Irish Memories

Irish Memories by Somerville and Ross is a nostalgic autobiographic work describing the experiences and incidents of the inseparable Anglo-Irish second cousins, Edith Sommerville and Violet Martin, based on their extensive diaries. Together they used to pseudonyms 'Sommerville and Ross.' Irish Memories covers their family history and tells us much about what life was like for young women in their time. Their travels around Ireland give the reader a rich picture of Irish social life in the late 19th and early 20th centuries dominated by class differences between the wealthy Anglo-Irish Protestant elite and the Irish Catholic peasantry in the decades prior to Irish independence. Somerville and Ross’ writings have been attacked by critics for a perceived stereotype of drunken and cunning Irish peasantry although they made fun of the Anglo-Irish gentry. In the post-Civil War 1930s and 1940s, Sommerville and Ross were out of fashion in Ireland. However renewed interest in the Anglo Irish Ascendancy in the 1960s popularised their works again and later a television series, The Irish R.M. starring actor Peter Bowles, was filmed based on their stories.