R. F. Foster at The Hedgehog Review:
Burying memory and melting into forgetfulness are sometimes necessary conditions for continued coexistence when faced with a history of hatred. This raises the question of why and how a people—or peoples—can nurture animosity. The eighteenth-century lexicographer Dr. Samuel Johnson, who was a good hater, was asked by a friend whether, if he visited Ireland, he would be as hard on the Irish as he had famously been on the Scots. To his interlocutor’s surprise, Johnson forcefully denied that this would be the case. For one thing, he said, while the Irish could annoy you in a teasing way, like a fly, the Scots got at your blood and sucked it, like a leech. And unlike the despised Scots, he retorted, “The Irish are not in a conspiracy to cheat the world by false representations of the merits of their countrymen. No, Sir [he concluded]; the Irish are a fair people—they never speak well of one another.” Johnson’s prejudices were not exercised to the detriment of the Irish; in fact, he rather favored them. He believed that the study of Irish literature should be cultivated and that Ireland’s traditions of piety and learning showed them to have been “both an ancient and an illustrious people.” Above all, Johnson believed that the record of history showed how badly the Irish had been treated by the English, though he did not conclude that this was the reason why they abused one another so much.
more here.
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