitability of Brown and the orders he is following, which in turn, brings the authority of the British administration into question.

• 34 The True Story of a Revolution, 73-74.

16Other individuals in the Crown Forces, not just Captain Brown, are freed from specific blame within the novel. An RIC Sergeant disobeys orders and watches Shaun escape knowing him to be innocent. Colonel Good, commander of the Black and Tans, realises he has lost control of his unit and decides to retire and enter the political fray in order to bring the atrocities being committed in the name of the Crown forces to the British administration’s attention. Major Jones, the perpetrator of the Black and Tans atrocities whom Colonel Good is unable to control, is suffering from “shell shock”, an illness that implies he is not in control of his own action. Even the man on guard outside the barracks is just following orders when he refuses Johanna access to visit her Uncle held in the barracks. This removal of blame from individuals enables the novelist to criticise the actions of the Black and Tans without offending the “Non-Conformists of England”, appealed to in the dedication. However, though The Trail of the Black & Tans was written for an English audience, the novel was to be published solely in Ireland, and perhaps unsurprisingly, Emily heard that Irish Unionists and Nationalists read the novel.34  

• 35  Emily states that the two crowning events of the novel were not based on actual events, though she (...)
• 36  Anon., Review of “The Trail of the Black and Tans”, by “The Hurler on the Ditch”, The Irish Book L (...)
• 37  W[illiam] D[awson], Review of “The Trail of the Black and Tans”, by “The Hurler on the Ditch”, Stu (...)
• 38  Mac, “Through the Late Inferno”.  Review of “The Trail of the Black and Tans”, by “The Hurler on t (...)

17In turn, the treatment of the potentially unifying experience of the influenza epidemic of 1918, participation in the Great War, and the real consequences of the fighting, whether as a soldier in the British Army during the Great War or fighting for the IRA during the Irish struggle of 1919-1921, that people were losing their loved ones, also make the novel acceptable to different audiences as they were events that both Irish and English people experienced. Emily recorded that the book was well received provincially (particularly as many of the characters were based on real life people and their experiences).35 Nationally the novel received promising reviews in Irish journals such as the Irish Book Lover,36 Studies37 and the new Irish fiction magazine Banba.38 In these reviews the novelist is repeatedly praised for her treatment of the storyline and her own writing skills. However, reviews become obsolete unless a copy can be obtained.

• 39  In a letter to Emily’s sister Mrs Dorothy Frances Buxton, Talbot Press mentioned the suppression o (...)
• 40  Under the enlightening title “A New Censorship” The Irish Independent reports, “The Cork correspon (...)

18In late November 1921 the Talbot Press received news that copies of the book had been removed from bookshelves in Cork by the RIC, which was confirmed by a local agent working for Talbot.39The Irish Independent also reported the removal of copies.40 The reason behind the RIC’s removal of the book may have been due to the political climate. With an agreement between Ireland and Britain looking certain, the RIC were facing a situation where they would soon be the only members of the old Crown Forces left in Ireland.

• 41  See The True Story of a Revolution, 68.  
• 42  Retired R.I.C. Sergeant Corcoran.  The True Story of a Revolution, 71.  
• 43  Emily writes that the Black and Tans “possessed themselves of seven copies for perusal in Dungarve (...)

19Emily refers to the removal of her novel in her unpublished journal, adding Dublin to her list,41 but goes to great lengths to stress that individual RIC members did not share the official stance of the RIC. She writes that a retired RIC man who had provided material for the novel had enjoyed the book,42 and even recalls copies of the novel being bought by the Black and Tans.43 In Ireland, then, the novel received a mixed reception.

• 44  The title page of the novel holds only the Talbot imprint, which suggests that Talbot Press were t (...)
• 45  For what follows see Clare Hutton, “Publishing the Literary Revival: The Evolution of Irish Textua (...)

20However, in England, an altogether different reception emerged. The novel’s exclusive publication with the Dublin publisher the Talbot Press44 meant it did not have immediate access to the English market. Talbot’s co-publisher, London based T. Fisher Unwin, had refused to take on the novel. As Clare Hutton discusses, it was Fisher Unwin who had persuaded Talbot to publish Thomas MacDonagh’s book Literature in History after the Rising of 1916.45 Talbot had proposed to scrap the publication (due out Easter 1916) on the grounds of MacDonagh’s involvement in the Rising. Unwin had read the market well and MacDonagh’s book sold out in a day. Talbot was to repeatedly publish works by executed leaders, as well as other works on nationalist events, such as the Rising and the Irish struggle of 1919-1921 in the following years. In contrast, Unwin was to disassociate themselves from Irish nationalist literature. Unwin’s refusal to take on The Trail of the Black & Tans in 1921, seemed in tune with the British press.

