Shoneenism is apejorative term, used inIreland from at least the 18th century, to describeIrish people who are viewed as engaging in excessiveAnglophilia orsnobbery.[1] Some late 19th and early 20th centuryIrish nationalist writers, likeD. P. Moran (1869–1936), used the termshoneen (Irish:Seoinín),[2][3] alongside the termWest Brit, to characterize those who were snobbish, expressed admiration for England or copied English customs.[4][5] A stereotypicalshoneen also reputedly shows corresponding disdain forIrish nationalism and theculture of Ireland, such as theIrish language andIrish traditional music.[citation needed]
Since the 1800s, the wordsshoneen andshoneenism have been used byIrish nationalists as terms of derision and are always uncomplimentary towards theshoneen as the Irish language diminutive endingeen (ín) when used in this manner has a loading ofcontempt. One suggestedetymology ofshoneen isseoinín, meaning "Little John" in Irish, referring toJohn Bull, anational personification of theBritish Empire in general and ofEngland in particular.[6][7] The following lines were published in 1882, under the pseudonymArtane:[8]
There is not in this wide world a creature so mean,
As that mongrel of mongrels, the Irish shoneen!
Published in 1910,Patrick Weston Joyce's workEnglish as We Speak it in Ireland, defines a "shoneen" as "a gentleman in a small way: a would-be gentleman who puts on superior airs", noting that the word is always "used contemptuously".[9]
James Joyce uses the term in several of his works, a practice which some Joycean scholars attribute to the frequent use of the term by Irish nationalist journalistD. P. Moran inThe Leader newspaper.[10] InWriters and Politics: Essays and Criticism, a series of essays published byConor Cruise O'Brien in 1965, O'Brien noted that advocates of a particular form of Irish nationalism, including D. P. Moran, would describe those who were deemed not to be an "Irish Islander" as either "aWest Briton, if of Anglo-Irish descent, or a shoneen if of Gaelic ancestry".[11]
The Irish historian and academic,F. S. L. Lyons, defined a "shoneen" as a person "of native Irish stock who committed the unforgivable sin of aping English or West-Briton manners and attitudes".[12]
In 2017, the IrishCourt of Appeal's judgeGerard Hogan reportedly described a preference in legal circles to refer to theEuropean Convention of Human Rights, instead of theConstitution of Ireland, as a "sort of legal shoneenism".[13]
In the 18th century, Shoneenism was a term used in Ireland to describe an ostensible Irishman who was viewed as adhering to Anglophile snobbery