Vices and Volumes | Navigate Irish and British History's Absurdities from 1800s Books

In 1878, Chambers Edinburgh Journal catalogued the Victorian gentleman at his most tedious—while women were forbidden from mentioning themselves at all.
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This week: Lord Erskine, so consumed by self-regard he asked what the great Irish orator Grattan said "of himself"—and received one of history's most withering responses. An American in San Francisco who wouldn't stop interrogating a stranger until the stranger had the last word. Alexandre Dumas tracing his pedigree back to apes to silence a racist. And brilliant writers like Addison and Goldsmith who could fill books with eloquence yet couldn't manage a sentence in company—while mediocrities described tears as "aqueous fluids trickling from visual organs."
The men faced mockery. The women faced consequences. Features readings from Chambers Edinburgh Journal (1845 & 1878) and Mrs Beeton's Complete Etiquette for Ladies (1892).

In William Carleton's 1845 County Tyrone, Mary Murray arrived at farmhouses in a crimson cloak carrying matrimonial schemes that would shape entire parishes. This professional matchmaker convinced Biddy Sullivan and Paddy M'Cabe they were each dying of love for the other—they married while both believing the other had lied, only discovering their genuine affection at the altar.
Carleton's portrait reveals how matchmaking worked in pre-Famine rural Ireland, where marriage was economic survival and women like Mary wielded extraordinary power through social engineering. From her theatrical visits to farming families to her warnings against using a "blackfoot" spokesman in courtship, Mary operated as what Carleton called a "matrimonial incendiary"—setting romantic fires across the Irish countryside.
This episode explores the economics of 19th century Irish marriage, the surprising agency women exercised through matchmaking, and the theatrical rituals that brought couples together. The tradition continues today at Lisdoonvarna's annual matchmaking festival.
Features readings from "Tales and Sketches, Illustrating the Character, Usages, Traditions, Sports and Pastimes of the Irish Peasantry" by William Carleton (1845).

A Yorkshire manufacturer's 1810 love letter compares himself to "a weeping hermit emerging from a cave" and ends with an advertisement for bridle cutlery. Victorian romance required industrial-scale stationery production, template letters from Mrs. Beeton, and navigating courtship protocols more complex than military campaigns.
This episode explores how the 1840 Penny Post revolutionized British communication—letter volume exploded from 76 million to 347 million annually—creating demand for De La Rue's London factory where lace from ladies' bonnets became printing plates through electrotyping. Meanwhile, desperate Victorians paid thirteenpence for "guaranteed" romantic advice that delivered a pamphlet worth "the fractional part of a farthing."
Featuring catastrophic courtship correspondence, rejection letter templates, fathers wielding veto power, and the contrast between passionate declarations to ladies versus businesslike proposals to their fathers. One letter promises secrets whispered in quiet spots; another lists prospects and partnership timelines like a loan application.
Features readings from Chambers Edinburgh Journal (1846-1851) and Mrs. Beeton's Complete Letter Writer (1894).

In 1884, Irish born Lady Colin Campbell published articles in Cassell's Family Magazine teaching young women how to become "the perfect lady." Two years later, she'd be in court defending herself in the divorce scandal of the century—her intimate life dissected in newspapers across Britain.
This episode explores the impossible standards Lady Colin Campbell outlined for Victorian women: white-headed pins must never project from black dresses, collars must be changed daily, sitting with crossed legs was unforgivable, and women must suppress all natural reactions to absurdity. When a page slips and falls surrounded by dinner rolls, or a cake bowls up the room, a perfect lady neither speaks nor smiles. Even at home, exhausted with children clinging to their skirts, women were expected to maintain "freshness and attractiveness" at all times.
But who was the woman behind these rigid rules? Gertrude Elizabeth Blood was born in County Clare, Ireland in 1857 and later educated in Dublin. At 23, she met Lord Colin Campbell and became engaged within three days. What seemed like a fairy tale became a nightmare when her husband infected her with syphilis—a disease he'd concealed before their marriage. In 1886, both parties filed for divorce in a trial so explicit that "intercourse" appeared in newspapers and multiscopes became known as "what the butler saw machines" after the butler's keyhole testimony.
The episode contrasts Lady Colin Campbell's advice with the even more demanding standards of Isabella Beeton, whose ideal dinner party featured rented hothouse pineapples, out-of-season fruit, and servants in white kid gloves. The gap between these aspirations and reality trapped women in impossible positions—unable to acknowledge their struggles without admitting social failure.
Yet Lady Colin Campbell survived. After social ostracism, she became the first female editor of a London newspaper not exclusively for women, succeeding George Bernard Shaw as art editor of The World. She wrote over 200 articles, became an expert in fencing and fly fishing, exhibited landscape paintings, and earned genuine respect from the brilliant minds of her era. Shaw called her wit "lightning" and her journalism unmatched. She famously called Oscar Wilde "the great white slug."
From Cassell's Family Magazine (1884), this episode examines what the pursuit of perfection actually cost Victorian women—and the remarkable resilience required to survive it.

In August 1852, Sir Francis Bond Head arrived in post-Famine Dublin and hired a local cabman as his guide. What followed was a tour where historical accuracy took a backseat to the ancient Irish tradition of entertaining visitors—a cultural practice rooted in Brehon Law's requirement to provide travelers with oigidecht: hospitality that included food, shelter, and importantly, entertainment.
The cabman's version of history was undeniably creative. Nelson had lost his left arm rather than his right, the statue in College Green depicted "William the Conqueror" rather than William III (six centuries apart), and Dublin's name supposedly derived from "Double-Inn—two houses stuck into one" rather than the Irish Dubh Linn (black pool). Yet his enthusiasm was genuine, his delivery engaging, and his purpose clear: to provide his passenger with an entertaining experience while earning his fare.
Head had arrived after a storm-tossed midnight Channel crossing, navigating Morrison's Hotel by single candlelight. By morning, mounted on horseback for observation, he was immediately approached by barefoot boys seeking work—a reminder that Dublin in 1852 was still recovering from the Great Famine. The phrase "I'm wake with the hunger," spoken by an elderly beggar woman, would have carried particular weight just months after the famine's official end.
This episode explores Head's observations of Dublin at a transitional moment: the city's exceptional air quality (Phoenix Park's 1,750 acres and Georgian squares provided what Head called "magnificent lungs" compared to coal-choked British industrial cities), the melancholy sight of Daniel O'Connell's empty Merrion Square house still bearing his brass nameplate five years after his death, and the democratic mixing of classes on jaunting cars heading to Donnybrook Fair—soldiers, gentlemen, and working people all sharing the same twopenny ride.
Head, a former Royal Engineer who'd fought at Waterloo and served disastrously as Lieutenant-Governor of Upper Canada, brought an engineer's eye to Dublin's architecture and infrastructure. His account captures both the Georgian grandeur and the visible poverty, the political monuments and the human stories, the formal Vice-Regal visits and the street-level encounters that revealed a city's character.
What he may not have fully understood was that the cabman's performance wasn't ignorance—it was a cultural tradition of hospitality through storytelling, where entertaining the visitor served both social custom and economic necessity.
Features readings from A Fortnight in Ireland (1852) by Sir Francis Bond Head, a source frequently cited by historians studying post-Famine Ireland.