Somerville and Ross Critical Essay | Critical Essay by James M. Cahalan

Critical Essay by James M. Cahalan

SOURCE: Cahalan, James M. “‘Humor with a Gender’: Somerville and Ross and The Irish R.M.” In The Comic Tradition in Irish Women Writers, edited by Theresa O'Connor, pp. 58-72. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1996.

In the following essay, Cahalan offers a discussion of the ways in which the R.M. stories are written from a specifically woman's point of view, and stresses the various ways in which the figure of Major Yeates embodies a self-criticism of the Anglo-Irish Ascendancy class.

Ever since the publication of the first story in 1898—“Great Uncle McCarthy” in London's Badminton Magazine—Somerville and Ross's The Irish R.M. [The Irish R.M. and His Experiences] (hereafter RM) stories have been among the most popular and successful works of comic fiction to have come out of Ireland. The three volumes of stories [Some Experiences of an Irish R.M.; Further Experiences of an Irish R.M.; In Mr. Knox's Country] (subsequently...
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