• 46  See Letter to Emily Ussher, 10^th November 1921, 1048/1/68; Letter to Lady Byles, 16^th November 192 (...)
• 47  Letter to “The Editor” of “Times Literary Supplement”, 24^th November 1921, 1048/1/68, The Talbot P (...)
• 48  “We have just published a book, “Tales of the R.I.C.”…In the course of business, we sent advertise (...)

21In November 1921 Talbot Press’ literary manager Mr Lyons repeatedly refers to the refusal of the influential Sir William Robertson Nicholl, editor of the British Weekly, to acknowledge receipt of the novel,46 and directly berates the Editor of the Times Literary Supplementfor listing the publication of The Trail of the Black & Tansin the political section when The Tales of the R.I.C., a “book dealing with the same subject”, was placed under fiction.  Lyons argued that novels sell 1,000 more copies than a political book, and that the distinction was made simply because The Trail of the Black & Tans was published by an Irish, and not an English publisher.47The Talbot Press had interpreted the Times Literary Supplement’s listing of The Trail of the Black & Tans as a political statement towards themselves, not the novel. Aptly, an Irish newspaper boycotted The Tales of the R.I.C.48 The only reception The Trail of the Black &Tansreceived in England was through family friends and word of mouth from Ireland. The irony of course was that the writer had in fact been brought up in England.

• 49  This database forms the Appendix in my PhD thesis, “Irish Women’s Fiction 1900-1924: Literature an (...)
• 50  Geraldine D[orothy] Cummins, The Land They Loved, London: Macmillan and Co. Ltd., 1919.  The publi (...)
• 51  Susanne R. Day and Geraldine Cummins wrote The Way of the World, Broken Faith and Fox and Geese.   (...)

23In a database that I have compiled of seventy-four Irish women writers who had novels published between 1900-1924,49 only one new novelist emerges with an English publisher between 1919-1921: Geraldine Cummins’ novel The Land They Loved was published by Macmillan.50 Cummins, however, was already an established playwright, having written several plays for the Abbey Theatre with her collaborator Susanne R. Day, who herself had had a novel published.51This downturn in English publishers taking on new Irish women’s fiction could be attributed to publishers’ own precarious position following the economic restraints of the Great War, but it also raises a question as to whether relations between Ireland and England may have been a contributing factor, particularly if the novel’s subject matter was nationalist Ireland.  The result was that Dublin publishers, in particular the Talbot Press, became the main outlets at this time.

• 52  The suggestion to change the original title of the novel (and several minor alterations to the tex (...)

24Talbot’s history of publishing novels is intriguing. From 1917, when they had bought their first manuscript novel, Annie M. P. Smithson’s Her Irish Heritage, they had repeatedly taken on novels that had contemporary storylines with a predominantly nationalist, if not republican, overtone. Emily’s The Trail of the Black & Tans fitted into this pattern, as the novel ultimately lays the blame for the situation in Ireland at the British Government’s feet. But even though quickly gaining a reputation for publishing nationalist fiction, Talbot was cautious. It was not until the following year, with British rule in the twenty-six counties over, that Talbot accepted and awarded their 100 guinea prize to a republican manuscript on the Irish struggle of 1919-1921: Smithson’s The Walk of a Queen.52

• 53  For example, no entry under Emily Jebb, Emily Ussher, Mrs Beverley Ussher or The Hurler on the Dit (...)
• 54  “Sudden Death: Of Distinguished Co. Waterford Lady”, The Waterford News, 7^th June 1935, 4.  The ob (...)

25The Trail of the Black & Tans was to be Emily Ussher’s only published novel. The use of a pseudonym, both for her novel and lectures, has meant that many biographical sources have overlooked Emily Ussher, and subsequently her novel. Only Stephen Brown’s Ireland in Fiction, out of a wide range of Irish literary biographical sources, acknowledges The Trail of the Black & Tans, but it was not until the second volume in 1985 that Emily was identified as the novelist,53 despite locals recognising her contributions, as seen in the obituary notice in The Waterford News.54 Emily is just one of a number of Irish women novelists from this period that has been overlooked by academics. The recuperation of Emily’s work demonstrates that by recovering Irish women’s fiction a more inclusive reading of Ireland in the early twentieth century can be gained.